I have to continuously work on my listening skills. I hear my husband say time and time again…”be a listener”. I have no idea where he obtained his listening skills, but the man is a solid listener. Now, in truth, he has “man-eyes” and can never find anything in the pantry or refrigerator. And for all I know perhaps that deficit contributes to the strength of his other senses. Unlike my dad, I have never had to ask him to pick up anything, or to complete any chores around the house. Once told, it’s done. Sometimes he will do it before being asked and it’s always done right. You need not worry about future reminders.

Listening is an asset that has served him well. He assesses financial and credit worthiness and is better at it than anyone I have ever known. He is well known for his skills in this area, and he will tell you it is because he is a listener. He will recall other details besides your portfolio. If you share things about your home life, family or pets he will recall them and he will remember all the details. He will more than likely ask you about them on your next visit. He has been told on more than one occasion that his voice is comforting and people often return time and again for his services.

Listening does not come natural to me at all. Once I recognized how incredibly gifted my husband is at it, I recognized my deficiencies and set about to work on them. Because it does not come natural, I remind myself to listen especially when meeting someone new. My natural instinct is to set about evaluating, profiling etc. Not for any other reason than that is how my brain is mapped. Once observing the power of listening though, I set about to do better. I am an easy listener with friends and family, but I work much harder now on my listening skills for everyone else. Everyone has so many stories. We can be enriched by getting to know as many people as possible. If you set about to clear your head of everything, and connect your eyes and listen, you will be so surprised at how much people want to share. Let them talk, and prepare no answers. In fact, if you are somewhat like me, then as an exercise do not allow yourself to answer because sometimes (again I reference myself) we set about our minds to take the first 2 or 3 sentences and begin working on our replies. I say this as I was a failed listener! I work every day at being better, and the rewards have been phenomenal.

Daily writing prompt

Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

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My husband takes the number one spot of most influential teacher. He has taught me the power of positivity, the importance of acknowledging every person that steps into. your presence, the joy of music, the importance of understanding the people who hurt you, but most of all, the importance of being a listener.

Showing me the power of positivity was his first step of revealing himself to be the man I would eventually fall in love with. It was so simple. He asked me what I wanted in my career and after listening to everything I put forward, he asked me what would be the first step toward accomplishing everything I just shared. As I spoke, he turned my paragraph into a three word sentence and told me to write it on a post it note, and put it in the area of my office that I would look at first thing in the morning. He told me that the moment that it came true, I had to reevaluate my next step, and rewrite a new note, with my next objective. When I began writing these notes to myself I was the lowest secretary in the office. I rose to be a Regional Vice President, the number 2 person in the region of the company. I had a great salary, bonuses, expense accounts, etc. All owing to post-it notes that reaffirmed my objective every single day.

I have a dozen or so stories to tell about my husband, the man who makes my life a storybook adventure. Our family, our travels, etc. As lovely as all of that sounds, his best gift to me was to teach me how to be a listener.

Being a listener was the hardest. I didn’t have a lot of self esteem when we first met, so my listening skills were not at the top of my thoughts or objectives. Did I look okay? Was I smart enough? I was organizing conversations in my head striving to sound impressive, there was no room in my brain to listen.

Always my cheerleader, he chipped away at my low self esteem until I learned self acceptance, which quietly took care of my other insecurities. The listening part took somewhat longer. While I am not at his level, I have improved ten-fold. It was part of the post it note progress too.

He is my most influential teacher, and he teaches me still today…when I let him. I still have a stubborn streak, but I am glad I was smart enough to love him and accept his love in return.

Daily writing prompt

What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?

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There are a plethora of self help books to engage us on how to strategize the negative. A lot of this is highly personal. What works for me may not for you. When I go into my dark “hole”, it is usually my husband who notices first. He’s a boomer, an early boomer in fact. On occasion he will offer up sound advice and other times he will wax on poetically about the importance of staying positive.

Truthfully, when you are deep into the negative, nobody wants to hear that advice. In fact, it will sometimes have the opposite effect and if I am really down deep, I can affect a change in Mr. Happy (to which I can honestly say I have NEVER been proud of that outcome).

When I am at my darkest, I need to remove myself from everyone. My words sting, and I really dislike that I can cut deep with my insults.

Now that my children are grown and gone from the nest, one of my bedrooms has been turned into my sanctuary. I call it The Grotto. It is filled with religious items, mostly Our Blessed Mother. The walls are painted a warm blue, the sofa (also is a sofa bed as we live in Florida and always have winter company) is a lovely off white. There are also pictures of my favorite places in Italy. It’s where I sit right now. It’s hard to remain negative here, but if I am struggling, I pray.

I also have cried, and yelled and prayed again, as many times over as I need. In The Grotto, I hurt no one else.

The Grotto. That is my strategy.

I loved that tune from the musical “Annie”. Despite the fact that movies were anywhere from 10 cents to 25 cents when I was young, I couldn’t afford to go much.

It was okay though, because television was actually a good source of my favorite movies – the black and white classics. Unmercifully cut up for the benefit of the advertisers, it was still magical.

Cary Grant and Merle Oberon were my favorite actors. Followed by (in no particular order):

Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Bette Davis, Claudette Colbert, Laurence Olivier and so, so many more.

It seems unfair that I named them because there must be 50 or 100 more who graciously entertained me through my childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and now in my senior years.

How odd it is to look at your favorite stars as a child, and now as an older person, they are still as young and beautiful as ever.

At the height of my middle years, we build a movie theater in our home. 120 inch screen, flanked by beautiful blue velvet curtains, trimmed in gold. Sconces on the walls, with posters of our favorite movies – Roman Holiday, The Godfather. Reclining seats in matching blue leather and sound systems that you could feel to your core. It was truly amazing! We enjoyed many movies in that theater. It was an odd addition for a middle income neighborhood, but I instilled my love of movies into my entire family so it was a true investment.

The movies that I have watched most often (I separated the holiday ones) are as follows:

Under the Tuscan Sun

Charade

Gone With the Wind

All About Eve

Now Voyager

The Birds

Nights of Cabiria

The African Queen

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Topper

His Girl Friday

To Catch a Thief

An Affair to Remember

Houseboat

Tea & Sympathy

Auntie Mame (Rosalind Russell version)

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Desk Set

The Sound of Music

The King & I

Gaslight

Rear Window

The Picture of Dorian Gray

That Hamilton Woman

Sabrina

South Pacific

Summertime

The Women

And about 100 more, and I didn’t even include some of my new movie favorites (well I did include Under The Tuscan Sun because I am certain I watched it no less than 50 times.

The newer movies I love: Sideways, Steel Magnolias, Joy Luck Club, All of the Star Trek Movies (original series, next gen and the alternate universe); Michael, Meet Joe Black, Memoirs of a Geisha, Moonstruck, so many, many more.

Holiday favorites include White Christmas, The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life, and the newer include Home Alone and Christmas Vacation

So much joy to be had in each and every one, and so many more that just didn’t come to mind at this moment.

You can spend two hours in an era, the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and so on.

You can feel their joy, their pain, their sadness. You can even view it as a therapy session in some cases.

You might notice that there are no dark dramas or horror films. Those tend to latch onto me, my well being seems to get thrown off, and honestly, I don’t find it entertaining. I had a lot of childhood drama, so maybe that’s it – but if I am going to sit and watch something for a couple of hours, I’d like to either be entertained or be left with some thought provoking questions. You may have noticed that I included The Birds, and Gaslight which might fall under the dark dramas genre. I found that the weight of the story they contained outweighed the negativity.

My family will always know a good quote from one of our favorites movies that will fit the current holiday, or celebration. And soundtracks are EVERYTHING! I replayed the Under The Tuscan Sun soundtrack all through Italy, and the Sideways soundtrack all through Napa Valley.

I would say there were times when I have lived life, as a movie…

If you are a classic movie lover and would like to share one of your all time favorites, I would love to see it in the comments!

In this day of wifi buying, I am going to shop a little differently. My shopping spree is going to be with a travel agent. Yes, I do travel, and I also usually do all of the booking, flights, hotels, tours, etc. myself. But this is a “spree”, in which I hear “somebody else’s money, not mine” so off we go.

First up, I want to do the trips that are usually out of my budget. I could do them, but not the way I would want to. First class airfare, five star hotels and limo driven tours.

Japan, South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa and finally, the Holy Land.

I can do UK, Italy, France and Germany on my own, thanks so much. But that spree could be done in about 18 months, spending 30 days in each place.

That’s my cotton-candy wish shopping spree.

Daily writing prompt

What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

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If you think about it, it’s rarely the question that is annoying. It is the manner in which the question is asked. I have somehow developed, without actually trying, the ability to read micro expressions. It has its benefits, but it also comes with drawbacks. I love when I can join a conversation that it sincere. Eyes connect, interest is evident. Conversely, there are those that feign interest with empty words that are accompanied by darting eyes, pursed lips, etc. You know on the spot, that not only does this person care about the question they just asked, they are not even listening to your answer.

In the past, I have answered deeply personal questions, with deeply personal answers because the read I received from that person was one of general concern and interest. It has happened with people I know very well, and it has happened with complete strangers (though in the latter case, it doesn’t happen often, and even I am surprised until I recognize that I have just had an interaction with a truly empathetic soul).

In contrast, if you ever hear me respond to a question with, “I’ll have to really give that some thought. I’ll get back to you.” That’s me saying “I know you don’t care, so I am not going to give you one more minute of attention. Go to wherever your darting eyes have deeper interest”.

She thought she could decide and control what her life would be like. It took her more than fifty years to realize that she had zero influence and/or control over the most important decisions that she faced. More importantly, on those occasions that she relinquished her control, things seemed to work out better.

If you, my reader, can take any advice from one person’s tale, then this opening paragraph is for you. Open yourself up to the possibilities that you have not even thought about, because there are way better things in store for you if you can commit to that!