The More Thing Change …

August 9, 2016 By
Jerusalem Artichoke

Jerusalem Artichoke

Yesterday I decided to look back through the first blog I kept. Entitled, Rivanna River Days, I started it as a record of what life was like living on the shores of the South Fork Rivanna River Reservoir, where I resided at the time. I began this blog in the spring of 2006, many years before I began writing my memoir and a year before my mother died in 2007.  She was living with me at the time.

I found this piece that I wrote in September of 2008. I could have written it yesterday or last month or last year. I have to say I have no problem staying with my writing these days, but it’s interesting to see that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Tending The Heart

Where have I been, you ask? I’ve been tending to myself …
My heart has been heavy with the vibrations of the exterior world …
It’s trying to hold its own … feeling grateful for all that I have …
The wonderful people I know …
Saddened for the state of this country … the violence in the world …
The hungry … the homeless …
And most of all for those who don’t see or feel the consequences for what they do.

It’s been hard for me to write anywhere about anything, including in my journal
that I normally jot in every day.
I’ve been saying a lot of prayers … asking lots of questions
And trying to stay as positive I can.

I know I’m not alone. There are many people feeling the same way.
I remind myself on a daily, sometimes hourly basis that I cannot control what is happening in this world
And that this too shall pass.
I take solace in meditation, the garden, living simply, and the gifts that each day brings.

Do you read back through your old journals or blog posts to see what has changed over the course of time?

Filed Under: Blogging, Change, The Journey

Wonderland and Niagara-On-The-Lake

August 2, 2016 By

IMG_0309This summer I didn’t plan a long stretch of free time for a vacation because of the work involved in the start of marketing my book. And since Bill will be having a complete shoulder replacement on September 14th, our usual fall trip to the beach will most likely not happen. After surgery he will be in a sling for four to six weeks, and unable to drive for three months. Like every other person in this world, we get lovely stretches of peacefulness and then, WHAM, stuff hits the fan. His left shoulder has been painful for a long time, but this summer it has gotten worse and his range of motion has steadily decreased. Just as the arthritis kept his right knee from being usable, it’s now taken over his left shoulder (he is a leftie) and the bones are grinding against each other. Ouch!! His total knee replacement last January was hugely successful and it’s now time to fix the shoulder. His surgeon has a great reputation and gets rave reviews from many people including Bill’s friends who have had to use his services. And we are very grateful that the problem is arthritis and not some terminal illness that frequently hits older people. So for now we’re counting our lucky stars!

We’re also hugely grateful that we recently took a five day trip to one of our favorite places … Niagara-On-The-Lake. On the south shore of Lake Ontario in Ontario, Canada, it’s about 45 minutes north of Buffalo. We first went to this lovely little village four years ago to attend the Shaw Festival in late summer. It’s the third largest theatre festival in North America and includes plays by George Bernard Shaw himself, classical writers like Chekhov and Strindberg, and some contemporary playwrights as well. With Bill being the theatre man that he is and my love for the countryside, we both find it a fabulous summer destination, away from the theatre crowds in places like New York.

We have also attended the Stratford Theatre Festival in Stratford, Ontario which is also wonderful but it’s is much more touristy and glitzy. We love the country ambiance of Niagara-On-The-Lake, which is surrounded by fields of grape vines and wineries where you can spend days tasting the best of what this important wine region has to offer. Because of US tariffs on wine, the Canadians are unable to sell their products in our country, but many of the wines made in the region are exported to France.

Tourists from all over the world visit this picturesque town to attend the festival and sample the wines. I love thatIMG_0288 walking down the street, I often hear at least four  different languages being spoken around me. It’s also an extremely friendly place where you can share wine and theatre adventures over delicious food at the many great restaurants. On our last night we had an exquisite meal at the Trius Winery, and also purchased four bottles of wine to bring home with us.

Because of its location on Lake Ontario, and the escarpment that protects this region from the damaging winter storms that wipe out places like Buffalo, this area has a microclimate unto itself and it is temperate all year long. This time we missed the first week of the heat wave that saturated most of the US, instead enjoying sunny days in the seventies. In winter there is supposedly very little snow compared to what is happening all around them.

As at any theatre festival, some of the shows were fantastic, others not so good. My favorite this year was a one act play adapted for the stage by Canadian actress and writer, Lisa Codrington. Based on Bernard Shaw’s novella, The Adventures Of The Black Girl In Her Search For God, which he wrote in 1932, it is a forty-five minute whirlwind of laughter, song, and discussion about religion and the church. I wanted to go back and see it again as I’m sure I’d missed some important lines because I was laughing and clapping so hard.

Competing with The Black Girl, for my favorite, was Master Harold and The Boys, by Athol Fugard, a moving play set in 1950 during Apartheid, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. It left me feeling bereft because of its timeliness and the very recent horrific shootings of African Americans here in our own country.  Will things ever change?

IMG_0312The play that really drew me to the Festival this time was, Alice in Wonderland, adapted for the stage by Peter Hinton. Although the costuming, special effects, and scenery were exquisite, I found Alice’s adventures and the actors all overshadowed by the technical artistry of the production, making the play itself rather boring. Basically an artist’s show, you can get an education in design by observing the costuming and how to make Alice appear larger and smaller on stage using video techniques. My least favorite plays, were August Strindberg’s, The Dance of Death, and Anton Chekhov’s, Uncle Vanya. Both theatre classics, most of my interest was lost in the contemporary translations and adaptations in each play.

All in all it was a wonderful get away. I finally came to grips with the idea that vacations are for leisure and gave up on the notion of doing some writing between shows. Instead, I napped every day, sat and read in the lovely garden at Brockamour Manor where we always stay, and came home fully rested. Why I’ve been using vacation time as work time all these years is beyond me, and I’m very happy to be breaking that habit.

Do you work when you’re on vacation or do truly let go and relax?

I hope you’ve had a lovely summer despite the intense heat
and are as ready as I am to greet the the cooler days of autumn.

Filed Under: Theatre, Travels Tagged With: , ,

Finding A Calling And Seeing It Through

July 26, 2016 By

” A calling is what you have when you look back at your life and make sense of what it’s been trying to teach you …”    Geoff Goines

 

IMG_0013I am called to put my thoughts down on paper every day.  But it’s not always easy. Sometimes life gets in the way, leaving little time to focus and keep myself inspired. Other times my inner critic sounds off, telling me that what I’ve just written is crap and I ought to find something else to do with my life.

In the process of writing my memoir there were a number of times I almost quit altogether. It was difficult, intense work and I often didn’t want to face or write about some of the grimmest days of my life. Yet I wanted to share my story as a way to help others who were considering being caretakers to their parents. With the help of a writing coach and encouragement from other writers, I kept going and finished it. In mid-September my book will be a reality and the dream I had of bringing it into the world will be accomplished.

These days when it’s hard to fit writing time into my overloaded schedule or I simply don’t feel like sitting down in front of my computer and getting to work, I think of two individuals I recently met who work day jobs, write at the same time, and feel that what they are doing will bring them to a more satisfying place in there lives. They have their own dreams. They also have the courage and hutzpah to keep at it without knowing whether or not their dreams will become reality.

I met the first one, a cab driver, in May during my visit to Chicago. When I hopped into his cab in front of the hotel I was staying in, he immediately asked if I was going to the airport. He sounded somewhat disappointed when I told him I needed to go to McCormick Place, the city’s huge convention center only a twenty minute ride away. He knew that Book Expo America was going on there, and asked if I was a writer. When I said yes, he said that he too is a writer and began telling me a little bit about the book he is working on. When I asked him how he found time to write, he told me that when he can take passengers to the airport and drops them off, he goes to the end of the taxi line and waits for his next fare. It could sometimes be up to an hour of uninterrupted time. That is when he pulls out his notebook and begins work on his book, a philosophical self-help treatise filled with ways to live a happy life directed at young people. I was impressed and inspired by this gray-haired, African-American man, originally from the Sudan, who needs to work, but also has dreams of publishing his book. I was especially impressed that he called himself a writer, when many of us don’t, unless we’ve officially published a book. As he did twenty years ago when he decided to come to America for a better life, he has taken action in an effort to bring his calling to fruition.

The second writer, a stewardess on a recent flight I was on is also working toward putting a book together. She was at the end of an exhausting four day stint up and down the east coast taking care of and serving passengers. She was anxious to get home where she would have the next five days off to clean house, shop, and do laundry. As I listened to her story of what she and the rest of the flight crew had been through during the past few days, I felt glad that I had never considered that line of work. I thought back to the times I watched myself and other passengers take out our frustrations on flight crew members because we had been delayed and would miss our next connections. This flight was no exception, since we were an hour late getting off the ground.

Once in the air and after the passengers had been served, she sat down and pulled out a red spiral bound notebook. She closed her eyes for a moment and then began writing. She wrote for about twenty minutes before she tucked the notebook back into her bag in order to get us ready to land. Once on the ground as we waited for the doors to open, I asked her if she was a writer. “Yes,” she responded with a smile and told me she had three notebooks filled with stories that she hoped one day would become a book. And,”Yes,” many of them had been written during those fleeting moments when she was on the job. I didn’t have time to ask her any more questions before I left the plane, but I was impressed by the way she was moving forward to hopefully bring her dream to reality.

I just finished reading, The Art of Work, A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do, by Jeff Goins. The cab driver and the stewardess could have stepped out of the pages of this inspiring book which explores the ideas of calling, vocation, and the challenges we all face as we search for a way to live a more purposeful and authentic life.

The description on the back cover of this book states: “Life seldom unfolds the way we hope or plan. The twists, surprises, and setbacks leave us feeling stuck with no option left but to play it safe—to conform to what’s expected of us. But what if theres was more to life than this?”

When we are called to plant a garden how can we make it flourish?

Read my newest newsletter which will appear on  August 1st.  To have it directly delivered to your mailbox subscribe to it in the box above on the right.

Filed Under: Books, Navigating Through Life Tagged With: , , ,

My Book Addiction and Reviews

July 19, 2016 By

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In case I haven’t told you before now, I am a bookaholic. I’m also a sugarholic, but that’s another story. However, there is something that the two have in common. The sweetness of both reading and savoring a piece of chocolate draws me in. I have a very difficult time leaving them behind. The more I read good books or eat sweets, the more I want them. I work hard on my sugar addiction, trying to control my cravings. But I can’t seem to control my hunger for books, and since it isn’t affecting my life negatively, I don’t worry about it much.

Even as a kid, I loved books. The best days were those when I went to the library and chose two or three new ones to bring home. I lived inside their covers, following stories that I was sure were written just for me. These days, though, I want to own the book I’m reading in case I want to make notes in the margins. Books are companions that I want to keep nearby. If the book and I don’t connect then it goes in the box that I send off to the library book sale or give it to someone who might like it.

For the last couple of years my actual reading time was minimal, due to work on my own book and the plethora of other things I had to do. But the the stack of books by my bedside and on the bookcase across the room just kept growing taller. This past spring when my memoir was well on it’s way to publication, I slowly began taking one book at time and opening its pages, bathing in stories and language. At first I felt guilty for not “working.” Surely I should be doing laundry, filing away the stacks of papers in my studio, or unpacking a few boxes that still haven’t been emptied since our move here six years ago. But then I remembered that part of a writer’s work is to read.

Back when I was writing mostly poetry, the easiest way for me to get moving with my writing was to pick up a poetry book and read for at least thirty minutes if not an hour. At the end of that time, I’d be so inspired by the power of words and how they were put together, that I’d sit and write for hours. These days are no different. I get inspired by reading prose, whether it be fiction or nonfiction. And the stack of books I mentioned above is slowly, yes, slowly dwindling. I guess the slowness is because I keep adding one or two whenever I see ones that I MUST read. And there are plenty of those. The two books I’ve reviewed below are those that just recently took their places on the stack.

FASTEST THINGS ON WINGS, Rescuing Hummingbirds in Hollywood, by Terry Masear, is a goodie. It is a thriller. Not in the sense that is has murderers or spies in it, but in the sense that I have always loved those tiny winged creatures, and wanted to know more about them. I was thrilled to learn about the mysterious lives of these pinky-sized wonders. This book, however, goes beyond the facts about one particular bird.  It also tells the story of a compassionate woman who gave her life over to saving the lives of thousands of hummingbirds. It’s about her special relationships with those who spent time recovering from near death under her care. I call it a “Thriller/Memoir.” I don’t think those who love nature, memoir, and especially birds, should miss this one. It’s a delight.

THINGS UNSAID, by Diana Y. Paul, is a novel that could be a memoir. It is the universal story of a dysfunctional family, how they tear each other apart, and how if not stopped, their instability could bleed down through generations to come. It is a story of the conflicts between a set of elderly parents, their three grown children, and their granddaughters. All of them soaking in the sour brine of relationships gone bad. In today’s world of Baby Boomers taking over the care of their aging parents, it’s a thoughtful tale we can all  learn from. Do we give our all to those who brought us into the world despite their toxic behaviors? Or do we need to let them go their own way in order to preserve our own lives and those of our children? Every caretaker story is different, but this one holds a bit of everything that could go wrong and then some. Highly recommended to me by several other She Writes Press authors, I found it hard to put down.

I’m still choosing which book to begin next. I used to split up my days reading two to three books at a time, but I can’t seem to do that anymore. My brain is telling me I can’t multitask anymore. So now only one book at a time has to do. At the moment I’m being drawn to The Art of Work, A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant To Do, by Jeff Goins. I think that being in my seventies, it’s high time I figure out what I want to do with my life. 🙂

Filed Under: Addiction, Book Reviews, Books Tagged With: , , , ,

Arctic Summer

July 11, 2016 By

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I wrote the following poem after spending ten glorious days adrift
north of the Arctic Circle on a cruise in August of 2002.
I won’t be going that far north this time
but am taking a  break in Canada for the next five days.

 

Arctic Summer

No stars fill the night  only clouds gray on gray
soaking in yellow light that fills the sky

From the deck I ponder arctic terns black guillemots
the sea of ice we breach   the ship’s groan and lurch

Evidence of our push through time   the tumble
of white gray and blue we scatter in our wake

Off the bow a polar bear feeds on ring seal
his blood tinged face glows like the moon

As he shuffles and paws the broken body
ivory gulls flutter   wait for scraps of skin and blubber

I go below to my cabin   fall asleep like a bear
cradled in the rhythmic rise and fall of sea and ice

The cold sunlit night slowly slipping
toward dark frozen days

jzr

I’ll be back here on my blog on July 19th with a post about my worst addiction and two book reviews.
If you missed my July 1st newsletter with my Latest, Hottest, Book News, go here to catch up on what’s happening.
I hope you’re enjoying the summer as much as I am.

Filed Under: Poetry, Travels Tagged With:
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