Abide

I only cry when I see them together. I’m fine when I am with one or the other separately. It sneaks up on me, a sweet and achy homesickness for a time we can never live in again. Something about the way they are with each other brings me back to the way they were as kids, when we called the house with the purple front door home. I was very deliberate when they were growing up to do everything in my power to make sure that love took hold between the two of them, carefully pouring the cement in hopes of an unbreakable bond.

I’m so grateful, and sometimes amazed, we made it through the hard times. When I think back on my parenting, I wish I had loved on them more. I wish I had more clearly demonstrated my intention to be a shelter, a place where mistakes were accepted, where rescues were generously dispatched, where imperfections were celebrated. Instead, I was too worried about whether they were unknowingly slamming the door on bright futures, blemishing their permanent records with indelible marks, and if I’m being completely honest, lamenting what the latest drama would say about me.

I got in my own way a lot; one time too many when they were hurting in plain sight and I couldn’t see them because I was hurting too much myself, or couldn’t face my own limitations, couldn’t muster the courage to ask for help. And for those times they desperately and effectively hid their hurts; I wish my superpower had been x-ray vision. I wonder if I made a big enough deal in the moments of joy.

They are two very different people. I made a point of showing them that early and often, explaining how they fit together, how the strengths of one complimented the other. I’ll never forget the time at the kitchen table when I was worrying about my oldest, and my youngest said, “Mom. This is how he is.  He’ll figure it out. He always does.”  The faith he had in his brother was unyielding.  I wished I’d had that faith myself. In that moment I understood that they know each other in ways I will never know them.

Mostly what I want is the promise they will have each other when they no longer have me. I want them to remember who and how we were together and be able to talk about it with someone who can laugh at the inside jokes, who can tell the story of “that one time when . . .”, the person who can recall the names of the random people in the photographs, the one who can repeat by heart the burnished phrases that made us who we are.

But I can’t control what happens when I’m gone. I can’t even control what happens now, while I’m here.  We each own our relationships and choose to stay connected and hone them, or not.

This might just be why I cry when I see them together:  Tears of sadness that I can’t broker this brotherhood for them. Tears of hope that it will continue to flourish when I’m no longer able to bear witness.  Tears of joy that love may just have taken hold,   

Incendiary

Rolling up the blinds this morning, I’m not surprised to be greeted by a fresh blanket of snow covering the driveway. It seems as soon as the snowblower strips this metaphorical bed, Mother Nature is standing right behind, folding hospital corners and smoothing over its crisp whiteness. 

When there is literally no where to go, it’s easy to justify yet another snow day, this one to be used for making art.  I’ve ventured into watercolors on a larger scale. Fueled by a Call for Artists for an upcoming local show, I’m moving from the 4”X6” thumbnail paintings I’ve been learning on to 9”X12”, in all honesty, to justify the $30 entry fee (non-refundable whether my work is selected or not). Scaling up is more challenging than I thought, and I’m on my third version. Taking a page from Georgia O’Keeffe’s watercolor book, it’s liberating to be able to call these iterations studies, with the same name alongside a unique number.  I feel like a real artist.

"Incendiary IV", 2021 Watercolor

My painting depicts a wildfire; the initial studies created in response to an assignment from my virtual watercolor class last fall.  We were asked to interpret a poem filled with descriptors about color. I chose instead to bring to life excerpts from an interview with California firefighters:  “The flames are enormous now, bright yellow blooms amid pink-and-purple smoke.”  “The skeletons of trees, whole forests, are clearly visible.”

I’m drawn to this theme for so many reasons.  From a purely artistic viewpoint, it’s the opportunity to use bold, bright colors and allow the pooling water to swirl them into new shades.  It’s a direct message about the consequences to our environment, increasingly stiff penalties levied on the complicity short-sightedness for personal gain is driving.And it’s also representative of our turbid times, the pervasiveness of heated debate, and the inability to tamp down the flames.  

This winter's excruciating pain stems, in part, from a lack of connection.  Trapped inside, it’s hard not to resort to our television sets and the 24X7 “news” that seems filled with nothing but sensationalized divisive drama. It’s analogous to lighting a match under ourselves and wondering why everything is burning. I personally struggle striking the right balance between being aware of current events and smothered by the negativity.  I’ve had to learn how to take my own temperature and pull myself from the stifling heat of the oven of myopic rhetoric.

What really saddens me is how the divisiveness is infiltrating our personal lives.  We’re no longer watching a faraway fire destroy someone else’s house.  Our own homes are burning as our relationships become less than:  Either because we are aware friends and loved ones hold an opposing position and shy away from them in order to keep the peace, or we choose to sever relationships completely, heavy smoke rendering it impossible for us to see everything we know and love about that individual.

The idea that we are our own worst enemies, having created our own messes, was recently put in front of me.  It took me back immediately to healing from my divorce, and what a turning point it was for me to realize that wedding vows bind us together to manage whatever life deals us from outside the union; we are not meant to endlessly endure pain deliberately inflicted from within the union. The world hadn’t handed us unmanageable problems, in fact we had it pretty good.  All our wounds were self-inflicted and we were too naive, too proud, too hurt to summon the vulnerability it would have taken to move past them.  We started our own fires innocently enough, stoked them unintentionally and were surprised to watch them rage bigger than we were.   

  

Water is the antidote to fire. Cold the opposite of heat.  Winter a time of hibernation, inward focus.  Can we use this forced isolation to look at ourselves and ask what part we play?  Where are we lighting matches, wielding bellows or pouring gasoline?  How much water would it take to put out our personal fires?  Just like a watercolor painting, this work takes patience, especially at a larger scale. And just like this winter’s snowfall, it can seem like we’re making progress toward brighter days, only to be dumped on again. 

Getting to the finished work of art requires a steady build of layers that need to dry to some degree in between.  It’s the delicate dance of controlled chaos. Thinking we can predict the exact outcome and rushing to the finish we see in our mind’s eye destroys the painting. Human beings striving to understand each other need the discipline and desire to sit in thoughtful dialogue, ask probing questions, alternately layering on viewpoints, absorbing what the other has said.  What gets me about watercolor every time is that the painting doesn't look like much throughout most of the process.  It’s not until the final moments that it really comes to life, and always, always in the most surprising ways. 

What if we discarded everything we think we know about each other, and instead were willing to embark on a journey of discovery together?  Can our relationships be the blanket of fresh snow cover that finally douses the fire, the phoenix that rises anew from these smoldering ashes?  

Ikigai

"What gets you up in the morning?" It's the question I'm tasking myself, and my treasured friends in Book Club, to answer at the dawn of this new year.  Our Book Club, we discovered after doing a little research through our electronic libraries, has been in existence for nearly ten years!  Time flies when you're discussing good books with great people.  Over the years we've reserved our January meeting for an art project.  With the craziness of the holidays, it's hard to find time to read in December, so we use our time at the beginning of the year to contemplate all that we want to be different in our lives in the new year and express those wishes through art.  Intentions, a single descriptive word, and resolutions are documented and interpreted in vision boards, journals or flags.  I can't wait to see how my pals express what propels them to rub the sleep from their eyes, pull back the covers and rise to greet the day.

After seven years in the same role at my office, I am making a fresh start in a brand new position.  Ironically, it was the pandemic and associated lockdown that begged me relentlessly to disrupt myself.  While eternally grateful to remain employed in such dire economic times which have robbed so many of so much, when stripped of all those activities that make up what really matters in life, I became acutely aware that the passion and joy I derived from work had somehow slipped away, too.  The environment had changed around me, and I realize now I spent way too much time hoping each change would yield new energy.  It was the gift of a leadership coach who helped me believe I was empowered to make the change I wanted to see.  I just needed to be brave enough to ask for it.

 

And so in the anomalous year that 2020 showed herself be, I stirred an already turbulent pot.  I searched for a new job and got married.  I established a home yoga practice outside of my beloved hot room, religiously took a daily walk, and began on-line art classes where I continued to hone drawing skills, learned how to paint with watercolors and became part of a Facebook drawing community whose members faithfully and generously supported each other as we courageously shared all our wonky attempts to learn something new.  I became a better cook, and baked quantities of Christmas cookies that could not possibly be consumed by the select few in our bubble.

And as I'm writing this I recall recently thinking that the best part of my day is waking up to see how my watercolor paintings have dried, signing my name and slicing a butter knife around the paper block to release them into the world.  

I would have to travel great distances in the way back machine to recall this much newness in such a short period of time in the chronicles of this old life of mine.  But that's the thing, right?  Who among us wasn't having a hard time at some point in the last year mustering up the energy to face each new day with the joy and appreciation it deserves?  We are forced to disrupt ourselves in order to thrive. As I look back on a truly extraordinary year, I see now that every new thing I have created in the last 300 days was done so out of necessity.  How else was I going to get up in the morning?

Stargazer

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Ribbit

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

   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

SWAK. An acronym for the ages.

Bullish

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

Songbird

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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