Work

I went to hear Twyla Tharp speak last week. I came away thinking, "That woman is fearless."

I'm sure she's not. She's driven, which is a different thing. When you're driven toward a goal, things that might otherwise feel like sinkholes are easier to see as the bumps in the road they really are. Whatever Twyla Tharp's fears are, she can drive through most of them. And whatever Twyla Tharp's fears are, they seem invisible to me because they aren't the same as mine. We're driven by (and to) different things.

Then again, I think she probably drives faster. And harder.

As the lecture broke up and I was walking toward the door, a student behind me commented to a friend, "It's interesting how differently people of that generation think. We feel our way through, spending time pondering all the possibilities. She sees her goal and just goes toward it."

I doubt that's a generational thing. That's a meet-a-creative-genius thing. Still, the how-I-feel-about-it aspect of life does get overemphasized today. During the Q&A someone asked, "How do you work through the times when you need down time?"

Twyla blinked, as if trying to comprehend this, then said briskly, "I am always working. If I get up and don't feel like working, I work anyway. Because, you know, I might feel like working the next day, and that's what you do if you want to stay in shape."

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Last week I chatted with a woman from my building on the subway. I am not sure exactly what we were talking about. Life, in a general way.

At one point I mentioned that I'd read that a lot of people don't like to rent to actors, because of the perception that their income is unstable. Yet actors are really, really good at scrambling for jobs, and they know how to patchwork a subsistence together. This gives them a huge advantage in times of economic insecurity. You'd probably be better off renting to a resourceful actor than to a middle manager in a big firm, because if the middle manager loses his or her job, it's a crisis. The salaried person often doesn't know how to cope with not having a regular paycheck.

So the question is: does security=steady paycheck? Or does security=ability to scramble and pay the rent if you lose your job?

Is it what you already have that makes you safe... or your resilience and adaptability?

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The discussion of security led to other things, and at one point my interlocutor paused and said, as if to herself, "I think I have a lower tolerance for discomfort than other people."

Her voice held regret; she clearly felt she'd missed out on important things because she'd moved away from difficulties too quickly. The A Train was not the place for a discussion about how tolerance for discomfort is something one builds rather than carries in one's DNA -- it's work.

But I can think of two things that provide the motivation to do the hard work of overcoming fears:

1) You become so sick-to-death of the limitations your fears impose that you're willing to put in the effort to change, or

2) You are so passionate about something that you plow through the rough stuff because it lies in the way of progress.

Generally speaking, passion for something bigger that yourself is the more compelling path. Just sayin'.

But it's still work.

Readiness

My eldest turned 20 last week. It was the first time she wasn't been home for her birthday, her first year of living in another part of the country, on her own.

Back when she left for college, two weeks after turning 16, people plied me with questions about whether or not I thought she was ready. "Ready in what way?" I replied drily, "There are grown men who still aren't ready for college."

I don't thing there's such a thing as ready, at least in the blanket sense. There are always ways in which we're not ready, even when we think we are: those are called blind spots. And there are ways in which we're ready, even when we think we're not: that's fear.

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I was kind of proud of myself this week. I transitioned a print newsletter to an email campaign. This is something I knew I could do, but for a while I found myself balking. Then I realized, "Oh -- I'm afraid because I've never done it before." Having named the fear, I could nod at it and drive on by. 

It's unspoken, unidentified anxieties that have the ability to steer me off course. One of my kids has this Mental Floss t-shirt:

When I can name what is behind a vague sense of unease, I'm more than halfway to pulling out of it. I suspect that being ready to face our fears may be the closest we will ever come to being blanket-level ready.

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The whole idea of being ready for something is kind of odd, if you stop to think about it. It carries with it the assumption that we have (or should have) a choice about when things happen. Sometimes we do, and sometimes we don't. 

When we say, "I'm not ready", we often mean:

• I'm afraid I won't succeed; or
• I seriously don't like this and don't wanna go through it; or
• This will be way too much work to be comfortable; or
• I'm not good enough at this to avoid looking (or feeling) inept.

It could also mean, "I genuinely need additional time to develop the skills to do this," but I suspect that's not usually the case. 

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I wasn't ready for Eldest to move halfway across the country, in the sense that I was surprised at how hard it was to adapt to the idea that I couldn't hop on a bus and be at her doorstep $25 and five hours later. I'm slowly getting used to it. 

And is Eldest ready to hold down a job, live on her own, and be independent? I daresay she is far more ready than she thought she would be. She likes her job, likes her apartment, likes her town. There are things she is learning -- some because she wants to, and some because she has to -- and that's good. 

Sometimes we're ready. Sometimes we're willing. Sometimes we're able. I'm not convinced that we need all three at the same time to move forward. What we really need is an honest assessment of what's holding us back. Often it's simply fear. 

The positives of negative space

In the late 80s and early 90s I worked in marketing, mostly in the money management sector. It was a time when there were few women in that field, and young professionals were continually told to find a mentor. I found this difficult. You see, there were very few people I wanted to emulate. Mostly what I did was look around and note the characteristics I did not want to have. I knew who I didn't want to be long before I had an inkling of who I aspired to become.

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I spent many weekends at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a decade later, with my children. The Met has a superb drop-in education program; it's free with admission.

One week the program was in the Greek galleries. In addition to learning about red-figure and black- figure vases, we spent a while in front of a gorgeous funerary statue of a young man, a kouros. The instructor had us walk around the statue, noticing what we liked about it. She then talked about how a sculpture is defined by what's there and what's not. The space between the legs, for example, has its own beauty. The stone which was removed was as significant as what remained.

This idea of negative space enchanted me. We are, in part, defined by who we are not.  We do not get any say in what kind of raw material we begin with, but I can choose to carve away cynicism (or not), to excise self-centeredness (or not), to shave off fear (or not), to chisel out desires for fame, fortune or success (or not).

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And yet there are limits. Some negative space is formed simply by getting knocked around. What could have -- perhaps should have -- been there gets broken off, eroded, cracked, damaged. We don't get to sculpt everything. Though life may not be what it could have been, there is still immense beauty in it. 

When we look at a gorgeous statue that has lost a nose or an arm, what do we fixate on: What is missing, or what is there? 

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I daresay that much of what we think of as sacrifice, isn't. Most of what we give up for the sake of our children/spouse/friends/strangers is stuff we can easily do without. Often we are actually better off for the lack, since thinking of others ahead of thinking of ourselves tends to smooth out certain bulgy spots in our souls. I think the negative space that is formed from thoughtfulness is more like the silken, clean line delineating the arm or leg of that kouros than like a missing nose.

 

Hope.

The graduation was great, though not your usual event. It's different at a therapeutic school.

I sat in the audience, aware that every single person in the room had known deep suffering: every student, every mom, every dad, every sibling, every relative. I wondered what the cumulative number of suicide attempts had been, the number of days spent in hospitals, the number of tears sobbed, the hours of therapy logged. It was intensely moving to consider how impossibly hard these kids -- and parents -- had worked just to get to a life that approximated what others think of as normal.

If you'd told me four years ago that Big Guy would be a) alive, b) graduating, and c) going to college on a merit scholarship, I probably would have grunted, acknowledging the possibility but assuming nothing.

In the midst of dark times, placing you don't place your hope in a pinprick of light that you can't see at the end of a seemingly infinite and pitch-black tunnel that you don't know how to navigate.

In dark times, hope is about focusing on what you can do now. Hope is choosing not to see all the fears and troubles that might become realities, and instead responding to what is asked of you in this moment. Hope is about how you handle the intense mix of feelings that you would do anything to jettison, but can't. It lies in figuring out what you will do to stay strong and sane and true to what you believe, in deciding who you will be regardless of the outcome.

Hope isn't about what you want, but about the direction you will head even if you don't get what you want.

Another analogy: When your ship is in the midst of a fierce storm, wishing desperately for the clouds will part and a well-lit port will appear isn't hope. You've got work to do, crises to manage, crew to keep safe. Hope is like ballast: the stuff that keeps you on as even a keel as possible. Hope is about your center of gravity.

Problem solving, and moving on

As I shlepped home from Trader Joe's about a month ago -- a huge bag on each shoulder and one slung across my chest -- two subway lines and a five-block walk, I thought, "Next time I need to take a camera and do a blog post about this, because this is such a New York City experience!"

You see, if you have to carry all of your groceries a distance, you shop differently. Heck, you think differently! You plan ahead, and consider bulkiness and weight in addition to nutrition and cost and allergies and what-the-kids-will-eat. You ponder whether it's going to be less crowded if you take the local train downtown to get to the uptown express, or if you should take the uptown local and transfer to the express after a dozen stops (but traverse three flights of stairs.)

The algebra of living in NYC is complex. After a while you get used to it, and it doesn't bother you any more. Much. It's just what you do.

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On Monday I headed to the airport with Eldest, to fly out with her to the small city in the midwest where she'll start work next week. We weighed whether to spend $50 on cab fare (and get to LaGuardia in 40 minutes) or to haul everything on the subway and transfer to a bus and spend $5 (a 90-minute trip). This is the kind of choice car-less people have to make. We opted for mass transit, since there are already a lot of expenses in moving.

Right after we arrived at the airport and got off the bus, I noticed an electrical cord of some sort dragging at the back of the 46-pound suitcase. I stopped to check, and was horrified to discover that the zipper had popped when the bag plopped off the bus.

We stuffed Eldest's belongings back into the suitcase as best we could, and got in line for check-in. I asked the woman managing the line if she could obtain any packing tape, since it was obvious that at 8am we were not going to be able to either buy a new suitcase or make our 9:40am plane unless we somehow patched up what we had. I followed her around until I got her to hand me half a roll of tape. Then I wrapped that sucker of a bag up until it was the ugliest suitcase in the terminal.

We sent the suitcase off on the conveyor belt, accompanied by many prayers. More than half of Eldest's worldly belongings were in there.

It was only after we were at 30,000 feet that it dawned on me that if we hadn't taken the bus, the bag wouldn't have had a big bump and burst before it was tossed in the cargo hold. Sometimes blessings truly do come well-disguised.

The bag made it. It was easy to spot on the luggage carousel, too. And no one else reached to take it, thinking it belonged to them.

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There's more than a bit of culture shock in finding myself in a car-oriented town. Neither Eldest nor I currently drive, so we are dependent upon mass transit. It is a bit of a challenge. We have done a lot of walking, an average of 3-5 miles a day. This is not a terribly unusual amount of walking for either of us; city people walk a lot. (If you ever come to NYC and marvel at how thin people are, this is why. And if you ever come to NYC, bring good walking shoes.)

We have used five different bus routes, thankful that there are buses (though most only run once or twice an hour). We've explored more than a mile in three directions from Eldest's apartment.

We have figured out where to buy groceries when there's no grocery store nearby. We have figured out how Eldest can get to her office, which is a mile from a bus stop.  We have taken a trip to a Target that is miles and miles away. We have ordered heavy things from Amazon Prime so we don't have to carry them. We have found two churches, one of which is only 1.1 miles from home. This is all good. And honestly, I don't know how we would have figured out all this without the kind of logistical training one gets from living in the city.

That said, we've also gotten Eldest a driver's permit, so she can learn to drive.

Tomorrow I fly home. Whatever new challenges head Eldest's way, she'll have to handle in her own way, in a mix of NYC heritage and to-be-acquired Midwest problem solving. It does seem that, transportation aside, life is a lot easier and runs a lot more smoothly here. That means a lot to this mom, since it will mean less stress for my daughter.

Here's to you, kid. I love ya.

In which we do many things, all at once

There was half a day last Thursday when I thought my brain had finally imploded. You see, on Friday some of us were going to this:

Yes! She has graduated from MIT!

But of course not all of us were going. Because one of my offspring had to do this:

Little Guy has several roles in this show, which continues
this weekend.

And another was doing this:

Dancer had performances all weekend; Eldest and I caught
the last one, the night we returned.

And the dog had to stay with a neighbor.

Snuggler and went to Boston on an early bus to help Eldest sort through belongings and pack; Andrew and Big Guy headed out on a bus four hours later, after delivering Little Guy and the dog. The rain was torrential, I had a project overdue, and we were staying at my friend Kate's house, but she was leaving to go elsewhere and was putting the keys in the mailbox. I wasn't at all certain that the logistics of the day were going to work.

And, too, there had been many, many hours already allocated that week to helping various children process miscellaneous feelings about Eldest's moving on and leaving the nest. I'd been functioning for days on five hours of sleep a night. I'd had deadlines and laundry and endless rounds of keeping people on track.

Fortunately, we were all heading to places where replacement toothbrushes and deodorant could be purchased, if need be. And all the reasons we were (literally) in six places at once were happy rather than sad. The plan didn't have to be perfect, just workable. Which it was. Eventually.

A lot of life is like that: workable... if you work at it. There is much to be said for remembering that often the only real danger in your day is likely to arise from how you handle -- or mishandle -- the stress you face.  

Magic Wands (and Lack Thereof)

Some of the kids have been feeling cranky. Others are blue. The reality that Eldest will be leaving the nest for good in two weeks to build her own life elsewhere is hitting. She is an amazing big sister. She is an affectionate and loving daughter. She will be sorely missed.

Little Guy curled his leggy 10yo frame into my lap last night after lights-out, seeking comfort. "Mommy?" he asked, "What ever happened to your magic wand?"

I smiled, nostalgic for the times when the kids were little and wanted water when we were on the train and there was none to be had, or asked me to fix something that couldn't be fixed, and I'd say, "I'm sorry, honey, but my magic wand is in the shop."

I said to Little Guy, "It sounds like you are feeling really sad." He nodded and let out a little sob. I let him cry a while and then said, "When you are sad you can do one of two things. You can just stay sad. Or you can be sad and keep going."

He replied, fiercely, "I'm going to do things!'  And then after a moment he added, "I'm going to FIX that magic wand of yours!"

Well, maybe. We can wish.

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There have been times in my life when I've wished for a magic wand. There have been times I've mistaken God for one. As I grow older and go through and survive more difficulties, I am less afraid of dark places and hard problems.

I still don't like difficulty. But I'm not afraid, and that's something. Actually, it's a big something.

On Monday Big Guy's allergist called to say that Big Guy had had a "generalized reaction" to his weekly shots.

"Hmmm. What kind of symptoms did he have?" I asked, curious to assess the scope of the problem. I was told he had been coughing, had difficulty breathing, his throat was inflamed... but they had given him medication and he was no longer having difficulty.

"What medicine did you give him?" I asked, still probing. Epinephrine, Benadryl, and a nebulizer. I know enough about allergies to know that this was not a minor allergic reaction. Still, he hadn't had to go to the Emergency Room, so... well, that was good.

The doctor asked us to send someone to pick up Big Guy, since he might be a bit woozy from the meds. Andrew went, and returned with my son and a prescription for EpiPens. The latter aren't exactly magic wands, but they will do nicely in a pinch.

I can be thankful for EpiPens, instead of wistful for a magic wand. At another point in my life I might not have been able to look at the situation that way.