The Wild Life

A few weeks ago, I was driving down the main artery of my housing subdivision and noticed a flock of spectators standing at the side of the road.  They were staring into one of the many large heritage oak trees that grace our community property. I have to say these oaks are pretty impressive, but I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a crowd gathering just to stare at one before.  The people must have come from far and wide to view this spectacle, whatever it was, because the crowd included pedestrians and bicyclists.  Many stood motionless, cell phones in hand, breathlessly ready to snap photos. 

As I approached the band of sightseers, I slowed my car and peered at the tree as I passed.  Then I saw what was captivating the crowd.  There were three fuzzy, feathery faces peeking from a messy nest in the fork of the tree.  These little puffballs with eyes were baby owls. Obviously, a worthy tourist attraction.  I made several trips back and forth over the next couple of days.  It was pretty easy to tell when the baby owls were making a personal appearance by the throngs of admirers gathered beneath the oak branches. The owlet view never got old. To be honest, I was gurgling and chortling with the best of them every time I drove by and saw…  WHO? The young ‘uns, of course! 

Once, I saw the mama and daddy owls.  I’m not sure if an owl can actually be self-satisfied, but the avian parents sure seemed to be gloating over their breeding prowess.  They stared out of the nest, languidly eyeing the fans below.  I guess they deserved to exhibit a smidgeon of smugness.  Those babies are quite an accomplishment!   

Some days, all I saw was the nest. Before I saw the baby owls, I probably would have been excited just to see the nest. Now a collection of twigs and leaves woven into a bird condominium fails to impress me.  I crave the whole baby owl experience.   

About a week ago, I drove by and noticed that someone had secured an area around the owl-occupied oak tree with yellow police tape.  Apparently, the hordes of admiring fans and cell phone paparazzi freaked out the baby owls.  In the interest of wildlife conservation, someone decided to give them a little space.  Not privacy exactly, because crowds still gather regularly to gape at the nestful of adorableness. Owl baby pictures are splashed all over the covers of Facebook.  Still, now the owl aficionados have to maintain a respectful distance from the owl nursery.  The cordoned off perimeter is sort of like an ecological restraining order.  The owls are able to get their forty winks (and don’t owls just seem like they wink a lot anyway?) without worrying about a crazed birdwatcher committing some manner of nest invasion crime against them.   

I like living in a community where yellow police tape means “please don’t disturb the owls” instead of “please don’t disturb the evidence!”

With the coming of the owlets, I guess spring is officially here!  What makes spring official for you?  Please share your perspective by adding a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Sorry about the early post this week.  I have to be out and about early tomorrow morning, so thought I’d post tonight.

Have a hoot of a day! 🙂

Terri/Dorry

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t take this picture.  A kind soul shared it on Facebook.

Christmas Pancakes

Last December, I went Christmas caroling. In my community, there is an activity group that sings carols and brings holiday cookies to neighbors who are housebound or experiencing some sort of crisis during the festive season. I’ve wanted to join the group since the very first year we moved to Florida, but something got in the way every year. Last year, I finally donned my bedazzled holiday t-shirt and fa-la-la-la-la-ed with the best of them.
The Christmas caroling was a hoot (random owl reference alert- please tune in next week for an explanation of why I have owls on the brain.)

We had about 30 houses on our list of people to serenade. The mission required more tactical coordination than simply gathering and walking door-to-door. To make sure we covered the entire development and visited all our planned neighbors some time before the break of dawn, we divided into three separate groups of eight golf carts. Yes, golf carts. Decorated golf carts. If Santa Claus lived in central Florida and not at the North Pole, he would have 86ed that sleigh years ago and repurposed a golf cart into a holly-jolly jalopy. We had golf carts festooned with wreaths, reindeer ears, jingle bells and Christmas tree lights. Heck, it wasn’t just the golf carts… WE were festooned with wreaths, reindeer ears, jingle bells, and Christmas tree lights. When our golf cart parades set off on their assigned routes, it was quite the holiday spectacle. I think we might end up on one of those television shows on the Discovery Channel about strange and unusual Christmas traditions around the world. You know… Christmas gone wild in the rare and exotic central Florida senior citizen culture.

Not only were we a sight for sore eyes, we were a sound for sore ears. Contributing to the general wackiness of our traveling Christmas concert was the fact that there was no requirement that the singers actually be able to… well…. sing. Let me point out that I tried out for the fourth-grade glee club and was rejected. How bad does a kid have to suck to be banned from the fourth-grade glee club? The experience scarred me for life. I consider it to be one of God’s biggest jokes that I love to sing but have a voice that apparently scares young children… or at least the teachers of young children. I continue to taunt the Jonas E. Salk Elementary School Glee Club by going through life singing whenever I darn well please. I make a joyful noise unto the Lord on a regular basis, but I never have any delusions that I am actually any good at it. The holiday carolers embraced me and my crummy voice into their fold. I am sure I was not the only one in our merry band of carolers who brought joy and enthusiasm to the experience, if not an abundance of musical talent.

As it turned out, our outrageous spectacle and our less-than-fourth-grade-glee-club-worthy vocal ability made no difference at all. We had fun and, more importantly, the people we visited had fun as well. We were pretty good at stirring up the ho-ho-holiday spirit. When we deposited our cookies and finished our caroling, I felt like everybody’s hearts were a little more merry and bright than when we started.

Now, this is a pretty inexpensive activity. It doesn’t require a lot of money to pull off an evening of Christmas caroling. For the price of some cookies, some platters and cellophane, and forty photocopies of the words to a few a Christmas carols, we can make a little Christmas miracle. Sweet volunteers provide cookies, but there is still a small amount of expense for the accoutrements.

Which brings us to the pancakes.

In our community, there is a big pancake breakfast once a month. A group of volunteers does a terrific job of organizing the breakfasts. They prepare food and coordinate supplies. They sell tickets. They have a wonderfully orchestrated master plan for presenting the event, which usually draws 70-120 hungry breakfasters each month. The breakfast group solicits other activity groups in the community to help throughout the year. The group that assists on a given month makes some money to supplement their activity. The assisting group also gets the opportunity to introduce the larger community to their mission and projects. The volunteers from the activity group of the month act as servers and help with setting up the auditorium and cleaning up after the event. Last month, it was our turn to help. We crazy Christmas carolers hauled out the holiday t-shirts and prepared to get our pancake on.

I have never been a waitress in my life. It wasn’t a career I thought I would start in my fifties. Still, I was game. After all, if my lack of singing skill did not disqualify me from being a caroler, surely my lack of waitressing skill wouldn’t disqualify me from helping to serve breakfast to 100 hungry people.

Little did I know. In actuality, the breakfast group lady in charge of us temporary volunteers had her eyes on me. As I mentioned, the breakfast club folks have a tried- and-true, finely-oiled master plan for producing this event. That plan has a lot of rules and contingencies and fine points. I have no doubt it works very well and I tried very hard to follow it, but I still kept making errors. Luckily, the breakfast group lady was there to correct me. Often. In fact, I think I did more things wrong in the two hours I was there than I have in the past two weeks put together.

At first, I felt kind of bad about myself and my serving incompetence. Then, I realized something. Just like singing badly during Christmas caroling, making mistakes in the serving procedure made no difference. The people I served were happy and content. They were having fun. We were laughing and enjoying each other’s company. I even tried using my high school Spanish to communicate…badly… with a couple who just moved to the community from Peru. This motivated another gentleman at the table to start speaking in Hawaiian pidgin English to see what I would do.

At the end of the breakfast, we caroling servers thanked everyone and concluded the event with a Christmas carol. I tell you, there is nothing like a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells to get you in the holiday spirit. In March. Oh well, only eight more months till Christmas!

In the meantime, Marchy Christmas to all and to all a Good Spring!

Have you ever celebrated Christmas when it wasn’t Christmas?  Tell us about it!  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

In the meantime, have a very merry in-Christmas!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Presents

I kind of suck at living in the moment. I am much more talented at rerunning the past in my brain and worrying about the future. I realize it would be much healthier to live with the “what is” instead of trying to change the past or control the future, but I just don’t seem to have the skills.

The toxicity of my general approach hit me square in the face during my mother’s illness. I spent so much energy thinking about the “what ifs” in the past and the future, I pretty much went down for the ten-count on a regular basis. Getting up off the mat became more and more difficult as time went on. Not only was I giving myself an emotional concussion, I wasn’t doing my mother any favors either. It is hard to be present and attentive and loving for someone who only has the now when your heart is so unpracticed at living in the moment. I realized pretty quickly that the quagmire I created in my mind out of “if onlys” and “what will I dos” was nearly as debilitating as the actuality of the situation.

I knew I was making things more difficult for myself by dragging my feet through the past as I rushed to the future. I tried very hard to rewire my neurological synapses. I worked at concentrating on the present that was in front of me. Sometimes I was able to redirect my brain and keep it from straying into the unhealthy paths, but I usually failed. It isn’t any big surprise that I fared so poorly. Over fifty years of conditioned brain activity doesn’t change easily, even when one makes a concerted effort to learn a different way. After all, one does not go directly from Drivers’ Ed classes to whooshing around the track in the Indy 500. I was learning the most elementary lessons in the art of living in the present. Yet, I was challenging myself to do so in the most difficult situation of my life. The circumstances pretty much doomed me to failure. I decided to find other contexts in which I might practice my ability to live in the now.

As a result, I decided to make a deliberate effort to live in the present as I explored the idea of joining the Episcopal Church. I thought, if there ever was a situation suited to releasing control and luxuriating in the moment, surely it must be a spiritual journey. I gave myself the gift of not justifying or creating a situation but simply living one. I didn’t force myself to commit or engage. I didn’t obsess about saying or doing something wrong. I took advantage of learning opportunities that occurred organically, without trying to tick off boxes to complete an established process. I observed and learned at my own pace…. My pace and God’s pace for me, I suppose. The whole process was about pace in many ways. It was restful… and beautiful…. not to have to make things happen.

When the time came for the bishop to visit our parish and perform the ceremony to accept me into the Episcopal Church, I was out of town. I was fine with waiting. I felt very peaceful about the whole thing. I was perfectly okay with being received a year or more later the next time the bishop visited the parish, but our parish priest arranged for me to go to a service at the diocesan office. At first, I was a little wistful that I wasn’t going to celebrate the service with the members of the parish community I had come to know, but I firmly and gently redirected my brain to the peace of the present. I know there would have been certain blessings to have had the service with the parish community, but I experienced different blessings by going to the diocese office. My first friends in the church were also away the day of the bishop’s visit to the parish. Because of my delay, I was able to have them as sponsors to present me to the bishop at the diocesan office. We spent the day together and, through this shared experience, became friend-family for one another. I met the staff at the diocese office. They showed me the heart of the greater Episcopal Church beyond the doors of my parish.

Clearly, my decision to let things be and live in the moment as I explored my spiritual path reaped manifold benefits that I might not have appreciated had I not allowed myself to stay in the now. A success in living in the present. It was a small, safe success. But it was still a success and a success is a better foundation for future growth than failure.

The present is a present. Yes, it can be the type of present that you want to regift or return to the store. On the other hand, if we take the time to really appreciate it, the present can be a beautiful surprise we never knew we wanted until we live it.

Have you ever experienced a time when you encountered a special “present” because you were living in the moment that you might not have noticed had you been focusing on the past or the future? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

May you be gifted with a beautiful present today!

Terri/Dorry 😊

The Big Reveal

I’ve watched too many makeover shows on television. Between home renovation, fashion faux paus interventions, and Dr. Phil prestidigitation, I expect there to be some major overhaul after 30 to 60 minutes of sweat equity and personal introspection. I’m hoping that you are also primed for the startling “after” picture, because today I am presenting you with the Terri LaBonte Big Reveal.

The Terri LaBonte Big Reveal is that…. I am not really Terri LaBonte. Well, I kinda am. Let me explain.

My parents named me Dorothea Therese Goodness. That name sounds more like a pseudonym than Terri LaBonte, doesn’t it? My mother initially planned to name me Penny. She probably should have. Dorothea Therese was kind of a mouthful for such an itsy-bitsy baby. I can’t imagine my parents ever referring to me as “Dorothea.” It just seems absurd. That may be why they started calling me Tinker Bell. At any rate, before any rendition of the name Dorothea had time to stick, my brother was born. His name was Ernest Anthony Goodness. My grandmother took one look at him and declared, “he looks like an Irishman; you should have named him Timothy Patrick.” The family immediately started calling him “Timmy.”

This kind of solved the whole name thing for me. “Timmy and Terri” sounded so cute, my extended family decided to ignore my first name altogether and focus on the Therese part. I was Terri for several years as a little girl.

This was fine until I started school. When the teacher called roll on the first day and got to the end of the list without little Terri responding, she was flummoxed. Apparently, Dorothea Goodness was absent, but this random child Terri had shown up. Given that I didn’t know my own name, the teacher questioned my kindergarten readiness. When she called my mother in to discuss my apparent backwardness, my mother realized I could not continue to live a double life. She promptly returned home, taught me to answer when someone called me Dorothea, and sent me back to school the next day. To the outside world, I was Dorothea from that day forward.

The name Dorothea was still way too long for me. I was always an impatient kid, hurrying from one activity to another with no time to form eight whole letters each time I had to write my name. I shortened it to Dorry when I was about ten. I made peace with my non-Terri existence and enjoyed being Dorry through adulthood. I married and acquired the Curran family name. When I divorced, it seemed like too much trouble to change it back to my maiden name. Besides, when you change your name to Goodness, everyone notices and I was too ashamed of getting divorced to want to call attention to the fact.

When I started writing the blog, I debated what to do about my name. I legitimately wanted to retain some anonymity and privacy on the internet. I was cracking open my life on cyberspace. It seemed wise to erect some sort of security wall between me and random strangers who might decide to get a little too up close and personal. Also, I have to admit to some desire to stave off too much vulnerability. I was going to write about some pretty personal stuff and I wasn’t quite ready to completely own it by acknowledging it with my real name. I decided I wasn’t brave enough to use my real name and would use a “creative name.”

I resurrected Terri from my childhood name. LaBonte is the French version of “Goodness.” Family folklore says that my first ancestor to come to the United States was a French-speaking Swiss national who entered Ellis Island as Monsieur LaBonte. He left Ellis Island with the more “American” name of Mr. Goodness, courtesy of the good civil servants in charge of Immigration Inspection who did not speak French. I am not sure if this is true or not, but it makes a good legend.

You may wonder why I am disclosing all this now. I’m excited to tell you that my book, Changing My Mind: Reinventing Myself In Retirement will be released within the next couple of months. I decided to publish my book under my real name, Dorry Curran. I want all my dear cyberfriends to be able to find it, which would be difficult if you think Terri LaBonte is the author.

There are other reasons why I thought it was time to come out of the Terri LaBonte closet. I have been writing the blog under the name Terri LaBonte for over two years now. Soon after starting this project, I felt like it would have been better to use my “real” name right from the beginning. It was sometimes confusing when I had to explain who Terri LaBonte was when talking to potential readers who knew me by my real name. Besides, using the name Terri LaBonte felt sort of like using the cyberspace equivalent of a fake ID to buy beer. It had its advantages, but there was also a downside. Yes, it is wise to be cautious about giving too much identifying information on the internet. On the other hand, it felt sort of deceptive and cowardly to hide myself behind a fictitious name. I try to write from a place of courage and honesty. It felt incongruous to deny the value of my truth by denying the name of the person who wrote it.

I’ve thought about sharing this story with you before now. The thing was…. by the time I realized it would have been better to use my real name, I had become kind of attached to Terri LaBonte and didn’t want to give her up.

You see, my legal name may be Dorry Curran, but Terri LaBonte is still very much a part of who I am. In fact, I may be more Terri LaBonte than Dorry Curran at this point in my life. Some time ago, a reader commented that, even though he had known me for many years as Dorry Curran, he found it interesting that he had absolutely no trouble at all thinking of me as Terri LaBonte. Terri LaBonte has always lived inside my soul. She just didn’t get much playing time in my younger days. Maybe people around me recognized her more than I did.

Terri LaBonte is confident enough to dance to her own music throughout her own life, whether anyone is looking or not. Terri LaBonte is visionary enough to make a reality from the blueprint of a dream. Terri LaBonte is brave enough to create something wonderful.

Terri LaBonte is also generous of spirit. When it came time to publish the book, she abdicated authorship to Dorry Curran. After all, it was Dorry’s dream first.

Quick, somebody say something! Now that I’ve revealed this big secret, I find myself feeling extremely wobbly and nervous. My stomach is somersaulting its way all over my innards, like some sort of demented pinball. Please, leave a comment to help me put on the brakes before my ricocheting guts do internal damage!!!

Seriously, I hope no one feels deceived or misled. I humbly ask your forgiveness for any offense or discomfort I caused because of the “fake” name.

Please share your perspective by leaving a comment (please, please, pretty please!!!). In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a wonderful day!

Terri/Dorry (seriously, I don’t even know how to sign my name now…. Maybe Derri?) 🙂