Nadine Feldman, Author

celebrating strong female characters and whatever else strikes my fancy

Life Changes

Goodbye Old Friends

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It’s been a tough 2016 so far for us Baby Boomers. So far we have lost Natalie Cole, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, and now Glenn Frey. All were in their 60s — far too young to me now. At 57, I can’t imagine the thought of having a decade or less to live.

We came of age with most of these icons (Alan Rickman came later). Bowie fascinated with his endless reinvention and enigmatic creativity. The Eagles formed a soundtrack for my restless, confused young adulthood. Later, in his solo career, Glenn Frey recorded one of my favorite songs, Soul Searchin’.

Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable, which used technological wizardry to allow her a duet with her late father Nat King Cole, was stunning. Though she grew up in his shadow, she forged her own unique style and career. When she died, I recalled how I felt at age six when I learned of her father’s death, also too soon.

Ours was the generation determined to make the world different. We were sure we would conquer aging, illness, and death. Yet here we are, unable to transcend our impermanence, just like every other generation.

The most stunning part of these deaths is the sheer weight of contributions made in life. They all leave behind an impressive body of work that will live long after them.

Most of us don’t know any of these celebrities, but their deaths hit us hard. They remind us to get busy, to make our lives as meaningful and rich as possible. Bowie managed to release one last album right before he died, and he reinvented himself to the end.

We cannot conquer old age or death, but we can let these icons teach us by example to make every day count. We could be here for decades, but we could be gone tomorrow. We might as well go for it.

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What She Knew is now available for pre-order! Ebook will be available February 29. Release date for the paperback is March 29.

The Badass Trinity Part I: Shonda Rhimes

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Happy Thanksgiving! May you have a wonderful holiday with friends and/or family.

Year of Yes Book Cover

Before we enjoy our turkey and trimmings, let’s dish about a topic so big it needs three separate posts.

Are you a badass?

The Urban Dictionary says (among other things) that a badass is:

“The epitome of the American male. He radiates confidence in everything he does, whether it’s ordering a drink, buying a set of wheels, or dealing with women. He’s slow to anger, brutally efficient when fighting back.

The badass carves his own path. He wears, drives, drinks, watches, and listens to what he chooses, when he chooses, where he chooses, uninfluenced by fads or advertising campaigns. Badass style is understated but instantly recognizable. Like a chopped Harley or a good pair of sunglasses: simple, direct, and functional.”

 Note that the badass is listed as a “he.”
Yet television writer and producer Shonda Rhimes has carved her own path, reaching the pinnacle of television success in an environment that continues to limit opportunities for women and minorities.
This success, however, is not what makes Shonda Rhimes a badass. It’s the way she confronted her self-imposed limits, which had taken her joie de vivre from her.
In her new book Year of Yes, Ms. Rhimes tells of a moment when she realized her life had become too much about work and not enough about play. “You never say yes to anything,” her sister said…so Rhimes decided to say yes to everything that scared her. And, though Rhimes is a first-class badass, she’s scared by a lot. She considers herself shy and introverted, so speaking in public, as she did at the 92Y a few weeks ago, is a challenge.
In a book that is often laugh-out-loud funny, Rhimes writes the way she would talk to a friend. She reflects on speaking at graduation ceremonies, interviewing with Oprah, and more. In the Year of Yes, she learned to say “yes” to saying “no.”
As the year passed, with layers of shyness removed (along with a lot of excess weight), she blossomed…and she tells us we can, too.
The Year of Yes wasn’t always fun and games. Sometimes she had to say “yes” to ending friendships that weren’t as healthy as she imagined them to be. Saying yes often brought pain and discomfort.
But a badass always prevails.
Stay tuned for more badassery from authors Elizabeth Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed.
Nadine Galinsky Feldman is the author of The Foreign Language of Friends and the upcoming What She Knew, available March 2016. If you enjoy this blog, please consider purchasing a book or signing up for the newsletter to be kept informed of upcoming promotions and giveaways.

 

The Adventure Begins! #bicoastal living #adventure

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Greetings from the East Village of New York City, where will spend five months in the city before returning home to Washington State. If all goes as planned, we will do this each year.

Life in NYC will give us easy access to our daughter, who lives in Queens. Plus, it’s a short direct flight with no time zone changes back to Miami, where our son lives (I took last week off from blogging while we were there celebrating his wedding). I know, I know, we’re spread out about as far as we can be!

While enjoying the many creative offerings of the city, I’ll also finish up What She Knew in preparation for a late March release. Stay tuned for upcoming giveaways! I also plan to draft Factory Girl in November for NaNoWriMo.

The next several blog posts will likely be filled with our latest adventures as we explore the City that Never Sleeps!

Take care, and I’ll write more next week after we’re settled in.

Training Tomatoes — and People #selfcare #enabling

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I’m a day late this week. This post didn’t come easily because I had to work through some emotions to understand what I need to say. Hopefully it’s worth the wait.

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I’ve stopped watering the tomatoes for the year. This simple act, while making the plants look ratty, also sends the message for the remaining tomatoes to turn red. It’s a small act of tough love, if you will. Our nights are already getting cooler…I saw my breath this morning as I worked in the garden…so the plants’ lifecycles are nearing the end. In less than a week, I expect to be done with my tomato harvest, and I will have removed the black pots from the deck where they grow so as to prevent possible diseases.

Speaking of tomatoes, remember the movie Fried Green Tomatoes? It’s one of my favorites. I remember the beautiful line: “You know, Miss Ruth was a lady. And a lady always knows when to leave.” If you want to relive the tear-jerking scene, go here.

I haven’t always known when to leave. I’ve stayed in jobs and relationships longer than I should have, because I’m stubborn and assume there’s always a way through.

The problem is, when you stay longer than you should, some drama always ends up happening.

In a recent personal situation, I had become too involved in something that wasn’t my problem, and it was taking up too much of my time and energy. Since this is a small town and all, I wanted to handle it quietly, so for months I just made myself unavailable.

The individuals involved persisted. My time, my involvement, were expected — I was too accommodating for too long, so I take responsibility for teaching them that I would always have time for them.

As I grew more stressed, I pushed back pretty hard — and we ended up having a minor skirmish via e-mail.

For a few days I have pondered the emotions that have risen and what I need to understand about the situation.

And there it was: it was time to go. I needed to make it official. No finger pointing, no blame, no drama. Just a goodbye and wishing them well. It’s what I need to do to protect my time. It is time to stop watering the tomatoes of the relationship.

It took me longer than it should have, but maybe that’s okay. Maybe I needed time to be absolutely sure. Sometimes friendships go through rocky phases but come out the other side, after all.

It’s hard to watch the tomato plants droop. It’s hard to stay silent when one of my now-grown stepchildren makes a questionable choice (though less so now that I’ve learned I’m sometimes wrong!). And it’s hard to watch good people do foolish things.

Yet I have my own schedule, my own work, and my own dreams, and if I focus too much on taking care of others, I stop taking care of myself. The people I love, and Mother Nature, are fully capable with or without me, and I am free to take care of my own issues. Apparently, I still have plenty of those.

Have you ever stayed too long in a situation? Or, do you leave too soon?

Day 3 of 3 Quote Challenge #3dayquotechallenge

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“Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself.”                                                                                                      ~Alice Walker

(courtesy of http://skinnyartist.com/150-amazing-quotes-to-feed-your-creative-soul/)

I remember the day I decided to be happy…not because I saw a rainbow or won the lottery or fell in love.

The day I decided to be happy, I was living in a house that was falling apart. I was ill with a debilitating disease that no one knew how to treat, I’d had two pregnancy losses in less than a year, the cracks in my marriage were revealing themselves, and I was deeply in debt.

On that day I stood in my living room, looked skyward, and shook my fist at the heavens. “Watch me, God! I’m going to be happy no matter what!”

I’m sure God had a good laugh over that one. “Good,” I can imagine Him saying. “She’ll think it’s her idea.”

Of course, then the question was, “Now what?” I wasn’t going to fake happiness. I wanted the real deal. What did that mean, and how could I get there?

It didn’t happen overnight. It also didn’t mean that I was happy every moment of every day. But every time I started to fall into the well of despair, I reminded myself of the promise I made. I will be happy, no matter what.

The day I decided to be happy was the day I started to trust myself. I could find a way out of all my troubles. I could make a good life.

It meant examining that life and making hard choices. The house that was falling down around me stood on land that had some value. We sold it and paid off debts. My husband and I tried another year with the marriage, because we wanted to see how life was together when we didn’t have the financial burdens hanging over our heads. Turns out we could not reconcile, so we wished each other well and parted in respect and friendship.

I wrote a book for grieving grandparents that gave sense to the senselessness of my grief. It honored the children who were never meant to be. The day I held that book in my hands for the first time, I knew I had found a way to voice my pain, to turn it into art, and that would change me forever. Writing healed me. Writing brought me to the innate wholeness that exists in all of us. Writing brought me home.

Eventually that heady run of tough times passed, as tough times always do. More will come, but I’m ready this time. I know now I can be happy no matter what.

 

V is for Vitality #AtoZChallenge

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We’re entering the final week of the AtoZChallenge. While I’ll be ready for a break, I’m so glad I did this! Thanks to all for your thoughtful comments. It’s been so nice to have readers. I appreciate you!

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IMG_3503Vitality doesn’t come easily for some of us. I grew up a sickly child, with chronic strep throats, one of which caused a serious kidney ailment. One of my earliest memories was a visit to the hospital. I was upset because at mealtimes, they wanted to feed me. I was a “big girl” who fed myself at home. I remember turning my head to the side in disgust.

After years of long-term antibiotics, I had made it through childhood, but with some residual problems. Most notably, I struggled with fatigue. In my late 30s, this escalated to full-blown Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, disabling me for several years.

So these days, when I write about my garden or my travels, I write with a deep and abiding gratitude for the health I have now. It was a long journey, and sometimes even now I experience waves of fatigue…but they don’t last, and most of the time I have an energy and fitness level of someone much younger.

When I find an edible weed or flower, or try some vegetable I’d never seen before (celeriac comes to mind), I am filled with delight. Each nourishes and strengthens me. These days I am, as much as possible, eating seasonally, and definitely from the garden! Yesterday’s lunch included a leek soup (awesome recipe, by the way!) with leeks from the back yard, along with a side of steamed Swiss chard, with its tender spring leaves.

The more I discover food as medicine, the better I feel…and the less I want those foods that don’t nourish me. That’s not to say I never have them. Last night I ate a piece of fudge and enjoyed it very much, thank you. I’m not fanatic. But there seems to be greater balance in my life these days.

Vitality brings with it a sense of adventure. Trying new foods, I feel like that little kid who played with her Easy Bake oven. Fortunately, my husband will eat whatever I put in front of him. Sometimes the food is so good we could cry.

I hope, as we’ve traveled together this month with my garden musings, this sense of adventure has come across. This life, a holistic life filled with fresh food, much of it from my yard, has brought me many gifts. The greatest is a sense of vitality.

And vitality is what I wish for all of you.