• About Judith A. Ross

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears

Category Archives: friendship

Rules of Engagement

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, meditation, politics

≈ 4 Comments

IcedSmoke1

A few weeks ago, the dried blossoms on our smoke tree froze into spidery orbs of  ice. They hung from bare branches like fragile Christmas tree ornaments. And then, just like the real stuff, the iced smoke drifted away into the cold, steady, rain.

Life’s moments, whether they are filled with pure joy or something more complex and challenging, are just as precious and transitory as nature’s spontaneous beauty. Every one of them is worth noticing and savoring.

To notice, to savor, to argue, and, especially, to listen, are all acts of engagement. When we do those things through every kind of moment, even the ones that bruise our ego, or try our patience, they are also acts of love. I’ll do those things for my husband and sons every moment and for all time.

But, because I also love this world, there are moments I will no longer engage with. Those are ones taken up by voices that say we can’t or won’t make things better.

Instead, I’m turning up the volume on those who want to build, create, improve and are proud to turn their desire to save the world into action. That’s where my time is going in 2015.

When you think about all of time—past, present, and future—we each have only a few moments. And then, poof, they float away like an icy wisp of smoke in the rain.

***

Apologies for the multiple postings. WordPress is not my friend today 🙂

Advertisement

Cruising the Willamette with Henry and Bob

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by judithar321 in friendship, pets, politics

≈ 4 Comments

ice circle

It is an icy Monday morning here on the East Coast. Bundle up as I might (right now Karina and I are both under a down comforter) fingers, toes, and everything in between are in a constant state of chill. The days are short and dark, with occasional glimpses of sun. I could have named this post Frozen, after the movie, but let’s not go there.

Instead, let’s take a boat down Oregon’s Willamette River with our friend Scott and his able crew members, Henry and Bob.

two sailors

Here they are, two boat-worthy swains who hop right up on the gunwales and walk around. Following their example, landlubber Karina had no choice but to be brave, though she stuck close to the humans. Just in case.

brave Karina

Henry has the warm, welcoming personality you would expect from a super-sized golden retriever. Don’t let the grey hairs fool you, he truly is forever young.

Henry

Happy to be with us. Happy wherever he is, whether it was hanging out with Karina on the kitchen floor or following her nimble, mountain goat feet as she danced her way through the lush Oregon forest.

rest time

Log walkers

Bob’s is a quiet, somewhat mysterious, behind-the-scenes presence. He’d wander in and out of view, prompting the oft-asked question, “Where’s Bob?”

Once we landed on the beach by the river, he seemed to have disappeared altogether. Scott pointed to a black dust mop moving swiftly through the water just off shore. Who knew that dachshunds were such prodigious swimmers? A dog after my own heart, who swims to his own drumbeat, and who possesses the most noble of profiles.

noble profile_bob

Karina and I feel warmer already.

Thank you Leslie and Scott for a September weekend that will warm us for months to come. And, oh yes, thank you to a certain someone, who brought us together from her far away perch in Arles.

The NW Portland pack.

The NW Portland pack.

And speaking of canine friendship, please cross your fingers and toes for a friend of mine. She has been looking for the right dog for months and months. This weekend, we are checking out a pup who we hope is THE ONE. I’ll keep you posted, and thank you!

The Mindless Mindfulness of Travel

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by judithar321 in friendship, health, inspiration, marriage, mid-life transition, pets, travel

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Ellen Langer, mindfulness, Portland Oregon

fishbowl

Ever since our January trip to California, we’ve been talking about returning to the west coast for a longer stay. We think we might like to live there. At first, we were talking about the Bay Area. As I’ve said, many times, I want to live in a place where there are cafes, museums, and shops all accessible by foot or on public transportation. How lovely it would be, for example, to walk home, filled with good food, after a meal at our favorite neighborhood restaurant.

But we also want nature to be within reach (I’m not giving up the car just yet) — and it has to be a place we can comfortably afford. For all of those reasons, we set our sites on a mini-sabbatical in Portland, Oregon, with possible side trips to Seattle, British Columbia, and San Francisco. And, we wanted to drive because if we were to gain any sense at all of what daily life would be like in a new place, then we couldn’t leave behind someone who is an integral part of that daily life.

traveler

Karina in travel mode: her bed was wedged on the floor behind the driver’s seat.

After months of talking and planning, things fell into place at the end of July. We had a place to stay in Portland, and after much looking and financial strategizing, we also had a van that would reliably transport us there—and back—and that could serve as Paul’s work vehicle upon our return.

And so, on August 21, we set out, stopping in Michigan that first weekend for a family wedding.

Witness

After we left Michigan, my mind, which had been focused on wedding-related logistics, suddenly sat up and took notice. The clouds overhead and endless sky when we hit Minnesota were an ongoing source of fascination.

Once we’d arrived at our first stop in Portland, just sitting on the front porch was entertaining. There were kids going by on bikes and skateboards, older people walking their dogs, and Karina found the parade of neighborhood cats, who would sun themselves under our car, especially riveting.

Keeping tabs

Our daily walk through the park at the end of the street, toward a dog park that bordered the Willamette River felt special.

Sellwood_Park

theWillamette

There were also dinners out at places right in the neighborhood, and several cups of coffee at cafes with outdoor seating where our four-footed companion was the subject of much admiration. Karina lost some of her shyness on this trip.

But what I love most about traveling—and what I miss now that we have returned—was that I took the time to notice my surroundings and activities. The small, daily routines, like making my morning tea in an unfamiliar kitchen, were more satisfying because of that.

I gave things my full attention in a way I do not when I’m at home. In fact, just the other morning, I found myself dashing from the kitchen to my computer, and then back, first when my tea water boiled, and then again when a timer went off. Now that I am ensconced in familiar surroundings, I seem to have switched over to autopilot as automatically as I switched to full awareness while traveling.

Then last week I heard part of an interview with Ellen Langer, a professor of psychology at Harvard. The topic was mindfulness, which the announcer defined as “the simple act of noticing new things.” And, according to Langer,

 When you notice new things, you come to notice that you didn’t know what you thought you did, as well as you did. Everything is always changing. By noticing new things about the familiar, it becomes interesting again.

This mind-set, she went on to say, was good for fighting more than just boredom, it can also impact our health** and enable us to view in a new way someone whose behavior troubles us.

In fact, a few years ago, an advisor gave me similar advice, suggesting that I just sit back and “observe” someone who had become a source of distress. As Langer notes in this interview, when I adopted the observer’s mind-set, I realized what was really driving this person, and soon exchanged my upset for empathy.

Learning to “observe” so that you can respond, rather than react, to other people is another whole conversation. To learn more about that, you can listen to the entire interview here.

Right now, I want to tackle the bit about noticing. Before we left for the trip in late August, boredom with our local scenery had taken root. I felt as though I was seeing the same old things over and over again. When we returned in early October, many things did seem new. New England was in the middle of a gorgeous autumn, which no matter how jaded you are, is pretty hard to overlook.

For example, I noticed these coppery leaves while with a friend who was gathering leaves for her son’s after-school project. Adopting a child’s point of view definitely helps adults view their surroundings with fresh eyes.

copperIt’s also hard not to notice the fall colors reflected on a pond we pass on one of our regular morning walks.

water colors

Water-colors.

last swim

Now that it’s getting colder and darker, I will have to work especially hard to cloak myself in the observer’s mind-set I wore so mindlessly during our travels. So far, the extra effort seems to be working.

While the clouds here don’t hang suspended mid-sky as they do out west, they have their own beauty when hovering over a local farmer’s fields.

green fields

And this circle of farm machinery provides a whimsical contrast to the straight-edged fields beyond.

farm equipment

There were many things I sensed and felt during our six weeks away that can’t and won’t be contained in my snapshots. There’s that light-as-air feeling I got when the daily cares and worries of home faded from my consciousness as we racked up the miles; the friendly, welcoming attitude of the people we met in Portland; the rush of memories I felt when I dove into the frigid waters of a lake in British Columbia; and the satisfaction of an intense hunger quenched by a warming bowl of Pho eaten in a Vietnamese restaurant off the beaten track in Iowa on a dreary, windswept day.

These experiences are worth noticing. They are worth holding on to. And they are worth adding to. On a chilly afternoon a few days after we’d returned home, I sat in my kitchen and watched my two fellow travelers carefully take note of our back yard under a darkening sky. There was love in their looking and noticing, just as there was in mine.

backyard1backyard2backyard 2abackyard 3backyard 4

****

**Coincidentally, (or perhaps not) Langer was the focus of an article in this past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine about using a mindful mind-set to offset aging and possibly illness. To read an interesting analysis of that piece, read D.A. Wolf’s take on it in Daily Plate of Crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

Marriage, Dynamic

21 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by judithar321 in aging, friendship, marriage, mid-life transition

≈ 4 Comments

Until last week, Paul and I had never worked with a professional photographer. Our wedding was a low-key affair that resulted in a few snapshots contained in an album.  And there’s a rather stiff photo that was taken at a local department store when our boys were young.  I suggested, and he agreed, that we document where we are today — after more than 30 years of marriage.

The older I get, the less I like to be photographed.  Lately, when someone snaps my picture, the resulting image often seems to catch my worst angle – at least in my eyes. Yet I know that I am perfectly presentable, I just have to put myself in the hands of the right photographer.

close up

I knew that my friend Cheryl Sparks was that photographer. She is not only talented, she knows how to put people at ease. I knew she could get us both to relax. Cheryl put a lot of thought into our session. She said that she wanted to capture the dynamic between the two of us, and she shared a photo shoot of another couple as an example of what she had in mind.

So we had fun. We were silly.

It was quite windy, but I released all worries of crazy-looking hair into the breeze. We both loved the results—more of which can be viewed on Cheryl’s blog.

Oh, and speaking of photography, you can now follow me on Instagram.

 

 

Through Words and Cake, a Writer Lives On

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by judithar321 in books, friendship, health, inspiration, writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

baking, chocolate cake, cooking, eating, Food & Fiction, Laurie Colwin

 

cake

My friend Jane, who blogs at Food & Fiction, is one of my most helpful kitchen advisors. Although we share meals several times a year in real life, our time together at the stove has always been virtual. Many of Jane’s recipes have become my go-to source when I want to put something delicious, healthy, and not-too-complicated on the table.

So it makes sense that Jane shared this New York Times article about Laurie Colwin on her Facebook feed, because it suggests that Laurie’s non-fussy recipes and conversational style were a precursor to food bloggers like herself.

Like Jane, Laurie’s friendly, matter-of-fact voice is also in my ear from time to time when I’m working in the kitchen. Her recipe for a simple chocolate cake (pictured above) is my hands-down favorite.

I wrote about Laurie and her chocolate cake a few years ago on my blog at Open Salon. My literary tastes have changed over time, and her novels may no longer hold my interest the way they did when I read them 20 years ago under extreme circumstances, but I’ve never lost my taste for that cake. The recipe is included in my original post, reprinted below.

Through Words and Cake, a Writer Lives On

 October 23, 2010

“You don’t feed me enough,” I joked to my husband last night as my stomach loudly and persistently announced itself. Apparently, the dinner of homemade soup and bread I’d made wasn’t enough. We needed dessert.

“Karen Edwards’s Version of Buttermilk Cocoa Cake” from, More Home Cooking: A Writer Returns to the Kitchen by Laurie Colwin is my go-to recipe when I want something quick and chocolatey.

According to Colwin,

“It is hard to encapsulate the virtuosities of this cake. It is fast, easy, and scrumptious. It has a velvety, powdery feel – the result of all that cocoa. It is not so horribly bad for you, because you use buttermilk, which is relatively low in fat, and cocoa powder is defatted anyway. Furthermore, it keeps like a dream and tastes even better after a few days.”

I became a Laurie Colwin fan almost 20 years ago while undergoing chemotherapy. My hair was falling out and I was nauseous and exhausted. For the first time ever, it was difficult to find solace in reading — I couldn’t focus.

Then my friend Julia gave me one of Colwin’s books. Her books held my attention. I cared deeply about her characters, and her tales about family life, which I, too, was engaged in, were happy ones. I needed upbeat stories — sadness and angst were for real life.

When I reported all of this to Julia, she responded, “Unfortunately, Laurie’s life wasn’t so happy. She died suddenly at a young age.” Not only that, she had left a young daughter behind.

All these years later, my story is the happy one. My children, who were aged eight and ten when I was diagnosed, are now adults living on their own.  My husband and I are both active and healthy, and we still share a special spark.

So now when I bite into that buttermilk cocoa cake, I silently raise a glass to Laurie Colwin. Her life wasn’t nearly long enough, but I am grateful for the gifts she left behind.

Here is the recipe as it appears in More Home Cooking.

Karen Edwards’s Version of Buttermilk Cocoa Cake
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. and butter and flour a 9- by 2-inch round cake pan.

2. Mix together 1 3/4 cups flour, 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

3. To these ingredients add 1 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter, and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix.

4. Turn the batter into the pan, bake the cake in the middle of the oven for 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean, and let it cool for 5 minutes before turning it out of the pan.

 

Winter Nap

29 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, politics, travel

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

anti-Semitism, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, French municipal elections, Groovy Green Livin, Lost in Arles

Winter Nap

Last weekend we came out of hibernation long enough to drive down to New York City. Our efforts were rewarded by some actual, real-live spring weather. The sun was warm, and there was no snow or ice.

Spring!Bike

As I soaked my sore feet after a day of tramping around on the dry sidewalks, I realized this was the first time in months I’d worn a pair of real shoes. 

We ate pie for breakfast two mornings in a row in an old building in Brooklyn, where the walls were lined with tin.

Patina

Across the bridge, in Manhattan, I sat outside on a bench drinking a fancy tea latte, admiring the symmetry and color of a building across the street, while a woman paced back and forth during what turned into a very long phone call.

Guerin Bronze

A few blocks away, we peered into a cemetery hidden away behind stone walls and a locked gate.

Spanish Cemetary

 

Cemetary1

I was reminded of this cemetery a few days later, when my friend Heather Robinson wrote a post about the results of municipal elections in France, where the Front National—an extreme right party, founded by known anti-Semitic and Holocaust denier, Jean-Marie LePen—is gaining ground.

That what happens in France matters to us all was brought home today, when I saw this post by another friend, Lori Alper. Lori, who lives one town away from me, writes about anti-Semitic incidents involving some of the youngest students at her son’s elementary school.

While hibernation is a fine strategy for staying warm during an endlessly frigid winter, it is not a good way to live. We may wish that prejudice and hate are hidden and locked away like the dead in that cemetery, but in truth they are more like tenacious weeds growing under those dry, New York City sidewalks. They claw their way into the light through the tiniest of cracks.

 

“Full of Winter”

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by judithar321 in environment, friendship, inspiration, meditation, pets

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Heather Robinson, Lost in Arles

“Full of Winter.” My friend Heather used that sentence in her post today about her lunch in a village that was quiet, empty, yet “Full of Winter.”

We are full of winter here, too. Full up, filled up, fed up.

yogi

Our walks have been white and cold — frigid, in fact. Too frosty to expose already numb fingers to the icy air and snap a photo.

And yet, on a snowy day like today, when the dog has been walked and I have nowhere to go, I have the luxury to sit quietly on my indoor perch and watch the flakes slip from the sky.

I am warm, safe, grateful: “Full of Winter,” Full of Peace. 

That Rose …

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by judithar321 in aging, art, friendship, meditation

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Ivan Massar

It was saucer-sized, its plush, velvety petals curled over the rim of a small vase. It had been plucked from the bush that morning. The color: mauve? brownish pink? The exact shade is hard to remember, let alone describe — a color I’d never seen before.

It was a lover’s rose, placed on our neighbor’s kitchen counter to welcome her home.

“Ivy,” she breathed.

“Ivy,” also known as Ivan Massar, was a photographer, neighbor, and a friend, beloved by all. He passed away over the weekend. He was 89.

I feel lucky to have known him, and regret not knowing him better.

He left many important and beautiful images behind. Please take a look.

http://www.ivanmassar.com/

Grounded Clouds

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by judithar321 in aging, environment, friendship, inspiration, marriage, pets, travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dominique Browning, Morocco, Slow Love Life, weather

Foggy field

When the weather goes from cold and snowy to warm and rainy, the air becomes thick with moisture as though the clouds have dropped to the ground.

Walking through the mysterious murk, we heard voices before we could see their source. Dogs popped in and out of the grounded clouds.

cloudy walk 1

cloudy walk 2

Last January, I claimed the word “focus” as my New Year’s vow, and some things are sharper today than they were back then. Yet I’m viewing the year ahead through a soft-focus lens. The changes and events to come are as foggy as these woods. I’m okay with that uncertainty.

Broken Branch

Red Berries

If I learned anything from my year of increased focus, it was that the best, most memorable experiences came when I just let them, when I stayed in the moment and swayed with the wind of life rather than fighting it. My trip to Morocco is but one example.

Of all the New Year posts and articles I’ve read these past weeks, it is Dominique Browning’s words that I keep repeating over and over in my mind. She was recounting her year, “It was a big year. But every year is a big year,” she wrote. And then she said,

 Every day is a big day. That is what we realize when we are older. That we are lucky enough—and that is all it is, plain dumb luck—to be here makes it a big day, a big year.

So maybe my “resolution” this year—if you want to call it that—is to celebrate my life and luck every day. I’m going to burnish my love for my family and friends until it is a beacon they will return to over and over again. I’ll make every day a big day.

A Most Important Relationship

30 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by judithar321 in aging, friendship, health, marriage, mid-life transition

≈ 9 Comments

Stone sun dial

It has been nearly 32 years since my husband and I met at a neighborhood party. When we first started seeing each other, I had no idea where the relationship would go, but I suspected it would be an important one. I was lucky —we were lucky — to be in the same place at the same time, and in a situation that allowed us to connect.

Two years later, on a cold, rainy, November afternoon, we exchanged wedding vows.

I took the above photo while visiting some old friends whose relationship probably dates back to about the time I was born. I first met them when I was five years old, and they were a young, married couple with two careers, and one small child. Now in their eighties, they are, to all appearances, still good together.

It is impossible to know what goes on inside someone else’s marriage, but I’m guessing that they nurtured a healthy relationship while developing careers and raising five children by bending —sometimes towards each other, sometimes in opposite directions. Whichever way they curled, however, each knew that the other would be there to catch them.

When I was a kid I spent a lot of time at their house. Even with the chaos that comes with a big family, even if there was yelling, there were times when it felt safer than my own home across the street.

Ever since Paul and I have been together, home has been where he is, and there is no place I’d rather be. He is my best friend, my cheerleader, my teacher, my student, and I am all of those things to him. Even though we fill each of those roles differently, and life together isn’t always perfect or pretty, I am sure of our partnership because we discuss it often. 

He can fix almost anything, including a sore heart. He holds my heart in his big, capable hands every day, gently, and with great care. 

We are closer than those two pillars and just as strong. Our bodies may be less supple than they were 30 years ago, but in our life together we’ve become more flexible. Unlike those pillars, we are not made of stone: We can bend.

***

Friendship is also the topic of my guest post this week on Daily Plate of Crazy. Click here to read it.

← Older posts
A blog about travels near and far, daily life, and issues that are bigger than all of us.

Recent Posts

  • Intentions
  • From Concord to Concordia: A Late-Life Migration
  • Dear Mr. President, Please Don’t Extinguish My Energy Star
  • I Vote for Clean Air
  • Love at Last

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 385 other subscribers

Blogroll

  • 3191 Miles Apart
  • 66 Square Feet
  • Athenas Head
  • econesting
  • Food and Fiction
  • Lost in Arles
  • Second Lives Club
  • Slow Love Life

Places my work appears

  • Center for Effective Philanthropy
  • Harvard Business Publishing
  • Moms Clean Air Force
  • Talking Writing
  • Women's Voices for Change

Archives

  • August 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • October 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012

Categories

  • adult children
  • aging
  • art
  • books
  • discipline
  • environment
  • friendship
  • health
  • inspiration
  • marriage
  • meditation
  • mid-life transition
  • music
  • pets
  • politics
  • travel
  • uncategorized
  • work
  • writing

Twitter

Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Shifting Gears
    • Join 197 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Shifting Gears
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...