Off Kilter

Broken Handed Writer

2012-01-25T08:07:00.000-08:00

Exactly one week before Christmas, I slipped off a step inside my house and broke my left hand. Suddenly, I was on a forced winter vacation. I can't write, can't knit, can't quilt, and can't drive. What I can do is read, watch TV, take long walks, and think about all kinds of stuff.

I've already written a memoir about how I came to be the woman I am. Now, my unexpected limits have me contemplating the present. What do I want to do next? Where do I want to go?

Questions like that used to make me sad. Writing my memoir, Off Kilter, taught me that suffering was my way of operating in the world. For a long time, I believed I had to pay my dues for every happy moment with some equal measure of pain. But somewhere along the way, the pain bucket got so heavy I couldn't carry it anymore. Perhaps it was the day a friend told me I always looked a little sad and I realized I was more comfortable that way. I was always asking myself how I could be "good enough." There was never a satisfactory answer. Nothing I did was good enough for my internal judge. When would I get to be happy?

Sine then, I've come to re-evaluate that question. I've decided it's me who gets to say. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. It wasn't so easy for him, either; he is said to have been depressed many times in his life.

There are days when it just seems like too much work, with my hand in a cast or brace, to do a simple thing like take a shower. It's such a big production: even with the help of my husband, even as we giggle at our reflections in the mirror while he blow dries my hair. ,There are days when my back gives out due to stress, or lack of exercise, or lack of the right kind of exercise. You can see where I'm going with this. On those days,the old familiar mantle of suffering beckons. I want to wrap myself in it, but then I remember: it really is a choice. For much of my life, I chose to be sad. Way back when, it seemed like a good idea. Today, not so much.

This morning, sunlight angles into my dining room, touching the soft gold carpet, making shadows of the backs of my chairs, making me remember moments like these : My son brought home a bag of my favorite cookies. My husband stood ready to put my socks on my feet without being asked. My friends brought lunch and stayed for hours. Others took me out for a drive. They told me, without words, that I am valued. It's time I told myself the same thing.

This sudden, forced vacation will soon be over. Unlike many others, my disability is temporary. My prayer this morning, is that I will remember to take time to enjoy the sunlight and shadows, when I am once again doing all those other things I miss.

Hardships, even little ones, connect us, don't they? It's how we learn compassion for ourselves and others. For that knowledge, I am forever grateful.

(Typed using Dragon Naturally Speaking.)

Publish Before I Perish

2011-07-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my novel for several years now; I have lost count of how many years exactly. At workshops given by experienced novelists, I always learn something that will make my story better. I love the process of adding subtext, developing characters, and using place mini-crises to move the plot forward. But some days, like today, I allow myself to feel discouraged by all I have to do before I am finished.

Because I read writers' newsletters, blogs and social network posts, I know many authors are churning out thousands of words a day, publishing their exciting novels, meeting with agents...and I wonder if I am too slow. Will I ever be ready to say "it's done?" Will I live that long?

Although I've always loved to write, it was only after my fiftieth birthday I began to take my writing seriously, to send my work out into the world, to make money from it. Feature stories for the local paper, magazine articles and personal essays take me hours, days, weeks to complete. I don't think it has anything to do with perfection. I just want my work to be the best it can be.

Some Monday mornings, it seems I'll perish before I publish my first novel, which may well be my only novel. I can't just throw it out there, unvarnished, not when I know better. The only thing to do, I guess, is to get back to work.

Let me know if you find an easier way. Please.

Where's my coffee????

2011-06-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

Where's my coffee????

My Body, My Self

2011-06-10T14:04:00.000-07:00

Here's another Six Sentence Sunday excerpt from my memoir, Off Kilter:

"Recently, I’ve begun to think of scoliosis as a metaphor for my life. I’ve struggled to please teachers, employers, parents, boyfriends, husbands, twisting myself into someone I can’t be. I hurt when I do this, because it’s not natural. But when I stretch my Self, instead, the results are different. When I’m reaching for my personal goals—to be a good mother, wife, friend and writer—I feel my balance return. And the sense of relief, as I become more the woman I truly am, is simply grand.

My Weekend as a Travel Guide

2011-06-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, I got to open a window and peek into other people's lives.

For the memoir workshop I taught at the Philadelphia Writers' Conference, attendees submitted pieces a few weeks in advance for critique. And as always, the stories were heartfelt, moving and inspiring.

A little black girl and her family traveled through the 1950s South, searching for a bathroom they could use without being arrested.
A man visited his father's people in Ireland, people who played the violin after working a long day on the farm.
A woman fought fiercely to preserve land threatened by development.
A young doctor's growing numbness in her feet led to a diagnosis of MS.
A woman became her father's caretaker and learned an important lesson about herself.

So many different ways to tell a real life story: the historical context, the ecology of the land, cultural memories, the messages of illness and more.

Memoirist Patricia Hampl said "memoir is travel writing, ...notes taken along the way..."

Last weekend, I was honored to be a guide for a small part of that journey. I am still basking in the afterglow.

Six Sentence Sunday

2011-05-26T08:21:00.001-07:00

This Six Sentence Sunday post is an excerpt from my memoir, Off Kilter, published in 2008 by Pearlsong Press.

"I wish I could draw in your mind a picture of that place, exactly as it was, warmly lit by a clear sunlight making sharp shadows on a concrete sidewalk. Beside the sidewalk, up to its very edge, grew clouds of Queen Anne’s lace, sky-colored chicory, purple and white clover and the flowers whose names I still don’t know, the red-orange ones my mother called firemen.

I believe the sounds and smells and the picture are the makings of my childhood solitude, protected and holy. They transformed my loneliness into a safe, enriched, alive state of being, of perfect awareness of each blade of grass and waving flower. There is a place where nature is an open-armed friend, always waiting to welcome and enfold me in its breeze’s caress, its warm sun’s kiss, its clear, illuminating light. This is the place I am from. "

Invitation to a War

2011-05-19T16:01:00.000-07:00

I was at Staples making copies of handouts for my memoir class, when I saw something so chillingly off kilter, I can't get it out of my mind. Someone had left a copy on the machine. It was an invitation to a child's birthday party. A party for little boys. A boot camp party.

The mission,the invitation said, was to report to basic training at the stated address on a certain date and time. Be prepared to run Basic Training drills, it said, testing accuracy, survival, agility, endurance, strength and balance skills. You will also participate in other Survival Games. You will be wet, tired and dirty by the time you complete your mission, so please bring a towel and change of clothes. Dinner and Birthday Rations will be served. Please RSVP to the Base Commanders.

Researching this type of party on the web, I found that some parents have the kids bring items to send to troops overseas. That's great, but the idea of a boot camp party still creeps me out.

I loved my boys when they were little, as I'm sure this parent loves theirs. I gave in to them on lots of stuff that didn't seem important enough to fight over. But toy guns were a big no no. People gave them guns anyway, and I explained how I felt about playing at violence but let them keep the weapons. My boys thought I was kind of silly about this, and grew up to be gentle, sensitive young men.

We have been, as a country, at war for over ten years, reacting to a criminal attack on our soil by a handful of terrorists. We can't seem to figure out how to end these wars we started. If we throw birthday parties where little boys are encouraged to play at war, how will we ever learn?

One Day at the Nail Salon - Metropolis

2011-03-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

Things Off Kilter

2011-03-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

The first known use of "off kilter," says merriam-webster.com, was in 1944, just two years before I was born, to describe the state of furniture and other structures. The definition is "not in perfect balance. A bit askew." Synonyms are bizarre, eccentric, unconventional, far-out, and kooky (also kookie) as well as the British "rum." As in, she's a bit rum. I kind of like that. It accurately describes my life and my personality. You see, if you are off kilter, you don't have to pay much attention to the norm. Us off kilter folks, we can pretty much do what we like, as long as nobody gets hurt. And really, whose life is ever "in perfect balance?"

Off Kilter is also the name of a 5-man Celtic rock band formed in 1997. These guys have performed at the Canadian Pavilion of the Epcot Center in Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida ever since. They hail from Kentucky,Florida, Ireland and Puerto Rico - how off kilter is that? And one of them has a Polish surname: Scott Zymowski! That was enough to pique my interest, to be sure. Next up: a trip to Epcot?

2010-11-29T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rediscovering the Old Country

My journey to peace with my Polish heritage.

This story was published in the November 2010 issue of In the Fray, an online magazine that promotes global understanding.

When I was growing up in a Polish neighborhood in upstate New York, I wasn’t so interested in the Old Country. My grandparents immigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century, and although my grandpa told me about the ducks on the farm near Warsaw where he lived as a boy, he was, by and large, a quiet man. The Old Country was, well, old, and we were living in the new postwar era in the United States. My parents wanted to move on after World War II, the Depression, my dad’s Navy service in the Pacific, and my mother’s hard factory labor. Like most of their friends, they wanted to be as all-American as they could possibly manage.

“We don’t dress like DP’s,” my mother often said, code for displaced people coming from refugee camps in Eastern Europe to the U.S. in old-fashioned clothes. Their English was broken, and although some moved into our hometown, we were embarrassed to be connected with them in any way.

Yet just like their parents, Mom and Dad sent me to a Polish Catholic school. We also attended a Polish Catholic church in a neighborhood where streets had names like Gorski and Pulaski. We ate kielbasa on Easter morning and danced the polka at weddings. We listened to clarinet and accordion records by Polish-American bands from Chicago on Sunday morning radio shows.

Beautiful Poznan

Our culture was a unique combination of ethnic pride and selective memory. No one I knew wanted to see the Old Country. That was the place where poverty choked you until you left, if you could. It was the place where cities had turned to rubble, and where Communists watched your every move, looking for any excuse to send you off to Siberia.

Mothers we knew packed up secondhand clothing, toothpaste, shampoo, and candy to send to family back in Poland. My family didn’t have anyone left there, but my mom still contributed boxes of these items to the parish church for shipping.

In those days, the Poland in our minds was dust-poor, gray, and tragic. But its people who came here were better educated than my ancestors, albeit worse dressed.

We laughed nervously at Polish jokes. Even President Reagan told one, so they had to be okay. It was important to laugh at yourself here in America; we who felt the sting were being too sensitive. We tried to toughen up.

Somewhere along the way, all that changed. I got tired of laughing at my heritage. I wanted to know who I really was. And I wanted to claim the whole package, not just the sanitized version of my grade school teachers, who exhorted us to sing a Polish anthem “loud enough for the Russians to hear.”

I am descended from a flat country, easily conquered and divided, a place with no name for all of the 19th century. My DNA goes back to a place, where in 44 years of atheist totalitarian rule, not one church closed its doors. Its strands tie me to the old men, women, and teenagers who crawled through Warsaw’s sewers in 1944, desperate to take back their country from Nazi occupation. Both sides of my family have roots in Torun, Poznan, and Wojtowa, a village southeast of Krakow. I have a funny-sounding, hard-to-spell last name, thanks to my Polish-American husband, added to my equally hard-to-pronounce maiden name.

Sadly, my people also came from the land where millions of people, mostly Jews, were exterminated. Though many Poles hid and rescued them, many did nothing out of fear for their families’ lives. And many reacted out of the anti-Semitism they learned as children. Some Poles even killed Jewish survivors returning home after the war.

Because of this, I traveled to Poland this summer with Elderhostel – an educational tour group for people over 55 – anticipating equal doses of pride and shame. At Auschwitz, I listened to a young Polish guide quote the words of German anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemoller: “When they came for the Jews, I said nothing.”

Folk musicians in Wdzydze

The next morning, Robert Gadek, a Jagiellonian University graduate, told the story of Jews in Poland, with none of the denial or self-justification I have heard among Polish Americans. He started a Jewish cultural festival that 30,000 people attended last year. He and the many people we met there were happy, purposeful, busy, and so proud that the fall of Communism started here. They were not embarrassed to be Polish. They were hopeful.

Much hope can be found in Poland’s musical traditions. A Chopin concert welcomed us to our first evening in Warsaw 200 years after his birth. Opera songs bid us goodbye on our last evening in a castle lovingly restored by a young archeologist and his wife. And in between, at Wdzydze, the costumes, smiles, and lilting melodies of the folk musicians seemed to reach deep into my past, connecting me to the place where loving grandparents, aunts, and uncles also shared a bond.

Now back home in the United States, friends smile indulgently at my correct Polish pronunciation: ‘Krah-Koov’ as opposed to the soft and Anglicized ‘Crack-cow.’ I tell them I prefer the hard Polish consonants and long broad vowels. I think about the signs for Piwo, Kawiernia, Taverna, and Ksiazki that we drove by, trying to grasp the meaning behind their names.

Like cracking a secret code I forgot I knew, my first trip to my grandfather’s homeland opened up a new understanding of him, my people, and myself.

Not Great Grandma's Babushka

2010-07-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just had to touch these headscarves on sale in Warsaw. I'd seen them many years before, in the Polish neighborhood in Amsterdam, New York. Old ladies wore them to church. I fondled them in Warsaw and Gdansk and in the touristy market in Zakopane. Nostalgically, regretfully.

I wrote one of these scarves onto Regina's head in my novel. But last week in Wroclaw, I saw a panorama of the year she was thirty. Peasant women wore headscarves of plain white. Oh well. I must be historically accurate.

I learned her village, Wojtowa, was about 100 km from Krakow, a half day drive each way, and decided not to go, in the 35 C temps and humidity, to a place where nobody from my family is left. I did travel through many little towns and villages and collected information and pictures.

The trip is so recent, however, that I'm not in mind of her world as much as I am of the Poland of today. I'm so proud to be connected genetically to these strong, brave people, to the heroes and heroines of Solidarnosc who started the toppling of Communism in eastern Europe, to the music in Kashuby that brought tears of recognition, and above all, to the overarching hopefulness of the people, young and old, happily building homes and roads and their first true democracy.

I'm rooting for them, heart and soul.

My bags are packed and I'm ready to go...

2010-06-28T17:43:00.000-07:00

Well, not quite, but the Peter, Paul and Mary song, Leavin' On a Jet Plane, is running through my head this week. We have our plane tickets. The weather in Poland will be in the 70s during the day and sunny, and in the 50s at night (and dark, as George Carlin might say.)

The elderhostel folks say we can take side trips to the hometowns of our ancestors. My friend Grace, who is from Poland, says we can take a busik (little bus) to most villages. Even if Regina's house, #49 in Wojtowa, is gone, I will walk in her footsteps near the Ropa River.

We will stay a few days each in Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan (my maternal grandma's hometown), Wroclaw and Krakow. We will eat at a small farm and attend a Chopin concert. We will visit bookstores and sidewalk cafes. Two weeks in Europe with my love heart, walking the land of our foremothers (and fathers too!)

Do widzenia!

Simple Days

2010-06-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

In my never ending quest to find balance in my Off Kilter life, I discovered a wonderful book. Quite by accident. Or seredipity. Or maybe it was just meant to be.

In February, I traveled to a women lifewriters conference in Austin, TX and entered a silent auction for a book by a writer I had met 9 years earlier in Manhattan. At another women writers conference. She autographed her first book, A Voice of Her Own, about women and journaling.

Mine was the top bid for the auction book, and so I happily took home Simple Days by the remarkable Canadian writer, Marlene Schiwy.

So many parts of the book spoke straight to my heart, I've taken it as my guide for this year. "...we end up feeding false hungers," she writes," while our genuine yearning for meaning goes unaddressed."

She writes, walks, sews, bakes muffins and teaches writing workshops.

I write, walk, quilt, teach memoir workshops...and freelance for two papers, substitute at a public library, practice yoga, read a LOT, belong to four writers' organizations, watch too much TV news, spend too much time on the Internet, and worry about my kids in my spare time.

Do you see why I want to be like her?

A simple life, she writes, demands "constant vigilance against the seductions of productivity and importance."

My Off Kilter life is seduced by the demand for recognition. But I want to write well, and that takes time. And is not productive for a long time. Until I get it right.

With Simple Days as my guide, I am balanced on the edge of contentment.

Wojtowa, Here I Come

2010-03-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, I attended a lecture given by Ron Daise in Murrell's Inlet, SC, about his book on his West African roots. A native South Carolinian, Daise traveled to Ghana to reconnect with his Gullah heritage. He told us of his feelings as he saw people with his nose, his eyes, his smile, all around him in the African countryside. His face, his voice were joy-filled. "There's a connection, deep down in my spirit, with Africa!" he read, his deep voice booming to the far corners of the room. I want that connection, I thought, with my own tribe of people. I want it, too.

Steve and I have signed up for a trip with Exploritas (formerly Elderhostel) called "Poland At the Heart of Europe." This coming July, we'll visit five cities and take a side trip to Regina's hometown, Wojtowa.

I've wanted to go there ever since I started writing about her. I've already been there in my mind and on the page. But the place in my novel is as it was two hundred years ago. This summer, it will be as it is today. Will I, just by being there, in the place where she walked, slept, lived and died, be able to feel that "connection?"

In his book, Gullah Branches, West African Roots, Daise tells of the shame and embarrassment of the Gullah people because of their heritage as slaves. "Gullah" and "Geechee" were words intended to humiliate. But recent documentation brings to light the fact that before West African people were forced into migration, they were skilled rice growers, among many other things.

When I was a girl, I was embarrassed by "dumb Polack" jokes, and wondered why people expected me to laugh when they told them to me. When I first realized that Auschwitz was Oscwiecim, in the country where my grandparents were born, I felt shame and sadness. I was fifty before I heard of Wislawa Szymborska, Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner. Oddly enough, I feel "a connection" with both her and Ron Daise.

Let's see what the summer brings.

2010-03-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

The name on the paper was Regina Wrozkowna. She was the earliest ancestor in my family tree, researched by my cousin's daughter who lives in Switzerland. That summer afternoon at a family reunion in upstate New York, the kitchen smelled of baked ziti, kielbasa, strong coffee and sugary cake frosting.

I'd been out of touch with my father's family for years. He was a difficult man who feuded with his brothers, but now I was in my fifties and wanted to reconnect with his side of the family, to be part of a clan of cousins most of whom were older than I. And though I didn't know it yet, I longed for someone to look up to, someone who would watch over me.

Regina's name stayed with me on the long drive home, a name that tied me back two hundred years to eastern Europe. A woman's name.

She had twelve children. I know her dates of birth, marriage and death and the name of her husband, but I feel compelled to know more. Writing her story will be a process of discovery and creativity.

My Unitarian Universalist church introduced me to feminist spirituality. I learned there that the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, Poland, whose picture hung in my classroom, is only one of hundreds of dark goddess-like figures worldwide. My mother and I were not close. Today, I'm wondering if I want to write about Regina to claim her for myself, my own personal Madonna.

I began writing my novel about Regina two years ago. I've workshopped it twice. The other day, I printed out the whole manuscript, over fifty thousand words. It contains loose ends, awkward transitions, undeveloped characters and situations that make no sense.

Revision is next, and it feels overwhelming. Each time I pick a place to start, I can't make it work. I wonder if I should put the novel aside and go back to writing memoirs and personal essays. Maybe it's too late, at sixty-three, to learn to write fiction.

But this story feels like something I must do. Not for my family and Regina's, but for me. It sticks to me like stinging nettle, demanding attention. And promising my life will never be the same.

In Search of Regina

2010-02-22T13:27:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I printed out the manuscript of my novel about my ancestor, Regina Culisz. She lived in the 18th century in the Austrian Empire, in what is now Poland. I'm a memoir writer, but I know very little about this woman, so I'm going to have to tell her story as fiction. In other words, I'm making it all up. Mostly.

I read James Michener's Poland and James Conroyd Martin's Against a Crimson Sky, which takes place about the time when she was alive. I have books on Polish customs and folklore. Now I need to go there, to stand in Wojtowa, where Regina was born in 1778.

Steve and I loved our Georgia elderhostel last year, and so we signed up for a weeklong trip to Warsaw and Krakow with the same group, now called Exploritas. We planned a side trip to Wojtowa, which we heard is not far from Krakow, but we were the only people who registered, and the trip has been cancelled.

We're now looking into a two-week tour of the entire country in July. Today, we discovered that it will cost ten thousand dollars! Do we spend the money, knowing we'll see and learn a great deal with this organization? Or do we put it off (again) and look for a cheaper way to go?

Winter weekend

2010-01-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

This morning, after a breakfast of mushroom and tomato omelets at the Edward Harris Inn, we left Rochester, New York in blowing snow and ten degrees F. When we arrived there yesterday,plenty of snow lay on the ground, and the night was cold and windy. First, dinner at a British style pub - fish and chips and shepherd's pie, two ales - then a cozy evening reading the Sunday paper. It's been many years since I drove on snow-packed city streets or down a highway with cars in ditches, trucks with huge plows, the sun fighting through the cloud cover. Many years since I lived in Buffalo. Tonight, it's good to be home. The wind is blowing hard over the brown field across the road. No more snow. For now.

Fall Afternoon on the Pike

2009-09-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

A guest at my house once said I live "in the middle of nowhere." Today it feels like living on the runway of Newark Airport.

I heard what sounded like a jet engine outside this morning. The farmer who comes around once a year, in September, to mow the hay field across the road, has arrived. His tractor is very picturesque but don't these things have mufflers?

Who knew that life in the country was so noisy? I love to watch him from my front porch. In a day or two, he will start baling, and stacking the bales at the end of the field.

My neighbor, Denise Callanan Kline, is a fine artist who did this painting of him last year. Have a lovely autumn, wherever you live.

Having It All

2009-08-05T11:26:00.001-07:00

This week I've been enjoying a wonderful novel by Rachel Pastan. Lady of the Snakes is an artful, satisfying story about a young woman's struggle to create a meaningful career, be a good parent, and sustain a loving marriage. When men do all those things at the same time, we call it - well, we call it a life. Women doing the same things are said to be "having it all."

It's 2009, people. We're supposedly post-feminist. The novel was published last year. And it's so NOT 'last year.'

This is an exciting, entertaining, read with intriguing, sympathetic characters and a compelling story. I recommend it highly.

Read it and let me know if you think there's something off kilter about the way we look at women's lives today.

The old ladies

2009-05-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

Since a large part of Off Kilter is about growing up Polish-American, I'm curious about how other writers have thought about their ethnic heritage.

I've created a workshop called "Writing Our Cultural Traditions," and presented it at three different conferences - in Austin and Houston, TX and in Blue Bell, PA. One of the examples I use is a lovely poem, Black Dresses by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, a wonderful poet and creative writing program director at Passaic County Community College, NJ.

It begins:
"I dress now all in black like the old ladies
of my childhood...."

How did the old ladies of your childhood dress? The old men?

Here's an excerpt from my essay, "Pine Lake," published in Ducts.org, issue 20, Winter2008:

Our grandparents passed the afternoon on wooden folding chairs in the shade. He was a small man in a white shirt with black arm garters, on his head, a straw hat with a black band. And she, white-haired and smiling, wore a pastel housedress, thick brown stockings and laced tan shoes. Grandpa liked to walk off by himself to look at a tree or pick up a pinecone and show it to one of the grandchildren. From time to time, Grandma handed out the food she’d brought: bags of potato chips, bunches of ripe yellow bananas.

Rosemont Writers Retreat

2009-05-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Looking forward to the second annual Rosemont Writers' Retreat, presented by Rosemont College and PhiladelphiaStories, especially since they just awarded me a scholarship!

I'll be studying Novel Writing with Marc Schuster, going to readings every day and practicing yoga before breakfast.

The event is June 14-19, and a weekend version is June 12-14. More info is at www.rosemont.edu/writers.

This should give my novel a big boost toward completion (I hope!)

Speaking About Writing

2009-04-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I drove through rainy Bucks and Northampton Counties to Westminster Village, a retirement center in Allentown, PA. The activities people invited me to talk to residents on National Letter Writing Day about The Healing Power of Writing.

A small group of women had spent the morning making greeting cards with scrapbooking materials. I talked to them about the health benefits of writing their life stories, a bit about Off Kilter, and then had them do a short note-card exercise about someone they loved.

I'm always amazed at the energy in the room when I do these talks and classes. You can almost see the words travel from their brains (or hearts) down their arms and through their pencils onto the page. People go from staring at me expectantly to becoming completely absorbed in self-reflection. Watching them continue the conversation over tea and snacks made my heart sing.

An afternoon well spent, I drove home, through the rain, with that 'good tired' feeling, soft and open.

Characters

2009-03-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

The novel is slowly taking shape, mainly because I am writing it. Who knew? LOL
These things don't happen by themselves. A friend asked me if my characters are taking over and telling me what they want to do next. I wish they would! My characters are just standing around, doing laundry and shopping...

Joining the YouTube generation

2008-08-18T15:36:00.001-07:00

Last week, I did my first video interview via webcam about my book, Off Kilter, for Dr. Sally Witt's radio talk show on the web. But first...I had to buy a webcam, set it up, and fix my hair!

It was fun talking with Sally, who I met about 15 years ago at a women in business breakfast. So nice to reconnect and chat with her. I'm looking forward to our radio interview on September 10th.

Meanwhile, you can watch the video here: http://www.drsallywitt.com/dr-sally-interviews-author-of-off-kilter-on-video/

On Balance Again!

2008-08-02T10:14:00.000-07:00

The Epley Maneuver works! For me, anyway. My physical therapist repositioned the little rocks in my head, called otoconia, by taking me through a series of head turning positions. The first time made me very dizzy for about 15 seconds, then...I was cured!

I have more exercises to improve my sense of balance, but I am happy to be able to drive, walk and return to normal life!

This week I drove to a few local bookstores to promote my memoir, Off Kilter. It's hard work but fun meeting the owners of these independent stores.

And, I worked on my novel about a Polish ancestor from the 18th century....

Off Balance

2008-07-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

Is this ironic? My memoir is called Off Kilter and this past week I have been struggling with Benign Positional Vertigo, which means I am well and truly off kilter! Last Tuesday, as I was reaching for the granola in my cupboard, the whole kitchen started spinning. I clung to the wall and hollered for my husband who escorted me to a chair.

Since then, I've learned this is sometimes called "upper shelf syndrome." I can see why! I've been prescribed meclizine and rest. I've read two novels and am in the middle of a third. (Suite Francaise) Bored and frustrated with my inability to do yoga, I surfed the net and found some exercises that make me dizzy but may be helping. Today I walked down the driveway to the mailbox without falling. Tomorrow I see a PT.

Once again, I am reminded to: be mindful! How else do you walk when moving your head makes you dizzy? One step at a time, focus on a spot that doesn't move, and breathe. Thank you, yoga teachers. Namaste.