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Fidel Castro and Dr.
Molly Barrow
My family arrived in New York and checked into a
deluxe hotel. I was ten years old and excited
beyond words at the prospect of cruising to Italy.
The hotel’s glamour overwhelmed me.
I embraced the elegance
and beauty of the luxury hotel as I ran my fingers
along each textural delight of marble, brocade and
polished wood. I was wearing my pink velvet suit,
black slip-ons, white ruffled socks and carried a
small black patent purse. My long, chestnut-colored
hair was held back by a pink ribbon.
My dear mother dressed me
and treated me like a doll and rarely loosened her
tightly held grip on me. My bout with cerebral
meningitis at six months had spooked her
traumatically. With the help of Dr. Gillespie, I
recovered, but he advised that I not go out in
public for the first three years of my life.
Thereafter, she absolutely never let me out of her
sight except to go to school and to play in the
back yard. Frankly, I did not get out
much.
Here at the hotel, Mother
must have been distracted by the organizational
feat of getting five people’s luggage and four
children all into one hotel room. My father, who
had Gary Grant- level charm, was probably lost in a
stimulating discussion with a new cosmopolitan
friend. I seized this opportunity to stand at the
top of a long wide staircase poised like a movie
star waiting for the paparazzi to lift their
cameras. Like a royal, I began my descent knowing
all eyes were upon me (few of the busy city
dwellers actually noticed). My fingers barely
grazed the wooden banister. With one perfectly
placed step after another, I sauntered down the
staircase, fully expecting that as an adult I would
return to live at this so-my-kind-of-place hotel.
Terribly satisfied with my staircase descent, I
sensed I was away too long . Knowing I was
completely out of my parent’s sight, I got an
icy feeling. Feeling a bit nervous as the thought
“alone in New York City” flashed in my
mind, I completed an apparently nonchalant
pirouette at the bottom step. Then, a too familiar
feeling came over me.
At home, I often stayed up
for the late movie, relishing every dramatic nuance
and incorporating the gestures, words and emotion
into my already vast repertoire of imagination. On
those late nights after the movie, when everyone
was already upstairs, I had to turn out all the
lights. Each time in the dark, downstairs alone, I
knew with total certainty one bone chilling fact.
That as I turned out the last light, a child-eating
lion was directly behind me about to nip my heels.
I would suppress the panic as long as possible and
walk stiffly to staircase. No matter how hard I
tried to be calm, walk slowly or think of other
things, by the third stair step, I was dead running
from that lion. If I foolishly stopped to look, it
would surely get me. I would arrive at the top of
the stairs, wide-eyed and breathing hard. I could
turn and look then, but the demon lion always hid
himself. Family members would stare at me strangely
whenever they witnessed my panic sprinting.
However, I thought it wise to not share the lion
part with my three older brothers who were
permanently on the lookout for my Achilles
heel.
In this extremely public
place, packed with sophisticated well-dressed New
Yorkers and potential paparazzi, I could feel
secret fear ramping up into arm pumping panic.
Unfortunately, I could feel the hot humid lion
breath on my bare skinny calves and I knew I had to
run back up the marble stairs. With maximum effort,
I bolted up the steps two at a time, carefully
watching my feet. Suddenly, in my peripheral
vision, I saw someone tall directly in my path. I
tried to stop but I was moving too fast. I lifted
my eyes up and up to see a huge man with a full
black beard dressed in military garb. Inevitably, I
was about to crash into a man wearing combat boots.
As my eighty-five pound pink velvet bomb rushed
forward, large arms reached across the man in the
middle to stop my approach. Incredulous that this
pink sprinter was entering his personal space, the
man had stopped descending and starred hard into my
wide eyes. I successfully pulled up just short of
crashing into him. I smiled triumphantly. He did
not smile back. His body guards gestured for me to
stand aside. The three men moved on down the stairs
in unison. Near the front desk, I found my father,
irritated and looking for me.
Later that night, I over
heard my father tell my mother that Fidel Castro
was in New York. That seemed to trouble my mom. I
weighed the positive attention I might get for
having had an encounter with the Cuban pirate
versus the trouble I would get in for admitting
that I had wandered off by myself. I decided to
remain silent.
Funny, after that, I no
longer feared the secret lion and he never came
back. I learned instead how quickly a young girl
can become vulnerable and unprotected. I learned
that I had to be smarter, and protect myself from
risk that was all around me. Sometimes, even in the
loveliest of places.
©2009, Molly
Barrow
* * *
Dr. Molly
Barrow holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and is
the author of the new book, Matchlines:
A revolutionary New Way of looking at relationships
and making the right choices in
love. She is an
authority on relationship and psychological topics,
a member of the American Psychological Association
and a licensed mental health counselor. Dr. Molly
has appeared as an expert on NBC, PBS, KTLA, and in
O Magazine, Psychology Today, Newsday, MSN.com,
Match.com, Women's Health and Women's World. Please
visit: www.askdrmolly.com
or Take the new relationship compatibility test,
Match Lines Systems for Successful Relationships
for Singles, Couples and Business at
www.DrMollyBarrow.com.
Molly has a radio program, Your Relationship
Answers at www.blogtalkradio.com/drmollybarrow
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