Last night we gave a talk at a book club. We decided that we would focus on where our stories came from. I refer to our stories as being a weaving of fictionalized reality. I know that is a bit cumbersome but it is how I see it. We weave together the stories we saw and heard. While they are typically based in reality they are fictionalized to protect the innocent blah, blah, blah.

Naturally we began by talking about Jamie, our heroine in A Dream Across Time. We saw a lot of Jamie's and people like her husband, Paul, who did what we call a Caribbean Meltdown. Talking about it brought back memories. I remember houses with blinds drawn ostensibly to keep out the sun but the blinds were really drawn against what had become a painful life.

When we set out to write A Dream Across Time we knew we would not write a tragedy and that Jamie would be a survivor and not a victim. And so we did not write stories about these houses and their residents. But I was reminded of their existence.

In these houses were often a woman who had come to "Paradise" with her husband seeking a new life and a new job. Some found a bountiful future and many a painful existence as their lives fell apart in a strange land where they had no anchors. Rather than living the good life in the beautiful sun of the tropics they endured their pain.

We may live so much in fantasy, envying others whom we think live storied lives. As a psychologist I got to see what lives were like behind closed doors and in the tropics I was reminded again that fantasy is just fantasy. In the glorious tropics there are many snakes and often a lot of pain.