Holiday Wishes

December 14, 2012 By

DSC00564The season is moving on and the end of 2012, is not too far off.  Though September is really the month I consider to be my New Year, January is still a landmark time, in that the calendar begins its yearly cycle, bringing us back to the beginning again every year.

On January 1st, I set an intention for the 365 days that are before me, just as I will set my intentions for tomorrow, this evening, and on Sunday night, I’ll set them for the week ahead. Using this idea, taught to me by Debra Marrs, I wake up each morning, knowing what I plan to do for the day ahead. And though I may stray off course from time to time, it’s a structure that I can carry with me into the next day if necessary. Unless I am faithful to these lists, I would most likely arise confused and overwhelmed, trying to figure out where to begin my day, and why.

I do change things around as opportunities for a last-minute visit with a friend arises or if the cat gets sick and I need to take her to the vet. I simply put what I didn’t do today onto the list for tomorrow. The deal is to only write down three or four items to accomplish each day, leaving extra time to keep working if I choose, or to have a cup of tea with my neighbor, weed the garden, or have a cat nap. Those things, which I don’t consider work and often feel guilty about doing, are just as important as taking time to work on my memoir every day, paying the bills, and doing the laundry. They are the self-care items that keep me sane. I’ve learned over the years that without time to relax, I don’t do well. After having used this system of time management for a while, I now know just how much I can accomplish in a given day. I’ve stopped overloading my plate, and don’t feel rotten anymore, when I don’t finish everything I planned to do.

My yearly intentions are a bit different. They are just one or two words that I choose each January to accompany me as I move through the next calendar year. In the past I’ve chosen words such as trust, slowly, and open. When I’m feeling particularly pushed, I’m reminded to slow down and to trust that all will be well.  The word open, really helped me during a difficult time after my mother died, when all I wanted to do was to hide away and lick my wounds. Instead of sitting behind a closed-door, I left it slightly ajar. When I felt it was safe to leave the door wide open, I did, letting in the sunshine, a fresh breeze, new friends and interests. The lineup of these words grows every year as I add a new one. And they often come together like old friends, when I’m feeling in need of a course correction.

This year, I’m starting a few weeks early as a way of practicing before the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. I’ve chosen simplicity, as my word for 2013, hoping it will help me to keep my worst enemy, Perfection, from trying to take over. It should help me to sort out the idea of enough, as in how I perceive myself, and how much time I need to put in working on my memoir everyday.

I want my days to be less complicated and more productive.  I want to keep my goal of finishing a draft of my memoir by September 1st in mind, while finding a way to get it done without making life so complicated and difficult, that I’ll give up and walk away. It will help me to use the word NO, when the temptation to let it go arises, and remind me that what I want most in the world right now, is to write my story.

In the spirit of practicing simplicity, I plan on taking the next three weeks off from writing this blog. I’ll have extra time to enjoy my family and get lots of rest before jumping headfirst into whatever lies ahead.

I wish each and every one of you, a happy and healthy Holiday Season and a New Year filled with fresh dreams!

 

Filed Under: Christmas, Dreams, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Perfectionism, Time, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

A Gift For Myself

November 30, 2012 By

IMG_0504I’m on retreat, at the beach in Duck, North Carolina. Today is my last day here.  We’ll head on home tomorrow, leaving the calming sound of the ocean right outside our door. It’s a great time to be here. There are few people about and the beach is almost always empty. The sand is covered with shells of all shapes, colors and sizes and the weather has been spectacular.  We had one very windy, cold day and it was wonderful to cozy up inside, watching the sea as it crashed on shore.  The rest of the time has been fairly warm, and sunny. The house we’re renting is tucked behind a dune and it’s pleasant sitting outside around noontime with only a light jacket needed.

This has been a much-needed break. Things at home have been great, but it’s a busy season and finding time to write has been touch and go, with thirty minutes here, 15 minutes there, and maybe an occasional hour without some sort of interruption.

Here I’ve been able to write for hours at a time.  The phone doesn’t ring, I’m saving the laundry to do when I get home, and I’m not doing any cooking.  I brought things I made a while ago and put in the freezer, like a good chili and a big container of delicious curried cauliflower soup.  We do go out, too, but being here isn’t about the food, it’s about having time to just be, walk on the beach, take naps, and write.

Bill is rewriting a play that just had a successful reading last week at Live Arts, in Charlottesville.  And I, of course, am working on my memoir. I’m not one for outlining. I usually just write and see what I get.  But just a few weeks ago, an outline simply appeared in my head. Not being one who lets hits like that go, I wrote it all down.  I can’t tell you how good it felt to finally have a focus.

I’m also not one for writing things in order and knowing how I wanted to start the book and end it, I wrote the first chapter, the last, and even the epilogue. I’ve pictured the thing as a loaf of sliced bread … Wonder Bread perhaps … I have the end pieces and now I must add slices in between.  Many of them are already there, need rewriting, but I’ve also had other things come to me, now that I have a hint of where I’m going.

That doesn’t mean it won’t change over time. I’m well aware of how quickly things can change.  Even the most up-to-date roadmap will not show all of the detours and side trips that weren’t in place when the map was printed. So I write on, trying to keep an open mind, as new ideas come to the surface.

I have also decided to set a deadline for myself. If there are huge numbers of people who set about writing a novel during the month of November, for NaNoWriMo, (National Novel Writing Month,) why in the world can’t I set a deadline for my memoir?

I’m not so good at keeping up my pace unless there is a goal.  But, I am really good at procrastinating, often finding myself wasting time. So I figure, with a bit of scheduling, while still allowing time for a nap here and there, a book I can’t put down, or simply staring into space without feeling guilty, I should be able to do it by September 1st, of next year.

IMG_0511Wow! Did I just say that? Well, alwritey then. I guess I’m going to do it.  It may not be a final draft, but it will be a draft of some kind.  And if I don’t count December, because it’s an insane time of year, I’ll have nine months to do the work. That’s how long it took for my kids to cook in my belly.  Mark needed a little extra time, taking ten months. So maybe when September rolls around and I’m not quite done, I can give myself another month?

Seriously, I want to try.  I’ve told my sweet man, that I don’t want to go on any trips for the first few months of the New Year. If we’re all lying at the bottom of the cliff, as some are predicting, then we won’t be able to afford it anyway.  A weekend fling here or there would be fine, but I need time to get my words working. Traveling for long periods of time just doesn’t suite when I’m trying to focus.  But, if another retreat like this could be fit into the schedule, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Especially if I knew it would mostly be for writing time.

IMG_0517After this week of rest, relaxation, and writing, I’m ready to head back into the month of gift giving.  I still have a list I need to tackle, but much of it is easy and homemade.  But the best gift I’m giving this year is to myself … Nine months to finish growing my book.  Wish me luck!

Are you finished gathering all of the Christmas gifts you are going to give this year?  Most importantly, are you planning on giving yourself one?  What will it be?

Filed Under: Books, Christmas, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Retreats, stories, The Sea, Time, Travels, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

Tolerance and Generosity

November 23, 2012 By

Rockefeller Center, New York City, Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 2007

Standing on what seemed like an endless line Tuesday afternoon at Wholefoods, I noticed my attitude beginning to slip and slide down a peg or two. I was impatient, judging what the person in front of me for buying foods that were really poor choices, and just wanting to go home and sit in my cave.

When I finally unloaded my groceries onto the belt, Ms. Attitude had moved further down a notch. I did smile and made happy holiday, small talk with the cashier. I’m positive I looked joyous, confident, and unbothered by what seemed like chaos surrounding me. Really! I’ve lived with my actor husband far to long now not to know how and when to put on a cheery face and be a comedian, while the world goes on its way, clinking and clanging around me, generally making me feel nasty.

But on the inside, my body wasn’t buying my “deck-the-halls” facade. The usual holiday dread was beginning to take hold and I was sure that I was going to blow it if I didn’t get home fairly soon. Even I hate me, when I get grumpy. As I sat in my car, at every single red light between Wholefoods and my house, I asked myself why I turn into such a grinchy curmudgeon every year at the end of November.

I don’t remember being that way as a kid. I was always excited by the holidays and started sneaking around in early December, to see if I could find the stash that Santa would eventually be leaving under the tree. I usually did find it, and even though I knew what I was going to unwrap on Christmas morning, I was still very excited.  The gifts I remember best were the Alice In Wonderland doll, with long blond hair that I could comb. And later, when I was getting into boys and rock ’n roll, a pink portable radio, I could take any where as I listened to The Platters, The Everly Brothers, and Johnny Mathis.

I spent the rest of my afternoon, thinking and trying to figure out my hang-up. I thought, “Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety.”  Or, “Maybe I wasn’t an introvert back then and now I am, unable to handle the holiday wear and tear of being with all those people intent on getting the biggest turkey for the lowest price.”

Like Scrooge, I revisited Christmas past, when my kids were small and we stayed at home for the holidays, because Santa wouldn’t be able to find us if we went somewhere else.  I couldn’t remember any difficult times.  I loved watching them digging through wrapping paper to find their most wanted toys and usually felt a bit of melancholy as we took the tree down and packed up the ornaments until next year.  I do miss those times.

Then 1987 came to mind. My dad had died several years earlier. Mom and my brothers came from New England to the spend a week with us.  My kids were in their teens by then and Mom had started giving them money so that they could buy what they wanted.  They loved having dollars to spend and it usually didn’t stay in their pockets for very long. One year, Lisa, spent her’s on a boa constrictor and live white mice to feed it. Mark usually spent his money on books and recordings of music by his favorite musicians.

On that particular Christmas morning, while everyone was sitting around the tree happily opening gifts and eating Blueberry Boy Bait, my yearly holiday coffee cake, Reid, my youngest brother noticed that Mom had given his son, who was at home with his mother, less money than she’d given my kids. I believe Mom’s thinking was that she should give Jesse less money because he was quite a bit younger. When she tried to explain, Reid had a fit, tossing his own Christmas check into the fire and stomping out of the room.

I was in tears, Zed was yelling  at everyone, and the kids slipped downstairs to get out-of-the-way.  While Bill was trying to calm everyone down, Mom and I got into our own little argument. As a result, she insisted that she needed to go to the airport right that minute so that she could fly back to New Hampshire and away from this craziness. Filled with shame and anger, I was ready to leave for the Bahamas.

After discovering that there were no flights out of Charlottesville on Christmas day, she made a reservation for the next day. We spent the day quietly, trying to avoid each other and ate our usual holiday meal of roast pork and perogies, without saying much. Afterwards, someone suggested that we take in one of the newest blockbuster movies. Later, when it came time to choose which one, there didn’t seem be too much interest in going, until my brothers discovered, Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal’s, comedy, Throw Momma From The Train, was playing at the nearest cinema.

The title says it all. Mom naturally decided to stay at home and pack for her escape the following morning. Tired and feeling as though we were about to go even more crazy than we already were, Bill and I decided to go to the movie as well, just to get out of the house.

It was, of course, the makings of a disaster. It was mean, cruel and I spent the rest of the evening feeling down and miserable that Christmas had turned into a Holiday Horror Show.  But no amount of apologizing made it better. Still angry at all of us, Mom left the next morning and called us when she got home, as if nothing had happened.  My brothers drove her car back to New Hampshire a day later and life went on as it usually does in dysfunctional families.  You have a fight over something silly, blame the whole thing on everyone else, and then act like it never happened, until the next time.

As I ran it all through my head, I realized that I was diving into victimhood. My stomach gurgled and hurt. I was anxious. Exhausted. And living in a story that was over, gone, and so very unimportant. But I was the one choosing to replay part of the nightmare, I felt my life had often been.

So instead of allowing myself to get depressed about the holidays being here again, or railing at myself for being a complete idiot, I decided to quit creating another version of Mr. Dickens’, Christmas Carol, and stay put in Christmas present.

It matters not what causes me to go all weird at Christmas. I choose to celebrate myself and those around me for all of the growing we have done over the years.  I want the spirit of holidays to fill me with generosity and tolerance for all of those around me, including myself. I needn’t fuss and fume because somebody else chooses to shop at eight o’clock in the evening on Turkey Day, or how they spend their pennies. I need only to look after myself, and live by my own values, which includes something about not judging others.  Oh, well.

How do you feel about Christmas and the holidays?  Do you love it or do you have demons like mine that come to visit every year at this time?  How do you handle them and send them on their way?

Filed Under: Childhood, Christmas, family, Healthy Living, Memoir, Mental Health, Navigating Through Life, Thanksgiving Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Chasing Ice

November 3, 2012 By

© 2007, Joan Z. Rough. August 15, 2007, off the coast of Greenland.

It’s November. Halloween is over. Americans spent eighty billion dollars on candy and costumes this Halloween. When it comes to money, what we have spent on the current election is unspeakable. Christmas carols will soon be echoing throughout every mall in every state of the union. The big push will be on to get the biggest and bestest gifts to put under the tree, so that we all can have more things that we want but don’t really need.

There are millions of our fellow citizens still without power, water and food after the visitation of Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy.  Many of them have lost everything and are homeless.  On Tuesday, we will all trek to the polls to vote (I sure hope YOU do), making decisions that will affect how life will unfold during the next four years and beyond.  The big decision we make together as a nation will have consequences one way or another for all of us.  We all need to rethink what we value most.

I will be seventy years old this month.  I am not as concerned about my own welfare as I am for the children of this world and this beautiful blue orb we call home.  I have grandchildren ages nine and twelve, as well as a step-granddaughter who is twenty-four.  I think about how they will fare in the upside-down, topsy-turvy world they will be inheriting from US.  Yes, from you and me.

What will it take for them to reach their seventies as easily as I have? Will our nation be continuously at war, trying to keep peace around the world, while we ignore our own citizens? Today we argue about the issues we have with the economy, unemployment and health care. What about our infrastructure?  There is much of New York City that will need to be rebuilt in order for it to survive the New Normal that Mother Nature has in store.  There are bridges all over our nation that need rebuilding. Our ancient power-grid will not last forever.  Almost every aspect of life will need to change if we are to continue living here on this planet without destroying it and ourselves.

I could write pages filled with the things we need to do in order to keep us all safe and comfortable as we move into an uncertain future.  I could climb on a wooden crate on a street corner and yell and scream about the alarming rate at which glaciers in the far north are melting and that water levels around the world are already rising.  Would you listen if I told you we are running out of fresh water?  That the air we breathe is full of toxins that will eventually bring death and suffering to all of us?

Most of us don’t like to think about those questions. Who wants to consider painful scenarios in which there seems to be little hope. Some say we have no problems. They believe that we can live just as we are. If certain plants or animals become extinct, they won’t notice or care. But fifty-eight percent of us agree that we do have some major problems.  The rest deny that anything is changing and if it is, it certainly isn’t being caused by human activity.

Every November, Charlottesville hosts the Virginia Film Festival.  This is it’s 25th season.  Yesterday, I had the privilege of seeing, Chasing Ice, a film that will be released to the general public in the near future. I urge all of you to see it, the creation of world-renowned photographer, James Balog. In 2007, he founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), a photographic project in which the rate of ice melt is being visually recorded in Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and Montana. Using the art of photography and the known science around global warming, he presents moving, visual proof that the glaciers are melting at a rate so fast, that it is almost unimaginable.

The stunning beauty of this film will take your breath away, as well as raise questions that all of us must consider. Through recognizing the tragedy that we are all participating in, and speaking about it openly, I believe we will find ways to adapt our behaviors in a changing world.

Filed Under: Christmas, Navigating Through Life, photography, Thanksgiving, The Sea, Time, wonderings Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Best Laid Plans

October 27, 2012 By

A bit over a week ago, I was hit with what felt like a ton of bricks … a cold/flu that according to what I’m hearing has had others in and around Charlottesville, dropping like flies.  It started with a slight sore throat one morning. By 4 pm that afternoon, I could barely stand.  I spent two days in bed, sleeping, reading, and feeling very sorry for myself.  My head was stuffed up, I went through a box of tissues in one day, and my throat was on fire.  I had a headache, and when I got out of bed, I felt light-headed, and had to move slowly so that I didn’t fall over.  Bill had to be away for some of the time, so I had to get my own meals and walk the dog.  Thankfully by the third day I was feeling somewhat better and if I rested between chores, it wasn’t too bad.  I was mad at the world for allowing me to get sick, I missed my mother who took good care of me when I got sick, and tried hard to make the best of it.

Over a week later, I’m still not 100%, but feel well enough to go out to shop and finally get to my desk.  Needless to say writing has gone by the wayside for quite a while and I’m feeling a bit frustrated.  But this too shall pass, as did the disappointment I felt when we had to cancel plans for a visit from my daughter, Lisa, her partner, Deena, and the two best grandkids a grandmother could ever have.  At 7 AM this past Thursday, when they were about to leave home and trek up to Virginia, Miss Zoe had a bad sore throat and a fever.  So we all conferred and decided that staying put in North Carolina was the best thing for them to do.  We did get together later in the day on Skype.  Zoe looked just the way I had felt earlier in the week, unable to keep her eyes open and rather weak.  Noah was full of mischief, smiles and happiness, but kept saying he was really missing us.

It’s actually turned out to be a blessing in many ways.  Canceling the trip gave me some extra recovery time and I’ve been able to catch up on a few things I’ve been wanting to do for weeks.  Also, that Frankenstorm, Sandy, is making it’s way up the coast and will bring big rain and winds has left us feeling grateful that the trip was called off.  Lisa and Deena would have spent the whole  time here worrying about their trip home, and I would have been concerned until I got a call telling me that they had arrived home safely.  So we’ve all been spared of worry and uncertainty, though we are also feeling sad that our plans had to be postponed.  We will see them all at Christmas and look forward to spending a good week together.

The forecast this morning said that starting sometime late tomorrow we’ll see the winds pick up. The worst day here is supposed to be Monday when we could get from 1 to 4 inches of rain and sustained winds of 35 to 40 miles per hour.  On Tuesday, we could see some wet snow flakes but only the higher elevations should see any accumulation of white stuff.  Knock wood, it sounds like we are going to be very fortunate.  Things could get extremely difficult the further north you are and the coast line is supposed to get a real beating.  I’m sending love and light to all of my friends, family, and everyone else who might be in harm’s way during this monster storm.

We’ve stocked up on batteries, filled the cupboard with fresh fruit and will ride out whatever we happen to get staying tucked in here at home.  Please stay safe this weekend.

Filed Under: Childhood, Christmas, family, Gratefulness, Life, Travels
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