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Inside of It All

Recently we found out our entire home has to be replumbed. Thankfully we can afford to do it, but the whole ordeal involves days and days of work and several holes in our walls. And to add insult to injury, we also had an emergency electrical situation in which our electric meter started burning. Thankfully we caught it in time and the electric company was able to fix the situation, before we ended up with a devastating electrical house fire.

Ironically, my husband and I had recently done a lot of yard work and we were smugly stating to ourselves just how great our home was looking, with its fresh paint job and cleaned roof. This whole situation got me to thinking a lot about how no matter how great things look on the outside, if the insides aren’t right, this will eventually seep out into the open. We see it all of the time – the billionaires who cheat on their wives (with spies, no less), the family social media influencers who end up in divorce, the priests who end up being abusers, the preachers who end up being crooks, buildings collapsing in major cities, amazing inventions that end up being fake, etc. etc. etc.

We can’t always trust what we see with our eyes. Our intuition comes from deep inside of us. It is usually the best meter to what is really going on. And at a personal level, if we don’t fix what is going on inside of us, it will inevitably seep into our outside lives, affecting our health, our relationships, our faith and our peace, and least importantly, our carefully constructed “images” will be decimated. We humans spend a lot of time working on our individual overall “image” and then carefully projecting that desired image out in to the world, through various mediums, but facades are flimsy. If there isn’t a real, true foundation holding everything up securely, the mask eventually always falls to the floor.

“The truth always comes out in the worsh (translation – ‘wash’).” – my grandmother

“Words that spill from your mouth reveal your inner character. Have a taste of it before you spit them out.” – Larcylouize

“A healthy outside starts from the inside.” – Robert Urich

“Who looks outside dreams, who looks inside awakes.” – Carl Jung

“If you get the inside right, the outside will fall into place. Primary reality is within; secondary reality without.” – Eckhart Tolle

“Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” – Anne Lamott

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Decency

To be clear, I am a registered Independent voter and I deeply love and respect the Republicans, Democrats and Independents in my small, intimate circle of family and friends and neighbors. Somehow, we all have managed to agree to disagree, to understand that we all have different political issues that are the closest to our hearts, and never have we been unkind nor brutal nor disdaining of each other for seeing things in different lights. I have learned so much by listening to others’ insights, even when I disagree with them. Sometimes I have even had my mind changed. Never have I allowed politics to interfere with the bonds that I hold dear.

This has never been a political blog, nor will it ever be. I will take down any hateful, disrespectful, political comments. There are plenty of other forums available for that nonsense. That being said, I can’t ignore what happened on Tuesday. It makes me believe in democracy and the power of the people again. It makes me believe that above all else, there is an enormous group of people who want to get back to decency, and to the issues that most deeply affect the group as a whole, even when we disagree on how to address these issues. In reading about Tuesday’s results, these are the quotes that resonate with me:

 “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” – Proverbs 16:18

“Character is destiny.” – Heraclitus

“We need to ask the uncomfortable question: Is making something easier always a good thing?” – Spencer Rascoff (on the ramifications of AI)

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen R. Covey

And from Isaac Paul and The Tangle (a newsletter that tries to understand and explain both sides of the table):

“Speaking of messaging, the economy is still king.“

“Decency is about to make a comeback . . . . I think what we saw last night is a good reminder that you can run on decency and still win.”

“Colom is the same candidate who stood in line at Trump rallies, met the president’s voters, asked them about their concerns, and talked to them like human beings rather than try to prove them wrong or mock their positions. His race is yet to be called, but he may actually flip the seat blue. This is good politics.”  (Scott Colom is the Democratic candidate who is still in the running to be an elected senator in the deep red state of Mississippi)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

I Choose You

Happy 32nd wedding anniversary to the love of my life, who has always, always made me feel like I am the true love of his life. There is no greater gift in my life than you, and everything that has come from my union with you: our family, our adventures, our memories, our pets, our homes, our plants, our dreams, our friends, our laughs, our history and even our trials. I ALWAYS choose you. Always. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Wednesday’s Whimsies

+ Like so many, my husband and I went to see the movie, You Can See Everything this past weekend. Our kids liked it better than we did (it’s three hours long, which for middle-aged people who frequent the bathroom, is just too long), but the film certainly raised some interesting questions. I couldn’t help going down some rabbit holes about the movie, about Theranos, about Elizabeth Holmes, and about what makes any of us susceptible to deception and fraud. The movie makes you question whether Elizabeth Holmes is deliberately manipulative and deceptive, or whether she is living in her own made-up reality, and has deceived herself as much as anyone else.

One podcast I listened to about the movie, was a panel of mental health professionals. They were debating about what circumstances which would have helped to “create” an Elizabeth Holmes (the usual nature versus nurture debate), but the more interesting part of the conversation to me, was about why any of us are easily deceived. (Theranos bilked “smart” investors out of billions of dollars, even when there was no obvious proof that its blood-testing machines had any efficacy at all). Who, in their lives, has never been a victim of some level of fraud or deception? Most of the experts seem to come to the conclusion that the reason why even the “wisest” among us, can get duped, is that we humans are very attached to our own stories and narratives. We want to believe what we believe, and we don’t want to have to make any changes to the narratives which we have created. Facing reality could force us to have to make hard decisions in our lives, which we aren’t prepared to make. Facing reality can make us face hard truths about our own selves, and a lot of the times, our fragile egos just can’t handle this. The stories we tell ourselves serve us well. They make us feel safe and in control. Sometimes the lies that we tell ourselves are so entrenched, that on a conscious level, we truly believe the lies told to us, or the lies we’ve told ourselves, even when the irrefutable facts sit right in front of our faces. So, in this sense, are we all simultaneously living out own little realities (as marketers know – Perception is Reality)? We all could be experiencing the exact same circumstances in the physical world, and yet our perceptions of these experiences is what actually makes each of our own realities true to us. Maybe we are all living in our own little worlds?

The mark of a good film is that it makes you think long after you’ve seen it. In that sense, You Can See Everything is a good film. At least that is my reality for now (truthfully, right after I saw it, I didn’t honestly think it was that good of a movie). A good reminder to protect ourselves from all sorts of deception, is knowing that we can always change our minds.

+ I’ve used the catch phrase on my blog for many years now -” Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.” The other day I saw it worded in a different way that made its meaning even more clear to me:

“Your trauma isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility.” In other words, how the pain in your life (and we all have pain) arrived at your doorstep, often isn’t your own fault, but how you choose to alchemize, heal, react to and repair your pain, is your onus. We can all leave the world a little bit better, if we work to heal our own individual pain.

Saturday’s Soliloquies

“Years ago, someone said that I was a character actor locked in a leading man’s body. I thought that was a wonderful compliment.” – Tom Skerritt

+ I’ve mentioned the Daily Sparkles book on the blog before. Yesterday, one of the “daily sparkles” was: “Someone complimenting you in a way that makes you feel seen.” I had just read the actor Tom Skerritt’s obituary and his quote above, put me in mind of what this daily sparkle really means. Obviously, that particular compliment meant so much to Tom Skerritt that he never forgot it. He repeated it in interviews. It’s easy to say, “Cute outfit” or “You’re funny” and no one hates to get any compliments, but a really well thought-out, genuine compliment about what makes someone unique and special and makes them stand out – that kind of a compliment will be one that a person will keep for a lifetime. What a gift!

+ The other day I used Claude (AI) to format pictures on to a sheet of paper. I wanted four photos to be on the same page. At first, I went to Word to try to format it, but then it dawned on me to try to use Claude for the task. Claude did it in less than a minute, perfectly. I was telling my kids about this, and my one son seemed genuinely shocked that I managed to do this. “Good job, Mom,” he said with a noticeable tinge of shock and awe in his voice. “Why are you surprised?” I snapped back, feeling a little bit annoyed and patronized, but then I thought about the many, many times as my kids have grown up, how utterly impressed (and sometimes even surprised) I am to see them easily navigate tasks like getting car loans, setting up overseas travel, and even managing to put their laundry away neatly. I suppose all generations have a little bit of smugness about our own “special” abilities and wisdom, and we sometimes get antonished to see that there is a lot of crossover in the territory of being humans. Another Tom Skerritt quote seems apropos to this point: “I’m not a big star in Hollywood. I’m not a big star anywhere. I’m a human.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Thoughts for Thursday

+ Yesterday, I read a fascinating article about Erling Haaland, the famous Norwegian footballer (soccer player) who quickly became an American darling when he was competing for Norway, in this past summer’s World Cup. Erling Haaland, at 6’5″ is often compared to a viking, or the character “Thor”, with his long blond hair and distinctive look. If you still don’t know whom I am talking about, think about the guy seen leaving America, entering an airplane, with a stuffed raccoon with a liquor bottle, which he had proudly purchased in Texas. A man after my own heart, Haaland is known for his vast collections of many different things. When asked about this, he said, “Everything I collect kind of has a memory in it. It sounds stupid, but it just gives me a kind of joy.”

It’s not stupid, Erling. Joy is never stupid. And this is what he said about the joy that he found in America and Americans:

” . . .We don’t understand how big, actually the U.S. is in terms of size, the people, and everything. . . I went to a place I didn’t know much about, but the way people were and how kind they were, and how happy they were . . . How they look at life was just fantastic.”

This thrilled me, particularly in a time when there seems to be so much cyncism about America and the direction which we are going in. Our institutions have deserved and earned a much-warranted critical eye, but our real strength in America, lies in our many, many diverse people, and in our vast, beautiful land. I recently read that skepticism is healthy and wise and discerning, but it remains open-minded. Cynicism already has its derisive, pessimistic mind made up. Sometimes seeing how others look at us, reminds us of who we really are inside. Our visitors saw we Americans, as kind, happy, and optimistic. If you need reminded about who YOU really are, ask your loved ones how they see you. Don’t be a cynic about what they say is amazing and unique about you. In fact, don’t even be skeptical about it. Use it as a template to be your best self, always. America showed its best self to our World Cup visitors this summer, and we all got to savor and revel in, what we saw reflected back to us.

And the final gem which I got from this Erling Haaland interview was what his favorite football manager told him to do in order to become, and to remain a great footballer:

“Do it with passion. When you’re working, stay fully focused. But when you’re done working, think about something else. Don’t think about football. Think about whatever, just not football, so you don’t get tired of it.”

This is such a good reminder that you can suffer burnout, even from the things that you love to do. As always, the best advice gets whittled down to Stay In the Present Moment.

+ And a new one for our thought museum, here at Adulting – Second Half:

“When you protect your purpose, your purpose protects you.” – Jay Shetty

I’m still thinking about this one. I would love to get your takes on this quote, in my Comments.

Have a fabulous weekend, my friends. If you’ve missed my blogging, it’s because I have been busy with organizing and cleaning out – a project that got put on the backburner with the many big celebrations our family had this year. This feels good to me. As one, like Erling Haaland, who loves to collect things, this project is a relatively daunting one, but the joy of it, is experiencing the memories once again, attached to various objects. (Don’t worry, I don’t keep everything. I don’t feel attached to dirty paper bags or broken beach chairs.)

Most important, remember the assignment: Without a cynical (or even a skeptical) eye, ask your loved ones what is best about you, and believe it, and live up to it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Shine

I had to start another new inspirational notebook (the one on the left is totally full). Here are some goodies that I have added to the new one (orange one, on the right):

“There’s a difference between conversing and broadcasting.”

“Not on one strand are all of life’s jewels strung.” – William Morris

“Happy Lightning – a sense of intense joy and gratitude that strikes all at once.” – Allen Levi

“Beauty is not fact.”

“Life does not need us to get things done.” – Cheri Huber

From the Kelly Corrigan podcast:

“Rename the grind and the grind gets lighter.”

“Once is a incidence, three times is a pattern.”

“Good help rarely announces itself as good help.” (This put me in mind of an unusual person whom my son and his girlfriend recently randomly met. They got “red flags” when she kept telling them that she was a “good person”. My son said to me, “Most good people don’t feel the need to tell you that they are good.”)

All of the rest are Cassandra Tyndall:

“Starve your distractions and feed your purpose.”

“Nothing that arrives on a silver platter lasts forever.”

“Do you just go where the wind takes you? If you keep ending up in familiar places, then you may need to adjust the sails within.”

“Not everyone is going to understand you and not everyone even wants to understand you.”

I’ve spent the last few weeks resetting my nervous system. Throughout this entire year there has been so much build-up and anticipation, with two weddings and a graduation. No wonder why I was having neck issues, I was “wearing my shoulders as earrings,” as my new physical therapist pointed out (and she also pointed out that shoulders do not make for pretty earrings).

I have a text chat with the young ladies in my circle (my daughter, my daughter-in-laws and my youngest son’s girlfriend). We were sharing what the themes of our week had been so far. The overall gist: “You can’t do everything. Take a breath before you proceed and prioritize what is ACTUALLY urgent.” Ladies, you make me proud.

“Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.” – J.K. Rowling

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Lessons from Dolls

I mentioned on the blog that I have been buying some of my old toys and dolls from my childhood, from eBay. It’s been a fascinating experience, that has lead to a few research rabbit holes for me (my specialty – pointless rabbit holes). Anyway, I’ve gleaned a few unexpected lessons from this exercise. First lesson, if you think that we, as the world, have one universal beauty standard, it is interesting to note that the Barbie doll (started in 1959) has had literally 100s of different “face molds” since her inception. Avid collectors have names for each of these “molds”. If you look at some of the old molds, (and the big haired Barbies of the 1980s), you fully understand that our societal ideas of beauty change constantly. So, I say, wear your own “mold” and wear it proudly. It’s your mold and it’s one-of-a-kind and it’s beautiful. Second lesson, no matter how much you try to preserve something, it ages. I have purchased some old dolls which people clearly thought, one day, were going to be worth millions of dollars. (Spoiler alert – they mostly aren’t. In fact, I’m sad to report that I have purchased some decades old dolls, still in their pristine boxes with their original price tags intact, for less than the price that was on their bright orange, Kay-Bee price tag, even the ones that had been marked down on clearance) The crazy thing is, you pull out a decades-old toy or a doll from its original packaging, that has clearly been stored and preserved carefully for decades, out of the sunlight, never removed from its box, and yet, the doll is still old. The doll is still fragile. Her limbs are loose, her hair is crunchy, her face glow has faded, and some of her accessories crumble instantly away, in a poof of dust (note to self – pleather, which has been cleverly remarketed in modern times as “vegan leather” does NOT age well at all).

So in the end, I realize that no matter how hard you try to fight it, you’re aging. We’re all aging. So do we really want to live out our lives, carefully, hidden in a box?? If we do this with the idea that we’ll “age better”, I think that’s a farce. Overall lessons from my current obsessive rabbit hole: Own your unique mold proudly (it has a name), love it, and remember it’s beautiful enough that people would try to hold on to it for ages. Also, life is boring and wasted, sitting in a box. No matter how hard you try to preserve yourself, you’re still aging, whether you like it or not, box or no box. And the final important lesson: Don’t get too attached to your assessories (especially if they’re made of pleather) – they turn to dust, just like we do.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Wicked, Installment 5

Hilda: Well, Zelda, you’re looking a little pale, almost like you just saw a ghost. Say what’s with the guy sitting next to you?

Zelda: I don’t know, Hildy. He seems a little handsy . . . and also a little clumsy. I’ve never seen a guy wearing so many bandages.

Hilda: Well, Zelda, he appears to be reaching a little high. You know what they say about getting older . . .

Zelda: Why, Hilda, you dirty old hag, you. (cackle, cackle)

Hilda: I was referring to the fact that you have shrunk with old age, Z.

Zelda: Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not short on, Hilda . . . corny jokes!! Ready, ready?? Why don’t witches wear baseball caps?

Hilda: (sigh)

Zelda: Because there’s no point in it! Get it, get it? Baseball caps don’t have points. Next one, next one . . . . What do you call a witch with chicken pox?

Zelda: An itchy witchy!!!! (cackle, cackle)

****Dear readers, I am sad to report (although you may not feel too sad about this) that this is likely the last installment of the Wicked Chronicles. Hilda’s and Zelda’s facial features are made of metal that you poke into the hard rind of pumpkins. Over the years, the posts on the features have gotten rusty and weak. Several of the back posts have broken off. We’ve had Hilda and Zelda for at least fifteen years and I’ve always appreciated that they kept our pumpkins better intact than had we carved them early, here in hot, humid Florida. I’ve always also appreciated their inspiration for a little Halloween fun on the blog.

RIP – Hilda and Zelda

“Go to hell!” —Billy Butcherson
“Oh, I’ve been there, thank you. I found it quite lovely.” —Winifred Sanderson (quotes from the movie Hocus Pocus)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Legacy

Our long-term dentist (Dr. C) called me over the weekend. He told me that he is retiring and he has sold his practice to a younger man, whom he feels really good about taking over his practice. Dr. C will continue to consult the new, younger dentist, when asked, but at the age of 66, Dr. C is ready to retire from dentistry. Dr. C asked me to come to his office to have a meeting today with him, to meet the new dentist, and to have any questions answered. Dr. C emphasized that his current, loyal staff (an entire staff whom Dr. C once paid to take on a group trip to Italy) plan to stay on board, which was of vital importance to him. Without a doubt, I am going to the meeting.

My husband and I first met Dr. C in a meeting much like this, about a decade ago, when our former dentist, retired quickly and quietly, as he sold his practice to a private equity firm, much to the surprise of his patients and to his loyal staff. We still had all four kids at home and we felt “left in a lurch” as we searched for a new dentist, in a time when all four of our kids (some still in braces), all still needed to have their wisdom teeth removed. Dr. C required meetings with any new patients coming into his practice, so that he could describe his qualifications, his philosophy, and to answer any questions about his practice. We found this to be unique and maybe even a little curious, but when we sat down with him, we instantly felt impressed and in good hands. Nothing changed about that throughout the years. Dr. C was sort of a “dentistry geek”, always staying up with the latest technology, and happy to show off how his new “gizmos” worked, to anyone who asked. For years, he implored me to get a mouth guard to sleep with at night, insisting that it is teeth grinders like me, breaking teeth like glass, who really keep him in business. And in truthfulness, for a long time, my stubbornness and my refusal to try a mouth guard, I’m pretty sure helped Dr. C buy one or two more gizmos for his practice. And yet, true to his advice, when I finally relented on wearing a mouth guard at night, I have not broken any teeth since. Still, Dr. C never chided me nor shamed me about this. He was never one to force any treatment on his patients, insisting that our bodies were our own business, and we knew best what was right for ourselves. He explained that he was only our trusted, educated advisor. Dr. C treated all our family’s mouths, until each kid grew up and moved to different areas, and now my husband and I are the only two patients left. A family of six brought a lot of business to his practice, but yet, Dr. C still reached out to me this weekend, as a courtesy and a kindness he was extending to all of his longterm patients, and to the new dentist, to make this transition easier for all.

What a complete difference between two dentists, who were undeniably good at their trade, but took two entirely different approaches to retiring, and to leaving their legacies behind! Dr. C has been hinting at retiring for years now. I had long accepted that we did not have another decade of treatments from him. He brought into his practice, a young woman who had recently graduated from dentistry school and spent years, training her and mentoring her with the idea that she would purchase his practice from him, when the time was right for all. His patients and his staff were well aware of this. However, life happens. His protégé got married and started a family and realized that owning and running a busy dentistry practice was not going to work in keeping the balanced life which she was envisioning. Our dentist completely understood this, as a father himself, and so he searched carefully for another competent buyer of his practice.

In contrast, our original dentist had been completely mum on the subject of retirement, so I was as shocked as his staff was, when all of the sudden their practice became part of a nationwide “chain”. Not suprisingly, when the dentist left, the practice fell apart, the staff scattered, and the old dentist office is currently a tax preparation storefront.

When we think of legacy, we often conjure up the statues, and the names on buildings, and the scholarships given by “important” people. But anyone’s true legacy, is not how strangers will “remember” you from a few trinkets (big or small) left behind, but how the people you knew in your daily life will remember you. How you treat living your life, and the people in it, is your true legacy. People feel kindness. People notice and respect integrity and competence. People who live well, inspire others to do the same. In the 1997 movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson’s character famously tells his love interest, “You make me want to be a better man.” Someone who leaves a great legacy, makes us all want to be better people. Dr. C is not just leaving his practice in the hands of a new dentist. He is leaving his legacy to this dentist. These are very big shoes to fill. Still, I have no doubt, that with the great consideration Dr. C has given to his practice, to his staff and to his patients, he has chosen a solid successor. Without even meeting the new dentist, I am already certain that Dr. C has chosen a replacement to take over his practice, who is inspired to be even better, thanks to Dr. C’s admirable legacy.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.