As spring comes to an end and summer is with us, I will be leaving my job here at the Dells Events, retiring to travel and visit family.

My first big trip is to Italy with an old friend and her daughter, a place I have never been. I thought it was best to start retirement with something brand new just to remind myself there are new horizons in life.

When I moved here I wasn’t sure how long I would stay. As it turned out the year grew into two and now it’s been nearly five years I have spent going around to city and town meetings, visiting police departments, interviewing residents-old and young, poking around the schools, taking photos of kids and generally falling in love with this odd little community.

I have only a couple more weeks here at the Events, perhaps another column and I will miss it all, especially my fellow travelers here at the paper.

I have had the good fortune of several interesting careers in my life and when I move and change jobs it always felt like I retired.

My Dad spent most of his working years at the U.S. Forest Service, retiring early and then putting in a few more years with Wisconsin’s DNR. After that he always kept busy with woodworking and odd jobs at Upham Woods 4-H camp. I have his good example to follow of how to retire with grace and purpose.

So I plan to stop coming to work every day, but I do not plan to stop working, I’m just not sure what that will look like.

I never expected to wind up in a little Wisconsin tourist town writing for a newspaper, and I realize how much I learned in my years here. One case in point is the example of so may older residents who spend their retirement years giving to the community by volunteering, serving on boards and as members of service clubs and churches.
I also never expected to be independent and single at this time of my life, but I have learned that being old and single is inevitable for most as I watched my elder relatives lose spouses.

It is a challenge and, one can hope, an exciting adventure to have ten or even twenty more years with few ties and maximum freedom. Money is always an issue, but I have lived my life without making decisions based on money as much as I could.

The threat of ill health and financial disaster always looms. But, I figure, if that comes it will come, whether I worry about it or not, so I try not to worry. I learned long ago we can plan and save for the future, but grief and hardship come to all.

So I am off on an adventure that will take me I know not where. In a way I identify with those high school seniors also leaving home toward a big question mark.

I was inspired by Maya Angelo, quoted in the “Utne Reader” recently, this echoes my feelings exactly:

“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don’t need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens-that letting go-you let go because you can.”

Now here comes another young persons tragic, preventable death to ponder. Karen Hubbard died in childbirth, alone in a dormitory bathroom, after concealing or denying her pregnancy, even possibly to herself.

What troubles me is not the fact that she was able to conceal a pregnancy for so long without anyone the wiser, many other women have done the same. It also doesn’t trouble me that she may have denied the fact to herself that she was indeed pregnant. A background in psychology tells me the human mind is a powerful thing and denial is real. She may have lacked some basic sex education facts such as it is possible to get pregnant even without the completion of the sex act, even without penetration or only after one instance of intercourse. In this scenario she could have convinced herself she could not possibly be pregnant and there must be some other explanation for her symptoms.

What really troubles me is that she decided she would rather die than ask for help.  At any time during the months of increasing pregnancy symptoms, and surely at the end, when she reassured her friends that she was “OK,” she could have asked for help. Help and concern was obviously there for her. All she would have had to do was say; “I’m in trouble” to someone at anytime and the tide could have turned.

This is what troubles me — that a bright, likable, seemingly happy young woman dies before she asks for help. It’s very easy to point fingers at what or who failed her. A column in the State Journal talked about how inadequate sex education for youngsters may have been a culprit.

But I know, for a fact, that my own children have been in trouble, in difficulties in their lives as adolescents and young adults, that they did not confide to me. It’s normal for teenagers to begin to keep secrets from their parents. We all hope they feel they could come to us with anything, but the fact is they don’t. Are they afraid of our judgement, losing our approval, or do they want to protect us from the truth?

Sometimes I think I want so badly for my children to be happy, healthy and successful, that I might convey the wrong message. I really want them to know I love them unconditionally, no matter what is going on or what they have done.

Maybe the more important message is that life has both ups and downs and we all need help almost all the time. My Dad likes to quote the “Red Green Show” – “We’re all in this together.” Only in fairy tales does anyone live happily ever after.

My hope is that this tragedy will spark thousands of conversations between teens and their parents across the country about asking for and receiving help. And sometimes help needs to be given without the young person asking such as if there’s trouble with drugs or alcohol.

Hopefully the tragedy will also spark conversations about sex and pregnancy. When something like this happens it can be a great lead-in to a parent-teen talk. The teen’s “rolling eyes” response to a lecture can be avoided with the fascination of the story. Mutual speculation about how such a thing could have happened should provoke a lively discussion– a perfect opportunity to clear up misconceptions and reassure a child of his or her parent’s complete acceptance — no matter what.

Feb. 9, 2002

The urge to create, that wellspring all humans have, takes many forms.

The pregnant woman, secure in her body, creates new life. In fact, when the time comes that a woman knows, absolutely, she won’t have another child, there is often a surge of creativity.

Some have speculated that men need to build skyscrapers because they don’t have this built-in creative act. Of course, their contribution to life is essential, but it does not compare to carrying a growing baby within one’s body, the first sign of life—that little fish-like quiver, the swelling tummy that says this child is growing big and strong; and then the enormous transforming and cathartic birth.

A friend of mine, who had her babies late in life after many years of other kinds of creative effort, bemoaned the dearth of creativity in her life. She used to sew, to really care about decorating and her work as a teacher and then she found she no longer did. Having gone through the process of having children, helping them grow up and leave home, I could tell her that her creative impulse would indeed return and her need was probably more than fulfilled with the energy she was using raising those kids.

Creativity needs nurturing; it needs stimulation and time. I know several visual artists who talk about the time needed, not just for the actual painting or sculpting, but the need for time spent staring off into space, or taking a walk, while the deep process that produces originality has time to bubble up from the subconscious. It takes some “down time” with nothing to do nowhere to go and no one to see.

One friend in Santa Fe is the wife of a talented and successful artist with a quirky sense of humor in his work. She told me it drove her nuts that she would work all day and come home to find he had done little other than diddle around all day. Sometimes trying to get a cloud just right, sometimes moving things around in his studio.

Which brings me to another sure sign the creative process is at work—getting ready. These rituals are part procrastination and part clearing pencil sharpenings, the clearing of the top of the desk, the sweeping of the floor of the studio.

Some artists seem to be able to work at home in any kind of mess, but I find they are rare; distraction is the enemy of the creative process. Just ask anyone who has found that perfect turn of phrase only to be interrupted by a phone call before it is committed to paper or computer–lost forever.

I believe everyone has creative energy to burn in this life, and that energy will find a way out. Think of those prairie women, making quilts from scraps, raising flowers outside their sod houses and baking with the most basic ingredients.

One of my favorite examples of creativity from nearly nothing is from New Mexico. There is a Pueblo dessert called sopa, a wonderful bread pudding made from leftover bread made in the outdoor ovens called hornos, pinon nuts (plentiful in the area), cheese and sugar. Cheese and sugar are two of the standard government commodities distributed to tribes. Some creative Pueblo woman put these things together at a time when she probably had little else.

We are certainly not the only species to create or to make beautiful things–consider spider webs or bird’s nests. But we are the only species to be aware of our creations, and to judge them.

Which brings me to my final point: I don’t know of a single artist who does not create a lot of trash on the way to a masterpiece. Confident artists see it all as part of the process, but many find it difficult to rise above the judgements.

The main thing is to be willing to engage in the process, whatever it is. It also helps to recognize the creativity in that wonderful Christmas dinner, the time we spend getting packages and decorations “just right” and the other expressions of love and care for our families—including carrying those babies to term.

Nov. 17, 2001

Judy makes it to the Hogwarts Express platform in King's Cross Station, September 2009

What is it about Harry Potter? All those best selling books and then this blockbuster movie taking the whole world by storm. Little kids reading a 700-page book for fun? Amazing.

Well, haven’t we all, at some time in our childhood, imagined we were in the wrong family? That it was some cruel trick of fate that landed us here with these unfeeling ones and sometime our real parents might come and find us—or the only explanation they don’t is because they must be dead.

And if it were only possible to find our way to someplace like King’s Cross Station, track 9 ¾ and board a train for a place where we not only found people more understanding, but who actually thought we were the very special one, the one with magical powers better than any other.

When I was about five or six I ran away from home. My wise mother helped me pack a little lunch and this was in the early 50s when a little child was safe wandering around for a few blocks. I walked around to the back of the school that was across the street from our house and sat down, feeling very sorry for myself, and ate my little lunch. I can’t for the life of me remember what made me so miserable but whatever it was running away seemed like the best alternative.

I wish I had known Harry Potter then. He would have given me hope.

It’s not only children who are drawn to this boy, forced to live in a closet in the Dursley’s house, Neanderthals that they are. Life often hands us the worst possible situations with no conceivable way out. Sometimes we adults feel this despair keenly—children think it will be better when they grow up. Harry didn’t think growing up would make things better. Things got better for him because some extremely unexpected things happened that were working in the background all along. So it goes for many of us.

And then there’s the fact that good and evil are clearly drawn in J.K. Rowling’s books. Harry’s goodness overcomes the wickedest evil, but not until there have been several close calls and a huge effort from Harry that he didn’t know was in him.

We all identify with Harry—unassuming, good, and unrecognized. And how we cheer when someone really sees him, Professor Dumbledore or good friend, Ron Weasley. How we all long for the perfect mentor and a forever loyal friend.

The world needs a little of this magic now. Not to escape, but to show us our best selves, and also to help us remember that things are frequently not what they seem. There may be hidden good in some strange places and what looks good, in the end, may not be.

Harry Potter with the lightning mark on his forehead, wearing studious eyeglasses, has become an archetypal icon for the beginning of the new millenium, and in so doing has shown us what we are missing—what we need and long for. It is not a simpler, easier time; we are all too jaded for that. It is magic and art mixed in with a little kindness and goodness.

Nov. 17, 2001

I’ve kept a journal practically my whole life. From the early beginnings in one of those sweet diaries locked with a little key to notebooks filled with blather, writing down my thoughts and feelings has been an affirming and comforting thing as long as I can remember.

In the 70s Christina Baldwin, who lived in Minneapolis, wrote “One to One: Self understanding through journal writing.” She was a popular workshop leader in those days of self-examination and therapy. I remember many of the things I learned from that book and her workshops. She maintained you could help yourself by writing through the issues in your life. She also encouraged “journalers” to make their journals more than just writing if they wanted to, creating a work of art with drawing, photos and fancy covers—or not. It gave me legitimacy for the messy and voluminous journals I kept.

Those writings did help me, I remember. There is something about writing it down that gets the thought or feeling out of your head and out there to look at more objectively. Sometimes those journals were the only place I had to say what I really thought, that’s still true today. I also remember she gave permission to journal whenever one felt like it instead of compulsively every day.

Fast forward to New Mexico, 1992. Julia Cameron, a journalist and Hollywood scriptwriter, was holed up near Taos with a terrible case of writers block, re-examining her life like so many people drawn to the that part of the country in those days. Me included. Out of her frustration came an enlightened creation, “The Artist’s Way: A spiritual path to higher creativity.” Her methods for helping one get along in life described the way artists of all kinds worked through their problems—using their art as the medium.

Her book, which can be used alone or along with others in a support group, started with several basic tasks –one of them was journaling. She put an additional spin on it calling it “the morning pages–three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream of consciousness.” Three pages exactly—no more, no less. If I can’t fill three pages with sentences I write “blah, blah,blah” just to keep it flowing. The writing is almost never reread and never taken seriously.

Cameron maintains this, along with a few other suggestions in the book, will unblock creativity.

This is my therapy at this point in my life. The pages are like magic. I buy those cheap black and white composition books with the wide lines. Three pages of longhand on thin lines are too much for me. At least once a week I set aside some time in the morning (for some reasonit doesn’t seem to work so well at other times of the day) to do this stream of consciousness writing. It doesn’t seem to matter what is written, the important thing is to keep the pen moving.

All sorts of drivel winds up there, but that’s not the point. The point is it seems to open up the mind and all those things that were worrying or frustrating course I am a writer, but Cameron insists it works just as well for any artist working in any medium.

It’s not that answers to problems come like a flash, but more like the mind is then free to create something new and fresh. I can’t explain how this works, but it works for me. I also like her assertion that creativity is a spiritual thing meant for all of us.spiritual thing meant for all of us.

Nov. 10, 2001

About this time of year I begin to dread the shortening days and the dimming of the sun. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or “SAD” as it’s aptly named. Learning about this disorder has been a welcome relief to me since I’ve had a set of puzzling symptoms for years.

Those of us who live in the northland all over the world are more likely to suffer this disorder that is caused by the dimming of sunlight over the winter. It’s not just that days are shorter– although that is significant–it is also because the sun is lower in the sky even at its zenith, causing light waves to be less direct.

Some of the symptoms of SAD or other circadian rhythm disorders are an odd set of things that I never guessed were related to each other. Carbohydrate cravings, insomnia, fatigue, the total inability to get up in the morning, is also combined with regular depression symptoms such as sadness, irritation, feelings of low self-esteem and loss of interest in regular activities. It’s as if, like a bear, I would be most content stuffing my body with food and hibernating all winter away from contact with others.

Symptoms increase with the disappearance of the sun. Iceland is so far north there are winter days there that never see the sun and it is the country that has the highest suicide rate in the world.

In this country SAD affects about one in every 20 adults, with the higher percentage living farther north. I used to think I had a hard time with Christmas–now I know December 21 is the shortest and dimmest day of the year. Makes sense to me. I also think this is one reason I was so drawn to live south in New Mexico that has an average of 300 sunny days a year.

Researchers now think the disorder is due to the disruption of the body’s circadian rhythms–our body clock that tells us when to sleep and when to wake up and get active.

I have tried regular anti-depressants and the herbal antidepressant St. Johns Wort but these medicines just didn’t seem to be the right thing for what was wrong with me. Often I would feel better emotionally, but I always felt there was still something wrong besides the neurochemistry an antidepressant will help.

This year I am going to get one of those light contraptions that will give me a bright light first thing in the morning. I have a friend who suffers from this same problem and he swears by the light cure.

Psychiatrists and other physicians are savvy to this disorder and are the ones to seek out if you think any of this sounds like you. Everyone feels down once in awhile but for me I noticed these feelings did not relate to anything that was going on in my life. Nothing had changed– except the sun. Even three overcast rainy days in a row in the summer brought on symptoms.

People should seek medical help especially if they feel down for days at a time and notice sleep and appetite are affected. There is a plethora of information on the Internet. I usually rely on the Mayo clinic sites for my information and I noticed there is a home page for the “NoSAD support group”  http://www.go2net.org/nosads/home.html

August 18, 2001