Friends and Friendship

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Group Posts, Relationships | 7 Comments

Christie Healey reflects on true friendships and “china plate” mates.

Just as I started to think about this blog, an old friend from New York sent me a long email. Barbara is one of the most energetic women I have ever met. She has 13 grandchildren, plays tennis and golf and keeps well abreast of the political scene (her opening line was to congratulate me, as a Minnesotan, on the seating of our second senator after eight months of legal whining). I have not seen Barbara in over five years, but every six months or so we correspond. She comes from a nearly extinct breed, the letter writer, but now I see she has discovered email.

I have friendships of over 30 years and of less then three. All of them stroll into my mind at unexpected times and are in my most oft-visited memories.

What brought me together with my friends is still a little mysterious to me, sometimes there is an instant connection and sometimes it takes longer. Read more

Distance

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Family, Relationships | 12 Comments

For Christie Healey, family is chosen and distance is a state of mind.

I have moved many times in my life. Perhaps the most significant was the move from my home village to London in the late Sixties. Looking back it seems that this tearing away from my family and the small world I had known for 17 years set me on the path of the wanderer. The wanderer becomes part of a very different family.

My family is now made up of those I left behind: a sister, two nephews, a great-niece and a great-nephew; a son born in the U.S. and friends I have made over the years. My son has taken up my wandering lifestyle. He now lives in Hawaii. I live in Minnesota.

I have close friends, old and new, in Minnesota, but the rest of my magically selected family live in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, New Mexico and many other places. We come together whenever time and money permit, and sometimes when it doesn’t. Just because I need to see their faces, hear their voices and feel their presence wholly and completely. Read more

Block Head

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Work | 6 Comments

Christie Healey has an “arid condition” and she’s trying all sorts of ways to remedy the situation.

When I first started to write a lot of people recommended Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. It’s a marvelous entry into writing that helps you free the writer within. Of late I think I have not only freed the writer within, but she wandered off and didn’t leave a note. The eternally effervescent Connie Stetson has described my arid condition as “blog clog.”

Now people say that writing is not easy and if it were everyone would be doing it. Well, as far as I can tell, everyone is doing it. Blogs abound, they spill out every time I check my email. People are writing about everything all the time, putting together interesting, funny and provocative collections of words. And I sit here struggling to find something to say. I set off down a story path and within a matter of 70 words or so, I become aware of an increasing pressure on my forehead. What is it? It’s the literary version of a dead end, up against a stonewall of the imagination, no way out, no thread to pick up, the string has run out. I go back to the start to see if I can find another path. Read more

Is That a Rock in Your Pocket?

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Miscellaneous | 5 Comments

Apropos of nothing, I want to share a few stories that tickle my mind.

Is That a Rock in Your Pocket?

A chimpanzee at a Swedish zoo has been planning. Those who know (?) say that animals are not capable of planning for future events; they work more on instinct and spontaneous action.

Previous chimp spontaneity has included throwing pooh. This chimp, Santino, shuns bathroom humor. Each day before the zoo opens he calmly gathers rocks from around his enclosure, carefully stacking them in pre-selected spots. He even watches for places in his compound where the concrete is crumbling so he can gently knock on the loose parts and gather more rocks. Later in the day when an audience has gathered, he launches his missiles. He has terrible aim, so no one has been seriously injured. All the people I know who have heard of the Rockin’ Chimp immediately express their total support for his actions. I wish Santino could get into spring training and develop a good breaking fastrock. Read more

What, Me Worry?

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Politics | 12 Comments

I think I tend to be more Alfred E. Neuman than Pollyanna.  I like the hefty dose of self-delusion with a side order of mischief.  Mad magazine’s iconic celebrity has yet to meet his reality equal, if you don’t count George W. Bush.  Actually, I don’t think GW can count.

We are all worrying too much these days.  Take a leaf out of Alfred E.’ s book.  Lighten up, stop listening to the news, stop wondering if the stock market could go lower, listen to Rush Limbaugh and laugh, laugh, laugh!

If you can’t stop worrying, then at least be selective about the things you are going to grieve over.  I heard Oliver Sacks on NPR the other day.  He has certain fixation problems, so he decided to reduce his worries.  He chose to stop worrying about what he was going to eat.  He has the same thing for dinner every day: tabouli and sardines.  Presto, no more agonizing, worry reduced.  He told a visually exotic tale about when his daily diet was kidneys and his butcher misheard and gave him 22 lbs of the slithering purple things instead of 2 lbs.  He made his way through about 15 lbs before developing a lifelong aversion. Read more

That Was So Much Fun, Let’s Do It Again

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Humor, Work | 12 Comments

I recently joined Facebook at the urging of two friends. I am quite bemused by this social network, and the comments people post: E wants to know if B is awake, M has changed his profile photo, B confirms he is awake but that it’s not the world’s business. I have ceased striving to find meaning.

Recently former colleagues from Chrysalis Artists/Records/ Music have found me on Facebook. There’s a 40^th reunion in the planning stages. We are trying to meet up sometime this year before we are all too gaga to remember why.

I joined Chrysalis when Swinging London was in full swing, although how a shy girl from the industrial Midlands came to be part of a white-hot music scene is still a bit of a mystery to me. Read more

Fifty is the New… Barbie!

Filed Under All Posts, Christie Healey, Miscellaneous | 16 Comments

Yes, that impossibly long-legged perky gal turns 50 in March.  Love her or hate her she has, like us, changed with the times and stood the test of time too. I know everyone has a Barbie opinion so let’s have ‘em. Oh, and don’t forget Ken.

« go back — keep looking »