Memorial Day Tribute

For All Sailors, past, present, and future

I LIKE THE NAVY
(Author Unknown)
I like the Navy. I like standing on the bridge wing at sunrise, with salt spray in my face, and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe - the ship beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drive her through the sea.

I like the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the bosn's pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.

I like the vessels of the Navy - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet
auxiliaries, sleek submarines, and steady solid carriers. I like the proud sonorous names of Navy capital ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea-memorials of great battles won. I like the lean angular names of Navy "tin-cans": Barney, Dahlgren, Mullinix, McCloy. Mementos of heroes who went before us.

I like the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside speakers, as we pull away from the oiler after refueling at sea. I like liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port. I even like all-hands working parties as my ship fills herself with the multitude of supplies, both mundane and exotic, which she needs to cut her ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe, where there is water to float her.

I like sailors, men [and now women] from all parts of the land, farms of the mid-west, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the praries, from all walks of life. I trust and depend on them as they trust and depend on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for courage. In a word, they are "Shipmates."

I like the surge of adventure in my heart when the word is passed, "Now station the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port." I like the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pierside.

The work is hard and dangerous, the going rough at times, the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the "all for one and one for all" philosophy of the sea is ever present. I like the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying fish flit across the wave tops, and sunset gives way to night. I like the feel of the Navy in darkness, the mast head lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters as they cut through the dusk and join with the mirror of stars overhead. I like the drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and small that tell me that my ship is alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch will keep me safe. I like quiet mid-watches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy - permeating everywhere.

And I like hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed, keeps all hands on a razor edge of alertness. I like the sudden electricity of, "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations" followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and decks, and the resounding "thump" of watertight doors as the ship transforms herself in a few brief seconds, from a peaceful work place to a weapon of war - ready for anything. And I like the sight of space age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize. I like the traditions of the Navy, and the men and women who made them. I like the proud names of Navy heroes, Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones.

A sailor can find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman's trade. An adolescent can find adulthood. In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect, the ocean in all it's moods, the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again, a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom, and chief's quarters and the messdecks. Gone ashore for good, they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port-of-call was ever over the horizon. Remembering this, they will stand taller and say:
"I WAS A SAILOR. I WAS PART OF THE NAVY AND THE NAVY WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME!!"
(Author unknown)

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day and remember to say a prayer for the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who have made this country an amazing place to live. Tina

KS&L 322 The Image Element in Weight Loss - a Personal Story Part 3

Finally, to make my transformation permanent, I had to change my life long attitude toward exercise. I still don’t sweat, but I have figured out how to work out and not pass out. Along the way, I met some really great women, who were/are just like me, seeking to transform themselves and take better care of their bodies.

I had to change my attitude toward portion size and how to eat. I can eat 100 calories every three hours and lose weight any time I want to because I have retrained my body to do so. I always ate in a healthy way, now I do it with greater awareness.

Life is going to go on with my family and friends. I still go to lunch. There are still lots of visitors, birthday parties and holiday celebrations and there is always a lot of great food, but now, I am far more conscious of the calories I am eating and their affect on me. I am now always mindful of my food choices.

Keeping weight off when I travel is admittedly a challenge, however, in my travels, I did not gain weight. The same wise choices made at home, can be made on the road, it is just harder.

I have changed myself. I have watched people change how they see me. I realized that I could never keep weight off unless I changed my image of myself on every level. I love wearing clothes that fit again. I love this elegantly proportioned body and how beautifully she has responded to the love and focused care I am giving her. I love how my husband fully supports the new wardrobe and ‘wearing me on his arm again.’

I still have about 15 pounds to lose, as I head toward a size 4-6 petite. I am still working on it, every day, and along the way, I am having a great time. I see the food traps and I see the food path. Ironically, you have to eat well, to lose weight. I have also noticed that my energy level is significantly higher.

I am most grateful to my daughter, Jeanne Marie for having the courage to challenge me to be better than I was and for helping me to change. I have to say, I think I was a pill sometimes but she did not give up and now when we go clothes shopping, we discuss outfits that we can share.

I have even embraced the physical and spiritual practice of yoga, seeking this crucial [for me] next step on my spiritual path. Yoga, practiced correctly, can help you ‘de-age’ faster than anything I can think of because it brings your body into balance on every conceivable level. Even my husband has discovered how much he appreciates how yoga has helped him make so many aches and pains, purely old memories.

None of us are perfect. Each of us is seeking to find those areas where we can reach positive spiritual growth through even the most mundane processes, and that includes losing weight. Perhaps sharing my experience will be helpful to someone else.

Achieving the perfect weight isn’t as much about food as it is about changing yourself on multiple physical, emotional and mental levels. Diets will never work long term. What will work for the long view, is a personal commitment to seeing yourself as a thin person, beautifully dressed with an energetically strong body and a new perspective on your life as you are now going to be living it.

KS&L 321 The Image Element in Weight Loss - a Personal Story Part 2

Jeanne Marie and I began to outline a plan. We analyzed what I eat, which wasn’t really bad. The changes to my eating plan were actually minimal; we just cut portion size down. I do not use diet anything, so I did not have to get aspartame out of my system. The real issue, was exercise.

I have come to understand that you cannot lose weight if you do not exercise. I think I knew that on some level, but exercise took me back to middle school and high school gym class where being the shortest person in the class was always a challenge. The fact is, I hated gym with a passion and that feeling had been with me all my life. So, let us fast forward to now.

My daughter had me join a local YMCA and joined me in enrolling in a step aerobics class. The first day, we noted that the room was air-conditioned and that I could place my ‘step’ in front of a fan. I made it through the first class. I noticed that there were other chunky women in that class. I had to push myself for the first six months to go to the class religiously, and that brings up a very important issue: time.

I discovered that to lose weight, you have to consciously decide to spend time on yourself. That sounds like a no-brainer to most people perhaps, but it was huge to me. By the time, I changed clothes and drove 15 minutes one way to class, spent an hour there, drove back, changed clothes, I had lost about an hour and a half of productive time. Do that four times a week and that is not quite a day of productive time. My personal challenge was to realize that the exercise time was productive time, because it was productive time I was spending on myself.

Jeanne Marie would also run me all around the block and up and down the hills of Mt. Helix. And you know, the weight began to come off at the rate of about 5-6 pounds a month. What became a challenge, however was that as my first book became published, I was traveling all the time. In one year I made seven trips, including three round-trips to the East Coast, and one trip to Europe. Traveling is a profound challenge to anyone seeking to lose weight, but I did not give up.

As the weight came off, my daughter insisted that we go clothes shopping. In this year, I have gone from a size 1X or really extra large, to fitting into size 8 petite jeans. Starting in March of 2009, my daughter and I went clothes shopping at Nordstrom’s. We bought size 12 and 14 clothes and they were really tight, but she insisted I wear them. She also insisted that I stop wearing pants with elastic tops. Now that may not seem like a big deal, but when you wear pants with zipped and buttoned fasteners, you cannot fudge. They either fit, or they don’t.

I had to stop wearing loose fitting clothes that hid my body. So the message was that I had to stop hiding my body. I began wearing clothes that really fit. Emotionally, I had to change my image of myself and that change took a year to accomplish.

Along the way, I had several makeovers, but finally, I realized that I had to have a more youthful haircut and I had to really learn how to put on makeup that looked youthful and professional. I also had to spend the money on myself.

So, to take weight off, I had to look inside myself and agree to change. I had to start to see myself as a thin person. I had to decide that the old me was chunky and that the new me was very chic and that under the chunk, was a really terrific body. I bought two size 8 bathing suits and wore them. When you have avoided using a swimming pool because of how you look in a bathing suit, it is its own miracle to put on a size 8 bathing suit and have your husband say 'WOW.'

But that wasn’t all, I had to change other things too, to be discussed in the final chapter, part 3.

KS&L 320 The Image Element in Weight Loss - a Personal Story Part 1

Normally, I write the Karmic Savings and Loan in third person, keeping myself detached from the personal side of the metaphysics that I discuss. However, for this discussion, I am making it personal, because weight loss is an extremely personal endeavor and this discussion is a bit intimate precisely because it is extremely personal to me.

On October 9, 2008, at the height of five feet, one inch tall, I weighed roughly one hundred and eighty pounds. At the age of 58, I had fallen into the rut that many women and men my age fall into, that of focusing so much on family, friends, making a living, and the day to day requirements that so dramatically fill our lives, that I had forgotten about myself.

Weight creeps up on you. When I retired from the Navy in 1992, I weighed about 120 pounds. Once retired, I could shed the requirement to ‘fit into that khaki uniform’, and wear civilian clothes. So I did. Over the almost 18 years that I have been retired, the weight began to creep up on me. I tried taking it off here and there, but as you all know, life is what happens to you while you are working on other things. Life, situations get in the way, your figure, you, yourself, sometimes end up taking a back seat and that is what happened to me.

I also believe, that part of carrying excess weight, is carrying the emotional weight of what is going on in the lives of those around you. At some point, I had to decide that I just didn’t need to carry anyone else’s emotional weight. Frankly, I am not alone in believing that I wasn’t consciously aware that I was doing it. Now I am.

I was not happy with how I looked. I knew I needed to change, but I am so busy! There is always a crowd to cook for, travel to do, lunches to go to, a holiday or birthday to prepare for and oh, books to write and publish!

Over these many years, my daughter Jeanne Marie grew up into a long stemmed American beauty rose. Literally tall and slender, she has such a perfect figure that a burlap sack would look good on her. We are extremely close and so we go shopping together all the time. The clothes she tries on looked fantastic. She looks incredible. I found myself lamenting that everything looks good on her and that it is tough to go shopping and see this all the time. . . and, I said it out loud, and I said it more than once.

One day, Jeanne Marie got tired of hearing me say this and something important happened. She actually got mad at me. She challenged me to do something about my weight! We had a very frank discussion. She asked me why I didn’t exercise. I explained that I hate exercise. It is great for other people, but since I don’t sweat, never perspire, that exercise is extremely problematic for me. [I have heard that other people use the excuse that they sweat profusely and for this reason they hate exercise too.]

I told her that I did want to lose weight but that I had trouble keeping it off. I also had tried walking but had never seen any change in my weight. She said that she would be willing to be my coach if I wanted her to and she would help me. I decided that this was an offer I could not refuse. As another incentive, I had just gotten my first book published and I knew that I would eventually be making public appearances and I wanted to look better than I was looking at that moment.

So we embarked on a plan. In part 2, how we developed and executed the plan.

KS&L Chapter 323: Mothering

On Mother’s Day, there are lots of cards about Moms. You use that vehicle to let your Mom know how much you love her. On many levels, it is a day of remembrance. So what does it mean to be a mother? Just what is this concept of mothering?

Mothering is as universally unique as it is uniform. To mother, is to care. To ‘mother hen’ someone is to look after them, to make sure they are safe, fed and most of all loved. If you are the giver of this care, what does it feel like and why do so many people do it?

Some think mothering is hormonal because from the moment your child is placed in your arms, you rise to the occasion of your finest mothering. When you hear your child cry, you can feel that child’s neediness tugging at your body. Even in the moments when the sheer volume of care required for a newborn, tidal waves you, you still rise to the occasion of doing your best for this tiny human being.

The emotion that probably most astounds you is the love you feel for this child. When this semi-stranger comes home from the hospital, you have to get to know each other. Even though you may feel you know your child because you have carried him or her for nine months, once he or she has arrived, you still have to learn about each other.

The love you have for your child makes you want to be a better human being. The conscientious new Mom wants to do all the wonderful things her Mom did or wished her Mom had done. As this new Mom fights her fatigue, she discovers the meaning of sacrifice as she learns what it means to put her child before herself.

And this is when it happens: you fall in love with your child. It is not a romantic love, it is a classic love, a pure golden feeling of magnificent emotion that feels like it is going to burst forth from your very being, like a rose opening broadly, on a bright summer day. The energy of this love is so powerful, that it is often what carries you through the endless days of sleepless nights and the amazing years you spend with your child.

You find yourself eternally praying for the health and safety of this charming new person. The deep attachment a mother has for a child goes to the core of life itself. You know without question that you would sacrifice your life for your child. These are seldom feelings any mother will share with someone else: she just has them; they live within her. Love lights her way.

As the years pass, that love, never wanes. However, a critical attribute that can evolve from that love is the wisdom to inherently know what you can do and what you cannot do. You have to love a child so much that you have the strength of character to say no to this child when the situation demands it. You also gain the wisdom to understand the truth that sometimes, children have to experience life and cannot be shielded from the lessons that life is going to offer. That knowledge is what separates the wise mother from the controlling, dominating mother, and it is the treasure of that wisdom that makes that wise mother beloved no matter how old time says that she is.

The wise mother values every challenging experience her children have offered her, and at some point she forgives herself for the things she wishes she could have done differently.

Not all women mother in the way described above. Not all women are great Moms. However, for those of us who do feel this way, perhaps Mothers day is a day that we can say to our children, thank you for allowing me a front row seat as you take center stage of your own life. Thank you for being patient with me while I learned what you needed and how to guide you. Thank you for allowing me to be your Mom!

Happy Mother’s Day!

This KS&L is dedicated to my children, James, Jeanne Marie and Andrew.

KS&L 319 The Invisible Teenager Part 2

The interpretation of the dream this teenager had is relatively straightforward. She is feeling overwhelmed with the sadness she sees and feels all around her. The ‘symbolic’ teenager on the floor in her dream is literally invisible to family, friends, and teachers.

The teachers are overwhelmed with the sheer numbers of needy kids coming from classically dysfunctional homes. Many of them may have tried to help earlier in their careers, but they may have very quickly become burned out. For each one they tried to help, there were a thousand more. Some kids resisted them, not trusting that anyone really cared. A few kids tried and for those, a particular teacher here or there may have made a difference, but having a student for only three hours a week or so based on the type of school schedule they would have had, would never have been enough to get through to a troubled teen.

The teachers become battered by the ever-increasing requirements to do better, teach to tests, watch for signs of stress in kids. They have to deal with the classroom disrupters, the kids who are disrespectful toward every school assigned task and then there are the dangerous troublemakers. Teachers are human. They are at a point where they cannot hope to make up for the staggering lack of parenting these kids are experiencing in a couple of hours a week of class work. They are teaching math, English, history or PE, they are not guidance counselors or psychologists.

Often, teachers are struggling with their own difficulties, their own divorces, financial problems, or dysfunctional home lives. There is a limit and they reached it long, long ago. Many are even wondering why they are teaching. In self-defense, they had to detach from the difficulties they were/are seeing in their classrooms or else literally, go mad.

Parents of high school kids frequently find these are the ‘divorce years’, where parents reach that magical number of married years and then decide that they cannot stay married and a divorce ensues. Each parent then turns love in their households off and finds themselves full of anger, frustration and financial woe. Listening and helping their teenagers during this time is low on the list of priorities. Not all families do this but really, a staggering number do this.

Some parents have low self-esteem and if they don’t divorce their spouses, they seem to divorce their kids by constantly telling these young people how incompetent they are, worthless and stupid. Some call young, vulnerable teenage girls fat, ugly and stupid. They call their sons hopeless, good-for-nothing and incompetent. If they only perform verbal abuse on these kids, that is horrible enough, but a surprising number of parents are also physically abusive.

Some parents are emotionally absent. Perhaps they do not say negative things, but at the same time they long ago lost the ability to hear their kids. The standard line for a parent who cannot hear their kids is ‘You’re grounded!” Many parents never, ever have to ground their kids. The reason is that their kids are heard, there is a comfortable dialog and a sense of love and most of all mutual respect between parent and teenager. These are the parents who absolutely believe in the goodness of their teenage children and listen to them. Isn’t that a novel thought? Imagine ceasing the ‘busyness’ in your life and actually listening to your children.

Many emotionally deaf parents wake up to kids who have done inappropriate things, instantly judge [usually wrongly] the situation and apply punishment. At what point are they listening? Usually they never listen, and anger and resentment begin to seethe in their son or daughter and an ever-widening gulf appears. These are the kids dying to leave home, however they can.

So back to the dream, perhaps the most significant part of this young girl’s dream was that she had the dream at all. She is seeing and hearing these kids where no one else can. Her Aunt will be explaining the challenge of the karmic path of these children and why she must refrain from judging it. What this sensitive young girl can do is to provide love and assistance where she can and then learn to detach. Each person in the high school scenario is having an experience, a life opportunity to grow and change. How each one of them reacts will echo out for a long time. Sometimes all you can do is what you can and then detach without feeling guilty. Never allow yourself to emotionally drown with your friends and family.

To many, the answer above will seem inadequate, however, it is also realistic. Learn to help who you can, and then detach from the situation with a loving heart. Often, that is the entire reason for the experience.