Life is a grand traverse

I’ve been away from the page. I’d love to say it was because I was in the places of my heart like the Grand Canyon or the magnificent mountain territory of Wyoming or on a long highway under the wild Montana skies. 

Nope. Those away destinations remain in my shoebox full of dreams called a bucket list.

I’ve been away from the page because inner nemeses I haven’t seen or felt in my life in a long, long time sideswiped me. They showed up unannounced, and overstayed their unwelcome. They skulked around in my neck of the woods, stole my sense of things and buried it in the manure pile behind the barn.

And the biggest mistake I made was trying to deal with these buggers all on my own. I kept my mouth shut and my head down and I got sideswiped and all I did for a long while was focus on the obstacles in my life instead of the magic.

I can only describe my recent away by falling back to writings of how I felt about 20 months ago. There’s no sense trying to reinvent the wheel.

In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine, Bruce Springsteen said, “I have a metaphor [for life.] “I say, ‘You're in a car. Your new selves can get in, but your old selves can't get out. You can bring new vision and guidance into your life, but you can't lose or forget who you've been or what you've seen.’”

Springsteen is right on the mark.

A well-meaning friend said I was a “hurdler.” I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. Am I the type who meets life’s challenges with fortitude or am I the poor sap who despite best efforts is constantly faced with challenging obstacles. Hmmm. Maybe I’m both.

Recently though I felt like the latter.

I was wearing that long, flowing black cape again. It’s at least two city blocks long and it was there all the time, double-knotted around my neck and complete with arm sleeves that prevented it from being mislaid.

My cape was there with me in the shower, it covered my pajamas at night, and lay around my feet at the kitchen table each morning during breakfast.

Even when I was driving in my car my cape followed behind me billowing in the wind and as soon as I slowed down it snapped to a stop and fell in around me.

I know this black cape to be one of the many faces of grief and regret and as much as I wanted to rip it off, soak it in gasoline and burn it; I still have much to learn from this unexpected bounty hunter.

Self care is something I thought I knew about. I don’t use white sugar or salt, nor for the most part do I eat processed or fast foods. I have good sleep habits and I wear sunscreen.

But there is so much more to self-care that I still have yet to learn—like slowing down in life and giving myself more attention than the me, who is the caregiver of others, thinks I should.

Self-care also is asking for help, seeing a counselor, or calling a friend when I’m lonely or sad.

Self-care is about stopping everything I’m doing for everyone else and sitting down and taking off my mask and having a good cry.

Self-care is clearly about giving up control and allowing life to teach me what I need to learn. This unfolding Universe is showing me that over and over again.

I wonder why it is that those of us dealing with loss put ourselves on the back burner when we need help and recovery from grief. To continue to recover from loss shouldn’t be any different or delayed than getting a car windshield repaired after a rock splits it.

You need that car to get you where you need to go the same as you need your mind and your body and your spirit to get you where you need to go.

I was mouth shut, head down.

And then someone—a perspective changer of sorts—with a keen and wise sense of things asked me how I’ve been feeling lately.

Every story starts with that first word, maybe three.

I’ve been away.

A salute to sailing and connections

One year ago I wrote a column about the Rendezvous Yacht Club’s annual fall cruise and ended it with “Hurry up Spring 2013 so we can go sailing again.”

Here I am, fresh off the lake from the 2013 fall cruise and dumbfounded by the rushing river of time that has swept another season’s worth of sailing adventures—over a very short summer—into the history books.

On my way to the sailboat on Friday afternoon I had a skip in my step. I whistled a tune from ‘Great Big Sea’ and synced my soon-to-be boat legs to the beat of the music.

And then I caught a glimpse of the white caps boiling on Sand Bay and a strange chill of déjà vu “shivered in me timbers.”

Mother Nature had thrown a cold, windy party for my inaugural fall cruise last year. I had watched the temperature slide into the belly of winter, I had grown an extra layer of hair on my legs and strapped on some brave counsel to ready myself for the trip I expected would rival the Franklin expedition.

Surely the big mama of daily forecasts wasn’t about to repeat that scenario and make me think I was off my rocker for the second time.

It’s amazing what a handsome man can do to my resolve. I took one look at him standing there on the boat smiling at me, and I didn’t care if the seas were rolling.

So there I was sailing away from shore, loving every minute of it, bobbing up and down like a duck, clad in the same pathetic mismatched little rain suit as last year that I’d found hanging in the barn where it had been collecting pigeon feathers since 2006.

By the time we reached the first anchorage of the weekend, the wind had flipped my hair into the upward bouffant of a vintage Russ Troll Doll, and I was cold, but hey, I was in the sea of no cares.

Insert smile here.

Once again, Robert Service came to life around the mighty campfire through the magnificent voice of a fellow sailor. The recital of “The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill” filled us up and laid open the importance of the old traditions of reading really good poetry from books out loud among adults. Awesome.

I did not however kick Mother Nature’s booty this year and go for a late September swim in a cold lake. But I did try the whiskey. Oh Lord. Whose idea was that anyway? My head still hurts.

Insert jolly roving laughter here.

I also got the chance to test my budding helmsman skills when I managed to carry the sailboat along at over 6 knots, heeled over and “Hold on Tight!”

I have a very good nautical teacher. But then again, I do come from the sea-faring stock of the Davis clan from Newfoundland. Insert ancestral pride here.

Thank you sailors for enriching my summer. Thank you for this day and that, and the want to do it all again next year.

Melody Beattie says we should revere our connections. “We are dependant on much around us, not just for our survival, but for our joy. We need food, water and the company of our fellow travelers on this great journey.”

I continue to grow into a better woman through all the friends who are connected to my world, be you a roving tar or not. All, and especially you, sir, make the journey a thankful one.

Life is so very much better when it’s shared. This I know for sure.

Life is a Fiesta

 I own a brand new car and I made that dream come true all on my own.

I wrote the above sentence with some reluctance because I didn’t want to toot my own horn.

But what the heck.

I deserved 110%, the shiny new wheels filled with nitrogen, the new car smell, the voice recognition software, and the lickety split zoom zoom!

Heaven knows I’ve had my share of things in life that I don’t think I deserved. Something tells me I’ll be working on accepting acceptance of those crummy things for a long time to come.

But let’s get back to the car. That little gem is my self-gifting reward for working hard and keeping my accounts payable paid.

I will admit, though, that I played dodge ball umpteen times with the dream-stealing side of my conscious about buying a new vehicle.

That inner dream stealer has been known to shame me into denying myself some of life’s greatest pleasures—most of them much simpler and more affordable than a new car.

I think the dream stealing shadow is up for counseling alongside accepting acceptance of crummy things.

But let’s back to the car. I have affectionately and—yes—somewhat geeky, named her “Lola,” and she is the epitome of what I always imagined my personal entertainment chauffeur would be. I talk; “Lola” listens, and I get hands-free technology. Voila. 

After I bought “Lola” and showed her to my parents, my mother said, “I think that car was made for someone like you.” Yes Mother it was.

I clearly remember as a kid wishing my future would include music that could be triggered by voice commands.

In fact, I’m quite sure I invented the idea long before techno-genius and American business magnate Bill Gates got into the computer business, but I can’t prove it—sort of like that big fish I caught in 1979 that no one saw but me.

   

But let’s get back to the car. “Lola” came into the picture on the heels of a really great gal called “Old Buick,” whose time was limited by crusty rust and body parts that were starting to fall off.

“Old Buick” had had a motor replacement last fall and although she still ran the highway like a charmer, the choking and hesitant cough of her daily turn over was a sure predictor of a functional seizing stroke on an imminently cold and bitter January day.

I was driving “Old Buick” home after I’d given the nod to the car dealer to draw up papers to buy “Lola,” and I was clouded over by a true and genuine sadness at the thought of passing “Old Buick” on to an unknown future as part of my trade-in. I was going to miss the old girl.

“Old Buick” had carried my limping soul through those really crummy times of my life. She had been the “go to” when I just needed to drive and cry. She had seen me through those times and got me safely home again.  

I also was driving “Old Buick” when new visions of better times started to peak through. “Old Buick” drove me down the road to new chapters and a new beginning. 

I felt really sad about letting her go.

It’s a funny thing to get so attached to an inanimate object like that. The wherefore and the why of it is a long case study in what makes me who I am. That education class is never ending.

No word of a lie, before I turned her in at the dealer I told “Old Buick” out loud what she had meant to me and how much influence she had had on me and I thanked her for carrying me through. And then I let her go.

And when I drove “Lola” off the car lot that day, all I could think about was how much possibility lie ahead of me—and then I said out loud—“Play Bruce Springsteen.”

Glory days indeed.

I am Beth the Brave

“Yes is for young people, Yes is for young people,” I chanted reassuringly to myself in the bathroom mirror as the hair dye oozed through my plastic-gloved fingertips.

A lumpy trail of Vaseline jelly was layered across my forehead at the hairline and down around my ears to save my skin from turning the color of cinnamon sticks.

My hair looked like a science experiment. I prayed no one came knocking at the door.

“There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear,” I said to the me who wasn’t so sure this “at home” follicle re-pigmentation project was a good idea.

The instructions said to leave the goop in for 10 minutes. Did that include the 10 minutes it took me to work the stuff into my extra thick long hair? And what about the intolerable wiry grey I wanted to get rid of?

I read the instructions again.

“For resistant grey hair, you may need to leave colour on for an additional 5 minutes, or longer than a total of 15 minutes.”

Little did I know at that moment that I misread the instructions and had just invited remorse into the room.

 “for no longer than a total of 15 minutes,” was a crucial part of the recipe.

It was a misread, misinterpreted, misjudged, mistakened, missed by a long shot, BIG MISTAKE!!

After 25 minutes I peeled the plastic bag off my head, leaned over the tub and rinsed out the leftover dye with the shower hose.

The warm water felt so good on my tender scalp rudely marinated in wordy ingredients I could hardly pronounce—‘Methylresorcinol’, ‘Soytrimonium’ and ‘Ethoxydiglycol’ to name three of the some 20 chemicals listed on the box.

“And what are ‘Oleth 2’ and ‘Oleth 5’? Movie sequels?” I queried out loud.

I should have kept my eyes shut as I washed the dye from my hair, but I didn’t.

I opened my eyes--and then opened them wider--as I watched the rinse water flow off my head in a fiery red color and promptly stain the bottom of my tub before swirling down the drain.

It felt like a lifetime passed before the water ran clear. As I waited I chanted to myself the score of positive thinking I’d preached from last week’s column.

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

I wrapped my long head of hair in a towel and squeezed. I prayed. I closed my eyes and fumbled my way over to the bathroom mirror; stood there and said, “Go forward. Finish what you start. Don’t look back.”

I took the towel off my hair and peaked out of one squinty eyeball. At first glance it was like one of my old Scottish ancestors was staring back at me.

I thank my lucky stars, the spirits of King Fergus and Queen Elinor, and the clan of Caldwell that my captain was away on an ocean sailing adventure for three whole weeks.

Oh Lordy. I was the spitting image of “Merida” from the Disney movie, ‘Brave.’ All I needed was a long bow and a green velvet dress.

In the meantime I had to figure out how to get in and out of the hair dye aisle for a “browner shade of something” without being recognized and swarmed for autographs.

But that’s another story. 

Healing thoughts never lose their way

I ended last week’s column with “I am the luckiest girl I know,” and yet when I saw that in writing after the newspaper was printed I thought, no, I’m not lucky. Luck is for lottery ticket winners.

I believe I deserve to have a happy life and I live for that goal and I am rewarded in my hard work to get it.

I practice acceptance. I practice reassurance. I practice believing that I have more than once chance in this world to get things right and when I doubt my timing—and I do doubt my timing a lot—I always come back to believing I am right where I’m supposed to be. I believe everybody else is too.

I’m writing today’s column at 5 a.m., before the sun shines and the day takes on its “have to do” hue.

This is my favorite time of day. I can enjoy the virgin-like atmosphere of a day on the leading edge of its history not yet touched by anything but the rising sun.

I have a ritual every morning where I stand outside on my porch facing east as the sun peaks over the horizon and I slowly bow three times and say out loud, “Thank you for this day.”

I try never to miss the opportunity to practice this ritual and to be thankful not only for being alive to see the sun rise, but also to be accepting of whatever the day has in store for me before it happens.

I’m sticking to my guns about believing I am where I’m supposed to be all the time.

I started this bowing ritual at the beginning of the summer. It has changed my attitude and my gratitude level, and keeps me grounded in present-moment living.

I haven’t written a column at 5 a.m. in a very long time. It is my “me” time and not traditionally my “creative” time. 

However, if anybody can change his or her thoughts on a thing, it’s me.

The following is a smattering of the stuff I read about every morning—a fraction of the stash of healing thoughts that I dwell on as I edge nearer to the cusp of the old “9-5” routine and beyond. I didn’t write any of it. Thanks to the geniuses who did.

“Go forward. Finish what you start. Don’t look back.”

"There is magic in what we believe. Our beliefs tell our future better than any crystal ball or psychic can. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ says one holy book. Be mindful of your thoughts and beliefs. What you think and believe today, whether it's ‘I can't’ or ‘I can,’ is what you will manifest tomorrow.

Do you have any beliefs right now that are holding you back? What are your ‘I can’s’ and ‘I can'ts’. Take a moment. Look into your heart. Examine what you believe to be true. Is there an area in your life that could be benefited by thinking and believing something else? If you are going to use the power of your mind, use it to form a positive belief.”

"Stop trying to protect, to rescue, to judge, to manage the lives around you... remember that the lives of others are not your business... They are God's business... Leave it to God... Unclench the fists of your spirit and take it easy..."

“Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.”

“Practice self-care. Pay attention to the one you care about. Listen when they speak. Respond with kindness and understanding. Hug every day. Kiss often, and repeat.”

“There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear.”

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say Yes.”

Yes.

Summer hiatus worth more than gold

“This is life, not a funeral service,” Melody Beattie writes. That’s the truth.

Beginning in July I heeded a wise friend’s advice. I put down my pen, closed the lid on my laptop and took a break from writing my column.

Save the one column that showed up for the Irish clan who came a’ calling, I managed to give myself permission to lay low from writing for about seven weeks. Wow.

And lo and behold I turned around once in my summer swirl and “looky looky”—September is just over there.

However it was becoming easier and easier to let one more week go without writing. I think I could have been lost indefinitely had not Frances Einarson and Louella Kellar—to name just two candles in the window—guided me back to my lighthouse.

Without question though, my word vacation has been liberating and dare I say, deserved? I squeezed the orange juice out of my orange this summer, and no matter her short season I am thankful for every day of it.

I remain in mysterious awe of how life can pour me a glass of good times with a sprig of happiness if I make a conscious choice to loosen up a bit, be spontaneous, participate, and have some fun.

And even when she wipes my garden clean of its fruit and changes the plans I had for tomorrow, that’s okay too.

Where do I begin?

It all started on a sunny day in early July (after re-planting my garden) when visions of raccoons living in the hayloft—dancing around up there and pooping out parasites all over my would-be dance hall floor did indeed come to fruition.

I was working in the barn, readying it for my fellow reunionites when I looked up to see a big mother—a really big mother—raccoon staring at me from her prone perch in a cubby at the top of the wall.

The sighting of my nemesis occurred a few days after I had waved my golf club in the hayloft and shouted in a threatening voice for any and all rodents to “be very afraid.”  Obviously she didn’t get that memo.

Come to think of it, the raccoon date was July 4^th and Independence Day for my American friends.

I admit it felt a bit like Independence Day in my neck of the woods, too, after I showed that bandit who wore the pants around here. My barn. My rules.

Yet I still do not rule my grasslands. The geese have it covered.

There now are 18 such feathered friends, most of which are this years’ goslings, and regular daily attenders to the lawn in front of the barn. They move about in long waddling lines, leaving behind their trademark green poo and enough goose down to start a pillow factory—all the while shaking their long necks in scold of me when I try to get to “my” barn or to “my” garden. 

Nevertheless, I have watched the goslings grow from little golden fluff into tall, lanky creatures of flight and despite the chaos, I’m grateful they grew up here on the banks of Frog Creek.

All foe and fowl aside, the best of my summer holidays was set simply against the beautiful scenery of Rainy Lake from aboard a sailboat in the company of the man who remains my captain. 

And against the bluest of skies I swam countless times in the lake and floated freely on my back, listening to my heartbeat under water. It was the only sound  . . . .

The world falls away during these times and releases me into a wonderful place of freedom that no amount of money in the world could replace.

I am the luckiest girl I know.

The faces of my Irish family come a'callin

My brother Jay and I grew up a country field away and yet “here” was a constant destination, where my grandparents Florence and Joe Drennan lived on the farm.

We slept here at their house most Friday nights, waking up early Saturday mornings to help Grandpa with farm chores. My grandma, meanwhile, cooked and baked the best of everything and not for lack of trying have I duplicated any of those recipes in my kitchen.

My grandfather stood every morning at the kitchen sink, looking into a small mirror sitting on the window ledge where he’d comb what hair he had left with a oval-shaped, soft-bristled brush and then adjust the silver arm bands on his work shirt before he headed outside to the chores in the barn. He took such pride in the preparation before a day’s work.

Grandpa Drennan had a mighty soul stocked with discipline and work ethics that measured hands above any draft horse of his day.

And when I walk with intent today across the yard from the farmhouse to the barn, I remember watching Grandpa do the same thing, as if on a mission.

Yep, we are definitely related.

Family mattered at all turns and we were a part of everything—planting potatoes in the spring or walking on the cattle drive, harvesting hay bales in late summer, and cleaning cow poop out of the gutters in the barn. Thank Heaven for all of it.

Grandpa and Grandma Drennan died in 1996 and 2006 respectively and this old farm has changed a lot in the seven years since I purchased it. There are more trees planted and less farm machinery parts lying around and the barn, old and shoddy as it is on the outside, has had its face lifted on the inside. 

I wonder what Grandpa would have done if he’d have walked into the barn last week before the family reunion and caught me dusting and vacuuming the place as foot stomping tunes belted out of two big stereo speakers hanging from the ceiling.

I think he’d smile at my disciplined nature and nod in understanding of the passion and pride that was bouncing around in there. I miss you.

I worked hard on a summer’s mission to ready this old homestead for the “Drennan Reunion” and for the spirited bunch of more than 80 relatives who hadn’t partied here together in two years and who would move in with their camper trailers and tents to take up the cause.

They came, they partied, they made memories.

“We put our glass to the sky and lift up

And live tonight 'cause you can't take it with ‘ya

So raise a pint for the people that aren't with us

And live tonight 'cause you can't take it with ‘ya.” 

I stood in a sea of Drennan descendants in my neck of the woods on Saturday afternoon during a scavenger hunt and soaked up laughter and camaraderie that funneled through all of us.

I thought to myself, “We’re all here where we belong.”

When it got dark on Saturday night, we lit and released 20 flying lanterns that pierced the sky above Frog Creek. There was a moment of silence that spoke volumes as we all watched the lights rise into the heavens.

Joe,

James, Jack, and Harry, Margaret, Pat, Janet, and Tillie we remember you.

We belong. We are Drennan.

“May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the suns shine warm upon your face, and the rain fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of his hand.”