Category: beauty

beauty, ILD, Life in General, lung damage

The Third Act

Shari

If there’s one thing I’ve always been able to count on it’s that I have more to do. More to create, to live, to experience. And so, when you find yourself presented with the option of time running out, of possibilities thinning and horizons growing hazy, it comes as a surprise.

And adjustments must be made. Almost two years ago, my husband had open heart surgery, it was scary, especially the complications, nerves were cut and injured during the procedure resulting in neuropathy, constant pain created by bundles of nerves that, unable to reconnect, shot out in bundles, like roots searching for water, only to remain exposed and crackling, electric lines severed but live.

Then came covid. We both made it through a bad bout, but two months later, Joseph was having trouble breathing. An ER visit ended in an eleven day stay while doctors tried everything to calm his pneumonia, to open his lungs. We were sent home with oxygen machines and tangles of tubes. A few weeks later, he went downhill again, and back we went.

Three times now, we have opened our doors to emergency personnel, I’ve followed the ambulance to the ER, days have been spent on breathing machines with various treatments, different doctors trying to find a reason, an answer, a solution.

And then, when he was in the third time, and we thought it would be the best time for me to visit our daughter in Santa Cruz, as he was well taken care of, I got a phone call from him.

Our younger daughter was at the hospital with him, which was strange because it was a weekday, workday for her. He started, with softness and love in his voice, to tell me that he had been visited by a different doctor, one whose job it was to deliver bad news.

They had done all they could, there was no curing what he has. It could be five years, maximum, or it could be any time. I put the phone on speaker so my daughter could hear.  My husband reassured me constantly, concerned only for my well being. My youngest is a rock, she actually explained as best she had understood and made us all laugh. She’s remarkable that way. My older daughter and I abandoned the hike we were headed for and instead went to a beach where no one would know her so that we could walk and be alone. Tears came with shudders, she hugged me, we walked and breathed and saw beauty, I swayed with the impact of what we had learned, knowing all the while that Joseph and I would face this too with grace and courage.

I flew home as soon as possible and went straight to the hospital. We cried some, tried to understand what was happening and break it down, but the reality was this: His lungs, probably damaged since he was a child growing up poor in Los Angeles, had been ravaged by mold, rat droppings, LA air, you name it, and the covid had kicked it up. My husband, who never smoked or did any drugs, had only about an eighth of his lung capacity working. There is no cancer, it is called ILD, Interstitial Lung Disease.

And the third act begins. Of course we do not accept that this is a final or an absolute. All his life people have told Jospeh that he cannot do this or that, he would not succeed, it was impossible, and yet again and again he has. In many ways he has been my hero because of exactly that.

Most likely, Joseph will be on oxygen for the rest of his life, a machine that breathes, creating extra oxygen for him, connects by a long plastic tube. At night he wears another mask and uses another machine that expands his lungs to give him extra oxygen. He can only walk short distances before he’s completely winded. He will never fly again because of pressure changes. The medications he takes for his heart and now his lungs sometimes fight each other, he is seldom even comfortable.

And so we have learned to laugh, to try to find the things that bring us pleasure. Friends in Seattle loaned us their fabulous home overlooking the Olympic mountains so we would have a place to find acceptance and make the seismic shifts to settle into our new life.

There are so many things that we can do, we laugh often, we have a made a foray or two into the world, conscious of battery power and available plugs. We took a short trip to the Seattle Asian Art Museum, where we borrowed a wheelchair and for the first time, I pushed him around, him holding the portable air compressor in his lap. The wheelchair was too small, almost  child sized, and his knees were high, and when he tried to get up he was sort of stuck in the seat. We laughed a lot.

When we were leaving, the most gorgeous group of children, I’d say first grade, were playing on the lawn. Joseph was walking slowly, pulling the oxygen machine along behind him the tube wrapped behind his ears and flowing into his nose. One of the children was watching him, she came closer and stared up at him, maybe a foot away, fascinated and undeterred by adult pretension. I smiled and said, “It’s oxygen, it’s helping him breathe.”

This remarkable little person said, “I know that humans need oxygen, but why does he need that?”

We tried to explain, but the battery was running out and Joseph was exhausted, so we slowly made our way to the car. Once we were in and plugged into the car charger we both said, “That kid will be a doctor or a scientist, for sure.”

In truth I had been fascinated by the unabashed curiosity and openness. Yes, I thought, that’s the right attitude. Let’s be curious, let’s be open, let’s see what life will bring.

There is the crescent moon, there is music, there is rain. We have laughter, and love, and the gift of knowing that everyday is precious. We have something that so often alludes us in life, perspective.

Yes, this is the third act in the life of our love, and yes, it will be funny, and dramatic, and sometimes even overwhelming, but we will stand together to face it, our love is stronger than all of this.

Love to you all, forget those little things.

Everything counts.

And nothing matters.

See how beautiful the moon is.

 

Shari, March 20th, 2023

 

beauty, cancer, depression, family, Life in General, Marriage, men, writers, writing

Lost Seasons, Perfect Days.

Shari

Today it is raining in slivers of silver and the sky, white and pearly, seems more a tantalizing veil of depth than an opaque discouragement. My husband feels well enough to work a bit in the garage and so, while I have this time and energy, I will tell you the story of this last year, and I will not be afraid.

Not all of what we’ve gone through, just the part that has kept me from writing, from sharing too much, from turning my focus away from life outside our swirling world of doctor’s meetings, medical testing, inconclusive results, surgeries, biopsies, and uncertainly.

I’ll explain that in a moment, but it comes to this; life changes, nothing is certain, and we have had a face-slapping, butt-kicking reminder that all we have is this moment, so we might as well make the best of it.

My husband, Joseph, has congenital heart disease. It’s not his fault, it’s not a result of diet or lack of exercise, he inherited it from his mother’s father. He was told at forty that this is a condition that worsens with every generation. After three different angioplasties, where they go through the main artery in his thigh to place a stent in the blockages in his heart, we were informed that a double-bypass, open-heart surgery was his ‘best option.’ It should buy him anywhere from seven to twelve years.

So we waited, we prepared ourselves, we promised each other that life would be better when he could hike again, work without being winded, build up his strength, lose the weight that was impossible to shed when your metabolism isn’t working well because your heart is only pumping less than 60 percent of what it should be.

For six months we waited, for him to be vaccinated, to be able to get a place in a hospital during a major pandemic, to have all the pre-surgery tests done, and all the while he worsened, until just walking a few yards left him winded and holding his chest.

I won’t go into all the psychological side-effects of going from being a bodily strong man to a person who feels physically vulnerable for the first time in his life.  That’s too big a gaping break in the bridge of emotional damage to cover here, perhaps I will share it another time.

The day of surgery comes, because of covid, I am not allowed in the hospital, so I drop him off at five a.m. at the main door of the hospital in the dark, it is snowing. He hugs me and tells me not to worry, to never be mad at the girls, and then I watch him walk away. I smile and stay brave, but as he disappears into the lobby, I break. Not a hard snap, but a crinkling of everything holding me up, as though a beautiful, smooth piece of parchment paper is rudely crumpled into a small wad and then discarded. That’s all it was holding me up, paper. I weep all the way back to the hotel.

I try to lie down but every time I close my eyes all I can see is the scalpel slicing through the skin and thick, powerful muscle of his chest, the image and sound of his breast bone sawed through and ‘cracked’, as the surgeons so airily explain it, the clamps that pry open his rib cage and hold it up, his heart out of his body lain on his chest.

Several hours later, the surgeon calls to tell me it went well, he’s in recovery and should be coming around in about four hours. I breathe for the first time in what I realize is weeks.

Yet, in less than two hours later I get another call. The conversation goes like this.

“Mrs. Stachura? This is (name withheld) I’m the respiratory technician and I’m looking after your husband today.”

“Thank you so much, how’s he doing?”

“Pretty well, I actually think I’m going to go ahead and take him off the respirator.”

“Okay, great. When do you think he will wake up?”

“Oh,” I hear uncertainty in his voice, “he’s awake now. He’s looking at me gesturing for me to take the tubes out.”

“Then get off the phone and take them out!”

Here’s what I find out later. Not only did Joseph wake up far too soon after the surgery with breathing tubes down his throat, he was tied down to the bed, his hands were Velcro-ed to the bars, it was a nightmare scenario. They had not given him enough anesthesia, and he possibly even woke up during surgery.

Then he spends a week in the hospital alone. The nurses change every twelve hours and they are never the same so he has no real advocate. On the seventh day I am asked to come to the hospital for physical therapy training, to learn how to help him in and out a car, shower, up stairs, etc. When I finally find his room and he sees me, he is so relieved he just starts to weep. All I can do is hold him, ever so cautiously, the way you would cradle a fragile porcelain vase you just glued back together, afraid it will fall apart again, or that you will do it more damage. My husband is a shattered vessel, stitched back together, but not yet solid, not yet whole.

Our good friend Ben, a retired firefighter with the soul of a shaman, insists on meeting us at home to get him settled. Though I had said we’d be fine, of course he knew better. Things were much more difficult that we had imagined. The surgeon’s assistant had told us to buy a recliner because Joseph wouldn’t be able to sleep in a bed, and she was right as well. For two months he slept an hour or two at a time in that chair while I stayed on the sofa next to him. Eventually he convinced me to go sleep in the bedroom, but I kept the door open and woke up whenever I heard him stirring. Even walking to the bathroom was a challenge. Taking a shower was downright scary. I learned about blood pressure, sorted a confusing array of medications, changed wound dressings, and played cheerleader. (Minus the short skirt and kneesocks) It was a full-time, constant-focus occupation. All else fell away, and I didn’t even notice. Spring passed with no visits to see the flowers in meadows, no celebrations.

Other than a trip to console the mother of my daughter’s first love, who was murdered, and get her through everything from cremation to what would have been his twenty-fifth birthday, a trip that came over my husband’s own birthday, but which he would not hear of me not taking, because that’s who he is, more weeks passed with us not really noticing. Pretty soon it was summer, hot, but there were no visits to glorious swimming holes, and I had to hang heavier curtains over the windows so we could watch TV in the daytime, something we never usually do.

Eventually, he could venture out, just a bit, with a pillow strapped to his chest with one of my long scarves. I would say, “Open heart surgery,” to explain quickly when people stared, though my best friend told me I should tell them “I tried to get him to give up the blankie, but he just won’t do it.” I think I’ll try that.

But he wasn’t getting much better, we kept telling ourselves that the doctors only say that he’d feel better in a few weeks because they don’t want to scare you with the truth of how long it really takes to heal and get back to ‘normal.’ But surely, we kept repeating, this was all part of the regular healing process.

Then, six weeks after surgery, at one o’clock in the morning, Joseph woke me up from a dead sleep, and I could see the consternation and confusion on his face. “What the hell is this?” he asked, pointing to two lumps on his collarbones, both the size of my fist.

My first thought was lymph nodes, but they were too low on his chest. They were goose eggs on his collar bones, exactly symmetrical. We called the amazing Ben, who, being used to long shifts with broken sleep, listened to my report of his blood pressure and looked at texted pictures of the area, then told us to go to the ER.

The faces of the doctors were blank. They had no idea. They ran him through every test they could think of−CT scans, ultrasound, blood, urine, they brought in other doctors to look at him, but nothing. No one had ever seen a presentation like this.

So, we went home with no diagnosis and an appointment with his cardiologist. And at the cardiologist’s office we were met with the same confused expressions, more doctors came in from other rooms to say no one had seen this. Shoulders were shrugged, palms were turned upward in expressions of ignorance, No help there, but more tests were scheduled.

Since then it’s been a halting, clumsy dance of tests and fighting for more tests and clearer results, and being told nobody knows, maybe the Mayo clinic?, maybe special doctors in Philadelphia?, maybe this specialist, maybe that hospital. He went through several days of having radioactive substances injected between his fingers and toes then hours in an MRI machine. Joseph is claustrophobic, so though I wasn’t supposed to be allowed in with him, they brought me in to talk him through it.

Joseph would start to panic as a huge flat panel was lowered to within a half inch of his face and he had to hold still for twenty minutes. “Tell me about Venice,” he would plead.

So I would walk him through the streets of Venice from a chair a few feet away, speaking loudly over the machine so that he could hear me, we walked together over rain-glistening cobbles, along familiar canals, I described the costumes of Carnivale in great detail, the Murano chandeliers in the shop windows and hotel lobbies. We wandered the narrow back streets at night, and saw the torches lit and placed in iron holders as we walked backward in time while I showed him the story as it showed itself to me.

We were so filled with hope that this would give us answers, that we would have a plan, something to fight, to deal with, to accept even. But on the morning after those tests in yet another hotel room we got the news.

“No results, everything looks normal with the lymph system.” Joseph was angry, almost desperate, shouting, “Then what is wrong with me?”  I absorbed all I could but even trying to justify the results as something positive I was met with his frustration. I was helpless.

While he called doctors, I went into the kitchenette to hide while I lost it, sitting at a little built-in table in a Victorian hotel, I gave in to disappointment and frustration for the first time. My head down on the table I struggled to sob silently, sucking back the sound, until Joseph came in and told me to go ahead and cry, because I deserved it.

Since then, we’ve been through a myriad of other tests, including repeating that first lymphoscintigraphy twice more. A biopsy of the swellings, a colonoscopy with biopsies to rule out infection, and I can’t even remember what all else. Now we are more cautious with our hope, we’re stingier with expectation. That way the disappointment doesn’t overwhelm us, knocking us on our asses every time, it just laps around our legs, leaving us damp and chilled.

And still , we know nothing, as fall leaves in the wind begin paint the sky.

It’s been six months since the surgery, and he is worse than before the surgery. He’s still wearing a small pillow strapped to his chest to try to relieve the constant pressure that makes him gasp, sometimes cry out in his sleep, and often clutch his chest until the stabbing pain subsides enough to endure again. And now we get new information. If it is Lymphodema, it is not fixable, and it will get worse. When Joseph went to see the wound specialist−after six months he still has a hole in his ankle where they removed twelve inches of artery to use in his chest that hasn’t healed−the doctor noticed swelling in his leg that is dimpling. She told him that it can worsen and the skin can become ‘like bark.’

And now my husband, the man I love and adore, the sexiest man in the universe to me, confesses with a tear on his cheek that he may become a ‘monster.’ That I might be with a man physically disfigured.

I kissed him and told him not to worry about me, my secret fantasy has always been the leaf man, the half-beast of the forest, but I know it’s not just me. How does anyone adjust to such a thing?

With courage of course, with love, with time.

And speaking of time, spring has passed, summer is gone, fall is showing the last of its glory, and still we wait, but I have learned something. I have learned so much, but especially this−how to make even illness and uncertainty fun.

It’s a strange thing to say, to long for, to work at, but having fun and enjoying life is the best way to honor it all. So, we play scrabble for as long as he can sit up. We take very short walks in this place we chose for the breadth of its natural beauty. We drive to see waterfalls. We put on music and sway together. We find the moments to celebrate, to laugh at it all, and to love each other with a new ferocity.

At the end of the day, I am happy. I understand that we are not waiting for some result or even a new plan, we are living now, we can laugh now, we can share secrets and giggle, and make amazing food, and watch the light on the water from our porch.

There isn’t anything better than this anyway. Venice will wait.

Seasons have passed, but in those months, in those weeks, there have been perfect days, better than we have ever shared. We are together, and we will find a way to make even this fun.

Take care of yourselves.

Take care of each other.

Find those precious days.

And write them on your heart.

Shari, November 11th, 2021

art, authors, beauty, humor., Life in General, makeup, Nature: Hiking, Wildlife & More, writers, writing

Modeling for Myself

Shari

If you are a regular member of my super exclusive club, (uh, social media friend) you might have noticed that over the last year or so I’ve done a series of photos of me wearing fancy dresses in unlikely locations. Or maybe, like the shot above, I’m just being silly in a pretty place.

It started out because I was bored and frustrated during covid and I just wanted to make people laugh and feel better, and I needed something to do. I love taking shots of nature almost as much as just being out in it, but sometimes you need a body for perspective and reference. So, like the grinch when he needed reindeer, I looked around. But since models are scarce, there were none to be found. (I didn’t find any willing reindeer either. Elk, yes. Reindeer, no.)  Since I saw only me, I got nominated. After being offered the job and waffling a bit, I reluctantly agreed to pose for myself. Congratulations me!!

Okay fine. There were a grand total of zero other applicants. Sure, I would love to have my gorgeous ex-model friends here to jump in and play, but they don’t live on this side of the country and I’m not sure slogging around mudflats in rubber boots wearing Versace, or running through the snow in a backless evening gown is something they care to do anymore, but they did it once!

Because modeling is uncomfortable, to say the least. I have stood in water up to my thighs for a bikini ad in January when they had to break the ice off the top of the pool to get the shot. I have stood in the middle of an Astro-turf covered stadium wearing a heavy fur in 107 degree heat and 100 percent humidity for a winter coat ad in mid-July. I’ve been dangled from balconies, buried in fruit, and had ten-foot boa constrictors draped around my mostly naked body. I’ve had perfume squirted directly in my eyes, been posed on a metal train car that could have sauteed a lovely omlette du fromage, poked, stuck with pins, been bruised by clamps used to tighten an ill-fitting suit, and asked to lie down in Fifth Avenue traffic.

And my gorgeous daughters won’t model for me either, even when they are here, because, a. all of the above, and b. my shots are too ‘dramatic.’

So I’m it. And while plunging through icy streams or balancing precariously to get a silly shot might be its own kind of fun, it isn’t about me looking fabulous anymore. It’s about a fun shot.

I can’t be bothered with any but the most minimal makeup, if any, and I haven’t ‘done my hair’ for years for a variety of reason. First, I’m fine looking how I do now, and second, it’s just too much trouble.  Stop laughing! Fair enough. I’m lazy.

The great thing is, I get to shoot what I want to. I’ve worked with literally hundreds of photographers and directors and directors of photography over the years and I can honestly say that only about 2% of them have any idea what they are doing. While I was known for being an asset on a set because I was a ‘thinking’ model or actress, there was only so much I could do without taking over and directors and editors tend to be sensitive about that, I don’t know why. So now, with an I phone, a cheap tripod, and a remote shutter, I can give it a go. What I would love to do is find a bunch of women, all over fifty, and take them out and do a series of these ‘plein air’ shots. They will have to be good sports, but it would be a tribute to what we really want. Not to look like Christy Brinkley at the height of her career, but like the gorgeously-aging goddesses that we are, captured in the wild, nesting in our native habitat. Or maybe we’ll just be an unrecognizable speck of color on a stormy gray beach in the misty distance, anonymous and elusive, but at least we’ll have had a day at the beach!

But since I live in a fairly remote place, though one of great beauty, my victims, uh…subjects, are somewhat limited. I fantasize about taking a road trip and doing this with so many remarkable women I know, both personally and on line. Little snapshots of their glorious personalities draped in the finest thrift store fashion available. Or the latest fashion, or wrapped in lace, but like the photographer who once proclaimed he did not shoot Sears, I will raise my snobby nose at yoga pants!

For now though, I’ll just keep trapsing out into the underbrush, or mountain ledge, or rocky shore, with my satin skirt hiked up above my knees to avoid the blackberry thorns and shoot blind. Kind of the opposite of going into a blind to shoot, ha!

Blind photographer. Makeup-less model.

Next I’ll be writing without verbs.

Or cooking without heat.

But I’ll be amused.

Hope you are too.

 

Shari July 21st, 2021

 

beauty, Life in General, men, Nature: Hiking, Wildlife & More

How You Like Me Na-ow?!

Shari

 

 

I suppose I must be mellowing in my old age. The other day some woman went off at me for letting a door close on her, though she was ten feet from it and I had no idea she was even going into the same store, and instead of going full bitch back, like I would have a few years ago, by telling her I didn’t need a lesson in manners from a crack addict Cretan like herself, I apologized. She kept it up, mumbling and cursing and glaring through beady, narrowed eyes, until I said, “You are not listening. I sincerely apologize for not noticing you there. I hate it when people do that to me, and I truly did not mean to slight you.”

The muttering dropped an octave and faltered somewhat, then, though she struggled to maintain maximum nastiness, her eyes widened and she backed away. This unpleasant person, intent on drama and nasty confrontation was befuddled, shocked even, and left completely at a loss as to what to do next. “What is happening?” You could almost see her reptilian brain trying to access some reference to this alien behavior. “How will I scratch and claw and maintain feeling terrible all day if someone is going to be nice about it?” She was foiled.

When I got up to the counter, the salesgirl apologized for the woman, telling me that that particular customer was always very unpleasant. I nodded, it was obvious that she lived in the not so far away land of toxicity and, whether because she had been innocently hurled into that particular pit or leapt in herself and piled sewage on her own head, it was always unpleasant there.  She never expected anything else. For her, that was it.

I winked, “Yep, it freaks people out if they are looking for a fight and you are sincere and pleasant. They have no information on how to behave in that situation.”

Because, it’s easier to demand an apology that to accept one. It’s easier to be brash than graceful. It’s simpler to raise our voice than to speak softly enough that we can be heard. And oh, isn’t it so much more like us to complain that to be grateful.

So let’s get to complaining because that brings me to my latest gripe and I am in no mood to be polite about this crap. I call it, ‘The qualifier.’ You know what I’m talking about. The compliment that is given with an immediate take away. “You’re very smart,” sounds nice, until the sentence is completed with, “for a girl.” Suggesting, not just a lessening of your worth or talent, but an overall insult to all women, the suggestion that because I have a vagina, I cannot ever equal the IQ of a penis holder.

I heard that all my life. There was also, “You’re funny,” said with surprise because… wait for it… “pretty people aren’t funny.”  So only pimple-faced, fat kids can develop a sense of humor as a defense mechanism? No one ‘pretty’ could ever have had a painful childhood, or any trauma or loss, or even just have been born quick-witted. And is there some kind of limit on how many qualities a person can have? We’ve all been force-fed these stupid stereotypes. If you’re a good athlete you can’t be smart. If you have a mathematical brain you can’t be artistic. And on and on. Nothing fucked up to see here, folks! Move along!

I was taught to drive by a professional race car driver named Jack. One day after we’d been out practicing emergency techniques, i.e. correcting slides, using acceleration to avoid impacts, that kind of thing, we met my then husband at a friends house. My ex asked him, “How did it go?” Jack answered, “She drives good.” Ex smirked and added, “You mean for a girl.” Jack’s eyes glinted and without blinking he said, “No. She drives good.”

I still like that guy.

But now I have a new despised qualifier. And I doubt there is a woman over forty who won’t relate to it. If you are an aging woman, you probably already know what I’m going to say. Brace yourself, here it is.

“You look great!” beat beat beat, “…for your age.”

Oh, fuck you! Either you like the way I look, or you don’t. Frankly, I don’t really care. I’m a sixty-year-old woman who has lived my life in rain and wind and on adventures, I look like a sixty-year-old woman, because I am. Why the fuck would I want to look like a twenty-year-old woman and why would you think I would want to? Telling me that you think I would look better if I was younger tells me all about you, but it says very little about me.

I like how I look now, love the glow on my face that comes of contentment. I bask in the love in my husband’s eyes when I haven’t even looked in a mirror for days. I am freaking awesome!! Awesome with my frizzy hair and my descending jowls. I have no interest in applying coverup with a spackle knife or styling my hair with products bought by the barrel. I am aging and I am delighted with how it’s going. So are the thousands of women in my age group and older who have made themselves into what they want to be, not what you think they should be. Screw that, oh, and by the way, for you guys who think you can go on social media and criticize any woman who posts a picture of herself- let’s see you naked. How flat is your stomach? How much hair is left on your head? You want to criticize a woman for not being a size six or for aging naturally? Bite me.

Guess what happens when you ask a guy to post a picture of themselves in that same pose so that we can all get a chance to critique his ass? They disappear like vapor over Texas asphalt.

And if you are woman criticizing other women, well, I don’t even know what to do with you. Though that sewage pit might be a good place to put you. On second thought, if you are woman who has to criticize other women for their looks, you’re already there. That’s it for you.

So stop checking yourself in the mirror and start using those fabulous eyes to look out at the world with the wonder and joy it deserves. You are enough.

No.

You are everything.

You’ve got it all

You’re stunning.

From the inside out.

 

Shari, July 16th, 2021

America, authors, beauty, creating character, creative inspiration, depression, Entertainment, humor., Life in General, therapy, writers, writing

I Didn’t Order This

Shari

I find myself stuck in a kind of limbo, and I know I’m not alone.  I want to write, to be creative, to offer love and support to others in greater need than myself during these tough times, but it seems there is little I can do to escape the sodden feeling of helplessness, the ‘what’s the use?” worm in my brain, the anxiety of watching my country torn apart, the constant worry for friends and family in danger.

Like a compulsive shopper, I’ve been inundated with deliveries, yet only a few of them were signed for by me. Some of them were dumped on my doorstep as surely as a stained couch on the side of the road, but some of them I must admit I sort of rooted around in a dumpster to find, I didn’t ask for the garbage to be there, but let’s be honest, I’ve pulled some crap out of there that I do not need.

So I see no alternative. I’m returning these items I didn’t order. Check any box you like on ‘reason for return’; delivered to wrong address, doesn’t fit, item not as advertised, quality not as expected, pick any one you like, they all work.

Because while we can’t fix any of these major things on our own, namely-worldwide health problems, or global warming, or a crooked con-man getting elected and abusing our government in a sad quest for power at any human cost, we can work hard to lighten the load a bit for ourselves and others. I didn’t order any of those evil things, and while it can be argued that many people did, I don’t have to keep the negativity they heaped on the rest of us because of their ignorance and fear.

Still, it’s depressing. So I’m sending it back. Call UPS, drop it off at the post office, send those FB idiots on their way, it’s a struggle, no lie, but I’m about at the stage where if I don’t deliberately dig out of this hole of depression and helplessness, I’ll be buried alive.

That’s why I go out and take these silly pictures of myself. Wish I had a whole bunch of models, but I only have me, so I bought a cheap tripod that I can carry around hiking, a remote shutter, and threw some thrift store prom dresses in a back pack and headed out into nature with my cell phone. I have to do something, anything, to keep my spirits up, and if it makes other people happy to see me being ridiculous, (and having fun), that’s just bonus points!!

I’m returning the moping at home days, don’t need ‘em. I’m shelving the excuses for drinking too much every evening and replacing it with finding something positive to focus on. I’m rewrapping the lonely despair in its original packaging and stamping, ‘RETURN TO SENDER’ in big red letters on the outside. I’m sending the laconic lack of writing inspiration on a one way return and demanding the manufacturer replace it with what I ordered, some old-fashioned sit-your-ass-down hard work.

Because of course, except for the uncontrollable, I am the manufacturer. I created all these responses, maybe I didn’t order the cause of them, I didn’t ask to be stuck away from my family and incapable of so much as donating blood to help others, but instead of being frustrated that I can’t do more, I can try harder to do less for as many people as possible. It might be a letter, a silly note of hope and a free book. It might be a phone call to tell a joke in person, or a pie dropped off on a front porch, truth is, I don’t know all the things I can do yet because I haven’t used my brain to work on that. And that’s my fault. I was blessed with energy and some intelligence, and who’s wasting that? Me. I am.

I’ve been waiting, I guess. Now it’s time to wake up and start refusing those daily missives from myself that say, “Mope, hang out, there’s nothing you can do, this is a horrible day, month, year.” I had a stern talk with myself then offered some loving advice. I’m including here so you can use the same pep talk for yourself, and it went something like this: “Buck up shithead!! Get over yourself and be of use to someone else!!”

So I won’t talk about the death and the illness and the hungry and the financially fucked. I will step in and do what I can to make each of those things a little lighter, a little less long, and hopefully a little less scary. I know that I’ve been afraid, I think maybe we all have.

But life, such as it is right now, goes on, and I’ve decided it’s time to get back to it. Not by rushing around spreading germs and anger, but by doing what I can from where I am. And surprisingly, it’s been quite a lot.

And that makes me feel better. It leaves me with a flicker of hope that this shade won’t last forever, that most humans care more than they don’t. That the ones who promote cruelty can be drowned out by those of us raising our voices in song and encouragement, that we, in the amazing words of Amanda Gorman, can be the light.

Cast your own shadow by shining in the darkness. It ain’t easy, but it’s our choice.

Pack up all that misdirected bullshit and send it away.

Then pack some love and hope and send it out.

Be sure to take some for yourself.

Good luck to us all.

Shari. February 21st, 2021

America, art, authors, beauty, depression, humor., makeup, Nature: Hiking, Wildlife & More, therapy, writers, writing

Smiling in Solitude

Shari


Since we’ve been in what I like to call, Consideration-for-others-because-I’m-not-an-asshole Lockdown, few of us have bothered much to get out of pajamas, much less dress up. That’s fine by me! I’m a writer so comfy jeans and a sweater are my go-to grabs in the morning. Even when we go out in this casual part of the world, slacks and a little bit nicer sweater are all that’s required. Couture? I might as well dress up and put on a fashion show for the local cows.

It’s been a while since I’ve been somewhere like Venice, Italy, where I generally make an effort to dress well out of respect for the locals there who always look fabulous. I also have a horror of being one of those Americans in their Disneyland T-shirts, runners, and yoga pants or shorts that really set off their cellulite. Nothing against having a little mottled fat, we all do, but do we really need to parade that stuff around 16th century palazzos and cathedrals? It’s just a bit…uh…tacky, but mostly it’s disrespectful. If you threw a elegant cocktail party and people showed up in flip-flops and tank tops would you be happy? With any luck, I’ll be back in Italy in December, but luck is wavering like a heat haze in the distance right now and what looks like my jewelled city waiting for me could be a sloppy mud hut of a mirage.

It’s also been a while since I’ve had to dress up all the time, for a living. Personally, I’ll be happy if I never have to wear makeup or get my hair done again. Honestly. Once you’ve spent two to four hours everyday in a makeup chair listening to not always so benign gossip you get realllllly tired of it. Especially when special effects are involved. I don’t even want to go into spending hours waiting for a plaster mold to dry on your face with straws stuck in your nostrils so you can breathe.

Then there are the clothes. The ones you have to get into every day in your dressing room after hours of fittings. Sometimes, like in “On Deadly Ground” I wore the same suit for at least two months. On the soap it was a constant fashion show. Once they left a price tag on a white turtle neck for me to put on under a sweater, and it was Armani, $900. Then of course, there are appearances, openings, galas, award shows and charity benefits where you cannot wear the same thing twice. I spent so many of those events just wanting to get home, throw on my cozies, and wash my face.

When I moved from my home in LA, I left almost all the glam there. I sold tons of jewelry, most of my designer formal wear went to resale shops, and tons of it went to local thrift stores. I was moving into a simpler life as a writer in rural beauty.

Everything I’d ever wanted.

But then Covid-19 happened and we were stuck at home without the option. I, as well as 83.9 percent of the world, got depressed. I was sad and lacking in energy, which, for someone nicknamed Action, is not acceptable.
I needed to buck up and to make other people smile. The grumpy ol’ man inside my head shook his gnarled fist at me and said, “Get off your ass and quit your damn moping, loser. And keep your bad attitude off my lawn!!”

Long ago my voice coach told me that when you feel lost and defeated you just have to do something, anything, just get started. So I decided to dress up and go take pics doing normal stuff. The photos were silly and fun, and harder than it looked. But it worked. I got a great reaction, and the responses were filled with smiles.So I did it a few more times and I will again.

My coach was right. Every time I get off my butt and do something; hike, cook, write, take pictures of nature, whatever, it revs me up, and I can do more.

So do something creative.
Something thoughtful.
Something silly.
Then share it.
And just maybe,
It’ll get a smile.

Shari, May 20th, 2020

America, art, beauty, children, Life in General

The Brilliance of Light on Snow.

Shari

Snow falls and swirls in puffs or icy shards, it smooths the surface of the world in a way that would seem to dim shapes and steal color. It makes everything look the same, dull and uniform.

But look again, each flake has the opalescent quality made of icicles, of water, of brilliant reflective facets that catch whatever light it meets. So when the sun, or the moon, or the streetlights strike the surface the glow of innumerable diamonds explodes in tiny bursts that combine and dance together, creating infinite patterns and motion. Blink and you will miss a unique fraction of a second.

That’s why Monet painted so many versions of Haystacks, effect of snow and sun. It’s probably my favorite painting in the Getty’s magnificent collection, and my daughters have always made fun of me for crying when I see it. But for me, it’s not just a haunting painting, it’s a miracle of light that this uniquely talented soul captured.

Ironically my girls get it now. They can spend more time studying art in a museum than I do. That didn’t happen accidentally, appreciation of all of forms of art, of true beauty, isn’t genetic, it doesn’t strike you out of the blue, you have to develop it.

That’s not to say you can tell someone what to love, once they are tuned into looking for what will fill their soul, it’s up to them to discover what that something is.

Joseph and I made it habit to routinely take the girls to visit museums, go to opera, plays, whatever opened them up. Owning and operating a Theatre, they obviously had to sit through a lot of Shakespeare, which they might not have loved as kids, but man did it help when they got to the part where they were studying or performing it at school. Just like taking them to visit Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam made the Holocoust real to them. Experience moves and educates. The more you know about history, the more fascinating it is. The same is true for art.

They always enjoyed a day out at the museum in LA, and LA is blessed with several top notch examples. We did not have so much luck on long trips where we dragged them to church after museum after historic location. One trip we took to Washington DC when they were about 7 and 12 ended with them wrapping their sweatshirts around their eyes and sitting in a corner, refusing to look at one more painting or object.

I didn’t blame them, really. They’d been great sports about the rest of it. Trips to Italy, Holland, France, and other art havens were better received. My older daughter actually carried her little sister on her back around the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam to get her to pay attention.

These days either one of them might spend far longer than I do perusing a favorite or a new museum. They found their own loves and interests, but would they if we hadn’t encouraged and supported it so much? Probably not, and the joy they would have missed frightens me.

I was chaperoning my younger daughter’s school trip to the Getty and having a hell of time getting the kids interested in much—and these are art-trained Waldorff kids! Finally I spotted something I thought they would find interesting. When I had been in Venice, I had seen a painting of the lagoon that I knew had been done in segments, as a door decoration I think. I remembered it specifically because of a flower stem that disappeared at the top of the frame. Years later, I saw a flower in the bottom of a frame of a painting of Venice’s lagoon at the Getty. So I asked.

Sure enough, this was the top panel of that same group of paintings, and they had a handout that showed them put together. So I grabbed the loudest boy, (if you can get them interested, you can usually wrangle the rest) and I pointed it out to him. My daughter was instantly able to say excitedly that she had seen the other painting in Venice. Next thing you know, they are calling their friends over and pointing it out. After that, they paid more attention to the little stories I told them about paintings and artists that added to the experience of just looking at pigment on canvas.

Mission accomplished.

The same, I think, is true in life’s behaviors. I have worked with or crossed paths with so many people that changed my life, perhaps not because of anything profound or earth-shattering, but simply because when I knew more about them, they opened my mind to beauty that I would never have seen.

We have been working with a 20 year old young man since we moved to Washington. He has come to help Joseph with building work, we pay him well, and feed him mightily. (Joseph and I call him ‘our big boy’ because I have to cook so much food for lunch and I always send him home with dinner.) He is always cheerful, grateful, and eager to learn all that Joseph teaches him. So far, he has developed a number of new skills and been able to get a better job as he’s working toward college.

Let’s get to know him better. He has two younger siblings, he lives in a trailer with no kitchen and two deserted kittens he found. When he was eight years old, his father went to prison. When he was 13 his mother went to prison. This remarkable thirteen year-old boy raised his siblings on his own with help from a few neighbors who would come over with meals when they could. His grandmother was technically their guardian, but she was seldom there.

Yet, this constantly smiling young man did well in school, had coaches in wrestling that got him to state competitions, and now he really wants to go to college and possibly join the reserves. And he still looks after his sibs. He recently thanked us for the days’ work because it would allow him to pick his 17 year old sister up from school and take her to do something for her birthday.

What do you think of him now? The colors are brighter, aren’t they?

Here’s what we think of him. He is deserving, he is cheerful and positive in the face of challenges most of us have never known. We will help him because we can. We are looking into paying for community college for him for a couple of years until he can hopefully transfer to the university he has always wanted to attend. Shhhh, it’s a secret, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know much about blogging, since he doesn’t have a computer.

Snow is heavy, and cold, and wet, and it blankets all the sharp edges beneath, sometimes making them even more dangerous. It hides mud and blood alike, it’s harder to move through and easier to resent.

But look again. Look at the light off that snow when the clouds break and you see it more clearly, even if only for a glimpse. Isn’t it beautiful?

Take a moment and learn something about someone else.

Their story is not yours, so don’t judge it as such.

Everyone knows something you don’t know.

Each person sees a different picture.

From a different angle.

What do you see?

 

Shari, February 10th, 2020

acting, Acting & Experiences, art, authors, beauty, creative inspiration, depression, Entertainment, Life in General, movies, Nature: Hiking, Wildlife & More, writers, writing

River of Gold

Shari

I know some people don’t like rain, but after living 35 years in Los Angeles, every time it rains at our new home in Washington State I cannot stop smiling.

The energetic atmosphere, the wind, the moisture, and most of all the sky itself thrill and amaze me. Every moment presents a different quality of light on the water, every evening introduces new colors to my visual vocabulary.

The days are shorter here, which works just fine for me. It’s twilight by 4ish, and night by 4:30. Since I prefer to do most of my work in the earlier hours, that just means I get to get up earlier and knock off earlier, leaving long luxurious evenings in front of the fire.

Recently our daughters and their boyfriends visited. I had warned them that they would have to make the most of the daylight, so on the first morning, the surfer among them came bounding down the hall at 7 a.m. in his pj bottoms, arms in the air, calling excitedly, “We have to get everybody up. It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

It was funny, because it’s true. We repeated the line often during their visit and it became the vacation mantra, one or the other of us would attempt to rally the others to get going to lunch or a hike or a trip to the beach to gather oysters because…“It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

It wasn’t until after they left and Christmas flew by that I realized what an apt motto it was. I mean, it’s true in so many ways. The twinkling holiday lights will shine for few weeks only to be packed away, summer’s brilliance dims, youthful relationships that kindled warmth fall away as lives get complicated, and eventually we all wander into death’s shade.

It’s gonna’ be dark sooner or later. Well, soon enough. And while that can be sad, depressing even, it doesn’t have to be. It can actually be comforting in its offer of perspective. We know the sun will set, winter will come, we know intellectually that everything, even the planet, even the universe, will eventually come to an end. All the better to remind ourselves to run down hallways, along beaches, up hillsides, through meadows, shouting, “It’s gonna’ be dark soon!” to celebrate the light that we have now.

One of my dearest friends and mentors was a lifelong sufferer of Crone’s disease. I remember, back when he was in his forties, going for a test that would tell him if the disease had flared to an uncontrollable point, one that would mean his untimely demise. He had to wait 24 hours to get the results.

“You would think—hell, I thought,” he told me, “that would be one of the worst days of my life, that pressure, that unknowing.” He smiled and shook his head. “Turns out, it was one of the best because nothing, and I mean nothing, bothered me. Nothing was important. Someone cut me off in traffic? Not worth getting angry about. My soup was served cold? No big deal. My family is fighting? It pales in significance compared to the pronouncement of a death sentence.”

In short, he said, it was amazing. Everyone shone brighter, and he appreciated every small thing. After the news came that he would likely live a few more years, the elation faded, and things went back to being annoying and frustrating, but he could still laugh things off better than anyone else I’ve ever known. Once, when I was bitching about graffiti in my neighborhood, he asked, “Can’t you just see it as urban art?” I couldn’t, so I stressed and fumed ineffectually. But he could. Where I saw a problem, he chose to see beauty.

That was the amazing David Beaird. He was a man from whom I learned so much. One of the best writers I’ve ever met, though he wrote plays and movies instead of books like I do. My favorite of his movies, ‘Scorchers,’ opens with a very brave three-minute monologue given by one of the finest actors I know. The monologue talks about growing up and swimming in a river lit golden by sunlight, yet when he tried to tell grownups in a position of authority that he found this legendary place, they told him there is no such thing as golden river. He was crushed and hurt, but, he goes on to say, they could never make me believe it didn’t exist because, “I swum in it.”

It’s a glorious piece of writing, and one of my favorite acting performances. You should look it up.

This last year, my friend David passed away, the lifetime of pain and disease finally caught up in spite of his amazing spirit. His widow, who is a remarkable human in her own right, came up to visit me a few months afterward. She told me about the long wait in the hospital once he’d lost consciousness, and the vigil of family of friends. The best of those friends was the actor who performed that golden river monologue a thousand times on stage and once for the movie, Leland Crooke.

We talked about the fact that Leland had always been David’s muse as well as his best friend. Then she showed me something wonderful. While she and Leland had sat bedside, unsure if David was aware of anything around him, Leland began to speak those beautiful words in the golden river monologue to the man who wrote them, for only him. My friend very quietly recorded the moment.

The image is something I will not forget. Two men, lifelong friends, one on life support, the other sitting in a chair beside the bed, delivering a private performance. He recited from his heart those words about believing in things that you know to be true no matter what anyone in a position of ‘authority’ tells you. No one can deny the existence of that golden river because, once you’ve swum in it, it belongs to you. It is beautiful, it is magical, and it is real.

I have been honored to love so much, to live so fully, and to have experiences of my own like that golden river. Places and moments have happened for me that I alone remember, that only I know to be true.

So, I think, it’s important to see that night will inevitably fall, bringing an unknown eternity or the sweet relief of nothingness. Life is fleeting, slippery, and finite.

And if you remember that, then you will wonder at all the beauty around you. You can go and search for your golden river every day. Maybe for you it will be a silver mist that swirls around  in a forest, or a glint of rainbow prisms through a dew drop. Your moments may be huge, or they may flash past, but if you absorb them into your heart, they will live with you, and no one can ever take that away.

So today, I shall run in the rain, and splash in puddles, and slip into the forest to sit still and listen to the drip of moisture onto moss and leaf, the subtle, soft thump-thump of life.

And tomorrow I will get out bed and my spirit will shout to get up and play, because, “It’s gonna’ be dark soon!”

Because of that perspective, the river will shine a more brilliant gold.

The birdsong will pierce my heart with beauty.

I will notice the magic everywhere.

Thank you, David.

I love you.

Shari, January 3rd, 2020

acting, Acting & Experiences, authors, beauty, creating character, Entertainment, humor., writers

Fickle Fame Flavor

Shari

 

 

I haven’t been active in acting or public life for over ten years now, so suffice to say that I was very surprised to get an offer for a ‘celebrity’ appearance for a charity even in Abu Dabi.

The offer came through the correct channels, the charity name checked out, the founder is clearly a zillionaire doing lots of good in the world, and I’m a sucker for women’s and children’s charities, so I had my attorney, who brought me the offer, respond and put out some feelers.

The offer got better and better and until it was a little too good to be true.

Turns out, it was. I don’t have any concrete proof, but the possible risk of someone using a charity to scam people made me decide to back out. If it’s real, all the luck to them, but more likely someone was using real people and their philanthropic efforts to scam someone, though I can’t figure out what they would get out of it.

But here’s the thing—the minute the offer came in, I got tense. The thought of being paraded around as ‘somebody’ and having to pay attention to what I’m wearing, how my hair looks, how successful I am next to the next guest, etc sent shivers of distaste through my body until I found I was physically tied into knots and having to remind myself to take deep breaths.

I realized that as an actress I have to put on a mask to be even nominally accepted. As a writer, frankly, nobody cares. Damn I love it. I could show up at an author gathering wearing a shower cap and my pajamas and it would just be more fun for everybody. Sleep over party at Barnes and Noble, go!!!

When you act, promotion is a huge part of the game and I never cared for it. It looks glamorous from the outside, the red carpet, the attention, your face on or in magazines, but the reality of being constantly judged and criticised is quite exhausting. I always loved the work itself, the acting, creating a character and filling in all the emotional space until the words and actions come alive, which is why I continued to do theater even when I stopped pursuing film and television roles.

I used to get a sense of loss when people would recognise me and behave differently than they would have if they hadn’t. Press junkets and interviews left me feeling distanced from others, because inevitably you are promoting a false narrative. “Everyone got along great on the set! This movie is fantastic, the director was a dream, I always wanted to shoot in a castle, in Spain, in Italy, in Davidson, NC, in a deserted, rat-infested prison.” Best you can do is find whatever works with a particular crowd or journalist or talk show host, and keep repeating it. The actual life of shooting a movie or a show is vastly different from the snippets that come out of it months later when the project is finished and presented.

Of all the insane promotional events I attended, the one that stands out as attitude-changing was a huge television soiree-slash-bash-slash-festival in Monte Carlo hosted by Prince Albert. International celebrities, including my ex and I are were guests of the prince, now the king, and Monaco is always fun, though I prefer a run up into the French countryside. Now, my ex and I went through some insane experiences when the surprise popularity of his show made him a huge heartthrob, the attention was for him on these junkets, but I was dragged into it by default. We had been through experiences that seemed surreal, a promotional tour where it took 20 body guards to get us through masses of screaming people, having women scream and pass out cold when they saw him, not being able to leave the hotel room, fun stuff like that. At one appearance in Athens, Greece, sixty thousand people showed up for a supposed autograph session at a department store and they had to call the army to get us out. No. I am not exaggerating, 60,000. Tom Brokaw had it on the evening news, a comedy segment basically about that many people showing up for an actor who in the states was one of a thousand relatively unnoticed soap stars.

But the event in Monte Carlo that I’m describing here came a few years later when his popularity had dropped considerably, as it always does. We arrived at the airport in Monte Carlo and were met by Paparazzi, as usual, but only a three or four. Hunter Tylo and her husband were traveling with us, and we each had a car with a driver, my ex and I had climbed into our car but Hunter was still standing outside of hers. This was when she was a tabloid star for a minute over suing Aaron Spelling and the press was favoring her. My ex saw this, and I watched the unpleasant realisation of his demotion register on his face. They weren’t interested in him, she was the hot commodity of the moment. He didn’t like it. He fussed for a minute, then made an excuse to get out of the car and go get in her pictures.

That was the first time I saw him pander to the press, and as I watched what was obviously a desperate plea for more attention, my heart fell. This was not the man I had married, the man who understood that fame is false and fleeting. That kind of attention can be very addicting, it can become part of the story you tell yourself about yourself, and that’s not a healthy thing.

He handled most of it very well, I will say, but he fed off it, I did not. I suppose the fact that I often stood to one side and watched the effect of fame gave me a different perspective. There was no crash from the heights for me, only enough of a taste of celebrity to develop the knowledge that people are either worth knowing, or they are not, and no amount of fame or money changes that.

There are plenty of good people who handle fame very well, and I admire them for it, but I truly believe that if you get overly attached to it, it owns you more than you own it.

Overall, that festival in Monte Carlo was a fairly uneventful weekend. My favorite moment was when we entered the castle for a cocktail party with the prince and he was in the stairway taking pictures with each guest. There were at least fifty photographers and the constant flashes were blinding. As he slipped his arm around me and we turned to smile at the wall of lenses I said without moving my mouth, (a lesson I learned early on) “Do your pupils ever dilate?” and he burst out in genuine laughter. So that was fun. I met some other wonderful people, which is all you really ever get out of those things if you’re open to it, and marked it down as a life experience, but mostly I learned a valuable lesson.

“Look at me!” is not a healthy mantra.

I don’t miss that shit at all.

I love connecting with people on a real level, and that will always be my choice.

I have always loved the rain more than the praise of strangers.

I treasure anonymity.

I don’t care if you are famous, rich, handsome, or charismatic.

I care if you are kind, humble and real.

The rest is all smoke and mirrors.

 

Shari, September 21st, 2019

America, authors, beauty, Holiday Traditions, holidays, humor., Life in General, religion

The Myth of Measuring Time.

Shari
IMG_7684
While flying past it.

 

Happy New Year! So whoo hoo, it’s a click of the clock, a difference of dates on an arbitrary calendar, a ‘new’ beginning. Such anticipation, so much celebration, so many champagne corks popped, advertising sold, intentions stated, and pressure applied to have fun. When? Well, not yet, not yet, okay, go, go, go! Right now! Oh bummer, you fell asleep and missed it!! We work ourselves up into a frothy lather, and deservedly so, after all the most amazing thing is going to happen. That’s right—It was one assigned number and now…wait for it…it’s another! Miracle of miracles! Light the fireworks and wake up with a hangover!

Ah, that one specific switch of digital numbers clicking over is unprecedented, amazing, and miraculous, it’s a unique opportunity to alter everything about ourselves, to plan for the future, to take it all back, to erase our errors or promise perfection, to set ourselves up for spectacular failure, it’s the one time of year, (or the change over between them anyway) that we can truly affect real changes in our lives, make a fresh start, really start living—or, no, uh…wait…

Is it?

Maybe, just maybe—stay with me now—it’s just another random moment in the unrelenting passage of time in our dimension? Maybe celebrating ‘new year’ is another case of humans buying into a fake concept to amuse themselves, to invent some cause for community, to stick a marker in our chaotic and brief existence?

Not that that’s bad.

I mean, it occurs to me that just because somebody assigned random numbers to define our days and moments, which, fair enough, many of us agreed to, doesn’t make one ‘official time’ any more powerful or transformative than every other second, minute, day, year, decade or millennium. I mean, unless you aren’t Christian-European descended (What? There is more than one calendar in use on the planet? Yes, over forty in fact. Doesn’t that just rock our Christian-centric world!) you’ve collectively agreed to mark the change on a midnight in mid-winter, (ironically a pagan holiday which actually made sense for a celebration of the earth’s position in the solar system) but we could just as easily have chosen a late afternoon in mid-summer, or twilight in early fall, or dawn on any given Tuesday.

And by the way, where and when is the official, actual, really, really, honestly true new year? Shouldn’t we all agree on a single moment? It is the whole world we are talking about. Is the ‘true’ new year in Bangkok, or Paris, or Bimidji, Minnesota? How can there be an actual ‘change over’ when the moment comes at different ‘times’ in different places? We can’t even narrow it down to one in our own country, much less the whole world. Technically, there should be 24 different time zones, and therefore two dozen non-simultaneous new years, but thanks to the International date line, and the fact that some time zones change in 30 or 40 minutes rather than an hour, there are actually 38 time zones. (And that’s for our calendar, there are over forty different calendars worldwide, see above.)

38 time zones. 38 chances to celebrate a completely made up marker.

There is some method to the madness, some reason and explanation, some phenomenon to mark, of course, and that is the earth’s rotation around the sun, the fact that another solar year has been completed, another circumnavigation round the big ol’ ball of fire we call ‘the’ sun on our tiny, insignificant planet.

Insignificant, that is, in the scope of the universe. So if you are looking at the big picture, planet earth in a infinite, ever-changing universe is temporary at best. From down here, seeing how it’s the only planet we’ve got, it’s a pretty big deal—and the reason we measure time. Unfortunately, we stopped acknowledging nature and science as the supreme wonder when all us pesky humans invented religions. Marking mid-winter, an important date to be sure, was hijacked and renamed Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mawlid, and many others, None-the-less, the world keeps turning, the sun keeps getting lapped, and time goes ever on even as civilizations, continents, religions, humans and  yes, even planets, come and go.

Yet it’s a big moment, this passing of another year. A truly remarkable thing. This ‘holiday’ celebrates the almost unfathomably complex journey of a big hunk of rock, (or tiny speck of debris, depending on your perspective, see above) hurling through open space subjected to both centrifugal force (being pulled outward by spin and motion) and gravity (being pulled toward a far more dense mass, the sun) finding a balance on a scale that dwarfs any comparison to like-phenomenon taking place on the planet itself.

Which is pretty awesome.

But you have to admit that you could say that about every single second of every day. I mean, maybe we finished a lap back to this starting point, but what about the one just before, or after, that one? If you lined up 365, okay, 365 and ¼ days, (okay, 365.2422, but who’s counting?) and made any given second in any day a starting point, you would reach every single one of those ‘starting points’ again once a year.

It’s a circle dummies.

So here’s my point, as insignificant and cynical as you may find it. You get to decide when to start over. You say when to celebrate. You can change your life, make a resolution, forgive, love, start over, go back, end it all, or just plain quit worrying about it all any time you choose. In any second, of any day, in any season, you can start a diet, join a gym, raise your fist and swear at the moon, give up alcohol, find joy, thrill at life, drink champagne, kiss a loved one, or go walk about without permission or prompting from anybody.

Everyday is new year’s day, darling.

Pop that cork and kiss that baby,

Life begins again, right now.

And right now too.

There are no second chances,

Only infinite ones.

 

Shari, January 1st, 2019 (so they say, wink)