Not only have I turned that corner of Fifty and Forty Street but now I’m flying down Highway 53. And it’s dawned on me that I am loving this ride. I love the wind in my face and my grayish hair blowing wildly about the car. I am comfortable in this seat and the steering wheel feels at home in my hands. I have learned, not completely but better, how to take a deep breath and to let go.
It started in my 40’s, I think when I took a drawing class. I have no natural art talent yet I love art and museums. So when I saw an ad in our local paper for a community drawing class, I thought I’d give it a try. It was cheap. It was in our local high school at night. I could walk there. No reason not to go. And I loved it. I loved it because I let myself love it. No expectations. No Picasso wannabe or even a Grandma Moses. No requirements for a grade. Just me, drawing a circle over and over and over again. It was the first thing I remember attempting, in my life, where I allowed myself to not even try to be the best. Just to enjoy. It took a long time to get to this one point. Like 3 years of weekly classes.
And the lesson I learned there has bubbled over into other areas of my life. I can see it in my relationships with people.
A young woman came into my office today slightly tearful. She is deeply in debt and desperate for a solution. She asked my opinion about making a dramatic move in her life. She needed to act.
I listened to her and then asked her to take a deep breath. And to imagine the very worst thing which could happen. And what would her life be like if that thing she dreaded happened. To take a breath and to let go.
Lately I’ve noticed I’ve become better at listening to the other side of an argument. I think I’ve gotten more patient. And I’m smarter about knowing which battles to fight and which ones won’t matter. It’s a lot less stressful to little things go.
Lydia was one of my dearest friends. She was at least 50 years older than me when we met. She lived across the street from me when I was a young mother and I idolized her. A sort-of-family member distantly related to my husband’s mother, Lydia took an interest in me. Eccentric and independent, a staunch liberal and highly educated, she was and is what I would like to be. “Never get in a battle of wills with a two-year old,” she told me. “Dishes don’t have to match,” she said on another occasion. And my favorite advice was this: “Don’t worry about something unless it will matter when you’re Eighty.”
Dearest Lydia, thank goodness it only took me thirty years to absorb this.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Friday, December 4, 2009
Publisher's Clearinghouse
From the time we were able to watch TV and understand the commercials, my sister and brothers and I were convinced that we would win Ed McMahon’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes. Our mother assured us that this would happen. It was a given.
We sat in her cozy kitchen, drawing endless designs of the houses we would build once we cashed the check. Our houses were always set on compounds not unlike what we envisioned the Kennedys owned. THE Kennedys. As in Jacqueline and John F’s family home. A compound where we would each have our own little house and my mother would rule supreme in a matriarchal style. When we heard a knock at our door- very uncommon since my mother didn’t encourage drop by guests- our hearts would pound and we’d push each other down to get to the door first. We knew as soon as we opened the door we would have to battle balloons and reporters while the Sweepstake van idled at the curb, spilling Ed out with that giant cardboard poster of a million dollar check made out to Us.
But usually the only person knocking at our door was someone to read the electric meter, little old women trying to save our souls or Aunt Julia Mae with her yipping dog who never failed to bite us. The dog. Not Aunt Julia Mae (who, if she could have gotten away with biting us, would have I am sure).
So we waited. And Waited. Filled out multiple subscription and entry forms. Spent uncounted hours arranging the furniture in our imaginary houses. Imagining the cars we would drive…. The horses we would raise on our huge estate…. The parties we would hold! The optimism and hope we stirred up among ourselves.
So we Waited. And Waited. And we lived in limbo for years, always expecting that we would win and be transported from our modest poverty into “A Comfortable Life.” And yet, we did not win.
There was a time when we each realized that this money was not likely to come our way. We set about going to school or joining the Air Force. Having babies and making homes. We moved on. But we could see no plans our Mom was making to take care of herself after our father died. She never lost the conviction that she would win it big. After we grew up and moved away she traveled, gypsy style, between our houses, living with first one and then another of us for several years before moving on to the next child’s home, the next grandchildren to spoil and pamper.
She sat at our kitchen tables drawing diagrams of extensive family compounds and pulled her grandchildren into her spell of expectation. Soon it was the grandchildren running to answer the door, imagining a giant cardboard check.
And while none of us ever did win that million dollar sweepstake, Mom did achieve her fondest wishes as if she’d won. She had her family around her. She lived A Comfortable Life, out of poverty and fear of where the next dollar would come. And she reigned her own little kingdom, Matriarch Supreme.
We sat in her cozy kitchen, drawing endless designs of the houses we would build once we cashed the check. Our houses were always set on compounds not unlike what we envisioned the Kennedys owned. THE Kennedys. As in Jacqueline and John F’s family home. A compound where we would each have our own little house and my mother would rule supreme in a matriarchal style. When we heard a knock at our door- very uncommon since my mother didn’t encourage drop by guests- our hearts would pound and we’d push each other down to get to the door first. We knew as soon as we opened the door we would have to battle balloons and reporters while the Sweepstake van idled at the curb, spilling Ed out with that giant cardboard poster of a million dollar check made out to Us.
But usually the only person knocking at our door was someone to read the electric meter, little old women trying to save our souls or Aunt Julia Mae with her yipping dog who never failed to bite us. The dog. Not Aunt Julia Mae (who, if she could have gotten away with biting us, would have I am sure).
So we waited. And Waited. Filled out multiple subscription and entry forms. Spent uncounted hours arranging the furniture in our imaginary houses. Imagining the cars we would drive…. The horses we would raise on our huge estate…. The parties we would hold! The optimism and hope we stirred up among ourselves.
So we Waited. And Waited. And we lived in limbo for years, always expecting that we would win and be transported from our modest poverty into “A Comfortable Life.” And yet, we did not win.
There was a time when we each realized that this money was not likely to come our way. We set about going to school or joining the Air Force. Having babies and making homes. We moved on. But we could see no plans our Mom was making to take care of herself after our father died. She never lost the conviction that she would win it big. After we grew up and moved away she traveled, gypsy style, between our houses, living with first one and then another of us for several years before moving on to the next child’s home, the next grandchildren to spoil and pamper.
She sat at our kitchen tables drawing diagrams of extensive family compounds and pulled her grandchildren into her spell of expectation. Soon it was the grandchildren running to answer the door, imagining a giant cardboard check.
And while none of us ever did win that million dollar sweepstake, Mom did achieve her fondest wishes as if she’d won. She had her family around her. She lived A Comfortable Life, out of poverty and fear of where the next dollar would come. And she reigned her own little kingdom, Matriarch Supreme.
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