Tag: life

Big Hike

“A 20-mile hike into the woods requires a 20-mile hike back out of the woods.”

I saw this quote a few days ago and it rang true in so many facets of life – i.e. weight loss, a lifetime accumulation of stuff, having a big family, and the true story of when our eldest son first moved up to New Jersey and decided to ride his manual, 3-speed bike across a bridge, over the river to explore New York City. It didn’t dawn on him until much later that evening, after he had exhausted himself exploring the Big Apple, that there would be an equally long ride back. (we don’t call him our “Absent-Minded Professor” for nothing)

A lifetime friend of mine recently brought up her fears and sadness about the thoughts of us all getting older and experiencing the ailments and losses that getting older often brings. I immediately got defensive and I reminded her that it would not be unusual now, for all of us to live well into our nineties which means we have close to half our lives still to live. “We’re not old!” I practically screamed. And as 50-somethings, we’re really not that old, but we are definitely on the 20-mile hike back out of the woods.

The hike back out is always a little bit easier. You have a better idea of what to expect. You get to revisit areas on your trail, and you get to bypass rocky terrain that you now know exists. You’re more experienced. You usually have better footing on the hike back out of the woods. You’ve already eaten and drank up most of your sustenance, and so you now have a lighter load. You understand more what you no longer need to have with you on the journey back. The hike back out is less about preparation and anticipation, and more so, about truly savoring and taking in what you may have missed on the hurried, restless hike in. You tend to take the hike out of the woods, a little less rushed. You’re a little more tired, but in a good way. You’ve proven to yourself that you have the mettle it takes to make this journey. There’s a saying that people often say with a resigned sigh, “It’s all downhill from here!” but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. When I am on a real hike up a hill or a mountain or an endless staircase, I am always extremely relieved that the way back is “all downhill.” It’s easier. I breathe easier. I feel nimbler and I’m still basking that I made the proud, adventurous climb in and up. Mostly though, on my journey, I’m grateful that so many of the people whom I travelled into the woods with, are still with me on our way back out. And I am so grateful for the new ones whom I am still meeting along the way, and of course, I am always grateful for the ones who always loyally travel with me, and guide me, as I deeply sense their presence, in the spirits of the winds and the birds and the trees.

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

Thoughts for Thursday

+ I just spent the last three days completely crashing. Our son graduated from medical school over the weekend. All of our family joined us in the celebration down in South Florida and I experienced one of my best Mother’s Days ever. And then, as we headed home, the culmination of everything which my family and I have experienced over the last six months or so – engagements!, graduation, hurricanes, trip to Japan, house renovations, the loss of our Ralphie, our epic Labrador retriever, etc. etc., all on top of our predictable and normal, yet busy, every day lives, swept over me like a giant wave and so mostly, I have slept like a shell on the beach after riding the big, big wave. But the weathering has been good. The ride has been a thrill. And I am an intact, shiny shell. I am just taking a little breather in the replenishing sunshine.

+ When we were in Japan last month, we met an adorable, older Japanese couple, while we were sitting next to each other at a sushi bar in the coastal town of Odawara, and although we had a tough time with the language barrier (thank goodness for Google Translate!) we really connected with these people. The husband was a photographer and they asked for our mailing address so that they could send us one of his books. Truthfully, especially as time has gone on, I felt like we probably just had “a moment” with these lovely people and I really didn’t expect to get the book, but happily, a beautiful, and carefully wrapped package arrived yesterday from Japan. The wife handwrote us a lovely letter on delicate rice paper stationery. She wrote it in English! An excerpt from her letter: “We were not able to communicate well do to our poor English, but it was still a wonderful experience to meet you two. Although there are many difficult issues in the international situation, I believe that human interaction is the most important and valuable thing in life.” I have to say that it was very kind of her not to blame our difficult communication on our own non-existent Japanese, since we were visiting her country. What I did love most about our new friend’s letter though (besides the fact that she took the time and care to write it!) was her belief that “human interaction is the most important and valuable thing in life.” In this day and age, when so much is being pushed off on to AI (my daughter, just this morning, showed me a TikTok of people filming ridiculous, glitchy, inhuman job interviews which they were having with AI, and I was struck at how many speakers at my son’s medical school graduation spoke of the vital importance of medicine not losing its humanity, as we sit on the precipice of this AI revolution), I do hope that we remain invested in our valuable and intimate human interaction. I am a believer in progress, but I also believe in constantly balancing and measuring “progress” with our highest values. And hopefully, most of us value, however imperfect it is, our humanity. What makes someone humane? The dictionary says this: “marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals” and “showing benevolence” and “wanting to alleviate suffering”. We, as humans, are able to show compassion and sympathy and empathy, only because we, ourselves, understand what suffering feels like, not just on a supposed, described, intellectual level, but at the deeper level of emotion and actual experience. We, as humans, must remain sensitized. We must remain sentient. We are not robots. We are not flat. We are not one-dimensional. We are difficult, messy, mercurial, emotional, erratic, hopeful, perceptive, deeply feeling, curious creatures and that is what makes life full and robust and interesting and teeming with energy and existence. May we never lose our ALIVENESS.

+ I read an article this morning about menopause by Carley Hauck in a publication called Super Age. This is how she defines menopause: “Menopause is a profound transition that asks us to slow down and listen to the body’s wisdom. To restore what’s been depleted. To reclaim parts of ourselves long buried under roles, responsibilities, or expectations. And ultimately, to rise stronger, wiser, and more whole into the next chapter of life.” I’ve never seen a better definition of menopause than this. No wonder why the word “pause” is in menopause. All you ever hear about menopause is negative or jokey or confusing. I liken menopause to my allegory of being a resting shell on the beach, soaking in the sun. Restoration from depletion. Listening. Honoring our bodies. Taking the pause, before rising again, stronger and wiser and whole, and fully ready to ride the next waves of our lives.

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

The House Don’t Fall

I know that a majority of my readers are mothers. “Mother” is the most important, purposeful, meaningful title I have held in my life. Being a mother, brings out everything that a woman holds inside of herself, out into the open, to the highest degrees. A lot of this that flows out of us mothers, is beautiful and warm and loving and protective and strong. And a lot of this that flows out of a mother, is vulnerable, and sometimes it is fearful and bewildered, and sometimes even angry and scared. When you are given the most important job, a job this is mostly aligned with the purpose of making a better future for the world, and you are given this job mostly just because of your own biological, anatomical birthright, without any real rules or a solid playbook, it can be overwhelming. It can be formidable. It can be staggering, even in the quietest moments of rocking our babes. But we mothers were made for this. It is natural design. Maren Morris sings, “The house don’t fall, when the bones are good . . . ” Most of us mothers have good bones. Really good bones. And because of us, no matter how dire and shaky things can seem to be, out in the world, the house don’t fall.

I am lucky. I get to spend Mother’s Day with all of my four children this year. We are celebrating our middle son’s graduation from medical school this weekend. I feel blessed beyond measure, sharing my greatest love with our precious sons and our precious daughter. I hope that you readers feel this same serene way which I am feeling right now, because you deserve to feel good. You mothers are the good bones of our world. You give structure when everything else seems to be falling to the ground. You hold everything up. You hold everything together. You are strong even when you are brittle. You are strong, even when you are cracked. You are even strong when you are broken. And so this big beautiful world of ours (our shared house), it may seem to crumble, but because of all of the mothers in this world, our house doesn’t fall. Because the truth of it is, “the house” is the ultimate mother.

Happy Mother’s Day, dear readers. I love and I appreciate you all.

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

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. Happy Sunday. Sundays are typically devoted to poetry on the blog and most music is actually poetry. Last night, my husband and I were sitting outside by a fire and at first, we played some background music from foreign countries. We didn’t understand any of the lyrics because the were being sung in foreign languages, and yet the music still made us feel, the music still made us sway, the music still made us share its beat. Music truly is the universal language in this world. (I recently read that there is a sea lion who can bob along perfectly with various percussion beats better than most humans.) We ALL feel vibration. We ALL feel energy. We ALL feel the most unified when we are listening to music that everyone can appreciate. After a while, my husband wanted to get back to his favorite country music playlist and he played Zach Bryan’s Burn, Burn, Burn. I’ve heard the song many, many times, but I never really paid much attention to the lyrics. Last night I really listened to the lyrics. Last night I heard the lyrics. Last night, I felt the lyrics. Let this song be your poetry for today:

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

Crooked Spine?

I had my eyebrows waxed the other day at a shop I had never been to before. The aesthetician who worked on me, I later found out was in her late forties, and she had only been an aesthetician for less than a year, but she did a great job and she clearly had a passion for the work. I asked her what she had done before this job and she said that for years she had been a server at high-end restaurants in Miami. She made a lot of money doing this, but the physical and mental stress was a lot, so during this time, she started taking credits for obtaining a nursing degree. About three quarters into schooling, the aesthetician realized that she did not want to be a nurse at all, so instead she went to school to become an aesthetician. The aesthetician was really personable and easy to talk to (she said that she honed this skill while waiting tables all of these years) and she answered all of my questions about skincare with obvious deep knowledge. For instance, she said that most skincare such as exfoliation or dermabrasion or laser treatments, are really about alerting/tricking/stimulating your own skin (the largest organ we humans possess) to “heal itself”. She excitedly told me about a vast array of products and what works and what doesn’t and the science behind it all. The aesthetician said that her classmates in beauty school were in awe of everything that she already knew about muscular structures, and skin, and nerves – things that they were just learning about. (She said that the Anatomy and Physiology courses that she took in nursing school finally paid off for her.) While conversing with her, it was clearly evident to me, that this woman was in her element. She had finally found her true calling.

At one point, the aesthetician said that she knew that she would lose all of her credits if she didn’t go back to nursing school and finish. She said that she felt like she had wasted a lot of time and money.

“But you found out that you don’t want to become a nurse, right?” I said. “I can see where it would be good to have something to fall back on, but you clearly love what you do. And from what you’ve shared, everything that you did before in your professional life, has brought you to this point, and enhanced your ability to be great at what you do and love, now.”

She smiled and nodded.

Nothing in our lives is in vain if we learn from it. I’ve been reading a lot lately about the importance of being in alignment with yourself and your OWN values – not your family’s values, nor your friends’ values, not society’s values, but to be in true alignment, you must be true to thine self.

Being out of alignment does not feel good. (That’s why there are chiropractors on every corner.) When you are out of alignment, nothing goes smoothly and easily. You always feel a little bit “off.” You feel your intuition pinging you constantly to get back on course, to be with your own true calling and nature. Alignment goes deeper than ego. When your ego is satisfied, it’s often a fleeting thing, that constantly needs another stroke from outside sources, in order to feel good. When you are in alignment with your values and your calling, you are in a state of peace, so that even when that peace sometimes gets rocked by things out of your control, it easily gets back to its familiar state of equilibrium and equanimity.

Are you in your alignment with your true self? If you are living “the shoulds”, or if you are living for “applause”, or if you are looking for things like money and beauty and material items and even relationships to fulfill you and fill all of your holes, then chances are you need an adjustment to get back in alignment with your one true self, in order to feel your best, and to be your best, and to give the rest of the world the best version of you, that only YOU can offer it.

“Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance. “ – BrianTracy

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

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ Yesterday I stumbled across this appetizer serving plate in a store that unfortunately had a small chip in it (as in a crack or break, not a Doritos nacho chip), and they didn’t have any other of these plates for me to buy. It said “Dipshit” and I thought that was totally hilarious. Looking for a similar plate online, I found all sorts of profane and hilarious plates and so I had my own private comedy hour (although I did text some pictures of the plates to friends, to laugh along with me. Laughter is best when it is multiplied.) The one that seemed to get the most laughs from all of us, was this one:

To be funny, humor always has to have a hint of truth in it. Sadly, many of us talk to ourselves this way, even when we are giving ourselves a “pep talk.” For example, the next time that you feel irritated with your mood, and you angrily scream at yourself “Could you just stay in the moment, and be peaceful for once???”, etc. remember this plate, and laugh. Laugh at yourself. Put your inner bitch to the side, and be kind. Be kind to yourself.

+ Our Boykin spaniel, Trip, is kind of a jerk. He’s our jerk and we adore our jerk, but he’s a jerk. Trip is bossy, boisterous, wary of anyone who isn’t family, attention-seeking, snappy, hyper, and overall, mostly obnoxious. His looks are adorable (he’s been compared to Bob Marley if Bob Marley were a dog), and Trip’s fur is luxuriously soft and he is the most affectionate dog whom I have ever lived with in my life (and I have lived with many a dog over the years). Still, overall, Trip is kind of a jerk. And we have mostly accepted this about him, since he is five years old and nothing about his mannerisms have changed all that much. So my husband and I were walking the jerk and the other sweet one (the beautiful, calm, elegant collie) last night, and we passed a man walking his dog, whom we have passed many times on the road, typically just greeting each other with waves and nods, but that’s about it. Yesterday night, the man stopped, just as Trip was pulling my husband in zealous zigzags, just as he does very night, except to occasionally enthusiastically kick up dirt and rocks with his back legs, just for the helluva it – a fun shower for us all. Sigh. The man yelled over to us, “I have to tell you guys that seeing your dog every night makes me so happy. It lifts my spirit. He’s like a happy, busy little kid. You guys are so lucky. He is so full of life. He makes me happy and filled with energy just watching him. Your dog is something special.”

Honestly, that might be the first genuine, amazing compliment that Trip has ever gotten from anyone outside of our family. We are used to the backhanded compliments about him, “Well, at least he looks cute . . . .” Trip didn’t understand the compliment. Nor would he care. Trip was busy putting his nose into a tortoise cave at this point. But I relished the compliment. I relished it because it was a reminder to look for the good in everything. It was a reminder that we all have different tastes in things, people, places, ideas, dogs . . . .and that’s what makes the world go around. It’s what makes the world interesting. The kind compliment was a reminder that a curse can also be a blessing, and that it is best to try to seek out and to focus on the blessing part, whenever we can. It was also a reminder to be like Trip. Trip doesn’t listen to the boos or the cheers (one of the greatest basketball players of all times, Bill Russell was booed almost nightly by racist crowds. His daughter asked him if he heard the boos and he told her this: “I don’t hear the boos because I don’t hear the cheers.” Bill Russell was confident and comfortable in his own skin, He focused on what he did best, and what he loved, and he cancelled out the outside noise. Bill Russell didn’t need cheers to validate himself, and so the boos didn’t phase him.)

+ Here is a poignant quote from the classic 1970s book, How to Be Your Own Best Friend: ” . . . you have to make a very basic decision: do you want to lift yourself up or put yourself down? Are you for yourself or are you against yourself? This may seem like a strange question, but many people are literally their own worst enemy. If you decide to help yourself, you can choose to do the things that make you feel good about yourself instead of the things that make you feel terrible. Why should you do what gives you pain when it is just as easy to give yourself joy?” (To drive the point home, see exhibit one above, “plate.” To further drive the point home, see exhibit two above, “perspective.”)

“Don’t use errors as an excuse to beat yourself up. Use them as an opportunity to lift yourself up.” – Alan Cohen

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

A Must Addition

I know that these reflections of Pope Francis are circulating widely on social media, but I have always looked at my blog as a thought museum. These beautiful reflections are A MUST for the archives here at Adulting – Second Half:

“The walls of hospitals have heard more honest prayers than churches…
They have witnessed far more sincere kisses than those in airports…
It is in hospitals that you see a homophobe being saved by a gay doctor.
A privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar…
In intensive care, you see a Jew taking care of a racist…
A police officer and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care…
A wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant, ready to receive the organ from a poor donor…

It is in these moments, when the hospital touches the wounds of people, that different worlds intersect according to a divine design. And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone, we are nothing.

The absolute truth of people, most of the time, only reveals itself in moments of pain or in the real threat of an irreversible loss.

A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence.

This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people.
Do not criticize your body too much.
Do not complain excessively.
Do not lose sleep over bills.
Make sure to hug your loved ones.
Do not worry too much about keeping the house spotless.
Material goods must be earned by each person—do not dedicate yourself to accumulating an inheritance…

You are waiting for too much: Christmas, Friday, next year, when you have money, when love arrives, when everything is perfect…

Listen, perfection does not exist.
A human being cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here.
Here, we are given an opportunity to learn.

So, make the most of this trial of life—and do it now.

Respect yourself, respect others. Walk your own path, and let go of the path others have chosen for you.
Respect: do not comment, do not judge, do not interfere.

Love more, forgive more, embrace more, live more intensely!
And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator.”
—Pope Francis 🙏

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

I Am

I was going to wait until tomorrow to write this post. For years, when I blogged daily, I devoted Sundays on the blog, entirely to poetry, so that seemed like the apropos day to write about this gem which I have to tell you about. Yet, I’m too excited to wait until tomorrow. Yesterday, I devoured an entire book of poetry. And I’m not a huge poetry fan. The book which I read, is called I Am Maria by Maria Shriver. To be clear, I am not a big Kennedy family follower/fan. I have never read any of the other many books that Maria Shriver has written, but I can honestly say that I Am Maria is one of the best books that I have read in a long, long while. Every woman whom I know and I love, came to mind as I read Maria’s many, various poems. I believe that most women could relate to at least 20 percent of the book and most women would relate to a whole lot more of it. If you are a woman, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, a lover, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a God seeker, you will deeply relate to these honest, raw, vulnerable, authentic poems. It will inspire to open yourself up to your own inner poet. Do yourself a favor, and gift yourself this book. From one of Maria Shriver’s poems:

“I know I have the soul of a seeker.

The heart of a warrior.

The mind of a thinker.

The drive of a visionary.

And the spirit of a wild horse.”

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

Jetlag

I have experienced jetlag in the past, but never has it hit me so hard as it has this week, coming home from Japan. My husband is experiencing the same phenomenon. I spent most of the day Friday, thinking it was Saturday. We both wake up like clockwork around 2 a.m. every night, and we can’t fall back to sleep until 5 a.m. or so. Yesterday when we fell back to sleep, we slept to after 11 a.m. Today I forced the both of us to get up and out of bed at 8:30 a.m., and despite two cups of coffee, I am still in a zoned-out fog.

We experienced the same jetlag when we arrived in Japan, but the excitement and the adrenaline of seeing and experiencing new things kicked in, and waking up early had the added benefit of being the first ones in-line for breakfast. And after walking 22,000 steps a day, sleep was easier to come by (and to stay with) each night.

It doesn’t help that we both caught colds towards the end of our trip (packed cities of people and tourists made this almost inevitable). Colds are the perfect ingredient for making you feel out-of-sorts, cranky and sleepy. I haven’t felt this desirous to just be “back to normal” in a long, long time.

I always say that one of my favorite parts of travel is the appreciation that it gives to you for your own home, and for your own everyday life. I am also feeling an appreciation for my everyday lifestyle/sleep cycle, and I am panging for it to return.

“And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.” – D.H. Lawrence

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

They Both Got Good Ones

This morning on a phone call:

Me: Did you hear that Dolly Parton’s husband died?

My husband: Yes, and when I saw that news I thought to myself, Kelly’s going to dive deep into that one.

He knows me so well. I had already read about a dozen articles about Dolly’s marriage and extremely private husband. They were supposedly opposites, but they loved each other’s company. Dolly called Carl Dean, her husband, her “best friend” and she said that they shared a naughty sense of humor. While Carl Dean hated the limelight and he was, in her words, more of a “loner”, he always supported her decision to be a country music star and everything that comes with that profession. Carl told her that he had picked her, not the lifestyle, and that he would always pick her for the rest of his life. In one video, Dolly (who met Carl Dean when she was just 18 years old, and married him at age 20) spoke of the great comfort it is to come home to someone who clearly knows you, and who loves you for exactly who you are, when everything else is stripped away.

My favorite quote about Dolly and Carl was from a reddit thread from a couple of years ago. One redditor simply said, “They both got good ones.” I think that sums it up perfectly. Maybe for some, that is all that there is, to the simplest, best formula for a happily ever after marriage.

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