trish hermanson
  • Home
  • BIO
  • FAQs
  • Book Club
  • Awards
  • Influences
  • Home
  • BIO
  • FAQs
  • Book Club
  • Awards
  • Influences

My Madhouse with a Mammogram

8/30/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture

     It’s smashing time, the annual ritual in which my twin orbs are pressed into pancakes and x-rayed, to be studied by a stranger.    
     And I’m a “call back,” one whose pictures weren’t “quite right,” so I’ve held my breath through another torturous compression. Now, I’m trapped in a waiting room. My choices here? To flip through a twenty-six-year-old magazine about houseplants (I’m not joking), or read an article about how supermodel Gisele Bündchen battled anxiety.
    
     Why would I be anxious?
    
     A cheery tech appears and announces the second shoot was “questionable.” I’m sent down the hall for an ultrasound where I’m introduced to a whirring machine named Unetixs. I wonder if this rhymes with “lunatics.” 
    
     Then I’m camped in another Hades waiting room. A Martha Stewart magazine from sixteen years ago tells me “100+ Ways to Get Festive” for Christmas - and it’s August.
    
     Am I going crazy?
    
     One wall of this room is painted green like overcooked peas, which matches my flap-open gown that I clutch to keep from exposing myself.
    
     Two hours have crawled by. I guess that’s why I’m called a “patient.”
    
     The doctor appears. He announces that my anomaly is my “new, best friend,” a water cyst. Nothing to worry about.
    
     I breathe again, dress, and walk out the automatic double doors, shaking my head. I know mammograms can save lives, but something about this process strikes me as inherently degrading, dehumanizing.
    
     So when I have the opportunity, how can I create an environment that showers sensitive dignity on others in their most vulnerable times?

2 Comments

Reaching for the Touch of God

8/23/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

     I was so overwhelmed when I saw this painting that I wanted to reach toward the touch of God as He reaches out to infuse life into Adam. At this traveling exhibit of works by Michelangelo, I learned a strange twist about this artist who is considered the greatest painter/sculptor of all time - he rarely signed his creations. Yet whether they are signed or not, they are of inestimable worth because they have the touch of the master on them.     
     Just as we have the touch of a master on us.
    
     Author Harold Myra dares us to imagine we were created by Michelangelo. “If we were statues sculpted by Michelangelo, with his mark on us, our value would be priceless. Yet one far greater than Michelangelo has made us.”
    
     We’re crafted by the finger of the Divine.
    
     Even with such value, we sometimes feel restless, Myra says. Why is that? It’s God’s signature on us as we yearn for the depths of his love, he says. “To authenticate the signature, to turn our longing into completion, we are invited to open ourselves to God so that he can fulfill his purpose in our lives.”
    
     How incredible. I’m not a random happenstance. I’m designer fashioned to live the adventure of a purposeful life.
    
​     That’s worth reaching out toward my creator.

0 Comments

Barbara's Trip from Woodstock to Woodstock

8/16/2019

1 Comment

 
Picture

     Fifty years ago she was one of those folks Joni Mitchell sang about - a child of God walking along a road that led to Woodstock. Seeds of goodwill from attending that music festival took root in Barbara Moore’s soul but lay dormant for years, squelched by life in the fast lane. Then Barbara asked what she really wanted. “To get back to the garden.”     
     She was shocked when she learned about the effects of hunger on children in America. They often perform poorly in school because they can’t concentrate. One boy told his principal he was hungry and “just couldn’t think.” Some receive free or reduced-cost school lunches, but on weekends, they may go hungry.
    
     Barbara went into action, and Jeffco Eats was born. Volunteers bag food that they transport to schools for students to carry home for the weekend. One boy reported that the can of beef stew he received made his headache vanish.
    
     It doesn’t always take an organization to meet needs. One woman I know watches out for kids on her block. A grandfather runs errands for his daughter so she doesn’t have to haul her preschoolers around.
    
     At times I’m overwhelmed by the world’s problems. But I heard someone say, “Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to stop praying only and to start doing.”
    
     Good advice. So I help transport food bags to fill hungry tummies. We’re transforming the idealism of Woodstock into the reality of foodstock.
    
     Because no kid should suffer from a headache because he hasn’t eaten.
       
     ***
     
This post from 2018 is updated here for the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock.

1 Comment

Donna's Surprising Takeaway from a 2,200-Mile Trek

8/8/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture

      Donna Nedde trekked five million steps and 2,200 miles and came home with a take away that surprised me.     
     She and her husband Tom Kinsella took five months conquering the Appalachian Trail from Maine to Georgia, a journey through fourteen states. This is like scaling Mt. Everest sixteen times.

     Donna, whom I met at the rec center, burned through three pairs of hiking boots and lost fifteen pounds, typical for hikers who consume five thousand calories daily just to maintain their weight on this expedition. When they arrived in a town every week or so, “I could personally eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia,” Donna says.     
     And what is her amazing take away?
    
     “How little we need to live.”
    
     They carried backpacks, a tent, stove, freeze-dried food, breakfast bars, granola, a water purifier, shorts and a shirt, long pants, phones they rarely turned on, a camera, a shovel and toilet paper, Tom’s Native American flute, “and my Kindle for reading at night,” Donna says.
  
     That’s it.
    
     What a contrast from what I observe around me - houses built smaller while storage lockers spring up. Catherine Alles from the Foundation for Economic Education reports that the average American home has 300,000 items. One out of four houses with two-car garages can’t fit a car in them because of all the stuff, she says.
    
     So Donna’s surprising message is not how to survive, but how to thrive: simply.
    
     Maybe that’s what we need to survive, too.
    
     And maybe it’s time to clean out my closets.

0 Comments

Getting a Fresh Coat of Paint

8/2/2019

2 Comments

 
Picture

     Even though my husband Duane says I get more paint on me than on the walls, I’m trying to rejuvenate our home with a fresh coat of paint. While I brush and roll, the memories flow as I listen to hours of rock classics: “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” - when Frank didn’t show up at my party. “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’ - when Larry and I broke up.     
     These were tragedies back then, but we all kept going because we were told “don’t let the sun catch you cryin.” And there was always someone to “help me if you can, I’m feelin’ down.”
    
     Life was simpler, with “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” It wasn’t until years later that any of us faced the tough things like debt, divorce, disease, death.
    
     My playlist rolls out “Mrs. Brown you’ve got a lovely daughter” while my body aches from rolling wide swatches of paint. Today, Herman’s Hermits would sing: “Mrs. Brown you’ve got a lovely walker.”
    
     My steps aren’t as lively anymore either. I used to stay up into the wee hours to “do the jerk.” If I tried that now, I’d end up singing a knock off of the Bee Gees: “How can you mend a broken hip?”
    
     My body is tattered, and so is my home. But the old house is getting rejuvenated, and I think that will put a spring back in my step, too.
    
​     Especially if I grab some “Afternoon Delight” today - a nap.

Picture
2 Comments
    Croutons...
    Chew on these seasoned bits of life for a little hope and humor along your highway.​
    Picture
    JOIN ME ~ I’ll send brief, occasional posts for this journey we're traveling on together.
    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    Holidays & Happenings
    Humor
    Inspiration
    Passages
    Social Issues
    Spirituality
    Wholeness

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017

    Picture
    Available on Amazon
    Picture

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly