What are your favorite animals?

Stone, Bear, Pepper, Midnight, Willow, Hazel and Peter. All pets that are not really mine, but kind of are because they belong to my people. The people I love most in the world, their pets are my favorite animals (because I KNOW them).

Stone was my first grand. I met him when my son picked G and I up from the airport one time many years ago. He was a rolly poly puppy who stole our hearts as we meandered through traffic. Was getting a puppy a good idea? Uh? Now? By the time we were dropped off and for every day after we were in love. Both G and I will agree, probably the whole family will agree, Stone was the best. Best. Dog. Ever.

Then one by one along came the others. Each with its own personality and drama and love to add to our lives.

I have so many stories. Stone and the skunk, Stone and the coyote pups, Pepper needing emergency surgery the morning the kids were set to leave on a trip. They dropped their kiddos off at school, her off at the vet and I later collected the three from after school activities and drove to the vet for one sweet post-op cat. Even the vet commented on her personality. Pepper purred and purred as she was being pushed into her carrying crate. Best surgery patient I’ve ever met, (humans included) A story for another time…

Here’s one about Bear and I.

Bear is the yellow lab who had to follow Stone. (the black lab puppy turned wonder dog). Stone was smart and beautiful and calm. He could win anyone over with his polite attitude, good looks and playful charm. Stone was a very hard act to follow.

Bear was cute. At first anyway, but he quickly grew out of cute and into ‘the chewer’. He chewed up EVERYTHING! Shoes, toys, delivery packages, sunglasses, plants, clothes, pens, walls, furniture… you name it, no matter how many dog toys or chew items we bought for him, nailed down or not, he ate it. The yard went from plush to baren And fast. They had to get him a special bowl so he wouldn’t eat his food in three seconds. He was dopey and pushy and jumpy. He had trouble receiving attention. Even the calmest pat would excite him so entirely that he became a biting jumping crazed monster. (I say this with love)

I’m the baby/pet sitter who never says no. (Did I mention these are my baby’s babies and that I love them?)

So here I was watching Pepper and Midnight, the nocturnal cats and three year old Bear who has calmed, but is still himself, for two very long weeks.At the end, my marriage was still intact, maybe loosely but we’re all fine now…

I had hurt my foot and was coming down with a cold and it was raining. Bear pulled hard on the leash when I walked him so I tried walking him up hill as much as possible. He struggled to settle at night and woke up long before dawn at my house, so I ended up at his house and alone due to all the non sleeping, rain and coughing.

On a particularly rainy stretch of days, I binge watched a dog training show that helped dogs and owners nix bad post lock down behaviors. The guy kept reminding the owners to portray ‘calm confidence’ which is my favorite term for being regulated. I started watching as a tired, sick and injured spectator. Then one morning, I looked at Bear and thought, we should try to ‘master the walk’ (apparently the hardest thing) Which we magically DID! I confess that I was part of the pulling, over excitable problem. Did you know dogs can feel how you are feeling through the leash?? And guess what? I learned to feel how he was feeling through the leash right back!

I learned that I can change my energy on purpose with intention, even in less than ideal conditions and in seconds!. I have that much power. We all do! I saw one person after another learn to communicate calm confidence to their dog. I learned how to teach Bear to respect my space. How to calm, how to not pull at all! Bear didn’t chew up a single thing and to this day he sits very still to have his leash attached and waits to be invited forward. I, who am more of a dog un trainer, then trainer, taught him. (animals in general tend to act like they know me, even when they don’t, it’s weird, sometimes they don’t act their best, it’s a thing from my childhood, Dogs and cats followed me home ALL the time. I can’t explain it) I bring out the worst in other people’s pets, so you can imagine how the grand pets act when they see me or my car or someone who looks like me.

Without treats, without commands Bear transformed. He became calmly confident.

Stone embodied calm confidence. I used to think confidence was something you were born with or were taught in childhood. Bear and I learned how to teach it to ourselves and encourage it from each other, even from the other dogs and people we passed.

I will never forget seeing calm confidence in action. Watching the transformations on the show and then in real life seemed pretty magical. Learning how to conjure up this state even when I wasn’t feeling it, still feels magical. Leading Bear into that state, looked impossible, but was easy and even fun! I went from dreading every walk, to adding extra walks and enjoying them!

Crazy, full on Christmas miracle?! Maybe..

I do love my favorite animals, they always have much to teach and give and add to my life.

Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?

What are your family’s top 3 favorite meals?

My family loves to eat. There are a lot of us so narrowing down three favorites is harder than it sounds. Add that we are fickle and change things up a lot, I can hardly speak for the whole group, but here goes my best jab at it.

1.Pasta with red sauce, meatballs, sausage, peppers and onions, ragu.., however you do it you can’t go wrong with a good red sauce

2.steak and potatoes, maybe a green salad, maybe potato salad, a simple vegetable

3.tacos.

If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?

Marc Chagall maybe… Janis Joplin? Jimmy Hendrix? I’ve heard a different version of this question before. If you could have dinner with three historical figures, who would you choose? I’d probably pick at least one comedian (do I know a clever funny historical comedian? Groucho Marx? then, maybe Einstein, maybe Frida Kahlo. Since it’s a whole dinner, I’d want good conversation and some laughs. But to just meet? There are a lot of interesting characters in history. Van Gogh, Churchill, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tolstoy, The Brontë sisters. Louisa May Alcott, Paul Cezanne, Franz Marc, Abraham Lincoln, Lewis and Clark, Henri Matisse….go ahead and pick just one

Do you trust your instincts?

I do.

If instincts and intuition are the same thing, then yes. If they are not, still yes and here’s why. I have spent a lifetime learning to listen to myself. I may have learned this lesson by not listening or not believing, but there were always those moments when I did. Every moment that I did what my heart or gut or instinct or intuition suggested, I learned something about who I was.

Was I always right? Yes and no. Ultimately I’m going to say yes.

Animals are equipped with instinct with no logic to talk them out of listening to it. They still get eaten. They can’t help migrating when the time is right, but lose herd members along the way. Fish do that circling thing, but their big swirling numbers attract big hungry predators.

My instincts and intuition have given me me. I have navigated twists and turns in ways that work the best for me. Has it always been comfortable? No. I used to spend time trying to figure out where I went wrong. This was an activity that did not serve me. The where-did -I -go-wrong game led me into avenues of thought that weren’t optimal. Having some good gut feelings kept me alive and moving and gave me an ally.

I like to think that that is why I have them. Everyone gets their own private navigational systems and uses their systems very independently and personally. As we pick our way along the paths of our life, we have these internal hunches and prompts. We get to decide when or if to follow, at least I think we do. It’s all us for us.

My instinct and intuition help me decide. If I only had logic and reason to help me, I would never have gone to Africa. I wouldn’t have had children and I absolutely would not have become an artist. My heart, my me ness gets to interject, when I follow, I get a life more of and for me.

I have learned to trust myself along the way. I have also learned to trust myself in hindsight. Is self trust instinct? Is it intuition? Or are these the tools for knowing or remembering ourself?

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

Interesting prompt question. What do I want people to remember about me when they walk away from a first meeting? Hmmm. Let’s see.

I like when I walk away from an encounter with another and think :that was fun! So maybe I would like to leave an impression of lightness. I want to leave the other feeling a comfortable and happy energy.

I just spent an afternoon and evening with four of my grandkids. All of them have their own way of leaving me feeling like that. Later I had some moments with my daughter in laws and son. (we were helping decorate some birthday cookies and cup cakes). In separate conversations we ended up laughing so hard we could hardly get words out.( it may have had to do with too much sugar and the late hour) but laughter and lightness leaves me walking away thinking :well that was fun!

It’s not always laughter. Two days ago my son was talking to me about AI. He had a little experiment in which he interviewed me using questions compiled by AI around the topic of my book and why I wrote it. When he mentioned that it would be recorded, I was less interested, but it turned into an interesting conversation and we were both like hey, that was fun!

My oldest grand daughter loves trivia. She likes being tested on it. She stops me every so often and says I could do this for hours so if you get bored we can stop. I laugh and say I love asking her questions that I can’t even answer! In between chatting with the group we keep up the questions. Down the elevator to the car, back to the game room, we keep the questions going (I’m reading them off an app.)

That was fun!

So that’s my answer. Im not a comedian, but I love laughter, I love light, I love some fun thinking conversation. I genuinely want others to walk away feeling a tiny bit (or much) happier. Seen, heard, and part of the fun!

What part of your routine do you always try to skip if you can?

I don’t TRY to skip any part, but if I’m side tracked or in a hurry, I might skip meditation. It happens

In fact, I just set my phone down and meditated, because this particular morning might get hectic.

Opening up 20 minutes might sound impossible, but like the hour I find for yoga or to work out, it is time that gives back, always.

That old should word again. I hear this, I ‘should’ do yoga, I ‘should’ meditate, people say it all the time. People also say, I should eat better when they see me eating something healthy, I used to feel guilty for making them feel guilty, but here’s what I’ve learned. Doing yoga, meditating , and eating healthy nourishing food are their own reward. They make me feel good. That’s why.

If I skip, I pay. I know this well

There was this movie called Amistad. The line that I will never forget is something like

“What is should ?! we have no word in our language for should, you either do something or you don’t do it.” This sounds amazing with an African accent (most things do actually)

But right there, that’s gold, because it’s true. You do it or you don’t do it. End of story Then it’s in the past. And who cares. Unless you suffer, but by then it’s too late. Luckily we get to try again

Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?

Hmm. No one memorable comes to mind… Jason Meraz?

One time I was with my friend Jill with Kfp at the peace headquarters in Washington DC. The kids were passing out kindness matters bracelets and we had paused to chat with someone on staff. A different staff person came up to us and said we needed to go right away to meet some important official.

Without thinking, Jill being Jill said simply that we felt that everyone was important. We finished our conversation and were escorted into the presence of I can’t even remember who.

It’s interesting hierarchy and humans.