Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 2

The Climb to the M

In 1992, my sister Denise and started the climb to the M on the University of Montana campus, a place we were visiting with our parents (the summer before her senior year of high school), one of several schools she was considering attending.

When Greg and I stopped in Missoula for the night on our way to Spokane, I knew climbing the M was something we needed to do the next morning.

What I didn’t tell anyone when I posted photos from the top on social media was that Denise didn’t make it to the top. I did and somewhere in a photo album I have a photo looking down on her from where I stood at the M and where she stood just below me.

One of the things I did after Denise died, was write about her suicide, as a letter to her, in the Ball State Daily News where I was a sports reporter covering the men’s basketball team. She had died on the morning Ball State was to play Kansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

These words, the ones I wrote over thirty years ago, resonated with me on the trip to Missoula and all the way up the mountain:

“You only made it halfway up to the ‘M’ on the mountainside of the University of Montana last summer. But then, you thought you’d return and have the chance to climb the whole way up.”

We were there and it was the opportunity for me to make that second climb for her. I know she was with me, as she always is, and that we did it together.

The Honeymoon...and Chelle Summer

Sometimes I forget that Chelle Summer was born on my honeymoon with Greg ten years ago. And it’s hard to believe Chelle Summer turns ten this year– more on that at the start of August when I celebrate Chelle Summer’s “birthday.”

We had decided to go on a “surfing safari” for our honeymoon. We drove to LA to stay with our friends there a few days and pick up our surfboards that we stored in their garage. What we didn’t anticipate was how cold the more northern California beaches would be (we expected them to be cold, but not that cold).

On the way to LA from our home in Albuquerque, however, we had stopped at the outlet mall in Barstow, a place that was a sort of usual break for us each time we’d driven to LA for the previous year. And it was in the Old Navy store where I said something out loud, wondering why they didn’t make colored denim skirts, just shorts.

Greg’s response– the one he might regret some days– “Then make them yourself.”

After our return to LA, before heading back to New Mexico, we decided to make our first trip into the garment district. I don’t recall now if this was really related to me making any skirts so much as we thought we’d check it out and maybe find some good clothes, too. I did buy a handbag and a dress, but it was the start of our fabric buying adventure that has fueled where Chelle Summer is today.

When we arrived home, I started to seek out estate sales again, something that had been dormant for me for several years as I pursued other things. And that led me to a house where I bought my first vintage dresses and began the sewing experiments that would continue to propel what had gone from a surfing safari to a sewing safari honeymoon.

Adaptability

I was raised with travel stars in my eyes. My maternal grandparents seemed to travel the world in my childhood and their house was filled with National Geographic and Life magazines. Plus, the drive to their house on the north side of Chicago from ours in the suburbs meant passing by O’Hare Airport and all the billboards beckoning one to travel to the Bahamas in the winter and advertising new service to Warsaw. Our family summer vacations were by car (after all, there were four of us kids) until Mom went to work for the original Midway Airlines while I was in high school.

But each time I start packing to leave as an adult, I find myself filled with anxiety about, well, leaving. It’s ridiculous, but somehow I find that I get rooted into my routine so easily that it’s hard to pull myself out of it. And this was made worse by the pandemic when Greg and I couldn’t make our several trips a year to LA. When we finally could make a trip, I was a wreck, but I knew it was important for me to go, to pull my root out of the ground.

The more I travel, the more I realize how important it is for me, that it makes me more adaptable to situations. And it makes me appreciate my routine at home that much more. Travel helps me bend more. And I know that by bending more, I’ve also had so many opportunities I wouldn’t have had if I stayed home.

I keep pulling the root out because I know I want to make the most of this life I have, because I want to experience new things, meet new people. Creating– via writing and sewing- are mostly solitary activiities– but there’s a balance to that of experiencing the world. After all, those travels keep inspiring me to create more.

Surrender

Surrender.

The word caught me by surprise. Maybe I hadn’t heard it in some time, perhaps because “letting go” is more often the phrase I might use or hear. But, as I have often written, letting go is a challenge for me and there’s something about that phrase that I guess never quite worked for me.

But surrender is one I haven’t use often even though they essentially mean the same thing to me.

And yet when I look at this photo, taken in June 2023 in Bali, surrender comes to mind. And it works.

Maybe our word choices affect how we react to what it is we need to do to move forward, make change, challenge ourselves.

In my long list of ways to keep moving myself forward and shed what holds me back, I’m going to experiment. When I need a reminder, I’m going to think of this photo and the word surrender. Maybe it’ll bring the little change I need propel myself to where I want to be

Reimagining My Grief

Mom’s birthday on May 12 ends what my sister Karen and I call “Birthday and Anniversary Season.” It begins in March with the anniversary of our sister Denise’s Suicide and continues with the anniversary of Mom’s death, Denise’s birthday, our parents’ wedding anniversary, and then our parent's’ birthday. Oh, yes, and don’t forget to throw Mother’s Day in there, too.

It doesn’t matter how much time passes, those dates have become part of our muscle memory. If we would choose to ignore them, they would still remind us somehow that they are a part of us.

And yet the journey has changed in so many ways.

Having experienced the loss of my sister when I was 21 and then my grandmother– who I lived with during my freshman year of collage– seven months later, I was forced to forge my way through grief fairly early in life. Writing a book about Denise’s suicide plus traveling the world speaking about it, each time I told the story, it was like I rewove where it belonged in my life. There were pieces to let go, pieces to keep. Then the losses of my parents, leaving me without them at a much younger age than many people I knew.

I had to figure out where to place the losses, and the grief, in my life otherwise it would guide me to places I knew I didn’t want to go. I saw early that life was too short for that although I also had to find way forward when faced with a loss that many people never do find a way through.

Because I’ve spent so much time reflecting and continuing to walk the road, even when I can’t see where it’s leading, I’m also finding that I view grief differently than most people.

I know that many people have no words, and saying they are sorry is the only way they can express the sense of not knowing what to do. But please, don’t feel sorry for me. I can’t change what happened, especially something that happened more than thirty years ago.

I wish Denise were still here, but that’s not the life I’ve had. I have always known she is still with me and maybe in some ways it made it easier for me when my parents died– as if she were waiting at the airport gate for them to arrive (along with all the pet dogs who have moved on as well). Each time someone– or a dog– dies, I picture Mom, Dad, Denise, and all the dogs at the top of the escalator waiting just outside airport security for the loved one to arrive at what feels to me like a new home.

My life is full of inspiration because I’ve been open to it. I learned how to seek beyond what was right in front of me to see something more. And I always remind myself that Mom, Dad, and Denise are cheering me on. They aren’t part of my life in the way I ever thought they would be, but they are still are and that’s what most important. Please don’t feel sorry for me. I’m so very lucky.

Reflections of Mom

Substantial.

How many times over the past few weeks have I used that word when describing fabric and then adding, “That’s the word my mom would have used to describe it.”

She would have turned 88 today, hard to believe since she’s been gone more than ten years now. Between her birthday today and the inundation of commercials for Mother’s Day over the past few weeks, I have been thinking about what I would say if I were chosen to reflect on her for a television commercial (like one I saw recently).

Mom comes up so often when I’m creating Chelle Summer- as far back as the inspiration. I think of the time she held the coolest piece of fabric in her hand, something from the 60s, leftover from a top she had created, not sure what to do with it. This was in a period of my life where I wasn’t sewing at all and it didn’t occur to me to just keep it. She gave it away as she did with the dress she wore at my first birthday party, the blue and green fabric print that haunts me and I will one day recreate in Chelle Summer style.

Mom is there when I talk to people at events, whether the conversation be about the nice weight (substantial!) of the fabric or the person telling me about his/her mom which reminds me of my mom.

In the more recent years I’ve been estate sale-ing, mostly the ten years since my mom died, I have begun to understand more about her after seeing what other women keep in their bedroom closets, linen, closets, and kitchen cabinets. There is almost always one vintage dress in the closet. It might have a coffee stain or a cigarette burn, but it also had a memory attached to it. That dress told a story for her and she kept it to remember.

My mom had several of these, too. I have some of them (although not the one I wish I had!) and a couple of coats. In ways I never could have imagined, she taught me how to tell stories through the objects and textiles of our lives. And perhaps those items that sit in the back of my mind were let go to help me create something new, something still inspired by Mom, yet uniquely mine, uniquely Chelle Summer.

Taking the First Step

Showing up, taking the first step, it’s all huge in moving forward.

Whether it’s getting out the front door to run, getting into the pool for a swim (made a little more challenging given the pool isn’t quite warm yet), or cleaning the house, I’m so aware of the importance of taking that first step forward.

It’s like the first step is a domino. We have learned from the game that once one falls, the others will follow. We also know that once we take the first step, the second step is easier. That means it’s easier to complete the task and to do the same task the next time.

But if we’re having trouble making the first step, maybe we even need to back up a little, take a step backward (sorry, I couldn’t resist!). In that time to reflect as we go backward, think about a reward or some way to make the goal even smaller. Whatever it takes to propel us forward. And remember, it might take a few tries for something to work. That’s okay. That’s part of the learning process to go forward. Once we have some idea of what works for us, we can use that when we feel frozen in the future.

The key is to keep trying. The more we try, the easier it gets to go forward and climb bigger hills to challenge ourselves to accomplish more.

Running from the Inside

I have been a runner since I was 12. Running is as much a part of me as brushing my teeth. While there are days I don’t particularly want to do it, I do it anyway, because I know I’ll feel better if I do.

But for several years following surgery (having my uterus removed) in 2018, my running suffered. I wasn’t off from running that long, but it was the longest I’d been off probably since high school when I started to run year round.

In these past few years I have written a few things about working at making my running better, about trying to run harder, about how much harder the mental game is for me than it was twenty years ago.

Finally, last week I felt like I had made some steps forward– while it’s still hard, I had the sense that my fitness is little better, that I can run a little harder and further.

Then this weekend, something changed again.

I have been using the Garmin (watch) challenges as a way to keep myself motivated on those days I don’t want to go out. I remind myself to get at least 10,000 steps in by running the dogs to keep a monthly streak alive or to get a swim in so get that badge.

A week ago, I missed a 10K badge because I just didn’t feel like running a 10K and the weather wasn’t pleasant with strong spring winds wreaking havoc on us so I ran a shorter amount. But this past Friday, I did the 10K. I didn’t get a badge for it because I didn’t need it. I just wanted to prove to myself I could do it.

On Sunday, something new appeared in my Garmin app- you can now buy yourself into their program that helps you earn badges faster because you get double points an other badges that don’t exist to those who don’t pay the monthly fee.

Pay my way to badges? How does that help my fitness? It was a reminder how much people are being badgered to use outside forces to achieve goals that aren’t really true goals because you're paying your way to them, not earning them because you ran an extra mile.

I won’t be pursuing badges now because Garmin reminded me that I don’t need them. Running and swimming are about what’s inside me. Yes, the badges helped get me back some of my fitness, but as Garmin has made changes, I have, too, and that’s not to keep running that road with them beyond what my very expensive watch allows me to track.

Journey Reflections

Chelle Summer is about confidence, about moving forward, about the inspiration to be who we believe we are supposed to be. And make those steps toward being that person. While Chelle Summer as a brand came about ten years ago, what I do has been a lifetime in the making.

From the age of six, I wanted to be an author and most of my school life was geared toward helping me achieve that. I did become an author, but my first book was not the beach reading sort I always planned for it to be. It was about coping with sibling suicide, the stories and lessons I learned from the journey of losing my younger sister Denise to suicide.

It led me to so many more things- writing more books about suicide grief and self-help; speaking around the world; a doctorate; and then realizing that the journey had to change, it wasn’t just about moving forward after suicide anymore. I had done all I thought I was supposed to do in that realm. It didn’t mean I was leaving behind the fact that I lost my sister to suicide, it meant I was going forward to do other things; it meant I was going forward to show that no matter what happens to us, we can still have great lives.

I had thought I would be speaking more about how to help people move forward in a more formal, obviously way, but Chelle Summer began to bubble up and lead me where I am today- inspiring people through the handbags, clothes, and home decor items that I make.

And that leads me back to this photo. The crazy thing in all this is that I love to make swimsuits. It’s been hard to launch that with everything else because our bodies are all so unique and fit is unique to each of us (why so many people hate swimsuit shopping– items in stores are actually created to fit within two sizes). To get people on board with Chelle Summer, I had to become the face of my brand, of what I make. This hasn’t been as easy as many people think it was. I was never a very photographic person. I was the person who always had to have retakes in school because my eyes were closed.

But I learned early in Chelle Summer that people reacted to what I wore and the handbags I carried. I know that if I want to share Chelle Summer, I have to be right in front.

This photo was taken in January on our trip to Los Angeles. I haven’t been able to make as many swimsuits for myself as I would like (although I am on a little hiatus as my winter gym pool time has ended and I’m waiting for own pool to warm up a bit from the 54 degrees that it was yesterday), but I took the time to test some new fabric I’d gotten in December and this was the result.

It’s not just about the swimsuit as it again all goes back to what Chelle Summer is- moving forward, inspiration, confidence. There are many messages in this one photo and that’s what I’ve come to understand about what Chelle Summer means as I continue to create and learn myself. It’s about the inspiration to be who we want to be and live a meaningful, inspired life.

Hope

Greg took this photo of me in Palm Springs during a Modernism Week home tour a few weeks ago. The funny thing is that I was standing in front of that doorway getting ready to take a photo of how the wallpaper popped against the white of everything else with the light from the window in the bedroom giving it a burst of illumination. He was at the other end of the hallway seeing how the color of my dress added to that pop.

I could go on about the design and color aesthetics of this photo, but when I look at it, I’m also reminded of something else– hope.

When I used to speak about suicide, grief, and moving forward, I always talked about how we all have an ember of hope inside us. The challenge is that it’s never burning at the same level of brightness. Some days are harder than others. Some lives are harder than others. We aren’t usually at the same level of hope as maybe other people in our orbit.

But it burns and keeps burning. The key is that we must find it and help it to burn brighter. How we do that varies for each of us, however, I do know that the inspiration to find that hope does lie around us. Sometimes it’s about taking a step back and admiring the sun as it comes up for a new day, washing the previous day away, a clean chalkboard to create something new in our lives. As we come out of a night of darkness, the sun is reminding us that there is light. And hope.

Sometimes life tries to squash that hope. Sometimes people try to squash the hope. Yet inside us, it still burns. I believe in hope. Through losses and a long list of life disappointments, hope has kept me going forward and believing that all just isn’t well, it’s still great no matter what happens to me.