Where Hope Resides

I sometimes feel like I need to revisit this concept– where hope resides– for several reasons. One is that sometimes I find myself thinking about it and the different ways and places I find hope in my life. And other times things happen, things that affect all of us in some way, and it’s so easy to lose hope.

This time it’s a combination of reasons that led me to write this today. I had already been thinking about it while I was swimming the other day and then it was like the phrase “where hope resides” kept coming back to me.

I find hope in many places. I can see that I learned early how important it was to somewhere in my mind have ideas of where I find hope because life can easily drag us down. I don’t believe life does this intentionally (unless we make intentional decisions that lead to events that will do that), but, to me, part of life feels like a board game. We move forward, we move back, we are stalled. How are we not just going to survive but thrive in that?

Right now I’m finding hope in summer. I realize that might sound obvious given my lifestyle brand is named Chelle Summer, but there’s something inspiring about the sun’s warmth, everything in full bloom, and the color we see around us. Hope resides in swimming laps in that warm sunshine, cooling off from the intense heat in the pool. Hope resides from seeing my three dogs sitting in the shade around the pool watching me, happy to be with me. And hope resides in having those moments to let my mind wander, to think about the day that has past, and what’s ahead,

Hope resides somewhere for all of us and not in just one place. It’s up to us to find it, but I believe it’s there. Take a step back if you’re not feeling it today or any day it feels far away. Think about where you’ve found hope before. And if you don’t find hope there now, look for another place. It’s there, maybe burning faintly, but it’s definitely there.

The Wannabe Innkeeper

I don’t know how it started, but I still have this dream that a rundown motel (must have a swimming pool in the parking lot or I’m not interested!) will land in my lap and I’ll renovate it and turn it into something like the Chelliday Motel.

It’s not that I have this vision of actually running the motel myself– I haven’t found a way to multiple the time available to me in my life- but to head up a project like that has always intrigued me. I know I saw this as far back as high school, a dream that sat in the back of my mind. And now as I watch so many of these motels disappear, I find my dream disappearing, too.

I’m grateful for the people who take old motels and turn them into boutique motels, but often these have too much “new” in them. There are things that need to be changed and updated, yet the soul of the motel could still exist in a newer form. That doesn’t always happen in the boutique motels we see today. The vision is too far out from where the motel started.

I think back in high school the dream was more about building my own chain, even as these motels were turning into express boxes with interior entrances and table-top sized swimming pools. When Kemmons Wilson created Holiday Inn, it was about giving people a similar experience each night. And yet in that sameness, there was still a swimming pool, ash trays and glasses with the Holiday Inn great sign printed on them. And stationery. Many of these things disappeared in the name of giving people less, telling them it was too expensive to have these things if they wanted to pay less.

And yet without all these details, the motels lost their soul. And few could hang on until interested people could come along and revive them.

For now, the dream continues to be just that. Maybe something will happen one day, a turn of events. But for now, I’ll keep telling the stories of those in my mind, of those whose footprints I walk, dreaming of another time.

The Demise of the Route 66 Motel

One of my goals for our trip this past month was to stay in as many small motels as possible. Greg will tell you that there’s nothing that makes me happier than a swimming pool in the middle of a parking lot. But when I set out to find these places to stay, I was disappointed in how many have disappeared, especially in recent years.

I don’t need lots of frills, usually just a clean, quiet place to sleep. The swimming pool is a huge bonus. And I don’t mind making a phone call to secure a reservation.

As I began my search, at first I would find places that were viable. Then I’d find out they were closed. Many had fallen into such disrepair they were torn down, a few as recently as the past year. I already had seen these changes in the Canadian side of Niagara Falls when we visited nine years ago. Those little mom and pop motels we stayed at as a family- my dad driving up the road deciding which one we’d stay at– are long gone. Greg and I did find one on that trip (the Blue Moon) where we stayed– and is still in business today.

These little motels have been swallowed up by box chains that now cast a shadow over the Big Texan in Amarillo. When we stopped in Gallup several months ago at the Desert Skies to take photos with the sign, we learned the motel has closed. And is being torn down. The owner was there and said he would be building a new one. A chain.

If you’ve read my book, Route 66 Dreams, you know that part of the story is about staying in little motels, about a father’s goal to take his family on a trip via Route 66 as he remembered it. That trip was in 1986, 20-some years after his prior trip, and there had already been major changes. On the last night of the vacation, he relents and makes a reservation for a chain hotel to give his wife the same soap and room she might find in another motel, the conformity that many people crave on the road instead of the uniqueness a mom and pop motel provides.

While I might not always like the aesthetic changes of some of the boutique motels, repurposed from the old motels, but I’m grateful someone has tried to take a property and give it new life. I know that things have to change. And yet I remain sad that we continue to let so much disappear, as if those stories don’t matter.

Popping the Bubble

We are just returned from a two-week road trip that took us into fourteen states plus Canada and across over 5,000 miles. And yet I know it would have been easy not to take the trip, that there are a million reasons to stay home and forget the rest of the world exists.

But the best thing we can do for ourselves is to pop our bubbles. We’ve gotten too comfortable being home since the pandemic started. The pandemic gave everyone an excuse to not go out, to not be with people, to not see the world. I know it made it harder for me to get back into the rhythm of seeking out new experiences. I got much too comfortable and I’ve had to work harder to make sure I leave my comfort zone because I know that I’m much happier as a person when I do explore new places and meet new people.

While I have several photos from the trip that are my favorites, I believe this one sums up the overall vibe and reflection I have of the trip. It was taken at the Munger Moss Motel in Lebanon, Missouri, one of the remaining Route 66 motels (I’ll tackle that topic in another blog). That ribbon of highway stretched out in front of me is there for the exploring; that road is much like life. It’s there for us if we choose to take it.

I’m also wearing a new Chelle Summer outfit I created. Part of getting out of my bubble is also sharing Chelle Summer with more people (more coming on that, too).

I could have stayed home and sat in my swimming pool for two weeks while the dogs ran around it. Instead, I stuck a needle in my bubble and had a slew of experiences I never could have imagined.

I’m glad I popped my bubble.

Prepping for a road trip, new handbags to share, and, of course, Goose...and Ash, too

"Lanterns for Others"

Sitting on my desk for six months has been a piece Patti Davis wrote in the New York Times (November 1, 2023) after the death of actor Matthew Perry about the loneliness of addiction. It has sat there for these two lines near the end:

“He laid bare his wounds, his struggles, his complicated relationship with drugs and alcohol. That’s the best we can do in life– be truthful and hope those truths become lanterns for others as they wander through the dark.”

While my journey hasn’t been drug or alcohol related, there has been much darkness in loss and the road to finding light again.

I don’t always share what I’m immediately going through because I’ve also learned that my journey is about showing how I got somewhere and that means holding onto it until I at least get far enough along the road that I can reflect on it.

The journey has also changed in many ways, more reflecting now through what I make for Chelle Summer. I have held a lantern for a long time for those who have come after me in loss, in particular suicide bereaved siblings, but I also wear a bright-colored dress and carry a bright-colored handbag that serve as lanterns, too.

I shared much in the early years of my grief journey of the pain and sadness that I felt after losing my sister. But I also always balanced that with where I found hope. I believe it’s because I always knew on some level if you were going to share your pain, you also had to help people find a way out of that pain, not to be stuck in it. There is importance to connection through sharing, but we also should be leading the way through the darkness, not all stuck there standing and looking around into nothing.

Be truthful about the journey. But also share what brings you hope to keep traveling forward, to find your way out of darkness. We can all learn from each other. And help each other, even if it’s just about providing a little hope along the way.

New video! Chelle Summer bags to share and a Mother's Day message

Seeking Balance with Chelle Summer

I have considered myself an extraverted person for most of my life. I don’t know that I needed to be with people so much as I enjoyed being with people. However, I have also begun to understand that there are two sides of me and that I need to balance them.

I’ve always been a writer, pretty much since I was six years old, but when I reflect back, my need for being with people always seemed to outweigh the need to be alone. Unless I was running, then I have mostly always wanted to be alone for that.

However, since the pandemic there was shift in me. I won’t say that I have become more introverted because of the pandemic because my life always was shifting at that time. The two events just happened to coincide. My research job was ending just as the pandemic was beginning, but this had been in the works for a year.

The pandemic gave me more time to sew, something that I was working toward. I already had my writing in a good place– what I do almost first thing after I sit down at my desk in the early mornings. But the sewing is sort of the second half of my day after my “desk work” has been finished.

My life ebbs and flows with appointments and things to do like look for textiles at estate sales. Some days I’m home all day, others it’s in and out, the dogs watching me as I leave and celebrating when I return.

We just completed our fifth trip since February, four to California and one to Arizona. this weekend we’ll head back to Palm Springs for one last vintage market until the fall. After spending hours and days alone creating, suddenly all my work is there for everyone to see and enjoy. There’s a lot that doesn’t occur to me. I create what I enjoy, I put everything of myself into that I can, and then I throw it out to the world. These events, more than social media ever could since you can’t actually touch anything, have allowed me to see how much people appreciate my work. And me.

Then we return home and I’m ready to create again. There’s a bit of a low-grade grief as I go from being out with everyone to being alone again (usually lasts one day and it’s in the background of the excitement of new items to make). I have begun to understand, especially because I used to be a public speaker about suicide and suicide grief, that this is part of that public and private life and how they must exist side by side.

I need the private, quiet life to create. And I need the public life to share. Giving them a balance of both allows me to be who I’m supposed to be in this world.

The Not Model Model

I’m not someone who posts photos of myself because I like to look at myself. I have long struggled with body image- often saying that the mirror is a fun house mirror to me, what you see isn’t what I see.

For reasons I’m not sure I can explain other than I learned early that style is an expression of myself, clothes are important to me. I was taught to look nice, that there are certain things you don’t wear in public, and never show off your bra straps. Grandma Zurawski lectured me when my yellow Forenza sweater fell below the bottom of my shorts. Handbags weren’t really my thing– I bought one on clearance in the spring and then one in the fall at Foley’s (before it was bought by Macys).

Somewhere nearing forty though, after years of fun style lying dormant in my life, I began to take a different interest on how I dressed and the handbags I carried. I spent a lot of time searching for just the right items and when I was staying with a friend in Hawaii for a speaking engagement, a woman in Whole Foods complimented me on the dress I wore.

“You must hear that a lot,” my friend said.

I began to realize others appreciated my style, too, as this started to happen periodically.

When Chelle Summer was born, I knew that I would have to be my own model. People have to see you carrying handbags not just in person but online, too. They need to see the dresses and swimsuits on a person. And not just any person, someone who looks….real.

I always wear a style of dress I make and sell when I’m at markets. At the last Palm Springs Vintage Market I received so many compliments about being a great model. I take the compliment, but I know the 100 photos it takes for us to get the right one, the one where I’m halfway happy with it, to post.

I only make items I want to wear and carry. I always try to use them before I make them to sell, to know that they work, that they are comfortable, and swimsuits won’t do things like fall off when you jump into a pool.

Part of Chelle Summer has been forcing myself to stretch in ways I don’t always want to but are necessary for people (and you know I really mean women!), to see that what I make is for them, too. That means being my own model, swimsuit and all. After all, there would be no point of all of this if it wasn’t real.

In this week's video...Chelle Summer t-shirts!

"Keep our candles lit"

When Greg and I climbed into the car Sunday to go to Easter Sunday mass, I announced I didn’t want to go.

For the past twelve or so years, I’ve been a mostly regular church goer, most of it fueled by challenges in my life, me looking for help finding ways forward. But the pandemic uprooted that routine– Greg and I had been using Saturday evening as our date night starting with mass and then dinner out– it became harder to get used to going back to church.

That has been compounded by a lot of recent traveling for Chelle Summer. All is well and moving forward and not going to church doesn’t mean God isn’t in my life. But Lent for me this year was pretty absent as many of my Saturdays were in the car and Sundays at a market.

We had been in LA last weekend and next weekend we’re off Palm Springs so I really wanted to stay home Sunday. It feel luxurious to have a day where I don’t have to be anywhere and can get lost in my creative bubble. My life is a balance of being with people and giving myself the quiet time to create, too.

There is a woman at church who plays the piano before the 8:00 am Sunday mass. Greg really likes to listen to her play so we went early enough for that. When she began to play “On Eagle’s Wings,” one of Mom’s favorite songs (that was played at both Denise’s and Mom’s funerals), I began to have the sense that I was supposed to be there.

And then when we were asked to bring up the gifts for communion, to me sort of an extra spiritual blessing at mass, yes, I knew I was meant to be there.

As Greg says, I always feel better after mass. But this was especially true on Easter when Fr. Rob gave such an excellent homily on light and hope. I would have been sorry to have missed it. Even when life is going fairly well, we should never forget God is with us and be grateful for what we have. And when we’re busy and can’t make it to spend a little time in a spiritual space with our spiritual community, there are always good reminders around us.

As Fr. Rob said, “We should promise our Lord we’ll keep our candles lit.”

And so I am.

A Gift from Mom

Seeking Light and Color in March

It’s Monday, March 18, as I write this. Today Denise has been gone 31 years.

While it’s hard to believe 31 years have gone by, there is a piece of her death that I always feel needs repeating each year.

She died in March.

March is the month of the year when we have the highest number of suicides. Most people believe it’s December because many people find the holidays very challenging. However, during the holidays we are often physically closer and more in touch with people. March, though, brings spring. And springs brings light, green, and flowers.

For some people, seeing this rebirth of life is hard and they can’t rejoice in it.

Spring also seems to be coming sooner each year as the climate changes. There is a tree in my backyard neighbors’ yard that hangs a bit over my pool equipment and I can see it from my laundry room window. It’s budding out and I don’t recall it ever looking so green before spring officially started.

I also remember the days after Denise killed herself in 1993– the Midwestern darkness, the brown of the grass; the naked trees and how their branches were empty and bare.

But the day after her funeral, the sun came out and I still remember how different everything felt. Her funeral was over and it was time to move forward. I won’t say move on because we never moved on from her– Denise is still with us. Instead, it was about seeking color and light in March instead of the darkness she got caught in.

While it’s color and light that keep me hopeful, Denise and many other people couldn’t do that.

This photo is from 2019, taken on the University of New Mexico campus. I remember it was a warm day which is why I asked Greg to go to campus with me to take photos in this dress I had made. But when I look at them, and the barren, still winter, of the landscape, my dress and bag stick out like sore thumbs. And then I look closer and I see the trees have buds, just a bit of green, enough that spring is coming and soon my color and light will be part of the landscape again.

I can’t change Denise’s decision 31 years ago to end her life, but I can continue to find color and light in my life. And include her in that journey.

New Vintage Textile Take Everywhere Bags

The Continued Bond, Even Thirty Years Later

In just a few weeks, it will be thirty-one years since my sister Denise ended her life. I don’t mention this because I want anyone to feel sympathetic toward me. Instead, it’s a reflection of how I’ve continued to have a bond with her and my parents (Mom will be gone ten years this month).

After a hiatus of several months, I’ve resumed taking Chelle Summer to markets, all of them now out of state, including two in Palm Springs in the last nine days and in three weeks, to Los Angeles. I’ve been sewing away alone at home. Now that I’m taking all these items I created out in the world, when people compliment my work and admire my creativity, it also reminds me that this is a significant way I keep connected to Denise (and Mom, too, but I have other reflections I’ll share about that soon).

I have often noted how we sewed Barbie clothes and how Mom let us pick remnants on her many trips to the fabric store where we tagged along. We used patterns, but we also designed our own dresses. We were always given Barbie clothes for Christmas and found packages of the plastic hangers in our stockings.

This was just one piece of our colorful and creative childhood (encouraged by Mom) and it’s how Chelle Summer came to be. After speaking and writing about suicide, grief, and sibling loss for some years, I knew it was time for me to do other things. I didn’t know that I would create a lifestyle brand, but as Chelle Summer began to morph into something and people asked about my inspiration, I began to understand it’s a way that I keep connected to Denise and the childhood that we shared.

Each piece I create is rooted into seeds that were planted in that childhood and even over thirty years later, she remains with me helping me to continue to be inspired. When one man walked by and noted how bright my booth, with all the colors and patterns is, he said, “You bring your own sunshine.” And in that sunshine is the hope and inspiration to keep me going.

Vintage cookbook placemats and prepping for two weekends in Palm Springs

Sharing a Meal

For much of my younger years, before my mom went back to work when I was in high school, we gathered at the dinner table as a family nearly every night. But, as I have written before, there also were extended family gatherings on holidays and to celebrate milestones like birthdays and graduations.

Gathering around the table for a meal, breaking bread as it is often said, is so important in many cultures. It’s a way to bring people to not just gather, but to get to know each other, share thoughts and ideas, with food as the centerpiece.

Dinner parties, if only for just a few people, have been part of much of my adult life. My first ones were high school cross country team dinners when I was coaching, learning the art of feeding a crowd of teens vast amounts of spaghetti. After marrying the first time, I was lucky to have multiple couples in my life who were often game for meals whether at our house or theirs.

That continued into my second marriage and last week, as I took the photo that I’ve posted above, with everyone serving themselves and each other, I realized how lucky I am.

I put a lot of thought into the meal– first into what I was going to serve. And then into what I was going to serve it on. The white plates were given to me from my friend Bonnie before she died; the butter dish, the carved wood plate the bread sits on, and the large glass pitcher belonged to my mom; and the rest of the items are mixed between vintage and wedding gifts (both the first and second time).

Life is about these moments that we share and sharing them over a homemade meal makes elevates their honor and meaning in our lives.

Lots of Goose and reflections after a high school presentation on suicide

One More Day

I had a meeting on the University of New Mexico campus last week. It had been a rainy morning and the sun was trying to peek through in the afternoon (although the wind was wreaking havoc with it warming up). Campus doesn’t look its best in the winter but I have several places I make sure to walk by, places that remind me of my graduate school days, particularly the first round when I biked from one end of the campus to the other.

I love this fountain and some years it’s not running, other years it is (or so it seems). And then there’s that view of the mountains, on this day the snow giving them a brighter reflection than usual.

This scene gives me inspiration, motivation. This is the sort of thing I try to remind myself of on a bad day, the days when things that I am working toward feel so far away or each thing I seem to pick up drops back on the floor. Yes, those days.

But this scene takes me back to moving here to New Mexico and starting a new life, one with mountains and desert and all the things that were foreign to a Midwestern girl. It makes me happy to see.

When we’re having a bad day, week, or month, one of the hardest parts of it is to think past those clouds in the sky, to see the sun shining on the snowy mountains. It’s the hope that’s covered up. Somehow we have to remind ourselves that even when we can’t see it, hope and sunshine are there.

We need to hold on for another day. While it feels like bad times last forever, they can’t. We might feel hopeless because we’re tired of being hopeless, too. A little rest in the darkness can also make the morning light brighter.

There is always another day ahead.

Introducing something new for Chelle Summer!