Category Archives: inspiration

Apr22

tick tock

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This might be one of the most difficult posts I have written in the 13 – 14 years I’ve had this blog. I’ve lost my mojo. I am taking a class to get it back. Seriously, a class. Maybe group therapy would be more accurate…for aging women like myself who can’t seem to find their way. It’s called Wayfinding. I’ve missed the first of the six weekly sessions already. This past week it’s pneumonia trying to take me out; but isn’t it always something?! So, I’ll have to keep you posted. I have catch-up homework, and I don’t mean that metaphorically.

Suffice it to say my motivation took flight with my self worth somewhere back near the beginning of winter. Okay, maybe right after the election last November. And life hasn’t felt the same since. You never imagine you are going to live through the things you studied in high school history, like pandemics. And brutal fascist regimes. Life was so….so….mmmmm…not easy by any means…maybe the term I’m searching for is naively optimistic.

But here I am, in my seventh decade, feeling somewhat ignorant and defeated. Before you ask – thanks for your concern – yes, I’ve consulted my doctor. Switched antidepressants. Tried generic Adderall. Yuk. Therapy. Then no talking. Eating more meat. Eating no meat. Giving up sugar along with my will to live. “Mojo…where are you?” It’s gone like Car 54.

If you’ve read this far, I’mma sume you are experiencing some of this yourself. Congratulations. We made the shift to hyper-space. It feels like we left our soul back in the previous galaxy when we came through that wormhole. Like not all our particles beamed up in the transporter. I want to posit something for your consideration here: maybe – just maybe – we actually left behind every molecule of ourselves we NO LONGER NEED.

Now, nobody dislikes a Pollyanna more than me. I’m a supreme skeptic. But what if – and I know I’ve said this before, but really – what if we are right where we need to be doing exactly what we need to be doing? Because I didn’t come this far just to come this far.

Let me say that I am unequivocally uninterested in re-inventing myself. Been there, done that, got a closet full of those tee shirts. But this is different. You feel it, too. THIS. IS. DIFFERENT. All that psychobabble about 3D to 5D reality aside, you hippies…WTF does this mean?!

It means we drop the pretense. Pretense being anything and everything we pretended was real. Or significant. Drop who you think you are. Let yourself fall apart at the seems.

Let’s try an experiment: question everything you thought you knew. Everything you thought you knew about yourself, about who you are. Who you were, where you came from, why you’re here. Why that family? Why this country? Why that interest? Don’t assume anything. Dig deep. Where did that belief come from? Why do you think that? Draw the line at this boundary: Do I trust that I know right from wrong? Start there and come back to this exact moment in time. Question everything up to now.

And now answer this: what do you want? What do you want?

Mar18

Facing East…

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So, I’m home. And I am wanting to experience the full meaning of that. Whoever said, “Home is heaven for beginners” got it. It means the world to me. It is truly my sanctuary. Please allow me a little artistic indulgence today as I am still resting up…

I remember house hunting years ago with my then husband, and our realtor was a long-time friend of his. Which meant they were a) men, and b) a generation older than me. Anyway, I could list a thousand reasons why we weren’t on the same page. My criteria was like science fiction to them. For starters, the front door needs to face east. What kind of trees are on the property? Don’t show me another house without windows in the bathrooms. Not skylights – operable windows. “It’s an energy thing.” That’s also why the kitchen sink is under a window, always. Nothing contemporary, thank you. Nope; no tri-levels (that was a real stumbling block…) Needless to say I usually ended up doing some remodeling. It was far more important to me than to him.

The home I’m in now is my very least favorite style, MCM (mid-century modern.) Maybe because I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. It was just everywhere. I have no use for it whatsoever. But this was the right house, at the right price, in the right place at the right time. Most of the original features had already been stripped out here, but the basic architecture is still apparent. I can live with the wide prow of the roof overhang and the expansive glass window walls. I won’t remove any of the remaining features; I’m decidedly against bastardizing a homes’ original architecture unless you have the means to take it to the studs and rebuild in another style altogether. No hybrid architecture for the most part. So I will also live with the open floor plan and the sandstone fireplace wall for now, although I did paint it.

It means that my beloved crystal chandelier remains in it’s packing, and my traditional English country decor gets thrown into an eclectic mix of old and new, at least for now. I do have a lot of avocado and chartreuse, my favorite colors. Actually, I like any color. As long as it’s green.

Butter Wakefield’s London townhouse is my inspiration. Black, white, green all day long, please. With some bright red-orange scattered about…how delightful! Although, I wouldn’t have the grey walls of the sitting room. I’m about to paint my interior walls my go-to favorite of the last few decades: Benjamin Moore’s Mystical Powers. It’s a soft off-white that reads a warm blush pink in certain light. Pink is the forgotten neutral. I’ve been waiting all winter to be able to open the windows and have fresh air and a fresh palette.

Mar15

obstacles in mirror may be closer than they appear

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This little reprieve away I went south – literally. I flew from Michigan to Arizona to help a friend make the trek back. As we are in our 70’s now, and our priorities have changed, she was moving from Tucson back to Traverse City to live close to children, grandchildren, and friends. To lend support and be supported; that’s what it’s about now that we are aging.

We finished up the last little bit of packing, and once the movers had the house cleaned out, she and I left to drive back to Michigan in her car. We left Arizona in a blizzard, which seems perfectly appropriate. Why wouldn’t we drive through the steep mountain passes of Salt River Canyon in a blizzard? Because as we know, WWASOS (white women ain’t scared of shit.)

She was driving. We had a hotel reservation and a deadline. We got through the mountain blizzard and both said, “well, that wasn’t bad.” The next morning I overheard two older truck drivers in the hotel lobby talking about that drive being the scariest thing they’ve ever done. We were in Gallup, New Mexico, headed to Santa Fe, and were informed by the hotel that our highway east was closed temporarily due to a semi pileup. The roads were icy and it was snowing. So we lingered over breakfast before taking off, and that drive was a breeze.

We were reminded what a spectacular country this is. Wow, it is beautiful. Very inspiring. My dear friend treated us to lovely hotels and meals. We drew tarot cards and we cried a little and laughed a lot – and solved all the world’s problems you’ll be glad to know. Only a little witchcraft was involved…some reiki, some prayers (aka spells), and a good deal of coffee…

And I am home, my favorite place to be in the entire world. I am once again reminded of how addicted I am to my routine, my creature comforts close at hand (not at the bottom of a bag) and how I do so love the trees and the birds and the lush rolling hills of Michigan. The topography is soft and undulating here, like me. This is my land.

Feb25

from survival to mastery

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Thank you, Dear Reader, for being here. I’ve gone AWOL again. But I’m back with renewed determination and fortitude. When I go offline here it means I’ve gone offline in my life. I’m in survival mode. It never ceases to surprise me, because, well, I’m far too self aware for that to happen again…right?! (Insert laughing emoji face here.)

We all have a default. It’s the trigger that catches you by surprise every damn time. It’s a sneaky demon. It’s a jealous, vengeful little tick. It doesn’t want your life. Oh wait – yes it does. It just wants what you have. You know what that is, right? Right?!

It’s wants FREEDOM. It wants all the freedom, as if it were a limited resource. It wants a life of it’s own. Let’s not give it ours, whaddayasay?

I have a favorite scene in a favorite old movie, Witches of Eastwick. Brilliant movie, way before it’s time. The women have discovered that they can fly. The dog is barking at them. And Daryl Van Horne kneels next to the dog to calm him, and whispers, “Look what they can do. These are human beings.” And he isn’t – but he sure is in awe of them.

Are you in awe? Are you in awe of you, of your life? Are we? Are we thriving? Thriving requires we free ourselves from survival mode. Apparently I’m accruing more clueage about how to do that, and I humbly come here to share my floundering. Just FYI, I will continue to seek freedom until my dying breath. Some days I’m kicking and screaming (which looks like ranting and raving.) More often than not I’m under the covers, breathing shallowly, wondering how I came to be so small again.

Now about that “clueage” – which we will explore here this week: I have a niggling feeling deep inside that it’s the same issue for us all. I’m certainly not special or unique in this intrinsically human pursuit. There is a common denominator in all our woes. You won’t like it. It’s ugly and you might not believe we are still dealing with this all these years of therapy later. It’s codependence.

Cringe. Yep. You think you healed it or outgrew it, and it finds a way to sneak back in through your pores and infiltrate your bloodstream. You felt safe, and you let down a boundary.

So that’s about the gist of this – boundaries are never going to be negotiable. You are going to have to spend the rest of your spectacular human life patrolling the fence line of your own being. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT YOURSELF FIRST.

That’s all there is to it…

Feb2

what if the dreams are ours to keep?

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We did it! We did it! We survived January! Woohoo…let’s celebrate already. It is still brutally cold outside, but I do sense the days getting a bit longer, and we have had some intermittent sunshine the past few days. It makes such a dramatic difference in the way I feel. Apparently I have terrible seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and I think I always have had it, since childhood.

I’ve had a lot of things since childhood…ha! Autism and ADHD and anxiety and…and…a great big open musical heart and a pretty good mind and some artistic talent…and best of all, an innate curiosity about how life works and a sense of wonder about the world. I wouldn’t want me any other way.

And in my deep and endless curiosity I have always asked, myself and you: what if? What if, in fact, we are right where we need to be doing exactly what we need to be doing? What if, as Einstein posed, everything is a miracle? I’ve always known the truth of it – as have you – somewhere deep inside. And the 238 days of January just reminded me. I need reminding, seemingly constantly.

I need reminding that the world was made to be free in. I need reminding that all life is precious. I need reminding that I am enough – just right, in fact. Not too big, too small, too smart, too stupid, too much. And most especially, I all too often need reminding – SO ARE YOU. You’re just right.

I’ve left far too many people behind. They silently disappeared in the rear view mirror when I moved away. They ghosted me out of anger and frustration. They threw up their hands in defeat and walked away. They drank themselves into oblivion. I told them off and never looked back. They died of cancer. Their heart gave out. Some I didn’t really know. And some I didn’t know how to lose and I still haven’t caught my breath. All just right, right where they needed to be, doing exactly what they needed to be doing. It’s hard to trust, but it has to be. It has to all be sacred. Nothing else makes any sense.

What if…what if we wake in the afterlife, in the many mansions prepared for us, and find we brought all our dreams with us? What if, as I hope, we get to meet everyone again under different circumstances, in peace? Without expectations or need. Just love…

…just love. These are wild historical times we are living in. Everything gets overwhelming every day. And yet something inside us recognizes the moment as a choice. Love or fear. Trust or doubt. Yes or no. If every choice, every thought, every action boils down to yes or no it suddenly becomes straightforward. Yes to love. No to everything else. That doesn’t always mean it is easy, but it is simple. What if…we were made for a time such as this? What if it is all just right right now? What if…we didn’t know we were ready?

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…

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.

Dec21

spell check and repetitive nightmares

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Recently, in my never ending search for more input, I stumbled upon the PBS Masterpiece Mystery called The Marlow Murder Club. I’m obsessed, for several reasons. I’ve watched the existing 4 episodes of season 1 twice now. I almost always watch every episode at least twice of any show that I enjoy – certainly any mystery. I have terrible anxiety watching the first time. I cannot stand not knowing what will happen. And so, sitting on the edge of my seat fretting, I miss a lot of details. I pick them up the second time through, when I can relax because I already know the outcome. Yep, I’m one of those people who always reads the last chapter before starting the book.

The protagonist of the series is Judith Potts, my new imaginary best friend. Do try to live up. One of the things I related to is her job. Or perhaps her advocation. She is a crossword puzzle setter. As a child, when I wasn’t drawing my own paper dolls (anatomically correct, of course), I was creating crossword puzzles. I made them up for my friends and siblings. Honestly, I think I only stopped because for some inexplainable reason they weren’t interested! It was my idea of fun. Apparently not theirs.

Did I ever tell you about the nightmare I had repeatedly as a child? I walked home from school, into the house, found my Mom at the kitchen sink…and when she turned around to greet me, it wasn’t my mother. The woman asked me my address. This was it, so I must have remembered it wrong. But I didn’t know any other address. I went out and retraced my steps all the way back to school and home again. But it was a stranger’s house, and when I had no way to find my way home I woke terrified.

In retrospect I find the nightmare revealing. I knew I was amongst strangers by the time I was going to school. I never fit there, in my family. I never fit in my school. Town. World. I have never fit. And yet I have spent the better part of seventy years trying. And now I’m not.

Now I am exploring who I might really be, you know, if I am not trying to fit or be accepted. If I am not trying on others’ lives. So I’m going back to the wonderfully satisfying hobby of puzzle setting. For the shear joy of it, because it relaxes me…and I might take up writing murder mysteries, too. Spell check!

Dec20

the biggest bugaboo of all

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Early this morning I woke from a nightmare. A silly common nightmare, you know the kind…back in high school, can’t find my class, hearing snickering behind me as I realize that my shoes don’t match. And I also woke realizing that I am terribly dehydrated. So up, feed the cat, put the coffee on, and down a big glass of water.

Routine is my new best friend. I say new because, well…recently at the doctor we had the conversation about getting a formal diagnosis for ADHD, and trying some medication. I can’t stay focused; I am literally losing track of time. Like a living nightmare, I must admit to myself that this is a typical pattern for me around the holidays. And I am far too old for this.

I’m too old to be just waking up and seeing how debilitating this has been my entire life. Better late than never. I guess. It suddenly occurs to me that this is why wisdom doesn’t seem to stick; I repeatedly have to learn these patterns over again. It feels like psychological amnesia. Hence the school nightmare.

But what I do have is a toolbox, a repertoire of resources, developed over the decades. At 70, I finally have a doctor I trust and love. That only took way too long. I have a therapist who knows me now, 3 years into treatment. A support system of friends. I know who has my back. Those things take a lifetime to develop when you are dysfunctional. And they are precious.

That’s the only gift I have for you this Christmas – learn psychological self care. Learn to recognize when you are being gaslit, yes. More importantly, learn to catch yourself when you are gaslighting yourself. When you are undermining your self esteem, or making compromises that threaten your integrity.

Will I continue to have nightmares of being back in school all my life? I suspect I will. I am certainly committed to being a student all my life. I would never want to stop learning and growing. I would never want to stop being curious. Just a little more curious than scared. That’s all it takes to keep moving forward. As my Mom Doris would say, “move along smartly now.”

You’re in the constant company of God. Act accordingly.