Behaving my Way to New Thinking
More about Listening
Did you ever notice people thank us for listening, not for speaking? Nothing is more satisfying than a good listener, because complete attention feels like a precious gift. I’m a talker, so listening was not easy, as it might be for others who naturally listen. I had to learn the difference between active and passive listening, which really helped me in my life and career. Even if I don’t like someone, I can create a worthwhile experience for both of us by deciding to listen, focusing on my words, tone of voice and non-verbal behaviors so our interaction doesn’t feel like a waste of time.
I needed to learn how to shut my mouth and open my ears, which is not a bad thing, and actually makes my life go more smoothly. The other person usually wants to give a viewpoint, or information, so I let them finish, and ask a few questions, and I don’t cut them off in midstream. They don’t hate me like they might have before when they didn’t feel heard. It’s not phony to shut up and listen, it’s actually mature and unselfish, which is why I had to learn how to do it. I wasn’t ready to hear another person’s concerns, because I was mostly interested in what I wanted to share. Continue reading “More about Listening” »
Dream comes true
boys need good men
My counselor suggested I start looking for a healthy partner, since my single mother gig was four years rolling. Sure, I wanted a dad for my little son Brian, but my life was mostly fine, easy, no conflicts, plenty of fun. I was busy staying sober and teaching, scared of screwing up again.
“You’ll never meet anyone if you stay home. Go do things, be with people who like to do what you like to do.” I trusted this counselor to think I was ready for dating after four years as a single parent. What’s to lose? I love men, needed a real one in my life. I wanted to be ‘normal’ and live in joy. After all, I’d had ENOUGH sorrow.
A Sierra Club singles dance was being held in Strawberry near my house, in the same recreation center where my drunk dad fell down and mortified me in sixth grade. I could make peace with that place, move on. 400 people attend the event, wouldn’t some man want to dance with me? I put on my favorite flowing flowered red, orange and purple dress with sandals, and went.
He faced the door when I came inside and he was talking to other people. Frank stood a full head taller than anyone in the room, wore a pink shirt with a red tie, a grey woolen blazer. He was brown haired with a kind, honest expression on his face.
“He’s too cute for me,” I thought, pheromones flowing. He’s out of my league. I only date losers.
Instead, I asked nondescript men to dance, and some said no—what the hell? I thought we were at a singles dance! I kept asking, anyway, wanted to have fun after such a long time.
Frank asked me to dance, looked directly at me, crinkled his eyes and smiled his loving smile. My heart went wild and I almost jumped him.
I instantly recognized a powerful dream I had when I left Alaska four years before. Here was the bearlike man who made me feel okay! I had forgotten my dream, but it’s true! After the first dance, I went into a bathroom stall and hyperventilated. Whether or not I ever saw Frank again did not even matter to me. I believe my dreams are messages. Sobriety taught me to trust my intuition. I had a dream and it was coming true right now!
We went onto the balcony and talked. His wool jacket in June made sweat bead on his brow.
“Should you check your jacket?”
“ No, I’m fine.” He was stubborn, there’s a clue. Frank was a native San Franciscan, a Civil Engineer working in the East Bay, and specialized in soils and dam safety.
His Portuguese mother’s ancestors were farmers who immigrated from the Azore Islands. They were the family who settled in old Tiburon’s Reed Station a hundred years before, in exactly the same place as my neighborhood across the street. They might have planted the gigantic tulip tree near my house where I played as a kid! They probably helped build the old barn behind my mother’s house. We know they were famous for producing Marin County’s finest butter and cream dairy on Del Mar School property.
“I come as a package, with a nearly four year-old boy who lights up my life,” I told Frank about Brian right away, in case he didn’t like kids, briefly outlining circumstances of my second divorce. Who wants a divorcee with a child?
Frank mattered to me, big time. I wanted to see him again, so we exchanged phone numbers, though I was too shy to call him. It’s that old generational thinking that sticks inside a person.
Frank’s honest eyes and smile gave me courage to believe that some stronger force than me handled this planet. I couldn’t have possibly orchestrated such a miracle as my dream coming true like it did in Strawberry’s recreation hall that night.
Frank called two weeks later, and invited me to hike with him on Tennesse Valley’s beach trail near Mill Valley. Little Brian stood on the driveway when Frank pulled up in his funky tan van.
“Are you my mom’s date?” Brian looked up at Frank and smiled at him. Frank looked at Brian with indescribable gentleness, and I saw a good man. I knew I loved him, even though he was a stranger.
Putting Together What I No Longer Want
depth is relative
I just woke up from a dream I’m calling putting together what I no longer want. The majority of the dream takes place in an ex-friend’s home. I’m dealing with a kid she decided to raise, who shoots salted sprinklers inside her house. My husband Fred and I are trying to maintain the situation, waiting for my ex-friend to return home from her new marriage.
What’s interesting is that we are no longer friends in waking life. She divorced her second husband two years ago, and found a third husband who lives in another state. She doesn’t want to continue our friendship. Apparently, I am part of past memories she wants to forget. Continue reading “Putting Together What I No Longer Want” »
Trusting paper matters
“Never write anything on paper because it can be used against you,” Mom warned me as a child. I was twelve when my sixth grade teacher told me to start writing a journal. She gave us little blue lined notebooks and time to write in them each day. I was prepared to lie about my life. I really wanted to write my truth, however, so I wrote about what was going on at home, booze, loss, blood and heartbreak. My dad was an alcoholic and soon went to a hospital, and his brother committed suicide because he couldn’t stop drinking. We lived in a periodically insane alcoholic world of never knowing when things would explode. I felt mortified every time I thought about Dad’s recent black out and how he drunkenly fell down at the local pool shredding his elbow. I overheard a woman call me ‘the drunk man’s daughter’ and I never wanted to return to the pool or take another breath on this planet.
Then my teacher said, “I’m collecting your journals and will read them over the weekend.” Like Hell you are, I thought. Continue reading “Trusting paper matters” »
Trying to rearrange memories
writing is power in its own right
Editor Mary Rakow recently suggested that I write the next phase of my manuscript differently, when I met her in San Francisco. We brainstormed ways to braid together life stories into descending and ascending arcs, that deliver a different experience for the reader than the saga I wrote about my time on this planet. Like most people, I usually tell my story in chronological order, but what happened doesn’t really need linear chronology.
For example, starting my life story with both sides of my grandparents doesn’t move my story. It provides context for who I think I am, but other people probably don’t care about my grandparents. When I jumble up personal anecdotes, people and events change. My memory changes when I jumble it up. Continue reading “Trying to rearrange memories” »
Proust and Thanksgiving
seven county view
We know nothing lasts forever. “The places that we have known belong not only to that little world of space on which we map them for our own convenience. None of them was ever more than a thin slice, held between the contiguous impressions that composed our life at that time; remembrance of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment; and houses, roads and avenues are as fugitive, alas! as the years.” Well stated, Marcel Proust!
I remember old days and olden times. I can describe every step going up to my childhood tree fort. We lived in a new cul-de-sac between Mill Valley and Tiburon, California. Before I walked my hills, the place was called Reed Station. My husband Fred’s great grandfather and grandfather lived on the exact spot more than one hundred years earlier. The Portuguese side of Fred’s family came from the Azore Islands after Gold Rush times, and they ran and owned dairies. Continue reading “Proust and Thanksgiving” »
Lavender Labyrinth Lives
this is the labryinth design
Thanks to the flow of people and love, we have a lavender labyrinth completed in what used to be a horse arena. Mokelumne Lavender is in business!! Mokelumne is the name of three forks of our rivers in this region. We live between the north and middle fork of the Mokelumne. Our pond eventually flows into the middle fork down below our property.
I want beauty in my life and my community, and Phase One of our simple lavender business has begun. We started growing lavender with three hundred large Lavendula x-intermedia,’Grosso,’ planted into a maze design. I met Patience Diaz in July, who came from Shasta Lavender Farm to our house for consultation in August. She instructed us about the feasibility of establishing a lavender farm on our property. Patience helped us decide where to plant, and made suggestions for getting the soil tested, checking for drainage, and different types of lavender choices that would be appropriate for our labyrinth. Continue reading “Lavender Labyrinth Lives” »
Little Wave
Stinson Beach from Mt.Tam road
Ten years ago, Jennifer asked me to be her spiritual advisor as she died of an inoperable brain tumor. Of course I said yes, but really felt ill equipped to be somebody’s spiritual advisor. She was my neighbor, people called her Skeeter as a child, because she was such a fast swimmer. I miss that woman, and she taught me how to be brave. Tuesday’s with Morrey by Mitch Albom had recently come out, and I read it, so Jennifer and I could talk about her process. I told her Morrie’s parable about the little wave. Continue reading “Little Wave” »
Let me go after 75
Me happy at Chichen Itza, Mexico
Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an article in the Atlantic Monthly, Why I hope to die at 75. He asks the question, “Are we to embrace the “American immortal” or my “75 and no more” view?” He plans no life sustaining medical procedures or tests after the age of 75. Ezekiel is not trying to die, but won’t prolong his life in any event of illness.
I suggest people read Emanuel’s article and decide for themselves how they feel about elder research for longevity. We should be having big conversations about what we truly want for our country.
Mortality seems to be a topic people do not want to discuss, because we obviously face unknown territory. I was forced to think about dying at age sixteen, when my father committed suicide. I earnestly contemplated what mortality meant for us, and tried to understand death because I was afraid of it, since my father’s suicide had been such an unnatural shock. Continue reading “Let me go after 75” »