For several years in my late thirties and early forties, I was married to a distance runner. This guy’s life was largely structured around his trips to the gym and his runs. He’d run marathons, or course, but he’d also run ultra-marathons. The oldest ultra-marathon in the country happens in Western Maryland—The JFK 50 Miler—and my former spouse won it a half dozen times.

He might—justifiably—consider those wins the accomplishment of his lifetime.

In some ways, we could not have been more different. The longest race I’ve run is a 10k, and I’m not ashamed to say that I came in behind an 80-year-old machine by the name of Carl (who finished the JFK when it he ran it later that year).

By the time I married Marathon Man, my former spouse had been running for 35 years. He’d run through the upheavals of early adulthood, through graduate school, though marriage and the arrival of four children. He’d run through more graduate school, through cross-country moves, through a divorce, and into mid-life. One year, he ran the JKF, then the next week, turned around and ran Boston.

Mind you, this was before Nikes were invented, before gait analysis, before hydration studies or wicking athletic fabrics. This guy was, in his own words, “tough as nails.”

He ended up with a case of bronchitis after Boston that went on for weeks, and may have permanently weakened his lungs. Oh, he finished—I don’t know that he EVER dropped out of a race—but even his toughness hit its limit.

He’s still wicked fit, but that experience, of pushing and pushing and pushing until he darn near broke, taught him the meaning of an axiom every distance athlete eventually learns, “Rest is a part of conditioning.”

Rest is not optional. It isn’t just for when you’re sick or they’re repainting the weight room. Rest is not only for the lazy, it’s an integral part of reaching your greatest potential in any endeavor.

I’m still trying to get this one under my belt. I know when I’m rested, I’m MUCH more efficient, whether my task is writing, lawyering, bookkeeping (bleah!), riding my horse, or running errands. I also know EVERYTHING needs rest—bodies, flowerbeds, dreams, relationships, muscles, children, marriages, everything (maybe blogs too!).

I know this, and yet, I’m not adept at finding that rest, and enjoying it. Maybe it’s the potato famine haunting my genes, the anxiety of a single mom, the worry of an author fairly new to the publication game, but how and when to let go and rest is something I’m still learning about.

What do you need a rest from? How will you get it?

To one commenter, I’ll send a $25 Amazon gift card.

The title is a quote from qualitative researcher Dr. Brene Brown, Ph.D, a social worker whose area of interest is vulnerability and shame. At a recent writers’ workshop, somebody suggested I give a couple of Dr. Brown’s TED talks a listen, and if you want to do likewise you can find the first one here (The Power of Vulnerability), the second here (Listening to Shame). They’re short, well organized, and like all the TED talks, interesting.

So I gave ’em the old listen, and… they’ve been stuck in my mental and emotional buffer ever since. One of the concepts Dr. Brown brings up is the notion of being worthy of love. When someone is ashamed–not oops, guilty, because they owe somebody else an apology, but ashamed–they feel unworthy of love. Guilt is usually described as “I made a mistake,” and shame as “I AM a mistake.”

Painful stuff, and potentially crippling. Shame feeds that sense of unworthiness, until everything that goes wrong in your life is somehow your fault and your fate, and you barely want to stir beyond the narrow boundaries of familiar turf because all that awaits you is more humiliation and failure. Your life becomes an exercise in diminished expectations and pain management, even as you appear solvent, healthy, and in control of a nice future.

I am recently returned from two weeks in Scotland and week long writer’s workshop–I was out of the law office for THREE WEEKS, though arguably, at least half that time was spent doing author stuff. I had a terrific time, in Scotland and at the workshop. I met interesting people, saw wonderful sights, ate good food, and got a break from the tedium of my usual ruts.

At Glencoe, enduring the awful weather and the dreary scenery…

And yet, I was aware of having to remind myself; It’s OK to enjoy yourself! This journey to Scotland is something you’ve planned for months, scrimped for, and looked forward to. IT’S OK TO ENJOY YOURSELF.

Same with the writer’s workshop. My inclination was to hide in my hotel room, working, working, working on my current deadline (next year’s Scottish Victorian Christmas story), but criminy, Grace Burrowes: When else was I going to be able to hang out with other writers, shoot the writer breeze, and pee and moan about my work in progress? When I got home to my cats? Geesh.

So I took baby steps–had a drink before dinner one night, instigated some laughter at dinner another night. Asked somebody to take my picture at Glencoe so I’d have a tangible reminder: I was here in this happy place of my ancestors. I’ve posted pictures of ME on Facebook–in all my chubby, grey-haired, fashion-averse glory. I also let myself pout and sulk when it was time to come home, because this too, is part of permission to be worthy of happiness.

I have a long way to go, in terms of feeling worthy of all the joy that can be mine, but I’ve made a start. I’ve already planned another trip overseas next spring, where I will hang out with readers and writer buddies, have the occasional drink, and instigate some laughter at dinner.

What is the baby step you can take in the direction of granting yourself happiness?

To one commenter, I’ll send an advanced reader copy of “The MacGregor’s Lady,” the third story in the MacGregor Scottish Victorian series.

Among child welfare professionals, there’s a saying, “Neglect is harder to treat than abuse.” I’ve found those words as true as they are sad. When maltreatment takes the form of something bad that happens to a kid, we can tell that child, “This is wrong, it should NOT have happened. You were betrayed…”

But when the child was left home alone for too long, never made to feel safe, never provided regular meals, the result is… a mess. These kids are not sure what a grown up is for, because they have no frame of reference that says adults provide supervision and safety. Often, a badly neglected child can’t tell you she’s tired–she might be exhausted, but she’s never learned to hear or monitor the internal signals that say, “My body needs rest.”

In the same sense, such a kid might not be able to register “I’m hungry,” or even, “I’m full.” They’ll eat whatever’s on hand, and not stop until they’ve made themselves sick.

The good news is that most children can learn to listen to their body’s signals, to heed signs of fatigue, hunger, and satiety. They can gradually accept authority, provided that authority also provides safety, reasonable routine, and age-appropriate information. Better still, they can build on those skills to learn to accurately label the emotions they’re feeling, which is a skill many of us fail to master even as adults.

I usually think of myself as having little in common with child welfare clients–my childhood would be the envy of many–but I recall clearly when a friend said to me, “Nobody explained much to you as a kid, did they?” She asked me this, because I’m very much a doubting Thomasina. I will not take you word for much, unless I’ve established that I can trust you, and that you’re competent, knowledgeable and have good intentions toward me. I figure stuff out for myself, thank you very much.

And my friend was right. I am the sixth out of seven children, and neither of my parents had time to explain to me why the alphabet has 26 letters, why some are vowels and some consonants. Why do we call it small talk? Just exactly how does one tie a shoe?

Like those foster kids, I had no clue there were parents who regarded it as part of their job to ‘splain things. Never occurred to me such parents might exist, and that’s not entirely bad. I have learned much because I don’t take other people’s knowledge at face value.

But it’s not entirely good, either. Explaining life to a child is part of a parent’s job description, and unless I twigged to the deficit in my own upbringing, I was at risk for perpetuating the deficit in my daughter. I’m glad my friend was perceptive about my upbringing.

These gaps in our interpersonal vocabulary are hard to spot, but once you realize you’re on the receiving end of a cause-and-effect that wasn’t ideal (like my parents being too busy to explain things), repairing the damage is a form of coming home. I use this dynamic in my books a lot–the hero is often the first person to put together for the heroine why she functions (over functions) or hurts or is afraid in a particular way. She does the same for him, and more important, each does it for the other in a way that can be heard.

“Why” you are the way you are can lead to coming home to yourself. Who helped you find a path home?

I won’t be able to respond much to comments until later today, but I will respond–promise. To one commenter, I’ll send a signed ARC of Lady’s Jenny’s Christmas Portrait. (Already!)

I hadn’t been representing foster children long before a wise social work supervisor passed along this gem: “In the helping professions, without good supervision and good self-care, you can easily come to resemble the population you treat.” I pondered that, and came up with case after case where…

The social worker seldom returned phone calls, turned in shoddy and late paperwork, had excuses for everything, had to leave promptly at 4:30 p.m. to get to happy hour no matter how many clients they’d blown off that day and otherwise engaged in shaming, blaming, minimizing and denial when it came time to figure out why the case was going nowhere.

Those social workers and therapists (and LAWYERS) are by far in the minority, but they’re out there. They’ve come to resemble many of the parents whose children end up in foster care, and even some of the children themselves–they’re not pulling their share of the load, they take no responsibility, their talk sounds like “victim” talk.

Imagine you’re fourteen years old, you have mental health issues, the state has kindly taken you out of a situation where you’re not getting any help and stashed you in a “group home” (ORPHANAGE), with other kids as troubled as you are. The staff at that group home may be well meaning, but also overworked, underqualified and underpaid; moreover, they’re dealing with clients who are brilliant at creating drama. Meanwhile, your parents and your case worker are both playing the “blame the (traumatized) kid” game to the exclusion of helping the kid. What do you do?

This is part of the reason these children get a lawyer. They call me–even in four point restraints they have a right to call me–and after they’ve vented and brought me up to speed on the issues of the day, they all get this suggestion: WRITE IT DOWN. Write down every time they leave a message for me, the social worker, the social worker’s supervisor, their therapist, anybody whose job it is to help with the case.

Write down when and why their parents don’t show up for visits, when the social worker/attorney/counselor blows off a visit with short notice or no notice.

In other words, take one leaf from the social worker’s handbook–document EVERYTHING–and, more importantly, let everybody know you’re doing it. There’s a difference between a teenager leaving this message, “This is Joey. Call me back…” And a teenager leaving this message, “This is Joey Smith. My case notes show I’ve called you four times in the past two weeks, and your supervisor twice, to discuss changing schools….”

The written word assures the child that they’re not crazy–six unreturned phone calls (not counting my three calls to the same folks) to people paid to help the situation is rotten social work–and that’s a significant pattern when it comes time for court. But simply writing down what’s going on also radically increases the chances the case will move in a positive direction. Such is the mightiness of the pen, even when wielded by a disempowered child.

How do you “speak truth to power,” and hold somebody’s feet to the fire when they’re not pulling their share of the load? Why is it so hard for us to do this?

To one commenter, I’ll send a $25 Amazon gift card.

After nearly two months of travel, I’m home, and in some ways, I’m having an “It’s a Wonderful Life” experience. I am so happy to be back in my funky little farmhouse, it feels like on one level, I’m back in my life because of where I am. Ten things I love about being home:

1) My pets are with me. They have an emotional impact on me that’s hard to describe. I need them for grounding is the best way I can put it.

2) I can raid the yard for flowers whenever I please. This week’s special is hydrangeas.

3) I can wear summer writing clothes (nightie and flip flops) ALL DAY LONG.

4) I can work on my books ALL DAY LONG (some days).

5) Nobody eats my Ghiradelli dark chocolate squares when I’m not looking.

6) Nobody comes trundling around at 1 am and says, “Are you still up?”

7) I can pop into town and meet friends for brekkie, lunch or dinner–or all three if I feel like it.

8) When I walk outside in my bare feet, I’m in cool, green grass right off my porch–and nobody has to water the lawn, ever.

9) I get to sleep in my own bed (with my personal sleeping kitty, Chloe Upstairs).

10) There are no lines to park between in my driveway, and no neighbor will come around asking if I know who owns that truck with the Maryland tags (seriously).

I could go on and on… The wild raspberries, the peace and quiet, the full moon rising over the ridge behind the house, the yard-visit with the neighbors when I take Sarge for a walk after dinner, the deer browsing the edges of the hay fields, the sound of the breeze swaying through the maples as night falls…

I love not only my life, but my life in this place.

What do you love about where you live? What do you think you’d miss most if you had to leave it?

To one commenter, I’ll send an audio version of “The Bridegroom Wore Plaid.”

From the moment an author dips a toe into the waters of professional aspiration, he or she will hear about the need to plan a writing career. We’re supposed to Set Publication Goals/Write Them Down/Display Them in a Prominent Location, Develop a Business Plan, Develop a Marketing Strategy, BUDGET Our Publications Expenditures, Set Word Count Goals, Improve Our Craft, Be Accountable to a Critique Group…

Huh? And here I thought we were supposed Write Good Books.

I’m not much of one for planning on paper, but being around my parents has made me realize that I am a strategizer. Maybe this comes from being a single mom, maybe it’s part of every introvert’s tool kit for protecting her privacy, maybe it’s genetic, but part of me is usually engaged in figuring out what needs to be done now, what needs to be done by dinner time, and what the most efficient path is through those wickets.

In my elderly parents’ situation, I cannot plan much beyond the next twelve hours, and this is… bewildering. Dad might have a sleepless night, which means I won’t get as much rest either. Mom might wake up with another urinary tract infection, which means civilization will stop all progress until I make another trip to the pharmacy.

And yes, this is how many people (parents of small children in particular) live for years, but with the elders, the stakes go way up. On any given day, they can end up back in the hospital—or die. They can fall and break a hip, forget the name of their best friend, or stop hearing well enough to answer the phone.

My friend’s advice from a few weeks ago—look for the Zen moments, the small explosions of joy and beauty—makes more sense to me now. More than at any other time of life, all my parents can count on is the moment.

It’s all any of us can count on, but my parents’ awareness of that reality is like that of soldiers in a war zone. Every flower may be the last one they smell, every cat the last one they pet. Every opportunity to apologize, the last one they’re granted.

My dad is losing ground on several fronts, but one thing he says frequently to my mother is, “I love you, Mama-dear.” And she replies, “I love you, too, Stuey.”

THOSE are sentiments to get a couple through any wicket. They will do as last words, most important words, most frequent words, and only words.

What are the words you want to have when everything else is gone? The words you can keep and the words you can give when it’s down to moments and memories?

To one commenter, I’ll send an audio copy “Laura Kinsale’s “Flowers from the Storm,” a story about a couple that found love when words were few and hard won.

As all and sundry probably know, I’m in elder care mode this month. Dad is 92, Mom 89, and they are valiant, uncomplaining people, who–somewhere along the way–learned to enjoy being waited on. Then too, each has bouts of confusion, each has physical frailties, and to put a cherry on top of this sundae of challenges, Dad has lost the ability to sleep through the night.

I’m fried. Later this month, another sibling will rotate into the on-site care provider slot, and then another, but my hitch has been emotionally challenging–these are the people who’ve always been there for me, and now they’re…. sometimes not there are all. And it has been physically challenging–I’ve been at the emergency room at 5 am, up and down all night, and responsible for stepping and fetching to the drug store what seems like daily. Also managing the housework, the meals, and other mundane tasks that my mom alternately tries to “help” with, or outright sabotages.

The difference between the present situation and caring for small children is two-fold. First, we can’t look forward to that proud, difficult and happy day when the kindergarten bus comes by, and competence in the big world starts easing our responsibility closer and closer to self-sufficiency. This situation can go on for another ten years, and the trajectory is toward ever increasing need and grief.

Second, when a parent is out and about with small children in tow, we see the situation plainly from 50 yards away. “Parenting in progress–either help or stand clear.” Nobody in the grocery store knows I’m so tired and anxious, that trying to park my truck in their stupid little urban So-Cal parking slots is inspiring me to bad words. I’ve coped with situations in the past few weeks that have honestly horrified me, and there’s more of same in store for me and my loved ones. This doesn’t show, and there’s nobody smiling at me sympathetically at the playground or in the produce section.

A good friend put it this way: When it’s family, you have no choice, but you can look for the Zen moments–the flowers, the puppies, the new babies who beam a smile right at YOU, your favorite oldie coming on the radio as you’re struggling to find a parking space you can fit your truck into.

At the gourmet carry out, the nice guy threw in a half dozen scrumptious chocolate chip cookies for free. The home health nurse verified Dad’s vital signs, and then asked, “But how are you?” When the CNA started and ended her shift, she hugged Mom, and I could practically see Mom glowing as a result.

We’ll get through this, one moment at time.

What are some of your moments? Times when the kindness of strangers, the benevolence of the universe, the perceptiveness of friends and loved ones lit a candle for you when you thought you were plumb out of matches?

To one commenter, I’ll send an audio version of “The Bridegroom Wore Plaid.”

I’m watching my 92-year-old dad adjust to a diagnosis of congestive heart failure (he’s not too concerned), and while I want to focus on how to keep Dad comfortable and functional, an equally important question is how he managed to last so long and end up in such good shape.

Stuey Burrowes is a cerebral sort, a bench scientist with a lifelong fascination for how the living cell goes about its business. I came along when he was nearly forty, and on my watch, he was never a vigorous athlete, though he and Mom took many after dinner walks, and push-mowing an acre of grass is not to be sneezed at. He never “worked out,” and he did smoke for thirty-some years. He’s fond of alcohol, caffeine, and dairy products, and though I never saw my father drunk, I’m not sure he was particularly sober at certain points either.

Dad has stratospheric levels of cholesterol (he doesn’t worry about that either, and hasn’t for decades), but excellent blood pressure and a tendency to salt his food first and ask questions later. He loves good chocolate, and he’s deucedly skinny.

Good genes are part of the explanation for why somebody who never focused on optimizing his health is outliving practically all of his contemporaries, but I think another part of the explanation lies in Dad’s career path.

From very young adulthood, Stu was encouraged to pursue his interest in science. He was wonderfully mentored, and his wife (a mere girl of 89 years) did not begrudge him periodic bouts of preoccupation even at the dinner table, long hours at the lab, and fairly frequent travel.

In short, Dad could, to a significant extent, follow his bliss. He got to do what he wanted to do, and was still doing it to some extent clear up into his 80s. When he’d “talk science,” he’d put me mind of a little kid. Put two young children together who’ve never met each other, and for the most part, they’ll be flying dragons, sailing their pirate ships, and blowing up the Death Star within minutes.

That’s Dad, but his toys were the relationship between testosterone and red cell count anemia (there is one), and the flavor altering qualities of light on dairy protein. Dad was passionate about his science, and frequently and enthusiastically reinforced for indulging that passion by the decade.

I want writing romance novels to do for me what I believe science has done for my father. I also want to know what in this life—if anything—turns you into that kid who will play flying dragons for days, or the girl who will sword fight her shadow until her biceps are burning.

Or what do you think your passion would be, if you had the chance to pursue it?

To one commenter, I’ll send a $15 Amazon gift card.