Tag: life lessons

FraGEElay x 11

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 8 Comments

Over the years—ten previous ones, to be exact—I have written a Christmas Eve fraGEElay* post that reflects on life’s fragilities and how this season is a good time to take care of one another and be mindful of life’s precarious nature.

This year, I want to share a personal reality to help drive this point home.

When I was a kid, a rift in my extended family happened that resulted in my immediate family disconnecting from pretty much everyone else. We kids didn’t really understand or know why, but it happened, and we just had to deal with it. And so we did. For…decades.

My dad died when I was 21 and took his answers with him. My mom—well, that’s a whole other story—but she expected/demanded our loyalty and kept her answers to herself, as well—until she, too, died.

And in the wisdom that sometimes comes with age, my sister and brother and I decided that regardless of what those answers were, we needed to seek reconnection with those we missed out on for so many years.

In our seeking, we have met with family and learned that the origin of the issue was small and petty. And unless there is more to the story that we have yet to learn, this little incident stood—and hurt feelings built up until a wall divided loved ones—and way too many people died with that wall separating us from one another.

My family missed out on decades of relationships and memories with our extended family over a stupid spat. In fact, the people who were the ones with the issue have long since died.

The ripple effect of loss is far-reaching and life-changing. Such fragility.

But now we are working to move forward. We can’t make up for lost time, but we are striving to make new memories together.

But.

There is a plaque that hangs in my kitchen that says,

The clock of life is wound but once,
and no man has the power
to tell just when the hands will stop
at late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own,
Live, love, toil with a will,
Place no faith in “tomorrow,” for
The clock may then be still.

In November, we were fortunate to reconnect with our aunt and several cousins. It was so much fun, and we all were genuinely delighted to spend time together. None of us could even understand why we had fallen away from each other. We felt the love and warmth and knew it was the beginning of a new chapter.

We made plans for another gathering to spend more time with my aunt. To just be with her and listen to her stories. She was the last person from my parents’ generation who could still share memories with us, and I yearned to hear the stories of long ago.

A few days before our get together, my cousin reached out to postpone because a couple people in the family were sick, and she didn’t want her mom to get sick, too.

Eight days after we were supposed to get together, my aunt was gone.

People. Life is fragile.

Yesterday—on a day with ridiculously frigid temps and dangerous winds, not to mention the day before Christmas Eve—was my aunt’s visitation. The place was filled. This was a testament to who she was, as well as the family she raised. While a few minutes outside could result in frostbite, a few minutes inside, and you could feel the warmth and love.

The outpouring of that love was beautiful—but also a stark reminder of what my sister, brother, and I missed out on. Many people shared stories about sitting at my aunt’s table—of her feeding them, sharing stories and laughter…

Had it not been for choices made by people long ago to hang onto slights rather than talk them through, we would have been at that table, too.

And so, my friends, as you gather with family this Christmas and holiday season, remember that life is indeed fraGEElay, but conflicts—big or small—do not have to result in long-lasting brokenness.

If you are dealing with an issue where hurt feelings exist, please consider planting your feet in vulnerability and reaching out. While it does risk more hurt, it also offers the hope of fresh air, warm hearts, and a seat at the table that will leave you full of both delicious food—and love.

I wish you a peaceful, safe, and love-filled Christmas and New Year. Happy Holidays to all—and may we seek and find a way of being better to one another…in our homes, our communities, our nation, and our world.

*If you are unfamiliar with this reference, it comes from the beloved movie “A Christmas Story.” I can no longer see the word “fragile” and pronounce it in any way other than fraGEElay. That must be Italian.

Blank Canvases

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 10 Comments

I must admit that, though my mom died well over a year ago, I haven’t fully dealt with all of her belongings yet. I mean…my sister and I have gone through all that we are aware of, but there were times where certain things got the “to be dealt with more fully later” stamp. One group that got that stamp was all of her art supplies.

Many years ago, my mom shared how she wanted to paint…she felt that she might be decent at it. Given that one of my roles with her was lifelong cheerleader, I took that confession as an opportunity to facilitate that desire. Paints…brushes…an apropos French easel…she had her own personal kickstarter campaign.

Relatively early on in the whole process, she painted a lovely winter scene…and got a lot of positive reinforcement for her work. Everyone who saw it was impressed and complimented her. It should have been a great catalyst to continue exploring her creativity.

But while she did paint some…it was more accurate to describe her as someone who wanted to paint rather than a painter. “Are oils too much work? How about acrylics? Watercolor? Maybe pastels or charcoal?” I would bring home all different mediums for her to try, but many remained untouched. I tried hard to understand what was standing in her way.

She was.

Excuse after excuse would always pop up. “If I had that wall shelf installed, then I would be able to set things up like I want…” Shelf installed…no painting. “I just need better lighting…” Special easel light bought…no painting. Even an art class didn’t do more than help her complete the class project. No matter what obstacle was overcome, for the most part, the canvases remained blank.

“Mom…why aren’t you painting?” She never really answered the question. One day I asked her if the blank canvas made it too hard for her to begin? Was it too intimidating and asking for more than she thought she could do? Did she feel like each attempt had to be something “good”? Yes, she admitted. She was putting pressure on herself to do something good…and that pressure was resulting in doing nothing rather than just doing something.

I encouraged her to just…paint. Just put something on the canvas as practice with no pressure to have the outcome be anything at all. Just…paint.

I could empathize with her because I know the blank page of a writer can feel just as daunting. Just…write.

Ultimately and sadly, she let the blank canvases win. There was no amount of cheerleading or facilitating that could make her face whatever it was that kept her from moving from wanting to doing.

Later in her life I brought her coloring books so that she wouldn’t even have to think of the blank page and only choose the colors, but by that time she could no longer concentrate or keep her hand steady enough to stick with it for more than a few minutes. Her window of creativity was closed.

My mom’s choices in her efforts at painting are a metaphor for too many of her life choices, as well. She often chose the road of inertia rather than risk…and that meant she left a whole lot of life unlived that could have been so much more. Empty, missed opportunities instead of beautiful experiences of color and texture and joy. You may think I’m being hard in my assessment here, but trust me…I knew the woman. The metaphor fits.

This past weekend, I went through her art stuff. There were a small number of pieces that she had worked on over the years, but they were far outnumbered by blank canvases.

Stories that were never told.

And so I decided I’m not going to leave them blank.

Though writing is where I feel most at home, I am going to fill those damn canvases.

I don’t know with what or how, and I guarantee the results won’t be pretty…but at least they will indeed be.

The above photo includes all of my mom’s paintings—except for the winter scene that I mention as her initial try.

2020: If You Play Your Cards…Right?

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 2 Comments

*Please note: while this title may make you think this is a political post, it is SO not! This is my annual “word of the year” post…and I hope you enjoy it.

If you play your cards right, you’ll…fill in the blank. The dictionary defines this cliché as “to do things in an intelligent and well-planned way.” As in, “if you play your cards right, you’ll get the job,” or anything along those lines.

So where exactly am I going with my punny title for this year’s “word of the year” post? I’m glad you asked.

When the next year is over—2020—it will be hindsight. (Another pun! So silly.) And I don’t want to look back and see that I have yet again still not prioritized play in my life like it needs to be. My ToDo list looms large over every day…and it feels like a pass/fail test…where failure is the norm.

Truth be told, when I was a kid, my mom made my having fun difficult. If someone invited me to do something, it was always an issue. She never made it easy, and I think because of that, I was kind of trained to avoid causing any issues by downsizing my quest for fun. Her impact continued into my adulthood where, after my father’s death when I had just turned 21, she made me feel guilty for doing anything that didn’t include her. Because of this, the fun I had in my 20s (and more) often included my mom, so…yeah. I had fun, but it was rarely carefree.

This is not to say that I do not know how to have fun or that I do not have fun. I love to laugh and have a good time. But I don’t do well at 1) prioritizing/planning for it or 2) not feeling guilty about it.

I’ve spent a lot of years being responsible to a fault. And now my ability to play needs to be amped up.

For instance, this year’s winter break was exceptional—I had more unscheduled and unstructured time than I have had since I was a kid. But I didn’t even know what to do to make the most of it! My guys and I all had time off, and we just hung out. Now, this was great—but there was more hanging and less doing than what I had envisioned. Typically, I feel too tired…and too used to taking the easier path of not prioritizing fun.

It’s like after years of not working out consistently, my flabby muscles are tired and resistant and don’t want to commit to the initial push needed to get back in the game.

This is why my word for 2020 (if you haven’t already figured it out) is…PLAY.

Studies show that play is critical to a healthy life. People like Dr. Stuart Brown have researched just how critical play is in our lives.

Our culture has demonized leisure time as something that only “losers” have. One of my favorite (NOT) responses when I ask someone if they are, say—watching “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”—is “Oh…I wish I had time to watch TV…”

Sorry, but some of us really need to get over ourselves.

A healthy work ethic does not have to directly correlate to a lack of fun ethic. It should not be a badge of honor to be so consumed with the HaveTos of life that we simply can’t let ourselves relax and watch a little TV.

And, honestly, while I have gotten better at ignoring this stigma toward playtime, I just kind of suck at making it happen. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what I think would be fun.

I want this to improve in 2020.

Now at the age of 52, finally playing with a full deck (get it?! 😊), too much of my life IS hindsight. I look in my life’s rearview mirror and know that I should have made it a point to make more fun stops along the way. And it is up to me to do that on the road ahead.

Play shouldn’t be a guilty detour. It should be a part of the drive that makes the journey all the better. Perhaps even a fuel that keeps us going in the right direction.

So I’m hoping to play my cards right this year—both literally (I enjoy card games!) and figuratively. My aim is to infuse my life with more purposeful play and to believe that it is not only fun…but right.

What do you say…are you game?

2019 – A Time to Create

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 12 Comments


I didn’t intend on being one of those “word of the year” people. They can be annoying, can’t they? But dammit if another another new year has come and another new word to help guide the year’s goals has found me. It started a few years ago with ripples, and every year since a word comes to me that makes complete sense…as it does on the dawn of this new year.

For many reasons, I want 2019 to be a year to create like never before.

As a writer, I always strive to create, but I’m not just talking about words here (though they are a huge part of my goals for creating). No…I mean create in a much broader sense…

I’ve been “responsible” since as far back as I can remember. And while being a responsible person is a good thing overall in my book, when it is the primary thing it can be stifling to other parts of life. And as my responsibilities in life shift (with my mom’s passing and my son angling toward maturity), I want to rediscover—or maybe discover for the first time—aspects of life and embrace opportunities to create.

I want 2019 to be the beginning of a way of being. In too many ways I’ve been living a “dress rehearsal” existence, but 2018 has really reinforced for me that there is no such thing.

Now is the time.

A bottle of wine makes a good analogy for this. I love wine, but I don’t have a wine fridge or cellar—just a little ol’ wine rack. On that rack, I’ve kept some bottles of wine for years, thinking they would be used for special occasions.

Over a decade ago, I brought home a bottle of wine from a trip to Hawaii that my mom took us on for her 80th birthday. I held onto it for one of those special occasions. With my mom’s passing this year, Thanksgiving was our first holiday without her, so I thought it made sense to open that bottle of wine and make a remembrance toast to her. There was just one problem. After so many years of fluctuating temperatures on that wine rack, the wine had gone bad.

I waited so long for that “special occasion” that we lost our opportunity to enjoy it.

Waiting too long for life’s special occasions means letting the wine of life turn into vinegar.

Now is the time.

So yes, the CREATE of 2019 means DO the book that I’ve wanted to for so long.

But it also means…

ENGAGE in more experiences—including having more fun.

EXPERIENCE and SAVOR more of life’s sweet specifics (ala the Weissmans in Paris, if you watch “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”).

MAKE our home a soul space for my family and me. That means getting much needed projects going as well as simplifying/purging/minimizing to lighten both our physical and mental loads.

TRAVEL – Waiting for the “someday” doesn’t work. Doing does. There are too many places to see and already too little time to see them. Better to work on the list than just pine for that “someday.”

LEARN by making more time to read and discover. Creativity stagnates without a broadening horizon.

And, as all of this is mostly a reaffirmation of the obvious, there is the continuous goal to CREATE more opportunities for positive change…for hope to spark…for hearts to grow…for love to win.

I want 2019 to be a year for all of us that begins (or perhaps for you continues) the creation of a Glorious Unfolding…

It’s true, as Andy says in The Shawshank Redemption, that it’s up to us to “get busy living or get busy dying.”

In many ways, at least for me, creativity = life. And so, in 2019, I aim to create by rolling up my sleeves and getting busy living and doing.

It’s about time.

All photos are used with permission.

When You Know It’s Time to Say Goodbye

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 9 Comments

It was a mere two weeks ago that I shared that two of our three dogs were terminally ill and nearing the end of their days here on earth. I knew it was coming. I have for a long time. Continue reading “When You Know It’s Time to Say Goodbye” →