Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

A Gutsy Project on what beauty means to you?

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Julia Rice and her Gutsy project.

Julia Rice lives in Spain, and I had the pleasure of meeting her online about a year ago. Julia is an artist who started a bold project about women and aging, and how our definition of beauty changes with age.
I asked her to share her research on this topic and here’s what she said:

“I began this project on women, beauty and aging last year in San Francisco, USA. I interviewed women 60 and older, recording their recollections of how they viewed beauty in their 20s, their current ideas and how things changed over the years.

During the interviews, I took photographs of the women’s faces, from which I later created oil paintings on disposable surfaces. In the final San Francisco exhibitions, I showed the painted boxes alongside printed text selections from every interview. In my recent artwork, I’ve spent a lot of time with the modern advertising industry. Almost every woman alive today in Western culture has been surrounded to some degree by beauty images and advertising. I wondered on a deeper level how this has shaped us…how women of different generations are affected similarly or quite differently.

Alongside the physical interviews, I started an online blog called Beauty Queen Sheen with interviews from women of all ages and different countries. The blog now has over 60 such stories and interviews. I am currently working on the continuation of this project, interviewing, photographing and painting women around my new surroundings in northern Spain, exploring the depths of human beauty and story from different times and sides of the ocean.”

Julia Rice and her drawings
In one interview Julia wrote about an 88-year-old woman  and I was surprised to read,  “We all looked alike.” I guess I thought today’s media influenced younger women to look alike, and that this was different in the past.
Here are her three questions which I have answered myself and would encourage you to do too. Please visit Julia’s website and participate in her project. All women like to know what other women think about aging and whether it’s different in other parts of the world or not. What about when we’re 80 or 90? How do we feel about beauty? Julia has answers to that on her blog.
(My brief answers to Julia’s questions)
1.  What did beauty mean to you when you were in your 20s (and be sure to include details about fashion of the time, beauty products used, hair styles, advertisements, etc.)? These details make reading your story really interesting!
I remember tanning my face with one of those stupid and dangerous sun lamps and that was about all I did in my 20’s. I grew up in Europe and did not pay attention to manicures, pedicures, waxing, highlighting my hair and all the things girls did in the U.S., until after I moved to the U.S.

2.   What does beauty mean to you now?

Now that I live in the U.S., and I’m older, I do pay attention to nutrition, exercise, staying in shape, taking care of my skin with quality products, and getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night.

3.  If different, why have your ideas about beauty changed over the years?

I live in a superficial society (Southern California) where looks are more important than in other parts of the world. I feel sucked into trying to look as young as I can and sometimes wish that I didn’t care, but I do. I prefer to be honest and not pretend (like some women, especially those on TV) that I’ve been blessed with good genes so if/when I decide to have my face lasered or a face lift, I shall let you know about my Gutsy laser, or my Gutsy face lift. Perhaps it’s time for me to move to another remote island where people don’t pay attention to how they look.

I think we should encourage Julia to continue with her fascinating project and since it’s for women of all ages, why not participate by answering the above three questions and checking out how other women have responded on Julia’s blog.

Our very own “My Gutsy Story” writer Cheryl Stahle, has already responded to Julia’s beauty project and you can read it here.

Thanks Julia for sharing your project and I look forward to hearing what you think, as does Julia.

Remember to Vote for your favorite “My Gutsy Story” on the sidebar.

“My Gutsy Story” by Lois Joy Hofmann

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Don’t be afraid to go out where the adventure begins!

Lois Joy Hofmann

“Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.” Helen Keller

During the 1980s while living in Minnesota, I decided that I wanted to plan my life rather than being thrown about by external events.  I had always wanted to retire in San Diego.  Why not move there now, avoid the harsh Minnesota winters, and find my soul mate? My business partner lived in Arizona, so he agreed with the move. I began to set up clients in San Diego.

When you set out your goals, be prepared for them to be fulfilled in ways that will surprise you!  There are no accidents! You set the mission and objectives, with God’s help, and the strategy will take care of itself as events unfold to propel you toward those goals.

One Sunday, during one of my trips to San Diego, I hired a sailboat captain to take a client out for a day.  During a horrible accident, I was thrown against the lifelines; my liver almost split in two.  I was rushed into surgery. An internal medicine specialist, on call that night, saved my life. He warned me, however, that my recovery would take two years. He advised me to resign my clients and quit flying all over the country. “You’ll never be in that venture capital business again. Maybe an outdoor job, like being a mail carrier, will give you the fresh air and exercise you’ll need!”

I sold my Minnesota home, resigned my clients there, and moved to San Diego to recover. I hiked the trails and worked out in the gym, chocking up four hours per day of aerobic exercise. That cut my estimated recovery time in half. Meanwhile, I researched the burgeoning biotechnology market. During that process, I met Dr. Günter Hofmann, a physicist and inventor. The rest is history.

Lois and Gunter Hofmann

I joined Günter’s company, which had been operating out of three townhouses and two garages. I changed the direction of the company from making and selling laboratory research instruments to developing drug and gene delivery systems. Then we raised many rounds of venture capital, finally taking the company public. All went well; the company grew to over one hundred employees and another hundred associates around the world.  I had fulfilled one of my life goals, that of becoming the CEO of a publicly held company. We had J & J as a pharmaceutical partner. Clinical trials were looking good. Patients were being helped.

Then another setback occurred. Günter and I were ousted from the very company he had founded in a traumatic coup. We were devastated. Of course, we contacted our attorneys. Our choice, in the end, was to fight or flee. Many advised us to duke it out.

Our decision was radical and unexpected. We decided to sail around the world! Thus began an eight-year odyssey to assuage our anger and hurt, and to fulfill a far different dream. It would be a better life—one in which we would be truly independent and self-sufficient, answering to no one. We would be back in control of our own destiny. We were open to change. We were ready for new beginnings.

We learned many lessons during those eight years of sailing. Our Maiden Voyage, the topic of my first book, was all about control. We were forced by the wind and weather to change schedules and to delay crew. Even though Pacific Bliss was a new boat, equipment broke down. And we faced a Force 10 storm off the pirate coast of Colombia. Force 12 is a hurricane. A 43-foot catamaran cannot survive that!  After that voyage, we realized that there is a certain peace in being out of control. It reminds one of how much there is to lose, and how fast one can lose it.

Lois on board Pacific Bliss in the Marquesas Islands

I am a different person now. I have a certain calmness underneath my skin that I didn’t have before. My life has all been worth it. I have no regrets.

Maybe you think it’s too late to pursue your passion, to stretch yourself to that place where adventure begins. Life went on. Age just crept up on you. And somewhere along the way, you lost the plot. Well, I have news for you. Günter retired at 65, the year we ordered our Catana catamaran to be built. I was 58. Günter turned 70 on the Passage from Bali to Singapore, with two years of our circumnavigation yet to come! You’re never too old to live your dream! I encourage you to cast off those dock lines, to pursue your passion, and to live your dream, whatever that may be. To do that, you will need to overcome your fear of the unknown.

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Lois Joy Hofmann

Lois Joy Hofmann retired after a 35-year entrepreneurial and management career. Then she completed her circumnavigation with her husband, Gunter.  Intrepid adventurers, the couple now embarks on more conventional travel with the goal of understanding countries and cultures that they omitted the first time around.  When not traveling, Lois resides in San Diego, California, where she enjoys writing, speaking and photography. She launched her first book in the nautical trilogy “In Search of Adventure and Moments of Bliss: Maiden Voyage” in March, 2011. The book won first place in the San Diego Book Awards, travel category. Lois is currently writing the second book in the series, to be called “Sailing the South Pacific.” Lois also serves on the Board of Directors of UPLIFT  a faith-based organization working to improve the well being and quality of life of San Diego’s inner city population. Learn more about Lois on her website  and subscribe to her blogs.

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Thank you Lois for sharing your amazing story of courage and being Gutsy in life, regardless of  age, as you pointed out. Please leave your questions and comments for Lois in the comments section below, and she will be over to respond. Also visit her website for more photos and to learn more about her book.

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Do you have a “My Gutsy Story”?

To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page. (NEW VIDEO) Submission guidelines here.

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PLEASE VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE DECEMBER “MY GUTSY STORY”

Read their stories here. Winner and the prize they selected will be announced on January 12th.

Vote for Your Favorite December 2011 “My Gutsy Story”

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From January 1st until January 11th midnight, PST, you can vote for your favorite December 2011, “My Gutsy Story.”

To VOTE, please go to the poll on the sidebar of  any of the 4 “My Gutsy Story,” submissions, (not on the homepage.)

Here are the 4 stories. Only ONE vote per person.

  1. Muriel Demarcus
  2. Richard Potter
  3. Cheryl Stahle
  4. Ian Miller

The winner will be announced on January 12th, 2012.

Good Luck to all of you. Your stories are amazing and inspiring.

Have a Happy and Gutsy New Year

One Gutsy thing I did in Belize

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Only seven women signed up for the zip-lining and cave-tubing tour in Belize, and they were half my age. With a life-long fear of heights, I forced myself to be Gutsy, and play Tarzan for a day.

Our adventure started the minute we boarded a retired American school bus and bounced all the way to Jaguar Paw Jungle Reserve, a tribal style resort located on 215 acres of jungle reserve in the heart of Belize. The Caves Branch River meandered through the jungle with several miles of underground caves where the Mayans once lived and worshiped.

Two young Belizean men led us on a steep path to our starting point in the heart of the jungle’s lush, tropical canopy. After a brief lecture on the equipment we’d be using, I told Louis I was scared of heights. “You’ll be safe,” he said. “We have two steel cables on each of the eight rides so you’re doubly protected.” We each wore a metal helmet which I assumed was to protect our head in case we crashed into a tree trunk.

Oscar, Sonia and Louis at Jaguar Paw, Belize

I started working out when these young girls were still in diapers, and my years of weight training finally paid off. My arms lifted me with ease, and Louis snapped my belt to the cable. We each stepped into a harness which Louis tightened firmly against our waist and hips. He then fastened the harness clasps to the steel cables and a safety leash secured us to a massive tree trunk at each of the eight landing stations. We looked like seven monkeys tied to a tree trunk, forty feet up in the jungle canopy.

Our first platform was knee-shaking high. “So who’s ready to go first?” Louis asked.

A short skinny girl raised her hand. “I will.”

Louis gave a brief lecture, then instructed the girl to put on her heavy-duty industrial type gloves.

“Put your left hand around all the ropes. Your right hand slides behind you on the bottom cable. The right glove is reinforced with a thick leather pad, so you don’t rub a hole through it and end up with a bloody hand. Use your right hand for braking. If you need to break, you’ll pull down on the cable with that hand.”

“How do we know if we need to break?” I asked.

“We’ll make this type of motion,” he said, waving his hand up and down.

I hoped we were done with all the instructions as I started getting confused.

“Are you ready? Let’s get started,” Louis said.

Oscar, the other guide, demonstrated our first ride to the second platform, about ninety feet away. He made it look fun and easy.

Our first volunteer started her Tarzanna trip, screaming, as she zipped along, though not as smoothly as Oscar had demonstrated.

I decided to be fourth in line—my favorite number for good luck. I concentrated so hard on technique, that before I knew it, I’d reached the other side. What happened? This was really no big deal. My fear of heights didn’t even enter into the equation as I focused so hard on the task. Thankfully, I’d forgotten to look down. Everyone except poor Tracy, became experts at inter-tree air-borne travel.

Sonia flying through the trees like Tarzan

The grand finale was getting down from the last platform. No we didn’t have the luxury of a staircase or a ladder, we had to repel. We were instructed to squat, grab the rope on the edge of the platform, hang over and control our descent with a hand lever. A slight pull could send you flying, so the exact contraction on the rope was critical.

All of us struggled with the repelling, but I reminded myself not to look down and that helped. Once again poor Tracy was last. It took Oscar a good ten minutes to prep her. She accidentally released the lever too quickly, which sent her flying at top speed. Her terror stricken shriek ended when Oscar controlled the security lever from above and succeeded in aborting her free fall a third of the way down.

“I can’t believe how much I enjoyed this,” I said to Louis, all proud of my accomplishment. One by one we waited for our security gear to be taken off and headed to the Jaguar Paw Lodge, where we met the less brave who spent the day at the zoo.

After a typical Belizean lunch of chicken, rice and beans, our group of seven women hiked towards the underground river and caves, each one carrying an inner-tube into the jungle. Now we were ready to see some Mayan artifacts.

 What one Gutsy thing have you done that you remember?

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 Remember to come back and vote on January 1st-11th for your favorite December “My Gutsy Story” 

 

REMEMBER TO VOTE on January 1-11 for your favorite December "My Gutsy Story."

“My Gutsy Story” by Ian Miller

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The last day

For summer vacation, some people go to the beach, some go to touristy places, but in 1968, I elected to take my little near-clapped-out Ford Anglia behind the Iron Curtain. Early in the morning of August 23, 1968, the day my Czech visa would expire, I left Praha and headed south. The day matched my mood: sombre and deflated. The heads were down; the protests were over. I had a small Czech flag tied to the aerial of my Anglia, and where before this had given me quite amazing support from the Czech people, now it was ignored by the very few people who were venturing out.

I had memories that would last forever: while driving at high speed in the dark, narrowly avoiding colliding with a tank parked in the middle of the road with camouflage netting; entering a Russian military base from the rear, which was unguarded because the road behind had been deemed impassable, then driving through, flag still flying; heading a procession of tanks into Praha and forcing them into continual graunching gear changes while hundreds of thousands cheered, and even threw flowers; the rattle of machine guns; people hugging the walls while I walked unconcerned (the noise was clearly in another street, and I favoured the gutter if necessary); a marriage where bride and groom emerged, looked around and burst into tears; protestors marching into Wenceslas Square to be confronted by a yellow line painted across the stones and about a hundred men with submachine guns on the other side; me leaving and shortly after, the rattle, the screams, the ambulances; talking to a Major on Charles Bridge while the soldiers below took off boots and I noticed they had rags wrapped around their feet rather than socks; the Major wanted to know why the people were removing the food. Then there was that which cheered the Czechs and annoyed the Russians more than anything else. One town only refused to protest and meekly did everything ordered by the Russians: Lidice.

Finally, a night in an apartment with the Heitlegnerovs (I apologize for the spelling if it is wrong.) The father was a Jew, who had spent the war in the forest resisting Hitler, he had helped organize the Communists come to power, then he was back into the forest in a hut with a dirt floor and no heating because he was a Jew. With Dubcek, he got this neat apartment, and now he feared, back to the forest. I was given one task in return for the bed: he had a daughter on holiday in England and I was to take her best belongings and carry the message that she should stay there.

About twenty minutes short of the border on the road to Linz I picked up two Czech hitchhikers, who were carrying a petition with about 250,000 signatures that they wanted sent to the UN. Would I smuggle them and it out? My problem was, I was involved. I had stopped knowing they wanted to get to the border, so I could hardly just up and leave them. There was no way I could conceal them, but I thought I could manage the petition, so I agreed to let them off 100 meters short of the border. I would wait on the other side for so long, assuming I got through. Then the decision: what to do with the flag? The guards were Czech, so I left the flag and hoped it would work. I wrapped the petition in a large plastic bag and put it in the bottom of a large box that I was using for storing waste.

At the border, the guards searched, and when they got to the rubbish box, they took out the rather dried rye bread I had not eaten, then over-ripe fruit, then smelly empty tins, and they asked me why was I carrying these? As I pointed out, there are no public rubbish receptacles behind the Iron Curtain, or if there were, I never found them, and I did not want to dump rubbish. They accepted that, and I was half through. All I had to do then was to enter Austria.

Then I saw the two triumphant Czech faces and a border guard who knew. I can still almost scream. They thought the Austrian authorities would support the Czechs: how stupid!

Those days in Czechoslovakia were days I shall never forget. It almost certainly strengthened my individualistic tendencies, and it certainly diluted my desire to be with a group of tourists. Now I have taken up writing fiction, there are perhaps three influences over all else. Big events, violence, etc tend to be very sudden, except to those planning them. The second is that groups do not necessarily behave the same as individuals, and that is an issue that literature tends to steer clear of. The third is that I want to explore why some people want power over others, how they get it, and why others let them have it. This makes my writing somewhat different from others.

Alenka received her belongings, stayed in England for about 6 months, then voluntarily returned home. I pray she lives long and has prospered.

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I am a semiretired independent research scientist (chemistry) who has taken up writing fiction. Besides a strong interest in scientific theory and work on seaweed polysaccharides, including the development of skin-care products, I have been working on and off on biofuels and recycling for most of my career. The intermittent nature of this has been due to the corresponding interest, or lack thereof, in the provision of funding. This habit of governments to ignore problems that do not have imminent consequences has influenced my fictional writing, and I am intending to self-publish a series of futuristic thrillers. I am married and live on the Western Hills of Lower Hutt, New Zealand, and the photo shows us with our front yard in the background.
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Thanks Ian for sharing your Gutsy adventure back in the 60’s. As you mentioned, those days in Czechoslovakia influenced you and your writing. We look forward to reading your future novels. Please check out Ian Miller’s website, and join him on Facebook.

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Our second poll starts January 2nd-January 11th to vote for your favorite “My Gutsy Story” of the month.

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Do you have a “My Gutsy Story”?

To submit your own, “My Gutsy Story” you can find all the information, and our 8 Sponsors (including two new ones)  on the “My Gutsy Story” contest page. (NEW VIDEO) Submission guidelines here.


Please leave your comments and questions for Ian Miller below and please share his story.

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