Thanksgiving Trauma Trifecta....

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And How I Breathed Through It.

Last time I talked about how the greatest gift we can give friends or family is our attention--well, the venerable Dad, now 81 and getting around on a walker and gumption, visited for a week at Thanksgiving and it was chock full of tender moments.

Dad, Norba (my great friend since 9th grade; they're pictured above) and I drove up to the Asheville, NC, area where my artist cousins Deana & Chuck create their award winning stained glass & metal art at Selena Glass and Metal. Their place off Hwy 19 on Sweet Hollow Road is a bucolic green valley paradise, surrounded by lavender hills.

Picture Norma crammed in the back seat with Dad's potty chair (skillfully draped with a windbreaker)as we drove through the Blue Ridge, singing "Over the river & through the woods..."

The feast, at a purple & white gingerbread Victorian on J.R. Pate (which they pronounce Junior Pa-tay, as in goose liver paste) was a potluck populated by poets, artists and madmen, and we contributed the 24 lb. organic turkey.





Chuck shook up some mean martinis.




Deana enjoyed catering to her cousin Joe, my father, last in our family's "Greatest Generation."


And when we got back to Atlanta, Dad and I attended the "Frogmore Stew and Bonfire" party of "Writers In Focus" TV host James Taylor and his lovely, lively wife Lynn Myers, while Dad sat next to liberal talk radio personality Mike Molloy and they agreed to disagree about Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter (two of Dad's faves).








I hosted a SingAlong Soiree for several "graduates" of "Get the Life You Love" and singer/songwriter Julie Austin led us in great old standards like "Down by the Old Mill Stream," "If I Had A Hammer"and "You Are My Sunshine." It was a hoot--and heartwarming too!


The next day, Dad's last on this visit, we were headed for the very uplifting "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (a perfect holiday film about several ways to kill off your family members-- but Roger Ebert had given it Two Thumbs)came the Trifecta.

Within the span of 1/2 hour, I got word on the cancellation of a major project that had been perking for six months; opened my email to discover that not one but three friends from Garden Club plus one other friend had lost loved ones that very week; and then, the house began to clank and clatter like the Titanic going down!

Pipes rattled, twitched and shuddered--the garbage disposal gurgled--things clanged in the basement--the place sounded possessed! (Dad was reading the paper).

Thank God it was actually raining (in the midst of Atlanta's horrible drought). When I heard a strange noise and rushed outside, I saw something the likes of which I've never seen in ten years of life in the Enchanted Forest-- an air vent was spewing water and debris out onto the Lido Deck (the lower deck of my screened porch, where the hot tub lives--thank goodness the tub was covered). It was wild! Every 30 seconds a fresh gusher, until it finally spent itself--and the sump pump cut off. And the rain was helping wash it away.

Mercy!

Of course it took a plumber's visit to figure out what happened--the air vent had been clogged with the nest of some little critters that we screened out last winter-- but as it was, the pipes WEREN'T BREATHING PROPERLY-- and so the whole thing exploded!

This is when I got to practice my three-part yogic breathing, and managed not to explode too.

Moral of the story--breathe deeply all the way into your abdomen, and keep those pipes cleared out!

Kicking It Up Another Notch!

Last week was huge! I attended Alexandria Brown's (The EZine Queen)
Online Success Blueprint Workshop in Los Angeles and connected
with people who are converting their BIG DREAMS to BIG REALITY.
They are DEFINITELY Getting the Life They Love!


Here's James Malinchak, renowned for his Big Money Speaker Tips,
with whom I felt like an old friend because I've enjoyed his online
tips and free reports for months. He's better looking in person than
in his photos, but still a cutie-pie here!


And I JUST got word from Ali Brown's team that I am one of only
TWELVE people invited to join her Platinum Mastermind 2008!
(There are only 15 spaces total and three were already claimed).
Here's Ali Brown holding my book, BACK TO THE GARDEN:
Getting from Shadow to Joy, and still smiling after three days
in spike heels, while keeping a roomful of 200 well-paying workshop
attendees on the edges of our seats. As Your Guide to the Life You Love,
I'll be sharing a lot of ideas on how to ramp up your success throughout the year.
I'm totally psyched! It's going to be a wild ride!

THIS THANKSGIVING, INSTEAD OF COUNTING YOUR BLESSINGS, COUNT THE PEOPLE YOU HAVE BLESSED—

It’s kind of like paying it forward.

I was so blown away yesterday when a lovely man who’s been taking yoga with me for a few years at the Decatur/DeKalb YMCA walked up after class and handed me an envelope. I jived with him that it was comp tickets to one of the theaters where he ushers on a regular basis—but it was something even more special:

Dear Patrice,
With Thanksgiving approaching, I wanted to say a quick thank you. A little over three years ago, I was diagnosed with early stage Multiple Myeloma. Without knowing it, you (and Yoga) have been part of my health team. Yoga helps my body stay limber, helps strengthen my bones, and helps relax me mentally, all of which are essential. (Along with a lot of meds….) I recently achieved a partial remission. Thank you for being a great yoga instructor, and part of the reason for my good news! Sincerely, V.M.

What a special way to express his gratitude. And you’re right; I never would have known it. All the cockles of my heart were warmed.

Here’s the thing—if someone has impacted you in a similar way, isn’t it a nice time to write them a note about it?

TURN BACK TIME WITH TURKEY TALES

To be honest, I dreaded holidays—going back to my family in Buffalo (where I had never lived; my parents had moved there when I was out of the nest; so I didn’t even have a network of friends to support me when venturing back into the CRAZY ZONE).

In a drunken rage several years earlier, at age 48 my mother had fallen down the basement steps and paralyzed herself at C-5. She was an alcoholic and a quadriplegic—and somewhere along the way she had morphed from the Mary Poppins-like mother of young children, a brilliant one she was, to someone more like Norman Bates’ mom in Psycho. I’d always wanted to help her; I loved her so much. But the energy drain was intense, especially during times of high expectations like the holidays. It was an impossible set-up and it seemed to get harder every year.

One year at Instructor Training for all the Dale Carnegie instructors (I taught the Sales Course for fifteen years, and it was outstanding!), we were challenged to invite our family members to share a time when we were all happy together.

“Impossible!” I said. “We won’t be able to do it.” In fact the very notion caused my stomach to churn. We were all so hardened into tough little knots, trying to protect ourselves from each other.

But someone had to take the lead.

That’s why I threw down the challenge to the family a full day ahead of time so we could all come up with something. I’d already been racking my brains for days, so I had the advantage.

And I was amazed at the results.

THAT PRE-VERBAL THING

At the Thanksgiving table as we went around sharing our tales, it dawned on me that all of their happy times occurred when I was pre-verbal—and my happy time occurred when I felt like a young lady—more of a grown-up!

Although I didn’t take this as a total reflection on ME (after all, their happy times involved our summer vacations with the extended family at Ocean City, New Jersey, when my mother was relaxed and surrounded by the stimulating, flamboyant great aunts & uncles and her own delightful parents), I did find it interesting that they enjoyed life together more when I was a baby and I enjoyed being treated like an adult. “You’re a young lady now…” (remember that slogan from that era, ladies?

My happy time was at the Rivermont in downtown Memphis, overlooking the mighty Mississippi at a Mothers Day celebration, where my father (voted Best Boy Dancer in his high school in Cambridge Springs, PA) took each of us individually onto the dance floor for our own swing around the room. He was pretty mellow about it—even though he kept reminding me to let him lead!

What’s my point? That was one of the few times I felt like I had his attention.

Maybe sharing some attention and intention with my loved ones at Turkey Time is the best way to express thanks for what they’ve given. This is something I need to remind myself!