Author: Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Desert native who claims the Pacific Northwest at home, while currently residing the Northeast. Lifecoach, Podcaster, PR writer, essay author, imaginary poet and every day dreamer...

There’s something about Amy {a memoir Behind the Scenes}

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Early on in my memoir Girls, Assassins & Other Bad Ideas, there is an essay entitled The Anthill. At the very start of the chapter, a teenage girl named Amy comes to my rescue. This is “Amy” pictured here, with one-year-old me! 

Her name isn’t actually Amy.

She and her mother both were actually pretty large parts of my early childhood days. Amy’s mom and my mom were good friends, which I guess is how Amy came to spend so much time with us. There were times she would sleep over, in my room with me. Sometimes she’d babysit me, and sometimes I’d spend chunks of time at her house. They had this Gatlin Brothers record and I would ask to hear the song Broken Lady again and again and again.

This song made an appearance on the playlist of GAAOBI, though I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s the only song I really skip when I play the list. It’s painfully hard for me to listen to. I knew very early on that I had to put this track into the book. I still love the song and find its lyrics pretty profound when it comes to the actual story I brought to life. Even so, it stirs some pretty hard and uncomfortable things within me when I hear it… 

Amy and I are still connected. She actually only lives a few hours from me, which is a miracle since we are both from small-town New Mexico! She is now a very proud grandmother. She was a badass single mom to two kids, a boy and a girl. She’s been a huge supporter of the book and such a validator because she knew my mom. 

I’ve been sharing behind-the-scenes stories, omitted essays, and other little secrets over in my Patreon group, but wanted to use this space to share one of them here, today!

xo,

M

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Best of…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

2022 was a pretty hard year collectively, for so many of us. In my newsletter this week I have a collection of lists mentioning my favorite books, movies, and tv series of the year! It was a fun thing to keep intentional track of, a practice I plan to do again this year! In addition to those things though is a list of the best things I discovered this year… They aren’t exclusive to 2022 for anyone else but me (mostly), and I’m so happy to share them with you.

Drumroll?

My 2022 Best of {Life stuff edition}:

Looking forward to the magic, wonder, and discoveries that await all of us in 2023!

Holiday Shopping Guide…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I’m spreading the word everywhere that I’ve launched my 2022 Holiday shopping guide! This marks the FIFTH year of putting together a shopping guide featuring small, woman-owned businesses. This is easily one of my favorite ways to celebrate the holidays!

Here’s a sneak peek of some of the beauty within the guide! However you shop, I hope you’ll consider this easy-to-use guide when selecting intentional gifts for the loved ones on your list!

Happy shopping!!!!

~M

unforgetting…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Last week was one of those weeks… you know the kind. The ones where your schedule is lined out perfectly, and if it weren’t for the very worst week of awfulness the week before, you’d be in great shape–but then… THEN it turns out you’ve rescued a very high-needs kitten, have a new puppy who keeps needing medical attention, and suddenly your great-shape week becomes a string of sleepless nights and cancelations…

Thank God for a new week.

And so far, for Monday, it’s been pretty ok over here. I slept great, managed to tackle a few small areas in my crazy-neglected house, and knocked some stuff off the list. I was feeling pretty accomplished and proud of my productivity and time management when the mail showed up. I was already taking Elenor for a quick walk so I grabbed it on our way into the house before the chilly sprinkles turned into full rain.

We all get the same mail these days… Bills, junk, ads, more bills, and “special offers” that really aren’t that special at all. Mixed in the middle of all of that nonsense was a card addressed to me from a return address I didn’t know. Curiously I opened it to find a beautiful card with a note from my mom’s hospice provider. Suddenly I was right there again, this time last year, sitting vigil at her bedside waiting. Always very soon the nurses said, but waiting for death can truly take forever.

It’s weird to sit here, nearly a year later, and realize this oddly-orphaned feeling will celebrate its first major milestone next week. If you’ve read my book, it may not even make much sense to you that I just then felt like an orphan after the journey I’ve had. Life is funny like that… It’s like my mother’s lack of mothering gifted me neglect and abandonment issues, but it wasn’t until her Alzheimer’s progression that I really felt the true, unreachable depth of that. Once she took her last shallow breath it sealed the deal. Things that, to the mind, shouldn’t feel one way often surprise us.

Over these past six years I can recall these stepping-stone moments that altered me to my core. Each one reminded me that I would, from that point on, never be the same again. Sometimes this was a very good thing, while other times it was simply the way life works sometimes.

In the card from my mom’s former hospice provider was a seed packet for Forget-Me-Nots. Perfection. I’ll tuck them away in my potting bench, for when it is time to sow them. I’ll be tucking the card away too. It may have caught me off guard, but I don’t need it to remind me she’s gone, and therefore a part of me left too.

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happy birthday you…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I heard her laugh often.

I saw her mean.

I watched her love.

I learned from her silent action to do for someone else. Always. Always for someone else.

She was not of the generation that considered the idea of self-care.

I loved the way her wrinkly fingers would wash my lips after we ate Sunday dinner until I believed I was too old for such childishness. Then, one day I missed the way those fingers felt.

She knew all of her neighbors, what they loved, who they knew, and the happenings of their daily lives.

She believed in strong opinions but did not believe in gossip.

She did not trust easily or shower others with frivolous kindness.

A product of the Great Depression left her feeling generous while often she kept closed fists. Such standards were different and should be seen as such.

She loved a bargain, even on something she’d never actually use. Her youngest daughter criticized this for decades until she too one day fell in love with an unbeatable deal she couldn’t pass up. It’s a gateway buy it seems, because the baby of the family was soon snatching up any amazing deal she saw too.

Her widowhood had her mixing and pouring her own cement, doing hard labor her 4-foot frame didn’t seem cut out for and proving to the entire town how beyond capable she truly was. Everyone constantly remarked on this, to which she’d simply shrug as if to say “you do what you have to do, end of story.”

She hated to miss church on Sunday and never missed a day of prayer or Bible reading.

If a broom dropped in the kitchen she set out preparing because company was coming.

Spilled salt was always thrown over her left shoulder… superstitions were strong and she acted in accordance always.

I can still her voice singing How Great Though Art in my left ear, as though we were sitting in her little yellow New Mexico church and no time at all had passed.

In the last years, frailty and arthritic pain took over. She donned a sweater in the 100-degree summer days.

Her tastebuds failing her, she often consumed beyond spoiled food unknowingly because she simply couldn’t bear to waste or throw things out.

A fighter until her last breath–fighting for those she cared about and never for herself–she loved in the ways she understood.

One hundred and five years ago my grandmother was a pink and fussy baby girl making her way into this mess of a world. Sixteen years ago she bid that same world goodbye and lives would never be the same.

I’m beyond grateful that I had the privilege of being Bertha Mae Dugan’s granddaughter and if you’re one who has fallen a bit in love with her while reading my memoir Girls, Assassins & Other Bad Ideas thank you for helping to keep a part of her alive.