Category: relationships

The BRAVE Interview #22 May 2018: Melanie Delorme

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, books, Brave books, Catching women being brave, Clarity, comfort, family, Interviews, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews

Welcome to this month’s BRAVE Interview with Melanie Delorme!

I am a teacher, a wife, a mother, an author who was given the role of bereaved mom in 2008 when my 8-year-old son, Garrett, was accidentally shot and killed in a hunting accident.

It would have been so easy to allow this horrific experience to define me as a grief-stricken mom for the rest of my life. I’m not sure how long it took me to realize that Garrett deserved a better legacy than that.

I also realized that healing and moving forward was my choice.

I try to choose every day to celebrate Garrett’s life and to remember that knowing him for eight years made me a better person.

I spent a lot of time writing in a journal during the first few years after Garrett’s death. I have since turned my writing into a book and published it. It is entitled, After the Flowers Die: A Handbook of Heartache, Hope and Healing After Losing a Child. I do not want any bereaved parent to ever feel alone.  I have recently created a website, promoted my book at book signings, participated in my first TV interview, participated in a live grief webinar. Currently I am working on creating a journaling course for grieving parents.

When I think about the word Brave, I realize that sometimes bravery is simply getting out of bed and facing the world every day.

Sometimes bravery feels more like survival. While I don’t feel brave every day, I will continue to choose to move forward keeping my son’s memory alive through my writing and speaking.

My website: www.MelanieDelorme.com

My book on Amazon:  After the Flowers Die: A Handbook of Heartache, Hope and Healing After Losing a Child

 

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Melanie!

Read the other BRAVE Interviews here: The BRAVE Interviews

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS SERIES ABOUT SOMETHING BRAVE YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR OWN LIFE, SEND ME AN EMAIL HERE: karen@karencreamer.com

The BRAVE Interview #21 April 2018: Stormie Grace

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, Clarity, no fear, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews

Welcome to this month’s interview with Stormie Grace!

Being Brave…

Hello everyone I am Astrologer Stormie Grace! …….really what I am is just a human! That comes with its pretty standard fears, insecurities, Delights, Mysteries, and all else that encompasses The Human Experience pause. The two qualities I’ve been invited to talk to you about today from my experience are fear and bravery.

No matter how it presents itself, fear always has this low-level vibration telling me I am somehow not enough as I am, and God forbid I get any different because then I’ll definitely be not enough.

If you know what I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about, but really, in my experience what Fear actually is actually is the thief that robs me from my life. It should absolutely be classified with stealing, yeah, because it robs me of the moments I could be experiencing how enough I am! And how much Beauty there is in the enough to notice.

And while that’s all wonderfully philosophical, I was in fear! It left the zone of fun for me and became a pure hiding mechanism that was fear. I wish you could guess what it was? My hair! For years and years I have enjoyed the playful decorating of my head with many different hairstyles, from wigs and weaves to braids and crochets! It is in my very nature to enjoy decorating beautifying and making things look and feel absolutely luxurious, so of course my hair was going to fall into this as well!

However outside of the beautification process, I crossed a fine line and I didn’t even know I had crossed it.

I left the space of fun and authentic expression and stepped onto the shore of fear. I stopped playing with my hair and creating beautiful designs to share with the world as an expression of my soul and simply began hiding underneath each woven state of my expression. I reached a place where my natural hair was no longer acceptable because it wasn’t long and luxurious and beautiful!

Fear allowed me to forget my enough-ness in any state!

For 5 years I invested dollar after dollar into not expressing myself, but into hiding in fear. What if someone saw my natural hair? Then they would never buy my products. They would never love me. They would never–I would never– and so on! The idea of stepping out in public without some long luxurious piece on literally made my skin crawl. I can remember a day very specifically where I had taken my wig off for the evening and was putting it away, and I only was able to take a half glance of myself in the mirror, because this natural hair was just not acceptable in its unruly State not trundling down my back, waving like Rapunzel to my sweet prince to come and save me! It was solid fear! And this continued for years!

And as juicy and tragic as that sounds, especially because it’s real life, this is actually where it gets good…

In this summer of 2017, the universe saw fit to bring me together with a man who I had been friends with for many years. Except this time we came together in romance instead of just friendship! And as it goes in the beginning of our new relationship it was sex and intimacy and giggling and stroking and playing until the wee hours of the morning, but he noticed I would never let him touch my hair! And of course with this big luxurious mop up there who wouldn’t want to touch that deliciousness? And finally, I sat him down and had the conversation that black women sometimes have to have with their white boyfriends about the fact that this hair was not mine, he could not touch it, but that it was in fact a piece of me. Universe, bless this man, because he just accepted it as truth, all while looking me right in my eyes and saying I would think you are beautiful without it.

Now for whatever reason which I still cannot explain, my soul heard what my head could not wrap its head around for years.

So the next day I went into the bathroom I took the wig off, I washed and styled my natural hair, and I sat in the bathroom incredibly uncomfortable judging myself, but also beginning at a very low-level to feel whole!

See, what I know about what happened is that LOVE (NOT ROMANCE), but LOVE drew me out and allowed me to walk through the fear in safety and acceptance.

The next day, I got to step into the fear and watch it transform to bravery, but making my first set of videos that would go to the public, with my natural hair. AND I DIDN’T STOP THERE … I went to my favorite shops and restaurants and even to see my cousin the beautician (who almost died that I was in public without weave. Not because my hair isn’t gorgeous, but because she had only seen me in fear)! I figured, “Heck I might as well take this bravery show on the road!” LOL! I could not have imagined how much emotion, hope, security, individuality, and love was wrapped up in my hair, in women and their hair, and it changed me.

Being brave enough to go INTO my fear changed me! I am free!

I have since gotten into so many hair related facets that I have made new friends (get new places meet new faces type deal), and I have allowed myself to unfold as needed! Today when I wear a wig, or braids, or a wash and go, I am free to do it and express myself that way because I am no longer hiding in the open. Today I am brave, I am love, and I am free!

Sending you love to stop fear in its tracks! Don’t let it rob your life, instead, GO WHERE THE FEAR IS…BE BRAVE!!!

XOXOXO

Thank you so much for sharing your brave story with us, Stormie! Check Stormie Grace out on Facebook at Stormie Grace Astrology!

Read the other BRAVE Interviews here: The BRAVE Interviews

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE INTERVIEWED FOR THIS SERIES ABOUT SOMETHING BRAVE YOU HAVE DONE IN YOUR OWN LIFE, SEND ME AN EMAIL HERE: kmcwrites@gmail.com

BOOK REVIEW: ANGEL OF EVENTIDE by Elle Powers

by Karen, posted in Angels, author, book reviews, books, Brave books, family, relationships

I was pulled right in to the conversation between the angel and the woman at the outset of the book. But, is it an angel? Who is this woman?  I have many questions and so I press on, intensely interested in how the answers would they reveal themselves.

This is not only a story of compassion; it’s an epic love story.

It’s not a typical love story, however. I don’t want to give too much away, so I will tread carefully here.

It is the love story of Maren and Sea (pronounced “Shay” for Seamus). Maren is different from other girls. She doesn’t get sick. The ‘magic brownies’ her peers are eating don’t have any effect on her.

Maren is also a girl whose reckless behavior has placed her at the brink of death many times in her young life. At the age of ten, she is assigned an angel who literally rescues her from death and then proceeds to watch over her. What is unusual is this: Maren can see him. Maren has always been able to see the ‘folks’, as she refers to them. She has always has this special ability, to be able to see behind “The Mystic Curtain”, as her mother refers to it.

This book is so much more than a “romance between a fallen angel and a lost girl” (p 169). It is also the story of parents’ love for their child. Of God’s love for us. It’s a brilliant exploration of what it means to be mortal and immortal, angel and human, and how we all fit together into the larger story of life. When life feels like a punishment, perhaps it’s because we can’t see the whole story.

Near the end of the book is a reference to a song that only Maren was hearing (P 282-283) .

“Maren stirred to its dreamy rhythm, understanding that this was the song of the world–the composition of creation.”

This sentence immediately brought a song to mind. To me, it felt like a perfect description of this song sung by Andrea Bocelli, Canto Della Terra (Mighty Sun).

There are several quotes that I loved at the outset of each chapter, including one from The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer, one of my favorite books ever (p 225), so it was hard to  narrow it down to one favorite, but I managed.

My favorite quote from the book (P 214):

“The truth was that they were living out this story together; every heart in every age was essential and connected…and so their each and every choice mattered to the whole.”

Beautiful. Thank you, Elle Powers! Get this wonderful book, Angel of Eventide.

I leave you with this invitation: Treat yourself and listen to this song undistracted.

BOOK REVIEW: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

by Karen, posted in Being BRAVE, book reviews, books, Brave books, family, relationships

I got Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng on audio from the library. It was actually picked out by my daughter, because I ‘needed’ an audio book and I wasn’t seeing anything that grabbed me.I am mentioning it because, coincidentally, one of the main characters in the book is named Izzy, the same as my daughter. Also, another coincidence is that there is a character in the book named Bebe, which is the name of the main character in my fiction (thus far).  🙂

This book is about relationships between and among mothers and daughters. A privileged family of six meets, assimilates, and then clashes with a family of two that is decidedly not.  There are complicated pieces of the puzzle that mostly come together at the end, but there are a couple of loose ends, one of which I wanted answered.

Final verdict: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is worth reading. Let me know what you think if you do.

BOOK REVIEW: The Story Of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg

by Karen, posted in books, Life's too short to read bad books, relationships

I just closed this book and I have tears streaming down my face. Usually, I wouldn’t care for a book that left me in this emotional state. This book was different, however.

This is one of the best books I have ever read, maybe in my whole life.

I was looking forward to this new book by Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv for months. I have read all of Berg’s books, but I can’t remember when the last one was. It has been a while, that’s for sure.

It was so worth the wait!

This book is a love story, but not a typical one. You will be drawn into the lives of these people immediately. This is a book you will not be able to put down, and yet you must, because you are going to want to go slowly and savor the characters and the story, to make it last as long as you can.

You will truly love this book. The characters will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

Read this book!

The BRAVE Interview #15 October 2017: Allyson Bright

by Karen, posted in author, Being BRAVE, books, Catching women being brave, Clarity, Interviews, no fear, online courses, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews

This month, we are meeting Allyson Bright!

 

  1. WHO are you? I’m 36. An artist, a woman in love, a widow, a crafter, a teacher, and a seeker of joy. I live in Wisconsin with my boyfriend, TJ, and my Beagle, Gracie.
  1. WHAT is your One Brave Thing?  It’s hard to pick just one – honestly, it’s been a journey. I was 32 when my husband died by suicide. After that, I found that I had to face new fears and learn how to create a new life for myself.About nine months after he passed, I went away for a week by myself. I was having trouble trusting my own decisions and I knew I needed to leave my comfort zone in order to move forward. The trip was transformational and ultimately led to my decision to leave my home in Iowa and move to Wisconsin for a fresh start.  Art journaling and crafting were such a vital part of my healing process, and I really wanted to share that with others. My ultimate brave thing was to leave my day job in order to start a business teaching art classes and offering coaching services. 
  1. WHEN did you do it? I started my company, Determined to Shine, about 18 months ago. It’s been a bit of a crazy journey, to be sure. But without a doubt, it’s the best decision I’ve ever made.
  1. WHERE did it occur? Right here in Madison, Wisconsin.
  1. HOW did you make it happen? One step at a time! Determined to Shine has grown into so much – weekend retreats, several online workshops, and even one-on-one coaching services. Sometimes it can seem like all of that happened at once, but it’s been a gradual process. For those looking to make a career change – don’t let the size of the task overwhelm you! Pick apart each task into small chunks, and just get started.
  1. WHY did you do it? The idea for Determined to Shine had been in my mind for several years. Ultimately, I realized I was just going to have to take a leap and be willing to fail. I didn’t want to wake up in three more years and still be talking about it. Taking that leap was terrifying, and I had to build my plan along the way. But everything that’s worth anything is scary. Determined to Shine has brought so much joy into my life and the lives of others – I can’t imagine what life would be like if I hadn’t done that one brave thing. 

Thank you, Allyson, for sharing your brave story with us!

Allyson is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Scrapbook Projects Illustrated.

You can find Allyson’s FREE online class here: 30 days of Art Journaling. I have taken this class myself and I enjoyed it very much. I highly recommend all of Allyson’s classes. Find them all here: http://www.determinedtoshine.net/

Check out Allyson’s online book club: Get Artsy Book Club

Click here to find out more (act fast! It’s almost time for this!) about Allyson’s Determined to Shine Fall Retreat!

Read the other BRAVE interviews here: https://kwrites.com/?s=The+BRAVE+Interview

If YOU would like to be interviewed for this series about something brave you have done in your life, email me at kmcwrites@gmail.com!

The BRAVE Interview #14 September 2017: Sylvia Wesley

by Karen, posted in Adult children, Being BRAVE, Catching women being brave, family, Interviews, relationships, The BRAVE Interviews, Travel, Turning 50

Here is this month’s BRAVE Interview with Sylvia Wesley! Enjoy!

  1. WHO are you? I’m a 61-year-old white woman—wife, mother, nurse, and pseudo-bon vivant!
  2. WHAT is your One Brave Thing? Sometimes I feel like just living every day is a Brave Thing and it is difficult to choose a single event!  As a nurse, it seems like so many of my ‘brave things’ encompass caring for people—my dad and my brother, who both died of cancer; my mom with multiple surgeries; friends with HIV/AIDS.  As a mom I gave birth to twins who were 10 weeks premature and their first 6 months of life was pretty hectic, to put it mildly.  As a wife, still being married after 38 years could be considered brave—but probably the bravest aspect there is that I married a black man in 1979, only 12 years after the Supreme Court ruled interracial marriage was not illegal, and our early years involved some struggles in a very white New England. So, after all that, I decided to choose a joyous adventure as my One Brave Thing—I went to Burning Man!
  3. WHEN did you do it? 8/28-9/1, 2006
  4. WHERE did it occur? Black Rock Desert, NV
  5. HOW did you make it happen? Mostly my daughter made the initial experience happen.  She had been going to Burning Man for a few years and always marveled at how awesome it was and she was sure I would love it.  So for my 50th birthday, I was given a ticket to TTITD (aka ‘that thing in the desert’).  Which meant I would be sharing camping space with 38,000+ other adventuring nomads for a week in rather hostile environmental conditions, and only knowing one other person.  A little scary having to be self-reliant in an unknown situation, camping with my daughter’s friends who only had her assurances that I was ‘fun, non-judgmental, fully capable of taking care of myself, and would not act like everybody’s mother.’  So I packed my bags and flew to LA.  We readied all our camping equipment, some party outfits, food and water for a week, and did a 12 hour ride/drive-share to the event with a heretofore unknown person.  After 12+ hours, in a very small mini-van, we were all fast friends.  Getting to and from is just as much of an adventure as being there!
  6. WHY did you do it? For the adventure!  It was one of the best experiences of my life—the bigger-than-life art, the music, the people, the sense of oneness—all magnificent.  I came away with a whole new sense of self.  And as my daughter predicted, I would want to go every year after that, and did so for the next 7 years.  ‘Life’ has since interrupted my annual trek, and I have not been for the past 3 years, but look forward to resuming visits to my personal Mecca in the near future.

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Sylvia!

If anybody wants to learn more about the culture that is Burning Man, go to https://burningman.org/

Read the other BRAVE interviews here: https://kwrites.com/?s=The+BRAVE+Interview

If you would like to be interviewed for this series about something brave you have done in your life, email me at kmcwrites@gmail.com!

Coming full circle (and announcing a free class!)

by Karen, posted in books, Brave books, Life's too short to read bad books, Midlife Crisis, relationships, Turning 50, writing

When I was in elementary school, I was in a new school every year.

Every. Single. Year.

No, my parents weren’t in the military. My father was disabled, and when money got tight, we got moving.

Kindergarten: The Hancock in Medford. First grade and half of second: The Emerson in Malden. Last half of second grade and third: The Parker in Billerica. Fourth: The Hajjar in Billerica. Fifth: The Davenport in Medford.

Maybe you noticed that Billerica is up there twice in a row. We actually didn’t move that year, but as luck would have it, the town built a new elementary school to accommodate its growing population and (you guess it) I was zoned to move to the new school.

Oh, happy day.

Moving can be hard for anyone at any age, and I was no exception. Every time I made a friend, we moved, and I had to begin all over again. As I got older, it seemed as if everyone was already paired up with a best friend, and had been forever. I always felt like the odd girl out. Like I didn’t belong.

And then something wonderful happened. I discovered my BFF’s in books!

Nancy Drew and Pippi Longstocking were among the first and are still my friends today.

Of course, Judy Blume’s books were part of my life back then, and the one that immediately comes to my mind when I think of that time is this one: Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how reading books can help us find meaning and insight into our lives. Even in fiction–maybe especially in fiction–it’s the story we connect with, and how it resonates for us in our real lives, and through which we can find comfort and clarity.

The phrase, “Go back to go forward” popped into my head not too long ago, and it kept popping in, over and over, so I thought, hey, I have to do something with this.

About the same time, Margaret was also intruding on my thoughts. 

Pretty much everyone I know that is past puberty has read the Margaret book. Maybe because I have been re-reading other books lately that impacted me, it occurred to me that it might be very interesting to re-read this particular book now. Maybe that’s why it was so persistently intruding in my thoughts. It wanted me to read it again!

And then I had another thought: maybe other women would also enjoy this.
And my free mini-course idea was born!

You can join the Facebook group now to get notified when the free course is available. As of now, I expect it to be ready on the Tuesday before Labor Day (August 29, 2017). Once it’s live, this link should work to sign up for my free mini-course, GO BACK TO GO FORWARD! 

Feel free to share this with anyone else who has read this book and might enjoy coming with me on my learning curve to take this free course!

Dance this mess around

by Karen, posted in He and me, local fun, Marriage, relationships

My husband and I went to see The B52’s last night. As far as date nights go, this was a great one. We stopped to eat on the way to the show at Margarita’s. I got a Blood Orange Margarita, and it was AWESOME. Note: There is no photo of the margarita because, sadly, I forgot my phone in the car and I my husband thought I couldn’t go the duration of the meal without it, so of course I had to prove him wrong. 🙂

Anyway, The show was great.

Except for the opening band, which was meh, therefore they shall remain nameless.

The show start time was 8:00pm, but The B52’s didn’t come out until 9:15pm. By then, it was pretty hot in there. Fred (one of the lead singers, for the uninitiated) made note of this, and then disappeared for a few songs. We thought we’d lost him, but the ceiling fans came on and thankfully, Fred came back out.

The played most of my favorite songs, including “Roam“, and “Deadbeat Club“, which is my current favorite.

They did an encore of three songs: “Planet Claire“, some song I never heard of with a telephone number in it, and (finally! finally!) “Rock Lobster“.

When they played “Dance This Mess Around“, and I was, you know, doing that, I had a moment when I realized that I was doing this same exact thing about 35 years ago. I was singing at the top of my lungs, dancing, and throwing my hands in the air like I just didn’t care (nod to Cameo‘s song), at some club in Boston that I can’t recall the name of.  It was a glimpse of how it is to live in Einstein Time, and it frikkin’ rocked.

I had so much fun (as I talked about my Metaphysical Monday video this week)! The best part? The B52’s were having so much fun too! We’ve all heard of bands that are not in love with the idea of playing the same songs over and over, the “fan favorites”, at their concerts, but this band didn’t get that memo.

If you ever have the chance to see them live, GO!

This is the best photo my iPhone could get of them, and it’s awful, but it’s all I have, so I’m posting it here at the end.

Goodbye, my friend

by Karen, posted in friends, good grief, Grace, relationships

A very dear person passed away over the weekend.

I met Karen when I worked with her at Sirona several years ago. We worked together via the telephone, so actually our voices met first! As many of you may know, you can tell a lot about someone by their voice. I liked her right away.

She was a supervisor, but she was every inch one of the gang as well. She was always a calm, reassuring, even loving presence at work. If Karen was on the job, I always felt better knowing that. When I was new in my role, of course I made some mistakes. When Karen was the person in charge and I needed to reach out for help, she was one hundred percent there for me. She somehow made me feel like she had made that exact same mistake dozens of times, just last week in fact. And hey, it was no big deal! Oh, and here’s how to fix it. And by the way, here’s  how to do it better next time. You may have heard that “Nurses eat their young.” Well, Karen never got that memo. Karen nurtured her young.

There is little that is more comforting in nursing than knowing that your supervisor has your back.

I did get to meet her in person as well, in 2013. We were part of the Sirona Seedlings at the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. I was new to the company and didn’t know a lot of people yet. My daughter came with me, and we walked the track for a while, and we lit votives to honor my parents who had both died from cancer. My mother had the same cancer that Karen endured. Anyway, I was humbled by the grace of this woman who, just a short time after the event, sent out a heartfelt email message to thank each of us for coming, by name, and she included what it was that each of us had done to participate.

I still have this message. I still have my Sirona Seedlings T-shirt. And I still have Karen in my heart.

Farewell, Karen. Like so many, many others, I am better for having known you.