Commemorating 9/11

I'm sure that every American who was over the age of five remembers that day. Living on the west coast, it was very early in the morning. We were just getting up and starting our day. I remember feeling scared, thinking our entire nation was under attack. First one plane. Then another. Then the third. Then the fourth. Then days of total silence and empty skies as all flights were stopped. Then weeks and months of images of destruction, tales of loss, and, eventually, stories of sickness of first responders. It was a dark, dark time.

While I did not know anyone who died that day, I--like many Americans, I'm sure--entered a period of depression. I was plagued by sadness, crying at odd times without provocation. It was an immense, all-encompassing sadness that I understand cannot compare to the ongoing loss felt by those who lost loved ones that day, but nonetheless was a personally challenging time. Even though it was ten years ago, it feels vivid and tangible.

As we near the anniversary of this terrible day, I find myself plagued by stories in the media. Every radio station is "remembering 9/11." There are TV shows. On NPR they had stories from parents and grandkids of those who died in the attacks. As I listened this morning in the car, I found myself crying, tears streaming down my cheeks as they did ten years ago. I had to turn the channel. And it made me think. What are we doing?

In no way am I suggesting that we forget, but I have to wonder, especially with the current economic chaos and uncertainty in which our country currently finds itself, is all of this "commemorating" a good idea? If someone's family was tragically murdered, would any therapist suggest that every year, or every ten years, they reenact, retrace, re-imagine the horror of every minute of that day? It seems unhealthy. It feels unhealthy--at least for me.

I would like to know what the families of the deceased would like to do to remember their loved ones. There is a giant controversy over the ceremony in New York City. Who is invited, who is not. Is this really a way to honor those who died and remember what happened? What might be a more appropriate way to honor those thousands of lives without plunging ourselves back into the deep despair that followed the original event? There must be a better, brighter way to move forward out of the tragedy.

I, for one, am not participating. I will not watch the TV programs. I will not listen to the radio. I will not be part of the sensationalism of one of the worst days in American history. I will call my friend, Maureen, whose brother--a firefighter--died that day and give her my condolences. I will say a prayer for all those still suffering. I will honor those who died by doing something positive in my community--something that builds connection so that we are not so divided by religion, politics, skin color and all of the other labels we like to put on people so that we can be right and "they" can be wrong.

But I will not dishonor those who died by being part of the media circus. And I will not return to the darkness of ten years ago. I will be part of the light. It just feels like the right thing to do, the honorable way to commemorate an unspeakable loss--being a little splinter of mirror reflecting light into the dark corners so that hopefully no one has to experience anything like this ever again.

My Trouble With Pausing

I have a pause problem. And it’s not menopause…yet. For some reason, I seem to have a hard time pausing. Big pauses, little pauses, it doesn’t really matter. Pausing is not a natural skill with which I have been blessed. If a thought enters my mind, I blurt it out. If I experience an emotion, I show it. I run from thing to thing, speak from sentence to sentence, without pausing. It’s beginning to be a problem.

Truly, it’s always been a problem. When I was consulting, there was many a time I’d lose my cool a bit with a client. A friend and associate of mine had this great reaction when something went wrong or when she was surprised by something a client said or did: she would pause. She would put her hand to her chin, look up a little to the right, and give a little, audible “hmmmm.” It was perfect. Just the right amount of time to consider possibilities, control emotions, and formulate an appropriate response. I envied her pause.

Now that I am working on my public speaking through Toastmasters, feedback on my lack of pausing is coming up more frequently. Like after every speech I do. I’ve coached people on public speaking, for gosh sakes, I know the value of a pause! But for some reason, when I’m up there, the words just rush right out and the pauses never come. It makes breathing a little difficult.

I have difficulty with bigger pauses as well. Life pauses. Like the one I’m in right now. I left my 20+ career in corporate training and communications in February (by my own choice), and have been in a pause ever since. A six-month pause. At first I didn’t rush to fill it, but now I am getting antsy. Looking at jobs, contemplating writing books and articles, searching for what is next.

When I catch myself in “filling-the-pause” mode, I am working on quietly reminding myself that the best thing I can do with this pause is be present. I take a deep breath, and ask for help being calm and aware. Looking back on life, I can see that the pauses have set me up for the next thing, so it’s important to see it when it comes and save my energy for it. Sure, I know it will take some effort on my part, but I also know I’ll know it when I see it. The worst thing I could do is waste time and energy on stuff that isn’t “it.”

Breathe. Listen. Watch…Pause.

There’s nothing like a giant pause to perfect my pausing skills!

Sing Your Song: Making the Case for Making a Joyful Noise

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout, down came the rain and washed the spider out, out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again.

When I think of songs like "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" it takes me back to a time when singing was a part of my every day life, whether it was learning the ABC's with the alphabet song, or playing "Ring Around the Rosie" with my friends, or looking up at the night sky with my parents singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." I have always loved to sing. I even remember as a little girl singing myself to sleep every night. But, in the U.S. (and perhaps in other countries as well), something happens around the ages of 9 or 10--we slowly segregate kids into two groups: those who can sing, and those who can't.

I was in the "can't sing" group. And it was devestating to me.

I'm sure you know which group you're in. Maybe it was a music teacher that asked you to just "mouth the words." Or maybe at camp a friend called you out in front of everyone for singing off-key. But that is when you stopped singing in front of people--I know I did. Sure I still sang in the shower or the car, but it's not the same thing. When we stop singing together, we lose something very important--connection.

I am always delighted and amazed when I see movies about African tribal culture because singing and dancing is so much a part of their lives. I recently saw a movie on the Lost Boys of Sudan, called And God Grew Tired of Us. These people had walked thousands of miles, through terrible circumstances and had seen atrocious things because of the civil war in their country, only to end up in the desert in Ethiopia in a refugee camp with 80,000 people, very little food and water, and maybe, if they were lucky, just the clothes on their backs. In the midst of this, they came together and sang. Their singing together connected them, began to heal them, and even brought them some joy in the middle of a dire circumstance. That's what singing can do.

I have a couple of personal experiences that have made me realize how important singing is for our whole lives and not just when we're children. When I was a young parent, my kids were about three and five, I was spent. Like most young parents, I was putting all of my time and energy into work, the kids, the house and I just ran out of energy to keep doing that. I went to go see a counselor and she asked me, "What do you love to do?"

"Sing," I replied. And she said, "Go do it." So I did.

I found a wonderful voice teacher who got it. He would say, "we're here to share, not to show, to express, not to impress." He knew it wasn't about American Idol--it was about the joy that comes from singing with and for others. (By the way, the voice is an instrument, and like other instruments if you get training and practice, you can improve!) The teacher had a glee club, which I joined and sang with for about five years. I even did solos and duets! I did one duet with my best friend which is one of the highlights of my life. Singing filled me up so that I could continue to take care of the ones I loved.

The other experience that made me realize how important singing is started with a phone call we got at 5:30 in the morning about 10 years ago. You know that call you dread getting? You're sound asleep and the phone rings and your heart is in your mouth? It was that call. My mother-in-law had had a major stroke on the left side of her brain. It took away her function on the right side of her body, and it took away her speech. Tens of thousands of words in the adult vocabulary and she was left with just one: alright.

As anyone who's been through tragedy like this knows, there is laughter amidst the tears. We would laugh, and Joanne would laugh at herself, with her "alright" conversations. But she didn't always laugh. It was frustrating for her not to be able to express herself. Try as we might to rebuild her vocabulary, those brain cells were dead. But what we did discover was that she could SING! Singing, you see, comes from the right side of your brain. She knew every word to songs she'd known her whole life, like "Happy Birthday" or "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." I would take her on walks around the neighborhood and we would sing the songs I knew from glee club, songs from the 40's and 50's like "Dancing Cheek to Cheek." It was so wonderful to hear her voice, to see the joy it brought her to express herself so effortlessly through song, when everything else was so difficult. Those walks where we connected like this are special times I'll never forget.

Today, I'm encouraging you to sing your song! Make a joyful noise! So you don't miss out, so we all don't miss out, on the special connection that comes from joining in song with others.

An Open Letter to My Sons: It's YOUR Road

To my sons (and young people everywhere who want to change the world):

There is no "right" way. Especially right now. I can see it in your eyes: a fire, really a spark right now, burning, waiting for some oxygen to really fuel it. You feel stifled, restrained by the system and structures around you (including your dad and me). I remember that feeling.

I just knew I would be a famous actress. Part of me still believes it (at my age!). Now, though, that passion I had is funneled into other pursuits. I want to change education so that people like you and me don't have to suffer through years of feeling like our fires are not being stoked. What if you had an education that found out what your dream was and did everything possible to support it? That is what every child deserves. The system, though, is not going to give it to you, so you need to find it yourself.

What I want to tell you is that there is no "right" way. The pressure right now is to get good grades, graduate from high school, go to a good college and get a good job—but that may not be your path. More people than you know follow a different path...and that is OK. Do I want you to get good grades? Sure. Do I want you to go to college? Yup. But if you don't, that can be OK too.

I say can be OK because there is one condition: you need to be pursuing your passion. Most famous people who didn't graduate from college (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Halle Berry, Jennifer Anniston, Michael Dell, etc.) have one thing in common—they left to pursue their passion. Whole-heartedly. Doggedly. Without distraction. If you don't go to school so you can sit around and play Call of Duty all day, that's one thing. If you're out there kicking ass and taking names, that's another. (And one way receives our financial and moral support, and the other way doesn't. Just so you know.)

(Can I add a caveat to my caveat? Sometimes what may look like "playing" to others may not actually be "playing." When Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College, he hung around and audited classes including calligraphy. At the time it appeared to have no practical application in his life—it just interested him. The "usefulness," however, became clear a few years later when he and Steve Wozniak created the Mac—the first computer with beautiful typography. In Steve Jobs' words: "you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.")

For some reason, we like to make young people think that there is only one path, one right way, but that is a lie. Education, especially as it exists today, is mostly an exercise in learning how to follow the rules, to tolerate boredom, and, at best, to demonstrate that you can show up everyday and get something done. If you can do the latter part, though, if you can show up and get something done, even outside the structure of school, then you are already on your path to success.

So fear not. Do your best in this system where you do not fit, and then make your own way. Keep your eye on the prize and know that with hard work and persistence, you will get there (please note that it is highly unlikely that it will be handed to you). If you go to college right out of school, if that's the right path for you, great. But college will always be there if there is something you need to know that you can't learn some other way (for instance, if you suddenly decide that "rock star" doesn't cut it and you'd rather be a surgeon or an attorney). (And please don't tell Grandma I said this.)

In the meantime, know that you are a talented, brilliant human being, regardless of what anyone else thinks or what everyone else is doing. It can be a tougher road when you're making your own way, but it is your road. Make the most of it.

(By the way, Steve Jobs' commencement address at Stanford University is one of my favorites. Watch it sometime. )

Love,
Mom

30 Days of Creativity - Day 1

My Fear of Anticipation

I hate the moment when my feet leave the diving board--that split-second when there's no going back on my decision to jump and before my body plunges into the shock of the cold water. I have been known to stand on the diving board for minutes, warding off threats from my husband and sons who are dying to push me in. What's so weird, though, is that hitting the water is never as bad as I've made it out to be. The fear of what might be far outweighs the fear in the actual experience of what is. The fear I experience is not a fear of the thing itself, but in my imagining of the event.

Take bungee jumping, for instance. My husband really wants to go up to Nanaimo, British Columbia in Canada and bungee jump off the bridge there. What scares me about bungee jumping is not the fear of dying, but the moment between when my feet leave the bridge and when I feel the cord "catch" at the bottom. That's a heckuva long moment compared to leaving a diving board! But think about it--that IS the experience of bungee jumping. If you're going to enjoy the experience, you need to enjoy that anticipation while you're flying through the air, plummeting toward the earth. In order for me to enjoy life, I have to be doing more than just anxiously awaiting for that cord to catch at the bottom.

It's the same reason I hate horror movies. I experience no pleasure whatsoever in that moment where the killer is waiting, poised with the knife as the unwitting future victim slowly puts her hand on the doorknob. Now, I don't enjoy movies with a lot of killing anyway, but wiping out a group with machine guns is far less scary because there is no anticipation. It just happens. The event itself, again, is less scary than the anticipation of it.

So how can I deal with the fear that comes from anticipation? As far as I can tell, there is only one way--to fully experince each moment. It takes practice to constantly bring myself to the present, but the reality is there is usually nothing scary in this moment. Even when bad things do happen, it is usually just in one bad moment, surround by a bunch of very manageable or even good moments. Being present, even to fear, is far less scary than the events I anticipate. So, I breathe, let go of my thoughts, and once again strive to just be.

I think it's time for a swim.

When Saying "Yes" Means Saying "No"

I know I am not alone in having trouble saying "no" to things--especially as a woman. There are so many things I want to do, it's hard to turn things down. Sometimes I can't say no because I feel guilty, or obligated. Usually, though, I say "yes" without even thinking; if I can do it, then I should do it.

For a number of years, this worked for me...sort of. I ran through life, from one thing to the next, not really having the time to be present to any of it. For the last 20 years I have worked, raised children, volunteered at school, maintained a house, volunteered in the community, acted, sang, helped out friends and family, ran marathons and races, and on and on. It probably doesn't sound too different from your own life. It wasn't until this last fall, that suddenly (and I do mean suddenly), this crazy life caught up with me. I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't.

So what happened? It felt as if I hit a brick wall. Trying desperately to control every aspect of my teenage sons' lives, while working and doing all these other activities pushed me over an edge. I think it all began with a helicopter crash last February in which five people died--people we knew. It was followed by a couple more tragic deaths of young people in our community and then the death of a friend from high school. I think my undoing was at least nine months in the making (if not years prior to that). These untimely deaths planted seeds in my soul that started growing, pushing out old thoughts and behaviors and demanding new ones.

If life is so uncertain (and it's easy to pretend for stretches of time that it's not), then I need to make conscious choices about how I want to live it. Living in constant fear and worry, trying to control everything, stressing out over what needs to be done next isn't me living my life--it was my life living me. I made a conscious decision to quit working at a job that I was totally burnt out on, and spend this year supporting (not controlling) my sons and working on my writing and speaking skills.

What happens when you actually make a decision about what to do? Why wonderful opportunities come your way, of course! Opportunities that I now have to say no to, based on the direction I've chosen. I have to say no to people with whom I've worked for years and admire and respect. I have to say no to work that gratifies my ego and would earn us some extra cash. I have to say no to travel and another accomplishment for my resume.

The opportunity, I need to remember, is not in saying yes this time. The opportunity is in saying no to anything that might distract me from the course I've chosen. If I continue to fill up these spaces with busy-ness, I will find myself right back where I was. So, I take a deep breath, choose to let go of all the chatter and fear, and find the courage (yes, courage) to say "No. Thank you, but no."