The Downtime

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

When Daren and I first got here to Italy five months ago, and Daren got the blogging bug (I’ve been blogging for over 10 years), we reframed my WordPress site around our Italy experience and created three areas on that page: My Experience/Posts, Daren’s Experience/Posts, and Our Travelogue.

If you haven’t seen it because you get the blog in your email, it’s EsterinaAnderson.com.

At first we did post separate things, but for a long time now we’ve pretty much only used the joint Travelogue section.

Why am I saying all this? Because this post is from me (Esterina) and belongs completely under the Esterina’s Posts button. This isn’t one of the posts we both edited together, so I don’t want to rope him into this.

We came to Italy to take a break from life and see how other people live.

When we first started tossing around the idea we are now living, the main goal was to step away after retirement, work on my citizenship, and see what happened. And that break is happening.

Our mornings are slow to start. Yoga, then coffee and the New York Times games together. Then often some exercise and computer work. We talk—a lot. Most of the day. We talk during meals, during errands, and on our many long car rides as we travel. This was the goal. To connect, ponder, and explore.

The conversation has shifted and changed since we got here. Initially we thought we might want to do NGO work, maybe in Africa or the EU. Citizenship certainly would open more doors for us to do those things. We also initially considered really ramping up and expanding our small consulting company. Those talks have now evolved into different conversations.

We talk about deep and spiritual things. We talk about how we want to spend the rest of our lives, who we want to be, and how much, if any, work we want to do for profit. We are doing a lot of reading for fun, but also a lot of reading about Life Part II and spirituality. The books we both read, whether novels or not, we talk about often for hours—how the characters behave, who or what they remind us of, and things the other person might not have considered. We talk about experiences we’ve had, both together and separately, and what we’d do differently now. We talk about the similarities and differences between the U.S. and Italy, what we like about each, and what we don’t like about each. We fuss over Koji. We talk about how we want to show up for the people we love.

These conversations have become really important and might just be a keystone of how, in years to come (assuming I’m lucky enough to have years to live), I look back on this time here.

I know from our blogs it probably looks like all fun, games, traveling, and bliss. But there is another side to what we’re doing. It’s not as glamorous, it’s hard to explain, and it has nothing to do with frescoes, churches, or sightseeing. It’s what happens in between, while we are shopping and going to the comune and to the veterinarian.

While I love traveling, the glitz and writing about it have fallen to the back burner for me. We’re mostly going to tourist cities, and for the most part they are very similar. Walled cities with souvenir shops, gelato, and churches. These places are indisputably beautiful, but they’re honestly starting to feel like a lot of the same. Luckily, our next few planned trips are a little more off the beaten path, and the places that aren’t will be with friends who are coming to visit.

In case I haven’t said it before (if you’ve talked to me, you’ve heard it!), I am really tired of Italian food, and it’s almost all we can get while traveling. Daren keeps writing that we eat different things whenever we go to cities, but we don’t go to cities very often. We used to eat Indian food at least once a week, and I think we’ve had it four times since we’ve been here. We can cook different things at home, but even that’s limited. The grocery stores are very large, but not as diverse as I expected.

I’m also really struggling with the cadence of life. The riposo is a bit of whiplash for me. From a non-Italian or non-Spanish perspective, it initially sounds cozy, romantic, relaxing, and family-oriented. Riposo (like a Spanish siesta) is the afternoon break when many businesses close for a few hours. It wasn’t created to inconvenience anyone. It grew out of a culture that values a long midday meal with family, stepping away during the hottest part of the day, and then returning to work later into the evening. It’s a rhythm that made a lot of sense long before air conditioning, supermarkets, and 24-hour convenience became normal in the U.S. and other European countries. But I’m finding it a little depressing. The streets are empty. Stores look like they’ve been closed since the Dark Ages, with metal gates over the doors. The piazzas empty out. It feels like a deserted ghost town.

The riposo and lack of air conditioning go hand in hand. The buildings are made of heavy stone with small windows, so many places are naturally dark. The shutters stay closed to keep the heat out, which means even less natural light. I’m used to bright, open, airy spaces with lots of sunshine, so this doesn’t fit with my natural circadian rhythm, and I find it difficult. I know what I need to do, and I do it. But I haven’t gotten used to it, and I’m struggling a bit.

I’ve been feeling a little off. We were up until 2:00 in the morning Friday night at the opera, and I slept terribly that night. Then I slept poorly again last night because I was overtired. After a mid-afternoon nap, I had a nice break to reflect on how I’d like to say this (which I am doing now).

When I woke up, I just lay there and thought about nothing… in the heat, with the sound of a fan blowing. It reminded me of when I was a kid in Brooklyn and later on Long Island, before we had air conditioning, or when we would only turn it on for a little while during the day. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. The days felt so long. It felt free. Someone else took care of dinner and the bills. The day would be ahead of me. I’d wake up, lie in bed, and just think about nothing in particular while I listened to the fan blowing.

Today was like that. I need this in my life. Everyone should be fortunate enough to take a (what Daren is calling) sabbatical in their mid-life at some point.

I wanted time to reflect, to think, to decide what to keep and what to let go of—in what I think, what I own, what I do, and what I want to do. While riposo isn’t my cup of tea, it is helping me not “go, go, go” all day and instead take an afternoon break.

Retirement adjustment is a real thing. I knew it wouldn’t be some kind of amazing transition. I wasn’t sure what to expect and this is all part of it.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say, except that there is much more going on here than what shows up in our Travelogue. While this kind of sounds like a Seinfeld show (in that it’s about nothing), there is so much more than the eye can see in the nothing. There’s been a lot of soul-searching, a lot of downtime, and a lot of adjusting to a different way of life. Some parts of it I think I’ll carry home with me. Other parts I’ll happily leave behind. I don’t think the grass is greener anywhere else, but I do think it’s worth seeing that there are other ways to do things, even in two first world kind of similar countries. I feel blessed to have this experience even though most days do not look like the blogs you read! And I have to say I’m gladder than you would think that the actual experience is not exactly as it may seem in our posts. The nothingness is really where the treasure is for me. And that is something I will always carry with me no matter where I am standing in the world.

Namaste,

Esterina

What Italy is Teaching Me: What Remains

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

By Esterina Anderson

A few weeks ago when we were in Chiavari, we walked the promenade there over and over. Drinks for aperitivo were advertised all over the place, and next to the usual Aperol Spritz I kept seeing something called a Hugo Spritz.

Last night I finally decided to look up what it was and make a non-alcoholic version at home. We happened to have the right ingredients, and Oh My Gosh, it was delicious –  Light, refreshing, and perfect for sitting outside on a hot summer evening!

We were out on our back balcony enjoying the drinks and the view when I noticed my glass was halfway gone. My immediate thought was that I should go inside and make another.

But I caught myself. That thought felt very familiar. For a long time, I thought this was just part of my drinking problem. But I’ve come to realize it’s bigger than alcohol. The deeper issue is scarcity.

If I love the taste of something, the moment I notice it’s running out my mind shifts. Instead of enjoying what is still there, I start thinking about how it’s going to be gone and how I can replace it. If it’s replaceable, half full becomes a signal to refill.

What’s interesting is that this didn’t disappear when I stopped drinking alcohol. I noticed the same pattern with seltzer, soda, and other NA drinks. The object changes, but the thought pattern stays the same.

As I sat there looking at my glass, I thought about the saying: glass half full or glass half empty.

I’ve always kind of thought of myself as a glass-half-empty person, though that never fully made sense. People who know me often describe me as optimistic, sunny, and positive. So why have I always identified more with half empty? I think I finally understand.

This isn’t really about optimism or pessimism. It’s about how quickly my mind shifts from enjoyment to scarcity. The moment something reaches halfway, I stop experiencing what’s still there and start focusing on what’s disappearing. And that mindset can insidiously steal joy.

Way back in 1992, someone told me something that left a deep impression on me. Her grandfather always said to think of the gas tank as empty once it hits halfway. If you fill it before it drops below half, and you’ll never risk running out. That idea embedded itself in me.

I developed this strong need to prevent depletion. Refill early. Stay ahead. Don’t run out. In many ways, that mindset has served me well. I’m organized and prepared. I rarely get caught off guard. But it doesn’t work everywhere. Especially not with life.

When it comes to personal consumption—food, drink, time, energy, even joy—constantly trying to refill or stay topped off can actually rob me of the experience itself. Instead of enjoying what’s here, I’m focused on what’s going to be gone.

Turning 50 and moving to Italy has shown me how much my thought patterns are changing. I know I retired young. And if I live to be 100, I still have half of my life left. That feels very different from thinking half is gone.

I am seeing this now a lot in the recovery community or in conversations with younger people who feel like they’ve messed everything up. They get stuck in thoughts like: I wasted so much time. I’m behind. I ruined things. That’s half-empty thinking.

But the shift happens when you start looking at what remains instead of what’s gone. You still have time. You can still change direction. You can still create something meaningful with what is ahead of you, whether you are 30, 60, or 90. Why not live the remaining years with purpose and be proud of every minute of it?

I’ve spent much of my life focused on avoiding depletion—refilling before things run low, staying ahead, making sure nothing runs out. That mindset can be useful in some areas, but it has also robbed me of presence and joy because I was hyper-focused on what was disappearing instead of appreciating what remains.

The Hugo Spritz ended up being a reminder. Half empty doesn’t always mean lacking. It can also mean there is still plenty left.

Maybe the better question isn’t what’s gone. Maybe the better question is what remains, and whether we can appreciate it before reaching for more or mourning what was lost.

So I sat there and enjoyed the remainder of this Hugo Spritz slowly, savoring it and reminding myself that I still had half left. And when I reached the end, I didn’t want more. It was just right. It was enough.

Learning the Rhythm of Italy

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

By Daren Anderson:

This week was about settling in. We’ve now been in Italy for four weeks, and it feels like we are starting to get the hang of things. We bought the Italian version of an EZ Pass and felt very proud breezing through the tolls without stopping, just like back home. We shopped at a local market for housewares and some food. We took Koji to establish care with a new veterinarian, and we got a membership card at our favorite grocery store.

Mastering some of these day-to-day basics has been rewarding and has helped us start to feel settled, but it’s also given me a chance to think about how different it can be to be “settled” in a new country. Italy is a modern, Western country with a language and culture that overlap with ours in so many ways. There are many similarities to life back home. But when you step back and look at the mechanics of daily life—the minute components that make up our activities and routines—differences emerge that require some adjustment.

A big contributor to these differences is history and the varied ways our societies have developed. I would describe Italy as a thoroughly modern country, as advanced in consumer technology and infrastructure as the US, but superimposed on a physical environment that was built, in some cases, over a thousand years ago. Yesterday we looked upon a beautiful church in the small town of San Quirico d’Orcia that was built in the 1100s. Buildings are old. Roads are old.

Even the location of towns is different. Have you ever seen a town in the US built on top of a hill? Or encircled with large stone walls? Likely not. In the US, most towns and cities are in valleys or along major rivers. That’s probably because American towns were not built with the need to defend against raiding barbarians in the 500s. However, Italy is filled with walled-in, hilltop towns. When you gaze out over the Tuscan countryside, you see hills everywhere capped with beautiful towns. Hilltop towns are one of the best things about Italy. Today they are beautiful and historic. In ages past they were ideal for hurling rocks, arrows, and spears down upon invading hordes and keeping them at bay. Such a need simply didn’t exist when Albany or Peoria were founded.

This geography and history drive some of the most obvious differences between living in Italy and living in the US. You drive up incredibly steep hills to reach many towns and cities. Roads are very narrow. Navigating through cities—a topic I explored in more detail in a previous blog—is fraught with challenges: squeezing through tight passages and bumping over cobblestones. It simply can’t be done with a large vehicle. Cities were designed and laid out in the Middle Ages or earlier. They certainly were not built with SUVs and 4x4s in mind. An 18-wheeler will never deliver supplies to a business in an Italian town.

Which is why Italians, almost without exception, drive very small cars. There are models that simply don’t exist in the US, like Opel, Citroën, the Mercedes A-Class, or the BMW 1 Series. Fiat 500s and Pandas are among the most common vehicles, and they are rarely seen in the US except as novelties for a few Italophiles. There are no Chevy Tahoes. There are virtually no pickup trucks.

Parking is very different too. It is rare to drive up to a store, pull into a well-apportioned parking lot, and walk in to buy your shampoo. While some stores have parking lots, most are on city streets requiring parallel parking, or parking in a parcheggio (parking lot) outside of town. Our favorite very large, very well-stocked grocery store does have a nice parking lot—but the spaces are really tight and narrow. Our car, with its range of cameras and sensors, sounds like a horror movie as beeps, tones, and progressively dire chimes ring out just to pull into a space at the Coop.

In addition to the physical differences, there are others that have taken more time to recognize. There is a cadence and schedule in Italy to which we are still adapting. Much of it centers around eating. We are breakfast eaters and always start the day with a decent, healthy meal. That hasn’t been an issue since we tend to eat at home or, when traveling, at a hotel with a breakfast buffet catering to tourists. We’ve been able to find our favorites—oatmeal, cereal, eggs, cottage cheese, and yogurt—without difficulty.

For Italians, breakfast is espresso or cappuccino and a pastry. A breakfast like this would leave us both cranky and barely functional. The first real meal in Italy is pranzo (lunch). Lunch starts at 1 p.m. and can run from 1–3. It is considered the main meal of the day. Interestingly, outside tourist towns, everything closes at 1 p.m. until as late as 4 p.m. to allow time for pranzo. This means that if you have shopping or errands—or even just want to window shop in a new town—you need to get it done in the morning. By 1 p.m., you should be seated in a restaurant or, if you are like us and prefer a sandwich at noon, find a way to occupy yourself from 1–4.

Dinner is where we’ve struggled the most. Stores and businesses reopen, and whole towns seem to awaken around 4 p.m. But if you are looking for dinner at six, you’d best cook it at home. Most restaurants won’t even offer seating until seven. And you’ll often be the only one there until 8 p.m. If you are like us and prefer to be heading toward reading and bed around 9:30, you’ll be doing so with a full stomach—which is a prescription for heartburn and a bad night’s sleep.

We haven’t sorted out how to adapt to this new cadence yet. When we are home, it’s easy. We make our own food and eat when we prefer. If we have errands to run, we do them in the morning or after four. It’s more of a challenge when we are traveling and sightseeing. Then you are more at the mercy of the Italian schedule.

One thing we’ve discovered that offers a potential solution is the café. Every town has at least one, usually in the piazza, with a mix of indoor and outdoor seating, a display case of sandwiches and pastries, a commercial espresso machine, and a full bar. Most have decent non-alcoholic options as well. These places serve as a bridge between the main meals. Italians seem to use them for coffee and pastries in the morning, and for drinks and light snacks in the late afternoon. Aperitivo hour, which picks up around 5 p.m., finds people sipping Aperol spritzes or glasses of wine. For us, these are great places to get a bite at noon, or—if we’ve had a full pranzo—a lighter dinner at 6 or 7. We’re still working it out. I’ve been surprised at how out of sync we feel based on these differences in schedules.

Other notable differences: dogs are everywhere. It’s quite a shock initially to walk into a restaurant and see dogs at their owners’ feet under the table. You’ll see them in grocery stores, clothing stores, or pretty much anywhere else. Dogs are extremely popular in Italy and accepted nearly everywhere. We read that dogs—even large ones like Koji—can accompany you on trains. The Italian airline ITA just adopted a policy allowing you to purchase a “seat” for your large dog on domestic flights. It’s been nice for us in that we can bring Koji on most outings and he gets to explore parts of the world his dog mind could previously not have imagined—like a grocery store, a cheese shop, or, yesterday, a china shop (a bit dicey). It does lead to more barking.

Which brings me to another subtle difference: the ambient background noise of daily life in Italian towns. Barking dogs are everywhere. It’s rare to take a walk without hearing them. Chimes are a constant presence. These are brass bells, not electronic imitations. Every town has bell towers atop its churches and municipal buildings. They ring the hours and sometimes the half and quarter hour. At Mass time the bells ring out all over town. More subtly—perhaps unique to our location on a hill in Tuscany—on my morning walks I can hear the distant tinkling of bells around the necks of the sheep in the valley below. These sounds may not even register at first, but they form part of the rich tapestry of life in Italy.

I could write about many other large and small differences—like the confusing electrical outlets (10A, 16A, two-prong, three-prong, large prong, small prong—I bought three different extension cords before getting the right one), or the challenge of finding over-the-counter meds (you buy them in surprisingly small quantities at a pharmacy). I could write a whole blog about traffic circles, which are a huge improvement over traffic lights and stop signs.

But the more important point is that daily life is shaped by history in ways we rarely notice when we’re at home. The routines, the infrastructure, the timing of meals, even the size of our cars—all of it reflects decisions made long before we arrived. Living somewhere new makes those invisible assumptions visible.

And that, I think, is what it really means to begin settling in. Not just learning where to shop or how to pay tolls, but slowly recalibrating your expectations of how a day unfolds. You stop measuring everything against home. You start noticing the logic in the differences. And eventually, without quite realizing when it happened, the unfamiliar rhythms begin to feel less like disruptions — and more like another perfectly reasonable way to live.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

A black dog on a leash walking through a colorful shop filled with decorative pottery and glassware.
Koji in a China shop!

Narrow cobblestone alleyway with colorful buildings, featuring green shutters and a shop window displaying swimwear.
You would not drive an SUV up this street!

Seventh Floor, Going Down

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I know if I don’t capture the feelings now, I still might be able to later — but they will never feel as they do now.

Today.
My last day of work.
That elevator — the sound made me want to cry.

A hot day, not too different from today.
23 years ago.

5th Floor, Building 2 — right outside my door was the elevator bank.
Mary Susie Conti — the woman I was replacing — was loading up my head with all that I needed to learn.

I was paying rapt attention, but every so often I sussed out the environment. It felt so different to be in an office in the middle of the day instead of home with my two small children, who were now 45 minutes away in a new daycare. Every time I thought of them, my heart hurt just a bit, and I had to intentionally put it out of my mind.

The feel of the air with the open window (at a time when we were allowed to open windows — now I can’t imagine), the humidity in the office, and the sound of the elevator’s electronic voice blathering all day:

“Fifth Floor Going Down… Fifth Floor Going Up.”

Over the next few days and weeks, I slightly startled the 50 or so times a day I heard that electronic voice announcing the floor it landed on and which direction it was going.

Eventually, it became background noise and I didn’t hear it at all. But when I did tune in, no matter the day or time of year, I was transported back to being 26 years old and learning my new job from Mary Susie Conti.

For the past 8+ years, I haven’t come into the office much. I was on a reasonable accommodation and working from home long before COVID. But I have to say — it always felt like home when I did go in.

I honestly believe one of the reasons I got the job is because of that “home”-like feeling.

When I interviewed for that first job, I went through a series of interviews back to back.
Martha Shea was the first person who interviewed me.

Right off the bat, she made it known that if I didn’t pass her muster, the two doctors I would soon interview with would take her consideration into account.

She also made sure to tell me she was prior military and instantly started off by asking about my own military experience.

I was slightly intimidated, but something about her already felt familiar. She was my kind of people — I could tell.

I don’t even know how I wasn’t prepared for the question:
“Why do you want to work here?”

I mean — for heaven’s sake — if a person can’t answer that, they shouldn’t get the job!

Martha asked me that question and my truly unprepared, but terribly raw response — when I looked around — was:

“Because it feels like home.”

Martha cracked a genuine smile and asked me why.

I looked around, asking myself the same thing to understand why I had that feeling.

I saw the government-issued 3-month calendar, where you save paper with the months on both sides. The chairs. The carpet. The signage. The halls. The overhead pages. Men with military regalia ambling down the hall. The feeling I always got crossing from a state line onto federal property.

So that is what I said.
I first pointed to the calendar on the wall, then the chairs. I mentioned something that was broken in a corner and talked about how it all felt familiar.

I didn’t think about puffing everyone up with “helping veterans,” giving back, stories of grandfathers who fought in wars — or all the other things I subsequently heard over the years when I eventually became the interviewer.

My answer was candid and from the heart.

If my interview were a cartoon, Martha would have started off in a knight’s costume — complete with armor — to intimidate me.
Then it would have fallen off, and you would have seen her heart literally melting.

She proudly walked me down the hall to the person who would eventually become my first supervisor at the VA.

With a hand on my shoulder, she introduced me in a way that made it clear she liked me and wanted to take me under her wing.

I already felt protected — and that I was with my people.

Today, I drove into for the last time.

The sunrise down the street from me. A new dawn to a brand new type of day for me.

I saw people parking, taking out their bags and lunches, putting on badges.
These people were donned in suits, scrubs, lab coats — and everything in between.

I vividly remembered those early days of parking in that same lot. The uniforms, cars and smells were so unfamiliar at the time. Now they are all second nature. All these years I have been taking the same steps into the same building and heading to the elevators —

“1st Floor, going up.”

Today, I ran into one of my coworkers walking into the building.

We got on the elevator together, and I heard that same electronic voice, unchanged in all these years.

I asked him about his two young girls. He filled me in and then asked how old my children were now.

28 and 26.
My youngest is now as old as I was when I first started working there.

I worked there for their entire lives.
In some ways, I missed their lives because of that place.

I don’t know who I am without it.

Some people would say I worked there a lifetime (23 years).

Others, who have 40, 45 years in the government, would still consider me a newbie.

It’s all relative. But for me — between the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs — it’s been my whole life.

I had jobs in different buildings and offices. Not too many were close to an elevator bank.

Today, as I left, it was:

“7th Floor, going down.”

It felt like:

“Esterina, now going down and out — into the wider world.”

I sat in the parking lot for a long time.
I read the cards I was given, sitting in my car with the air conditioning blasting.

I felt nostalgic — but very excited.

Driving away was the hardest part.
No tears, but a large lump in my throat.

A piece of my heart will always be there — in those buildings, carpets, walls, files.

And just like that — “7th Floor Going Down” — one chapter closes, and another begins.

On Laughing

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

A few days ago, I met with a group of women. The group is not large, but a little too large for intimate conversation without a small amount of facilitation. So there is a discussion topic for each time we meet that everyone is aware of ahead of time. For this meeting, the discussion topic was as follows:

What do you feel you can do better—or like better—about yourself at this age versus when you were younger?

Consequently, what do you feel you did better or liked better about yourself when you were younger versus now?

The caveat was that we couldn’t discuss our bodies.

I absolutely loved hearing what other women had to share. I personally have so many things for the first question and not many for the second. My initial response to the second question was that I miss having passion for work.

This morning, however, while I was walking my dog and thinking about how often people criticize others for smiling or laughing too much, I realized that what I really miss about being younger is laughing.

This realization began with me feeling a sense of kinship with that kind of criticism. I remember being in class on the first day of school every year and a teacher saying something quite funny that everyone chuckled at—but I laughed. Like really laughed. Ten minutes later I would remember what they said and giggle about it again. It was those times that I felt free and connected. I was engaged and listening and not worried about what other people thought of me. I was open to hearing and learning and contributing—and just being.

I used to laugh with my friends. I laughed so, so, so much. My family—particularly my brother Mario.

When I joined the military and was in Boot Camp, I used to get in trouble for laughing and often for the contagion it caused. The company commanders were quite hilarious when yelling at us or instilling advice.

“It looks like the captain’s cat puked on your belt buckle, recruit! How can you show up looking like this?”

I’d laugh. My friend Brando would catch on. Others started too. The company commander would yell more—which only became funnier. Sometimes that company commander would eventually laugh too. Other times, when they continued to scream, I’d see from the corner of my eye that their lips would turn upward and they were hiding their amusement and light heart from us.

Do I think that because we broke out laughing that it would be okay to show up with a dirty belt buckle for inspection? Of course not. The lesson wasn’t any less powerful because we laughed at it.

Years later, in my early professional career, I would sit in meetings and look around. I would often take a pulse of the audience to see how engaged they were. What I would often see—and most often on women—was a resting frown. Now we have the term “resting face.”

I saw that these individuals were mostly engaged, but their faces told a different story. They looked miserable and angry. I’d take note that my lips probably were resting in the same way and would actually change my expression into a more open, neutral position on purpose. I didn’t want to look miserable because I didn’t actually feel miserable.

When I facilitated meetings and saw this expression on participants, I would throw humor into the mix just so that face would soften. When someone in the room made a funny comment, I’d laugh to acknowledge that I not only heard them, but appreciated the comic relief. What I found was that when people were smiling and felt seen, they were more engaged and open to hearing others.

As I’m pushing 50, I don’t laugh nearly as much as I used to. But I notice I still laugh more than most people and try to smile, engage, and add comic relief when interacting with others. It’s a habit I don’t even think about now.

So what is so wrong with smiling and laughing?

When you smile, people often smile back. No matter how serious the conversation is, having a sense of openness is always appropriate, and smiling often indicates openness. It sends out a sense of friendliness and willingness to let others in. It doesn’t mean that the person smiling doesn’t have opinions or important things to say.

Smiling and laughing does not equal being stupid.

It took a few days, but the question in my women’s group about what I liked about myself when I was younger versus now came back to me.

I laughed.

I laughed, and it felt good.

And it actually made others feel good too.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Please feel free to leave a comment or subscribe for future updates.

Life on Life’s Terms. 3 Years of Recovery

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

Today. Friday. A day off for me. New moon. 3 years to the date marking my sobriety anniversary.

I sit in the flexible office/yoga/art room. It’s the space within our home that is mine alone.

I sit in butterfly pose on my meditation cushion. I play a yogic playlist that I used to teach with and hadn’t heard in at least 4 years. It is familiar yet new at the same time.

The lovely backdrop of construction noise and banging takes place outside my door and below me on the floor.

In front of me is a pile of stuff that will be used “sometime soon.” Sometime soon started last June when our construction project began.

My husband pops by on a quick work break to say hello on the way to the bathroom. He looks in my office/yoga/art room and tells me the scene is “so you.”

Yes. This is me. Right now in this moment in time. Living life on life’s terms. Construction, piles of things, and me trying in the midst of it all to stay centered and be me.

3 years ago was a different story. I went to bed at 4 a.m. after being in the emergency room for not being able to come off a panic attack. I hyperventilated for hours. I had to appear in court in the morning for an arrest, so I must have slept 2 hours at most. As I lay in the ER hallway (because naturally there is no space on a random February Monday evening), I couldn’t believe the low I had gotten myself into.

I didn’t know where to go, who to reach out to, or what the next step was.

It was then I surrendered. In the hall of Yale New Haven’s Emergency Department. I took the first step that AA’s 12 Steps teaches and surrendered. I lost control. I had no control to start with. Alcohol had control over me. I accepted that.

Every day when I sat down to drink the first perfectly chilled glass of chardonnay, I would turn on my soap opera. Commercials were still part of the app I watched it on at the time, and there was a recurring ad for a program called Aware Recovery. Every day I would think that I should probably call them. There was no time better than the moment to look into this. I put in a request for information on my smartphone right there in the hall in the middle of the night.

Aware Recovery called me back the next morning while I was in court waiting to be seen. I remember telling the person on the phone where I was. I was expecting shock and disgust, but what the person told me is that they’d been in my exact position and they could help. I cried with relief when hearing that. Relief for not being judged. Relief for knowing there is help and knowing that someone in my position was able to come back from something like this.

The next few days and weeks were a blur. Aware Recovery stepped up. At the time, I didn’t know I would need to rely on a community to help me get through recovery or who, if anyone I had already known, would be a part of what I didn’t even know I needed—but it works out if you surrender. It is done one step at a time. Metaphorically. Literally. Step one was to surrender. The moment I did that for real, really real—the rest started to fall into place. You have to want it and to surrender. It’s the easiest/hardest part.

One still needs to work. The community can’t do it for you.

I can write and list all the lessons I learned, thank all the people who played a part—either willingly or unknowingly—to help, talk about the metaphors, the work, the yoga, my own journey—but I’ve done that many times.

Today I’m just thankful for where I am and can attest to anyone who isn’t sure they should, can, or want to quit drinking—that they can really do it. Life is better without it. If you think you need it, it helps you, or it tastes good—some might be true, but there are healthier ways, without the risk of becoming addicted, to get the benefits you seek.

I’m still me, only better.

This was me before—this is me now. I’m just not inebriated, angry, silly, prone to being triggered, or prone to risky behavior—drunk texting, flirting, driving…. It’s just me without the risks, calories, costs, and cravings.

I love to knit. Particularly to knit big, chunky, cozy blankets.

I love plants and gardening.

I love yoga and meditation.

I love reading, particularly spiritual books.

I love living by the water and all things nautical.

I love painting, drawing, and creating art.

Life on life’s terms. It’s an AA term I love. It’s not just people in recovery this applies to. It’s an awesome way to accept life.

I’ve been living through a construction project. My house has been noisy and dusty, and at times I felt like I have been losing my mind. The past 3 years taught me many lessons like this in different ways.

This is life. We can either accept it and feel free or fight it and feel like a prisoner on someone else’s terms. Life isn’t going to stop being hard because you stop drinking. But you will be able to accept life as it shows up without pain.

This is my life and I accept it.

Everyone’s life is different, full of what they love and cherish, and contains stuff, people, and circumstances that they really wish weren’t there.

Who ever said life would be anything other than good, bad, and everything in between?

This is my life. You have yours, and maybe your story—or someone you love’s story—involves addictive substances too. There is a community of us who have recovered from addiction and want to help anyone who wants help in the ways they know how to.

This is one way I know how—reaching out, sharing, sending love, and being available.

Namaste.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Why I Clean Everyday

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

First – why do you care? Haha, but really… if you care at all, why do you? How does it affect you?

When I was 22 years old, I moved to Cape Cod. I was entering the Active USCG Reserves while transitioning from a military member to a military spouse. My new home was located on a military base. It was not my first home as an adult, but it was the first home I set up alone.

This period was a transitional time in my life. Before then, I went straight from high school into the military. I was married just over a year later and unexpectedly pregnant 6 months after that. My life was busy, and I had not truly actively planned anything until that point.

As I looked around at all the boxes and pictures to hang, the disorder around me was affecting my mind. Or was it the disorder in my mind affecting my outer world?

I quickly went to work setting up home. While I opened boxes and organized the outward disarray, the disorder in my mind started to unravel into digestible thoughts. How do I gather all the college credits I accumulated into applying for a degree? Do I quit smoking? Have another baby? What do I want to be when I grow up?

As I unpacked and moved items—and then moved them again into better places—I made notes: call the education office, look into the local college, schedule that physical, reach out to neighbors, ask about pediatricians, talk to my spouse about a new baby while this little guy was still young so he had a playmate.

The act of outwardly organizing was helpful. I was making progress on something important, but also the monotony—combined with the active thinking of where we would most easily grab a plate—was just enough active and inactive brain power to keep my mind focused on the next phase of my life.

When the house was all set up and arranged just so, I missed the act of taking care of it. So I cleaned it really well. Again, the repetition and combination of active and inactive thought helped organize my inner thoughts, as they were all I had while doing this type of work.

I learned then that I very much enjoyed cleaning. All these years later I would label what I was doing as a sort of meditation, but at the time it only felt like cleaning.

I started to clean every day in various ways. There was everyday picking up—dishes, laundry, diapers, trash, wiping the table—but also things that needed to happen often but not daily: washing floors, laundering sheets, cleaning the bathroom. I put the non-daily essentials into a schedule for myself the way I learned in my years of cooking and meal planning, basically transferring my work skills to my home.

Then I moved these things outside—fix the fence, mow the lawn, ask about the grass seeds that are supposedly free.

I met my neighbors. They were all lovely. The one who was the friendliest lived across the street and worked on the base as a cleaner for the military houses in between family transitions. I don’t remember her name, but I will call her Melanie.

I asked Melanie what she did when she cleaned these empty houses, and she told me all about the floors and the blinds and the walls and corners—all the checkboxes she had to complete. Surprisingly, her house was quite a mess and she didn’t really enjoy cleaning. But she did comment that she saw me cleaning often.

What?

Saw me cleaning? How?

“Through your window,” Melanie replied.

Now I was embarrassed—but intrigued by what she told me. I hadn’t thought about cleaning blinds or paying attention to ceiling or floor corners.

A day or two later, I decided to tackle the blinds. As I was doing so, Melanie waved to me from inside her home across the street. I was slightly embarrassed yet again, but continued to clean the blinds as if it were a normal everyday occurrence.

The next time I saw Melanie, she commented on my cleaning again. That became the standard. It embarrassed me, so I often waited until I didn’t see her mini-van in the carport to clean anywhere near my own windows or outside.

Nonetheless, from there I continued a lifelong habit of cleaning nearly daily and scheduling various cleaning tasks throughout the week.

Through the years I’ve had to explain and defend my cleaning to partners, neighbors, kids, step-kids, and friends who comment—sometimes with annoyance—that my house is clean. I was always trying to hide it, clarify where I saw dirt or oils, negotiate with the kids to just vacuum that room—yes, on this setting. It was exhausting. I loved to clean when no one was home so I didn’t have to explain it.

Which brings me to the point of this blog.

Why did anyone care that I was cleaning in the first place?

I didn’t really ask for help. The kids’ chores—table setting, dishwashing, cleaning their own bathrooms, and scooping the cat litter of the cats they wanted—were not the demands of some Nazi clean-loving freak.

The cleanliness of other people’s homes doesn’t affect how much I enjoy visiting them or their company in any way. I’m not judging those who don’t like to clean. I know I’m unusual in this particular way.

So why does anyone really care what other people do? How they take care of their home, how often they cut their lawn, their hair, their fingernails? How deep into my life do you care about what I do—and why does my lawn count but my fingernails not so much?

At what point does what I do truly affect anyone else? Or does what I am doing make others reflect on what they are doing—and is that really my problem?

I did hide my real self for a long time worrying about what other people thought. That was not healthy.

This question grows from me into a larger scale. Why does anyone care who anyone loves or how they use their body to please a lover? How do the spices someone uses in their cooking matter to you? Why does it matter how other cultures cook, pray, love, dress, and take care of one another?

Yes, there are things that affect other people, but not as many as we think. Maybe the one house on the block with the overgrown lawn can bring down property value. There are things you can influence—like talking to that homeowner and maybe even offering to cut their lawn because they are a single parent short on time—but perhaps also accept how things are if that person doesn’t respond the way you’d like.

You cannot control other people. And just because you don’t like something they do—or don’t do—doesn’t make them wrong or crazy. Why waste mental energy on something you cannot control?

I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m just offering the suggestion to ask yourself why you might care and whether that energy is worth it. There is a locus of what you can control, what you can influence, and what you have no control over.

A diagram illustrating the Circle of Control, featuring three concentric circles labeled 'things I can control,' 'things I can influence,' and 'things I cannot control.' The innermost circle highlights personal thoughts, actions, and decisions, while the outer circles include factors like other people's actions and external elements such as the economy, traffic, and weather.

I clean all the time. I like it. It clears my mind. For me, the house doesn’t need to be very dirty to clean it—most people shower daily even when they aren’t that dirty. It is something in this crazy world that I feel I have control over.

I like the way I feel after moving around and taking care of the animate and inanimate objects that I own—my bed, plants, and pets. I like the way my surroundings look.

The question I asked myself when I was 22—whether the disorder of my environment affects my mind or if it is the other way around—is irrelevant to me today. Both matter. And this is one of my ways to care for both.

But why do I need to explain that?

You have control over your thoughts about why this, or anything, matters. Are you wasting your energy on something you want to waste it on? Do you have control over it? Influence? Neither?

I’m going to clean whether anyone likes it or not. I hope you collect your gnomes or pink socks or do whatever it is that you like—as long as no one is getting hurt. Don’t worry if I like it. I love you for being you and doing what you love.

Make sure you are doing no harm—and then do what you love without shame, question, or worry.

Be the change you want to see. Be what you wish the world to be.

It’s all you can do.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Coming Full Circle

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

If you haven’t read The Alchemist (spoiler alert: skip to the next paragraph if you ever plan to and don’t want to know how it ends) and grasped the true meaning, it speaks to how you can travel the world, be rich, be poor, and experience everything life can possibly offer—but you will not find what you are looking for until you look right where you are. In essence, the treasure we seek is within.

Last night I came back from a 28-hour marathon trip from Westhampton Beach, NY, across the Long Island Sound via Port Jefferson to Connecticut, to Branford/Rhode Island/Branford/Rhode Island, and back across the Sound on the east end of Long Island via Orient Point to drive back to where I started from. I went in a large circle.

While having a quick takeout dinner I grabbed earlier in the day on the Cross Sound Ferry yesterday evening, I suddenly felt the urge to MOVE. I had been in the car or in a tight, cramped space for more than a day and felt like I had to break free.

But there was almost nowhere to go…

So I walked. And walked. And walked.

I walked around and around in circles on the ferry. The wind was warm—breezier in some parts than others. I breathed it all in deeply. The sun was setting.

I passed the same people many times. People mostly doing the same things—on their phones, with a handful engaged with one another. I walked past them over and over in my own reverie as the ship moved forward from one destination to the next.

Something about this felt symbolic. Many remain in one spot, or like I was doing, going around and around in circles as we are carried ahead by life via a man-made creation known as time.

Once the ferry arrived and I began the drive from the east end, it all felt so very familiar—the dark, the long winding roads, infrequently passing other cars as I skirted my eyes toward the right where the white line meets the edge of the road, as I was taught in Defensive Driving when I was 16.

I felt like I was that age again. Driving familiar roads. Some of the same roads I had driven then. The landscape of the road, the lining of the trees against the night sky, the warm summer air, the cicadas, and the crickets. All my senses were highly engaged. I was so present and aware of the moment—and the connection to the past.

The radio was on and connected to my iPhone. I was listening to Angels and Airwaves. I looked at the name of the album’s words that lit up on my car’s navigation display:

Stomping the Phantom Brake Pedal

I had only just noticed what those words mean.

Has my life just gone on until now while I went in circles?

I spent my entire adulthood on a path away from where I grew up.

The first 16 years or so were quite lovely. I put trauma behind and made a life for myself—one that I was proud of. But a divorce, and what should have been a happier ending, threw me into a tailspin. I was suddenly looking for something. And to make what could be a very long story short, I unearthed trauma that was still lingering, and the last 13 years have been about discovery and healing.

But I stayed away from home.

My current husband grew up a mere 7 miles, as the crow flies, from the place I attempted to escape and was driving toward last night. I’ve visited his hometown for years while skirting around my own. I never really went back—mentally or physically.

Then a few weeks ago, on a whim, I decided to stop in my own hometown on the way past it. I was alone. I had time. I suddenly wanted to see it.

To my wonder, I felt nostalgia—something I never imagined I would feel. The feeling came on quickly, without warning. It hurt because it felt unfamiliar. Yet it was very happy, and at the same time very sad. A mix of emotion that only nostalgia unearths.

A few days later I realized I could love and dislike the past equally. It’s not all or nothing.

The feeling of suddenly being open to seeing the good of the past felt so free. It was a band-aid that had been on for so long that when it came off, that part of me felt exposed and unfamiliar—yet amazing. In the same way skin under tape would feel when exposed once again to the sun. Cautious, but so warm and, dare I say, inviting.

I let that all marinate for a few weeks and carried on with this temporarily homeless existence my husband and I have been living in since our home has been under construction in June.

And here I was last night, coming back to where I started the prior day and literally close to where my adulthood journey began.

I suddenly wanted to break out—not so dissimilar to the feeling I had on the ferry earlier.

What I am looking for has always been with me, like in The Alchemist. I know this intellectually. However, it seems difficult to access most of the time.

Last night, that portal was wide open.

I wanted to be where I was—in the flow, in the perfect moment always, like the spiritual teachings of all shapes, sizes, and religions teach us. We are always where we are supposed to be.

If we let go of our imaginary steering wheel and embrace what God/Brahma/The Universe has in store for us, we will truly be able to enjoy the ride.

Maybe my purpose this morning is to write about this. To share that you can stomp on the phantom brake pedal—out of standstills or ruts you find yourself in—and break habits that stop you from being the fullest expression of yourself.

I feel it now at this very moment. I know I will forget it quite soon and carry on with my day and my life very much as I always have—but perhaps a smidgen more enlightened.

It’s all these little “smidges” of becoming more aware that lead to peace and flow. That is the only path forward.

Perhaps forward is really upward?

Perhaps we can stay where we are in that same physical place, the same rut, but use the brake to find true freedom in knowing that there is always a very special treasure within.

That treasure is inner freedom and peace.

Thanks for taking the time to read. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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On Making your Bed

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

I am told a good life starts in the morning with making your bed.

Do you make your bed?

I’ve heard all reasons of why folks do or don’t make their bed. It is a personal decision. But research shows that people who make their bed are more successful, productive, and happier.

I make my bed. I feel energetically better when I do. The room appears neater, and I don’t feel schlepy when I crawl back in it at night.

I have also heard people say, “Why bother? It’s only going to get messy again.”

There is truth to that. But your body will also get dirty after you shower. Most of us don’t skip showers for that reason.

A lot of people tell me they don’t do yoga or meditate because they aren’t flexible, their minds don’t work that way, or they aren’t in shape. As they say in the yoga world:

“Saying you don’t do yoga because you aren’t flexible is like saying you are too dirty to take a shower.”

Taking it a step further would be to say that you are too out of shape to exercise.

I hate to break it to you—we are all the same. Our bodies and minds need maintenance, and when we don’t maintain them, we get a monkey mind and fall out of shape. It’s really that simple. Yes, there are exceptions, but almost all of them can be overcome.

We can skip cleaning our spaces and making our beds (or weeding our gardens—literally and metaphorically)—but while we are at it, why not skip that shower too? And why bother to exercise? Won’t we become atrophic again when we stop?

To live is to maintain. To live well is to maintain what supports us—our health, our habits, our homes, our finances, our pets… and even our minds. They can all go to pot if we skip the maintenance and lose sight of their health.

Yes—this takes up a lot of the day. But it’s worth the clean and clear space, because what you see around you directly affects what you feel inside you. You can feel it in your energy if you quiet your mind and get in touch with it.

So make your bed.

See what changes.
Namaste.

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On Taking the Crutch

Posted on by Esterina Anderson

My father is 72 years old, and his health is drastically failing. He was released from a two-month stint of back-to-back hospital and nursing home stays just last weekend. He is now staying with one of my brothers because he cannot be on his own. While he is home alone most of the day, he refuses any licensed home care. Why?

Most of us grew up with the important message that it is vital to be independent and to do as much as you can on your own. It’s a great message. We should learn as early in life as possible to care for ourselves—do our own laundry, prepare meals, provide for our own food, shelter, and clothing. Relying solely on anyone else for the long term is risky.

What we have interpreted is to not take the crutch if we don’t need it. Walk on your own two feet.

But when is the message taken too far? When should we take the crutch and lean on others?

Example—

Back in 2014, when we first got our dog Koji, he was an exuberant, wild little 28 lb plaything fresh off the trucks from the south. I hadn’t had a dog in over 25 years, and I could count on my hands the number of times I ever leash-walked a dog. My husband and our children had never had a dog. We put a leash on him, and I instantly realized I couldn’t control him. So I purchased a harness.

Before that harness arrived, we had an electric fence put in, and the installer/fence trainer told us we would have to take control or the dog would control us. This applied to walking, eating, crating, drives in the car—basically everything. When that harness arrived, I was embarrassed to have ordered it and put it in the back of the new space I cleared out in what was now the dog’s cabinet.

Fast forward a year—I was walking Koji one morning before work and, as usual, having trouble controlling his pulling with his now 70 lb body. A squirrel ran by, and he pulled me down forward while the leash came out of my hand, and he ran off into the woods.

This became a regular occurrence. I stopped wearing flip-flops to walk him. I had my cell phone close by in case I needed to call for help. I often had pain in my arm from being yanked, and my right hand and lower arm were perpetually red from wrapping the leash around so many times. Being pulled down and sliding on my belly a few feet was a regular occurrence that I lived with.

It took another TWO years when one hot summer morning Koji saw a squirrel and I was pulled down again that I saw the area was safe from cars, and I just let go of the leash.

At this point in my life, I was in a 30-day mental health outpatient treatment program and going to be late if he didn’t come back soon. I didn’t want to walk in with my legs and tummy scraped up. I only imagined what they might think. And that is when I realized that they would think I needed to walk that dog with a harness.

It was like the clouds parted as I lay on the ground watching Koji happily bouncing back from across the street that I remembered I still had that harness somewhere and that there was no shame in using it. I saw plenty of people with large and small dogs alike using harnesses. I didn’t think any less of them, and even if I had—who cares? They are using what they feel comfortable with to live alongside their furry companions.

Later that morning, while I shared my morning dog walk story with my group during check-in, I tied it to a tool we had learned just the previous afternoon. It was about adjusting our expectations to be able to live alongside others by accepting reasonableness versus reality.

I don’t want to digress too far down the rabbit hole, but this does tie in.

The previous afternoon, our group lesson therapist made the connection to the reasonable/reality tool while one of the younger male participants was complaining about what a poor role model his father was. Our therapist asked him if it was reasonable for him to want a father he could look up to, and the young man said yes. He was then asked—knowing the reality of how his father behaves—if it was a realistic expectation to have of his father… the answer was no.

I didn’t like that answer. I was sort of struggling with it the previous 24 hours up until I was describing my morning walk with Koji. Was it reasonable for me to want to walk a dog with just a leash and a collar around his neck? Yes, it was. Given my dog’s size and lack of professional training, was it realistic for me to do so? OH HECK NO.

I went home and took out that harness and never fell down since.

This is now a famous story I tell when teaching yoga and my students are in pigeon pose. As I lead the student to the pose, I encourage them to grab some props around them—a blanket, bolster, or block. As I walk them through the pose, I demonstrate where to use the props should they need them. Most do not touch the props. As we lower our foreheads down, I often see students struggling as they attempt to take their bodies to places their body is resisting.

A woman practicing yoga on a mat with blocks, in a seated posture, smiling peacefully.

Pigeon is a pose that is held for a while. As your body adjusts to the new position, the worried, clenching muscles loosen and the body is able to go deeper into the stretch. I tell the proverbial crutch/dog walking harness story and how there is no shame in just accepting what is reasonable to want and realistic to accept. More often than not, a few students will reach their arms around and find a prop to help support the pose.

There are many tools I have forgotten until I heard them enough and ones I scarce use from that outpatient mental health treatment and other forms of therapy I’ve participated in before and after that. But the reasonable vs. realistic one has stuck to me like a welcome new invisible and incredibly helpful limb. It has allowed me to take the proverbial crutch and adjust my expectations in the healthiest of ways.

There is a part of that initial ingrained message about doing it without help that is important and shouldn’t be forgotten either.

Example—

I had toe surgery in January and knew I would be non-weight-bearing for at least 6 weeks. I knew I would get crutches, but I know how much I dislike crutches. I knew I would have to depend on help with driving the entire time and doing almost everything, particularly that first week when my foot had to stay elevated all day.

I took the crutch. I accepted my husband’s help.

But I took it further in both directions.

I purchased a knee scooter and one-legged half crutch so I could be arms-free.

I got up off the couch and crawled to the floor to stretch when I could.

I took my third shower alone while my husband was working. I tried out the half crutch and performed every movement slowly and mindfully. I knew he was close by if I needed help, but I attempted to do it alone.

Taking the crutch doesn’t mean taking advantage or giving in. It means using what is available when it’s needed, but not using it if it’s possible to do without it.

It’s about taking only what is needed.

It means accepting what is reasonable vs. what is realistic.

It means using props in yoga until you no longer need them. Should it be one minute later when your muscles relax, two years down the line, or never… it’s all okay and the way it is.

I often tell students in pigeon that my left hip is inflamed (which it is) and demonstrate using the blanket to cushion that side.

I will often see a smile break out as I then tell the dog harness story. I see their bodies soften, visually communicating the acceptance they feel toward their body and personal abilities. I tell the story often and premise it with, “If you’ve done pigeon with me before, please bear with my story as I tell it to the ones who haven’t heard it.”

I hope, like me, that hearing the same message several times helps it to stick. I hope they take the message off the mat like I took a lesson hot off a therapy session and can apply it to other areas in life. I hope they create their own stories of taking the crutch and sharing it with others who struggle.

We all struggle. We all remember a lesson or two that has stuck. I’d love to hear what has stuck with you—as it might help me too!

Love to all. Namaste.

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