Tag Archive | family

The Importance of Bliss

I love cricket! And cricket season in the US is almost here! In fact, my cricket team, British Officer’s Cricket Club, held its annual Curry Dinner and Ridiculous Raffle/Auction on Saturday night as a warm-up to the season! It was fantastic to see all of my cricket guys and their wives and families again. I always miss them in the winter. But never fear, cricket is almost here!

For those of you who haven’t heard me talk about cricket before (there are probably two of you left out there), I am a scorer for a local club team, BOCC, here in Philadelphia. We have a thriving cricket community made up mostly of ex-pats from South Asia, Australia & New Zealand, and the UK. Oh, and we have a few token Americans on our team. I stumbled across cricket a few years ago by way of Bollywood, and it was love at first sight. Now I’m inches away from becoming an officially certified scorer, and my club president last night was encouraging me to become an umpire.

Seems a bit incongruous for an ordinary American girl to be so interested in cricket, doesn’t it. And yes, it’s delightfully unlikely. But cricket fills a place in my soul that I didn’t even know existed or was missing anything a few years ago. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and it’s led me to form some fantastic friendships. In fact, I feel like I could depend on my cricket team members to help me out in a pinch more than some family members! Who would have thought?

Yes, for me cricket is bliss. And everyone needs some bliss. But bliss is tricky. It seems like it should be obvious when really it’s elusive. I think there are a lot of people out there in the world who are searching for something, some kind of fulfillment or validation. Maybe they’re just looking for something to do on the weekends or for someone to go out to the pub with on a Saturday night.

Then again, I see a lot of people who find that kind of bliss and fulfillment in their families. I know so many women around my age, give or take a decade, who are in love with their families. They talk about their kids, their husband, their siblings, their dogs, all the time and with a glow in their eyes that makes them beautiful. They find such selfless happiness in these things that it elevates them, body and soul.

But not everyone has the luxury of a healthy marriage or a tight-knit family. And I’m not saying that bliss comes exclusively with the people you share a roof or a name with, just that I see a lot of people who find bliss there.

Me and some of my cricket buddies when we were on tour in the UK

What really makes me happy is when I see people who have gone out there and found their bliss in an unlikely place. I have a friend who is in a similar situation to mine in that she is not married and doesn’t have a lot of close family who has found her bliss in martial arts. How cool is that? She has found an activity she enjoys with people she feels close to, and she has welcomed that bliss into her life with full enthusiasm. You can see the sparkle in her eyes when she talks about it, and it’s awesome!

Bliss is so important! Without it, what do you have? Reality TV?

Actually, I’m kind of not kidding about that. I think it’s safe to say that I fall into the category of people who believes that TV is the drug of the masses. From my point of view, it is a pale imitation of the enjoyment that can be found in getting out there and finding your bliss. Bliss is active, it involves you, it keeps you alive. TV asks nothing more from you than your butt on a couch and your brain on cruise control.

Which life sounds more interesting? A life of bliss, of course! Getting up, going out, and giving your whole heart to something is absolutely the way to go. Is it easy? Not necessarily. It’s a big stretch for me to give up one entire day per weekend in the summer to go to cricket. Time is valuable in this modern world. Is it cheap? Some people’s bliss might be, but cricket, even for me as a scorer, comes with a price tag. One I struggle to afford sometimes. Is it fun? Absolutely! And I’ve made friends that I hope to keep for life.

So what’s your bliss? What gets your heart pumping and your spirits soaring? What do you look forward to in the off-season?

And once you’ve answered that question, get up, get out there, and do it!

My Wedding Speech

Jan4

When my wonderful brother Stewart married my best friend Kristine last Saturday, December 29th, I was privileged to be the Maid of Honor. As the Maid of Honor – not to mention the groom’s sister – I got to give a speech at the reception. A lot of people came up to me afterwards and said it was a beautiful speech. I am so flattered by that praise! Although honestly, I was so keyed-up, overwhelmed, and exhausted at the time that it was all a blur to me.

So since I received so much praise for speaking the truth, and since there were a lot of people who weren’t at the reception, here’s as close an approximation to my reception speech as I can write, complete with the two things I wanted to say but forgot to in the moment…..

Me and Kristine

This is a story of Divine Providence. Yes, Divine Providence. For why else would a Pennsylvanian with a master’s degree in Theater from Villanova University decide to go to cosmetology school in Huntsville, Alabama? But that’s where Kristine and I met, in cosmetology school in Alabama. We became friends and ended up going to work at the same salon (eventually) when we graduated.

I also bought a house in Huntsville, and when I did I asked if Kristine wanted to move in and rent a room with me. She did, and our friendship got stronger. Except when things like The Potato Incident happened. After that we almost weren’t friends anymore. I’ll tell you about it sometime if you ask. But even then, potatoes and all, I knew that Kristine was the sister I never had.

After a while Kristine told me that she wanted to go to college, but since she was home-schooled she wasn’t sure she could. I told her, “Hey! I know this great college in Philadelphia, Bryn Athyn College, that is fantastic with home-schooled kids.” She applied, thinking that she’d never get in. But lo and behold, she did!

It was then that I realized that I didn’t want to stay in Alabama without Kristine. If she was going to Bryn Athyn, then I wanted to go home too. So we packed up the house and moved up HOME.

Again, Providence came into play. It was great to be home, but I’m a morning person. I wake up early and I go to bed early. But Kristine is a night person. She likes to stay up and go out. But she didn’t know anyone up here that summer. School hadn’t started and she hadn’t made any friends yet. The only person she knew besides me was my brother, Stewart. So Stewart asked her, “Well, do you want to come hang out with my friends?” And that was how it all began.

Stewart and Kristine were just friends at this point. In fact, when I directed them in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead many years ago and they played Hamlet and Ophelia, people kept asking if they were going out. Kristine’s response to that was “Eew! No! That would be like dating Merry!” Yep, everyone else always knows before the happy couple figures it out.

Then one day Kristine came to me and said, “Merry, I have something to tell you and I don’t think you’re going to like it.” “Oh?” I asked. “What’s that?” And she told me, “Stewart and I are kind of dating now.” And I was upset! No, really I was! Because what would happen if they broke up? Who was I supposed to side with, the boy who broke my best friend’s heart or the girl who broke my brother’s heart?

Fortunately, they did the only sensible thing they could do and got married.

[and then I transitioned into giving a “sister of the groom” speech ]

Stewart and I have been through a lot together. A LOT. We’ve lost a lot of people from our life. Most special of those people was our mom. A lot of people here [at the reception] knew our mom and how wonderful she was. She raised the two of us pretty much on her own. People also know that our mom was a quilter. She made the most beautiful quilts!

What people might not know is that Kristine’s mom, Jodi, is also a quilter.

One of the things I inherited from my mom was a big chest in which she kept all of our school projects and mementos and her quilting projects. What people don’t know is that before she passed away, Mom finished piecing together a quilt top. But then she put it away because she knew she would never be able to finish it and quilt it and put the binding on and all that.

So when Stewart and Kristine got engaged, one of the very first things I did was to call Jodi and ask her if she would be willing to finish the quilt. Well, she said yes.

So at the rehearsal dinner Jodi and I presented Stewart and Kristine with this beautiful quilt, made by both of their mothers together, even though they never met.

I ended my speech there, but there was one other thing that I wanted to say but forgot to:

Okay, Stewart. I found you the perfect wife. So now it’s your turn. You’ve got to go out there and find me the perfect husband! So get on it!

Congratulations to Stewart and Kristine, the two people who I love most in my life. May every happiness come their way!

2012 Year in Review

Dec31

As a Historian, I’m always a sucker for those year in review things that people do at the closing of each year. And since 2012 was an exceptionally eventful year for me, here’s my own personal version. And so I give you, 2012, a year I will be happy to see the back of!

January started out deceptively quiet. Not too much going on. But 2012 hit me upside the head with a brick on February 1st at 9:15 am when the company I work for did layoffs. And since I’m not allowed to talk about that or the mess of incriminations and back-stabbing by coworkers that happened later in February and in March because they now spy on my blog from time to time…. Heh heh heh….

Moving right along.

After all that I still had a job, but things were about to get a lot worse. Worse? Really? Yes.

My goofy, vibrant brother Kelly

My older brother Brian Kelly Farmer passed away very suddenly of cancer in early May. We got the call in mid-April that he had been diagnosed, and once we were told how bad it was, my younger brother Stewart and I rushed out to Ohio to be with Kelly. Well, what we discovered was not only a brother suddenly dying, but a family in dire distress. I’m not sure I can even talk about the week of pure insanity – literally – that we experienced. Between my mentally ill sister-in-law making poor medical decisions on my brother’s behalf, Kelly’s obvious pain and eventual decline into a coma, and my beautiful and brilliant but also belligerent 16 year old niece and a trip that ended with my sister-in-law threatening to call the cops on me if I didn’t leave my brother’s house where I had been taking care of my niece and nephew for a week … it was bad.

I still don’t think I’ve recovered from that nightmare. I may never recover. But things did start to look up again. I had a book to write.

First, in June I published Our Little Secrets, which I had worked on and finished way back in January before things got crazy. I had started The Courageous Heart early in the year too, but I had stopped when the rollercoaster ride began. By June I knew my deadline with my editor was looming and I had to get serious about writing. So I went into a focus mode the likes of which I have never seen. I was diligent about writing the first draft of that book. I have never worked so hard in my life. But lo and behold, I pulled it out by the end of July. And it was terrible. But there were still revisions to do.

Then came my personal high moment for the year – out of nowhere, I might add. On a whim I decided to offer The Loyal Heart for free for my birthday. Long story short, about two weeks later I had had over 50,000 copies of the book downloaded! And I proceeded to sell more when it went back to regular price and to sell several copies of the sequel, The Faithful Heart. Huzzah!

Add to that the fact that my brother Stewart FINALLY proposed to his girlfriend, my best friend, Kristine, on June 23rd, and the summer was pretty good.

Of course, my awful car threw a spanner in the works in September by breaking down and costing me $3000 to replace the transmission. And then two and a half weeks later it wouldn’t start and I had to spend another $300 on starter sensors or whatever that was. And two weeks or so after that it had another issue, although I can’t remember exactly what that one was, just that it cost me. Throw into that a car-induced incident in October that was one of my major low points for the year but that I won’t talk about because it’s still too painful that involved a family member I thought was close MAJORLY letting me down and showing their true colors….

But the end of the year was redeemed by preparations for Stewart and Kristine’s wedding. The wedding was just this past weekend, on Saturday the 29th, and it was fantastic! Kristine was beautiful, Stewart was awesome, and everything went off without a hitch. It really was the best wedding I have ever gone to.

Granted, I hate what I look like in all of the wedding pictures I’ve seen so far and I think that when I smile like that my teeth take over my face and my face looks five times as fat and wide as it actually is, but hey, you can’t win them all.

So that was 2012. Aside from the good book stuff and the wedding, I’m happy to see it go! Too much loss and too much trauma. I am ready for 2013. My horoscope says that things will be much, much better in 2013 because of something having to do with where Jupiter will be and the fact that Pluto is no longer conjuncted with something? All I know is that I could use a break. I’m supposed to have romance in 2013 too. Okay, I could deal with that, although I have the worst romantic luck in the history of the universe. But we’ll see.

Here’s to 2013! May it be full of new beginnings and easier times.

Why I Don’t Have a Blog Post Today

Sep17

Blogs are an essential part of the writer’s experience. I think most writers have them these days, which makes perfect sense. Our blog posts are aimed to entertain, educate, and keep in touch with our readers. They’re also here to find new readers by providing a sampling of what we have to offer in our books free of charge to people who randomly stumble across us while searching the internet.

Blogs are the one thing that I feel like most writers are doing right. Twitter is a dismal wasteland of people barking, or rather tweeting up the wrong tree. Facebook is something most writers almost have right, but at the same time I’m not sure if all of us know what we’re doing with the tool. Everything else, from LinkedIn to Google+ to Pinterest, is sort of catch as catch can but mostly head-scratching on the part of writers.

But blogs are something we’ve got right. And it makes perfect sense. Blogs are all about writing. Strangely enough, that’s what we writers do best. I’ve come across some of the most fascinating bits and pieces about everything from the writing craft to up and coming books to slices of wisdom about the particular writer’s area of expertise or interest. I’ve learned so much and been so entertained just by reading blogs. So bravo for the writers out there.

If I had one complaint about the way that writers write their blogs it would be the same complaint I have with the rest of the way we do social media. Too much of what I see is aimed at other writers instead of at the reader. It’s an easy trap to fall into because other writers are the “low-hanging fruit” of the social media audience world. Other writers are looking for attention, readers aren’t necessarily. Writers are like the people at the airport hanging around baggage claim with signs that say “Smith” as they try to attract the attention of their audience. Readers are just there to get their bags and move on. They’re much smarter than we writers are.Anyhow, blogs are the best way to attract the attention of the people we’re trying to reach. Here in this forum we can be ourselves and we can do what we do best. And we don’t have to go out and aggressively recruit readers the same way we would with Twitter or Facebook. We do have to reach out, but not as invasively.

Yep, blogs are important, but today I didn’t have time to write one.

You see, I usually write my blog posts for the week over the weekend. I aim for three blog posts a week these days, four if I’m feeling chatty. I try to include one about history, one about writing, and one fun or silly post about me each week. But this weekend I just didn’t have time to write.

Saturday I spent more than six hours working on revisions for my next book, The Courageous Heart. See, I wrote the first draft under less than ideal circumstances, gave it to my trusted beta readers, who kind of quirked their eyebrow at me and said “Really?” and then I rewrote the entire first half. In the process I changed so much of the plot and focus of my characters that it’s kind of a whole new story. Which would be fine under normal circumstances, but I have a deadline. It’s due at my editor a week from today. So my nose was firmly to the grindstone of work on Saturday. I don’t think that the majority of the world understands how hard writers have to work to produce something readable. Remember writing term papers in school? Multiply that by a thousand and you’ll begin to have an idea.

I also ended up grocery shopping on Saturday, which was depressing because of how much money I don’t have. And I ended up buying twice as much meat as I needed because I got distracted talking to the nice butcher guy at The Fresh Market who I like. What? Merry distracted by a man? NEVER!

Now I would have had time to catch up on my blog writing on Sunday, but once again I had to work on the book in the morning, then I went to help my friend Kristine move some of her stuff into my brother’s apartment (they’re getting married in December). My brother, Stewart, lives on the second floor. He has a wonderful balcony up there. We had to hoist a mattress and a sofa up over the balcony and into the apartment and move two chairs and a different mattress out over the balcony and down. We did this by backing the U-Haul up to the side of the house and working in teams to lift stuff. Note to anyone who might want to try this in the future: the roofs of U-Hauls are made of very, very thin sheets of tin foil. Be careful.

This wasn’t yesterday, but that’s what yesterday looked like

After that I went to a cricket match. My team won pretty easily. But the best part about that was that my “cricket daddy” Mike had come down from Boston, where he moved last year. I haven’t seen him since April, and it was SO wonderful to catch up with him. After the game I went to the pub with the guys and ate nachos and drank a shandy while watching the end of the Eagles game. Then we talked loudly about cricket for over an hour. So much fun.After that I had to go to my aunt’s house for a family dinner. I didn’t get home until well after 8, and I was so exhausted that I couldn’t look at the computer, let alone write a blog post.

So that’s why I didn’t write a blog post today, even though blogs are essential for writers. Oh well, the week is young yet. I’m sure I’ll get something out there by Wednesday.

How I Fell in Love with Romance Novels

Sep14

Once upon a time, many years ago, I was stuck in a frightening, cruel, and heartless place. It was called HIGH SCHOOL.

Now I’ve heard rumors about this place called High School. I’ve heard that it’s a teenage paradise. I’ve heard that people learn a lot there and that they date there. I’ve even heard unsubstantiated rumors that some people think those are the best years of your life. But for me this was not the case. For me high school was a never-ending cave of psychological torture from which there was no escape. I was bullied, I was excluded, and I never got any attention from the boys.

But I did have a few very close, wonderful friends. One of these friends, Jess, slipped up to me one day and said, “Hey Merry, I’ve got this book…. You totally have to read this.”

Jess proceeded to slide a well-worn paperback into my hands. On the front of its dog-eared cover were a man and a woman, locked in a fierce embrace. The hero was bulgy in all the right places, his hair thick and windswept. The heroine’s dress was falling off. She looked as though she would collapse entirely, but the hero held her in a possessive embrace. Her tousled hair not only begged the question “which direction is the wind coming from anyhow?”, it spoke of passion, freedom, love.

“Dude, there is no way my mom is going to let me read this,” I said to Jess, even though the book beckoned to me.

“It’s okay,” Jess assured me. “Just put it inside of another book and she’ll never know. Or read it when you’re alone in your room.”

Well I am a teenager, I thought. I’m alone in my room a lot. “Okay,” I said. “Hand it over.”

I don’t remember the name of that first romance novel, but I do remember that it had pirates in it. And sex. Lots of vividly described sex.

Now to put this in context, I was raised by a single mom. She was the sweetest, meekest, most selfless and wonderful woman to ever walk this earth. She was also one of the shiest, particularly when it came to talking about sex. In fact, our big conversation about the birds and the bees went something like this:

Mom: Did they show you that video in school today? Me: Yep. Mom: Do you have any questions? Me: Nope.

So there I was, devouring the pages full of pirate adventures with passionate kisses and scandalous embraces, when all of a sudden, OH MY GOSH, HE PUT HIS WHAT WHERE???

Well, I was hooked. I mean, who can resist a well-written and completely over the top love scene? With pirates! Yes, I, Merry Farmer, got the bulk of my sexual education from romance novels.

But I also got something else. Because the world that is depicted in romance novels is pretty much the polar opposite of high school, or at least my experience of it. I’d spent so long lost in a world where young people were cruel to each other because they had just discovered what cruelty was and needed to test out their new powers. To then turn around and discover a world in which the hero and heroine always get together at the end and have a happy ending? With sex? Well!

Pirate Captain, by Howard Pyle – Argh!

After that first book, Jess loaned me a few others. Pirates seemed to be a major theme for me in those early years of romance novel reading. I think they must have been really in back in the late 80s and early 90s. When I’d exhausted Jess’s supply of tales of love on the high seas she shared another secret with me. She took me to this delightful little used book store … where they had (and have) thousands and thousands of romance novels just waiting to be devoured!Well that was pretty much the second most awesome day of my life. (The first most awesome, incidentally, was when I realized I didn’t have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something) I’d discovered my world, my passion, my calling.

There are a lot of people out there who would try to tell you that romance novels are cheesy or inferior or cheap. People call them chick porn or trashy books. And yeah, there’s a bit of truth to that, but mostly I just take offense to the oversimplification of the genre. Because at its very essence, Romance is about love. It’s about overcoming obstacles to find life-long love.

That was a message I very much needed to hear as a teenager. I was dealing with bullying at school, a broken home, and anxiety disorders. Romance novels came along at exactly the right point in my life. When things looked blackest, here were these amazing stories. They pulled me out of what could have otherwise been a period of total misery. They gave me hope.

And they had sex in them!

So next time you’re tempted to poo-poo the genre as being trashy, just remember…. Contained within those pages, sealed behind that half naked hero and busty heroine, love awaits. It’s a love that can save a lonely teenager’s sense of sanity and inspire her to create even more where that came from.

Merry Farmer

An Historical Romance