Category Archives: color

Jun3

Mary Poppins Calling…

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Yesterday, I alluded to the nicknames Resourceress and Mary Poppins. They are both actually nicknames that two different friends have given to me over the years.

Now, as it happens, I have always been a huge Mary Poppins fan…my Pinterest board titled “the real Mary Poppins” is a reference to my personal belief that we wise and creative women are all good “witches”, or alchemists, spiritual midwives, healers…in fact, I believe that not for the intelligence of creative women throughout history…well…I doubt the race would have survived THIS long. After all, it seems pretty obvious that men are trying their very best to wipe us off the face of…another day…

Mary Poppins was magical…a good witch, even though Disney didn’t blatantly portray her as one. We recognize each other, don’t we…and I like myself for admiring her more than the other Disney heroines…!

Anyway…it is the metaphor – strong, strong, metaphor that she can PULL ANYTHING SHE NEEDS OUT OF HER BAG!!! that insinuates her as every woman…as any mother could certainly attest. But mother or not, few women in our culture have not had to make something out of nothing, pull off a seemingly impossible feat in the stress of the day, and dress up the mundane while entertaining the “children” of all ages. Take the lead, git ‘er done…and don’t break a sweat, or a heel, doing it!

My Mother – an angel like Lincoln’s (the man knew…) – set a great example of grace under pressure. Damn she had a hard life. Good, but I sure wouldn’t want to trade places. Her mother’s was harder…and I know that you see it in your own heritage.

They truly were “resourceresses”…a word that I think my friend, the artist Richard Schemm, made up. He likes to make up words, but also, he has extraordinary women to appreciate in his life. He will tell you: we resource. It’s what we do.

Once I drove from northern Michigan to northern California. I was staying with friends in San Fransisco, but never having been to their NEW home, they decided to meet me at the highway and lead me from there through the complicated streets…so, we stopped for dinner at one of the chain restaurants that congregate near the exits. We ate, and preparing to leave, Debi said, “I have to stop on the way to the house to buy one of those phone jacks that adapt a single jack to a double”…I reached into my purse and pulled one out. She smiled knowingly, and called me Mary Poppins. It just so happened to be the very last thing that I grabbed – along with the phone- as I was walking out on my deadbeat husband, heading off into the distant unknown…

For Danielle.

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May22

Show Me How Big Your BRAVE Is…

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“Everybody’s been there, everybody’s been stared down by the enemy”…I often feel quite foolish here, as I write and post these missives. I am in the sixtieth year of my life, and I feel like I am beginning to express myself honestly after a lifetime of holding back. The shadow was winning, sucking the life right out of me…my history of silence was not doing me any good.

It seems to me that the youth of our culture are so very much smarter in so many ways, and yet I see them succumbing to the same demons of my generation. The addiction of codependence pervades our consciousness and looms larger than life. It’s a paper tiger, but a strong addiction never the less. We risk a painful, slow extinction if we do not wake to it’s evil.

And yet I sense theurgy…evidenced by the creative renaissance in music and in art. When our very existence is threatened everyday, when we feel increasingly powerless, how else can we respond but to become increasingly creative? We had better enlarge ourselves to beat that tiger at his own game. We owe it to ourselves, and to our youth.

So…say what you wanna say, and let the words fall out. I want to see you be brave. I want to see you…and Thank you, Sara.

For my beautiful niece Katie.

May22

How Four Little Words Can Change A Life…Well Done, Mom…

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Well…I’m heavily in like…I had not been a Michael Buble fan until seeing this clip. He handles a heckler, expands himself and performs a random act of kindness and generosity.

I took this off of my new favorite blog, A Thousand Shades of Gray. I know nothing of this writer, Jill Salahub, but do yourself a favor…check out her sweet, well written blog…you’ll be glad you did.

Apr17

The Street Fight of My Life…

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She says people are sick and tired of being afraid. I know I am. But I am in it, this “shitstorm” of shame and guilt and fear…the street fight of my life. Vulnerability, come to find out, is my greatest strength. And I am blessed with “move the body” friends who I can count on to show up for me no matter what; I have won the friend lottery. They live in vulnerability, too…and I am learning how to show up for them; that is my greatest moment of honor. As Brene Brown says, that is when I am aligned with my values, and courage is my value:

Anyone who has been around me for any length of time has heard me quip, “I’d tell you my whole story all at once, but then you might not buy my book.” and they laugh…finally, perhaps, at the age of fifty-nine (damn, I wish I’d have gotten wiser younger!) I am beginning to realize that I need to choose more carefully those with whom I can trust my story:

 

The bottom line here is that I want to live wholeheartedly. Perhaps for the first time in my life I understand the stakes.  None of us are getting out of here alive, but if I cannot have less fear in my days, let me meet those days with courage and the grace to show up for the street fight armed only with vulnerability.