Two Simple Things

We are born into this life completely alone; naked, vulnerable and empty-handed. Then we spend most of our lives working long and hard to accrue huge amounts of stuff, all of which is left behind when we die.

Birth, while natural and beautiful, can be a traumatic experience. I should know—I’ve been born once and given birth four times. I don’t remember my own birth, of course. But I do know that when I shot out into the world, there were people around to help me. They bathed me, held me, fed me, and loved me. And when the time is close for me to leave this world, I assume there will be people to do all of these things for me again.

If we’re fortunate, the beginning and ending parts of life are pretty much handled. It turns out, though—that the middle part of life—the part that we’re supposed to enjoy, can be really, really hard at times. We try our best to get it right, but we fail more often than not.

If this past year has shown us anything, it’s that we’ve really blown it this time. I don’t need to give you a list. As you read this, you’re waist-deep in the muck of 2020, and I’m right there alongside you. Now, I could rant on for hours about whose fault it is—some of you will take my side, some of you won’t. It doesn’t really matter though. We’re all at the bottom of this polluted pit and we need to help dig each other out.

I, for one, am exhausted from carrying so much anger in my heart over these past several years. This anger has manifested in many ways, mostly in me screaming at the television, unfriending people on social media, and using the F bomb more times than I can count. It’s weighed on me that people I love dearly see the world so differently than I do. And it also hurts to know they look at me and think the same thing.

Here’s the thing though—this pandemic has revealed to us who we really are. And much of it has been pretty horrifying. Yet, through all of the scarcity, pain, unfairness, anger, and even death, I’ve also witnessed great good—people doing what’s right, going out of their way to be kind, taking care of others, and sharing what little they have. Many of us have realized that practicing acts of kindness is so much more meaningful than accumulating all that expensive stuff.

I believe we are put here on this earth to accomplish two simple things: to help others and to give love. If we remember to treat each other with the care and love we’d give to a newborn baby—or a person on their deathbed, we’d all be so much more content.

We now have the opportunity to make real change. Let’s start thinking others before ourselves. Mostly, remember to love, love, and LOVE!        

Good riddance 2020. You’ve tried your best to take us down, but we wouldn’t let you.

Here’s to a better year ahead.  May 2021 send us all in a new direction!

Thank you to all my faithful readers. Your support over the years has meant the world to me.

The author, representing 2020 by not looking her best.

Pollyanna

If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s that my DNA includes the Pollyanna gene. Over the years, I’ve been known to utter: “Don’t worry, it will all work out in the end,” or worse, “There’s a reason for everything!”  As always, I’ll blame my mother for my behavior, as she pushed her be kind, and think good thoughts agenda on me since I was young enough to complain about someone’s bad behavior. If I wanted to vent, she’d immediately put up her hand. “Now, Honey—maybe so-in-so is acting that way because they’re feeling bad about themselves. They probably just need a hug!”

Mom and Pollyanna, circa 1972

Inevitably, we turn into our mothers, and I’m no exception. I’ve always been the “nice” girl, and for most of my life, I’ve put up with horrendous—even abusive—behavior from others because I felt it was my responsibility to be kind and forgiving. I even learned to push my own positive agenda—always touting how important it was to look for the good in everything.

My daughter recently called me out on my Pollyannaishness. As a transgender woman, she’s faced immense personal change in the past year and a half, and dealt with great emotional pain—pain that I’ll never have to even imagine facing. When she tears up about something someone has said or done, my first reaction is to try to make it better.

“Mom,” she tells me, “You don’t always have to try to fix things. Just acknowledge my pain. Sometimes people are just assholes. And sometimes life just sucks.”

Yes, they are. And yes, it does. 2020 has taught me that.

Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to be positive—quite the contrary. I know for a fact that looking for the good helped me get through some very tough times in my life—especially my youngest daughter’s cancer diagnosis and treatment. And I know one thing for certain: when something terrible happens to you, the really good people show up and offer their help.

But it’s also important to recognize and acknowledge the bad stuff. This is difficult for me, because I come from a life of privilege, where I’ve always had what I need and more. And because of this, I’ve spent a great deal of time talking myself out of feeling sad, depressed or lost. And now that the pain and suffering of so many is all around me all the time, I’m having a difficult time pulling myself together. Not only do I feel guilty when I’m sad, I feel guilty when I’m happy.

Pollyanna has grudgingly admitted to me that 2020 has been a total shit storm, but as she perches on my shoulder she’s also whispering how lucky I am to be surrounded by the most amazing family and friends. Those who are thoughtful, generous, and kind, and who make me laugh even during these dark times.

Pollyanna is also insisting that things are finally turning around. She admits that we have a long way to go, but she believes that good people are waiting in the wings, ready to do what they can to help. And she also believes that good always wins in the end.

I’m gonna take her word for it.

Nesting

During the past three decades, I’ve been fortunate to have given birth four times. Each time, right around a month before each birth, I would find myself knee-deep in a frenzy of cleaning that would put Marie Kondo to shame. Nothing would escape my attention. The contents of drawers would be dumped out and  rearranged with categorical precision. Closets would be cleared out, baseboards scrubbed, and lampshades vacuumed. Bags of discarded items would be carted away to Goodwill. By the end of the day, my muscles would ache from climbing up and down the step ladder to swat at the lace cobwebs hanging from the crown molding—cobwebs that I hadn’t noticed since before the birth of the previous child.

The term for this behavior is called nesting. Usually, it’s the expectant mothers who do the nesting as a preparation for the coming baby, but I’m sure some expectant fathers do it too. It’s a chance to put the house in order before the chaos of a newborn turns everything upside down.

Well, the odds are that a fifty-eight year-old, post-menopausal woman isn’t pregnant, so why is it I’ve spent the last five days manically cleaning and organizing my entire house from top to bottom? I believe it’s because I’m about to give birth again, but this time, to a different kind of baby. And I’m as terrified and excited as I was thirty years ago when I had my first human child.

The due date for my new baby, Lost in Oaxaca, is April 21, 2020. And after a seven year confinement, I am so ready to relieve myself of this heavy load and launch her out into the world. (Okay, Jess—enough with the pregnancy metaphors.)

And I’m sorry to admit that like most new mothers, I’m going to start talking about my baby a lot. You’re going to see many photos of me and my baby on Instagram and Facebook. I’ll be writing so many blog posts about Lost in Oaxaca that you’ll start wishing that I’d just get lost in Oaxaca.

Here’s the dilemma: in this current era of publishing, it’s really up to the author to be responsible for promoting their book, which means I’m going to be doing some plugging. I’ll try my best to do it well and not too often. Luckily, I have three Millennials and a fifteen year-old Gen Z to help me navigate the complexity of posting on social media, so I’m hoping that my incessant promotion will turn out to be stylish and tasteful. In any case, my youngest will grudgingly help me. She’ll roll her eyes and call me “Boomer,” but since I gave actual birth to her when I was at the ripe old age of forty-two, she kinda owes me a favor.

Oh—and by the way—you’re all invited to the christening for Lost in Oaxaca at Chaucer’s Bookstore in Santa Barbara! Book signing is Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.

And don’t worry about forgetting the date—you’ll be getting a birth announcement in the mail.

Now, if you’ll please excuse me—I’ve got to go scrub the inside of the water heater.

 

I’d love it if you’d stop by and visit!

www.jessicawintersmireles.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessicawintersmireles/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessicawintersmirelesauthor/

Profound

Lately, I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting front of the computer, trying to think of something profound to write. This is not easy, considering the amount of distractions I face. At this moment, the dogs are downstairs barking at some felonious trespasser who is currently walking past our house. Coming from the obnoxious yipping being produced, this interloper is a serious threat to my life. Next door, the sound of the chainsaw from the tree-trimmers grates on me like the whine of a dentist’s drill. In my direct line of vision, there is a hot-pink plastic laundry basket full of dirty laundry that I was supposed to wash last night, but I fell asleep watching House Hunters before I got around to it. It’s literally hissing at me from across the room.

Then there’s that device we can no longer live without, dinging with all those notifications every few minutes, alerting me to the fact that Trump has a new hair style, or someone has now broken the all-time Jeopardy winnings record. I can’t help it—I hear the ding. I drool.

Here’s the real truth: It’s me. I’m the distraction. I don’t think I can write anything profound because in my mind, I don’t believe I have anything profound to write. This may be because I suffer from “Impostor Syndrome,” which is when a person doubts their abilities and is afraid to be exposed as a fraud. As a fifty-six year-old woman who is becoming more invisible in society as I age, my relevance fades a little more each day. So when someone praises my talents as a writer or musician, the voice inside my head immediately tells me they’re lying.

I think many of us (especially women) fight these internal battles every day. We’re always trying to keep up with this ideal that society has laid out for us—that we’re not good enough unless we (and our children) are beautiful, slim, and successful. Whatever that means. So even if we have wonderful lives with fulfilling jobs and loving families, we come up short as we compare ourselves to others. And here’s the rub: all of those perfect, beautiful women whom we’ve placed up there on that pedestal most likely feel the same way we do—unworthy and vulnerable. They’re just better at hiding it.

What happened to that young warrior girl?

I’m really trying to change, although it’s not always easy after being programmed to view myself so untruthfully for much of my life. Coming from a generation that judged women on their physical beauty, I still struggle with my own self-image. As a product of this generation who considered it conceited and vain for a female to be proud of her own accomplishments—let alone openly praise herself, I still struggle with acknowledging that I am indeed talented, smart, and worthy. I mean, I f***ing wrote a novel that’s going to be published. This should erase my self-doubt, not increase it. Ugh.

While it might be too late to change the image I carry around about myself, I can certainly change the way I perceive others, especially in my own home. Thanks to my older millennial children who have taught me so much about my outdated perceptions of the world, I am slowly evolving. Instead of praising my fourteen year-old daughter’s physical beauty first, I now tell her how proud I am that she works so hard to achieve her success. Instead of commenting her that her shorts are too short, her yoga pants too tight, or her crop-top too revealing, I tell her that she should be proud of her body, and if she feels good in that outfit, then by all means, wear it.

It’s exhausting judging people all the time. It’s so much easier just to love them. And that goes for loving me, too. Change. What a concept.

How’s that for profound?

The older and wiser warrior.

 

Accomplished

Photo credit: Pine & Sea Photography

Throughout my life, I never really considered myself to be accomplished. Sure, I’m good at stuff—I might even be pretty great at a couple of things. But I never thought I was the best at something, until last week, when my daughter, Leah, got married.

Leah is the second of my four children—one of three daughters, and the first to get married. I didn’t have anything to do with the planning of her wedding; not only is Leah creative and artistic, she’s a skilled organizer who puts Marie Kondo to shame. Her now husband, Jeff, is a talented graphic artist, so the two of them (with some help from their talented vendors) were able to pull off a truly amazing wedding celebration without any help from me. Seriously, all I had to do was buy a decent dress and find some pretty shoes that didn’t hurt my feet. I found the dress; the shoes, not so much. Ouch.

It would take too long to list all of the wonderful details and touches Jeff and Leah included in their wedding; let me just say it was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. The venue, the flowers, the music, their vows, the brunch fare (including Krispy Kreme donuts instead of wedding cake) were sublime, in my opinion. And walking Leah down the aisle accompanied by my husband, René, was one of the most joyous occasions of my life (right up there with giving birth four times.)

What impressed me the most over the course of the wedding weekend, were my children. Leah,— it goes without saying—wowed me with everything she managed to do in preparation for the celebration. But my three other kids impressed me as well. They were kind and helpful; solicitous to Leah and her needs, welcoming to Jeff’s family and friends, and generous in so many ways: monetarily, and with their time. What touched me the most, though, was when Nora and Nino gave a toast to Leah during the reception. Standing up together, they expressed their genuine love and appreciation for their sister on her special day. Not only was it humorous, it was so heartfelt that the entire room was in tears.

Rene, Isa, Nora, and Nino

The love that my children have for each other is inexorable. They support each other fully; they are kind and generous toward each other, they laugh uproariously together. They can always count on each other, no matter what the circumstances. Any most importantly, they love being together—along with us. How lucky are we—that our kids actually enjoy spending time with their parents?

So what I discovered at my daughter’s wedding is that I really am the best at something: being a mother. Somehow, with all of the mistakes I made parenting them, I accomplished something pretty remarkable to have created such lovely children. Perhaps Rene had a little to do with it, too—I guess I’ll have to give him a little credit.

The interesting thing about being the best at being a mom, is that it’s not all that hard. And most of the time it’s kinda fun.

Love you all so much: Nora, Leah, Nino, Isa and now, Jeff.

Yes, there were dogs involved.

 

Happy

 

I’ve spent much of my life waiting for something to make me happy. If only ________ (fill in the blank) would happen, I’d be happy. If only I had________, everything would be all right. If only I could do _________I’d be fulfilled forever.

IF ONLY, IF ONLY, IF ONLY!

If and when the IF ONLY finally comes to pass (and it does happen occasionally) I’m content for a nanosecond. Then I’m right back to where I was before, hoping and wishing and dreaming of something better.

The other day my husband, René and I were driving somewhere together I must have let out a sigh. He turned to me and said, “You know, Jess—trying to be happy all the time is unrealistic. We may strive to find happiness—we may even have joyful moments here and there, but most of the time, every single one of us is struggling. And it’s okay to be sad. It’s human nature.”

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what he said, particularly because it’s frequently an internal battle for me to find constant happiness. Because I have so much to be grateful for, I feel guilty if I’m not blissful.

Of course I blame my parents. During my loosey-goosey 1970’s childhood, their philosophy was to promote an unrealistic idea of constant sweetness and light—no negativity allowed whatsoever. Happiness was a must—even if we had to fake it. All the while my poor, depressed father drank himself into oblivion every night.

Looking back on his short life (he died at 53) I understand now that he was faking it as well. While struggling daily with his ADHD and severe depression, he tamped down his creative side, trading it in for familial responsibility. I’m sure I’ve inherited some of my melancholy from him, although I’ve been lucky enough to also inherit some of his creativity. Even with all of the childhood angst I experienced, I’m grateful to him and my mother for giving me a life of privilege. I’m thankful I’ve been able to pass that good life down to my own children.

My goal for the coming year is to let go of this unrealistic idea that I must be happy all of the time. I’m going to allow myself to feel sad sometimes. Perhaps this will allow me to truly enjoy those moments of happiness that do come my way. And when they appear, I won’t have to fake it. I’ll allow the happiness fill my soul to the brim.

And when it’s full, I’ll let it spill out into the world.

Happy New Year, my dear readers. You indeed make me happy.

I thank you for that.

This is me, not faking it.

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