"Maggie May" Used to Echo In Our Family Basement

I stood in the basement of my childhood home. A couple of boxes of old Math Textbooks were all that was left. The circa 70's finished basement with its tiled floors and brown paneled walls complete with the must have built in bar was barren-much like my heart felt at that moment. Every last scrap of life built up year after year, milestone after milestone have been removed. God, it was like shoveling more dirt on the grave burying it for good. Stab. Man, it hit me in the heart how easily it all was tossed, cleared out. Wiped away like a dry eraser board went the tangible memories. My eyes started to burn and fill with my salty tears, first slowly and then in a rush. Damn. My siblings hauled it all out in no time at all and it felt, disrespectful. It felt like there was no moment to say, I don't know.... What would I want to say? It just felt so cold, callus, hardened how quickly our lives, remnants of our life became dust to sweep away on the cold basement floor.

I used to roller skate to Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" on the cold basement floor when it was gray concrete. My sister and her best friend's Barbie apartment complex was down there that they made piece by piece with every little miniature piece of furniture. In our teen years, my sister and I claimed the basement as our apartment. So, from childhood playground to sacred living space where the reverberating echoes of giggly laughter and serious conversations dissipated into the ether.

Deeper in the basement, the unfinished section where the oil burner was and my father's workbench stood loaded with old computers, typewriters that produced high school book reports, my mother's old Singer sewing machine that gave her such grief with the temperamental tension, tools, tools and more tools, coffee cans filled with nails and more old books....cleared away. Just like that, gone.

I remember the one and only time my father got mad at me. I was watching him work with a hot glue gun and a soldering iron at his workbench He was always fixing things himself. I was fascinated by it. He warned me not to touch it. What did I do? I touched it. I remember a good blister on my finger from it. This was the only time I can remember my father spanking me, one firm swat to the hiny.

My mother passed away in 2006 and my father, at 85 just last month. My sister, brother and I are moving swiftly in clearing the house readying it for sale. There is no time to process; there is no time to ease into the idea of saying good-bye to our childhood home; there is no time to digest that my father is not on this earth any longer. When I do have time to process it, I feel a punch in the gut pain.

I stood there in the basement, and I opened one of the math books. There was his beautiful swirly handwriting of his name and the name of his college. It must have been what he used to learn to be a math teacher at college. His large perfect cursive were the windows to his soul. Handwriting is full of personality and my father's large, precise, fancy script handwriting matched his fun, zesty and yet, attention to detail personality to a tee. I found among the boxed books my mother's nursing licenses, first her Licensed Practical Nurse and then, her Registered Nurse.  Damn. These were hard earned, something I didn't really appreciate until now. We were tossing it out. I kept those.

I know memories are not in things; they are in your heart and mind forever, but yeah, no. Memories are in one's life's work, the day to day planners with personal notes to oneself, a favorite shirt, a favorite mug, plate, bowl, the pens one wrote with, the music listened to, the books read, ...Memories are tangible.

My family house is now empty. I guess this is my ode to my family house. It wasn't always peaceful in that house, and as a matter of fact, there was quite a lot of pain and heart ache in that house. Yet, it was my house, the one I grew up in. I just didn't want it all dismissed so ...easily, irreverently. I respect the life lessons learned there and at the root of it all, love won the day. Love carried us all through, especially in my father's last dying days where us siblings who were distant and detached for so many years, finally got it together and found each other again when facing the foreignness of death.

So, I guess, now that I wrote this and gave my house its due, I can release all the physical tangible memories, ones that I didn't keep to the universe. I picture me holding a pearly white dove and tossing it upward watching its wings spread and flap toward the sky.

I feel peace like the sweet exhale you express when you clap close a favorite bedtime story leaving you feeling sleepy and satisfied as you kiss a child a good night's sleep.

The Pity Pot

The Pity Pot

My grandmother would never tolerate it when I was whining about this or that. She wasn’t haven’t any of it. She would say get off your Pity Pot!

Ouch.

It got me every time. Harsh, Grandma. Harsh. There was to be no feeling sorry for yourself around her. And , that was a good thing. It shook me out of my stupor and got me moving.

Well, the poor me tendency is still there as if I got dealt a bad hand. When in truth, most situations are of my own making. Why don’t I have a book published? Why can’t I stay home and write an advice column? Why is everything we own breaking and costing us a fortune? Why can’t our bank account be abundant and ever flowing?

This is the litany of Whoa Is Me that runs through my head again and again.

I can change this tune; I really can. It is all up to me. I have to get off my damn Pity Pot and do something! I’ve always said, “If you do nothing, nothing happens. If you do something, something happens.” So, expect nothing if you do nothing. Expect something if you do something, be it good or bad. The point? I have to at least try.

It’s much like Wayne Gretsky’s quote that goes something like this: It’s 100% certain you will miss the shots you don’t take.  Get it? Hockey reference. Take a shot. You have a chance of it going in. If you don’t at least take the freaking shot, it will NEVER EVER go in!  So, for God’s Sakes, take the damn shot, Susan!

Geesh. How’s that for a message to me?

 Take the shot.

Take the shot.

Take the shot.

Try. Try. Try.

Try what, though? Ahhh. That’s the hard part, eh?

Until next time, for ideas to get off The Pity Pot!

When Life Stressors Are Spinning Out of Control, Try This

Do you have a stressed mind that will not shut up?

Lately, the stress of world events, politics and personal worries become tilt overload for most people.  I know politics alone make me absolutely crazy and leave me feeling dumbfounded, exasperated and helpless.  On top of that, I am going through one of those major life stressors that rock you to your core and leave you feeling like a deflated ball; my father is in Hospice losing his fight with cancer. This has been the most challenging time in my life that often leaves me mentally and physically drained.

I know there are so many like me that have their own personal burdens that they are carrying around as well. I want to share with you what has helped me tremendously.

Art.

Creating art is a form of mindfulness, which is focused attention.  The troubled world melts away when you are creating. In that moment, all that exists is what you are doing. And, what you are doing can be many things. Art comes in many forms, thus known as The Arts. Creating and expressing oneself can be through sketching, painting, writing, singing, dancing, knitting, working with clay, photography and more!

When the brain is on fire running on all cylinders and you just can’t calm it down, what works for me is turning to art. It works every time. Art is a form of mindfulness in every brush stroke or pencil mark that diffuses nervous energy into the current task at hand, creating- thereby, quiets the incessant chatty mind.

#artheals #art4mentalhealth

Check out these hashtags on Twitter and you will see many submissions of art to help break the stigma associated with Mental Health. I participated with Art Therapist and St. Xavier University Psychology Professor, Nicola Demonte in the mission of breaking the stigma associated with Mental Health through the Twitter hashtag campaign #art4mentalhealth. Even though we were in two different locations, Chicago and New York we posted events and art online. The coolest thing was to see all the different participants who posted.  We had Refugee Art Project who used art to release their pain and feel a little joy through art.  Splashes of Hope are artists who paint murals in hospitals and waiting rooms for families in prisons to relieve anxiety and evoke a cheerier atmosphere in what can be certainly scary and unpleasant circumstances. There were artists who are homeless getting their amazing work posted and advertised for them through a group called Art Lifting to better their situations and at the same time use art as a means of healing. I certainly benefited from posting my art as I painted or sketched whenever I felt so distressed that I didn’t know what else to do make myself feel better. The pencil to paper focused concentration wipes the chatter away like a squeegee on a windshield.  The distress drips away into the ethers, every single last noxious thought as I sketch, sketch, erase, and blow.

I sketched during blizzards. I sketched when I was frightened and horrified by tragedies around the world, such as the Paris Massacre at the Bataclan night club.  I shared music videos that marked an emotion that matched a news event, whether it be hopeless or hopeful that I felt others would appreciate. Music is especially powerful. Art helps. Art heals and is available to everyone.

It is a magical balm.

The other night my husband showed me a brown trout as he has been jonesing for fishing. Bam. That was my object du jours. I sketched a brown trout as it had been a difficult day with my ailing father. Somet days are better than others with my coping ability with his terminal illness.

  

It’s nothing fantastic, but that wasn’t the point.  The point was I needed relief from my own busy mind and faulty nervous system.  And, you know what? It helped. It really did.

It is a message of this much I can do to ease the pain. I can create something. I feel better.

Give it a shot. Color. Paint. Squiggle. Doodle. Knit. Create. I did, and I am telling you it set my emotions free.  It unleashed the untamable beast.  Isn’t there a quote, “Music soothes the savage beast?” See? It’s a tried and true, time tested healer.

You may find yourself on a new artistic adventure like me! #art4MentalHealth

Even with writing this article I am releasing and expressing my emotions. I am breathing easier because of it.

Create on, my friends for your good Mental Health!