Marching Forth One Day at a Time

I have seen two March Forths come and go barely noticing the date.  If I did notice, it was because a friend asked what proactive marching forth I was planning on my special day.  Last year, I think I reposted my outdated March Forth blog post from half a decade ago – a smug, happy year when I could think of nothing I needed to confront.  Oh, those now-inconceivable halcyon days.

  

Today, I would say there is always something that could use some March-Forthing in our lives.  And this year, after what feels like a long period of stagnant stasis, I have been thinking about many needed “actions in the face of past days of inaction.”

  

I have had a difficult job for the past two-and-half years -- loads of international travel, stress, and time away from my usual ballasts.  I say "stagnant stasis" to describe this period – but underneath the frozen landscape of my personal life, there were roots taking hold.  I recently opined that I grew more in the past two years than I did in the ten before it. That’s true.  I wasn’t fully aware of how I was growing – I’m still not.  But in the face of so many challenges and “growth opportunities” (my loving euphemism for all the crazy I witnessed), I had to grow or get crushed.  And sometimes I got crushed.  Often, it was in those moments of using a spatula to scrape my lifeless form off the bottom of someone’s shoe that I realized – if nothing else – the crushing was an opportunity to learn.  So, what did I learn?  Forgive the expletive, but this March 4^th, I am committing myself to the following:

1.    I will own my own shit.

2.    I will be grateful.

3.    I will do more than just avoid soul-crushers.

Let’s take them in reverse order.  

Soul-Crushers

We all know this to be true – there are mean, selfish, careless, aggressive, acerbic people out there (and some of them have a few of these characteristics).  We work with them, maybe we have one in our family, maybe one's a neighbor.  We see them in the larger world too – the dictators, the spewing pundits, the nutty people on social media who hide behind its anonymity to bully or belittle.  The crazies we have to live with and work with are the hardest to handle – we can easily turn off the TV to forget the dictator (in our blessed country) or delete the crazy person from our Facebook feed. 

  

When confronted with these people, I often think of my favorite Gandhi quote:  “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it -- always.”

  

Pollyanna I know, but it goes with my theory that there are more fundamentally good people in this world than bad.  Some days, it feels like there may be just 3 more good than bad.  Other days, it feels like the world is brimming with mostly-good souls.  I nonetheless remain committed to the ideal that good does indeed win … ultimately.

  

But how, then, to deal with the soul-crushers who scream, belittle, criticize, lash out, transfer, passive-aggressively don’t act, aggressively act?  I’ve seen a lot of soul-crushing in the last few years.  I’ve met a lot of angry people.  I’ve watched them and often wondered how they’ve gotten so far in the world (if they have) with their overflowing vices.  I have indeed – over the course of my life – given some of these people enormous power over my emotional well-being.  I have chosen on various occasions to please them, to fight them, to let them undermine me, to cry when they are abusive, to take their criticism to heart and doubt myself, and to watch passively as they have bullied others.

  

In the past two years, with increasing but nonetheless limited success, I have gotten better at seeing the signs of crazy early.  With some of the more sophisticated soul-crushers (the ones often who’ve been “successful” in their professional lives), it is hard to see the crazy or the narcissism at first.  Soul-crushers can be initially charming, but their motives are selfish.  What is good for me?  What will allow me to “win”?  Me first. 

  

I have noticed a characteristic of mine of wanting to point out to the soul-crusher what he is doing that is harmful to my peace (see Part III below on owning my own shit).  “You have to stop yelling at people,” I’ve said.  “Sarcasm isn’t what we need here.”  “That was unnecessary roughness.”  “I think it’s important that you don’t avoid this problem.”  I’ve often done it in a half-hearted way – the email sent after not enough sleep.  The drive-by snarky remark. It’s rather cowardly – but honestly, would sitting down with these people and engaging them in a heart-to-heart about why they are soul-crushing really be a productive use of time?  Probably not.  But what does the from-a-distance-lobbed-snark-grenade do either?  It lets them know that I know they suck?  Hooray.  Non-victory!

  

I think it best most often to just avoid the soul-crushers – and avoid the self-righteous attempts to let them know that you know.  But sometimes you cannot avoid them.  Sometimes they darken your very doorstep with their nasty.  Sometimes they come right at you.  Sometimes, they come at the people you are charged with protecting (your children, your employees) and you have to do something if you want to be a person of integrity.   Einstein said “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” 

So this March 4^th, I commit myself to two important goals that do more than simply avoid soul-crushers: 

1.    First, as I noted, I depend on the fact that good ultimately will triumph over bad because over time – like the stock market’s growth -- it always does.  Karma.  But it will only do so if good souls don’t feel helpless and apathetic.  In a world full of crazy, good souls have to be a force for fairness and light.  We can be magnanimous, grateful, kind, gentle-spoken, open-minded, and full-hearted.  We can encourage where soul-crushers criticize.  We can smile where soul-crushers scowl.  We can think the best of people or be empathetic where soul-crushers are suspicious of motive and think the worst.  We can be mindful of the consequences of our actions on others when soul-crushers often don’t even know the “others” are there.  We can contribute every day to the bank of good will.

2.    More proactively, I commit myself to the idea that every exposure to a soul-crusher requires a careful balancing of factors to determine the right response.  In those moments when I cannot avoid soul-crushers – when it is right to confront them – I commit to doing so, even when doing so makes me fearful of the personal consequences.  Several times in my life, I have watched a real leader protect others.  It happens all too rarely.  But I have seen it and been the recipient of it.  And I want to be the kind of person who does it.  I also want to be the kind of person who protects myself when necessary.  It is self-affirming and may ultimately have positive ramifications for the next potential crushee.  When and why to challenge a soul-crusher is a very personal calculus – different factors will move different good souls.  But it’s fundamentally important that we all summon the courage to do so and say “no more!” when a soul-crusher goes too far. 

  

Gratefulness

  

Ok, back to Pollyanna and her friend Oprah.  I did it – this year I started a gratefulness journal.  I wince a little at admitting it.  Recently, in my office, someone left a copy of the book “The Happiness Project (Or Why I Want to Start Every Morning Singing)” on a work table.  It became a joke that no one would claim it (it wasn’t mine.  I swear!).  No one wanted to be the cheeseball working on a self-improvement project in that environment.  I feel that timidity of spirit in acknowledging that I need to be more grateful, and I need to write myself a daily email to do it.

Have you ever heard of the “negativity bias”?  It is the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g., unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful or traumatic events) have a greater effect on one’s psychological state than do neutral or positive things. In other words, something very positive will affect your sense of well-being far less than something equally or less negative.  It is a phenomenon I notice more and more the older I get.  And it is one I am trying to fight.  I am fighting it myself as I try as well to give my children the tool of perspective.

When my son Ben complains about not having the latest gadget or James is “too tired” to do homework, I remind them of what life for most children in the world is like – and tell them, far from feeling sorry for themselves, they should bound out of bed happy with the Gods every day.  This is a hard thing for a child to understand of course.  But I’m going to keep teaching it – and taking my children around the world to see that not every one has even indoor plumbing much less an iPhone.  I think this perspective can not only help them avoid the negativity bias, it can also teach them empathy for other's suffering.  Empathy and grace are missing in the human spirit when it is at its most animalistic and base.  We could all use a little more moccasin-wearing.

I hope at the end of the year, with my 365 emails to myself – that remind me to get over myself because I have heat in the winter, clean water to drink, healthy children, a loving partner who accepts me flaws and all, public libraries – I will have developed a habit of gratefulness that will make me feel more joyful about the everyday miracles of my life.

  

Owning My Shit

  

This phrase (it seems too simple and coarse at first, but just wait – it will get you) was life-altering for me this year.  It comes from Elizabeth Gilbert (she who Ate, Prayed, and Loved her way into our hearts).  Here it is in all its seeming simplicity.  The two most important phrases to me are bolded:

“It’s very important that you learn how to own your shit. At some point in your life, you really have to get honest about the weirdest and most damaged and most broken parts of your existence, and take responsibility for it all ... lovingly, but unblinkingly.  For many years, I didn’t own my shit because I didn’t KNOW my shit. If you don’t know your shit, then that shit will control you and make your life into Crazy Town. Until you own your shit, all you do is make excuses for the madness that is always surrounding you, while throwing blame around like confetti.

By this point in my life, though, I know the worst of me. I know the triggers that make me into a temporarily insane person. I know my vulnerabilities and my pride. I know the stuff that makes me want to deceive, and the stuff that makes me vindictive, and the stuff that makes me insecure, and the stuff that makes me just flat-out mean and ugly. And I definitely know all my demons by their first names.

This is what therapy does — helps you to learn your shit, inside and out. This is what meditation is for. This is what recovery is for. This is what reconciling the contradictions of your life is for. This is what radical honesty is for. This is what the courage of truthful introspection is for.

Owning your shit begins to happen the moment you finally recognize that the common denominator in all your biggest problems is YOU.  Not them: YOU.  It’s a beautiful, humbling, necessary realization. It’s an education. It’s painful. It’s the beginning of adulthood. It's pretty much the definition of maturity. 

That doesn't mean abusing yourself:  it just means taking accountability. Own your shit with love and perspective and self-compassion ... but definitely own it.  Don’t worry if other people are owning their shit or not. That isn’t your problem. Just own yours.  Keep your side of the street clean and honest, and rest of it is none of your business.”

The first time I read this, I smiled knowingly.  As a person keen to understand what makes me tick, I loved every word.  But I have been most keen to understand me and less keen to “own” me – to take responsibility for my weaknesses and my own behavior.  To act in a manner that takes into account what makes me tick and what makes me overly-sensitive and what makes me ache and -- here’s the kicker -- control the behavior that comes after the ache.  To be responsible for me instead of “throwing blame around like confetti.”  That’s probably my favorite phrase of the whole passage – how many times a day since have I self-mockingly pictured myself in a tutu and crooked tiara scattering blame around like confetti?  The mental image makes me stop in my tracks – and makes me take responsibility for my part in whatever I am blaming someone else for.  And that accountability makes me work to fix my part of it.  To make myself better.  To act in an honorable, honest way.

I also find the idea of not focusing on whether other people are owning their own shit quite freeing.  Remember the me in Part 1 above on Soul-Crushers who likes to lob the grenade email in to tell someone how inappropriate he is or insensitive she has acted.  If my intention is to mentor or teach because that is my role in a particular moment, than talking to someone else about his or her behavior may be appropriate.  But if my intent is merely to show someone that I know that he doesn’t know that he isn’t owning his shit – well, that is none of my business.  

If we all worked a little harder to own our own shit and focused a lot less on what we find problematic about other people’s behavior, the world would be a lovelier place.

One Day at a Time

  

I am not instinctively good at standing up to soul-crushers, feeling grateful, or owning my own shit.  And I am good at fanciful declarations that feel like poetry in the writing and like bad prose in the implementation – I can talk big and play small.  So this March 4th, I am taking all three of these goals like an addict would – one day at a time.  May the Gods blow a gentle wind at my back as I march forth.  

Dear Belgium

Dear Belgium,

We got off to a bad start.  I'm sorry -- I came to you tired.  More tired than I knew.  And my job at NATO was grueling.  You also are divinely dysfunctional and dreary.  But please know in your beautiful, gilded Grand Place, I drank lots of strong Belgian beers with visiting friends and stumbled to the finish line of my first marathon.  Your chocolate and pommes frit are the world's best.  My husband Nick adores you.  You were an easy launching pad for visits to Sardinia, Oxford, Malta, Rome, Vienna, Tallinn, Vilnius, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Auchen, Oberammergau, Tbilisi, Baku, Sarajevo, Lisbon, Madrid, Reims, Lanzarote, Majorca (twice), Paris (a few times), London (a lot), and Sidmouth (even more).  And yet I never made it to Ghent and Antwerp.  You are the temporary home to life-long friends who were our "Brussels family" -- Barbara and Rick, Zabby and Zadam, Zia and Zeenat.  I also made friends at NATO, from all over the world, who helped me through.  Your international school was life-altering for my eldest.  Sighting the lion of Waterloo always made my boys exclaim with glee. Your parks are big and green and fun.  Thank you for the wonderful memories.  See you soon. 

Love Jennifer

Memorial Day Lessons From My Dad

My dad died 10 years ago last Thursday.  In some ways, the loss is as fresh and as acute as May 26, 2001.  In other ways, I notice the blurriness of my images of him now and fear that, more and more, he is becoming a set of fuzzy memories, a set of stories.  In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis wrote about how the passage of time causes our mental picture of someone to fade:  "Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes -- the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night -- little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of [him].  Ten minutes, ten seconds of the real [him] would correct all this.  And yet, even if those ten seconds were allowed me, one second later the little flakes would begin to fall again."

My dad died on Memorial Day weekend.  Nick and I were in Charleston looking for churches for our wedding.  We were staying in the Kiawah Inn.  My sister called at 2am to tell me dad "had a heartache.  And he didn't make it."  They were words that profoundly changed my life.

Driving back through the night to Raleigh, I remember being overcome by grief that my father would not walk me down the aisle.  So much lost that day, and yet I became fixated on a moment... a ritual.  A self-focused loss for a future special day.  It was a strange thing to mourn.  But the grieving mind knows no logic and is often selfish.  At that moment, I didn't grieve the larger losses.  That I wouldn't watch him grow old, that he wouldn't know my children, that I could not have grown up enough to have "grown up" talks with him, that I couldn't ask him for career advice or what the sunrise over the Carolina mountains looked like this week.

Today, we took our boys to a Memorial Day ceremony in the Ardennes in Belgium.  Ten years after losing my dad, I still remember that it was hard to arrange the military honors for his funeral because those who play Taps or neatly fold flags over caskets or fire 21-gun salutes were attending Memorial Day ceremonies to honor America's fallen.  Every Memorial Day, I cry when I hear Taps.  I sometimes feel embarrassed...like I want to explain I am not being overly patriotic or sentimental.  That I am still mourning.  That I am missing my dad.  But these are thoughts best left unsaid at a moment meant to honor others.


Listening to the Admiral today and watching the jets overhead, I thought my dad would have loved to hear my stories about working at NATO.  He was an Army Colonel, and he believed in service to your country.  When I work with my military friends at NATO, I think about how I used to help my dad polish his boots for summer camp over spread-out newspaper in the living room while watching NFL football.  My military colleagues remind me that soldiers are neat, punctual, polite, and honorable.  They say "sir" and "ma'am" like I was taught to do.  When I watch a soldier with his cover in his hands, I think of how my dad used to slowly turn his in his hands as he talked, creasing the edges with his fingers.  When I watch a promotion ceremony, I picture my dad proudly pinning a new rank on my sister's shoulder and saluting her.


I was trying to explain to Ben and James a little bit about what Memorial Day means.  I was using words like "fallen soldiers" and "courage" and "remembering and honoring."  It was too much for them.  James asked me if we would see zombies.  Teaching my boys about the heart of the matter won't happen for many more years.  And perhaps it shouldn't.  They should enjoy being young for now.

But today, I sure did wish my dad was around to help me explain.

I came home and looked for an article I wrote right after my dad died.  Re-reading it helped  me see that although I might not be able to teach my boys the true meaning of Memorial Day yet, I can continue to live my life, day in and day out, as my father did his, trying to show my boys how to be earnest, to be humble, to put others first, and to be courageous.  Those, too, are the lessons of Memorial Day.  And you can teach those without saying a word.


The Other Obituary
Raleigh News & Observer, Father's Day Special, June 2001

            The last thing my father said to me was “love you, doll.”  It was just one month ago.  He said it from the front porch of his home in Raleigh as he waved goodnight to me.  We had just had dinner, and I was leaving to go back to work.  I would give anything now to have lingered a little longer at my father’s table that night.  I didn’t know then that it would be my last chance to spend time with him.

            Three weeks ago, my father died of a heart attack.  He was 58 years old.  He ran 5K races with me, and was an active, busy, seemingly healthy man.  He was buried in Montlawn Cemetary with full military honors.  Those who loved him could hardly grieve yet because it seemed so impossible that such a strong man could be gone.

            The obituary appeared in Section B, page 6, of the paper the day after Memorial Day.  It was 28 lines long and told only the essentials of his life– that he left behind a wife, two daughters, a stepson, two grandchildren, a sister.  He was a retired Colonel in the United States Army, a high school football referee, and a N.C. State graduate.

            But as with almost every obituary I’ve ever read, it was wholly inadequate to describe the man who was my dad.  The obituary didn’t tell you about his big, brilliantly blue eyes that often shared his sentimental nature with the world or his boyish grin that could charm the crankiest of curmudgeons.

            It didn’t tell you that my dad never missed one of his children’s graduations, dance recitals, or military promotions, or that he waited nervously in the hospital waiting room when his grandchildren were born.  And it didn’t tell you that he was the loudest (and often the only) supportive voice from the stands at my junior high school basketball games.  Years later, when I played basketball for a year in England, he checked the team webpage after every game and wrote to me about my performance.  He was “there” still.

            The obituary didn’t tell you about the poems he wrote for the people he loved or about the inscriptions he put in the books he gave.  In Ayn Rand’s "Anthem," a Christmas gift to me in 1995, he wrote: “To a beautiful daughter with a mind for the intellectual and a soul for compassion.  Read Chapter XI and think about it.  Love Dad.” 

            It didn’t tell you that he taught his children multiplication tables, county seats, and how the solar system works (with fruit).  He taught his daughters how to change a tire and use a chainsaw.  But he wouldn’t let us use the chainsaw unless he was standing nearby.

            From the lines of the obituary, you couldn’t see the animation with which he talked about the D-Day landing with our guide on the beaches of Normandy just a year ago.  And you couldn’t see the joy in his eyes as he solved a Rubik's Cube or figured out a word while doing the Sunday crossword puzzle.  

            Indeed, as I write this, I am struck by the inadequacy of my own words to give you a small glimpse of a man who was larger than life.

           If you recognize your own father in my words, take the time today to thank him and to tell him how his constant support and love changed you.  We are given such precious little time on this earth with the ones we love.

            As for me, this Father’s Day, I hope to find comfort in the many happy memories I have of my time with my dad.  On the inside cover of a book written by a native of the state he loved so much, my dad wrote, “As Thomas Wolfe said, ‘You Can’t Go Home Again.’  You can always remember the good times with love and the not so good times with understanding and compassion.  And may you always look homeward, Angel.  Love Dad.”

25 Things About Me (A Recycled Product)

1.  Grace is my favorite word and my favorite trait in another person.

2.  Not only does my life have a soundtrack, but I like to sing along loudly. I think music is god’s way of telling us we’re not alone.
3.  My favorite smell is the ocean. I feel most alive on a beach.
4.  My big sister (a talented doctor) helped deliver Ben. She was about 3 months pregnant herself and not feeling much like getting her little sister through 18 hours of labor. She has protected me like that many times.
5.  I was the officiant at my best friend Dani’s wedding. Being asked to do that was one of my life’s greatest honors.
6.  I am not able to describe how close I feel to my mom. And I did not understand how much she loved me until I was pregnant with Ben. I found the realization startling and humbling.
7.  The judge I clerked for after law school is the wisest man I have ever met. He would stand at my enormous window looking out over the Cape Fear river and wax poetic about whatever he had read, painted, sculpted, invented, or talked to “his bride” (his wife of 50 years) about that day. When I remember those moments, the music in my head is Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” (see # 2).
8.  My son Ben is a lot like I was as a child. He is stubborn, gregarious, mischievous, and the near-death of his parents. Being his mom makes me love my parents even more. Being his mom was my first experience with unconditional love.
9.  My baby James makes me feel peaceful. He is an old soul. I sing “Sweet Baby James” to him at night when I rock him.
10.  I named the high school I graduated from (well, I was the person on a student government committee who suggested the name that the School Board ultimately chose-- but the first sentence sounds cooler). It was Providence High. Very original. It sat on Providence Road.
11.  I was a daddy’s girl and a tomboy growing up. I used to go with my dad to football games he refereed and hold the yardline chains. He taught me how to shoot free-throws and always came to my basketball games. When I played basketball at Oxford, he would read about my games on the web and give me pointers-- he was "there" across an ocean.
12.  2001 was the worst year of my life. It followed right on the heels of 2000, the best year of my life-- which probably made it feel even worse.
13.  My girlfriends and I have GPWs (girl power weekends) that always make me feel heard, understood and/or loved anyway, and usually a little tipsy.
14.  “Shadow Lands,” about C.S. Lewis and his wife Joy, is my favorite movie. It reminds me that your joy is your sorrow—that they are one in the same. That makes me love more boldly.
15.  I always read Tennyson’s "Ulysses" right before I do something that is good for me but that nonetheless makes me want to throw up fear soup.
16.  I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with Mexico City. I left a big chunk of my heart there (probably in a bar in Polanco near a shot of tequila and a taco al pastor).
17.  I have kept a journal since I was 13. I love sitting in a coffee house and working out how I feel about something on a piece of paper. When I re-read my old journal entries, I am reminded of the last line of "The Great Gatsby": “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
18.  I’m a Tar Heel born, I’m a Tar Heel bred. One of the first things people usually find out about me is that I’m from North Carolina. I am unusually prideful about my home state.
19.  I used to sneak down to see my grandmother (she lived with us when I was young) after bedtime. She would cut an apple for us and read poetry to me from “America’s Best-Loved Poems.” My favorite was “The Female of the Species.”
20.  I gave my high school graduation speech. In it, I read part of Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” (yeah, I know that makes you wish you had been in the audience). As I was winding up, I quoted: “But which is more, you will be a man my son.” And at that moment, on stage, it struck me as rather unfair that Rudyard had only mentioned men. So I paused and said, “or a woman” and nodded in this indignant, self-congratulatory way. People in the audience chuckled. I’m afraid being raised by my mother and my grandmother made my feminism rather inevitable. See # 19.
21.  I’m a picky eater. It’s one of the things I like least about myself.
22.  If I could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, it would be President Lincoln. It used to be Jefferson. But I think Lincoln had more of #1 above, and I find that the trait most lacking in our leaders today.
23.  I would like to learn how to cook and how to play the guitar. I think you are only “old” once you stop learning new tricks.
24.  I wish I had done a tour with the Peace Corps. I have never met a Peace Corps volunteer I didn’t like and admire. I didn’t do a Peace Corps tour largely because of #21… I would have a hard time eating bugs.
25.  About 10 years ago, Nick, without thinking probably, said one of nicest things anyone has ever said to me. He forwarded me the Word of the Day, which was “Gibraltar,” with a simple note: “You are my Gibraltar.” It was right after my dad died when he was, in fact, my Gibraltar. Since then, we’ve always found different ways of telling each other we are our strong place to lean.

March Forth!

March Forth!  No it’s not a misspelling.  And yes, it’s dorky.  I consider today to be March Forth!, not March Fourth.  I like this day. 

When I was young, I heard a sermon (yes, in a church) from a beloved minister on “March forth” and how we should use the day to march forth, with purpose, into a life of good deeds and kindness.  Over the years, I have thought a lot about the day, and I’ve turned it into my own Dr. Philesque self-improvement program.   

I'm a self-improvement kind of gal.  I make New Year’s Resolutions.  At the beginning of every year, I promise to do something new that I haven’t done before or done well.  Take a course.   Write more letters.  Drink more water.  Start blogging.  And I like the idea of Lent too – the notion of self-deprivation to remind ourselves to be disciplined -- but I haven't tried it.  Perhaps this year?

But March 4^th is my day to do something I should have done awhile ago—and I’ve used it mostly in my interpersonal relationships.  I think of March 4^th as the day to consider what I have let fester, what I haven’t said, what I need to say better, what I need to resolve.  It is a day of action in the face of past days of inaction.  It is girding my loins.  It is finding the courage.  It is doing the right thing.

I have used March 4^th to do many long overdue things.  I quit smoking on March 4^th.  I broke up with a boyfriend on March 4^th.  I forgave a boyfriend on March 4^th.  I had a really productive disagreement with my mom after one March 4th (we can do that).  I called up an old friend on March 4^th and cleared the air.

Today, I find myself in a bit of a pickle.  I cannot think of anything I want to quit or resolve.  Things are going pretty well, and on this March 4^th, I am thinking about my great fortune.  I have my healthy, happy 3 boys (2 small, 1 big).  A wonderful mom.  Loving friends and family.  Mi amiga, Obdu.  A career I like.  Several weeks in the Carolinas this summer to look forward to.     

I think this March 4^th I will sit somewhere and remind myself that sometimes it is nice to not have anything to resolve.  Sometimes it is nice, as my friend Ana tells me, to live in the moment and feel grateful for it.   Today, I will think of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez quote I just read and loved:  "I have learned that everyone wants to live at the top of the mountain, forgetting that how we climb it is all that matters."  Today, I will not try to fix anything ... today, I will just enjoy the climb.

Love and the Metaphorical Sea

The ocean is a part of me and forever will be ... from my days as a tow-headed little girl on the Carolina shore clad with only bikini bottoms and a shovel for a day of adventure, through an adolescence of walking the wide, flat beaches of Kiawah Island, to my time as a busy mother who yearns to go to the sea but has not been in awhile.  The ocean washed away bitter tears the night my father died and the ashes of my dear grandmother, scattered by my mother and me, at sunrise under Johnny Mercer pier.

For me, the ocean is God’s most powerful natural tool to tantalize the senses.  I love the way the sea sounds as it crashes to shore.  I love the brackish smell of salt water.  I love how the sea feels – warm and encompassing—around my skin as I dive in after a long run on shore.  The ocean comes closest to the sensual perfection two lovers can create.  But, if I’m honest, I am frightened of it as well.  

My protective instincts as a mother make me wary of the sea.  When I took Ben swimming in Wrightsville in 2007, swollen and pregnant with James, I remember how tightly I held on to him and how unwilling I was to let him venture out too far on his own.  I wrestle with how to teach my sons to both embrace and fear the sea—especially when almost equally in my life I have feared it and been drawn to it.  When I have experienced much of my life’s greatest pain on the shores of it and have spent many of my life’s most sensual, happy moments there as well.

I have often thought when I am old, I would like to build a home on the sea and fill it with books, and recipes, and wine, and guest bedrooms … and live out my waning days watching the tides come and go.

In September, along the Carolina shore, whether the hurricane pattern for the season is bringing storms to the Gulf, along the Florida coast, or up the mouth of the Cape Fear River, the waves and the undertow are unusually strong.  But the warm water is perfect for those strong swimmers willing to brave it.

When I lived in Wilmington in 1999, I went with friends to Masonboro Island by boat in September.  It’s an uninhabited island south of Wrightsville, perfect for camping or picnicking or long walks.  As we sat on the shore, eating, drinking, and enjoying the hot, windy day, I noticed the waves getting bigger and bigger.  When I stepped into the water—where the small waves usually lap at your feet gently—I was almost knocked over by the strong tide.  

To this day, I’m not sure what got in to me, but I decided to swim past the wave breaks so I could float in the deeper water.  I fought wave after massive wave and noticed that the forceful undertow was moving me further and further down the beach, away from my friends.  It was hard to judge how far down shore I was drifting because the usual markers of civilization – hotels, houses, and water towers -- were not there to help me judge.  For whatever reason, I felt certain that if I could just make it to the deeper water, I’d feel safe.

I did finally get past the waves.  I floated in the warm water for a long time-- a little weary from my journey, a little drunk from the wine on shore, a little overwhelmed by the powerful sound of quiet, the warmth on my skin, the taste of salt, and the beauty of it all. 

I am not sure what awoke me from my floating half-slumber, but I remember the abruptness of the change from contented bliss to fear.  Fear of the swim back to shore, fear that I had strayed too far, fear quite simply of the ocean.  It was jarring. 

The fight back to shore was much harder than the swim in.  Every time my tired arms and legs would make 10 feet of progress, the current would pull be back.  For a moment, I even felt panic.  Could I make it back to shore?  Do I even want to go back to shore yet?  I felt peace past the waves ... the kind of naked, pure peace you can only feel in deep water.

When I finally got to a point where I could stand, I paused for awhile—caught my breath, looked over my shoulder at the waves and the place beyond them.  I entertained swimming back for awhile.  But my arms and legs were shaking from the exertion, and I realized I did not have the strength to go back. 

I waited for the next seventh wave and rode it in.  It was massive and foamy, and it deposited me with a thud onto the shallow shore of broken shells and sand.  When I stood in the knee-deep water, I was disoriented, dizzy … I felt a little bit broken.

I waded back to the beach and began the half-mile journey back to my friends, our picnic, and my wine.  I was a woman in search of her towel … in search of a place to rest, to pick seashells out of my shoulder, and to stare at the ocean I do not understand and marvel at her from the safety of shore.

That Woman Is A Success...

When I was a senior in high school, I gave a speech to the Women's Executive Club in Charlotte about my mom.  I remember I quoted a poem in the speech -- "That Woman is a Success."  I searched for it online recently to no avail.  But as I recall, it was anodyne stuff to put it mildly. 

But the purpose of my oratory wasn't actually to consider what "success" meant.  I wrote the speech quite simply to defend my working mother.  To say to a room full of women who I wanted to nod in approval, "my mother worked and I am ok.  I survived.  I am not developmentally challenged."  Such was my feminism at the time -- self-righteous and sure.  And I carried that self-righteous feminism with me through law school and into a certain feminism professor’s buzzsaw.  Shortly after law school and that buzzsaw, I had my doubts that feminism meant women should do what men do and that women are just like men are.  I became even more convinced that wasn't true when I had babies and I witnessed something I'd denied for most of my life-- that women and men are fundamentally different in some ways.  And they are most different in how they parent.  Or that, at least, has been my experience.

I used to opine about the three prongs to my "successful" existence.  I think in the 90s and inspired by my legal training, my three prongs had two sub-prongs.  I don't remember the sub-prongs any more, but I do always remember my three passions.  They are just as Betrand Russell said they were for him:  

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

 I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

 Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

 This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."

I have sought love first and with the greatest degree of difficulty in my life.  Having supportive, communicative, loving relationships is surely how I find most of my sense of "success" (and my sense of failure when I screw up).  I did not know unconditional, throw-yourself-in-front-of-a-train love until my son Ben was born, and that brought with it an even deeper sense of commitment and even deeper guilt on dark days when I feel I am not giving my sons my all.  I find "love" the hardest thing to "work" on too, especially in a happy marriage.  We fall into patterns and routines, and usually we don't ask ourselves: "Am I loving this person the best way I can?" "How can I communicate better?"  "How can I allay fears?"  Challenging ourselves in these ways is difficult stuff and for the most part we avoid doing it.

My other two passions are the search for knowledge and the search for ways to alleviate others' pain.  Those play themselves out in many ways, but mostly they play an important role in why I am a U.S. diplomat ... because it gives me a sense that I am becoming more knowledgeable and acquiring experiences and that I am helping others.  I strive and fail mightily in these categories too of course. 

In my job, I see my achievement orientation and my competitive spirit.  I don't like it most of the time, but I see it.  I note with interest how I will send home to my parents news of some success at work and purr like a cat being rubbed when they praise me.  I know too that I felt "successful" when I had a very good job in the Department two years ago and that work was something I wanted others to know about me ... much like I want people to know I'm a lawyer.  Why is that important?  Why is other people's recognition of some outward "success" important to me?  I don't know.  My parents were valedictorians and my grandmother wanted me to be President.  It's in my genes I suppose.  Most days I think that I am more moved by the drive to learn and help than by the baser desires to please, achieve, and "win"... but I'd be lying if I said those baser desires weren't there pushing me on like a Chinese mother.  Making me burn my candle at every conceivable end.  Making me sleep with my Blackberry on my chest.

I once asked a woman I admire how you can "have it all."  She had the best answer.  She said "you can't...not at the same time."  Something always has to give.  When you give in one place, you have less capacity to give in another.  It is the sickening zero sum reality of modern, exhausted living.  When you perform some promotion-inspiring feat, you often miss bath-time.  When you stay up making a project and cupcakes for your child's 100th day of school and go with him to celebrate, you miss that conference call your boss wanted you to attend.  If you stay home with your children as your life's work, you think working moms' lives are glamorous.  If you work, you deeply envy a mother's time to watch the daily miracles in her child's life. 

In short, only you can define what your passions are and how you pursue them.  Even if you haven't assigned them in prongs and subprongs, you know what they are.  And only your tummy (that wonderful place where the wisdom of your head and the passion of your heart meet) can tell you in what measure to pursue your various passions.  Know this too -- no matter what you decide, you will always feel that you are not giving something or someone enough of you.

So my definition of success is this: 

·         Knowing what passions will govern your life and pursuing them with energy and focus (not just going through the motions or leading a life of quiet desperation).

·         Pursuing your passions with balance and the knowledge that excess in one requires loss in another, thus causing a never-ending, constantly shifting pursuit to be disciplined enough to give and do what you can when you can.

·         Forgiving yourself for the days and the moments when you fail to find balance, or when you fancy that someone's life is choiceless unlike yours and so much easier, or when you judge another, or worse yourself, for not getting the balance just right. 

If you can walk this path and keep getting better at it, you are a success.