Michelle L. Rusk's Blog, page 5

Popping the Bubble

We are just back from a two-week road trip that took us into fourteen states and Canada and across over 5,000 miles. It would have been easy not to take the trip. There are a million reasons to stay home and forgot the rest of the world exists.

But the best thing we can do for ourselves is to pop our bubbles. We’ve gotten too comfortable being home since the pandemic started. The pandemic gave everyone an excuse to not go out, to not be with people, to not see the world. I know it made it harder for me to get back into the rhythm of seeking out new experiences. I got much too comfortable and I’ve had to work harder to make sure I leave my comfort zone because I know that I’m much happier as a person when I do explore new places and meet new people.

While I have several photos from the trip that are my favorites, I believe this one sums up the overall vibe and reflection I have of the trip. It was taken at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Missouri, one of the remaining Route 66 motels (I’ll tackle that topic in another blog). That ribbon of highway stretched out in front of me is there for the exploring, that road is much like life. It’s there for us if we choose to take it.

I’m also wearing a new Chelle Summer outfit I created. Part of getting out of my bubble is also sharing Chelle Summer with more people (more coming on that, too).

I could have stayed home and sat in my swimming pool for two weeks while the dogs ran around it. Instead, I stuck a needle in my bubble and had a slew of experiences I never could have imagined.

It was well worth the journey.

Prepping for a road trip, new handbags to share, and, of course, Goose...and Ash, too

"Lanterns for Others"

Sitting on my desk for six months has been a piece Patti Davis wrote in the New York Times (November 1, 2023) after the death of actor Matthew Perry about the loneliness of addiction. It has sat there for these two lines near the end:

“He laid bare his wounds, his struggles, his complicated relationship with drugs and alcohol. That’s the best we can do in life– be truthful and hope those truths become lanterns for others as they wander through the dark.”

While my journey hasn’t been drug or alcohol related, there has been much darkness in loss and the road to finding light again.

I don’t always share what I’m immediately going through because I’ve also learned that my journey is about showing how I got somewhere and that means holding onto it until I at least get far enough along the road that I can reflect on it.

The journey has also changed in many ways, more reflecting now through what I make for Chelle Summer. I have held a lantern for a long time for those who have come after me in loss, in particular suicide bereaved siblings, but I also wear a bright-colored dress and carry a bright-colored handbag that serve as lanterns, too.

I shared much in the early years of my grief journey of the pain and sadness that I felt after losing my sister. But I also always balanced that with where I found hope. I believe it’s because I always knew on some level if you were going to share your pain, you also had to help people find a way out of that pain, not to be stuck in it. There is importance to connection through sharing, but we also should be leading the way through the darkness, not all stuck there standing and looking around into nothing.

Be truthful about the journey. But also share what brings you hope to keep traveling forward, to find your way out of darkness. We can all learn from each other. And help each other, even if it’s just about providing a little hope along the way.

New video! Chelle Summer bags to share and a Mother's Day message

Seeking Balance with Chelle Summer

I have considered myself an extraverted person for most of my life. I don’t know that I needed to be with people so much as I enjoyed being with people. However, I have also begun to understand that there are two sides of me and that I need to balance them.

I’ve always been a writer, pretty much since I was six years old, but when I reflect back, my need for being with people always seemed to outweigh the need to be alone. Unless I was running, then I have mostly always wanted to be alone for that.

However, since the pandemic there was shift in me. I won’t say that I have become more introverted because of the pandemic because my life always was shifting at that time. The two events just happened to coincide. My research job was ending just as the pandemic was beginning, but this had been in the works for a year.

The pandemic gave me more time to sew, something that I was working toward. I already had my writing in a good place– what I do almost first thing after I sit down at my desk in the early mornings. But the sewing is sort of the second half of my day after my “desk work” has been finished.

My life ebbs and flows with appointments and things to do like look for textiles at estate sales. Some days I’m home all day, others it’s in and out, the dogs watching me as I leave and celebrating when I return.

We just completed our fifth trip since February, four to California and one to Arizona. this weekend we’ll head back to Palm Springs for one last vintage market until the fall. After spending hours and days alone creating, suddenly all my work is there for everyone to see and enjoy. There’s a lot that doesn’t occur to me. I create what I enjoy, I put everything of myself into that I can, and then I throw it out to the world. These events, more than social media ever could since you can’t actually touch anything, have allowed me to see how much people appreciate my work. And me.

Then we return home and I’m ready to create again. There’s a bit of a low-grade grief as I go from being out with everyone to being alone again (usually lasts one day and it’s in the background of the excitement of new items to make). I have begun to understand, especially because I used to be a public speaker about suicide and suicide grief, that this is part of that public and private life and how they must exist side by side.

I need the private, quiet life to create. And I need the public life to share. Giving them a balance of both allows me to be who I’m supposed to be in this world.

The Not Model Model

I’m not someone who posts photos of myself because I like to look at myself. I have long struggled with body image- often saying that the mirror is a fun house mirror to me, what you see isn’t what I see.

For reasons I’m not sure I can explain other than I learned early that style is an expression of myself, clothes are important to me. I was taught to look nice, that there are certain things you don’t wear in public, and never show off your bra straps. Grandma Zurawski lectured me when my yellow Forenza sweater fell below the bottom of my shorts. Handbags weren’t really my thing– I bought one on clearance in the spring and then one in the fall at Foley’s (before it was bought by Macys).

Somewhere nearing forty though, after years of fun style lying dormant in my life, I began to take a different interest on how I dressed and the handbags I carried. I spent a lot of time searching for just the right items and when I was staying with a friend in Hawaii for a speaking engagement, a woman in Whole Foods complimented me on the dress I wore.

“You must hear that a lot,” my friend said.

I began to realize others appreciated my style, too.

When Chelle Summer was born, I knew that I would have to be my own model. People have to see you carrying handbags not just in person but online, too. They need to see the dresses and swimsuits on a person. And not just any person, someone who looks….real.

I always wear a style of dress I make and sell when I’m at markets and at the last Palm Springs Vintage Market I received so many compliments about being a great model. I take the compliment, but I know the 100 photos it takes for us to get the right one, the one where I’m halfway happy with it, to post.

I only make items I want to wear and carry. I always try to use them before I make them to sell, to know that they work, that they are comfortable, and swimsuits won’t do things like fall off when you jump into a pool.

Part of Chelle Summer has been forcing myself to stretch in ways I don’t always want to but are necessary for people (and you know I really mean women!), to see that what I make is for them, too. That means being my own model, swimsuit and all. After all, there would be no point of all of this if it wasn’t real.

In this week's video...Chelle Summer t-shirts!

"Keep our candles lit"

When Greg and I got in the car yesterday to go to Easter Sunday mass, I announced I didn’t want to go.

For the past five or so years, I’ve been a mostly regular church goer, most of it fueled by challenges in my life, me looking for help finding ways forward. But the pandemic uprooted that routine– Greg and I using Saturday evening as our date night starting with mass and then dinner out– it became harder to get used to going back to church yesterday.

That has been compounded by a lot of recent traveling for Chelle Summer. All is well and moving forward and not going to church doesn’t mean God isn’t in my life. But Lent for me this year was pretty absent. as my Saturdays were in the car and Sundays at the market.

We had been in LA last weekend and next weekend we’re off Palm Springs. I really wanted to stay home yesterday.

There is a woman at church who plays the piano before the 8:00 am Sunday mass. Greg really likes to listen to her play so we went early enough for that. When she began to play “On Eagle’s Wings,” one of Mom’s favorite songs (that was played at both Denise’s and her funerals), I began to have the sense that I was supposed to be there.

And then when we were asked to bring up the gift, to me sort of an extra spiritual blessing at mass, yes, I knew I was meant to be there.

As Greg says, I always feel better after mass. But especially on Easter, when Fr. Rob gave such an excellent homily on light and hope, I would have been sorry to have missed it. Even when life is going fairly well, we should never forget God is with us and to be grateful for what we have. And even when we’re busy and can’t make it to spend a little time in a spiritual space with our spiritual community, there are always good reminders.

As Fr. Rob said, “We should promise our Lord we’ll keep our candles lit.”

And so I am.

A Gift from Mom

Seeking Light and Color in March

It’s Monday, March 18, as I write this. Today Denise has been gone 31 years.

While it’s hard to believe 31 years have gone by, there is a piece of her death that I always feel needs repeating each year.

She died in March.

March is the month of the year when we have the highest number of suicides. Most people believe it’s December because many people find the holidays very challenging. However, during the holidays we are often physically closer and more in touch with people. March, though, brings spring. And springs brings light, green, and flowers.

For some people, seeing this rebirth of life is hard and they can’t rejoice in it.

Spring also seems to be coming sooner each year as the climate changes. There is a tree in my backyard neighbors’ yard that hangs a bit over my pool equipment and I can see it from my laundry room window. It’s budding out and I don’t recall it ever looking so green before spring officially started.

I also remember the days after Denise killed herself in 1993– the Midwestern darkness, the brown of the grass; the naked trees and how their branches were empty and bare.

But the day after her funeral, the sun came out and I still remember how different everything felt. Her funeral was over and it was time to move forward. I won’t say move on because we never moved on from her– Denise is still with us. Instead, it was about seeking color and light in March instead of the darkness she got caught in.

While it’s color and light that keep me hopeful, Denise and many other people couldn’t do that.

This photo is from 2019, taken on the University of New Mexico campus. I remember it was a warm day which is why I asked Greg to go to campus with me to take photos in this dress I had made. But when I look at them, and the barren, still winter, of the landscape, my dress and bag stick out like sore thumbs. And then I look closer and I see the trees have buds, just a bit of green, enough that spring is coming and soon my color and light will be part of the landscape again.

I can’t change Denise’s decision 31 years ago to end her life, but I can continue to find color and light in my life. And include her in that journey.