comfort zone

Never forget

Humankind-Be-Both-Button-(0127)Yesterday I left my family’s Thanksgiving festivities feeling full, not only of food, but also–and especially–of love and warmth and goodwill. Compared to most of the world, I have a lot. My modest house might need a good cleaning, but it keeps me safe from the elements and has more than enough room for my kids, my dog and me. I live on a budget like everyone else, but my family has never lacked food or clothing or health care. I’ve gotten to see much of the world, Most importantly, I have a big, quirky, loving family with open hearts.

All those things were in my psyche, if not my consciousness, yesterday when I saw a woman standing on a corner not two blocks from the feast I had just left, tapping her wrist questioningly in the universal symbol of “What time is it?” I slowed to a stop, rolled down the passenger window, and leaned across my daughter to tell the woman it was close to 5pm.

She needed a ride to the next bus stop, she said. She wanted to take the city bus downtown to the Greyhound station, where she would catch a ride to Wisconsin and her grandmother’s funeral. She was sad and she needed help.

As my so-called street smarts kicked in and an invisible voice told me “Drive away, Tammy, this is a bad idea,” I heard myself telling my son to make room for the woman in the back seat. I’ll spare you the details, but the ride to the bus stop turned into tears and a donation of $40 for the ticket. By the time I let the woman out of the car to make her way to Greyhound, I felt more than a little uneasy and wondered if I had been the one who had just been taken for a ride. I’m doubtful that the woman actually took that bus trip.

I had helped someone in need, but I felt bad. It bothered me all night long and into today, until I recounted the scenario to my brother.

My big-hearted bro had no words for me but my own. He reminded me that over the past couple of weeks, as I’ve taken offense to the knee jerk reaction of many to recent acts of terrorism, I’ve staunchly supported continuing to help Syrian refugees. All refugees, really. I rarely get into political discussions, but this one is more human than political to me. My deep-seated belief is this:

We can’t sacrifice our humanity for the sake of our existence.

We have to keep helping people, even when there may be danger involved, simply because it is the right thing to do. It sickens me when others use a cry of Never forget! in response to acts of violence or terrorism, not to make the world a better place, but to justify their own prejudices.

And yet I still felt silly for having tried to help that woman. I wondered if I had put my children in danger, if she was really who she said she was, where that money was really going to be spent.

With a gentle nudge, my brother told me, “Anything we do that opens our hearts is not a wasted effort. You cannot control what happens in someone else’s heart, only that you yourself were kind. Why should you ever feel ashamed or foolish for having human empathy and caring for the suffering of others?”

Then I remembered something I had posted on my Facebook page just last week.

To the people who cite our nation’s hungry and homeless population as a reason to close our borders, please tell me what YOU’RE doing to help the people you call “ours.” If you’re just spouting statistics that you found on the internet from the comfort of your warm house with a full belly, I’m not listening.

And if you want to do something about it but don’t know how to help, contact Donnie/Kelly Foster (MISFITS), Street Reach for the Homeless, Samaritan Homeless Clinic (Dayton), or just head downtown with blankets and food.

If you really care that much, let’s do something about it.

You know what? I DID something about it. I don’t know how it turned out, but that’s not mine to judge. I walked my talk, and today I feel good about that. This year, more than anything, I’m thankful for a heart that sometimes has to guide my mind when I try to think too much, and for a brother who keeps me pointed in the right direction.

The next time you hear the words Never forget! be sure that what you’re remembering is how to be a better person and how NOT to let the actions of a few justify anger and hatred, no matter how scared you are.

Never forget that preserving our existence is not worth the sacrifice of our humanity.

Youthful ideals

IMG_6233A thought struck me early this morning, and I haven’t been able to let it go. As a rule (there are always exceptions), people’s aspirations tend to diminish with age, and I don’t think it’s because they’ve accomplished everything on their list. Seriously, if you’re over 40, I’ll bet you’ve at least once rolled your eyes or chuckled to yourself when you heard some college student talk about some grandiose idea that would change the world.

I remember when I used to be like that, you think to yourself. Ah, to be young and idealistic again.

But WHY? Why, why, why do we let ourselves get so jaded and “realistic” that we give up reaching for the impossible? I guarantee you that nothing has been invented, written, changed, or accomplished by someone who thought oh, that’ll never happen.

Before I go on, let me make one thing clear. I am the guiltiest of the guilty. At 40-something, I often think my life is practically over. I catch myself thinking that my latest, greatest hope now is to prepare my kids to do great things. That’s just BS.

So anyway, here’s how I see our aspirations progressing over time:

First, we think of our lives in terms of “I want to be a/an…” [astronaut, teacher, scientist, basketball star]

Then we progress to “I want to be…” [happy, successful, rich, fulfilled, content]

Eventually we change it to “I want to…” [travel, retire, lose weight, have kids]

Finally, we finish with “I want…” [a new car, a lake house, more time]

Straight up, we settle. We give up our dreams in favor of comfort. If our old dream doesn’t work out, our new dream becomes just a little bit less. We make it something we think we can accomplish instead of aiming for what lies beyond our reach. I have a secret to tell you, chickadees.

Nothing really important ever got done that way.

And if you think this post is for you, great. I hope it inspires and recharges you. But truth be told, it’s for the girl who used to shelve books in the junior high library during her study hall. The girl who once upon a time put away an armload of biographies and thought to herself, I want to do something important someday. I want to be the kind of person who is in a biography. It’s for the girl who grew up and forgot that. It’s for me.

 

Kick in the pants

muffin-topOver the past year, I’ve gotten away from my running routine and let my eating habits erode. You can guess what that’s done to my shape; the wardrobe additions I’ve made in the past months look as if they belong in someone else’s closet if you compare the new size tags to the old.

I know all this academically, of course, but I’ve gotten pretty darned comfortable in my new jeans. It’s easy to ignore the obvious when you accommodate by updating your accoutrements.

I muddled along happily in self-imposed oblivion until late last week I pulled on an old pair of jeans. Oomph. They were so tight I could barely breathe. I thought I had been doing better–time for a reality check.

Guess I’d better get back to work on the old self.

Of course, those jeans got me thinking. It’s so easy to measure ourselves by our current circumstances rather than the actual standard. We compare our work to what others around us are doing  and think it’s good enough when the result is better than theirs–but we forget to look at our job goals or performance measures. We look at our kids and think they’re great because they’re not flunking out, pregnant, or high–but we forget that we are also responsible for their character. And yes, we look at our physical being and consider ourselves ahead of the game because we have clothes that fit and feel fine–but we ignore the long-term health consequences our actions (or inaction) may be inviting.

Simply put, we get comfortable where we are.

We need to check our status against our goals, not our surroundings.I don’t know about you, but sometimes I need a kick in the pants to get out of my comfort zone.

Cash cab

IMG_5768My little miss is heading to Germany for a month this summer. She’s super excited to stay with family friends who will “treat her like a person, not a kid.” And she wants to do it all by herself; Momma has been instructed not to fly over with her. This kiddo has something to prove: her independence.

She reminds me a lot of me, but better. Way better.

I hope so. Little Miss’s upcoming trip brings back memories of my own trips; in particular I’ve been thinking of my arrival for my second stint in Germania. I was 19 years old, and ready to take on the world–or so I thought.

After I landed at the Stuttgart airport, I needed to make my way to Tübingen, a town about 20 miles to the south where I would spend my junior year in college. That should have been a piece of cake. Airport-bus-train-destination. I had read and re-read every piece of information I had gotten from both colleges–my American one and its German partner–and even though there was no internet back then, they had very thoroughly laid out all the steps on volumes of paper.

But I froze. In spite of five years of German classes and a summer exchange program a few years earlier, my exhausted, jet-lagged self was afraid to open her mouth and ask to be pointed in the right direction. I was afraid to look like another American ingenue. Add to that my Midwestern lack of exposure to public transportation, and I felt utterly overwhelmed. So with a pocket full of the D-Marks I had already exchanged at home, I did the only thing that made sense to my addled brain: I hailed a cab.

Yep, I hailed a cab. To take me to a town about a half-hour’s drive away. A cab that had little chance of scoring a return fare–after all, who would be so stupid as to take a cab when all those beautiful, efficient trains were regularly rushing back and forth between the two cities? As you might imagine, I paid a pretty penny for that cab ride, close to $100 in 1989 money.

I laugh about it now, but you know what? I don’t think it was all bad. Sure, it was expensive, and people–especially my German friends–have laughed about it for years. But the thing is, I got it done. I didn’t know what to do and I still found a way to get it done. It may not have been the cheapest or the most efficient way, but I proved I could take care of myself.

Of course, I learned a couple of lessons along the way. Besides the obvious do-what-you-gotta-do exercise, there’s this: sometimes you just have to put yourself out there. You might get where you want to go without asking questions, but chances are, it’ll cost you. By asking for help along the way, not only will you move toward your goal, but you’ll also learn what you need to get you there the next time.

So, Little Miss, when you get to the other side of the pond, do what you gotta do to find your way. I just hope it costs less than cab fare.

Bully for you

Mary RaberOne of my first kindergarten memories doesn’t have anything to do with school at all. It’s the walk home that vividly sticks with me. I didn’t live far from school, and I routinely walked home with the rest of the kids who lived in nearby. We weren’t exactly friends, just fellow travelers by circumstance, and after about a block or two, the group would start to disperse.

If you’d think nothing would happen in that short distance, you’d be wrong. We had barely taken a step off school property one day when the heckling began. The focal point was a kid whose only transgression was being overweight. The kids–even the big kids, third graders–called him names, and the more upset he got, the more they heckled him.

The kid began to separate himself from the crowd. In my head, it looked (and still looks) like a pint-sized mob scene. Pack of kids in the back, lone kid in the front trying hard not to flinch at the word daggers hitting him from behind, moving toward home as fast as his legs could carry him.

When the kid neared his house (or maybe it was just the corner where he would turn and the others would continue straight ahead), he turned around and yelled the worst insult his five-year-old self could conjure: “YOU F***ERS!” before he ran inside to safety.

Bullies. Jerks. Such cruel kids.

I was part of that group.

I’d like to say that I didn’t do any name calling–I don’t think I did, but maybe that’s just my memory smoothing things over. I was uncomfortable, that’s for sure. I remember going home and talking to my mom about what had happened, ashamed of the taunting and bewildered that lightning hadn’t struck the kid for saying that worst-of-all word.

Regardless, I was still part of that group.

I didn’t stick up for that kid. I didn’t separate myself to walk with him. I didn’t offer comfort. I didn’t leave. I didn’t have to say a word to be complicit, and to this day, I’m ashamed of myself.

I had to look at that kid in class every day; our last names started with the same letter, so we never sat very far apart. And though I was wracked with guilt and could barely make eye contact, I never apologized. Until we graduated from high school, I never apologized, although every time I saw that kid I would think about the kindergarten incident.

Eventually, time and distance put it out of my mind, but when a friend recounted a bullying scenario in which her young daughter was involved, that long-ago walk home came screaming back into my head. I shared it with her, and she suggested that I apologize to him. So I’m going to, through this blog.

And I’m going to use it to remind my kids, myself, and anyone who will listen that sometimes a person communicates more by where she chooses to stand than by the words she uses–or doesn’t use. Get out of the crowd and stand for what’s right, friends. The concept of “safety in numbers” doesn’t apply to your soul.

So, RH, I admire you for standing up for yourself that day. I wish I would have joined you. I’m sorry.

Milestones

Mijlpaal_Wateringese_VeldLast week in my Snowshoes post, I pondered the concept of unearned intimacy, that is, when we race toward a relationship destination without marking the usual milestones. Of course, my mind has been whirling ever since as tried to label those milestones.

I’m pretty sure they must be different for everyone, and probably even for each relationship, too. Some friendships are cemented by time; one day you wake up and realize that person has always been there for you–and your heart glows. Other friendships are instantly sewn together by an intangible connection; you just “get” each other–and your heart glows then, too.

No matter the nature of the relationship, I still believe in the milestones. You may not realize they’ve come and gone, but when you look back, I’d bet you can find them.

A heartbreak.

A triumph.

Rejection.

A 2am (or 2pm) meltdown in your kitchen.

The joy of reaching a goal.

An awkward moment.

Looking at the person’s parents or siblings or kids and seeing the past, present, and future.

The moment you felt safe sharing your biggest hopes or your deepest fears.

The time you let your guard down and realized it was okay.

Not having to fill the space between you with words or deeds.

When the silences aren’t awkward.

Knowing when to come and when to stay away.

There’s no specific formula for earning intimacy and you can’t force the milestones. You have to let them come in their own time–and here’s the hard part–accept it when they don’t.

When I started writing this post, I intended to make a list of specific milestone moments. I thought I’d ask you for yours and figured they’d line up, at least in broad strokes. As I worked my way through, I realized I couldn’t. My milestones are mine, and yours are yours. Some relationships require miles of milestones, while others need very few.

So I’ll still ask the question: what are your milestones?

But you don’t need to tell me the answer.

Food fancies

IMG_5693I fancy myself to be a foodie. I like dishes that awaken my palate, juxtapose flavors, surprise my senses. Buttermilk basil sorbet. Brussels sprouts tossed in homemade pomegranate molasses. Duck meat loaf. Stinky cheeses. Anything with arugula. Latte art.

There’s not much I won’t try–unless it features goat cheese or a nasty orange vegetable–and in fact, I relish any chance to tickle my taste buds. I’ve tasted a lot of dishes, and I know my food.

Or so I thought.

Last week, to our surprise and delight, my brother and I stumbled across a multiethnic grocery store. We marveled over the unusual vegetables (would you believe that it was the first time I had ever seen a chickpea in its natural hull?) and ogled new species of fish. We piled our arms full of assorted Japanese mochi. We admired the rows of live frogs, sitting at attention like Kelly green soldiers waiting to meet their fate. We laughed at buckets of pig snouts.

The deeper we got into the store, the more items we found that we didn’t recognize. Puck cream. Freekeh. Basil seed drinks. Black silkie chickens, frozen whole and feathered.image2 We even found things we hadn’t considered food. Seagull meat. Beef blood. Beef bile. Goat heads.

We had a ball poking around; the colors and smells and packaging–and the items themselves–were fascinating. They were also humbling.

I may think I know a thing or two about food, but outside my comfort zone, I don’t know jack squat.

Twenty aisles in a Florida grocery store taught me that I still have a lot to learn. Even when I take pains to expand my horizons, the world around me stretches far beyond my field of sight. How arrogant of me to think I could master any subject.

 

Snowshoes

SONY DSCA friend and I have been trying to figure out this new world order. You know, the one where we enter into interactions, relationships even, and suddenly we find ourselves wondering how we got so far down a path without really knowing the other person. It sort of feels like walking on snow that has frozen into a crusty shell; it’s solid enough that you can walk on top of it for a while, but now and then, the lack of substance underneath makes you fall through.

I have a few friendships that feel like that: solid on top, powdery underneath.

My (real) friend tells me she has some, too. We both think we’ve gotten there by a process she calls skipping steps. That is, with our snow friends, we somehow jump past the usual milestones of friendship and just start going on vacation together, metaphorically speaking. We haven’t played the getting-to-know-you game that should take weeks and months, not hours and days, or worse yet, a spin around the internet. We become besties before we really “get” each other.

I recently came across another term that describes it even better: unearned intimacy.

Perfect-o.

Unearned intimacy can come about in lots of different ways, I think, but here are three I’ve identified in my life. The first is far and away the biggest culprit.

  1. Social media. I love, love, love the interwebs. I’m a serious Twitter junkie and I interact with Facebook friends I haven’t seen in real life since 1987. But a 140-character peek into someone’s life–posted for public consumption nonetheless–does not qualify me as a real friend. I’m not knocking the medium, but seriously, how often have I (or you) assumed I “know” someone by what s/he posts? If we met up in real life, would we be able to take a long car ride together? Would the silences be awkward? Would I be able to doze off without guilt? Could I order for her at a drive through while she takes a potty break? That’s intimacy, not knowing which song lyrics she quotes regularly or that she loves her dog and hates school drop-offs.
  2. Past lives. I may have known someone a long time ago, but even if she was my BFF in high school, I probably don’t know much about the years and events that have shaped her life between then and when we reconnected. It’s hard to pick up where you left off; you’ve got a lot of ground to cover before you both fall into the Circle of Trust again.
  3. Friends of friends. You may feel as if you know someone because you’ve vicariously experienced her life through your current bestie, but that doesn’t really qualify you when you actually meet. Even if you experience a mutual affinity, you still have to build your own foundation.

Sometimes we jump into an intimacy we haven’t earned, and when we do, it’s hard to back up. But if we really want a friendship to work, we have to. Go out for a cup of coffee. Chat about life. Check for chemistry. Ask questions. Don’t assume. Retrace the steps you’ve skipped.

Retracing is like buying snowshoes; it’ll keep you from falling through the crusty part.

Greatness

IMG_1448It’s no big secret that I harbor a dream of writing a book. It’s also no big secret that I hate–I mean really hate–to fail.

I’m no dummy, but it took until today, more than four decades into my life to see that I’ve let the intertwining of those two concepts determine my current position on the matter: inactivity.

As I finished a book I had been reading, a thought popped into my head. I want to be a great writer.

That was no revelation, but the countering voice that followed it was: Sure you do, but on the first try.

Well, that’s enough to knock a girl on her butt.

To seal the deal, I recalled an interview I recently did with Sinbad, the comedian. He’s tried a lot of stuff: basketball, the military, comedy, acting, music. He’s not afraid to take a chance on something new because he knows he doesn’t have to get it right the first time. He told me, “People who are great didn’t start great.”

He remembers a piece of advice his dad gave him years ago. If you don’t mind being the worst person for a period of time, you can be the greatest.

Translation: nobody starts out great, and failure is the best teacher.

Those are humbling words for a perfectionist like me.

I finally started writing that book awhile ago, but it seems to have stalled out after a couple of chapters. Oh, I have tons of excuses: my kids won’t let me use the computer, no time, too tired, I’ll get to it when I have a good chunk of uninterrupted time, etc. I think the real reason, though, is this:

I want to be a great __________ (on the first try).

What’s hard for me to accept is that it’s the inevitable failure that will make it–or the next one–great. The criticism I receive from others. The parts that just don’t work. Phraseology that doesn’t connect with the audience. A dumb plot. Whatever.

Hearing that someone doesn’t like it and why will help me be a better writer–as long as I’m listening, of course.

And now another thought pops into my head. As my kids have lamented less-than-perfect scores on tests over the years, I always tell them the same thing. After verifying that they’ve tried their best, I remind them that they are in school to learn. If they got everything right on the first try, neither they nor their teachers would know what they still needed to learn. In that sense, failure becomes a roadmap to success.

Almost no one is great on the first try, nor often on the second nor the third nor the fourth. We all have a lot left to learn, and we have to pass through the crud to get there. Ultimately, it’s the crud that makes us great.

People who are great didn’t start great.

P.S. Here’s my Sinbad article, if you’re interested in reading it: Keeping It Real.

Fireflies

fireflyFor a long time–well over a year, for those of you keeping track–I didn’t think I had anything to write about. I froze up.

Oh sure, I’d jot down tidbits of ideas (just like always), and later I’d try to flesh them out (just like always).

But I froze up.

I couldn’t make those ideas turn into anything, until eventually they stopped coming at all. No matter how many stops and starts and excuses I made, I couldn’t figure out why. And then it hit me.

I had started worrying about my audience.

Who would read it? Friends? Coworkers? What would they think? Would someone be offended? Would what I wrote be interpreted correctly? After scores of questions like that, the tiny seed of self-doubt we all carry somewhere deep inside began to grow, until finally it full-out blossomed.

Not only could I not make sense out of my jotted tidbits, but I also stopped being able to find new ones. While I used to pull them out of the air like fireflies, I stopped even lifting my hand.

All because I forgot that I was writing for me–not for you. And even though I said right here in this blog that I would keep writing even if not a single person reads my ramblings. And even though I’ve really, really missed this visceral part of me.

A few weeks ago, a blogger/author I follow added a page to her site called Make a Memory. There’s apparently a whole movement behind it, but what really stuck with me were the words, “Turn ‘I wish I had’ into ‘I’m glad I did.'”

So I finally started that book I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve only knocked out a couple of chapters, but it feels good. Really good. And guess what!

I started seeing fireflies again.

I’ve even caught a few.

So here I am–right back where I started, writing because it’s my outlet, because it makes me whole. As much as I love my readers and hope that one of my fireflies will light up your life in some way, I’m doing this for me.

So let me ask you this: is worrying about your audience keeping you from doing something? Maybe it’s time to go catch some fireflies.