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I just became 70. Seventy, as in seven decades, 20 more than 50 which sounded pretty old to me, back in the day. I thought about having a magnificent destination birthday, but my husband and I were already going to Japan later in the year. Maybe a big party at home with friends and family, but then Bob and I would be doing all the work and I didn’t want to work that hard. What I did want was to just be, and to just be with the people I love, but not all of them at once. I am a one at a time kind of person, small two to four-person groups at best. I wanted to do things I’ve never done before with one or two of the people I love. I went to a Pink concert with my daughter and then I went to the opening of Frontwave Arena which was featuring Simone Biles and some of America’s best gymnasts. I participated in an all-day virtual workshop with fellow writers about writing and publishing. I’m going sea kayaking with my best friend from high school who is the same age as I am—for three months. That’s the first week of 70. I walked into 70 without trepidation; actually I danced into it. I ‘m not just aging, as, of course, we all are—I am still growing. Still learning about the world and myself as a participant in it. Still finding out about my capabilities and building new skills. The political climate has weighed heavily on me for the past eight years and so has the loss of thirteen friends and family members. But,no one in my family has died since 2020 and the political climate finally has a ray of hope and bonhomie. I can breathe a little and it feels as if I can finally throw off the mantle of grief I have been reluctantly wearing as so many of us have been. Seventy feels good, especially since I am also throwing off the negative expectations of people younger than me. I have been all their ages—they have not been mine, which makes me a pathfinder. I don’t require naysayers to tell me how I am going to lose my hair, my faculties, and my family and friends as I grow older. I understand, all too well, how my body has changed and keeps changing; I understand that it sometimes takes me a moment to remember a name, a process, a person that I know very well. I might have actually forgotten, temporarily, more things than some people know. I don’t need people to marvel at what I do “at my age.” Those who expect me to move slower, take longer in the checkout line, be unable to figure out a new phone or a computer program will be disappointed. Maybe that will be true one day, but so what. It's not my job to change negative expectations; it’s not my business what people think. It is my job to be the best me I can be at any age. My job is to live my life with humor, courage, kindness, strength, love, gentleness, generosity and wisdom. I am past the age of ego and acquisition and into the much more fun age of releasing and connecting. I’m not thrilled with all the changes—who knew that it could take as long for basic maintenance as it used to take for full makeup and hair? I’m not talking about looking amazing; I’m just talking normal. I ‘ve exercised my arms, legs, core, , and butt, but there’s apparently nothing you can do about fat on your eyelids. Except surgery and only if they impede your vision. Maybe when I have cataract surgery, they can do an eyelid nip and tuck too. If you are younger than 70, I have been your age and I need no advice from you. If you are older, I’ve got a few questions. Your advice will be appreciated--not necessarily followed, mind you, but appreciated. Fret not about growing older—as long as you are still growing. The alternatives are stagnancy or death and of the two, death sounds a lot better than being stuck in a rut that you have created.By the way, octogenarian, nonagenarian and centenarian ladies: Does ALL your body hair fall out or does some of it stick around? Any advice for deciding when to become a single-car couple?
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Nine days before my first book talk. It’s exciting; I think I’m ready except for perhaps not having enough books on hand to sell (thinking positive); I might have enough to say if I don’t talk too fast; and yet I still want to be a Minion. Specifically, a Pixar Minion and I have sound reasons for this.
The first reason, is I have to admit, vanity. All Pixar Minions are shaped like Twinkies. No worries about shapewear that tortuously remolds all of your Twinkie parts into something resembling the Ideal Womanly Shape. No matter if Minions are tall and thin, short and round or in-between, they all look like a Twinkie and they all pretty much wear the same type of jumper and boots. So, no problem with fashion, either, even if occasionally they slip into something non-jumperish. At a booktalk, a golden Twinkie in a jumper would really bring in the crowd. While Minions are rather impulsive and not given to fretting over details or consequences, I find this refreshing as I sometimes overthink things and take too long to come to a decision or freak myself out. Minions are decisive and even if their decisions are disastrous, they manage to both survive and to giggle about it. What a huge gift! So, even if no one shows up for the booktalk, it would be something to laugh about. I’ve read that all Minions are male, even if they occasionally wear a dress. I prefer to think of them as gender neutral which sounds spiffy to me, since Minions appear to be free of societal gender expectations. To be a Minion--not a girl Minion or a boy Minion--just a Minion, sounds rather liberating. booktalk, a golden Twinkie in a jumper would really bring in the crowd. Another reason to become a Minion is that Minions are capable of doing so many different things—at the same time. It doesn’t always turn out well, but isn’t that true about everything? I like the Minion language which borrows from French, Spanish, English, Japanese, Korean and Italian, as well as a bunch of made-up words. Minionese sounds fun and that leads me to another reason for wanting to be Minion—they are a lot of fun. Whether they are accidentally dropping chandeliers on villains or giggling at butt jokes, Minions seem to be having fun with whatever they do. They also do the kinds of things you wish you could do, but you are too grownup and responsible to do them. Watching their antics gives one a vicarious thrill at being bad, but not actually evil. Minions are always loyal and well-intentioned. And fun. Bananas are not my favorite fruit and while I like yellow, it’s not my favorite color. Still, to be a Minion, I’d be willing to swill carloads of bananas and look like a golden yellow Twinkie. And do booktalks all day. It seems like a lot is going on this year and it feels like there are more things than usual to pay attention to, to fret over if you’re a fretter: Presidential campaigns and elections, Supreme Court decisions with big repercussions, a war in Ukraine and one in the Gaza Strip, women’s health with the state and federal decisions that affect it, a total eclipse, book banning, the Summer Olympics, Leap Year. Add to that publishing a book, writing a new one (if you’re me), babies, weddings, funerals, global warming and the economy for everyone.
Easy to get stressed; easy to spend more time watching the dismal news than making your own. Easy to let worry and depression fill your thoughts and words. What seems to be harder in times like these is the ability to perceive the flip side. Because there is always a flip side, always a sunny side of the street, a silver lining if you will. I don’t have to make myself fret--problem recognition and solving are part of my DNA. I do, however, have to make myself see the flip side. I used to think that it was a gift to be able to pinpoint all possible obstacles to a situation. My strength in problem recognition caused me to look for solutions or mitigations so that the problems could be resolved quickly or circumvented altogether before they happened. It made me a valuable member of a team—while others were doing the cheerleading needed for the beginning of a project, I was already mentally flushing out problems and coming up with solutions so that the project would work. But now, there are too many problems and I have decided I don’t want to solve them all; indeed I can’t solve them all. THAT is a big change in my mindset right there. The next change is redirecting my thoughts so that I stop thinking of things as being problems. Take book publicity and marketing—lots of possible problems there—enough to keep you firmly in your armchair reading someone else’s book rather than promoting your own. But, talking to librarians, other authors, PR people and networking are also opportunities to make connections and build relationships that, while they may or may not help you sell books, can definitely inspire ideas and bring more opportunities into your life---for all kinds of things. Supposedly the Chinese character for “problem” is the same character for the word “opportunity.” I read recently, that that is not true, it’s a misinterpretation of the two characters that make up the word “crisis.” Whether this is true or not doesn’t matter because I know from life experience that what looks like a problem is almost always a pivot point for change, an opportunity to realize something better. So, now I’m making myself stop and refocus my vision—what looks like a leak on my kitchen floor is really an opportunity to exchange some chipped and mangy flooring for something that is more durable and modern. What appears to be a two-hour traffic delay is an opportunity to catch up on email, do some people watching and create a new story about being stuck in traffic. An opportunity to think, not of what I have to do, but what I get to do. I’m still going see the problems first—it is part of my DNA after all—but I am getting better at turning a problem over before I begin to fret and looking at what’s on the other side. There is always the flip side. In less than one week, six days in fact, my second book, "River of Light,"will be released. For a writer, this can be a time of great doubt—will the book sell? Will it be well-received? Will I make enough money from this book to publish another? Is this the book I want to be known for?
The odds, in this world of readers whose reading is limited to twitter, texting, and Snapchat and who prefer to get their stories in video form, are not great. But lately, I ‘ve been exposed to many news channels courtesy of my husband who turns them on to watch the latest political fallout and then goes outside to work in the garden. In my office, I can hear those voices rehashing the day’s bits and pieces. They make carefully hedged predictions, play snippets of candidate speeches, explain the judicial proceedings. It’s dreadful, but when I hear a voter speak of Donald Trump as God-given, Trump telling his Christian followers that anyone who votes for the democrats is crazy (Does that mean that he doesn’t think Democrats are Christians?), when he hawks ugly golden “Never Surrender” sneakers to help pay his legal bills and he has a go fund me account to get money for his bills while bragging that he has plenty of cash on hand—it makes me wonder. If people can believe this man whole-heartedly, if church-going Christians can support and send their money to a proven liar, adulterer, and con artist, it gives me hope that there are also people out there who would buy books and read them. It could happen. As more and more states ban books, teachers curtail their curriculum in order to keep their jobs and women face the limitation of their reproductive choices, I am grateful that I am too old to become pregnant, I’ve already read most of the banned books, and that I got to teach a curriculum based on fact and truth instead of edited fiction. And, I admit to taking some comfort in being a rogue, a renegade, a wicked scoundrel for being a writer--A writer of fiction, a writer of things that teeter on the edge of reality, a writer of books that include four curse woods. Having been a goody two-shoes most of my life, being a rogue is exhilarating to me. Maybe, if I’m lucky, my books will be banned. (at least that would mean that somebody read them!) It’s been a looong time since I last blogged. I could say that it was because I was busy writing, but I wasn’t particularly busy, and the only things I’ve consistently written in the past few months are instructions for the dog sitter, book reviews, and a few pages for the next book.
Along the way, I rewrote, revised and readied my newest book for publication and now, after a year, “River of Light,” is being released. My first book, “In the Pockets of Dreams,” was self-published and I did all the formatting, book cover design--the works. But, ten years later, things have changed in the publishing world and so have I. I long for the days when publishers paid authors to publish their books. Now, it is more likely that an author will pay the publisher. And the cover designer. And the developmental editor. And the copy editor. Then there will be the costs of promotion—contests, boosts, book fairs, influencers, ads, book reviews. The goal might morph from making a lot of money on a best-seller to the far more modest goal of realizing enough money from the sale of a book to pay for publishing the next book. But, here it is at last: “River of Light,” published by my friend at Mumblers Press and available for Kindle pre-orders on Amazon. Life is good. I have been on all sides of griefs, if grief has sides. A loss of thirteen family members and close friends in seven years is my qualification for experiencing grief; living life is my qualification for comforting someone in grief. And yet, neither grieving nor comforting get any easier.
I’ve taken grief classes, been part of grief support groups, read many books on the subject, worked as a hospice volunteer and still I am, like many people, paralyzed when it comes to saying the right thing at the right time. There is a whole swath of phrases people are cautioned not to say to a grieving person. I don’t say those things. But, everyday it seems, there are more things you shouldn’t say. The latest comes from a very articulate, thoughtful cancer survivor who explained how telling someone how strong they are can actually put more pressure on them to act that way--especially when they are feeling vulnerable and anything but strong. To have your strength recognized can make a person feel like a failure when they break down; to offer positive words of hope--“you’ll get through this”-- may make them feel trapped and invalidated, as if what they feel is small enough to capsulize. So, when you are trying to be mindful, trying to comfort without making things worse, trying to help without minimizing someone else’s pain, you are often left without safe words. And so, you don’t say anything at all. That too, is perceived badly. All of these well-intentioned guides to what not to say and do can immobilize, leaving those who want to offer their love and support hesitant and unsure about what is acceptable to say. We are careful with those who are grieving, recognizing that they are not wholly themselves; that they are in a different space and their lives have forever changed. We treat their words and actions gently, knowing that they are speaking and acting from a different perspective. We cut them some slack. But, speaking from the other side of grief, maybe the comforters should be cut some slack as well. They are trying to show love and support; they are trying to help. It’s especially difficult to know what to say or do if you’ve never experienced great loss. You send flowers, agonize over a sympathy card, and offer to do anything your grieving friend might need. The flowers and cards are eventually swept up and thrown away and your friend never tells you what they need because, usually they are too caught up in surviving every day to think about someone else and how they could help. You stop calling because your friend doesn’t want to talk and time goes by. You, too worried about making it worse, stop calling. You live your life. There’s nothing wrong with any of this. But there is something wrong with making people so concerned that their words will be misunderstood or add more pain, that they stop saying anything at all. Grievers, please see those imperfect phrases as coming from love. You are hearing them from a place of pain and pain is a poor filter. Comforters, understand that your words might not be welcome or understood in the way you meant them. Say the words from your heart anyway. Don’t worry about saying the perfect thing. Offer your love even if it is thrown back at you—because often it will be. Let’s cut each other some slack. Don’t we all go into a new year with hope and expectation? Expectation that this year will be better, that our grief will be less, our joy more, our problems resolved. We hope that we will do better and be better even though there is a sneaky feeling in the pit of our stomach that those expectations might not be realized because fulfilling those hopes of weight loss, fitness, job change, being more compassionate and loving, depend upon us, not Divine Intervention.
Optimists and traditionalists use the new year to make resolutions; realists and pessimists refuse to make them, suspecting they will be broken within days. Pundits offer advice as to how to keep resolutions do-able, how to break big ones down into achievable goals and they give their blessing on the occasional cheat day so you don’t beat yourself up if you skip working out to have an extra glass of wine. Personally, I no longer do resolutions on New Year’s Day—not because I don’t think they work or because I think they are ridiculous. Instead, I make resolutions all year long, using my own timeline for my starting and ending dates. It’s because things change all year long and so my resolutions have to keep up. Losing ten pounds might change to upgrading my internet plan or spending at least one morning a week walking the beach. It’s a question of priorities and priorities change—at least mine do. The big ones—family, home, dog, friends—don’t, but all the other ones shift around. I can’t make resolutions to change the political system, but I can resolve not to watch the news every day which can also affect my personal energy and attitude. Whatever dims your light—be it watching the news every morning and evening, hanging out with friends who make you feel small, eating things that make you feel lumpy and slow, arguing with your spouse and children, a toxic work environment or one that is going in a direction that no longer works for you, driving a car that you feel is going to fall apart on the freeway—resolve to change. Resolve to open up and do all that you can to allow your personal light shine. I think that’s really all you need to focus upon. The other stuff—career, finances, relationships, logistics—fall into place once you focus on removing that which blocks your light and in deliberately doing that which causes it to flourish. Eas Easy to say; harder to do. First, of course, you have to identify the people, things or situations that dim the light. Then you have to figure out how to remove them. Last, you have to deliberately allow that light to shine and figure out what makes it grow. And do or be those things. When I was a teacher, I formulated a plan after a spate of mass shootings in the late 1990 and early 2000s. My classroom was in a quadrangle of portable classrooms and located at one corner of the quad. My plan, if I saw a person with a weapon enter the quad, was to flick off the lights and push out the screen to the window that overlooked a narrow dirt area bordering the road behind our school that lead to the community college.
We are ocean people now. Not on-the-beach ocean people, but six miles away which is the closest we have been in our lives. Previously we were foothill and mountain people; people who lived among pine trees and shady places. Now, we’re in an open place where little obstructs your vision except buildings, and shade on a hike is almost unheard of.
Still, there is the ocean…and surfers who have a whole glossary of terminology to describe everything from waves, surf conditions and apparel to non-surfers, wanna-be surfers and equipment. Falling off your board is pearling if you fall off the nose, bogging if you fall off the back; parts of a wave can be the barrel, shoulder, lip or crest while wave conditions can be mushy, massive or ankle biters. Surfers, body boarders and beach people might be dudes, wahines, Bettys, Barneys, kooks, shredders, quimbys, Jakes, or the dreaded shoobie. There are terms to describe equipment such as leash, stick, wettie and boardies; terms to describe performance (shred, slash, rip, deck-check, bail.) There is even slang to describe what you did on your stick and how it felt (akaw, amped, pitted, axed, gnarly, stoked). But, in this Technicolor language, there doesn’t seem to be a term for the last ride of the day. I asked a surfer what he called the final wave of his day, sure that surfers had some colorful, amazing word for the last ride just before you paddle in to stand under the shower and take off your salty wettie. The last wave before you pack up your stick and go home. The man I asked was fortyish and looked like he probably surfed every day of his life until he grew up and became a financial planner who surfs either after or before work every chance he gets. He looked puzzled and finally said with a question in his voice, “It’s called…uh, the last wave?” None of the surfing dictionaries (yes, they exist) have such a term. Maybe there isn’t one because surfers never want there to be a last wave. They will be back tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, testing themselves, testing the waves. Maybe there is no term for the last ride because surfers simply become Gandalfs: white-haired, wet-suited dudes who ride the waves forever. I’m not sure if they have a term for women who ride the waves for eternity I may be an ocean-loving, beach combing, non-surfing hodad, but I think we need an addition to the surfing dictionary. Something to tell your fellow surfers that you’re leaving now, be back tomorrow? Maybe something like, “Hey dudes, wave out!” or “Wavadios, I’m gone.” A term to describe the bittersweet end of one thing; the promise of return--the last wave of the day. I’ve been using a book of writing prompts, “5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts,” lately. Starting as a review of the book for the author, my friend, Tarn Wilson, my use of the prompts has been an eye-opener to me.
Writing prompts always seemed like assignments , as in “What did you do on summer vacation?” So, I have always avoided them. But, then, I couldn’t review Tarn’s book without actually using a few of her prompts and so I jumped in. The past year and a half has been spent finishing a novel and renovating a house—mostly renovating. I have also renovated my now-finished novel, but other than that, my writing muscle has gotten slack. When I started to write, that’s all that would happen—a start. Nothing truly excited me enough to make time to write on a daily basis. Laundry, digging a garden path, painting a wall, planting new trees, shopping and cleaning all superseded writing. Even cleaning out my makeup drawer took precedence. After writing to a prompt every day for a week, a task I set myself in order for the review, I found that I was looking forward to those five-plus minutes each day. Maybe it was the diversity of the prompts which span many genres, story elements, formats and viewpoints. Maybe it was just following through on a writing task. I’ve never used prompts so I don’t know whether these are particularly wonderful ones, but their diversity certainly intrigued me. The book of prompts encouraged the reader to write every day for five minutes and to not skip a prompt because it wasn’t in a genre that interested them. It wasn’t necessary to work the prompts in order, which was good for me since that would have made it seem like a task to slog through. Instead, I played with the order by thinking of random numbers between one and five hundred and one ( the number of prompts in Tarn’s book) and writing to whatever prompt was revealed by my random choice. Playing with different genres, different voices, different formats and different attitudes was refreshing. I remembered why I love to write. I enjoyed the feel of my fingers on the laptop keys and seeing words spool out like a roll of ribbon. And the things I wrote were amazing! At least to me—and that’s all who mattered. If you’re stuck, if you’re bored, if you need a boost to start, if you want to remember how to play with writing again, try a book of prompts. Keep one on your resource shelf. “5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts” by Tarn Wilson was a great start for me. |
AuthorI write to process my world, to tell stories that might be otherwise forgotten, to clarify, and to entertain. Archives
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