A concerned friend noticed that Gerri was beginning to retreat from life as she neared her Big Birthday and imminent retirement. As an antidote, the friend commissioned this Healing Dreamscape collage gift to capture the complex relationships that inform Gerri’s life, and also the roads not taken.  The basket of flowers flourishing with Mexican colors and masks is not only a framework on which to hang all the most important people in Gerri’s life. It is also a coded way of representing her one true love, Paco, whom her mother forbade her to marry because he was not Jewish.

Because of her popularity as a kindergarten teacher, I give Gerri a little red schoolhouse door in front of the basket’s base, and also a clown nose because of how easily she made kids laugh, particularly the wonderful little girl she adopted and brought up as her own who stares in horror at her mom.

I also borrow the up-do hairdo from her high school prom photo to lend Gerri a regal look that contrasts with the clown nose that says, I’m proud, I’m beautiful.  The therapeutic aspect of this Healing Dreamscape is that Gerri will see her life choices validated by her friend so she can alleviate her acute feelings of regret regarding the road not taken.