When an Onus is an HONOR

Onus:   n. A difficult or disagreeable responsibility or necessity; a burden or obligation. A stigma. Blame.

Onerous:  adj.  (of a task, duty, or responsibility) Involving a burdensome amount of effort and difficulty;  involving heavy obligations.

Being my mother's primary - to all extents & purposes, only - caregiver was frequently an onerous task, while, at the same time, an honor.  Acknowledging the latter made it possible to hold things together when the going got tough, when being there felt way more like the former. 

Mom & I shared a bright, sunny personality.  In a slew of other ways, we stood at polar opposites.  But if that had not been so, I would not have been so well prepared for helping other mothers & children with care-giving issues.  

As Mom said, old age ain't for sissies.  And being a care giver for an "older" is no walk in the park, either.  My ability to look difficult issues straight in the eye, without editorializing or attempting amateur counseling, is one of the things that has proved of great worth.  I don't sugarcoat what either or both elders & comparative youngsters are dealing with difficult times. Pussyfooting around has never been my style.  Besides, it's my experience that my older friends feel best validated by people willing to see & share (not lecture) the troubling parts of their experience.  

What a blessing that Mom openly & frequently shared her experience with aging.  As she said, her body reminded her every moment of every day that she was an "ancient."   It felt strange to her, because her spirit felt unchanged, often longing for days that seemed to her just a few short whiles before.  

Longing for Dad, utterly gone when she was only 63.  People who said, "It must be a great comfort to have experienced such a good marriage."  Intellectually, yes it was.  Spiritually, yes it was.  Emotionally?  Emotionally it was NOT.  Emotional it seemed like a great big fat gyp that Dad was gone - more than that, a tragedy from which she'd only recover when they were once again reunited.  

Longing for all the little things she once did without even thinking about - washing floors, hanging wash, making dinner, all of which she took pride & delight in doing.

Longing for her sister, who lived on the other side of the country, but with whom Mom always kept up an active correspondence.  Aunt Betty died when I was in my 20s or early 30s - Mom always missed looking for envelopes with her writing on it, always took great delight in regaling us with tales of Bets & Kay's shenanigans.  

Longing for her son, gone at 11.  A longing that softened over the years, but never ceased.  As she said, one day the sky was blue again, but never the same shade as before.

Longing for her children to have the loving, friendly, good comrades relationship she had with Al & Bob & Betty & Dot.  

It was this longing that got Mom into some of her most unhappy times, taking me with her.  Mom had an interesting trait of thinking that because she experienced something a certain way, that was the ONE way it should or would be experienced.  

I saw it in her relationship with my mother-in-law ~ ~ it deeply troubled Mom that Mom M. & John didn't have the sort of close relationship we had; she couldn't see, give value to the very precious, albeit very different, relationship they did have.   

It certainly reared its head in her feelings about her children.  In her heart, mind & soul, we should have the same close relationship she remembered having with her brothers & sisters.  If she heard something that didn't fit into her role of sibling affection, she closed her eyes to it.  It wasn't that she wouldn't see the reality, but that she couldn't.  My three older surviving siblings share a sense of connection - of childhood play, of similar cultural experiences, of family times - and even affection.  Being way younger than them, growing up in a different generational time, we share no such memories;  they share a similar communication style, whereas mine is the absolute opposite, making even basic info sharing difficult, often impossible.

That's not their fault, not my fault - just the way it is.

Ah, but it felt like Mom thought it was somehow HER fault.  She resolutely (and disastrously) closed her eyes to our differences.  Instead of making my life easier, her willful blindness to normal differences made it almost unbearable.    

What a help in dealing with my grannie clients & their families that I've been through the classic "I don't want to be a burden" challenge.  Perhaps THE toughest thing for a parent to make peace with is having to ask their children for help. THEY'RE the ones who are supposed to be proving their children with support, not the other way around. They are supposed to help us find solutions, not be a problem.  

Consider Mom.  

Because she hated to inconvenience anyone, she frequently drove us up a wall.  For YEARS, she wouldn’t openly ask us to pick up her meds or whatever at Bethayres Pharmacy;  instead, she'd say, "If you're anywhere near the drugstore, would you mind picking up...?"  John & I still using that phrase, in jest.  But it was no laughing matter at the time.   Mom stopped doing it when I stopped taking her seriously unless she asked outright. Even now, it feels like she felt we didn't value her.  Now, I realize there were way more feelings - all in turmoil - behind her phrasing.

There were so many things Mom should have told me & never did, things that would have made her decisions easier to understand, literally easier to live with.  Praise be, that in the midst of even the worst time, when I was emotionally unraveling due to what felt like Mom's flipped out ways, I still held onto the idea that being there was an honor.  

Now, as I work with grannie clients & their families, am so grateful for all I got to experience with Mom, even the wretched bits. How blessed am I to have experienced so many different sides of aging issues?!  It helps me get a sense of  what olders are experiencing, helps me empathize with youngers who lack the deep background to understand so many confusing or upsetting behaviors.

As for me, it's totally cool to be have lived out the commandment, "Honor your father & your mother."  It's rewarding to work with other older women - and, I hope, some day, men - and understand at least a glimmering of the wrenching things they're facing as they get farther & farther away from their young, still-so-familiar self.  

Even with my grannie clients, there are times things can feel a bit onerous.  But even when being present in such challenged lives might feel an onus, the burden is lightened by my appreciation that it's always & forever an honor.  

Gentle AH HAs

Not ahhhhs, as in "how sweet."  AH HA, as in "What a dunderhead I was to not realize that before!!"

I've had several such moments over the past few days, each one more ringed with gentle illumination rather than blinding flashes of clarity.

Consider my realization that I was toast as soon as I was born.  Well, maybe not as soon as I was born, but certainly as soon as Ian died.  Ian seems to have been the only sib in any way, shape or form like moi.  He loved to bake to delight others, enjoyed being nurturing, was a voracious reader, loved cats, and - most important of all - asked questions.  

People who aren't fundamentally irked at my basic existence have a hard time understanding there are quite a few people who are.  Particularly in my family.  Not just irked, but intensely irked.  So much so, that Kerry basically identified me in a letter to Mom as someone who made her want to leave a room as soon as I entered.  About as to-the-point as you can get.   

I am, to my sibs & other such people, like fingernails on the chalkboard.    

This, itself, was not a revelation to me.  Trust me, when you affect folks like that, you know it.  In my case, I knew since age 10 how Mim & Peter felt about me.  Even then, I was a tough little bird.  The thing that kept me from being utterly devastated was knowing - at that young age - that what mattered was how much I cared about them.  Freakishly adult.  At the ripe old age of 60, I find myself wondering if I felt that way due to being an unrepentant Pollyanna or because it was a very smart survival mechanism.

Anyway, I digress.  As I've striven to be less fingers on a chalk boardy, replayed a few key moments when I was more bull-in-a-china-shop than bird of peace.  Today, I asked myself what I could have done differently to get less wretched ~ for everyone ~  responses?

Nada.    .

There's a lot of peace in that simple AH HA! revelation.  Get over it, get going.  

All I Want For Christmas is...

...To channel John Pitcairn.  To know what engages me, to be selective of what's most important to me, then use my time & energies behind those to make them happen.  

To know what doesn't truly engage, to be aware of those things that aren't worth my attention & focus, then forego investing any of my precious resources in their pursuit.  

To be grateful for the seeking I've done, appreciating the discoveries I've made and moving past simply seeking to simple doing, beyond thought to action.

Contentment

Where did I find this?  No idea - it's a printed page that drifted up out of a pile of old papers.  

Contentment
To dive into contentment, sit back, relax, and ask the deep inner questions, such as "Who am I?" and "What is my purpose?"   Strange, but true - the deep answers will be wordless, recognizable without being shackled to mundane language.

The following exercise can help you feel a burst of heart-felt contentment in your heart that will blossom into sustainable energies.

To get into your heart to find the wordless responses, follow these steps:

a) Take a deep breath, close your eyes, then take another deep breath.

b) Drop your awareness into your heart center, focusing attention in the area of your physical heart.

c)  Focus on creating an all-loving, all-nurturing, all-accepting, open environment there, as if you have a child cradled against your chest or as if you are greeting someone you love as they return from an absence.  

d) Place the palm of your hand over your chest, feeling your heartbeat.  Drop into your heartbeat, then ask the following:

What are the values of my happy self?

What are the beliefs of my happy self?

What are the emotions of my happy self?

What are the thoughts of my happy self?

What are the strengths of my happy self?

What are the capabilities of my happy self?

What are the unique talents of my happy self?

What are the goals of my happy self?

What are the motives of my happy self?

What are the purposes of my happy self?

Each question generally takes about 10-15 minutes to contemplate, so set aside ample time to focus & reflect on your contentment.  But don't be shackled to the tick tock of time!  

Once you have responses to these questions, introduce your happy self to your closest relationships.

Place Value

Seems to me impossible to underestimate the power of how we see our personal place value.  And that it's well neigh impossible to determine how others see their own worth.  So people who seem as confident as all get out can actually be pretty sold on their lack of worth, while others who seem none-to-sure of their intrinsic value can be secure in the knowledge of their value.

Some people have inflated ideas of themselves, while others seem quick to devalue what they bring to life's table.  And it is seriously hard to get an accurate bead on our place value.  What are we worth?

Do we look to the person to our right & feel small in comparison?  Do we look to those on our left & feel superior?  Or do we hold our place, without looks in either direction, drawing our sense of worth from our place, not our position?  Standing firm, making wherever that is a place of great value.

Is my place value in the millions or the ones?  My wish this Christmas season is to develop an indifference to even wondering, bending my energies instead to making my place, wherever it may be, a place of value, of contribution, of wise responsiveness, of eagerness to be more connected to the things that genuinely engage me & to let fall away the things that don't.  

My place value is determined by who I am;  who I am is not determined by my place value.  

What am I going to DO to illustrate, illuminate my place?  Begin by valuing all that is.  A good start.  Then shake off the monkey chatter & get down to living.   




  

Beyond "ME" to BE

For the first half of my life, there was YOU (my family), there was US (John & I, as partners), but there was basically no ME.  Eleven years ago, the foundations of my very being were stripped down, when Mom passed out of this life & my family passed out of my life.  I was left wondering just who I was, without Mom to be here for, with all of my sibs gone, with most of the people I considered our friends turning out to be Mom's & vanished without a trace once she was gone.

Even at the time, wondered if I was going through the equivalent of stripping down an engine in order to rebuild it, better than ever.  And that's what happened.

The phases were pretty clear - from a sense of YOU (others taking precedence) to ME (struggling to get my emotional/spiritual groundings) to the present moment, to BE.  Time to let the personal work recede into the background, time to get cracking with BEing, with being active in the here & now, in tangible ways.  

Guiding light - Walter Childs words about John Pitcairn.  Emblazon them on my heart, live them in my deeds.  BE.

Sky is to Me...

... as I am to Dave & Candy.  

Both of us were sadly damaged critters who had the core of wholeness harbored within us, each needing a safe spot to rest & people who believed - in word, thought & deed - in our simple, basic BEing.   

There are a lot of sadly damaged critters out yonder.  There are few who connect with another being who not only wants to help them heal, but who actually have the gift to do so.  A divinely-endowed gift.  Because I didn't seek to be someone who saw flickers of possibility in others, be they kitty cats or fellow human beings.  And it surely has sometimes seemed more a burden then blessing.  Still, it is what it is.

Mom saw it.  Mom believed in it.  But it was through Dave & Candy - and Emily Jane & John - that nanoseconds of health & emotional wholeness could slowly slowly slowly expand into a life graced with joy & unimagined experiences.  They created the hopeful white space that opened up everything to EVERYTHING.  

Impossible to describe, except to say that Sky is to me as I am to Dave & Candy.  And if you know Sky, that says it all.

Intriguing Dynamic

Oh my gosh!  This is the second year in a row where our preparations to meet our hefty school tax obligation went flying out the window due to the utterly unexpected.

Last year, it was our house insurance provider's weird mandate to make what seemed to be unnecessary external "upgrades" to our home/property ~OR~ risk having our policy dropped.  "Steam-clean the exterior" but NOT "trim dead tree limbs;"  "level out the step" but not "take down the dangling defunct TV antenna."  $5,000 worth of totally unforeseen, mandatory "home improvements" wiped us out.

This year, the Fates seemed to totally smile on us.  The energies around our Summer 2012 art show - Serendipity - generated four plum assignments for John.  Two were modest (we celebrate each & every one, regardless of size!), two major.  Praise be!  

Naturally, John tackled the most $$$ first, as the tax man is yet again breathing down our necks.   It was a private airplane, something he'd wanted for his portfolio for a long time.  This one has charm & beauty, not white or silver, but a lovely color.  

John enjoyed every moment doing the comprehensive sketch for client approval -  we went with one of the clients to the hanger to take photos, he researched online, debated with himself the best setting (a grassy airstrip, similar to Van Sant).  

After years of my pleading NOT to just toss it out, now John offers clients the opportunity to buy the comp art as well as the final piece.  They almost always snap it up, It looks that good.  It sure did, in this case.  The clients were pleased as all get out with how he'd shown off their darling.

Except...

They balked at the price.  In hindsight, John should have reminded them it was less than the $3000 or more he'd charge most clients.  Because he wanted it for his portfolio - and the clients were friends from my home town - he'd dropped his price.  Now, even that wasn't low enough.  The couple switched from praising the art to hemming & hawing between themselves - "Well, you know, we have kids in college right now..."  

And they postponed the final art.  Indefinitely.

Hmmm....  

Wish I could get myself in a lather over the turn of events, but part of me understands their dilemma.  It's easy to think about something when it's hypothetical, a "wouldn't it be great... wish.  But writing out a check makes things real really fast.  See, John gets half of his fee once he gets the thumbs up on a comp sketch & a green light for final art.  But even if the client thinks the comp art is great, as this couple did, if they don't give the "go," there's NO payment - not half, not a quarter, nada.  

He offered to come down another $500 (good thing I wasn't there!).  No dice.  

"We have to think about it."  

John & I have been married for 23+ years.  Never, in all those years, has a client ever put the brakes on after requesting/reviewing a comprehensive sketch.  Never occurred to me it was a possibility.  Yet here we are, no commission, feeling that fierce breath down our necks & not enough $$ to shoo off the tax man.  

But wait a minute...  The name of the art show was Serendipity. And we called it that for a reason, not mere caprice.   We need to remember that having faith in serendipity means doing so in fair weather AND foul.  

Which has me wondering how all this, which looks  headed for disaster, will ultimately turn out.  I have full faith it will, so won't clutter cosmic energies up with nail biting.  Will simply consider our best next step (which is never panic).

For one thing, praise be John has projects to fall back on.  It would have been great if he'd done the portrait of Marianne on her beloved horse for Christmas instead of Valentine's Day 2013 (a present for her new hubster).  But the other was requested first & would have made enough $ to pay off our bill.  Don't fret over that.  Instead, offer up thanks for all that is.  Great things will come from it.

If nothing else, John has a terrific painting to work on for his portfolio -  if they hadn't requested, he wouldn't have been spurred to start.  Even now, there's swell comp art to show potential clients (lots of pilots out there).  More than anything else, John has the sure knowledge he had every reason to believe we'd be covered with the tax man, which is what matters to me.  We weren't lax in our responsibilities.  

This is the second time in two years our ability to pay our $$$ tax bill has been set on its ear by forces we never considered.  Intriguing dynamic.  Not sure of the why behind it.  Didn't know last year (our friends had never heard of insurance providers making such demands); equally clueless in the here & now.   

What can we do?   Open our hearts, open our willingness to learn whatever lessons come, be aware that we'd taken steps to cover our obligations.  

Breathe.

All the Best

Inspired by lessons learned this past summer re: the power of  blue painter's tape - it bonds to a surface but removes easily, without damage - am able to display every Christmas card in our extensive collection.  Not just cards to each other, but ones from our much-missed Moms, from especially dear friends, special cards from anyone, cards that seized our hearts & didn't let go and ones that made us laugh.  

LOTS of cards.

Among them are cards from my sister & oldest brother, neither of whom have a very high tolerance level for me these days.  Per my older sis, most of the good times I remember, all the seriously great moments of deep camaraderie, are merely figments of a hopelessly Pollyanna mind.  

All anyone needs to see to KNOW those good times happened, that sense of fun connection was real (at least at one time) are a few of the cards they sent over the years.  Okay, so maybe they might say they were just being nice, in the Christmas spirit, but I don't think the cards support that logic.

Consider the series of cards Mim sent - long before John - from the different trees near where she lived & worked ~ ~ the tree at Princeton's Palmer Square, the one at Rockefeller Center, the one at J & J's HQ in New Brunswick.  

Little cards with a lot of heart & loving connection.  

See, it was real.  Maybe not to her, but to me.  And this Christmas season, seeing that Christmas heart every day, I remember the joy & deep sisterly love.

Consider the hilarious series of cards Peter sent over fairly recent years, after Mom was reunited with her O Best Beloved.  Cards from our cats.  Cards from our cats with wonderful whimsical messages from them.  Tender, loving, beyond special.  

My absolute favorite (until I come across another - they keep popping up) is atop the window sash in the kitchen, within easy reach so I can take it down whenever I want to reread it, smile, chortle.  

When Peter put his heart into it, he was the best brother in the entire universe.  It wasn't consistent & his Golden Age of being brotherly to me didn't last long, but the point is - brought home in each card from Chessie & Amory or Chessie, Gryf, Rennie & Maxie  - is it  HAPPENED.

What magic this particular Christmas season keeps bringing into our lives.  Rich memories that sing out about special times with unforgettable people, reassurance (not that I needed it, but sure does feel cozy) that the times I remember & cherish happened.  

Some people grieve over things that, once present in their lives, have retreated away.  This Christmastime, more than any I can recall, am reminded of the words of the way-past whimsical Theodore Giesel - Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.  

At this holy Christmas season - and throughout the years to come - I send all my brothers & sister wishes for what they so often gave me ~ ~ all the best.  .

MORE Unbidden Blessings

Got a call today from Cora Price Funk - she'd gotten a book at BATS that had an inscription to me in it and she was SURE that I hadn't meant to part with the book.

The book was Drawn From Memory, by Ernest Shepherd, an illustrated memoir of his Victorian  childhood.  Cora was sure that I'd never intentionally let such a treasure out of my possession.

Actually, she was wrong.  I did let it go, let it go quite deliberately.  She thought some child had crossed out the inscription - To Elsa, from Mim  Christmas 1976.  No, I'd done that, just before I packed it up many years ago to pay forward to someone who wouldn't feel daggers in the hear looking at it.  

I'd packed it up in the midst of heartbreak.  Once Mom was reunited with her O Best Beloved, Mim felt free to let me know - in writing, no less! - that she a) didn't like me and b) never did.  

The book rubbed salt in the resulting wounds because it seemed to epitomized all the grand times that we did have together, all the special times & memories which meant so much to me & I now believe meant a lot to her, too.  At the time, all I knew was that she forgot everything I did for he, large & small, was horrified that I'd claim to have ever been there for her.  At the time, all I felt from her was alienation & the deep horror that that was all she seemed to feel from me..  That charming book brought it all home like it was a sledge hammer.   

So, I'd crossed out the inscription & bid it goodbye.  

And there it was, wonder of wonders, this afternoon, reentering my life, returning at a time where I've come to peace with what is & embracing a deep appreciation of all that I experienced as "was."  An unbidden blessing, indeed.

That was my first unbidden blessing of the day.  The second arrived as I was putting up cards on the living room walls.

It was during our joint art show this past summer that I learned how super duper blue tape is for securing safely to the wall AND removes simply & completely.  The light dawned to display ALL of the Christmas cards we've kept over the years, including ones from both our Moms, from my sibs & from dearly loved or long departed friends.  Works like a charm!

Opened one with two kitties on the front, gazing into a fire.  Assumed it would be from John, to me.  It wasn't.  It was to the two of us, from  Chessie, Gryf, Rennie & Max.  It included a deliciously whimsical & touching tribute from the "three kitties."  Special special special.  And purchased, composed & written by Peter.  Yes, "Mim & me & the whole f----- world are sick of your control!!!" Peter.  

The deliciously whimsical Peter is, I believe, the true PRL.  The abrasive man who looks down his nose at me, is intensely unhappy to be near me, is the sham Peter, what he somehow thinks he's supposed to be - and isn't.  The crazed lunatic who got up pre-dawn during snowstorms to shovel off our driveway & paths & steps before we got up.  The fellow who'd stop by after work to sit on the living room couch, checking out the paper as he sat with the adoring cats.  That man is the real deal.  How those cats enjoyed him, and how they missed him.  How we all missed him.  

Peter at his best was the best sort of brother any girl could want.  At his worst... You don't want to know.

A book & a card.  A sense of joy & even home coming just looking at them.  Will I ever have any sort of actual relationship with my sibs?  My guess is "not" - but then, it turns out (to my shock but not surprise) that we apparently never did.   

Or at least they didn't with me.  I sure did with them, and that is really all that matters.

A book, a card, a sense of joy & peace & home coming.  More unbidden blessings!

Spooky Wonderful

Just yesterday, wrote about how fabulous things you never ever would have imagined as possible turn up, unbidden but welcome, when you make a place for whatever to arrive.  

Last night, had another remarkable thing happen that is just such a blessing. Well, it didn't really feel like a blessing when it first happened.  

Last week, I stumbled across a long-ago friend online ~ she's the organizer of Literary Epicures of Newtown (PA).  Was delighted!  Had regretted letting our friendship lapse after she had kids & our paths parted.  Touched base with her & we became FB friends.  

But not for long.

Two or three days into our renewed acquaintance, I posted a comment she didn't like.  She was  dismissive of what I'd written & framed me as making a judgmental statement I'd never made.  She had me speaking out for gun control, when the phrase was no where in my posting (although her mind clearly took her there).  

In my response, I added links to additional sites supporting the reporting I'd cited and I noted how her point re: the role of mental health in tragedies such as Newtown (CT) was spot on - and noted I'd shared a link to "I am Adam Lanza's Mom" on that very point a couple minutes before she'd posted her comment.  

That did NOT sit well with her.  Her response -  Elsa - there is a reason I have not been in contact with you for over a decade, and being your friend on FB for 2 days confirmed it. I have no interest in what you have to say. I wish you and John the best of luck in the future..................

Geez, Louise!!  

At first, felt downright humiliated.  For someone to post such a comment on my WALL instead of sending it as a private message - well, it stunned me.  And it felt so terrible that anyone would find me so...  not sure what the word is.  If she felt that way, how many other people did, too?  How many have blocked me because they experience me the same way?

Very upset, shed quite a few tears.  

Not John.  He laughed it off, knowing the source.  (She made a play for him at our engagement party!)  That gave me pause to reconsider my immediate response.

As happens so often, John gave me space to take a new look at the situation.  Began to see it in a whole new light.  Gosh!  Her comment was almost identical to what my sibs have said for years.  They have no interest in what I have to say.  Now, for the first time, the unlikely had happened ~ ~  someone - okay, not one of my sibs, but SOMEONE - posted that very thing about me in the most public place possible.  Out of the clear blue, I had the opportunity to brush it off with, "Oh, I've heard that same thing for years from my sibs.  Used to it."  WONDERFUL, liberating, being able to say that.

Ranks right up there with hearing a former co-worker of my oldest brother speak in disbelieving tones of never hearing from him or my niece, in spite of some really amazing things she & other co-workers had done on his behalf.  No thank you, not response to phone calls asking how he was.  Ah, the sweet relief of knowing someone else knew what most folks find unbelievable (and therefore don't).  

Ranks right up there with someone trying to connect with my sister about an important event.  It wasn't that he couldn't get through on her phone line - it was that it felt to him like she was listening to him leave his message without picking up the phone.  And although they hadn't connected before the event (they did after), she'd sent a contribution toward it.  Yep, that's my sis.  Ah, the sweet relief of knowing someone else knew.    

My forever thanks to All That Is for knowing that's all I've ever needed - it's spooky wonderful, knowing that someone, even just one someone, heard the same brutal words I had.   It's not just me.  Praise be!  

So, thanks, Alex, for providing the opportunity to say to people who matter, "Got past it.  Realized it wasn't anything new - heard it from my sibs.  Seems I'm an acquired taste, like olives & artichokes & single malt scotch."   

Yes, Alex, I've heard similar comments before, had people who mattered way more than you ever did turn on their heels, out of my life.  If that worked for them - and you - then farewell & best wishes.  

Oh - and don't let the door hit your backside on the way out! 

Unbidden

Am continually amazed at how there are things I can change by putting out conscious, constant & consistent efforts.  Can take that route to make changes to certain behaviors, but  Deep DEEP changes, changes to my actual attitude, to issues underneath behaviors, are quite different & wildly elusive, indifferent to all the things that can change behaviors.  

Such changes never happen with me on any sort of schedule, but pop up in their own time, in their own way.

REAL, deep change comes when we welcome it, prepare to receive it, but it seems to creep in quietly (at least with me), from the very edges of my being.  BEing.  And the changes I've received include things I never would have imagined.  

My birth faith talks about reformation & regeneration.  WE have charge of reforming our actions, but a spiritual power has charge of  BIG, substantial, stuff-that-really-matters changes.  Was going to say that the Divine stirs the waters of our spiritual changes, but realized that the same Divine force stirs all deep change.  

My job is to clear out a channel so change has a place to enter.  I've learned to expect some stunners, changes that take me places I never dreamed possible.  

Although my awareness of these changes often come to me all of a sudden, am aware that their actual arrival is quite gradual, easing in from the edges of my being. 

One of the greatest moments of a long-in-the-making change making itself known happened rather spectacularly about 15 years ago, during a women's book discussion group at Barnes & Noble/Willow Grove.  

Serendipity

My connection with the group wasn't in my plans, but it was in Someone's.  

Was sitting in one of the big comfy chairs next to a low table, a stack of books near at hand.  A woman was quietly bustling about, sort of setting things up.  She looked at the two of us - myself & a guy (John was probably checking out magazines) - and assured us, "Don't worry.  We won't be using the space until 7:00 p.m.," about 25 minutes later.  

The guy took one look at her, sort of mumbled, got up & walked off.  Not me - too cozy to move until positively necessary.  

The woman hauled out about 4 or 5 books from a big canvas carry-all, placing them on the table, next to my own stack of 4 or 5.  She looked at hers, then at mine, then at me, before looking back at the two stacks of books, hers & mine.  Interested by the look on her face, I peered at the two stacks, first at hers, then at mine, then up at her.  We locked eyes & just experienced the moment.

Our two stacks were identical.

Nancy Baker, it turned out, is a life coach, one of the very earliest.  In that unsought moment, my life took a new turn.  I was home.

Of course, I stuck around for the group, a circle of diverse women interested in connecting more fully with their lives.  Never, ever would I have asked for such a group or leader, since I was pretty skeptical about the effectiveness of such ventures.  Even at the time, I chalked up the connection to having made certain other changes in my life that left the way free for this wonder of wonders to unfold.

Ah Ha!

Over the few years we met, the group got used to my unexpected AH HA! moments, usually related to something apparently unrelated to the discussion.  The group would be talking about whatever when all of a  sudden - SWOOSH!  My mind would be bathed in a new light of understanding about something, sometimes something I'd never identified as an issue.  

Will always remember the first time it happened.  We were discussing some book or other on life dynamics when Nancy suddenly looked over at me & announced to the group, "Deev's had an epiphany!"  How she knew is beyond me, but she was spot on.  Apparently unrelated to the topic at hand, the thought "We are all on our own path" popped into my head & heart.  I didn't have to be anxious about Peter or Mim because they were on their own paths.  And of course where they were headed didn't make sense to me - our paths have different views, different destinations.

Mega AH HA!  

Like Nancy & the circle of women, the moment arrived unbidden - & life changing.

With Intent to THRILL

Arriving at & leaving Thursday night's Cairnwood by Candlelight  were the two most unexpected moments at the delightful event.

On our way into the delightful event, I had the great good fortune to spot a shooting star, right over Cairnwood.  A hushed, beautiful sight.

One the way out, I spotted a quote from Walter Childs about John Pitcairn.  Mr. Childs noted how, when John Pitcairn thought something was worthwhile and it engaged his interest, he acted on it.  (~ not the actual words, but the idea ~ )  

That observation lit up my mind in much the same way the shooting star blazed against the night sky.

How often do I, like so many other well-meaning people, find something of interest, think to myself, "Gee, that would be worth doing," then move onto whatever's next.  Or the interest might linger  in my mind, even come up repeatedly over days, months, even years.  Whichever the response, the end result is almost always (8 times out of 10) the same - no energies are actually invested, zip actually gets DONE.

Thinking about that quote gave me new insights into a persistent challenge in my life:  Knowing the key difference between something I consider worthwhile & of interest ~ and ~ things I find worth my full attention & engage my focus, not just my temporary attention.  

What is the difference between being well-intentioned, which seems to fit the majority of folks kicking around this planet are, and setting good intentions, a la John Pitcairn?

What would it take for me to live a genuinely intentional life - not merely "well" - one in which I am ACTIVELY and CONSISTENTLY engaged?  One where I consistently live with an intent to thrill?

Step ONE:  know the difference between things that are interesting & worthwhile and those that engage my interest & are worthy of my time, that deserve my energy & action.

  

QUIDDITY

A lot, maybe a majority, of people dismiss the importance of saying – out loud, in writing – our personal stories.   Stories can be seen as symptoms of self-absorption, indicative of narcissism, dull prattlings of people with too high a regard for themselves & too little of matter to keep themselves occupied.

Such folk miss the importance of personal stories, ours & others.  A wise woman wrote that celebrating life stories, big & small, important & apparently inconsequential, provide a “strategy for learning.”  By taking the time to look back on who we were, on what we did, on the impact of others on us, of the things we knew for sure that turned out to be way different than what we thought – by doing that, we help get a bead on who & where we are, maybe get a hint of where we might be going. 

How can we know who we are if we don’t honor what we’ve been?  How can we know where we’re headed without giving at least giving a tip of the hat to the tracks we left behind? 

Learned a new word this past fall – quiddity. 

According to Merriam-Webster, quiddity is a noun meaning “whatever makes something the type that it is; essence.”  Strangely, the same source includes another meaning - a trifling point. 

Interesting.  

So many people find life stories to be mere trifles.  They tend to chalk up folks like me, who find that such stories cup in their metaphysical hands whatever it is that makes us who we are, as eccentrics.

Quiddity - essence.  The gist of who we are.  That could be why working with stories - naturally, without any sense of forcing – can make it easier to interact with olders, especially olders struggling with the delicate balance between what they remember & who they were with what they forget & how they've unraveled.  

Words – once partners in expressing thoughts – turn against them.  They can’t remember the right word or they seem to pluck ones out of the air, whether they apply or not.  

Ah, but things of essence are beyond words.  They simple ARE.  Things of essence conjure images in the mind & heart that need no words, would be hemmed in & caged  by words.   

Maybe those who seem to find my passion for honoring, sharing, recording life stories to be a trifle, not worth significant time or effort, miss the essential point, which true for young & old, robust or frail, sharp-as-a-tack or forgetful ~ stories anchor who we are, help us find ease with who we are becoming, help us find peace with who we were.  

They conjure up, reflect & shine a light on our quiddity. 

(cross posted onto sneezingchickens.blogspot.com)

Passionate?

Am I passionate about sharing/saving personal & family stories.  

To quote the much-missed Carson Tyler – you bet your booties, grandma!

Maybe it’s because I’ve seen the effect sharing stories has on the majority of older people.  No matter how infirm or even forgetful they are, trigger a happy memory & they're freed to  zip back to earlier years, to perhaps long-gone loved ones & friends, precious moments still fresh in their minds.

Is it easy getting an older to tap into their treasure house of memories, to share them with others?  With 9 out of 10 olders, no.

First of all, olders  - make that almost everyone – tend to think of their stories as of little interest to others, inconsequential.  Just little stories from long ago.

It typically takes another's genuine interest & lots of low-key cajoling to get most olders to open up.  It rarely happens the first, or even fourth, time it’s attempted. 

What is the value?  

Stories can be an invaluable tool working with olders.  Even the healthiest generally experience increasing isolation, as friends move or pass away.  Remembering stories, valuing them & having them valued by others, helps keep many olders engaged with life.  They have proved powerful tools working with folks suffering from memory challenges, providing connections when there might be their grasp on the here & now might not be as strong as it is on the back then.

Today's culture has become so automated & digitalized, we’ve lost many – perhaps most – oral traditions that were once commonplace.  

When olders live with their children, sharing stories about grown sons & daughters was natural as dishes were washed or meals were made.  There were countless opportunities to ask questions about early years, courtship, marriage.  

The current barrage of distractions is so different from anything that existed before.  Radio gathered families around it, which television did not.  Today, computers & iPads et al make entertainment an often solitary experience.  So different from the typical households of the 100 years ago, when entertainment was often as low tech as the family piano & story telling, tales of past adventures & triumphs, challenges & tragedies, resilience & victory were shared across generations.

Stories are not all sweetness & light.  There can be pain there, too.  Clients of mine lost relatives & dearly loved ones in World War II.  My brother died when I was seven.  Mom was widowed at  63.  Both John & I have ridden financial roller coasters & wrestled with difficult relationships.  

Who wants to hear sad stories?  Truth be told, there can be a lot of power in stories of tragedy, loss & woe.

One tragic tale I heard from my Mom happened before she was born, a story handed down from her mother, about an uncle I never heard about until the final weeks of Mom’s life. 

We did a lot of talking over those weeks, both at INOVA Alexandria (VA) & St. Mary’s (PA), especially when we thought she was on the mend.  Maybe we’d been discussing medical advances.  For whatever reason, she started telling me about her older brother, William – Willie – born after Uncle Al and before Uncle Bob. 

Newborn Willie couldn’t accept his mother’s milk, couldn’t take a bottle.  This was in the first years of the last century - there was no alternative, like there is now.  My grandparents, in their late 20s, had to watch their sweet little babe ebb away.  

Near the end, my grandfather refused to leave his tiny son’s crib.  Finally, my grandmother went in, draped her arms around her bereft husband’s shoulders, and said – “Ben, come away.  Let him go.”  In tears, my grandfather let himself be led out of the room.  Within the hour, Willie was gone.

Yes, it was a tragedy.  Still, imagine a father’s love being so strong, it was  kept a wee baby connected to this life.  It happened over 109 years ago, to someone even my mother didn’t know – except through her mother’s stories.  And it’s retelling is the only presence that little baby, my Uncle Willie, has in the here & now.

Am I passionate about sharing & saving such stories?   

YES!!  

Just one broken heartbeat away...

It might seem sort of a downer thing to bring up during this Christmas season, but we are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing the stories of our lives.  The people we love – especially parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins – are just one broken heartbeat away. 

Friends often say to me, “I wish we’d had stories from our parents.  You’re lucky to have so many of your Mom’s.”  Just the other day, a friend mentioned my passion for sharing Mom’s stories.  

It’s not a passion for sharing Mom's stories, but for nudging others into have their olders do the same.

We are our stories.  

Yet how many of us know much about our parents before the years we started being consciously aware of them?  

It's a joy whenever a friend posts snapshots of her Mom & Dad & their friends enjoying good times together, back when they were very young adults.  I look at their older selves at church or other places and see the vibrant young woman, the dashing young man, in their smiles, their eyes.  And so many of the photos are at spots where their children & grandchildren & even greatgrands have similar grand times!  

Their daughter isn’t telling their stories in words, like I did with Mom, but in photos.  Clear evidence that pictures really do speak a thousand years! 

Albums

We are only one broken heartbeat away from throwing out albums of uncaptioned pictures, like I did with a haunting one full of pictures from the late 1800s & early 20^th century, photos of my father’s beloved aunts & uncles at their summer place on a unknown river in an unknown place - there wasn't so much as a single caption under any of them.  Will always remember the zest, the pure pleasure of being with each other.  But without the captions, they were strangers to me, in a strange but wonderful land.

Are your family album photos clearly captioned?  Not just on the page. Unless it’s actually glued onto the pages, as Dad’s family album was, each photo should also be captioned on the back.    Photos sometimes fall or are taken out of albums.  If it only has a page caption, it’s history is gone.

Christmas Heritage

It is my pleasure & great honor to work with some fabulous grannie clients.  Some of them have A LOT of grandchildren, so buying Christmas presents can take a big bite out of their funds.  A wonderful present to give adult grands is a photo of the olders back when they were youngers.  I don’t have children, hence no grandkids, but aunts & uncles can give photos of their parents, brothers or sisters.  Captioned on the back!  Reprints are easy to get these days, even at the corner Walgreens or CVS.  Team it up with a mat from the arts & crafts store, and you’re good to go!

Captioning suggestion – I write captions on white labels, then affix them to the back of the photo.  That way, I don’t have to work about a ball point pen leaving an indentation on the precious photo or ink bleeding through.

Passion for Sharing

We are all just one broken heartbeat away from losing all our stories.  I am passionate about sharing the joys of gathering them.  Each of us is an walking album of stories – this holiday season is a wonderful time to help olders open up & share them with you, to haul out family albums & remember the stories, the people behind each photo. 

Just one…. 

Power of Stories

Chalk it up to having the honor of being the daughter of someone who lived well past the proverbial "3 score years & ten" and the friend of many others who did, too - from Grandma Rose & Viola Ridgeway to my mother-in-law & many beloved teachers ~ ~ it's impossible to remember a time I didn't understand the remarkable power of stories in living a joyful life.  

It's impossible to remember a time that sharing life stories with others, over a family meal or a friendly cuppa, recording them in letters or journals or now blogs, wasn't a natural part of my life.

It constantly stuns me how many people didn't have that same sense of connection to past generations, to their parents' younger selves.  

What fun it was, hearing Mom talk about Aunt Dot, Uncle Al, Uncle Bob, and especially Aunt Betty, her lifelong BFF as well as baby sister.  To hear stories about Dad's family, especially summers with his mother's relatives. Those stories held important life lessons, too - both Mom & Dad had early years marked with great tragedy, left with surviving parents who had somewhat dysfunctional ways of parenting.  

From both my parents, but especially from Mom, I was given a rich treasure house of memories of people I never met, times I never lived in, circumstances I never faced.  

One of the most important things I do with my grannie clients is to talk about their earlier years.  It's interesting, coming from a family that always & still values such stories, to hear client after client dismiss their earlier years as being of no value.  And I mean stories from their lives, not things that happened to others.  

Most - sadly, most - of my clients don't initially see much value in their earlier experiences.  Taking the bull by the horns, I explain to them that I am a compilation of all my previous experiences - good, bad & indifferent.  In recognizing & honoring them - even the stinky ones - I've come to have a better understanding of who I am at this moment in time, which will be itself a memory tomorrow.  Strange but true, they can see the truth of that about me, but shake their heads that it could be true of them, too.  

One of my greatest wishes for EVERYONE is that they develop an urgency about recalling, honoring and recording their memories.  No need to dredge up icky stuff.  There's plenty to recall that can be shared without fear of causing so much as a single kerfluffle.  

That being said, let dark things come up if they arise - there's power in remembering uncomfortable, even sad moments.  Sometimes, we learn the most from those moments.  

Some of my grannie clients have memory problems, which makes story telling a challenge.  They can get frustrated not remembering a name or a town or a date.  It's interesting how many times, if the sharing is very general, the details will float up in ways they don't when being forced.

Folks with fully intact memories can find it hard to grasp the challenges memory lapses present.  It's easy to feel (even if we don't express it) exasperation at the person we arrive to pick up who comes to the door on a cold day in a warm weather outfit & a light coat, who forgets the name of a grandchild, who has lots of pieces of paper around the house to remember important dates & events & people.  It's not so easy to see the person who's doing their best to hang on, to bridge the chasm they face every moment between knowing & not knowing, between being their self & watching their self.  

One reason my Mom aged so well is that she had the constant point of reference that stories provided.  We batted them about frequently - not just me, but my brothers & sister, too.  It seemed every family gathering included the three older kids swapping tales of swimming at the pond or in the creek or a legion of other  things that were great unknowns to much-younger me; Peter, Mike & Mim were many years older than I, a generation before, rooted in a culture I never knew.  But Mom did.  And those stories of the past - along with the ones I added, the ones John could recall with a smile & a laugh - helped anchor her in the present. 

Imagine an older person, someone who lived in a house filled with kids, busy & bustling with being a mom & a wife.  Imagine that person downsizing with her husband, moving into a smaller house, with no kids needing her care, but a house that still had to be cleaned, gardens that still needed tending, a husband who still needed her.  Imagine that person alone, living in an apartment - still in her town, but not able to get around as much as she did, still able to drive but fewer places to go & never at night.  Imagine that person no longer able to drive, without the energy to do much of what she did, with someone who comes in to clean her apartment, who has trouble figuring out how to turn on the radio or work the TV. remote control.  

Having a store house of memories, a lot of pictures around as reminders of past times, maybe albums of photos with captions identifying people-places-times, helps us stay grounded in our present moment.  Building up that store is a safeguard against loneliness when we're at the age where our aging bodies & sometimes failing minds limit our once busting-at-the-seams energies.  

Storing up stories is more than simply a safeguard against isolation.  We all need ways to recall, honor & story our lives.  We need their nourishment as much as we do wholesome food & physical activities.  

Without our stories, our spirits can too easily atrophy.  With them, we have moments long past from which we can take pleasure and even learn new lessons.  With them, we have a rich legacy to leave when we're gone.

Mom didn't have much of an estate when she was finally (after 28 years) reunited eleven years ago with her O! Best Beloved.  At the time, I said that her legacy was much like prizes awarded at certain events, where you had to be present to win because Mom's greatest legacy was the stories she recalled to us, the stories that made up her life.  

There is great power in stories, but time is short.  We are all just a broken heartbeat away from losing those stories.  

Take the time to talk with an older relative or friend.  Do it frequently, without agenda - it takes time to get most people to open up & share.  It's hard for people who knew Mom through her Mindwalker1910 e-mails to believe how many weeks & cups of tea it took for me to get her to share her personal stories, not just the amusing "war stories" we grew up with.  Can recall her scoffing that anyone would care - I'd agree that her kids wouldn't (and sure enough - the others didn't), but she should do it for the grandchildren, the great grands she hoped to someday see.  Through her stories, they'd see her.  

It took many weeks & much softly delivered cajoling, but Mom finally started making tape recordings, sometimes over a cuppa, sometimes out on drives.  In time, she evolved to e-mail, going from sharing them with me to sending them out into cyberspace where anyone who cared could read them, to an ever-growing circle of old friends & new connections, people she never met but who knew Mom through her posts.

I guess that is my great hope for all of my grannie clients, although I've yet to convince them (still working on it) - to share their stories, if only with me.  To them, as to my Mom, their stories are piddly things, nothing that would engage anyone's interest.  But it was never, is never, about who reads the stories.  It might be no one.  It's about the remembering, the writing of them, the recording of a life, the honoring past selves whose accumulated whole is your present self.  

There is power in our stories.  They are not minor or piddly.  The reason is simple, yet so often overlooked.  Our body is composed of flesh & blood & bone, but WE are so much more  ~  we ARE our stories.