Category: Rules To Live By

Ten Thousand Waves

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desert flowers

I always receive some cool insight whenever I get a massage, about once every six months.

“Oh, come on,” my inner child says, “Can’t we do it more? Every week? Every month?” I wish. I cope with my crazy life by writing, working out, going out with friends, traveling, and occasionally indulging in a massage.

Once, in Akumal, Mexico, I had a view of the Mayan Riviera from the massage table in this flimsy white tent set up one floor above the cinnamon rolls in the bakery. Imagine — Cinnamon. Massage. Bakery. Ocean. Bliss. The masseur told me, with Spanish accent, after he’d kneaded me into a pulp, “You have a beautiful soul.” Wow.

I’ve gained several meaningful insights from masseuses and messeurs. Right after I’d moved out of my first marriage, in the early 1990s, Britt at the 10th Street Baths, rubbed my belly, realigning my internal organs. I began to cry. I have no idea why.

Britt said, “Look, if you’ve been with someone for eight years, it will take you eight years to get over them. Don’t rush your grief.” Deep.

A couple of Sundays ago when I went to Ten Thousand Waves, I told the masseuse, R., “I had plantar fisciitis in my feet so they were always sore. And I’m a writer so I carry a lot of tension in my head and neck.”

After the message, R. whispered in my ear, “I will leave so you can integrate yourself. Don’t get up until I leave.” So I stretched and yawned. And integrated. And when R. came back she told me to swing my legs to the side and to lean into her and she swung me up like a baby, lifting me from laying to sitting. I was totally integrated.

“Thank you,” I said, “Being a writer, I live in my head. And you have just placed me back in my body.”

“What kind of writing do you do?” R. asked.

“All kinds,” I said. “I write short poems, long novels, news articles, funny essays, blog entries.” I felt my neck tensing. I breathed. I got back to the deep relaxation I’d felt while getting the massage. “I really needed that massage.”

“Well you dropped in really beautifully. I had a good time too,” R. said.

Masseuses have a good time too? It shows that all kinds of work, even the hands-on healing kind, can be pleasurable.

outside of Santa Fe, near Abiquiu, New Mexico

Another time I’d gotten a massage in New Mexico, I think we were at Ten Thousand Waves, the guy whispered in my ear, “You live in New York? You should try Argentinian Tango. Very sensual.” What the heck! Do I look like someone who need to tango? Wow. Well, okay. Someday, yes.

I want to take this moment to thank every masseuse and masseur who’s ever laid their hands on me.

Ten Thousand Waves is a Japanese-style, many-layered spa, nestled in the cool mountains outside of Santa Fe. We soaked before our massages in the women’s tub, skinny dipping, and then after massages, we soaked, wearing bathing suits, in the co-ed tub in the dark.

I jumped in another tiny tub for a cold plunge. The air was probably 50 and the cold dunk was way colder, but I then lay in the co-ed sauna. Hot and cold. In the hot tub and in the cool night air.

Integrating body and mind. And putting them back into soul.

Giving it all up

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The best part of travel is not the places you go, but the people you meet when you get there.

Lorenza Andrade Smith, Kathy Noble and MB Coudal talking about technology while waiting for the commuter train in Albuquerque. (Photo by Neill Caldwell)

After the conference, I was on the Rail Runner train with a dozen old and new friends, including Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith. She was our keynote speaker at UMAC (United Methodist Association of Communicators). I was glad to get to know Lorenza on the commuter train trip for an hour and a half between Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

In her address, Rev. Andrade Smith had told us how she went to prison to stand with immigrants who were rallying for legislative passage of the Dream Act in Texas.

She went to prison wearing her clerical collar and heels without stockings. At the prison entrance, she had to turn in her heels, “Because they could be weapons.” Every time she sat in the prison cell’s communal toilet to pee, someone would kneel beside her and ask for prayers. She had to learn to pray while peeing.

Finally, when she found space alone in the cell, she fell asleep, cold on the floor. When she awoke, she was wearing a coat and socks. (Sometimes prayers are answered, even when we don’t know we pray them and we become covered in someone else’s warmth.)

Lorenza is a veteran and a pastor. After our conference, she was visiting a homeless Facebook friend in Boulder, Colorado, then returning to San Antonio, Texas to live among homeless female veterans for a while. She was given a bus pass on Greyhound. Lorenza has renounced her salary and her belongings to live among the homeless and to advocate for immigrants. She has speaking engagements all over, but looks forward to a silent retreat months from now.

She wears a long, but somehow-stylish, black or grey tunic-type outfit that seminary students have made for her. She keeps all of her belongings in a small rolling cart. In it, she keeps a change of clothes, a sleeping bag, a wool blanket and a small amount of toiletries. She said she uses panty liners to preserve the wear of her undies.

“That’s probably too much information,” Lorenza said. Not for me. I love TMI!

She also carries a communion set, a plate and a chalice, but was refused admittance into one shelter because, “It could be used as a weapon.” (Communion cups and high heels, you see, are dangerous!)

So that night when she refused to give up her communion set, she slept on her favorite bench in the park at the Alamo in Texas. She slept too late, and was ticketed for camping. At the courthouse for the hearing, the judge fined her 10 hours of community service to be served at the shelter, coincidentally the one that had turned her away for carrying the communion set.

Lorenza has a smart phone and updates where she is and where she’s going on Facebook. Her bishop had insisted she do this for her safety. I have befriended Lorenza Andrade Smith on Facebook and suggest you do too.

Being a huge fan of sleep, I asked Lorenza if she sleeps well on the street. She answered, “No,” with a laugh. It takes two nights of sleeping safely, like in a hotel, before she can sleep through the night. The nights at the Albuquerque Hotel were restorative, she said, yet they reminded her, as many such opportunities do, that she is privileged and cannot escape her privilege.

“The sleep deprivation is the hardest part,” Lorenza said.

Every time she speaks to groups, she is asked the same questions –

“What’s in your bag?” And sometimes she empties her bag to show them.

“How does your family feel about this?” She speaks openly about being in the process of separating from her husband whom she had already lived apart from. “People who are homeless have to be open and so do I. I have to live honestly.”

Wow. I was blown away by Lorenza. Talking to her has made me question myself, my attachment to my things, my place of privilege and my honesty.

When she decided to divest herself of everything, “The big things were easy to give away, but the small things, like the photos of my son when he was little, those were the hard ones.” She found a home for her photos with extended family members, who, by the way, are supportive.

Lorenza chats with Lester under a bridge in San Antonio. Photo by Mike DuBose.

I asked Lorenza about this photo, taken by Mike DuBose. I have been lucky to work with Mike on assignment and we always have a lot of fun. Before Mike took the photos, Lorenza asked if the people minded being photographed. She said that two out of three of her friends were agreeable and even spruced up a bit before the photos were taken.

Mike has an easy-going, friendly, and respectful manner with everyone. Mike DuBose is one of my heroes. And so, too, is Lorenza Andrade Smith.

Another Ghost (Ranch) Story

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Ghost Ranch

On the way out of Ghost Ranch, we explored the Agape Center, a bright, meditative room.

In the center of the circular room, memorial symbols of a gentleman who had died were spread around the table. In the center, taped to a candle, was the gent’s quote, something like: “When I die, dry your tears before the sun sets and replace the tears with happy memories for the sunrise.”

My sister-in-law, E., drove us out of Ghost Ranch towards Abibuque on the Old Taos Highway. We talked about my father-in-law, our husbands’ father, Taid, who had died about five years ago. E. said she was glad that Taid, a Welsh name for father, had visited New Mexico from New York years back. She had always been glad to see him, she said.

At that moment, E.’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. “See who it is, please,” she said, handing me her phone.

I flipped open her phone and no one was there — only the image of Taid, my father-in-law.

Turns out my nephew had seen a big oil portrait of his grandfather and texted the picture of Taid, whom we were just talking about, to his mother’s phone.

We felt it was synchronicity — a sign of the importance of family and father, maybe of travel, most definitely, a sign of happy memories and not tears, dried before the sunset.

Ghost Ranch

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I’ve wanted to visit Ghost Ranch forever. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful retreat. I’ve wondered if they need writers in residence. I could report on what goes on there.

Here are a couple of things I would report on from this weekend:

A Men’s Wellness Group

There was an Iron John feeling when we pulled into the retreat center. Maybe 10 men sat in about six circles talking. And it looked, from a distance, although it’s hard to tell, that they were talking about their feelings. Love it! Men talking about feelings. Go figure. So cool and sexy.

The group meets annually, one of the women told us. A previous topic had been Fathers (capital F). This weekend’s session was on Women (capital W). So, for the first time, the men had invited the women to the Men’s Wellness Group to discuss relationships, sexuality and expectations. I would’ve liked to be a part of those conversations.

A Funeral

Another group was leaving. They were dressed in western wear. Yes, this was New Mexico but it was dressy western wear. There was a lot of hugging too. They seemed more familial than the Men’s Wellness group.

It turns out the dozens of dressy/casual folks were attending a memorial.

“I’m sorry,” I told the woman who was loading a saddle into her car.

“No,” she said. “It was his time. He’s in a better place. We’re going now to spread his ashes on the bluffs.”

The Meditative Path

My sister in law and brother in law and I talked about death as we walked down a sandy path.

We walked the labyrinth. At the center of the labyrinth, you can leave a talisman or a symbol. There was a feather, a pin, a tea bag, a rock. I searched my pockets, thinking I had nothing on me.

But then from my back pocket, I pulled out a scrap I had ripped out of the New York Times a few days earlier. I’d been carrying this quote around with me.

If there is any positive message at all in the narrative it is that life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty. – Woody Allen

I left Woody Allen in the center of the labyrinth at Ghost Ranch.

***

The sky was brilliant blue in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The one narrow cloud might have been the cloud stream from a high-flying jet. One of my daughters calls that white line in the sky, a skyscraper. I don’t have the heart to correct her. That trail of white cloud looked exactly like it’d been scraped into the sky.

worry is contagious — so is hope

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At our social media mania workshop in Albuquerque yesterday we had an awesome group — a lot of knowledge and a lot of support for each other.

Outside the San Felipe de Neri Church in Albuquerque

When Beth (Buchanan) asked for questions on post-it notes, one participant, S., wrote, “My mom cyber-stalks me…I’m scared to blog-because she’ll read it.”

After the workshop, I looked for S. but didn’t find her. I wanted to chat about her question and reassure her. Then I realized I hadn’t called my mother in a week so I called Mom to tell her how great I’m doing.

But Mom had feedback for me. She’d read my recent post on Getting Help. And I have to admit I put the phone on speaker as she spoke and pushed back my cuticles. She said, “You should get more help. The Michael J. Fox foundation will help you get care for Chris and the kids.” She is always after me to contact the Fox foundation for help.

“Mom, I think it’s true that the Fox foundation is a caring organization,” I said. “But I think their money goes into research and not into hiring home health care for people with Parkinson’s. And, as I mentioned in that blog post, I am getting help for Chris. Although, yes, it’s hard for me.” (Did that sound defensive? Um, yes, a little.)

Mom said she’d seen Michael J. Fox on Letterman or some late night show and that Fox reminded her of my husband. “He is not doing well,” she said.

Hmmmm. Here I am at this wonderful UMAC conference, wanting to brag about how great my presentation went. And I want to be worry-free (and free) from my little family for a few days and now I’m getting worried all over again. And I’m worried about worrying, because what if Mother reads this? If you do, you know I love you and I thank you for having good ideas, concern and love for me! 😉

But here’s the thing — worry is contagious and I don’t want to catch it.

The view from my hotel room. The sun was so bright, I had to look down.

I stopped writing this post this morning to think. I went out to my little patio to look at the sunrise. The sunlight blew me away. The sun is much bigger and brighter and closer in Albuquerque than in New York City. There is something valuable, beautiful and worry-free in a big bright morning sun.

I did find S. after this morning’s session. And S., Beth and I talked about the challenges (and joys?!) of having tech-savvy mothers who read our blogs, tweets or updates and then praise, worry or comment.

I vowed to Beth and S. to be a mother who does not cyberstalk her kids on social media. It may be impossible. Like my own mother, I want to protect, get help for and read them well.

Something Significant

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“God, give me one thing today to make this day significant.” I found this handwritten prayer in a blue folder when I had been working in the Women’s Division library fifteen years ago. I was helping on a research project, looking around for a scrap of paper.

The sentence was beautifully written in formal script. On the folder was a woman’s name, let’s call her Esther.

“Who was Esther?” I asked another of the older women, let’s call her Bee, at lunch time.

“Esther worked part-time for the Women’s Division,” Bee said. “She struggled with depression. She had been institutionalized throughout the years and even received electroshock therapies.”

Bee and I launched into a discussion about electroshock therapies and if they worked, which I’d heard they did, simply because they caused a convulsion. I’d read the body, in extreme cases, needed a seizure to restart or reboot. Still, electroconvulsive therapy was horrific.

message in a bottle from creative commons

Esther’s life and her handwritten note stayed with me.

Her quiet desperation, her prayer, her desire for significance — I have felt these too.

The note reminded me that we have no idea what anyone else is going through. Once in a while, we find a clue, like a message in a bottle washed to shore, that someone wants their life to have significance.

Someone wants one thing to show that this day, this life, matters. Just one thing.

Why Are People Mean?

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“Mean people are an excuse to stand up for yourself and show compassion,” I agreed with this on my Twitter feed the other day.

It was a day that I was the recipient of a mean remark at work. It’s taken me a while to get over it. I wish I wasn’t so thin-skinned.

If you know me IRL (in real life), you know that I am an extremely nice person. Just the other night when I went to see the movie, Take Shelter —which, seriously, inspired a panic attack in me and I had to leave the movie early — I apologized to the person who sat behind me, because my head blocked her view. So that’s how nice I am. I apologize to strangers because I sit in front of them at the movies.

After the workplace conversation, which also inspired a panic attack, I thought, “Hmmm, wait a minute! You feel I dissed someone? That’s not me. You want me to feel bad about myself? Hmmm. I don’t want to. I’ve got too much to do today. And feeling bad about myself isn’t on the agenda.” I wanted to agree, because I simply love agreement — being such a fan of my “Yes, And!” training from improv and leadership classes.

On my bike ride Saturday, I passed this scene in the Meatpacking District. The sidewalk was covered with rose petals. There were enough for everyone.

If what we’re agreeing on is that I didn’t do a good enough job, I can’t agree. I did an awesome job. I’m sorry you don’t think so — or you overheard someone who said that I didn’t do my job well enough. So it’s really workplace gossip. Wait. This isn’t about me. It’s about you and that was just mean.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Health & Wellness section, there’s an article, ‘It’s Mine’ The Selfish Gene: Tots as Young as 3 Can Be Generous While Others Are Inclined To Hog by Kevin Helliker. He writes, “About two-thirds of the children chose to give one or more sets of stickers to an unknown recipient, described to them only as a child who had no stickers.”

Other studies show 70 percent of adults are generous. I believe I am with the majority, looking out for others.

If anything, I fail because I want too much to be liked and approved of. I admit taking criticism is not my strength. I like the gold star and the praise — I like to give it and I like to get it. And I like that I am nice. And I really like nice people. I like my friends smart, funny and nice. And if I could only have one of those attributes in a friend, I’ll choose nice.

So why are some people mean? Maybe it’s just a mean gene; they’re part of the one-third that won’t share their stickers. That’s just how they roll.

As the Twitterverse reminded me, an interaction with a mean person is an opportunity to stand up for yourself, show a little compassion, look within, make any corrections, and ultimately, move on, sharing the stickers. It is not easy.

Here’s the Wall Street Journal article: It’s Mine!

And this helped me too: Don’t treat unkindness with kindness.

Getting Help

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No one does it alone. No one.

I am terrible at getting help. So bad. I would much rather be the help than the helped. Having a husband with Parkinson’s Disease, I find his ability to help is diminishing. Of course he still pitches in and cooks dinner, but the quality of his work and the time it takes to get things done is very frustrating. For me. I need help.

On the flight home from Florida, I began to compose a letter to some church friends asking for their help with my darlings while I am going to be away for a few days for a worktrip to New Mexico. But then the plane hit turbulence and I put my laptop away. I have not opened that file. A part of me felt ashamed that I needed help.

In a city and a country of rugged individualists, I felt stupid and weak for asking for parenting and family support.

However, a few recent events in my life and in the world have reminded me that human beings need one another. We are social animals who like to live and work in community. It takes a village. We all need help – coping with an ill spouse, raising children, writing a book, organizing a demonstration or running a marathon. Here are some examples:

1. Occupy Wall Street — if you demonstrate alone, you look crazy. If you demonstrate with thousands of other people, you look like you have a cause.

2. NaNoWriMo — even the loneliness of novel writing can be ameliorated by thousands of on-line and real life friends cheering one another on. Creating small daily goals adds up to big accomplishments.

3. My Daughter’s Soccer Team — it’s much more fun to celebrate a win in a group than to win alone.

This weekend I saw this performance art piece at the foot of the High Line. The women were cutting each other's hair.

4. Haircuts — they just look better when someone else does them. In the same way, you can’t set your own broken arm.

5. My Family’s Well Being — I’ve met with a former colleague who started her own eldercare business and is helping us with Chris’s caretaking and I’ve also met with a lawyer to learn about protecting our family assets. These were huge and difficult calls to make and conversations to have. There’s more work to be done, but it’s a start.

Someday I may get back to writing that letter to my church friends to see if anyone wants to watch Charlotte’s soccer game or share a meal or prod the children to homework while I’m away. But I hesitate to finish and send the letter.

What if no one can help? Then I will end up exactly where I am. And it’s not such a bad place to be.

NaNoWriMo

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This November I am going to enter and win NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month.

As the days get colder and my psyche more depressed, I want to hunker down with my dreams, like wrapping my hands around a warm cup of coffee.

Some runners complete the NYC marathon, some women have babies, some consumers shop early for Christmas presents. I’m not those kinds of crazy. I am the kind of wacky that gets up at 6 the morning and stays up until 11 at night (I told you, CRAZY!) hunched over my keyboard, spewing out meandering plot points about imaginary friends.

Why do it? I have a lot on my plate (4 blogs, 3 kids, 2 jobs, and a partridge in a pear tree!)

I do it because:

  1. It is there, like Mount Everest.
  2. My imagination will surprises me.
  3. It’s a communal writing experience. Tens of thousands of writers will appear at the start line, encouraging one another as they write.
  4. It feels so good when it’s done.
If you want some writing done, a novel written, give the assignment to a busy writer. She can do it. This is not the first year I’ve been contemplating nanowrimo Last year and the year before, I wanted to embark on NaNoWriMo, but didn’t want to start a new novel until I rewrote, sold and published my last masterpiece. But life is a work in progress. And so is my writing. Lost characters roaming around my unfinished novels will have to wait. I’ve got something new up my sleeve. And so have you. Think about joining me. nanowrimo sign up now!

Need. More. Coffee.

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I took this photo in Montreal. Coffee in another country always tastes better!

The Coudal family drinks a lot of coffee. More coffee than you and your family, I bet. Not that it’s a contest.

I love coffee. When I started blogging, my first post was about how much I love coffee. (I’ve rewritten this.)

I started drinking coffee at NYU. My ex-husband Jim got me hooked. Jim put sugar and milk in his coffee. If it spilled in his saucer, he slurped it up. I thought that was cool and kind of rebellious.

I just added milk. That was in the ’80s. Back in the day before hazelnut, mocha latte, grande, etc.  My ex and I split up eventually. (The slurping from the saucer probably didn’t help. Things that once seemed cool became annoying.)  But I never split with coffee. Once for Lent, I considered giving coffee up. But I didn’t want the headache.

At the New Age Spa, in Neversink, New York, a few years back, I heard they didn’t allow caffeine.

On my first night there, at the communal dining table, a frizzy-haired woman slipped me a pack of instant coffee across the table. She was very sly.

“You’re new here right?” she asked.

 “How did you know?” I asked. I’d just arrived from the car.

 “You’re wearing a cashmere sweater and pearls. Look around — Everyone else is in sweats.”

 I looked around. She was right. I could see I was going to like this place.

 “I’m checking out tomorrow morning,” the woman said. “But you can have my extra coffee packets. Don’t let anyone know.” She looked around, her eyes squinting.

I never used her packs of Sanka, but just knowing that I had the little packet coffee in the back pocket of my sweat pants comforted me.

Coffee would be there for me if I needed it. And I do need it.

Coffee loves me unconditionally.

Recent studies show that coffee keeps women from depression. Check out Consumer Report Study on Coffee. Four or more cups a day? Fine, you’ll be 20 percent less likely to be depressed. So, go ahead. Have another cup of coffee. Better yet, have four. I dare you. Just try to keep up with me!