A Place to Rest

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A Place To Rest My Head

By clicking "Post Your Answer", you acknowledge that you have read our updated terms of service , privacy policy and cookie policy , and that your continued use of the website is subject to these policies. Questions Tags Users Badges Unanswered. What is a word for a place to study and rest?

If you don't mind the religious inflection, consider naming your house The Sabbath , which pays attention to both the place and time of rest. What does "name our house" mean here? Or actually christen it? In the Christian tradition a religious "retreat" is an opportunity to withdraw temporarily from the stresses of everyday life and concentrate on prayer, contemplation and the study of the scriptures an other religious texts. Retreats often take place in a monastery or convent but can also take place in dedicated "retreat houses".

You could, therefore, call your house "The Retreat". I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is an overly broad request for name suggestions. You can consider snuggery also a cosy and comfortable place or room. Cascabel 7, 6 26 Hunter 1, 9 Suggestions on the serious side: The Study The Library I have fell asleep in more than one study and library.

On the lighter side I suggest: And my favorite is a bit poetic and more than one word: Under the Willow Tree When I picture someone under a willow tree they are either napping or reading a book or both. Meditation from Old French meditacion "thought, reflection, study ", and directly from Latin meditationem nominative, meditatio , "a thinking over, meditation," from meditatus , pp.

The verb meditate which Oxford Dictionaries define as: Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. I started asking for advice, addressing some of my other issues first like getting lost in obsessive thought. Central to autism is a difficulty experiencing life in real time. But in the private rooms at the club, there were no outside stimuli. The rules were clear, the distractions minimal, so I could focus and interact.

Women in the ADHD forum invited me to the group for autistic women and there I saw myself a hundred times over. Scrolling through were women like me: I gradually pulled the blame away from myself and labeled the things about me that were naturally different, not defective. I took a deep breath and resisted pretending to listen and asked: I forgave myself when I slipped outside of social norms and said something weird. People would love me or not — frankly I was okay with the risk.

A few months later, I stood outside the club with a cigarette in my hand, looking over the busy highway at the deserted factories. She knew I was a stripper but had never been to the club. From the outside, it looked grim: But it was home to me. I kept the window open as the club disappeared, letting the cold air whip my face, feeling a mixture of relief and excitement. Forums for autistic women advised pulling off masks that many develop to pass as non-autistic. The effects of camouflaging are toxic, they warned. But I still had so much to learn.

There was vast, dormant space to grow into beyond my work persona. The twinkling lights opened the doors to Manhattan, my body still moving from the music of the club. The possibilities of the night unrolled in front of me and I intended to savor them. My analyst and I grew more intimately connected each week of treatment My entire body feels tense, not ideal for the setting.

I try to relax, but the plush leather couch crumples under me when I shift, making the movements extraordinary. Of course it has. On the surface, when the patient has been highly selective of the discussion topics, therapy always resembles a friendly get-together. I so supremely wanted this not to come up. She quickly and convincingly pointed out that I work rather hard and am, ultimately, paying my bills on time, that I have friends, an appreciation for arts and culture, and so on.

Then Lori heightened the discussion a bit. I was too insecure and too single to handle such a compliment from a beautiful woman. I shrugged my shoulders, only half looking up. I laughed a little, uncomfortably. She gently explained she could tell the day I walked into her office for the first time, after I flashed a bright smile and casually asked where she was from.

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Lori snorts, rolls her eyes. I smile, shake my head and look around the room, denying acceptance of my own ridiculous reality. I look again at her stark blue eyes, prevalent under dark brown bangs, the rest of her hair reaching the top of her chest, which is hugged nicely by a fitted white tee under an open button-down. Do you bend me over and take me from behind? I take a second to let the red flow out of my face, and ponder what she said.

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So I go home, incredibly turned on and completely unashamed. In treatment I came to realize that all people have contradictions to their personalities. In my case, my extreme sensitivity can make me feel fabulous about the aspects of myself that I somehow know are good my artistic tastes and cause deep hatred of those traits I happen to loathe the thirty pounds I could stand to lose. My next session with Lori is productive. One constant is that I put crudely high expectations on others, mirroring those thrown upon me as a kid.

Then, a week later, Lori mentions it, and I become tense again. There were two ways to find out:. Here we go again. Lori, ever intently, peers into my eyes, wrinkles her mouth and slightly shakes her head. We both know the answer to that question. All I can do is stare back. I see what she means. When our sessions finally resumed, I could not wait to tell her about my budding relationship with Shauna. Plans happened magically without anxiety-inducing, twenty-four-hour waits between texts.

Her quick wit kept me entertained, and I could tell by the way she so seriously spoke about dancing, her chosen profession, that she is passionate about the art form and mighty talented too. Shauna is beautiful, with flawless hazel eyes and straight dark hair, spunky bangs and a bob that matches her always-upbeat character.

She is a snazzy dresser and enjoys a glass of whiskey with a side of fried pickles and good conversation as much as I do. So upon the precipice of my return to therapy I told Shauna about Lori, and admitted to having mixed feelings about what I was getting back into. The first two sessions of my therapeutic reboot had gone great. Lori appeared genuinely thrilled that I was dating Shauna and could see how happy I was. I stuff the cat food back into the Tupperware and toss it into the refrigerator.

I make my way into the living room, angry at myself for not changing the settings on my new iPhone to disallow text previews on the locked screen. I can tell she regrets looking at my phone without my permission, but I completely understand her feelings. On my walk home, instead of being angry at Lori, I understand her thinking behind the text. A patient may in turn contemplate that a love is blossoming between them, and, in fact, it sort of is. This takes genuine care and acceptance on their part. In employing countertransference — indicating that she had feelings for me — she was keeping me from feeling rejected and despising my own thoughts and urges.

Atlas has an upcoming book titled The Enigma of Desire: Atlas explains that there are certain boundaries that cannot be crossed between therapist and patient under any circumstances — like having sex with them, obviously. What do you do with that? Do you deny it? Do you talk about it? How do you talk about it without seducing the patient and with keeping your professional ability to think and to reflect?

place to rest ones head

I ask her about the benefits of exploring intimacy in therapy, and Dr. Atlas quickly points out that emotional intimacy — though not necessarily that of the sexual brand — is almost inevitable and required. Atlas says this topic speaks to every facet of the therapeutic relationship, regardless of gender or even sexual orientation, because intimacy reveals emotional baggage that both the patient and therapist carry with them into the session.

In order to be able to be vulnerable, both parties have to feel safe. After I briefly explain all that has gone on between me and Lori, Dr. Atlas steadfastly says she does not want to judge too harshly why and how everything came to pass in my therapy. Maybe I wanted to interview Lori about erotic transference in my therapy sessions for that same reason as well…to stand out as the most amazingly understanding patient ever. In order for Lori to advance in her field as a social worker, she has to attend 3, conference hours with another professional to go over casework — kind of like therapy quality control.

We talk about all of this during one of my scheduled sessions, for the entire hour — and go over by a few minutes, too. It can become a cycle of behavior that Lori seeks to break. I refer back to the time when, unprovoked, she brought up my attraction to her. There was no in between. Lori noticed that I was frustrated with myself and wanted me to know that an attraction to a therapist is so normal and happens so frequently that there are technical terms for it.

I turn my attention towards the presence of countertransference in our session. Lying in bed with Shauna a few months into our relationship, I ask her what she thought about me the moment she first saw me. She says she liked the fact that I was wearing a blazer and a tie on a first date. She adds that I was a little shorter than she anticipated, but was content with the two of us at least being the same exact height. I explain that my insecurity could often get the better of me in dating situations. It seems my emotional workouts in erotic transference were just beginning to produce results.

But, so you have a full understanding of how this works, we can date. The difference this time is the answer I want to give is on par with all of my involuntary urges. Would Lori and I really be compatible in every way? Would she ever see me as a lover, a partner, an equal, and not a patient? Could I ever reveal a detail about myself, or even just a shitty day of work, without wondering if she was picking it apart and analyzing it? Frankly, all those questions could be answered in the positive. Work payments that were past due are finally finding their way into my bank account.

As it turns out, my short-term money troubles were not an indication that I had no business being a writer, or that my life changeup was as irresponsible as unprotected sex at fourteen years old. I took a mental step back from my current situation and realized that in spite of my recent hardships, I was succeeding. At first, the quiet girl from Craigslist seemed like a great match—we had just the occasional tangle over cats and cleanup. And then the men started coming over. It was late morning, and I was putting up a fresh pot of coffee when I heard the first meow.

It sounded awfully close, as if from inside the apartment instead of the backyard one story down.

place of rest

Then I heard it again, and there was no doubt. I texted my roommate. You got a cat?! I suffer from allergies — through spring and summer I have a persistent itch in my nostrils, and the lightest bit of pollen or dander or even a freshly mowed lawn sets off sneezing spells that leave my entire body sore. I was also concerned about the smell. And besides, the landlord forbade pets. I have a tendency to overreact, to exacerbate conflict. Instead I went for calm and firm, and maybe slightly paternal.

We need to talk. Later that afternoon, in the kitchen between our bedrooms, we talked, leaning on opposite counters. I was left somewhat unsettled. In the end, I told her she could keep the cat, but she better take care of it properly. We were unlikely roommates, a Craigslist arrangement: I, a near-middle-aged man, several years divorced, with adolescent children of my own. She, a twenty-year-old recent college grad.

At first, I had a parade of eccentrics, men who seemed to have something to hide, smelling of whiskey, with slurred speech, crooked teeth, telling me about jobs as investment bankers or corporate accountants, claims I found dubious. He left just as I was about to call the cops. So when Jenny showed up, I was inclined to like her. She looked like a typical post-college young woman: Her speech tended to the monosyllabic. I showed her the room. I showed her the bathroom. Then she asked what she needed for moving in, and I told her: I assumed this meant she had all those things, and at first, it appeared that she did.

She told me she worked two jobs, as a clerk in a stationary store in Midtown Manhattan and as an art-school model. Several days later, she brought documents attesting to her claims, and it all seemed to check out. She moved in a couple weeks later, with the help of her dad, whom I found affable in a way that put me further at ease. Some time after she moved in, I met her boyfriend, who seemed about my age. I did have some mild concerns. I wondered why she would choose to live here — a part of town where she had no friends or family — and with me, a man twice her age.

But I needed a roommate, and for the most part, she matched my criteria: There was something familiar about her, almost bland, like an unremarkable extra who might appear repeatedly in so many movies, which meant she was safe and normal and predictable — exactly what I needed if I was to share my home with a stranger. It was soon after the cat incident that I began to notice she was home more. In fact, she rarely seemed to leave her room.

She was always on time with rent, and she appeared to have enough money to buy groceries and order in meals. One afternoon, a couple weeks after Jenny took in the cat, I heard her voice and then a male voice I did not recognize. It was definitely not her boyfriend, whose voice was high-pitched; this one was deep, almost gruff. I was in my room, working, and I heard someone enter the bathroom, and then the toilet flush, and so I opened my door a crack for a glance. In the hallway, emerging from the bathroom, was a short, squat man, gray-haired with a bald temple.

I felt a kind of indescribable rage, almost like a personal affront. How dare she — in my home?! An hour later, I watched her escort the man to the door. Another part of me was so angry I wanted to evict her immediately. The rest of the day, I wrestled with my thoughts, my mind feverish with indecision: Should I say something? Should I tell her boyfriend? Should I call her dad? Was it any of my business anyway? I decided to wait, see if it happened again, and just a few days later, it did. This time, it was a tall black man wearing an ill-fitting suit and tie, like thrift-shop formalwear.

He, too, emerged from the bathroom and disappeared into her room, and after an hour or so she escorted him to the door, again in the blue pumps and rumpled ivory dress. I took to Google: What to do if my roommate is a prostitute? More than what to do , I was seeking clarity on why it bothered me. Who was I to judge if Jenny chose an unorthodox profession?

Why would I care if she used her room to ply her trade? On Yahoo Answers and in Google Groups and various other forums people wrote about similar experiences, and the consensus was: I wondered about the practical aspects of her work: Does she have a Backpage ad? Did she use Craigslist? Could I find her on The Erotic Review? Sit her down for a talk. Point her in the right direction.

Instead, when we met in the kitchen the next afternoon, passing between the refrigerator and the trashcan by the sink, I decided to bring it up. I was washing a dish, the water running lightly, and she was behind me, waiting for something in the microwave. She turned slowly to face me, nonchalant, with a thin smile. What are you going to do about it? She offered no further explanations, and we both retreated to our rooms. Let us, as adults, discuss this situation. In return, she took me for a fool. The words infuriated me, and I began to plot her eviction.

Several days passed, however, and still I did nothing. We had just finished dinner at a SoHo restaurant, paid the check, and were about to head to her place when my phone rang. It was my landlord. There was trouble at the apartment. My thoughts went to the men. My date raised an eyebrow to me. We were outside the restaurant, in the cool night air on a quiet street, a jittery yellow cab passing over the uneven cobblestone.

Landlord says someone called The response came a few seconds later. I stared at that text, uncomprehending. She had been dead, in fact, for the past twenty-four hours, in her bed, in our apartment. My thoughts in those moments would later seem incongruous with the event itself, but at the time they were automatic, a cascading stream of impolitic ponderings.

I hung up the phone and looked at my date, who was gripping my arm and staring. My date reacted as I expected. Of course I was O. Mostly I was just annoyed that her death was getting in the way of my evening plans. Jenny and I had lived together for four months, but I barely knew her. An overdose of what? I called my landlord, and told her what I had learned: No, she need not worry about a thing. The police will take care of it all. I was out of town, I said — not a lie, although not entirely the truth either. My date gripped my arm tighter, as if the news of death created some erotic charge, at once frightening and gripping, and we went off together to her apartment a few blocks away.

In the morning I took the subway home, and remembered: My roommate was dead. It felt surreal, and I found myself ruminating on the nature of death, and youth, and the way we often know so little about the people living just several feet away from us. It appeared that someone had taken the cat. Later in the afternoon, my phone rang. I felt momentarily caught off balance. She had seemed like a rootless child, unattached, unaffected. I knew she had parents, a little sister, extended family somewhere, but I knew so little about them they were almost unreal to me.

Her entire life seemed confined to her room across the hallway, as if she mattered to no one but herself. I am so, so terribly sorry. This must be so devastating. I could hear him sniffling on the other end of the line. There were the signs, of course. It was heroin, Steve told me. Her boyfriend, who was an addict, had introduced it to her. When I hung up, I felt guilty for feeling as unmoved as I did.

Her father, at the same time, seemed to expect exactly that. As if he knew that someone like me would be affected only by the trouble of it all. Here were people reminiscing about her, friends writing about the time she helped someone with a college essay, or about high school adventures, or that time they got passed-out drunk and high on that crazy spring break trip. Two days later, her aunt came. She packed some of her clothes into a few large trash bags. The bed that was ordered online just four months ago.

The easy chair Jenny had brought from her childhood home in Westchester. A bunch of keys on a key ring, a bracelet of blue beads, a MetroCard, a bag of cosmetics. It looked just like it had before she moved in: I closed the door to look behind it, and noticed a taped-up card, from HashtagThePlanet.

I thought about how our physical possessions are like phantom lives: It made me sad, but I had little use for the rest, and ended up putting most of it out with the trash. The stuff sat on the edge of the sidewalk for a day or two, and through the window I watched as people passed, glancing at the items. Some stopped to pick through them, holding up items for inspection, taking what they pleased, until the pile was about half the original size. Then the trash collectors came and tossed it all into the monster-mouth of their truck, until nothing was left but a shattered light bulb that slipped out of one of the bags, now spread in tiny bits of glass among the fallen leaves of a nearby honeysuckle tree.

After years getting paid to bare my breasts at more clubs than I can count, when my funds hit an all-time low I pioneered a cleaner brand of sex work. When I arrive at the house of the first viable person to respond to my Craigslist ad, I knock on the door and take a step back. He opens it right away. I like his work jeans and dirty white t-shirt, though.

They feel kind of homey. I step in, a little flirty, but all-business to begin with. Just when the tour is complete my phone rings. Call me in like an hour. I turn to JimJohn and start to pull my shirt off, then stop. I shove it down one of my stockings as I take my pants off, because I have always believed that the safest place for my money is right against my skin. Half a tank of gas and two blueberry smoothies later, it dwindled to sixteen dollars folded together in the bottom of my pocket.

For some people, this might have been a problem, but not for me. Sex work is my trust fund. Whenever I discover a new form of sex work — the weirder or more interesting the better — I try to experience it. Possum drew me a map showing how to get to the two strip clubs he knows of: I decided to try the small one first. The small one turned out to be a brothel with very little business, where I met some very beautiful, very southern women, including a pound dancer named Hamhock who I wish I could introduce to every teenager worrying about their weight ever.

I was too fat for the big one, or the door guy was having a bad day. I started to feel a little panic. I do the kitchen first, like my friend Tania who actually grew up in a mansion and knows how to clean explained to me last night on the phone. I keep up a steady stream of flirting while I put his dishes in the dishwasher and move everything on the counter to one end so I can clean it. The counter is dirty, covered in stains and puddles of dried-up food and glue and who knows what else. Scrubbing while bending over a counter in six-inch heels, back arched so that your ass sticks up pretty, is hard work.

Especially while flirting the whole time with a man you hope is staring at your ass and not your sweaty face. He asks about me, how I came to be a topless housecleaner. If you watch television you know what happens to broke homeless women: Jim is amazingly empathetic about the nastiness of the local clubs. His story is interesting.

All his time goes to his race-car business, which is like a dream, but lots of hard work. Steely grey eyes and his young tough look contrast with his docile nature as he tamely follows me around his house. He opens his wallet and peels off another hundred, right away, and tells me to just dance until that runs out. I pretend to think hard, then: I pretend to think long and hard, though. That is not for sale! He has gentle, well-practiced hands that he swirls around my nipples and brushes softly over my ass. I arch my back and gasp in pretend ecstasy. Soon he wants more again — a hand job, a hundred dollars.

A couple hundred more for a hand job, a couple hundred more for a blow job, a lot more for sex. It could be a grand, easily. But do I want to have sex with this guy? The other thing is, sometimes I think I could be bisexual, and every year or two I have a man sex experiment. My phone rings again. Do I look like that kind of girl?

This makes , or is it ? Or 2, miles and a month or two of groceries and stuff while I explore desert canyons and sky islands. What more could a girl need? I slide down between his legs and he unzips his jeans eagerly. It is small, with a nice curve and for a second I love it and want to fuck him. He gasps and wiggles a little, and I take his cock in my hand. He moans and half thrusts his hips. When I finally grab his cock, two-handed, and give it a couple strong, twisting strokes, he explodes right away.

While he cleans up, I pull my jeans and tank top back on over my fishnets and thong. I make myself look totally calm while I throw my iPod and cleaning stuff in the bag I came with, give him a goodbye hug, and tell him he should really call me again to clean the rest of the house. Then I fold over in my seat, laughing and clapping my hands with excitement.

Leaning back, I push my hips up to pull my jeans down and start fishing the hundreds out of my fishnets. The next day Spot and I get in the van and drive across the country until I find a beautiful desert-sky island in northern Arizona. I stay for a couple weeks, playing in a creek and tracking coyote, before I get low on money again and start over. A quarter million Filipinos served for the U. Now, the last survivors are fighting for what's rightfully theirs. P atrick Ganio had lived to see his country invaded, its defenses smashed, and his comrades fall on the battlefield.

But he had lived, and that was no small feat — not after the Allied surrender and the torturous march that followed, 60 miles inland from their defeat on the Bataan peninsula, all the way to the Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. Battered, wounded and starving, the soldiers who stumbled along the way were swiftly dispatched, run through with the blade of a Japanese bayonet. There would be no slowing down. To falter meant certain death.

Still, Ganio had survived. In a war that claimed nearly 57, Filipino soldiers and untold numbers of civilians, Ganio lived to see the dawn of the Philippine liberation. He was freed, allowed to go home to his family and rejoin the fight on behalf of the Philippine resistance. By , three years of Japanese occupation were at a close, and the end of World War II was mere months away.

All it would take would be one final push to effectively expel the Japanese Army from the Philippine Islands. Sniper fire whistled down from the peaks, where enemy fighters had barricaded themselves inside caves and pillbox bunkers.

Patriotism had first motivated Ganio to enlist back in , fresh out of school at age At the time, the Philippines were a United States territory — spoils from its victory in the Spanish-American War — and Ganio took to serving the United States military with zeal. His father, a poor farmer, supported his decision to fight.

He had always harbored high hopes for his bright young son. Ganio distinguished himself at an early age by learning to read using papers from the local Catholic church, and when it finally came time for Ganio to start school, his father cheered him on, carrying him to class atop his shoulders. He dreamt Ganio would escape the poverty that plagued the family. Ganio would have an education, a career, a future. But the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December , hit the Philippines like the opening blow in a one-two punch.

Barely 10 hours later, as the U. He was convinced the Allies would win, never wavering, not even after their defeat at Bataan and his imprisonment and torture. And yes, the war would be won. But it would not mark the end of the struggle for Philippine soldiers. They would continue fighting for decades to come — only this time their goal was to reclaim the recognition stripped from them. But as he scrambled through the rubble and brush of Balete Pass, Ganio could not know what was to come. His future, as far as he saw, was as bright as the one his father had envisioned for him. He had a career as a teacher waiting for him, and his wife had just welcomed their first child.

Amid the bloodshed and fire, Ganio could not even be certain of how the day would end. The war would re-shape his future in ways he could not yet comprehend. Jimiliz Valiente-Neighbours, a Ph. What did it mean to have served under the American flag? And now she was getting her answer, carefully reenacted before her, right down to the screams. Five mysterious letters had launched her into this line of research: As Valiente-Neighbours later discovered, the letters were a misspelling: No one had ever told her that her grandfather had served in World War II.

That slice of family history felt hidden, and she was determined to find out why. Roosevelt made a proclamation. Approximately , Filipino servicemen were mobilized — soldiers, nurses, recognized guerilla units and more. But after the war, the financial obligation of that mobilization loomed large.

With the Philippines on the verge of independence, the U. Congress started to reconsider its commitment to Filipino veterans. In February , it issued the first of two Rescission Acts, both of which denied Filipino veterans the right to be recognized as active service members in the U. In exchange, the U. It also paid compensation to Filipino soldiers disabled in the war and kin of those who were killed — sometimes at half the rate of their American counterparts. Ultimately, Filipino servicemen were left stripped of their pensions, educational stipends and medical care under the U.

Department of Veterans Affairs VA. Just as important was the fact that the legislation seemed to negate any sacrifices the veterans made on behalf of the U. As Valiente-Neighbours learned about these events, she started reaching out to Filipino veterans, and was surprised to hear some of them insist that they were U. But as they saw it, they had sacrificed life and limb for the U. What could be more American? Many of them were heartbroken by the lack of recognition they received. One leaned close to her tape-recorder and spoke to it as if talking to America itself. Valiente-Neighbours says the anguish was even more acute for the veterans who eventually immigrated to the U.

But for some of the veterans, the rejection they felt was also fueling a push to action. T he moment Eric Lachica decided to act was the moment he saw his quiet, dignified father in a state of anguish. He was turned away. And a few years later, at a reception inside the Philippine embassy in Washington, D. There, he spotted a man he recognized as a leader in the Filipino-American community: His name was Patrick Ganio, and he had survived his near-fatal injury to become one of the most prominent activists in the fight for equity between Filipino veterans and their American counterparts.

We fought with the same lives there. To this day, he can still recite the Japanese military songs he was forced to learn as a prisoner: Miyo, tokai no sora akete …. Ganio immigrated to the U. Lachica, a community organizer himself, was impressed, and eager to join the fight. But there was always the question of compensation: Could a dollar amount ever reimburse the veterans for the years of disenfranchisement they endured? Lachica says that was the subject of bitter debate, with some advocates pushing for an absurdly high dollar amount — and others reluctant to ask for anything at all. Then there was the problem of getting politicians to sign on.

In , Lachica was angling to get the support of a rising political star, Illinois senator Barack Obama, but felt Obama was reluctant. He was venting his frustrations to a meeting of expat Democrats in the Philippine capital of Manila when a woman raised her hand.

Lachica and McCauley arranged to meet again in Washington, D. He suspects their visit left an impression. Ganio considers it one of his crowning achievements:

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