Re-Visiting Venice, Florida, and Creating a New Book – April 21, 2010

In Cleveland, I was working long hours and getting exhausted. In Venice, I’m working long hours and still getting very tired. However, the blessing here is that I take breaks and go to the pool, the beach, and for lovely walks. I’m back doing yoga on Venice Beach either at sunrise or sunset, and I’m seeing the same massage therapist weekly. Everything is familiar, and dear friends are nearby.



Today is a Bahá’í Holy Day, which is a blessing, because I really needed a day off! I spent two hours at the beach, wading, taking a quick dip in the ocean (it’s cold this time of year). I took photos of pelicans in flight and a crab that wanted to keep dashing in and out of his hole. The wildlife felt like a mirror of my life right now. I’m peacefully spending time with more people (flock of pelicans) – the Bahá’í community in Sarasota, friends for meals, and I have two coaching clients here. However, I’m going in and out of my crab hole, too! (see beach photos)

The new marriage preparation book is going beautifully. It has been an enormous task – far more than I anticipated – to work with 50+ experts and edit their 100+ essays. I still have my own sections to write, too! My daughter, Jennifer, is providing administrative support for about 3 hours each week, thankfully. My editing skills, honed over years, have taken another leap forward in excellence with this project. I’ve loved the process, because it has included coaching the marriage experts in looking at how to use their specialties to apply to premarital couples. They have also allowed me to suggest content based on my own experience and knowledge gained over the years. As I edit, I feel as if I’m also going through my own personal process of completing and honoring my marriage with Craig, as well as going through marriage preparation for whatever happens in the future. (No, I haven’t met anyone, yet!)


It has been a gift to have two life/business coaching clients here in town. Working with them is giving me more understanding of how to incorporate character content into coaching. They are great people, and I love helping them move forward in their lives and cheering their successes.


The massages are beginning to unlock my body from the mess it was in on arrival. Joe says I wasn’t as bad as last summer, but I definitely had gotten my neck, back, and shoulders fused together in a stress-filled block. I’m back standing very straight and moving more freely. The sunshine down here is fabulous for uplifting my mood, and temperate enough this time of year that the windows are open all the time. The person covering orders for me and sending me my mail keeps asking me how my vacation is going…I definitely don’t feel like I’m on vacation, but it’s a great place to work!


I’m likely here through mid-May. The book needs to be about ready for layout before I leave – at least that’s my plan! I’m still on target to launch it at the July Smart Marriages Conference in Orlando (http://www.smartmarriages.com/).


To help me with transitioning out of grief mode, I moved to a different bedroom here at the Circlewood house. The master bedroom that I used last year is darker. The one I’m in now is filled with light, with bright furniture and bedding. There are still triggering moments, of course. Thinking ahead to being at Smart Marriages without Craig there in person is hard. But, as of today I’m stopping reading the daily grief book I’ve been using – it is beginning to feel like it’s pulling me backwards.

Craig and I still commune regularly though – perhaps we always will. I’m reading a wonderful book called Hello from Heaven, which is filled with first-person stories of people’s after-death communications with loved ones and how it helped them believe in life after death. I’m glad I began with that belief already in place, but it’s fascinating to see all the various types of communication that happen, and the stories are very touching and confirming.


Well, that about catches you all up!


Much love,


Susanne

Retreating to Florida – April 21, 2010

I cannot quite believe that it’s been 6 weeks since I posted a blog update! It feels as if I blinked and the time was gone!



Mid-March was a significant grieving time for me. My birthday was March 13th, and a day with many memories associated with Craig. On that day in 2009, it was the last time he was able to safely come up the stairs in our home and sleep in our bedroom. I spent the day quietly at home by myself, which turned out to be okay, especially since friends sent a beautiful bouquet of yellow flowers during the day. I’d crawled back into bed mid-day, and getting up to receive them turned the day around.


Over the following two weeks, because I had a new computer arriving, I spent hours reorganizing files from 3 computers, and began the difficult process of setting up the file arrangement just for me, and putting Craig’s documents in the background. Getting the new computer was a huge project and a significant stressor. New computer, new software, new file placement – very disorienting when I’m on the computer a lot. But, it’s beginning to feel more comfortable now.

The first day of spring was Naw-Rúz, a Bahá’í holy day. I went out for a community dinner at Li Wah Restaurant in Cleveland. (See photo of me (3rd from left) with friends)

The new marriage preparation book project got going very quickly, with many experts agreeing to participate. Four wanted to be interviewed, so I accomplished that before leaving for Florida on March 29th. I had the car filled to the brim, including another large load of Jennifer’s things from the basement (load 2 of 3). I had her child’s rocking chair to get in, so I traveled with it in the front, and my stuffed animals enjoyed the view. (See photo)

I drove for 8 hours each day and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on the 31st, utterly exhausted from the weeks before. The best part of the trip was the ever-increasing signs of spring as I drove south. The daffodils on entering North Carolina brought me joy, and I stopped the next day and took photos of flowering trees in South Carolina. (See photo)

It was great to see Jennifer, Frank, and Giuliana. With Jennifer’s coaching, I took a few days to recover. The baby and I had a great time playing. She is learning to be a drummer, so her father already has plans for her to join his band when she is older. She especially loved my penguin, laughing at it, hugging it, and biting its beak! (See photos)

I arrived smoothly and thankfully in Venice on April 3, Easter weekend, a four-hour drive from Ft. Lauderdale, and crashed. More about Venice in the next posting (very soon!).


Love,


Susanne