Posts in Self-care
On Shaky Ground (Advice For Fellow Catastrophizers)

I was editing the podcast when the first earthquake happened. Meagan and I had just finished up an Independence Day recording session (#summerworkingmomlife). I thought the dog had jumped up and landed on the bed where I was sitting, but when I looked up from my computer he was lying still, staring back at me (he probably though I’d rocked the bed!). From where I live near the coast in Orange County, about 170 miles south of Ridgecrest, CA, where the 6.4M quake originated, it was just a hint of a tremor, about what you feel when a big truck lumbers by your house.

Bryan had the kids at a 4th of July carnival and they didn’t feel it at all. After obsessively refreshing the Los Angeles Times Twitter feed for about an hour, I was able to ditch the earthquake-related jitters and get back to celebrating the 4th. We even watched fireworks from Bryan’s office on the 10th floor of a building in Newport Beach and I didn’t give our venue choice a passing thought.

When the 7.1M struck the same region around 8:20 Friday evening, Bryan and I were on the couch watching The West Wing (we’re re-watching the whole series). The older two kids were in their rooms, awake and reading; Violet was already asleep. When the rolling tremors stopped we went upstairs to talk to the kids. They knew what had happened, seemed more surprised than anxious, and didn’t appear fazed.

After the second, larger quake I had a much harder time moving through the stages of comprehension and anxiety–the ones that start with “Holy Cow, the EARTH is moving” and move on through “Wow, that was an earthquake” and “Whoa, what if that had been bigger? Would we have been prepared?”, finally landing on “Okay, we’re safe, it was centered pretty far from here, and everyone’s okay.” Instead of progressing through these mental states like I had the previous morning, on Friday night I got stuck. Stuck refreshing Twitter. Stuck clicking on sensational headlines. And stuck in the What if stage.

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Anxiety, Marriage, Family, Mindfulness, Self-careK.C. CliffordSarah Powers
Vinyl First Date

My father is a bluegrass musician. He founded a band in the early ’70s called Mountain Smoke. They are notable for several reasons, but the most widely known is Mountain Smoke was Vince Gill’s first band. They opened for Kiss and have had wild things happen, like playing on the White House lawn for several presidents, being written about by Billboard, and most recently, they were featured and had a song licensed in Ken Burns’ 8-part documentary series, Country Music. By the late ’70s, my Dad had left the band behind for the world of business. But music was in his blood, and in so much of how he raised me. Decades later, he would reunite with the band and his love of playing. They still perform today.

My dad set music aside and went on to be a very successful businessman. He took deep pride in providing for his family, and he worked and travelled a whole lot of the time. Although we have since repaired the wound of his absence, the truth is he missed many of the little moments in my childhood. One of the most crystallized memories I have as a young girl follows here.My dad has a huge vintage vinyl record collection. He isn’t just a musician, he is a true music lover. Among his collection, he owns a 45 record for every hit single from the years 1955 t0 1965, and many, many more. He once ran into our burning house to rescue the records and his vintage guitars from certain destruction.

On the rare nights I remember him being home at my bedtime, if I played my cards right I’d get to go down to his study in my pajamas, hair still wet from my requisite bath. Dad would play records for me, I would dance and we’d sing along. It was the freest I ever saw him—no stress, no weight of the world, no anger—just his love of music.

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Family, Self-care, Grief, MusicK.C. CliffordK.C. Clifford
Unplugging

Is it hard for you to unplug? Can you stop the spinning of your life long enough to be still? When is the last time you put down your to-do list and walked away without guilt or that all too familiar undercurrent of anxiety?

I’m unplugging this week. Looking my kids in the faces for as long as they want to look back. Having spontaneous dance parties and adventures that don’t have a time limit because we’re not rushing to the next thing on our calendar or list. This is real work for me these days.

As a working mom, I straddle the worlds of business and personal all day long, jumping from one planet to the other- not so much with ease, but I have obtained a wee bit of agility in the last seven years. It’s a kind of flexibility, really. We see just how far we can stretch ourselves. What are we made of, really? Sometimes I know I’ve gone too far when I snap. That’s a problem I’m still solving as I go. I learn to adjust the more I learn where my capacities end.

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Guilt, Mindfulness, Family, Self-care, Radical KindnessK.C. CliffordK.C. Clifford