sharing

This is a me at about nine I think. Rockin’ my groovy Beatles haircut and braces—and side-eye.

Who is she? You ask yourself after being referred to this blog by a friend of a friend, of a friend, of a friend.

Who is this person who writes about love and loss and everything in between?

What are her credentials? (None, you only need hands and a brain to start a blog—and seriously, both of those are questionable).

Why does she do it? (The truthful answer is: I have absolutely NO idea— I just freaking LOVE it!).

In the beginning, I didn’t need to introduce myself. I had thirteen followers that were pretty much all family and friends, many who had seen me naked.

Now there are new people. People I‘ve just met and some I don’t even know, so…
In an act of foolish self-disclosure here are twenty-five things you don’t know about me.

1. I can’t whistle.

2. Or snap my fingers.

3. I LOVE to sing karaoke show tunes.

4. I have a very low tolerance for liars.

5. I get carsick in the back seat.

6. I hate card games and most board games. (It’s an attention span thing).

7. I had Scarlet Fever and missed most of first grade.

8. I wanted to be a nun in sixth grade.

9. I did some TV commercials when I was in my twenties.

10. I see Angelyne, a Los Angeles icon, out and about all the time!

11. I am a huge SiFi geek.

12. I read mostly non-fiction.

13. I don’t think I’ve gone a day since I was five without nail polish on my toes.

14. I have amazing eye-hand coordination.

15. I’m a very weak swimmer.

16. I have a fear of open water at night. (Just writing that makes my butt pucker).

17. I was once mistaken for a Parisian—in Paris—by another Parisian! (Something I’m very proud of).

18. Cilantro tastes like soap to me.

19. I once melted a rubber spatula in boiling hot caramel while making candy and contemplated NOT throwing it out. (I did toss it—after I laughed myself senseless).

20. I am a sucker for all things Christmas.

21. I pierced my ears myself all eight times. (And I had a navel piercing done by a professional).

22. I could read before I entered kindergarten.(No Tolstoy, just Cat In The Hat).

23. I am in the Who’s Who of American High School Students 1976 edition.

24. I used to bake cakes and cookies for work at Christmas—and watch George Clooney devour them while we talked.

25. I can grade a diamond.

Do you feel as if you know me a little bit better? Anything else you’re curious about? Just ask!

I’d love to know more about YOU guys. Tell me one thing you don’t think anyone knows.
It’ll be our secret.
Shhhhhhhhhh.

In the meantime…
Carry on,
xox

So here we are at the three-year mark. The third anniversary of the spontaneous creation of this blog.

It has changed me. YOU have changed me. For the better.

You make me want to be a better version of me. To write better. To always tell the truth.

Without your love, support, comments and hilarious off-the-grid emails—I’d have stayed sad and stuck.

I hated stuck. Stuck sucked. So did sad. Sad was like quicksand.

So thank you.

For letting me vent. And rant. And offer advice. And maybe even make you laugh.

You guys are the best, honestly—and I love you all madly.

Color me Immensely Grateful.

Carry on,

xox

*This is a post from last spring but it still applies. Happy Sunday!
xox

“I had tended to view waiting as mere passivity. When I looked it up in my dictionary, however, I found that the words passive and passion come from the same Latin root, pati, which means “to endure.” Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It’s a vibrant, contemplative work. It means descending into self, into God, into the deeper labyrinths of prayer. It involves listening to disinherited voices within, facing the wounded holes in the soul, the denied and undiscovered, the places one lives false. It means struggling with the vision of who we really are in God and molding the courage to live that vision.”
~Sue Monk Kidd~

Sue Monk Kidd was on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday a couple of weeks ago. I’ve loved her for almost 25 years.

Her most famous book is “The Secret Life of Bees”, but I became familiar with her after reading her spiritual memoir “When The Heart Waits” in 1990. That was a time when not too many people were brave enough to write about their spiritual journey of transformation. My copy is water stained from reading in the bath, highlighted with a yellow marker, has my insights written in the margins and is dog-eared almost beyond recognition. I ate it up with a spoon when she wrote that waiting for your purpose is a sacred endeavor.

Waiting is not always passive. It can be a passageway from one way of being to another. She gave me permission to wait for the reveal.

These days, even more so than 25 years ago, waiting, being still, has gotten a bad rap. Inactivity is THE cardinal sin of the 21st century.

She used the analogy of the caterpillar in the chrysalis. If you poke a hole to check on its progress, the butterfly’s wings will be underdeveloped, and it will be unable to fly. The same thing happens if you try to help it break through. Every second, every step of the process is critically important to the transformation…and the survival of the butterfly.

Just let that one sink in……All the way down to your toes.

This quote from “When The Heart Waits” is one of my favorites.
I need to add it to the list.

“When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the Spirit laughs for what it has found” 

That makes my heart stop every time.

When Sue had her chat with O, she relayed an insight she had around 50.
She realized she had been a seeker all of her 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. In that respect we are kindred souls. But recently she’d admonished herself.

Enough seeking, she needed to “find” something.

It was time to become A Finder.

That just about made my head explode. Now I get it.
That’s what happens in your 50’s. The energy you expended as a seeker is replaced with the energy of “finding” and sharing. You’ve sought, delved and explored. You’ve attend countless retreats, seminars, conferences and sweat lodges. You’ve discovered along the way you DID get some answers. You have found nuggets of truth. Things you KNOW FOR SURE. All your seeking has borne fruit. That fruit is deliciously ripe and ready to share.

It’s the reason I write this blog.
I used to spend hour upon hour, day after day reading everything spiritual I could get my hands on. At one time I had over three hundred spiritual and self-help books. I have given half of them away.
Now I spend hours writing what I’ve learned.

I will always be on a journey of asking WHY? I’m hard-wired for it. But I’m also hard-wired to share anything and everything I know.
THAT is the payoff, the pay-it-forward of the seeker. We get to say: Hey, you wanna know what helped me? Have you read this or seen that?

I feel like in our second acts we are now Finders.
Things start to make some sense. Not everything, I still can’t wrap my brain around vows of chastity and silence.
What I HAVE found is that I am much more willing to wait and see how things work out.
I’m not perfect, some days I still want to see the progress inside the chrysalis.
I am forever a work in progress. I will always be asking questions. But I’m embracing my inner Finder.

I feel like she has a lot to share.

Tell me what you know about waiting. How comfortable are you with being passively passionate or passionately passive? Lol.

Xox

I believe with every fiber of my being that we ALL have a superpower. The thing or things that we are better at than almost ANYONE else.

Mine is my memory. I remember every word you said, the shoes you wore, and the song that was playing on the radio when you dumped me.
And then there’s my ability to weave that into a story.
Ouch. Oh relax, I’m only joking…sort of.

I have a friend that can make a box of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies last for more than three days — I know — UNBELIEVABLE. Yet, I have seen it with my own eyes.

My mom, and for that matter most mothers, are able to hear the spoken and often un-spoken mischievous musings, whispered plans and naughty plots of their children clear across the house; sometimes from out in the backyard with a cocktail while listening to the Dodger game; or even from the neighbor kid’s treehouse.

“No, you most certainly are NOT going to rig that old clothesline and beat up beach chair into a neighborhood zip line!”

Is she kidding? Could she have cracked our code? How did she know that was our plan? She’s making baloney sandwiches — in a house —down the block.

I was convinced as a child that her pink plastic hair rollers were some kind of sound enhancing devices.

Or how about this other widely demonstrated talent — the eyes in the back of her head trick.

“I see you…give your baby sister her cookie back. NOW!”

How is that possible…she’s driving?

Maternal Superpowers — used mostly in the service of good rather than evil; although as a child, that point was debatable.

My little sister is a kind of Culinary Wonder Woman. She can put together an event or party at the drop of a hint and I can guarantee you — it will be SPECTACULAR.

If you want to feed 6 or 60, it doesn’t matter call Sue.

She’ll cater it herself with eight to fifteen different appetizers, each more delicious than the next. Then she’ll serve a roast turkey AND a Prime rib, AND a smoked ham AND a goat; all lovingly prepared and garnished to perfection — with thirty-five gourmet side dishes — half of them using kale. That’s a talent.

Oh, and you’d better leave room for dessert. They’ll be seventeen pies, ten cakes, donuts, pastries and fountains of chocolate, both dark and white.

All of them homemade. In her spare time.

Every inch of her home will be decorated for the affair. Gorgeous fresh flowers (grown, picked and arranged by her own loving hands), tablecloths and centerpieces with white twinkle lights hung by Tinkerbelle herself.

You’ll receive a keepsake memento as you enter, and another as you leave (after she gets to know you better). They will be thoughtful and touching things that are personally selected for you and you alone. Things that will make you cry; items you will treasure for years to come. (We haven’t yet figured out how she does that; as far as we can guess she has a team of people who go through your drawers while you’re at the party, then shop, gift wrap and return before you’re ever the wiser.)

If you’re one of the lucky ones she may have put together a slide show of long forgotten but favorite photographs which will play on an endless loop — with a tear-jerking soundtrack.

Her parties are so inventive and fabulous that Martha Stewart has installed a top-secret party cam just to swipe ideas.

At Christmas, the elves at the North Pole have a Pinterest page of several years of her winter wonderland home and decoration ideas, which they present to Santa as their own — tiny lying slackers.

Susan’s undeniable superpower? — Making people happy with delicious food, beautiful ambiance and her over-the-top thoughtfulness.

My husband has the good fortune to have been blessed, as many of you have, with two superpowers.

He has his MacGyver Superpower and his Sparkle*.
Our friends and I tease him about it…but if you’ve ever been on the receiving end, they are both equally indispensable.

He can build you a house out of eleven Popsicle sticks, a random shard of glass, nine paperclips, one stick of Black Jack gum, and a sweat sock.
With those same exact items he can also fabricate a life raft, patch a blown tire, signal a rescue helicopter, fix a motorcycle, design a prom dress, start a signal fire, and end world hunger.

You want him on your team when the Zombie’s attack.

As for the Sparkle*(ting)…well, those that have been caught in its spell have given us the best table at a packed restaurant, upgraded us to First Class at no charge, overlooking the fact that our three bags each were over the weight limit, and found us front row tickets to a sold out concert.

Men, women, it doesn’t matter, his superpowers don’t discriminate.

Does it only work for he and I? Nope, whole groups of friends have benefited from his equal opportunity Sparkle*.

If he switched to the darkside…the man could rule the world. Seriously.

We all have ‘em these Superpowers; have you figured out what yours is?

Carry on,
xox

When they ask you to holster your cell phone for the night; do you get a little panicky?

Or belligerent? I saw it all!

As we walked into the party on Saturday night, we were asked politely, NOT to post pictures or video of the venue or the festivities on social media.
You could almost hear the OR ELSE that was implied.
It pushed people’s buttons, you could tell. They weren’t asking you not to take the call from the babysitter, they just wanted to keep things special, without the whole shebang showing up on Instagram.

The main idea behind it was that they wanted everyone to be in the present moment; a skill we ALL seemed to have left back in the early 2000’s, you know, when we looked around and people watched.
We can’t seem to experience ANY event without documenting it. Guilty as charged.

I kinda liked being asked not to. It gave me permission and a certain freedom to just be IN. THE. MOMENT.

In the frenzy of all the going’s on, I was a present observer, taking it all in through…gasp…my eyes.
Plus, I could see where I was walking and make eye contact with all the other party participants. Imagine that.

We are like junkies, I am, I know that, and I pale by comparison to the twenty and thirty somethings. So I pocketed my phone.

Even through the entertainment. Fleetwood Mac. I lost my shit, because, well because it was Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, right there in all their…Nicks and Buckingham badassery. May I just say right here: Stevie Nicks is a rockstar beast. Sexy. Transcendent. She held everyone in the palm of her hand – at 66 years old. That makes me so happy on so many levels.
I digress.
My husband took some pictures, hell, everyone had their phone’s out, but I haven’t see one shot on the internet and I’ll keep my promise as well.
And I have to say, not having my phone held up to my face, trying to get the best shot, left me free to enjoy every moment of the evening.

So, thank you event planners and hosts of this weekend’s extravaganza. Thank you for saving me from being behind a fisheye, and allowing me to see the whole picture.

Hey – When was the last time you just watched something awesome without taking your phone out to document it? I’d love to hear about it. It is weird huh?

Big Love,
xox