Experience II

Somewhere in the middle of adventure, a person begins to long for home.  Today, I wonder if I know what home is. 

No, I’m not sad, nor being dramatic.  I merely find myself contemplative.  I think back to all the times I felt I truly belonged somewhere, some point or place or person when, where, or with whom I felt completely complete in my skin and in my spot.  I can tell you they may not even fill the fingers on one of my hands.

And yet, I am not worried or upset.  Rather, I find myself becoming quieter and quieter. 

Tonight at dinner, I was perfectly thrilled to be tucked in the corner of a large party of people listening to tales of hockey, venture capitalism, explosives, television shows and ads, computer programming, and adventures the world over.  I feel as if I am soaking up their experiences, and they fill me from my ears down to my toes. 

Every now and again, someone tosses a question or comment my way and I pay my portion by responding prettily, but ache as I worry that the lovely thoughts that travel through my mind might escape.  Then everyone will know, I have no adventures of my own…just lovely thoughts. 

At one point, after my second glass of wine and begging off a third, the gentleman sitting across to my left asked what I was doing so quietly tucked in a different corner that morning alone at breakfast.

“Reading Emerson’s Essays,” easily slid from my mind to my throat and out between my lips. 

“Really!” he replied, to which the table fell silent and looked at me expectantly.  “What does Emerson have to say of interest in this day and age of intellectual progress?”

It was as if I had been dropped into the Queen of Heart’s croquet game. 

She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself ‘now I shall have somebody to talk to.’

“Actually, quite a bit,” I say, wary of myself.  “Quite frankly, I don’t think he would exactly call our current life ‘intellectual progress.’  Rather, he would more likely shake his head and ask us to think about what it is that makes us think.  I mean, really think!”

“What do you think about?” asked the gentlemen across me to my right. 

“I think about people.  Their stories.  How they seek meaning.  How they avoid it.  How they find it.  I think of ideas.  Whimsy.  Science.  Art.  Logic.  I think about how everything in life connects.  I think about better ways to think, using the simplest tools around us.  Skin.  Scent.  Sound.  Silence…”

I shouldn’t have said it.  But I did.  And what followed was silence at the table.  But not in my mind.  Partly because I had said something that was now resonating in my brain.  Partly because I was simultaneously trying to read the thoughts of everyone in my party by the expressions on their faces.  I worried that perhaps I had reminded them of the Mad Hatter.

“More tea?” said a voice at my elbow.  “Oh, what did I do with your tea cup?”

“I’ve had none yet.” I said…

I giggled. 

Immense laughter was building in my chest, rising to knock at the back of my throat.  I coughed trying to push it down, but now my shoulders were shaking.  I put my napkin up to my lips hoping that would stop the oncoming laughter.

“What’s so funny?” asked my friend to my immediate right with a twinkle in her eye.

“I was just thinking of Alice in Wonderland,” I said trying to regulate the laugh that was now banging inside me to get out.  “At the tea party, the March Hare asks Alice if she’d like some team. ‘I’ve had none yet,’ she replied, “so I can’t take more.’ To which the Mad Hatter corrects with superb logic, ‘you mean you can’t take LESS; it’s very easy to take MORE than nothing.’”

The table laughed and easily resumed their conversations about movies, and work, and baseball…and I retreated back to the safety of my silent observing.  The car ride back to the hotel was mercifully dark and noisy as they continued talking about vacations and school and phone service and hybrid cars. 

It was only when the subject turned to social media that I again felt myself being drawn down the rabbit hole.

“What do you think of all this ‘new’ technology, Monica?,” someone asked from the back seat.  “You won’t need to write letters and post them anymore!  Charming though it is.  Old fashioned, but charming.”

It was then that I felt like I belonged.  Right there.  In that moment.  Responding to that specific question.

“I disagree.  As we become a society connected by wires and radio waves, satellites and Skype…as we find our relationships moving into the air and on the computer and away from touch and eye contact, I truly believe it will be the handwritten letters, the in-person-shake-your-hand meetings and the gentle carresses of loved ones that become our most important and valued means of sharing information and making connections.”

My little speech hung in the air as we pulled into the parking lot.  And we all sat for a still moment once the car was turned off. 

“It’s possibly already true,” someone whispered from the backseat.

For the first time in a long time, I walked into my coveted solitude and felt the immense space of my life.  I picked up my phone wanting to reach out to someone.  My brain gently commanded me to put the phone down.  I changed and climbed under the covers pulling all the pillows from my bed up against me as if giving my skin the touch it now craved.  I picked up my phone again, thumb hovering over a few keys that if pushed in sequence would connect my voice with another.  But again, gently, my brain commanded me to put the phone down.

‘I could tell you my adventures — beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

And so tomorrow, I will be different again.

Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not. -Emerson

Experience

Ah, New England…

I feel a sigh of relief, almost comfort, come over me as I enter this change of scenery, this change of thought. 

I’ve never been to Boston, but as I was posting the news on the board outside my office that I would be living there for the next few days, everyone gasped (beauty-queen, wanna-be style, with hands instinctively flying to touch their chins which were dropping at the sound of the rushing air being produce) then absolutely gushed “YOU will love it there!”

We shall see. 

I’m actually not sure how much I will see it considering it’s a working trip.  And my agenda is full. 

But if the entry to Logan Airport across Boston Harbor is any indication, this is my kind of town.  From the sky it looked old, not dirty and run down, but aged.  Like a fine wine.  It looked cultured.  Brick, not a lot of flash, beach grass and lighthouses.  It looked smart, not overdeveloped or overplanned, but in the European–with a gentle curve as the fastest way from point A to point B.

The flight attendant, with her precise voice and attentive demeanor, took a few moments from her flirtation with the Harley biker sitting behind me to announce that we would be landing shortly.  Chairs and tray tables in the upright position and all that.  I somewhat reluctantly stowed my beloved Emerson in my purse to watch the landing, and instantly thought of Alice in Wonderland

“What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations…” 

To create them.

I’m reading Emerson’s essay, Experience, and it’s already surpassing my previous Emerson favorite, Conduct of Life, and proving doubly good as Self-Reliance–a classic.  My favorite passages from this essay have quickly become vivid portraits that danced across my mind as we flew above mixed white rows of clouds and snow-covered fields below.

Now, as we bank over Boston Harbor, the words–and images re-emerge as if meant to fill the span of my brain. 

Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed.  They stand on the brink of an ocean of thought and power, but they never take the single step that would bring them there. 

The airport sits at the brink of the ocean in a sheltered cove stationary despite its transitory purpose.  The water wraps around the precisely plotted patch of earth as if a shawl.  For some reason I think of my Grandma W____.  Always welcoming and warm, but stationary with a blanket across her knees as she listened to the endless drone of the police scanner, and knitting some beautiful blanket out of scraps of yarn.

I feel momentarily lonesome for her.  And wonder…I was never close to my grandmother.  She seemed always a bit standoffish, disapproving, proud, like one might imagine an imigrant with a past full of experiences straight from Kipling or Stevenson, but a silence like a survivor.  I don’t know why, but I suddenly want to curl at her knee and feel the warmth of her hand on my head.

The plane dips ever so slightly and Emerson pulls me out of my reverie.

A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a particular angle; then it shows deep and beautiful colors.  There is no adaptation or universal applicability in men, but each has his special talent, and the mastery of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when that turn shall be oftenest to be practiced.  

Thus far, my view of the Atlantic has been one of silent steely tones.  Not smooth and sleek like I think of when I picture glass, or steel, but rough and textured like the horse-hair plaster wall in my living room.  Until the plane tipped just so. Then the gray gave way to jewel tones–purples, greens, blues, all of them sparkling with frigid wave caps moving in toward the beach.  Then the bank of the plane straightened out and the gray returned, just as quickly. 

My stomach starts to tap on my mind, reminding me that I haven’t eaten all day and the change in pressure, the shifting of the plane’s vertigo and the increasing heat in the cabin are not friends of mine.  Just as I begin to worry, a bird appears under the plane, looking like a popcorn kernel bouncing in the heat, as it rides the choppy wind beneath us. 

Emerson soothes me once again.

Like a bird which alights nowhere, but hops perpetually from bough to bough, is the Power which abides in no man and in no woman, but for a moment speaks from this one, and for another moment from that one.

How true that seems in everyday life.  Perhaps pronounced now only in this trip as the characters in my life story are new and fleeting.  The bus driver from the parking lot at CVG.  The flight attendant and Harley biker behind me.  The woman sitting in front of me who refused to change her seat to sit with her friend in the back of the plane, because she gets sick riding in the back of planes, the Bostonian gentleman who flagged down my cab and then with sharp accent and attitude told my easy-speaking Caribbean cabby how to get me where I needed to go.  I love these people for the colors they add to my painting.  And so Emerson whispers to me again.

Of course, it needs the whole society, to give the symmetry we seek.  The party-colored wheel must revolve very fast to appear white.  Something is learned too by conversing with so much folly and defect.  In fine, whoever loses, we are always of the gaining party.

I left Dayton thinking of events from my past six months.  They haunt me like demons, no matter how I try to fight them, plead with them, succumb to them. 

I land with a feeling that only Alice or Dorothy Gale might understand.  Perhaps what they say is true about change of scenery.  I suddenly feel as if I’m about to “Concord” the world.  Even though this trip has been, thus far, like Emerson’s Labrador spar, or my ocean–choppy and gray with hints of precious treasure.  I hear Alice’s dulcet tones:

I wonder if I’ve been changed in the night? Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I’m not the same, the next question is ‘Who in the world am I?’ … Ah, that’s the great puzzle!

Disparate Thoughts

I’m free, here in this cage.
My heart is gentle in its violent rage.
My mind is full on that blankest of page.
And I’m the audience up on the stage.

I’m not alone, and yet I am.
My quiet is so loud,
You hear my peace in my warring crowd.
And I am broken but remain your perfect vow.

My wild horses are all tame.
My differences are all the same.
I’m so tired of this energizing game.
And there’s no one left but me to blame.

My heart aches, but soars again
You will escape this nightmare fairytale end
Love conquered, love lost and then
Love lives on to never pend.

And so it goes, and so it stays
Through endless quickly passing days
Till whole and free I am able to graze
But you will be pastured in some other maze

So it begins to be over as it lasts on and on…

Who are you?

My daughters’ sporting events are entertaining in more ways than just the action on the fields…or court, in this case. 

These parents and teachers and other related spectators in the stands teach me so much.  Two women in their 80s sit in the front row doing a better job of coaching than the actual coaches–spirited and tough, but nice about it.  And they know the game rules better than the refs!  Two single moms (other than me) sit physically separated from all affiliations with a purposeful veil of silence around them in the midst of this noisy gym.  The babies gradually become more nervous, whistle after whistle, buzzer after buzzer.  The teenagers have their heads buried in iPods and cell phones and other digital devices.  And the players on the bench all look bored.

About halfway through the second quarter–with the score 0-2 in our team’s favor–I overhear two mothers in front of me gossiping about one of the single moms.  “She’s always so quiet.  She comes in, takes her seat and doesn’t talk to anyone or shout out to her kid or anything.  And she never even cheers,” says one.  “I hear she spends all her time working or holed up at home with her daughters,” says the other.  “When the girls are with their dad, no one knows what she does.  I mean it’s like she disappears. She must be a cold and selfish.  After all, her husband is already remarried and expecting!”  They steal sly glances over at a beautiful woman sitting quietly and tall apart from everyone else.

I feel my blood boil as my mind immediately fires defense after defense for the single mom.  I can’t help it.  I take a deep breath, close my eyes and gather myself. 

Their attention returns to the game briefly before I see them begin to look over at the loner again.  I’m startled to hear a throat clear loudly, but quickly realize it’s me.  And I’m about to interrupt.  “Excuse me.”  They both look up to where I’m sitting, slightly startled. I’m always surprised when this sort of thing happens.  I watch myself as from a great distance.  I feel the warmth of my smile and genuinely admire the infusion of fairy dust around my words.  ”I heard she’s an upstanding and influential member of the community who is just painfully shy.  I think it’s marvelous that she spends her time with her daughters.  And how lovely that she doesn’t feel the need to air her laundry during her own time!  What a wonderful role model for all of us single women.”   I scan my own body for signs that I’m angry while also scanning the women’s reaction to my little lecture (as Meg would call it).  I only feel the twinkle in my eye and warmth in my chest.  Of course I know nothing about this woman whom I’ve never seen before, but I can’t help it. 

Still watching the women I’m acutely aware of the look that passes between them and wonder which they decided on:  I’m being a bitch, or I’m giving them the really useful information to consider.  It doesn’t matter.  The conversation stopps, and they quit looking over at their prey.

The incident is forgotten until I return home to find a message from a friend who’s very upset.  She’s had a bit of a rough go the past few months and has been doing a marvelous job of keeping herself together.  But apparently today her best friend told her that her problem is that she has confidence still.  ”She said, ‘You need to doubt your ability more because you have so much to work on…’  Is it true?” she asks fearfully “Should I doubt myself and everything I’m working towards?  Am I on the wrong path?” 

Now just a minute.  Don’t we all have much to work on?  When Jo March confides to Frederich in Little Women that “it’s just…there is much emphasis on perfecting oneself, and I am hopelessly flawed,” Frederich says (it’s a moment forever burned in my memory from childhood as the first moment I fell in love with a man…albeit a fictional character…and the first of many at that: Alec Ramsey, Edmund Dantes, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Francisco d’Anconia…) “I think we are all hopelessly flawed.” 

So I want to know, is there every a time when you should doubt yourself because someone else tells you they know you better?

Perhaps it wasn’t right of me to say anything in either situation.  Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything now.  These were not my battles. 

But it is my war!  And it’s my war for two very important reasons:

1. Before the clock struck twelve and we entered 2010, I made the civility revolution my cause–where success is defined as people acknowledging and treating ALL other people with respect.  I’m not talking gender or skin color, religious affiliation or sexual orientation.  It’s MUCH more basic than that.  I’m talking about people you encounter everyday, moment-by-moment.  See them, acknowledge them, respect their humanity…and respect yourself.
2. My daughters.  Not only do they belong to my civility revolution (I intend that they be front line leaders in this war), they should never have to repeat my mistakes if they can learn from them through stories.  And as with most everyone else, I’ve been told by people who supposedly had my best interest at heart (bosses, my parents, friends and lovers) that they knew me better than I knew myself.  Then, I listened as they rattled off their litany of my “faults.”   No problem there.  It’s good to be aware of what other people think.  However, when your heart screams “IT’S NOT TRUE!  That isn’t what I think/believe/feel/know,” don’t ever doubt it.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

Part of my daily intention.  Perhaps though I should be clear, you should look good and talk wisely.  It’s a lesson we’ve all learned delightfully thanks to Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.  But it’s also worth noting that you have no control over others.  If Henry Higgins is determined to see you as a common flower girl, so you shall be one.  It’s another musical to which I want to turn your attention, oh gentle reader, for the truth about you. 

The quintessential Fairy Tale, Cinderella. 

Remember when Cinderella was left alone in the garden with her once-beautiful dreams in shreds to match her once-beautiful dress?  She cries.  And she says, “It’s just no use.  No use at all.  I can’t believe.  Not anymore.  There’s nothing left to believe in.  Nothing.” 

Well, any of you who knows me well knows I espouse that there is NO Fairy Godmother.  And it’s true.  Just like with any book, any lesson, any story, you must really examine the message to move beyond the top layer.  I like to think of it as Wonka candy.  You can see all those chocolate bars wrapped in brown branding, but you must open it to find the golden ticket.  So too with stories. 

So too with you.

You are truly the only expert in the subject of “You.”  You know what’s under your wrapper.  Every blessing, every curse, every scar, every ticklish spot, every beauty mark.  That’s your golden ticket.  So you better cherish it.  All of it.  Now, that doesn’t mean don’t strive to be better.  A key factor of knowing who you are is knowing who you want to be.  You are responsible for making that happen.  Charlie wouldn’t have won his golden ticket without paying attention.  Cinderella wouldn’t have ever be able to go to the ball if she hadn’t stepped up when the invitation arrived and claimed her rightful spot.   

But she was torn down, just like all of us will be at some point.  And here’s where the beauty of Cinderalla’s journey offers us hope.

It starts with the magic words.  Not ”bibidi-bobidi-boo” or “Fol-de-rol and fiddle dee dee and fiddley faddley foddle.”  It’s the first words from the Fairy Godmother:

“Nonsense, child.  If you’d lost all your faith, I couldn’t be here….And here I am.”

That’s right, the magic resides in you.  Just like most fairy tales tell you…because it’s true. 

And know, oh gentle reader, I have faith in you too.

Little Monica

I saw myself as a child today.

In a collection of photographs, I posed, I blew out candles, I waved, I flashed cheesy grin after cheesy grin.  No matter what age, no matter what season, no matter the circumstance, you’d recognize me as the gregarious girl with wild hair, energy radiating outward–even radiating out of the photo.

I remember her.  She was going to be a journalist, a pilot, a sailor, a superstar athlete, a famous singer, an artist, a doctor, an author, an astronaut, AND president of the United States.  She was going to see the world and do great things.  People wouldn’t be able but to love her.  People would want to be around her, to talk with her, to find adventures with her.  People would visit Dayton, Ohio, because it’s home of the Wright Brothers and Monica. 

She was something else!

Little Monica.

That’s what people called me–my mom has the same first name.  But I’m nearly as old as she was in the last photos we looked at tonight.  In fact, this year I will be.

I wonder…what would Little Monica think of me if we met? 

Quite honestly, I’m sure she’d be extremely disappointed in me.  “What is all this business of femininity?  Why aren’t you in shape, I could kick your butt?!Seriously, you’re still living in Dayton?  What have you seen?  What have you done?  Where’ve you been?  Where are you going? What have you accomplished?” 

I don’t think it’d be a warm and friendly meeting.  I think we both might have cried.

But I’m confident she’d like my charm.  I think she’d love my wit.  Perhaps even find my fairy tales fascinating.  For certain, I know she’d love my dreams for the future.  Because while I may not have achieved the dreams I had as a child, I haven’t lost my childhood ability and propensity to dream. 

Nor have I lost my ambition to turn dreams into reality. 

In the last photos we saw tonight, my mom was 35.  She was in the very midst of her dreams come true.  A dream, I might add, that goes on to this very day.  Her prince charming still sits next to her, loves her, protects her, makes her laugh, teases her, kisses her, dances with her.  Her children surround her with laughter, squabbles and lots of news that either partially interests her or freaks her out. 

My guess is that’s why she looks as beautiful and young now as she does in her 35th birthday picture.

That’s part of my dream too.  I turn 35 this year.  Will my dream have started shimmering into shades of reality by then?  And will it be enough that when I’m decade’s older I will still look as young? 

Little Monica, I swear to you–I will find out!

Decade in Review

Driving to work this morning I heard the news people talking about the “decade in review.”  It was in line with my expectation that the noise be my company on the drive.  However, when they started talking about the iPod not existing prior to this decade, I suddenly became an avid listener. 

How can that be?  Surely I have had my iPod for longer than 10 years!  I don’t remember life without it.  Oh, wait, yes I do.  Images of portable CD players, portable cassette players and shoulder boom-boxes dance in my head.  Images of my hair styles, my aspirations and my sense of fashion (or lack therefore) joined them.  And with that, I began wondering what else my decade in review looked like…

<insert shimmery screen dissolving into a Monica 10 years younger…>

At 25, the start of the millennium and decade, I was still married.  Kate was my little shadow and Meg had just been born.  I lived in the country filling my schedule and house with so many things.  Was I looking for meaning then?  Somehow I think I was trying hard not to look.  I didn’t play piano or sing then.  I didn’t listen to classical music or big band.  I didn’t listen to music at all.  I didn’t dance or exercise.  I didn’t read or tell stories.  I went to church regularly.  I took care of my house and family.  And I worked. 

In 2001, I filed for divorce and moved to a neighboring town with the girls.  I tried to heal while holding myself together for my daughters and everyone who was watching me, perhaps doubting I could manage.  Truthfully, I doubted it myself.  I bought a bright blue suede sofa to put in my apartment.  Then I stopped working overtime and spent all my free time painting, sculpting, playing piano, writing poetry, taking the girls on hikes, reading to them, telling stories, and dancing around the living room in our socks and pajamas singing into hairbrushes. 

In 2002, I created my first curriculum.  My curiosity had to be tamed.  I wasn’t really excelling at anything, though much of I had done was done well.  So 2002 became the Year of Creation.  I promptly electrocuted myself by stringing colored Christmas lights across the back of the countertop…and sink… to create ambiance in the kitchen.  And I engaged in battle with my neighbors across the street over a mailbox.  The postmaster told me to put it directly across from my front door up against the curb.  I did.  The neighbors took it down and threw it in my front yard.  I put it back up.  They put fresh dog poop in it WITH my mail.  I called the cops.  My house was egged.  I cried.  A dead cat was left on my stoop.  I called the cops again.  Obviously, my strategy skills hadn’t been fully developed yet.  But it was also in 2002 when I fell in love with a man who taught me strategy, negotiation, and charm—gifts for which I am still most grateful.  I created and taught my first Etiquette class.  I started to break through the niceties of “its what’s on the INSIDE that matters” to see what a bunch of dog poop THAT is!  I started spending time thinking about my outside.  I bought my iPod.

2003 was Year of Growth.  And I won.  With the mailbox firmly and finally entrenched, I bought a house in Dayton.  Meg was sick.  A lot.  Earaches, strep throat, colds, the flu.  She still didn’t sleep through the night, and so neither did I.  I was beginning to get used to the haze, to look forward to the rapid heartbeat and tingling in my extremities when I awoke to her cries before the nighttime rigamortis wore off.  Kate broke her arm.  I stood in the hospital hallway ear pressed against the door, indignant that they wouldn’t let me be with her while they reset it.  I wasn’t going to be a problem!  I threw up.  Kate busted her lip open.  I passed out in the emergency room watching them repair it.  I took my first true vacation. I sang with a rock band.  I enrolled in UD’s Master’s degree.  Virginia Kettering died.  My Grandma Lehmann died.  So did my friend Sean.  I began to dream about them and couldn’t sleep for a whole new set of reasons.

2004 was supposed to be the Year of Light, but somewhere in the middle I renamed it the Year of Darkness.  I got fed up with my stalled career and took a job with a different company.  Their red flags were flying before I ever made the step—and I saw them—but I didn’t allow myself to acknowledge the brashness (aka stupidity) of the move until my first day on the job when they gave me my badge and 500 business cards with my name misspelled…then asked me if that would be a problem?  Yes!  They asked me to leave four months later.  I would have been elated except I didn’t have a job.  Instead, I had a mortgage, my daughter’s tuition, and divorce debt that didn’t seem to be moving much, not to mention my school expenses since I decided I was going to finish.  I wonder now how I did it.  I know I owe much to my parents who swallowed their concerns and, maybe, judgment to let me know that they believed in me.  It’s all I needed.  It helps that they also watched the kids, let me use their computer so I wouldn’t be distracted and depressed at home, invited us to dinner and kept my spirits high with music and conversation.  Thanks to them, I was able to focus on getting a job and, in less than two weeks, I had one.  That winter I cried myself to sleep every night because I now clearly and completely understood the impact of my responsibilities for the first time, and, more than ever, I doubted my ability to pull it off. 

In 2005, the Year of Resurrection, I received my first promotion.  Kate broke her arm again.  I didn’t throw up this time.  Meg went to kindergarten and finally began sleeping through the night.  So did I.  I discovered and began making my way through the Great Books List.  I began taking Ballroom Dance classes.  I tried to make peace with my religion.  I signed up for an into-the-community class in my Master’s program and discovered the magic of the immigrant history of Dayton.  I began to learn more about my own German heritage and fell in love with trains and canals.  I read about Henry Flaggler’s train to Key West.  I went to Florida for work and drove the highway to Key West where the train used to run, the posts still sticking up here and there along the way.  I began to study great men. 

2006 was the Year of Action.  My gold Saturn sedan died.  In a dramatic ending of black smoke billowing out from under the hood, my most trusted friend looked at it, called her husband—a car mechanic, and confirmed my fears.  The car was dead.  I still freaked out, but perhaps less than I would have before the events of 2004.  I took the day off work, called my mom and a tow truck, went to three dealers, sat in the back seat of probably two dozen cars, stretched out my arms to see how much space there was so I could estimate how much space there would be between the girls when they were both buckled in, and left the third dealer with a white Chrysler Pacifica.  And another debt.   I consolidated my 401k money and took a loan.  I created a budget.  I ate ramen noodles.  I learned to cook.  I read Wicked.

I started the Year of Strength, 2007, off right away with a plunge.  I ended the only relationship I had had since my divorce.  Our paths were separating more quickly than either of us wanted to admit, so I let go.  I learned that love truly was not enough.  I cried for weeks.  I was afraid to leave the house for fear that junk, pollution, and other dirt would find its way into the hole that was now my heart.  As I healed, I began to really look at myself.  Who was I?  What was I going to become?  What did my daughters see?  Is that what I wanted to show them?  What did I want from life?  As someone who followed curiosity and the winds more than direction, I hadn’t really planned out my path.  It was more general.  Become a great woman.  More importantly, I hadn’t really thought about the lesson I was giving my very attentive daughters.  I earned my Master’s degree and immediately enrolled in karate classes with Kate and Meg.  I quickly moved up the ranks, surpassing both girls whose commitment and excitement about the class were decidedly less than mine.  I was awarded the Forty-Under-40 award.  I dropped off the board of League of Women Voters—frustrated.  I learned how to blog.  I dated and then settled on being independent, and subsequently single, forever.  On my birthday, I pulled out every chick-flick I owned, made myself a lovely pasta and opened a bottle of red wine.  Nearing midnight, sad and lonely, I signed up for eHarmony, which is where I met the most brilliant business man I know.  I was in love before midnight rang in The Year of Flexibility three months later.

2008 was supposed to be the year I took off.  And I did.  But not in the way I intended.  I read Atlas Shrugged—twice, in rapid succession.  I took motorcycle trips across Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia.  I learned about Voluntary Simplicity.  I took the girls to their first meteor shower, and we stayed up almost all night watching, cold and uncomfortable on the rock quarry at Caesar’s Creek.  I stood up to my parents.  I stood up to my ex.  I stood up to my boss.  I stood up to Meg.  I learned stories about western wildfires and staking trees.  I learned how cement kilns work and what Fuel Quality Waste was.  I read the Fountainhead.  I gave up palm reading and blogging as “silly.”  I gave up karate.  I ignored the hole in the back of my house.  I ignored the gutter falling off the roof.  I began ignoring myself.  I worry that I even ignored my daughters.  If only they knew how much I love them.  If only they knew that it is because of them that I will be a great woman.  If only they knew that I don’t want to be great for reasons of affluence and influence, but rather so that they develop skills and wonder in order to build greatness for themselves. 

2009—the Year of Change was full as well.  And most of you already know what I did.  But there is one change I didn’t mention.  I changed the Cinderella Fairy Tale.  In my version, there is no fairy godmother.  Now before you think I’m a dream killer.  Stop.  When you show up the way Cinderella did, you deserve to be a princess.  And when you believe in yourself the way she did, you deserve to find magic. 

And on that note–with magic still hanging on the screen and in the air–I let my decade close.   Happily Ever After doesn’t exist with out magic…and grace, poise and belief in yourself.  I wish them all to you throughout your next ten years.

The Year of Poise

“What do you want for Christmas?”  Kids spout out a million things quickly and directly.  Adults, hem and hedge.  So when I ask “What do you want from life?” I shouldn’t be amazed that kids also spout out a million things quickly and directly.  Adults, hem and hedge. 

I was like that myself.  As a child I could tell you immediately.  At the beginning of 2009, I could only hedge.

That’s how 2009 became the year of Change.  Thankfully, it’s almost over.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no complaints about 2009—I changed a lot thanks to that question…

“What do you want from life?” 

A: “Something else.”

I made several notable changes—like my job, my religion and my relationship status.  After much consideration, I did not change my address as I promised many of you that I would.  But I did change the name of our house (now d’Anconia Four), the décor, and my furniture arrangement in just about every room (twice).  I also did not change my own oil in my car; instead I changed my mind about the intelligence of paying someone else to, as well as my tires.  I did change the headlights myself.  I also changed my dress size (not for the better), the scents around me, my dominant color, my sleeping habits and my financial status and acumen.   All good changes, but still leaving me wanting when asked…

 “What do you want from life?” 

A: “A levee to support and direct me and my natural flow without restricting, distracting or destroying.”

So I changed the rules of the house.  Yes, I changed the rules of the house.  Don’t worry, the rules of negotiation are still wildly popular here, but they are no longer center stage.  Etiquette is.  And, consequently, our house has become our very own Finishing School with regular courses in home arts, personal presence, behaviorism and official etiquette.  With extra lessons in Voluntary Simplicity, Music, and Fairy Tales, and tagalongs such as dream analysis, conflict resolution, the scientific method and palm reading.  It has become my devotion and my revolution.  And it begins in my living room with the two people I care about most—Kate and Meg. 

Now, I hear some of you pitying Kate and Meg, but let me assure you, they were actively involved in this transformation of rules and expectations.  Likewise, they were key players in the creation of our new pledge—To live honestly, fully, simply and well.  We spent literally days talking through individual and collective goals, scouring dictionaries and quotations and even creating scenarios to see how it would work.  But this is what we agreed to, and we have all taken the pledge, spit-in-hand handshakes, pinky swears, and all.   Still, do I know…

“What do you want from life?”

A: “Ability to face uncertainty with grace.”

My meditation, on the other hand, was a solitary change.  And it was one of the most painful changes I’ve ever made.  When you cannot find peace in even your most peaceful moments, when you find yourself fearing even that which you hold sacred, when you are conscious of your decline with no desire to stop it, it’s time to realize that perhaps a meditation you made years ago in a different point in time must be released.  Sfumato.  “Let go.” 

Then I knew….

 “What do you want from life?” 

A:  “To BE in any situation or circumstance.” 

In the book Connected, authors Christakis and Fowler point out that if we are six degrees removed from everyone else in the world, and we have three degrees of influence, then it’s not impossible to assume that we could influence half the world. 

I’m going to find out.  Because what I want from life is to become a diplomat.  That is the woman I’ve been working to become since childhood.  Civility, connecting ideas and people, mitigation and negotiation, persuasion and influence, public administration, complexity into simplicity, travel, culture, individualism…  And charm. 

It turns out I’m already well on my way.  I just need a little poise and to poise myself. 

What is it that YOU want from life?    

I hope you’ll tell me this year.

–With warmth and undying wonder, I am,

a MMEWS

Illinois

About 30 minutes to the Illinois border, Meg needed to stop. I needed a hot tea–not because I’m tired, but because I enjoy it.

The girls working at the McDonalds are acne ridden with too much makeup and snarly, hickish voices. One girl, who held the door open for us as she headed off duty with her uniform shirt unbuttoned and her cleavage on display, busted back in to the brightly lit store almost immediately as if she was about to burst.

Loudly she announced that “Oh my gawd! Shannon is in jail!”

The store screeched to a halt.

“Some guy was spitting on her car, and she said ‘do that again and I’ll hit ya.’ The guy said ‘I’d like to see that.’ So she hit him with a baseball bat.”  She paused and excitement, rather than horror, was writen all over her face.  “My cousin she’s such a bad ass!,” the girl exclaimed in admiration and with poor grammar.

I peered curiously at the rest of the clients in the order line.  The older woman in front looked disgusted.  My daughters looked stunned.  The guys in front of me looked delighted…or maybe all that was registering were her half exposed breasts.

The manager looked horrified.  I couldn’t tell if it was because of the news, or because of the drama in the store. I hoped it was the latter.     

A group of older people behind me just looked leathery, as if they had stood out in a dust storm and if I wiped my finger down each of their cheeks, a layer of dirt would wipe off revealing ivory skin beneath. They seemed unphased by the drama.

As I turned around I saw the manager sneak out the door with the excited girl. 

We ordered and hurried back to the silence and darkness of my car, but not before we saw them on cell phones outside of the store chattering like hens. They paused when we walked by, watching us as we went, then resumed as we got in the car.  Girls.

As we got on the highway, I smelled my tea. It was to hot to drink, but suddenly it was as if I was in my parents garage on a cold, rainy winter’s day. My mom was having a garage sale, and I had offered to help watch over the merchandise. I enjoyed watching the people look and pick at the items my parents wish to be rid of. Old purses and jewelry, used tools and appliances, empty picture frames and clothes spread out over aluminum folding tables covered in white paper table coverings. I didn’t want to leave despite my mom’s urging it that is was too cold to stay out.

My dad brought me my first cup of tea. “Drink it,” he said equal parts amused and gruff. “It will warm you up.” I smelled my tea then as I did just now, but perhaps more suspiciously. Its bitter flavor was not appealing then. I added milk to it…and sugar. It was too sweet.

I wonder when I started liking tea? I think about it, but I don’t remember.

We’re getting close to Peoria, and I’m still not tired.  The sky is dark, except for a halo over a town on the horizon.

Meg is asleep after a valiant battle to stay awake. Kate is learning to spell “suspiciously” and do math (miles to time conversion).

It smells like burnt rubber as we pass through champagne. My tea is almost gone…and so are many more miles as I make my way to you.

-M

The death of letter writing

My dear reader,

Today I mourned the death of letter writing. 

It came on suddenly, the realization of death and the mourning came zinging through the overcrowded brush of my hiking trail like a lightening rod.  I have not received a handwritten letter in more than a year.  The thought, literally, stopped me in my tracks and took my breath away.

It was one thing when letter writing seemed to me a romantic and rare art form.  It was so genteel and elegant (truthfully, it still is).  To this day, practically nothing excites me more than a pen gliding across a piece of beautiful blank stationery with thoughts and sentiments spun out in a lovely prose, like a morning glory vine that swirls across the media around it until, in a moment of early light, blooms into a breathtaking array of color and scent. 

But with the realization that I’m the only one writing letters, letter writing all the sudden seems so desolate, like a desert after a torrential rain–still barren because, no matter how thirsty the earth, the sun has baked it so hard it cannot absorb the water. 

I am thirsty for letters.  I have probably written more than 100 letters in the past two years, but have received less than a dozen in return…and none in the past year alone.

I know because I counted them.  I keep them. 

It’s part of their charm, you know.  Most people keep letters.  Did you know, for instance, that much of our history comes from information in letters?  Galileo outlined his discovery of planets and the Earth’s rotation around the sun in letters to Belisario Vinta.  Our founding fathers practically documented the entire revolution in letters to colleagues, and in magnificent form, more often to their wives.  The Wright Brothers ironed out ideas about flying machines through letters with engineers at the Smithsonian. 

What if someone were to write history based on the written mail people receive nowadays?  I don’t know about you, but all I ever receive are laser-jetted addresses peeking out of plastic window envelopes in my mailbox.  And inside, the content shares no thought nor sentiment.  Just sales pitches or payment reminders.  

It’s just not the same.  It’s just not the thing people keep for prosperity.  It’s just not the thing people treasure.

I used to say I wanted to be a pirate.  Now you know my treasure.  As a muse, I used to want my medium to be music.  But I know it is prose, specifically the handwritten letter kind.

Francis Bacon wrote that “letters, such as written by wise men, are, of all the words of men, the best.” 

I believe that’s true.

And who can deny the beauty of George Bernard Shaw’s defense of his romantic interlude with Ellen Terry when he said “Let those who may complain that [this romance] was all on paper remember that only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue and abiding love.” 

Is there anything more romantic than that?  Or more validating to a muse? 

As a good pirate, my pride flares up and it says it’s time to quit sending letters.  I don’t want to keep giving pieces of my thoughts and sentiments to people who don’t value it, to people who may not value it.  Quite frankly, I’m too valuable.  And I don’t believe in charity.

As a muse, I know I must continue to write.

I am faithfully true,

Monica

An Affair to Remember

I’ve just finished reading about the Merry Affair, and I must say, THIS is an affair to remember, with a crucial etiquette lesson.

Snapshot of the event:  the young nation, not even 10 years old, has a new president–Thomas Jefferson, who desperately wants to make sure that this new nation doesn’t become a monarchy.  He abhors the old ways and purposefully goes out of his way to squelch anything resembling European.  He is building a capital in the middle of the swamp with designs that reflect Roman influence.  Roman influence is what Jefferson designed the country after politically anyway. 

Enter the Merry’s–a newly married couple acting as ambassadors for England.  Anthony Merry presents himself to Jefferson for a formal introduction, as was the protocol.  Jefferson receives him in his…well…his pajamas!  Next evening, Jefferson hosts a formal dinner for the introduction of Elizabeth Merry.  When the dinner bell rang, Jefferson slights Mrs. Merry by escorting another woman (despite the other woman’s protests) to dinner and seats her in Mrs. Merry’s spot.  By doing so, Jefferson disarranges the entire seating structure leaving people to “scramble for a seat.” 

Jefferson’s new etiquette begins being emulated by others in the government, much to the chagrin of all the European ambassadors who start sending reports home of the inconsistent, lacking-discipline order that reigns in the new “wilderness.”  Europe begins to count the number of months to the new country’s demise under this “pele mele” etiquette.

As pele mele etiquette continues, more and more gentlemen and, more deleterious to society, women are offended.  No one seems to know how to act and when to be offended.  Soon, under Elizabeth Merry’s advice, the foreign ladies begin declining invitations to formal social events entirely so as not to expose their husbands to continued embarrassments. 

Jefferson claims victory.  However, it soon becomes clear that these women weren’t just societal creatures disposable and unnecessary in the building of the new country.  The very nature of women’s society had political advantages.  Women, it seemed, acted as advisers to their spouses, shared or gathered information of use that might not otherwise be brought to light, smoothed out misunderstandings, led discussions…

Jefferson began specifically soliciting the Merry’s company in hopes of stopping this “etiquette war” that he had started.  The Merry’s, however, stuck to their boycott.  In a last ditch attempt to recover, Jefferson finally printed the new rules of etiquette and circulated them throughout the international society.  Receiving these “Cannons of Etiquette” almost a year after his formal introduction, Anthony Merry replied that “I certainly should have been presented with these rules when I arrived to take up this post.”

Ah…and so now to my point.  In order to avoid affairs, you must set proper expectations. 

I used to say that everything in life would work well if people knew how to negotiate properly.  I still believe that is true, but the key to negotiation, to etiquette, to success is setting expectations.

In my observation, study and research, most offenses, misunderstandings, frustrations, anger, hatred and other of the ugly emotions, stem from lack of knowing or following set expectations.  Etiquette, in fact, is simply following a generally understood and agreed upon set of expectations. 

Jefferson lost the etiquette war and the respect of Europe through this affair.  But his motives were not vicious.  He simply wanted to change the etiquette of his country.  He knew, rightfully, that society and politics were intimately entwined, and that should society be allowed to follow the example of the monarchies of Europe, so too soon would the politics.   His only misstep was not making that clear up front. 

I recommend learning more about this affair to everyone, but especially to two groups of people:  those who are curious about what our founding fathers really intended for our country (because democracy of today is NOT it), and those who think that history really means “his story.”  For the former, this affair, more than any other, shows an encapsulated snapshot of the early vision.  For the latter, this affair shows that women may not have been the ones writing about what was going on, but they were certainly influencing it immensely–in a feminine way.