8 Reasons to Bump Conventional Wisdom...

These days, I am loving Rachelle's Magpie Girl blog. Reading articles in the archives. Laughing. Groaning. Feeling challenged and inspired. Printing out lots of stuff and gluing it into my journal. A few weeks ago, she wrote about the potential dangers of listening to conventional wisdom. She wrote: One of the things we’ve been talking about in our Standing in Your Own Power series is the difference between external sources of authority (institutions, cultural messages, etc) and internal sources of authority (The Muse, intuition, etc.) External sources often come cloaked in the guise of “conventional wisdom.” There are of course, good examples of conventional wisdom. “Look both ways before crossing the street” comes immediately to mind. But there are plenty of dubious CW soundbites as well.

So below, I have listed a few tidbits of conventional wisdom that I have heard in recent years - along with a few reason why I am saying "bump your conventional wisdom."

1. All of life is a competition, so give your kids real grades and a real transcript. Otherwise, how will they get into college? WHAT? What on earth does a transcript with class names and random numbers tell about a young man or a young woman? What can a college counselor know about someone based on several pages with numbers? What about a portfolio of photographs taken along with essays written, field trips described, family events and trips documented, and prose descriptions of life here at The Silvermine Academy? Don't those count for something???

2. Homeschooling provides a false sense of security; you can't protect your kids from the real world. WHAT? I'm not trying to protect my children from the real world; I just want to delay their entrance into it. Here's the way I see it: if my children live to be 80 years old and spend the first 18 years at home with me, they will be blessed to have had such a great, family-centered start to life. If, for some tragic reason, my children only live to be 18, they will have spent their entire lives hanging out with and learning from their family members. How can either of those scenarios be bad?

3. Your kids are probably smarter than everybody else; homeschoolers are usually so smart. WHAT? My children are as smart as they are supposed to be at this point in their lives. Far more important than any column of numbers or capital letters on any single sheet of paper is the fact that they are loving siblings and fearless travelers and loyal friends and respectful grandchildren and funny, moody, insightful, curious, stubborn, caring, emotional, multi-layered people who bring oodles of joy and creativity and humor and kindness everywhere they go.

4. You have to join a church in order to participate in the activities of the church. And once you are a member of a church, you have to commit to attend every service and event the church puts on. WHAT? Recently, I was accused of not being in church enough, of not showing up at enough of the Sunday morning services. Is someone really looking out into the sanctuary and taking note that I am NOT in attendance? Since I heard that report (which I hope was merely a rumor) I have made the decision to never attend that service again. I have broken that promise to myself only once - because my daughter was singing with the youth choir. Soon after her choir sat down, I walked out.

5. Family togetherness is crucial, especially in the evening. Having each person go to a separate space in the house is not a healthy way to live. WHAT? See the earlier points in this list - I am a homeschooling mother. I spend all day with my children. So when evening rolls around, if they want to watch American Idol, Ten Things I Hate About You, Glee, or whatever the heck else they want to watch in the family room with their father, I race to my bedroom or my study and hide away for as long as possible. No questions asked. And nowadays I head over to the local community college campus two nights a week for Beginners Italian. By the way, the professor's name is Valentino. But do I really have to call him "Professor" if I am old enough to be his mother - (if I had been a 19-year-old mom)???

6. The number on the bathroom scale or on the label at the back of a garment is a measure of your worth or strength or value or beauty or age or self-control. WHAT? I am 44 years old. Most of my friends are in their 30s or older. When am I going to stop measuring myself by those ridiculous numbers? Not that I should have paid attention to those numbers when I was in my teens or 20s either.

Someone I love dearly has struggled in the past 18 months with her weight - which has risen due to medication she takes. I know it's tough for her to see the number on the scale not go in the direction she wants it to go at the speed she wants it to change. I wish I could throw that darn scale out the window of her bathroom. I wish she would trust her body and herself to learn how to make good choices for food and movement and rest - and love herself every step of the way. Every single step.

I wish "society" didn't plant so many seeds of self-loathing and self-doubt in the fertile soil of our minds and souls with regard to our bodies. Our bodies carry us thru so many challenging situations and into so many victorious ones. Our bodies lift us and move us and hold us. Yet we torture them and starve them and hate them and punish them and never allow them to just be - and love them as they are, no matter what they weigh. Plus whatever odd rules and feelings we have about our own bodies, we often try to foist onto others. We try to tell each other what we are supposed to look like or weigh at a certain height and age. We tell each other what to eat and what not eat, whether or not to cut our hair, what vitamins and supplements and minerals to add or subtract from our regimens, and a whole host of other things. I am preaching to myself here, folks. I include myself in all of this --> I do this same kind of judging and belittling and advising of the people around me. Why can't we all just get along?

If you have a daughter or know and love a young girl or look for glimpses of your younger self when you peer into the mirror, tell her (and yourself) she is beautiful and strong and perfect just as she is right now. I need to do that next time I'm in front of the mirror and the next time I see my daughter. We both need to hear that simple and profound truth over and over again.

By the way, you are beautiful and perfect and strong just as you are right now.

7. Starve a cold; feed a fever. Or is it feed a cold and starve a fever. (This one was suggested by my husband.) WHAT? I try to eat when I'm  hungry - and when I'm not hungry too. After all, I don't want to take any chances on being underfed. I try to drink lots of water - but not wait until I am thirsty because by the time I feel thirsty, I'm most likely dehydrated already. And I try really hard not to get sick.

8. Eat your dinner/lunch first. Then have dessert. WHAT? One of the best lunches I have ever had was at a local restaurant called 131 Main. It consisted of key lime pie and a lemon drop martini. Yes, folks - a martini lunch - with pie. Yum, yum! I am planning to die with dessert in my stomach. But since I have no idea of when I'm going to die, I always try to have dessert on hand for spontaneous, "this might be the end of the world" consumption.


Care to share any of your favorite tidbits of conventional wisdom? Especially the ones you have rejected...

What the funk?

Andre Hairston has his own army. Loyal followers who attend his exercise classes all over the city of Charlotte. We, I mean they, join the Y or Sports Connection or simply cough up cold hard cash in order to be in his presence for an hour at a time, several times per week, in order to get our funk on, Cardio Funk that is. It's the real deal. Dancing and jumping and singing and doing jumping jacks and laughing and gulping down swigs of water between songs and hoping he'll come dance next to us, I mean them, and sweating, so much sweating. It is the toughest workout I've ever done - and also the most fun.

My daughter and I went to Funkytown last night. As I danced and shook my groove thang, I found myself getting annoyed. The woman in front of me was consistently off beat. Doing it all wrong. Why the heck did she have to be in front of me? And the woman in front of her was even worse.

So I told myself to keep my eyes on the floor. Just do my own thing. I know how to do the workout. I know what the moves are, so just do it. Keep my eyes on Andre or at least on somebody else who knows what the funk they are doing.

During the class, Andre makes us turn and face all four walls in the gym. He moves from place to place in the room and we, his loyal followers, follow him with our eyes and our bodies. When he's in the back of the room, we are all facing the back of the room. When he's at one side wall, we face that wall. Last night, I was all the way on the right side of the room - and at various points, when he would come over to my side of the room, I was aware that everyone in the room was behind me, facing me, but watching him. At those moments, I wondered if I was on beat, leading the processional well or leading others astray. How did my butt look in my shorts? Was my shirt covering everything that needed to be covered or was I displaying more than anyone in the room needed or wished to see? I was glad every time he moved on from my side of the gym. I was far more comfortable criticizing others for their faulty moves than I was with the thought that they might be criticizing me.

Care to take a listen to my inner dialogue during last night's class? Here goes:

Can these people even hear the music? Their moves are so wrong that maybe they can't hear it at all. Nobody can be this confused if they can actually hear the music.

But if they can't hear the music, then it is all the more impressive that they are here and moving their bodies and getting their sweat on anyway.


What is she doing here? She's already in great shape. Why doesn't she stay home and leave space for others who need this class?


What is he doing here? Since when do guys take workout classes like this? That's some outfit, dude. You don't look too crazy. Not at all.


It's too late for her; she will never catch on to the cardio funk craze. She may as well go get on a treadmill; she is a lost cause here.


Who am I kidding? It's too late for me too; I'm 44 years old. If I'm not in good shape at this point, it's never going to happen. I may as well stop now and head over to Fresh Market for cannoli and plum wine.


Gail, what are you doing thinking about this crap? Just move your body. Take care of your own business and stop judging everybody. What the funk are you thinking about all this stuff for?


Oh, shoot. There I go, losing the beat again. Keep your eyes on the prize, G. Keep moving.


What if it's okay for some people to never be on the beat? What if "being on beat" is simply another category that I have defined in order to judge others and try to make myself look or feel better? How many other such categories have I created?


You don't know anybody else's story, so you have no idea what it took to get each of these people here tonight. Nobody here knows your story either, so don't worry about what other people think of you. (Turns out that for the woman in front of the woman in front of me last night was her first time in the class. Once I found that out, my thoughts changed completely. For a first-timer, she had done quite well.)




Don't you remember? Everybody is so busy worrying about how they look and how they're doing that they have no time to think about what you're doing or how you look. People spend so much time thinking about themselves that they barely notice anyone else. Just like you, Gail. Just like you.

It is okay to close your eyes and do your own thing. You don't have to watch what anybody else is doing. You don't have to follow anybody else. And you can be wrong, too. You will frequently be wrong, in fact. Right now, you are wrong in how judgmental you are being. But sometimes being wrong is the right thing to be. Just don't stop moving. Don't stop dancing. Don't stop thinking or challenging yourself to think better and more clearly either.


Not even Andre gets it right every single time. But he sure does look like he's having fun every single time. And he is in fantastic shape.


Just shut up and dance. Or don't shut up - sing along with the songs. Laugh. Smile at other people. We are all in this sweat box together. Working hard. Making the most of a very difficult situation.

In spite of all that hyperdramatic psychobabble, I managed to get a great workout. And I recalled the time I took that class at a different Y and we steamed up the mirrors so much that, by the end of the hour, we couldn't see ourselves or each other at all. That was a fabulous moment for me: I can't see them. They can't see me. Freedom!


And absolutely no thing about that class made me think about my spiritual life.
Or my life with my husband and children.
Or my tattered and battered and delicately repaired friendships.
Or making the decision to leave our church.
Nothing at all.

Anonymous...

I spend most of my day, most of my life, surrounded by family and friends.
Creating art, reading stories, taking and teaching classes.
Talking, laughing, listening to and telling stories.

Singing, dancing, exercising and watching television.
Driving, shopping, eating salad and drinking coffee.

But at the same time, I feel contentedly, happily, joyfully all alone.

At home in my inner solitude. At peace with my inner silence.

Ever aware that my heart and soul are mine to tend and nurture and protect.

Surrounded on all sides. Under observation. Close scrutiny.

Seen, but unseen.

Noticed, but unnoticed.

Known, but profoundly unknown.

Anonymous.


Anonymity has its advantages.

The End of the Road

This week is a week of farewells. Not mine, fortunately.

My niece, Clare, has spent this academic year in Madrid, and will be making her way back to the States very soon. A dear friend, Judy, has spent this year teaching in Infantes, a tiny town a couple of hours outside of Madrid, and she too will be making her way across the ocean in the coming few days.

To say that I have been jealous of the time Clare and Judy have spent in Spain, traveling, learning, growing, changing, being transformed beyond all they could have hoped for or imagined, is to put it exceedingly mildly.

And, last but by no means least, Launa and her family, who have spent this year in a tiny town in France, are coming back to the States this weekend. Launa is someone I taught with for two years ages ago, but I feel like I have gotten to know her far better this year thru emails and blogs and facebook chats than I did in two years of living on the same boarding school campus and teaching the same students up in Connecticut.

As their sojourn there is drawing to a close, Launa has been writing some beautiful pieces on mystery and love and family and fear and lust and home (wherever that is...) and the wonder of her life journey - and by extension, our collective life journey.

Here's a bit of useless but tangentially relevant trivia - if you have seen or ever get the chance to see the movie, Away We Go, the scene in that movie where that young couple visits the wacky family at the University of Wisconsin - that scene was filmed at the school where Launa and I taught together: The Taft School in Watertown, Connecticut. The classroom they enter where they first meet up with their friend - I taught in the room next door to that one!!! More useless trivia - but totally irrelevant: that entire movie was filmed in Connecticut, every scene.

Traveling mercies to all three of you: Clare, Judy, and Launa. Not one of you has any idea how important you are in my life, how often I think of you and pray for you, and how much of an idol of mine you are.

Dreaming in Spanish, dreaming of Spain

This evening at Barnes and Noble, I came across a book entitled Dreaming in Hindi, written by Katherine Russell Rich. It is the memoir of a woman who spent a year in India studying the Hindi language. After telling a funny story in the introduction of wrapping herself in a sari incorrectly and having it fall to the floor in front of several people in a temple in her adopted home city, the author wrote: "This book is about what happens if you allow yourself to get swept up by a passion. The short answer is this: inevitably, at some point, you come unwrapped."


Oh, the joy and danger and beauty and nakedness of  being swept up in a passion.
And there are so many passions to get swept into.

Here are a few of my personal favorites.

* journaling - with scissors and stickers and magazines and glue sticks and markers nearby

* Spain - the language, the food, the art, the architecture, the people, the land itself

* travel - packing, the airport, flying, arriving, discovering new vistas, adventures of all kinds

* reading - non-fiction, mostly. Art and artists. Travel. Journaling. Making travel sacred.

* love - doesn't love, in all its forms, sweep us up and away? The love of spouses and lovers. The love of family members. The love of friends. The love of the ones who defy explanation and definition, the ones who live across the country or across the ocean and carry with them a significant chunk of your soul grafted onto their own.

Picking up that book tonight reminded me of that fateful morning in the fall of 1986 when I awoke from a night of deep sleep in Madrid and realized that I had dreamt in Spanish. In another language. I think that was the same day that I realized that my soul had found its resting place right there on the Calle Irati.

When I was in Spain this past September, I walked back to that tiny street, only one block long, and stood across the street from that house, staring, smiling, remembering, feeling very much at home. Again.

I remembered walking to school many mornings because I didn't have enough money to take the bus, but I loved every minute of it, every step. I remembered sitting on park benches early that semester, watching children play, running, shouting to one another in a language I had yet to understand, nevermind master. I remembered that as the semester drew to a close, I had the thrill of being able to give directions to passersby, some tourists and some locals, who were lost. I remember one person asking me if I'd been born in Spain. Who, me?

September 2009 - Gazing into the eyes of my young Spanish soul -

embodied in the infant daughter of the boyfriend I had in 1986...

that story deserves a-whole-nother blog.

Now that I think about it, I was born in Spain. Born again. Born anew. It was in Madrid that I came unwrapped. My identity as an American, as a New Yorker who happened to attend college in Massachusetts and happened to have chosen to spend a semester in Spain, was pulled off and thrown away. What I saw when I looked beneath the wrapping, what I saw when I looked in the mirror, when I looked at the pages of my journal, and when I looked deep into my soul, was the truth that I am a Madrilena, a Spaniard, who happened to be born in Brooklyn and to have spent most of my life in the United States.

That's what I look like in Madrid, 

a portrait of contentment.

It was in Madrid that I began to dream in the language my mouth, heart, and soul still turn to whenever I am angry and in love and most happy and most sad. It was in Madrid that I recognized that I am most happy when I am alone. Alone walking. Alone eating. Along looking at art. Alone looking at people. Alone - knowing that no one who knows me knows where I am or what I'm doing. Alone - and at peace. My soul came unwrapped.

A horrible Madrid sunrise last September-

it was the morning of the day I left Spain to return to the States

It was there in Madrid in the fall of 1986  that I granted every single one of my passions space to grow - travel, journaling, reading, walking, solitude, and love. That fateful, life-changing, soul-awakening fall. And it is to Madrid that I return as often as possible - which has added up to more than 20 trips since that first one. When I cannot return there physically, I pull out photos and journals and momentos of other kinds and I remember who I am and where I belong - and for just a few moments, I go home.

I dreamt in Spanish for the first time nearly 24 years ago.
I have dreamt of Spain nearly every night since.


And all it took to bring all that back to mind was the title of a book on the Memoirs table at a local bookstore: Dreaming in Hindi.

8 Things - Small Gratitudes

Magpie Girl has a wonderful little thing she does every week called 8* Things. I love her lists. And this week, I decided to imitate her and make a list of eight things I am grateful for tonite.

1. Breaking and entering into my mother's apartment with a dear friend - and sipping rose brut while laughing and crying and eating red velvet cupcakes and planning our own private prison break

2. Prismacolor markers in a rainbow of colors

3. cardio funk class - breaking a serious sweat

4. the impending visit of Lisa!!!

5. the season's first sweet, seedless watermelon

6. getting our shower fixed - no more dripping

7. Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap

8. you tube videos on art journaling, especially this one and this one.
I actually made a journal for myself based on that first video. Yay!!!

Feeling like an imposter...

It's Mother's Day. I awoke to coffee made by my hubby. Then a gift bag full of goodies. A magnificent lunch a few hours later. Time with a new and dear friend while sipping smoothies on a gorgeous afternoon. Now I'm back at home. Reading. Eating key lime pie. Sipping ice water. It has been a fantastic day.

So why do I feel like an imposter?

From the moment I left the hospital with Kristiana and the birthing center with Daniel nearly three years later, I have felt like an imposter as a mother. Who me? Fully responsible for raising these kids? Then making the insane decision to homeschool them? When "the parenting police" find out about me, how disorganized I am, how infrequently I actually make lesson plans, how haphazardly I clean and cook and do laundry, then "they" will intervene and send "a real mom" to take care of these kids. And when these children, now teenagers, wake up and discover how deeply flawed and insecure and imperfect and downright selfish I am, they will contact "the parenting police," request reassignment, and kick my sorry self to the curb.

And not only that - what about this marriage thing? Who me? Spend the rest of my life with one man? Submit to him? Watch sports with him forever? Cook for, clean up after, and be responsible and accountable to one man forever? Endure the sounds and smells and needsand demands of one man? Forever?

Let me reiterate here - and not only because Steve occasionally reads my blog, but also because it is absolute truth - my husband is the most generous, kind, gentle man I have ever known, other than my father. He doesn't "allow" me to travel alone and take classes and go out with my friends and buy books and journals and art supplies whenever I want to. He ENCOURAGES me to do all of the above - often. But the dichotomy between what I think about marriage and the reality of my marriage is exactly the point: I often feel like an imposter in my own life. When he figures out how selfish and mean-spirited and ungrateful and resentful I am most of the time, he too will request reassignment and send me packing.

And don't let me get started on how much of an imposter I KNOW that I am every time I set foot into church. Who me? Obey all those rules? Be perfect? Love with unconditional love? Sing every verse of every song in tune? Attend all those classes and studies and live them out in daily life? Pretend I don't notice the imbalance of power and unbalanced leaders? Translate from one language to another in front of 350+ people on a weekly basis - when I'm not off playing hooky with family or by myself?

If those people only knew the truth about what I think and feel and believe...
No, let me restate that - WHEN those people find out the truth...

I am becoming more and more convinced that when the wall around my soul finally comes down, as I choose to reveal more layers of myself to my husband, my children, my friends, my cotravelers on this faith journey I'm on, as we all do that, tell our stories, share our sadness and our joyfullness, as we ask for help when we need it and accept it when it is offered, we will all breathe several deep sighs of relief. We will all see how flawed and beautiful and fearful and whole and strong and overwhelmed we all are and feel at times - sometimes all at the same time.


Currently, I'm reading a book entitled: Beneath the Mask of Holiness: Thomas Merton and the Forbidden Love Affair that Set Him Free. That title alone is enough to prompt a long series of journal entries and potential blog posts... but I digress.

In the book, the author explains the background to and the actuality of a relationship Thomas Merton had with a student nurse in the mid-1960's. The section I'm in right now is focusing on Merton's deep discontent as a monk, as a man set apart from the world, and as a person who felt he'd never learned to love women selflessly before becoming a monk and was uncertain if he could ever love God selflessly as a monk. He felt like an imposter.

I get that. I sooooo get that.

On page 134 of the book, Merton is described this way: The catalyst for Merton's final steps to truly loving God, and God alone, was the gift of Margie, but before this could occur, Merton realized he needed to cast away the dark side that had been shadowing him before and, most surprisingly, during, his days as a monk. Few had any idea such a blemished, flawed Merton existed since, as biographer Michael Mott noted, "[Merton] had always kept, and was always to keep, his inner turmoil from others. At most, they would notice that he seemed preoccupied." Father Basil Pennington called Merton "a very private person," and fellow monk Father Timothy Kelly agreed. After reading portions of Merton's private journals, he noted "[I never knew] the amount of struggle he was going through... none of this came through in a personal relationship. I had no idea all that was going on."

That's what journals are for. That's what friends are for. That's what silence and solitude are for. To provide and hold space for our selves and each other to peel off the masks of holiness and perfection, to process the flaws and scars and blemishes, fears and doubts, the sorrows and tears, the love and lust, all of it. We can be preoccupied sometimes. Deeply private at others. We can struggle sometimes. And walk with our heads held high at others. All the while, we grow and thrive and are being transformed in a safe place where we learn to love our selves and each other as we really are. Naked and unafraid. Laid bare. Nestled in a cocoon of love and patience and tenderness as we await the growth of our new skin and our wings.

The great thing is that as I take chances with telling the truth about what I need and want and dream and hope for, as I tell Steve, tell my children, tell my friends, and most importantly, as I tell myself the whole truth and nothing but the truth, gradually these feelings of being an imposter will fade. In actuality, they are already fading.

I am a wife. Restless and relentless.
I am a mother. Unprepared and unsure.
I am a daughter and a sister - and a whole lot of other things.
Complicated, contented, expectant, exhausted, hungry and hopeful - and whole lot of other things.
I am not an imposter.
I am the real thing.


PS. If you are interested in knowing more about Thomas Merton's forbidden love affair, read Learning to Love, the 6th volume of his journals. It is one of my favorite books.

For strong women, women of strength, and those of us who wanna be both...

This was sent to me earlier this week from a dear friend... Thanks, Miakoda.
I send this out to you, some of the strongest women (and men) I know.
*********************

A strong woman works out every day to keep her body in shape ...
But a woman of strength kneels in prayer to keep her soul in shape...

A strong woman isn't afraid of anything ..
But a woman of strength shows courage in the midst of her fear...

A strong woman won't let anyone get the best of her ...
But a woman of strength gives the best of herself to everyone...

A strong woman makes mistakes and attempts to avoid making the same ones in the future...
A woman of strength realizes life's mistakes can also be God's blessings...

A strong woman walks sure footedly...
But a woman of strength knows God will catch her when she falls...

A strong woman wears the look of confidence on her face ...
But a woman of strength wears grace...

A strong woman has faith that she is strong enough for the journey ...
But a woman of strength has faith that it is in the journey that she will become strong...

He told the truth...where?

I"ll never forget the time I heard someone say: "I'm gonna be honest with you. There's a part of me that I'm saving, keeping for myself, in case this whole God thing doesn't work out."

It was a pastor, speaking from the pulpit one Sunday night.
It was the most honest, humble, risky thing I've ever heard in church.

Breaking out of prison...

There's a page in my most recent journal that has a magazine cut out at the top of a page. The cut out is the title of an article from a local newspaper I picked up back in December in North Myrtle Beach: "Leaving the Prison of Shoulds: A Journey into Authenticity."

I am doing just that: leaving the prison of shoulds. Digging a hole in the wall of my cell. Hiding the dirt in my pants pockets every time I go outside to walk the dog. Breaking free. One day at a time. One "should" at a time. Here are a few of the bars I'm slowly cutting my way through.

* I should get up at 6 am, before everyone else gets up, and do something profound and important.

* I should have a well-crafted plan for every day from breakfast until bedtime.

* I should be reading the classics with my children, teaching them both latin and classical music, and preparing them for an ivy league education that will be paid for with full academic scholarships.

* I should have done more research before choosing our many doctors, dentists, and, most recently, our orthodontist.

* I should not have given up my Jaguar and gone back to my minivan.

* I should go back to teaching after the kids are off to college.

* I should never invite internet friends home.

* I shouldn't buy so many pens, paints, markers, journals, or pads of watercolor paper.

* I should relax, loosen up, and be authentically me.

* I should answer the phone every time it rings.

* I should always say "yes" whenever anyone asks me to do something.

* I should be good and kind and polite and loving and patient all the time.

* I should understand my role as a wife and mother and daughter and daughter-in-law and and church member never question those roles. Ever.

* I should have nothing but great things to report when someone asks me how I'm doing.

* I should write a blog post two or three times each week. And what I write had better be of substance. Fluff, not allowed.

* I should read all of my friends' blogs religiously and leave comments on each one.

* I should not eat candy or meat or bread or blue corn chips or red australian licorice or anything with artificial flavors, colors, or any chemicals whatsoever.

* And I should definitely not eat anything, good for me or bad for me, after 7 pm.

* I should be available to anyone and everyone all the time.

* I should answer every question I'm asked and every email and text that I receive.

* I should go on Facebook more regularly, respond to status changes, photo uploads, and comments on my status.

* I should not have any secrets from anyone for any reason.

* I should talk about my faith all the time, after all, everything relates to faith somehow.

* I should go to church every time the doors open.
When I get there, I am should sit down and shut up - because, after all, I'm a woman.

* I should be more submissive, more quiet, more feminine, less opinionated, less outspoken, less aggressive.

* I should stop making lists of all the "shoulds" I need to break free from.

* I should stop blaming my ridiculous list of shoulds on anyone else and take full ownership of all the impossible rules I set for myself.

* I should expect other people to understand my faith~life journey and support me on it.

* After a very sweaty zumba workout at the Y this evening, I should go take a nice, hot shower.

Wait - I should hang onto those last few "shoulds" on the list.

Feeling better already...

A few cups of tea. Some furious journal writing. Exercise.
Good conversation. Deep sleep. And I'm feeling much better.
Hear my deep sigh. Inhale. Wait. Exhale. Wait. Repeat.


This life thing is no joke!

One sad cashier at the local Trader Joe's told me that his good friend drowned last Thursday.

After nearly a year of being unable to find work, one friend's financial equilibrium is nearly at a point of becoming severely compromised.

The sister of a friend in Spain has cancer. Serious cancer. Undergoing chemo. Praying to avoid amputation.

Many other accounts of cancer and chemo in the lives of friends and their families. Too many to tell here.

A local teenage driver is recovering from a car accident in which she was thrown from her car, hit by the car, and than the car landed on top of her after it flipped over. She has been in the hospital for over a month. (Wear your seatbelts, folks. It's that simple.)


And I complain that I have to get up from the computer to go downstairs and vacuum the family room again because no one else will do it. I complain because I have to walk the dog and cook dinner and drive my kids to tennis and piano lessons. I complain for so many reasons... most of which seem mighty small after hearing these sorrowful accounts recently.


But when I think of the devastation of war and illness and poverty and loneliness and violence and abandonment and cancer and drowning death and car accidents, I am forced to step away from the distorted mirror I've been gazing into of late, to extinguish the candles on my pity cake with a bucket of water, and get back to the business of giving thanks with a grateful heart for the countless blessings I have been given.

With that in mind, I will share a brief list of things I am grateful for on this chilly Wednesday afternoon in Charlotte:

* A trip today to a local Latino market, Compare. Walking thru, picking out yummy foods and drinks, all the while talking to and laughing with my new friend, Mary Anna, and her gorgeous son, Jacob.

* Time on the tennis court with my son today. He is quite the gifted player and handsome young man. But I suspect that I am somewhat biased.

* My daughter's increased proficiency on the piano and guitar. It is a joy to hear her playing again. My sweet girl has had some real challenges over the past 18 months, but she is rebounding with strength and poise and grace - and I am ridiculously proud of her.

* My newly developed love for art journaling. Thick, juicy watercolor paper, big fat markers, glue sticks, cut-up magazines, watercolor and acrylic paint on my fingers and under my fingernails - it's a wonder-filled way to spend a few hours at the dining room table.

* An upcoming visit from Lisa, my Ohio-based buddy. There will be much tea drinking, walking, and late night chatter. And some art making as well, I suspect.

* Sunshine after rain.

* Our bright red teapot filled with hot Tega Rooibos tea.

* Sharing that tea with my children while we sit at the table and read.

* My brand new organic pillow. It is wonderful to wake up in the morning with my nose NOT stuffed or running or otherwise making my morning miserable.

* Dr Bronner's peppermint soap.

* Friendship, especially the kind that lasts and deepens and keeps no record of wrongs.

* Good books with endings that do not disappoint.

* My upcoming return to the university: I am taking a beginning italian class at a local community college this summer. I haven't been a geeky student for over a decade. I am thrilled. Gonna get a new pocket protector one of these days! I'll be taking that class with the aforementioned, Mary Anna. We both love Italian music - I am partial to Andrea Bocelli, but she knows many other Italian singers and has shared some of them with me. Che bella la musica italiana! My goal is to be able to speak well enough to communicate freely on my next trip to Italy. Not sure when that will be, but I'll be ready whenever it happens.

* I am healthy. I am at peace. I am loved.

A volcano eruption in Charlotte...

My life is a mess. I am a mess. An utter and total disaster. Not because anything in my family or house or neighborhood has changed in the past 24 hours, but because I have changed. I am changing. I am looking at and listening to myself in new ways, in old ways, in ways I neither need nor care to define.

Some old stuff has been brought to the surface again. Old feelings. Old dreams. They are dreams and feelings and wishes and yearnings that I thought I'd successfully gotten over or past or around, only to find that it's all still there. Whatever the hell "it" is.

Like the one in Iceland, this volcano of emotions has roared back to life and is spewing ash and lava and dust and messiness all over my life. Mind, soul, and spiritual travel have come to a full stop because I've been thrown off my normal flight path. Into new ways of thinking, of looking at my life, of sharing who I am with the people I know and love.

I find that I'm crying a lot more these days. And journaling almost non-stop. And fervently praying for an end to the eruption. But also sitting in and with it and getting burned and cleansed and clear. Very clear. Clear about who I am and what I want and who I am not and what I no longer want.

I've been told countless times in recent years to "be yourself. tell the truth. stop holding back. live passionately. be real. take better care of yourself. be happy." Heck, just this week, I bought a little wall hanging that speaks of living passionately and not holding anything back. It hangs neatly next to the door in my kitchen that leads to my garage and out into the world.

One thing I know for sure is that if I did all those things, if I gave in and allowed myself to be true to my dreams and my desires, if I ever walked out of my kitchen and got into my minivan with all those words of advice and encouragement in mind and actually followed through on them... I hesitate to even finish that statement in public. Well, let me say this, if I did all that stuff, I wouldn't be sitting here at my computer in Charlotte, North Carolina on a late April night. Not hardly. Not even close.


Not long ago, I was walking through a market in Spain with a friend of mine who lives in a situation where he never has to cook for himself. I asked him if he ever has the desire to cook. He said, "When those feelings come up, Gail, I sit down and wait for them pass." I laughed. But I also shuddered - because those words describe what I do every single day of my life.

Every day that I feel the urge to grab my passport and head for the airport,
Every day that I feel the urge to say what I really think and ask for what I really want,
Every day that I feel the urge to yell and scream and curse somebody out and punch somebody in the face,
Every day that I feel the urge to eat and drink myself into oblivion,
Every day that I feel the urge to NOT take care of anyone or anything other than myself,
Every day that I feel the urge to NOT cook or clean or drive anybody anywhere,
Every day that I feel the urge to NOT be good and kind and patient and polite,
every one of those days - which coincidentally turns out to be every day -
I sit down and breathe and wait a while until the feelings pass.

And they do pass.
Most of the time.
Sometimes.
Every now and then.
But never for long.
Never for long.

Well, I'd better go and figure out what to do with all this hot lava that seems to be flowing from my eyes down onto my shirt and into my journal.

One of those weeks...

You know how some weeks are calm and quiet?
Easy and simple?
Relaxed and restful?
Everything goes according to plan?


You know how sometimes you have a week when
you get through all your to-do lists,
answer all your emails, return all your phone calls,
pay all the bills, prepare all the lessons,
exercise everyday and eat well all week long?

Well, this past week was NOT one of those weeks.

(Just so you know - I have NEVER had one of those weeks.
But this week was even more unlike those weeks than ever.)


I'm not saying that it was a bad week. It was a fantastic week.

The Rosecliff Rascals at the waterfalls, Chimney Rock, NC.

I am proud to be the baby of the group!

It started off a week ago yesterday, when I left my home and went away for what we dubbed "The First Annual Brownes Pond Lane Women's Weekend Away." One of the women on my street owns a gorgeous log cabin up on Lake Adger. The six of us sat around eating and drinking and talking and laughing - and then we hiked for a couple of hours on Saturday to burn off all the lemon tart we'd eaten on Friday night.

Then we ate and drank some more and talked and told stories until the week hours of Sunday morning. Other than the small scorpion I saw in the bathroom on Sunday morning (who knew there were scorpions in North Carolina???) , I managed to avoid running into any non-human critters. Of the human kind, there were far too many! I'd love to go back up to that house and spend a weekend alone and in silence. It is the perfect place to sneak off to for deep solitude and rest.

The lake glistened as the sun went down.

A completely unaltered photo...

(Who am I kidding? I don't alter any of my photos.

I don't even know how...)

Then on Monday, a dear, dear friend of mine, a friend I met when Kristiana, now 16, was only six weeks old, drove all the way down to Charlotte from Connecticut with her three children and her mother. We ate and drank and sat by their hotel pool and talked and laughed and bowled and walked and ate some more and watched the kids play tennis and ping pong and a form of mini-golf.

Daniel goes for a strike...

And between all that, I interpreted at the funeral of the husband of a friend of mine, prepared for and taught a class at a local senior living community, took my daughter to her piano lesson, shopped at the supermarket, cooked, cleaned, took my son to his tennis lesson and clinic, took my daughter to her volunteer job, took my children to youth group at the church, and performed a host of other tasks too numerous, mundane, and vitally important to the maintenance of my household to list here.

The crew enjoying ice cream and Karen taking a photo from the other side...

It was a fantastic week. But it was a week that kept me away from the gym (truly disturbing considering all the eating I have done in the past week!!!), from my study, from my desk, from my journal (gasp!), and from a time of connection with my own soul.

I could tell you that my body is exhausted - and it is.
But what is most pressing for me now is that my soul is also tired and in need to rest.
So I'm gonna take a few more days to regroup, after which I will emerge from my cocoon with more stories.

Yes, it was one of those weeks...
and I loved (nearly) every minute of it.

Confessions of a Turtle Hunter

Our family loves turtles. It's a group love affair. When we see them, we all smile. We watch them with focused concentration until they disappear under the surface of the water or under a bush. When we see them swimming in ponds or climbing up on logs sticking up out of water, we stop and stare and take photos. When we see them crossing roads, we stop and pick them up and carry them to safety. Once we were on the off ramp of a local highway, speeding along at 60 miles per hour, and we saw a turtle. A big one. On the off ramp. If there wasn't a line of cars following closely, we would have stopped, and one of us would almost definitely have been killed trying to protect that turtle.

Two weeks ago, I left home for an early morning stroll to Starbucks. Backpack on. Camera at hand. As I passed two nearby ponds, I spotted a few of our favorite mobile home residents - turtles, I mean. 

The funniest thing about taking these pictures was that as soon as I closed the lens and put my camera back into its pouch, the turtles slipped into the water and out of sight. Within seconds of being captured in these images, my hard-covered friends faded from view.

Which got me to thinking... how many of my friends, my human friends, that is, are like my turtle friends?

* Some of them cluster together and bask together in the sunlight of the friendships they share in a group. I once attended a conference for bloggers out in San Francisco, and most of the folks there were fantastically open and friendly. But there were also a few cliques, gaggles of gals who,when I approached, tried to join the conversation or asked what they were talking about, they disappeared, dispersed, ran and hid.

* Then there are the danger-seekers. The ones who separate from the group and cross through dangerous territory into still more dangerous territory. Just as I do when I see a turtle crossing a four lane road, I wonder about my fearless friends, "Where are you going? What do you think you are going to find on the other side of the road that doesn't exist where you already are?" And like the nosy interloper I am wont to be, I intervene, intercede, and try to rescue people that have not asked me - or anyone - to save them. Not surprisingly, those people scurry away as quickly as their turtle-icious legs will carry them.

* Some of them remain at a distance, never allowing me to get too close, and as soon as I reach out with an email or attempt to make contact by text or telephone, they disappear under the water line. Perhaps they are afraid I will do them harm or capture them and put them into a tank and deprive them of their precious freedom. Truly, I come in peace.

* But I save my best hunting, haunting, and manipulating skills for the people in my life who allow me to get close for a while and then pull back and choose to stay hidden in their shells. Unwilling to accept that everyone has as much right as I do to withdraw, to withhold, to pull back, to hold back, to be elusive, to be alone, I prod and probe and pick and pull and beg and plead and pester until, you guessed it, the friend in question retreats into the shell that each of us has been given in order to protect our soft underbellies, our tender and sweet spots.

* The turtles I like best, however, the ones I am most proud to have come to know, are the ones that are firm on the outside, soft on the inside, the ones that feel soft in my hands, and firm in my mouth. The outer shell of these turtles falls to small pieces with the slightest pressure from my teeth, and the insides slide smoothly across my tongue and down my throat.

Have you ever eaten a turtle? Have you?

My favorites are the ones made with milk chocolate and pecans.

No dark chocolate for me.

Did you think I was talking about eating a turtle, a real turtle?

* Seriously, from the many turtle types that have crept and crawled across the road that is my life, I am learning the most important lesson of my life: to mind my own business. One of my new favorite sayings is this: "It's not my story. It's your story."

I want some friends to be more attentive, more responsive, more available to me and for me. I want my children to act and look and speak and perform certain things in a certain way by a certain time. Same thing with my husband, my mother, my three brothers, my neighbors, my pastors (who are destined to become my ex-pastors!), and nearly everybody in my life.

But it's their story; it is NOT my story.

I have given up chasing the turtle-friends that want to hide.

I have given up rescuing the wounded and sick ones.

I have given up trying to join teams of turtles that turn and dive underwater when I approach.

I have given up protecting the thrill-seekers.

To all my turtle friends out there, please forgive me for any and everything I have done to cause you harm or make you feel endangered. My turtle hunting days are behind me. I say it again: I come in peace.


Here's my current story: I have turned my turtle-friend-people hunting skills to the far more enjoyable and rewarding pursuit of turtle statues and turtle welcome mats. Here are two I found in Rome a couple of years ago.

Traveling mercies to all my shell-bound buddies.

Take good care of your hides, I mean, your shells.

"With all that good stuff you put in..."

My mother tells the story of cooking a meal when she was a young girl. Her mother was talking her through the recipe, and she was doing her best to follow directions. Because it was early in her long and delicious cooking days, my mother was unsure about the success of the outcome of her labor. When she expressed her concern about her endeavor with her father, he asked her what ingredients she had put into the simmering pots. After hearing her lengthy and detailed answer, he is reported to have said, "With all that good stuff you put in, how can it not be good?"

With that uplifting and encouraging tale in mind, my daughter and I set our hearts and hands on the task of producing our first ice cream cake for my husband's birthday a few weeks ago.
A very short list of ingredients: ice cream, cookies, peppermint sprinkles.
A very short list of instructions: Let the ice cream melt. Crush the cookies. Layer the cookie crumbs in the bottom of a spring form pan. Pour some peppermint sprinkles onto the cookie crumbs. Pour or spoon the melted ice cream onto that layer. Sprinkle another layer of cookie crumbs on top of the ice cream. Refreeze overnight. Remove the sides of the spring form pan - carefully. Gaze at the cake with wonder and delight. Enjoy!

First, the cake.

Then the mesmerized, gawking, drooling, pleading, impatient onlooker.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I don't like to cook. Fortunately, this recipe didn't involve any cooking. Anyone who knows my dislike of cooking ought to know that I almost never follow recipes very closely. I respond to the precision of carefully drafted recipes with a teenager's spirit of rebellion; I rail noisily against the person who arrogantly and blithely put together a formula that I, a blindly obedient follower, am meant to follow. "Not so much," I say out loud to the cookbook lying smug and silent on the counter. I boldly and defiantly add a little bit of this and a little bit of that in order to make the resulting dish my own original creation, rather than simply a recreation of someone else's work. This ice cream cake project was no exception to that pattern. Notice the addition in the photo below... who doesn't love a good sugar-softened fresh strawberry or two or ten?

It was the best birthday cake ever!

Thank you, Karen, for sharing your recipe with me.

Thank you, Robin, for lending me your pan.

We were some happy cake eaters that Friday night.

The next day after lunch, I opened the freezer with the intention of having a hunk of ice cream cake for a midday sweet snack. No cake. What? How could those greedy rascals eat the entire cake in one night? In anger and frustration, I called out, "Where is the ice cream cake? Is it really all gone?" Kristiana answered: "It's in the fridge." WHAT? In the fridge? Sure enough, some late night sugar-high cake eater had put the cake in the fridge and not in the freezer.

I was livid.

Until I remembered my grandfather's comment: "With all that good stuff you put in, how can it not be good?" The ingredients were the same, after all. Only the temperature and consistency had changed. So I quickly overcame my ire and tucked in for a hearty helping of "ice cream cake soup."

Notice the spoon and open book.

Who doesn't like a good dessert soup while reading on a warm late March afternoon?

While I sat at the counter eating that sweet, milky, crunchy, drippy delight, I was reminded of other areas of my life that have gone through similar transformations: my marriage, my mothering, my friendships, and my varied experiences of faith. Years and years of pouring in sweet, nutritious, heart-healthy ingredients. Stirring. Passing the mixtures over the stove and into the oven of life: heated conversations, hot topics, the smoldering embers of illness, coals that might flare up again at any moment. The tepid indifference of some who in one fiery moment swore undying love and support, but in the end proved to be distant and lukewarm. The soul-chilling estrangement from loved ones. The cold days and frigid nights of non-existent conversation and connection. Always, the outcome is unique, unpredictable, impossible to recreate.

Some relationships have turned out of the muffin pans of my life perfectly it seems and feel more like works of art to be stared at and put on display for all the world to see than joy-filled treasures that are meant to be thoroughly consumed and enjoyed. Others never form completely, so when it's time to take them out of the pan and enjoy them, they lose their shape and fall to messy pieces.

Most of the time, when I ponder all that I have poured into my dearly beloved and cherished relationships - emails and text messages sent and received, phone calls shared, letters and postcards and care packages that have crossed many miles and several oceans, and best of all, the time spent together eating veggie burgers and key lime pie, drinking chamomile tea and lemon drop martinis, laughing, shopping, walking, staying up late into the night telling riotous stories, going to (sometimes AWFUL) movies, creating art and art journals and jewelry and cards and bookmarks, and sharing travel, food, wine, book, movie, and music recommendations - I cannot help but smile and remember my grandfather's words yet again: "With all that good stuff you put in, how can it not be good?"

PS. I apologize if the cooking metaphor has gone a little too far, but I am nothing if not excessively and repreatedly compelled to drawing comparisons out a little bit too far...