Eleanor Vincent's Blog

During the holidays I took a healing pause. It’s difficult to tap the brakes during a book launch, yet slowing down is exactly what I needed. Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage consumed my attention as I did events, appeared as a guest on podcasts, and promoted my new book during the last months of 2024.

During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I turned off screens, limited distractions, and sat quietly in the dark with a few candles flickering each night.

vecteezy_focus-and-blurred-burning-candle

Finding the Goldilocks combination of stillness and activity during the holidays is challenging. I reinforced my natural rhythms with rituals, beautiful music, my old-school tree decorations, and candles. I sat in the flickering light and let myself dream.

I also turned to meditation teacher Tara Brach to support me. One of her recent talks, “The Honesty Challenge: Getting More Truthful with Ourselves and our World,” pushed my buttons in a good way. Small lies we tell to facilitate interactions can deaden our relationships and hold us back, she says. The courage to be more honest is a prerequisite to growth.

“What is true here?” is the question she asked that made me reflect. How often do I shade the truth, jump to conclusions based on scanty evidence, or unwittingly deceive myself? Being ruthlessly honest, my answer is “Frequently.”

Brach, a psychologist, and the author of Radical Compassion, has honed her inquiry skills to a fine art. She teaches a practice called RAIN, where R stands for “recognize,” A stands for “allow,” I is for “investigate,” and N is for “nurture.” She uses stories of her clients’ or her own experiences to show how to put this into practice.

I spent most of 2024 hacking through the forest of a contentious divorce. At the same time, I prepared to launch a book about the demise of the love that led me to make what I thought was a lifelong commitment. But opposite brain wiring (mine neurotypical, his neurodivergent) led to communication breakdowns and ongoing conflict that killed our marriage.

Hindsight is 20-20, of course. Now I can see all the ways I deceived myself, or minimized signs I should not have overlooked. I’ve needed my own brand of radical compassion, and radical honesty to process the demise of my marriage. Without a daily meditation practice, I cannot imagine how I would have survived the upheaval.

It’s going to take more time to reorient myself and find a direction forward. I’ve taken the first steps, but there’s a long road ahead. Without fully realizing it as I was writing and revising Disconnected, my book points the way. In the end, the narrator chooses self-love and self-compassion, and that’s the path I’m on.

What’s true for me is that I need to practice RAIN with a special emphasis on nurture. When in doubt, I swaddle myself in a cozy blanket and listen to calming music. I am doing all I can to soothe the hurt while focusing on the growth – the rocket fuel – that’s propelling me.

Initiating new intentions and goals – like the apparent pause before the return of the light on the Solstice – requires stillness, something I struggle with especially during the holidays. Thus, the focus on nurturing activities in a safe, quiet environment.

I’m fascinated by the different approaches people take as they set intentions and create goals for the New Year. My fellow writer David Berner, who gave Disconnected a ringing endorsement, published a set of helpful questions in his newsletter The Abundance. I answered them in my journal to help me set a course for 2025.

How do you reset to meet the year? Do you make resolutions? Set intentions? Create a list of goals? Let me know in the chat and we can share our approaches.

One of the best parts of birthing a book is discovering the unique ways that readers receive it. Thank you for reading and supporting my work! Wishing you peace as 2025 dawns.

The post A Healing Pause appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

Life after neurodiverse love is like being in the eye of the hurricane. My life is whirling at warp speed but I’m standing at the still center. If you know the feeling, then you’ll recognize the moment where I find myself now. I’m on the threshold of a new life after the painful breakdown of my late-in-life marriage.

My divorce is about to be final after a long hard slog. I bargained away a fair share of the proceeds from the sale of our house in exchange for full ownership of my intellectual property. My new book Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage, forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press, now belongs 100 percent to me, and my estranged husband can’t take 50 percent of the royalties as he demanded.

As one friend puts it, I chose to secure my future and let go of my past. My beautiful home is gone, my marriage wrecked on the shoals of opposite neurotypes. But my writing life is barreling ahead. Preorders for my new book Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage are available now. You can reserve a copy (or several) at the Vine Leaves Press store.

The end of my marriage broke my heart, but it also liberated me to be fully myself and live a life that makes sense to me, my life as a writer.

I wrote this in my blog last October: “Divorce is challenging at any age but going through it in your 70s merits a special badge for courage. This was a difficult decision, one I hoped I’d never have to make, and one I pondered for a long time. One that will require time to process, grieve, and integrate.”

I’m in the integration phase now, still mourning the loss, but also celebrating my newfound clarity and freedom. I made a colossal misjudgment when I married a man with an autistic profile, a difference of brain and emotional wiring I did not adequately understand.

On the positive side, I’ve taken a crash course in neurodivergence. What I share in Disconnected will benefit many. It took me several years to figure out what caused the high conflict in our marriage and to find the resources to help us attempt to heal. In the end, my ex refused to work with a coach who was expert in helping mixed neurotypical and neurodiverse couples. Traditional marital therapy, which we attempted three times, made our relationship worse.

I’ll provide a list of resources for neurodiverse couples on my website so that others don’t have to do as much research or go through as much trial and error as I did.

My Vine Leaves editor Melanie Faith had this to say about Disconnected: “The fresh insights in this book will educate those who’ve not experienced a neurodiverse relationship in real life and will support and give aha or I’ve-felt-that moments to many readers who have.  A win, either way.”

I couldn’t agree more. If you’ve had a close relationship with someone who has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), you will recognize your struggles in my book. If you haven’t, it will be eye opening. There are countless undiagnosed adults with ASD, and an equal number of confused partners who may not realize that neurodivergence is the cause of the problems in their relationship.

Because my estranged husband was high masking, adept at copying neurotypical behavior, it was only after we married that the full extent of our differences surfaced. I know there are many other baffled spouses and partners who are suffering. My goal is to reach as many as I can.

When you preorder Disconnected, you will pay in euros. Vine Leaves Press is based in Athens Greece, and regulations decree that euros are the accepted currency. However, your books will be printed and shipped from the United States. The book will also appear on Amazon and other online platforms later this month. I plan to create an audio book, too.

If you subscribe to my newsletter, I’ll let you know when the e-book link goes live. Please share this news widely and let your friends know that the book is available for preorders.

From the still eye of the storm, please accept my gratitude for your support. I treasure my readers, old and new, and can’t wait to share this new book with you.

The post Life After Neurodiverse Love appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

My new book takes a hard look at love. If your partner is neurodivergent, you have special challenges to overcome. My new memoir, forthcoming from Vine Leaves Press in November, is an unflinching exploration of love on the autism spectrum.

When I began writing my book in 2021, I called it Better Late: Love and Marriage after 65. It was wry, hopeful, self-deprecating, a “look how cute we are” version of two wildly different people in a late-in-life marriage full of perplexing but humorous misunderstandings. My husband was still masking then, copying his peers and adhering to most neurotypical social conventions. But that was about to change.

In the beginning, I had a pop psychology view of Asperger’s syndrome (now called ASD-1) – a condition of social awkwardness, unique turns of phrase, and difficulty expressing feelings, that affects up to 4 percent of U.S. men according to the CDC. Those estimates are likely a vast undercount. Many older autistic individuals are undiagnosed, and receive no support.

After three years in a high-conflict marriage, I ended up with a hard won understanding of autism and the many ways it creates trip wires in intimate relationships.

Through painful trial and error I found which resources worked (only those provided by trained neurodiverse relationship experts) and which didn’t (traditional psychotherapy or services geared to NT couples).

As my husband stopped masking his neurodivergence, and our conflicts ignited with alarming frequency, I changed the title to Space and Grace: A Neurodiverse Love Story. Now the story was evolving into a more sober assessment of opposite neurotypes, one neurodivergent (ND) and one neurotypical (NT), and away from a romance between two quirky seniors. As we struggled to get support for our ND/NT pairing, and the marriage began to break down, the title changed again.

I submitted the final version of Disconnected: Portrait of a Neurodiverse Marriage to Vine Leaves Press in the first week of May. I’ve taken a crash course in neurodiverse marriage and shared my findings with readers. My new book shows how our attempt to bridge opposite neurotypes fell short of creating a supportive or loving partnership. In order to survive psychologically and emotionally, I had to leave. Ending my marriage broke my heart.

But it also liberated me to fully claim my own life and well being. 

The vast majority of neurodiverse marriages – up to 85 percent – end in divorce. Most couples do not realize they are in an ND/NT partnership and may suffer for years without support. Usually, it is the NT wife who suspects autism. To make sense of the disconnects, she informally diagnoses her husband. If she’s lucky, he seeks a formal diagnosis and gets support for his neurodivergence and treatment for the mental health conditions – depression, anxiety, pervasive demand avoidance, alexithymia – that often accompany it. More rarely, an NT husband finds himself paired with an ND wife.

If a partner acknowledges ASD-1 and takes steps to mitigate unhelpful behaviors, and if the NT partner learns to accommodate differences and modify her expectations, the couple stands a chance of staying together, often leading separate lives, or even living apart most of the time.

My husband declined to be evaluated, participated reluctantly in an ND/NT couples support group, and refused to engage with an autism coach. Without his acceptance and active participation, it was impossible to bridge the gaps.

Disconnected traces the evolution of our love story from romance, to marriage, to a dawning realization that our dueling neurotypes predisposed us to conflict. In 31 short punchy chapters, I show how the trauma of neglect, gaslighting, and shutdowns ultimately drove me away. My aim was to create a portrait of a marriage that would resonate with anyone who struggles to grasp how even the closest bonds can break and wonders, then what?

We worked hard to save our marriage. Our opposite world views and communication styles made it impossible to continue. I’ve encountered many couples who had no idea one of them was neurodivergent and were completely baffled by their communication problems. This book is written especially for the neurotypical partner who struggles to maintain her reality and her very identity when the man she married turns out to be someone she no longer recognizes.

The book includes resources for neurodiverse couples. Pre-orders will be available in August. My newsletter subscribers will be the first to receive special offers and insider information. Please join my “street team” and spread the word as we celebrate the birth of my new book.

The post A Hard Look at Love appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

On April 1, my daughter Maya went skiing in the Sierra Nevada mountains. She was 19, home on spring break from community college. She went to a resort outside of Truckee with her friends for a day of fun. It was 1992. When she arrived home early that evening, I had made a banner announcing her victory: UCLA had accepted her as a transfer student in the theater arts department with a full scholarship. Our dream had flowered into reality!

We whooped and jumped up and down outside our apartment. She propped her skis against the patio fence and came inside for an impromptu party with me and Meghan. To celebrate her achievement, she went to the Morgan Territory with friends the next afternoon. As I drove home on April 2, I was full of pride and anticipation. Hours later, I was hovering over my daughter in the ICU in a profound state of shock.

Life went into reverse. That was 32 years ago.

Maya as a teen

A Shooting Star

Now, I’m looking out over tall pines in a timeshare condo at Lake Tahoe. The sky is bright blue. There’s snow on the ground. This year, I thought going to the mountains would be a good way to spend the anniversary of Maya’s death.

Being here reminds me that she was here too just 24 hours before she fell from the back of a horse she was riding bareback in a green field decorated with spring poppies.

Maya was a shooting star. A bright light that streaked across the sky of our lives.

She left her skis with me when she got home the evening of April 1. I kept them for her. Later, when she had been dead for a year, Meghan and I moved to a condo I purchased in Walnut Creek. I took the skis with us and propped them against the garage wall. I couldn’t bear to part with them. They stood, tips pointing skyward for 12 years, a reminder of Maya.

Maya as a toddler

Watching Maya Grow

I feel lucky to have watched her grow, to have heard her first words, and watched her first steps.  At six years old, she was a dancing sprite, blond hair glistening in the sun, splashing in the Yuba River on a glorious summer afternoon. Her later self, brash and witty, made jokes at my expense. No one made me laugh like Maya did. And no one was better at pushing my buttons. Our fights were fierce, emblematic battles.

Thankfully, we made peace before she left for college. I’m grateful she lived long enough to show herself – and me – where her acting talents might take her. In Swimming with Maya, I write about those final months of her life when she aced her audition at UCLA and earned a place in their theater arts program.

A Second Chance at Life

Her fall that spring afternoon left her in an irreversible coma and made her a candidate for organ and tissue donation. By cosmic coincidence, April is National Donate Life month. On April 6 I remember my daughter as well as the recipients of her gift.

They received a second chance at life with a new heart, a new liver, or a new kidney. Maya’s corneas restored sight. And many more people received bone grafts and skin tissue.

Our “gift of life” also had an impact on Meghan, our extended family, and on me. We were able to navigate through grief knowing that a miracle had emerged from a tragedy. I hope you will consider signing a donor card to help save and improve lives. It’s easy to do. Visit the Donate Life America website to register.

Love Trumps Grief

To this day, I wish I could bring Maya back. Yet I know that’s impossible. Grief does that to you, makes you believe in all kinds of miracles. Losing Maya pushed me to the wall of what I thought I could survive, it forced me to grow up at the age of 43, to realize not everything can be fixed. I’m not in control. Life is mysterious. And yet.

When I met the man who received Maya’s heart and looked into his eyes and heard my daughter’s heartbeat two years after her death and his resurrection, I knew. Miracles happen. Recovery is possible. Love is more powerful than grief. The two are entwined in the tentacles of memory. My love for my daughter will never die.

So, I sit here in the thinner atmosphere of the mountains, celebrating Maya, in the bright blue of this day three decades after she died, our love as real as ever. I remember a summer day when she was 16 and Meghan was 8, spent here on the shores of Lake Tahoe, the three of us laughing like maniacs at Maya’s antics, beach sand between our toes, loving the beauty of the afternoon, of each other. I remind myself that love trumps grief.

When I feel all the way to the bottom of my grief, love waits for me and I embrace it.

The post Maya’s Bright Spirit appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

“Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.”

–Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman

What is your intention for 2024? I like to choose a word for the year ahead that sums up my intention. This year my word is “Peace.” The challenge I’ve set for myself is to let inner peace begin over again each day.

It seems laughable, doesn’t it, when the world is in turmoil? But what other sane choice is there? When I claim peace as the deeper reality in my life, no matter what’s happening on the surface, I can more easily share that peace with the world. The New Thought hymn “Let Peace Begin With Me” shines a spotlight on the necessity of starting the peace process within. The spiritual masters of the ages have urged us to approach peace as an inside job.

I gave up making New Year’s resolutions years ago, instead focusing on my overall vision for the year – the qualities I want to manifest more than the things I want to achieve. Nothing wrong with goal setting, mind you, but a vision or intention is more all-encompassing. It inspires my inner being at a deeper level.

Sun rising over Mt. Diablo

To set my intention, I first have to let go. Sometimes, that is difficult. So, ritual can be helpful because it celebrates and consecrates the process. It takes it out of my imagination and makes it concrete.

I attended a Burning Bowl ceremony at the Oakland Center for Spiritual Living and wrote down all I wanted to let go of from 2023 on one tiny sheet of paper, and then all I wanted to accept for 2024. Participants put their sheets into a huge metal bowl and our minister intoned the magic words, “Poof! Wah-Lah!” (tongue in cheek) and lit the papers on fire.

There was something soul satisfying about watching that small blaze. It was freeing to watch 2023 go up in smoke as I fired up my intention for 2024. The last year was one of immense growth for me, and of tumult and transition. Perhaps like me, you’ve bought into the myth that later life is more tranquil. If we walk right up to our growing edge, that cannot be the case. With growth comes change, the twins of self-realization. With inner peace as an intention, I’m better able to handle the changes, to stay grounded in my cocoon of transformation.

Besides setting intentions, another helpful concept I’ve heard a lot about recently is the distinction between process vs. outcome goals and how the two work together. Many of my writer friends follow Matt Bell, https://substack.com/@mattbell, who has a newsletter called “No Failure, Only Practice.”

He advocates that for every outcome goal you set, for instance, “Publish my book,” you then set a corresponding process goal like, “Write 500 words a day in 2024.” Outcome goals are static, and less likely to be in your control. Whereas the process goal is completely up to you and is ongoing.

Another example comes from the wellness world. The outcome goal, “Lose weight,” can cause us to subconsciously rebel. But the corresponding process goals look more like, “Plan healthy meals as least 5 days a week,” or “Walk 35 minutes a day.”

So, if my intention for 2024 is inner peace, my process goals look like this: “Meditate every day for 15 to 30 minutes,” or “Spend ten minutes a day gazing at Mt. Diablo,” or “Listen to calming music instead of newscasts.” I can think of many more. I take small steps every day moving steadily on my path.

Peace may seem like a grandiose vision, but I believe I can create more inner peace one small step at a time, day by day. I pray, as Howard Thurman says, to keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve. That’s my entry point for 2024. Let me know your word for this year in the Comments section. What intentions are you setting? For more about intention setting see my post from 2021 here.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

A different version of this article appears in The Rossmoor News

The post Peace Begins with Me appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

These days, I watch the world go by from a different window. I mean that literally as well as figuratively. I’ve moved to the west side of Rossmoor, perched on a hillside with a view of Mt. Diablo, a grassy common space dotted with fruit trees, and a giant beech tree where a convocation of birds gathers each morning, fluttering around two giant bird feeders. I’m beginning my life over.

The view is different here, but equally beautiful. I’m lucky! I found a place to rent as I transition out of my four-year marriage. Our house just sold. I packed my boxes and left behind the life I’ve lived with my husband, joining a growing number of elders who choose living single in our golden years. I’m beginning over.

Divorce is challenging at any age, but going through it in your 70s merits a special badge for courage. This was a difficult decision, one I hoped I’d never have to make, and one I pondered for a long time. One that will require time to process, grieve, and integrate. As one friend wrote, “How can a love that seems so perfect turn into a bad dream?”

I’m still waking up, stumbling around in semi-darkness, trying to find my way to the bathroom, the coffee, to figure out how the toaster oven works. But fumbling is okay. Feeling trapped in the fun house of distortion that is “pre-divorce” when I was paralyzed by fear and dread was much worse. Even feeling lost is welcome compared to before time.

Now, I talk to myself.

“Hey, look at you. You figured out where to hang the pictures, stash the books, arrange the plants. You’re building a nest!”

I cheer myself on. I appreciate myself. I laugh at myself, a welcome respite from years of dour silence over dinner.

Most nights, dinner is a Trader Joe’s frozen meal, say Cod Provencal, microwaved and eaten in peace. The cat sits on the dining room table swishing his fluffy tail, purring and staring at my fish. I’m at peace with that, Marlowe’s slight smile, his curling whiskers, his happiness.

Getting comfortable with discomfort is a trick. Learning to be still helps. Beginning each day living life one moment at a time through meditation, has kept me (relatively) sane.

In the most fundamental way, this breath, then the next, is all we have. No matter what the future holds, in this precious moment, I’m fine. Feet on the ground, spine erect, lungs and heart working in unison, birds outside my window, breath after breath.

Life goes on.

“Pause, breathe, and smile” is a mantra I learned at the Mindful Living Club, our daily meditation group at Rossmoor. It was a touchstone of the teachings of the late Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk who taught meditation to thousands of Westerners at his retreat center in France. “PBS” I remind myself whenever I face challenges.

The ones of my own making are the most daunting. I suspect I’m not alone in that. Self-compassion is the hardest of all, self-forgiveness the most important. Both are vital in order for kindness and compassion to prevail.

Now I’ve lived past the marriage long enough to see that this new life is not simple. All those blank hours and frozen dinners. All those decisions like the crumpled sheets of an unmade bed waiting for me to smooth out the wrinkles and arrange the pillows. And so, I pause, breathe, and smile. I watch the birds. I meditate.

The thing about meditation is this: it’s a practice. You do it daily. It’s the repetition that ultimately brings solidity and a new form of dignity. It took me years to figure that out. It’s not a quick fix. In fact, it’s not a fix at all. It becomes a way of life, where the breath brings me back and grounds me.

Pausing, breathing, smiling. That sequence of actions practiced day after day, moment after moment, leads to equanimity. When I turn up the corners of my mouth I just can’t stay stuck in anger, or sadness, or fear. It allows me to get comfortable with my own discomfort.

It takes discipline (gentle) and commitment (fierce) to show up at my chair day after day. The birds show up too! They come for the beauty, for the nectar and the seeds, for the joy. I’m doing my best to learn from  them, beginning over each day.

The post Beginning Over appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

A Medieval jewel set where three countries meet, Basel, Switzerland is a city that resonates with history yet looks forward with an air of confidence. It is a place where borders meet and can be easily crossed. Tucked into a crook of the Rhine River at a point where France, Germany, and Switzerland converge, the city allows the traveler to slide easily between cultures and languages while sampling the cuisine and natural beauty of each.

“Dreilaendereck,” a monument that marks the borders of these three lands, is symbolic. The meeting point is actually in the middle of the Rhine River. On maps, if you look closely, you’ll see a dotted line dividing the Rhine, a manmade demarcation.

I spent the month of May in Basel, the city where I had spent my junior year abroad in 1968-69. I reunited with the Swiss family that had hosted me when I was 20 years old, a young American college student. The trip was a treat for my 75th birthday. I spent four weeks revisiting favorite parks, museums, and cafes, walking the cobblestone streets and riding the trams through a city I have loved for 55 years, and visited six times since my original stay. I ate black forest cake on my birthday and was serenaded with a hearty “Schöne Gerburstag” by my Swiss family. But visiting the Basel Munster in the Old Town was a highlight.

The Basel Munster seen from the Rhine River

I was able to travel in all three countries carrying only my passport and my U-Abo monthly tram pass which I purchased for the equivalent of $115 – a deal considering single ticket prices.

A street in the Medieval Old Town

Carved door in the Old Town

Interior of the Basel Munster

On a day when there was a break in the rain, I decided to take an excursion to France for lunch. It took me 22 minutes on the number 10 tram from the Batteriestrasse stop in Bottmingen where I was staying with my Swiss host brother and his wife. I traveled through the Swiss countryside to Leymen, a French village just over the border in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace.

The church of Saint-Leger

The village of Leymen, France

The Leymen station, accessible by Basel city tram

I visited the Saint-Leger village church in Leymen, a pretty faux Romanesque building on a hill above the town. Then I strolled down to the Rue Principale looking for a café or restaurant. To my surprise, the three restaurants I checked were all closed, posting signs that they were open only in the evenings or with limited hours, a side effect of Covid’s aftermath. Then I found Restaurant Landskron, open Wednesday to Saturday, and found myself seated in the bar area – typical for a single diner.

The bar keeper Patrick made me feel at home, though he spoke no English. I trotted out my rusty French and managed to order a delicious meal, one of the Alsatian specialties on the menu. Bouchee a la Reine “Grand Mere,” is a round puff pastry filled with chicken, veal, mushrooms and a divine cream sauce just like your grandma used to make. This came with vegetables and egg noodles accompanied by a glass of the house Rose.

Traditional Alsation Bouchee a la Reine in puff pastry

Of course, no lunch in France lasts for less than two hours. At the table next to mine were three men, one of whom spoke quite good English and had lived in London and visited Los Angeles. Yes, out in the middle of the French countryside surrounded by farm fields and stucco farmhouses with red tile roofs was someone who could converse in “Franglais.” We even threw in a word or two in German, which amused our host Patrick no end. The Alsace region has gone back and forth between Germany and France for so long, everyone speaks both languages.

Typical house and garden

When I said I intended to visit the wine region near Colmar in Alsace-Lorraine, I was immediately told to order the local sparkling wine known as Crémant, and even given the name of a specific winery, which my interlocuter wrote out for me on slip of paper.

Patrick had given me the Wifi password, so Google translate played a role here too.

I finished my meal with a tiny cup of espresso and a chocolate covered almond “noisette” although in Paris that sobriquet also applies to a mini cappuccino served after lunch. My new friends at the next table had a gorgeous rhubarb tart smothered in meringue, a specialty of the house. I vowed to return to try it, but at the moment I was very full.

This is what I love about travel: the serendipity of showing up in a little French town and finding a warm welcome in an establishment much like a French version of “Cheers” where everybody knows each other, and locals come in daily. Discovering new foods and new people in new places is endlessly fascinating.

I said many “merci beaucoups” and “au’revoirs” before departing. If you ever find yourself in this part of the world, I highly recommend Restaurant Landskron. I huffed back up the very steep hill to the tram stop and was whisked back to Basel, again in 22 minutes. The trains really do run on time here, an enduring feature of Swiss life.

You can also be in the German city of Weil am Rhein in under a half hour on a tram. I’ll tell you about my trip to the German border in another post – I managed to see and do, meet and greet, and taste the most amazing food and wine, as well as feast on some amazing paintings and sculptures.

The post Basel: Where Borders Meet appeared first on Eleanor Vincent.

I only wish it was that simple. It would be great to slap a “gone fishing” sign on my front door and hightail it to SFO. But preparing to live and write in Basel Switzerland for six weeks is like training to run a marathon. So much to do. My stress is stressing me out! Yet, I know how privileged I am. I have the amazing good fortune of traveling to spend time with people I love in a place I treasure.

I’m going to celebrate my 75th birthday and relive my youth from the vantage point of the older, wiser, but still adventurous woman I’ve become. You see, I lived in Basel 55 years ago as a college student on my junior year abroad. Through sheer luck, I was assigned to live with the Metzger family who immediately made me feel welcome and included me in family activities.

I experienced a love and warmth I treasure more with each passing year. Over time, I became the American daughter of a Swiss family, deeply attached to Ingrid and Martin Metzger and their three children, who I consider my siblings.

I would return to Basel five times over the years to visit, exchange letters and cards, and when social media came on the scene, keep in touch with my Swiss sister Maja via Facebook. My Swiss sister Katrin, who lives in Israel, prefers What’s App. Lucas, my Swiss brother is an e-mail guy.

A view of the Basel cathedral from a cloister window

I first arrived in Basel in September of 1968, escaping the tumult of the United States where Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy had just been assassinated, and where demonstrations against the war in Viet Nam were tearing the country apart. Switzerland was an island of calm and serenity by comparison. And the Metzger family provided a haven for me.

I turned 21 while I lived in Switzerland. Now, I’m going back to celebrate another milestone birthday. Reflecting on my younger self, I see how my eagerness for adventure, for travel, for new experiences would profoundly shape the rest of my life. Because of my adopted family’s openness to me, I was able to experience a foreign culture from a foundation of love and see firsthand what healthy family life could offer.

Ingrid and Martin Metzger circa 2019

By that time, my own family had fractured. My parents had a dreadful marriage and their unhappiness spilled over on to me, my sister, and my brother. I think it was Tolstoy who said that all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unique in their unhappiness. That was surely the case for us. A lifetime of therapy lay ahead.

Yet my parents had taken us to England when I was only twelve to live for a year. I learned from them how valuable the experience of living in a foreign culture could be. That early experience made me eager to travel again. And my parents instilled a love of art, reading, and learning – all things I value immensely.

Living with the Metzgers was like a finishing school for the heart. There, I found the love and connection I longed for. My sisters Maja and Katrin, and my brother Lucas, became my dearest friends.

On this visit, I’ll be staying with Lucas in a private cozy apartment in his home in Binningen, a suburb of Basel. I met Lucas when he was nine years old. We bonded over his dog Alif, our mutual love of dark chocolate, and our similar sense of mischief. My Swiss mom, Ingrid, took dozens of photos of Lucas and me involved in a variety of hijinks: teasing Alif by putting pieces of chocolate on the wings of Lucas’ airplane and making the poor dog follow the plane around the living room, or of Lucas pulling me up the street in his wagon, or sitting next to me on the sofa as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake.

Lucas was the only person in the family who did not speak English in 1968. Because of my desire to connect with him, I learned to speak the local Basel Deutsch by asking Lucas to tell me all the words for the implements in the kitchen. Today, when I look at a very successful man in his mid-60s, I still see the face of the nine-year-old boy, and memories flood back.

I have a million things to do to get ready. But my heart is already in Basel. I just have to get my suitcases and my body there too! It’s going to be a special, heartfelt reunion.

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I’ve discovered that love trumps grief. Today is the anniversary of my daughter Maya’s death 31 years ago. What sustains me in moments of grief is “love in the trenches,” the kind that demands fortitude and commitment – not the easy breezy romantic ideal.

Just as the trees begin to leaf, the anniversary of Maya’s death occurs every April. Over the last three decades, I’ve discovered how to surf the waves of grief. Maya was declared brain-dead on April 6, 1992. She was only 19, a gifted young woman on the cusp of a bright future. This year, she would have celebrated her 51st birthday.

How mind-blowing is that?

Weeks before she died, Maya thanked me for always being there for her.

“You never gave up on me, Mom,” she said, “Even when it got so hard.”

Then she squeezed my hand. It was one of the happiest moments of my life. I describe this scene in Chapter 14 of my memoir Swimming with Maya.

In that moment, I felt the joy that comes when someone we love recognizes the hard work of loving. It cuts both ways – our love for them, their love for us. That’s what I mean by “love in the trenches.” Between mothers and daughters, that acknowledgement is special. When I remember Maya’s sweet face, I think of the millions who miss dear faces of their own. Grief is universal because love is universal – grief is the price we pay for great love. In the end, love trumps grief.

I’m living proof that with loving attention, support, and time, grief softens. As we follow the paths mapped by our losses, we learn that grief is really love. The deeper the love, the deeper the grief. When I allow myself to fully feel my love for Maya, and to acknowledge the great privilege of being her mother, I also feel the energy to move forward.

I feel lucky to have watched her grow, to have heard her first words, and watched her first steps.  At six years old, she was a dancing sprite, blond hair glistening in the sun, splashing in the Yuba River on a glorious summer afternoon. Her later self, brash and witty, made jokes at my expense. No one made me laugh like Maya did. And no one was better at pushing my buttons. Our conflicts were fierce, emblematic battles.

Thankfully, we made peace before she left for college. I’m grateful she lived long enough to show herself – and me – where her acting talents might take her. In Swimming with Maya, I write about those final months of her life when she aced her audition at UCLA and earned a place in their theater arts program as a community college transfer student.

A fall from a horse that left her in an irreversible coma happened while she was home on spring break. She left this earth blazing over us like a lightning strike.

I’ve always thought of myself as a kind person. But after Maya’s accident, I learned what true kindness is. A brain surgeon had just asked me if I would give my daughter’s vital organs to strangers. Doctors had just declared her brain dead and signed her death certificate. They were preparing to remove the machines keeping her heart pumping and her lungs breathing.

I was frozen with grief, paralyzed by anguish I thought I would never outlive. But I heard myself say “Yes!” to the doctor’s request.

In that moment I made a decision that would change my life forever, and radically alter the lives of countless others. Four people’s lives were saved, two people had their sight restored, and dozens benefitted from Maya’s bone and skin tissues which were processed and stored for burn victims and cancer patients. Through the miracle of donation and transplantation, families were kept whole, and people on the verge of death found new life and strength.

When Maya died, it would have been so easy to give up. But because I chose radical generosity in a moment of crisis, hope was reborn for our family, including my surviving daughter Meghan, who was then 11-years-old.

Our “gift of life” allowed us to navigate through grief knowing that a miracle had emerged from a tragedy. April is National Donate Life Month. Each year, I write about the importance of choosing to become an organ and tissue donor. I do this to honor Maya, to help others experience the miracle of donation, and to celebrate the recipients of our gift.

They received a second chance at life with a new heart, a new liver, or a new kidney. Maya’s corneas restored sight. And many more people received bone grafts and skin tissue. One decision in a moment of crisis keeps rippling into the future.

More than anything, my message is this: Love trumps grief. When you feel all the way to the bottom of your grief, love will be waiting. Embrace it! And if that seems too difficult, do something for others. An act of kindness can transform any situation, no matter how dire.

I hope you’ll sign a donor card and tell your loved ones about your decision. Visit the Donate Life America website to learn how at https://www.donatelife.net/register/.

A slightly different version of this post appeared in the Rossmoor News.

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Spring conjures pictures of blooming daffodils and sunny afternoons. But that seems like a cruel joke in soggy Northern California. Just last week the “Pineapple Express,” the 11th of the season, battered rooftops with ferocious winds and downed trees. Another storm is due tomorrow. Yet today, March 20, the sun crossed the celestial equator. Light and dark  aligned in perfect balance: the Spring Equinox.

As the seasons collide and change, I feel my impulse to hunker down in front of the fire running head on into my desire to get out in nature and explore. But I sense that it’s only a matter of time before sunshine wins out, snow melts, and the trees begin to sprout new leaves.

“In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”–Mark Twain

With the heavens aligned, how are we humans manifesting the burst of energy inaugurated by the Spring Equinox?

Ancient wisdom tells us, “As above, so below.” There is a through line to the seasons as one morphs into the next. Spring is irresistible. For millennia, we’ve celebrated the changing position of the sun and the birth of new life. Our ancestors awaited new growth just as eagerly as we do, and they honored it with festivals.

The Spring Equinox

The Spring Equinox festival, known as Ostara, named after the Greek goddess Eostre was celebrated by Pagans on the Sunday following the first full moon after the equinox, the same day as our modern Easter.

As a kid, I loved Easter. I’d get a new dress with a starchy new crinoline, and shiny patten leather shoes. We would dye and hide Easter eggs, and magically an Easter basket would appear lined with bright green grass and filled with chocolate eggs and a big chocolate bunny. Rabbits. Eggs. Jellybeans. These rituals honor new life, much as the ancients did.

Traditions that Honor Spring

In the Chinese system of Wu Xing, the Five Elements or Five Phases, spring is associated with the color green, a green dragon, and the direction of the east where the sun rises each day. Its climate is wind, and its element is wood, and it’s associated with the sound of shouting. To celebrate the change of seasons, face east, fly a kite, and make some noise!

Another important tradition is spring cleaning, a way to restore balance and order in your home and lay the groundwork for new beginnings. Decluttering guru Marie Kondo builds a strong case for how tidying can affect us mentally and emotionally in her book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. She claims that a thorough cleaning and decluttering can help us let go of our attachment to the past and relieve anxiety about the future.

Spring Projects

I’ve found great wisdom and solace through tidying, although I don’t practice it as rigorously as Kondo recommends. I recently culled my collection of books and rearranged them in categories. Now, I can more easily find my chosen selection. Instead of a bedside table cluttered with books, I now have them in a special section of my office bookshelf.

My spring project – now that the tax documents are with our accountant – is to tackle my files. As a writer, I generate and store an immense amount of paper. Once a year, at least, I have to sort and let go of several pounds of research and old first drafts, not to mention magazines I never got around to. I always feel better and lighter when I do it.

The equinox is also an ideal time to begin planning and planting a garden. It’s fun to buy new plants and put them in the ground or in pots on your patio. Getting my hands in the soil always feels like a fresh start, and when summer rolls around my plants reward me with beauty.

The Rhythm of the Seasons

For me, the surest sign of spring are California poppies, bright orange flames, sprouting on the hillsides. I don’t have to plan for or plant them, yet they magically reappear in early March year after year. When I let myself sink into the rhythm of the seasons and trust that nature is wise and ever changing, when I appreciate and celebrate her beauty, I feel renewed.

As we mark the equinox, I’ll find ways to honor the transition to spring no matter what the weather brings. I hope you will too. New growth and new beginnings never cease, no matter our stage in life. Let’s clear the decks for whatever is being born anew in our lives.

What spring traditions and rituals inspire you? Share them here.

This post originally appeared in the Rossmoor News in slightly different form. 

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