The Weight on My Chest

In thirty days I will be forty years old.  According to our culture’s latest push, that means I am supposed to DO something and do it big.  Travel, party, big night(s) out or perhaps invest in some expensive jewelry to mark the fact that I am about half-way dead. I understand why these are seen as important markings for a fortieth birthday.  They help a person show the world that she is still young, vibrant, capable, accomplished and ALIVE.   Such events can also allow a woman to gather with her closest friends to cherish and celebrate a life through laughter and most likely, some wine and cake.  (Cake for cherishing the first half of life and wine for pondering the second?) While the latter reason holds some appeal to me the former does not- at least not in the way cruise ship companies and jewelers spell it out.  My prior post, “Kicking the Bucket (List)” illustrates, I’m not so hot about thinking grandiose thoughts when it comes to my life.   

So there are no huge parties or trips in the works for me over the next thirty days- just some relatively huge weights!  For one hour, two times a week for the past six months I’ve been working on a classic weight-lifting move – the bench press.   With the guidance of a champion power lifter/trainer and the moral support of the other ladies in my group I’ve increased my “one rep max” (the heaviest amount my body can successfully exert force upon for one repetition) from 50 pounds to 75 pounds.  She who shies away from thinking big for herself hasn’t shied away from the goal of maxing out at 80 lbs by the time I am forty years old.   Why 80 by 40?  80 lbs is 57% of my body weight.  Lifting 57% of my body weight at age 40 puts me in the 70^th percentile of women my age.  In laywoman’s terms- I’d be stronger than 70% of women my age at the bench press.  She who never passed that President’s Award Physical Fitness Exam in school, she who crumbled into a ball and was thrown on the “meat wagon” during track practice, she who never viewed her body as being physically strong will officially BE STRONG.

Talk about feeling young, vibrant, capable and ALIVE!  Every grunt, groan, pain and gain reinforces the truth that as I approach 40, I am NOT half-dead.  This tiny weight-lifting challenge permeates all aspects of my life in the most positive ways.  I am not afraid to set other goals for myself and now can break them down into tiny “workouts” to accomplish them. I’ve passed on the weeknight glass of wine to make sure I don’t screw up my training.  My children have not only become my cheerleaders but my admirers- my six year old told me she “can’t wait to be able to put muscle on my body”. Instead of trying to do things I ALWAYS wanted to do, I’ve started thinking about things I’ve NEVER thought I could do.  My mind (and my deltoids and my glutes) have grown through this experience.   Would this mental and physical expansion occurred if I’d had my nose planted firmly in a bucket list?  Will I max out at 80 on 40?  I don’t know.  It’s the “I don’t know” that used to halt me in my tracks.  But as I stare down 40 years of age and the assortment of “dimes”, “nickels”, and “chips”* it will bring, I am happily pressing onward.

*terms for 10, 5 and 2 ½ pound weights.

Paths to Enlightenment

Open Mind

Good trainer

Calluses

 

Kicking the Bucket (List)

In support of NaNoWriMo,  National Novel Writing Month, WordPress and other blog sites are encouraging everyday folks like me to not necessarily write a novel in 30 days but to at least write something every day.  Intrigued I clicked on a link that led me to a daily prompt to get me started.  To my dismay, I was prompted to write about what my last supper would be like.   Stream of consciousness flowed like this: Ugh.  Don’t wanna think about that.  Reminds me of that time my friend asked me to make a bucket list.  Don’t wanna think about that again, either.  Ugh.  What WAS the bucket list I made –going to Spring Training and some other crap I can’t remember right now. Ugh. “F” this.  Nobody will know that I even clicked on this link or thought about doing this if I stop now.  Ugh.

However, since I had nothing else I wanted to reflect upon while I cleaned my kitchen and swept up the Halloween detritus from its floor, I explored the “Ughs” and came up with two reasons why I loathe coming up with last suppers and bucket lists and their Ugh-inducing ilk.

Reason #1 – while the intent is to lend a glimpse into someone’s true nature, these topics can just as easily be faked and lack the authenticity they set out to find.  If I name the “correct” menu for my last supper then I can impress everyone with just how hip, obscure, unique and quirky I am.  I can lord my apparent worldliness over friends and family by choosing just the right bucket list destinations and activities.  Depending on my audience, I could come up with three very different last suppers; one for the kids, one for my spouse, one for my girlfriends – all to simply impress or make them feel at ease in my company.  And the real, personal hard truth that this made me face is that despite my statements to the contrary, I really, really care what people think about me and my choices.  I am human.  I want to be liked.  I want to be validated.  How’s that for a bucket list?  I want to be liked. If I die being liked then I die a happy woman regardless of what is in my belly or the sights I’ve seen.

Reason #2 – Contemplating a last supper or being able to both concoct AND execute items on a bucket list shows that my life has a level of luxury of which I am not totally comfortable.  This is most certainly a by-product of growing up in a low income, blue-collar situation while raising my family in a comfortable middle-class, white-collar situation.   What right do I have to such self-indulgent musings like a last supper when others in this world aren’t even sure if they will have any supper tonight?  (Yes, I’ve been accused of being “too serious” and sucking the joy out of things).  Good fortune has smiled upon me.  For now.  Can’t mess with that by getting too confident in my dreams and aspirations.

How to fight that inner-Catholic and bring the peace, love and joy back into what are supposed to be light-hearted discussions? Since I am not on death row and have no plans to land there, I am not going to indulge the last supper thoughts.  I will, however, enjoy the tacos planned for tonight that have my children very excited for dinner.  I didn’t publicly announce it, but my heart’s desire involved taking my family on a road trip through the redwood forests in California.  We did that this summer and it felt like an item had been checked.  But it also felt very fulfilling as it was something we savored as a family before we shared it with “the world”.   And that falls in line nicely with the premise of NaNoWriMo as the best writing advice I was given comes to mind: don’t TALK about what you are going to write, just write it.  So perhaps in life we should do the same.

Paths to Enlightenment:

Friends and family members who are patient enough to tolerate your joy-sucking thoughts

Cautious optimism

Generosity towards those without the luxury

A mini van

Animal Instinct?

 One doesn’t have to cast their Internet “net” very wide before they bump into a blog, Op-Ed or book review about people proclaiming their ambivalence or downright animosity towards having children and starting families.   Many women can be found saying that they just never felt the “biological urge” to bear a child.  And as a mother of three, I can say with great confidence that I understand how they feel.  Not because I have a single regret over having children myself but because I feel the exact same way about owning pets.   Does the thought of diapers and drool make you cringe?  The thought of itchy fur everywhere elicits the same response in me. 

Even as a child I noticed that animals did not excite me or hold my attention to the same degree as they did my peers.  Sure, I had the Trapper Keeper adorned with puppies.  But I assure you, that was a fluke.  K-mart was probably out of the ones with unicorns and I wasn’t interested in going to school with any NFL teams on my supplies.  Girls were supposed to swoon over puppies and kittens, so, it was just easier to follow suit.  The fact that I had to keep my ambivalence towards animals a hidden, dirty secret was driven home to me in seventh grade.  That was the year my Grandfather died.  Experiencing grief for the first time is never easy.  It’s also not difficult for a sensitive, emotional junior high girl to feel such emotions – well, VERY intensely.   Can’t say why I’d expect such things but in my head, my friends and teachers were supposed to welcome me back to class with hugs and tears while gushing sympathies for my loss.  After a few “Sorry about your Grandpa” ‘ s,  life went on as usual.  Still stunned and aching inside, I went on as usual, too.   Until a few weeks later when a classmate’s dog died and she WAS greeted with a giant hug and gushing tears from MY favorite teacher!  This gesture made absolutely no sense to me.  How could grief for an animal surpass grief for a human being?  My unfortunate take-away was that my fellow human beings just loved dogs more and I didn’t love dogs as much as them and I had to keep THAT little bit of information to myself.

My animal ambivalence continues.  It is not easy for me to confess that as there are many people I love and adore who love and adore animals.  Appreciating a friend or family member’s pets takes real work.  But the effort has paid off as I’ve grown mildly fond of some of them.  My naïve attempts at attaining some sort of Zen balance in my life helps me to respect animals and appreciate them – from a distance. Once my kids entered the scene, the inevitable trips to zoos surfaced.  It helped for me to see things through their eyes but gawking at animals gawking back at me is never my first choice for leisure.   If still in junior high, I could easily be accused of being a “poseur”.

Before you judge and try to convince me otherwise about critters, know that the Universe isn’t done with me on this subject just yet.  The book of Anne vs. Animal, it appears, is just getting started.  The Fates have bestowed upon me a daughter who is a literal beacon for animals.  We take a walk and creatures from near and far appear.  Lizards, frogs, snakes, butterflies, cats, dogs – all clamor to be in her presence.  She wants to own a dog, (or hedge-hog-don’t ask)  SO BAD.  So far the main barriers to her obtaining such things are some allergies and immaturity (mostly mine not hers).   Animal reference books and encyclopedias of small, cute, furry things are not a choice but mandatory purchase when the Scholastic orders come through.  Currently we are hosting a frog (that attacked and killed its tankmate) and a very, very sick Betta fish.  If I had my way, I’d add some good vodka to its tank and let it pass happily.  But a teary-faced goddess begged me this morning to go to Petco to see if there was anything that could be done for it.   I felt sad as I gathered a water sample and quite possibly offered sympathetic words to my pale, finned tenant.   Now, I am unsure if I can completely convince myself anymore that I am taking this unplanned trip to the pet store just for my daughter’s sake.

 

 

Swallowing the Pride Pill

“NAM: Growing Confidence “stuck out from the pile of junk mail collected from my box yesterday.  Against my better judgment I did not automatically toss it into the recycle bin with the 700 or so mortgage refinance solicitations.  The letter from National American Miss informed me that my daughter was special (duh, but, which one were they talking about?) and her special-ness had earned her an invitation to be seen by their pageant and modeling agents.  Modeling scholarships would be offered!  Opportunities for my daughter would open in front of her eyes if I just brought her along with this special invitation to some random hotel next weekend.  A glance at the sponsors splashed across the bottom of the page helped me figure out that her participation in a dance class probably got us on this mailing list.  If someone close to my daughter (again, which one?) had indeed submitted her name to be considered as a special talent, then wouldn’t they have told ME first?  Unfortunately, that is where the rational thinking ended.

The invitation continued to explain that there was a “no make-up” rule for all girls under 12 and no talent or swimsuit competitions. Well, that made it better.  But, what would my daughter be judged on, then?  Just her “look” or personality or what?  I mean, my daughters are gorgeous so they’d naturally stand out in a crowd.  Confidence is something I want them to have.  Maybe we should see how they stack up against everyone else. ….

Those thoughts sound ugly, don’t they?  They get uglier.  In my mind, I started comparing my daughters to the girls I see on the TV shows she frequently watches.  Certainly they had more going for them than those gawky, pug-nosed kids with designer haircuts?

Wait!  What?  Those girls are someone else’s daughters.  Hearing anyone say anything like that about my kids would crush me then cause me to reach dangerously high anger levels.  But, my kids ARE just as good as the kids on the screen and in the magazines.  Oh, poisonous pride!  I quickly stuffed the now red-hot invitation into the recycle bin, muttering to myself something along the lines of, “Out, Out, damned spot!”

Like the Ring of Power, that invitation kept calling to me.  And like Gollum, I turned uglier under its spell.  What if I just randomly tossed a huge opportunity for my daughter in the trash?  I pride myself at placing every chance for success at their feet.  How could I just toss this seeming opportunity away?  Oh, and then there was the issue of which daughter’s opportunity had just been trashed.  In my ugliest moment of weakness I STARTED SIZING UP MY DAUGHTERS AGAINST EACH OTHER as to which one would have the best chances of being noticed by a modeling agent.  A wretched Gollum-cough just might’ve exploded from my throat as I stuffed more things on top of the invitation, trying to bury it along with the compare and contrast exercise working its way through my brain.

This morning all was forgotten until the beautiful faces of my daughters gathered around the table.  My mom-pride swelled. They have what it takes!  I will take them all to this random hotel room and strut them around for everyone to see!  They will be famous!  All will see them and love them….and despair!   Foraging through the garbage- I unearthed the invitation and –hands shaking- shoved it in the face of my sleepy and confused husband.  Sipping his coffee he read it, set it aside proclaiming, “This is nothing but a rope-a-dope scam”.

With that, he tossed my Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom.  Free from its spell this Dope (yes, with a capital “D”) chose not to follow it.  One of the new challenges of parenting I’ve encountered as my children mature and discover their own passions, is that it’s really hard to not let my ambitions overshadow theirs.   Reflecting on the senses of accomplishment they’ve felt at learning new skills in soccer and swimming, performing in school concerts and even in unlocking characters and adventures in their video games, I realized I already AM growing confident kids.  It was my insecurity and lack of confidence, not theirs,  that would lead us into random hotel room to have them judged on all things they had no control over – the size and shape of their faces and bodies.  Pride is so powerful.  If left unchecked, pride mixed with the unrealized dreams and unconditional love of a parent is downright dangerous.  Something tells me there are a lot of marketers who totally get that.  But, how many parents do?

Paths to enlightenment:

1. Self-awareness

2. Frodo-like restraint

3. Samwise-like spouse/partner/friend

HOW TO GET DOWN WITH THE KING (TUT)

My eyes dilating from the sunshine as I stepped out of King Tut’s “tomb”, my ears also grew wide upon hearing a nearby conversation in which a few people were voicing their disappointment with the same exhibit. “I wanted to see more stuff, “said one lady.  “Yeah, I thought there’d be more of those Pharaoh heads you see in the advertising,” her friend concurred.   Sadly, this eavesdropping left me feeling a little deflated and doubtful.  What was missing?   Why wasn’t I feeling completely exhilarated after having seen such rare treasures?  There was no chance for me to immediately address those questions or feelings because, being at the Pacific Science Center, my children were, unsurprisingly, done with the dead and ready for the butterfly house.  Weeks later, chatting with a friend who’d also taken her children, she admitted to the same feeling of being neither over nor under, but as I call it, “whelmed” by her visit. 

Finally, I got to sit down in silence with my inner-child and chat with her.  The child who found ancient Egyptians ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!  She wanted to know what was wrong with me.   “Did you see the size of some of those earrings they wore?!”, she screamed at me.  “And, you know, that Imhotep statue was there JUST for you!”.   Dancing and twirling now, she continued her commentary, “How did they carve so many things?  What about the board games that were buried with King Tut?  So cool, right? Some of those queen statues were beautiful but others looked like aliens, I swear….” Once little Annie got it all out of her system she and I composed a list of ways to maximize enjoyment of the King Tut exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle.

1. Read the informative signs. “I didn’t really learn anything about King Tut,” a shrugging neighbor girl concluded about her visit to the King Tut exhibit.  I did.  I read the signs plastered on every wall and every item description that I could.  I learned that King Tut was the second of two pharaohs that tried to convert Egyptians from polytheism to monotheism.  Because of his monotheistic lean, he was essentially wiped from the annals of ancient Egyptian history.  His predecessor converted back to the Old Religion and anyone believing otherwise was also believed non-existent.  None of us would’ve known much, if anything, of King Tut had his tomb been left undiscovered.  Judging from the lost and dreamy looks of those who purchased the audio tour, a visitor should seriously consider that option as well.
2. Drop your theme park and social network mentalities.   You have to do a little brainwork to really appreciate what is in front of you at this exhibit.  Instead of instantly hitting a “Like” or “thumbs up/down” button, you are forced to stop and ponder: These aren’t Photoshopped memes produced by the hundreds on a daily basis.  These objects were carved by hand, over a period of months or years, and are almost 5,000 years old!  Far too regal for such triviality, they really don’t care if you “Like” them or not.  Little Annie wasn’t raised on touch screens, blaring multimedia and countless (endless?) educational videos.  She happily gawked at the items, appreciated the handiwork and pondered the ages and miles they’ve survived.  What are humans creating today that is still going to be beautiful in 5,000 years?  Annie was a little disappointed to find only coffee table books of pyramids in the gift store.  She wanted to read more about the ancient people’s religion! What this exhibit is not: instant, adrenaline rush entertainment begging for your input.  However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t add your input. My third suggestion:
3. Use your imagination.   It was the little description by the display of fans that first caught my fancy.  Those long fans on the end of broomsticks and held by a servant whose sole duty is to keep royalty cool?  It turns out those aren’t servants waving their lives away.  The fan-holders, being closest to Pharaoh, were some of the highest paid citizens of Egypt.  THAT got my imagination going as I pictured Secret Service men huddling similarly around our President.   Maybe, just maybe, those fan wavers had secret Ninja-like skills and were also so close to their leader so that they could protect him.  It should be noted that there are “Coneheads” at this exhibit!  There is a family line, which, in all sculpture and art is depicted with long, conical shaped heads.  The running theory is that this oddity wasn’t artistic license but a well-known family trait.  Anyone else thinking “Aliens!” right now?  (Or is Fox Mulder embedded that deeply in my psyche?) Nothing in the exhibit outside of the items themselves led me to these whimsical conclusions.  But that’s my point, whimsy—created by me—with a little help from some ancient treasures.  What modern theme park offers that experience?

My belated, deeper appreciation of the King Tut exhibit received further amplification when I later read an article in a recent National Geographic about the state of affairs in modern Egypt.  Tourism has all but dried up there due to the political unrest.  The Great Temple of Ramses used to host 3,000 visitors a day.  Now, 150 may trickle in.  Little Annie used to dream of visiting the places and things she discovered in her history textbooks.  Grown-up Annie is considerably more doubtful that can happen.  Is the marketing true that these treasures will never be presented in North America again?  I don’t know.  But my inner-child and I are now very happy that we didn’t leave it to chance. 

Paths to Enlightenment:

The Pacific Science Center

http://www.pacificsciencecenter.org/

Little Annie (your inner child)

National Geographic

A FATHER’S DAUGHTER

Rifling through THAT drawer where miscellaneous yet meaningful objects accumulate, I unearthed a photo of myself from 6^th grade.  My short-haired, gawky self with a dress draped over my still boyish frame did not show the awkwardness typically seen in a ‘tween.  Instead, a huge confident grin was spread across my face.  Looking at this picture from so many years ago, I could still hear my Dad, whooping and hollering at me, telling me how beautiful I looked and how blessed I was to be smart AND pretty.   That short time travel trip got me thinking about how much influence my dad’s wit and insight shaped me. With Father’s Day fast approaching and, of course, my gift to him already late, I feel the need to let the world know what a profound effect a good dad can have on a daughter.   There are ways in which I go about my life that can be attributed directly to my dad.

Justin Bieber gave a free concert this morning on the Today show.  Fans had been camping out since Tuesday morning for it.  Placing myself in those teen girls’ shoes, I already knew what my dad would have said had I asked to camp out for a concert, “Justin Bieber doesn’t give a sh*t about you!  Why do you give a sh*t about him?  What’s he done?”   There was never a shortage of the latest Tiger Beat centerfolds on my walls, but those came with a price to pay.  The cost: hearing my dad proselytize about how worthless it was for me to waste energy on people I’d never even meet and who were really only interested in getting rich off of my admiration for them.  There is only one person my dad never met with whom he was smitten – Roberto Clemente.  However, it wasn’t just Clemente’s prowess on the baseball field that impressed my dad but the fact that the man lost his life taking supplies to hurricane victims in his native Puerto Rico.  Such are the standards by which I allow myself to indulge in celebrity worship.

His disgust for celebrity shielded me from the more negative effects of the media I was watching as a teen.  “THIS IS NOT FOR REAL!”, he’d yell as he inserted himself between me and my MTV.  He’d then proceed to imitate whoever was on the screen at the time.  (His over-the-top Michael Jackson – unbeatable.)  Pointing out how ridiculous the scantily clad, high-heeled women looked was his next line of attack(the fact that they couldn’t do anything except stand around and wiggle did not impress him.  How were they going to play softball or ride their bikes dressed like that? ). And now that I think of it, his video vamp/arthritic rooster impersonation could render a begrudging smile and chuckle from me. Finally, he’d finish up his public service announcement about the pitfalls of my music videos by talking about how he’d like to whip the ass of any and all the long-haired, skinny guys playing guitars who were clearly pulling me away from “the real world”.  Defeated, he’d leave his angst-y eldest daughter alone with her boy bands; one last plea murmured for me to go outside, ride my bike or shoot some hoops.

Or was he defeated?  Was it a coincidence that my feminist spark ignited right about when my dad’s “performances” started to peak?  Without admitting it to him, I DID start to notice that women rarely held any sort of respectable place in the videos I watched.  Why WAS I watching a bikini-ed woman slide around on top of a car licking a lollipop?  And honestly, the long-haired dudes dressed in black did nothing for me compared to *sigh* Christian Laettner (a basketball player at the time for Duke University).  No teenager in her right mind is going to admit to her father that he was right.  Instead, I privately boycotted MTV and spent more time on ESPN.   While I never felt particularly called to shoot many hoops for myself, I did listen to dad, got outside on my bike a bit more and spent a lot of time practicing Color Guard routines instead.  In hindsight, there is no doubt my mind and body image were healthier as a result.

Baby bumps, bachelorettes, “reality” shows and other related celeb atrocities hold little, if any of my attention to this day.  Like my dad, it’s the human beings a human being runs into every day that are always the most interesting and attention-worthy .

I can tell you the life stories of three of the cashiers at my grocery store.  I’ve shared countless anecdotes with the childcare staff at the Y.  And on a more ambitious move, I tried to connect a friend to a new church through my hair stylist.  My husband dubbed me “Queen of Chats”.  Likewise, my dad could tell you stories about the guy who owns the car wash, the lady who works the deli at his grocery store or how he tried to connect a guy with a new truck bumper through an acquaintance at the Fishing Club.

Everyone wants and needs to be treated like a human being.  My dad gets that.  Thankfully, so do I.  I might not be brave enough to pick up a traveler along the road like him, but I have been known to ask a lone diner in a restaurant to join our group.  My dad instilled his beliefs in me that while there are those who might be stronger, smarter, richer, poorer, prettier or uglier than me, it did not mean they were better than me, or vice versa.  There isn’t a random connection between two people that either my dad or I can’t discern. If we find ourselves quick to judge, we both take the time to step back and assess that judgement. This easy-going outlook brings so many friends, acquaintances and fascination to my life.

Being tuned in to your fellow human beings can take a toll on you regardless of your love for them.  Guided imagery is the latest trend to help people decompress, de-stress or ease into meditation.  My dad’s been teaching me to do that since I was a scared girl who’d just jumped out of bed to escape a nightmare.  From a very young age, he taught me to take deep breaths, visualize snowy woods, a happy memory or the sunset on Lake Erie to redirect my very rampant anxious thoughts. (Yes, my daughters get the same routine from me).  And sometimes, there is nothing left to do but to actually escape to those woods.  As a kid, I hated being dragged from my Saturday morning cartoon cavalcade to “go for a walk in the woods”.   Lolling along some country road, I’d moan and whine about being hot/tired/thirsty/needing a bathroom.  Now, there are some days where my urge to just get out and walk amongst trees is unstoppable.  (My children get to whine about being hot/tired/hungry/needing a bathroom instead.) Taking care of your mind and body so that you can care for others is a cliché’ most recently attached to Dr. Phil or Oprah, but my dad practiced and preached it decades ago.

It is commonly accepted to loathe the times when you start looking or sounding like your parents.  However, I am proud when I hear myself poking fun at the over-acting of my daughter’s tween TV shows or pointing out that kids in middle school/junior high rarely if ever, dress/behave/live in the way that is currently displayed on the screen.  I force my kids to acknowledge that the mostly absent, ditzy parents they see on TV aren’t even close to realistic.  I make them consider and recite to me that the toys being advertised to them will never be as awesome as they look on TV and that advertisers “just want our money!”.   The impromptu nature walks and mandatory physical activity really cannot be pinned on me anymore than it can be pinned on their grandfather.  He started it after all.

My dad graciously gives all child-rearing credit to my mom.  Out of respect for both of them, I play along when he does so.  But, today, and on this Father’s Day weekend, I want my dad, and the teeny-tiny part of the cyber world that reads this to know that he deserves a bunch of credit, too.  I am grateful for his insight as it liberated me from simply being eye candy for other men and set me on a path that envelops self-respect, generosity, meaningful relationships(specifically, an equally enlightened husband), and a deep appreciation for nature’s beauty.    With this, dad, I hope to thank (and “bag”) you.

Confronting and Contemplating Evil

My reactions to the news that the Powell children suffered hatchet wounds to their necks and my reaction to the news that the Westboro Baptist Church would be protesting at their funeral were similar- queasy nausea followed by burning tears.   It was under the spell of such high emotions that I eagerly signed on to counter-protest at the funeral this coming Saturday.  With the church service just under an hour’s drive from my home, it was the right and reasonable thing to do.  Right?

But my head cleared and I reminded myself that I consider myself a student of the teachings of both Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama.  First, I pulled the classic, WWJD – and I did not picture him angrily or defiantly holding up shields and standing between the haters and the mourners.  I pictured Him tenderly embracing an eternally wounded family.  Then I considered the teachings of the Dalai Lama.   Anger, hatred, despair are all what he calls “afflictive emotions” and ones that instead of being fueled should be stamped out.  The very physical reactions I experienced left no doubt in my mind that afflictive emotions were at play.  So, I decided, as taught, to attempt to step back from the bile.

Fortunately, that step back allowed me to hear some exterior voices of reason like the concerned look of my eight-year-old asking if “a lot of people will be yelling a lot of bad things.”  Next, a Facebook comment from a college friend suggesting that by showing up to counter-protest I was playing into the hands of the haters and bringing more attention to their agenda. Then, coming at me from another angle was my sister’s disappointment that I’d be cancelling an outing with her and her nieces to “show my support”.  And lastly a final cosmic plea to reconsider from my best friend via text message with a link to this article:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/02/09/2019907/either-go-to-funeral-to-celebrate.html#.TzVDhZf0llI.facebook

The Cox and Powell families don’t want anyone at the service who isn’t there to celebrate the lives of two young boys.  This got me to honestly consider why I wanted to rush to the scene of this service.  What I learned that it wasn’t so much about this family as it was about me:  Me and my motherly need to shield and protect the innocent from evil.  Me and my need to want to show these people how horrible they are.  Me and my need to make sense out of events that stretched beyond reason.  Me and my need to somehow make up for the guilt I felt for not protesting a KKK rally in downtown Pittsburgh that happened over ten years ago.   Me and my need to show the Cox family that hope and love are still alive and well in this world.

If nothing else, it is clear to me now how evil and ignorance thrive on chaos and on preying on the emotions of well-intentioned people.  I envisioned the Powell children’s funeral without any of the well-intentioned people there and I saw peace.  If the crazies from Kansas actually do show up and are met with nothing but the tears of the mourners, their ignorance will be all that more defeated than if they are surrounded by all of us good people.  Compared to the horrors already experienced by these families, the  Westboro nonsense is nothing but a tiny drop in a giant bucket of evil.    Maybe if the Westboro Baptist Church is met with silence then they can use it to consider their own afflictions of the heart.  There are times and places to face down evil and ignorance.  The Powell children’s memorial service isn’t one of them.

Talking ’bout ALL Generations

A few days ago I read the following blog: http://gizmodo.com/5851062/generation-x-is-sick-of-your-bullshit and reflexively reposted it to my Facebook profile and continued the jabs it extended onto Generation Y.  But the comment of a friend of a friend got me thinking.  To paraphrase, she found this blog to be yet another way to divide people against people; young against the old in this case.  Again, reflexively, I thought “this
lady needs to lighten up.”  But the part of me that is trying to grow my capacity for compassion and hopefully, someday, taste a bit of enlightenment, knew she was right.

This blog is correct in that Generation X HAS been there and done that on the whole tragic future trip. And guess what?  We whined and complained about it, too.  We were accused of being immature, delaying adulthood and *gasp* being slackers.  Stories were rampant about college-educated people checking groceries for a living.  We were told to suck it up.  Get over it.  Look up from your comic books and NBA Jams and get a real job.  At least we didn’t “have a Vietnam” in our history.  Quit worrying about Roswell and worry about ROI!

Reflecting on my own last decade of existence, I can honestly say that it is NOT this kind of tough love that carried me through the hard times.  It was the patience and understanding of friends from multiple generations that kept me afloat when my ship started sinking.  (Perhaps the biggest shock of your thirties is that your ship isn’t so watertight.)  And my ship took on water many, many times.   So, Generation Y, I’ve decided to spare you the beat-down and instead share what was so freely given to me.

From The Sassy Septuagenarians:

“This too shall pass.” Think a year gives you perspective on an issue?  Try thirty years.  Or forty. My seventy-something friend popped into my life at its lowest point.  Decades before me, she’d suffered similar physical and psychological injuries but also with World War II and Vietnam thrown in. And, to my inspiration – she was totally over them! She didn’t
berate me for being weak or whiny (which I was).  Instead she did everything from feeding my newborn to folding my laundry.  It was her example that showed me in the big, big scheme of life the moments currently overwhelming me were blips in a lifetime. She was patient with me because she KNEW my problems were temporary.  She reached out to me because that is what she KNEW would see me through.

Another 70-ish regular at the YMCA is planning on throwing her THIRD “End of the World “party on 12.21.2012.  She’s gearing up for it while pumping weights and walking the elliptical. Gen Y,  When you are rocking your seventies this recession/depression/occupation thing will be a similar lifetime blip and you will be wiser and calmer for having gone through it.

From The Fiery Fifty-somethings:

“Your thirties will blindside you. Learn from those moments.”  Unsurprised by my troubles, my mildly middle-aged friends pulled no punches.  Here’s a summary of what they told me: Building careers, families, assets, fighting “the man” while at the same time becoming “the man” and still trying to maintain your youthful glow and hipness is exhausting.  You will work your ass off while, at the same time, your ass, or some other body part will just stop working the way it used to. So, too, will marriages and appliances
break down.  A decade of disillusionment with your parents, your government, your principles, or all three awaits.  If you try to control and analyze it all, it will destroy you.  What can YOU do to create peace within? Sometimes you have to…

“Tune in and drop out.”   Or unplug and have an i-less day. Spirituality, religion, faith, mindfulness, yoga, tai chi—these have all been mainstreamed into our cultural dialogue thanks to this generation. They know the importance of keeping yourself centered
through a storm. These friends taught me new ways to pray and meditate, to see the connection between all human beings and most of all how to objectively acknowledge my mistakes and faults and “get over” myself.

From Generation X:

“You’re not that special.”  Self-deprecation is one of my generation’s trademarks. It’s what has helped us deal with our rarely admitted mediocrity in World History. Generation Y should try dabbling in it just a bit.  It’s OK to be laughed at and equally OK to laugh at yourself (and not in an “I hope this gets a million hits on YouTube” way).  Most of what we dole out to you and to ourselves is in good fun or because we think you should take yourself less seriously but always because we care.  Do you deserve a raise, an award, a gold star or a pat on the back every time you do what is expected of you? Possibly.  But we’re all out of those.

“Make friends. Love friends.”  We were known as the first generation of latch-key kids.  We perfected the art of creating our own families. We will fight like hell with each other over politics, parenting and religion but at the end of the day, we love our friends fiercely.  We like social networking not because we want to “network” as much as we want to continue the friendships we’ve already started.  If we are honest, there is a part of us that is uncomfortable “friending” you unless we’ve stared you down over a cup of coffee or pint of beer.  In my twenties, my Gen-X friends cheered each other on through shitty “starting
positions” bemoaning each other’s credit card and student loan debt.  In my thirties, another set of Gen-X friends welcomed me into a new city, new job market, bemoaning our mortgage and student loan debt.  We are raising our children together and trying to instill in them the importance of finding and nurturing a solid group of friends.  The deep friendships you need to get through your generation’s woes aren’t going to come from texts and tweets.  They grow when you expose your vulnerabilities to someone over dinner or during a spontaneous visit to a friend’s house.  Spend quality time with quality people.

From Generation Y:

I have a few close friends who just squeak into this generation.  Just thinking of their determination makes me tired.  But it is their determination that inspires me to stay interested in the world outside my front door while keeping my toes pedicured.

“Don’t stop fighting for what you want. Again and again and again.”  My Gen-Y friends get a vision in their head of how something should be.  They will tweak it and tweak it and tweak me until it gets there.  They will ask and ask and ask until they get what they want.

“It’s OK to be a little frivolous.”  Play Bejeweled Blitz, watch Jersey Shore, listen to Katy Perry!  No, they aren’t making you smarter but they are fun!  It’s OK to have fun! Lighten up.  The Gen Y playfulness is contagious.

Each generation does have something to teach the others.  Each generation should listen to each other.  We could all whine less. In the most gigantic picture of things, I am enormously grateful my soul ended up where it did and when it did and that it crossed paths with so many teachers from so many generations.

[For the record- Kurt Cobain and David Foster Wallace were certainly important voices for Gen X. Please note the non-Axl Rose Gen X voices who are still alive: Sarah Vowell, Dave Eggers, Michael Stipe.]

Paths to enlightenment:

Your neighbors

http://www.amazon.com/Partly-Cloudy-Patriot-Sarah-Vowell/dp/0743243803/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319487005&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Heartbreaking-Work-Staggering-Genius/dp/0375725784/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319487075&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Automatic-People-R-M/dp/B000002MG1/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1319487119&sr=1-1

FEELING LIKE A CULLEN

Lifting the end of a green-gray “breakfast link” off the frying pan, I prayed for a pleasing brown on the cooked surface.  The garlic-soy scent filling the kitchen smelled only slightly different from the chik’n strips I’d served for lunch a few days ago.  Sighing, I thought to myself, “Now I know what it’s like to be a Cullen.” (For the one or two of you that do not know, the Cullens are the vampire family from the Twilight series penned by Stephenie Meyer.  They think it is immoral to drink human blood and partake in animal blood only.  Their chosen lifestyle leaves them always a little bit hungry.)  Unlike the lofty Cullen family, I gave in to my craving and ate animal flesh for the first time in five months.  Blame it on the first flames of the summer grill.  Blame it on a gathering of good friends feasting around my kitchen table.  I caved.  I regret it.  I’m back on the vegetarian boat. Blame it on Jonathan Safran Foer.

Frequently my quest for enlightenment coincides with my obsession to prevent heart disease and cancer (the genetic table set for me in this regard is a tough one at which to sit).  Such is the case for my choice to become a vegetarian this past January 1^st.   Prior to the New Year, the tomes of Michael Pollan certainly convinced me industrial meat is a carcinogen by virtue of how it is produced.  Stops at fast food windows came to an abrupt end.  Meatless Mondays and Thursdays became part of the regular dinner routine.   Intellectually, I bought into vegetarianism, but not emotionally.  I wasn’t ready to go whole hog, rather, whole squash. Then I randomly picked up Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer in an airport bookstore last October. 

He baited me with his opening proclaiming he never considered himself an animal lover and never really cared for pets.  He reeled me in with the anecdote about his grandmother, running from the Nazis, going without food for weeks and turning down the first meal offered to her after her ordeal because it was pork.    He netted and threw me in the boat with, “What kind of world would we create if three times a day we activated our compassion and reason as we sat down to eat, if we had the moral imagination and the pragmatic will to change our most fundamental acts of consumption?….But compassion is a muscle that gets stronger with use, and the regular exercise of choosing kindness over cruelty would change us.”  Challenge accepted.  I’m in.  JSF, fellow idealist, set the bar and set it high.

Suffering cannot be avoided but it can be diminished.  Whole-heartedly accepting this facet of Buddhism, I’ve developed my own practices to diminish suffering.  By creating a little discomfort every day, I am preparing myself for the larger battles that life will undoubtedly throw my way.  To be a compassionate person, I must practice it every day.  To be a healthy person, I must eat healthy every day.  Vegetarianism offers me a path to such enlightenment on all of these measures.  The scents of grilled steak and sizzling bacon still make my mouth water.  Partaking in the grilled chicken last week might’ve made me feel physically satiated.  Temporarily.  Psychically, I felt defeated and weak.  Balancing those two reactions to my latest consumption of meat, I’ve re-affirmed my commitment to vegetarianism, to compassion, to idealism.  Blame it on my soul.

Paths to Enligthenment:

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_38?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=eating+animals+by+jonathan+safran+foer&sprefix=eating+animals+by+jonathan+safran+foer

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan

http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto-Michael/dp/B004DPLHS2/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308070302&sr=1-10

The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved by Sandor Ellix Katz

http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Will-Not-Microwaved-Underground/dp/1933392118/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308070375&sr=1-1

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saga-Book-1/dp/0316038377/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308070424&sr=1-3

BROUGHT TO YOU BY SOUTH CENTRAL

“Katy Perry, Miranda Cosgrove, Ke$ha…,” my oldest happily listed her favorite singers.  The game continued to see how many singers she could name.  “Black Eyed Peas, They Might Be Giants… Snoop Doggy Dog….”  What the hizzy?  My inner-Fly Girl kicked in.  “Snoop is not a singer.  He’s a rapper.” She who already knows more than I do argued, “Yes he is!  With Big Time Rush!”   Without digressing too much, this is Big Time Rush. With Snoop.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Wv-zRDnY0.  A boy band. Manufactured by Nickelodeon. With Snoop. 

It’s official.  We’ve grown soft.  “Money, Bitches, and Weed” is now “Money, Movies, and… Soda Pop?”  “G” no longer means Gangsta but “approved for viewing by audiences of all ages.”   Dr. Dre is selling us headphones and soda, Ice Cube is making family movies and pushing Bud Light, and Snoop?  Snoop’s done a 187 on his cop-killer image in exchange for lots of face time on the kids’ channel, Nickelodeon.  Pepsi is the case that he gives me.  Ice Cube and Dr. Dre traded in 40’s of 8-Ball for Dr. Pepper and Bud Light.  These are the O.G.’s (original gangstas) whose albums we hid from our parents.

A mutual love of hip-hop was one of the initial attractions between my husband and me so we chuckled at the above conversation with my daughter later that night. We laughed at how audacious, shocking, stunning, political and ludicrous the West Coast rap scene was in the 1990’s, reconciling “we don’t love ‘dem hoes!” with today’s “Katy, my lady….”  Our retrospective circled back around to a night nearly eight years ago when I was cradling our first baby girl in my arms and wondering out loud to him if/when we should tuck away Dr. Dre’s album The Chronic and all of its relatives now that we had a small child in the house. We’d both had full access to the vinyl discs our parents played.  Somehow their Motown and Sinatra felt much safer for kids than our Death Row Records. 

Snoop and Dre answered that question for us. They gang-banged their way into our psyches twenty years ago and now they are sweet-talking their way into our children’s worlds.  They showed us the hood life in the early 90’s, the good life later that decade, and, now that they’ve become icons of my hip-hop generation, they’re going to show us how to be cool, middle-aged adults.  We can do nothing but marvel at how they’ve worked to stay relevant. 

They do not want to go back to the ‘hood from which they came.  That is clear.  My next musing at the evolution of a G:  Were the only people who really wanted to be “gangsta” the suburban white kids who gobbled up rap albums?  Automatically, my mind’s eye saw thousands of young black men in the ‘hood hunting for recording contracts hoping to get the hell out, while millions of young white upper middle class men started to swagger and yearn for the thug life hoping to gain street cred and get the hell in.  Can you feel the cultures and classes crashing and melding in all of this?  Without this mash-up, how else would we be so tolerant of or so amused by admitted pimps and pushers selling sweet songs and sugary beverages to our kids?

While they’ll most likely stumble onto it on their own, it’s unlikely that I’ll be the one introducing my daughters to gangsta rap.  I don’t want to ruin Snoop’s image.  I’m also anticipating the day when I’ll be buying my AARP subscription from Eminem.

For those who also want to reminisce or witness the evolution of the Gangsta, here are a couple oldies: 

Express Yourself, NWA: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u31FO_4d9TY 

Deep Cover, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (this one has explicit lyrics and violence) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SXr6aUFP8U