Even Silence Has an End

Even Silence Has an End
By Ingrid Betancourt

I must admit after watching Ingrid Betancourt on Oprah a few months ago, I raced to Amazon.com to download her book to my Kindle. Book club priority be dammed! It was imperative I read this story now. I started reading more online about the controversy surrounding Ms. Betancourt and I thought, hmmm…. Maybe I don’t want to read this book. I struggled with purchasing it for a bit and then decided no matter the controversy it is a story worth reading. As I sat awake last night finishing up her six-year adventure in captivity, I can in one word sum up her experience: unbelievable.

Throughout the book I felt so blessed to live where I do. Growing up in the United States far from any situation this terrifying and dramatic. While we have our challenges in this country, it is a remote possibility for a presidential candidate to be abducted and held prisoner in a violent section of our country controlled by armed terrorists. A surprising side effect was to grow more aware of the fundamental blanket of safety I live under.

I can’t imagine living under the conditions she did, chained up by her neck for most of her years under the FARC’s control and the abuse of the jungle. When I go camping under the threat of mild mosquitoes, occasional bee stings and a sometimes stinky outhouse, I have felt like I was really roughing it. Oh contraire! I was in the lap of luxury compared to her dwellings deep in the Amazon jungle.

Even Silence Has an End, for me, was a jaw-dropping story filled with insights into the human soul under pressure and deep anguish. When hope is all you have and you are relinquished to living as no more than a dog on a leash; what becomes of the human spirit? Do we see an ugly side of each other? Do we find beauty? Do we come to know hatred on a deep level? Are we forgiving? Ms. Betancourt’s portrayal of her experience is insight to all of this.

As for the controversy, I think reserving judgment for anyone who was held captive is key. Being in such a situation, no matter who you are, will bring out some pretty uncomfortable behavioral traits.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I looked forward to reading it everyday and have enjoyed how thankful it has made me for the life I am living.

Bravo Ingrid.

D’s

I have stumbled onto a conspiracy.  Vanity sizing.  I first noticed this conspiracy when retailers like Banana Republic changed their sizing four or five years ago. Size four became a two and a two became a zero.  I won’t start to rant about how annoying this is to me. The manipulation of our body image by these companies is silliness.  A few weeks ago I stumbled onto yet another vanity sizing conspiracy – cup sizes.

Is it possible I have grown from a B to a C to a D in the last five years?  This cannot be possible.  I weigh less now than when I was a B.  If I were to hold a D cup size breast implant in my hand I’m going to venture a guess it is much bigger than what I have going on.

I shared the story of my recent trip to Nordstrom for bra sizing with my mom and we both got a really good laugh over the thought of me having “D boobs” and then she asked in all seriousness, “Does your new D bra have the really wide back with six hooks?”

If this vanity sizing trend keeps up does this mean in another five years I will be a size G?  Does that even exist?

What is your eat, pray, love?

As I watched Julia Roberts talk about her performance as Elizabeth Gilbert on Oprah this week I became girlishly excited for August to roll around so I can round up some friends, escape the summer heat, and take in this feature film.

One question Oprah asked has stuck with me: What is your eat, pray, love?

My Eat? First of all, My Eat includes a beautiful bottle of red wine (usually picked by Jason).  And secondly it includes a fresh homemade Italian dish like pasta with a sauce that moves you to your soul or a French inspired dish of roast chicken with cream and herb stuffing.  My Eat is strongly tied to the experience.  From buying the groceries, to ambiance and setting for the meal, to the music, and most importantly the company – My Eat includes my favorite people.

My Pray? This is without a doubt connected to my experiences outside civilization, where I can be in nature, untouched, where wild animals roam.  Rafting down the Rouge, or through Hells Canyon on the Snake River, standing in front of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, or floating on a boat off the Oregon coast.  This is where I have felt the most connected to my soul and where I feel most spiritually fulfilled.  I find My Pray a hard thing to put into words. Being a part of the undeniable grandeur that makes up our world moves my soul.  I feel a sense of aching in the deepest part of me.  Perhaps it’s a longing for solitude.  The desire to have that experience more present in my daily life.  I want to crawl into the palm of Mother Nature and take a nap in her sunny solace.

My Love? My future husband, our family, our friends, our home and the life we are creating one memory at a time.  It’s as simple as that.

So I ask you.  What is your eat, pray, love?

treasures in my trunk

I went to retrieve something from the trunk of my car today and I happened to find a book I forgot I owned.  The book in itself was a great little treasure seemingly sent from heaven.  As I flipped through the pages I found stuffed inside on a piece of loose paper a commencement speech made by Pulitzer Prize winning author Anna Quindlen.

You may have read this before, but it’s so fantastic I feel I must share it with all of you.

I’m a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know. Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first. Don’t ever forget
what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided
not to run for re-election because he had been diagnosed with cancer:
”No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the
office.”

Don’t ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year:
”If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.”
Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway
of the Dakota: 
”Life is what happens while you are busy making other
plans.”

You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no
one else has. There will be hundreds of people out there with your same
degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for
a living. But you will be the only person alive who has sole custody of
your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life
at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer. Not
just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your
bank account, but also your soul.
People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier
to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold
comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or
when you’ve gotten back the test results and they’re not so good.

Here is my resume:

I am a good mother to three children. 
I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a
good parent. 
I no longer consider myself the center of the universe.
I show up.
I listen.
I try to laugh.
I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there
would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard
cutout. But, I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch.
I would be rotten, or at best mediocre at my job, if those other things
were not true. You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your
work is all you are.

So here’s what I wanted to tell you today; Get a life: a real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you blew an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast? Get a life in which you notice the smell of saltwater pushing itself on a breeze over Seaside Heights, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over the water or the way a baby scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger. Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember, that love, is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send E-mail. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous, and realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take money you would have spent on beers and give it to charity. Work in a soup kitchen. Be a big brother or sister.

All of you want to do well. It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, and our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids’ eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of to live. 

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all. 

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. 
I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get. 
I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned. By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby’s ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy. And think of life as a terminal illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.

-Anna Quindlen

Dear Sixx Design, can I come work for you?

Sixx Design | "Good architecture lets nature in" - Mario Rei

I have been waiting for Bravo’s newest reality show 9 By Design to start airing forever (which in reality has only been like four months, but who’s counting?!) and I must say the first two episodes did not disappoint.  In fact, since then Jason cannot get the remote away from me on Tuesday nights. Usually I record shows for later viewing, but this is one I am so enamored with that I will watch it with the commercials.

I am in love with this family in all their beautiful chaos and bravery.  The utter unfathomable lifestyle of both financial and creative risk they take to satisfy their passions and their dreams is so delicious it makes my already intolerable appetite to follow my design dreams worse.  I love it!

I have always said to others to follow their passions and success will follow.  I think Cortney and Robert Novogratz have done just that.  They are deeply inspiring for me.

Tune in tonight on Bravo for an all new episode.  You’ll know where I’ll be… glass of wine, popcorn, and my remote in hand!

Click here to learn more about 9 By Desgin. And, check out their design company Sixx Design.

to say I wept might be an understatement…

Watching this story stirred deep emotions in me today.  It embodies everything I miss about being a daily part of saving lives through organ and tissue donation.  Creating a video like this and being able to share a story like Alex’s with the world is something that brought me much joy while I did it and I hope while you watch it, it opens your eyes to the amazing power of one.

Alex was so obviously a special soul and I weep at the deep gratitude of the recipients and of Alex’s family.  We are so lucky to live in a community where people like the Capperauld’s are willing to give the ultimate gift.  Words cannot express how I feel about this cause.

To all my ladies at Donate Life Today – I love you.

beware of the drift

I love it when I sit down to have a great chat, over a great meal, with a great friend and she says something that stops me cold and everything goes silent.  Like she just said the most profound thing I’ve ever heard and it literally makes all the noise in the restaurant (and my head) stop.

We were discussing life and some of the career opportunities I currently have in front of me (which is quite frankly stressing me out) and she say’s to me, “beware of the drift.”

What is the drift you ask?  Fellow blogger Gretchen Rubin writes, “Drift is the decision you make by not deciding, or by making a decision that unleashes consequences for which you don’t take responsibility.”

Which leaves me with these thoughts: When will we begin to live our lives with purpose, in line with our unrelenting passions, unique talents, and our core values?  Can we set ourselves up for career happiness and build an artful life full of love and joy?

What if a career built with purpose is next?

what is your unrelenting passion?

For a woman who was recently posed with the question, “what are you most passionate about?” this film couldn’t have come into my world at a better time.

I am beyond moved by this film.  The undying passion of Herb and Dorothy Vogel is so deeply inspiring it makes my heart weep.  Now, I cannot claim I am as passionate about anything in my life as the Vogel’s are about contemporary art (I’m pretty sure most of us can’t), but I can say without hesitation – I want to be.

Their obsession with art and the artists is in itself a work of art.  In a sense they have become just as much a part of the success of conceptual and minimalist art as the artists themselves.  What an incredibly dedicated and fanatical couple of characters these two are.

Check out Herb & Dorothy the film.   Also, learn more about Vogel 50×50.

a cocoon opened

“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it” | Jonathan Winters

Today I stumbled upon a rare article in the Seattle Times that actually held my attention long enough for me to finish the whole thing.  Writer Moria McDonald wrote a lovely piece on Luly Yang, the Seattle Couture Fashion Designer.  I’ve always been intrigued by the woman behind the artful creations adorning the windows of the downtown storefront.  But, little did I know this amazing woman was going to inspire me so tremendously.

Ms. Yang’s thoughtful career approach, her deep courage to follow her heart, and her brave leap of faith, are a rarity in a society driving people to careers of practicality rather than ones of artful grandeur.  I must meet this inspiring woman.

I couldn’t resist sharing the article here since it seems like divine intervention…

…a change of direction. “I decided to switch my medium; not change my career as a designer but switch my medium, fashion instead of graphics. So that’s how it started.” A cocoon opened; a designer was born.

Click here for the full Seattle Times article

Postcards from Kauai

Postcards Cafe, Hanalei Kauai

Monchong might be my new favorite.  What is Monchong you ask?  Well, let me tell you it is yummy!  Jason and I had fresh caught Monchong in Hawaii.  My favorite part of the whole experience was our server declaring “you must have the monchong, it’s my favorite and it just came in off the boat an hour ago!”  Sold.  And she was right it was a beautiful meal.

It takes a pretty great dish and a great experience to impress me and I must say, the Postcards Café in Hanalei earned a spot on my wall of fame.  My mouth and my soul are watering just thinking about it…

Isn’t it an adorable building?  I love the cozy little house that Postcard’s calls home.