Angela Kelsey

Tell the Story

Category Archive: voices

  1. Love Yourself So Matcha!

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    Maybe you’re a biological mother or an adoptive mother or a step-mother or a mother to people you work with or for. Maybe you play the role of mother to animals or a business or your parents.

    Regardless of the way you mother, I hope these words that I shared with my step-daughter will help you during this Mother’s Day week to remember to love yourself as well as others. Other women, from my mother to Jen Louden and Bridget Pilloud, shared some of them with me, and I’m passing them on.

    • “Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future; therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important, it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”– John O’Donohue, Anam Cara. This “kindness of rhythm” is probably my big overarching goal right now–all of the rest of the thoughts below should be in service not only to getting things done, but more importantly, to the goal of being kind to myself and respecting my own very personal rhythm and speed. If I get things done by beating myself up, that really defeats the whole purpose.

     

    • I am not Mary Poppins, as much as I might like to be. I cannot solve every problem anyone might have. My purse is not infinitely big.

     

    • Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. A gym lesson that applies everywhere–nothing happens faster because I rush and get rattled.

     

    • Just say no. Don’t let other people set your priorities (which of course means you have to get clear in your own mind about what your priorities are but remember that they are yours to set).

     

    • Routine is key. For you all this may be different (as in, you may have to do your sanity-essential routines late at night, whereas I do them early in the morning) but I wake up early enough to do the things that are most important to the overall sanity of the day: meditate, journal, work on book, exercise. If occasionally I only have a short time for each of these, I try to scale them all down. 5 minutes of meditation, 5 minutes of journaling, 5 minutes of work on book, 5 minutes of stretching. Doing these in the morning before I go to work means that no matter how many interruptions I have, the things most important to me, the things that really no one on the planet but me cares whether I do, will actually get done before other people start pulling at my time and energy.

     

    • Lists are also key. I don’t know if you have the energy to explore anything new right now, but for quite a while I’ve been “bullet journaling,” which means to me that I keep all my lists, my calendar, my journal, pretty much everything, in one notebook, and I always keep it with me. When I feel that paralysis of overwhelm that you described last night, I look at my list and just pick something, just one next thing that will give me progress toward one of the things that’s causing stress and needs to get done. I also use list making to clear my mind of what I worry I will forget. Put it on the list, and forget it while you do what’s really important right now. If it’s not worth writing down, it’s either not worth doing at all or can be done in less time than it takes to write it down, in which case I just do it.

     

    • Resist the tyranny of the urgent. This is easier for me since “urgent” rarely involves anyone’s safety or health. But sometimes I find that urgent things, especially other peoples’ urgent things, can take up the whole day and despite my feeling of complete depletion, I haven’t gotten anything done that’s important to me. Make the distinction between urgent and important.

     

    • Be lazy/efficient. This is small, but I try to never walk from Place A to Place B, at home or office, without something in my hand(s) that needs to be moved from A to B. I let things stack up until I have to go from A to B for more than one reason.

     

    • Keep clear surfaces. I am a little bit of a fanatic about this, but visual clutter makes it really difficult for me to sort out what needs to be done, what needs to go with me when I leave, what is just sitting around, what is mine, what needs to be thrown away. I have “staging areas” at home and at work that are always clear, except for what needs to be taken with me when I leave, or what needs to be done imminently. When I have too much clutter, sometimes the only next right thing is to take a moment and clean it up. Otherwise I can’t function, can’t see the forest for the trees, can’t find my bullet journal ;).

     

    • Back to the beginning: be kind to yourself. I find that I am most grouchy and resentful when I do not give myself kindness and space, when I feel like I’ve been running around in other peoples’ urgent matters, not keeping my routines and practices, not remembering what is really important to me.

  2. What I Learned Before, During, and After Hurricane Irma

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    My stuff that matters a lot to me fits in a small carry-on.

    My stuff that matters a little less to me fits in a small car.

    Electricity and air conditioning are luxurious necessities.

    Order is calming.

    Waiting is hard.

    My sister is brave.

    Afternoon bourbon is helpful.

    Ribs can be cooked on Sterno.

    No one wants to leave home, even when a Category 5 storm is coming, even when there is no electricity.

    Little kindnesses like cleaning-out-my-freezer casserole shared with a neighbor are appreciated more than usual.

    Imminently restored electricity makes a woman want to hug a lineman from Indiana.

    Adrenaline crash will kick your ass.

    From Mary Oliver’s Upstream:  “All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself.”

  3. Reading Magic and Loss

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    Over the past few years, I’ve read fewer books than ever before, and of those books, even less fiction.

    I’ve said that the internet has melted my brain, wrecked my attention span. Or maybe the problem is my 50-something vision, or my glasses, or the quality of the light by my bed.

    I listen to podcasts while walking Sadie and getting ready for work and washing dishes; I read everything from news to email to long articles to social media to forums to product reviews on the internet from waking to sleeping, on my desktop, laptop, and phone.

    I listen to audio books on long drives; the music that calls me is still the music with lyrics I care about.

    There is no shortage of words in my life; only a shortage of (the reading of) books.

    But still rising from all those words is a longing to be immersed in another person’s thought processes, as well as the ability to make notes and reread, that comes a weekend with a physical book. And I was determined to finish reading a book.

    On the top of my stack was Magic and Loss by Virginia Heffernan. I’d heard her interviewed on Dan Harris’s 10% Happier podcast and I was intrigued by her story and the possibility that the internet is “among humankind’s great masterpieces,” as the blurb on the back of the book suggests.

    Part philosophical deep dive, part history, part memoir, Magic and Loss touches on many of my preoccupations: technology (and the way it’s changing my brain every day), one person’s story, religion, writing and story telling.

    And Heffernan wouldn’t judge my 2017 reading habits: As she says, “Codices, scrolls, leisure, work, epic poetry, tweets: let’s call it all real reading.”

  4. And here we are.

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    I started blogging right after President Obama’s inauguration, participating in optimism and a sense of community here and in my little corner of the early days of Twitter. Vice President Biden championed victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and the Violence Against Women Act was strong and enforced.

    But life–my life, your life, the life of the country–goes on, gets in the way, changes everything. And here we are.

    My brother-in-law’s cancer fight over; my sister’s grief is a little bit less fresh.

    Mr. Z and the dogs and I have moved house and reshuffled priorities.

    My book  is still in revision. I’m back to it now.

    It’s time for me to start talking again, with anyone who will listen.

     

     

  5. Grey Area

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    Life is easier, in some ways, when things are neatly divided into them/us, bad/good, never/always boxes.

    When those boxes crumble, when the lines between certainties blur, our assumptions and givens shake. Things get trickier and more interesting.

    A few box-crumbling events have happened in my world over the past few years:

    • a friend’s husband was accused of molesting their granddaughter. I believe that he did not do it.
    • another friend was attacked in her home and brutally beaten. She found her way to deep forgiveness.
    • a trusted employee was arrested for domestic violence. I decided to pay for his bail.

    In an either/or world, I believe in accusers/victims no matter what; I want my friend’s attacker to go to prison for as long as the law allows; I draw a hard line and fire the batterer.

    In the grey zone, I can be open to the possibilities of believing in the accused, marveling at forgiveness, and hoping for the batterer’s change.

    My bias remains toward accusers and victims. I believe there is no justification, ever, for emotional or physical violence and also that it is very, very difficult to stop learned behaviors like battering.

    Living a little bit more in the grey helps me better understand my own story. Living in the grey is expansive.  Challenging my assumptions makes my ultimate conclusions–or what will be my interim conclusions–more nuanced, more complex, more allowing of further refined understanding.

    Living in the grey allows the possibility of telling and hearing all the stories.

     

  6. What have you survived?

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    In From a Survivor, Adrienne Rich writes,

    Next year it would have been 20 years
    and you are wastefully dead
    who might have made the leap
    we talked, too late, of making

    which I live now
    not as a leap
    but a succession of brief, amazing movements

    each one making possible the next

     

     

     

     

    Every one of us who lives another day is a survivor of something, or everything.

    Survivors of  violent, personal trauma–domestic violence, sexual abuse, rape.

    Others are survivors of cancer, accidents, natural disasters, genocide, the suicide of a loved one.

    What have you survived? What has been your “succession of brief, amazing movements”?

     

     

  7. Nest-Making Retrospective

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    On March 1, I had an idea so clear and bright that before I knew it, I was sending out this email:

    “I’m putting together a month of blog posts for National Women’s History Month. This year’s theme is Women’s Education–Women’s Empowerment. Women’s stories are near and dear to my heart, and I believe they are important to you, too.  I admire your writing, and I would be honored if you would be willing to share a story and/or photos in a guest blog post at www.angelakelsey.com.  I’d love to read your stories of women who’ve contributed to your education and/or your empowerment, in whatever way(s) you choose to define the words and convey your stories. Poetry, prose, and photos are welcome.”

    After the initial email,  I exercised no more control over this series than I did over the hydrangea pictured here, and the pieces worked together just as beautifully, just as organically. With the exception of knowing that I wanted to contain the posts within the supportive bookends of Jeanne and Julie, I posted them in the order I received them, and if you read them in order, I think you will see that a whole, greater than the sum of its parts, was formed.

    Part of me, not wanting to impinge upon the nest that’s been created of its own accord, wants to post an awestruck retrospective that simply says, “Wow.”

    Wow to the synergy and the dance of the posts with each other. Wow to the openness and the willingness of the writers. Wow to the women they honor, the personal journeys they share. Wow to those who continued the conversation through their comments.

    Another part wants to acknowledge the generosity of each woman who gave of herself and her life and her stories. Another part wants to highlight some of the themes that emerged.

    So, in awe mixed with gratitude, I do a little of each, although these pieces are so tightly interwoven that they touch each other in many more ways than I can show here.

    Wow–to Jeanne and Josie and Ann and Sally and Cheryl and Liz and D., who celebrated collective feminine power in  Fran and Marcia and The Fierce Feminine and Hey Girls, We Slipped Up and A (Wonderfully) Mixed Relationship and Her and This Little Light of Mine and Loving women comes easily.

    Wow–to Shannon and Alana, who wrote about their grandmothers in Happy Birthday Viola Sylvestra and Her Unseen Hand on My Back.

    Wow–Julie and Bindu and Teresa and Kelly and Streetlights, who wrote about mothers and mothering in Empowerment and The Birth of Compassion and The Body as Nest and Lesson Plan and A Transforming Force.

    Wow to Illuminary and Megan, who described solace and comfort in Auntie Jaquie and Someone Makes a Nest For Me Today.

    Wow to Meredith and Bridget, who celebrated women teachers in  Short But Sweet and Wonder Woman Hilda Raz.

    See what I mean? Just–Wow.

    Now: how can we continue the spirit of nest-making every day, with every breath and step?

     

     

     

  8. The Body as Nest

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    Today’s Nest-Making guest post in honor of women and Women’s History Month is by Bindu Wiles. It’s a milestone post  for two reasons: it’s the blog’s 500th post, and more importantly, Bindu is one of  the  first people I met online to become  dear  to me offline as well. I’m very happy to have her words and images here today.

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    In honor of all the women who have given their bodies

    as a soft place to fall

    to rest upon

    to enter into the world

    to bear witness

    to hold

    to love.

    We are all mothers of some sort.

     

     

     

     

     :::

    Bindu Wiles is in a deep mid-life crisis that she is walking, writing and photographing her way through. She has an undergraduate degree in fine art (photography) and 3 graduate degrees because the one she really wanted all along was an MFA in writing, which she finally received at 47 years of age from Sarah Lawrence College. The tattoo on her left forearm sums up her life motto: Art Saves Lives. She has completed a 300 page memoir, her essays have been published in various literary journals, she is bringing more of the under 12 years of age crowd into her life, and is always up for a good laugh. In fact, she is trying to stay in a state of silly as an approach to aging.

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    Looking for more Nest-Making posts? You can find them here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

  9. This Little Light of Mine …

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    Today’s Nest-Making guest post in honor of women and Women’s History Month is by Sally G. It’s an honest and heartfelt account of one woman’s process of becoming her Self, a woman to be honored. 

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    The moment I saw Angela’s introduction to this Nest Making series – I felt its importance. Like a quiet call to action, it captured my heart immediately. Something inside me shifted, and part of me stepped a little more fully into Who I Am.

    A blog post immediately flowed through me, honouring the quiet shift taking place right now, online and offline, toward healing, shared compassion, inspiration and support.

    I appreciated the way this quiet movement is cutting through the noise of the ‘connection and conversation’ geared more for sales and self-gain than community and service as it was once known and experienced. And I expressed a desire to somehow be part of it.

    Here in the Nest ~ I intended to be part of it by showing up, filling with inspiration, admiration and wisdom from the experiences of others. I’ve been moved by what’s been shared so far and feel so happy to be here. Angela then invited me to contribute a story of my own ~ and while my heart surged at the invitation, the inclusion, my mind wondered what I could possibly contribute. You see, I don’t really have anyone specific in my life story that I’d hold up in the light of “you changed my life.” Even now, almost five decades into this journey ~ I look back and see paths populated with those who dismissed me, let me down, hurt me, marginalized me – palpable with the disappointment that I didn’t turn out as they’d hoped, or expected, or – desired.

    Please don’t read those words with heavy residues of pain – because in the five days I’ve spent reflecting on how to meaningfully contribute to this series, I realize that these people ARE the shining lights who pushed me to learn about my Self, to trust my Self and to even grow to like my Self. Over the years, I’ve learned that we all serve as Mirrors to each other – each reflecting something back to the other. It’s an integral part of our feeling, and understanding, the connection we all share, that we’re all here to help each other along. Sometimes the help is instantly recognizable and appreciated. Other times, its true value emerges in hindsight, in all its depth, significance and meaning.

    I spent the first few decades of my life seeing others as Mirrors reflecting back Who I Am. This began a process of defining myself on others reactions to me and fitting myself into the interpretation of what I thought I saw. I guess on some level, I figuratively dismantled who I naturally felt myself to be, because only distortions of it could be found in the Mirrors around me.

    One can only do this for so long though, for the discomfort becomes unbearable and the future feels limiting, at best – hopeless, at worst.

    Supported by life circumstances, like giving birth to two daughters, for instance (and feeling a fierce responsibility to get clear about what it meant to be a Mother, a Daughter, a Woman) – I opened to facing the reality that what I’d been doing and how I’d been feeling wasn’t working for me at all. This Honour Student, Exemplary Employee, Perfect Wife, Disappointing Daughter and Hopeful Mother found the courage to accept the fact that “the worst” had probably already happened: I’d failed.

    I stand before you to confirm the truth that acknowledging Shame and accepting Vulnerability is a powerful catalyst to meaningful change. Approaching life with Humility and a willingness to learn healthier and more empowering methods of travel has made all the difference. I’m still very much in-process, but I see things differently now, I do things differently and I no longer define my Self by the judgements, feelings and opinions of those around me.

    Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” This, I’ve experienced, is true. The caveat, however, is that you have to know who you are to allow the emotional detachment necessary to feel the words of another as merely words.

    Looking back, I see my paths populated with Shining Lights, Earth Angels, who created opportunities for me to learn valuable life principles like Self Acceptance, Self Awareness, Non Judgement, Unconditional Love, Forgiveness, Hope for the Possible, Humility, Empathy, Enchantment and a Sense of Humour that brings laughter to me on call.

    I am nothing in particular and absolutely everything – all at the same time. And with the help of everyone I’ve ever met along the way ~ I have created my Self to be the kind of Woman I’d have given my right arm to meet at any point in my past.

    We grow, we learn, we heal – all while in relationship with others. They reflect to us Who We Are, Who We Are NOT and Who We Have the Potential to Create Ourselves to Be; from the platform of Character, Values and Spirit more-so than personality, lifestyle and career (though we can always do that too).

    Knowing this has allowed me to accept the gift each person brings when our paths cross. Judgement, Criticism and/or Dismissal moves me into reflection and assessment. Is any of it true? If yes, I’m grateful for the information and course correct appropriately. If not, I let it go – I don’t have to accept others’ opinions of me, sometimes they’re seeing me through filters I can’t see – and it’s not actually about me at that point anyway.

    Most important of all, for me, is that I move through Life serving as best I can as a soft, quiet light to others. I see others, I hear others, I accept others – and, others matter.  I’m ever so grateful to everyone who has, in their own special way, contributed to the Wonder-in-Process that I am. And with luck ~ I’ll serve as the kind of woman many of you recall with such fondness and appreciation to someone in my Present, today – so their tomorrow is a better place for the encounter.

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    Sally G’s blog address is  http://sallyg.me. Her Twitter ID is @sally_g.

    Her Modus Operandi: “Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

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    Looking for more Nest-Making posts? They’re here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.

  10. Lesson Plan

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    Today’s Nest-Making guest post in honor of women and Women’s History Month is by Kelly Letky. Every day as I post these, I marvel at the stories and try not to editorialize (too much) in these introductions, but I love this post about “what really matters.”

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    My mom never graduated from high school.

    I can’t remember how the story went exactly, I think it had something to do with a fight with a teacher who mocked her for being poor, but that is not what really matters anyway.

    Years later, when I was in my twenties, she went back to school and got her G.E.D. I have always been incredibly proud of her for that. But for this story, that is not what really matters either.

    What matters is how much my mom taught me, and my three siblings.

    My mom taught me to always stand up for myself. She taught me to be kind and generous, she taught me to help those less fortunate, she taught me the importance of family.

    She taught me manners and protocol, not to wear white after Labor Day, to never go out in public wearing holey underwear, just in case you get in an accident or something.

    She taught me how to keep house and how to cook dinner, how to fold laundry and how to hem a pair of pants, how to get over a broken heart and how to keep going when I wanted to give up.

    She taught me that money isn’t everything, that what you give is more important than what you get, that everyone is valuable, that loyalty matters.

    She taught me compassion, how to laugh at myself, how to be brave and honest and hard-working. She taught me all these things despite the fact that she herself had learned very different lessons as a child.

    My mom taught me how to survive.

    Because that is what she did. She came from a background that would have crushed most people, one that did crush the rest of her family. Out of eight children, my mom is the one that got away. From the abuse, the alcoholism, the poverty. Not only did she get away, she built a better life, for herself, for her husband, for her children.

    Together with my father, she made certain that we had the kind of childhood that she never had, that we were always cared for and safe and knew that we were loved.

    We never had a lot of money, but she always made certain that Christmas was magical, that we had a new outfit to wear on the first day of school, that no one ever went hungry or had to hide in fear beneath the bed.

    She yelled a lot, we drove her crazy sometimes, always fighting over who got to drink from the blue cup, or eat the last handful of M&Ms, or who got to sit in the front seat when we all went out for ice cream.

    She never learned how to drive (by choice), never went to college, never got a job until we were all well into adulthood. She adopted too many pets, collected too many dolls, ironed too many sheets, drank too much coffee, let the world hurt her feelings too many times.

    But she has always been there, with her shining heart of gold, ready to give a piece to anyone that needs it. She would give me, or you, a perfect stranger, the shirt off her back if she thought you needed it more than she does. She gives too much and takes too little. She talks too loudly sometimes, but she always listens more than she talks.

    She can’t walk past a baby in a store without stopping to make google eyes and silly talk. She has been known to hug strangers in the hospital, simply because she thought they needed one. She spends her evenings crocheting hats and blankets to give to anyone who can use them.

    She isn’t perfect, but she taught me how to love someone even when they are not.

    My mom never graduated from high school.

    Yet she taught me everything I’ve ever really needed to know in this life.

    Perhaps we can all learn something from that.

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    Kelly Letky works as a freelance graphic artist and jewelry designer. She is also a writer, photographer, wife, mother, sister, daughter, crazy cat lady, friend, runner, knitter and gardener who makes regular attempts to be kind, loving, generous, artful and immersed in every moment. Sometimes, it works.

    You can find her art and writing at www.mrsmediocrity.com andwww.thebluemuse.com and you can also find her on twitter under @mrsmediocrity or facebook under Kelly Letky.

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    Looking for more Nest-Making posts? You can find them here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here.