{"id":3378,"date":"2015-08-18T12:56:34","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T19:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/?p=3378"},"modified":"2015-11-07T11:01:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T19:01:47","slug":"august-18-2015-coming-home-to-sweetness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/august-18-2015-coming-home-to-sweetness\/","title":{"rendered":"August 18, 2015 – Coming home to sweetness"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n \n \"Fb-Button\"\n <\/a>\n <\/div>
<\/fb:like><\/div><\/div>
\"My<\/a>

My painting on the deck in Tahoe – on my morning of joy.<\/p><\/div>\n

Listen to this post:<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/20159818-Post.m4a<\/a><\/audio>\n

One of my childhood friends was Jeanine, and her dad played John Denver\u2019s music a lot<\/em>. I\u2019m remembering being in their high-ceilinged living room hearing all those songs \u2013 Sunshine on my Shoulders<\/em>, Thank God I\u2019m a Country Boy<\/em>, Rocky Mountain High<\/em>. My mom and dad weren\u2019t into his music. The popular music they listened to was Simon and Garfunkel, Carly Simon, The Beatles\u2019 Abbey Road \u2013 and my dad really liked Donna Summer! Isn\u2019t it remarkable how the music we listen to when we are young, holds a place that new music can\u2019t reach? It\u2019s \u201cour\u201d music. I\u2019m thankful to my friend\u2019s dad for making John Denver part of my<\/em> music.<\/p>\n

There are songs that when I hear them, bring me right back to where I was and what was happening in my life. John Denver\u2019s Take me Home Country Roads<\/em> is one of them. It brings me to a few places. The earliest is the summer the song came out. I was swimming and jumping off the high-dive \u2013 with Jeannine \u2013 at the pool at the College of Marin athletic center, where her dad was a teacher. Paul Revere and the Raiders\u2019 Cherokee Nation<\/em> was also played that summer at the pool. Another time was 1984, I was with my college boyfriend, my brother Joe and his then girlfriend Kim, on a bus on the island of Brac in Croatia. We were going from the village Su Petar (St. Peter), where we got off the ferry, to Selca, the village where our grandparents were born and married. There we were, on this old bus, in our Vuarnet sunglasses and Swatch watches \u2013 with many women dressed all in black \u2013 and crates of live chickens<\/em>. The PA on the bus was playing, Take me Home, Country Roads<\/em>. I\u2019m pretty certain we were the only four on the bus who understood the words!<\/p>\n

\"Top:<\/a>

Top: Joe and me in 1984 with two of our Croatian relatives.
Bottom: me in 1996, with the village of Selca in the distance.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then, more than a decade later, in 1996 while I was living my half-year in Paris, I was in the Loire Valley in France. It was mid-August, and I\u2019d taken a solo long-weekend to visit the castles that I did a report on when I was taking French in college. I\u2019d been on a late afternoon hot air balloon ride that ended just at sunset, followed by a dinner with a Belgian\/Danish couple, about my age, I\u2019d met on the balloon. As I was driving myself back to the Chambre d\u2019Hote (the French term for B&B) where I was staying, it was dark \u2013 no street lights along these tiny roads. I\u2019d had a glass of wine with dinner, and I was all by myself. I would have been anxious and frightened in my recent past – at the end of my first marriage, when panic attacks were the order of the day. Yet, I was not one bit<\/em> fearful. I knew exactly where I was going. It was a warm evening and I had the sunroof open, and the windows down in my little rental car. Nothing but starlight all around me. I was 5,500 miles away from everyone who loves me, all alone in another country \u2013 and I was peaceful and content. I felt completely safe and whole, and was right<\/em> where I belonged. In that moment, it was just me and God \u2013 and it was perfect<\/em>. If anyone I\u2019d known had been there with me, this experience would not have been possible. I\u2019ll never forget how incredible moment felt in my body. In retrospect, I see that this was why I needed to go to France, at that point in my life. And<\/em>, as I was driving along, playing on the local radio station was,\u00a0Take me Home Country Roads<\/em>. \u201cAlmost heaven, West Virginia\u2026\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Me,<\/a>

Me, in 1996 in front of the Chateau Chambord in the Loire Valley the day after.<\/p><\/div>\n

When we were just in Tahoe, one morning early in the vacation, I was painting and listening to John Denver in my ear buds. Sweet Surrender<\/em> was the song. I found myself almost giddy with joy \u2013 I was SO happy. Happy for the morning sunlight, happy to be painting these vibrant colors, just happy to be happy<\/em>. And the song was a big part of my buoyant mood. For whatever reason, this kicked off a curiosity about John Denver and his life. I read some online \u2013 there were tabloid-esque references to his troubled personal life, and I read his music being called saccharine. I just finished listening to an abridged version of his autobiography \u2013 \u201cTake Me Home\u201d – narrated by him. He wrote and spoke his story, not long before he died (at 53). He did the EST training early on, and worked to understand himself and life. His story revealed that he had a perspective on his shadow side \u2013 he even poked a bit of fun at himself. He was human and flawed, and also was immensely talented and creative and<\/em> deeply thoughtful. \u00a0He cared a lot about what I care about \u2013 our Earth-home, and that people are touched by what he created. Saccharine or not, his music has<\/em> touched millions and millions of us.<\/p>\n

This has me thinking about sweetness. I\u2019ve been called \u201csweet\u201d a lot in my life. And I\u2019ve been teased about it. A college roommate called me \u201cCorny Cara.\u201d Sweet, sentimental and sensitive \u2013 it\u2019s felt like a bad thing. Then there\u2019s that term saccharine<\/em>. What makes something good-sweet or overly-sweet-saccharine? For one thing, it\u2019s completely<\/em> subjective. Some of us naturally live, centered in our hearts, in our emotions. For those of us, sweetness is the water we swim in. But for those who don\u2019t, their tolerance for emotionality is much lower. These are the people we get the eye-rolls from. And besides all of this, if sweetness is expressed through a consciousness, that can also hold and experience suffering, loss and pain, it\u2019s an entirely different sweetness. There is a maturity to it \u2013 an expression of joy, without denying that there is bitterness too. Bittersweet \u2013 like the best chocolate!<\/p>\n

I love the scene at the end of \u201cSteel Magnolias,\u201d<\/a> after the funeral when M\u2019Lynne (Sally Fields) loses it in her grief that she could \u201cjog all the way to Texas,\u201d but Shelby (Julia Roberts) \u2013 her diabetic daughter who just died – never could. And then Claree (Olympia Dukakis) pushes Ouiser (Shirley McLain), offering her for M\u2019Lynne to beat on, to take out her grief and anger. It\u2019s completely heart breaking and then hysterically funny. As much as it\u2019s unthinkable to joke about a mother losing her daughter, the heavy emotion all on its own is too much. Laughing through tears is good medicine.<\/p>\n

I cannot imagine a world without sweetness. I\u2019d whither and implode in despair. I keep coming back, over and over to balance, we need it all \u2013 us all. What I bring is like Truvvy – the Dolly Parton character in Steel Magnolias, kind-hearted and warm, with my own brand of folksy wisdom. I\u2019m pretty much over feeling the need to apologize for being sweet – in a world that gives a lot of attention to snarkiness and sarcasm. And, like John Denver, it\u2019s good for me to poke fun at my inclination to be so serious<\/em> and literal at times. The people in my life I most want to be with, are those who are really at home in their own skin, who have come to own and accept their foibles and their gifts. Their genuine self-acceptance brings an ease and \u2013 yes, a sweetness \u2013 that is the invitation to have more of it myself. Take me home, country roads — to the home that is me<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

Cara<\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to this post: One of my childhood friends was Jeanine, and her dad played John Denver\u2019s music a lot. I\u2019m remembering being in their high-ceilinged living room hearing all those songs \u2013 Sunshine on my Shoulders, Thank God I\u2019m a Country Boy, Rocky Mountain High. My mom and dad weren\u2019t into his music. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAugust 18, 2015 - Coming home to sweetness - Life in Full Color<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lifeinfullcolor.com\/dev\/life-stories\/august-18-2015-coming-home-to-sweetness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"August 18, 2015 - Coming home to sweetness - Life in Full Color\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Listen to this post: One of my childhood friends was Jeanine, and her dad played John Denver\u2019s music a lot. 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