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June 30th, 2013 As I begin this two week family vacation with family and friends arriving and leaving at various times, I sit here and watch the parade pass through. Over the years kids have grown-up, parents have aged, the house has been markedly improved, careers have changed, loss was suffered, gains were celebrated, and still the waves on East Sandwich Beach travel up and down the shoreline, ushering the tide in and out as if nothing ever changed at all.
Some of our children we haven’t seen in a few years because they were off on their own journey. Others have been here year in and year out. It is always a joy to have them return to the backyard fire and share what they found out there in that great big world.
Yesterday I finished Elin Hliderbrand’s Beautiful Day. I titled my post Silly Summer Read. Today, as I think about the undulating movement of my family, I’m reminded of a line spoken in the book by Roger the wedding planner, and I realize that the read was not so silly after all – but very real and enlightening. Roger said:
What I think is that every family is happy in their own fashion, and every family is unhappy in their own fashion. Every family is both functional and dysfunctional.
I thought that was accurate. There is no idyllic family. Without a good measure of dysfunction to force people to communicate and face fears, love would not have a fertile ground in which to grow. When I look back at the antics of these characters I call my family, I become acutely aware that it is these very antics that caused us to grow into and around each other.
A musician friend of mine is releasing a new album soon (I will let you know the details when it’s available on iTunes) and one song has the line “we can talk at any time …we can laugh and we can cry…” and that, therein, is the essence of family.
And so, as another day goes by, I love my family and all their antics, I love this holiday that brings them to my door each Fourth of July, and..I have written.
June 29th, 2013 Today was the first day of family Fourth of July summer vacation. We woke up to torrential rains, as well as a thunderstorm at 6am. I felt sorry for the kids, because they had their cooler and radio packed and couldn’t wait to hit the beach. Rain at 8 am. Rain at 9 am. Rain at 10 and 11 am. They kept watching the Doppler on their phones and tracking the rain over Cape Cod. They had it down to the rain stopping at noon and the sun coming out at one. They were right. At one they all packed up and headed for the beach for the whole afternoon. My husband decided he had food shopping to do. So where did that leave me? Alone!
I knew what I was going to do. Two days ago I downloaded Elin Hilderbrand’s new book, Beautuful Day and I couldn’t wait to find an afternoon like this to fall into it. I spent the afternoon in my beach chair – just not at the beach.
All of Hilderbrand’s books (and I have read every one) are light stories about real life and take place in Nantucket, where she has lived for twenty years. (I’ve always had this thing – when it was Cape beach vacation time I always had to have a beach read by a local author, set here on the Cape and islands.)
This one was kind of coincidental. It’s wedding weekend on Nantucket for Margot’s sister, Jenna, and she was her maid of honor. My daughter just got engaged yesterday and sat here last night discussing a Cape wedding, with her sister, who is also going to be her maid of honor. How I laughed when I began reading.
The story has an interesting style. The bride’s mother died seven years ago. She knew she wouldn’t be around for her daughter’s wedding, and even though she didn’t know who she was going to marry, she planned the whole wedding in a notebook. The chapters go back and forth between the notebook and chapters on each main character – except for Jenna, the bride. The story is never told from her point of view, nor that of the groom – only their siblings and parents. Will the wedding take place after the secrets are divulged? Download a copy, find a chair, on the beach or otherwise, and escape with a fun summer read and see if the big event happens.
And so, as another day goes by, thumbs up to the first day of vaca, the kids got a great beach day in, and…I have written.
June 28th, 2013  I knew it was going to happen. I even speculated it might happen this very weekend, and, even still, knowing didn’t diminish the way it grabbed my heart and stole my words (at least all my intelligent ones).
Last night my first born got engaged. Even now, writing that sentence makes my heart bump a beat or two. My husband, my Boston daughter, and I were texting in a group message in which my NY daughter was included, but not participating. We were talking about other things while this engaging was taking place. NY daughter saw us talking and decided this would be a great way to break the news to us. She enters the text with: “If you guys are still awake, I have news”. Then she makes her big announcement. My heart was in my throat. I couldn’t think or speak, but I knew I had to answer, so I quickly type: “Really? Yahoo!!!!” My husband and Boston daughter come back with things like “Congratulations! We love you! So happy for the both of you!” Then Boston daughter says PS- I screen-shot that – because Mom’s text was like you said we’re having pizza for dinner. This is good maid of honor material!” I eventually got myself together and texted the lucky guy, welcoming him to the family, and then I sent both of them a nice quote.
Upon awakening this morning I remembered the big event of the evening before. I also remembered my daughter’s birth, her first day of kindergarten, her high school prom, her college graduation, and now, probably the biggest milestone year of her life – the year she REALLY does leave and make a whole new home of her own. The lucky boy, Steve, is a truly wonderful guy. He makes my daughter shine in a way I’ve never seen before. It is with a happy heart that give her to him to share her life with. This moment brings me back to a blog I wrote over three years ago. This, my dear daughter, is how I feel about these days of your life:
The First Day of School
~Written January 5, 2011 – Shared today, June 28, 2013 in honor of my daughter, Erin~
Today I miss teaching more than ever. I walked into yoga and my instructor was really anxious about her first child starting school. I told her (as a kindergarten teacher of 35 years) that both she and her son would be okay. I said I’ve known you and your child for over thirty years and there wasn’t a one of you that wasn’t okay.
The first day of school is a most painful experience for moms. You hand them their lunchbox, put them on the bus, go in the house and your heart is in pieces all over the livingroom. As you pick up the pieces you cry and tell yourself this is right and necessary. They’ve got to go out there and do it on their own. You’re confident you’ve given them all you had and they can now deal with life beyond your backyard. All you can do all day until that bus pulls back up at three o’clock is pray and ask that an angel be on their shoulder.
The next “first day” that rips your heart out is leaving them at college. Now you’ve had 18 years to give them all you’ve got to survive in the adult world, and you have to believe you emptied the attic, the basement, and every closet. This time they’re not coming home at 3 o’clock and you’ve got alot of nights to sit up and pray that that same angel lives in that dorm room with them. Once again, when you get home, your heart is in pieces, not only all over the livingroom, but down the hall and into their bedroom, and in the diningroom where their pictures are hung, and in the bathroom where you find the wet towel on the floor that they used that morning. No one but a mother understands an empty house with pieces of her children all over it mixed with the pieces of her heart.
And just when we think they are sinking out there in the world, being tossed about on an angry sea and you want to rush to save them, you look up and there they are, flying steady and strong on their own.
Only a mom’s heart knows the hardest part of love is letting go……
If you are a mom reading this, please go download The Hardest Part of Love by Jane Olivor, grab a box of tissues and sit down and cry with me. We will all be okay.
And so, as another day goes by, my beautiful girls are flying strong, and …I have written.
Now go, my beautiful girl, and soar into your new life.
And so, as this very important day goes by, can’t wait to celebrate this weekend with our “new” family, I love you both, and… I have written.
June 27th, 2013  The book I’m illustrating for Diana Lesire Brandmeyer, The Trouble With Ralph, is on it’s way to completion. (Diana also writes adult fiction and a blog – check out her website) If you had told me at anytime in my life that I’d illustrate a book, especially one that wasn’t mine, I’d never have believed it.
This journey started in January with me accepting the job to re-illustrate a picture book that Diana had written awhile ago. The original illustrator couldn’t be found,so Amazon took it out of print. Diana found me through my artwork on this blog. I was amazed that my work prompted her to ask me to do her book. I was scared to accept the job, but Diana was so nice and not in a hurry, that I just had to give it a shot. If I didn’t, I’d always wonder if I could’ve actually illustrated a book.
It took a whole month of experimenting with different mediums. Was I going to use digital? Watercolor? Chalk pastels? After trying all of them, I found I was most comfortable with oil pastels. You could achieve bright colors and blend in shading with such a control that I didn’t feel in the other mediums.
Next came character creation. My hero was a goat so this involved a few weeks of googling goats and sketching many different types before the real “Ralph” emerged. After Ralph came his owner, a little girl by the name of Hayley. She, too, took a week or so of sketches to emerge with her brown curls.
After the characters were established, work on the cover began. I learned a lot about background and scenery as the cover emerged. Gradually the pages got easier as I got more familiar with what can be done with pastels. After sketching Ralph so many times, by the third page he took his place in the scene easily.
I set June as my deadline for having all eight illustrations done and here I sit with all eight hanging in “the kitchen studio”, as it’s come to be referred to. This brings us to the pre-publication stage. The art is complete and now the real work begins. We are first going to e-publish it, then move on to printed copies. These days my work consists of learning to format and obtaining copyrights and ISBN numbers. My next benchmark is to have the book up on Amazon by late August.
I am moving about in a world that I never knew anything about. Having no schedule, no boss, no workplace to go to, but yet a job to get done that I was responsible to someone else for, kind of left me in a panic. The work was not tangible according to instructions. It was creative work that had to be totally born of me. This was scary. Very unstructured, but yet a product that had to be produced. There were many days filled with doubt. Doubt I could come up with the pictures, doubt they were good enough, and doubt I could finish them in a reasonable amount of time. I cannot count the days that just sitting down to a new blank page made me get right back up and do something else.
I learned today that it was that resistance to the creative process that I was afraid of, because wherever there is a process, there is a change of some kind, and change can be scary. It was the resistance to begin on the blank page that was the difficult part – the part where the doubt crept in. Once I put the pencil to the page, the fear turned to effort, and that which was inside of me was set free.
And so, as another day goes by, when dealing with change, look out for that resistance – don’t let it sabotage the journey you’re trying to take, and… I have written.
Today’s page in Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way, Everyday:
June 26th, 2013 My daughter recently cleaned out her clothes and have me two bags of things she thought I might like. This, in turn, caused me to clean out my clothes.
My first step was to try things on and decide if I’d ever wear it again. My clothes are more than four years old so I was expecting to have a lot of stuff that was outdated. That happened, but so did something else. Most everything no linger fits. What? After two years of vigorous yoga and exercise, why are all these clothes too tight and uncomfortable? I looked at the tags. Jeans were size 6 and tops were mostly small. But I don’t look bad. In fact, I feel and look stronger and healthier than I have my entire life. So, what was going on?
At the time I wore those clothes I wasn’t in as vigorous or as serious of a muscle building program as I am now. I learned in Koko fit club that muscle weighs more than fat and takes up more room than fat. My arms and legs will naturally be bigger with muscle development and my weight will be heavier (that’s why Koko uses a machine to measure lean muscle and body mass instead of a scale that just measures weight).
All that time I was getting smaller and thinking that was great, I was delusional. My muscles were weak and small and my skin was sagging. Smaller was not better. After almost a year of Koko, I am 46% stronger than when I started, my muscles have developed to fill out my skin again and it actually requires bigger clothes.
I have had to come to terms with my natural body type. If you exercise and eat right, you will lose what’s not needed and your true body type and shape will evolve. I have muscles. I’m an athletic body type. I will never be tall and gangly or wear a size two. That’s not how my body is made up. I have come to appreciate this over skinny, weak limbs and the saggy skin I used to have.
Find an exercise program you like and do it consistently. Find an eating plan made up of protein and whole grains and stick to it. Then watch your body type emerge. When it does, dress it up and be happy with it.
And so, as another day goes by, as Meg my beloved yoga teacher says, it’s all about YOU, you must think of yourself first, and…I have written.
June 25th, 2013 No, I didn’t misspell me. No, I’m not talking about the northeast or New England.
Today I had planned on going to four thirty yoga. Hot yoga. Yeah, I know. It’s 97 degrees at four o’clock. Hot yoga just doesn’t seem to be the thing to do – especially when you live on a beach. A beach walk in the water at low tide would be more like it. Besides, it’s not good to overheat or exert oneself in this kind of weather. Not to mention the dehydration and loss of nutrients. Tomorrow I’d probably be laid out flat, good for nothing. Not good when all the kiddos arrive on Friday for two weeks and there’s much to do before they get here. Hot yoga? Not a good idea.
The clock said 3:54 and Dr.Phil was just winding down. I jumped up out of my chair, and without another word to myself, dressed, grabbed my mat and was on my way down 6A by four o’clock sharp. On the way I told myself to just take it easy. You need this. Your mind has a lot going on and it needs this.
I arrived at the studio with plenty of time to lay in the hot room. Somehow it didn’t seem that hot in there. Class started and I was rocking it on all counts. The sweat kept me cooler than I’d been at home. No muscle fatigue. No dehydration or humidity issues. We were on the floor before I knew it. I actually gained energy as the class went on. During the floor series my beloved teacher Meg said, “I commend all of you for being here today. The heat is not an excuse to skip class. No excuses.”
There it was – NE – NO EXCUSES. If I had bought into everything my mind was trying to hand me earlier today, I would’ve missed one of those classes where everything is perfect and you feel like your tilted world has suddenly been set right again – both physically and emotionally.
Walking out the door to my car I was shocked. It was so much hotter outside than it was in the studio. I drove home thinking of the words of John Wooden:
Don’t let what you can’t do get in the way of what you can do.
How true was that for me today?
And so, as another day goes by, sometimes your feet have to walk in a different direction than your mind, and…I have written.
June 24th, 2013 The summer cardio workouts are out at Koko Fit Club. Summer Hike is already my favorite. While I’m “hiking” on the elliptical Michael Wood fitness trainer is talking to me. Today he started with this quote:
Being fit, or getting fit, at middle age, even if you’ve never worked out before, changes the landscape of aging.
That came from some study he was citing. Anyway, I love that phrase – the landscape of aging. Aging certainly is a full landscape and when you reach your fifties and sixties you need a whole lot of tools to navigate it. The landscape of aging can have some beautiful beaches and grassy fields, but the hills, valleys and gravel pits are miserable to climb out of.
Every decade you lose 8% lean muscle mass. Bones become weak, thin and very breakable. Belly fat is a fight because we become more sedentary without even knowing it. By the time you’re sixty you could be twice the size you were at fifty – not because you changed what you do, but because of normal metabolic slowdown in those ten years.
Ever think: I still eat right. I still exercise. But I’m two pants sizes bigger. What gives? What give is that most of us aren’t aware of the little changes aging brings to our bodies. You gradually lose energy due to slowing metabolism leading to moving less. The real problem is we go on with our days and we don’t stop and pay attention to what is happening.
We need to be conscious of how we eat and how much and what kind of exercise we do consistently. Consistently. Ah…now there’s a key word in navigating the landscape of aging. Once we figure out what we should be eating and find a great way to exercise that we enjoy, we need to do it consistently. Even then, it’s downright frustrating when you’re doing all you can, but get minimal results.
Koko recommends three strength and three or four 15 minute cardio workouts a week. It works for me. I put Bikram yoga in on the off days. I make sure I exercise Monday through Friday and take the weekends off. As far as food goes for me – I eat very well, but my biggest nemesis lies in sugar. Sugar, more than salt, will cause water retention and store as belly fat. (Emptying my pink wine bottle was not exactly the smartest thing to do.)
It’s a constant struggle to balance food and exercise at any age – the thing is, after fifty, our bodies change the way they react to food and exercise. They teach us at Koko and in yoga, too, that the losses can be controlled. You can build up your lean muscle mass and lose body fat by paying attention to how your body works in these later years and doing something consistently to keep it in check.
And so, as another day goes by, the landscape of aging is a nice phrase, but it’s vast, complicated, and needs constant attention, and…I have written.
June 23rd, 2013 Back in the winter, Leigha Hall, who writes the My Bikram Yoga Life blog, was blogging about transitioning to veganism. She was already a vegetarian and handling that well. Her vegan adventures just seemed really hard and cumbersome, so I left her a comment about it. She took my comment and hoped I didn’t mind her using it as the next day’s post.
She is away now, and is posting retro blogs to post on weekends until she returns. She chose to repost the one about my comment. There was something I asked her in this post that made me want to revisit it tonight. I asked here why go to all that trouble to be vegan? Was it health? Was it the challenge? Did she enjoy the struggle?
Did she enjoy the struggle. That’s the part my mind rests on tonight. Today I was confronted with sad news. It’s a struggle. I certainly don’t enjoy it. Then I think about the preparation I had through Bikram yoga to learn how to deal with struggle. The hot room is a huge struggle. There I learned that you can’t subvert the struggle. It’s the old Bear Hunt song that rings true. You can’t go over it. You can’t go under it. Gotta go through it. “Through” being the operative word here.
When I got my news this afternoon, I was sad. I sat here in the quiet, Red Sox faintly on the radio out in the garage. I talked to my God:
“Well, Lord here we are again. I get it this time. I’ll sit here in your presence and feel the sadness and the pain. I’ll go THROUGH it. I won’t try to subvert it. Take my hands, Lord, both of them, and lead me THROUGH it. Amen”
I immediately felt peace surround my sadness. I learned in the hot room to just lie still. Feel the heat. I always make it THROUGH.
Leigha says in her post that she loves to find ways to push herself that might be beneficial. I guess I do, too, or I wouldn’t step foot into that hot room.
And so, as another day goes by, struggle training, in one form or another is necessary so that when a life struggle hits, we have skills and tools needed to deal so we won’t be broken by it, and…I have written.
Please enjoy Leigha’s Post She is an excellent writer.
June 22nd, 2013 Ten years ago I was introduced to wine. I didn’t understand wine. It didn’t taste very good, so my husband suggested I try white zin. White zin was a very pretty pink wine, a bit sweet and I fell in love with it. After about five years my husband suggested I branch out. Try white wine he said. Being used to drinking wine now, I acquiesced. Pinot Grigio soon became my wine of choice and stayed that way for another five years.
During this time my husband tried to broaden my wine palate by introducing Chardonnay. We tried that a few times, and I couldn’t do it. What he called the “oakiness” was what I didn’t like. Gradually I fell in love with fruity riesling and spent a year stuck on Relax Riesling. In time I adjusted my palate to include Sauvignon Blanc. That was my new favorite.
Then we discovered Simply Naked wines. The Chardonnay was amazing. Unoaked and I loved it. My days of pink wine were way, way in the past. Pink wine now appears so sweet to me I can’t even look at it.
Then, today, we walked into the wine store to get wine for dinner with friends tonight. I was stopped in my tracks. There sat the most beautiful bottle of pink wine I ever saw. It said Beach House on it and had the best saying on the label: tranquil, cool, rippled sand, driftwood, peaceful, relaxed, ebb, flow, chill – The Beach House. I stopped my husband and said I need this bottle. It describes our house perfectly. I need it for my new office. It’s a piece of art. My husband just looked at the $10 price tag then looked sideways at me. I looked at him and said it’s not the wine. It’s the bottle. I need this. I set it down on the counter and told him I’ll drink pink wine tonight just to get this bottle.
I’m slowly paying attention to the things in drawn to. Shapes. Colors. Words. These things I’m drawn to help draw the map of me. When I assemble them in one spot, I get a snapshot of who I am.
Discovering who you are is not something that only happens at eighteen. You do it again at thirty. Forty you’re too busy to pay attention to who you are. By fifty the kids are gone and you begin to look at yourself again. By the time you reach sixty you have a whole new picture of you.
What are you drawn to? If you put a few things in a pile, what would it say about you?
And so, as another day goes by, sometimes it’s good to drink pink wine, and…I have written.
June 21st, 2013 This morning someone was on Rachel Ray giving relationship advice. I don’t know who because I was vacuuming and emptying the garbage while he was talking. It was one little simple thing that he said that made me stop shaking out the garbage bag and pay attention. He said:
“Don’t go out and look for someone to make your world. Make your world and let others be drawn into it.”
I know. Wow. In this week of making spaces, this spoke to me. I have always taught my girls to go out there and make their way in the world, not go out there searching for a life partner to make their world. It’s a great piece of advice, not only for anyone seeking a life partner, but to bring any kind of relationship into focus.
I have been married to my hubby for 38 years. We are often asked what the secret to this is. Our first answer is always respect. We never hurt each other or speak in a derogatory manner to each other. When we disagree, we only attack the issue – never each other.
The second thing I’d have to say is that we are both our own individual people, with separate worlds. He is not my world and I am not his. We both have crafted interesting lives and are attracted to each other’s worlds. I trust him to move about in his and he trusts me to move about in mine. When we talk every morning or all weekend, we have so much to share.
Friday nights have always been that way. Even when I didn’t live out here on the Cape. At the end of a school and work week we just couldn’t wait to pour that Friday night drink and share our worlds.
It’s important to never make another person your world. It’s important to your physical and emotional health to be able to stand alone. It’s important to your self-confidence and in knowing who you are to be centered – to be an entity all your own. Someday that person you made your whole world may not be there. You need to have you to get you through it.
And so, as another day goes by, hubby is on his way here, it’s Friday night and we can’t wait to share our worlds.
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