Tag: Family

Goodbye 2025

In 2025, I found myself again. I spent huge amounts of time in my studio making art or just tinkering. The Universe delivered me the answer to relieving my chronic pain, which was literally life changing. (Mold in my crawlspace was the culprit.) I did some inner work that moved me out of constant anxiety and allowed me to enjoy life again.

I’ve felt my relationship with my daughters grow this year. My circle of friends has expanded. I’m getting out of the house again, to just have fun. For a person who struggled with acute anxiety for years, this is a HUGE deal!

Some highlights:

  • Road trip for a week’s vacation in Dallas with my daughters and grandkids
  • Launched my art website, MelEricksonFineArt.com (FINALLY!)
  • Displayed my art in three exhibits
  • Got myself a SCORE Mentor to support me as I grow my business
  • Played Bunco several times with a Meetup group
  • Took a Book Binding class
  • Listened to an Eagles cover band at 3rd & Lindsley
  • Enjoyed several shows at the Ryman Auditorium (Whose Live Anyway, Sarah Millican, Chris Isaak, Wanda Sykes)
  • Saw Henry Cho and Drew Lynch at Zanies
  • Hosted a Halloween party

The holiday season was exceptionally busy for me. Here’s a rundown:

  • I went to two Christmas parties; at one I learned how to play Flip 7, at the other I learned Left, Center, Right. Both were great fun.
  • I saw two live performances of A Christmas Carol – both tongue in cheek;
    • In Drunken Christmas Carol, the actor playing Ebenezer was intentionally drunk and unrehearsed. It was a hoot!
    • A Christmas Carol Cocktail Experience served audience members four themed cocktails over the course of the 90-minute event. Rideshare anyone?
  • I saw Lights Under Louisville, which is Christmas lights in a drive-thru cave. (If you ever get the chance, you really should go. I recommend the trolley rather than driving your own car so you can see the lights above you as you drive under them. And there’s so much to see you don’t want to be distracted with driving.)

I’m so grateful to the Universe for bringing these experiences to me. The world seems to be burning down around me, but somehow, my personal slice of it has been beautiful.

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?

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?

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?