A reader sent this to me, and I LOVE it! No surprise there.
These are some wise words. Thanks, Marie!
Carry on,
xox
I didn’t want to write this.
I sat on my hands, I bit my tongue.
I minded my own business.
Like I said on my Facebook page, I don’t usually editorialize other people’s break-ups.
But the force was strong with this one. It chewed at my insides.
And eventually…it wrote itself…in about seven minutes.
Then I hit publish.
On the Huffington Post.
It’s about love and fame and stories and potential happy endings.
It’s about a complete stranger who, through no fault of her own, feels like a friend.
Curious to see if you agree.
Carry on,
xox
I was saddened to read of the ending of Elizabeth Gilbert’s marriage on Friday.
Liz is the author of several best-selling books, the most well-known being EAT PRAY LOVE, which chronicled her global spiritual quest and search for happiness after a painful divorce. At the end of her soulful journey, almost unexpectedly, she finds love. And a happy ending.
I rooted for her, as I’m sure many of you did, which breeds familiarity and makes her feel like a friend.
She made the announcement of her separation on her Facebook page, which much to her credit is a place you can find her almost every day in the guise of a gorgeously written, unerringly kind and unflinchingly authentic essay. The line that struck me the most amid her request for privacy and gratitude for her reader’s continued kindness, was this:
“This is a story I am living — not a story that I am telling.”
Which leads me to the first reason we should care.
This is a woman who started her career as a writer. A writer is someone who sits in a chair for hours a day — alone — and writes. She could have never in her wildest dreams have known the universal appeal her story would have and the fame and fortune it would bring her. I’ve heard her say as much in interviews.
She never asked to be famous.
She never wanted to be a celebrity.
As a writer, I have watched the trajectory of her career and I’m always in awe of how generously she shares the details of her life, which is why she said she felt compelled to announce the separation.
I also suspect she wanted to “get ahead” of the story.
To break the news before anyone else had a chance to put their spin on it. Every media outlet covered her announcement, from CNN and People Magazine to the Hollywood Reporter.
She needed to remind us of the distinction between living — and telling.
That breaks my heart.
She shouldn’t have to do that. The end of a relationship is painful enough.
Fame…
The second reason we should care is that we need a reminder. And the reminder is this: What happens to other people is NOT ALL ABOUT YOU.
Most responses to her news were filled with love and respect, but as you can imagine some were more like this, how could you do this to ME? I believed in you, in love, in happy endings. How dare you! One woman from the UK was beside herself. “Not this week! How could you do this on the same week as Brexit? I can’t take it!”
We all know that ridiculously self-involved person who makes everyone’s story about himself or herself. Let’s all try really hard not be that person.
The third and final reason and the one that matters the most to me is this:
In her Instagram bio Elizabeth_Gilbert_writer, she describes herself as an Olympic-level long-distance optimist which can only mean one thing. That she will be sad for a time. And she will mourn her loss. And eventually, the optimist part of her will kick in because she’s been down this road before and she knows — she will not die.
And she will write and write and write some more.
Some really great stuff.
Because that is who she is.
Perhaps she’ll even be able to write about another happy ending — how to salvage the love inside of an amicable split.
Because THAT is something we should care about.
Here’s the HuffPo article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/elizabeth-gilberts-marria_b_10788398.html
I was asked by the divorce editor at Huffington Post if I could add any horrible post-divorce pick-up lines to an article they were putting together The 11 Worst Pick-Uo Lines Divorcees Have Ever Heard.
Boy, could I!
Even though it’s been a while, I didn’t have to dig too deep to recall the ones that stopped me in my tracks and sent me running in the other direction.
I think you’ll agree, all of these are pretty cringe-worthy but I’m sure a few of you have some doozies thta you could add to this list. Please do! Share!
Carry on,
xox
The magic is back by popular demand!
And by popular demand, I mean all of the neighborhood daddies pushing babies in strollers who have both demanded, and by both I mean daddy and baby (and the occasional nana), who in no uncertain terms, some covered in goldfish orange-colored drool, have yelled loudly, and in unison, “Where are the magic wands?!”
Calm down everybody! (By the way, babies stained orange yelling about magic—is just adorable.)
I LOVE doing this for the kids, and the Agapanthus (the wands), which have bloomed late this year I’m sure due to the drought, LOVE being wands!
So… yesterday, in the early morning hours, I was forced to sneak up and down the streets around my house, darting in and out of the bushes to hide from cars, clippers in hand, cutting wands.
What I won’t do for a pail full of magic!
Magic is everywhere you guys. It’s the hummingbirds crowded around fragrant flowers in your garden, your babies first tooth, peach pie and an unexpected phone call from a dear friend.
Wands are just a small reminder every summer that we can abracadabra some magic right from our fingertips!
Have a joyful, magical holiday weekend!
xox
It’s not a good idea to touch your hair when you are in transition. Or change your appearance at all for that matter.
I can offer that advice because I know from personal experience.
The first time was second or third grade, I can’t remember which, when I was unceremoniously transferred without any warning from Miss Law’s classroom, which I adored because it was very progressive (she had us sit with our desks in a circle), to Sister Francis Ann’s dark and dreary classroom where the desks were all in ROWS.
That night I cut my own bangs. Badly. With plastic doll scissors. But I never admitted it. Until now.
I always seemed to get a bad haircut right about the time I was losing my front teeth or getting braces. Like I couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
What about you?
Was it bad timing?
One of the traumas of childhood?
Or a tragic coincidence?
I can’t be sure, but I have the pictures to prove it.
Due to the fact that pixie cuts were all the rage for little girls in the 1960’s, and that I wasn’t asked or consulted in any way because, well, because it was back in the days when kids didn’t get a vote and my mom chose my stylist and paid for my haircut, I decided to fly in the face of conventional thinking I followed the trend and wore my hair like a boy.
At first a toothless boy.
Then a little boy with teeth too large for his/her face to which the braces only added insult to injury.
Nothing says “Hey, I’m well adjusted”, like showing up to the first day of a new grade wearing braces, a uniform, and your dad’s haircut.
Damn…childhood. It’s no wonder we’re all so fucked up when it comes to transitions and change.
Make yourself look as bad as you possibly can—venture out into an awkward social situation—and then try to make new friends.
Which I think became a pattern for me.
I remember once, in the midst of a terribly painful break-up (to be distinguished from all the other break-ups that were a laugh riot), drinking and dialing my hairdresser who was a friend. I needed to re-invent. So…we proceeded to spend the rest of the night smoking cigarettes, drinking two-buck-Chuck, cursing sexy bad boys and dying my blonde hair a hideous shade of eggplant purple/red/black/vomit.
Then we both agreed (at least that was her side of the story), that the only thing I needed to make me look even cuter—were bangs.
The next day I wanted to die. No, seriously. I wanted to drop dead at the sight of myself.
I had an audition and I was now sporting bangs. Bangs the color of eggplant vomit; that matched the rest of my hair; and that was the least of my problems.
I was single.
Again.
It was a real catastrofuck.
This is my darling sister, whom I lived with at the time, and I’m sure we’re laughing at the eyebrows I had to draw on with a black pencil to match my hair.
Even my mom, the one who had me pixie-cut, hated it. She actually cried and asked why I was deliberately defacing myself. Like I was cutting or something. She said I “needed help.”
I didn’t need a shrink to tell me I sucked at transition. I had a bigger issue. Control. If something happened that I didn’t have any control over…watch out! Bangs were in my immediate future.
They still are.
If you know me, you know how many different colors and styles I’ve worn my hair over the years and if I trace it back, something emotional was always happening, some change or transition, right around the time I did the big ones.
I just did it recently. When I decided I was a writer, I also decided it was time to stop dying my hair and go gray!
So, that just goes to prove that old neurosis die hard although I’ve gotten a gazillion times better.
I recognize what’s about to happen when I get wobbly and start fingering the scissors.
Bangs.
Then I go and hide them from myself.
I’ve also outgrown drinking and dialing my hairdresser and I try not to make huge changes in my appearance before an important event—although I have a big meeting at the end of the month and I’m not sure my hair is purple enough underneath…I’m serious.
The other day I tore a picture out of a magazine of a cute way to wear gray hair with…bangs.
I’m doomed.
What do you do under similar circumstances? Loose weight? Buy boobs? Grow a beard? (Yeah, me too)
Carry on,
xox
“You can’t ride two horses with one ass.”
While I was growing up I used to hear that phrase all the time from my dad.
What? What does that even mean?
This was his reaction to my teenage stress. After he’d watch me fumble and stumble, struggle and juggle; fitting in play rehearsal, singing practice, homework, and my part-time job, he’d admonish me, “Janet, you can’t ride two horses with one ass.”
My reaction was to roll my eyes, snap my gum, turn my head toward the heavens, and exhale the long, deep exhalation of the exasperated teenager. “Okaaaay, daAAAAaad, I get it, make a decision. Do one thing at a time. Gawd.”
I always knew the one thing he thought I should choose to focus on was my job at the supermarket. It could end up being my security, after all, my future, just like it had become his. But truth be told, that was NEVER gonna happen.
He had little patience for my “extracurricular” pursuits. He, as the father figure, the patriarch, the breadwinner, just couldn’t understand what he considered frivolous time wasting.
And I, cast as the dutiful daughter, continued to struggle with not enough asses.
Those extra things were far from superfluous to me, hardly! They were actually my life’s blood –– my passions.
He was unable to wrap his brain around multi-passionate people, and that never changed.
I can’t say that I blame him. Us multi-passionate sorts are hard to figure out.
He’s not alone, there are many out in this world that can’t stand those of us who won’t seem to commit to just one pursuit. “Jack of all trades, master of none” was another of his old school, paternal pontifications.
After a while (years), I understood. I didn’t like it and I was incapable of abiding by it –– but I understood his confusion.
He was from the school of one horse, one ass.
Pick one thing, focus on it, and do it— for the rest of your life.
Then, and only after you’ve collected your retirement, are you allowed to entertain frivolous pursuits. Hopefully, you still have your health, vitality, and a little sass to keep things interesting.
Many in our family died soon after they retired, without enjoying any of life’s extras.
Here’s what I’ve come to realize as I’ve gotten older and hopefully a little wiser.
The things that hold passion for us in life are hardly extras. To me, they are the makings of a life well lived.
Jobs can be had, money made, the focus narrowed, and direction figured out, but it’s the multiple horses that we have the audacity to ride with our one crazy, creative, freedom-seeking-ass, that make us who we are!
Singularly Focused Exemplary Employee is not what I’ve ever wanted written on my headstone.
Badass of sass, multi-passionate creative, who can’t stay in the saddle; sloppy rider of an entire herd of horses, who you may hear whooping and hollering and having one hell of a ride –– and the time of her life. Now that’s more like it!
Ride all those horses with your one wild ass.
Own it.
Sorry dad.
Carry on,
Xox
This is a recent essay by Liz Gilbert and it’s just so damn good I had to share it with you guys.
xox
Take it away, Liz!
Dear Ones –
The other day, I was talking with someone on this page about how to walk through the world with “an undefended heart”.
This person was saying that she wants so much to live with an open and undefended heart, but then it always happens that people hurt her and attack her when they see that she is open. She doesn’t want to leave herself vulnerable to that sort of pain. So she shuts down. Understandably.
So what is to be done?
How do we live open-hearted lives without being victims of constant attack?
Allow me to introduce you to the Alpha Mare.
This is an idea that came to me through my beloved friend Martha Beck, who explained to me how the psychology of a herd of horses works. At the top of the hierarchy of a herd of horses, there is an alpha mare. She is the leader. (Stallions come and go, but the mare is in charge of the herd forever.) All the other horses look to her, in order to know what to do and how to feel. As long as she remains calm, the rest of the herd feels calm. And the alpha mare is always calm, because her boundaries are AIRTIGHT. She knows exactly who she is, and nobody messes with it. Nobody approaches the alpha mare without her invitation. Nobody imposes themselves upon the alpha mare against her will. The alpha mare never lets herself be influenced by another horse’s fears or anxieties or aggression. She knows what the right thing to do is, and she does it. Everyone else follows. She doesn’t need anyone’s approval for anything. She doesn’t need anyone’s permission. She lives and breathes from a place of integrity and certainty, because of her strong and appropriate boundaries. And as a result, SHE IS ALWAYS RELAXED.
And because she is relaxed, everyone around her is RELAXED.
Thus the whole herd can live safely and peacefully around her, with undefended hearts, and the alpha mare’s heart is undefended, too.
It is fear that makes you defend your heart, but once you have discovered appropriate boundaries, you do not need to live in constant fear.
Until you learn how to hold appropriate boundaries, and stand in integrity, and speak your truth, you will never have a relaxed moment in your life. You will live like a fugitive, always on the run, always hiding, always afraid of being exposed.
A heart without healthy and appropriate boundaries can only suffer in a constant state of anxiety and defense — vigilant against the next attack,helpless against other people’s will.
To live with an undefended heart does NOT mean that you walk out in the world like a helpless child, wide-open and boundary-less, and you just let anyone do anything to you that they please. That is not openness; that is weakness.
No. You can only live with an undefended heart once you know the difference between “This is OK for me,” and “This is not OK for me” — so you never need to worry or stress about what’s going to happen to you next, or somebody will say next, or who will harm you.
Once you know the difference between “This is OK”, and “This is not OK”, you can walk anywhere in this world safely — your guard down, your eyes filled with curiosity, your soul filled with simple wonder.
That is the alpha mare, and she’s hiding inside you somewhere, waiting to come out.
I know she is.
ONWARD,
LG
We’ve all had that flash of insight. That lightbulb-over-your-head moment when something brilliant occurs to you.
I for one, LOVE when that happens!
It seems as if it comes from out-of-the-blue, without warning, startling the shit out of me.
It makes me feel connected to something greater, and if not greater‚ then smarter. The holder of the Universal Rolodex or keys to the Library at Alexandria.
For me, it can range wildly, from an inspired idea for a birthday present for the person who has everything to a great story idea, or spontaneously remembering the name of that cheese we all lost our minds over in that little, remote town in Spain. (But only the name of the cheese—not the town—too much to ask.)
For you, it may be a new and innovative brain surgery procedure or the mathematical equation that will once and for all solve the existence of dark matter.
Big deal. I’m happy for you. Really. I am.
Who doesn’t love that flash of inspiration? You never feel more present, alive and in-the-moment.
Now here’s where it gets…complicated and this is universal.
Thunder.
God-farts.
All the ways and reasons why your brilliant idea wasn’t so brilliant after all.
Old news.
Thunder—doubt—is based on old news. Old fears. Old ways of thinking. It is rooted in the past. The things we were taught as children. Boogie-man fears. Threats against feeling secure and safe. And normal.
Thunder is SLOOOOOOOOW. It can’t keep up. That’s why it takes a while before you can hear it.
But like a fart, it’s LOUD. It gets your attention.
You need to forget about it. Stick with the NEW. The great idea.
New ideas, paradigms, and concepts are FAST. Like lightning. They Flash in and dare you to catch them.
They can only appear when you’re living in the moment.
Thunder is old news from the past. It rumbles and roars and smells like a million containers of leftovers in the back of the fridge or—like Shrek with gas.
You get the picture.
Carry on,
xox
Sorry, I had to, it’s in French.
A few years back I was described by someone, a dancer in a production I was involved in, I can’t remember exactly who it was because professional dancers have a tendency to become a blur of spinning fabulousness when you’re around them—as “elegantly clumsy.’
I almost wept with joy. I felt it was one of the highest compliments I had ever been paid. Besides, I only heard the word elegant. After that entered my ears—they stopped listening.
I never heard the clumsy part.
Well, maybe I did.
I just have to say that considering the circumstances—clumsy was still a compliment.
Back as a young girl in the midst of tween-dom, I was stick figure thin; a gangly compilation of arms and legs, with giant blue eyes, braces, and a tiny tween brain. What I loved more than anything else was to put on shows. God, how I loved that! Dancing or roller-skating and lip-syncing to the latest movie soundtrack on our long, smooth concrete patio. Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand was my favorite.
I could sing. Sort of. At the time it was a volume over substance sort of thing.
The trouble was, I also fancied myself a graceful dancer. Not a ballerina exactly, I wasn’t quite that audacious. But thinking I was a dancer was still a reach considering the fact that when faced with choreography, even the most elementary dance steps, my left leg traveled right, and my right leg, which has always had a mind of its own, did its very own version of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance.
While all of that was happening below my waist; my arms, hands, fingers, neck and head appeared disjointed, like a marionette, unattached from each other in any kind of biological way. They twisted and turned, undulating rhythmically, part Hawaiian Hula, part Aboriginal Fire Dance with a touch of Tai Chi and a sprinkling of Bob Fosse.
They moved to some internal melody that was completely unrelated to the music that was playing out loud.
Eyes closed, I can remember feeling at one with every note of every song. I had no idea how I appeared to those who were lucky enough to witness my spectacular moves. All I knew was that I was a dancer…until I heard the laughter.
I remember opening my eyes and thinking—actually consciously deciding—I can play up the funny—or I can be self-conscious—I chose to do both.
For the rest of my tweens, I played up the funny, because if you act like you’re IN on the joke, then they’re not laughing AT you—they’re laughing WITH you.
Once I reached high school and starting participating in Musical Theatre, not getting the dance steps wasn’t funny anymore. I became almost paralyzed with self-consciousness. Almost. As luck would have it, God giveth whilst He taketh away. That singing thing had gotten a lot better which allowed them to overlook my awkward dance free-stylings.
While the cast would dance their amazing Broadway-esq ensemble numbers, I was moved to a stationary platform where I was asked, told, to stand still and sing, or to move ONLY my hands in unison with the others. After numerous failed attempts to do exactly that, we all decided, for the sake of the show, that standing perfectly still or sitting on the side of the stage was preferable.
When I decided to re-join musical theater in my fifties, I discovered menopause had helped me to forget how much I sucked at dancing. It was only my feet, those two things below my knees with painted toes, that jogged my memory and saved that tiny shred of self-respect that had persevered since High School.
They did that by completely refusing to cooperate.
I could barely point my toes, and pointed toes are to dancers what lips are to singers.
After only an hour of dance rehearsal, my arches screamed in agony. Every toe was distorted into an arthritic looking charlie-horse. I hobbled around trying to walk off the pain, but my feet knew better. They were saving me from dance humiliation.
Blame it on us, they said.
So I did.
What choice did I have?
The powers-that-be lowered their expectations of my ability to “move”. ‘The old broad has shitty feet”, they muttered as they choreographed around me.
I’m okay with that, I thought, even though the moment I left the theatre—my feet behaved normally. It felt better than the fear of them get wind of the fact that I didn’t possess one lick of dance talent.
I had one of the leads in A Chorus Line, a show about dancers and their passion for dancing, where I was begged not to dance. “God, I’m a dancer, a dancer dances!”, I sang into the spotlight with all of the sincerity I could muster, as I stood nailed to the ground.
It’s called acting.
Eventually, I was cast as Velma in Chicago where they made me dance with a chair. I mean, how hard could THAT be?
It was Bob Fosse style, which means you’re actually making love to a chair.
On stage.
In public.
I couldn’t do it straight. So I made it funny. Sexy-funny if there’s such a thing. I may have just invented it.
Anyhow, they left it in the show, and it was after a run thru of that particular number that one of the dancers came up to me and whispered, “I like your style”.
“Oh, really? What style is that?”, I replied between gasps of air, as I poured buckets of sweat onto the stage.
“You’re elegantly clumsy”, he said with conviction, like he had just told Baryshnikov “Nice Jete”.
I will live off the fumes of that compliment until the day I die.
Carry on,
xox
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