National Widows' Day...It's No Piece of Cake

National Widows' Day?  Is there a cake for that?  A long, wide sheet cake will simply not do, to celebrate women who rise up to meet the enormous challenges of each day.  A cake would have to stand tall, on a pedestal.  Every widow must find her way through the darkness, to the light.  Perhaps a Widows' Day cake would be dark chocolate fudge, covered in whipped cream, symbolizing light out of the darkess.  Or, perhaps a sunny lemon cake, representing the hope of brighter days ahead.  An angelfood cake, in honour of the widow's husband.

Maybe a fruitcake, because there are days when we feel like we are losing our minds!  The early months of widowhood are described as zombie-like.  Brain fog is a diagnosed part of life for many widows.  Being contrary - feeling lonely, and wanting to be invited to family events, yet not wanting to be around anyone - is part of the craziness.  While the ritual of cutting and sharing a piece of wedding cake, is a happy occasion for brides, widows might be tempted to throw a Widow's Day cake across the room.  Maybe that's why they just don't exist.

What's to celebrate?  Every day, I am inspired by the quiet strength of widows:  the young mothers who are both Mum and Dad to their little ones;  widows who face frightening illness without the calming reassurance of their loved one;  hard working women who take on extra jobs to make ends meet.  It takes courage and determination to do the work of two people, on your own.  Broken hearted, anxious and stressed, widows emerge from their homes every day to meet the challenges of life.  Rich or impoverished, widows at all income levels see a decline in income after widowhood.  Yet, somehow, widows find inner strength to rise above it all.

In 2018, there were 11.69 million widows, and 1.41 million widowers in the United States.  In Canada, the total number of widows and widowers numbered 1.85 million last year.  The average age is only 59.  With an aging population, those numbers are growing.  A study conducted at the turn of the new millenium, found that widows had a 66% increased risk of dying within the first three months of the death of their spouse.  The death of a spouse takes an emotional, physical and financial toll on the woman left behind.

Creating a new life for yourself takes time.  The death of a spouse is no piece of cake.  It is something you never get over, you simply learn to live a new life.

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated. 

Fifty Shades of Pink: If Lipstick Could Talk

I miss being kissed.  Really kissed.  I get warm hugs and kisses all the time.  Just not THAT kind.  You don't have to read the Kama Sutra (which I think was written by an accountant, it is so filled with numbers), to know that there are as many different kinds of kisses, as there are shades of lipstick.  Widows get, and give the cheeks and forehead kind of kisses, with a firm, meaningful hug.  Anything else, wouldn't be appropriate.

Oh, for those passionate kisses!  Every woman deserves a man who will ruin her lipstick, not her mascara.  Isn't that the best line?   I miss my husband's lips pressed gently against mine.  I miss being held close for a long time.  Feeling a pink blush sweep across my face...feeling safe and protected in his arms.  Passion and trust, are essential to a loving, and intimate relationship.  

This is one of the most excrutiating, uncomfortable posts I've ever written. Vulnerable, is not my favourite state of being.  I am strong on authenticity - on being honest about this journey I share with widows around the world.  The truth is, the sensual nature of an intimate relationship is missing, both from my life, and the lives of other widows.  That's sad.

While I am blessed with great relationships with amazing men, who are loving, caring, encouraging and supportive, they're nearly all married, gay, half my age, or all of the above.  For the first time in the three and half years since my husband died, I am yearning for more.  That's scary.

Waking up to this new desire, is a little like being in a Disney nightmare, inwhich despite not having been kissed by Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty awakens to find she's surrounded by an alternate version of Snow White's Seven Dwarfs: Grumpy, Sleazy, Boring, Dim Wit, Milktoast, Obnoxious, and Misogynist.  That's horrifying. 

As the soft light of the afternoon falls on the roses, Andrea Bocelli sings, Mi baci piano ed io torno ad esistere - you kiss me slowly and I am alive again - lines of Italian verse in Ed Sheeran's song, Perfect.  It's just one of the music selections for this week's photo shoot on lipstick colours.  I love the energy of French singer, Zaz singing Je Veux, the angst of the sixties French singer, Francoise Hardy singing, Tous les Garcons et les Filles, and Leonard Cohen's Dance Me to the End of Love.  A friend suggested a title for the cover photo, Seal's song, Kiss From a Rose, which is...perfect.

I'd planned to shoot a collection of pink lipstick tubes and pink roses - something linear and graphic.  These billowy, ruffled, pink-tipped peach coloured roses, looked fabulous, so I tossed the original idea (I can do that) in favour of a sensual, playful, feminine, and Parisien look. 

I wrote the word Love, across pieces of paper in Wisteria Rose, and Luminous Pink Pearl lipstick.  The word Love, is beautiful to write by hand in pen.  It's sublime to write it in rich, creamy lipstick.

For two afternoons (one deeply overcast, the other lightly sunny), I joyfully rediscovered my ultra-feminine side, over and again, applying the Wisteria Rose and Luminous Pink Pearl to my lips, adding Lacquered Strawberry, coral Everbloom, and deep red Cherry Blossom, and kissing the colour and pattern off onto paper.  The lips take on the shape and pattern of finely veined leaves.  There's an art to kissing paper.  Getting just the right amount of lipstick, in just the right lip shape, takes a little practice.  You think I'm going to give you a craft tip?  I don't kiss and tell.  

It was exhilerating.  I laughed my way through the whole experience!  I highly recommend this as therapy for a broken heart...add a quick note to yourself on the paper, and mail it to yourself.  If those lipstick tubes could talk!  What a mess I made of my lipstick - and there were no mascara tears!

I leave you with laughter...

A little boy and his older sister were shopping for a gift for their mother.  As they explored the cosmetics department of a large store, the little boy became mezmerized by row upon row of lipstick colours.  He searched every row, and looking puzzled, called out to his sister, "hey, what size are Mum's lips?"


P.S.  After publishing this, a friend suggested Mary Chapin Carpenter's Passionate Kisses, would have been great background music for the photo shoot.  I listened.  Twice.  Does that make it a lingering passionate kiss?

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Thank You 25-Thousand Times!

Another milestone in the brief history of my little blog, Widow's Endorphins:  WE has just reached 25-thousand views!  This really should read:  WE have.  This is something that we have done together, dear readers.  I am grateful.

 Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.

Adding Soul to the Chicken Soup

Divas of the flower world, Coral Peonies are loved for their large, showy, vivid coral pink coloured blossoms.  They're found in elegant, sophisticated bridal bouquets, and sweeping hotel centre pieces.  In the true diva spirit, these peonies are fine dramatic performers, playing leading roles in Asian, Californian or French inspired floral arrangements.  So powerful, so show stopping, you often need only one in an arrangement.

You'd think they'd be arrogrant.  On the contrary, Coral Peonies don't take themselves seriously at all!  They laugh at themselves.  They're comedians!

At the centre of each bowl shaped blossom of peony petals, are hot pink tipped stigmas, surrounded by golden stamens, heavy with pollen.  They look like five chickens in a nest!  Once you've seen it, you can't unsee it.  It's the private joke between you, and the diva...the lowering of the sunglasses, to give you a secret wink!  I love this flower for that alone!

I made my own chicken stock the other night.  It's something I've done for decades.  As I boiled the bones of what had been a roast chicken, the heady fragrance of what would soon be chicken soup, filled my home.  That night, I drained the flavourful stock, chilled it, and the next morning, I skimmed off the fat.  Then, I put it back in the fridge, where it sat for a week.  I ditched it on Saturday.

This ridiculous ritual has gone on many times over the past three years.  Widowhood seems to have claimed my joy of cooking - and I don't mean my dog eared and smudged cookbook.  I've lost my mojo.  I need to add soul to my chicken soup.

There was a time when I would have made my Christmas cakes by now, and had them doused in rum or brandy, wrapped in cheesecloth, and stored away in a cupboard.   Late November and December nights would see me baking shortbread cookies, gingersnaps, double chocolate cookies, and desert moons (cream cheese pastry filled with a date, orange and walnut mixture).  This year, I haven't even started.

"Whatsamatta?  You chicken, or somethin'?", my inner voice asks.

I'm not chicken!  It takes a lot of pluck to go back into the kitchen after a culinary disaster.  This year, there've been plenty.  I baked a superb cheesecake for twenty-five guests at one event, and when I tried to replicate it for a special birthday a few months later, it was overbaked and grainy.  It left me with egg on my face!

With Christmas just weeks away, I've promised myself that my home will once again be filled with the sweet scent of cinnamon, oranges and chocolate.  It will be filled with the sound of Christmas music, and the laughter of friends.  My kitchen is getting its soul back!

I've been channeling the vibrant, powerful, and joyful Coral Peony, and my heart shouts, "this chick can bake"!

Photographs Copyright of:  Ruth Adams, Widow's Endorphins Photographic Images Incorporated.