Category Archives: Emotional Health

Daily Bath

September 20, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

She is the type of girl who thinks a daily bath is essential to survival. Never mind if it is cold water, warm water, hauled water, stream water or the lake. It hasn’t always been that way, of course. As a child, like most children, she was required to take baths – one on Wednesday before midweek church service and the other on Saturday night in preparation for Sunday services. Sometime in junior high, daily bathing became a ritual of choice. It gave continuity to her schedule and provided the confidence that results from making one’s best effort to look nice. It also caused her parents to chide her for wasting water and to expound on thrift. Nevertheless, the bathing habit remains her eccentricity. She considers water from the tap an essential. She luxuriates in hot water, whether hauled and heated on a woodstove or available via a simple turn of the faucet handle. Hot springs are an ultimate extravagance provided just for her by Mother Earth.

When Forest Bathing became the new trend and buzz word in 2016 (the idea of shinrin-yoku-a taking in of the forest atmosphere – had been around since the 80s in Japan) she took to it like a duck to water. To get out and take in the forest atmosphere, bask in the great outdoors, soak in the beauty; that too became an almost daily habit. And what a luxurious habit it is! One day a ponderosa forest, the next replete with aspen, a third day piñon-pine.

Forest bathing does not have to involve splashing about or getting wet in water, though it frequently does. The best days are those she hikes for miles and returns to a hot bath or shower. No substituting one for the other; she will have her bath and forest bathe too – every last day of her life if possible.

Her ultimate daydream includes a long hike followed by the almost delirious indulgence of a hot-springs dip surrounded by mountains and conifers. Throw in a piano by the fireside and a savory meal cooked by someone else and she will know she has died and gone to heaven. But that hasn’t happened yet. So, for the time being we’ll leave her with a daily hike and a clawfoot tub filled to the brim with Epson salts.

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life

It is Fall and She Wakes

September 13, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

She awoke yesterday with the distinct knowledge that it was fall, fall 2020; an end to the record setting heat and the beginning of joy and vitality for fall is her favorite season. Never mind the calendar says fall will not arrive for another eleven days. Her body, her mind, and especially her spirit knows it is fall. Her favorite season. The season of her bloom. Did she know it was coming? Of course. As regular as the herald of any season, she smelled it on the breeze one day in August and then it retreated, faded again into the obscurity of 90 degree temperatures in a mountain town of nearly seven thousand feet where homes have no air-conditioning because repeated days of summer heat are not expected. She heartily believes in global warming because that is what the earth does. It warms, it cools, more regular than present day clockwork, though each heave and undulation spans more eons than her lifetime.

It is fall and life is perfect. Perfect outdoor temperature for hiking any hour of the day without overheating or freezing. Perfect indoor temperature for baking. Perfect weather for pairing shorts with sweaters. Perfect time for scorched dreams and waning energy to resurrect and move forward. Genius simmers on the back burner. Dreams and schemes once withered in the summer heat are urgently planted like fall bulbs to take root under the snow. The promise of spring again seems a possibility.

It is fall and she has escaped so far the fires, the hurricanes, the murder hornets, homelessness, starvation, and covid19.

It is fall. She will squeeze every last drop – like cider from an apple – until the freeze of winter. And then she will cozy up by a fire and reminisce.

She wakes and it is fall.

Or, more accurately said:

it is fall and she wakes.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Holidays and Traditions, Home and Hearth, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being

Why We Weep at Weddings

August 30, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

We attended a wedding yesterday. Yes. We suspended our Saturday busyness and took baths in the vintage claw foot tub, dressed with care in garments chosen from the special events side of our closets –seldom used of late – and Zoomed in and attended the wedinar. It was a very early wedding for some of the guests. 9:00 AM Mountain Daylight time for those of us in Colorado. God forbid you woke on the west coast this morning and had to be washed and dressed and in attendance by 8:00 AM.

It probably seemed a late wedding for the principals who have known each other – known this was the one – for three years and who have been waiting, waiting for COVID19 to clear. Late or not, it was a beautiful wedding. 11:00 AM in Cambridge meant the bride looked fashionably appropriate in her street-length, flare-skirted, professionally tailored, white wedding dress and elbow length veil. The ceremony took place in a lovely, huge, Presbyterian church complete with pipe organ, vestments, linens and vessels of communion; and empty pews. Fortunately, both bride and groom are musically astute so they obligingly sang the congregational hymns. But most of all, the bride and groom are intelligent and wise. We loved them for their integrity. We applauded them for pulling this off in the midst of a socially distanced pandemic and in such a way that we could be invited and included- something that would not have been possible from a distance of 2,000 miles in more traditional times.

And we cried. Not because of Coronavirus and because these kids can’t have a regular wedding with hundreds in attendance. No. We cried for all the reasons guests usually cry at weddings. We cried because they are young and idealistic and have perfect plans for their lives. One of us is old and disillusioned and knows what too often happens to idealistic plans. So she wipes her tears and smiles and says in her heart, may theirs come to fruition! The other of us is still young and idealistic and listens to their vows with rapt attention and thinks, it finally happened for them. Will this ever finally happen for me? We listen to the bride’s parents extol her virtues. She is literary and loves to hike and camp. Sigh. She is a perfect woman. We weep. Like women of any age and any era we look over the groomsmen in Zoom thumbnails and try to decipher who is most eligible. In the plus column, we see that all have beards. Wonder of wonders, they are quoting C.S. Lewis in their wedding speeches. What riches! What intelligence! We have found our people! Briefly, we cry again for joy. Where have all the young men gone? We also see companions in the thumbnails; family members in the guestbook photo gallery. Ah, most of the wedding party have found their people and are surrounded by wives and toddlers. The best woman (aka sister of the groom) is planning her nuptials That is good! The world is unfolding as it should. And again, we weep.

Not one tear do we shed for social distance. We are happy to be invited and attend virtually. In no other way would it be possible to be present. We didn’t have to wait until cake was served. You can have your cake – and eat it too, and your popcorn or chips anytime you feel like it at a virtual wedding. You can run spontaneously to the kitchen for chips and juice to take communion with the un-crowd. I even answered a phone call from the other room.

So yes. It is August of 2020 and we went to a wedinar yesterday. We laughed. We were inspired and comforted. We wept. What makes you cry at weddings?

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life

Dress to meet the love of your life

August 22, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

You know the old adage: get up, dress up, show up?

Some time back I heard additional excellent advice along the same lines. One of those motivational, handsome, hip, spiffy, well-chiseled, broad-shouldered – but I digress. Anyway, one of those motivational, dress for success, guys advocated rising each morning and dressing as though you are going to meet the love of your life. Everyday. That seems a bit extreme to me. But I get the point. Most women apply makeup for special occasions – as do I.

So yes. I put on lipstick when I hike. I wear makeup in the Great Outdoors -mostly because my lipstick is a moisturizer and also sunscreen. When I am working – even the most casual of jobs-I dress up – I pay attention to what I wear. I have always recognized and followed good advice. But pandemic. Isolation. Living alone. Some things were neglected the second quarter of 2020.

Today I remembered. I bathed and groomed with care. I put on my makeup. I chose a favorite outfit. I’m now dressed to meet the love of my life – so I am convinced I’ll find the perfect kayak.

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty

A Spontaneous 12 Mile Hike

August 16, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

She had been in the wilderness for 22 days, so I rose quietly at six and let her sleep. I realize 22 days is not the standard 40 days and 40 nights of biblical proportions, but 22 days of backpacking and hauling 50 pounds of Forest Service gear in 11 and 13-mile jaunts is enough to exhaust the hardiest of aging millennials. So, after 22 days in the wilderness and three days back in the office, she had a scheduled day off. She is a great roommate and I wanted to return the favor and give her the day all to herself. Besides, I had technology projects to pursue, an online store to open.

Before starting any project, technical, literary, or household; it is advisable to take your anti-depressants. My drug of choice is hiking. These days of sweltering August heat – even at an elevation of 6500 feet –I must be on the trail by 8:00 am. Once again, I was delayed by framing a response to a virtual musical project of which I have been part. Challenging and exhilarating, but a delay nonetheless.

She was awake and enjoying a hearty repast at 8:36 when I sighed and said, “It’s hot already, but it’s now or never and I need a hike today.”

“If you can wait 15 minutes while I finish breakfast,” she said, “we can go up to Crater Lake. I cleared the trail there yesterday but I didn’t get to go on up and see the lake.”

I made no objection and asked no questions. Quickly, I swapped my in-town bottle sling for my daypack and added a lunch and jacket.

She gleefully pulled on climbing shorts and a tank top rather than regulation full- length uniform pants and long-sleeved shirt. The daypack she swung to her shoulder seemed feather-weight compared to the 60 pounds of gear plus Pulaski with which she exited the wilderness at the end of last week.

Yesterday, I didn’t make any progress on the website I am building. But I did swim in an alpine lake at 11,000 feet. I did complete a 12-mile-hike. I did engage in long conversations about the terrain and the great outdoors and contemporary issues. We did converse about plot line and character building and where I am going next with my writing. It was altogether a very satisfying day.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Emotional Health, Fiction is Truth, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Metaphor, Poetry and Prose, Write

Wherein Life is a Beach

August 2, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

Let me tell you a story; Let me spin you a yarn; Let me relate how my life has been going; And you can write back and share yours!

I’ve been patient and impatient; Happy and sad; But mostly my life has been fabulous; When I remember not to dwell on the bad.

My box of books finally arrived! Originally printed in 2009, The Pancake Cat was rereleased June 24, 2020 with an all new cover featuring the artwork of Andrea Shellabarger. Four new illustrations grace the inside chapters along with content updates.

Did I say released on June 24? Though the book has been available at Amazon, Barnes Noble and Target since that date – and now even Books A Million, Indie Bound, Powell’s, and Walmart – I did not hold an actual copy in my hands until yesterday, July 31, 2020. Thirty-seven days is the embodiment of line five of that little ditty above: I’ve been patient and impatient.

Patient and impatient I may have been, but I have not been idle. Oh no. During that time I have been working on a fresh new professional website. It’s been coming along swimmingly – and about as fast as running through knee deep water. But then what is life if you can’t feel like you are at the beach? We all like to float away now and then. Anyway, I was running through thigh deep water, spending hours and hours with Youtube tutorials and I added Woo Commerce and opened a web store complete with T-shirts and book bags and books. I have lots of experience selling T-shirts and books so it seemed like a good idea. And then, I fell flat on the beach and was immediately buried in sand and the tide came in and washed over me. The new amateur looking web store completely over wrote the three professional looking pages I had just given six weeks of my wonderful life in the mountains to establish.

I did the only sensible thing a woman in my position can do: I took a fast-thinking hike. In fact, I took several fast thinking hikes. I slept on it for a couple nights. I contemplated retail therapy – I believe a kayak is in my future. My good health and sanity demands I get on the water. And then I called my web host and retrieved the professional pages and dismissed the new experiment. We are not completely starting over. We only have to go back a few paces.

Meanwhile, I finished an eight-minute slideshow – complete with four old hymns piano tracked by myself- for my mother’s upcoming memorial service. And then, the instructor for the virtual choir class I am taking assigned me to re-record some tracks. Apparently I am supposed to sing doot doot doot as opposed to doo doot doot – or, heaven forbid, dooT dooT dooTT.

My Dad is wondering why I don’t come see him more often now that I am retired and COVID is keeping me from a steady job.

Actually, my life is pretty fabulous when I remember to eat right, sleep right, hike, make music and let it go. How about you?

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

What Massive Changes Time Has Wrought

July 30, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

Let me tell you how time flies – how things change really fast. You see; it seems like only yesterday I was singing with friends in a Sweet Adelines quartette. It’s been eight years. Four years ago I was playing in a band. Four years ago my mother was still driving and walking and she and dad came to an outdoor band concert. That same fall, they drove three and a half hours to share Thanksgiving dinner at my post in the Needles district of Canyonlands. That was after knee surgery for my Mom and she was recuperating nicely. I didn’t even go back for Christmas that year. Instead, I drove from Natural Bridges National Monument to Durango to spend a few days with my daughter. By the time another year rolled around, I was meeting my parents in Monticello Utah to deliver a mobility scooter to my mother. Three years ago Mom was still driving. And she could still drive well. Dad would back the car out of the garage, pull it up by the ramp and Mom would navigate down the ramp with walker or scooter and step into the car. Dad would then load the scooter on the rack to the rear of the car and they were off. 17 months ago Dad had hip replacement surgery and we realized at that time Mom could no longer drive or live alone. We had to nearly lift her into the car. She sometimes got stuck in the bathroom. She died 15 months later after having been dependent for a year and bedfast for two weeks. Just last year I was living and working in Page AZ. Just last year we had no suspicion of Coronavirus. Just one year ago my son purchased my childhood home from my parents and embarked on a remodeling project-completely upgrading the existing 55-year-old house and finishing the basement and garage. Just last Thanksgiving, I drove to Durango to share Thanksgiving with my daughter in a threadbare and minimally furnished apartment. Three months later I became the roommate in that apartment and was almost immediately solitary due to Coronavirus. During these past four months my mom passed. My daughter returned to our apartment after two months of care-taking for my Mom. I am singing in a vocal group again – albeit virtually – and our apartment is more than adequately furnished.
What massive changes time has wrought. Changes, not just in my life, but globally. We will host Mom’s memorial service in early August but we will host it virtually – likely with greater attendance on Facebook Live and Youtube Live than can be achieved in a socially distanced church building. But through it all-whether online or in person-music-lots and lots of music. Times have changed massively. Our enjoyment and dependence on music for entertainment and comfort has not changed – only the method of delivery.

Emotional Health, Family, Music and Theatre, Musical resolutions

Music knows no age or genre

July 18, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

I was working on recording a Father’s Day offering for my dad so I pounded away at the keyboard all morning trying to get the nuances of the old-fashioned gospel hymn just right. It must be relentlessly taxing on my roommate in such situations, I thought. After all, she is much younger than I, and an educated and trained musician in her own right.

Somewhat wryly I smiled, “Old church music! If they only knew; sounds like ragtime straight out of a barroom, doesn’t it?”

“It’s perfect,” she said, surprising me with her reply. I had forgotten she is an anthropologist. “It was upbeat, stylish, action-packed, bouncy, full of energy – just what every generation wants from their music.”

True music is ageless and knows no genre. It is us – the linear generations- that place restrictions and prejudices; we who say, “that’s folk, that’s classical, that’s religious, I don’t do old stuff.” Ridiculous! Music always and forever will be an outcropping of the soul. It may be a mathematical formula or a stream of consciousness; an opera or a rap; but first and foremost it is spiritual – an outward expression of what is within.

Meanwhile, I continue to chip away at a larger project: Mom’s memorial service. We want to do it right. It was she from whom we got the music. It needs to be upbeat, stylish, full of energy. And of course, it will be very mid-century Christian. I debated aloud about assigning my younger son a part. All my children are musicians but the youngest is the one who parleys in the hardened vocabulary and angst of his generation on punk stages and in dusky bars four nights a week. Would he stoop to old-fashioned gospel? Sadly, I was projecting the embarrassment and rebellion of my own young adult years on him.

“Phil is not like that,” she said. He is not a snob. He loves Music. “Music is music with him.” Music is an outward expression of what is within. There is an ocean of love in that young man – whether pain or joy.

How fortunate we are – every one of us in this family – to have music as the go to pressure valve – the way to express what is really inside – to say what can’t be put in words.

What do you need to say through music today? What do you need to hear?

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Metaphor, Music and Theatre, Musical resolutions, Uncategorized

The Naked Vocalist, aka Grandma Godiva

June 28, 2020 Cherry 2 Comments

She took a class. Because she is a life-long learner. Originally, she wanted to learn how to record and edit virtual choir. It seemed like a logical next step for one who has sung in choirs, worked in studios, directed voices young and old, recorded original song demos and cut rehearsal tracks. Like the model who becomes the photographer or the ingenué actress turned aging producer, it was the next step. She followed up. Signed up. There was no class available for the engineering of the thing. But participation often lays the groundwork of understanding, so she was game.
What you must know is, she is not a diva. She is not one of those luscious voiced, coloratura soloist girls. No, this is the girl who prides herself on being a most excellent second fiddle. She loves to sing harmony, and she is actually very good at it. She needs others. She can be the backbone, the support, and keep 40 other voices on pitch if necessary – but she rarely stands alone. She loves singing shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow with other vocalists. She loves leaning in and hearing the harmonies and blend. But pandemics require distance. And pandemics are also great incubators for virtual choirs.

She reads notes. She has paid her dues, honed her skills, and gently exercised her voice back to what it used to be before 60 – or so she thinks. Like the good girl she has always been, she does her homework. But this week’s homework was to record an audio cut, raw, straight, with no effects – just her part – one voice out of eight, naked, exposed.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s not a microphone or smart phone virgin. It’s not like she has never sung before. But always with her clothes on, so to speak. In fact, the thing she loves about the recording studio is the way her voice sounds when the engineer works with it. She can land a spot-on tone, and then she lets the engineer dress it.

So there she was, Grandma Godiva (her long, long hair, falling down about her knees), her voice perfectly naked, exposed for the world to hear. The engineer will gild the lily later. Attach and press send was the most humbling thing she has done in a long time. Truth be known, she’s always been a little insecure about the things she loves most.

Naked. That’s pretty much how it feels to be single sometimes, or standing alone – the only one raising a voice about any given issue. So here’s to you, all you naked vocalists. Be strong. Be brave. I don’t care if you are 30 and single or 65 and alone. Dare Greatly. Don’t quit on your music – whatever it is that makes your heart sing.

Sometimes you’ve got to go it alone – naked. And pandemic is one of those times.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being, Work

The Grateful Victim

June 21, 2020 Cherry 1 Comment

It was something of a miracle to wake for the ninety-sixth time with a feeling of well-being. Make no mistake; she had moments of sadness and loss – bereavement even; periods of anger and denial. But she soldiered through them like a normal person. Treated them like an acceptable result of life and death. Gone were the days of abject despond and paralyzing fear that used to seize her for no reason when everything was going well. Gone the constant feeling of victimization even in the midst of the best of times. These days gratitude is her trademark. Gratitude on waking. Gratitude on drifting off to sleep – solidly. She abides in Peace. And Love. And Creativity. She knows herself to be a victim of only one thing. She is a victim of God’s perfect timing. Yes. A victim of the unfolding of the Universe. This is not the way she chose for it to go. Her choices were snatched from her hands. All her perfect plans – and she laid many with her God-given analytical brain – were treated as nothing. She is now living in Colorado – the place she longed to be. But she didn’t get here with the pomp and circumstance and grace she intended. She was unceremoniously thrust out of hot Arizona and tossed into Durango without warning on the cusp of COVID-19. Did I say without grace? By all appearances it was not a graceful landing – it was more of an ignominious heap. But it was definitely Grace! Yes. She is a recipient of God’s perfect timing. Orchestrated by a Universe in which she is a miniscule particle. Quarantined in the mountains. Forced to not go to work for eight weeks – to not even sip from the bottle of workaholism. Forced to write and read and make music. Required to engage in no activity save those that were exactly what her soul needed. Prohibited from shopping save for health and nourishment. Absolved of any pressure to socialize the introvert within. Add to that, her mother was dying. She had known it for many months. It was no unnatural or sudden shock. The death of an aging loved one is as expected as paying taxes. These global circumstances, so negative to the entire world, again positioned her in proximity to be there the moment restrictions eased and her mother attained final peace. And for that she is eternally grateful.

There are years, years we live through without relief, where nothing happens for us. We are caught in the overwhelming mud of the flood. Bogged down in the Slough of Despond. We are not absolved from the responsibility of our own self-care nor, ironically, of the admonition to give thanks in everything. But let us not fail to acknowledge and be grateful for the miraculous when God steps in and victimizes us with a perfect plan. You can trust the Universe. Rest in that. And be grateful.

Cherry Odelberg