Blog Archives - trish hermanson

My Madhouse with a Mammogram

8/30/2019

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?

Reaching for the Touch of God

8/23/2019

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.

Barbara's Trip from Woodstock to Woodstock

8/16/2019

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.

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

8/8/2019

Donna Nedde trekked five million steps and 2,200 miles and came away with a message 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 truly live: simply.
     Maybe that’s what we need to survive, too.
     And maybe it’s time to clean out my closets.

Getting a Fresh Coat of Paint

8/2/2019

My husband Duane says I get more paint on me than on the walls, but I’m trying to rejuvenate our home with a fresh coat of paint. And how the memories flow as I listen for hours to 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 that song: “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 stumble through 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.