Gail's Blog

I'm ashamed to say I don't remember the exact date my friend died. It had to have been in 2008. Maybe someone will correct me. Another family member died a week after her, and it all became a blur. Helen was eighteen years older than I and we met when I was in my early twenties singing professionally at Trinity Cathedral, E. 22d Street in Cleveland. I had hosted a choir party at the house I shared with other students. At that party I got to know Helen and her amazing husband, George (more on that later). Primarily, aside from her honest, direct, passionate personality, I found out that, like me, she was addicted to chocolate. She personally conquered the bowl of M & M's in the living room. She laughingly referred to that event many times, especially when she resorted to Macrobiotics for her Tic Douloureux later. For Helen suffered mercilessly from this little-known neurological illness almost from the day I met her. Helen, George, Ridge (my husband) and I began soci

I have always been a "P", in Myers-Briggs terminology . I am in love with possibilities, like to take in information rather than make decisions, need to stay with the "spirit" (my interpretation). Having my whole week planned with many things to accomplish feels uncomfortable to me. The coming week is all planned up.  It feels as if I only need to follow the plan and I don't have to make any spontaneous decisions. That's an untenable position for me. Tomorrow I go from school to the Kennedy Center for a class on assessment. Oh, how wonderful, you say! How interesting! Yes, it is. But I don't get to choose what to do at the end of the school day. It is already planned. Tuesday evening I go from school to Reston to work, and then to the childcare center where I'm teaching  Art, Music & Movement this half-semester. How cool! How busy and productive. Okay, yes, but it is already planned. I don't get to make any new creative decisions. Then W

Emotional exhaustion is pretty common for me. I am a perfectionist, an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person , an INFP, in Meyers-Briggs terminology, and Adult Child of an Alcoholic , so easily co-dependent, and I am pretty emotional in general. I channeled my emotions into singing opera, concerts, working with other artists, and more recently, teaching young children. I get to use my predilection for silly faces, funny voices, puppetry, miming, dancing, singing, etc. to amuse and instruct children who delight in doing the same. I also love to move, to run, to climb. I do yoga with kids. They are so friendly and interested in my own interests. This is the funny thing I learned by switching from teaching in a preschool to teaching in a Child Care setting. The children become intimately interested in you, and knowledgeable about you. They know what you like, and can read you like a book. Witness the boy who constantly interrupts me, jokes while I'm trying to tell the children somethin

I am keeping my promise to myself to walk/run almost every day. So far so good. On the left is a picture of myself doing my run. And if you believe that I have a missile defense system to sell you (no one wants a bridge anymore). I set out walking one minute, jogging another, alternately. Now I am jogging five minutes and walking one or two. I need to warm up, walking five minutes first. I never needed to do that in my fifties (Ah, the good old days!). My knees complain but not a lot. I sweat and that feels like I'm accomplishing something. Maybe I'm an accomplished sweater now? Or sweat-er. I can be proud of that! I am happy with this decision. It spurs me to use time more wisely. I'm awake at six anyway, thinking about how much I don't want to get out of bed. Why not get up and get moving? So I do. I notice progress. Yesterday I didn't feel like my muscles were on strike, at least a third of the time. During the school week I could go up the two flights of s

We recently lost Ginger to liver cancer, aka Old Age. Before that her brother, Bear, was also lost to us. He was old, too. It is a difficult transition going from dog to no-dog. Some of the ways I list below: I drop food on the floor and look to make sure someone eats it. Oops! I have to clean it up myself. I come in from work and no one greets me, tongue lolling, eyes sparkling, tail wagging, saying, "Oh my God, you're home!! I thought you'd NEVER get here!" Leaving the bedroom, I don't have to check to make sure there are no dirty laundry baskets around, tempting someone to eat the crotch out of my Victoria's Secret undies. I no longer put the trash up on the sink, or on my husband's dresser. No raider is going to take dirty tissues and God knows what else. In the kitchen we don't put the trash up on the counter anymore. In New Jersey, when Ginger was already old (last summer) she dragged the dog-proof trash can with the locking lid into th

I am in Sea Girt, about to go to Spring Lake beach where the wind is blowing and it might get up to seventy. Here at the shore I get to allow my half-baked ideas and thoughts to come to the surface and percolate. I have wondered how on earth I've fallen so behind on taking care of my precious body/mind. I work a lot, but during work and between work I seem to take on the mindset of a beleaguered old person. "Oh, my back! I'm getting too old for this!" Maybe I am. In the meantime I struggle with the desire to keep up all commitments and still have a exercise discipline that includes yoga, weight training, and jogging. I just completed a walk/jog route from this house to Sea Girt beach and back. At first my old lady within was complaining bitterly that she was not up to it but I kept my focus, thanks to Pandora's dance aerobics channel. I felt like a hero. Heroine? But when I go home will I find the time to do this, to do yoga? Gym? How do other people do

When I was younger, my children in school, done with half-day preschool teaching, I would come here and sit. Sometimes I would take out my Pentax K-1000 and take pictures. Once I saw two women in a canoe and shot a series of them that I still have in an envelope somewhere. Other times I would think of my Greek grandfather, how he would sit and just look at water or woods, smoking. I always thought of him in nature because he was so at home in wilder places. Today I left work after two afternoon conferences. While driving home, planning to work on arrival, I had a sudden, jarring memory of how I used to allow myself the time to river-sit between work and other things. Resolutely, I drove past my exit and parked by the water instead. Miraculous! A break between work and work! The river still flows even though I haven't been watching it do so! I think I should take more breaks like this. I don't want to miss the river all together before I die. An Iranian father said to m