Too Late?

I had a long and informative conversation with my mother yesterday about her transition into becoming a vegan.

The Chief Lou and I have a summer tradition every four years of watching Olympic gymnastics and crying and cheering and remembering how we both wanted to be Mary Lou Retton when we were kids.

A dear friend of mine took me out to dinner at a new swanky hipster joint where we devoured fresh oysters on the half shell and licked the platter clean.

My mother was diagnosed with diabetes about ten years ago. This woman who raised me has always been conscientious of her diet. She fed us from our huge organic garden, locally raised chickens and milk and dairy products. Our sweets and treats were always homemade from scratch and in our childish dementia, a Hostess Snack Cake was a foreign and exotic delicacy. She did aerobics in the 80s, step in the 90s and does circuit training and yoga in the new millennium. Since being diagnosed with diabetes, she has been continually frustrated with willy-nilly blood sugar levels, despite her best efforts. She has spent the last several years feeling like a failure somehow.

I used to stand in front of the mirror and practice my Mary Lou smile and throwing my arms up over my head triumphantly. I cartwheeled around the basement and begged for gymnastics lessons. I taught myself to do a front handspring and wondered if I was well on my way to the Olympics. The Chief Lou mostly ate Wheaties, so he could enjoy her visage on the front of the orange box. He was clearly the most dedicated of the two of us. Anyone who would eat that much sawdust to be closer to his goal is hard core.

I have eaten lotus root sauteed in plum sauce. I have eaten deep fried scorpions and cicadas. I have eaten sea cucumber, turtle head soup (the cheek meat is the most desirable and considered lucky), beef Tar tare, fresh caviar from the Black Sea. I have eaten the worst green beans ever made at a pot luck. I have eaten foot, crow, my words and dirt on innumerable occasions. Until a few weeks ago, I had never eaten oysters on the half shell.

Bumper sticker wisdom and, more recently, Facebook status commenters would tell us:
"It's never too late." Chirpy words of encouragement that are parroted to folks who reach out in a new endeavor, to prod people who may be hesitating about trying something new, to cheer for people who strike out after their dreams.

Sometimes it is too late. I will never be Mary Lou Retton. I will never compete as an Olympic gymnast. That ship has sailed. Unless they open up an event for doughy, hirsute thirty-seven-year-olds thundering and sweating around the mats, I will not get my gold medal or my Wheaties endorsement deal. Let us not even discuss the coveted spangly leotard.

Sometimes it's late, but not too late. My mom, at age sixty-five, has decided to completely change her lifestyle, to chuck over notions she has held dear for as long as I can remember so that she can feel better, live better, and help out her malfunctioning pancreas. The Chief Lou and I have cried and cheered for her nearly as much as we have for Gabby Douglas this summer. We have marveled at the strength she has shown in eschewing foods she loves and trying to re-adjust her way of thinking so that she might just have this chance to control or even reverse the effects of her illness. Many of her friends have encouraged her not to. Many have told her just to get the 24 hour insulin pump so that she can eat whatever she wants. She, the avowed chocoholic, has refused. Why is she doing this? She told me yesterday, "I just don't want to wait until it's too late."

And me. The not-gymnast. I have tried not to resist ageing in any sort of inappropriate way, but I get overwhelmed sometimes with the feeling of marching time. I am content and have no serious complaints about my life, I've done a lot with my years thus far. I've accomplished things I set out to do and some that I didn't set out to do. But sometimes that dull fog of having seen it, done it sets in. Sometimes it feels like the whole world is a little tattered and worn, a little too familiar.

But then a friend calls you up, takes your arm and says let's go here. She laughs that you've never, and she gets you a seat at the bar with all the cool people. She orders for you and promises greatness. Sometimes you get to grasp that shell and let the ice-cold slippery goodness, drenched in lemon and garlic, slide down your throat and you laugh and lick your fingers and go back in for more. Sometimes you get to taste new flavors, get drunk on only the delicious unexpectedness of it. Sometimes you get to be new and inexperienced again and discover something for the first time. Sometimes you get to realize as you sit back and survey the pile of empty shells that sometimes it is too late, but probably not as often as you might think.

Summer Called

I was just finishing up the dusting this afternoon and sitting down to write, when my friend Summer called and asked me to come out and play. This is not a metaphor. I do, in fact, have a friend. Her name is Summer. Her name is Summer even in the winter and in March which is who knows what around here. She's a lot like the Summer you might know - bright and fun and golden. She is. I promise, this is not a metaphor. She can always think of the best things to do and her D is the best of friends with my Hooligan and she laughs when I say careless, straight-faced things about children.

Summer called on the tail end of the dusting. Actually, that's a lie. She didn't call. She texted. I just hesitate to say such things because it makes me feel like half my age. Not in a good way. She texted and the Hooligan hollered over the vacuum: "Mooooom! Your phone beeped! I think you have a text!" He's a whippersnapper and much more comfortable with such language. My phone is dumb and flippant, so texting is an act of love. The tedious hammering out of Morse Code on a tiny screen. Beep beep - N. Beep beep beep - O. Delete.

Wait! Why would I say no to Summer?

"Sorry, I can't come and play with you in the sunshine on this perfect day because I am dusting. And then when I finish with the dusting, I plan to collect all that lint off that rag and stuff it in my navel so I can contemplate it and then write about it. I have certain standards to uphold, here. I can't just be out enjoying myself willy-nilly. There is twaddle to type. Get back to me when it is cold and gray and rainy and I am bored. Those are my power days."

 I did not text this. That would have taken forever. Probably my phone, which is quite slow, would not stand for such nonsense. It was much easier to text back: "On our way." It was easier, but not easy, you know. All those beeps and counting letters and such. There was a flurry of screaming and nudity and beach towels and swimsuits and "where is my purse? I just had it!" and sunglasses and hats and "does anybody have to pee?"  and we were off to find Summer.

Everyone needs Summer in their lives. To beckon you away from the things that are no fun. To send you messages unexpectedly that turn the afternoon upside down in the most delightful of ways. To remind you that there are moments to be seized and splashing to be done. To draw you out of flakiness and navel lint and dusting and stormy moods and just generally being yourself. To call to you and tell you to come out and  play.

I have a Summer and she is golden. I'm so glad Summer called.

Finally

A friend of mine owns the best bookstore in the world. It's nestled in the heart of Pike Place Market. It is her passion and her art. She's got impeccable taste in books and an excitement for literature and reading that shames even the most voracious of us. Her free time is spent culling thrift stores, book sales, private collections and library cast-offs for just the perfect products to line her shelves. Customers in her store are treated to personal and perceptive service. I like to sit on her park bench by the door and listen to her while she listens to her customers:

"I'm looking for a book for my uncle."

"What does he like to read?"

"I'm not really sure. He likes history."

She will start from this maddening introduction and gently prod and chat until she has determined the perfect book for the uncle. A radiant customer leaves with their package and the knowledge that they have selected a unique and meaningful gift. Usually they leave with a tiny crush on this spirited and intelligent proprietress as well. I have more than a tiny crush on her, myself, and I am wise to her ways.

She was my first friend in a new city. When I met her, I had a toddler and a newborn and a quiet desperation. I don't make friends easily. I get bored with people, irritated with their children, lost in my own thoughts and bogged down in insecurity. She ignored all that, invited herself over for lunch and asked me "What are you reading right now?" Almost every conversation with her starts like that, even now. It's a gauge we use to see where we are in our lives when we haven't seen each other in a while. 

We got together for the first time in months over the weekend. She brought me a copy of Infinite Jest that she found. I gave her a stack of cookbooks for her store. Our girls took off and picked up right where they left off; where they've been leaving off and picking up since they were less than three years old. She is reading Japanese magical realism in her native Italian. I am reading a stack of books on writing. 

"Finally," she said. "I have been waiting for you to write this." She waded right through my neurosis, my effusive explanations, my insecurity and said "Finally." I have been mulling over the roles people play in our lives, what draws us to one another and what repels us. I have been spent the last several weeks recalling and reliving a whole hodgepodge of emotions long buried or forgotten. It is sometimes daunting work, but compelling and motivating, too. I think of this friend, this person dropped into my life when I feared I was nothing more than a milk dispenser, diaper changer, and a target for bodily fluids. She embraced that mess and asked me "What are you reading?" to remind me of the parts of me that were all my own - my intellect, my imagination, my thirst for the written word - and helped me carry on, firmer in my understanding and appreciation of myself.

And now, when I have a different sort of newborn I'm tending, when I'm still fraught with insecurity, overwhelmed and daunted by my undertaking, she has done it again. "Finally," she said. "I have been waiting for you to write this."

Guest Post: "Will You Trash My Vibrator?" and Other Secret Pre-Mortem Pacts With Friends

OK folks, I have left the planet. For the next few days you will be treated to a parade of creative talent from some of my dear, patient, talented readers. The Grand Marshall of this parade is Red Dirt Kelly and this beautiful, brave piece. Thanks so much Kelly for all you do!

 The last time I visited my comrade Cathy’s dying friend in the hospital, we talked about angels. “Cathy” was also the dying friend’s name which made for some confusing conversations in the ICU unit.

The dying Cathy looked very much like Susan Sarandon. She rested her head on the hospital pillow and toyed with the IV entry area on her arm while she whispered that she believed an angel had visited her on an Indian Reservation in New Mexico to deliver the message that she was ill. Her arm was hard to look at, having turned approximately half purple by that point.

In my mind, the warm sunlight streaming through the window lighting up her auburn hair was the Light, and the disease turning her arm…and the rest of her body purple…was the Dark. But the Light won when she breathed her last breath because the dying Cathy finally smiled and the tension left her face. She could rest now.

But my friend Cathy was a different story. That night she got drunk and I sat in her living room listening to her repeat stories about their friendship over and over. At one point, I found some rollers in her bathroom, brought them into the living room and begin putting them in my hair as a painfully weak way to cause laughter and break the sadness.

Needing to walk around at some point, we picked up a second bottle of wine and crossed the street, knocking on the door of a female Methodist minister who had a labyrinth in her back yard. We all three laughed when she answered the door with rollers in her hair. The three of us, rollers dangling at all angles from our hair and clothed in our bathrobes and slippers, began to walk through the labyrinth in her back yard, singing drinking songs. The minister and I watched our grieving Cathy as her sadness gushed forth well into the morning hours.

I thought about that night and my undone friend for three days. I was riveted by her ability to announce her utter unraveling in front of the two of us.

Had I ever openly wailed and shown my soft underbelly and pain so plainly to another human being? Even before I finished articulating that question to myself in my head, I knew the answer was: I have not.

The answer was still rolling around in the soul-space of my brain like an echo around canyon walls when my phone rang. It was my grieving friend and she needed help clearing out the house of the deceased.

So I helped her in this task, all the while observing her lingering hesitation over every object with some degree of meaning attached. I was in the middle of observing her decide which of the fifty potted plants to keep when she said, “Can we go get dinner? I need an emotional break.”

Once again, she had exposed her humanity by telling me she was at the limit of her “feeling” capacity, brought on by the process of sorting her dead friend’s belongings. And for the record, vulnerability does indeed breed vulnerability. Each time my friend opened her soul to me, I felt more like I could open mine to her.

So there we were, see, sitting across from each other at a restaurant table spread with heavy cream and butter pasta, grappling with the pieces of our lives which were floating in the air around us. Somewhere around my head “my own thoughts about death” drifted by, close to my speech center. It was being levitated by my growing trust toward my dinner mate.

So I blurted, “If my husband and I die simultaneously, will you PLEASE trash my vibrator? Cathy, I can’t let anyone find our vibrator when they’re cleaning out our ‘death things.’”

Her expression was a classic double take followed by a grandiose belly laugh.

“Oh my stars, yes!!” she replied.

“Okay, you HAVE to remember this…it’s in the bottom center drawer in his dresser, behind the socks. Will you please remember??” I was intensely ensuring that the entire pact would indeed be managed.

“Yes…” she started. “Got it. Bottom center drawer, behind the socks…” Her face was cracked with a full-blown smile and her eyes danced mischievously. “And will you PLEASE come into the funeral home when they’re preparing my body and pluck ALL the fuckwit hairs growing from my chin? I hate my chin hairs and would be SO mortified if they were sticking out of my face when people viewed my body!!”

“Absolutely,” I replied. “I. Am. IN. I will pluck your chin hairs. Happy to do it.” I felt better because I now also had a post-mortem task to contribute to the dignity of my own friend’s future death.

The conversation took a hairpin curve and by the time we walked out of the restaurant, we had talked about how body fat could be disguised in caskets, how to manage crazy family members in the funeral audience and what to make sure our children knew should they falter from time to time after we died.

In other words, we managed all of our personal anxieties about dignity and death over pasta, wine and the essence of our dead friend’s memory floating about in the restaurant air.

The bits and pieces of emotional processing still remaining around our table – buoyed by our own insecurities, were slowly descending to the floor when we left. They did not follow us. Rather, they were swept up with the bread crumbs by the wait staff after closing that night. We were finished with them. For now.

That particular dinner conversation happened three years ago. I still update her on any geographical change in “the location” of the vibrator. And, she’s sent me no less than two pair of excellent quality tweezers… “in case I’m without a pair should she kick the bucket.”

Our promises are intact, as is now our posthumous dignity.

Or, at least the pieces that about which we are most concerned.

Whose Goose Are You?

Why a goose?

courtesy of www.morguefile.com

You've surely heard the tale. The gift of a goose. A goose who gives gifts. That gift being gold. It's an uncertain, uncomfortable gift. (Surely for the goose!) It's wealth unearned, beyond expectation. It's a "dare I believe it's true?" sort of gift. The kind that makes life easier, leaves room for breath and a respite from worry. It seems indefinite, but the future is unsure. Will it continue to give? What should we do about it? Will we worry about tomorrow? Or shall we just be thankful for today? Why a goose?

Geese are vulnerable - those long, slender necks - but the vulnerability is deceptive. They are powerful. Geese are ridiculous and beautiful. They are strong, territorial, and fierce. They are loyal, smart, and they have a clear sense of direction. They can fly around the world, but have a sense of home. They are devoted to their partners, prolific, protective. They fall somewhere between the absurdity of ducks and the undeniable elegance of swans. They honk and waddle and, well, goose; but watch them swim, fly in formation - great black V's against the autumn sky - or tend to their young and it's an organic, fundamental, almost geometric beauty they possess.

What would you do with a goose that laid golden eggs? One a day for... how long? As long as they stuck around, I suppose. It's not up to you. What would you do with this goose? With these precious eggs? Where would you even begin to sort it out?

I have a flock of these geese. An entire flock. When I try to stop and count them, think I have a firm accounting, I remember one more and one more. Wealth unearned, beyond expectation. A "dare I even believe it's true?" sort of gift. I have this flock of magic geese, yet I am not special. These geese are all around us. All of us. Every day.

In her post Deb rattled something loose when she said "a goose is not a gumball machine." It is a living, breathing, loving-for-life being. My gold, therefore, from these geese is not the stuff of ingots and doubloons. It is far more valuable than that. Its price per ounce is immeasurable, ineffable. It does not rise and fall with the economic waves. My gold is untouchable, incorruptible, eternal. My geese come sometimes daily, sometimes hourly, sometimes every few weeks or so. My geese, my lovely gaggle of geese, come to me in person - muddy, messy, goosey life - and virtually - the light and pixels of dancing words in messages, posts, comments, pictures. I even have a few geese who no longer inhabit this earth, yet somehow have managed to leave me a cache of treasure to find when I need it.

This gold, these geese - they will not pay my bills (duck bills) they will not make me rich in any sort of common way. But they make me wealthy beyond measure in the things that really matter. These golden eggs get tossed my way, and yours, in tolerance, loyalty, love, kindness, trust, companionship, respect, in such abundance my arms overflow and I run out of places to put them. In the face of such great magnitude I would be ungrateful and miserly indeed not to share this wealth. Look around you, take in the glittering piles of gold that fill the corners of your life. You cannot miss it for looking, you cannot say it isn't there. For every rotten, stinking fart of a dud that gets sent your way, how many precious gold gifts outnumber it? Wealth unearned, beyond expectation.

Do we look for the gold from only the right geese? Are we disappointed because the ones we've hand-picked as valuable refuse to lay? Do we kick aside the piles of gold freely given us in order to chase a goose that has flown away? Do we look and say: Oh yes, you've given me this gift, but your waddle is silly and your beak is all wrong? Do we degrade our fiercely loyal, protective, practical and devoted geese by wishing they were swans? Do we forget to see them in their grandeur, in their element - that pumping, streamlined V on a steady course, that gliding grace across the face of the water - and see only the ridiculous honking and bobbing, goosing gait?

Geese are not particularly noble creatures on the surface. They are complicated and diverse. They are practical, hardworking, intense. There is beauty in their contradictions, their idiosyncratic selves. They are a feathered bundle of ridiculous and proud, of vicious and loving, of vulnerability and strength. They are you and me. The question is not "What would you do with a goose who laid golden eggs?" One would hope the natural reaction - the human and humane - would be to cherish it, protect it, appreciate it. The question becomes instead: "Whose goose are you? Where are you laying your golden eggs?"


Many, many thanks to Deb at Kicking Corners for sparking this line of inquiry with her delicious Fairy Tale Friday. Also to Tara at Faith In Ambiguity for lodging waterfowl so firmly in my brain this week with your misogynistic duck antics and for building a Battered Duck Shelter; and to Marie at The (Not Always) Lazy W for sharing the exploits of your Mia, the magical cuddling, hot-tubbing goose.

Feathering My Nest

There be geese on my horizon. I am wrestling with geese right now. They are flapping and honking and beaking  me. I love a good wrestle. One of us will emerge victorious and when the mud is washed off and the cuts and bruises are bandaged, I will display the fruit of those efforts here. Meanwhile, there are feathers everywhere. And there are things that come with Monday that preclude extended wrestling matches.

Here are some things from my weekend that I collected:

The feel and weight of bamboo and silk yarn in my fingers and across my hook. The drape and the sheen of the fabric they made together by the marvelously simple repetition. Hypnotic. Stitched into the whole experience is the knowledge that my mom will wear this sweater as she embarks on a brand new adventure, a life-long dream, and a courageous act of healing.

My jBird on my lap. So heavy, her head sticks up taller than mine, her boniness digs into me as she snuggles, her legs drape almost to the floor. But she sits and snuggles still. She turns the eyes toward me from an angle I've seen then since her birth. So dark and intense and thin veneers for everything under the surface. Her dimples and gums as she grins and closes her eyes, hugs and is happy.

The Chief Lou, who smiles and encourages and loves. I watched him flirt with the old ladies at church. I watched them twitter and giggle and clutch his arm in hilarity. He was telling them how much he liked my leather pants and my new haircut. He spreads ease to people in a way I find enviable, and I watched him, for a few short moments make a recent widow laugh uncontrollably and feel young and daring and fun again. My heart opens and opens and opens with love for him.

My Hooligan and his best friend sitting together, sharing books. She is a little younger, a little smaller and he knows it. Ever conscious, ever gentle, he shares and defers to her. They draw each other pictures and whisper secrets in each other's ears. They hold hands and pray. The Hooligan prays that "everyone who might get lost will find their way home" and I blink away tears. He tells her a secret and her laugh is explosive, surprisingly deep. In a fit of pure delight, he kisses her on the cheek and plays with her hair. He does this because this is how he expresses love to people that matter to him. An innocent, pure gesture of genuine affection for his friend.

A dear friend lolled about on the floor of my crowded living room with me. She saw my kitchen in disarray. She was close enough to the carpet to see the spots. It didn't matter and we talked of things that mattered. We talked like friends in comfort, silly, teasing, serious, wondering, blurting, madness. Three hours passed and I wondered why she thought it was time to go. Good friends are rare. Especially the kind that don't mind that your kitchen is a mess.

I picked apart a ball of fear in much the same way I do my beloved yarn. So tangled and claustrophobic at first, it's easier to just chuck it in the back of the closet and forget about it. It's not easier, though. I know this. I sat and unraveled, patiently, vigilantly. Strand by strand I sorted it out. I picked it apart and untangled the knots. I wound it into something useful and beautiful. The beauty of decision, of aligning and analyzing, of letting go and watching it whip too fast to see, round and round on my winder, turning it into something solid and manageable.

I will be back to speak of water fowl soon. In the meantime, read my inspiration most fowl: dbstevens at Kicking Corners has ruffled my mental feathers with this and this.

Grumplestiltskin Gets Over Herself

I've started about 16 posts today and scrapped them. They were all whiny. I didn't get any sleep last night. I don't get Twitter. I wish I could spend the holidays on a deserted island to avoid family politics. I ate a cupcake and a cheeseburger for lunch and now my pants are uncomfortable. I ran out of coffee. I need to paint my toenails. Nobody understands me. I hate bad grammar and spelling. My cell phone won't charge. I was so creative before Google was invented. I am so tired of those people who draw a Hitler mustache on whomever is in office and stand outside the grocery store and bother me. (Learn some history and stop calling everyone a fascist!!!) Wah. Wah. Wah. Me. Me. ME.

So I took a break. Shut everything down and walked away into real life for a few hours. Took some time to be irritated by people other than myself, and this is what I've come up with:

Things can get pretty bad out there, I can't afford to let things get pretty bad "in here". I wrote a whole Manifesto about my new economy and now it's time to enforce it. I will not give in. I will not get discouraged.

This is what I have to give liberally and without regret today:

I pray daily for all those who are hurting, that they might find peace and comfort. If you're hurting, that means YOU.

Although being a keen observer of people often has its downside of noticing a great many irritating things, it also affords me the pleasure of noticing the wonderful, quiet things people do to make this place better. I appreciate YOU for all the good things you do that you may believe go unnoticed.

I spend a good bit of my time feeling like I'm getting away with something because my life is so blessed. I recognize not everyone's life is like that. I hurt for those who struggle. If you're struggling right now, I hurt for YOU and would do whatever I could to help.

I am a good listener. I will listen to YOU.

I will celebrate with you, cry with you, laugh with YOU. Even if I don't know you, I will.

Even if I disagree with you, even if I don't like you, I love YOU. I really do. I love the things that make us all different, and one of my super powers is being able to find a common reality with just about anyone. (My other super power is to always put my hand in something sticky when I'm out in public, but that's far less useful.)

If you come to me with a problem, I will not talk to you about doors opening and closing, silver linings, fish in the sea or any of those other meaningless things. I may try to make you laugh, though. I will definitely let you cry.

You're important or you wouldn't be here on this planet. If you can't think of anyone else that you are important to, YOU are important to me. You're important to me because you are a living, breathing being with your very own thoughts and emotions and struggles and triumphs. You may look different from me, act different from me, believe different things than I do, speak differently, love differently. You may even hate me. I still love you because you're a person. And as crabby as I sometimes get, I just can't figure out how not to love people.


P.S. Even YOU, Hitler Mustache people. You care enough about what you believe in to stand outside the grocery store and the post office rain or shine and have people make fun of you. That takes courage and some intestinal fortitude. I appreciate that quality and love it, even if I don't agree with you AT ALL and think you shouldn't try to explain your position to my 4-year-old.

In this economy...

"In this economy..." is rapidly climbing my chart of Top 10 Social Disclaimers that Should Be Stricken From the English Language for Overuse and Abuse. Seriously, it's about to replace "Now more than ever..." and that's saying a lot. These phrases get bandied about willy nilly, and generally get attached to the front of any sentence that you want to excuse in advance for being obnoxious or selfish or xenophobic or just about anything involving duct tape and bottled water. Any sentence begun with this phrase will automatically send me to a place in my head that plays my favorite songs on repeat. Your lips are moving, but I can't hear what you're saying. It just looks like you're lip-syncing to "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and that amuses me. That's why I'm smiling and nodding along. I have a serious problem with cliché to begin with, and I find social disclaimers to be among the most despicable forms. If you have something obnoxious to say, say it. Don't hide behind a mindlessly repeated talking point or try to excuse it or make it seem somehow all right under the circumstances. So, "in this economy..." is about to be stricken from my lexicon forever. But first! Some advice from my mother:

My mom is one of the best teachers I know. With a career spanning 40 years, she has seen every trend in education come and go and come around again. One time she told me her trick to classroom management: "Your classroom is like a government. The teacher, as the leader, gets to determine the 'currency of the kingdom'. If you trade in positive reinforcement and excitement for learning, the students will learn to do the same." This advice has also saved me from many temper tantrums (my own) over the last several years of parenting. What is the currency of my household? Do we trade in mutual respect and kind words? Do we give these things to each other without reservation? What is the currency of your household?

And what is the currency of our country right now? We can continue to focus collectively on the distribution of wealth and material goods and see where that gets us. Or, we can devise a new economy. The good news is that we don't have to wait for new people or the right people to get elected to get it started. There's no joint resolution that needs to be passed, there's no spending to cut, no disenfranchisement, no endless bickering over dollars and cents. The other good news is that I'm going trot this tired phrase around the barnyard before I put it out of its misery.

In this economy... I will choose to give liberally and without regret to those who need it without judging their circumstances.

In this economy... I will also choose to give liberally and without regret even to those who I don't think need it.

In this economy... I will spend my energy developing relationships and experiences; not accumulating possessions.

In this economy... I will get to know my neighbors and my community. I will not be isolated by fear or apathy.

In this economy... I will not adopt positions or ideas just because they are oft-repeated or popular. I will choose to think for myself.

In this economy... I will not participate in gossip or slander of anyone, whether they are a public figure or a private individual, because that only divides and hurts.

In this economy... I will plant flowers and bake bread because they smell good and because they remind me of things like delayed gratification, growth, and getting my hands dirty.

In this economy... I will tell people the nice things I think about them, whether I think they need it or not.

In this economy... I will continue to enter (and lose) local contests and events because it forces me to expose myself and get to know new people in ways I wouldn't otherwise.

In this economy... I will listen carefully to the stories of others. I will not judge based on appearance, my pre-ordained pigeonholes or stereotypes. I will constantly be surprised.

In this economy... I will turn off the "news" and turn up the music.

In this economy... I will express gratitude, both loudly and inwardly, for the goodness that surrounds me: in nature, in other people, in the things I have, in the lessons I've learned, in the challenges I face, in the silliness of life.

In this economy... I will take responsibility for my choices, my actions and my words. I will also give myself and others the grace to make mistakes.

In this economy... I will play nicely and share.

In this economy... my kids' inheritance will be love for themselves and others, an appreciation for hard work, thankful hearts, faith, and a sense of their many-splendored gifts and how they can use them to change their worlds.

What is our country, if not a conglomeration of all sorts of households? Join the revolution! What's your new economy?




*Photos courtesy of the inimitable Thomas Poarch. The figures are of part of an installation by Tom Otterness in the 14th St subway at 8th Ave in NYC. Should you ever be in the Big Apple, you should check both Toms out. Also, am I allowed to say "Big Apple"? I'm not sure about this.

Pie Is Important

(Originally written 22 May 2010 for a friend who made a disastrous pie for a dinner party)

 I bought a cheap plastic belt on clearance a while back. When I discovered that it was far too big, I brought it to our local cobbler to have it shortened. I was a little embarrassed to be paying more to have the belt fixed than I paid for it in the first place and I told the cobbler's wife (who looks every bit like you would imagine a cobbler's wife should) "I know it's just a cheap plastic belt, but I love it and I want to wear it." The cobbler's wife fixed me in her gaze and pointed the frightening tool she was holding at me. "Don't denigrate the belt" she bellowed. I found this so startling and delightful that it has become a household phrase for us when we want to remind each other of the importance of the seemingly trivial. Don't denigrate the belt. Don't denigrate the pie, either.

Pie is very important. There's the process: patient cutting of butter into flour and rolling of crusts just so, getting the filling to that perfect point of firmness and flavor. There's the word: pie (or "pah", as it should be pronounced almost always) that is so small and terse, yet so fun and round. It is a deceptively simple dish in its finished form, but quite complicated and mysterious to make correctly. Pie has accompanied alarmingly many turning points in my life: I split a piece of pie with a friend at Waffle House in Bowling Green, Kentucky one night (all night) that ended up being the beginning of a major shift in my life's course; Daniel and I ate many slices of pie at House of Pies in Houston, Texas while hashing out wedding plans and imagining our future; I ate pie at Bob Evans in Toledo, Ohio as my labor started for the birth of my first child; I ate pie with my dad in a hotel room in San Antonio, Texas a week before he died; last summer I felt compelled to bake pie during a heatwave that nearly melted Seattle (I can hardly be blamed for this lack of judgment in timing. Blueberries were ridiculously on sale and Esquire that month featured a spread of Mary Louise Parker baking pie in her underwear and I just had to try it. The recipe. Not the underwear.) And now, pie is once again accompanying the two of us on this grand experiment. Additionally, Toby Ziegler and Sam Seaborn required pie for writing the State of the Union. 

Do not denigrate the pie, indeed.

Now that pie is put in its proper place, I will admit, I don't really like to eat pie and I'm somewhat befuddled as to why it seems to have accompanied so many things in my life. Perhaps it's because I was in a mood for change in the first place and would mark that mood with a bold "I shall order pie!" sort of stand. In all honesty, most pies are a little too sweet or a little too gooey for my taste and in the custardy ones I can frequently taste every single egg used in the preparation. Even good pies that I've eaten, none of them has just swept me off my feet and sent me into ecstatic utterances like some cakes or cookies have done. Maybe the pie has accompanied the turning points because my senses were so full of other things that I wanted a dessert that was reliably "meh". Perhaps it's simply a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc. I don't know.

So, full circle with the pie (tee hee). Take a large bite of that runny heavy-handed, lemon zesty turning-point pie and I will chew it virtually with you. I'll gulp it down with my cup of coffee and tell you "Yup, I've had better" and together we'll laugh and revel in the ability to look at something we've created and say "Whoa! That sucked!" and move gaily on, much the wiser.