This post is about my friend and colleague Ellen Matis, who is speaking Aug. 18 at a Fireflies at Hameau Farm event, hosted by Lisa and Gay Rodgers, farmer and owner of Hameau Farm.
Ellen founded Hello Social Co. in 2017, combining skills in social media marketing with a deep love of community. More than anything, Ellen wants to see small towns and places like the ones she’s called home thrive economically — and knows Hello Social Co. can play a role in that.
Ellen studied Journalism and Public Relations with a focus in digital media at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and obtained a master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications from West Virginia University.
Outside of Hello Social Co., Ellen serves as the Board Vice President of Downtown Bellefonte Inc. and is a board member for Centre Foundation. When she’s not working or volunteering, she can be found hiking or camping in the Pennsylvania Wilds with her husband, daughter, and rescue pups.
Last week, I found myself working in an empty park pavilion, in a nearly empty state park, with our two dogs and my laptop. Turns out it was the best place to find my calm and focus. May we all keep calm and responsibly, compassionately talk to each other.
The COVID-19 pandemic news alerts came fast and furious. My heart ached and my mind raced with personal and professional thoughts and feelings. A flood of ideas, reactions and emotions overwhelmed my mind until my head pounded, as if hopelessly holding a swarm of angry bees.
Before I could be useful to my family and friends, my clients, my community, my readers, the volunteers I work with on projects or anyone for that matter, I needed to calm down.
The most important thing was to operate and communicate from a calm, thoughtful, upbeat place, not from a panicked frenzied state — and to catch my breath and get clear on the next most important thing after that.
My typical way to focus is to tune out news and social media, and drop into classical piano music (Free stream: yourclassical.org)
Now, I simply can not look away from the news. And I needed to watch the social media to get information straight from scientists on Twitter and see what people were talking about on Facebook.
Colliding worlds
I hold many roles: Woman, stepmom, wife of a school administrator, conservation science writer, “love blogger,” communications pro representing a college program and a non-profit organization, trained journalist, person of faith, a member of a church family, co-leader of a community garden, neighbor, friend….
One minute, all of those roles and responsibilities were compartmentalized. The next minute, they were smashed up together. I needed to regain my bearings.
The final straw: A social media post that the whole COVID-19 thing was a hoax. My anxiety and blood pressure soared above my head. In that moment, I ended a friendship.
I drove to the state park, figuring I’d walk the dogs. But it was more than that. I ended up in a good, solid shelter made of wood and stone, with no Internet service, among the trees.
As soon as I parked the car beside that pavilion, I wept.
Horror — and the rising of helpers
My heart ached.
Thank God we are healthy.
Each of those “data points” — those numbers we now track hour-by hour — represents a sick, terrified person, or a human being who died alone. A family that can’t properly mourn a loss or even hug each other. Awful.
My family and I are not suffering. We are not on the front lines like the nurses and doctors.
And yet, I’m feeling loss on so many levels.
All of our kids — yours and ours — had entirely different plans for this spring, and our families anticipated happily watching them reach those next milestones.
What will happen now? When will we get back to normal? No one knows.
All of those school children now at home. What can we do for them? Overwhelmed parents.
And, already last week, wonderful news was already coming out that “the helpers” were stepping up in awesome, amazing ways. People figuring out how to get school lunches to kids. People quickly re-inventing what they do in a virtual way. Pastors figuring out how to deliver their church services to people.
I wanted to help, too, but how?
We are resilient. We are adapting. Can we stop bickering and work together to solve the problem? We’ll see.
Solid, still and safe
In the stone and wood picnic shelter, I felt safe, still and calm. Out in nature, and yet protected by a solid wood roof supported by thick posts of tree trunks too thick to reach around. My feet were on solid rock as I sat at a huge square picnic table, before a stone fireplace.
I breathed fresh air, surrounded by woods and birdsong. Trees, paths, a baseball field all within view. The lake just down the trail, on the other side of those trees.
I could breathe deeply and figure out how and what to communicate across multiple audiences.
Keep Calm, I thought over and over again. Keep. Calm.
Keep Calm and do your best on whatever it is you do, what you were born to do, what you are called to do.
It’s a message, a mantra — and a prayer. A plea and hope for the scientists to discover, for the innovators to solve pieces of this wicked problem, for parents to go outside and garden with their children, for people of faith to join in prayer, for the yoga instructors to all remind us how to breathe deeply.
For us all to love and help each other through it.
The single most important message for everyone:
Communicate responsibly and with compassion.
Build with this Tool
Now, more than ever before we all hold the public interest in our fast-typing hands by what we do, what we say, what we post.
Right now, as you use Facebook, you are holding a very powerful tool. You can use it to help.
Or — despite good intentions — to harm. Like a hammer, this tool in your hands can build something beautiful or destroy.
I ask you all, when you post on social media, to please practice responsibility for what you are communicating. Please do so with others in mind.
Sure, we all have our First Amendment rights, and I’d fight for yours tooth and nail.
Until, that is, you endanger my family. Then, you’re on your own.
Public health experts over partisan politics
Part of the First Amendment law has been that it’s neither legal nor morally defensible to yell “fire” in a crowded movie theater because a panicked crowd rushing to the exits is a dangerous situation.
Same here.
Listen to public health officials and experts like Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Their guidance must be the clearest, loudest voice you hear. Data and good science matter most now, not partisan politics.
To people who are posting messages contrary to the public health guidance: You are jeopardizing the safety of my family.
How dare you?
Please choose life instead. Choose love over fear.
Keep Calm & Love One Another
Choose to build and help, and support community. Please joke — we need to laugh. Please continue to share those beautiful pictures of how springtime is unfolding all around us. Please create. Please share art. Please share stories.
Dance with a raw chicken around your living room if it feels good. You’re not hurting anyone else — and I need the laughter. (Looking at you, Caren.)
We all need to keep calm and love one another through this crisis.
And that means communicate with each other, now more than ever, with responsibility and compassion.
A Little Silence Goes a Long Way
I would have stayed longer at that beloved picnic pavilion with its huge, square picnic table and memories of the only time my dad met my stepsons, but it was getting chilly. It was time to give the dogs their promised walk along the stream and head for home.
I’ve not been back — nor have I been calm at all times this week. I am scared for all of us. When I’ve teetered on the edge of panic, I’ve managed to pull it together, find some calm, re-focus on my mantra and move forward.
It was only an hour or so at my pavilion bunker — my little fortress of solitude — but it was plenty.
January’s quiet, icy stillness invites us to create a vision for the year ahead — at least when all goes according to plan.
What’s working for you so far in 2020?
My 2020 began with a joyful, beautiful family dinner, and some rest. Then came the critical work of January: Envisioning, and planning. January is for switching gears from precious family holiday time to create a vision for the year. I regroup and sketch out the year ahead — and finished some assignments from clients.
But I’ve learned to keep January’s work light, leaving space and time for dreaming and planning the year — because that’s also important work.
Here’s how I learned this lesson.
Road Warrior
Every spring for eight years, I traveled around America to interview owners of independent garden center stores. My client was a magazine for retailers just like them. The business profiles I wrote became the publication’s cover stories throughout the year.
It was a great gig and I loved it.
For those few weeks every spring, I was a road warrior, often flying to three cities and three stores around the country in a week. I became fascinated with learning and telling the stories of these family businesses that often began with a grandfather who was a grower selling vegetables from a roadside vegetable stand.
Over about 40 trips and 40 profile stories, I discovered that people who are passionate about plants and the business of sharing their plant passion tend to be really nice people, generous with their time and expertise.
Wisdom from a Visionary
One May afternoon, I interviewed Angelo Petitti and his son AJ, owners of Petitti’s Garden Center in Cleveland. Petitti’s is a successful, nine-store company that grew from a landscape service Angelo started out of his garage in Oakwood Village, Ohio, close to where I grew up. Petitti’s first store opened on the site of that garage in 1971.
In our interview, Angelo talked about how they need January and February to clean out, rework and repaint their stores, especially in the Northeast Ohio climate, so they are shipshape for spring. January is a naturally slow time in that business. Spring is, as you can imagine, insanely busy. So is the Christmas shopping season.
My takeaway from Angelo: You have to give yourself that time.
He was sharing advice for other store owners, of course, and most likely did not realize he was providing a big A-Hah moment for a freelance writer.
His point resonated with me. You have to give yourself that time. Time to create your vision for the year. To reflect on where you are compared to your vision for your work life. Downtime to regroup, cleanout, and organize the business. That’s essential work for me, too, and an essential part of running my business and life.
Paddling as Fast as I Could
That spring, I was beyond frazzled: Juggling freelance clients, teaching journalism, and attempting to balance that work life with a whole new family life. I was just beginning to learn how to be a stepmom to two teenage boys, and fit into their world, aware they would be all grown up in a few short years.
In the spring, that meant going to as many of my younger stepson’s baseball games as possible — unless I was traveling. It was an important way to show him I loved him. The prior year had brought the great joy of falling in love with my husband and his sons — and the awful pain of watching my dad battle in vain against pancreatic cancer.
That year, my dad died in early January. When it was time to travel that spring, my grief was still so raw.
Frantically, day to day, I dog-paddled to keep my head above water. But I couldn’t paddle fast enough.
I was making logistical mistakes that cost me precious time. On the way to that Petitti interview, I’d rushed through my driving instructions, and initially drove in the wrong direction before realizing my mistake — in my hometown of all places! — and was late. Not by a little bit, either.
Embarrassed, I apologized and offered to re-schedule. Recalling that afternoon makes me shudder.
The Petittis were gracious and patient. We got it done.
I took Angelo’s wisdom to heart. It was a permission of sorts to step back and re-align my responsibilities with a new life that for the first time included children, a reminder to take better control of my time.
And so I did. Not perfectly. It’s all a work in progress.
Do what works best for you. Here’s how I create a vision for the year ahead.
In the last few months of the year, I think about “my themes” — reflecting on the ones I set for the waning year, and ones that feel right for the coming year. I devote the holidays to family time, then give myself work time in January for visioning, themes, goals and planning.
What’s the point of resolutions that begin Jan. 1? Seems like a setup for failure. I’d rather nap that morning and visit with family in the afternoon.
To start, I open a giant drawing pad with big sheets of paper where I write big-picture notes from previous years.
Over a few hours on the right afternoon, these notes become a vision for the year ahead posted on the wall of my office. Then I break the goals down into steps by quarter and month on whiteboards and onto my calendar.
Handwriting on the Wall
For my whole career, I’ve been a writer — but the type of writing, and nature of my writing goals have changed. Initially, I was a staff journalist on small publications, covering business and the environment, particularly marine issues. For the last 14 years, I’ve made my living as a freelance writer.
For more than a decade my vision has been the same:
Live a beautiful writing life, in balance with a strong, healthy marriage, thriving family and loving home. Tell great stories. Enjoy great stories. Be part of a great story.
Seeing that vision in black and white, I realized that’s exactly where I’ve landed. So I took a few moments to savor that.
Themes — not Resolutions!
Next: my themes. What are the most important challenges to tackle this year? These will be my reminders all year.
On the big sheet of paper, I write my “true north” at the top: “Love & Family Above All Else.”
Love and family come before work goals. And when they align, that’s the best case. When they don’t, it’s time to let some things go.
Last February, I stood up on the TEDxPSU stage and told a story about how my late dad had hurt our families — both his first one with my mom and his second one, with my stepmother — and how somehow through gratitude, grace and forgiveness we all came together about a decade ago for a magical Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of February. That and other stories live at ThanksgivinginFebruary.com
(Considering my anxiety when speaking to our church congregation of about 40 people — I can barely breathe at the podium, afraid of accidentally swearing — this 15-minute talk on stage in front of hundreds of people satisfied my “Be Brave” for 2019. Don’t you agree? I’m still afraid of heights. Maybe next year.)
I finished a lot of stuff in 2019. But not this particular Thanksgiving in February work. That I’m still seeing through.
My themes for 2020:
• Steady On
• Time
• Move
More on these later. But here’s a hint: I’ll turn 50 this year. Time, moving and staying grounded and focused are all on my mind a lot lately.
(Is that typical? If you have any thoughts on turning 50, I’d love to hear them! Leave a comment below or email me: lisa@lisaduchene.com)
Breaking it Down into Steps
I break my themes into goals, and write those on the big paper on the wall.
MOVE, for example, means:
• short walk every day
• long walk 2-3 times a week
• yoga every weekday morning
• a big bike ride this summer. (At least 50-100 miles, which I’ve done before, and I like celebrating milestone birthdays with a challenge goal.)
Setting Deadlines
Then the bullets become to-do steps on my whiteboard for the quarter, my whiteboard for the month, and my calendar. I’ve created a vision — and know life can change it at any moment.
Maybe there’s an app for all this. If you’ve found one that works for you, that’s awesome. Use that!
Me? I need to see my handwriting on the wall, in the big book, in my calendar.
Now, as January wanes, the review: I’m good on daily walks and a daily yoga practice. Not as many long walks, so I need to work on that.
And … drum roll …
Last night, the hubs and I made plans with good friends over apple pie and fresh vanilla ice cream to bike the 62-mile Pine Creek Rail Trail in Pennsylvania’s Grand Canyon this summer. At least the 62 miles.
It’s on the calendar!
Regular reviews as the year unfolds are the trick to making all this work. Remember: Nothing is perfect. It’s all a work in progress.
Hello February!
Some reflection today, Feb. 1, is important. The month ahead will be busy, since I’ve committed to writing and sharing love stories at ThanksgivinginFebruary.com — and the annual Thanksgiving in February dinner, of course, is later this month!
The other trick? Knowing when to let stuff go. Trust me, I struggle a lot with this one.
I’ve blown out enough birthday candles and logged enough miles to know life happens when you’re making other plans.
No longer do I travel every spring and write those independent garden center profiles, though it was a fun gig. Those particular road warrior days are over. I needed the time and space for new work and new directions in my work and life.
A greater love had arrived: Two kids who played football and baseball in high school then college. Sure, they understand I have work responsibilities.
But I’d already missed too many baseball games. And being there was much more important than being a road warrior.
As a kid glued to the TV in my grandparents’ living room, I relished every magical visit to the Land of Make Believe with Mr. Rogers. His gift and message — you are loved, just as you are — endures. We need it more than ever. With love stories, I’ll do my small part here to spread it.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood — the new movie about Fred Rogers and his vision to create a quality, healthful TV show for children — is packed with gems of wisdom and great life advice. It’s well worth your time.
I’m always curious after seeing a bio-pic about what’s true and what’s a fictional product of movie-making, so I’ve been reading up and discovering wonderful nuggets of inspiration for my grown-up life and work.
Some quick background:
In the movie, a cynical magazine writer is assigned to write a piece about Mr. Rogers for an Esquire magazine issue on heroes. (True.) Fred Rogers took a personal interest in the writer — the relationship at the heart of the movie. (True.) Those interviews led to a rich, four-year friendship until Rogers died in 2002. (All true.) The writer-character’s name in the movie (Lloyd Vogel) and back-story on his personal crises are both fictionalized.
Tom Junod, the real-life writer, penned a gorgeous piece in this month’s issue of The Atlantic.
Junod tied this story to our times. What would Fred Rogers make of our times? A worthwhile read.
Here’s the gem from Junod’s story that struck me this week, as I was drafting this little post about writing love stories.
Junod once told Fred Rogers about seeing five motorists in Atlanta stop their cars to help an old, big snapping turtle safely cross a highway exit ramp. Fred Rogers asked if he would be writing about it.
No, Junod said, but asked Fred Rogers why he thought it would be a good story:
“Because whenever people come together to help either another person or another creature, something has happened, and everyone wants to know about it—because we all long to know that there’s a graciousness at the heart of creation.”
~ Fred Rogers
Love Stories
Holy guacamole. THAT gave me an A-Ha, validating moment.
That real-life, big family turkey dinner in the middle of February almost 10 years ago led to my obsession with sharing real stories from my real life.
Why? Because I experienced something remarkable that February night and I’m wired to share it. That Mr. Rogers quote brought me a big step closer to understanding it.
You may wonder: What the heck do turtles and exit ramps have to do with roasted turkey, my crazy family and a snowy winter evening?
Love. Sweet. Love.
Graciousness over Pain
As my father lay unconscious, I believed there was some risk that one of his ex-wives or girlfriends could harm him. Not necessarily that any one of those women, nor that I, were capable of actually unplugging him from the ventilator. But that the stress of one’s presence — or an ugly cat fight between us — could perhaps trigger his cardiac arrest. Or something equally awful.
I understood their anger, even as I stayed close to protect him. I asked his ex-wives to stay out of his room, and loudly joked about this to reassure my dad, just in case he could hear us.
He had deeply hurt and betrayed all of us. I had witnessed these women’s pain. As his daughter, I shared their pain.
None of those dark products of my imagination actually happened.
Instead, my dad’s ex-wives — my mother and stepmother — his daughters and long-time girlfriend all beautifully worked together to help him survive and recover. Then we celebrated with a big turkey dinner in the middle of February.
Each of these women acted out of graciousness, kindness and love. They became the heroes of our family story.
The “graciousness at the heart of creation” as Fred Rogers put it to Tom Junod, was a bright, shining light in my family that night.
I witnessed my mom, stepmother and Stephanie all working together in Stephanie’s small kitchen, preparing a meal for our family. No catfights. The impossible became possible.
That experience changed our whole family for the better. It changed our dad. It changed me, helped heal me. That’s my truth.
And since we all long to know about that graciousness, as Fred Rogers’ words confirm, I’ll keep sharing this and lots of other love stories.
Love at the Core
I started writing about it, almost immediately. I’ve been a writer since I was a kid, but telling this story was my first real attempt at writing about my own life instead of the lives of other people, or scientific findings, politics, fishing communities, small town government, environmental issues or business trends.
These ThanksgivinginFebruary.com stories explore many themes: Gratitude, family, gathering, friends, pain, turkey, estrangement, apple pie, step-mom-hood, grief, divorce, making peace as we pass the dinner rolls and sweet butter, falling in love, making a new family.
Failing to make peace and finding hope to try again later. All of that stuff of life.
Yet — love is at their core. Love is their essential fiber, and stitches them together.
‘If it’s about love …’
Long ago, as I was just starting this work, I was on a bus trip in Montana, chatting with a group of writers and their spouses about my urge to write about my experience of my family healing over a turkey dinner.
“Does anybody care?” I asked. “Would anybody read that story?”
A woman answered me: “I would,” she said. “I’d read it if it was about love.”
I’ve never seen her again. I don’t remember her name. Just this: “I’d read it if it was about love.”
‘You are loved, just the way you are.’
To be clear: I’m not Fred Rogers. For one thing, I’m not as kind (but I’m working on it). I don’t have his vision and I talk way too fast to children. (I’m working on that, too.)
But I do believe in my bones that no one else has my stories and can tell them the way I can, because I had the good fortune to grow up knowing I was loved.
And that I can be brave, tell my stories and keep working to share the most important message of all: You are loved, just as you are.
This is true. Mr. Rogers told me on TV.
In these times, we face darkness on our planet, in our country and in our families. As I write, news alerts pop up on my phone about another shooting, today in Pensacola. I can’t pretend all of that way, nor can I fix it.
I can pray. I can speak. I can vote. I look for and tell love stories. They surround us.
We can love each other through the darkness. One gracious moment at a time. One friend, one neighbor helping an imperiled turtle, wounded soul and broken family.
One love story at a time.
~~~
The world needs love stories. To share mine with you is a great joy, honor and privilege.
When the pumpkins were plump and glorious a couple of weeks ago, and the trees ripened in crimson, flame orange and bright yellow, I soaked in all that fleeting beauty. And I felt November coming.
Do you have a month that reminds you of seismic life events, both joyful and sad? Maybe the month when your first child was born, or you started a business — or even suffered the loss of a loved one.
To live is to pile up these milestone moments year-by-year. Sometimes they cluster in a single, loaded month. For me, that’s November.
Light & Darkness
November’s light is wise and clarifying. It reveals what should stay and what should go, shines upon gratitude, gathering and family. This month reminds me I’m living a full, good life, worth appreciating — even the painful parts.
I spent much of November in 2009 at Akron General Hospital, in my dad’s intensive care room during visiting hours. When I could not visit, I did my work in the cafeteria. As he slept deeply in a medical coma, I held his hand and clung to him with every ounce of my energy, telling him stories and talking to him about strength and the healing pinks and oranges of the sunrise.
In a tug-of-war with death, in my mind’s eye, I dug my heels into thick, splattering mud, my blistering hands and those of my sister and dad’s girlfriend pulling the rope. No. Not now. Not yet. Pulling. Pulling. Praying.
He recovered, and was out of the woods by Thanksgiving — one richer and sweeter than ever. We promised him a special turkey dinner when he was fully recovered. Three months later, our Thanksgiving in February tradition began.
I’m obsessed with telling that story, as some of you may know. Short version: Dad’s longtime girlfriend and daughters and ex-wives all pulled together into a functional family unit when he was sick. We all celebrated together in February with a big turkey dinner. Here’s the blog it inspired.
Family Gatherings
But — one kind of funny part is that no one ever mentioned that we did not typically all spend Thanksgiving together, anyway. It didn’t seem to matter.
Of course I spent a few childhood Thanksgivings with my dad. I just don’t seem to remember them.
What I most remember is my maternal grandmother’s hallmark pear salad, assembled on the small plate atop the stack at each place set for my family: My mom and grandfather, my uncles, aunts and cousins, as we crowd and take our seats around an oval dining table.
During the blessing, half a canned pear, with a dollop of cream cheese and a bright red maraschino cherry atop a single leaf of lettuce, sits perfectly untouched. Then, we sit and start to pick at the pears as the roll toss begins.
“Hey, pass me a roll!” one of my uncles asks his brother, who sails a dinner roll Hail Mary-style per tradition from one end of the table to another — or, as our family grew, into a second table in the next room. For decades, when I could no longer be there, I craved this family gathering.
Instead of making a long trip home, I celebrated “Friendsgiving” in Boston with my college friends. In my 30s, Thanksgiving was a road trip and long weekend in Philadelphia, the home of the fun-loving family of my then-boyfriend and later ex-husband. In the afternoon, I’d duck out for a long, quiet walk through downtown Philly.
November’s New Growth
A year after dad’s illness, I let go of that dying marriage. Done. Let’s free each other of this albatross that led us to the new places we needed to go, before we drown. I was numb through that holiday, a deer in the headlights.
But it had not been the kind of love that carries you past old age.
My mind still goes swimmy and butterflies zip around my belly when I re-live falling in love with my husband. In-between the dishes and the taking out the trash last night, I remind him, as November reminds me: Eight years ago, by the way, you’d finally e-mailed me, and I answered. We were talking about your brother’s wedding, and the fall chores like raking leaves and stacking wood.
Thanksgiving the next year was my dad’s last. In a snapshot from that day, our tangled, grafted family stands around him on the front steps of his house. He’s a shadow of himself, skinny and ashen, wearing a stained green t-shirt and grey sweatpants — not at all his typical holiday attire of a crisply ironed shirt, sweater vest and leather jacket.
A bittersweet moment. An exquisitely beautiful and painful image. We are all together and smiling. Functional. We know the time is waning. Is it the chemo or the cancer giving him the most trouble? It’s hard to say. My dad and his longtime girlfriend, my mom (his first ex-wife) and stepdad, my stepmother (dad’s second ex-wife), and my sister (we share a dad and have different moms), plus my dad’s brother and his wife. Together for now.
Live Fully & Deliciously
Soon, my husband and I started hosting the big family meals. Dad is gone and that family has scattered. My mom and stepdad join us in central Pennsylvania. This time last year.
During one of the first meals we hosted, I explained how my family does this traditional roll toss.
“Lisa,” my oldest stepson, then 17, said and corrected. “We’re your family.” It meant the acceptance that was so important to me, not replacement of anyone.
My heart melted like butter. Before I could cry — he sailed a dinner roll down the table to his younger brother. Now our family meals begin that way, too. In the course of a single year, I’d lost my dad — and gained a family of my own.
Our Purpose?
November’s days leading to Thanksgiving are constant, rich reminders of all these joyful, painful family moments. As I pull the linens and polish the silver, and find a special place for the crystal punch bowl that belonged to my husband’s grandmother, this film reel will play in my mind.
You may have one of your own, and maybe it’s full of people you miss, too. That’s OK. November reminds us to keep loving, no matter what comes our way.
A local, talented graphic artist, Sean McCauley, recently showed his brightly colored, images of flowers and rainbows — that also included dark, sad parts like green clouds and tears below the rainbow and dark, hairy spiders under a smiling daisy. His artwork is his response, his antidote to the cultural pressure to show the world we’re happy all the time.
Rich Reminders of Light & Darkness
We’re not happy all the time — and that’s OK. Those spiders are lovely to me, too. We need them and lots of cool critters as part of healthy soil that grows beautiful food and flowers. Rainbows are all the more beautiful after the dark storm.
I’m with Sean on this. We can feel the full spectrum of life’s colors and still move forward — actually, it’s HOW we move forward.
The purpose is to live fully — sadness, grief, joy, bliss, satisfaction — all of it. To be kind, and joyful, love and be loved, appreciate, and to figure out our purpose.
November reminds us of life in all its rich glory, light, falling darkness — and gratitude for the full experience of it all. I wish you a full life, and a delicious November.
The sharp jolt of pain to the right of my breastbone lasted a few seconds, long enough to get my attention. Any ache or pain in my chest gives me pause. Heart problems run in my family. So does denial.
Three times those jabs froze me that hot July evening as I scraped and washed the dinner dishes and the messy pots — the remains of the jambalaya for a special family meal. Both of my stepsons and their girlfriends had joined us that night.
I didn’t want to ignore a warning sign and drop dead at 49 — just as I might be getting the hang of this life — nor did I want to race off to the ER, ruining precious family time over nothing.
Sitting at the table with the kids was nice, of course. Always. Yet, that had not offered much physical relief.
Mid-summer’s heat and humidity were oppressive, and the kitchen was steamy. I’d stood for hours chopping vegetables, peeling shrimp, stirring tomatoes and peppers into our biggest, heaviest cast iron skillet. The whole house had cooked all day in the scorching sun.
I told my husband. We watched for any other symptoms. I could breathe comfortably, so we finished cleaning up. The pains were short and stopped before bedtime.
Paternal Legacy
I thought of my dad and the men in his family who had ignored their pain, which made it even more deadly and dangerous.
I’ve been diving deep into the stories of my family-of-origin, obsessed with one surprisingly magical family dinner nearly 10 years ago. This work calls for rooting around in the lives of dead people, trying to unravel some mysteries and understand some painful parts of their lives.
Why was my dad so broken? His father, from what I can tell from his letters, seems to have cherished family. So how could my dad’s older, only brother — who I barely knew as I was growing up — have given up his son?
Before he died, my uncle and I had a long, recorded conversation about his life and that decision to move away from his beautiful little boy, then agree to his adoption. My uncle was surprisingly open as I asked him difficult questions. He struggled with his own pain and regrets, and was searching for some peace.
Aren’t we all?
Dangerous Denials
This summer, I diligently transcribed that audio recording. Over many hours and a few days, I replayed parts over and over until I’d captured every word.
By the time we had that long talk in May, 2014, my uncle was dealing with intense physical and emotional pain. A year of suffering with a broken leg that wouldn’t heal. Suffering with liver disease, suffering regret over the child he left behind, and searching for a way to make peace.
My uncle and I had even talked about how his father and my father had denied their pain. My grandfather walked uphill toward home as he suffered a heart attack, laid down then waited two days to call the doctor, as the family story goes.
What if he’d gone sooner?
My dad endured the severe abdominal pain of an appendicitis, mistakenly thinking it was the flu, until it burst and threatened his life.
The scariest moments that November nearly 10 years ago came Thursday evening, after three days of my dad lying unconscious, deeply sleeping in a medical coma so his body could fight infection. His hospital room was dark except for a small pool of fluorescent light above the counter where the nurses wrote their notes.
None of the numbers on the monitors showed any signs of improvement or healing — just that dad was holding on. I felt like he was walking the razor’s edge between worlds, and terrified he would slip away at any time.
A new intensive care nurse began her shift and I told her the story of this vibrant, strong man now silent and small. She shook her head at how he had not immediately sought medical care for his severe pain and said: Pain is how the body tells you something is wrong.
That night, I cried in quiet despair as I drove 30 minutes north back to my mom and stepfather’s house.
I’d not forgotten that lesson. What if my dad had not been so tough, and had seen a doctor a few days earlier? We’ll never know.
Life is full of heartbreak and pain. Finding some wisdom, good and purpose in pain brings comfort.
Our Responsibility: Face it and Heal
I have to believe — I pray — there is some purpose to pain, though I may never fully grasp it. Without that faith, reading the news of pain all over the world is crushing to me. Too much.
I find comfort in seeking whatever good can grow out of pain, some wisdom, lesson or purpose. My dad’s illness and recovery brought people in our family closer, in a way that had never before seemed possible. So at least something good came from an awful time. My uncle’s decision left a hole in our family and had to have brought my grandparents tremendous sorrow. Yet, his son may very well have had a better life.
My grandfather’s heart attack remains a mystery.
I want to heal the inherited pain from my family-of-origin as best I can. My responsibility is to avoid passing it along to our kids. Better to find some way to give them some wisdom instead.
Isn’t that why we tell stories?
Fuzzy Rules
The day after the jambalaya dinner — feeling lucky for health insurance and determined to avoid my paternal family’s legacy of ignoring pain — I made a doctor’s appointment. Were those jabs a sign of heart trouble? I was confused, and wanted a way to tell the difference between chest pains that demand urgent action and the ones discouraging spicy jambalaya on a hot day.
I explained to the physician’s assistant how my dad, uncle and grandfather had all ignored their pain, so here I was. I’m here. I’m listening. The PA took her time and asked me lots of questions.
For women, making sense of chest pain is not so clear-cut. There is no hard and fast rule, I learned. She asked if I had been dizzy? No. Nauseous? No. How long did it last? Heart attack sounded less and less likely. Good. Heartburn or tight muscles were the top suspects. An EKG confirmed: No heart attack. (More on common symptoms of heart attack in women.)
I was relieved. But what the heck were those jabs? I listened for a deeper message.
Decoding Pain’s Message
Diligently, I made the rounds to my family doctor and for other preventive screenings and care. I even saw a cardiologist, who was perplexed — initially perhaps even annoyed, understandably so — at how my healthy heart had ended up in his exam room, then asked me lifestyle questions.
He suggested a plant-based diet. My carnivore family is seeing more beans, quinoa and greens on their dinner plates. People are getting a little nervous around here.
My pains, I realized, were simply a reminder to take better care of myself. Move more. Eat less junk. Grow and cook more plants. Breathe and stretch on the mat.
Exhaling Away the Bad Stuff
As I’d listened to my uncle’s voice from the past and typed his words, my body had slouched and twisted. My joints and muscles contorted and stiffened.
I took my uncle’s pain into my body, where it got stuck for days, tightening my left hip and shoulder. My left side had ached and throbbed as I unrolled my yoga mat at the beginning of class. After almost an hour, those muscles finally released with a wave of tears and emotion.
Proceed with caution, I noted. So I set the work aside for awhile, and focused on other projects. However, this delving into my family stories — or the pain of life for that matter — is impossible to avoid.
I must dig in, go there and work through it.
Then, be kinder to myself and take a break. Step back, breathe deeply and pray, stretch, walk the dogs, putter in the garden, eat the healthiest food I can — and that my family will tolerate.
Breathe in the beautiful and healthy, breathe out the junk — and relish whatever goodness and wisdom lies beyond pain.
I was a mess in the summer of 2005. Excited about big life changes — getting married, starting a freelance business, moving with my new husband to a new state. But I felt lost for a long time in my new central Pennsylvania town.
The way people talk here reminded me of my relatives, so felt a bit familiar. Otherwise, I felt disoriented. Landlocked and claustrophobic. No big water — like the mighty Kennebec River or vast Atlantic I’d worked and lived beside. Nor cool sea breeze in summer to flush away the heavy blanket of humidity. The scent of fresh pig manure spread on the farm fields was a cruel reminder to me of how far I was from the sea.
So I walked and explored, looking for footholds.
My new town was both adorable and gritty, built into steep hills among emerald ridges. Ornate, crisply painted Victorian houses with tidy lawns along tree-lined streets. And, closer to my not-so-fancy, petite “folk” Victorian house, some run-down homes, the ugly brick back-end of the county courthouse and jail, small-town dive bars below street level.
One September morning, I spotted bright orange through grey light. An enchanting pumpkin vine. Hidden far behind and down the hill from the house it belonged to, a fresh, shining small pumpkin swelled among lush vines spilling over a stone wall.
A welcome anchor
The pumpkin felt magical, and somehow just for me — although it was hardly a secret. It grew in plain sight of anyone who walked along the back alleys, public less-traveled lanes spanning backyards.
This pumpkin vine had broken loose from the patch, or perhaps just grew from the seeds of the previous autumn’s jack-o’lantern after rot had consumed its toothy grin.
Perhaps I felt a certain kinship with that rogue vine. Or we were both confused. Who knows.
The vine and the pumpkin were beautiful, and became one of my little mental anchors as I settled in. Instead of quiet mornings on the shore of a tidal river, watching the tide come in one teensy bit at a time, I watched the pumpkin grow day by day.
“I saw my magic pumpkin today,” I remember telling my dad over the phone. “It’s almost all orange now.”
Cool, he said. I could hear he was smiling. We’d reached a nice place, where we could actually talk about little ordinary stuff, because we’d tackled most of the big, thorny stuff.
Tucked among the wild patch
Now, the central Pennsylvania town where I live has much more flat land and room to spread along the valley floor.
Four ripening pumpkins grow hidden among the messiest part of my messy garden, beside the wood pile. They remind me of that magic pumpkin, that there is always magic to find in the mess. I remember to bloom where planted, to keep growing and reaching for the sun.
It all worked out — exactly as it was supposed to. Just not as I planned.
Yes — there is plenty of mess beyond my weedy garden: Huge and complicated problems we face as people finding our way day-by-day, healing our wounds, as families raising children, as a global community facing unprecedented loss.
I see and grapple with those messes.
Yet, we can’t forget to look for the magic in the mess, for what delights us and keeps us going. That magic surrounds us. It gets us through.
Among the Wild Plants
You can barely see the four little orange pumpkins below the tall green stalks of cup plants with spent blossoms, the compost pile with summer’s watermelon rinds and mussel shells, the sprawling scraggly volunteer tomato vines, the potted plants parked and awaiting a home — and lots of weeds.
I keep the front beds much tidier.
A hidden pumpkin growing out of compost in a wild patch of garden reminds me to find magic in the mess.
But here is where the magic lives — in this wild patch out back. This is where the tidy, precise corners and solid strength of my husband’s woodpile meets my beautiful mess. He is not who I’d married and moved here with in 2005 — but the man and family I needed to come here to find.
Magical, orange reminders that I’ve landed in a place surrounded by beauty and love. That we’ve made a home here.
The bees love the yellow blossoms of those cup plants. An army of mighty critters — worms, ants, beetles and the “roly-poly” pill bugs — turn our food scraps and grass clippings into fresh, rich soil. As they work their wonders, surviving seeds sprout into new life. Surprise vines bearing surprise pumpkins and the gourds the little boy next door, my garden buddy, calls “skooshes.”
I look into the messes and trust they hold magic, often hidden. Today, let’s find a “secret” something just for us, that delights and lifts us — or just find a bit of time to quietly wander, be still and let it find us.
Where my beautiful mess in the garden meets my husband’s meticulously built woodpile. For a few weeks in September, the vines grow up and over the pile — until they die back with the first frost. (Lisa Duchene photo)
All of us — especially writers — need friends who can cut through our crap and help us stick to our path. Cherish yours — or go find one. Until then, you can borrow Sandi.
My friend Sandi is whip-smart, tough, lovely and wise. One of her super-powers is to make order out of anything. Even my messy mind.
She quickly sees a simple structure that guides what belongs and what must go, then strategically edits — usually with the very best, well-maintained tool for the job — to bring anything into proper order and alignment with purpose.
It may be a pile of stuff, a room, or project in her family’s home. A schedule. A life. A group of people on a noble mission.
Sandi inspires other people, too, to reach for their bigger, better purpose. She’s in high demand, her days jam-packed with making things happen.
So I always feel lucky to visit Sandi and her beautiful family and home in Boston, where we met many years ago. They are gracious hosts who open their home and guest room, lovingly absorb me into their family life. They even drive me around, ask nothing in return and make it all look easy. True hospitality. I feel like a queen.
I visited in late March, hungry for a burst of new, spring energy and for the tried-and-true inspiration of a writers’ conference at Boston University, my alma mater.
The conference was fantastic.
But the shiniest take-home gem was Sandi’s insight.
Sandi at her 50th birthday celebration.
Filling My Cup
Sandi met me at South Station. I arrived rumpled from the train ride, yet glad for the long, productive stretches of work time above the soothing rhythm and gentle rumble of steel wheels.
The next morning, we sipped our coffees and the green smoothies Sandi made from her new blender as powerful as a boat propeller. We shared the spring sunshine and news from our families and our work. Tending a rich, longtime friendship in person always fills my cup.
Sandi’s kind, capable and generous husband is doing well. Their two sons are growing fast, becoming young men and thriving. She’s crushing her calling in philanthropy — which is so gratifying. I remember when she envisioned her purpose and aligned her life so she could go to graduate school.
We talked about my family and my personal writing work, my commitment to tell the story about how my dad’s broken families had gathered together around him for a surprisingly wonderful dinner, a story of making peace in my family-of-origin that brought me great peace and healing. Read that story and related ones.
I’m determined. I’d achieved a few small victories. But things weren’t quite working out along the course I’d plotted. Muddled and anxious, I mulled over what to do next.
Pitch Perfect & Perfect Timing
Sandi listened.
Obsession? Check. Life experience? Yep, got that too. Many, many drafts and rough pieces on the hard drive.
But where’s it all going? What’s the plan?
Not your job to worry about that, she said. Just keep writing the story.
“Write your story,” she said. “Nobody has that story but you.”
“So … I just need to —”
“SHUTUP AND WRITE!”
I busted with laughter.
“Thank you,” I said. “Now I just need to your picture and that quote on top of my desk!”
Even better. Sandi whipped out her phone and recorded her own voice and cartoon head — an animated “memoji” — speaking those three words three times, then shining her beautiful, computer-generated smile. One quick swipe and it was on my phone, too.
Anytime I’m stuck, I’ve got this little video of her lovely, floating head with her black-framed glasses looking stylish and super-smart in her stunning, shimmering gray bob, and pearly smile.
“Shutup and WRITE!”
Beautiful. Brilliant. Simple.
Life is Hard — We Need Our Tribe
Sweet darlings: Cherish any friend who can cut through your crap and tell you what you most need to hear. If you don’t have a friend like that, turn off this screen and go find one. Go do something you love to do and smile at someone who seems nice. Strike up a conversation. See where it goes.
Then find another until you have a bunch. People are busy and you need backups. Make them your tribe. I’m so very grateful for my large tribe, my family-of-choice built over decades. You know who you are 😉
Life is hard. Discovering and actually fulfilling our life’s purpose? Also hard, hard work.
This is especially true if you are a writer, artist, creative, free agent or entrepreneur. We make stuff out of nothing. Start over from scratch all the time. Fail a lot. We must fail fast and keep pivoting toward success.
It gets lonely. We need our friends. Our tribe. They are essential support, conduits for inspiration, delivering whatever pep talk we need at that moment: Keep going. Keep showing up. Keep making. Trust. Believe.
Necessary Isolation
I do most of my writing work alone. I must in order to get my highest-priority writing done.
But then I get a little too isolated in my bubble. A little weird. Suddenly, I’m on the yoga mat in my studio spooning with the big dog. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Or, I’m wandering around outside mid-day in the clothes I woke up in, still all disheveled with bed-head because I went right to the desk and got in the zone. Then … just forgot to check the mirror.
I need to come out of the cave, put on some lipstick and dance with my dearest friends. We all do.
Flashlight for the Dark Forest
Then, Sandi and I dove deeper — because while she’s right, I still need a rough idea of a road map, a sense of structure. I’d explored a few initial book ideas long enough to know they would dead-end. I’d been thinking and thinking on my train ride … thinking so very hard. Stuck on where to go next.
Sandi shared her refreshing, very cool idea for a structure. I love it.
She handed me a flashlight for the dark forest. By the time we parted, I could see the bright hash marks on the tree trunks, marking the trail.
I soaked in her invaluable strategic vision. My pro retreat became a sacred and spiritual one, because this whole project is a leap of faith I must make. If I shutup long enough to listen, and keep the faith, I am granted priceless, divine guidance. It’s a deep-tissue spa treatment for my brain and psyche.
Sandi shared her divine gift for alignment — to properly organize space and time around goals — a nudge, some encouragement. Now, it’s up to me to plot the course.
Later in the weekend: “Plan your work. Work your plan.” She said it to her younger son about a bike repair, but I grabbed that little morsel, too, and packed it away. Simple. Priceless. Strategic.
I returned home to our valley refreshed, inspired and clear as a bell, because I’d been to “the mountain” — one that just happens to be in the heart of a major city that was once both my playground and kiln.
I’ve been writing. Aligning. Committing. Shutting up for long stretches so I can say something. Plotting and planning my work. Working my plan, baby.
Thank you to my talented, generous friend for her divine guidance. Now — shutting up. So many miles to go.
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Sister Louise looked like she’d bit into a frog. I’d just read my assignment out loud in her fifth-grade religion class.
Her stunned expression made me nervous. The kids’ faces also registered shock.
We were to write about how our parents reflected Catholic church teachings at home. My response was a literal, matter-of-fact report — missing entirely that I was expected to highlight the holiest, most wholesome and loving moments from home.
There were, indeed, lots of those.
My single mom rose early for work and made dinner every night. On winter evenings after supper, we’d twirl and glide across the ice rink at the park, warming up with hot chocolate. Every summer, she somehow found a way to take us on vacation, pay for swimming and piano lessons and explore the woods.
She worked hard to raise me and provide everything I needed, and pay the tuition at St. Wenceslas. The parish of brick buildings included a combined school and church building with stained glass windows of garnet red and sapphire blue, classrooms for kindergarten through eighth grade along shiny linoleum corridors perpetually scented with disinfectant.
Good King Wenceslas, alabaster and life-sized, stood sentry over the black asphalt parking lot where we had recess. For many years, I thought that statue high up on the brick building was God watching us play kickball and tag.
By every measure, she is a great mom. There. Steady. Loving.
Yet, I was a kid who could fixate on who wasn’t there — my dad — and how things at home fell short of the Eight is Enoughfamily I saw on TV. All those brothers and sisters looked like so much fun.
En Route to Hell
So, how were my parents reflecting the Catholic lifestyle and teachings at home?
Well … Not exactly, I wrote. It’s just my mom and I. My parents are divorced and sometimes we argue about stuff and she gets mad. She swears sometimes. We say “Oh my God” which is wrong because we’re taking the Lord’s name in vain.
My mom remembers the phone call that day. My guess is Sister Mary Gerald, the principal, acting on Sister Louise’s concerns, gave her a ring.
“The nuns were so sure you were going to hell and I was pushing you along,” my mom recalls.
By sending her daughter to Catholic elementary school, my mom was already subjecting herself to judgment and shaming. The Catholic teaching is that only death can break a marriage, and that divorce is immoral because it breaks up the family, has a contagious effect and is a “plague on society.” Civil divorce can be “tolerated” under certain conditions.
I can’t imagine how painful it was for my mom to be part of a community that “tolerated” her difficult decision to split with my father to protect her child and herself. He was volatile — not violent — unpredictable, and unfaithful. Later, he and I made peace.
While reconciling with my dad was beautiful and healing, it was my mom who nurtured me through childhood, with all its wonders and pain.
Imminent Punishment
By the time I reached my grandparents’ house after school that day, my mom had gotten the call, which she shared with her mother. My grandmother asked me some tough questions. I told her what I’d said.
As she TSKed her disapproval, my cheeks were already hot with shame.
Public opinion mattered. What I did at school reflected on our family. And, surely, my grandmother was being protective of her own daughter.
My grandparents were good, strong, honorable, capable people, part of the Greatest Generation. They were World War II veterans and devout Catholics who regularly attended St. W’s. My grandmother had served as an Army nurse and then worked nights in the local hospital as a maternity nurse. My grandfather was a community leader, the full-time, elected mayor of our suburb outside Cleveland.
I was 10, clueless about the big picture — and certain I’d be in big trouble when my mom got home from work.
A Lesson in Unconditional Love
When she arrived, my mom shook off the whole thing. She chuckled. No big deal. My grandmother’s face showed her disapproval, but she held her tongue and dropped it.
Alone in our blue station wagon in my grandparents’ driveway, my mom said she was proud. She was pleased, she said, to be raising a daughter who would question authority and tell her truth. She wasn’t raising a parrot, but a thinking, questioning, honest human being.
That day, she respected me and honored who I was at my core: A truth-teller, come what may. She knows me inside and out. How I struggled because I longed for my dad and our family was atypical.
She made it crystal clear she loved me unconditionally. Still does.
I became a professional journalist and non-fiction writer, digging, searching, thinking and writing about truth every day.
Despite my many flaws, bad habits and quirks, I am strong. I am resilient. Of this I’m sure.
Dr. Meg Meeker, a pediatrician and author of six books on how strong parents can raise strong children, identified “Believe in Her” as the number one way in which parents can raise strong daughters.
“When your daughter senses you believe in her, she begins to believe in herself, and when she does, she can do anything,” wrote Dr. Meeker in a March 2017 post.
The most important, powerful birthright of any child is to feel loved beyond measure, no matter what. Seen. Respected. Honored.
That’s what I remember most from that day.
Just Fine — and Furious
My mom most remembers being furious.
The sister told her the nuns were concerned about my moral upbringing, certain my mom was leading me down the wrong path, if not straight to hell, then certainly a long imprisonment in purgatory.
My mom stood right up to her for both of us. She, as the parent, was in charge of my moral upbringing and thought it was going just fine.
So, respectfully: Butt out, sister.
My mom and I in Maine, shopping a favorite greenhouse for plants on Memorial Day weekend.
Mission Accomplished
My blood boils thinking of what my mom went through. I cringe at my accidental humiliation of her before a community that should have been so much kinder, more loving and accepting of her.
The most satisfying irony of that day in 1981 is that the nuns indeed did their job, just not in the way they’d apparently intended. They deserve my benefit of the doubt that they genuinely did what they felt was right and in my best interest.
They gave my mom an opportunity to teach me, not only that she believes in me, but about love.
My blood boils thinking of how judgmental people and divisive rules block anyone’s reach for God and a loving community.
Love is more important than rules or judgment or church doctrine. God is Love. We are all loved.
I grew up knowing right from wrong, knowing I was loved. I shook free of the nuns’ judgment but never lost my faith, or belief that LOVE is above all else.
That’s my truth.
(Which makes me neither perfect nor holier-than-thou. Still struggling to put a lid on my swearing.)
So, my mom said when we compared memories of the incident in Sr. Louise’s fifth-grade religion class, What I tried to instill in you worked?
She knew the answer.
Yes, mom. You did a fine job.Actually, truth be told, a damn good job.
Thanksgiving in February is a true story of making peace within my family-of-origin, a delayed celebration of gratitude — and quite literally the name of a big family Thanksgiving dinner we hold in February.
That story, plus stories about my family, love, the making and unmaking of family, finding gratitude in everyday, ordinary moments — and on the darkest days.
Those stories are listed here. Many more are coming soon.
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Recent stories:
During World War II, my grandfather wrote my grandmother nearly every day from March to November 1945. They comfort and remind me that We Came From Love.
We Came From Love. Aged and tattered, my grandfather’s WWII letters to my grandmother when they were young, newly married and half a world apart provide a comforting peek into their love story.
On Being Brave ~ Taking Small & Big Steps On the day I turned 35, I left a secure “regular” job. The next morning, I bought a second house five states away — both steps toward a writing dream. What I remember most is my faith: I knew I’d be OK, just knew and trusted, even when things didn’t work out. Every day, we all must be brave and take another step.
Turning February Around How hosting this one “little” turkey dinner for a crowd in the middle of February has completely changed my experience this month. Now it’s really too short!
Rough Oak: the Joy of Finishing As I obsessively re-finished an oak table — a piece “normal” people would have long ago tossed to the curb — I remembered my dad’s broken promise.
Red heart in hands top view. Healthy, love, donation organ, donor, hope and cardiology concept. Valentines day card. Copy space for text.
Rule #1: Come Home Safe My kids were already teenagers when I met them, so we made some funny, family rules. Now, there’s only one: Come Home Safe. The rest of it can always be worked out. From the Blessed & Grateful archive.
Oh, my TEDxPSU talk! I told the whole, tangled Thanksgiving in February story on Penn State’s TED stage in, appropriately, February, 2019.
