100 Things About Me: Susan Blue

Live Holistically is a multi-author site.
This post was written by: Susan Blue

1) My first job as a massage person was with 3 Chiropractors before licensing or a need to be trained. All that was needed was a strong pair of hands and a good personality.

2) After working for 4 months, more people were scheduling a regular massage appointment and canceling the twice or more weekly chiropractic care. I was fired.

3) One of my jobs was Coordinator Director of Massage Staff and Hydrotherapy shortly after graduating from the Boulder School of Massage Therapy.

4) I once worked for a 4^th generation Chinese Acupuncturist in northern California. He was literally a walking hospital with his extensive knowledge.

5) He taught me 100 hours of clinical Oriental Medicine, Tai NA, Auricular Therapy (ear acupuncture) and cupping.

6) I worked in a 5 Star Resort in Arizona briefly.

7) I flunked the Oregon Massage Licensing twice.

Both times were questions that pertained to their curriculum requirements as taught by that state. I moved away.

9) Next to New York, Oregon has the highest requirement for licensing.

10) My current work situation is great. I have been there for 7 years. .

11) I was a potter before bodywork.

12) My colleges and friends would call me to help them out with the frozen shoulders or tweaked hips. They are the ones who encouraged me to change careers.

13) One summer I worked as a camp Sherpa for Outward Bound.

14) I did all camp cooking and fresh food re-supply to the troops in the field.

15) My youngest son started walking that summer.

16) My children’s Father was a professional mountaineer who also taught high altitude first aid and rescue.

17) The first Emergency Medical Technician II training open to the public was 1974. It was offered by the Osteopathic Hospital with both Osteopathic and Allopathic physicians as trainers. My children’s Dad and I took that together. He needed to renew his credentials.

18) I wanted more and better skills to care for our children and the occasional accidents that happened.

19) We had two boys.

20) They were learning to rappel when they were 3 and 4 years old. We used a rock wall in a park. One parent above and one below. It was less than 20 feet.

21) They are men now. Their sport of preference is white water rafting for one and extreme kayaking for the other.

22) When I started kayaking, the boats were 45 pounds and large.

23) Once I had the stream lined, new technology of a 22-pound boat. It was stolen. I haven’t kayaked since.

24) The youngest son is a fairly large man. I have watched him run his dinky kayak up on the boulders, hug the rock, then slide off.

25) Both sons have worked tower maintenance jobs. Their climbing skills have come in handy.

26) I love the great out doors, especially the sub alpine zone. I also love canyons, deserts, rivers and oceans.

27) Sleeping on the ground (with an ensolite beneath me) with the stars shining above makes me feel that I am in the heavens.

28) I had a progressive scoliosis as a young teen. After a year of physical therapy, I had two surgeries to fuse 13 vertebrae.

29) Another surgery followed 18 months later as the upper fusion didn’t solidify.

30) Parts of it never did. I experienced chronic pain from mild to severe for over 20 years after the surgeries.

31) My back problems lead me to massage, bodywork, movement therapy / movement re-education, somatic and craniosacral therapy.

32) I teach what I need to know for myself.

33) I practiced Tai Chi for years.

34) Poetry is a real love. Some years I write a lot of poetry.

35) I like to think in poetry. It keeps my little mind in the big picture.

36) I have had an extraordinary memory. They start when my family was in Peru, South America. My Mom tells me those memories happened between 9 months to 2 ½ years of age.

37) We mostly lived in mining camps. Some were at 15,000 feet and one was at 17,000 feet above sea level.

38) I still say “yama” for llama.

39) I have lived in the southwest most of my life.

40) My Father was a Mining Engineer, my Mother a Social Worker. Both were able to educate themselves when it was very difficult to do so.

41) Mom was a stay at home mom. She re-entered the work world at 56 as a Nurses Aid. My Father was very ill at the time. This was the quickest income possibility. She retired from the hospital when she was 73.

42) Mom did home nursing aid care for people older than herself. She retired from that at 80. “They all die and it makes me sad for a while,” was her reason for quitting.

43) She is 93 and still lives on her own.

44) I am almost a senior citizen.

45) I am not as strong as I use to be. It makes me humble and keeps me tuned into myself, so I don’t bite off more than I can chew.

46) It is true! These are the golden years. My experiences have given me wisdom, compassion, and a good sense of limits that can be kept or pushed.

47) My memories are starting to fade some and the recall switch doesn’t always work.

48) I am deeply spiritual and a bit of a mystic.

49) My first meditation teacher was a Tibetan lama. He was on vacation before he became head of a Center in southern California.

50) He learned to drive using my car. A friend borrowed it to teach him while I worked. He had his first accident in some one else’s car.

51) After one meditation session, someone asked if he ever got bored. He was so surprised! He replied, “Of course, I have been bored. I have endured very much.” The person who asked didn’t know he had been responsible for marching 200 orphans and other refugees out of Tibet when the Chinese invaded.

52) He was in a receiving line to greet the people who attended his lecture. This was 10 years later. As he took my hand and smiled, he said, “Very good, very good. Now you meditate, breath in suffering, breath out joy. You understand?”

53) Another 12 years went by. I attended an open lecture and was able to briefly meet with him afterwards. This was his last tour due to his age. Again he took my hand, “Ah yes, that is all good. Very good.”

54) I am lucky enough to have a spiritual teacher. He is not Buddhist.

55) While I was in massage school, I lived at the Nyingma Institute for 9 months.

56) I was the kitchen manager for 3 of those months.

57) Healing Through The Heart was a series of meditation practices taught at the Institute. I still use them.

58) My children’s Dad introduced me to macrobiotic cooking and Adele Davis when I married him.

59) He had to teach me how to cook brown rice. I knew how to cook pot roasts and fried chicken.

60) Now I am a creative vegetarian cook. Two of my specialties are Kitchen Sink Enchiladas and Veggie Mole Sauce.

61) I eat out more than I would like too.

62) I get bored cooking for myself.

63) Currently I am learning about raw foods. I make great raw sprouted grain and veggie crackers.

64) I have produced art in one form or another throughout my life.

65) My Grandmother taught art at University level. Towards the end of her career, the requirements for teaching changed. She would have had to go to college to get her degree. She opened an art gallery instead.

66) Her teaching certificate came from Harvard University.

67) She gave me my first art lesson when I was 4 years old.

68) Mixed media and found objects are my creative expression. I have several boxes of metal scraps / found objects, bones, stones and other interesting stuff to use.

69) I have shown with other artists.

70) I have been one of the featured artists and guest lecturer at a junior college.

71) Several painting classes had me come in for Body, Mind Centered Therapy.

72) For a few years, I worked as an assistant manager for an art gallery.

73) Of the 27 galleries in town, we were the only ones that showed contemporary art.

74) Before computers, I took a year of Commercial Art training.

75) I have been consultant with other alternative health people for design, layout and copy for their advertising.

76) Writing copy for other’s ads has been one of my talents.

77) Usually computers make it easier and quicker.

78) My biggest challenge has been writing for the person who didn’t know a thing about the subject.

79) My first computer class was Quark Express. I haven’t worked with a Mac since.

80) I live in a small house in a mountain canyon outside of town.

81) A giant ponderosa has grown into one corner of the house. It is the biggest tree in the canyon.

82) When I am in a quiet in the house, I can hear and feel the birds, squirrels, and winds in this great Grandmother.

83) A humming bird has her nest in one of the elms at the front of the house. She sat on the head of my sprayer and gave herself a bath last year as I was watering.

84) She flies to my kitchen window to watch me. I planted extra flowers for her this year.

85) We have bears in the canyon.

86) Usually they leave my garbage alone. During last fall’s feeding frenzy, a mother of three got my garbage leaving her teeth marks on the lid.

87) I have fauxed cloudy skies in my bathroom. The faux walls in the dining room looks like Chinese Restaurant wallpaper.

88) My tastes are eclectic.

89) I love a bargain.

90) Recycling is important. There are not many things I own that were purchased new.

91) I have worked finishing construction.

92) A Native American sweat lodge honored the land I rented above the Colorado River many years ago.

93) I learned about listening deeply from the lodges I attended.

94) My childhood was challenging. Maybe it was because I challenged any and everything.

95) The women on both sides of my family have been uppity.

96) I was named after a great Grandmother who drove a mule team wagon into the Indiana Territory.

97) I am introspective by nature.

98) I am also a happy person.

99) I believe every body is the captain of their ship.

100) Life is quite marvelous, even when it breaks your bones.