I’m assuming that a lot of you are closeted (or not so closeted) book nerds like me. I recently purchased a couple of these sturdy, engraved bamboo coasters for myself from a local bookstore. The maker of these wonderful coasters also has an Etsy shop called “Homemeadeshop” where you can purchase any one of these coasters for $8 each. They are well-made, easy to clean and so far, they are holding up quite well. These coasters make me smile any time I look at them (when I am pulling my nose out of a book). These coasters are my favorites for today, on the traditional “Favorite Things Friday“, here at the blog.
I read a couple of these truisms on Holiday Mathis’ horoscope column this week. I believe that these probably apply to all zodiac signs:
“Don’t try to be likable to all. Be likable to you. You are the one who must hang out with you the most.”
“If you ignore it, and it doesn’t go away, it’s reality.”
And I just read the sad news that Tony Bennett has passed. I remember being so enchanted watching him with Lady Gaga, on a holiday special not too long ago. RIP to a delightful legend.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Meet Bert and Ernie. I just recently purchased these wonderful fellows from a seller on eBay, who lives in the same small town in Pennsylvania (population less than 4,000) where one of my grandfathers grew up. That (and also for their strange, unique, inimitable, one-of-a-kind style) was a huge part of why I chose to purchase “Bert and Ernie” (these aren’t their original names that I know of – I have chosen to give them these particular names so that I can easily refer to them, when my husband and I go plant shopping to fill them, in the near future.) Ironically, when we first moved to Florida, we lived on a street that had the same name as that very same small town, and at that bewildering time in my life, the irony and the familiarity of the street name, felt really special and comforting to me. I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in the adage that “Coincidence is God acting anonymously.” I believe in continuous, comforting signs from parts yet unknown.
I love unusual jardinière. I believe that this love started when I was a young girl and I first read The Secret Garden. There is something mystical and magical about gardens filled with unusual plants and complementary pottery and statues. I believe that everything carries an energy, and everything shares the energy of the Creator and also of all of us, the mini-creators. I love that sensation of adding new energy into a space and seeing and feeling what that new object, or plant, or artwork brings to the overall area and vitality of that space. Of course, I am always at the real risk of clogging my energy with too much stuff. This I know. Still, Bert and Ernie are a great addition. I feel it in my bones. Our garden welcomes them.
“I can’t hear you, I have a banana in my ear!” — Ernie
“Oh, I love pigeons more than anything else in this world… besides oatmeal.” — Bert
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done–then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
****The Answer to your question: Windber, PA (for some puzzling reason people who aren’t familiar with Windber, always have a hard time spelling it . . . .it is “one of those words”)
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
+ ” . . . .you are not supposed to be perfect. And neither is your mom, and neither is your ex, and neither is anyone. We’re not supposed to be perfect. The people you look up to, they’re not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. We’re not supposed to be perfect. We’re supposed to be a mess. So can you be the most authentic, aligned, healthy, well-adjusted version of the mess that you are?” – Jessica Lanyadoo
So the main goal is to be less messy of a mess, I guess.
+ I read that an excellent question to ask yourself is, “Does this really need a response?”
We are such a fast moving society. We often tend to react versus respond to situations, and it is interesting to ponder how much of anything actually even really requires a response. Along those lines I read something the other day that said to allow yourself to go ahead and act on a thought/inclination/idea/impulse, but just make sure that you are actually “acting on” something, and not just “acting out.”
+ I thought that this was a beautiful explanation by the painter, Pete Sandker, about why he paints:
“I remember when I was younger and driving out west with my family and seeing these incredible mountains and waterfalls and groves of aspen trees in the fall and being overcome with this feeling that I wanted to somehow do something about all the beauty I was seeing. Like this feeling I wanted to just grab a whole mountain in my hands and drink the ocean.
. . . . it was almost a sad feeling that I was seeing something like that and then would have to go home and just forget about it and take out the garbage and pay the bills . . . . so now I have this painting thing to channel just a bit of that and feel satisfied that I did something about what I saw.”
This begs the question, what are you doing about all of the beauty that you are seeing and experiencing in the moment, or have seen/experienced in your lifetime? Do you revisit all of the photographs which you have taken? Do you take time to sit and soak in your loveliest memories? Do you look at what your food looks like, and do you spend some time really tasting it, before you swallow? Do you keep mementos from your favorite trips and holidays around your living space to remind you of just a smidgen of the beauty which you have experienced in your own lifetime? Another question I read over the weekend struck me enough to write it on my calendar (and unfortunately I don’t remember to whom to give credit): Where are you directing your energy? Do yourself a favor today, and direct a good amount of your energy towards the beauty. It’s everywhere.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Today’s topic on the blog is going to be tough. Please don’t click on the video below until you read the blog, and then decide for yourself whether you should watch it. The clip is a scene at a Christmas dinner in the incredibly well-acted Hulu television streaming series, The Bear. The scene, featuring the extremely talented actress, Jamie Lee Curtis, contains a lot of profanity, and it could be triggering for some of you, or at the very least, a spoiler for those who are in the midst of watching The Bear.
Emotional abuse is every bit as real as physical abuse and sexual abuse. Often abusers use more than one form of abuse, but emotional abuse by itself is every bit as damaging as physical abuse and sexual abuse, often because it is harder to describe and to explain. There are no physical marks with emotional abuse. No one’s body has been violated. (although emotional abuse tends to go deeper – it penetrates the soul.) Victims are often disbelieved or discounted as being “sensitive” because there is “no proof.” And abusers aren’t always abusing. Physical abusers aren’t pounding their fists on to people 24/7. Sexual abusers typically spend a great deal more time on grooming their victims and everyone else around them, than they actually do perpetrating their vile acts. And most abusers tend to be some of the most charming, interesting people you might meet on any given day. This is part of the abuse. It’s a constant bait and switch, or as some people call it – “the mindf#ck.” It’s known in psychology circles as “the intermittent chicken effect” which is based on a experiment with chickens. Renee Linnell explains it perfectly:
“In a child psychology class I took in college, I learned about intermittent reinforcement. In an experiment, chickens were taught to push a button with their beaks. In one group, each time the chicken pushed the button, a food pellet appeared. The chickens would peck at the button until they were full, then they would stop. In the second group, the chickens got rewarded with food at first but then consistently got nothing when they pushed the button. These chickens pushed the button a few times after the food stopped but soon grew bored and quit. In the third group, the chickens sometimes got a food pellet and sometimes did not. It was random. These chickens pecked the button until their beaks bled . . . and kept on pecking, never knowing if just one more push of the button would reward them with food. The result of the experiment: To strengthen behavior of any kind, use intermittent reinforcement.”
The scene below shows Jamie Lee Curtis’s character, “Donna”, holding everyone in the room hostage to her extreme moods. The entire afternoon, the show portrays how everyone around Donna is tip-toeing, doing everything that they can to keep her “even”. Donna’s friends and particularly her family are walking on eggshells, trying desperately not to set off the bomb of Donna’s extreme mood swings. They are all in a state of constant “fight or flight”, also known as hypervigilance. Their nervous systems have been on high alert all day. When someone has an emotional abuser as part of their everyday life, their nervous systems are usually a wreck because they are always “reading the room”, as if they were in a constant state of a high stakes, emergency situation. This becomes the usual state of being for victims of emotional abusers, particularly for their children, because their children have no choice otherwise. Abusers’ children rely solely on their abusers for their needs to be met. And so they learn to adapt the best ways that they can to manage their precarious situation.
Now when you watch this particular scene (or the whole episode), you can’t help but feel compassion for Donna. Donna is clearly a very sick and sad individual. She seems to have some mental disorders that she self-medicates with alcohol. It’s highly likely that she was a victim of abuse or trauma, herself. Abuse, mental disorders and addiction often go hand-in-hand. The real problem is that Donna doesn’t see herself as the problem. She sees everyone else as the problem, and she views herself as the victim. This is also common of abusers. However, when we excuse the behaviors of abusers, and we allow it to continue in our own lives by pretending it isn’t happening, nothing changes. The cycle of abuse goes on and on, and that’s why the same types of abuse and addictions are often perpetuated continually, throughout many generations of individual families. In the ideal world, Donna would submit to her problems, and get the help that she needs for her mental disorders and for her addiction to alcohol, and her family would get the help that they need for the coping mechanisms (such as codependence, acting out in rebellion, denial, their own addictions etc.) which they created for themselves, in order to deal with Donna’s unhealthy, damaging behaviors. But often it doesn’t go that way. Many abusers don’t believe that they have a problem. Many abusers can’t see that they are the problem. And many families choose to push things under the rug, and go along with the abuser’s illusion that there are no real problems (or that the victims themselves are the real problem), out of fear and sadness and guilt and shame and misguided “love and loyalty”.
I’m grateful for (as vivid and disturbing and upsetting as it can be), The Bear‘s honest portrayal of what many families experience when they have an abuser in the mix. It validates victims of emotional abuse, and with the popularity of the show, it seems obvious that this kind of abuse is more prevalent and relatable than we would like it to be. But by bringing this situation to the forefront, this show creates an opportunity for discussions and awakenings which can lead to healing for many people, and for many families. Long-running abusive cycles can be broken for future generations. Victims of abuse can be victorious cycle-breakers. And in the end, isn’t that a big part of what we are doing here on this Earth – trying to guide and to heal ourselves and each other, on to something better and more hopeful and more wonderful than has ever existed before?
Victims of abuse, I see you. I validate you. I care. You can prevail and be the change.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. I afforded myself the luxury of sleeping in a little – something I rarely do on a Monday. My daughter also brought home a gigantic slice of peanut butter pie (a top favorite of mine) from her work last night, and I have already eaten several bites of it. I think that I am feeling a tad rebellious against typical manic Mondays today. And it’s delicious.
The picture above is “Sassenach”, a Valais sheep. (On an aside, anyone who has ever watched Outlander knows that Jamie lovingly calls his wife Claire, “Sassenach”. However, “Sassenach” is typically a derogatory term for English people, used by the Scots and the Irish. It’s all in the tone you say it in, I suppose.) I have a feeling that this gorgeous sheep is also more lovingly called “Sassenach” because he lives at the lovely Arnbeg Farmstay in Scotland. The Arnbeg Farmstay is on my bucket list. It is a bed and breakfast on a working sheep farm in Scotland. Here is their website:
Until I see this beautiful farm in person, I lap up their posts on Twitter. And as a Monday bonus, here’s another wonderful picture of Valais sheep (I don’t believe that these particular sheep live in Arnbeg). Is there anything cuter?!
Rebel a little this Monday. You won’t regret it.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Welcome to poetry day on the blog. I recently discovered the poems of Jane Hirshfield. She says this about poetry:
“I don’t think poetry is based just on poetry; it is based on a thoroughly lived life.” – Jane Hirshfield
Sheep Jane Hirshfield
It is the work of feeling to undo expectation.
A black-faced sheep looks back at you as you pass and your heart is startled as if by the shadow of someone once loved.
Neither comforted by this nor made lonely.
Only remembering that a self in exile is still a self, as a bell unstruck for years is still a bell.
And this poem below is my own. (Write a poem today, yourself. It will deeply remind you of your own thoroughly lived life.)
Ash – wholly by me
Ash, you were born at a time that I felt a little lost,
And you came out of me, to bring me back to me.
You’re brave and curious and quirky and true,
you’ve helped me to process life and loss and love,
and the everyday banal humming,
along with the unimaginable events,
all of the usual and unusual matters that accumulate,
to make up measured time,
Five years of my lifetime.
Thank you for these five insightful, meaningful, awakening years, Ash.
Thank you for bringing me beautiful witnesses with their own wisdom.
Thank you for being a gentle holder of me and my own posterity.
Thank you for the purpose you give to me in the morning,
And the anticipation that you gift to me when I lie down to sleep.
Thank you for being my playground and my mirror and my muse.
I love you, Ash. Happy Birthday. May there be many more.
******Today is the five year anniversary of Adulting – Second Half (Ash). Thank you for your presence, and your attention, and your precious time, and your loyalty. Thank you for being a part of it all. It means the world. – Kelly
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“I’ve always been skeptical of the staycation. The coinage is too cute for what feels like a consolation prize: While other people are off exploring the Blue Lagoon by camper van, you get to stay in your very own home and go to your usual supermarket for Cheerios!
So I was intrigued to discover, thanks to my colleague Catherine Pearson, that I have been vacationing all wrong. Evidently, my tendency to stumble into time off without a plan is unlikely to produce a restorative effect. Instead, one should imbue the time off with the urgency of a weeklong trip. Jaime Kurtz, a psychology professor at James MadisonUniversity and the author of “The Happy Traveler: Unpacking the Secrets of Better Vacations,” advises asking oneself, “If I were moving away soon, what would I most want to do, and who would I most want to spend time with?” – from a The New York Times article by Melissa Kirsch
This article caught my attention immediately because it took a quote from a professor from my alma mater, James Madison University. (Go Dukes!) Now that we are empty nesters, my husband and I have found comfort in not having to schedule our major vacations during the summer months, due to our kids’ school and sports schedules. Our kids are grown. My husband and I can take vacation any time of the year that we want to vacation. By traveling mostly in the fall and in the spring, we often miss major crowds and major heat. It’s a relief. It’s relaxing.
So essentially, when we have time off in the summer, my husband and I do tend to “staycation”. However, I like the idea of treating a staycation with more intention and preparation. My friend told me recently that she and her longtime partner have made a pact to schedule at least one day-trip a month, to a location they have never been before. There is much less hassle, packing and expense with these day trips and yet they still have the thrill of anticipation, novelty, adventure and escape.
Pick a day this week that you don’t have a lot scheduled and treat it as if it were a vacation day. Use the professor’s question above to help guide you: “If I were moving away soon, what would I most want to do, and who would I most want to spend time with? (and don’t let your practical mind take over with thoughts like, “Well, I would tidy up, dust and start cleaning out drawers”, unless these activities are what you really enjoy doing on your vacations.)
And on an entirely different note, I watched this TED Talk yesterday and it is one of the best TED Talks that I ever watched. For those of you who consider yourself to be creatives (which should be all of you), this is a “can’t miss”:
And final thought of the day from the movie, Wine Country:
“From one old lady to another, get over all your shit, ‘cause it is later than you think.” -Lady Sunshine
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
I had a doctor’s appointment this week and the doctor was probably in her early thirties. At one point she said to me, “You’re young. You’ve probably got about thirty years left.” And that last part took my breath away a little bit (I wish that she had just left it at the first sentence). First, I felt indignant that the doctor was writing me off at age 82 (even though the current life expectancy for women in the United States is 79). And second, she struck my panic button.
“Yikes! I’ve got “a lot of a lot” to pack into my next thirty years (or more, fingers crossed),” I started thinking to myself as I could feel my heart beating in my neck, and at that moment, I started wondering if perhaps the doctor had made a terribly inaccurate estimate, and maybe to the surprise of us both, I was about to stroke out and die, in her office, right there, on the spot. But, thankfully, I caught my breath. I decided to give the woman a pass. She’s a good doctor. These are the kind of dumb things that I said to older people when I was younger, too. Karma is a b*tch.
Since it turns out that I have a good thirty years left in my lifetime, I must take care of my eyes, and so this brings me to today’s favorite on Favorite Things Friday: Goodr Sunglasses. My friend has been wearing a pair of these shades that are amazing looking. She looks absolutely cool and badass when she wears them, and so I asked if I could copy her (since we live in different states). She kindly obliged. Her style is called “Amelia Earhart Ghosted Me”. Goodr Sunglasses were originally created by runners, for runners, so that runners could have more stylish and affordable sunglasses options than were currently available at the time. But these Goodr sunglasses are so good, so light, so comfortable, so stylish, so affordable (and they’re polarized) that even us non-runners are flocking to their website. Check out their website. I am willing to bet you won’t be leaving the website without purchasing at least one pair.
Have a “goodr” weekend than you ever had in your life, friends! See you tomorrow!
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
When I was with my best friends from college a couple of weeks ago, we got to talking about the young girls’ body confidence these days, and the fact that most young women these days often wear, on average, about a third of the body coverings that we wore at their ages. Some of my friends are thrilled with this evolution, some of my friends are struggling with it (especially when it comes to our own daughters) and I, myself, sit somewhere in between these two opinions. I think that it is important to have pride and confidence in the precious, unique vehicles which house and transport our souls. But sometimes it seems to me, that putting so much focus and emphasis on “in your face”, look at my body, look at my body, look at my body, look at my body, puts too much emphasis on physical looks (especially for women) and not enough emphasis on the person as a whole. (which ironically is what I think the whole “body positive” movement is trying to do – bringing the emphasis back to unique qualities of the individual) As in anything, the pendulum always swings back and forth, this I know.
Anyway, I’m not here to debate the merits of any side of this story. I can see all sides which is often the case in my own life, which leaves me in an almost constant state of “muddled-ment” and puzzlement about many things. (An unmade mind is a messy, sleepless, frustrated thing. Sigh.) Today, though, I would like to share this beautiful piece below by the writer, Molly Burford. It’s easy to compliment someone on their looks or their outfits. Take some time today to compliment someone in your life for what makes their own unique spirit so special. Take some time today to compliment yourself about something distinctive that makes you stand out from the crowd (and make sure that it has nothing to do with looks.) I imagine that a lot of these compliments below, apply to you, my readers. Consider yourself complimented and as always thank you for reading the blog. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
+ The medical term for buttcrack is “gluteal cleft.” That actually sounds fancy and sophisticated. It’s nice that we can put a pretty spin on anything with words.
+ I’ve been writing this blog practically every single day for about five years now, so I realize that I am at the risk of repeating my stories. Luckily, there is a search feature on my website, at least at my end, where I can make sure that I haven’t already relayed a story, much like we so often have the habit of repeating our favorite stories to people, in our daily lives. There should be a special word for the action of our loved ones kindly listening with supposed engagement and interest, again and again, to our same favorite stories. It’s a significant word needed that recognizes how important our stories are to us, and yet also encapsulates the patient love from our listeners who recognize our own need for repetition. Our stories make us. Our loved ones understand this, even if they can also repeat our own stories for us, word for word. Any ideas for a word that captures this kind of love?
+And on that note, before I wrote this bullet point, I searched up “Stanley” on my blog listings to make sure that I haven’t repeated this story. This is Stanley:
I was at Nordstrom Rack one evening, and Stanley’s cute little face was staring at me, from a shelf, just like above. He was all by himself, sitting among some decorative candles and fancy toothbrush holders. Stanley is a piggy bank, and piggy banks are almost sacred in my family. Or should I say, lucky pennies are sacred in my family. For generations, my family has saved “lucky pennies” which we have serendipitously found throughout the years, and then we keep them in jars and in piggy banks, in our homes. I have never received a gift of a purse, or a wallet, without a lucky penny stuffed in it, by any of my female relatives. My husband knows that finding me a “lucky penny” on the ground, on any given day, is sure to make him a lucky man. (wink wink) All in all, piggy banks serve as beautiful visual reminders of all of the luck and the abundance which we already have in our lives from the get-go.
The truth is, I didn’t really need Stanley. We already have an austere looking, serious silver-plated rabbit “piggy bank” (who unfortunately, has no name) on our bedroom bureau, and this rabbit wasn’t completely full of lucky pennies at that time (although pretty close). And also sticking with the truth, Stanley was kind of expensive, especially for The Rack. But I had to have Stanley. When I went to pay for him, the cashier was thrilled. I think that she would have excitedly rung a bell, if there had been one, sitting by the register.
“Oh my goodness, someone is finally buying Stanley!” she said with glee, and that is the moment when I realized that Stanley already had a name. “Wilbur” was no longer an option. “Every day, we employees have checked to see if Stanley is still here. He’s almost become a store mascot. I’m not sure what I am feeling right now!”
I promised her that I would take good care of Stanley. And I do. I have already fed Stanley quite a few lucky pennies, as has my husband. (I find myself working harder to scour for lucky pennies, now that Stanley rests next to his buddy – the currently full of pennies, and “full of himself”, rigid rabbit.) I also gave Stanley his decorative headpiece, inspired by a documentary I watched about India’s painted and dazzled elephants. (don’t ask – it makes sense to me) And that is the story of Stanley. Please forgive me, if you have already heard or read this story. Please be patient with me, if I repeat it again. Thank you for witnessing me and my story. Stanley is proudly part of my story. . . . Did I ever tell you about Stanley? . . . .
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
