Love, Wedding Bells, and Same-Sex Legalities

June 24, 2014 By

 

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“A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”
― Barack Obama

 Last Friday, June 20th,  my daughter Lisa, and Deena her partner of seventeen years, were legally married in a civil ceremony in Washington, DC.  The weather forecast just days before was for a rainy, humid weekend.  But as we drove north from our home in Virginia on Friday morning, the clouds cleared and we were greeted with deep blue skies and wedding perfection all day long.

Mary Gordon singing for the brides.

Mary Gordon singing for the brides.

Bill and I were there along with grandchildren, Zoe and Noah, Lisa and Deena’s kids.  One of Lisa’s oldest and dearest friends, Mary Gordon Hall and her partner Nancy, were there as well.  Before vows were exchanged in the small courtyard of the hotel we were staying in, Mary Gordon, serenaded the wedding couple with a heart wrenching song. DC resident and wedding planner, Travis Crytzer, wrote the vows, got all of the legal paper work done ahead of time and  joined them in marriage at approximately 3:30 PM.  It was a beautiful day, a beautiful ceremony, and I cried happy-tears as Lisa and Deena said their “I dos.”

It was so wonderfully appropriate, as just the day before, Bill and I celebrated our forty-nineth year of marriage.  If we count the two years we spent as a couple before we went to church and made it legal, it would make it fifty-one years.

Times have changed.  Back in the sixties there were no same-sex marriages performed except perhaps for very small and private commitment ceremonies between gays and lesbians. Homosexuals were called fairies and were treated with hatred and disrespect by the general public.  If you had a gay or lesbian relative, you most likely whispered about them so that your friends and neighbors wouldn’t know you had a “weirdo” in your family.

Today there are seventeen states with legalized gay marriage laws. More will be joining the fold in the coming years.  It’s a slow process, but it will happen.  These days, people are waking up to the fact that though the person standing next to them may be gay, they deserve the same rights as everone else.  The old, hateful  attitudes are the same prejudices what kept women and people of color from the right to vote for far too long. All of those struggles took years before they were finally settled. Though racists and homophobes are  still around,  life is easier as a result of the pain and suffering of those who helped bring change to our world.

The tatooed wedding rings they hid for several weeks.

The tatooed wedding rings they hid for several weeks.

Bill and I are the proud parents of our lesbian daughter and daughter-in-law.  Let’s all pray that we’ll see same-sex marriage legalized throughout our entire country.  What a happy-tear day that will be.

Zoe, Lisa, Deena, and Noah

Zoe, Lisa, Deena, and Noah

Filed Under: love, marriage, The Journey

I’ve Joined The Writing Process Blog Tour

June 10, 2014 By
Max always keeps me company as I write.

Max always keeps me company as I write.

Writing friends are the best.  They’re brilliant, kind, and happy to share their knowledge when you need a hand. I first met Becca Rowan, many years ago when I started my first blog, Rivanna River Days.  We’ve been following each other online ever since. Last week she invited me to join her on The Writing Process Blog Tour. By answering just a few questions, I can share my writing process with old and new friends perhaps inspiring another writer to get to work on their long dreamed of project. I’m thrilled to  be able to join the other writers that have participated before me.

Question One: What are you currently working on? I’m currently revising the first draft of my memoir, ME, MYSELF, AND MOM: A Journey Through Love, Hate, and Healing. It’s about my taking on the role of being my mother’s caretaker during her final years, and how we lived together doing the best we could in an already difficult relationship It’s also about how I became a whole person, leaving hatred and anger behind me, while learning that forgiveness is not about forgetting. It’s about understanding the human psyche so that we can love the difficult people in our lives and heal the abuse that too often rules the behavior of entire families.

Question Two: Why do I write what I do?  I’ve never read much fiction. My favorite reads are creative nonfiction, especially memoir, autobiography, and biography. I always learn valuable lesson when I visit the lives of the people I read about, often seeing the world and its troubles in new and different ways. But mostly I’m writing this book is because it has helped me heal.  Also, I’m often told that my story is inspiring and it is with that hope, that I am moving forward to publication.

Question Three: How does my work differ from others of this genre?   Well, it’s similar in that it’s a memoir. It is also similar in that it mirrors Joseph Campbell’s, concept of the hero’s journey, which is reflected in many memoirs. But every memoir differs. They are stories about one individual’s life.  All of our stories are all different, and we learn to live with what we have been dealt with in dissimilar ways. My story is my own.  It’s about how I dealt with my mother at the end of her life. It’s about how I was thrust into a world of bitterness and fear, and came out the other side, a happy, forgiving person.

Question Four: How does my writing process work?  Writing is an organic process for me. I try to write every morning for two hours and usually produce about five to six hundred words at a sitting.  If I can get more time in later in the day, that’s a bonus. I keep a journal into which I enter new ideas for my writing as they arise as well as writing my way through any difficulties I may be having.  I update my blog once every week with short essays on topics that are important to me and how my work is progressing.

I don’t wait for inspiration to get me going.  I just show up in my studio, sit down at my computer and write.  Sometimes it’s good.  Sometimes it’s very bad. Often I think that what I’ve just written is brilliant until I read it a second time. I try to repair what I can, then put it aside and work on something else for a while. When I go back to the original piece I usually try to find a way around the problems it has. If I can’t fix it, I will occasionally toss it. But most often I set it aside again and work on it later until I get it right.

That’s my process. We all have a different way of getting our words down on paper.  I would like to invite the following three writers to join me on the tour.  I always love reading what Jeri Leach has to say, as well the words of Dorothy Hoffman Sander, and Valerie Rind. Of course, anyone who writes can come along on the tour and share their process.

Keep your stories flowing!

Filed Under: Memoir, The Journey, The Process, Writing

Reno Week #2

January 21, 2014 By
The living room turned storage space.

The living room turned storage space.

Wouldn’t you think that once you learn a lesson it would stick?  Letting go is one of the biggest lessons I’ve tangled with all through my life.  It’s probably because I’ve spent my life trying to control everything around me.  As the family caretaker when I was young, I was in charge of keeping the peace. Most of the time it didn’t work. My parents didn’t stop fighting because I went out of my way to be the best little girl on earth. And my brothers never listened to me when I told them to stop slinging mudballs at each other. But I kept trying.

When I grew up and had kids of my own I got fairly good at controlling them … until they became teens and started developing attitude.  Then they flew the coop and  I was left holding the empty control bag. I turned to everyone else around me. Who could I control now?  Why wasn’t I being awarded the best controller medal of the world?

But time, a few therapists, and life in general has taught me that there is absolutely nothing I can control.  Life has a way of doing it’s own thing. I can try as hard as I might to make the sun shine on a rainy day but it won’t happen.  The world is what it is and I find it best to work at having a good time rather than spending all of my energy trying to make everything run smoothly.

I ticked off one more try at it this past week, which resulted in a meltdown. For a meltdown it wasn’t as bad as they can be and I apologized profusely to everyone in sight. I felt awful for making an ass of myself and spent a couple of hours hating silly, stubborn me. I thought, “No more home improvements for me! I’ve had it!” When the end of the day came and everything looked wonderful and just as it should.  Nothing was shattered or broken. The sun was still shining and the birds were singing.  But I had hurt myself. I’ve been there before. Every time I react without pausing to think through something that isn’t going my way, I end up making a mess of myself and sometimes those around me.

I figured in order to keep it from happening again,  I had to approach all of this from another angle. Somewhere in my head I heard the suggestion that I should stay away from the construction zone as much as possible.  The next morning I went to the house to put a load of laundry in. I worked in my studio and didn’t go back until later in the day to put the laundry in the dryer. I stopped to look at what was happening, but made no judgements. I smiled and went my own way again until I went back to fold the laundry, again admiring the work that had been done.

I did somewhat the same thing on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  What a difference. I was happy. Things were on schedule and the world hadn’t ended because I wasn’t paying attention. I even took time for having tea with a friend, reading, walking the dogs, and napping.

But the thing is, I should know better by now.  So once again I’m making a promise to myself and the world that the next time steam starts pouring out of my ears, I’ll pause and stop trying to keep the world from coming to an end.  Maybe I should take a notebook and fill it up with the same sentence over and over again: “I will not react before I stop and think about what is happening.”

Just to let you know the latest word, the crew boss thinks they’ll probably pretty much wrap up the kitchen part of the  project by the end of this week or early the following week.  I’m elated and have promised  to keep my cool at least until then. The laundry room is now tiled and the electricians and plumbers are hard at work.. The appliances should start going back into the kitchen today. I’m totally surprised and in awe of how quickly this has gone and so far am extremely happy with the results. And though I embarrassed myself pretty badly this past week, I’m proud of myself for stepping back and accepting the fact that I am just one imperfect human being amongst all the rest.

Filed Under: family, Navigating Through Life, The Journey Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Reno Week #1

January 14, 2014 By
The living room.

The living room.

The week that was went by in a flash … but it also seemed to take a year to pass.  I don’t quite know how to explain that but that’s how it was.  The hard wood flooring is being put in now and should be finished by Friday morning.  The hall and powder room where the laundry room will be located has now been gutted and work proceeds there.

All in all it was a pretty good week. I managed to do everything but work on my memoir.  Even though my studio is in another building it’s hard for me to focus.  The dogs are jumpy from all the noise and the poor cat doesn’t quite know what to do with herself.  All of us except Sweet Lilli, the cat are staying at a nearby Residence Inn, but even there the dogs aren’t themselves.  They are very much creatures of habit and all of the turmoil is intruding into the quiet security they are used to. It’s the same for both Bill and I but we’re the humans and are supposed to be resilient. We try and are encouraged every day by the progress that is being made.  I can already say that the new floor in the kitchen, though only partially laid, is going to be gorgeous and will make a huge difference in the amount of time I spend cooking.

My biggest hangup has been eating and cooking. I’m gluten-free and am trying go mostly Paleo, meaning no grains whatsoever.  I am also a cook-it-from-scratch kind of person and the limited kitchen arrangements in our room have been a problem until yesterday when we moved into a room with a real stove with four burners and an oven.  It’s still tiny and cramped but I don’t plan on making anything that is complicated. So I think we’re good until our kitchen here is done.

I could go into a rant or have a pity party and cry about how hard all of this is, but it wouldn’t help. Yesterday I finally made friends with the idea that this is going to be a time of getting little serious writing done and having untold interruptions no matter what I’m trying to do. Unlike several people I know who went to Europe while their homes were being renovated, I find it helpful to check in on what is happening in order to keep from being surprised at the end of the day.

As I watch the rest of the world, the work being done here and the great people who are doing it, I find myself being grateful that this interruption in my life is as small as it is. It is nothing in comparison to what the single dad who is supervising this job goes through every day, for his daughters, three and six years old. I’m grateful for the cooking space I do have that is inside a warm building and the choices available to me when it comes to what to eat.

Kitchen floor in process.

Kitchen floor in process.

I’m grateful for everything I have and for a huge amount of stuff that I don’t have. Sure I’m somewhat stressed. Who wouldn’t be?  Life is what it is, but I happen to be one of the most fortunate citizens on this planet.  Suffering is an option but for the moment I am choosing to live mindfully and simply notice what is happening around me and what is going through my head. The only thing I can change is the way I perceive what is going on and I’m especially grateful that I’m able to do just that.

What stresses are happening in your life and how are you keeping it from turning your life upside down?

Filed Under: Dogs, Gratefulness, Navigating Through Life, The Journey, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

On Getting Rid Of Writer’s Block

November 20, 2013 By

DSCF0860I’ve been going through a few weeks of being unable to write. I spent the first week after my trip recovering from a nasty cold. The second week  I finished up laundry and caught up on missed appointments.  I don’t know what took up the third week but it wasn’t writing and that is what I wanted to get back into. During the fifth week, disgusted and scared that I might be suffering from a blockage, I decided to simply sit down at my computer and see what might come forth.  I had no problem writing blog posts. But working on my book was another story.

It probably had a lot to do with the fact that I had finished Part II of my book while I was sick in England. I couldn’t go out much and needed something to keep my mind occupied rather than allow myself to turn bitchy and unpleasant to be around.  But back at home and coaxing those first words out for Part III seemed well nigh impossible. I needed to change my style from a time line narrative to something more free and open, where I  allow myself to become the person I am now …  not the person I was back during the days before I took control of my life and began the process of healing from the trauma I’d been through.

But it was hard for me to change costumes.  Since I started this project, I’d drag out the old screwed-up me every day, dressed in her victimhood and write in her voice. I’ve been doing that for almost a year now and had gotten pretty good at.  Through the writing process the pain of that time has now been dealt with and I no longer feel the hurt, the dread or the fear I made myself return to in order to begin my travels back in time. Who says writing isn’t healing?

In my first attempts to move forward in time, my natural instinct was to return to that old time driven story which I wanted to be done with. I wanted Part III to be more open, philosophical, and forgiving of those who had done me wrong. Whenever I began to write about my process of healing I was drawn into the conflict of who to be … Joan, past or present.  The result?  Nothing! So I gave myself some time to relax and clean out a few closets, which seemed to be a natural remedy for the undertaking of making the shift I wanted. I read through journals of my healing time and otherwise occupied my time with seeing friends and having some fun.

Knowing that I was going to see my writing coach, Kevin, this week, I sat down on the weekend in front of the screen to see what would happen.  I typed a few beginning words.  I didn’t like them. I deleted them, took a deep breath, and started again.  It took a while but before too long I was on my way to writing the transition chapter into Part III.  Monday night having finished that chapter, I started another.  Same thing.  I couldn’t stand the opening words I chose, deleted them and tried again. Words started to pour out in bucket loads.   The next morning I sat down again to continue work on that chapter and wrote another five hundred words before my appointment with Kevin. I didn’t want to stop. All I want to do now is keep going. I have no difficulty getting back to where I was after taking breaks and I seem to have entered the third phase of my book without further difficulty.

As in the past when I’ve had difficulty writing, I’ve taken some time off and allowed the project to simmer on a back burner.  Sure, I pissed and moaned about my lack of words, but eventually when I stopped fighting it, I was able to relax and try again.  It has always worked.

How do you end periods of being unable to write?  I’d love to hear about your ways of getting back to work.

Filed Under: Memoir, Navigating Through Life, The Journey, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,
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