Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 38

Finding Inspiration

I have just a smidgen of Irish in me on my south side Chicagoan dad’s side. He was mostly Polish but in many ways he identified– or wanted to identify– with the Irish him although it was American Irish: corned beef sandwiches and the taunting every St. Patrick’s Day that we were all to trek to city hall downtown Chicago and have our rear ends painted green.

But I don’t identify with being Irish myself. Two weeks ago Greg and I set off to spend a week in Ireland, my third trip there, but it wasn’t about stepping foot where my ancestors did or seeking out family history like many Americans who go there do. I can still remember sitting in the departure lounge at the end of my first trip watching all the Americans drinking bottles of Guinness at 10:00 in the morning.

That’s not Ireland to me.

Two of my three trips to Ireland took me there for speaking gigs and this one was the offshoot of a speaking gig in England because there was something else I wanted to do: spend some time on one of the Blasket Islands.

But it’s also because I am always inspired by the places I go. My first fiction novel, The Australian Pen Pal, only could have been written because of my trips to Australia. By going to places, I experience the people, culture, and the physical place itself. For me, I can’t write about a place without having been there. And this trip had one new place (a blog to come somewhere down the line after it’s incorporated into the novel I’m working on) plus returning to Dingle, Ireland. I wanted to do the drive around the area again, just make sure what I remembered is what is there– at least through my eyes. And it also gave me more details to add to the future story where it will be included. The richness of detail is that transports my readers into places they might never have been.

So while many Americans are off exploring Ireland to step where their ancestors did, I’m thinking about my characters and how Ireland might have shaped their lives in some way.

 

New York City to Chicago Flight

I confess I’ve never been much of a New York girl, always favoring the west coast.

However, when I was in high school, my mom worked for the old Midway Airlines (based out of Chicago’s Midway Airport) and she took my younger sister and I on many day trips, particularly during the summers.

Now that I’ve been living in New Mexico for twenty years, I forget how easy it is to get to the East Coast from the Midwest which meant it was less than a two-hour flight to places like Washington, DC, Boston, and New York City.

One time we went to Macys, another to the Statue of Liberty, and yet another to see the Chicago Cubs play the New York Mets in Shea Stadium.

A few weeks ago, work took me to NYC for a training at Columbia University. And luck struck again that I had the opportunity to stay with a family friend of my husband’s­– one of those people in our lives that isn’t family but we call family– who lives on Central Park. Staying with her and also the opportunity to meet some of her friends and see a musical gave me a different perspective of NYC. And a greater appreciation.

But a memory I had long forgotten also stuck with me as I began to remember the trips with my mom and my sister.

Because we flew stand by (or space available), sometimes we were split apart. As the older one, if they could only get us two seats together, then I was the one who sat separately from my mom and my sister. I traveled with my journal and used that time to catch up on events (I wrote often in those days, right down to what mail I had received and who I talked to on the phone). The woman next to me on one flight to Chicago was an editor of a major magazine. I forget now but it was something like Ladies Home Journal. And her husband was the publisher of something like Country Living.

We spent that time on the plane discussing journalism (my planned major– of which I did receive my bachelors’ degree in) and she was very encouraging.

What I realize now is what an opportunity that was for me, to sit next to someone who was doing work I dreamed of doing. And while the world has changed and we aren’t bound to locations like we once were, still, it could only happen in a flight that involved New York City.

The intersection of life and grief

In the past nine or so days, three friends have had a parent die. All three of these friends come from separate parts of my life and I knew all three parents to some extent: one from college whose mother had attended the bridal shower when I was first married; the second friend a former neighbor with whom we had many parties with and whose parents visited often; and, finally, a friend who with his dad stayed at my house after Thanksgiving one night during their move from Illinois to Arizona.

For most of my life I thought that I had old parents (my dad was 41 when my parents had me and I’m not the youngest child). While a parent can die at any time, I saw a decline in mine, particularly my dad, when I went off to college. It wasn’t until recently that I began to realize how many friends had parents the same age as me.

Still, in many ways I was one of the first to lose a parent, and now to be without both of them. As I think about my three friends and the grief that’s washing over them, I can’t help but also think of how I have learned to cope with it.

I still remember when my paternal grandfather died over Labor Day weekend in 1989, the start of my senior year of high school. As we drove home from the north side of Chicago– where they lived– to our home in the western suburbs, I felt awful. The funeral was over and while I hadn’t been overly close to him, there was still a sense of loss.

And the feeling of what now?

Each loss in my life since– in particular that of my younger sister, my parents, all my grandparents, my dogs (who are like kids to me), and all the other people close to me, has forced me to rethink this each time it happens.

It’s probably the worst part of the grief experience to me, that sense of emptiness after the funeral is finished. Finally, after my mom’s death two years ago I began to understand it better.

There is a time after a person dies that feels as if each of our lives has a divide in them. We have the life with the person, and then there is the life we will have without them physically present. That awful feeling I’m describing is what I have felt as I’m trying to merge the two together, to figure out a way to keep that person in my life, even if they aren’t physically here.

It’s not something that’s easy but because grief is not something we have talked about easily in our lives, it’s also not something which many of us are familiar. I won’t say that it takes time to work through this feeling and close the divide (I have seen many people thirty and forty years following a death and still struggling) but rather it’s a process. We have to feel– which means allowing pain and sadness to overwhelm us– and we have to be open to the ways in which our loved ones are still with us.

There is no one way this works for each of us, we all have unique journeys to travel. But for my friends who I know are relieved their loved ones aren’t suffering anymore, but are still mourning the sadness of losing a parent, I also know that their parents are with them still (and always will be), cheering them on.

My hope is that all three feel that, too.

The Hawaiian Wedding Song

Several months after my dad died in 2006, my mom and I went to the Crate & Barrel store by her house– the house that I grew up in– to buy a new family room rug. As we walked through the store, she suddenly stopped and I looked back to find her standing there with tears in her eyes.

“It’s the song we had our first dance to at our wedding,” she said, of the music playing in the store.

And it was a song I’d never heard of or heard before: “The Hawaiian Wedding Song.” I couldn’t remember any other time in my life where my parents had told me the song they had first danced to at their wedding.

Then I started to cry and as we stood there in the store, both crying, I realized it was my dad telling her it was okay to move forward, to buy a new rug, that he was okay.

She settled on a really nice green rug and her dog Ginger enjoyed it immensely. I believe we had to throw it out before she moved though because it had been peed on too many times by her other (later) dog, Daisy, though.

Mother’s Day was a much-needed quiet day at my house after several weeks of non-stop work. I took occasional peeks at Facebook, glad to see the old photos people posted of their moms, but feeling sad that I didn’t have a mom to celebrate it with (although I have many second moms). Still, it wasn’t a bad day and the sadness didn’t ruin my day. Life is always good.

Greg and I settled in front of the television for several “Mad Men” episodes after dinner. Greg likes to keep the captions on and suddenly “The Hawaiian Wedding Song” flashed across the screen. And began to play.

I know it was my parents, but mostly Mom on this day, telling me it was okay to go on. I know well moving forward doesn’t mean I ever let go of the memories I have. Instead, it means I continue to live life remembering she and my other loved ones are with me, especially on days like Mother’s Day.

But sometimes the signs are nice reminder that I’m not without my mom.

A Mother's Day Message

Friday morning I went out to run errands– the day I typically hit the grocery store and places like Target. Everything was busier than usual when I remembered it was Mother’s Day weekend. At Target, the greeting card aisle was particularly busy; all of it– and the constant commercials on the radio and television about buying gifts for mom– are a reminder that my mom is no longer here.

Her birthday is this coming Thursday, the 12th, marking the end of a two months of death anniversaries, my parents’ anniversary, and their birthdays as well as my younger sister’s birthday. To say I’m a little worn out emotionally is an understatement.

I have tried to make plans on Mother’s Day– one year hosting a brunch for the family and extended family of a group of people close to me– but I am also reminded of Mother’s Days gone by. We always went to my maternal grandparent’s house and it seemed like my mom never had the card ready or a pair of “nylons” that didn’t have a run so we had to make a stop at Osco on our way to the tollway. Mother’s Day meant pie, too. Someone always had to pick up the Poppin’ Fresh (now Baker’s Square) pies to make sure there was enough for everyone.

My life is good, it really is, and I do focus on the good, on knowing they are with me. But it’s sad at times and the constant reminding– although materialism at its best– leaves me feeling somewhat empty.

Friday night we had a booth for my Chelle Summer bags at the Girls Night Out Event that benefitted the local Ronald McDonald House. On my left wrist I wore a bracelet of my grandmother’s that my mom gave me and on the right I wore one of my mom’s funky sixties bracelets. Tomorrow will be a quiet day at my house, filled with some much needed rest, but Friday night I honored both my mom and my grandma by taking them with me as I took Chelle Summer public in a new way for the first time.

That’s my Mother’s Day this year.

Focusing on Ourselves

When I was running competitively, I always remember how we were constantly told not to look back at the person behind us. We weren’t supposed to be worried about how close or far behind us they were because that meant we weren’t focused on looking ahead to the finish, to passing the person(s) in front of us.

How true this is for life: how much time do we spend thinking about what other people are doing? Of course this is made easier by social media where we are sharing more of our lives in ways we obviously weren’t doing when I was in junior high (it was a big deal to have an answering machine then and how primitive that seems now). But it’s easy to get wrapped up in other people’s lives. We look at what they have, what we don’t. We think about the good times they are having while we are struggling with something.

What’s the point? If we took all that time that we spent thinking about what others are doing, we’ll realize how much time we’ve lost being productive in our lives, spending time with our loved ones.

We all know that life is short and if those thoughts aren’t helping us move forward, then let the thoughts go and replace them with what inspires you and you’ll see how much you gain by making that change.

Finding Inspiration in Style

For many years I wouldn’t say that I had any style.

It wasn’t that I didn’t have any sense of style because in junior high and high school I had been really into Benetton, Esprit, and, of course, Forenza, and Outback Red, the Limited brands we thought were so cool.

But after not wearing jeans for several years (I wore skirts and even shorts in the winter- something kids do all the time now but I don’t think many of us did then unless my memory bank is fading from my suburban high school Chicago days), I ventured back to them in college and while I wore nice clothes, they were quite boring.

I lived in jeans for many years even though I had some nice dresses. I wore denim or khaki shorts in the summer. Most of my foray into prints came from a vast collection of bikinis that started in 2004 when my then-husband and I added a pool to our Albuquerque backyard.

But in 2011 I began to find my way back to style, starting with skirts and then color.

However, it was finding Trina Turk’s brand in early 2013 that changed me.

I don’t know how I stumbled on her prints but I fell in love with the swim cover up in the photo. I bought it and used it as my reward for when my house in Illinois sold (which didn’t happen for two more years so I gave up on it as a reward– I knew if I didn’t buy the cover up it wouldn’t be available later although I really expected the house to sell long before it did).

After spending a year and a half back in Illinois, I realized I didn’t belong for many reasons but one was my sense of color was very different what many people wear and decorate with there. I have since heard the people who bought my house painted over the orange walls of my office and the turquoise of the guestroom. Back to brown I’m sure.

For me though, it’s about the prints that remind me of my Barbies and the clothes they wore in the late seventies. Maybe it’s because those are happy memories, with my younger sister who isn’t here anymore. But I’d like to believe it’s about me becoming who I am today.

What I didn’t realize all this time is that in those years I was creating that person. I didn’t know that this style would come full circle by discovering what someone else had created.

That then opened the door for me to explore everything that has inspired me in the past and make it part of my present and future.

Forward, Forward, Forward

Saturday night I watched the Anderson Cooper documentary about him and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, "Nothing Left Unsaid." Both have experienced a number of losses in their lives, just as I have, although none of our stories are ever exactly the same. I had read quite a bit about the documentary in the Wall Street Journal and in Vogue so I thought I would take the time to watch it.

At separate times, they each said something I could relate to: the need to keep moving forward.

For some people, moving forward (particularly after loss) is a huge challenge because they fear leaving the loved on in the past or that it means the past didn't happen. However, people forget that no matter what happens– good and bad– the memories are ours to keep. We choose what to do with them.

For me, moving forward is about honoring the ones I have loved and who have moved on. After my sister’s suicide over twenty years ago, it was different because my life was in a different place. I had an insatiable need to help others in a way that I didn’t feel help was there for me. I traveled this road and did everything I could on it, as if I stopped at every restaurant along the way. I tried not to leave any stone uncovered. However, I’ll admit there are a few things I wanted to do but that need has passed and I’ve moved on.

After my dad died, I didn’t feel a huge need for much so much as I did after my mom died, probably because I was in the middle of working on my doctorate and had plenty on my plate.

That fire inside me now is about being the person I always wanted to be and that means continuing to take my life forward. It’s not because I’m afraid if I stop that I’ll wither up, it’s because I live with fear of time running out.

I’ve had so much loss that my challenge is to remember to do as much as I can today, but to rest tomorrow if I need to, and be okay that somehow I will have the time to take care of everything. There are people who think I push myself too hard but I’m doing what makes me happy: continuing to create and contribute to the world in a meaningful way, a way I hope that people are finding inspiration in what I share.

Forward I go.

Answering Someone's Prayer

We don't realize how easy it would be to answer someone else's prayer.

I have been reading Rediscover Jesus by Matthew Kelly, a book that the church Greg and I attend when we are in California gave everyone at Christmas (I will admit it takes me a long time to read a book– a repercussion of too much school, particularly earning a doctorate).

One part of this book that has struck me is how often we can answer someone else’s prayer. While some of us have lofty wants and needs, sometimes people simply want someone to say hi, someone to acknowledge them. I think of how many times people who have survived attempting suicide have said they just wanted one person to say something to them.

In the mornings, I run and run my dogs– as I have written about before– and I have a joke that if I stopped to talk to everyone I encounter, I would be finished until lunchtime. But going through our day, whether we are out walking the dog or maneuvering our cart through the grocery store, smile at someone, say hi.

It doesn’t hurt to offer a smile and it can answer someone else’s prayer.

The Past Always Meets the Present

My life is great. I’m very lucky. I’ve worked hard. It’s not perfect but I think I’m pretty good at picking myself up after losses and disappointments. Somewhere inside of me I remind myself of what inspires of me, of what has always inspired me, and I try to keep that at the forefront of my mind.

But every St. Patrick’s Day, every NCAA basketball tournament, I find myself going right back to 1993 and 2012, the years that my younger sister and my mom died, within a week of each other.

My flashbacks to Denise’s suicide are more about March 17, than the 18th, the day she died. I was home with my family unexpectedly, to cover the NCAA tournament for the Ball State Daily News where I was attending college and Ball State was going to play Kansas on the 18th. There was corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes, Dad’s favorite, and it was the last time I would have a conversation with my sister.

I can’t think about either the holiday or the tournament without remembering that day. It’s as if someone left a footprint on my brain that I can’t erase. I’m not saying that I want to because I believe that everything that happens to us is an opportunity to make it something, to learn something. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t always affected by it, even as our lives march on.

Mom’s death in 2012 was also unexpected (just as Dad’s was on January 1, 2006– both my parents dying quickly from heart issues although you might say their hearts never recovered after the death of their youngest child).

Now Mom and Denise’s death anniversaries are intertwined. March means the anniversaries. April is Denise’s birthday and my parents’ wedding anniversary. May means birthdays for both my parents and Mother’s Day, a holiday for which I feel orphaned from with no “real” mom to celebrate and no children of my own.

I keep focused on the fact that life is short, that none of us are promised anything, that there is still much I want to do. And I don’t forget where I’ve been.