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A book that stands alone: The Complicated Heart by Sarah Mae

September 18, 2019

This is a book about a mother-daughter relationship, one where the mother is drunk a lot and emotionally and verbally abuses her daughter for a significant portion of her life. But it’s also about the hard work it takes to heal from and in that kind of relationship. It’s a wildly gracious and generous story of love and forgiveness, but don’t mistake that description for “happily-ever-after.” It’s a story of redemption in the midst of hurt.

In The Complicated Heart, Sarah Mae takes readers along as she revisits her relationship with her mother at a variety of ages and pivotal moments in her life. It is not always easy to read because it is a raw and vulnerable story of a relationship full of hurt.

I can’t say I’ve read another book like this one. What sets this book apart is the inclusion of Sarah’s mother’s journals, sometimes written when these events occurred. Giving her mother a voice in this story changes the feel of it because readers realize, like Sarah did, that her mother had a lot of stuff to deal with, too.

“Maybe He saw what I couldn’t see, what I can’t see–all the ways her brokenness led her to breaking others.”

I don’t know if everyone in a complicated close relationship is ready for this book, and the author acknowledges in the beginning that readers need to be honest with themselves about their readiness to delve into the issues and memories of the past. But there’s such an air of hope about this book that I hope it finds its way to those who need it most.

My favorite line in the entire book sums up its intention:

I read an advance copy of the book. Review reflects my honest opinion.

You can read the first three chapters for free here. (I’m not sure how long that offer will last, so click while you can to get a feel for the story!)

And even though this is story is about a specific mother and a daughter, the principles apply to other complicated relationships and mother-daughter circumstances. Maybe your mother wasn’t an emotionally abusive alcoholic. This book is still for you.

What I’m Not Going To Do

September 16, 2019

I was sitting at the table minding my own business in the pre-dawn hours of today when I saw a small shadowy creature dart along the wall I was facing.

I cursed, a lament, because it’s been almost two years since we’ve had an uninvited rodent in our home. (To be clear, we don’t invite them, either.)

My husband was at the gym and the kids hadn’t wakened yet, and we did not have work or school because of a teacher collaboration day, so there was no rush to get the day started. But this was not how I wanted to start the day. The creature’s presence in our home was the final bit of convincing I needed to go for a run, something I haven’t done in weeks, and as soon as my husband came home, I told him the mouse news (I’d already informed the children) and went out for my run.

As the morning progressed, I thought less and less of the mouse, even as I nagged my husband to set out the traps to resolve this disturbance to my peace. The kids and I did errands and came home to empty traps and went about our afternoon as if nothing was amiss.

If none of this sounds groundbreaking or earth-shattering, then you’ve probably not read any of my mouse-capades in the past. (Here’s another one.) I’ll be here when you get back if you want to read up on that.

See, in the past, I would have let the presence of a mouse in my house paralyze me. I would curl up in bed to avoid any chance of a rodent sighting. Or I’d demand we stay out of the house until the thing was caught. I would tiptoe through the kitchen or avoid the area where I’d last seen the mouse because surely it was hiding just waiting to run across my path.

This afternoon, I realized that it would come out when it was good and ready, and I could go about my day. (Also, as my son sits in the living room playing notes on his baritone this evening, I wonder why this mouse even wants to live in this house in the first place. It is noisy and busy. Find some other place to live!)

See, I decided that I wasn’t going to let a little mouse run my life.

—

This is how I’ve changed these past two years. Where I would avoid the things that overwhelm me, now I face them. (Not every time and certainly not perfectly.)

Take this anxiety journey I’m on. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I had a wake-up call and was given medication to help me through it, but right now, today, I’ve realized that I’m not going to let anxiety run my life. I’ll take the medicine when I need to, and I’ll take other appropriate measures when they’re necessary to manage my body’s responses to my circumstances. But anxiety’s not going to call the shots anymore.

Same with fear, shame, and the past.

Living with any of those things is no picnic, and each of them limits the decisions I make in my present life.

I know they aren’t going to disappear. (Except the mouse; it is going to wherever mice go when they die, as soon as it finds one of the traps.) I may never completely rid my life of anxiety, fear or shame, and I can’t undo the past, but they don’t have to be the starters on the field.

They can sit on the sidelines and watch me live a full life.

—

Will this always work out perfectly? Not a chance.

But knowing it’s possible because I’ve experienced it is all the hope I need when the anxiety, fear or shame start to whisper their lies.

They’re not the boss of me.

And they’re not the boss of you, either.

I refuse to be held captive by something I can’t see, whether it’s a mouse scurrying in the shadows or something more sinister like shame casting a shadow on my days. There’s too much good work to do and too few days to do it, too many memories to make and too many ordinary days to live.

I hope you can hear the hope in this. It’s not meant to heap further shame. It’s meant to lead you into freedom. The kind that says, “There is something in the shadows but it’s not going to have control over me.”

Take your meds, sit with your fears, acknowledge your shame.

In other words, set the mousetraps.

AND

Live the life you mean to live.

A garden, untended

September 5, 2019

I stayed home from work today, and I was thinking about you and how I would come back to this space and attempt to tell you what’s been going on and why it’s been so quiet. I won’t pretend you’ve noticed my absence or thought about what’s been lacking from this space. I show up here mostly for me, because I can’t stay away from writing for too long. I hope that doesn’t sound selfish. If you haven’t missed me, well that’s okay, because I’ve missed you.

Summer was full of summer-y things some of them fun like vacation and day-trips and some of them necessary like medical appointments. With work and school schedules being what they are, summer is often the most convenient time for dental visits and doctor check-ups. Maybe you can relate.

In our house, summer revolves around family time because we are together so much–me and the kids, me and Phil, both of us and the kids–and by the end of summer, I am spent. Emotionally. Physically. Spiritually. I know there are people who thrive in summer. I am not one of them. I said more than once out loud to another person, “I am not my best self in summer.”

It was kind of a joke. But I didn’t know how true it was until this week.

—

I don’t really know where this story begins. Maybe it’s at the beginning of summer when I was feeling good about life but decided it was time to schedule a physical. Maybe it was January when I started to notice something different about my period. (If you need to leave now because you can sense where this is going, I take no offense. You can skip all the way to the end to get the bare bones version.) I’ll spare you some of the details.

I’d lost weight since my last physical and my blood pressure was reading a bit low, so after years of taking medication to lower my blood pressure, I was given the go-ahead to stop. I was feeling good about my health and the positive steps I’d taken to get there. Because of the other issue, my provider ordered an ultrasound, which I took care of ASAP. When the results came back, I wasn’t prepared. I had a large cyst on my left ovary.

It was months before I could see a specialist to find out more about what this meant, and when I finally did, she ordered another ultrasound to see if the cyst had changed in any way. It hadn’t, and it was three more weeks before I could follow up with her. During that time, summer ended, and I went back to work. The start of school is a stressful time of transition as we as a family re-adjust to a daily schedule and new routines, not to mention the stress of learning new students names and needs.

While I was waiting to see the specialist, I had blood drawn to check my cancer antigen levels, and I knew that surgery was part of the next step, but I didn’t know anything else. The cyst. The surgery. The uncertainty. It all loomed in the background but I tried not to let myself think of any of it too often.

I love the challenge of a new school year, and if it was only this and a health issue, then maybe I could have handled it. But money is always tight in the summer because I’m not working, and current and future medical bills did not ease my worries. Added to those stressors are others I’m not willing to talk about here yet.

So many things have been going well and right for our family in recent years and months. I thought these were small bumps and they would pass.

On Wednesday I walked into the specialist’s office to talk about surgery and my blood pressure was off the charts high. I mean, when the doctor walks in and says, “I’m having a stroke over your blood pressure” while you sit there sobbing into a wad of tissues, you know it’s not good. No amount of talking about my blood pressure was going to make it better.

I listened through tears as she talked me through all the possible scenarios about surgery, some of which calmed my fears, others that did not. We talked about how when you have an emergency C-section (the only surgery I’ve had in a hospital) you don’t have any time to think about it or worry and you get to meet your baby at the end. Not so when you’ve got an ovarian cyst that doesn’t appear to be cancerous. No one’s in a hurry to take it out, which is good in a way, but for my chronically overthinking brain, bad.

So, she sent me back to my primary doctor to get the blood pressure under control. It was still high later that same afternoon, but it had come down some. We agreed to put me back on the blood pressure medication and she gave me a prescription for an as-needed anxiety medication.

I am an anxious person. I have known this about myself for a long time. I have never thought my anxiety was that bad. However, I couldn’t describe to you what “that bad” means. Thankfully, my doctor didn’t ask about the prescription. She told me, saying, “I’m giving this to you. Don’t use it every day. But let’s see if we can get you through this.”

—

I’m almost in tears as I write this a day later because part of the reason I’m where I’m at now is thinking I needed to “get through this” on my own.

I have to keep the cogs of our family turning.

I have to keep the peace between my kids.

I have to solve the problems and manage the money.

I. I. I.

Please don’t read this and think that my husband does not share any of this responsibility. He does. He is the person I would choose again and again to partner with in this life, and I do not want anyone else by my side in his place. He and I are a team, and we play different roles as needed. This is not about him or the kids not pulling their weight. It’s about me.

My doctor said “we,” and that is the thing that is undoing me. I’ve been flying solo for so long and now that my body is maxed out, I see the error of my ways.

“We” is such a beautiful word.

—

I have texted 16 people in the last 24 hours, and some of those involved multiple texts in a conversation, and I’ve talked to three people on the phone (four if you count the call I made to schedule one of my pre-op conversations). If that doesn’t sound revolutionary, then you don’t know me very well.

I should have been doing this all along. I know I can’t change the past, but I’m wishing I had done things differently. My husband said to me today that he’s jealous of my support system, and I think that’s part of why I’m crying so much. I have so many strong and deep relationships from various stages of my life. The texts have hit every time zone in the continental U.S., which humbles me further. I know that I am rich in friendships, including family, and I do not express my gratitude to them enough. Or ask others to share my burdens enough.

I don’t know why it takes suffering and crisis and tragedy for me to ask for help or to tell people how much I love and appreciate them.

—

We had four days off from school and work last weekend, and one of those days, I went out to the garden. Calling what’s left of our vegetable plot a “garden” is generous. There are more weeds than plants, and it is like walking through a jungle. I have to wear long pants and take big steps, kicking down the weeds as I walk to make a path to the tomatoes.

Earlier in the summer, when I was feeling good about life, I worried about leaving the garden untended when we left for vacation. What would it look like when we returned?

It was not the mess I thought it would be. We had taken care beforehand to pull weeds and water and the weather did its part.

In the last month, the weather has been hot and sticky, sometimes fickle, and once school started again, I had less time for the garden. I often tell people I can take care of only a few things at a time: my kids, the garden/houseplants, my students. What I see is that I left myself out of this equation.

The garden has suffered from inattention and so have I.

Even before the blood pressure cuff revealed the truth, I knew I was not taking good care of myself. The most obvious sign of this to me is that I am not running regularly. Running might sound like work, but to me it is a release of all the energy and emotions I absorb from other people. This is part of who I am, and if I cannot release these feelings and emotions, then they fill me to the breaking point.

That is where I’m at now. I am not carving out time for myself and doing the things that give me life. I haven’t sat on my porch in weeks. I wake up thinking of all the things I have to do and then I get the kids to school and myself ready for work and sprint through a school day only to come home and get dinner started before the kids come home and it’s time for bed. Sometimes I crash on the couch and lose myself in a Netflix binge, but at best, that is only a numbing distraction. It is not giving me life.

And I’m not asking for help or telling people what I need. I have two specific ways to change this, and I will not let another day pass without giving voice to my needs. I learned this from years of therapy.

I need to re-learn it now.

—

Back when the garden was thriving, I realized that the word “tend” is part of “intention.” Intention is what I’ve been seeking this year and when I’m choosing with intention, I am tending.

I am taking care of me.

—

If you’re a “just the facts ma’am” kind of person, here they are: I have surgery scheduled for October 30 to remove my left ovary along with the cyst. In the meantime, my job is to lower my blood pressure. And not freak out about surgery. Any and all prayers and positive thoughts appreciated.

More simple than we make it: Review of Invited: The Power of Hospitality in an Age of Loneliness by Leslie Verner

August 21, 2019

Sometimes I get the heebie-geebies when people start talking about hospitality because it brings up visions of spotless houses and immaculate food and sparkling conversation. I like all of those things but rarely achieve them (except maybe the food and that’s in part because my husband also knows his way around a kitchen). Hospitality always sounds like a lofty calling or a special gift, and I fall short on those aims.

So, when I read a book about hospitality that is not about those things at all, I get excited. That’s what Leslie Verner’s new book did for me.

Invited: The Power of Hospitality in an Age of Loneliness is a rare book. It is gracious, grace-filled and gentle but with an unavoidable nudge toward action. In the author’s own words:

“Less about entertaining and more about becoming a good neighbor, this book explores the power of a simple invitation.”

Leslie tells personal stories with humor and honesty. I appreciated how much she was willing to share about her own insecurities where hospitality is concerned and how open she was about the difficulties she had overcoming the excuses and reasons why she shouldn’t. Leslie offers a relatable account of someone who has been shown hospitality and who has learned (and is learning) to offer it, no matter how small or ordinary it might look.

While I initially thought this would be a book solely about intercultural welcome and hospitality, it is more. Leslie draws from her own intercultural experiences and those that have found her family where they live now, but she tells stories, too, of showing hospitality to neighbors and friends. She poses important questions for the western Church about hospitality, such as:

“How far does God want us to go when it comes to loving our neighbor? And how much does our culture muddle the clarity of God’s commands?”

This is my favorite kind of book about this subject because not for one second did I feel shamed about my hospitality efforts. I felt encouraged and spurred on, and I was so excited about this book when I finished it that I immediately recommended it for small group study at my church.

Leslie paints an image, a vision even, with her words of what hospitality could be:

“Reimagining hospitality in the West requires cavorting with a God who delights in busting up our normalcy with divine creativity.”

Pause for a moment to take that in.

I read an advanced digital copy of the book, but I can’t wait to get my hands on a physical copy so I can underline and make notations. (Even though I received an advance copy, this review reflects my personal opinion.)

Have I convinced you yet? I promise you, this book will make you feel better about offering hospitality to the people around you.

And a word about the book’s publisher: Herald Press is releasing some of my favorite books right now. If you pay attention to these sorts of things and see their name on a book, pick it up and read it. You’re in for a treat.

Find out more about Leslie and her work here.

O say, can you see?

July 26, 2019

One unique feature of my particular personality type is the ability to see both sides of most situations and conflicts. It is a blessing and a curse.

I’ve been processing thoughts and feelings and words about the the American flag and the National Anthem for maybe a year or more. I don’t even know if the controversy is still as front and center as it once was, but I know it still stings and divides from time to time. Honestly, I haven’t thought about it for a while. That’s part of my privilege I guess. I don’t have to think about issues of race and bigotry if I don’t want to.

So I was surprised at a recent reaction I had about the flag and the national anthem. It happened at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, the place that inspired the writing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

—

A few dozen people milled around on the lawn inside of Fort McHenry waiting for the flag changing ceremony. As we had approached the fort minutes earlier, a small flag flew over the fort, and I kind of wondered what the big deal was about this ceremony. During the ranger’s presentation, I learned that Fort McHenry is the only shrine in the National Parks system, and that word holds meaning. It is a sacred site, then. It was as if we were standing on holy ground.

Let me be clear that I do not worship the flag nor our country. That shouldn’t feel like a shocking statement but I fear someone will take it as an offensive one. Worship, in my life, is reserved for a Higher Power and even then, the word often makes me uncomfortable.

But the word “shrine” helped me appreciate what was happening. The ranger vividly recounted the events that led to Fort McHenry being such an important landmark in our nation, and toward the end of his presentation, he said, “That is why we stand for the National Anthem.” I bristled because I know that this, too, is a point of controversy and contention. Some people do not stand for the flag, and I can understand why. I don’t believe in blind or forced allegiance to anyone or anything. But his words did not feel like propaganda or manipulation.

Then he asked us all to participate. We arranged ourselves in a loose rectangle and as he unfolded the flag, he asked us all to grab on as soon as we had a place to hold it because we didn’t want the flag touching the ground. It was a holy moment, akin to communion, as I stood shoulder to shoulder and across from strangers who no doubt had different life views, political affiliations and voting records from me. As we stretched the flag to its full size–I don’t remember the dimensions and this photo of it flying doesn’t do it justice–I gripped the blue material tighter, unwilling to be the one to drop the flag.

A couple of rangers and a couple of active-duty military helped with the raising of the flag. The ranger told us to hang on to the flag as long as we could but to let go when it pulled up and away. Because I was holding at the top of the flag, it yanked out of my hands pretty quickly, but as I watched this symbol rise to the top of the pole, I felt tears in the corners of my eyes. It was a moving moment to participate in the raising of a flag on the site where our national anthem was born.

The moment was made more powerful by the realization that it took all of us to raise that flag.

A larger group could have helped raised the site’s largest flag, but a smaller group would not have been sufficient for this one. We all had a hand in it, literally.

It was the second time this summer I cried at a national park site. Maybe this is just what I’m going to do now.

—

It takes all of us.

That is my takeaway from this visit. It takes all of us who call ourselves Americans to make this country rise to its potential. I know this is more complicated than it sounds. I know that it isn’t that easy when there is so much division. I know that my own heart can be divided and hardened by all the shouting and finger pointing and noise.

I was grateful, then, to visit the source of our national anthem’s and flag’s history. The closer to the source, the more truth can be found. For instance, when he wrote “and the home of the brave,” Francis Scott Key was thinking of the ordinary citizens of Baltimore who bravely defended their city from British attack, as well as the soldiers who fought from inside the fort.

When we sing the words today, I feel like we attribute them to the men and women in uniform, past and present, who have fought for our country in places around the world. Could “the home of the brave” also include those who fight for justice and equality on their home turf?

Some things can only be learned by going straight to the source.

This display within the fort also caught my attention.

During the Civil War, the American flag represented opposing ideals depending on your worldview. To the Southerners, it was a symbol of tyranny. To the slaves, it was symbol of freedom. Could not the same be said today, that the flag means different things to different people? When I think the problems we face today are new, I’m relieved in a way to be reminded that they are as old as the country itself.

—

I have complicated feelings about my country and its symbols, and with words like “traitor,” “patriot” and “nationalist” fired like cannonballs these days, I’m not sure I can adequately explain what I mean. But I’ll try.

I love my country like I love my children or my favorite sports team–with a full range of emotions and with understanding that some things are out of my control. To love my country unconditionally is not to love it blindly. I can be disappointed, sad and angry about the choices we make as a nation, just as I would a child who is choosing a destructive path, and hope for better days, just as I would a struggling sports team. (I’m a lifelong Cubs’ fan, for crying out loud. I never thought about not being one, even when watching a baseball game was painful and hopeless.)

Love shows itself in different ways. Sometimes it’s in the fight for justice. Sometimes it’s in the tears shed in remembrance. Sometimes it’s in the salute. Sometimes it’s in the kneeling.

Sometimes we have to look a little harder to find it.

Is it possible we can love our country in ways that feel foreign to others?

“O say, can you see …”

Why I’m worried you won’t read this book: Review of Light From Distant Stars by Shawn Smucker

July 17, 2019

I have to be honest: I’m having a hard time figuring out how to tell you about Light From Distant Stars by Shawn Smucker. And that’s not because I didn’t like it. I loved it. It’s unique and captivating and I couldn’t put it down.

I just can’t guarantee you’re going to love it as much as I did, and that makes me uncomfortable. I want you to love this book, but it’s an unusual story, and it leaves some questions unanswered. It’s like life in that way. Not everything is explained or neatly wrapped with a bow on it at the end. This is not a flaw of the story but part of its beauty.

Still, we readers can be fickle when it comes to unanswered questions. So I’m worried you’ll avoid this book.

I’m going to try my best to convince you otherwise, anyway.

From the first line, pictured below, I was hooked.

Light From Distant Stars is a tad bit eerie but not necessarily scary. It’s haunting but not in a ghosty kind of way. I don’t know if any of this is making you want to read it, so let me just say that I started the book thinking one thing and by page 35, the book was headed in another direction completely, and if I wasn’t already interested in the story, I’d have wanted to keep reading to find out where it was headed.

The book jumps back and forth between present day and Cohen’s childhood. In some stories this can be jarring but I found the transitions seamless in this book. I was never unsure which timeline I was reading about and I was never left hanging for too long from one time period to the other.

If you’re looking for something different, this is the book for you. Just remember that it might not answer all of your questions to your satisfaction. It is like life in that way. Maybe I enjoyed this book because I no longer need as much certainty as I used to. Or maybe I just appreciate a book and an author that is willing to be different from the norm.

Shawn Smucker is one of my absolute favorite storytellers. (You can read reviews of his other books I’ve read here, here, and here.) He has a way with words and themes that inspires my own writing, and I’ve been cheering on his writing for years now.

When I read a new author or an author I haven’t read before, I want a guarantee that the story is going to be good. I have too many books to read to spend time with a story that isn’t. So, I’ll understand if this book sounds too risky to take a chance on. But I hope you’ll be brave and give it a chance.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher. Review reflects my honest opinion.

A different kind of historical fiction: Review of All Manner of Things by Susie Finkbeiner

July 3, 2019

There’s a “famous” quote in Christendom by ancient mystic Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” I love this quote, and it’s where this book by Susie Finkbeiner gets its title and theme, but that’s not what drew me to the book. To be honest, I didn’t make the connection right away.

I first heard about All Manner of Things because of social media. The author is a friend of a writing friend (and now that we’ve met in person at a writing retreat, I consider her my friend, too!) so I’ve been following her on socials for a few months, and this, her latest book, came up as a review possibility through her publisher’s blogging program. I said yes to a digital review copy without really knowing anything about the book.

Let me fill you in:

Annie is an 18-year-old living with her mom and brothers in Michigan in 1967. Her father, a veteran of the Korean Conflict, left the family years ago and they haven’t heard from him since, and Annie’s older brother Mike, is about to enlist in the Army during the Vietnam War. There’s the chance for family reunification as Mike discovers their father’s address.

If that plot sounds simple, it is. But it’s also not. I’ll try to explain.

First, I can’t remember ever reading a historical set in this time period. It feels weird to call it historical because the events happened only a decade before I was born, but I liked reading something set in a time period that wasn’t early 20th century or late 19th century, even though I enjoy stories set in those time periods as well. I’d love to hear from someone who lived through the late 1960s if the story is well-represented. (I trust the author so I suspect that it is.)

Second, it doesn’t feel like a lot happens during the story, but don’t take that to mean it’s boring. Far from it. The war is always looming in the background of the everyday back-at-home events. All Manner of Things is, to me, a beautiful illustration of what it’s like for families with loved ones serving in a combat zone. Life at home doesn’t stop, but it’s always shadowed by thoughts of war. The story doesn’t drag. It moves at a comfortable pace and reflects what I assume were the ordinary goings on of a teenager’s life in the 1960s.

I’m already a fan of the author as a person and now I’m a fan of her writing as well. I can’t wait to read more of her stories!

This one moved me to tears and left me lifted with hope at the same time.

I’d encourage you to give this one a read.

Disclosures: I received a free digital copy of the book from the publisher. Review reflects my honest opinion. And this post contains affiliate links, which simply means if you click the link and make a qualifying purchase, I receive a small percentage of the purchase which costs you nothing extra and helps support my writing.

We needed this

June 29, 2019

Our vacation ended nearly two weeks ago, and I’ve been struggling with how to tell you about all that we experienced while we were there. I started with food because that was easy. I don’t want the rest of it to be like someone whipping out their vacation slideshow at a family get-together and then you’re held captive (not in a good way) for the next hour. I suppose that’s not possible here anyway because you can just click away.

I am going to show you pictures, mostly of us, not just of the things we saw. Because I want you to see us as we experienced vacation. We needed this trip after several stressful months, wrapping up the end of the school year and dealing with the tree that fell on our car and other events that had our emotions on a roller coaster.

So, here goes.

Look how tired we are at the start of vacation. We left after Phil got off work for the day, it was around five o’clock, I think by the time we were officially on the road, and I’d been stressing for days about whether I’d packed all the things we needed while imagining bad things happening to the rental car we were taking with us.

BUT THEN New York! After hours of driving north through Pennsylvania, we finally crossed the state border and were immediately rewarded with mountainous views. (Sometimes it doesn’t feel like you’re really on vacation until you’re in another state.) We spent more time than planned at this welcome center, partly because a family was trying to take portrait shots with this sign. The “I <3 New York” isn’t just a clever slogan, as we would find out. For me at least, it was love at first sight.

This is us after a mediocre night’s sleep in a hotel near the Erie Canal and an early wake-up to catch the trolley to the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y. Baseball is energizing for us, plus we were riding an actual trolley not just a shuttle bus that called itself a trolley.

We will proudly wear our Cubs’ gear anywhere, but it seemed especially appropriate at the Hall of Fame. One neat feature we discovered while waiting for the museum to open was a listing of the current standings, updated daily. “We’re Number One!”

Our son selectively wants to be in pictures, so when he says “take a picture of me!” we usually comply. Before we left Cooperstown, we wandered down to the water because the Susquehanna River starts here (and we live in the Susquehanna Valley in Pennsylvania). I don’t know if we ever found THE spot, but it was still fun to be at the source.

This is Monday morning, for those of you keeping score at home. We checked in to our cabin in the Finger Lakes on Sunday night and went to the grocery store Monday morning, to settle in for the week ahead. But we still wanted to do some exploring, so we drove south to Watkins Glen State Park. It was about an hour drive and you can see what happened on the way there. Usually, this is our sign of a successful vacation, when both of our kids are passed out in the backseat. Phil and I had to laugh because it was only our second full day of vacation!

It was raining, and not lightly, but we hiked the gorge trail anyway. There weren’t a lot of people out and about, which maybe was a good thing, but one woman offered to take a family picture for us. I think she’d done this before because she crouched down and lined everything up so that we were in the picture with a waterfall. It was not the only act of kindness we experienced on vacation. (More about that in another post.)

A word about these pictures. It has been a long time since I have looked at pictures of myself and not cringed. And I say this not just because my body has undergone some positive changes. It’s a reflection of internal work, too. When I look at the woman in these photos, I see genuine joy and a zest for life. Of course I don’t feel this 100 percent of every day, but more often than not. It’s the result of a lot of hard work. But also, water and nature are two of my happy places.

Windy, much? Between historical sites on Tuesday we ate lunch at a park on another one of the Finger Lakes. (We think we visited three of the lakes altogether, and definitely the two biggest ones, but you could spend weeks in the Finger Lakes and not see everything!) The water draws me and I make no apologies.

Our kids getting sworn in as junior rangers at the Women’s Rights National Historical Park. They “solved” a mystery to earn their junior ranger badges. I need to pause here and tell you about our visit to the birthplace of the women’s rights movement. Going in, I thought this was about women winning the right to vote. It was so much more than that, and votes isn’t how it started out at all. This was a movement about giving women options outside of marriage and motherhood, about giving them personhood apart from their husbands. I nearly wept as I sat in the pews of the building where the first convention was held, thinking about the work these women had put into this fight and how we are still fighting for equality today. I was moved by the significance of what they had done for without their convictions, I would have a very different life today. And I was shocked to learn that some of the events toward equality have happened in my lifetime.

That is the long way of saying, if you have the chance to visit Seneca Falls, N.Y., do it and go to the Women’s Rights park.

We are at the top of an observation deck in a wildlife refuge, and this picture was taken as quickly as possible so I could go back down. I have a complicated relationship with heights. I hate to miss out on breathtaking views, but I also have a legitimate fear of falling. I did go up a second time so my husband could show me some nesting birds through the long-range viewfinders.

Another day, another waterfall. If we’d had more Internet access, I would have tagged our vacation #allthefalls because that was a theme. This was Taughhannock Falls, on our way to Ithaca. We didn’t find the overlook we were looking for, but we hiked a bit of a gorge trail. (That was another potential hashtag #GORGEous. I’m clever and I know it!)

Our last night at the cabin, chillin’ by the campfire. There was a lot of togetherness on this vacation. I mean, what family vacation isn’t there togetherness, but we shared a one-room cabin for five days and we all survived. I’m doing my best to cherish my kids at this age because they still mostly like us and still need us a little bit. I know we’re in for some rough days in the future when spending time with family won’t always be fun. For now, we take selfies because we like each other.

Friday morning, it was time to clean out the cabin and pack the car for our next leg of the adventure. Cabin 14 will always have a special place in our hearts.

Niagara Falls. American side. I don’t have enough words for all the feelings. I was much younger the last time I visited the falls, probably about the age of my kids. I don’t remember much about it. I hope they have more lasting memories.

I’m not sure what compelled me to take this picture except that sometimes I’m standing next to my husband and I just want to take a selfie. Plus, I love this jacket I bought before the trip. It has intentional tears in it and was on clearance. I don’t know what to think about who I’ve become.

We weren’t planning to pay for a lot in Niagara because it was the end of our trip and we would be eating out at every meal, but Journey Behind the Falls is worth spending the money on.

This is me having the time of my life. The horseshoe falls was *this close* and I got drenched and it was the best. One of my favorite parts of the trip. Ordinarily, I don’t like getting wet like when it’s raining or if I step in a spot of water while wearing socks. This was not ordinary circumstances, though. We could have spent a lot of time behind and next to the falls. So much history to learn.

We could have spent a lot more time in the tunnels. Definitely a highlight for me. And we got to keep the ponchos as souvenirs.

Whether it’s this summer or another season of year, I hope you take the time you need to slow down, relax and refresh.

We know how to eat

June 27, 2019

Warning: Long post ahead. And it might make you hungry. Also, it’s the first of several posts about our summer vacation.

If you’ve known us for more than a few days, you’ll know that food–good food–is important to us as a family. That doesn’t change when we’re on vacation, and we had some unique food experiences in New York that I think warrant their own blog post. So, if you’re a fellow foodie, then feast your eyes on the following. And if not, then feel free to skip this post in favor of another vacation related post (which I haven’t written yet).

We have this rule on vacation. I’m not sure whose family it originated with, but in general it is this: When eating out, choose a place that is unique to the place you’re visiting (or is something you can’t eat anytime you want at home). I have some memory of my dad abiding by this rule on some vacations, and honestly this is the sort of thing that would give me some anxiety as a child. Mostly because I didn’t know what to order in an unfamiliar place and I didn’t enjoy the process of trying to choose something new. I’m a little bit better about that now.

While traveling, we try to work a balance between eating out and cooking in/packing sandwiches. While food is important to us, we cannot spend all of our vacation budget on eating out, so we make some sacrifices on the food side of things so we can have more experiences.

On this family vacation, I was really pleased with our balance.

The bulk of our vacation was spent at a rustic cabin in the Finger Lakes. “Rustic” in that it had electricity but no running water and no heat. We had a stove and a fridge and beds, as well as a flush toilet adjacent to the cabin. I know this might sound like a nightmare to some of you but it was heaven to me. Slowing down and taking more time to do the everyday ordinary tasks resets something in my soul.

Take breakfast, as an example. Each morning at the cabin, I set water to boil for coffee and added some instant granules to a tin mug. I spooned the water into the mug then waited a minute or so for the mug itself to cool down so I could drink it.

In some ways this is faster than my usual process of coffee intake, but it was a different method. We cooked eggs in some form most mornings because that’s what I need to start my day. One day, we cooked bacon in the cabin and set the smoke alarm off. It was just like cooking at home! Next time, I’d ask my husband to build a fire and do it outside. Another morning we cooked spam and ate it with our eggs. It actually tastes better than it smells. Because my husband works in produce, we packed a lot of fruit to bring with us. We had apples and nectarines and bananas to eat with breakfast or lunch. Sometimes it’s hard to eat vegetables and fruit on vacation. We wanted to do what we could to include those important food groups.

We wanted our dinners at the cabin to be over the fire as much as possible. We planned two campfire meals on our first grocery run and added a third on the last day because cooking over a fire is fun when you’re camping. The first dinner was our take on campfire packets. We divided ground beef and frozen hash browns with dry onion soup mix (because I forgot to pack an onion from our stash at home) onto squares of foil and wrapped them up. When that was done we topped them with cheese. They turned out okay.

Our son, who wasn’t excited about them in the first place, said, “It’s not the BEST thing I ever ate.” (But he ate almost all of his.) We made up for it by toasting giant marshmallows in the fire and making s’mores with peanut butter cups, caramel-filled chocolates and dark chocolates.

The next night, we roasted hot dogs over the fire and had stopped at a local grocery on our way back from an adventure to pick up a creamy salad of some kind. It was maple bacon potato salad, which sounded more interesting than it tasted. Too much maple, I think. We also ate all the hot dogs, which was too much. Two of us nearly made ourselves sick!

The meal for the third campfire night was my husband’s decision. He and our son went to the store while my daughter and I tended the laundry at the laundromat. He was going to make me guess what the meal would be by putting the groceries away, but the kids took care of that and then our son blurted out: “we’re making quesadillas!” I was skeptical but let me tell you, it worked out beautifully. I made a Napolean Dynamite joke about “quesadillas” (pronounced with a DILL in the middle) and then changed it to “quesa-GRILL-as.” You’re welcome, and I’m coining that.

Next time, we’d do a little more pre-planning for meals to make over a fire. This was our first camping foray in more than five years and the first ever with the kids, so we weren’t as confident about our cooking abilities. Knowing we can do it and do it well makes us more sure for the next time.

If you read through all of that and aren’t bored yet, let me now tell you about the restaurants we found on our vacation.

We started our trip in Cooperstown, N.Y. and since our hotel didn’t include breakfast, we just ate a couple of breakfast bars and planned to eat at a diner that served all-day breakfast for an early lunch. Just down the street from the Baseball Hall of Fame Museum (our reason for being in Cooperstown) is a place called the Cooperstown Diner. I forgot to take a picture of the building, so click here to get an idea of how tiny this place is. We waited outside for seats to free up, and it was kind of a first-come, first-served sort of deal and the honors system among the people waiting. Apparently, there was a baseball tournament going on in town, so lots of places were extra busy. We didn’t wait long, though. I had the diner muffin, which is basically a breakfast sandwich (egg and bacon on a English muffin) with a side of home fries. The kids had cinnamon roll french toast and Texas french toast. Phil had corned beef hash. It was all tasty and filled our bellies for our afternoon at the Hall of Fame Museum.

Between Cooperstown and our cabin in the Finger Lakes, we stopped for dinner in Syracuse. My husband had heard of this place calle Dinosaur BBQ. He can’t quite remember how he stumbled on it, but we were all up for it. To be honest, the place has a dive-bar vibe, but not in a scary way, really. We waited maybe 20 minutes for a table. Phil had checked out the menu ahead of time and pretty much knew what we were going to order to share. I had a honeycrisp cider to accompany my meal, and it was DEE-LISH. Our meal included ribs, beef brisket, and pulled pork with sides of greens, baked beans, cole slaw and mac and cheese, and we started with a sampler plate that had fried green tomatoes, deviled eggs, spicy shrimp, and chicken wings.

If that sounds like a lot of food, it was, and yes, we had leftovers. We took them to the cabin and ate them with breakfast two days later. The ribs were as tasty as any I’ve eaten, and the brisket was second favorite. I’m not a big beans or fried green tomatoes fan, but I enjoyed those as well.

I should mention that our lunches while at the cabin consisted of sandwiches, chips, fruit and cookies. Usually we were out on an adventure or between adventures, so we packed sandwiches to eat picnic-style or had them at the cabin.

A lunch picnic at a park on one of the Finger Lakes.

On Wednesday we had ice cream in Interlaken, N.Y. at the Cayuga lake Creamery. (If you know us at all, you know that we also take ice cream very seriously.) This place was on the way to our adventures that day and had won some awards for its ice cream. Among the four of us we had the following flavors: red, white and blueberry; lavender; crunchy grasshopper; and mocha chocolate chunk. None of us were sorry.

Our next eating out place that same day was Ithaca Beer Co. Phil and I enjoy the occasional alcoholic beverage, mostly when we’re out at a restaurant, but even if we didn’t, I would recommend local breweries as eating places while on vacation. Ithaca Beer has been around for a while. The venue itself is magical, with a large outdoor beer garden and seating area, and the food is fresh and local. The menu rotates with seasonal availability. We had a fry flight, which comes with three sauces and let me tell you, plain ketchup was not one of them. I had to fight my kids for a turn with the fries and the sauce. Pickled vegetables with a buttermilk-pistachio dip and crackers was a second starter. I had a chorizo soup and our daughter had hoisin meatballs. The guys–father and son–both had pulled pork sandwiches after our son found out they didn’t have bacon for the cheddar burger. (Kid loves his bacon.)

On Friday, we left for Niagara Falls and did our usual quick-bite breakfast before packing up and made sandwiches for the car. After walking around Niagara Falls State Park for hours, we stumbled onto Anchor Bar, which originated in Buffalo and is the home to the original buffalo wings. Anchor Bar was one place we thought we were going to miss by not going to Buffalo, but there was one right there in Niagara. Phil was pleased to learn they also had beef on weck, another local speciality we were told to try. He was able to get that and wings on the same plate.

I had buffalo chicken on a salad.

The kids both had pasta dishes that were larger than their heads. Buffalo chicken is not something I’m going to choose first, but here, it was unlike any similar chicken I’d had before. Personally, I thought the beef on weck was too salty, but I guess that’s part of its charm.

We knew going into the weekend that we were going to eat out a lot. We were back in a hotel that didn’t have a fridge and we were staying in Canada, which gave us opportunity to try some truly unique fare because we didn’t want to eat at all the overpriced places on the strip. (And yes, there’s a strip in Niagara Falls that rivals Las Vegas and Nashville, if you ask me.) I asked the locals working the desk where we could go that wouldn’t break the bank but would also give us a sense of what the locals do. The recommendations were spot on.

Saturday breakfast was at the hotel. There’s a little made-to-order restaurant on premises and we got the usual diner breakfast fare with all the Canadian kindness we could handle. For lunch, we walked across the parking lot to the second restaurant on premises, Zappi’s Pizza and Pasta Italian Eatery. We were told they were fair-priced and a mom-and-pop kind of place. (To compare, our other options were things like TGIFriday’s, Margaritaville, My Cousin Vinny’s, and the like.) The Greek salad came recommended, and it wasn’t a wrong choice. I also had the stuffed mushrooms, which tasted like pizza inside of a mushroom–yum! Sweet potato fries were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Phil ordered a pizza with sausage and rapini (broccoli rabe), our son had ravioli, and our daughter had Caesar salad (that’s kind of her thing). Here, our son also had C-plus orange soda. We’d never heard of it but we all took a sip and it was tasty.

Dinner was the piece de resistance to our culinary adventures. Doc Magilligan’s is an Irish pub in the middle of Niagara Falls, Canada, and its chef recently was awarded Best Irish Chef in North America. While it’s not what I would expect to eat in Canada, we were assured it was the kind of place the locals go. I’m so glad we did! Not only was the atmosphere unique and inviting, but the food was worth the extra (small) effort it took to find the place.

I’d read online that ordering a boxty was the way to go. It’s like an Irish potato pancake, sort of, only thin and stuffed with meats and veggies. I had a haddock taco trio boxty. Phil had a chicken curry boxty, which was probably my favorite of the ones I tasted. Our daughter had a reuben boxty. And our son had a slider trio that included a lamb burger. I drank a local blood orange cider. It’s this sort of thing that I love about travel–experiencing food and drink you can’t find anywhere else.

On departure day, Sunday morning, we hit up the Tim Horton’s just up the block because it’s the thing you’re supposed to do in Canada. The coffee was good and I had a breakfast egg sandwich. The Timbits (donut holes) were a big hit with the rest of the fam, too.

Although our vacation was technically over, we let the culinary curiosity take over on the way home, too. We met my parents in Toledo, Ohio, something we’ve done on the regular for years, but we had never eaten at Tony Packo’s. There’s now one near where we stop. It’s like Hungarian fast food. I had chicken paprikash over Hungarian dumplings. Our daughter had stuffed cabbage. There were hot dogs galore at the table and a variety of pickles.

After sending our children off with their grandparents, we ate pizza with our friends in their home just outside of Pittsburgh, PA, and walked to the local diner for breakfast. There, I had a spinach and tomato eggs benedict, which was different and good.

Our of necessity for time, Phil and I grabbed a sandwich from Roy Rogers on the turnpike back to Lancaster.

Years ago, when I went on my second mission trip, the trip leader was given the advice to “feed them well” because we were working on disaster relief. I feel like vacation deserves a similar principle. We “eat in” just enough to not feel bad about spending money on good quality food on other days.

And the food experiences add to the overall travel experience.

I’m curious: What’s your vacation eating style? What unique places have you discovered while traveling?

Traveling solo

June 25, 2019

It is a weekday, and I’m sitting on the porch, just after noon. A gentle breeze accompanies this warm summer day, and I am basking in it.

Inside, my house is empty, husband off to work, kids 800 miles away in Illinois with their grandparents. I am supposed to bask in this time alone, aren’t I? I am an introvert, after all. But I am surprised to find that I do not love it, all this quiet, all this “me time.”

An open week stretches ahead of me, and I am a little bit frightened by it all. No appointments. No people who need something from me. No one expecting anything from me.

What is this madness?

—

I drove 470 miles total this weekend, all but a few of the miles by myself. I went to a writing retreat in Virginia, the best of its kind in my opinion, and probably one of only a few things that could compel to make such a drive by myself.

The morning I was to leave, I sat in the parking lot of my bank, hands shaking, heart rate increasing, as I thought about the roads that lay ahead of me. Most of my travels in the last 12 years have been with at least my husband by my side, usually our kids along, too. This brings with it a different kind of anxiety, but me being responsible for myself and the car and the trip overall was almost too much to bear.

Halfway through the trip, I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Gusty winds swept across Pennsylvania and Maryland forcing me to grip tight the steering wheel and mouth words of prayer that my car, back from the body shop for less than a week, would keep its hold on the road. I am a nervous passenger when anyone else is driving but more nervous when I am the driver, apparently. The driving directions were simple, so I tried not to use the GPS but did not take the bypass around Leesburg and ended up in the middle of town when all I wanted to do was stop at Chipotle for lunch. A small delay but a timely reminder that companions make good navigators. (I am usually the navigator, and I’m not always good at it. I lose focus staring out the window, and I rely too heavily on the computerized GPS to tell me what to do and when.)

I made it to my destination without incident and met one of my two roommates before I unloaded my things and we got back in the car to head to the farm where the retreat was being held. I consulted the GPS and saw a back road that looked interesting. I’d been on the highways long enough for one day, so I suggested we take it. My roommate was agreeable, and I let the GPS guide us, but I missed a turn and we found ourselves on a gravel road that led straight into someone’s private driveway. I had a moment of panic about rural Virginia, but I was less afraid because there was someone else with me in the car. We righted our course and found the correct back road, which led us across a one-lane wooden bridge that people were sitting on, legs dangling above a creek where others were swimming. The Pennsylvania license plates must have been a sight.

We had taken a more interesting route to the farm, certainly not the most direct or logical, and I joked all evening about our small adventure. We would take the highway the next time.

—

When it comes to writing, I have been journeying solo for more than a year. I have been traveling by myself, minimally relying on technology and sporadic texts to real-life people, to get me to my destination. But I have stayed pretty close to home with my writing. There are writing roads I can navigate almost with thought, like driving around my hometown or my current city. I don’t need GPS here (most of the time). But when I have ventured out, I have taken some wrong turns because I don’t know the way. Even with a technologically advanced guide, I am in unfamiliar territory, wondering if this going to end well.

Weeks ago, a friend planted the seed of an idea for a next step in my writing journey. It has been tucked away in a back corner of my mind, and I walked into the retreat weekend knowing that this would be my time to think about it more. To speak the idea out loud amongst other writers and ask for help.

Those three little words–ask for help–are terrifying for me, and I can’t explain why.

I did not want to put pressure on the weekend to produce some definitive result, but I also know that the space to open up heart, mind and soul cannot help but yield some result. I kept the idea close at first and then blurted it out to a writer friend I trust within the first hour of the retreat. The next day, after an informative and encouraging talk by Jane Friedman, I asked that same friend for recommendations about the idea.

On day three of the retreat, with tears in my eyes after another encouraging and slightly overwhelming group conversation, I mentioned the same idea to another writing friend I trust. By the time our closing conversation of the retreat happened and we were asked to set a goal and a deadline, it was pretty clear to me what my goal was going to be.

So, here it is: I’m going to partner with a writing coach by the end of the summer. I have about four people to choose from, but first I need to decide what I need from a coach. Let me tell you why this is a big deal for me.

I can’t really remember a time in my life when I wasn’t writing. I have a degree in writing. I have decades of professional experience writing and more publishing credits to my name than I can count (thanks to being a reporter for a daily newspaper). Blog posts, articles, essays, that’s like driving on familiar roads to me.

Book-length projects–especially fiction projects–that’s a cross-country drive without GPS. I am lost, but not without hope to find my way back to the main road again. But there’s a little voice inside of me telling me that I shouldn’t need help with this. That I should be better at it. (That voice is a liar, by the way. Not one writer I said this to agreed with the voice.) That’s like telling someone who grew up driving on the flat roads of the Midwest that driving on mountain roads in Colorado in winter will be no problem.

—

I don’t know why asking for help is so hard, and I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I am learning to ask for help in a lot of areas of my life. I have a team of healthcare providers to help my body function at its best. I “ask” my massage therapist to help me relax and work the tension out of my muscles. I “ask” my chiropractor to keep my spine in alignment so I can move through my day without pain. I “ask” my primary care provider to assess the aches and pains and bodily functions I’m experiencing for concerns and optimal health.

This is just one multi-layered example of how asking for help is necessary.

It is harder to ask for help in an area in which I feel more competent than say, physical health, but it’s still normal and good. I will say it again for myself to hear:

Asking for help is normal and good.

I don’t know about you but I’m not proficient at everything. I don’t know everything there is to know about everything. I don’t have experience in every field of study or arena of life. I need a coach, a guide, someone who can travel with me and help me get back on the right course.

I expect this has application in many areas of life, the least of which is that I know this about myself and can admit it. I was raised in an era when women were gaining independence in their lives, from their homes, for their futures, and taken to an extreme, I could try to rely on myself for everything. But it is too much pressure to know it all and do it all and be it all.

Asking for help. Acknowledging my weaknesses as well as my strengths. These practices will serve me well, I believe.

So I will use the GPS without shame when traveling alone. I will ask others to use their strengths to serve my well-being. And I will offer my strengths to those whose well-being can be served by me.

This is the kind of mutuality the world needs. The kind of interconnectedness that will lift us all up. Maybe it won’t save the world, but it might save us from going through life on our own.