Gird

My teenagers find themselves in trouble occasionally.  I know it’s probably hard to believe, it certainly was for me when it first started happening.  Kids don’t get slapped on the wrist anymore, sent home to their parents to deal with their poor choices.  Opportunities to look the other way have diminished and consequences are much more serious than they were a generation ago.  But I’m finding in our increasingly toxic world, there is thankfully no shortage of people who want to help. 

The customary prescription for a juvenile brush with the law these days is some sort of educational program coupled with community service work.  Instructors with varying degrees of expertise, enthusiasm and experience offer presentations on the standard adolescent fare:  Drug use, drinking, anger management, respect, bullying, and peer pressure. While I’ve encountered many parents who grumble about the effort they themselves are forced to exert for these interventions, I’m finding a wealth of knowledge and ammunition to use in the battle I’m forging to preserve my boys’ futures.

I’m not particularly proud to admit it, but I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of these courses.  Teenage boys are a tough crowd to engage.  I’ve watched many kids fiddle with their smart phones and doodle on the hand-outs, ambivalent to a droning monotone recitation and weak attempts to extract thoughtful responses to obvious questions.

Tonight’s curriculum was different, though.  Here’s what made it so:  The instructor, an older gentleman who evoked the image of a loving grandfather, started his presentation with a photo of his own grandchildren and told these kids he does this for them, for their futures.  We watched a video, clearly targeted to parents, but he paused the tape very early on to tell the teenagers that while this is material for the adults, he believes they’re old enough to hear the truth:  A very pointed move to engage, which worked, at least for my kids.

It was the first time that I, even as an adult, heard the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse clearly stated in terms of a cycle of addiction, a black hole of slow decent.  The message was so perfectly crafted; seducing the adolescent audience into attention by acknowledging that drug use starts as a reasonable effort to feel good, but then derails into a dependency just to feel normal. An observation that this is truly a medical problem and not the moral one we parents try to make it, the recognition that our brains are the last organ in the body to mature, at 21 years as the minimum.  

What broke my heart, though, was the statement that drugs alter every element of a developing brain.  Not just that piece that makes our babies feel good, but also the parts that make them think, decide and dream.  Yes, dream. 

Tears sprang up in my eyes at the mention that drugs could steal my boys’ dreams. Our dreams are stowed safely away inside of us, waiting patiently for us to grow into them. The thought that a predator lurks with the power to take that away from them is unfathomable to me.

There was a lot of discussion in the video about why we should fight for our kids in this arena.  Isn’t it just easier to place our heads in the sand, to look the other way, to say they’ll get through it because we did at their age?  Maybe so.  And believe me, every time I think it’s too hard, these thoughts cross my mind. But I walked away tonight so thankful that someone out there is willing to talk to kids (and parents) straight.  Even my oldest, who is staunch in his views, admitted it was the most fact-based presentation he’s seen to date.

As we drove home, I didn’t ask whether my boys believed everything they heard.  Instead I reminded them once again, that if they choose that path of destruction they will be waging a war with me that they can’t win, because I love them too much.  They’ve watched me discover and go after my own dreams. They are no foe for me when it comes to preserving whatever it is they have yet to dream.

Delectation

Art supply stores are to me what candy stores are to a kid with a sweet tooth.  A good one is like an endless market of appetizing treats, each more irresistible than the previous.  How can you possibly be expected to choose just one? It’s been this way for me since college and my first exposure to Design art markers, their fat, felt tips saturated with intense, indelible hues, infused with an intoxicating chemical scent and a distinctive squeak that accompanies the application of color across paper.  While I wished for the extravagance of owning one in every shade, my student’s budget forced the limiting selectiveness of a practical, neutral palette. 

When I decided to investigate a local artist’s haven a few weeks ago, it felt like déjà vu. In search of affordable canvas for some work the kids are immersed in, I found myself lured into combing the aisles, taking in everything there was to offer.  Rainbows of paints, markers, pencils, chalk and oil pastels in every conceivable shape and size.  The packaging was as captivating as the medium itself.  While I browsed for at least an hour, I left the store with nothing more than what I came in for, finding it better to abstain than attempt to limit myself to just one of any of the colorful temptations in the store.

Nate’s eyes were as wide as saucers when he saw my bag emblazoned with the art store logo.  Seems he had been researching paint on-line the previous evening, discovering the mother of all products.  He explained to me that he needed Montana Gold, renowned for the control it affords the user, that the number and size of ball bearings inside each can provides a consistency of color upon every application that is unmatched by the competition. When he asked if we could go back to the store the next day, how could I say no?  He and I fed off each other as I described the infinite selection of indulgences in the store. It was like finding my soul mate.

There is nothing better than a conversation about your passion with someone who loves the exact same thing.  It is an instant leap to intimacy; the mutuality creating an immediate bond. A close second is hitting upon another’s equal, but different passion.  The emotions are the same, the affinity as satisfying.

I spent the weekend in Eagle River, Wisconsin with some friends.  It’s a sleepy little community on a chain of lakes with an indisputable north woods feel.  Stands of tall, narrow pine trees pepper the shoreline, serving as a curtain for the water, which is the star of the show. Seasonal activities pivot around the lake.  Fishing, of course, is an obvious pastime, which I am no stranger to.  As a kid, I spent time at Lake Delavan, at a little cottage with a small pier.  It was here that my dad taught me how to pick up a worm from the container of bait, pinch off a small piece using my fingernail, and snake it on the hook at the end of my bamboo pole.

In the eyes of a true fisherman, though, this hobby takes on all of those qualities that art does for an artist.  Listening to my friend recount his trip to the bait shop with its endless options of fishing lures in varying size, shape, color and sparkle, my mind went back to the art supply store.  His eyes danced as he talked with his wife about the control it took to limit himself; the splurge he made on one special lure he couldn’t live without.  While I’ve never viewed fishing as an art form, hearing him describe “the one that got away” in terms of the uniqueness in striping and color that truly made the elusiveness of catching this particular fish disappointing, I found a new respect for this sport, and a kinship to his passion.   

You’ve hit pay dirt in my mind when you find yourself with someone so willing to share a passion.  This is where we see the raw; the intangibles that make a person tick. Anything that we speak about in these terms is something to pay attention to, and incorporate into life. Maybe there’s not any money in it.  Maybe it’s not a career.  Certainly it’s a gift to be embraced and indulged.

This is the sweet spot; it’s where we shine.

Sanskrit

I can’t do one more thing for someone else today, was what I said to myself when my son asked this evening if I’d make him two pieces of toast. It felt selfish, the second the thought crossed my mind.  I hadn’t seen Nick all day; he hadn’t been the one making demands on me. Was it really so difficult or such an inconvenience to appease him?

This is my first week at my new client assignment.  Yes, I’ve finally made it out of the awkward, landing a leadership position, and have decided I am sorely out of shape for the real world.  The commute is long, there are introductions to be made, a slew of meetings to attend,  personalities to learn, new expectations to be met, and a computer that I somehow managed to lock myself out of on Day 2. I feel like the treadmill I was leisurely walking on has been accelerated to the highest speed.  I’m furiously running, trying to be everywhere at once, and in serious danger of being launched off the back the second I slow down.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very excited about this position and so happy to be back working with a team again. I just want to be great instantly, but getting acclimated to a new place always takes time.

I did what any sensible girl would do in this high stress situation; I went for a run.  After rain all day, the sun had finally shown its face right before sunset, and I decided if I moved quickly, I could get some miles in before dark.  I braved a loop I hadn’t traversed since the winter. Without my usual running companions who assume all navigational duties, I wasn’t quite sure if I would remember the route, but it didn’t matter.  All I knew was that I needed out.

Not surprisingly, I had no trouble deciding where to turn as I weaved my way through the grounds of the abbey and adjacent subdivisions. But if I had been asked to give directions, I wouldn’t have a clue. 

Earlier in the day, my boss discovered that he and a client, as kids, had family in the same town.  As my boss described the location of his grandparent’s home, not in street names, but in landmarks, I smiled, wondering how many trips he’d taken in the backseat of his parents’ car. A path etched indelibly in his mind, a map written in the language of love.

It’s funny that we find our way through life so often without being able to tell anyone how we’re getting there.

In sorting out the puzzle of my week, it became evident I am the one placing all the demands on myself.  My own worst enemy as usual, I’ve sped up the treadmill while everyone around me seems completely willing to grant me the grace that’s required to settle in and learn the lay of the land.  I’m the one who wants to be instantly infused with the roadmap of understanding that only comes with time.

After logging 4 miles, I turned back into my neighborhood, noticing I had been gaining speed.  I felt like I could run another four.  I stopped in my garage for water and walked a few more minutes in the dusk. I was breathing easier, and feeling better about my situation.  It’s temporary. 

Soon I’ll be immersed in the culture and the nuances of my new environment. I’ll know where I’m going by instinct, able to explain my way in that mystical dialect known only to those who’ve walked this path many times over.

Arcanum

Even though the alarm was set slightly later than usual in an attempt to promote sleeping in, I found myself wide awake well before I was to meet a friend for our Sunday morning run.  Rising sooner than planned can feel like a gift sometimes, stealing a few extra minutes at the dawn of the day while everyone else in my world is still dreaming, or maybe lazily rubbing the sleep out of their eyes in a groggy haze. 

The windows are wide open in celebration of the respite we’ve been enjoying recently from this summer’s grueling heat. The sound of ringing church bells floats inside on the coat tails of the breeze, signaling the imminent commencement of the next mass.  

The bells are a happy reminder that some constants in life endure, just a few short notes to ground us in time and place. The clock in my grandparents’ home chimed every fifteen minutes with a timbre evocative of the traditional Catholic mass.  Moving into our home ten years ago, the discovery that our new neighborhood nestled within earshot of the bells of a small abbey was a boon.  I became immediately accustomed to the cadence, able to mark time without the need for a clock.  I found myself tracking stretches tending to my garden and the pace of my running to their reliable ring.

Deciding to spend my extended Sunday morning on the blog, the church bells reminded me that someone recently asked me to write about happiness.  It’s a topic I’ve wanted to tackle, albeit a cryptic one in that it seems elusive to so many and has the same meaning to so few. 

I think happiness is misconstrued. We talk about finding a husband to “make” us happy or complete us.  We defer, saying that we’ll be happy when a fixed set of expectations are met or specific events occur. We define happiness by the approval of others and validation that our choices are accepted by the masses. In fact, we need this substantiation so badly, we’ll push our true passions to the side in favor of the course of action we deem safe and accepted in the eyes of others.

My behavior as a college student on the dating scene is unfortunately and embarrassingly illustrative of everything not to do when it comes to happiness.  I thought the only way the road to happiness could be paved was with a man at my side.  My usual approach to dating was to let the guy run the show.  I deferred most, if not all, decisions about what we did and where we went to him so as to give him no reason not to like me, and even when I realized maybe he wasn’t so great, I’d stay until he eventually broke up with me.  Nowhere in this equation did I ever really consider what I wanted.  Is anyone surprised I was miserable?

We spend a lot of time giving over control of our happiness to others in hopes that pleasing them is the way to be happy with ourselves.

Happiness, to me, works like a fulcrum.  It’s about having a really steady base so that you’re free to move about in any direction the world takes you and confident to take yourself any place you want to go. It’s different for everyone because we all require and expect different levels of support to feel comfortable in our decisions, our worth, and ultimately in our skin itself.  Striking the right balance is how we make ourselves happy, and no one else can do it for us.

I consider myself to be happy in my career because I have what feels like the right amount of support and backing from my company along with the perfect level of freedom and empowerment in my work and development.  I am tentative at times with parenting because the scaffolding I’m on top of doesn’t seem strong enough.  I’m reluctant to wade into the dating pool because my past experience in relationships tells me I can expect little to no support and suffocating restriction when it comes to following my dreams.

So, you might look at that assessment of the three major buckets of my life and say I’m marginally happy at best.  But you’d be wrong.  I’m really happy. And here’s why:  I believe I am responsible for and capable of creating my own happiness.  I view happiness not as a destination, but as a constant companion on the journey. I define my happiness in my own terms. I respect the sheer impossibility of the notion that every aspect of my life can be great all the time. 

It’s okay to be happy with yourself if you’re still single at 35, if you think you might not be in the right job, if your mom wants to be a grandmother but you don’t want a baby until your career is more established, if you’ve ever found yourself at the police station picking up your errant teenagers. . .   The list goes on.

To get to this place requires a willingness to really pay attention to what’s good.  We always seem to focus on what’s not going right. A few years ago when I was on my self-help book kick, I read a resounding analogy about how getting every facet of your life to go right at the same time was like trying to stuff an octopus completely under your bed.  At least one arm is always flopping out. When you accept that reality, it takes a lot of the pressure off.

A top priority every day of my life is to do or notice at least one thing that makes me happy or plant a seed of happiness for the future. It might be my morning run, a warm cup of ridiculously overpriced boutique coffee, gushing ebulliently with my son over our shared obsession with art supply stores, the pacific and nostalgic toll of church bells, or a few minutes to write a really juicy blog post that I just know will make someone in cyberspace laugh or cry or do a little of both. 

One of my most cherished cards of the past holiday season bore this message:   “Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” ― Guillaume Apollinaire

Now that’s someone who’s on the road to solving the mystery of happiness.

Blogger’s note:  If you’ve tried unsuccessfully in the past to post a comment, you might want to try again.  The problem appears to be fixed.  Thanks Aimee  ;-)

Emprise

Life can seem to be all about following the rules.  There is an almost dreamy decadence that comes on those rare occasions when we disregard convention and take a risk.  It’s like skinny dipping at midnight under a blanket of stars on a warm summer night.  There’s an immediate surge of adrenaline as the water somehow takes on a sublime, velvety feel, impossible to discern in swimwear in the light of day.

When a colleague leaned over our table of drinks the other evening and quoted Steve Jobs to me, saying:  “It’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy,” I smiled deliciously at the thought. Ever since, though, I’ve been thinking about his subsequent sobering acknowledgment that there are so few opportunities in our daily lives to be the pirate. 

What Jobs’ statement refers to is the hiring philosophy for his creative company:   Those who work best in structure, hierarchy and protocol are better suited in conventional organizations. The people who thrive in the ambiguity of unorthodox arenas and burst with passion for what they do were the ones he wanted for his business, not just for the decidedly creative roles, but for all roles.

Clearly, at Apple, Jobs was looking for people who are swashbucklers all the time, but he also created a unique utopia where this is embraced and expected 24/7. What about the rest of us who live and work in the real world?  My immediate response to my friend was that we need to be on the look-out for those places and times in our lives when we can safely let our hair down, and that the search itself is part of what makes being the pirate so fun. 

We all have an inner pirate.  The question for me is when and to what extent to do we let her out?  I’m sure it won’t surprise you, but, to me, this is all connected to the confidence and courage unleashed by following our dreams. I was telling some new acquaintances recently that as I nudge my writing beyond the cloisters of my inner circle and receive positive feedback about its quality and resonance, I am becoming more confident in my abilities, fueled to push it out further. There is no prescribed path for how I launch it into the world, no rules about what I write or how I write, and I’m filled with a desire to come back to it again and again.  It can sometimes make my day job pale in comparison.

Following our own path is where the pirate makes her appearance.  The more time we devote to the things we love, the more confident we are in letting our true selves bleed into other aspects of our lives.  Over the last few months, I’ve felt compelled to look for avenues to introduce my writing into my job, submitting some pieces to leaders at work. I have visions of Ralphie in “A Christmas Story”, imagining the fanfare that would surround him when his teacher awards him an A + + + for his riveting theme about his Red Ryder BB gun.  But I’m also prepared to be jolted into the reality of a C grade and the comment “You’ll shoot your eye out.”  Whether there is a place for my writing at the office is yet to be seen, but hitting the send button felt that electric kind of good that bounding into the water in the buff at the bewitching hour evokes. 

Somehow that same conversation the other evening turned morose, as stories were shared about the life-changing realities of incapacitating accidents and illnesses that unsuspectingly rob people in their prime. Being middle-aged, everyone at the table could relate.  We’re at the intersection of wisdom and vitality. The time to strike is now.  I looked at my friend and said “Be the pirate.”

Maybe I’m being a little overly dramatic, but life is short.  Too short to leave your dreams stashed in a corner somewhere to be looked at later when you have more time. We need to keep our eyes open, looking harder for the places to bring out the pirate.  You only need to go skinny dipping once to be forever enamored, restless, and keenly attuned to the next opening to repeat the rush.   

Blogger’s Note:  As I was putting the finishing touches on this post, an e-mail came through from the office.  My most recent writing submission has been approved for our newsletter. They like the tone, but want me to dial it back a bit.  I guess that means I should confine skinny dipping metaphors to the blog . . .

Aberrant

As the garage door creeps up its track like an aging rollercoaster, acrid paint fumes waft under my nose.  I’m parking the car left of center now, as I’m sharing space with my teenagers who have outfitted a man cave designed for their latest foray into the arts.  Furnished with lawn chairs, a wooden workbench, repurposed skateboards and remnants of a big-screen TV, they work under shop lighting rescued from the basement, their monster music blaring as they cut stencils to contain the spray paint that imparts their designs on any surface imaginable.

Art is in their blood, the same way it is in mine. I’ve seen it manifest itself over and over again in drawings on bedroom walls, plastic drinking bottle sculptures, duct tape clothing, embroidery floss bracelets and various found-art media:  chalk on sidewalks, sand on beaches, snow on a frozen pond. They can try to deny it or cast it aside, but they are infused with a creativity that colors every speck of their worlds.

And this is how it is with our passions, those talents we are truly meant to explore, exploit and export.  Our gifts are deliberately designed to be irresistible and irrefutable to us. What a clever way to ensure that we are inevitably led to happiness. 

So if we’re programmed to gravitate toward our strengths why do so many of us suffer in jobs we don’t care for, leaving our dreams unfulfilled?

Sometimes our passions are off the beaten path.  When we were younger, we acquiesced to the wishes of our parents.  I know plenty of adults who became the professional mom or dad wanted them to be as a requisite for a funded education, only to change careers later in life.  In my generation, you may have received half-hearted encouragement to go for what you really wanted with the caveat you get a teaching degree “to fall back on”.

Today’s world is different.  The most ambitious entrepreneurs are starting businesses in college dorm rooms.  A tiny handful of true risk takers abandon their educations in favor of following creative dreams.  But most of us still guide our children to take the safe route.  They should pursue degrees in higher education because it seems more probable that they’ll find success and monetary rewards in these familiar and accepted surroundings. The white collar world is the coveted place to be, and anymore, no one will look at you without a college degree.

I remember my own decision to pursue interior design.  Seeking independence and emancipation from the responsibilities and constraints of the oldest child in a 7-person family, I knew I wanted to go to college.  I had the grades, and parameters were set.  It would be a state school, and I wanted the biggest.  Having finished an interior design course in public high school, I decided this was a form of art I could pursue that would satisfy the requirement that I end up with a steady job upon receipt of a degree.

Ironically, I spent twelve years in a career I wasn’t particularly good at.  Working my way up from technical drawing positions to true design, I discovered I was surrounded by colleagues who were far more talented and most importantly, confident and courageous in their work.  It wasn’t until I found myself on the business side of things that I found my true calling.  I went from counting the minutes until I could pick up and leave for the day to wondering where the hours in the day went. 

I followed the popular, prescribed path for my generation. An undergraduate degree at a Big Ten university was more than respectable at the time.  But I didn’t end up any more satisfied with my original career choice because of it.

And I’m not alone.  I used to love those interviews with successful businesspeople that the Chicago Tribune published years ago in the business section of the Sunday paper.  There was a chronological history of the path each individual took to get from the first job as a high school babysitter to the present.  I was always fascinated and inspired by the people who took the circuitous paths.

Ten may be the new fifteen in today’s world, but I don’t believe most kids have any better idea of what they want to do with the rest of their lives than we did a generation ago. What they decide to do today may not be what they are doing twenty years from now. It all comes together when you love what you are doing so much that you find the courage to immerse yourself completely. But no one can predict when exactly that will be.

And maybe that’s why I allow my boys to use our home as a canvas for just about any project they can think of:  I want them to get comfortable trying new things, so it’s not so scary to look for what they love and go after it. I want them to find the courage within themselves much earlier in life than I did.

A friend reminded me recently that my boys are not following the ubiquitous path of the average honor student – athlete because I allow it to be different.  She’s right.  I am wide open to the path less traveled because that’s where we all find ourselves.

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”  --  Robert Frost

Succor

We’ve all been the recipient of one of those chain e-mails talking about how wonderful girlfriends are.  I tend to read them and then not pass them on.  Not because I don’t have wonderful girlfriends, mostly because I’m poor at managing my inbox and try not to clog up the boxes of others.  But I truly don’t know where I’d be without these amazing women.

I sneezed over the weekend and threw out my back.  Sounds absolutely ridiculous, I know, but probably the second most painful experience of my life next to childbirth.  Yeah, that bad. I crawled into my bed and lie there, like a helpless slug, feeling somewhat normal only if I didn’t move a muscle.  I told myself if I just rested, it would be fine.  I caught Michael Phelps win his historic 21st medal through a half-opened eye, and wondered blearily if Bob Costas will ever just let his hair go grey.  My boys were sweet, thoughtful, helpful and concerned.

I woke up the next morning, fully clothed, contacts still in my eyes, and in absolute misery just attempting to get out of bed.  The teenagers, snoozing in the makeshift bedroom formerly known as the family room, were dead to the world, and as expected, nonresponsive to my pleading phone calls and texts.  I started sobbing, thinking I might as well just call it curtains.  I’ll be an invalid for the rest of my life, surely, with no one to care for the pitiful single woman I’ve deteriorated into.

I broke down and called one of my dear friends in the city.  She’s not the closest geographically, but she possesses the empathy and understanding I needed in that moment, as she is a veteran single woman herself. I liken the second singlehood that is the outcome of divorce to motherhood.  You can’t fully appreciate the situation until you’ve experienced it yourself. As I anticipated, this particular friend completely understood my reluctance to call a married friend, or anyone for that matter, as an admission that help is needed breaks open the wounds of self-pity, and she knew how completely unlovable I felt in such a needy state.  She recognized that my pain was intensified and acerbated by the feelings of aloneness I heaped on top of it; and that in moments of physical pain and vulnerability we feel powerless and devalued, wondering what’s so wrong with us that there isn’t a loving man at the ready to care for and soothe us.

She came to my aid immediately.  And she healed all of me, which was so much more valuable than simply finding relief for my aching and seized muscles. She fed me, and fibbed that I looked gorgeous for the hot doctor who was sure to be assigned to my case. Of course, she chided me for not calling her sooner, and had to convince her father in Michigan, who was equally concerned, that I didn’t need an ambulance.

The urgent care that is closest to my house apparently retained the same banking hours held by the financial institution that previously occupied the space.  While we waited for the doors to open, she assured me it is pretty much statistically impossible that we will be alone for the rest of our lives.  And even if we are, when we’re blue-haired and wrinkly-kneed we’ll move in together and take care of each other, although we admitted we’d probably be surrounded by whispered questions about our sexuality.  Good thing other people’s opinions are none of our business.   

Thankfully, my injury is temporary.  We picked up my prescriptions which included a muscle relaxant, a pain killer and an iced coffee (okay, I prescribed the coffee).  We chatted over our drinks and when she was certain the medications weren’t going to cause me to swing from the ceiling or slip into a comatose state and obtained my promise to avoid operating heavy machinery, she headed back to the city.  

Girlfriends are special human beings.  They each bring their own unique strength and power to the relationships they foster. When we question ourselves and our value, they correct us and remind us of our true worth.  They force us to be kinder to ourselves.  They keep us honest and hopeful.  They help us find our own power when it seems lost, and make sure we take care of ourselves so we can keep sailing toward our goals.   

Hmmm, this is starting to sound like a chain e-mail about great girlfriends.  Since my friend in the city is not a religious reader of my blog, which is completely in keeping with her character and everything I love about her, I will need to clog up her inbox with this thank you. I hope she’ll forgive me.