Stuck in a Moment

There are moments (usually amongst piles of dishes) when I make myself stop what I’m doing, breathe deeply and soak in a moment. This is one. I’ve got 8 high school guys in my living room dressed in tuxedos practicing four part harmonies of Boyz 2 Men’s Silent Night, and two others watching a soccer game mentally readying themselves for Varsity try outs tomorrow and I think to myself, this is it…this is what I’ve always wanted my life and my home to be like….teeming with life and laughter and joy and music.

The leaves on the lawn are in need of raking, the dog is driving me nuts with muddiness and a six week old lingering skunk scent, the bills are overwhelming, the car needs a tune-up, the calendar is madness, college looms, and yet, I'm a walking Hallmark card. This must be what being in your Forties is all about...the ability to find contentment amidst the chaos...peace in the pandemonium. Sure, some might call it denial, I call it perspective.

The perception that building a legacy is vastly more important than the anxieties of the world around. Noah Ben Shea has given shape to this attitude lately. He tell us from an old African saying, "Do not kiss your children so they will kiss you back but so they will kiss their children and their children's children." This is the viewpoint I'm trying to maintain these days. Tonight was easy. Tomorrow morning will more than likely be a different story, but this moment will carry me for a good while and I'm just so incredibly grateful for the richness that is my life.

Halloween Then and Now

Halloween used to be sticky fingers grasping a hand to climb a flight of steps to a stranger’s home. Halloween used to be forcing a three, four, five year old to say ‘thank you’ upon receipt of a sugary treat; that you secretly hope is chocolate without any coconut. Halloween used to be spending hours upon hours on intricate, beautiful costumes…only to cover them up with a coat because the outside temperature is hovering above freezing on the big day. Halloween used to be school parades with smiles and crooked costumes and video cameras…one such school parade where my youngest clearly not ready for kindergarten tells the lovely Snow White mother blocking his view, ‘Move it, Snow White. I can’t see my brother.’ Halloween used to be family pumpkin carving gatherings with pencils marking triangles for a Jack O’ Lantern’s eyes and nose, endless Halloween craft projects coming home from school involving ghosts, witches, pumpkins and skeletons…which somehow tied into a curriculum of some sort. Halloween used to be making cut out cookies with frosting and candy corns for school parties, neighbors reconnecting over hot apple cider and trying to force some broccoli or carrot sticks in between the meals of sugar.

Halloween is now your kids figuring out their own costumes with what’s in the closet or rummaging through their Dad’s box of clothes he just can’t part with. Halloween is now giving them the car keys to drive to the best neighborhoods and ‘not really but kind of’ trick or treating…once you hit high school, come on, really? Okay, I can see why they hit a certain Pepperwood Drive wherein families clearly take out second mortgages to compete with one another’s treats – two-pound bags of M&Ms per trick or treater…seriously. Halloween is now kids finding intricate patterns on the Internet for pumpkin carving creations…and asking if we can roast the seeds like we always used to (once or twice maybe, but I’ll let him believe it’s one of those traditions.) Halloween is now about making a good stew, opening a great Pinot Noir, turning on some Duke Ellington, lighting a plethora of candles and enjoying the freedom…and praying like the dickens that your kids are not doing anything stupid or anywhere near anything or anyone resembling stupidity. I think I’ll have another glass of Pinot Noir, please.

These Things I Know to Be True: Summer Version

• Anything eaten over the kitchen sink during the summer months is usually healthy, fresh and local… but nectarine juice cascading down your chin, neck and blouse can in no way be described as your best look.

• Moles can and will destroy your desire to live if you take them on in a battle royale.  No amount of repellent with castor oil or dried skunk blood, or stink bombs, poison pellets (illegal in the states of California or Illinois but available for purchase at your local hardware store) or any high-pitched sound machine will cause these rodents of the worst kind to pull up stakes and move next door.   Find yourself a mole whisperer and pay him whatever he asks to put out traps and tell you endlessly about the psyche of a mole. 

• When your youngest son passes his driver’s license test and has that new sense of teenage freedom that is akin to the joy found when walking skills were acquired fifteen years prior, the conveniences are not in anyway outweighed by the sadness felt at the loss of time spent with him (albeit forced time in car captivity but time spent nonetheless.) 

• Walking into Target wearing attire including your shoes from said Target is just plain embarrassing and there ought to be a capital ‘L’ on your emblazoned upon forehead…(note to self: wear Kohl’s clothes in Target, Target clothes in Kohl’s…or at the very least remember to mix and match.)

• Teenagers seem to be the most talkative over leftover pizza after 11PM.  The trick is having the leftover pizza, ears ready to listen and eyes that don’t require toothpicks to say open…ah, the irony.

• Those public pay car washes and vacuum kiosks are real pressure cookers.  There should be blood pressure warning signs posted as you race against the sucking and spraying clock.  As a public service announcement, make sure to bring a collection of unwrinkled never been in a pocket dollar bills hot off the US treasury presses to exchange for the one minute and thirty-seven seconds gold car wash/vacuum tokens. The machines don’t much care for anything less than dollar bill perfection.  Also, you might want to bring the whole family and have a well thought out car washing and vacuuming strategy akin to Michael Phelps and his Olympic 800 meter medley relay team.  Then and only then might you be able to detail your vehicle in the allotted amount of time.  So, yes that was me racing through the streets of Danville half covered in soap suds trying to get to the hose in our driveway that didn’t require a gold token…and no that police officer would not give us an escort home as much as I begged!

• Beyonce’s popular ten-day (ha!) lemonade fast/cleanse/diet could be used by the CIA to gather highly sensitive information any day of the week.

• Dead flowers are better than no flowers at all…in a vase on your kitchen table or in growing in a terra cotta pot in your yard…it says to all who walk by, ‘I was once alive and my very existence indicates that my caretaker at least tried to beautify the surroundings.’  How’s that for justification of not deadheading, pruning and buying a new bunch of flowers?

• This crazy thing called time really does move along more rapidly than it should and John Lennon nailed it when he told the world in Beautiful Boy that ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.’  I’ve been trying to pay attention much more closely lately and not get too distracted by tunnels in my lawn, the label on my clothes, and filthy cars… rather focus my time and energy on things like plotting ways to convince my kids to get in the car with me, keep a steady supply of leftover pizza in the fridge and eat lots of nectarines!

Recipe for 2009

1. Do something to move your body everyday. Find a sport that you enjoy. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily.  As you walk, smile and wave to everyone you pass.  It's the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes a day.  Talk to God about what's going on in your life and listen.
3. When you wake up in the morning, complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to _______ today. I am thankful for _________.
4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
5. Drink green tea and half your weight in ounces of water.  Eat blueberries, wild salmon, broccoli, almonds and walnuts.
6. Try to make at least 3 people smile a day.  Write notes of encouragement and affirmation to those you love in your life.
7. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, issues of the past,negative thoughts or things you cannot control.  Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
9. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.  Assume the best in others.
11. Don't take  yourself so seriously.  No one else does.
12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument.  Agree to disagree.
13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
14. Don't compare your life to others.  You have no idea what their journey is all about.
15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
16. Frame every so-called disaster with this question: 'In five years, will this matter?'
17. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive.
18. What other people think of you is none of your business
19. God can heal anything; but you need to ask.
20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
21. You job won't take care of you when you're sick.  Your friends and family will...stay connected.
22. Envy is a waste of time.  You already have all you need.
23. Each night before you go to bed, complete the following statement: I am thankful for _______. Today, I accomplished___________.
24. Remember you are too blessed to be stressed.
25. When you're feeling down, start listing your blessings and do something for someone else.