Across The Country To Say Goodbye.

 I am just back from a turn-around trip to California where I went to see my brother who is very ill. Literally a turnaround. My oldest son, Lock, went with me.  We flew out on Friday, spent the night in a hotel, visited my brother on Saturday and flew back to Connecticut early Sunday morning: a test of 80 year-old physical and emotional stamina if there ever was one!

We went to say goodbye. We went bearing messages of love from other members of our family. How long his transition will take, I do not know, but my wonderful, talented, funny, younger brother is well into it and I doubt that it will be long.  After visiting with him for an hour or so, my son and I sat outside on a red bench in the bright California sun and wept.

A single cheerful diversion occurred when, in order for my brother to nap soundly, we left for a while. Holly Goldberg Sloan, writer of lovely books: I'll Be There and Counting By Sevens, and friend of my son's,  picked us up in her bright orange car and took us for a long walk along the Pacific Ocean near where she lives with her illustrator husband, Gary. We stopped to drink coffees. That is, I did. Holly drank a juice made from cucumber, parsley, kale and spinach. Ack! It tasted like liquid salad and positively screamed GOOD FOR YOU! Even Holly thought a bit of apple juice might have helped.

Sitting at the wobbly round table, our knees pressed together, Holly showed Lock and me--both I Phone novices-- how to photograph our next-day boarding passes for Delta Airlines. At 6:00 AM the next morning, he and I both executed this maneuver successfully and stood in line, our cellphones at the ready for scanning. The young man in  front of me was struggling to find his pass on his phone and was impatiently waved aside by the security person, who reached for my phone to scan instead. And it worked! 

A silly splash of victory in an ocean of sadness, grief and helplessness. 

Where Were You Joel Osteen?

A few days ago, while walking with a friend, I heard myself say a snarky thing about a woman we both knew. Later, at home, I thought: Joel Osteen! Where were you when I needed you to keep me from being unpleasant about a perfectly good person?

And why does this Episcopalian/Buddhist/interfaith minister think of Pastor Joel Osteen when she has just been a bit bitchy?

It’s simple. He’s a wonderful preacher, deep thinking, articulate and uplifting. (Sunday, 9:00 AM, Channel 5) He leaves me feeling full of possibilities: that I can be a better person: that I have only just begun to realize the potential that God holds for me: that I will be able to fulfill whatever it is that I came into this world to express.

How great is that? Joel Osteen inspires me to believe that I am worthy in every way—in spite of my contrary behavior.

And just last Sunday he raised this question: are we sowing honor or dishonor in our lives? And there I was walking along with my friend—a perfect example of someone sowing some gratuitous dishonor.

Osteen spoke of the way in which we store up honor and admiration of others. We “withhold” it, he said. We think nice things about people, but we don’t bother to let them know. We tend to be compliment lazy and often parsimonious with praise.  

Sometimes our holdback is more than just laziness.

Compliments can become frozen inside us because unconsciously we fear that if we release that praise for another, somehow we will be the less for it. As if, in praising someone else, we risk losing some esteem for ourselves. So we don’t share our kind thoughts. (Have you noticed this behavior  showing up where certain others are concerned? A spouse? A sibling? Someone with whom we feel a bit competitive?)

Osteen reminded his millions of listeners that, actually, it’s exactly the opposite. “We reap what we sow.”  Instead of losing, when we honor another, we gain. We thrive when we become “generous with compliments and stingy with complaints.”

 “Pour the oil of honor everywhere you can, by speaking well of someone even behind his or her back,” he urged. “There is great power,” he went on to say, “in a second hand compliment.”

How many sincere compliments can we offer in any given day? Let’s challenge ourselves to find the good wherever and however we can, and then share it, express it, make it known.

Then, if Osteen is right, along with Jesus and the Buddha—who teaches the same thing, but says it very differently—we will only need to keep our hearts open and our generosity flowing. As we soften, the oft-spoken spiritual promise is that miracles will begin to happen, both within us and in the world around us.

***

Check out Unleash Potential, http://www.unleashpotential.us/events/ offering personal growth groups in Fairfield every third Thursday. Caroline J. Temple and Lisa Jacoby are the compassionate leaders of Unleash Potential and my companions on this journey of reflection and self-discovery. Call Caroline: 203 866 9331for the details of the workshops.

Perfect However It Turns Out.

 Do you remember the weather prognosis for Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving? The wintry mix along the coast, the wind, the cancelled flights and the travel warnings for I 95: to say nothing of the prediction that there would be a record number of drivers on the roads because of the drop in gas prices. Even in good weather the Thanksgiving traffic toward Hyannis, where I was headed with my youngest son and his family, is horrendous, so this weather prediction was daunting.

The thought of the six hour drive north and east on Wednesday toward ferries that might not even run and, if they did, would be madly rocking to and fro during the two hour crossing, began to make me more than somewhat nervous. To go or not to go: that was the question. I didn’t have the same determination to get to their house on the island as my son and his family did. I wanted to be there with them; I just didn’t want to get there.

 Letting go of the outcome of it all, my prayer about Thanksgiving became, “Let this Thanksgiving be perfect however it turns out.”

On Tuesday evening I had a conversation with my daughter, who said, “Come to our house” (in New Canaan) “and see the boys.”

On Wednesday morning I spoke with my daughter-in-law, who admitted that the whole Thanksgiving in Nantucket thing was very stressful even for them. “I can get pretty snippy about it,” she told me.

That did it. I opted out.

Instead, I spent Thanksgiving with the six-member, New Canaan contingent of my family. A treat to see the older boys, all of whom are working now so glimpses of them are rare. I cooked with my daughter and held my favorite grand dog in my lap. On the way home I counted myself blessed to have had such a wonderful fall back plan.

And the blessings didn’t stop.

A childhood friend of my oldest son, who lives in Wilton, CT, and whom I have known since she was born, has just begun to read this blog. She had read The Privilege Of Pies and therefore was aware of the pending Nantucket trip. Our families were good friends during my married life in Ohio and Peggy emailed to say that if, due to the terrible weather, I did not go to Nantucket, her mother and older sister were visiting her and they would all like to see me.

A chance to see her mother, my friend, Kay, who was my tennis and paddle tennis and bridge-playing pal of twenty years? And two of Kay's three daughters, whom I watched grow up and who were so much a part of my children’s lives? Yes!

We met on Friday for lunch. When I saw Kay, I couldn’t stop hugging her. She has been through some medical issues so she is a bit frail, but there is no change in her bright eyes and spirit. The girls--no longer girls, of course—are attractive, smart and interesting and, above all, as they always have been, they are loving. The four of us caught up; we laughed and we remembered.

“May this Thanksgiving be perfect however it turns out.” 

Isn't it amazing how often when one plan folds, something totally unexpected and wonderful takes it's place?

The Privilege Of Pies

On November 20 my daughter-in-law emailed me to ask if I could get pies from that “wonderful bakery”—she meant The Pantry—to bring to Nantucket for Thanksgiving.

Oh dear! The Pantry, I knew, would no longer take orders for Thanksgiving food, but I phoned anyway—just on a chance— and was advised that if I queued by 7:00 AM on Tuesday I might be able to get my hands on a pie or two. Hmm…

I called Isabel and Vincent—a good bakery—and found that, yes, I could still order up to Sunday before Thanksgiving, but that they were making pumpkin and apple tarts.

“Tarts?” I queried? That isn’t the same thing as a pie and my daughter-in-law had specifically asked for pies.

I emailed her with The Pantry news and the tart news and she replied, “Don’t stress. Get the tarts if that is easier.”

OK. So later in the day I am walking with my young and resourceful walking partner, and I tell her about the pie problem. She, bless her heart, offers to be at The Pantry at 7:00 AM on Tuesday for me. “I get up early anyway, “ she tells me.

We agree that I will buy the two tarts at Isabel’s on Tuesday and if my friend can make it to The Pantry on that same morning by 7:00 AM and successfully snare two pies there, I will give her the Isabel tarts for her family to devour and she will give me the pies.

A plan is hatched, a bit scruffy, but a plan nonetheless.

However, later in the day, to my amazement, my friend emails me with the name, phone number and email address of a bakery in Nantucket, which she found online and which, she says, is still accepting orders for pies for Thanksgiving. She knows this because she has already called them!

I immediately text my daughter-in-law for approval of this bakery. (Anyone who is a mother-in-law will understand this move.) Approval is secured. I call the Nantucket bakery—Petticoat Row--and order the pies which will be picked up by a local friend who is joining us for Thanksgiving.

Whew!

Did you make it all the way through this? Have you been wondering why I am taking up so much of your precious time with what my older son would rightly call “a white girl problem?”

  Here's the "why." It suddenly  occurred to me how very blessed I am to have my only fret this week be about something as simple as pies.

Thanksgiving is a family holiday often honored by attending our places of worship. Although we have serious gun control issues to resolve in this country, in America we will not be anxious that we might be slaughtered in our pews as we pray.

We are so fortunate. Americans are spared the anxiety of wondering if, at any moment, a bomb will explode near or on our houses. We do not live in the omnipresent terror that suddenly our front door will be bashed in and our loved ones dragged away. We do not have to hear the cries of our babies grow thin and weak as they die of starvation. We have no foreign tanks churning at our borders.

  At this moment I am filled with gratitude for the privilege it is to be able to live in a country free from constant fear. Instead, on our Thanksgiving holiday, we can joyfully focus on family, turkeys, gravy and pies.

***

Thank you American readers of this blog. I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.

 To those readers from foreign countries to whom I am very grateful, I wish you peace. I wish you borders that are secure and free of threat. I wish you and your children long lives, safe and protected within your own cultures.

A Quiet Moment

Sun-lit leaves swirl downward,

Twirling, 

Spinning through the air like dancers,

 Sliding sideways,

 Twisting upwards in the breeze,

A silent graceful journey toward the earth.

Standing still to watch, I yearn to be light as a leaf,

Letting go to the stark, bare branches of winter.

 Falling gently to nestle into a soft pile,

Surrendered to the sudden chill of autumn.

The Rosetta Mission? OK. So I Am A Crank

I want to be excited about the Rosetta Mission and the Lander Philae connecting with a comet moving at 40,000 miles per hour, but I’m not.

 I torment myself: I am not a good citizen, not adventurous enough; I have no worldview. I don’t care about the RIGHT THINGS.  Conceivably I am just an old crank. All of the above may be true.

I understand why the international scientists of the ESA—European Space Agency--who have been working on this project since November of 1993, were jubilant over yesterday’s landing, some of them in tears. It has been a lot of work.

The Rosetta Mission was created to help us to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system. The ESA, according to online sources, is “convinced that comets played a key role in the evolution of the planets,” bringing much of the water into today’s oceans, for example. The ESA has been and continues to be a collaborative effort involving eight countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States.

I’m all for international collaboration; it really gets things done. So does a budget of some 1.4 billion euros. The American cost that I could find—and it wasn’t so easy—was approximately 275 million dollars. (It’s possible that that figure was just for the Lander Philae itself.)

So why am I complaining? As interesting as it is—and I cop to that--I have a negative attitude about space exploration. Remember how we were going to the moon—hooray!-- and going to cure cancer? What did we do? We went to the moon. Cancer still eats us alive or should I say, dead?

 My priorities are different. What I want is an ESA- quality budget and at least an eight-country collaborative focus on how to feed the millions of starving people all over the world.

 I want a highly trained scientific group devoted to the development of clean water systems for those who have none. The solar system can wait. It has waited this long hasn’t it?

Does it have to be either/ or? It would seem so. The Rosetta Mission has glamour. Yesterday’s successful landing offered us an opportunity to say, “Look how clever we are!”

While feeding the poor? What is that? So ordinary, so mundane that we just don’t do it?

OK. I’m a crank.

Meanwhile, according to today’s Telegraph, “Scientists say full contact has been reestablished with the Rosetta probe, but it is stuck in a crater where it cannot get enough sunlight for its solar panels.” 

Not nearly enough sunlight. 

And so? We will see.

                                                 ***

I usually post on Mondays but this could not wait. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

Be careful what you wish for.  You might get it.  So much more to be revealed.

As of now we can begin to blame the Republicans instead of the Democrats for everything that goes wrong, including ebola. Ebola is on the list these days, along with ISIS and Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine/ Israel. Correct?

It no longer matters to me which party we blame. Cynicism has turned me as crusty as the rust on a junk-piled fender.

What does matter to me is the inability of both political parties to compromise in order to solve problems.

Don’t they know what we all know? No one gets it all! Not ever.

There is a technique, tried and true, in conjoint therapy, in which the disagreeing husband and wife have to take turns expressing the other’s point of view with sufficient detail and feeling until each person is convinced that the other completely understands his or her viewpoint and the reasons behind it.

Following that exercise of having to wear “the other’s moccasins” it is quite astonishing how quickly a creative compromise can be achieved.

Of course, unlike politicians, the husband and wife in therapy are not running for election every time they open their mouths. Besides, it would appear that for a politician to publically compromise with an other-side-of-the-aisle opposing view would be tantamount to having a raging case of impetigo on your face. No one would want to come near you.

Exerting leadership is also totally suspect.

Friends and I have been discussing Ken Burns’ recent outstanding film, The Roosevelts. Even long- time, ardent republican friends have expressed admiration for former President Roosevelt’s courage and ability to lead, to put himself on the line for what he believed was right—re elected or not. Has that kind of leadership disappeared along with the 1940s hair slick, Brylcreem? “A little dab will do ya!” (So the slogan went.)

It’s no “little dab” of leadership that we need.  Instead, right now our country-- the world-- needs political leadership with the heart and stamina of Seabiscuit, driven by the creative wisdom of the best minds of our nation.

I wish I had more hope.