Category: happiness

Daily Prompt: Daring to Tell Your Truth

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Last year when Patrick Kennedy spoke about his family’s alcoholism on 60 Minutes — and his own — it totally inspired me. It made me happy that a man was telling his family truths. That he was seeking to heal by being honest.

Does every family think they are a little bit like the Kennedy family? I think my family is. And by family I mean the family I was born into, the family I married into, and the family I created. All three of these  families share a legacy of intelligence, humor, and service. And yes, a dynasty of not talking about feelings but forging on and accomplishing greatness no matter what.

Every family has their health struggles. How do you handle yours? Do you put on a brave face? Do you speak your truth? This topic often comes up when teaching writing to adults– What if writing my truth hurts someone? Maybe we should ask instead, What if it heals someone? What if the truth does set you free?

And then there is, of course, this advice (from Anne Lamott?) ‘If they didn’t want you to write about them, they should’ve treated you better.’ But some people can’t treat you better because they’re not in treatment.

I thought it was interesting that Patrick said his father Edward Kennedy suffered from PTSD because his two brothers were assassinated.

Talking about your family illness — whether is be Parkinson’s, alcoholism, depression, or cancer — is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of strength.

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via Daily Prompt: Daring

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Small Things Make a Big Difference

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Little things, like eyelash extensions, make my day.

I’m not ready for Botox or even a night-time moisturizer, but I do like a little something something now and then.

Small acts of kindness — to yourself, to others — make a difference.

And small acts of beauty are good for the soul.

I treated Charlotte to the eyelashes, too, and the technician kept saying, playfully, to my daughter, “You’re so spoiled.”

“It’s true. It’s true. She’s so spoiled. All of my kids are. I blame their parents.”

I’ve been dealing with some family members’ health issues lately. And I am not in the mood to apologize for indulging myself. Although, at times, I do feel I should focus on solely on others and never myself. Yet I work hard for the family. I am the main breadwinner.

If little things, like eyelashes, please you, too, then go for it. The only downside? After a couple of weeks, it begins to feel like a caterpillar is crawling over your eyelids. That’s when I switch back to mascara. Or plan to get myself a mani-pedi or a massage? How do you indulge yourself today?

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Ordinarily Happy

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In the next day, my 16-year-old twin girls are going to tour nearby colleges. My 19-year-old son and his good friend are just home for the weekend to attend a concert, and they will fly the coop back to the university tonight. This leaves just me and my husband at home. And I am longing for a new beginning.

Yes, in the last month I have started a new job, I have refloored our kitchen. As exciting as work friends and home improvements are, I can easily feel stuck. My distraction of choice? I tumble down a rabbit hole, like Alice. I fall into the day’s election news.

In this morning’s revelations on Trump’s taxes, I will tell you, I pay A LOT in taxes. Last year, in addition to what we paid throughout the year, we owed and paid about $12,000 at tax time. Oy! That hurts. But I do not care. Gladly, I would pay more to be sure every single person in this country has health insurance. Also, I have to release my taxes every year to apply for financial aid, so if you want my family’s financial details, we oblige.

I enjoy following the election news — opinionators, bloviators, and pundits. And I, too, can easily spin off on a political rant.

There is also this — I want to be informed to be a good citizen. When public schools were first growing in the United States, their purpose was to teach citizenship, not just load students’ heads with facts. What does it mean today to be a good citizen?

How can I take the day’s news, not feel swamped by a tsunami of unease, but make the world a better place?

Can reading and writing political rants enhance my ordinary life? My citizenship? My kindness towards my fellow human?

Because ordinary life is extraordinary. Yours is too. Your ordinary, boring day is a miracle. You get to be here in this life. You get to embark on a new beginning.

The election is a kind of new year. My children, considering and attending colleges, are at a new stage. And I am ready for newness. And if something new and wonderful does not drop in my lap today, I aim to find the new beginning in this one day. In my ordinary day. This makes me happy — the idea of some unplanned and happy synchronicity.

harold-and-maudLast night, in addition to the joy of the new season of Saturday Night Live, Cate, Chris, and I watched the movie Harold and Maude. I woke up humming Cat Stevens.

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are

And if you want to live high, live high
And if you want to live low, live low
‘Cause there’s a million ways to go
You know that there are

Konmari Adventures

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“My criterion for deciding to keep an item is that we should feel a thrill of joy when we touch it.” – Marie Kondo The life-changing magic of tidying up.

To be honest, only one or two items of my clothing sent a shiver of joy up my spine. Most of them sparked a memory, a regret, a story. (Poor Barbara had to to me listen to me travel down memory lane when she came over to help me declutter on Friday afternoon. Thanks, BW!) I like my stuff. I just don’t love it.

So the process is this: hold an item of clothing in your hands, ask yourself, “Does this spark joy?” Yes? keep it. No? toss it.

So I gave or threw away about five or six garbage bags full of clothes. I have about one-quarter of the clothes I started with. image

This is before.

And this is after

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It took me two afternoons. I have several empty drawers now. (I have two dressers and I think I am going to get rid of one of them.) I am trying to love what I have.

This is such an awesome concept — Keep what you love. I love these housekeeping movements. I was a big fan of Flylady. Because of her, I keep my sink clean and shiny (her first rule).

I do believe our culture is too materialistic. We have too much. And we think accumulating more will solve our problems. But our stuff needs tending. We have stuff and we have to think about it. Our stuff swamps us — does not free us.

I learned about Marie Kondo’s book and movement from a NYTimes article and from a friend in a writing group. Konmarie-ing is becoming national obsession. So is minimalism. I wish I were a minimalist. I have noticed when traveling — like when we were in California at Christmas-time — the less I have, the less I worry about. And the more time I have to read a book, walk in the park or ride my bike. It is, after all, experiences that delight us, not things.

Less stuff means less housekeeping and more time for Facebook. There is a popular Konmarie FB page – and a Flylady friend and I started a Declutter FB group to post our goals.

Incidentally, my blogging has been sporadic in 2015. I have felt ambivalent about writing without pay, getting too personal, and besides, I have had so much work — teaching, editing, writing. But this summer, I am aiming to post every Sunday morning. I am rebooting my business and my home life. I am trying to keep what I love and discard the rest. I love blogging. It sparks joy.

Nice, SuperNice

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Mother Theresa statue, Struga
Mother Theresa statue, Struga (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like 20 years ago, I was temping at a bank in New Rochelle. I was working for a banker — I forget his name — but he was younger than me by a few years. But he seemed older. He was getting over some kind of cancer. He used to buy me lunch almost every day. He seemed confused by me.

Then, he told me why. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“Really?” That seemed weird. I’m no Mother Theresa. I get impatient and insecure on a daily basis. I felt sorry for this banker — I mean, if I was the nicest person he’d ever met! Well, that just seemed sad.

Still. Nice gets a bad wrap. I remember in the book The Happiness Project when Gretchen Rubin is super-nice to everyone in her life for a week as a path to happiness. No one really notices her niceness and she’s glad when the week’s over ’cause it feels like kinda a waste of time. And niceness requires a lot of effort.

I have felt that my niceness is, at times, perceived as stupidity. (Especially at work — when the cynical males were perceived as smart and the young female optimists were seen as fools. Well ha! Fools have more laughs than cynics!)

I can’t help it. I am compulsively nice. And this kind of “nice girl” syndrome has cost me. Maybe in being nice I have swallowed some honest emotion.

Still. In the long run, I’d rather be overly nice than overly critical or mean.

My daughter and I had a screaming match yesterday and she accused me of being so mean. And ugh, that hurt. In a quieter moment, I asked my husband, “Was I mean?”

“When you two lock horns, no one wins,” he said. Which, I think, meant, ‘Yes, you were unfair or unkind.’ Hey, I thought, I’m sorry. And you only hurt the ones you love.

I don’t want to get into the deets of the argument, but my daughter and I talked it out later and we both promised to do better next time — to give each other a little more patience and more room to breath. Tough stuff. At least for me. Me? The nicest person you’ve ever met.

I have blogged about this before. And interestingly enough, I also wrote about my daughter four years ago in the blog post the power of niceness. I, then, too, referenced the Happiness Project and my resentment about workplace sarcasm winning over niceness. Weird. Four years later. I’m writing about the same stuff.

And still. Niceness wins. Every time.

Compassion, too.

This post was inspired by Daily Prompt: Nice Is as Nice Does

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We Have To Share

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

This year I learned to share. And it’s been awesome.

  • I shared cars and bikes.
  • I shared office space and jobs. I subbed as a videographer for a friend on maternity leave and as a middle school English teacher at a local private school.
  • I shared my home and family with exchange students from France.

    • We are moving from a culture of rugged individualism to collaboration.

    And if you want to join the movement, here are some ideas:

    Make your expectations clear. I am so grateful to the teachers who left me very specific instructions on what to do with their classes while they were out. Yes, I have a bunch of creative curriculum ideas, but it’s best to go with their plan.

    Leave the place nice for the next person. Like, when driving a Zipcar or Enterprise car, don’t leave your OTB stubs in the front seat. I admit I am the person who did not clean up the pine needles from the Christmas tree in the back seat last week. However, I have cleaned up my own (and earlier renters’) coffee cups, parking stubs, and such.

    Skip the elequent email, pick up the damn phone. I felt slightly chastised after offering an idea for my professional organization and I wrote that in an email. But rather than get in this lengthy email swap, the president of the group picked up the phone and called me. We worked it out in no time flat. Instead of getting in this tortured email chain, we talked directly. Yay.

    It’s nice when we can play nicely. And it’s not that I don’t expect us – any of us – to have problems, we will. A collaborative journey can be way more difficult and unwieldy than a dictatorship. But ultimately, sharing is best for everyone.

    have a plan. when our exchange students came to live with us, I was worried about our ad hoc dinners. So Charlotte and I made a two-week meal plan, adding our favorites to the lineup.

    On the morning of his departure, one student said to Chris, “I like you cook.” So, you see, their English did not improve much, but their appreciation for our food did.

    So, for me, 2013 was a year to share. Now, if I could just get my darlings to share in the kitchen cleanup and the paying of bills, we’d be all right.

    Here’s a CitiBike I shared.

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    And a Thanksgiving dinner (that’s me with my brother!) Holiday dinners are a perfect time to share. Hope you get to share this Christmas with people you love and keep the love and sharing going throughout the new year!

Soul Doctor

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soul doctorI love religion, hippies, and men who cry easily. So how can I not recommend this new musical Soul Doctor?

This musical has many themes – it’s a coming-of-age parable and an unlikely friendship between Nina Simone and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. The Rabbi became a blockbuster recording artist in the 1960s. Incidentally, a synagogue named for him is in my Upper West Side neighborhood.

The show leaves you on such a great high. I felt we, the audience and actors, should end the evening with a group hug. Or together, we could all sing Hava Nagila or Shalom, My Friend — the only Hebrew songs I know.

I am not Jewish but I still enjoyed the spirit of unconditional love in this show.

But I have a few thoughts of how I might tweak this show before it comes to Broadway. Oh, wait! It’s on Broadway. Here are my thoughts any way.

Schlomo, at the end, comes to value his father’s gentle leadership, but what about his mother? Surely, she must’ve been more than a stereotypical small-minded immigrant to have instilled in Shlomo such a deep commitment to love and kindness and warmth for his fellow human beings.

Another thing — when Schlomo and Nina meet, they compare the sufferings of their tribes. This is never a good conversation. Hello! I’m Irish. I don’t think it’s ever productive to brag about or base our identities on our collective victimhood. Instead, let’s talk about the resilience and the perseverance of our peoples. Let’s sing, dance, write poetry (and blogs) and rise above the inevitable suffering with a daily dose of joy — which, mostly this musical does.

After the show, my husband and I met the talented Amber Iman. She played Shlomo’s bestie Nina Simone. She disarmed us with her wisdom and love!

The singing and acting was lovely. I loved Eric Anderson as Shlomo (and yes, wanted to hug him!). He was like the original Hugging Saint Amma. I am a huge fan of hugging. My husband fell in love with Amber Iman (and probably wanted to hug her). She played Nina Simone, like Shlomo, a person of great talent and great warmth for her fellow human beings.

Their relationship was interesting — it transcended a Hollywood narrative. It is charming and disarming when a man and a woman are great friends and artistic supporters of one another without being romantic partners. Artists, like singers and writers, require a lot of encouraging friends. (Thus, my Life Rule #1 Pile on the People.)

I was inspire20130816-122217.jpgd by Shlomo’s deep commitment to young people and social justice.

The musical is at Circle in the Square Theatre, 1633 Broadway (on 50th St. between Broadway and 8th). The last show in that theater was Godspell which my kids loved. Same story, different religion. Give love. Give yourself to others unconditionally.

For more info, check out www.SoulDoctorBroadway.com

Thanks, Culture Mom Media for the tickets to Soul Doctor. All thoughts are my own.

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Cleaning the Closet

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Wallpaper - Hyacinth, pattern #480 - 1915-17
Wallpaper – Hyacinth, pattern #480 – 1915-17 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been decluttering my apartment — but I’d rather be in Paris.

I hired a home organizer, the Clutter Whisperer, and bribed a girlfriend, Barbara, to help me declutter my stuff. My brother and sis-in-law helped a lot too.

“The 1970s called, Mary Beth,” my bro Brendan said. “They want their chair back.”

I cannot do this kind of spelunking alone. Or without some humor, apparently.

Cynthia, a.k.a., the Clutter Whisperer, whom I found years ago on Craigslist, gave me some advice: purge your books and your clothes. I like her nonjudgmental approach. She said I’d do well in a big old farmhouse rather than a NYC apartment. That’s nice. I’d do better with a backpack in Europe too.

In my defense, as I tell my mother, “City apartments don’t have garages, basements, attics, big closets, cars, or home offices.” I know. I know. We have museums and parks. And I’d take them any day. I like experiences way better than things. But I have to get rid of the things so that I can have the experiences.

I thought when I left my job a year ago, I’d stay on top of my family’s stuff. A family of five just accumulates. And with Chris’s Parkinson’s, he’s a bit slower to help or initiate decluttering.

Also, I’ve been way more interested in my biz and my freelancing work than in home-centered activities.

I have excellent taste. I’m good at noticing (and sometimes making) beautiful things, I’m just not good at showcasing them or bidding them farewell (as in kids’ art projects!)

When working on my closet Friday, Barbara offered me this quote from William Morris, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful.” Tall order. As I cleaned the closet, I found:

  • a journal from my raft trip on the Rio Grande in 1992
  • Hi8 tapes from the kids as toddlers
  • an orange tank top with the price still affixed (LOVE orange, but often wear the basic NYC black!)

These things were all kind of beautiful and kind of useful. The “kind-ofs” get me. I hang on to “kind of.”

I am asking the kids to join me in the purging of books and clothes.

I feel like contacting Gretchen Rubin. In her book The Happiness Project she talks about the joys of decluttering and, even, gasp, keeping an empty shelf. I’d like to do that. I’d like be a minimalist. I’d like to escape to Europe.

Right now, I’m traveling through my daughters’ seventh grade papers, going back in time. And if I’m lucky, I’ll recycle the past and move into the present, perhaps even experience a park or museum today.

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What To Do With My Free Time: A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma

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I thought when I left my job more than six months ago, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Um, not so much. As my friend, Linda B. said, “Looks like you’re having fun!”

Work is overrated. A regular paycheck definitely has its benefits, but there are way more valuable assets than money. One of which is time. I have had time, especially recently to visit with old friends.

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On one of these scorching hot days, we walked the High Line, the public park converted from railroad tracks. After walking this path from 30th street for a mile and a quarter down into NYC’s trendiest neighborhood, MeaPa, (the meat packing district), we stopped for brunch.
The flowers on the High Line are lovely.
The flowers on the High Line are lovely.

Besides time with friends, there’s something I’ve come to treasure lately: time alone — to read and paint.

Book club seems to be on a summer hiatus. I’m a huge Kindle fan, but I’ve rediscovered the joy of books: all kinds of books (don’t judge me): feminist, erotic, non-fiction, self help.

I started these three. And I started the Pulitzer Prize winner, Middlesex by Eugenides too.
These three books are on my bedside. And I started the Pulitzer Prize winner, Middlesex by Eugenides too. (Lest you think I’ve lost my literary bent.)

I love to make collage art and book journals.

I started taking class again at Art Students League. You receive very little instruction, but you get a ton of inspiration. Here’s a little project I worked on.

I collaged two small boxes to send to my darling girls at camp.
I collaged two small boxes to send to my darling girls at camp.

And then of course, I work on my biz, Boot Camp for Writers, teaching memoir writing workshops. I love teaching and writing. It’s really all I want to do. Well, that and walk the High Line, visit friends, make art, go to the theater, perform improv, make short films, and read books. That’s all.

Here’s the latest offering for the writing workshop biz: An afternoon memoir workshop and an evening salon in the Adirondacks – August 29, Thursday, 2-9, $25, dinner on your own.

This post was inspired by the daily post: a mystery

Potentially Good News

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Good news – MRI showed a way smaller nodule (like 2 mm. instead of 11 mm. on the 4 cm. cyst). No blood test results yet but it is something of a miracle. Doc Simon herself was happy to move me from the top of her triage list! Less worrisome! Thanks for your prayers and support…

This was the text I sent to a friend right when I got off the phone with Dr. Simon at 5:15 tonite.

When I told Doctor Simon that the MRI technician had told me yesterday, “You’re going to live. Don’t worry. You’re going to live,” the doctor said, “That’s not what the sonogram showed a few days ago. How crazy is that.”

Phew. I am totally relieved. I was driving to the town of Westport a few minutes later and screamed out the window to the empty field, “I’m gonna live!” My little darling asked from the back seat, “Did you think you weren’t?”

“I don’t know. I’ m just glad to be alive.” And tonite I let the darlings order soft drinks AND dessert when we went out to dinner.

On Monday night when I couldn’t sleep, the words, ‘Get your house in order’ came to mind. I thought, ‘I have got to clean my closet,’ among other, random, desperate thoughts.

I want to say thanks to everyone who commented on the blog and FB status. I am totally blown away by the support of friends and family. I am grateful for everyone who called, texted, emailed, messaged, went out to breakfast with me, and were just plain there for me.

I totally felt and feel loved and cared for.

There’s more to learn, do and follow up on. Like, I may need to see a gynecological oncologist for a second opinion, Dr. Simon said.

But wow, looks like I may not have to clean my closet after all. Phew.

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