Spinsters Chasing Rainbows--Make your own Luck

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, direct your eyes to the skies.  See that rainbow?  Just beyond that cloud?  No, to your left.  There it is!  And look!  It’s touching down nearby, luring you to gold and good fortune.  At last, luck has shone upon you!  You’re close now.  All it takes is a few more steps, the reach of a hand, a twinkle of the eye, and …

Poof!!!  The gold is gone.  The leprechauns have bamboozled you again.  What’s the use in chasing rainbows if they lead to nothing????

As the Super Spinster, I confess to rainbow chasing.  I’ve seen the rainbow of a relationship or a dream many times, and I’ve followed it.  But too many rainbows have led to nought—no gold coins and no golden relationship.  At times, I am so disheartened by this that I simply give up.  I stop looking at the sky and start looking at my shoes.  One foot in front of the other on a road to I don’t know where and I don’t care.

But then, sometimes, a light flashes by and shoots heavenward.  I gaze up, and there’s another sliver of color across the sky.  Could this this time be different?  Dare I resume the chase?

Alison, me, & the Old Michigan Train Station

Last Sunday in Corktown, Detroit, of all places, I saw my first rainbow in ages.  I attended the Corktown St. Patrick’s Day Parade with my friends Alison and Marie.  We were on a missio to sell green and gold beads to raise money for blood cancer research.  Alison participates in Team in Training, a running group fundraising for Leukemia and Lymphoma research.  Each member has a goal of running a half-marathon or marathon by the summer, and the team hopes to raise $40,000.00 for the American Leukemia Lymphoma Society.  It’s their highest fundraising goal yet, so Alison enlisted me and Marie to help hustle some beads and raise some cash.

Now, hustling people is a joy for me.  I do it for work, and I do it for pleasure.  Perhaps it’s my Irish blood, but I love to talk, and I love a challenge, so convincing people to give me cash for a good cause sounded like fun.  Still, approaching drunken Irishmen and Irish wannabes at a St. Patrick’s Day parade was intimidating.  To start, no one wanted beads.  They wanted booze and other sundry pleasures.  Despite our entreaties that the money was for cancer research, no one was moved.  I grew disheartened again then annoyed then angry.

My anger spiked when the men I approached said they would only buy my beads if I showed them my boobs.  This is St. Patrick’s Day, people, not Mardi Gras!  The worst offenders were those wanting to show me their boobs instead.  “No, thanks!” I cried. “But could you spare a few bucks for people fighting to keep theirs?”

Hustlers for Cancer--Alison and Marie

That did it.  Suddenly, people started buying beads.  No one wants to lose their boobs.  Although we were fundraising for Leukemia and Lymphoma, we told people that, from 2000-2014, 40% of cancer drugs have come from blood cancer research. (www.lls.org/sites/default/files/file_assets/facts.pdf) Those drugs helped many cancer patients, including breast cancer patients.  They could have helped people like my grandma who died from breast cancer almost eight years ago.  If only we had known then what we know now, maybe she could have been with me at that parade.  She would have liked that.

As the money started rolling in, we heard stories from parade goers of their struggles with cancer.  One woman lost her mom to it a few years ago and high-fived us for our work.  Another woman cried as she told us about her young son’s rare cancer and daily fight.  One man handed me $20.00 and told me to keep my beads.  He just wanted to help.  Though he didn’t say anything, I could see it in his eyes.  He had lost someone, too.

After three hours of hustling along the parade route, we had raised $416.25 for Team in Training.  It was something—a step in the right direction for cancer patients, present and future, and for ourselves.

Elated and nearly done with our route, we stopped for a celebratory beer.  On the dance floor, beers in hand and beads around our necks, we were approached by a woman heading a conga line.  A few sheets to the wind, she looked at us covered in beads and said, “Wow!  Where’d you get all those beads?  You must be huge sluts!”  We ROARED with laughter, and so did she when we told her our cause.  She even handed us a few bucks and bought herself some beads, too.  We were “sluts for cancer” together.

"Sluts for Cancer" enjoying a beer break--Me, Alison, & Marie

I learned something about chasing rainbows that day.  If you catch one in the sky, it may not lead to the pot of gold you expect.  For me, at that St. Patrick’s Day Parade, the desire to look up came with that first $1.00.  That kindness inspired me to search for more.  And I found it.  I found it in $416.25 worth of donations, in the stories people shared with us, and in a well-deserved beer break.

Chase the rainbow, my friends.  Luck favors the willing wanderer, and a beer or two along the way won’t hurt.

Cheers, my friends, and best wishes for a safe and joyous St. Patrick’s Day,

Super Spinster

**You can learn more about Team in Training and Alison’s fundraising by clicking on this link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/mi/bayshr17/AMueller

Love doubles.

Love the One You’re with…Even if it’s Just You!

It’s Valentine’s Day.  Again.  It happens every year.  It ruins every New Year’s resolution not to eat more sweets, not to go out to eat, not to judge oneself based on everyone else’s perfect Facebook lives.  The pain is real, my friends.  It’s enough to drown some people with all of the happy couples and their restaurant reservations and roses and “He went to Jared’s!” and long walks on the beach and trips to Paris and…

ENOUGH!  Why does romance rule the day?  Whatever happened to plain old love?

Here’s a challenge for you: This year, pick a valentine, but remove the pressure.  I’m changing the rules.  Your valentine doesn’t have to be your romantic partner—real or imaginary—or the shadow of a partner in a relationship too complicated for even a Facebook status.  Just pick anyone.  Your valentine could be the lady who always does your coffee right at the drive thru and who deserves a tip.  It could be the strange nerd lurking behind the pharmacy counter who grimaces at you (real person) and maybe needs a kind word.  Pick your mailman and leave him a note thanking him for delivering dry, timely mail.  This Valentine’s Day, please, just choose someone to love. 

Chip N' Dale always had such kind manners toward each other.

The problem with Valentine’s Day is that we think it sucks if someone isn’t loving us.  That’s not it.  It sucks when we choose not to love anyone.  After all, the fun of love is doing the loving.  And you wouldn’t believe how it spreads.  Kindness clones itself and hops from person to person.  Like amoebas, love splits itself and travels, then splits itself again until one loving act grows into countless others.  If you buy a bagel for that sad looking woman in line at the bakery, she may go to her job and split that bagel with that guy she loathes because, suddenly, she wants to be nice because you were nice to her.  Then that loathed guy is full of bagel and appreciation, and he decides to be a little less of a jerk that day.  From there, the feeling grows.

Having said all of this, you may still face a Valentine’s Day on your own.  Fear not!  There still is someone to love—yourself!  At lunch the other day, my friend Amy reminded me of the importance of self-sympathy.  She was working out at the gym with a friend who was always berating herself, calling herself weak and slow.  Amy stopped her.  She asked her friend if she would ever say the things she said about herself to Amy.  Shocked at the very idea, the friend said she would never speak so unkindly to someone else.  To that Amy replied, “Then why would you ever say those things to yourself???”

I love tea and biscuits. 

Why do we?  Why are we so hard on ourselves?  Maybe it’s time to stop.  This Valentine’s Day, speak kindly to everyone but especially to yourself.  Make special plans just for you.  It can be any of your favorite things.  Go see that movie you’ve been dying to see, get all of those snacks, and enjoy.  If it feels lonely, be kind to the theatre staff and even that moron who’s texting during the film (just this once).  Take a walk in your favorite place.  Cook your favorite meal.  Buy yourself flowers.  Get back to that fun project.  Drink red wine, eat lasagna, and watch your favorite film.  Laugh a lot.  Cry if you want to.  Whatever you do though, let it be an act of self-care.  It’s not arrogant to love yourself.  But it is foolish to think you’re not worth something special.

Love the one you’re with, my friends.  Single or paired, you are worth appreciating, so show others that they are as well.  Having done that, you’ll find not only that you’ve survived V-Day but also that the love you spread on February 14 has grown and wiggled its way, amoeba-like, into every other day of the year, too.

Whatever you say, Merlin loves you anyway.

Best wishes,

The Super Spinster

 

How to be a Superhero—Spotlight on a Modern Superheroine, Marie

            How to be a Superhero—Spotlight on a Modern Superheroine, Marie

Life hurts.  Get superpowers.  Be the hero of your own life.

          

When we look at the challenges of the day, the week, the years ahead, we wonder if we have the skills to meet them.  If only we were “more”—stronger, faster, smarter—on par with the heroes we admire.  Whether your idol is Captain America or Albert Einstein, Dr. Martin Luther King or Katharine Hepburn, these people shine so brightly that we are blinded to the truth—that, at first, all they were was human.

Me and Marie at Comic Con

One cold January weekend, over a cup of tea and too many biscuits, I spoke to my friend Marie about what it takes to be the hero of one’s own life.  Marie is a Business Analyst for a large automotive company, a single woman, a home DIYer, and a reader of many comics.  Marie and I have known each other since childhood, since I was the bossy girl on the playground and she was the shy bookworm on the swing set.  Nowadays, some things are the same (I am still bossy; she is still reading), but the challenges Marie has faced in her life have taught her resilience and the kinds of superpowers I would like to cultivate. 

The first thing you should know about Marie is that her quiet manner is a ruse.  Marie can crack you in half with her rapier wit and scramble you with her powerful opinions about the world.  Just because Marie is a spinster does not mean she cannot take care of herself and champion the causes of others.  For example, when Marie was in college, she realized she was gay and that it was time to tell someone.  Despite the anxiety of revealing this about herself, she gathered the courage to tell her family and friends and to live the way she knew was right for her.  Part of that was being honest about her sexuality, part of that was being confident in liking being on her own.  Marie does not need a partner to be happy, though she would not mind having the right one, and she does not need others’ approval to feel whole.

Marie's 1950s Ranch

In a society that demands constant socialization—shopping together, eating together, exercising together, sleeping together, talking, talking, talking—Marie just says, “no.”  She lives alone, and she loves it.  After a long day at work, she pulls up to the 1950s ranch-style home she is refurbishing herself, heads inside to the peace of a place all her own, and does her thing.  She cooks and cleans, fixes doorknobs and installs floors, works out, and watches her favorite shows.  Marie is passionate about LGBT representation on TV and participates in an online community that encourages TV show producers and writers to portray LGBT people as they really are—not plot devices but humans and superheroes in their own right.

Marie and Captain Jack of "Doctor Who"

For those upon whom solitude has been thrust rather than chosen, I asked Marie how to be content on one’s own.  She said, “Know yourself.”  If you know you will struggle with being alone, plan for it.  What will make you feel good?  Sink into some self-care and let the anxiety pass.  (Marie suggested tea, running, chocolate, good movies, and geeking out to whatever excites you.)  As a woman who discovered she was gay when she reached adulthood, Marie has spent a lot of time getting to know herself.  She said that being gay helps.  In our culture, being gay is living outside the box.  Once you are outside of that box, you cannot help but see everything that way.  No social equation is provided.  You get to dictate how you want your life to be.

Part of life, according to Marie, is reaching out and away from that restrictive, cultural box and engaging with the world.  We must live beyond the social surface.  Ask the deeper questions.  Examine everything.  Once you do that, you cannot feel lonely anymore.  You have become a part of something bigger than yourself, and that fills you.  Whether you are part of a community organization or just keeping up with the news, your world expands, and the quiet spaces that frightened you are not so terribly silent anymore.

Marie's Meditative Place on Lake St. Clair

If Marie sounds perfectly adjusted to the daily drama, make no mistake; she’s not.  She feels the pressure to date, to get with the crowd.  When her friends leave single life for partners and picket fences, she says it hurts.  I asked her how she handles that, thinking she would have more sage advice.  “Ice cream and potato chips, then all of the wise things I said.”  Again, genius.

Whether or not Marie’s ideas inspire you, she is one of the superheroes of my life.  She is unerringly honest about herself and her ideas.  After many years of living in shadow, Marie burst into the light and has gobbled it up ever since.  Her superpowers of contentment, reflection, and courage lend her a brightness that I admire greatly.  For her, being a spinster is not “being alone”; it is being one with herself.  As we finished our tea and I self-caringly ate the last of the biscuits, I asked her what advice she has for spinsters everywhere.  She leaned back and smiled saying, “Enjoy your life.  Have fun!  Whatever time you spend alone, don’t regret it.  Don’t fight to leave it.  The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  It’s just grass!”

Best wishes,

Super Spinster

Spinster Tails

As the holidays rush to an end, we face the brightness of 2017, a new year.  Many of us have resolved to be healthier and more productive.  We are eager to slip into the “New You”—fit, wealthy, romantically attached, popular, and still zen.  And we all want that "unique" glow of being as expected, like others, but individual enough to attract attention.

This is too complicated.  What if I don’t want to be the 2017 model?  She looks great, but she's not me.  What if I don’t want the software update?! 

When people tell me how I should be, how happiness looks, and what I must sacrifice for it, I feel silenced.  No one asked my opinion of joy.  Rather, they catapulted me into their frenzy for perfection.  New Year’s Day becomes the Black Friday of self-revision.  We line up for whatever is being sold and trample each other to grab it without asking, “Do I even want this thing?”

This frenzy to be other than oneself reminds me of Disney’s The Little Mermaid.  Lessons: never relinquish your voice, keep your fish friends close, and never trust an octopus drag queen.  Ariel, the mermaid princess with the perfect pitch, sees and rescues dark-haired, tan Eric, a human prince and a solid guy.  Her only problem?  She's a fish, and he's a dish. 

Ariel is unmoved by this apparent difficulty.  She is willing to abandon everything--her people, identity, friends, family, trinkets cave, and the lower half of her body--to be with Eric.    In relinquishing all this, she sacrifices her self and cannot connect meaningfully with the man she loves.  She may give Ursula her voice in exchange for legs, but she reaches the shore as a shell of her self.  Eric admires this silent beauty and maybe loves her, but he longs for the singing Ariel, the one who rescued him from the sea.  Luckily for them, Ariel retrieves her voice and reunites with Eric.  Because it's Disney, it all works out, but in our lives, sacrificing one's identity rarely leads to a healthy relationship.  Maybe Eric would have followed Ariel's voice and reunited with her.  They could have had beach dates, met each others' friends and family, and avoided the whole Ursula drama entirely.  Maybe King Triton would have come around and granted Ariel legs anyway.   

In this blog, I highlight people who sing with their own voices.  They are introspective, courageous, and independent.  Like Ariel, they see what they want and know who they are, but unlike Ariel, they don’t sacrifice that identity to fit another’s plan for perfection. 

Beneath the ads and commercials screaming about the “newer and better you” this year, I hear the hum of people saying, “Welcome, 2017.  This year, I am enough.”  We already have what we need to be joyful.  We shine, and we won't trade ourselves for others' demand's.  If your gifts make you happy, practice them.  If it's lifting weights, growing kale, or reconstructing your kitchen, more power to you.  If it's the little things like baking great brownies, knowing when someone needs a kind word, or assisting the kick for the winning goal, do it.   Keep your fish tail and your voice; swim as you please.  You never know whose admiration you have earned by having the courage to be yourself.

Best wishes,
Super Spinster

Building Something New

Dedicated to Ben for Inspiring me to Share

Dear Friends,

I have good news.  For those who have followed my blog thus far, you know I’ve featured two remarkable women.  First was my sister who, at twenty-five, purchased a home on her own and was brave enough to take her older sister as a tenant.  Second was my friend Alison, a global connoisseur of human experience and proud Detroiter.  Comparing myself to these women seems absurd.  They’re the cool kids I always wanted to be.  But I’ve been told I should take credit where credit is due, so here it is.

Two of my greatest accomplishments of 2016 were passing the Michigan Bar Exam and, just this weekend, against all odds, putting together an end table by myself.

 

Yes! That’s right!  Two long-awaited dreams achieved!    

Had you told me last year that I, the book worm/English major, would before 2016 was out construct an end table on my own, I would have laughed at you.  I am not handy.  I read books about handy people.  I pay and praise them for their work.  But with the aid of elementary directions, I built this fine specimen of furniture.

Building that end table reminded me of the other things I built in 2016—a law school degree, a budding career as an attorney, new and stronger friendships, and a greater appreciation for the lunatics…, I mean, legal professionals.  With these materials, I constructed a new life.  There were the table legs that kept me upright—home-cooked meals, summer fields, my running shoes, and wine on decks with friends.  There was the table top I sawed and sanded and stained over hours of studying.  Then I had the screws that kept everything together—my family, my church, my collie, my friends.  Time tightened these joints and gave me confidence.  A few screws flew loose, but I never promised perfection.  At last, there was the drawer I slid into place holding all my hopes for the finished product.

While I put this life together, I wondered whether the result would collapse or stand.  When the pieces crumbled mid-construction, I wondered, "Who could pick up this mess?" Me, as it turned out.  My network of supporters, the people handing me the tools, believed in me, and when we were unsure we had a few drinks and tried again the next day.  After much patience and effort, what I’d hoped to build was before me, and the rest was memory.

When we examine our dreams, we see the ways they can fall apart before we see what can make them stand.  Our serve us part of the way, and God and our families, friends, and neighbors supply the rest.  There is hope for the finish and joy in the construction.  Whether we build a career, a home, a global network, or an end table, we are the agents of our success.  Let nothing stop us.  All that we need to reach the end is waiting for us. We just have to sit down and start!

Best wishes,

Super Spinster

Celebrating Life's Achievements

I have a contribution to make.  I am not just taking up space in this life.  I can add something to the lives I touch. –Lauren Bacall

Dear Friends,

Each day is cause for celebration.  Think of your typical day: how much do you accomplish?  You do the laundry, go to work, cook, volunteer, or make someone’s day brighter.  These are small steps to greater things, like getting into college, being promoted, building something new, fixing something old, or opening a business.  What time and effort these took.  You poured yourself into these goals, and you met them.  Surely, this is cause for celebration! 

But when you surf the web or turn on the TV, what celebrations do you see?  Weddings, wedding anniversaries, bridal showers, first dates, engagements, and baby showers.  When it comes to celebratory gifts, ladies, don’t even think of buying yourself those diamonds: only he can go to Jared's. 

The matrimony industry makes billions on these clichés, yet they appeal to only half of society.  If you are unmarried, widowed, or divorced, or if you have no children, you, according to our culture, are exempt from celebration.  No one needs to throw you a party.  You have to find (and keep) a spouse first.  Oh, and have a few kids while you’re at it.  Yeah, you’ll get a birthday card for all the

work you did in being born, but that’s it.

These cultural gaps are missed opportunities.  Who doesn’t want more parties?  Why aren’t we honoring life’s other accomplishments?  Perhaps we don’t know where to start, or we’re too shy of asking others to celebrate us.  We don’t want to appear arrogant, but is asking to be seen conceited?

Recently, my twenty-five-year-old sister, Rachel, bought herself a house.  She wisely invested, got a mortgage, and took the plunge.  She did this sans husband, fiancé, or boyfriend.  Despite the cultural stigmas pressing against her, Rachel achieved the American dream on her own.

Thinking as I do, I had to celebrate this, so I threw Rachel a housewarming party.  After sending the invitations (evite.com was free), Rachel and I decorated the house (Halloween lights and pumpkins, leaf garland, and chrysanthemums).  My parents brought the libations, and we asked guests to bring appetizers to share.  Although the house is not yet fully furnished, we had card tables and coasters, and the food everyone brought was delicious.  For four hours, we laughed, wandered the house, drank, and were merry.  We celebrated Rachel’s dream of a happy, single life in her new home.

My sister’s housewarming is one example of how we can celebrate single people’s lives.  We must start by reaching out to our loved ones and doing something to honor them.  Whether they open a business, run a marathon, or buy a new home, the people in our lives deserve acknowledgment.  You can do this in many ways.  Throw them a party, take them out for a celebratory meal, join them in their favorite activity, or just send them a card.  It doesn't take much to make others feel special.

If we show people their successes merit attention, we encourage them to live to their potential.  All of us, including those in romantic relationships or with children, deserve acknowledgement for meeting our goals.  We're all getting up each day, trying to be our best selves.  Surely, our world can only benefit from a few more celebrations.

Best wishes,

Super Spinster