Category Archives: Health and Long Life

Books and other Soul Food, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life

I Love My Life

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I love my life. I love my Victorian apartment. I love living within two blocks of hiking trails.

One of my most frequently re-watched romcoms is Sabrina. – the one starring Harrison Ford – but it is not Harrison Ford that attracts me to this particular movie.  A favorite scene is Sabrina talking to her father – a grown man – a man the age I am now, older and wiser. He is, by occupation, a chauffeur for a wealthy and successful family. He lives in the studio apartment over the garage. I can identify with that. I have lived in studio apartments. I have lived in a studio apartment over a garage. I have a daughter of marriageable age – as does he. I find the idea of a studio apartment over the garage romantic enough that I wrote one into a novel – The Cemetery Wives. Anyway, in an apartment over the garage, well-appointed but cluttered with books, the mature man and his daughter are conversing. His daughter is a grown woman just returned from a year abroad. 

She reminisces that one of the things she loves about her dad is that he decided to become a chauffeur so he would have time to read. He has loved his life all those years; made a living, become financially secure, while just waiting in the car for the Larabees. Waiting and reading – doing what he most loved – all the while improving his mind and his bank account

The weather was perfect as I walked home from Jean-Pierre – the French, French Bakery at noon. The slit in the side of my little black tank dress let in a cooling breeze, my silver-trimmed sandals were perfect for the weather and for walking. I was coming home from an activity I most love; sitting at a grand piano and playing for 3 or 4 hours, evoking musical memories for all the guests dining on crepes and French pastries, and in the process making my daily bread. “I love my life,” I said to myself, “What a wonderful world! I love living in the mountains. I love being in Colorado. I love the great out of doors. I love life in Durango. I love that I get to make music every blessed day!” I am reminded of something I heard Paul Harvey say many years ago, “Find something you love to do and do it so well you make a living at it.”

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

Fun is a luxury

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He stood, stooped and bent, and leaning on a walking stick. A whimsical smile played around the corners of his mouth and a plaid fedora sat jauntily on his head. He chuckled, watching his grandson load six paddleboards atop the roof of a Ford Expedition. He shuffled a few feet toward them as daughter and grandson hefted a kayak to the top of her Rav4. “What a lot of work,” he commented, “for a little bit of fun.”

Had it been fun? Yes! 90 minutes on a sundrenched lake in the waning days of summer. Bliss. Beauty. Invigoration. Was it work? Undeniably, yes. She had driven two and a half hours from Durango and past Telluride just to spend a couple hours with her grown son, her aging father, her four grandkids, her daughter-in-law and the DIL’s parents – a standard, but all too infrequent meet-up in the gorgeous mountains of Colorado. Was it worth it? Isn’t fun always worth it? A day spent on the water is soul nourishing. Yet a spontaneous meet-up is very rare amidst responsibilities and work commitments. 

Fun seems so expensive in the day-to-day rush. Fun costs time. Fun costs effort.

If we are not careful, somewhere around the age of 25 we lose our grip on fun. We are too exhausted to go the extra mile for recreation, and we feel duty bound to do the unfun tasks first. Unless of course we have doctor’s orders to run every morning – or hike – or go for a swim – or sit in the sun! Then we can take our recreation like a pill, mark it off the list like a chore and not feel guilty about recreating.,  

She remembers fun when she was young and tagging along with her parents. They were youth sponsors in the local church. Having barely grown into adulthood themselves, they remembered how to plan fun activities. Youth get togethers, being church sanctioned, were obviously for the glory of God so copious amounts of time were spent lavishly decorating spook houses, bobbing for apples or taking a moonlit hayride. Likewise, church picnics could rightly be considered obligations. No amount of effort was too great to shlep the ice chest of cold fried chicken and potato salad to the group picnic site or to set up the volleyball net or horseshoe pit. But her understanding, her unspoken training, her unconsciously formed opinion was that personal recreation is selfish, self-centered, and therefore ungodly.

Here’s a newsflash: some people garden for fun. It is true! Also true that some garden to survive and it becomes acknowledged, hard work. But garden hobbyists, they work long hours, bending, stooping, hauling and they exude enjoyment.

Some people fish. For fun! Not for food. They rise before dawn and move silently to the river. They stroke and cast and stroke and cast and sometimes they catch. And then they release. For fun. Just for fun. They are home in time for breakfast – before the sun blazes over the one remaining mountain. 

Her perspective throughout early adulthood was that fun was expensive; a luxury, forbidden fruit, pleasure to be quaffed only when every other self-sacrifice had been performed to generate income. Now she knows that fun itself may take a copious amount of effort. She must be content to embrace that work, those duties, and then luxuriate in the fun – reap the benefits of rejuvenation!

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

Forever 67

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She rarely drags her heels in dread at birthdays. What can you do to stop them? Nothing. The years will march on. So why not party? Eat the cake, blow out the candles and not rue the passing of the earth one more rotation around the sun. But this year? She doesn’t want to turn another year older. She knows these truly are the best years of her life. Sixty-seven has been the best year ever and therefore she wants to stay 67 forever. Finally, she has tasted it all. She has enjoyed the accomplishments she longed for, basked in snippets of affirmation, engaged in friendship, made the decision to enter in to self-confidence, greeted most days with gratitude.

Does she now have it all? Is the bucket list complete? Is it time to fold herself up and return to her maker? She doesn’t think so. 

She wants to stay 67 forever because she has finally tasted what life can and should be and she wants more of it. She wants to know the rest of the story. She wants to continue the momentum. She wants to keep saying to younger people, “It gets better! Hang in there! The 60s are a great decade! You have so much to look forward to!”

Still, she would like to linger in this year just a little bit longer, enjoy a second helping of this year’s goodness, perhaps order dessert, savor another cup of tea, a few more hugs and the promise of kisses, another sigh of satisfaction at a job finally, finally well done.

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

I Want More

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She is 67 and she is abundantly aware that the best years of her life, the most enjoyable, the most productive, are now. She has all she ever wanted. She is livin’ the life. She makes music. She is immersed in music. She plays music for money. She has traveled and lived in many beautiful places – beyond what she originally imagined. She has walked and hiked in sunshine, blessed with the wind to her back and a breeze on her face, and crafted essays that describe her feelings, and lived to see a book or two in print. She has floated more than one river and seen the ocean. She has passed through fields of flowers in bloom at the peak of the Continental Divide. She has experienced the solitude of alone and independent in the wild.

She has birthed children and watched them grow and loved them and been loved in return.

She is 67. She knows what she wants. All she ever wanted is right now. Yet she does not sit on the couch waiting for the bell to toll. No. She wants more. More travel. More music. More beautiful places. More love. More JOY. For the remaining years of her life. Because the two final things on her bucket list are:

Sail into port grandly

Die in a beautiful place

She wants the last thing to leave her body to be music – along with her soul. Or is music her soul? Or is her soul music? She is not quite sure. But she knows they are inextricably twined. And she wants more. Why? Not because she is greedy. But because the cup of life at its fullest evaporates. One must constantly replenish.

To be clear, she feels a little more like The Cranberries and much better treated than Oliver.

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Home and Hearth, Spiritual Well Being

Jigsaw puzzle piece

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What a wonderful morning. The air, though wintery, was alive with portent. Her sleep the night before had been complete, restful, scattered with positive dreams rather than riddled with anxiety. The morning cup of tea was just the right temperature juxtaposed with the frosty air from the open front door. The morning was like a bordered jigsaw puzzle waiting for a choice piece, the piece that had been held to the light, examined from all sides, compared with each preceding piece and each potential piece until, yes! Even from 18 inches away one could tell it was a perfect match. The piece, that one choice piece, was falling into place. Home. She was singing a new song. She had purchased a feeling, a feeling of home and happiness and success for yet another two months. She was alive. She was grateful. She savored this moment, enjoyed it fully, all the while knowing that once you finish a puzzle and breathe that sigh of satisfaction, soon enough there will be another challenge waiting in the wings.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Fiction is Truth, Health and Long Life

Bel Canto

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I don’t often read thrillers or horror stories, but when I do – and I can count them on a few fingers of one hand – they include music.

What is in a title? Sometimes a title gives a hint of the overall plot of a story. My favorite Dean Koontz novel is The City and it is, indeed about the city in more ways than one, but it is also about brotherly love and music and a talented piano boy turned piano man. What did I expect when I picked up a book titled Bel Canto? That the entire book would be about beautiful singing? No. If anything, I expected a one-liner somewhere deep in the book or at the denouement where someone sings an unforgettable song. 

The book is just good enough, just well-known enough, that I am both ashamed and amazed not to have read it sooner. But had I read Bel Canto in 2001 when it first came out in paperback, would it have had the same impact as reading it in 2022. 2022 when the world has gone mad, yet I have been heard to admit I am happy, perhaps the happiest I have been in a long time. 

I have always loved music. A piano has always been a necessity, but I learned to love bel canto and Italian pieces when my youngest toured and performed with Colorado Children’s Chorale. I was raised to be a musician, but a gospel musician only. Even though Granddad had a Victrola and a collection of Swedish chanteuses, I had little appreciation for opera until I became more intimately acquainted with it as a core knowledge music specialist.

In Ann Patchett’s finely tuned Bel Canto, opportunities to identify with the accompanist are plentiful, there are also long moments to identify with the hostages, to pity underprivileged child terrorists, to savor the deep, profound effect music has on our lives. And there are questions to ponder. 

My ruminations are both satisfying and alarming. My thoughts have to do with:

Anthropological questions

Psychological questions

Ethical questions

Governmental and diplomatic questions

A new kind of normal

Adapting to one’s environment

Happiness in the face of captivity

Blooming where you are planted

Might there be anything dangerous with blooming where you are planted?

Should you let your guard down if you bloom where you are planted?

Can one be truly happy if one is always looking over their shoulder?

Might Happiness have a lot to do with working willingly with your hands?

Does one really want to exist in perpetual, blissful happiness?

Is music nothing more than the opiate of the masses?

I love a book chock full of food for thought. Particularly when it hits me with music and love and forced social distancing all at the same time! It reminds me why I write. It reminds me of Love in various shades and circumstances.

“We found love right where we are.”

Family, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Photos

Christmas news 2021

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Cherry Odelberg, Durango, Colorado, December 2021

It has been a really great year full of blessings and good surprises, never mind that we are now in the deepest darkest days of winter, I am experiencing the second cold in about as many weeks, and I definitely overbooked myself when I dipped my exploratory toe back into the workforce. Yes. I worked 50 hours in seven days last week– all in the name of survival, being a responsible employee, and independent retiree. But let’s start with the good stuff.

In January, February and March I kept to the house other than my daily 3 to 8 mile jaunts into the great outdoors. I practiced music, I wrote books, I published books. Life was grand. Andrea and I and my Dad took a two week road trip to the Northwest at the end of March. We had fun staying in contactless check-in Air B&Bs and visiting cousins and their families along the route. Andrea and I had fun. Dad rather missed the opportunities to socialize and joke with motel or restaurant staff – but he was totally satisfied by getting to visit with Joyce and Rod, David and Virginia Anderson and family; David and Gayle Harris and family, Cathi and Chuck. We even got to hike and enjoy a seafaring meal with Philip, and we met Shannon and Lisa on the outskirts of Salt Lake City to share an outdoor meal.

Once home again, Andrea returned to her seasonal job as a wilderness ranger with the National Forest Service and I continued writing and set about looking for music opportunities with which to supplement my income. 

On May 21, I took a trip to Grand Junction to attend the high-school graduation of oldest grandson, Drew. Although I made it before the ceremony was over, the trip included traversing Coal Bank Pass, Molas Pass and Red Mountain Pass in eight to 12 inches of snow. Andrea followed a couple hours behind in her truck and was the last driver over before they closed Red Mountain. While I awaited the go ahead at the top of Red Mountain, I changed from my graduation sandals into my hiking boots and threw a down coat over my sleeveless dress.

In late spring, Dad and I spent an adventurous night in a cabin on Grand Mesa and followed that with an outdoor luncheon at Coni and Steve’s.

Dad traveled to Durango with me to spent four days which we repeated again in the summer. At Thanksgiving Kevin and family passed through. We enjoyed 24 hours of music and hiking before they went on to Phoenix to have Thanksgiving with Sarah’s sister. Dad stayed with me for another four days.

In June I began playing piano for Saturday and Sunday morning brunch at a local French bakery. I like it immensely. I play love songs from the early ¾ of the 20th Century. I spent a few days in Lake City with my kayak paddling every evening and hiking every day with friend Linda and her kayak. I also hiked Highland Mary’s Trail outside Silverton with friend Johanna and was privileged to have other good friends drop in and hike with me throughout the warm months. I took my kayak out solo so many times I have lost count. In October, my roommate (aka Andrea) moved out which greatly increased my living expenses. No worries. I found seasonal work on the Polar Express and then an administrative music job at Stillwater Music opened up – just the job I had been hoping for. In 2020 I sang virtually with the Durangatones from Stillwater. Now I enjoy playing keyboard with Groove Casters (also a Stillwater Adult Band).

I continue to write stories. I am writing songs again. I even played electric bass at a church meeting last summer. See what I mean? Life is good!

Blessings on your new year!

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life

I Regret Nothing

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Dear Universe,

I regret nothing.

Dear God of Provision

My gratitude is huge.

Dear Oracle who explains the whys,

Why could life not go on like this forever?

I heard the advice and sifted it. I kept the best.

I gave it all I had. I pursued my dreams with head and heart, my wisdom and experience guiding me.

I fully believe that every hand is a winner and every hand a loser. I played my hand. I played well and I played with gusto. I can truly say, I went for broke.

And now I am. 

Broke.

But stay my anxious thoughts and worries,

The new year cometh!

And with it the chance to start over again.

Again.

Health and Long Life, Music and Theatre

Play it again Sam – People Watching

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Anniversary Waltz I finished Tennessee Waltz with a flourish and segued into Moon River as she turned from the cash register to follow her husband out the door. But instead, she came to the piano and said, “will you play it again, please, that song you just finished?” She stepped out the door and grabbed him, pulling him back into the French bakery lobby and into dance hold. She was radiant in a beribboned straw hat, capris and a pressed blouse. She held him close, her cheek resting on his chest. At the end of the reprised refrain she placed a tip in the jar and thanked me again and again – all smiles, saying it was their 50th anniversary this very day! – And what a wonderful time they were having!

Secular anointing I was raised in church and I was raised to be a camp-meeting pianist. It is still somewhat of a surprise to me how many customs cross over from the church world to the secular performance world. Giving, for example. What child among us didn’t first learn the idea of giving when the offering plate was passed? We held out our hand to mom or dad or grandma or grandpa and received in our hot little palm a tuppence or a quarter or a dime. Immediately we placed the change in the plate, feeling very grownup that we had been allowed to participate in the act of giving. I see it happen weekend after weekend at the French Bakery and it never ceases to warm my heart. Jean-Pierre, the French, French Baker makes the croissants  and macarons and exquisite pastries and I play the restored grand piano. Families come in. Their ears perk up the minute they hear the sound of live music. Those who were thinking of checking out a restaurant further down the street are lured inside. I smile and nod. The children start clamoring for something to put in the jar. And parents oblige. They are teaching their children at a young age to give, to share, to tip those who render a service to make our lives better. Some of them are intentionally teaching their children that you can make money in music – that regular practice pays!

There are a couple dozen one dollar bills in my tip jar, a few fives, one ten. Oh, and there are two pennies. There is a story here, I am sure, and I bet it involves a child. Two children put tips in my jar today. I wonder which it was?

When the previous piano man retired and I took on the job at the keyboard, I asked what were the most requested song titles? Requests? Said the retiring piano man. Requests? Said the proprietor with surprise. Probably just Happy Birthday to You. I had six requests in the first four mornings I played. My repertoire has increased accordingly. I made a playlist so I don’t draw a blank and fumble around, but sometimes I play on the inspiration of the moment. Such was the time a Texan sort of woman came in sporting a gold tone Hobby Lobbyesque T-shirt with the first verse of It Is Well With My Soul printed on the front. That’s pretty irresistible to a piano player with my background. Last Saturday I was letting my mind wander for a few moments. My fingers were sort of noodling about some familiar melodies and I ended up playing Waltzing Matilda. The woman at the counter paid for her pastry and turned to me. “I’m from Australia. How did you know? I’m tearing up!”

Veterans and people who just flat out love America stand a little taller when I play an armed forces tribute or America the Beautiful. Tourists love La vie en rose, tenors and vacationers like to try their voices at show tunes prompting my daughter to ask, “what do they think it is, a piano karaoke bar?”

One Sunday a couple saw me head to the restroom at the end of my four-hour set. They waited, waited just to say how much the music meant to them. Actually, that happens frequently. A thumbs up, a mouthed thank you, someone gushing that they haven’t heard that tune for years, someone else mentioning that I have a rather wide repertoire.

I am a glutton for praise. I fear I have long been addicted to affirmation. Praise is often payment in the music world. But man – or woman – cannot live on praise alone. You can’t pay the rent with praise. But just as time is money; tips are praise and affirmation. I’m not going to complain, no siree; I don’t have one complaint about earning my daily bread with music. The people watching is unbeatable. I especially love it when they dance.

Billy Joel Piano Man

Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Hiking and outdoor beauty, Mountains, Travel

She Knows Beauty

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Already she had been from her western Colorado hometown as far to the northwest as Olympia and Seattle and even on into British Columbia. She had travelled down Highway 1 to visit relatives in L.A. and Fresno and San Diego and flown all the way to Guam and Tokyo in one direction and New York and Frankfurt in the other. She had lived in San Antonio and Chicago and Oklahoma, but always returned to Colorado. And then she climbed on the backseat of a motorcycle and spent 21 days traveling to other places. She slept in a wheatfield in Kansas and saw the fabled Poconos and the outskirts of Philadelphia and the inskirts of Manhattan and almost ran out of gas in the lower tip of Michigan. She camped on a beach in Massachusetts and felt guilty; not merely because the sign said it was illegal to camp on the beach overnight, but because she had traveled far and wide from the western most boundary of Colorado all the way to New England and had not yet done the State of Colorado justice – did not yet know her own home state like the back of her hand. So, over the decades that followed, she attempted to remedy that. She saw the Colorado side of Dinosaur National Monument, she hiked all the trails at Colorado National Monument, she visited Rocky Mountain National Park and hiked to the headwaters of the Colorado River, she rode the train from Denver to Grand Junction and down Ruby Canyon into Utah. She camped in State Parks and saw the Royal Gorge and almost burned her feet at the Sand Dunes. She lost herself for awhile and drifted all the way down the Colorado River through Arches and Moab and Canyonlands and straight on into Arizona and saw the new London Bridge way out in the desert and dipped her feet in the Colorado River anywhere she could until it finally died somewhere out in California. And then she came back, determined to hike every trail, and climb every mountain, and paddle every stream that she could before she met her final goal of dying in a beautiful place. Nowadays her adventures are peppered with descriptive sounding places like Silverton, Ice Lakes, Highland Mary, Treasure Falls, Weminuche Wilderness, Lake City, Animas River, Cataract Gorge, Alpine Loop, Red Mountain, Grand Mesa. And you know what? She still doesn’t know her home state like the back of her hand, but what she does know is beauty.