Mia Magazine Fall 2010

FALL2010

a journal by for about women

my relationships isabel allende’s tribe

My art alchemy of a headache

My journey leanne taylor in uganda

my travels bhutan: the last shangri-la

My blog life after layoff

Stories

FROM THE

Heart.

“They gave me my life back.”

Thirty years ago, Kathryn was in a very serious car River Parks

accident where almost her entire right side had to be reconstructed. She lived in excruciating pain and depended on pain medication just to get by.

She went to the orthopedic specialists at Hillcrest Medical Center and had ankle, knee and back surgery.

•

In fact, the day of her back surgery

The difference is our doctors.

she walked out of the hospital and into the grand opening of her family’s restaurant. • With her newfound energy and mobility she’s taken on a full time job and spends her weekends hitting the trails.

2 South Utica, Tulsa Oklahoma 1120

•

tel. no. 918.585.8000

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010 TodaysHillcrest.com

fall2010 Mia Magazine A journal by, for, and about women

After checking her email in the coffee shop, Erin’s fingers are now flying across her keyboard as she writes a story for her nine-year-old sister. It makes me think about all the stories we women write for one another as we go through our days.

The stories may not be written with ink and paper or on a computer I’m sitting in a coffee shop in screen, but they are the stories we Colorado, watching my daughter, write with our lives. Erin doesn’t Erin, across the table as we take realize that her little sister has been advantage of the free Wi-Fi in this watching her closely all these years. small resort town. Two short weeks And Erin has been watching me, after our return from this vacation just as I watched my own mother she will move into the dorm room on and all the women who surrounded the campus of the small liberal arts me. I was learning what it means to university where her dad and I both be the kind of woman who inspires graduated over 20 years ago. others to be a little better every day.

When I think of our house without In this issue of Mia, 11 women have her in it, there is a little knot in my written stories of grace and courstomach. I have to remind myself age in the midst of life’s daily joys that she is only an hour and a half and sorrows. These are the stories away and that she is in good hands, we women tell each other, giving but the knot keeps coming back us what we need to walk through every time we shop for dorm room another day. accessories or talk about her class Erin will carry with her the stories schedule. I’ll miss our walks and our that she has heard and watched talks on the front porch swing, and over the years as she steps on the sitting at the dining room table with college campus and begins a new her while she gives her opinion on life chapter. My hope is that she will everything from politics to high continue to meet women whose school slang. She’s headstrong, inde- lives inspire her to be a better perpendent, blunt, and determined not son. As I watch her across the table, to follow the crowd. At times, these I remember a quote that was etched attributes have been comforting to into a wall hanging in the gift shop me; at other times they have made nearby: Here’s to good women: may our relationship a bit complicated. we know them, may we be them, Erin doesn’t look like a little girl may we raise them. anymore. When I look at her these And may we continue to tell their days, I see a woman emerging stories. I hope this issue of Mia magwhether I like it or not. I miss the lit- azine inspires you to tell your own tle towhead with the crooked teeth story. If you want to share it with us, and the endless string of questions, we would love to listen. Contact us but I am proud of the woman she is at: www.miamagazine.net becoming. Now she has brown hair, straight teeth (thanks to six years of Lisa Tresch, Editor orthodontics), and somewhere along the way she has found many of the answers to her own questions.

Publisher The Leslie Group, LLC Managing Editor Jan Weinheimer Editor Lisa Tresch Graphic Design Lina Holmes Finance and Website Juli Armour Contributing Editors Sheilah Bright, Linda Watanabe McFerrin Writers Karen Cadenhead, Doris Degner-Foster, Christy Phillippe, Monica Roberts, Linda Rubin, Barbara Schneeberg, LeAnne Taylor, Susan Hankey Webb Advertising Michelle Presley Photography LSD Photography Lisa Dunham, Sophia Litchfield Mia is published quarterly by The Leslie Group, LLC P.O. Box 35665, Tulsa, OK 74153 (918) 978-5567 Mia accepts full-length (1,000-1,200 words) manuscript submissions and queries.

For writers guidelines, visit our website at miamagazine.net Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited. Copyright © 2010 The Leslie Group, LLC. All rights reserved.

Mia Magazine P.O. Box 35665 Tulsa, Oklahoma 74153-0665 www.miamagazine.net

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H aving harvested all

the knowledge and wisdom we can from our mistakes and failures, we should put them behind us and go ahead. ~ Edith Johnson

photo by Jennifer Seifert

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Mia MiaMagazine, Magazine,Fall Fall2010 2010

Fall2010 Contents 6

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

MyArt Bringing beauty from pain

10

Myhometown At home on the water

13

Mybookshelf Give your creative spirit wings

14

Myinspiration True feminine grit

16

Myblog Laid off and wondering what’s next

18

Myrelationships In my tribe

20

MYtravels Beyond postcards and Internet sites

24

Myreflections Gifts from the sea

27

Myhealth Running marathons at 90

28

MyJOURNEY LeAnne Taylor in Uganda

37

MyAfterTHOUGHTS Proud and terrified all at once

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OURWriters Meet our storytellers

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Alchemy: A form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and finding an elixir of life.

Alchemy of a

Myart

by Karen Cadenhead Face down on the couch with a rag over my eyes and an ice pack on my head, I tried to lie still in an effort to slow the pounding. I was 15 years old and yearning to be out with my friends on this beautiful spring Saturday.

Instead, I could hear my two sisters’ soft voices inside as they sat at the kitchen table, drawing. As an artist, I always enjoyed watching my sisters draw and play with paint and clay. Tricia, only one year old, was able to control and name her scribbles, while three-year-old Kristy had already started drawing identifiable objects and naming them.

As I lay there listening, reflecting, and trying to distract myself from the pain, I wondered how that scribble turned into a person, just as babbling turned into a language. The next day, I decided to figure out how Tricia’s scribbles became a figure, and then started collecting her drawings at the beginning of each week.

I guess that’s how my career in psychology and child development began.

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Years later, I started college as an art major, but I was always drawn to psychology. It bothered me that I couldn’t somehow combine them, until one day, while working at a shoe store in Tulsa, a friend and co-worker rushed in to announce she had found my future career.

Evidently, there was a new field called ‘Art Therapy,’ and the one art therapist and pioneer in the field, Marge Howard, was in Tulsa. That chance discovery in a shoe store took me to the first Art Therapy graduate program in the country, and then back to Tulsa as Director of Art Therapy at the Children’s Medical Center.

Of course, I didn’t escape the migraines. Many spring afternoons were spent with an ice pack on my forehead, eyes tightly closed against the pain. I didn’t, however, let them stop me. A decade later I was teaching in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Lesley University as a professor in their Graduate Program in Expressive Therapies. A requirement of my hiring was to obtain a Ph.D. – no small feat in a field that had not yet started

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

photos submitted

offering doctorates. I found an Educational Psychology program that allowed me to tailor a degree, and then I set out to find a topic.

A central premise of Art Therapy is that whatever psychological or physiological issues are encountered by a subject will find a way into their art. I had been fortunate enough to get referrals from pediatricians as well as psychiatrists, and it was among the physically ill children that I observed some of the most extraordinary drawings. A young boy with juvenile arthritis drew a butterfly with straight red rods through fragile wings that looked so stiff they could never fly. A young man with cancer drew birds and kites in the sky as he prepared for death. One young patient with sickle cell anemia and sores all over his body drew a little boy who had been “bad” and was covered with polka dots!

While unconscious to them, the artists’ physical discomfort found its way into their choice of symbols and the way they drew them. I wondered if my own

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

drawings in some way reflected the frequent preoccupation with head pain I was still experiencing.

As I looked at my artwork, I realized that an old Native American woman I had drawn with long white braids had feathers radiating off her head. The mask I had made with Q-tips glued to the forehead, like birthday candles with glitter on the tips, also seemed to radiate. I couldn’t ignore these and other examples – experiencing migraines does give you the feeling of something coming out of your head. I wondered if I could find other artists who had frequent significant migraines, and if I would find commonality in our work.

Sure enough, there was Georgia O’Keefe, who snapped to someone about a volcano she had drawn, “I did it in a headache.” I found Virginia Woolf, who would be in bed for months with headaches and then suddenly, “like chrysalis,” she would awake and write an entire manuscript (she did this with

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To the Lighthouse). Was there some similarity in the creative process and migraine pain? Did the ideas go underground and incubate, only to find eventual creative expression?

Thinking about all of this, it occurred to me that my journey and the subsequent dissertation had been a process that I can’t describe in any way other than as an alchemy. I had created things I would not have otherwise done, tried out things I might have missed, all in an unrelenting drive to find some measure of relief from an unbearable agony. I had taken irrelevant raw materials, and through my life, eyes closed against the pain but hands constantly flailing for some modicum of solid ground, created a life cast entirely in gold.

While serving on the board of the American Art Therapy Association, I met the board’s lawyer who was visiting from D.C., and we fell in love. We had two boys, and when they reached school age I finally had a chance to explore my art. I took classes at a local museum school, and one day I stumbled onto a sculpture class and never looked back. I formed a studio with some of my classmates and sculpted life-sized mermaids with tiaras and angels with halos, as well as portraits of people I loved. While searching for the title for a show I was in, it suddenly dawned on me: I had created beautiful golden bronze figures!

Now I am over 60 and my headaches have lost their severity and frequency, and my precious sisters have grown into incredible women with families of their own.

My sons are launching their adult lives, and my sweet husband goes with me to every art show I’ve ever been in. He was actually the recent subject of a giant head I sculpted that won a prize – over eight times a humansized skull in volume! My son calls it the ‘Easter Island’ head. And yes, he has a hat brim that radiates like the sun, demonstrating the imagery of so many migraine artists.

It feels good to know that the torturous head pain I’ve experienced throughout my life was not in vain; rather, it found expression in a life almost entirely filled with happiness and satisfaction. When I look out at my sculptures, I like the combination of strength and vulnerability as they glisten like gold in the sun.

There aren’t always good messages about adversity or great results from pain, and I think I would and perhaps even could have done even more in my life without it.

But making some meaning out of adversity, especially some subliminal artistic experience, makes all those days on all those couches seem less wasted. I’ve been a daughter, a sister, a professor, a wife, a mother, and a sculptor. I’ve been in pain and I’ve been in bliss. We all take our life experiences, and try to make meaning.

Today, if I find myself on the couch with a headache, I try to remind myself that I’m still spinning gold. Mia

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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MyHOMETOWN

by Susan “Fred” Hankey Webb

Somewhere at Sea

Every year we live in at least three hometowns: Wasilla, Alaska; Hagerstown, Maryland; and simply, “somewhere at sea.” My husband, Jack, and I made the decision to live on a sailboat in the Caribbean for six to eight months each winter. When people ask us why, we explain that we love international travel and sailing, so taking our home along with us makes sense.

Finding our perfect boat, outfitting it, and making the move from land to sea took years. We needed a boat that was safe enough to sail across oceans. Our “diamond in the rough” was a sturdy, 1983 Finnishmade 43-foot motorsailer sitting in Florida, waiting for new owners…us! Little did we know that along with taking our hearts, the motorsailer was waiting to take every penny, every muscle, and every minute we could give. For the next two years, we re-wired, re-plumbed, scrubbed, and polished every surface.

Then I retired from the Air Force and we put our townhouse up for sale. I separated our lifetime of stuff into piles: this stuff (heirlooms, photos, antiques) for long-term storage, that stuff for charity. Only the essentials moved to the boat.

One new essential was a washing machine.

Experienced boaters told us their main overseas cruising problem is laundry; wash facilities vary from island to island. Some boaters use a bucket and clean toilet plunger to wash laundry by hand; others carry it to shore and pay local women to wash it. Knowing how many T-shirts my husband wears each week, we decided to buy a European style washer/dryer, took it apart, and re-assembled it inside the boat. And it still runs after 11 years.

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Just like homes on land, boats are outfitted based on budget and lifestyle preferences. Some boats use generators to power 110-volt microwaves, TVs and watermakers that turn seawater into drinking water.

Other boats have no electric power at all, relying on propane or alcohol stoves to heat fresh or canned food.

Some boaters depend on fresh water collected in jugs or jerry cans filled on shore and carried by dinghy to the boat. Sometimes simple is best, but Jack and I prefer a few “creature comforts.”

While our house on land had a living room, dining room, and a den, our boat has a singular saloon/dinette where we eat, watch DVDs on a flat-screen TV, socialize, and run our autopilot when we sail. Many other boats are decorated in a nautical theme, but we display Alaskan art, which reflects our summer life in the far north, and, of course, photos of family. Visitors to our boat say it is homey and reflects our wanderlust.

My shipboard galley is a tiny, four-by-six-foot, U-shaped kitchen. I stand in one spot and I pivot from the icebox, to the stove, to the sink. I can reach every spice, pan, dish, and utensil without walking anywhere.

When I whip up a spaghetti dinner, I look like an octopus playing drums. The only household items I miss are a dishwasher and a large refrigerator/freezer with an icemaker, which I consider absolute luxuries when I return to “landlubber” life each summer.

So far, we have sailed the entire U.S. east coast (the Intracoastal Waterway) from Maine and around Florida, along the Gulf of Mexico to South Padre Island, Texas, and back to Florida. During the Christmas holidays in 2004, we stocked the boat with hundreds of cans of food, set sail from Key West to the Bahamas, and arrived five months later in Trinidad, near the coast of South America.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Each port of call becomes our temporary hometown.

Whenever we plan a trip, we read all about it before we sail. Safety at sea is paramount to us. We steer away from pirate-infested areas and high crime anchorages, and we listen to boaters with experience in ports on our future routes. Before heading anywhere, if either of us feels wary, we use our “veto power” to postpone the trip until we are both happy with the plan and weather forecast.

Over the past six years of Caribbean sailing, we have met hundreds of boaters or “cruisers” as we are called.

We gather at a local watering hole for happy hour a few afternoons each week. The men’s conversations invariably cover the same subjects: Where are you heading next? When do you think you will pull up your anchor? Why have you stayed here so long? If it is a mechanical problem, then most likely the men will have a serious conversation and canvas the group for spare parts and at least an hour-long diagnosis, sometimes followed by scheduling a trip to the ailing boat for analysis and more beer.

Women’s conversations usually cover: What local sights do you recommend seeing? Which local store sells the freshest vegetables? What products do you use on your decks and teak? Is there a laundromat nearby and if not, what laundry method do you use?

Often, boaters arrange potluck dinners on a beach or at a local picnic area. Since some American staples such as lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, and fresh berries do not grow in the tropics, shipping them in is expensive.

I remember one seasoned sailing chef’s advice: “When you go food shopping in foreign countries, you may

not find items you normally eat, but you can still find food!” Typically, food shopping takes at least half a day and involves bus trips to numerous stores because one store has the freshest vegetables and another has the best meats.

Thanks to Wi-Fi, Internet access is getting easier each year, allowing us to stay in contact, pay bills, and bank online. These days, we also use Skype to contact family and friends around the world.

It took years for me to realize that when we moved aboard, our boat became a third entity that boldly wiggled into our marriage. She is our home and a representative of Mother Nature with a cheeky attitude. With her help, I learn about myself. I wake in the middle of the night at anchor, listening to the water slap against the hull inches below my pillow. In the dark, I climb up on deck and gaze at millions of stars, some of which I can identify as friends who help me navigate. I think of how her sturdy hull and responsiveness to my commands at the wheel have turned me into a confident captain.

I recall our countless seafaring cohorts, fun times at anchorages, and problem-solving experiences where we succeeded by our own ingenuity.

In a perfect world, all of our family and good friends would live in one hometown, but in life we must play the hand we are dealt. I feel lucky my hand included a stalwart boat that sails the sea. Wherever we dock our boat, I feel safe, secure, and most importantly, I am at home once again. Mia

photo submitted

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Mybookshelf review by Christy Phillippe

Taking Flight:

I n s p i r a t i o n a n d Te c h n i q u e s t o G i v e Yo u r C r e a t i v e S p i r i t Wi n g s

by Kelly Rae Roberts

mother of a oneyear-old. I don’t have time to be creative !

I’m the

That was my thinking before I picked up Taking Flight.

Kelly Rae Roberts changed my mind. At first glance, this inspiring and visually stimulating book seems intended primarily for artists, professional or otherwise. I am several years behind on my scrapbooking, my sewing machine is gathering dust, and I have about twenty (no joke!) partially finished cross-stitch kits. Despite the fact that I am not a painter or a sculptor, I learned that my life is constantly being directed to the creative spirit inside.

I may try some of the amazing projects outlined step-by-step in this book; I may not—even though I was certainly inspired. But completing a list of projects is not the book’s main focus. It is completely different from your standard “how-to” manual; rather, it is a guide to letting go of your fears and “taking flight.” Journaling questions, practical tips, inspirational quotes, and the telling of the author’s own journey—all encourage you to create community, unearth your buried dreams, honor memories of those precious ones in your life, speak truth without fear, and more.

As Roberts shares: “Whispers. We all have them.

They’re the little voices in our conscious minds that tug at our hearts and want our attention. These whispers, these seeds of dreams, encourage us, even when we’re not entirely willing to listen, to simply begin. To begin planning that vacation we’ve always wanted. To finally start that creative project. To begin writing that book. To write that poem. To work less. To apologize more. They’re like little bitty wings, needing the nurturing of our spirits to give them flight into a real and true existence.”

Have you ever wondered where your creativity went?

That spark you had in your younger years—your belief that you could do anything or be anything that you set your mind to? Taking Flight helps you answer key questions about that creative spirit deep within: What are your life goals? What limits have you set for yourself, and

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

how can you break through them? What provokes the passion in your heart? What inspires you? What will you do about it?

In my own busy life, this book has taught me to begin to look for the sacred in the ordinary—to find new and creative ways to breathe fresh life into old routines, to express myself creatively through my life, as it is, to let go of my fears of not doing things the right way and allowing myself to break out of old molds that are not working for me anymore. It’s not about trying to find a few extra hours to express myself by crocheting a scarf or getting that baby quilt done (although that could work, too).

Instead, my focus has become living life creatively— taking a deep breath and just doing it. That’s what this book is all about. Mia

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Myinspiration

by Linda Rubin

photo submitted

Jo Castle:

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Jo’s confident, brown eyes could not conceal the panic overtaking her sense of independence. She ran her bony fingers through her wispy, gray hair. Her weathered hands and tired face showed her pain, and her tiny body no longer fit in her skin. When I think about Jo, I see a woman who looked at her circumstances square in the face and made decisions based on fortitude and unending courage.

A few months earlier, Jo had been different. At 73, with the energy of a 23-year-old, she headed up efforts to clean and remodel an old trailer as a gift for her niece who needed a place to live. She recruited her sister, brother, and sister-in-law (all in their seventies) and directed them as they hauled away trash, painted walls, scrubbed appliances, climbed ladders, pulled up carpet, weeded, mowed grass, and decorated rooms. The crew worked 10 hours a day for two weeks. Jo added at least four more hours per day to her schedule, fueled by little more than coffee and cigarettes.

Jo had smoked hard for 57 years. She had not known the dangers of smoking when she began the habit, but matter-of-factly decided it was too late to stop by the time she was informed. She assumed she would die of lung cancer and had formulated a plan to maintain her independence by fashionably transporting an oxygen tank around with her.

Being fashionable had been important to Jo. She was raised in poverty and decided at an early age that just because she was poor, she didn’t have to look poor. She painted outdated lamps, sewed curtains from discarded material, stuffed her own pillows, and recycled ‘junk’ into elite decorations to create themed rooms. Her rooms included a Coca-Cola 1950s diner, a World War II bedroom, a garden room (artificial turf as carpet), and a British Royalty sitting room.

Jo was as individual as her rooms. Having survived a tough childhood, she learned early the meaning of being an independent woman. During the 1950s, she attempted to break societal norms as well as the family poverty cycle by acquiring a scholarship to the University of Tulsa, but discontinued her education

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

True

Grit

to marry a young NASA rocket mechanic. After their two sons, Jack and John, were born, they divorced, remarried, and then separated as alcoholism destroyed the marriage. Alone, Jo relied on her independence and worked for the next 50 years as a waitress.

She never obtained her driver’s license, so she found a café nearby and walked to work. She walked to the grocery store. She took the bus to appointments and told Jack and John to walk to school. She did not ask for help nor did she take any ‘guff’ from anyone. Her opinions were strong. She did not tolerate rudeness.

She was not particularly social and really did not care whether anyone liked her; still, most everyone did.

Jo paid her bills, bought her house, worked her job, and raised her kids without complaints or excuses. She kept everything – old rags, coffee tins, plastic bags…in case she needed them. To make her clothes last longer, she kept them in plastic zipper bags to protect them from her cigarette smoke. Every outfit had a theme (like her rooms) with coordinating shoes and scarves.

Each ensemble had necklaces that matched bracelets that matched earrings that matched pins that matched rings – sets of silver and sets of gold, wooden beads and shiny pearls – all kept in labeled, cotton-lined boxes for decades.

And every ensemble had a matching hat. Jo was rarely seen without a hat. She had 69 hats in all: ribboned bonnets, plaid fedoras, wide-brimmed sombreros. She owned elegant netted hats from the 1940s and colorful chole hats from the 1930s. She had straw garden hats, felt Parisian berets, sassy newsboy caps, and baseball hats depicting her favorite teams.

Contrary to her chic style, Jo was a diehard sports fan and could rival the experts with her knowledge of players and games. As a child, she often skipped school to listen to baseball games on the radio. As an adult, she traveled with Jack to major league baseball stadiums to experience the games. And if she wasn’t watching baseball, she was cheering on her favorite college football team, the University of Oklahoma. If she wasn’t watching football, she was watching golf or tennis

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

or basketball. And every four years, she passionately watched the Olympic Games.

Now, just days after attending the Sun Bowl in Texas with Jack, she went down hard and fast.

In the doctor’s office, Jo breathed rhythmically. Her lungs were clear. Lung cancer was not her problem. Her cancer was Sarcoma. She held her jaw tight and her eyes filled with tears. “I guess we can kiss me goodbye.”

Then, instead of crying, she said, “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’m going to fight this thing.” She was not at all ready to die. She had more stadiums to visit. She had more gardening to do. She was sure her sense of independence would carry her through as it had always done in the past.

After her surgeon removed a seven-pound tumor, she went home and tried to care for herself. She changed her own sheets, prepared her own food, and answered her own phone by crawling out of bed to the living room (she had been too stubborn to upgrade to a cordless, or even add an answering machine). She accepted limited visitors. Finally, she lost interest in eating and became too weak to get out of bed. For the first time, life was out of her control. She was no longer independent. She returned to the hospital.

She lay on the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. Her frail body shivered as she listened to the Winter Olympic Games in the background.

Her hands trembled. Her words were unrecognizable and her pain unmanageable. Jack could not stop her journey nor could he make it more comfortable. All she could do was look into his face – a familiar face to memorize as she moved from her painful existence into another realm. Then, as Jo’s heart beat its last, Jack softly brushed his hand over her face and closed her eyes.

Not once did Jo give up and I never heard her whine.

She did not possess the concept of self-pity. She faced life with dignity and intelligence. As I witnessed Jo’s life, and her death, she taught me what it means to demonstrate true feminine grit to the younger women who are watching us. Mia

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Myblog

by Layoffgirl

Mood Swings and Shiny Objects Tuesday, March 30, 2010 I know what you’re thinking. The first few posts were kind of cute, nothing too threatening or shocking, but how long can Layoffgirl sustain that chirpy tone before she starts to unravel? After three weeks of unemployment it’s only natural that she would start to get a little stir crazy.

It’s not that I’ve got nothing to do. Au contraire, there is so much to do. How did I ever have time to work? That schedule thing I committed to last week? Writing for an hour every day? Who am I kidding?

Last week I took a day-long workshop on business planning. That was a mistake. Turns out before you write the business plan it’s a good idea to know what the business is. The other people in the seminar knew what they wanted. One wanted to expand his automotive repair shop. Another wanted to open a movie theater.

Oh sure, I’ve got some business ideas. But is the current economic climate right for starting a new venture?

The problem with being unemployed is, when your day is wide open there are just so many distractions.

They call to me like so many shiny objects in the grass – did I notice them before? I pick them up thinking they must be valuable if they shine that pretty, only to

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discover most of them are just old candy wrappers. But who can tell? One of them just might be gold. So I spend a little too much time staring at the grass.

A friend of mine who is 61 got laid off from a local ad agency last week after 18 years. She was the receptionist in the purest sense of the word. She would receive guests, get them cold drinks, and show them to their meetings where fresh flowers - beautifully arranged by her - adorned the table. Her boss acquired this company about a year ago, and moved her from the front desk to the back office where she worked 60-hour weeks managing everything from his social networking status to his travel arrangements. She was being let go, he said, because she didn’t know databases. She even interviewed her replacement – a perky 25-yearold blonde who must really know her way around a keyboard.

Shiny objects, I adore you. You distract me from harsh realities like this. You lull me into thinking, this could not happen here. You make me believe that at my age (less than 61, more than 25) reinvention is not just possible, it’s essential. So until I figure out my reinvention strategy, I’ll just keep staring at the grass.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Layoff Girl

The Obnoxious Party Guests Thursday, July 22, 2010 I haven’t written in a while, not because I’ve run out of material but because my life’s new material got a little too close to the bone to write about in such a public forum. But I’m starting to get that mental constipation feeling, and thoughts are bouncing around the walls of my brain like little pinballs of doom.

So I’m back tonight, and we’ll see where this takes us.

About a month into my layoff, just when I was starting to really enjoy not having a job, my husband lost his, too. Only he wasn’t laid off.

He had been working for years at a place that had made it through the downturn pretty unscathed, until lately when they began to struggle. It was as if the ship never could quite right itself out of the storm. For the past six months or so he had been leading pitch after pitch for every shred of business they could weasel out of the anemic economy. It had become desperate.

Every day about 5 p.m., I’d get a call that he didn’t know when he could get home. On the nights when he did come home for dinner, he’d eat, a listless creature at the end of the table, then start working again from his cramped little home office. Sometimes he’d spend a little time with the kids, sometimes I’d come and

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

get him at bedtime so he could say good night. Every weekend he’d be back in the office again, if not working on a pitch, then trying to catch up on his regular work.

It was a horrible cycle, an unhealthy cycle, and he was becoming aloof, depressed, and removed. His body was starting to revolt, attempting to quit on its own. So he beat his body to it and got himself out of the job.

He quit. While I was unemployed. Without a whole lot of conversation or discussion with me…his wife. I was cool with it, at first. It was time. He was miserable.

He was getting sick. He deserved a break. He can find a new job.

But then my old friends Fear and Resentment came calling. To be accurate, they didn’t call, they barged right through the door of my brain and made themselves at home, just like the obnoxious party guests who won’t leave. And here’s what they were saying: Fear: How could he quit like that, when we’ve got no money coming in? We’re on the brink of financial collapse! We could lose our house! Our friends! Our feeling of moral superiority!

Continued on page 32 See MY BLOG

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Myrelationships

by Linda Watanabe McFerrin

photo submitted

Isabel’s tribe

I

sabel Allende is surrounded. The room is packed to the rafters with friends, family, and fans. They are seated at handsomely appointed tables at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, at a luncheon celebrating the publication of her latest book, Island Beneath the Sea, a tale prophetically set in Haiti. Isabel looks tiny in the midst of the crowd—beautiful and exotic, dressed in bright bloom colors like the fiery copihue or bellflower blossom, national flower of Chile, the country where she was raised. Her uncle, Salvador Isabelino del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Allende Gossens, was President of Chile from 1970 to 1973 when he was deposed and died in the coup d’état that ushered in the government of Augusto Pinochet. It’s because of that coup

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that we have Isabel, one of the best-loved writers in the world and certainly one of the most widely enjoyed by readers in the Spanish-speaking nations. Her flight from Chile and the ghosts she left behind inspired her first novel, The House of Spirits, and eventually sent her off on a book tour that took her into the arms of her husband, Willie Gordon, and her future family or—as she calls it— her tribe.

We are not talking war paint and feathers or even the kind of powerful socio-political tribes that gave birth to the word and its concept in ancient Rome where they dictated life for the entire community. Isabel’s tribe is more intimate, more personal. “I come from Chile,” she says, “and I suppose my desire for a tribe is rooted in the

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

extended family that is common there. But there, if you don’t like them, you still have to put up with them. If a family member calls me and says the second cousin of my uncle needs money, then I must send it.”

Isabel’s tribe in the U.S. is not like this. It is composed of family, to be sure, but only those with whom she has chosen to be in constant contact. And although it includes her husband, son, former son-in-law, and their spouses and children, it is also comprised of a few very dear friends and associates, all of whom live and work in fairly close proximity to Isabel and Willie’s graceful Marin County residence.

“To be part of the tribe you must stay connected,” declares Isabel who receives a steady stream of letters from fans who long to be members of her tribe. “In this country, my tribe is based on the connections that we have chosen. It is important to actually like each other, to share values.”

To meet Isabel’s tribe you have only to open one of her books. Its members appear in her non-fiction, as the family that delights and distresses her, and in her fiction, as the imaginatively drawn characters that populate its pages. In The Sum of our Days, her latest memoir, we meet the entire cast and witness their interactions— the births, deaths, arguments, betrayals, love, infidelities, and the forgiveness. “If it comes down to choosing between telling a story and offending relatives, any professional writer chooses the former,” her agent advises in the opening pages of the work—all well and good in theory, but not in life. “I had to ask permission to put their stories in the book,” explains Isabel. “It is about trust. If they said ‘no,’ I took them out.”

According to Isabel, trust is key in keeping a tribe together—trust and honesty and a commitment to the common good. If a tribe member betrays this trust, he or she must leave. “They will want to leave,” she insists, and she bases this insistence on experience. “They will no longer feel comfortable with the others.” She has also learned that in situations like this, you cannot stop them from drifting away. It is hopeless. Willie’s children, for example, some of who have suffered from serious addictions, are not part of the group. In fact, it may be that because Willie’s family was so broken and most of Isabel’s relatives so far away, she felt the need to create her own special troupe. In this country, the longing for an intimate and close knit family exists in counterpoint to the strong desire for individuality and personal freedom.

But there is a cost to independence. A sense of isolation, a lack of support, and often a need to rely heavily on public programs for assistance are among the problems that can arise.

It is hard work, but a strong tribe can keep you afloat in difficult times, financially, physically, and emotionally. When Isabel lost her daughter, Paula, to a Spanish

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

“I come from Chile, and I suppose my desire for a tribe is rooted in the extended family that is common there.”

hospital’s poor understanding and mismanagement of porphyria, a fairly rare genetic blood disorder that can be fatal, close family and friends rallied around the bereaved author. Similarly, Isabel has been a source of strength and encouragement to Ernesto, Paula’s husband, eagerly welcoming his new wife, Giulia, into her circle and joyously celebrating the birth of their twins.

This, then, is the tribe’s real value. Through it all, the members support and nourish one another in various ways. “When I make beans, I have someone to share them with,” laughs Isabel. “Otherwise it’s too much for Willie and me. I won’t cook them.” She admits she shares other things too, including plenty of fun and celebration and would share clothes if only everyone were the same size. She also admits to being a bit overbearing at times, a tendency she’s had to curb to keep other tribe members happy. But making some personal sacrifices is definitely part of the process and Isabel claims she doesn’t mind them at all…well, maybe not too much. “What is the point of a tribe if you do not help one another?” asks Isabel. “Besides,” she quips, “without people, life is boring. I have a little pool. I want people in the pool.” Mia

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Mytravels

story and photos by Sheilah Bright

Bhutan:

Singing in the Land of Happiness You dream of exploring new lands where the winds whisper against the craggy mountainsides, and the people in the valleys below still cling to their cultural heritage. You want to see the true self of a country, something beyond postcards and web images, something more vibrant, raw, and real. So a photographer friend invites you to Bhutan. You have to spin a globe to locate it. Bhutan is barely there, a tiny country tucked between massive giants India and China.

Some call it the last Shangri La, a country new to democracy and proud of its national motto: “Gross National Happiness.” Travel hurdles are many: daily visitor fees, limits of 25,000-35,000 people a year, tour guide requirements, sketchy electricity and running water, and just one lone airport with an infamous runway precariously squeezed between cliffs.

My friend and I had been granted special permission to trek through eastern Bhutan, an area closed to all but a few researchers. We spent three weeks in March walking up the winding mountains and sharing our lives with the families who were struggling to live off the land using many of the tools and techniques of their ancestors.

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Tourism didn’t come to this land until 1984, followed by the introduction of television and eventually the Internet. In 2008, the country’s most eligible bachelor, King Jigme Khesar Namgwel Wangchuck, encouraged and welcomed democracy as a vessel for progress.

Restricted tourism is introducing the world to the mistshrouded valleys and towering mountain homelands of this Himalayan country. Monasteries are opening doors, inviting outsiders to peer inside their sacred walls. Villagers, usually dressed in the mandated native traditional dress, nod as they say prayers and spin prayer wheels as part of their daily commitment to Buddhist rituals.

Bouncing along the limited roads in a bus driven by a former monk, our small group of photographers watched as monasteries surfaced through the mountain fog like stately ghosts, rising toward the sky, then just as quickly disappearing as the weather changed. As the crow flies, the day’s distance might equal 40 miles.

By bus, however, the same distance was measured in six, 10, or 12 bumpy hours. Once, we raced and honked our way through five hours of switchbacks in hopes of reaching the only road across the main East West highway. Closed at 4 p.m. every day, the road’s

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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dangerous curves took many prisoners. Our driver stopped at a sacred rock along the way to ask for a blessing of safe journey. We made it with one minute to spare.

On my 49th birthday, we began a two-day 4,715foot ascent. We began by hiking along gentle hills and waterfall valleys most of the day. Beyond a stone wall sat a school where village children scrambled in the courtyard. They were curious about this pack of khakiclad strangers with bulky boxes hanging off their necks.

“Photograph” is not in their vocabulary. Not yet.

The children were timid, excited, and a bit confused about what to do, although their principal offered smiles of encouragement. I don’t know what made me put my camera down and began to sing. It was one of those rare moments of travel when you forget the travel brochure suggestions and go off the research grid. A group of children standing in the shade watched me suspiciously. They inched forward as I belted out each phrase.

Head, and shoulders, knees and toes.

Head, and shoulders, knees and toes.

Head, and shoulders, knees and toes.

Ears, eyes, mouth and nose.

When I finished, they stood in front of me with pleading faces. Sing again, their expressions said.

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Singing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” in Oklahoma is one thing. Singing it at an altitude of 5,900 feet and substituting a yak, a zoe, a donkey, and a red panda into the barnyard threw the song into a different dimension.

Slowly, the villagers worked their way to the schoolyard corner. When my breath ran out, we applauded ourselves. A moment later, someone from my group led everyone in the most beautiful version of “Happy Birthday” that I have heard in 49 years.

As we traveled the country, in and out of remote villages, I relied on song often. For someone who once was kicked out of the junior high honor choir, it is a startling musical achievement. The children of this country do not care if my vocal range is trapped somewhere between soprano and alto. They simply long for the melody of words.

“She is from USA,” a Bhutanese friend once said as we stepped inside another village school. “She is going to sing.”

Outside the classroom, men were building a community room. They put down their tools, shook the dirt from their boots, and stepped into the doorway. I saw the 40 students of various ages stare with frozen expressions. Some of them wore tattered uniforms.

Some of them wore new ones. A runny nose here. A dirty fingernail there. Huddled together with village

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

dust still clinging to their clothes, these students represent the future of a country trying to decide how tradition and progress can be worn at the same time.

Can you take giant leaps forward into the modern world and not send your culture stumbling to the ground?

On the wall, a jumbled mix of English words were arranged in awkward sentences. Boy village slept cat.

Happy laugh cow family. Me dog ran morning.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

“Are these vocabulary words?” I asked the kind principal as he pulled one of his socks and straightened his traditional goa to cover his knees.

“It is difficult,” he said. “Everyone speaks a different dialect. They learn to speak English slowly.

Understanding what they are saying takes so much time.”

“She sings,” Sangay said.

I cleared my throat. And so it went – again. This wasn’t part of my pre-trip planning, but I have no doubt that it will become a travel requirement as I visit remote corners of the world. Tell me a story. Sing me a song. The gift of sharing becomes a universal dialect.

Change is coming to Bhutan. Strangers are within walking distance. I thought of the inevitability of change on one of my final days in Bhutan as I stepped over the stones and lumber that would soon become another school, another foundation of learning in this land of happiness. Just beyond the construction, I witnessed an unchanging, universal lesson in love drawn on a rock. Most every mother in America has put one on her refrigerator. In Bhutan, someone drew it on a rock.

Man. Woman. Child. Family.

There were no words. None were needed. Mia

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MyREFLECTIONS creative essay by Barbara Schneeberg

At Ocean’s Edge

“There is a day when the road neither comes nor goes, and the way is not a way but a place.” - Wendell Berry

There is a simple question asked among friends wanting to know more about each other: “What is the one place on earth that makes you feel most alive, nourished, and connected?”

For some, lakes are great – if you like nouns. I’m a verb girl, however, and for me Mother Ocean is the place. Yes, I call ocean, mother. I’ve delighted in her as far back as I can remember. From childhood rides on New York City’s “D” train roaring into Rockaway Beach, to my daughter’s first shaky steps on North Miami’s shoreline. From consoling rainbows across the waters after my father’s passing, to teary shell-collecting over an empty nest, Mother Ocean mingles with my life through its many seasons.

How I love her sound, her smell, her soft sand under my feet, and the delightful way she traces my skin around the bathing suit I’m wearing. She starts calling for me in her breezy, balmy way somewhere around March: Come, let’s bask and play again. Let’s cry and long and sort out your important matters

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together. Collecting, comforting, and creating me anew, she teaches me at each visit something else about life, and my place in it.

Every visit, that is, except the one that ended differently. I went to her like always and waited at shore’s edge until I could wait no longer. There was a plane to catch, loose ends to tie, other relationships to grow impatient over – a typical woman’s heart pulls. How could I leave without her anticipated token of insight? I’d become accustomed to taking home something special to remember. How could I leave now without it? I did leave, puzzled and empty inside over this goodbye.

A story is a story because of its beginning, middle, and end. At that time my story felt as empty as a seashell. Along with a gift to help me remember our time together, goodbyes with Mother Ocean always include, along with a hint of eagerness, an assurance of a next time and hopefully soon. Yet Mother Ocean offered nothing I could see. No gentle wave tapping

Mia Mia Magazine, Magazine, Fall Fall 2010 2010

Mia MiaMagazine, Magazine,Fall Fall2010 2010

in fertile darkness. In an intimate relationship, are there not times when children need only to snuggle alongside you, or when it’s enough for lovers to simply lay their head on each other’s chest, counting heartbeats?

I no longer assume silence means separation. Love continuously goes out and returns through the senses and throughout the seasons. Such is its rhythm.

Could this be the eternal message seashells echo in our ear? Mia

photo submitted

and splashing the back of my head, inviting me to play with her a little longer. No sudden storm to perch through on her water’s edge, grasping in even the smallest way the wonder and majesty of creation. Not even a winged butterfly to ponder over. Nothing to take away except this irritating, shouting silence.

Back home and brooding, the paradox became clear. Could it be that nothing happening is what happened; that the time had come, as it does in any relationship, when words become no longer necessary? I simply went to visit Mother Ocean and returned. I took time to be with her and she was there for me. I was quiet and she gently ebbed and flowed along with me. My precious husband of 44 years assured me of this blessed bit of wisdom by saying, “Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I stop loving you.”

Bits of wisdom hidden in the sand of ordinary living evaporate the need to always say and do. It is a gift – this time to just be and to come alive like seeds

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photo by Doris Degner-Foster

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

MyHealth Mary Ellen Brundle

by Doris Degner-Foster

photo submitted

A Little Better Every Day

Her son once told her that if she could run two miles, she could run as far as she wanted. Mary Ellen Brundle took her youngest child’s advice. At age 90, she now goes into every race determined to finish.

Even on cold mornings, she bundles up and chooses not to focus on how good it would feel to stay inside her warm, cozy house. Her age, she has decided, doesn’t have to control her desires. She wants to run. “If you are really disciplined, you are relieved of the necessity of making a choice. You just do it.”

Like many runners, her passion began slowly with walking. She had always enjoyed taking walks, but as she neared retirement, she started running short distances. It was then that her son gave her the challenge of working up to two miles. After she and her husband retired to Arkansas, Mary Ellen felt that she had

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

time to do what she had wanted to do for a while, and that was to start running races. At age 65, she entered a 5K race in Bentonville, Arkansas. “I was strictly a novice, having never done more than run by myself in the neighborhood. The race route went way down a hill and way up, so I think I came in last. But I kept at it and five years later in 1990 I ran the 15K portion of the Tulsa Run when I was 70 with a time of 2:08:05.”

Mary Ellen continues to train year round and runs six or seven races a year including the Tulsa Run 15K. In 2004, at age 84, her time was 2:31:54. In 2009, at age 89, her time was 3:23:56. She did miss the turnaround point, however, she admits. “There was a band playing, and lots of crowds and excitement and I just missed it. I realized my mistake and turned around when the crowd thinned. In spite of that I was determined to finish and I did.”

She believes that it is important to have a training program that is consistent with the goal of doing a little bit better every day. But her running involves more than just the physical aspects of training. “Conditioning your muscles for distance running is like conditioning your thoughts to not dwell on the negative.”

Mary Ellen believes that our minds and bodies influence each other, therefore, keeping active both mentally and physically is important to her. “Problems are inevitable,” she says. “Joy is always an option.”

From an early age, she faced situations that forced her to choose either joy or negative feelings. At age ten, her parents divorced, and she was raised by her single mother in the midst of the Great Depression. Her own marriage dissolved years later, and she found herself also a single mother raising a daughter. Following her divorce, Mary Ellen worked at a Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, Florida., then Washington D.C., where she met and married a naval officer. When World War II ended, they moved to Texas. After six more children and years of being a homemaker, her second marriage also ended in divorce. Now, she was a single parent with six children who were still at home. Undaunted, she started college at the University of Houston and soon won a Continued on page 30 See MY HEALTH

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MyJourney

by LeAnne Taylor

Pros In

assignment would be to document the stories of a group of Oklahomans traveling to Uganda. The group, “Pros for Africa” is made up of professionals that include doctors, lawyers, engineers, and journalists, as well as four former University of Oklahoma football players who now are professional players in the NFL: Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings, Tommie Harris of the Chicago Bears, Roy Williams of the Cincinnati Bengals, and Mark Clayton of the Baltimore Ravens. These athletes would lead the 45 Oklahomans to Northern Uganda.

In addition to the News 9 reporter and me, our media team also included a photographer and producer, all experienced journalists. We hit the ground running, gathering stories and capturing the sights and sounds of this amazing place. There was a story at every turn. For me, it was a matter of soaking it all in and then asking myself, “What do the people back home need to know about this place?” Our primary location was Gulu, Uganda. That’s about five hours from the capital city of Kampala. When most people travel to Uganda, the northern part is not on their itinerary because of all the civil unrest. There’s been turmoil, fighting, and abductions and only recently have things begun to calm down. But “Pros for Africa” was focusing this weeklong humanitarian trip on St. Monica’s Tailoring School and Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe.

Africa

photo ubmitted

As I hung up the phone, my heart was racing. It was possible that I was about to take the trip of a lifetime, but I only had 24 hours to decide. I walked out of the kitchen and called to my husband. We needed to talk.

So many things were going through my mind and the words tumbled out of my mouth. The television news station I work for was sending a crew to Uganda, Africa, and they were asking if I wanted to go.

The trip would happen in March, 2010, during Spring Break week, which was about two months away. If I went, it would mean leaving my family for eight days, traveling thousands of miles, and visiting three continents. The Caribbean was about as far away as I’d ever gone before, but how could I say no? The next day I made my decision. I was going to Africa!

I would represent the eastern side of Oklahoma, while my colleague from KWTV News 9 in Oklahoma City would represent the other side of the state. Our

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Sister Rosemary was the recipient of the 2007 CNN Heroes Award as a Community Crusader for her work in helping children and young women during the civil unrest in northern Uganda. She has been protecting them by providing refuge and giving hope in a dark corner of the world. The tailoring school offers sanctuary and healing and helps teach these young women a trade, offering them the chance at a better life. Most of the young women who come to St. Monica’s have been abducted and abused by rebel armies. These kids are robbed of their childhood, but Sister Rosemary and the school restore their dignity. Many of these girls have been raped during their captivity and have children of their own. Sister Rosemary takes in mother and child, helping both.

We had an opportunity to meet these girls and hear their stories. I was amazed at how their lives had changed so dramatically since coming to St. Monica’s and through the efforts of Sister Rosemary. It reminded me that a person who is passionate about a cause can make a big difference. The girls once lived in fear, but now they have purpose. Sister Rosemary told me this doesn’t happen overnight, but over time things do change. With most of the girls coming from similar backgrounds, they find a common bond with one another.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

The doctors traveling on this journey took medicine and opened a medical clinic for the hundreds of people who had gathered. Some people had never seen a physician. It was amazing to watch as dozens of people stood in the heat, lining up to see a doctor. There were patients with cataracts, high blood pressure, and more serious conditions like tumors and malaria. The doctors helped all those they could, and it was touching to see the appreciation in the people’s eyes.

Some of the other pros included volunteers who went to help build water wells. The “Water 4 Foundation” is a non-profit group based in Oklahoma that travels to third-world countries and drills wells, providing clean water to villages. The volunteers went not only to drill the wells, but to teach the people how to help themselves. They set up the equipment and began drilling for water by hand. Those NFL players came in handy, using brute strength to help turn the pipe that dug into the hard ground, eventually hitting Continued on page 34 See My Journey (photo below: Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings star running back, with LeAnne Taylor.)

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MY HEALTH Continued from page 27 grant that would allow her to continue and finish her undergraduate degree. She married again, continued her education, and taught college courses. It would have been easy to give in to negative feelings, but Mary Ellen decided not to give in to those feelings.

“If I wanted to, I could focus on bushels and barrels of bad thoughts and memories, but then I would forget about all the good things. Feelings are authentic, but they may not be based on reality, so it’s easy to be misled. Choosing to focus on joy prevents a mistake like that. I exercise that choice even though – just like my running program – there is a degree of discipline involved.” She practices that philosophy and remains committed to her running program, especially when training for an upcoming race. The goal of “doing a little bit better every day,” guides her as she trains for races. She conditions her muscles for distance, but also conditions her thoughts not to dwell on the negative.

Recently, her children threw a surprise 90th birthday party for her. One of her great-grandchildren was asked how old she was, and the little girl replied, “I am four years old and” – she threw her arms open wide – “I love being four years old!” Mary Ellen says that her granddaughter’s remark caused her to decide right then and there that she would love being 90 years old. She smiles and says, “So far, so good.” Mia

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Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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MY BLOG Continued from page 17 Resentment: Doesn’t he know I’m in the midst of a process of self-discovery? This is MY time. Not his! What gives him the right to just abdicate responsibility and make me take it on?

And on and on. As it turns out Fear and Resentment are always there, lurking in the shadows, taking notes.

And when it’s their time to step up, they can spew out all the old hurts with amazing specificity. It’s impressive, their capacity to remember.

I literally could not turn them off, so I started walling myself off. To get away from Fear and Resentment, I also had to get away from everything else in my life – husband, kids, my crazy house that will never ever get remodeled now, my quaint little quest for self-discovery.

And I started looking for a job.

During this time, my husband and I were in the house together, alone, without the kids for the first time. With the kids in school, we had plenty of time to hang out together. But during the day we didn’t waste time on idle chitchat except at break time, which was technically lunch. And then only to exchange vital information.

But then something started to happen. Bit by bit, inch by inch, we started turning toward each other. We took a walk together. We went to Lowe’s. We picked up the

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kids at school, the Unabashedly Unemployed Couple.

We started talking again about what we wanted to do, and what we didn’t want to do. And when a job finally came along for me – a job I wasn’t ready to accept but was clearly meant and made for me — we talked it over.

It was a more than full-time job for a startup company, and I just couldn’t see going that route again. After much discussion and wringing of hands, I turned it down. Something Fear and Resentment would never let me do.

And you know what happened when I said no? That company came back to me and offered me a contract job on my own terms. So I took a chance. I said yes — on a temporary basis. Because this story isn’t over. He’s still looking for a job, and I’m still looking for myself. But for now, duty calls. And sometimes, that’s all that really matters.

Layoffgirl is not a rock star or a librarian. She is not a tightrope walker or a ballerina, a roller derby girl or an accountant. But all of these things are still possibilities. (Well, everything but the accountant.)

In reality, Layoffgirl is a 40-something, mid-management professional and mom who has had her share of misadventures in the corporate world. Her identity is veiled due to the obvious contradictions her views might present to a potential employer. This blog is a watering hole for anyone who finds themselves wondering what to do next. If you feel like it, go to the blog (www.layoffgirl@wordpress.com) and join the conversation with a comment or a post of your own. You just might inspire someone. Mia

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My Journey Continued from page 29 the natural springs and bringing up clean water. They even donated much of the equipment used to give the locals tools for their new trade.

The clinic and the water wells were just part of the trip. It was the life-changing experiences that most of us will never forget. I was touched by the joy I saw in so many faces. These men, women, and children don’t have much and many still live in mud huts in small villages.

They don’t have running water or an abundance of food.

They don’t have a formal education and few have jobs, but they are grateful for what they do have. Despite all the pain and war, they seem to be at peace, and that touched me. The things we spend so much time and money on are temporary and aren’t really necessary in the big picture. That realization struck a chord with me while I was packing to come home. I had so much “stuff” that I really didn’t need, so I ended up leaving clothes and shoes behind. I was reminded that the things money can’t buy are what bring us the most joy.

The trip was a revelation for me, and it changed my perspective significantly. Sister Rosemary is a perfect example of how we all should live. Mia

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• Russia, Ethiopia • Adoption education and USA through • Home studies Buckner affiliation • Dossier preparation • Post-adoption support • Hague accredited • Placing children from: China, Haiti, India DILLON and Korea International www.dillonadopt.com

Offices: Little Rock, AR | Orange County, CA | Castle Rock, CO | Richmond, IN | Kansas City, KS | St. Louis, MO | Tulsa, OK | Dallas, TX

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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Little bit of

ENJOY THE TRADITIONAL FLAVORS OF FRANCE WITH THE MELTING POT. Join The Melting Pot as we take fondue on a tour of the French countryside. Inspired by classic French ingredients and recipes, our next Big Night Out menu is one you won’t want to miss.

C o u n t ry Western & Rustic Speciality Shop

BEGINNING SEPTEMBER 28

Hand Forged Iron Accessories Residential and Commercial Decorating Local Artists Products

Jenks 918-299-8000

Oklahoma City 405-235-1000

Reservations recommended • Fondue coast to coast Locally owned and operated • meltingpot.com

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Diane & Gary Gloden 124 E. Dewey Ave Sapulpa, Okla. 74066 918-224-6169 Located on Historic Route 66 in the heart of downtown Sapulpa

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

Myafterthoughts

by Monica Roberts

“ ” I’m beginning to understand that this tug-of-war is the mother’s journey.

Mia Mia Magazine, Magazine, Fall Fall 2010 2010

Bye Bye Birdie My feet were 26 when they hit the pavement of New York City for their first visit. My son’s, however, were 10.

Taking Jack there this past summer to visit close friends who live on the Upper West Side surpassed all my expectations. In just three days, we gawked at the Museum of Natural History, topped the Empire State Building, commandeered remote-control sailboats in Central Park, saluted the Statue of Liberty, saw a Broadway show, and nearly trampled someone in Times Square. My son will also tell you he witnessed a few choice words between hostile cabbies and the like, so you know we tasted the full flavor of the Big Apple.

One of the most rewarding aspects of parenting for me is witnessing my kids having new experiences (yes, even unsavory exchanges between cab drivers). Having grown up in Oklahoma and never traveling much as a child, I am determined to let my kids see new places as much as possible.

Traveling breeds confidence and independence, and I’m a big believer that my responsibility as a mom is to raise children who become self-sufficient young adults who can fly the nest. OK, maybe there will be a sprained wing or two upon takeoff, but I want them to fly nonetheless.

I can brag all I want about this desire to eventually shoo the little gapemouthed fledglings out of the nest, but I’ll admit almost nothing breaks me like a movie about kids leaving home. It’s kryptonite to all my secret mommy powers.

Take the latest installment from Pixar, Toy Story 3. (Spoiler alert: keep a box of tissues on hand and have your therapist appointment pre-booked.) The story centers on Andy leaving for college and what will become of his beloved childhood toys. Fast forward an hour and a half, and we see his room empty, boxes packed, and his mother startled at its stark barrenness. The final scene with Andy pushed me over the edge, as I could imagine my 10-year-old boy as an 18-year-old young man, car loaded, and ready for the next chapter of his life.

(Excuse me while I blow my nose.) I’ve seen the movie twice and cried both times.

Aside from taking in the sights of New York City and seeing Jack’s priceless reactions, another highlight of the trip for me was the sweetness he showed to me on the airplane. Every once in a while, he’d pat my arm or lean his head on my shoulder, as if he were four years old all over again. I couldn’t help but relish in it and wonder how many more years he’ll do that. Not many more, I suppose. This summer Jack also went to sleep-away camp for the first time, and this fall will go to France as an exchange student for a month. Without me.

I’m proud and terrified all at once.

I’m beginning to understand that this tug-of-war is the mother’s journey. Go. Stay. Go. Stay. Go now, please–before I mortally wound you.

There are always the boomerang kids who, upon finding themselves jobless after college graduation, come home to roost for another round with mom and dad. Some moms welcome those boomerang birdies. Who knows how I’ll feel about it all by that point.

Let’s just hope that there’s not a Toy Story 4, where Andy is 28 and living with his parents while displaying his reclaimed toys in his old room.

Now that would be the real tear-jerker. Mia

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ourcontributing editors A former journalist, Sheilah Bright is a newly minted empty-nester determined to experience the world through travel, writing, and photography.

Her work has been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, including Oklahoma Today where she is a contributing editor. She and her husband live on Bright Morning Farm, a 35-acre homestead in Sand Springs. You can read about her travels and view the photographs at brightjourneys.com or contact: sheilahbright@me.com. Sheilah wrote My Travels: “Bhutan: Singing in the Land of Happiness” on page 20.

ourwriters Karen Cadenhead was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has served as Director of Art Therapy at Tulsa’s Children’s Medical Center, and professor at the Institute of the Expressive Therapies Graduate School at Lesley University in Boston. She has also served on the National Board of the American Art Therapy Association, where she met her husband, then retired from academic life to have children and to begin a private practice. As her two children got older, she began taking art courses at a local art museum school, and discovered sculpture. She and her husband reside in Concord, Mass. Karen wrote My Art: “The Alchemy of a Headache” on page 6.

Poet, travel writer, and novelist Linda Watanabe McFerrin (www.lwmcferrin. com), has been traveling since she was two and writing about it since she was six. A contributor to numerous journals, newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and online publications, she is the author of two poetry collections, an award-winning novel, Namako: Sea Cucumber, and short story collection, The Hand of Buddha, and the editor of a travel guidebook, Best Places in Northern California, 4th ed., and four literary anthologies. A past winner of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction, she teaches and leads workshops in fiction and creative non-fiction. Her latest novel, Dead Love (www.deadlovebook.com), is due out from Stone Bridge Press in September of 2010. Linda wrote My Relationships: “Isabel’s Tribe” on page 18.

Christy Phillippe has worked in the publishing industry for over seventeen years as a managing editor, senior editor, and editorial director for various book and magazine publishers.

In a wide and varied freelance career, she has written and edited hundreds of books, including several New York Times best sellers. She holds a B.A. in theology and a master’s degree in counseling psychology.

She lives in Tulsa with two dogs, one cat, her husband, and a beautiful baby boy.

Christy wrote My Bookshelf: Taking Flight: “Inspiration and Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings” on page 13.

Monica Roberts is an Oklahoma native and Tulsa is her adopted hometown.

When she’s not being a mom After leaving the workforce to Jack, Lucy, and Oscar (children, not where she held positions as a dogs), she writes, consults on marketing medical research analyst and projects, and tries to take a nap, which regional correspondent for rarely works out. She enjoys cooking, an international horse magazine, Doris reading, long walks, and entertaining.

Degner-Foster now fights the continuous Monica writes the column, “My battle of the multiplying laundry and Afterthoughts” on page 37. taking care of her husband, Michael, and two teenaged daughters. She is currently Five days a week, Linda at work on a novel set in her home state Rubin is a high school English of Oklahoma. Doris vows to stop wasting teacher working with at-risk so much time sorting socks and chastising teenagers, and three nights herself for not dusting the ceiling fans, a week she counsels troubled teens at a and looks forward to publishing more of program for suspended students. She has her work. Doris wrote My Health: “Mary two sons, a daughter-in-law, a five-yearEllen Brundle: A Little Bit Better Every Day” on old grandson, and a brand new baby page 27. grandson. She has her master’s in both counseling and clinical psychology. She is

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a cancer survivor and an incurable optimist.

Her greatest feeling of success is helping kids get into college. Linda wrote My Inspiration, “Jo Castle: True Grit” on page 14.

Barbara Schneeberg fell in love with words and metaphors as a young child in her mother’s kitchen. Seashell collecting, peaceful walks in beautiful gardens and the forest’s stillness, dark chocolate and wishbones rank right up there on her list of passions - just a notch or two behind her 44 year-long love story with her husband, Harry, their five children and eleven grandchildren. As a recent seminary graduate Barbara uses storytelling to facilitate denomination-wide, custom designed retreats across the state that encourage people to know their place – in the very heart of God. Barbara wrote My Reflections: “At Ocean’s Edge” on page 24.

Her alarm goes off each weekday morning at 2:40 a.m. so she can get to work to wake you up. LeAnne Taylor, who anchors“Six in the Morning”on KOTVChannel 6 in Tulsa, has been in television for more than 26 years, starting when she was 10 years old. The Tulsa native loves being a hometown gal and she never meets a stranger. Although she has many titles and awards, she’s most proud of being“mom” to her children, Rachel (who’s off to college this fall for her freshman year) and Nicholas (who’s all boy). As a seven-year breast cancer survivor, LeAnne is passionate about helping others. She wrote My Journey: “Pros in Africa” on page 28.

Susan“Fred” Hankey Webb, co-captain of a sailboat, world-traveling genealogist, and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel (in public affairs), lives with her husband of 25 years, Jack, in Hagerstown, Maryland; Wasilla, Alaska; and“somewhere in the Caribbean.”Air Force friends dubbed her“Fred”and the nickname stuck. Fred and Jack co-authored a non-fiction chronicle on his parents’ lives, True North in Alaska: Memories of Indians, Eskimos, Bush Pilots and Us, and sign books in Alaska each summer. She earned a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma, has four honorary grandchildren, and is self-appointed“mayor of the dock”in marinas throughout the Caribbean. She writes historical articles for the Maryland Cracker Barrel magazine. Fred wrote My Hometown: “Somewhere at Sea” on page 10.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

W

Comprehensive, compassionate, and confidential care for women

omen’s Health Care, P.C.

2424 East 21st Street Suite 340 Tulsa, Oklahoma 74114 Phone: 918.749.0804 Fax: 918.749.6249 www.myhealthmatters.com

Drs. Jon C. Calvert and Darla J. Lofgren are both board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and provide care for a wide variety of women’s conditions using the latest treatments.

Both doctors perform urologic surgeries based on computerized urodynamic studies for evaluation of female urinary incontinence which are performed in their office.

In practice more than 25 years, Dr. Calvert is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology. Detail oriented, he works with each patient to reach a proper diagnosis and effective management plan. He has special interests in laparoscopic surgery, vulvar and cervical disease.

He is one of a few of gynecologists who performs total laparoscopic hysterectomies. Dr. Calvert has been named in the Oklahoma Top Docs for the past three years.

Dr. Lofgren joined WHC in March 2009 after being a faculty member in the OU Ob/Gyn Department. She has a large obstetric practice and has special interests in laparoscopic surgery and cervical pathology as well as extensive experience with endometrial ablations and laparoscopic hysterectomies. She is one of the few Tulsa physicians trained to perform combination hysteroscopic sterilization and endometrial ablation.

Jon C. Calvert, MD, Darla J. Lofgren, MD

WOMEN’S HEALTH CARE, P.C.

Monday through Thursday, 8:00 a.m. till 4:30 p.m., Fridays, 9 a.m. till 12 noon.

For inquiries or to schedule an appointment, call: 918.749.0804

Champions of health: honoring those who make a difference in the health of oklahomans Monday, Oct. 18 • 7 p.m. national cowboy and western heritage Museum, Oklahoma City For more information about the event and speakers, go to championsofhealth.org Call 1-866-876-4376 to make reservations now through Oct. 1.

The Champions of Health awards are presented by:

championsofhealth.org

40 and Blue Shield of Oklahoma, a Division of Health Care Service Corporation, a Mutual Legal Blue Cross Reserve Company, an Independent Licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

Mia Magazine, Fall 2010

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