Posted on by cheryloreglia · 58 Comments

Your Phone Is Not Your Friend

Don’t Tell It Your Secrets 
Don’t Let It Seduce YOU
And Other Things Your Mother Never Told You

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it feels like the machinery of late stage capitalism coughed up the internet for us with its empty promises of connecting us all through social media – only to leave us in a mirrored fun house of confirmation bias. Nadia Bolz Weber

What is our greatest human accomplishment?

That we’re still here. We haven’t been completely obliterated since our unlikely conception by gruesome wars, plagues, climate change, politicians, or vegetable oil, despite the odds. We’ve survived the worst atrocities imaginable, only to be reduced to a paranoid and isolated version of ourselves by our iPhones.

It’s as if my iPhone has become my most intimate relationship and it’s getting weird. You know what I mean?

In an attempt to be as transparent as possible, I offer a warning about the following content. It’s not for everyone; it’s crass, and my mother would be appalled, but the truth is it’s happening to many of us, and I figured I’d risk your disapproval in preference to exploring the reality of modern society and the damaging effects of these damn smartphones.

The other day, Larry and I were sitting in the double-wide chair at the lake house, talking with our son Tony on our phone. Tony is renovating his home in Portugal (Link here). He’s reattaching the old baseboards Larry removed so they could resurface the floors, but some of the wood is missing or warped, and Tony’s trying to figure out how to conceal the damage.

Tony said, “I’m trying to decide if it’s best to screw the boards back in place or use a nail gun?”

Larry says, “The nail gun is your best option. I think your friend Lucus mentioned he had one.”

“The bigger problem is the huge gaps between the wood and the walls.”

“Caulk is your savior. It hides everything. Fill the gaps with plenty of caulk, paint it, and no one will ever notice the imperfections.”

We chatted about a few other things, finished our call, and Larry and I continued on with our day until I noticed he was curled up on the couch, cradling his phone as if it were a cube of pure gold, laughing like a schoolboy. 

I said, “What the hell is so funny?” (I know, I’m such a sweetheart)

He couldn’t even respond. Red-faced, feet kicking, curled up in the fetal position, cackling like a hyena, tears rolling down his face. He finally wipes his eyes and says, “I sent you a reel. Unbelievable, I mentioned the word caulk, and now I’m a predator. Our phones are listening to everything we say.”

I grabbed my phone. Now, mind you, he could have walked 10 steps across the living room to show me the reel from his phone, but no, let’s use our screwed-up technology instead. I’m a little perturbed because now I will get the same sort of content the minute I open up this reel. 

It’s a cartoon (linked below, content warning). There’s this buffed, unshaven guy with a low-hung carpenter belt holding up a caulk gun, and he says to the lady standing in the doorway to her home, “I heard you had a hole that needed to be filled.”

She laughs, her face turns red, and she says, “Yes, is that a big job?”

“Nothing my caulk can’t handle.”

“So you just fill the hole with your caulk?”

It goes downhill from there, and as I listen to the rest of the cartoon with a perplexed look on my face, Larry starts losing it again. I look over at him and realize we truly are two different species. 

What was God thinking? 

Larry finally pulls it together and says, “Whatever I say when I’m near my phone, I end up with some sort of ad, product information, or, in this case, a guy obsessed with his caulk.” He can’t help himself and starts laughing again. 

“Well, they’ve certainly nailed you, so to speak.”

He tries to defend himself, “My feed is normally all about renovations, traveling, sports, and cycling trips.”

“Mine is filled with babies, skin care, a Rabbi with an attitude, and Mel Robbins. How did we ever marry?”

I think it’s sort of alarming that we have allowed our phones to spy on us; they know what we want, what we believe, and in a way, they’re shaping us without our knowledge by confirming our biases and preferences. That should shake us up enough to put the damn things in an incinerator, or at the very least, store them in a soundproof box when we don’t need them. I feel a little like Chucky, I’ve transferred my soul into a recursive algorithm, and now it’s planning my execution.

I tell Larry, “The other day, I was joking with Nancy (my sister) about my turkey neck (suddenly he’s inspecting my neck and I have to wave him off), and now I get ads for crappy skin creams, silk chin straps from Japan, a retreat in Barcelona with Dr. Amanda, the Midlife Muse, and a man named Ben is offering me energy healings in an Appalachian yurt for $1,000 an hour, but the sale ends soon.”  

“I can do energy healings from a tent in our backyard if that’s what you need.”

“Can you now? Maybe for Lent, we should have given up our phones?”

“At the very least, you should block Ben. Is that really his name?”

“His spiritual name is Isa and he has incredible hair. All that energy healing I suppose.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Bahaha (Just between you and me, I totally made up the Appalachian yurt part)

What are the more serious implications of all this mirroring? We are being profiled by some invisible AI who is monetizing all this information with product ads, which makes me think I’m not good enough, firm enough, happy enough, and I smell bad. If the ads reflect our personal dreams and desires, what does it mean that I’m bombarded with offers to botox my feet so I can wear heels all night, or how to make expresso martini jello shots with real coffee beans, and Mel Robbins chanting endlessly about the Let Them Theory which is like telling that little Dutch boy to pull his finger out of the dike and just Let Them deal with the flood in the morning. Okay, she’s pretty interesting, but is this what I really need?

The fact that I click on the bait and then share it with my cousins, friends, and sister probably doesn’t help. It’s like we’re all a bunch of brainless flies caught in the sticky web of the internet. 

Our Phones are seductive and so good at persuading us to think we can’t live without them. In fact, most of the time, my phone is either in my hand, in my purse, or lying on a table nearby, listening to everything I say. It’s creepy. I think I’m using it to relax, see what my friends are doing, and play a little solitaire, but what I’m really doing is affecting my identity, making choices about how I spend my time and money, and ever so subtly, it is confirming my own phobias, biases, and beliefs. 

I have become a highly marketable algorithmic niche with seasonal interest and mild anxiety. Oh, and as a courtesy, do not click on any snake videos, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Victor Frankl says, “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

What if we all start whispering random things like, “Should dust mites have legal rights,” “If I tie helium balloons to my hair, will it give me the lift I need,” or  “Should fly swatters be considered lethal weapons,” just to confuse the damn algorithms.

The thing is, we can fight back, put the phone in another room, create No Phone Zones, or better yet, we should be fasting from our phones because they are way worse for our humanity than sugar, fast food, the Marlboro Man, or alcohol ever was. I have to believe we are smarter than our smartphones, and together, we can beat the system.

What if I tried to learn about the world by talking with actual people face to face, instead of texting and sharing reels from a chair in my room? Maybe I should challenge myself to touch others as much as I touch my phone, to watch a documentary or read a book instead of scrolling for answers, to engage in conversations that make me uncomfortable, because they actually challenge my thinking instead of confirming what I already believe. Let’s figure out how to fill the holes in our lives with beautiful, frustrating, loving, annoying, funny, demanding, and heartwarming people instead of an algorithm with a caulk fetish named Jamie. 

I’m Living in the Gap, trying to upset the algorithms of life, love to know your thoughts.

Big news, Grow Damn It, the audio version with the fabulous Hilary Huber, is on sale! I know, 50% off, maybe mention it to your phone. Here’s the link, just click it, and it’ll take you directly to the sale page. https://www.audiobooks.com/promotions/promotedBook/710778/grow-damn-it-the-feeding-and-nurturing-of-life?refId=184493

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 58 Comments

I Don’t Mean To Brag

But I Made A Pie
FROM SCRATCH
The aftermath…

Inspired by Dorothy’s New Vintage Kitchen

“Baking is…Life. So when you describe what you’re making, you must describe life. Do you see? It’s not just recipes…” – Jenny Colgan

Standing on the back deck overlooking the lake in the late afternoon is a fabulous way to procrastinate. I like to pretend I’m spying on the landscape. If I stand perfectly still, it’s as if I disappear, or maybe I just become part of the natural terrain. I observe how the current is gently moving the water along with the heat towards the west, how the trees sway in unison with the breeze, and if you squint your eyes a little, the ducks that congregate on the edge of our beach resemble a burnt pie crust. I don’t know why, but from my perspective, the world looks like it’s covered in wheat, brown sugar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. 

Maybe I’m hungry.

You can only write, rewrite, edit, write, and rewrite for so long, then I lose my mojo about whatever I was tackling, and I have to go and do something else. I’m looking for a task that is gratifying, like stealing a forkful of pasta salad from the frig, ordering shit I don’t need from Amazon, or baking a pie.

I settled on baking a pie because my friend Dorothy’s recent blog post caught my interest. It involved blueberries, sugar, and a flaky crust.

How hard can that be?

Dorothy is a whirlwind in the kitchen. She hosts an incredible blog filled with creative recipes, but it’s not just recipes. She shares her family traditions and childhood memories and has an incredible knack for using seasonal produce in ways you’ve never imagined. I always tell her, “Dorothy, you somehow make me look good in the kitchen, and cooking isn’t my thing.” 

So what the hell, I’m going to bake a pie from scratch, up at the lake, and I don’t even have a rolling pin. Dorothy writes, “A fruit pie is sometimes a bit of a challenge,” and here I thought tackling RAGBRAI was courageous. 

Larry and I drove into town to pick up all the ingredients, such as blueberries (obviously), unbleached flour, unsalted butter, lemons, sugar, and cornstarch. I thought it would be fun for Larry and me to bake the pie together. I’m picturing Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet in The Last Days Of Summer. It was an epic pie scene.

Well, that didn’t happen. He disappeared the minute I started assembling the ingredients. Maybe he’s looking for some SAG (supply and gear) support? God knows we need it.

Dorothy says to make the crust first so it can chill. Then, she adds, which I didn’t see until it was too late, that for best results, everything should be chilled, including the flour. 

The flour? 

So I start gathering the tools I’ll need to make a perfect crust. 

It eventually dawned on me we don’t have a pastry cutter or a food processor as the recipe calls for, so I substituted with a potato masher and a large fork. I also don’t have a rolling pin, but we do have a lot of wine bottles, so I removed the label and washed one up really well, and I’m confident that it should be adequate for the task. Maybe I should chill it?

It’s been about two decades since I’ve made a pie, maybe more, and I’m sure I used a pre-made pie crust. I know, don’t get all judgy, I’m not a baker, but I like the idea of baking, and I like to imagine that I’m a goddess in the kitchen with an adorable apron and pearls. That all makes sense if you’ve seen the movie Julie and Julia (highly recommend).

My first task is the crust. Dorothy says whatever you do, do not overwork the dough. It’s not what I would call an ambitious substance, but in deference to Dorothy, I remained silent and asked nothing more of my blob than to be flaky (get it).

After measuring out the flour, butter, salt, and shortening, I gently cut in the butter and shortening with my masher and fork. She says to work on it until it resembles wet sand—like that kinetic stuff you get the kids for Christmas because it knows how to hold a shape. 

It’s easier said than done. It took me almost an hour to get there with my adaptive utensils, or maybe my vision of wet sand needs adjusting.

Simultaneously, I made a list of things for my next Amazon order, especially a pastry cutter. 

Dorothy says the next part is particularly tricky, so I looked deeply into my bowl of wet sand and suggested it was in its best interest to work with me. I try to be encouraging. 

I whispered, “You might feel like wet sand, but you’re really a soft pale mound, like a well-rounded breast,” which takes the concept of food porn to a whole new level, but I think it helped.

You have to be very careful when handling the dough (the same goes for money). A light touch goes a long way, so I gently added the juice of a freshly squeezed lemon (picking out the seeds as they fell) and a splash of ice-cold water after removing the ice. After easing the ingredients together, barely stirring, and hardly breathing, I felt a little proud about the entire process. 

A pale mound of dough starts forming in the bowl. I pluck a small piece from the mound and pop it in my mouth even though it states in bold print on the flour package not to eat it raw! What a rebel.

She says to wrap it in plastic, cut it in half, wrap up both pieces, and chill for at least 30 minutes. So I educated myself about the importance of keeping everything cool. For one, it lengthens the time that the fat in the dough stays solid. See, it’s all about the gluten, if you use only a little cold water it reduces the gluten content and also allows the dough to be crisper. Also, a minimal amount of handling reduces the gluten, so we do not knead pastry dough into submission like we do when we’re making bread (Not that I ever plan on making bread, but never say never, who ever imagined me making a pie).

The mounds are not even, but such is life.

Will you look at what I made with a potato masher and a fork? 

Janet Clarkson says, “A pie is only as good as its pastry, and one of the delights of a good pie is the contrast in texture between the crisp pastry and the filling – whatever it might be.” No pressure.

While the sun is baking the outside world, I preheat the oven to 400 per the instructions and place a cookie sheet on the lower middle rack. 

This part is clever. Dorothy says when the pie is ready to bake, you put it directly on the hot cookie sheet, which helps cook the bottom of the pie quickly so it won’t be soggy. No one wants a soggy pie, and Dorothy has figured it all out. 

Glancing at the lake, I notice a layer of smoke clinging to the mountains like steam from a boiling pan, casting a grayish oura over the entire lake. The glass door between me and the outside world is hot to the touch. I’m suddenly appreciative of the air conditioning, which allows me to work with butter and fruit without having everything melt and spoil. It’s as if my kitchen has become an oasis in the desert of summer. 

When I’m working on a story, I gather words and images to make it rich and satisfying to the reader. I found out it’s the same with baking. The right flour, butter, cream, and sugar all enhance the experience and the outcome. I suppose writing and baking are both creative expressions—something that engages all our senses.

So now that the crust is safely chilling out in the refrigerator, I have to prepare the blueberries. After rinsing them in a colander with cool water, I measure out 6 cups into a large yellow bowl and add cornstarch, lemon zest, lemon juice, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. I lean over the bowl so I can breathe in the sweet earthy smell before mixing all the ingredients thoroughly and slipping them into the frig. I feel so satisfied, like a seasoned cook I brush the dust from the cornstarch on my pants, dramatically wiping the sweat from my brow. 

Now I can refresh my wine and sit on the deck for a spell, enjoying the swallows fighting off a crow that’s trying to get at their nests. It’s an extraordinary effort on the swallows’ part to chase away this huge crow. I provided a solid stream of commentary, but the birds completely ignored me.

When my timer goes off, it scares the crap out of me. Shit, now it’s time to roll out the perfect pie crust with a wine bottle. The thing is, civilization was built around wheat, right? It’s why we all stopped camping, built our little brick houses, and got to know the neighbors. Baking is probably one of the oldest professions, well that, and story telling. 

But I digress.

I take the first lump of dough out of the refrigerator and sprinkle my massive round cutting board with flour. Engraved on the edge of the board, it says, “You Are What You Eat.” Hey, sometimes I can be kneady.

Larry appears out of thin air, looking anxious. He gets that way around food, especially when I’m trying to make the perfect pie crust.

He says, “Do you know what you’re doing?’

“Does it look like I know what I’m doing? I have a lump of dough and a wine bottle.”

He points as I’m rolling out the dough, “It looks a little thick there.”

I’m thinking the dough is thick? But I have a choice, I can either roll my bottle over the plump edge or break his finger. 

When the dough is thinned to perfection, and I have formed it into an awkward circle, he says, “Now, what are you going to do?”

Are you with me as I consider the multiple purposes of rolling pins? 

The crust is sort of stuck to the board, so I turn my pie dish upside down onto the dough, lift the extraordinarily heavy round board into the air, flip it over, and ease the mailable dough into the dish. Parchment paper would have been helpful here!

The move was daring and semi-successful. Larry and I pushed the edges of the dough into the round pie pan, and I was relieved to see there was a substantial amount left over to create an attractive edge. I use the word attractive loosely.

After pouring the chilled berries into the freshly rolled dough, I start rolling out the second pale mound. Larry makes similar suggestions as we flip the board over and gently lay the dough over the berries. We pinch the edges together, trim the excess dough, and slice a few air holes in the top before popping it into the oven.

I set the timer, grab my wine, and head out to the deck. In fifteen minutes, I turn the oven down and let the pie cook for the better part of an hour. I sit here watching the bats head out for their evening supper of bugs. There is a crazy one this year. He comes out every night but only manages to fly in circles like his radar is out. I call him Loopy. 

As I was sitting here smiling at Loopy, he flew into my space, and I had to duck or get buzzed by a bat. I think he just wanted to say hi the way bats do, with a swoop and flyover. It’s kind of cute and sort of creepy. 

Dorothy says the blueberries have to boil, or the corn starch will not activate, and the pie will be soggy. Oh, good lord, it’s like a never-ending science experiment. I keep checking to see if the berries are boiling. Who knows?

I wait, I check again, I ponder the sanity of even attempting to make a pie. But I do feel a deep sense of accomplishment. I suppose that baking doesn’t change the world or your current circumstances, but it is a great way to lift your spirits and imagine you’re Julia Childs for an hour or so, who advised, “Learn how to cook – try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!”

Will you look at that attractive crust? Absolute perfection…Bahaha

If you need a little distraction because you’re in a writing slump, I say get in the kitchen. Pretend your apron is a cape. Play with really good ingredients. Make something you can share with others, something that makes people smile. There’s nothing like a shimmering blueberry pie with a scoop of French vanilla ice cream in the middle of a hot summer night. 

The hardest part? Waiting for the pie to cool and set before cutting into it. 

I’m Living in the Gap, heating up the kitchen, join me in the comments, we’ll chat.

PS. The pie was delicious–enough.

PSS. Loopy was up early this morning when he should have been sleeping. Larry unfortunately left both the front and back doors wide open to let the cool air in, and Loopy thought he’d slip in and say hi. Oh my, if we had a video of Larry and I trying to coax Loopy out of the house and not get bit in the process, you would pee your pants.

PSSS. My granddaughter asked how old I was. I told her I was 64. She said, “Did you start at one?”

If you enjoyed this post, you’ll love Grow Damn It, a series of humorous essays on the sanctity and meaning of life. They’re written as an invitation, come in, grab a spot on the couch, and let’s have a rip-roaring discussion on how we go about living our best life. 

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 43 Comments

Proof Of Life

“We Accept The Reality Of The World With Which We’re Presented. It’s As Simple As That.” Truman Burbank

Photo credit, by Cheryl Oreglia

I’ve been struggling to breathe for months. It’s as if I’m suffocating from the inside out.

How do you tell if something is alive? You check for breathing. 

It’s the first indicator of life. 

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t say feeling tired, lethargic, and breathless totally sucks.

My husband is not humored by my 6:30 pm bedtime, late-night coughing attacks, and constant wheezing. Not that you asked, but he’s been a little testy. 

I don’t blame him, I’m sick of me too. 

All this hampered breathing makes me think of my Mom, and how she struggled for every breath as she neared the end. Naturally, I start imagining my own death. It’s morbid and I can’t help myself.

Mediocre fatalistic tendencies have never been my life’s aspiration. I was aiming for proficient.

Why is it when we don’t feel good it’s as if we can’t imagine ever feeling good again? In fact, I can’t remember the last time I was able to take a deep breath without hacking up a lung! 

It’s as if I’m suffocating under the weight of something heavy? Or maybe I just need to chill out like a few of my readers advised? 

I really should be on someone’s couch with a box of tissues in my lap. 

I can hear your collective thoughts, “and no, it’s not COVID.” I have a slew of negative tests and besides asthma has been a lifelong companion of mine. It’s usually dormant, I haven’t given it a second thought for decades, but recently as if Britney Spears, it made an unexpected comeback.

I have no idea why? It’s as if Truman’s little rain cloud is following me around (if you’re not a boomer you might not know this movie reference *). 

Here I am ready to enjoy retirement when this unwelcome condition takes up residence in my lungs and refuses to relocate. I’ve shamed it, ridiculed its tenacious nature, even offered it a relocation package with a respectable nose spray. 

Stubborn bastard. 

Of course, I googled all my symptoms and decided I was either in the final stages of heart failure or as my sister has been saying for months, “you need to replace the carpet in your room because it’s killing you.” She could be right. 

She’s always right. Shit.

I say to Larry, “Honey, I think I’m dying.”

Larry says, “wait until we get back from Portugal.” [When I return from Boston/Florida we’re heading to Portugal to see our son]

“That’s not very sympathetic.”

“Not my skill set.”

“What a shocker.”

“You’ve been complaining about this for months. Go see a doctor.”

“I don’t like doctors. They’ll want blood. And they’re ruthless about flu shots.”

“You should ask for an EKG.”

“Is my DNR up to date?”

“You’re being a little dramatic.”

“I know, very unusual.”

Secretly, I’m planning on donating my ears to Larry. Bahaha

Under extreme duress, I make an appointment with the doctor, before I work up some lame excuse and change my mind. I’m not a fan of doctors, especially ones that want urine, blood, or biopsies. No offense Mike. I’m sure you’re not the needy type. 

But I’m heading to the east coast tomorrow to help Kelley pack up her life in Boston and then hopping over to Marco Island in Florida to spend some time with my dear friend Christine who is learning to breathe again after several difficult years. How Ironic?

After I return from the east coast, we’re visiting Tony and Thalita in Lisbon, that alone should keep me alive.

If not, I’ll donate my body to medical science. 

I’d be an anomaly at the very least. How does one die after completing two back-to-back fifty-mile bike rides? 

My appointment is set for the morning after my return from Boston/Florida. I don’t land until 1:00 am so this is going to be challenging for someone in the final stages of heart failure. 

The universe has a cruel sense of humor don’t you think? As Ted Lasso says, “If that’s a joke, I love it. If not, can’t wait to unpack that with you later.”

Within the span of eight days, my toes touched both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It’s been an emotional week. Boxing up one life, opening up another. 

I have experience with closing chapters and starting with a blank page but it’s never an easy transition and often I’m at a loss for words. Imagine? 

I saw this on the internet and thought it was worth repeating. Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it. That’s what I’m talking about.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes claims Marcel Proust. Helping Kelley pack up her life allowed me to see how our things have locational meaning, seasonal usage, and often they become a measure of time. 

Kelley weeded out furniture, sporting equipment, dishes, clothes, shoes, purses, and rugs that are no longer a good fit and will not be accompanying her into the next chapter. 

It made me realize how I hang on to things far longer than I should (including illnesses).

I suppose the act of keeping things you no longer need represents an aspect of the self that doesn’t want to move on. That beautifully sums up my entire life. I DON’T LIKE CHANGE. Let’s move on. 

In between packing, Kelley and I enjoyed a spot of tea at the Four Seasons. Isn’t that telling? We meandered through the Isabel Gardner museum, spent an evening restaurant hopping, enjoying specialty wines, distinctive dishes, and that unforgettable Boston ambiance. 

Tim took us out to an incredible dinner at the local steak house one night. We had to walk four blocks to get to the restaurant in the middle of a blizzard. March in Boston. Travel at your own risk.

When I landed in LaLa land, on Marco Island, in Florida, I was floored by the hordes of tanned, facelifted, well-seasoned people. The snowbirds have migrated and they are nesting everywhere. 

Chris and I walked every morning, spent hours catching up on our lives, enjoyed a few good meals out but my favorite thing was watching the sunset every evening from her patio sipping wine, savoring our time together. Traveling to see a friend is a rare treat these days. 

So after a full and absorbing week, I headed home, still wheezing, coughing, and struggling to breathe. My seatmates on the airline were thrilled.

My husband showed up at the airport with a rose. Could that be a sign? 

I’m either dying or he missed me? 

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. 

After what felt like three hours of restless sleep I was up, showered, and heading to the doctor. I totally nailed it. She wanted it all. Height, weight, blood, urine, X-ray, EKG, and other unmentionables. My blood pressure was alarmingly high, go figure?

She said, “you’ve been aggressively trying to deal with your symptoms, I commend your efforts, but I’m going to medicate your asthma, and I’m sure you’ll feel much better.”

Me, “Well you have to admit my regime was creative.”

“And highly ineffective.”

“So I’m not dying of heart failure?”

“No, but I can see you haven’t been able to take a deep breath for a while.”

“Could be why I’m so dizzy.”

“Most likely, but let’s see what the blood tests reveal.”

I started on her medication two days ago. TWO DAYS AGO.

Now I’m more than willing to admit when I’m wrong. I WAS SO WRONG. You can not believe the difference a day can make when properly medicated. 

I am breathing with such ease I feel as if I could run a marathon (okay, maybe a 5K). No coughing, no wheezing, no sitting up all night, no toddler bedtime, no intricate ritual of ineffective concoctions every few hours.

I feel like a brand new woman. Thank God, because I have only a few days to wash and repack before we leave for Portugal.

Unbelievable.

I love doctors. 

*The Truman Show was a movie that came out in the late 90s about a corporation that adopts a baby who grows up on a gigantic studio set but he doesn’t realize he’s a reality show that millions of people watched daily. 

I’m Living and breathing in the Gap, bursting with energy. I’d love to hear about your week! Join me in the comments. 

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 31 Comments

He says, “Trust Your Husband.”

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” Hunter S. Thompson

The aftermath of Christmas is not unlike bringing a newborn home, there are the sleepless nights (overindulging on Netflix much), people in need calming (as the bills come in), and for reasons unknown, the laundry room is full of soiled garments?

Am I the only one?

So out of these domestic affairs, Larry says early one morning, “pack a bag, honey, we’re going on a ride.” And by ride, he means as in the Flintstones, where my feet are actually what power the vehicle. In this case, we’re talking about a tandem bike, the Christmas gift I somehow got roped into, the thing that has become our 2022 linchpin, along with padded biking pants (like my butt wasn’t big enough), and riding gloves.

“Wait a minute, my weather app says a storm is coming in later today and tomorrow, and I’m not keen on riding in the rain.”

“If we leave by 9:00 (mind you it’s currently 6:45 am) I think we’ll just make the window.”

“The window?”

“Yes, as in we’ll ride in between the two storms.”

“It’s rather cold and windy don’t you think?” The truth is I’m snuggled in my warm bed, fire softly burning, contemplating my next post. I would prefer to remain in this state of utter bliss for the next several hours, after which I plan to exercise on my stationary bike (not in a storm) and maybe organize the fish bathroom, spruce up the kitchen. I know…gives me the shivers.

Speaking of shivers, he says, “Yeah, you’ll need gloves and a warm jacket.”

Out of curiosity, I say, “What exactly am I packing for? And where are you (emphasis on you) planning on riding?” I think those are fair questions given the circumstances.

“Half Moon Bay. I booked us a room, the hotel is right across from the beach, our balcony actually faces the ocean. The paved trail we want to catch runs right in front of the hotel. It’ll be the perfect practice ride for our Palm Springs trip.” (Larry signed us up for a 50-mile ride in the desert in February, which seemed miles away in 2021, but inches closer as if a tarantula.)

Here I’m visualizing a warm fire, endless cups of coffee, reading a few pages from the book Seth recommended, a novel so important it has the capacity to change the trajectory of the entire world. The one that came in the mail two weeks ago and I’m still on page seven (Seth Godin’s post linked here).

As G.K. Chesterton claims, an adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. Interesting, don’t you think? Adventure and inconvenience appear in both statements, like marriage, they’re a pair.

I say, “So we’re spending the night?”

He says, “Yes, and there’s a great restaurant we can walk to for dinner.”

“So I’ll need heels and a dress?”

“It’s casual, you can wear your biking pants if you want.”

“I’m not that kind of girl.”

“Don’t I know it, hey, I’m going for a ride with Stu, be ready to head out by the time I get back.”

“You’re going for a ride before our ride?”

“Yes, a warm-up.”

“A refill before you go,” I hold up my coffee mug.

When he returns with the hot mug of Jo I lean back into my pillows and consider falling back asleep. I mean he’ll be gone at least an hour or two. I’m not washing my hair just so I can stuff it into a bike helmet all day, sweating, and windblown. I calculate a five-minute shower, slipping into my biking pants, throwing on a couple of warm shirts, my ski coat, tennis shoes, and gloves in less than ten minutes. I can pack a pair of jeans and a sweater for dinner, a toothbrush, sunscreen, some earrings, and my adorable booties.

In my mind, I’m done, so I relax, knowing I could be ready in 15 minutes tops.

Relaxing back into my pillows I grab my new book and return to my musings on page seven.

That’s when I hear the door open? What the hell? Has it already been an hour? Shit! It’s been over an hour. My how time flies when you’re relaxing for the first time all damn year (granted it’s only the 2nd of January, but still)!

Larry blasts into the room, bringing the cold air with him, he says, “well, I can see you’re ready to go.”

“That was a fast ride?” I say as I scramble out of bed knocking a pile of folded laundry off the hope chest at the end of the bed.

“Not really, it’s been over an hour, and by the way, we’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“Stop for coffee’s on the way out?”

“If you hurry.”

When it comes to coffee I can be quite motivated. Showered, geared up, and packed in mere minutes. It may have seemed longer to Larry, but he’s a type A, he doesn’t understand time as I do. It’s not an exact science, time follows my schedule, not the other way around.

He had to take both the wheels off the bike to get it in the car, the contraption has a massive frame, we had to put our bags on top, helmets on the floor, while my boots got thrown under the wheels.

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences says Eleanor Roosevelt.

There’s wisdom in that statement, I just can’t find it?

Arriving in Half Moon Bay we’re lucky to find our room at the Ocean Front Hotel is ready and we don’t have to leave our belongings in the car. The hotel is what I would call unique, to say the least, the word funky comes to mind. Larry was right, it’s located right along the coast, literally the waves are crashing not twelve feet away. The entire building is elevated by gigantic cement stilts, as it appears the tides wash up on occasion and can just flow right through the building. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight.

The structure is old and fairly dated but I am charmed by all the trinkets and paraphernalia the owner Ann has stashed all over the place. The lobby is full of surprises, a coffee bar was set up in the corner, all for free, a snack area by the front desk fully stocked with fruits, beverages, wine, and nuts. There’s an old dusty bookcase stuffed with classic novels from floor to ceiling and on every available surface are nautical doohickeys that are somehow pleasing to the eye.

Our room, named the Carmel, is gorgeous and I can’t stop gloating over the fact the floors are heated. The spacious room is anchored by a beautifully dressed king-sized bed, a small balcony overlooking the ocean, with two large windows that let in soothing light, and a cozy gas fireplace for even more ambiance. The jacuzzi tub in the bathroom looks brand new, it buts up against a glass shower, double sinks, and the floors are heated in here too. In the closet two vintage robes hang on wooden hangers, one grey, one pink.

Adorable.

I’m barely able to use the facilities when Larry is chasing me out the door so we can put the bike together and get on with our ride.

Putting the wheels back on the bike is not as easy as taking them off, it never is, but we manage with a fair amount of cussing, straining, and complaining. Before I could remark about the shockingly cool temperature we were on the bike and making our way along the mesmerizing coast.

The trail is nicely paved, but apparently, everyone else had the same idea, and maneuvering our huge monster bike past groups of walkers and other bikers is tricky. I’m on the back, I can’t see anything in front of me as my view is blocked by Larry’s back. I have to depend on him to warn me about what’s coming up verbally, when I’m supposed to glide, when to lean into a sharp turn, etc.

Let’s just say it’s a work in progress.

The responses we get from the people we pass on the trail are hysterical. One couple felt the need to yell out, “we used to have one of those.”

Larry slows the bike to say, “yeah, how did you like it?”

The wife says, “it didn’t work out for us, I couldn’t stand being on the back, no control. We sold the tandem, we’re much better riding our own bikes, at least we’re still married.”

The husband says, “this woman is particularly difficult, you’ll be fine, trust your husband.”

I yell back, “he keeps telling me control is an illusion,” I hear them laughing as we round the bend.

After about six or seven smooth miles, I find myself marveling over the beauty of the ocean, the charming houses docked along the path, the flora and fauna, the sun warming my back. I’m silently overflowing with gratitude for the opportunity to experience this exquisite scenery, when suddenly the topography changes, as in life, things get turbid.

Just beyond the pine trees, the trail is no longer paved, in fact, we find ourselves riding on a bog. It’s wet, extremely muddy, and not easy to maneuver this monstrosity. We have to get off repeatedly and walk the bike through the worst areas or should I say Larry has to walk the bike through the muck, I tiptoe around the worst of it, leaping over the puddles as if a ballerina.

Larry looks bedraggled, he says, “this is not fun.”

Every time we get back on the bike we practically tank on the slippery ruts, I moan, “the mud is spattering off the back wheel, it looks as if I pooped my pants, I’m a human fender.”

He laughs, “that happens when you’re riding in the mud, we should get back on the paved trail, this is not working.”

“See, we do agree on some things.”

So after walking most of the way back we return to the paved trail and try to avoid mowing over the pedestrians milling about.

There is one tense moment when we come upon a group of eight or so walkers, they’re chatting it up, taking over the entire path, Larry yells several warnings, “on your left. On your LEFT! ON YOUR LEFT.” No response, they just keep sauntering along until we almost crash into a few of them as we attempt to come to a full stop. The bike is heavy, especially with the two of us riding, it’s impossible to stop on a dime, if people don’t move over to allow us to pass it gets ugly.

Well, they have words, Larry has words, while I try to pretend to be Switzerland, and remain perfectly silent until I’m sure no one was going to throw a rock at my back.

Then I say in a loud clear voice, “if I am going to be riding behind you, TRUSTING MY HUSBAND if you will, I expect better behavior when it comes to the pedestrians.”

“I know, I was out of line.”

“Good, I think I need a Bloody Mary.”

“Sam’s Chowder House is about five miles up the road here, we’ll stop there for lunch.”

“Well earned I’d say.”

“It’s been an interesting ride.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

After lunch, we get back on the muddy bike and ride another ten miles before calling it a night. We completed about twenty-five miles total between storms and I was ready for a warm shower, warm meal, and a glass of wine.

After sprucing up, we come downstairs and linger by our car for a minute trying to decide if we want to drive across town to the Mezza Luna Italian restaurant or just eat at the local joint, Miramar Beach restaurant, located right across the street. While we’re standing there in the dark this random lady walks up to our car, parked not ten feet from us, and starts looking in the car windows.

Now if I were to describe her, I’d say she was shady looking, with a creepy presence (I really should have gone into law enforcement).

Larry walks up behind her and says, “what the hell are you doing? Looking for something to steal?”

I’m desperately digging my phone out of my purse in case I have to call 911.

She moves around him, ignoring his question, and starts walking away.

Larry says, “I’m taking your photo and I’m sending it to the police.”

Doesn’t faze her in the least, she just keeps walking and disappears into the night.

I’m like, “that’s crazy.”

Larry says, “she was casing the parking lot for cars to break into.”

We decide to move our car closer into the hotel parking lot under a floodlight and eat across the street so we can keep an eye on things. I can’t imagine she wants a muddy tandem bike?

After a scrumptious dinner, we fell asleep listening to the sound of the surf crashing against the shore, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast near the wharf early the next morning, and while driving home along the coast we identified several other biking trails we might want to try someday.

I say as we pull into our driveway, “now that was a great adventure.”

He says, “I told you so.”

I smile and say, “My knight in shining armor would never say I told you so.”

“I’m not your knight, I’m the guy who brings you coffee in bed, I’m more like your houseboy.”

“In that case, if you could bring in my boots, and my bag.”

I get the look, the one I’ve come to know, to love, and trust.

I’m Living in the Gap, doing it tandem, join me in the comments!

“

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 33 Comments

It’s A New Life For Me

I’m reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, alongside Joan Anderson’s A Year by the Sea, after recently finishing Ann Patchett’s Pulitzer Prize Finalist novel The Dutch House. 

What a twisted reading experience if there ever was one, but then again, it’s the beginning of my new life, half of me is enmeshed with retirement remorse, the other half is dare I say buoyant.

Water, treachery, and self-reflection seem to be concurrent themes running through each of the novels, and as I am a believer in serendipitous encounters, these stories have either been a fortuitous occurrence, or the worst coincidence of all time. 

Regardless, I’m grateful, restless, hopeful, and a little bitchy if you must know. 

After spending some time at sea myself (Fancy Like Us) I’m feeling the tidal pull for some isolation and reflective time which seems as rare as hooking a fish for the old man and the sea.

If it were up to me I would do as Hemingway describes, “his choice had been to stay in the deep dark water far out beyond all snares and traps and treacheries of the world.” My thoughts exactly.

Instead, I settle myself by the fire in the new sitting room, my loyal dog lounging on the adjacent couch, and I bend my head to my work. 

Joan Anderson says in The Year By The Sea the task of the unfinished woman is to acknowledge her life as a work in progress, allowing each passage, evolution, experience to offer wisdom for her soul.

Although I realize it is alarmingly obvious to others that I am an unfinished woman, comprehending this myself was a monumental task, and a new source of fear if I were to be totally honest, as if I forgot to floss. There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself writes Ann Patchett from The Dutch House. 

That’s where I am, it’s like she is inside my head, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one juggling these thoughts, or her book would not have been such a phenomenal success. 

The intersection of these three stories, all agonizing battles involving wildly different nemesis’, from a giant marlin, to an opulent mansion, and a challenging marriage, but all of these scenarios drag you towards the pleasures of sabbatical, a period of time granted to fellow sojourners to bask in activities that refresh, enliven, revitalize our weary souls. Sometimes a shower just won’t do.

I admit I’m feeling a little like Job, covered in psoriasis, assailed by doubt, confused about my current purpose in life, and we don’t have forever, because I read in chapter 14 (not that I’m obsessed or anything) that God has decided the length of our lives and we are not given a minute longer. Seems harsh. 

Joan Anderson decides to spend a year at her beach house, away from her marriage, and other influences to work on her own issues. Everyone knows there is no love without respect, especially if you are married, and she decides not to follow her husband to his new job, but invest in her own future. She says something pivotal about vocations, “learning that what’s important is not so much what I do to make a living as who I become in the process.” This is as consequential as Spanx and just as confining.

Its why our veterans suffer with PTSS, when you spend your day scanning for danger in a war zone you’ll do the same in your civilian life. This applies to those of us who spend our time trying to screw the competition, acting aggressive and manipulative, that too follows you into your relationships as if a devoted dog only he’s been abused. I can’t think of many occupations that don’t demand the worst of us to be successful but imagine if we considered our vocations as formational how our relationships might benefit? Just a thought from a recent retiree who misses bossing people around. But I digress…

We tend to think of sabbatical in academic terms, as a school year free from teaching duties that can be devoted to research, travel, and writing. This is why I retired. Right? So I could have a perpetual sabbatical to pursue my passions, and I’m finding that has more to do with outlying influences, than blogging, or stalking the grandkids. 

Big surprise. 

It’s not going as expected, nothing ever does and I believe that’s what makes life so interesting, maybe a little frustrating, because every waking moment (and some sleeping) is infused with unforeseeable circumstances, occasional calamity, but also fortuitous opportunities.

I’m just not prepared to deal with all of them at the same time.

Traditionally, sabbaticals are not just for scholars, it’s actually related to Sabbath, which was God’s day of rest, or the seventh day in creation. We can trace the origins of both sabbatical and Sabbath (if you’re into etymology) to the Greek word sabbaton, meaning rest.

We wrestle with the concept of rest in our culture as if our self worth is defined by how busy we are and how sleep deprived we happen to be. It’s crazy. Let me defend define rest, it means to cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover our strength. It’s about guiltless siestas, vegging out, Netflix and chill sort of thing. 

Jubilee is associated with the concept of Sabbath but occurs every fifty years as if a solar eclipse, super moon, or mid-life crisis. Jubilee was created to alleviate the danger of people becoming trapped by enormous debt (both fiscal and emotional), debts they have no ability to indemnify. A Jubilee is a year of remission of not only monetary debt, but emotional debt, sins, and also the punishment due to sin. A spiritual emancipation if you will.

Let me clarify, if you are fifty years or older you are forgiven, you are freed from all debt. No one is your keeper, no one has the authority to define you by the past, to declare you unclean, to judge you according to their standards and beliefs, because God knows living under the scrutiny and judgement of others is absolute hell. He sent Jesus to rectify that dismal situation and we killed him. Our priorities are ruthlessly clear. But we are not an erroneous creation. We are declared good by God herself, called to love, and before you say it, “what about judgement?” I would suggest we pull the log out of our own eye before pointing fingers at the incy, wincy splinter in our neighbor’s peepers. It says so in the book tucked in the bedside drawer of your hotel room.

It is indeed rare that we take the time to process our feelings, they roll in and out like the tides, and seem to be at the mercy of the moon’s gravitational pull. The thing is we’re focused on our survival, which can leave us with a ton of emotional debt, and like Visa, the interest is compounded. 

The moon does not fight. It attacks no one. It does not worry. It does not try to crush others. It keeps to its course, but by its very nature, it gently influences writes Deng Ming-Dao.

Spending time alone, in solitude, allows me to actually hear my own thoughts which are usually drowned out by the noise and chatter of my busy lives. I wonder sometimes if we fear our own thoughts more than the maunder that surrounds us?

I realize I’m rambling on and on as I traipse across these radically different yet similar novels, but it’s like quicksand, I’m being sucked in. 

Women are especially susceptible to this sort of latent confusion in life, because we’re taught to be polite, not to express anger so we don’t appear bitchy, to put the needs of our families before our own, discouraged from expressing pride or confidence (God forbid we trigger someone’s insecurity with our own confidence), but most damaging of all is we fail to visualize our own future until we’re standing in the kitchen with no dishes to wash, no lunches to prepare, no lives to chauffeur around but our own. 

What the hell?

“We overlay the present onto the past. We look back through the lens of what we know now, so we’re not seeing it as the people we were, we’re seeing it as the people we are, and that means the past has been radically altered.” Ann Patchett

The thing is no one owes me anything. I must do the work myself if I hope to get to a place where I’ve authentically identified my current purpose, goals, passions, and for once in my life without the consent, approval or influence of others.

Here’s a simple example. Let’s say I try fishing and don’t like it. Well, now I know something new about myself. I don’t need to go around carrying a bucket of worms for the rest of my life. It does not have to alter my worldview. I don’t need to resent the old man and the sea. But this is what we do, we allow negative emotions to stick with us longer than they need to. At times we can get angry and it has nothing to do with what pissed us off in the first place. It has to do with the underlying emotion that was awakened by what annoyed us because we’re still living in the past. And I think we can do better.

I realize we live in a repressive culture. One where we’re not allowed to express a different point of view or divergent opinion without getting labeled as some horrible piece of human rubbish. Christian Cintron says our culture encourages us to stay in both financial and emotional debt. Coincidence? I didn’t think so either. 

We must shift this paradigm from handling our emotions in the short term to investing the time it takes to do the hard work. This can be wildly difficult, like engaging in a courageous conversation, sharing something vulnerable, actively listening to each other, talking about our feelings, being kind to one another, or giving someone the benefit of the doubt. All shockingly rare in modern society because we don’t allow ourselves time to retreat, rest, reflect, and heal.

The thing is emotional debt is not only aligned with our physical health, but our joy, and ability to love unconditionally.

“I steady my nerves, knowing the moment of high tide is just that, a brief time that will always reverse itself and diminish,” writes Joan Anderson.

We might not all have a beach house on the Cape, a fishing boat anchored in the Caribbean, or a mansion in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but we can give ourselves a break once in a while, take a drive to the coast, splash around in the surf, our future selves will thank us. As Ann Patchett says you can hold a beach ball underwater, but the second you stop, it’s going to shoot straight back up.

That’s who we are, we’re not meant to be held down, we’re created to be buoyant. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me and I’m feeling good…

I’m Living in the Gap, taking a tenable sabbatical, what would you do and where would you go? 

Anecdotes:

“And, having surrendered to a simpler life, I am finding excitement in little things that others might think dull.”

― Joan Anderson

“You must always retain some part of yourself which is nobody’s business. The minute you let others in on your secrets, you’ve given away some of your strength.”

― Ann Patchett 

But, then, nothing is easy.”

― Ernest Hemingway,

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 37 Comments

Does Memory Serve Its Own Purpose?

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com

“Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.” Austin O’Malley

Early this morning I awake to a murder of crows hiding out in my magnolia tree probably trying to verify if the heady conspiracy of an extra garbage day is true or not. I listen to their crazy banter as I amble to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. It’s entertaining and annoying all at once, sort of like rock concerts, or a season of The Bachelorette. 

Yes, I’m a little crabby before the second cup, read on…

I couldn’t help associating all their racket with my old sorority house often packed with coeds crowing about this or that. Or maybe it was because Martha Foote Crow was our founder? As pledges we had to memorize all the names of the founding members and be able to say the entire greek alphabet in the time it takes a match to burn. Hazing in the ’80s was fraught with danger, I mean if a pledge (we’ll refrain from naming names), was slow with the alphabet someone could get their fingertips burned.

Regardless…during my undergraduate years, I lived in a large white colonial-style sorority house located on S. 10th Street, across from the Business Tower at San Jose State University, where I worked part-time. I remember being on the 18th floor of the tower during the 1981 Humboldt earthquake. I think it was classified a magnitude 7 on the Richter scale. My coworker and I hovered in the doorway of our office as the building swayed so intensely I felt as if a crow perched on the branches of a tree during a wind storm.

We flew down the stairwell as soon as the rocking stopped.

Sororities were making a comeback in the ’80s and Alpha Phi was at capacity. The first floor of this eloquent house was devoted to our living spaces with a huge formal living room, a small family room with a 20-inch television (heavily populated during Days of Our Lives and General Hospital), a dining hall, the commercial kitchen meticulously attended by Chloe our cook, and at the back of the house, there was a small apartment for our house mother who only came out for dinner, and maybe if there was a major disturbance, but I’ve never seen her on second.

The second floor was a unique formation of hallways that formed a square around an enclosed courtyard below. On both sides of the halls were doors leading to bedrooms, bathrooms, showers, a study hall with a library, ending in a huge dormitory-style room for our current pledge class. 

I remember when Sigma Chi Fraternity decided to do a panty raid on our house late one night. This activity involved ascending on an unsuspecting sorority as if storm troopers, entering through open windows and fire escapes, grabbing every panty they could find, and spending the rest of the evening creating a banner of underwear which they would string up as if Christmas lights across the front of their house. Can you imagine the controversy this would cause today? 

I was sound asleep when I heard the window being pried open and a hairy leg came into view. I’m screaming at my roommate to get up and help me as I attempted to simultaneously hold both the window and door closed (it was a small room but still) or our worn panties would be strung up by morning and we would have to go through the humiliating process of retrieving them or buy new ones. Let me just say she was a stubborn sleeper and refused to get up. Somehow I managed to lock both entries before anyone pushed their way through and I believe that should come with bragging rights. The house was in utter mayhem, I went back to bed, I believe we can safely conclude our housemother was an ornamental presence at best.

There was always lots of shenanigans going on at the house but the rule was “no men on second” (unless of course, you were experiencing a panty raid), meaning you could relax upstairs in your reclaimed underwear because you would not encounter a man. Once a week a service guy restocked the upstairs coke machine in which case a lowly pledge was forced to yell, “man on second,” at least three times.

I remember one afternoon I was taking a long shower after a Jazzercise class and my cheeky roommate decided to steal my towel hanging on the hook outside the shower stall. Upon leaving the shower I had no recourse but to return to my room down the long hallway, dripping wet and naked. Regrettably, I did not realize the warning had been sounded. Yeah, it was one of those unfortunate moments, with the coke man screaming in alarm, and the dripping wet naked coed apologizing as she attempted to cover her private parts with lanky arms and floundering hands. Total fail. I was so annoyed with my roommate I decided it was only fair to crawl into her nice clean bed soaking wet and enjoy her dismay as I wiggled around drying my hair on her pillow. I think we can agree the charming thing about the past is it’s the past.

I have no idea what this recollection has to do with crows but I think it’s interesting how our memories are either ignited or thwarted by our present circumstances? As Robert Warren claims reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past and future. I might need a therapist, or new towels, maybe cut back on the Ginko Biloba?

“Drive down any road, take a train or an airplane across the world, leave your old life behind, die and be born again ~ wherever you arrive they’ll be there first, glossy and rowdy and indistinguishable. Crows, the deep muscle of the world.” Mary Oliver

As I stood gazing out my bedroom window I notice one of the crows decided to linger in our yard? He didn’t fly away with the rest of the murder, I watched him waddling around the lawn poking his pointy beak into the grass. He seemed quite content, much more so than one of my current roommates. I read somewhere that crows will remember a kind face so I smiled sweetly at my crow and told him he looked rather dapper in his black silky feathers. He cocked his head at me, holding my gaze with his eyes funereal and questioning, then flew away. I have that effect on people.

We all know what it is like to have an uncommunicative patient who is suddenly lethargic, throwing up, and panting incessantly. If not, let me share with you my current reality.

My dog is sick. He woke us up at around 3:00 am panting as if he’d just run a marathon. He has Addison’s disease so his system can easily get out of whack but the problem is we don’t know if he’s has a stomach issue, a headache, or heart failure. We settled him down rather quickly but around 5:00 am he barfed up something foul about two feet from our bed. 

I don’t know about you, but that’s how I like to wake up, carpet cleaner in one hand, and cleaning rags in the other.

Shaggy decided to settle in the sitting area as far away from the vile vomit as possible and I sat with him for most of the morning massaging his back and crowing soft words into his floppy ears which seems to comfort him. He looks up at me every now and then and gives me this throaty moan. It’s rather pathetic as I moan back my misery at his sordid condition. This is how we communicate, it’s all very cogent. 

When he tries to stand up his legs give out I scream to Larry, “I think he needs to go to the bathroom?” Larry pulls himself away from the football game long enough to carry Shaggy outside but he just collapses in the shade of the magnolia tree. I sit with him for a while getting a little emotional as his listlessness increases. He did drink a little water and seems to enjoy the breeze and the shade. 

Of course, it’s Sunday and the vet is closed so we decide Shaggy has to wait it out until Monday.

Larry says, “Shaggy has used up all his medical benefits and now we’re digging into Cheryl’s.” Nice. We spent thousands on him when he was first diagnosed with Addison’s as a pup, and hundreds every year on the prednisone he needs to survive. Taking a dog to the emergency room on Sunday is a guaranteed $3,000 bill in the Bay Area.

Larry wants to wash the cars so he carries Shaggy out front, a place he normally loves to be, as he enjoys watching the people pass by and the commotion of the neighborhood. I sit with him out front offering water and encouragement before deciding I need to move my decrepit old body before I can’t walk, end up panting uncontrollably, bemoaning my aliments in the shade of the patio.

By the time I finish my ride, Julie’s family has returned from a weekend at the lake, and of course Shaggy got up to greet them. I think he’s putting on a show for my granddaughters because he actually wags his tail for the first time all day and ceremonially pees on the lawn. Alleluia. 

As we’re closing up the front yard, lining up the clean cars in the drive, I notice that same community of crows gathering in the neighbor’s ginkgo tree. Oh my, they are squawking about something fierce, and I can’t help but wonder what a crow has to crow about? As if an alarm sounded they all flew away at once, except one, who landed in my yard, waddling around the lawn, eyeing me with his beady eye. I think it’s the same one from this morning but they dress the same so it’s hard to tell. 

I said, “Hey little fellow. Are you worried about Shaggy? He’s doing much better.” The little bird ruffles his feathers which I took as acknowledgment, tilts his head, then gave a little squawk, before flying off. Birds can be so flighty.

Larry and I decide we’re going to watch a movie tonight so that means we’ll waste at least a half-hour watching trailers. I like romantic comedies and although he doesn’t dislike romance he prefers some sort of violence. So we settle on a showing of Reminiscence, which involves both romance and violence, with Shaggy curled up at my feet. 

Reminiscence is a story about Nick Bannister, a private investigator of the mind, who navigates the darkly alluring world of the past by helping his clients access lost memories. Imagine that? Living on the fringes of the sunken Miami coast due to climate change, his life is altered by a mysterious woman with a sordid past. Isn’t that always the case?

Let me just add there is a lot of token violence, I had to leave the room three times, but I’m a self-professed whimp, others might be unfazed. Shaggy would leave too but he’s having trouble walking. Poor thing. Reminiscence is based on a futuristic world, where people are forced to do their living during the night due to global warming, and sleep during the heat of the day. The sparseness of dry land has created a natural barrier between the rich and the poor as the oceans have risen to unprecedented levels. The images of our coastal cities becoming Venice-type municipalities is striking and worth the trouble of hiding your eyes during the barbaric parts.

We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough we start to believe it, and then we can actually remember it that way says S.J. Watson. The premise of Reminiscence is intriguing, they’ve figured out how to allow people to revisit the past cognitively, but the memory becomes visible for others to see. Who does this serve? Think of the implications?

Ann Patchett says coming back is the thing that enables you to see how all the dots in your life are connected, how one decision leads you to another, how one twist of fate, good or bad, brings you to a door that later takes you to another door, which aided by several detours–long hallways and unforeseen stairwells–eventually puts you in the place you are now.

In case you’re wondering, Shaggy made it through the night, he’s standing beside me wagging his swifter-like tail. The sun is on the rise again, the murder of crows suspiciously amiss, but I’m thankful all those doors, stairwells, and long hallways that landed me here today. Maybe we just need to look around and figure out how to be happy right where we are, unencumbered by the past, fully exposed, dripping with possibility.

I’m Living in the Gap, not escaping the past, just cawing about it. 

Anecdotes:

  • “The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.” Tennessee Williams
  • “Memories aren’t stored in the heart or the head or even the soul, if you ask me, but in the spaces between any given two people.” Jodi Picoult
  • “I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. But I still search for reasons anyway. It’s like I don’t want to admit that maybe everything really is totally random…that people are as if birds in the sky, flocking together and flying away.” Avery Sawyer
Posted on by cheryloreglia · 36 Comments

Fill In With What You Do Know

I am settling into retirement as if a bull in the chute before a rodeo. All I can say is someone was a little overzealous with the flank strap. 

All I do is run in circles creating dust, bucking the system, and getting nowhere. 

Oh, and my cowboy, has been avidly vocalizing his displeasure with my inability to establish a daily routine. 

He’s become a hazer, you know the type, the guy that tries to keep the bovine running straight so she doesn’t accidentally stomp someone.  

Here’s the secret, when Larry is compelled to share his insights, I willfully purge my sarcastic attitude, and just agree. 

As I’m wiping the sweat from my brow after a thirty-minute spin class in my living room, he says, “you can’t sit around all day doing nothing (excuse me, I was writing) and then try and squeeze in everything that needs to be done in an hour.”

Cheryl says as she tries to catch her breath, “well, I just did.” 

I get the look.

He’s compelled to add, “and then blame me for not helping.”

Cheryl smiles and with the most endearing tone says, “did that too.”

He says, “I have a job, I’m not retired.” 

I tried, I really did, but I can only take so much, I spew, “you’ve mentioned that a few hundred times, and by the way, scanning for couches on Wayfair is not what I consider working.”

Well, that got him into the rodeo.

I had to remind him that I’m Swedish, not Italian, and therefore I find it impossible to insert a boring routine into my newly unfenced acres of time. As if rules, routines, and rubbing my hands with antibacterial soap while I sing Happy Birthday will make everything alright.  

Here’s the problem, COVID, and this ridiculous trend of working from home. 

It sucks.

Back in the day, pre-COVID, I used to go to work, Larry used to go to work. All was well and good. On the days we worked, we’d arrive home around the same time, we’d enjoy a glass of wine on the patio, barbeque some flesh, and watch Bosch obsess over his mother’s death, or some abnormally handsome couple restore an entire house before bed. 

I had every other day off due to the block schedule at Notre Dame, these were my writing days. I’d kiss Larry goodbye, refill my coffee, hop back into bed, open my computer, and wrestle with my thoughts for the rest of the day. Total bliss. At some point, I’d drag my butt out of bed, get dressed, and minutes before I’d hear Larry inserting his key in the front door, I’d toss the comforter over the pillows. Wallla, time for wine.

The thing about writing is you have to find that “other” space that one occupies alone, sinking into your thoughts as if arranging your head on a soft pillow, snuggling deeper into this dual sense of reality with a reverence and need only writers seem to understand. Yes, I’m being dramatic, make some popcorn, enjoy the self induced drama. We’re in the middle of a pandemic what else do you have to do?

Currently, my cowboy is now working from home, he’s the restless type A, pacing the halls, televisions on in every room, measuring tapes laying around, grumbling under his breath, conference calls blaring from the office while he scans the frig for something to eat, and then every hour or so he yells down the hall, “Cheryl, come look at this.”

I say, “Honey, I’m writing.” See how nice I can be? When what I really want to say, “Honey, put a sock in it.”

He says, “You’ve been sitting there for hours doing nothing.”

I warn, “watch out cowboy or you’ll get hung up on my horns,” and I painstakingly drag myself back to the complicated narrative playing in my head.

The truth is I’m always trying to get back to this “other” place as if an insomniac trying to find sleep. It’s elusive, especially if your roommate tends to be the disruptive type, or worse, needy. 

When I’m there I am most certainly not here. As Franz Kafka says, “Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” Read that slowly, u.t.t.e.r. s.o.l.i.t.u.d.e!

It’s as if I get this divine glimpse into the unknown, an eternity passes, and I have no concept of time. 

It’s my passion and Larry’s nemesis. 

The problem lies with all the shenanigans required for me to get there (I’m talking about the “other” space), my normal reality is as if a troll refusing me passage to the bridge I need to cross. I sit around playing solitaire (by the way I was just crowned Master Jedi), browsing the internet, drinking gallons of coffee trying to wait him out. 

He’s a stubborn bastard.

It’s a shock, but Larry has a hard time with this metaphor, maybe he can’t visualize the whole troll under the bridge thing, but I think it has more to do with his reality-based mindset versus my imaginary one. 

So the other day out of the blue he says, “why are you writing about death?”

I say, “the shoe blog?” 

“Yeah, it’s morbid.”

“Well, we’re all going to die.”

“Hopefully not today.”

“My Mom always said why put off tomorrow what can be done today, I’m talking about decluttering, not dying.”

“Yeah, well you can start with my office.”

“What do you want me to write about?”

“Memory and how it fades as we age.”

We just relocated all the family scrapbooks to the garage and Larry spent some time lost in the pages. Every now and then he would look up and say, “I don’t remember this trip, or this event, that birthday party, or honestly I don’t remember much about our wedding. It’s a blur.”

“That’s why we have writers who sit around all day rewriting your memories, embellishing and correcting the details as needed, you’re welcome.”

What I do when I write is gather things as if a bug collection of totally unrelated species. I pin down an emotion, the color of the sky, the taste of ice cream, the texture of the rug on my bare feet, the tiny ants dragging crumbs across the hot brick, the annoying sound the refrigerator makes when you leave the door open, or the way you feel after a cool shower. This collection includes hunger, frustration, impulses, fears, joy, even some faded images from my dreams. 

I don’t know how they will fit together, but they do, it’s like solving a mystery. How dancing under the stars to the hip sounds of Knee Deep, the scent of perfume in the air, the feel of soft jeans on my thighs, sweat forming on my skin evokes powerful memories of high school dances. It’s an enigma. And by the way Larry’s dance moves are exactly the same as forty years ago.

The strange thing is all things go together as if weaving a series of prevarications to arrive at a greater truth, says Khaled Hosseini. It true, I changed the word lies to prevarications, it seemed more accurate.

I tell Larry, “I don’t let my fading memory get in the way of remembering this life. Fill in the blanks with what you do know. We laughed, we cried, we struggled, we made mistakes, we made up, we walked away, we forgave, we left it on the curb, we tried again, we had each other’s backs, we ate, we drank, we listened, we danced, we rested, we found out happily ever after is more complicated than it sounds, but most importantly we stayed. 

He looks at me and says, “let’s just see if we can agree on a couch, declutter the office, and remember to charge our cellphones.”

“That’s how they’ll get us in the end.”

“What, we’ll forget our passwords?”

“No, we’ll forget what it was like when we weren’t flank strapped by cellphones, when finding a couch meant grazing real furniture stores, and recharging our batteries was staying in bed all afternoon.”

“Oh, I remember that.”

Knee Deep Band entertaining the crowds at Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill. Click the link for future engagements.

I’m Living in the Gap, stirring up the cowboy, any advice on retirement would be greatly appreciated.

Anecdotes:

  • “A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges
  • “The beautiful part of writing is that you don’t have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon.” Robert Cormier
  • “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Sylvia Plath
  • “Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity,” Albert Einstein

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 37 Comments

It Always Comes Back to the Shoes

Photo by Sam on Pexels.com

Last week I was all about Ice Cream Theology, living in the moment, enjoying the sweetness of life.

Well, that melted.

This week I’m fretting (occasionally) over the footprint I’ll be leaving on my children’s mental health after they’re forced to sift through my clutter when I’ve lost the race and I’m six feet under.

I blame my Mom.

I realize this is extremely cliche and irrational. Here’s the deal, my Mom’s house was so organized, even her bras were folded, socks matched, glassware arranged by size and usage, her shoes were lined up in the closet as if a marching band, the sheets in her linen closet were color coded for goodness sake. There was not a single piece of paper laying around that wasn’t filed, tagged, paper clipped, or neatly stacked in a basket.

Okay, there were some taxes she forgot to pay, but she was going through some intense treatmentst at the time, and we were able to rectify that issue quite easily.

It turns out the government is a bureaucracy and will always take your money.

Much like my closet, a ruthless establishment, which takes everything I confer to it’s cavernous structure, and double taxes me with guilt and shame.

I kid you not.

How is it possible that I thought a see through butter-yellow blouse would suit me? Or that polka dot dress which barely covers my ass? The tube tops, the short shorts, the pencil skirts that will never be worn again. I cringe at the row of oversized blouses, it was a stage, thankfully one I was booed off.

The shoes are problematic. They are hard to get around. You can’t see but I assume you can use your imagination. I walked the trails of Yosemite in this pair of worn hiking boots, danced at my daughter’s wedding in these delicate gold heels, and you’ll have to trust me, but I look pretty damn stylish in my prized leopard pumps. There are scratched-up cowboy boots from my Urban Cowboy phase, sandals that carry sand from beaches afar, and tennis shoes in various stages of disrepair. The thing about shoes is the memories are so poignant I can slip into them and actually travel back in time.

My children will inherit these shoes without the stories as if Cinderella with one glass slipper and no prince charming to carry her off to her happily ever after, away from the ashes of life, and a cheeseparing stepmother. As Victoria Van Tiem says, just like Cinderella, it always comes back to the shoes.

I stifle a laugh.

Why is it so hard for me to let things go? I should call Kelley, she’s a Kondo kick-ass, I could pay for her to come out? It wouldn’t take more than six months and besides Tim knows how to cook. He’ll be fine.

Touching the silky material of the dresses I wore to the girls’ weddings, enshrined in plastic covers, along with my own wedding dress stuffed on the shelf in a large white box. I have wedding albums that go back three generations stacked in the back of the closet. What in the world will the kids do with them?

It’s daunting. Do I squeeze the memories out of them as if lemons and then toss them in the Goodwill pile, the compost barrel of life?

The problem is there are bits and pieces of myself hiding all over this house.

Glancing around the room I notice the small paintings stashed in the bookshelf from sidewalk artists depicting the places we’ve traveled, or that ceramic vase we picked up in Duruta during a rainstorm, the porcelain lady from Madrid where we celebrated Martica’s twenty-first birthday with Marta and Ken, and the little red gelato dishes I purchased from a local antique shop while shopping with Vicky and Nancy. These are the memories I silently hope will not vanish as I age.

Walking back to my computer with a fresh cup of coffee I pick up my grandfather’s pipe that sits on a shelf in the hall. If I close my eyes and smell the residue of tobacco, I’m actually transported to the parlor of their home on Sixth Street, in San Jose, across from the elementary school. It was the only place grandpa was allowed to smoke. I’d sit with him, me on the floor, he on the settee, and I’d watch the way the smoke swirled in the air with each exhalation. He wasn’t a talker, we’d just sit together, in silence.

I hope everyone has a memory as sweet as this.

There are stacks of letters my students wrote to themselves that I send back to them in five-year increments that live on the shelves next to my bed.

The kids will think I’m crazy and what a stretch that will be?

The truth is I’ve found my home to be a holier place than Church, it’s the intimacy of our routines, as if a form of prayer. The ritual of breaking bread with family and friends. The blessing of creating a life from the embers of our love. Within these very walls, we learned how to be grateful, kind, and compassionate, but most importantly we learned how to forgive. We don’t give up on each other, we’ve mastered resilience, and from the moors of home, we go out into the world securely attached to who and what we are.

Family.

Interestingly enough, well of interest to me, as I’m writing this essay a notice comes in on my phone. It’s from the family Slack Channel where we engage in private communication (you have to be born an Oreglia or married to one of my children to get access to the password) about what we’re doing, what we’re reading, Coronavirus information, upcoming family dinners, investments, subscriptions, politics (a popular channel), random, Tony’s next visit, images of the grandchildren, and a few travel albums.

It’s a great way to stay connected when we’re spread out all over the world or across the street as in Julie’s case.

So Julie posted an article in the “General” file and she introduces the article by asking “Is Mom hampering our independence?” Well, that got my attention. The attached article explores how tracking devices parents use to keep tabs on their children’s safety can hamper young adult’s ability to mature.

Really?

I’ve never heard of this Life360 but I can find all my children (except Tony who refuses to use an iPhone) at any given time night or day by using the friend finder on their iPhones. One time I noticed Dante was located at a jail in Orange County. I panicked and starting calling, texting, face timing him until he responded. It’s the least I can do. He was installing solar panels at the jail. He was working. It’s his job. Sorry, not sorry.

Am I hampering their independence? Absolutely not, they stalk me just as much. “Hey Mom, I notice you’re driving by the Safeway, can you pick up some…” Or Kelley texts me and complains, “you’ve been with Julie all day.”

And here I sit trying to think of ways in which I can make my passing easier on them? Well hell, no one will be tracking them any longer, it’ll be more like a haunting, similar but not the same.

I’m just going to delight in the pieces of me I find hiding all over the house, because it’s too daunting to consider dismantling all the props I spent years putting into place, knowing wherever my eye lands the image “sparks joy.”

As Selena Gomez warns, never look back. If Cinderella had looked back and picked up the shoe she would have never found her prince.

It seems ingenuous but I don’t want to spend the remainder of my time ridding my home of evidence of me. I’m not a white board you can wipe clean at the end of the day, the marks of living are indelible, permanent, never to be erased.

So lets’s stick with the epithet that they’ll be “charmed” to find my fashion faux pas, teaching tasks, family memorabilia, and all my disordered clutter will make them appreciate their well-ordered lives and that will be my last gift to them. Gratitude.

I love it.

It is destructive to live in the future, to bypass the present moment, to lose track of your kids, or fail to notice the smoke currently swirling in the air. The utter silence of being at peace with where you are sitting, cross-legged on the settee, leopard pumps dangling from your polished toes.

I’m Living in the Gap, thinking of way to hamper my children’s independence, care to join me?

Additionally (means it didn’t make the cut):

I was listening to a podcast on the way up to the lake a few weeks ago on how the military trains the brains of their commanders to work under duress. I sort of wish Larry were here to fill in the details on the program but he’s biking this morning which affords me the time to write. So the details will remain sketchy.

I even made a small notation in my “things to write about” notebook but so like me, I only captured the big picture, and left out the details.

The woman being interviewed was some high-ranking person in the military, not sure about her title, but she was in charge of a mission. Her mission was slightly more dangerous than my mission to declutter the house but there are similarities.

Try and keep your smirking to a minimum. Thank you.

The military prepares its people to perform sort of like we prepare our students for a fire, earthquake, or shooter on campus. It’s a very methodical way to form muscle or brain memory. The idea is that you can teach the brain to calm down and think even when you are physically in pain, sleep-deprived, and under attack. They kept this poor girl awake for like a week with lights and loud noises, she had to perform grueling calisthenics all hours of the day and night, and she was constantly being yelled at in a derogatory manner.

So when this exhausted, totally stressed-out, abused person was put in charge of a mission, she decided to make lists.

It calmed her down, she could check things off, and even when it seemed she wasn’t getting things done fast enough the more checks the calmer she felt.

Okay I’m not exactly sleep-deprived but I am post-menopausal, I have physical ailments from riding my stationary bike, and it’s always hectic around here. The thing is I can make lists, and I’m a huge fan of checking things off my lists, and therefore it’s indisputable, I would make a great general.

And who doesn’t love the idea of being saluted by their husband as he passes you in the hall?

Posted on by cheryloreglia · 31 Comments

Our Hearts are Mingled with the Missourians

Jim, Sue, Cheryl, Larry, Rachel, Ellie, Gail, Michael (Missourians in bold)

They’re back!

I’m referring to the relatives from Missouri, the ones I feared might be ax murders a few years back (see; 5 Reasons to Choose Happy), who have finally returned to the lake, and they came bearing gifts. You’ll be relieved to know they brought us a custom-made set of Cornhole boards, instead of a game of ax toss, it’s those unexpected moments that give you the chills.

Larry and Ellie throwing some serious corn!

And this time they brought their lovely daughters, Rachel and Ellie, exceptional versions of Mom and Dad, who charmed the hell out of us with constant smiles, and devilish sparkling eyes!

Upon meeting I say, “sorry, we’re all a little hot and sweaty.”

Ellie responds, “I like warm hugs.”

Can I keep her?

So grab a glass of wine and go boldly with us into the adventure and unexpected bounty of beautiful Lake County!

Wine Anyone?

Our first evening is meticulously choreographed, stocked with Clearlake favorites, designed to ensure our guests will never leave. Now, who’s the creepy cousin? Seriously, I’m irredeemable when it comes to manipulation, but I’d like you to know Larry, Nancy, Mackenzie, Jim and Sue were totally complicit in the bait and lure plan. As they say, it takes a village to get the right shade of lipstick on a pig…

I should mention Jim and Sue are quite proficient at luring their guests, they’ve had one couple stay an entire year, we can only hope!

It’s early afternoon when our prey arrive, most of us are casually adorned in colorful swimsuits, beading with sweat, basking in any available shade, with various body parts dangling in the water. I believe the temperature reached 107 degrees today and the high humidity was not a bonus. Welcome to the lake.

Larry is referred to as our exclusive MSS, “Master Slushy Sommelier,” it takes years of practice, lots of tastings, and several industrial blenders to accomplish such a feat, but as you know, he’s persistent, and has duly earned his title. Slushys are a secret combination of ice, limeade and vodka served up in a styrofoam cup. They only taste good when you’re at the lake, a phenomenon that has never been soberly (pun intended) researched, or substantiated. You’ll just have to trust me.

After loosening everyone up with a refreshing slushy, Larry takes an able-bodied crew water skiing. I stayed home to wave from the deck, and bonus everyone is successful, although Larry took a descent spill while confronting a rather aggressive wake. No broken ribs, just sayin.

Rachel Cutting it Up

Upon their return, our beloved neighbors, Jim and Sue, serve up some delicious coffee martinis, which accompany my bountiful charcuterie board quite nicely. We gather around the hammered copper fire pit on the deck overlooking our beloved lake, catching up on life, shooting the shit, swapping stories about our pre and post COVID experiences.

Coffee Martinis with Mike

It appears we’ve all become quite proficient at using tools like Zoom, living with extended family, and entertaining a ruthless game of Catan. Who knows how will these skills carry us into the future? Let me just say there’s no touch-up my appearance button in real life, but I know the value of noise-canceling headphones, and how to garner my resources when necessary.

Juggling controversial topics with care, we discovered we’re well aligned on the vac wars, masking, and managing our toilet paper supply.

Oh, how we’ve missed those Missourians.

After peeling off those soggy swimsuits and slipping into some cool cotton we convene around the dining room table for a sumptuous meal of filet mignon (cooked to perfection by Jim), mushroom pie, grilled vegetables, and arugula, watermelon, and feta salad that made me wish I was a dog with two tails. My mouth is watering just writing the words. I admit I moaned through every single bite, much to the annoyance of my fellow dinners, whereas my sister Nancy remained speechless the entire meal. She may have been adopted?

Our Table Runneth Over (pictured Cheryl, Larry, Sue, Jim, Nancy, arm of Ellie, arm of Rachel, arm of Mike, photo credit Gail)

If I have learned one thing through the years, it’s this, the act of eating together creates feelings of mutual trust and rapport, and becomes a powerful means of creating kinship. Our hearts have mingled like red wine and dark chocolate, it’s not only decadent, but ages well.

Speaking of decadence, Larry opened some delicious Six Sigma Tempranillo, complimenting the provisions beautifully, and aiding in the expansiveness of the evening.

“There’s a kinship among people who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.” William Golding

It’s no wonder we failed to notice the evening bleeding into the night, nor the slow cessation of several bottles of wine, while the local bat population soars into the darkened skies right over our heads. We talk for hours about nothing in particular, maybe discovering the meaning of life, but having no memory of the panacea in the morning. There is a word for this, it’s called Samar, and it might be my favorite word of all time.

The morning finds us sitting on an already warm deck, with plates of heavily buttered Belgium waffles, smothered in syrup. A beloved Clearlake tradition. We have this industrial waffle maker, it’s magical, and puts out one waffle every two minutes, worthy of the wait, and besides it stretches out the morning with a delicious sort of leisure.

Of course, there are endless cups of coffee, a morning walk in the hood, with Mike marveling at the variety of fruit trees this peninsula supports, and me retelling the intriguing tale of Captain Richard Floyd who established and christened this community as Kono Tayee back in the 1860s. Our street is named Cora, after the Captain’s wife, a name one of our granddaughters now claims.

Six Sigma Ranch and Winery

Loading the cars with heavily laden picnic baskets we head to one of our favorite Lake County Wineries, located southeast of Lower Lake in beautiful Lake County. Six Sigma, established by a gregarious man named Kaj and his lovely wife Else, whose motto is to make the customer feel welcome, celebrated, and valued. It’s not just the usual wine tasting experience, it’s an unforgettable event, one where the owner takes the time to stop by our table and chat it up with us.

At Six Sigma they “combine the old-world art of making wine with the science of data-driven Six Sigma principles. Our team works hard toward one common goal: Making wine of extraordinary quality at an affordable price,” as noted on their website.

“Our story is in every single bottle of Six Sigma wine,” says Kaj Ahlmann. I’d say they’re a novel success and one we are driven to return to time and time again.

Needless to say, Mike and Gail joined the Six Sigma family, their selected wines will be delivered to their home in Missouri in the fall, and Larry and I can boast that we influenced our relatives to consider serial wine club membership. We’ve popped their grape so to speak.

After packing up our grub, we make our way to Vigilance Winery, just twenty miles down the road in Lower Lake, the tasting room is a rustic old farmhouse that was once home to one of Lake County’s pioneering families, and as a bonus, there are spectacular panoramic views overlooking Anderson Marsh State Park. It doesn’t get better than this.

Vigilance Winery

Okay, admittedly our cousins are have not been trained to withstanding the effects of visiting multiple wineries in a single day, their endurance is shall we say subpar. After a short flight of delicious wines, the drive home was eerily quiet, a few of us snoozed a wee bit, but upon entering the nicely cooled house it was a total sleep-fest. Bodies everywhere.

What the hell?

Not the napper type myself, I enjoyed the quiet cool of the kitchen as I putzed around preparing wild king salmon with a dusting of feta cheese and pesto, grilled asparagus, and a caprese salad with Sue’s homegrown tomatoes and basil. Yes, I was hydrating all the while with several glasses of refreshing ice water before wandering over to the Goudreau’s for some fresh company, cantaloupe, and a splash of Sauvignon Blanc.

One by one the Severance’s emerge from their afternoon siesta and join us on the lush patio of Jim and Sue’s.

Our last supper is bittersweet, I offer a small toast thanking our guests for making the long journey to the lake, for their generosity, and for bringing their lovely daughters, whose endless good cheer added so much to our gathering.

Ellie and Rachel adorning Six Sigma’s charming porch

Knowing this is our last night together, our next visit still unknown, I’m a wee bit melancholy.

Many of our discussions revolve around travel plans for a nebulous future, mountains we hope to conquer, canyons waiting to be forged, formula one races we hope to attend, a shopping spree in Paris, and of course our plans, now delayed by two years, to walk the El Camino de Santiago from France to Spain. Our buckets are overflowing.

Mike says, “I need more than one lifetime to pursue all the vocations I enjoy and places I hope to explore.”

I say, “I know, but maybe we have multiple lives, this might not be our first rodeo, it could be our thousandth?”

Mike wasn’t buying it, he says, “I’ll make the most out of the one I have because honestly, I’m doing exactly what I love.”

Me, “oh, that’s going in the blog.”

Nicholas Sparks claims, “the reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we’ve lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them we’ve found each other. And maybe each time, we’ve been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come.”

Who knows?

I will boast, on our final evening, while sipping wine on the deck, we actually outlasted the ritual surge of bats at dusk as they make their way into the inky night. We decided to make it an early evening, nonetheless, in order to accommodate the Severance’s departure in the morning. Although there’s nothing good about goodnight when you know it means goodbye in the morning.

Lounging on the deck, shooting the shit, Rachel, Ellie, Mike, Cheryl, Sue, Larry

Gail says on the morning of their departure, “I love the Swedish word, resfeber, which means the restless best of a traveler’s heart before the journey begins.”

The restless best of a traveler’s heart, I love that.

I say, “awe, that’s from Lost in Translation, great book.” I was actually stuck on the word, Iktsuarpok, which means the act of repeatedly going outside to check if someone is coming.

Gail responds, “but they don’t have a word that describes the feeling when the adventure is over and it’s time to go home.”

I say, “it’s called bittersweet.”

I have this little word book I stow in the guest room featuring significant words from around the world which carry with them expressions that resonate on a human level, regardless of nationality, because as Walter Benjamin notes languages are not strangers to one another, and given the chance neither are human beings.

Our final adieu was tinged with gratitude, knowing what we know about the capriciousness of life, if we’ve learned anything from COVID we now understand every moment is precious, having in it the essence of finality.

Standing on the sidewalk watching their car drive away, we wave at the enormity of the world that separates us, but we lean into our next crazy adventure, whatever that may be, because the restless best of our traveling hearts are mingled with the Missourians.

Until we meet again…

I’m Living in the Gap, smiling at the memories, until we see you again.

Anecdotes:

  • “The summer ends and we wonder who we are and there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car and today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree I passed the farms that made it through the last days of the century and I knew that I was going to learn again again, in this less hazy light I saw the fields beyond the fields the fields beyond the fields” Dar Williams
  • “What does brace mean, anyway? Brace. Such an odd word. It comes from the Latin brachium, meaning arm. It means, as its heart, to embrace. It was a hug. A hug good-bye.” Laurence Gonzales
  • “Celebrate the people in your life who are there because they love you for no other reason than because you are YOU.” Mandy Hale
  • “Woven into our lives is the very fire from the stars and genes from the sea creatures, and everyone, utterly everyone, is kin in the radiant tapestry of being.” Elizabeth A. Johnson
Posted on by cheryloreglia · 47 Comments

How To Become A Grace Graduate

“I am not a grace graduate,” I speak this out loud to an empty room, because I am continually in need of rescue, not from the world, but from myself.

That was easier to type than to finally realize.

A grace graduate knows when to let things go, she’s wise, compassionate, tolerant, and frugal with her impatience. #Aspirations

Life is stressful by nature, and as usual, I’m not handling it well. I literally checked out from all social media, social obligations, and more importantly, I took a break from writing so I could focus on what’s in front of me. 

A barren kitchen, a family wedding, and chronic rib issues.

The thing about pain is it’s constipating, I’m bloated with the need to expel my thoughts, but the words won’t come, and the discomfort is real.

I know, I’m sick of me too, but getting away from myself is difficult without copious amounts of wine and repetitive games of solitaire. I’m not proud, just honest. 

The lack of sleep along with a plethora of obligations that I’m successfully avoiding have taken a toll. I’ve doled out my sanity as if I could print lucidity without inflatable repercussions and my common-cents is in a period of temporary decline. See what I did there?  

Believe me when I say no one wants to spend time with me except my sister, and maybe the dog, but only when it’s time to eat. That applies to Shaggy not Nancy.

The kitchen remodel is essentially done and one by one I’m bringing in the boxes that have been stacked in the garage for months. Painstakingly (literally) restocking the kitchen in slow motion, rearranging my old things as if I’m rearranging myself, obsessively repositioning pots, dishes, utensils, and out-of-date accents to accommodate the new space. Amazon is filling in the gaps as if some sort of inexhaustible grout that compliments my every scheme.  

I’m having a micro identity crisis as the new improved kitchen emerges from the foundation of her former self, it’s as if a snake, slipping out of her old skin. The process of shedding skin is called ecdysis, meaning to cast off, or in my case to let go. There are many factors that affect how and when we shed, including age and weather, the applications are endless, but I’ll leave that one to your imagination.

If Amazon had gold status I would be a founding member, arriving daily (much to Larry’s duress) are packages filled with drawer organizers, rustic picture frames, farmhouse clock, colorful mixing bowls, dish towels, spice racks, garbage cans, and an adorable cake plate because I’m irrational when it comes to black and white accents. 

For Mother’s Day, the kids surprised me with a Wolf toaster for my new kitchen, it comes with these adorable red knobs, wide setting for bagels, and a warmer button if your toast needs to wait for the eggs to finish cooking. I know, it’s decadent, but please don’t judge me because I’m in love with a knob. Wait, that didn’t come out right. 

This toaster has become the new benchmark for evaluating all things relevant or irrelevant to life. As Tony claims, “for the price of sixteen toasters I purchased an entire car.” 

Larry can’t resist, “for six toasters I purchased a 70-inch flat-screen T.V.” 

Me, “I could own two Dyson vacuums for the price of one flat-screen television.” They all look at me as if I don’t understand the game, I say, “trust me, I know more than you think.”

Some things look better in the new space but most of the basics I’ve been saddled with for the past thirty years have to go. The problem is I’m loyal to my old things and I find myself not only grieving but trying to repurpose every discarded item as if St. Peter at the gates of heaven. Those deemed unworthy are directed towards the Goodwill. It’s merciless. As Shannon L. Alder claims immorality is the word we use to describe people that are not sinning the same way we are. Bahaha.

No wonder I’m wearing so much black. 

It took an hour to bring my Mom’s old KitchenAid mixer back to life. As I scrubbed away old stains and debris I couldn’t help but wonder about the last thing she made with this appliance? I’ll never know but in my head it was a batch of cookies for me. Can we all agree to agree? Excellent.  

I suppose I’ve been thinking of my Mom lately because she was the one who made things better especially when I was hurt and it’s her birthday today. She would have been 85. It’s disorienting to be in the world without my Mom because she was my mirror when I lost sight of myself, my anchor in a storm, the acme of home.

In a few days, the entire Oreglia clan will be gathering in Utah for a celebration of marriage between our godson Adam and his beautiful fiance Kiana. 

My son Tony flew in from Portugal several days ago as he’s a groomsman. Due to a series of unfortunate events it took him over 50 hours to arrive at the compound reserved for the wedding party in Hatch, Utah. He had a difficult time acclimating to the altitude which is somewhere around 8000 feet and suffered a bout of intense jet lag. 

Our daughter Kelley has been in California since late May, she spent the 4th of July with us up at the lake, and has been working remotely from our house while she catches up with family and friends from all over the state. 

Tomorrow morning Larry, Kelley, Nono, Nana, Julie, Nic, Audrey, Cora, and Sienna, and I are catching the same flight to Salt Lake City. If the plane goes down four generations will be wrangling with St. Peter! Yeah, let’s not go there. 

I’ve rented a place called the Jones Cabin which should accommodate my entire family. It’s always exciting when I have all my chicks in the same henhouse and I’ve been clucking with joy for weeks. I have this fantasy of the entire family gathered in our pajamas sipping coffee and razzing each other like the good old days. One can always dream… 

After 5 hours of driving through extraordinary scenery, we arrive at the resort in the pouring rain and race to unload our gear. The cabin is perfect, Nic ordered several pizzas, and the entire Oreglia clan gathered in our living room to shoot the shit, sip wine, and anticipate the wedding tomorrow afternoon. 

It was an intimate gathering, celebrated under the cliffs of an ancient canyon, with the sounds of a waterfall in the background, a single guitarist, and joyful guests. My granddaughters stole the show as they waltzed down the long runner spreading greenery before Kiana’s gracious arrival. The bride and groom wrote their own vows and the ceremony was presided over by Adams’s best friend Connor. It was a heartwarming service without a dry eye in the house.

Tony and I kicking it up.

The alarm went off at 6:00 am the following morning as we crammed our luggage and ourselves back into the huge van we rented and made our way to Salt Lake City and our flights home.   

My son Tony turns to me, we’re sitting side by side on a Southwest flight bound for San Jose, and somehow we scored bulkhead seats, which means we can stretch our long legs. He says, “did you know the word hypocrite comes from the Greeks? It’s what they used to call actors because acting is hypocritical to your true nature.” 

I say something profound, “interesting,” glancing down at the book he’s reading while simultaneously taking notes in a journal, I’m left wondering who sired this kid?  

Glancing out the window at the formations of clouds and blue sky I consider the word hypocrisy? It’s universally despised (unless you’re an actor of course) because hypocrite pretends to hold beliefs, feelings, standards, opinions, virtues, and other characteristics that a person does not actually hold. It’s living inauthentically because it’s always been easier to toe the party line and live out our truth in the shadows or on stage as it may be. 

If I were honest, I would admit I am guilty of this on multiple occasions, maybe we all are?  

So this morning while Tony and I are enjoying coffee I tell him about a book I want to read. It’s called, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, a story about time travel. 

The premise explores the possibility of going back in time and having the opportunity to change something you’re not proud of, maybe when you were living like a hypocrite? But it turns out time travel is not so simple, and there are rules that must be followed, most important, the trip can last only as long as it takes for the coffee to get cold.

Tony says, “order two copies and we’ll read it together, sounds interesting.”

I say, “absolutely, I’m a founding member of Amazon, with a prime membership,” which gets me the look. 

The books come tomorrow, this of course got me thinking about the past, what I could possibly change in the span of time it takes for a cup of coffee to get cold? George Washington Carver claims how far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these. 

So I consider the times I haven’t been tender, compassionate, sympathetic, or tolerant, and I lean into these memories. The failures are so intertwined with the successes they’re hard to distinguish, raising kids, harboring friends, climbing the ladder, taking care of aging parents and each other. Is forgiveness retroactive? I decide it is because a wise Jewish man said as much 2000 years ago. I proceed to process those olden moments, which doesn’t change a thing, but I’m beginning to realize you can not move forward until you release yourself from the mistakes of the past. Wish I understood this pre-wrinkle but better late than never.

It’s quite possible that everything we encounter is something identifiable within ourselves clamoring to be loved. The truth is I’ve been letting things go for months, if I had bothered to look I could have seen it for what it is, preparation for a more fulfilling life. Maybe that’s always the case but we’re blinded by the minutiae of ordering, protecting, inventorying, and rearranging our lives. I wonder if that is how forgiveness buds, says Khaled Hosseini, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and allowing them to slip away before the coffee gets cold. I may never become a grace graduate but I’m learning as I make my way home to let it go. 

Anecdotes:

  • “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” Alexander Pope
  • “Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots keeping itself alive.” Paulo Coelho
  • “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” Martin Luther King Jr.