Pandemic Lessons from the Sea Courtesy of Captain Jack, Sonny B and the Parrotfish - Learning to Live Log

Who could possibly have prepared my husband and me as we vacationed off the coast of Honduras early last month that by mid-April, we now would be entering our fifth week in "shelter in place" at home? It started the moment our plane landed after the return trip home to North Georgia. Reflections I wrote during that trip lay out before me now. They were thoughts flowing as the sun kissed my hair, and I had the taste of saltwater on my lips. At times I feel like I have lost touch with her – that girl I was then. Oh, how free we were in what seems like another lifetime as we rode tuk tuk taxis down a road of potholes to the sea.  

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What a Tree House Can Teach Us...Even During the Holidays

The last seven days have been filled with Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the crush of emails from time away. Let's take a walk for just a moment.

The crunch of freshly fallen leaves were underfoot as twilight was settling in last month. I was on a walk getting fresh air after a full day of work. My route this time was different from the usual one my husband and I take as we navigate the contours of our five acres in the evenings. Perhaps it was because I was alone this time that I found myself cresting a hill.

There it was.

In the twilight I barely could make out the tree house constructed by my husband and our boys years ago.

The swing with rusted chains was blowing in the wind as if a child had just jumped off and headed to the ladder. Rotting boards were covered with green moss as the pole that carried young boys from the upper level to the ground still stood at attention, although a bit lopsided. Uncertain if the board could support me, I stood on tiptoe trying to see if the hand-painted bird feeder constructed by our youngest was still glowing the primary colors I remember so well. Not likely. Time passes and things change. What is it that is said of parenting? The days are long but the years are short.

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I'll Trade You Halloween Candy for Sticky Notes

I have a secret to share and I will give it to you straight.

We can drop Halloween from the calendar.

There, I’ve said it. Now, before most of you come at me with broomsticks and Dracula teeth complete with fake blood, hear me out.

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What a Mess!

If I were inventing life, it would be like a brand-new box of Crayola No. 64. Forget the box of chocolates from “Forrest Gump” fame. I can still feel the thrill of holding that box of crayons in my hands each fall as school began – unused, unopened – the wonders of which were yet to be realized. Opening the box was a revelation. The expanded color wheel from the old 16 to 18 offered by No. 64 took the creator to new levels. Be gone No. 48!

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6,205 Things...

Autumn brings reminders of a pact that I made with myself 17 years ago this month. It starts to wash over me even before the feelings evolve into concrete thought. Perhaps it is the way the sunlight hits the leaves on the trees creating shadows mid-afternoon. Of course, there are the more obvious signs the season has changed: football playing across screens, yard toys of summer replaced by rakes and leaves, and fabric on our arms now where the summer sun once kissed us unhindered.

Funny how I can’t seem to remember the origins of something that has come to define how I walk through my days. But, there it is.

Do one thing every day that scares you.**

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Does Beauty Matter?

The palette of oil paints used by my portrait artist mother when I was a child were preserved in the kitchen freezer between painting sessions. The mustard yellow appliance provided space where the paints co-mingled with my popsicles and the leftover tuna casserole from Sunday dinner. Raised in the countryside of rural Michigan, I thought every mother stood at the easel painting all day while I lit up my world with the childhood game Lite-Brite.

I come from a long line of artists on both my paternal and maternal sides, the numbers of which only are exceeded by the contrasting sum total of the family members who have experienced cancer.

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How a Radio, Jackhammer Pen & Space Changed My Life

One sentence ending in a question mark came through a radio program in my car a decade ago and forever changed my life. I don’t make that statement lightly. I have a steady diet of motivational messages I receive as a mental health expert and cancer survivor served up through plaques, social media posts, and speeches. I know that I am not alone with this onslaught. They are great but forgotten too soon as the march of life beats on. This one sentence was different. It asked a question and begged an answer that I found disturbingly difficult to answer.

“If you were to die tomorrow, what dreams would be unfulfilled?”

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Popeye and Anxiety have Something in Common

Anxiety has been a close companion my whole life. I was the one looking for monsters under my bed as a kid, but not quite like the ones in the Eminem song or what I wrote about in this piece . My hyper-vigilance went on steroids when cancer reared its ugly head. Cancer was like feeding spinach to my anxiety named Popeye for those of us old enough to remember the hilarious children’s cartoon. It threatened to burst at the seams and overpower me, much like the cartoon sailor-man when he would eat the greens.

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Embracing Scars

Last week my feet crunched across the stones of the battered shoreline of Pinel Island off the coast of French St. Martin. My adventurous husband and stepson were undertaking snorkeling reconnaissance in the seaweed-infested waters before I would venture in. The hurricane of 2017 forever changed the shoreline and the reefs.

The beautiful corals teeming with fish that we so enjoyed on a previous trip were choked by errant seaweed and trash. I stacked rocks and made amazing discoveries constructed by others (see photo), and in a moment, I was transported to 1981 and the shoreline of Lake Huron near the great lakes of Michigan where I was raised. The crunch of rocks underfoot took me there. Sound holds memories for me.

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Join Rebecca and the Learning to Live Log

Watch Out!

I'm Jumping In!

Surviving and learning to live are concepts that I have been thinking about extensively over the past year as I embark on my own rebirth in the field of cancer survivorship as a writer and consultant.

Many of you know me from my two decades of work in mental health and stigma reduction. Fifteen of those years were spent overseeing the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and 165 year-long mental health reporting projects. Others of you know me as a two-time cancer survivor, friend, or family-member with a life-long passion for writing. When I am not deep in this work, I can be found in my garden, bare hands burrowed in the earth. It is the gardening, after all, from which so many lessons on living can be learned.

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