The Choice to Move Forward

While there are a great many lessons that came from the suicide of my younger sister Denise, probably the most profound one was that I couldn’t stop living my life because she had died.

I was twenty-one when she died and when I would speak, I always said that before her death the world was my oyster. I knew I was bound for greater things than even I could see in front of me. But after she ended her life, I felt like the oyster shell had slammed shut on me. The key was I had to figure out how to push it back open, to see the open road and everything beyond that hill in front of me again.

In meeting people in the thirty years since Denise died, I have encountered countless people who have chosen not to move forward. These are people stuck in their grief, stuck in the pain, and many times refusing to budge from where they are. I wasn’t going to be one of them.

I have always known that I can’t change the past which means I also can’t bring my sister back. And when she died, I was twenty-one, I had a long life ahead of me. I wasn’t going to be destroyed by the loss. Life is short (Where have these thirty years gone? Heck, where has October gone?).

That’s not to say it was easy as it wasn’t and some days it still isn’t. As our world continues to evolve, and not necessarily in good ways it seems lately, I have to really reach inside myself and remember that I pried that oyster shell open once and I can do it again. Yet I also don’t want to have do to it again so instead I look up and ahead of me. I look at the view. I see the hope. I see the vista that stretches for miles.

And I remember that’s why I continue to forge forward.

The Chelle Summer Videos Return

I made a little video yesterday- two new bags to share, some estate sales finds, a room filled with inventory ready to be transported to an event, and it wouldn't be a Chelle Summer video without some dog antics. Happy Friday, everyone!

Time vs. Process

We’ve all heard it– time heals all wounds.

If only it were true.

In all years my speaking with people after loss, particularly suicide loss, there have been those who had lost a loved one long before I had and their pain was much greater than mine. If it were true that time heals all wounds, they would have been leaps and bounds ahead of me. Instead, often they had been told to stuff their grief (mostly because it was suicide) into the back of the cabinet and move on.

Watching that pain was an integral reason why I worked so hard to process the loss of my sister, my parents, of my divorce, and the countless other losses that have happened in my life. When people ask how I was able to meet Greg and marry him and have such a good marriage, I tell them it’s because I did the work.

I trudged through the incoming surf and darkness like in the photo of the temple in Bali above. It wasn't pleasant ever and I hated every stupid minute of it, but I knew that if I wanted to go forward, it was what I had to do.

The processing road is rocky, but if you choose to stand still and simply look at it, things might get better for a time, but they’ll come back and eat away at you in a bigger, more painful way. It’s better to push yourself forward. You’ll find that sunshine, you’ll find the rainbow.

You’ll find the happiness. I know because I was there and I found it myself.

Sustaining Hope: National Suicide Prevention Week

Sunday was World Suicide Prevention Day and I thought I wrote a really good post on reminding people to seek help and where they could do that (one can call or text 988). The post didn’t go anywhere on Facebook, did a little better on Instagram, did the best on Stimulus. I bring this up because in the United State each day, we lose 132 people, that means a plane full of people dying each day. And yet I find it interesting that Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, clearly kept my post from going anywhere.

Suicide affects us all and the numbers continue to push upwards. There are a lot of reasons to not be happy when one rolls out of bed each morning. Despite all this, I’m here to remind you that there a lot of good things in our lives, but it’s up to use to find them! No one else is going to do it for us. No matter what’s going on around us, we still need to get up, we still need to go through the motions. But in that, we need to add something– seeking what sustains the hope inside us.

I know where I find hope. I have worked hard to cultivate that in my life and I have tried to help others with these blogs and the things that I post on social media. As I write this, I’m getting ready to head up to the high school where Greg teaches and speak to two health classes. Part of my message will be about this very thing I’m writing here– sustaining hope. We can all find hope, but how do we sustain it?

In this National Suicide Prevention Week, my challenge to you is to think about what sustains your hope. Make a list! I hope it’s a long one! Keep it somewhere so that you can refer to it when you feel down (or down on the world at large). Remember that quote and saying, “Happiness is an inside job”? That’s the truth.

Seek it, find it, hold onto it.

Paying Homage to the Inspiration

While we had been to Palm Springs before, we hadn’t spent much time walking into any stores so this time we put more effort into that, especially because we were spending the night. And that meant stopping at the Trina Turk flagship store. We have been to other stores, particularly two that are now shuttered (Manhattan Beach and South Pasadena), but we hadn’t been the the flagship store.

Many people don’t know that Trina Turk is a big inspiration behind Chelle Summer. I fell in love with Trina’s designs from the beginning. While I didn’t realize it, what I really fell in love with were the colors and the patterns. In fact, when Greg and I married, she had towels and sheets at Macys, too, and we registered for those. I am happy to report that if you come stay at my house, you are most likely to sleep between Trina sheets and dry off after a bathing with a Trina towel. But my closet is filled with dresses and I wore a lot of her swimwear before I was making my own.

Most people think I am heavily influenced by Kate Spade and I am, to a point, but Trina is a bigger inspiration for me, probably because of the California cool that her designs exude. I like to think of Chelle Summer as a bit Trina, a bit Kate, and a sprinkle of Lilly Pulitzer.

It was in this process of admiring her things that I began to come up with my own ideas. Certain styles of clothing didn’t always work for me and I had other ideas for prints. As my own work as continues to evolve, I can see where the inspiration started, but now it’s all mine and continues to move forward that way.

Stopping in the Palm Springs store was of acknowledging how far I have come with Chelle Summer. And while I still have a long way to go where I want it to be, it’s always good to reflect on where we’ve come from.

Thank you, Trina, for all the inspiration. I wouldn’t be where I am without it.

La Palma Dresses 101

Learn more about the inspiration behind the La Palma dresses and the different ways you can wear them.

Finding Balance

I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed lately. I have this sense that some days I feel pretty good, like I can move through the day and my tasks with ease, but other days I find things to be a bit more of a struggle. Then it occurred to me that it’s because my stamina for being out in the world, for being social, for being out of my head, for not having so much time to be creative (which means in my head!), is not there. I did quite have quite a lot of human engagement in the height of the pandemic thanks to my outdoor activities (my block, my neighborhood community that I would see on my runs), but what I didn’t have were the social activities and as those have increased (thank goodness!), it feels like running a race and building my strength back up.

I am grateful that things are moving forward, that people want to spend time with me, to talk to me. But I’m also finding I need to find balance in that time “in the world” with the time “in my head.”

There is no past to return to– everything has changed– and in that change, I also turned a new decade. I am learning that I can’t say, “Oh, I need to go back to my old routine” as that routine is gone because so much about me has changed in the past two years. I can’t say I like all the changes– at least the ones forced on me!– but I also see good changes about making my life more what I want it to be.

I know that all our journeys through this are unique, as we are unique people, but we all have to find a way forward somehow. Despite everything that keeps happening, I am still hopeful. I just have to make sure that I take care of myself, that I continue to find my way forward, because life is too short to be stuck in one place.

Home

I don’t believe I can ever write enough about the importance of home because I don’t believe many people understand how important home is related to who we are/who we become. And the choices we have about making home a place that makes us happy.

While I understand that life isn’t about physical objects so much as it is about what happens inside our minds, nourishing all sides of ourselves, home is our shelter, our rest, our inspiration. Home is a place where we live the routine moments of life that make up more than the big events.

Someone taught me long ago that you sow your seeds where you are planted, that no matter where you are, you make the most of it. Her words have always echoed in the back of my mind, even when life wasn’t what I wanted or that I wasn’t really where I wanted to be. Still, it was important to take care of home.

And it’s why I spend the time making changes, updates, surrounding myself with what makes me happy. I love to explore the world, but I also love to come home and just be.

Watching the pandemic play out, I saw many people who realized that home wasn’t necessarily what they wanted it to be so they made changes. Others chose not to. To me, it was an opportunity to make home better because that bodes well for the future, especially for the others who share that home with you. It might not be obvious, but you’re giving something to them, too– a piece of yourself.

Forward, forward, forward

Don’t look back, I was often told when I was running competitively.

It was so easy to do– to look back and see how far (or near!) the next runner was behind me. Would I need to work harder to keep her at bay? Did I have the mental energy to keep up the pace, or even pick up the pace, so she didn’t pass me?

But looking back, even for a brief moment, took up not just physical energy, but time. It was that effort of the head movement that also lead to a partial body movement that slowed the running down and let that person get closer to me.

So they said not to look back.

Isn’t that true about life though, too?

Don’t look back or it will slow you down. Keep your eyes on the prize. Keep your eyes on your goals, your dreams, whatever it is that keeps you moving forward.

I was thinking about this as I was out running the other morning, finding myself looking back for no reason. I don’t know why I thought anyone was behind me (although when I run Ash, he looks back all the time, especially when we turn onto certain roads, for reasons I don’t understand). But as I did it, I thought about the effort it took to look back and the bit of time it cost me. For what?

I have always thought of the line from the Manfred Mann song, “Don’t look back/You’ve been there.”

After a year of what felt like standing in place, I’ve been trying to move forward so why would I look back? I do believe in occasional reflection of the past, after all, it’s that which reminds us of how far we have come. It might be that sometimes we need to stop for a moment, collect our thoughts, and take a quick look back to see where we have been to see how far we’ve come, but we don’t and shouldn’t do that all time.

Remember, will keep us from getting where we want to be.

Mom's Bernina and My Creative Space

On video today- sharing some of my creative space and the sewing machine I use, the one that belonged to my mom.

The Path Forward

In the last ten days, five of my friends have lost a parent, two of them were moms that I had known a long time because the friends have been in my life since I moved to Albuquerque in 1994. And three of those friends have now lost both of their parents, a club that I none of us wants to join, but it’s inevitable that we will. We just hope it will be later than sooner.

While all our journeys are unique because our relationships with family and all the people in our lives are as unique as we are, I know that for some there is peace a parent is out of pain (emotional and/or physical). And for everyone, this is a gaping hole in their lives. For most of us, even if we didn’t have perfect relationships with our parent (really, who does? A parent’s job is not to turn us into a mini version of them, but to help us forge a path for each of us to be the unique person and have the life we are supposed to be– but that usually comes into odds with so much of who they are), typically there is no one in our lives who loved us as much as they did. I don’t know that I fully understood this until after my parents died, particularly my mom.

After the loss of a parent, we are faced with the reality that there will be no new memories nor anyone to share the past with. I often want to ask questions, wondering about things I didn’t think about until it was too late. We are, for good and bad, who we are because of them.

There has been much loss and pain during this pandemic. I know that mine started with Hattie’s death just a week before the first shutdown. It’s been a continued spiral of realizing that there is much I can’t hang onto as the world spins forward. If I choose not to spin with it, I will end up stuck and that will be more painful that letting go and letting it take me with it.

As I was swimming early Friday morning, thinking of another set of friends where the husband just found out he has terminal cancer and some other changes in not just my life, but in all our lives, I realized that somehow I will have to find a way forward. I will have to let go of so much. Maxine was the mom I used to see my at pool parties (mom of my friend Jim whom I have known forever and whom introduced Greg and I), usually finding her in the kitchen near the end doing the dishes and shooing me back outside to my guests. I am sad because I didn’t get to see her all last summer since we couldn’t gather. I feel like I was denied something, the very something I worried about when the pandemic started– the deaths of people in my life whom I wouldn’t get to spend time with before they died (I’ll also add that none of these deaths was virus related).

But I have no choice if I want to forge forward in my life, the very thing I write and speak about here. There is so much luggage that we’re still letting go, leaving a baggage claim or some getting lost because it’s not supposed to go on the next leg of the trip with us.

It’s okay to mourn what we’ve lost. However, somewhere in there we still need to go forward, to remember the good that we had, to be grateful for it, and then let it go because its path forward isn’t the same as ours.

Creative Freedom

I am filled with inspiration. There is more that I want to do than there is time for. And yet there is one part of me that lacks, like there is a disconnect between my head and what I actually produce– drawing.

I grew up drawing all the time. Mom made sure that Denise and I always had plenty of paper- the notepads my medical doctor grandfather received from drug companies and later piles of dot matrix computer paper Karen brought home from college– and markers and crayons. It seemed like almost yearly we received new markers for Christmas and after school ended in June, our leftover crayons ended up in one big bag, a bag I believe Karen still has.

In school, even as I grew older, I doodled a lot. Probably in suicide prevention meetings and my doctoral classes, too, but I don’t have the notes to prove that.

And yet now I find that even though I have good intentions about drawing, I easily push it aside for other things I feel I need to do. The disconnect seems to have more to do with what I allow myself to do in a day, that freedom not just to express myself, but to spend the time doing something that always made me deliriously happy.

One of my goals for this year to get over that hump especially since reading something that graphic artist Milton Glaser (who died a few months ago) said about how we have gotten away from our imaginations and we allow technology to be our creative outlet. I don’t want to color in someone else’s lines either, I want to color in within the ones I have drawn (if I even have lines on my page!).

Apparently, Glaser was known for sketching various aspects of life– landscapes, meals. It’s also a diary of sorts and one I hope that I can not just find the time to do this year, but make it a new way of documenting life and what inspires me.

Resting in Prayer

I will be the first to admit that I live a fairly hurried life, much to my own choice. However, what many people don’t realize is that I pray twice a day and it’s during that time– especially during my second prayer– that not only do I rest, but so do my requests for my life.

I have written before that my first prayer takes place on my run with Lilly around 5:00 am every day. That time is set aside mostly to say thank you for everything that happened the previous day and throw out any requests as well. It also helps the run go faster by keeping my thoughts centered.

Then after the dogs have been fed, but before my shower, I sit with a lit candle for five minutes and that prayer is devoted to throwing out my requests. In the colder months, I do this at my desk, however, in the summer, I let my feet rest after my workout on the top step of the swimming pool.

Not only are my feet resting in the cold water, but so are my thoughts, my requests, my hopes. And I am getting a rest before I venture into the rest of my day.

I’m not perfect at prayer– I will be the first to admit that I am easily distractible– but it’s a consistent effort on my part to rest and let go of what who and what I want to be. Plus those five minutes allow me to center myself for the day ahead. Resting in prayer helps me recharge and reminds me what’s important and not get caught up in drama or negative thoughts.

I am more productive– and happier– because I take the time for this rest.

Kate Spade: The Initial Inspiration for Chelle Summer

Quite honestly, I'm not sure where to begin. Two of my worlds collided today with the suicide of Kate Spade.

What most people don't know is that I stopped buying Kate Spade products partly because she had sold the brand and each time Greg and I went into one of the stores on a trip, we agreed that things didn't look new and inviting.

However, there was a bigger reason than that: I had started to create my own brand, Chelle Summer. Initially I had wanted to call Chelle summer "Michelle L." and when the lawyers came back and told me that Fossil owned "Michele" with one L, they were clear that I could never win against such a large company. I was so disappointed that I had to come up with a new name but at some point I thought of Kate and how awkward it must have been (even though she had chosen to sell it) to see a brand with her name on it while she might not have always liked what the new brand had to offer. Chelle Summer was born and I quickly realized it was a better name than Michelle L., while also allowing somewhat of a separation from my own name.

When I look back on the time when I purchased my first Kate bag (in this photo), I was facing many challenges of my own trying to move forward after a divorce and two moves across the country. What I didn't see then was that in looking at what the brand offered and her style of which I had been aware of for so long (but couldn't afford to buy), I was slowly realizing what I would want my own brand to be. Kate was the initial inspiration for Chelle Summer (with Trina Turk taking the lead later). Kate made me feel that I didn't have to settle for what I saw in the marketplace, that I could create my own items and I also could choose to wear bold prints and colors.

I obviously don't know what led her to take her own life, but with vast experience in suicide over the past twenty-five years I know that there is never just one answer. It was probably a combination of events and thoughts that made her believe ending her life was her only way to find peace. The irony of this is that early this morning on my walk as I was contemplating my own life journey that's following my surgery this past Friday, I realized that for a period of time I'm not going to find peace as much as I would like to. I'm working to embrace some challenges ahead of me (mostly writing related) to fulfill the prayer to God that I've been asking to help me go forward and be the person I'm supposed to be.

I also understand how as a creative person it can be challenging because you're in your own world where sometimes you can think too much. It's why I work hard to balance my life of running/walking early in the mornings where I have several people that I chat with and why I host so many pool and dinner parties. Those keep me balanced while also allowing me to have that time create and be alone in my thoughts.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around her suicide. That's the honest answer. But I also know that life is hard and overwhelming at times. That's also one of the one reasons I post so many blogs and photos about moving forward. I see it that if I have something in my life that helps me go forward, maybe it can help someone else, too.

Choosing What to Share

I spent a good part of yesterday working on two paintings (when I wasn't folding laundry and that I did because Greg was gratefully painting the trim on the outside of the house so I didn't think it was fair that he did that and fold the laundry). At some point I took a break from painting and I picked up my phone to check social media. But before I hit the button to take it out of sleep mode, I looked at the phone, wondered if I really needed to look at anything, and ended up putting it back on the counter where I had left it previously. Then I returned to my painting.

I am the first to admit that social media has played a huge part of taking my messages forward, particularly in my days working to help the suicide bereaved. I realize that if you lost someone to suicide today, you will have a drastically different experience than me because you can easily connect to people via the internet whereas it took me years to find other bereaved siblings. And now my messages have changed to sharing how I've moved forward through my losses by using my creativity, at least the visually creative aspects of my life (sewing, painting, cooking, etc).

However, I also know there is a line for me of what I choose to share, when I choose to share it, and how much time I spend looking at it.

While it might seem that what I create visually is how I spend the bulk of my time, the reality is that my writing is still what's most important to me. It obviously takes longer for me to share that so in the meantime (as I wrote about balancing goals last week), I share the visually creative items. I also found out in my early Facebook years that if I shared what I was writing, I never finished it.

I stopped talking about my writing because I realized it was something I have to keep to myself until it's completed. Most people in my daily circle of life don't know what I'm working on for the same reason. And yet there are many times I so badly want to share things but I know the time isn't right so I let it go (and probably post a photo of Lilly instead!).

When I went for my last spiritual direction visit with Fr. Gene, at the Norbertine Abbey here, one of things I told him was how I find that I'm not supposed to always share the journey that I'm on, that instead I'm supposed to wait until it's over when I can look back at the road and reflect more on it. It's only then that I can see what it is about my journey that would be most meaningful for others to read about.

And in that same vein, the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about letter writing. One line stood out for me where the woman said that even though we seemingly share more of our lives by constantly posting on social media, we aren't really sharing of ourselves like we did writing letters.

Writing letters was one way that I honed my writing skills early and now I'm finding that as I've pulled back in sharing some aspects of my journey, they are instead finding places in my manuscripts. Once again, it's about balance and deciding what I should share now and what I should save for later, to be shared in another way as part of a bigger project.

Thanksgiving

Before my friend Bonnie died– just three weeks after my dad in January 2006– each time I would go to her house, she usually had something to share with me. She was in her late sixties when I moved across the street (although I got to know her better in the years after I had moved a few miles away) and I would often spend evenings with her sewing or working on some other crafty project. One time she had my first husband bring back nautical rope from a trip to Portland, Maine (he worked for a company based there) and she gessoed the yellow rope white and we made shell wreaths. That's the sort of things Bonnie liked to do.

Often she would have pages in marked in Martha Stewart's magazine for me look at or family items pulled out to share stories about her family or her husband Greg's family. 

The tablecloth above was given to me after she died by her daughter Sadie who wasn't into giving dinner parties and had no use for it. I'm not sure the last time it was used– or the matching napkins. Bonnie bought it in Middle East (most likely Saudi Arabia) during the time they lived there because Greg worked for an oil company. 

When Bonnie was dying of cancer, I spent as much time as I could with her and at some point she started to ask me which of her things I might like to have. Or she offered certain things she knew Sadie wouldn't want (sadly, Sadie– who has since died, too along with Greg and Bonnie's son Gordon)– had a prescription problem and just about everything Bonnie gave her was sold to pay for drugs, including many quilts that Bonnie had made. 

One afternoon as we sifted through fabric she asked me if I would like her dining room table. There was one reason for this, one thing I really wanted was a table that would fit twelve people around it. I have no idea who those twelve people would be, but I just liked the idea of having that many people around one table. 

It was never mentioned again because she died not long after that and I didn't bring it up because it wasn't my place to. I'm sure she never mentioned it to Sadie, simply because she was on a morphine drip and didn't always remember what we had discussed. The table got sold, but the tablecloth and napkins were given to me.

In the nearly eleven years I've had them, I've never used them. My current table doesn't fit that many people and with the many losses in my family, I haven't had reason to put that many people around the table. Any family events I had before my mom's death when I was living in Illinois were at her dining room table (now in the loving hands of my sister Karen) with a tablecloth of mine or Mom's. Bonnie's tablecloth always was pushed to the bottom of the drawer.

However, on Thanksgiving this week, I will gather the entire David and Delcia Rusk family at my dining room table (we'll be bumping my desk– which is my parents' kitchen table and a leaf for it) up to the dining room table. I'll cover it with Bonnie's tablecloth and we'll use the napkins that match it.

We'll top the tablecloth with Greg's and mine wedding china combined with Delcia's mother's china from Argentina. 

It feels more significant than ever to recognize Bonnie in my life. My mom was the one who instilled my creativity in me, always encouraging me to write/draw/create/sew, but it was Bonnie who took it to the next level teaching me so much more. As I continue to forge my lifestyle brand– Chelle Summer– forward, all that Bonnie taught me is going to yet another level.

Using her tablecloth is a way of saying thank you.

My Iconic Image

I've been writing recently about what keeps me going and I thought I would try to spend more time exploring that, hoping that by my offering more specific examples, I can help other people find what helps keep them going and brings them hope because many times we don't realize what might be right in front of us. In the coming weeks, I'll continue to write about the many ways that help me find hope in the world, even when everything feels dark around me.

This is one of my favorite photos that Greg took on our last trip to Los Angeles. I planned this specifically because it combines several aspects of my life that are important to who I am. 

One of the most pivotal times of my life was seventh grade. I have written before that at the end of sixth grade, many of the girls in my neighborhood decide to "unfriend" me (not a word anyone was using back in the early 1980s but it's exactly what happened). It forced me to find new friends and find a way to be hopeful in a time that felt really lonely in many ways. 

That summer after sixth grade I somehow got really interested in popular music, then called Top 40 for those of us who remember. Without realizing it, I latched on trivia and I had an extensive knowledge of music in that time. I used babysitting money to buy magazines and would tape up pages of my favorite bands and artists on the walls of my room. 

In the middle 1980s, the Capitol Records Building (there were still records in those days!) was still a hubbub activity and in my world, to see it even today, takes me back to a time that was challenging but led me to new roads that proved to be interesting and inspiring. And help me get where I am now.

I found the Forenza sweater on eBay– by major luck. I had one in yellow in junior high and I loved it. I wore it backward all the time and it drove my grandmother crazy that it hung so low on my shorts at the time, making it sometimes not looking like I had shorts on. I parted with the sweater at some point and I feel lucky I found one in pink that fits. And is in perfect condition. 

To wear that sweater reminds me of junior high into high school and while it was a challenging time as I was trying to find my way in the world, it also reminds me how much hope I had of who I wanted to be. 

Finally, the Chelle Summer handbag made with vintage fabric represent where I'm at today. Chelle Summer takes all aspects of me– the past, the present, and the future– and ties them together into one lifestyle brand.

So standing there in Hollywood reminds me this is who I am. And this is still who I want to be.

The Authentic Life

I sometimes forget what a challenge it is for people to live an authentic life. And when I say that, I mean to live the life they believe they are supposed to live. It's something I strive for daily and I think that because I've worked so hard to make it happen– while not completely as I do have a full-time job and I'm not yet devoting my entire days to my writing and Chelle Summer– that I forget how much work it's taken to get where I am. And I believe that in my future I will be working full-time for myself; it's what I strive for daily.

I also had forgotten about this photo– one of a series that Lois Bloom had taken for me, I believe not long after I'd gotten my surfboard. We were talking not long ago and I don't remember the rest of the conversation but I did say to her, "You know you were the reason that I realized I could own a surfboard and make it part of my life."

It was all because after she and Sam picked me up from LAX when I flew in from Chicago (where I was living at the time) to speak at a conference, I told them that a friend had asked if I was going to surf on the trip. I said no, that I didn't have a board, nor had I brought a swimsuit. 

"Why not?" Lois asked, turning her head to the backseat where I was sitting in the car. "You can rent a board. You can buy a swimsuit."

She was right– I did all of the above, spending the next few days on a rented board after taking (yet another) surfing lesson. And from there I bought my own board. 

While my shoulder has kept me off my board for about a year now, surfing is part of my life. I worked to carve it in just a I started to carve in time to write early in the morning. And I've carved in time to working on my sewing projects and building my Chelle Summer brand. 

I watch less television, I go to bed earlier so I can get up earlier, but I've made time for what makes me happy. It's the first step to living an authentic life: just like being taught to brush your teeth means that eventually (hopefully!) it become part of your daily routine, so is making time for what makes me happy. I long incorporated running into my life and I often say it's as much as part of my routine as brushing my teeth. But teaching myself that also has helped me figure out how to add in writing and creating to my daily routine, too.

I know that none of us are promised anything. We have this moment now and we don't know what's ahead. And while we can't always control some of the responsibilities we have, we still have the opportunity find some time for ourselves because by doing that, we're creating our own authentic life.

Patience, Patience, Yeah, and More Patience

I always believe I can get more done in certain time periods than ends up being realistic. Last year I believed I had enough time to have a swimsuit collection ready to make custom suits by January of this year, but as time crept up on me– and not because I was lounging around watching television– I realized this wasn't going to happen. And then I realized it wasn't going to happen by March (next month) either.

Writing a book is a completely different game than creating a product where you have to then create more of them so you have inventory to sell. But you also need people to buy the product so you have to spend time working on marketing. There's a whole list of other items that consume my time; I don't get to be creative 24/7. And it's not that creating is a problem for me, it's more than there aren't enough hours in the day for everything I want to do.

That then circles us back to swimwear– and this photo of my mom taken in what I'm guessing was about 1961 in my grandfather's boat (I believe that's my dad next to her– before they were married). 

Most of us aren't old enough to remember swimsuits had zippers are were made with fabrics that now would seem outlandish to use for swimwear– like flannel. None of these fabrics could stretch, would give, nor would they dry quickly. Spandex was introduced in 1958 but wouldn't make its way into the swimsuit market just yet.

Working with vintage patterns has opened my eyes to the changes in fabrics (no zippers today!). We take for granted the quick drying material we plunge into swimming pools wearing– or the fact that the fabric doesn't fade from the chlorine like it used to. 

There is a journey involved in creating a swim line that I'll be happy with. I want everything to fit well, for women to want to wear a swimsuit because it's not just flattering but also comfortable. And to do that I have to slow down the process and continue to explore and sew, making mistakes while also making new discoveries along the way.

On Friday when I met with the priest with whom I do my spiritual direction, we talked about this continued to road building patience that I am on. I have written about how life is quiet now, how I'm productive but there's not much to share. And, honestly, not much going on. 

"You'll be up to your ears in stuff before you know it," he reminded me.

I won't say it's been easy. It's much like so many other goals I've set– it always takes me longer to get there.

And I will get there. Not just yet.

Staying the Course

Sometimes I forget to follow my own advice.

Recently, a friend's daughter had gone out for her high school cross country team. She ran track in middle school but only the short sprints. After her first race, when she finished almost completely last last in the field, when we were back at our house after the meet to eat pizza, I pulled out the clippings from my high school days. The very ones where I finished dead last on my team and near the end of the line in the junior varsity race. By the end of that season though, I had moved up to last spot on varsity and I wanted Hannah to know that working hard would pay off. I also wanted her to know that everything I have accomplished today is because of those lessons I learned back then.

As I work at Chelle Summer, trying to get the word out there to sell the hand bags I have made as well as make more and get ready to sell customer swimwear in the spring, along with all my other responsibilities (including a full-time research job), sometimes I can be sitting at the sewing machine and I'll begin to wonder, is it worth it?

I wrote several weeks ago when we launched the store of the web site that to me this is the harder part of starting up something new: actually getting people to buy what you've created. Anyone of us can create something and throw it out there. The hard part is making people see that you're different than the millions of other products that we're bombarded with (and see all over social media). 

It's also a challenge to keep going when you're alone and have time to think. It's easy to wonder if it's worth the time and effort, if it's what I'm supposed to do, and if there is something else I'm supposed to be doing.

But then something comes along and reminds me, yes, this is the right direction on the map. I don't always get there as quickly as I would like. But, yes, I'll get there somehow. I've done it before and I know the rewards are great. I just need to stay the course.