Women Who Dare

Daughter, Granddaughter, Myself   July 2016

Facebook asks...what's on your mind?  How about...nothing.  My Athlete In Training Program includes quiet time mentally where my mind clears a space for love.  This focus on mental health takes discipline and usually happens when there is a disruption in life.  Losing my job is that for me right now and allows me to discover...what is new...when I STOP DOING!!!  Learning how to adapt when circumstances change is not only building my muscles physically but mentally.  The need for tolerance for uncertainty has got to be fun for me or it's not worth it.

My quiet time brings silence.  Knowing silence is guidance my job is to not panic when that is all I hear.  "Hello darkness my old friend...I've come to speak with you again".  Women who dare do not conform.  They listen to their own songs.  It takes strength to listen on a deep level.  This simple concept to just STOP...the stories....the doing...and just be quiet is not something we are taught to be productive.  We constantly ask and are being asked..."What did you do today'?  If the answer is...NOTHING...the response is...What's wrong?

Growing up I never wanted an Ordinary Life.  I did want to be the lady on the daring trapeze.  To be born, raised, live, and die in one town would be the worst.  Then at the age of sixteen...my ten year old sister drown.  That is when I discovered what the worst really felt like.  A movie came out called "Ordinary People" and I saw the story of my life on the big screen.  Great novels, songs, and films let us know...we are not alone.

This AIT walks the S.F. Hills every day, applies for work online, goes grocery shopping, journals, reads, watches the evening news and some favorite YouTube channels all with a "quiet passive mind" in order to hear... what is new?  Turns out my "ordinary life" is challenging me to dare to give up unnecessary things and business affairs...whatever that means? 

Are You Normal

The Terminator

They say..."It's not normal to be Russell Westbrook".  Slogans say, "Be true to yourself", that's fine but...better is one who can SHOW the way.  One of Westbrooks Mountain Dew commercials "Don't do THEY...Do YOU...is worth a thousand words.

Myself an Athlete In Training I sit here in front of my picture window and watch joggers, dog walkers, bikers, employees at Johns Landing Watertower, all with places to go and things to do.  Unemployed I have no where to be nothing to do just Free To Be Me.  I have my Vanilla Carmel cup of coffee, dressed in my Walmart pajama bottoms, with $4.99 wool tights underneath, a camisole with a long sleeve worn out thermal and a white hoodie over top ready to go walk the San Francisco Hills.  Wondering....is this what I am supposed to be doing?  After 25 years of working everyday...is this normal????

There she is again.  She walks past my window every morning and every night.  She has no idea she is my role model.  With her beautiful, elegant long-legged gazelle like movements for the past ten years I have seen her.  Once I asked her if she walked the S.F. Hills?   She said..."yes sometimes three times."  I walk the hills one time and consider it my complete full-body aerobic exercise for the day.  She walks in every kind of weather just like the postal service only they get paid for it.  I asked her once how she can be so consistent?  She said..."I love ALL the elements."  That is my new mantra.  Is that normal?

Marlo Thomas had an album called Free To Be You And Me my sweet, precious five year old daughter listened to daily.  She had a major trauma happen in her life losing not only her two big brothers but her father as well due to divorce.  No one else at her grade school had divorced parents.  She asked..."why" she was different?  Divorce and blended families were not normal at that time.  The message of that song forty years ago is more relevant today than ever.  With "Rump" for a so-called President freedom means having to "fit in".  I heard just yesterday on the radio a mayor of a town say to a woman wearing a hijab..."Act normal or GET OUT".

I woke this morning thinking I need to be an ACTIVIST for diversity.  But I can't be in throngs of people.  I could be the one up on the platform yelling into the microphone but I need to have a name like Meryl or Rosie for that.  Are you aware everyone is just automatically being asked to "fit in"?  Every retail outlet, corporation, restaurants, movie theaters, airlines, need you to be a member of theirs now.  I understand I pay double for everything in life now because I refuse to join anything.  I am not part of any organization religious or otherwise, no for profit or non profit organizations, and wonder..."is it normal to be a member of everything and everyplace you go in life now?

I do not want to be a member of your marketing schemes.   I do not want to even be asked if I want to join your group think mentality.   But that is feeling almost impossible now... to be Free To Be Me economically.  I am paying the price. Is anyone else paying attention to this?   Have you already joined hands?  Is America First really going to be our  "new normal"?  I hope not.

Giant Road Runner, Las Cruces,, New Mexico

What does a long-legged bird in the CUCKOO family have to do with me?  How many kinds of crazy can set me off in the Land Of The Unemployed?  Lets start with....If Need Help call 877-345-3484.  The only way I was able to stay on hold for an hour to register for my UE check and not go MAD was pretend I was the star of a SNL skit and getting paid big dollars. The recording is old and dragging with distorted loud grating music and a voice overlay repeating the same info adnauseum directing you to their website.  Many companies have those instructions never realizing their website does not have the answer to your question.  Beyond FRUSTRATING!!!!!

How did I get here?  January 2017 my job moved to our Las Cruces location.  I felt like a contestant on Project Runway.  "One day you're IN and the next day a Giant Road Runner takes your job.  OK....get a grip and check in with one of my mentors Caroline Myss..."when change happens it's like entering a mystery.  GET EXCITED!!!"
Hey, I can do that.  I have an affinity with living in the unknown preferring how much more interesting it is than a daily 8 to 5 grind.  That is until time to pay the rent.

My job now is to focus on my own progress.  Being UE is a process.  So how am I doing?
Relax your face, relax your hands, and your whole body relaxes I tell myself.  A yoga axiom that works for all occasions.  Except that "Donny one-note" reading a prompter last night drones on in my head as obnoxious as being stuck holding on the UE help line .