Nicole Guttermuth

A New Day

By Nicole Gittermuth

You know how when you are first falling in love with someone, little else seems to matter?

You go through each day and make certain you attend to your responsibilities, but your head feels a bit like a helium balloon that might set aloft at any moment.

You attempt to focus on something, anything, but your mind becomes so easily distracted by the recollection of a piece of conversation or the remembrance of feeling your fingers interlaced with another’s as you strolled through the park surrounded by a dusky twilight.

Nicole Guttermuth

A New Day

By Nicole Guttermuth

The optimist in me loves the saying “when one door closes, another one opens.”

While it might be entirely cliché — it is a saying after all — in my experience as a faithful follower of God, I have found this statement to be true. Always.

I could write a dissertation about plans I’ve made that have fallen through. Heck! I could write a series of advice columns tracing back the initial string that began to unravel my marriage until it all came apart despite my best efforts to repair the holes and stich up the weaknesses.

When I got married eight years ago, I took those vows seriously. I had no intention of ever considering the “D” word; however, at a certain point, the matter was out of my hands. I worked tirelessly at damage control.

Ultimately, as with any type of partnership or team, people have to be working together toward the same goal if they are going to accomplish whatever it is on which they’ve set their sights. Because there is no “I” in team, one person cannot carry the entire load 100 percent of the time.

Eventually it became apparent that this particular door was closing, and no matter what efforts I made to prop it open, some gust of wind would whip by and slam it shut.

As a woman of faith, I knew in my heart that my journey was by no means ending. I knew, without a doubt (maybe some fearful apprehension, but never a doubt) that God has had a plan for me all along.

When one door closes, another opens.

Alexander Graham Bell took this idiom a step further, and I love the caveat he tacked onto the end: “when one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

I cringe when thinking about how many times I’ve done this: wallowed so long and so deeply in feelings of failure, guilt and regret that I have been blind to new opportunities for positive growth and forward motion.

It is easy, when things don’t work out the way we wanted or planned, to focus on the could’ves, would’ves and should’ves. But what purpose does this really serve?

Don’t misunderstand, we all need time to grieve and process losses and changes in our lives, but once we’ve given ample time to this period, life is about moving forward and tucking the lessons we’ve learned into our bag of tools, so we are not doomed to repeat the same behaviors that didn’t work out well for us the first go-round.

At some point, it is time to move forward, to step through the new door that has opened before our very eyes, leading us in a different direction.

Is there anything holding you back, causing you to look regretfully behind, instead of walking through the endless possibilities of the newly opened door in your life?

Olivia Fowler

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

The Doodle Trail is actually going to become a reality, and I’m thrilled. Also, I am grateful to the mayors, city administrators and city councils of Pickens and Easley for making this happen.

It can be difficult and sometimes almost impossible for a group of people to agree on a project of this scope. Especially if there is a vocal and hostile minority actively spreading rumors and cultivating a crop of fear and distrust.

I think repurposing a spent railway for the good of the entire community is an ingenious way to turn something useless back into a vital part of the future.

It’s an exciting step forward.

Nicole Guttermuth

A New Day

By Nicole Guttermuth

During my tenure as an English lecturer at Clemson, each semester we were required to collect student evaluations of our performances.

Distribution of evaluation forms always took place at the tail end of the semester, so it made for a good half-class kind of day leading into exam week, which worked out perfectly — especially during spring semesters when my students started wearing less and less clothing in preparation for sunbathing or Frisbee games on Bowman Field.

Olivia Fowler

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

It’s August and our grass is green. Not the pale new shoots of spring, but the emerald green seen in the Land of Oz and Ireland. I don’t believe we’ve ever seen that before at this time of year.

We hardly know how to act. In the early morning we go out onto the front porch with coffee. The lantana bush is covered with zebra swallowtails and hummingbirds.

An inspection of the pots of herbs shows water is standing about half an inch deep on top of the soil. In order to keep the roots from rotting, the excess water must be drained off. The drained water sits in a puddle on top of the ground.

Olivia Fowler

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

My great niece and nephew, Brooke Olivia and Andrew O’Neal, ages 7 and 6 respectively, live in Fayetteville, Ark., with their parents, Laura and Neal. I just returned from visiting them and have seldom been so entertained.

Andrew, who just celebrated his birthday, has acquired a hamster, who bears the name of Sam Sayonara Simmons. Sam is a source of neverending entertainment for both children and resides in an attractive cage in the bonus room. He spends little time there.

Now hamsters are tiny creatures and can fit into the palm of your hand. Their fur is soft and silky, and holding Sam is like holding a very active cottonball.

Nicole Guttermuth

A New Day

By Nicole Guttermuth

I’ve heard Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” many times in my life never knowing the name of the song or the lyrics; I liked the way the song sounded; however, for whatever reason, I never looked it up on Google, YouTube or iTunes until recently.

While I am not entirely ready to share the impetus that prompted me to finally search out the lyrics to this song and to listen to every available version of it on YouTube (K.D. Lang’s live performance during the Juno Awards in Winnipeg, 2005, is by and large my favorite version), I will share the epiphany I have had listening to it over and over again until I have committed each verse to memory.

Nicole Guttermuth

A New Day

By Nicole Guttermuth

My divorce was final on July 26. At the very end of the proceeding, the judge (Ironically, I don’t remember her name) asked if I wanted to change my name. Without much thought or hesitation, I offered an emphatic yes.

I am, once again, Nicole Trista Guttermuth. Folks, I know the name isn’t much of an upgrade. I grew up being called “gutter-mouth.” But it is my name. The name I was given at birth. The one I “gave up” for what I thought would be a more complete life. And it only seems fitting that I regain my old name to go with the new version of me as I officially turn the page and begin a new chapter in my life.

Obviously I didn’t consider what a pain-in-the-you-know-what it is going to be to have to change all of my identification, and they just ordered business cards for me at The Parenting Place. Thank goodness for Sharpies! It is all worth it to shed my former name because, as much fun as it was to listen to people butcher it in a desperate attempt at pronunciation, it simply isn’t, wasn’t, me.

Being Guttermuth again is like slipping into my favorite pair of blue jeans. The name is comfortable, and it is well-fitting. “Gutermuth” means “good spirit” or “good cheer.” It comes from Middle High German “guot” (good) and “muot” (mind, spirit).

Guttermuth is a name for an optimistic person, and I can’t think of a better-fitting name for my spirit and personality.

I would be untruthful if I said this last year did not come with moments of utter frustration and days when I felt like I wanted to give up and throw in the towel. Yet I am a firm believer in the notion that what does not kill us makes us stronger.

With complete honesty, I can say I am a better person for everything I’ve endured, and I firmly believe that I have God to thank for this because I did not survive the rugged terrain of this journey on my own. I had a guide holding my hand every step of the way, and every time I lost my footing or stumbled, He was there to pick me up and steady me so I could continue.

If I can offer any piece of wisdom to my readers, I would echo the sentiment of Winston Churchill when he said, “Never, never, never give up!”

Believe me: I know there are days when quitting seems like not only the best, but also the only option. Don’t. Those are the days when you must dig in, dig deep and push through.

I am living proof that there is light at the end of the tunnel that opens into an amazingly beautiful new day.

Olivia Fowler

On The Way

By Olivia Fowler

Most of us remember the first job we ever had for which we received actual money. There weren’t many summer jobs for teens in the rural south that weren’t related to agriculture. We grew up in a region where farming was the way of life and few men weren’t farmers. Soy beans, lespedeza, cotton, tobacco and corn were all money crops. Still, getting a job off the home farm was seldom a possibility.

Imagine our excitement when Pioneer Corn Company from Indiana leased hundreds of acres for corn cultivation and began recruiting teenagers for field work.

Olivia Fowler

On the Way

By Olivia Fowler

A story in the news last week both astonished and worried me. And if you’ve ever attended a little league game when parents were distressed about the umpire’s call, you would take this pretty seriously.

Apparently during a soccer game in Brazil the referee made a call that was disputed by a player. The player in question had an altercation with the ref and struck him. The referee then stabbed the player, who died on the way to the hospital.

After the player was stabbed, fans stormed the field and stoned the ref before beheading him and quartering his body. It was also reported that after the decapitation, the head was mounted and displayed in the center of the field on a pole.