Matters That Matter ®

Fall is in the air, which means it is back to school time.  For most of us that brings up memories of shopping trips to buy pencils, crayons, notebooks, clothes, new shoes, both when we were kids and then with our own kids.  I can still remember my own first day of school, standing behind my mom, begging her to take me with her and not leave me with a room full of other little kids and a kindergarten teacher named Mrs. Griblin.  Her very name sounded way to close to goblin, and taking one look at her stern look, imposing bosom and sensible shoes… well I was just sure that she was one and would just as soon gobble me up for lunch as read me a story. 

 For most of us, our school days, all the way up through graduate school are some of our most powerful memories.  But once we leave that behind… then what.  What about our “continuing education”? 

One of my drop dead favorite authors is Anne Lamott (If you haven’t checked her out, please, oh please, do.  Traveling Mercies, Bird By Bird are just two of my favorites.  She says that we are all here in what she refers to as “Earth School”.  How great is that?!  Earth School.  We are all enrolled and it is public education at it’s finest.  It isn’t dependent upon federal funding, test scores, grading curves or political agendas.  No debate about the value or not of home schooling or charter schools.  From the second we appear on this earthly scene we are on campus and school is in session.

The beauty of Earth School is that we each have our own lesson plan.  The syllabus is drawn from each and every experience that comes our way.  Our learning and our education is built a moment at a time, a choice at a time, an experience at a time.  

So just what are we meant to learn in our very own institution of higher learning?  Just that… higher learning, and while we are heading up, let’s head in every direction… deeper learning, broader learning, wider learning.  Our core curriculum encompasses coming to understand who we are, what we believe and what gifts and talents we can bring to our fellow students and our global campus. Our electives include exposing ourselves to the creative, spiritual, and physical classrooms available to us.  To truly have a well rounded education we might all consider traveling “abroad”.  Which doesn’t have to mean that we fly to a distant country, although it might.  Rather it means that we take a risk and venture out of that which is comfortable and familiar.  It means that we are willing to listen to ideas that are quite contrary to our own with an open mind. Not a day goes by that we don’t have the opportunity to sit in the front row of our own class and soak up the lessons. Learning is about choosing to live with a sense of curiosity and inquisitiveness, while at the same time engaging our critical thinking and analytical skills.

 Every day we have the choice to show up, ready and eager to learn, grow, expand and contribute, or, we can skip class, cheat on the test or call in sick.  The school bus is on the corner… Are you going to make it on time?

written by Molly Davis for one of our favorite websites http://stylesubstancesoul.com/category/matters-that-matter/

Can you imagine what it would be like to be nestled in beautiful, inspiring surroundings, your only goal to rest and indulge in self discovery.  Imagine meeting like-minded women who come prepared to explore the same questions that run through your mind constantly…”Now What?” – “Who Am I?” – “How do I make the most of the life that is ahead of me?” What is it to be a true friend…to have a true friend?” “What matters the most to me at this time in my life?” “How can I  make a difference in the world?” ‘What does success really mean to me?”

PEEC (Pocono Environmental Education Center, Dingman’s Ferry, PA) is holding their  first annual Women’s Retreat,Oct. 24 – 27 2010  They have invited  inspiring authors, experts in their field and speakers who will gather to explore all of those questions and more.  Truth be told, all women share the desire to be more of themselves; more secure, more adventurous, more content in mid-life. It is a time to re-evaluate, renew and recommit to living our lives to the fullest…in essence to live in a way that is reflective of who we authentically are and what we value.

You are invited to participate in an experience that will both inspire you and allow you to inspire others.

Presenters/Speakers:

Amy Ferris, author of Marrying George Clooney; Confessions from a  Midlife Crisis.  Ms. Ferris is a successful writer/screen writer;  A Greater Goode and wrote the movies “Mr Wonderful” and “Funny Valentines”.
“Amy Ferris has successfully combined a rip-roaringly funny page-turner, with an unvarnished account of the personal history that formed her. This gut-wrenching look at intimate relationships will resonate with readers because of the universality of its raw emotion, clarity of vision, and self-revealing courage. Destined to become a classic of Feminist literature.”
– Marcia G. Yerman, Huffington Post, Writer/Artist/Activist

www.marryinggeorgeclooney.com

Kristine Van Raden & Molly Davis, authors of Letters to Our Daughters and co-founders of MATTERS THAT MATTER LLC  “Kristine and Molly have superlative intellect, capacious and tender hearts, and compassionate and forgiving souls. Their diligent and dedicated literary endeavors are a special gift to those of us who really understand the importance of the matters-that matter.” Dr. Les Garfinkel. “Molly and Kristine are excellent presenters, touching the hearts and minds of all who are lucky enough to hear them.” Rancho La Puerta Health Spa Tecate, Mexicowww.mattersthatmatter.com

Monica Holloway, critically acclaimed author of Cowboy and Wills , Red Boots and Cole Haans and the memoir Driving With Dead People, described by Newsweek as “unforgettable.”  She contributed to the anthology Mommy Wars, from which her essay was described by Newsday as “brilliant, grimly hilarious.” Monica works with and for the benefit of autistic children and their families…She is a force to be reckoned with.

www. monicaholloway.com

Robyn Hatcher is an actress, writer and communication skills expert. Robyn was so shy as a child, “Shy” was her actual nickname.  Having grown up afraid to speak, taught Robyn a lot about the subtle art of communication. Now she is passionate about helping people express themselves with clarity, confidence and power. – www.SpeakEtc.com

Gregory Ann Cox has been featured on CNN, as well as New York City and San Diego TV programs.Her writing has appeared in Better Homes and Gardens Special Interestpublications, Agency Magazine, Sell!ng Magazine, The New York Time Sunday Magazine, For Women First Magazine, The San Diego Union Tribune, Homes of the Hamptons, and others. Her midlife mission is to help women take back their midlife minds and bodies reverse the rates of heart disease and diabetes in Boomer women. She is a certified life Coach from Coach Training Alliance. www.midlifewithavengence.com

Amy Litzenberger is a real champion of women ‘investing in their own lives’ on many levels: spiritually, emotionally, personally, and financially. Since graduating from Vassar, and receiving an MBA in Finance from NYU, she has worked in the financial investment world, raised two extraordinary boys, and has managed to understand fully – through her expertise – that women struggle with money because we struggle with our own value.  

Hollye Fisher is freelance writer, blogger and author of a soon-to-be-released memoir. She founded two nonprofit organizations, running arts programs for teenagers in the Foster Care and Juvenile Justice Systems. In 2004 she received the Agape Spirit award from Dr. Michael Beckwith (from “The Secret”) for her work with at-risk youth. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and three children.

 www,hollyedexter.blogspot.com

REGISTRATION BEGINS SOON AND SPACE IS LIMITED. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT HEIDI NORMAND AT hnormand@peec.org KRISTINE VAN RADEN AT kristinevr@mattersthatmatter.com

there is this woman, hollye dexter, who is a FaceBook wonder. You know the kind. She loves and cares for perfect strangers with authenticity and an extremely generous heart. She is overwhelmed like the rest of us, but she has the guts to say so and ask for help and then extend the help she receives to others in need. You should know her.

This morning her blog is about telling the truth. It moved me to think about my own. So here goes and I hope you are motivated to tell and share and expose yours…We are all in this together and there is unconditional love for just the person you are, flaws and all.

1. I lie about my heighth, still…I am 6′ 1/2 ”

2. I am uncomfortable at parties…I would rather not go, but am so disappointed if I am not invited

3. I spend so much time jiggling the chubby ring around my middle, but do nothing about it.

4. I don’t do money…I don’t like anything that comes close to looking like math.

5. I am afraid no one will come to my funeral…so molly says she’ll put an ad in the obituaries for a free wine tasting…that will bring them in.

6. I think I have been an overbearing  parent

7. I’m not good on the phone, my voice goes up and I talk too much

8. I drink too much coffee

9. I have convinced my husband to let our dog Jack on the bed, now I can’t hardly sleep with out one of them on each side

10. I envy my daughters confidence, beauty, and self-knowledge.

11. I am sure that I love my husband more than he loves me

12. I’m afraid that when I get old I will be exactly like my mother

THAT IS ENOUGH FOR TODAY…NOW, HERE IS HOLLYE’S BLOG FOR THE DAY followed by admissions of truth by Amy Ferris…starting a trutholution!

http://hollyedexter.blogspot.com/2010/08/truth-whisperer.html

http://marryinggeorgeclooney.com/blog/2010/08/08/leading-by-example/

Every year on my birthday, my mom gives me the same hand written words on a card. She recalls the morning I was born;  ”Perfect as a peach. When the nurses handed you to me I thought you were the most perfect thing I had ever seen. Lips like a rosebud. I’m so thankful that you are my daughter.”

I save them. All! Years ago I started sticking special notes and cards from people I love between the pages of my copy of Joy of Cooking. At first it was only the occasional card that would fall out into the cookie batter or pot of soup. Now, so many years later, the cook book is so full of love notes and cards that it is held together with a gigantic rubber band. I make no attempt to rescue a recipe, its only purpose is to store the treasures I couldn’t bear to part with and didn’t know what else to do with them.

I have note after note from my mother; birthdays, thank you notes, even some are asking for forgiveness. Love notes from my husband (and there are plenty) are mostly filed in the dessert section, since I will remember always that he never could resist a sweet thing. My children’s early scribblings and home-made valentines, wedding invitations and graduation announcements take up as much space as everyone else’s  combined. By comparison I have very few from my father. He didn’t do emotion for so many years. So the cards where a hallmark sentiment, signed, Love Pop (I kept every single one). But in recent years I have received several cards…some a complete hand written paragraph or two. I have received a couple of letters filled with his own words, not relying on the sentiments of a stranger at all. He has written that I am the light of his life, that he is proud of me and that he loves me with all his heart. He doesn’t look back because there is emotion lurking there, so there are no I’m sorry-s, no seeking forgiveness. But there have been words that I have waited a lifetime to hear.

I know that when cards and letters stop coming from my parents I will pour through my cook book one page at a time, savoring the treasures and tidbits wedged in tight; their handwriting, humor and cliché phrases. Their words will call to me from the poultry pages, the molded salads and baked Alaska, while I am trying to cram in birth announcements, inky footprints of a newborn, a kindergartner’s first attempt at mastering the alphabet.

I wonder if Irma S. Rombauer had any idea she was in fact creating a sacred family journal…and for god sake, if there’s a fire grab the cook book.

I love art…I find that the art I’m drawn to is  usually created by a person that I instantly fall head over heels in love with. I see the vulnerabilities they dare to express, and can recognize them as my own. I understand that they are entrusting the viewer with private places and secrets well kept.  If I meet them face to face I have been known to embarrass us both. If I never meet them, there is a place in my heart that they reside. Artist who work from their souls have no choice but to create. And they will use what ever means they need so as to  manifest the messages that haunt them.

Such is the nature of Robin…her last name is Carlisle, but Robin sums her up. She is beautiful in her natural state, releasing her innate  abilities. In her personal understatement she brings joy and a sense of complete contentment. Hers is the work that last a lifetime…it is deep and pure and elegant and original. I am honored to introduce her to you, my people.

http://robincarlisle.com/

Misunderstandings…

We’ve all had them.

“You said, that I meant, but you did, and then I wasn’t, you’re wrong and I can’t.”

Sometimes, regardless of how sure we feel that every rock has been over-turned; every possible outcome discussed and contemplated; roadmaps explored, compass readings, GPS and lining up the stars… we find ourselves surprised when we get to the end of the road with another person and well, they aren’t there. Not standing next to you, not a few steps behind. They flat-out aren’t there. So you wait and wait for them to catch up and while you are waiting you notice a wiggly thing way off in the distance, and I’ll be go to hell…there they are, about a bazillion feet off track on a road that you never knew existed.

So as you stand there on your deserted road realizing that all the preparation you did obviously wasn’t enough because you and your companion still ended up on separate paths; you have a couple of choices to consider… (I DO love choices). #1 you could pleasantly wave good-bye to that poor schmuck and just keep heading for your destination. #2 you could start making your way through the prickly brush in the hopes that when they see you coming in their direction, they will do the same and meet you somewhere in the middle. Or #3 you go back to the beginning of the trip, the place you both started and plan and re-plan again in the hopes that this time you will travel more efficiently together.

We base our decisions on how important the outcome/destination is; how much we care about and respect our traveling companion(s); and how we want to feel about ourselves at the end of the trip.

Oh one last point…Money Ruins Everything! Be sure your travel plans include an air tight budget.  “you pay for the gas, I’ll buy the beer and Cheetos…DEAL.”

She was on my mind when I went to bed, and she was still dominating most  of my brain cells this morning as the sun rose on a brand new day.

Yesterday brought another difficult conversation. She has made her wishes known and we are respecting them (to the best of our collective ability). For now she is staying in her own home. She is both relieved and tormented. She knows the decision has bucked the system…the team is not happy. It is a toss-up at this point which matters more, her independence or her children. From her perspective neither is cooperating.

Cooperation looks like one or all of us stepping in and fighting the holy crap out of DMV and her primary care doctor…once considered a savior, now a consideration for this decade’s anti-Christ competition. She wants what she once had and the bottom line is just not adding up. If she stays in her house and can’t drive, she is a burden to us (her words) and will probably go bankrupt paying the chiseling cabbies (also her words).

Her 3 visiting lunches at the assisted living center of choice had her surrounded by old people…of which she is most certainly not one (hm-hm, her words). She found them difficult, uninteresting and incapacitated. She took herself off the highly coveted waiting list with no discussion with her fellow team members.

So yesterday, I just sat with her and let her vent…about the ailing neighbor whose daughters have been there day and night for a year(that would be guilt aimed in my direction); how her ailment was misdiagnosed and therefore she has been accused unjustly; how she has asked for a state provided legal assistant for the elderly, and that the DMV is the worst run government bureaucracy since the food rations program of WW II. I agreed with her on every point. I projected myself  in to her cozy food stained recliner; being serenaded by her obnoxious canary that rivals Andrea Bocelli and waved at by her red headed mail man who knocks on the window each day around noon.. asking for so little, yet troubled by so much…how  unjust, undeserved, unnecessary, undignified and very un-rewarding.

So this morning I have decided to write about the UN-Chapter. Ours is coming and  like it or not we are connected by that common thread.  In preparation I want us to agree to see the elderly through kinder, gentler eyes. They are in-fact our greatest teachers. Their fear and stubbornness; their denial and lack of compromise; their willingness to  survive each day with pain and talk as little or as much about it as they need to, is in fact how this chapter has been designed.  Letting go of a parent…

…not unlike a pregnancy that becomes so huge and uncomfortable that all you want is that THING OUT OF YOUR BODY…or living with a  teenager whose need for independence becomes so completely unbearable that you actually buy him/her a car so that they can get the hell out of your home. The bitching, the fighting, the resisting, is all part of the pain necessary to let go. I know she is not being stubborn or a pain in the ass…I see now that she is just going through the necessary labor pains to let go. And in doing so she is providing us a means of letting her go a little more gracefully. How she goes about this chapter, regardless of how we like it, is her job…not unlike an unborn baby pushing towards the light, or a young adult demanding his wings be released by those who have held him in safety…this is her job…to protest, to fight, to face her fear, to teach us, and to let go.

Mission Accomplished

“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities – always see them, for they’re always there.”

norman vincent pealeart by lisakaser.com

“Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is…The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds.”

From The Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Molly and I are now contributing regular columns on  Style, Substance and Soul. Great website for middle-aged women…we need better terminology than that…hell for all we know we could live to be 150…so this isn’t really middle aged.

http://www.stylesubstancesoul.com

TRAVELING  HOME

posted in guest contributors, matters that matter, substance on Jul 15, 2010 for theme: travel

If I have to be honest, I really don’t like to travel very much. I am a homebody. The idea of planning, packing and heading out the door does not call to me.

Years ago, Kristine and I took part in a creativity workshop. The final exercise was fantastic! We were all given a large blank poster, glue, scissors and mountains of magazines to pour through. Our assignment was to create a visual picture of our Perfect Day. There were no limitations. Money, time, energy, distance — none of those mattered. We were simply to craft a day of perfection. The only rule was that we could not talk to one another or look at each other’s creations. For the next two hours we were all silently immersed in our own imaginations.

Finally, we all gathered together, and took a “trip” around the room, learning about one another’s ideas of the best day ever. It was fascinating. The days, while colored in with different details, went like some version of this: “I’d start my day in Paris. Sitting on a balcony, wrapped in a thick, white robe I would sip espresso and nibble on fresh, warm croissants from the bakery below. After a tour of the Louvre, a private jet would transport me to Italy where I would spend a few hours in Pompeii and lunch in Tuscany with plenty of good red wine. The day would continue with a late afternoon safari in Tanzania, followed by dinner on the veranda overlooking the Serengeti. A dark, handsome masseuse would massage me to sleep to the sounds of the African night.”

Every woman had a different vision. And, every one of those images took them somewhere… away.  Except for me and Kristine.  We never left home. That might be part of the reason we were drawn to one another as friends all those years ago. While different in detail, each of us envisioned a day which allowed us to be home. Our days had time to move slowly, connect with those we loved, and included healthy doses of time to ourselves. The day began and ended right where we were.

Now, no day was better than the other, and I am emphatically not saying that travel isn’t a marvelous experience. It is!  We live on a magnificent planet, inhabited by miraculous human beings.  Adventure and exploration are part of this thing called life.  Every time we take a trip, we have the opportunity to meet new people, consider new ideas, learn to be flexible and brave. We all need to see beyond our own version of the world, challenge our beliefs and perspectives. We must learn to find the common threads that connect us as human beings in the midst of our differences. Travel is a terrific way to do that.

Home — the place we create for ourselves — can allow us a different kind of travel. It can offer travel inward, into our thoughts and emotions, our spirits and our creativity. There are so many demands to leave the house. Work, errands, committees, dates, volunteering, not to mention vacations, holiday trips and family reunions.  All of these can become distractions that take us away not only from our homes, but from ourselves.    The greatest adventure of all is the journey of self-discovery. Not so that we can become self-absorbed, but rather self-aware. That awareness isn’t “out there.” Our trip of a lifetime might just be right here.

writer, Molly Davis