Where do you go to meet God?
Somewhere in my shelves of books is one written by a nun about prayer. I don't remember the specifics, only that in the book she suggests coming up with imagery about where you meet Jesus. It’s a way of strengthening one’s prayer life by adding imagery to it. I remember that she had suggested on the shores of a lake.
While I don’t recall exactly how the conversation came about, it was a priest who had suggested to me that I imagine surfing with Jesus. At the time, I was still able to surf and this became an important part of how I formed my prayer life. I easily saw myself sitting on the beach with Jesus, our boards beside each of us, as we talked, having already been out on the ocean.
But recently I also began to realize how much I associate God with water. I am admittedly not much of a bible reader so I’m not going to count the references, I part of me wonders if there are more references to water than desert in the bible (and if I’m wrong, I don’t care– I like my idea better!).
I meet God in the gym pool five mornings a week where I swim my laps and contemplate my writing for the day. I meet God at the ocean when I’m there and need my inspiration replenished. And I meet God at my own swimming pool when I’m frustrated or irritated by whatever life might be throwing at me.
Something to think about in this new year– where do you go to meet God? Maybe by knowing that, you can find the peace and solace your inner world might be lacking. I know that’s helped me and the more I acknowledge it, the more I use it.
A New Calendar Year
We all know that I’m all about making change and moving forward– not that I always like it or want it, but I try to embrace it and understand it when I feel resistant to it. While I’m not a fan of full-blown new year’s resolutions because most people try to do too much at once, I do believe in making tweaks and changes that are sustainable for our lives (and those with whom we share our lives!).
I believe there is an opportunity when we open a new calendar, coming off the indulgent craziness of the holidays, ready to simplify and bring new organization to our lives. For me, it’s also about how I’m going to survive the next several months of cold torture. The more I can think about doing to keep my mind busy until the weather starts to warm back up again, the better.
January is usually a quiet month, a time not just to reflect (we’ve all had those down moments during the holiday to think about changes we want to make– especially after too many outings and too many cookies). And with the end of the calendar looming, we also tend to look forward to other changes (maybe moving the furniture around) when the holiday decor has been put away).
As I said, change doesn’t have to be big. Often, the smallest changes can ultimately result in the biggest shifts in our lives. What are those small things you can tackle, that feel manageable, but also will give you hope for this new year? Break things down into smaller steps, know that you can do this, that now is as good a time as any. Life is too short to stay where you are.
Holiday Season Thoughts
I have written many times in the past about finding balance in life and I’ve always heard about the importance of keeping our lives balanced during the holiday season (although not said that way, it’s always been about having a less stressful holiday season).
The universe has taught me some hard lessons this holiday season, ones I am aware of with still a week until Christmas itself.
I also have often said that I hear God the loudest during the holiday season, speaking to me through Our Lady of Guadalupe whose feast day is also my birthday.
This year I took a running start into the holidays, prepping Chelle Summer starting in July. But I was quickly disappointed when my first events didn’t go so well. I don’t want to dwell on this other than to say the world keeps changing and what worked last year, didn’t work this year. I have tried to listen to God, believing that maybe he’s been telling me to make some changes in directions and things that I do. I also know that sometimes the message gets sent more than once although we don’t always hear it or act on it so it gets sent again. While I won’t reveal what those messages were now, I got them and I’m working on them!
But there have been messages that have been hard to act on simply because there are only so many hours in the day. I can’t remember ever having such a busy holiday season. Granted, things are always busier than other times of the year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this one has been an exception.
Taking all of this into consideration, I realized that there were things I didn’t need to focus on during this time because they were taking away from not just the meaning and enjoyment of the season, but the messages I really wanted to act on during this time.
As we come closer to Christmas Day, I hope that the season has been all that you wanted it to be and more. If it hasn’t been, remember we all have the opportunity to learn how to do more or do it differently. That’s why we have Christmas every year– it’s a reminder of so many things which would be a whole blog by itself.
For me, this year is about how I can do better next year, be more balanced, to not just hear the messages but act on them.
Happy Holidays, everyone! Stay tuned for what’s to come in 2023!
Transcendence
Facebook reminded me that 10 years ago today, my book on finding hope and new life through surfing after my sister's suicide and then my divorce. I sometimes I forget about the stories I have told- I understand now they are a reflection of a point in time where I was at and my hope always is to share authentically so that others might find hope from my journey
Robert Neimeyer, Ph.D., said it best in his quote on the back of the book:
"'Suicide,' writes author Michelle Linn-Gust, doesn't define me.' Instead, as she demonstrates in this slender but substantial volume, her sister's tragic death continues to serve as one motif among many that embroider the fabric of her life, in a 'work that takes (her) behind suicide... (to) circle around hope and living an authentic life.' As fluidly as the images of pools and waves that wash through this memoir, Linn-Gust carries the reader into and through the story of a life marked by trauma, activism, and transcendence, and that continues toward an unspecified horizon of possibility. I recommend it to all those who seek to understand the reconstruction of life stories in the wake of loss, in a way that conserves but is not captured by their darker chapters."
Photo by Pamela Joye– how many photos she took in a the course of a short weekend that carry this thread of water through them.
That Cooking Girl
Chelle Summer aprons were inspired by the aprons Mrs. Rosales made for Megan, the main character of my novel, That Cooking Girl, fictional story that takes place in Albuquerque about a woman who ends up doing a weekly cooking segment on local television to replace someone who was fired. And that’s just half the story! The other half involves an actor named Nate and a rebuilt motel on Route 66.
Back to aprons though– Mrs. Rosales is Megan’s neighbor and she offers to make an apron for Megan to wear while appearing on her weekly cooking segment. I heard once that George Burns said when he and Gracie Allen were doing “The Burns and Allen Show” on television, women were often sending letters and commenting on the aprons she wore so then women started sending new ones that they had made for her to wear on television.
In my story, while Mrs. Rosales had a stash of cottons that she used to make the aprons, Megan always wearing a new one, mine are made from vintage fabrics, usually tablecloths that are longing for new life. I used to worry about the stains on the tablecloths, but one Thanksgiving (long before I was making aprons), I said something about a stain on a vintage tablecloth I was using that day and my neighbor commented that it was part of the story.
The prints, the fabric that has held up often for more than fifty years, and the stains are all part of the story. The story yet to be told is the new apron I’ve created and that I hope someone will create new memories (and food!) while wearing.
Advent: The Anticipation Season of Magic
Every year, I think I say the same thing– while summer is definitely my season, I love Advent. I don’t love the cold that we encounter this time of year (and how the heck was I of all people born right before winter officially begins?!), but I love the magic and warmth that come during Advent.
While it’s a season of anticipation, building up to Jesus’s birthday on December 25, there is so much magic that surrounds this season. More than any other time of year, I sense that the unexpected is to be expected. I also feel closest to God during this time, or at least through Our Lady of Guadalupe whose Feast Day I share with my birthday (or, rather, she shares her day with me).
While I know for many people, it’s a season about gifts, I don’t think it’s ever really been all about that for me unless you include my childhood where I freely admit it was about the Barbie bathtub I really wanted (and did get!). I enjoy the energy and joy that surround the decorations, the music, the possibility of snow, and the traditional foods that we eat.
I also enjoy having people over, feeding them food I have made, food that’s sometimes been a part of my entire life. That’s my big gift to everyone this time of year– good food and the conversation that goes with it. I believe Jesus would like that, too, as he seemed to impart his wisdom at many dinner tables.
There’s more to the Advent season, the holiday season, than meets the eye if we allow the unexpected to rush through our front doors and give us all an energy boost that comes from within. And fulfills us in ways we never could have expected.
The Transformative Power of Chelle Summer
With Thanksgiving just a few days away, which also means the reflection that I find myself doing for the end of the year, I’m reminded how much creating Chelle Summer has inspired my life. Of course, one might say the inspiration created Chelle Summer, but as the ideas continue to come (several new ones very recently), I find the more I immerse myself into Chelle Summer, the more inspired I am.
But when I take a step back, I also can see the rearview mirror and how much my past has influenced so many things about it. I think of the prints and colors of my childhood, the creativity that was encouraged (and the sewing experiments!) to creating my own style in junior high and high school. Then moving to Albuquerque and my friend Bonnie (who died nearly twenty years ago) and all she taught me about sewing and putting colors and prints together. My first husband worked in credit card processing and most of his customers in the beginning of our marriage were artists so we were often at markets and shows checking on satellite terminals (this was when cell phones were just starting to become mainstream). The list is endless.
Some of it’s about prayer, about asking what I’m supposed to do. Or buying estate sale items and not being quite sure what to do with them until some time passes. Five years ago I couldn’t have imagined I’d have known how to turn so many vintage and tossed -aside items into things like aprons and handbags. I love the joy of taking something that might have been discarded (while also having been stuck in a garage or at the back of a cabinet/closet for years) and transforming it into something someone can use and enjoy. The new life.
There has been a lot of loss in my life and a lot of it came early for me. But I have always tried to use it to turn it into something else, just like I do with the objects and fabrics I find. Chelle Summer has given me a place to do that on a larger scale to share it with more people.
Chelle Summer isn’t just a brand. And it’s not just a lifestyle either. Chelle Summer is where I have found my hope and inspiration to continue to create and share with the world. It's one of many things I’m grateful for this Thanksgiving.
May you have a peaceful and hopeful one
Because God has Bigger Ideas
There isn’t an idea shortage in my head.
That might be the most challenging thing I face– because there are a limited number of hours in the day and I never get to do as much as I would like (at least without getting tired).
But when there are a great many things I’ve been working at that seemingly go nowhere, or don’t go where I want them to go, it’s made me wonder where I’m going wrong. That’s when it occurred to me that maybe there are other things I’m supposed to do.
Are you hearing this? Me, I, me, my idea, this is what I want to do. I see it in my head clear as day, I can feel it, I can touch it. And yet, it doesn’t happen. That’s because God has bigger ideas than I do.
Has this ever happened to you? You don’t just think, you know, you believe, you have bigger ideas. And yet you hold onto too tight to them and they don’t come to fruition. Or they fizzle out.
Try giving it up to God, to ask, to say, “I want to do bigger things. I know you have something bigger in store for me than I can ever imagine.”
That’s when you find out that it’s true, God does have bigger plans for you. Ah, it might not be easy and it might mean you have to step your foot out of that bubble you’ve been standing in too long, but it will be well worth it. And it will be more meaningful because it came from God. There’s a satisfaction in knowing that a greater power brought it to you. Life wasn’t meant to be easy. To grow means to forge forward, to step in places we never thought we would or could.
Be ready. You don’t want to miss the message.
Path to the Future is through the Past
Something always starts to happen this time of year for me.
I know we all would think, because I’m such a summer person, that summer would be the time when things happen for me. However, after the sort of October lull, I’m starting feel the conveyor belt of life underneath me gain speed and things start to move.
And it’s been that way every year as long as I can remember although I usually don’t realize it until I’m already into the thick of it.
This year in particular, I have found myself spending a lot of time contemplating how I got where I am today. While it all started when I asked the question, Where are dreams born?, for my Route 66 Dreams book, I’ve found myself reflecting on that same question for me. I believe it comes from a combination of turning an new decade, the world changing much too quickly (and not always for the better), plus many deaths of people close to me in recent years.
It has all taken me back to spinning around the events, thoughts, clothes, inspirations, and everything else that has led me to where I am today. And where I want to go.
As we get closer to Christmas, to Advent which is a season of anticipation, and my December birthday, it all starts to spin faster and may not come together in obvious ways, but there is much forward movement during the time we’re about to embark on.
While the photo here was taken a few years ago, when I look at it, I see the person I want to be, the person I’ve worked hard to be, the person that I know well (because I’ve taken the time to know myself). The hardest part now is letting go what hasn’t happened– and isn’t going to– and holding onto the dreams I still have, while also continuing to take steps forward to make them happen.
In November and December though, I also take a step back not just from the past year but all the years of my life and see how far I’ve come, where those dreams started, and make continued plans for where I want to go.
Sometimes They Teach Us More in Death
Some things in the world don’t work as I would like them to and I find myself not just having to accept them, but figuring out how to lessen the pain inside me that I can’t have what I want.
I have had a lot of loss. And I’ve had quite a few losses where I wasn’t in close contact with people at the time they died. They were people important to me in some way, but for whatever reason we weren’t in contact when they died. Or they were people who were important to me in some way during one point in my life, but maybe not now. Sometimes I have found out they died when I’ve read the obituaries in the newspaper or when an invitation to a party is returned in the mail.
Those times especially have left me feeling sad that I didn’t get to say goodbye. One particular death had me praying for a period of time, trying to figure out a “place” to put it.
That’s when I realized that sometimes people teach us more after they have died than they did when they were here with us. Don’t get me wrong, I wish they were all here, but, as I said, I don’t get what I want very often. Through what felt like endless questioning and prayer, I finally realized that there is still some way they can be a positive influence in my life. It’s usually with my writing– like maybe the idea for this blog– or something in my fiction.
The key is to keep asking, to stay open, and to keep believing. I do believe everything is for a reason, but we also must be open to that reason. While we don’t always get what we believe we want, there are many other ways that life can fulfill us. Keeping our deceased loved ones close and connected is one of those ways.
Seeking Balance
While I’m usually writing about my challenges with letting go, I’d say keeping a balanced life takes a close second. I’m very aware of it and that’s probably made it easier to spot how much of the world that enmeshes me is also out of balance.
The pandemic threw so much into the mess, a cauldron that was already brewing, and I really, truly believed that the opportunity to pull things back to the middle would happen. Yes, the joke was on me and I wish I were laughing. It’s like the freight trains that were running out of control, suddenly switched paths and started to run out of control. The other way.
While there is much we can’t control around us, we can control our reactions to everything and that’s part of what set off this imbalance that runs the other way. Embracing change is hard, especially when it’s taking beloved aspects out of your life. I know because I’ve lost a lot of them over the past few years. While Ash and I were running this morning, I was thinking about how right before the pandemic I was so excited because things were running in such a good direction. I very much felt like things were where I wanted them to be and I were going where I wanted them to go.
Then, Bam!, it was all gone. I’ve spent over two years looking for the pieces that were swept up in the tornado, some not to be found again and others were so torn up and twisted they weren’t usable and had to thrown out. A new journey had to be started.
But when there is a new journey, it’s hard to find the footing, the pace, the rhythm. That’s where we are now– we’re trying to find where to go on a road that doesn’t exist. That’s thrown the balance out the window because we don’t know what it looks like so it’s gone back a different way, one that doesn’t make sense or feel right.
My hope, although I admit some days have been much harder than others to be hopeful so I try to stay in bubble where at least my creativity and my dogs keep me happy, is that we find our way back to the middle. The world won’t survive if we don’t.
Letting Go = Trusting God
I fully admit that I’m a bit slow when it comes to connecting the spiritual dots.
And I fully admit that letting go is one of my struggles.
There is a sign in an office window at the gym where I swim that says, “Work hard. Pray often. Trust God.” I was thinking about it after I passed last week and I wondered: What would I add to this sign? Did I think it needed something more or was that the message it should be?
That’s when I added, in my head, let go.
But several hours after, I realized that letting go and trusting God are the same. All these years I have struggled to let go and I partly believe it’s because letting go always felt like something I could never accomplish. I mean, really, we talk about letting go all the time but how does one actually do it? I needed an action step for it and I’d never been able to find one.
Now that I know it’s really about trusting God, that actually feels easier for me. Maybe because it’s also a more positive way of putting it. Trusting God is the same as having faith, of being hopeful, of believing.
I can do that. From now on I’m going to remind myself not to use let go, but instead to say, trust, have faith.
That I can do.
A hopeful moon
My head is cluttered with stuff I wish weren’t there. I continue to forge forward because I’m not going to let anything get me down. Yet there is a sadness of a number of recent deaths of people important to me, the continued changes in our world, reaching a new decade in my life and all this change at the same time…the list goes on.
I pray often that I stay in my lane (a track term) and worry about myself, not about what others are doing or the way they have treated me. And I pray for the hope to find my forward even when it feels like so much is stacked against me– some aspects of the world I counted on are not there now nor are some of the people who I enjoyed sharing conversations and experiences with.
This morning I went out to run the dogs and saw the moon bright in the sky. But it was at the pool where I truly saw the moon (it’s much easier to look up in the pool than when I’m running and might possibly run into something or someone). Swimming back and forth,I could see it had a light layer of cloud cover, like a gauzy fabric, but it was close enough and bright enough that I felt as if it were lighting up my travels across the water and back to the other side.
Hopeful moon.
It was there that I was reminded that despite all the sadness, the changes, the things I’m not sure how to weather, that there is always hope somewhere. Often, we just need to be reminded to get out of our heads. Nature is perfect for that.
Persistence
I am on a long, slow road to where I want to be.
I’m well aware of this although I admit some days I get frustrated that things aren’t moving as speedily along as I might like. However, I also know that you keep throwing things out to the world and you keep working at it, chiseling away because one day, well, it has to move forward.
There are days where I don’t feel like I’m moving forward, other days where I feel like I’ve made a huge leap forward, and yet other days where I wonder how I ended up going backward.
I can see now the many lessons life has taught me- often with the help of people along the way– to keep moving, to keep working, to keep chiseling.
In reflection, the biggest lessons came from running cross country and track. As a seventh grader, it was where I learned the art of accomplishing goals without really understanding what I was doing, more it was about learning to run a mile without walking (mailbox to tree to mailbox to the stop sign to the next intersection). That led to learning to run faster, to running a mile in a shorter time.
Those were the lessons I parlayed into the rest of my life and everything I have accomplished. All these years later, I still call on them when I feel like things have plateaued and I’m not getting enough movement forward. I remind myself it’s about not giving up.
After all, we never know where we’ll end up if we keep walking forward.
Where Stories Are Told
I remember standing in the counselors’ offices at my high school just a few days after my sister died, a place they had opened up (there was no school that day because of parent-teacher conferences) if anyone wanted to go talk. I was there because Denise and I had shared the same counselor and I believe she had asked me to stop by.
There were no students there and through a discussion I don’t remember with the other counselors who were there, I remember one saying, “That’s what no one talks about after someone dies- the little things that are important in everyday life.”
She was referring to the fact that I had just said I wasn’t sure who would cut my hair as Denise had been doing it (and giving me perms but that’s another story).
I have always thought about this– we forget how much of life occurs in the routine of everyday life. Someone I know also once said, as the Catholic church ventured into Ordinary Time after Advent one year, how extraordinary things happen during Ordinary Time.
We often believe that the greatest events in our lives happen in the biggest events, but if we take a step back, we see that our stories are told in the routine of our daily lives. This was the case of how I wrote my book, Route 66 Dreams. While, yes, the Danielson family is on vacation, the story is really about those quiet moments on the trip of the changing landscape, lounging by the pool, and going to the laundromat.
I received an email some months ago from a man I don’t know. He said he was a 72-year-old grandfather and had picked up my book to read and thought he would hate it. He said, “You made what could have been a very mundane story very interesting and touching.”
Our stories are being told as we travel through each day because the opportunities, the moments, everything is right there with us. The question is, are we aware of what’s around us to know the story we could tell when we get far enough down the road to look back in the rearview mirror and see it, feel it, sense it?
As a little side note to this, someone else believes I’ve accomplished this, too, as Route 66 Dreams was named a finalist in the New Mexico historical fiction category in the New Mexico book awards contest. Please keep your fingers crossed that the book wins so that in the routine of an ordinary day in the next two weeks, I experience that moment that tells the story of finding out that I won the contest.
The Words to Continue Forward
"In the midst of our rapidly changing and frequently troubled world, her calm and dignified presence has given us confidence to face the future as she did with courage and hope" – Dean of Windsor at Queen Elizabeth II's committal service.
It would be easy to get caught up in the many distractions we face in our world, especially given how challenging it feels most recent days. My glass is usually half full, but there are days I find it’s extra work to keep my focus and combat the distractions around me. The world is changing so much– some were bound to happen, others I didn’t see coming.
Yet we need to continue to forge forward, to find our place in it, and to find our peace. What that looks like for each of us will be different, but it’s there. Somewhere.
Queen Elizabeth II was a steady presence and lived a long life, enduring much we will never understand. The words of the Dean of Windsor echoed through me and her funeral was a celebration of her life and what she leaves behind.
We go on and we do it looking forward just as she did.
Where the Past Meets the Future
It would be easy to look at what I create with Chelle Summer and to think it’s not much more (if you know my age) than a reflection of the colors and prints of my childhood.
But it’s much more than that.
While my sister Denise died by suicide nearly 30 years ago and I have spent a large chunk of the time since then writing and speaking about suicide and suicide grief, the road has taken a turn into another sort of motivation.
Chelle summer is an outgrowth of our childhood together. The photo above was inspired by the Coppertone suntan lotion (as we called it then) bottles. That color combination with the stripes brings back the smell (how ever that’s possible!) in my mind. We loved our time in Holiday Inn and other motel swimming pools; my fibrella lounge chairs take me back to those motels, too.
But it also was about home and Mom who not only shopped carefully for the items to brighten up the house. There wasn’t much money but she made sure we had colors that weren’t dead (her word as in, “The colors in that store were dead.”). My childhood was filled with lots of yellow and green, my Barbies had an ample supply of colors with bright patterns and colors. And this means that Denise had all those things, too.
I surround myself with those colors and prints, plus the versions that stay in my head, ready to be recreated. And having Chelle Summer as a place to put them has brought much joy to my life. It keeps me connected to my parents and my sister in a way I know I wouldn’t have otherwise.
Reflection
My forays to estate sales have reminded me of something– how little time we spend in reflection now because we’re too caught up in our phones and other devices. This probably has something also to do with my having reached a certain age where I’m more aware of the past than I used to be, or maybe because life really has changed that much.
There are two aspects of houses (where people have lived a long time) that remind me how these changes- needlepoints and garage organization.
In the past, men spent a whole more time in their garages– working on their cars, fixing lawn mowers (rather than buying new ones) or fixing a variety of other kitchen appliances (again, rather than buying new ones). They also rewound hoses just right and kept things organized using various leftover kitchen jars (Miracle Whip, baby food, and sometimes even orange juice concentrate containers). The radio might be playing a baseball or football game, but mostly this was all done with the sounds of other lawn mowers running in the background.
Step inside and you might find walls with filled with some sort of needlework or pillows accenting a couch with that same needlework. Bedroom closets might have more kits, some never opened, but with good intentions.
I used to do a lot of cross stitch especially while I watched television. There wasn’t a phone to scroll and seeing these unfinished kits (and buying them!) has made me realize how little time we spend in our thoughts. We’re too busy looking for what’s next on the phone or the internet rather than thinking about a variety of things. And while rumination can be a bad thing, there is a balance of reflection without letting it fester or get the best of us.
One of my goals, especially as the evenings cool and there is less outdoor time, is to scroll less (and I don’t scroll a whole lot as it is) and create more, finish more of these kits, and read more.
I never thought the internet or phone were a bad thing; more that we need to bring them into balance in our lives rather than letting them take over.
Change, change, and more change
Life is about change. I get it. I might not always like it, but I’ve always tried to embrace it because it’s about learning to close doors and open new ones. Each season we travel through offers us likes and dislikes, just as the weather seasons might bring us some things we like and other things we don’t like.
I noticed late afternoon yesterday as I was swimming how the light is beginning to change. The sun feels more golden, the days a bit shorter (how quickly we lose that hour of light we had gained by the start of summer), and the air just a little cooler in the mornings.
While I embrace a bit cooler, I’m already dreading how quickly fall might really come because we never know year to year when it will arrive. It’s like waiting for someone who is driving to visit- you don’t quite know how fast they drive, how much traffic they encountered, or if they had to travel through any construction.
And there has been so much other change in our big collective world that has dripped down into our own worlds. I find myself wondering if there has been that much change or if I’m just old enough to see my younger days as a little big more nostalgic. I really do miss the landline among other things. The simplicity that my parents always talked about, the simplicity of their youth that they didn’t see in what look like our much more complicated lives as I grew up, now feels simple compared to what I see today.
There are good things– there are always good things, things I’m grateful have changed. And yet I still find myself feeling sad for things that have been lost and wondering what I do with the memories that I don’t want to lose.
I always say we have opportunities no matter what’s happening to us and this is no exception. The hard part is being open to those opportunities that might not make sense, at least when they come to us. And finding comfort in the discomfort of change we don’t want to see.
Yet change has always come, at least four times a year as we spin around on our axis. We’ve always been prepared for it. Now we need to use those lessons we’ve been taught our entire lives.
