A Work In Progress

January 19, 2013 By

DSC01581“This is a work in progress, a process of uncovering our natural openness, uncovering our natural intelligence and warmth. I have discovered, just as my teachers always told me, that we already have what we need. The wisdom, the strength, the confidence, the awakened heart and mind are always accessible, here, now, always. We are just uncovering them. We are rediscovering them. We’re not inventing them or importing them from somewhere else. They’re here. That’s why when we feel caught in darkness, suddenly the clouds can part. Out of nowhere we cheer up or relax or experience the vastness of our minds. No one else gives this to you. People will support you and help you with teachings and practices, as they have supported and helped me, but you yourself experience your unlimited potential.”

Pema Chodron, Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears

I’ve been rolling along working on my memoir for the past couple of weeks with little difficulty. Words have been flowing like a mountain stream spilling over its banks with snow melt. I’m more sure than ever about the structure of my story and where I’m going with it. It’s about my relationship with my mother, and how being her caretaker during the last seven years of her life forced me to take a closer look at my own life and how I’m living it. 

Two days ago, starting on the seventh chapter, I hit a brick wall and was stopped in my tracks.  I sat in front of the computer for several hours for two days, typed in a couple of paragraphs and immediately trashed them.

I was feeling pretty bummed out about it, because I’ve set myself a goal of having a finished draft of the book in nine months. I did what I too often do … immediately started worrying and beating up on myself, fearing I’d begin getting behind and never make my September first deadline. Then I started calling myself names for being worried and giving myself so much grief. It’s the kind of thing that can just go around and around in circles until I throw up my hands and consider eating a pint of ice cream and/or several bars of delicious dark chocolate.

I was trying to write about a particularly difficult time in my life, which I apparently blocked off with several layers of cinder blocks and three or four layers of concrete. I could remember the time period, but could not find the words to describe how I felt and what it was that had made it so difficult.

I decided I’d go back through my journals and reread a few to try to figure it out what I was missing. But they are stashed in a storage bin we rent, way across town. Working around other appointments and warnings of a major snowstorm heading our way, I stopped and picked up a box of journals dated with the two years I was trying to recall. When I got home I realized I had mislabeled the box and those dear, yellowing journals were not the ones I needed.

Foiled again, and unable to return for more journals, I told myself I’d simply make myself start writing again. I figured words would come to me if I didn’t get in the way with all that worrying crap. Sitting down again at the computer and pulling up the ridiculous stuff I’d written the day before, my fingers began moving and words started forming on the page.  It was painful stuff about things I’d completely erased from my memory tapes.  It may or may not have much to do with what I was trying to write about, but it certainly cleared the channels and I feel good to go once again.

Writing memoir can be very challenging, but I’m finding it to be one of the most healing things I’ve ever done. Revisiting the past has brought so many new perspectives on the people and experiences that have helped to shape my own being.

I’ve been journaling for years.  But writing memoir is helping me to explore even more deeply the way of the world and the person that I am still becoming. I understand how precious the gift of writing can be. Should my written words never make it into book form, I will be forever grateful for the words that have found me and the time I’ve taken to write them down.

Filed Under: Gratefulness, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Quotes, stories, Time, Wise Words, 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: , , , , ,

Writing My Life

September 22, 2012 By

At five, standing in my grandparent’s garden.

When I told a friend a while back that I’m in the process of writing a memoir, she asked me what it was going to write about. I struggled with what to tell her. I wasn’t very clear yet myself, but trying to find words that I thought would serve the purpose, I said, “Well, it’s about my life, how I came to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and how I’ve brought peace into my life.”

Sufficing as a fair to middling, but far too general a description, it didn’t answer the deeper questions that had been rolling around in my head when I started the writing. “What am I going to include?  What do I want to say and why do I even want to do this?  Am I up to the challenge of reliving some of the darker moments of my life?”

In my first conversations with myself about writing my life, I didn’t have a clue as to how to start.  So I started with stories as they came to me. I published some here, on this blog.  I wrote the happy stories, avoiding the dark stuff, not ready to spill the beans and their big stink. Slowly, I started allowing the ghosts waiting outside the door into my studio and began digging deeper, becoming more honest with and about myself.

Many have told me that I’ve lived a fascinating life and should get it all down on paper. They told me it would be helpful to others who’ve suffered through undiagnosed PTSD. Many people don’t understand that it can be caused by lesser events than living through a tsunami or being a veteran of a cruel and arduous war.

But my first concern was just getting it all out of my internal storeroom, knowing that once I started getting my shame out, I’d feel lighter and happier. I could downsize my memory bank, just as I was downsizing my belongings and living space. I felt that writing through my struggles, I could begin to put the fragmented pieces of my life back together, reaching a new understanding of who I am and how I got to be me.  I knew it could open up the doors I’ve kept locked for far too long and giving me a new perspective on where I’ve come from.

As I was trying to get started on this project, I was diagnosed with Endometrial cancer, which grows in the lining of the Uterus. I was told by a number of doctors that if one has to have cancer, this is the best kind to have. It’s easily treated, depending of course, on its stage when it’s discovered.  Even so, I was extremely frightened. Cancer is the killer in my family. Heart disease has rarely been an issue. All of my relatives, who have passed on, died of complications and the affects cancer had on their bodies. We’ve had cancer of the lungs, bladder, esophagus, nasal cavity, and colorectal cancer.  I found it disturbing to think that unless I’m run over by a dump truck or die of some other external cause, my life would most probably end in the same kind of suffering that my forebears in death went through.  I did not want that for myself.

Treatment for my cancer was a simple hysterectomy, removing all of my reproductive organs. As long as it would be gone, I didn’t care about the loss of parts of myself. At my age, I wouldn’t be needing them anyway. I now visit my Oncologist twice a year to be rechecked and to date there has been no reoccurrence. I’m told that the chances of it returning are rare and should it show up again it is treatable.

While spending several months recuperating from the surgery, I decided that there was no time to worry about cancer and its potential return.  I had no time to feel sorry for myself or the events in my life that had brought me to this moment. I wanted a new a perspective on how to proceed through the rest of my days. Life has been hard and cruel at times and I still bear the scars of child abuse. I’ve struggled with depression, extreme anxiety and spent years thinking of myself as broken and unfit. I learned about and began to accept that I’m an HSP, or a highly sensitive person. Whatever the cause, whether genetic or learned over time, I am an introvert, who has continuously tried to be the extrovert that I thought everyone expected me to be.  I was constantly at war with myself, feeling unworthy of the good things in my life, wondering what was wrong with me, and why I couldn’t reach my unthinkable dream of being just like everyone else.  In a word, Normal.

My cancer has given me a second chance at life. With the help of a therapist whose specialty was treating trauma, I had already begun the journey.  There was much healing to be done, both from the surgical standpoint and from years of blaming, hating, and abusing myself, because I was different and didn’t seem to fit in anywhere.

I can say with confidence that the most effective part of the healing process has been my memoir writing and allowing myself to relive certain aspects of life.  It has been difficult, but I’ve also discovered the many joyful times I spent with my parents, who unable to cope with their own lives, abused me and my brothers.  I’m learning about forgiveness. I’m learning to love myself and that I am worthy, and a good person.

I’m still at work on my memoir and cannot say how long it will take me to finish it. I need time to navigate through my memories and often need to take breaks between the intense chapters in order to reground myself. Being able to laugh at myself and to be joyful about my newest perceptions is constantly rewarding me.  When I’m finished writing my life and it hopefully becomes a book, I will be most happy if those who read my words will find within them, peace and a new perspective on suffering.

Are you writing a memoir or keeping a journal?  Are you finding it easy or difficult to write your stories?  Do you feel that writing about your life is an opportunity to heal the most painful parts of your journey? 

Filed Under: Books, Childhood, family, Gratefulness, Life, love, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, stories, Time, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

A Whirlwind Trip Down Memory Lane

June 16, 2012 By

My neices, Julia and Anya.

Last week Bill and I flew up to Vermont to do a tour of our old stomping grounds.  We visited family and friends, made new friends, and revisited homes we once lived in. We spent every minute living in the rush of memories and events that took place over a span of fifteen years. It was a trip I’ll never forget.

Arriving in Burlington, we spent our first evening with my brother Zed, his son Ben, and friend, Terri.  The next morning we had a lovely breakfast with Ben’s sweet mom, Brenda, and then drove south down the Champlain Valley, with spectacular views of the Green Mountains on the left and the Adirondacks on the right. Lake Champlain inserted itself every so often between us and the New York State line. It was startlingly beautiful and I wondered why we had decided to leave this unforgettable landscape. But then I remembered the long winters, heavy snows that blanketed the countryside and the biting cold that once upon a time I found invigorating.

Zed with Mousse, Bill, Ben, and Terri on our first night in Vermont

In Rutland, we turned west toward Killington where I spent my college years waiting on tables and making beds at my parent’s ski lodge. I drove that route five days a week in sun, snow, and subzero temperatures to Castleton State College where I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education.  Killington is also where Bill and I first met in 1962 when he fell in love with Vermont, bought three and a half acres of land and began building a round, stone ski chalet that was finally finished just before we were married in 1965.

The Round Rough House

Driving up the mountain gave me goose bumps and as we drove into the driveway at the round house, my anxiety over revisiting the past in-person, turned into pure excitement.  We were met at the door by current owners, Wiley and Kay, who moved there from New Orleans, after Katrina destroyed their city and peace of mind.  They, coincidentally, are friends of very old friends of ours, who out of the blue discovered that their New Orleans friends were moving into a house in Vermont built and designed by their Virginia friends. We had a delightful time sitting and reminiscing about the process of acquiring the land and building this one-of-a-kind house that is still known in the area as the Round Rough House. Ralph and Carol, our mutual friends, drove up from Washington, DC to be at this meeting of the new owners and us old owners.

Looking down into the livingroom area.

After a delicious meal we pressed on toward our next destination. But before we left the area we peeked in on the Summit Lodge, built and run by my parents. I thought of Hernando, our gray Sicilian donkey, who wandered about the property and often welcomed guests when they arrived with his large floppy ears pinned back ready to take a nip out of any hand that reached out to him.

Lots of old stories, both good and bad, haunted the drive further west to Quechee where we spent two nights in the lovely Apple Butter Bed and Breakfast. Exhausted and overwhelmed by the pace and intensity of the trip so far, we fell asleep to the rumble of thunder and rain on the roof above our heads.

We headed over to Meriden, New Hampshire, the next morning to spend the day with my nephew Jesse, his new wife, Lisa, and Jesse’s two girls, Anya and Julia, two of the most beautiful little women I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. They live in my brother Reid’s house that he built years ago in a sunny glade.  I played with five-year-old Anya, pushing her on her new “horsey” swing and tried to get Julia to play. I did get a kiss out of her at one point, but she’s only two and a shy little munchkin.

While he was still alive, Reid often rented out his house to earn some income, while he lived in the old red barn a short distance from the house. It is still filled with his belongings. Jesse invited us inside to see if there was anything we might want as a keepsake. It was the very first time ever that I stepped into that barn and knew for certain that my brother had been a hoarder.  Jesse has done some cleaning up, but much stuff is still where Reid had left it.  Imagine three floors of barn packed to the rooftop with junk of unimaginable quantity. There are bits and pieces of metal, several refrigerators, a basket overflowing with cork floats, a few antiques, several beautiful birdhouses that Reid built and wove from tree limbs, along with notes he wrote to himself on scraps of wood tucked in every nook and cranny.  I was deeply touched and saddened seeing for myself the way my brother had lived. He had been happy at times but underneath there always seemed to be a bed of burning anger, fear and blame.

We met with Amanda, (Anya and Julia’s mom) and her partner, Liz, the next morning over a stack of blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup, then drove north to St. Johnsbury where our kids, Mark and Lisa, were born. We had a reunion with old friends whom we haven’t seen in years.  All teachers, they had come together along with Bill in 1973 to create The Peacham School, an alternative private school for grades 7 through 12.

Our house in Danville.

The following day at our old homestead, Circa 1844, in Danville, the Dowsing Capitol of the World, we soaked in the memories of planting the now huge weeping willow out back and fishing for blue perch in the pond we had dug, now surrounded by a tangle of trees and shrubs. I imagined I heard the sweet sound of bells that my sheep and goats wore around their necks.  There I learned to spin yarn from the fleeces of my flock, dye the yarn with natural dyes, and then weave those fibers into a variety of products I sold at craft fairs. Invited to see the inside of the house as well, I traveled back in time to the winter when we couldn’t see out of the picture window on the north side of the house because the snow was drifted so high that it was almost touching the eaves.

The Pond

Later we returned to Burlington where we flew out early the next morning to return home.  My brother, Zed, had arranged a reception for us where we were introduced to his friends. I was extremely honored by the hospitality and love that we found ourselves surrounded by in every place we visited.

Happy and delighted to see my people, I was also overwhelmed, sad, and missing those who are no longer there. We’d visited Vermont two years ago for Reid’s memorial service, but had only two days. In the midst of moving and a new job for Bill, sadly there was no time to explore the roads we had once traveled.  This trip wasn’t much longer, but as Bill put it on our last day there, “We dotted all of our ‘i’s, crossed all of our ‘t’s and made peace with a segment of our past lives.”

The only remaining willow tree we planted.

Vermont is a very special place.  Those who live there are true Yankees: fiercely independent, highly spirited and able to withstand whatever the climate and the land chooses to throw their way.  Last August when Hurricane Irene raged through the state with torrential rains and flooding, everyone came together to clean up and make things right again. Independent construction companies rushed out to rebuild roads and bridges after the storm without being asked to.  There are still scars remaining but the spirit of the place reigns far above anything still needing to be fixed.

Zed and Mousse.

Filed Under: Animals I Love, family, Friendships, Gratefulness, marriage, Memoir, stories, Travels, Vermont Tagged With:

Cleo, 1995-2012

June 8, 2012 By

She was my Mom’s cat.  I was there when Mom went to the SPCA to find a new friend.  Mom had recently moved here to Virginia from New Hampshire and was finally settled into a lovely small home.  Now she was ready for a companion to share her days with.

There were so many cats waiting for their forever homes, all ready to curl up in a lap and cuddle their days away.  Mom chose two feral kittens about five months old who were hiding in a corner under a table.  They were scared to death and difficult to capture. She named them Cleo and Leo. Leo was a ginger colored tabby and Cleo a beautiful calico.

The first few weeks at home, they made a nest under Mom’s bed in the box springs.  They came out only for food, but after a while realized that she wasn’t going to harm them and took up following her around the house.  When she finally let them go outside, they roamed the neighborhood by day, always returning for their evening meal.  They were afraid of everyone but Mom.  They would occasionally put up with a pat on the head from me, but Cleo had a distinct dislike for men, especially Bill.

When Mom’s health began to decline and she moved in with Bill and me, her buddies naturally came along.  They weren’t happy at first, afraid of our aging dog, Charlie and old Hannah, our Maine Coon Cat.  Leo disappeared a few months later.  We checked the SPCA daily, put up posters in the area and even called the folks that Mom had sold her house to, across town.  But he was never seen again.  There had been reports of Coyotes in our neighborhood. We figured the worst had happened.

When Mom broke her shoulder and then her leg in two separate falls, and I could no longer take care of her, we moved her into a nursing home until she was able to walk again and then into an assisted living situation. Cleo couldn’t go with her, so she came upstairs to join our pack of now two new dogs, Molly and Sam, and recently adopted cats, Peppermint and Lily. She wasn’t happy at first but slowly adjusted but always seemed to be the odd man out.  She disliked most prepared cat food. I cooked chicken thighs especially for her.  Pepper and Lily would have none of it, preferring Fancy Feast and other kitty fast foods that come in cans or bags.  Mom died a few months later and Cleo became a true member of our pack.

We moved here to the city two years ago. Cleo’s behavior changed dramatically.  I have no clue as to why, but suddenly she was greeting guests on her own standoffish terms and spent TV time in the evening settled in Bill’s lap.  But she was also aging and we were told she’d probably be gone in the next six months.  She began losing weight and her kidneys were beginning to fail. We chose not to take any heroic measures to keep her alive because of her advanced age and the invasiveness of many medical procedures.

Most recently she looked like a walking cat skeleton dressed in a fur suit. She hadn’t been eating much including her favorite home cooked chicken.  We knew her time was drawing near.  A few weeks ago I noticed that someone had been peeing on a new carpet we’d had installed and caught her red-handed. One evening while I was out doing some weeding in the garden, I noticed she was straining to pee and looked terribly uncomfortable.

We decided it was time and a week or so ago on June first, at noon, as she sat on a towel in my lap, my friend and Veterinarian, Richard, injected a magic sleep potion into her veins.  As she slowly let go and the light went out of her eyes, I imagine she was scampering off across the Rainbow Bridge to her other Mom, who was waiting on the other side. I feel sad that Cleo is gone, but also relieved. It is so hard to watch a loved one in pain slowly slip away.

With such a loss, there is always an ensuing emptiness.  Cleo’s spirit and energy is no longer here. We all feel it and miss her. In a week or two she will return home in a small box in the form of ashes. We will sprinkle them in the garden where we sprinkled Molly’s ashes not too long ago.

Filed Under: Animals I Love, family, Life, love, Matters of the Spirit, Memoir, stories, The Garden Tagged With: , ,
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