Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 3

Lent: The Desert Walk

How cluttered our minds often are.

It’s easy to be distracted, to get distracted, to not hear the messages God sends, because we’re too busy stuck in a constant barrage of chaos.

This past weekend at church, the first Sunday of Lent, Fr. Steve reminded us how Lent– a walk in the desert– is a time to clear our minds and our hearts. It’s an opportunity to remove whatever keeps us from hearing God and his plans for us.

Often, my prayer to God is asking that I hear his messages for me, particularly when I’m at church and many distractions are removed from me (except my mind which is probably, easily, my biggest distractor of all). I’m there for an hour and it’s at that time where I feel like, in the slow down, I have that opportunity to hear what I need to know. It’s like picking up my messages for the week, of what I need to know to go forward into the next week.

But I also view Lent as a chance to do something extra to work toward hearing God better. I’m not someone who gives anything up, especially because the anniversary of my sister’s suicide falls during Lent, a reminder of something very large that I lost as I was reaching young adulthood. Instead, I look to do something that helps me work on hearing God better, something I can continue to build on even after Easter has passed.

Many years, and this year it is, it’s about a writing project. I like to keep exactly what I’m doing private until I finish it, however, I will say that writing and all my creative endeavors draw me closer to God. The inspiration runs high because I prayed so hard and so long for guidance. What am I supposed to do? Whatever it is, help me do it. Help me to move forward.

I listened, I pushed the distractions away, and the answers came. During this Lenten season I’m grateful for all that pushing forward and in my desert walk this year I’m finetuning the listening for what comes next.

Find Hope and Inspiration

Challenges surround us. We’re all going through or coping with something each day. And yet we’re surrounded by hope and inspiration. However, iIt’s up to us to find it.

I have disconnected myself a bit from aspects of the world in the past year. This was done mainly because my creativity continues to run high and I’m trying to harness it as much as possible. I used to read three newspapers a day and I loved knowing what was going on the world, but when my newspaper lady had to give up her route, I knew that was the universe clueing me in for change (we’re hanging onto one last newspaper for three days a week but that will be ending soon).

I’m busy. Some people think I try to do too much in a day. I never feel like the days are long enough for me to do everything I want to. I worry about a long list of things. I feel burdened by things I can’t pay others to do for me so I can spend more time being creative (nor can I convince the dogs to brush themselves and run the vacuum).

But when I take a moment to look around, to think about it, I love what I do. I love creating. I love sharing it with the world. If I had a message for everyone for 2025, it’s that- find what inspires you and gives you hope. You can’t change the world as a whole, but you can change your bubble, corner, whatever you call it. I choose to my keep my filled with color and light. Life is giving you the same opportunity.

Take it and run with it.

Runner Girl

I’m not sure how many people know the importance of running is to my life. And that’s partially because it’s something that has sort of been pushed into the shadows of my life. Still, it’s significant to my mental health and well being, something I’ve been doing since I was twelve.

While I run every morning– and run the dogs separately– I had slowed down significantly over the years, not really aware of it at first. I had my uterus removed in 2018 and it was the first time I’d experienced a long layoff (something like four to six weeks, if I remember correctly) from running. I was allowed to walk and swim, but I couldn’t run.

When I did finally start, I won’t lie– it was hard. It took me a while to build back up to where I’d been. I somewhat got there, but I don’t think I was near where I had started before the surgery.

I ran and swam a lot during the pandemic, mostly because I was home. We had been used to taking several trips to LA each year and suddenly we weren’t taking any. I didn’t realize it at first, but I didn’t take any days off for about a year. When we travel, I tend to take a day off or maybe go for a walk instead, using that as break time. But with nowhere to go, I kept running.

At some point last year I began to track my mileage on my Garmin watch. I had used it for steps, but thought about seeing how I was doing. And that’s when reality set in. Wow was I slow.

I committed myself then to finding a way forward, a way faster. And once again, I won’t lie– it’s been hard. Many mornings, like most of them, I don’t want to run hard. I don’t want to run an extra mile. But I’m finding the more I tackle the mental game, the better I feel later. “Oh wow, I did it! I pushed through!” The watch has made me honest– helping me understand where I need to run harder.

As we age, it’s easy to slow down and sometimes not run or exercise at all. But continuing to find ways to push ourselves is important because forcing that drive within ourselves gives us new confidence and inspiration.

Recommitment...to Myself

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about usefulness of new year’s resolutions. I believe we’ve all grown up hearing about them and perhaps been encouraged to take on something we can change about ourselves in each new year. In my life, I know there are many things I attempted change, big change, at the turn of a new calendar, only to quickly fall flat on my face.

I have learned that it’s best to make smaller changes, steps along the way, and that we can do them any time. I like the idea of doing them at the same time I’m hanging a new calendar on the wall (one of the few people who I’m sure still does such a thing), but I also understand I don’t have to wait until I’ve eaten too many holiday desserts to make changes.

But there’s something else I’ve been contemplating– that “resolution” isn’t so much what it’s about to me rather than a “recommitment” to myself. We can always do better. After all, if we were perfect, we wouldn’t be here. But there’s always something in our lives we can do better and I strive each day to keep building on what happened the previous day.

This new year I’m recommitting myself to a variety of areas of my life where I’ve either gotten a little lazy or fallen short of where I’d like to be, what I’d like to accomplish. After all, making ourselves better also makes the people and the world around us better, too.

Happy 2025!

Palm Springs

Palm Springs was always a place that existed more in my mind than reality. It made me think of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, but it was never a place I planned to visit.

However, Greg and I traveled there for the day on one of our LA trips (before the pandemic) and attended an estate sale before lunch and taking photos. I received quite a few compliments on the dress I was wearing (not this photo– this one was taken last spring) and I knew that somehow I’d have to figure out how to get us back there although I had no idea how that would happen. We made one more trip there, but it was the La Quinta Triathlon in early December 2023 that would change everything for me.

Greg had signed up for the second time (I didn’t accompany him the first time because I had an event in Albuquerque) and I had promised I would make this trip. But I also didn’t want to stand around all day waiting for him to finish. On a whim, I signed up for the Palm Springs Vintage Market, hoping I’d be accepted, but reminding myself that the world wouldn’t end if I didn’t get in.

I did!

Greg wasn’t happy at first, worried that there was no way we could transport his bicycle and gear along with all my Chelle Summer items in the car. I had already figured that out– instead of bins, I would use bags and we could place the bicycle on top of everything Chelle Summer.

It had been a rough year for Chelle Summer. I was doing events left and right, but none of them were going well. Time was running out for me to continuing doing it. I always made back the fees, but not much more. I wasn’t selling much online and my vintage items especially weren’t selling at all. I had no idea how to reach the right people.

Those endless prayers paid off that day at the Palm Springs Vintage Market when I found my people. To say I my work felt appreciated was an understatement. The ball began to roll, the dominos to fall, and here we are a year later heading into the third market of the season, what was my first last year.

They say this market is special and I get it. As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I’m also saying thanks to Palm Springs for all the Chelle Summer love.

Popping Fear

This photo describes fears so well.

I remember in high school, as a runner, being told that fear comes down to not knowing what’s going to happen. On that morning in Maine last summer, as seen in this photo, we couldn’t see the bay– and the Atlantic Ocean beyond it– because of the fog. In fear, we can’t see much in front of us so the anxiety and worry creep in. We begin to wonder a little bit, but then it keeps growing to the point where we are stuck in place. The fear paralyzes us.

Fear grows as we experience more life, as we are told no more often, and as we are hurt either physically or emotionally. I believe that one of the most challenging aspects of life is learning not to let fear disrupt who we want to be and what we want to accomplish.

Understanding the root of fear is the first step to not letting fear win the battle. Once we can identify it, we can acknowledge it. And from there, we must reflect inwardly on the steps we can take to pop that fear bubble.

For me, I know that my creativity is partly how I overcome fear. By creating something, writing something, or sewing something, I’m putting something positive back into the world where the world is trying to take something from me.

I also know that movement is helpful– swimming, running for me. The ways I pop the fear bubble might not be the same for you, however, if you aren’t sure what you need to do, start trying various things. After all, overcoming fear has to start somewhere.

The Writing Life

Chelle Summer has taken over my life in ways I don’t think I ever could have imagined. It started out with bucket bags and I had no idea that nearly ten years later people would identify me as a “handbag maker” or a “fashion designer.” I love what I do; I find great joy in creating.

But what many people don’t know is that writing is my true my love.

I had wanted to be a writer since I was six years old, dreaming of not just published books, but the bestseller list, too. I achieved my dream of becoming a published author in 2001 when my first book, for sibling survivors of suicide, was published. I have since published twelve more books and Ida Lee, just out a month ago, is the thirteenth.

The hardest part about publishing a book is the marketing, getting people to read it. People are caught up in reading what Amazon tells them they should or what the bestseller list highlights. Strong marketing (meaning lots of dinero paid to people to put the word out) is really what makes a bestselling book. And when you’re just one person like me, it can feel nearly impossible to make happen.

Chelle Summer comprises the bulk of my income and the demand for what I make has increased, especially in the past year. I’m happy and, again, I love to create and see people enjoy what I made, too.

But I realized somewhere along the way that I couldn’t forget the writer in me.

In the early morning hours, I try to write a page, Monday through Friday. It might not be much and there might be days where I write more. Or I’ll read through a manuscript I’ve started and not finished. I just try to do something daily because I understand that the writing aspect of storytelling is still important to me.

And I while I wish everyone would read what I’ve written, I also see that it’s most important that I finish these novels and publish them. I don’t want to wake up in twenty years and see so many half-written projects here. I want to see them through, to release my stories and characters to the world.

Sometimes the goals and dreams change. The key is changing along with them.

Meet Ida Lee.

Return to Winter Pool

I returned to swimming at the gym last week; “winter pool” as I call it.

While the weather is still unexpectedly too warm for this time of year, my own pool has gotten a bit too cool for me so last week I began to make the trek to the gym to swim.

It means a change in routine which isn’t a bad thing; it’s just that- a change in routine. The first few days are always the hardest because I’m not just walking out the back door with the dogs but instead gathering up things I need and hoping I get my lane one in the sun.

But as I walked down the back hallway that leads to the outdoor pool, it was like I hadn’t been gone at all. Over the next few days people greeted me, told me they were glad I was back, and I felt myself settling back into the “winter pool routine.”

Obviously, my pool at home is much shorter and colder so the workout itself is different. My goal at home is to tolerate the colder water and not push off the sides of the pool (keeping myself buoyant without help the entire duration). At the gym it’s longer laps for a longer swim.

It takes a few days of physical adjustment and then on Friday morning the mental adjustment kicked in as well. I felt I was in a good enough physical place that my mind could start to wander, using that time to work out details about my writing, sewing, Chelle Summer. I’d been planning out my latest Chelle Summer newsletter in my head and there was an answer I needed. Several other ideas came to me, too.

Now I was really back into the winter swimming routine.

Belonging

I have been thinking a lot about how I don’t feel as if I belong anywhere. I look at social media and the things people say or do, they aren’t me or things I want to say or do. I see there is a balance in how much I post and reveal to people so I can’t waste the little sort of “space” I have to share on things that don’t feel worthy to me. Then as I peer back on my life I can see that there was a time when fitting in was so important. Yet as I entered my teens years, I found myself on a bit of a path alone, finding what interested me and sticking to that rather than what helped me “be” like everyone else.

This continued into adulthood and I can remember my mom saying that she wasn’t sure where I came from, that I was different from the rest of the family. “You’re of a different branch,” she often said. This was never said in a negative way– my mom was the most supportive mom one could have, something I can’t say I entirely appreciated (and what often makes it harder that she’s not here now although I know she is with me, yet in a different way).

In recent years, my feeling that time has short has intensified and I find I don’t want to waste my time on what doesn’t feel like it adds anything to my life, kind of like those social media trends. I have tried to hold steady to what I want to do, what brings me joy, and what I believe I’m here to contribute.

That also puts me at odds with belonging.

After taking six planes in the last week, I had some time to reflect on this and I realized that the people in this world who want to contribute something on a bigger scale, they often sit as outliers outside the circle. They know they have something to share or do, but staying inside the circle isn’t often the way to make it happen. They have to carve out their place, or build this from scratch.

I feel like one of those people. I sit on the outside (or one might say I’m running around the outside of the circle) and look to see how I can create what it is that I want. In areas where I haven’t been supported on a large scale– getting an agent or my books published, so I went and did it on my own. It’s been hard to get people interested in various segments of Chelle Summer because they don’t believe I “fit” with what they are looking for.

Instead, I have to build what I want. The good news (for me!) is that figuring this out has helped me begin to shed doors I’ve kept open and need now to be closed. There are a lot of supportive people out there and I’m not going to keep trying to get some people interested in what I can see they don’t appreciate or understand.

Life is too short to keep giving energy to doors that are letting good energy dissipate when there are doors to open that will help it blossom.

Mom

Every morning when I’m out running Lilly, I pray. I say thanks, I ask for help, I try to use the time to reflect on what has happened and what I need to go forward. I ask to say positive, especially with the chaos that seems to constantly surround us these days.

I also use that time to say hi to everyone in my life who has died– my parents, my sister, and all the dogs I’ve had. While I know they are around me, that they are all at peace, sometimes I’ll pray, “I hope you’re all well,” Then I realize how silly that is because, of course, they’re all well, they are filled with peace and love now.

And then throughout my days, I find the signs of them are around me. I’m not sure I’m aware of all of them, usually they seem to nearly smack me in the head. Lately, Mom has come to me several times via the song “Every Rose has its Thorn” by Poison. She loved that song so much that she had the 45 (for those of you who remember what a 45 is…).

I had a meeting a church recently and the office door is near the prayer garden where I purchased a brick for Mom so I always stop and say hi to her when I’m there. This time, however, there was a feather right near her name.

Native Americans have all sorts of beliefs surrounding feathers and the one I was introduced to early was that when you find a feather, it means you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing; you’re on the right track for your life. I always take this to mean confirmation that I’m supposed to keep moving forward, that all is well, to hold steady and keep forging ahead.

On this day there was Mom (Marianne Linn) and there was a feather. While she can’t call me up and tell me to stay the course, that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, the feather landing right there when I was stopping by her brick was enough for me.

Just a small reminder that she’s cheering me on as I try to keep moving forward each day, to keep doing the things I believe I’m supposed to do. Even when the path isn’t so clear or obvious.