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March 9th, 2011 Leg 1 of my great NY/Florida adventure is complete.
I have arrived in Amsterdam NY, about 40 miles west of Albany and the only question I have is, “Where DO you people live?” I came from 50 degrees and green grass to this (pic below). So glad this is the year we picked to take Dad to Florida and will be leaving this on Saturday.
My drive was quiet and uneventful. Usually I have a million ideas pelting me that I’ve just got to hurry and write about, but for the second day in a row my mind has stayed quiet. I have a feeling I know why, but a few more days we’ll know for sure. Trying something new. Let’s see what tomorrow brings and I’ll tell you what it is. You just might want to give it a try……
And so, as another day goes by, I retire tonight, once again, in snow country, and …I have written.
March 8th, 2011 Once in awhile it’s nice to have a quiet day. A day in which the thoughts that cross your mind don’t stick and conceptualize – much the same way clouds fleet across the sky, not hanging around to cause any weather.
Today was spent washing and folding clothes, paying bills, getting hair done and doing all the last minute things that needed to be done as I get ready to leave tomorrow on my two week NY/Florida adventure. Tomorrow I’m getting my boots back out to brave the snow in upstate NY, before leaving for Florida on Saturday with my dad and sister.
As I went about readying for my trip, thoughts drifted in and out of my mind all day washing it clean of such hard work and serious thinking left over from the weekend writing conference. The slate is ready to be imprinted with new thoughts and experiences to be gained on the road. It’s good to relax your mind and not hold onto anything in particular. Take a day and just let go of each thought – spring clean your mind…..see where it takes you….or doesn’t take you.
And so, as another day goes by, my bags are packed and I’m ready to go, and …I have written.
March 7th, 2011 *~ For me, this is the crux of human understanding and the only path to a permanent relationship. If you have a hard head, this can be difficult. If you have a hard heart, it’s impossible.
These are my words and I wanted to share them with you. Take them and use them as you will.
And so, as another day goes by, I leave you with my thoughts, and ….I have written.
“I have walked the catacombs of your heart. And despite all I have seen there, I believe in you. And now, I need you to believe in me despite ______. Put whatever words you want in that blank, and I need you to believe in me despite whatever you put there. And if you can do this, you will never be alone.
We are alone in this place and only we can overcome it. This goes beyond “I love you” to a place where few have traveled. And….it takes….”
March 6th, 2011 Today, at 3:12 am, my first fictional character was brought to life. She was born yesterday, during The Fire Within writers workshop I am attending this weekend. Since you are my very first “readers”, it is only fitting that you should be the first to meet her.
Meet Lucinda
Lee burst through the kitchen door yelling, “Lulu! Lulu!,” at the top of his lungs.
“Close the door,” said Lauren, as her six year old golden boy raced past her. “Running, always running,” she thought as she reached over pulling the screen door shut. “And yelling, always yelling,” she quietly said to her mixing bowl as she picked up her spoon and resumed her cookie-baking ordeal, as she’d come to call it. Halloween was only two days away and she still had Lee’s spiderman costume to finish. The house wasn’t exactly in order either, as she felt the basket of clean laundry sitting on the kitchen chair, begging to be taken upstairs. As Lauren began plopping huge yellow balls of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet, she realized she forgot to preheat the oven – again. That’s when she felt it. “Oh no, not now,” she said to herself, as she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for just the right pill to get her through this day.
Upstairs Lee races to his sister’s room and pushes through her half open door. “Hey Lucinda,” he poises himself to yell, but he stops short before he could get the words out. He stands there for a second and watches his 12 year old sibling as she squeezes blood from her finger, making designs with it on a tissue she had spread flat on her desk. Her “needle collection”, as she calls it, lies strewn around her desktop. Different size needles for different size drops of blood. She’s so intent on her design, she doesn’t even know Lee is there. He slowly turns and slinks back down the stairs. He stands against the kitchen doorway, tears streaming down his face, as he watches his mom pop the tray of cookies into the oven. His mom. His mom who loves him so very much she’d do anything for him. Even try once more to bake perfectly round, soft, chocolate chip cookies for his class party. Lee knew from past experience they’d be anything but round and no where near soft, but his mom would never let him show up at school with store bought cookies. He loved her for that. His love for her was tempered with feeling sorry for her. It seemed as if she was always trying, but it never worked.
Lauren turned and noticed Lee holding up the doorway with his shoulder, then she saw the tears on his face. “Hey sunshine boy, what’s with the tears?”, she said as she came to kneel in front of him.
Lee wiped his nose with his arm, looked into his mother’s eyes and said quietly, “She’s doing it again.”
Lauren hugged the tiny body of her perfect little golden boy to her and slumped to floor depositing her own tears on the top of his sweet-smelling head. As she held her son, she thought back to the day Lucinda was born.
Lauren recalls the minute Lucinda opened her eyes for the first time. She looked into her baby daughter’s eyes and fear shot through her heart. She wasn’t a mere 15 minutes old and this tiny being shook her to her very core. Laurie remembers thinking to herself, ” Fear? This is my CHILD, only minutes old.” She immediately dismissed the feeling, attributing it to “new mother jitters”…….
I haven’t a clue where this story is going, or if it’s even going any further. I just wanted to share some of the fun I had exploring my writer’s voice at the workshop.
From start to finish, it was the best writing event I have ever attended. The other writers in the class were both fun and inspirational. Anne LeClaire was an amazing teacher/author. Please check out her fiction books and her memoir, “Listening Beneath the Noise” and thanks again for all your encouragement and support.
And so, as another day goes by, I was both touched and inspired by this experience, and…I have written and written and written….
March 5th, 2011 Spent the entire day here in Hyannis with best selling author Anne LeClair at a writing workshop, The Fire Within. The woman is absolutely amazing. Not only is she a master at her craft, but also a master of imparting her knowledge to fledgling writers like me. I never thought, listened, pondered, learned, risked, pushed, pulled, anguished, and wrote so much in a mere 8 hours as I did today. Anne took me to places I never dared venture before. This day was way over and above anything I ever expected it to be.
I just finished my “homework” for tomorrow’s session and am flat out exhausted.
And so, as another day goes by, this writer is heading off to bed, and..for the umpteenth time today, I have written.
March 4th, 2011 When I am in camel pose, I feel strong and invincible. It’s when it’s over and I collapse on the mat for savasana that the fear creeps in, leading to the urgency to hurry up and do something, like run out of the room. My heart is beating rapidly and panic sets in. I knew, with the onset of spring and the rise in humidity this was going to become a challenge again, much as it was when I began in the fall. Back then, my main intention was to conquer this so I could just stay in the room. Now, five months later, I KNOW I’m staying in the room, now it’s time to shift the focus of my intention.
Fear and urgency are involuntary reactions that overwhelm us without warning, so how was savasana after camel, going to help me gain control over them? I started thinking about how my body physically flops into many of the yoga poses throughout the day, involuntarily. This has come about through putting my body through those positions, consistently each day. What was voluntary in class, has become involuntary outside of class. My thinking is, if I work hard enough on conquering my breath after camel and mastering the mind control to slow and calm my heart, consistently each day, when fear and urgency overtake me outside of the studio that very same mind control will also kick in involuntarily, much the same way the physical poses do.
Imagine – when that hot-fire of fear and/or anger overtake you, you feel weak and tingly, the urgency to run kicks in, and panic becomes your MO – your mind suddenly flips a switch, your breathing becomes regular, and you regain control of your feelings and reactions without even having g to think about it. This is my ultimate yoga goal.
How many times have we been caught off guard with hurt, anger, and disappointment and reacted badly, making the situation worse, because we lacked mind control? I know I have and regretted many things over the years that I have said or done. Having involuntary mind control take over and bring you back to reality in these situations, quickly dispelling that hot-fire feeling, would be like having this secret weapon that automatically kicks in. Learning to face your fears with “smart skill” instead of collapsing and running from them can’t help but make life just a bit more easier to negotiate.
There definitely is something to the theory of training your mind and body consistently each day INSIDE the studio, and have that translate to subconscious behavior OUTSIDE the studio.
And so, as another day goes by, I have my springtime goal cut out for me, and …I have written.
March 3rd, 2011 In referencing yesterday’s blog where I told about my discovery of a huge void in my grade school experience, in yoga, after writing the blog, I had a revelation. It seems, when the job coach had asked me to think of my earliest proud moments, I only looked within my school life. It still bothered me that there were so many years that I couldn’t recall a single accomplishment that I wanted to share with pride. As I recall, I had a happy childhood, so it just can’t be that I never did anything I could be proud of all those years. As I looked into the mirror during standing bow pose, counting my sixty seconds, I suddenly saw someone else in my eyes. I didn’t quite recognize the person until camel. After coming out of camel (a pose where great emotions “are squeezed out of you” – I actually have a friend who cries after this pose and not from pain) I sank to the towel saying in my head, “My dad! My dad!”. As I lay in savasana, it dawned on me that it was my dad who gave me the feeling of accomplishment, taught me the joy of learning new things, and provided me with many experiences in which I felt proud, and always told me how well I was doing, during those years.
You see, I spent my grade school and middle school years outside of school hours, home, in rural America. We only had one car and dad took it to work so my mom couldn’t taxi me to activities or to friends houses. During this time it was my dad who seriously enriched my life. My dad loved to spend his free time outside of work trying and learning new things. And the best part was, he always included my brother and me in his latest endeavors and we always had our own “kid sized” equipment to use. We did: golf, photography (we had our own darkroom in the basement), go cart racing – with a real car and track in our backyard, remote car racing (I had a gorgeous turquoise corvette), bowling, archery (we had our own target range in our backyard), pellet guns, snowmobile riding (we had our own, with complete outfits), fishing, boating, and the list goes on. Through my determination and my dad’s patient teaching and confidence in me, I became quite skilled at each one. Now, thinking back, I really think I got my gift of teaching from my dad. I think he missed his calling. He would’ve been an excellent teacher. It was not school that wrote the course for my future on the tablet of my life, it was my dad.
Even at my retirement dinner, my dad insisted on going up to the podium to sing his praise for me. I honestly think if it were not for my dad’s interest and involvement in the important years of my childhood, I would’ve never had the confidence to try out for that cheeleading squad, setting the tone for the rest of my days, right up to the present.
I am deeply grateful that my dad got to see me design my career, raise my family, and see me retire, because, in effect, I am a piece of his legacy, as are all the children whose lives I have touched in my teaching career. Wow. I am totally amazed to realize how much my dad was responsible for the person I am today.
My Dad. My hero. Thanks, dad, for filling the void.
And so, as another day goes by, I encourage you to explore the voids in your life, and….I have written.
March 2nd, 2011 Awhile ago I bought an e-book from a job coach in an effort to explore options that I might not even know exist for what I’d like to do with the rest of my life. (Take heed – this is what happens when your life takes a 360 and you don’t have to be there at 8:05 anymore.) I only recently opened the book, after staring at it on my desktop for 6 months. To my surprise, the format, even if it didn’t point me in a new direction, is worth it in itself. It starts with complete self examination, taking you back to your childhood in sort of an untheraputic way, so you can see “how you were built”. Being a teacher of very young children for many years, I hold close those early education years and the power they hold over building our adult selves. I was astonished to find that my schoolyard experience actually built the fears and anxieties I struggle with today, and with the flipping of the understanding switch, was finally able to gain new perspective.
The author began by asking me to examine eight major areas of my life. One was childhood. The exercise was to go back as far as I could remember and list as many proud and sharing moments as I could come up with. My earliest thing I was proud of was my pink kindergarten report card with the gold star on it. Things went downhill from there, because the next proud moment of my life didn’t occur until I made the cheerleading squad in high school, sharply pointing out my grade school and middle school years didn’t do positive things toward building the person I am today.
We all remember the schoolyard game King of the Hill. I remember striving to get to be that king. The few times I got to the hill, the loneliness and pressure to stay there just taught me having sought after power creates anxiety. When I lost the power, I was back in the tank with all the rest of the fish clawing and grabbing my way back up to the top. When I got too exhausted from both, and just didn’t want to play the game anymore, I found myself the outcast, another sad, lonely place to be. But after making the cheerleading squad, my life picked up. I was able to list many more proud sharing moments throughout high school, college, and through today. Something about making that cheerleading squad saved me from a life filled with loneliness and anxiety. I learned that it was ok to strive to do well and achieve goals, but the key to success is to always want others at the top of the hill with you. I was just as deeply happy for my teammates success as I was for my own.
As I continue to look back from that time, I see that I shied away from any kind of responsibility that I had to work to achieve, then operate solo in. At one time I really wanted to be an elementary principal thinking I’d be able to help many more kids that way. I even spent three years getting my masters degree in educational administration. After spending a lot of time with my mentor principals and getting a good feel for what it takes to do the job well, I saw it to be a very lonely place. Anxious visions of being King of the Hill on a huge scale played out in my mind. Finally, after much thought and struggle, I asked my husband, “After all the work and money to get this degree, would it be terrible to say I don’t want to be a principal? I just want to retire out of my kindergarten classroom. I think I make more of a difference one kid at a time.”
My husband is a man of such wisdom and understanding. Here I was worried he’d be upset after spending all that money on the degree and now I don’t want to do the job, and his answer was, “Getting the degree will just make you a better teacher. The important thing is that you’re happy in the job you’re in.” He alleviated buckets of anxiety I used to carry around for years with that one statement.
Teamwork, doing “life” with a partner and within a family, working side by side with colleagues, and raising children with other working moms, instead of being the “biggest and the best” and very anxious and lonely at the top of the hill, has been the mainstay of “how I work”.
And, after all that, what do I want to do with the rest of my life? Be a writer. THE LONELIEST PROFESSION IN THE WORLD.
And so, as another day goes by, I can see much work still needs to be done here, and ….at least….I have written.
March 1st, 2011 Real love is like the ocean. It’s always there. The ocean my claim the life of a loved one and tear you apart, making you angry and hurt. It may part it’s waves and present you with a beautiful sandbar, giving you peace and enjoyment. You may even run away from it, but once the grains of sand get in your shoes, you will inevitably return. The ocean doesn’t have any intention toward you. It’s just there and you can’t get rid of it no matter how hard you try.
And so it is with real love. It’s always there. It may hurt and disappoint you. It may make your heart sing. You may even run away from it, but once it’s grains imbed themselves in your heart, you will inevitably return. Real love doesn’t have any intention toward you. It’s just there and you can’t get rid of it no matter how hard you try.
You can stand in the middle of both – real love and the ocean alike, and kick and scream and splash all you want, and when you’re totally spent, both will still be there.
And so, as another day goes by, I have walked along the shores of real love, and…I have written.
February 28th, 2011 Today Mackenzie Phillips was on The Talk, which most of you know, is my favorite show. In 2009 her book came out. It was her story of being abused by her father. She proceeded to tell that she worked very hard to tell her story, but she left a lot out to protect her brothers and sisters and numerous step mothers. Even though she knew they were going to basically disown her for writing the book, she desperately wanted to spare them as much as she could. She said, “When I was writing the book, I just prayed, everyday, that I’d come from a place of love, everyday.”
I love that prayer. If we pray that we “come from a place of love, everyday” how can we miss? That simple prayer could dispel anger, jealously, disappointment, and hurt that so often gets in the way of how we should truly think, speak, and act. We especially need this prayer on the days when we have to say the hard things – such as I’m sorry, you hurt my feelings, what you did made me feel…., I have to terminate your employment, I need some space from our relationship – all these are places we’ve all been before. Think back how differently those situations might have turned out if we had remembered to ask God to “let us come from a place of love” before we said our words. Even if things didn’t turn out any differently, maybe we would retain some peace out of praying such a beautiful, simple prayer before we spoke.
And so, as another day goes by, may I always “come from a place of love” when I speak, and …I have written.
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