The Conversation

Real Simple magazine’s, Kristin van Ogtrop asked

in her editor’s note of their August 2012 issue: 

“Have you ever had a conversation that changed your life?”

One immediately came to mind for me.  It was a sentence said to me at the age of 15 that has haunted me all my life.

I was at my grandmother’s camp on Sebago Lake, meeting her for the first time as a teenager.  Lettie, a relative on her Norwegian side, was visiting and staying in one of the small cottages on the property.  I don’t even know if that’s how she spells her name and I don’t believe we had more conversations than one, but one was enough with that woman.  

My impression, formed from her sentence, said with a rugged finger pointed at me and with squinted eyes, created her lifelong persona for me that may or may not represent who she is entirely.

Unsolicited she said to me:  “It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man.”

I was horrified and offended.  She didn’t even know me.  I was 15 and deeply in love with a kind, gorgeous boy.  And I already knew that riches didn't define a person, didn't make him or her smart or compassionate or caring.  I was an independent woman with big dreams of my own.  That was like telling me the earth was flat.  I thought that the most deplorable thing to say to a strong young woman.

And then all my life, it has come back to me at various odd times.  I’ve softened in that her intention was probably noble.  I know nothing of her life and maybe that is what she wished for herself.  Perhaps she thought she was giving me sage advice.  I’m certain now her intent was surely not to upset me.  

That sentence didn’t change me; it just deepened my own strong convictions.  One sentence was the conversation that directed my life.  

I’ve been married to that boy for 26 years.  At the age of 50, what I know for sure is that Lettie was wrong.

Photo:  the 2010 wedding of my niece and her husband

Creatives and Drinking

My barista at Arabica said something to me while making my cappuccino the other day that gave me pause – I’d never thought of it before.

I had told her my younger son got his 1^st choice college acceptance letter – what a great day, what a moment seeing that ear-to-ear smile, getting a warm embrace from him and even an invitation to lunch to thank me for my help.  Wow!

I guess the “college” part prompted her to say she will get her kids drunk for their first time!  (How we went from “college” to “drunk” so quickly was a fascinating commentary on our current society.)  She feels it’s important to have her child drunk in front of her where it’s “safe,” and it will “kind of take the edge off” or the darkness of fascination off when it’s done with parents.  She’s certainly not talking about “child” but when they turn “young-adult.”  She’s just planning ahead since her kids aren’t close to college age.  And she’s only talking once, not routinely.  I see her point but that’s not my style.  Now for the point of this blog post…

I told her my older son (21) doesn’t drink, never has, and I honestly don’t think my younger son (17) has.  She said immediately and matter-of-factly, “That’s because they’re creative.  They don’t need to.”  One of my sons is a musician/songwriter, the other is an artist/animator heading to the Savannah College of Art & Design in the fall, and my local barista knows this. 

She then elaborated that she was an “art kid” and said she didn’t drink until the age of 25 and that none of her “artsy” friends did either.  She said that she and her friends thought, as kids, that boring people had to drink to have fun.  Fun people don’t need to do that.  Creatives are inspired by everything so don’t need an artificial substance to jazz them.  Wow.  No idea if that’s true but it surely is with my two creatives.  Interesting idea to just make us ponder…..

Art work by Ben Kalicky, drawn with a mouse

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