Writing About Couples With Mozart in The Morning
Oct 4th, 2011 by admin
The idea for our book about couples at the crossroads in their relationships came to me one day as I was thinking about how to reach more people than just my patients with information I thought would be helpful to them. After all, we are all in relationships of one sort or another. We all have been in relationships from the first day of our lives and on and off since then. So I figured some information that addressed the “common denominator” to most interpersonal problems would be useful! And I think this is the core message of the book: No matter how different your individual circumstances are, there are some basic issues that come up in all relationships. These are the issues addressed and explained in the book we are working on.
Dr. Susan Schwartz and I began to write and meet regularly to discuss what the book would look like. We would e-mail our parts, read them out loud to one another, revise them and move on.
We typically met in restaurants. You can imagine how much food consumption is associated with the writing of this book! We can say we tried a lot of restaurants in town that offer lunch, typically sticking to one we liked for a while, then moving on to the next one once we got tired of the same food. We also moved to different parts of town, covering most of the Phoenix area.
I typically write in the morning. Like now, it’s before 6:30 am and I have been at the computer for over an hour. Mornings are times when my mind is fresh and full of ideas. It is also when I still remember my dreams and spend some time pondering over their messages. At times they provide flashes of insight into what I am doing.
I write with Mozart. Not the composer. Mozart is my dog. He lies under my desk while I write and keeps me company.
I rescued Mozart through a rescue group for Golden Retrievers. He was neglected from birth. When we adopted him last spring, he had never had a bath, been on a leash, driven in a car or visited the vet. No one even pet him. Now he follows me everywhere and gets anxious when I leave because he is afraid I will abandon him. So I guess I have become his mom. He is extremely attached to me.
When we got his papers, I saw his mother’s “family” name was Mozart. Mozart also happens to be one of my favorite composers. The name was totally spot on!
Can you see how the issue of attachment, which I discuss at length in the book as being the bedrock of all human connections, applies to relationships between dogs and animals as well? Dogs love you unconditionally, just like children do. It’s adults who at times mess things up. And when that happens, we hope our upcoming book can help those couples reconnect.
