BOOK CONTRIBUTIONS BY LINDA SORENSON
The Perfection Deception: Why Trying to be Perfect is Sabotaging Your Relationships, Making You Sick, and Holding Your Happiness Hostage
By Dr. Jane Bluestein
1.
Author Linda Sorenson recalls a “reading contest in the early grades where we got caterpillar segments for each book we read,”
noting that her “caterpillar was three-quarters of the way around the room before the rest of the class had barely shot out a head.” She’d turn in ten-page papers instead of the required five—typed up, huntand-peck style, back in the days before any of the other kids typed up their work.
2.
If we haven’t had much experience bouncing back from failure, this experience can hit especially hard. After years of “that old effortless perfection,” Linda Sorenson found herself “collecting rejections” for her picture books and anthology anecdotes. “I was crushed,” she writes. Her confidence shaken, “I hemmed and hawed, second-guessed myself, rewrote and rewrote, and then finally just put them all aside. I was so hurt and stuck. What was up? Where was that perfect creative flow? I boldly decided if I couldn’t write perfectly to be accepted, I wouldn’t do it at all.”
Magic, Miracles, and Synchronicity: A Journal of Gratitude and Awareness
By Dr. Jane Bluestein, Judy Lawrence and S.J. Sanchez
1.
One bright November day, a small, color-splashed chunk of concrete tumbled into my hands. It still conjures up strong memories as I recall the source of that concrete—the Berlin Wall—once a symbol of hate and separation, but changed forever in one shining moment.
My friend Vigdis and I witnessed people stride into freedom as others pummeled the wall with humble hammers and chisels — fueled by the blood and tears of all those who went before. A young German banged furiously at the graffiti-covered wall near me, launching a bright, palm-sized piece of wall into my hands.
However, the most profound moment came later as we sipped coffee in a café and spotted an elderly gentleman who had just crossed into freedom, nearly floating by the window amidst the throngs. His eyes tilted upward in total awe, sheer amazement spilling over at the spectacle of freedom before him. He was lit from within, and the joy he radiated was so palpable that it nearly took my breath away. How could anyone raised in freedom ever comprehend the deep sense of elation and gratitude in that beautiful face? It’s a vision I treasure every time my eye rests on my personal piece of a miracle.
2.
Being from the suburbs of a big city, the wild places have long enticed me to explore their awe-inspiring secrets. One day on a hike in Glacier Park, a granddaddy of a bighorn sheep wheeled to a halt in front of me and licked my hand rather than pitching me off a mountain ledge. Another time, an inquisitive, bright-eyed red fox peeked at us all during dinner at our Isle Royale campsite. Friends and I once quietly cross-country skied past a huge moose contentedly drinking from a lake in the Tetons. One golden autumn morning in the Canadian Rockies, we awoke to a male elk rearing back his head and bugling into the frosty air, and a few hours later, encountered a silver-tipped grizzly rooting through newly fallen snow for dinner roots.
I remain blessed by these moments of wild serendipity and the sheer magnificence of the natural wonders on this planet, and I’m grateful for having stepped off the beaten path long enough to have experienced them.
Magic, Miracles and Synchronicity: A Journal of Gratitude and Awareness (Albuquerque, NM: I.S.S. Publications, 2009). http://janebluestein.com/2012/book-magic-miracles-and-synchronicity/
Mentors, Masters & Mrs. MacGregor: Stories of Teachers Making a Difference
Compiled by Dr. Jane Bluestein
Soaring, glacier-studded peaks, hungry grizzlies, bugling elk, rare glacier lilies and snowy mountain goats. Four walls could never contain one of my greatest teachers, not when the “classrooms” were Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies!
This shy “flatlander” first met Danny On when I took a summer job at a lodge on the east side of Glacier Park. (A tremendous leap of faith considering I had never been west of the Mississippi or seen a mountain up close before.) There I was in a sea of over 500 summer park employees. One day I waited on a friendly smiling Asian-American man, and the rest is history. (Little did I know my “teacher-to-be” was a famous photographer and forester, much beloved in the West!)
After he learned I was a genuine “flatlander,” Danny taught me to see through “mountain eyes,” ever patiently opening mine to the majesty of the high country. One of my favorite lessons was on a seemingly blank rock face. “Look at that mountain as a clock,” he said. “Go down to about 2:00. Follow the little hand out to the rock outcropping. See it?” Sure enough! There was a tiny patch of snowy white, a sure-footed mountain goat making its way along the rocks. This was truly a special treat I cherish to this day, a treat I never would have seen with my “city eyes.”
On our days off, Danny often took a few of us on grand adventures, from hiking up to find a rare red-anthered glacier lily to cross-country skiing in summer clothes high at Logan Pass. He even took a small group of us up to the magnificent Canadian Rockies one color-splashed autumn to see great wildlife, like elk bugling in the frosty mountain air or a grizzly rooting for dinner along the road.
Danny would surprise me every now and then with one of his popular 16” x 20” nature photographs. (His snowy mountain goat – my favorite – still graces my wall.) After I returned to Minnesota, he sent me carefully labeled boxes of his breath-taking outdoor slides from Montana to Alaska, to “continue my education.”
Danny took such pleasure when he could help me see some facet of nature with new eyes. He was playful and warm, always full of surprises and fun! He taught me how to love the mountains and all their treasures. As I finish writing this tribute, I’m riding the Alaska state ferry up the spectacular mountain-lined Inside Passage on a sunny October day. I recall with a smile Danny’s Alaska slides and his great enthusiasm for this vast land.
Sadly, Danny was killed in a skiing accident only a few short years after we met, but his spirit still lives on for me throughout this spectacular trip. He truly inspired me to be a “mountain woman” and wherever my travels take me from the snow-splashed Alps to the rugged Caucasus Mountains in the Georgian Republic, I’m forever grateful for his patient nurturing of this eager young “flatlander.”
Mentors, Masters and Mr. MacGregor: Stories of Teachers Making A Difference compiled by Dr. Jane Bluestein (Health Communications, Inc., 1996)
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