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When something comes up repeatedly in my life, especially if it comes from a variety of sources, I know it’s something I need to pay attention to. Usually it is not a pleasant something. If it were something I wanted to think about, I would have done so already. I would have seen it, embraced the lesson, and possibly even written about it. It’s very unpleasantness is why the universe has to force me to look upon it. I hope you’re with me on this one. It seems to me that we don’t look at what we don’t want to see, even if it’s as obvious as the nose on our face.

Recently, I can’t seem to get away from the fact that I am aging and that with each passing year, I look less and less like the woman I am in my mind and more and more like the middle-aged woman I am becoming.

Now before every one who was born prior to 1960 starts screaming at my use of the term “middle-aged” to describe my 40 –year-old self, statistically, the word bears out. The average life expectancy for a woman in the US is currently 80.8 years. I am no math genius, but it seems to me that ‘middle-aged’ is generously from 30-50 years old. Correct me in the comments section if you so desire.

No matter where I turn, I am confronted with the fact that my skin is not what it once was. Years of smiling have etched grooves from the corners of my nose to my jaw line. My eyes have begun to settle more deeply into their sockets. My hands look like my mother’s (whose age shall remain unnamed) and my knees look like an elephant’s, all saggy and baggy and heavily lined.

It’s one thing to see myself in a mirror on a daily basis. I know how to deal with that: I look at the parts I like and glaze over the rest. However, I’ve had some experiences recently that have made it harder for me to ignore what the rest of the world must be seeing.

A few months back, I asked a colleague to take a few photographs of me for my website. Bobby takes some of the most stunning nature photographs I have ever seen. Here is some of his work so you will know I am not exaggerating.

Zion, Angel’s Landing, Bobby Lee
Zion Subway, Bobby Lee
Montanadeoro, Bobby Lee

Isn’t he amazing? I thought (mistakenly it turns out), “If he can make dirt and sky and water and air look so beautiful, surely he make me look good too.” We set a day and went on a little photo safari and he took a lot of pictures, and he sent them to me and I thought, “Wow. These would be really gorgeous pictures, if I weren’t in them.”

I learned my lesson about “natural” photography.

I love Bobby’s photographs for their precision, for the way they capture every nook and cranny in the distant mountains and every grain of sand in the sweeping desert and he makes them look beautiful, otherwordly. It’s for that very reason I have a hard time loving Bobby’s photographs of me. They capture every  line on my face and crevice in my hands, but what looks so gorgeous on Mount Zion looks so unattractive on me.  It took me a few weeks, but I reluctantly put the images on my website, convincing myself that an honest portrait was better than none at all. Here are a couple examples.

Enjoying a book by the fire in Laguna Beach
Writing at a sidewalk cafe

A few months later, my sister-in-law recommended a photographer who was trying to build up her portfolio by doing inexpensive sittings. It had been years since we had taken a family photo, so I thought, “Why not? Maybe she can snap a couple of me as well that I’ll like a little better.” And boy did I!

After Stephanie got done editing her images, I realized that Photoshop is my best friend! I loved these photographs. They came infinitely closer to how I see myself. They may not accurately reflect how others see me, but it’s how I want them to see me. I put a couple of those images up on my website right away.

Our family, courtesy of Stephanie Anderson

“Whew,” I thought, “This is who I am. Maybe not young, but youngish, definitely.”

I was so pleased with the results that I thought I’d get a jump-start on our Christmas cards by ordering a couple hundred copies immediately. We don’t actually send out Christmas cards, but since we had such a great picture (of me), I thought I’d make an exception.

But a funny thing happened on the way to my Shutterfly account.

At that very moment, the mail arrived and I had a letter from my sweet sister-in-law. She sent me an article called, “Aged to Perfection,” with a sticky note that said, “I read this and thought of the pledge you and your friends made to never have any ‘work’ done. :)”

Gulp. Her note reminded me of a time when I was confident that I would grow old gracefully, that I would cherish every line as a badge of honor, of a life well-lived, or as the author of the essay wrote about her aging body as, “a repository of soul and experience… mellowed by love and time to a rosy luster.”

Oh, I thought with a pang of regret. That’s how I used to feel about aging? Really?

When I read that article, I felt a prompting to find that truth deep down inside myself again. It wasn’t gone entirely, just laid by the wayside some time in the last 10 years. But then I looked at Stephanie’s pictures again and liked them so much that I buried the truth somewhere deeper inside me, where hopefully it wouldn’t emerge for another twenty years. In the meantime, I could Photoshop and facialize and maybe even use Botox to help my outside perception match my inside imagination.

But the universe wasn’t going to let me off that easy. A couple of weeks ago at a breakfast conference, I met a woman who works for the San Diego Museum of Art and I mentioned the last exhibit I had attended there, Annie Lebovitz’s “A Photographer’s Life” in 2007. Ugh, it was embarrassing enough that it had been so long since I had been there, but then the nice woman gave me a knowing nod, saying Yes, that had been a very popular show, with the celebrity photographs and all. I was obviously an artistic light weight in her mind (and I am in actuality, so I don’t fault her for her comment) and although the celebrity photographs were what I had gone to see, I also remembered (and was able to tell her) that what I had most enjoyed were the personal photographs Lebovitz shared, especially the ones of her mother, most especially the ones of her mother at the beach.

Of the many photographs taken at the shore, this is the one I imagine most people remember.

Mikhail Baryshnikov in all his glorious perfection.

This was the photograph I fell in love with.

And another one like it. Though I can’t find a copy of it for the life of me, Lebovitz also captures her mother, playing in the waves with her young granddaughter, pirouetting on the shore, with one leg splayed out in a high kick of joy.

This is what I wrote in my journal at the time….

That is who I want to be. At 70, I want to be the woman who still wears her swimsuit to the beach and plays in the waves with the children she loves. I want to live life and not give a damn about my cellulite jiggling in the sunshine. That is real beauty.

I came home from my morning meeting and took a good long look in the mirror. Then I went back and looked at Bobby’s photographs again. I saw something different this time. This time I saw that I look a little bit like Annie Lebovitz’s mom. I look happy. I look like I am enjoying my life and when I am truly enjoying life, I never once stop to think about what I look while I am doing it.

So after this final reminder, the universe finally succeeded in making me stop and reconsider the truth I knew when the knowing came too easy. (And isn’t that always the case?)

I think the love of my life says it best. He reminds me that I can’t get what I have if I still look like a twenty-year old woman, because then I would still be a twenty-year-old woman. I can’t have a marriage of almost twenty years and the confidence and security that brings to my life. I can’t have my kids hug and kiss me and feel my heart melt.  I can’t get the wisdom and perspective and friendships and faith that all the ups and downs of the last twenty years have brought me, if Ihave never lived those twenty years. I know it’s true, and really, I wouldn’t trade those things for anything, not even an unlined face and bright eyelids and perky knees.

At least I don’t think so, but it’s off the table anyways. We can’t turn back time, despite the billion dollar beauty industry’s insistence that we can with their help. For now, I think I’ll pass. I will put the image of Annie Lebovitz’s mom on my mirror to remind me who I want to be today and every day: confident, laughing, joyfully dancing, cellulite, wrinkles, saggy knees and all.

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A couple of you have seen me since I posted my last blog about fear and loathing in the afternoon. You kindly gave me an extra long hug and asked with raised eyebrows how I was doing, an obvious indication that you are fully aware how not fine I was doing a couple days ago. I’m not complaining; compassion is a beautiful thing. But it did make me think that a follow up post might be helpful. I often want to go back and add a post-script to the stories I tell. The lessons are never over, at least not for me.

So this week, I had planned to publish a blog about the first fear I mentioned – growing older, but then I came across a passage from one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott. She recently published a book with her son Sam, called Some Assembly Required about his first year of fatherhood. While reflecting on her days, she said

Life is mostly okay right now, sometimes lovely and peaceful and when it’s not, it’s hard and weird… and the scary parts feel like they could break you, but then those parts pass against all odds and then things are mostly okay again, temporarily, until they get hard and weird again and break your heart. It’s not a great system. If I were God’s West Coast rep, I’d come up with something easier, something you could bank on.

I read Anne’s words and I smiled, because that is exactly how I feel. One day last week, things were really hard and weird, and I sat and cried because it felt like it was breaking my heart, but by morning, things were okay again and by the weekend, they were really, really lovely. I checked out of reality and went to the beach with my kids for about 7 days straight. We surfed and swam, played with our little primos (cousins) and ate ice cream every day. If I had my own personal dictionary, that would be the definition of lovely and a whole host of synonyms, like bliss, and awesomeness and joy.

But school started for Kiko today; the others follow in a week and then I start a new teaching job. (Did I mention that I am going back into the classroom to teach at a university again? That’s a post-script for my blog on vocation I might need to write.) Everyone will be experiencing busyness and stress and the pressure to perform, so I can almost guarantee that after last week’s loveliness, hard and weird are just around the corner. But I want to do what I can to not get to the heartbreak stage too quickly again.

Instead of going in blind and coming up shocked like I seem to every fall, I am working on a strategy to keep me from going down the rabbit hole of fear and all that entails. I am going to start by being extra diligent about getting up early to walk. The rest of the day is dedicated to going really, really fast, so G (my personal endearment for the Big One upstairs) and I are going to go really, really slow. (God is an old soul after all and doesn’t like to be rushed.)

And what I am going to feel is this (I know that sounds awkward but thinking does me no good at all. My “thinking” is what gets me in trouble in the first place.) For those 20 or 30 minutes, I am going to feel loved. I am going to be God’s beloved. I am going to forget all the ways I fall short of the idea I have in my head of who I am ‘supposed to be.’  I am going to repeat the mantra I learned from Thich Nhat Hahn, the Buddhist monk and child of God, “Dear One, I am here for you.” I am going to say it for myself; I am going to say it for my children; I am going to say it for my students, my family and friends. If I can bring it to bear in my life, it encompasses all that true Love is – a kind, compassionate, joyful presence that brings freedom, not fear to all who experience it.

Now, that’s my plan, but we all know how plans work. We make them and then life breaks them, which was Fear #2 on my list – The Unknown. The only thing I really know is that things fall apart, sometimes in big ways and sometimes in small. I can count on the fact that things are going to be hard and weird and then okay and then lovely again. Saint Anne may not think it’s a great system, but I do think it’s something we can bank on. Even just knowing that’s how it works can help a little bit.

I also know that the more I can believe in Love, stay in Love, allow myself to experience true Love from the Love that never leaves, the more lovely things will be and that sounds pretty good to me.

So to all my readers and friends who are wondering if I’m okay, I am. I am breathing deeply, trying to be present in this moment, fearless and free and in Love.

 

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I’ve sat down to write this blog many times over the last weeks. I still don’t know if I’ll get it right, or not, but I thought I’d try again.  I’ve been struggling with writer’s block lately. Half-formed ideas haunt me, but the words won’t come. I’ve been hard pressed to complete a single thought, much less string together a series of intelligent ones. There have been saving graces – an episode of Project Runway, the death of a beloved author, a strange request from my husband – but those happy (?) accidents seems to have slowed.

Last week I thought I had finally created that perfect writing storm in the midst of my busy summer day: a few hours alone in my cool, quiet house, my work completed, the chores done. There was nothing to distract me. Surely, I would be able to write now. But I couldn’t focus. I fidgeted; I got up and down; I checked email; I about to jump out of my skin. Ultimately, I knew what I needed to do. Despite the 100-degree heat, I went out on a walk to reacquaint my head with my heart and soul. When my head is in charge, there are things my heart finds it impossible to say.

By the time, I got to the end of my street, the truth had already bubbled up to the surface and I was able to admit what had been bothering me. In hindsight, it seems obvious, but sometimes it’s difficult to see what’s right in front of us.

For the past several months, I have been writing about Love: the power of love, the joy of love, the signs of Love – all the things that keep me going, but what I haven’t written about is the shadow side of Love.

Fear.

I have been trying (with some success) to keep things positive. There is nothing wrong with ‘positivity,’ except when I use it to mask other truths. If “perfect love casts out all fear” as Bono and the Bible like to say, why mess around with anything else? The Love I have been writing about is that perfect Love. If I know that Love, as I have been claiming to, then it shouldn’t leave room for anything else in my life.

Except that it does. There is plenty of room for the flip side of love. My fears are still here. I am utterly and completely human, so even perfect Love has to go through my filter. I process it imperfectly and end up with something infinitely less than I began with. Somehow, I fooled myself into believing that this perfect, cosmic Love would leave me fearless. I discovered on my walk that it hasn’t, which is why I found myself sitting at the end of my street in the middle of the afternoon, crying my eyes out.

Quite simply, I’m afraid.

Andy Rooney once said, “A writer’s job is to tell the truth” and as I sat there, I realized that I can’t write, because I’m not telling the truth. I’m telling some of the truth – the truth about Love and what it can do. I’ve been holding something back too – the truth about what happens when Love doesn’t win, because let’s face it, sometimes our humanity simply won’t let it. Bono never mentioned that our fears could cast out that perfect Love as well. I kind of wish he would have warned me.

We embrace our fears just as often, if not more so, than we accept the Love that is available to us. It doesn’t mean that Love gives up, or that Love isn’t there. It just means that fear has the upper hand for a while. Fear doesn’t give up either. My life is a dance between Love and fear. Love has been on center-stage and fear wants to have it’s day too.

So for the sake of transparency and to get over my writer’s block, I thought I would share some of my fears with you.  It’s a short list. I only included three of the biggies.

I am afraid of growing old.

I am afraid of the unknown.

I am afraid of failing God in some critical way.

There they are.

Whew.

No, wait, not whew.

More like Aaaahhh! What did I just do?

I thought I would feel better, laying them all out there, but I don’t, not really. Unlike Love, fear doesn’t bring freedom. Basking in fear diminishes us and the possibilities for our lives, but maybe you already knew that. Deep down, I know it too, but sometimes fear just gets the upper hand.

My dear friend Joyce said to me recently, “Don’t make a decision based on fear. What would you do if you were fearless?” Maybe her question is just another way of asking, “What would you do if you were in Love?”

What would you do if you were in Love and it made you fearless?

I don’t think I can answer that question today. Fear is hogging the dance floor. However, Love is waiting  patiently in the wings. She knows her turn will come again soon and I know she will leave me breathless with beauty and wonder. Personally, I can’t wait for our song to come on. Fear is not my favorite partner.

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There are not many programs on television that I like to watch and even fewer that I’ll watch with my children. With a wide range of interests and maturity levels, finding common ground is difficult, but there is one program we never miss: Project Runway.

(If you aren’t familiar with the show, you can check it out here, but it’s basically a cross between Survivor and American Idol for up-and-coming fashion designers.)

My mother has always been a little concerned about our Project Runway viewing. To her dismay, it’s inspired Keara, her eldest granddaughter, to dream of a career in fashion. To her dismay, her eldest grandson, Finn, has watched it religiously since he was 6 years old, (To be honest, at 13, Finn has backed away from claiming it’s one of his favorite shows.) To her great dismay, little Molly does killer imitations of any and all of the most flamboyant contestants.

My mother has had all this dismay and has never once seen the show. She just saw the impact it had on our family culture and wasn’t so keen on it. And then, Season 10 began and somehow my mother saw it and then the real dismay began. She couldn’t believe I let my children watch. It was chaotic and cruel and the people were crazy and no one was nice. What in the world was I thinking? (Tim has given up asking that question, but he thinks it all the time as well. He is not a fan of Project Runway.)

But Episode 3 of this season gave me the perfect way to explain “what I’m thinking” by allowing my kids to watch the show.

In that week’s challenge, designers were randomly paired up to create a red carpet, runway ‘look.’ Enter Elena and Buffy, two of the most unlikely partners you will ever find. Elena is angry and high-strung. Buffy is a friendly, jovial sort. Elena wears her dark hair in severe French braids and scowls at the camera, while Buffy flashes one smile after another. Buffy even has pink hair, accented with a multi-colored, cheetah patch shaved into the side. Elena designs would fit in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo collection. Buffy could design for the Girls Just Wanna Have Fun boutique.

Their time together went about as well as you can imagine, with Elena bossing, criticizing, and sniping at her partner and Buffy keeping her head down, too afraid to say anything for fear of having her head bitten off. As I watched it with Molly, I thought how we might cover the basic Project Runway Life Lessons – again.

What kind of person do you want to be? A nice one.

How should you treat people? With respect.

Who do we root for? The good guy with the most talent, of course.

Those are the standard conversations Project Runway delivers to our home on a weekly basis.

But then it happened, that little moment where a whole new conversation unfolds.

In a cutaway interview, Elena defended her actions,

“Being from where I am, you need a toughness to survive. If you go to Ukraine, no one is going to say please and thank you and blah, blah, blah. To just survive and eat every day, people really have to hustle. You have to be very strong. The weak ones don’t survive.”

Suddenly her strident behavior made sense. She comes from a place of scarcity and even though she has lived in the States for almost 20 years, the fear of not having enough has never subsided. I imagine that fear gives rise to the aggression and arrogance that Elena displays, not just toward Buffy, but also toward everyone on the show, from contestants to judges to the grandfatherly host.

I recently read a passage from a book and I immediately thought of Elena. The author said, “Where does arrogance come from? The answer, I think, is fear. The more insecure I feel, the more arrogant I tend to become and the most arrogant people I know are also the most insecure. The arrogant ego… is fearful of losing its status if it loses the battle at hand.” In a world of scarcity, to lose a single battle is to risk losing everything.

In contrast to Elena, it’s clear that Buffy comes from a place of abundance, a place where it’s easy to say “Please” and “Thank you” and wait your turn, because there is always enough. (We thought she was from England, but it turns out she was raised in Dubai.) When you are assured of your place in life and in line, you can sacrifice your ego once in a while for the sake of peace and the well-being of the other. You know there is always another opportunity around the corner.

After Elena’s comments, I paused the show and Molly and I talked about scarcity and abundance, about communism and capitalism, and about how our childhood experiences shape us. Was Elena really talking just about food? What else might have been scarce? Maybe kindness and compassion, love, or respect? Even if they were present in her home life, they obviously weren’t abundant in her culture. To this day, their lack affects her perception of the world and therefore the audience’s perception of her.

I’m almost embarrassed to admit that Elena is currently listed as the “Fan Favorite” on the official website by a wide margin. What does that say about the typical viewer of the show? Nothing good I’m afraid, but clearly, we are not the typical viewer. Buffy is Molly’s favorite contestant and I asked her to think about what Buffy had in abundance as a child. Probably everything, we agreed. When you think of Buffy as a girl, you think of art supplies, dance lessons, and face painting, but Molly thought she probably had lots of love and patience, hugs and kisses too and maybe even a really funny dad. When you have an abundance of joy, it’s easy to share with others. I guess the same goes for pain too.

Molly and I wrapped up our “talking timeout” by naming some of the “abundance” people we know and how much we enjoy their company, but we also thought about the “Elenas” in our life, who might need a little more empathy the next time we encounter them on the playground, or in life. Scarcity is no fun and it’s scars run deep.

I never imagined I would be having this conversation with my 10 year old on a Saturday morning, but that’s the magic of Project Runway. Under the guise of fun and fashion, it allows me to talk with my kids about everything from politics to economics, morality to spirituality. You aren’t going to get that in 60-minutes or less anywhere else.

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Humbled. Chastened. Abashed.

I’m not quite sure what to call it, but I think that is what I felt as I sat at my computer this morning.

It started out simply enough, a quiet cup of coffee together before Tim headed off to work and the kids woke up. We’d been on a family vacation for a few days. The house was a mess and the pantry was bare.

There was work to be done.

I knew I would be busy this day, with home and office work, with emails to answer and send, calls to make and return, pages to read and write. But I thought of how Tim was leaving for work before 7, shaved, showered and dressed – with shoes and socks on even – and how he wouldn’t be back for at least 10 hours. I thought about how most my work could be done in my pajamas and slippers, without ever leaving the comfort of my own home, or car, or neighborhood. In gratitude, I wanted to go the extra mile. As I looked up at him to say goodbye, I said, “Is there anything special I can do for you today, babe?”

I thought he might mention a favorite meal for dinner tonight, something he needed from the market, or a chore he wanted me to do.

Instead he took my hands in his, looked me in the eye and said, “Could you be happy when I get home tonight?”

Gulp.

I laughed and said, “Of course, I’ll do my best!”

And he laughed and kissed me goodbye and left. Within an hour, I had the kids up and all the breakfasts and lunches made and packed. I collected the swimsuits and towels and water bottles and hats and backpacks and fins and got them to their right owners. I applied sunscreen and hugged and kissed and sent my little lifeguards off to their 10th consecutive day at the beach.

And then I stopped and thought, “What did he mean by that?” and then I sat down to write.

Last year, my friend Nanette took me to a two-day seminar called, The Extraordinary Value of a Man. Go ahead and laugh. I know I did when I heard what it was called, but I adore Nanette and would go anywhere and listen to anything just to spend two days with her. I heard many things that weekend that made me uncomfortable as a middle-of-the-road feminist. I hate to hear traditional gender roles and stereotypes discussed as facts. I understand the danger of essentializing genders, of saying, “This is how men are…”, or “This is what women want…” As an academic, I understand how powerful and therefore how damaging those cultural messages can be. But as a woman and a wife, I heard many other things that were true of my husband and myself and the way we relate to each other. So although I think the seminar might have been more appropriately called The Value of an Extraordinary Man (because there is a big difference), one particular line helped me to understand better where this morning’s strange request came from. I had scribbled in the margins of a handout from the weekend,

“When you’re happy, he’s winning.”

Let me clarify; I don’t think it’s strange that Tim wants me to be happy. I do think it’s a little strange that he asked to me to be happy. Generally, I’m a happy person. If you ask people to describe me, my smiley demeanor is one of the first things they will mention. Happiness, at least on the surface, is my default setting.

What I think Tim was really telling me when he left for work today was that he needed a win. When he comes home tonight, what he really wants to know is that what he did all day matters, that I have benefitted from his hard work and effort, from the sacrifices he makes to provide for our family, not just financially, but across the board in every way. He doesn’t want more accolades, or appreciation, or even fawning servitude. He just wants to see me smile. If the kids are smiling as well, that’s even better.

So what about those emotions I mentioned when I sat down to write about this? How could such a simple request bring about such a strong reaction? It certainly wasn’t his intention to make me feel that way and if I know my husband, he’ll apologize as soon as he reads this, even though he simply answered my question.

Tim didn’t call me out. He didn’t criticize me, or admonish me to do more. He simply asked me to be the one thing I claim to be  – happy. When I look at my life and the many things I am fortunate enough to have, I don’t know how I could be anything else. We have everything we need, and many things we want. We have health, home, family and friends. We have each other. Are there stresses and worries and things that go wrong? Absolutely. Is there pressure to succeed and perform at ever higher levels? Of course. Are there fights and parenting dilemmas and tension every day? You bet.

Can I still be happy at a certain time (around 5pm), on a certain day (Monday, July 30, 2012), in a certain place (our home)? I am certainly going to try. Depending on what happens at 4:59, making his favorite dinner might have been a whole lot easier. It doesn’t change the fact that my happiness is one of the things he is most proud of.  It’s chastening to think that the gift I share so freely with others has not been so freely given in my own home.  However, a little humble pie might be just the motivation I need to make it happen tonight and any other night I might forget to be grateful for all that I have.

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No matter what faith tradition you come from, or even if you come from none at all, we’re all familiar with some version of The Golden Rule:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

We learned it in our kindergarten classrooms, sitting shoulder to shoulder with the nose-pickers and glue stick-eaters, pretending we weren’t one of them. We heard it echoed at the start of every school year, when teachers established the rules that would govern the classroom. From playground politics to sticky-fingers in the supply cabinet, they could always refer back to that ethic of reciprocity, forever posted in a prominent place for all to see.

Following The Golden Rule was tough enough to do back then, but in many ways, I think it’s even tougher to do now. Oh, we might think we’ve got it down, waiting patiently in the Starbucks line, holding the door for strangers, and wishing acquaintances and friends “Happy Birthday” on their Facebook pages, but every day, from gossip (celebrities count!) to driving (don’t we like to see a blinker once in a while?) to how we greet our loved ones when they come home, we are challenged to act only in ways we would want to be acted upon.

Because of my faith tradition, I have had the added bonus, (or onus) of following Jesus’ precept to “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” As a young person, I thought the two rules were synonymous, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see how much more challenging it is to follow the latter, instead of simply abiding by the former.

Take carpooling, for instance. Are you familiar with the “Golden Rule of Carpool?”

Carpooling is a fact of life for most families, a necessary evil one moment, and a lifeline the next. With careful planning and selectivity, a carpool can magically reduce your driving workload in half, sometimes even more. It can give you time, peace of mind and a little more money in your pocket (or a lot with gas at $4/gallon.) However with the wrong people involved, carpooling becomes an exercise in frustration and masochism. Any experienced parent knows this, which is why we manage our carpools so carefully.

So on the surface, it would seem that the “Golden Rule of Carpool” is pretty straightforward. Carpool with people you trust. Show up on time and on the right days. Deliver children to the destination in a timely manner. Bring them home again safe and sound and having learned no new curse words from the moment they entered your vehicle until they left it. That is “doing unto others what you would have them do unto you.”

But is there a difference between that and “Christian Carpooling?” Recently I was challenged to think about what it means to truly follow in my Rabbi’s footsteps and “love my neighbor as myself” when it comes to the daily grind of transportation.

I’m not speaking of the times when we “rise to the occasion,” as my mother calls it. I am sure we’ve all stepped up and helped out a friend, or neighbor in need, due to sickness, injury, or hardship. In those cases, we don’t even mind doing all the driving ourselves, if it truly helps someone. We feel kind of good about making the sacrifice and deep down we expect that someone would do the same for us, if circumstances were different.

But what about those times when there is no need, no ‘occasion’ to rise to? What is The Golden Rule when it comes to someone else’s convenience, especially if it slightly inconveniences you? This was my dilemma.

My three kids have gone to a jr. lifeguard program every summer for the past four years. The beach is about 15 miles from our home and I have carpooled with the same two families every year. We have the “Golden Rule of Carpool” down pat. We show up. We drive safely. We even treat all the kids to Slurpees once, or twice a week. There is music; there is laughter; there is dancing; there is joy. This is my wheelhouse; sandy, salty, sunburned, wet-headed kids are a favorite of mine.

My carpool was planned weeks ago. We even included a new family for two of the four weeks when they needed our help. The passenger manifesto was maxed out at seven, (which is why so many of us can never get a Prius though we long for one.) I had an IPod full of summer pop music to wake the kids up on the morning commute, and I was looking forward to hearing all about their adventures when it was my turn for the afternoon drive home.

And then on Saturday night, just two days before the program began, I got a text from a mom I know in the neighborhood. I wouldn’t call us friends, but we are definitely friendly.

Her: I saw your kids are in Junior Guards with one of mine. Can we carpool?

Alas, No, was my easy answer. We are all full up, with 5, then 7. Sorry!  But, I added with Christian charity, if you get in a pinch, give me a call and I will try to help out! 🙂

She responded back quickly with Do you know such and such? which I did, of course. That family provided our #6 and #7 for part of the program.

Me: Yes, they are with us. Sorry!

To which she replied, Oh, you have 7 and I only have 1! Boo… hoo… 😦

At which point, my guilt kicked in. Something about those numbers tugged at my heart and I gave up on the “Golden Rule of Carpool” and switched to the concept of “Christian Carpooling” instead.

(A downside to a daily practice of meditation and prayer is that you become more and more aware of how everything you do is an act of faith.)

I started to think about how many carpool parables Jesus might use if he were alive today in Southern California. I thought about how I had “many” and she had only one. I thought about how I was part of the “inside” group with my carpool all organized and fun. I thought about how it must feel to be on the “outside,” just she and her child. I thought about how truly golden it would be if I reached out and included them, however I could.

I thought about all those things and then I did nothing.

But the very next day I got a phone call from her, asking again very nicely to please include her child in our carpool, at least at least for two weeks before the other kids joined in.

On the spot, I caved and Tim just shook his head. I have a long and checkered history of taking on other people’s carpool problems, but I couldn’t help it. Though I didn’t want to change my plans, it just didn’t seem right not to make her problem my own.

Is that last statement a sign of Christianity, or co-dependency? Is there a difference? Is that why we have so many co-dependent Christians?

And so in the midst of my Sunday chores, while my kids were out back, swimming and eating popsicles, I began the shuffling of responsibilities, the emails, and phone calls to the original parties: the “Would you mind…?” and the “How about…?” and the “Does this work for you?” When I got to the end of the driving assignments, I had apparently made a mistake, because then the text messages began. Our new carpool member couldn’t drive certain days and times and though the requests weren’t unreasonable by any means, I had to be the dispatcher, and start over again.

Sigh.

Why does “Christian carpooling” always come back to bite you in the butt?

I would like to say that my charitable impulse to include our new carpooler made these chores a breeze. I would like to say I felt good about rearranging our schedules. I would like to say I did it all with a smile on my face and love in my heart, but I would be lying. I didn’t. I was actually pretty darn bitter about having to spend time on a beautiful afternoon on something I didn’t want to do in the first place.

While I think I did the right thing by helping out this mother and child, I sure wish that when I have an impulse to do the right thing that impulse would stick around a little longer and carry me through the execution phase as well. But I guess an impulse is just that – a pulse. In my case, a split-second surge of goodwill, of trying to love my neighbor as myself, caused me to lose an hour or two to general crankiness, which I directed at the people around me. It was “the Cheese Touch” all over again.

When Tim called me out on it, I didn’t know what to say except this: I wish I were more holy, more Zen, more able to have my inside emotions align with my outside actions. I’m trying to get there, but when I struggle so much to get it right when it comes to something as simple as carpooling, I’ve clearly got a long way to go.

Post Script: We are three days into the jr. lifeguard program and our additional passenger is lovely. Neither child, nor parent has added one bit of stress, or unpleasantness to our days. In fact, the conversation is better with this one around.

Note to self: Make the effort. Withhold judgment. Love your neighbor.

Disclaimer: If you read this and knew I was writing about you, thank you for carpooling with us for these next few weeks. It’s a pleasure.

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Many, many years ago, I was a part-time faculty member in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing at SDSU. It was my dream job – or rather, it was the job I dreamed of having, when having a job was just a dream.

At twenty-one, I was finishing up my B.A., applying to grad school, and engaged to be married to the man I loved. Tim and I went back and forth about whether I would get my doctorate and take a tenure track position wherever it was offered, or whether we would put down roots in San Diego and open a surf shop. Obviously, the surf shop won. One of the deciding factors was that I wanted to be a full-time mom to the kids we would have someday. While doing my research, I didn’t get the feeling that a university professor could take years off to lie on the floor and read board books and push around wooden trains.

So I dreamed of a part-time position, teaching and mothering in tandem, and my dream came true. From the time I got my master’s degree until I became pregnant with our third child, I had steady and regular employment at several different campuses around Southern California. And when I finally left, it wasn’t because things weren’t working out the way I hoped they would.

I left, because I wasn’t who I thought I was.

I had always loved to read and write. At twenty-one, I couldn’t imagine that wouldn’t always be the most important skill I had to share with my students and if I couldn’t teach them how to love reading and writing, then at least I could teach them how to do it well. So I taught them how to read critically, how to say what they meant, and sometimes even how to find something meaningful to say.

But after a few years of teaching, of watching students come in and out of my classroom, becoming better readers and writers, I realized that it wasn’t actually what I wanted to teach them any more. I realized that there were more important things I wanted them to know. I was teaching them how to write, but I wanted to teach them how to be.

Does that sound arrogant to you? Pompous? Conceited? If it does, you’re right and unfortunately, those words describe most of the college professors I had ever met, or at least the ones I disliked the most and I DIDN’T WANT TO BECOME ONE OF THEM. I didn’t want to be another authority figure, who ostensibly taught their subject matter, but in reality, filled lectures with their own personal philosophies. It didn’t matter if it was communism, atheism, socialism, patriotism, Catholicism, or simply hedonism. Although I couldn’t have named my ‘ism’ at the time, I knew I was struggling to teach without it.

And so, uneasy in my professional life, I carried on for another year or two, until I stumbled across an essay in an Oprah magazine from January, 2001. I still have the original page, tucked away in a file. It was written by Parker Palmer, someone I had never heard of at that point and it was called, “Are You Listening to Your Life?” Palmer’s words resonated with something deep inside me.

He said, “I was in my early 30s when I first began to question my calling, teaching at a university and doing it reasonably well, but I felt stifled by the confines of academic life. A small voice inside was calling me toward something unknown and risky, yet more congruent with my own truth.” He admired Gandhi, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. He had read their work and allowed it to change him. He went on to admit that “Clinging fearfully to my academic job even though it was a bad fit, I tried to teach the way I imagined my heroes would. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque, as when I caught myself preaching to students instead of teaching them. I had simply found a ‘noble’ way to live a false life, imitating my heroes instead of listening to my heart.”

And as I read those words, curled up on my couch with a cup of tea on a January afternoon, he spoke to my heart and he broke my heart. I remember the tears streaming down my face and my heart beating faster. Becoming a college professor was all I had ever wanted to do professionally. I had never conceived of a time when I would not want to read literature, write about literature and teach literature. I didn’t even know what else I could do. I just knew what I had to do, even though it seemed impossible. I knew it was possible, because I saw him do it first.

Frederick Buechner, an author and theologian, defined vocation as “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” I knew that there was a deep need for good writing instruction – any school principal, college dean, or business leader will tell you that, and I knew that I could meet that need; I was good at it. I had the reviews and renewed teaching contracts to prove it. But after my many years of teaching, I also knew that I would not find my deep gladness there.

I couldn’t teach, or preach in my classroom any more – it just didn’t matter enough to me if they knew how to write a thesis, organize an essay, or correctly punctuate a sentence. I still loved literature. I still loved being around young people. I still wanted to influence their lives. I just knew that my vocation was not teaching. I felt that staying in the profession was a disservice to my students and myself. It was no longer an authentic way of communicating who I was and what mattered to me. Maybe it was naïve to quit and get out of the work force, but I wasn’t able to see another way to listen to my heart and I had the privilege of making that choice.

For the next ten years, I found my “deep gladness” being a mother. As a bonus, nothing about that career choice kept me from sharing my “isms.” I didn’t have to hide my personal philosophy from “my students.” I was and still am allowed to teach, preach and even screech what I believe. As a matter of fact, it’s my responsibility to teach them how to be and as a bonus, I get to teach them how to write as well. It is one of the perks of my job, but as a full-time position, it’s rapidly coming to an end. They are all proficient writers, but even more importantly, they are beyond-proficient, decent human beings and so once again I have become uneasy in my “professional” life. While it has brought me “deep gladness,” I believe I can do more to “meet the world’s deep need.”

Though I wasn’t sure what I was “supposed” to do, a few years ago I started to write for an educational non-profit.  I began to speak to different groups when invited and last year, I started this blog. I hear from time to time that it has helped someone to think about how to be in this world and those comments always make me smile, because deep down I know I am still teaching, though maybe not in the traditional sense.

Ironically enough, I recently came across Parker Palmer again, this time in his book A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. Though I got it at the library, it is covered in my sticky notes, of different sizes and colors, some for me, some for Tim, and some for my friend T, who reads every great book with me. She already has her own copy on order from Amazon.

In the very first chapter, he lays out a problem many of people face, myself among them.

Afraid that our inner light will be extinguished, or our inner darkness exposed, we hide our true identities from each other. In the process, we become separated from our own souls. We end up living divided lives, so far removed from the truth we hold within that we cannot know the ‘integrity that comes from being what you are.

At twenty, I pursued a career in good faith, thinking I knew who I was. At thirty, I took a leap and fully embraced it, but in the smallest terms possible, within the four walls of my home and the four people who lived there. At forty, I am knocking those walls down again, while trying to remain faithful to who I am and the truth I hold within. It is the truth I have learned over the last twenty years of teaching and writing, parenthood and marriage, business and friendship.

I am here to love. I am here to be with people, to support, and to serve them. In my best moments, when I am patient and humble and kind, I am here to help people see for themselves who they are and what they are capable of.

And it doesn’t matter whether I do it in a classroom, or a conference room, on paper, or in person. It is my vocation, “where my deepest gladness meets the world’s deep need.”

What is your vocation? What are you called to do in the biggest terms possible? How are you living it out?

That isn’t a loaded question. I think we all live out our vocation in at least some small way in our lives. It’s what gives us the ability to find joy, to smile and love and ultimately, to carry on, each and every day. 

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Last week as I was walking I had a really hard time getting rid of Patty – you remember her – my “neighbor” who haunts my morning walks. If you missed that story, you can catch up here.

So there was Patty, just yammering away – I can’t even remember exactly what she was worried about – but she was digging into the past, projecting into the future, finding the most minute and gruesome details to chew on and the more I tried to leave her and my ego, my mind, and my worries behind, the less I seemed able to do so. I resembled nothing so much as a dog gnawing a bone.

I tried to breathe in and out, to place myself in the present moment, to enjoy the nature around me, but I was barely taking it in. I felt like I was simply a brain, walking around on my own two feet. Does this look familiar?

And so I began to pray that I could move out of my head and into my heart– that God would help me to truly feel something. There are so many things I think I know, but so few things that I truly feel. And so as I walked I asked God to help me feel, to soften my heart, to give me an experience of real emotion. But after praying for feelings for a minute or two, I started to get nervous. I chickened out and began to backpedal. I know what it feels like to feel things, and I don’t particularly like it.

I said in effect, “Just kidding about that God. I don’t actually want to have a heart that feels things deeply. That hurts too much, so here’s my new and improved prayer. I pray for the feeling to want feelings. I pray that you give me the desire to desire feelings. Someday I will want things to touch my heart, but I’m not there yet, so let’s just go slow. Give me the courage to feel things and then I will pray for things to feel.”

Whew I thought, that was a close one. Baby steps really are the way to go when it comes to these kinds of things.

I continued on with my walk, thinking I had dodged a bullet, and relieved that I had made it quite clear to that I wasn’t up for the challenge yet. I went back to Patty and my old self and walked on home.

Not surprisingly, I didn’t see any ‘#signs of love’ on my walk that day.

But a funny thing happened when I got home. I started getting everyone ready for school – smoothies and bagels and 6-course lunches for four, and then Keara remembered to do something important she forgot, which made a major mess in my kitchen where I was already making a mess and suddenly, wouldn’t you know it, I felt something! Standing there in my kitchen, I felt something ghastly rising up inside me, something like rage, something like judgment and frustration and bitterness! And wouldn’t you know it, I acted on those emotions, because in my experience, that’s what you do when you feel something. And I raised my voice, and I grabbed her project and I finished it for her – the right way of course- and tossed the finished project at her and asked everyone to please get out of my kitchen, thank you very much and I would just handle everything myself and deliver everything they needed if they would just please go away and be quiet!

So that went super well.

And I barely had time to make my apologies before they had to leave for school, but I did. I gave them kisses and hugs and said I was sorry for losing my cool and for acting crazy. I told them they were lovable, sweet, kind children who didn’t deserve the temper tantrum their mother just had. Keara also got a quick reminder that it would really help me out if she would try to remember to wrap up messy projects sooner rather than later.

And Tim, who missed it all because he was upstairs, shot me a quizzical look on his way out the door, which I just waved away, with a “Have a nice day!”

And when the house was silent, I could hear God laughing and I started laughing too, because really, what else can you do?

Apparently, God has selective hearing, just like my husband who tends to be good at hearing what he wants to hear and really good at tuning out the rest. God listened when I asked to experience genuine emotion and ignored me when I took it back. Within minutes God gave me real emotions – they just happened to be really negative emotions. Perhaps I wasn’t specific enough.

I don’t believe in unanswered prayers. I believe that much of the time, we just don’t like the answer, so we put our heads down and pretend that we don’t see it sitting there the whole time.

Obviously, I got the answer to my prayer that morning. God listened to the brave part of my prayer – the part that admitted I was ready to grow and change, and be free of the prison of my mind and the safety it affords me. I also believe He heard the second part of my prayer, where my courage failed and I asked to be left a little bit longer in the cell of my comfort zone.

Is it any wonder that He gives more credence to the prayers that align us with His will? The ones that make us more loving, more compassionate, more fully human and therefore more divine? Is it any wonder that He ignores the rest?

While part of me wanted to say, “See! Don’t give them to me; I don’t know how to handle them responsibly,” the other part of me knew that I was one failure closer to success. Next time I could, and perhaps even would, do better. Next time, I might even experience feelings of deep joy and excitement and what might my response be then? I don’t know, but it might be wonderful to watch.

So I will keep trying to say that brave part of prayer over and over again. I will keep trying to stay open to Love and how it makes me feel and if I respond like a two-year-old, that’s okay.

I’m working on it.

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Rachel Held Evans wrote a great blog recently about the concept of being ‘enough’ and it got me thinking seriously about what that would actually mean – to feel like you were ‘enough,’ simply by the fact of your existence.

I’m not talking about being enough because I work hard, or prepare meals, or work out at the gym, or read good books, or go to church or do laundry, or get paid. I’m not talking about being enough, because I do anything right, or of value.

I am enough, simply because I am.

Talk about a radical idea…

Last week I made a hand-written sign to put above my desk where I sit and write. It said, “Things don’t have to be perfect. Good enough really is good enough!!!” If you’re familiar with my blog, you know that wanting things to be ‘perfect’ is one of my vices.

It’s something I’m working on, with imperfect results, of course.

Case in point, the first sign I made wasn’t just right and I was about to make a new one to improve the spacing and color coordination, when I caught myself. Apparently when I created the sign, I hadn’t actually meant it. I considered it a minor victory that I stopped myself and said, “This sign is good enough.”

I apologize to my kids frequently for putting them on the wrong side of the column – the side where I put things I can make perfect, things that I can control. Don’t ask me why ANYTHING is in that column at all. It’s a fantasy, but it’s especially insulting to other human beings when you make them your own personal perfection projects. My kids don’t deserve that! No one does. Tim, by the way, was off that list about 15 years ago, which I think is the reason we’re still happily married today.

Ah, but back to my sign. By creating the sign, I was trying to remind myself not to obsess over my writing, my work, my kids, my finances, my house, my life. I was trying to encourage myself to see that things really are okay, and that okay is okay.

But after I read Rachel’s blog, I saw that my signs didn’t go far enough. By telling myself to let things simply be ‘good enough,’ I was still saying flat out that they could be better, that they probably should be better, but that forgiving myself for not making them better was the best way to go.

But Rachel’s point is this – we are enough. Simply by the fact of our existence, our birth, our presence in the world, we are enough.

If I get the dishes done before Tim comes home, I am enough. If I don’t, I’m still enough. If I make a healthy, home-cooked meal, I am enough; if they eat McDonald’s, yep, I’m still enough. If I smile at my neighbor, work in a soup kitchen, and turn in a kick ass assignment for my boss, I am worthy and even when I don’t, I am enough.

And honestly, I don’t think feeling like I am enough would let me off the hook. It doesn’t mean that I can lay around the house all day, watching reruns, eating Cheetos and feeling good about myself. Well, sometimes I can. But for the most part, I imagine that having the sense that I am enough would give me the desire to treat other people as if they were enough – my kids, my spouse, the annoying checker at the supermarket. If I am enough, so are they, and so how in the world could I treat them as if they left something to be desired? However they are, they are enough to merit my love, my respect, my time and for the checker at Vons, at least a smile.

I went walking on Saturday morning, with this radical concept of enough-ness, rattling around in my head. After reading her blog, I got why she says we are enough – at least in theory. And I started to reflect on how I can know something is true and yet have that knowledge barely scratch the surface of my heart. And then I laughed, because of course, for me, knowing something is very different from feeling something.

I know I am enough, but do I feel like enough?

Not by a long shot!

So that was my task as I walked that morning. I prayed that my heart, this hard little shell that I have lodged deep in my chest, would crack open just a little bit, and allow what I know in my head to drop down into my heart, to give me just a glimpse, just a taste of what it feels like to be enough. I would have loved a rush of emotion, a complete transformation, a ‘born again’ moment, but alas, no such miracles were forthcoming.

But at one point under the balcony of trees in the canyon, I stopped and I just breathed in and out, trying to be present to myself, to my heart and mind. I lifted up my insecurities, my perfectionist impulses, my ‘to-do-to-be-perfect’ list and I dismissed them. I just said, “Here. I don’t want them. Take them and don’t give them back.”

Of course they didn’t really go anywhere. I talk a good game, but apparently my well-trained compulsions are on a short leash. They always come back to me, even when I don’t call.

So what I hoped for didn’t happen, but this did. After a minute or two of standing there, wishing like crazy that I could feel something that felt like being enough, I opened my eyes, and this is what I saw.

heart nature

And I knew that my prayers, my desires, my longings were heard. Somehow, the request had gone out. I did not get the answer I wanted, right when I wanted it, which would have been perfect, but I got a sign of Love, of Presence, and of Grace.

And it wasn’t just good.

It was simply enough.