The Dough of Life...

I don’t bake.  Wait.  Let me rephrase that.  I USUALLY don’t bake.  My kids get cookies from a package or, when I’m feeling really wild, cookies that come from dough in a tube.  Holidays include pie from the grocery store and someone else makes the birthday cakes. 

I enjoy cooking nice meals and am generally happy to try a new recipe but baking’s just never been appealing to me.  Too much precision required, I think.  If I’m expected to measure and time and possibly do math, the fun is sucked right out of it.

But there are two exceptions to my baking rule.  One:  Mom’s cut-out sugar cookies in shapes that represent the season and Two:  Grandma’s Christmas Stars.

The sugar cookies make sense.  I spent a lifetime at my mother’s side, rolling and cutting those cookies.  Then, sitting with my brothers and sisters decorating those cookies.  The decision to put the green-dyed coconut “grass" at the feet of the Easter bunnies with jellybean eggs or to leave him sans grass was a heavy one.  Did all of the reindeer cookies need a redhot candy nose, or just the one playing Rudolph?  I suspect that, on my deathbed, I will see these cookies in my memories.  Obviously, I want my kids to have those memories so I continue the tradition but the fact is that, even when I was young and single and just barely scraping by on my own, it was very important to me to make these cookies.  Sometimes I’d throw in a Snickerdoodle or Russian Teacake to the mix, but unless there were frosted stockings or Santas, there would be no Christmas in my heart.

Christmas Stars are really more of a pastry than a cookie.  They are a lightly sweet dough, filled with a cherry center, folded into a pinwheel star shape.  My Grandmother made these every Christmas.  Certainly, she made them at other times throughout the year, maybe with different filling.  But to me, they WERE Christmas.

I was fortunate, in my early years, to spend a lot of one-on-one time with my Grandmother.  With 39 grandchildren, this was not a luxury afforded to all of us and I knew that and appreciated it.  My time at her house was spent reading with her or maybe helping her with laundry in the wringer washer and clothesline, but when she was busy in the kitchen, I was usually just there to pass through to snag a sorghum cookie on my way to the toy box.  I must have seen the Christmas Star operation happening, but I honestly don’t remember it, which means I probably wasn’t a part of it.  They just magically appeared around the holidays.

Some time in my early 20s, in those very lean years when it wasn’t possible to go home for the holidays, when it wasn’t likely that I could buy presents, and when I barely knew how I’d buy groceries, it became very important to me to figure out how to make Grandma’s Christmas Stars.  Either my sister or my mother secured the recipe for me, and I dove right in.

Wow!  These things are HARD!  The dough wasn’t such a challenge.  Once I conquered the yeast process, that is.  And I knew how they were supposed to look, so after a lot of staring and studying, I finally figured out the geometry behind the folds and the proper ratio of filling to pastry.  I did it!  They were pretty, they were yummy, and most importantly, they tasted like Christmas.  So I kept baking.  And baking.  And I had enough beautiful stars to share with the beautiful stars in my life – my friends, my coworkers, and the people who mattered to me.

Over the years, with more practice, I feel as though I’ve mastered the Stars!  They’ve definitely flopped on occasion, and when that happens, it’s easy to recognize why.  I’m rushing.  I’m not tuned in to the moment.  And I’ve forgotten to invite Grandma.   There’s no question that when I’m thinking of Grandma (yes, even while she was still here on earth with us), the Stars are at their best.  When I’m rushing through it like a chore, they flop.

Really, isn’t that the answer to everything important?  When you take the time to feel the “dough of life” and roll it out with patience and the vision of what it can turn out to be, the whole experience becomes less of a task and more of a treasured memory.

So, while I was putting the finishing touches on a batch of Christmas Stars to bring to the library, I realized that my girls were watching from a distance.  They understood that these, unlike cookies, were a special thing just for me and they didn’t want to interfere.  And I understood that they are storing the stars in their  Holiday Memory files.  I hope Grandma saw that, too.

Note to self:  make another batch of Stars.  Soon.  And invite my own little stars to dig their hands into the dough, too.

Wherever You Go, There You Are…

Remember seeing those corny t-shirts and bumper stickers – “Wherever I Go, There I Am!” in the eighties?  Whenever I saw them, or heard someone repeat the statement, I naturally gave the polite chuckle that was expected, but never considered it as any sort of deep wisdom.

I still don’t.  It’s still corny.  But, as life marches on, and I pay more attention to each moment, it’s pretty clear that there is a bit of wisdom in that bumper sticker.  Maybe it’s a reminder to just be present in the seemingly meaningless moments, but also to trust that you are where you’re supposed to be in each moment.  That’s not easy for a multi-tasker like myself and, judging by the rages exhibited in traffic, I’d say it’s not easy for most people.

I’m sure we’ve all experienced a bit of the revelation, after being frustrated at running late or taking a wrong turn, that the timing or the turn was actually fortuitous.  We arrive at our destination only to learn that if we’d left on time, we’d have surely been a part of that ten-car pileup or that if we’d not taken the wrong turn, we’d have hit a roadblock or, possibly, missed out on something beautiful we were meant to see.

My grandmother Josephine used to tell me about walking by a pond on her way to school, and how she loved to look at the lily pads that covered the pond.  The day she died, I was driving from my sister’s house, with my one year old daughter Josephine in the back seat, hoping to make it to see her one last time.  Being unfamiliar with the roads, I took a wrong turn.  While I was trying to figure out where I was and how to find my way back, I saw the sun shining down on a glorious lily pond, just filled with lily pads in full bloom.  It was simply breathtaking and I pulled my car to the side of the road to take a photo, thinking I could show my grandmother when I got to her bedside.

When I got back in the car, only then did I see the road sign that let me know where I was.  I was on the road named after my grandmother’s family.  This was HER road and, therefore, this was HER lily pond!  When I arrived at my grandparents’ house, my grandmother had just taken her last breath minutes before – likely as I was marveling at her lily pads.  It was in that moment that I knew I was never lost.  I was right where I was supposed to be at exactly that moment.

I’ve had a lifetime of these situations.  I think we all have.  We just don’t always take the time to process them.  Wherever I Go, There I Am.

Today, on my way home from work, I stopped at a grocery store that is not part of my routine.  As I pulled in to the parking lot, I didn’t even know why I was there.  I’d just been to the store the other day and couldn’t think of anything I needed.  But the people who live in my head told me to shut up and go inside.  So I did.  Still not sure why I was there, I picked up some ingredients for dinner and made my way to the checkout.

There was an older woman ahead of me as I placed my items on the belt.  In the seconds between finishing that transaction and my placing the items on the belt, the cashier must have turned her light off.  When she looked up and saw me, she was clearly annoyed.  I apologized for jumping in and offered to move to another lane.  She was gracious enough to say that wasn’t necessary and began ringing my order.

When it was time to pay, I looked down to grab my wallet from my purse, and saw a large pile of money at my feet.  There, hidden from view by the cashier and the bagboy, were ten and twenty dollar bills, lying in a sad pile by my shoes.  The older woman was still there, waiting for the bagboy to hand her the last of her groceries, so I called out to her “Ma’am!” but she didn’t hear me.  So I reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.  I startled her, I think, but when I pointed to the pile of money, her face registered absolute shock.

I picked up the money – easily two to three hundred dollars – and handed it to her and saw that she was beginning to cry.  She grabbed me for a hug and said that her son had just given her that money to buy her medicine.

So – did I need to go to the grocery store?  Did I need to buy the chicken and vegetables in my basket?  Did I need to slow that cashier down on her way to her break?  I guess I did.  Had I not been there at that time, in that lane, annoying that cashier, that woman would never have known her money was missing.  Someone surely would have seen it eventually, but not the person who needed it most.

Maybe those bumper sticker people had it right all along.  Maybe it’s not just a corny joke.  Maybe it’s a reminder to BE wherever you are.  It’s definitely a reminder to me to stop trying to argue with The People Who Live In My Head because they, more than anyone else, know that Wherever I Go, There I Am.

I Like To Shoot My Friends...

This summer, my family was on vacation in my husband’s hometown.  We were going to visit the friend that he made on the playground when they were in elementary school.  All these years later, they’re still friends.  Now we have kids that are the ages they were when they met.  But OUR kids hadn’t met each other yet. 

When we pulled into the driveway, his four year old twins yelled and attacked our nine and six year olds with rubber swords.  An instant friendship was forged and the four of them were buddies for the rest of our visit. 

A few weeks ago, we were walking the halls of our kids’ school on back to school open house night, on the way to meet the first grade teacher.  As we headed to the classroom, my daughter realized the little girl walking next to her was looking for the same teacher.  She reached out and put her arm around the other girl’s shoulder and said “walk with me!”  She made a friend before even making it to the classroom. 

Remember when it was that easy?  You could spot a kid and just declare “you’re my friend” and there was no question about it. 

We grow up and it’s not so easy.  Adults make acquaintances through work or clubs or maybe hobbies but those aren’t necessarily the people we’d choose to play with on our playground.  For moms, it’s even trickier.  Just because our kids are friends, that shouldn’t mean that we moms need to hang out, too.  Liking your kid doesn’t mean I have to like you. 

Several days ago, I was in a social setting with a woman who has some measure of fame and we met through less than perfect circumstances.  I spent the evening talking with her and smoothing things over and we ended up laughing about the bumps in the road.  I really liked her and joked that I thought we should be BFFs.  We chuckled, exchanged pleasantries and said our goodbyes like grown ups do.  But I wasn’t exactly joking.  I kind of meant it. 

We grown ups get the short end of the stick with these things.  There really ought to be an easier way for adults to break through all the etiquette and propriety that’s expected of us so we can grab a potential new friend around the shoulder and say “walk with me” or be able to wield a rubber sword and yell “raaaahr!”  In fact, that’s exactly what I think we should be able to do. 

When I think about the friends who have been in my life the longest, they got there in less than usual ways.  My oldest friend, going back to 5^th grade, entered my life through a shared giggle over drawings made by another kid in class.  Later, we bonded over a rubber lizard.  We still talk about that damn lizard, decades later.   

Another friend, who entered my life some time around 1985, got there through a shared appreciation of root beer.  I was working the counter at a hotdog joint in my Florida beach town, he was visiting with a pack of friends from Atlanta.  I commented on his newly bleached hair and the root beer and, later that night, recognized the hair cruising the strip along the beach.  We stayed in touch and when I decided to move to Atlanta, I knew that I already had a good friend here.  Life goes on, our kids play together when they can, and he’s mentoring my daughters through their newfound love of superheroes and comic books. 

When I was in radio, another friendship began when a voice put together a silly spot for my air shift.  When I laughed heartily, it was clear that we shared a slightly off-kilter sense of humor.  He later led me to my life in advertising and would often join me in a nerf gun war in my office.  Now, he plays poker with my husband and is a fixture in both of our lives. 

So, given my history with friendships, why do I keep trying to make new connections the grown up way?  You’ve been warned, world!  If I bean you in the forehead with a nerf dart, it means I like you.  If you shoot me right back, we should probably go have a beer or something because you’re my kind of people.  Come on, walk with me!

What Ever Happened To My Mother's Daughter?...

My oven is in pieces in the middle of the kitchen.  It’s been on a slow decline for some time and the part that will hopefully return it to health should be arriving any day now and I’ll be cookin’ with gas once again!  Meanwhile, however, I’ve been handicapped with an inability to make a simple meal for my family for an entire week.

Fortunately, I live in the heart of civilization, with grocery store delis, pizza joints and fast food around every turn.  We’re not starving, but I can’t help but wonder what the heck happened to my mother’s daughter?

My mom took us camping at every opportunity.  I watched her produce wonderful meals using campfire and aluminum foil.  Camp stoves provided cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  When hiking, she would point out plants that, if necessity warranted, could be eaten.  She taught us not only to survive but to thrive!

Over the years, she was met with challenges that made daily routines difficult, but she prevailed.  When we lived in a vacant motel, with no kitchen and very basic plumbing, we still ate well.  Electric popcorn poppers, coffee makers, toaster ovens and the old trusty camp stove kept us fed.  Dishes were washed in the bathtub, coolers of ice stored our food.  And we thrived. 

Storms and power outages bring those long-ago skills out of storage and she continues to conquer the obstacles.  I should be able to do it, too!  Shouldn’t I?

The fact is, I can.  Sometimes.  I can engineer my way around some obstacles.  I could cook outside on the gas grill.  I have a crockpot and a rice cooker and, like every good American family, a microwave but I’ve become too soft.  Too pampered.  It’s just too easy to look outside for someone else (a restaurant or pre-made meal) to solve my problems.

I know what I CAN do.  I just don’t want to.  And in that realization, I have to look around and wonder what the heck happened to my mother’s daughter?

My mother’s daughter should go to work, come home and make dinner, make it to everything that matters, repair clothes, bake something wonderful, impart some wisdom, and heal wounds.  I go to work, come home with takeout more often than not, make it to everything that matters, replace clothes, buy cookies, tell stale stories and hope the Barbie bandaids will cut it.

Maybe one day my kids will tell people about how their mom could save the day every time.  But I guess I better start shopping for a campstove, an electric griddle and some bigger bandaids if that’s ever going to happen.

Overdue Greeting Card...

You may have noticed something all over the internet the last few days:  black and white photos of dapper dads holding chubby-legged babies, memories of dads past, thanks and props to dads current.  Must be Father’s Day!

Usually, when I’m writing about my family, my mother and my grandparents get all the prime real estate.  Obviously, they were the guiding forces in my life.  My father wasn’t exactly present in my life as a father figure, so Father’s Day was just another Sunday.  That is not to say that I was without great male role models.  I had plenty.  None better than my grandfather, of course, but there were uncles, there were family friends and a whole lot of brothers who were illustrations of what Men should and could be.

With their examples in mind, I found my way to a man who became my partner in life and love, and a terrific father.  He learned these talents from his own father and I’m grateful to Ramon for raising the man he did.

By giving this praise to all of these other men, I don’t mean to diminish the man my father was.  He did the best he could with the tools he was given to work with and while he may have been largely absent, he was still a very good human being.

He was broken.  He was lost in a world that continued to let him down and he was saddled with the weight of his own disappointment in himself.  It’s hard to walk tall when you don’t believe in yourself or when you feel the need to carry the weight of shame rather than to to let it go and move forward.

I’m not re-writing history here.  He did a lot that was wrong.  He allowed weaknesses to take over his life, and he left a wife and kids with bruised hearts.  But I perhaps had an advantage over my older siblings in that I had no real memory of him as a regular household presence, so there was no sense of loss. 

To my mother’s credit, she never uttered a negative word about him (in the presence of her children, anyway) and told us stories about their time together that made him human.  More than an empty space.  She took him in during low points in his life.  She encouraged his sons to do the same.  She showed us that true love never dies.  It may not live in the same space, but it doesn’t disappear.  As a child, it was obvious to me that there was worth in that broken man.  And good or bad, that broken man was a part of me.

Over the years, I thought I should get to know him.  So I did.  And he didn’t make it easy.  I wasn’t looking for a Dad.  I was just interested in knowing the man.  The man who loved my mother, the man who created my family, and the man who just walked through life with the rest of us humans.  The more I learned about him, the more I learned about myself, about my brothers and sisters, and even about my mother.  He may have been flawed and broken, but he really was a very good man.

He left this world that weighed him down shortly after I got married.  When I said goodbye to him in the funeral home, I told him I’d look for him in my babies’ eyes.  And darnit, if he isn’t there.  I feel his presence and ask him for guidance often.  He’s finally ABLE to be there in ways that he just couldn’t when bound by body and earth and expectations.  And I see examples of him every day in things I do, things I say, things my brothers do and say.  In the Nature v/s Nurture argument, I think Nature wins this one, because most of it couldn’t have been learned firsthand from him.

So my father was flawed.  He was broken.  He wasn’t going to win any awards for the job he did.  But he was, first and foremost, a really decent human being.  For that, I think he deserves a day.

I leave you with the eulogy I wrote for his memorial service.  Happy Father’s Day, Vernell.  Wherever you are.

Quiet Greatness

Over the last few days, there have been two words echoing loudly in my head:  Quiet Greatness.  To me, Quiet Greatness is found in the kind deeds done with no expectations.  Lending a hand when you can – not because you want credit or praise – but because it’s the right thing to do.  That’s how my father, Vernell Albert, lived his life.

Some might say that he marched to the beat of his own drummer.  But I think that we all know that Vernell wasn’t going to let a drummer – or anyone else for that matter – tell him when and how to march.  He was stubborn.  He was opinionated.  And that’s a big part of why we loved him.  Political correctness was not going to sway him from his principles and convictions.  He lived his life by the Golden Rule, and he expected nothing less from anyone else.  That, to me, is Quiet Greatness.

He was a man who truly understood the meaning of the word “friendship”.  Though he rarely – if ever – said the words, I know that he loved each and every one of you.  When I look around this room, I see neighbors, co-workers, and fellow firefighters.  But most of all, I see a kind of extended family.  I truly believe that he knew how blessed he was to have all of you.  He was a man of few words, but I know that he did not take you for granted.  If he didn’t say “thank you”, or that he loved you, know that he did.

It’s very appropriate that we’re here in this firehouse today, because this was the center of his universe.  He was born to be a firefighter, and helping his community fed his soul.  He was so proud to have been a part of all this.

My father’s life story was the stuff legends are made of.  I’ve never heard of anyone else in the world that had been a Cowboy and a Mosquito Wrangler, a Millwright and a Nightclub Bouncer, a Coal Miner and a Bingo Caller, a Military Man, a Taxi Driver, and a Fire Chief – all in the span of one lifetime.  And somewhere in the midst of it all, he managed to create an amazing family and build friendships with some incredible people.

I now think that all of that experience was just on-the-job training for his next career move.  He’s just been promoted to Guardian Angel.  It’s a big job, but I know he can handle it.  He’ll be looking down on us, making sure we’re toeing the line.  And when a call for help goes out to his fancy new scanner, he’ll be there to put out the fire.  But there won’t be any more sirens or flashing lights.  There will only be Quiet Greatness.

Everything I Need To Know, I learned From Mad Magazine…

I frequently tell my kids that I don’t know everything, but I do know a little about a lot of things.  So many of these lessons come to me be accident.  Simply a byproduct of being entertained.  If I’ve read a book, listened to a person’s story, or seen a movie or tv show, I retain details about ideas that interest me.  I’ve learned cooking tips and gardening advice from light and fluffy novels, medical and scientific research from books about serial killers, history from banter with strangers.  All of it gets filed away for later access.

I tap into this data often.  Through it, I find that I’m able to keep up with most any conversation enough to follow along and learn more.

Recently, I was sitting with a group of people when discussion turned to Star Wars and Star Trek.    I kept up, but then I mentioned that I have never seen Star Wars, or any of the sequels or prequels.  I’ve never seen more than a couple of minutes of any episode of Star Trek.  I knew character names, personalities, and basic story lines for both.   The others in the group seemed stunned by my revelations:  I’d never seen them, but I knew a good bit about them.  I even knew enough to understand that Star Wars People and Star Trek People should not be categorized together and they don’t necessarily play well with one another.  How is that possible?

So I explained.  Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Mad Magazine.  I’m not kidding.  Parody is one of life’s greatest teachers!  I never need to watch The Godfather or Goodfellas thanks to Mad and, later, Cracked Magazines.  I don’t need to listen to entire presidential speeches because I have Saturday Night Live for that.

I know I’m not alone in this.  Just ask Comedy Central.  Over the last couple of years, polls have shown that a large portion of the population turns to Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert for news and current events rather than the actual real news programs.  I get it.  Not only do they research and know what they’re making jokes about, but they don’t take themselves seriously.  That’s really the key, I think.

I have little patience for anyone who takes themselves seriously.  Laughter is the fuel that keeps me moving through life.  Obstacles, speed bumps and forks in the road are usually pretty funny when seen in the rearview mirror.  And there is always great truth in comedy.

I’ll give you a minute to think about the fact that I just confessed to never having seen Star Wars, Star Trek, the Godfather or Goodfellas.  I’ve also never seen Titanic, but I’m pretty sure I know how it ends, and I know how to lean over a railing and pretend I’m flying, so what else do I need?

Alfred E. Newman said it best:  “What, me worry?”  How can I, when I’m too busy laughing?  Credit, of course to Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, and Lewis Black, but everything I need to know about life, I learned from Mad Magazine.

 

 

Everything Old Becomes New Again...

“Everything old becomes new again.”  I’ve heard that all of my life.  I’ve always equated it with trends:  fashion, music (or at least, musical influences), and hobbies or leisure activities.  In the early 80s, I wore saddle oxford shoes and appreciated anyone who could pull off a pompadour and a leather motorcycle jacket like Brian Setzer.  Today, my almost-9 year old daughter is wearing the neon pink and yellow of my youth and, if the clothing racks in the department stores are any gauge, the Flashdance look and Jelly shoes are back.

I guess there’s something to that adage after all.  But maybe there’s more to it than style.  Old people enter our lives in new ways, too.  That’s always been a pattern in my life, anyway.  Years pass and, suddenly, someone who has been absent from my mind appears again and we pick up where we left off.  I love that.

Recently, some of the reconnections have been facilitated by social media.  Several years ago, I was in San Francisco, visiting a friend.  We went out on the town and were joined by one of her friends.  As we chatted, I learned that he had begun working at some new company called Facebook.  I had never heard of it but, encouraged by my friend and my new acquaintances, I signed up when I got home.  It looked interesting but I didn’t know if it was anything I really needed.  Over time, more and more of my friends signed up, and it became a great way to reach across the miles and converse with people I know and love.  All these years later, it’s been a way to share my life with family and with friends without much effort. 

I never expected to stumble upon people who were significant in my childhood – people who I always thought were forever going to reside in my memory but never again in my life.  Yet there they were.   There was Carlos, who taught me to fry plantains and to sit in the lotus position when I was six years old.  Uncle Charlie, who taught me to see the tiny elements in nature that busy people often overlook.  JoAnn, who kissed booboos and made sure I took a bath or ate something more than mac and cheese when my big brothers maybe forgot to ask.  Earl, who made me laugh with bad puns while making me cry with beautiful fiddle playing.  They were all there, right inside my computer screen.

Along with them, I found my first/oldest friend, Amy.  I always knew where she was, but now I could “see” her.  She led me to our old partner in crime (as much as one can have in 5^th grade), Ann.  Through them, an assortment of once-upon-a-time middle school friends were visible to me.  Then along came Denise, who was, no question, a high school partner in crime.  She took me on adventures, encouraged me to reach outside the familiar, and made me see myself from a different perspective.  We went our separate ways, as happens when growing up, but I often thought about her, wondered how/where she was and hoped she was happy.  Voila!  There she was in my computer screen and back in my life.  We’ve been face-to-face, we’ve hugged and laughed and it’s a wonderful thing.

Now, those reconnections are great.  I cherish them.  But they didn’t really happen naturally.  One or the other of us went looking and used technology to “stumble” upon an old friend.  Sometimes, though, what’s old becomes new in the most amazing ways.

I’ve often talked about my family’s penchant for taking in strays.  Stray people, that is.  There have been more teenage boys and young men living on my couch than I could ever possibly count because my mother would not turn one away.  So when we lived deep in the woods of Pennsylvania and my brother Rick was becoming heavily entrenched in the Bluegrass Music scene, it was not unusual to go to bed on Friday night and wake up Saturday morning to some guy named Roscoe playing the banjo on the couch where he slept.  One of these rambling pickers was named James.  I’m not sure why he was at our house.  As I recall, he may have been running from someone and didn’t want to be found.  What I do remember is that he was talkative, he was funny, and he was smitten with my sister Diane, who he said “looked just like Sally Field”.  He said this often, so I haven’t forgotten.  That was a long, long, long time ago.  Somewhere along the line, I heard that he’d attained some measure of success in Bluegrass but I never gave him much thought.

A couple of years ago, here in Georgia, my mother and I were at a bluegrass festival.  We didn’t know – or care – who was playing, we just went.  And there, on the stage, the headliner for the day, was James.  After his set, we approached, sure he wouldn’t remember us at all, and were met with giant hugs.  He DID remember.  In detail.  He asked about all of us by name, he thanked my mother for her kindness all those years ago, and he made it clear that we were etched on his heart, just as he was on ours. 

It’s a teeny, tiny little world and these connections matter.  Maybe we’ll never see him again.  Probably, we’ll never see him again.  But that moment mattered and it opened a file drawer in my mind that had been long stored away.  I kind of think that’s WHY we have these moments – to remind us who we are, where we’ve been, and how we got here.

When just one memory file is touched, floodgates open for me.  I can suddenly look at the road behind me and not just see where I’ve been, but every single brick or stone that got me to this point.

This year, I started a brand new job that I love.  It’s not a job I ever imagined or even knew as a possibility but looking back on the road behind me, it’s clear how I got here and I’m grateful for every step.

This week has been challenging with seemingly simple tasks complicated by unexpected roadblocks.  Every time I became frustrated enough to need a break, I was met with some odd little flashback to my teen years in the 80s.  A radio personality talked about Rick Springfield.  I saw a man walking down the sidewalk, wearing parachute pants (!!!) and carrying a huge 80s-style boombox on his shoulder.  Of course, these things unlocked the file drawer of that time and place and, suddenly, EVERY thing reminded me of that time.

Thursday morning, there was a staff celebration at the library where I work.  I was surrounded by people having a great time.  And the majority of the music playing in the room was straight out of my 80s teens.  Cyndi Lauper wanted to have fun and Kenny Loggins wanted to get footloose.  There was an organized dance, complete with the library costume character cat.

Around me, there was talk about the costume and how hot it was for the person inside.  *Spring!  File Drawer!*  Circa 1986, when I worked at an amusement park in my little beach town in Florida, I pleaded with management until I was permitted to be one of the park’s costumed characters.  Those costumes didn’t come equipped with cooling fans then, so all we could do was load up with ice packs and make our rounds in 20 minutes or less.  So I made a joke.  Something along the lines of “Back in my day, we were tougher!”, which prompted a conversation about my experience.  Casual chit chat, really, and then the other person pointed at the guy standing next to me and said “Jonathan’s from Panama City, I think.”

At this point of my story, I should tell you that on my first day at this job, I was introduced to Jonathan. He said he thought I looked familiar.  I thought he looked familiar, too, but my mind reasoned that he looked very similar to a local musician I know and that must be why he looked familiar.  There was no logical reason why our paths would have crossed.  So, for the past four months, we pass each other in the halls, talk about work-related things, and are seated just two offices away from one another, strangers who work together.

So now, because I’m nosy, I ask Jonathan if he went to Bay High School.  He did.  I say I bet we know some of the same people.  He asks when I worked at the park.  I tell him ’85 and ’86.  He says our paths probably crossed.  If anyone was standing back and watching us, they surely saw the gears in our heads turning and light of revelation in our eyes when we suddenly realized: “I remember you!” and the details began to just pour out of that long-closed file drawer.

The mind can do crazy things with these files.  This guy wasn’t just an acquaintance.  I worked with him every day for an entire summer.  I talked with him daily – about park guests, about music, about his plans at the end of the summer, the usual chatter typical of work friends.  We were kids, we travelled in packs. His friends, my friends and our mutual friends often ended up in the same places and the same parties.  He was smart, he was funny, I enjoyed talking to him and, after he and his BFF headed off to Georgia Tech in the fall, if he crossed my mind, it was just to hope they were both doing well.  Again, I was a kid.  Life marched on.  The file drawer shut.

Granted, more than 25 years had passed, but why didn’t the drawer open 4 months ago when he looked familiar?  I think the brain just couldn’t fathom a reason to make that connection.  There was no logical reason for a former hotel/radio/advertising/copywriter/tumbleweed professional to have any connection to a career librarian in suburban Georgia.  It didn’t compute.

Because, in my world, the brain is the last voice I tend to listen to, I have to wonder if all the recent 80s flashbacks weren’t sent to me by the People Who Live In My Head to remind me of a time and place where I really became the core person I am today.

Possibly, they are just suggesting that I need to go to the beach and squeak my toes in the sugar white sand of my “hometown”.  Either way, I’m enjoying the ride down Memory Lane and, just like my 1985 Sperry Topsiders are hip again, my Old Work Friend is now my New Work Friend. 

Everything old becomes new again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In A Roundabout Kind Of Way...

If you really stand back and watch, it’s pretty easy to get a read on a complete stranger just by the little things they do.  If they hold a door, if they make eye contact with a smile, or if they yell at cashiers or cut in line, these are all clues about how a person generally behaves in life.  This is not some huge revelation.  I think we all form snap opinions as we go through our days. 

My children didn’t learn the word “jerk” from Sesame Street.  They learned it from the back seat of my car.  My opinions take shape every time I get behind the wheel.  They hear me say “Who do you think you are?!?” to drivers who so obviously deem themselves more important than traffic rules or right of way.  They hear me grumble when another driver is rude.  They pay attention to these things so I really hope that they also notice when I let people in front of me, when I wave thanks after a courtesy is extended and they see that I am a patient and mindful person – or at least that I always try to be.

I know, I know, we’re all taught that we’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover.  Honestly,  I don’t think I do.  I don’t make assumptions about people by their tattoos and piercings (or lack thereof), by their clothes, or anything regarding their appearance.  That’s no way to know what’s inside.  But as soon as those books start walking around and interacting with one another, you’d better believe I’m judging the pages inside.  Likewise, I don’t care what kind of car a person drives.  I absolutely care how they drive it and I think this simple act is a near-perfect gauge of a person’s core self.

In my family’s hometown, when you drive into the town square, you are met with a giant fountain in the middle of the street.  Drivers know that whether they want to go straight, turn left, turn right or go back, they have to go around the fountain.  This is not an unusual feature of a small town and you see them all over the world.  Some people call it a Roundabout.  Some call it a Traffic Circle. 

Perhaps because of their small town reputation, some people think of Roundabouts as old fashioned but they’re making a comeback all over America.  They’re popping up in my town, in neighboring towns, and in engineering plans for future locations.  The idea is really very simple:  keep people moving, with as little backup as possible.  When they put one at an intersection that I face daily, I was very pleased but, as it turns out, I was also naïve.  I overestimated the ease with which the other drivers would adapt to the change.

Whether you call it a Roundabout, a Traffic Circle, a Rotary, or even a Euro-Loop, roughly the same rules apply.  Approach the circle at low speed, yield to traffic already in the circle and keep moving.  Easy, right?  Maybe not.  I’ve come to realize that, just as a person’s small behaviors give clues to their core personality, the way they approach a Traffic Circle is a pretty good indicator about how they approach life as a whole.

There are those who stop completely.  And wait and wait and wait until someone either waves them ahead or there are no other cars in the circle.  There are those who hesitate and then push their way ahead when it’s not their turn.  There are those who slowly creep up with a death grip on the steering wheel, fear on their face and their eyes on the rearview mirror.  Of course, there are always those who never bother to slow or to pay attention to the other guy who had the right of way and have no awareness that their action caused another to have to put on the brakes and no clue about the ripple effects in the interrupted flow.  Then there are those who approach with confidence, believe that they’re making the right move, and trust that others will, too.

That last driver is the one I strive to be.  I try to approach with awareness of timing, with some instinct about what the other guy is about to do and with my eyes on the road ahead of me, not behind me.

That’s my plan for life in general.  I may not always know what’s on the other side of the circle, but I know that when it’s time to move, it’s best to keep my eyes on my surroundings, to proceed with equal parts confidence and caution, to trust that the other guys will do the right thing, and there’s no need to look in the rearview mirror.  What I'm trying to say, in a roundabout kind of way, is that I’m just enjoying the drive.