Category Archives: Relationships

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Holidays and Traditions, Metaphor, Relationships, Uncategorized, Write

All I Want For Christmas

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All I want for Christmas

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth. Well, actually, I got that wish way back in 1963 when I exited third grade. However, time has run its course and I did have all my front teeth filled and sheathed in early 2020. It was one of the gifts I gave myself this year.

All I want for Christmas is you? Frankly, my dear, having you under the Christmas tree would only complicate things. It has been a wonderful year of innovation and self-actualization. Not like the year I hung the mistletoe in a prominent arch and waited – for two years – without result. In that case, the gift I tried to give was not reciprocated. I’ve learned to live without kisses – just as many have learned to live without hugs this year.

Mostly, my grown up Christmas wish list is still intact.

No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end…This is my grownup Christmas list – and I wish it particularly for the families and friendships that have been damaged and distanced in this vicious and heinous election year. It is not worth it, friends. In the end you alone cannot control the outcome of world events by your rhetoric. But you can make it your business to love your mother, your father, your sister, your brother; to love your neighbor as yourself – and to never, never, give up on your children.

What do I want for Christmas? In the course of the year I have provided for myself a washer, a dryer, bass amp, power drill and driver, a down sleeping bag, down vests, smart wool socks, a kayak, and some smart wool underwear. Once I get waterproof winter hiking boots I will be better equipped than ever before to get outside and keep myself healthy; physically, mentally, emotionally and especially spiritually. 

Even though I don’t need my two front teeth or someone or something wrapped and under the tree; I’ve been thinking a lot about gifts this December. 

A few years back I was traveling with my daughter in the Rocky Mountains. Snow still lay on the ground so it was probably April, my typical vacation time. We parked at the lovely rock chapel of Saint Malo Retreat. We tried the door. It was unlocked. Empty chapel. Available piano. I sat and played a chorus; Ode to Joy. Other tourists passed in and out. A mother and nine-year-old daughter stood behind me and watched. “How does she do that?” whispered the daughter. “Darling, it is a gift,” replied the mother. This simplistic answer irked my daughter who had just completed college with a minor in music. It niggles in the back of my mind this Christmas season as I contemplate gifts and all I want for Christmas. 

A Gift takes you nowhere unless you receive it, open it up, and use it. The drill I bought myself in October? If I leave it in the tool bag on the shelf in the laundry room, it does nothing. I have to get it out, insert a drill bit or driver tip, practice, actually apply it to the antique furniture it was bought to bolster. The genetic gift of a good ear and predisposition for music is nothing without application and practice. The unquenchable urge to write – to be heard – is nothing but a constant emotional battle for me if I attempt to squelch it due to fear or embarrassment. 

This year I gave myself permission to be about my bucket list with full confidence. My time on earth grows short. The ghosts of Christmas past may try to haunt me, yet I will align myself with Christmas present! I will climb every mountain. I will paddle every lake and stream. I will sing and make music on eighty-eight keys and six strings and four strings. I will write the books that have simmered on the back burner for three decades. I will find my voice and be heard. How about you? What do you want for Christmas?

The Cemetery Wives, by Cherry Odelberg. Full cover art for The Cemetery Wives, created by Courtney V. Harris – available as an ebook on Amazon
The Pancake Cat by Cherry Odelberg, Cover art by Andrea Shellabarger, Available to order wherever books are sold
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

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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?

IMG-5714CherryAndreaFrederickwedding

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

The Grateful Victim

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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.IMG_4863skysteps

Family, Health and Long Life, Holidays and Traditions, HOME, Relationships

Mother’s Day 2020

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Saturday, I returned from a 24-hour trip to Grand Junction in which I had seen my 86-year-old mother finally pain -free and at peace. I was exhausted. I could hear my daughter talking to our neighbors in the back yard. I snuck into my bedroom, closed the door and crawled onto the bed. A couple minutes later came a knock at my door, “Mom? Can I just say hi!” It was my youngest son whom I have not seen for 16 months. Unbeknownst to me, the kids had been planning this surprise before I got the call that Mom was in her final hours. So grateful for the gift of perfect timing. I got to see my oldest son on Saturday and enjoy a hike and brunch with my younger two children on Sunday. And I rest in the knowledge that my mother is not sorry at all to be released from this life.

One of my friends, who knows what it is to lose a parent, called it “bittersweet.” Indeed, that is the essence of life. But the sweet lasts. Hang on to that!

Cherry, Andrea, Philip on Mother's Day 2020
Cherry, Andrea, Philip on Mother’s Day 2020

Kevin (Eldest Son) and Cherry, March 2020
Kevin (Eldest Son) and Cherry, March 2020

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Leadership, Poetry and Prose, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being

And you thought they were cowering at home

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And you thought they were cowering at home?

But she was writing a book that will change the world;

Making music to sooth troubled hearts;

Building her body in preparation for acts of heroism;

Nurturing young minds formerly neglected in the headlong rush for survival;

Cowering at home?

He was repairing primary relationships;

Going solo to a lab to perfect a cure;

Relearning to write with paper and quill and penmanship;

Forging a pen mightier than a sword;

Reading and writing to defeat the dark enemies in his mind;

Communicating across oceans with the latest in technology;

Cowering at home?

She was centering her mind on what really matters;

Retrieving forgotten childhood relationships;

Apart physically but together in mission;

Cower? Who do you know that is cowering?

She’ll bring them fabric and elastic and instructions to manufacture masks;

Cowering was the farthest thing from her mind

It matters not if it was she or he or me;

Cower? They don’t cower. They seize the day.

 

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Metaphor, Relationships

How Deep Is Your Love: COVID19 and social distancing

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We visit people out of love. We party, we hang out, we have a girls (or guys) night out. We socialize out of love – or at least a strong feeling of like. We fall in love and say such things as, “I just can’t live without you!” We experience the drive and magnetism of lust and mistake it for love. But have you ever loved someone enough to stay away out of love? Loved them enough to resist the urge to be with them? Social distancing is nothing new. Many are experiencing it right now because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus = isolation, no hugs and kisses – particularly of those you love best; your grandkids; your grandparents. It is not easy. It means people die alone – or with masks between them-unable to see the last lingering smile of a loved one. Some are torn between two loves of equal claim. Do you visit your vulnerable, quarantined loved one at the risk of bringing the virus back home and shedding it on your school-aged kids? Did you put your vulnerable, quarantined elderlies at risk when you visited them after being in the outside world? Grandma, when you said, “Let them hug me, I’m not afraid to get their germs!” Did you stop to think you might be transferring germs to them? Individualists, do you claim it as your right to go anywhere you wish? Or do you stay away out of love? Empathic Souls, do you defy the social distancing laws currently in place in order to see your loved ones so you can feel better?

Did you stop to think that staying away is the ultimate loving thing you can do?

Social distancing is nothing new. Nor is it a new and sinister conspiracy when government issues temporary social distancing protocol. Consider history: The Spanish flu is notable for several parallels to COVID19. In some cities everyone was required to wear masks. Mask-wearing was encouraged as a fashion statement.

Tuberculosis has rules requiring isolation. Drastic measures are taken when one in every seven people dies. So also in the time of Cholera when removing a community pump handle cut off access to the contaminated water supply. Who would ever think cutting off the water supply was a loving thing to do? Now what kind of a violation of our rights is that? Yet it saved lives. Instructions for the Black Plague have been handily reduced to three words in latin: cito, longe, tarde with the intended message being: leave quickly, go far away and come back slowly.

Staying away and distancing even when you love someone deeply is not a new idea. Examples and tropes abound in literature, history, culture. And yes, it hurts – tears at the very heart of you! Sometimes distance is the only thing that keeps us from causing further hurt or entanglement. Here are some situations to consider:

Leprosy: I grew up on a diet of Third World missionary stories. One that always impressed me was the story of a man who got leprosy. Though deeply in love with his young wife, he divorced her to distance her – to keep her well. She, in turn, went away; finished her medical degree and returned to the leper colony. Thank you healthcare workers!

Grown Child Co-dependence: If not the parents, then the child must distance. Otherwise, unhealthy entanglement and stunting occurs. I know you love me, but do you love me enough to let me individuate and be my own person?

My Best Friend’s Wedding: When you are admirably well-matched with a friend but the two of you know it would be disastrous to wed and your presence in the picture makes it impossible for your friend, business partner, office mate, dancing partner, or project partner, to develop a full romantic relationship with anyone else.

Rocketman: in the 2019 movie, Elton John’s co-songwriter says, “I love you Man, but not in that way.” Dating is a fun activity; coffee an important ritual; intelligent conversation a thing to covet. I have known more than one man or woman in just such a fulfilling cerebral relationship who saw the other growing more serious and- with heartfelt honesty-had to say, “I love you, but not in that way.”

The Lady or the Tiger: Do you love your lover enough to let him or her go in order to save their life? Or are you more like Romeo and Juliet? Tragic for the both of you.

Why do we stay away when we love?

Because sometimes staying away is the ultimate loving thing we can do.

How Deep is Your Love (Bee Gees 1977)

 

co-dependence, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Relationships, Travel, Uncategorized

WANTED: Hiking Buddy

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Wanted: Hiking Buddy
Generally – as is commonly repeated – I savor silence. I embrace solitude. A walk is a meditation. I almost prefer to hike alone.
Generally, I follow the thinking of a young female ranger who once pointed out to me, “Cherry, I have found there are places I will never get to go if I wait until someone can go with me.” And so it happens that I travel alone. I go to movies alone. I take myself out to dinner table for one. I kayak alone. I spontaneously lace on my hiking boots and head out my front door – or I park the Subaru at a likely trailhead and commence exploring. Still, I am a cautious being; and, I like to think, wise. I long to touch the Colorado River – dip my toes in- everywhere I can – all the way from Lulu City Colorado to the backwash of the Salton Sea and the Gulf of California. When I swim in Lake Powell, I think of it as dipping my toes in the Colorado River. Soon after my arrival in Northern Arizona, I learned of Cathedral Wash, a moderate hike of about 4 miles beginning in Glen Canyon National Recreation area and ending on the Colorado River about two and a half river miles downstream from the Paria Riffle. One day I parked my car and headed down the wash. It was a negotiable route until I reached a pour off. The drop was only five feet or so – easy going down, but what of the return trip? I needed a hiking buddy-not a tall one- just someone to lean on-someone to boost – someone to pull. Yesterday I departed from my flat on foot. Half a mile later I was in a gray sandstone slot canyon that stretches from Highway 89 down to Wahweap Bay. Coming from the neighborhood, I accessed the wash at mid-point, hiked toward the bay until I hit a 25-foot drop off. Rather than find a route around, I hiked back toward Highway 89 to ascertain landmarks for the beginning of the route. This route is well known to a group known as The Happy Hikers, and multiple footprints were evident in the bottom of the canyon. As I progressed up the wash, I came to a place where the slot narrowed, where I climbed into a sort of lemon squeezer, no footpath on the bottom so butt scooting became necessary. There was an obstruction. There was light on the other side. Could I cross over? Yes. Should I cross over? Probably not. If only I had a hiking buddy. Unfamiliar with the route, I did not know what came next and I might soon have to reverse the route. Already the rock I had moved to climb into the lemon squeezer had crumbled, being only of mudstone. I had passed multiple small rock falls in the canyon. I backtracked and caught the first available steep climb out of the canyon and followed a coyote trail along the rim, reconnoitering as I went. Yes, the butt scoot would have been possible, but to no avail. Immediately thereafter were two twenty-foot pour offs to circumvent. As it turns out, I made the right decisions. In addition, I have recently discovered a route around the pour off in Cathedral Wash. Maybe I don’t need a hiking buddy after all? But then again, it has been fun going longer distances with the Martys and Lindas and Johannas and Janices in my life. Solitude is fine, but society has its merits. The best things in life are shared. Hiking Buddy wanted!

IMG-4279

(Image is at nine o’clock, tools are obstinate)

Character, Emotional Health, Fiction is Truth, Goals and Dreams, Relationships

How to Set New Year’s Goals That Work

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How to Set New Year’s Goals That Work

You should do it, niggled the inner voice as her eyes scanned the title of the article. Set some goals. It was a voice she had learned to trust. You want to be successful. You want to move to the next level. You know goals help your focus, your self-esteem, your decision making. Think it through. Do it. “I will,” she said. “But first, I want to ask the God of the Universe some questions. There is something I have been pondering for quite awhile and I need an omniscient answer. The answer will have a bearing on the goals I set.” So. Ask your all-knowing oracle already, but make it snappy. The new year is advancing. “I’m a little bit fearful of the answer,” she said. “Because, no matter the answer, yes or no, it will disturb my comfort and my plans.” Maybe I should just go on not knowing, not asking and not setting any goals – you know-take life as it comes and kind of putter around at enjoyable things I like to do. Maybe something good will happen by accident. After all, that’s been my habit for more years than not and I don’t want to ruffle the waters or risk failure by aspiring to something unachievable. “Pull the tooth!” the voice fairly shouted. For goodness sakes, the subject came up, you didn’t court it, you were fine in your resignation, you merely read a best-selling book in which the main character said, “Someday you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you’re the only person in the room.” Go ahead. Ask the question of the Universe. Do it.

The question

“Does such a man exist?” she asked. Let me restate the question,“ Is it possible there is such a man who thinks you are the only woman in the room? – for a lifetime?” “What?” squeaked the voice. “Romantic relationship is your New Year’s resolution?” “No,” she said. “Relationship takes two. Realistic goals are achievements that depend only on me. I cannot control another person. But if there is such a male, of course, I want one. Doesn’t every woman? I have always wanted one. In that case, a realistic goal would be to get out and meet more people. But that is not why I asked the question. An affirmative answer only begs a second question: What have I been doing wrong all these years? How do I fix me? Heal me? Frankly, that sounds like a lot of work. Yet, I must know the answer. But fixing me is not the goal. That is not why I asked the question.” “Then why did you ask the question?” queried the voice. “I am a writer of fiction,” she said. “But I will not write what is not truth.” Maybe all those stories I love to read with near perfect men or men who finally see the light and change are just wishful thinking, romances written by women. As a writer, I will not allow myself to perpetrate false expectations or false hope. If the answer is no; no there are no men capable of thinking you are the only woman in the room. “What then, do I have to write?” she asked. Yea or nay, either way, I must be able to write a woman who grows, who keeps on living, who knows herself, who overcomes obstacles and changes for the better, who keeps on loving – maybe even a woman who sets and achieves realistic goals.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Relationships, Uncategorized

An abandoned house and a kept house – the tale of two households

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She lives in an abandoned house and spends her days away, searching for jobs, and her nights shivering under extra comforters because there is no warmth in an abandoned house. Another person sleeps there too, and is employed. But still, whether the occupants are at home or at work the house is abandoned, for you see, something that would make that house a home is missing. No one fills the role of keeper of the house. There are two who huddle there. It would seem they could come up with an understanding of how to make that house a safe haven or even a comfortable temporary harbor. But plans are most successful when everyone concerned is on board. A team of one becomes exhausted without reciprocity from the other.

Meanwhile, in the same state, two other unrelated and unattached people occupy a large house. They both work and they both travel frequently. The house is often empty of people – but never abandoned. Both people are housekeepers. Broken things get fixed. Needs of the house are addressed as a means of meeting the needs of people. Both principal occupants are agreed that a stitch in time saves nine and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Both the principal occupants understand the value of beauty and cleanliness in making a house a place of refuge, renewal and restoration for all who lodge there. The house is a place of welcome for all who pass through, whether for tea, dinner, or a temporary bed.

All four of the persons living in the two households share a philosophy in common: people are more important than things. All four verbally champion: “Use things, love people.” (The polar opposite, of course, is to use people and love things.) Yet, in an attempt to emphasize loving, some ignore or neglect material things. Notice how the two in the second household operate: Needs of the house are addressed as a means of meeting the needs of people. How much more effective and efficient it is to use things to love people!