The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

The Inside Press

“Stylecycle” Takes the Angst Out of Dressing Great

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stylecyclelogo“It’s all about having fun,” says Lisa Ballou, “because we understand that everyone has wardrobe  problems,” adds Susan Smugar Goodman. These best friends are so in sync, they finish each other’s sentences. Together, their company StyleCycle offers women a chance to get professional help cleaning out an overstuffed closet, creating impeccable outfits out of clothes they already own, and buying new threads that are perfect for who they are right now. They’ll even take those items you never wear to a consignment shop.

They do all this with ease and grace, and a true appreciation for the fact that we’re all unique. Lisa and Susan have formed stellar relationships with select boutiques and trendy stores. They do the shopping, and bring you fabulous clothing and accessories to replace and to implement your wardrobe. Their clients come from New York, as well as Westchester, and span all ages–the oldest was a chic 82! And they know their stuff; “It’s so fun reading fashion magazines, and we study them all” declares Lisa. “We get a lot of inspiration online, and by watching the style shows on TV. I think Rachel Zoe is terrific, for example,” proffers Susan.

Trends for the coming season? These experts advise that large accessories are in, leather is hot, and cropped pants show off trim ankles. Susan advises, “Store the platform shoes; buy lower pumps for jeans and dresses; pointy toes are back. Floral prints are big, but you have to be careful; they’re not for everybody.” Lisa counsels. “Black and white and graphics are much easier for everyone to wear. You don’t have to spend a fortune, especially on trends.”

We all get stuck in a certain time frame when it comes to how we present ourselves. The mission of StyleCycle is to gently guide us “to that next phase of dressing beautifully for our age, shape, and lifestyle,” offers Susan. “And once women realize how much more comfortable this is, they embrace it,” agrees Lisa. info@stylecycle.com  or susan@stylecycle.com; 
914 953-4141 or 914 522-1158

After the Party

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CREDITS: Gold dress by Pesavento Couture at Elephant’s Trunk in Mount Kisco (thank you Susan Ward, Robert and Rafael!); earrings by Jolie B. Ray at ROCKS in Armonk; at Aura Salon, kudos to Lu Camarena Meshulam for makeup and to hairdresser Dawn Hiller for the cascading curls–and to Ana for nails. Special thanks to ICD Contemporary Jewelry for a gorgeous bracelet and to March Boutique for a stunning black and gold cover up. Whispering Pines sent over a fabulous bouquet with the 10th anniversary issue of IC cleverly tucked inside the vase. Chappaqua’s Joy’s Balloons decorated the tables. Beascakes Bakery in Armonk created the “CQ,” multiple layer strawberry shortcake. Finally, The Flower Pot in Larchmont supplied the single stem roses for all. I so appreciate everyone’s TLC on this special day. Photo by Amy Kerwin
CREDITS: Gold dress by Pesavento Couture at Elephant’s Trunk in Mount Kisco (thank you Susan Ward, Robert and Rafael!); earrings by Jolie B. Ray at ROCKS in Armonk; at Aura Salon, kudos to Lu Camarena Meshulam for makeup and to hairdresser Dawn Hiller for the cascading curls–and to Ana for nails. Special thanks to ICD Contemporary Jewelry for a gorgeous bracelet and to March Boutique for a stunning black and gold cover up. Whispering Pines sent over a fabulous bouquet with the 10th anniversary issue of IC cleverly tucked inside the vase. Chappaqua’s Joy’s Balloons decorated the tables. Beascakes Bakery in Armonk created the “CQ,” multiple layer strawberry shortcake. Finally, The Flower Pot in Larchmont supplied the single stem roses for all. I so appreciate everyone’s TLC on this special day.
Photo by Amy Kerwin

Pulling together a May issue in the midst of 10th year party planning and festivities was no small feat…but of course, I’m sure glad I did. I’m thrilled to be prominently featuring one of my best friends in Chappaqua…Jodi Levine, owner of Jodi’s Gym… After 30 years of bringing gymnastics into the lives of families in the city, northern Westchester and beyond, she is a good friend to many, and beyond that, an incredible business woman and mentor. Happy Mother’s Day, Jodi!

A past IC cover girl, Chappaqua’s famous “good enough mother,” Rene Syler, is featured again…with all that she’s up to, sorry, but “good enough” just doesn’t begin to describe her!  And there’s also a spotlight on Dawn Greenberg.  If you haven’t heard about all the various initiatives Dawn seems to singlehandedly take on–including the spearheading of the October 5 Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, you’re either not on social media or you’re not shopping local nearly enough!

Toward that end, we’ve produced a first time ever  pull out “Mother’s Day Must Have/Must Do” guide highlighting our sponsors best suggestions.  Carine Feist and her son Mike went all out especially in spotlighting Mother’s Day dining delights, in words and in so many pics, so very grateful for their efforts.  We also used the guide as a vehicle to support the Neighbor’s Link Festival de Primavera on May 11.  Check its back cover for details!

Here’s hoping you find this issue filled with at least half as much love that I felt at my party at Crabtree’s Kittle House on March 14.  While I churn out these issues year after year, it can sometimes be hard to tell how Inside Chappaqua is received.  So now, well after the party, let’s just say I can happily embark on a second decade of publishing with renewed confidence that this little magazine is still appreciated, internet options and all.  Have a very happy Mother’s Day.

For highlights from IC’s 10th, click here

 

Slipping Out from Under

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(L-R) Authors Lori Toppel, Susan Hodara, Vicki Addesso, & Joan Potter. Photo by Margaret Fox
(L-R) Authors Lori Toppel, Susan Hodara, Vicki Addesso, & Joan Potter.
Photo by Margaret Fox

By Susan Hodara

“My left thumb is identical to my right thumb except for a small pink callus below its joint, permanently hardened by the regular pressure of my lower teeth. I am in my  50s–writer, teacher, wife, and mother of two grown daughters– and I still suck my thumb. The left one, never the right; an ingrained response, I know, from my earliest days.

When my first baby was born, my mother revealed that she had to stop nursing me after just three weeks because of an infection in her left nipple. My parents had come to stay in our Brooklyn Heights apartment to meet their new granddaughter. My mother and I were sitting on opposite corners of the sofa when she told me. Sofie lay across my lap and pulled greedily at my right breast; my mother perched upright on the edge of the seat cushion, knees together.

I remember her words, innocent, almost chatty, her eyes averted across the living room as she spoke. Of course I have no memory of my own first weeks, but I can imagine: the very best thing in my new life–my sustenance, my comfort, my reconnection with my mother’s body –suddenly gone. The discovery of my thumb set a lasting pattern: get the need filled, find another way. Though I don’t think about it often, I know my left thumb holds something of my mother for me.

In my childhood memories of her, she is often standing on the sidelines as my father proclaimed, announced, questioned, yelled. She is silent and passive, removed. In the memoir class, after I’d finish reading my work, Joan’s response was often the same: “But what about your mother? Where was she?”

BookCoverPhotoThe fall that our writing group started meeting, my father was declining into the morass of Alzheimer’s disease. Over five years our family had watched him slowly disappear. I talked to my mother on the telephone almost every day, and traveled regularly to Washington, D.C., to visit. Sometimes she cried, from exhaustion or despair.

But the more lost my father became, the more my mother emerged. As I wrote about her and shared my stories in our group, and as I learned about the others’ mothers through the stories they wrote, my understanding started to shift. For the first time in my life, I began to glimpse who my mother was.

I am the only member of our writing group whose mother is still alive, who can still ask her mother questions, compare memories from the past. When I think of the others’ stories– the heartbreaking last days of Vicki and Lori’s mothers, the spreading of Joan’s mother’s ashes–I sense the fragility of the time I have left with my own mother. I have just begun to discover her. It awakens a hunger I can hardly bear to feel.”

Excerpted from Still Here Thinking of You: A Second Chance with Our Mothers (Big Table Publishing, March 2013), a collaborative memoir by Susan Hodara, Joan Potter, Vicki Addesso, and Lori Toppel. Hodara, a longtime Chappaqua resident, is a memoirist whose work appears in numerous anthologies and literary journals, and a journalist who covers the arts for the New York Times and other publications. She and her co-authors formed a writing group in 2006; Still Here Thinking of You presents their stories of their relationships with their mothers, from their early childhoods to their mothers’ later years. Available at Amazon.com and stillHereThinkingOfYou.com.

From: “Peace in Relationships: Attachment-Detachment”

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Suna Senman
Suna Senman

By Suna Senman

“In order to explain the balance of “you-me-us” concepts, we need to be mindful of schemas. Schemas are the emotional and experiential attachments we have to words or objects. For example, “attachment” may stimulate feeling of sticky confinement or it may generate an image of an adoring, cherishing mother-infant bond. Those two schemas are very different. So when a person with one schema talks about attachment with a person with the other schema, misunderstanding and conflict occurs. Therefore, it is important to listen beyond words-to listen to the heart. Both schemas exist and are acceptable, but hearing the intention of the conveyor of a message- listening to the heart-is where understanding is created. Hearing the heart of a person provides a mindfulness of reality.  A good therapist listens to the heart beneath the words.

People often say one thing but mean another, as if they are leaving clues or simultaneously want to be heard and not heard. What do people really want? We all want to express truth, love, and beauty so that it is received and reflected back to us. Sometimes people want to express lies, hurt, and ugliness, because that’s what they have seen. They both want and don’t want to see that reflected back. The experience of lies, hurt, and ugliness is unpleasant. And yet, a person wants to be seen. If a person has allowed lies, hurt, and ugliness to penetrate their being, these factors becomes part of their being that they need to express. He or she will continue to express everything that is in them-a mix of lies, hurt, and ugliness along with the truth, love, and beauty of his or her original, natural state.

These contradictory qualities coexist until the person cleans house and lets go of the garbage. Because we always express what is inside of us, it is also the mix that will be reflected back. We see what is inside. Therefore, when a person sees jealousy, greed, gluttony, or any of the “sins” in others, the wise person will recognize that there are at least crumbs of those things inside him–or herself.

Attachment and detachment are key concepts to understand in order to navigate the complicated “mix.” If you can clean house often (even several times a day), you practice healthy attachment and detachment. If you are mindful of the things that approach you through the day and are discerning of their core (love or ugliness), then you can let go of the unwanted ugliness quickly so that you can practice filling yourself with truth, love and beauty.

Some people love playing in ugly messes. When I have tried to engage people in expressions of truth, love, and beauty, they are often eager to engage, yet, unwilling to let go of ugliness. Some people get attached to the concept of “ownership.” At one time, a friend felt that she owned me and tried to prevent me from expressing a part of myself that evoked a feeling of dishonesty in her. She had talked herself into believing that her lifestyle was beautiful, but my expression of truth triggered a realization that she contained ugliness. Her reaction was to discredit me and push me away instead of doing some “housecleaning” or making her own necessary changes. She was afraid of change.

In her ownership attitude toward me as her friend, she insisted that I don’t speak about some of my ideas. What she tried to own slipped away. I detached from her instead of detaching from a part of a truth of my being.”

Suna Senman LMSW, CSW, CTIM, CED is a life transformation facilitator who specializes in wellness counseling, childhood development, peace education, and diversity training. She blogs on topic for The Huffington Post; she has published articles on topic in periodicals such as Metro; and she is the author of Being: A Process. Through her work, Suna helps people expand their sense of self, release their illusion of separation, develop nurturing partnerships, and consciously design a harmonious life path. Her writing has included interviews with  supermodel Tyra Banks, celebrity violinist Miri Ben Ari, and relationship expert Paul Brunson.

There Comes a Time When we Must Choose. That is Yoga.

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DSC_0084By Michelle Berman Marchildon

“As humans, we are given the gift of choice.

It is a powerful gift.

People often ask me how long I’ve been practicing yoga, and the truth is I became a yogi when I was 10 years old. It was a turtle that led the way.

Of course, I didn’t yet know it. Becoming a yogi back then was about the furthest thing from my mind. I was pretty occupied with boys and Barbie and Bobby Sherman. My world had seemed important then, but soon I would have to choose if I would stand up for another being that had no voice at all.

Choosing between the easy thing, and the right thing, is yoga.

My father had taken us on vacation to the British Virgin Islands. It was a confusing time in our lives, so if you are confused then by all means take along a pre-adolescent. At dinner, the waiter mentioned the resort’s famous turtle soup.

“What makes the soup so good?” my Dad asked.

“We use our own turtles,” the waiter replied.

We sat speechless. There are turtles in turtle soup?  I thought it was like chocolate “turtles” are caramel and welsh rarebit is just cheese, no rabbit.

After dinner we walked down the beach to a stone wall. I started tip toeing along the top when I saw something splash.  Then I saw a flipper, and when I bent down closer, I saw a face.

“Dad,” I screeched.  “There are turtles in here!” We stared in silence.

Until that night my world had been all about me, but looking into the turtle’s face made me realize I was not walking alone in this life. I had a responsibility to make the world better.

For the next few nights we worked quickly and precisely. One by one we freed the turtles. On the last night, there was a sign that said anyone caught poaching would be imprisoned.  Ending the vacation in jail was not the bonding experience Dad had in mind.

By now, only the largest turtles remained, particularly one giant turtle.  He looked extremely sad to me, as if he knew he was just too big to get over the wall. I started to cry.

“All right,” Dad said.  “We will try to set him free.”

A choice is not often obvious. There may not be anyone else on your side. But you know you have done the right thing when you cannot live with yourself having done anything else.  That night, we chose the turtles over the law.

Together we coaxed the largest turtle to the sandy edge of the pen, and then we somehow managed to boost him up and over. The turtle tumbled into the water and then he turned and gazed at us. I thought he might have said thank you for not giving up.

As humans, we are given the gift of choice.  It is a powerful gift. We choose what to believe.  We choose who we love.  We choose when to fight, and when to lay down our sword.  We choose our path.

Yoga is only a little bit about the postures. The postures reveal who we are when things get difficult. Yoga is about being who we were meant to be.

Neither I nor my Dad had heard of yoga in 1970.  But that night we became yogis. If yoga is about leaving the world a better place, then in that moment there was no question but that we had to save the turtles.”

Michelle Berman Marchildon is The Yogi Muse. This is an excerpt from her book, Finding More on the Mat: How I Grew Better, Wiser and Stronger through Yoga (Wildhorse Ventures 2013). Her father is the veterinarian Dr. Lewis Berman, who if given a choice, would still free a turtle today.