Stepping Stones

How we change through the years and how our childhood affects our adulthood is fascinating to me. What we choose to build on or use as stepping stones to a better life and what we let slow us down and stop us can often be the same.

When I was very young, summers were for bare feet and by the time the first school bell rang after Labor Day weekend our little soles were thick and tough and even the scorching southern streets didn't faze us as we raced to vacant lots and remnants of farms that had yet to be razed and commercialized. We were in Houston and born at the tail end of the baby boom generation. "Space City" was a new nickname for the Bayou City and a steady influx of families from other cities and other states came to Houston so fathers could work for NASA, engineering firms and oil and gas companies. The city and the times were changing but our little piece of it, through the 1960s, was a bubble not yet popped by progress.

I remember my father staying home on Sunday mornings and making a big breakfast while we went to Mass. I remember wearing stiff petticoats, my mother licking her hand and flattening stray hairs on my head and I remember inwardly cringing when I did the very same thing, more than 20 years later, to my own daughter. I remember smelling bacon and syrup before we even opened the door on Sunday mornings. I don't recall if this happened every Sunday or that I remember it because it happened once and was so unusual. It's interesting how our memories work or don't work and what we choose to remember and what we choose to let go.

We felt insulated. We observed grown ups but didn't fully comprehend adult lives and how messy they often become. By the time we were almost teens we got it. We got how complicated life can be. We started to understand that other people's messy lives can spill over into ours and that big puddles of problems seep into and widen our own emotional cracks and fissures. We ceased play. Our hard little soles softened and our inner souls hardened. It would take some serious adult introspection, maybe some therapy, definitely an earnest search for inner peace and hundreds of heart to hearts with God and friends before some of us felt the cracks and fissures start to close and mend.

All this reflection was stirred this morning. You know those "25 Things About Me" posts that appear on social media sites? People spill their guts and tell their friends 25 personality traits or habits that make them tick. They intersperse a few comedic points so no one thinks they're whack jobs. I just read one, posted on a friend's page but not written by my friend, that made me cry the ugly cry. There was no comedy...just 25 heartbreaking comments written by a person with a sad heart. I've met enough abuse survivors to realize that her writing, even though she didn't acknowledge it, came from a very dark place.

I have always been an emotional sponge. I hate to see hurting people and animals. I catch the lizards and put them outside. I chase moths and crickets who stray inside and, with my bare hands, scoop them up and carry them to freedom. Last week, I had to mentally restrain myself from inviting the Apple store employee to come home with us after he said he was having a hard time meeting people in Los Angeles. I have to step back and not try and make it all better when one of my adult children is going through a crisis. When I was that little girl who ran barefoot through our big back yard on humid Houston nights I refused to catch lightning bugs and put them in jars. In 1967, a friend had a glittered and bejeweled cockroach on a little tiny chain, bought at a tacky traveling carnival kiosk. For a day she wore it pinned to her shirt. It crawled in circles around her blouse. I wasn't repulsed by the cockroach. I was repulsed that someone would act so inhumanely.

I'm not applying for sainthood. I confess that I sometimes say barbed words that pierce my loved ones' hearts. It's trite but true...you do hurt the ones you love. My saving grace is that I have learned to be quick with an apology and that wisdom, if you let it, really does grow with age. I realize that most barbed comments come from a place of insecurity. Confession complete.

Now the woman who posted the "25 Things" is sucked into my spongy brain and I'm afraid she will be there for awhile. I don't know her. I hope her friends who have read it will reach out. It's only recently that I chose to see some of my own stumbling blocks as stepping stones and I wish for her the same.

Thanksgiving

Grateful...

for ever so slowly becoming a glass half full kind of person and for peering into life's cup and seeing that yes, indeed,
there's good stuff just waiting to be sipped

for learning to live with an open heart
and for the people in my life who helped me pry it open
when I felt it was so much safer to keep it closed

for children who taught me to laugh more often and love unconditionally
and that anger should be fleeting and not lingering

for Thanksgiving aromas and a dinner feast-a roasting Turkey, stuffing, good gravy, mashed potatoes,
pies, pies, pies,
and that gooey Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup to make the very unhealthy,
but absolutely delicious, green bean casserole

for learning the difference between living to eat
and eating to live

for the rain, even on Thanksgiving Day, 
and for the blue sky after the pouring rain

for the ability to think for myself
and form my own opinions

for the technology that connects me to family
when we are apart
 
for the courage to hit the publish button and share my thoughts
and for the friends who read Holy Spoon...you are much cheaper than therapy.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Letter to My Grown Up Kids. Again.

 About a year ago I published my first Letter to my Grown Up Kids. Common sense, Golden Rules and life lessons get lost amid traffic, stress and working to up your bank balance to cover these new things called bills. Consider this your adult time out; a written reminder to slow it down, take a seat, and reset your emotional clocks.

I can't put the Star Wars or  Hello Kitty band aid on grown up problems but I can learn from my mistakes and pass that on to you.

I can't step in and make your life perfect. Life is perfect in its imperfection. It's the little things that throw us off and the big things that we think will derail us forever that, more often than not, end up being the life lessons that make up the good that we become.

So here it is, my latest motherly meddling, with the help of Mother Teresa and Ben Affleck.

Not everyone will like you.
Oh, I know we say we don't care but there's a pretty big part of us that does care and our vigorous protests are just feel good exercises for ourselves.  They may not come right out and say it but you'll notice a subtle jab, a snarky comment on a social networking site or an eye roll that you catch out of the corner of your eye. Move on. We're all human beings with likes and dislikes and there are times you'll make the top ten on another person's list of dislikes. It doesn't do any good to try and figure out what you did or why they feel the way they do. I wish I could add every wasted moment back in to my life that I spent worrying about what someone else thought of me.  Just move on...and when they cross your path be sure and give them a smile.

Learn to cook.
If you can put your heart and soul into an Italian chopped salad, whip up a good sauce, master the art of making the perfect steak and learn to roast a bird (or a Tofurkey for your Vegan friends) then I can promise you this-you'll find your kitchen full of family and friends whenever you want. And if you can bake a cake then you're steps ahead of me because, as you know, I'm the Queen of Store Bought Cookies.

Worry is counterproductive.
"Don't worry" is the pinnacle of "easier said than done" statements. When you can least imagine it, this is the exact time that you need to muster every ounce of positivity. Put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and make a list of the good in your life. Write until your positives outweigh your negatives. Be grateful for a job; a bed; two legs; silly videos of dancing babies, lip syncing monkeys and skateboarding dogs; and the love of family, friends and God. Keep on writing until you're filled with gratitude. There's no room for bad when you're filled with good.

Hug. A lot.
Human touch solves a multitude of problems.


 "No matter how much you change, you've still got to pay the price for the things you've done."  Ben Affleck in  The Town  Guilt has a long memory. Apologize. Make things right. None of us are perfect. Forgive yourself.

Be happy in the moment.

Set goals and make plans but find your happiness in the day to day and the moment to moment. It really is all about the journey and not the destination and it's something most people don't learn until it's too late. It takes practice but look for the happiness in every moment, in daily rituals and repetition, and in building small successes on your journey to your goal. And when spectacular moments happen don't forget to find a quiet place to sit and give thanks.

Lend a hand.
Don't ever let this big city steal your compassion. Continue to lend a hand when others are rushing by. Suspend judgement. I know you'd drive 2 blocks back to give money to a frail old woman whose entire world is spilling out of a Walgreens' shopping cart. That makes me prouder than any monetary success you will ever have. I know you can't save the world but you can make big changes in your little part of it. Lend a hand to all-the unfortunate, the fortunate, and those who will never know that it was you who lent a hand.

People notice less than you think. 
Even adults need to be reminded that word stumbles, unzipped zippers, pimples that pop up before special occasions, fashion flops and spinach in your teeth are nothing more than microscopic boo boos on your blessed lives. We may grow up but an insecure middle school student still lives within us.

No way, no how will you ever get ahead without working your butt off.
You may "luck" into opportunity but the success that feels best is hard earned. Enough said.

Silence fills you up.
 "We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...We need silence to be able to touch souls." I can't improve on Mother Teresa's quote.

Thank you for remembering that your parents are people, too.
My son turned 22 yesterday. At his birthday dinner he and my 19 year old daughter wisely wondered why we never celebrate the moms that did all that hard work in labor and delivery. Smart kids. Lucky parents.

New York Rambling

In 1979 I was standing in line with a throng of New Yorkers and tourists waiting for the doors of a Broadway theater to open. The show was The Wiz. A pigeon pooped on my head. I was disgusted and without tissues and finding a restroom and losing my place in line was out of the question. Of course, because I'm as self conscious as any other human, I turn to see if anyone else notices the vile grey waste that sits atop my head. Florence Henderson just happened to be standing behind me. A very bizarre moment but thankfully her handbag was overflowing with tissues.

Before the pigeon incident I hadn't really given much thought to Florence Henderson. Of course, I had seen every Brady Bunch episode more than once and, perhaps my line between TV and reality was a bit blurred, but when I was young I thought she was the world's most perfect mom.

Post-pigeon poop I found myself stopping to watch all of her interviews. It's funny that when you meet someone famous or sort of famous you instantly think you have a bond with them. Or that might just be me blurring another line.

Florence (can I call her Florence?) has a just released book called "Life Is Not A Stage" and, although I haven't read it yet, based on the excerpts, it is full of starkly honest remembrances. I hate a sugar glazed memoir. Her honesty and tell-it-like-it-is style gives insight into who she is...a real person with foibles, a sad childhood, affairs, a messy divorce and insecurity.

It's the honesty that I love. I don't like to sugar coat my reality and I become highly annoyed when others do. If I'm broke, I don't pretend to be rich. If I don't care for the company of another person I'll make the break swift and clean. If I need to vent I do it quickly and move on. If my past has been colorful I'm not going to whitewash it.

It's hard to believe that my Mrs. Brady encounter in New York City was over 30 years ago. I never feel as old as I am.

I just returned  from another visit to the metropolis. I know I give pause to New Yorkers because I smile at them on the street and I say please and thank you to curmudgeonly cab drivers. If I take up their time with a short fare I feel compelled to hand over a big tip. On the subway, when my purse strap hooked the handle of a baby stroller and pulled it two feet down the aisle I didn't just disengage the wayward strap, mutter and turn my back like any seasoned New Yorker would. I profusely and way too loudly apologized for being so clumsy and then, not knowing when to just shut the hell up, proceeded to explain that "I just don't know why I'm so discombobulated today!" Yep. They stare at me. I'm not a country girl but for some reason that town brings out the bumpkin in me.

There are things that I appreciate about the city. I love the New Yorkers' total disregard for Don't Walk signs. I am amazed that so many people, with crazily diverse back stories, from cultures all over our world can coexist in a crowded, hemmed in space where you have to crane your neck to see the sky. They spend a good portion of each day enduring the stop/start/stop/start of mass transportation and being reminded over and over to stand clear of the closing doors. Repetition and crowds, day in, day out and New Yorkers seem to find their own little Zen place. I do notice an occasional smile from other people and I usually find the waiters spend a little extra time at my table. Even 7 out of 10 cabbies smile when I exit their taxi. Maybe they're looking for a little friendliness in a town that prides itself on being gruff. Or maybe I'm just a curiosity.

After 10 days of being jostled on crowded streets and in cramped trains it's great to get back home. Even after 23 years of marriage I look forward to seeing my husband whenever we've been apart...and we've been apart for a lot of our years together. For over 6 years he lived in Dallas while I lived in Los Angeles and it's only been in the last 12 months that we've been together again, under the same roof.

“Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.” George Eliot

I've always loved that poem and after just a few months of relearning the rhythm of our routine together I can read it aloud and feel the truth of the words. The living apart was difficult and we anticipated that life together again would also be difficult. But, it was surprisingly easy. It helps that we share the same values and the same religious beliefs and that we made an effort to make friends that we both shared once he moved to Los Angeles.

So, this morning I'm still on New York time. I'm sipping my coffee, watching the sun fill the California sky and giving thanks for my blessings over the years. I'm thankful for crazy real life scenarios and the kindness of a TV mom, thankful for honest and forthright people and thankful for trips that shock me out of my comfort zone. And I'm always thankful to get back home.

Letting Go of the Status Quo...Post 9/11 Changes in My Own Life

Late Sunday afternoon I was settled on the couch, the hummingbird that had been adoring the patio hibiscus for a good part of the day had taken off in a frenzied search for sweeter flowers a few balconies over and I reluctantly decided to pick up the morning paper and give it a read. I don't have the stomach for news lately but out of years and years of habit I still pick up the paper and flip through the sections. It seems I do more skimming than detailed reading.

This Holy Spoon blog has sat idle for a few months as I have dealt with my own personal "to do" list. Doctor appointments and a couple of hospital visits have been written down, checked off, written down and checked off again. I've been anxious and bored and, for the times in between, I've been looking for things to do that would take my mind off of myself and focus it on helping others. I've always been a poetry nerd and Emily Dickinson's pretty words ran through my head. “If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, or cool one pain, or help one fainting robin up to his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”


I had also been looking for that "need to write" feeling that had slipped from my life in a sputtering gasp. When I opened the Sunday paper and saw the 9/11 anniversary coverage, I once again realized that my own problems are of little interest to me and even less interest to others and certainly nothing anyone would want to read about. I missed writing and I was beginning to wonder if one of my strongest beliefs would hold up:  If we are quiet, if we are patient and if we simply "let it be" our inner voice will speak, sometimes softly and sometimes, for stubborn souls like mine, loudly and repeatedly. On Sunday, it shouted and I listened.

September 11, 2001. Sheer horror. The searing images of the towers and bodies falling are forever branded in our memory. It changed all of us.

I have never been a political savant. I follow political events but I am not an activist for any party's cause. I believe it's damn near impossible, especially post 9/11, to find a politician not motivated by greed or a narcissistic need to use the tragedy for his or her own fame. My political views align a bit left of the middle. And, unlike what polls say is the norm, I did not fall further to the right as I aged or after 9/11. Rather, I abandoned party lines altogether and began to search for more truths, more spirituality and more humanity.

After 9/11, I watched some groups of Americans,  fueled by ignorance and stoked by anger, spew hatred  until it multiplied and reached far beyond the already irrational fear that all who wore a headscarf were members of Al-Qaeda. Hate stretched its ugly arms and embraced the notion that anyone who was different was worthy of scorn. “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt," said educator and theologian Frederick Buechner.


As the political voices in our country became louder and shriller I found my own political stance fall away entirely. I did not want to lend my voice to the already crowded landscape of right wing email forwarders, left wing conspiracy theorists, the Tea Bag nation or anyone trying to scream over a political adversary. Nor did I want to become a housebound recluse, fed up with the political rhetoric, who lived only for myself.

If I had to cull it down to the most significant change in my own life since 9/11, it is my refusal to accept the status quo in my little section of our vast universe. Life is so very, very short. I actively sought people of like mind and I found them in abundance.

Earlier this year I had written about my personal relationship with religion, the journey I had traveled and my desire to find a place of worship where equality and diversity reigned. It's not been an easy road. And for anyone who knows me well, I am not one who shouts my religious views to the world. I believe in a deeply personal relationship with my God and I am respectful of other people who practice their own religion in peace and who do not seek to elicit change through tyranny and violence. I believe the greater good comes from living a life that emphasizes charity and compassion and that good people abide in all religions.

Since February of this year we have been attending Hollywood United Methodist Church where the belief statement reads like this:

     We believe that God is LOVE, that all people are welcome and equal in the family of God, and that God is for us, not against us.
     We believe in Jesus Christ, the son of God, whose example of radical love and justice we seek to follow.
      We believe in the Holy Spirit as God’s constant presence in our lives and in our hearts, always with us to remind us of God’s acceptance and love for us, and empowering us to do God’s work.  
     We believe in the Bible, interpreted through the lenses of our reason, experience and tradition, and wherever it agrees with the fundamental truth of God’s love and grace as revealed by the life of Christ.
     We believe that God calls us to actively build the kingdom of God on earth, that being Christian requires us to work for social justice.
     We believe in peace over war.
We believe in grace over works.
     We believe in forgiveness over sin and judgment.
We believe in the power of prayer, that fear is not the only force at work in the world today.
     We believe in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and mending the broken.
     We believe that when you truly embrace diversity, you embrace God, that all are fully welcome regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, occupation, or station in life.
     We believe that it’s good to question.
We may not always believe exactly the same thing, but the people of Hollywood UMC believe in God and each other. 

It has been a remarkable experience in a diverse congregation that welcomes all. No offense to any of the other churches I have ever attended but I have never woken on a Sunday morning and wanted to take my place in the pews. In my post 9/11 life I have chosen to turn away from the hateful refrains of politicians and ill informed religious leaders and focus on peace and charity. As Mother Teresa tried to teach us, "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

I write this, not as an advertisement for the church, although we could certainly use more people in our congregation, but rather as a reminder to myself to keep tuning out the nasty rhetoric and keep working to make my little corner of the world a better place to live.

Dear Abby, Thank You Very Much

Dear Abby and Ann Landers raised me. I'd run barefoot to end of the long driveway to pick up the newspapers; the carrier threw the Houston Chronicle every morning and the Houston Post every evening. I'd run back to the house, settle down on the living room couch and flip to the "women's" section. I guarantee that everything that I have questioned or tackled in my life so far was first brought to my attention and then solved by Abby or Ann.

It's easy for us, as grown ups, to look back and see everything our parents did wrong. Do we keep a mental checklist of every error, every misstep and every harsh word? Some people do but I have to think that's pretty damn unhealthy.

My raising was odd and I was so precocious that, in addition to relying on Abby and Ann for life advice, I read parenting books when I was in middle school and made my own mental notes on what I perceived to be my parents' child rearing blunders. I can remember crawling into bed at night and thinking "well, they should have done _______ and that would have made me feel so much better but instead, they chose to do _____________ and that made me feel bad."

I spent way too many childhood hours trying to figure out the strained relationship between my mother and her mother. As I grew up, that sad history would be revealed in bits and pieces and I would, better late than never, realize that most parents do the best they can with the tools they are given by their own parents. Children learn what they live.

When my mother was a girl she wrote in a little red diary. She gave it to me many years ago. The binding is loose, the ink is faded and every page, front and back, is full of a young girl's cursive. I have never read it. It's not because I have no interest and it's not because I don't care. I just believe that reading it will stir up such a hurricane of emotions that I have avoided even picking it up. I can't even look at it without feeling sad for the little girl that she was and sad that her own childhood would leave scars on her heart that kept it from opening up to fully give and receive love.

When I started dating my husband I was awed that his family members said "I love you" to each other. We married and I vowed to not just love him but to say it often and, when we had children, to make sure that they were not strangers to those three words. I smile when I hear my grown kids talk to each other on the phone. They could have seen each other mere minutes ago but they never fail to hang up without saying "I love you." It may seem like a small thing but it's my proudest parenting accomplishment. I know some of you out there understand.

I didn't grow up hearing "I love you." It's not because my parents didn't love us. I know they did. They didn't say those important words because they didn't know how.

My mother parented in panic mode 24/7; she always believed the worst and was convinced that a tragedy was looming. She was a big believer in withholding affection if her terms were not met; her love was conditional. She also believed in material compensation; shopping was in lieu of talking. I had a closet full of clothes and an empty heart. Do I blame her? No. She did the best she could. Her parenting was a direct reflection of how she was raised.

My grandmother, had she ever seen a psychiatrist, would have been diagnosed as mentally ill. She was prone to temper tantrums, flashes of anger, pouting and scathing comments. She had, by the time she passed away, alienated every family member stretching all the way back to those born in the 1800s. Quite a feat. My mother drew the short straw in the "who will be my mom" tourney.

Her mother sent her away, at 8 years old, to live with family members on the other side of the country. They didn't see each other for over a year. My grandfather, as the story goes, finally put his foot down and, damn his wife's rage and erratic behavior, insisted that his oldest daughter was coming home. Home she went but I imagine it felt more like hell. Her little red diary is a journal of her time traveling alone by train to California, her time spent with an aunt and uncle she hardly knew, and her travels back to her parents and little sister.

"We learn what we live. We learn what we live. We learn what we live." It is a parenting mantra for me and it reminds me to try to be the best mom I can be. I know, through little things my mother said, that she gave me that diary so I would better understand who she was. That couldn't have been easy for her. My mother passed away almost two years ago. Every year I get closer to picking up the little red diary and making peace with her past.

Los Angeles Love Letter

I married my husband 22 years ago. Before we marched down the aisle we spent quite a bit of time talking about what our marriage would be like. Places we would consider living garnered a healthy amount of discussion time and the hot button in those conversations was debate about the places we would "never, ever, even if you dragged me kicking and screaming out of Texas" consider living. The top place on my list of never, ever locales? Earthquake prone Los Angeles. Where do I live now? Los Angeles. Do I love this congested, sprawling and crowded hot mess of a city? With my whole heart.

Winter in Los Angeles

On crisp winter days, when a storm has just passed, the view from the passenger car at the tip top of the Santa Monica Pier's Ferris wheel is a visual reminder of California's stamp on my heart. The winds have blown away the smog, the sky is the brightest blue, the mountains are iced with snow and the Pacific Ocean swells and lulls beneath the wood planks of the pier. The mountains rise unexpectedly behind the steel and glass of the Los Angeles skyline. Tall palms sway in the foreground. It's more like movie magic than the casual observer knows. The palm trees-as depicted in postcards sold in tourist traps and at drugstore check outs across this busy town-aren't really indigenous to our region. The truth is like a page out of a Hollywood set design manual. The thousands of trees were planted just prior to the 1932 Olympics so Los Angeles would look camera ready for world travelers arriving to celebrate the games. They remain as a testament to the ultimate set dressing in this land where make believe and reality collide.

How I ended up living in a place that I vowed I would never live is proof of how children can soften your heart, change your mind and set you free to live life in a way you never imagined-if you let them. Our before the wedding conversations also touched on how many kids we wanted. It was always 3 or 4 but after two difficult pregnancies my doctor, in true Texas fashion, told me I was a "bad breeder" and that I better look for another doctor if I ever found myself pregnant again. (This is the same doctor who summoned nurses to the exam room by blowing a duck call whistle. Each nurse had their own duck sound and as soon as he quacked they hustled to his side.) He was laughing when he slammed my child bearing abilities, but he wasn't kidding. We stopped at a boy and a girl. My daughter wanted to be an actress. Simply put, it's all she ever wanted to do, she was good at it, and I found myself putting aside my fear of earthquakes, packing up the SUV and heading to Los Angeles for the adventure of my life. That was seven years ago. It took me a year to stop worrying about the ground rumbling beneath my feet and I still have anxiety attacks over the cost of living here. But it only took me a few weeks to fall in love with the city itself.

Griffith Park

 On lazy afternoons we drive through the winding roads of Griffith Park and end up at the tiny Trails Cafe for a huge slice of apple pie and their lavender vanilla cookie. A wealthy scoundrel, Col. Griffith J. Griffith, donated the land for this city park in 1896. At just over 4000 acres, it's an oasis and I'm blessed to live 5 minutes from our rugged version of Central Park. Col. Griffith was a wealthy business man who did a little prison time for shooting his wife. She lived. He apparently loved Los Angeles more than his woman.

I've met people who stay in their burbs and along their comfortable routes. They're content to travel a well worn path to work and back. I love to venture off my path. The cultures that meld into our population can't be seen from highways.

Phillips Barbecue

Olvera Street

 I drive through Koreatown and Little Ethiopia every week.  We head to Chinatown for a meal at Yang Chow's and to pick up stalks of lucky bamboo from street vendors. The cobble stoned Olvera Street is lined with "mama y papa restaurantes" selling comfort food-steaming tamales, enchiladas and little packs of Mexican Chiclets.

I drive past the ritzy high rise condos that line the western strip of Wilshire Boulevard and if I keep heading east and hook a left at Western I pass homeless men and women pushing their only possessions in stolen shopping carts.

A Saturday spent downtown brings lunch at the historic Clifton's Cafeteria and a stroll through the Garment, Flower, Fabric and Jewelry Districts and maybe a stop at Casey's Bar for a shot of Jameson and a shot of their homemade pickle juice. Don't laugh. It's called a Pickle Back and it's damn good.

Leimart Park is one of the neighborhoods with a Phillips Barbecue. There's another in Inglewood and one just off the Crenshaw exit on the 10 Freeway. If you haven't been to Phillips, you have to go. Order BBQ beef ribs with spicy sauce, add in a side of baked beans and follow up with a slice of Seven-Up Cake.

Did they dream of being actors?

If we're coming home through Hollywood, I always cut down Hollywood Boulevard and marvel at the masses of tourists taking in the daily freak show. I never mind the traffic before the light at Hollywood and Highland because it gives me time to take in The Roosevelt Hotel (last place for drinks for The Black Dahlia) and look for the guy who plays Superman who also acts as the leader in charge of all the costumed characters who eke out a living by posing with tourists. I always see at least one person laying down beside a gold star on the Walk of Fame to have their picture taken.  I wonder what they're thinking. I know I'm thinking "Get up. That street is filthy."

School children in South Central Los Angeles

The view to Malibu from The Santa Monica Mountains

 We've volunteered  at elementary schools in Watts where the neighborhood looks eerily similar to before the race riots of 1965. We go north to Calabasas and head west on Los Virgenes, up and over the Santa Monica Mountain range, until the road spits us out by the privileged Pepperdine University at the ocean's shore. It is a startling difference in terrain and economics but it's also one of the things I love most about Los Angeles. The good, the bad and the ugly. The bad is often found in the wealthiest parts of town and humanity at its very best is often found in South East and South Central LA in the hearts of people who work tirelessly to make life better for others.

Silver Lake from the reservoir

 Every one of my favorite neighborhoods has its own vibe and its own central area with shops and restaurants. I can't get enough of Larchmont Village, bordering the mansions of Hancock Park.  Venice has its boardwalk, Muscle Beach and the charming shops along Abbott Kinney.  Even the ocean breeze feels upscale when I walk through Third Street Promenade and the brand new Santa Monica Place. Artsy and funky Silver Lake is perched in the steep hills near downtown LA and I could drive for hours down the narrow streets and look at the Craftsman and Spanish style homes. Burbank,if you take away the studios, feels like a Midwest town and proudly flies the American flag from overpasses and balconies of retirement communities. Studio City's stretch of Ventura Boulevard has some of the best sushi in the city.

I love Los Angeles. Twenty years ago I would have choked on those words but twenty years ago I had no idea how good it would feel to step outside my comfort zone and take a chance on a new place and new people. Earthquakes? I've experienced a few good rumbles but nothing to send me packing. Yep, I love L.A. in all it's overcrowded glory. I love the people and the clash of cultures and languages. I love to study the faces of pedestrians when I'm sitting at red lights and I've noticed an equal number of smiles and frowns in Beverly Hills and in South Central. Where you live? It's all relative, isn't it?

Happy Birthday To Me. I've Earned the Right to Ramble.

The older I get the less I need and my list of wants has dwindled to just a few. I am genuinely horrified by that materialistic young woman that I used to be and she, in turn, would be horrified by the birthday gifts for year 53. If I could go back and talk to the 1980s me I'm not sure I could convince her that she would be thrilled to get tomato plants for our sunny balcony, a salad spinner, chewy fudge chocolate brownies and a low key dinner at the favorite sushi place just down the street. The 2011 me is awed by the gifts because they all mean so much more than they appear. My son, who should be used to my crying over the oddest of  things, looked a bit uncomfortable at the tears in my eyes when I opened the salad spinner. I know it's silly but I will use that thing every day and always think of him. When my husband took me out on the balcony at midnight to show me the tomato plants I, again, had tears in my eyes. He knows that I love urban living but miss having a yard. I was smiling this morning when I had my daughter's chocolate brownies for a birthday breakfast. I am a cook and not a baker and am blessed to have a daughter that fills the brownie and cupcake void in my life.

Reversals of fortune can make you bitter or make you better. I choose better. 

Let's look back at the journey and applaud how far we've come.  I'm hard on myself. Woulda, shoulda, coulda is a tough habit to break. I'm going to spend the day looking at how far I've come, the jobs I've mastered (even though I was scared to death on those first days of work) and how scary and thrilling it was to click the "publish" button the first time I put my words out there for the world to see. Today, I'm going to pat myself on the back for allowing my children to follow their creative dreams and hold off until tomorrow the worries that accompany raising children who veer from more traditional career paths. I'm going to look back fondly on the missteps and the bungles that seemed insurmountable at the time but proved to be sturdy stepping stones.

The perfect Texas salsa cures almost everything. It really does and you don't think I'd make that statement without giving you my recipe, do you?

2 cans Ro-Tel brand tomatoes
one big handful of cilantro leaves
one big jalapeno pepper, cut into chunks (remove seeds for less heat, leave 'em in for more heat)
one clove of garlic
1/4 of a small onion
small dash of salt
And that's it...just dump it in the blender, puree until smooth and enjoy.

It's my birthday so I'm cutting this post short to enjoy the day and follow my own advice. Maybe I'll make some salsa, too. It always reminds me of home.

Character Lessons

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Holding up that looking glass to childhood I see a cast of characters that have, for better or for worse and in comedy and drama, shaped my life. Some are goodness magnified and some are like the small, fine print that serves as a cautionary tale in what not to do, how not to act and, most importantly, as warnings that you better behave because people's memories are long.

Our house was small and sat on a large lot smack dab in the middle of our street. Houston's warm just about year 'round and I seem to remember that the grass was always green, the azaleas bloomed in the spring, the pine trees were really tall and the row of maples along our back fence line had been brought in coffee cans all the way from a family reunion in Illinois and tended by my older brother until they grew almost as tall as the pines. The mimosa tree in the front yard was bent and crooked and a perfect place to hang upside down or sit and watch the neighborhood go by. When I look at old photos I gauge the years by the height of shrubs and whether or not the palm tree in the front yard is still standing.

From my perch on the limb of the mimosa tree I'd watch the two feuding families that lived across the street. It amazed me that they could live next door to each other for twenty something years and never speak. They'd unload groceries in driveways side by side and never even offer a nod of the head. Their children would pass on the street and never even cast a sideways glance. When one of the moms died and the coroner came to take her to the funeral home, they still didn't speak. Lesson One: holding a grudge for that long makes you look crazy.

It was a big city but my street felt like it had been plucked right out of the movies. Just like the movies, it was full of characters. When I was in elementary school one of my best friends lived catty corner from us with her two moms.. This was in the 1960s and I remember little talk about their same sex relationship and I never remember anyone not accepting them. They were just a part of the neighborhood. One of her moms would stroll over and look under the hood when my dad was trying to fix one thing or another. When the car battery was corroded she went and got a cold Coca Cola, poured it over the bad spots, and she and my dad stood there and watched the fizz eat away the gunk. Lesson Two: Tolerance and acceptance is always a good thing.

I was also friends with a daughter from one of the feuding families. She was a nice girl with two wild ass older sisters and bad boy big brother. The carnival came to our neighborhood once a year and set up shop in the mall parking lot. The carnies always seemed kind of creepy to me but apparently one of the older sisters didn't seem to think so and she ended up knocked up. Her parents shuttered her in the house for nine months and her siblings were instructed to not let anyone enter. They slipped me in one hot afternoon while their parents were at work and there she was, sitting on the cool linoleum floor, barefoot and baby bellied, with her jeans unzipped and her tee shirt hiked up. My elementary school self tried not to stare. When the baby was born they told everyone he was adopted but I'd seen the truth. Plus, genes don't lie. Playing in their front yard one day I looked down and noticed that the little boy had the same webbed toes as his teenaged "sister." Lesson Three: You may think you're hiding the truth but odds are someone knows your secret.

 By the time I was in 8th grade one of my best friends was a bad influence whose father was a prominent physician in town. He was having an affair with the socialite daughter of a nationally known attorney. My friend's dad drank too much and her stepmother was a saint for putting up with him. When we weren't swiping her step mom's Salem cigarettes and climbing out her bedroom window to sit cross legged on the roof and practice our smoke rings we were crouched on the landing overlooking their living room and watching the two women fight over a man who didn't deserve either one of them. Lesson Four: Females look ridiculous when they fight over a man...and many times women are better off alone.

When I was really small the old lady who lived next door was an alcoholic whose live in boyfriend ran the gas station just outside the neighborhood. They'd get liquored up at the bar next to the grocery store. We'd leave our garage entrance unlocked if my brother or sister were out late and one night the live in boyfriend stumbled into our house by mistake. My father, an amputee who was as agile on one leg as some men were on two, sprang into defending the homestead mode and hopped into the den, rifle in hand. He threatened to shoot the intruder. Lesson Five: I may not have heard my father say "I love you" but his actions spoke louder than words.


There was a mean dog named Rip that lived down the street. He was always on a chain. When we'd ride our bikes past his house he would leap and snarl, mouth foaming and teeth bared. Every now and then he'd break free and I vividly remember how he attacked a small white dog. He wouldn't release the limp little dog's bloody neck until a neighbor turned on a hose and leveled the nozzle right at Rip's eyes. That chain changed the course of Rip's life. It made him mad and mean. Lesson Six: Living things shouldn't be chained.

I spent most of my teen years in trouble for various and assorted offenses. Habitually late for curfew? Yes. Dating boys my parents couldn't stand? Usually. Changing that F on my report card to a B? Uh huh. Claiming the cigarettes in my purse belonged to a friend? Guilty. No wonder my parents introduced me as their "problem child." Or, maybe I was the problem child because my parents always expected me to be the problem child. Lesson Seven: I know parents usually do the best they can with the skills they have but they need to remember that children meet expectations-high or low.  (Lesson Seven and a half: You can change your path.)

Silence, Please! I'm Trying to Make Some Changes!

Sometimes, the changes you make in your own life are not nearly as difficult as getting everyone else to accept how your changes will change their life. I'm embarking on a new adventure, and even though it's taking place in my own home, while I sit behind my own computer, there is a downward shift in the amount of laundry, cooking and cleaning that I'm doing. The rest of the family is supposed to pick up the slack. Old habits die hard but no clean underwear jolts them back to their new reality.

Trying to work while my family carries on around me and without me is tough. I get up for a cup of tea and I'm very surprised that no one else notices that the faucets don't sparkle. Does anyone else care that the sink is full of coffee cups, plates and a knife still sticky with peanut butter? Apparently not. And since I've stopped picking up every single thing that they place on the kitchen counter every single time they walk in the house...car keys, mail, the pizza flyer that was hanging on our doorknob, over the counter sinus meds, the latest issues of Rolling Stone and AARP magazine (we're a diverse household), a Netflix movie that should have been returned 2 weeks ago, an empty gum pack and an empty Starbucks cup...it's beginning to look like a prop house for a bad sitcom.

The Type A voice that's locked inside of me is white knuckled and frantically banging on my brain with clenched fists. "Pick up the clutter, wipe down the counters and polish the faucets!" But that voice that puts my compulsive behavior on overdrive is drowned out by another voice that we all carry within us. It's the one that whispers "You can't!" over and over and over again when we step outside of our comfort zone and strive for bigger, better and not so easily attainable dreams. These two voices are competing for my attention.

I know that the little voice that says "you can't" can be silenced. I also know how hard it is. The voice is part of our survival instinct. It yells when we're too close to the rocky ledge and it persistently murmurs and whispers "stop" when we try to make changes in our life. That little voice loves the status quo.  But, we've got the edge.

The voice may be pesky and repetitive but it's not smart enough to know that some risks are worthwhile. We're the ones who are smart enough to know when to take meaningful risks and it never hurts to remind ourselves of that every day. It's no secret that I'm a big fan of repeating positive thoughts so we can banish the negative. I've been on a status quo life path for quite some time so I know it's going to take a while to shut down the negative voice that tells me that I can't accomplish my goals. Some days I manage to take  little steps and others day I make great big strides but I am expanding the boundaries of my life. My actions are proving that little voice wrong. I can do this.

Laugh Longer, Love Better.

I posed a question to an assortment of people:  my good friends who hold nothing back; acquaintances; the checker at Target who rang up my nail file and the cute pants that were on sale; my husband; my daughter's smitten boyfriend; and a waiter named Amir. The question? Why do couples stay together? God knows there are thousands of opinions on why people break up but I'm intrigued by what binds couples together. Why do they beat the odds when their marriages are shattered by infidelity or mucked up by messy finances that overshadow love  and affection? I'm curious to know why some couples can reignite after months or years of shuffling through cold ashes.

Laughter.
The common thread that stitched together every response was laughter. Even the young checker at Target, who had hair with streaks the color of Peeps, smiled and laughed when she said "men are the devil" but I'm willing to bet, by the time she becomes a blue haired old lady, she'll understand that it's that laughter that can keep a relationship alive.

After shouting and door slamming or agonizing silence and a cold shoulder instead of a warm embrace, laughter can prevail. A little too much insight into my own marriage? Maybe, but I'll let the sentence stand as is because I'm pretty sure most romantic partnerships go through the same thing.  My friend Natalie quotes her own mother when she says "Divorce? No. Murder? Maybe..."  Laughter's good and a morbid sense of humor is underrated.

How do we get to the laughing part? For me, there's something in my brain that eventually kicks in and overwhelms the anger or the complacency or the annoyance. It's like a switch that turns on light and positivity. I've learned to anticipate it and it's never let me down. It doesn't always happen right away but I've found that the lag time is needed to help me sort through the issues and look to my heart for forgiveness or understanding. My friend Stephanie says her husband better worry when, after a disagreement, she passes him in the hallway and she doesn't smile at him. She says she just can't help but smile when she sees him. That must be her own little switch clicking on and signalling that it's all going to be okay. That, and true love.

Make time for each other.
Connie says make time for just the two of you whether it be a walk by a creek or a romantic vacation. I agree. My husband and I decided, before we had children, to put our marriage before everything else. I love my children but without loving my husband I wouldn't make a good parent. We've always parented together and tried to present a united front. That's not always easy because parenting throws some pretty serious curve balls. It also wreaks havoc on romance so we always made sure to use the rare times both children were away to do something together rather than alone. A day on a lake, spent with my husband and an ice cold pitcher of margaritas, is a wonderful problem solver.

Look for perfection.
My daughter's boyfriend says staying together is "simple, just date the perfect girl." There's more to that statement than the idealism of the young. It takes work, but as our relationships age, it's essential to continue to look for the perfect in our partner. It's there-it's just hidden beneath the stress of the work week and the big and little tragedies that we all experience year in and year out.

Keep the bathroom door closed.
Yes, I'm going there. Before we were married we made a pact to keep some things private. I don't care what we're doing in the bathroom-flossing, clipping our toenails or...whatever-keep the door closed. I don't think "familiarity breeds contempt"  was intended for this scenario but it isn't too out of place here. Romance loves a little mystery. That's my deep contribution to this conversation.

Little things shouldn't turn into big things.
One of my dear friends is Vickey and that's her advice. She's a Texan with a heart as big as the state itself and she's an expert at not letting the little things get under her skin. I'm still working on not letting the little pile of dirty socks turn into a Mount Everest of animosity because that anger seeps into other parts of the relationship and before you know it there's a fight and then I'm back to waiting for that positivity switch in my brain to click to the on position. I'm going to make a supreme effort to remember that this week.

Fight for your marriage.
Infidelity. I am always amazed that couples can survive it. For my friends who did they have all said that the years following were tortuous but that they eventually reached a place of deeper understanding and better communication. Admirable and I will be totally honest and say that I'm not sure I could find the forgiveness, and if I did, then I'm not sure I could ever forget and find a place in my heart where love would thrive. Those that have survived tell me that they were able to see where they had both made mistakes before the affair began. They say they survived because one partner ferociously fought a battle to save the marriage and through counseling, prayer, endless nights of talk or whatever they chose as weapons, they were able to slay their demons. They were blessed that their partner was the listening kind because so many are not.
 

 ____________________________________________

Just about everyone I heard from also said that they wished they had spent more time talking about parenting, household chores and finances before getting married. It seems to be universal to think that love will conquer all when, really, it's good planning that clears the clutter from a relationship and makes room for love to stay.

I love that my friend Melanie contributed her thoughts on what to look for before you get involved. She says that people reveal themselves to be exactly who they are early in the relationship but we do the whole "that's not really who they are thing." She continues by saying "yes, it is. It really, really is. Who people truly are is revealed by their actions." Perhaps I watch too much Dateline or 48 Hours but for every murderous spouse there must have been telltale clues. I'm thinking Melanie would make a great detective.

Robert Browning said "Grow old with me! The best is yet to be." I am forever grateful that I had the sense to stay the few times I wanted to flee. Laughter comes easier the older we get and even though there are times that we can't see the light we know to wait for it.

No Lapse in Faith

I have never lost my faith. I may have, for a while, lost my faith in the brick and mortar churches, but that forfeiture made room in my life for a spiritual journey that I don't regret.

I just stumbled across author and priest Andrew M. Greeley's website and his "Why I'm Still A Catholic" article. I really do believe, even though I haven't attended mass in probably 10 years, that once a Catholic always a Catholic. I have rosaries scattered throughout my home. I sleep with a leather scapular and two of the rosaries hanging from our headboard-one on my side and one on my husband's. During a recent health crisis I prayed to Father Solanus Casey and held close to my heart a bit of cloth that had touched his tomb. Father Casey was known for his miraculous healing and is well on his way to clearing the Vatican's hurdles for sainthood.

I was just barely a cradle Catholic. That's church slang for Catholics born and raised in the Church. We went to Mass on most Sundays and I attended CCD (the acronym for Catholic Children's Doctrine), I was baptized, had my First Communion and I was Confirmed. When I was a little girl in the 1960s, women still covered their heads and I had mantillas, the little lace head scarves, in white, pink and black. My mother made sure we dutifully met the guidelines but there was no real appreciation for the Sacraments. There was no family prayer and certainly no talk about what it meant to be a Catholic. My strongest memory of growing up and going to church is getting caught, at 14 years old, swilling strawberry wine in the bushes outside the St. Cecilia church rectory. My father stepped foot in church for weddings only. He would jokingly say the pews were too hard and his wooden leg made it too difficult to stand, kneel, sit and repeat.

I wholeheartedly came to the Church after a divorce. I do realize, considering the Catholic stance on divorce, the humor in that. When I met my second and current husband he was a much more devoted Catholic than I was. That makes it sound as if I'm shopping for number three but we're on year 23 of wedded contentment/conflict/contentment. I knew when we were dating that we would never be married unless I had my first marriage annulled. I won't go into the controversy surrounding annulments but I will say that it was one of the most emotionally cathartic experiences of my life. It made me dissect every aspect of my failed marriage and take a good hard look at every other aspect of my life. The original intent of annulment is to dissolve a marriage that is contrary to Divine Law. I'll spare everyone the icky details but if that's what it takes to qualify for an annulment than my first marriage certainly met the criteria...and then some.

We married and I was very active in my parish. I was president of our women's group, I worked with our Monsignor on community tasks, I cooked casseroles and tossed salads for funerals and anniversaries and I headed up a building fund committee. My children attended the parish school. I hosted rosaries in my home. But all the while I had a nagging, unsettled feeling that just wouldn't go away.

Andrew Greeley says "those who leave the Church because they have discovered how flawed are many leaders, are ignorant of history. Jesus never promised us saints. Nor did he promise that the saints who on occasion might be in charge would be either effective administrators or wise leaders."

Unlike Father Greeley, who has had his own conflict with the Catholic Church, I found it impossible to ignore the blaring headlines that screamed of sex abuse scandals. When grown men molest small children and when those committing the mortal sins of child molestation are shuttled from parish to parish and country to country and protected from the law it makes me sick. It's old news, isn't it? How sad that we are barely even shocked when another scandal arises. It's just more fodder for the late night hosts.

I found it impossible to shake the feeling that it was about big business and that the business was corrupt.  I suppose I could look back at Catholic history and see that the church has always been embroiled in scandals and I could just accept that the scandals were further proof of man's fallibility. But, I didn't accept it. 

On a beautiful Spring day my husband and I attended a funeral. As usual, we sat front and center. We watched the priest preparing the Eucharist.  "This is my body … this is my blood." The Catholic understanding of these words is literal. The word for it is transubstantiation. The Communion bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus Christ. On that day, I felt so many questions bubble to the surface and the most important one was this: How did so many soiled hands perform this beautiful ritual and why would the Church allow it to continue?

"Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters." So says Isaac Bashevis Singer.If you're not familiar with Singer, his is an interesting story. He was a Jewish American writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner. I felt as if I had the lion's share of doubt and, for many years after walking away, I was in mourning. I shed tears over my decision. There were lost friendships that accompanied my leaving but the loss I felt most strongly was for the rituals and the beauty of Catholicism and the Mass. To my Catholic friends who didn't abandon me, I say a belated thank you.

I let doubt propel my journey. I have always been uncomfortable with the notion that any one group held the keys to Heaven. Since stepping away from the Catholic Church I have tried on other religions. The Presbyterian services in Texas, where I truly felt a connection to that church home, were a blessing when I first felt adrift.  It was there that I met many other Catholics and one woman who said "I am a Catholic who attends the Presbyterian Church." No wonder I felt at home. When I moved to Los Angeles, the time I spent attending no services at all-just me and God and little talks scattered throughout every day of the week-was spiritually freeing and gave me time to read and explore religious history. Those little talks with God continue. The visit to a non denominational church in a California strip mall where the preacher screamed and told his followers that Jews, Buddhists, Catholics and anyone with different beliefs were destined to Hell was, well, scary as Hell. And if there was a place hotter and lower than Hell he was certain that the entrance was marked for homosexuals. I ran from that place. The churches where the members raised hands and spontaneously proclaimed Hallelujah were joyous but, quite frankly, they startled this lapsed Catholic woman, who was used to quiet sanctuaries.

I'm ready to step into a church community again. I hold my Catholic roots close to my heart but I'm not stepping back in that direction. The term "Cafeteria Catholic" is used to describe a Catholic who picks and chooses, from the list of Church rules, what he or she wants to believe. The Church is filled with Cafeteria Catholics. It can easily be applied to all other religions. I don't want to pick and choose what I will believe. I want to totally immerse myself in spirituality. I want a congregation that shares my belief that good people go to Heaven and that God doesn't discriminate. Is that easily dismissed as simplistic? I think it's one of the hardest things to wrap your brain around. Opening your heart to others and finding the good is actually a great challenge. My religious past has made me who I am. I'm grateful for God's direction on my journey.

Seize The Day

My father was going to retire and then go to Europe. Instead, he retired and then he died.  "Men for the sake of getting a living forget to live." That quote by Margaret Fuller pretty well sums it all up. The only thing you will regret on your deathbed will be the things you didn't get to do. He had made the trip once and very much wanted to go back, free from the time line dictated by the workplace. For my dad, there would not be another stroll through Piccadilly Circus, no cruise along the Seine and no view from the Eiffel Tower. 

I was 24 when he passed away and, even though I wasn't a child, I was certainly in my formative years for learning to become an adult. His death shaped and formed my outlook on work and life and my adamant belief that if I don't get to do something right away I may never get to do it.

My dad, God rest his friendly soul, drove over 90 miles round trip on his commute to his contracts administrator job. East on the flat I-10 from Houston's western suburbs, past the skyscrapers and south on I-45 to the marshy bay area, almost to Galveston, and then back home at 5 o'clock  to our little ranch style house. He ate dinner and watched the news in his burgundy leather chair. He ate an apple and tossed our dachshund the core. He was off to bed by 10:30. It was the nightly routine. 

He was a model employee who sat behind the same gray metal desk for 47 years. His sense of loyalty was born from the fact that his employer hired him when no one else would. He was an amputee who lost his leg to gangrene when he was 12 years old. It was horrible timing; penicillin was discovered a few years after the infection claimed his leg. When he landed his job there were no laws protecting the disabled and I can imagine how grateful he was to be hired.

I think he was happy. I can't imagine doing something you hated, day in and day out, for 47 years. I believe a lot of what kept his pedals to the work a day metal was an abiding fear that he would never find another job. Looking back, I am immensely proud of his dedication. Growing up, I swore I never wanted a life like that.

His death had a profound influence on my own life strategy. I never wanted to put off until tomorrow any experience that I could have today. I'm sure I was deep down worried that my own retirement age may never come or that I would hit 65 and they'd be pulling the sheet over me.  Always, in the back of my mind, was the thought that I had to seize the day and make it all count because my days may be numbered. Henry David Thoreau said "you must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment." 

All children take something from their parents' lives and make it a part of their own. They also refuse to go down certain paths that their parents have paved. That addition and subtraction, the traits embraced and those that are pushed away, make an adult child complete. From a parent's loss, a child can learn.

How Much Do We Tell Our Children?

There is a grove of pines so lanky and tall that each one is trying to outgrow the next to reach their piece of open sky. Below the trees no grass grows and the dirt is carpeted with the pines' discarded needles and cones. The air may be muggy but the grove floor is cool and shaded and attracts a daily pilgrimage of teens who sit in a circle to talk, solve the problems of their world and pass joints 'round and 'round. It's not 2011. It's 1976. Those high school kids are now grown and most are, will, or have been parents to their own teens.

The visual sensory overload of the sixties swung back and forth on our black and white TV sets.  The pendulum tick tocked  from Bonanza, The Beverly Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show to horrific images of Vietnam, the setbacks and promise of the Civil Rights Movement, Free Love and the tie dyed drug culture of Haight-Ashbury. The young children of the sixties sat cross legged in front of their console TVs and watched it all unfold.

The sixties flowed into the seventies and the teens in my neighborhood, who were raised on that visual feast and famine, had cars and a little too much money. The grove of trees wasn't tucked away and secluded; it was on high school property and the number of students who sat in that circle was way too large for teachers, or the police who parked and watched from a block away, to disperse.

Crazy times. And just how much of your past do you share with your own children? I've told mine my life story. I've doled out information in snippets and parcels in moments that I thought would have the most impact. The piece of information that I have made abundantly clear is that I always had a mooring and a moral compass deep within my soul and that if there was one thing I would wish for them it is that they hold fast to their anchor and follow their own moral compass when life and times get crazy. Not if. When.

I've slogged through some swamps and scaled some proverbial mountains. We all have. My children will, too. I can tell them what may lay ahead but I can't live their lives for them. I can show them the way but I can't go with them. I can share my faults and my transgressions and the impact they had on my own life. I can stand beside them when they falter and celebrate when they're back on their feet. I can help reset their compass and drop their anchor in calmer water.

Hold Your Own Hand

  
"Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anybody else in the world."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

What a smart gal that Eleanor was. Of all the things I've tried to teach my own children this quote is at the very heart of my big lesson plan for life. Being your own friend is hard. It means you have to accept your flaws and your quirks and love yourself anyway. You have to know that absolutely no one is perfect, yourself included. You have to take a good hard look at yourself and refuse to look away until you take it all in...and you have to carry that mirror with you all the time. See the faults and imperfections? That's what makes us human and since we're human we have the ability to smooth our rough spots-no matter how long they've been there. Are we going to slip up and screw up time after time? Of course we are.

I'm certainly no psychologist but I like to think I have common sense. As parents, we set the tone for our children's inner monologue.  I've noticed that the people with the harshest inner monologue are the ones who want to look away when faced with the mirror. They have a difficult time keeping and maintaining friendships because they never learned how to be their own friend. Their parents outer monologue, directed at them, became their inner monologue.

"You're fat."
"You're spoiled."
"You're stupid."
"You're trouble."

It sure would be nice to end all that negative dialogue but I'm not Pollyanna enough to believe that it's going to happen. Success would be just one person holding up a mirror and daring to not turn away. Success would be one person shutting off the negative thought stream and learning to hold their own hand.

    

     

     

Not So Secret Admirer

   
     I supposed I fancied myself as some little fairy godmother or a bespectacled guardian angel. Even though my attempts to do good were usually bungled, my motives were sincere. In 1969 I had brown hair and crooked pigtails every day and my closet was full of plaid jumpers that were always paired with pastel blouses that had dainty peter pan collars. I wore brown glasses to correct my amblyopia and the left lens was noticeably thicker than the right. I was a piece of work.

     My 5th grade classmates were the same as 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st.  I had gone to school with the same group of kids since kindergarten. There wasn't much change at Bunker Hill Elementary School. Our classes celebrated all the holidays with parties and homemade treats. I don't ever remember peanut allergies or gluten intolerance being an issue, but I do remember the horror of Valentine's Day and how I would feel so sorry for the kids who got fewer cards dropped into their brightly decorated paper bags.

     There was one boy in particular who bore the brunt of most teasing. He was a notorious nose picker and had less fashion sense than me. I never picked on him. I'm not sure where my empathetic gene came from but to this day I am bothered by cruel practical jokes and sarcasm.

     On this particular Valentine's Day I thought it would be a good idea to make him feel like someone cared. I signed my name to most of the store bought cards but, on his, I used my mom's electric typewriter and wrote the words "From Your Secret Admirer." It was a masterful plan and I was thrilled that my actions would give the boy a smile. Now, I really wasn't his secret admirer. I had no crush on him. I thought his nose picking was disgusting but, ever the wanna be psychologist, I attributed his nasty habit to poor parenting. (I was the child who pored over my sister's college psych books so I could find out what my parents were doing wrong. I like to think I did most of my raising myself.)

     The great flaw in my plan occurred when I neglected to get up from the old IBM Selectric typewriter and I lazily went ahead and typed my name, rather than writing it, onto the remaining couple of Valentine cards. It doesn't take a middle schooler to figure out what happened next. The classroom was on a sugar high. Envelopes were ripped open and thrown to the linoleum floor and each 5th grade recipient eagerly read their cards and turned them over to see who had signed them. In no time at all, the most picked on boy in school was waving his little card from his secret admirer. All the boys and girls buzzed and chattered and tried to figure out who she was.

     I sat proud and smug...until the smartest boy in class opened up his card from me...and I had typed my name.  He was now sitting proud and smug after putting two and two together. As I said, my intentions may have been bungled but they were very, very good. Those good intentions don't mean much during a 5th grade scandal. In no time at all I was known as the girl who had the big crush on the most picked on boy in school. The teasing only lasted a week or so but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst part was a boy finding out that he didn't really have a secret admirer after all.

     Life lessons are hard albeit some can be quite funny in retrospect. I still carry my biggest life lesson from the 5th grade debacle deep within my heart. If I have raised my own children to follow this mantra than I will consider my parenting a success: Never be afraid to publicly declare your support, your love and your compassion for those less fortunate and less understood. When all is said and done you will know that doing the right thing for all to see is always the right action. If only my little 5th grade self had known that.

Life's Quilt

     "When I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I love that passage from Corinthians. Every time I read it I think of the evolution from child to adult and how, even when we become adults, our hearts, our souls and our minds can continue to flourish. Of course, the childish things of our past are not cast out the moment we step into adulthood. Damn, wouldn't that make it easy. Instead, the remnants of our raising are woven so deeply into the quilt of our being that we must learn to stitch those tattered pieces together with new experiences.
     From the sweetness of childhood springs the angst of the teen. Isn't everything bigger than life? And so dramatic? A breakup means you just might die from the sadness. Grounded really does feel like grounded for life. A date to the prom is the best thing ever. If you don't get that car for your sweet sixteen your life will officially be over. And while the rest of your life feels like it passes by in the blink of an eye, the teen years seem to go on forever. The tumult from those years serves a greater purpose as we learn to navigate relationships and process and solve problems. Our life's quilt is getting bigger.
     The twenties. We're adults but our brains are only halfway there. We're expected to earn a living, pay our bills, and live like we're all grown up. The weekends are for partying and our bills haven't piled so high that we feel the strain of debt. For many of us, our parents are alive and kicking and our role as caretaker won't start for years and years. I've probably just managed to depress every twenty-something reader, but my true intent is this: love your life, love your friends, and live your dreams every day. Surround yourself with positivity. If there's a person in your life that makes it hell it's time to reassess. Keep the good, banish the bad.  Make your quilt stronger and more colorful.
     The thirties. We're putting it all together now. Maybe we're feeling a little cocky, too. The career is on track. We're starting a family. I'm still a bit mortified by some of my pit bull actions when I was thirty-something. In the workplace, I didn't take into account how my deeds affected others. Although I've never been to AA I admire their philosophy of going back and setting things right with people from your past. Maybe I should start my list. I should have used my quilt to warm and sustain others but I was pretty stingy with the life I was building.
     The forties can slap you in the face. What a wake up call. Growing kids are expensive and very, very complicated. Houses are money pits. My body ceased to defy gravity. Marriage required more work. Problems that I never saw coming threw us off track and it was harder and harder to steer back to the course. If you get through your forties with the marriage intact and your sanity in place you are blessed with the fifties. That quilt is life size now and the seams are strong from the reinforcing stitches.
     At the mid century mark I've adopted the se la vie attitude. Pick your battles never had more meaning. At this point in time, I've seen the blessings and tragedies of life and I say bring on the blessings because wallowing in the tragedies becomes tiresome and pointless. I love the fifties. My quilt is big enough for my family and friends and I choose to embrace the people that make my life richer.