07 Monday Oct 2019
Posted in Being Yourself, Marriage, On Being Responsive, Parents, Seizing the Moment
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being yourself, express feelings, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, love, marriage, mentors, natural talent, parents, passion, relationship, words, writing
My friend was recipient of a most romantic gesture. Her partner built and installed this beautiful poetry post. It is positioned right next to the sidewalk so passersby may read her poetry every time she puts up something new.
11 Wednesday Sep 2019
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being yourself, express feelings, forgiveness, friends, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, love, marriage, parents, psychotherapy, relationship
This month I am featured in Psychology Today’s Healthy Connections blog by Maryann Karinch where she tells the story of what she calls my introduction to “meathead therapy.”
When my husband and I were young and first married we went to his Aunt Maureen and Uncle Meathead’s on Christmas Eve. Theirs was a modest gathering, but I loved it because the one thing that was not modest was the connection I saw between the people who came and went. Folks arrived at the door and each was welcomed like a king. They were offered a drink, some food, a seat, and all the time in the world, crowding onto the attic stairs when room at the table ran out.
The goal was to entertain, to tell funny stories even at each other’s expense, even as it exposed each other’s bullheadedness, ignorance or misery.
And I was spellbound.
These folks cared for each other. I’d go so far as to say they loved each other. My family didn’t sit around the kitchen table on Christmas Eve welcoming one another in with drinks and smiles and all the time in the world because of our handicap of taking life seriously and rejecting one another for our human foibles.
Since that night with Maureen and Meathead, and with my steadfast husband next to me, I have worked hard in psychotherapy and have learned about the healthy attitudes of accepting one another for who we are and learning to celebrate one another no matter how goofy we get.
I think the healthy connections we make are born of the dedicated showing up at each other’s kitchen tables no matter what the circumstance.
Check out my story in Psychology Today.
03 Tuesday Sep 2019
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being yourself, express feelings, fear, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, parents, relationship, words, writing
some people get more dressed up than others to visit Times Square
I just want to put everything on the table, like this lady did. She took off all her clothes then stood on a platform in the middle of NYC while her unique outfit was painted on stroke by stoke.
In the same way, I’d like to demystify my life. Tell the truth. For me growing up, everything was such a secret. No one said how they really felt and I couldn’t get a straight answer about anything that mattered. People’s feelings and thoughts were hidden in sarcasm or blame or silence and you had to guess what was going on. Really. I had no idea if my parents even liked me there was so much intrigue in my life.
So now, I can’t help myself from just saying the truth. Revealing everything so people can see it and we can all be talking about and reacting to the same thing, without the confusion of hidden meanings and cloaked references.
That must be why people often react to my memoir by saying it is strikingly honest, or transparent. That I have been courageous in telling my story. To me it is about compulsion. I am compelled to tell you what really happened rather than hide it in stories that hint.
It is scary and daring and cold out there with no clothes on, but it feels better to reveal my truths than to hide them and hope that someone will see through it all to who I really am.
14 Wednesday Aug 2019
Posted in Being Yourself, Parents, Stories From My Childhood
me and Mom long time ago
Today I provide the guest writing prompt at storyaday.org. This site is considered by Writer’s Digest to be one of the “101 Best Websites for Writers” so take a look at https://storyaday.org/ to learn how you can mine your memories for writing gold.
01 Thursday Aug 2019
Posted in Being Yourself, Marriage
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being yourself, dreams coming true, express feelings, friends, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, love, marriage, parents, relationship
My card reads, “The authentic bird’s nest here represents the happy home that the bride and groom have created that will serve as the foundation for their love going forward. Mom’s love, the groom’s love for his bride, and her love for him, are sometimes expressed through baking, thus the spatula. Worn but faithful, Spot, is present at this wedding as a reminder of the security found among old friends. They joy, laughter and sense of extended family is tied up in one Wise and Otherwise playing card. The wooden photo frame made by and depicting the groom’s great-great-grandfather hints at the groom’s own creativity, a source of solution should trouble arise. And the idea, no matter how lame, of the groom’s parents as Brazilian dancers, suggests you do not have to be great at what you do together, you just have to mean it.”
12 Saturday Apr 2014
Posted in Being Yourself, Parents, Playing, Seizing the Moment, Teenagers
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being yourself, Jane Butler, parents, play, relationship, rugby
Last Saturday at the college rugby game we went to see, one boy broke his nose and another broke his leg. Not among those tending to their bleeding children, I had time to pose on the sidelines with my son and husband for this selfie.
I’m learning a lot about selfies. Turns out they are not just about self-absorption as I thought, but instead according to my daughter’s research paper (tipped by a generous cousin at UGA) I learned that they have much to do with communication and self-awareness.
If I’d been my son taking this picture I’d have been full of pride at the idea I’d inspired both my parents to travel two hours south from their home to see me play with my team. I’d have felt pride in being part of a team, in being fit, in being alive on a spring morning. No idea what was actually in his mind when he snapped this but he was eager to share it, texting it to me moments after he took it. I, in turn was eager to text it to each my two other kids.
For me the unspoken message here may seem obvious to some, and some may take it for granted that this is how families behave. But for me the idea that we travel to see our kids, that we have fun together and take such spontaneous candid happy moments as evidence of that, is the grateful message in my texts. I want to encourage our family to stay together and have fun together and texting selfies is a way to do that. I communicate my joy of being with my son and the implied joy of being with any of my children, and I report my awareness of this happy time by sending it to my kids.
It is hard to have kids leave home and spend their time away, so meeting them and enjoying their company whenever we can is top on my mind, and funny, my son’s selfie helps me appreciate that and share that and hopefully create more of that for the future.
16 Sunday Mar 2014
Posted in Seizing the Moment
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I went to visit my aunt a few days ago. I haven’t seen her in thirty-five years because she divorced the family way back when for some reason I was not much a part of. It had something to do with her parents, my grandparents, not doing right by her. I think the complaint had to do with how they raised her.
Don’t we all fail our children one way or another? Who gets perfect parents?
So she lives in NYC in the same studio apartment she was in when I used to visit her as a kid. My father would take us into town for business and then leave us to find her and spend time there while he was off on an errand. She was great! I loved visiting her! So standing at her door in her hi-rise apartment building was not so unfamiliar. But the idea that my heart would be pounding as I pounded on her door was. You see, I have tried to convince her that visiting might be nice. She sends a Christmas card every year and we’ve spoken on the occasion of each of my parent’s deaths, and her sister’s death, when I called to inform her of these calamities. She was not too interested in those events and even less so in seeing me. So defying her wishes that I stay on my side of her line seemed bold.
I felt it was time to just go there and say hello, though. Time is marching on and the opportunity to get together dwindling. So I stood there, heart pounding, pounding on her door, expecting her to answer. I’d say, hi, it’s me from long ago, want to catch up?
But no one answered and I stood outside the door a long time wondering if she’d show up before I had to go. She didn’t.
I spent the walk to the restaurant where I’d meet my son slowing down to consider the face of every pedestrian I passed just in case it was hers.
15 Wednesday Jan 2014
So for my birthday I granted myself a night out, last night, telling silly stories instead of packing for the family trip today.
Crazy thing listening to yourself. That is, following an intuition to just go do it. I just went out to the West Chester Story Slam last night, signed the releases allowing a YouTube presentation of my story, took the microphone, and went ahead and told it. Don’t get me wrong, I have many stories to tell, but last night’s has been on my mind a while. I’ve told it plenty before, but never for the express purpose of entertaining. So it was a little like being a stand-up comic where you carefully pace and time and reveal your truths and then watch people laugh.
I loved it. And I was even one of the winners!
Now I am automatically entered into the Grand Slam in November where each month’s winners compete for the title of Best Story Teller in Chester County.
So what was my story about? Some say it’s about how sex education differs by generations, but I say it’s about showing respect to your kids even when you must embarrass yourself. It’s about sacrificing for kids because you’re a parent.
Click on the link above to see a video of me telling my story on the story slam website.
21 Saturday Dec 2013
Posted in Being Yourself, Parents, Stories From My Childhood
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As I travel around during the holidays, visiting friends and attending gatherings, I am cashing in on a decision from five years ago. Everywhere I go I see pieces of my past, and of my family and of my home back in Arden.
When we cleaned out the old homestead, the house I grew up in and in which my parents lived for fifty years, I brought home lots sentimental objects no one wanted. I am talking about statuettes and tea kettles, vases, and trays, lamps and pictures, and all manner of things Mom and Dad collected. They were Depression-era folks, and my mother was an orphan thrown on the street at one point in her youth, so things held a great place in her heart. She collected stuff like no one I know. She had rows of decorative tin cans in her kitchen, and pitchers and glasses and silverware to arm ten houses. She made afgans year round forever, and saved games, books, puzzles and everything in between in volume.
So in bringing home a carload of such stuff from the old homestead that I didn’t personally want, I needed a place to put it all. So, I spread it out in my dining room like a store and invited my friends to select whatever they wanted for themselves. It was genius because now, I am delighted to find these objects, filled with history and memory for me, everywhere I go.
Recently I saw an antique glass oil lamp among a collection my friend has on her mantle that had been in my brother’s room years ago, was served tea at a wreathing party from Mom’s holiday teapot, and last night saw a beautiful serving tray at a Christmas party that once had been in Mom’s china cabinet.
Without a lot of contact with my family of origin I sometimes need these reminders to help me know I really came from somewhere. That I have connections to somebody. So seeing Mom and Dad’s things spread around my friends’ homes, incorporated into my life today, does somehow add to my feeling of family at the holidays.
Call me crazy, but that’s how it is.
07 Saturday Dec 2013
Posted in Parents, Seizing the Moment
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It poured all day yesterday and it poured all night. The school marching band was scheduled to perform in the Christmas parade and so our daughter put on warm layers under her uniform and we dropped her off in time to ride the school bus down to the parade.
Instead of our usual footrace through town to follow the band as they played, we sat in a delightful restaurant with friends, warm and dry. Occasionally we glanced across the room to look out the small rain-streaked windows, through the dark, straining to see the tops of slow moving cars and the bounce of marchers going by. Given all the obstacles and the typical 90 minutes to consider, we knew there would be no way for us to catch our daughter as she went by.
But I glanced up once, stood up in my chair and thought I saw the familiar colors of our band. My husband and I dashed to the front of the restaurant to see if it was our school. It was, and our girl had just stepped by! We ran up the street, bobbing between people and dodging the umbrellas, through the dreary rain. Just as the band stopped to play their Christmas tune we saw friends who’d been braving the elements all evening to see their own son march, and they welcomed us under their extra-large umbrellas.
There she was, right in front of us. We called out,”Go, Nellie!”, clapped when they were done and started marching on, said our thanks to the folks with the umbrella, and headed back to the warmth of the Italian place where our other friends held our seats for us.
The first words out of our girl’s mouth when she got in the car at the end of the evening, after marching in the pouring rain on a nasty December night, carrying an instrument, and wearing no rain gear at all, were whether we’d seen her, and if we’d called out her name! We had! Yes, we saw you and we loved it and yes we were there!
This is what kids want. They want to know that you have shared their life with them, and that you know who they are and what they have done. It was a small thing she wanted to know. Besides marching by playing an instrument in the rain, she really wanted to know if we’d witnessed her grit, and her poise under pressure,and anything else about her that you can only see if you take in the circumstances. It’s one thing to march in a parade, and quite another to do so under the conditions of last night. Kids would have stories to tell about the night they marched in a downpour that might have been snow, because the show must go in. To her, it mattered a lot. She isn’t aware of it probably, but this is how kid’s get to know themselves. With our help as witnesses to their lives.
Thanks to all my friends who made it possible for me to stand in the rain for just a moment to see my kid march by. Because of you we got off easy and got to take the credit for doing the hard thing for our girl.
This is the “love altar” I created as a centerpiece for my son’s recent wedding. A number of women special in their lives were invited to make a table decoration that reflected the love they feel in their lives and particularly as it relates to either the bride or the groom. Each table had a different creation but all had a crystal as the centerpiece. After the wedding the bride and groom took home the crystals and now have a centerpiece there, of crystals, to take into their future that are charged with the love of family and friends.