Month: August 2018

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Out of Touch

Spoiler alert: I miss being hugged. These last years, I’ve adjusted, redesigned, and redefined life as I found it yet, I’m not gonna lie, being hugged is a major miss. It’s one of those things that get lost in the storm and, it’s only when the winds die down and the skies clear that you see  what left the building.

Amid the sunny day to day, we are often too busy to even notice how often we touch one another in one way or another. No, I’m not talking about big cinematic smooches or lift off your feet bear hugs. I’m thinking of those little touches on the shoulder, small of the back, the grab of a hand. Maybe you remember when familiar hands smoothed sunscreen on your back, or fastened a necklace you couldn’t reach. In those moments, few of us ever imagine that one day those moments would become a billboard in your memory.

It’s been said “Americans suffer from skin hunger”. When you realize more of us live alone than ever before and have more intimacy with our cell phones than each other, it makes sad sense. Our American culture makes us more restrained than countries like Greece, France, Spain and Italy, where they hug and kiss – a lot. Today’s culture also makes us cautious about touch, of it being misunderstood, being thought uninvited, or worse, harassment. Our restraint, our ‘aloneness’ have cost us the essence of human connection.

Remember that guy who offered free hugs on the street? Juan Mann, the founder of the “Free Hugs” movement, understood the innate impact of meaningful human contact. The very fact that our culture has given birth to professional cuddlers (yes, it’s a thing) who spread affection through workshops to the touch deprived, should give us pause. The Japanese even designed a chair, with soft, floppy arms that wrap you in a fluffy embrace as an answer to touch hungry souls. Sadly, that’s not an alternative fact.

“Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”  Charles Dickens Continue reading →

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The Butterfly Effect

Do-overs — what a concept. Unfortunately, life doesn’t dole out too many of those. Something good happens when we expect the worst, and we’re over the moon. Something terrible happens and we say ‘What the?’.  If we’re lucky, we get the chance to change direction, which may change the outcome – or not. Remember when you stuffed yourself dinner and became so green with a stomachache you had to ditch that Broadway show? Or how about when you bluffed on your resume, forgetting you’d be actually be expected to KNOW what you said you did. There are a million things, big and small, unimportant and critical, even tragic, that we’d love to wriggle our Bewitched-nose and change. Sorry, that only happens on TV.

If you ask any widow, whose love story suddenly ended or a parent who’s lost a precious child, if they would have cancelled the devastation those losses brought, their answers would be a resounding ‘yes’. But, if it meant they would also have to cancel all that went before, would any of us still choose to pass?

I think not.

Small things can have big effects. A tiny grain of sand can alter history and shape destiny. The smallest things can have the biggest impact somewhere we may never know.  Even if we don’t see the change, it can happen in our own lives, our friend’s, even in those of people we’ve never met. Scientists say that everything is interconnected. One single action can trip off something completely different in the future.

It’s been said that something as small as the flutter of butterfly’s wings can cause a typhoon halfway around the world.  Chaos Theory

In 1963, Edward Lorenz proposed that a butterfly flapping his wings can cause a hurricane somewhere in the world. Admittedly, that sounds a bit outer limits. But, by the 1990’s, physics professors, working together, proved the theory true and accurate. It can be hard to understand how seemingly random changes can effect the course of your life, but even small ones can cause huge changes in another time and place. Continue reading →

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What’s in YOUR wallet?

I admit it. Guys have us beat in the travel light department. Wallet? Check. Money? Credit card? Check. Ask me if I’ve ever left the house with only a wallet in tow and you’d get a resounding heck, no. I don’t even take a walk without phone, tissues, reading glasses (just in case) and whatever else might make me emergency ready. So, when it comes to my purse, I may be just a wee bit over prepared.

“You always got to be prepared but you never know for what.” Bob Dylan

I don’t have a huge bag; it’s just methodically packed. Why do you think I bought one with so many handy zippered compartments? Okay, well, partly because the color was awesome but all those little pockets sold it. As often as I try to pare down, it seems to fill up without my permission.

A woman’s bag is a puzzle. Pieced together, each item reveals her personality. Toting only bare necessities might nail you as a no-nonsense kinda girl who keeps her car spotless, desk organized and house neat as a pin. There’s obviously never any expired yogurts in your fridge. One of my role models fits that bill exactly, carrying only what fits in the palm of her hand. When I grow up, I’m going to be just like her.

Then there is the gal who stashes everything but her bedroom in her larger than life bag. Shoes, every receipt from the last two months, a Tide stick, a mini medicine cabinet, nail polish and enough makeup to rival a cosmetic counter. If she happens to be a mom, add diapers, baby wipes, baby Tylenol and all things sticky to the traveling bottomless pit of ‘stuff’. This prepared woman’s bag, which gets larger with each replacement, becomes an alternate dimension, like stepping through the door of the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe. But she’s ready for anything. She’s just not going anywhere fast.

Handbags speak louder than words.

True to my Libra need for balance, I hover in the middle. Most of my bag’s contents make perfect sense, at least to me. Why wouldn’t I need two pair of glasses – for sun and reading? Wallet, phone, checkbook (yes, on occasion you need to write a check, right?), tissues, pens, comb, Purell, keys (complete with furry pompoms) and business cards. Then I veer off into kooky with a few herbal tea bags, some supplements I never leave home without, a phone charger, 3 or 4 (or more) makeup basics and on any given day, snacks for grandkids; nuts for grandma.

Maybe it’s my Catholic school training about “a cluttered purse is a cluttered mind’ but at the end of the day, I try to weed through the detritus. I pitch an occasional string cheese wrapper, unused coupons and completed to-do-lists. I reassure myself that I’m not paranoid; just prepared. I could stuff things in an even smaller bag – but why? Continue reading →