Thankful

In my tiny corner of the world, there is much to be grateful for this holiday season - good health,  family and friends who love me, a safe warm home, plentiful food to eat. They may seem like ordinary things, but in the overall scheme of life they are momentous. Everything else is just gravy (pardon the pun). Today’s post was originally written in 2010, and it's one of the essays included in my book, Life in General, which was published just this week.  Reading it brings back lots of memories for me, and I hope it will for you as well. Even more importantly, whatever you do this weekend, I hope you create some lovely memories to carry with you through the rest of your life in general.

"I can’t tell you how much I used to dread Thanksgiving,” my mother said yesterday as we headed out to the grocery store to do our shopping for the big dinner. “My mother used to invite everybody over and then bitch about it for days. She made life miserable for Dad and me for weeks.”

I looked at her aghast. My childhood memories of Thanksgiving were pure happiness. I never sensed any tension or angst...all I recall were the wonderful aromas and tastes of my southern grandmother’s cuisine. The huge turkey, slowly roasting all day long in the oven (“Oh, yes,” said my mother, “she woke us all up at the crack of dawn to get that turkey in the oven by seven o’clock so it could cook all day long”), stuffed with the moist, savory dressing (“I had to search all over town for fresh sage to put in that stuffing”), and smothered in rich brown gravy (“She wouldn’t let anybody else stir that gravy for fear it would be lumpy!”).

Well. Who knew? I was so tickled at the prospect of a house full of people, all my favorite aunts and uncles with their interesting conversations, laughing and telling stories about family members I’d never seen. And all the while the day had been filled with aggravation for my mother.

Of course, fifty years later, I’m no stranger to the memory of aggravating holidays. When Jim and I married, it somehow evolved in our little family that his mother would prepare the Thanksgiving Day dinner at our house. (The one they so graciously sold to us when we got married while they moved into a tiny apartment that was of course far too small to serve Thanksgiving dinner.) So every year she’d appear (at the crack of dawn so she could get the turkey in the oven) and then be puttering around in my kitchen all day, muttering about the way I arranged things or cleaned things or didn’t have the right kind of things.

However, if you were to ask my son, he might recall the times he stood on a tiny step stool and helped Grandma prepare the turkey, watching intently as she cleaned out the cavity and tied the drumsticks together with twine. Or he might remember running into the kitchen each time the oven door opened, so he could hold the baster and squeeze hot pan drippings over the bird’s golden breast. He might not have had any inkling that his mother was in her bedroom, silently screaming.

 All that’s left of those holidays are memories—for my son, who lives far away and is never home on Thanksgiving; for me, who has dinner with an ever-diminishing number of people; and for my mother, who prepares the meal for the three of us in her own kitchen and in her own expert and individual way.

 Thanksgiving is becoming more and more the forgotten holiday, crammed in between Halloween and Christmas, which garner a lot more attention in this consumer-driven society of ours. We’re even having our regular trash pickup on Thursday—as long as I’ve lived here, pickup was postponed until Friday on Thanksgiving week. I’m not sure I approve of that. I think the sanitation workers should have Thursday so they could enjoy dinner with their families and friends same as nearly everyone else.

Thanksgiving is a holiday built around emotions—of being grateful for family and friends, for health and happiness, and food on the table. It’s not about buying presents, or wearing costumes, or elaborate fireworks displays. It’s not even about concerts of beautiful music or rooms of gorgeous decorations.

 It’s simply about making memories, good or bad. I hope you make some lovely ones this year.

Digging Up Doubt

It’s so easy to doubt, to mistrust decisions and life choices and current paths. This world is overflowing with choices, and lurking behind each one are the gleaming eyes of another potentially more successful one.Most of the time I manage to keep doubt at bay, largely because I make safe choices. I don’t go out on limbs, I follow the tried and true path, the road well traveled. But on those occasions when I stick my neck out and take a risk, I have to force myself to put the shovelful of doubt aside and maintain faith in my forward journey.

I’ve stepped out on a fairly large limb (at least it is for me) by publishing a book. The final proof of Life in General is in transit to me right now, and as I wait for it to arrive I feel the seeds of doubt beginning to sprout in my mind.

The book should be shorter, the paper should be ivory instead of white, the cover is the wrong color. I am a bad writer. The whole thing is stupid.

 Doubt. Doubt. Doubt.

Wait a minute, I say to myself, this shovelful of doubt poised halfway out of the fertile ground of my mind. Remember why you did this in the first place? This book is mostly for YOU, to preserve this writing journey you’ve been on for the past eight years, to collect the thoughts and experiences you’ve used words to clarify for yourself. It’s a book for YOU, the woman who loves books and paper and words preserved in black and white (or ivory!). Some people paint, some throw pots in clay, some sew or quilt or knit. You write. You craved a concrete expression of that gift.

I’ve just joined a new Facebook group dedicated to sharing the beauty of everyday life, and aside from my family, there’s nothing to which I’m more dedicated than the art of daily living. “The Extraordinary Ordinary,” I call it, and I celebrate it in a myriad of ways every day. It keeps me centered and grounded when I feel those stirrings of doubt - maybe I should have taken that new accompanying job at the high school, maybe I should look for a “real” job so we can save more money for retirement, maybe I should go back to school and learn how to do something productive for a change. Maybe I should die my hair blonde. Or take a Zumba class.

But then I recall the profound contentment I feel here in my home, making my own schedule, volunteering, playing music, taking care of my family, helping my mom. I know if I were bound to any of those other choices that sometimes beckon me with their glittering possibility, I would be anxious and worried and fretting and miserable. I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

We have to plant the seeds of faith over and over throughout our lives, because they will get unearthed at times by doubt and fear and uncertainty. Doubt can only be dispelled by faith in the reasons we have for doing what we do, and by faith in ourselves and in knowing what we need to be happy.

Sometimes it takes as much courage to follow that road as it does to strike out on a new one. 

The In Between

I’m a hurrier. I move quickly through my day, grabbing and tossing and scrambling. I like to get things done and over with, dust off my hands and move on to the next thing. Tick all the boxes on my to-do list. Finis.

But with age (and a less lengthy task list) has come a the desire to back off, to slow down. I have a new awareness that there will be time and that it’s alright to shift those undone things onto tomorrow’s index card of things to do..or even next week’s index card. Or maybe some days it’s alright not to have an index card at all.

But it can be a struggle for one who doesn’t like the in-between, for one who likes things completed and off the list. I feel uneasy with unfinished projects hanging over my head.

Right now there is an enormous project in this stage of in-betweenness. It’s my book, Life In General, the one I’ve been thinking about and working on for the past couple of years. It’s done, but it’s not done. It’s on the road to being in print and it’s almost there...but not quite yet.

I had planned to be farther along in this process by now, had planned to be in the very last round of editing and nearly ready to print. I had dutifully made my schedule at the beginning of this year, parceled out the months and what needed to be accomplished in each to bring this book to fruition. I ticked off every deadline, right on schedule.

Until I got to the end, and then I stopped short.

Even though I am a hurrier, I am also adept at the art of procrastination. So for quite a while even though the pages were ready, I wasn’t ready to let it go. Steven Pressfield (The War of Art) calls it resistance. "Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That's why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there'd be no Resistance.”

I was resisting it big-time. Resisting the idea that this book project was finished. That it would be done for the world to see and judge, seeing and judging me along with it. Resisting the awareness that it was time to move on to something else. 

Then I brought myself back to the reason I’m doing this book in the first place. It’s really for ME - it’s a way I can hold in my hands the culmination of everything I’ve learned about myself and life in general through the writing I’ve shared through my blog over the past decade. The pieces I chose to include in the book were those that defined me and every life passage I went through during that time. The pieces that helped me make sense of Life In General and my own in particular.

It’s a gift I’m giving myself. I’m happy to share it, but sales are not the main motivation for its creation. As much satisfaction as writing on the internet has given me, it’s not ever going to be quite as satisfying as holding a book in my hands - holding a printed book filled with words I’ve written, thoughts I’ve labored to share. 

Reminding myself of the impetus for creating Life In General gave me the incentive I needed to move forward with the next and final steps toward the creation of that book. 

So even though I’m still somewhat in-between, I’m moving closer to the day when I can tick off an very important box on the Life In General checklist.

The one marked The End.

Overdoing

One of my mother’s favorite warnings to me as a child was this: “Don’t overdo it." It was uttered in reference to everything from playing outside in the cold winter air, to running races with my friends, to eating potato chips dipped in Philadelphia cream cheese and chive spread. “You know what happens when you overdo it,” she’d say ominously, as if the tone in her voice wasn’t already enough to stop me in my tracks.

What happened was that I ended up sick. An asthma attack most likely, but also stomach upsets and headaches - my body’s favorite ways to let me know I’d overdone it and it was going to put me in my place: Bed.

Now that I’m grown, my mom is pretty good about keeping her opinions to herself. But there have been times over the past decade or two, during those years when I was working two jobs, playing in three or four musical groups, and writing on the side, that I saw the memorable and unmistakable “you’re overdoing it” look in her eye.

As a child, I did everything I could to deny the truth of her warnings. She was just engaging her usual overprotectiveness, I thought, as I sulked inside while my friends went dashing through the snow. As an adult, I prided myself on “taking it to the limit,” working all day and then playing concerts at night, rushing hither and yon, not getting enough sleep, and stressing about all of it.

Most of the time all that overdoing it caught up with me, just like it did when I was a kid. I had chronic sinus infections for years, never knowing when I woke up each day if I’d have a raging fever, a pounding head, and laryngitis. Even with those infections running rampant, I’d continue to do and over-do, until one year I ended up with pneumonia. (I knew I was in trouble when I didn’t have enough air to blow out the Silent Night candle during the Christmas Eve service at church.)

But in the past three years, I’ve been SO healthy.  I also live incredibly simply in comparison to those days of running hither and yon, trying to do everything for everybody. I get plenty of rest, eat regular meals, I’ve retired from my job and cut back on musical activities. I have the luxury of picking and choosing what to do with my time and energy, and I’ve decided to do a lot less in favor of more time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

But friends, I slipped. Last weekend I overdid it.

And I have been SO sick.

I wasn’t feeling well at the start of the weekend, one that was to include the annual retreat for my handbell group. We’re preparing for the Christmas season, which means lots of music and choreography to learn. So we meet for a weekend of intense rehearsal. Friday night from 5-9. Saturday from 9-5. Then our regular rehearsal time on Monday from 9-1. Most of that time is spent standing, concentrating, thinking about music and technique and when to throw the snowballs during Jingle Bells (you have to see one of our concerts to know what I’m talking about). On Friday night I was already achy and tired, and my digestive system was a little out of whack.

No big deal, I told myself. But Saturday morning I felt worse. I clearly recall telling myself, “you just have to stop thinking about it and get this done.”

The same old philosophy I employed all those years ago when overdoing it was my modus operandi.

I got it done, and got Monday’s rehearsal done as well, along with driving my mom to a doctor’s appointment afterwards.

When I finally got home Monday afternoon, I crashed. My body felt like it had been run over by a steamroller. My stomach was on a roller coaster ride, and most of it was downhill at breakneck speed.

I had overdone it big time, and the payback was hell.

It’s ironic, isn’t it? In my last post, I was writing about being so tender and loving with my body, of treating it with special care? And then I turn around and abuse it to the point of collapse. It’s easy to fall back into old habits, even when those habits aren’t good for us. I have a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility, and never blow off rehearsals or other obligations. Instead, I give myself the pep talk - you can do it, just get it done, you’ll be alright. And then I power through. While a certain amount of "powering through” adversity and illness is necessary and commendable, it sometimes results in dire consequences rather than happy congratulations.

Yesterday my dear husband stayed home from work and took over all my daily tasks - the grocery shopping, the errands, the dog feeding and walking - so that I could stay inside where it was warm and dry. I ate little bits of toast and drank cups of sweet tea and Vernors throughout the day. I kept a heating pad rotating around my aching back, neck, legs, and shoulders. I curled up in bed with warm puppies, in my favorite chair with books, on the sofa with last night’s Dancing With the Stars.

In short: the polar opposite of overdoing it.

I felt 100 percent better.

I’m back at my desk, busy writing out tomorrow’s to-do list in my head. But not far from my mind is the sound of my mother’s voice - “Be careful...you’re going to overdo it."

Not to worry, Mom. I learned my lesson.

At least until next time.

TLC for Me

Writing gives me an opportunity to spend time thinking, and most of what I think about is myself - or at least myself in relation to my family, my home, the world around me, and the things I love to do.  Because I’m introspective by nature, I spend a lot of time dwelling on and writing about my inner thoughts and feelings, and during this year I’ve been paying special attention to those things that help me live the life I desire. I chose the word “Devotion” as my touchstone for the year: I aimed for it to remind me to practice devotion toward the things I deemed important, to treat them with tender loving care. Reflecting on the past 10 months, I can see many ways in which I’ve achieved that goal. I’ve been more careful with my schedule, giving me more time to spend with my family and at home where I’m happiest. I’ve worked to shift my perspective toward an attitude of gratitude, to slow down and appreciate the ordinary sparkling moments that fill each day. I finished my book, Life In General, and it will soon be ready to send to print.

This morning I spent some time with my journal, and I found myself called to write about something that rarely comes up in those pages.

My body.

I’m 58 years old. I’m beginning to notice that parts of my body, this healthy organism that I’ve been taking for granted all these years, doesn’t feel like it once did. My knees ache when I walk too much, especially when I do my beloved Leslie Sansone Walk at Home exercise tapes. My feet hurt every day and I have to wear ugly flat shoes all the time. My hair feels dry and sandy when I touch it. There are bags under my eyes large enough to hold a wardrobe for a European vacation.

I feel as if I’m drying up from the inside out.

It occurred to me this morning that the one thing I’m not very devoted to is this very important part of me: the flesh and bones that house all the activities, thoughts, and feelings I’m so interested in exploring with my writing. I expect a lot from it every day, and I expect it to fulfill those expectations without trouble. Thankfully, for most all of my 58 years, it has done so without complaint. But now, like an exhausted toddler after a long day,  it’s beginning to whine for a little attention.

I’ve never been one to pamper myself with things like spa treatments, oils and perfumes, or designer outfits. They always seemed like unnecessary extravagance. And with age, my interest in those things has diminished even further.

I’ve treated my body with respect but not with tender loving care.

Not with devotion.

I’d like to change that. I want to explore the sensual part of me, to take time to care my physical body. Tend to it. Love it. Smooth fragrant lotion over its dry skin. Keep it warm with soft sweaters and scarves that look as good as they feel against my skin. Feed it fresh, simple food I’ve prepared myself. Move it freely and happily, letting music inspire shoulders, hips, and feet to move in their own way.

I want to notice it, caress it, give it the love and devotion it deserves after so many years of solid service. Lavish it with love and attention.

Devote myself to feeling good, from the outside in.