Taking It Easy Ain’t So Easy After All

Yesterday I was determined. I was going to rest, relax, loll around in my comfy clothes (read yoga pants, a soft gray t-shirt, and my favorite blue plaid flannel shirt over top). I planned to sink into the pages of my novel (The Good Husband, by Gail Godwin, an old favorite I plucked out of bin at a recent book giveaway) and drink endless cups of hot Yorkshire Gold tea. 

It took some convincing to get myself into this relaxed frame of mind in the first place. It’s been go-go-go around here for the entire month of December.  A busy concert schedule was made even busier with the runaway success of Life In General. But my final concert was over on Saturday night, and I was up to date with book orders. Then I awoke on Sunday morning with the trademark symptoms of a sinus-bronchial infection, and so the mandate was clear.

Prescription: Rest.

But it was so hard. While Jim happily lounged in front of the fireplace with British TV shows on the iPad, I stood by the door wall, staring out into the backyard. I really should walk the dogs, I thought. It’s such a nice morning. And there are those Christmas cards I’ve not even created yet, much less gotten ready to mail. I remembered that our traditional photo calendar of Magic and Molly was languishing half done in the Shutterfly website. I could just run upstairs and finish that off. While I was upstairs, I could toss a load of clothes in the washing machine. I knew our supply of clean socks was running low. 

“Why aren’t you resting?” my husband asked me pointedly. “Didn’t you tell me you were going to take it easy today?"

“I am resting,” I replied. 

“Standing in a cold draft by the door wall is not resting,” he informed me. “Go put your feet up, and I’ll make you some tea."

I plodded into the den, and settled on the leather recliner couch. It occurred to me that my lavender scented heating pad might be nice. I jumped up and went into the kitchen to warm it in the microwave. 

“What are you doing out of that chair?” Jim asked, stirring sugar into the mug of tea he was preparing for me.

“I wanted the heating pad,” I explained. 

“I think I could have gotten that for you if you had only asked,” he reminded me.

Precisely three minutes later, tea and heating pad perfectly steeped, I found myself back in the den, feet up as prescribed, book in hand, all set and ready to relax. 

And I did relax. For about 30 minutes. Then I simply couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and went upstairs to my desk where I finished up the photo calendar.

“Whew, scratch that off the list at least,” I said to myself, breathing a little more easier.

I realized yesterday that rest and relaxation mean different things to different people. Sitting around for hours reading or watching movies might sound like a dream come true, but I  think it makes me more anxious than if I were to get up and do something productive. I make noises about wanting to have more time to read, or meditate, or listen to music. But during the day I’d rather be doing something.

Being busy can be restful...at least for some of us.

By the end of the day, I really had spent a much larger amount of time being quiet than I usually do. I was nearly done with the novel, and had even watched about 15 minutes of The Muppets Christmas Carol (trust me, that’s a lot of daytime TV for me.) Still, when Jim offered to pick up dinner from one of the many restaurants close by so I wouldn’t have to bother with cooking - I was happy to relinquish that activity. 

Some things are easier to take a rest from than others.

It’s Only Me

“There are so many places in your book where I feel so relieved,” a reader tells me, “because you write about experiencing things I’ve felt or situations I’ve gone through and thought it was only me!"

I smiled a big smile, because I am all too familiar with the “It’s Only Me” syndrome. I’ve often wondered if it’s because I’m an only child - I don’t always have a good point of reference for emotions or reactions, and often feel as if I’m out on a limb by myself when trying to cope with emotional entanglements or life's dilemmas. When I was growing up in my tiny triangular family, it was always "only me." With no siblings to share in life’s experiences, I had no model for how to react to situations that arose. I felt the need to stand strong, to hold up my side of the triangle and if I was upset about something, well, that was probably because I was overly sensitive.

Feeling the kinship of other like minded individuals is a huge part of the connection process I’m eagerly embracing since Life In General was published. It’s the type of comment I most often hear from the people who are reading it. “Your words really strike a chord with me,” said a musical friend. "When I read your Introduction, I was right there with you,” said another.

That’s all music to my ears. 

The point is, it doesn’t have to be "only you." You don’t have to be alone if you find ways to connect yourself to the wider world. The details of our lives may be different, but underneath it all we share a world of common desire and need. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of that, and I’m thrilled if my book is doing that for the people reading it.

Sharing my stories in Life In General sets me squarely among you in the wider world. Sometimes it’s a little scary. After all, I’ve opened my life and my heart and spilled them on the pages of a book. 

But when I start to feel afraid that perhaps I’ve shared too much, given more of myself away than I should, I remember there is safety in numbers, there is strength in community, and comfort in connection.

It’s not only me any longer. It’s you and me together, sharing this Life In General.

If you’d like to purchase Life In General and see how our stories connect, go here. 

Connect on Life In General’s Facebook page and share your story. 

Creating Connections

"We yearn for connections. Through shared stories we find them."

Those words are from the Introduction to my book, Life In General, which was published this week. When I originally decided to put together a collection of essays I’d written over the past eight years, essays that explored all the experiences, feelings, learning and growing I was doing on this journey into mid-life, I intended it to be a personal project, a tangible preservation of that particular time in my life. I had the idea I would give a copy to my family and a few friends, a token of my passion for writing and my gratitude for their presence in my life’s journey.

I never expected the overwhelming positive response I would receive after publishing this little book. So many friends and family have reached out to me, wanting to connect through the stories I’ve shared about my small, ordinary life.

It proves I was right in the statement quoted above. We yearn for connection with others. Something in us knows that we need it, like we need air to breathe and food to eat. 

Some of us connect in large and gregarious ways, with busy active social lives, with speeches or with dinner parties. But I am a quiet person, one who most often chooses to stay home with her books, her dogs, her little family. Still, I have the yearning for connection with the world around me and the individuals who dwell within it.

 I connect with stories. The stories I read. The stories I write. The stories I share about simple life, the one I live every day in the midst of working, loving, cooking, cleaning, walking my dogs.

“I don’t think people allow themselves to value their lives anymore,” wrote memoirist Patricia Hampl. “It’s the idea that every life is sacred and that life is composed of details, of lost moments, of things that nobody cares about, including the people who are wounded or overjoyed by these moments. By honoring one’s own life, its possible to extend empathy and compassion to others."

This has been an amazing week. My small book of stories is finding an audience out in the wider world, and I am celebrating and creating connections I never dreamed were possible.

I have also - thanks to the talents of my long time blogging friend Kerstin Martin and her new web design company Lattes and More -  moved into this gorgeous new internet home here on Squarespace. 

It has been a week filled with gifts, with lessons, with love. With connections between my heart and yours.

What more could I ask of Life In General?

Thankful

In my tiny corner of the world, there is much to be grateful for this holiday season - good health,  family and friends who love me, a safe warm home, plentiful food to eat. They may seem like ordinary things, but in the overall scheme of life they are momentous. Everything else is just gravy (pardon the pun). Today’s post was originally written in 2010, and it's one of the essays included in my book, Life in General, which was published just this week.  Reading it brings back lots of memories for me, and I hope it will for you as well. Even more importantly, whatever you do this weekend, I hope you create some lovely memories to carry with you through the rest of your life in general.

"I can’t tell you how much I used to dread Thanksgiving,” my mother said yesterday as we headed out to the grocery store to do our shopping for the big dinner. “My mother used to invite everybody over and then bitch about it for days. She made life miserable for Dad and me for weeks.”

I looked at her aghast. My childhood memories of Thanksgiving were pure happiness. I never sensed any tension or angst...all I recall were the wonderful aromas and tastes of my southern grandmother’s cuisine. The huge turkey, slowly roasting all day long in the oven (“Oh, yes,” said my mother, “she woke us all up at the crack of dawn to get that turkey in the oven by seven o’clock so it could cook all day long”), stuffed with the moist, savory dressing (“I had to search all over town for fresh sage to put in that stuffing”), and smothered in rich brown gravy (“She wouldn’t let anybody else stir that gravy for fear it would be lumpy!”).

Well. Who knew? I was so tickled at the prospect of a house full of people, all my favorite aunts and uncles with their interesting conversations, laughing and telling stories about family members I’d never seen. And all the while the day had been filled with aggravation for my mother.

Of course, fifty years later, I’m no stranger to the memory of aggravating holidays. When Jim and I married, it somehow evolved in our little family that his mother would prepare the Thanksgiving Day dinner at our house. (The one they so graciously sold to us when we got married while they moved into a tiny apartment that was of course far too small to serve Thanksgiving dinner.) So every year she’d appear (at the crack of dawn so she could get the turkey in the oven) and then be puttering around in my kitchen all day, muttering about the way I arranged things or cleaned things or didn’t have the right kind of things.

However, if you were to ask my son, he might recall the times he stood on a tiny step stool and helped Grandma prepare the turkey, watching intently as she cleaned out the cavity and tied the drumsticks together with twine. Or he might remember running into the kitchen each time the oven door opened, so he could hold the baster and squeeze hot pan drippings over the bird’s golden breast. He might not have had any inkling that his mother was in her bedroom, silently screaming.

 All that’s left of those holidays are memories—for my son, who lives far away and is never home on Thanksgiving; for me, who has dinner with an ever-diminishing number of people; and for my mother, who prepares the meal for the three of us in her own kitchen and in her own expert and individual way.

 Thanksgiving is becoming more and more the forgotten holiday, crammed in between Halloween and Christmas, which garner a lot more attention in this consumer-driven society of ours. We’re even having our regular trash pickup on Thursday—as long as I’ve lived here, pickup was postponed until Friday on Thanksgiving week. I’m not sure I approve of that. I think the sanitation workers should have Thursday so they could enjoy dinner with their families and friends same as nearly everyone else.

Thanksgiving is a holiday built around emotions—of being grateful for family and friends, for health and happiness, and food on the table. It’s not about buying presents, or wearing costumes, or elaborate fireworks displays. It’s not even about concerts of beautiful music or rooms of gorgeous decorations.

 It’s simply about making memories, good or bad. I hope you make some lovely ones this year.

Digging Up Doubt

It’s so easy to doubt, to mistrust decisions and life choices and current paths. This world is overflowing with choices, and lurking behind each one are the gleaming eyes of another potentially more successful one.Most of the time I manage to keep doubt at bay, largely because I make safe choices. I don’t go out on limbs, I follow the tried and true path, the road well traveled. But on those occasions when I stick my neck out and take a risk, I have to force myself to put the shovelful of doubt aside and maintain faith in my forward journey.

I’ve stepped out on a fairly large limb (at least it is for me) by publishing a book. The final proof of Life in General is in transit to me right now, and as I wait for it to arrive I feel the seeds of doubt beginning to sprout in my mind.

The book should be shorter, the paper should be ivory instead of white, the cover is the wrong color. I am a bad writer. The whole thing is stupid.

 Doubt. Doubt. Doubt.

Wait a minute, I say to myself, this shovelful of doubt poised halfway out of the fertile ground of my mind. Remember why you did this in the first place? This book is mostly for YOU, to preserve this writing journey you’ve been on for the past eight years, to collect the thoughts and experiences you’ve used words to clarify for yourself. It’s a book for YOU, the woman who loves books and paper and words preserved in black and white (or ivory!). Some people paint, some throw pots in clay, some sew or quilt or knit. You write. You craved a concrete expression of that gift.

I’ve just joined a new Facebook group dedicated to sharing the beauty of everyday life, and aside from my family, there’s nothing to which I’m more dedicated than the art of daily living. “The Extraordinary Ordinary,” I call it, and I celebrate it in a myriad of ways every day. It keeps me centered and grounded when I feel those stirrings of doubt - maybe I should have taken that new accompanying job at the high school, maybe I should look for a “real” job so we can save more money for retirement, maybe I should go back to school and learn how to do something productive for a change. Maybe I should die my hair blonde. Or take a Zumba class.

But then I recall the profound contentment I feel here in my home, making my own schedule, volunteering, playing music, taking care of my family, helping my mom. I know if I were bound to any of those other choices that sometimes beckon me with their glittering possibility, I would be anxious and worried and fretting and miserable. I’ve been there. I’ve done that.

We have to plant the seeds of faith over and over throughout our lives, because they will get unearthed at times by doubt and fear and uncertainty. Doubt can only be dispelled by faith in the reasons we have for doing what we do, and by faith in ourselves and in knowing what we need to be happy.

Sometimes it takes as much courage to follow that road as it does to strike out on a new one.