Lavish

The Who say it ain’t for keeping.  My younger self, jaded and jilted in its evanescence, might interpret this phrase to mean it doesn’t last. It’s a good thing the wiser and somewhat more worldly me has learned it’s really for giving away.

It’s a journey to move along this continuum; the lucky ones reshape their ideas about love.  For some of us it happens when we meet the man we marry.  We create a shared life; evolving and growing together, learning the delicate dance of supporting our partner in becoming himself without compromising the quest we’re on to find our true selves. For others the path is not so straightforward; it takes more than one relationship.  We need to begin, end, spend some time contemplating the experience, and then begin again with someone new.

We tend to chalk serial monogamy up to bad choices, wondering how we can ever forgive ourselves for such a glaring lack of vigilance or clairvoyance.  But what if it’s nothing more than bad timing?  What if at this point in time, in this particular relationship we’re too far to the right on this continuum, unable to recognize that giving love away freely is the way to receiving more?

If we believe love is fleeting it becomes a precious jewel we shroud secretly, share selectively and dose sparingly; currency in a lonely bartering game. We can think we need to limit its access and jack up the price so high it reaches precious commodity status, available only to those who have grown comfortable concealing their flaws and modeling perfection ceaselessly for fear making visible the real person beneath the surface will result in rejection.

It’s not until we can take love off the endangered species list, lift the embargo and embrace it as the abundant natural resource it is that we are truly able to sustain a happy, healthy relationship.  When we apply love liberally we make room for our partner to show his true self, and in the process, we create that very same space for ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be with someone who grants us the grace to be ourselves.  And we owe it to our partner to do the same in return.

Lay down beside me.

Ardency

“Be humble in all things but ambition.”  I spy these words while stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Michigan and Congress.  I love this spot, engine idling; it’s the moment in my end to end drive of this short east-west link between the expressway and the lake when I anticipate bursting out of the shadows of Chicago’s tightly packed high-rises and into the light-filled expanse of infinity offered beyond Buckingham Fountain at Lake Michigan’s shore.

It’s been a while since I’ve tackled the topic of ambition. I have to look up the definition (again).  I search frenetically, in all its iterations, for the hint of negativity, puzzled evermore by the connotations put upon this combination of letters that have turned it into a source of shame for women, and become synonymous with the demise of integrity when it spawns destructive and selfish greed.

 

Ambition [am-bish-uh-n] noun:  a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.

 

What is so wrong with the spirit of this quest, and do we need to sacrifice our humility to embody it?

  

Ambition has long been a dirty word for women. With the exception of short periods during wartime in the early 20^th century, women slowly leaked into the workforce, initially allowed positions mimicking roles at home:  Servant responsibilities keeping male executives organized, maintaining their schedules, bringing them coffee, the unsung heroes keeping everything moving. Millennials may be surprised to know their grandmothers were forced to quit work when they got pregnant, and for some even getting married meant the end of a paying job.  The woman’s priority was supposed to be the home.  Women may not have been “allowed” to have ambitions outside the home, but it doesn’t mean they didn’t.

A loved one suggests to me that maybe women who want to fulfill themselves in the workforce, whether years ago or even still today, could not do so without ambition.  The barriers and social pressures are fierce.  Ask any woman who’s held a full-time job while raising a family:  It’s easy to crowd this space with the demands of traditional womanhood:  Wife, mother, homemaker, volunteer.  Without a burning fire from within to achieve, would many just give up?  The glass ceiling is not broken without determination and hard work; the very definition of ambition.

 

Ambition is not defined as actually doing or achieving something, but as the strong desire to do so. Nor is it defined as the measures one takes to do or achieve, yet somehow over the course of time we have hijacked the definition and decided it is associated with the tack employed to reach a goal, particularly negatively. It’s portrayed in movies like “Wall Street” as the ruthless hunt for wealth and power.

Ambition itself is neither positive nor negative, it is a driving force keeping us focused on achievement of our goals, no matter what those goals are.  Ambition is not limited to the pursuit of money or status.  It applies in the pursuit of anything meaningful to us that does not come easily.  It’s what keeps us in the parenting game, searching for ways to reach our teenagers during those dark years of incommunicado.  It’s what keeps us in a relationship with our partner seeking understanding when we don’t see eye to eye.  It’s what enables us to move seemingly impenetrable roadblocks, to find a new path, to open windows when a door closes, to look inside ourselves and embrace our flaws, to do something that scares us, to sit in our pain in order to move forward. It’s that slow fire burning within us that fuels the courage to put ourselves out there and be all we are meant to be.

Do we need to check our humility at the door in order to embrace ambition?  Only if to build ourselves up with some empowering self-talk.  Pursuing ambition is scary.  It means we need to believe in ourselves and our ability to achieve what it is we so intensely desire.  But our humility is crucial on the quest to fulfill our ambitions.  It helps us maintain integrity and a healthy regard for those around us, and more than anything it holds us close to those individuals who mean the most to us.  For without them, our success is meaningless.      

Efficacy

The first time I recall hearing this term it rolls off the tongue of a Professor of Illuminating Engineering in a capacious auditorium at the University of Illinois in the mid-1980s. The coursework for my interior design degree back in the day includes material of some substance, not just “coloring” as a not-so-kind acquaintance used to say.  The curriculum is quite technical, and fascinating at the same time.  I wish I could say I remember exactly its definition, but given that it’s been almost 30 years (eep!) since I’ve set foot in a university lecture hall, I’m leaning on the Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State, where they define it as “the ratio of light output from a lamp to the electric power it consumes, measured in lumens per watt (LPW).”  Translated loosely into my words, it’s how effective a light source is relative to the energy it takes to emit the light.

As the bewitching hour on this last day of the year draws near, and we contemplate the resolutions we will declare at midnight, loudly (but for some maybe not so clearly), I’m thinking about change, and the energy we expend as we strive for transformation.

Resolutions fail to come to fruition because we burn out. We promise ourselves monumental change, and then expend enormous amounts of energy in the name of attaining it:   I’m not just talking about the physical energy required to take action, but the mental energy we burn trying to infuse new and foreign behaviors into our daily routines, and worse yet, the emotional energy as we listen to the voice in our heads berating us for lack of follow through. Most of us surrender without ever sustaining the outcome we’re desperate to reap.

I’m a self-described change agent.  This week I contemplate my success at the office this year, and over the past three years. A common theme materializes; each team I lead looks dramatically different today than when I started, yet without upheaval.  They’ve all been reshaped, slowly over time. Just as I have. I look at myself, who I was in April of 2012 when I wrote the very first post for this blog, and who I am now. No raging infernos, dynamite or explosives required, just a steady flame of conviction.

Transformation is about producing a desired effect.  It’s kind of scientific, too, because it’s also about producing a desired amount of that desired effect. It’s pretty normal to question whether we have the power or capacity to do this at all, yet alone with precision. So instead of taking it on ourselves, we make our success contingent. It’s easy to say our results are dependent on what others around us do.  And convenient to shift the blame when we don’t get the results we want.  We let the accountability reside anywhere but with us, because what does it say about us if we fail?

But here’s the thing, and it’s the same thing I’ve been saying over the course of the last 270 blog posts:  The power is within you. All you need to do is want it.  Someone else can’t want it for you, you can’t want it just because someone else does, and your success is not predicated on the presence of that someone you think you need around. You've got this.

I’m encouraging you to think differently about your resolutions this year. What is the change you want to make in your life for no one other than yourself?  This is the only resolution to make. It’s the only one guaranteed to increase your lumen output, and the very best one to make for those around you. Because when you burn brighter you make the world a better place.  

Bustle

It is three days after Christmas; the front door closed behind the last planned guest of the year yesterday evening. I’m lingering on a photo in my Instagram feed of a beautifully painted teacup perched on a table beside a glittering, decorated evergreen.  The photographer reminds us that Christmas actually starts, not ends, on Christmas Day, and writes about how much she loves this post-holiday peacefulness, this time to be still.

I recall, not twenty-four hours earlier, asking myself how fast I can get the ornaments boxed up and leave a trail of pine needles from the living room to the curb. Only pure exhaustion prevents turning this thought into action.  The build-up to December 25th is so protracted, I’m not surprised when on Christmas Eve morning my coffee is presented to me in the white Starbucks cup of ordinary time; the store has run out of this year’s controversial red cup before we even get to Christmas Day!  Yet, there is never enough time.

I’ve been spending every waking, non-working moment since Thanksgiving making lists, amassing the precise materials and quality ingredients for my artistic creations, assembling greeting cards, baking, freezing and packaging cookies, planning menus, buying groceries, preparing feasts, decking, cleaning and clearing the halls, hiding in cabinets, closets and cupboards all evidence that a family actually lives in my home, all for the sake of hosting festive holiday gatherings. Cyber-shopping is squeezed in somewhere; gifts are hastily wrapped at the last minute.  At one point I remember thinking taking the time to attend parties is eating into my time to prepare for parties. No wonder I am salivating over the idea of a few minutes to savor the fruits of my labor.

And so I’m thinking differently this morning.  A snow and freezing rain mix is pelting the windows, propelled by a stiff, howling wind.  No one is going outside. After a warm, green December, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. I, too, can sip a warm cup of tea in front of my own twinkling Christmas tree.  Lap tops, after all, are designed to sit in our laps.

Everything up until today is for others.  What if I take the time between now and Twelfth Night to absorb the beauty of the season, to live in stillness?  It’s time to be kind to myself, to remind myself of all the good I’ve accomplished in the past year, to take inventory of everything and everyone I am grateful for, to forgive myself for all my frailties, to set goals for the coming year that respect my limits as a human being, to connect with those who make me better. Isn’t this what the season is about?

Joy

“Thank you for waiting so patiently,” she chirps sincerely to the woman in line in front of me, finally returning to her station behind the counter.  My guilt nestles in like a pit in my stomach.  This noble woman in front of me stands stoically, listens wordlessly to me when, not a minute earlier, I wonder out loud with much annoyance, “Does anyone work here?”

It’s so unusual for me to open my mouth in these situations. I can’t stand it when other people do it. I try hard to muster compassion, and when I can’t, I pride myself on keeping my mouth shut no matter what mean spirited thoughts threaten to squash the sugar plums dancing in my head. I can’t help myself in this moment, and regret it almost immediately.

While the transaction ahead of me takes place I prepare myself, ready to admit wholeheartedly when I am thanked for my patience that I hadn’t exhibited any at all.  I think about what in this situation is frustrating me.  There are two cashiers, yet it isn’t readily apparent there are two lines, as towers of grab and go bling hide completely my compatriots beside me. It seems silly to me that my dander is up.  I’m not in hurry.  I don’t need to be anywhere else.  The load I am carrying isn’t heavy.  This year’s green Christmas means I’m not sweating beneath a heavy parka. I actually ate before I shopped. And I’m finding the gifts I came out seeking.  Why do I choose an outburst of selfish frustration instead of understanding the obvious pressures of a holiday store clerk?

I name my Christmastime blogs with words that are associated with the holiday season. It is rare to hear glisten, coursers, tidings, wassail, or swaddle in the vernacular of ordinary time.  It surprises me when joy pops into my head as a Christmas word. We can’t seem to find enough of it.

Joy is a choice that can be difficult to see.  It can seem like we live in a world with nothing but problems; that we live our individual lives in constant turmoil.  We’re far more comfortable complaining about what is not right, admonishing ourselves for what we don’t do, then we ever are voicing gratitude for what’s great in our lives and patting ourselves on the back for the good we do. We’re programmed to focus on fixing what is not right and to downplay what is right. We wrap ourselves in an angry story written in isolation, a yarn wound so tightly from our own vantage point that we can’t open up to any other perspective.

To me, the path to seeing joy as a choice and ultimately being capable of choosing it lies not just in a willingness to seek understanding, but in a tenacious commitment to attain understanding, to broaden our purview. And then to forgive both ourselves and our loved ones for the blindness and brokenness inherent in all of us.

Had I thought a minute about what it might feel like to be the customer getting excellent service from a cashier so willing to leave her post and search the stockroom for a coveted gift, I’m sure I would have felt quite differently. My inability to keep my disparaging thoughts to myself while shopping is my humanity making itself visible, much to my chagrin.

I believe we are constantly in repair.  Waiting to choose joy until we’ve got it all together is not an option.  The question isn’t how do we solve all of our problems and live a flawless life, it is how do we accept our humanity and that of those around us, so that joy can be uncovered in the mess.

Aspect

He always asks for a room with a view. As we travel we’re learning that the definition of “view” can vary greatly from one proprietor to the next.  This time we’re in Midtown Manhattan.  “Good things will happen on the 16^th floor,” she predicts.  We smile like we know.

 

This room doesn’t disappoint. Facing Madison Avenue, across the street sits St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  We’re overlooking what is the final months of the 3-1/2 year $177M restoration of this national landmark, the most comprehensive ever undertaken in its 136 years. The scaffolding is pretty much confined to the spires above the radiating chapels.  This is our view.

When we take our first look, I fail to notice the statue of the Virgin Mary perched atop the Lady Chapel. It will be a day or two before she appears to me. She’s lost amid the construction, further obscured by the grey skies on this unseasonably chilly October day.

 

Some may gawk at the opulence, the amount of money invested in this house.  To ignore it means deterioration beyond repair.  A quick fix doesn’t do it justice.  Over time, all homes need not only repair, but to be returned to their original luster, whatever that is.

   

I’ve spent the last year and a half attending to the restoration of my own home.  That the physical structure needs this work is obvious, and has been for some time:  The white carpet proving unequivocally it was never a match for growing boys and their free spirit mother, broken ceiling fans with exposed bare bulbs, rods sagging under the weight of faded drapes, and outdated paint colors marred with layers of dirty fingerprints and the desperate cries of the misunderstood inked indelibly in places their authors thought they’d never be seen.  That I personally need this work to happen isn’t so obvious, at least to me any way.

It’s palpable to him though, it always has been.

For years I fear my home is in decline, falling into disrepair.   Helplessly, I watch it crumble; the projects become bigger and reasons for my procrastination harder to hide.  I’m troubled by my inability to take the first step forward, to invite someone into my mess.  The thought of this undertaking crushes me like Atlas, the weight of the world on my shoulders. I discover it takes more than money.  I’ve got the means, why can’t I find the way?

Maybe I know asking someone to work on my home means inviting that person into my life.  So much more than rotted window trim and cracks in the drywall is on display:  Our happiness, our heartache, our history, our homesickness; the splinters we’re trying to surface on our own, the wounds we decide can heal without stiches. This person I invite in sees more than I can bear to look at myself, but he also sees the beauty and goodness I’ve lost sight of.

It’s hard not to feel judged, to stand up and proclaim to be a capable, self-sufficient person yet admit to being incapable of getting this particular job done without help.  In our guilt and shame, we want to make it as quick and painless as possible, just fix it; any Band-Aid will do.  But what we really need is a loving restoration, someone with the patience to work slowly, to make the investment, to choose the materials that reflect the family within, to show us this home can sing again, to heal it from the inside out.

Mass goes on at St Patrick’s every day, 365 days a year during this renovation.  On this brisk, sunny Sunday morning we worship among the scaffolding. I think about how we all move through our lives, perpetually under construction. We’re born with our purpose and everything we need to execute it, yet we let circumstances and encounters pull us away from our true north.

 

A few days later and twenty degrees warmer, I snap another photo of the cathedral from the 16^th floor.  There’s Mary, shining brilliantly in the sun above the Lady Chapel.  I don’t know how I missed her.

To move forward, maybe we need another to show us a different view, someone to remind us our foundation has always been solid, to help us not only dig out the gem lying beneath the tattered layers of life, but to free us so we can shed those layers permanently. There is someone out there with the patience and love to help restore us to our true selves. All we need to do is be open to the gift.

Acquittal

He asks if I’ll reconsider.  Caught up in the frenzy that is cookie baking and holiday card making, I initially decline his invitation.  “But it’s at the Wentz Center”, he says, “I’ve never been there and the acoustics are supposed to be amazing.”  This is important to him.  I find the time.

   

So often we go to concerts wanting the artist to play the songs we know by heart.  If they string together too many “new” songs in a row we tune out.  We want to sing along, if not out loud, in our heads.  And so when I hear “Reckless Forgiver” for the first time ever I’m surprised by how the entire performance moves me.  It’s not just the song itself, it’s the brilliant acoustics (everything they are rumored to be), in this intimate theater and the joy bursting from the band members as they play. I find myself singing along.

The lyrics have stuck with me, turning in my head, becoming part of my mantra for 2015.  When I first proclaim I want to be a reckless forgiver I think I’m talking about granting grace to others.  It seems like a noble cause, and I know I am holding on to a grudge or two I should probably shed.

 

As months fly off the calendar, I find forgiving others really doesn’t require recklessness, in fact, it requires very little effort. I hardly notice I’m doing it.  Things like being late or forgetting to close the garage door are minor offenses in my book, forgiveness is almost automatic. And so I start to think about the situations I have trouble forgiving; a common theme surfaces in no time:  I can forgive imperfections in others, but I can’t seem to forgive them in myself.

Wait a minute . . . I replay the song again.  Could it be this songwriter is seeking to be his own reckless forgiver? 

Of course, it makes complete sense now. And, wow, forgiveness is a whole other animal when we look in the mirror.  The artist sings of wanting “peace like a river, a long life of sanity and love that won’t leave too soon”. When I think about what gets in the way of peace and joy and love, it’s our inability to forgive ourselves for being human and the ebbing of self-worth in this wake.

So much is against us when it comes to forgiving ourselves. The world tells us we need to be perfect.  We’re assaulted daily, hourly, minute-by-minute with carefully edited highlight reels hosted on social media. The only brokenness we see is in ourselves, which pales in comparison to these airbrushed lives.  We pick apart every word misspoken, selfish reaction, lapse in attention, every kindness we leave unsaid.  We kick ourselves for a lack of clairvoyance, the inability to be in two places at one time.  We chastise ourselves for sleeping in, taking a break, for not being able to get it all done.  With no one else do we need to forgive so frequently, so feverishly, so relentlessly.  No wonder it’s called reckless forgiving.

   

What would happen if we threw caution to the wind, stopped worrying about the possible consequences of letting ourselves off the hook and allowed for our own absolution?   Wouldn’t that make us, well, just like everyone else?

The real crime here is not our imperfections, but how we let them rob us of “peace like a river, a long life of sanity and love that won’t leave too soon”.  These are ours for the taking. 

It's not a song we know by heart, but one we can teach ourselves to play.  Hey, reckless forgiver, I leave it all for you.