Practicing patience, especially when life throws detours our way, is a learned art. I should know. Patience is not something you'd find next to my name in Wikipedia!
But I have gotten better, thanks to some aspirational goals and challenging personal years. I write about what I've learned as a guest blogger today on MariaShriver.com. I hope you enjoy reading Practice Patience to Meet Goals. Please feel free to leave a comment on the website and retweet the article to your friends!
October is the month we're asked to raise awareness for breast cancer and breast disease. But remember, posting a pink ribbon doesn't mean anything if you don't support the gesture with an annual mammogram and monthly self-exams.
I invite you to visit the Press Pause Moments blog www.presspausemomentsblog.com where we have a number of writers - both from PPM and guest bloggers - writing about their experiences dealing with breast cancer and diagnosis. Among the writers are Sandra Aylward, Diana Raab and Sandra Freeman. I hope you'll take a moment to visit and peruse, listen to a podcast or read one of the inspiring essays.
I just got back from accepting the Clarion award for Press Pause Moments and seemed to have picked up a frustrating head cold along the way! Pressing pause this week to do a lot of writing and resting to get the energy levels back up!
Cheers!
I will be reading from Press Pause Moments: Essays about Life Transitions by Women Writers today from 1pm-2:30pm at Western Connecticut State University's midtown campus in Danbury, CT. I will be joined by seven other professors from the school who will also be reading from their works. The readings are part of the Banned Books Faculty Authors' Series.
The event takes place on the 1st floor of Warner Hall. I am a graduate of WestConn's MFA in Creative & Professional Writing program.
I hope to see you there!
I've started a new guest blogger gig on a site called CreatedbyChicks! My ongoing topic will be transitions. Today's post is called Cool Transitions and is all about the change from summer to fall and how it signifies a time of renewal and refreshment. Change happens when we change behavior to achieve a certain result, and I offer a few tips on simple ways you can take actions to move you toward your goals.
Check out the post and, as always, feel free to tweet it to your peeps or share a comment!
My latest and greatest travel blog post is now up and ready to be read on TravelingMom.com!
As you may remember, several years ago I wrote a personal essay about our first camping trip with several other families...definitely a different experience for this former "let's backpack and sleep under the stars" kind of woman!
That was 2007. This was our fifth year "roughing it" with our friends. Over the years we've camped in Connecticut, Vermont, and this year New York. The kids have gone from tween and younger into the teens. All the grown ups have grown older but can still survive sleeping in tents (though my husband and I upgraded to cots this year because of bad backs).
This year was a bit different. We went to beautiful Lake George, New York, where not only did we get the joys of camping and a wonderful beach to swim, but we had the lovely village of Lake George within a five minute drive, perfect for a day outdoors with all the amenities of a vacation destination.
As the SanityTravelingMom blogger, you can read my latest post by clicking here.
I am so thrilled that Press Pause Moments: Essays about Life Transitions by Women Writers has been selected as the 2011 Clarion Award winner by the Association for Women in Communications. This is a big honor. Not only is the organization an important one in my professional industry but the Clarion is only given to those entries that meet the highest quality demands.
So the big question I keep getting is "What's next? Well, this is a big deal so I'm figuring out a way to get to Oklahoma in October to accept the award in person! That means I've got to sell books to earn my way! If you're interested in purchasing a copy of Press Pause Moments visit the website at www.presspausemoments.com where you can get a signed copy at a special editor's price, or at regular retail through www.amazon.com or www.kiwipublishing.com.
If you look up the word inspiration online, you'll find it is "the stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity." Travel is one way we are inspired. Whether we travel to another city, state or country, by leaving what we know and experiencing something new we tend to learn a lot about other people, places - and ourselves.
As you know, I'm a blogger for TravelingMom.com. Tonight's TravelingMom.com Twitter Party theme is about Inspirational Travel and it's sponsored by Sony's Showtime series, The Big C. One of the people who most inspired me to travel was my oldest sister, Marybeth. Like The Big C's main character, Cathy Jamison, Marybeth was diagnosed with melanoma but continued to live her life to its fullest for eight years until she died in November 2009. I believe it is because of her that I've done things like travel alone to Australia in my early 20s, climb a tropical island volcano, backpack the Appalachian Trail, and spend years in jobs that took me to different states and countries.
During their last visit with their aunt, my kids listened intently as she told them how she had taken the hard way up to the top of Mount Fuji in Japan just two years previously. The fact that she did this while she had cancer affected them deeply. "Wow," they said, "you're like...a travel adventurer!"
I thought about that exchange a lot as I traveled back and forth between Connecticut and Massachusetts during her final weeks. Those words summarized Marybeth's life so well and described the way I remembered her best - a travel adventurer. I decided that at her memorial service I would recollect about her life traveling around the world,
When I was in elementary school, my sister - who was 14 years older than me - left the U.S. to live in Libya, working as a teacher for Exxon. Now, to have a sister living in North Africa was quite unique in those days and it made quite an impression on me. During the 1970s most people I knew didn't even know where Libya was. But even though she was living on the other side of the planet those years we connected. My family would receive overseas packages from all over the world as my sister traveled. Most times they contained chocolates, linens and other assorted souvenirs from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. But they always included a doll for me from somewhere in the world. My doll collection meant everything to me. And they weren't just traditional dolls you'd find in gift shops. One time she sent a crude wooden figure carved by hand and preserved with cow dung!
Our summers always included a family gathering where my sister would give a slide show of her latest travels. She was an avid photographer, and would complement the images with tales about climbing glaciers in Europe, skiing the Alps, going on safari in East Africa, enjoying spring break on the island of Malta, and many other adventures.
My sister moved to Paris when I was in high school and I was lucky enough to visit her with our mother. We got to see the usual - The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Georges Pompidou Center. We saw a performance at the Opera House. But what I remember most was visiting her classroom and helping her teach for a day, playing basketball with the kids from the school, and eating the best vanilla ice cream I've ever tasted.
My sister eventually moved back to the states and settled in Massachusetts. She spent many years teaching social studies to middle school students and her years of travel allowed her to bring the real world directly into the classroom. Her stories made different cultures come alive much more than photos in textbooks. She would fight breast cancer and win, but eventually lost the battle to melanoma. But not without traveling her last years; first, to Japan as part of an academic team developing curriculum and second, to Lithuania with my mom, sister, Chris and me. We met relatives and discovered the land of our heritage - the trip of a lifetime - and spent a few days in Amsterdam.
After Marybeth died, I traveled with my kids back to Massachusetts to clean out her condo and gain some closure for them. We talked about my sister a lot and, at one point, my son experienced an aha moment:
"I get it," he said. "Since Aunt Marybeth's a ghost now, she can still travel to all those places she liked to go to, but she can just get there faster."
He was right. In my heart, I knew that as Marybeth lay in the hospice bed, she already saw our late father's hand outstretched toward her, waiting to take her on the next leg of her journey. There is no doubt in my mind she was already taking off on her greatest adventure yet. As I shared at her memorial service, my wish for her was if she chooses to revisit Mount Fuji that she spreads her angel wings wide and, this time, takes the easy way to the top.
What inspires you about traveling? Come share w/ us! #TMOM Twitter Party 6/6 9pmET & win too! http://bit.ly/mulVPl
"If you love something set it free. If it's meant to be it will come back to you."
I don't know where this quote comes from. I do remember it from the 70s and for some reason Jonathan Livingston Seagull comes to mind. OK, I had older siblings. So images of a bird, Simon and Garfunkel and Joan Baez flood my memories.
But I thought of this quote this morning when all of a sudden I had an urge to post to The Eclectic Writer again. Interestingly, I've been away from my blog for a while. There have been some jumpstarts this year, but I haven't quite got back into the rhythm again. This morning, however, I needed to revisit. I needed to write again. I needed to seek out an old friend and put words to the blog.
I've been on a journey for the past three years. I got my M.F.A. in Writing, left my corporate job on an indefinite "sabbatical," traveled to Lithuania, published a book, got a speaking career going, taught as a college professor...I've had triumphs, setbacks, tragic losses, scary health issues...I've survived a recession and raised children who are doing more than alright, they're doing great...I'll celebrate 20 years of marriage this year...I'll turn 49.
And I'm finally approaching a time where I can pause, reflect and, most importantly, think about the next five years. I always set long term goals on the five-year plan. That's always a manageable time frame for me to set a vision and then think out three years worth of strategy and tactics to make it happen.
I've probably challenged myself more than any other time in my life, and took risks I never would have imagined even several years ago. I pulled away the safety net and ventured across life's tightrope. And somehow, despite a few teeters and totters along the path, ended up on the other side of the circus tent.
Sometimes walking across the tightrope I held my breath and lost my voice. I closed my eyes, afraid to look down, but equally frightened to look ahead or behind. I needed to be focused on that moment, putting one step in front of the other, to simply make it to the other side. I'm not used to such a shortened stride. Sometimes I felt myself falling, endlessly, like in a bad dream and other times I imagined myself floating above the taut line, moving forward as if on a glider.
When I used to be a gymnast, I knew that a combination across the mat may look effortless, as though twisting and turning the body automatically put hands where they were supposed to go before the feet, and legs arched naturally over torsos, as if sailing through the air. However, I knew from hours of daily practice that the reality was that these amazing combinations were instead carefully orchestrated moves that involved incredi ble mental focus in order to isolate and tighten various muscle groups in quick succession. Pointed toes and squeezed buttocks were as important as muscular quadriceps to launch and lift the body...that palms of hands ripped open over again until the skin thickened into callouses...that one small miscalculation could mean injury.
That's why I'm writing as The Eclectic Writer. Because the laptop was waiting on the other side of the tightrope. Because the callouses have thickened and made it possible to type on the keyboard again. Because now I know that Jonathan Livingston Seagull is timeless.
I've stayed off Facebook the last couple of days. Sometimes the negative vibes seem to be in overdrive. The world is a pretty volatile place right now and I'm finding Facebook to be a good barometer at where people's heads are at on any particular day. I'm also finding that many of them have an insatiable need to make sure EVERYONE really understands how pissed off they are or how unfair the world is...things I either don't personally care about or already know. So it seemed as good a time as any to take a break...sort of.
Tonight I was back on there briefly. OK, so I'm a little bit addicted to the whole thing. Social media is part of my professional world, for goodness sake. But one comment caught my eye. During an online "conversation" some of us "friends" expressed our utter amazement that finally - on about the sixth day of such announcements - the school districts were informing us the night before that there would be a delay. A friend noted that this was the first time this has happened in her school district and that perhaps it was a sign that "hell was freezing over."
That got me thinking about that tried and true expression. "When hell freezes over..." The world is pretty hellish right now. And it is freezing cold and snowing and icing and slushing all over the East Coast. Forget the Mayan calendar. Ignore Nostradomus. Could the crappy weather we've been experiencing for what seems like eternity be THE "sign"? Are we truly living hell on earth, and are the snow, ice, slush, cold, wind, rain, etc. just signs of an impending apocalypse?
But then I peruse Facebook and see the photos of an ice sculpture a teacher/artist/writer friend has created in his front yard. There's a bunch of kids with smiling faces standing around it, sitting on top of it. I find the profile pic of someone who has built a giant snow woman, fashioned in a real bikini, with a sign, "Is it summer yet?" I watched as my own kids pitched in to help shovel out the slush today, while the dog ran ragged across - and through - the crunchy surface.
And I think to myself, "Is THIS hell on earth?" And I decide, no, hell hath no fury but this world, while experiencing some difficult times, certainly still has its bright spots. Maybe we're feeling a little bit like we're on a prolonged stop in purgatory right now and have overstayed our welcome. Maybe we have to let our hearts melt away the negativity and the anger and the hate so we can move on. Besides, Dante's circles would be a bitch to maneuver without rock salt, and you can't find that ANYWHERE.