Thank yous, I love yous, and our limited time

I loved Jen's post today about both the importance and challenge of saying thank you to the people who touch us in our lives. The essay brought to mind for me a cascade of thoughts and of other writing that I've liked in the past. The point that really resonated with me was that we forget to thank those whose impact on our lives might not be as obvious - we just don't think of it, and then the opportunity is gone. She was not speaking of our best friends, but of those strangers whose lives have somehow touched ours, often in much more meaningful and long-lasting ways than they probably ever imagined.

Of course my mind started cartwheeling through who these people might be for me. The kind friend of my father's who I had lunch with my sophomore year at Princeton, asking professional advice. He had had the career I (thought at the time) wanted, and his counsel was firm: don't go into chemistry just to get a job at McKinsey. Major in what you love. He was right, of course: I majored in English, I loved it, I spent ten years in management consulting and ... look where I am now. It is also the wonderfully kind teacher at Exeter whose support and encouragement made me consider, for the first time, that I might have something real to say. It is also my first yoga teacher, whose inspiration was enough to light my practice on fire; that fire may flicker and wane, but it has not and will not go out. It is also the midwife who, firmly but gently, diagnosed my post partum depression and changed the trajectory of the early weeks of my motherhood experience.

I could go on, of course. It is a good exercise, I think, to think through who those people are for each of us. I actually think, too, that those we hold dearest can never be told enough how much we care about them. I think often of Peggy Noonan's wonderful editorial after 9/11, about the last phone calls made and messages left by those who perished in the attacks. The column asserts something I believe deeply: expressing how we feel frequently, rather than cheapening the words, instead allows them to sink into the object of our affection's very marrow. Her line that I love is this:

We're all lucky to be here today and able to say what deserves saying, and if you say it a lot, it won't make it common and so unheard, but known and absorbed.

Hanging over both Jen and Peggy's columns is, of course, the specter of the fact that someday we won't be able to thank those who matter to us (near or far). In each case, the words are haunted by the fact that we can't know when that day will come, that day when we can no longer say "thank you, you mean a lot to me." It is tragic to me how often I hear of people rushing to a deathbed to share how they feel, or, worse, hear about regret at not having been able to express those feelings in time. It seems obvious that we ought to work harder to thank people, to let those who we love know it, as we go along.

As we travel the arc of our lives, whose shape - graceful and long or abrupt and short - we cannot know, it would behoove us to be grateful, thoughtful, and communicative. Easier said than done, of course. Like cleaning up as you go along while cooking dinner, this is instinctive for some, learned for others, and impossible for a few.

Without that vague threat that someday we won't be able to do so, would any of us express anything at all? Is this just another way that death defines life? This article by Todd May in the New York Times addresses this in a thoughtful, elegant way. His claim that it is the very fact of death that both animates and delineates our lives has been stuck in my head. I've been turning it over like a stone, looking at the argument from both sides, finding myself rubbing its smoothness, agreeing with its truth. He describes the human as a "forward-looking creatures" who see the meaning of everything we do in the "light" of the future. And then, of course, death is there in every moment, dampening that light and giving it shape. This seems like an unresolvable tension: without death our lives are formless, but it is also the fact that is hardest to reconcile with our essentially prospective natures. This conundrum lies at the heart of living, says May, and I agree with him.

His closing lines say it better than I can:

But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us. Our happiness lies in being able to inhabit that fact.

Competitiveness

At soccer this morning I watched my seven year old play soccer on the Common. I remember myself as a seven year old, playing soccer on the Common. It's true, the adage that parenting is a ticket back to your own childhood. I remembered that I was a complete space cadet of a soccer player, usually doing cartwheels on the field and totally missing the ball when it passed me by.

Cartwheels seem to be a theme of my "competitive" sports career. And not, say, in gymnastics, where they might be appropriate. I was teased for my cartwheels as a lower school soccer player. And in high school, when I ran cross country, I always did a cartwheel at some point during the 3.1 mile course. My coach was always annoyed: "Lindsey, if you have enough energy to do a cartwheel in the home stretch, perhaps you could push yourself to run faster...?"

Mature, that was not. But it evinced my utter lack of interest in competitive sports. I qualified for the state finals in cross country my senior year and gave my spot to someone else on the team who was more interested in running. That was classic. I was not them and am not now at all competitive when it comes to sports or leisure activities. I just can't muster the energy: it's a game, people. People who don't know me well are often surprised by this lack of interest in keeping score. But it's absolutely true. And it makes me a lousy tennis opponent, or Scrabble competitor, or card player. I just don't care.

Soccer was pretty much my last effort at any kind of team sport. That was another one of my father's themes, growing up: that I should play team sports and not just solitary ones. What is more solitary, after all, than running? But I simply didn't want to, and so I didn't. And I still don't. I do see, in the abstract, the value of playing on a team. (as an aside, you know that "there is no 'I' in team?" well does nobody notice that there is a "me"?). But I also understand having a complete lack of interest in it. I'll see how it shakes out with Grace and Whit. So far they are still at the age where they pretty much need to be run like animals, and soccer provides a structured way to do that where someone else is in charge and I can just play word games on my iphone. So for now I like it.

A meandering Saturday morning post. I guess the (not very deep or revelatory) point is, I'm a loner who is not competitive about games.

Experience

Experience is a good teacher, but she sends in terrific bills. - Minna Antrim

Experience is a brutal teacher. But you learn - my God, you learn. - Shadowlands

I described this week how it is easier for me to answer "what don't you do?" than "what do you do?" That's for sure true. Likewise, there are certain thing I've never done that have become defining characteristics for me. At least, in my own head. Certain experiences I have never had that I cling to because they say who I am. I'd list them but they are private. Okay, fine, two examples are: Watch Star Wars. Be on Facebook.

And I realize that is ridiculous. Ridiculous. Who I am is solid as marble (or should be). Who I am is not defined by something I have or have not done. Just as I wrote in my earlier post, what we do and do not do is a deeply imperfect reflection of who we are, not at all a complete picture. Of course it isn't. In fact, isn't relying on those external indicators, those small things, to judge either our own or someone else's self kind of a copout? A shortcut that is easier than actually getting to know who we - or they are?

I wonder if I cling to these external markers of identity so fiercely because without them I feel lost. Without hanging on to the edge of the dock that concrete definitions represent - until my fingertips are white! - I am bobbing alone in the sea. And that is terrifying. I'm not a great swimmer. And in the ocean of Identity, Meaning, Self-Confidence? I can barely do the doggie paddle.

But I have to trust. What's my option? I have been doing an online course about creativity and manifesting our dreams, Mondo Beyondo, which has really made me think. I haven't dedicated as much time or attention to it as I wish I had, but I have read every "lesson" post that the two teachers have shared. Many of them have clanged around in my brain like a loud gong, their echoes coming up again and again. One lesson in particular was about how sometimes, to get to our dreams, we have to disassemble significant things. The piece asserted that while we assume that "living our dreams" is a positive, happy thing, it can actually require a significant amount of letting go, breaking down, breaking through.

What does that mean for me right now? I'm still figuring it out. But I think part of it is about letting go of these silly things I've clung to that tell me who and what I am. Or, really, that I think tell others who and what I am. I am not saying I am going to do all of those things I've never done, run wildly into the wall of reckless abandon, change my behavior in a radical way. Of course I'm not! Frankly many of the things I haven't done and don't do are because I have no interest!

But I am going to try to let go of those definitions. I am going to try to trust that those who matter really care about a much more fundamental me. I am going to try to believe that identity, and personhood, is much more essential than superficial indicators suggest. And that mine - my identity, my personhood, my self - is enough just as it is.

The wisdom of beverages

Sometimes photographs speak more echoingly truly than words.

In the last two days my hot beverages seem to be particularly sage.

Kelly Kelly Kelly!

I am very honored to be guest posting at Kelly Diels' new site, Cleavage, today.

Please go check her site out and read my thoughts on the Meaning of Life (small topic).

Also, major thanks to Sally for putting into much clearer words this morning what's been percolating in my head:

You cannot think your way to right action. Instead, act your way to right thinking.

Okay. I am trying.

The big and the small

I have always been focused on the polar ends of the spectrum of life's scale. The really big questions - Why? How? For what purpose? - have often fascinated me. At the same time, it's easy for me to get preoccupied with the very micro - the font on my Christmas card, how to put a widget on the side of my blog, the exact correct length of a pair of pants, why a person said X instead of Y.

This theme ran through my academic perambulations as well. I was torn between majoring in English, where the tension was between a book's grand sweeping theme and the exact cadence of each sentence, and Chemistry, where we talked about Hydrogen, the element the entire Universe is composed of, as well as titrated exact measurements of specific chemicals and added them to reactions at precisely 45 seconds.

It also informs how I react to people. When I first meet someone, I generally have a strong reaction to the energy that I receive from them. That, and I notice things like their hands and their email address and the way they hold their body (though, weirdly, I almost never notice people's eye color). This is true with my dear friends, too: I react to changes in their mood, which I perceive acutely and can sense when someone walks in the room, but I am also very tuned into the much smaller details, some superficial and some not, of their being.

I realize, however, that much of life happens in the middle of the poles of macro and micro. This is where my footing is unsteady. Maybe because of my historical discomfort here, maybe because I know intuitively that the real, messy stuff of life is in the middle. I don't know why, but I realize this is a weakness for me and I need to engage in it.

Also, I thought a lot last night (in my insomniac hours, again, Julie, hello!) that when my sadness sometimes threatens to swamp me, I think of it only in the Big terms. I think: wow, I am so sad, I am forfeiting my childrens' childhoods being sad, I must fix this and I must fix it NOW, by simply Not Being Sad. And, as is probably no surprise to any of you with more wisdom than I have, that has not been working. Last night I considered that perhaps I should start with the very small and see if I can chip away at the Big Sadness that way. So maybe I will focus on fresh air every day, eating food (last night my husband called me at 7:30 on his way home and asked what I'd had for dinner - only when I spoke to him did I realize I simply had not had any food all day long. I truly just forgot), seeing friends (I think I may have overcorrected, in my zealous desire for room to write and read, and have lost touch with how seeing a good friend can be positively life-giving), getting exercise.

So that is today's intention. Perhaps, by actively ignoring the big for a while, I can refuse to let it drown me (easier said than done, of course). Perhaps, by choosing instead to focus on the very little and granular, I can inch my way into the middle, where I am sure there is joy to be found. I am learning that for me, being present can be an act of sheer will. Maybe the same is true for where I turn my firehose of attention.

I am very sad these days, and casting about frantically for things to make me smile.

Today I'm thinking about what I find beautiful. Just as what disgusts us elucidates a bit of who we are, I think that to which we are viscerally drawn is very telling. One question I find really challenging is naming people I admire (I admire everyone for something, and few for everything). Conversely, I find it incredibly easy to describe what I find beautiful.

I am instinctively attracted to charisma. I love people who have that ineffable quality of making you simply want to be with them. I've likened it before to when, as a child, we used to all stand clustered on one corner of the raft in the ocean to make it tip over as steeply as we could. Certain people make a room tip like that, and all of the energy runs down into their corner. I love those people, especially those who are oblivious to the way they command others. Confidence is necessary but not sufficient for the quality I describe. I don't personally have this quality, and I profoundly drawn to those who do.

Simplicity is beautiful. I find uncluttered spaces, empty flat surfaces, white walls, white sheets, shining wooden floors very beautiful. There is something in spaces like that that sings to me of clarity, of an unfettered mind and the confidence that the bare bones are enough. Likewise, I often find simplicity of dress very beautiful. Carolyn Bessette Kennedy style. I admire the layering, magpie aesthetic that J Crew has working right now, but it always feels fussy and complicated when I try it.

Sureness of purpose is beautiful. I know people who are truly pursuing their dharma, their passion, their purpose, and they seem be galloping smoothly. In contrast I feel I am trotting awkwardly, running a three-legged race with one leg tied to an uncoordinated partner. I am so drawn to those who know what their are supposed to be doing and who are doing it with their whole heart. I am riveted hearing people talk about their passions, whatever they are, and when someone speaks from that place I am interested, no matter what the topic.

Moments can be beautiful. Some, planned and actively created, like this summer's dinner with my dear friends around a table to celebrate my birthday. Others, as unexpected and evanescent as catching a hummingbird buzzing by. Some people I know, like Hadley, are expert at crafting such beauty. When I am with her the days are stuffed full of experiences that I recall, infinitessimally small but gorgeous and memorable, as though she somehow made sure the shaft of light was falling at the right angle through the champagne cocktail and the music was perfect. This is a talent and I am grateful for being exposed to it.

I am deeply attracted to feeling safe. The feeling of serenity and security is, for some reason I don't quite understand, not natural for me, and people and places who provide it are thus profoundly appealing. The vague feeling of having the dark and confusing cosmos rendered understandable to me is fleeting, provided by few, and desperately attractive. I don't know exactly when or where I started fearing that the very earth I stand on is unstable, but I do, and I cherish those who can protect me from the earthquakes.

What else do I find beautiful? So much. I don't yet see the sweeping themes here, but I am sure they exist. If you see some, please let me know.

Smiles with wrinkles crinkling the sides of the eyes, sleeping children, the smell of laundry, the sound of halyards snapping against masts, dark blue pedicures, midtown New York at night at Christmas, heartfelt thanks.

The way certain people I love look at me when they feel love, faded jeans, the first flutter when I felt my babies inside of me, certain songs whose lyrics make me cry, Mark Rothko, rowers slicing through the Charles at dawn as the fog lifts off the river.

A cold glass of wine at the beginning of a night I'm looking forward to, a baby's goosedown hair, handwriting, my leather bracelet I never take off, the graceful lines of Apple products (some made of a single piece of aluminium), fountain pens, the black and white photograph of my mother sailing a dinghy when she was a child.

Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings, the words of Mary Oliver and Sharon Olds, the kindness showed to me by Mr. Valhouli all the way back at boarding school, Manolo Blahnik strappy stilettos, projects made by hand and with care just for me, the feeling of crossing the finish line of a half marathon.

Christmas carols, the Solstices (both winter and summer), my daughter's well-worn teddy bears, my son's crazy blue eyes (and the mystery of the genetic lottery that gave them to him, with 2 parents and 4 grandparents with brown eyes), the view from the yoga room at Feathered Pipe Ranch, lighthouses.

Grace, tonight:

"Whit, your eyes are the color of the sky. It's beautiful."

Whit, tonight:

"Mummy, I love you."
"How much?"
"As much as the whole world."

Running through my head like the neon stripe of words on the Times Square Jumbotron tonight:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

(Reinhold Niebuhr)

Today's blessing

My head is swarming with thoughts today, sadness and exhaustion and fear and hope and inspiration and a whole lot of other less articulate but very powerful emotions.

I'm utterly unable to parse them right now, or to speak coherently about what is going on. So I will choose instead to write about something I know about. Friendship. What is it to be a friend. And I know there are a lot of ways, as many as there are people.

I saw one friend this morning. A friend I haven't seen in a while, a friend I feel close to but who is not a part of my everyday life. My friend is a smart, sensitive, thoughtful, grounded woman and I value her opinion. And today she reminded me of one of the best, truest ways to be a friend there is: she just heard to me. As we sat in the morning sunshine, drinking coffee, she bore witness. She was fully there as she listened to what I talked about, patiently and without judgment, interjecting opinions here and there. I thought all day about how rare and generous a thing it is, what a gift, to simply witness someone else. I'm surely not as good at that as I'd like to be. My friend today inspired me to try harder.

She asked me a question about the mind-body connection that I've been thinking about all day. She pushed me on the more fundamental causes behind all of the physical issues I've had lately: colds and flu and bad knees and bad backs. She believes, as do I, that much physical malaise has a spiritual and emotional connection. I don't know that I know the answers to her questions yet, but it is clear to me that my persistent illness is a symptom of a complete lack of boundaries. Literal and figurative, my body is too porous to the outside world.

She spoke, too, of her life, what is on her mind and in her heart. Careful, thoughtful relating is of course an important component of friendship. But today was struck me was her patient hearing of me. She just heard me. And that was a blessing whose power she didn't realize.

There are myriad ways to be a great friend and I am fortunate to have many people who are this to me. I have learned and grown through some friendships, I have flourished and pushed myself in others, I have been comforted and supported in still others. Today, my friend, with her calm and patient listening and hearing, was just the kind of friend I needed.

Thank you.

Doing and Being

Aidan's post today, which asserts that asking what don't you do? is as provocative as asking what do you do? got me thinking. First, about what I don't do. What don't I do?

I don't smoke
I don't do a very good job brushing my kids' teeth
I don't know how to hold a tune
I don't watch TV
I don't eat shellfish or any food whose ingredients are too uncertain
I don't check my voicemail

I could go. The list of things I don't do - which is closely connected to the list of things I am not good at - is very, very long. But I really started thinking about the much more traditional question, which I answer all the time: What do you do?

I thought immediately of the Firestarter in September at Aidan's house. Danielle asked us all to introduce ourselves. I went early on in the group of about 24 people, and I think I spoke for 15 seconds. I was totally flummoxed. I rarely think about what I'm going to say before I say it (something else I don't do that I should) and this was no exception. My mouth gaped like a fish. And then I stuttered something along these lines, "My name is Lindsey and I am in transition. I have two kids so I am a mom. I want to write. I have an MBA and a job in business."

If how we introduce ourselves, and how we answer that most basic of questions reflects on our sense of ourselves, then I'm in a world of hurt. I basically could not answer the question in an articulate way. Isn't what we do, after all, integral to who we are? What does it say about me that I cannot answer the question?

But maybe it's not that simple. Maybe that is a simplistic way to look at who we are. Identity, intention, and action form a messy braid, woven full of many other things that are out of our control. Is all that we are reflected in what we do? I don't think so. I've heard many people hold forth about how actions are all that matter. That it is in doing that we exhibit our truest being. I don't know about that. In many cases I do not feel free to do whatever it is my spirit wishes; maybe it's pathetic, maybe I've already "given up" when I admit that Real Life constrains how my intentions become reality, but there it is.

I guess I feel like it's an ideal world where our self can express its desires, its beliefs, its passions freely and without constraint. Sure, yes, absolutely, we should all strive to set up our lives to enable this. For sure. But we must also remember that a multitude of reasons underlie a person's actions, not all of which have to do with their true heart's desire. And we ought not assume that we know what goes into an action, either. We simply cannot understand the intentions of another, no matter how much we wish we could.

There is no neat conclusion here, I realize with a sigh. I need - desperately, urgently, soul-screamingly - to rearrange some things in my life so that my own intentions and truest voice can be expressed more freely. That said, I am realistic, perhaps cynical, about ever being able to do so in an unfettered way. So, in truth, Aidan, it's easier for me to answer "what don't you do?" than to answer "what do you do?" right now. I sincerely hope that changes, and changes soon.