Serial

I grew up with Erica Kane.  I watched her marry, divorce, marry, divorce, marry and divorce yet again.  Seven times over, if I recall correctly.  I remember planting myself on the family room couch at high noon on sunny, summer days, the television tuned into “All My Children”, holding my breath in hopes I could catch the entire episode before my mother shooed me out of the house:  There were better things for a teenaged girl to do with her time than watch Erica maneuver through her scripted life.  At college I loved the semesters with no classes at lunch time, not so I could eat, but so I could eat with Erica.

These were soap operas, we called them “the soaps”, never-ending stories airing religiously every weekday, centered on influential families living in fictional towns.  Terminal illness, infidelity, lies and half-truths, crime and punishment were common themes.  Just when someone secured happiness, life threw a curveball. Us viewers, we felt like we knew Erica and her constituents personally.  The writers made us privy to their secrets, we understood their motives, we rooted for these characters in spite of their obvious flaws; we talked about them as if they were part of our own lives.

I followed Erica pretty faithfully from my middle school days through college.  It was only when I joined the working world that I finally severed our relationship for good.  Of course when we were still together spans of time passed, particularly during the school year, when I couldn’t keep up with her trials and tribulations.  These were the days before Tivo and DVR. With no opportunity to catch up, I would quickly lose track of her escapades.

I recall this circumstance now as I think about the world turning in my own home.  The nest is showing signs of wear; its occupants stuck in “the awkward”, each of us bulls in this china shop, bungling transitions into new phases of life. Our conversations, for lack of a better word, revolve around syncing up work schedules, understanding who might be home for dinner and lining up dependent coverage for the dog.  Our sense of community has given way to a transactional existence. No one owns the caretaking of our home because it’s ceased to be one.

Let me start by saying nothing about this turn of events is acceptable to me.  I’m also somewhat surprised, especially after watching my marriage erode in a similar fashion and subsequently examining the cause and effect with intense scrutiny, that here I am caught off-guard yet again, finding myself victim of another invisible ebbing of my family life. I’m supposed to be enlightened.

I feel sometimes like my boys and I hardly know each other, we’ve become roommates sharing a giant, smelly storage locker housing our stuff. I don’t know what questions to ask because I’m so far removed from their daily existence.  I watch my two boys who work together for the same employer light up in animation when they share the details of their shifts with each other.  They both know all of the characters intimately; they partake in and witness the action, blow by blow. I desperately want to be part of their world, but I feel like I’ve missed too many episodes and it’s too burdensome for someone to catch me up. And if I’m really being honest, I haven’t allowed them enough access to the characters in my world, either.

And this, I decide, is part of the reason relationships fall apart:  We step out of the story line. As I learned with Erica, the world continues to turn, whether we are watching or not.  We tune back in to discover she’s had two husbands and a child since we last spent any quality time with her.  Her story is too involved to recount, isn’t it?  How will we ever get back up to speed? 

The solution is fairly obvious, I believe.  We need to start watching again.  It was amazing how quickly I could jump back into Erica’s world when I chose to become a regular viewer.  I needed to make the commitment to show up at noon every day.  And this practice, I’ve decided, is needed to resurrect our family life. I’m starting small, dinner on Monday nights.  No exceptions.  The entire cast, including me, is required on set, committed to keeping this time sacred.  Guest stars are not only welcome, but encouraged. I want all of us to know intimately those who matter to each of us.  It’s not important what or where we eat, what brings us together is sharing the days of our lives.

Transitions are difficult. And even when we are stuck, seemingly immobile, life moves quickly.  We find ourselves at times in a tug-of-war, our past lives pulling on one side, our future lives on the other.  How does everyone get to where they need to be without ending up in the mud?  The answer is not in pulling farther apart, but in coming together regularly and talking about where we are in the moment. These conversations fuel us, giving us the strength, not to pull more tightly on the rope, but to loosen our grip, to let go, creating a new and different future.

I believe in the power of showing up. Stay tuned.

Delve

He shows me his list.  There are at least ten things on it, maybe a few more.  He’s thought long and hard about what he wants to do in the coming year.  I tell him I wholeheartedly support every action he wants to take.  Some of the tasks will enable others; I see quickly which should be tackled first. I surmise some will take care of themselves if he chooses to start with the priorities.  And as I consider his list a bit more deeply, I recognize this is not just what he wants to do, but who he wants to become.

   

What’s on the list gives all sorts of information about what he values:  His well-being, security, relationships and nature.  He is full of wanderlust, and maybe a touch of just plain lust. I know this feeling of pent up desire; he’s pressing hard on his glass ceiling, not sure he can handle the upheaval he’ll create when he breaks it; not sure he’s willing to put forth the energy needed to live at these new heights, above the safe and familiar bounds of the past he’s looking to leave behind.

It’s certainly normal to question yourself on the threshold of this kind of change.  We all have limits threatening to hold us back.  Some are real and some are imaginary. We’re paralyzed until we address them.

He takes the first step; he is defining who he wants to be. Maybe he’s known this for a while; I don’t know how long his desires have been incubating in his head.  What I do know is he demonstrates a tremendous amount of courage in bringing them to me, and he’s ready to do the work.  Rumi, when he speaks of finding love, says this: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  It is the same when we seek to become who we want to be.  We need to look within ourselves and understand how we are standing in our own way.  It is amazing what the world seems to set at our feet when we look within and change ourselves instead of trying to change others.

But what happens when we encounter chronic limitations within ourselves requiring continuous effort to materially alter?  Where does the energy come from for this kind of transformation?  How do we be who we want to be within the confines of who we are?

We all have chronic limitations, a default position in some area of our being requiring constant manual override.  Most of us expend an excessive amount of energy attempting to conceal these weaknesses, and when we feel like they are spotted we make excuses for them or we blame someone or something else. What if, instead, we admitted our weaknesses, accepted and assessed them?  Are they real, or have we made them up in our heads?  Is there a “cure”, so to speak, can they be eliminated?  If they can’t be eliminated, how do we manage them?  To manage our weaknesses is to own them. Owning them removes the power they have over us, and replaces it with the fuel we need to manage them. When we’re comfortable saying “This is not my strength, but here’s how I manage it,” we become comfortable with ourselves.  And when we are comfortable with who we are, we can stretch into who we want to be.

So I’m asked who I want to be.  I created a list similar to his over four years ago.  I transformed myself into someone who, to paraphrase Dallas Clayton, pursues what makes her happy with the intent to make others happy. I share my art and writing with the world in hopes I inspire others to put their own creativity out there. I lead with confidence, and pour a tremendous amount of time and energy into coaching others so they can do the same. I create safe places for people to connect by striving to ask thoughtful questions in place of supplying answers.  I use my manual override regularly to manage, among other things, my inherent lack of patience, my desire to control situations and to be outgoing when my shyness wants desperately to prevail.  And these days I’m seeking to understand what prevents me from maintaining my home and why I possess so little faith.

I am a work in progress, driven by my values. I started my journey with a list and a conviction attributed to Socrates:  “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Solstice

The mercury drops mercifully, shedding the load of humidity she’s carried strapped on her back since the break of day when dawn stretched her sleepy arms up into the clouds.  The sun is on the backend now, making her slow decent in the evening sky.  At this moment, she’s aligned her column of light with the tops of my blossoming day lilies, casting her glow across the bright orange petals stretching their necks to be seen above ferocious weeds attempting to choke the color from neglected beds.  My yard, like my hair, and other aspects of my life is wild. I can’t be bothered to tame any of them.

 

Dogs bark, kids at play sing out to each other in muffled lyrics I’m not meant to make out, but their little voices I recall so clearly.  It was only yesterday when my boys giggled with glee pulling sunfish out of the pond out back. Evening, just before the sun sets is the best time to fish, as the water grows eerily still and swimmers make their presence known leaving reverberating circles upon its surface.

A cool breeze is blowing now.  As I sit here the first lightening bugs begin their game of tag, emitting intermittent, iridescent clues.  It’s the gloaming on the longest day of the year.  And it’s been forever since I took the time to sit outside, tuck the world in bed, and hold her hand until she falls asleep. It’s almost time to turn the nightlight on:  Tonight it’s the Strawberry Moon.  

Sweet dreams and welcome to summer.

Tribe

“We need to be there early,” I insist, “my family gathers.”  The dynamics make little sense to someone new, but he soon experiences the phenomenon himself when we arrive late by family standards, which in reality is a full twenty minutes before mass on this Wednesday morning, to a lobby teeming with the chattering members of my clan.

 

I am a child of the sixties and seventies, an era when adults laid down their roots in relative proximity to their own childhood homes, kids outnumbered the bedrooms in the house, moms mostly stayed at home, heading upstairs to apply a bit of lipstick and rouge in anticipation of dad walking through the door at the appointed time like clockwork every evening. Our social lives revolved around my father’s family. Cousins were part of birthday parties, holidays and summer vacations.  We celebrated baptisms, first communions, confirmations, graduations, and weddings.  Attendance at family reunions could easily sail into triple digits. Still today my family comprises a full one-third of my Christmas card list.

We’re here today to honor one of our own. I look around this capacious church and I feel an intense pride and admiration. The tight net my father and his siblings knotted with their spouses and expressly cast across their growing families not only brands my childhood, but bonds and binds me to the most stable and loyal shelter I’ll ever encounter. It’s where my values are rooted, where my sensibilities, creativity and integrity are modeled and fostered.

 

Early in life I choose one from the brood to tether myself tightly. As girls we share our hopes and dreams, write to each other in secret code.  As young women we make a pact we’ll be there to take care of each other no matter what; we imagine living together in our old age.  As I listen to the stories of a faithful man recounting his 67-year friendship with the one we’ve loved and lost, I consider the depth and breadth of my relationship with her. She turns my pages with me; she possesses the intel, the grace, the love for me to speak eloquently of my essence when it’s my turn to move on. It is a gift to be so completely known.

After mass we find ourselves congregating in the lobby again, and even though we’re all scheduled to meet at the cemetery, followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant, we linger.  It’s a hallmark of my family.  The joke is you better start saying your goodbyes the moment you walk in if you expect to walk out at a reasonable time. This is our culture; it’s who we are.

I’ve had the debate at the office about whether culture can be taught.  There’s no curriculum for culture, and there is no mainlining its absorption.  It’s kinesthetic learning. It is hands-on, requiring full immersion, repeatedly over time. In making a priority of coming together for the joys of life my dad taught the family culture to us. And as such created a haven for us to be known and to draw upon in the pain.

When the circle of life prevails, those who are present the moment we enter this world are gone by the time we find ourselves in need of an escort out.  Thank goodness my family is comprised of gatherers and lingerers. We get to leave this world surrounded by familiar faces who have memorized the recipe for our unique brand of love and support, serving that magic elixir we were welcomed in with a generation or two ago, by mothers and fathers eager with anticipation and possibility.

Leaven

“I don’t stand up to anyone.” Her statement startles me in its unabashed delivery. I’m sure it feels like an inescapable truth she proclaims.  And with it I find an appreciation for the comfort she displays as she is unapologetically herself. I imagine she’s kneaded this dough of hesitation and resignation to the point of exhaustion, finally baking it into a self-acceptance she can bite into without tasting any bitterness.  Could she change it?  Sure.  But there’s conviction in her confession.  And I get it.  I’ve been tied to the same apron strings.

This behavior surrounds us; this backing down, or never stepping up:  The professions of loyalty a devoted customer can’t seem to articulate in the presence of her superiors. The right answer lodged in the throat of a team member afraid his thinking might be too far outside the box.  It’s one of the most powerful parables of faith:  A disciple and the denial he makes not one, not two, but three times.

What causes us to keep our dissidence under wraps?  On the surface it appears to be group think. As recently as last night I’m warned, along with my friends, that we’ll fall prey in the game we’re playing, the challenge we’ve accepted to find our way out of a locked room.  We’re told we’ll uncover clues we won’t agree on how to apply, and we’ll lack the independence to consider every option, making discards in favor of the loudest voices.

We can get twisted up in believing we’ll need to fiercely defend our perspective.  Or that speaking up commits us to presenting our case for a ruling. Or that others will think less of us or ostracize us for our beliefs or choices. And so we make the decision to say nothing at all.  We press ourselves up against the wall or slide down a little lower in our seats in hopes we won’t be called out for who we are.

The origins of debate are in respect and freedom of speech, yet somehow over the course of time debate has devolved from a forum for understanding into a contest that must have one winner.  Expressing your opinion isn’t about being right or wrong, it’s about believing you are worthy of having an opinion.

Isn’t not standing up to others really about not standing up to yourself?  Being capable and willing to articulate your beliefs, values and pride in the choices you make demonstrates self-confidence and self-respect. It’s a deficit of self-respect that prevents us from speaking up. It’s simple, really:  When you demand respect from yourself, you’ll have no choice but to find the voice you need to command it from others.

We’re not required to ask for permission to be ourselves, yet many of us fail to live our lives fully waiting in vain for someone to grant it.  The only person preventing you from rising is the only person you control. Are you standing up to her?

Molt

“Make a list,” I say, “Write down places you want to go, activities you want to try, anything you’d like to learn.”  It’s his move in the chess game of life and he has no idea which piece he’ll pick up.  I can’t fully appreciate the pressure, having in some ways taken the easy way out myself.  I went away to college. Immediately.  Immersed in the throes of New Student Week months before my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t have it figured out any more than anyone else did, but I picked a major that seemed achievable, and with that took the next step toward bettering my future on a well-worn path.

While rewarding for many, high school can be a defeating, dark time for lots of kids. It’s a time of tremendous change physically, yet labeling is affixed freshman year with permanent glue, making reinvention over the next four years nearly impossible. For every cheerleader or football player fully embracing the fairytale dream of Friday night lights, there are at least as many kids, maybe more, living a nightmare, steeping in isolation, wondering why they can’t have or don’t want this prescription.

A traditional college education is a chance to create a new identity, hopefully one more aligned with who we really are inside, offering enough diversity to join the culture that fits rather than try to fit into the culture that is. Along with a degree, it includes the added benefit of “finding yourself”. Parents unleash somewhat sullen or surly, argumentative know-it-alls onto campuses swarming with the same, to be infused with alternative perspective, and are delighted to welcome home almost unrecognizable adults:  Born-again, humility leached into their skin, a worldly energy coursing through their bloodstreams, bubbling over with new viewpoints they can now articulate with more intelligence and respect than before.  It seems miraculous, like they have to do this without us, like it’s something we can’t give them.

 

As our economic times force disruption of higher education, I wonder how we help our kids find themselves.  Junior colleges are infinitely more affordable, and while taking courses on-line takes care of book learning, how do we replicate the community of peers living and breathing the experience?  How do we generate the passion and excitement around critical thinking and personal development inherent in 24/7 immersion?

Is it simply being on their own, away from parents that allows so many kids to flourish?  Is there something magical about being on a college campus?   As graduation day draws near and I listen to my youngest struggle to express his uncertainty, I can’t help but think about my own reinvention, the one that led me to, among other things, writing this blog. I believe it’s a new way of engaging with the world that carries us through the iterative process of finding ourselves. We forget sometimes how much loneliness there is in this digital, connected society, how scared our kids are to put their toes in its water.  I need only to recall how frightening it is to start a new life in the isolation of divorce to relate to him.

The milestones in our lives present us not with the option, but the obligation to engage with the world differently. Whether we’re talking high school, the working world, college, marriage, becoming a parent, divorce:  It’s all scary in its own way. Maybe sending our kids away to college seems like magical transformation to us parents because we aren’t directly witnessing the courage our kids expend as they learn how to engage with the world on their own terms.

And so I ask him to make a list, to contemplate, in poet Mary Oliver’s words, what he plans to do with his one wild and precious life.  I urge him not to worry about whether his desires seem plausible, nor to work out the details, but just to dream. The bravest thing he can do in this moment, I tell him, is to speak out loud what his heart tells him to pursue. From here we chart the course.  He is his own windlass.

Accord

He calls it “healthy tension”. I’m instantly interested, on the edge of my seat wanting to hear more.  What is this phrase he has coined to describe the dynamic he believes teams should aspire to in their working relationships?  I am seeing tension for sure, whether it’s healthy or not is another story.  What’s unclear to me is if he feels we’ve already reached this goal or sees we have more work to do.

I observe our teams experiencing a faux collaboration; no one gets too friendly or too comfortable. A certain congeniality is extended and embraced on the surface, tempered by an awareness that at any moment the hammer will come down. We’re always prepared with our defense. Ideas over-incubate, hatching induced once their parentage is indisputable. It’s all about taking credit so we’re ready when asked, “What have you done lately?”  We’re just short of a partnership or true equality because at the end of the day one party feels entitled to wield power over the other. Each side wants to win separately, and as such they both lose, creating a double negative, abdicating the powerful alliance these two groups should be poised to create.

It’s worth considering why we join forces with others. I like to think we come together because we see mutual benefit.  We know that together we can achieve more than we could individually; we can make each other better.  Each party brings different strengths, experiences, viewpoints and priorities.  Inevitably this introduces conflict. It takes an enormous amount of humility, self-awareness and vulnerability to marry our differences into a harmonious, functioning partnership.  And the benefits are epic, beyond anything you could ever imagine.

Yet many of us take the easy way out, we keep our conversations at the transactional level, steering clear of contentious topics in the name of keeping the peace.  Our silence becomes consent, and as such we never feel heard because we’re unwilling to say anything.  Until it leaks out sideways.  In another conversation.  About something seemingly trivial and unrelated.

The thing is open discussion in the face of conflict is the breeding ground of an unbreakable union.  You can’t impart your unique perspective unless you’re willing to dispute tried and true views.  You can’t incorporate what the other party brings to the partnership unless you’re willing to risk floating an idea in its nascence so it can be nurtured together. Expressing frustrations uncovers our differences, discussing our differences builds a new and better path forward.

I recently ran across some research that says the healthiest relationships are not the ones between couples who keep arguments and debate to a minimum, but between those who openly address conflicts when they arise. They don’t let grievances pile up, in fact they are vigilant about raising issues in the moment.  They know the destructiveness of the rug of contempt, and avoid sweeping problems under it.  The couples who are comfortable working through disagreements are closer, have each other’s backs and tend to stay together.  This feels like healthy tension to me.

 

And I believe in this for business partnerships, too.  As service providers we’re taught to be people pleasers; “the customer is always right.”  Maybe we need to be asking our customers if they want to always be right, if the tension in our partnership is, in fact, healthy.

I’m thinking about the meta-conversation, the one that lays out the ground rules for discussing conflict and differences of opinion, and bringing new ideas.  The one that ensures we respect each other as individuals, leaving pride intact.  The one that opens the door for winning together.