As July comes to a close and the first eve of August holds all of the promise and uncertainty of a new month, I’m coming to terms, yet again, with changes, new struggles and obstacles, and reconfigured ideas of what hope and promise look like.
July has been a very full and fast month, no stops and starts, just more than the usual dose of an air that hangs with the thickness of reconciliation – learning to temper the extremes, the heat of summer with the blasts of indoor cooling; the wavering lust for either sunrises or sunsets; and the yearning to be social in the face of a gnawing desire for solitude.
What’s new? Learning to be more than okay with uncertainty!
“Let July be July. Let August be August. And let yourself just be even in the uncertainty.” ~ Morgan Harper Nichols
Tag: inspiration
A Tenacious Bloom
Summer has arrived in full force on the Cape, and nothing announces it more than the glorious blooming of hydrangeas everywhere.
Simple things. A sunny day. A bouquet fresh from the yard. Hydrangeas have become my favorite, perhaps because they were hers. It’s funny though because symbolically, especially in literature, hydrangeas signify opulence and arrogance; they are indeed a showy flower with an unparalleled presence in a garden. She, however, was so modest and humble.
As I watched the fluffy, delicate balls of purple, pink, and periwinkle wilt in the heat, I reflected on the contradiction. I realized that her choice of the flower was quite simple, two-fold I think. First, the blooms are undeniably beautiful; and second, they are incredibly resilient. I’d like to think that as I age, wilt, and weather in this life, I also learn that there is intrinsic beauty in the ability to rebound and rise. Deep down maybe my mother knew her worth all along. Her resilience became much of her legacy. I’m determined to keep that tradition alive.
Off to gather more blooms and share them with the next generation.
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Oh, Sweet Season
Sure does appeal to me, but can I get there easily? Who knows? I don’t, but that’s the point, isn’t it?
This Saturday morning inspired me, as I sipped coffee on the deck and listened to the cacophony performed by all of the woodland creatures and birds calling out their unique tunes – none of them in sync, by the way, but somehow the dissonance created a melody all their own. I was listening to the sweet season of summer (both literally and figuratively), and for those moments, I realized that my life didn’t lack appeal or promise. It was just meant to be lived simply and peacefully, preferably in great pajamas!
Special thanks to a dear friend who reminded me that I can dance my way back into life –no matter where I am – as long as I take the time to hear the music!
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Living in Character
I’ve been traveling pretty much non-stop since mid-January – caregiving, visiting old friends, making new friends, discovering and uncovering, and above all else, trying to make changes to a life that stole away parts of me long forgotten – and slowly, I’ve become the main character in my story. There have been a fair number of plot twists, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My story might not seem all that interesting to anyone else, but I must say it’s been keeping me excited (often in an unsettling and even uncomfortable way); engaged, and committed to writing and turning a page or two each day.
I’m no longer journaling about a stranger’s life, the woman I had thought lost or who had disappeared altogether. I’m living on the outside, not waiting for life and all of the feelings it conjures daily to happen to me so that I can react. I’m experiencing everything from the mundane to the extraordinary; and for the first time in a very long time, I’m more interested in me and the woman I’m becoming than the woman I was!
*********
Screw the mid-life crisis
Go have a mid-life spa day
A mid-life quickie
A midlife tiramisu
But whatever you do
DON’T give in to mid-life blues!
-Sanjo Jendayi
#over50andfabulous #womensupportingwomen #midlifewomen #nonfictionnetwork #healthybodyhealthymind #chooseyourself #becoming #womenwhowrite
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Inspired by Nora
What to do when I’m plagued with writer’s block? I could turn to Walt. Or Ralph. Or Sylvia, Jane, or Emily. I might find inspiration in Maya, justice in Harper, empowerment in Betty, or fun and fantasy with the likes of Lewis or Tolkien. No one is going to get me today and speak to the unsettled me within like Nora though! Oh, how I miss her some days, especially after indulging in two of my favorite rom-coms of all time, “You’ve Got Mail” and “Sleepless in Seattle.” And for the record, reading a bit of my “sister’s” stuff always makes me feel so much better about my neck, not to mention other things.
☕️📝✏🍷📝✏☕️📝✏🍷📝✏☕️📝
Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it’s your last, or do you save your money on the chance you’ll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in America is so unbelievably delicious? And what about chocolate?
~Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
#over50andfabulous
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Learning to Fly Solo
I remember thinking that I wouldn’t survive without her. A minute, an hour, a day, a month, a year. Now, it’s fifteen years, and there are so many times when I still have to convince myself that her absence is real.
What do I miss most about her? God, so many things. Her wisdom. Her caring, blue eyes. Her voice, quite often the voice of reason and pragmatism. Her quiet strength coupled with an endless supply of empathy and compassion. Her fierce instinct to protect those she loved.
Mom was selfless to a fault, though. She forgave quickly and reserved judgment even when someone deserved a bit (or a lot) of criticism or antipathy. She didn’t hold a grudge, most likely because her energies were needed and valued elsewhere. I truly wish she had saved more of everything for herself, especially as she neared death. Instead, she dug in deeper. All that made Mom a great mother, wife, grandmother, sister, and friend endured until her last breath.
She was perfectly imperfect. In the nearly forty-seven years I had the privilege of her presence and love, one of the things I came to admire most about my mother is that she would listen to everyone else’s opinions of how she should act, react, and deal with others, and then she would follow her heart (especially when it came to anything or anyone she believed in or cared for deeply). A woman of conviction and depth.
Fifteen years since that May Day when she left so many of us to figure it out for ourselves. Perhaps that was the greatest lesson she taught – each of us has to figure it out on his/her/their own. Yes, it takes a village to get through this life; to confront death, however, we must accept that we are on a solo journey. In the end, we must make peace with ourselves.
Mom, I know it now. I have learned it the hard way. Perhaps we all must learn it that way. The “it”? Happiness is fleeting, but peace– real inner peace– that feeling of calm when yearning and desire take a backseat to an unyielding acceptance of self, that’s what allows us to say goodbye.
Until we meet again, Mom. I’ll see you in my dreams, hear your voice in my head, and look at Chandler and see all that was good, kind, and loving in you. Always in my heart.
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Peace and Play
I grew up in a New England shoreline town, so the assumption of many who meet me is that I’ve always been a beach lover and sun worshipper. Not true. In fact, I avoided the beach for years, especially when I hit the awkwardness of adolescence. That young girl grew up hating her body and trying to get people to like and love her for being smart and hardworking. I was that girl who avoided pool parties, beach dates with the cool kids (who seemed to like me), and any and all outdoor activities that required exposure of anything more than my smile, mind, and veiled confidence. After all, my sisters –both several years older– had by virtue of birth order and the endowment of petite frames thanks to our mom’s DNA, earned the coveted positions of the cute and perky one and the tiny and tenacious one. This girl, I was the fair-skinned, bigger-boned, studious one. Needless to say, the beach and bathing suits were quite far removed from my wheelhouse.
I often say and think that time and maturity are the great equalizers in life. (I say maturity rather than age because I no longer think wisdom derives solely from the number of years lived; there is a marked difference between growing older and growing wiser.) Those great equalizers are finally forcing me to realize that I’m the one who often stands in my own way. Giving in to those feelings of body loathing and shame and obsessing over how others, namely my peers, “viewed” me prevented me from experiencing two of the most important elements that the beach and ocean offer: peace and play.
As I walked the beach of Siesta a couple of weeks ago, sand in between my toes and a slight ocean breeze caressing my 61-year-old sun-kissed cheeks, I thought about that girl who missed out on so much peace and play in her youth. As I sat down at the base of one of the intricately crafted sand sculptures, I leaned into the moment. I had become the agent of change in my own world. Peace and play were present. How lovely to realize that it was not too late for me to welcome both into my life!
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Time & Love: Gifts to Myself
61?! I spent yesterday crying on and off about how little I had accomplished in these six-plus decades. However, in the middle of the night, I began to receive birthday greetings from friends across the globe, and I decided to stop beating myself up with my own expectations and sense of failure. Good thing because what a waste of an extra hour as we set the clocks back! I’d like to attribute that extra hour on MY DAY as divine intervention and a dire reminder.
The greatest gift ever given to me has been time. My mom was the ultimate purveyor, especially to her family. So, it was bittersweet that as she neared death, she shared with me something that weighed on her –neither a resentment nor a regret-but rather a missed opportunity. As we discussed every little and big meaningful moment in her life, she admitted that she wished she had been kinder to herself. She wished she had taken time to love herself.
“Don’t always put yourself last,” she warned. “If you always show others that they come first and that what they need or want matters more, then in the end, you will be put last and come last. You will take a back seat in your own life.” I remember how my heart sank and how I hoped that I had made my mother feel important and loved. I always saw my mom as the driver and the conductor in her (our) family until that moment. I thought then and still ruminate to this day about how I treated my mother, my best friend, and my confidante. And now, more than a decade after her passing, I realize what she was trying to tell me: Don’t seek validation from others. It was not until she stared death in the face that she realized she wanted to live –not for everyone else for she had ‘willingly’ put herself last – but for herself. She had waited to show others that she was important and that she valued herself first. And alas, how she chose to experience her death– the where, the how long, and in whose presence and absence- that was her way of saying, “This last chapter of life is about me. I come first now.”
So, as my birthday comes to a close, I’m gifting myself time and love. After all, isn’t that all we ever have? One is running out, and one is finally growing.
❤
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The Inner Voice
I talk. I talk a lot. To strangers. To friends and loved ones. To service workers. To children. To the older and the wiser. To the naive and unlearned. To the refined and educated. To men and women from around the globe. To people of all races, creeds, colors, religions, and sexual identities. To those who are powerful and those who need empowering. To those who use their voices freely. To those who have just begun to find their voices. Most of all, I talk to myself. Listening all the while.
The voices – all of them at times creating a cacophony in desperate need of silencing – provide depth, meaning, love, and laughter; they are the essence of life’s purpose. And then…
I write.
“I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.”
~Sylvia Plath, Letters Home
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBWbMUNxkJg/?igsh=MXFiMTAzOGwxNG9kdg==
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Such a Challenge
One of my favorite people in the world is another Scorpio sister; she and I met nearly two decades ago when I was teaching middle school English at a small private school. I had the pleasure of having her son, a quick-witted and vibrant young man who has since made his way in the world fearlessly and whom I am proud to call friend. Both my soul sister and her son –actually, the entire family including her husband (the “punniest” man I know), their fur baby Lua, as well as their eclectic and completely welcoming groups of friends – have expanded my world in myriad ways, but no way greater than sharing their deeply-seated love of exploration and their zest for living and loving fully.
While my friend and her husband have been in Europe on another adventure, they graciously offered me their home in the Pacific northwest (dog, plants, and roses galore). “Work” never feels like work when I’m on an adventure of sorts. From learning to use an electric mower to visiting Williamette wine country to outings where food, beverage, and above all else laughter were abundant, the months of September and October to this point have been full. My soul is lighter. My heart is fuller. My mind is clearer. And for more times lately than I can remember, I have felt like I – just me – am enough. If truth be told, I might even be too much in the very best ways.
I’m making memories, satisfying curiosities, and challenging myself most days. Those days, these days, are indeed sublime. Life itself has been challenging most of the past six decades. I’m going to challenge it back!
"ARE YOU THERE, ERMA? IT'S ME, SYLVIA." 