When I entered menopause at age 42, I noticed my sleeping patterns beginning to change.  Like everyone else, at first I fought it and tried all sorts of things to keep me asleep for my previous 6-8 hours at a stretch.  If you listen to the tv ads, that’s what’s “normal” and menopause was “interrupting” that natural cycle. I typically have 3-4 hours sleep in a row and then it’s feet on the floor and back to the office.   A recreational sleeper I’m not.    Then I thought, wait, menopause itself is a natural cycle and if I just go with it, instead of fighting it, let me see what my sleeping patterns morph into.  I’m lucky in that I work for myself and can make my own hours, so I began what would be a decade long experiment to find my own natural sleeping pattern.   Continue reading →

I remember growing up in Hialeah, FL. We lived in a Cuban neighborhood where even the Stop signs said ALTO.  There were 2 water coolers in the Kwik Chek grocery, one for “white”, one for “colored”. My brother and I used to sneak drinks out of the colored one thinking we might start turning brown.  My mom was olive skinned with long black hair and looked very Cuban.  I look just like her except I’m a very beige and blonde version.   There was a big discrimination against the Cubans back then and everyone assumed my mom was Cuban, especially where we lived.  I remember once in the car, we pulled up to a stoplight and the car ahead of us has a bumper sticker that said “Honk if you love Jesus.”  Well, we love Jesus so Mom honks her horn.  The woman in the car flips her the bird and shouts out the window: “F*cking spics can’t wait for the light to change.”  My poor mom was mortified.   Continue reading →

Half the people I know are in the process of writing a book that they feel is being channeled through them. Each wants someone else to promote it for them.  We are all vibing in the same place.  We have come forth in a “cluster” as Abraham-Hicks calls it, to find ourselves in a powerful group of people who have truly amazing and inspiring stories to tell.  Maybe 90% of them wait and hope that someone else will discover their brilliance and promote them, so that all they have to do is show up and tell their story.  Wouldn’t that be nice?   That’s not how it works, though.  And they may stay at that stage for 20-30 years before they realize Hey, it’s my story.  Maybe I was just meant to write it for myself, because the writing of it will teach me so many lessons along the way.  That’s what experience taught me. My experience is that when the chanelling starts to flow and we think “Omigosh I HAVE to get this information out there!” that is just the Universe giving us the body chemicals for inspiration, dangling the carrot before us, at a time when we’re still programmed to think that some fame and recognition would be kind of cool.  So the first 10-20 years I thought I was writing for the whole world, then realized it was to help me change me and learn what I needed to know to become who I am now, and keep me on the path to who I can be.   Continue reading →

On 8-8-08,    I emailed Garrison Keillor:   “Hello, I love love love your wit and the courage to speak it.  I have listened for decades.  The most memorable show?  Father’s Day 1987, the “last” show.  I would so miss your company every weekend.  It was the end of an era in more ways than one for me.  You see I began driving home from Miami as the show started, having just left my father’s bedside where I signed for him to be taken off life support.  His wife didn’t want to sign without me, so I signed and within minutes he had passed.  I drove the 3 hours north along highway AIA, the ocean drive, and caught the show on various public radio stations all along the way up.  It was memorable indeed.  Thanks for all you do, I’ve been a fan from the first time I heard your show.”