ann – Swimming With The Rain

God, Balance, and a Heart Chakra

July 14, 2020

One of the things that I exceed at is floating in a pool, and not just on a float (which if you have a graceful way to get on, please share). I’m talking about the kind where you lay flat on your back, arms at your sides, toes in the air… Quietly clearing my mind, focusing on my breathing, buoyancy supporting my body. After a bit, I no longer have to concentrate and I begin to stare up at the sky, letting the conversation around me continue as muffled sounds. As crazy as it sounds, I have a hard time balancing on my two feet but ask me to tread water, I can do that! Until this past summer…

I started to realize that something was off a few weeks ago, when I was unable to stay balanced while floating. My left shoulder kept pulling me down, which is strange because in the normal world, it felt perfectly fine. I tried to concentrate harder, I tried to not concentrate, I tried to pull down with my right side, I tried to pull up with my left. Nothing was working. I knew that I was fighting with some inner emotional turmoil but I did not put two and two together that this could affect me in such a way.

In frustration, I googled… I couldn’t find too much but what I did find led me to something about the Heart Chakra. The what?!? Nope. I am not going to buy in to that whole peace, love, and happiness craze… It’s just not how I was raised, and I think it goes against God. (Stay with me on this, please.) So, I push all of this new age information aside and head up to Indiana to see friends that have known me for over 20 years, because with them, I feel myself.

That first evening, with lightning bugs floating nearby and Jason Aldean coming out of the speakers, we swam around in the pool just laughing and feeling free. Out of habit, I immediately went in to floating position so I could stare up at the summer sky… Left shoulder pulled down. It’s never been A LOT, just enough for me to know that something isn’t right. A couple of hours and Rumplemintz shots later, a song comes on that reminds us of a dear friend that passed away several years back. We toast to him and smile…

But then something happens to me. I start to sob. And I can’t stop! For over 30 minutes, it’s like someone turned a faucet on in my eyes and they were just continuing to leak, THEY WOULD NOT STOP! I wiped away tears, I went underneath the water, I looked up at the starry sky… Nothing but tears.

The next morning, we all kind of laughed about my never ending crying, and chalked it up to the Rumplemintz mixed with the need to release pent up emotion. Yet, something had shifted in me… Exasperation had left my body. The angst I had been carrying of not being good enough, the fear of being the real me, the sadness of not being completely loved, the constant stress of the unknown with my job, the burden of trying to be everything to everyone… It was gone.

I was finally filled with an overwhelming peace and knew I was fully loved, right where I was at. Without being able to explain what I was feeling, I wanted to soak in the day and experience this feeling that felt so incredibly profound that words were not enough.

Without realizing it in the pool, I went in to my full body float and that is I had another discovery… I was laying completely still… Both shoulder blades where they needed to be, neither fighting for a different angle… Staring up at the Indiana sun, with a genuine smile.

A few days later, I sent my friend Marie a text to let her know I was heading back home. Her reply, “Are you sad? Refreshed? Rejuvenated?” I contemplated the best word to explain what I was going through… “Balanced. Does that make sense?” While that word made sense to me in a way, I still felt like I was meant to learn something from this. But, what? Not wanting to get in to this peace, love, happiness mumbo jumbo, I kept it in the back of my mind, yet it was pushing forward.

Thank goodness for my weekend pool days with Diana… She is my worldly traveler with an open mind, thinking before she speaks, but knowing she can be honest with me. Diana exudes a sense of wisdom and it is because of that, I have always had a natural calm around her. Explaining my release to her and brief findings of a heart chakra, but not sure what to make of it, I am 90% sure that she had a firm grasp on what I would find, but was confident that I would have to accept it myself… “You’re good at research. Look it up.”

What an intriguing lesson I found myself in the middle of… The heart chakra, when open to receive, is just between the shoulder blades, and your body takes in the energy of love, joy, abundance, forgiveness, trust, relationships… But, when this is closed off, a person will begin to feel apathetic, unforgiving, distrustful, and detached. The tension in the shoulder blades represents an inability to let go or forgive… Not just to others, but to ourselves. Finally, I found something that explained me almost word for word!

Here is where some would say that it gets tricky… How could I believe in something like this but also believe in God?

A gift had been handed to me as all of the pieces to this puzzle finally came together. These past several months and the struggle for connecting my thoughts all started to make sense… I have been working on putting my life back in to balance. I had not felt worthy of love, even from friends, and detached myself from anyone that I didn’t know if I could trust. By nature, I am a very distrustful person, always waiting for the ball to drop. Self-sabotage most would call it.

What I have realized the last several years, not everything is black and white. Just like when we are raising our children, they are not the same and generally need to be handled differently. Therefore, I believe that God allows us to learn in so many different ways, and that is what makes us unique. If you don’t think so, think about how one person feels God’s presence and has an ongoing conversation with Him while walking through a forest, but another feels it sitting silently in prayer. I have prayed to God to show me how to change my life and He chose to show me in a way that would bring me balance. By allowing God to explain to me that I need to allow love and trust in, I am still aware that HE is the one to nudge me and guide me to my purpose.

If your life is out of balance, I urge you to listen to your body. Is something feeling off? If so, pray, meditate, do whatever you do to help bring clarity to your life. Open yourself up to love and know that you are worthy of it. I promise, when you feel the answer, you will feel tension leave your body and it is quite profound.

All me

Bucket List Ideas

July 11, 2020

I’m not sure if the term ‘Bucket List’ was used prior to the release of the movie “Bucket List” starring Jack Nicolson and Morgan Freeman, written and produced by Rob Reiner, but it is something that everyone now seems to have. In fact, I have kept a running list on my phone since 2012.

Why on my phone? Because each time I have an idea, I can immediately add to it and the list keeps growing. I have only been able to scratch two things off of there and that has been within the past year (lightning bugs and covered bridges).

So, what’s the difference between a bucket list and goals? To me, a bucket list is something you do that encourages you to experience life and fill your soul with memories, while a goal is something you work toward and even build on.

For instance, with the lightning bugs, growing up out west, we didn’t have these things. Although I had read about these little flying glow sticks in books, heard lyrics about summer evenings being lit up with them in songs, and saw them set the backdrop in movies, they always held a romantic mystery to me. While visiting Ann in Indiana last year, there they were! She caught one for me and put it on my arm and I smiled like a child that had just walked in to Disney Land. I experienced this moment and it was amazing. I was experiencing life!

But, a goal… Now that is something you work towards and even build on. Let’s look at this website I am working on. For most of my life, if you would have asked me, “What is your dream job?”, I would have said, “A photographic journalist”. I had been writing for years, sometimes reading things to people, sometimes keeping my words tucked away. This websites name, I had planned out during the summer of 2018, even checking to make sure it wasn’t in use. But, it took time for me to have the courage to do it and even once I did it, it took strength for me to announce it to the world.

I don’t have the specifics written down of how I want to achieve each Bucket List item… It is generally just a few words about each thing because to me, getting in to too much detail, takes away from the spontaneity of how things are meant to happen. Take the Covered Bridges as an example… I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen, I just knew that I wanted it to. I ended up seeing one from the back of a Harley and another from the passenger side of a Corvette. Now, doesn’t that beat a tour bus? Which, I would done except for some good friends that made it happen.

And now, my Bucket List as of mid-2020…

Visit Atlantic Ocean. I have seen the Atlantic twice – once from a parking lot in Miami and the other from a road in Daytona Beach. I want to actually put my toes in it and feel the sand. Growing up on the Pacific and living on the Gulf Coast, I think it is only suiting to feel another body of water that boarders our amazing country.

Road Trip without a destination. Not the whole Thelma and Louise thing, fyi.

Ireland, Italy, Greece, Holland… Basically all of Europe.

Skydiving.

Gulf of Alaska.

Sex in a hurricane. (Ignore that one, Dad)

Walk Paris streets at night.

Drive a race car.

Grape stomping.

Visit with monks / nuns. I have this desire to be filled with their peace.

~~Covered Bridge.~~

Mardi Gras. I’ve been to New Orleans and I’ve done Bourbon Street. But, I want to experience an actual Mardi Gras with the parades and floats!

Grand Canyon.

Stay at a Dude Ranch.

African Safari.

Broadway show. I’ve seen plays and productions, but I want to be in actual New York City and watch a true Broadway show.

Opera.

Outer Banks.

~~Lightning Bugs.~~

Northern Lights.

See the Pope. I’m not even Catholic and I think it would be amazing to see this world leader.

Zambia 338ft Waterfall.

Ice fishing.

Wild Horses.

Blue Water Paradise in Arizona.

Concert at Redrock.

Stay in a seaside village as a tourist. I already live in one and I am curious as to what it is like to not be a local.

So, what is in your Bucket List? Where do you keep it? If you have not started one yet, start today. It is ok to let your heart dream and wonder, that is what keeps your soul alive and thriving. Make sure to add in simple things like lightning bugs but also far reaching like an African Safari. Doing this ensures that you take pleasure in life’s little gifts but keeps you seeking more. As you add these moments to your life, get lost in your surroundings and soak it up. Because a photo will not truly capture it, but your senses will.

Entertainment

Father’s Day as a Single Mom

June 21, 2020

I used to hate the phrase “Single Mom”. I am a mom, who cares that I am single! Let me say this louder, “I AM A MOM!” But, through the years, something has changed in me when I hear the phrase, “Single Mom”…

Because I am a single mom, I have taught my son how to ride a bike, how to tie a tie, explained the birds and the bees, carried him when he was three through a hospital with a 105 temp, cried by myself on his first day of kindergarten, explained how to tip at a restaurant on his first date, always the disciplinarian, helped get the swimsuit netting off of his body parts after a day at the beach, watched him get student of the month alone…

Yet, I have also been the one that he would crawl in to bed with when there was a storm, asked for help on school projects, confided in after a breakup, bawled like a baby when he graduated high school because “we did it”, high fived when he bought his first car, cheered him on when he played basketball…I have been THE ONE.

He’s 26 now, but I get a phone call every now and then when he is bored and I take those calls, even when busy at work. As parents, of course we will take those calls because they are our kids, but I know what it is like to be away from my parents since I have lived away for over 20 years.

Father’s Day is hard for us single mom’s, especially if we are away from our own father’s. Because it is a day that we are reflecting… Of course we miss our dad’s but we wonder if we messed our kids up because their dad’s aren’t in their lives. And we cry with sadness because it is the one day of the year when it is smacked at us on social media and reminds us that we have been alone in raising our children. There is no one with us that is so deeply connected to our children as we are when we are stressed about their grades, worried about their driving, not sure of how to discuss dating issues. It is us mom’s that do it when we are single, and we have no one to bounce these ideas off that will take such a vested interest in our babies.

Disagree with me or agree with me. Either way, this is my opinion and how I feel today. As I said, “I AM A MOM”, so I don’t expect to be celebrated on FATHER’S DAY. But, be patient with us single mom’s today. If our children are with us on this holiday, we are feeling guilty and wondering if we are doing enough. If they aren’t with us because they are lucky to have dad’s in their lives, we miss them, but still feel a bit of guilt.

These days, I’m ok with being called a single mom. I have done the toughest job of all ~ Motherhood, by myself. I didn’t have family here to babysit on random nights or to join me for school events. I raised a remarkable young man BY MYSELF and I am so proud of him. I am also proud of me for not letting him become one of the well known statistics of boys raised without their fathers.

20 years ago, laying in bed on a Father’s Day morning, missing my own dad and kid, my friend Ann called and asked what I was doing that day. I’m sure I had a few choice words of what the day meant to me. But, since her dad lived over a thousand miles away and her husband was deployed, she suggested we go and grab lunch. We headed to a local outdoor restaurant overlooking the water, ordered Pina Coladas, oysters, tuna dip, you name it. We had our table full of food, added in a couple beers, and had the best time, making Father’s Day easier on both of us. That perfect day started my tradition of doing something fun and relaxing for myself on Father’s Day. I have went to the beach, I have went to a water park, I have had friends over for dinner, and sometimes I just lock myself inside and watch chick flicks… Whatever my heart is needing that day to ease my guilt of being a single mom on Father’s Day.

Now, I’m going to call my own dad up to chat for a bit (after I wipe my tears away) then go lay in a pool and soak up some sunshine with friends. On the menu is Chicken Salad, Spinach & Artichoke dip, and a few Truly’s (Too old to drink White Claws! Ha!). And I am going to get through today being a single mom on Father’s Day.

Entertainment

Matchbox Twenty

June 18, 2020

In a 1996 Black Chevy Cavalier, three new best friends in their mid-20’s, all from different parts of the country, were driving without a care in the world, thinking life would always be this carefree. In the background, a low volume CD was playing, barely heard over the constant laughing and telling of stories that would bond the three for the next couple of softball seasons.

With Dawn in the front passenger seat (due to her long legs), and me in the back seat (short legs), Ann turned the volume up and said, “This second part reminds me of something I would say to Joey.”

I’m sorry ’bout the attitude
I need to give when I’m with you
But no one else would take this shit from me

She sang that last line with such emphasis that my ears perked up. Then I heard the second part of that verse…

And I’m so
Terrified of no one else but me
I’m here all the time
I won’t go away

While she felt the connection to the first part of the verse, that second part was written for me, and I was hooked! Dawn bought the CD probably around the same time I did my love of Matchbox 20 grew. If we were all together, that was one of the go-to CD’s that we threw in, if there was nothing worth singing on the radio. To this day, my mind goes back to the next two summers… stating my case that ‘Push’ is actually an intimate longing for love, leaving bars at ‘3am’, fantasizing how we would change life if we were in the ‘Real World’, and drifting away in to our own mind for ‘Back 2 Good’… The summers of the three of us together, forging our friendship, and figuring our own-selves out, before reality set in and pushed us apart.

As fall was settling in in 1999, Dawn and I were driving out to one of our local favorite bars when I heard a familiar rift on a guitar and then Rob Thomas’s vocal’s. “Matchbox Twenty!”, we both yelled, so excited for new new music of theirs. But, wait… “That’s Santana!” Dawn had no idea who Santana was, but being a California girl, I knew exactly who Carlos Santana was, and we were raised to KNOW the sound of his guitar. “Bet me!” (Here’s the deal, I only bet when I feel 99.9% sure. I hate losing.) She had an in with a radio dj, so she made a phone call… My first beer was on her, but we both shared in the excitement that we had our new favorite song.

And it’s just like the ocean under the moon
Well it’s the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin’ that can be so smooth, yeah
Gimme your heart, make it real
Or else forget about it

Local bands covering that song became the background to many Friday nights that winter. We tried our best to imitate a sexy Spanish dancer and they tried their best to imitate Santana’s guitar style. This was during the time of Mark Anthony and Jennifer Lopez hitting it big with their music so it seemed that that era of our bar hopping days, were electrified with a bit of Latin flavor. I should also add in that this is when I finally realized the sexiness of Rob Thomas after watching the video for ‘Smooth’… I’m a sucker for a man in a cowboy hat, even a post grunge / pop / rock star.

I usually didn’t buy a music album until I knew at least three songs from it. Why was I going to waste my money on something I may not like? That wasn’t the case for Matchbox 20’s Mad Season album, I purchased it that day! And while I was still friends with both Ann and Dawn, it was a separate friendship, and that was fine; it was just the way it was. But, thanks to Ann, I now had Melanie and she made you understand what they meant about redheads. Oh, the conversations we had… Some of the best to this day. Back then, we used to talk about everything under the sun, never afraid of being judged. And lyrics, we loved to analyze our own personal meanings. The day that Mad Season was released in 2000, she called to ask if I’d heard the song that we would spend weeks searching for an explanation to on why this hit us so hard… Rest Stop became a phrase for us while discussing relationships ~ “Are you at a rest stop?” and we automatically knew what the other meant.

While you were sleeping
I was listening to the radio
And wondering what you’re dreaming when
It came to mind that I didn’t care

The following year, a man that I still wonder about 20 years later, asked me what song I would use to describe myself. Hesitating, I told him ‘Bent’, knowing that if he knew the lyrics, he would understand what was going on inside of me. With a sad smile on his face, he replied “I understand being jaded”.

If I couldn’t sleep could you sleep
Could you paint me better off
Could you sympathize with my needs
I know you think I need a lot
I started out clean but I’m jaded
Just phoning it in
Just breaking the skin

If the first album was about getting to know my friends, and the second was about getting to know myself, the third album, ‘More Than You Think You Are’ from 2002 was about building confidence and breaking up. While I didn’t play this cd on a continuous rotation like I did the others, the song ‘Disease’ is what I played every day on my way to work. It was driven with confidence, yet longing… Sure of self, but questioning…

Feels like you made a mistake
You made somebody’s heart break
But now I have to let you go
I have to let you go
You left a stain
On every one of my good days
But I am stronger than you know
I have to let you go
No one’s ever turned you over
No one’s tried
To ever let you down,
Beautiful girl
Bless your heart
I got a disease, deep inside me
Makes me feel uneasy baby
I can’t live without you
Tell me what I am supposed to do about it
Keep your distance from it
Don’t pay no attention to me
I got a disease
Feels like you’re making a mess
You’re hell on wheels in a black dress
You drove me to the fire
And left me there to burn

September 2003 and Dawn has tickets to go and see Matchbox Twenty the night before my 30th birthday. How perfect is this?!? We put my three cd’s in rotation and sang all of their songs during the 2 1/2 hour drive so that we were prepared for our favorite band live on stage. While I don’t remember them singing particular songs, I remember the feeling of just being thrilled that I was there. However, since these tickets were free through her work, not everyone around us were as big of fans as us, so they stayed pretty calm during the whole thing. But, that’s ok. Because for my 30th birthday, I was able to see the band that had a hand in shaping my 20’s.

Finally, their first compilation album comes out in 2007 with several new songs and some past hits. The first song listed, “How Far We’ve Come” with it’s loud strumming guitar and catchy beat made you bob your head in tune with the music and lift your hand up to point to the air while singing. There were phrases that really stuck out to me, such as, “Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time?” and “Say your goodbyes if you’ve got someone you can say goodbye to“. But, the chorus… When it came on, my four year old in the back seat would say, “Turn it up, please”.

I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well I guess we’re gonna find out
Let’s see how far we’ve come
Let’s see how far we’ve come

When the album ‘North’ was released in 2012, I didn’t even know about it. At that point, I was in my 5 year relationship and I either listened to Country or Christian when by myself, or Top 40 when the kids were around. So, in 2013 when I heard “Overjoyed”, I thought it was a nice song and although I was happy to hear Matchbox Twenty on the radio again, I was coming in to my 40’s and it just wasn’t hitting me like it used to. Music is so personal to me that sometimes, I just can’t listen to certain things because I DON’T want to go back to a time or have memories brought up. Even if those memories are filled with longing for another person. Sometimes, I have to shut that off.

Fast forward to 2020, and this text comes in from Joey, my fellow music lover…

These words of his that he wrote… Wow! Rob Thomas confirmed that he is just like the rest of us, struggling with our emotions and sometimes, still so unsure of ourselves. There are just too many words and phrases that I connected to so I suggest watching the video and letting it all sink in. The words, while they pack a punch, the melody feels hopeful. Maybe it will encourage you to reach out to someone…

What happened after hearing this song, you wonder… Well, I found him on Spotify and I am discovering songs of his that I passed over in the past few years and I am reliving some memories with a smile on my face. And, if you ever come across tickets for Rob Thomas or Matchbox Twenty, count me in!

God, Balance, and a Heart Chakra

Bucket List Ideas

Father’s Day as a Single Mom

Matchbox Twenty

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