The Brick Magazine - July 2019

BRICK

THE

JULY 2019

MAGAZINE

ANN ARBOR

BELOW THE SURFACE IF YOU WANT TO SOAR HIGH LEARN TO DIVE DEEP SUPPORTING DEEP SLEEP

PLUS! UNTOLD STORIES OF LIBERATION AND LOVE

Susan Allison GIVING YOUTH IN CRISIS A SAFE PLACE TO GROW

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THE

BRICK MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

JULY 2019

Publisher • Sarah Whitsett

8

Writing as Transformation: How Your Muse Can Heal You

10

Giving Youth in Crisis a Safe Place to Grow with Susan Allison

16

Roll with the Punches

18

Local Women of Color to Share “Untold Stories of Liberation and Love” Through New Poetry Project

22

To Top It All Off: Summer ‘19 Accessory Guide

24

For Personal & Planetary Thriving Rolling in It

26

Knee-Deep in Blueberries

30

Welcome to Booze 101 with Liz A Beer in the Hand: The Summer Edition

34

Below the Surface

36

Woman on the Street The Long Way Home

38

Supporting Deep Sleep

42

My Journey Out into the Deep

44

If You Want to Soar High Learn to Dive Deep

48

Rolling in the Deep Muck of Resentment— and Coming Away Clean!

Assistant to the Publisher • Tanja MacKenzie

Art Director • Jennifer Knutson

Copy Editor • Angelina Bielby

Marketing Director • Steve DeBruler

Cover Photographer • Heidi McClelland

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Contributors >>

Gail Barker, B.A., C.P.C.C. Alison Corey Liz Crowe Morella Devost Kristen Domingue

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Tiffany Edison Angela Harrison Julie Mariouw Kellie Mox

Marilyn Pellini Lisa Profera Sarah Rigg Stephanie Saline Maria Sylvester

Contact Us >>

The Brick Magazine, LLC 734.221.5767 Email: office@thebrickmagazine.com Visit us on the web at thebrickmagazine.com

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Advertising Inquires >> email office@thebrickmagazine.com or call 734.221.5767

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Find Us ... >>

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The Brick Magazine >>

THE BRICK MAGAZINE makes every effort to provide accurate information in advertising, editorial content and placement; however, we cannot make any claims as to the accuracy of information provided by advertisers or editorial contributors and will accept no responsibility or liability for inaccurate information or placement. No content can be duplicated without the permission of The Brick Magazine, LLC

We regret a misprint in the June issue of The Brick Magazine.

It was printed that Stephanie Willette was the manager of both the Chelsea and Ann Arbor farmer’s market. She is, in fact, the manager of Ann Arbor market only.

6 | The Brick Magazine

Writing as Transformation: How Your Muse Can Heal You

by Julie Mariouw

Photo by Fotografierende

I

t started out as an insistent tapping on my shoulder.

I had not experienced it before, but suddenly there was an irrepressible force pushing me to get things down on paper. Not in the old ways I was used to—not planning and outlining—but instead writing with passion, freeing the trapped words inside my body, helping them come out and play on the page. I grabbed notebooks and raced to put words down before they disintegrated; I knew I must not let them get away.

My early notebooks were filled with impromptu journaling, interviews with myself, scenes, memories—they were like abstract paintings buzzing with creative energy. I never crossed anything out; the words just seemed to spiral from my fingertips down onto the page. It was a little like playing the piano. I learned to disregard the mistakes; I was much more interested in the heart of the writing.

I vaguely remembered that Ray Bradbury had said to write 1,000 words a day if you wanted to be a writer. I decided this would be my goal. And that helped; while my inner

8 | The Brick Magazine

critic was doing her best to bury me, I could hold up my page of 1,000 words and know in my heart I was getting somewhere. Sometimes I got discouraged, wondering if I would ever break into writing fiction, but underneath it all was my muse—unrecognized at the time—working to keep me on the right track. And I realized that, for me, to write was to live.

It was at that point I felt another tapping on my shoulder, and I was led to share this new writing process with others. Somehow this was essential, and I knew in my gut I had to do it, in the same way I had been led to write myself. So I created and ran ongoing writing workshops focused on writers supporting other writers. The muse quietly hummed in the background, providing inspiration and dedication. I got to experience, over and over again, the incredible power of human beings sharing their writing with each other. I wrote even more after that.

And finally, in the middle of a workshop one evening, it happened. I was suddenly and unexpectedly detoured

down a long, winding passage within myself, the muse guiding me all the way. It started with an unassuming little metaphor exercise I had assigned in the workshop: Finish this sentence: Hearing her cry was like______________.

My answer: tasting sour milk.

A crack in the universe opened, the light shone down on me, and—voila—a new character was born. My muse handed her over to me gently; she appeared like a star, shining out through the words on the page. I suddenly felt the power of her in my hands. This was not like what I had learned in school, but rather the throbbing heartbeat of a muse who had existed before I had even created the words. It was a very humbling moment.

When I was young, my creativity was stagnant, due in part to childhood trauma. But what was happening now was the rebirth of my imagination. I could suddenly see, and feel, muses circling. And as I wrote further, I felt changes in my body. Never before had I written with such intensity.

Whatever happened in the writing happened simultaneously in my body, as if the writing were taking hold of me and shaking me apart. My only job was to show up every day.

I began to use rituals to help me stay on track: I bought a diffuser and experimented with different essential oils. I finally found the one that literally made me sigh every time I smelled it: jasmine. The same thing happened when I swam. I started swimming because of an injured knee. I didn’t expect the swimming to affect my writing, I just followed an internal impulse to move. But every time I swam a stroke in the pool, I would sigh, just as I had when I smelled the jasmine, and I knew I was literally moving in the right direction.

I was also drawn to a certain piece of music—the soundtrack from a movie called K-PAX. I had watched this movie a hundred times, drawn to it by some mysterious force. A friend of mine said that when you’re drawn to things, it means they are your medicines, assignments from God. So I continued to watch K-PAX, searching for what it was I was supposed to learn.

I had also been using movie soundtracks as backdrops for my writing workshops, and I got the idea to use the K-PAX soundtrack for my own writing. I listened to it every time I wrote. And what I noticed was that the writing began to coincide with the music—or the music with the writing. Sometimes it felt as if the music were lending the writing a hand, leading it down a pathway toward its center. At other times, I felt the writing coax

the music, bringing out rhythms and structure I had not heard before.

I had read about authors entering a writing trance, but had never experienced it myself. Now my writing muse was showing me exactly how to enter that trance. I began to experience it every time I sat down to write; it enveloped me like a womb. I hadn’t understood that I would feel like this, with the muse holding me gently and bathing me in warm light. I looked forward to the time I could devote.

In the past I had written poetry and a few magazine articles, but this time I had a novel on my hands. How did I know this? Well, my writing teacher told me! But I knew, in my heart, that it was a novel; it seemed different than any writing I had done before. This was on a much grander scale, and I felt that it was alive in a different way than my poetry. Instead of the brief, strong jabs of emotion that were the hallmark of poetry being born, this was instead a long, slow burn. And what surprised me the most was the way the story grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go, the energy being so strong it felt like that of a star.

I see now that it was because the characters inside me were, in fact, bursting out into the light when they had so long been held in the dark.

Once, when I was writing, a character tried to harm her baby. The very second this happened I jumped out of my chair, it felt like a dolphin bursting out of the water. And while it would be easy to psychoanalyze and say that this was repressed emotion in me, it is also true that this was my character coming alive, taking me places I had not been to before.

So what is fiction and what is truth? I know now that they are braided together inside of us, our imaginations always at work, unearthing and excavating, illuminating and focusing, healing and restoring. All you need do to access these things for yourself is to show up every day and write. Find the rituals that feel right for you—aromatherapy, music, some form of exercise—and then share your writing with someone else. Writing can be a powerful tool for healing—it has certainly has been that for me.

Julie Mariouw is a published author, trained Amherst Writers and Artists workshop leader, English teacher, and owner of Wellspring Writing Workshops LLC, through which she offers creative writing workshops in the Ann Arbor area. Julie helps people bypass their internal critics, go directly to feelings and memories, and tap into the healing power of writing. www.wellspringwritingworkshops.com www.facebook.com/wellspringwritingworkshops

July 2019 | 9

Photo by Heidi McClelland

O

zone House helps homeless, runaway, and high-risk youth lead safe, healthy, and productive lives with emergency shelter, a crisis line, housing, job training, and other support services.

Located in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, the organization is in the midst of constructing a new building to better serve our community.

In our interview with Susan Allison, who has championed Ozone House’s efforts to build a new home and has served on the Board of Directors for eight years, it was clear how much Susan’s passion and vision for the future of youth services in Washtenaw County have made an impact. Susan serves as the cochair of Ozone House’s Front Door Capital Campaign.

When we talked with her, we especially noted her 10 | The Brick Magazine

commitment to validating and lifting up those who are often overlooked.

Just as Ozone House is committed to providing support to at-risk young people, an often underserved population, Susan has spent her career advocating for teens who find themselves unable to be at home because it is a place where they are neglected, unacknowledged, or physically unsafe.

Both Ozone House and Susan’s dedication to this work speaks to the fact that everyone deserves a chance to be seen, feel safe, contribute, be honored for who they are, and validated. This unconditional love is something the world so desperately needs. Susan has taken the opportunity to provide that love to the people in our community who need it the most.

Giving Youth in Crisis a Safe Place to Grow with Susan Allison

by Kristen Domingue

On taking a passion and making it bigger Shortly after Susan’s family arrived in Ann Arbor, she stumbled across Ozone House. She had already spent a large part of her years in Atlanta in service to at-risk teens. For Susan, it all started in 1999 when she read an article in Family Circle titled “Suddenly Homeless: The Hidden Horror of Foster Care” by Jan Goodwin. She read about how 25% of kids who become too old, or “age out,” of foster care experience homelessness at some point over the next two years of their lives. That really struck her. The article said that one of the things the young people could greatly benefit from was a positive, supportive adult. She thought to herself, “I can do that.”

From there, she volunteered in several different capacities with many organizations addressing the needs of youth who were aging out of the foster care system. Those volunteer efforts led to a job creating and managing programs to serve those same youth (including raising the funds needed to operate the programs). Later, Susan cofounded a consultancy to help child welfare organizations with their fundraising and development efforts.

Then, as many families do, Susan’s family moved with her two children from Atlanta to Ann Arbor for her husband’s work.

While getting settled in Ann Arbor, she was looking for a way to meet new people and make it her family’s home.

“When I heard about Ozone House, I tried to attend their annual fundraising event in September,” Susan said, “but it was sold out. As a person who has spearheaded many fundraisers, I recognized that this was amazing. I knew they were doing something special. I set up a meeting with the Director of Development to understand how I could get involved and the kind of work they were doing.

“When I asked some of my new friends, long-time Ann Arbor residents, about the organization, none of them knew exactly what Ozone House did. One even thought Ozone provided drug rehabilitation services. This was my first introduction to the misperceptions of Ozone’s work.

Shortly thereafter, I met with the Executive Director and joined the Development Committee and eventually became a member of the Board. I learned what Ozone House really does: Ozone House provides prevention and intervention for youth in crisis: housing, case management, counseling, peer support, educational support, job skills training, life skills training—we do it all. Emergency housing, transitional housing, and supportive housing are all included as well.

We also offer drop-in support for youth who need a hot meal, a shower, to use the computer, or just have someone see them, acknowledge and appreciate them. We also have a 24-hour crisis line that has recently expanded to text and chat.

July 2019 | 11

“The staff at Ozone House are amazing and many have been here for years. As a donor, I appreciate how fiscally sound the organization is as well. They do so much with so little, and money is never wasted or spent unwisely.”

On understanding youth homelessness Ozone House does a lot of outreach at schools and maintains a strong relationship with the superintendent’s office within the school district. Their outreach with schools helps teachers recognize the signs of homelessness or instability at home that might cause a teen to need Ozone House. They also have a peer outreach team of young people who are paid and trained to talk about Ozone House services with other young people at community spaces like the bus station, the library, the mall, and different events.

A young person will most often come in through the Ozone House drop-in center for programming, a hot meal, or a safe place to be for a while. Sometimes they are referred by teachers or a school counselor. Other times, young people or their parents or guardians call Ozone House directly, with over 2,000 calls or texts coming through their crisis line every year. As an agency, they are

also seeing more youth who are experiencing rejection at home because of the way they identify themselves, including and especially because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.

All of their services are free of charge and primarily limited to Washtenaw County. But with two youth shelters in adjacent counties recently closing their doors, Ozone House is now seeing more young people come across county lines to access services.

“In order to help foster understanding in my home, work, and community of how teens might become homeless, I frequently find myself having conversations about privilege.

For many kids, it is a privilege to feel safe at home, not scared; they can be themselves at home without being criticized or put down for it. Teens experiencing neglect and rejection often do not have this advantage. Homelessness is more than just not having a physical address, and youth homelessness rarely looks like a 14-year-old standing on the street asking for money. Homelessness means there is nowhere safe for the young person to land.

“Unfortunately, I have learned that some people have really narrow stereotypes about youth and homelessness.

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2017 POW’s. (Peer Outreach Workers) Keshawn, William, Nate, Caitlyn, Naj. Photo by Leisa Thompson.

Many of the young people who come to Ozone House are the opposite of what people envision when they think about a homeless or at-risk teenager. These resilient young people aren’t standing on the street asking for money. These are young people who are scared to go home because of violence within their household, or because they aren’t welcomed at home or their family isn’t equipped to care for them. The young people I’ve encountered in my different roles have an innate drive to succeed and reach their full potential, and it is a privilege to support their success by being a part of organizations like Ozone House that offer support services, job training, educational support, and simply a place to be safe.”

Ozone House understands that the traumatic daily experiences that come with being homeless impact school performance as well as mental and physical health. Young people often stay in unsafe and potentially dangerous situations because they don’t have anywhere else to go. Sometimes they couch surf or bounce between different friends or family. They’re at risk of being harmed, exploited, or even trafficked.

Often, help means giving them a safe place to be until the crisis that put them at immediate risk is over. For youth under age 18, Ozone House focuses on family reunification and strengthening family relationships as much as possible. For those over 18, they work with them towards self-sufficiency and support them with housing and connections to work and school. In essence, one might say that Ozone House serves as the parent that these kids don’t otherwise have at the moment, helping them to navigate the complex and overwhelming transition to adulthood.

These are good kids in bad situations “One of the things I’m most proud of with Ozone House is our partnerships with complementary organizations.

Law enforcement in particular has come a long way in their understanding of assisting at-risk teens. Recently, our Executive Director spent time working with law enforcement officials to help de-escalate an altercation at a local bus station. This is a huge step forward because July 2019 | 13

it meant that these young people didn’t hurt each other or end up getting arrested. They were connected to services they needed as well. As one of our volunteers puts it, ‘These are not bad kids. These are good kids in bad situations.’ Often, when a kid acts out at school, it’s because they are experiencing some form of crisis and may be in need of support.”

On community support Ozone House is celebrating 50 years of operation this year, which is such an accomplishment! They are also building a new home that will be able to offer housing and services for more young people than ever before. It will provide them with private rooms on a beautiful site in Ypsilanti overlooking the Huron River. The facility is scheduled to be completed this December.

Fundraising in general has increased, and this is significant.

Their budget has nearly doubled in the last five years as they have expanded their services and partnerships.

This has been possible in large part due to private giving.

Donations are incredibly helpful because despite changing

federal priorities and budgets, they’ve been able to sustainably grow their lifesaving services.

“We’ve done a good job of getting our name and mission out there as well. When we initially launched our Front Door Campaign to build a new home, we were told by outside counsel that we could only raise a little over $2M. However, I knew we could do more. I advocated and rallied for a larger campaign goal because I knew the young people of this community needed and deserved more from this new facility.

Further, I insisted that we raise the money needed through fundraising instead of through debt so that the organization could continue to thrive and fully meet the needs of youth in crisis without the added burden of long-term debt.

“It has been a privilege to co-chair the Front Door Campaign, and I am thrilled to report that we have already raised $4M of the $5M needed to build our new home.

Even more exciting is the fact that we just received a $500,000 matching grant from a local foundation, which means that every gift or pledge made to our Front Door Campaign will be matched dollar for dollar, up to $500,000, in order to help us close out the campaign.

“We’re very optimistic about reaching our campaign goal, and it means so much to be opening our new ‘Forever Home’ the same year that we celebrate our 50th year delivering services. We’re counting on Washtenaw County to stand up for youth, be a part of the Ozone House story, and make a difference in the lives of these young people.”

Ozone House is something everyone can all be proud of. It is truly a treasure in this community. Over the past several years, Ozone House has grown to better meet the needs of youth and families in crisis, and they couldn’t have done it without the support of amazing volunteers and large and small contributions. Every little bit helps, and they recognize that it’s the small stones that are moving the needle.

On educating the community about the cause “My biggest personal challenge is not talking about this everywhere I go and asking anyone and everyone to get involved! I’m passionate about this work. I know it’s the right thing for our community to own this challenge and provide solutions for these youth and families.

Photo by Heidi McClelland

14 | The Brick Magazine

“The biggest challenge the organization faces is that homeless youth are often stigmatized and their challenges are

Sakinah Rahman and Zikayah Rahman. Photo by Leisa Thompson.

group who needs our help and less misplaced judgment.

If more people understood the truth of what these young people are facing, I think it would logically occur to them to help in any way they can.”

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misunderstood. We work hard to change the misperceptions many people have of what leads young people to homelessness, and we hope people take seriously what it means to leave at-risk teens underserved in our community.

“So many people I speak to say things like, ‘Well, I thought the government was paying for that, aren’t there grants for this? Can’t they help you guys?’ The reality is, we have been receiving many of the available grants for decades, but the awards do not fully cover our services and they are always at risk as federal priorities shift. As we grow and evolve, we rely on community support to fill our funding gaps. Moreover, there is something powerful and important about the message it sends when the community stands up for and supports its most vulnerable youth.

“Further, when I explain the difference between the ways we can deploy private donations as opposed to the limitations that come with federal funds, people begin to understand the necessity of our community owning the problems and owning the solutions.

“It would be great if there was more compassion for this

On September 14, 2019, Ozone House will host their eleventh annual fundraiser at the Domino’s World Resource Center. Then later in the fall, they will cut a ribbon on their new “Forever Home,” which will truly change the way they house and support young people.

“It’s amazing to be a part of Ozone House’s efforts to lay the groundwork for its next 50 years. Making sure that all teens have a safe place to grow and succeed is what we’re committed to, and I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to do for them.”

Susan Allison’s unwavering passion to ensuring that teens in our community have the chance to pick a positive path at a fork in the road is awe-inspiring. Her channeled devotion has focused this community’s resources toward a goal that will make it stronger for generations to come.

Visit ozonehouse.org to learn how you can get involved with Ozone House and its Front Door Campaign.

Kristen M. Domingue is a copywriter and content marketing consultant in the New York City area. When she’s not delivering on client projects, you can find her cooking up something gluten-free or in an internet rabbit hole on entrepreneurship or astrology.

July 2019 | 15

Roll with the Punches

by Tiffany Edison

Photo by Andrew Neel

16 | The Brick Magazine

H

ave you ever taken refuge in your home—holed up for a day, or maybe even (*gasp*) a week?

When I listen to the lyrics of Adele’s award-winning song “Rolling in the Deep,” it is easy for me to conjure up images of a tiny boat tossed about against a raging ocean (from the song: “The scars of your love they leave me breathless, I can’t help feeling, we could have had it all”).

In times of struggle, our home is often the singular place where we’re able to calm our frayed nerves and soothe our aching hearts. It is sacred ground. Having a sanctuary is more important now than ever, as we live in a time where we are bombarded around the clock.

We are living in a time where our smartphones are doing us more of a disservice than giving us a leg up.

Our electronic devices have had a dramatic effect on interpersonal skills (or lack thereof), and our anxiety levels have skyrocketed. Our minds are incessantly ticking through the questions: What event am I missing out on?

Who is getting more “likes” than me? How are my stocks looking today? And why is my boss not returning that text I sent at 5 am?? It is no surprise then that we crave a safe space. One that is free of judgement and the keen feeling of needing to “keep up.” The answer to combating this chasm that exists between reality and social media fiction could simply be the conservation of our homes.

We are in fact very able to create an environment that can restore our souls, surrounded by our very personal creature comforts. Children, pets, the prized rose garden curated in the front yard—all of these provide the opportunities needed to reconnect with ourselves and prioritize our values on a daily basis. It’s not time to check your phone; it’s time to tune into your life.

I employ a simple design element in many homes that I’m hired to reimagine, as well as my own. It’s decorative yet utilitarian, and can be inexpensive as well. It’s a console table in the entryway or foyer. But here’s the necessity: a “catch-all” tray or pretty dish placed on this table and outlets nearby. Some people may think of it as a “drop station.” In go the keys, loose change, receipts, and yes, the cell phone. This single act signals the brain that it is indeed time to transition into home-mode and settle in for the evening. As someone who prides herself on trying to create a good flow throughout the homes I design with my client’s needs in mind, I recognize that electronics and charging areas are a necessity worthy of being worked

into the home design. They’re part of our lives, and strategically placed furnishings allow these elements to happily coexist.

It is an interesting phenomenon, I might add, that increasingly my clients are expressing frustration with their “open” floor plans, something so desperately desired in recent years. I hear complaints regarding the lack of “away” space, feeling like there is no place for them in their current home layouts to enjoy a bit of privacy or down time. It turns out that opening the kitchen and great room has done a wonderful job of bringing families together, but that has now left many adults and children alike needing a break from each other, the television, and too many “cooks in the kitchen,” so to speak. One thing I can say for sure after practicing interior design for well over a decade: what comes around goes around!

That being said, I recommend to those feeling this pain who are not looking to relocate, but rather stay in their existing homes, to take stock of what their priorities actually are. What would you do in this “private” space?

Is there any opportunity to reconfigure existing space or have a “flex” room or studio area for multiple family members’ separate interests?

If you are one of the lucky ones and have the space available in your home to design around a specific hobby or passion, then you most certainly should take advantage of this often-overlooked opportunity. Case in point, my sister recently shared that she was just invited to a party at her next-door neighbor’s house, where he invited attendees to bring their favorite vinyl. As an avid record collector, this gave him the opportunity to play deejay for the night and share his prized record collection. Genius!

The guests were wildly entertained, and the sense of community amongst neighbors was strengthened by this themed gathering. This gave me pause, as I thought about this man designating a space in his home for something he’s passionate about and enjoys immensely.

How cool is that? Many of us can and possibly should find space to this end; an unused nook or under-utilized room in our home could easily be converted into a tribute or hobby space. Whether your passion is collecting wine, painting watercolors, or showcasing autographed sports memorabilia, this space can most assuredly bring exceeding joy.

July 2019 | 17

Photo by Priscilla duPreez

18 | The Brick Magazine

the roses, and plant them too. We can stop and smell the coffee, brewed in our own kitchen. We can sit on our own sofa and curl up with a book and a fire because we’ve created a space in which we want to stay, and be, and live.

Photo by Steve Johnson The home we create allows us to practice the work-life balance we all crave. This is powerful stuff, and sometimes very simple changes such as installing dimmer switches on light fixtures, starting a fire in the hearth, or simply enjoying a relaxing soak in the tub, get overlooked in the chaos of day-to-day living. These might very well be the activities that can facilitate our emotional well-being—and all with minimal effort.

Don’t “save” these for special occasions. This is life. Our homes play a hugely significant role in how we rolemodel balance to other members in our families. We don’t need to be kinetic at every turn. We can stop and smell

Unplug, paint your bedroom, organize your bookshelves, go through old photos with your loved ones and frame those that are special to you. Refrain from posting it on social media and truly live it! Indulge in creating your home with comfort in mind, and I promise you—you cannot lose. Life can throw us all for a loop, but we need not be cast out to sea. We can take the helm and make our own little piece of paradise.

Tiffany Edison has been an interior designer since 2002, and specializes in both residential and commercial projects.

She holds a Master of Social Work degree (ACSW) and utilizes interpersonal relationship skills on a daily basis with her client base, largely comprised of Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit residents. She has a wonderfully large blended family residing in the city and enjoys the comforts of home.

When she’s not fully immersed in client projects, you can find her active on the golf course, a favorite pastime. www.birchdesignassociates.com She is also active on Instagram @birchdesignassociates.

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July 2019 | 19

Local Women of Color to Share “Untold Stories of Liberation and Love” through New Poetry Project

by Sarah Rigg Published in collaboration with Concentrate Media publication of a poetry anthology by Washtenaw County women of color. Ypsi residents Desirae Simmons and Maria Ibarra-Frayre, Ann Arbor residents Quiroz and Tanya Reza, and Detroit resident Catalina Rios form the core team of five on the project, titled Untold Stories of Liberation and Love.

I

n mid-March, Julie Quiroz was on the University of Michigan campus at a vigil honoring victims of the New Zealand mosque shootings when an active shooter was reported nearby.

“I’ve only run like that two times in my life, and the other one was during a coup in Ecuador,” she says. “Having the police tell you to run is terrifying.”

Reports of a shooter were later proven false, but Quiroz says she still felt “shaken and powerless” afterward. She kept thinking of how courageous the Muslim students who put on the vigil were and how they must be feeling.

So, as she does any time she experiences a meaningful moment in her life, she wrote a poem. Honoring the student organizers’ courage, the poem contains the repeated refrain, “You sing the Quran to the open sky.”

Poetry’s power to change hearts and minds is the reason Quiroz gathered four other local women to launch a series of workshops in Ypsilanti that will culminate in the

20 | The Brick Magazine

“The thing about poetry is that it helps you look at the essence and underlying meanings of things,” Quiroz says.

“The way the world is set up isn’t working so well right now. We’re looking at things like racial justice and climate change in a really linear way. We need fresh ideas and fresh ways of looking at things, and poetry is exactly that.

It’s a way to decolonize your brain.”

Coming Together Simmons and Ibarra-Frayre both use the word “organic” to talk about how the core group of five women came together. Quiroz was connected to each of them, but several of the others didn’t know each other before joining the project.

Simmons and Quiroz have a shared friend and both do social justice-related work in Ann Arbor and Ypsi. When Simmons went to observe Quiroz’s work with the Ann Arbor Police Task Force, Quiroz began telling Simmons about her ideas on community and creativity.

“It was amazing, a very organic coming together,” Simmons says. “It was interesting how I didn’t really know any of the other women (besides Quiroz), but now it feels like we’ve known each other forever. Our network is tightening.”

Ibarra-Frayre says she’s known Quiroz for about two years through their connection as writers.

“We’ve often talked about how great it would be if we could have a community of color,” Ibarra-Frayre says.

“We talked about how to create a space that is loving and kind, where we support each other, but also offers opportunities to be creative.”

The idea persisted and was too good to let go, IbarraFrayre says. Just a week after they discussed how they could get funds to broaden the idea to include more women who craved community, Quiroz stumbled across the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation’s In Our Neighborhood grant program. She decided to apply, and the group later found out they had been awarded $20,000.

All five core group members are involved in social justice work in the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area. Simmons says she is the only one in the group who wasn’t a poet when she joined the project, but that fits with the project’s overall mission.

“We’re not necessarily looking for people who are published poets, though we’ll have some folks like that in this space,” Simmons says. “These sessions will bring together women of color, and we’ll be doing different activities to unlock our creative potential. The power of poetry can help us deal with some of the things we see every day.”

Creating a Truly Supportive Space The first workshop in the series kicked off April 20 with the theme of “Mothering.” The theme for the May session was “Migration and Home.” The August workshop will be “Survival and Vision.”

Each workshop has been capped at about 15 participants to keep the sessions small and personal, with time for each voice to be heard.

The organizers have been brainstorming how to create a space that is truly supportive in every way, and have recently added a partner to provide quality daycare for mothers who come to the event. Each event is free and will include food, as well.

who is interested who is primarily a Spanish speaker, and we’ve been talking about how to accommodate that.”

She says if the series continues beyond the first year, she’d like to see a cohort of Spanish-speaking poets or even Arabic speakers.

Quiroz emphasizes that the workshops are as much about organizing and building community as about creating poetry.

She says poetry “has been crucial in every social movement across the globe.” She cites Langston Hughes’ A Dream Deferred and its resonance through the Harlem Renaissance and into the civil rights era.

Quiroz also references a more recent poem by Somaliborn poet Warsan Shire that went viral on social media. It ends with the lines: “i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt? it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.”

“You could feel in the poem what she’s calling us to, to see the pain all over the world,” Quiroz says. Shire communicated that sentiment not in a book or an academic article, but in a brief poem.

“It was incredibly powerful,” Quiroz says. “In just a few lines, she changed how people felt about their relationship to the globe.” Women of color interested in the Untold Stories project may contact the organizers by email at liberationstories@gmail.com.

Ibarra-Frayre says many political organizing spaces only pay lip service to being inclusive, but don’t consider child care, transportation, and other barriers to participation. The organizers of Untold Stories want to do better.

Sarah has been involved in journalism since she began producing a one-page photocopied neighborhood “newspaper” in grade school, later reporting for and then editing her high school paper. She has worked on staff at Heritage Newspapers and the (now defunct) Ann Arbor Business Review and has written as a freelancer for various publications ranging from The Crazy Wisdom Journal to the News-Herald to AnnArbor.com. She began writing for Concentrate in February 2017.

“I appreciate the push from my teammates to think about how to make it more inclusive for people of color (and) for women, including parents,” she says. “We have a woman

When she isn’t writing for Concentrate or doing freelance reporting and editing for other publications, she can be found cuddling her cats, bicycling, doing jigsaw puzzles with her husband, or playing board games with friends.

July 2019 | 21

To Top It All Off: Summer ‘19 Accessory Guide

by Angela Harrison Photo by Prince Akachi

S

ummer is in full-swing, and the temps are keeping us in a full-sweat. While we crave this season all year long, it does take its toll on our wardrobe choices. Hot July temperatures don’t always allow us to outfit the way we’d like, and sometimes a top and bottom or a dress just doesn’t feel complete. Accessories are the easiest way to boost the glamor and color of any look, day or night. The accessories out now for summer are full of rich texture, bright neons and pops, shiny metals, and embellishment—the perfect addition to any simple white tee and jeans or black summer dress.

There are so many ways to keep the style high while dressing simple and cool.

22 | The Brick Magazine

Summer-Hair Saviors Hair is such a struggle for me when the heat cranks up outside. More often than not, the hair is going up for any outdoor barbeque or wedding—I just can’t deal. If you find yourself in the same boat this season, do yourself a favor and stock up on fun hair accessories. Stores like Nordstrom offer a large selection of gorgeous hair ties with bows or gold hardware to make any high or low ponytail a work of art. Embellished bobby pins are everywhere right now, and are great for securing loose hairs from a top-knot or adding a little glam to a sleek low bun. Crazy roots or third-day hair? Pop on a fun straw fedora or widebrimmed sun hat. Instant glamor.

Adornments Jewelry was made for summer. The colors shown this season are so bright and saturated, making accessorizing fun and easy. You can take any simple look and turn it into something uniquely you in seconds, with layers of gold necklaces or rainbowcolored drop earrings. Rattan and raffia are classic summer textures, and have been transformed into natural, earthy, island-vibe earrings. Anything goes when it comes to summer jewelry. Pile it high and feel the power.

Bags of Fun Who doesn’t love a fun bag for summer? Another easy way to make an outfit look styled: pair your look with a colorful, conversation-starting bag. By now, almost everyone on Earth has probably seen that belt bags (they’re fanny packs, just call them fanny packs!) are blazing a trend in luxury and department stores.

While these bags are semi-ridiculous, when else can you rock a crazy trend but during the summer? It’s a hands-free neon party pouch. For a more everyday function, try a convertible bag—something that can take you from crossbody to clutch—or a gigantic tote bag for business and beach!

It’s not impossible to be 100% styled in a styled-down summer look. If you’re feeling one-note about what you’re wearing this season, try an embellished hair tie or clip, grab some fabulous earrings that make you feel like Cleopatra, and top it all off with a bag that’ll make your friends jealous. In the most loving way possible, of course. **All photos belong to Nordstrom.com

Angie Harrison received her BS degree in fashion merchandising from Western Michigan University. After merchandising for a large retailer, she went on to start Angela Harrison Style: a personal, print, and film wardrobe styling service. Her experience has led her to styling wardrobe on local and national TV commercials, as well as freelance in visual merchandising for luxury retailers. www.AngelaHarrisonStyle.com | IG: @_ahstyle | www.facebook.com/AngelaHarrisonStyle July 2019 | 23

for personal

& planetary thriving

Rolling in It

by Morella Devost, EdM, MA

P

erhaps humans are a bit like baked goods…

I’ll admit it, I binge The Great British Baking Show, the great ode to all things biscuity, spongey, and bready.

I’m obsessed with the beauty of their creations, their English accents, and the idea that I, too, could bake like them. I especially love seeing a reality TV show where contestants are kind and supportive of each other, and where judges are fair rather than gratuitously critical. And I’ve learned a lot about gluten!

Interestingly, even though a growing number of people must avoid gluten at all costs due to health reasons, there’s a truly fascinating aspect to gluten. Watching the show, I’ve learned it’s the gluten in wheat that gives all baked goods their particular consistency. It confers to the dough the characteristic stretchy, chewy, and somewhat sticky 24 | The Brick Magazine

qualities, so it holds together without crumbling. It’s the gluten that allows you to make light-as-air sponges, chewy bagels, and stretchy pie-crusts.

I’ve also been fascinated by some baking fundamentals, such as the fact that it’s the proper amount of kneading and rolling that works up the gluten in the dough. You’ll see the bakers alternatively oiling up their arms or dusting off their rolling pins to work on their dough for a long time or a short time, depending on the consistency they’re aiming for.

My favorite is to watch them make mille-feuille (that’s the French name for flake puff pastry.) If you’ve ever had baklava or a Napoleon, you’ve eaten a mille-feuille pastry. To make it, bakers work their dough for a really long time—squeezing it, punching it, slamming it against

their work table—in order to build up the gluten to the point where they can roll the dough down to paperthinness. The test to know whether they’ve succeeded is to read a newspaper through the dough. It’s that thin and transparent!

Along with the kneading comes the proofing. You let your dough rest at the perfect temperature so as to let it continue doing its thing. Yeasted bread rises. A puff pastry chills the butter in between its layers rather than blending it into the dough. You can’t rush it or skip steps.

I believe we humans are a lot like baked goods.

We are the dough and life is the baker working on us with kneading fingers—sometimes with a punch, other times with a rolling pin. The kneading of life builds our inner gluten: our resiliency and our strength, our ability to rise, stretch, and grow. At the same time, it also makes us softer—chewier, if you will. And time is our proofing. Just as with bread, we can’t rush the unfolding of our own rise.

I personally think that grief, in particular, is the great rolling pin of life. There’s nothing like grief to work off our hardness, to roll us back and forth until we surrender into the undoing of our inner certainties and rigidity.

As I write this, I’m in the lovely sitting room at a bed and breakfast in Clifden, Ireland. I’ve come here to write and to give myself some “proofing’”time. The rolling pin of grief has been working on me for some months now. This time around, it has come out of the drawer of divorce. And boy, has it kneaded through me!

If you’ve ever allowed yourself to fully roll under the kneading of grief, you know that it can physically hurt, quite literally. When I mentioned my separation at a recent acupuncture appointment, my acupuncturist asked, “How’s your heart?” In that instant, I realized I actually felt physical pain in my chest, which was something I’d never experienced before.

And still, I completely surrender to being the dough that is kneaded by grief. I let it all be. I let it work its way through me because at this age, I know better than to resist.

If we try to resist the rolling pin of grief, it backfires, exactly as we see on the baking show. In baking, a dough that isn’t properly kneaded and rolled will not stretch or become what it’s meant to be. In life, if we fail to let grief

work on us, we won’t build our resilience or rise into our greatest expression. Instead we become like a dense, brittle brick of hardened flour and water.

We must also allow our hearts the necessary “proofing” time. We cannot rush the process, and we can never know exactly how long it will take. All we can do is create the right conditions for proofing. Rest. Loving self-care. Time tucked away. Anything that will allow the inner self to build.

Frankly, I am deeply appreciating the combination of softness and strength building within me as a result of this grieving process. I like the version of me that is emerging.

I like her maturity, her depth, and her grounded-ness. I’m loving her greater ability to connect, open-heartedly even, with passing strangers and new friends. Of course, the Irish friendliness surrounding me these days is a huge help!

Like bread and pastry, we can’t fake the dough of life if the proper kneading and proofing aren’t there. But it takes a certain amount of conscious choice to let ourselves be worked on by life for two reasons. Firstly, we are wired for survival. Our instinct is to focus on the business of staying alive–food, shelter, etc. Secondly, we have generations of human programming that taught us emotional avoidance.

It’s all too easy to numb through alcohol, drugs, shopping, social media, and the like.

In order to enjoy the flaky perfection of a raspberry millefeuille, or the airy beauty of a sourdough loaf, you need to commit to kneading and proofing. Likewise, in order to relish in the beauty, depth, strength, and complexity of inner character, you must allow yourself to be kneaded and proofed by life. You’ll witness yourself rise into a greater, wiser, more extraordinary expression of you. You’ll feel the softness inside that gives you great capacity for love and compassion, accompanied by an inner strength that will make you proud.

Morella Devost facilitates profound transformation for people who want to thrive in every aspect of life. After receiving two masters degrees in counseling from Columbia University, she also became a Clinical Hypnotherapist, NLP facilitator, and Holistic Health Coach. Morella is a VenezuelanVermonter who works with people all over the world from her beautiful office in Burlington, Vermont. www.thrivewithmorella.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThriveWithMorella

July 2019 | 25

Knee-Deep in Blueberries

by Alison Corey

Photo by Heather Gill 26 | The Brick Magazine

Photo by Skyla Design

T

here’s nothing like a Michigan summer! The days are warm, the nights are cool, and Ann Arbor takes on a whole new vibe with the students (for the most part) away for the summer. Festivals abound, crowded dining tables line Main Street, and the street performers entertain the out-of-towners. Downtown is the place to be on a warm summer night, sipping on a sweet and tangy cocktail and grazing on seasonal bites while you peoplewatch from an intimate streetside table.

However, a true Michigan summer is more than what’s happening in the city. It’s also what’s going on down the backroads only a few miles away, where our local farms are churning out the flavors of the season that show up on our plates while we’re out to eat.

Every summer I take my two boys blueberry picking. I slather the three of us with sunscreen, throw on baseball caps, grab some water and snacks, and set out for an adventure amongst the rows of blueberry bushes at the

Dexter Blueberry Farm at 11024 Beach Rd in Dexter.

Their crop is abundant, making it easy for even my threeyear-old to find and pull blueberries from the vine. We each get our own bucket and get to work. The enthusiasm of the kids is infectious. They delight in the experience, amazed to see where their food comes from, and the process that goes into bringing their food to their plate.

With all of the effort they put into harvesting the crop, they are ready to reap the fruits of their labor in the form of healthy blueberry recipes.

Blueberries are at the height of deliciousness in July, making it the perfect time to enjoy a warm and sunny summer day on the blueberry farm creating memories, cementing traditions, and breaking a sweat. It’s also an excellent opportunity to put those blueberries to work for your health.

Blueberries are sweet in flavor as well as juicy and delicious. They protect against heart disease and cancer,

July 2019 | 27

Whole Wheat Plant-Based Blueberry Pancakes Servings: 4 (8 pancakes) (You can double this recipe to make more pancakes to freeze) •

1 tbsp ground chia or chia seeds

•

¼ cup of water

•

1 cup whole wheat flour

•

2 tsp sugar

•

½ tsp baking powder

•

¼ tsp baking soda

•

1 cup unsweetened almond milk (or dairy free milk of choice)

•

2 tbsp melted coconut oil

•

1 tbsp lemon zest

•

¾ cup blueberries

•

•

Measure 1 tablespoon of chia seeds. Place in a spice or coffee grinder to grind the seeds to a fine consistency. Transfer to a small bowl and pour in the water. Whisk together until combined. Let sit for 3-4 minutes. The chia and water will thicken and take a texture much like an egg.

Combine whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium mixing bowl.

•

In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients: dairy-free milk, chia mixter, melted coconut oil, and lemon zest.

•

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir until they’re combined; the batter will still be a bit lumpy. Fold in the blueberries.

•

Preheat your griddle to medium/high. Grease preheated griddle with coconut oil until just covered (about 1 teaspoon).

•

Place small scoops of batter on the griddle; the batter will be thick. You can use a measuring cup to get even pancakes. Using the measuring cup, gently spread the batter evenly, creating round circles.

•

Cook for 2-4 minutes or until you see bubbles forming in the batter, then flip.

•

Serve with low sugar blueberry jam and a side of fresh fruit.

Photo by Alison Corey

28 | The Brick Magazine

Photo by Alison Corey

Low Sugar Blueberry Jam

•

• • • • •

2 cups of blueberries 2 tbsp water 2 tbsp lemon juice 1-2 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp ground chia

Remove from heat. Add 1 tablespoon of maple syrup. Taste and add an additional tablespoon of maple syrup to make it sweeter.

•

•

Combine blueberries, water, and lemon juice in a pan. Cover and bring to a boil.

•

Remove lid. Reduce heat to medium. Cook for an additional 15 minutes, stirring constantly and smashing the blueberries with a spoon. The blueberry mixture will thicken.

Stir in ground chia and let sit to cool. If you’d like a thicker jam, you can add additional ground chia seeds 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach desired consistency.

•

When cooled completely, transfer to a jar and store in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

(You can also freeze the jam for up to 3 months).

as well as maintain healthy bone strength, mental health, and blood pressure. With the consumption of more plant foods in your diet, you can decrease your risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

What do you make when you’re knee-deep in blueberries?

If your go-to recipes include traditional muffins, pancakes, and pies, you’re going to lose the health benefits of this superpowered berry by consuming them with heaps of added sugar and refined carbohydrates.

As a plant-based nutrition coach, I look for innovative ways to tweak traditional recipes to include seasonal produce that benefit our bodies without compromising on taste.

With two small children and a discerning husband, I’ve got to get creative! Nothing gets past this crowd! My whole wheat vegan blueberry pancakes are delicious, simple, and packed with nutrients, making them perfect to get your children involved in the kitchen. Swapping whole wheat flour for allpurpose flour in this recipe increases the fiber content. Two of these pancakes contain 25% of your daily fiber.

loads of blueberries left. I freeze the rest, using them throughout the summer and into the fall for smoothies, muffins, and more!

How to Freeze Blueberries •

Gently rinse them in a colander for 20-30 seconds.

•

Allow them to dry completely on an absorbent towel for a few minutes. You can place another towel on top to absorb the excess water. If there’s excess water, they will stick together and cause freezer burn.

•

Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper. Spread them evenly so that you can pick out any “bad” blueberries and remove any stems.

•

Freeze them for 3-4 hours.

•

Remove them from the freezer and place in a freezer bag. Label with the date. Frozen blueberries last up to one year.

I like to serve these pancakes with my low sugar blueberry chia jam in place of maple syrup to reduce our sugar intake. My take on traditional blueberry jam has one to two tablespoons of added sugar from maple syrup, compared to the half of a cup of white sugar that is added to the same yield.

Alison Corey is a National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach, writer, yoga teacher, wife, and mother to two energetic boys. Alison is passionate about plantbased nutrition, meditation, and nurturing sustainable self-care practices for mothers.

In her Healthy Happy Mama Program she helps women embrace the imperfectly perfect mama life, overcome overwhelm, and transform their physical and emotional health so they can feel like themselves again. First session is FREE. You can learn more about her work at www.trimmama.com.

After making batches of pancakes and jam, I’ve still got

www.facebook.com/trimmama

July 2019 | 29

Welcome to Booze 101 with

Liz

A Beer in the Hand: The Summer Edition

by Liz Crowe Photo by Damir Spanic

30 | The Brick Magazine

W

elcome back to the semi-regular but ever-entertaining booze column with yours truly. As you might imagine, should you spend any mental energy on such things, I’m enjoying myself having these little chats with you about my perspective and preferences when it comes to alcoholic beverages. I have a bit of a unique angle on it, given my background as former brewery founder/owner turned wine and beer sales consultant. Plus my volunteer work as co-founder and current president of Fermenta, a non-profit dedicated to assisting women in the fermented food and beverages industries, offers some more perspective. Oh, and those eighteen years spent selling real estate were also spent doing “research” by, you know, drinking a lot.

Enough about my bona fides. The sun is out, the grass is green, the sky is blue possibly with a few fluffy white clouds. If you’re not sitting with your toes showing, your sunglasses on, and a beer in hand, well, let me give you an assist with that. Because I am here for you.

First of all, I’ll mention that in this super crowded beer market, if you stand in front of the beer options at your local grocery or package store with your mouth hanging open, frozen with indecision, you’re not alone. At last count in 2018, there were 7,000 licensed craft breweries operating in the United States with some estimates of a thousand more waiting in line for their licenses in 2019.

Mark my paraprofessional words, we will hit 10k by 2020.

Add to that the varying ways these thousands of brewers are trying to catch your eye and your wallet by creating ever more fanciful ways to present one of the oldest beverages known to man. As we’ve discussed before, when it comes to beer, “what’s old is new again” (see: Hamm’s). But in addition to that, as you might have guessed as you stare at the Meijer beer cooler while your ice cream melts and your kid screams (it’s okay, we’ve all been there), we’re not really talking about a simple lager vs. ale decision anymore.

It’s a function of the ramped-up level of competition that we get all those amazing options you see in front of you—cans, bottles, six-packs, eight-packs, fourpacks, singles, you name it, it lines those shelves. And once you figure out what format you want, you have to pick from five different IPA styles, kettle vs. traditional

sours, white or dark stouts, blueberry or cucumber gose, bourbon, sherry, or wine barrel-aged stouts, well… you get the idea.

In the face of all this chaos, allow me to assist you for a few more words this month when it comes to picking the beer for your next cookout, beach vacation, deck party, or cruise along one of our many lovely lakes. Summer styles are fun these days, what with all the fruit-infused sour beers, slightly salty and refreshing goses, plus the good old standards like crisp Czech pilsners, a hybrid experience like a Kölsch or a California Common, or even a…oh.

Wait a minute. I’m sorry. I’m boring you to tears-slashrisking losing you altogether with all this boring blah blah about particular styles, aren’t I? Let’s move right to what you can get your eager Michigan mitts on this summer that will fit your entertaining or sit-around-and-quaff-a-few needs.

And allow me to shout out to a few of my Michigan beer peeps with a bit of thanks for their ideas on this local list of malt-beverage deliciousness. Let’s start with some basics. And by basics, I mean the stuff you buy and keep in the beer fridge—which is, in my case, a twenty-year-old GE workhouse in a lovely shade of mustard yellow that has served in this honored capacity for more hot summers and cold winters out in the garage than I can count. These are the beers you can pull out and toss at your friends when they stop by for a surprise evening cookout or what you can always rely upon as a go-to, low-ABV option for yourself on a random Tuesday night.

Founders PC Pils: A pilsner is a type of lager characterized by a light color and a strong, spicy flavor. This is thanks to the particular sorts of hops (Saaz) used in its creation.

The Saaz hop is called a “noble hop” for reasons that are all over the map really, but basically if it’s “noble” it’s one of the older, European varieties like Saaz or Hallertau that impart both a floral note and that spiciness that’s required in a true pilsner. Founders in Grand Rapids has, in this author/drinker’s humble opinion, one of the best versions of this somewhat challenging-to-get-correct style. At only 5.5% alcohol by volume, with a classic, light, and spicy flavor, it’s the very definition of a summer session beer, at least for this drinker.

July 2019 | 31

Another superb standby summer beer is Bell’s Oberon.

Packaged in ubiquitous orange and blue with the smiley-face sun, this beer is wheat beer fermented with Bell’s house yeast, which over the years has presented as a straw-colored, cloudy brew with a slight hint of cloves on the nose, but a real fruit basket of flavors in your mouth. Saaz hops (wait, do I sense a theme here?) are used to bring out the spicier notes. While I’m not always a huge fan of wheat beers, this one is a no-brainer for the summer cooler at only 5.8% ABV. My favorite description of this beer comes from Rate Beer: “perilously drinkable” because…words.

If we dig a little deeper into the summer Michigan beer options, we find a super popular fruit beer from Shorts called Soft Parade. It’s one of their top-selling flavors (and they have a lot of those to choose from on any given day), made with toasted rye and malt as its base, with the added bonus of pureed strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries. It’s a total wallop of a fruit beer that I’ve been told can turn a wine lover into someone who appreciates a good beer.

It’s got a higher ABV (7.5%) with extremely low hops flavor, which could make it a fine gateway to craft beer.

Photo by Jack Harner

32 | The Brick Magazine

Something new to me this year, but that I highly recommend, is from New Holland Brewing and is (now stay with me here) a “white stout.” Yes, I know, stout beers are supposed to be dark brown to black. But this is 2019 and remember, brewers are up against thousands of others trying to snag your disposable alcohol dollar. So take a known style and change it up, make it as delicious as this one, and viola! (See: “Juicy IPAs” and/or “Brut IPAs,” which we will do, and soon, but I’m running out of words this month, kids). Anyway, about this beer called White Dragon—I can only describe it as tasting like a smooth, vanilla milkshake. It is a barrel-aged beer, which is still trendy, but instead of imparting a big fat ABV along with a lot of booziness that so many barrel-aged products provide, this to me is somewhat akin to what an oak barrel does for a chardonnay wine. It gives it a roundness and smoothness on the tongue that, combined with the malts, minus the roasted ones, plus the lactose…well, I’m going technical on you again and for that I apologize. Allow me to simply say you must get your hands on this one, which despite its time spent in a bourbon barrel, is only 6% ABV.

Photo by Giovanna Gomes

Let’s have a word about three beer options that are all low in alcohol and high in flavor variations. A gose (pronounced go-suh) is actually an old style from Germany; it’s wheat beer brewed with salt and coriander seeds. This style has a fascinating if somewhat, well, gross backstory that I won’t get into here—but suffice it to say, the craft brewers of today have latched on hard to this style and continue to do super fun things with it. Two Michigan-based options spring to my mind that are great examples of what can be done with this style. Witch’s Hat Voice of the Turtle Pilsner & Blueberry Lemonade, and Arbor Brewing’s cucumber lime versions. A gose is both low in ABV (at 4%) and has that subtle hint of salt combined with fruit and many times cucumbers, which always makes for a refreshing summer beer option.

Finally, let’s talk shandies and radlers. I first encountered the British shandy style while living in Billericay (pronounced “Bill or Ricky”) in Essex (more on this in another article), east of London. I only encountered it because my oldest kid was able to accompany his buddies to purchase one at a grocery store because it is, in essence, “near beer” at a super low ABV. Plus, I’ve already established the British Approach to Alcohol. Anyways, by definition a shandy is beer mixed with Sprite or 7-Up or some other lemon-lime fizzy soda. Many breweries have picked this up and run with it here in Michigan including my personal favorite, the blueberry lemonade one from the fine folks at Saugatuck Brewing.

The term radler comes from a drink called Radlermass (literally “cyclist liter”) that was originally created by some guy named Franz Kugler in a small town outside Munich.

During the great cycling boom of the Twenties, Kugler created a bicycle trail from Munich through the woods that led directly to his drinking establishment (genius, ja?). One day in June 1922, a reported “13,000 cyclists” crashed Kugler’s party. When he realized he was running out of beer, he blended it 50/50 with a lemon soda he could never seem to get rid of, and the rest is history.

So a radler is a shandy, only in German, and apparently preferred by cyclists. A drink, as they say, made of necessity. The Rochester Mills Gypsy Goddess Raspberry Radler is delicious. If you’ll bear with me, I have to go off the Michigan train for a moment and highly recommend the ginger lemon radler from Boulevard Brewing in Kansas City, which is available in Michigan.

The “white Zin” trend has morphed into a “rosé” one that frankly, I welcome. Rosé wines have a sort of cider-like, fruitier experience that’s more interesting than white Zinfandel. And there are plenty of options these days.

Some of the best rosés come from France, but I tried one that’s pinot noir based out of Oregon that if you can find it, you should snag it. Gran Moraine comes from an area famous for hops growing—the Willamette Valley, which is also famous for the heartbreak of pinot noir growing. I had the 2017 vintage. It was well-balanced with the sort of dry finish I prefer. Ask your favorite wine shop to find it for you. You won’t be sorry.

Rieslings are enjoying a resurgence in popularity lately.

And they appeal to me, given their apple, peach, pear, and apricot essences. I feel like I’m comparing a lot of these wines to cider, which I’m also digging these days, but there you go.

Drink what you love, the fun will follow. But if you’re seeking something new to you, interesting, or otherwise a Michigan summer tradition, these recommendations will help get parties started, or simply be what you need on a hot July afternoon in the Great Lakes State.

Amazon best-selling author, mom of three, brewery founder, craft beer marketing consultant, and avid sports fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales, public relations, and fundraising, plus an eightyear stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse, all of which provide ongoing idea fodder for novels and other projects. www.facebook.com/lizcroweauthor (fan page) www.twitter.com/ETLizCrowe

July 2019 | 33

Below the Surface

by Kellie Mox

O

ne frigid day last winter I abandoned my book and phone, my usual companions in the bath, and closed my eyes as I sank into the hot water. Unlike most of my soaks, this time I fully surrendered, allowing the water to support my limbs and wash away my thoughts. My body whispered its thanks as my heart rate slowed and my shoulders eased down from their tensed attention. Then, for the first time ever, I talked to my body as I soaked.

I spoke out loud to her, softly and kindly, words of validation, empathy, and commitment. And even though I’ve practiced listening to my body for years, I felt like I was hearing her voice in a new way. I’d somehow never had such a deep, connected interaction with my body—in fact, I realized we were still somewhat disconnected.

This felt surprising and preposterous. Why hadn’t I been doing this all along? Why wouldn’t I have the same tender conversations with my body that I have with my husband, my friends, my clients?

Have you had a conversation like this with your body?

Most of us unconsciously talk to our bodies, but quite often, the words we choose aren’t kind. We separate ourselves from our bodies, a seemingly pervasive state of being for women in our culture. We shame and blame our bodies for their appearance. We disregard their cries for rest and proper nourishment. We numb their pain messages with medications, instead of striving to decipher them. It seems fitting that women make up 80% of those with autoimmune diseases, in which the body attacks itself. While autoimmune disease is linked to factors like

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Photo by Scott Higdon

the X chromosome, underlying infection, and even trauma, I believe that our bodies also become wired for selfabuse when we live in a state of self-attack. For me, this realization was a crucial piece of my own healing from autoimmune disease.

If we’re engaged in a relationship with our bodies that involves shaming, numbing, and disregarding, our bodies will respond accordingly. Our physical, mental, and emotional health depend on us listening to and responding to our bodies’ cues. It’s not just about loving our curves and dimples; rather, it’s about nurturing a deep connection with our bodies as a whole. We have to cultivate this nurturing relationship, but many of us don’t choose to or don’t know how. In many cases, trauma makes it especially difficult to connect with our bodies, and in this situation it’s imperative to get support to navigate the process. In any case, it takes courage, practice, and commitment. There’s no one right way to reconnect with our bodies, but here are a few ways you can begin.

Communicate

Simply start talking to your body, with intention and kindness, validation and empathy. And open yourself to hearing it. Maybe you don’t feel comfortable talking to yourself out loud in the bath, but you can begin a conversation in your own way. Open a journal. Write a song. Paint a picture. Go for walk. Just begin by creating the space to be with your body and setting the intention that you want a relationship with this wonderful vessel that carries you through life. Ask one simple question of your body: What do you need? Listen for the answer.

Move

Do you remember being a kid and feeling the simple physical joy of bouncing on a trampoline or spinning in a circle? While I can’t spin or jump like this at forty-two years old, I can feel the joy in my body when I’m climbing a rock wall, dancing to a favorite song, or flowing through vinyasa at yoga. I can also more readily feel where tension, anxiety, or sadness reside in my body when I’m fully present while I move. And when we move our bodies with the intention of listening to their sensations and messages, we deepen our connection every time.

Orient

I take regular breaks throughout the day to orient to the present moment, including my inner experience and my environment. I stop what I’m doing and notice my feet on the ground or my seat in the chair. I notice my breath, without trying to change it. I notice what’s around me and where my body is in space right now. And I scan my body, checking in with what’s happening inside. However you orient yourself, regularly pausing to give attention to your body will deepen that connection in every moment.

Nourish

How we choose to nourish our bodies sends them a message, and if we listen carefully, our bodies will let us know what they need and want more clearly. Food, water, movement, sleep, intimacy, thoughts—these are all ways to nourish ourselves. They’re ways we punish ourselves, too, by overindulging or restricting and ignoring our body’s cues. Honoring our bodies in this way demands practice. You know that gut feeling you experience sometimes? That’s your body saying yes or no to something.

It’s called a gut feeling because it comes from that place in the body that absorbs and assimilates our nourishment. We have it and must honor it.

Get Support

We often need to learn how to have a healthy connection with our bodies because we were never taught how to do it. There are many modalities and practitioners that can support us in this: Feldenkrais, yoga, somatic experiencing, sensorimotor therapy, dance classes, mindfulness—the list goes on. As a coach whose aim is to revolutionize healing for women, I catalyze my clients’ connections to their own healing potential, and that often involves getting them connected to the right support.

Kellie Mox catalyzes revolutionary healing for women through powerful conversations and whole-health mentoring. She is passionate about authentic, meaningful connections—to the self, others, and the world—and believes that healing flourishes when we strengthen these connections and embrace our wholeness.

Kellie is a certified coach and a student of homeopathic medicine with a master’s in health behavior and health education. She works with women virtually and in-person from her home base in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Website: www.kelliemox.com Social Media: www.instagram.com/kelliemox/ www.facebook.com/kelliemoxcoachingandhealing/

Nurturing our relationship with our bodies, like any other relationship, requires continual effort and attention. Like anyone else, I have to make an effort to dive deep and explore this territory every day. After my revelation in the bath, I went to my journal and wrote a letter to my body. This is how it went:

Dearest Body, I want you to know that I am here for you, listening to you, and holding space for you.

I hear you.

I see you.

I see how you’ve committedly carried me through this life.

I see how, despite times when I starved you or nourished you poorly, deprived you of sleep, put you in unsafe positions, pushed you too hard, and criticized you, you are still here for me.

I know I’ve asked a lot from you.

I know I haven’t always listened to you—your subtle messages and your louder screams.

I know we haven’t always trusted each other.

And this disconnected us from each other.

I want you to know that I’ve heard you today, and I can understand why you’d be feeling tired, tense, and scared.

I can understand why you might not trust these new ways I’m being in the world.

I can understand why you don’t always feel safe.

I want you to know that I am committed to checking in with you every day.

I will ask you how you feel, what you need, what you want.

What you say matters to me.

I will consider your feelings as I move through my day.

I will endeavor to find that place where you are challenged enough to grow and sheltered enough to feel peace.

Thank you for being here for me.

I’m here for you.

Love, Me

July 2019 | 35

WOMAN ON THE STREET

The Long Way Home

by Stella Orange

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was an extravagant, even indulgent, decision. What kind of person moves to the other side of the planet for the sheer adventure of it?

So I’d spent that first year out of college living and teaching in a rural village—population 3,500—in southern Japan, on the island of Kyushu. I did not speak Japanese.

I knew very little about Japanese culture. What I did know was that I wanted to get as far away from my own comfort zone as I could, believing, in a way that only twenty-one-year-olds can, that stretching myself outside the known, the comfortable, and the familiar would make me better somehow. Looking back, I see that this

But as a freshly-minted college graduate, I cared only about having adventures and seeing the world. The farther and more remote, the better. It wasn’t that I was trying to escape myself; instead, I was hungry to expand who I was, and feed myself as many dishes from the all-you-can-eat buffet that is being alive as I could. The way I saw it, I was fabulously unencumbered by responsibilities, and didn’t need much money to live well. I sensed that this may not be how it would always be for me. I might as well take advantage of the time and freedom I had, and move freely about the world, exploring and getting myself in and out of

wenty years ago, I took a trip I called “The Long Way Home” with my friend Rachel. She and I had met while living and working as English teachers in Japan. It was our first year out of college, and the Japanese government had hired us to work in their public schools.

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jams in foreign lands, with only my wits and MacGyverstyle problem solving skills.

That’s how I ended up in Japan, teaching middle school and getting followed around the grocery store by children and adults, curious what someone who looked like me puts in her shopping cart. At the end of that year, Rachel and I had both decided it was time to return to the United States and begin our adult lives. But to get there, we’d planned a once-in-a-lifetime route, trekking through China, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji for five weeks before landing in whatever the cheapest airport was to fly into in California.

I got this idea from a college professor of mine, who once mentioned that he found it strange that most people spend their twenties and thirties working so they could save enough to go on vacation for a week or two every year, eventually retiring so that they could travel. “It makes no sense to work first and travel second,” he said. “Retire first, travel and see the world, and then go to work.” As a young person who went to college prematurely, I’d learned that my life had its own pace, and I would not rush it. I’d learned that I needed to trust that pace, and move at my own speed. Even if that wasn’t the speed the people around me were moving at. Even if it looked like I was slower. Even if they told me I was doing it wrong. And so, trusting myself and the speed at which my life moves, I retired first. I took that teaching job in Japan and used it as a cash cow and jumping-off point to explore the world, and my place in it.

At the end of my first year of retirement, Rachel and I gave away all the stuff we’d acquired building our temporary households as Japanese school-teachers, and packed our backpacks for the next adventure: our Long Way Home.

I remember the simplicity of being able to pack everything I owned in a backpack. There is something liberating about owning two shirts: the one you’re wearing, and the one drying from last night’s wash. It is simple, clarifying. Years later, I find myself evoking that style of living as I Marie Kondo my householder’s clothes closet. I recently read that the average American owns over a hundred pieces of clothing. From my Long Way Home, I know that the less I have, the freer I feel.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that trip lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been rereading the Odyssey, the tale of the Greek hero Odysseus’ epic adventure. The last time I

read this story was in high school; I’d forgotten most of it. But reading it now, I’m struck by things that were not meaningful to my younger self. Like the fact that this is a story of a hero’s journey home. Or that it took him a full ten years to get back there after his adventures out in the world. Or that he was gone for a full twenty years. He left when his son, Telemachus, was two, and returned when he was twenty-two.

I can’t stop thinking about this part, actually. That it took ten years of Odysseus going out into the world, and another ten years for him to get back home. Hearing this, my whole being sighs in relief. Because I, too, have taken ten years to leave the home my parents made and raised me in and go out into the world to have adventures and seek my fortune. That whole adventure started when I left college and moved to the other side of the earth to a village where I knew no one and didn’t even speak the language. I had adventures there. I made friends. I even learned enough Japanese to be dangerous, as I like to say.

And then, I kept travelling to exotic and strange lands on my own sort of quest.

Ten years of going away into the world, and another ten years to return home. This reminds me that the pace of becoming the person you intend to be takes time, challenge, mishap, discovery, loss. Odysseus eventually returns home to his wife and son, but he loses his ships and his men in the process. I recognize the feeling: in our longing to return home, we are asked to give up just about everything. There is simplicity here, and truth.

In one of the final scenes of Odysseus’ homecoming, he returns disguised as a beggar. In his absence, suitors have taken up residence in his dining hall, drinking his wine and eating his food as they try to compel his wife, Penelope, to remarry one of them. As Odysseus makes plans to clean house and regain control of his dominion, he walks past the dog that he had trained as a puppy all those years ago.

The old dog recognizes its master through his disguise, wags his tail with gladness and relief, and dies. It’s sad, sure, but also poetic. I’m not sure just yet what my version of the old dog is, but I’m keeping an eye out for it.

Stella Orange is a copywriter and co-founder of Las Peregrinas, a business advising and marketing service company. Find out more about her work at www.lasperegrinas.org

July 2019 | 37

Supporting Deep Sleep

by Lisa Profera, MD

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hen was the last time you had a good night’s sleep? You try to be Wonder Woman during the day—juggling family, career, aging parents, and just everyday life. You can’t be a super woman when you don’t sleep well. Whether it’s the baby crying or hormones flashing, poor sleep not only takes its toll on your ability to get things done; it can have longterm effects on your health.

The importance of sleep is just as crucial to your health as eating and staying hydrated. When we sleep, our body is recovering and repairing itself as well as processing the information and experiences of the day. Research has shown that without proper sleep, our bodies may increase fat storage, making it difficult to lose weight. Our hormone balance may be thrown off, too. This can affect sleep.

Mood swings, depression, and decreased ability to cope with stress may occur. Impaired cognitive functions such as making decisions, learning and recalling information, and driving safely (due to decreased reaction time) can have a huge negative impact on our lives and the lives of others.

Adults need about eight hours of sleep each night. We go through four or five 90-120 minute sleep cycles a night, which consist of three stages of NREM (nonrapid eye movement) sleep followed by a REM (rapid eye movement) phase. The deepest, most restorative sleep happens during Stage 3 NREM. Unfortunately, as we age, we spend less time in this phase as compared to children and adolescents. Stage 3 sleep is also responsible for the feeling that we had enough sleep by reducing the sleep drive. When we haven’t spent enough time in this restorative phase, we feel tired and groggy. Our organs and tissues regenerate during this phase. It is also important for muscle recovery and repair and overall immune function.

Good sleep hygiene is as important as personal hygiene.

The average adult needs 7.5 to 9 hours of sleep to function properly. There are no shortcuts. You may be able to get by with less here and there, but the negative effects can add up quickly. It is helpful to develop a sleep routine, just as you have a bathing routine. Try to find ways to consistently wind-down about an hour before bedtime and stick to it. For the multitaskers out there, a nice relaxing bath or a hot shower can accomplish both.

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dimming the lights and listening to some soft music, ocean sounds, rain, crickets, or whatever you find pleasing. Use some high-quality calming essential oils in a diffuser, or add a few drops to the shower wall or floor (away from the path of the water), or add them to Epsom salts and toss them into the bathtub. Practice positive empowering affirmations; you can even post them on the bathroom wall or mirror. Be grateful for all you have and let go of the negative things that may have happened during the day.

wear a mask. Consider wearing earplugs if noises disturb you (only if appropriate, this may not apply for moms with young children). Try “white noise” or other soothing sounds (sound machines or apps).

Another way to support good sleep is to adhere to the same bedtime and wake time on weekends as well as week days. Eating healthy meals, getting regular exercise, quitting smoking, and reducing caffeine and alcohol intake can also help. Make sure your bedding and pillow are comfortable. Stop using your electronic devices at least one hour before bedtime and keep them out of your bedroom if possible. Use “NightShift” or other blue-light dimming programs on your phone and computer screens.

More caffeine is not the answer. Some people are genetically predisposed to being slow caffeine metabolizers, so caffeine can linger in their system for many hours after consumption. This can affect sleep and throw off your natural sleep-wake cycle. About 60 million Americans have trouble with sleep. Most of us are averaging less than seven hours a night. This is not enough time for us to accumulate the amounts of REM and NREM sleep our bodies need. In general, I do not recommend prescription or over-the-counter sleep medications, as these are synthetic compounds with side effects and may cause dependency.

These medications play a role in short-term correction of serious sleep issues under the direction of a doctor, but they are not meant to be used regularly.

Create an environment that promotes good sleep—declutter your bedroom, remove any job or work-related items. Don’t answer texts or emails in your bedroom. Remove the TV. Make the bedroom the room for sleep only. Drink a cup of caffeine-free herbal tea such as chamomile or bergamot.

For those of you having trouble with the laundry list of things to do the next day, keep a pad of paper and a pen nearby so that you can jot down any pressing thoughts and get your mind settled back down. Sleep in a dark room or

More natural sleep aids include melatonin, L-theanine, cannabidiol, copaiba, and lavender. Melatonin is a copy of the hormone made in our pineal gland that helps promote sleep.

Taking melatonin can be helpful for people who experience delayed sleep phase disorder, jet lag, and shift work, and may be appropriate for short-term use. Long-term use of melatonin or taking too much melatonin may actually worsen sleep and disturb your natural sleep cycle. Dosing, quality, and consistency of the product can vary widely.

Photo by Gregory Pappas

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Photo by Ann Danilina

L-theanine is an amino acid found in certain teas and also in mushrooms. It has a chemical structure that is similar to glutamate, which helps transmit nerve impulses in our brain.

L-theanine boosts levels of GABA, dopamine, and serotonin (neurotransmitters that play a role in sleep). By reducing feelings of stress and anxiety, L-theanine can also improve the quality of sleep without causing sedation and grogginess.

Cannabidiol (CBD, found in hemp and cannabis) and copaiba oil (made from the sap of copaiba trees grown in the Amazon) both affect our endocannabinoid system by binding to CB2 receptors. They help balance all of our systems to promote homeostasis. By calming the mind and body, CBD, copaiba, and other sources of beta-caryophyllene (black pepper, ylang ylang, melissa, and others) can support good sleep in a natural way. The intricacies of the endocannabinoid system will be covered in a future article.

Lavenderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s positive effects on calming mind and body are well-researched. It has been shown to work on two different pathways to support sleep and relaxation: 1) by blocking serotonin reuptake, and 2) by modulating NMDA

receptors, producing a calming effect on the nervous system. Some other naturally-occurring substances that help promote sleep are valerian root, magnesium, passion flower, ginkgo biloba, glycine, and tryptophan.

The average person spends 36% of their life sleeping. This should not be construed as a waste of time, but rather a vital part of your overall health and well-being. Without adequate sleep, everything else unravels. Focusing on things that support the deepest, most restorative aspects of sleep can be the best thing you can do for the 64% of your life that you are awake. Dive into the deep and enjoy great sleep!

Mention this article for a complimentary consult with Dr. Profera.. Contact Dr. Profera for educational events in the Ann Arbor area..

Owner and Founder of PROJUVU MD. Aesthetics and Lifestyle Medicine in Ann Arbor, MI. BEMER Independent Distributor. www.projuvu.com / 1.844.PROJUVU / drprofera@gmail.com FaceBook business page: www.facebook.com/projuvu/

July 2019 | 41

My Journey Out into the Deep

by Marilyn A. Pellini

Photo by Mathyas Kurmann

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e adventuresome! Set sail from the shallows out into the deep. Sometimes in our life we are becalmed in a lull, so we need a new plan. We need to chart a new course. My new direction began when my little family had to move from state to state because of my husband’s job. Each new city was exactly that: big, different, and sometimes even rather unfriendly. In one town in the northeast I went to the same bank, cleaners, and supermarket, sometimes even more than once a week, but was treated as if I was a total stranger.

Our neighbors in the area were pleasant but not overly friendly either. We never visited back and forth. Most of them had been born and raised in this New England town, and their families went back for generations. They had so many relatives in the area that they did not need to make new friends. I joined the town’s Newcomers Club and found my niche.

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Then came my fourth move in six years. We were set to buy our first house, but were discouraged to find the only places we could afford were way out in the suburbs, which would mean a long train commute for my husband.

After much searching, we finally bought a place we grew to love with a sprawling backyard and a big old tree just right for hanging a swing. We moved in five days before our oldest child was to start kindergarten. This rather rural living was all new to me, and I wasn’t at all sure I was going to like this new experience. In no time at all, however, I began to love my new surroundings.

The first weekend after our move, my husband took our two kids to his folks’ house so I could do some unpacking.

I had gotten up early on that Saturday morning and was grabbing my first box from the back porch when I noticed my neighbor crossing over into my yard. I went out to

meet her and introduce myself. She had heard that children would be moving in next door, and wondered where they were. I explained that they had gone to their grandparents for the weekend so I could more easily get organized.

Her response was, “Breakfast is at nine, lunch at noon, and dinner is at six, you’ll take your meals with us until your family returns.” How could I not love my new town immediately? Over the years, all of the neighbors did little kindnesses for each other, which gave me such a sense of belonging. One neighbor knew how to repair just about anything; another shared her fresh garden vegetables all summer. I baked an enormous amount of Christmas cookies for both neighbors and friends.

When you have taken the plunge out into the deep, stay the course. That is exactly what we did. Two years after buying our first place, my husband was offered a promotion in the midwest. He turned it down, can you believe it? I had told him over and over how happy I was where we were living. Our son was thriving in the elementary school just down the street, and when the principal there found out I was a teacher he began calling me to substitute. We were invested now in our home and community. We decided to trim our sails and remained in port, and although my husband had turned down that first promotion, others in our area opened up for him, as he was such a loyal and hard worker.

The years seemed to pass quickly, and before we realized it the kids had grown up and were out on their own. My husband and I still felt young and vital, so it was time once again to wander out beyond the shoreline and submerge ourselves in new experiences and exploration. I began to paint, take piano lessons for the first time in my life, and joined a writing workshop. My husband, an avid striped bass fisherman, went on a quest to catch the world’s largest of that species.

Unfortunately this led to his much too early death. No one knows just how this bizarre fishing accident happened, but he did usually fish alone. I would plead with him, to no avail, to take a friend along on these excursions; but how, when, and where the fish were running and how best to catch them was always a well-kept secret.

How could I ever venture forth again, after being tossed and torn by this storm that attacked my whole being?

Port was no longer port, so I had no choice but to head for the deep once again. I began writing, starting out with letters to my husband about the plight of being a widow

in today’s society. The letters were quite full of anger at first, asking over and over how he could go and leave me behind.

Suddenly my new direction became clear. I needed to help others going through their own tragedy of losing their mate. My book Dear Al, A Widow’s Struggles and Remembrances became my refuge. I had no intention of having it published, but it sat on my desk for so long I got tired of dusting under it, around it, and over it. That’s when I found a gal who had just lost her job, and said she would love to earn some money typing my manuscript. I was very lacking in computer skills, and was so lucky to find her. Her husband, who had recently retired, began to research publishing firms that had done a grief book in the past, and a young relative with fine artistic ability produced a most pleasing cover. There were some nibbles from publishers, but ultimately I had to self-publish and I’m ever so happy I did.

Now the waters are a bit murky as I flail about alone trying to decide my direction, but at least I am afloat. My new navigation into the beyond has me going out to give talks on my book, especially to women’s groups where you always find so many widows. I also love to go to assisted living facilities and nursing homes, even though I rarely sell a single book there. The audience often comes in looking glum, but usually leave with a smile on their faces as I try to add a bit of hope and humor to my talk, which might lessen their burden too. I encourage them to write a “bucket list,” get out of their comfort zone, and explore some of the things they have always wanted to learn about.

My journey out into the deep has brought me some solace. Hopefully my journey has enlightened many others at the same time. I know this chapter of my life has been choreographed up in the heavens. I was dealt some very yellow and sour lemons, but hopefully I have now made some tasty lemonade. My husband would have been so very proud of me.

Marilyn Pellini has recently published a grief book titled Dear Al, A Widow’s Struggles and Remembrances. Her other credits as a writer include recent articles in Brick Magazine titled “Memories in My Button Jar” and “Restructuring My World,” pieces in Westchester Parent Magazine, Bay State Parent Magazine, On The Water, Balanced Rock and others.

In May 2018, she took the first place prize in the NY State Federation of Women’s Clubs writing contest.

July 2019 | 43

If You Want to Soar High, Learn to Dive Deep

by Gail Barker,

B.A., C.P.C.C.

Photo by Tommy Lisbin

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“The higher you climb, the further you have to fall.”

T

hat quote is attributed to Malorie Blackman. I can’t recall when I first heard it, or within what context. The echo of it has often reverberated in my experience, however, particularly as I feel myself climbing metaphorical mountains that I’ve challenged myself to tackle. The higher I get, the more I hear a voice cautioning me: “Be careful! You might fall!”

Sometimes that voice causes me to stop and turn back on my journey. Sometimes that voice is brushed aside by a deep curiosity that won’t allow fear to prevail. In all instances, the voice causes a moment of pause as I reflect on the climb I am taking, exploring what I envision to be ahead.

There’s something about a climb that is simultaneously exhilarating and daunting, something both inviting and repellant. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that while my climb—metaphorical or otherwise—will feel tough at moments, the end result will be a feeling of accomplishment making the effort worthwhile, if I only stay the course. Focusing on the climb has been a big part of my life experience.

Recently, however, I’ve started shifting my focus away from what exists “up there” on the proverbial mountaintop.

I’ve started getting curious about what happens on the other end of the landscape. While heights are alluring, it turns out there’s something as compelling about the depths of life. I feel the need to share that I am not a swimmer by any stretch of the imagination; literal deepdiving in actual waters isn’t something I’ve ever engaged in or that I envision happening any time soon. But diving into the deeps of life? This feels necessary somehow. And as I’ve been standing in curiosity around what it might be like to dive deep instead of climb high, here’s what I’ve realized: the two experiences have an unlikely link. It seems that the deeper you are willing to dive in life, the higher you will ultimately soar.

Let me explain. Life is complex. There are so many layers to every person’s experience. No matter what stage or age you’re in, there are different ways to understand and make meaning of what is happening or has happened to

you. Such understanding and meaning is often discovered as you peel back the layers, moving deeper to the core of the event in question.

As I scan the various experiences in my own life, I am realizing that whenever I choose to peel back a layer or dive a little deeper, more “climbing” becomes possible by virtue of what I unearth and discover. In other words, the more learning I acquire by diving deep, the more information I have to facilitate a corresponding climb.

As a visual person, I keep seeing a trampoline of sorts.

If you’ve never experienced a trampoline, let me try to describe the experience for you: a trampoline is springy, bouncy, elastic. A trampoline is something you bounce on. The stronger you bounce, the deeper you go AND the higher you rise correspondingly. Ergo, my personal saying: the deeper you dive (or bounce), the higher you soar.

This metaphor is particularly apt when it comes to emotions. I know many folks would rather avoid emotional experiences altogether, never mind “diving deep.” I want to invite you to hear me out though, because while diving deep into the pool of your emotions might be daunting, it actually will serve you well. No matter how strong you think you are, how smart you consider yourself to be, or how well you are viewed in your field, emotional depth is where your power source resides.

For most folks, emotions are limited to happy, angry, and sad, or minor variations thereof. Generally speaking, these three words are what we gravitate to when it comes to expressing what we are feeling. We don’t go any deeper; we don’t allow ourselves to get clear about subtle nuances. And yet, when we dive deeper, we notice that there are far more emotions than just these three.

Moreover, the subtle deviations can actually allow each of those three emotions to expand in such a way that we start to realize there is so much more to be understood.

Take a moment and ask yourself: what are you feeling right now? (Note: “stress” is not an emotion— it’s an experience. Same thing for “tired.” So if you were going to say “stressed” or “tired,” try again—go

July 2019 | 45

Photo by Dylan Siebelink

for an emotion). When you check in, you will likely default to happy, sad, or angry as your descriptor because these are the easy emotions to identify.

They’re the broad sweeping catch-alls, if you will.

What happens if you go for subtlety? What do you notice if you connect with the core of it—the depth of your actual feeling?

If “happy” is the word you’re tempted to use in this moment, is it truly accurate? Or is it more like joyful?

Excited? Playful? Hopeful? If “sad” is the emotion you’re connecting with, dive deeper: is it simply sadness? Or is it grief? Despair? Loss? What about for those feeling “anger?” Is that the true essence here? Or is there something much more accurate, like rage? Fury? Or frustration?

This isn’t just about semantics. Each of these words actually takes the superficial experience of emotions and connects you to a deeper level. It’s only when you allow yourself to truly feel the depth of what’s going on for you that you can move through the experience and on to something else.

Have you ever noticed that you’ll attempt to deny or push aside an emotion only to have it come back when you least expect it, and often at full force? It’s like it ambushes you, forcing you to pay attention.

There’s a reason for this. Emotions are meant to be felt deeply so that you can live your life with full range and genuine power. You read that correctly; feeling emotions deeply facilitates a powerful life experience.

46 | The Brick Magazine

It’s imperative that you learn to feel and experience your emotions deeply, and then to give expression to them appropriately. Sometimes, it can be enough to name the emotion for what it is. Naming grief as sadness isn’t sufficient. Naming grief as grief gives it a voice and a place at the table. And every time you connect and give expression to the core of your emotion, you bounce more strongly on life’s trampoline, diving deeper into what’s happening. That then allows you to soar into the experience you’re striving to create.

Bottom line: a truly successful life is a life experienced in full range. In order to gain the most in the life you’re living, there’s value in pushing yourself to explore both height and depth. A life lived meaningfully is a life which encompasses the fullest range of your experiences. Dive deep into the pool of what you’re feeling, and you’ll allow yourself to know the exhilaration of soaring high among the pinnacles of genuine life success.

Gail Barker is a Certified Professional CoActive Coach. She specializes in supporting leaders to lead powerfully and meaningfully.

Her company, Stellar Coaching & Consulting, was established in 2003, and through that platform she has supported hundreds of leaders in elevating their leadership game. A few of the additional hats she wears professionally are author, speaker, and radio show host. Personally, she is deeply committed to her family, loves to read, and finds deep restoration when walking along the beach (even in the winter).

Website: www.stellarcc.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/stellarcc Twitter: stellar7

with Maria Sylvester, MSW, CPC

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Maria Sylvester, MSW, CPC Life Empowerment Coaching, LLC 1785 W. Stadium, Suite 104 • Ann Arbor, Mi 48103

734-717-7532 • www.LifeEmpowermentCoaching.com

July 2019 | 47

Rolling in the Deep Muck of Resentmentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; and Coming Away Clean!

by Maria Sylvester, MSW, CPC Photo by Nik Macmillan

48 | The Brick Magazine

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”

W

~ Rumi

e have all been there. You’re fired up and furious, stuck in the muck—the deep muck of resentment. The bitter taste of it contaminates our ability to see straight or feel anything but restlessness and discontent. Rolling in the deep muck of resentment can be downright painful and haunting. It can feel depressing, with your capacity to feel joy seriously compromised. When harboring resentment, your ability to cope with other aspects of life is depleted. You simply feel bad.

Many of my coaching clients seek my support because they’ve become stuck in some area of their life. Exploring this, we often discover their paralysis stems from long-harbored resentments. Resentment—defined as “bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly”—is, unfortunately, sometimes a tough state to relinquish. It is gut-clenching and energy-sapping.

One reason resentment is hard to release is because it fuels anger. And the longer one focuses on the presumed injustice, the more intense the anger becomes.

Additionally, for better or worse, anger around resentfulness can sometimes feel like protection or confident self-righteousness. At times, it can even feel momentarily satisfying. To blame is always an attempt at freeing oneself of responsibility.

Yet once that anger takes root within, it’s like a stain that just can’t be easily washed away. It sets in. You experience this strong, dark emotion no matter how hard you try to distract yourself from it. You might, for instance, just feel at the mercy of another’s behavior. Or perhaps the incident that triggered the resentment gets replayed over and over again in your head. What may have begun as irritation over perceived unfair treatment festers and grows into extreme discomfort or even hostility. No fun at all.

Resentment, and the vast internal preoccupation it fuels, robs us of being able to be present. And present moments matter. So how does one get back into the present, into being able to embrace the moment at hand, flying free of resentment? How do you return to the fullness of who you are? For it is this fullness that gets lost in the grip of blame or resentment.

There are two key ways to clear resentment, and often they work hand-in-hand.

First, one must realize that feeling resentment toward someone means you have given your power away. To reclaim your power, you must flip your energy back to yourself, rather than concentrating on something someone has done (or not done) to or for you. Stepping fully back into the driver’s seat is a key way one can banish displeasurable feelings of resentment and the quagmire of this icky predicament. You have this choice. You always have this choice! Harnessing your personal power is definitely the way to go.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.” ~ Rumi

Photo by Karen Maes

if one can hold the perspective of appreciating another’s missteps or wrong-doings as character flaws—an unfortunate element of the human condition. Doing so sometimes makes forgiveness more likely.

Resentment washes away amazingly quickly when you can shift focus inward, back to yourself. Often you will discover that you have abandoned yourself while ruminating on an injustice at the hands of another. You may realize, for example, that you’ve stopped attending to your own needs, desires, or feeling-good states. By considering what you can do differently for yourself, you immediately redirect your energies. You empower yourself. You take control. This will feel much better that the out-of-control feelings of resenting someone.

Forgiveness, of course, doesn’t in any way have to mean acceptance of a problematic behavior or injustices. Rather, it’s an attitude offered that actually frees the person doing the forgiving from being imprisoned by their anger and upset. Forgiveness, be it a private, internal act of emotionally releasing another, or a directly communicated position, results in a return to personal power and a state of love. Bitterness fades away under the sway of an empathetic perspective.

Perhaps you have a friend who repeatedly fails to show up for you in ways you long for. Painful, yes. Concentrating on your resentment, however, only makes you feel worse. Your selfesteem dips. Flip your focus to recalling friends who treat you well, and your reality immediately feels brighter. Taking action and connecting with a true friend feels even better. So simple.

Yet why do we often fail to do this? I think it has something to do with how easy it is to see negatives rather positives.

So if you have by chance rolled in this kind of deep muck lately, do remember you always have a choice. Always. You can continue to rendezvous with the energy of resentment and feel bad, or allow yourself to release those emotions and thoughts and feel good. Embrace the realization that being in resentment means you have given your power away.

Then allow yourself to take it back, and to stand in the grand goodness of who you are. This idea is really quite simple, yet at the same time, profoundly empowering.

If we embrace a positive perspective or truth, we stay in our power and are much more able to reach a better state. Not to mention the insight we’ll then be better able to access from a vantage point of positivity, which will teach us how to move forward and take action. Much better than the helpless, paralyzed state resentment imprisons us in. Coming away clean from rolling in the deep muck is therefore about changing either how we are thinking or what we are doing— aspects of our functioning we can always control.

The second key to liberating yourself from resentments is to master the art of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an attribute of a person of strength. To consider that a person who has hurt you may have done so due to character shortcomings helps you let go of personalizing their behavior and feeling resentful. It is easier to let go of anger and disappointment 50 | The Brick Magazine

Resentment is a call to action. You are being called back to yourself. To your power. Back to your own dreams, abilities, strengths and capacity for compassion.

Compassion first for yourself and then others. So, why not roll yourself in that?

Maria Sylvester, MSW, CPC is a certified Life Coach in Ann Arbor, MI who loves empowering adolescents, adults, and couples to live from the HEART of what really matters to them so that they can bring their fully expressed, vibrant selves into the world. She has a special gift for helping women reclaim their feminine power, and embrace their radiant, sensual, sexy spirits. Their lives transform. They soar into their mid-life magnificence! www.lifeempowermentcoaching.com

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