Author Archives: Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

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About Drusilla Tieben (Dru)

I am a former police officer, crime analyst, profiler and trainer. I hold a black belt in Aikido. In the past, I've had to make immediate decisions for people in life-threatening situations. I applied the law, martial arts principles, and life lessons, in a logical and ethical manner, and helped victims gain a sense of organization and control over their lives. I wrote a book entitled Discover the Life You Want to Live which is based on my career and writing experiences. I started this blog to help people solve their own problems and to give recognition to all the entrepreneurs out there who have a community and global view and aren't instant millionaires.

Finding Strength in Michelle Obama’s Insights

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I finally got back to Michelle Obama’s book The Light We Carry and wanted to share a few thoughts with you. In the beginning of the book, she talked about her time on the presidential campaign with her husband Barack. She talked about the four words that plague even the most powerful people she knew. And those words were: “Am I good enough?” Her answer was “I don’t know.” The interesting part about this dialogue is that when she took it to Barack, “…he helped me (her) remember that anxiety was a natural part of doing something new and big….”

She recognized how the previous years leading up to the 2020 election had left people “wobbly”- unsettled, watchful, less connected, and anxious about the future. This is the gist of what we are feeling today; that we have no control over what is to come, and the hatemongering has spread to anyone who doesn’t tow the party line. Currently, equilibrium isn’t possible, but we can evolve individually if we stop asking when this will end. Instead, we must ask: How can we adapt to create a space we can live in and with until we make it better by educating the people who don’t understand what they’ve done? If I believe that nothing can be fixed, and take the “why bother” attitude, I will go down a dark hole and never come out.

Mrs. Obama’s analogy about knitting hit home to me. If I start the doom and catastrophe thought loop, I can at least put on some music and knit. It is the small stuff that will get me through the big stuff. The little projects and actions make my brain say: “I’ve got this!” Just remember, it still takes time to change even the little stuff.

In Chapter 7 of the book, Michelle Obama listed and detailed the points her mother gave her regarding how to create the best in their children. I encourage you to read this chapter carefully so you can help create a better environment for your child or grandchild to grow up in.

1.         “Teach your kids to wake themselves up.”

2.         “It isn’t about you. Good parents are always working to put themselves out of business.” (emphasis mine)

3.         “Know what’s truly precious.”

4.         “Parent the child you’ve got.” (Not someone you want them to be-interpretation mine)

5.         “Come home. We will always like you here.”

There will always be people in the world who think they are more powerful when they belittle and make people feel unwelcome. By breaking down people into the have and have nots, the “have” people feel superior. If we do not challenge the old narratives, we will internalize our unworthiness as the truth. If they put you down, all you must do is: “Don’t Listen.”

There is so much more to read in this book that may help you sort out the world into a livable place. I know I haven’t done justice to the book, so I encourage you to read it today!

You are all wonderful people. You just forget about that sometimes. Be happy and love yourself for who you are today.

Lessons from Childhood: Embracing the Good and Bad

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Sometimes I wish that I had taken the time to write down all the stories about my eccentric and interesting relatives. My mother and father told me some of our rich history, and yet I only remember bits and pieces. That’s why I’m taking this time to dredge out memories from my past and write them down. I want to leave these stories with my child where I came from versus what my story is right now. I worry that I won’t meet up to his expectations, but at least he will know who I am, the good, the bad and the ugly of it all.

When I was home that last time, at my father’s funeral, my mom wanted to show me our old, covered bridge, the one we drove through to go to school every day. So, we walked down that long, dirt road. She also wanted to show me our favorite summer fun place. The covered bridge looked good. It had been restored and blocked off to traffic. The creek and river, however, were incredibly overgrown and polluted. The road did not go through the bridge anymore. The state had fenced it off and rerouted cars to a concrete bridge that crossed the river further down. We spent many hot summers down here my mother told me. All the kids would float on those old yet still inflatable truck inner tubes down the river.

I told her I remembered our two older boy cousins driving down to our house in their old pickup truck, honking the horn for us to come with them. The inner tubes were piled up in the bed and we would climb up and sit behind them. Then, they would fly back down the narrow dirt road as we bounced around in the back, screaming all the way up and down that hill past their house. Tires screeching, they would whip around at the covered bridge and park on the side of the road.

My mother laughed at the picture I painted and told me how I ran after them if they didn’t pick me up. We all loved the older cousins, and they took me everywhere, especially when they rebuilt that old red convertible. (Everyone knew about the beloved and fully restored, red convertible (and that is a story for another time).

Little did my mother know that I often ran down to the little creek that we called the spring on those long afternoon days that were so hot and muggy. It wound around and merged with the big creek that flowed under the old, covered bridge. It scared me to go there by myself and at the time, it seemed so far away, and yet I craved that solace. There were lots of water moccasins swimming in the depths, but I avoided them and never got bitten by one. Once I got there, I would pull off all my clothes and jump in to cool off, frogs and snakes scattering, birds squawking.

As we walked home at dusk, the whip-poor-wills started up, and this would be the sound I remembered, one that lulled me to sleep each night in my childhood.

Today, I regret not being able to say goodbye to my dear mother in person one last time. She died six years after my dad, but I couldn’t make it back home. She had so much influence over me, and I have accepted the good and bad of both my parents’ teachings. I try to hold onto the good parts, and I have forgiven all the bad parts.

I know that my childhood was my innocent time. I had everything that I needed. I cared about the entire world, especially the war (Vietnam), or the politics and racial tensions, but knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I would read the newspapers and books and learn about all of this, and draft essays about all the injustices for school papers, but I always dreamed of faraway places, both on earth and beyond. I looked at the stars every night from our porch until my mom called me inside. I thought to myself: “That’s where I’ll be someday. I’ll make a difference!” (I haven’t made it into space yet, but I can still dream!)

I have tried to take my good childhood memories and blend them with adult memories to make a better life for my family and me. I have embraced change yet cling to the lessons that were given freely to me. My unbidden advice is to take the wins of your earlier life lessons and let go of the rest. Embrace the future in a positive way, no matter how bleak it looks. Remind yourself that you are alive right now. Be happy, appreciate your life the way it turned out, and spread love to the universe. We never know what’s ahead of us, but we can try to have those daily moments of peace and kindness.

Hugs and Love to all.

Childhood Memories: Exploring Life Beyond Barriers

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I flew back home for my father’s funeral over 18 years ago. It brought back memories of my childhood. Some were good and some were poignant. I never knew if I had a normal family. I suppose we were normal for the 1950s, but I’ve always lived outside the box. Before my father died, he told me about his one regret regarding me. “I’ve always felt that I didn’t do enough for you,” he said quietly. I was quiet for a moment and then replied, “Well, maybe that’s what made me who I am, that independent woman who could do everything for herself; I am that woman who doesn’t need barriers.” Dad seemed satisfied with my answer and that was probably the deepest conversation we’d ever had.

One of my fondest memories of my father was reading the National Geographic Magazine together.I saved all the map inserts, and we would spread them out on the rug in the living room. I would peruse them all night and spontaneously ask him questions about places he had been. The huge black and white console TV would be blaring in the background, turned up loud because of the static (we had an antenna back then). And, with only three channels to choose from, sometimes there was nothing on that I wanted to watch. Well, unless it was reruns of My Favorite Martian, Lost in Space and later the first Star Trek series.

I pointed out the great deserts and wondrous mountains on the map to him. When I was about eight years old, I realized that my father had traveled the world but had never been out west. I remember telling Dad that I was going to live in Colorado. I told him that somehow I knew that I belonged there, maybe had lived there in a past life or something like that. My father who was a true southern Baptist would shake his head, make harrumphing noises, and ignore that train of thought. My mother often agreed with me but would never discuss these past-life recollections if my father were around. Of course, Mom always had trouble with the thoughts that one day all her children would leave her. She encouraged us all to go to college and get good jobs. “You can do anything you want,” she’d tell each of us. She wanted us to join the world, but at the same time she wanted us to stay close to home, able to see her at a moment’s notice. Two of my sisters did just that. Me? I wanted an adventure. So, I traveled the country in a 1972 Toyota Corolla, over deserts and mountains, and finally settled in the place I should be: Colorado.

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow.

Love to all!

Revisiting the Past to Plan for the Future

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The 1980s brought about a decade of new conservatism in social, economic, and political life. The years were characterized by the policies of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The Soviet Union was breaking down and the economy was booming.

A lot of us grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and we thought those had been a troubling time that undermined confidence in ourselves and the government. The 1980s, often remembered for its materialism and consumerism, also saw the rise of the yuppie, a young, urban professional, or “yuppie,” a baby boomer with a college education, a good-paying job and expensive taste. Consumerism soared and suburbia became all about one-upmanship.

Computers and cellphones became available for everyone; however, they were bulky and extremely expensive. The internet was created, and people were now able to access so much more information at their fingertips. Everyone started getting more interconnected and dependent on devices.

Throughout the 1970s, computers were expensive devices that remained the province of a handful of garage tinkerers and multibillion-dollar entities like IBM and NASA. but all that changed during the 1980s, the decade that introduced the world to the video game, Pac-Man.

The 1980s also brought about an explosion of blockbuster movies and the emergence of cable networks like CNN and MTV, which introduced music videos and launched the careers of many iconic artists who sought global change. Health issues such as the AIDS crisis would go on to kill more than 700,000 people in the United States alone. 

The Reagan years brought about the inauguration of a conservative president who was no great friend to the arts, or to marginalized groups, including immigrants, the poor and those who fell outside of the conventional all-American family unit. The period was defined by how people responded to their circumstances — how they lived, partied, railed against authority and, most importantly, what they did.

Unfortunately, I was a boomer but was never a yuppie, because I didn’t have a lot of money to spend. I was too busy trying to make a living as a public servant to pay for things I needed. I did, however, spend quite a bit of money on huge hair, and on clothes with huge shoulder pads (having given away my bohemian hippie clothes of the 1970s). After all, we had lots of big important meetings in those days.

And now that we are revisiting this era once again, with the incoming administration, I am worried that we forgot about all those traumatized by those years. I am worried that we have forgotten that not everyone made lots of money and spent lots of money during that time. I am worried that those downtrodden who might have been starting to rise are just going to get downtrodden once again.

It is my hope that we take one person or worthy cause into consideration this holiday season and make our mark for change. Keep being. Keep reading. Keep doing. Thanks everyone! Hugs and love to all!

For more information on the early years of the 1980s, see:

https://www.history.com/topics/1980s/1980s

History Channel documentary on the 1980s; and,

New York Times Style Magazine publication.

Grateful for Turkey and Loved Ones

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We were just the two of us today, but we had a great feast! Some was it prepared by others, and some was homemade: Whole, smoked turkey (courtesy of Costco), mashed potatoes and gravy, teriyaki green beans (a new twist!), baked sliced apples, baked sweet potato souffle, and cornbread. Kept it simple and now I need a nap! There are leftovers that will last forever or until we just get really, really tired of eating them. I don’t freeze leftovers anymore, they just turn into chunks of ice. I am grateful to keep some of our old traditions alive (sweet potato souffle courtesy of my mother), but I try one thing new every year (hence the teriyaki green beans). So, for today, be happy with your food coma, and binge on Disney+ shows. Create your own traditions and love the one you’re with.

Tomorrow is another day of laughter and fun, practicing with our senior choir. We are in top form, and we are getting ready for all our December concerts for the folks in Memory Care.

I found this great site you might like. Don’t know the guy and hope he is a sweetheart, but he made me laugh today! For some fun and humorous stories and tips on writing go to https://tonysbologna.com/.

Love to all!

The Art of Storytelling: Unleash Your Inner Writer

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Writing is always about your personal discipline. Many people do not want to commit to taking time out of their lives when it comes to writing. Everyone has a story to tell about their life and the life of others they know. A human life can go in so many different directions. But you do have choices. You can lock yourself up in your house away from the world and fear the unknown. Or you can take time out each day to explore the world you live in and speak the truth. You can embrace the world, whether you fear it or not, and be involved with every aspect of nature and humans and their interactions with nature. Sometimes nature is the enemy. Sometimes humans are the enemy. It’s all those little interactions that make a story a wonderful experience for the reader.

People don’t seem to be brave these days and that’s sad to me. They pursue various artistic endeavors, but don’t consider that writing is also an art. If we could just face our fears, write them down and process our thoughts on paper (or computer), we would get a little better every day. So…. stop talking, create a practice and write every day. Stop saying to me, “I could write a book,” or “I started a book a long time ago.” The simple solution is to sit down and draft your own story. Finish what you have started. Tell us how you deal with the turmoil and strife, the love and the hate, and your view of the world today. Write about things you see and love every day. Write about the beauty of the world. Visualize dreams you want to happen and make them happen, first in story form, then in the real world.

I once read that a university student asked a well-known writer, “Do you think I could be a writer?” The writer responded, “Well, I don’t know…. Do you like sentences?” The writer/author was Annie Dillard, author of The Writing Life. She also wrote one of the best books I’ve read in a long time: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (and so many other beautiful works). She is an incredible person who posed these and other questions to students. She posited that like painters, they paint because they like the smell of paint. So, of course, you must like sentences! “Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?” she asked her audience. And, finally, she asked, “Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms?”

Another fantastic book to read to give you a beautiful storyteller’s step by step process for writing is Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird. This has been my writing bible for decades.

I implore you to start your journey today. I’ll leave you with an incredible quote I try to embrace each day, authored by novelist Joyce Cary:

“The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that he who seeks his own happiness does not find it; that he who is weak must suffer; that he who demands love will be disappointed; that he who is greedy will not be fed; that he who seeks peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die.”  Or if I may simply put it: “It’s a good day to die, so let’s live life to the fullest!”

Everyone has a story to tell. I would love to hear yours. Have lots of food and fun this weekend and write about it, then publish it! Love and hugs to all.

Latitudes and Attitudes – An Homage to Jimmy Buffet

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Jimmy Buffet’s song Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes was released in 1977 and has been a mainstay of his songs for several generations of Parrotheads. It is that kind of song that every radio station plays, and it sticks in your head for days. It is that type of song that helps you reflect on where you are in your daily life. It is that type of song that is needed in today’s world. His song reflects his life of travel to places and people who are different and more laid back than us North Americans. His life of traveling and learning about diverse cultures is something I aspired to when I was young. I haven’t made it to all those places he visited, but I will someday.

I first saw Jimmy Buffet in a concert at Fiddler’s Green in Denver. The boats were parked all around and people brought the party to him. We didn’t have an ocean, but we had the lawn. In the tropics, Jimmy would always acknowledge all the people out on boats, who didn’t have the expensive prime seats, but were a part of the happening. He would shout: “Hello, Boat People!” and those people would go wild. At Fiddler’s Green we were in the cheap seats way up at the top of the lawn, and he would shout: “Hello Lawn People!” and of course we would stand up and go crazy. Years later, we attended one of his last concerts in Denver which was at the Pepsi Center (now Ball Arena). He didn’t like that venue as much and a bunch of us were at the very top or behind the band. He would still shout up to us and even turned the band to those behind him for a few songs. He was an amazing and loving performer, and tried to give us all a wonderful performance, even in the cheap seats. His philosophy was to create a fun show and educate people on the importance of the oceans and the creatures and people that live there.

As many of you prepare to take off to islands with warmer climates for the holidays, I hope you will remember to change your emotional and mental state and become as laid back as the islanders do while you are there. I hope you relax and take in all the beauty that surrounds you. I hope the people on the islands can help you escape your daily grind and find a new perspective on life. I hope you can come back refreshed and ready to freely give to those in need, like most islanders do for you, no matter what your differences may be. I hope you bring a little of that island love and culture and Margaritaville lifestyle back to your neighborhood, especially to those mental and physical midwestern and northern cold climates. I hope you can break out of your comfort zone and give your heart freely to others who are different than you are.

If you are interested in learning more about Parrotheads, as well as his philanthropy, here are a few sites that caught my eye.

What is a Parrothead?
What Is A Parrot Head ?

https://www.jimmybuffett.com/philanthropy

We love and miss you, Jimmy. You lived a great life, and we want to follow in your footsteps. Rest in Peace. Happy Holidays everyone!

What We Treasure

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Today, I cleaned out the cabinets, pulled out the pots and pans I needed for the holiday meal preparation, and sorted what I could give away. As I moved stuff around, I found my old worn set of Pyrex bakeware and old cast iron pots. It made me think of my mother and when I went home for my father’s funeral. When my father died, I was sad that my sisters threw away so many things from their kitchenware, especially those incredibly old bread and biscuit pans before I could get home. My Dad did most of the cooking after he retired, but my mother had amazing meals for us when we were young. Both my parents had used the pans lovingly over the years. I didn’t have a say so and the oldest ruled what got thrown away. Both parents have been gone now for over a decade, but this memory still stays with me today. I reflected on why this came back to me today, and I admitted to myself that I would have liked to have been given the choice to have those pans even though they were worn and old. The pans that baked the bread were worn and caked with grease, but all I saw was flavor, not old greasy pan. What my sister didn’t know since she wasn’t a cook was that years of grease buildup gives the flavors of your childhood. What cooks know is that this is a well-seasoned pan, not a dirty pan. When you reuse your pans over and over with your recipes, especially the ones that have been passed down to you from your relatives over the years, you relive good times in your childhood through the smell of your kitchen.

It makes me wonder if my child would do the same when I died or if he would learn to cook all my old recipes with my old pots and pans. In 2016, when he was in fifth grade, he named me Person of the Year for a class project. He wrote about how I was a great cook and talked about all my recipe books (See Blog Post from February 8, 2016):

DANIEL TIEBEN’S CHOICE FOR PERSON OF THE YEAR

I am proud that he asked me if he could have my old recipe books. I will gladly give them to him. A lot of the recipes aren’t from my parents, but from magazine clippings, friends, and cookbooks I’ve bought and saved over the years. I have notes on many of the recipes regarding how I have modified them to taste the way I want them to taste. I have experimented with the originals over the years and found what works for me. So of course, I am happy that he will keep some of our traditions alive. I hope I have made lasting footprints that he can pass onto his family. I have hopes for the future where we value the old and worn, be it an old cooking pan or a person. I try and remember that it is the choices I make that will hurt other people.

As you begin to plan for your Thanksgiving feast and pull out all your pots and pans, think about what you have treasured and lovingly used over the years. Think about the pleasure and fun you have given to your family over the years. Designate what you want to save for your children and create a list for them. Even if they don’t value them (or your hand me down life lessons) at an early age, save what you think they’ll value in the future (not in a hoarder kind of way) but in a logical way for giving to the ones you love.

Thousands of Hugs to You and Happy Holidays everyone!

In Search of Ancestry – Are We Just Boring People?

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People are fascinated with ancestry for many reasons. We are instinctively interested in history and our ancestors are our personal history. We can connect with our ancestors’ stories throughout history to learn about our origins. Personal stories give most people a sense of belonging to a particular community. And if it leads to interesting people and their accomplishments, we feel excited and important in the world which contributes to our sense of identity. Finally, with the rise of genetic testing, some people are motivated to explore their ancestry through DNA analysis to learn about potential genetic traits and origins.

People look to their ancestors for guidance, or to find patterns and explanations for their own lives. For example, they want to know if their talents or traits have precedent in their family history. Some people view learning about their family history as a moral endeavor, and a way to learn from their ancestors’ actions. In the past, some people used their family’s lineage to justify their social rank. 

In 2022, the New Yorker published an article titled, “Our Obsession with Ancestry Has Some Twisted Roots” by Maya Jasanoff. She stated that the largest archives of genealogical documents in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vault. The vault is the largest physical archive of ancestry in the world. It is located east from Salt Lake City toward the Wasatch ski slopes. “Several concrete arches open into the face of a mountain. Behind doors designed to withstand a nuclear strike, through tunnels blasted six hundred feet into the rock, in a vault that’s another seven hundred feet down, lies a trove stashed in steel cases: not bullion or jewels but microfilm, millions of reels of it. They contain billions of images of genealogical documents, an estimated quarter of all vital records on earth.”

The article pointed out that before the print and digital eras, genealogical records overwhelmingly resided with religious and kin-based authorities. From the doctor’s office to the passport office, ancestry inflects the social, material, legal, and medical conditions of nearly everybody’s life.

The article pointed out that “Origin stories provide collective accounts of where ‘we’ come from, but they also help some lineages claim power over others…. Ruling dynasties often boasted of sacred or supernatural ancestors.”

Today, web sites and sleekly packaged DNA kits are available for the public. The initial rise of current interest in learning about our past came from our isolation during the pandemic. The interest has created a huge database of information for both medical research as well as law enforcement. This public knowledge of our personal information can be good or bad, depending on the use.

My thoughts are that even though I am in the system due to my law enforcement career, I am not sure if I want this same system to have every single piece of data regarding my background. With the current political environment, who knows how this data will be used in the future?

I’m probably not related to anyone famous or royal blood, or whatever matters to others out there. I probably have very boring ancestors, and that is okay. And do I really want to know about all the evil my ancestors have wreaked on society? I really believe that it is how we make our mark in the world today that matters. So be kind to both interesting and boring people. If you choose to know more about your past because you want to understand your roots, and it doesn’t reveal everything you hoped for, know that you are who you are in this present moment, unique and a contributor. Continue to be that loving person that you are, no matter what your past reveals.

For more information on answers to why we are fascinated with ancestry see the Question of the Week from McMasters University from a 2019 post:

https://alumni.mcmaster.ca/s/1439/16/interior.aspx?sid=1439&gid=1&pgid=8211#:~:text=Humans%20are%20instinctively%20interested%20in,our%20lives%20in%20the%20present.

Short and Sweet Wishes

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Unfortunately, I don’t have it in me today to give you more. But I really want to ask if everyone can take a chill pill for a moment in their time-line. And then wish each other happiness in the days to come. Don’t be mean to each other.

Take some goofy pictures of your kids and dogs. Take a break from the streaming media. Cook and bake with your kids. Create your own Lego-building events. Read a great book by the fire. Knit and create and give what you made away to those in need. Take a class, and volunteer to help everyone less fortunate to you.

More to come in the ensuing weeks.

Love to you all.