Monthly Archives: January 2025

Jan26

gnome sane?

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Laura Linney won a Golden Globe for her role in The Big C. I was thinking about it the other day; wondering why was it was one of my favorite series? She kinda – okay totally – goes a bit bonkers. Wouldn’t we all in her situation? But that’s why the character was so inspiring. She’s so real…so present. So insane. I am reminded of a favorite quote from Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way – “going sane feels like going insane first.”

I want to go sane, preferably without the dying part. I’ve gone sane in the past. It’s not usually fun. In fact, it’s messy and painful and people hate you. Just FYI. For me, it means I’ve reached the end of my rope. I’ve been trying to address something, make changes in my life, and nothing is working. But something irreplaceable and priceless comes out of it: CLARITY.

Do we have to go insane to gain clarity? Good question, to which I do not presently have an answer. Since I am currently practicing what I have so long been preaching, I am relishing every moment as perfect. I am right where I need to be doing exactly what I am meant to be doing.

Several times in the past few weeks I have said (including to my doctor) that “there is nothing wrong with me that 3 consecutive days of sunny, 40 degree weather wouldn’t cure!” I stand by it.

Meanwhile, since that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon, I shall endure. Some days more cheerfully than others. Gnome sane? Because I really do know, deep down inside, that this is all sacred.

Jan25

can you hear me now?…

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Well. Where to start…again. It has been a loooong January and dark night. But I am not finished here. I am she who shall not be defeated. Any one who has known me for any time has heard or read me say again and again: “Remember, it will be the artists who save us.” My soul knows it is true.

And so I shall return to my youth for inspiration. I was raised in a musical family, beginning with my grandparents and aunts and uncles. My father and sister played piano, my mother the guitar. My southern Mimi could shake the tambourine so fast you only saw a blur at her hip. They all sang and danced. I was the least talented musically, but I could draw and paint anything before I could write. I won a dictionary for my copy of Rembrandt’s Young Woman at an Open Half-Door in the Detroit News Scholastic Art Awards when I was in the fifth grade. This is not to brag, but to inform you that art and music run in my blood. And so when I am struggling in any way, it is art and music that inevitably pulls me out of the abyss. I believe that is a universal truth for us all.

I entered high school in 1968. By this time I was already sick with ulcers, depressed and fed up with the dysfunction of my family. I had no idea. No idea what I was dealing with; that would take a lifetime of undoing. It was the height of the British invasion in the music scene and Detroit was the center of it. Hollowed out historic old theaters soon became the Grande Ballroom and the Eastown, offering stage side seats for $5. every Friday and Saturday night. It was my salvation.

Unbeknownst to me I was so old so young. Retrospect being what it is, I now understand that I assumed the role of parent in my family somewhere around the age of 10. I was already functioning as caretaker of my four younger siblings. I was tucking my parents in when they got home from the bar in the early morning hours and making breakfast and doing the laundry and getting the kids off to school. I had no choice. Were you to look at any of my yearly school pictures from junior high on, they would scare you shitless. You would think you were looking at a woman in her 30’s. Perhaps like Benjamin Button I have aged backwards.

The Vietnam war was being televised nightly. I watched my beloved Detroit burn in the riots of 1967, school having been cancelled because of it. College students were being shot down by police. I remember well the day Kennedy was shot (I was in the 3rd grade). And then his brother. And Martin Luther King. My father kept loaded guns at the doors and we all had a bug out bag on the boat, ready to flee to Canada if the war outside came to our front door. The world was on fire.

There was no peace, no solace, no safety – at home, or in the world. I remember being eleven or twelve and thinking, “what is wrong with this planet?! Are these people insane?!” I am a product of chaos. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was made for a time such as this. Day of judgement, God is calling…

Jan19

stop the world and let me off

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For the first fifty-five years of my adult life, or so, I was in the habit of saying “we just have to survive February.” All bets were off in February…if we made plans, I might show up…might not. All expectations of any kind of productivity were off the agenda. We got done what we got done, and that was that. No resolutions (silly) and certainly no diets – fortheloveofgod. Never mind trying to thrive. Survive it. Celebrate the first of March – you made it. Bonus!

Born and raised in Michigan, I am used to bitter cold, dark winters. I’ve even come to appreciate them. But about 2 or 3 years ago now I noticed a shift. February became January. Maybe it’s global warming. Maybe the poles shifted just a smidge. Maybe the planets aligned different in the heavens. I don’t care. January is much harder than February now. By February I’m noticing the days inching their way tentatively toward longer. I swear after this recent solstice the days got shorter, not longer. It has been a particularly dark winter with precious little sunshine.

So I will honor my body and rest. But deep inside something is beginning to sprout…

Jan13

the quieting

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Unless you have spent time in a cold, dark climate during a snowstorm, you might not have had the privilege of experiencing total, profound silence. As it happens, I live on a famous scenic highway (M22) in northwestern lower Michigan, very close to the big lake. But I am between two small villages that are summer resort destinations and on a blustery day like today hours go by without a vehicle passing. There is the occasional snow plow, for which we are grateful. I hear the furnace click on and the refrigerator run if I happen to be in the kitchen. Otherwise, nothing. It is blissful.

Right now, almost the middle of January, we have about two feet of snow on the ground. Snow acts as a buffer. The days are dusky at best, grey…and so very peaceful. Soft. Otherworldly. Magical. The nights are loud because of the coyotes. But the days are absolutely silent. I treasure this time. I wouldn’t trade it for all the sunshine in the world. This is my heaven.

It has taken nearly seventy years for me to come to this appreciation. When I was younger and always scrambling to catch up it was torture. Dull. Barren, bereft of life. Now I see the contrast of the birches against the bank of conifers through the huge white flurries, and am delighted. Of course, I am also retired and not digging myself out of a drift to white-knuckle it to work late…so I guess everything is relative.

I need this silence now. I’m realizing that the last year took a toll on me. This feels like a reprieve, a moment to catch my breath and renew my strength. Since we are addressing this room full of elephants this week, let me confess what I am only now coming to know: the last election broke me. It broke my heart. All my grief has come to light. It was a metaphorical – and perhaps actual – wake up call; a turning point. The world will never be the same.

And I need to incorporate this shift into my psyche, to pivot. To turn my attention elsewhere and learn to see the world otherwise. I will focus my newly committed attention on beauty. I will find the magic in living a heart-focused present. I will live in love – with my life, with all of nature, with the few souls I trust, and with the silence. I will appreciate every moment. Because I can no longer look outward for any indication of peace, for any encouragement that mankind is evolving or waking up or remotely interested in a better world. I can no longer be emotionally invested.

And I can only believe that this new approach is a healing. It’s a good thing. Now is the definitive divide between third and fifth dimensional reality, and although I have lost a lot and will surely lose more, I will not look back. I will sit perfectly still for now. For now I am winter.

Jan12

elephants on parade

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Okay. Let’s address the elephant in the room. Actually, there is an entire herd gathering. It’s getting crowded in here…the most recent elephant is my ADHD diagnosis. I’ve been gonna talk about it, but I’m still figuring it out. When the doctor and I talked I had just started back on an antidepressant and was in for a three week consult. I was not feeling a whole lot better, which is to say that I was still having trouble functioning. Just that morning I had made a pot of coffee and forgot to put the carafe under the spout; coffee poured out everywhere before I noticed. My doctor was adamant that I give the ADHD medication a try, but suggested we postpone the start of that another three weeks. That way I was not introducing two new medications in less than a six week span. Sounded wise to me.

So I had my first dose of generic Adderall yesterday. I didn’t feel any different. Perhaps a tiny bit more able to focus – I am writing here, after all. That hasn’t been happening easily for weeks now. I will have to keep you posted on progress. I will say that the ADHD diagnosis has been a huge thing to come to terms with. I don’t want it. It feels like something that I would associate with children or young adults, and it’s embarrassing. But man oh man…it rather explains a lot. Like, my whole life. I think the hardest part to accept is how profoundly different my life might have been if this had come to light sooner.

I am seventy years old. Relationships have been hard all of my life. I am a classic under-achiever, often procrastinating important deadlines until the last minute and then exhausting myself to meet them. Anxiety has been a lifelong companion. It was my Mother’s lifelong companion, and all four of my siblings. Out of seven people in my biological family I am the only one without substance addictions, and the only one who never smoked cigarettes. I have a son, a niece and two nephews. They all have it, I’m sure; the younger two were treated with Ritalin in grade school, which was a new treatment 20 years ago.

All of us, all four generations if I include my grandparents, exhibit the symptoms. And it is debilitating. I have seen counselors all of my adult life, so for the better part of fifty years. I have gone on and off antidepressants with mediocre results. It is entirely possible that all of this dysfunction and struggle could have been alleviated to some degree with the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD. But it’s relatively new for doctors and therapists, especially to address in older women.

There will be follow up with a specialist I must wait to see, and I will explore all the options for treatment and hopefully find something natural that will help. But I will seek help. I will always seek to be ever-increasingly healthier mentally and physically. Regardless of age, I will always seek to improve myself, my life skills, and my quality of life. That’s a given. I hope the same is true for you. Let’s get well and then let’s get better!

Jan8

the birds still remember

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“If ever there was a story without a shadow it would be this: that we as women exist in direct sunlight only. When women were birds, we knew our greatest freedom was in taking flight at night when we could steal the heavenly darkness for ourselves, navigating through the intelligence of stars and the constellations of our own making in the delight and terror of our uncertainty.” – Terry Tempest Williams

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” – Galileo

Jan6

a gathering of lost parts

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For decades I’ve been told that I am hard on myself. I’m not convinced. I am unequivocally uninterested in lowering my standards. For anyone. Including myself. If anything, I think that I let myself off the hook too easily.

But perhaps they are referring to my self talk. It isn’t nice. I once had a telephone conversation with my sister about my other sister. She said, “I’d much rather talk to you. At least you don’t start your sentences with ‘you know what your problem is?” I replied, “No. But I do often end them with, ‘what were you thinking, you stupid idiot??!!!!!” We laughed.

How do you talk to yourself? Do you know? Do you catch yourself saying things you wouldn’t say to anyone else? I often start my self talk with, “well, if you’re so smart…” followed by whatever the current mess happens to be.

I will say this changed a great deal when I was so sick a few years ago. I was hospitalized with Lyme disease, and I was in the worst pain I had ever experienced. Intravenous Dilaudid (morphine) was not helping and I could do nothing but lay as still as possible, tears flowing down my cheeks, barely breathing. I remember thinking that I had never been in that much pain. Now mind you, I gave birth to a 9.6 pound baby completely naturally. I’ve had laparoscopic surgery with no anesthesia, and extensive dental work without novocaine. None of those things touched the pain from the Lyme infection.

The nurses who were caring for me that week were so enormously kind. It was dramatic and astonishing to me how different it felt. I felt like a little child being nurtured by a kind and loving caretaker – and I had to admit to myself that I had no conscious memory of ever feeling that way before. I left the hospital days later just wanting to learn how to live more softly. Wanting a softer life. Not an easier life, but softer in all the ways possible. I wanted to eat softer – more fresh fruits and green veggies. And lay in softer, warmer, sheets and blankets. I wanted to move slowly through the world; quietly. I wanted to speak in whispers. Kindnesses…just kindnesses…

I was changed. Sickness does that. Grief does that. I lost a lot of weight that summer; I shed a lot of grief. I have to admit today that I have fallen back into a lifelong habit of being rather unforgiving with myself, let alone others. And I am not happy about that. But today I am reminded that I want to live softly. I need to learn to live softly. I want to find my magic again. Magic is soft. Magic is kind. Magic is a sweet child skipping through the world in awe of life.

I love my life. What do you need to love your life today? Do you have any idea how magical you are?! You are. And I appreciate you.