White sand days…

Posted on May 31, 2013 by rangotti

One of my favorite analogies about life was shared with me from my friend Pat. I was really struggling with letting go of past hurts and disappointments. Pat asked me why I was devoting so much energy to trying to change those things that can’t be changed, no matter how much I wished them to be different. Then he told me his analogy of the hourglass.

We all have an hourglass that represents the length of our lives. The hourglass has clear sand it, we don’t know how much is in there or when our lives will end. The moment we are born, the hourglass is flipped upside down and the sand starts running through. When it comes out, each grain is either white or black. It is white during those times that we are appreciating our lives, being good human beings, making good choices, etc. It is black when we are stuck in the past, complaining, being mean…you get the idea. So all of us, when we look at the sand of the part of our lives we have lived already, have some shade of gray. None of us has been either all good or all bad in how we deal with things, we are all somewhere in between.

Here is the thing…We can’t control the amount of clear sand that is in the hourglass, it is a finite amount and could run out anytime. We have to live our lives today, this isn’t a dress rehearsal. We also can’t take the sand that already came out and change its color. It is either white or black, it has already happened and we can’t go back in time. We have to accept what life is right now because the only thing accomplished by wishing for the black sand to be white is to make more black sand fall as we waste our lives on regret. The only thing that we can control in that equation is the neck of the hourglass, this moment. So I began to ask myself when I woke up in the morning, “Robin, is this going to be a white sand day or a black sand day? How do you want to live your life right now at this moment.” That line of thinking has totally changed my life. Thanks Pat.

So today, my first day of homelessness, I woke up late and went on a spectacular bike ride. I am still struggling to find a photo client that I like for displaying pictures, but here are a few from my ride. It is definitely a white sand day.

Fear is Where the Fun Starts

Posted on May 29, 2013 by rangotti

I was an unwed pregnant teen at 17 years old and my son was born a month after I turned 18. I learned pretty quickly that life isn’t easy for young, single mothers. I had to quit my job at a shoe factory because I didn’t have daycare. Soon after, I lost my apartment and I was homeless for the first time in my life.

The first night you spend on the street is one of the scariest nights of your life. Then it gets easier, you find regular places to sleep and people to hang around with that you can trust. The unnerving part is that so much of your energy is devoted to safety. It is hard to have the capacity to look for work when you have to spend so much time just looking for food, shelter, and warmth. When you have an infant who is depending on you, the insecurity of meeting basic needs is even greater.

Tomorrow, for the first time in over 30 years, at 49 years old, I will be homeless again. This time it will be because of choice not necessity, yet even so, I stand here on the precipice of being divided by zero again. My stuff has been given away, my apartment cleaned, my car is packed. I turn the keys over at 11 am and for the next year will have no place that to call “mine”, no place to nest or feel safe from the world. It is a scary and daunting place to be. For a long time I have wondered if I can actually do it or if I will cave to the illusion of safety that our houses create. There is only one way to find out…face the fear and do that which scares me most.

Everyone who knows me describes my character as someone who will whine the whole way up the ladder of a high dive, complaining the whole time that I can’t do it. But when I reach the top, I just jump. No fanfare, no explanation, no coaxing required. The process of climbing and complaining is my way of convincing and reassuring myself that the course of action I am on is where I want to be. Once I reach it, if I haven’t turned back, there is only one choice…jump. Tonight I am jumping. Tonight I am facing the fear, telling it hell no, and taking the risk anyway.

During one of the times that I was whining about doing some crazy activity that my friend Matt got me into, I told him how afraid I was. He looked at me with that gleam in his eye and said “feels good doesn’t it?” When I answered “not really”, Matt countered with “Robin, fear is where the fun starts. It is when you are at that edge of out of control that you are most fully alive”. And he was right, it does feel good. It pushes you to the edge of comfort and engages your mind and body in a way that safety never can. It makes all your senses come alive.

If you are stuck in a rut or want to make changes in your life, start with finding something you are afraid of and face it. It doesn’t have to be an adventure sport or even a risky activity. It could be something as simple as trying a new food or learning how to parallel park or even being vulnerable and authentic with your partner. It is something that pushes you out of your comfort, where you feel unsafe. Any activity that makes your heart pound and gives you that amazing sense of accomplishment when you have completed it…go do it. It is the first step to moving forward.

Face the fear because fear is where the fun starts.

The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face.

You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’
The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living (1960)

My Rock

Posted on May 28, 2013 by rangotti

The time has come. All my “stuff” has been culled. I now have some gear stored at a friend’s house, a few boxes with pictures and mementos in my office, one bag of clothes, my bike, and my rock.

The rock in the picture is red granite. It is very heavy and it isn’t going with me, I am going to put it in my office. I found the rock on a beach in Canada one summer when I was a little girl. We were on a family vacation and my dad convinced my sister and I that the rock was really a petrified dinosaur egg. He brought the rock home and we used it as a doorstop at our summer home on a lake in Maine when I was growing up. I believed that story and told it to my friends when they came over. I remember feeling so gullible when I found out it was a rock, but I knew how much of a tease and practical joker my dad was so I wasn’t really upset about it, I should have known better. I know I probably should give up the rock, but I just can’t.

The rock and all my other possessions that I am keeping are just symbols. They aren’t what really is important in life, they are just reminders of what is important. My real rocks are my family and friends, the people I love and who love me. My dad is gone now, but the rock is a symbol of the love he had for me. He loved me enough to tell me that story and carry this heavy rock all the way up the beach, took it back to Maine, and then kept it all those years while I was growing up.

It has been really hard saying goodbye to my friends. I am going to miss them more than they will ever know. Even harder is saying goodbye to my beautiful daughter whose amazing spirit and love for the world around her has kept me going for the last 5 years. She and I have a special bond which was born in the fires of adversity. We have laughed more the last week than we have in a long time, knowing the time is coming to say goodbye. She is a really special person.

The big revelation for me was understanding that she, and my friends, are going to miss me as much as I am going to miss them. It made me feel loved. I know they are cheering me on, but I also know that it leaves a hole for them and it makes me sad. The world is a small place and although I might not be physically present, I will be connected through Facebook, this blog, and hopefully some phone calls and visits. I need my rocks in my life, even if I am far away. And they need me.

Adventures with Nana

Posted on May 26, 2013 by rangotti

I remember very clearly what I was doing on this day 2 years ago. I sat in my apartment on pins and needles waiting while 3000 miles away, my two beautiful granddaughters were being born. Their names are Brooklyn and Charlotte and they are the most amazing, intelligent, beautiful, loving grandchildren on the whole planet.

I sat here that day, waiting…and waiting…and waiting. I find that it is especially hard to be away from family during times that elicit strong emotions, things like births, weddings, and funerals. You sit alone and wait for news while people who are physically there are caught up in the event and don’t necessarily have time or the capacity to send out notifications. But the really hard part is wanting someone to share the emotion with, someone who will feel the joy or the sorrow with you, someone to cry with, someone to hug. One of the hardest things about my relationship with Brooklyn & Charlotte is being the grandparent who is “from away”. Their other three grandparents live nearby and see them often so have stronger bonds with them as a result. I have to admit I am envious.

When my son and my daughter-in-law chose the girls’ names, I figured out a way that I could have a special bond with them of my own. I looked up the names Brooklyn and Charlotte as cities. There are 8 towns named Brooklyn and 6 named Charlotte in the U.S. So when the girls get to be about 7 years old, every summer we are going to take a vacation. We are going to go two towns, one of each. We are going to have our pictures taken next to the Welcome to Brooklyn or Welcome to Charlotte sign, do a little cycling, and figure out the special things those towns have to offer. I want the girls to realize that everywhere in the world is some place special. Adventure doesn’t have to be about traveling to exotic places, you can find adventure in your own backyard. The easiest way to be happy in a place is to look at where you live through the eyes of a tourist and find the interesting, funky things that make the place you live in special. That is the legacy I want to leave them with. I am calling these trips “Adventures with Nana”.

When you have children, you worry about everything. Where will they go to school, what if they get in trouble, what if they get a C in algebra, are they hanging around the “right” friends, etc. and those are all things you are supposed to worry about, that is what a parent’s job is. But when you are a grandparent, you only have one task, one thing to teach them about life. Your only job is to show them that, no matter what, they are worthy of love and belonging.

Happy 2nd birthday to my beautiful granddaughters. Nana loves you always and misses you more than you could ever imagine.

In the awkward intersections…

Posted on May 23, 2013 by rangotti

Until I was about 44 years old, I was proper. I conformed to the conventions of whatever group I happened to be with in an effort to blend in, adhere to the norms, and to not be singled out. Our society and culture, as well as the social groups we belong to, put norms on what we can talk about, how we should act, how we should dress, what we should look like and who we should be friends with. And for all of our bravado of saying we don’t conform, this is something all of us do. For example, there are few heterosexual men that will wear an evening gown, high heels, and makeup in public. We get embarrassed when someone is walking down the street wailing at the top of their lungs because public displays of emotions are frowned upon. To be a “hipster” you have to look, act, and dress a certain way. All of those things are examples of conforming. I just have to say…screw that.

Instead of being proper, I have become a believer in filters. Filters keep out what you don’t want and let in the parts that you do. For example, coffee filters keep the grounds out yet still let in the delicious coffee. One day I was having a conversation with Matt about a ski meetup I had joined while he was travelling abroad. I was telling him that the challenging part was when driving to the mountain with a new carload of people each week and having the first superficial conversation over and over, i.e. what do you do, where are you from, etc. I complained that it didn’t allow you to really get to know anyone more in-depth because you never got to any “meatier” discussions. Matt’s response was “so just start with the 4th conversation”. HUH, I don’t understand? He said, “when they get in the car just start talking about poop, or your last sexual encounter, or your stand on women’s rights. If they ride with you again, they will be your friends. If they jump out of the car, you’ll know they really aren’t people you want to hang around anyway. It’s a filter.”

That made me think about all the really great friends I have and what attracted me to them. In each case, the people I am closest to moved into my inner circle of friends by saying or doing something totally outrageous. I love outrageous, unrestrained people. Who to hell wants to hang around boring, superficial, predictable people? Oh yeah, other boring, superficial, predictable people do. I want to be unpredictable so I look for other people to mirror that for me.

One of my favorite stories of a friend who is unrestrained and who I love dearly is my friend Jenny. Jenny, Tracy and I all went skiing one Saturday morning. Tracy and I were friends but we didn’t really know Jenny that well. When we got in the car, we all had a story we wanted to share about how great our week was. Tracy had something good happen at work, I got a new grant, but Jenny wanted to tell her story first. Jenny said, “I had the best week. I met up with this guy I haven’t seen since I moved here. We made out at the bar, I brought him home, we had sex all night, then in the morning, we woke up, made bloody mary’s and stayed naked on the couch all day.” Silence. Tracy and I looked at each other and, as one, said, “my news isn’t that interesting after all.” How could we not fall in love and be friends with a person like Jenny? She has this fantastic sense of self, of her needs, and of what is really important in life. She is fabulous. And most of the women who hear me tell that story all say “I want to do that” but very few ever will even attempt anything so bold.

Relationships take lots of work and honest, open communication. We all want to be seen in a good light, but you have to willing to be real and authentic with people always, from day one. Even when it is hard and you don’t want people to know that you have made a mistake, done something stupid, or are having a crazy moment, you have to just put yourself out there anyway. You will enjoy life a lot more if you can just be your unrestrained self with people that can be that way with you in return. And that means in all your crazy glory, even wailing at the top of your lungs while walking down the street. The people who are truly your friends won’t shy away from that. If they can’t handle the authentic you…well why would you even care what they think? Authenticity is a filter, it filters out those who we want to keep in our lives from those who we need to let go so that they can find what they are looking for in someone else.

I believe that we are pretty spectacular people and that if we know ourselves, we can then introduce ourselves to others in an honest, fun, specifically quirky way as individuals who are comfortable with our awkwardness… and that’s usually where we connect with people– the awkward intersections. ~ Rachel

If you plant peas, you are going to get peas… ~Ella

Posted on May 21, 2013 by rangotti

I am not sure why it is so hard for me to recognize that fact. It is a pretty simple thing to understand. We reap what we sow, so if we sow pea seeds, we can’t expect strawberries to pop up.

Like attracts like. Isn’t that the universal law of attraction? The people who are closest to us and the people who we are attracted to mirror who we are. They reflect back our inner selves and we also act as mirrors to them. You can tell a lot about a person when you look at the people who they value, the people who are closest to them.

I have said it before, I have the best friends ever. They are all men and women of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity. I admire them greatly and feel like I am always striving to be like them. They challenge me to be my best.

What I tend to forget is that I act as their mirror also, it isn’t a one-way thing. They are attracted to me for the qualities they see in me. That is the hard part for me to accept because it blows all my inner doubts and issues of self-esteem out of the water. Those self-doubts are of my own making. I am planting peas. If all I do is put out my fears, insecurities, self-doubts, I will cultivate people in my life that have those same doubts. I will cultivate friends who don’t reflect my values.

The problem is, I am not living up to my end of the relationship bargain. I am expecting these incredible people to be supportive of my struggles and they are. But in my insecurity and self-doubt, what I am not doing is supporting them in their struggles in return. I have to ask myself, when they need me to mirror back to them those same incredible qualities, am I doing my job?

Part of developing a new identity is deciding who I want to be. I have chosen these people to be my friends, so I am choosing those attributes as characteristics I want to mirror. So it is time to step up and accept that is who I am. I am a woman of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity. I have been planting my crops and I will harvest what I have sown. It is time to act like a grown woman and be the friend I need to be.

Marianne Williamson said it better than I ever could, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It is harvest time.

Dear Santa…

Posted on May 19, 2013 by rangotti

In the process of purging, I had to go through the “treasures” I have saved. The first time I tried, I opened the cedar chest and saw my wedding dress. I burst into tears and shut the lid. Since then, I have been avoiding it, trying to do other things first. Yesterday, my beautiful daughter came over and helped me. We spent an hour laughing hysterically at the handmade cards and gifts my kids have made for each other and for me over the years. There were mother’s day cards hailing my virtues as a mother, projects from school where they display their prowess as artists, boy scout and girl scout awards, awards for academic achievements and creative endeavors like dance, athletic awards, and funny cards I saved that they had made for each other.

I have two amazing children, Patrick who is 31 and Jessica who will soon be 26. I love them with all my heart. They are both physically stunning people, but it is who they are as human beings that makes them truly beautiful. What struck me yesterday as my daughter was here helping me pack and purge, was how funny they both are. We were reading all these old cards and she was giving a running commentary about how much of a genius she was as a child and what a moron her brother (who she loves dearly) was. Two of their cards went like this:

Dear Jessica: “From a brother you like, I want you to know…Get out of my room or I will tell Mom. Happy Birthday.” ~Pat
Dear Santa: “I have ben vera good. My bruther has been vera bad.” ~Jessica

Someone posted on my Facebook that moments like that, of Jessica and I laughing hysterically at the cards, were priceless. I was reflecting on that and realized that my life has been filled with a lifetime of those moments. I come from a family of siblings that could make you roll on the floor with laughter. My children have inherited that same gift. They take the most ordinary life events and have the capacity to see the humor in them.

That gift will serve them well in life. They can take difficult and challenging times and turn them into laughter. There is lots of research that laughter boosts energy levels and decreases stress. It also connects us to other people, lightens each other’s burdens, inspires hope, and keeps us balanced. Laughter is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other as human beings.
Make someone laugh today. And when they do, take a moment to enjoy the sound, to see the sparkle in their eyes, to appreciate the moment of joy. It really is one of the most priceless moments of our lives.

This morning, I feel like the richest person on Earth. Thanks for making me laugh Jess and for making this purging process a little easier.

Just Zen it, your body knows what to do. ~Shaun

Posted on May 17, 2013 by rangotti

I grew up skiing in Maine and I was pretty good. I moved to North Carolina when I was 19 and didn’t ski regularly again for 25 years. When I moved to Washington, the first thing I bought was a pair of skis. I was a comfortable and happy blue run (intermediate skier). But I would watch those people who would ski off-piste, through the trees, down fall lines, and on the steepest stuff I could ever imagine and I longed to be like them. I believed that I would never be able to do it, that I would never be that good of a skier. Then, I met Shaun.

Shaun is the best skier I know and for some reason, decided to make me his personal project. So he skied with me, he would give me advice, he helped me choose a new pair of wider skis for powder, he watched my form, he laughed with/at me, he became my friend. Then one day, we had a reasonable dump of powder and Shaun texts me the night before skiing and says “bring the fatties” (fat skis). I will never forget what he did when we got up top. Instead of the usual…”this is what I want you to do”, Shaun just shows me the run we are going to go down. Instead of waiting for me to go first and then giving me advice, Shaun just takes off and yells over his shoulder, “Just Zen it Robin, your body knows what to do.”

WHAT? I remember yelling “what does THAT mean?”. But Shaun was getting too far ahead of me so I had to catch up so I could ask him. The whole way I am mumbling and cursing to myself that he is giving me these directions and then just abandoning me to figure it out. When all of a sudden, I realize, I am skiing off-piste, through the powder and the trees. When I realize I am doing it, 3 things happened: 1) I immediately panic, but then realize that I am okay, 2) I yell to Shaun: “I am doing it!” and see him just shake his head and 3) I start giggling.

When I am pushing myself, stretching my boundaries, taking a risk, and being successful, I have an giggling problem. It has annoyed a few people who are no longer in my life because although I try to control it, when I do something I thought I never could do and have fun, it just wells up from inside me and I can’t help it…I giggle. And skiing through those trees and in that powder was FUN. Shaun knew that I had the skills to do it. With his help support and a few big pushes, I have no problem going through trees, down fall lines, and can pretty much ski wherever I want. But I still keep giggling. Life should be fun.

The reality is that I am a pretty competent person in a lot of things. What holds me back is that I can’t get out of my own head and overcome my fear of the unknown in order to do them. As soon as I get out of my own way, sure enough, I can do it. I believe many of us are the same way. So my advice…Just Zen it, your body knows what to do.

Where fear is, happiness is not. ~Seneca

The Best Way to Get Over a Man…

Posted on May 15, 2013 by rangotti

I have the best group of ski friends ever. I mean seriously ever. They are not only some of the best skiers I know, but they are real, authentic, loyal, smart, etc. The thing I like best about them is that there is little subterfuge. They keep it real and don’t bullshit around. We talk about love, pain, joy, triumph, despair, sex, men, children, relationships…the whole gamut of emotions and situations that life throws at you. There are no boundaries or forbidden conversations and we can all be as crazy as we need to be with each other.

One of them, when she was recently out of a pretty traumatic relationship, told me something I would never forget. We were talking about men and how hard it was to let go of relationships that we had really wanted and expected to work out. She said “I have learned something from my most recent breakup. I learned that the easiest way to get over a man is to spend 24 hours in lock up”. Yeah…that would probably do it for me too.

The problem is our expectations. I truly expected to be married forever. I had dreams of dancing at my grandchildren’s weddings with my ex and being that last couple standing when they do the dance with married couples and keep having people sit down depending on the length of their marriage. The couple that is married the longest is the last couple standing. Watching that dance still gets me every time.

The past couple of days have been spent saying goodbye to some of my best friends. As usual, we had a grand time. Today, sad and lonely, I have accomplished absolutely nothing. Not only have I not packed anything, I have to go teach class and I was going to ride in, here it is 12:40 and I am still in my PJs so it doesn’t look like I am going to get any cycling done either. I have been surfing the web, thinking about cycling in Spain on my birthday.

And that might be why I am in the doldrums, my birthday. I just don’t want to spend another birthday alone. And this is my 50th. Again, I think back to the expectations my ex and I had for our 50ths with the kids grown and gone, what we were going to do together…and here I am doing it alone. A friend of mine once said “there is alone, and then there is ALONE”.

My girlfriends’ advice was to ask someone to go with me. I have asked a couple of people if they wanted to come with me and both had exceptional reasons for why they couldn’t go. At 50, most of my friends work, have young kids, responsibilities, etc. They just can’t take off for a cycling holiday in Europe. Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that I have to do this alone. I don’t know…I just know that today is one of those days where I am questioning my resolve.

Maybe I need to watch this again, about 50 times. http://weliveunbound.com/

Robin, you have to rewrite your hard drive. ~Matt

Posted on May 14, 2013 by rangotti

Those words weren’t spoken of a computer, Matt told me that one day when I was in an endless loop of thought, holding onto memories of a failed relationship. I told him I didn’t know how to stop and he said, “Robin, you have to rewrite your hard drive. You have to replace the memories with new experiences, things, and relationships.”

We all do it, we get stuck in a pattern of thinking. We go through the “what ifs”…what if I had been more accommodating, a better wife/mother/teacher/friend, hadn’t become angry, saved more money, staying in school, what if… You can fill in your own blank on whatever you ruminate about.

The reality is that life, right now at this moment, is exactly as it should be. All of our experiences, good and bad, have brought us to this moment. And all the rumination in the world isn’t going to change that. We are here, now. The past is the past. The problem is that the memories and the emotions surrounding past experiences paralyze us and we fixate on them. We think back to when times were good and we long for them. We get caught up in the mistakes we made and regret them. We can’t seem to let go. So the question is what do we do when where we are today isn’t where we want to be? What happens when we are assailed with memories that make us uncomfortable? We have to rewrite our hard drives of our brains with a new script which means seeking out new people and adventures.

We don’t just hold those memories in our heads, we hold them in our possessions also. I am trying to reduce my life to a bag of clothes and a bike. I do have a little room in my office for a few boxes for storage and I am determined not to pay for additional storage. So I am condensing 49 years into the 6-8 small boxes I have allowed myself to keep. It means sifting through all of my possession and considering whether it is really important to me or not. I have been amazed at how many emotions we attach to our possessions.

Today, I was packing my mother’s china. It is a set of china that she got when she married my dad so it is pretty old. My mind immediately went back to all the holiday celebrations we had as a family growing up when mom would get out the “good china”. I used the same china for my own family. Over the years a piece or two has been broken. I was carefully wrapping it up and at the same time asked myself…why am I saving this? It has no value to anyone else. My kids won’t want it after I am gone, it isn’t that attractive. What makes it hard to let it go are those memories.

That made me think back to other things that I have either lost or let go of in the past and I realized, I have replaced them with new things and new memories. I realized that Matt was right. I have rewritten the hard drive. There wasn’t one thing I have let go of that I regretted giving up. It is just stuff and getting rid of it means my kids won’t have to sort through it after I am gone.

People are harder to shed. I know that I will never see some of the people I am saying goodbye to again. Life moves on and so will they. And there is no way to tell which relationships will survive my leaving and which won’t. So, just like with the possessions, I thought about other people who have come and gone from my life. All of them have enriched my life in some way, taught me, and helped me grow. Even the relationships that turned out badly taught me something. So even though I may think back fondly to times I shared with people or think angry thoughts of a situation where I was taken advantage of, I do not regret having let people into my life for a time. Each of those experiences has brought me to where I am today. And tomorrow I will rewrite the hard drive with new experiences, people, places, and things.

The universe is exactly as it should be.

Life Divided by Zero

The Journey of Becoming Undefined

Monthly Archives: May 2013