Life or Something Like It

Like everyone my greatest influences are probably from my original family unit.
In some ways I have felt very lucky in my life. My parents really loved each other. They were both in the Army when they met. My father was a wounded soldier and my mother was a nurse.
They met at the Officer's Club and my Dad was smitten at first sight...so they got married a month, a week, and a day after that evening. As my Dad had major nerve damage from his wounds, he stayed in the Army for the medical care and made a career of it. I was born in Japan, and we kept moving, always moving, for the demands of his career.

I once made a list of all the places I have lived, and not even counting the temporary moves of 6 weeks or less when my Dad went to yet another training and brought us along, and there over 50 moves on the list! Of course some of them are from after I married a Navy man and moved again and again too. I am very good at packing and moving!

So I got to travel a lot: to Europe where I lived in France and Germany and my parents took us all over for vacations, and in the Far East where I lived in the Philippines and travelled to many countries in Asia and the South Pacific. My parents had major wanderlust and passed it on to me. I have kept on travelling all my life and am not done. I still have a long list of destinations!

One of my goals for the next few years is that I want to take my 3 children and their partners on a cruise and to Italy. Maybe I'll do both, as in a Mediterranean cruise stopping in Italy....

But all that moving was sometimes very hard on us. I went to 3 schools in one year sometimes! Some places I was very popular, and in some others I was not...Talk about feeling thrown around in a washtub...

On the balance, there was much more good than bad. I learned to speak French fluently by age 7. I got to see the world and meet all kinds of people and experience all kinds of exotic food and customs. Not to mention the beautiful trinkets I managed to pick up: furniture, art, all kinds of household things are from foreign countries I got to visit.

I think when you're always wandering and moving, you have to rely on family more than ever; they are your only real constant. With all the moving we stayed connected to our extended families by visiting every year and when I was older, my parents let me go stay with my grandparents for extended summer vacations, which was wonderful.

Since we only saw family for the 3 months of summer, we never had any strife with ours. Those were all good times!

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Tokyo, Japan
Takoma,Washington
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Chanute, Kansas
Parsons, Kansas
La Rochelle, France
Frankfurt, Germany
Fort Benning, Georgia
San Antonio, Texas
Austin, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
Bartlett, Tennessee
Olongapo, Philippines
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Manitou Springs, Colorado
Henderson, Nevada
San Diego, California
Orange, California
San Clemente, California
Monterey, California
Garden Grove, California
Lake Forest, California
Canyon Country, California

In addition to the constant moving, our family had another difficulty to deal with: my closest sibling, Penny, was born retarded, actually autistic, in the same way that Dustin Hoffman was in "Rain Man". I cried buckets when I saw that movie. Lots of memories came floating to the surface.

She could play the piano like a dream, but was not able to grasp simple concepts very easily, and was often in her own world. Since she was only 13 months younger than I, we always shared a room, and I was often saddled with the responsibility for her care. My parents, to their credit, did not want to institutionalize her, so we did our best to give her the care she needed. But society can be cruel. We were often the butt of jokes, and could not figure out why. She was a perfect sweet child in our minds, just slow.

Some families would not allow their children to play with us when they found out about her. It might "rub off" is the only explanation we were ever given. But she was extremely sweet and we called her the "Pied Piper" because all children adored her. When I went away to college I missed her terribly.

She died when she was only 28, a victim of breast cancer, and I still cry at the mention of her name.

My poor Mom had 5 kids, one of them a "special needs" child and a husband who had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or as they called it back then, Battle Fatigue.

That was another downside of Army living that was not really talked about when I was growing up. I used to wake up to a screaming father warning us to run for cover. He could not help it; he was having flashback nightmares. This went on for years until the doctors who were treating him gave him Valium. Not every night, just often enough and random enough to leave us all anxious. After the valium he was much calmer, but can you imagine the stress for us kids? We had no idea what was going on and in a way we were victims of the wars he fought too.

Because he was a victim. My father faught under Patton in Europe and MacArthur in Japan as an infantry soldier and had 23 purple hearts and countless other medals to show for it, including 2 bronze stars and a silver star.

But he never recovered from his battles completely, and once the wars are over, the Army pretty much throws you away. I don't think it is any different now than it was then. We used to say, "If the military had wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one." There was no consideration for us, just whatever the Army wanted and/or needed. But Dad needed special care, and so did my sister, so he stayed until he retired at 39.

After that I got to stay in one High School for 4 years. Finally a home!

Going back to San Antonio was wonderful. I had lived there before and knew I would see some of my old friends. And that turned out to be true...because lots of our fathers were getting out of the Army and retiring in San Antonio for the world class hospital care. So my last 4 years were spent in San Antonio, Texas and there were many Military Brats in my school so we all had a pretty nice time and lots of us went on to the University of Texas in Austin and all lived close together and even in the same dorms. I never had to move again unless I wanted to....

But old habits die hard, and I ended up moving again and again...for all kinds of reasons, the best one being just for the adventure of it sometimes!

France
Germany
Belgium
Spain
Italy
Monaco
Switzerland
Portugal
Japan
Philippines
Taiwan
Hong Kong (when it was still Independent)
Thailand
Vietnam
Canada
Mexico

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My mother was the consumate Army wife, and having been in the Army herself, she understood and never complained. She was a wonder woman! Before she met my father she was already a registered nurse and a private pilot, at the age of 21! I think that says a lot about her because in those days there were very few female pilots. She was also relentlessly curious and read voraciously. She instilled the love of reading in us at a very early age, and I remember teaching my little sister Mary to read at age 4 so she would be quiet at the library and let me read!

Mom was always volunteering for committees and always busy. I don't know to this day how she did all that she did. We always had a garden, home cooked meals from scratch, clothes that she sewed, sweaters she knitted or crocheted, and vacations that she planned to a tee....both of my parents believed vacations were a necessary educational experience...and we went away at least once a month.

My mom loved nature, so that's the kind of vacation we took, and to this day, my favorite vacations are in nature places, so I did a lens on some of my favorites: "Natural Wonder".

Another great influence my parents had on me was the love of music. My Mom loved classical music, so I was raised on Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchikowsky. Later I joined the choir and finally learned about popular music, and eventually my Dad started waking us all up with Nat King Cole instead of an alarm clock. I remember us all screaming, "Turn it off, Dad!" and him laughing his head off.
To this day music is one of my favorite things in life and I always have the radio or a cd on. I am slowly adding music lenses to my lensography... "A Few of My Favorite Lenses". My 2 sons and my brother are all musicians, so it runs deep in our DNA I guess.

Probably the greatest influence they had was on my spiritual life. My mother had converted to Catholicism before she met my father, and she got him to agree to raise us Catholic. We went all over Europe to various shrines, and I went to church almost daily most of my life, even though I did not always go to Catholic schools. But curiously, they both gave us complete freedom when we were older to choose our faith for ourselves. All of our relatives were Methodist and Masons and had a long tradition of service to the community, so I had a larger view than just my Catholic upbringing. In addition, I was allowed to go to other churches and read anything I wanted about other religions. My grandfather did not exactly love the idea that his daughter(my mother) had converted and encouraged me to study other ideas before deciding on a faith...so that is what I did. I studied all the major religions of the world in High School and College just for fun. After a while I had so many philosophy classes that it was my minor just by default. To this day, I am fascinated by the study of religion and would still rather read a book about spirituality than a novel. I listed some of my favorite Spiritual lenses on my "A Few of My Favorite Lenses" site here on Squidoo.

After all that study I made a decision and in 1981 I was baptised in Unity Church in Bartlett, Tn. It was serendipitous that I found Unity. I had decided that Catholicism did not fit my idea of religion any more and friends suggested that I check out the Unitarian Church. I was looking in the phone book for one and saw an ad for Unity. Thinking it might be the same church, I packed up the kids the next Sunday morning and off we went. The minute I walked in I knew that this was my home. The peace and light in that room flooded my soul like nothing I'd ever experienced before, not at Chartre cathedral, not in any of the Eastern temples, not in Rome at the Vatican, nowhere else. I devoured all the writings of the Unity movement, and was hooked. It amuses me that all of my siblings chose different churches. Wiccan, Southern Baptist, Unity, not a Catholic among us now.

One of the most fascinating aspects of this study to me was the prevalence in all religions of spirits known as Angels. I have had many encounters with angels all my life, and I made a lens about them: "Angelica." I also have a blog by the same name and am writing a book about them. My wonderful husband is an artist and he is painting all the images. I am really excited to get it published.

Besides my family of origin, the other great influences of my life are my own children. I always thought I would be their teacher and their friend, but they have actually been my teachers! My oldest is a boy, now a man, and he was ADD before the term was bandied about like it is today. In fact, no one talked about it at all when I was trying to figure out why he was having trouble at school. I went to the library and did research on my own to find out about it. There was literature available, but it was not well known and teachers and doctors alike gave me quizical stares when I brought it up. I even had teachers suggesting I needed parenting classes.

Since I had 2 "normal" children, I knew I was not the appalling parent they thought I was and kept fighting for his rights. He now says I am the only thing that saved his self esteem. ADD kids have a hard time in our school system. It's mostly set up for visual learners and not all kids are visual learners. I turned my story of my adventures with him into a lens. I am thankful he was so musically inclined and it was something he excelled in, so that probably saved him. He definitely taught me to be more patient!

My daughter came next, and she was a darling sweet girl and the best sister a brother could ever have. My youngest was a boy and he came along only 21 months after her, so they were more like twins. She was never jealous at all; in fact she acted like he was given to her as a gift. They were always close and are still, even though she is in Texas and he is here with me. They have all the same friends and many of the same interests and have been a complete joy in my life.

Because of their love of musical theatre I met a whole new group of friends and learned all about many playrights and plays. Because they loved animals I got to experience all kinds of pets. Because they love adventure travel I got to go on more vacations. Because children see things through different eyes I changed my mind about a lot of things. Because they want to spend time with me, I learned to slow down and enjoy the moment now before it slips away. Because they love to try new foods, I learned to cook better. Because they had allergies I learned all about vitamins and health foods and herbs...and even became a certified herbalist. It's been a long and winding adventure, and I hope it is far from over!

Between them and my husband and my dogs, I feel truly blessed.

I can't leave out another great influence in my life, and that is my wonderful husband. Richard, Rich, Rick Burns...it depends on when you met him. His birth certificate says Richard Laurence Burns and his family called him Rick. But on some team or other there was already a Rick so he became Rich.

He's Rich to me.

Rich is a runner holding several National Titles for many years in the Masters Running Club. Right now he's injured which seems to happen a lot to runners (duh, pounding the ground over and over seems likely to produce injury to me-but not to runners) but he got 4 USA Records(First Place) this past year, and a World Record in the 1Mile race, for those 55+. That's Fastest in the World!
I tell him he can quit now since he's held records all his life,but he won't hear of it, just keeps on working out...Yes, he's a total jock.

But he's also a talented artist and I did a lens about his great artwork called Beautiful Art From Richard Burns. His work has been published for quite a few years by Applejack Art. They license it out to Wild Wings Art, Leanin' Tree, and other venues. So if you have ever been to a card shop you have most likely seen his art somewhere. He has an incredible eye for detail which shows in his art. I am so blessed to have it hanging around my house!

I could go on and on, but Rich is humble and wants me to be brief. So I'll just say that he is extremely kind, and really funny! (and gorgeous) He keeps me laughing!

When I first wrote this page, I had not been on Squidoo for very long and it was a biography up until Squidoo. Since the time I wrote it, things have become chaotic again: it seems to be my karma. The more I wrote and created art for Squidoo and RocketMom projects, the more I realized that it is much more fun than Real Estate so I have moved away from that theater. We still invest. But now I am concentrating on art and writing.

So besides Squidoo, I started creating on Zazzle after hearing about it from other RocketMoms. And I started writing on other sites like Ezine Articles. Eventually I was asked to write content for some internet marketers that you might even have heard of, but I won't name any names per my contract with them.

So now I am a Zazzle artist and a writer, pretty much full time: I have to thank Squidoo and RocketMoms for helping me find my new career. And for having such a wonderful community that brings out the inner writer in all of us.

Photo is a Keychain I designed at Zazzle. Phrase is copyrighted.

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