Not sleeping in Buffalo

It’s the second time I have woken this morning – a dream is responsible (more on that below). The first time was around 3AM, Seget Vranjica Croatia time, stars still dazzling the ink blue sky, Venus descending, the moon a silvery white sliver as it completes its latest transit. I drank water, had a piece of spirulina and oat superfood bar and went back to bed to reply to some emails and Facebook posts back in the United States, and then fell back into a soft cocoon of warmth that, unfortunately, did not involve sharing with the right man.

20 November 2014 Buffalo Central Train Terminal in background as record snows are cleared.

In my apartment back in Rochester NY I have a feather bed atop my mattress and box springs. Obviously, no matter how desirous of such comfort, I was not going to haul such a weighty and bulky thing with me, though as regular readers of my blog will recognise I did bring a queen size down comforter and one of my Anichini duvet covers along  with a mohair afghan purchased from Calzeat of Scotland many years ago with me. (Despite the body numbing of swimming in 17C sea water temperatures a pilgrimage of self discovery this might be but I am never going to be an ascetic.)    Thankfully my landlady also had outfitted my bed with a king size down and feather comforter (it weighs nearly as much as my feather bed back ‘home’ (though I am less and less sure about where home is these days). Hers is covered with two layers of satin brocade and then tucked into an equally heavy duvet of thick white cotton embroidered in white long the upper edge. There are matching cases for the dense feather and down filled pillows (which I use as a headboard, while I actually sleep on my own pillows). When I initially arrived two weeks ago I had folded hers in half and slept atop of it.   As those living in Buffalo NY (where I was born and lived for 29 years) know only too well, the weather can change dramatically in two days time. And so with temperatures dropping into the 40s at night (and no heat in the bedroom) I am now tucked inside the white one (sleeping bag style with all the pillows mounded above and around me) with my own down comforter over me and the mohair cloud with the colours of the Scottish Highlands holding my body heat in place. If I soft focus I can almost manifest the sublime joy of resting with “the he” in such an environment and fall asleep with the angels providing protection and sweet dreams.

Yesterday on Facebook an article appeared from  The Independent about how a woman has opened a “cuddling shop”, for $60 USD an hour she will hold your hand, stroke your hair, hug you and talk to you (without implications of sex). I thought about the loneliness so many experience (she received 10,000 emails of enquiry in her first week of business) and think she’s onto something. We, in the west, sleep alone. We do not sleep in a single room choke-a-block with 15 or more relatives. I think our isolation makes us hungry for touch – willing to pay for it to realise even an hours worth of connectedness with a complete stranger. While a tremendous economic opportunity for her what a sad commentary on the state of being in the United States.  I could have, or should have, cried in reading the article but I didn’t. While I might want to share my bed with the ‘right man’ I am not in need of sharing it with just any man. The truth is that I have not found a man I felt sufficiently ‘in comfort with’ to share my bed in more than twenty years. Want implies mutuality and a conscious decision to be vulnerable, to love unconditionally, to trust, to believe in the fullness of being which both partners bring to the intimate sanctuary of sleep. Whereas to need something (or someone) conveys desperation, an unquenchable hunger to possess that will ever leave the person demanding fulfillment void.

And so while nestled in my cocoon of sleep, just before I woke for the second time, a dream. I rarely remember these, I don’t write them down, and do not possess the skill to interpret their meanings, but this morning was different – this dream, ripe with messages stands out because for a couple of reasons.

I was sitting at a slatted wooden picnic table.  The light is from a campfire and a nearly set sun. There is a man sitting opposite me, his wife or girlfriend has just sat down in a chair to my right.    On the table before me are silver spoons or slim decorative pieces each about 7″ in length – they are united in having a small scene at the top like old fashioned ‘souvenir of’ spoons.  Two I distinctly recall, one with a three petaled Trillium flower and the other with a group of men in Medieval clothing including chain mail on horses (knights?). The campfire is to the left of me, and a man appears there, speaks and then disappears. The woman gets a call, she has long hair and resembles a backup singer for a rock band the way she is dressed and is suddenly she is gone too. At the left of my hand there is a clutch of folded money, lots of it. The man opposite picks up the silver spoons/ornaments but leaves me with the Trillium and the Medieval men, and the money, saying only at his parting “it was foretold”. In a way that is true, my tarot cards were read on Halloween Eve (All Hallows Eve) my defining card at the centre being the Knight of Cups (more on this later). But in that reading, and as conveyed by three other friends within hours and days following was the same message – verbatim. I am protected by angels and guardians, human and Divine beings, I am surrounded by great love, that I must allow myself to release the energetic block I have toward wealth (rather than the spiritual and emotional abundance I enjoy, embrace and express gratitude for) and once I release the associate fear (of in having it turning into a world class jerk) I would have “all that I need” and more.  The universe is always sending us messages. I acted on a physical realm one this past Monday morning, and this morning, within a matter of two hours of waking, that action appears to be more than a possibility of becoming my new reality – and staying on indefinitely in Croatia (friends in the United States do not panic unduly I should be back by May to pack up and leave for good if this works out).

If you enjoy my blog please consider sending me the value of a cup of tea in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Four rings, three friends, bound in sisterhood.

I am truly blessed to have an enormous circle of friends and two very special ones who I met (and they each other) at the same moment, on the same day four years ago – Amy and Jennifer. To say that these women are like sisters to me would be an understatement – especially as I wasn’t born with one in this lifetime and those women from my sorority at university faded from my life more than 25 years ago.

My rings.

In 1989 my husband and I separated. To cope with my despair I ‘ran away to the sea’ and became the operations manager for the HMS Bounty, then owned by Turner Broadcasting Systems in Atlanta. I was disillusioned and hurt and perhaps a little angry and I bought myself an antique coin ring with diamonds on either side of a bezel set 3rd century AD coin featuring the profile of Emperor Constantine. I had it sized down to fit on my pinkie finger and decided to wear my great grandmother’s rose gold wedding band behind it. My accompanying explanation to all the lovely compliments received (for many years) had been “the only man worth having is one wrapped around my little finger”. It became, and remains, one of those signature pieces of jewelry each of us possesses – that we feel nearly naked when not wearing, and which people associate with our being. I didn’t realise how much until just before I was to leave for three months in Croatia – from where I write this blog post.

Amy’s ring.

Amy had taken me out for a quiet ‘chick night’ of Thai and a couple glasses of red wine. And she mentioned the ring and how ‘if I ever found one like it’ she’d love to have it to remind her of our friendship and me. (High praise that made me cry.)  I explained that the one I was wearing was actually an eBay find to replace the original one which, because of daily wear, had thinned down and required too much restoration to be wearable and that I had managed to sell the original for scrap completely paying for the replacement I was wearing (set with cabochon sapphires). That night I got on eBay and found three rings for Amy to consider – she chose, made an offer which was accepted and now wears the one most like mine and, on its receipt, was quick to drop me a note to say “Hi There! My ring came today! I love it – reminds me of you!!! Hugs!!” What could be lovelier? These are enough alike to be the ultimate sister rings without being icky and creepy!! Happy Anniversary Amy.

Jennifer and I also have sister rings though she bought ours for us two years ago – truly one of the grandest gifts I have ever received – following our mutual reading of Lisa See’s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and then seeing the movie together; we are a remarkable parallel to See’s characters of Lily and Snow Flower.  Our rings are Halo from Lyndsay Caleo – 14kt gold, mine (shown) in Labradorite (alongside my Elizabeth Gage dolphin ring) and Jennifer originally with two of the smaller stoned ones stacked of Moonstone and the other of Labradorite (there was a mistake in the order so we negotiated).  The stones specifically chosen for the protection they offer for both of our respective astrological signs.

There is immeasurable comfort to me in having us wearing these rings now.  Small talismans to provide connection between us energetically that ground and nourish me as I embrace the next chapter of my life and Amy and Jennifer their own paths though we are 4400 miles apart from one another. It’s pouring down rain, the lightning and thunder just kicked in, my date cancelled because of weather, I am heating up some split pea soup I made the day before yesterday to take the chill out of me and the air and I am, quite frankly, missing the comfortable nest of my apartment in Rochester. So in looking down at my hands while I type my girlfriends you are with me; I love you both very much.

To everyone else – be the kind of friend worthy of such friendship regardless of your gender. Love fully without smothering. Don’t be ‘needy’. Be unconditional in your support. Be brave, be authentic, be “there” when no one else but you will do.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my first book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

The ferment of genius in a broken world.

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.”
― Anaïs Nin

Photograph by Massimo Sestini, accompanying the Italian navy in rescue June 2014

According to (nearly) universally held scientific beliefs human beings have traversed the breath of the Earth for over 60,000 years. Migration is not a new phenomenon, neither, sadly, is the terror of being a refugee, but the epic proportions of displacement are all too familiar across the globe certainly are new.

Somalis in Ethiopia

There can be nothing more de-humanising than to have your community scattered, the traditions of your culture destroyed, to experience the brutality of violence directed toward you because of your geographic location (and the covetousness for what lies beneath your feet) or your faith. That we, who are all ‘of one’, could do this to another and not understand that we are doing this to ourselves (for eventually we always reap what we sow) is beyond my capacity to comprehend.  Being assigned refugee status and then being forced to live in an encampment with tens of thousands of others who likewise are forced to accept this fate and ‘live’ on the handouts of NGOs is beneath human dignity. And yet, according to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, UNHCR, there are more than fifty (50) million people living this way. FIFTY MILLION PEOPLE living in tent cities and if you can read this from the comfort of a home, where water runs in your tap and flushes your toilet, where you can bathe, and cook, and sleep anytime you wish, a piece of you – in our common existence – is living this other life.

I believe in the ferment of genius.  That there are ideas floating all around us, destined to be pulled down because at a precise moment in time we see a problem and know with every fiber of our being that there is a solution to it that ‘we’ have been called upon by the universe to fix.  Goethe understood it too.

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.
                                                                                                     ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Because of her Lexus Design Award winning “Weaving a Home” project, I discovered the extraordinary work of Abeer Seikaly a couple of weeks ago. I have worked with artisans and craftspeople for more than a decade to find a way of taking their traditional skills and making them contemporary and commercially viable so, you can imagine how Seikaly’s efforts took my breath away. The conjunction of honoring the traditional housing of nomadic peoples everywhere, seeing in handwoven baskets a possibility for something more, and her training as an architect have created something truly innovative and worthy of the (all too often loosely assigned) appellation of genius.

In combination with “ovens made from old bath tubs” we might be able to fix some pressing problems and build communities (and all the healing, dynamic energy which accompanies such) within refugee camps to restore a level of human dignity.

I have facilitated introduction between Ms. Seikaly and a friend of mine who is the CEO of Glen Raven (Sunbrella) fabrics.  I suggested that the integration of a rain collection and cooling system into the functionality of her design and they have now taken the conversation into the business development core of Glen Raven for direct conversations. I can’t know the outcome, but I see NO REASON why something couldn’t be developed for those living near salt water but within an arid environment to cope with increasingly demands on water resources. I am so very hopeful of something smart, and cost effective, will come of the connections I saw and acted upon.

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via PayPal to livelikeadog@gmail.com and then, please do share the blog with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

Love the skin you are in

A long distance girlfriend of mine, Asma, and I were on Skype earlier today.  We’re developing a business together and were going through samples. We were also discussing her wedding in January in the UAE and her desire for me to attend and then come back to Pakistan for a couple of months – to visit, to explore, to immerse and get her life pulled together for making the UAE her permanent home come March.  I know her well enough to know she wouldn’t flatter for the sake of it, at 29 she’s clearly young enough to (technically anyway) be my daughter, but she said she thinks of me as her older sister and asked (given the upcoming wedding ceremonies) about my skin – specifically how I look so young, and with some issues related to her own she’d like to correct.  And since I just had a similar conversation last weekend with my girlfriends Jennifer (45, at right) and Nancy (60, at left) – below – it seems that I should share secrets. Maybe they are useful to a bunch of you – or your lovers.

First, much as I hate to admit this, there are times when I have done without other ‘more practical’ concerns to ensure I have my heavily ladened collection of potions, lotions and masks; I do not regret one penny spent over the years on such.  A male friend (who once helped me move house) tells a riotous version of such. Thinking that the contents of the vanity was all that needed to be transported he discovered that it would take two more trips with a laundry basket to move all my “girl stuff”.  I am unabashed. That one of my girlfriends just went on a date with a man who possessed 7 different kinds of facial masques might be equality manifest but for the record I don’t dig metro-sexual men and one that has more toiletries than I do wouldn’t last 12 hours with me.

I do not resemble Shay Mitchell even when wearing my pair of Ray Bans exactly like this.

As the expression goes “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”, that expressed I have avoiding the sun like the plague since my teen years. (And no, I have never put sunscreens on, no, not ever.)  It’s not to say that I don’t go out in the sun, I do, but if I can avoid it not between 10-3 and if then always with Ray-Ban’s on.

Second, understand that caring for yourself – tenderly, passionately – is not an indulgence or frivolous.  Self care is paramount in a world that takes too much, is too polluted, assaults every fibre of our being.  If you don’t do this how can you possibly cope with the wear and tear and stress to your body from the environment around us – as the expression goes, #JustDoIt !  My current arsenal is not what I started with as an 11 year old – for one thing I drink a lot more water and herbal teas (iced) loaded with potent antioxidants – but the mud masque (in some variation) once a week remains.  When I am fortunate enough to find myself swimming in salt water I will sit in the surf and rub the sand over my legs and arms. If kelp is nearby then I will mash this up my hands with sand and rub it all over me as well.

Unlike the old Ivory commercials of my youth, I am not a soap and water girl; if I use ‘soap’ it is vegetable glycerin infused with organic botanicals from the oldest soaperie in the Celtic world.  I had read a couple years back a tantalizing preview to a new skincare line developed from a 200 year old book of Geisha beauty secrets – the Miyakofuzoku Kewaisden – painstakingly translated and then applied to the initial product launch of Tatcha. Needless to say the rice enzyme polishing powder is a godsend! The texture of my skin has never been better and any age spots that I might have faded like bad memories.

As someone who has oily skin (I inherited my father’s complexion) from pre-puberty life (age 11) forward to today (age 53) if anyone would ever suggest that I would be putting oil on my face (or the rest of my body) I would have told them they were out of their mind. BUT! About three years ago I started suffering from winter dry skin and normal moisturizers (no matter how expensive) weren’t doing anything beyond smelling nice. As contrary as it might seem various ‘dry oils’ are fabulous for protection, rejuvenation and healing (try a few of these).

Post bathing or face washing I have been using Evening Primrose oil around my eyes – morning and night – dot, then pat inward; never rub the tissue around your eyes (I learned that at 19 and have used some kind of an eye cream ever since). Sometimes I use Tatcha’s Camilla Oil (not as intended) as a moisturizer after the rice powder and generally slather it on my arms and legs while still damp after bathing. The eponymous French firm L’Occitane used to offer this incredible grape and grapeseed oil body spray that I used to use the same way – sadly it has been discontinued.

A friend knowing my affinity for ‘girl stuff’ just sent me a bottle of Tom Ford’s glorious Neroli Portofino Body Oil and the matching body lotion.  This intoxicating blend (check out the benefits of each of the following from both an aroma therapy perspective as well as for topical use) of bergamot, lemon, mandarin, lavender, myrtle, rosemary, Bitter orange, Egyptian jasmine, neroli, orange blossom water, pittosporum, woody amber accord, ambrette seeds, angelica root is marketed as a masculine scent but with my body chemistry (tracing back to my dad?) I am swooning over the way my skin smells right now (and I guarantee that I would not be the least bit interested in a man that smelled this way).

You should be drawn and quartered for using ANYTHING with micro-beads in it for exfoliating!  PLEASE DO NOT F*CK UP OUR WATER SUPPLY by using these products. If you must exfoliate use something with crushed walnut shells or apricot kernels.

One final point – ice water rinses.  Sometime around 14 I read an article about maintaining the elasticity in skin (like the Scandinavians and Icelanders) of hot, cold, hot, cold.  Ice Ice Baby, called “avantouinti” by the Finns, for far ranging health benefits – yes, it does take some stamina to embrace the regime.

Ultimately I think that self care is also about comfort with our sensuality. There is absolutely nothing wrong in taking time and doing for ourselves (even in the absence of a partner) because we value who we are and recognise that if we don’t do these things for ourselves no one else will.  

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday

Suggested read: Angeles Arrien The Nine Muses: A Mythological Path to Creativity

A year ago, as both a gift and to stem the constant refrain of “are you writing?” “why not?”, I made a commitment – to write this blog.  I have followed my various muses – at-one-ment, mindfulness, sensuality, sexuality, authenticity, passion, observance of the world, beauty, love, injustice, ethics and integrity – and, hopefully, have provided you (the audience of one this was originally intended) with resonance, reflection and inspiration. I have written poetry (again, and lest there be any doubt decidedly not for you) and some erotica (a first, and also not for you), I have addressed some ‘sticky’ world issues (and likely much more in this vein for the future) and tried to express the wonderment of living as well as express the gratitude endemic to my personal experience.  Along the way I found a voice, different from the one than I perceived was mine:

“…You have an amazingly distinct and memorable voice. Full of so much exuberance, wisdom…” Deborah Barlow

(Over precisely the last year today) I also discovered that you were not the only person interested in what I had to write. My friend Ken Herron recently emailed me that I would soon run out of countries to add to my map because for some reason (or another) people in a 108 countries have read my words – because you nagged the bejesus out of me!, (thank you) though this astonishes me.

In this year of change you faced down your greatest fear, manifest because your father died at age 44, of dying before your 45^th birthday – congratulations, YOU MADE IT!  You feared making the decision that would mean an uncertain future alone but found the strength to extricate yourself from a marriage that was not fulfilling to either you or your husband.  As a mom you feared, mostly, how the outcome of your decision would impact your children; as the expression goes “the kids will be alright”. You have embraced my foray onto OKCupid and created your own profile and have started to date – perhaps legitimately for the first time – and by sharing your delight and enthusiasm it is like witnessing 16 all over again. You have learned that the meme at right is actually what you use your fingers for when not cranking out social media content on your smartphone (when you can find it) and when you and I are not out savoring wickedly cold, very dry Martinis, and that a “full brief” doesn’t need to be a granny panty and there is a certain power to be found in foundations made of lace!

In the last year you have started to embrace aesthetic beauty, and not simply the words of esoteric philosophy – perhaps in the process coming to understand that without beauty philosophy has no meaning.  And, equally important, that “not holding the bouquet of flowers too tightly” (i.e. releasing control) allows for unimagined gifts of experiences to flood your senses.  While you will always be a recovering bulimic you’ve expanded your tasting of food and found pleasure – and start to understand what joy can be found in things like whole belly clams and Irish butter, French onion soup covered with Gruyere and authentic pomme frites – and that even in eating such things that there are men who will want a curvy woman over the stick figure you long assumed that they desired.  Part of this is likely because your eldest is now a healthy, and beautiful, young woman comfortable with her curves.

Your professional growth has found you in the hallowed halls of the United Nations – twice – and you have been invited to speak as one of the very few women as a leadership conference of bankers in Japan as well as have the potential to truly ‘pay it forward’ in taking the expertise so often applied to executive men and impact women at the bottom tier of society – this is brilliant.  Finally, 6 days ago and as result of these events, you came to realise the truth of my words “you are global” and decidedly not insular and local to where you have lived for 20 years; that the square peg and round hole aspect of this city and you my friend hasn’t ever been a good fit for you professionally.

The sky is as pink as you wish it to be, the road as straight or twisty turn-y as you can stomach or might open yourself up to experience, there is nothing you cannot achieve if your powers of observation become as keen as your scenario planning ~ you and you alone own what your life will be, passionately and authentically, welcome to the second half my dear friend. Happy Birthday!

If you enjoy my blog please consider ‘buying me a cup of tea’ in your currency via livelikeadog@gmail.com and PayPal and do share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

How Joe the Juicer and gardening WILL get me ready for Croatia!

The Riva in Split Croatia – in winter

Let me express OUT LOUD (can you hear that?) I don’t do deprivation well!  As a mindful sensualist (my term) everything exists in the mere possibility of providing or deriving pleasure from; e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g.

Prompted by plans (firming up) to arrive in Croatia that I had to really-better-do-something about being able to sport a bathing suit (okay anyone can wear one, but if you think my butt looks like the one at right you are suffering from sunstroke) without embarrassment. And let us not even get into (out of?) a Croatian bikini discussion right now!

I have been making myself kale smoothies for about a year (honest you can’t taste the kale in its uncooked state) but I have decided that since eating veggies and fruits has never been an issue for me the next (logical) step – to embrace the awesome example (and astonishing achievement realised) of Joe (Cross) the Juicer in Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead – make no mistake this is hard! I am someone who bites into life – as well as ice cubes, hard candy, and Granny Smith apples – with almost reckless abandon – so the mere idea of sipping, frankly, sucks!  Starting my day, and working through it, with 2 quarts of kale leaves, a large peeled cucumber, a piece of ginger, dark chia seeds, unsweetened (even by a nominal amount of honey) herbal tea, a banana and add various frozen fruit only makes my mouth happy in the sense of tasting like a Warhead in its tartness; whereas I am sure my insides are eternally grateful.

I am not one to waste anything, so the second benefit of all of this smoothie juice making going into me are the trimmings going into my garden – and this is important – because any kind of renewal and growth requires nourishment.  After my 2 quarts is made in the morning – a day’s worth of “sipping” – I put a quart of water in the blender and add the cucumber peels, the kale stems, the ginger peelings, the banana peels, pineapple rind, mango peels (et al), and the tea bags (organic, no tags, strings or staples) for worm food.

The space that is now “my garden” was, for nearly 90 years, an ugly backfilled, bone dry, not-even-a-grub-let-alone-an-earthworm-inhabited dirt the texture of concrete mix (and just about the same colour), riddled with old crockery, shards of glass, rusty metal bits, roof slates, bricks (mostly broken) and rocks of various sizes with a skim coat of long depleted topsoil. It was a weed choked, un-loved, disused, centre courtyard of my apartment building in the autumn of 2008 when I started – my landlord said “nothing will grow there” (well, I said, it will when I am done with it).

Dormant season – first bed, centre square bed

I started with a square, centred in the space so that if you were on the roof deck looking down it would be like a floral postage stamp.   I dug down 22” below the grade, 18 feet square by hand – more than 95% of the work on my own – (every subsequent bed has had the same treatment). Every shovel-full of dirt was sifted through a frame of 2x4s and ½” stainless wire (at least twice) into more 5 gallon buckets and my arms and back gained definition (and aches) as I worked in compost and coffee grounds and manure and (lots of) bags of peat moss.  I culled seeds, traded plant stock, begged plants from complete strangers, spent money I didn’t have and that wasn’t reimbursed (the garden might be enjoyed by many and enhance the property overall but my landlord could care less about it) and baked for my nurseryman and his wife in exchange for plants.

My version of trench warfare!

The various local Starbucks got sick of seeing me drop off my five gallon orange buckets to be filled with spent coffee grounds (which worms LOVE).  My girlfriend Amy probably felt the same way each time I asked if I could come out to her farm about her horse poo (deeply composted) rich with super fat earthworms (which would now be happily processing the coffee grounds, egg shells and the rest of my organic kitchen matter as worked into various beds). The nurturance I offered this tiny plot of land brought with it a kind of lush beauty which can only be realised with patience and love.

I stand in wonder some days after raking and plucking weeds, or after splitting plants and transplanting – oh, what we are capable of when we give of ourselves (and what we get in return).  Which brings me back to loving – ourselves.

Spring is all about rebirth and growth.  The discovery of self can happen in an instant, quite unexpectedly, and it’s often because someone else thrusts upon us a truth that is undeniable. My friend Mladen and I were on Skype last night and he was telling me about a writer (ancient historian) who lived in Croatia and then, the unexpected segue of – you are a writer, people have been chronicling human history here forever, you will have no problem finding work and earning money here because we value such observations.  When taken with my new friend Deborah’s words of:

“Just finished your book. You have an amazingly distinct and memorable voice. Full of so much exuberance, wisdom, storytelling and warmth. Thank you so much for gifting us with a copy. You are a singular woman my friend.”

Suddenly, inexplicably, I am no longer someone who uses words and writes for herself (after 40 years of doing so) but someone who gives expression to emotions, and the human condition AS A WRITER (I am now, officially, unapologetically, and long overdue, “owning that”). If I can patiently reclaim a bit of earth and create a garden then I can embrace the deprivation of juicing, and get back into my 36C bras. In the meantime I will load up on emotions and superlatives, remain a keen observer and a sensualist and (hopefully) become the writer I am meant to be.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

To Be Seen

Last night as I waited for a girlfriend to show up (ultimately she didn’t and I left at the hour late time stamp) at a restaurant in my neighborhood I frequent, I watched as the bartenders (who always take very good care of me) basically work around a couple at the end of the bar. I couldn’t attribute the lack of service to anything in particular but it bothered my psyche somehow – and I dwelled on it, and dwelled on it and now this post.

My sister-in-law recently sent me a hyperlink that touched me in a way that Hallmark cards ‘use to’.  Her accompanying words were only, “saw this, thought of you”.  Even when we live small lives (by that I mean not a speaker on the TED circuit or appearing in the tabloids on a regular basis) our very basic human condition cries out to be seen. (She clearly ‘sees me’ even though the rest of my family think I am a freak.)  In expressing this ‘need’ to be seen I don’t mean in billboard sized gestures, I simply mean each of us deserves to be ‘not invisible’. In our hyper-connected world we are so incredibly disconnected from observing, acknowledging, extending kindness, or even offering a smile to our fellow beings it hurts the heart to consider. (I might be particularly sensitive to this because I had a German boyfriend some years ago – before Smart Phones – who “documented” everything taking pictures constantly but never actively being present; PUT THE DAMN TECHNOLOGY THINGS AWAY, YOU ARE MISSING LIFE!)

Last Friday morning, slipping inside the sanctuary offered by Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Boston (my former place of worship and community) to connect with the Divine, I was acutely reminded of our collective path. The pew I selected included a fresh take-away bag from L.A. Burdick’s with a fork, a napkin and a fresh, wrapped, untouched treat. In my kneeling humility I asked, as always, “expand my territories; make me an instrument of your will”. I believe that for the grace we desire to manifest we need to exist in a constant state of mindful gratitude, it’s never lost upon me how quickly I know that ‘my prayers have been answered’ as a result of this intention. The following took place in a physical space of less than two city blocks over the course of perhaps three quarters of an hour (least you ever question if the God you pray to is listening).

First, before we even left Emmanuel, as my girlfriend Jennifer and I slipped into Lindsey Chapel the chamber music ensemble began Easter weekend rehearsal and I was met with the nod of recognition from the 1^st violin – I was “seen” as someone familiar and welcome though it had truly been years since we had had any interaction.

Outside a young man in a hoodie weighed down with a box of potted daffodils each wearing blue foil wrappers to adorn Boston in conjunction with the Boston Marathon on Monday (he looked so incongruous I had to take his picture) provided a physical manifestation of Boston Strong – renewal, determination, solidarity, resilience and of sunshine.

Next, as Jennifer is newly divorced and starting to date again I wanted to introduce her to the luxurious beauty offered by La Perla lingerie, so we walked down Arlington to Boylston where this haven of femininity is located.  My current circumstances preclude purchasing and I think Jenn is still recovering – understandably – from price point as mortgage payment for the jacket she fingered but it was the level set for grace to happen, next.

Feuillage Tulle Set by Jean-Paul Gaultier for La Perla

As we left La Perla for Jennifer’s car parked alongside Boston Public Garden on Boylston another car identical to hers disoriented me for a moment – and that’s when my prayer “make me an instrument of your will” was answered.  You see, I am ever mindful of ‘but for the grace of God’ and it was the homeless woman crossing the street coming toward me that the L. A. Burdick’s bag was clearly meant for and the synchronicity of our meeting was ‘ordered’.  As I gave her the bag, our eyes met and hers replied back “thank you for seeing me” and I wrapped her in my arms and hugged her tightly and both of our eyes welled up with tears. (If you aren’t aware of the brouhaha some of my other Episcopalians are stirring up in North Carolina – click here and here and this will help explain the rich blessing of tears I experienced as a result of my encounter with this woman, this despite the fact that I do not consider myself a Christian.)

Years before, and years after, my friend and former colleague Kurt Anderson wrote on the back of one of my business cards “Use your power wisely” I recognise that I function best in a place obscured from scrutiny and floodlights.  The validation of “me” I require isn’t large, taking up too much space is something I struggle against in a society which encourages celebrity and grandiosity – this woman walking in the shadows of Boston’s Four Seasons, Hermes, Anne Fontaine, St. John and other such shops saw me and I saw her fully and completely in our common human struggle. Maybe it was the first time in days or weeks that she had been seen, her view of my being just as elemental and important.

Our filters, honed and influenced over a lifetime, determine our perception, how we will act and interact, what transparency is offered, how we see and what we see.  Toward the end of this same day, I dragged Jennifer (who had already stated loudly via email that she didn’t need anymore books) into another hallowed ground of the Greater Boston area, that of Cambridge’s Harvard Book Store.  People who love books surrounded us on this Friday evening but one in particular stands out for me – because while he was immersed in the pure joy of what he was reading, tucked into a wall niche that I had long forgotten existed, he graciously let me interrupt his revelry and let me take his picture.  For myself it was the laughter which spilled forth from “Mario” (clearly not his real name based upon our later email exchange) that garnered my attention, only when Jennifer said “Captain Jack Sparrow” did I make a connection to Johnny Depp physically. But I didn’t see him as the lead character of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series, what I saw instead was “Roux” from Chocolat.  My lens, partly based on our tiny conversation, transformed Mario into the romantic drifter that makes things right in the face of prejudice and who subsequently ceases to wander as a result of what he finds when he opens his heart.

When we wake up in the morning we can’t know what actions we will be guided to take, or the impact these might have on the world around us.  As Amanda Palmer so eloquently points out in her TED talk (link above) there is a give and take of our human condition where each action provides is more gift than payment.  In this post-Easter season when righteousness runs a little higher in some folks (just as it had for Chocolat’s Comte de Reynaud) I think that there is an analogy around lingerie that is useful – “to be seen” can also mean to have impact without being seen by anyone at all, the power of lingerie is its secrecy; just as actions that bring about positive change can be quietly accomplished, one hug at a time.

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Whores, courtesans and the rest of womankind

First, let me be clear, every woman has a brain. She has overt or subtle sexuality and her own unique way of expressing her sensuality. She can be celibate, a seductress AND a mom simultaneously (so please throw the Madonna/whore perception out with the bath water). And, despite the current assault of radical Christians and fundamentalist Muslims alike, we do not need to have our bodies regulated by legal framework, shaming (and stoning or beheading) or in the courts.  A woman should be able to walk around topless, as men are often seen, should she so desire without fear of molestation. She should certainly never have to worry about being raped as many as 40 times a day (please sign the petition to right a still festering very old wrong) – simply because she is a woman!

I am spurred on by watching the most recent season of the American reality TV show The Bachelor where I was struck by the fact that two women (Renee and Cassandra who are single moms) were consistently referred to as “my special ones” by the bachelor Juan Pablo Galavis, other women, Andi and Sharleen, were clearly respected for their brains while others fell into the hot, hot, hot category and frankly seemed to be taken merely for their sexuality.  I am not buying into the damage control storyline that Juan Pablo was linguistically challenged (to explain his repeated faux pas) in English but I do believe that he both loves women and can also be a horrible misogynist at times.  Every woman comes across a guy exactly like Juan Pablo at least once in her dating career – eye candy but lacking in so many ways – but the contrast between him and (super respectful)  Chris Siegfried and Sean Lowe of previous seasons was so astonishing that Disney-owned ABC’s producers must be more than a little embarrassed for getting their choice so wrong.

So I am writing about my gender, unified by our having vaginas, differentiated by how men have perceived and treated us over thousands of years, (the rise in female genital mutilation #FGM is a whole different post to be written), and the distinction between whores, courtesans and the rest of womankind that has sex (however frequently or infrequently).

For the sake of argument let’s assume that the hypothetical whore in this conversation has chosen her own path, that she was not abducted, sold via the global human trafficking networks, nor was she a child runaway with a pimp that keeps her on drugs and beats her on a regular basis – a woman such as Heidi Fleiss (or Pretty Woman prostitute as portrayed by Julia Roberts) I think ‘the idea’ that a woman, any woman, could sell her body by HER CHOICE (despite the very real dangers involved) is what has scared men senseless since Biblical times (perhaps earlier).   A whore exists strictly to accommodate the demand for sex, in all its various permutations, another commodity in the world’s economic systems (umm, wrong) but she can be morally redeemed.  The tie of our feminine wisdom, ability to bring forth life that we know is our own child (never any doubt of who the mother is) as well as healing capacity dating back tens of thousands of years combined with the fact that women have twice as many nerve endings in our genitalia as men has caused us no end of difficulties with males.  That we still find men attempting legislate when and with whom a woman has sex only serves to underscore this fear of the ‘first original sin’ somehow (these) men would punish us for not loving them for all their inconsistencies and foibles or for our being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And then,

“I am like a guy, sexually,” I’d told a therapist I’d seen a couple times the year before – […] “What’s a guy like?” he’d asked. “Detached,” I said. “Or many of them are, anyway. I’m like that too.  Capable of being detached when it comes to sex.”

~ Cheryl Strayed, describing herself, page 131, Wild

A woman who can (seemingly) treat sex as casually as (some) men do I think is generally being driven to such behavior by one of two scenarios – to feel something, anything (to be validated if only briefly) or to numb some kind of pain perpetrated in childhood.  In other words, she makes risky life choices rather than to become whole by doing the hard work necessary to overcome something quite horrible in her past.  I have witnessed ‘the hunger’ for having a lover and the pursuit of sexual attention most of my adult life (I have ever been the girlfriend you take along to get you out, keep you company and make sure you get home if you don’t “get lucky”) and it is painful.

Modern Courtesans by http://tynesphoto.zenfolio.com/

I have two very dear girlfriends both highly intelligent and attractive women in the 40s at the cusp of their individual professional successes who give off palpable hunter energy (the goddess Diana, without the virginal aspect). One of these two women expresses (if only figuratively speaking) that in a past lifetime she was Veronica Franco.  (I am also writing a book about love that includes historical examples of these extraordinary women) – let’s be clear, a courtesan, and likewise the Geisha, was amply compensated for the delightful company which her brain offered, her ample hostessing skills, her ability to play a musical instrument or recite poetry and the salon which she maintained. She didn’t necessarily have sex (she decided who she wished to take as a lover, not her male guests, and sex was an option financially negotiated for exclusivity often with a lifetime annuity at termination).

In an way, these women, such as  La Païva (Esther Pauline Thérèse Lachmann, Mme Villoing, Mme la Marquise de Païva, Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck), whose circumstances might have forced them to become demimondaine were also the ultimate feminists of their day – always the height of elegance in speech and manner, erudite, well read, multilingual, well dressed (including jewels), very, very wealthy, acutely aware of international politics and intrigues, and often times orchestrating world events Pamela Harriman might be the most well-known example of such a woman in recent history (her life boggles my imagination! Read the biography).

A woman can love men without taking them as her lovers or of thinking of particular ones if she masturbating (and her ability to be on intimate and satisfying terms with her own body surely makes some percentage of the male population uncomfortable).  But, should she leverage her knowledge of a man for her pleasure it is hers alone.  As a male friend once expressed the fantasy of making love can be as fabulous as our imaginations, and reality is often a very different thing.

So my point is that without any commercial aspect (and in this regard whores and courtesans fall into the same category) involving men and women alike we really must cease distinguishing women by categories. A woman, because she has been placed upon an illusionary marble plinth, in exercising her passions, for having normal sexual desires, should never experience a fall from grace – that is someone else’s problem, not hers.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

cover art by Iain Clark, Glasgow Scotland

Dirty Dancing, Venn Diagrams, Epigenetics and (surprise) Davos

The cherished 1987 film Dirty Dancing comes to mind with its most memorable line uttered by protagonist Johnny Castle (as played by Patrick Swayze who evidently initially hated the line) at the end of the film:

“Nobody puts Baby in the corner”

I can remember thinking at the time, and every single time I hear one of the songs from the film, we all need to be seen for whom we really are and valued for the traits that make us unique and amazing, to not pass judgment or to stereotype based upon appearances or circumstances. And yes, sometimes that means to stand out in public and do something unexpected, loud and wonderful to own our potential greatness.  I don’t mean to make it sound simplistic, I know it isn’t.  Like many of you reading this I have experienced exclusion.  In the grand scheme of things these are trivialities, less than the weight of a single snowflake but with each subsequent incident I am reminded of feeling like I was not good enough. Oh, but the snowflake created in a state of optimal frequency is a truly beautiful thing – the others, not so much.

Right now a triviality that six months or a year from now will be (I hope) forgotten, pains me.  I have puzzled about my reaction for 24 hours, had a disturbed sleep as a result (writing most of this subconsciously and during REM sleep), and I am still not sure if it hurts because it was shared on social media in the first place or because my primary role in this event was kept anonymous even as my company was promoted. I wasn’t seeking a shout-out, still wouldn’t be comfortable with this gesture as this was after all a rather private expression from my heart; but  if I am to be completely honest the public sharing of my gesture (sans moi) feels as if to know me is some source of embarrassment to this person rather than the bragging right of my own perception of a friendship rich with shared intimacies.  In reacting both viscerally and intellectually I started thinking first about my personal history of being excluded and then about the concept and acts of inclusion and exclusion in our greater society and the impact of such on our world.

I mention this out of confusion mostly, because I try to make my life function like a Venn Diagram – everyone’s individual circle finding something in common with at least some of those other circles, and then in the middle something (or someone) which connects it all.  My mother once said “your Christmas parties are like Chamber of Commerce mixers” – (ouch?)  But shouldn’t life kind of be like that? Throwing a vast mix of people together who touch our lives, physical and virtual, all different, all with the potential of complementary, contrasting and overlapping interests, all of whom, because the centre circle of a Venn Diagram – that is to say you (or me), find some path to synergy that might not otherwise be discovered?  I have found that with three amazing, yet very different, individuals – my new business partners in Croatia, as a result of tossing them into a virtual room together.

OH YES, I do recognise that just because we, at the centre, would like everyone to see what we see in the others languishing or dynamically participating fostering change, that collaboration and cooperation isn’t always possible (though another well-meaning friend raps me verbally on the fingers for my absolute unwillingness to deal with disruptive people who don’t also possess a degree of integrity and a positive attitude).  I maintain that learning to listen to that little bird in our gut and cut our losses, no matter how uncomfortable dealing with a situation might be, will only serve to foster greater productivity and harmony on a global basis.

Under the study of epigenetics all of our experiences embed their coding (positive or negative) into our cellular memory and create resonance that multiplies; with each subsequent painful exclusion our being is diminished of its ability to function at its optimal frequency.  The dis-ease which so many chafe against is the direct result of cellular dissonance rather than harmonic resonance.  It’s why the discussions taking place in Davos, Switzerland this week are so important. With a mere 85 people on a global basis have assets equal to the world’s 3.5 billion poorest there is something very wrong and the genetic code of suffering is passed to future generations like a predisposition to diabetes or cancer.

Davos (though I have not been invited and doubtful would “fit in”) is kind of like the fictional resort in the Catskills of Dirty Dancing, powerful people talking about, mixing with the “underclasses” (at least hypothetically) and messing with ordinary lives struggling to survive or simply to live with what happiness and joy is allotted to the masses while they arrive in private jets, sip Champagne and sleep on high thread count sheets. I am not denying the Swiss the financial windfall – though it seems to me that for what is spent on meeting and talking about solving the worlds’ problems could find greater value in actually solving some of the worlds’ problems.

Let’s go back to the the snowflake because – surely someplace such as Davos, Switzerland has millions of beautiful ones – the six ancient Solfeggio frequencies used in the composition of Gregorian chant

UT – 396 Hz – Liberating Guilt and Fear

RE – 417 Hz – Undoing Situations and Facilitating Change

MI – 528 Hz – Transformation and Miracles (DNA Repair)

FA – 639 Hz – Connecting/Relationships

SOL – 741 Hz – Awakening Intuition

LA – 852 Hz – Returning to Spiritual Order

created the snowflakes at right.  Let’s stop excluding people, let’s create resonance and inclusion and beauty. Any bright mathematicians and bio-researchers out there care to apply their talents to fine tune humanity using these frequencies and lifting people up out of poverty and healing our planet in the process? 

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you! 

What we aren’t looking for usually finds us anyway

I am clearing out debris – you know that nameless stuff that accumulates in our lives virtually without our being aware of its presence in the first place?  Amongst the latest round for the recycling bin was a stack of (almost) unmarked CD-ROMs which I patiently loaded into my computer to review – and this is telling.

A new friend recently said, “I hope you find what you are looking for when you come to Croatia.” I don’t think you can receive a sentence like that, as a conscious person in any case, and not have two things immediately come to mind; the first is U2’s anthem of discovery – I still haven’t found what I am looking for and the second is the recognition that even when we aren’t seeking anything at all we are pulled toward our destiny.

Amongst the people I am working with in Croatia is a young woman named Željka, she is slightly older than I was when I took on the absolutely no initial pay responsibilities as the ‘coordinator’ for the National Police Athletic League Amateur Boxing League (Golden Gloves sanctioned) tournament in 1985. (Oh, sheesh – was I ever that young?) I had no experience with such things, and I do mean ZERO EXPERIENCE, but the police lieutenant in charge – as the expression goes – “was in the weeds” and he gladly took my offer of help because in less than 8 weeks’ time over 400 boys from all across the United States and Puerto Rico, their coaches and parents were going to descend upon the city of Buffalo NY and the only thing that was a given was that they had a hotel to stay at. There was no facility to train at or ultimately conduct their matches in because the Internal Revenue Service had padlocked the doors of the old Central Train Terminal for back taxes and wouldn’t let anyone in or out!, no boxing rings, no sponges, ice or entertainment, no ambulance coverage or doctors on site – nothing.  With John Ralecki’s trust I discovered that with perseverance and charm, seeing the big picture but handling the tiniest detail, asking for help (and then formally writing thank you notes once help was received), not limiting my vision of what could be by what those around me said was only necessary, that some version of greatness could (and did) happen – all with an electric typewriter, an old steel desk, a rotary phone and self-determination.

With Željka I try to give her those same wings to fly – it is after all my turn to mentor – and like a mirror to my own history she daringly (and generously) offers her efforts also without financial compensation (at least for now) for the experience.  But at the same time, 4000 miles away and through Skype conversations and text messages and emails, she is giving me something important back – the best part of who I was as my younger self, the young woman who threw herself into a project because she didn’t know to be afraid of failure whose only desire was in eliminating the potential disappointment others might experience, to create magic and perhaps something much more.

On those CDs my ex-husband, who I still love very much (who has always been my best friend) even if we ceased being in love or lovers more than 20 years ago, painstakingly had cleared files from his old computer that I had used for 16 months (from January 2003 onward) as I was creating Thistle & Broom and burned discs for me.  Amongst the files were digital scans of the 30s vintage version of myself and I looked at that woman that was me (and still is) and randomly decided to share this ‘flashback’ on my Facebook wall.  To say I was overwhelmed by the comments would be an understatement; I am blessed with truly amazing friends on a global basis who see in the current version of me something of the woman in those images (who I actually didn’t see then).  (Some) Women (including myself) never seem to outgrow the critical lens in which society views women, how we begin to view ourselves as adolescents even when those closest to us regularly pay us the most sincere compliments imaginable about attributes far more important that our physical attractiveness.

But Željka’s comment, other than a ‘Like’ status, wasn’t public, it was as a sidebar to our efforts around two separate businesses that she is helping me to create for her home – for Croatia.

Željka:  you look beautiful on them

Teresa: OH, thank you Z, I was really surprised to find them, I was going to just throw the CDs out

Željka: we would say that you “zračiš”

Teresa: and what is zračiš

Željka:  🙂 zračiš would mean that you radiate with positive energy

Teresa: OH – what a BEAUTIFUL THING TO BE TOLD

Željka: 🙂

Teresa: crying tears of gratitude

Željka: don’t cry 🙂

Teresa: happy tears, that is about the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said of me

Željka: you see, it’s how i see people just from the pictures, this is why i wanted to comment on your linkedin post 🙂 i felt you are positive person

Teresa: I am so humbled to have you in my life Z

And then she made me laugh so hard that had I been drinking anything I would surely not be able to write on this computer right now ~

Željka: and this is not sycophancy, i say when i mean it 🙂

Believe me when I write that Željka is the very least likely person on the planet to ever say something she didn’t truly mean.

And so, it seems to me that Croatia is somehow a critical part of my journey of rediscovery – not seeking, not looking for something – but finding nevertheless. Of being continually reminded of the positive energy which I radiate and some can see and feel simply through a photograph, which we all can radiate if we so choose, and the young woman who didn’t know any differently, the woman who still believes that all things are possible and then sets about a path to make that a positive reality for everyone around her and herself ~ truly, the best of me.

To all my friends, and especially my ex-husband Stephen – thank you for this incredible gift of renewal, recognition and appreciation as offered to me this weekend.

If you enjoy my blog please share it with your friends on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter – I am @TeresaFritschi. To order my book, please click on the cover art of my book below, thank you!