Category: Family

Grandma’s Banana Bread: The Taste of Nostalgia

My grandmother made the best banana bread I’ve ever had in my life. I’m certain of this, in spite of the fact she passed away when I was ten, and she was only part of my life for a short time. Grandma came to live with us after Grandpa’s death and she died of a stroke in our driveway a few months later.

That’s the funny thing about trauma. You often remember bits and pieces, but sometimes there are big holes. I remember how Grandma died, but I don’t remember who told me, or what, exactly, they said to me. I don’t remember a funeral. Grandma was just there, and then she was gone.

When Grandma Lena first moved in, I was told to stay clear of her because she didn’t like children. But that could have been my Mother’s voice in my ear. She hadn’t been overjoyed at having her mother-in-law living with us. Or maybe my childhood anxiety made up that story and it’s what I’ve stuck with all these years? Who knows.

Grandma felt like a stranger in our home. Whatever the reason, we never got close. But she made us all Banana Bread a few times. It must have been her specialty, because that’s all I remember her baking. Mother never made banana bread. She made Nestle Toll House Cookies, and butterscotch brownies. She even made me a Barbie cake one year for my birthday – you know the kind – where the cake is the skirt and a Barbie is inserted into the middle of it. But she never made banana bread. I don’t think I’d ever had banana bread before Grandma came to live with us.

I remember the warm fragrance of cinnamon and banana when Grandma pulled it out of the oven. I would lurk just out of sight waiting for Grandma to clean up and retreat to her room. Once the coast was clear, I would creep in and cut a slice. I’d slather it with butter, and then make my way back to my bedroom to enjoy it in private.

The butter melted easily into the still warm bread, enhancing the banana and walnut aromas. My head would swim with anticipation of that first bite!

I would lap up every crumb and every drop of butter from the plate and then plot my next heist. How much time should I wait before snatching another piece? How many slices could I get away with?

For some reason, I’ve never been good at making banana bread. But to this day, whenever I spot it, freshly baked in a shop, I need to try a piece. “Warm it, please. And may I have some butter?” Sadly, none so far have lived up to my memory of Grandma Lena’s banana bread.

It’s amazing how a short-term, innocuous event or circumstance can leave such a clear and lasting impression. There’s a lot I don’t remember about my dysfunctional upbringing, but oh – I remember that banana bread!

What fond memories do you have of childhood – or any other time – that stand out in spite of life not being so great otherwise during that time? Any you’d like to share?

Letting Go: A Path to Physical and Emotional Healing

I recently had an epiphany. Let me explain. A few months ago, I was diagnosed with a chronic condition that affects my digestion in extreme ways. Since then, I’ve tried all manner of supplements and laxatives, as well as a low fiber diet to try to get to a place of comfort.

Then, on a Thursday evening a few weeks ago, I was chatting with my friend, Mary, and she asked about my health. I shared with her that I had been feeling defeated earlier in the day, because all the adjustments I’d made had had little impact. My Gastrointestinal doctor’s advice was simply: “MiraLAX, and two kiwi a day.” In my moment of defeat, I said out loud to myself, What else can I do? I don’t know what to do. I started to tear up. But then my mind cataloged all the daily routines I’d been doing for months, and I realized I had been skipping my daily affirmations.

You see, I’ve long been a believer in the mind/body connection. I also believe we attract into our lives circumstances and things that align with the vibrations (energy) we send out into the world. For years, I’ve followed the likes of Louise Hay, Abraham-Hicks, and Mike Dooley. I fully believe Dooley’s catch phrase, “Thoughts become things.”

I’ve already achieved so much for myself through positive thoughts and intentionality, but sometimes I get busy and overwhelmed. I forget my power. Metaphysics has many more uses than just manifesting good parking spots. But I’m human. I need the Universe to give me a swift kick in the butt now and then.

As an example, a few months ago, I used positive affirmations to help me remediate the chronic fibromyalgia flare-up I’d been experiencing for over a year. I had gotten a couple nudges from the Universe that led me to search for my copy of Louise Hay and Mona Lisa Schulz’s book, ALL IS WELL. I looked up several of my symptoms in the reference at the back and learned which negative thoughts I was likely carrying around with me that might contribute to my symptoms. I wrote down the recommended positive affirmations and got busy.

No, I didn’t say the affirmations a couple times and suddenly I was healed. It doesn’t work that way. But the repetition of affirmations daily can help silence the negative messages that run wild in our brains. Think of it as meditating or praying. In this situation, the affirmations improved my mindset, and I was able to think through possible causes for my discomfort. Through a series of unexpected events, I was led to hire a company to remediate mold found in my home. I also began acupuncture therapy. I believe those two things got me over the hump and onto recovery.

Now, back to Thursday evening. As I rambled on to my friend, complaining over my lack of progress, I paused, and said, “But I am feeling a little better now. I haven’t been doing my affirmations every day. I haven’t done any in a while. So I got my book out and looked up a bunch of conditions related to stomach, colon, and digestion.” I paused again, the wheels turning, then said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“Every one of the affirmations for these conditions had to do with letting go of the past!”

That’s when it hit me! Right there, in Mary’s living room, I had my epiphany! I said:

“I need to let go of my memoir!”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes. For over a year now I’ve been sharing my trauma stories with my writer friends every week on that Zoom call I told you about. I need to let that go!”

This was HUGE! I have identified with this project for so many years, feeling determined it was important work that the world needed. I had conned myself into believing my motivation for publishing was primarily to help others. If I could survive my trauma and come out thriving (was I though?), surely my audience would be inspired to keep going! And there was that Creative Writing Professor who told me I should pursue publication after I submitted my class project: a collection of my teenage journal entries and poetry, strung together with a little prose.

Suddenly, I saw things differently. I hadn’t been honest with myself. Sure, it might be possible that someone would buy my memoir, read it, and think, “Wow. If she could survive that, surely I can survive this.” But there are so many memoirs out there today telling similar stories. Do we really need another? Revisiting those stories repeatedly had been damaging to my psyche. It was time for me to let go of my past and put my energy into creating something new and positive for my future.

I cannot fully express the level of relief I felt once I made that connection! It was almost instantaneous! I felt lighter, happier…relieved! This was several weeks ago, and I am still riding the wave. I look forward to working on something new. Will letting go of my memoir really help my digestive system heal? Time will tell.

Today’s affirmation from ALL IS WELL:

“As I release the past, the new and fresh and vital enter. I allow life to flow through me.”

Does the think Universe (God, Allah, Spirit) sends you messages?

Do you “get” the message the first time around or do you need a few nudges? I’m curious to know!

Embracing Creativity: Lessons from an Unstable Parent

My mother was creative…and restless. The lifestyle my father’s job as a commercial contractor could afford her was not enough to make her happy. We lived in a sprawling ranch house built by my father, located in California’s San Benancio Valley. My father’s job kept him away through the week. On weekends there was constant arguing.

I believe my mother was bipolar but she was never diagnosed. She was definitely paranoid. In his absence, she would rant about what a bad person my father was, and claim he was trying to have her put away. My guess is he tried to get her to talk to someone, and her paranoia spun its own version of the story.

Mother would swing without warning from fits of depression to bursts of energy where she would enlist my sisters and me to “help” her with these massive projects around the house and the property. She’d be in bed for a week, and suddenly we’re all waxing the parquet wood floors in our sunken living room. Or pouring cement into frames my father built so we could have stairs down to the creek.

Living with Mother was a wild ride. But in her good moods she taught me to sew. She taught me about crafting. Our family portraits were framed in Plaster of Paris frames Mother made herself and embellished with gold leaf. One year we made Christmas trees out of old Readers Digest magazines, folding the top outside corner of each page to the middle binding. The magazines were then stood on end, pages fanned out, front and back covers glued together. The trees were spray painted and glittered, and displayed proudly around the house for the holiday season.

Mother gardened like a maniac, and made jams and jellies from our many fruit trees and berry vines. She made sauces from our tomatoes. There seemed to always be something in the pressure cooker. Homemade concord grape juice concentrate was stored in our deep freeze in the garage.

Mother was broken but I believe her creativeness kept her going – for a time. She has been gone now more than 30 years. I’ve had my own challenges with emotional well-being, largely from living with Mother’s lack of emotional well-being. But I am so very thankful to have experienced the creative part of her. Because of what I learned from my mother, I am an avid gardener, visual artist, crafter, and kitchen experimenter. And I believe that has saved me.

Is there someone in your life story who is/was broken, but has shared with you their beautiful gifts? What were your challenges in reconciling your feelings for this person?

Fitting In vs. Belonging: My Personal Journey

Lately I’ve been working on my memoir – still and forever, if I’m honest – and things have come up, as they do. One topic that’s been rattling around in my head is the idea of fitting in vs. belonging.

Throughout my childhood and as a young adult, I put substantial effort into fitting in. I would do, say, or even wear certain things, hoping for the acceptance I desired. I craved positive attention and was willing to hide parts of myself to get it. I didn’t know the difference between fitting in and belonging.

Brené Brown says, “True belonging doesn’t require us to change who we are. It requires us to BE who we are.”

My insecurities were born in my early family life. I learned to moderate myself at a very young age. I never felt I belonged in our household of five. I experienced trauma as a child stemming from my mother’s erratic behavior and the absence of my father. I was the youngest of three girls, raised by an emotionally toxic mother, whose behavior had estranged my father. I don’t excuse him for leaving us all to deal with Mother on our own, but I do see how living with my mother must have pushed him away.

With an age gap of six and nine years between my sisters and me – me being the youngest – it felt like I had three mothers. I was told what to do, when to do it, how to do it. I learned to keep my mouth shut and not try to express an opinion, lest I be chastised or ridiculed. I was emotionally squashed. I grew up afraid to open my mouth at home, at school, in any social situation. Even now, in my sixties, and after many years in and out of therapy, I still struggle.

As a young woman, I was thin and pretty. I had no problem attracting men. And there were a lot of them – some flings, some relationships. But none of those encounters led to true happiness. I was always modifying myself in hopes of gaining acceptance and love, but then would wake up one day and realize I’d latched onto someone who wasn’t intellectually stimulating or willing to grow or let me grow. I equated sex with love. But that’s a whole other story not for this post.

As an adult, I became an overachiever in my career, addicted to the attention I received for being smart, efficient, or professional. The positive feedback I received fooled me into believing I belonged. But I was only barely surviving, courtesy of a separate persona I developed that masked my true self. I would pull it on like an overcoat when I left the house and then come home at the end of the day, exhausted. I was an introvert, living an extroverted existence, five days a week. I had a constant need to prove myself worthy. Imposter syndrome, anyone?

Socially, I would try again and again to connect with people and take it personally when I realized they weren’t interested. It was discouraging to try so hard to be accepted only to be disappointed when I didn’t come away with the prize.  

Eventually, I took time to think about what may be going wrong for me. And I remembered some people who have tried to connect with me over the years when I wasn’t interested. So, was my experience Karma or just human nature? I’m going with human nature. And sometimes it’s just timing. We’re not aligned in what we’re looking for today, but maybe later, as we all learn about ourselves and life, we’ll cross paths again and both want to connect.

While painful, revisiting these disappointing memories has been good for me. It has helped me work through some feelings and connect some dots. Sometimes we need to accept that this thing we think we want is just not a good fit. I believe anything that leaves you feeling empty isn’t worth your time and energy.

These days, I’m in a more objective place, where I’m willing to show my uniqueness to people I meet and not have the expectation that they be drawn to that. I remind myself before going into a new social setting that I will either be accepted or not, but either way, I’ll be okay. I’m a good person. I know that to be true.

I’m comforted knowing I have a small circle of close friends, whom I treasure, and who treasure me. Every one of them picked me, in spite of myself. And I picked them. I don’t feel the need to hide any part of me when I’m with them. These are the types of friendships where time and distance make no difference. Getting together feels easy and light, no matter how long it’s been. And that, my friends, is my definition of belonging.

What is your definition of belonging? What discoveries have you made about yourself as you interact with others and connect (or not) with others?

DREAM: Nobody Cares What I Want

A few months ago I had a dream that rattled me a bit. It took me a while to get over it and feel comfortable posting it. Here it is:

I was at a house where I was going to meet my sisters and my mother. We were apparently going to vacation together. I had gotten there a day or so ahead of everyone, so I settled into one of the rooms. In this room there was a soaker tub, which is one of my favorite things. (Odd that it was inside a bedroom, but…)

I had gone out on the day that everyone else arrived, and when I came back, I went back to the room I had been using and found that the tub had been moved to another wall in the room and where it had been there was a shower with a very shallow tub.

“You moved the tub?” I said to Mother, incredulously.

“Yes,” she said. “I wanted a shower.”

“Is the tub even connected?”

“No. We don’t need it.”

I cry in wracking sobs! It feels like my insides have been turned inside out. Why doesn’t anyone care what I want?

I know I have to get out of there and be alone for a while. I leave and find myself driving along a street where I am swept into a set of driving tracks much like those on an automatic car wash. There is water rushing through the street. At first I am scared about my car being dragged along in all this water, but then realize it is a sort of amusement park ride. Next thing I know my car is being pulled up a ramp and I’m having a blast riding along and watching the attractions as I pass them by.

Now I’m back at the house, standing in my room. I notice my dressing table is gone. I look around and find it smashed. I address my mother again. “Why did you do this?” She shrugs and smirks, as if to say, “Because I wanted to, so what?”

Once again, I’m feeling heartbroken that nobody seems to care what I want.

INTERPRETATION

What immediately comes to mind is that I’m going through a transition where I am leaving a job I have held for 5 plus years where I built a lot of structure around documentation and process and I  know that when I walk out the door there’s a good chance some – or maybe much – of the work I’ve done will be tossed aside for something better. Of course this sort of thing happens all the time, but I’ve also been struggling lately with the feeling that my team doesn’t appreciate the work I’ve done. We always joke that this type of work is thankless, but to me it’s important, and it’s difficult to accept that others don’t feel that way.

Regarding my going off on my own and having a blast, I am leaving my job to do more artistic work, which I know I will enjoy immensely.

My mother being the antagonist in this dream is fitting. The other parallel to my life is my mother not being concerned about my feelings, and even taunting me with that sentiment at times. A particular scene comes to mind where I had traded something from my school lunchbox for a chocolate Jello pudding cup, something Mother never bought. I was so excited to have successfully negotiated the trade that I saved the pudding so I could savor it after school. Shortly after I returned home, I happened to be passing Mother’s bedroom and caught sight of her eating something in a familiar looking plastic cup. I stopped, aghast, and demanded, “Where did you get that?” “From your lunchbox,” she said, as she joyfully licked the spoon. I stood, frozen, knowing there was nothing I could say or do that would benefit me. Crestfallen, I turned and walked away.

Have you had experiences where you felt unappreciated and uncared for on the job or at home? Did it come up for you in a dream?