Relax, Stop Thinking, Let Yourself Float...

I spent this cold, dreary and wet afternoon splashing around with my children in the indoor pool at the YMCA.  It’s not a regular place, but we had a free weeklong trial pass, so why not?  Splashing around in a pool is always a good thing.  Splashing around in a heated pool in December borders on great.

While the eight year old swam laps and made friends with the closest nine year old, I stayed in the more shallow end helping the five year old remember how to paddle and kick.  Next to us, another mother was trying to teach her youngster how to float on her back.

I heard her say “You have to stop thinking and just let it happen!” which led us grownups to chatting about what great advice that is for Life In General. 

We put so much emphasis on thought.  And that’s not a bad thing.  We want our children to be Thoughtful.  I try to teach them to think before they speak.  To think before they act.  To think about the consequences of their actions:  If I do X, then Y will probably happen.  I want them to think their way through problems and think about what is Real and what Matters.

While thinking is good, over-thinking is not something I want them to do at all.  Over-thinking leads to Worry.  It leads to Self-Doubt.  It leads to Fear.  And it leads to ending all progress.  One of my favorite quotes about worry (which can be applied to over-thinking) is: “Worry is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but you don’t get anywhere.”

When I think about the biggest leaps forward in my life…the greatest successes and the nicest surprises...they came as a result of just being in the moment.  That means there was no thought about whether I knew what I was doing, whether I was doing it right, whether anyone was watching, or what the result might be.  I just Did it.  Whatever IT was.  And IT worked out.

Every job I ever started, I had to walk in with my head up and eyes open and act like I knew what I was doing.  Suddenly, I realized I DID know what I was doing.   Whether I was juggling a project, teaching a class, cracking the mic to interview someone I never heard of, or figuring out how to feed my own babies, there was no point in thinking about it.  I just DID it.

When people ask my mother how she managed to raise nine decent human beings while working and living her life, she usually gives the same answer: “I don’t know, I just DID it.”

When you turn on the news and see a hero being interviewed after going into a fire to save someone, or jumping into a runaway car to stop it, don’t they always say something like “I didn’t really think about it, I just did it.” to the reporter?

As we head into the new year, I’m going to work a bit harder at reminding my kids – and remembering for myself – to just relax, stop thinking too much, and let yourself float.

 

I Hope There Was Pie...

When I think of my favorite times with my grandparents, there is a myriad of options to choose from.  Every moment is precious to me – learning at my grandmother’s side as she went about her day, watching my grandfather work outside, lunching privately with them at the breakfast nook – but very high on the list is Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa’s.

Everyone loves Thanksgiving, right?  I don’t know if anyone loved it more than my grandfather.

Now, a Christ family Thanksgiving dinner was really pretty simple.  Your basic fare: turkey, potatoes, dressing (Grandma’s wild rice dressing!), and an assortment of pies.  Nothing that would impress Martha Stewart and, frankly, I don’t think Grandma would give a hoot about her opinion, anyway.

Grandma cared very much about table manners.  Every family meal required proper table setting, traditional Russian service etiquette and a blessing.  This example set the tone for all of us as we made our way out into the world.  A formal dinner like Thanksgiving was an opportunity to flex our manner muscles!

Grandpa cared mostly about the pie and the wine.  We are not a typical wine-with-dinner family.  Wine is for special occasions and, at holidays, was most often homemade with origins in a local (family owned) orchard.  Grandpa loved to share his wine with all present.  Even the little people.  So even though we were often relegated to the Kid’s Table in the kitchen, we still felt like a big part of the family gathering.  We knew we mattered as much as the tall folks in the dining room because our grandparents made it very clear that it was so.

When the dinner dishes were cleared, Grandpa sat, unmoved, waiting for his pie and coffee to be served to him.  Not patiently, but unmoved.  This was a good time for him to talk to the other grown ups still at the table (not much talking during the meal) or to pinch the cheek of a grandchild making her way to the toybox.  I believe that Grandpa was at his happiest there, at the head of his table, watching over his family and giving thanks for all that he had.

Certainly, he was not perfect.  I’m sure that his wife would have liked to clobber him from time to time.  I know his children still carry some battle scars from their childhood under his reign.  He had unreasonable expectations of his kids and never let them forget that they needed to do better.  His tough judgment and stern rule was, I think, typical of his era and the best that he knew to do. 

Still, my Grandpa was the greatest measure of a man I’ve ever known.  Whether I was conscious of it or not, I have spent my life comparing everyone I meet to him.

He was a devoted son, leaving school in 6^th grade to take care of his mother and 8 siblings when his father was too ill to work the farm himself.  He was a dedicated and loving brother.  I don’t know if he ever said the words out loud, but he made a commitment to his parents to always look after his younger brothers and sisters and that was a job he took seriously.

He was, of course, the most dedicated hard worker there was.  He taught me, by example, that NO job is beneath me.  There’s no such thing as “menial work”.  ALL work matters and ALL work is important, so whatever it is you are doing, do your very best.  He worked so hard because he wanted to give his family everything that he didn’t have for himself and he taught his children to work so that they could DO for themselves.

He was a man with no grey areas.  Right was Right and wrong was wrong.  There was no room for excuses or justification, so he did what he felt was Right.  Period.  He held his loved ones to those same standards.  If you can help someone, you should.  There’s no point in words if they’re unkind.  He lived it and embodied it and we all soaked it in.  My brother Rick has often said that when he’s called to make a big decision, he asks himself “What Would Grandpa Do?” and that makes the decision easy.  I find myself doing the same.

He loved his wife and never stopped looking at her with adoration.  She was no-nonsense and he was playful.  As their granddaughter, it brought me great joy to catch him reaching out to grab her butt and to hear her bark “Ach, Al!” and swat him away.  He lived and breathed for my grandmother and when she left this earth, his body may have still been here, but his spirit went with her.

For the last few years, he’s been trapped in a body in limbo.  Too strong to quit, but too weak to really function.  When it became clear that he couldn’t stay in his home, he had to go to a care facility.  With each day, the light in his eyes faded, he was more and more lost and his moments of lucidity were fewer and farther between. 

This year, he was able to leave the sad, gloomy home and go live with his eldest daughter.  In July, most of his family came together for his 100^th birthday.  The light in his eyes returned for a bit, as great-grandchildren hugged him, long-ago coworkers came to celebrate him, and there was no shortage of pie as he looked around at the legacy of Love and Life that he created.

I think most of us knew that would be our last visit with Grandpa.  I think he knew, too.  He returned to Fran’s home, where he had comfort and a window with a beautiful farmland view, but every day was harder than anyone would want it to be.

On Thanksgiving 2013, Fran’s children and grandchildren came to her house for the family dinner.  Grandpa visited with his grandchildren, soaked in the energy of the great grandchildren, had a Thanksgiving dinner, complete with PIE.  He spent the next day not feeling well, and by Saturday, he just wanted to nap.  So that’s what he did.  In his own room, surely with thoughts of pie in his head, and a smile in his heart, he closed his eyes and made his way to the table on the other side.

There, I believe, he was greeted by his parents and his siblings, who hugged him and said “Good job!”  That’s what he’s spent his life hoping to hear, I think. Surely, his wife and eldest son, Joe were there, too,  And I really hope there was pie.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, Grandpa.  Thanks for Giving us your love, your wisdom, and your hell when we needed it.  Your Legacy is Love, it is strong, and it is everlasting.

Don't Mind Me, I'm Just Making Pearls...

I recently heard an interview with Phyllis Diller, who was talking about comedy and the fact that so many of our beloved creative geniuses come from broken or dark places with dysfunction, neglect and turmoil.  She said “Let me put it this way…it takes an irritation to make a pearl in an oyster.”

I’ve often found the greatest wisdom comes from society’s clowns rather than from serious scholars, theologians or world leaders and there, in that one sentence, Ms. Diller knocked me over with a wrecking ball Reminder of Truth.  It’s not that she said anything new or unheard of, but 1.) she said it in such a way that it registered and 2.) She’s Phyllis Diller, queen of the crazy hair and cackling “Ha!”so the unexpected source was powerful.

Now, I certainly don’t compare myself to the comedians she was talking about.  I come from light, joy-filled places of love.  But she reminded me of an old proverb:

 

It isn't the mountain ahead of you that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

I’ve always loved that one just for the simple truth of it.  We all have sand in our shoes.  We call the grains Obstacles, we call them People, we call them Burdens.  There’s no end to the variety of challenges we meet every day.

The problem with the sand is that it seems insignificant.  The mountain stands before us and is an obvious force to be reckoned with.  No matter what the mountain represents in our lives, it’s there.  It shows itself and allows us to plan how to deal with it.  We can climb it, go around it, turn the other way and walk away from it or just give up and accept that it will always be there, but it doesn’t just creep up and yell “Surprise!”  It’s there and we know it’s there.

The sand, however, goes unnoticed for a while.   When we finally feel it, maybe we think that however it managed to get into our shoe, it’ll find its way out.  So we keep walking.  We don’t stop to think that if ONE grain of sand found its way in, others can, too.  Before long, more sand is there, a blister has formed, and we have no choice but to acknowledge the sand and decide what we’re going to do about it.

 

Any beach lover knows that no two grains of sand are alike.  Some sand is fine – beautiful, even – and will do no harm.  We can walk for miles with fine sand in our shoes with no discomfort and at the end of our walk, it serves as a reminder about where we’ve been.  Other sand is abrasive and starts rubbing us the wrong way immediately.  We notice it.  It’s annoying.  But so often, we think it’ll just go away, or that taking the time to deal with it will slow us down or make us seem petty so we suffer through it.  Sound familiar?

When I think about what Ms. Diller said, I can’t help but to think of it as a Pearl Of Wisdom.  That’s what we say, isn’t it?  When someone hits us with a beautiful truth, don’t we call it a Pearl of Wisdom?  Hmmm.

I’ve learned a lot from the sand in my shoe.  I appreciate the soft fine grains.  I’m not worried about the mountains ahead.  I’m enjoying the walk and have learned to stop and brush off the rough and abrasive grains and keep them from rubbing blisters so I can keep moving.  When I get to my destination (whatever that is), maybe I’ll have a pearl or two for my effort.

 

 

When I Was Your Age...

“When I was your age…” is just not something I heard much as a kid, so I never thought I’d be guilty of doling it out to my own kids.  But I am.  Guilty. 

The dreaded “When I Was Your Age…” (WIWYA) rolls effortlessly off my tongue weekly – if not daily – in one way or another.  So far, my girls have been kind enough to not roll their eyes at me.  At least I haven’t caught them mid-eye-roll yet.  Yet.  I’m sure it’s coming.

I suppose the reason I didn’t hear it much was that things weren’t all that different.  There were the obvious differences, of course.  I’ve had indoor plumbing all my life, which is something that was new to my mother at some point.  Television has always been present in my home and that wasn’t the case for her.  I never experienced an air raid drill in school and I’ve never known life without the polio vaccine.  The rest of the really huge changes, however, we experienced together.

In our life together, our home phone went from rotary to push-button, from wired to the wall to easy to use phone jacks, from tethered in a room to cordless, from either home and available or away and not to a phone in your pocket wherever you are!  I’ve found myself trying to explain the concept of a payphone to my eight year old and the look on her face is the way I imagine she’d look if I suddenly began speaking Russian.  She is simply not able to understand.

Recently, she’s been discovering “Yo Mama” jokes which led to discussion of prank calls.  I was telling her some of the silly jokes that we used: Prince Albert In A Can, Is Your Refrigerator Running, etc. and realized she’ll never truly know the joy of a dumb prank call or of a bunch of girls calling a boy just to hear his voice, giggle and hang up and that makes me a little sad.  In her world, Caller ID has always been there to announce a prankster’s identity.  She’s never had the experience of a phone that rings and rings because there has always been voicemail to take a message.

I remember learning to type on a manual typewriter and the thrill of upgrading to an electric model.  Much later, the excitement came from going to the house of a friend who got one of those new-fangled Radio Shack TRS80 things!  Imagine!  A computer!  In your home!  It would be years before I ever had one of those things myself, and the idea of such a thing being small enough to sit on my lap was unthinkable.  Yet my children were born into a world where tiny little computers announced their presence all over the planet.

The idea that there was a time when a person took a picture, waited to finish a roll of film and then had to bide time for weeks to see that the subject’s eyes were closed is something they just can’t accept.  Imagining a time when cartoons were only available on Saturday, that TV had 4 channels (more if you had enough aluminum foil to bring in the UHF channels) and that there was no rewind and no fast forward through commercials is beyond their grasp.

When you sit and think about the development of these now every day things that we take for granted, it can induce a kind of mental whiplash.  So it’s natural, once I’ve scooped my chin up from the floor, to release a When I Was Your Age on my children, right?

I don’t deliver a WIWYA in a “walked six miles through the snow, uphill both ways” kind of way.  My intention is always to demonstrate how amazing it is that human beings can DO these things and that we get to watch the world evolve all around us.  My aim is to encourage appreciation for the wonders that we have.  I can only hope that at least a little bit of that comes through to bored children who just want to get back to their Minion Rush game on their handheld tablet computer.

 

When I think about the warp speed progress we’ve made as a people, I wish I could ask my grandmother what she thinks.  What would she say about the medical miracles our family experienced?  Kidney transplants certainly existed in her time, but in much more gruesome and unpleasant ways.  When the girls video chat with their uncle on the other side of the country, would she be amazed?  Would she be on facebook, looking at pictures of her grand and great-grandchildren or discussing the art of beekeeping with apiculturists from around the world?  OK, probably not.  But I do think she’d appreciate the ability to do so if she wished.

That’s what I want from a WIWYA.  I want my kids to understand the power (and responsibility) that is in their hands and view it with appreciation instead of expectation.  If I achieve even some measure of that, I’ll be content.

Admittedly, their world is not entirely improved from When I Was Their Age and so many of the changes are just not tangible.  They’ll never know the freedoms that I had to aimlessly wander, to experiment and to just generally goof off.  They’ll never know what it felt like to travel with few restrictions or that a person could get through an airport without ever taking their shoes off.  They’ll never be completely anonymous and that’s kind of a bummer.

Still, I think the tradeoff is worth it.  Their time is just beginning.  So far, it’s beginning with understanding that all human beings are equal and deserve the same rights.  They see the world with no apparent prejudices, with no borders and no ceilings.  They know they can do or be whatever they want because their society has never told them otherwise. 

I didn’t have their technology, but they don’t have much of the close-minded beliefs that weighed my generation (and many generations before that) down.  Their time is far from perfect, but it’s definitely progressing and to me, THAT is evolution.

I’m not going to promise to limit my WIWYA stories.  They’re going to keep coming.  I hope at least a small percentage of them will be digested enough to nurture gratitude and understanding of those who have walked before them.  If the rest of the stories are cast aside and I just get to use them as a torture device, I’m fine with that because I know a day will come when they are telling their own kids that When They Were Their Age, they didn’t have a cool teleportation apparatus, they had to depend on their solar powered flying cars!  And their kids are going to roll their eyes, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trick Or Treat, Smell My Feet...

I’m not sure exactly why I own a soap box.  I mean, in this day and age, they’re not all that common or useful, but I’m glad I have one because I like to stand up tall on it and shout my opinions from up here.  For example, let me tell you how I feel about the over-commercializing of Halloween.  Pull up a chair. 

I LOVE Halloween.  Love it.  Always have, and probably always will.  What’s not to love?  Children get to tap into their imaginations and be someone else.  And then they get candy!  Even grown ups who wish to participate can be who they want for a night and they get to be a hero to a kid looking for Butterfingers or KitKats.

As though costumes and candy aren’t enough, the act of trick or treating is really about so much more.  Those imagination-fueled costumes encourage creativity and, sometimes, practical reasoning.  Packs of kids walking together from house to house incite brotherhood, cooperation and cultural awareness.  Adults opening doors with a smile on their face strengthen a neighborhood.  Knocking on the door and yelling “Trick or Treat!” fosters trust that your efforts will be rewarded.  It’s pretty perfect.

Well, it USED be pretty perfect, anyway.  Certainly, there are people whose religious beliefs keep them from celebrating.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But for the rest of us who WANT to experience it, so much of the fun has been sucked right out of it by the Paranoid Minority.  I hate that for the kids who may never experience the real thing.

First of all, Halloween is October 31^st.  Always has been and it shouldn’t matter what day of the week October 31^st happens to be, THAT is Halloween.  Communities that declare that Halloween will be celebrated on Saturday the 26^th or Friday, November 1^st because that’s more convenient for them chap my hide.  That’s right!  I said they chap my hide!  You’re allowed to say crotchety stuff like that when you’re up on a soap box.

Kids should be able to go to school, excitedly talking about their plan of attack, then come home and drive their parents nuts asking “Now?  Can we go now?  How about now?”  They should be able to go to school the next day with Now’n’laters stuck in their teeth and talk about who had the biggest haul.  That’s the way it supposed to be!

As though scheduling Halloween to suit your needs isn’t bad enough, what about all the Faux Trick or Treating?  My hide continues to be chapped.  Walking your kid through the mall so that underpaid, overly irritated retail clerks can throw SourPatch Kids in their bags while you windowshop or sit in a massage chair doesn’t count!  Likewise, there’s a new trend called “Trunk Or Treat”.

Trunk Or Treat is just what it sounds like.  People line the family car up in a parking lot, drape it in spooky-ish Halloween decorations and pass out candy from…you guessed it…the trunk of their car (or back of their minivan, more often).  The theory is that it’s a safer and more controlled environment for the kids.  These events are often hosted by churches or private schools and the very idea of them makes me squirm.

Now, in interest of hypocritical disclosure, the church around the corner hosts a Trunk Or Treat, and you can bet my little goblins will be there.  I mean, another day to dress up AND extra candy?  Score!  But it’s not the replacement for the actual holiday that I think those grown ups want it to be.  It’s just a warm up for the big game!

I do understand that Trick Or Treating the traditional way is just not possible in some communities.  When my family moved to rural Pennsylvania and I realized it was not possible to go door to door, that was a rude awakening.  I came from Baltimore, with blocks and blocks of real neighborhoods and came home with my pillowcase filled with candy, so that I could dump it out and go back out.  Sometimes people tossed coins in our bags.  Sometimes, they gave us homemade treats like cookies, cupcakes or popcorn balls. And sometimes, they invited us into their homes for a mini-haunted house…AND WE WENT!!!  Gasp!!!

Trick Or Treating in my Grandmother’s neighborhood in Illinois was equally fabulous.  Those neighbors not only gave us treats, but wanted to ask about our mother or siblings, or just see how we were doing.  We arrived at Grandma’s house only after we decided what our act for the evening would be.  You see, my grandmother took TRICK or Treat quite literally.  Children (all children, not just her relatives) were expected to enter her living room, where she and Grandpa would be seated on the couch.  She would say “All right, we’re ready to see your trick.”  Only after we told a joke or did a dance or whatever it is we worked out, did we get our treat.

Now, here in suburban Atlanta, I’m surrounded by neighborhoods that choose their Trick Or Treating night based on convenience and shopping centers with “Fall festivals” so that children don’t have to dare to knock on a door.  By some stroke of luck, however, my OWN neighborhood pulls out all the stops for a fantastic, REAL Halloween and I’m so grateful.

Neighbors install over-the-top decorations.  Grown-ups wear costumes as they walk with their kids or answer their own doors.  Children walk the neighborhood in very loosely supervised packs and we average 300 kids every year.  I love that and am proud of my neighbors for letting their kids take part in the fun and for making it fun for everyone.  There’s no fear, no suspicion.  Just giggles, joy and the occasional trickster.

Among the fairies, the vampires and the princesses, there are always random 12-13 year old boys who are way too cool/mature/uninterested in that kid stuff to put on a costume, but bold enough to ask for candy.  That’s when Grandma steps in and insists that if they couldn’t be bothered to throw together a costume, they’re going to have to earn their candy.  Until I hear a joke, see a dance, a cartwheel or something, the chocolate doesn’t find its way to their bags.  My husband feels certain that I’m setting myself up for an egging or something, but I have faith in the power of a KitKat and the hearts of pubescent boys and think they get that I’m having fun with them.

That’s what I’m going to keep doing…having fun.  As long as some parents are willing to let their kids be kids and experience some of what they either had or wished they had in their own childhoods, I’m going to hang ghosts in my yard, I’m going to give corn syrup laden goodies to anyone who knocks on my door.  I’m going to bust them when they show up twice and I’m going to give them candy anyway.  And when it’s all over, I’m going to let my kids eat junk and I’m going to snatch the Almond Joys for myself.

I ask all the kids what they’re going to be for Halloween.  Maybe I should ask the grown ups instead.  Are you going as a Kid At Heart or are you going as a Paranoid Fun Sucker?  Some advice:  the Kid gets better candy.  I’ll probably stash mine in my soapbox now that I’m stepping down from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silly I Am And Silly I'll Be...

When people talk about their favorite childhood books, you hear the typical answers:  Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, Shel Silverstein.  The usual suspects.  I loved them all but when I talk about my favorite, few people remember it.  I think that’s a crying shame.

The Adventures Of Silly Billy by Tamara Kitt was a staple on my grandmother’s bookshelf and, later, I had my own copy.  I read it at least once during every visit to Grandma’s and read it on my own at home.  I still quote it in my head – “Silly you are and silly you’ll be…” – when I witness silliness in action.

If you’re not familiar with the story, Billy is an underappreciated idea man.  He sits and thinks and plans and creates and, when he shares his ideas with his parents, he’s met with chuckles, headshakes and criticism: “Oh, you silly boy!” and “Silly you are and silly you will be as long as you live.”

Billy knew better.   So he went out into the world to find someone sillier than himself.  He found them.  Easily.  And he solved their problems by applying just a little bit of common sense.  Repairing holes in a pan that wouldn’t hold water, counting men who forgot to count themselves and suggesting windows to the people who lived in the dark, dark house revealed William The Wise to the world.  He was lauded and rewarded for his wisdom. 

When he returned home, he brought a gold watch for his father, a bag of gold coins for his mother, and a gold crown for himself.  They were amazed and praised their Silly Billy but he demanded to never be called silly again and said that he preferred his proper name, William.  Then he went back to sit and think and plan and create once more.

It’s a children’s book, obviously.  And perhaps it’s outdated (printed in 1961) with its Long Ago/Far Away theme but when I had my own children I wanted them to know Billy.  I scoured the internet until I found a copy on Ebay and had it in my hands once again.  The real bummer, however, is that my kids don’t share my love for my favorite hero.  They prefer the Five Chinese Brothers but they humor me and sit still while I read it to them.

While I love the old-fashioned illustrations (beautifully done by Jill Elgin), I think what speaks to me is not childish at all.  How many of us have been told our dreams or ideas are ridiculous, impossible, or unrealistic?  And how many forge on past the nay-sayers and go on to dream again?  Sadly, I think the majority stops when their ideas are criticized.  Imagine if all the Billys of the world just gave up.  Where would we be?

Silly is relative, isn’t it?  Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to see it from a different angle.  And sometimes, in the midst of a problem, an outside perspective is just what it takes to see it.  While the townspeople couldn’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak, Silly Billy’s viewpoint allowed him to see the trees in the forest and the answers were clear.

OK, so planting popcorn didn’t produce the bags and bags of popped corn he anticipated.  Giving boiling water to his hens did not produce the hard boiled eggs he envisioned. To those people in need that he encountered, he was not silly at all.  He was a visionary.  A problem-solver.  His ideas were wonderful and desperately needed.

Billy’s not the first to be scoffed at.  Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell both invented aircraft that didn’t work.  Leonardo DaVinci’s inflatable shoes for walking on water were a flop.  Henry Ford had five failed businesses before his motor company took off.  Walt Disney was fired because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Some considered them too silly to succeed.   Thankfully, all of these “Silly” people ignored the naysayers and kept going back to the drawing board.

This is why I want my kids to know Silly Billy.  He may not be as exciting as Captain Underpants or that Wimpy Kid with his diaries, but he’s a perfect role model for being who you are, with no excuses.  I hope they will continue to tolerate him and remember that their silly ideas are valuable and worth a try.  Maybe they’ll have some misses, but I’m willing to bet they’ll have some hits as well.

As for myself, I already know I’m one of the silly ones.  Some get it.  Some roll their eyes and humor me.  That’s okay.  Silly I am and silly I will be as long as I live.  Got a problem with that?

Stamp My Passport Back In Time...

Memory is a funny thing.  It’s so easy to be blind-sided by a file drawer springing open in the brain, prompted by seemingly tiny triggers.

Or maybe that’s just me.  OK.  It’s probably just me.  Just about anything will stimulate the memory cells.  I think, for normal people, certain deep-seated memories can be activated by the senses.  Perhaps the smell of fresh-baked bread brings a warm feeling associated with a favorite aunt or a song can remind you of a time or a place.  I definitely experience that in a mostly normal way but I think my cut off valve may be broken because my brain doesn’t stop at a pleasant thought.  No!  Once that faucet starts flowing, there’s no stopping it!

My olfactory memories sneak up on me and drag me down memory lane, but it’s never something as simple or obvious as fresh baked bread.  No.  For me, it’s the smoky mixture of oil and gas that most would find unpleasant.  For me, whether it’s a car in need of a tune up, a landscaper’s lawnmower or chainsaw, I’m immediately transported to the Friday nights of my childhood at the dirtbike races.  I don’t even remember watching the races, but being there (to support the family friend who owned the track, I think) was tradition and we had the run of the nearby lot to play tag and use the swingset and whatever it is that kids do in such places until I was ready to climb up into the stands and fall asleep. 

Of course, there are nicer aromas in my memories: my grandmother’s linens, my mother’s cookies, even my dad’s Brut aftershave but it’s the funky ones that hit me every time.  There’s a certain kind of terrible muddy smell that immediately takes me to my very first concert.  I was about seven and it was Elton John in his platform shoes, giant sunglasses and sparkling silver jacket heyday under the St. Louis Arch.  My big sister Sue and I went with her friend Liz, in Liz’s teeny tiny MG convertible and as we crossed the river into town, my 7 year old self felt pretty damn cool.

The arch, if you don’t know, sits along the Mississippi River and St. Louis in July is about as hot and humid as it gets.  We’d had a few days of rain, so the landing was extra muddy.  And, being a free concert in the seventies, the area was jammed with sweaty, pot-smoking, sweaty, Budweiser drinking, sweaty, incense-burning young folks (did I mention sweaty?) who’d been there for days - in mud up to their ankles, dancing and partying and having a great time.  For me, the mud was up to my calves and my head was much lower to the ground.  The stench was horrible but I didn’t care.  I was at a real concert, listening to a real famous person and learning from the crowd how to wave my fist in the air and sing along to “Saturday Night’s Alright”.  It was wonderful.

To this day, when I catch a whiff of Mississippi River mud, I hear Elton John in my head and remember that day.  Likewise, hearing “Saturday…Saturday…” evokes the scent from out of nowhere.  It doesn’t make sense but it totally makes scents.

Lately I’ve come to realize that when I’m tuned into the Oldies station on the car radio, there are no longer any “oldies” playing.  Instead, I’m hearing the bands of the 80s who filled the cars we cruised in down the beach.  See?  That can’t be Oldies, right!?  When Bad Company and Bon Jovi are coming out of my speakers, I’m suddenly no longer waiting in the carpool line for my kids.  I’m on Hwy. 98, somewhere under the Miracle Strip Tower, trying to decide whether to go to the beach or go to a party with a bunch of tourists.

It doesn’t take much to stamp my passport back in time and send me completely back to a place.  If all of the conditions are right, I’m completely transported.  On a perfectly sunny fall afternoon like today, there’s just no fighting it.  Why would I, really?  These are free vacations and I don’t need to check a bag. 

As I walked to retrieve the kids from school, the sky was clear and sunny and there was a beautifully gentle breeze in the air.  That alone was enough to make me take it in.  There was an unusual break in traffic that brought peaceful silence and enabled me to hear the soft clang of a rope hitting the flagpole in front of the school.  Whoosh!  I was gone!  I was no longer on a sidewalk in suburban Georgia.  Instead, I was on my beach in my favorite post-tourist/pre-snowbird season hearing lines flapping against sail masts on catamarans parked in the sand next to lifeguard stands.  The birds flying above were no longer hawks and thrashers.  Now they were seagulls and sandpipers.  For just that brief moment, it was real.  I was there with sand between my toes and salt air in my lungs until the bell rang, kids spilled from the brick building and I was back on the concrete, smelling school bus exhaust.  I was back, but my Time Travel Passport was stamped and my soul was recharged.

Maybe I’m not all that unusual after all.  Maybe we all have it in us to go back in time like that but we forget to just go with it.  Here and now, real life and responsibilities keep us tethered and grounded.  That’s normal.  We can’t live in the past and we shouldn’t try.  We all know that, I think.  But why can’t we VISIT sometimes? 

Try it.  When a memory calls and invites you to travel with it for a moment, go along for the ride.  Sometimes those visits backwards can deliver just what you need to keep moving forward but you’ll never know if you don’t stamp the passport and get on board for the trip.

Big Brother Is Watching You (if you're lucky)...

Family folklore tells of an eleven year old young man who packed a bag and prepared to go out into the world because another baby – the ninth big fat baby in eleven years, in fact – was moving into his family’s house.  He wasn’t planning to leave because he had a problem with this new (big fat) baby.  No.  He was just trying to be helpful and accommodating. 

This young man was simply expressing his concern that maybe there wasn’t enough room or that his mother had too much on her plate.  Thank God his mother talked some sense into him because that big fat baby needed him there.  ALL of the other eight babies needed him there.  You see, this young man was The Big Brother.  He was, in so many ways, the captain of the ship, the lighthouse that guided it, and the cruise director who set the tone.

At sixteen, this young man packed up his bell bottoms and drum sticks and left with his mother’s blessing to chase his dreams.  The nuns never understood his long hair or fashion sense, his grandparents didn’t quite get that music could ever be a Real Job and strangers very likely judged the decision to let him go, but his focus was clear and his heart told him it was the right path.

In case you haven’t figured it out, I was that big fat baby and I’m talking about my brother Tim – the eldest of the brood.  As the baby, I can’t pretend to know what experiences made him who he is.  Personally, I think he was just a reincarnate very old man who forgot to revert to childhood when he came back to earth.  What I KNOW is that he’s always been the beacon of light for so many – not just his siblings – and that he played a big role in shaping who I am.

I don’t mean to say that he Left Home.  He never did.  He simply built a west wing away from the primary Albert residence in the east.  I only recently learned that when we loaded up the station wagon and moved away from our hometown to Baltimore, Tim was actually the one who chose our new home.  I don’t know what he was thinking at the time, but in hindsight, he set us up in a real neighborhood with schools and shops and people who became lifelong friends to our entire family.  He set us up, and then he packed up the aforementioned bell bottoms and drumsticks and returned to the hometown to set up base.

While we were going about our life, planting new roots, our Big Brother was on the road.  Making music.  Making connections.  Following his dreams.  But he never ever left us behind.  We were with him.  In his thoughts.  In his letters.  In his phone calls.  He sent us stories from the road and I kept a bulletin board map of the United States with pushpins marking every place he’d been.  I knew which pin represented a flat tire or a Blues Brothers-style caged stage.

In the summers, our father was supposed to have custody visits.  But really, given the choice between staying with a night-shift coal miner we barely knew or our rock star big brother, whose house do you think we chose?  And somehow, the teenage hippie rock star proprietor of the Albert West Wing managed to open the door, make sure we were fed, reasonably clean, entertained and, most importantly, together and happy.  I didn’t know how he did it.  I still don’t fully understand it.  I know he had the assistance of many who stood by with safety nets: grandparents, aunts, and a number of roommates who joined the force, but the bulk of the weight was on him.

Maybe it was a bit of a commune.  It was the 70s, after all.  All my 7 year old self cared about was the sense of freedom and big adventure that lived at Tim’s House.  My adult self knows that along with freedom, there was security.  Along with adventure, there was safety.  Above the chaos, there was LOVE.

In these summers, I received an education that you can’t get at any Ivy League institution (but maybe they should offer it – you hear me, Harvard?).  Certainly, it was a little unorthodox, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

I honed my reading skills on a huge collection of underground comics.  Perhaps grownups wouldn’t approve of the lessons of The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Zap Comix, or even Mr. Natural, but I loved them and found them very educational.  I learned about horticulture.  I learned arts and crafts (little fingers are useful for rolling small pieces of paper).  I learned philosophy from any number of friends who passed through the house.  I learned to do yoga and fry plantains.  I learned to improvise a meal with whatever assortment of food was available.  I learned about diversity and acceptance and I learned to enter any room with the belief that I was supposed to be there and the ability to bluff my way through if questioned. 

Most of all, I learned that attitude is everything and that taking a risk isn’t really a risk at all if your heart tells you the net will be there.  And if the net isn’t there, a Big Brother will be.

At the end of the summers, we little brothers and sisters would return to the main Albert house with suntans, tangled hair, dirty feet, completely happy nourished souls and, most importantly, stories, memories and new skills.  For some of us, it was a new song learned.  For others, it was newly realized knowledge about who we are and belief in ourselves.

I don’t think Tim WANTED to be the patriarch of the family, but that’s the way it is.  I think it’s natural for the eldest to be the leader.  In a long line of hard-laboring blue collared workers who saw college as the only alternative, our Big Brother proved to us that we could do or be whatever we wanted and that dreams are worth following.  He even proved to our grandparents that music is a REAL job!!!

Those summers are long behind us.  Of course, I will always remember riding in the band van with orange fur on the dash, sneaking in the side door of nightclubs and napping under the keyboard while the funk band rehearsed.  I’m sure my husband and kids are sick of hearing the tales.  But the real story behind it all is that our Big Brother has always had our backs.  Probably half of us have lived with him at some point.  I know we’ve all turned to him when we needed a voice of reason and he’s never stopped taking care of us. 

It’s not just us…our Big Brother has been Big Brother to countless others.  He’s been Big Brother to friends who’ve needed to be bailed out – both literally and figuratively.  Whether heads need thumping or spirits need lifting, Big Brother Tim is there.  When our father needed some tough big brother love, Tim did it.  When any of us still need a head thump, we get it. 

I hope that as years have passed, we actual brothers and sisters have become less needy.  My brother deserves a break.  But I suspect that he will still be the go-to call for many at 2 in the morning who will start a conversation with “Man, I’m really sorry to call you so late….” And I know that he will be there to quietly save the day.

 

Happy Birthday, my brother.  Thanks for all the You that you are and all the You that you’ve been. 

 

 

Mom Called...

I didn’t come from a home with a lot of rules.  Really, there was just one:  The Golden Rule.  That covered everything and it worked for us.  If you’re not familiar with this rule, I will 1.) question whether you were raised by rabid warthogs in the wild and 2.)  attempt to enlighten you. 

The Golden Rule very simply states:  Treat others as you would like to be treated.  Lest you think this is some old-fashioned and out of vogue “Do unto others, yada yada…” Christian view, rest assured that most cultures have some version of this very same rule.  True, there is the Christian version, from Matthew  "Whatever you wish that people would do to you, so do to them.” but it doesn’t stop there.

Judaism says “Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself.”  Islam says “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.”  Buddhism says “Treat not others in ways you yourself would find hurtful.”  Hinduism says “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.”  Confucious said “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”  Wicca says “that which ye deem harmful unto thyself, the very same shall ye be forbidden from doing unto another”.  Even Tom Cruise would tell you “Cause only those things which others are able to experience easily.”

When you look at it like that, it seems less like a rule and more like Common Sense, doesn’t it?  So maybe our home didn’t really have rules.  We just had an expectation of common sense.  The understanding was pretty much that we could do whatever we chose.  HOWEVER, it was also understood that our choice brought consequences and those consequences were ours to deal with.  No one was going to make us go to school.  But no one was going to bail us out when report cards arrived, either.

I won’t pretend that we were perfect little Golden Rule-adhering respectful angels.  We’re human siblings who knew which buttons to push to aggravate one another.  And we did.  Generally, our sparring partners were the sibling closest to us in the birth-order line.  Everyone else was referee and/or police.  Those moments aside, we basically worked as a team to do what needed to be done.

Our mother worked hard to keep us afloat.  Often, this meant 2 hour commutes which required her to leave the house before sunrise and to be away until it was dark once again.  This meant that we young folks were reasonably expected to keep the house from falling down.  We did our own laundry, cleaned our own messes, and tended to the tasks that we thought needed tending.  We took turns preparing meals, we took turns cleaning bathrooms and we took turns washing dishes.

OK, maybe we had ONE other rule.  Dishes.  Dishes had to be done before Mom got home.  Actually, they didn’t even need to be DONE, but they sure better be started.  The fear we had over not doing the dishes was not fear of Mom.  No.  It was fear of the wrath of siblings who absolutely would not tolerate disappointing Mom.

Now that I think about it, I’m really not sure what would have happened if dishes weren’t started when Mom walked in the door.  I don’t remember her screaming (ever!), I don’t remember her crying, I don’t remember being grounded over dishes.  But I remember the fear that it must be done.  Dammit!  All these years of recalling the Law Of Dishes and I am just now realizing that what I really remember is Sibling Manipulation!

Remember, Mom was away, bringing home the bacon.  It was understood that we weren’t to bother her at work.  If we dared to call her at work, we’d better have a very good reason.   She was busy!  Which also meant that she wasn’t calling us, either.  She only called if there was something that she really needed or wanted us to do.    If Mom called, that meant action!

Hearing “Mom called” meant that whatever she wanted us to do ABSOLUTELY must be done.  “Mom called.  She wants you to bring in some firewood and find some kindling.”  “Mom called.  She wants you to take the hamburger out of the freezer.”  “Mom called.  She needs you to mop the floor.”  Those things were done, no question.

“Mom Called” brought out an almost Pavlovian response.  “Mom Called” triggered us to our feet to tackle a mission.  Now, when Mom Called, she rarely named names.  She didn’t say “Terri needs to mop the floor.”   She just said that she’d like it mopped and trusted that it would be done.  Whoever happened to answer the phone when she called really had all the power to do the task or to assign it to someone else.  That’s some serious weaponry!   Naturally, it didn’t take long for us to abuse the power of the Mom Called. 

It was pretty easy to play a Mom Called card when you needed clean underwear but didn’t want to do laundry yourself.  “Mom Called.  She wants you to do a load of whites.”  That eventually morphed into “Mom Called.  She said you need to make me a sandwich.” or “Mom Called.  She said to tell you it’s my turn with the Atari.”  You don’t question a Mom Called!

Wow.  What a kick to the gut.  All these years I’ve been recalling my Utopian Golden Rule childhood only to just now see that I’ve been hornswaggled by improper application of the Mom Called strategy.

Still, I fully trust the power of the Golden Rule.  However, to my brothers and sisters I say “Mom Called.  She said you need to apologize.  And make me a sandwich.”

Go Ahead And Judge Me...

About a week ago, I witnessed a neighborhood kid in the act of something really, really dumb.  He was surrounded by kids who were standing back and watching, but not participating.  Naturally, in the moment they realized they were busted, their eyes all became huge and they backed away.  Some fled.  Others stayed to see what would happen.  A few tried to defend him.  He apologized and said it was the first time he’d ever done such a thing.

 

I believe him when he says he hadn’t done it before.  But he seemed to forget in his defense that he WAS doing it just then.  We sent him home and told him to think about it and maybe he shouldn’t hang out at our house for a while.

 

A few days later, two of his friends came to our door.  They wanted to apologize.  They wanted to assure me that they were not part of the act.  They wanted forgiveness.  OK, sure, what they really wanted was to be allowed to come back to swim in our pool, but the apology was heartfelt and genuine.

 

While they were swimming with my kids (hey, I’m not a monster!), we all chatted a bit and they continued to try to endear themselves to me and separate themselves from their friend’s actions.  I told them that I know they’re good kids and that’s why they were there.   I also told them that I think their friend is a really good kid who just made a stupid choice.  They agreed and, again, declared their innocence.

 

So we talked about how I already knew them so I believed them when they said they didn’t do anything.  I saw the act with my own eyes and knew what was true.  I also told them that they wouldn’t always have that advantage and that for the rest of their lives, there will be people in their presence who make bad choices and do stupid things.  No matter how old they are, they will walk in the presence of bad ideas, stupid choices, and momentarily dumb friends.  And that, sometimes, THEY may be the momentarily dumb one. 

 

They looked like they were humoring me and didn’t really believe that old people like me had dumb friends who made bad choices so I told them to ask their own parents if they didn’t believe me.  Older doesn’t necessarily make you smarter.

 

These kids were gob smacked by this revelation!  Did I just pull back the veil of adulthood that had them thinking we’ve all got it figured out?  Oops.

 

Well, if I’ve exposed the illusion, I may as well keep going, right?  So we talked about “the incident” and how everyone reacted and that we can learn a lot about a person by the choices they make and that, like it or not, we will be judged by those choices.  They stood by their friend and defended him.  Not for his action but for his person.  In my judgment, they were good friends.

 

WHAT!?!?  Did I just admit that I JUDGED them?  Yep.  I did.  I do.  I judge.  All the time.  I’m very judgmental.  Go ahead and judge me for this…I think that’s a good thing.

I know, I know.  Society has this idea that being judgmental is a negative thing.  I disagree.  Let’s see what Miriam Webster has to say about it:

judg·ment

noun \ˈjəj-mənt\

: an opinion or decision that is based on careful thought

: the act or process of forming an opinion or making a decision after careful thought : the act of judging something or someone

: the ability to make good decisions about what should be done

 

There’s nothing inherently negative about that.  Judgment is what helps us maintain a civilized world.  We tell children to use good judgment and then yell “Don’t judge me!” at the rest of the world.  But we make “judgment calls” when making choices.  Judgment is what helps us decide whether or not we would or should do things.  We all do it.  We all should do it.

 

Judging is not the same as condemning or punishing.  Judgment is simply judgment.  It’s the fear of what happens next that makes people squirm.  I judge and then I make a choice.  If, like my neighbor kids, I see someone doing something I believe is wrong, I either choose to stop them or remove myself from their path.  Maybe I choose to try both. 

 

Being judgmental has served me well.  It’s kept me out of trouble.  It’s led me to better places.  It’s reminded me to listen to my heart and my own conscience instead of the voices of the people I’m with and, sometimes, my judgment even reminds others to make good choices.  Not always, but sometimes.

 

Once they dried off from the pool and ate their popsicles, I hope my kids – and the neighborhood kids, too – took a little something from the old lady’s speech.  I hope they can remove the stigma from the word “judgment” and remember that their own judgment is a pretty handy tool to help them navigate this tricky world.

 

 

 

The People Who Live In My Head: There's No Basement At The Alamo...

The People Who Live In My Head: There's No Basement At The Alamo...: Perhaps I spend too much time in my head but come on; it’s a veritable fun house in there!   I’m not one of those deep-thinking, solving t...

There's No Basement At The Alamo...

Perhaps I spend too much time in my head but come on; it’s a veritable fun house in there!  I’m not one of those deep-thinking, solving the problems of the world type in-my-head people.  I’m not even one of the morose, regret-filled in-my-head-types.  There’s just a bit of a party going on in there and it keeps me busy.  Everything I see or experience out here in the real world brings forth song lyrics, movie scenes or cartoon imagery of my own creation. 

I can’t help it.  It’s how I process the world.  Anyone who knows me well probably already knows this about me and politely avoids rolling their eyes at me as I throw some 80s movie reference on the table and expect them to know what I mean.  Thank you for humoring me.  I just happen to find insight in the silly.  Pee Wee Herman brings out sage lessons.

Remember, in PeeWee’s Big Adventure, the devastated look on PeeWee’s face after he at last arrived at the Alamo, suffered through Tina’s excruciating tour, and finally learned (amid laughter from the crowd) that there was no basement at the Alamo?

His journey to the Alamo was not an easy one.  He struggled, he fought, he ran and he persevered to get there because he had an important goal in mind.  He wanted…no – he NEEDED to get his bike back.  His bike meant everything.  It was his dream, it was stolen, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way to get it back.  Hence, the Big Adventure.

How many times have we all arrived at our own Alamo, only to learn that there is no basement?  That the thing that we are chasing isn’t there at all?  The signs may be present.  People may be trying to help us along the way.  Our very intuition may be screaming that we’re on the wrong track but if we’re so intensely focused on the one specific treasure that we think we’re after, we probably miss it.  And we miss so much along the way.

PeeWee, bless his heart, figured it out.  He met unexpected angels along the way: Large Marge, Simone, Mickey the escaped con and some rowdy bikers helped him move toward his ultimate goal.  He helped them, too.  He was so caught up in his own mission that he didn’t realize that saying” Everyone I know has a big But...? C'mon, Simone, let's talk about *your* big But.” was just what she needed to push her forward towards her own dreams.  Let that be a lesson to us all!  Don’t let your big But get in the way.  Face your big But and keep moving!

Likewise, obsessing over a goal (obsessing over anything, in fact) is the surest way to become tangled in the mess we so easily make in our heads.  As the wise Mr. Herman said, “The mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back! It's like you're unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting...”  When you’re tangled up in the obsession, you can’t see the signs pointing you the right way down the path.

Thankfully, PeeWee and his beloved bike were reunited.  In the end, he came together with all of the loved ones who helped him, including those he shoved out-of-the-way, to watch the movie about his Big Adventure.  Occasional fun scenes aside, his focus was on those people instead of the screen.  He chatted with everyone, brought snacks to the prisoner, the bikers and Simone and walked off into the sunset (OK, into the silhouette on the drive-in screen) with Dottie.  When she asked him “Don't you wanna see the rest of the movie? “, PeeWee said “I don't have to see it, Dottie. I *lived* it.”

That’s kind of the point of it all, isn’t it?  It’s said that our lives replay in our minds before we leave this earth.  Maybe that’s the case.  If it is, I’m not interested in watching the whole damn movie, but wouldn’t mind a few popcorn moments with the people who shared the best scenes.

 

So perhaps I spend too much time in the funhouse in my head.  Like PeeWee, I have unlikely hero companions, I have the occasional Francis who’d like to steal my treasure, I’ve stumbled upon the Alamo only to come up empty, and I’ve done my own sort of big shoe dance to distract the focus of those who haven’t yet become a friend.  When it’s time for the screening of my life’s movie, I hope they cut the boring scenes and there’s a good soundtrack.  I’ll share the popcorn but I’ll probably cut out early so I can get started on the sequel.
 

This Little Light Of Mine...

During a recent conversation with my mother about challenges that someone we love is dealing with, I was reminded of a quote about evil triumphing because good men do nothing.

Of course, I couldn’t remember who said it or the exact verbiage, so I had to look it up.  Answer:  Edmund Burke and the precise quote is “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Now, I’m no history buff but I know that Mr. Burke was a conservative politician in 18^th century England who was vocally supportive of the move toward America’s independence.  That’s the end of your history lesson, because I’m not interested in who or what he referred to with that statement.  What interests me is the human Truth behind it.

How many times could we, as bystander, have prevented another’s struggle by just speaking up?  Or stepping in?  Or simply by being present as a visible witness to the wrong?   If we know that negativity cannot live in the light, then isn’t it our responsibility to open the curtains and hit the light switch when darkness is present?

For the last several years, my mother was under attack by a neighbor.  It cost her countless nights of sleep, lots of money to defend herself, and hours upon hours in court and offices of various attorneys.  In the beginning, many of the troubles could have been avoided if other neighbors had stopped walking by long enough to say “Stop that!”, if the authorities in charge had said “Cut it out!” when they had the chance or if the crazy neighbor lady’s friends had told her that she was being a jerk.  But they didn’t, so the snowball kept rolling, kept growing, until it was too big for one person to handle.  Finally, it’s over.  For my mother, anyway.  But the crazy neighbor lady never really learned any lessons and her defeat only fueled the rage that will no doubt be unleashed on anyone else in her path.

That’s perhaps an extreme example, but the opportunities to do something or to just shine a light are always present.  You don’t have to look far to see them and you don’t have to work hard to act upon them.

When you listen to an acquaintance (or, sadly, sometimes a friend or family member) who is recounting the details of some malicious action, an underhanded manipulation or just generally jerky behavior they’ve committed against another person and you just shake your head or laugh uncomfortably, darkness triumphs.  Maybe – just maybe – if you say “that’s wrong” or “that’s not nice” or question the motivation with a “Why would you do such a thing?” the wrong-doer will see the reality of their act and learn something – or at the very least, know that you don’t condone it, don’t want to be part of it, and will not support that treatment of a fellow human being.

We all have people in our lives who carry their darkness with them in a cloud that surrounds them.  No matter how they may carry themselves in public, the cloud is there.  We see it.  Much like Charlie Brown’s Pigpen.  The Peanuts gang wait until Pigpen walks away before they comment on his cloud of dirt.  Why don’t they point it out to Pigpen directly?  Maybe Pigpen doesn’t even realize that he could use a bath.  Maybe he doesn’t realize that he’s soiling every surface he touches.  Or MAYBE Pigpen knows full well that his filth is offensive and he kind of enjoys it.  Don’t we see that every day? 

What if gentle Charlie, bossy Lucy or the wise and well-spoken Linus said something to him?  What if Charlie gently brought the idea of a bath and clean laundry to Pigpen?  What if Linus advised about the benefits of cleanliness?  What if, barring all progress, Lucy jumped in to say “Look, if you want to be filthy, that’s your right, but don’t bring it in here!”  Odds are, Pigpen would either realize the problem and fix it or he’d choose to walk away and find a new space to pollute.

Our young children are learning this right now in their classrooms.  Schools have taken the light and shined it directly on bullies and bad conduct.  They’re teaching this generation of kids to lead the way with good behavior, supportive kind acts and permission to NOT tolerate a bully.  We adults could use some refresher courses.

Here in the adult world, what if we took a lesson from the third graders and, instead of walking away,tsk-tsking and expressing our sadness to others when we know a loved one is being mistreated, we shine the spotlight on the bully?  We may not always be able to rescue the victims who make the choice to stay, but we can certainly let the bully know:  We see you.  We see what you are doing and it’s not OK.  If you choose to continue, the light will be on and you will be visible to all.  If you bring your dark cloud into the light, it will disappear.

Edmund Burke had it right when he said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”  But don’t take that to mean you must fight all the fights or that you alone have to do it all.  When I looked up the previous quote for accuracy, I learned that Mr. Burke also said “No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little”.  Sometimes, just being present or just offering a hug is enough.

It’s important to acknowledge, too, that sometimes the challenges we face are meant not only to test us, but to teach us.  When you’ve walked through fire, you should come through the other side with a better understanding of your own strength as well as some idea about how to avoid the next fire by leading your own way down the path.  Maybe following the guy with the singed eyebrows and burned feet is not the best approach.

Mr. Burke also said (this guy knew stuff!) : “He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill.  Our antagonist is our helper.”  So our tormentor can be our teacher.  But we’re not meant to stay in the classroom forever, are we?  We’re supposed to graduate and move on.  Ideally, we move on and continue to learn.  We share our knowledge with those who need it.  We learn so that we can advance.  So that we can evolve and grow.

But even the lowliest weed needs light to grow, right?  So don’t hang out in the shade of those who prefer darkness.  Speak the kind truth.  Don’t criticize without an offer to help.  Don’t turn away from dark clouds – instead, shine your light on them until they either disappear to the shadows that cannot reach you or lighten up and accept their own light. 

Just as our children are learning to speak up and stand up to a bully, it’s time for us all to remember to not stand idly by, to not join the shouting mob, to not stand in the shadows and – most importantly – to let our lights shine far and bright so the darkness doesn’t stand a chance. 

 

As for me and this little light of mine?  I'm gonna let it shine.