Incline

She steps up to the mic and affirms we're here to celebrate life.  I catch myself welling up as the word life catches in her throat.  She's up on the stage clutching those nearest and dearest to her, looking out at her community; the group of family and friends who are becoming known to each other for no other reason than for knowing her.  They've brought food and flowers, music and memories to this majestic clearing in the trees. They sing like the musicians in the band with their words of love and joy. They warm like the fire blazing heat through the crisp mountain air. They sparkle like the lights strung across the evergreens soaring high into the sky.

She wonders what she's done to deserve it all; this path of switchbacks life keeps asking her to navigate.  And at the same time she grips the wheel firmly with both hands, marveling at all she's learning with every turn she braves.

These challenges life forces us to stare down, they aren't the occasional rough patch on an otherwise smooth and predictable course.  They are everyday opportunities to develop our true selves we have no choice but to accept. And unfortunately they are sometimes doled out to us in the dirtiest of jobs.

When we accept that we are all broken in one way or another, some of us more visibly and publicly than others, and that hairpin turns aren't here to get into the way of life, but rather are the way of life, all sorts of magic happens.  We no longer need to worry about what if.  We don't need to wallow in the self pity of why me.  When we expect that the road will be harrowing at times we can focus on learning how to drive it.  An incredibly huge and wonderful ask not only because it takes courage, but help unlocking  it.

She says her feistiness only gets her so far.  For the rest she credits her community.  She learns to ask for what she needs, relieving countless pairs of idle hands earnest to be put to work.  She places a huge chunk of her hard fought business into the care of others, knowing she may never get it back. She comes to the slow realization that life is not temporarily altered for this blip on the radar screen, but forever altered as a new way of being.

The awkward, unwanted glow of cancer places her in this spotlight.  And she is able to use this place to acknowledge we all need each other, no matter the magnitude, credibility or celebrity of our brokenness, to fuel us through whatever life hands us.  She celebrates the power this community of giving helps her find in herself as she braces for another hairpin turn. This is glorious and treacherous life in the mountains.  This is life.  

Cull

Who knew there would be so many?  And how stealthy they are in the beginning; so innocent, simple and easy I don’t even realize I’m making them.  They perch on a sliding scale of difficulty I unwittingly set myself as I move through the process.  And the most time consuming and confounding of all is, in the end, the hardest to make are around the most trivial of things. I’m talking about decisions.

The decision to take action on my yearning to move out of my house and on to a new life has consumed the summer of 2017.  From the initial tour with my real estate agent in June sharing instructions on how to prepare my house to go to market, to the final throes of throwing the last vestiges into boxes now labeled “miscellaneous” and “kitchen junk”, I’ve been making decisions.

My bag collection is tormenting me at the moment.  I know; I can’t help myself.  I collect paper, select plastic, and the lightweight fabric.  Some of my most coveted are the ones from The Container Store, especially the little red zipper bags stowing Elfa hardware.  I almost like them more than the closets created with the parts they hold within them. Paper shopping bags with handles are a jumbled mixture of childhood delicacy and happy memories.  On bright, Sunday afternoons my grandparents would arrive at our house in the suburbs from the big city with Maurice Lenell cookies and other goodies in shopping bags I was convinced didn’t exist out in the sticks. My own bag collection coaxed into the daylight from the myriad of storage nooks now makes a troubling mountain in the dining room I can’t seem to attack. I will use the 50% rule to vet and downsize.

There are few milestones in a life that present such an undeniable and pristine opportunity to pause and take stock.  This process, whether I initially realize it or not, demands I make a decision about every single material item in my life from a safety pin to a sofa.  And as Hurricane Harvey rages on, I feel blessed and at the same time a modicum of embarrassment for all I have acquired, and grateful for the simple fact that I get to make choices for myself instead of a vicious storm making them for me.

 

Leaving my home of fifteen years is bittersweet. As I sit at my kitchen window and do the math, I realize that over the course of my lifetime there is no other place on earth where I have been anchored for more time.  No other sanctum where I have grown and changed as much. And there may never be again.

 

Ironically and somewhat not surprisingly, I have spent more time addressing my stuff than I have the wonderful people who have lived in and around this home with me.  While it’s understandable, something about it just feels wrong.  I’m looking forward to discovering new ways these relationships will change and hopefully deepen in the absence of close proximity.  Mostly I’m looking forward to the freedom letting go of some stuff will afford me.  If only I’m courageous enough to do it.  My gypsy soul continues to patiently wait. Probably with a few bags.

Fledged

She recalls vividly the scene played out in a bird’s nest one spring, Mama and Papa Robin sending their two babies over the edge. Baby number one jumps without hesitation, furiously flapping his wings.  He falls to the ground, of course, but picks himself up and tries flying again. Baby number two struggles to make the leap from the nest.  Poised on the edge, he appears to be ready for take-off, and at the last second stands down, like a scared child recoiling on the high dive.  The most memorable aspect of this show is the earsplitting noise from the nest. Mama, especially, relentless in chastising bird-speak.  It’s clear she believes it’s time.  But is he ready?

Is he ever ready, is what I wonder. A similar scene is playing out at my nest. I’ve served the eviction notice to all three of us, myself included.  I’m pushing us all out of this well-worn, familiar nest and into new parts of the world.  Some of us are more ready than others. 

It’s an unbelievable amount of work to dismantle a home sixteen years in the making.  I’ve uncovered old photo albums full of smiling babies, elementary school projects diligently completed in uncertain longhand, diaries with surprising content scrawled in sloppy adolescent prose:  Glimpses into moments in time which, when pieced together, make up the circuitous journey we’ve traveled up until now.  While there are many, many happy memories, it’s hard to be back in that space without a tinge of regret.  There is so much I knew at the time should be done differently if only I could have figured out how to do it, so much I would have done differently if only I knew I should have been doing it. Have I done all I can to prepare them?

A friend tells me that the mark of good parenting is not the outcome, much of the outcome is attributed to luck.  Good parenting is about responding to the people we’re given. And it’s about continuously showing up, even when it’s hard. It took me a while, admittedly, to decode who I’ve been given, to determine how best to respond to two disparate personality profiles, especially the one that doesn’t match mine. There is no user’s manual.  And then it took some time to heal my own soul, to demand the respect I deserve and to conceive the unwritten manifesto we can now all recite in our own words.

I’ve been described as persistent in many areas of my life. I will raise my hand for the hard jobs.  I will hang in there for as long as it takes.  I will identify road blocks, investigating any and all ways around them.  I will maintain a positive attitude, and spread renewed hope lavishly on every new option implemented in the quest to win whatever prize I’m seeking.  What I’ve learned is the journey is fluid; the rules and the players change; the time to exit and get on another path always presents itself. Outcomes are only final if you’re at the place where you choose to stop. 

I look at where my little birds are today on their journeys. I try to remember that while opportunities for me to show up wane significantly at this stage in life, these birds are not done growing. They get to define their own criteria for happiness and success, where they deem their final destination in life to be, when or if they will ever “arrive”. Life does not present an endgame to us, we create one and allow ourselves to surrender to it when we decide to measure ourselves by standards other than our own.

Is the bird ready?  He has inside of him everything required to live outside the nest. He needs only to unlock his courage.

They are learning how to fly. And so am I. 

 

Advent

I text, “I’m heading to the grocery store.  Need anything?”  I have hopes he will say something like, “Yes, can you bring me some shampoo and sit around and talk for a while?  I’d love your advice on a few things!”  Of course, this is not the response at all, instead it’s “No, I’m okay thanks.”  I’m a little disappointed, but not surprised.  This is my 18 year-old, now living on his own with a roommate in a little old house a few miles away from my place, a place by the way, which is feeling less and less like home by the minute. He’s been gone a week.

Most families, whatever their shape, size or composition, will eventually go through this transformation.  It’s a bit like death, in that it’s pretty unavoidable.  Parents raise children to grow into independent adults who not only survive, but thrive, in the outside world.  As a parent, I have a list of boxes I am hell-bent on checking before I can unequivocally say my job is done here, and my children are ready, by my standards, for this passage.  I want to exceed expectations in this area, and regretfully, I feel like I am barely meeting them.

 

There is some solace, though, when I think about my own experience.  When I left the family homestead the ink was barely dry on my college diploma. My face still damp from the tears I wept after accepting a pittance of $12,500 a year in exchange for full-time employment in my area of study, I sputtered off, having robbed my siblings of the 1975 Cutlass Supreme we all shared, which was known by the way, to die on very cold mornings at the stoplight at Burlington Avenue and Route 53.  I possessed little more than the values my parents instilled in me and a fierce, independent spirit.  I rented an apartment to be “closer to work” in a seedy section of Villa Park, which I discovered decades later to be a hotbed of drug trafficking. (Don’t tell my dad.) I’m quite sure my parents thought me to be insane, and lost more than a few nights of sleep.

I sweat in that apartment, sleeping on the living room floor in front of the window air conditioning unit when temperatures soared in May and never dropped.  I covered the couch in a big blanket to hide the worn upholstery. I washed my clothes in a dank laundry room in the basement. I rolled changed when I couldn’t quite make it to payday. While my standard of living sank several notches, the place was all mine.  I explored the used book store down the street.  I shopped at the grocery store and chose my own food. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  It was heaven.

The odd thing is I don’t remember worrying.  Worrying came later in life, after my people arrived and I had dependents who needed me and expected me to take care of them.  Maybe I didn’t need to worry at the time because my parents were doing the worrying for me? 

What I forget sometimes is this stage of life is a passage.  It’s not about having a certain amount of money saved up in the bank, having a specific job or title, having a partner to marry.  There is no right age to venture out, no boxes to check, no stamp of approval for readiness.  You just do it.  You take a leap of faith, you step out on your own and you learn as you go.

I broke my lease at that Villa Park dive before the year was up, on to my next outlandish adventure in San Diego with my boyfriend.  We sat in lawn chairs in the living room, shared a one-car garage.  We rolled change.  I learned how to drive a 5-speed and became a master at parallel parking on the street in front of our townhouse.  We could see a little sliver of the ocean from the kitchen window. I threw darts regularly at Lucy’s by the beach. I went on to move 3 more times in the next 4 years. I made good decisions and bad ones. I learned. And I did it without my parents’ hand.

On this Father’s Day it’s important to note that what got me through, and what still gets me through today are the values and competencies my parents nurtured in me. When I moved out I had very little money. I was low on maturity. What I lacked in self-confidence I made up for in headstrongness.  What I really needed to make it on my own was instilled, I’m sure, way before my parents’ worry started when I moved out. My dad has modeled for me a tremendous work ethic, perseverance, resilience, resourcefulness, tenacity, steadfast calm, and grace under pressure.  He has taught me how to live small, to do without, how to solve my problems.  And he did all of this simply by being himself. My work with my boys is already done.  It was done a long time ago as I unknowingly steeped my children in the same by being who I am. And I’m learning to remind myself that with these qualities, my boys will survive this passage and every other that comes their way.

Now my job is to enjoy the next phase of my life, and to be here when my boys reach out.  Dad does an excellent job of paving the way for this new reality, too.  He shows me acceptance when I make bad choices, offers help when he knows it is too hard for me to ask.  He patches up heated disagreements. He welcomes my new partner in life with open arms.

I ask his brother how it’s going over there, in his new place.  He says everything is fine but there is no hot water.  I am immediately alarmed.  “It’s okay, Mom,” he says, “he’s showering at the gym.”  I can’t help myself; I call him.  It’s all fine, he tells me.  He is working through the process with the gas company. And then I am reminded of who I have raised:  A fiercely independent, resourceful, determined soul hell-bent on finding his own way. And I know he will.

Thanks Dad.   

Brakeman

I’m the last person to step onto the 7:51 and I’m feeling lucky I make it. Driving to the station I am on edge.  The clock on the dashboard says I’ve got two minutes.  The driver in front of us doesn’t seem to know which street he wants to turn on and therefore slows down at every intersection, his blinker flashing into perpetuity.  I’m silently cursing.  Okay, I might be audible, but I expel under my breath. I kiss him on the cheek before we’re even at a full stop. Running poorly in high heels, I thank the conductor at the door for holding the all clear sign until I’m on board.

We are clipping along at what feels like a faster pace than usual. The train is noticeably rocking on the track; I’m having a hard time reading my book. And then we stop. A voice comes over the public announcement system to tell us we’ve been involved in a pedestrian accident. Quiet resignation ripples through the air as the regulars settle in for what they know will be a lengthy delay.

Many people like to say these incidents are not accidents, that an individual has made a deliberate decision to exit an unbearable world.  However, on this day I imagine someone who, like me, is running late. Instead of taking a moment to consider whether the ramifications of tardiness are truly dire, a split-second decision is made to stay on a self-imposed schedule. This individual, I think, pays the ultimate price.

 

The train is undoubtedly filled with frustrated passengers.  Strangely, I am not one of them.  I find irony, and a signal to pay attention, when in rushing to stay on my own timetable I am stopped by someone else I presume to be doing the very same thing.

A woman a few rows behind me is seeking an iPhone charger.  I know most of us probably have one. I do. I pipe up and lend it.  Two little boys on the upper level with their father are quiet as mice for the entire 3 hour delay.  A woman across the aisle patiently works with her doctor’s office over the course of several phone calls to find space for her visit, as the next available appointment, we learn, is in August.  Others around me have much more pressing consequences than I do.

The conductors are rattled.  The engineer naturally unable to get it together when we’re finally able to move again.  As passengers we get very limited information about the incident.  Now, as I’m writing this, I feel compelled to find out the details.  Google quickly produces a short and concise synopsis. A pedestrian was struck 200 feet east of the station. Her death ruled a suicide.  She was 21. I have a 21 year old.  I am grateful.

I’ve seen angry and unruly behavior when mechanical failures take down a train.  I am impressed by the respect and humanity my fellow human beings exhibit on this day.  As I recount my amazement, especially given the divisive and angry state of our country at this moment in time, she reminds me we feed on the behavior around us.  Particularly that of our leaders. This I have witnessed personally and profoundly as the noise level in my home diminishes dramatically the day I decide to take yelling out of my communications repertoire.

She says there was a leader on this train, someone who steps outside of herself or himself, considers the situation and feelings of another human being and puts the other person first. Someone who models the behavior we all follow. I’m not sure who this is.  The impeccably behaved little boys on the upper level?  The woman with the doctor’s appointment?  Me?  It can be anyone and everyone.  There are a multitude of situations every single day where we get to choose how we will behave. We’re all leaders with the power to create positive behavior in others by modeling it ourselves.  It’s magical stuff.  Have you given it a try?

Patina

I remember thinking of it as a revelation, and a relief.  “He’s Just Not That Into You,” a book finally giving women everywhere permission to stop the all-consuming, endless cycle of analysis, the elaborate maze of mythical excuses love struck ladies conjure up for the oh-so-desirable date who displays inconsistent and tepid interest. The authors say there is no magical moment when a woman decides to face this truth, only that she becomes tired of it all and decides she wants something better for herself.  Love shouldn’t be this hard.

Work shouldn’t be this hard, either. At first I confuse it with growing pains.  I’m in a new job.  It is normal, I tell myself, to feel off kilter, a bit like I’m walking on marbles.  I should expect to be thrown into new situations and forced to improvise, to figure it out as I go.  I’m not going to get it right all the time.  It will be messy.  I train myself to be alright with this.

 

And so I over think it all. I wear out my sounding boards. My thirst for validation cannot be quenched. I say “yes” too quickly. I wonder if the word “no” is anywhere to be found in my lexicon. I wake up in the middle of the night, over successive nights, sweat rolling down my back. Not because I’m afraid of failing, I discover, but because I’m afraid of being found out.

I am a rule follower, and so I don’t immediately recognize the dissidence I feel. I find myself struggling as I’m being asked to make bigger, more impactful, riskier decisions. At first I think it’s because I’m not experienced enough. Until the reality becomes impossible to ignore:  I have plenty of experience, I just don’t believe in what we’re doing.

I’m reminded of a poem called "Good Bones" by Maggie Smith. She wants to shield her children from the awful truths about life, to somehow push the promise of this world we live in. She writes of a realtor taking prospects through a dismal property.  It’s got good bones, she quips, and you could make this place beautiful.

I believe we can make dismal beautiful. In some ways I may have a spent a career doing just that. But in order to achieve it we have to see the promise.  We have to look past what meets the eye and focus on the structure underneath.  And when the good bones just aren’t there, instead of pounding our heads against the wall or standing at the door that just won’t open, we need to cut our losses and move on. Years of time in the business world (and in therapy) have taught me to trust my gut. I recognize good bones quickly.

I want the freedom to cut my losses so I have the time to work on what shows promise. I want a chance to exercise all I have learned about leadership, inspiration, building a vision and making whatever I touch beautiful. I ask myself a question that has ebbed and flowed over the course of the past five years:  My responsibilities demand me to be windward to fear for causes I’m not passionate about.  What will it take for me to channel all of this energy and experience into work for causes I believe in? 

Exhaustion, pure and simple.  This is the conclusion I come to.  I’m just plain tired of an emotional investment netting so little return. For a brief time I think maybe I can just care less. Yet, this, the caring part, is what makes me extraordinary. And so I decide my energy needs to go to other places. It’s exciting and it’s scary all at the same time. I don’t know what it will look like or how it will unfurl. All I know is that it needs to happen because I want something better for myself. 

I want to make this place beautiful.

Scull

I don’t recall how old I am, but I’m huddled in the shallow end of a big swimming pool at North Central College, I think, staring into the green water, wearing a rubbery, coral swim cap with ridges etched into the surface meant to mimic curls. I’m sure my mother drags me here, I can’t imagine I ask for swimming lessons.  My recollection is fuzzy after all these years, but I’m pretty certain I never make it out of the beginning group.  I remember how surreal it all feels, the stench of the chlorine, the unnatural echo of our voices, and tracing the pattern on that bathing cap with my fingers.  Pools aren’t meant to be indoors and we don’t cover our hair. It is me and an overweight little girl named Olga.  We never advance.

I can taste my dread and fear and smallness as I dredge up this experience.  Maybe I cry about it, and I’m sure I feel ashamed, like I am too old for this reaction.  I am supposed to suck it up, put my head underwater and swim.  But I can’t. And I can’t for many years.

Life is full of these kinds of moments.  We’re thrown into them against our will, and we fight like hell to maintain some kind of control.  We’re often given teachers, coaches, guides to talk us through.  We think they’re here to explain the technical terms and steps of the process, but what they really do is help us access the faith in ourselves required to put our faces in the water and move forward.  If we’re going to do this, whatever it is, we have no choice but to believe it is possible and we are strong enough to endure. And so we take direction and make hard decisions pressed upon us by experts we barely know.  We put faith in the unfamiliar.  We figure out how to heal ourselves where we’re broken, and to live peacefully in uncertainty. It’s a tall order and I wonder sometimes how we ever get through.

 

“The best way out is always through,” poet Robert Frost says. And he’s right.  There will never be any hope of a life with the right person if you can’t get through the hard work of ending a marriage with the wrong person.  There is no room on your team for stellar performers if you can’t have the conversation needed to move on poor performers. It’s impossible to leave behind your parents’ house and start the life you imagine for yourself if you don’t enroll in the training needed for a good paying job. We get through by addressing what we fear, by actually doing what it is we’re afraid of.  And we do it over and over again in every aspect of our lives.

 

She’s talking about the inspiration for writing her song.  She sees artwork of diving girls, and admires their strength.  She recalls the hard times of her own life, and thinks to herself what a strong swimmer she is. She plays this song, at first for members of her family, and then to audiences of strangers.  Everybody cries. 

You’ve been here before, whether you realize it or not, on the edge of many different pools, tugging nervously on that ugly bathing cap, diving into unfriendly waters and cutting through, one stroke at a time, to the other side.  You can do this.  Whatever is in your way you can push aside, you can push through. 

You are a strong swimmer.