My First Book!

I am pleased and excited to let you know that my debut poetry collection is being published!

Lessons in Letting Go is being published by Finishing Line Press.  It is currently in the pre-order period, now until June 7, 2013.  This poetry chapbook begins with the story of child loss and also explores miscarriage, confusion, coming to terms with loss, perspectives related to spirituality, and hope for the future.  

Please go here to check out the book and to read some of the things that other writers have had to say about it.  I strongly encourage you to order by June 7 -- shipping will be only $2.49 (within the United States) until then.  Please spread the word and share this link with others who might be interested!

Thank you for your support!

Born to be Wild!

My stepfather had been outside for what seemed like hours while I had been inside, dragging my camping stuff out of the closet and packing for the weekend. My younger sister and brother and I lugged our stuff downstairs to the kitchen, overtaken by mom, chaos in the form of coolers, and the classic rock station playing some song by Bad Company, which my sister switched to the R&B station on the way out, my brother switched to the Country station on the way in, and I switched to the Indie station as soon as he went the other way.

At some point, we began to drag our gear out to my stepfather's pickup truck, and I was startled at what I saw. He had taken the back seat out of the Dodge Caravan and was hard at work binding it to the back of the cab. He was using rope, bungee cords, and there may have even been some chains and padlocks involved.

"What are you doing?" One of us asked him.

"Well, you guys need a place to sit," he said, "and it's against the law to ride without seatbelts, but we've gotta take the truck to go four-wheelin'," he said. "So you're gonna sit back here."

The three of us looked at each other, and I thought I could see the same excitement in their eyes that I felt. Little brother, being only 8 or 9 at the time, actually expressed the excitement, while little sister and I, both well into our teens, exhibited mainly detached mild disinterest.

An hour later, we were strapped into the back of a Dodge Ranger without the cap, the little brother squeezed in between me and the little sister. We were doing at least 70 up I-91 into Vermont, so the fuel economy must have been lousy. The three of us were screaming along to 'Born to Be Wild' as we watched the cars approach in front of us, move into the next lane, and pass us by. I'm not sure why we chose that song. I don't remember if it was playing on the radio and we could hear it through the opened rear window. I don't know if it was the last song we had heard in between the time when mom had said, 'leave the radio alone!' and switched it back to the Classic rock station and when we left the house. My hair was whipping in my face and I was wishing that I had thought to stick an elastic in my pocket before we had left. The smell of late spring was in the air as we screamed at the tops of our lungs. For a little while, it was the three of us just having a good time together.

Years later, I'm driving through central New England along a state highway, on my way home from work, and enjoying the beauty of fall. My fingers happen to land on the radio dial and I hear a familiar song. 'Born to be Wild,' plays on the radio in all of its Steppenwolf-ish glory. I smile, roll down the windows, and scream along for a little while. Now that my sister is a mother to six, my brother is reveling in the ups and downs of young adult life, and I spend much of my time driving all over creation, our times together are infrequent. There is no screaming in the back of a wannabe pick up truck. The three of us would never be able to fit together in that Dodge Caravan seat now. But it's still nice to be able to shift back to that time, a time when all that any of us really needed to do was sit and scream at the tops of our lungs.

Throwing Paint on Walls, and Other Creative Pursuits

Are you artistically inclined? Do you wish you were, but can't draw a straight line to save your life? Do you think that creativity is for people with loads of leisure time? It's my opinion that people can't really afford to avoid creative expression, regardless of how uncreative they may assume themselves to be. It is such a pleasure and a joy to get creative, and helps those of us who are inclined to stick around in our heads too much to shift out of that and loosen up a little.

I had decided that I wasn't really the artistic type up until about three years ago. I was decent at music, having played trombone since fifth grade and having participated in a variety of bands and ensembles. I knew that writing was a strength. For the short time that I was involved in the professional ballroom dance world, I expressed my creativity through movement. From time to time, I would even put together a scrapbook, but generally only did it for people who I was completely certain would not laugh at my use of fluorescent colors with light-reflecting stickers (I cannot help but think that my students with Cortical Visual Impairment would have a field day). Yet I didn't think of myself as particularly creative.

So when I stood in the middle of Michael's one day, wondering what on earth I could possibly do for a new project, I had the most peculiar impulse to buy a bunch of painting supplies. I got the cheapest oil paints I could find, some canvas, and the cheapest bunch of brushes. I figured that going cheap would make the purchase hurt less if I later decided that I wasn't that interested. Also, I was certain it was going to look like crap, and at the time, I couldn't see how I could possibly value a painting if it was going to look like crap in the end.

I found out later that oil paint takes an eternity to dry, but no bother. I had completed my first painting! I had managed to get completely lost in a creative activity for the first time in quite awhile, and it turned out that losing myself was beneficial, because the painting was beautiful. I think that this first painting is still my favorite.

Nowadays, I continue to paint when the mood strikes. Yet I also find it extremely soothing to paint when I am going through a stressful time or grappling with an issue that just won't let go.

Since I finally own my own house, I'm delighted by the prospect of painting the walls however I want to paint them. There is the possibility that Josh might veto paintings featuring monsters or other scary creatures, but he was excited to hear that I wanted to take each wall of our kitchen island and paint a different picture for each season.

Summer was inspired one evening not too long ago by an issue that just wouldn't let go. I put on some music, turned on the very cool decorative lights that line the edge of the kitchen island, and went to work. Several hours later, I had summer on my wall for year-round enjoyment.


A few days later, the weather had changed, and I was struck with an inspiration to paint for autumn. The leaf in the foreground was saved from last year's painting because the spouse really liked it. The rest of the painting is far superior to last year's, probably because I was just having a good time and not caring whether or not it looked crappy.

Creativity is so crucial in helping us all to shift our perspectives on life, especially when we can let go of the fruits of our creative energy as being something upon which to base our worth, success, or status. If we have something that we can pour creative energy into -- music, writing, sports, dance, art, theater, dress-up with the kids, building tree forts, whatever -- it can shake us back into the sense of wonder and delight that we had as kids when we got ourselves truly immersed in play.

The Ocean!

--> Singing to an ocean, I can hear the ocean's roar.Play for free, play for me and play a whole lot more.Singing about the good things and the sun that lights the day.
I used to sing on the mountains, has the ocean lost its way.

--Led Zeppelin

The Spouse and I headed down to Misquamicut for our annual day-at-the-beach last Sunday. It's a pity we don't get to the ocean more often, living as close to the coast as we do. After driving and being pleasantly surprised at the lack of traffic, we got within 2 miles of the coast and were rudely awakened by the reality of end-of-summer beach traffic. Since The Spouse  loathes waiting in a non-moving vehicle and I loathe waiting in a non-moving vehicle with people who loathe waiting in non-moving vehicles, we decided for the sake of continued marital bliss that he should walk to the beach while I sought parking.

Once my fine luxury automobile (look, after having driven a 1992 Buick Century for most of my adult life, a Honda Civic is a luxury vehicle) was safely docked in some parking spot a zillion miles away from the bathhouse, I proceeded to track down His Spouseliness. He awaited my arrival in all of his sun-weary excitement at a picnic table. We headed down to what was supposed to be the beach but, due to high tide, a hot day, and it being the last beach-able weekend before the start of the school year, we were instead met with a gigantic people carpet.

Eventually we found a patch of sand maybe about 8x8 feet and planted our stuff. We didn’t fret too much about the insane numbers of people because, well, we were at the BEACH, baby! Yeah! There was pasty-bodied fist-pumping, followed by the two of us trotting eagerly (not running – way too crowded) to the water.

I got to the water and was met with…fear? I sighed and, yes, it’s true, I rolled my eyes with impatience at my own reluctance to ride the waves. Was this particularly compassionate? No, of course not. But I had come to have fun, not to watch The Spouse dive under 300-foot high surf and squint into the sun without my eyeglasses (basically rendering me temporarily blind) until I spotted him again. Since his hair these days is reminiscent of Fabio, it was easier than I would have expected. Men with long blond hair are sorely lacking in New England, and the particular dude with whom I keep company was gleefully frolicking in the surf as I dealt briefly with my inner worrywart.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE the ocean. I could body surf for the rest of my life if it weren’t for my day job and the fact that lousy surf happens. We had come on a perfect kind of day. Well, I mean, aside from the riptides, the intense undertow, and the waves, which seemed a lot bigger and more intimidating than I remembered them being. The lifeguard kept blowing his whistle. The kayakers kept yelling at people to move back toward shore. I wondered if there were going to be lots of jellyfish. I thought about several bad experiences I’ve had, and all of them have involved the following two things:

1. Being in a body of water.

2. Panic.

Even with these thoughts, it didn’t take me long to get into the water, and it’s because I kept on thinking of all of those metaphors about life that have to do with waves. You know, things like, “Life is like being in an ocean. You just have to let the waves take you where they’re going to take you.” Or whatever. I figured it would be an entertaining way to pass the time to see if I could just let the waves take me wherever they were going to take me.

The other thing that helped was dropping the judgment and totally letting myself be afraid. Once that happened, I had the freedom and space inside of me to realize that I was creating worry and fear. I could feel myself being afraid, just for the sake of being afraid. It was abundantly clear that my mind was just trying to come up with a reason to be afraid. I remembered that, even though I’ve had bad experiences in the water in the past, I can swim now, and I’m even a fairly strong swimmer. I have more confidence in my swimming than I have ever had in my life. I’ve made many beach trips in my day, rode many waves, and lived to tell the tale. I knew that this was just an old habit of fearing everything worth doing that was trying to take the reins, wanting to keep me protected from experiencing new bad experiences in the water.

I feel pretty ridiculous talking about my brief hesitation before getting in the ocean. Yet I realize that it’s the brief moments of hesitation where I have a choice to either act out of my fear and old habits or to continue on with what it is that I originally wanted to do. I noticed that I had a total ball on the waves once I recognized that there was fear, and then was free to make a choice regarding what to do about it. Did I want it to overtake me, or did I want to ride the waves anyway? When I made the choice to go in, the fear quickly transformed itself into the pure bliss and excitement of flying toward shore on the top of a wave while slamming your thighs together so that the bottom of your bathing suit doesn’t disappear.

Of course, the waves had to test me a little bit. At one point, one of them totally bitch-slapped me on the back. That kind of hurt. I slapped it back, and then we were on okay terms. Another one tried to separate my lower body from my upper body, but I just did my Superman pose and I was fine.

So. Waves. Get in the ocean and ride them! And if they’re too big, just dive underneath them. If only all of life were so simple.