Stargazer

Maybe he’s eight years old?  It’s hard for me to gauge anymore, with my child rearing years indelible in the rear-view mirror.  He’s on his bicycle, wearing a helmet, coasting down the street I’m walking in the glorious, gauzy light of a dawning Saturday morning. I expect a parent, or some other adult to be in tow, and I’m a little surprised when no one materializes.  He is alone.  I wonder how many times he had to beg at his parents’ feet to be allowed out the door unchaperoned to taste his own burgeoning abandon.

With more than 150 days logged in this pandemic, I find myself deeply rooted in monotony.  My shoes have worn ruts in the same handful of roads. Every day is ground hog’s day, a haunting routine I struggle to break.  It does not go unnoticed nor unappreciated that I am employed, and largely unaffected economically.  For this I am grateful.  I am fortunate to be wrestling with the challenges at the tip of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs because I am blessed with what must be fulfilled in order to keep climbing.

Those who know me well have heard me repeat my belief that this time will transform us if we allow it.  It’s the allowing that is hard.  I have known for a long time I need a change. I made a deliberate choice three months ago to set the wheels in motion during this unprecedented tumultuous time, and now I am suffering the interstice. It would be super easy for me to blame others, to blame the times, to second guess my choice to disrupt myself amid the mother of all disruptions. And yet this is exactly what I signed up for, eyes wide open.  I have walked into the fire.

Opportunities that allow me to self-actualize, to become the best version of myself that I can possibly be have not materialized.  Or have they?  Maybe the opportunities are in front of me, just not in a package that I expect?  Or maybe the package isn’t attractive enough yet because I haven’t been a part of creating what’s inside?  Why am I hiding in my safe yet powerless corner expecting someone to deliver to me my dream job?  Where is the child in me pleading her parent to allow her to saddle up and coast down the street, unattended chasing new adventure? 

Oh, the questions!  The hard, hard questions howling to be answered.

On my walk back from the coffee shop, I hear a peel of laughter and look to see the boy again, pedaling effortlessly with a look of sheer joy on his face, lost in his imagination. As his delicious giggle pierces the quiet of the dawn, it dawns on me that this is exactly how we transform.  When we allow ourselves the permission of time and space to revel and ruminate in what could be, we give birth to the world we want for ourselves. This is where the magic happens. It’s time to hop on my bike and dream.

 

Ribbit

“You have to kiss a lot of frogs,” she declares, when speaking about the journey to a paid seat on the board of a Fortune 500 company.  It’s been one of my goals for years.  Early on I was afraid, like most of us are when we feel we have audacious aspirations, to say it out loud, afraid I would be dismissed as obviously joking because of my glaring lack of qualifications.  As the pages have turned in the book of my career, I find myself about 75% complete.  It’s time to get serious about this piece of my exit strategy.  And from what I learned on a women-led 30-minute call this week about how to make this dream a reality, while there is a huge demand to put my gender in these roles, the road is long.  I need to get cracking.

   

I walked away from this download of new information feeling super hopeful and immensely qualified. As usual, in my attempt to race up whatever mountain is in front of me, I’ve blown right past the rest stops of reflection to savor and slot all the experience I’ve amassed, and more importantly, to take stock in who I am as a person, what I value, and how this impacts my professional life.I’ve accomplished a ton, made visible to me as I dust off my resume, dripping in cobwebs spun over the past eight years of neglect, and sit down to redact a decidedly good story that has only become richer with the twists and turns of every season. 

Somewhere among my belongings, packed up more than three years ago, is a piece of artwork created for me by my mother, in cross-stitch, one of her favorite mediums.  It’s a frog with a crown on its head and the words “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your prince.”  At the time this was given to me, I was squarely focused on its fairytale meaning:  Where was my prince, I wondered, and when would I find him? 

Frogs pepper the adventures of our lives, beckoning us to give them a smooch, to see if we’re a match. They are the attractive people we date, the sanguine managers we work for, a hobby requiring technical proficiency, a dangerous sport that makes our hearts race, a new city to live in.  They sparkle with charm and intrigue, they can say all the right things, all the words we want to hear to lure us in. Frogs croak and hop in every corner of our lives, lips pursed if we’re willing to pucker up.

The courage isn’t in kissing the frog, eyes squeezed tightly shut, its in embracing the idea that your kiss wasn’t wasted when you open your eyes and you’re still staring at the frog, not the prince you hoped for.  It’s in being brave enough to get out of a relationship that’s fizzled, to leave the secure job you’re really good at but no longer excited about, to jump out of an airplane over Moab, and admit to the group of juiced friends who just leapt with you, “I didn’t really like that, it’s not for me”.  This idea manifests itself in me when I say I “wanted” to like something.  I tried it, expecting it would be great for me, and it wasn’t. 

Your prince can look like the ugliest frog in my book or vice versa.We decide for ourselves if the frogs we kiss really are princes, no one can do it for us, whether it’s overtly with an immediate rejection, or dubiously as a slow leak of unhappiness over time. 

We all possess magical powers that will frogs into princes. When we’re young, and in the shallows of wisdom and patience, this happens frequently, but it’s blessedly not exclusive to youth. Who would want to know it all?  As we get older, we hope to spot frogs more easily and steer clear of what experience tells us is not a match.  But I submit, if we stop kissing frogs, are we really living?   

Yes, this journey to a board seat will take time, and no, I will not be a fit for every opportunity that crosses my path.  But it won’t be because I’m unqualified, more like the frog of the moment simply isn’t my prince.  There is a place for me on a board; knowing that makes it abundantly easier to keep seeking, as it is for anything in life.

 

SWAK. An acronym for the ages.

Bullish

I don’t know if I was part of this conversation, or if I overheard it. I do remember being surprised to learn from my Dad that my uncle had a talent for drawing.  I love it, too, and having never seen any of his work I was intrigued. Dad’s unanswered question from I don’t know how long ago remains lodged in my mind today:  Why, he wondered, did his brother not develop this wonderful gift?

There are a million reasons why we don’t give our gifts the attention they deserve. Maybe no one recognized them when we were young and showed us how to cultivate them?  Maybe we tried, and feeling unworthy, gave up?  Maybe we don’t even know what gifts we have?  Maybe they’ve been shelved indefinitely for that phase of life when we feel like we finally have the time? 

Listening to our CEO field questions on a recent global call, he seemed somewhat mystified as to how to answer a query posed by one of my colleagues.  She wanted to know what he views to be the silver lining of this pandemic. I’m speculating he was a little taken aback since so much of what has transpired is talked about in terms of fear, loss and uncertainty. Our lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down. The outlook is bleak, the perpetually foggy crystal ball has churned to pea soup. Time has become magnified. More than once I’ve heard it said we’re passing time in dog years, the days are long, yet something that happened yesterday feels like weeks ago.

The question posed to our CEO is far more relevant, and memorable, than his answer.

 

For me sheltering in place has presented an opportunity to take stock in who and what really matters to me.  While I thoroughly enjoyed spending the first few weeks at home binge-watching 30 + hours of The Crown, and sincerely mourned the loss of this nightly ritual when we finished our last episode, I am thinking less about being in captivity, killing time until my release, and more about being in a cocoon, harnessing time until the beautiful butterfly emerges, transformed.

 

If I had to guess why my uncle didn’t maintain a drawing practice, I would chalk it up to his very full life. A prolific researcher and writer, bestowed with many gifts, I can easily see how drawing could fall by the wayside.  The blessing, truly, in this moment is the gift of time to resuscitate those activities and relationships that bring us joy, those hobbies that feel like decadence, like the most special of desserts, only to be savored once we eat the vegetables of life.

Which takes me back to Dad’s question and drawing. I’ve heeded his words, ditching the television for twelve weeks of virtual sketching classes and spending what I would have deemed crazy amounts of time not too long ago just drawing.  And I wonder what could possibly have taken priority over making a practice of drawing?

I watch my dad during this pandemic. His age puts him in the high-risk category, and yet he’s living his life to the fullest. Sure, he takes precautions, but what I see is a man who has taken stock in who and what really matters to him, and he won’t be deterred. He cherishes the family gatherings, and does not let fear, uncertainty nor a pea soup crystal ball keep him from spending time with those he loves.

Dad knows the silver lining that most of us haven’t lived long enough to really understand:  We’re all here for an indeterminate, yet finite period of time, and it accelerates like dog years. It’s a privilege to be one of the lucky ones he spends his precious time with.

Songbird

She says the song was hard to write, to play, even to listen to.  She didn’t think she’d ever play it live.  Yet she sits down at her piano without a band or a chorus of vocals behind her, naked of an elaborate set, dramatic lighting and any costume, and she pours the rawest of lyrics into the world in the most achingly tender and beautiful performance.  It’s hard to believe Taylor Swift didn’t write the ballad “Soon You’ll Get Better” for this moment when it so perfectly captures what we all can’t help but be afraid of in this moment.

We were speechless when she struck the last key on the piano, looking into the camera with such heartfelt relief and humility.  While nearly everyone who performed that evening showed incredible courage to put themselves out there absent of their crutches and accoutrements, we know hers is the performance we’ll remember because she was the only one who chose to share such an intensely personal song; her own original song.

The recent weeks have been hard, no doubt. Staying at home seems like such a small sacrifice, especially when my paycheck continues to hit the bank, uninterrupted.  We joke about the yeoman’s job we’re doing here at home saving lives. And in the same breath I feel awkward and uncertain all the time. 

Yes, I’m equipped to work from home and have been doing so for years, but what’s changed is the work I’m doing.  I’m leading leaders who are now balancing home schooling, childcare and work, or wrestling with their spouses and grown children for “the desk”, or going to the garage to sit in their cars to make phone calls. None of our clients are operating in the same manner we’re used to. They’re making unprecedented demands of us to keep their own ships afloat, leaving us with no choice but to make hard calls about relationships when the money stops flowing.  We’re learning who our real partners are; this situation magnifies what we’ve always known in our hearts to be true about who we walk with in lockstep and with whom we disagree fundamentally at the core. 

I’m passionate not just about doing business. I’m passionate about doing good business. Who aligns with our vision, and mission and values?  Who wants to buy what we have to sell?  Not everyone, and that’s okay.  But it’s hard to be the one to say it's time to cut the cord.

I think back to my own divorce, and how I finally found the courage to ask for it.  It wasn’t about anger or bitterness or regret.  Sure, those feelings presented themselves, but they weren’t the real story.  The real story was we just weren’t a fit.  We valued different things, we had our own individual visions that didn’t converge, we couldn’t find joy in each other’s paths, we fundamentally disagreed.

My coach calls it a “growth hangover”, when we spend a disproportionate amount of time out of our comfort zone.  There is no doubt that as we all stay home to flatten the pandemic curve, most of us are battling this metaphorical hangover:  The fuzzy head, the desire to curl up in a ball and sleep all day, maybe even feeling a little bit like throwing up.  What’s really scary is how many of us need tender loving care right now, a remedy for this hangover that has stretched on for 35 days, by my count.  How can we flatten the curve of upheaval staying at home has ignited?

I think the answer is in Taylor Swift’s stirring performance.  Yes, she said she didn’t think she’d ever play that song live. Yet she did because she believes music isn’t always about pleasant feelings.  Amid the uncertainty, isolation, and sadness there is this awesome opportunity for growth if we are vulnerable and courageous enough to sing our own song. We’re all being called to reinvent ourselves in some way, shape or form.  This is a reckoning we cannot ignore, the time to get clear about who we are and who we want to be for the world when we find ourselves able to walk out of the dim bar and into the blinding light of a sunny afternoon.

As I struggle with the hard calls I’m being asked to make during this time, never have I been more attuned to and cleaved to the calling I hear to live my values, to defend my truth. I start crying when he points out I already am. I am Taylor Swift, he says, singing a beautiful song. 

Gem

Heart pounding, I tried to conceal my excitement, and I will confess I wasn’t very good at it. Entering the gallery just before the public walked in for the opening of the Resident & Instructor’s Show, I immediately spotted two of my three submissions, right there on the main wall. The MAIN wall!  (Did I mention they were on the main wall?) 

My first instinct was to flee to the safety of my studio upstairs, where I could jump up and down in a silent scream behind a closed door; but instead I paused at the bottom of the stairs to ask myself what was so wrong with basking in full view?  Here I was in my moment in the spotlight. And while I usually abhor being under one, I knew this particular one begged for reveling; for this was unanticipated recognition at a milestone I had surmised would pass in relative peace.

I hurried back to the display, whipped out my phone and snapped a sloppy photo, commemorating some delicious self-pride I usually don’t allow myself to ingest. And as I lingered, leaking joy, I was told my work had nabbed the attention of the show’s curator, who appreciated the time and patience it takes to create in my medium.

My people came out to support me on that cold and rainy January night. I invited only a few. Feeling perennially unworthy of self-promotion, and afraid my work wouldn’t make it into the show (even though work submitted by every artist was accepted), I didn’t want the word to get out too broadly. I clutched my safety net, reaching out to those who knew me before I ever believed in myself enough to believe this was possible.  The friendships that budded and bloomed among us, angst-ridden, fun-loving, insecure teenagers trying to find our way; the people I shared my wildest dreams with, and the ones who couldn’t be prouder when I realize them.

   

I’ve spent the last year experimenting as a resident artist. My work has been constrained for what seems like forever, limited in my home by a small work space and in my heart by an even smaller tolerance for vulnerability hangovers, that sick feeling washing over us after we’ve revealed the truest parts of ourselves to others. I dared to “go big” at the urging of a fellow artist and friend.  A canvas mounted on my studio wall, I began piecing works together with my door and my soul wide open, inviting in the art enthusiasts who tour the gallery to observe and question. This environment couldn’t help but groom me to muster the guts to talk about work so intensely personal. Those who have watched me work unwittingly help me rehearse; to get comfortable talking about what I do, how I do it, and what it means to me.  They’ve prepared me for this moment of public scrutiny, allowed me to write and edit a story I can tell in plain language with confidence, a story people can relate to.

 

Art is a foreign language to many, even those possessing a tremendous appreciation for it. Who hasn’t studied at least one piece of art, befuddled, and concluded they could easily make it themselves at home in a few minutes time?  Collisions of color and pattern and texture affixed with a seemingly incongruent price or tagged NFS (not for sale) because the artist simply cannot part with a piece that may look like a crazy mash-up to any given viewer. Art is meant to deliver a message that’s often hazily conveyed, with flowery or abstract statements deliberately shrouded to protect a fragile maker. As artists it’s not that we don’t know what this work means to us, it’s that we are petrified we will sound stupid, or maybe too human, telling you about it.

What surprises me on this night, although it probably shouldn’t, are the individuals who acknowledge these deeply held fears, the people who call out my bravery, those who recognize that I’ve chosen to put my heart on my sleeve, willing to risk stumbling through an awkward explanation of self-expression, deeply buried yet starved to be unearthed.

What makes it to the main wall, in my estimation, is what’s deemed fresh and new and interesting and different.  Not the work that’s made as an attempt to please the public, work that’s made with stirring intent to please its unabashedly broken maker.

Inverse

JD Souther recalls the moment he fell in love with her.  In response to his request to cook him dinner, she made him a peanut butter sandwich. And with it she set the tone for the relationship.

 

We opened the new year in front of the big screen in rapt anticipation, watching Souther and several others celebrate Linda Ronstadt in her 2019 documentary, a two-hour tribute to arguably the most nuanced voice of a generation; one capable of thundering and whispering in the blink of an eye. We could relate to Souther’s tale, as the peanut butter sandwich moment is coincidentally part of our love story, too.

Growing up listening to Linda, I often wondered why she didn’t write her own songs.  The answer became clear as her story unfolded.  Her gift was her voice, and her ability to modulate it, to stretch it across an incredible range of musical genres and languages; anything that captured her heart. I write about Linda like she’s gone. She’s here, but Parkinson’s disease has taken away her ability to master the very complex process she knows singing to be.

Her friends on screen emote an undeniable sadness for this loss. I can only imagine how it must feel to her, to surrender such a defining and powerful gift.  As I think about aging, I consider how, by the very act of spending a significant chunk of time on this planet, we inevitably endure loss for which there is no acceptable substitute, no reasonable replacement to fill the void. We watch people and things we value perish or expire. Sometimes it takes the loss for us to recognize just how cleaved we were to the object of our desire; the fact that we are now denied it shining a light on just how meaningful it was to us.

There seems to be this erroneous expectation that the grieving process will end.  That we’ll somehow just get over it with time, and as memories fade, we will be able to plug the hole with another version or flavor of what we had before and move on unaffected.

I replaced running with yoga when my knees and hips told me they could no longer take pounding the pavement. But my heart and my head will never get over the euphoria and freedom running provided; the clarity it brought to my mind; the peace it settled in my soul.

Losses, both small and large, gnaw at me:  Basic Grey papers, my gold standard for their vibrant, original patterns, and wildly saturated colors, unmatched anywhere else. Discontinued years ago, vestiges are sequestered in private inventories for sale if you’re willing to scour the internet and wait for delivery from Malaysia. Dallas Clayton, a beloved and influential Dr. Seussian artist, writer, and community builder who inexplicably disappeared from social media one day with no warning and took with him the daily doses of inspiration I reveled in. The knowledge that Tom Petty and Linda Ronstadt will never perform another song. The curse of timing that placed my mother’s passing before I had the chance to discover my own self-worth and truly accept the love so freely given.

    

If we start to unpack the comfort of hanging back in the fringes, the reluctance to dance at the party, to not get too close, it starts to look like a kind of protection plan we buy into as a shield from inevitable pain. We pay the premiums and receive adequate coverage, but at a considerable cost. It’s a huge miss to play it safe. It’s a huge miss to love less.

JD Souther didn’t mess around after eating Linda’s peanut butter sandwich; they moved in together immediately.  I imagine he loved hard, as it was so obvious to me by the end of the documentary that he’s never stopped loving her. 

“We are never finished with grief.  It is part of the fabric of living.  It is always waiting to happen.  Love makes memories and life precious; the grief that comes to us is proportionate to that love and is inescapable.”  -- V.S. Naipaul

So many of us are afraid to love too hard because we don’t trust we will survive the proportionate grief. It takes tremendous courage to be all in, whether it be using our God-given talents to pursue our dreams or to love the person next to us with all our heart and soul. But maybe loving really hard is the exact fuel we need to manage the grief?