still here. ish.

After the fervent posting of December, followed by the loud silence of January, friends and family ask, where are you?

Many times since starting this blog in 2007(?) I have wrestled with whether or not writing "publicly" is a productive use of my writing time. Sometimes it seems it is. And sometimes not so much. And so I have found myself turning to my journal again, and it's been comforting for the moment. I'm less inhibited on those pages, and less worried about whether my writing is really the fulfillment of some kind of egomania.

And yet, here I am, letting you know where I am. Old habits. . . .

Oh, and I'm also writing about running at: tricia-5050.blogspot.com. I'm re-vamping that site to make it more interactive. I'm envisioning a runner's forum. Join us.

tranquility to-do list

Reverb 10 Prompt of the Day: Achieve. What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.(Author: Tara Sophia Mohr)

Serenity. I don’t pretend to believe that I will achieve the sort of tranquility one finds in the expressions of, say, the woman sitting cross-legged on the cover of Yoga magazine. But I do want to achieve the serenity that comes from having achieved some of the other goals I’ve discussed in recent blogs: community; organization; self-assuredness; inspiration and discipline in my work.

I don’t expect that achieving a state of psychological quietude will mean that I will be serenely self-possessed no matter what the situation. But I do believe that it’s possible to achieve an inner balance that allows that serenity to radiate even in the most chaotic moments—what my friend Lori and I like to call our fits of “Kabuki Joan,” after the famous “coat hanger” scene in “Mommie Dearest.”

So, 10 things/thoughts with an eye toward achievable serenity:

1. Pause at about 4:30 in the afternoon to check out the sky.
2. Play music.
3. Yawp (figuratively, I mean). Let kids yawp.
4. Stop looking at the dust on the mantle.
5. Peppermint tea.
6. Come up with a Laundry Plan. One load a day?
7. Prioritize sleep.
8. Eat fresh snow with maple syrup.
9. Stop talking and listen: to the kids, to other people’s stories. To the quiet.
10. Slow down the post-dinner, pre-bedtime blitz.

These are random and in no particular order. I have a whole year to w

ordinary joy

Reberb writing prompt of the day: Ordinary Joy. Our most profound joy is often experienced during ordinary moments. What was one of your most joyful ordinary moments this year? (Author: Brené Brown)

I find this expression—“ordinary joy”—to be an apt summary of my life in 2010. I need look no further than this month’s collection of blog posts to see that I am more at peace with myself, with my situation, and with my setting than I have been in recent years. Not quite accepting, definitely not resigned, but able to find joy in the ordinary: a Tuesday trail run, an autumn afternoon at the park, an impromptu mountain bike ride.

I’m not sure that one moment stands out as the most ordinarily joyful (or joyfully ordinary), but here are a few highlights:

 Watching the kids “mountain bike” for the first time, and witnessing their unabashed elation as they negotiated rocks and roots on tiny tires.

 Pictionary Death Match with Bryan, Mom, Kaytie, and Alex. Laughing until my throat hurt and my eyes burned at the discovery, after 35 years, that when my uncle called his sisters “fey,” he was not implying that they were whimsical or fairlylike, but was actually a comparing them to a neighbor—“Faye”—who was, to use an Eastern Massachusetts term, “retahded.”

 Drinking tea with Bryan in the Adirondack chairs while the kids swung on the new tree swing.

 Doing the Tuesday crossword in the glow of the first woodstove fire of the season.

Essayist Susan Griffin writes that “the ordinary is of course never ordinary.” What a dazzling array of images lies behind these words. We tend to think of the ordinary as something to be met with dread, and our avoidance of the ordinary is linked, I believe, to our inability, or unwillingness, to slow down—something of which I have always been guilty.

Thanks, Brene Brown, for the gentle reminder that “ordinary” is not always colored in grey. Often, it appears in subtle but exquisite shades of saffron, or lavender, everyday Connecticut blue.

the name game

Reverb question of the day by Becca Wilcott:

Prompt: New name. Let's meet again, for the first time. If you could introduce yourself to strangers by another name for just one day, what would it be and why?

I have never been in love with my name. I am generally partial to female names that end in “a” (Juliana, Amelia, et cetera), but “Patricia” just sounds a little too militant for my taste. And though I go by “Tricia,” doctors, dentists and telemarketers invariably reduce my name to “Pat,” a handle that made me cringe even before the woefully androgynous Saturday Night Live character had been invented.

If Becca had asked this question when I was in fourth grade, I would have said “Jill Jackson.” I was in love with alliterative names then (I grew up in the era of duos like Captain and Tenille, and thought Toni Tenille was very, very groovy), and Jill Jackson was the moniker I had given to both my imaginary persona and the main character in my first book. I imagined her to look something like Kristy McNichol circa 1980: medium brown shoulder-length hair with carefree but well-tamed feathers; coffee-colored eyes that were both innocent and savvy; self-sufficient and assured, but touchingly vulnerable underneath. Sometimes, she smoked cigarettes (like McNichols’ character in “Little Darlings”) and wore a denim jacket; at other times, she was athletic—a distance runner, or the only girl pitcher in her Little League. She was also gifted with animals (bunnies and squirrels and chipmunks, not just your average house pets) and was something of a loner—by choice, of course.

And “Jill” seemed to me the quintessential 80’s teenager: she was pretty, but not beautiful. She wore mini-skirts and leggings and lip gloss and adorable ankle-length boots. She liked the Rolling Stones, but also enjoyed the theater. In fact, she was based in part on my childhood mentor, a real-life Jill who studied journalism at Brandeis University and introduced me to David Bowie and the women’s cross-country team.

In fifth grade, I discovered Greek and Roman mythology. My friend (and doppelganger) Wendy Delfino and I found old curtains in the attic of my house and wrapped them around ourselves, imagining them to look like the long white robes worn by Aphrodite and Demeter in the books we took out of the library. Around that time, I liked to pretend that my name was Diana: Goddess of the Hunt (loved her bow and arrow), or Athena: Goddess of War and Truth. Both were lean, dark-haired, and buff—but not so muscular as to appear unfeminine. Diana lived in the woods and hunted wild boars. Athena had sprung from the head of Zeus like a lightning bolt.

In high school, I continued to write fiction, and as my characters became more complex, so did their names. Alliteration and Hellenophilia (that’s a love of Greek culture, folks) were ever present: the heroine of my interconnected short stories was Ariana Alexandros (her father was a Greek artist named Ajax. Hey, I was in high school). A few years later, I took a Russian Lit class and fell in love with the stories, and the name, of Tatyana Tolstaya. I had always loved Russian names, especially female ones: such a rich, sonorous blend of the guttural and the mellifluous. Anna Akhmatova. Katja. And the charming nicknames: Dmitri became Dimka. Mikhail was Mischa. Katerina was Kitty (or so she becomes in the English translation of Anna Karenina).

The Greek and Russian influence is evident in the name I would give myself if we were to meet again for the first time: Alexandra Bettencourt (for though I chose not to take my husband’s last name in real life, I do love its aristocratic sound). But you can call me Alex. Strength, beauty, and infallible sense.

The name I would choose for myself is the name I have bestowed upon my daughter—and, in another form, my dog. Alexa is an abbreviated version of my imagined appellation, and Sasha is the nickname by which many American “Alexandras” have chosen to go (in Russia, “Sasha” is usually a male nickname, for Alexander, or Aleksandr). Alexa was not my first choice, nor was it my second, but it’s a name I would gladly have taken myself. “Classy,” said the nurse in the Birthplace, where our daughter was born, when I told her the name on which we had settled.

Like most kids, Alexa will probably grow to dislike her name (she has already declared, on at least one occasion, that she would like us to call her “Sage”), but if she complains, I’ll let her know how much worse it would have been for her had she been born when her mother was reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. “Alexa Bettencourt” will sound much more pleasing to her, I believe, than “Arwen” or “Galadriel” Bettencourt. And at least no one will ever call her Pat (though they may refer to her as “Al”).

over the rainbow

Reverb 10 daily writing prompt: Travel. How did you travel in 2010? How and/or where would you like to travel next year? (thanks, Tara Hunt)



Nothing quite brings me back to myself like a road trip. When I was in college, my boyfriend and I would frequently embark on camping and climbing trips conceived only hours before. We spent Christmas in Steamboat Springs, spring break in Moab, Utah. When school ended, we drove out to Seattle and then up the Alaska Highway. Once, early on in our relationship, he called me at work around 9:30 pm. “What time do you get off?” he asked.

“Eleven.”

“Any interest in driving down to the Sangre de Cristos and climbing Crestone Peak? It’s about a four hour drive. We could leave when you get off work, sleep in the truck, and start at sunrise tomorrow.”

I paused, considering the level of my fatigue. I was working 30 hour weeks in addition to the five classes I was taking. Then I imagined waking with the sun at the base of a 14,000 foot peak. “Sure,” I said, reaching for the coffee pot. “See you at 11.”

When Bryan and I got engaged, we were already in the midst planning a summer on the road. We decided we’d make our wedding part of the journey, and exchanged vows on Flattop Mountain in Anchorage, Alaska.

Air travel is no less thrilling for me. Four months before Dylan was born, I managed to squeeze in a quick trip to England for a Jane Austen conference. I suspected, but did not fully acknowledge, that this would likely be my last trip to Europe for a while. It never occurred to me, however, that I would not get on a plane again for at least seven years (still waiting for that next flight).

While road trips of the impromptu variety have, for obvious reasons, been a bit of a challenge to execute of late, Bryan and I have managed to cultivate a healthy wanderlust in our kids. In 2010, we camped our way out to Colorado and back, making miles in a 1982 Volkswagen Westfalia. When I began to envision our trip to the Rockies, we were, in my imagination, always seated comfortably on a jet—an air conditioned jet—watching movies and looking at the clouds. So, when Bryan suggested that we consider doing the trip the way we had always done it in the past, I laughed. A camper van with two small kids? But when we shopped—online—for a van like the one in which we’d spent our honeymoon, nostalgia crept in and warmed me to the idea.

I have already written about the vast differences between “kamping” (KOA-style, that is) and camping. The stars in a glorified parking lot are somewhat less magical than the stars above a primitive campground in Arches National Park. But still, we were on a road trip! And each time we crossed the border into another state, the kids would whoop and cheer, and Dylan would write the name of the state in his journal.

Our trip last summer was a far cry from the road trips of my twenties, and if I could have hit the fast-forward button through the flatter sections of Pennsylvania, and through Kansas, I would gladly have done so (no offense to the residents of those fine states). But even on the sweatiest of cornfield days, I remained in the throes of road fever (okay, there was that one campsite in Illinois that caused me to question whether we were truly in possession of our mental faculties, but otherwise, road fever prevailed).

But while van camping allowed me to reconnect with my inner crunchy-granola, it also made me think about the trips I haven’t taken, the trips sane folks take. You know, cruises and beach vacations in the Caribbean. Trips that aren’t so labor-intensive. Lately, it’s Mexico I hear calling, mostly by way of the monthly AAA newsletter that comes in our mail. And with our youngest child entering kindergarten next year, we won’t have to pay that preschool tuition check. Which means we might actually be able to travel beyond Vermont more than once every eight years.

I don’t know how far we will travel in 2011, but I do plan to put some of this “extra” money into an adventure fund. And maybe this time I will find myself reclining instead of ascending. At the moment, sitting across from a mountain of unfolded laundry, I think I might be ready for a vacation where my toes are tickling each other in soft sand, instead of sweating in Smartwool and hiking boots.

sore labour's bath

Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Today's Writing Prompt: Future self. Imagine yourself five years from now. What advice would you give your current self for the year ahead? (Bonus: Write a note to yourself 10 years ago. What would you tell your younger self?) (Thanks, Jenny Blake)

Dear Trixie:

What are you doing up at 12:30 again? Tomorrow morning, you will stick your face up close to the mirror and lament those circles and creases, and you will yawn and tell your puppy, who is running in circles and dropping her tennis ball at your feet, that you absolutely MUST get more sleep. The pup will yelp and you will dig through your cosmetics bag for the concealer (which, younger self, only highlights the circles, anyway. Try sleep instead).

Oh, and self? You know that baby you want to have “in the future”? I know this is going to sound crazy, you being only 29, but you might want to consider motherhood as a less distant possibility. As it turns out, no amount of running, ginseng, or green tea can preserve the kind of energy and vitality that is an absolute requirement of the job.

Also, it’s clear that Dad is eager to become a grandfather, and, well, you might come to appreciate giving him this gift a little earlier than you had originally planned. I know we’ve never quite considered Dad as “tender,” but you will be surprised and touched at the transformation that grandfatherhood brings.

But to get back to my original point: get some sleep, self. I could give you advice about finances, or friends, or parenting choices. But without proper rest, you will act impulsively (and often regretfully) in spite of any suggestions I make. And you will buy expensive eye cream from Origins and convince yourself that dabbing it along the dark and puffy spots under your peepers will compensate for years of sacrificing beauty sleep so that you could send one more email, or watch Jon Stewart (DVR, Self. Trust me), or search Ebay for that plum-colored hooded dress you haven’t seen but know exists, and in your size.

I’m telling you this, Self, because I am slumped over my laptop, unable to produce a single exciting sentence, because last night I gave sleep the bird yet again, and then got up with the dawn so that I could trip and stumble through my morning run.

Self, I have so much to tell you. If I can just get some sleep tonight, I’ll remember just what that is.


P.S. This is another Reverb post. Click here for more info.

in defense of nothing

Note: this post is part of a daily writing project called Reverb 10: Reflect on the year, manifest what’s next.

Prompt: Beyond avoidance. What should you have done this year but didn't because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing? (Bonus: Will you do it?) (Thanks, Jake Nickell)

Doing nothing can be a waste of time, or it can be an art form. --Blogger at zenhabits.com

This past year, I mentally rearranged my priority list at least seventy-three times. Sometimes, this rearrangement would happen as I was right in the middle of a task: I’d be cleaning out the Tupperware cupboard and think, “That dining room could really use some dusting.” Or I would think of an idea for a lesson plan, and then decide that my electronic documents needed filing. Or sometimes I would only stop organizing Tupperware long enough to add to The List.

Like many people I know, I often find that my life is ruled by “shoulds.” If I’m reading the paper, I should be reading student essays. If I’m vacuuming, I should be playing with my kids. If I’m playing with my kids, I should be working on my lesson plan. If I’m folding laundry, I should be. . .well. . . folding laundry.

I’m aware that my issue is far from unique.

This year, though, I plan to put “nothing” at the top of the priority list. When you think about it, how much time do we spend burrowing our way through our chores so that we can have some “free time”? And yet, when the floors are shiny and the books alphabetized on their shelves and the dishes back in their cubbies, what do we do? We notice a nick in the wall next to the fridge and then get out the spackle. Or, if we are wise enough sit back on the sofa and enjoy a few minutes of “30 Rock” or “Charlie Brown’s Christmas,” we are still conscious of The List, which is never far from hand.

I’m not suggesting that there is personal satisfaction to be found in being a couch potato. But I do believe in the restorative power of doing nothing, even a few minutes of nothing, on a regular basis. Last winter, I was drinking a cup of tea in the living room when I heard something hit the window behind me. I turned around. I saw neither crack nor culprit, but I was momentarily blown away by the late afternoon sky, which glowed pink against the snow, reminding me of the alpenglow I had witnessed with awe while camping in Alaska in the early spring. I knelt into the back of the couch and just stared, sipping at my tea, until the sun had set and the whiny sounds of hunger could be heard from the toy room.

I have often complained about the over-scheduling of kids that is so prevalent in our culture at the moment. Why, I have wondered, is it so difficult for parents (and teachers) to recognize the value of down time? We have a pathological fear of the idle moment, the white space that allows for self-reflection. Of silence. And yet, in a world where we are perpetually assaulted with pop-up advertisements, text messages, calls from tele-researchers collecting data about how many electronics we have or who we will support in the coming election, and toys that babble and coo like gremlins, we need a few precious moments of nothingness. And we crave it, and fantasize about it, and avoid it like fruitcake.

So, back to Jake Nickell’s “bonus” question, “will you do it?” Yes, absolutely, I will do nothing in 2011. As soon as I finish cleaning the bathroom.