Throwback Music Memories

Something of a music aficionado/savant, my husband remembers hearing rock songs on the radio as early as age 6. I didn’t lose my musical virginity until about age 11, with the simultaneous purchase of the Journey “Escape” and Foreigner “4” albums. Today you can’t turn on the radio (AM/FM or Sirius) – at least in the Phoenix area – without being inundated with Journey, particularly “Don’t Stop Believing.” That song has moved from one of my lifetime favorites to my list of “I’d Be Happy to Never Hear It Again.”

John and I don’t watch a lot of network TV, but we have tuned in to the music contest shows, most notably The Voice, over the years since we’ve been together. I don’t have the technical music terms to describe why I like or don’t like particular songs or performances, but when I say “It’s too pointy” or “She really sounded off tonight,” John knows exactly what I mean and tells me I have a good ear for a non-musician.

The other night, The Voice featured a guest performance by Michael Bublé. He has a nice enough voice – God bless him and the people who enjoy him – but after the first verse, I think I might have been snoring. That old crooner style is the some of the most boring music I’ve ever heard. I’m no fan of hip-hop, but I’d take it any day over Bublé, Harry Connick, Jr., and even Seth McFarlane’s attempt to mimic Sinatra. Just days prior, I’d spent the weekend listening to a host of mostly local rock bands at an annual arts festival. (I snoozed through the Phoenix Ukulele Club’s version of “Frosty the Snowman” and other traditional carols.) The highlight for me was a punk version of the Christmas classic, “Feliz Navidad.”

This got me to wondering how much of my music taste is inherent – and how much of it was influenced by the happenstance of the music I was exposed to. I grew up in the ’80s when “alternative rock” was still a relatively new concept, and to this day I still prefer UK artists like U2, Sting, New Order, the Cranberries, and the Cure over almost any other kind of music. But maybe if I’d grown up in the ’40s, I’d have quite enjoyed that crooner stuff I find so distasteful today. Usually able to tune out commercials, I noticed yesterday that a particular investment bank is using a song from my youth in its newest TV spots – “One Thing Leads to Another,” by The Fixx – which means they’re definitely targeting people in my age range, and it’s working.

We went out to breakfast yesterday for my husband’s birthday, and as we were pulling into the driveway on our return, I heard the first few bars of one of my favorite ’80s songs, “Melt with You,” by Modern English. John turned the engine off and the music quickly died. “Awwww,” I whined, quietly.

“What?” he asked, concerned.

“It was ‘Melt with You.’ One of my favorites.”

“Well, I’m sure with the push of a button or two, you can hear it momentarily in the comfort of the house,” he chirped. “It’s not like you have to sit around with your cassette player ready, just waiting for it to come on. Kids Eric’s age would never believe what we used to do to get our music.”

I laughed so hard at that memory. If you’re older than, say, 45 and you grew up in an American city, you can probably relate. Fortunately, every radio station had DJs back then, and the good ones would announce the songs they planned to play next, so you’d have time to get your blank tape situated in the cassette deck, finger poised to press the RECORD button. Even so, every mix tape inevitably had a song that was missing the first bars or one with the idiot DJ talking over the music. Still, it was cheaper and more convenient that getting yourself to the record store and plunking down $7 or $8 for a cassette that held an album’s worth of music when all you wanted was the hit single.

I know nothing of my son’s taste in music. I feel like those old people we used to see in comic strips and sitcoms – the ones who complain about the music tastes of “those youngsters.” Here’s a screenshot of the MUSIC tab from Eric’s Facebook page.

Seriously, I’ve never heard of any of them. I know his dad and I share a preference for the Coffeehouse acoustic station on Sirius – and Eric makes fun of it every time the two of them drive together. One thing is sure: music tastes and formats change. I’m still grateful every day for being married to an incredibly talented musician who constantly brings music and song into our house – especially since we’re pretty much on the same page in terms of what we like.

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Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, and consultant who coaches other authors to make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who recently graduated from college and began his engineering career. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about the first book from her brand new publishing company, Panoply Publishing.

I Declare This Season of Celebration Officially Open

It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted. Haven’t forgotten you, little blog – and dear readers, whoever and wherever you may be. But I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately. Procrastination is its manifestation – the challenge is that it disguises itself as crocheting. What that means is that I can – and do – rationalize the procrastination by telling myself that I’m not wasting time because I’m creating something beautiful. In most cases, this is true. I’m actually a pretty talented crocheter. The problem is that I’m not creating the things I feel I’m really supposed to be creating. Crocheting – regardless of how beautiful the resulting item – is not the best use of my time right now.

Another thing I’ve been doing a lot of is playing a word game on my phone, even as I am aware of the ridiculously addictive nature of screens. Who knows what kinds of subliminal messaging I’m allowing my brain to receive as strive to make as many words as I can out of this?

Again, I tell myself I’m doing something useful by building my vocabulary and stimulating my brain – neither of which is untrue. But I’ve reached and surpassed Level 700. I won’t calculate how many minutes I spent getting there, as that would just depress me further and could actually result in my climbing under the covers and staying there for a day or two.

So I’m not sure it’s a holiday funk, because it feels like it’s been going on a lot longer than that. I am certain that some of it is grief – it’s going on three years, but Corina’s absence can still be such a difficult thing to reconcile. She was never much for the holidays, but it’s the famliest of family times, and our family has shrunk so much over these last four years. Now it’s just John, his stepmom, and I.

I still delight in the time I got to spend with Eric and his parents this past summer. We talked during that visit of his coming – with his best friend and Meaghan – to Phoenix in January for the big annual golf tournament. They were all so excited. Clock’s a ticking, though, and I haven’t heard anything further about those plans. The grown-up thing to do would be to call or text him and ask him directly if he’s still planning to come. But the hesitant, tippy-toe birthmom part of me fears the answer is no, and since I’d rather not know that just yet, I keep on waiting – ahem, procrastinating – to make that call or send that text message.

I was just re-reading a prior post where I mentioned The Grief Recovery Handbook. A friend gifted me another copy last week. It still sits in the canvas grocery bag in which I brought it home, on the dining room chair where I plopped it when I came in from that meeting. But I’m starting to feel that this funk – or grief – has stolen enough of my time and productivity and fitness and emotions. I probably need to crack the spine on that book and read it. It’s our first Christmas in our new house, and John and I have commented many times how blessed we are and how much we love our home. So as of right now, I publicly declare this season of celebration open. If grief again shows her head, I will welcome her, comfort her for the moment, and then politely ask her to take her leave. What we resist persists – but that doesn’t mean I need to coddle or wallow in the muck.

I was reminded earlier today that Christmas lights have cheered me since I was a tiny girl – so I guess it’s time to boil up some hot cocoa, load Pandora’s Rockin’ Holidays Radio on the car stereo, and hit the road. Time to do some holiday self-care.

Life – Are You Lovin’ Every Minute of It?

Life – Are You Lovin’ Every Minute of It or Counting Off the Days as Another One Bites the Dust?

I remember precisely the moment it happened. It felt like such a grown-up awareness: you get a lot more out of life if you live in the present moment than if you’re constantly looking forward to the next exciting – or not necessarily all that exciting – thing. I was about 12, on vacation with my family to visit my dad’s brother in Toronto. We were four or five days into a week-long trip, and I thought to myself, Only two more days of vacation. The vacation wasn’t even over yet, and there I was, mourning the end of it instead of enjoying the remaining days to their fullest.

That epiphany was one of those life-altering wake-up calls. I decided in that moment that I was never again going to fritter away my present by spending time focused on my imagined future – or pining for a fantasy past. It wasn’t long before I started noticing how many people cross off the days on their calendars; this seemed strangely macabre to me, as if they were crossing off each day of their lives. “And another one gone, and another one gone. Another one bites the dust.”

Sometime in the last year, my friend and mentor Blaine Oelkers introduced me to a concept pioneered by Jerry Seinfeld. Early in his comedy career, Seinfeld set a goal for himself to write a joke a day – and marked each day’s joke on his calendar with a big red X. He saw the chain of X’s grow, and it became a mission: “Don’t break the chain!” Before he knew it, he’d written a joke a day for an entire year. In Seinfeld’s case, the X’s were denoting progress. Even so, when I’ve attempted to implement the Don’t Break the Chain process, I used happy face stickers or some incentive other than making X’s on the calendar. Just a personal preference, I suppose.

The night before last, I went out to dinner with some friends, even though I was leaving for New Jersey the next morning (yesterday) at 6 a.m. It wasn’t until I was driving home from dinner that it hit me that the trip to celebrate my son’s college graduation – this day I’d been imagining on and off for years – was finally here. And then I began to get excited for the trip. This is coming from a gal who once upon a time could not even get to sleep on Christmas Eve night because she was too excited anticipating Santa’s visit. I used to get so amped up for upcoming events, and then the letdown after they’d passed would be equally enormous.

People still ask me, “Are you excited about __________________?”

“Not yet,” is my standard reply, unless the thing they’re asking about is less than a day or two away. Yesterday I went through the lovely TSA experience, incident free, bought and ate a bagel, boarded the plane. The plane had taken off and we were in that steep incline as we climbed to cruising altitude before I realized, Wow! I’ll be there in a few hours. This time tomorrow I’ll be waking up in New Jersey! It was just one more life event – not a momentous occasion. This is not to say I’m opposed to having big emotions in proportion to the celebration or occasion. I’m just noticing that the more I focus on the present moment, I the more time I seem to spend in the joyful emotional middle ground, the pendulum swinging neither to breathtaking highs nor cataclysmic lows.

This is a combined trip for me – both business and pleasure. While I’ve got some concrete plans, I’m also remaining flexible. Things change. Plans sometimes go sideways. I’m on my own this trip, and I was surprised to feel my stomach clench up yesterday at the thought of riding the NYC subway by myself. I used to work there, take the subway regularly, and ride the PATH train (between NY and NJ) every weekday! But I’ve become a Phoenix girl again – now quite used to the slower pace and decreased intensity of day-to-day life. Rather than steel myself for the onslaught that New York can be, I’ve decided to go the opposite direction and slow down even more. Breathe deeply. Take time to meditate and get in my planks for the 30-Day Plank Challenge. Walk slowly. Observe. Notice things I’ve never noticed about the City and northern New Jersey. Relish every moment of this trip, whether it’s the graduation party, a meal with my son, or time wandering on my own.

I like to think of it as living even more in the moment. My goal is to carry this renewed commitment back into my regular life when I get home. Only time will tell how successful I am…

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Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, and consultant who coaches other authors to make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.

Will You Party with the Grief or Choose to Be Happy?

I get that I’ve had a near-fairytale experience, as far as my son’s adoption has gone. Kathy wished me Happy MOTHER’s Day on Facebook – emphasizing the word “mother,” which I am blessed to receive as her acceptance of me simply as Eric’s Other Mother. None of the competition, aggression, anger, resentment, antagonism, or other low-vibration feelings that unfortunately so often seem to be a part of the birthmom/adoptive mom relationship – whether they are acknowledged or not.

I get that I don’t have the anger, angst, overwhelming sadness, guilt, anguish, or so many other negative emotions tied up in my feelings about Eric or any aspect of the adoption. OK – I was a little irritated not to hear from him for my birthday (a little over a week ago), but I did get a Happy Mother’s Day text from him that made me smile. Once upon a time, such a text would have made my week. Now, perhaps I’ve become complacent, because while I was grateful for it, it didn’t stop me in my tracks, make my eyes well up, or even really give me pause. Cool. He remembered. And then I moved on with my day. Or maybe it’s because I know I’ll be seeing him in just a few days, as I fly back to New Jersey for the party to celebrate his graduation from Northeastern University. Funny how when I lived out there, so many of my vacations seemed to be coming back here, to Arizona. This will be my second trip back to New Jersey in five months – so we’re in Opposite Land now. Point is – maybe it’s easy for me to be so preachy about the perils of holding on to all of those negative emotions because things have gone so well for me within the adoption space.

That said, I’m also generally not an overly emotional person. My sister’s death hit me harder than anything in my life – including the adoption. But it didn’t cause me to curl up in a ball or want to stop living. When we’ve lost pets, my husband’s grieved for many days. I tend to be OK a bit sooner than he does. We’re all made differently – and what I know about grief is that there’s no right or wrong way to do it. Everyone’s timeline is different. But I’ve been reading a few posts from birthmothers on this Facebook support group, and most of them are so disheartening. I have a difficult time relating to these women who are so beside themselves about Mother’s Day. I empathize, but I cannot relate to their feelings of inadequacy or anger or isolation because of a holiday made up by the greeting card, candy, and flower industries.

The description for the group reads, in part:

This is meant to be an UPLIFTING and SUPPORT group. Any down talking, hate, or trying to project your guilt onto others will not be tolerated.

But what it seems to be is a place to seek collaborators in misery. Or so I was thinking, perched ever so haughtily on my high horse as I considered removing myself from the group. And then I read two posts that broke my heart. One was from a birthmom who’s had regular contact with her daughter, now 6, since the little girl was placed at birth. However, the daughter is having trouble in school, and all evidence points to emotional upset about the adoption, as it seems difficult for her to process her birthmom’s place in her life. So the adoptive parents have decided to sever the contact … “for the time being.” Yeah – that one knocked me soundly off my lofty perch of self-righteousness, because I have no idea what I’d do or how I would feel in her position. I’m not a terribly emotional person, but I welled up as I read my poem “The Birthmother You Know” for our virtual get-together on Birthmothers Day this past Saturday. I couldn’t even tell you why I was emotional – given the generally positive experience I mentioned above. Somewhere, deep inside I suppose, I was still acknowledging the loss. So if Kathy and Bruce had decided, when Eric was 6, to stop sending photos and letters, that probably would have been torturous.

The other gut-wrenching post was from a woman whose daughter is now 12. The woman’s uncle was the girl’s adoptive father – and he passed away from cancer yesterday. The little girl came home from school and could not wake him up. Oh my god! That birthmom is in anguish, not only to have lost her uncle, but to know what a terrible loss her daughter is experiencing – complicated by the fact that she was the one who discovered his lifeless body. So sometimes there’s just loss – and the only answer is grief and tears and sadness. And this group offers these ladies a virtual hug whenever they need it. A place to come and vent. To cry. And, I very much hope, to laugh and share the good moments, too.

I was wondering, as I pondered writing this post, how many of those overwhelming negative feelings – the anger, guilt, shame, blame, and unending grief – come out of a sense of unworthiness. How many of those negative, super-disempowering emotions do we hold onto because we’ve simply convinced ourselves that we don’t deserve to be happy, that we don’t deserve to laugh and experience joy? Those are lies we tell ourselves, though. And birthmoms have a special reason to lie to themselves about their worthiness that most other people don’t have. They can opt for joy and celebrate the fact that they chose life for their children – or they can lay down and party with the grief every day and every night.

Every birthmom – every human – deserves laughter and joy and love and the free feeling of simply being at peace in the world. But those feelings – even for that birthmom who’s temporarily lost contact with her daughter and the one whose uncle just died – are, by and large, a choice. We’ve got to believe that regardless of where we are in this moment, happiness is ours for the taking, or it will be, one day, soon enough. And then we have to do whatever it takes to grab onto that positive emotion and hold it close.

David R. Hawkins wrote a well-discussed book a number of years ago called Power vs. Force. In it, he explained this concept of lower- and higher-vibration emotions. The low ones are the negative ones I’ve been naming here, like anger and sadness. The higher ones are things like love and gratitude. You can think about it in terms of how you feel in any given moment. For example, do you have that person in your life who is so high-strung that his or her stress rubs off on everyone they meet? The second they leave the room, the air seems to lighten and everyone else breathes a collective sigh of relief? That’s a person who may be stuck in a low vibration. We’re all made up of energy – the question is whether it’s positive, negative, or neutral energy.

So, yes. These women – and birthmothers everywhere – are entitled to their opinions, feelings, and beliefs. And that means feeling them and expressing them and discussing them and receiving condolences for them for as long as they wish to do so. It is my opinion, however, that the longer they allow themselves to stay mired in the emotional muck related to their adoptions, the less likely they are to have more good days than bad ones. There’s no magic wand to whoosh away the pain. But there is owning it, blessing the people who’ve wronged you, loving your child – and loving yourself enough to move on and find reasons to celebrate again. Every birthmom deserves to be happy, regardless of her past.

Are You Living with a Serial Killer?

Perhaps you can relate. She was so cute when we brought her home – a twin actually. Her sister, Iris, the REALLY pretty one, went missing at about 18 months. We figure someone scooped her up because she was so exotic looking. Isis rebounded, though, and became one of the friendliest cats I’ve ever known. She walks with us when we take the dogs out – and even though we’ve been in our new house for going on four months now, it’s not unusual for someone in the neighborhood to comment on how remarkable it is for the cat to walk with us, “just like a dog.”

One way she’s not “just like a dog” is that the dogs have never gifted us with dead animals they bring in through the dog door. Or worse, living animals that she massacres on MY side of the bedroom. In our old house, her killing room was the guest bathroom. Gross enough, but I would have John clean up the seeds and bird gut gifts left behind after Isis’ occasional morning feast. Now, though, I have to go to bed with a flashlight to make sure I’m not stepping into a gruesome pile of slimy innards. Some people who live in the desert deal with scorpions in their shoes. We deal with dead birds. I’m pretty sure I’d opt for the scorpions, if given the choice.

Our pretty little menace started slow here, killing one bird on the other side of our back fence within the first two or three days of our living here. Then, we didn’t see any evidence of bird assassinations for another couple months. Now, though, she’s got the taste again. And so she brings them in with some regularity. It’s not like the experts try to tell you – a gift for her people – because all that’s usually left when she’s completely done, literally, are a few seeds from the bird’s gullet and a little pile of feathers. Oh, and the occasional blood smear. The problem is that she’s not always completely done – perhaps she gets interrupted, mid-feast?

The gifts she actually does leave are usually a lot less disgusting, albeit kind of annoying after a while. When she’s not killing birds, our cat is apparently the self-appointed trash monitor for the Gila Springs Neighborhood Association. She brings in every kind of trash you can imagine. The best was a Guns ’N Roses iron-on patch, but she’s brought us everything from multiple seed packets (I can just see that neighbor thinking he’s going nuts – “I KNOW I left those seeds here on that table last night…”) to Doritos wrappers to homework assignments (“No, really, the cat ate my homework!”) to unpaid bills.

Once in a while, she’ll bring a bird in live. If they make it that far intact, we can almost always rescue the birds. The other day, she brought in a baby pigeon who lived to tell. After I surprised Isis into dropping the bird from her mouth, I scooped her up, hurtled her out the bedroom door, and slammed it shut. Meanwhile, the bird took flight and alighted on the built in shelf that edges the upper walls in our bedroom. Usually when the birds find themselves inside, if I can get them away from the cat, I toss a towel over them and take them back outside. This bird wasn’t in the mood to be draped. Just as I was getting ready to climb a ladder and try again, John picked up a pair of boxers from his laundry basket, wadded them up, and threw them at the bird. I didn’t think it would work, as I had already tossed two flipflops at it, and it had remained unflappable. Must have been the flow of the fabric as the boxers unballed themselves, because the bird panicked and began flying around the room, eventually finding its way out the open glass patio door.

First rescue in the new house. Isis’ record for bringing them in was three in one night at our old house.

To be fair, some of the birds gang up on her when we walk, dive-bombing her like a WWII pilot going after an enemy ship. If they knew they were going to be tomorrow night’s dinner, I’m betting they’d leave well enough alone. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and they’re paying her back for taking out Grandpa Tweety last week. Sometimes, I just can’t defend my feline’s actions, though.

I was walking the dogs the other night, Isis following dutifully behind me, when I saw a hobbled little bird a couple yards ahead of us. It was trying unsuccessfully to fly, and I knew it would be a goner if Isis got hold of it. I distracted the dogs and turned to head in the opposite direction – thought I had convinced Isis to come with us, too, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw the bird. And that was that. But you’ve never seen anyone run as fast as I did to get back home to shut the dog doors and block her personal cat door so Isis couldn’t bring her fresh kill into the house. I was just grateful this all unfolded pretty late at night.

One morning when Isis followed the dogs and me on our walk, a mom from the neighborhood was pushing her 2-year-old in his stroller. He saw the dogs and pointed and giggled – but when he saw the cat, his face lit up. I could see Isis choosing just that moment to attack a bird, and us getting sued for permanently traumatizing this child who was simply out for a stroll with Mommy. Thankfully, she got into her hunting crouch within the boy’s line of sight, but those birds were on their game that day and took off before Isis had a chance to pounce.

Turns out, my cat is pretty typical, however heinous you may find her crimes. According to a 2013 article in The New York Times, “…scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimate that domestic cats in the United States … kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year… . More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills, and other so-called anthropogenic causes.” Good to know Isis is not carrying the weight of all this massacring alone.

In something of the “turnabout is fair play” nature of things, the dogs sometimes get feisty and chase poor Isis as she tries to come in one of the dog doors. Poor Isis, my sweet little bird-torturing cat. I was at the grocery store the other day buying cat food when the clerk commented on the delicious feast our cat was going to have. “Yeah, when she’s not murdering birds, she likes her cod pâté,” was my toss-off reply.

“Good luck with your mass murderer,” the clerk offered, as she handed me my canvas bag laden with canned cat food.

Oh my god, I thought, she’s right. We share our home with a serial killer.

What if Your Mom Was More Like Peg Bundy than June Cleaver?

Love him or hate him, Bill Maher has a pretty funny recurring segment on his show with made-up greeting cards you’ll never find in a store, but wish you could.

bad mom

Mothers Day seems ripe for such a set of cards. Even as the greeting card, flower, candy, and TV advertising industries badger us with all the reasons we love and cherish our moms and how buying that really expensive gift will prove the extent of such love and cherishment, not every kid has a mom they want to celebrate. And I’m not talking about birthmothers here – just moms in general.

My personal experience was nothing close to Carol Brady, Clair Hustable, or Maggie Seaver. No one on TV really comes close to my relationship with my mom, but I suppose Toni Collette’s portrayal of a mom with multiple personalities (United States of Tara) at least mimics the weird because of a mom who wasn’t always fully in her right mind. My mother’s issues stemmed from years of undiagnosed strokes that caused increasing degrees of brain decay and malfunction. She was never really a mom to us in any of the conventional ways, from being our confidant about romances and heartbreaks to teaching us hygiene things like shaving our legs and using tampons. I remember watching the NBC drama Sisters and longingly wondering what it might have been like to have had a mother who would go to bat for me, no matter what. I don’t blame my mother – anymore. But I hated her with a white hot passion for many years, until I finally understood that it was an illness and not a choice to be an absent mother, even though it would be many more years before the precise nature of the illness came to light.

My husband’s mother was an abusive alcoholic. He said it wasn’t until he was well into his 20s that it finally dawned on him that her behavior hadn’t been his fault. She still calls every once in a while, but he finds it difficult to sustain any lasting contact because she’s still an addict and she has never quite been able to forgive herself for the traumatic childhood she caused him and his sister. All he wants to do is move on, but she is still living in regret for the past. I’m pretty sure he didn’t send a Mothers Day card this year – although he always remembers the date of her birthday, even if he doesn’t call to wish her a happy one.

The mother of a friend of mine committed suicide, leaving her and her two sisters to fend for themselves through their teens while their distraught father drank himself into oblivion.

Another friend had a mother who did nothing but constantly point out her flaws and faults. My friend eventually wised up and walked away from this damaged person who was biologically her mother, but an emotional enemy. They didn’t speak for the last 10 years of her mother’s life.

My goal here is not to focus on the negative, but to acknowledge that not everyone has had a rosy relationship with dear ol’ Mom. Nor should they be made to feel guilty for finding Mothers Day an obnoxious holiday they’d rather skip over completely.

Not every woman is cut out to be a mother. Sometimes, they are discerning enough to know their limits and opt out, whether via adoption, abortion, or never getting pregnant in the first place. Other women, whether because of societal, religious, or peer pressure, have children they probably have no business raising. Some women are born to be mothers – crafting costumes with aplomb, happily whipping up treats for homeroom, and cheering on their little athletes or thespians with raucous applause.

Most women – most mothers – fall somewhere in between. Sometimes a little flaky, forgetting permission slips and lunches. Sometimes irritable because they just found out their best friend’s husband passed away. Sometimes overprotective, wishing they could keep their kid from ever getting hurt. Sometimes irrationally irate because they’re angry at someone else just as their youngest daughter asks to get her bellybutton pierced for the 37^th time. And sometimes – maybe only once in a while – in perfect harmony with their kiddos.

It’s disingenuous for merchandisers to sell us the fairytale that all moms are June Cleaver sending_you_love when, in fact, the average mom is probably closer to Rosanne or Peg Bundy. Yes – really. Think about it. So if you happened to have a less than stellar relationship with your mom, give yourself a break. Love her as much as you are able – even if that means from a VERRRRRRRRRRY long distance. Send up a prayer or good thought, and move on. Release the guilt for not wanting to gush over her. Stop sending cards or making calls that make your skin crawl. Quit apologizing to your kids for their grandmother.

And, if you can, send love. A very good friend of mine offered some sage advice when I was first working on releasing my anger toward my niece. She said, “Even if you can’t send your own love because you just don’t feel love for that person, try sending the love of the Universe (or God). It doesn’t have to be your own love in order for you to shower that person in love.” Wow – what a relief that was. I could stop being angry and instead send love – even if I didn’t personally feel love. You could try this with your mom today (or any day) – or any other person with whom you have a challenging relationship.

Wishing you, at minimum, an OK Mothers Day!

How Do You Forgive a Ghost?

I am, by the grace of temperament, biology, psychology, and/or God, not a grudgeholder. Never have been. And while not exactly a Pollyanna, I was most definitely born an optimist. I remember, on more than one occasion, missing my bus stop on the way home from work while living in Jersey City and consoling myself with thoughts like, Well, it’s cold but at least it’s not snowing. Thank goodness I don’t have a broken leg. It’s only a 10-block walk, not a mile. And I realized, while pondering those thoughts, that mine was perhaps a fairly unusual outlook. Most people would just be pissed off, perhaps using that anger as an excuse to lash out at loved ones when they got home, pop an extra cold one, or pocket a lipstick at the drugstore – bad behaviors we so often convince ourselves are justified because the world is just not on our side.

One of my heroes is a guy named Rob Brezsny, who writes a most unusual syndicated horoscope column called Freewill Astrology. He is also the author of a fantastic book called Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, in which he explains just that. The book is not for the faint of heart – unless you want to lose all your preconceived ideas about the value of victim thinking, shame, complaining, and blame. Rob is one of the most visible optimists I know of. Yep – he’s a woo-woo weirdo, but I’m of the opinion the world could use a few more of those right about now.

Like Rob, it has always been easy for me to see the good in almost any situation, even when my conversationmates are hellbent on seeing only the dismal, awful, horrible reasons to complain. My friend Sunil is still recovering from a series of strokes, and he was in a snarly mood when I went to visit him last night. I do my best not to make light of his situation when he gets in those moods, because I can only imagine how awful it must be not to be able to get your body to do the things you want it to do. And yet, every time he gets down like this, I challenge him to pull himself out of it, because that’s the only way he’s going to get well. By the end of our visit, he was much cheered. I hope he can call on some of the blessings I reminded him about the next time he’s feeling a bit sorry for himself. I am quite fortunate that, when I’m in a rare whiny state, my husband is there to buoy my mood or play devil’s advocate and remind me why entrenching in my momentary misery would probably be a less than ideal choice.

But it’s not like I’ve never undergone hardships. I’m a human person living on Planet Earth – so I struggle, just like everyone else. The years 2014 through 2017 were pretty intense and anguished for me and my husband, as we lost three close loved ones in that short span of time: his dad, my little sister, and then his grandmother. Some people get mired in the sadness, grief, blame, anger, and myriad other dark emotions. I can neither take credit for nor explain why I don’t. It just doesn’t work for me.

I was rather surprised when a very intelligent, spiritually focused friend of mine recently started a sentence with, “If you ever need to seek revenge against someone…” and then proceeded to tell me how to exact such revenge. “REALLY????” I wanted to scream at her. But she’s not the type to accept coaching – probably most especially when she’s in the middle of sharing her secret for getting even.

A couple years ago, I attended a well-known personal development seminar. One of the exercises was to think of someone with whom we were angry or had a beef. Although I believe most people could probably quickly think of several people who fit that bill, I struggled to think of anyone who brought up enough residual feelings to qualify for the rest of the exercise. Sure, there are lots of people I could be angry with. Whom some people would tell me I should be angry with. And yet, I just don’t stay angry with anyone – at least not for very long.

My son’s father comes to mind, but I’ve long since released most of the anger I had toward him. More recently, my niece is probably the best candidate for my anger – as she was unbelievably awful to my sister (her mother) and to me in the last few weeks of Corina’s life. And while I’ll admit there’s sometimes a twinge of $#%^#@&*! when I think about Samantha, it dissipates quickly and I don’t spend any unnecessary time there. My sweet, beautiful sister, on the other hand, was a master at mustering anger and then holding onto it for a very, very long time.

When she started seeing a naturopathic oncologist to treat her cervical cancer, her doctor told her that her particular version of the disease generally had two root causes: (1) the HPV virus and (2) unresolved anger. Bingo. She even knew who she was angry with and why – and yet, she couldn’t let it go. She nursed it and relished it and cheered it on, even she said, as she knew that it was making her physically sick. She had a reprieve there for a while, when she was able to spend some time apart from the people with whom she was so angry. And while she was separated from them, she started to recover and rebound. We saw so many signs that she was getting well and truly believed she would survive this unrelenting illness. And then, she let both of these folks back into her life, without having ever really resolved the old anger – or developing a coping mechanism for having them around again. The cancer came roaring back – and she died a few short months later.

I cannot fathom hosting enough anger within my body to cause it to become my enemy. Many people make that choice, though, consciously or unconsciously.

A dear friend of mine is trying to work out some unresolved anger right now – but the person with whom she is angry passed away, so she can’t do it face to face, in the here and now. She is working through the processes laid out in The Grief Recovery Handbook, a book gifted to me by another friend shortly after my sister died. My brother-in-law, Matt, was really struggling at the time I received that book, so I passed it along to him. As highly recommended as it comes from both of these friends, I have not yet felt compelled to read it myself. As I understand it, the steps are related to things left undone. Intense anger because of unresolved issues with someone who’s died is a form of grief, albeit not necessarily the kind of grief we’re programmed by society to expect and endorse.

My friend admitted the other day that she’d gone through the forgiveness steps detailed in the book for other people she’d lost in her life, but she’s just not ready to stop being angry with her mother-in-law. This friend knew my sister – and I reminded her how Corina’s anger had turned out for her. “You still have a choice, you know? No matter how much you still hate her and how justified you are in those feelings, you’re not hurting Jackie with your anger. I mean – she’s gone! The only one being punished by those intense feelings is you.” I think my comments surprised her – perhaps she hadn’t ever really thought of it in those terms. But she promised to start working the forgiveness process for her mother-in-law – both for things Jackie did or said to her, and for things she did, said, or failed to do or say to Jackie. In so doing, she may finally be able to release all those years of pent-up hostility and get down to the business of healing herself.

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Laura Orsini is an author, speaker, and consultant who coaches other authors to make and market exceptional books that change the world for the better. She is birthmother to Eric, who is finishing college in Boston this summer. Their adoption has been open for the better part of Eric’s life. She continues to toy with the idea that these posts will one day become a book. In the meantime, you can learn about her novel in progress, Stan Finds Himself on the Other Side of the World.

You’ve Gotta Know the Rules Before You Break ’Em

My husband had an astrological reading today with a gal who told him he had the most fantastic chart she’d ever seen. Yippee – now someone else has confirmed he’s a brilliant musician, performer, writer, and artist, so maybe he’ll believe me when I tell him the same things. As we are married, she also asked about me (birthdate, time, location, etc.). I was overhearing this from the next room, mind you. Then she asked him if I was a perfectionist and set in my ways. He hemmed and hawed a little – I don’t think either of us really see me that way. But when he mentioned that I was an author and editor, she said, “And an editor must have things just so.” Ah – turns out she is correct.

As the day wore on, it became a bit more apparent to me that even as I’ve always seen myself as a devil-may-care rebel, the fact is that I care quite a bit about how quite a number of things are done. I don’t know that I’d call it perfectionism – but I do seem to have an inclination toward having certain areas of life just so. First and foremost, I care about correct grammar. Even though I’ve been moving toward living more in the spirit of “Done Is Better than Perfect,” I’ll usually go back and reread these blog posts a couple times – and when I notice a typo, I can’t jump on the EDIT button fast enough.

Then tonight, I heard a speaker at the Arizona Marketing Association monthly meeting. She was very good – talking about how various generations have different values and ways of communicating, so smart marketers will take this into consideration when creating campaigns to reach members of each age group. And even while I was hearing her message and learning from it, in the back of my mind, I was aware that she was on the stage in a sleeveless red top. Somewhere in my past, one of my mentors told me that professional women ALWAYS wear an outer garment (jacket, sweater, overshirt, etc.). To omit this – to be in her shirtsleeves – is the height of unprofessional presentation. Was this speaker in any way unprofessional? Not at all. And yet, this rule I’d encountered all those years ago came around to interrupt my experience tonight.

Back in the days when my husband worked in commercial plumbing, he left the house by 4:15 a.m. to get to the jobsite. There was no one on the roads at the time, so he occasionally ran a red light if it was taking forever to change and there were no other cars to be seen. I bristled at the idea – and yet I will walk straight across almost any road against a red light if there are no cars in sight. How is that different? Am I a rulebreaker when it suits my needs – the rules apply to everyone else but not to me?

A couple months ago, I mentioned my friend Mike – Tony’s best friend from childhood. Mike was the slobbiest of slobs – and I found out later that Tony, my son’s birthfather, was the exact opposite. When given the opportunity to keep his own house the way he preferred it, Tony kept his place immaculate. Now that I’m traveling back down Memory Lane, I recall that Tony used to nag Mike whenever Mike would dump out the garbage from his car (mostly fast food wrappers) onto the side streets near our apartment in Jersey City. To his credit, he never added enough trash to make a visible difference, as every street in Jersey City was a litterbug’s haven. Nevertheless, it was not the behavior of a mature adult. And every time, Tony would say to him something along the lines of, “Hey, why don’t you just put that stuff in the trash can? Don’t lower yourself to live like these animals.”’

Imagine my surprise one day, then, when I saw Tony toss all of the junk mail from our mailbox onto the floor in the vestibule of our 3-story walkup apartment. A case of “do as I say, not as I do”?

“What the hell are you doing?” I let him have it. “You yelled at Mike, and now you’re doing the exact same thing. You’re no better than the rest of the degenerates in our neighborhood.” I don’t remember his response, but I never saw him do it again.

A few weeks later, Tony’s mom and dad were in town visiting. They’d rented a car, and we were heading down to Atlantic City for the weekend, when suddenly we saw a Pepsi can go flying out the front window. I could not believe my eyes. Tony’s dad had just chucked a soda can out the driver window of our moving vehicle. “Hey!” Tony yelled at his dad. “We have to live here after you go home, you know!” I remember being pretty surprised to watch my reformed little rulebreaker calling out his own dad.

My dad wouldn’t have thrown a gum wrapper on the ground – and you know where the apple falls. But still, I was determined not to bend to his every whim. Given my very strict Catholic upbringing in a house where all my dad had to do was look at us for us to know we were in deep trouble, I probably didn’t have to push the envelope too far to rebel. Sneaking 11 p.m. phone calls to my best friend in junior high might have been the extent of it. I never ditched school. Never got drunk. Never had purple hair. Never got any body part other than my ears pierced. Still have yet to get my tattoo.

What, exactly, does a rebel look like anyway? Are you really pushing any boundaries when you and all your friends are clones of one another? There are lots of ways to break the rules, though. I did it in the most massive way possible by getting pregnant without the benefit (or imprisonment?) of marriage. And I was in no hurry to share that news with my every-so-strict father.

Going against the tide isn’t always a bad thing, though. I’ve been in more than one circumstance in my life where a person was having a public meltdown, and all anybody else did was stare at them. Once, a friend was giving a speech during a Toastmasters meeting, when he suddenly seemed to be choking because his mouth had gone so dry. He asked for someone to help him out with a sip of water. This was the summer in the desert, so nearly everyone in the room had a water bottle sitting on their desk, and yet not one person from the front row offered this guy a drink. I leapt from the back row to hand him my water bottle. Really, though? No one could be bothered to let another person who was in obvious distress drink from their bottle? Because rules or decorum said so? Or was it something else?

A similar thing happened when a woman a few rows in front of me broke down hysterically during a weekend workshop. Though the subject of the workshop was some aspect of marketing, this particular presentation was touching on personal development – and something in the speaker’s talk touched off a strong emotional reaction in the woman. Everyone around her stared, horrified, as she sobbed uncontrollably. Yet no one moved a muscle to help her. I got up from my seat, went to her, put my arm around her, and offered her a tissue. When it was clear she wasn’t going to get herself together all that quickly, I guided her out to the vestibule. Why do we freeze when we see strangers go into distress? For whatever reason, they’re breaching the rules of decorum, so we must avert our eyes and dissociate from them?

Of course, I’m happy enough not to follow the crowd in more pedestrian avenues, too. For example, I’m thrilled when I don’t love a movie or TV show (the Roseanne reboot comes to mind) that everyone else seems gaga for. And, in the reverse, I feel like I must apologize or make excuses for liking some mainstream things, like Pink and the occasional Katy Perry song. And I consider most romantic comedies guilty pleasures.

They say that rules are made to be broken. I suppose it depends on the rule – and the situation. But I’d definitely agree with one maxim: You’ve gotta know the rules before you break ’em.

Pretty Toes and Melancholy, Too

I know people who consider mani-pedis not a luxury, but an absolute life essential. My general pattern is to wait so long between salon visits that my fingernails look like I’ve clawed my way out of a coffin and my feet have fish scales on the bottom. Then I wail to my husband, “I haaaaaave to get a manicure!”

“So go get one,” he says with a shrug. You think it’d be that easy. I could have gotten one last week, during that hour I played a video game on my iPad. Or instead of binge watching another British crime drama. Or instead of reading the latest novel I’m working on (7^th so far this year – although I only read The American Marriage to page 63, because it was at that ridiculously early point in the “mystery” that I figured out how it was going to end). But, no. I played and procrastinated doing a task that has specific hours attached to it – the salons are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. – until I couldn’t stand it any longer. But now I have a client deadline and a meeting and other things pulling at my attention.

No matter. Today I went and got the damned manicure and pedicure.

Once I get there and allow myself to relax, it really is luxurious. First, they remove your old toe polish – OK, maybe they skip this step for the guys. Then they cut your nails down to the length of normal humans, rather than those of tree sloths. They also go to town on the cuticles, cutting away all that excess skin. I always pay a few bucks extra for them to do a callous removal treatment. Bye-bye, fish scales! Next, they break out the lotion, for a lovely calf, ankle, and foot massage. My salon also adds the treat of hot rocks, followed by a hot towel. No – not as torture, but to remove any remaining aches and stress. Then, they paint your toes with the dazzling color of your choice. OK, again, maybe the guys opt out of this step. But at the end, your feet look lovely and feel even better. The manicure, which comes next, follows much of the same process for your hands.

In spite of the delightful end results, it’s a bit of a lonely time for me, which I suppose is why I don’t really look forward to it like I used to. Many (most?) women do the mani-pedi thing as a group activity, because it’s just more fun that way. For years, I went with my sister. Even that last year when she was sick and living with me, we still went to the salon with some regularity. After she left us, I started taking John’s grandmother, Mary, to the nail salon with greater frequency. I think I might have taken her once or twice prior to Corina’s passing. After that, we went pretty much like clockwork at least once a month to a salon close to her home in Chandler – the house I now live in. In fact, we went to the salon together the day before the heart attack that ultimately claimed her life.

When John’s sister and her daughter were here for Mary’s funeral last June, we all went to that same salon, but it was a one-time thing, as they live in New York. I’m really not much into superstitions, but I think I might steer away anyone else who offered to be my regular salon buddy, as the survival rate for the job is rather, well, zero – so far.

I’ve tried on more than one occasion to get John to come with me. He’s a regular hiker, so his heels are pretty rough. For those who are reading this and have never had a pedicure, I encourage you to try it as a delicious way to pamper yourselves. Gentlemen included! It’s far more mainstream for men than you might realize. I do find this statistic a bit suspect, though, but according to an October 2017 story in the New York Post, “The International Spa Association reports in its new Consumer Snapshot that 49 percent of spa customers are men, up from 29 percent in 2005.” John, however, is having none of it. One of his former fellow plumbers had regaled the guys with a horror story about infections and lost toenails incurred from a nail salon visit, so he says “Thanks but no thanks” every time I bring it up. Even when I ask every so sweetly.

That leaves me to go on my own to treat myself to this indulgence that is both pampering and melancholy. Which is definitely better than not going at all, but not as much fun as it once was.

Tamale Tips and Guacamole Recipe for Cinco de Mayo

If my son were a dog, he’d be a mutt. Irish, Italian, and Mexican on my side, and German, English, and a few other Waspy ethnicities on Tony’s side. We know mine with some certainty – but what he knows of Tony’s side was only a stab from my memories of vague conversations that might have happened some 30 years ago. So, understandably (and like many adopted people), Eric had his DNA analyzed by Ancestry.com. Most of it was not surprising, but there is one bit we’re uncertain about – most likely on my mom’s side.

I might be able to help figure out that mystery bit for Eric if I were to have my own DNA analyzed – but that’s probably not going to happen. Even as I understand anyone’s need to know who they are and where they come from, I find the idea of voluntarily giving my DNA to any sort of corporate entity distasteful, at best – and exceedingly unwise, at worst. Comedian Bill Burr (whom I seem to reference with some regularity) has a funny rant that pretty much nails why I won’t buy in. There’s more to it, but the gist is: “Why would you send your saliva into the internet? Why would you do that? Why don’t you just go to the Illuminati and help them build your robot replacement?”

Perhaps it’s easy for me to shrug it off because I have always known my full history. And even if there’s a bit of mystery to my mom’s ethnicity, it’s nothing that keeps me up at night. One thing I’ve always found kind of interesting is how similar all of the flags of my ethnicities are.

Another odd thing is my strong affinity for all things Irish, given that it was only my paternal grandmother with the Irish ancestry. My dad’s father was Italian, and what we know of my mom is that she was Mexican on both sides. So I grew up in a house where the Mexican culture dominated. Both my mom and dad spoke Spanish fluently – it was my mother’s first language and my dad studied it in college and then became fluent as he continued to use it. And neither of them thought maybe they should raise bilingual children? Huh. We marked all of the Mexican holidays; the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrated annually on December 12, seemed to have special meaning for my mom. And our house had a distinctive Mexican flair to it. I always thought it was just my mom’s weird decorating taste, until I heard comedian John Leguizamo describe the inside of his mom’s “typical Mexican house” as “looking like a papaya exploded.”

We ate what Americans know as Mexican food with regularity: Spanish rice, homemade tortillas, refried beans, huevos rancheros, guacamole, and tamales. Though we had them week in and week out for years, I never mastered the art of rolling tortillas into round discs, deciding at one point I might have stumbled onto a new product line with animal-shaped tortillas. (Mine in no way resembled the ones in the adjacent picture, which were cut out with cookie cutters.) While tamales are a Christmas tradition for many Mexican families, we tended to have them two or three times a year, whenever it struck my mom’s fancy. The reason so many people do it only one a year is that they are a LOT of work.

I was going to give you a recipe for tamales and instructions here – but it would make this post crazy long, and there are lots of good resources on the ol’ interwebs. Here’s an excellent step-by-step guide. There are also all kinds of videos on YouTube, if you’re a more visual learner.

A few things to keep in mind if you plan to make homemade tamales:

(1) STEER CLEAR of corn oil. It is the worst possible oil you can consume. Regardless of what the recipes, say, don’t use it!

(2) Most recipes call for you to make the masa (corn dough) from scratch. We almost always bought prepared masa from a Mexican restaurant. It will save you sooo much time and hassle. Be sure to get the flavored masa, though – or plan to flavor it yourself. Otherwise, your tamales will taste terrible.

(3) Tamale-making requires a team effort. Figure out how to form an assembly line for greatest efficiency.

(4) It takes a while to get good at rolling the tamales. Don’t worry – just keep practicing. By your final dozen (yep, you’re gonna make a LOT of them if it’s to be worth your time), you’ll be a pro.

(5) WASH YOUR HANDS before touching any part of your body if you’ve come in contact with any kind of chili pepper – fresh, dried, or powdered. I was helping my mom and aunt make tamales when I was about 10, and I rubbed my eyes with my chili pepper hands. Don’t make that mistake unless you’re a masochist!

Instead of a tamale recipe, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, I will give you my very simple guacamole recipe. My in-laws have loved it since the first time I made it for them. There’s really nothing to it. I think the only reason they think it’s so good is that it’s fresh every time I serve it.

INGREDIENTS:

4 or 5 medium avocados – be sure they’re ripe
A cup of grape tomatoes
Small to medium onion (red, yellow, or white)
2 fresh garlic cloves or ½ teaspoon of garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste
A splash of vinegar (to keep the avocados from browning)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Peel and pit the avocados. My sister taught me that the easiest way to remove them from the skin is by using a table spoon or small serving spoon. Cut the avocados into small pieces, an inch or so. No need to measure – your next step is to mash them in a medium size mixing bowl. Cut your grape tomatoes as small as you can – or to whatever size you prefer. I usually cut one tomato into three pieces. Dice your onion – again, make the pieces as small or big as you like. Add the tomatoes and onion to the mashed up avocado. Mince the garlic if you’re using fresh. Add it, or powdered garlic. Add your splash of vinegar, and stir the whole mixture with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve as a side dish with organic blue corn chips, or with your favorite Mexican dish.

So here’s to a happy Cinco de Mayo!