Category Archives: Writing from the heart

Today’s word is not in any way synonymous with the condiment slathered on fried potatoes.  That would be too easy. 

I’m writing about “catch-up,” a white-hot energy.  “Playing catch-up” is an experience where we feel we have to make up for lost time, and it’s an experience that can lead to excitement or anxiety.  As I grow older, (ah, these birthdays and the reflections that go with them…) I look at the benefits and folly of playing catch-up.  Since I feel like somewhat of an expert on the subject, I want to say that I choose to be excited rather than anxious about running from behind to get where I want to be.  

When I become anxious, catching-up is like an internal cattle prod pushing me to do everything that I didn’t do when I was younger.  This is just not possible, but the internal dialogue is intense.

“What about retirement?” (Who’s retiring?)

“Sing.  Perform!” (Doing that.)

“Publish.” (Doing that.)

“What about marriage?”  (Sigh.)

When I am excited, catching-up feels like I’m managing a colorful kite that’s  soaring in the wind above my head, where’s it’s been for a while, until I decide to reel it in.  With this game, I recognize that my catching-up is not so much about status and impressing others as it is about knowing—knowing who I am and what I want; knowing who I want to be around (I do not suffer ignorance gladly) and what makes me happy.  Catching-up is about being able to tell the difference between environments that are healthy for me and those that are toxic (insecure bosses need not apply!)…you get the drift.

Then, there are the things that will never be caught–up.  Just today, in a conversation with my mother, she asked,

“Did you ever have any children?”  She’s forgotten again.  This happens more frequently now.

“No, Mom.”

“Why not?”

“I would have had a very different life with children.”

“Different?”

“Yes.  I would never have traveled or met so many people or learned so much about myself.”  She does not understand a word I am saying.  Learn about myself?

“You can still have children.”

“Do I look like Sarah in the Bible?” 

“You can always adopt.”  Sigh.

 Regret is such an oily word.  There is too much emotional residue that you cannot wash out once you have played in the waters of regret.  I don’t regret my choices, but I do look back on them, even when the reflection comes with doubt.   

In a workshop the other day, a woman talked about foster care and, just for a moment, I felt this tug, a push to look at what my life might have been had I not stood in opposition to family and societal expectations for women. 

“You can,” she suggested, “be a foster parent.”

Oh, yes.  I remember.  God’s delay is not God’s denial. 

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the fire of regret was gone.  One of my favorite songs is one that was sung by Edith Piaf, the great French singer.   

Non, je ne regrette rien.  I regret nothing.

For me, it’s about the balance of things when playing catch-up.  In this game, everything must go under the bright light of reflection, but nothing should ever be submerged in the oily waters of regret. 

There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole…

I’m a little late with the posting this week. It’s been a time of deep reflection as the words keep resounding in my head:

“I’m happy with what I’ve got.”   The words were spoken so long ago.

I was sitting in the lobby of the welcome inn at the base of Mt. Rainier.  My boyfriend had gone to the bathroom.  I want to say right off that I was a fish out of water from the get-go.  I am not an outdoor enthusiast.  I don’t like hiking, and I do not find snow sports invigorating.  My idea of a ski trip is a hot drink in the cafe while I watch folks glide or tumble down snowy hills.  However, that morning I was in love.  The sun’s rays bounced off the peaks of the Cascades so brightly that the mountains appeared to be draped in diamonds.  It was breathtaking. 

 I had gone on this day trip to share an outdoor bonding experience with my boyfriend, and that was how I happened to be reading a book, taking in the view, and checking my watch in exasperation.  I mean, really, how long could a bathroom run take?  

 A tall, sixty-ish Caucasian man appeared in front of me.  His gray hair had receded to the middle of his scalp and his glasses did not seem to be helping him much with the map he held in his hand.  His taut frame was swathed in khaki pants and a checkered sports shirt—everything neat and creased.  I was the only Black woman in the lobby—and a woman who could be singled out.

 “I’m happy with what I’ve got.”   

 The truth is, I could have been at home doing the things I loved—baking bread, singing, or writing poetry.  To hell with bonding, I thought later, it’s way overrated. 

The man had addressed me in such a business-as-usual-just-another-day kind of way.  I was stunned.  It took perhaps five seconds for our eyes to meet as he blocked my view and less than that for him to respond.  When my boyfriend returned with food (it had been more than the bathroom after all) I could not explain what had happened inside me.  Having allowed myself to be drawn into someone else’s assumptions about who I was, I witnessed something inside of me, something lovely, something that identified with the colorful wild mountain flowers, evaporate like snowflakes dropped into fire.

 It only took only a few seconds for our eyes to meet and for him to respond.  It took years for me to release the rage and, frankly, shock.  

This man may be dead or alive, but I only have one snapshot of his existence on earth:  the memory of words expressed about someone he didn’t know based on the color of her skin. 

What snapshots do we leave behind?   This week, with a death in my spiritual community, I’ve thought about word snapshots a lot.  There are folks who’ve been hurt by my words and folks who have found healing.  Which snapshot do I want to leave behind? 

I’m not a political analyst, anthropologist, social worker or scholar.  I just know the power of words.  

That night, as I wandered through my apartment in search of healing balm, I turned to the writing of poems.

We all let loose with the unintentional on occasion—like at our family gathering after my brother’s funeral.

“There are two chicken dishes here. This red pepper thing,” I announced, spearing a breast of ruby colored chicken sprinkled with large pepper flakes, “and real chicken.”  I looked over at a plate of perfectly  golden brown thighs and breasts.

My favorite aunt is a fantastic cook.  She now stared at me, her eyes widening as the words “red pepper thing and real chicken” blanched her consciousness.  She reached for a piece of the red pepper chicken, her eyes never leaving my face.

“Uh.  Did you make it?” I stammered.

“Yes,” she nodded. She spoke with just a hint of a hitch, a reminder of her stroke several years ago.

My sister reminds me that the proper use of language (and a little tact) is a virtue—probably on equal par with cleanliness being next to Godliness.

“I didn’t mean…it’s just that… I don’t eat chicken. I’m a vegetarian.”  I stuttered as I pulled the fork from the peppered bird and turned away.

“Great,” I thought.  “That made things so much better, didn’t it?”  Not really…

I want to change the way we use language.  I want to be the word-super hero, the one who swoops in and wraps folks in a cape before they say or write the stupid things that have been churning like butter in their brains—and that they may regret later.  I want to warn them that thoughts become sound and that sound has power.  I want to spread the gospel that we can choose between sounds that uplift and those that demean, hurt, and disempower.  I want to stop the hemorrhaging of unconscious expressions pouring into our lives like river banks overflowing.

Every day, it seems that someone has plunged his or her feet into the cesspool of bad public relations caused by stupidity, bigotry or both.

“Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?” and this:

“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in one week?”

The Georgia school district spokeswoman who responded to the national outrage around these homework questions for third to fifth graders said that they were trying to blend history with math.  I don’t believe this for a second.  Still, somewhere I heard that you can always give someone the benefit of the doubt.

It would be more appropriate and truthful to blend southern segregationist history with math if a sentence began with:  “Ten African slaves planned their escape from a plantation over three days.  They would have to go ten miles a day to get to freedom…”—or something like that.

If I could wave a magic wand (ah, Harry Potter…), I would imprint the advice of my elders onto the brain cells of every person’s consciousness.

“Think before you speak.”  Or write.

Working against intentional bigotry or stupidity is bad enough, but ignorant expressions spew from the mouths of well-meaning friends, family, associates, and colleagues every day.  Prejudicial and two-dimensional representations of other people, cultures, and belief systems demean and dehumanize in ways that reach far beyond the boundaries of race and ethnicity.

But we are so resistant to change.  We resist questioning our assumptions about people, places and things.  We resist acknowledging the possibility that something we say could be demeaning. We resist hearing others tell us how our words sounded to them.  We resist empathy, which allows us to hear another’s truth of what they have experienced from us.  We resist self-exploration that leads to self-forgiveness and would rather wallow in the sewage of defensiveness and/or guilt.  Resistance is the linchpin of bigotry.

When Gallaudet College, a college for the deaf in Washington, DC, was looking for a president in the late eighties and the students insisted on a deaf president, some folks wondered out loud if the college was ready for a deaf president.  Had deaf students evolved enough to manage their own affairs?  After all, if they couldn’t hear…  Well-intentioned folks who had lived and worked with the deaf for many years were expressing undeniably patriarchal views.

Do our words uplift or demean and humiliate?  Do our words inspire or create fear, sadness, pain, and separation?

We’ve only just begun.  Ah, Harry…may I borrow your wand?

Sound has power.  The sound in obreptitious fills the mouth, but breaks the air like a punctured balloon.  It’s the unpleasant presence in relationships.

The dictionary says that “obreptitious” means to gain through concealment of the truth, and I gather that it is a word often used in law and associated with fraud.  That doesn’t work so well in relationships.

Obreptitious a big word, and I had promised myself that I wouldn’t use such words.  It has a lot against it.  It has four syllables.  You have to look at it three times to make sure you pronounce it correctly.  Such words are generally a nuisance because nobody uses them in everyday talking.  Imagine…

“Hey, Susan!  That was an obreptitious statement.”  Or whatever…

I don’t even remember how I found this word.  But I knew when I heard it that there was something in it for me; something to think about.  Do I want to live my life concealing the truth of what I believe in the hopes that people will approve of my life, ideas, and behavior, or do I want to live my life as an authentic person?  I care about the habit of telling the truth.  I care making an effort to be real, authentic, and open.

This word, ultimately, is about hiding; about keeping secrets, and secrets, as we know, are not such good “friends.”  There are times when concealment seems necessary, but in the end, concealment is a deal-breaker.  It kills trust and squashes vulnerability.  Without trust and vulnerability, real friendships don’t exist.  Ever tried to be friends with a corporation?

Corporations and politicians use concealment to gain money and power.  Just look at the mess our political and economic systems are in.  I know…the Supreme Court says corporations are people.  Good luck with that.

I once witnessed a testy turf war between two former corporate business partners.  The executives of one company had developed an elaborate strategy to announce important company changes at a staff assembly without the former partner knowing about the meeting.  On the morning of the assembly, the back doors to the auditorium burst open and the executive team of the former partner sprinted down the aisle to take seats in front of the podium as the announcements were made.

It takes a lot of energy to live with concealment—a.k.a. secrets—for gain.  Sometimes folks conceal information to get revenge or to hurt another.  Like when an ex-boyfriend surprised me by introducing me to his new wife that he had married two weeks before.  We were living together at the time.

Sometimes concealment is used to gain protection for the family or to gain stability in a changing and unstable world.  Growing up, I had often complained (to myself of course) about not having a big sister who would take on all the big sister responsibilities I had.  It’s been said to be careful what we wish for.

“This is her second daughter,” my grandfather would announce when introducing me to people who knew my mother.  I was 19 and in the middle of my only trip alone to South Carolina to visit my grandparents.  I dared not ask for explanation, and saved my questions for when I returned home.  It was not a pleasant conversation, but worse than that, lives were shattered from good intentions.  Sadly, more than 35 years later, the damage of that concealment—for my older sister—remains.

Over the past twenty years, I have made some hellish mistakes in my attempts to demolish the wall of concealment in my personal life.  As determined as I was to level the wall, I found myself holding it up because it’s a fact that everybody doesn’t need to know everything–whether about me or anybody or anything else.

But, I’ll keep trying.  And that is my New Year’s resolution.

It’s heart-wrenching to be invalidated by someone you love.  I was around ten years old when I showed my father a picture I had drawn and colored.  Sitting at the dining room table, I was pleased with what I had done.

As I remember it, he grabbed the drawing, shook it, and yelled “You colored outside the lines!” 

Oh.

Well, this tendency of drawing outside the lines has become a quality of character that I adore.  It is a Christmas gift of immense proportions!  I did not know in that moment that his criticism would become a mantra of sorts, kind of like my personal 11^th commandment.

“Thou shalt always color outside the lines because that’s where learning, character growth, and love are placed.” 

Ironically, the same man who was pushed to anger about my straying outside the lines was also the person who taught me about taking chances.  In a booming voice Daddy would stride into the kitchen with vague ingredients in his large, deep brown hands and look into the boiling pots on the stove. 

“Improvise!” he’d shout, and we’d watch with doubtful, although hopeful, faces as a splash of this or that was thrown into our evening meal.  Sometimes, his improvising didn’t work, but most times, I was astonished to see, it worked out just right.  So, yell as much as he might, my first lessons in straying outside the lines came from him. 

I was sitting behind my desk and chewing.  The rules in my third grade class were clear:  no gum chewing; no eating.  It wasn’t that I was being openly rebellious.  It’s just that as I quietly watched my teacher chewing, I had decided that a rule was a rule.  Didn’t everybody—even teachers—have to follow the rules?

So, as she chomped away, bold as you please, and drew math examples on the board, I put the gum in my mouth and began to chew.

“Take the gum out of your mouth.  You know the rules.” she said. 

So I said (my sister tells me that I always had to have something to say), “But you’re chewing gum, Mrs. H.”

Okay.  If you’re old-school you may have some belief about child-adult relationship values, and how the adult has the final word.  But I color outside the lines.

Mrs. H. glared at me. 

“Why are you chewing gum?” I insisted as my classmates laughed, went silent, or coughed with surprise.

“It’s medicine!” she snapped.  “On the black board, 100 times, I will not chew gum in class.” 

I hate the sound of chalk on blackboard, but although I’d lost the battle, in the end I won the war.  I don’t remember seeing her chew gum in class any more. 

I found out later that it was a chewing gum laxative.  But knowing myself as I do now, I’m pretty sure I would have asked “why?” anyway.   That’s the mold from which this cookie is cut. 

Drawing outside the lines—or in my adult persona, challenging the status quo— requires at least a dot of courage in order to ask the questions.  I may not get the answers, but I will ask the questions.  Asking puts me in the driver’s seat. 

Drawing outside the lines is what compelled me to (politely) explain to a manager that she was abusive—knowing full well the consequences.  I am healthier and happier for it.

Even when we try to stay inside the lines, twisting and shifting our personalities and behaviors to be liked, life’s pictures shift and change, and we find ourselves grabbing new colors, different inks, or sharper pencils to keep up.  Sometimes we just have to go over those little lines to make life beautiful and–dare I say it ? –filled with dignity, love, and respect.

The cynical (you know how I feel about cynical…) might ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?” 

Excellent!!!

Happy Holidays, everybody.  May the New Year continue to bring you peace, joy, prosperity, and courage!

I’m late with the posting this week.  I’ve been reflecting on a word that’s brilliant with the light and warmth of one hundred thousand candles.  Dignity.  I am learning more and more about this word every day.  Here is my definition (I did not ask Merriam-Webster about it). 

As human beings, we are born with the right to see ourselves in the best light through our own eyes.  Dignity is our birthright.  When we are unable to uphold our own vision of our best selves, we project our smallness of vision onto others and try to “bully” them into seeing themselves as we see ourselves—without dignity. 

It’s almost Christmas.  I’m into one of those looking inside places that makes some people hang up the phone with a “see ya’ later.”   Perhaps it’s the long, cold and dark days leading up to the solstice that has me wrapped in the warmth of this word that is wholly connected to respect.  Perhaps it’s the memories of all the times someone tried to strip away my vision of my best self through my own eyes.  Perhaps it’s just that, with the approach of the solstice and the New Year, I do what I always do every year.  I pull out my journal and reflect on the passing year and the changes–large and small–that have pushed me to growth.  Have I stayed true to my values?  Have I been able to give each person, including me, the space to see her best self through her own eyes?  Have I given away my vision of my own best self?  Have I been respectful of the planet and its resources?  Have I dispersed joy and encouraged dignity, or have I contributed to fear and uncertainty?

I am trying to cut back on my addiction to the “news,” and I try not to dive into the political on this blog.  But I’m going to take a bend in the road this evening because I feel like it; and because it’s my blog. 

It doesn’t matter whether a person is pro- or anti-abortion, pro- or anti-death penalty, gay or straight, a man or woman, a Democrat or Republican, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or Buddhist.  If a person cannot carry his words of life in a way that supports dignity in all people, he is using up precious oxygen and stripping away someone’s vision of her best self through her own eyes.  I say, save the oxygen.  

Dignity.  The right to see ourselves in the best light through our own eyes.  

The days before the winter holy days are a perfect time to re-affirm a committment to treat every person with dignity and respect through the next year.   It’s a challenge, right?  So, what else is new?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a historic talk on December 6 before the United Nations on the rights of LGBT individuals throughout the world.  And while her emphasis was on this particular struggle, I took away the moving lesson around which she weaved her message:  it is the absolute right of every single person to be treated with and live his or her life in dignity and respect.  You can find it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MudnsExyV78

This is my continuing goal for the New Year.  Yours? 

Frowny-faced.  Don’t you just hate it when you see someone with lips all turned down at the edges and the forehead is all wrinkled?  “Happy Holidays!” you want to say, and then you reconsider because, the truth be told, those down-turned lips are scary.

I’m the first to admit to life’s difficult times.  Originally, the title of this post was going to be “Obsessed with negativity.”  It’s actually something I know a little bit about, so I was set on blasting our national tendency to sink into whatever cesspool of the month makes us feel sad, scared, angry, bitter, or distrusting.  You know, the old “if it bleeds, it leads” form of journalism.  But, I changed my mind.  I changed my mind because I get tired of giving negative news oxygen.

When I was little we could sometimes irritate our older relatives with our spontaneous, out-of-control laughter.

“What do you have to be so happy about?  Maybe you need something to do.”

We had something to do.  At Easter, my favorite holiday, we would eat jelly beans, Marshmallow Peeps, paint Easter eggs and fill Easter baskets.  We’d wear our new clothes with hats and gloves for church and dirty the gloves with chocolate Easter bunnies.  Wasn’t that “doing something?”

We relaxed as spring, evidence of renewal, warmed our frozen little hands.  Even frowny adults smiled when, after a long and hard winter, the first tiny buds appeared on what would become honeysuckle vines.  Even the most cantankerous neighborhood elder would find him/herself out in the sun marveling at the delicate green of new grass as they planned where the tomatoes would go later on in the summer.  My obsession with positivity began with the spring.

There are childhood things that stick in your mind like bubble gum to a shoe for no really good reason.  Like the melodies and words for each weekday’s theme song from the Mickey Mouse Club (good for getting our bass player to bend into a laughing U shape).  Or Shirley Temple singing, “On the Goo-oo-ood Ship Loll-lee (screech) Pop.” Or “High Hopes” by Frank Sinatra.

I am embarrassed to admit these things.  But the truth is the truth.

These songs, as goofy as they were, had an impact.  One of my favorites was the theme of a Sunday radio show broadcast from a local church.  “Happy Am I!” the minister and congregation chanted back and forth.  The ebullient song with its positive surety made a difference in my pre-teen mind, and, still, more than 40 years later I find myself singing it when I need to remind myself that, yes, I am happy.  Words have power.

Have you ever checked out tree frogs?  I was in upstate New York one summer, and a friend and I were listening to tree frogs.  They begin their chatter at dusk, croaking to each other in a call and response fashion that sounds like a lovers’ spat—all in croak-speak of course.

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did!”

“No, I didn’t!”

Reminds me of some conversations I’ve had.

“9.6% of workers are unemployed!”

“90.4% are employed!”

“9.6% of workers are unemployed!”

“90.4% are employed!”

Tree frogs.

I have crafted a plan for myself.  I spend at least a half hour every day in laughter.  It feels good, burns calories (the research says so…) and Lord knows I need it.

Recently, I canceled a subscription to a popular magazine.  Over the years, the publication had changed editors, and I had hoped that with an editorial shift the content would get lighter, less critical; less cynical.  It did not.  Annoying Cynicism should be its title.

So, keeping the corners of my mouth turned up and my heart open, I canceled.  I just didn’t want weekly cynicism as a part of my days.

Go ahead.  Say I’m in denial.  Call me Pollyanna.  Believe me I have been called so very much worse.  But whatever you call me, call me laughing because I am obsessed with positivity.

This is not a pleasant word for me.  It brings up inner challenges in the commitment to write one’s truth.  The prods and pokes of fear are pushing me towards keeping things small.  Safe.  Predictable.  I’m learning how easy it is to slip into a provincial–narrow-minded–state of mind  as I sit down every week to put these thoughts into W.O.R.D.S.   The provincial promises safety, but there is no reality in it.

“Keep the point of view narrow.”   But a narrow point of view is like going backwards.  Like so many provincial serving politicians today.  No thanks.

Dreams are a critical piece of my internal GPS system.  They direct me to places I need to explore, and, on several occasions, when the thick broth of memory drips into my sleep, I travel back to a time where we experienced joy in a solidly  provincial world on my grandfather’s farm in South Carolina.  In these dreams, I am wandering the landscape of the farm.  Over there are the pigs.  Here are the chickens.  Down that path are the grape vines.  There are the fig trees there, and over there are the fields of vegetables and fruit.  Sometimes I am standing on the back stoop or sitting on the front porch or looking out the window over my grandmother’s wood burning stove.  We would heat the irons to press our clothes on that stove.  Sometimes I am staring up in the inky black sky at the constellations and losing myself in their depth.  I know what the safety of provincial feels like.

I remember glorious mornings when we kids harvested corn, vegetables, and fruit in the mid-morning sun.  The corn husks and corn silk caused my skin to itch miserably, and although I complained, I knew that by dinner we’d be sucking on sweet, juicy kernels lathered with fresh butter.

Oh, darn. I forgot about the scary corn worms.  And that, my friends, is the problem with nostalgia—aka narrow thinking.  It’ll leave out those worrisome corn worms of life every time.

Our visits were fun because we did not have the burden of being trapped in the restrictively hard farm work like other kids and relatives. We would always go home to our own restrictions.  Theirs was a world of fiercely provincial ideas that kept them safe from the outside world, and while there, we fell in line with those restrictions.  Given the life-threatening politics of the time, I understand that provincialism was a positive force in saving lives.  So, it bothers me to hear:

“Things were better in the old days.  People were better when they followed tradition.”  Really?

I want to burn the bridges to these words, these proclamations that amount to painting ourselves into a corner of life with a teeny, tiny brush.  Rural provincialism had a life-saving purpose.  But that was then; this is now.

Everyone longs for a safety net of predictability, but aren’t narrow views weighted with constrictions and fears that keep us from seeing the bigger world up close and personal?  It seems to me that this yearning for a return to a simpler life is accompanied by fear.  Fear is accompanied by ignorance, and ignorance cheers the repression of civil liberties and a person’s right to make his or her own choices.

I met a woman who has lived in Philly her whole life and never once ventured outside the one or two miles where she lives, works, and prays.  She did not know anything about the lives of the other cultures with whom she worked.  She had never been to the Italian Market or Reading Terminal Market or visited Old City.  Yet, she had some very strong, narrow and wrong views of how to whip the 21^st century world into shape.  Efforts to keep things small, predictable, and controlled always fail.  Look at Prohibition.

This evening I went to a local observatory to watch the waxing moon through high-powered binoculars.  I don’t have words (me who can rattle on) for the breathtaking beauty of the crescent and the clearly outlined shadowed side.  The sky was salted with stars, and the constellation Orion so huge and clear it felt as if it enveloped the earth.  Looking through the telescope, I was stunned by the sight of Jupiter with two bold stripes across its body (rings) and two of its moons.  The universe does not offer a provincial view.

There is so much to see, to do, to experience.  So much that can open our hearts to the beauty of being alive.  But we won’t know this if we keep looking backwards, yearning for a life that’s all Andy Griffith-y and Mayberry, without those worrisome, but necessary corn worms and beautiful, but itchy corn silk.

Can we, as a nation, afford it?  What do you think?