Monthly Archives: October 2014

“I’m Not Afraid”

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Cheryl Strayed at Concordia College

Cheryl Strayed at Concordia College

Saying “I’m not afraid” over and over got Cheryl Strayed from the Mohave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State – over an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. I tried it myself this week–the mantra, not the hike–and it worked. I got through another moment. Cheryl Strayed had many moments on the trail with dangerous animals, a snowstorm, and misery.

Monday, October 20th, I was with over 2,000 people listening to Cheryl as she spoke from the lectern at Concordia College.

She dropped bits of wisdom throughout the night.

“Don’t make fear my God.”

Her book reading was different from all others that I’ve attended in that she never read a word from Wild. She talked to us. We could have been gathered around a very large coffee table.

I had her book, Wild, for as long as it took her to do the hike – a summer–before I read a word. I was resistant because I didn’t want to be disappointed. I thought the praise for her writing might be because she was a local girl done good, and if I picked up the book the story would fall apart in my hands.

Enough people recommended Wild that I finally opened to the first page. Whoa.

I looked around the gymnasium at Concordia. A couple thousand people, including me, could relate to her story. How did she do that?

“It’s the only book that spoke to me,” said my friend sitting next to me. Her husband passed away eight months ago. “People know that I like to read. I got a lot of books, but this was the only one….”

“How can I bear the unbearable?”

October 22, 2014 091Cheryl called her hike a universal journey. A journey of finding who we are and then coming to peace with that. “Grief is love,” she added.

Therein lay my answer. Universal truths. Truths that apply to all people.

“Love is the nutrient that we need.”

“Alone with something I couldn’t lift but I had to lift it.”

December 5, Wild will be coming out in movie theatres.

Cheryl invited me to the after-party. She invited all of us. How did she make me feel included in her trajectory?

Her author page on Facebook has 105,627 likes. She’s been accessible, not losing herself in her climb.

In my research of her many interviews and talks around the country she didn’t lose herself in the publishing process or the making of a movie.

“In a heroic battle to make my way back to myself.”

During the evening Cheryl spoke about refusing to allow herself, her writing, or her story to be pigeonholed. Wild isn’t just for women. 50 percent of her correspondence is from men.

She left me with a ‘how to’ for when my book sells: Go in expecting respect and politely inform others. An artist shouldn’t defend his or her work.

Her book is powerful but she is even more powerful.

“I’m not afraid,” I can imagine her … me … and all of us … continuing to say on our own personal hike.

God Bless Middle-aged Daughters

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As I walk into the skilled nursing center where Mom is rehabilitating, I see other women like myself and think, “God bless middle-aged daughters.”

We’re the sensible, competent women who make it all happen.

On the street, we often go unnoticed, although we’re attractive. We dress well, but in age-appropriate clothes. No six-inch heels or short skirts. We may carry 10 to 20 extra pounds, but we’re fit, trim, and solid enough to carry the weight of the world.

On our lunch hour, after work, or during weekend visits, we go see our failing mothers and fathers. We bring them flowering plants small enough to fit on a bedside table/hard candy/clean sox/good cheer.

We comb their hair and smooth hand cream on their veiny hands and swollen feet. Once they could manage a demanding job or their family’s busy schedule, keep track of birthdays, recipes and grocery lists, but now they can’t remember what you told them five minutes ago, so we answer the same questions again and again. The times they emerge from the twilight, smile and say, “Oh honey, I wish you could always be here,” are heartbreaking treasure.

As we go back to the office, drive home, or head to the airport, we sigh at the slippage and blink back tears at the losses. Then we put on our game face because somebody else needs us. We keep moving—plan the marketing campaign, schedule the meeting, throw in a load of wash, or make a decent dinner.

We are careworn. Our lives are not glamorous (and never were—we didn’t aspire to that). We don’t expect much. We can be made happy with so little—a compliment when we don’t feel sexy or a hug from a kid who often seems oblivious.

Photo credit: Bokal @ Vecteezy.com

Photo credit: Bokal @ Vecteezy.com

Sometimes we need to push back our realities for a little while, so we laugh ourselves silly over a stupid joke when we’re out with our girlfriends or sink into the sofa and pour a second glass of good wine.

Why We Read The Books We Do

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f306a4206f3db95e9d87a8b4aaf37eb6[1]“Guess what I’m reading,” 12-year old Crystel says.

First, I try the vanilla genres, “Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, science fiction, fantasy?”

She shakes her head no every time.

What else is there?

“Dark Romance,” she says. Her eyes light up.

Oh, my, I think. “Books let you read anything you want,” I say, thinking of Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James and wondering what she IS reading.

I have a 1 ½ hour round trip drive to work thus my book reading has become books on tapes. Jody noticed Fifty Shades in the car. She raised her eyebrows.

“Don’t push Play when the kids are in the car,” I said.

Fifty Shades ended up too spicy. I returned the trilogy to the library. How much flavoring can one take? Jody’s happy if I hold her hand.

12-year old Antonio reads Pokémon from back cover to front. “I like reading different stories about Red the Trainer,” he said.

Recently, he’s been downloading the series onto his IPod to read.

I’ve not read a single page of Pokémon. I don’t enjoy graphic novels. It reminds me of the funnies. In my family of 14, the funnies were prime reading material on Sunday mornings. I avoided any tussling by turning my back on the colorful newspaper that would be shredded by noon.

I don’t read fantasy or science fiction either. Give me the real stuff. Memoir, non-fiction, and fiction based on truth.

One evening, Antonio held up a thick book. “Look what I’m reading,” he said.

The heftiness of the book surprised me. What could hold his interest that long?

He laughed. “It has lots of pictures in it.” He had found Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick in his school library. Not that he went to the libary on his own volition. He needed a book for reading prep.

“Ta dah!” I’m sure he exclaimed after perusing the pages.

I asked if the illustrations reminded him of his own pencil drawings. “Nope,” he said. There goes that elevated thought.

After finishing Wonderstruck he found The Invention of Hugo Cabret by the same author.

Antonio doesn’t know (or care) that the book won the 2008 Caledcott Medal, the first novel to do so.

With 284 pictures within the book’s 526 pages, the book depends as much on its pictures as it does on the words.

Selznick himself has described the book as “not exactly a novel, not quite a picture book, not really a graphic novel, or a flip book or a movie, but a combination of all these things.”

“Guess what page I’m on?” Crystel says in the car, on the couch, in her bedroom, as she makes her way through her dark romance.

“How did you find this book?” I asked her.

“When I was on Utube I clicked a thing on Ellen and Twilight.”

“I learned enough about the characters that when I went to our school library and saw the series, I picked it up. They didn’t have the first book, Twilight but they had New Moon. I read a little from the middle and there were no words that I didn’t know. And this cat is so cute. I’m reading Eclipse now.”

The four Twilight books have consecutively set records as the biggest selling novels for children.

Even so, I’m not interested in reading the series. It’s not my genre.

Is the lesson here that parents can model reading but not the genre?

On Loving (and Losing) Pets

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Cat and dog lovers give our hearts to our pets without reservations.

When we begin a new relationship with a person, experience has taught us to take care with our hearts. But with a new dog or cat, we don’t worry if they’ll like us back, if they are willing to commit, if they will ever cheat on us, or if we’ll outgrow each other. We know they’ll love us wholeheartedly.

My Tasha

My Tasha

We allow ourselves to be caught up—they’re so cute, sweet, and funny—that we can easily lose all sense of perspective. But we’re enjoying them too much to care if the anecdotes we tell about them have become tedious.

We overlook how annoying our pets are—the messes, the whining, the way they eat stuff they shouldn’t, wreck our things, chew/scratch/claw—it’s all OK, because we’re besotted.

We worry about their health, pay hundreds of dollars in vet bills, fuss over special foods, and adapt our schedules so we can take care of ailing pets.

Ultimately, we agonize over end-of-life decisions: Do we have the right to keep them going even when they’re sick and in pain, because we aren’t ready to lose them? How will we know when they’ve had enough? How can we bear to part with them?

Despite knowing we will likely outlive our pets, we willingly take on the cycle of loving/caretaking/loss, because our pets give us so much joy. Unreservedly.

For anyone who has lost a beloved pet recently—especially Beth, Pam, Margo, Becky, and me.