Turns Out, We Can Save Ourselves

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Mother Earth is not happy. She’s turned up the heat and has been shaking us with repeated earthquakes.

I don’t blame her. Mother Earth is a living organism and we have been abusing her forever. She’s only doing what lifeforms do – trying to protect herself.

We have shown, in recent history however, that we humans can actually change our behavior and dramatically improve the quality of life here on Mother Earth.

During the COVID pandemic of 2020 we humans stopped driving, flying and reduced industry pollution. The result was a measurable improvement in the air we breathed worldwide. Nitrogen dioxide was down 30-70%. Particulate matter was down 10-40%. Carbon dioxide from fossil fuels was down 5.4-6.4 %. (Source: Reuters)

AND, for the first time in years, you could see the the beauty of Mt. Everest from the ground in Nepal and Bhutan. The air pollution was gone and Mother Nature could show us her beauty.

Unfortunately, we humans snapped right back into our old habits after the pandemic and we are choking ourselves again.

So, let’s take a look at our own behavior. Can we walk instead of drive? If we can’t walk, can we cycle? If we can’t cycle, can we take a train or other public transportation? If we can’t do any of those, can we drive a hybrid–or not take the trip at all?

Can we finally stop using plastic bags and plastic straws (oil based products)? What other things can we do to save ourselves and love Mother Earth?

Can we still believe that we can DO SOMETHING?

Love.

Reading and Writing Romance Has Made Me, Well, More Romantic

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I was not a person who read romance books but two years ago a character, Lexi Maxwell, presented herself to me while I was on holiday in Ireland. It was chilly, windy, wet day as we rode through the rolling hills of the country. It is true that Ireland has more shades of green than anywhere and the dots of white sheep sprinkled in the fields made everything feel quaint and cozy. After the rain, rainbows appeared everywhere I looked.

That was when Lexi started talking to me. It’s how all my characters present themselves to me. They just show up in my “mind’s eye” and start telling me their story. You will hear some creatives refer to it as a download. “The music is in the ethers and I just capture it,” to paraphrase Bob Dylan when asked how he write his songs. Elizabeth Gilbert and Rick Rubin have discussed this experience as well. In fact Gilbert talks about how she sits at her desk every morning at the same time to “receive” her stories. Paul McCartney admits that is how “Yesterday” came to him. It was a complete song in a fast download. Such a complete song that, at first, he thought it surely must have been someone else’s song that he’d just heard on the radio.

Lexi kept talking to me all day in Ireland and, by the time I arrived at my hotel, I told her I’d write it. Four months later I completed her story and Under The Autumn Moon was published the next year.

Under The Autumn Moon has been described as “Finally, an adult romance. This isn’t puppy love. It’s a deep fulfilling love story.”

Another romance story immediately started “talking” to me and so, this fall, another romance novel is on its way to you.

What I’ve noticed about myself now that I’m writing romance, is that I have more scented candles in the house, I now have flowery bed sheets, I wear lacey tops (NEVER would I have done that before), my playlists I listen to while writing are love songs from all ages and cultures, and I seek quieter spots to sit alone or with a small group of family and friends.

The other delight is how many men, of all ages, have said things to me like, “I’ve never read romance and didn’t know I needed it!”

Maybe we all need a little more romance in our lives.

The Neighborhood Elders Are Dying

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Mareska Glass, Dot Lawson, Johnny Jarrell, Drudy Jarrell and, just yesterday, Euel Spriggs.

These are the neighbors who were twenty-five to thirty-five years older than me and became my friends. They have all died. Thee last three in just the past two months.

Mareska, aka Marsha, and I meet most every Thursday morning for coffee. She shared her life stories and how she survived World War 2 as a young Jewish girl in Poland after losing her entire family. (A story I still need to write for her).

Dot lived across the street. Her son was married to a friend I hadn’t seen since high school. A reminder we are circle back around one another in life. Dot made wedding cakes and my husband and son regularly benefited from her cast offs. I rescued a baby owl once who’d found its way down her chimney. We differed in how we interpreted God, but always respected the other.

Johnny and Drudy were the cute couple holding hands and walking their dog. More often than not, their evening walk timed perfectly with mine and so we’d stroll around together. Johnny loved his annual trip to Boston in the winter to represent his company at the annual fish market. Drudy never failed to ask about my son. They had two accomplished, good men as sons themselves.

Euel died yesterday morning. It was expected and his beloved great niece, Michelle, has been with him through it all. He and his late wife, Marie, weren’t able to have children, but they spoiled all their family. The strongest memory of Euel will be that he truly lived a life of kindness and respect for all. He LIVED it. He didn’t go around pontificating.

My childhood was spent around aging relatives and so that may be why I gravitate to the elders around me. They can often have a way of being that enriches my life in small and large ways.

Let Me Crawl If I Can’t Walk

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It finally happened, my friend, and ninety-four year old neighbor, fell… and hasn’t walked again.

It didn’t have to be that way. His loving family was startled by how much he complained about his leg hurting. He never complains. It was a deep bruise and would need time to heal.

The family and the doctor, however, immediately flipped him from being someone in his home who had a housekeeper, physical therapist twice and week and a nurse check-in once a week ,to being a man told “not to try and get up because you’ll fall again.” He has literally been pushed down in his chair.

Overnight his bed was switched to a hospital, his walker was switched to a wheelchair and 24/7 caretakers added to the day.

He looked at me early in this process and said, “I guess they just want me to sit here, get old, rot and die.”

His 24/7 caretakers and I know he could have walked again. Not now. It’s been too many weeks and now morphine has been added “so he’s never in pain.”

My family has had the conversations about medical power of attorney, end of life procedures, wills, etc. Now we have had the conversation about the “just before” stage when my husband and I can and want to push ourselves as much as we can to keep moving and functioning.

I told them, let me crawl if I can’t walk.

Rushing Death

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I’ve not been writing about my ninety-four year old neighbor recently because circumstances have changed wildly.

We had been taking walks together twice daily until about ten weeks ago when he fell while doing errands with his family. Nothing broke, but he suffered a deep bruise and pain that he had never felt before.

He has no children and his wife of many years died in 2019 so he has a grand niece who loves him like a daughter and arranges care for him. Maybe too much care in this circumstance. Suddenly his bed was switched for a hospital bed, his PT was switched to nurses , and his walked switched to a wheelchair. He is told not to try and walk or even exercise (because he will then think it’s so he can walk).

He looks at me with eyes that say, “This is too much, but they mean well.”

Once he said, “I guess I’m just supposed to sit here, get old, rot and die now.”

I know how hard it is to see love ones in pain, but I wonder if, in this circumstance, the path should have respected more of how my neighbor always lived his life- he always pushed and kept going. He wanted to keep pushing and going still but has been swarmed by good-meaning family who saw the last fall as the step toward active dying.

I visit him most every day. I try and make him laugh about something. I usually succeed.

He and I Iook at one another now and then and our eyes say, “Yeah, this could be different.”

Whoa-man!

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I never imagined that reading, writing and watching romance would have such a powerful affect on my appreciation of WOMAN in the world.

We need this balance of the female more than ever. In fact, I believe the world is in the mess it is because we have not honored the Female the way way we honor the Male.

We need both. Balance.

Separate AND equal energies for creating a world wwhere we treat everyone and everything with kindness and respect.

So be it.

I Feel Sorry For Jesus These Days

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https://cooking.nytimes.com/article/high-fiber-protein-recipes
  • When I see white men gathered around for Bible study I wonder who or what group will be persecuted next.
  • We were bike riding yesterday and went past a Mosque where evening services concluding the holy day Eid Al-Fitr were being help. Outside on the sidewalk was a man with a megaphone and a sign proclaiming to be Christian. he was shouting how everyone inside the place of worship were the evil of the world.
  • The Texas State Attorney General, once indicted on multiple felonies but cut a deal, constantly harasses and impedes citizens ability to worship as they choose.
  • The only time I’ve ever had anyone shoot the middle finger at me was when a truck with Trump flags drove by me at a No Kings Rally. What was so horridic about my sign? It said, “Treat Others the Way You Wish To Be Treated.”

We can, and must, be better than this.