Taking That First Step

I was first introduced to Susanna Liller when I was in my 20’s at a Business Women’s Networking organization where she and Connie Gemmer, through their business, Ruby Slippers, came to speak.  I instantly loved them.  They were a comfortable team, playing off each other like well-tuned musical instruments.

Fast forward 25 years, and I re-discovered Susanna through her coaching business and entered a writing contest she was hosting titled “The Heroine’s Journey.”  I placed 2^nd in the contest, and my prize was an opportunity to attend one of her weekend retreats for women in Bath.

Life-changing.  

And I’m not being dramatic.

I feel better any time I’m in Susanna’s presence.  The positive energy she emanates is palpable.  That weekend began a positive and thrilling momentum that continues to build and build for me.  I see that now.  

Through Susanna’s website, I knew that she and Barbara Babkirk (owner of Heart at Work) hosted an annual women’s retreat to France.  I read about the trip, starry-eyed and desirous.  How I would love to do that!  A couple years went by.  I didn’t.  No time, no money, too extravagant to splurge like that on myself.

Needing a “Susanna-fix” in the fall of 2011, I thought maybe I’d book another retreat if she was hosting one….and then, I saw that retreat to Paris, Chartres, and Giverny (Monet’s home) again.  I was more starry-eyed, more desirous.

My family said, “Go!  It’s so you.” 

For a matter of weeks, I chewed on it.  The thoughts that came up frightened and surprised me:  you’re not worthy, this is too extravagant.  I pondered the thoughts.  Where did they come from?  That’s not the girl I used to be, to be so doubting and lacking in confidence.  What has happened to me, I thought?  

Life.  

Aging.  

Life and aging happened to me.

On a Saturday, while running (where I always believe anything is possible), I made the decision to go to France.  It’s what I wanted most in the world; I was turning 50; my family supported my going.  Why wouldn’t I?

And then, I felt the earth shift.   



No kidding.

I made that decision on a Saturday.  That Monday, I learned my book Away at a Camp in Maine had won first place in a national writing contest for nonfiction.  (Wow.)  On Tuesday, THE agent I wanted to work with on book #2 emailed to say she wanted to read my entire manuscript (WOW).  

Something had happened, shifted.  I could feel it.  When I took one step in the direction I was supposed to go, the entire universe opened up “possibility” to me.  I sure wish I could harness this stuff – it’s SO COOL.  But I can’t.  It’s rare….and it only occurs when I am being truly authentic…which seem to be times few and far between.

The retreat to Paris occurred in May of 2012.  Susanna and Barbara were the perfect hosts.  It was the trip of a lifetime.  I will be grateful to have done it for the rest of my life.  As I left my fellow retreaters on Day 1 to head out alone to the Champs Elysée, I wasn’t that girl I’d become (hesitant, lacking self-confidence), I was my 21-year old self.  The world was at my fingertips. I laughed and skipped, spoke French (badly), and ate, drank, smelled, and saw everything French.  Gratitude coursed through my veins.  Joy pulsed through my entire being.  

Taking that first step in the right direction……hmmmmm…. can be magical.  If we let it. 

(Susanna and Barbara fly out on their Retreat to France "Beauty, Heart, and Spirit" June 3, 2013……
registration closes April 1.....)

Photos:  2012 retreat to France

Snowbound

I can’t say I’ve “never” experienced a storm like this; I’ve lived through a lot of Maine snowstorms.  But this one is certainly a biggie and the line that keeps running through my mind is from Rudolph when Santa says – “It’s the stor-r-r-m of the century!” (And that’s why they need Rudolph’s red nose…and finally stop bullying him.)

The wind was whipping so loud in the night, I feared the new shingles would rip off our roof.  The window panes had snow drifts…on the second floor.  It felt like The Wizard of Oz’s tornado where I might see a cow flying by my upstairs window or the evil neighbor (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) pedaling her bike swiftly by, in my dream state, with Toto poking his head out of her basket.  Topsy turvey.  Everything felt chaotic. Nature was commanding, loud, and violent.

Despite the scary parts of storms, and the real damage they inflict on so many people, there is something cozy about pulling inward and hunkering down with just your family.  You can’t go out, can’t do errands, sometimes can't watch television or type on the computer or do any of the “normal” things you typically do….and that’s the beauty.  It’s a forced shut down.

The night of the storm, the four of us watched a movie, something we’ve not done together for a very long time – nowhere to go, nothing to do...why not?  Outside, the wind whipped and the snow piled up.  

I am so grateful for heat, a sturdy home, living far enough away from the ocean to avoid flooding, and having my husband to protect us…and snowblow.  I’m so thankful for the quiet break inside.  

 I’m also a grateful witness to the beauty of a snowstorm and the feet of glistening white snow surrounding us when it’s over when, like Dorothy, we gently push open the back door and step outside slowly, eyes blinking in the bright light of the sunshine afterward.  

It’s rather dramatic of me to call my post “snowbound,” but fun to do so.  The camp we rent in Rangeley – now there we’d be snowbound – 10 miles into the woods, cannot see the closest neighbor, heavily snow laden pines, a blazing fire to keep us warm, no city snow plows.   

Mmmm….maybe someday a snowstorm there…..and it will be even more cozy and thrilling!

Photos:  view of my neighbor's house, the snow against my deck doors

My Sons' Headlights

One of my most joyful sights is seeing, out of the corner of my eye, the headlights of either of my sons’ cars.  Whether pulling to the curb out front for one, or into the front corner of the driveway for the other, my heart lightens.  They’re home.  I love having them home; I love their company, their smiles, their conversation, their noise, their quiet.  

My days of joy are numbered.

My boys are very close to turning 22 and 18.  I won’t see those headlights pulling into my yard much longer after a day of work or school or an evening out.  After a road trip to Boston to see a concert, those headlights at 3:00 a.m. on a rainy night give me a sense of gratitude and happiness that is unequaled.  The back door slams, heavy feet pound up the stairs or run down the stairs, and there are no better sounds.  Joy.  I feel joyful and grateful each time they return….because I know I’m nearing its end.  

I never want to forget. 

Mothers Fulfilled - new book release

After 10 long years of work, I have released my second book on Amazon.  At the Massachusetts Conference for Women held in Boston in December, I was introduced to Dr. Brene Brown, a wonderful speaker.   Her new book, "Daring Greatly," got its title from a quote by Theodore Roosevelt in 1910.  Paraphrased he said:  "It is not the critic who counts....the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena....who if he fails, at least fails daring greatly..."  I knew as she spoke that my book would be released in January, and I knew I was "daring greatly."  Humbly, I offer to you the opening:

Chapter 1

20/20 Hindsight

If anyone could be successful at being a dedicated, deeply-immersed mom while simultaneously working full-time (and then some) at a hard-driving career, naively, I thought it was me.  In my twenties, I believed I had the drive, ambition, commitment, and energy to pull it off. 

Work is a significant part of my life, not something I would give up easily.  I went into college expecting to work my entire life and give back something meaningful to society.  At that time, I never considered part-time work, having a “job” instead of a career, working just for money, or being a stay-at-home mom.  I thought I had so much to offer the world…and then, I had my first son.

Initially, I absorbed all that came with motherhood and integrated the demands into my busy days.  Both my husband and I ran hard to keep up with our work lives while managing our home life.  My weeks were full and physically daunting, but my love and devotion to my son took over all aspects of my thinking and way of being.  He came first and mattered more to me than I mattered to myself. 

This full life became challenging, but for so many years, I just kept going.  I had a second son.  Parenting two sons while working full-time required even more of me, and yet I gave up nothing.  Some years in, I began to have doubts and concerns, but still I kept on that path.

     

Of the women I know in my age group, I am one of the few who has worked full-time all the way through her child-rearing years.  When I began my parenting journey, I was in the minority of the women I knew.  The Shriver Report, a study by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, published in October 2009, says in its preface, “We are in the midst of a fundamental transformation of the way America works and lives.”¹  It prompted Maria Shriver to conceive the phrase “a woman’s nation.”  It compelled me to write this book.

     

I married in 1986 at the age of 24 to a man I began dating at 13.  We are still married after 26 years.  We had our first child in 1991 and a second, four years later.  My sons are now 21 and 17.   If The Shriver Report is accurate, women trying to do what I have done for the last 21 years may now become more prevalent and could soon be the norm in America.  The report says we’ve hit this “major tipping point in our nation’s social and economic history:  the emergence of working women as primary breadwinners for millions of families at the same time that their presence on America’s payrolls grew to comprise fully half the nation’s workforce.”²  

     

I was compelled to write this book because, with 20/20 hindsight at the age of 50 and knowing what I know now, I would have made a couple of different choices.  If parenting while working full-time as I have done is becoming the norm for women and their families, I feel a responsibility to speak up and show what that looks like, because I don’t believe it’s the best way.  What I would change is not major and is very do-able; small changes can have a huge impact.  

Brown, Brene, Ph.D., LMSW, Daring Greatly.  New York:  Gotham Books, 2012, p.1.