I overhear it at Starbucks, walking into a movie theater, shopping and at the oil change place. A young person, usually a young woman, is about to go on a job or college interview, is preparing to ask for a promotion or has been invited to speak publicly. In all these scenarios she is nervous. Someone—could be a mom, bestie or mechanic—offers the sage advice, “Just be yourself.”
The trouble with “just be yourself” is that we are many people and it’s not always so simple to narrow it down to the right person for the job. If you are the butt of the joke in your family because you behave around them like a nincompoop, it would be best not to present thusly at a job interview with a bank. Likewise, if someone asks you a question at a dinner party and you then barricade yourself in the bathroom with a book, well, you probably don’t want to be her when she is about to give a Ted Talk.
I used to subscribe to the JBY philosophy on first dates, because frankly there is nothing worse, and one needs some sort of philosophy to cling to in order to survive. My reasoning was that if anything was going to last relationship-wise, then shouldn’t I operate authentically from the get go? No. Nuh uh. I have a wacky sense of humor, which is distinctly me. Experience has taught me that it is better to reveal it, little by little over time rather than springing it on an unsuspecting man all at once.
Example: “first date” lunch. I had a hair appointment at 3 to get my roots touched up, so I wore a jaunty hat. He was bald. I do not have a problem with bald. Apparently, he did. Lunch went well. At first. He had all his teeth and knew how to operate a knife and fork. He was a little uptight, so I reined myself in a just a bit so as to not overwhelm. Suddenly it was 2:30 and I needed to skedaddle.
I told him about my salon appointment. He touched a lock of my long auburn hair and asked whether I’d ever worn it short. I recounted the time just before my lawyer was to get married on Martha’s Vineyard that I went to a new salon for a body wave. Informed there would be no stylists available over the wedding weekend on the island, I would have to do my own hair, and I thought it would be nice to have a little wave for a sexy up do.
At the schmancy salon the stylist rolled my hair up, applied stinky goop and stuck me under a dryer hood. A few minutes later I felt something trickle down my face. I wiped a finger across my cheek and discovered blood. I screamed. Everyone screamed. Two women frantically pulled the rollers out, and with them clumps of my hair, which was now clown orange. I screamed again, in a prolonged, agonizing wolfy way. They had used the wrong goop, apparently mistaking a toxic chemical solvent meant to strip paint off aircraft carriers for setting solution. In fairness, they offered to cut the damaged hair for free, but I ran away, thinking of the possibilities should they get near me with sharp pointy scissors.
At another salon I was told my “length could not be saved” and I ended up with a #2 fade. Ooh ra! At the wedding I looked like a Marine in high heels, wearing an Armani strapless empire waist gown with a 2’ train. Mariska Hargitay kept calling me sir.
Eyes wide, my lunch date said, “That must have been incredibly traumatic!”
“Na,” I replied. It’s just hair. It grows back.” I looked at his head, smiled, and in that way I have when I am just being my (silly) self, I added, “In most cases.”
“Check!” he snapped. I never saw him again.
Since high school I have had the honor and onus of being the family eulogist. We have always been very close, so delivering a grandparent’s eulogy, or a beloved aunt’s, or my mom’s would have been impossible were I to just be myself.
It begins with the writing. No way I could get through even that unless I pretended to be someone else, and that someone is almost always John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of the greatest orators in history. I would think of him at his inaugural…”ask not what your country can do for you…” and I would internally recreate his cadence and delivery as I wrote, detaching me from the content just enough so I didn’t bawl my eyes out and fry the keyboard.
Pretending to be someone else—the opposite of being myself—was and is an efficient way to get through something too tough, too painful for actual me. I would imagine JFK as I delivered the eulogies. It would be me speaking, but in my head I was hearing JFK extoll the many virtues of my lovely mother, describe the sweet sense of humor my Aunt Grace possessed, and describe my grandpa’s big tough laborer’s mitts—mitts in which he would so softly and gently cradle a baby bunny he had rescued.
Being someone else in our head not only helps us get through a difficult time emotionally, it can also be a great physical motivator. It’s no secret I am fond of Bruce Springsteen. At 67 he rocks the body of a 30 year old who works out four hours a day, eats right and doesn’t drink or smoke. When I am feeling wimpy at 6 in the morning, and think I can just ride the bike while reading the paper and then hit the steam room and call it a day, I ask myself one question. Would the Boss pedal a bike like Dorothy with Toto in the basket or would he hit the treadmill at a 15% grade then throw iron like a mofo? I think we know what he’d do. Next thing you know I’m strutting across the gym, envisioning 60,000 people screaming Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaam as I make the thigh abductor my bitch.
At any given time I am a rock star, a president, a somewhat demure woman who…oh, hell. Who am I kidding with that last one? Point is, we are multidimensional beings with a host of qualities, traits and personalities from which to draw at various intervals in our lives. I see nothing wrong with channeling Princess Kate when meeting the boyfriend’s parents the first time, and conversely imagining oneself to be Angela Merkel when a male coworker tells you to fetch him coffee.
It is not disingenuous or inauthentic to call upon the things inside of us that give us strength. Shying away, giving up, saying no to an opportunity would be the real betrayal. Just be yourself? Okay, just make sure you’ve got lots of friends in there with you.
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In high school I fancied myself a deep, soulful sort of loner with one or two close friends other than Bob Dylan, Rimbaud, Ezra Pound, Lou Reed and all of Monty Python. I didn’t participate in school sanctioned extracurricular activities. I went to zero proms (holding out for Dylan to say yes when I wrote to ask him each year), no athletic meets and not a single field trip other than junior year when our athletic director mistakenly thought I was an 18 year old senior with a responsible bone in my body and I went along to Germany, Austria and France as a chaperone for the French class. I saw the girls when we boarded the plane in Chicago, and then again at DeGaulle when we boarded for the return flight. My chaperonin’ philosophy was pretty much, “y’all be careful,” and off I went to explore the boys of Europe on my own.
The only après school events I really enjoyed were the father-daughter dinner dances. I went to an all girl Catholic high school, so the father-daughter soirees consisted of about 500 girls and 500 dads. I’d wait until cocktail hour was in full swing, then I’d go to the center of the room and shout, “Dad!” Every man in the place whipped around, hundreds of brandy old fashioneds sloshing out of their glasses. Good times.
My bestie, Marjy, and I would cut class and practice our guitars in the school’s stairwells where the acoustics were excellent. We also switched places in art and typing class. (A typewriter is an ancient mechanical or electromechanical machine for writing characters similar to those produced by printer’s movable type.) Marjy was fleet of finger and earned me an A in typing. I could throw a decent pot. It was win-win.
It was also nothing short of a miracle that we weren’t found out, as Marjy’s mom was the biology teacher (which did not benefit me in any way). When a Bunsen burner mishap set off a chain reaction, I was not given any special dispensation because of my personal proximity to the teacher’s daughter. I may have been reprimanded by the authorities, but I never got in trouble with my parents because we lived in the country, with a different area code than the school’s, which in the days of typewriters meant it was something called “long distance” to phone out of your area. The school wasn’t about to spend money just to tell my mom I’d cut a class, switched identities or burned up the biology lab. Again, good times.
I remember fondly the girls with whom I went to high school—a mostly cheery bunch of people who participated in and very much seemed to enjoy all the things that I did not. While I eschewed make up and pretty clothes, favoring instead the messy hair and grungy leather of Patti Smith, I often marveled at how grown up the other girls seemed. I was a skinny, unkempt poetry-obsessed rube in the midst of athletes, ballerinas, elegant swans and girls with a plan for the future—or so it seemed to me.
Looking back, I doubt they all had the future pegged, and even those who did have probably been at turns surprised, thrilled, disappointed and perhaps shocked by the way in which life has ultimately shaken out. The universe has a capricious way of lobbing curve balls in every direction, regardless of what we’ve planned.
So when there was a charity dinner to celebrate the school’s 125th anniversary last weekend, and a former classmate invited me to join others from our graduating class at a table, I thought, why not? It would be lovely to spend an evening with cheery, elegant swans. I had no expectation of what conversation would be like, or even whether I’d recognize anyone. I slipped into my leather pants and high heels, made my hair look as presentable as it gets, and I hoped someone would remember me as being a good egg, not just a surly poetry-writing arsonist.
I arrived earlier than any of my classmates, and was stunned when a small gaggle of elderly nuns surrounded me. I’d have known them anywhere, but why did they remember me? This couldn’t be good.
“Pam Ferderbar!” they chirped. “Are you still writing? Tell us everything!” Oh my. Their recollections of me were positive, ebullient, complimentary and so so sweet. They recalled the writing awards I’d won that I had long since forgotten—those otherwise meaningless accolades that made me want to work harder at placing the right words in the right order. To them I wasn’t a misfit. I was an author in the making. We exchanged warm embraces, old stories and a genuine fondness for “the good old days.”
At our table, I immediately recognized each girl/woman. I’d have known them anywhere. I envisioned each in the school uniform, walking toward her locker, sitting across from me in Mrs. Zagar’s class, or Sister Edith’s, or Mr. Teppler’s. I could recall how they fared scholastically, socially and athletically. I remembered whether they had sisters in school, who sat with whom at lunch, and who always smiled at me in the hallways.
Our conversation was warm and personal, washing away the years since we were girls together. Now women—some with children, some without—some married, divorced, widowed—all civic-minded, hard working, generous and kind, there was nowhere I would rather have been than at that table.
A friend recently told me that as we grow older we don’t change. We become more entrenched in whom we’ve always been. The grade school bully becomes the jerk down the block who yells at kids for stepping on his lawn. The young co-worker who throws people under the bus when she makes a mistake becomes the old crank whose kids never visit her in the nursing home where the other residents hide her walker.
The girls who were kind and generous, funny and bright, witty and optimistic in high school have become polished and gently worn versions of their younger selves. It was a privilege and an honor to sit with them. (Thank you Mary, Laurie, Meg and Chris.)
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My friend Moira told me that the other day, while she was stuck in traffic on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles, she glanced over to the side of the road as a bush suddenly burst into flames. “God?” she wondered aloud. “Is this a sign?”
When I mentioned this to my friend Tom Jordan, he asked whether Moira had considered all the other people in their cars, and that perhaps, if the burning bush was a sign from above, it was intended for someone else. “Maybe it was directed at the guy levitating out of his Prius,” Tom speculated.
I did a little research and it turns out shrubbery spontaneously combusts every other day. Especially in arid climates, like say, the general Egypt area and L.A., roadside conflagrations are pretty common. Are these simple acts of nature that we humanize to fit our needs and our agenda, or is someone really trying to tell us something?
My novel Feng Shui and Charlotte Nightingale is based almost entirely on this premise. Is it feng shui that changes Charlotte life, or does the belief in feng shui cause people to behave differently, which sets off Charlotte’s transformation?
I have days when I feel pretty and days when I am pretty sure it looks like I’ve spent the night in a swamp, wrestling alligators. I don’t know about you, but on the alligator days I’m not feeling it, and that seems to be reflected back to me in the form of people covering their eyes and hurrying in the opposite direction, and in a slightly gentler guise when I’m told I look tired and should have a nap.
But the occasions when my hair has cooperated, I’ve been to the gym twice in three months and I am wearing something from a hanger, and not sweats, good things happen to me. People smile and do not swing the stroller around to face the other way. Menfolk openly admire my clavicle, which I am told is my most alluring feature. I get my picture taken at the DMV and it does not resemble a mug shot.
Do I believe my adult “hung up” clothes and beachy brunette waves are magic? Or maybe I’m feeling a little better for having made an effort, and am therefore exuding the sweet pheromones of self-confidence—a kind of magic. When I groan, “Oh god, are you serious?” upon peering into the mirror first thing in the morning as I brush my teeth, and the entire medicine cabinet falls off the wall and shatters over the sink, is this god’s answer to me? And if so, what is she saying?
After my mom passed away in October, my dad and I wanted to se sure to watch for a sign from her on January 12th, which would have been my mom’s 90th birthday. My best girlfriends from L.A. (I wanted to type ‘my L.A. squad,’ but my age just wouldn’t let me) were in town and staying at the house. My cousins and their kids came for dinner. There was a full moon.
It seemed like the big beautiful family dinner that was peppered with laughter, heartfelt toasts and a strong sense of purpose was a sign from my mom. Everyone felt her presence—as if just past our sight, at the far, far end of the table she sat with a glass of wine, smiling that smile, laughing along, surrounded by loving family.
A few days later, when the friends had returned to Cali and things were kind of ishly back to normal, my pops contracted the ugliest upper respiratory bug ever and it knocked him on his keester. Just moments before he hacked up his left lung, we had been talking about the time my mom nearly killed my dad with her chili.
It may have been in the freezer for 10 or 12 years—there was no way to know, but my mom assumed the best, heated it up and fed it to my dad. Full disclosure; my mom also had the chili and it did not nearly kill her at all. (Pops and I figure she unwittingly ate around the botulism, or whatever scourge comes from ancient chili, and was thus spared the near-death experience he enjoyed.)
Dad had to go to the hospital in an ambulance. When the EMTs arrived they asked when the projectile vomiting had begun. My dad said, “Right after I ate the chili,” at the exact same moment as my mom said, “It was not the chili.” The same conversation was repeated at the hospital as they prepared to pump my dad’s stomach, only this time around my mom was getting steamed. She ate the chili. She wasn’t going Exorcist all over the walls. It was not the damn chili!
This story was often a favorite when the topic of cooking mishaps would arise at parties, family gatherings and once at a wedding when the groom starting puking on the altar. My dad asked my mom, quietly, under his breath of course, whether she had heated up some chili for him. Turns out the bachelor party was the night before the wedding, so not the chili, but the question antagonized my mom to no end.
Just hours before my dad hacked up that left lung at the onset of the upper respiratory thing, we were reminiscing about the time my mom nearly killed my dad with her chili, and we recalled how much she hated that story. I believe my pops starting choking right about that time, and we both looked at the portrait of my mom hanging on the living room wall, and said, “No, she wouldn’t. Would she?”
If we wanted to, every single event every single minute of every single day could be construed as a sign from someone about something. Personally, I don’t look for signs anymore, but I find ways to feel connected to people that went before, and concepts that are much greater than my puny little mind can comprehend.
Just this morning I held my mom’s watch, thinking about how she would wrap the band around her slender wrist then do up the clasp in the back. My hands are nothing like hers. I feel like her presence is slowly but surely slipping away.
I looked around, hoping to find something I could hold that would conjure her, make me feel like she wasn’t so completely gone. Then it occurred to me that the thing her hand was most evident in, was me. Is that magic, or what?
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The Flip or Flop television personalities have folded up their quartz countertop marriage. Kyrie Irving believes the world is flat even though he makes a living with an earth-shaped sphere. Kim Jong-omfg is over there making a clatter with his missiles and the good people of Flint are being poisoned by their own drinking water.
And now they’re passing pants laws. Seriously. Pants. Laws. The people who believe it should be illegal for a male person to wear sagging pants below their buttock area outnumber people with common sense in communities, townships cities and states all across America. In Florida, New Jersey, South Carolina and the entirety of Louisiana, “It is illegal to appear in a public place with pants that are ‘below the waist’ or which expose the ‘skin’ below the waist, or ‘undergarments.’”
Ironically, this is the same crowd who want to ban the burka, creating a mysterious apparel zone in which we are just the right amount covered up and exposed. I believe strippers, women under the age of 22 who are at the beach sporting dental floss between their butt cheeks and NFL cheerleaders are exempt from wardrobe adjudication. (And wives, if she is the current FLOTUS or Carmen Elektra.)
If you think you have special dispensation in $300 Citizens for Humanity jeans you’d be wrong, and in Ocala, Florida it will cost you an extra $500 to walk around holding your pantaloons up by the crotch. (I don’t think anyone finds this a good look, but combined with the pimp walk it exhibits a certain street je ne sais quoi.)
Wear your 7s slung low and you may also find yourself in jail. That’s right. Jail. No one threw Pamela Anderson in the clink when she flashed a bedazzled thong for 20+ years, or Britney, who flaunts the wearing of undergarments altogether, or Gaga, who took to the streets adorned in nothing but filet mignon. But step out looking like Lil Wayne and in Simmonsville, South Carolina you will find yourself eating bologna sandwiches in a cell with a guy named Deathtrap.
Contrary to urban myth, saggin’ did not originate in prison, erroneously believed to signify the sexual availability of an inmate. Turns out inmates are not chosen for a romp based on a quaint “signal system” anymore than they are asked how they like their steaks cooked. (If there’s a pun in there, let’s say it was intended.)
People are so het up about pants that they’re posting “surveys” on Facebook.
No way the Mrs. Kravitzes of Bewitched and Bewilderedville post this photo expecting anyone to respond, “Of course not, you stupid cow.” (Which is exactly 100% what I answer, ‘cept I pepper the sentence with a string of cuss words I’ve arranged especially for the occasion.)
Young people have always expressed a divergent view of society’s rules and regs, reveling in dissatisfaction (I Can’t Get No), dystopia, disdain and pretty much every other dis since the first caveteen turned his pelt around, fur side in. To the elder cavepeople it appeared as though Grunty Jr. had rejected the cultural codes of his small tribe. In reality, it just felt nice to have the soft fur against his prehistoric pee-pee, which was subject to terrible chafing when the woolly mammoth hide was worn “correctly”—rough side in. (After fire, the reverse loincloth became the most popular caveman invention until the TV remote.)
Whatever the kid’s reasoning, it freaked the cave-elders out, but they let it go because they knew so wisely that Grunty was in fact a caveteen, and that is just how kids roll. (They drew the line, however, at ass-less loincloths. It wasn’t until 1991 that Prince re-introduced the look, and rocked it, I might add.)
Historically, apoplexy over fashion statements is no laughing matter. In the early 1940s, poor young people, mostly black and Hispanic, bought thrift shop suits, which were generally big and baggy. Their moms tapered the pant legs, an easy fix, and the zoot suit was invented. The look caught fire when black jazz musicians who traversed the country adopted it, and it became synonymous with rebellion, jazz, premarital sex, dancing and a lot of other popular vices thought to be the domain of hooligans and thugs. Naturally, the style, attitude and culture the clothing represented appealed to white middle class youths, throwing authority figures everywhere into a state of moral indignation (and even some seizures) exactly as hip hop has done.
In June, 1943, known as the Zoot Suit Riots, that moral outrage over clothing exploded into violence in Los Angeles when bands of white servicemen—joined by hundreds of police officers—left their posts to search for young black and Mexican-American men wearing zoot suits. People were pulled from streetcars and beaten by crowds of “moral Americans.” Kids were bludgeoned in the streets. Young men wearing zoot suits were stripped by sailors and LAPD, their suits set ablaze in the streets. It went on for more than four days.
Just a decade later James Dean would rattle the righteous with his style; leather jacket, tight white t-shirt and an irresistibly sexy establishment-deriding sneer. Dean was gangsta for his time—the embodiment of teenage disillusionment and social estrangement—the fliest of the fly.
Hippies with long hair and ripped jeans drove “decent folk” to distraction for two decades before Madonna strapped on a cone bra and pointed it our heads. Young people have always embraced new opportunities to break with the past and forge ahead in ridiculous get-ups. I once had bright orange hair (I argued at the time it was a rich blonde, but it glowed like Mars), which caused my dad to introduce me to people as his daughter Blappo at my cousin Phil’s wedding. The stupid thing is, the more my folks told me it was hideous and grotesque (their actual words) the more convinced I was that it was cool, and I walked around looking as though I’d misplaced my big shoes and squirting lapel flower.
If we allow civic leaders and other crazy people to legislate the personal appearance of male citizens as it pertains to sagging pants, where will the selection process end? Might a fashion forward assemblywoman not propose a public flogging for men who wear socks with sandals?
We gotta learn how to get along; saggers and momjeans, Republicans and Democrats, Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift. If we wish to exhibit tolerance and some degree of focus on stuff that is actually important, then let’s let young people wear whatever crazy shit they want—not throw them in jail or fine them because it hurts our eyes to look at them. The solution is so simple it’s stupid; look away.
Think back to your teens and 20s and tell me there isn’t a photo somewhere in your past that you’d like to burn because you look like an idiot.
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My cousin Colleen is a clipster. She cuts, copies, collates and sends me really great articles lovingly placed in envelopes sealed with dog faces, flowers and recently, stickers from the Charles Darwin collection. Her dad, my Uncle Bob, was a consummate article sender who found great joy in embellishing his envelopes with big bold writing, “RUN MAILMAN RUN!” “PLANET EARTH!” “WRITE WHEN YOU FIND WORK!”
There is something wonderful about receiving snail mail other than bills, Chinese food menus and charity appeals accompanied by nickels glued so thoroughly to the letters that they take half an hour to dislodge (apparently the Little Sisters of Mayhem figured out that people just weren’t going to work that hard for a penny anymore). Yesterday the March of Dimes sent me a quarter. wtf?
I recently received an article from Colleen originally published in 2013 in The Atlantic—a piece on Viktor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist and holocaust survivor who, in 1946, wrote the bestselling book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
Frankl lost his pregnant wife, parents and most of his family in the Nazi concentration camps. In the midst of unimaginable suffering, loss and horror, he concluded that the difference between life and death came down to one thing—finding meaning in life. According to Frankl, the way a prisoner imagined the future affected his longevity. Those who were able to find meaning and purpose, even in the direst circumstances, survived, the idea being if we can determine the “why” for our existence, we can bear almost any “how.”
A study published in the Journal of Positive Psychology in 2013 expanded on Frankl’s philosophy, concluding that having negative things happen to us decreases our happiness, but increases the amount of meaning we find in life and it is the pursuit of meaning that separates humans from animals. By giving rather than taking, we are not only expressing our fundamental humanity, but are also acknowledging that there is more to the good life than the pursuit of simple happiness.
But what is the difference between meaningfulness and happiness? Frankl’s firsthand experience helps answer the question. With the rise and threat of the Nazis looming over him, Frankl had applied for a visa to America, which he was granted in 1941. By then, the Nazis had already started rounding up the Jews and taking them away to concentration camps, focusing on the elderly first.
Frankl knew it was only a matter of time before the Nazis came to take his parents away. He also felt a responsibility to be there with his parents to help them through the trauma of adjusting to camp life. At the same time, he could take his pregnant wife and leave for America where they would be safe, and he could pursue his profession.
At a loss for what to do, he went into a cathedral to clear his head. “Should I leave my parents behind”…”Should I say goodbye and leave them to their fate?” Where did his responsibility lie? Frankl was looking for a “hint from heaven.”
When he returned home he found a piece of marble lying on the table—rubble from one of the synagogues the Nazis had destroyed. It contained a fragment of one of the Ten Commandments—the one about honoring your mother and father. With that, Frankl decided to stay in Vienna. He put aside his individual pursuits to serve his family and other prisoners. Frankl did not find happiness in Auschwitz. He lost everyone he had loved. But his life there had tremendous purpose and meaning in the service of others.
The epiphany that meaningfulness had more gravity and value than happiness lead Frankl to write Man’s Search for Meaning in only nine days. Frankl’s book has sold over 10,000,000 copies and the Library of Congress calls it one of the ten most influential books in the United States. What power, grace, vision and clarity come from the pursuit of meaning—of purpose rather than the accumulation of material things and happy experiences.
The 2013 Positive Psychology study found that leading a happy life is associated with being a “taker,” while leading a meaningful life corresponds with being a “giver,” and in the end, people derive much greater satisfaction in life from the latter, which Frankl’s experience certainly supports.
Literally, it is better to give than to receive—and evolution is the reason. If I have a desire, such as for a burger, I satisfy it, which makes me happy. Ergo, I am happy when I get what I want. So is my dog. What (hopefully) sets me apart from my dog is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning.
Happiness is fleeting. We want something, we get it, we are happy—for the moment. Then we want something else, whereas purpose and meaning stick to the ribs. I think we’ve all been in that headspace where we think ‘if I were just thinner, richer, more popular, I’d be happy,’ and that may well be true. But we are not animals and happiness is not a fulfilling human endgame. To live full complex human lives our psyches hunger for something deeper—that we be givers rather than takers.
At this moment in our American story there are forces attempting to misdirect us to a new definition of the “pursuit of happiness”—a rendition that tells us it is better to take than to give. We are taught as children of all faiths and cultures that we should aspire to live by the golden rule, which is the principle of treating others as one would wish to be treated. Right now the altruistic is being replaced by the selfish, and more often than not when we read between the lines, what we are being told is that it’s every man for himself, grab what you can and whatever is left will trickle down to those less aggressive, less able, less fortunate.
The people whose lives are meaningful and fulfilled know the truth. The less fortunate are the takers.
“Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause or serve another person to love—the more human he is.” Viktor Frankl, 1946
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Art’s Motel, Farmersville, IL, 2000
by Tom Ferderbar
I’ve been trying to write this since my mom died in October. Some time has passed, which has provided perspective. I’m able to laugh at much of my mom’s advice—because if she were here we’d be laughing together.
1. B.Y.O.B.
My folks favored driving trips because, as they explained, “There is so much to see in this beautiful country.” (Translation: “We could never get all this shit on a plane.”) In the “way back,” nestled between a dozen suitcases, camera cases, piles of loose golf shoes, golf bags, a cooler, a bin with paper towels, rubbing alcohol, Windex, W-D 40 and a few rolls of duct tape, was wedged a box that contained brandy Manhattan fixings, Ritz crackers, and a “family-sized” tub of Twizzlers for my dad.
I sat in the back seat of the Suburban stuffed between a small cooler filled with grapes, apples, diet root beer, Merkt’s spreadable cheddar cheese, half an onion, broccoli, a nearly empty container of half and half and whatever else had been in the refrigerator that my mom did want to spoil while we were on vacation, a canvas bag with five years worth of magazines, pillows, Sudoku and crossword puzzles, Scrabble, at least two boxes of Kleenex and several plastic Automobile Club of Wisconsin bags stuffed with TripTiks, maps and hotel/motel guides.
After the entire truck was emptied out each evening at the motel (the result of the entire truck being emptied out by thieves while my folks had dinner in Tennessee while on a road trip with friends) a homemade brandy Manhattan really hit the spot. My folks didn’t “cocktail” at home so it felt exotic and vacation-y when my mom would mix up brandy, sweet vermouth, bitters and a splash of Fresca in a plastic cup at a little round table in a motel room in a tiny town on the outskirts of a slightly bigger town.
Plastic cups in hand (mine with diet root beer), we’d head outside where there was usually a small swimming pool overlooking a rural highway, picnic tables and sometimes a dusty play area with a swing set. My folks would enjoy their drinks while I dashed about, amped up on the Twizzlers I had pilfered from my dad’s stash.
I’m going to take a road trip with my dad this spring and although I don’t drink brandy Manhattans with or without a splash of Fresca, I will pack a box with the fixings and we will sit outside some evening, on plastic chairs beside a little swimming pool with leaves floating on the water, and we’ll raise a glass to my mom.
2. Keep dancing.
It was 1943 and my mom was 16 years old. By November of that year they were rationing milk, firewood and coal, sugar, meat, butter, silk stockings and elastic. I am not clear on why elastic was rationed, but the fashion industry was presented with a lot of challenges during WWII not the least of which was women drawing seams up the back of their legs with fountain pens.
My mom and her young man were at a dance, swinging to the likes of Bing Crosby and Harry James when she felt her underwear begin a slow descent south. As elastic was somehow being used by the war effort everyone had to make due with what they had and my mom’s panties began an epic fail. There was no way she was going to stop and tell the boy what was happening, and according to my mom there was no hope of gracefully exiting the dance floor and making it to the ladies room before the confounding undergarments hit the floor.
As the underpants slipped around her ankles, my mom looked deep into her date’s eyes, capturing his attention with her beautiful baby blues as she casually danced out of her panties and kicked them under the nearest table.
My mom cha cha-ed through traumas and heartbreaks, disappointments and betrayals, and a lot of good times. She was in the living room, practicing new dance moves two weeks before she died.
3. Stay curious.
My mom was a couple of months shy of her 90th birthday when she passed away, having been preceded in death by her beloved sister and countless friends her same age, but she remained youthful herself because she was genuinely interested in the things that people decades younger found stimulating.
I don’t know why I was surprised when after she died people in their 30s and 40s told me what a great friend my mom had been. It was shocking to learn that she had an entire life outside of being my mom! She enjoyed deep relationships with all kinds of people, curious to know what they thought, how they navigated the world of their generation, which Lady Gaga songs they liked best.
If someone suggested a new Slobovian restaurant my mom was in. If you wanted to try a hot hula class or learn to crochet with porcupine needles, she was game. Each year the Perseid meteor shower falls on or around my birthday in August. In spite of the mosquitos and the fact that the light show doesn’t start until well after 3AM, my mom was down for lying out in the back yard with a glass of wine, staring up at the sky, making wishes on each falling star until dawn.
She read Readers Digest and Rolling Stone, watched Alex Trebeck and Bill Maher. Her hair was tinted lavender; she wore a silver motorcycle jacket and was game for trying anything anytime…always. She stayed thirsty, my friends. And it made her interesting and forever young.
4. Smile big and sing loudly.
Especially these days I hear people raising their voices a lot, and not in a happy laughing singing way. There is so much anger, hatred, fear and vitriol in the air that I’ve begun to crave the sound of screaming children on a plane.
When I was little it embarrassed me how loudly my mom would sing. She had a decent voice, but I sure didn’t want everyone in church or in the cars next to us to gawk while she belted it out with the Holy Ghost and Bette Midler.
Slinking down in my seat I’d glance over at whomever was staring at us, wondering what they must think. It seemed to me that my mom was a little nuts, going all Wind Beneath My Wings at the top of her lungs. She’d see people staring at her and she would smile at them—the big toothy Helen smile. I expected them to look away, as embarrassed as me. But no. My mom’s joy was infectious and was usually met with reciprocal smiles, thumbs up and occasionally some decent back-up vocals.
The “Helen smile” didn’t always signal elation, however. A few years ago after visiting the gym together, my mom and I ran into Macy’s because it was the last day for me to redeem a Chanel certificate for some free make-up.
Dressed in yoga pants and sneakers, I handed the clerk my certificate and said that I hoped they hadn’t run out of samples. She looked at my mom and me, and asked whether I’d ever purchased a Chanel product in my life. I was kind of stunned, given the drawer-full of overpriced crap I had at home. Then the woman snatched the paper from my hand, looked at the address, hid it behind her back and asked me where I lived. Surely someone as lowly as me and my sweats-clad sidekick were not “Chanel people,” and I must have stolen the Chanel postcard from a better person’s mailbox 30 miles away.
I stood there with my maw open in a most un-Chanel-y way while my mom’s mouth slowly morphed into the big toothy smile.
“Dear,” my mom said, dripping honey dosed with cayenne pepper. “Where is the manager?”
There was something disconcerting about my mom’s smile and tone of voice, like a talking snake who promises he’s only there for the sunshine and not to eat your babies.
Wordlessly, the snooty clerk grabbed a medium-sized Chanel shopping bag (not the bitty one) and stuffed it with every sample she could get her hands on including items from nearby Smashbox and Elizabeth Arden. Handing it over she asked pleasantly, “Is there anything you need from Chanel today?”
“No, dear,” my mom said, the smile frozen on her face. “Where is the nearest Sephora?”
A knee jerk reaction, I put my arm around my mom’s shoulder, snatched the Chanel bag and pulled my lips back in the world’s biggest smile. My mom hugged me as we walked out of Macy’s, and I began to sing “you are the wind beneath my wings.”
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The national debate is on! Not that we haven’t been embroiled in a ginormous rhubarb for the last year or so, but now women have upped their game and for some reason that has gotten under the skin of the new president in a yuge way.
Three to five million women, children and men gathered all around the world—depending on sources—to protest Donald Trump’s policies toward, well, pretty much everything. Comprised predominantly of woman, people in pink hats called dibs on stuff that effects them, their children, mothers, sisters, families and future generations. Advocating for the human race in general, they demanded clean water and air, access to medicine, healthcare and family planning, enough food to feed their families and freedom from oppression in all its insidious forms.
According to Mr. Trump, between three and five million dead people, undocumented immigrants and Mr. Trump’s own political operatives voted illegally to give Hillary a three to five million-person victory in the popular vote.
Each time the estimate of protesters rose in the immediate aftermath of the Women’s March (it took some time for the feminists in InIttoqqortoormiit, Greenland to get word of their numbers to the mainland), Trump made that poor Mr. Spicer go out in front of everyone and lie about the number of people who attended his inauguration. Once Spicer established his willingness to do so, the poor schlub was doomed.
Sean Spicer spews alternative facts and swallows gum like a malnourished python, while his body language suggests he would rather not become a bloody footnote in a 3-part History Channel series called The Rise and Fall of the Trump Realm. The mic goes hot, Spicer’s shoulders go up and he repeats what he’s been told to say while his testicles retract into his sternum.
It seems there is consensus even among the Trump faithful that he may be a tad out of his depth both politically and psychologically. For example, during a discussion with my cousin who voted for Mr. Trump, he trumpeted the standard line, “People wanted something different,” but when “something different” was elucidated categorically by the crackpot ideas our new leader has put forth, and which have terrified only our allies and not a single enemy anywhere in the world but for perhaps an angry Kim Jog-un whose shipment of Trumpsteaks thawed in transit and went bad, my cousin said simply, “Oh, Trump’s a tool.”
It was off-handed and casual, like, ‘We’re so over him. Let’s move on.’ I think anyone who voted for Donald Trump because they couldn’t stand you-know-who has to own this guy until the bitter end when Greenpeace takes over and runs the U.S. government from a dinghy in Cape Cod Bay where they protect endangered whales and our constitutional rights.
Simply changing the subject when things get sticky or because you don’t have facts to back up your assertions is dishonest, yet this hooligan style of debate has swept America. Looked at Facebook lately?
There are only two kinds of honest intellectual debate:
Interjecting “Benghazi!” or “Remember the Alamo!” into a debate about climate change or women’s reproductive rights does little to persuade the other person of anything at all, and is more likely to make them want to join a protest group, donate to a protest group or start their own protest group, which I’m guessing is not the desired outcome.
Red herrings bang against the aluminum hull of truth like Asian carp on crack. “Oh, Lordy! Our poorest most violent cities are all run by democrats!” THWAP! You’re smacked in the head by a riled-up cyprinid.
First thing I did upon hearing about the liberal mayors from hell…for the seven millionth time, was to find out who runs our richest cities. Lordy! They’re all democrats! Every single one. Turns out the mayors of almost every big city in America—rich, poor, violent, peaceful and prosperous, from Salt Lake City to Houston—are all democrats.
I implore you not to take my word for it, or to take anyone’s word for anything. #fakenews is the most horrifying thing imaginable to this former journalism student, and I beg of you to do your homework before spreading, sharing or repeating information, memes and factoids you pick up on the internet or overhear at Hobby Lobby.
Using the example, “Our most violent inner cities are the product of liberal mayors,” allow me to show you how simple it is to obtain verifiable, unbiased facts:
We know Chicago and Detroit have big problems, and I think everyone is aware that the mayors of those cities are democrats, but did you know that Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis and Oakland top the list of American cities with the highest crime rates? According to Forbes, Chicago isn’t even in the top ten.
Lo and behold, our most crime-riddled cities are indeed run by democrats. The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore is #7 of the most violent cities in America) proclaimed in a recent headline, Urban America Should Give up on the Democrats.
Yikes! Whatever the democrat mayors are doing isn’t working, so I wanted to know who was running the most prosperous cities in the nation. I googled “richest cities in America,” which resulted in a Bloomberg map highlighting the top 20 most prosperous cities in America accompanied by the average person’s income in that city.
In an effort to be unbiased, I googled the mayor of each city and not only the ones on the west or east coast—cities in traditionally blue states. (The list included cities in Texas, Utah, North Carolina—a broad spectrum covering the entire United States.) Once I had their names, I googled each mayor to learn to which party he or she belonged. Democrat. Democrat. Democrat x 20.
So while it is true that democrats run the poorest cities with the highest crime rates, the other half of that truth is that they also run the cities with the greatest wealth and prosperity.
News flash: the largest cities—rich or poor—have the most crime, while smaller cities and towns have the least.
The safest cities in America, regardless of income, are evenly split among mayors who are democrats and those who are republicans. The mayor of the #1 safest city—Irvine CA—is a republican, while the Chairman (the elected official who runs the city) of Arlington VA (the second safest city in the country) is a democrat, as is their Sheriff, btw.
All the way down the list of safest cities in America, we alternate between republicans and democratic mayors.
If the assertion is that poor, mostly minority groups vote democrat and that is the crux of urban crime, what do we say to the prosperous Americans in large cities who are thriving at the top of the heap under democratic mayors? Likewise, if the safest cities are split between democrat and republican mayors, what does that tell us?
I think it indicates a deeper discussion is needed—one with facts at the core. No matter how strongly I believe in some value or other, I am not allowed, by conscience, to present my opinion as fact unless it is actually, you know, true. Not half true. I hold all of us to the same standard. I hope you do the same.
PS
You’ll never win a debate on Facebook, but I believe it is incumbent upon us to call people on their shit using the greatest weapon we have – let’s say it all together – FACTS!
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Let’s face it, no matter which side you line up on the next four years are going to be brutal. Every action, tweet, deal and decision will be met with unprecedented scrutiny and subsequent calls for impeachment, censure, tar and feathering. Other folks will show their unwavering support regardless of the charge, action, tweet, deal, decision or whether the President of the United States has indeed shot someone in Times Square. It’s going to be four years of hell for people who would rather not hear their own surging blood pressure pounding in their ears.
There are the obvious solutions, albeit perhaps inconvenient for many of us, such as joining a religious order of cloistered contemplative monastics in remote Uganda. To toil tirelessly beside the Trappists or Trappestines for four years without speaking a word wouldn’t be all bad, however, as they are world renowned for brewing some wicked beer. Suddenly four years doesn’t seem long enough.
People love to say, “If your candidate wins I’m moving to Canada.” It’s no use burying your head in Canadian sand. Don’t think Prime Minister Pretty Boy doesn’t have an opinion about our recent political hostilities that he is willing to share, as do all Canadians except for maybe the Aboriginal peoples who think similarly to our indigenous peoples—that white people lie like hell and are not to be trusted.
Nope, there is nowhere on earth you will be able to avoid ugly current events. Example:
SUMMIT, MT. EVEREST – DAY
Amid the dead, frozen bodies of their fellow mountain climbers, a guy from Japan and a Trappist monk take turns breathing from an oxygen tank.
Japanese Mountain Climber:
“Did you see that that Vladimir Putin is on Dancing with the Stars this season?”
The monk removes his jacket then flogs himself with belay equipment.
It is going to take some Yankee ingenuity to survive the next four years without killing ourselves or one another. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Have chapped, cracked lips (or a nagging hangnail), a small piece of sandpaper and a lemon on your person at all times.
The instant you hear or see anything that looks like it could lead to political discourse, rub a little sandpaper across your mouth or give the hangnail a nice tug with your teeth, then squeeze lemon over the affected area. You will turn red, tears will flow. It is possible you’ll pass out. One thing is certain and that is you will not care whether the Sequoias have been cut down to make golf clubs or the White House has been gold plated.
2. Learn to scuba dive then get a tank that holds four years worth of oxygen. Assuming your skin doesn’t rot off and you are able to eat while submerged this is a fine plan for avoiding pretty much anything for the next 48 months.
3. Hypnosis.
If you get a good hypnotist, he or she will be able to convince you that you live in Canada with that handsome Mr. Trudeau, or you may opt for the Denmark plan, which will have you believing you live in the happiest place on earth, are blonde and 6’3” tall.
Either way, you will enjoy a great deal of salmon.
4. *Bunkerize.
It is not necessary to DYI a bunker when you can easily commandeer one from your local survivalist by simply standing outside his shelter and shouting, “Hooters has gone topless!”
Once the militiaman hightails it for Hooters you can move into the bunker and bolt the door behind you.
*It will be necessary to prep for this contingency by acquiring a taste for food that comes in “handy serving buckets” labeled simply “breakfast” or “dinner.” There’s a place called Wise Food Storage that offers 4320 servings of emergency food in buckets for the low price of $6,999.99. (There are only 495 left so “order now or take the risk.”) Think it’s a coincidence that 4320 servings is a 4 year supply? Nope. That is called planning ahead.
5. Visit your friendly pharmacist.
As of this post the FDA has not approved the following medications, but by the end of business today all regulations on drugs and everything else will be waived in favor of corporate profits. The following drugs will be available without a prescription, but one will be needed in order to obtain a library card.
Lobamax, a topical ointment that you rub on your temples until your brain goes completely numb. (Street name: November Surprise.)
Naplongesta, in gel cap or tablet form, this medication will help you sleep tight for 48 months. Side effects may include death, constipation, oily discharge and really nasty morning breath.
*Lafablavin, a nasal spray that delivers a wallop of glee as it shoots directly to the temporal lobe. People might be going berserk around you, but you won’t care.
*Lafablavin is contraindicated in cases where the patient is also taking Despondozine, the medication for people who have it so good they feel bad. When taken in combination, these two drugs cause a spike in not giving a shit. You may want to double both doses.
Rectisol, in suppository form, is an effective bullshit blocker. Speeding delivery of misinformation blocking drugs to your central nervous system via immediate absorption into your bloodstream, both politicians and teenagers will be on the hook each time they open their mouths.
“It’s not my weed.”
Upon hearing this all the fingers on your right hand will begin to tingle and you will think of Barbados, the shrubbery outside Johnny Depp’s house or Ray’s Liquor and Wine—wherever your “happy place” might be.
“President vows giant dome over United States. Martians to pay.”
Your undies won’t be in a twist when you read this headline if you’ve applied Rectisol, or taken the med in its generic oral form, Lyalotium. The purple pill of prevarication detection will have you right as rain, fly fishing on a river of pleasantness, unconcerned with headlines, tweets and the Russian Army amassed at our northern border.
Milk of amnesia, taken orally by the cupful once every four years, come November 2020 you will not remember a thing. Also available in injection form as a vaccination under the name Stuporivir, this is the surest way to survive the next four years without engaging in fistfights, blood vessel-exploding arguments, public altercations and familicide.
Whatever your political views, if you wish to remain engaged and human for the next four years:
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I’m no medical professional, but I know crazy when I see it, particularly as it pertains to me. Following is a handy list of the reasons I know bats are flying the freak flag in my belfry. If you exhibit three or more of the following symptoms, then you are likely nuts as well, and should seek immediate hugs, spa treatments and cabernet.
1. I rush into a room and immediately forget why I am there.
This happens to people all the time, and it doesn’t mean they’ve gone bonkers. In my case, however, I sing a little song to remind myself why I am hurrying to the room because I know otherwise I will forget, except that the ditty I make up has a faintly familiar melody, which by the time I get to my destination (literally—the very next room) has morphed into I Dreamed a Dream. My mind wanders to a time when hopes were high and life worth living, and I wonder what has changed because today people are so angry all the time. Next thing I know, I’m standing in the kitchen crying and I have no clue what I came in for, but this is where the wine is kept, so all’s well that ends well.
2. I hide things.
This is not the same as misplacing them (see #4).
I hide things from bad people who might come into the house when I am away and steal from me. Many years ago when I was a child, my parents hid stuff for the same reason. One night we were out to a birthday party and when we returned we found we had been robbed. The crooks took everything that was hidden, and left the cash, jewelry and electronics that were in plain view behind.
Back then my parents were very young, and they could remember where things were hidden, so the instant they saw the freezer was left open, the toilet paper rolls had been disemboweled and the bag of potting soil in the garage had been sifted, they knew the good stuff was gone.
Those are pretty ingenious hiding places, we thought. Today, I am much better at squirreling stuff away. So good, in fact, I can’t find any of it. Yesterday, before I left for an appointment, I figured I should hide an envelope of cash I had just brought home from the bank. I didn’t want it in my bag in the event someone (I’m talking to you, Yvette – the dental hygienist with the twilight anesthesia and Dolce and Gabbana smock) at the dentist’s office picked my pocketbook. So I stood there, cash in hand, thinking…
Ah ha! I envisioned the perfect hiding place. I set the envelope down so that I could arrange a pile of dirty clothes to camouflage the money. I became distracted by a sock. Its mate was nowhere in sight, which gave me pause because I had always believed errant socks went missing in the washer or dryer, not the laundry hamper.
The instant I noticed I was humming I Dreamed a Dream I stopped myself and focused on the task at hand. Creating a nice soft nest within the folds of sweatpants and a t-shirt with a bloodstain on it from god knows what or whom, I was reminded of the Jerry Seinfeld bit; “If you’re worried about how to get blood out of your clothes maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem” and again, I reeled myself in. Proud that I hadn’t succumbed to utter distraction, I went to retrieve the envelope of cash.
I still haven’t found it, but am sure that if I were to engage the service of a villain, he or she would locate it in a flash.
3. I delete things.
I take exception to this one, but geeks and geniuses assure me I am the one who deletes photos, emails, texts and voice messages…it is not the handiwork of witches, gremlins, woodland sprites, demons, imps or the guy down the street who stole our WiFi for three years before we finally caught him.
By deleting things I also mean the crumpling of vital pieces of paper, the garbage disposalling of the apple whilst the core remains in my hand, and the general dispatch of wine.
4. I misplace things.
When I can’t find something I’ve hidden I don’t freak out. I figure I’m just a crackerjack hider. When I walk into the house and set my keys down and ten minutes later they are nowhere to be found, then I question my sanity. I also wonder how witches or gremlins, woodland sprites, demons, imps or the internet bandit got into the house and hid my stuff.
Every so often the dogs walk around looking guilty as sin. I wouldn’t put it past them to mess with me. I know they don’t appreciate having to go out when it’s 7 below zero just to pee. I wouldn’t be happy either, but it’s not my fault they’re dogs. I’ve tried explaining this to them, but they seem to think if they have to pee, barefoot, on the frozen tundra, then so should I. They are further irritated that I eat different food than they do.
5. I anthropomorphize like a motherf*cker.
(The dogs hate it when I cuss. They think is diminishes me.)
6. I forget who I’ve just called on the phone.
Multi taskers everywhere will be able to relate to this one. My special twist on the cowpie of cray cray is the creativity with which I try to cover my ass. When the person on the other end answers, I panic for a brief moment as my mind goes completely blank. Back in olden times you could have just hung up—there was no caller ID. Today, we’re screwed. I pray whomever answers the phone does so in a helpful manner, “Hello, Framistat Framing, how may I help you?” This is a best case scenario.
In the event I am met with a simple unidentifiable “hello” the next step is to buy myself some time. “Hey! How are you? God, it’s good to hear your voice” I chirp in the most upbeat tone I can muster given my brain is in overdrive and is conflicting with my mouth. “It has been too long! How the heck are you? How long has it been, anyway?” Babbling relentlessly, I scan the surface of my desk for some clue as to whom I’ve called.
Without any solid leads, I pray that when the person finally speaks their voice will be familiar and it’ll be smooth sailing until I forget why I called. (In February I will be conducting a workshop with tips and tools for dealing with that eventuality.)
7. I am easily distracted.
I once spent three hours while I was supposed to be cleaning the house googling ways to combat distraction. After fifteen minutes I found an entire YouTube channel dedicated to videos of dogs saying ‘I love you.’
Note to self: invent a reverse caller I.D. thingie that will tell me who I’ve called. Clean under the fridge. Find out if cats say ‘I love you.’
8. I am constantly confused.
I will be 25 minutes into a vintage Law and Order before I realize I’ve seen it at least half a dozen times. I leave the grocery store with $300 worth of groceries, not one item of which is on the extensive grocery list I forgot at home on the counter next to my mittens. It is -50 outside.
The world is a mess, there’s too much to do and never enough time to do it, and my dogs are plotting against me. Is it any wonder I’ve lost my marbles?
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1. Be like Dame Helen Mirren
When the 70 year old was asked one piece of advice she’d give her younger self, the glorious Dame Helen answered, “It would be to use the words ‘fuck off’ much more.” She went on to explain there is no value to being polite at all times, especially as women, and that it is empowering to tell people “no,” “get lost” and well, “fuck off.”
I can’t count the times I’ve been held hostage at a meeting, in a corner at a party or once in the waiting room at my gyno’s office where I was corralled by a total stranger into agreeing to distribute pamphlets on behalf of the World Help Organization, which sounded like it would be an organization of worldwide helpers, of whom I thought I should be one.
Once I had a chance to look at the material I saw the organization’s motto; “Uniting People and Maximizing Our Authentic Selves.” Uh oh. The lady who runs the thing has written a book, “Living Your Chosen Eulogy.” I’m sure this is a very worthwhile group, but it is not really me. But there I was, walking out to my car with a box of pamphlets and too much conscience to toss the damn things into the trash.
Had I the cojones to channel Dame Helen when the woman with crazy eyes and mismatched shoes asked me if I’d like to “help people who need help” (which always seems more productive than helping those who don’t need help) I would have said, in my most authentic voice, “Fuck off, and I hope someone mentions this in my eulogy because it is how I wish to be remembered.”
A lot of people adhere to the old adage “you don’t ask, you don’t get.” In 2017, they should expect to hear the new adage, “Fuck off.”
2. Go all in on friendships.
We’re busy, we’re telling people to fuck off, we’re saying “no,” “I can’t” and “I won’t” more this year in an effort to guard the precious commodity of time, but what are we saving all that time for?
Willhelmina’s accordian recital is important, sure. And Exley’s squash practice is right up there, but some day your family will desert you and you will need friends.
As we learned in kindergarten, to have a friend you must first be a friend, so in 2017 we are going to be the best friends possible. Of course there are degrees of friendship—many people whom I consider friends are the same people I will tell, in 2017, to fuck off (but I will say it in a friendly, helpful manner).
I’m taking about that handful—if you’re lucky—of real true blue friends; the ones who would rescue you at 3AM if you needed rescuing, who are fully present when you have the chance to get together or chat on the phone, the people you wouldn’t hesitate to give a kidney.
Big heroic gestures of undying friendship are rare occurrences in real life, but being fully present is every bit as difficult as donating an organ—maybe more so. When a friend calls and we are only half paying attention because Exley wants to know how poop is made and Willhelmina has decided that next to you is the best place to practice her ‘bad touch’ scream, we are not fully present for the person on the phone. (I frankly don’t understand why people with children even have phones. Awake or asleep, there is nothing that gets a kid going more than the sight of a parent on a phone. It is the universal beacon of “wait until you hear ‘hello’ then unleash the Kraken!”)
So in 2017, whether we’ve got children, dogs in heat or a mate to whom hearing “Hello?” is a signal to inquire about missing socks, we will go all in on friendship by making sure we give our friends our undivided time.
Even if it’s just a minute or two, knowing that someone is right there with you—fully present and fully engaged—is a wonderful gift, and lets that person know they are important to us, that what happens to them matters to us.
Oh, and saying, “I love you.” It’s awfully good to hear and feels wonderful to say.
3. Write a note and mail it.
Texts and emails are great for instant communication and convenience even if we are losing language as we know it as a result. wtf. Schools no longer teach cursive writing, which (age alert! age alert!) just feels wrong. Receiving a hand-printed letter or card (you cannot call something printed hand-written; that would be like serving fish boil and calling it fish fry) is a delight like none other.
When I sift through the junk mail, requests for donations and bills, and I see a hand-written envelope my heart sings because someone thought enough of me to take the time to organize paper, envelope, a pen that works and a stamp and put that all together in a fashion acceptable for the United States Postal Service to deliver right to my mailbox. My cousin Colleen has five children and a massively weighty full-time job, and yet she drops a note in the mail every couple of weeks. I feel loved.
Note: If you fear Exley and Willie-girl won’t give you the time to jot a note, simply pull out paper and pen and tell them you want to teach them something. You will have time to write and enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee or bottle of wine. If hubster pokes his head in, tell him you are writing a to-do list of household chores. You will not see him again until he wants sex or a sandwich.
4. Floss daily.
Every time I go to the dentist I am reminded this is a critical gingivo/odonto ritual that I generally neglect by January 3rd. 2017 is gonna be different.
On January 1st we have every intention of getting healthier, quitting something or someone who is bad for us and beginning a regimen of something or someone who is good for us. Less than .2% of the population adheres to their resolutions past January 3rd, but telling people to fuck off, well, it seems like that one could last all year, if not a lifetime. And being fully present for the people we love…that’s about the best use of time imaginable.
If we keep a stack of note cards and stamps in a place other than where the dental floss is stored, there truly is a good chance we’ll write a note now and again, and the absolute certainty that in doing so we will have made someone’s heart sing, if only for a moment. In 2017, as at all times, those are the moments that mean the most.
Happy New Year!
Wisconsin Public Radio has rerun my essay “Wisconsin Tough” so if you missed it the first time and you need a good laugh, check it out!
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