Transformation

Keep Your Head in the Clouds

Jeanna GLeave a comment

My first post was written just over a year ago. The pandemic had just begun, and people were starting to wonder how long it would actually last. “When will life be normal again?” “What is the new normal?” “When can I do the things I miss again?”

As we pick up speed, build up our endurance, and decrease our social distancing, I implore you to remember what you loved about this past year. I know that at some point you thought to yourself, “I’m so glad I have time to do this again,” or “Gosh, I haven’t done this since I was a kid!” Yes, it will be fantastic to attend concerts and festivals, Broadway shows and indoor sporting events, but it will also be wonderful to continue making time for hobbies, playing, finding beauty in nature, and pondering life’s greatest questions.

This evening, as my daughter and I headed home from one of my work events, and I was in my own world processing how the day went and creating a mental to-do list, she says, “It’s a lamp, and the Genie is coming out of it.” It took me a few seconds to connect the dots, but I got there. Up in the clouds was a genie and his lamp. And then the genie became a dragon. And the lamp morphed into a witch’s hat. And with the clouds, my work hangover floated away.

Get out and do the things you missed this past year, but not in exchange for the things you loved about this past year. Find a new way to balance your life. Keep your feet on the ground and your head in the clouds.

‘79 Vintage

Jeanna GLeave a comment

I like to compare my aging process to that of a fine wine. And what makes wine better with age? Flavor development. Flavors that were previously hidden make themselves known. The sugars and the acids come together to form something new, something even better. The same wine could taste different each year. Like wine, all the good stuff and harsh stuff in my life have made me who I am today, and I know I’ve been better some years than others.

As a child, I’d say I was a light white wine, and my flavor profile would be a combination of honey, stone fruits, and minerality, with floral and herbaceous aromas. Overall light and zesty like a Chablis!

Late teens and twenties I mutated into a Mourvèdre; meaty and full-bodied, difficult to grow, herbaceous, dark and spicy, dry, complex, bitter and astringent, but easy to enjoy, nonetheless.

My thirties transformed me into a Madeira. I was fortified with the Spirit. I was bold, sweet, and stable. A Mama Bear.

Now, in my forties, with a beautiful daughter who is coming into her own, I can, once again, do the same. The great part about this age and stage, is that I know I can, unapologetically, be whatever kind of flavor profile I want to be. So I choose a blend of old and new. Accessible (easily appreciated) and polished (well made) with great legs. A complexity that keeps delivering intriguing flavors with notes of minerality, petichor and, of course, nuttiness.

Looking back on my life, I’ve come to accept that some of the acids and some of the sweetness were beyond my control, but I know that I can control my reactions to all of it. I’ve learned from it all and know that, at the very least, I can choose the conditions in which I am stored (or restored). And as another trip around the sun is coming full circle, I like to think about how this next year might taste. And how might I make the following years even better? It’s time to get uncorked and find out!

What is your flavor profile? Or what would you change it to be?

Auld Lang Syne

Jeanna G1 Comment

2020. A year described by many as the following: A dumpster fire, shit show, kerfuffle, nightmare come true, omnishambles, hullabaloo, all hell broken loose, catastrophe, three ring circus, royal fuck up, comedy of errors, bizarre, unrivaled, hellacious, apocalyptic, calamity, and a world turned upside down.

WHO reports that, as I write this, over 74 million people have contracted the virus worldwide. I read in the Wall Street Journal that a quarter of all US jobs were disrupted as a result of the pandemic. The election divided us. Racial inequities lead to murders and riots. Fires and storms wreaked havoc on and devastated our habitats. Our ways of living, communicating, and interacting have all been upended and recreated. It’s not surprising that there has been a collective yearning for 2020, and all that came with it, to end and to never be thought of again.

But should old times be forgot and never brought to mind?

Uncertainty, worry, and feeling useless all took their toll and caused depression, an old acquaintance of mine, to rear its ugly head. But as time has shown, I’m a survivor who does not relish in pity parties. I also can’t be idle, no matter how often I think I ought to give it a try.

And so I move. And I do. And I retrain my brain to think positively and make the best of a situation. And that takes work. And it’s because of that energy and movement that, despite the headlines, I am grateful for this year.

This year has gifted me with the time and permission to think. I mean really think. Like not just about what I have to do that day, but go deep into the recesses of my brain and think about all of the things I usually don’t have the time or energy to think about. And there is a lot of stuff in there! I wrote some of it down in this blog, which I’m happy to have had the time to create this year. Other thoughts I wrote in the journal I’ve been keeping for my daughter since I was pregnant. Others I shared with my friends, because they also had time to just sit and think and ponder life with me. And some I just shared with God, because at the end of the day it’s just me and Him, and I can’t fool either one of us. I wonder if having and spending all of this time thinking is how the Ancient Greek philosophers felt in their day-to-day lives.

For the last few years, life was moving so quickly, and I didn’t feel like I could keep up at times. This year, time seemed to slow. I had time to play with my daughter. Time to try new things. Time to reintroduce old things. Time to contemplate and assess where I had been, where I was, and where I was going. And it has all made me feel a lot better about life. What began as a joke between friends became the mantra “We Are Here,” which we now repeat at our get-togethers. There’s something to be said for living in the moment. And so in 2021, as life starts to speed up again, my resolution is to make it a point to slow down and make time for the important stuff that, for reasons I still need to think about, I had put on the back burner.

And so 2020, for auld lang syne my dear, I’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.