Category Archives: Advice

ARE YOU NORMAL?

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Chances are if you don’t think you are, you really are.  It’s the people who think they ARE normal that are frankly, wacky.  For years, I have conducted my own completely, unscientific research and found the above to be quite true.  Check it out yourself.  Ask a group of friends and most will likely tell you they aren’t exactly, ‘normal.’  Then ask a few who  are clearly off the radar and see what they say.  It will blow your mind.

Recently, I chatted with a friend who’s a psychiatrist.  He said that working with diseases of the mind is infinitely more difficult than dealing with those of the body.  Why?  Because with diseases of the body, say diabetes or high cholesterol, people take action.  Their doctors say, ‘You must take insulin or your liver will shut down,’ or ‘You must take statins to lower your cholesterol or you could have a heart attack.’  But when he makes a diagnosis of say, ‘ADHD,’ and suggests medication, often the patient, ‘feels they are just fine,’ so sees no need to follow his advice.

“It’s criminal, really,” he confides.  “Because if I were an MD and my patient had a broken leg and I did NOT set it and put it in a cast, I could be sued.  But as a psychiatrist, if I say, ‘You are in a cyclical depression and need to take medication to help you get out of it,’ they can’t really feel or even see the urgency of the problem.  Their thinking gets in the way.  With the mind, the problem itself is the problem.”

He makes an extraordinary point.  We do not think of the mind in the same way that we do the body.  Even with expanding technologies from MRI’s to mapping neural connections, the brain is still a complex and hidden mystery.  If we bleed, we reach for a bandage.  If we feel the pain of a broken bone, we get an x-ray.  If there are gaps in our thinking–well– there are gaps in our thinking. 

Many people live their entire lives with mental illness and do absolutely nothing to help themselves.  How can they?  They think they’re fine.  We’re the crazy ones to them.  Albert Camus said that, “Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”  Guess that means it’s easy as pie to be out of your mind.

MAKE THEM SING!

Jean Stapleton and Helen Hudson, "They Said it With Music." (CBS, 1977)

Jean Stapleton and Helen Hudson, “They Said it With Music.” (CBS, 1977)

When someone I have known dies, my mind immediately shuffles back through the Roll-a-Dex of my memories to the last moment I remember with them.  Such was the case last night when I learned that Jean Stapleton was gone at age 90.  The cards shuffled and in an instant, there she was:  sitting at the piano singing, with me at her side, during the taping of a music special for CBS. 

 The year was 1977.  At the time I was quite in awe of her, not just because I knew her as Edith Bunker from, “All In The Family,” but because she had an absolutely, lovely voice.  Who knew?  Last night, while reading her obituary, I learned that her own mother had been an opera singer.  We shared many nice moments during those weeks, but what stayed with me most was her kind, almost quiet, frank naturalness, both with the cast and in performance.    

 I began to imagine all of the people whose lives, like mine, she touched in those 90 years.  What came to their minds when they realized that she was gone?  My guess is that like my own memory, it was some brief moment, some shared conversation or perhaps even a mere sighting.  Our lives, like our memories are fleeting and ephemeral. 

 We connect with each other mercurially as if we are there–but not quite–there.  Even a firm handshake leaves just a faint imprint with time.  A great song is often remembered only by a few, mere lines.  So, too, our own lives, are just a few notes on the page of life.  Makes them sing.  She did.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” available on Kindle and in paperback.

CLEAN UP YOUR ACT!

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Life is messy.  I don’t care how many times you clean the kitchen or how well.  It just gets messy.  Maybe it’s bread crumbs or a smear of jelly.  Maybe it’s grease and pasta splattered across the stove.  Maybe you made a smoothie and forgot to put the top on tight.  But face it:  mess happens.  It happens in our kitchens and it happens in our lives. 

 It’s how we deal with them that matters.  I shared an apartment once with a gal whose idea of cleaning was to sweep stuff into a corner of the room and leave it.  Never mind that opening a door blew it all back again.  She felt she had done her part.  Funny thing is some people don’t even SEE the mess.  Others run around plucking imaginary hairs from the sofa cushions.  The rest of us are somewhere in between.

 When I was a teenager, my grandma used to say that she could always tell when I was getting sick by the way my room looked.  “If your clothes start piling up on the chair, I know you’re coming down with something.”  At the time I really thought she had a screw loose but boy was I wrong.  Even today, I can tell when I’m coming down with something simply by looking at the kitchen:  If the dog food isn’t quite rolled shut or the dishes start piling up or the counters aren’t wiped down after dinner—I’m likely coming down with something.  Guess you could say you know how I’m doing with one, quick glance at my kitchen.

 Lately, I’ve decided to put a new ‘twist’ to this.  Figuring there’s no time like the present, I am making myself ‘go forward’ instead of just ‘staying even.’  That means today I am going to pay ALL the bills and file ALL that paperwork.  I figure that way, tomorrow I’ll be even healthier!!  Oh, and in case you get the bug, too, remember:  if your oven has baked on grease, don’t reach for the Windex!

P. S.  I am posting this blog as a not so gentle reminder, just in case I decide to deviate from the above intentions.  

BACK UP!

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As I deliver this bit of shocking news, I hope that you are not sitting down.  Frankly, you need to be standing at attention.  Here goes:  if you are over 40, only about 60% of you have even thought about getting old.  However, one third of you prefer, ‘not to think about aging at all.’  Now consider this:  If you are over 65, 70% of you will be needing long-term care either from a relative, home health aide, assisted living or a nursing home.

Great! Some of you may think to yourselves, “That gives me 25 more years to think about it.”  Fine.  Have it your way.  Stay in denial.  You won’t be alone.  If you’re like many, you’ll be botoxing, bleaching and bonding whatever it is about you that seems like it’s getting old.  If that doesn’t work, you’ll tighten and sew up the rest.  Trouble is, when you really DO get old, you’ll actually look older, if not kinda weird.

There is only one way to stay young:  stay involved.  Meet new people.  Take an interest in young people.  Take an interest in old people.  Plant a different kind of flower in the front hedge.  Teach your dog a new trick.  Read up on something different in the news and share it with a complete stranger.  Don’t just walk across the crosswalk, skip.  Ride your shopping cart if the lanes are clear.  Wave to that cop in your rear-view mirror.  Put on some music and dance while you make dinner.  Trust me NOBODY is watching.

Shake it up.  Nothing deadlier than a rut.  Once you’re in one, that tire just doesn’t want to move from the groove.  Recently, I started running backwards in the pool.  Figured if I’m gonna go back and forth and get nowhere, might as well do it backwards.  Get out the scrapbook and find that picture of you graduating from college.  Remember how you felt that day?  Life was ahead of you?  You were gonna make things happen?  Nothing could stop you?  Well what’s stopping you now?  

 

CAN’T STOP

Boston Marathon Finish Line.1910. Author: Unknown.

Boston Marathon Finish Line.1910. Author: Unknown. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I need to get this down before we get to the bottom of the Boston Marathon tragedy yesterday.  While media crews swarm and investigators forage for the perpetrators of this horror, I am making myself focus on that 78 year-old man who was running his 4th marathon.  You know, the one who was blown to the asphalt just yards from the finish line; the guy who emerged from the chaos with only a scraped knee?  How many guys do you know who are actually running marathons at his age?  Imagine the fortitude and will it takes to run mile after mile in a body that science has proven to be in decline.  Now that’s heart and it is just what we all need in a crisis like this.

Everyone has heart when they’re young, even if it’s just for romance.  Few seem capable of sustaining it, though, as the years pass.  One glance in the parlor of a nursing home is evidence of that; a dozen, blank-eyed faces with gaping mouths greet you as if someone just knocked the wind out of them.

There’s a bench on the way into my gym.  Almost every morning a 95 year-old woman is sitting on it, bent intently over a floor-length, knitted coverlet.  Oh, she’s not just staying warm under it.  She’s knitting it!  Her bony, arthritic hands move the needles over and under with the precision of a conductor’s baton.  She has done this so long she doesn’t even have to look at the work unfolding beneath her.  It’s a good thing, too.  Yesterday she told me she was almost completely blind.

‘What if you drop a stitch?” I ask. 

She just smiled.  “I can feel it.  So, I just pick it back up and keep going.  At my age, you know, you can’t stop.  You can’t stop or. . ..” 

That’s what the marathon man will do:  get back up and keep going.  And that’s also what the city of Boston will do.  There’s only one real finish line in life.  It’s unlikely that crowds will roar or flashbulbs pop when we finally cross it.  But till then stay in the race.  If someone knocks you down, keep your eyes on the one lifting you up and don’t stop.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.”

“LOVE ALL, TRUST A FEW”

William Shakespeare sure understood a thing or two about people.  In the 500 years since he wrote those words, we have not really changed all that much.  “Trust,” as Granny always said, “has to be earned.” And since it April 1st, a day which ‘fools’ us all, I am contemplating what that word really means.

 Recently, I had the opportunity to listen in on a group of 20 something women describing what love and relationships are like in the world of iPhones and all things Internet.  Some complained that they actually “don’t talk” to their boyfriends, but “text instead.”  Others said that they felt their ‘real life’ romances were a bit of a letdown considering what both parties see and experience online.

 But here was the kicker for me:  almost ALL of them confided that they either had their boyfriend’s passwords, or secretly looked at their phones and checked their computers when they weren’t around.  Granted, women have checked up on their men since the old, ‘lipstick on the collar’ days.  But it was one thing to wonder.  Now if you’re lucky, you can get a video of him inflagrante delicto, sent straight to your phone. 

 Jody Arias took naked, cell phone photos of her intended just before she stabbed him to death in the shower.  Even running her camera through the washing machine couldn’t erase the evidence.  She, too, had snooped around his computer and didn’t like who he was ‘friends’ with.  Yikes.  Once the mirror is cracked, you really can’t look at it the same again.   

 Which brings me to the real reason for this post.  Tomorrow is my 33rd anniversary.  Neither of us have bought the other a card yet, but we don’t need to.  We have something untouched by poetry, flowers, chocolate, diamonds or any trip you could take to anywhere:  trust.  In 33 years, I have never searched his pockets, listened in on his conversations, checked up on his whereabouts, looked through his computer or even opened up his phone.  Not once.  Not ever.

 Now I have loved and love many, many people in my life.  Some make me laugh.  Others make me think.  Most bring me joy and a joie de vivre for this amazing and ever-changing world.  But do I trust them all?  Well, I’m with Will on this one.  Happy Anniversary, my love.  Consider this your card.    

Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the years she and her husband cared for her grandmother with Alzheimer’s.Image

DON’T SIT THIS ONE OUT!

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No, he’s not my husband.  Five minutes before this photo was shot, I had never laid eyes on the man.  But let me explain.  It all began in 1968, as I was leaving for my first high school dance.  As I headed for the door, Granny called out:  “Now remember, Dear, dance with EVERY boy who asks you.”  Her feeling was that to ever say, “No, thank you,” would be crushing to a fellow who had worked his courage up to ask in the first place.  So, I did and in the years since, not only have I never ‘sat one out,’ I have even taken to doing the asking myself. 

 Such was the case last week as I shopped for produce at Whole Foods.  Somewhere between the flowers and the blueberries, music began to play; lovely, danceable music.  As I turned towards the musicians, I noticed an older gentleman standing off to the side keeping time with his foot.  I walked up and asked him to dance.  He said, “No, thank you.  I’m just here to listen to the band.” 

 Frankly, he took a bit of coaxing but within minutes we were moving to a song whose name I can’t remember.  By then, I had dropped my coat and shopping bag to the floor.  His shy smile began to beam as others stopped to watch us.  Emboldened, we began to widen our circle and grasped hands.  Neither of us had a clue as to what we were doing, nor did we follow any kind of actual step like the waltz or foxtrot.  We just danced, this complete stranger and I.  From the corner of my eye, shoppers stopped to smile, a grinning cashier paused at his register, and a little girl pointed us out to her mother in wonder. 

 Why does she ‘wonder’?  I ask myself.  Our brief lives should be filled with moments like these; times we simply drop what we are doing and move to the music.  Moments don’t just happen.  We make them come alive by risking and yes, dancing.  These moments become our memories.  If we don’t make them joyful, we are doomed to a bitter old age.  Besides, the music doesn’t play forever.  So, to Granny, ‘Thank you for that advice.’  And to Vernon, ‘Thank you for the dance!’

 Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes,” a memoir of the 13 years her ‘advice-giving’ Granny descended into Alzheimer’s.

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

 

DON’T BAT AN EYELASH!

Age Beholds BeautySeveral times in recent weeks, perfect strangers, when seeing me with my youngest daughter have said, “Gosh.  You look just alike!”  or, “Well I can sure tell that she’s your daughter!”  Funny thing is, until I saw this picture tonight, I almost believed them!  But a picture IS worth a thousand words. . . and as you can see for yourself:  we look NOTHING alike and that’s Okay.  She is lovely for 16 and I am lovely for one who parks in the, “For Seniors Only,” space.

Oh, I could nip and tuck this or that, slap on some makeup, color my hair; all things my girlfriends have sweetly suggested over the years.  But what person in their right mind would put fresh paint on a crumbling wall?  Just today, a woman 10 years younger than me said that she botoxes “like crazy,” and that, “along with Zoloft,” keeps her from being depressed.  But I’m not one whit depressed when I look in the mirror.  Not just because my eyesight isn’t as sharp as it used to be.  Frankly, I don’t really ‘look’ in that mirror the way I used to.  Instead of scrutinizing the shape of my eyebrows or how lush my lips look with that new lipstick, I now use it as a general assessment of, ‘Is there spinach in my teeth?” or, “I think it’s about time I trimmed my bangs.’

Youth hands you beauty without having to bat an eyelash.  Problem is, too many of us spend the rest of our lives trying to improve on it.  The money-mad, media, once found only in print or TV ads, now gnaws for our young girl’s attention from the intimacy of their cell phones!  Sadly, they pay attention.  But no cream, beauty product or laser treatment will ever make you any more beautiful over time.  That happens on the inside, where the real fountain of youth exists.  It’s that reservoir of love, memory,  acceptance, forgiveness, humility and humor which has poured into you slowly over the years.  

So a reminder to young, beautiful girls everywhere:  spend as much time doing good as looking good.  It’s cheaper than mascara and lasts forever  Meanwhile, I’ve decided to go out, “Just the way the Good Lord made me.”  Those were words my grandmother managed to use for almost every occasion.  Now there was a truly, beautiful woman.  Sorry, Lady Clairol.  You just can’t hold a candle to that! 

Hudson’s 2nd book, “Kissing Tomatoes,” will soon be out in print.  The Kindle edition is available on Amazon.

TOSS A COIN

I’m always on the lookout for pennies in the street.  Once I picked up several dollars along with some cigarette butts and candy wrappers at a drive-thru.  The young cashier actually thanked me for ‘cleaning the place up.’  She had no interest in retrieving those coins  from the mucky street.  None.  That’s the problem with the young; they forget that stuff adds up.  All of it.  Choice by choice, coin by coin, year by year, it just accumulates. 

Until one day you wake up and crazy as it sounds, you are actually sixty.  That would be:  Six Zero.  Take 10 six year-olds, tie them together and there you are. . .only not so cute anymore.  Of course by now, you have finally figured out that how you look is fairly irrelevant.  How you have lived is not.  You cannot help but pause and reflect, simply because there are thousands and thousands of days filled with choices you did and didn’t make to recall.

So, indulge me on my birthday as I share my 5-word philosophy:  life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want but you can only use it once.  Now some folks will hold onto that coin and consider their options carefully before they put it to prudent use.  Others will just stick it in their pocket for that proverbial rainy day, which everyone knows never comes.  Some will spend it right away and have nothing left.  But the saddest part?  Some will look at that coin smack in the face and declare it just ‘isn’t enough.’

 Funny thing is, they are both given to us and neither one lasts forever.  Extending time is like stretching your pennies. . . at some point there just isn’t anymore.  On that happy note, I am headed out to make THIS day, like ALL days as rich with life as I can.  

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/helenhudson2

 

 

TO KNOW, OR NOT TO KNOW; THAT IS THE ANSWER

Tiptoeing Through Knowledge

45 years ago, an American Airlines stewardess at La Guardia airport, ushered me on to a departing, cross-country flight for which I had no reservation, no ticket and no money.  She did not follow the rules or protocol despite the fact that I was clearly a minor.  Instead, she ran back into the plane, alerted the pilot, and cleared me a space in First Class.  Her decision to follow her instincts that night, instead of her training, may well have saved my life.

Even the yellow brick road to Oz was full of perils and so it is with us.  Follow the path of most anyone’s charmed existence long enough and it often leads to some sad side roads:  the train track scar behind the ears of that girl who looks “amazing for her age;” the obituary of a neighbor’s son who committed suicide or the sudden divorce of longtime friends.  You know the stories. 

But it does beg the question:  how much do we actually ‘know’ about the ‘real’ lives of our friends or even family members?  Our reality is often obscured by an amorphous haze.  We have hunches, feelings or instincts about things but we simply leave them at that.  Those twinges in our gut get pushed down into a box that we tiptoe around.  Every now and then, though, we get a jolt.  It’s like driving.  You don’t quite think about it until you hit something or someone crashes into you.  By then, of course, it’s too late.

Imagine the ‘jolts’ received by those who knew the 20 year-old who killed his mom, then a classroom full of children at Sandy Hook Elementary.  His parents and older brother ‘always knew’ he had mental issues, yet they didn’t let themselves ‘know’ the full reach of what he might be capable of.  It kept them from taking action sooner and now 26 people are dead and the lives of thousands more have been irrevocably changed.

 So today perhaps, try running with your hunches.  It will mean confronting the Great Unknown.  It might get messy or awkward or uncomfortable.  You may even be wrong.  Maybe, though, you will change the future course of events into something more positive than it might have been otherwise.  Have you really any greater purpose in living than that?  I wish I could thank that stewardess today.

Helen Hudson is the author of, “Kissing Tomatoes.”

http://www.amazon.com/Kissing-Tomatoes-ebook/dp/B007CMNJKW