Easter Renewal

As mass started yesterday morning– Easter Sunday– I didn’t feel my usual excitement about Easter. Even last year when it felt like everyone was wearing black (we all know I wasn’t!), I had that sense of renewal inside me and I wasn’t going to be swayed by the lack of hope of so many people. It wasn’t that I felt bad yesterday, I just didn’t feel the excitement I usually do on Easter morning, the times when the joyful music stays in my head long after I’ve left mass.

I admit this was my fault. I had been so caught up in finishing my book Route 66 Dreams when Ash Wednesday rolled around that my Lenten plans never got off the ground. I was ready to move onto a new book, to use that time to focus on a story that is partially finished, but I had to remain with the prior story and then I was too exhausted for several weeks to get my head wrapped around the “new” story.

However, as we traveled through the Easter mass yesterday, it was Fr. Steve’s homily that resonated with me. In particular, when he said–

“People are suffering and there seems to be nothing we can do about it. But God is mysteriously at work. We might not be able to make sense of it all, but God is doing something more wonderful than we can imagine. In due time, it will all be revealed. So, we live with hope, and we do what we can to alleviate the distress around us.”

That was what I needed. I don’t know that I realized it, but after he spoke it, I felt as if a weight, the weight of worry I’ve had for so many things– in my world and beyond– dissipate.

We all need Easter Sunday. While it might mean different things in different faiths, we all need to take a step back, to be reminded to let go, to have faith, to continue to pray and, mostly, hope.

Easter should be a day to refresh oneself for the journey. It was the end of the Lenten journey– however that looked for each of us– and start of a new journey. It’s as if we took a day to stop, to rest, to feel the warm sun on our faces or warmth of people around us, to smell the flowers, enjoy the colored eggs, eat a tasty piece of cake.

Now we have the strength to go forward and continue to believe.

Peace in the Continued Sort of Chaos

While things are much calmer than they were a year ago, we are still processing much change around us. And the grief of the life and ways that are no longer part of our routines. There have been many losses, not just deaths, but in the way we do things and, for some people, the loss of relationships with people who have chosen different routes.

We don’t grieve overnight, get up the next morning, and forget what once was. Grief is a process and it’s a journey. Some people are afraid to venture out after so much time alone or without having the responsibility to leave home. Other people are still afraid of what virus lurks among us.

We have all lost something, many things. While not to the virus, I’ve had quite a few deaths of people in the outside orbit of my life. My sense of time has changed in a way I can’t explain– for some reason it feels like the days are spinning faster. I even said to Greg yesterday, “How did an hour go by?” when I realized the tomatillos I was roasting in the oven had been in there an hour already.

But we all also have had the opportunity to find peace within ourselves. Our days are never perfect commercials on television where everyone is happy and having a great time. There is alway a bumble, a hiccup, and usually a person causing havoc.

One thing we should be taking away from this pandemic experience is how to find peace inside ourselves. Have you done that? We can’t control the outside world but we can control our reactions to it. Some people remain reactive to it, others have learned to step away from the world (or just their phone which in many ways can be one in the same).

I’m finding I don’t want to be on my phone, not because of the chaos of the world, but because it keeps me from being more creative. I want to write, to sew, to paint, to draw. I don’t need to keep looking things up, checking the newsfeed. It all will be there later when I’m ready to share what I’ve created.

This morning there was a road runner on my front porch ledge, definitely a reminder of the peaceful pace as he stood and looked around, not in a hurry to go anywhere. Instead, he stood and surveyed the scene as if to stop and smell the roses.

The Discomfort on the Road to Success

As I made my breakfast smoothie this morning, I was streaming the Olympic coverage on Peacock (it was the end of the evening track and field session in Tokyo). David Feherty from The Golf Channel was talking about why he was never more successful playing golf. He explained that he understood that all successful people, in any field, are successful because they want to be uncomfortable. And he didn’t want to do that.

I believe this a concept that most people don’t understand– to be successful, you have to continually step out of your box and into uncharted territory. To lead a well-lived life, you need to do the same. You can’t sit back in your arm chair and watch life play out in front of you, it needs to be about your actions.

As a freshman in high school, I remember our cross country coach told us something similar. “To be a good distance runner, you will never be comfortable.” (The other bit of advice I remember from him was that we should never, ever get our shoes wet when we were running– I’m not sure which is harder– stepping out of a box or not stepping in puddles of rain when you don’t know how deep they are.)

Some years ago, I was in constant motion training people on the warning signs of suicide/how to ask people if they are suicidal. I had multiple contracts with various state and federal organizations, was working on a doctorate, and had a variety of other things happening. Each week, I was doing a presentation and I used to remark that I was constantly stepping out of my box, being forced out of my comfort zone.

It wasn’t easy but I could see, even then, how it was helping me to grow. The more I spoke, the better I got at it. And the more experiences I had that I could write about and reflect back on.

It’s okay to rest sometimes. We have to do that. Yet we also should remember that being comfortable for too long means we aren’t growing. That’s when we need to find something to challenge ourselves, something new, something that maybe we didn’t believe we could do before. That uncomfortable state means we’re heading in the right direction– we’re growing into who we all have the opportunity to be.

Forward, forward, forward

Don’t look back, I was often told when I was running competitively.

It was so easy to do– to look back and see how far (or near!) the next runner was behind me. Would I need to work harder to keep her at bay? Did I have the mental energy to keep up the pace, or even pick up the pace, so she didn’t pass me?

But looking back, even for a brief moment, took up not just physical energy, but time. It was that effort of the head movement that also lead to a partial body movement that slowed the running down and let that person get closer to me.

So they said not to look back.

Isn’t that true about life though, too?

Don’t look back or it will slow you down. Keep your eyes on the prize. Keep your eyes on your goals, your dreams, whatever it is that keeps you moving forward.

I was thinking about this as I was out running the other morning, finding myself looking back for no reason. I don’t know why I thought anyone was behind me (although when I run Ash, he looks back all the time, especially when we turn onto certain roads, for reasons I don’t understand). But as I did it, I thought about the effort it took to look back and the bit of time it cost me. For what?

I have always thought of the line from the Manfred Mann song, “Don’t look back/You’ve been there.”

After a year of what felt like standing in place, I’ve been trying to move forward so why would I look back? I do believe in occasional reflection of the past, after all, it’s that which reminds us of how far we have come. It might be that sometimes we need to stop for a moment, collect our thoughts, and take a quick look back to see where we have been to see how far we’ve come, but we don’t and shouldn’t do that all time.

Remember, will keep us from getting where we want to be.

The Path Forward

In the last ten days, five of my friends have lost a parent, two of them were moms that I had known a long time because the friends have been in my life since I moved to Albuquerque in 1994. And three of those friends have now lost both of their parents, a club that I none of us wants to join, but it’s inevitable that we will. We just hope it will be later than sooner.

While all our journeys are unique because our relationships with family and all the people in our lives are as unique as we are, I know that for some there is peace a parent is out of pain (emotional and/or physical). And for everyone, this is a gaping hole in their lives. For most of us, even if we didn’t have perfect relationships with our parent (really, who does? A parent’s job is not to turn us into a mini version of them, but to help us forge a path for each of us to be the unique person and have the life we are supposed to be– but that usually comes into odds with so much of who they are), typically there is no one in our lives who loved us as much as they did. I don’t know that I fully understood this until after my parents died, particularly my mom.

After the loss of a parent, we are faced with the reality that there will be no new memories nor anyone to share the past with. I often want to ask questions, wondering about things I didn’t think about until it was too late. We are, for good and bad, who we are because of them.

There has been much loss and pain during this pandemic. I know that mine started with Hattie’s death just a week before the first shutdown. It’s been a continued spiral of realizing that there is much I can’t hang onto as the world spins forward. If I choose not to spin with it, I will end up stuck and that will be more painful that letting go and letting it take me with it.

As I was swimming early Friday morning, thinking of another set of friends where the husband just found out he has terminal cancer and some other changes in not just my life, but in all our lives, I realized that somehow I will have to find a way forward. I will have to let go of so much. Maxine was the mom I used to see my at pool parties (mom of my friend Jim whom I have known forever and whom introduced Greg and I), usually finding her in the kitchen near the end doing the dishes and shooing me back outside to my guests. I am sad because I didn’t get to see her all last summer since we couldn’t gather. I feel like I was denied something, the very something I worried about when the pandemic started– the deaths of people in my life whom I wouldn’t get to spend time with before they died (I’ll also add that none of these deaths was virus related).

But I have no choice if I want to forge forward in my life, the very thing I write and speak about here. There is so much luggage that we’re still letting go, leaving a baggage claim or some getting lost because it’s not supposed to go on the next leg of the trip with us.

It’s okay to mourn what we’ve lost. However, somewhere in there we still need to go forward, to remember the good that we had, to be grateful for it, and then let it go because its path forward isn’t the same as ours.

Taking a Step Back

I am easily irritated by many things, especially when they seemingly get in the way of my list of items I want to complete in one day. Don’t get in the way of my grocery cart and make sure you use your turn signal if you’re going to cut me off in traffic.

But I have learned to take a step back when what feels like continued derailment of my day is wreaking havoc with everything I want to accomplish. I have also learned to take a step back when someone irritates me. Or when people in my life react in unexpected negative ways.

While I might not like it, there is always a reason that things are unfolding the way that they are. I might not understand it now, or even in the next ten years, but I believe at some point I will get it when I reflect back in the rearview mirror.

Thinking that way has made it easier for me to cope with many situations and also to remember that we’re all navigating something in life and not to take it out on others (well, except when you blatantly cut me off in traffic and I’m driving faster than you– but maybe we’ll address that another day– I usually try to move on by turning up the radio and singing along with an eighties station).

I also have learned that somehow the list gets completed. Maybe not on my schedule but clearly someone else’s– let me poke the sky at the universe for that one.

In the meantime, often the best we can do is roll along and remember that a step backward is really several steps forward in own growth. There is much we can’t control in our lives, except our on reactions. That’s where taking a step backward matters the most because eventually– by doing that– we’ll be taking two steps forward instead of anything backward at all.

Keeping the Dream Alive

I have this memory of my sister Denise. I’m not exactly sure where we were, somewhere in Florida, and we’re playing in the waves. I was in high school and she was in junior high. I remember us laughing and the sense of feeling free that we had, a trip Mom had taken us on when she worked for Midway Airlines.

On this past Friday morning while I was out running, I missed Denise. But as I thought about it more, I realized what I missed is not being able to share Chelle Summer with her because so much of what she and I did together– drawing, making houses and clothes for a our Barbies– and the late 1970s into early 1980s and the styles of that time– form the nucleus of Chelle Summer.

And then I remembered that she is with me. We can’t have a conversation, which is what I felt I wanted when i was thinking about her, but she is still part of this journey. I just wished I could share with her the influence our time together has on what I’m doing today– share it in a way where we have a two-way conversation.

Then I began to think how there probably would be no Chelle Summer if she were here. I probably would be a sports journalist or something similar. While I will never truly know, I’m not sure I would have tapped into our style and fashion history to build Chelle Summer.

The reality is that I can’t bring her back and because of that I’ve tried to embrace the journey as much as possible. This has become more prevalent to me in each passing year and the more I embrace it, the more creative I’ve become. So in a sense Denise is responding by helping me choose what I create.

And that’s enough for me, even on days when I doubt everything, that I am keeping the dream alive. And I won’t give up until I get where I want to be.

Resting in Prayer

I will be the first to admit that I live a fairly hurried life, much to my own choice. However, what many people don’t realize is that I pray twice a day and it’s during that time– especially during my second prayer– that not only do I rest, but so do my requests for my life.

I have written before that my first prayer takes place on my run with Lilly around 5:00 am every day. That time is set aside mostly to say thank you for everything that happened the previous day and throw out any requests as well. It also helps the run go faster by keeping my thoughts centered.

Then after the dogs have been fed, but before my shower, I sit with a lit candle for five minutes and that prayer is devoted to throwing out my requests. In the colder months, I do this at my desk, however, in the summer, I let my feet rest after my workout on the top step of the swimming pool.

Not only are my feet resting in the cold water, but so are my thoughts, my requests, my hopes. And I am getting a rest before I venture into the rest of my day.

I’m not perfect at prayer– I will be the first to admit that I am easily distractible– but it’s a consistent effort on my part to rest and let go of what who and what I want to be. Plus those five minutes allow me to center myself for the day ahead. Resting in prayer helps me recharge and reminds me what’s important and not get caught up in drama or negative thoughts.

I am more productive– and happier– because I take the time for this rest.

Choosing What to Share

I spent a good part of yesterday working on two paintings (when I wasn't folding laundry and that I did because Greg was gratefully painting the trim on the outside of the house so I didn't think it was fair that he did that and fold the laundry). At some point I took a break from painting and I picked up my phone to check social media. But before I hit the button to take it out of sleep mode, I looked at the phone, wondered if I really needed to look at anything, and ended up putting it back on the counter where I had left it previously. Then I returned to my painting.

I am the first to admit that social media has played a huge part of taking my messages forward, particularly in my days working to help the suicide bereaved. I realize that if you lost someone to suicide today, you will have a drastically different experience than me because you can easily connect to people via the internet whereas it took me years to find other bereaved siblings. And now my messages have changed to sharing how I've moved forward through my losses by using my creativity, at least the visually creative aspects of my life (sewing, painting, cooking, etc).

However, I also know there is a line for me of what I choose to share, when I choose to share it, and how much time I spend looking at it.

While it might seem that what I create visually is how I spend the bulk of my time, the reality is that my writing is still what's most important to me. It obviously takes longer for me to share that so in the meantime (as I wrote about balancing goals last week), I share the visually creative items. I also found out in my early Facebook years that if I shared what I was writing, I never finished it.

I stopped talking about my writing because I realized it was something I have to keep to myself until it's completed. Most people in my daily circle of life don't know what I'm working on for the same reason. And yet there are many times I so badly want to share things but I know the time isn't right so I let it go (and probably post a photo of Lilly instead!).

When I went for my last spiritual direction visit with Fr. Gene, at the Norbertine Abbey here, one of things I told him was how I find that I'm not supposed to always share the journey that I'm on, that instead I'm supposed to wait until it's over when I can look back at the road and reflect more on it. It's only then that I can see what it is about my journey that would be most meaningful for others to read about.

And in that same vein, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about letter writing. One line stood out for me where the woman said that even though we seemingly share more of our lives by constantly posting on social media, we aren't really sharing of ourselves like we did writing letters.

Writing letters was one way that I honed my writing skills early and now I'm finding that as I've pulled back in sharing some aspects of my journey, they are instead finding places in my manuscripts. Once again, it's about balance and deciding what I should share now and what I should save for later, to be shared in another way as part of a bigger project.

Big goals, little goals, keeping them all in check

I don't talk about it much on social media but I spend part of each of my work days writing. That might be actually writing, revising, reading, researching, or some other aspect that goes into creating a novel. It all ebbs and flows based on what I need to do.

I have given myself this year (2018) to focus on not just Chelle Summer but also the writing part of me. However, writing isn't really something that transforms well into social media photos so most of what you see if related to the visual creative side to me, Chelle Summer.

Last week was a challenging week and I had a really hard time getting much accomplished. Now Greg will tell you that I do more before 7:00 am than most people do in a day but, to me, there is always more I want to do. Part of that stems from the losses in my life and the sense that none of us are promised anything, that life can change in many ways in an instant and we better make the most of the day ahead of us.

While last week I was able to keep up with things, meaning keeping the desk clean, email caught up on, and the house vacuumed, there wasn't much happening on the creative side. By the end of the week I was feeling a little depressed. Until I tried a new recipe for Rice Krispie treats on Thursday.

And when I did that, I was reminded that when you are working on big goals, the kind that might not manifest for a least months if not years, it's important to balance that with smaller goals, giving you a sense of accomplishment in the meantime.

So as I continue to mold manuscripts (yes, there is more than one) like a piece of clay, I sometimes need to remind myself that I also need to do smaller creative endeavors that move quickly and let me stand back and have that sense of accomplishment while I'm working on something bigger.

On Sunday I purposely chose two items that I knew I could finish in a day (a painting I had started and two pillows I was making) so that I could walk into a new week feeling that I was already on my way to a much more productive time.

It worked.

What inspires you?

When I was in elementary school, I had a Raggedy Ann bulletin board and I used to tack on it that were meaningful to me. In high school, my cross country and track friends and I used to decorate our athletic lockers with inspirational sayings and photos we would cut out  of magazines. At home I took this to another level and used long sheets of used computer programming pages that my sister Karen brought home from college and made floor to ceiling collages, like extended versions of what was in my athletic locker at school.

I continued this theme into college and beyond, always having some sort of bulletin board to hang various items that inspired me. But when I started to create Chelle Summer, my lifestyle brand, I suddenly found I had torn pages from everywhere and nowhere to put them. 

I bought the biggest bulletin board I've ever owned and started to tack what inspires me there. While it might just be a small details in a photo, this why at least I won't forget that small detail.

I believe that surrounding myself with what inspires me is what keeps me going no matter the worries swirling around in my head and a reminder that no matter what happens to me, I need to stay the course and keep focused on moving forward. It distracts me from anything that might keep me from my goals from the day or creating/writing.

The items on the bulletin board are a reminder of what I've spent time collecting to keep myself inspired. I like to think of it as an investment of myself. And what I eventually share with the world.

Forgiveness and Sending Love

One disappointment we often face in life is the reality that some people we feel close to or cherish aren't supposed to remain in our lives. There are a variety of reasons why it happens but the reality is that it doesn't matter. What does matter is how you move forward without the people with whom you believed you were supposed to travel with through life. If it feels painful to think about them, then send them love.

Yes, that's exactly what I wrote– you saw right. Send them love.

That may feel counterintuitive when you feel so much pain (after all, it is a loss to your life) but you'll be surprised at how much better you feel because you sent them love. 

And if this is someone who hurt you– yet you can't seem to let go of them despite all that hurt they caused– sending love is better than hanging on by continuing to contact them when they don't want to talk to you. Or when they cause you pain each time time you talk to them. 

Finally, sending them love doesn't mean you forgive them for how they treated you or ended a relationship or whatever the story may be. Forgiveness is about freeing our own hearts to move forward. We don't control what others do, just what we do.

So next time thinking of someone brings you pain, no matter what the reasons are for that, send them love. And free yourself to move forward. 

Balancing Social Media

Some years ago, I remember reading an article by Martha Stewart on how to manage the time one spends looking at email. Her suggestion was that you took certain times of day to look at it and stuck to those so it didn't interfere with other aspects of your life.

Obviously this was before smart phones and social media seemingly took over the time we spend engaged with the technology in our lives (and today most of my email is comprised of "commercials" rather than much that needs responding). 

However, it does still hold true with social media and because of the possible negative effects that social media can have on our mental health, it's even more important that we find a schedule that works best for us and stick to it as much as possible. 

While I seemingly have a big social media presence because of the work that I do– selling books and products I make– I don't spend as much time on social media as one might think. At some point in the last year when my job was turning to part time and I didn't have to be glued to my laptop or phone checking emails, I realized that also meant I needed to back off on the time I spent looking at social media. In my world, 2018 is my "year of creating" and if I'm keeping one eye on social media, it severely cuts into my creative time.

Because I've had much loss in my life and sometimes I get frustrated that professionally I am not totally where I'd like to be, I also found that I couldn't spend so much time looking at what other people were doing. It is much like what I learned from running competitively– it's you against the clock, not you against everyone else. I have to remind myself of that often so I stay focused on what I'm doing and not worry myself over what others have/are doing and I don't. (I know that I have a great life but the reality is that we can't have everything and I've had to make choices along the way as well as some choices that have been made for me and sometimes there is a little sadness that there isn't a place in my life for everything.)

In the mornings I post– and I do the social media for my church so some days there is an added step– and I'm a little more lenient with myself as I settle in catching up on a variety of things because I start writing or head out for errands (yes, estate sales, too). But by late morning I really try to limit my social media check in as little as possible and take as much time as I can through late afternoon to write, sew, and other creative pursuits. 

I also know that there are days where my brain turns off and it needs a water cooler break so in the evenings I might check in more often but I'm trying to do a better job of putting the phone down and instead picking up a magazine or book. And I remind myself that if I look at social media too much one day– as I wrote a few weeks ago regarding anything we set out to do and don't seemingly accomplish– I can always start over fresh the following day.

It's easy to let it take over our lives, however, like anything else there is a balance to it. For each of us that will be different and the key is finding what works for each of us. There are benefits to social media– I get to be in contact with people with whom otherwise I wouldn't be and it has helped me reach many suicide bereaved people as well as share what I create and find. 

The key is that I have to walk away to create more to have more to share. That's what I remind myself when I habitually pick up my phone in a quiet moment and then reach for a magazine or book instead.

The Holistic Health Plan

From the outside, I know that my lifestyle looks like a lot of work. I am up at 4:30 each morning (although do sleep until about 4:45 on weekends– I know, it's very late compared to the rest of the week!) to run and run-walk my dogs. I do a five-minute morning prayer before I shower. I plan most of the meals in the house and make a concerted effort to make sure that we're eating enough vegetables and keeping it as balanced as possible. I go to mass nearly every weekend and spend an hour with a priest at a monastery here once a month for spiritual direction. And each day I try to spend some time doing something I enjoy even if it's just a short time reading. This morning I had my yearly physical and blood work done. I go to acupuncture with my Chinese doctor twice a month where she works to me balanced with a slew of needles, cupping, and burning moxa while I rest.

But there's a reason for it: three years ago I had a group of fibroids removed from my uterus, including one that was the size of a golf ball. It was at that time that I realized I needed to make changes in my life. Outwardly all looked well, especially because I was just a few months from getting married. But clearly something was wrong inside my body.

While I have been running since I was twelve, there were a series of life events that had taken a toll on me: my sister's suicide when I was 21, my parents' unexpected deaths (among other close losses in my life), and then my first marriage where my then-husband was hit by a drunk driver and suffered a head injury. While running– and also walking the dogs– helped me through that, I now see that it wasn't enough and that's when I believe the fibroids began to grow.

Instead, I thought the way to cope was to do more: remodel the house, add more dogs, add a pool, get a doctorate, write more books, educate the world on suicide and grief. None of that I regret, I just look back now and see it was all a way of coping. By moving forward, I could manage the drama that surrounded me and keep it from suffocating me. There was no way to completely emotional cope with the roller coaster of living with a brain-injured person and my body instead resorted to doing it physically.

Just taking care of one part of ourselves is a start but it's not enough. We are holistic beings– and if you were in Maz's health class at Naperville North High School I know you learned this well. Although I admit I neglected all but the physical for a long time– and if we want to be healthy we have to work at it.

Don't think I jump out of bed each morning because I don't (and Greg will attest to that). But I will be the first to admit I love to be out in the quiet darkness, looking up at the still-night sky which is often clear here in Albuquerque. It's there that I start my day in prayer, in gratefulness, as I ask for help to make the most of the daylight hours ahead of me. I learned a long time ago that a new day, as the sun comes up over the mountains, is the same as the chalkboard being wiped clean; I can start over again.

What looks like a lot isn't in the scheme of my life. It's nothing compared to what the alternative would be if I chose not to work so hard at staying healthy holistically. I wouldn't choose it any other way.

Sitting In Darkness...With Others

I will be the first to say that I hate darkness. I believe darkness is important because we need to rest, living things needs to rest, and it reminds us how much we appreciate daylight. But I thrive in the daylight, in the sunshine, in seeing the sun come up over the mountains.

However, a long time ago I learned that you can't impose your light on someone else when they need to be in darkness. It's not that they are planning to stay there long– we should know this from our own experience when something happens to us– it's about processing through what has happened.

When someone dies, when we learn disappointing news, when we feel defeated by life, or whatever it is, sometimes we need to stand in the darkness and mull it over before we can move forward with the journey.

When it happens to someone else, we should remember the same. They will move forward but in that moment they don't need to be reminded of all that they know. They know it, they just need a few moments to rest where they are. Let them be there, sit with them, and remember just because you're in their darkness doesn't mean you have to be stuck there. You're there for someone you care about, your light is still with you.

Soon they will pick back up again and head towards the light, tired of darkness and ready to move on. Then you can remind them of all that they have and how much you appreciate the light.

When the Journey Isn't Clear

I have to laugh. I couldn't think of a topic for this week because my life is very quiet right now. I realize that isn't a bad thing but I'm a person who is used to many irons in the fire and running from place to place. I know this time is a gift to write and create– which is what I'm doing– but it seems like many times I have written over the years about what it's like to not feel as if the journey is completely clear.

I have been at many points in my life where I felt complete clarity of the journey but doing things like working on a degree or writing a book with someone else gives you smaller goals along the way because you're not on that journey alone.

This time is different though. After I finish this blog, I will go and write a few pages on a manuscript I've started and then I have a slew of aprons to finish that I had cut out some time ago. While a few of them are custom orders, most of them don't have "homes" yet (translation– they haven't been sold) and I don't know if any will when I post them later in the week. 

So it's a strange place to be– I am working hard, I am making things happen...but yet I don't know what the end result will be. However, I do believe I am on the right road, even if that road doesn't always feel so defined or that I'm following someone else's directions (like in the photo attached). 

Life usually isn't spelled out for us, especially when we choose undefined roads. And even though we aren't always sure how we'll get there, we know the journey will be worth it when we arrive.

Remembering Nestle

Because of circumstances beyond my control and that I am not letting define how I remember my yellow lab Nestle, I didn't know about her death until several months after it happened. I hadn't seen her in a year because she was living with my former husband. She truly was his dog and I knew that he needed her more than I did. And in the several months between when she died– although I didn't know it– and when I found out, I had a funny feeling she wasn't here anymore. I found myself talking to her through prayer and wishing her well. She was nearly fifteen and had more lives than anyone I know, but I just wish I'd been given a chance to say goodbye.

In the same breath, I know that where Nestle is at– barking up a storm in heaven and driving Mom crazy– it's all about love and she is happy, no longer hindered by a body that was giving out on her. And that had survived what felt like twenty lives.

I always told the story that we had gone to Albuquerque's westside animal shelter in November 2003 to find Chaco a sister. Joe picked out Nestle– who looked like an innocent young dog just sitting in her kennel while everyone else around her barked. He was convinced she was the perfect dog because she didn't bark. Yes, we know how that went.

Later, as he stood in line to do all the adoption paperwork, I went back to the kennel to see her. There she was barking with all the other dogs and I knew then we were in for quite a road.

From the moment she arrived, Nestle quickly made her mark in more ways than one. That first weekend we had our holiday party and as I was cleaning the house and prepping for it, she decided to use the house as her bathroom and then stole coffee grounds out of the trash can. From there she ran out the front door, nearly getting hit by a car.

In the years to come, she would steal the Thanksgiving turkey off the counter and eat it, be attacked by Chaco so badly that she nearly died (and spent several months recovering at the vet although she tried to bite the vet every time she saw him after although he was the one who saved her life), and barked endlessly.

Our friend Joe the dog trainer worked with her on the barking but the shock collar didn't deter her. She kept right on barking. Nor could you hug another human around her– she instantly started to bark as if she wanted in on the action. And she loved to swim although I would never have hired her a as lifeguard after she tried to swim over our first German Shepherd Daisy several times. It was easy to figure out why Daisy never wanted to get back in the swimming pool again.

Still, she was the most loving dog one could have, willing to be brushed, was the one to come close if you were crying, and unless you were the vet, she was always happy to see you.

Nestle lived a full life, probably more full than most humans. Three of what I call my "original four" dogs are in heaven now, hanging out with my parents who knew them, and Gidget who came after Daisy died.

What's hardest of all to believe is that thirteen years with her flew by and she's no longer here. But that's what happens when we're busy living life, time passes and suddenly was time for Nestle to move on past a body that was being destroyed by the evil hemangioarcoma cancer.

Yet in my head I can still hear her barking. 

Process and Journey

Greg will be the first to tell you that I'm about the destination, not the journey. I don't particularly like to go for a Sunday drive nor do I enjoy the scenic route hiking up a mountain. It's all about the end destination for me. 

And when I have a list of things I want to accomplish, it's not about the process there either. I'm more about seeing what I can accomplish in a time period. What most people don't understand is that I've had so much loss in my life that there isn't always a sense of tomorrow. For me, it's do it today because you don't know what tomorrow may bring. I've had too many days in my life where tomorrow ended up turning my life upside down because I was faced with a major challenge (or, like last week, a flat tire and my phone ceasing to work).

However, I can always look back and appreciate the process and the journey of how I've gotten to wherever I'm standing or what I've made/written. I can see that my writing has improved– and continues to do so– even as I'm frustrated trying to find an agent for my latest work. I see how easy it is for me to sit down at the sewing machine and whip out a handbag or a bucket bag after what is now about a year of making them (it's been nearly two years on the bucket bags). 

And then there are the process and journeys I sit in the midst of now– my continuous writing, the paintings in the photo above, and the stack of sewing projects I can't seem to complete with everything going on around me.

Some years ago I realized that  if I wanted to accomplish something far greater than simply doing my job each day, I would need to write/sew/create around my daily responsibilities. When you are trying to make life more than you have, sometimes it's hard to enjoy the journey because you know the destination is where you want to be. And the reality is that I've been working on one major goal since I was six years old– to be a bestselling author. At this point, it's not about the journey. It's about continuing to climb what feels like a steep hill to my destination.

I might not be about looking back until I get where I want to go, but I will when I get there. When I can rest because I have arrived.

Life

I know it's been a while since I've written.

I think about blogging; it's on my desk calendar where I write my daily tasks. But then I don't do it. And I don't do it because I haven't felt like I've had a lot to say. No, that's not true– I get ideas but then I think maybe I wrote them before. Or I think that maybe they aren't good enough to spend the time on. 

And there you have it– my life is a challenge to figure out how to best spend my time. I have so much I want to do and time often feels fleeting to me– I believe partially because of all my losses, I know that life can change in an instant. I hate that I get tired. I get up before 5:00 am and many days I can't believe when 3:00 pm hits and I wonder where the day went.

There is much I want to do and I finally decided today that my motto should be, "Think less, do more." It's July, it's summer. I want to make the most of these warm months. I need to worry less about experimenting making clothes and having them come out badly. I just need to make them. I need to keep writing and worry less that I'm writing crap and just keep writing.

Life is short but it's also a balance of being present where we are with where we want to be. And my goal this month is have a better idea of how to achieve that by the time August arrives.

An Oldie But Goodie: The Dessert Dog Blog

Note from Michelle: My friend Jim wrote this blog for me in September 2013. As I was going through my Inspire site today, printing off blogs as I get ready to take the site offline, I thought I'd repost it here (sans the photo which I couldn't save)- it also was written just about two weeks after Greg and I met. Enjoy!

This is how a typical conversation with me goes, if a conversation with me can be considered typical. Usually conversations with me are everything but typical. A fairly recent conversation I had with Michelle touched on canned chicken, specifically which kind I should buy. I ended up getting chunked, light and dark in water, if you were wondering. The conversation also included my unfinished PhD, a soccer game, kids, a pedicure, high heels, a time machine, thunderstorms, dogs, pool toys that aspired to be in a future "Toy Story" movie, and an article Michelle was writing for the magazine High Desert Dog. The time machine was a critical piece of our conversation as she needed more time to finish some of her writing.  This is where I offered to help and suggested I write her article about dessert dogs. That was my attempt at humor– desert and dessert– get it?  And of course I followed that up with some more attempts at pet and dog humor until we concluded our conversation with a wrap up of her pedicure.

And, just in case you are starting to wonder about Michelle, this is how my mind works, not hers.  She is very kind and lets me wander where I want over the conversational map until I realize I need to pull it back in. But I also think she might get a small giggle out some of my ramblings. Oh, by the way, she turned down my offer to write the article about dessert dogs for High Desert Dog. That was back in July. Whew!

Imagine my surprise today when she said she needed an idea for her blog, would I write about dessert dogs? This started my mind spinning, spinning all the way back to my creative writing class in college. The only creative part about that class for me were the many creative comments the instructor wrote on my papers in red ink. Getting past that bad memory, I started to think how I could inspire people, like Michelle does, with a story about dessert dogs. How could I spin this?  Do I write about dogs that like dessert? Or desserts that are like dogs?  There are lots of pictures and recipes for hotdog type desserts. Just try a keyword search– dessert dogs. None of it sounded inspiring.  And I am a cat owner; how dare I write about dogs.

So, if you haven’t guessed by now, I am not going to write about dessert dogs. In fact, I really have nothing much else to say. And for those of you who read Michelle’s blogs for hope and inspiration, I know you are hoping for her return. But if there is something to take away from my musings, it is only that I was happy to help her out when she asked. She may not ask again, but that’s okay, too. I was able to step in when she needed help, just like she has done for so many of us. In fact, I think Michelle said it best in an earlier blog, “Sometimes it's easy to forget to ask. The answers are there but we get lost in trying to do it ourselves that we often forget the help that's there if we need it.“  Oh, and try the banana dog.