Of letting go...

I plan my gardens: I plant the seeds in trays in the greenhouse, I water, I provide light and warmth and watch them sprout; I watch some grow big, some grow more slowly at first then catch up to their larger "siblings" in time.  I transplant them into the garden or flower bed, I fertilize, I mulch, I pamper...and watch some take off immediately, some just sit there at first and reach their peak when their "sibs" are fading. I learn that I can provide good soil, fertilizer, and to a certain extent correct moisture, but I cannot control the sunlight they receive or fail to receive despite my best plans, I cannot control the over-abundance or total lack of moisture mother nature provides that season, nor can I control late frosts, or early frosts and the damage they may do.  Sometimes, despite the best-laid plans, gardens go to waste for reasons beyond our control; and sometimes, despite all the adversity mother nature can throw at them, plants surpass all predictions to grow lush, fruitful, beautiful beyond our expectations.

So it is with family relationships, with raising children, with nurturing friendships: sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just don't work...and sometimes, despite our mistakes, our omissions, our failures, the children grow into magnificent human beings that do us proud, relationships thrive, and friendships flourish.    I have no doubt that it is important to strive to provide optimum environments for the growth of relationships, but sometimes, I think, it is wise to just let go of the expectation, let go of the stress of not having done what we hoped to do,  and instead to appreciate the unexpected joys, the unplanned rewards of relationships that flourish due to the efforts of others, or to the unexpected.

I have such examples in my life....do you have them in yours?

Today's Work

When I started this blog at the beginning of this month in response to the 30-day blog challenge, I said it would be a reflection of what I do with my days and how I live this part of my life called retirement.  So far, I've not really done much of that at all; instead I've shared my views and perspectives on a variety of topics, sometimes playing off fellow bloggers in this challenges, sometime based on events, songs, photos, or other things that sent my mind in a direction that seemed worth commenting on.

Today though, I'm sharing my retirement "work"; three quilts that I'm working on concurrently, each in a different phase of completion.  I mostly design my own quilts now, rather than relying on copying the patterns of others, not because those patterns aren't lovely, but because I've always liked creating things from scratch.  The challenge I've currently given myself is to see how many very different quilts I can design based on simple squares and rectangles, obviously one of the easier forms for any quilter to work with, but this gives me an opportunity to really concentrate on and play with color and pattern.  Here they are:

1)  Nearly finished - only needs about 2 more feet of it hand quilted, then will be set to go, in time for the holidays!

2) Gift for a friend.  Will be starting the hand-quilting by end of this week and taking it on a 3-day train trip with me - should have lots of time to work on it.

3) Gift-in-progress.   This one will still take a considerable amount of hand-work before it's completed, but then, the winter lies ahead, and the garden won't be calling me....

Blog On

William Blumberg, a fellow member of the 30-day blogging challenge wrote: "I am sure every blogger has asked the question of with so few people reading my blog, why write." 

His post hit home with me.  I began participating in this blogging challenge partly on a whim, and partly because a wonderful person invited participation, not because I expect a large audience.  I've always loved to write but if one is not a professional writer, life gets in the way of practicing this craft.  I read often, relishing well-written books, often re-reading and stopping to consider why a particular passage is so powerful, so evocative.   Participating in this challenge, I've been rediscovering my love of words and written expression, and now find that I enjoy blogging (or journaling, as some would term my blogs) just for the opportunity of honing self-expression, regardless of whether or not anyone else reads what I write. 

Blog on!

From My Heart

My heart is full today; full of gratitude for so many blessings in my life; full of sadness for friends who are enduring incredibly hard times; full of desire to reach out to all who are important in my life to somehow share my blessings, lighten their burdens.

I like to think that I inherited my sense of wanting to give to others from my mother, who would quite literally give you the shirt off her back; if I complimented her on a new dress or new sweater, her response - UNFAILINGLY - was: "Oh let me give it to you - it will look so much better on you!" I became quite hesitant to give her compliments, lest I leave her homeless and unclothed on the street through her desire to give to others rather than to take from anyone. Obviously, that last sentence is an exaggeration, but not by much as those who knew my mom would attest.

What is that elusive factor that fills some hearts with bitterness, and others with joy; some with stinginess, others with overflowing generosity?   The simple answers would be that these are learned emotions, learned responses based on our experiences; yet I know many people who have shared similar experiences and have incorporated those experiences into their lives, their beings, their personalities and their hearts in very different ways, so I think that is too simplistic an answer. 

My mother had a rough childhood, lost her entire immediate family in WWII, nearly lost her own life to typhoid fever, began rebuilding her life in the DP (deported persons) camps in Germany following WWII, then continued to develop a new life in an unfamiliar language in an unfamiliar country (the USA), with nothing but the clothes on her back, her husband's support, and two babies in arms. Yet she continually showered those around her with love and generosity.  Granted, that caring sometimes came with some strings attached; she had lost so much in her life that she was sometimes hesitant to let go, to turn control over to others, but the remarkable thing to me was her unparalleled capacity for love, for caring, for giving.  I miss my daily contact with her, her interest in how her grandchildren are faring, her presence in our home, our gardens, our lives. 

I sometimes joke with my sons, niece and nephew that I am "channeling" their grandmother, but in fact,    

I hope and trust that I have inherited some of her tremendous capacity for for loving, and for giving, for the capacity to empathize, to serve others, to care.

Joys of Imperfection

The Thanksgiving turkey that was a bit more dry than I would have liked.  The flower garden in full and glorious bloom that is unfortunately filled with weeds.  The quilt I've spent days working on, to discover a mistake that cannot be corrected.  What do these have in common?  They are all imperfect, yet all have brought me great joy.

The somewhat dry bird is forgotten after the meal, but the memories of the time together with family and friends who gathered around that table remain in my head and heart for years to come.

The weeds in my flower beds prevent them from looking like the the glorious gardens we see when visiting arboretums in our travels, but I can see, smell, and enjoy the blossoms EVERY day, and feel the sun on my back as I lean in to pull those pesky weeds - what a glorious feeling!

The handmade quilt that I've spend many hours on, over a period of several months, when I finally step back and realize that I've placed a block wrong, or turned a quilting design in the wrong direction still has provided hours of enjoyment during the process of creation, and will continue to provide warmth and memories for years to come.

It's admirable to strive for perfection, to set it as a goal when we begin new projects, start a new job, or bring home a new baby to raise.  But it's also unrealistic to expect that we will reach that goal in ALL that we do, and sad to see that people give up, or become bitter when that goal is not reached.  Families are not perfect, but they are heart-warming, life-affirming, and provide such richness in our lives.  Bosses become problematic, jobs turn sour, but they provide the money that allows us to live the life we choose AWAY from the job.  That beautiful and remarkable baby cries all night, or gets a lower grade in school than parents would have liked, or struggles with choosing a career, but what a remarkable person that baby becomes, despite parental mistakes and life throwing curves.  

Let's STRIVE for perfection - but gather joy from all that is rich and wonderful in our lives even though imperfect, because those less-then-perfect moments, tasks, and creations will form the majority of our lives.  Enjoy these moments!

How Many Ways Can We Say "SHALLOW"?!?!

The day following Thanksgiving hardly seems the time to be posting a blog as negative as this one is going to be, but several of this morning's headlines and and other recent "news" reports have me boiling, so bear with me.

On NBCNews.com this morning:
  And this headline yesterday, with an update today: "Removing a toe to fit into heels" (What's next? Back to foot binding for girl babies?) Another "top" headline today:  "Halle Berry's fiance fistfights with her ex". (why should I care? Is she a dear friend?)  Top TV shows in America? "[“Honey Boo Boo"] was the highest-rated cable show in that category, ... on Comedy Central. ...That included the Aug. 29 episode, which drew more adults between 18 and 49 than Fox News’s coverage of the Republican National Convention, and the Sept. 5 episode, which tied CNN’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention." (underline is mine) (Don't even get me started on this spoiled, nasty child as entertainment).

Enough of pandering to the lowest common denominator! I know SO many people who are wonderful, kind, productive, generous, thoughtful, pleasant, considerate, knowledgable....   Why is it that media focuses so heavily on the most shallow and unpleasant among us?  And more to the point: why do we let them?  When there is nothing of value to watch on our 200+ channel TV's, why not just turn them off?  When the weird and the wacky get top billing on a web newscast, why click on it? Our lives are too short, and each day too valuable to spend any of it on junk like this, when there are so many opportunities for entertaining ourselves that are both pleasurable and/or instructive.  Go for a walk with your spouse; read a good book (or even a not-so-good book); sew something; make something; plant something and watch it grow; play with your children, talk with your friend.  For heavens sake, clean something - even doing pots and pans is preferable to watching Honey Boo Boo or supporting the media machines that feed us personal tidbits about real-life Barbie dolls, passing them off as news. 

Hmmmm - I wonder if eating turkey makes me grumpier than usual?

Reward Worth the Risk?

A recent Wall Street Journal Article about playground safety, citing several recent studies, states that not exposing children to risk may result in increased phobias and anxieties in those children.  A friend going through a really tough time hangs her hope on the well-known saying "That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger".  Numerous articles cite the failures of highly successful entrepreneurs as the experiences upon which their ultimate success was built.   Other articles focus on helicopter parents crippling their children's self-confidence and abilities.  The common thread here is that risk is one of the elements in our lives from which we learn and grow, and that significantly reducing or avoiding that risk can limit us in ways we may not even recognize.

I know a young man for whom all learning and most other achievements came easily; he took it as a matter of course that life was just that way.  In fourth grade, suddenly he was struggling with math. Not knowing how to deal with something that did not come easily to him, he hid his papers and the notes from his teachers, thinking that if he just ignored the problem it would go away.  Eventually of course, the papers and notes were found, the problem brought to light, and the piper had to be paid.  We tutored, we encouraged, we did all we could to make math understandable, but his resistance, the fear of failure that had developed over the weeks and months of struggle just weren't easily put to rest. Demon math and a newfound recognition that all life is not easy, made for a rough year.  The following summer we took a much-anticipated canoe-camping vacation in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness BWCAW in northern Minnesota.  The BWCAW is a remote wilderness area consisting of thousands of interconnected lakes and rivers,  with few if any roads, most of which prohibits travel by motorized boats; when you set out to camp, you are miles from others, miles from help, and have to be prepared to be self-reliant even in emergency situations.

The week passed well, good fishing and lovely vistas,
 water smooth as glass, campfires every day, hammocks hung in trees - life was good!

 The day we were scheduled to paddle out the weather turned miserable: cold, windy, rainy, and the waves kicked up in exactly the wrong direction.   My husband and I, along with our youngest son were in one canoe; the older boy and his godfather were in the other canoe, boy in the front, having to carry his weight with the paddling, no way out of it.  We hugged the shore as much as possible, but it was a miserable, frightening day.
Boy started to whine that he was cold and wet and tired and wanted to stop, but there was no place to stop, and if he stopped paddling, his godfather could not paddle effectively against the waves alone.   We coaxed - he complained; we encouraged - he pouted.  Godfather - in fear of his very life - said to the boy: "Just shut up and paddle" - boy did exactly that.  When we reached the outfitter, once again warm and safe, reveling in our adventure, boy said: "If I could do that, I can do math!"  And he did.

When the large pharmaceutical company in our town shut down the research operations in our town and moved them across the country, an unprecedented number of their top employees elected to remain in the area and risk starting their own businesses.  It's been nothing short of inspiring to see those with 30 years of experience as bench-scientists set out to learn about business, learn to partner with those who can provide their business the expertise it lacks, learn to pitch to investors, learn to deal with clients, and learn from their own mistakes and those of others.  Some businesses started at that time failed, but many more - a much higher percentage than is normally expected from start-ups - have not only survived but thrived, for nearly 10 years now. Many have built a name for themselves nationwide, and are even finding world-wide recognition.  The people who remained here and risked their financial futures, their life-savings, and even their professional reputations did so for a variety of personal and professional reasons.  One common thread was their determination to take charge of their lives and their careers, rather than letting the winds of change carry them hither and yon.  They too said: "We can!" and they did.

http://www.kazoosmic.com

Hard as it may be to take the risk, or to let our children take the risks and fail or get hurt, risk-taking is imperative to our growth, our sense of self-worth, and our future successes.

Teaching Passion

Reading my fellow 30-day blog challenge posters (#30DBC), I'm inspired to write a follow-on piece to one written by Wendy Cobrda, which was in turn a follow-on piece to one by Cliff Cardin. 

Cliff wrote about "focused effort", which is based on knowing what you want, and being willing and able to devote time and effort to achieving that goal.  He emphasized that the degree of effort people put into achieving their goal is what distinguishes experts from those who are merely educated or knowledgable.    Wendy added another dimension to that idea, talking about passion as the third key element in enriching one's life and making it all it can and should be.  She said: "It's the reason you get up early in the morning, and the excuse for why you can't quiet your mind at night".  Wendy writes about passion being a gift that gives joy and purpose to your life and is sad for those who seem to never find their passion, but rather plod through their lives in a fog, not even realizing that something is missing.

I agree with both my fellow bloggers, and would like to add yet another element to this discussion: learning to recognize and follow our passion.  Passion per se, cannot be taught; it just IS. But seeking  and recognizing ones passion can be encouraged, coached, taught.

The world at large and the major institutions  (schools, churches, governments) tend to encourage uniformity, partly through necessity. While they hopefully also emphasize and teach excellence, it is an excellence in things proscribed by others.   Who then, can teach us the search for passion?  If they are lucky, children learn this life-giving lesson both from their parents and from individual teachers.

One of my all-time favorite movies, Dead Poet's Society, is about teaching passion.  Robin Williams is masterful in this role, literally teaching non-conformism in a very structured institution bound by tradition and rules. He challenges his charges to reach deep within themselves to find what excites them, to reach beyond expectation, to experience and relish moments of the sublime. "Seize the day boys! Seize the day!"

As parents we can also teach our children to reach into their hearts and souls to identify the activities, the ideas, the interests that make their souls sing, and encourage them to follow that song, even if it means they will be marching to a different drummer than their peers.  We can encourage them to follow their hearts rather than peer pressure, reward them for standing up for what they believe, teach them that variety is what makes the world rich. We can not only talk about how people came to choose the paths they've taken, but how happy they seem with their choices.  We teach it by exposing them to our own passions, talking about how those have influenced our life choices, and how that compares to what others might have hoped or expected from us.

And when all is said and done, we turn them loose and admire them for the passionate experts they have become.

Playing with color and texture

I love to play with colors.  I drew endlessly when I was a kid (getting in trouble once for drawing on my brothers face with colors that would not come off), learned to use oil paints as a teen, falling in love with the concept of adding dimension to color (laying it on thick, spiky, smooth, thinned out with turpentine so it becomes a wash).

Wearing my "working world" hat, I color-coded all my files, partly because that's just the way my brain sees things best, partly because it was fun and I could.

Now that I'm retired from that working world, I finally have enough time (ok, not enough, but more) to play with colors and textures.  I do that through gardening and quilting.  I have to say that I'm not a "coloring-inside-the-lines" kind of person.  I don't enjoy following the patterns of others in quilting as much as I enjoy designing my own.

I don't want someone else to design my flowerbeds, my gardens, our landscape - I want to play with it myself.  The great news is that now I have time to not only dream and plan, but to execute at least some of those dreams and plans.

I am retired from being an information professional, but am just beginning my new life as Master Gardener and master quilter; I have a badge that says I've earned the right to the former title, and am hoping to earn the latter title sometime in the next 20-30 years, now that I have time to work on it.

Sandbox Redux

When I was little, my father built us a sandbox in a tree - REALLY!  Our city property dropped off into a neighborhood ravine; there was a huge tree with three trunks that reached up from the ravine through our property, and reached into the clouds (at least that was my perception at the time). My dad - my hero - built a combination tree-house/sandbox surrounding those three massive trunks.  An adjacent branch held our rope swing.  From our sandbox, we could swing into the abyss...or build sand castles, farms, sand pies.  I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that sandbox, and spent many memorable childhood days playing in and around it.

I still loving playing in my sandbox; my "sandbox" now is our 11-acre country property where I can dig, plant, dream to my heart's content.....and I do.  I spent today doing the last of the fall transplants to new locations, will spend tomorrow digging in the last of next spring's bulbs.  I don't even know how to begin to explain to others the joy I get from digging in the garden or flower beds, inhaling the rich earth smell, seeing the fruits of those labors emerge next spring and summer as a  bright and varied array of flowers, foliage, fruits.  I hope that I will never outgrow the joy of this "sandbox" endeavor!

Gifts

I've been fortunate to receive many deeply meaningful gifts throughout my life; the unconditional love of my parents; the Shirley Temple doll I yearned for as a 6 year old; the purple pansy quilted bedspread that I yearned for as a 10 year old; parental support for attending the college of my choice, even though it was more than we could afford; the enduring love of my husband;  the photo my sons had taken of the two of them as a gift for me, though they hated having their pictures taken.  There have been many more, but these few examples serve to display the range of what I consider "gifts" - these have all been tokens of love, deep affection, respect.....tangible things that represented people's feelings and their awareness of what was important to me.     

I hope that through the years I have also given my share of such meaningful gifts.

What then, is this advertising blitz about Black Friday gift purchases, and how does it square with those gifts that still reverberate in my memory, many years after I've received them, or given them? I value gifts given from the heart, so my heart is heavy that increasingly we have forgotten that meaning and replaced it all to often with obligatory giving of presents - prettily wrapped - but given with little thought or sacrifice.     

Call me Scrooge if you will; I'll gladly do without the mad rush to purchase more than we can afford, wrapped in expensive paper and ribbons which will be tossed in the trash the next day.  I'll trade them in a heartbeat for the hand-knit imperfect scarf, or the day spent baking and chatting with a friend in preparation for the holidays.  Let the economy deal with my refusal to buy beyond my means and pay for months to come - let's take back the meaning of the term "gift" as defined by someone in Wikipedia as: "anything that makes the other happier or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness and kindness."

This Shirt...

"This shirt is old and faded
All the color's washed away
I've had it now for more damn years
Than I can count anyway
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try" - Mary Chapin Carpenter -

This is one of my very favorite songs, not just because I have a couple of those old shirts, but because it reminds me of all the beloved, well-worn, deeply meaningful things that we hang onto.   

We have a tattered copy of an old children's book that was my husband's when he was little, which he read over and over to our sons when they were young.  There was a whole ritual around the reading of that book - the three of them cuddled up together in a big chair, my husband deliberately reading errors, the boys shouting corrections with great delight; they couldn't read yet, but they had memorized that book and loved that time with their Dad.  When we are gone, I suspect that's one piece of memorabilia they may fight over.

I have a collection of stones from favorite vacation places (what can I say - I'm a cheap date). When I look at one, I remember a particularly challenging and rewarding vacation in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. Another one reminds me or our first trip to visit our oldest son who had moved to New Zealand, and wanted to share the many remarkable aspects of his new temporary home.  I have another one that I brought back from our second visit to New Zealand and placed on my mother's grave, since my son had been unable to travel home for her funeral. I have seashells from a visit to our younger son when he moved to live and work in Vancouver, BC, and others from the first long trip my husband and I took following our retirement.  I actually DO remember which is from which place, which trip - and they give me something tangible to touch as a remembrance, though I know that for many people a photo would do as well, or better.

My garden is filled with plants dug from relatives, previous homes, friends; when I walk through my yard, the daylilies and peonies remind me of my father in-law, the white hydrangea of my mom, the wild pink rose of our cottage, the primroses of my aunt, the clematis of my dearest friend, and a certain dark iris of her mother.  My garden walks are thus filled with the happiest of memories, and probably one of the reasons working in the yard is such a joy for me, rather than a tedious task.

It might be hard to explain to someone else why you've read a particular book so many times that the cover is coming off, but you wouldn't exchange it for a new copy. It might be impossible for others to understand why you bring a rock home from vacation, or move a plant from one home to the next over many years as you move, rather than just buying a replacement at the new place.  No one else HAS to really understand; it it's important to you, if it gives you deep comfort, or remarkable pleasure, or triggers fond memories, these keepsakes have value, whether old and faded or not.

Gifts

I received several wonderful gifts today, which made this day special and precious to me.  Birthday? Nope.  Anniversary? Nope. Won the lottery? Nope.  It was just ... today .... no special event requiring gifts of diamonds, gold, or silver.  

Gift #1: My dearest friend was able to spend the whole day with me; we talked, and laughed, quilted together, had lunch together, quilted some more, talked some more, and toasted our quilting efforts and our time together with a glass of wine at the end of the day.  This was a very special gift of TIME TOGETHER!  We have been friends for over 20 years, and have shared both happiness and sadness, but because our lives are so busy, we've rarely been able to spend more than a couple of hours at a time together.  You would not believe what we can pack into two hours when we ARE together!  And today, for the first time in a long time, we had the luxury of a long, leisurely day together - no pressures, no deadlines, no other commitments challenging that space we had carved out for spending with each other.   No diamonds could make me as happy as this gift of shared time with my very dearest friend!

Gift #2: My husband went to the store early in the day to make sure that my friend and I would have food for a good lunch together, set a fire in the wood burner so we would have a cozy room in which to quilt, and then graciously and kindly left us to it....to laugh, and talk, and giggle and sew, with no interference, no demands, no expectations.  When my friend left, my husband's comment was to the effect: "I'm glad you had such a good day together - I like to see you enjoy yourself like this." No gold bracelet can mean as much to me as this gift of recognition of the things that are important to ME - by my BFF - my husband of 32 years.

Gift #3: A phone call at the end of the day, from my adult son who lives in another country - a capable adult, a talented professional, a man who called his mom to check in and let her know he had returned from a vacation abroad and was well and happy, and realized that ol' Mom would want to know that, and would want to hear her baby's voice.  No gifts of silver could surpass my joy that he loves me and recognizes my motherly need for contact more often than he might need or want.

Now what can I give as my gift to each of these special people tomorrow?

Heroes

I have been fortunate to have many heroes in my life.  Real-life, touchable, familiar heroes: members of my family that I admired for a variety of reasons, teachers I worshipped, friends who displayed strength I envied, work colleagues who set the bar high and made me reach higher than I would otherwise have done.

I've met colleagues in my profession that I would have given my eye teeth to BE; they inspired me to hone my professional skills and develop a pride and self-confidence in my professional life that I otherwise may not have had.   I've had friends who balanced the impossible and made it look almost effortless; they helped me put my life in perspective and recognize and appreciate what I had.  I've grown up around family members who lived the nightmare of having their lives torn apart by the atrocities of war, who subsequently - against all odds - rebuilt their lives and made it possible for their children to not only live well, but to be able to live their dreams.

As an adult, I've been known to say: "when I grow up, I want to be like....", because I figure I still have lots of learning and growing to do.  I've also been known to lament the existence of current-day heroes every time another well-known sports figure, actor, or politician goes  down in flames for their misdeeds. It's been heartwarming to read and hear some of the stories of absolute selflessness in the wake of Sandy. It's served as a reminder that not only are prominent figures heroes, but more often ordinary, everyday folks fit the definition more closely.  The doctors who are able to pull family members back from the brink....the friends who move heaven and earth to be there for us when we need them...the neighbors who share their firewood, their blankets, their homes.  

I know that many would not consider those ordinary actions "heroic", but I also know that those on the receiving end often do consider them exactly that.

Who's Gonna Know but Me

"Cause who's gonna know but me who'll help me recall those small memories
When I'm all that's left of this family of three who's gonna know but me" -Kathy Mattea-

Although some may find this song sad or maudlin, I love it and hear in it a call to action:

- Share the stories

- Share the photos

- Make time to talk

- Do it today - do it NOW

My family is spread across the world - literally, and my husband's family is spread around the country.  We live in Michigan, our sons live in New Zealand and Canada.  How do you maintain those all-important family ties, share family memories, and create new shared experiences under those circumstances?  We're doing it piecemeal - taking opportunities when they present themselves, creating opportunities and inviting relatives to participate, hanging on to certain traditions, although others have had to go by the wayside due to extreme distances.  This past fall we had the opportunity to gather a rather large group of three generations in one place; we each contributed what we could and had a blast together.  It was fun to look over old photos and hear stories we had forgotten, or learn ones we did not know; it was fun to look at our youngest generation and remark on the similarities of their appearance or personalities to those of their grandparents and even earlier generations; and it was fun to hear our kids discussing their memories of growing up - knowing that they are taking the reins and in doing so are taking some of our past into their future.    Who's gonna know but YOU....? Do something about it TODAY!

Of Art, Hope, Joy...

My Aunt, Margarita Stipnieks, was a remarkable artist and memorable person. Following her early years growing up and studying in Latvia, with her family she escaped the communist take-over of that country and emigrated to Australia, where she spent most of her adult life, returning to Latvia for the last few years of her life.  Even during the hardest times, she found refuge in her creativity.  I have a few of her watercolors painted on scraps of paper bags from the late 40's when she was living in refugee camps in Germany,

a treasured oil portrait that she painted of my mother in traditional Latvian garb during that same period,

and several black-and white mother-and-child charcoal sketches that remind me not only of my aunt but, looking into the haunted eyes of the mother in the sketch, the bleak life they were leading at the time.

Despite these hard times disrupting her life and those of her loved ones, my aunt was, to use a term I learned from a friend a few days ago, a "surthriver":  she not only survived the hand life dealt her, she thrived, and continued to learn, experiment, and grow as both artist and person throughout her life.  When I spoke to her on her 100th birthday a couple of years ago, asking how she was doing, her answer was a lively "Oh don't I just have everything! I can still see, I can still walk, my mind is still working, and I am surrounded by the most wonderful family and friends!  How could I possibly be richer?"

Watching the continually evolving style of her art, one would never guess at the losses and hardships she endured, nor would they guess at her advanced age when some of the pieces that follow were painted.  What they would see and recognize, is an artist with joy in her soul, empathy for the human experience, and recognition of the beauty surrounding her.  

I strive each day to become more like her!

Examples of later art:

Light at the end of the tunnel...

Very recently, the spouses of two very dear friends of mine have been facing serious health issues. As those of us who are "caretakers" recognize, the fears for our loved ones can become overwhelming, the effort to maintain a sense of normalcy for all involved a major challenge.  Yet, both these wonderful women have not only provided support for their spouses and family members, but have recognized and acknowledged the love and support of their friends and extended family.   This photo, taken a couple of days ago on Lake Michigan, reflects for me that thin, bright light they see in the distance: the hope and trust that their loved ones will be healed and their family whole once again.  How fortunate we are to live in a time and place where that is not an empty hope, but a promise based on science, experience, repetition, and proof.

Footprints

I was walking on the beach just now with my pooch, one of my very favorite activities; took some photos of the various footprints on the beach sand:

 

Horse over dune buggy, deer over jogger, jogger in running shoes next to barefoot beach walker.....

I looked to see what kind of footprints I was leaving, and found.....nothing......

There was sand on my shoes and I KNEW I was there, but I was leaving no trace.   When camping in the wilderness, "leave no trace" is the mantra we all try to follow, but in our lives, don't we all want to leave SOME evidence of our existence? Retirement offers us the opportunity to review the trace we've left, and correct it if possible. Have I shared family history with next generations? Yes - good.  No - now is the time to do it.  Will anyone remember what was important to me, what I stood for when I am no longer here?  Yes - good.  No - TELL someone, SHOW someone.   How wonderful to have the time to reflect on these things and have the gift of - if not the "do-over" - at least the "do-NOW".

What is this?

I retired from my career a few months ago and have been relishing the time since, welcoming the opportunity to focus on avocations, hobbies, loves.  In other words - I've REALLY been enjoying myself!  Imagine my surprise then, to read these definitions of the term retirement: "ebb, evacuation, fallback, flight, pullback, pullout, withdrawal, abandonment, abolishing, abolition, abrogation, annulment, canceling, deletion, dissolution, dissolving, elimination, invalidating, invalidation, nullification" and many similar terms/concepts to define this stage of my life.   I was appalled (alarmed, amazed, astounded, daunted, disconcerted, disheartened, dismayed), to realize that this time I had been anticipating with such joy was viewed so negatively, at least in the current lexicon of that concept.   So I began looking for terms that in my mind reflect more accurately this particular time in my life.  To my delight, I discovered that the term "advent" - in my mind heretofore related to Christmas - so accurately defined how I interpreted this phase of my life, namely: "beginning or arrival of something anticipated"; "appearance, approach, arrival, entrance, approach, arrival, onset..."   AHA!  I am not at the end of my life, but at the beginning of a new phase of my life!  YES!

So this blog is my tale; my reflections on this journey, the advent of this phase of my life.  I'm loving it, and I hope my meager comments and thoughts give others encouragement to embrace and celebrate this chapter of their lives rather than apologizing or making excuses for it.