Becoming YOU

I guess as we reach what I call the “reflecting years”, everyone begins to think about what life experiences have made them who they are.  I realize that I could be very wrong about this.  Some people never reflect, they just go along day to day, not looking back. For me this is just not a possibility. We are the products of all of our life experiences, and I would venture to say, in part, all of the life experiences of our parents and those with whom we share time and history. For boomers whose parents grew up during the depression, a consciousness of money, deprivation, or the need to be conscious of them became part of who we are. We reacted to it all differently to be sure, but it is there just the same. For later generations who were born during the bubble years, it may seem as if there is a bottomless well to which they can go for refilling. But of course, these are all generalizations and extremes.

What I have come to realize over the past few weeks, is that we are a much a product of the things we said “NO” to, the things that we made ourselves believe weren’t important as those we have always said “YES” to. And I have come to realize that the wisdom and recommendations that came from my mother, were the product of her being the child of immigrants, the fear she experienced when she saw people in her apartment house put out on the street with their belongings because they couldn’t put together the rent, the life lessons she experienced when my father’s union went out on strike and there were mouths to feed. Her counsel was to marry someone with a stable income, someone who would never fear for his job. My counsel to my daughters is different, but also the result of my grandmother’s, my mother’s, and my own life experiences, and the changes that the world has undergone in the last century: be someone with a stable income who wouldn’t have to worry about being out of work.  A bit different, but not really.

I am coming to realize that as much as the things I pursued in my life, the things that I ran away from have shaped me and my beliefs and thoughts. What I insisted was not important may have been just as important as what I thought was.

As a Mother, I would love to be able to take all of the accumulated and hard won wisdom born of experience, disappointment, and triumph, and hand it over to my daughters, polished and wrapped, so that they don’t have to make the mistakes, suffer the consequences, and live with the results of bad decisions or unintentional errors in judgment. But then, they wouldn’t be they.  They would be me.

So my Mother’s day gift to them is to say, “Think carefully before you take that step, but when you have considered all that you should, take it with gusto and don’t look back.  It may turn out for good or ill, but enjoy the ride and know that whatever the outcome, you will bear the consequences.”  And remember the lesson I am learning from a wonderful book that I read and re-read: there is no failure, there is only feedback, and the lessons you learn will be there to take to the next effort.

Making a Difference

This morning, after spending a good deal of the night up with Lucy, because she needed me, I found myself simply unable to get it together to go to a meeting I had on my calendar.  I felt really bad about not attending, and even worse about being unable to give the chair a “heads up” that I would not be in attendance. I will write him a note to say sorry, but I got to thinking about what I have done and not done on this committee since I joined last September.  Until January, my mind was elsewhere as my brother’s health worsened and he died, and then I had bronchitis this spring, so I was again not in shape to go to some of the meetings, let alone participate in the wonderful work that the committee does. I wondered what they would talk about, and if there was work for me to do there, but I have concluded that although I joined with the best of intentions, I have not pulled my weight, as it were. I have determined to resign from this committee, although the people were very nice and welcoming, because I feel that if I sit on a committee, their mission has to be mine, and their charter mine as well.

And isn’t that what we all want and need? To feel useful, and to feel as if what we put our minds and hearts and efforts to is accomplishing something that is important to us? Sometimes the most important work that we do is to offer a smile and a kind word where it is needed, and sometimes it means going through our closets and culling the things we don’t use for the use and pleasure of someone else. One is not more important than another, but what we do needs to make a difference in our own mind and heart. The people who receive the benefit of what this committee does are lucky that there are people who give their free time over to the health of the community and what it deems important.  The people who do the work are also lucky that they have the health and vitality to help others and to feel like they are making a difference.

So this is what I am going to do.  I am going to find another group who needs help, who I feel I can help, and hope that the effort that I put in will make a difference. To the people who I met who are doing the work of the committee, you are a terrific group of hard workers, and I am happy to have met you. I hope that we can meet again in some other effort where I can feel more effective. 

Thanks, Mother Nature

Every so often, we human beings are treated to the reminder that Mother Nature is a smart cookie. “What?” you say.  “What’s so smart about wild fires, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and the like?”  My answer to that, and I realize that this is indeed my answer, is that being in the path of an oncoming disaster makes us reflect on what is most important to us.  And because disasters happen sporadically, and not at expected intervals, with the exceptions of blizzards and hurricanes which have seasons but their severity is still sporadic, it is obvious that what is important to us changes over time.

 The last couple of times fires swept through Ventura County-- in ’93 and again in 2005-- its proximity caused us to think about what we would want and need to take with us if we needed to evacuate. I noticed that Friday as I watched the flames about three miles away from my front porch, the only things on my mind were pictures of my deceased parents and brother, my darling dog Lucy, and not much else. Bob and Shoshana would be able to take care of themselves, I knew that I could put my hands on the old picture albums of when the kids were babies in a flash, and all the other stuff was just stuff, even the expensive stuff. Sure I’d hate to lose all the work I have stored on my computer, I would love to save my sewing machine, which is a good companion and source of pleasure for me, but in the end, doesn’t all that is really good and really important in life boil down to the people we love?

My commitment to the thinking and methods of Appreciative Living has caused me to think of the positive in situations, even though all things are present in every situation--both the good and the bad. So although I have lost my parents, and more recently my brother, which makes me feel desperately lonely and sad at times, at those same times I am also aware of how lucky I am to have had such wonderful parents, such a loving brother with whom I shared so much, for so long. Of the “things” I have that I enjoy having, were I to lose them, I think that I could say I enjoy seeing them, they awaken memories of good times, or special moments, or the people I associate with them, but they are still things, and as long as I am amble to remember, I will have them with me. The tendency to see the glass as half full, to appreciate what is going well in my life, to view situations through a lens that highlights the positive, is a gift beyond anything.

So today, on my list of three things I appreciate are: 1. the firefighters who have come from all over to help us in this time of need. Their alertness, their willingness to serve not only save homes and people, but renew our faith in our fellow man, 2. The cold and gloomy day, with its dampness and its chill that are giving the firefighters some respite in their fight, and enabling them to see a good ending to their hard work, and 3. all of the people and the pets that I have loved in my life, who have loved me back, and made life worth living.