Reason #1298 that I love living in the Seattle area (even though I don't live there any more): You can't out-thank a Seattle-ite. That's one of the first things I noticed when I moved out there in 1993. No matter what you thank them for, they'll find a way to thank you back, over and over again. I shared this one time with a colleague at the Southcenter Waldenbooks where I was working in Seattle at the time. She happened to be a native to the area. Her response? "Thank you for sharing that with me."

I just got off the phone with my credit union out there--BECU. I still have my accounts out there and will have until I die, no doubt. It's the best credit union EVER in my book. I had to giggle by the time I got off the phone b/c of the thank you contest we were having. It was downright funny. They are just so darned nice. I used to get a kick out of my customers in the Seattle area Waldenbooks stores. You could always tell the natives, and the ones who had been there long enough to have been assimilated thoroughly, from the transplants who just refused to get with the friendly and grateful program. The Seattle-ites would keep thanking you until you were both pretty well exhausted.

The politeness went beyond thanking too. Jean Godden, a longtime Seattle Times writer wrote about the politeness level of Seattle folks. She mentioned the 4-way stop phenomenon where you could just about pass out from all the politeness. "You go." "Oh no, you first." It was simply hell if four cars with Seattle drivers got there at the same time. It could take an hour for someone to proceed through the intersection. At least that's how it was when I first got there. By the time I moved away, things had shifted somewhat with all the folks moving there from other places. Some simply didn't assimilate well.

Opening doors for other people was pretty hysterical too sometimes. Men used to look at me askance when I opened doors for them in North Carolina, but they didn't feel at all threatened by such behavior in Seattle. It was simply the norm. If you got there first, you opened the door, not only for your companions, but for whoever else came along while you were standing there with your hand on the door. Then sometimes the door person would switch to someone else who noticed that you'd been there awhile. Usually there ensued a few moments of friendly banter during the changing of the guard. I love that kind of polite friendliness. I loved it even more that I fit right in there in a way I never did in Florida or North Carolina. Florida is getting much friendlier though, for which I'm, you guessed it, thankful.

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Beth Mitchum is the author of seven novels, two collections of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, one collection of spiritual essays, and one music CD. She is also the editor and contributing poet in the Sappho's Corner Poetry Series, which now includes: Tulips Touching, Wet Violets, and Roses Read. All of her works are available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BethMitchum.com, BookshopWithoutBorders.com, and numerous other online bookstores. They are also available by special order through nearly any independent book store. Go to http://bethmitchum.com for more information or to her author page at Amazon.com. First chapters of her novels and memoirs are available at bethmitchum.com. Beth is also the founder and senior editor for UltraVioletLove Publishing and the many websites run by this entity.

Falling Down Gently and Conveniently

If you're going to fall down and get stuck in a weird spot, it's best to do it while there are firemen around. I know this from personal experience now. Yesterday I went with my buddy to Lakeland, where I lived in the late 70s to mid-80s. We went to Moe's to eat and parked near the entrance, which is good since my back has been challenging me in the walking department lately. I decided to go up the step to the side door instead of walking all the way around on the ramped sidewalk. I knew that fewer steps would be better since there weren't any handrails, and my balance is sometimes slightly affected by the back injury and sometimes greatly affected by it. I tried to hold on gingerly to the hedge by the side door in order to get up the rather tall curb. Apparently that wasn't a good idea. In stepping up, I started to lose my balance, and the shrub was not stable enough to be helpful, so I did a slow and rather graceful pirouette and landed ass backwards at the bottom of the hedge.  My back clearly wasn't going to allow me simply to leap back up and pretend it didn't happen. Oh, no. But fortunately there were several firemen on the premises (for what reason, I have NO IDEA!) and two sturdy fellahs leaped to my rescue. I gladly accepted their offer to help me up and made them stand there a moment so I could re-align and steady myself. I assured them that I was okay and that it was a balance thing and not all that unusual. Well, all except that my t-shirt hiked up under my corduroy over-shirt, so I had flashed them a bit of lingerie. Yes, I caught the subtle smiles they tried to quash once they realized I truly was okay. I was glad I had put on the black bra so I could give them a small thrill at least. Thank goodness I was wearing one at all, since I don't always. Even though I pack what some writers might describe as an "ample bosom," I really don't care for wearing brassieres, so I make sure they're comfortable at least when I go out and have to relent to strapping one on.

Since it was nearly (but not quite) embarrassing, I wasn't at all sure that I wanted to mention this little wardrobe failure and ambulatory mishap, but given that I couldn't stop myself from chortling occasionally while I was consuming my organic tofu bowl, I knew that I needed to stay in character with my favorite quote, "If you're not laughing at yourself, then you're just not paying attention." These words were penned by my favorite nom de plume, Bryh Syn, my alter ego who seems to be getting less and less "alter" and more identical twin-ish every day.  I'm not sure if there's a certain age women reach when wardrobe failures and a general lack of decorum simply kicks in unavoidably (synchronistically paired with perimenopause), or if every wardrobe failure I've ever managed to avoid throughout my entire life, due to an innate sense of cool-ness that seems to run in my family, has finally caught up with me. I'm still puzzling over this mystery. I'll get back to you if I figure it out. I suppose that part of it could be reaching a certain age when you simply don't care about the same things any more. But let's face it, do we ever reach an age when we simply don't care what asenine thing we do in public? Or do we simply handle it better later in life if it does happen? In a younger year, would I have blocked it totally from my memory and denied, even to myself, that such a thing ever happened?  Naaah! I've never been one for denial, and I guess I have had my share of embarrassing moments in life. Well, not so much embarrassing as dramatic. Given half a chance, my sister will regale you with stories about my falling down and "dying" on a regular basis when I was a child. I never thought they were all that dramatic--must be the coolness factor--but she always seemed to think that I was near death. I was a tomboy, and I suspect that falling down and being a tomboy go hand in hand. I mean look at basketball players. They're trained to fall down regularly, and I played a lot of basketball growing up. When I was a kid, I played hard. When I grew up, I worked hard, and apparently with little regard to the toll it was taking on my body. I suppose I simply thought I was invincible, because quite frankly, I was very athletic and could do pretty much anything I wanted to do with my body. I was in constant motion. Now as I'm getting older, I'm finding that my body is not always perfectly synced with my brain, and I'm going to work on re-syncing those two entities. I'm pretty sure that as I get back to doing yoga and tai chi, I will regain the co-ordination and balance I lost from the back injury and later vertigo episodes that have so knocked me for a loop in recent years. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to you soon with a good report on that front, so stay tuned.

Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, two collections of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. She is also the editor and contributing poet in the Sappho's Corner Poetry Series, which now includes: Tulips Touching and Wet Violets. All of her works are available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BethMitchum.com, BookshopWithoutBorders.com, and many other online bookstores. They are also available by special order through nearly any independent book store. Go to http://bethmitchum.com for more information or to her author page at Amazon.com. First chapters of her novels and memoirs are available at bethmitchum.com.

Beachcombing Through Life's Stormy Treasures

Just sitting here, breathing in the remembered smell of the ocean, clearing "the cobwebs from my mind." My mother used to take us to the beach (New Smyrna or Daytona usually) a lot when we were kids. She needed to "clear the cobwebs" from her mind. That imagery has stayed with me all my life. I even tweaked the words and used that message in one of the songs on my Driftwood: The Music CD. The line I wrote was, "Will you be the ocean wave that washes my mind?" It's found in the song, "Special Touch." I'm listening to ocean waves on my iPod nano and sorting through the detritus left behind on the beach of my mind after yesterday's storm of emotions. You just never know what you'll find washed ashore after a storm. Mostly it's just seaweed, but occasionally you find life's small treasures: a special shell, an artful piece of driftwood, tumbled sea glass, and on some beaches I've been to, you can find agates washed ashore after a storm.

I guess the emotional storm yesterday was in preparation for leaving Florida and returning to my chosen home, the place in the world where I feel the most at home, the Pacific Northwest. It is time to wash away the past so I can head into my future without attachments, without all that seaweed pulling me down into the depths, threatening my survival. I had to disentangle myself from that so I can move forward unhindered, moving from a place of peace into all of my tomorrows. Hanging onto yesterday's seaweed thoughts will only weigh me down. You can drown in shallow water, if you have enough stuff weighing you down.

Whether I'll find any treasure washed ashore this morning remains to be seen, but I have to admit that I don't look at the world the same way as others. Treasure for me are those bits of natural art I find as I comb the beach. You won't find a lot of knick-knacks on my shelves that didn't come from the beach. I've shed most of those that I had in my many moves. I've let go of the things you have to dust regularly and pack carefully. Although I do wrap the shells I have kept in bubble wrap. Many of my treasures I recycle back to the earth and let them go, emptying my hands and my heart so I am able to hold any treasures I find today until the time comes to release those too. Eventually I'll have to release all my found treasures in order to cross over to the other side. Thankfully most of my treasures are recyclable back to the earth. I try to allow very few things in my life that accumulate dust, though as I begin to pack again, I have found some dusty pockets. Pockets of my life and my space that have been neglected as the days passed by me here.

Time to turn out those pockets, clear the cobwebs, vacuum away the dust bunnies, and shed more stuff. Time to clear away the past, disentangle the seaweed that has wrapped around my feet and tried to hold me back, tried to keep me from living my life fully. I'm going home, and I want to return there unfettered, keeping only joyful memories that propel me into tomorrow, sloughing off the painful thoughts that seek to keep me mired in quicksand. Life is beautiful, but life can also be perilous. Turning my face to the light, I focus on beauty, peace, love, and joy. Turning my face to the light, I find that my step gets lighter too. Once freed, my feet begin to walk more quickly, to skip along, until at last, I'm dancing into the future with a heart full of joy.

Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Not All Who Wander are Lost

As if the beginning of Spring being ushered in by a new moon wasn't enough of a sign to remind me that it is time to begin anew, releasing that which is finished and opening myself to that which lies ahead, I also got the number 999 today. It's not a number I get often. In fact, I have probably gotten it fewer than a half dozen times since I started paying attention to the meanings of repetitive or significant numbers in my life many years ago. According to Doreen Virtue's Angel Numbers 101 book, published by Hay House, this is the meaning of the number 999:

"This is a message signifying completion of an important chapter in your life, and now it's time to get to work--without procrastination--on your next life chapter. This number sequence is like an alarm clock, ringing loudly in order to jolt you into working on your life purpose!"

I'm getting ready to move back to the Pacific Northwest, and that is a very good thing. Yet somehow as important as this move is to me, since I consider this place in the world to be my true home, I'm not entirely positive that it is a permanent, or even a long-term move. Part of me is puzzled by this new information that is coming in, but another part of me has an inkling about what might magic might be afoot. All I can do now is take the next step that is right in front of me. The step after that will open to me once I get to that point. First is packing everything up and returning to the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Then once I do that, I will see how things feel to me. There are a number of people I need to reconnect with there, and a number of people I need to connect with for the first time in the coming months. After that, it's anyone's guess. I just know that it is time for me to pick up and go again.

I'm beginning to feel like a traveling vagabond, but to be honest, I know that I am more like Gandalf in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. His movements were a source of great puzzlement to many, but he always ended up being in the right place at the right time. He always knew when and where he was needed. I don't think it's a coincidence that I wrote a research paper on this archetypal literary figure when I was in graduate school. I identified a lot with the "wandering wizard," and as my life unfolds, I understand this identification so much more. I have referred to myself in writings from the past, as the "Wandering Taoist," and now it appears to be time to begin my wandering again. On to the next step then, the next chapter of this story that is my life. As I begin this new chapter in my journey, I bear in mind some of Gandalf's more significant words, "Not all who wander are lost."


Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Checking Things Off My Invisible List

It has been a while since my last post. Since that time I've checked off a few more items that I needed to complete (unbeknownst to me) before I could go back home. One big thing is that I needed to be here apparently when my niece's maternal grandmother died. I was the only one in the family at the time who was available to drive her up to North Carolina to the funeral. When my mother told me about the woman's passing, I knew right away that this was one of those reasons I was in this place at this time. So I dropped everything, drove to Orlando to pick up my niece, and we took off on our first road trip together. Everything was timed perfectly for me to leave the day after I had to tutor, so I would have nearly a whole week for this task until I needed to be back to tutor again. We didn't need that long though, since my niece wasn't interested in being away from home for that long. I managed to get to my mother's house the next day around noon, and we were on the road in a pickup truck I'd borrowed by early afternoon. I drove all the way from south of Orlando to Florence, South Carolina that day. We ended up stopping there for the night at a hotel near I-95, right at the juncture of where we needed to get off the freeway and start our trek on back roads until we reached the small town in North Carolina where my niece's family lived.

After a decent night of sleep in a comfy hotel, and a continental breakfast, we launched ourselves into the second day of the journey. We had plenty of time to get to the funeral, so we stopped for lunch at a family-style diner and had lunch, which for me was a second breakfast in truth. We knew we were now very close, but for some reason, we had a ridiculous time trying to find the little town from where we we had gotten off the freeway. We finally found the place after a phone call or two. At the point we didn't have a lot of time to spare, so it was a good thing we had left that morning with plenty of time available to us. It ended up taking us nearly an hour to find our way to a town that was only five miles from where we'd stopped for lunch. When we got there, everyone was delighted to see us. They were even delighted to see me, and I was shocked to figure out that I had met most of the family at my brother's wedding more than two decades earlier. I didn't remember most of them at all and the rest of them only a little bit, but they recognized me from the wedding and welcomed me as though I were a close family member as well.

We spent a couple hours with the family, but my niece was not interested in staying for a long time. She loves her family dearly, but in some ways she's just not really sure what to do with them. I'm more experienced at social interactions such as the one we experienced at the family's church, so I tried to help smooth things out. I have to admit that as exhausting as the quick trip was, I'm really glad I made it with my niece. We got a lot closer on the drive, and I got a good reminder of what a good community can do during times of loss and sorrow. I reconnected with part of the family I'm not close to at all, and I got to see my late sister-in-law's grave site, which I had never seen before. I had been living in North Carolina, on the other side of the state, when she passed on, but I was either in graduate school at the time, or I was working. Whatever the case, I wasn't free to pick up and leave, so I didn't. I got really choke up when I saw her photograph attached to the tombstone, but it was good to get some closure on that all these years later. I felt as though I was finally able to say goodbye to her. She was a good woman, and my niece reminds me of her sometimes with her mannerisms. She had been so young when her mother left this world that it shocks me to see my niece do something with her hands that is exactly the way her mother used to do it.

Since I've been back in Florida, I've gotten to reconnect and get even closer to my youngest nephew. I've had opportunities in the past to catch up with my older nephew, but not so much with my younger one. So it's been great to deepen and strengthen the ties with both my nephew and my niece. I've also gotten much closer to my sister during this time. We have come to a very new place in our relationship. Even without a lot of overt communication in the past, we always slip right into a smooth groove when we do get together again. I feel closer than ever before to her now though. Part of this has been us bonding over going through peri-menopause at the same time. Even though she a few years older than me, we are neck in neck in the pace at which we are transitioning through this time in our lives. It has been a godsend that we have, because our experiences have been so similar that we have been able to comfort each other and even laugh at ourselves and our similarities. I'm thankful to have gone through the most difficult stage of this time with her in such close proximity. That may seem like a small blessing, but in reality it has felt huge to both of us to be there for each other. We have also been doing a lot of spiritual work together. Spiritual work that makes sense to the two of us who are so psychically connected, but perhaps not so sensible to someone on the outside. We both know that our relationship is stronger for it, and I know that in the future, even if I'm thousands of miles away, we will remain close and in more frequent contact than previously.

Not a whole lot has happened with my brother, but the fact that I was here to take his daughter to her grandmother's funeral meant a lot to him, and that strengthened our bond too. I've been close to my mother all these years, even while I was living in Seattle, so that may not have grown a lot, but we have been able to spend a lot of time together. That is always a good thing. Our family is a family of deep psychic connections, and it's also a family of mirth. We laugh so much when we are together that I'm sure other people in restaurants think we've been imbibing liquid spirits, when in reality, it is simply Spirit that draws us together and makes our hearts light and joyous.

I've definitely gotten even closer to my best friend. We've never spent so much time together as we have these past months, which will be nearly two years by the time I leave here to return to Puget Sound. I'm glad I could be here for the health challenges she has faced these past couple of years, and I'm equally glad I could be in a safe place where I could deal with the physical and emotional challenges I've been dealt the past couple of years as well. Very different issues, but we've been able to take care of each other, strengthening our lifelong bond as well. The value of this time together has been truly priceless. We've done a lot of laughing, and we've done a lot of serious soul-searching and talking. Again, I could only describe these times as priceless, and I am endlessly grateful for them.

I have, however, come to the place when I know it is time to pack up and move my kitties and myself back to the place in the world that feels most like home. I know that I will never feel as much as home anywhere on this side of the veil as I do on the other side, but it is not time for that just yet. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, my oldest boy kitty had to be put to sleep two days after I arrived here. While that broke my heart, watching him suffer broke it more. I am so grateful that he returned to me as a new kitten six months later. It was much longer than I would've liked, but given the state of my health during the interim, it was definitely for the best. I was doing so poorly health-wise that I wouldn't have been able to care for him properly. He returned to me as soon as I was well enough to take care of him. We are enjoying our reunion every day of our lives, and he surprised us all by adopting a kitten that my best friend had brought home from the vet one day. The kitten was supposedly for her, but Li'l Grey adopted her immediately, so now she will be coming with us when we leave. While I wasn't planning to adopt any more kittens or cats, since I already had my three soul mates with me, I can't deny that she is completely bonded with my three cats, since they are the ones who stay inside all the time with her. They are her siblings now, and tearing them asunder would be something neither of us can do. We agreed that she would be mine now, so I have an adorable little silver tabby girl to add to the herd of kitties in my care.

One last thing that has happened since I've been here is that once I started recovering my health enough to work, I started tutoring children in the school district here. I've been tutoring for over a year now, and I honestly can't fathom why I didn't do it sooner. Of course, it hadn't been the time for it, but now even when I go back, I plan to start taking in students to help them particularly with reading and writing. That is my passion, so what better way to give back than to share that passion with kids. A lot of the children I tutor just seem so grateful to have an understanding soul to sit down with them and give them undivided attention. I don't have other kids of tasks pulling at my attention, so I'm able to focus on them and their needs. Growing self confidence and self esteem seem to be the gift they receive more than any other, although their grades improve too. It's truly a joy, and it's a very healthy activity for me since I know I have a tendency to become much too hermit-like in my existence. I've already started making in-roads towards gathering students to teach once I get back to Kitsap County, Washington, my home away from home, where friends and former co-workers have become like family to me. I'm pretty lucky really to have my hometown,where my family of origin lives, and my adopted family in Washington. I find that I have been blessed indeed by this sojourn back to Florida, which I really did not want to undertake two years ago. I'm glad I did, but I'm also glad to going back to Puget Sound to live for a time. I don't know how long I'll stay this time, but I'll take it for granted even less than I did before and cherish it more than ever.


Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

(Reprinted from my Facebook note from 4 March 2009)


I love this Navajo prayer. Years ago, I used to chant it while I walked for exercise. It turned my fitness walk into a meditation walk. I think I should start doing it again. There are variations on it, but I particularly like this version. 

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In Beauty may you walk.
All day long may you walk.
Through the returning seasons may you walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may you walk.
With grasshoppers about your feet may you walk.
With dew about your feet may you walk.

With Beauty may you walk.
With Beauty before you, may you walk.
With Beauty behind you, may you walk.
With Beauty above you, may you walk.
With Beauty below you, may you walk.
With Beauty all around you, may you walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of Beauty,
lively, may you walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of Beauty,
living again, may you walk.
It is finished in Beauty.
It is finished in Beauty

.

Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Ruby Beach in Washington State

Another Lego Refugee Washes Ashore

While I've been doing time, er, sorry, while I've been spending time in Florida with my friends and family here, an intriguing thing has happened. An 8' tall Lego man washed ashore on Siesta Key (Sarasota, FL). While that in itself is a pretty funny sight to behold, what has piqued my interest is the enigmatic message on his chest. "No real than you are." There is too much of the editor in me not to fill in the word that was left out. Should it not read, "No (more) real than you are?" That in itself is quite a statement, given that said Lego man is made of fiberglass. Although a brand new Legoland theme park has just opened up nearby in Winter Haven, on the grounds of the former Cypress Gardens, the park claims that it had nothing to do with the big Lego float. While it would be a great publicity stunt, I suspect they're telling the truth. If they'd been responsible, I think that it wouldn't have a typo on it, and they'd take responsibility for it and claim the object for the park.  Why not? 


Just because they aren't behind the stunt doesn't mean it isn't one. This is not the first of its kind. So far, I've found videos of two other nearly identical figures that have washed ashore. One in 2007 at Zandvoort in Holland and one that washed ashore in the UK at Brighton Beach. That was in 2008. Given that a new park just opened up in Florida a mere ten days before the arrival of the giant Lego man, I had to wonder if the appearance of the other figures coincided with other park openings, but upon further investigation, I discovered that the appearance of giant Lego men didn't start 2007. The park in the UK opened in 1996 and their big guy didn't appear until 2008. While I do think it's a publicity stunt, I don't think the Lego folks are behind it. According to an article in Sarasota, Florida's Herald-Tribune, an artist in the Netherlands, one Ego Leonard (name on the back of the giant Lego dudes), is responsible. They emailed the guy at his website and got a response in first person from Mr. Lego himself. The email reads:


"I am glad I crossed over. Although it was a hell of a swimm," the email said. "Nice weather here and friendly people. I think I am gonna stay here for a while. A local sheriff escorted me to my new home."


Apparently it takes this fellow two ems to "swimm" around the world. That is one hell of a swimm after all. 


What I want to know is, how many more Lego men will show up? The one that landed in Holland had the number 9 on his back. I haven't been able to find the number on the UK man, but since the Florida one had the number 8, I suspect there are more to come unless the great white sharks out there are giving themselves indigestion by biting into these fiberglass babies. Blech! 


If you want to learn more about Lego Man, a.k.a., Ego Leonard, he has his own website (of course he does!).  http://www.egoleonard.nl  And a Facebook page: V=http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001127118502&sk=wall He's also tweeting apparently. https://twitter.com/#!/egoleonard I just signed up to follow his plastic tweets. To read more about the first (known) Lego Man washing ashore, I refer you to: http://www.marketingvox.com/giant-lego-man-washes-ashore-in-holland-032233/ More about the Florida incident can be found at: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20111025/WIRE/111029721/-1/new?p=1&tc=pg and more about the UK one can be found in many places, but here's one link to get you started: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7702121.stm 


Happy Lego-ing. Thank you, Ego Leonard, for an interesting topic to occupy our idle hands/minds while you promote your art. Very effective marketing trick and nice pun off the Greek word for I (ego), as in I, Leonard, and the word Lego, which makes for an interesting subject for art as well as a statement about the plastic state of the world in general. Well done!


Videos of the Lego Finds:
Holland in 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=i5ezlcanXaY
UK in 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su9MtRJ-3cY&feature=related
USA (Florida) in 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mB8ay2DojAA&feature=share


 Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Finding Balance in a Sea of Raging Hormones

I've heard a lot of women complaining about psychotic mood swings arising from perimenopause. I hope you don't take ten years to figure it out like I did. I lost a lot of valuable time and jeopardized relationships by taking too long to figure out how to return to sanity and hormonal balance. I’m using a homeopathic menopause remedy made by Hylands to smooth out the bumps in my emotional path.  I plan to continue to use it until I am long past menstruation.

http://www.hylands.com/products/menopause.php

If these don't work for you, I implore you to try something else that is natural before you resort to hormone replacement therapy (HRT).  In some cases, HRT might be the only thing that works, but at least make sure you get bio-identical hormones, if you go this route. Some of the stuff out there is made from horse urine. Yes, you heard me right. One of the names it  goes by is Premarin. Not only is this a form of cruelty to horses, but ew! Who wants to ingest horse urine?

http://antiagingguide.com/prempro_horseurine.htm

Homeopathy is a safe, alternative way of approaching wellness. It's been around a very long time. It's not always fast acting, but it does work for a lot of people. I take the menopause remedy every night (3 tablets) before I go to bed and any time I start feeling sad, depressed, weepy, bitchy, etc. I usually need them only once a day, but if I need them more, I know I can take more b/c they operate on infinitesimal dosages. I also use their insomnia remedy for the perimenopausal sleeplessness. I’m sleeping much better. Now if I can only convince my kitz that I need to sleep more than six hours at a time, I’ll be set.  For you younger ladies, this same company has a menstrual remedy (PMS) as well.

http://www.hylands.com/products/pms.php

Women's wisdom about women's needs used to be passed down from generation to generation, with wise woman healers helping women through difficult patches. We got disconnected from this chain of wisdom and are out there being tossed about on the stormy seas of our hormones. I've been taking the menopause remedy for about six months or so, and I'm back to the more gentle, easy-going woman I used to be. If I start feeling too weepy, I take an extra dose of the stuff and maybe some of the Calms Forte formula too until it subsides. The Calms stuff (various formulas of this) usually works really fast on me and has none of the side effects of Zanax or the other things being pushed onto women in times of anxiety.

http://www.hylands.com/products/calms.php

Part of our midlife anxiety arises from the stress in our lives, but most of it is hormonal and needs to be eased back into balance rather than controlled by drugs. You need to control the mood swings in order to deal with the real sources of the anxieties. You may need to make lifestyle changes. You may need the spotlight to focus on the areas of your life that are out of balance. You may need to establish some boundaries or leave relationships, but more than anything, you need to be the one making the decisions about your life. Don't let the medical authorities take over for you. Empower yourself to make whatever decision you need to make by becoming informed. Menopause is not a disease any more than menstruation or pregnancy. Sometimes they get too complicated and you need medical people to intervene. But most of the time, all we need are food, herbs, and gentle alternative remedies (homeopathy, aromatherapy, massage, sound healing, flower essences, etc.) to return our bodies to a more balanced state.

Using synthetic hormones to treat normal and natural hormonal changes is like dropping a boulder on the other side of the scale to balance the weight. You might feel as though you need something that drastic to make the craziness stop, but you really don't, if perimenopause is the only underlying cause. Start experimenting with gentle, natural remedies as soon as you can to ease yourself back to balance.  I’ve been studying women’s health for a couple of decades, so I’m very accustomed to taking charge of my health issues, but by all means, please consult a naturopath, if you’re unaccustomed to taking charge of your own health and don’t trust your research capabilities and resources. Once you find what works, keep doing it until you bid these crazy swings goodbye. Just bear in mind that you might need to treat yourself for a decade or more, which is another reason going the natural route is a better idea.  Ten or more years on synthetic hormone replacement can cause other serious health issues.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/38211-side-effects-synthetic-hormones/

If you decide to use HRT to treat the symptoms of menopause, please insist on bio-identical hormones over horse urine. I don’t understand why any woman would knowingly choose to ingest horse urine. The problem is that they are not being informed about what they are taking, so you have to inform yourself. Don’t take my word for anything either. I’m not an expert on your body. No one knows you better than you. Not even your doctor. Your doctor is taught about pathology and not necessarily about wellness. There is a huge chasm between studying how to treat illnesses and studying how to prevent them by creating a lifestyle of wellness.

http://www.get-healthy-enjoy-life.com/synthetic-hormones.html

Don’t be like a lamb led to slaughter when you go to the doctor. There’s a good chance that your doctor is being influenced by the powerful pharmaceutical companies out there, who are looking only to make a profit.  Sure, it’s easy just to pop a magic pill to calm the storm, but what sort of perfect storm are you setting yourself up for later down the line when the side effects all come together to create a true illness?

Menopause is not an illness, even though it sometimes feels like mental illness. I know I was feeling pretty insane by my 51st year. I was weepy and needy at times and angry and enraged at others. Mostly I was quietly depressed with episodes of sudden anxiety that had absolutely no basis in what was occurring in my life at the time. These bouts started slowly and infrequently around the age of forty and increased with age.  None of these emotions felt like me, and yet I knew it was coming from inside my body for the most part. I was also opening up psychically at the same time. Increasingly I started picking up on other people’s energy.  From what I’d read years ago about the crone stage of life, I knew this was part of perimenopause too, becoming increasingly empathetic towards others.  I learned to shield myself when other people’s energy started impacting me too much, and I learned how to discern which emotions were mine and which were coming from someone else. I also figured out that the erratic mood swings were because of being perimenopausal, but I still didn’t know what to do about it.  Finally when the crazies got too out of hand, I went online looking for natural answers.  I found what works for me, and it was a combination of homeopathy and herbs, along with aromatherapy, massage, and trying to maintain a more peaceful, simpler lifestyle.

After all is said and done, you may still need something you can get only from your medical doctor, but don't acquiesce to radical medical treatment without doing the research and exploring gentle, alternative methods first. They’re usually much less expensive, but because they aren’t generally fast acting magic pills, you need to take charge before the next crazy episode. Start talking to other women in this age range and the ones who have gone before you. We have a wealth of knowledge and wisdom collectively. What works for me might not work for you and vice versa, but if we keep talking to one another, perhaps we’ll all find something natural and gentle that works. Then when our daughters and granddaughters reach this time of life, we’ll have more knowledge to help them through this as well. 

The more connected women are to each other, the more solutions we can find together. If we remain in isolation, we are targets for those who want to tell us what our bodies need. They know medicine, but we know us. If you have a medical condition, then by all means seek medical help. Menopause is part of life...like giving birth, having periods, and letting go of loved ones when it's their time to leave. None of these things should fall under the auspices of medical treatment unless other issues arise in conjunction with them. There are plenty of women out there who have researched these things and some of them have done so with medical degrees to guide them. Dr Christiane Northrup is one of them.

http://www.drnorthrup.com/

Be aware that the pharmaceutical industry is the driving force behind much of what doctors are prescribing. I hope you've read enough to see how much harm indiscriminate use of any drug can cause. Or indiscriminate use of herbs too for that matter. Drugs originally came from herbs. They are strong medicine and not to be taken lightly either. The point is to be informed and talk to other women. If we remain isolation in our frustration and embarrassment about feeling so out of control of our emotions, then we are vulnerable to doctors and pharmaceutical companies who want to take over our health care. No one should ever take over our health care unless we are entirely incapable of handling it. If that is the case, then I'm pretty sure you're not reading this blog.

Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Gearing Up for What's Next

Since I don’t know where to start this blog, I might as well jump into the middle. That’s where I am in my life anyway-- midlife. At least as long as I live to be 102, which is unlikely. Truth be known, I’ve been having midlife crises for quite a while now, for at least a decade, I guess. This is partly because I’m perimenopausal and partly because of the strange times we’re living in these days, though they’re not really as hard as some make out. It's not like it was in the Great Depression when there were people who had to go to work on empty stomachs because there was nothing to eat, no money, not enough work, and no unemployment checks coming in weekly.  People really should read a little more history to keep things in perspective.  Even given these “troubled times,” a phrased overused a lot in the past couple of years, most of us still live like royalty in America in comparison to Third World countries and even mere decades ago. Most American households have multiple televisions and computers, among other things. I don’t watch much television when I live by myself, and I even have a nice one now. Of course that is because my best friend was visiting me while I lived in the Puget Sound area and she wanted to be able to watch sports during her visit. I owned a cheap 19-inch color television, but since her vision is less than stellar she bought me a 32-inch HD television with an LCD display. I've enjoyed watching DVDs on it and the Weather Channel of course. I even break down and watch a show now and then.

I’m a writer by trade, so my royal wealth is revealed mainly in the number of laptop computers I own. Yes, multiples, because of their tendency to develop weirdnesses after a few years.  Since I have to be connected to the internet a lot to keep my various businesses operating, I buy a new laptop if my main one starts behaving badly. I usually keep at least one backup just in case something untoward happens to my main one. I recently acquired an extra, older laptop that had been retired by my friend who doesn’t wear them out the way I do. I think she replaced this one because it didn’t have a keypad, which is okay with me, since I’m used to not having one anyway. I use numbers a lot less than I use letters. She, on the other hand, is a high school math teacher. Thus the need for the keypad.  Getting her old one brought my total collection to four. I just passed one on to my nephew, otherwise I’d have five, which is a bit excessive even for my tastes. But I digress.

I want to keep a journal on what I am about to do and how I am proceeding on my life’s path as it unfolds before me. I know that I’m on the right path, but I really need some guidance at the moment and a forum for untangling the threads of thought that are currently winding their way along my synapses. I need to process, I guess, and the best way for me to process things has always been to journal my thoughts. So let me bring you up to speed. If you’ve been following my blogs you’ll know basically how I got to this place in time. If not, you might want to back up a bit, but you really should read my first collection of autobiographal essays, Slices of My Life: So Far.  That will make my life seem a little more sensible to some of you. Maybe.

I’m 51, and I’m living in my best friend’s house in Florida. This is not where I thought I’d be at this age and stage of life, but it is, however, where I am at the moment. While I’m glad to be able to spend more time with my buddy after twenty-five years away from this part of the world, I miss my chosen home, which is the Puget Sound region. It’s located in the Pacific Northwest part of the United States. I also miss having my own life. For various reasons, I needed to come back here for a time. The reasons for this return to my childhood home are nearing completion, and I’m itching now to move onto whatever is next or to go back home to the Seattle area. Only I don’t want to go home the way I got here. I had a harrowing trip getting here that was hard on me and my three cats. In fact, the oldest of my cats died about three days after we arrived. That was no fun, but fortunately my cats reincarnate and come back to me, so he’s back now, and we are even closer than we were before, possibly because of all we went through getting here. I’d really like to go back in a small RV, so they and I can roam about the country in greater comfort and at a gentler pace. Apparently the size and kind of RV I’m interested in is called a Class C motor home. Whatever. It’s not too big and it’s not too small for one person and three cats. As in the children’s fairy tale, it’s “just right” for this Goldilocks (NOT) and her three teddy bears (cats).

While the trip here was difficult, it did have moments of beauty. However, I’d like the journey back to be simply beautiful and a great time of connecting with lots of friends and family along the way, and I’d like it to prepare me for the next stage of my life. I’ve had over a year’s worth of trying to recover from all that happened to me during the packing and moving last year. I need things to be easier now. I’m not in as good a shape as I was before I started packing last year, but I do have considerably less stuff. I’d already been paring down over the years because of all the moving I’ve done in my life.  I have continued to pare down since I got here. Now I find myself paring down even more. Again.

I’d like to be able to fit most of my belongings in and on the motor home, my bicycle being the one thing for sure that would have to ride on the outside. I sold my sixteen-year-old car a few months ago after owning it for fifteen years. I love that car, but it was time to let it go so I found her a good home. Now I need to find a good home for myself and my cats. We’re just fine where we are, except that it isn’t our home, and this isn’t the part of the world where I fit. I grew up in Central Florida, but for my entire life, I didn’t feel as though I belonged here. I still don’t.  I knew I had to be here for a time, but that time is running out now, and I need to know what I need to do in order to be ready for the next step. I also need to manifest whatever I’m going to need to move me to the next place.

So I continue paring down and now I’m looking for an RV so I can join the millions of other Americans in the world who ride off into the sunset to enjoy the retired life. Only I’m not retired. Indeed, I’m in one of the few professions where retirement is not only unnecessary, but it’s also unlikely. Most writers pretty much die writing. While I have a number of years to go and lots of things to see and say yet, I will no doubt stop writing only because my heart has stopped beating. I’d be very happy just to drift off to sleep some day and never wake up. I know pretty much when that will happen. If you've been reading my blogs, you might already know that I am of a spiritual bent. If truth be known, I am psychic and work closely with angels, so I know that death is nothing to fear.

When a spiritual teacher told me several years ago that I could just ask when my time would be up, I did. It wasn’t as long as I thought, but I’m happy with all that is left of it. It’s enough time to do what I need to do before I close my eyes for the last time, as long as I stay on my path. That’s what I’m doing here now. Staying on my path. It’s not necessarily what other people think I should be doing or want me to be doing, but I stopped worrying about what other people think I long time ago. That's what makes me a good lesbian. In order to come out to myself and the world, I had to quit caring about what other people think about me and my life choices.

In the immortal words of one of the greatest childen’s writers of all time:

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”  --Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a., “Dr Seuss“)

So here I go, preparing for the next step into the seeming void that will become more solid the closer my foot comes to making it.

I’m reminded once again of the Taoist teaching.  “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. “ -- Lao-Tzu


Beth Mitchum is the author of six novels, one collection of poetry, one collection of biographical essays, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks

Trained to Deceive

There's something I have to confess. It may shock you. It may make you want to turn your back on me. Or maybe, just maybe, you'll understand and be able to identify with me.  Here's the confession. I have spent a good portion of my life being dishonest with myself and sometimes other people too, either consciously or unconsciously. I won't blame my society for this, but if I'm going to continue to move my life towards the state of being an open book to others and myself, then I have to speak out about the world that helped shape me into the person I am today. The truth is that I was heavily influenced by society to deceive not only myself but others as well.

You see, one of the things I learned early on from society is that being gay isn't okay.  If you are my age or older, then you're probably nodding your head as you read this.  If you are much younger or grew up in a state or country that is more progressive in their laws and their thinking, then you may not be able to relate to this at all. Thankfully in the twenty-first century, the laws are changing as the ranks of the accepting grow and the ranks of the homophobes die off.  The younger generations growing up simply have no reason to deny the LGBT community equal marriage and all other civil rights. It isn’t part of their ideological heritage for the most part. Even many older people with sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren who are living their lives openly as gay, lesbian, and bisexual, now have a face to put on that old “queer” label. They love these people and want them to be happy. It makes no sense to them to deny us equal rights either. 

However, growing up in the 60s and 70s, I learned (first at school and later at church) that being gay isn't okay. So I hid the truth about my gay-ness not only from other people, but also from myself. How did I do this? Indeed, how does any gay person hide it from him or herself? And yet we do. I certainly had plenty of evidence of my gay-ness. I started having sexual fantasies about women when I was in junior high school. I remember the first woman I fantasized about and what school year it was, although I don't remember the fantasy exactly. She was one of my teachers, married and very definitely not gay, at least as far as I knew. I mean, really, we don't always know about others. How can we when we are so good about denying the truth about our own lives?

Oddly enough, during ninth or tenth grade, I double-dated with this teacher and her husband. Her husband's younger brother was visiting, and they asked me to go out with him and them on a double date, which I must say was a little strange to me. I had fun with them all, but I felt like a fish out of water, perhaps because while the guy was nice, I was definitely not attracted to him. I suspect, had I been honest with myself at the time, I would have had to admit that I was way more attracted to my female teacher than to her teenage brother-in-law.  It's hard to admit something like that as a teenager. Those years are so much about exploring your sexuality and your worldview in general.  

The internal conflict didn't always go unnoticed either. One of my peers, who was apparently either more perceptive than the others, or at least less inclined to filter her thoughts, blurted out one day in geometry class than she couldn't really think of me as either male or female. Wow! There ya go. She figured it out before I did. This was after the lesbian fantasies, mind you, but I had certainly not gotten as far in my thinking as she did with that one statement. It gave me pause, I have to admit, but I didn't disagree with her. I simply looked at her and said, "Okay." Then I thought about it later and still couldn't disagree with her. I mean, I knew that I was female. There was no ambiguity there. I had been a tomboy growing up and very athletic, but I was still female inside and out. What I wasn't, was a heterosexual female, and that I suspect was the energy she sensed around me. I filed that thought away and went on my merry way, fantasizing about my female teachers. I think by this time, I'd stopped fantasizing about male teachers, although there had been a couple in junior high who had been fantasy worthy. 

What did happen after that point is that I got engaged between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I was fifteen going on thirty that summer apparently. Needless to say, my mother choked on that, but she didn't freak out. She simply suggested that we wait until I graduated from high school. Had she gone totally berserk, it might have solidified the thing in my mind, but she didn't. In her outwardly cool way, she tried to accept it for what she thought it was--hormones. In a way it was and in a way it wasn't. I really liked, maybe even loved the guy. He was really nice and a great friend. But I must say that he didn't rock my world, even though together we did manage to rock my mother's world. Sorry, Mom. Thank you for letting me work through that one on my own. I suspect in some way I was trying to prove to myself that I wasn't a lesbian. I thought I was doing what women were supposed to do, i.e., grow up and get married to a nice fellow.  Only as was my wont, I was trying to skip the whole growing up part.  I had always been ahead of the curve, but this was one area where I really needed to slow down and take my time, time I desperately needed to figure out that I really wasn’t like the other girls.

When you realize just how different your worldview is from the majority of teenagers around you, it can be quite daunting. While other teens are thinking about the opposite sex, you find that you are thinking about the same sex. It can be quite a profound wake-up call, or it can be a more subtle awakening, bit by bit, to a different point of view and life experience. I was acting like my peers on the outside, but I was a different person on the inside. I was rather timid about letting anyone know about the inside me, so I dealt with it by denying my true feelings. This leads, I think, to a breakdown of a cohesive sense of self. If you can't be honest with yourself, how can you help but become somewhat dishonest with others. Even if you want to be honest and open with the world, you have already figured out by listening to your peers that being "queer" is anything but normal, and when you're a teenager, you generally want to be normal. You want to fit in with the crowd.

I used to hang out with different groups in high school, but I never completely fit into any single clique. That's part of what made me so independent and capable of standing on my own, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. I do wish though that I could have done that in a way that was more open. Instead, I hid parts of myself I thought were too different and searched for some way to move through the world that fit my experience. My way of moving through the world turned out to be that of being my own person, set apart by virtue of my different-ness, but also somewhat split in my thinking. I had to dichotomize my world into my outer me and my inner me. 

To a degree I still do this, even though it's no longer necessary because I'm a lesbian who is very out of the closet now. But I didn't reach this level of openness overnight. I don't think any of us do. The process of coming out takes time, and sometimes we sacrifice important bits of ourselves, including significant relationships, while we are in process.  How can we not sacrifice bits of our own integrity when we feel such a strong need to hide who we are? We are in fact being trained by our cultures and our laws to deceive ourselves, our friends, our families, our teachers, our students, our employers, law enforcement officials, the military, our neighbors, our landlords, virtually everyone, including the stranger on the street who might be lurking outside the gay bar just waiting for the opportunity to assault us.  The more restrictive the laws and culture, the more deeply ingrained are the levels of deception. How can this not impact who we are and how we move through the world? How can it not train us to deceive? 

Beth Mitchum is the author of five novels, one collection of poetry, and one music CD. Her works are available at Amazon.com through the following link: http://tinyurl.com/bethmitchumbooks