Running from the Inside

I have been a runner since I was 12. Running is as much a part of me as brushing my teeth. While there are days I don’t particularly want to do it, I do it anyway, because I know I’ll feel better if I do.

But for several years following surgery (having my uterus removed) in 2018, my running suffered. I wasn’t off from running that long, but it was the longest I’d been off probably since high school when I started to run year round.

In these past few years I have written a few things about working at making my running better, about trying to run harder, about how much harder the mental game is for me than it was twenty years ago.

Finally, last week I felt like I had made some steps forward– while it’s still hard, I had the sense that my fitness is little better, that I can run a little harder and further.

Then this weekend, something changed again.

I have been using the Garmin (watch) challenges as a way to keep myself motivated on those days I don’t want to go out. I remind myself to get at least 10,000 steps in by running the dogs to keep a monthly streak alive or to get a swim in so get that badge.

A week ago, I missed a 10K badge because I just didn’t feel like running a 10K and the weather wasn’t pleasant with strong spring winds wreaking havoc on us so I ran a shorter amount. But this past Friday, I did the 10K. I didn’t get a badge for it because I didn’t need it. I just wanted to prove to myself I could do it.

On Sunday, something new appeared in my Garmin app- you can now buy yourself into their program that helps you earn badges faster because you get double points an other badges that don’t exist to those who don’t pay the monthly fee.

Pay my way to badges? How does that help my fitness? It was a reminder how much people are being badgered to use outside forces to achieve goals that aren’t really true goals because you're paying your way to them, not earning them because you ran an extra mile.

I won’t be pursuing badges now because Garmin reminded me that I don’t need them. Running and swimming are about what’s inside me. Yes, the badges helped get me back some of my fitness, but as Garmin has made changes, I have, too, and that’s not to keep running that road with them beyond what my very expensive watch allows me to track.

Journey Reflections

Chelle Summer is about confidence, about moving forward, about the inspiration to be who we believe we are supposed to be. And make those steps toward being that person. While Chelle Summer as a brand came about ten years ago, what I do has been a lifetime in the making.

From the age of six, I wanted to be an author and most of my school life was geared toward helping me achieve that. I did become an author, but my first book was not the beach reading sort I always planned for it to be. It was about coping with sibling suicide, the stories and lessons I learned from the journey of losing my younger sister Denise to suicide.

It led me to so many more things- writing more books about suicide grief and self-help; speaking around the world; a doctorate; and then realizing that the journey had to change, it wasn’t just about moving forward after suicide anymore. I had done all I thought I was supposed to do in that realm. It didn’t mean I was leaving behind the fact that I lost my sister to suicide, it meant I was going forward to do other things; it meant I was going forward to show that no matter what happens to us, we can still have great lives.

I had thought I would be speaking more about how to help people move forward in a more formal, obviously way, but Chelle Summer began to bubble up and lead me where I am today- inspiring people through the handbags, clothes, and home decor items that I make.

And that leads me back to this photo. The crazy thing in all this is that I love to make swimsuits. It’s been hard to launch that with everything else because our bodies are all so unique and fit is unique to each of us (why so many people hate swimsuit shopping– items in stores are actually created to fit within two sizes). To get people on board with Chelle Summer, I had to become the face of my brand, of what I make. This hasn’t been as easy as many people think it was. I was never a very photographic person. I was the person who always had to have retakes in school because my eyes were closed.

But I learned early in Chelle Summer that people reacted to what I wore and the handbags I carried. I know that if I want to share Chelle Summer, I have to be right in front.

This photo was taken in January on our trip to Los Angeles. I haven’t been able to make as many swimsuits for myself as I would like (although I am on a little hiatus as my winter gym pool time has ended and I’m waiting for own pool to warm up a bit from the 54 degrees that it was yesterday), but I took the time to test some new fabric I’d gotten in December and this was the result.

It’s not just about the swimsuit as it again all goes back to what Chelle Summer is- moving forward, inspiration, confidence. There are many messages in this one photo and that’s what I’ve come to understand about what Chelle Summer means as I continue to create and learn myself. It’s about the inspiration to be who we want to be and live a meaningful, inspired life.

Hope

Greg took this photo of me in Palm Springs during a Modernism Week home tour a few weeks ago. The funny thing is that I was standing in front of that doorway getting ready to take a photo of how the wallpaper popped against the white of everything else with the light from the window in the bedroom giving it a burst of illumination. He was at the other end of the hallway seeing how the color of my dress added to that pop.

I could go on about the design and color aesthetics of this photo, but when I look at it, I’m also reminded of something else– hope.

When I used to speak about suicide, grief, and moving forward, I always talked about how we all have an ember of hope inside us. The challenge is that it’s never burning at the same level of brightness. Some days are harder than others. Some lives are harder than others. We aren’t usually at the same level of hope as maybe other people in our orbit.

But it burns and keeps burning. The key is that we must find it and help it to burn brighter. How we do that varies for each of us, however, I do know that the inspiration to find that hope does lie around us. Sometimes it’s about taking a step back and admiring the sun as it comes up for a new day, washing the previous day away, a clean chalkboard to create something new in our lives. As we come out of a night of darkness, the sun is reminding us that there is light. And hope.

Sometimes life tries to squash that hope. Sometimes people try to squash the hope. Yet inside us, it still burns. I believe in hope. Through losses and a long list of life disappointments, hope has kept me going forward and believing that all just isn’t well, it’s still great no matter what happens to me.

Lent: The Desert Walk

How cluttered our minds often are.

It’s easy to be distracted, to get distracted, to not hear the messages God sends, because we’re too busy stuck in a constant barrage of chaos.

This past weekend at church, the first Sunday of Lent, Fr. Steve reminded us how Lent– a walk in the desert– is a time to clear our minds and our hearts. It’s an opportunity to remove whatever keeps us from hearing God and his plans for us.

Often, my prayer to God is asking that I hear his messages for me, particularly when I’m at church and many distractions are removed from me (except my mind which is probably, easily, my biggest distractor of all). I’m there for an hour and it’s at that time where I feel like, in the slow down, I have that opportunity to hear what I need to know. It’s like picking up my messages for the week, of what I need to know to go forward into the next week.

But I also view Lent as a chance to do something extra to work toward hearing God better. I’m not someone who gives anything up, especially because the anniversary of my sister’s suicide falls during Lent, a reminder of something very large that I lost as I was reaching young adulthood. Instead, I look to do something that helps me work on hearing God better, something I can continue to build on even after Easter has passed.

Many years, and this year it is, it’s about a writing project. I like to keep exactly what I’m doing private until I finish it, however, I will say that writing and all my creative endeavors draw me closer to God. The inspiration runs high because I prayed so hard and so long for guidance. What am I supposed to do? Whatever it is, help me do it. Help me to move forward.

I listened, I pushed the distractions away, and the answers came. During this Lenten season I’m grateful for all that pushing forward and in my desert walk this year I’m finetuning the listening for what comes next.

Find Hope and Inspiration

Challenges surround us; we’re all going through or coping with something each day. And yet we’re surrounded by hope and inspiration. However, iIt’s up to us to find it.

I have disconnected myself a bit from aspects of the world in the past year. This was done mainly because my creativity continues to run high and I’m trying to harness it as much as possible. I used to read three newspapers a day and I loved knowing what was going on the world, but when my newspaper lady had to give up her route, I knew that was the universe clueing me in for change (we’re hanging onto one last newspaper for three days a week but that will be ending soon).

I’m busy. Some people think I try to do too much in a day. I never feel like the days are long enough for me to do everything I want to. I worry about a long list of things. I feel burdened by things I can’t pay others to do for me so I can spend more time being creative (nor can I convince the dogs to brush themselves and run the vacuum).

But when I take a moment to look around, to think about it, I love what I do. I love creating. I love sharing it with the world. If I had a message for everyone for 2025, it’s that- find what inspires you and gives you hope. You can’t change the world as a whole, but you can change your bubble, corner, whatever you call it. I choose to my keep my filled with color and light. Life is giving you the same opportunity.

Take it and run with it.

Runner Girl

I’m not sure how many people know the importance of running is to my life. And that’s partially because it’s something that has sort of been pushed into the shadows of my life. Still, it’s significant to my mental health and well being, something I’ve been doing since I was twelve.

While I run every morning– and run the dogs separately– I had slowed down significantly over the years, not really aware of it at first. I had my uterus removed in 2018 and it was the first time I’d experienced a long layoff (something like four to six weeks, if I remember correctly) from running. I was allowed to walk and swim, but I couldn’t run.

When I did finally start, I won’t lie– it was hard. It took me a while to build back up to where I’d been. I somewhat got there, but I don’t think I was near where I had started before the surgery.

I ran and swam a lot during the pandemic, mostly because I was home. We had been used to taking several trips to LA each year and suddenly we weren’t taking any. I didn’t realize it at first, but I didn’t take any days off for about a year. When we travel, I tend to take a day off or maybe go for a walk instead, using that as break time. But with nowhere to go, I kept running.

At some point last year I began to track my mileage on my Garmin watch. I had used it for steps, but thought about seeing how I was doing. And that’s when reality set in. Wow was I slow.

I committed myself then to finding a way forward, a way faster. And once again, I won’t lie– it’s been hard. Many mornings, like most of them, I don’t want to run hard. I don’t want to run an extra mile. But I’m finding the more I tackle the mental game, the better I feel later. “Oh wow, I did it! I pushed through!” The watch has made me honest– helping me understand where I need to run harder.

As we age, it’s easy to slow down and sometimes not run or exercise at all. But continuing to find ways to push ourselves is important because forcing that drive within ourselves gives us new confidence and inspiration.

Recommitment...to Myself

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about usefulness of new year’s resolutions. I believe we’ve all grown up hearing about them and perhaps been encouraged to take on something we can change about ourselves in each new year. In my life, I know there are many things I attempted change, big change, at the turn of a new calendar, only to quickly fall flat on my face.

I have learned that it’s best to make smaller changes, steps along the way, and that we can do them any time. I like the idea of doing them at the same time I’m hanging a new calendar on the wall (one of the few people who I’m sure still does such a thing), but I also understand I don’t have to wait until I’ve eaten too many holiday desserts to make changes.

But there’s something else I’ve been contemplating– that “resolution” isn’t so much what it’s about to me rather than a “recommitment” to myself. We can always do better. After all, if we were perfect, we wouldn’t be here. But there’s always something in our lives we can do better and I strive each day to keep building on what happened the previous day.

This new year I’m recommitting myself to a variety of areas of my life where I’ve either gotten a little lazy or fallen short of where I’d like to be, what I’d like to accomplish. After all, making ourselves better also makes the people and the world around us better, too.

Happy 2025!

Palm Springs

Palm Springs was always a place that existed more in my mind than reality. It made me think of Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra, but it was never a place I planned to visit. Even though it’s less than eleven hours by car from Albuquerque, it never felt like it was on the way to any place I was headed.

However, Greg and I traveled there for the day on one of our LA trips (before the pandemic) and attended an estate sale before lunch and taking photos. I received quite a few compliments on the dress I was wearing (not the one in this photo– this one was taken last spring) and I knew that somehow I’d have to figure out how to get us back there although I had no idea how that would happen. We made one more trip there, but it was the La Quinta Triathlon in early December 2023 that would change everything for me.

Greg had signed up for the second time (I didn’t accompany him the first time because I had an event in Albuquerque) and I had promised I would make this trip. But I also didn’t want to stand around all day waiting for him to finish. On a whim, I signed up for the Palm Springs Vintage Market, hoping I’d be accepted, but reminding myself that the world wouldn’t end if I didn’t get in.

I did!

Greg wasn’t happy at first, worried that there was no way we could transport his bicycle and gear along with all my Chelle Summer items in the car. I had already figured that out– instead of bins, I would use bags and we could place the bicycle on top of everything Chelle Summer.

Last year was a rough year for Chelle Summer. I was doing events left and right, but none of them were going well. Time was running out for me to continuing doing it. I always made back the fees, but not much more. I wasn’t selling much online and my vintage items especially weren’t selling at all. I had packed away all my cool vintage fabrics because very few people were interested in them.I had no idea how to reach the right people or if I ever would.

Those endless prayers paid off that day at the Palm Springs Vintage Market when I found my people. To say I my work felt appreciated on a large scale was an understatement. The ball began to roll, the dominos to fall, and here we are a year later heading into the third market of the season, what was my first market last year.

They say this market is special and I get it. As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, I’m also saying thanks to Palm Springs for all the Chelle Summer love. I’m grateful the road finally took me there.

Popping Fear

This photo describes fears so well.

I remember in high school, as a runner, being told that fear comes down to not knowing what’s going to happen. On that morning in Maine last summer, as seen in this photo, we couldn’t see the bay– and the Atlantic Ocean beyond it– because of the fog. In fear, we can’t see much in front of us so the anxiety and worry creep in. We begin to wonder a little bit, but then it keeps growing to the point where we are stuck in place. The fear paralyzes us.

Fear grows as we experience more life, as we are told no more often, and as we are hurt either physically or emotionally. I believe that one of the most challenging aspects of life is learning not to let fear disrupt who we want to be and what we want to accomplish.

Understanding the root of fear is the first step to not letting fear win the battle. Once we can identify it, we can acknowledge it. And from there, we must reflect inwardly on the steps we can take to pop that fear bubble.

For me, I know that my creativity is partly how I overcome fear. By creating something, writing something, or sewing something, I’m putting something positive back into the world where the world is trying to take something from me.

I also know that movement is helpful– swimming, running for me. The ways I pop the fear bubble might not be the same for you, however, if you aren’t sure what you need to do, start trying various things. After all, overcoming fear has to start somewhere.

The Writing Life

Chelle Summer has taken over my life in ways I don’t think I ever could have imagined. It started out with bucket bags and I had no idea that nearly ten years later people would identify me as a “handbag maker” or a “fashion designer.” I love what I do; I find great joy in creating.

But what many people don’t know is that writing is my true my love.

I had wanted to be a writer since I was six years old, dreaming of not just published books, but the bestseller list, too. I achieved my dream of becoming a published author in 2001 when my first book, for sibling survivors of suicide, was published. I have since published twelve more books and Ida Lee, just out a month ago, is the thirteenth.

The hardest part about publishing a book is the marketing, getting people to read it. People are caught up in reading what Amazon tells them they should or what the bestseller list highlights. Strong marketing (meaning lots of dinero paid to people to put the word out) is really what makes a bestselling book. And when you’re just one person like me, it can feel nearly impossible to make happen.

Chelle Summer comprises the bulk of my income and the demand for what I make has increased, especially in the past year. I’m happy and, again, I love to create and see people enjoy what I made, too.

But I realized somewhere along the way that I couldn’t forget the writer in me.

In the early morning hours, I try to write a page, Monday through Friday. It might not be much and there might be days where I write more. Or I’ll read through a manuscript I’ve started and not finished. I just try to do something daily because I understand that the writing aspect of storytelling is still important to me.

And I while I wish everyone would read what I’ve written, I also see that it’s most important that I finish these novels and publish them. I don’t want to wake up in twenty years and see so many half-written projects here. I want to see them through, to release my stories and characters to the world.

Sometimes the goals and dreams change. The key is changing along with them.

Meet Ida Lee.

Return to Winter Pool

I returned to swimming at the gym last week; “winter pool” as I call it.

While the weather is still unexpectedly too warm for this time of year, my own pool has gotten a bit too cool for me so last week I began to make the trek to the gym to swim.

It means a change in routine which isn’t a bad thing; it’s just that- a change in routine. The first few days are always the hardest because I’m not just walking out the back door with the dogs but instead gathering up things I need and hoping I get my lane one in the sun.

But as I walked down the back hallway that leads to the outdoor pool, it was like I hadn’t been gone at all. Over the next few days people greeted me, told me they were glad I was back, and I felt myself settling back into the “winter pool routine.”

Obviously, my pool at home is much shorter and colder so the workout itself is different. My goal at home is to tolerate the colder water and not push off the sides of the pool (keeping myself buoyant without help the entire duration). At the gym it’s longer laps for a longer swim.

It takes a few days of physical adjustment and then on Friday morning the mental adjustment kicked in as well. I felt I was in a good enough physical place that my mind could start to wander, using that time to work out details about my writing, sewing, Chelle Summer. I’d been planning out my latest Chelle Summer newsletter in my head and there was an answer I needed. Several other ideas came to me, too.

Now I was really back into the winter swimming routine.

Belonging

I have been thinking a lot about how I don’t feel as if I belong anywhere. I look at social media and the things people say or do, they aren’t me or things I want to say or do. I see there is a balance in how much I post and reveal to people so I can’t waste the little sort of “space” I have to share on things that don’t feel worthy to me. Then as I peer back on my life I can see that there was a time when fitting in was so important. Yet as I entered my teens years, I found myself on a bit of a path alone, finding what interested me and sticking to that rather than what helped me “be” like everyone else.

This continued into adulthood and I can remember my mom saying that she wasn’t sure where I came from, that I was different from the rest of the family. “You’re of a different branch,” she often said. This was never said in a negative way– my mom was the most supportive mom one could have, something I can’t say I entirely appreciated (and what often makes it harder that she’s not here now although I know she is with me, yet in a different way).

In recent years, my feeling that time has short has intensified and I find I don’t want to waste my time on what doesn’t feel like it adds anything to my life, kind of like those social media trends. I have tried to hold steady to what I want to do, what brings me joy, and what I believe I’m here to contribute.

That also puts me at odds with belonging.

After taking six planes in the last week, I had some time to reflect on this and I realized that the people in this world who want to contribute something on a bigger scale, they often sit as outliers outside the circle. They know they have something to share or do, but staying inside the circle isn’t often the way to make it happen. They have to carve out their place, or build this from scratch.

I feel like one of those people. I sit on the outside (or one might say I’m running around the outside of the circle) and look to see how I can create what it is that I want. In areas where I haven’t been supported on a large scale– getting an agent or my books published, so I went and did it on my own. It’s been hard to get people interested in various segments of Chelle Summer because they don’t believe I “fit” with what they are looking for.

Instead, I have to build what I want. The good news (for me!) is that figuring this out has helped me begin to shed doors I’ve kept open and need now to be closed. There are a lot of supportive people out there and I’m not going to keep trying to get some people interested in what I can see they don’t appreciate or understand.

Life is too short to keep giving energy to doors that are letting good energy dissipate when there are doors to open that will help it blossom.

Mom

Every morning when I’m out running Lilly, I pray. I say thanks, I ask for help, I try to use the time to reflect on what has happened and what I need to go forward. I ask to say positive, especially with the chaos that seems to constantly surround us these days.

I also use that time to say hi to everyone in my life who has died– my parents, my sister, and all the dogs I’ve had. While I know they are around me, that they are all at peace, sometimes I’ll pray, “I hope you’re all well,” Then I realize how silly that is because, of course, they’re all well, they are filled with peace and love now.

And then throughout my days, I find the signs of them are around me. I’m not sure I’m aware of all of them, usually they seem to nearly smack me in the head. Lately, Mom has come to me several times via the song “Every Rose has its Thorn” by Poison. She loved that song so much that she had the 45 (for those of you who remember what a 45 is…).

I had a meeting a church recently and the office door is near the prayer garden where I purchased a brick for Mom so I always stop and say hi to her when I’m there. This time, however, there was a feather right near her name.

Native Americans have all sorts of beliefs surrounding feathers and the one I was introduced to early was that when you find a feather, it means you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing; you’re on the right track for your life. I always take this to mean confirmation that I’m supposed to keep moving forward, that all is well, to hold steady and keep forging ahead.

On this day there was Mom (Marianne Linn) and there was a feather. While she can’t call me up and tell me to stay the course, that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, the feather landing right there when I was stopping by her brick was enough for me.

Just a small reminder that she’s cheering me on as I try to keep moving forward each day, to keep doing the things I believe I’m supposed to do. Even when the path isn’t so clear or obvious.

Surfing Lessons

While it’s now the end of September, each August I find a slew of surfing photos that come through my Facebook memories feed. I took my first surfing lesson August 2011 and the photo here was shot as I took the board out into the water at Rye, New Hampshire, for the first time, having no idea I’d actually get up on the board that day and it would open a new world to me.

A year later, I bought a surfboard, one custom made for me and my world continued to change. I had been divorced not long after that first surfing lesson and life moved me back to my hometown outside Chicago. But I found myself surfing in Hawaii and Australia that year. And when I bought the board, storing it in the garage of my friends Sam and Lois in LA, I also began to take more trips to LA. After Greg and I got together, we began to drive to LA from Albuquerque where I had returned to.

I learned so much from surfing, especially about taking on new challenges at age 40 and during the end of a relationship. I wasn’t ever good at surfing, but the times I caught waves and felt the board skim the top of the water all the way to the beach, can’t be matched.

However, somewhere in this time, I also had a shoulder injury (we aren’t sure if it was the day I was pulled down by my dog Gidget, yes, the irony of that one!, or the day my board whacked me in the shoulder at Manhattan Beach after a wave twisted me around in the surf). My shoulder began to pop out and when it happened one day as I was paddling to get in sync with a wave, I knew my surfing days were probably over.

The board came home to Albuquerque after Sam and Lois moved to assisted living and it’s now part of my living room decor. We use it occasionally in photos and I’m still hoping for the day that it will ride back to LA in the car and I’ll have a near waveless day in September where I can at least paddle out to the backside of those flat waves at RAT Beach in Palos Verdes and listen to the sound of the water as it hits the board.

I’m a better person because I took the chance on surfing. I read somewhere (and I can’t remember his name at the moment), but surfing person said, “Surfing recreates your life.”

It definitely did mine.

Change

Why are we so resistant to change?

A few weeks ago, during mass, Fr. Stephen in his homily talked about how we as humans are supposed to change. He discussed how we aren’t meant to stay in one place, how we are constantly called to do challenges.

I believe this. It’s hard sometimes because it’s easier to stay still, to stay where we are. And yet I hear so many people say they aren’t happy with their lives or certain aspects of their lives. Yet they won’t make those changes, take those steps to go forward and do something about it.

I used to say that I was constantly forced out of my box, to do things new or building on the steps of what I had already learned. I have made this choice in my life. I won’t say that it’s easy because there are times where I don’t necessarily feel like I “fit” into my life, the people in my life, or whatever it is I’m doing. It’s like I make the changes, I try to heed the call of what I’m being asked to do to go forward, but then suddenly the box doesn’t feel right. And that’s because I have changed.

Sometimes I post how I feel things are moving forward, after feeing stagnant for some time, and yet during that time I also sense that around me my surroundings aren’t matching up to the changes. It’s a push and pull as I go forward, as I shut doors to open new ones, as I seek to find where I really want to be, who I want to be.

It comes with challenges and it’s supposed to. Making change doesn’t mean it’s easy. After all, if it weren’t, most people would make changes rather than staying right where they are. What I do know is that it’s worth the journey when you look back and see how far you’ve come.

Living the Words

As I post this, today is World Suicide Prevention Day.

Each year I have tried to put out a message somehow related to it, usually where I see the state of prevention, having had a long string of time spent working in the field as well as, obviously, the loss of my own younger sister to suicide now 31 years ago.

But this year, the message has changed because my work has changed.

While I purposely stepped away from the field some years ago, seeing my life had changed, that I felt I had done all I could do, at some points since then I have tried to resurrect aspects of the work I’ve done. And gone nowhere.

At the end of last year, I saw things finally starting to move forward with Chelle Summer. There had been a lot of start, stop, start. While there is still that to some extent, the movement forward is going much faster and I see where I’m having to shut some doors where nothing is happening, where it’s not worth the effort to keep trying to throw things out there.

On Friday, this happened as I closed a door related to something else and (I’m not kidding!) 20 minutes later, another door opened. I had been struggled in my head, deciding whether or not to close the door, but something kept telling me to do it. So, I did and I knew when another door opened that I had done the right thing.

I also was thinking about this being September and how I wasn’t feeling the need to try to make things happen, that Chelle Summer and my writing, along with a few other activities are what make me happy. There is not an endless amount of time in life and we must choose where we best feel we are appreciated, can make a difference, whatever is important to us.

As I was contemplating this, I thought of something our Archbishop John Wester some years ago had told me. I was at an event of people who were involved in the church to meet him when he was new here. I’d been invited by friends and I explained to him that I’d run a divorced women’s group, but was no long doing it as I had gotten married and felt it was time to move on. I was feeling a bit bad about not being involved, however, he said something that has resonated with me since then.

“You’re living the it.”

And that’s exactly what Chelle Summer, my writing, and everything else I do is about. It’s about living moving forward after loss, after divorce, after a whole lot of other things that could have easily kept me down, kept me on the couch, kept me where I was in that moment. My inspiration comes from the childhood I shared with Denise, the inspiration from Mom to be creative and use color. The best I can offer this world is to continue that, to be a role model in the way I live my life and share that.

I walked outside while I was still in the midst of these thoughts and a monarch butterfly flew right in front of me, the only one I’ve seen this year.

Message heard and confirmed. Loud and clear.

Fall Beginnngs

August and September have always felt like a time of new beginnings to me. I believe it’s because the start of school always brought new clothes, maybe new friends, a new cross country running season. I would always believe that somehow there was growth of sorts over summer break and I’d see what the reward would look like as a new school year began.

Even after many years of school, I still have felt this in the fall and as I look back on this photo from late August 2013, I can reflect on the significance of that particular time.

At the time, this wouldn’t have been obvious to me. It had been a painful few years after a divorce and two moves across the country. However, when this photo was taken, I was back in Albuquerque and I had no idea that within the next week, I would meet Greg. Then a year later around the same time, we would get engaged.

But there is something else in this photo that I didn’t realize until I found it the other day- what I’m wearing. That’s a Trina Turk coverup. I don’t remember the original price of it, but it was something I couldn’t justify buying at the time. I searched and searched online and then waited for the price to drop. The web site where I bought it, a name I don’t remember but it was owned by Gap, no longer exists.

This was the true beginning of Chelle Summer. I just didn’t know it yet.

I saw something I loved, something I wanted to be a part of. But also something I wanted to start creating of my own. I had no idea how to go about it, especially finding the fabric prints, but the seed was planted when I bought this coverup.

I still have it– it’s in the drawer with all the swimwear I have made– because it’s a part of where I am today. And the photo is a reminder of how much more it means.

Easing a Grief Journey

We all experience grief and loss, none of it the same because we are unique people, we have unique relationships with people in our lives.

But we all experience pain in loss, pain and loss that can feel unbearable at times.

When I was divorced in 2011, there was a different kind of intensity to the loss than when my father died or my younger sister before that. I was older and more aware. And my life changed in ways that the deaths had not altered my life– moving, having to form new relationships…the list goes on.

Feeling exasperated, I finally asked God what I was supposed to learn during this experience. I wanted to move forward’ I wanted out of the pain I was tired of feeling. I wanted life to open to brighter sunshine again.

One of the messages I felt I received during that time was that it’s an opportunity to draw closer to God. For many of us, feeling closer to God brings a sense of peace that so many other aspects of life don’t. It’s as if a piece of a puzzle has been placed so that we can see much of the picture the puzzle creates. Or maybe we reach a scenic view on a trip.

I don’t wish loss of any kind on anyone. But I know the reality is that we all will experience it (or have experienced it). We can’t turn back the the clock to change anything, however, we can make sure we go forward and use it as an opportunity to grow. And using it as an opportunity to grow closer to God is also one way that will bring us much peace and hope.

It’s always worth the effort.

The Faith of Seeking the Path

On this day (at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater), the path was there. It wasn’t so hard to find.

But not all days are like that. I often think it’s like answered prayers– when it happens (again, not always, or at least in the way we expect!), we are so grateful because we know it’s almost a rarity. Keeping the faith for the journey, the path, or whatever we seek often feels the same to me.

I know exactly what I would like to accomplish, however, I’m just not always such how I’ll get there. First, we have to start taking steps. We know the hardest part of anything are those first steps, right? The steps can be small. We often won’t know where we are stepping or which way we’re going. But we trust (there’s the faith part!) that we’ll figure it out as we go.

And we might not make the right decision at times. Maybe it was the right decision in that moment, but we see later we should have gone another way or maybe stopped for a longer rest. The journey often is like a board game– start, stop, go back, go forward. It’s mixed up and there’s not a straight path forward.

But we keep moving forward. The key is that even when we can’t see where we’re going, where it looks dark and unknown, we don’t turn back. We know that somewhere ahead we’ll reach the place where light will splash on it and tell us, “You made it!”

Revisiting the Places of My Past

I was very lucky that we took a family vacation every year when I was growing up. While one year we went away at spring break, usually my dad took off the first two weeks of August and that’s when we traveled (school was still starting after Labor Day until I hit high school). There were six of us so it was always a road trip in the family station wagon.

I didn’t know it at the time- and probably didn’t care– but these were really planned out trips. My mom would later say her regret is that we were always running off to a new place and rarely spent two nights in one Holiday Inn but starting early and getting all those miles in meant we saw more places. One vacation was centered around Civil War Battlefields. My dad was a project engineer and when possible we toured factories and saw things made like cigarettes (he smoked Belairs and I remember the tour guide handing him a stack at the end of the tour and Kellogg’s (there were got to pick a box of cereals and that was my introduction to Product 19).

There also were historical houses which is what led us to Campobello Island in June on our road trip. I had been there the summer after eighth grade with my parents and my younger sister Denise. Campobello is off the coast of Maine and actually in Canada although it is jointly run by the Canadian and US governments. Still, you have to go through a border crossing each way.

What’s significant is that it was the summer home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While it’s not where he contracted polio, it’s where he fell ill with it. Sadly, after leaving the island very ill, he never returned although his family did and the house is now open for tours. It’s known for its red paint and green trim.

I have wanted to go back for a long time and when I knew we were going to be in Boston for a wedding, I decided this was the time we’d trek north and make it happen. Sometimes places we visited in our childhoods no longer exist, but I’m grateful when a place exists and remains pretty much as it was then.

The following day, which happened to be our ninth wedding anniversary, we stopped at the American side of Niagara Falls. I had done the Canadian side with my family several times– and with Greg– but due to time and a customs restraint (we had a car full of Chelle summer inventory which caused a bit of a problem at the Canadian border of Campobello), we decided to stay on the American side.

While it wasn’t the same as the Canadian side, I’m still glad we stopped. There’s something special about Niagara and it’s yet another happy memory, especially given that both my parents and my younger sister have died. I can’t relieve these memories with them but by going back to these places I can relive the memories in new form and share them with Greg.