wake up!

i have problems with my breathing. i tire easily. both statements are fact. and with both statements being true, i can still be as fit as possible under any & all situations.

and i don't even try.

and the reality is that i am the only one who can change the status quo.

what's the past 35 years been about if not looking what is in the eye & matching it to next best steps that secure my highest possible good?

north star bear

never thought before about the great good luck of having the brains & plain old-fashion common sense to recognize in the church & academy expressions of the utterly safe resting place of "all that is," to find sanctuary in the values of the one & ideals of the other.

then again - and this may sound cocky - but am quite amazed at how wholeness-oriented i've been all of my life, from my very earliest days. nothing i did, just always with me.

talked to john about it just last night, driving home from "the shift" class. always had a sense that the way i experienced people around me - within my birth family - living was somehow so very not right for me. as i underscored to john, i didn't find the others wrong, just not right for me. from my earliest days, strove for better balance, what i'd come to call "alignment".

classic case of "i don't know what IT is, but i'll recognize it when i see it." and i did! that is so beyond the beyond. something in me KNEW as soon as we met that john was a totally new something i'd never encountered before, a health source, a nurturer of wholeness.

a liztech broach i saw at feast n fancy several months ago, on an out & about with anne, almost made me gasp at first sight. only just read the description for "north star bear" (a bear reaching to a star) on the liztech website & now understand why ~ All bears are healers, white bears are particularly powerful. Characteristics associated with bears include strength, courage, adaptability, healing and spiritual communion.

yup, that's my john. how awesome, how downright goosebumpy that i recognized it in him - and the broach - as soon as i experienced it!

a month of thanks - today, for my family

the best learning lab in the universe!!

courting connections

A friend, who received my 2011 "State of the Human" letter asked, My question for you is what will life be like next year when Cyber Access for Technically Timid is all in place, you are established and money is coming in?

well, dear friend, as important as cyber access for the technically timid (catt) is, it's but a "leah" step compared to what i feel is my "rachel" purpose - it will provide my personal underwriting of a far larger calling: helping the general church & academy schools craft ways to deepen existing connections between vital yet inherently impersonal institutions and actual flesh & blood people.

being the bold & brash lass that i am, in november will be sending a request for help underwriting my current shift from an admittedly financially tenuous here & now to a firmer foundation, allowing me the time to work with the church & schools on key issues that popped up over the past months.

who will get that perhaps soon-to-be-infamous request for funding? a slate of people i barely know BUT who've demonstrated dedication & loyalty to the church & academy schools. with funding to get past the current limited funds moment, will be free to fulfill my truest of true callings – infusing a stronger sense of connection between alums & supporters with the church & schools i love, especially through the college.

seems to me this vital work is best done by someone outside of the official structure, although it's hard to define why. can’t express it, yet know it to be true. catt will pay the bills (and underscore my truest of true life purpose) while i devote my spare time to volunteer work focused around crafting community.

what events popped up to arouse my interest? first the assembly, then charter day and, most recently, something experienced this past monday. the three brought home to me how the powers-that-be have put remarkable things into place with both the schools & the church, yet it feels like they're sometimes a tad... unaware about how to forge deep connections with flesh & blood people.

at the assembly, traditional open houses once held each night around the community were probably too $$. but what was offered in their place? on the first night, a band party at cairnwood. great for folks my age & younger, but zip for older people jazzed after the wonderful presentation on the church in asia. a pity. the impression made on the first day can be all important to how people remember the entire event. i was left hanging, with no where to go, but the person who felt it even more was the older friend i chummed around with throughout the assembly, who instead of feeling a sense of place at the event, felt terribly sad, all stirred up but without any place or persons to share that enthusiastic energy.

at charter day, same thing – no optional networking opportunities. pardon the bluntness, but the "open house" at the brickman center was fairly short & somewhat flat. and there was nothing for my senior friend to do other than the dance, which she found shockingly unappealing. john & i had a blast at sat’s wine & nibblings party, but it cost $ (worth every penny for us - can write it off as a networking expense - but beyond a lot of limited income budgets).

at the most recent "minister monday" tea at cairnwood village, three speakers - dr. king, jim adams & judy from the development office - encouraged people to give to the schools. three times, one of the said, “i’m not going to ask for your money…”, then proceeded to do precisely that. that's fine - that's why she was there. but why not just be up front about it? celebrate what she was doing there, turn the asking into a positive action?

two things strike me about these less-than-optimal experiences 1) a BIG challenge faced by powers-that-be & those they delegate is that most, if not all, of them seem, by nature & nurture, unaware of feeling outside of what's happening. and 2) back in my college days, dick gladish drummed into us "show, don't tell." if the church & the academy want to turn things around financially, want to turn rare to never contributors into regulars who leave a legacy in their wills, the best way to start is by seeing the people they're courting. woo them, but lightly.

like any great match, such light-handed yet ardent courting creates a win-win environment where all flourish! for an example of what i visualize as a natural outcome to such an approach, check out my 10/28 posting - 12 months out. speaks what's in my heart.

12 months out

a friend asked me about how i envision my life, my life contributions, 12 months from now. this was my reply, re: what i feel is my life purpose - my "rachel" - deepening a natural connection between the academy schools and flesh & blood people...

10/28/12
a college alumna - anc class of 1972, ancc class of '74 (associate's degree), a dormie from glenview who's now retired & living in michigan - is talking with a classmate he & his "dragon" spouse had stayed with over charter day. he's calling to say yet another thank you for helping make the visit so special.

he can't seem to stop talking about what fun they'd had, how hard it was to leave.

he loved the football, the banquet, the catching up with high school & college classmates. but what surprised him was how welcomed he felt by the college - that both he & his wife felt they'd had an opportunity to get a glimpse into how truly special bacnc is, that they came away with a sense that the beautiful buildings & campus simply reflect the teachers, the courses, the students who make up the college.

he marvels at what a good time his wife had when the two of them dropped into the brickman center, especially the opportunity to meet some of the college students, some from as close as bryn athyn and philadelphia, some as far away as china and ghana, but all radiating an appreciation of what they were getting from their education. he admits feeling downright ancient talking to the college teachers & awed by how many were phds. and what a blast to participate in an alumni version of "gnashed teeth" - he'd never forget it!

he had a grand time looking at the enlarged photos of teachers from past decades, including some from his own years at ancc. he'd enjoyed writing down some stories about what it was like to attend college in the same building as the high school, share the same lab rooms & dining facility; loved the opportunity to write down appreciations of a favorite teacher, one who helped put him on an unexpected life path, and a never-to-be-forgotten school mate.

he mentions how much his aunt - anc class of 1962 - felt welcomed & a part of the college, even though she never attended. the student ambassadors seemed genuinely interested in hearing about her time in the fledgling peace corps, where she served & what she did, as well as what it was like attending barnard in the '60s. he recalls how at home all of them felt in the brickman center, settled into comfy chairs in that vaulted yet somehow intimate space, talking with new & old friends, aware of but not distracted by the 2012 bacnc graduation playing on the flat-screen monitor at the one corner, the taped stylings of student musicians playing softly at the other end of the room.

and the food! those bryn athyn bounty bakers really outdid themselves!! he could still taste the whoopie pie sliders he'd eaten way too many of - and friends who were there in the morning and afternoon said the muffins & breads, then cookies & brownies, were equally awesome. what a treat to be able to pick out his own coffee selection & have it brewed up on the spot. he wishes he'd put more than $10 as a free-will offering - will send off an extra check to the alumni association for $25, along with a note of appreciation.

he asks his friend if she'd signed up to get copies of "the beacon" and on the special list for copies of student papers on philosophy & history. he'd signed up to keep in contact with a bacnc college student - did she sign up to connect with gc student studying somewhere else?

and he'd meant to ask - who WAS her favorite teacher? most memorable fellow student (other than him, of course)? did she sign up for the alumni association?

he congratulates his friend - her daughter placed the winning bid on a week's stay for up to 12 at a lakeside cabin. (hint! hint!) although he'd missed most - but not all - of the auction cum party, it was clear it was a smash. several friends had contributed homemade appetizers to the nibbling buffet (and it seemed everyone was putting something into the free-will offering jar, a clay vessel thrown by an anc student artist, which was also up for bid).

who came up with the brilliant idea of offering classes an opportunity to bid on "naming rights" for the liquid refreshments? terrific photos lifted from the class of 1987's yearbook seemed to be all over the party space - kept seeing older versions of young folks in the enlarged photos being snapped with the pictures. what a great return on a relatively low investment in wine, beer, sparkling cider & water!

oh, my gosh - time has flown! he just called for a quick hello & an hour has zipped by. next year isn't a reunion year for him, but his wife is already talking about a return visit next year. maybe even earlier, for bacnc graduation - the video of the ceremony seemed unlike anything he could have ever imagined.

it was a good visit, a great 40th reunion & a priceless reminder that he's blessed to be part of a school that gets better with every passing year, of a church with a vision worth inspiring for!

he signs off with - "see you next october!"

outlier no longer

since the early days of our courtship, john's described himself as an "outlander" - a phrase used in Children of the Corn - within the community wherein i was born & raised. it's always good for a chuckle.

it's only today, in thinking about my gnarly relationship with a greatly admired s-i-l who (alas) doesn't seem to return the esteem, that it hits me that throughout my life i've been an outlier, both in my family & my community.

outlier - /ˈoutˌlīər/; noun 1. a person or thing situated away or detached from the main body or system. 2. a person or thing excluded from a group; an outsider.

the first definition applies to my relationship within my hometown in my earlier years; even when it appeared there was connection that's all it was - an appearance. from kindergarten thru college, i never made a good, close friend. so glad those days of outsideness are long over!!

the second definition captured my relationship to & within my birth family. "a person or thing excluded from a group" - and i never knew the why. and praise be that those achingly alone days are past. i enjoyed a delightful visit with mike over charter day & a good gab with scott. mim & i have been writing back & forth. and john & i are writing to peter, letting him know we'd enjoy bringing take-out from his beloved golden dragon over to his digs in norristown.

gee, it sure does feel good to be in from the cold, an outlier no more!!

Fatigues

not military clothing - how i feel, especially in the morning. tapped out. need to aggressively counter balance with mindful, determined, even-when-i-don't-wanna energy boosters!

welcome mat

i sought to be a traditional educator - after i achieved my initial, improbable goals, was shown the door. what broke my heart was swiftly revealed as a blessing, expanding my world beyond, but still including, the small town where i was born & educated & employed.

i was a traditional professional, bringing my someone off-kilter ways to the incredibly straight-arrow insurance and financial services industries, using my non-trad vision to create unimaginable (to me) success - until i was shown the door, once again. once again, what initially broke my heart was even more swiftly revealed to be a blessing, booting me out of the buttoned-down corporate world into an alternate funky career universe that was never in my plans but is clearly where some great force of whatever intends me to plant myself & thrive & blossom.

very little of what has happened over the past ten years makes much sense UNLESS it's looked at through the lens of a greater power having greater plans for me than i could ever have imagined, combining all aspects of my being into a great purpose that only i can fulfill.

ignore the apparent shouting truth that the wild road i'm traveling is my true path?? accept that this life traveler has finally arrived at my home earthly purpose??

am putting out the welcome mat - let whatever comes across my threshold come. i have no doubt it will ultimately be a blessing.

working with what is

realized anew that of the many social skills i picked up from my birth family, the one that was drummed into me was the importance of spending my time, energy & resources doing things with no expectation of any sort of benefit or return from others i took that a step further - that getting anything of emotional or financial value for what i did somehow diminished the very value of what i'd done.

there are a lot of messages received through my early years that might have been intended or not, could even have never been sent (so many of my memories were picked up elsewhere & attributed by me to the important others in my life or were the result of an utter misunderstanding of something said), but this one i know for sure was sent & resent.

such a dumb message!

i believe that parents & families should send & live the message that we should all value what we do, expect a sense of value from others - emotional & financial, when appropriate - and allow ourselves to feel a sense of disappointment when we get nothing in return, without allowing us to be deterred in taking future similar action.

i believe that parents & families should do everything possible to instill a sense of positive value within each other by modeling those behaviors, in their actions to others & in their expectations of themselves.

and i am forever grateful that i knew, deeply on some almost visceral plane, that what i experienced with family social skills was off kilter. knew from an incredibly young age. didn't know what was messed up, but pretty sure something was.

we all get the earlier lives that we get. it's tempting to think that others got a better break with family situations or life opportunities, but the fact is that we get what we get as our personal building materials & wasting any time envying something that might not even be is foolish. work with what is. those are your building materials. if they are somehow sub par or warped or unusable, ditch them & start out with new stuff. but use all the building lessons learned over the years - they're in there. use the ones that work, not the ones that produced unstable structures. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that what each of us is here to do is not do stuff that's detrimental to ourselves or others and to invest ALL our time, ALL our resources, ALL our energies into creating something sound that benefits us & ideally all others.

start out by working with what is.

everything in its place, indeed

the sudden, unexpected death of a remarkable young minister/teacher/mentor brings home the importance of living as he did, filling every moment with joy & doing the work he loved in a way that only he could do & being an incredible life force to all he touched.

it was pretty bold & brash, sending out my 2nd "state of the human" letter, opening a path for people to help us financially & making it easy for everyone to contribute substantially without spending a cent. but - post the jacob story, post charter day, post mauro - am taking that outreach BIGGER, contacting people who belong to the boards of our church & schools with a funky grant proposal.

my health seems to be questionable. i breathe heavily & tire easily. so, am more committed than ever to doing whatever needs to be done to make the contributions that i'm well suited to make to my church, my school & my community. where there appears to be an obstacle, i'll acknowledge it before giving it the boot. i'm not going to worry if people think i'm a kook or outrageous - if that's what it takes to make cyber access for the technically timid & a more welcoming experience at charter day & partnering programs between my local senior community and college a reality, then so be it.

the bottom line is that i've been over the top (hopefully in a good way) from my first breath. i seem to have been born with an out-sized sense of love & loyalty to my family, my church, my school. the affections that many people pour into friends, i poured into those three institutions - family, church, school. family, in its traditional sense of siblings, has receded into the background (but certainly not disappeared) as loving support of community has moved over the past 15 years into the foreground.

my dream is to help craft church & academy events such as the assembly & charter day where EVERYONE feels welcomed, visible & valued. how to craft such moments? first, by deciding HOW you want each participant to feel when s/he leaves the event. do you want your alumni - all of them - to feel a sense of excitement over where, say, the college is, as embodied by its students, its teacher/mentors, its leaders; to have a sense of their own place in its past & a thrill of anticipation over where its headed; to WANT to be part of that future, whatever their age?

it amazes me to look back over my life & see how my path has provided me with an unusual amalgram of experiences & skills, from my four years of doing faculty teas in college and the same number of ed council spreads (two per morning) as part of summer work to serving as NATIONAL coordinator of events honoring prudential healthcare's 50th anniversary, from adopting the anc classes of 2010~2011~2013 when they were in elementary school & tracking them through hs graduation to being bisys financial services 2000 employee of the year based on my above & beyond success at making the most demanding clients feel heard.

it feels as if this initiative is already a tangible entity, awaiting its big reveal. all i have to get out of the way are minor albeit pesky money energy issues - and that will happen. all i have to do is let everything be in its place, then see what arises.

take no thought for the morrow

what's in my heart to do? if i know it, then i'm already graced with an incredible gift, because so very few people seem to have a clue. if i know it, then i'm honor-bound to pursue it, without flinching at what tomorrow might bring, instead focusing on what i can do in THIS moment to make it so.

i'm doubly, triply, calculate to infinity blessed because of having already experienced what it feels like to reach a goal that so many thought beyond hope. it took 35 years of quiet belief that it was possible. seems long, but i look back at it as simply taking as long as it took.

for decades & decades, i thought that my goal was better relationship with my birth family. not a good one, just better. and i got to experience that. remarkable!

what amazes me over & over are all the unimaginable blessings that open up from pursuing a goodly goal. it never ever dawned on me that my psyche would hit a reset button, as it has over these past two weeks. it feels - really & truly - like my innermost being has returned to where it was in my earliest days. and i do mean earliest! so cool, so unexpected. so waiting to be expanded into new goals. goals that will take as long as they take, taking no thought for the morrow.

hiatus

took a hiatus from mid-sept to mid-october. wasn't planned, just happened. maybe something incredibly wise within me realized those weeks were best spent just experiencing whatever arose rather than stepping back to write blog entries.

happy to have gleaned all i got, happy to be back.

I am Berkshire Hathaway.

How many people get the opportunity to be part of a Berkshire Hathaway company, part of the perhaps most successful family of companies in the world?? I do. All I have to do is put out the energy that wants to be put out & I can say, with complete honesty, "I am Berkshire Hathaway." My work efforts affect Warren Buffet's profit margins.

All I have to do to make it so is to make it so.

Berkshire Hathaway owns Pampered Chef, which speaks volumes for Warren Buffet's opinion of P.C. founder Doris Christopher and the company she & her husband developed & grew.

Identify my most alert times of the day, and the times that I flag. Peg P.C. actions to the up time, build in less intense, more restorative Be aware of my groggy hours & don't let them pattern the rest of the day.

And follow Donna's advice - start clean, under my own name, not John's. We did that for a reason, a reason that doesn't exist. It's a reboot under my name. I am not the same person.

I am Berkshire Hathaway. Live like it.

divya nails it

on last night's royal pains episode, divya gave an answer to why her father won't talk to her that i could just as easily use explaining why my sibs shie away from me >> "i could give you plenty of reasons ~ and i don't understand any of them." spot on.

i admire how the writers show the character - estranged & financially cut off from parents she loves & who have always supported her - as sad but coping. the option - to do what they wanted at the cost of her self - would have been more painful. a woman who sought a balance within her family & is willing to live with the consequences, however painful, rather than compromise her true self. a deftly drawn character who is well written. bravo!

"You and your PLATITUDES!!"

it was last october over a year ago that a once incredibly close friend flung those words at me; the phrase began with a sneer & ended with her spitting out "pla~ti~tudes."

my response took even me by surprise. instead of being upset or angry or repentant of my ways, the unexpected comment lifted a veil that long covered crucial parts of my life. in a flash, it was clear that leslie wasn't the only one irked beyond endurance by my platitudes. i'll see you a leslie & raise you a peter, mim, mike & kerry.

for many years, i've said that my sibs experience me like nails on a chalk board. i make their skin crawl. i know from kerry that my core nature disturbs her intensely - so she wrote in 1973, in a letter to mom, and i've experienced nothing over the years that would lead me to think her opinion's changed. i irritate peter so intensely, his family didn't invite me to my niece's rehearsal dinner; as my nephew put it, if i were there, his dad would have been stressed.

it was clear that something about me rubbed each of the in the absolutely worst way imaginable, but i was left clueless as to what it was.

"you & your platitudes!" eureka, i had found it! my robustly pollyanna-ish ways got under their skin every bit as much as it did leslie's. in leslie's tone (we were on the phone), even more than her words, i heard years of irritation erupting.

yes, i do tend to see a lesson in all that happens, which does liberate me in a large degree from recriminations & fault finding. yes, that could be experienced as pollyanna-ish. but what's so bad about being a pollyanna? as i recall, she lead a pretty happy life, helped others brush off paths to their own happy lives, left where she lived & who she was with in a happier place than they were before.

seems a pretty good way to be, if you ask me. so i'll forever spout those so-called "platitudes" about seeking the lesson & understanding that each of us brings a unique perspective to our common experience as i keep on keeping on!

thank you, leslie, for helping me understand the previously incomprehensible!

sanctuary

i love the 4th of july.

in my family, it was the most flat-out happy, least angst-ridden holiday. fun, food & family - a mega winning combination!

so many great memories around bryn athyn july 4th celebrations. my very first memory is from when i was probably around seven years old.

background: to this day, the parade around what is now benade hall circle is followed by all of us gathering around the flag pole to sing the star-spangled banner, followed by a speech - followed by foot races on what was called the old football field, renamed to the girls' athletic fields.

i, a total athletic glutz but in possession of a brand new pair of pf flyer sneakers, couldn't wait for the foot races. i KNEW, because the advertisements trumpeted it, that MY sneakers would make me fleet of foot, miraculously able to leave every other competitor in the dust. yes, my little girl heart fell for the hype & ignored my hapless lack of athleticism.

no one was more eager for the starting whistle than yours truly. i sprung from the starting line with all the confidence of setting a new record for my age group ...with the toning & running experience of a slug.

needless to say, i immediately became the slowest runner on the field, watching the pack whip away from me. brokenhearted at the betrayal of my brand new footwear, i did the only thing that i could think to do to make it bearable - i scanned the sidelines for a safe face. and tore into the arms of my mortified older brother.

poor mike. he & my other surviving siblings were great athletes throughout their school years. here, not only was i a total flub at foot races, he'd been singled him out by my running OFF the field & flinging myself into his arms. could feel his discomfort, his embarrassment through his shirt, but i didn't care. he was my brother, he was safe. (and i also remember how totally undone all the pretty girls around him were by my aberrant action, circling around us, comforting this sobbing child - looking back, can only imagine it made him big brownie points.)

so many thoughts from that one race. it marked me forever as not only a lousy athlete, but also as unsportsmanlike for leaving the field instead of finishing the race, no matter how far behind the others. but i have no sad thoughts from that race, only the memory of how i felt on catching sight of my big brother. sanctuary, sanctuary!

how i felt about mike back then is pretty much how i felt about all of my siblings - they were my sanctuary, my safe places from the storm of life. and i think that sense was born into me, as well as nurtured through mim's many messages about holding family in my heart & loyalties.

that moment - expected glory ending ignominiously - isn't a bitter memory, or even bittersweet. savory would be the best word, well seasoned with hope & love & a straight-line pursuit of comforting arms.

hip v. hapless

it was so very cool to hang out at the general church assembly, getting remarkably fresh insights & liberating longtime limits, all without attending a single plenary session or workshop!

made no excuses for choosing to hang back rather than sit in on any assembly activities (wasn't registered, due to several reasons), then amazed as new awareness burbled up, i think because of not artifically fogging the mind with phony reasons for why i side-stepped doing what i didn't want to do. yeah, i hung back; yeah, i was utterly over-the-top in pursuit of people to sign my bright yellow book bag ~ ~ but those two contradictory behaviors have been part of my very warp & woof since FOREVER. run with 'em.

taking anne h. from event to event was NOT me being of service at the expense of my own experience of the assembly, but about helping someone who really cared about attending plenary sessions & workshops to get hither & yon WHILE doing precisely what i really & truly wanted with my time.

certainly NOT what i expected, but certainly my glorious experience. feels fabuloso to be more hip than hapless.

leading with my heart

friends with a certified kitchen - needed to bake AND market my crackers - are understandably unwilling to give me access.

would have been a sweet solution, not requiring any $$ outlay on my part. it even seemed good karma, as i rep their bbq sauce at my village market vendor spot. but a very practical response.

am beginning to doubt that i have a practical bone in my body, always leading with the heart instead of my head.

spent a good deal of last night thinking about how rydal park, in spite of being a truly beautiful facility, feels like a warehouse for elders. i know that a lot of the people there want to live that way. but it just seems... off kilter.

so glad that our mothers - mine & john's - lived to the very end in their very own house with their very own neighbors next door, their very own family around them.

it wasn't easy having mom with us, considering our differences in life views & the family baggage she brought with her, but it was as important to me as it was to her.

the only other option - living with mike & kerry, which would have been my preference - would still have kept mom in her very own home (albeit her aussie home) with her very own neighbors next door, her very own family around her.

tiring easily

a bother.

but so many more other things are doing better than they ever have before. keep building on those. keep on keeping the promise.

i just don't get it

it takes john FOREVER to do the simplest measurement/cut activity. to me, it's so simple - figure out the simplest way to do the necessary cuts, mark your dimensions, then cut them out.

no brainer.

but john is compelled to make a major production of every step of production. okay, it bugs me but doesn't matter when it's something that calls for such intense focus on detail ~ like his artwork, where detail is part of his distinctive style ~ but to dither & take literally hours to cut out fewer than ten small pictures is beyond me.

to help simplify the work, i set specific guidelines, not because i'm such a fuss budget (no pun intended) but to help streamline & speed up without sacrificing results.

how can it take the better part of the day - at least 2 1/2 hours - to do a teeny part of a minor project? i just don't get it. john is set on using HIS process, even though it takes forever; i want to take whichever process gives the best results in the best time.

arrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh.

Loyalty v.s. Blind Loyalty (from Mary Jane Hurley Brant's newsletter)

Gee, the following speaks directly to my heart!!

Loyalty Vs. Blind Loyalty

Loyalty is essential for genuine family solidarity. But blind loyalty leads to family dysfunction. A loyal family member is faithful to the family's traditions and honors its obligations. A loyal family member is emotionally present with support and encouragement during success or duress.

These unwavering devotions are admirable and observable: just look at how a loyal family member helps another member during an illness, a financial crisis, the breakup of a marriage, death.

I admire family loyalty; I believe in it. However, I do not believe in blind family loyalty.

Here's why. A blindly loyal person follows lockstep and unquestioningly behind the family. Often, the marching is done unconsciously because one doesn't want to upset or anger another family member - a practice of "keep the peace mentality." Sometimes, the blindly loyal member will "go along" with something even when common sense and rationale plead with them to speak out.

Sometimes, the blindly loyal member rejects hard core examples of a family's neurotic, enabling and codependent responses and that behavior hurts and damages their other relationships.

How so? Families operate on a continuum of being open with their communication or closed. Families with high functioning open systems can address any topic even when extremely painful, difficult or sensitive: loss, divorces, mental illness, secrets, alcoholism, various abuses, feelings of shame, affairs, death of beloved members, etc.

These high functioning families feel confident and secure enough individually and as a family unit to discuss these circumstances and call them what they are. Individual expressions are not only permitted, they are encouraged. And while I agree it can be complicated and tricky at times where family confidences are concerned, it is not impossible to negotiate peaceful outcomes.

But, this isn't the case in the closed blindly loyal family. For example, in a blindly loyal family where the mother was cold and unaffectionate to her children and now one member wants to let "the cat out of the bag," this member is often rejected by other family members.

Blind family loyalty expects everyone to remember how terrific their celebrations were even when dad fell into the potato salad and knocking over Uncle Albert were regular occurrences. In other words, the blindly loyal family must turn "dad the sinner" into "dad the saint."

And heaven protect the family member who challenges the accepted family view.

Where does blind loyalty originate? Usually, it's formed in early childhood to win parental approval and love because the worse thing for a child to feel is disapproved of, unloved and unwanted. We all want to believe we had the perfect family so we ignore the imperfections and transform family issues into virtues.

The reality comes later when we see other people's families or we marry someone who is a more higher functioning emotionally than we. That's when we have a point-of-reference for comparison.

But telling ourselves that something was perfectly wonderful when it was not is emotionally unhealthy and a form of denial or repression. Those feelings don't disappear; they go underground to get projected and played out later with coworkers, spouses, friendships and even with our own children.

For example, the adult child who could never please mom, dad or both unconsciously feels never good enough and becomes highly reactive when criticism comes his or her way.

But with acceptance of what really occurred in your family system, coupled with insight and introspection and sometimes help from another sibling, relative, friend, spiritual director or professional, most of us can understand more fully the childhood we experienced and not turn around and misdirect that disappointment, anger or hurt onto others.

Yes, my friends, we can become loyal "to our own experience" and that's a really good thing.

Remember, there is no shame in admitting that we have wounds from some family experiences and that we have wounded others, sometimes blindly so, but let's not make a blind loyalty into a family affair. Instead, let's accept that no family is perfect and most do the best they can.

When we are open to this conscious shift from being a blindly loyal family member to an authentically loyal family member our families will be true places of refuge. Places where we can always return to heal a hurt, to laugh and cry, and, yes, sometimes even exhale a bona fide sigh of those memorable words: home sweet

big break for my budget

decided to NOT attend blogher '11 or creative connections. either event - the first in early aug out in san diego, the second in st.paul in mid-sept - would have been interesting BUT i'm not at the blogging proficiency level where i'd feel at ease with it all. want to boost my competencies on my own before seeking higher levels.

might not make a lot of sense to some folks, but it does to me. spent a lifetime feeling out of place either due to being clueless i didn't belong or because of not having enough info under my belt to make the best use of the provided opportunities. whew! that was a mouthful.

instead, am crafting my own "creative connections" learning program right here, in the privacy of my computer studio. and maybe by august or september, i WILL feel whatever prerequisites i sense are necessary to make the expense a worthwhile investment.

a big break for my budget & a mega-boost for my self-confidence in teaching myself the basics of blogging. this blog will be my confessional for how i'm doing!

brain buzz!

Hardly slept - brain buzz.

Seeing BA pastor inviting HV ministers/congregations to special 9/11 vesper service – GC minister officiating, others seated on chancel; brief talk, then reading of names of fallen NYFD/PD. Mixed choir singing.

Potluck picnic, at cathedral or Benade Hall circle.

Concert on Benade Hall steps or BACNC circle (rain locations - Society Bldg & MPAC).

Both communities involved in organizing.

Buzzed!

fetter free

it's impossible to describe how it feels to feel fetter free. doesn't matter if it happens at 59 or 29, the sensation would be the same. and i know it's impossible to describe because it's impossible for me to put into limited words the thoughts & emotions that have replaced the constricted darkness in my noggin.

joan chittister is utterly spot on when she writes in welcome to the wisdom of the world:

We miss one of the major lessons of nature when we can't see that just because a turkey doesn't fly long distances doesn't make it a failed bird.

after decades & decades of seeking answers, am finding it downright lighthearted to realize how easy it is for folks to focus so hard on failing to become what we want to be, we balk & bluster at being the best we were born to be.

Reality ~ we can't be what we are not. We can only become the whole of what we are and learn to accept it and learn to enjoy being it.

One thing we can do is begin to go about life differently. Life is not one thing only; no one's life is totally one-dimensional. We are ALL a great deal mor than the world knows us to be. So, when one dimension of life fails to work for us, we can take ALL of who we are and become what we must through some other way. We can learn to treat ourselves with the respect we struggle to get from others.

We, ourselves, must accept what we are if we want other people to value it, too.

Instead of trying to be what we are not, we must become the best, the happiest, of what we ARE.

It is the ability to spread happiness that moves the world, that gives a person scope, that unsticks me from the obsession on which I am stuck. We don't have to wonder if the gifts we have to give the world are worth giving. But we do have to DO something with the gifts we have ~OR~ risk the loss of them entirely.


rejoice in what i am, in what i can be, what i am called to be!

"the saddest thing in life..."

the following, an excerpt from joan chittister's book, welcome to the wisdom of the word, describes an awesomely gifted person who is as loved by me as i seem to be persona non-exista to him:

It isn't that he wasn't bright enough.
Nonsense.
He was one of the smartest people I ever met.
He had years of academic success.
He had a fine reputation as a teacher.
He certainly had the right pedigree, academically & socially.
BUT
whatever the cosmetics, he was never really happy -
always dissatisfied
always stuck
always wanting more.

What he was, it seems, never quite equaled his image of himself and what he wanted to be.

Shakespeare described the type centuries ago ~ "desiring this one's art and that one's scope."

It wasn't so much that people discounted him; it was that he was never good enough for himself.

Standing next to him, you could almost feel the restless rage that ate away at his soul. He carried an air of perpetual distain, a kind of groundless anger at those who refused to recognize in him what he thought himself to be. He hungered for the world to attest that he was what he clearly was not.

He was stuck.

He could not be what he wanted to be. He did not want to be what he was, however excellent that might look to others. Instead, he drifted between the two, unhappy because of what he could not do, refusing to be satisfied with what he could.

But the wanting ate him up, consumed him, made him small when he could have been great.

He didn't want to be a teacher; he wanted to be an administrator.

He didn't want to be a theorist; he wanted to be an executive.

And he never got to be either.

He was, without doubt, an invaluable resource on anyone's committee, on anyone's staff, on anyone's board. But what he definitely did NOT want to be was one of the team - any team. He wanted to be the STANDOUT BEST.

Instead, he became a study of what happens when we reflect parts of ourselves and leave the whole of ourselves untouched, undeveloped.

all of which reminds me of the great quote near the end of robert deniro's timeless classic, a bronx tale ~ the saddest thing in this world is wasted talent.

in this moment, am recording my vow to use the talent i have, however great or small it might be.

as joan c. said later in her book ~ We don't have to be stuck in the dregs of life. We don't have to pine away, wanting to be what we aren't. We don't have to wonder if what we have to give to the world is worth giving. BUT we do have to do something with the gifts we have OR risk the loss of them eventually.

rejoice in what i am, in what i can be, what i am called to be.

shifting

am busily shifting through stuff in the basement, trashing what has interest but no actual value. NOT an easy thing to do, resisting the siren call of "but someday..."

the space is needed, not just physically but emotionally & spiritually as well.

master of some

looking over the things i want to offer at the local-sustainable-handcrafted market at southampton station, am struck anew with the different hats i wear. "jack of all trades & master of SOME (and darn good at the others)."

cracker baking, craft making, workshop facilitating, cupcake party throwing, seasonings mixing, spouse marketing, breakfast trekking, senior experience expanding, pampered chef demoing...

yup - am a born life enthusiast & general instigator!

shad fest 2011 - poster progress report

this saturday & sunday! but tomorrow's the big day for us - last day to submit our poster designs. john considered calling in sick tomorrow, which i am heartily discouraging (negative karma). reminds me that i have to find out where to turn in artwork - my guess it's at the l-ville chamber of commerce, on union.

what great fun (me)/opportunity (john), all from someone at fred's urging me to get both the hubster et moi involved. in a big way, it's a good challenge for john on doing artwork that's NOT mega detailed. a real challenge that he's finding hard to deal with - my concept was that he'd keep the background & fish along the lines of what he'd do as thumbnail artwork, getting down to more details with the cat.

we'll see what we see!

visible & valuable

i have issues with feeling visible & valuable. it's not just that i don't, but that FEELING visible and/or valuable simply wasn't on my radar for my first 25 years.

over the decades, feeling a sense of self-worth, of natural connection with others went through incremental stages: from the eureka "ah ha!" moment of realizing having a sense of place, of value (can't have the one without the other) is the the healthy way to feel about yourself & others to misdirected attempts at developing same in myself to slowly awakening to FINALLY having my own "by jove! i think she's got it!" experience.

which is not to say i am always on the forward path. shocking, how easy it is to slide back into devaluing myself, my worth. but the times are fewer & fewer, with greater & greater ease catching myself at it & righting my path.

progress

less than two months ago, our home insurer informed us that it's independent contractor had inspected our home/property & had a list of repairs that needed to be made before our insurance policy could be renewed. oh, and when it is renewed, the value will be increased significantly (with a related increase in premium). and we had six weeks to get the repairs underway - or else.

well, the repairs noted were things we'd meant to have done, just never seemed to have enough money. but six weeks? contractors in early spring are generally booked for all those big & small things that revealed themselves over winter ~ and here in se pa, winter 2010-2011 was darn tooting nasty!

a guardian angel apparently watched over us, as we were able to line up a good contractor who pledged to make sure everything was done right & proper within the set time frame. we were skeptical. contractors are notorious for being overly optimistic & weather factors are even more infamous for setting even the most asiduous contractor way behind promised complete dates.

thank heavens, our guardian angel (mom?) chose wisely. our contractor got all the work started within the time frame. the independent contractor was delighted with the results & gave our insurer the green light to a) renew our policy & b) increase the value of our home/property (ergo also our premium).

we'd hoped the work could be completed at or near the figure we thought seemed reasonable to us, but the more multi workers showed up throughout the week, the more we realized our prayers were unlikely to be answered. the final cost turned out to be double what we'd hoped, but (to be utterly honest) considerably lower than what the finished work was actually worth.

when you're about to shell out almost every penny you have to your name (seriously) for an unbudgeted expense that will result in other costs going up, it would be understandable to have a flip-floppy stomach & other indications of being stressed out. must be making progress, because i didn't have any stress-induced effects as i drew out literally 9/10ths of our funds to pay 2/3 of the contractor's bill. instead, i offered up thanks that the money was there & that the contractor was willing to let us pay off the balance as more money comes in (might be in dribs & drabs, but we promise to be steadfast to getting it paid off asap).

now, to get the inside of the house looking as spiffy as the outside does. that, my friends, will be PROGRESS!

is my hometown a welcoming place?

this post has been moved to my new blog - stuff & nonsense - at http://yuplikepoppop.blogspot.com/

warning - i quote anthony bourdain without edits

be prepared for the possibility of some language that might be natural in professional kitchens yet offensive to well-refined ears. proceed with caution...

what IS meant by the french phrase mise-en-place?

it's a term used by line cooks to describe the lay out of their work station. "everything in its place." a line cook's mise (meez) is as individual as his or her dna.

as anthony bourdain describes it in his book, kitchen confidential:

Mise-en-place is the religion of all good line cooks. Do not fuck with a line cook’s ‘meez’ — meaning his setup, his carefully arranged supplies of sea salt, rough-cracked pepper, softened butter, cooking oil, wine, backups, and so on.

As a cook, your station, and its condition, its state of readiness, is an extension of your nervous system…

The universe is in order when your station is set up the way you like it: you know where to find everything with your eyes closed, everything you need during the course of the shift is at the ready at arm’s reach, your defenses are deployed.

If you let your mise-en-place run down, get dirty and disorganized, you’ll quickly find yourself spinning in place and calling for backup. I worked with a chef who used to step behind the line to a dirty cook’s station in the middle of a rush to explain why the offending cook was falling behind. He’d press his palm down on the cutting board, which was littered with peppercorns, spattered sauce, bits of parsley, bread crumbs and the usual flotsam and jetsam that accumulates quickly on a station if not constantly wiped away with a moist side towel. “You see this?” he’d inquire, raising his palm so that the cook could see the bits of dirt and scraps sticking to his chef’s palm. “That’s what the inside of your head looks like now.”


per usual, anthony b. gets right to the point. for most of my life, i've been the line cook struggling to keep up with life's demands, unable to keep up with what should be done because i had a mess instead of a mise.

enough.

something went ZAMBOOIE! inside my deepest depth when i heard anthony bourdain describe his mise as his "religion, a fundamental principle, the tao of cooking." awareness came crashing in on me, careening its way around my brain & heart & soul, extending outward to refresh, reinvigorate energies waiting to be released. having the basics in my life in good order & easily within my reach has emerged as my religion, a fundamental principle, the tao of my being.

the core dynamics of my life have realigned themselves into an order that is personalized for my outreach, natural for my grasp.

we each need to find our own mise, our own components, our own arrangements, our own level of commitment to set it up in such a way that we can find whatever we need without the burden of delay or thought ~ it's at the ready, easily within our grasp.

Anthony B. goes on to say:
What exactly is this mystical mise-en-place I keep going on about? Why are some line cooks driven to apoplexy at the pinching of even a few grains of salt, a pinch of parsley? Because it’s ours. Because we set it up the way we want it. Because it’s like our knives, about which you hear the comment: ‘Don’t touch my dick, don’t touch my knife." Kitchen Confidential

out with the mess & on with the mise!