One Writing Life Archives - Lisa Duchene, Writer

Keep Calm and Communicate

Posted on March 28, 2020March 30, 2020 by Lisa Duchene

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.

Creating a Vision for the Year & other Joys of January

Posted on February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 by Lisa Duchene

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.

My 2019 themes were “Be Brave” and “Finish.”

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.

Love Blogger! That’s a thing, right?!

Posted on December 6, 2019December 12, 2019 by Lisa Duchene

Loving each other through dark times. One gracious action at a time.

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.

I write love stories, mostly for my ThanksgivinginFebruary.com blog. That’s my most joyful work and “passion project.”

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.

A few, recent posts:

One Writing Life

Colliding worlds

Horror — and the rising of helpers

Solid, still and safe

Build with this Tool

Public health experts over partisan politics

Keep Calm & Love One Another

A Little Silence Goes a Long Way

Related posts:

Road Warrior

Wisdom from a Visionary

Paddling as Fast as I Could

Handwriting on the Wall

Themes — not Resolutions!

Breaking it Down into Steps

Setting Deadlines

Hello February!

Related posts:

Love Stories

Graciousness over Pain

Love at the Core

‘If it’s about love …’

‘You are loved, just the way you are.’

Related posts: