The Life Support Bed…

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I have a pile of dirt where I put extra plants at the end of the gardening season. I call it the Life Support Bed. They don’t have a permanent home yet, so it’s a holding area. They’re either going to make it or they won’t, but it gives them a fighting chance to be in the ground before winter. I celebrate the ones that return. I know they’re hardy enough to make the cut, and the others? Well, sayonara. Life is tough on the prairie.

If I’m being honest, and I DO try to be honest with you, dear readers, I’ve placed a few of my relationships in the life support bed myself this year. When your life is chaos, it’s easy to neglect all but the most essential. We’re talking hard core Maslow’s hierarchy of needs essential: food, shelter. Relationships and belonging are on the 3rd level. Forget about esteem and self-actualization, ain’t nobody got time for that… I’m kidding,  you should have time for that, but it isn’t called a hierarchy for nothing. You can’t skip one level and make it to the top.

When you’re on life support, it’s your relationships that take the biggest hit, right? Here’s the thing though, the ones that matter are going to hang in there…for awhile at least. I hadn’t talked to one of my best friends in months till last night. We had deaths, cancer diagnosis, work stress, broken pipes, and the like between us. These things changed us, but we talked and talked, and the relationship is still there. Of course, we had the roots of 20 years of friendship replete with public intoxication, embarrassing dance moves, break-ups and other sordid stories shared between us. A pretty solid foundation.

New relationships? Most can’t take the hit and weather the storm, same with plants. You have your annuals and your perennials, know the difference.

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” —Oprah Winfrey

Summer is coming. THANK THE SWEET HEAVENS!! You can’t leave your relationships in the life support bed forever, they will wither on the vine and die. It’s ok to test for hardiness, but everything has a breaking point. People who need people…Sing it, Babs. You need people, too. So phone a friend, water your plants, and take care of yourself.

 

Keep sharing moxie! And, guess what?  I write this for fun. I’ll never share your e-mail or make money off of this, so subscribe and never miss a word of my delightful musings. It’s fun to share moxie. Just do it.

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All Pomp & Circumstance…

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The school my daughter attends celebrates kindergarten graduation. A few years from now I will watch her walk across the stage at her high school graduation, but these will be the faces I will see. The frowners, the nervous one, the smirker, the cheesy grinner (hopefully no nose pickers at that point).

Pomp & Circumstance… You’re humming it, right? Daaaaaah, dum, dum, dum, daaaaaah dah. Now you are. Traditional ceremonies are a lovely way to usher in great changes. Baptisms, confirmation, bar mitzvahs, prom, and then graduation. Nearly half of a student’s life is spent with teachers. Those who can, do: those who can’t, teach?!? Bullshit. Teaching isn’t for sissies, it’s for warriors. You need someone strong enough to hold a classroom together, soft enough to comfort broken hearts, and smart enough to reach any kid that walks through the door. Brilliance is demanded is so many different forms, it makes my head spin.

There are many debates out there about testing strategies, effective teachers, the best schools, the most innovative curriculum, blah, blah, blah. Here’s what I know: good teachers, amazing teachers and crap teachers. Kids know the teachers that really have it and the ones that don’t. A great teacher is magic, pure and simple. How many great teachers did you have? Think about that for a minute. What teacher did you think of first? Some of you may be digging way back in the archives, and that in and of itself is telling. What teacher do you remember after 10 years? 30 years? 50 years?

My first grade teacher changed my entire life. She taught me to read, she showed me that I was smart, she helped me believe I was special. I will be forever indebted to Mrs. Jackson of Riverview Elementary. Who are you indebted to? Did you ever tell them? I’d like to believe that kind words don’t have a due date. It’s Pomp & Circumstance season. Thank a teacher.

Keep sharing moxie!

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No shame in my game…

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I love books. Confession: I love books more than people. Note, not more than most people, more than people, period. Unless we share DNA this is unabashedly true. I have skipped out of formal dinners to read in bathrooms. I’ve ducked out of weddings to finish a good book. Indeed, I have read books half naked while having various medical procedures completed. At any given moment, I would rather be reading than doing almost anything else.

There is a shared language of readers. Either you speak it or you don’t. I won’t judge the car you drive or the house you live in, but if you’re not a reader, well… we don’t speak the same language. Non-readers, you can stop reading this post now. Readers, carry on.

I can talk books for hours. Can you? Do you remember the first delicious all-nighter you spent with a book? I was 12 and it was Emily of New Moon. I had loved my Trixie Belden adventures, Sweet Valley High was fun, but Lucy Maud Montgomery knocked my 11-year old self on my ass. THIS was poetry! I’ve since read all of her books again, and, while enjoyable, it’s like an old boyfriend, great memories, but distance. You have the right books for specific times in your life, just like people.

I like big books and I cannot lie… Actually, I read classics. I read trashy novels. I read medical studies. I’ll read the back of cleaning bottles in a bathroom if there isn’t anything else to be found. A reader must read, just like a true runner must run. “Books wash away from the soul the dust of every day life.” Sorry, Pablo, I just jacked your quote there. Art is wonderful. Beautiful writing is art.

I buy books because I love to see all of my mini adventures lined up on my shelves. It’s tangible and it feels better to me to hold a book than an e-reader. Mostly though, I love to share my books. What better gift to give than something that has resonated and touched your soul? It’s no small thing to share a great book. It’s you extending yourself saying, “I loved this, I hope you do, too.”

The right book at the right time is magic. Share your favorite with another. Tell me yours.

Keep sharing moxie. Image result for book quotes

 

 

Find your tribe. Love them. Fiercely.

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It’s Mother’s Day. Find your tribe. Love them. Fiercely. Mothers and mothering take many forms. I am a mother, and I have many children that I look out for, whether I’m on their birth certificate or not. I’m lucky to have a mother, a step-mother, an adopted mother, bossy sisters, a mother-in-law, sister-in-law, best friends. My life is teeming with mothers. Some of them have biological children and some don’t. They all mother. Fiercely. 

I ordered flowers yesterday from a local shop in my home town. It was a somewhat surreal experience. I called in a order and they already had my name on file. I realized it’s because the last time I sent flowers it was for a funeral. Don’t start with me about how Mother’s Day is a commercial wasteland. I’ll use my teacher’s voice (and it’s scary). Order the flowers now. Don’t wait for a hospitalization or a funeral. Send the cards now. The texts. The two second Facebook post.

Your mother may be living or not. You’re still being mothered by someone. Mothering takes many forms. It’s beautiful and gritty and ugly. One day isn’t nearly enough to honor the sanctity and near sainthood that these women hold in your heart. Say something real to someone who has mothered you today. Make it count.

Keep sharing moxie!

Hope on a limb…

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I’d like to rename Spring. Yep. Let’s go with “Hope on a Limb”. Spring arrives when you feel like you’re at your wits’ end and pokes its little head out. You want to cheer on these brave daffodils, buds, and birds. Be brave, bits of green!! If a baby is God’s way of saying the world should go on, then I think spring is the affirmation that we shouldn’t be miserable shits on earth. It’s a big beautiful world, people, just stop to take a look around at the wonder.

There are few places, save Alaska and Antartica, that one might celebrate spring with more fervor than in Minnesota. Minnesota transplants in particular start to feel like they’ve earned a t-shirt with every winter they’ve survived. The blizzard of ’97, the April Fool’s day snowstorm of 2014, the time you went sliding off your roof because the snow was so, so high. Some may view it as rather pedestrian to talk about the weather, you probably haven’t lived in cold proud country. We’re grateful in May when it’s 30 degrees “because there aren’t any mosquitoes”.  I honestly just had someone say this to me last week.

I’m thankful to have lived in and traveled to other areas and experienced different kinds of weather and life. I’m well aware that I could live in California where the weather is truly lovely, but as my good friend in San Diego has said “I just wish it would rain sometimes. This much perfection is obnoxious. My soul needs a rainstorm.” True that. I crave sappy movies sometimes because I need to feel sad. I like dreary days, so I can justify reading a book and not working on projects outside. You need balance, between light and dark. My Minnesota heritage has allowed me to live peacefully in the dark and celebrate the light. That ying and yang stuff? Yes. Those Chinese philosophers might have been on to something for the last few millennia.

That being said, the first really and truly warm day of spring? It’s like Christmas, right? It’s like being 10 years old on the last day of school. Wooooo hoooo!!  People are smiling at each other. You say “yes” to things without thinking twice. Your heart is a little bit lighter and your steps more swift.

I’m not sure what phase and space of life you’re in right now. Have you been stuck in winter: dormant? Maybe autumn with loss and change? Summer, bursting with youth and vitality (lucky you! crazy jealous). For me, I’m needing some spring. Are you needing to cling to some hope on a limb? I’m going to to be a courageous bit of green poking my head out. Be brave. Join me.

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Happy Spring, peeps! Keep sharing moxie.

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Grief: The Third Rail

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If social security is the third rail of politics, grief is the third rail of life. Few want to talk about it and no one wins this battle in the end. It dims, changes, and morphs, but never leaves. I will not pretend to have the corner market on grief, because every person has their own story. Whether you have lost a parent, a child, a sister, a dog, a friend; grief changes you. It scrapes away the facade,  and what is left is often startling and raw.

I have a sweet picture of my son being held by his Grandpa. Shortly after the picture was taken, he lost the last vestiges of memory. He forgot where he lived and who we were. Every loss is unique, debilitating and, usually, devastating. Death is death. This is not a contest. Who wants to scoop up on the prize of greatest loss? Um, yeah, no one, that’s who.

I was once at a dinner where Rudy Giuliani spoke. I remember little of what he discussed other than the number of funerals he attended around the clock after 9/11. The one quote that stuck with me is this, “Weddings are optional, but showing up in times of grief? Absolutely necessary.” So true. It’s incredibly easy to be a part of the events where joy abounds: a wedding, a baptism, a graduation. To show up at a funeral, and embrace the awkward silences and tears? Those are the people you remember. “Grief forces you see: who matters, who never did, who won’t anymore, and who always will.”
I think grief is the 3rd rail because even though it’s always there, it’s something that we tend to want to smooth over quickly, to move past as fast as possible. I’ve decided recently though that there is something really beautiful in taking time to talk to someone, to listen, to see their eyes fill with tears, while tears well up in your own. It’s real, it’s raw, and it resonates.
Embracing someone in their sadness is often a forced pursuit. It doesn’t come naturally to most, and it’s actively avoided by many. In one of my first jobs I was placed in situations to sit at the bedside of others that were dying and didn’t have anyone to be with them. This remains, to this day, some of the most heartbreaking memories of mine. To be at the end of your life and have a stranger placed at your bedside to hold your hand? I’ve worked hard to establish and maintain relationships to avoid this very scenario, not dying, that will come for all of us, but to die alone or with a paid stranger? Please, no, no, no. If you want a reality check on the life you’re living, take a moment now to imagine yourself in your final moments. Who is there and who isn’t? If you need to get to work on some things, here’s your nudge of encouragement.
It’s been a sad week for some lovely people for a myriad of reasons. Perhaps you fall into this mix. You know the difference between the rushing “how are you” and “no, really, pause, pause, pause, eye contact, how are you?”. It such a gift to be listened to, isn’t it? I just don’t think there’s a replacement for it. So here’s my challenge for all of you, dear readers, grieve and let others be grieve with you. To allow someone in, really in, when you’re broken to down to basics and rubbed raw, is a gift, and such a compliment. That they would share this honest moment with you? Yes.
Be real and allow others be real, too. Be charitable when grief gets ugly, because sometimes it can be very, very ugly and angry. Look people in the eye and share their sadness. Grief is awkward, halting, consuming, and distancing. Cards are nice, e-mails are thoughtful, but showing up is priceless. Show up for the hard stuff. Even with your awkward silence, side hugs, and sweaty hands, show up for the hard stuff. 

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Keep sharing moxie.

Plan C, D, & E

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Going with Plan A is easy peasy. Rolling with Plan B?  Most can. It’s the person that can rock Plan C, D & E that I want in my bomb shelter and on my speed dial.

This brings to mind my Aunt Mary, a coffee can filled with pee, and a messed up pan of rice krispie bars.

My Aunt Mary rocked plan C, D, & E often in her life with panache. Quick to laugh at herself, she was able to carry off many things that would leave others crying in their coffee grounds. Family legend says Aunt Mary once brought  a pan of bars that had 5 different kinds of cereal, but really it was only 3. Families can have long memories about a little slip-up, right? 😉  As I recall, the bars started out as Rice Krispies, but running out of those, she added Lucky Charms and Fruity Pebbles. Those were some fine looking multi-colored squares of sugar, clearly illustrating making do with what you have. (This week I had my own Mary Moment resulting in a quick and dirty batch of no-bake cookies. These were made when plan A, B, & C were utter failures).

I’ve never been painted in a corner, but I have been painted upstairs. Honestly. I was playing with my cousin, visiting Aunt Mary, and she painted the stairs in a somewhat Amelia Bedelia move, with us on a upper level. Ever the problem solver, she pitched food up the stairs till we could come down without messing up the paint. Truly one of my favorite memories at her home.

Everyone has a Griswold family vacation story or two in their back pocket. Ours was a multi-family caravan road trip to Wyoming. Before cell phones, you’ll recall it was somewhat tricky to communicate between vehicles, not for us. We proudly flew a red sock out our window if we needed to pull over. After my younger cousin figured out that he got a break to check out a gas station whenever he had to go to the bathroom, why that red sock was flying ALL. THE. TIME. And then, he was given a can to piss in by his mother, you guessed it, Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary had some big issues go down in her life as well, but she dealt with them, owned them, and made them a part of her history, not her future. I’d like to think I learned some things about living from her.

“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry”, “roll with the punches”… I could go on and on. You get my point. Life is messy. If you’re sitting here reading this and living exactly the life you imagined and dreamt of as a child, yay you!!! Actually, wait. Seriously, who are you? If you have the keys to the kingdom…it’s only nice to share. MOST people have to move along to plan C, D, & E at some point. For me, it’s how you do it that says more about you than having to roll along to your 5th plan. You can go kicking and screaming, yelling, kicking the dog, or you can suck it up, straighten your shoulders, and do it. If you’re really talented, like Aunt Mary, you can just laugh.

It’s no easy task to laugh at yourself, to take ownership, and move on. I’d rather have one Aunt Mary than a 100 powerful people that would throw me under the bus at the first given opportunity. So this week, my sage sharing moxie advice for all of you, my dear readers, is this– be a Mary, not a Jackwagon. 

Keep Sharing Moxie!

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Graduating from adult camp…

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Today I graduated from adult camp. Not kidding. After spending a week at a leadership camp retreat, I crossed over the rainbow bridge to adulthood, to leadership. And because you’re all my peeps, or you soon will be, I’m going to share some of this wisdom for free. Get ready, friends, I am going to save you thousands of dollars that you can spend on whatever makes your soul sing and heart beat faster.

    1. First day of adult camp is like the first day of school. Everybody is flashing their finest clothes and seeing where they are going to fall in the pecking order. Remember clothes are armor and in new and intimidating situations one must suit up. By the end of the week jeans prevailed. If I had stayed one more day I would’ve shown up in yoga pants. You have got to get down to the jeans and yoga pants level if you’re going to be real.
    2. Listening is important. Not kidding. I don’t listen the way I should, chances are that you don’t either. There is a significant difference between listening to get the gist of something and being really intentional about listening for understanding. A good listener is hearing what is being said and sensing what is unsaid. Being really listened to feels incredibly good. Try it.
    3. Invite new people to your lunch table. To your board room. To your classroom. To your life. I’m an abstract person. I see a haunted spooky forest where concrete thinkers see approximately 20 trees. You need both at your table.
    4. Trust people that know more than you. I found myself on the first day of camp looking around smirking as the seasoned instructors said that by the end of the week we would reflect on this time spent as one of the most incredible experiences of our lives. I was wrong. They were right.
    5. Adult camp food is WAYYYYY better than summer camp. Shrimp, scallops, steak, salmon? And you can drink legally, as opposed to sneaking in a stolen wine cooler from the garage fridge.
    6. I probably don’t speak the same language as you and certainly not the same language as my husband. He gets hopped up about a new calculation in a P & L. I look at him like a deer in the headlights. I tell him that the color of my daughter’s nursery doesn’t feel right and makes me so incredibly sad I want to cry. He looks at me like I have lost my mind. Find out what language you speak and those that you love. It will save time and hurt. We all have filters. I say green. You say grass. I say leprechaun. Make sure you’re on the same page or at least in the same damn book.
    7. Compliments, really thoughtful positive assessments, feel better than sex. Well, mostly. Take the time to write down five things you love and appreciate about someone. You’ll be amazed watching their entire face light up.
    8. Every community needs leaders. You are probably one already. Stop standing on the sidelines. Dig in. The world needs you. Your community needs you. Yes, you. 

Keep sharing moxie.

Really!! Share it! Pin it! Email it! I love seeing how sharing moxie is spreading.

Thanks, readers. You’re the best!

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Too old, too young, just right.

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Until recently, with a birthday mere months away ending in “0”, I have struggled with a Goldilocks complex: too old, too young…

Just right. Finally.

I think we’ve all had those moments after a near disaster averted, a crash that didn’t happen, an MRI that comes back clear, where we think “Thankyouthankyouthankyou! I’ll be better. I’ve learned my lesson. I get it now. I’ll appreciate what I have soooo much more.” But like speeding, our gas pedal quickly gets floored as soon as the cops are out of sight.

It’s always been a race against the clock for me. More, more, more. Faster, first, go. Young, younger, youngest. I was the youngest in my graduating class, started college at 16, worked immediately in a field where age is prized. I remember being grilled on the witness stand once about my credentials by a defense attorney. He said there wasn’t any way I had enough experience. I did. Won that case,  channeling some serious Dr. “Bones” Brennan, with relish.

Blessed with an apparent baby face, I was recently told by a supervisor “You look like you’re 10!” Let’s be clear here, people, telling a 40 year old they look like they are 25 is a compliment. Telling anyone over the age of 8 that they look like they are 10 is condescending, rude, and generally to be avoided.

Visiting a parent on a locked memory care unit, an Alzheimer’s ward, for the past two years has changed me though. I’m no saint, lordy be, far from it. I often dreaded these visits. It forced me to examine the end stages of life. Harsh, heartbreaking and life changing. Suddenly though it didn’t matter if I looked like I was 10, the fact that I knew who I was became the only thing that mattered. It wasn’t about someone challenging my credentials, I could answer all the important questions: where I was, my name, and the people I love.

Perspective matters.

Perspective, it can’t be bought, is often painful in the acquisition thereof, but so needed.

I’ve seen some of the young beaten down by circumstances appear so very old, and then I have watched some octogenarians with the loveliest spark, lighting the way to aging gracefully.

You are just right, in this moment. Be a goldilocks. Blow out the candles. You are just right.

Keep sharing moxie.

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It’s only a house…

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It’s been almost two years since we moved into our new house. Much like bringing home a newborn, it’s only now that I feel like we might be emerging from the other side of sleep depriva…

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