Category Archives: Musings

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

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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…

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wedding pat & jess 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  

pat card jessica card 1 jessica card 2

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.

stuffThis 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

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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. skiing

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…

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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. ski freinds

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

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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.

chinaToday, 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.

“I stuck” ~Brooklyn

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spring-17

That is my two year old granddaughter’s favorite thing to say, “I stuck”.  She will say it whether she is really stuck or not.

Sabbatical…a whole year off from work to stretch my creativity, travel, and explore some of the things I have never had time to do in life. A grand adventure, giving up all your worldly goods and just going with no agenda, no plans, just going wherever the whim strikes you.  Everyone tells me they are jealous and that they wish they could do it.  So why aren’t they?

Because it is damn hard that is why.

Amazingly, I am handling the fear of the unknown pretty well and the ambiguity of it all.  My struggle has come in feelings of worthiness.  What did I do to earn this amazing opportunity?  And it seems like daily, some other wonderful thing is heaped onto me…adding to my guilt about it all and miring me in my inability to embrace it fully.

I am a person who has spent my whole life fighting for everything I have. From being on welfare as an unwed teenage mother to putting myself through college and becoming a tax-paying member of society, I have fought this uphill battle from a place of never having or “being” enough.  My whole life has been focused toward overcoming obstacles.  So now that there aren’t any obstacles, I am stuck.

I guess it is about abundance.  All my life has been life from a deficit and all of a sudden, I have an abundance of everything.  My life is mine to choose what to do and where to go.  I was blessed with intelligence, tenacity, a small amount of courage, and compassion. I have my health, a great job, and people who love me. I can do anything I want.  And that is why I am stuck.

For me, I know how to live a life of scarcity, it is easy to walk that road, it is harder to accept that I have these opportunities and to not feel guilty like I haven’t done anything to deserve them. Or even worse, that I am not worthy of having things work out well for me.  I am struggling with accepting a life of abundance and embracing it.  “I stuck”.

“Robin, you can TOTALLY do this.” ~Matt

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One of the best gifts I have ever received from the universe is the friendship of Matt.  We are the most unlikely of friends. I met him when I was a 44 year old, recently separated woman.  He was a 19 year old college student and our relationship has never been anything but platonic. I am convinced that every woman, struggling with the crushing emotional loss of a long term relationship needs to find a “Matt”, a kid that can teach her how to play again after a lifetime of responsibility.

Matt challenges me to do things I never would have attempted. He usually prefaces those challenges with “Robin, you can totally do this”.  However, those words usually don’t end well for me.  I am usually upside down or physically in harm’s way with Matt having to save me time and time again. But those words have precipitated some of the great stories of my life.   Stories that end with Matt saying “damn it Robin” :).

The first time I heard those words was when Matt wanted to me to kayak the Wenatchee. We were going to go on this overnight camping trip with a couple of other friends and go kayaking.  I had only been whitewater kayaking twice in my life.  Matt says “Robin you can totally do this. Fat guys in inner tubes and drinking beer do this.”  While that was technically true, Matt failed to mention that the fat guys do that when the Wenatchee is running at 1000 cfs whereas I was going to kayak it when it was above 10,000 cfs.

About 10 minutes into the run and I realized I didn’t belong on that river.  The third time Matt fished me out after I panicked and swam, we were standing on the side of the river and Matt starts explaining what I need to differently. The conversation went like this:  Robin (eerily calm): “I am not getting back in that boat.”  Matt: “It will take you hours to walk out of here.”  Robin (voice rising): “I don’t care if it takes me all damn day, I am not getting back in that boat!” Matt: “You will never get the boat out of here.” Robin (voice getting louder on the edge of hysteria): “The boat can sit right there and rot, I am NOT getting back in that boat!!” Oliver: “Just let her calm down a minute.” Robin (YELLING): “YOU CAN LET ME CALM DOWN ALL YOU WANT, I AM NOT GETTING BACK IN THAT BOAT!!!”  The end of the story, of course, is that, I did get back in the boat and finished the run and at the end Matt says “Damn it Robin.”  I have heard those words a lot in the 6 years that I have been friends with Matt.

I realized from that experience that life is a lot like kayaking.  There are a lot of people who spend their whole lives standing on the banks and watching other people have the fun of the experience.  But the fun starts where the water is moving, just like life starts where the water is moving.  In the moving water is the edge of fear and the unknown, where your heart starts pumping and you realize you are totally alive, focused in the moment.

But sometimes, life gives you rapids, challenging times that upset the peaceful floating along.  Then balance, as well as good paddling skills, become very important. Life is simpler if you keep the boat upright.  But sometimes, the rapids are too strong, life throws something at you that flips you upside down. At that moment, you need to have great self-rescue skills because you are always safer if you can stay in the boat and roll yourself up.  But sometimes, the rapids of life get too big and you have to pull the skirt and swim.  At that moment, you need great safety boaters who will pull you out of the water and get you safely to the shore.  Everyone needs great safety boaters in their lives because we all have times that we can’t do it alone.

And for those of us who are really really lucky, we will have a safety boater in our lives that doesn’t just pull us out, they take the time to convince us to get back in the boat.  Because life happens where the water is moving, it isn’t a spectator sport.  Having someone who will get you to reengage when you want to check out is the greatest gift any of us will ever have.

Thanks Matt for convincing me to get back in the boat.