Wow. It’s been such along time since I’ve been on my blog.
I’m happy to say that my book Mourning Has Broken is available on Amazon and Kindle
For all who are interested I hope that you will enjoy it and if you are going through your own grief process may my book be of some comfort to you.
Namaste
I have been talking a lot about motivation these days. Saturday evening I went to see Midnight in Paris with a meet-up group I belong to. The movie brought me back to Paris, especially at the beginning of the movie where Woody Allen gives us a grand tour of the city. But the movie is also about literature and writing and a longing for the past and it made me think how my writing is moving at such a slow pace and that I am lacking the passion that I seek in writing.
These meet-ups are always an opportunity to meet new people. And I did. I met Judy. It so happens that she’s a counselor and when I mentioned to her how I was lacking motivation in my writing she responded by saying what I’ve known for years: follow your intention with action. It’s not good enough to just want to picture myself as a writer although that is a necessary step. At least for me it is. She suggested that before I fall asleep I ask whoever or whatever it is that makes good writers write to give me the motivation that I need to keep going on my novel. This I do. Not only before I fall asleep but when I awake. I pray to the gods of motivation. Give me names I can hear you skeptics out there. So here they are: Continue reading
In a previous post titled Introducing Kissing Frogs I wrote about wanting to write Brenda from the first person viewpoint and that I was going to call it Kissing Frogs. Well, surprise, surprise, that title has already been taken and so I re-titled the work A Girl Called Brenda.
Brenda now has her own blog which I will share with her. As she continues to amuse and endear us with her disatrous dates I will write on the process of creating A Girl Called Brenda.
I had given myself a year to write on the Writing Scales blog and now that the year is almost up I will temporarly be leaving it. My essays on mourning have been put together in a book titled Mourning Has Broken which is scheduled to come out in August.
I have learned a lot in the year of blogging, both about writing and blogging…though I still have so much to learn. As I leave behind my essays on grief I am moving towards something more playful. At this stage of my life I no longer want to work unless it is fun.
My wish is that Brenda’s stories will inspire and entertain both writer and reader.
You can Google or Bing Brenda’s new address at agirlcalledbrenda.wordpress.com
In April I took a cruise from Fort Lauderdale to eight Caribbean islands. The first day in Fort Lauderdale I lost my camera. It was the second CoolPIx which I had lost and was quite disappointed not only to be without a camera but also I had taken some neat photos of my sister and her friends that were on my digital.
On the ship they were selling cameras (duty and tax free), one of them a Cool Pix. I felt like I wanted to upgrade and I hemmed and hawed not knowing quite what kind of upgrade I wanted.
It was my second time snorkling and I had the good luck to meet two expert snorklers, Joe from Manchester, England and Claire from New Mexico who sort of took me under their wing as I followed them through narrow reefs and learned how to stay in place to watch the fish.
At one point I ran into Joe on deck and she showed me the photos which she had taken underwater. I at once knew what my upgrade would be.
I bought myself an Olympus underwater camera. And really it was a good thing that I lost my CoolPix in Fort Lauderdale for I never would have taken these photos of such wonderful fish. Snorkling opened up a new world for me.
Bonaire Island is known as the Paridise of snorkling
and deep sea diving.
This afternoon I had a personal meeting with Thelma Mariano, Life and Retirement Coach.
When I first started my blog nine months ago I was newly retired and asked the question: what do I want to do for the rest of my life? The answer to this question is becoming clearer but meeting with Thelma helped me to re-evaluate my goals at this stage of my life.
Our meeting started off with her stating that when you retire you have to build a new life for yourself – one where you’re going to fulfill your needs and pursue your dreams.
“Now that we’re living longer, if you retire at sixty it’s reasonable to expect a good twenty or thirty years ahead,” she said. “My ninety-one year old father still plays golf and has a healthy social life. Because we have become more aware of our health and are taking care of our bodies, we can be active well into our eighties or beyond.”
We baby boomers may be ready to retire from our regular jobs but certainly not from life. And we’re never too old to go after our dreams.
Ms Mariano’s tools are based on twenty years of research and coaching experience. One such tool which she gave me as “homework” is “Your Life Values” questionnaire. This is in two parts. The first part requires you to identify what you still want to experience and express. Forget those values which you’ve already integrated.
Along with a suggested list of values came two pages of notes. For example:
* Our Life Values are powerful, as they actually determine what we create in our lives and show us the areas that need change. They are also what motivates us and what ultimately gives us satisfaction.
The exercise also requires you to prioritize your list:
* Changing the priorities of your values affects the way you think, feel and behave in every area of your life. Someone who puts Challenge/Risk at the top of her list will go after very different opportunities than someone who puts Security as #1.
I relied on my gut feeling to prioritize my values and define how I will achieve them. So here’s my list:
1. Tranquility
2. Being recognized for my writing
3. Having a loving relationship with a man
4. Deepening my relationship with my daughter
5. Meeting more writers
6. Going to Barcelona
7. Having my own website as a writer
8. Spiritual growth
9. Going to interesting writers conferences
10. Attending a yoga workshop in Hawaii
The only reason I put spiritual growth at the number 8 position was because I had previously done Mariano’s “Slice of Life Satisfaction Chart” and spirituality had come out very strong so I didn’t feel that I needed to prioritize that aspect. I hemmed and hawed at whether a loving relationship with a man was more important than my writing career.
Then I thought of a TaroGold. quote which I received in my inbox a few weeks ago: “If you sacrifice your growth and talent for love you will not find happiness. True happiness is obtained only by fully realizing your potential. Love should be a force that helps you expand your life and bring forth your innate potential with fresh and dynamic vitality.” In the midst of writing this I felt caught in a chicken and egg situation. So I guess my number 2 and 3 values go hand-in-hand.
But wait! The test is still not finished. Now that I’ve identified my values I need to define them and set goals to achieve them. Yikes!
You can use some of Thelma’s tools which she’s posted on her site.
A few posts ago I wrote an excerpt titled Hello, Cowgirl in The Sand. You can read the essay in Mindful.org, a sister publication of Shambhala Sun.
1
I am in one of those funks over my retirement. I am supposed to be joyous about this situation but I am everything but joyous. Instead of joy it is anxiety and fear that inhabits me these days. Will I be able to make it financially? Will I be too sheltered and see the world close in on me.
It is as if I am dying. Or at least part of me is dying. That part that I so identified with: the teacher. Suddenly she is gone. Or perhaps she is merely shifting classrooms and now her teaching will be somewhere else. Her writing will be her classroom.
I guess what I fear is having nothing to do. I don’t mean literally nothing to do for I could spend my days cleaning my house, cooking, doing yoga , meeting friends for coffee, biking and going for long walks. That would fill up a day, all right. But there would be something missing. Some personal fulfillment not met and this is what I fear the most about my retirement.
I cry a lot these days following my retirement but I associate them more with missing my mother, my father, my sister.
My friend, Sylvie calls and I tell her I can’t stop crying. I am so fragile and sensitive.
Sylvie is a great listener but also a great comforter. She is in a way like a man for when you tell her a problem she has the need to find a solution. Unlike a man though (at least many of the men I have met whose solution is to say not to think about whatever it is I’m thinking about) Sylvie offers solid solutions.
Don’t forget you’ve just retired. You’ve got to mourn that. In all the mourning I’ve been doing this past year and a half mourning a retirement seems so banal. Superficial almost. But maybe she is right. It is another stone on my pile of grief.
2
The school year has begun and I feel an empty hole in my life. There is lonesomeness for my colleagues and I wonder if I have done the right thing in retiring.
3
I am truly retired. The fact of being retired is in my face. I am in its early stages and although I am going towards something new and unknown I must go through this passage of grieving my career. I did not think it would leave such an emptiness inside of me. This feeling of loss and being in liminality is how Murray Stein describes this transition between work and retirement.
Liminality refers to “… a threshold between consciousness and unconscious portions of the mind… a person’s sense of identity is hung in suspension. You are no longer fixed to particular mental images and contents of yourself. … the “I” is homeless.”
4
I love not working. I am so happy that I retired. The greatest gift retirement offers is time. The luxury to do things slowly. To get out of bed when I feel like it. To chart my day as it arises.
My friend, Thelma, friend, writer and life coach sends me an e-mail regarding an update to her website. It’s full of neat ideas for anyone wanting to retire. View her articles here.
