Vivid Living

A few weeks ago while visiting relatives in California a friend having a zero birthday and a midlife crisis called.  In reality — by which I mean the “big picture“ snapshot — everything in her world was alright; it’s just that she couldn’t see, well, er…the  ”big picture.”

My cousin, Josetta, who knows the friend and overheard my conversation, had one word to say: “Next?”  I looked at her, trying to read her mind.  “Next?” she repeated, this time with the added drama of cocking her head sideways.

But of course!

Next? means MOVE ON!  As in…make that phone call, clear that debt, shrug off confrontation, reset your thinking, pursue your passions, risk, and focus on all that is possible and positive.

I love this clean, direct wisdom because its relevance can be tested across small disappointments like a traffic ticket and larger ones, like job turmoil or, yes, even mourning.  How you proceed is up to you, as is the timing (let’s face it –  five days for one person might mean five months for another) but at some point, I think, intuition leads you to the next place.

There aren’t many certainties in this world. But choosing when to ask and execute Next? is within our reach — always. In spite of the thorns in life, if we’re not moving forward, I wonder, just where are we going?

Sunday’s Denver Post ran a cover story about female genital mutilation. The article featured a 43-year-old woman from the Ivory Coast who was cut at 11 and a 26-year-old from Guinea duped and then defiled at eight. I’m very culturally tolerant, yet this type of depravity leaves me, a writer, beyond words. What struck me most about the piece was the survivors’ courage to escape their past and renew themselves through a radical reconstructive surgery performed by one very extraordinary doctor.

Courage has many faces, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since reading this story.  Courage is my new friend, Liz Holzemer, who was diagnosed with a meningioma brain tumor in 2000, underwent extensive treatment, wrote a book about her experience, Curveball: When Life Throws You a Brain Tumor, and founded a non-profit called Meningioma Mamas to raise awareness and funds for this common cancer affecting women. Courage is my closest high school friend, a pediatrician, who is battling a very serious brain tumor.  Years and states separate us, but I’m lifting her up in my prayers along with her two children and husband.  Courage is my friend in Denver, a wife and mother of three young children, who contracted Hepatitis C from a drug-addicted nurse.

Beyond illness and grief, courage is the face of a young girl who says “that’s not nice” when her peers tease her because she can’t run as fast on the playing field. She has a mild disability but doesn’t want to appear different than others. Courage is the boy who comforts a crying classmate; he sits with her alone under a tall tree.

Courage is my friend in New Jersey who is raising a baby girl from South Africa literally placed in her arms.  ”Take her,” the child’s grandmother said, “you can give her a better life.”

Courage, I believe, is having the pluck to face your fears, the grace to make unpopular decisions and the bravery to live your dreams.

I’m not sure how these seeds of valor are sown.  But we all have them, this I know for sure.

Friends,

As we move into a new decade, I’ll let you ruminate over this favorite passage of mine from Emily Dickinson.

We never know how high we are

Till we are called to rise.

And then, if we are true to plan

Our statures touch the skies.

May you soar into 2010 with wings of grace –  gliding effortlessly whenever you can, rising up as needed, and always, always living fully and well.

Thanks for reading Vivid Living.

I’m back! No, I haven’t run off to Tahiti although the notion of a clean getaway from the crush of life does sound appealing.  In fact, I’m sitting at one of my favorite writing haunts, The St. Mark’s Coffeehouse, looking at the following anonymous message scribbled in pink chalk: Let’s runaway together. Just you and me. I haven’t even met you yet but I’m ready. Let’s go.

Hmmmmm.  That’s an enticing thought. Where would you like to go? Fantasize. If only in your mind, or beneath the soft weight of your comforter, dream, it’s healthy.

My spirit needs recharging, that’s for sure. Just the other night I said to Steve, “let’s go away for the night, let’s head to the mountains.” Past experience has taught me that  stepping away every so often is the best boost to my emotional and spiritual health.  It’s like meditation ; when I’m outside of my daily grind, I take time to slow my pacing, breathe deeper, and gain perspective.

Times are tight, and it’s hard to break away, I know.  Still, I’m a big advocate for physically shaking life up every few months, just like applying that fresh coat of paint I blogged about in my first entry. You don’t really need to hop on a plane or train – although the idea of doing so is sometimes enough of a release. Steve and I have a running joke that when the going gets rough we’ll meet one another aboard the flight to Italy.  He’ll text me, “hurry, the plane is leaving in a half hour.” Someday…

How about starting with small ideas? A restorative hike; dinner out with your partner or a special friend; a visit to that museum you can’t ever seem to make time for; or, a movie (my spirit was higher after armchair traveling with Mamma Mia.)

Maybe your ideal retreat is secluding yourself at home?

The point is to make time for yourself amidst the fullness of life. I’m a better wife, mother, daughter, friend, and writer when I do.

I leave you with ripe food for thought by Maya Angelou, whom I came to know through my experiences at UNICEF.

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

All week I’ve been a grump. Blame it on a full plate and empty fuel tank.  You know how it goes…squeezing work and then writing time on my off days, hauling my kids all over town yet still catching slack for not buying the Halloween costumes in time for their school parties (hey I’ve still got six days!), catching still more slack for not wanting to spend  $39.99 on the puffy suma wrestler get-up my son yearns for, squinting my eyes at the two loads of laundry waiting to be folded as I climb the stairs each night (by now there’s three more loads crying to be washed so why bother with the first two?), watching the leaves make a dense collage on our lawn. And so it goes.

Perhaps, I’m also grumpy from my trip back East.  For the first time since my husband, Brett, passed away, I visited the hospitals and hospice where he fought and ended his long battle with cancer. I did this for writerly reasons, as research for my memoir. More on this visit at a later post, but yes, the trip left some residual clotting.  How could it not?

And then.  In the midst of feeling scattered and overwhelmed, I received an e-mail this morning from a stranger who read my recent column about leaps of faith and the courage to change in the new Colorado View Magazine.  She wrote: “The past six years, I have felt stuck in Colorado…afraid to make a move because of money, support system, job, etc., etc.  If I move will I be able to find a job at my age?  Can I sell my house? My heart is on the East Coast, warm sunny beaches.  I’ve been researching the coast of South Carolina and Florida, and want so much to just say, “Do it…you can do it.”  After reading your story, I realized that I CAN….thank you for giving me that courage to at least begin my journey home.”

My words may have helped this reader cast her life forward, but she, too, taught me a lesson about service and gratitude.    This is why I share my experience so freely: to give hope to others that in spite of the shits of life – big or small – hope and possibility exist.   Always.

In the footprint of helping others, I also freed myself.  My mood has lifted.  I’m still staring at the laundry and the leaves but there’s always tomorrow.

A new friend recently celebrated her 40^th birthday.  Happy Birthday Mary! Her big day brought me back in time to my own 40^th birthday, and to reflecting more broadly about markers.

Here’s what I wrote in an essay for Woman’s Day in May. “I had always loved the mountains, and moving to Colorado meant moving toward life, committing to a future that had once seemed impossible to grasp. I was about to turn 40. If not now, when?”

That mantra, If not now, when?, became as vital to me as food.  The more I breathed those words, the more they sustained me; through them, I came to feel the power of instinct and passion and faith.

Anniversaries, holidays and zero birthdays ought to be commemorated, sometimes in ways that prod us in new directions. So, too, should less formal rites, like the start of a new semester at school, finishing a blog post or purging a closet (which reminds me….) Why not allow the ordinary to feel extraordinary? Why not celebrate simple pleasures?

Tonight I’m taking Steve out to celebrate his new job.

How might you begin to see the gift of everyday as cause of celebration?

I’m writing a memoir, a very humbling experience. Actually, my hubby and I are co-writing the book in alternating voices.  Stay tuned. 

As I plunge into this project, I’m struck by just how intricate and layered the craft of writing is, particularly in memoir, which is all about revelation.  I’m reading Sue William Silverman’s Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir.  Sue is a gifted author and teacher who prods writers to “keep peeling away those layers, like an onion, until you do discover the deeper layers of self and experience.” 

For me, roses offer the same analogy. Complex and layered, they reveal themselves more with each petal shed.

All of this has me thinking about the many layers in my life. In no particular order, I’m a woman, wife, mother, daughter, friend, writer, professional and student.  Each of these prescribed roles spawns new petals – the flowers of family, friends, community, and the commitments that bind us.  This blog is yet another layer.  

I’m all of these rich petals.

And yet, onions and roses…they make me think about what’s beneath the layers.

My sister-in-law, Marcy, celebrated her fourth wedding anniversary two days ago. Congratulations Marcy and Jaime!   The event, like any milestone, got me thinking about the passage of  time.

Four years ago: September 3, 2005.  Chief justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, died after a long battle with thyroid cancer and the nation was still reeling from the catastrophic destruction and loss of lives wrought by Hurricane Katrina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina.  More personally, I was living in New York City with my four-year-old twins and had been widowed 19 months.  Yep,  I was still in my 30’s (okay, late 30’s).   I remember the day well.  Marcy picked out a long, black “va-va-voom” dress for me to wear.  She wanted me to look and feel good, and I have to admit, I got a lot of  continued mileage out of that babe-alicious dress in the years to come.   The wedding was held at Whitby Castle, a gorgeous outdoor mansion in Westchester County, New York.   Those of us in the bridal party decorated Jaime’s hunter green triumph – a car he built himself as a teenager – with bagels and empty cans of tomato sauce.  

Just Married!

The wedding for me was bittersweet.  Joyous, yes, because finally Marcy and Jaime walked down the aisle. And how wonderful it felt to celebrate a happy occasion after the anguish of the past six years.  Which leads me to the sad part: Brett, Marcy’s only sibling, died before seeing she and Jaime tie the knot.  No doubt, he was right there in spirit, smiling. 

I remember being pretty off-kilter that day.  My identity as a WIDOW felt branded like a black mark across my forehead and I wasn’t yet able to give myself permission to remove it.   No one else could read my insides, but to me, the mask was as visible as my stunning dress.  The loss still felt raw. And yet, enough time had passed for me to have the urge to feel alive again, to feel young and vital and attractive and hopeful.  I wanted to want a future.   Yes, I wanted to dance and flirt with the cute firefighters who were inappropriately young.   Thank goodness for The Black Eyed Peas – My Humps and its funky beat got my juices flowing again. 

Much has changed over these last four years.   Marcy and Jaime have a beautiful son, Brayden, who turns three this month. My twins and I are now living in Denver.  My children are eight years old and real people, no longer babies! I remarried.  I have two teenage stepsons. And far too many family members and family friends have died.  We can never replace lost loved ones; their absence looms large, always.  

I’m reminded of a favorite quote in my office from the Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood:  ”I will always love you, Vivi,” he said.  ”There is nothing you could ever do that would make me stop loving you.”  The words shot through Vivi’s bones and blood and muscle, and her body relaxed, so that when her feet touched the ground they met the earth differently, as though they had found roots that reached deep down and anchored to something tender and undamaged.

We’ve got to honor the passage of time and all that it holds. Whether that means being truthful, stoic, heroic, flippin’ mad, sad, ecstatic or tentative, embracing the markers in our lives allow us to live more completely.  Cheers!

 So, here goes.  My first foray into the blogosphere.  

This morning I was painting a desk for my daughter that was handed down from a friend.  We chose a deep, burgundy-pink offset by white.   That first coat..wow..it was surprisingly hard.   No matter how much paint I gobbed on the brush it looked streaky and badly in need of, yes, more paint.  Which delayed things quite a bit because I  had to wait for everything to dry.   Some 30 minutes later, I applied the second coat.  It was a little tacky (no way to avoid the summer heat) but the fresh layer easily covered the streaks and took less time than the first round.  Still, the darn desk needed a third coat.  This time I had to wait an hour, which irritated me because I was now caked in paint and didn’t really want to wash and change clothes only to return to the task again moments later.  Finally, I picked up my brush and with great satisfaction quickly and rather artfully glided over the desk, the finished product like a creamy popsicle, smooth and shimmering. That’s when it struck me: Aren’t we all in need of a fresh coat of paint once in awhile?    

This is what Vivid Living is about: possibility and hope and renewal, from the smallest of matters like painting a desk to giant, ongoing (or maybe first-time) events like dating, relationships, careers, parenting and loss.  No doubt about it: life can be hard, and the best, most precise intentions do not always work according to plan.  Life happens.  It just does.  See my About Vivid Living page to read more about my story and why I wanted to start this blog.  

Today is a great day for me to begin Vivid Living.  My  8-year-old twins are back in school and their full schedule provides me with much needed work and think time.   Other than painting the desk, I’m using the day to reflect on all the transitions in my life: I’m about to dive into a part-time project that will require me to work away from my home office 25 hours each week; I’m coping with my very smart husband being unemployed and his process of recasting himself; I’m worrying, like so many of you, about the economy and long-term financial security; and, I’m preparing to help usher my oldest stepson to college in a few weeks.  My twins, too, are in a new school, which means that all us must build community.  All this as well as the little things in life that both press and rejuvenate us like cooking, laundry, exercise, and keeping up with family and friends.  As I said, life happens, everyday…

I’m so looking forward to exploring life in full bloom with you, thorns and all. 

P.S. Bear with me as I get this blogging thing down…