mulberryshoots

May 28, 2011

wading in the water. . .

Are you familiar with Eva Cassidy’s song, “Wade In The Water?” When I think of wading in the water, I think of getting my feet wet for the first time in a new endeavor. You don’t know how shallow the water is, or how deep. It looks clear and clean. What will the bottom feel like? Will you be able to stand or will it be rocky or slippery?

I guess doing anything new feels a little like this. Entering the unknown. I was thinking of taking a trip with my alma mater to see Jane Austen’s environs and other 19th century writers, like Thomas Hardy in Dorset, John Keats and so on. It sounded like a fabulous trip and I was excited to contemplate going on it. There was a Yin and a Yang aspect for me that presented itself: the Yin part being the places these writers worked in, their books, their writing. That part appealed to me a lot because it deepened and inspired me to read more and to write more, just thinking about the trip, never mind going to visit these places.

The Yang part surprised me when I google-ed the 5 star hotels featured on the tour. They were gorgeously appointed and very formal. Marble bathrooms. Swimming pools, HUGE. Gourmet food. I realized that the expense of the trip was perhaps inflated due to the cost of accommodations and gourmet meals. Perhaps it was because important people were going to be coming along on the trip and the hotels reflected what someone thought their prestige deserved. It was very Yang energy–over the top, aggressively appointed. I even wondered if my usual simple casual clothes would fit in. Or whether I needed to buy a bathing suit. What I feel comfortable in is a cozy 15th century stone cottage bed and breakfast, close to meadows, a small town with an Oxfam thrift shop among the pottery and bakery shops.

I went to Barnes and Noble and bought books on Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. I wanted to immerse myself in the writing and to learn more about them to see if I could justify the expense of this trip and to feel it would be worth it for the sake of literature as well as inspiring my own desire to write. I was amazed to learn in “The Jane Austen Pocket Bible” that her first book was rejected, that she sold a book but then was not published, that she re-wrote her first novels, re-named them, and published her first book, “Sense and Sensibility” herself! Two of her novels were also published posthumously. I bought an annotated edition of “Pride and Prejudice” edited by someone who apparently has read everything ever written on Jane Austen and her writings. I didn’t get very far with Thomas Hardy except to read the beginning of “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” and to order the movie from Netflix–reminded that Roman Polanski made a famous version of it.

So that was my research, wading in the water, to evaluate whether or not to take what sounded like a fabulous trip to England in the beginning of June. I even drove to the Fed Ex building to mail in my check which had to arrive on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day. Then, I decided to take another day to think it over.

Now, it feels like the ‘wading in the water’ was the best part: reading these classic books again while learning more about the writers and how they lived. I also came across a 150th anniversary edition of “Self Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson which I purchased along with the Austen and Hardy books. Re-reading Emerson’s words sustained me in my quest to understand what I wanted to do. And to stay home.

P.S. Today, I happened to pass by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s house in Concord, MA. on the way up to the North Shore. It was open and I thought to myself, that’s where I want to go and visit in the next couple of weeks!

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May 9, 2011

great blue heron. . .

From Ted Andrews iconic book on animal totems called “Animal Speak”:

“The blue heron is a totem (symbol) of someone who has chosen to claim their life as their own. According to North American Native tradition, the Blue Heron brings messages of self-determination and self-reliance. It represents an ability to progress and evolve. The long thin legs of the heron reflect that even though we must be able to stand on our own, we don’t need legs that are great massive pillars to remain stable.

Blue Herons have the innate wisdom of being able to maneuver through life and co-create their own circumstances.

If the Blue Heron has shown up as your totem, it reflects your need to follow your own unique wisdom and path of self-determination. You know what is best for yourself, and need to follow your heart rather than the promptings of others. You probably sit calmly while the rest of us lose patience. And when you choose to follow the promptings of your heart, you soar with magnificence.”

I was remembering today that when I decided to take a writer’s retreat two years ago, a great blue heron flew over my car as I drove home on Route 128 after signing the lease. I was sure it was a sign that I had taken a positive step towards creating something I had been thinking about for a long time.

Thank you, great blue heron, for appearing and for reminding me that we can follow our dreams after all.

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May 8, 2011

getting to here. . .

About six weeks ago, I wrote a post called “getting to there“. At the time, I was hoping the opening of the book would be resolved once and for all and that any remaining rewriting would be straightforward. I was wrong.

Chickens come home to roost at times like this. I finally had to stop avoiding those parts of the book that did not “sing” and sort of sat there. I re-wrote the opening paragraph again (much better!) and tightened up the rest of the Prologue. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 were re-integrated, some back story left out, the intention of Chapter 1 better effected. Then, I went through the rest of the manuscript. I watched the royal wedding live.Then, I went through the rest of the manuscript again. Reading every word aloud helps to test the flow of words. It’s almost here.

G. told me about a Women’s Writers Workshop sponsored by the YWCA on behalf of Daybreak, a non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate racism and to help women in need. The sessions on Saturday were helpful in concrete ways, the tone of the meetings supportive, humorous and respectful. Women are great this way, aren’t they?

Today is Mother’s Day and I’m on track. Maybe next week.

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May 3, 2011

going with the flow. . .

It’s hard to concentrate on being rather than doing. For example, I woke up today thinking I need to clear out my papers and books stacked up in the other room and consolidate the things in the hallway. It needs to be done and today is a good day to take it on because the library downtown takes book donations on Wednesdays which is tomorrow. Every time I do this, I find that there are only a handful of books that I actually want to give away. They have to go somewhere, though.

I’ve been noticing that I am a different person to my daughters than I am to myself. With them, I am wanting them to be happy, rested and excited about pursuing what they want to do. And much of the time, although they are happy doing what they want to with their lives, they are often overworked, tired and dealing with crises that arise here and there. I can’t take care of those things for them–except to help out with some cash once in awhile, and moral support anytime. They’re at an age when they have their own tastes and preferences. And my house is already settled. This is definitely an arena for “being” there for them, rather than “doing.”

With myself, I live in a world inside my head, full of ideas that I attempt to express in ways that might connect with others. Inch by inch, I am nearing the precipice of having to show that world to others and to have my work considered in a more public arena. I don’t know if I can have it both ways, I guess, to be true to myself and also to have that be interesting to anyone else. I hope that I will be surprised even as I prepare myself to be stoical.

In the meantime, going with the flow and cleaning the house sounds like a really good idea.

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April 20, 2011

flying solo. . .

I am finding that when I am creating something, like the book I am finishing up, nobody else really cares about it very much. I wonder if everyone who struggles with something they create feels alone like that.

Actually, the aloneness is part of the joy of it too. To write what I want to read. To like it despite the number of times it is revised. To not care that much whether others will like it or not. To know when the energy in it has flattened out. And to be relieved when it improves itself and comes back again.

I guess flying solo is not so bad. At least it’s my flight.

April 14, 2011

how we met . . .

If my husband and I had met when we were younger, we wouldn’t have paid that much attention to each other. I was a goody-two-shoes dean’s list student at an ivy league school. At the same age, G. had hair down to his shoulders and played keyboard in a local rock band that is still well known in this town to this day.

We were both pianists: I started at the age of three, trained the Lechetiszky method by a renowned Russian pianist, Professor Basil Toutorsky (see basil toutorsky) who had 22 pianos in a mansion on 16^th Street in Washington. G. was virtually self-taught, went to Berklee School of Music for awhile and played rock and roll, jazz and rhythm and blues. He didn’t get interested in classical music until he was in his 20’s and then shifted his interest to the complete works of a 19^th century French composer named Charles Valentin Alkan. Alkan’s piano works are so difficult that very few pianists can play them. Marc Andre Hamelin, a Canadian pianist, has recorded most of his works. Recently Hamelin composed and recorded his own variations of Alkan’s compositions, if you can believe it.

This is all by way of describing how different and how similar we were at the same time. We both loved pianos. We courted to Alkan’s music played by Marc Andre Hamelin. And we met over a piano.

Although I loved the piano, my professional career was in the field of biotechnology (eggs in one basket). Offered a new job, I had just moved to central Massachusetts to a pristine modern condo facing the lake that ran through the town. When the movers put the piano in the living room, they attached the lyre which holds the pedals but forgot to tighten the surrounding hardware.

I looked in the Yellow Pages and found an ad with a handsome logo of a grand piano with the description, “Specializes in Steinways.” When G. arrived at the door of my new condo, I was distracted, on the phone with someone at the office. I was also not interested in getting involved with anyone, having just gotten divorced from my first husband whom I was married to for 26 years.

When we had a cup of tea after he adjusted the lyre, I said, “Let’s just be friends, okay?” He smiled and said, “We already are.” A few months later, I invited a pianist named Ken that I met at a gallery opening to give a piano recital at my house because I was new in town and thought it might be a good way to meet people. It turned out that Ken had been G’s client for over 20 years. The two fell busily to discussing and deciding what to do to improve my Steinway piano for the recital!

Long story short, the recital took place in May. I had put a deposit to buy the condo on the lake when G asked me to think about renting the 2^nd floor apartment in his Queen Ann Victorian house. I thought about it for awhile and decided that if there was going to be a chance for a future between us, moving into the house would tell the tale. If it didn’t work out, I could always move somewhere else afterwards. He and his men helped me move out of the condo and got me settled into rooms with a view in the gorgeous house that he had restored for the past twenty years. During this time, an elderly woman who attended one of our piano groups commented enviously to me that living in two apartments a floor apart was ideal–independence and privacy along with the intimacy of being a footstep away from each other.

One day in August, a month after I had moved in, I walked hurriedly into the kitchen, my arms full of groceries. When I turned around, I gasped in surprise because there, in the living room, was a small vintage harpsichord with cherry keys and applied carving on the legs. To paraphrase what Renee Zellweger said to Tom Cruise in the movie “Show Me the Money”: “He had me at the harpsichord.”

We took our time and got to know each other for four years before we married. Once decided, we wanted to marry privately at City Hall, just the two of us. Flowers were delivered to the shop on the first floor of the house. Wedding rings were Fed-Exed from Tiffany’s. Downstairs, none of G’s workmen in the piano shop suspected a thing.

It was a snowy day and I called the Town Clerk to see if he was still there. We read our own vows and returned home; changed our clothes and still the guys were clueless. G. went out to tune a couple of pianos in the late afternoon while I cooked our wedding supper.

Later in the year, we threw a big party with a formal ceremony for family and friends on May 11th. The only way we could keep track of these two anniversaries was to remember that it was the 7th of March and the 11th of May or,. . . seven/eleven.

G had never married and I had been married for a quarter of a century to someone else by the time we met. Whenever I say to G. that I should have left my marriage earlier due to all the trials and tribulations, he quickly disagrees. He believes, and I concur, that had even one thing been different in our pasts, that we might not have met each other at all.

Timing is everything, it seems, even if it takes awhile. We just celebrated our fifteenth anniversary. Together with the four years we knew each other before we were married, we are going on being together for twenty years. Life is long, and we are grateful to share ours together.

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April 12, 2011

“don’t worry, be happy!” . . .

I noticed it’s hard to let go of hurt or frustration when relationships are wanting.

Someone said to me that he can only apply himself to what he has control over. I take it that excludes how others behave and what they might want that is different from what we hope for.

Speaking about the process of ‘forgiveness’, someone else said, “No matter what the offense is, the process of forgiveness is the same: You let go of anger and hurt by being mindful and focusing on gratitude and kindness. …Forgiveness concepts are simple,” he says. “It’s the execution that’s hard.”

Amen.

April 8, 2011

odd fellows . . .

I look at everything that happens in my life or around it or what I randomly see as “data” gathered in a scientific experiment. What’s missing sometimes is the “hypothesis” part of the experiment–the “what am I trying to find out?” As I think about this process, it’s probably fair to say that it’s an inverse kind of experiment. That my looking at or listening to data then “shows” me what the hypothesis might have been. Much of the time, the conclusion was not hypothesizable but something unexpectedly interesting and novel that lay outside what I might have conjectured to begin with. So it’s a kind of rolling experiment, gathering data, dare I call them ‘stones’?

The mysticism part is strong. I looked up the word in wikipedia and couldn’t get through the myriad of definitions. I find it’s much easier to live it than to talk about it. When I look back,(“eggs in a basket“) I think that mystical energy grew in my life when I surrendered and gave up my fear to a higher power. Although I continued to apply myself to resolving the burdens of my life at the time, there were many things that occurred later, outside of my control that fell my way (“life is long“, “stirring the pot“.)

Last Sunday, with no garages open anywhere, we had car trouble and had a long way to drive in order to reach home. During this uncertain journey, I silently asked the helpers to ensure we would be unharmed and be taken care of as best the circumstances might allow. Sure enough, just as the car’s electrical system failed altogether, we were able to safely exit the highway and coast to a nearby gas station. A brand-new flatbed rescue truck from Triple AAA appeared in less than 20 minutes to drive us home, 40 miles away. The tow was covered under our AAA “Plus” plan, something I had added just a few weeks earlier, thanks to a conversation with one of G.’s workmen.

During my career in biotech managing scientists, I had a chance to observe how they think, draw conclusions, act on what the data might be or not be. Many times they were wrong. Sometimes they were right. In my little crucible, there is no right or wrong. Just the raw data of my life. I want to thank that person for the observation about my process because I think he nailed it.

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April 5, 2011

‘lessons learned’. . .

People talk about ‘lessons learned’ all the time. What that seems to mean is that when something bad happens, sum up what you could have done differently to prevent that bad thing from happening again. When did this start?

In a way, jumping to make a list of ‘lessons learned’ can substitute for looking hard at what actually happened and process it before moving on to make things better the next time. Sometimes ‘lessons learned’ won’t help at all. When a biotech company I worked for found that clinical trials didn’t give the hoped-for results, none of our ‘lessons learned’ would have made a critical difference.

What about one’s life? What are the top three ‘lessons learned’ about your life up to this point? Here are mine off the top of my head while I am composing this post:

a) I’m not very sociable and have trouble trusting people; maybe because as a child, I was different from people around me and they gave me a hard time about it.

b) I like to explore the world every day. Cook new recipes, read, follow my curiosity to where it leads me. Pay attention to random things that happen and listen to the Universe. Maybe this is an antidote to a) above that began way back when.

c) I still have a lot to learn. I learn this lesson every time I am satisfied with something that I have done and it turns out to be disappointing in some way. Or, when I am down and out and help comes from an unseen source, cosmic or otherwise. That’s probably the biggest lesson that I have learned so far: that I am not alone after all. I guess that makes four big ‘lessons learned’ for me right now.

Plus, I am happier than I have been for most of my life so that’s a real learning experience that’s ongoing all the time.

So much for ‘lessons learned.’ What are some of yours?

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April 2, 2011

‘autumn of our years’ . . .

I’ve been hearing lately that “40 is the new 30!”, “60 is the new 40!” We seem to be healthier and staying viable for (much) longer than our parents’ generation. What is the new 70, the “new 55?” or renegotiate at 80? Then there’s U.S. News and World Report’s special edition of “How to live to be 100”!! So when a comment for ‘Uncommon Hours’ talks about the ‘autumn of our years’ when the kids are grown and have left home, our parents have passed on and now we are free to live (finally) for ourselves, when is that exactly? And how long will it last before winter sets in?

Autumn is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year, especially in New England. In fact, it’s my personal favorite time–memories of getting ready for school to start, the beauty of leaves changing color in October, crisp morning air, picking apples and heating up cider with cinnamon and nutmeg. Winter doesn’t have to be cold and lonely either. At least, that’s not my plan.

I think of winter as one of my favorite times, having cozy breakfasts while the snow falls outside my window. Tea set out in the afternoon and maybe a cookie or two. Roasts in the oven with grilled vegetables, apple pie and ice cream for dessert. What I mean to say is that we may want to hold on to Autumn for awhile because we’re afraid what being older will mean, edging into the winter of our years. Every season has its virtues, so that one will too. It occurred to me that if we still have two seasons left, that’s still almost half of our lives to go, right?

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