January 3, 2016

Quote of the Day

Photo: Milky Way Over Yellowstone by David Lane

Photo: Milky Way Over Yellowstone by David Lane

If you live long enough, you learn that life brings you to your knees over and over again — both by sorrow and by gratitude. -Ann Clark

December 9, 2015

A personal response to terrorism

Filed under: Memory Eternal,Random Thoughts — Tags: — Ann @ 6:44 am

Do Good Blog

Two for one.

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, clients are sometimes encouraged to come up with two positive thoughts in response to every negative thought. I’ve been deeply distressed about San Bernardino (and Paris and every rage killing), and this morning it occurred to me that for every violent act that occurs, we should engage in TWO peaceful, loving nonviolent acts in return. I’ve decided that this is going to be my personal response to terrorism.

And yes, I know that giving blankets to the needy and baking cookies for a neighbor (for example) aren’t going to begin to make up for the slaughter of innocents. Nonetheless, I’m going to take on these random acts of goodness, and I’m going to carry them out with INTENTION. “This is to bring balance.”

I invite you to join me in this campaign, starting now. ‪#twoforone

November 13, 2015

Why I love my cat so much

Filed under: About The Animals — Tags: , , , — Ann @ 12:55 pm
Geronimo Cat

Geronimo Cat

I’m sure there are some who may question the depth of my devotion to Geronimo Cat. After all, he’s not a “people.” I was thinking about it this morning and I realized that the main reason we’re so bonded is that the relationship is in no way one-sided. In short, it’s easy to love those who so generously give love right back to you. And Geronimo gives back in full measure the devotion directed his way. We clearly need each other — when he’s frightened at the vet, he scrunches up as close to me as he can get; when I’m sad, he seeks me out to climb in my lap. And we’re also there for each other — he comes running when I call him, and I jump up when he calls me.

In a Hubpages article “Eight Ingredients for a Successful Relationship,” the named essentials are Love and Affection, Honesty and Trust, Respect and Consideration, Good Communication, Unselfishness, Forgiveness, Appreciation, and Sense of Humor. G’s and my steward-companion relationship has all of those qualities. He definitely shows an abundance of affection; he trusts me to take care of him; I respect his insistence that his belly not be touched; we have developed a communication that astonishes even Neal (I can tell when G wants me to retrieve his fluffy blanket, for example); we’re both unstinting in our giving — I bring him collars and treats, he brings me dead things; he forgives me for taking him to the vet and I forgive him for scaring the life out of me by going in the street; the mutual appreciation is obvious; and — sense of humor? I’m sure he laughs in his cat-way at my dancing, and he definitely makes me laugh when he bats and chases acorns around the side patio

In a very real way, there are really only two ingredients for a successful relationship: you need to need each other; and you need to give and receive love in equal measure. G and me? The real deal.

October 10, 2015

What I learned from watching “Friday Night Lights”

Filed under: MiscellAnnia — Tags: , , — Ann @ 8:23 am
Coach Taylor knows a thing or two about football, and life.

Coach Taylor knows a thing or two about football, and life.

Did you ever have one of those life moments when you observe someone — perhaps a colleague — doing something in a manner so gobsmackingly competent, so extraordinary, so mindblowingly awesome, that it reduces you to a puddle of “oh my gosh, what do I think I’m doing here, I’m not worthy”? Well, I have. And one of those moments happened this past week. I shouldn’t admit it, but learning how this person managed a triple-headed crisis with absolute grace and perfection — the workplace equivalent of Indiana Jones rolling under a descending wall, dodging poison darts, and swinging from a rope to land to safety — reduced me to questioning my place in the universe. Am I the only one who has self-conversations like, “Should I really be doing this?” Well, I can’t be the only one because there’s an actual name for it in my field: impostor syndrome. Caltech defines it as “…a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist even in face of information that indicates that the opposite is true. It is experienced internally as chronic self-doubt, and feelings of intellectual fraudulence.”

And mostly, I don’t have it. I love this work and I generally feel competent and successful. But in that moment, I could feel myself collapsing into a full-blown impostor syndrome attack. So I did what I do — processed it, took a long walk, talked it over (without details) with a trusted friend, and continued to fret a bit.

And then yesterday I was watching an old episode of “Friday Night Lights,” and if you’ve never seen this Texas drama of love and football, you need to stop reading this blog post now and go stream it on Netflix. In this particular story, the long-time team quarterback is replaced by a new, young, talented up-and-comer, and this sends the replaced Q1 into a tailspin of self-pity and self-loathing. And as I was watching it, I said to Neal with all the passion and outrage of a person who has All the Answers, “This kid needs to be told that there is ALWAYS going to be someone who can do some things better than you can, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to strive to be excellent at what YOU do best!”

And then I stopped dead in my tracks. Yes, that fictional kid needs to know that. And this real live person needs to know that. It was one of those “do you hear yourself?” moments that hits you over the head with the full force of its raw truth.

And, really, it shouldn’t surprise me that the most important lessons I learned this week was one that I learned from observing and processing someone else’s pain (even if that someone was a television character). After all, one of the reasons I love my counseling work so completely is that I glean more insights about myself by engaging with my clients than I’ve ever learned on my own. It’s part of what makes this the best job on earth.

September 27, 2015

Faces of 62

Filed under: MiscellAnnia — Ann @ 7:25 pm

All of these people were 62 years old at the time these photos were taken. This is what 62 looks like.

Aggravated Battery Suspect

Aggravated Battery Suspect

Anna Winour Vogue Editor in Chief

Anna Winour Vogue Editor in Chief

Breast Cancer Survivor

Breast Cancer Survivor

Cathy Skott Biked 2300 Miles

Cathy Skott Biked 2300 Miles

Diana Donofrio

Diana Donofrio

Florida Woman Stuck in Swamp 4 Days

Florida Woman Stuck in Swamp 4 Days

Folorunsho Alakija-Richest Black Woman in World-Nigerian

Folorunsho Alakija-Richest Black Woman in World-Nigerian

Genny Chapman-Missing Albany Oregon Woman

Genny Chapman-Missing Albany Oregon Woman

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Murder Suspect

Murder Suspect

Olivia Newton John

Olivia Newton John

Patricia Janowski, Embezzler -Texas

Patricia Janowski, Embezzler -Texas

Ronnie Wood-Rolling Stones

Ronnie Wood-Rolling Stones

Geoff Higham, Bodybuilder

Geoff Higham, Bodybuilder

Savitri Jindal Top 10 Richest Women

Savitri Jindal Top 10 Richest Women

Sigourney Weaver

Sigourney Weaver

Sold Alcohol to Minor

Sold Alcohol to Minor

Suzanne Somers

Suzanne Somers

Twiggy

Twiggy

Casablanca best

September 7, 2015

Dear Dad

Filed under: Memory Eternal — Tags: , , , — Ann @ 9:40 am
Celebrating Dad in the 1970s

Celebrating Dad in the 1970s

Dear Dad – I didn’t forget your birthday yesterday. It was the first one without you. I was aware of it in so many ways, some trivial: at the card shop several weeks ago a thought formed, “First time I won’t be picking out a card for Dad.” Walking by my 2015 calendar, looking at the “Dad’s BD” and red heart that I drew in the box marked September 6, remembering my way back to January 1 when I painstakingly drew hearts on all my family’s birthdays, never dreaming you’d be gone less than two weeks later.

Then, yesterday morning, logging in to Facebook, the “one year ago today” algorithm flashed your smiling face, your unexpected face, and I swear my body went numb. I thought of posting a tribute to you right there on my Wall but I couldn’t picture myself writing, “First Dad birthday without my Dad,” and I couldn’t have borne up under friends’ responses, so loving, so empathetic. Too much hurt, still.

I called Mom, not just because I wanted to but because I knew you’d want me to. We talked about how we both still talk to you, in our different ways. She retains the privilege of the loving-tender wifely scold — “where on earth did you put that?” — and I’m more inclined to tell you how much I still need you.

The family didn’t get together yesterday as on previous September 6th “Dad’s Birthday” days, but no doubt each of us felt your absence, thought about birthdays past. I remember when you turned 64 and I printed off the lyrics to the Beatles song, handed them around and made everyone sing, “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…” I’m not sure it went over all that well but no regrets because every time that song pops up on my Pandora it means one more link to you in a chain that already stretches from my heart to heaven in infinite strands of love and remembrance.

September 6th is still and forever your birth-day and it can never be eclipsed by your death-day because what you gave us over a lifetime is so much greater than what can ever be taken away by your transition to spirit. You live on in countless ways. The children and their children and their children who make the annual trek to the family’s holy stomping grounds of Hat Creek and Mt. Lassen; the songs you loved that pop up on my Pandora (and I still hear you say, “Oh, that’s so pretty” whenever “Shenandoah” plays); the “Clark face” that pops up in family photos shared on Facebook. It’s you, Dad. All around us, everywhere, every day.

I’m not missing you any less today because it’s September 7th. And we still have Thanksgiving to get through without you and dear god in heaven: Christmas.

But yesterday, because it was your birthday, I pulled your memory a little closer to me, like a warm comforter protecting against a sudden chill. I will never stop celebrating you.

August 17, 2015

Diary of a Former Mad-Woman (Or, Livid’s Not My Best Color, Anyway)

Filed under: Ann the Columnist:Essays,Roadpeace USA — Tags: , , , , , — Ann @ 9:59 am

[Editor's Note: I just found this essay -- something I wrote back in the late 1990s. It's not a bad essay on anger so I'm adding it to my blog.]

I’m a recovering anger-embracer.

I first began to be aware of the habit-forming nature of what I call “knee-jerk” anger in early 1996, when I founded RoadPeace USA, my nonprofit movement to promote kindness on the roadways. With awareness and commitment, I mended my ways and have become a gentle motorist, encouraging others to follow suit.
However, recently, and quite suddenly, I realized that although I was being peaceful behind the wheel, offroad I was skidding out of control: anger was becoming my reaction to almost everything unpleasant. If the weather turned uncomfortably hot, if the grocery store was out of the cheap brand and I had to buy the expensive brand, if people stood too close to me at the check-out counter, I’d feel the flare. I realized that anger and its cousins — bitterness, resentment, outrage, and self-righteous indignation — were destroying my personality. And, most importantly, I realized that the anger I was feeling didn’t stem from some huge unresolved inner conflict: it was simply becoming a bad habit. I was becoming one of the Angry People. For there are people I greatly respect and admire, and they are the mellow ones. And there are those I don’t admire so much — the blazing-eyed types who huff impatiently while waiting in line, slam the elevator button five times, and pointedly frown at boisterous children. I, who aspired to mellowness, was developing a permanent glare and jutting chin.

I was even getting angry on behalf of other people. If friends and relatives didn’t feel their own anger, by gosh I’d gladly feel it for them. And, what’s worse, I was getting angry with my husband when he didn’t join me in my wrath-bath. Anger is a lonely emotion. Like heavy drinkers, habitual fumers want company. “What’s wrong…too good to get mad with me?”

In a way, it’s not all that surprising that I was turning into a knee-jerk mad-woman: We have become a nation of angry people. I don’t need to consult experts or do research to confirm this — we see it all around us. We see angry shoppers in malls, angry drivers on roadways. We hear angry callers on radio talk shows. We see it in the heavy sighing, the rolling of the eyes, the profanity, the aggressive driving. We’ve become a people not merely quick to anger, but downright eager to anger. “I dare you to cut in front of me, buddy; just try it.” Too many of us are walking around with huge chips on our shoulders. And we’re not content merely to feel the anger. We nurture it, groom it, invite it home to dinner, add a room onto the house for it. There are alternatives. Have we lost our creativity and imaginations to the point where we can think of no other reaction than anger to the frustrating encounters in our day-to-day lives?

Therapists and others talk of ways of “processing” anger. But I’m beginning to think we already give entirely too much respect and air-time to those ordinary, everyday mad attacks. I’m not talking about deep-seated angers stemming from early life traumas and other such tragedies. That type of emotion is a different matter, and needs to be tended to by professionals. What I’m talking about — garden-variety irritation — is simply a bad habit and we need to remember what our grandparents were taught: count to ten until it goes away. Get over it. A shrug and a wry smile can serve well. We don’t have to “process” every slight, every oversight, every insult, every hurt. Part of my recovery means giving up trying to direct, produce, and choreograph every single person and event in my life. Much of anger stems from control issues. I was often impatient with people when I didn’t understand and/or approve of their behavior. The opposite of anger is acceptance.

Since deciding I don’t want to be an angry person anymore, I’ve been dealing with it the way I quit smoking after 17 years: I’ve recognized that reactionary anger, like smoking cigarettes and other bad habits, is a waste of time, life, and energy, and I’ve declared it no longer an option. Put another way: I’ve symbolically crumpled up and tossed my hard-pack of huffiness, and I’ve ground out my last smoldering butt of self-indulgent fury.

That isn’t to say that my temper won’t flare. I’ll get angry with my husband, my father, my boss, certain politicians. But I’ll be rationing it from now on. For real anger to get my attention, it’s going to have to result from an event worthy of all that roiling passion. Once I’ve decided that anger is indeed the appropriate emotion to be feeling — that is, once I’ve run my feelings through the filter of my creativity and have decided that there is no better way to deal with the situation (such as the liberal application of humor) — then I can get angry. But unless I plan to do something with that anger, like talk it out or take action, I will immediately release it.

For I’ve also realized that, for all its storminess, anger is an impotent emotion unless it inspires constructive action. Even where anger is wholly justified — where people are being denied rights, where grave injustice is being carried out — just getting angry alone is a waste. Anger is only good, I’ve learned, if you use the energy created by it to take action and do something positive.

In the 70s and 80s, many experts told us that anger was good. We were encouraged to acknowledge it, express it, and own it. But habitual, knee-jerk anger hasn’t done anything for me except make me feel miserable, lose sleep, treat others badly, jeopardize relationships, churn my stomach, and make my head ache. One of my new mantras is: “Save it for the important stuff.”

Yesterday, at the grocery store, a boy of about eight or nine was acting out, yelling “No!” when I tried to pass his mom’s cart in the aisle. Up until recently, I would have fumed. But yesterday, I just looked at the boy in amusement. When I didn’t do anything but smile at him, there was a shift. Suddenly, he smiled and said excitedly, “I’m gonna be Batman for Halloween!” And so it goes. I change, and the world changes with me.

So far, my rehabilitation has been as simple as that — awareness, followed by choice. And walking among my planet-mates with a much less narrow view of what constitutes “acceptable” behavior. Because that has been an important step in the recovery process. Part of letting go of useless anger is allowing another more desirable emotion to fill and soothe the ragged soul. And, although he was referring to much larger issues than those I’ve written about here, Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this substitution technique when he said: “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

July 28, 2015

Time On My Hands

Filed under: MiscellAnnia — Tags: , , , — Ann @ 6:58 am

I’ve been a heavy user of Facebook since its inception. There are many reasons for this, among them: I love to write. I love to keep in touch with friends. In decades past, when letter-writing and phone calls were our only options for staying connected over long distances, I was a passionate penner of missives. I kept up correspondences with Camp Seabow mates, family, friends who moved away and, after I met so many new people through this blog’s namesake, Sacred Wilderness, I had letter-writing relationships with countless people from all over the world, including one guy who was in prison for environmental terrorism. Social media’s raw beginnings — Bulletin Board Systems and Usenet — were like catnip to me. Additionally, I was a member of a number of Yahoogroups communities, so making the jump to Facebook was easy — it was the same thing, but with pictures and attachments. The other reason it was such a draw for me is that when my partner’s illnesses and medications kept him sleeping 16 hours a day, checking in with virtual friends was a much-needed remedy for loneliness.

Recently, however, I’ve started to experience diminishing returns. I’ve realized that too many hours have slipped into dull oblivion as I’ve scrolled through Friends’ Status Updates, read shared articles or viewed shared videos, or Scrabbled and Crushed until my legs ached from sitting. Just as I was deciding that I needed to spend less time online, yesterday morning a thought shook my center: I literally couldn’t remember how I used to spend my free hours before Facebook. So, deciding to pretend that Facebooking wasn’t an option, I paid close attention to the choices I made instead. This is what I did:

1) Cleaned the weeds and leaves out of the front planter boxes, then swept up the mess so that the front of the apartment looks neat and tidy;
2) Tended to all of my indoor plants — repotting, adding soil, loosening soil, trimming off old brown parts, dusting leaves;
3) Read several chapters in my neuroscience book, sharing all of the most exciting information with Neal;
4) Sat outside in a patio chair…..just, sat;
5) Organized all of my piano sheet music and books, and played the piano for over two hours.

All of those tasks left me feeling rosy, accomplished, and filled up. Playing on Facebook rarely provides such deep satisfaction. Message received.

As I started to write, “This is my second week of an at-home vacation so I have more time on my hands than usual,” I became fascinated by the concept of having time “on our hands.” I’ve never noticed before what a beautiful little visual that conjures, the idea that we hold precious time in our cupped hands as gingerly as if we’d hold a fragile flower. We hold possibility, we hold energy unleashed, we hold our very lives and futures in the time that we have yet to spend and the choices that we make about how to use that time.

I can’t wait to find out what I decide to do today with all that glorious potential.

July 17, 2015

A Conspiracy of Delight

Filed under: Feel-Good Story of the Day,MiscellAnnia — Tags: , , , — Ann @ 6:46 am
Score!!!

Score!!!

Several months ago Neal became enamored of a certain pastry sold by Sonoma Market — a “cakey” doughnut with lavender-colored icing containing bits of blueberry. We started calling it “the Purple Doughnut.” The thing is, whoever delivers the Market’s goodies every morning provides just one Purple Doughnut, and it must be very popular because, though we’re at the store several times a week and Neal checks the pastry display-case regularly, it’s seldom there. Since I’m up and about earlier than he is, running errands or heading out to work, I, too, started checking the pastry shelves and whenever I scored I’d sometimes tell the clerks, who know us, that I’d been happy to find the rare and elusive Purple Doughnut to take home to Neal.

This past Monday I stopped at Sonoma Market on the way to work. As I peered at the pastry shelves trying to spot the tell-tale lavender icing, a deli clerk rushed over to help me. I explained I was looking for the special doughnut to surprise someone. Though his English was fragile, “treats” and “surprises” are universal communications facilitators and he smiled at me triumphantly, pointing towards the hot bar across the aisle. Puzzled, I walked over and, sure enough, set out among the other breakfast offerings was a sampling of their baked goods — including the Purple Doughnut. The clerk seemed immensely pleased with my gasp of delight.

Four days later I stopped in to buy coffee on my way to work and, though it was later in the morning and the chances were slim, I checked for the doughnut. Immediately, the same deli clerk who’d helped me on Monday approached. “The doughnut?” he asked with a big smile. I nodded and started to walk over to the hot bar but he stopped me — “No, no, no. Come, look.” He pointed at the pastry display-case and explained, “Here. So no one could take it. Look.” And he showed me that he had tucked the doughnut way in the back, where it was hard to see. He’d been saving it for me. My child-like glee must have been contagious because he was grinning from ear to ear as I lovingly placed the treat in its white bakery bag.

As I checked out and was fishing for my debit card I told the clerk what I had in the sack so she could ring up the right price. “That’s a doughnut in the bag, Diane. A one-holed doughnut.” She broke into a huge smile. “Oh, is this the Purple Doughnut as a surprise for Neal?” “YES!” I exclaimed, astonished, and we both laughed. She said, “He’s going to be so happy.”

All the way to work I thought about these people, certainly with busy lives and busy jobs and probably families, and their own worries and concerns and priorities and maybe even aches and pains (we all have them), yet the deli clerk put time and thought and energy and heart into helping me get a silly doughnut to surprise someone, Diane bothered to remember that I liked to bring Neal his favorite doughnut, and both were rejoicing with me that I was able to do so.

I really, really, really love people. Maybe even as much as Neal loves his Purple Doughnut.

July 2, 2015

In Their Honor

Filed under: MiscellAnnia — Tags: , , , , , — Ann @ 2:57 pm

forgiveness

Something I’ve been reflecting on since the Charleston shootings: there are some who hold on to petty gripes, grudges and grievances against their own friends or family members for years, yet the people of this Church came together and decided to forgive a murderer. As San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll wrote in a recent column: “Because their faith told them that was what you did. You rose above. You shone your light so all could follow. And love won again.” May their shining example inspire all of us to let go of old slights, snubs and injuries so that love continues to triumph in all our hearts.

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