Tag: passion

Pile on People and Activities

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

My number one rule is pile on people. I like to pile on activities as well as people. It is my way of coping. I like to say yes to every invitation and expand on every good idea offered — lessons I learned from performing improv.

Calder's Red Mobile, creative commons

Families are like fine art mobiles — when one member swings one way, the others move another — compensating, balancing, attempting to maintain equilibrium. With Chris’s increased slowness, I take on more. Like the arm on a mobile, I swing faster. I fly one way, while other pieces bounced along. Life swings every one. With Chris away with siblings in the Adirondacks this weekend, I did more. And I liked it.

When he’s gone, I depend more on friends.

Here was my Sunday. I got up early.

  • journaled
  • blogged
  • cabbed to pick up Charlotte from a sleep over
  • brunched at friends’ — lovely — bagels, lox, whitefish
  • dropped Hayden at church
  • napped for 20 minutes
  • got the car
  • picked up H. from church
  • dropped one child off at Randall’s Island, Icahn Stadium
  • drove to Cold Spring to get Kate from her sleep over
  • walked around with friends and K. in Cold Spring
  • watched the people fishing
  • chatted, picnicked by the harbor with friends
  • ate yogurt at a yummy yogurt place
  • picked up K.’s things from Garrison
  • drove K. and myself back to Randall’s Island
  • cheered H. and his team at track and field events
  • drove friends and kids back to city
  • parked the car at a lot
  • made dinner — chicken, rice, broccoli, strawberries
  • helped H. pack for 5-day bike trip
  • cleaned
  • sent myself and the kids to bed at 10:30

In a family, there are tons of ways to cope when a spouse is out of town, sick, or just unable to deliver the goods. People tell me, “You do too much.” Yet I would rather pile on people, activities, work, exercise, kindness than pile on resentment, solitude, inertia.

I’m sure there’s a lesson in how to balance your life based on the image of  a Calder-type mobile. Balance is not part of my vocabulary.

Enthusiasm, passion, friendship, too many activities? That’s the way! Pile it on.

Writing in a Community

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

I started a lunchtime writing group. The last time we met we wrote poems on fragments of Anne Sexton’s poetry. (Brilliant assignment, Tiffany!)

I cried a little as I wrote my piece. When it came my turn to read the poem out loud, I alerted the group, “I may cry when I read this. Don’t worry about me. Don’t hand me tissues. I am okay. I’m just having feelings.”

I read my piece out loud and two-thirds of the way in, I began sobbing. Literally sobbing, sniveling, gasping-for-breath crying. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to sob — especially in the middle of the workday and in front of coworkers. That is the time I like to joke around about Toddlers & Tiaras or take a walk in Riverside Park.

But there were things bubbling up in me. A sadness around the shifts and losses in my marriage, due to my husband’s Parkinson’s Disease.

Here’s the story: I cope really well. I work out. I write. I share my feelings. I lean on my friends. I feel alone. I love my kids. I love my job. I love my communities. But, at times, I feel and I am alone. And I am sad.

There was something healing about writing about and reading this piece to a writing group — a community of real people in real time and in a real place. We wrote together and then we listened to one another read.

Our meeting is simple. We rotate leaders. The leader picks a topic and then we write for 20 minutes. Then we go around and read what we’ve written. We have written about other things too — our childhoods and our rituals.

There is an alchemy to being a part of a community of real writers. The other day I wrote on my other blog What is Community? https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/what-is-community/

It is hard work, passion and diversity. This lunch time writing group has and is all that. We meet again tomorrow at 12:30. Join us.

Passion Leads to Death

Published on by mbcoudalLeave a comment

I started crying in the Viand diner this morning when the photo of the trainer, Dawn Brancheau, came on the television news. She so clearly loved the orca who killed her. She loved her work as an animal trainer.

The kids said, “Mom, don’t cry.”

But I don’t know how to explain this. What is the life lesson here? Tell my kids to chose their passions carefully? I do not want them to luge, to ski, to snowboard, feed predators for their life’s work.

And by the way, I do not want them to travel with relief efforts to developing countries either. How much can we protect our children from risky, heartfelt passions? How much can we protect ourselves? What is life — if it is not an engagement with physical and meaningful challenges which have the potential to consume you?

I hope, like me, my kids will find their passion in literature and in theater. These seem relatively benign passions. Although I suppose every passion has its its dangers. When you are fully committed, you can lose everything, including your life. Sobering and sad thoughts on a snowy Manhattan morning.  

I guess this relates to my life lesson – “live everyday as if it is your last.” Cliche? Yes, but cliches can be true.