The Call to Journey

“I go where I am called. To discover this destination, I listen deep within. There, in that sacred place, the destination resides. There the journey to self knowledge is already revealing itself to me.” ~ Joseph Dispenza

 The call to journey is an important one. It is also a call I used to dismiss as frivolous, a crazy idea, or a passing daydream. “For goodness sakes, I have to work!” I would reply when someone mentioned that they were off on some wild adventure.

I used to be a person who viewed travel as a vacation, two weeks on the beach to unwind and gaze at blue waters and brilliant sunsets. I would scan the internet for bargains, book the trip and count the days. I’d type up itineraries, list the best restaurants and see all that was important according to the guidebooks. These trips were great, but when they were finished I slipped back into my life and continued on. Like hiccups in my routine, they were quickly forgotten and filed away in a box of photographs.

Then, quite by accident, I learned how to turn travel into a journey of the heart and soul. I threw away my itineraries and began to wander through destinations untethered. Without a check list of places to rush toward, I began to notice life around me in a new, unhurried way.  I noticed subtle details and nuances of culture, watched people communicate and listened to the musicality of their language, and breathed in the scents of ancient cities and pastoral locales. Wonderful things happened. Wonderful new friends crossed my path.

I slowly realized that this sort of travel invited me to go deeper, to explore that which connects us all as human beings on this complex and beautiful planet. Not only did the destinations reveal themselves in their own time, my true spirit began to reveal itself to me like a long lost friend. It was through this sense of meditative journeying that I found a pathway to a peacefulness I had never before known.

When I realized that travel can become a spiritual practice that can lead to self-discovery, I began to embrace adventure as a necessity rather than a luxury. Adventure redefined as a simple change of routine or as complex as a trip into the far reaches of Asia. The key to it resting in my ability to stay present in the moment and receiving the inherent gifts of such presence.

 

In response to my personal call to journey, I want to share this profound experience with all of you. If you are feeling that tug, that soul call to journey, please consider joining me and travel writer Lynn O’Rourke Hayes for such a once in a lifetime adventure on the Italian Riviera this October 19 – 25!

Your room awaits!

For more details go to www.italyretreat.weebly.com or email me at susan@susanpohlman.com~

Moments in Montclair: The Land of Docken Part 1

 

When I turned seven I was informed by adults of all sorts that I was now the Age of Reason.  Supposedly, I could discern right from wrong. I took this very seriously and thought through the morality involved in everything.  Rules became complicated, reasons for decisions became layered, black and white became gray.

My parents were patient and talked important things through with me, the reasons why we needed clean rooms, why green beans were more important than jelly beans, why David’s bed time was nine o’clock and mine was seven-thirty.  Generally, I found peace with all of these decisions. But there was one reason that I could not come to terms with:  the reason why Mrs. Docken was employed as the second grade teacher at school.

The night before second grade began, I lined up my extensive collection of holy statues and prayer cards on my bed side table in the shape of a cross. I laid in bed with my glow-in-the-dark rosary and prayed as hard as I could that I would be placed in 2-A the next morning. I longed to be among the chosen who would spend their year with Miss Faith Daley.  Not only was her name a fitting Catholic teacher name, she was perfect. And lovely. And soft-spoken.

In the weak morning light, I donned my plaid jumper, smoothed my blonde hair into place with matching blue plastic barrettes, and climbed into our white station wagon with my three older brothers and traveled the short distance to school in a mild panic. David, Timmy and Todd all joked about my upcoming incarceration to 2-B. They had all traveled through the land of Mrs. Docken, why shouldn’t I? I had heard the stories ad nauseam over the years, how she made Todd sit in the waste can one afternoon, how Timmy had to stand with his nose to the black board. How she would ask her students to tattle on older boys who had bullied them at lunchtime and then send for them to be yelled out in front of the room. But surely, my brothers hadn’t bothered to pray so fervently in their rooms the night before the school year began.

We arrived at Immaculate Conception Elementary and my brothers dispersed in a burst of jagged laughter. I took my mother’s hand and walked, with my new book bag, past first grade to the end of the hall where the two second grade classrooms sat on either side. The class lists were typed on crisp white paper taped to each door.

A happy gaggle of smiling faces stood in a straight line outside of 2-A. Surely I would be among them.  We walked over and scanned the list.  I took my chubby index finger and pointed to each name listed in alphabetical order…  Anderson, Billings, Carson… and so on until I got to the H’s.  What??   No H’s???  I looked into my mother’s horrified face and then together we looked across the hallway to a quivering pack of students with glazed eyes and knocking knees.

The bell rang as I took my place at the end of the line outside of 2-B.  The door swung open and there she stood, a mighty block of woman in black orthopedic shoes and a patterned dress the mottled colors of a bruise.

“Straighten that line!” she bellowed. “You’re in second grade now. Act like it.”

I glanced over my shoulder at my mother’s grimace and returned her final wave. Off we shuffled in absolute silence to The Land of Docken.

Transformational Travel and Writing Retreats

Transformational Travel is a gift that we give ourselves!

I am delighted to be teaming up with various experts to create a variety of travel experiences within the US and abroad.

 Transformational Travel – Tucson!

Yoga + Writing

The next retreat will be a Writing and Yoga Retreat held at the Historic Hacienda Del Sol Guest Ranch and Resort in Tucson, AZ  5/30 – 6/2 2013.  I will be working with Yoga Master Karen Kalil Callan.  

Go to www.yogaandwriting.weebly.com  for details.  We are accepting registration now!  Space is limited so don’t delay!!  Early bird pricing through March 1st~

 Transformational Travel – Italia!

The second opportunity is a seven day transformational travel experience with travel expert Lynn O’Rourke Hayes on the Italian Riviera. It is an amazing journey of the heart and soul.  For info and photos go to www.italyretreat.weebly.com  

We will be unrolling the 2013 Italy Adventure on March 1.  Mark your calendars and check back then!

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world”

~Mary Anne Radmacher

It would be my honor and pleasure to meet you at one of these.

Take a chance…do what you love with your one precious life!

~Susan

Valentine’s Day

To my Valentine, my husband, my partner in crime. I love you!

(I know this is a bit long for a blog post, but if you are married, or have been,  you just might enjoy the ride )

Valentine’s Day

I placed a hesitant hand on the smooth metal door handle of the Hallmark store and pulled it open to the sound of tinkling bells. Ruby hearts hanging from the door jamb brushed the top of my head as I stepped inside and headed for the Valentine section, an explosion of pinks and reds.  Crowded with last minute lovers like myself, we had to jockey for position as we searched for the perfect card.  Studying people’s expressions with secretive sideways glances, I longed to hear the running commentary inside their heads.

I have always been a last minute Valentine shopper because I dread it.  I can only bring myself to buy something simple that says “I love you’.  All of the other cards in the store are stupid.  With every card I read, I have to add one more sarcastic sentence in my mind.  Or at the very least, a clarifier. I can’t leave it alone.  It’s very stressful.

After a quarter of a century of marriage few of them ring true.  Can we all please admit that many of these sentiments are, at the very least, stretching the imagination? I have long considered designing a line of Valentine cards that are grouped according to the number of years you have been married.

I long for little ditties like this:

Loving each other has been a long, hard road, but I still think you are cute.

Or:

Can’t wait to celebrate our love at Donovan’s Steak house because we got a $150.00 coupon from your client.

Or:

Let’s stay up past 9:00 PM and make out for eight minutes straight.

Love is damn tricky.  An enigma.  So much has been written about it that I dare not add to the rubble.  But if I had to, if Cupid put a gun to my head, I wouldn’t waste time composing an essay as it would never capture the layers, the nuances. I would take a thousand noble words and nestle them in pairs with their less than noble opposites. Then I would shake them in my cupped hands like dice and toss the whole collection off of Juliet’s balcony and watch them scatter and bounce on the cobblestone streets of Verona until they landed in a mish-mash mural of the language of love. Maybe I would even take a photo of it and sell it to Hallmark for next year’s selection.

“Excuse me,” I said to a young woman with a sparkly diamond ring. She smelled of lavender and caressed a card like it held the whereabouts of the Holy Grail.  “Just reaching for this one.” I grabbed one depicting a romantic table set for two. It unearthed a memory.

My husband and I became engaged at Papa Pirozki’s in Atlanta on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.  Who chooses to propose to his bride in a Russian restaurant on December 7^th?  Looking back, I think he had a subconscious yearning to personalize the Cold War, to plant it as a seed in our relationship.  Though the rest of the world was evolving beyond such ideology, it was apparent that he was some sort of fan.

I hadn’t expected it to be a night unlike all other nights as we were rekindling a relationship that had been on a long hiatus. Neither of us expected the marriage proposal to play out the way it did.  But maybe that was a good thing.  Perhaps it’s the couples who do everything according to the Prince and Princess Handbook who don’t survive when the magic wears thin.  In retrospect, I think it was better to start this union with our gloves on, in a boxer’s stance. One needs to understand strategy and battle maneuvers. It is vital to appreciate humor and build camaraderie in the unexpected foxhole. These are the necessary skills that keep a marriage alive.  Flowers and chocolate are useless.

I remember sitting alone enjoying the candlelight and crystal that adorned our table for two as I held a thumb-sized glass of fruited vodka, icy and thick with raspberries. I loved the way the color matched my fingernails, the stark contrast of them against the white linens reminded me of the raspberry and cream popsicles I ate as a child. Feeling relaxed and elegant I took tiny sips as I gazed around, nodding to other couples nearby who were beginning to notice that my date had disappeared.  I wondered what was taking him so long as he had excused himself to go chat up the chef, whom he said was an acquaintance.

A black door to the kitchen swung open and Tim burst back into the room, all smiles.  At 6’8” he wasn’t known for quiet entrances.

“Ivan’s going to send out a few freebies.  Said he’d take care of us.” Tim plopped into his chair and smoothed his blonde hair into place.  He downed his fruity vodka like it was Kool-aide and motioned for the waiter to bring us another round of drinks.

“Great,” I said picturing all sorts of exotic Russian delights appearing on plates that were once served to the Romanovs.  “So how do you know this guy?”

“Met him at a radio event.  He’s from uhm,” Tim snapped his long fingers as he recalled the information, “Moscow.  Yea, that’s it.  Moscow.”

“What was the event?”

“Does it matter?”

“No.”

“So what’s with all the questions?”

“It was only one question. Why are you getting agitated?”

“I’m not agitated.” He picked up the second fruity vodka and downed it. “Would you finish your first drink already?”

“Fine.”  I threw it back like a pro.  Then I picked up the second one and saluted him.  “Let’s just relax and enjoy this. We only have two days before I fly back. I missed you.”  He took a deep breath and exhaled through flared nostrils.  I put my hand over his drumming fingers.  Something was up. “Are you okay?” I asked.

A young waiter with Ricky Riccardo hair swooped over, handed us menus and then gave a run-down of the night’s specials.  We each chose an entrée and Tim asked for another round of drinks.

“Tim. Maybe we should slow down on the drinks.”

“No.”

“Fine.”  What was wrong with him ?  It seemed as if he had left his usual joking demeanor in the kitchen with Ivan. I threw back my second drink in one gulp and choked daintily into my napkin.  We could take a cab home.

“So how are things at the airline?” Tim asked as he took a piece of bread from a silver bowl.  Thrilled to have some normal conversation, I started into an elaborate story about a new dad who tried to change his baby’s diaper on a fold down, jump seat. As I got to the part where the dad laid the baby on her back while he held the jump seat down with his knee, Ricky Riccardo came back and placed a small salad in front of me.

“Zees is from Ivan,” he announced as he stood back from the table.

I nodded to him and smiled.  “Thank you.”

“No problem.”  He beamed as he retreated to the water station.

It was ugliest, driest looking salad I had ever seen so I pushed it to the side as I continued my story.  Tim stared at the salad and then back at me.  “That’s your salad,” he said.

“There’s no dressing. And what is this stuff?  It’s not even lettuce.  It’s cabbage or who knows what?”

“Have some salad.”  His voice held an edge.

“I don’t want the salad.”  I calmly stated, the words evenly spaced and heavy on my tongue.

“Eat the salad,” he whispered through clenched teeth. Beads of sweat were forming on his brow. I gave him my most powerful defiant stare.

“Eat – the – damned – salad.”

“Fine.” I pulled the salad over and started to pick at it with my fork suddenly feeling other people’s eyes upon me.  I looked around and noticed them, whispering in hushed tones.

“What is up with you?” I could barely conceal by growing rage. “I thought we were going to have fun.”  Blood was pumping through my veins, banging in my ears.  I took a bite of one of the bitter greens and held up my fork as I chewed it. “This is disgusting. I thought Ivan was your friend.”

Then I saw it.  A velvet box of midnight blue half hidden under shreds of carrot and radicchio.  Panic gripped me like a giant hand and squeezed tight. No, no, no.  I did not want this to happen here. This was not what I had choreographed in my ten-year-old heart as I picked at my chenille bedspread on sleepless nights.  I could see our waiter going from table to table alerting the others to our impending moment.

“Honey,”   Tim leaned on his elbows and bore into me with blinking eyes, “Stop blinking your eyes like that. Take the box out of the salad.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Open the box, Susan.”

“People are staring.”  I attempted another defiant stare but it was difficult to pull off with tears plopping onto the table.

“Open – the – damn – box.”

Though I don’t remember willing them to do so, my shaking fingers pushed away the vegetables and picked up the small velvet cube.  All eyes in the restaurant were on us.  I opened the box and a diamond solitaire caught the candlelight.  I looked up at Tim and stared as his lips moved without sound.  I glanced at the staring eyes to the left and then I glanced at the staring eyes to the right, distorted faces like funhouse mirrors.

“Well?” Tim asked with a face so vulnerable and earnest that I suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without him. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

The room ruptured into cheers as Tim handed me a third vodka and held up his.  And we burst into laughter, toasted each other and cheered along with them.

The whole experience did not play out the way either of us had imagined.  It was not the traditional down on one knee sort of proposal on the beach at sunset, nor was the ring magically unveiled on a covered silver dish as he had hoped.  It was clumsy, unexpected, and filled with nervous emotion on both sides. It was real and heartfelt and awkwardly expressed the way marriage often looks on a daily basis. In retrospect it was the perfect engagement.

“Must be a funny card,” Ms. I Smell Like Lavender commented as I giggled to myself.

“Just brought back some memories,” I sighed as I put the card back in its place, “But it’s not the one I’m going to buy.”

“I think I’m going to get this one,” she confided as she held up a photo of a sunrise on which was printed ‘Every sunrise means another day of loving you’.

I forced myself not to add a sardonic comment and ruin her choice.

She opened the card and pointed to a wall of poetry five inches long. “This poem says it all for me.”

“How many years?”

“One.  Well almost,” she said with a shy smile.  “You?”

“Twenty-four.”

“Wow.  So, what’s the secret?  What have you learned?”

I plucked a simple white card with a simple red heart and opened it for her to see. “This is the card I get for him every year.  Because after awhile, you learn that these are the only three words that matter.”

Moments in Montclair: Clubs Part 2

There came a moment when I knew.  Something was going on in the attic, and I wasn’t invited.  My older brothers, David, Timmy and Todd, came down the stairs in the afternoon, smug and suspicious, and swaggered into the living room.  Timmy flipped the channel to Hogan’s Heroes acting like they didn’t notice I was mid-Father Knows Best.

“Hey, I was watching that,” I said standing up and crossing my arms in anger.

“So,” David said as he smoothed his dark bangs down into his eyes.

“So turn it back,” I demanded as the three of them would laugh.

“I’m telling Mom.”

“Go ahead.”  They knew I wouldn’t.  I wasn’t a tattletale as I knew what that would get me… a mouth full of teeth. So I stormed off into the kitchen for a few Mallomars and a glass of milk with Nestles Quick.  Something was different and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it had something to do with the red ink drawing on all of their right forearms of a sword piercing a bloody heart.

The next day I followed them up to the third floor and watched them disappear through a tiny half-door at the edge of the third floor landing.  A space I knew was reserved for Christmas decorations and dead bodies.  It could only mean one thing… a new club had formed.  And that sickening feeling of not belonging enveloped me like Linus’ cloud of dust.  I tip-toed over and placed my ear to the door. I heard murmurings and chants, something like “We Are the Sole Members of the Death Club.  Susan, Kevin, and Joe are not allowed.” I wanted more than anything, at that moment, to be in that club.  Sure I hated the thought of Death, it scared me out of my wits…  but it was cool, and I, clearly, was not.

We lived in a three-story (four if you count the basement) house that had a fair share of odd-shaped closets, dark corners and three attic spaces with separate doors  all of which were home to a secret club at one time or another. The six of us took turns declaring ownership, writing up rules, and deciding who could belong.

One year the Fireball Club was all the rage where you had to be able to suck on a fireball without any facial expression as your tongued burned in order to join. Then came the Let’s Play War, Go Fish is for Sissies club, the Dad is Mean Because He Makes us Do Chores club, the Let’s Light Matches in the Basement club, and the Our Gang knock-off He-man Woman Hater’s Club of which I was not a supporter. The closet on the stairs was home of the Hide From the Monsters club, and the other attic room off the bedroom on the third floor was the perfect spot for weekly meetings of the Seance, Ouija Board and Levitation club. But my favorite, and most memorable club, was The Dance Club.

I was about nine years old and Soul Train and Laugh-In were about the coolest shows a kid could watch.   One Saturday, noticing the house was suspiciously empty, I ventured into Todd and Kevin’s room and heard dance music coming from the closet.  I knocked and pulled on the doorknob and felt it pulled shut from the other side.

“Hey! What’s going on in there?” I yelled through the door.

Silence, the music shut off.

“Open the door!”

Murmuring on the other side.

After a few long minutes, the door opened and Todd, dead serious, stood in bell bottoms and his best shirt with the Nehru collar. His metal medallion glinted as he said, “Come in.”

Timmy sat like an Indian chief with a cassette player on his lap. Patchouli incense smoked in snake-like curls around his head. A lone lightbulb overhead shone down between clothes on hangers pushed to the side. Kevin, my younger brother sat to his right, his chest puffed up beneath his patterned vest.

“We have a new club,” Timmy announced as if the U.N. was listening. “Are you interested?”  Does Dan Rowan love Dick Martin?

“Yes!” I exclaimed with just the right amount of enthusiasm… not too much. “How do you join?”

“You have to wear your coolest clothes, then you have to pass the dance test,” he said matter-of-factly.

“The dance test?”

“We get to pick the song and you have to dance for three minutes here in front of us.  Then we get to vote if your dancing was good enough.”

“Ok.”  I ran to my room and searched for the new tangerine and cream paneled mini skirt my Aunt Catherine had recently bought for me.  I pulled it on, rubbed the six gold buttons to a gleam, and then zipped up my white vinyl knee boots and strutted my stuff back to that closet.

With the seriousness of the Pope in heaven,  the door opened. I stepped below the hanging bulb and Timmy pushed the shiny black button of the cassette player. Bend Me Shape Me  blasted and I shimmied like I was Goldi Hawn trying out for Laugh-In.

When the music ended I was politely asked to leave and the ballots were cast.  Ten minutes later I was inducted into the Closet Dance Club of ’68.  It would be one of my finest moments, a time when I knew who I was and how I fit into the family. I was a sister who mattered and a mighty fine dancer. What more could a nine-year old want?

Looking back, I have plenty of memories of trying to make it. Plenty of memories of wanting to get in. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I admitted people into my clubs and sometimes I didn’t.  The funny thing is that I have very little memory of clubs lasting more that the initiation phase, because, after that, we lost interest. After that it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that we made it, that we belonged; we were someone others wanted in their club. We felt like a person who counted, someone who deserved to know the secret handshake and the secret password.

And, funny, after all of these years…  it’s still what counts. That we matter to people and that we make them feel that they matter to us.

Next Big Thing

Last week, my friend Karen McCann tagged me to participate in the Next Big Thing online event. Of course, I am always up for some online fun. The Next Big Thing is a way for authors and bloggers to share the news about their most exciting upcoming projects.  Karen is the author of Dancing in the Fountain, a charming and inspiring book about her decision to move from Cleveland, Ohio to Seville, Spain.  She also writes a great blog called Enjoy Living Abroad that is chock full of information about the nuts and bolts of living the expat life.  She has a warm and honest approach, like an old friend letting you in on the secret to happiness. I can honestly say I am jealous of her Next Big Thing, a trip with her husband through the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, maybe Albania and a few other countries.

So, what’s my next big thing?

I am quite full of news on many fronts as I have taken this year to start a business. I am happily teaching fiction/memoir to adults, hosting writing retreats (the first of which took place in Italy this past October 2012, the second will combine yoga/writing in Tucson’s famous Hacienda Del Sol in June), teaming up with a few dynamic women to start an Arizona Authors Series, and I am in the midst of rewrites for a second book. For the sake of brevity, however, I’ll focus on the book.

I am happy to answer a list of question from the NBT team:

What is the working title of your book?

Right now it is called Book 2.  I prefer an organic approach to writing and the title has yet to raise it’s hand and wave it in my face.  At some point, probably during draft #4 or so, a phrase will stand up and clear its throat.  I’ll let you know when that happens!

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Again, a story has a way of finding us when the time is right. On the eve of turning 50, I found myself emotionally wobbly and depressed. Here I thought I had already had my mid-life crisis, played out in our unplanned move to Italy, and now another was banging on my door. It just didn’t seem fair.

Feeling anxious, I sought out a few experts on midlife transition and began to read about menopause and how fifty is the new forty. The books were pleasant enough. I learned that my midsection was supposedly thickening due to some ancient pre-determined survival instinct (though I would suspect it had something to do with the huge bag of M&M’s sitting to my right).

There were a few moments of “Hell, yes, I am woman!” and the summoning of chutzpah to stand up for myself and tell people who I really am and how they needed to move over and give me elbow room so I could transform into all that I was meant to be. But honestly?  These books did not help much in the peace and happiness category. I felt manipulated by marketing. Fifty is not the new forty at all. There was a profound emotional shift going on for me, one for which I had no words.

I decided then and there to attack the other side of fifty by recommitting myself to the transformational power of surrender. The same philosophy I had come to love and understand years earlier when we lived in Liguria.  I would wait for moments to speak to me of life: where I had come from, who I was now, and where I might be going.  I would wander this unchartered territory without the rulebooks of experts in my hand.  What do they know of me?

So, with a sense of adventure, like that which had breathed new life into my soul long ago,  I headed back to Italy (I was gifted with an unexpected plane ticket… thank you God and the universe, once again.) and sought Travel as my guru and guide.  Travel and adventure are powerful teachers during times of transition. They allow us the emotional space to figure things out, to hear the whispers of our hearts, to claim our truths. Travel helps us slip out of cultural constraints for a time so we can regards ourselves in an honest way.

This book is a compilation of some of these moments abroad. How they taught me to navigate transition and feel inspired once again. They look backward, forward, and inward. They are the moments that have taught me to accept and love who I have become and look forward to the next chapter of my life with renewed vigor and sense of worth.

The process of this book has been so inspiring that I started a blog called ExPat Chat for people who have lived and traveled abroad to share their amazing stories of transformation. I love the joy that emanates from each post.

What genre does your book fall under?

Creative Non-fiction/Memoir

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I have a great agent, Judith Riven, who will guide me, once again.  I wouldn’t do it without her!

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It took awhile because one can’t force inspiration. That’s the hitch with this whole surrender thing… the teacher comes when you are ready. It’s about listening and following rather than leading. Quite countercultural, but worth the wait.  I’m in the midst of rewriting at this time. It is my favorite part of the process.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The insights are wrapped around a girlfriend-y trip through Florence.  Who doesn’t want to go to Florence with her best friend?  I can’t say that the “research” for this book was torture.

And now it’s my pleasure to pass the torch on to four of my favorite writer pals, so that they can tell us about their Next Big Thing.

Stephanie Elliot is a writer, editor, a book reviewer, and has been blogging since 2004. Her first two novels almost-but-not-quite made it to publication the traditional route via her agent. She will self-publish her third novel, What She Left Us via Kindle Direct Publishing in 2013. She lives in Scottsdale, AZ with her husband of almost 20 years and their three children. Find her at Manic Mommy, friend her on Facebook. Follow her on Twitter.

Lian Dolan is an award winning broadcaster and writer. She created Satellite Sisters, a nationally syndicated radio show that won nine Gracie Allen Awards for Excellence. She created and produces The Chaos Chronicles, a humor blog and podcast about modern motherhood. She wrote regular columns for O, The Oprah Magazine and Working Mother and is now the parenting expert atoprah.com. Helen of Pasadena is her first book.

Lynn O’Rourke Hayes For more than twenty-five years Lynn has been writing and speaking about travel, technology, and family issues. From the halls of Congress to the peaks of Peru, she has combined her passion for travel and adventure with her love of family to create a varied and meaningful career. Now through her writing, photography, and consulting, she relishes sharing strategies for balancing family, work, and exploration.

She is the owner and editor of FamilyTravel.com and a weekly travel columnist for the Dallas Morning News. She has worked for two hotel companies and consulted to numerous other organizations within the travel industry.

Laura Munson is the author of the New York Times and international best-seller This Is Not The Story You Think It Is.  She lives and writes in Montana where she leads year-round writing retreats to help people free themselves on the page, no matter where they are in their writing journey.  Spaces are still available for the February 27th- March 3rd retreat.  For more info, click here: http://lauramunson.com/retreats.php.

Laura’s website:

http://lauramunson.com/index.php

Moments in Montclair: Clubs Part 1

Childhood was one long parade of clubs.  Whether you call them troops, patrols, leagues, societies, teams, gangs, dens, or packs, there was always the pressure of getting in and then fitting in.  Half the time I simply hated it.  Of course I kept these feelings to myself as everyone else seemed to thrive in these atmospheres.

I was constantly battling sarcastic banter in my mind. Even as a young child, I was cursed with a sense of ironic humor that I kept to myself in fear that the devil had something to do with it. That these inner caustic remarks were somehow connected to the swirling evil whispers to which Sr. Kenneth, my first grade teacher, always referred.

It started with ballet class in some studio in Upper Montclair that smelled like mildew. I was not limber, not prone to good balance, and my feet cramped even with the thought of toe shoes.  The teacher separated our class into two groups. My section ended up in bare feet, bent over at the waist with arms hanging to the floor as we swayed and made elephant noises. That was the end of my career with The Joffrey Ballet.

Then came Scouts. I proudly wore my Brownie uniform with a little chocolate-colored beanie and smart leatherette belt. We met in the church basement and did activities that earned us merit badges that said things like “Bugs” and “Flowers” and “First Aid”. God help the person that fell on a sidewalk with a heart attack in front of me. Though I swore I’d place my hands on the sternum and manually pump blood until help came along, I knew I would just cry and stare in panic.  Give me a bleeding scratch, though, and I could place a mean band-aid.

My poor mother, after a day filled with the needs of caring for six children, would sit up nights sewing these round and triangle badges in neat rows on my sash. I was diligent in earning as many as I could because we were being lured to become full-fledged Girl Scouts with the promise of camping trips and s’mores by a roaring fire under the stars.

I dreamed of these camping trips because my brothers were in Boy Scouts and they went camping all the time. Their eyes would light up as they re-told tales of daring and adventure around our dinner table when they would return.  They even spent two glorious weeks at Camp Glen Gray in Mahwah, NJ every summer in these cool tent lean-to’s and ate camp food and paddled canoes like the Indians.

Our troop leader kept referring to the night we would “fly up” to Girl Scouts. I had visions of grand ceremony and lightness of feet. I was disgusted to find that “flying up” referred to clomping across a wobbly bridge nailed together by Mr. Parker, the church custodian and standing next to adult women dressed in pale green uniforms that matched ours.  I remember searching the crowd of twenty parents perched on metal folding chairs and locking eyes with my mother knowing that we both knew this was lame.

Somehow the allure of scouting began to fade at that moment.  We never once camped anywhere, but we learned to sell cookies, by golly, and earn a badge that said “Business Owner”.  And once I got a gold star.

Maybe I was meant to play a sport.  Pre-Title IX, our town was about boys’ sports. If you  were a girl, you were limited to cheer leading, gymnastics, basketball, and tennis. My early ballet experience told me that the first two choices were out. My tennis experience was limited to spaghetti stringed wood rackets and hitting balls in the street with my brother Kevin, so I decided to give basketball a try. I’d played a few rounds of HORSE and Around the World in my life.

I tried out for the eighth grade basketball team.  I knew I how to dribble and I had a decent foul shot, but I was soon benched when it became clear I had no feel for the game. When the coach put me in, I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran around avoiding any possible contact with the ball. I was enthusiastic, however, and good at cheering on my teammates. Back then, we didn’t get trophies for simply making the team, but the uniform was cute.

I knew these organizations were striving to help me “know myself” and build “self-esteem” by being an integral part of a group, but for me, the closer I got to high school the less I seemed to know who I was.  All I knew at that point was that I was good at joining, following directions, making fun of it all, and quitting.  The clubs that really taught me about life were the ones we created in our own home and neighborhood.  Those I will get to next time!