Lighten Up and Live Longer

What value do we place on our memories? Normally, we don’t even address that issue. It is only when we change residence or office (in this case, both), that these decisions must be made in a very tangible way: what to keep and what to pitch.

The walk down memory lane can be lovely, but it really slows down the process. “For heaven’s sake, we have a whole house to clean out. You’ve been mooning over that one file for an hour!” But, but, but this was an important part of my life! Again, the alligators have played havoc with our goal of draining the swamp.

In the interest of actually cleaning out a house and getting ready to move, I had to decide where to file all these paper memories. And I’ve decided they are going in the circular file, or the dumpster to be more precise. As I sit here, new memories and paper (or Word files) are being created. And it seems that the most important question to ask myself is not what have I done, but what do I have left to do?

The lessons from past lives have shaped where I am today and where I’ll be tomorrow, so I don’t need the paper. The files are obsolete, like most of my clothes. (Some of them are going, too.) I want to make room for new creations, new projects, new growth. I have to ask myself:

• Are any of the people in the 2000 Writer’s Market still even there?
• Are business statistics from 1986 really relevant to this changing global economy?
• Does anyone care about my graduate school paper on OSHA?
• With all the things I have hanging on the wall (another issue), what am I going to do with a certificate of appreciation from a Rotary Club speech in 1992?

The process of house deforestation will proceed much quicker, now that I’ve had this epiphany. But I’m keeping the pictures.

Read more...

To take a person’s hand

And try to understand

The pain and anguish locked inside.

The thoughts held in by fear or pride.

To love myself, but mankind more,

Lighten one load; open one door.

To teach and learn until I die

So God will know that I passed by.

Read more...

God looks down on mother earth,

Declares the summer done.

No more joys of water play

Or frolic in the sun.

Winter’s on its chilling way,

And all God’s things must rest.

But all’s not cold and gloomy yet.

Autumn time’s the best.

A feast for all at start of fall.

For eyes, and mouth and nose-

The landscape done in painter’s hues,

Each tree its color shows.

The smell of flues and burning leaves,

Pumpkin squash delights;

Crisp rainbow walks by day,

And popcorn warm hearth nights.

Read more...

With boys it’s toys, then noise, now ploys.

They need to heed the creed to lead.

Young men begin to rend the den

And  fly so high to pie in sky.

How can they plan to man the clan

Without a doubt or scout about?

They barge, take charge, recharge, enlarge.

They go more slow and know more woe.

At last, so fast, the blast is passed.

They sigh, they cry, and by, they die.

Read more...

It’s harmless enough: a quick glance into people’s lives. Okay, with binoculars. How else am I supposed to see from the penthouse balcony to the beach? For one week a year, I have the best seat in town for the comings and goings on the Bay of Banderas, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Sunsets are breathtaking and celebrated with a nightly toast to the quest for the green flash.

            But it’s the comings and goings on the beach below that are the most interesting, This is not a sandy sunbathing beach; it’s all rocks in different sizes and colors. Great to look at, but impossible to stroll. It’s a working beach, a fishing beach, and sometimes a lovers’ tryst beach. As soon as the sun is almost up, the rock pickers appear. They come with their buckets in quest of small pebbles, which they carefully segregate by color into various buckets. These they sell to local contractors who use them to create sidewalks, patios, and walls with striking ornate designs.

To my magnified eye, it doesn’t appear that the demand for these small rocks is a powerful work motivator. The rock pickers on my beach appear to have fifteen-minute shifts, rest frequently, and astonishingly soon head off to other pursuits until sundown, when they reappear to cart off their buckets. Larger rocks, probably destined for fill, are loudly and unceremoniously dumped into the back of pick-up trucks.

            Near sunset, the families come: fathers fishing, mothers amusing small children in the surf or playing rock games. Sometimes they have a picnic, then return home after dark.

            One morning, I was up before dawn and in my place on the balcony. A young man, fast asleep on his backpack was sprawled on the beach. The sun rose higher and rock pickers surrounded him with their picking and sorting, and dropping into buckets. Still he slept on until late morning when he roused himself, shouldered his pack and tramped off down the beach. In search of food before he continues on his round-the-world trek, I concluded. How intrepid and brave he is.

            Sundays, again the families come with their food and umbrellas, and small darting children for a carefree day on this rough beach. And the lovers. Couples drift down, arms entwined, to find that perfect spot just beyond the reach of the waves. They sit as though frozen together, never moving until well after dark, then they too head back up to the road. No doubt they were getting up their nerve to tell their parents they were getting married and running away to Guanajuato.

            The beach vendors at close of day walk wearily across in front of me and back up to the road. How many sales did they make? If they encountered friendly visitors who, like us, prefer shopping on a beach with a beer while the vendors come to us, they did well and will make that payment of the truck. If their quarries were interested in sunbathing only, they made enough for a kilo of tortillas and some beans. My binoculars capture snapshots of unknown lives. In my mind, each glimpse becomes part of a grand adventure, until they become full fascinating lives, lives my subjects had no idea they were living.

Read more...

Stress is now officially the disease of the new millennium.  Or so I’m told.  The causes, or stressors, can range from corporate reorganizations, traffic jams, kids, aging parents, to low self-esteem.  The effect of those things on us has everything to do with what kind of shape our bodies are in. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, inactivity, and those thirty extra pounds make stress more toxic.  How can our lives go easier on us?  The answer, or at least part of it, is right outside our doors.  It is spelled W-A-L-K-I-N-G. And it’s powerful medicine when used regularly and enthusiastically.  Some of the benefits include:

Blood pressure: Regular walking can lower moderately elevated blood pressure, strengthen and promote greater efficiency of the heart, and aid circulation. 

Cholesterol: Walking can help your cholesterol in a variety of ways.  Regular walking or other aerobic exercise can raise the level of the HDL component of total cholesterol, the protective faction that seems to prevent plaque from building up on blood vessel walls. 

Obesity: Excess weight increases our risk for many different conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and joint problems.  Dieting alone is not a lasting solution to excess weight.  Regular brisk walking raises our metabolism, so that we use more calories even after exercise.  Chronic dieting gradually lowers our metabolism to make us store more and use less.  If we looked at our problem, not as overeating, but as under-exercising, we’d have it licked!

Diabetes: Adult-onset diabetes is often triggered by weight gain or being chronically overweight.  Regular walking helps diabetes in two ways:

‚         It helps us lose weight, so that our bodies can handle their insulin demands, and

‚         By burning energy at a steady rate, such as in walking, we more evenly increase the muscles’ demand for glucose, clearing it from the blood stream.  This makes insulin regulation much easier. 

Osteoporosis: Weight-bearing exercises like walking have a protective effect against osteoporosis.  Studies comparing calcium pills and exercise have shown exercise to be the clear winner in slowing down bone loss.

Back problems and injuries: A regular walking program strengthens the back and stomach muscles, pulling your body into better alignment and preventing back injuries. 

Clearing that Foggy Brain: Not all the benefits of walking are physical.  Many people are out there covering ground purely because of what it does for their heads.  Some of the first comments by people who have started a regular walking program include: “I sleep so much better since I’ve started walking,” “When I have a problem, or I’m upset, I go out and walk it off.  When I come back, the problem seems a lot smaller, and I feel more like I can handle it,” and “I do some of my best thinking out walking.”

One of the most overlooked benefits of regular exercise is the sense of well-being it gives us.  If we’re in good physical shape, we feel better, are more optimistic, and have higher self-esteem.  There is some evidence that walking, like running, releases certain chemicals in the brain, which act as powerful mood elevators and relaxants.  And because walking releases muscle tension, it’s one of the best drugs for your money! So there are some reasons to walk. 

Here come the excuses: All of us have reasons why we don’t, but if we truly believe in its value, we can turn that around. There are ways over or around the barriers.

1.  I just don’t have time. How true.  None of us has unused blocks of time waiting to be filled.  So how do we make time? Make it do double duty:

‚         Use it to spend quality time with your family. Working parents have little time to spend with their kids anyway. Those who have tried walking with their children have been pleasantly surprised.  By getting away from the phone, the T.V. and the Nintendo, communication flowers, and you can really tune in to each other.  Moving the legs gets the emotions and ideas going, and thoughts flowing.  The setting is less confrontational, and more relaxed.

‚         Help the environment.  Do you need something at the store or have dry cleaning to pick up? Walk.  You can save the gas, the emissions, and help yourself at the same time.  Besides, it gives you a goal and really helps when willpower flags.

Look on it as using your time for lasting benefit. What can you cut out to make this investment in your future?

2.  Walking is a wimp sport. No pain, no gain. Hogwash, we say! Vigorous walking with arm pumping uses more muscle groups than running a marathon.  Walking fast up hills burns more calories than running up hills.  Above about 5 mph, walking becomes less efficient (harder) than running, and gives more cardiovascular and fat burning benefit.  Are you tough enough to tackle it?

3.  But I don’t really have any physical problems or health risks.  Maybe not now, but metabolism and strength decline rapidly with age if fitness is not maintained.  Those tottering “old folks” are often suffering from disuse, rather than advanced years.  So what can walking do for you? Only increase your self-confidence to forge ahead, survive a job loss, or confront a teenager! It can help you be more creative and keep the competitive edge you need.

4.  It’s too hot/too cold/snowing/raining/a bad place to walk.  The second most common reason for not walking after time, is the environmental constraints.  However, we can dress for hot and cold. Hot weather requires a higher fluid intake, before, during and after a long walk. Cold weather calls for layered clothing that can be removed gradually as our body builds up heat during a brisk walk.  And there is the added benefit of burning more calories during cold weather. Okay, but what about four feet of snow or torrential downpours, or highways with no shoulder?  When weather truly is a problem, hit the mall or the stairs at your office building.

5.  I just don’t have the willpower. We thought you’d get around to that one. But don’t be too hard on yourself.  We all have trouble getting ourselves out and moving from time to time.  That’s where some advance planning helps:

‚         Make it interesting

            - Vary your route: degree of difficulty, length, the scenery, and the time of day you  walk

            - Change your speed and technique: for fat burning or relaxation

            - Give yourself reasons to go: a quart of milk, a package to mail, etc.

‚         Find a buddy to walk with.  Even if you wouldn’t go out on your own, you can’t disappoint someone else whom you talked into doing this in the first place.

The important thing about exercise is doing it on a regular basis. Even 15 minutes will help, but when you can, walk for 45 or an hour, and try to walk as many days a week as you can.  It takes no special equipment, membership in an expensive club, or advanced skills - not even grace!  And it can be the most important thing you’ve ever done for yourself.

Read more...

I’ve been told that as we age, we have a tendency to pull the comfortable parts of our world a little closer to us, like a favorite quilt. We take less risk and play it safe. That inclination runs contrary to expert advice on maintaining our physical abilities and keeping the Alzheimer demons at bay. Playing it safe may not, in fact, keep us healthy and engaged. Scaring ourselves-within limits-will. Growth and learning only occur by creating discomfort with the status quo.

My world remains vibrant because of regular doses of fright. We travel to places few people have visited, like remote villages in the South Pacific; and do things many people have no desire to do, like camping out in Antarctica, climbing a couple of 19,000+ foot mountains, and eating rat. Of course it isn’t necessary to travel halfway around the world to scare ourselves and grow. Things as commonplace as learning a foreign language can be scary to many of us. We’re afraid of looking stupid, of using the wrong word or pronunciation. Joining a new organization, speaking up at a public forum, or dancing in public can be frightening to many people.

Having cancer is really scary and never something we set out to do, but we grow immeasurably from the experience. One thing that frightens many of us is moving. Just thinking about moving and all the stuff we’ve accumulated in twenty-plus years is nightmarish enough, but the greater issue is change. Leaving a comfortable, safe-feeling suburban existence, with dear friends of decades close by for an unknown city existence is waaay scary. It can also be energizing and provide a new perspective on life. We have decided to make that leap of faith. On the plus side, we’ll have:

• Close access to light rail and a less-polluting existence
• Easier commute to clients and potential clients
• More opportunities for cultural events and access to the jewel of St. Louis, Forest Park
• The chance to meet new friends and enlarge our appreciation of different perspectives

There are risks inherent in this decision. We could be wrong about the city’s ability to sustain a comeback. However, we will be in good company with other energetic professional people willing to invest in the city’s rebirth.  It boils down to our risk tolerance and our willingness to take a chance, to push ourselves out of a comfortable rut. It seems to me that scaring ourselves on a regular basis is absolutely essential for our continued growth and feeling of competence in this changing world.

Read more...

Five weeks is a long time to be out of the real world. First there was the trauma of email withdrawal that lasted over a week. And I missed my sisters and my granddaughter. Finally, I got over it and really dug into the experience. It was a truly amazing trip. I was overwhelmed with what I experienced. After something like that, you can’t just jump back into your normal life like you were never gone.

For one thing, there is that jet lag from which to recover, a mountain of clothes to be washed, dried and season-sorted into various closets (summer there but winter here), not to mention the stinky dive gear to rewash and hang somewhere to dry.

Then there’s the matter of reconnecting with email, a couple hundred messages, and snail mail, which when we picked it up at the post office, the exhausted clerk who lugged out the two big boxes of it asked, “How long were you gone?!” Of course, we needed groceries, and had family to call. But time waits for no writer. There were articles to research and write within the next few days, and dozens more waiting behind those. It would be very easy to completely turn back to task and let all the magical moments of this journey fade away. They deserve more than that, at least a revisit before the pictures are catalogued and the underwater ones developed. I skim through my journal notes, and drop a quick note to some of the people we met, just to keep it alive-for a little longer.

And while the newness of discovery will undoubtedly fade, I find with each journey, my nagging sense of peril increases. I’m concerned about global warming, but I hadn’t felt personally or immediately threatened by it, until I visited these small islands and villages. Many of the lovely people we met have spent generations on South Pacific islands three inches above sea level. Some islands are already underwater and their people relocated. Most of Micronesians get their livelihood from the sea and from plants on their islands. They can’t depend on intermittent supply boats to keep them alive. When it’s gone, it’s gone. I want to beat on government’s door and say: “Don’t you care what happens to these people while you let special interests paralyze any meaningful action to save our planet?” Sometimes reality sucks.

Read more...

My whole diving life, I have avoided jellyfish like the plague, which indeed they are. Those puppies sting and it hurts! Beautiful graceful ballerinas in their tutus or flowing gowns to be observed from a distance, up close they defend themselves with venom. Otherwise, where would they be in that big predatory sea? Sometimes, they sting accidentally when a piece of a tentacle breaks off, or as I did one summer, some dummy swims through a bunch of the little suckers, thinking they are seaweed!

However, there is one place in this paradoxical world where the jellyfish experience is very different, even sublime. Jellyfish Lake in Palau, Micronesia exists because of a freak happenstance thousands of years ago. One of Palau’s Rock Islands was inundated by a large wave, which when it receded, left behind a 90-ft deep lake, populated with, among other things, jellyfish. As the water became more brackish because of mixing with rain water and filtered water from underwater fissures in the limestone, most of the other species died off, but the jellyfish thrived.

Today, if you are somewhat agile, you can climb up one steep, slippery hill and down another, ending up at Jellyfish Lake to snorkel amongst them. Oooh! You recoil, sharing my trepidation. But these jellyfish are different. Over the thousands of years the lake has been their home, they have had no natural predators, and their stingers have evolved away. So jump in, but don’t jump too deep. The top 55 feet or so is brackish water and harmless, but the bottom layer from 55 feet to the bottom is an oxygen-starved deadly soup of mostly hydrogen sulfide. Five minutes in this layer is fatal, even to people wearing wetsuits. The jellyfish love it because it feeds their resident algae that give them their soft peachy color and a food supply.

So stay pretty much on top. Breathe quietly through your snorkel and drift slowly around the lake. You can really hurt a delicate jelly with a kick of your flipper. As you lie there, the jellies make their daily journey from one end of the lake to the other, following the sun and allowing their algae to photosynthesize. You become surrounded by hundreds and thousands of the delicate creatures, some large some very small, but all beautiful. They brush across your skin lightly as they pass, and you can even pick one up and examine it. The quiet languid beauty of their dance is mesmerizing. It’s an experience few people have, and that fewer may have in the future, because a predator has been accidentally introduced into the lake. Deadly sea anemones now line one side of the lake to snag and devour any jelly that gets close. So who knows, another few thousand years, and they may need those stingers again. So visit if you can, next time you happen to be passing through Palau.

Read more...

Writers have vivid imaginations, or so I’ve been told. On a dive boat in Palau, we were given instruction in a diving technique new to us: “hooking in.” It involves the use of a reef hook, a stainless steel hook attached to a line that is in turn attached to the diver. It is used in moderate ocean current situations to keep you in one place and up off the coral. We were going to use this hooking-in technique the next day at a part of a reef known to have a lot of shark and large fish traffic. When we get to the spot, we all hook in along the edge of the reef at regular intervals, inflate out buoyancy vests, and hang there like kites. Once we are all attached and quiet, the parade starts. The tricky thing is not to hook into live reef and damage any coral, which can take decades to replace.

Well, this made quite an impression on me. I hold reef life sacred and go to great lengths to avoid touching or harming it in any way. When I went to sleep that night, I had dreams of doing my first hook-in, and breaking off chunks of coral, which floated to the surface releasing tiny screams of pain. When I related my dream at breakfast, my sweetie rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, the mind of a writer!”

So off we went to the reef, swimming along about 60 feet down until we got to the “highway.” The divemaster gave us the sign to hook in. I pulled out my hook and started looking for a place to attach. This looks alive, so does this, here, no-maybe here, until he came over in exasperation and grabbed my hook and did it for me. I held my breath. Nothing happened. I was hooked in and it held. I inflated my BC; everyone else did the same, and we waited. Soon an amazing parade of sharks, barracudas, huge napoleons, and wrasses came and went within a couple of feet from us, as if we weren’t there. An incredible experience.

Even with that success under my belt, my writer’s mind worked overtime. The next night’s dream involved a huge flood in the stateroom because I didn’t count off precisely eight seconds when I flushed the temperamental marine head.  (No flood.)

Another night, just before we were to snorkel Jellyfish Lake, I dreamed of swimming among dense schools of jellyfish and getting slimed, a la Ghost Busters. (No slime.)

One of our last dives involved cruising along “Yellow Wall.” Most of the walls we dived were sloping, but this one was straight up and down rock, not yellow, but with green bushy soft coral jutting out at different places. When we returned to the boat, I suggested they rename it “Condominium Wall,” because it looked like a high-rise condominium with hopeful touches of potted forest on small balconies.

I’m not sure writers feel more than anyone else. Perhaps we are more attuned to those feelings and impressions that make experiences all the richer. We may, however, be a tad more neurotic about certain things, like “hooking in.” But I think because we are sensitive to our surroundings, people, and our impact, we care very deeply about these things and hope that caring is reflected in our writing.

Read more...