Wild Spruce Media

22/01/2023

I'm sharing about pivots in the newsletter today - Are you on the list? ➡️ http://eepurl.com/dFDoV1

27/04/2022

What story are you telling today?

Celebrating the connections and traditions of storytelling 💖

10/02/2022

This book is one of the reasons I get so excited about medical anthropology.

Shelley R. Adler explores the mind-body connection through the stories of people experiencing sleep paralysis and night-mares.

This experience happens to a lot of people all around the world and how each culture explains it becomes an interesting study in how there are experiences that truly connect us all and still make the individual experience extremely meaningful.

08/02/2022

CONNECTING THREADS - 13 YEARS IN THE MAKING

The last time I saw her, my daughter was 2 or 3, and she and I laughed and chatted as we pushed my daughter on the backyard swing.

Then we moved, and she moved, and our lives were left to cross paths on the internet.

Until last weekend. When we met up in real life. We laughed and chatted and didn't push anyone 😜. We did however, connect the threads of many stories, and interests, and topics, and filled our hearts with the joy of going down many rabbit holes!

Threads... connections... they are important pieces of our stories.

In early January I made a list of people I wanted to see this year, people I haven't seen in a long time, people that I knew would take a little extra effort to connect with, and she was on it 💖.

Connections and threads are a focus of mine this year because I love people, and I'm always curious about all the ways we come in and out of each others lives.

Who is on your list this year? Who would you like to connect with?

01/02/2022

A CELEBRATION

The last weekend of the month is a standing date for celebrating.

A mother daughter time purposefully separate from all our regular mother daughter time. Something my daughter calls accumulating the positives.

A purposeful and planned action to do something fun. To celebrate the good and joyful.

Every month we take a day to celebrate our wins. We share and talk about the things we are proud of. And chat about the things we may need help with next month.

It's actually been quite a few months since our last date. Things got busy and it just fell off the schedule. And it took being asked about it to remind me and re-ignite the idea. So this time had that extra "getting back to normal" feeling that I've been so (read desperately) wanting.

We had frozen yogurt with a surprising amount of toppings, picked a mall we hadn't been to in a long time and just happened to come across amazing sales, AND we found the most delicious raspberry macarons. The whole time my daughter was in her post surgery boot - which was a reminder that normal is what ever "is" right now.

And getting back to normal is overrated. It's based too much in what was. And this date is about celebrating now, being present, and allowing the day to unfold in-which-ever direction it takes us. It was a positive we were happy to accumulate 💖

26/01/2022

RESEARCHING YOUR OWN STORY

I'm slightly obsessed with a book I read last week called Brain on Fire.

It was written by Susannah Cahalan, a journalist who experienced a month of psychosis and whose parents fought to keep her out of psychiatric care. In doing so they insured her doctors would find a diagnosis of a rare brain inflammation that caused her all her issues.

It is well written and fascinating.

And an interesting memoir given that Susannah doesn't remember most of the time in the hospital. She pieced together her story by doing research. Interviewing people that were there, watching films of her stay and reading her father's journals from that time.

And that is the piece that struck me the most.

I'm a big fan of journaling. Writer, David Sedaris, builds his articles and novels from his diaries. Julie Cameron's morning pages have been revolutionary for artists since the 90s. And family members have mentioned how grateful they are to have some of their loved ones diaries and other's wish they did.

These meetings with the page can be therapeutic now and an amazing resource in the future. And they are a great exercise when working on your memoir or family history. And sometimes they can help you pull together the treads of your own story.

19/07/2021

Images share the details not often told in stories...

Created by the camera, photographs help tell the story of Marine Photographic Squadron VMD-254.

05/07/2021

Happy Summer holidays!

Please note my office will be closed for the next two weeks 🌞

Not to worry, the newsletter with the Guided Legacy Prompts will continue to run each Sunday.

18/05/2021

Last weekend my daughter set up a day with a late brunch, a call back home to nana (my mom), a walk around an art festival with roasted nuts (my favorite) and funnel cake (her favorite), and lots of time to chat and connect and have presence.

When I think of the whole day I think of this moment: when I'm holding a very large cup of lemonade that turned out to be more like lemon water and while capped still dripped down my shirt. I see my daughter using both hands to balanced a warm, not very sturdy, paper plate of funnel cake coated (read heaped) in powered sugar, with her ever present iphone laced between her fingers.

It was warmer than we expected so we looked for a place in the shade, and found a spot just below a sign that said "No food beyond this point". It was less a spot and more the edge of a concrete walking path. I wouldn't say we were in the way, but groups did have to single file around us. From this spot we could hear snippets of other family conversations, vendors calling out the names of the orders ready for pick up, and watched one dog on a leash try to steal someone's deep fried hotdog.

The powered sugar of the funnel cake got everywhere and much to my daughters embarrassment, I choked on it twice while sneaking a few pieces. Which only made me make that laugh/choke sound harder. It was a perfect and joyful day. And it's this 10 minute moment that sums up the joy of the day for me.

Entire days can get boiled down into a moment. But its the details that can light up every one of our senses. That can make the moment real to us over and over. The sense filled description above is how I wrote about the day in my journal. And I'm curious, when you think about your favorite memories, and the details, do you explore the experience through your senses?

11/05/2021

"You're welcome" my daughter said 🤣.

Meaning, now that I'm a mother I can be the focus of Mother's Day celebrations 🎉.

But I've always celebrated Mother's Day because I've always been a daughter.

My mother taught me to question assumptions and to lead with kindness. To understand that there is always another side to consider. To reframe failure as a lesson, and to always keep learning.

I'm not so much afraid of failure (thanks Mom). But as I've well documented, I'm afraid of the dentist.

The idea of going to the dentist, immediately puts me back into the memory of a child. The metallic smell of the office, the feel of the sticky plastic on the chair, the sound of the drill and the whooshing of the suction... and the faces... the fake, "we understand how difficult this is for you" look that to this day evokes frustration.

In my mid-twenties I had to get my wisdom teeth out. My mother in all her loving mom-ing made the two hour drive to sit in the waiting room during the less than an hour procedure. And then sat with me while it took me an hour and half to eat a McDonald's cheese burger.

MOMS!!!💖

In some ways I do fear failing as a mom. Missing something. Not pushing hard enough. Not knowing that I'm needed in a waiting room two hours away.

But I guess we celebrate that too. The part that keeps us trying, Doing the best we can, with what we know. It's a relationship that comes with strings and we know it from the beginning.

A lot of the stories I collect are neck deep in the trying. Some are sad, some are maddening, some are funny and still usher an "I can't believe you did that" response. But they are all a reflection of the trying.

So honored to celebrate both sides of Mother's Day. Thank you to my mom and my daughter, who both have taught me so much and have offered lots of grace in the trying. 💖