Archive | November, 2011

Gratitude and grace

23 Nov

“If you think Independence Day is America’s defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands-down.” -Tony Snow

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” – Jon Stewart

That sums up my thoughts on the holiday itself.

The tradition associated with it is another thang entirely.

I love tradition.  I don’t mind breaking it either.  Some traditions I follow include annual trips:  Big Bear, Pismo Beach, New York.  Outings: The Sawdust Festival, the Michael Jackson Dance-a-Thon, Christmas movie night.  Celebrations: Most pop-culture American holidays involving food/drink and niceties, Mardi Gras, birthdays, New Years.

My earliest memory of Thanksgiving was when I, as a very young girl got my first little tummy ache.  I’d eaten way too much because the food was just so good.  I rolled around on my back on the floor trying to get comfortable.

Man I wish someone had recorded that.

Since then, it has become a day when each year, I get to see all my family members at once.  I get to cook and eat other’s incredible dishes, all made with love.

Most people you see are generally nicer than usual, and assume the posture we should hope to have all year: Grace, humility, and gratitude.

History aside, I’m gon’ enjoy my dinner and my loved ones.

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11-5-11

18 Nov

11-5-11.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We celebrated with friends, family, neighbors and co-workers and did fun, silly, amazing and sentimental things.  We watched coy swim for about an hour.  We danced until our feet hurt.  We ate cake and lit candles.  We stuffed our tummies and drank mimosas until the sun set.  We sang and prayed and talked and wandered and loved.

Laughing hysterically, we got over the wildly awkward period between when my birth date passed and when the surprise lunch work tradition played out.

11-5-11.

My father, love-nugget and I were driving home from a wonderful dinner, listening to the Whispers while my dad got sentimental.  Mind you, my dad is an amazing, passionate, and powerful man, father, businessman, and community leader.  So when he gets sentimental it reads like a dramatic Spielberg film.

As he waxed on, offering thinly veiled references and advice on life, and on my and my love-nugget’s relationship, we listened with soft affirmative, “mm-hmmms”, yeah’s”, and laughter.  ’Cause he won’t let you get a word in edgewise.  Not that you’d want to with the jewels he drops.

I guess our affirmation provided the perfect comfort zone because his daddy comments turned to reminiscing.

He explained, as the Whispers played, that he remembered being backstage for their performances when he was playing piano with my mother’s band.  How they were madly in love and the world was in turmoil and the music compelled them.

He and my mom divorced when I was two.

Once, during a weekend with her after my 4th birthday, we were living it up at Chuck-E-Cheese, celebrating the special day.  I turned to her, happy and content, to ask what day it was.  The 13th, she replied.  Pleased, I looked forward to November 13th as my birthday until the next year when I learned the truth.

On 11-5-11, listening to my father talk about how much he had loved my mother, I fell silent immediately, fighting back tears… Focusing on anything, everything that rushed by in the world outside.

It was the first time in thirty years he had spoken about how in love they were.

Mind you, my Dad remarried, everyone gets along, blah blah blah blah.  While he’s never bad-mouthed my mother out of respect and care…  He also never talked about how they were high school sweethearts, their marriage, their family of three children.

I was so young and am generally so flippin’ pleased about everything for no good reason, the divorce didn’t play out emotionally.

It used to be easy to rest in that, to pretend my ticket was the fast-track past the weight of it all.  Where maybe there should have been feelings of pain, abandonment, anger, guilt… There’s always been an eerie nonchalance about the entire thing, which I thought was ok.

But it isn’t.

Just easy.

In theory.

If I accepted that I was too young to know what was going on, I could also accept that I was too young to feel anything or think about it.  Too young to wonder why they didn’t love each other anymore.  Why she didn’t love us enough to fight for custody.  Why I didn’t have what the little girls in the movies did:  Dress-up, boy-talk, costumes, and prom prep with their mommies.  How you can be madly in love with someone for it all to fall apart.

Easy.

Lots of things are easy.

It’s easier to buy fast food than cook an exquisite meal.  Easier to do shots of tequila than prepare a delicious martini.  Easier to date whoever you want than commit to one person.  Easier to hire help than do your own housework.  Easier to hate an enemy than forgive them.  Easier to not care than love.  Easier to be angry than find joy.  Easier to be sad than settle in peace.

My dad asked what caused my silence, and it would have been easy to say I was just tired.  Instead, I explained how powerful it was to hear him talk about their love.  To realize how little I felt and how wrong that was.  To realize how much I didn’t know, that I needed to know.  To ask for his help in figuring it out.

I don’t do easy.

It’s difficult, but thrilling to uncover my core:  Discover who I really am and who I’m not.  It takes a hell of a lot of courage but honestly, there is an easy part.  That’s in knowing there is nothing but goodness and mercy planned for me, all the days of my life.

As I move, determined and patient through my thirty-third year, what a remarkable revelation, that an innocuous conversation helped me to be born again.

11-5-11.

This year will be one of learning, growing, mastering, digging, and reveling in all the twists and turns and somersaults ahead.

I’m so excited to see what’s in store.

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Let go of the toilet seat, already.

3 Nov

Scene: An attractive couple madly in love with each other snuggle on the couch in their living room, enjoying a movie and feeding each other heart-shaped popcorn-chicken nuggets.  Kittens purr at their feet and butterflies flutter past in the waning afternoon sun.  Between powerful bursts from their exceptional sound system the melodious chirping of birds can be heard ever-so faintly.

Lady stands, bending over to seductively kiss Man’s neck.

“I’ll be right back Honey, I’m using the loo.  Will you pause it for me please?”

Man affectionately squeezes a lady part and smiles like the cat that ate the canary.

“Anything for you baby.”

Lady walks down the hall while man leans to watch her go, popping another heart-shaped nugget.  He closes his eyes, savoring the glory that is his life in this moment.  ”Damn I’m a lucky man,” he thinks.

Then things fall apart.

A blood-curdling scream echoes from the hall, punctuated by the sound of glass breaking.  The scream turns into an angry chant: “This never should have happened. I should have known better.  Am I losing my go—n mind? This never should have happened…”

Man sits frozen, face red from choking on the love-nugget that lodged in his windpipe when the unexpected noise caused him to gasp in surprise.

And then he hears the door open.  Footsteps pad slowly down the hall.  His heart races.  His thoughts explode in terrified confusion:  ”Crap.  Am I in a horror film?  Did the Exorcist get a hold of her in there?  I’m like that idiot that’s going to die in first scene.  Maybe I can get to the kitchen for a knife. No, no, too far away.  I’ll just throw the nugget plate at her if her eyes are red. Chuck ‘n’ Duck.  Crap.”

Lady steps into the living room.  All is silent but his heart beat.  The theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly whistles unheard in heavy air.

“Honey.”

Man glances at her hands for potential weapons then dips his head low, signaling submission, and looks up into her eyes, afraid to spark a murder spree.  He says nothing.

“You left the toilet seat up.”

Stunned, the man looks left and right for hidden cameras while he struggles for the response that effectively resets life to when chicken love-nuggets reigned supreme.

He says nothing.

End Scene.

Drama.

Pure drama.

But like most drama, this is based in reality.  And it isn’t just a woman thing, men flip out as well, over different things or sometimes the same things… Innocuous little everyday items that mean a whole lot more than the average fork/water spot/dirty child/ late dinner/ toilet seat.

Tantrum Totems.

You know what they are.  At work, it may be the darn TPS report.  At church, maybe it’s the multimedia system failing.  At home, maybe it’s late dinners, mismatched socks, full trash cans or drinking the last of the orange juice.  In fact, these things are meaningless.  In your emotional landscape they are land mines, symbols, totems that set you off in a temper tantrum, expressed inwardly or outwardly, ultimately destructive.

Why do these things matter so much then?  Why would one stare at an empty dinner table, a hole in a sweater, or latrine with such a strong reaction if they don’t mean anything?

Well, the same way we get sentimental about the great things… Roses, babies, wedding rings, sporting events, romantic dinners, we get sentimental about the not-so-great things.  It’s about where we are personally and circumstantially when we encounter these things, and what these things represent for us.  And what feeling that representation inspires.

I bet your ex’es baby wouldn’t make you coo as fast as your best friend’s. That candlelit dinner with your grandpa wouldn’t make your heart flutter like it would with your love-nugget.  Even a wedding proposal, if received on the day of some catastrophic tragedy loses its romance and charm.

In the interest of ensuring scenes like the one above are perpetuated in art, instead of in real-life exchanges, let’s all agree to recognize what we’re dealing with.

And burn them.  And bury them.  And burn them again.

How?

Well, the answer is always simple, right?  Sprinkle some love on it.

Self-love.  Because if any thing is able to disrupt your peace, you weren’t really ever settled to begin with.  Yes, maybe you hate the thing because it symbolizes a riff with your love-nugget.  But honestly, if you were truly at peace with yourself, the riff would be resolved.  Not festering.  It’s hard to distinguish a rotten grape from a rotten tomato if they’re all smooshed up together.

Yes, the Tantrum Totem sets you off.  It’s like a smoke detector, telling you something’s wrong.  So if it ain’t about the toilet seat, or dinner being ready, but instead that your love-nugget ain’t lovin’ you the way you need to be… That’s what you want to figure out.

It’s hard to talk about your needs with someone else when you don’t know what they are.  If your life isn’t clearly defined, and you aren’t really happy and at peace with it, you can’t really expect anyone in it to know how to function on that level.

Life meets us where we are, not where we want to be.

So next time you come home and dinner is late, or the toilet seat is left up, try going over to your love-nugget, and hugging them and tell them you’re glad they’re there.

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