Time Out for Thanksgiving

My favorite holiday hands down is Thanksgiving.  Not only is there a magnificent feast of food, family, and friends, but also an amazing gift of time.

The older I get the faster time seems to go.  The thing I relish more than anything lately is having a few unclaimed days before me to metabolize my life through writing, walking, or having long conversations with dear friends.

When I took a job four years ago at Clinton Community College the tempo of my life shifted from a spacious and relatively solitary existence to one crowded with information, people, places, and challenges.  I now interact with more people in one week than I previously had in a month.  I will admit I was a bit of a hermit compared to socially acceptable standards.   But as a writer, the silence fed my soul on a deep level.

Of course having a job feeds my body on a very practical level.  Accepting a "real" job was nothing if not a testimony to my ability to have my head in the clouds and my feet on the ground.  Consequently I am extremely grateful that this particular job allows me to have holidays plus a few extra days off. 

A stretch of days that demand nothing more than minimal interaction with the outside world is what my mind, body and spirit consistently crave.  Yet for most worker bees, that stretch of days is usually accompanied by a holiday or two. 

Since holidays are notorious for bringing out bad behavior, the trick to negotiating these potential stress fests is to have stress reducing strategies firmly in place.  Several years ago I came up with my  Top 10 Tension Tackling Tunes to Keep You Humming through the Holidays.  (Click on the link and I'll be delighted to email my list to you.) While even I find it hard to follow my own advice on occasion, I do find that knowing myself helps a great deal. 

If I move and I write every day, I will feel better.  If I speak the truth, even if it isn’t popular or preferred, I will not have to carry around the guilt of betraying myself.  If I say no to requests that aren’t important, I will have more time and energy for those that are.  If I don’t pluck something from every party platter that parades across my path, my physique may no longer resemble that of Mr. Claus.  If I can focus on what I can give instead of what I might get, I can be more present in relationships.  And if I can keep my wits about me, I may see the humor in it all.

Of course knowing and doing are two different things.  As I mentioned in the last post, regular practice is required to defy gravity.  It is also required to get through the day.   If I am too busy, too traumatized, too distracted, or otherwise engaged to plan a healthy meal, squeeze in a little exercise, write a thank you note,  or simply stop instead of snap, it’s unlikely I will default into forgiveness or gratitude.

That’s why time outs are so necessary.  Even in sports that thrive on edge-of-your-seat action, time outs prevent that action from being chaotic or even disastrous.  Like a GPS, time outs remind us of our destination and give us a chance to recalculate so we might spend our time and effort wisely.

Whether you have the opportunity to rejuvenate this weekend or just manage to muster up a moment in the middle of midnight shopping, may your time out bring you clarity, a spot of grace, and remind you of reasons big and small to give thanks.

Defy Gravity

Earlier this month I finally made it to Wicked, the musical about the lives and friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West.  I had heard a few of the songs long before I had seen the play and was not surprised that Popular was so, well, popular.  It’s funny and cute and something we all can relate to at some time or other. 

 

But my favorite song was Defying Gravity, sung by the well-intentioned but deeply misunderstood green girl.  I had tears in my eyes as Elphaba ascended to new heights belting out her battle cry to be yourself despite all odds.  

Of course not everyone who hears the call can heed it.  The unsuspecting and highly suspicious citizens of Oz assumed the worst.  They could only see the flying phenom as the villain the people in power had made her out to be to hide their own wickedness.  Not once did they consider the rest of the story.

History seldom records the whole story.  If we're lucky, one day it will find its way to light.  That's when a prisoner can become president and change the world.

A few weekends ago I watched the Kennedys miniseries.  Even though I was born in the 60s, I was too young to really grasp the extreme changes that swept the country throughout that decade.  It was fascinating to put events in context and try to comprehend the courage it took to lead a nation through such turbulent times.  It seemed like everyone who tried to do so was assassinated.  It’s enough to make me think twice about leading a revolution.

Yet every era has a need for visionaries, leaders, courageous men and women who are committed to doing the right thing.  Every organization needs someone with a moral compass at the helm or somewhere in the ranks to blow the whistle should things go horribly wrong.  But how many of us, really, want to be the whistle blower?  It’s not a popular position.  At least not until Hollywood makes a movie about you. 

Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.  Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.”

I say midlife is nothing if not a daring adventure.  Anything that may have seemed secure - relationships, jobs, finances, familial roles, or institutions - can and will come up for questioning.  Avoiding the danger of dealing with these issues at the first sign trouble is not a good strategy.     Just ask the Pope or the officials at Penn State. 

While it may seem easier in the short run to sweep these inconvenient truths under the rug, we all know they will come back to bite us or someone or something we love or hold dear.  We don't have to be Glinda, Elphaba, Nelson Mandela, John or Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Erin Brockovich, or any public figure to live a courageous life.  We are asked to do so every day in a million quiet ways.

In order to do so we must activate our latent midlife superpowers, the most powerful of which may be our ability to defy gravity.  By rising above it all like those hot air balloon characters in the Macy'sThanksgiving Day parade, we can do what's necessary and right and good, even if our voice shakes or we lose popularity points.

What do you think, shall we dust off the broom and take it out for a spin?

All it really takes is regular practice.

Friend or Foe?

We all have them in our lives.  Like fingernails on a chalkboard, there are certain people we would swear were put on this earth solely to irritate, agitate, or otherwise discombobulate.  These people obliterate any chance of a hassle free existence.

For some it’s a boss, a relative, a senator (or pick your politician), a next door neighbor, a daughter’s coach, a son’s teacher, a parent’s pharmacist, or a constantly complaining client.  For others it may be the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker, people who are in our lives more out of necessity or by virtue of profession than choice.  

In the case of the Texas Rangers, it would be the St. Louis Cardinals.  I’m writing this during Game 7 of the World Series.  In my case, it's been my landlord.  I bought a house so I would no longer have to deal with his covert attempts to kick me and my dogs to the curb.

My practice of Ho'oponopono was seriously challenged the past couple of months in order to act my age and not my shoe size.   I was able to do this partly because I remembered something a guru or shaman or hung over hippie once told me.  Those who are our greatest enemies in this life may have been our greatest allies in another.  What if these people loved us so much once that they agreed to come back again as our enemies simply to ensure our growth?

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not or whether you can fathom that your current curmudgeon could be motivated by anything other than spite, greed, fear, or self interest, the fact remains that these people often elicit our most resourceful responses.  They compel us to act on our convictions in a way that a pep talk with a friend who has known and loved us all our life may not.

I think of the day my landlord posed the question, “How important is it for you to have two dogs?”  Of course the appropriate answer arose as soon as the opportunity had passed.  Instead of answering his question with another question, “How important is it for you to get a rent check?” I called my real estate agent.  

Of all the buttons to push, this was the one that catapulted me into action.  My response was something like Sandra Bullock’s character in The Blind Side ,  “You threaten my dogs,  you threaten me.”

The truth is I had been tolerating little things ever since I moved in.  It was a little like being nibbled to death by ducks. Things had reached a head by the summer but since I had convinced myself my third move in four years would be out of Iowa and I was not ready to make that move, I simply endured it.  That is until the day of the inciting incident.

An inciting incident is what moves the story to the next stage.  In a nutshell, it's the conflict that makes any story worth reading, any challenge worth accepting, or any World Series game worth watching. 

Okay, scratch that last one.  Personally I would have preferred the Rangers win in four games straight rather than the Cardinals in seven so as to avoid the nail biting, teeth clenching, gut wrenching histrionics that occurred around the fifth, sixth, and ninth innings of almost every game in the series.   As a former Queen of Calm, tonight 's stress management strategy is to write instead of watch the game.  I must admit, however, these shenanigans up the level of play for each team.

[Aside:  I'm really not a sports fan and certainly not a sports writer but if I had to pick a sport, baseball would be my choice - except for the excessive spitting.   I spent my twenties in Texas and a many memorable evening at the ballpark in Arlington.  Hence my affection for the Rangers.  That and I believe in spreading the World Series wealth.  Why does any team need to win eleven times when another team just wants to win one?]

The fact is every hero needs a nemesis to help realize his or her superpowers.  Up until this point, the only noticeable superpower that has surfaced at midlife has been the Invisibility Cloak.  Where I may have been noticed or at least acknowledge by name earlier in my life, now I get the generic “Ma’am” or “Mrs”, neither of which I respond well to,  when asked if I want to use my AARP discount.  That doesn't set well either.

Maybe the real superpower and the one that requires an arch enemy or difficulty du jour is to realize what cartoonist Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.com  suggests.  " We are only happy if we are frustrated."

Anything worth doing is fraught with frustration partly because expressing ourselves authentically is incredibly challenging.  It's also intensely important to the way we see ourselves.  Ultimately, it's deeply satisfying precisely because of what it takes to achieve.  (Any guess how many revisions this blog goes through before it sees the light of day?)

I still have a long way to go in embracing the persistent presence of the challenges and challengers in my life.  It takes time and distance to concede they may be doing me a favor by forcing me to move my own story along.

What do you think?  Can a foe be a friend in disguise?  How hard is it to consider?  Who has been especially "friendly" to you lately?

 

Creating In The Middle of Things

Often times I’ll hear friends say, “Did I just say that out loud?”

Maybe we’ve reached the age where holding our tongues has become as challenging as holding our bladders. Or perhaps after years of sugar coating conversations, not saying what we need to say is just as terrifying as actually saying it.

We assume people are going to be offended if we say what we really think, especially if we seldom do. We're convinced they may leave us, fire us, forget us, or otherwise exit our life once they hear what we truly think about what goes on in the boardroom, the bedroom, the ballpark, or the book of the month club.

Then again, they may admire our honesty.

At the very least they might wonder what’s gotten into us.  They may the pass it off as gas or something we ate.

Most likely what's gotten into us is something we've read, watched, experienced, or have always known at a deep level. Maybe we've been quietly contemplating its meaning until the moment came when we had no choice but to speak up. And maybe no one was more shocked than we were to hear ourselves voice our convictions. Hence, the opening question.

Then there's this other thing that’s been happening to me lately.  I actually think I’ve said something, or in this case written something, because I’ve thought about it so much.  Imagine my disbelief, okay denial, when I realized I haven't actually posted anything in over a month.

Despite excellent excuses - buying a house, moving in, and not being able to find any of the assorted wires associated with my desktop computer - not writing has weighed as heavily on my conscience as a rogue piece of toilet paper clings to my favorite clogs. I tell myself no one notices but that is only because it takes a really good friend or arch enemy to point out that I have something stuck to my shoe or I haven't written lately. 

When I was training to be a creativity coach, one of the fundamentals my mentor Eric Maisel taught was that we must be able to create in the middle of things. *

Let's face it.  We are always in the middle of something. Right now you are in the middle of reading this blog. You might also be in the middle of eating a snack, having a meltdown, carpooling, or finishing the seventh frame of Wii bowling.  But does it stop you from doing what you must do?

Although I temporarily stopped blogging, my creative output tripled in the interior design area of my life.  And by "interior design" I mean the curious way I've been arranging both my inner and my outer environments in response to new options.

The frenzy of activity surrounding this move will provide writing material for weeks to come. This is one of the reasons moving is ranked right up there on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale. Everything is in upheaval, even if it’s just a move across town.  Everything is also open for negotiation. Will this item stay or go? Is it part of my past, present, or future? Will it work in the new space? Will it fit in the moving truck? 

While the answers may seem obvious, the questions are packed with emotions.

Granted, most people may be more organized when it comes to moving. I had a very short time to find, finance, and finagle a move that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to make.  But now that I’m moved in, I’m thrilled.  I couldn’t have imagined the difference it would make in large and small areas of my life.

If my life up to this point has been all about traveling and taking care of other people’s homes, pets, and predicaments, it’s now all about staying home and at least writing about mine.

So even though I can describe for you in detail the peaceful view from my deck, I can't be trusted to write from there today for fear of abandoning the blog to hang pictures, move furniture, or make 101 decorating decisions. Therefore, I've sequestered myself at my writing desk at a friend’s house so I might finally surface in the blogosphere, without toilet paper on my shoe, thank you very much.

Next time I’ll post pictures of the new casa to illustrate how choosing bold colors after years of white walls can kick start the creative process and start the journey of a thousand steps. (Currently they all lead to Sherwin Williams, Home Depot, Target, and Pier I.  Maybe you've been down this road yourself?)

I'd love to hear your new home/moving stories, even if your "new" home or last move was 20 years ago.

*To read Dr. Maisel's article on creating in the middle of things, click here.

 

Don't Worry, Be Happy.

The thing I’ve noticed about happiness is that it’s more about moments than milestones.  I think we set ourselves up for disappointment when we have these big, hairy, audacious goals that have to be met by a certain age or a specific time in our lives. 

Moments of happiness, on the other hand, are  ripe for the picking.  We just need to remember to pluck one out of each day.

I can safely say the surprise party held in my honor when I turned forty was a lesson in humility as well as humiliation. Wonderful friends and family who’d I'd known my whole life were there to help me celebrate/admit to this shocking occasion.  But because of circumstances a bit beyond my control,  I was living with my parents.  Therefore, this party also served as my induction into the Midlife Hall of Shame.

The year before I had left a man, the land, and a life I loved in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to move back to the Midwest.  As it turned out, within forty-eight hours of returning to the family farm my personal crisis and grief gave way to a global crisis and grief felt around the world as 9/11 changed life as we knew it.  Suddenly I was grateful to be with family and friends in a familiar place that felt safer and more solid than the ground I had just walked away from.

I was shell shocked for the better part of a year and then decided it was time to bloom where I was planted.  I did what I knew how to do best.  My family helped me renovate the upstairs of an old apartment building and I started teaching exercise and creativity classes.  I developed some online courses and offered my coaching services to anyone with an Internet connection.  I took my show on the road when necessary and split my time between the Southwest and Midwest and mastered the  art of living on air and credit cards.

Although air doesn’t exact a price, credit cards certainly do and the only logical way for me to pay the piper was to get a regular job.  Imagining myself to be utterly unemployable for any number of reasons including my age, no one was more surprised than me to find myself on someone’s payroll once again.  I couldn’t help but notice my co-workers’ curiosity about what I’d been up to for the past twenty years.  Since people don’t seem to get fired as easily in education, they tend to stay awhile. 

For me, the goal has always been to grow and learn and do it on my own timetable.  Like Sinatra, I’d like to look back on my life and be able to boast, “I did it my way.” 

I realize not everyone agrees with my way.  After taking the Myers Briggs Type Indicator during the leadership conference last week, I am reminded once again that lots of people look at life through an entirely different lens than I do.  I am sensitive to the fact that I can drive those people nuts with all my hakuna matata talk.  But for the sake of argument, let’s assume those folks didn’t make it past my first post.

So, I shall stick to my bold Bobby McFerrin advice for this week.   Don’t worry, be happy!  I couldn’t make this claim last week because I was convinced the house deal would tank over who should pay for the radon mitigation system.  Fortunately the six Buddhas sitting strategically throughout my current home had the desired effect of allowing compassion rather than pride to rule the day.

Now I certainly don’t mean to make light of things if you are having a demanding day or a decidedly difficult decade.  Midlife is full of unsettling and distressing changes that can send the sanest of us over the edge at least once a week.  My intention is to encourage you to find the moment, the music, the person, or place that brings you back to your best self when he or she seems to have gone missing. 

On this day when we remember the loss of so many loved ones, I vow to live my life with renewed peace, purpose, passion, and last but not least, pleasure!   May you do the same, if you are so inclined.

Get Out of Town

Newton’s Third Law of Motion states, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Since I just made one of the biggest decisions in my life, I've been pondering this principle quite a bit.  The most compelling argument against committing my life’s savings to buying a house in a town I imagined living in for five minutes is the formidable list of reasons to leave.

August in the world of academia is exploding with those reasons.  Students are at the height of hysteria and faculty members are flustered as they readjust to new faces and a formidable amount of paperwork.  Requests that would have been reasonable even one month ago are simply out of the question now that classes have started.

I am most perplexed by the lack of preparation or even interest some of the students who come to see me exhibit.  For whatever reason, these students believe I know more about what they want than they do themselves.  It takes patience born of perpetual practice not tell them to return when they’ve got a clue. 

I remind myself I was once an undecided major.  I remind myself I am often clueless about things - my smartphone, for example.  I also remind myself of a request made by a much wiser teacher, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Surely it is the plight of prophets, professors, parents, and puppy owners to be frustrated.  (As I write this, Marley, a rambunctous blue heeler puppy, is biting my ankles and jumping up on the keyboard between bouts of dragging undergarments out of my suitcase unbeknownest to me and leaving them in conspicuous places for all to observe.  Something tells me she, however, knows exactly what she is doing.)

In any case, when I mentioned to a good friend who's been in the business much longer than I have how Newton’s third law was manifesting in my life, he reminded me of two things.  1) The first week of school is not representative of the entire year.  2)  In approximately two weeks, all will return to controlled chaos, at least at school. 

In the midst of all this activity came the call to participate in a leadership program.  Once a month I will travel to other community colleges and learn about leadership with others who have been selected from their campuses to do the same.  The concept is brilliant.  The timing of this month's session, however, was not.  What kind of leader abandons her troops during the first week of classes?

A leader who could use a time-out to think about her behavior is a perfect candidate.  I hadn’t quite convinced myself of that as I threw anything and everything in my car and made the three hour drive to the hotel late Wednesday evening.  I was sure a different week would have been a better choice for all concerned.  As is often the case, I was wrong.  A change of venue was precisely what was needed.

Over the course of a few years my world has gotten smaller and my focus has gotten narrower as my mama bear tendencies have taken root in my efforts to support our satellite center.  This makes the big picture much harder to keep in perspective.  What happens when I am catapulted out of my comfort zone is that suddenly the big picture is evident once again and I am left with the certainty that I need to get out more.

While my relatively quiet and predictable life in a town where I know almost every student is better for me on a daily basis than battling traffic, getting lost at every intersection, and dealing with people who don’t know or care who I am, often it takes experiencing one extreme to appreciate the other. 

Because I’ve always been a bit of a fringe dweller, I tend to forget there are others out there who might feel the same way, struggle with the same issues, appreciate knowing help is available, and embrace the opportunity to connect.  As Barbara Sher, author of Wishcraft and many other life changing books for independent thinkers, says, “Isolation is the dream killer."  I believe she is right.

As uncomfortable as it may be to orchestrate, every now and then I need to get out of town and find my  place in the larger community.  Then I can return bearing the gifts the adventure afforded. 

In the past few days I've gotten to tour a beautiful campus in Des Moines. I got to spend time with  funny, smart, and insightful people with similar jobs across Iowa. I am now a student as well as an administrator and got to celebrate what’s right with the world as well as discuss what could use some fixing.  I got to witness how I behave in new situations with people of all ages and backgrounds and integrate what I know with what I have yet to learn.   At the same time I came up against my limitations, possibilities that had been dormant for years were ignited. 

So here's my advice for this autumn.  Whether it's a learning opportunity or simply a chance to explore an area of interest, get out of town.  If that's not possible, test your ability to see familiar landscapes with fresh eyes.

Bon voyage!

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

I’m one of those people who can easily get lost.  Maybe it’s because I tend to take the road less traveled, the one off the beaten path.  Since most people choose to ignore the idea to go where my inner compass insists I do, it's not so easy to stop and ask for directions.  That’s why I really love signs.  

Not the obvious ones like, “Stop. Go.  No Loitering.  OOL – There’s no “P” in our pool.  Let’s keep it that way.” 

I‘m talking about the signs  that hold personal significance for me.  When a hawk appears out of nowhere to guide me along a trail, I pay attention.  When I randomly open a book to a page that has the exact Bach Flower Remedy for my current state of agitation, I am grateful.  Or when I get the inkling to visit a website where I learn about the English Lakes District tour  just in the nick of time to participate, I know someone or something is looking out for me.

This trek off the beaten path started when I was in college and participated in a National Student Exchange program.   I spent one semester at McGill University in Montreal and another at Université Laval in Quebec City.  Presumably being plucked from a small farming community where everyone spoke English and arriving on the international scene where most everyone spoke French was the best way to hasten my comprehension of a foreign language. 

In my youthful innocence, I thought this was a splendid plan, ripe with romance, adventure, and really sophisticated sounding accents.  Few people concurred, except my parents, who didn't really concur so much as concede that at the very least, a bad experience would hamper further efforts along a misguided path.

Of course, it ended up being one of the best years of my life.  I can’t speak for Dorothy, another farm girl who took a little trip to an exotic land, but I’m sure Oz rearranged her reality and emboldened her future decisions much like my Canadian adventure.

So it amazes me how I anguish over the little decisions, the kind grocery or shoe shopping is fraught with, while big decisions with enormous emotional consequences - like leaving the country, adopting a dog, or buying a house - are no brainers.

Maybe because big decisions demand inner alignment.  Something shifts when a clear plan emerges.  The certainty with which my body responds is immediate.  I get energized.  I wake up early.  I exercise without internal bribes.  I get organized.  I get interested in life.  I tolerate things I previously found intolerable.

The problem is these plans are often inconceivable to those near and dear to me.  I don’t fault them.  They love me and are looking out for my safety and happiness.  They most likely did not experience the tectonic plates shift under their feet the way I did.  They are looking through their own life lens.  And sometimes, in areas where they may hold fear, I am fearless.  (Caveat:  I only claim fearlessness in a few select areas.) 

I admit, the plan probably does look ridiculous from a rational person's perspective.  But the kind of coup I am considering  when I intend to overhaul my internal landscape cannot be bound by reason.  If I rely on those who insist on sanity in the decision making process, I will be swayed from the terrifying truth of my own convictions. 

A few weeks ago when the ideal house I'd been mentally manifesting for months appeared on the scene and I started waking up at 5am to ponder the possibilities of home ownership, I knew something significant had shifted. 

I’d been stewing about my current house since my landlord placed it on the market a year ago, leaving me susceptible to random showings.  Despite the unsettling intrusions, I stubbornly stayed put because my next move was sure to be out of Dodge.  But when new neighbors built a home on the lot right next to me, the increasing sense of claustrophobia left me determined to correct the situation by summer's end.

So my very bold decision this week was to buy the dream home and commit to staying not in  heaven, but Iowa, to reap the fields of opportunity I’ve been sewing here for the past four years.  Of course, for a decision of this magnitude, several signs were necessary.  Not to mention a really understanding real estate agent.

Suffice it to say, there is a certain amount of stress that is relieved when a commitment is made. Instead of imagining where I might live out my fantasy life of being a full time writer with a pool in the backyard and mountains in the distance, I can start working towards it on evenings and weekends here where a river runs through my backyard and rolling hills speckled with happy cows can be seen in the distance.

A muddy river and happy cows.  My kind of signs. 

Dorothy really was right. 

There’s no place like home.

Grow Into What You Know

I’m a recovering workshop junkie.  In my younger years, if there was a workshop on anything physical, metaphysical, spiritual, mystical, or magical and I could beg, borrow, or barter my way there, I’d go.   

The locations of these workshops only added to the allure for me - San Diego, Kaui, Big Sur, Santa Fe, Tucson, Sedona, Maui, Boulder, Portland, Bend, and Whidbey Island.  It was easier to pretend enlightenment could be achieved in geographically luscious landscapes than in my hometown. 

The truth is, if you don’t bring it with you, you won’t find it wherever you happen to land.  Admittedly, you might be more open to its presence gazing into a cascading waterfall or a wide blue ocean while sipping umbrella drinks with the cabana boy or sitting zazen with meditating monks and majestic mountains in the background. 

However, the real discipline of happiness, peace, or sanity is cultivating it in the present moment under the current circumstances.  I love one of Gretchen Rubin’s Secrets to Adulthood that states what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. 

This means you practice cultivating peace, compassion, or non-violence while on hold with the Department of Transportation and in the middle of a tense moment with a customer and as you support your spouse when he or she struggles with Elementary Algebra in the latest back to school effort.  Naturally this is more difficult than cultivating these emotional states while stroking your purring kitten, adoring your latest macramé sweater, or shoe shopping. This is precisely why it is called a practice, no?

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all about escaping to exotic locales or anywhere that allows for a change of scenery and some greenery.  This summer seems to have called forth an unprecedented need in me to escape.  Every attempt at progress or forward movement has been thwarted by something beyond my control.  This leaves me especially irritable as I move into the most stressful month of the academic year and highly susceptible to any offers of a last minute getaway.

My challenge has been to accept this with grace and appreciate the gift of not getting what I want.  The good news about my workshop junkie years is although I am far from enlightened, I retained some sage advice from unforgettable teachers that whispers to me in times such as these. 

Like six-second soundbites, wisdom needs context to be fully integrated.  While it was exciting to seek the knowledge, it was arrogant to think I could pass it on to others before I had the proper context or experience in which to frame it.  When I used to do corporate trainings I’d find myself saying certain things with authority because I had heard my teachers and gurus say them.  One day I was saying some simple phrase like, “Be here now,” and dropped to my knees.  Five years after saying this nonchalantly, I totally got it and was deeply humbled.

This tends to happen to me more at midlife.  The cockiness of youth and the certainty of knowing it all give way to the certainty of knowing very little and the curiosity of continuing to learn. 

One of my favorite ways to learn is to listen to audio programs while driving.  It’s like a having a mobile university in my car, without having to take the aforementioned Elementary Algebra.  I get to pick the programs and be moved by the passion that moves these people to share the information.  I appreciate poetry and science and history like never before.

Right now I’m listening to John O'Donohue's  To Bless the Space Between Us.  John was an amazing Irish poet, priest, philosopher, and lover of life who died at age 52, but left so much wisdom for the rest of us to stumble upon when ready. 

Several years ago I was in a bookstore in Berkeley and picked up Anam Cara, John's book of Celtic wisdom. I knew it was significant, so I bought it, but I wasn't really ready for it until now.  Now I can’t get enough of his work.  Listening to his Irish brogue as he recites these blessings is a feast for my ears.

I suppose  I'll always be a workshop junkie at heart.  I love to learn!  But the wisdom will only be like junk food until I metabolize it by practicing it and living it.  

One of my very best days on planet Earth was the day I got to see the Dalai Lama.  After seeing His Holiness in Tucson, my friend and I went to a yoga studio where Krishna Das was performing.  This was about as far from anything I’d ever experienced growing up on a farm in Illinois.  But there I was, chanting and moving about like a whirling dervish. The combination of wisdom, chanting, and whirling elevated me into some kind of altered state that lasted the plane ride home.  And just as quickly as enlightenment came, it went.  But the knowledge of this left me forever changed.

There is a Zen proverb, “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment; chop  wood, carry water.”  One the one hand, nothing changes.  The same things are still required of us.  On the other hand, everything changes. 

Chop, chop.

My Best Friend's Wedding

Twenty or thirty years ago the social scene was defined by the summer wedding schedule.  Driven by the cultural imperative to be partnered by a particular age, most of my friends were discovering marital bliss and the joys of parenthood before I even knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.

This weekend I attended the wedding of a dear friend of mine. The following three things make this summer event exceptional:   1) My friend is fifty-six.  2) This is his second marriage.  3) It’s to the same woman he fell in love with and married the first time around.

Having never been married myself, I find such an idea unfathomable.  Being a hopeless romantic and a firm believer in my friend, however, I find his courage and faith in the woman he loves and the family he is reuniting to be truly inspiring.  I’m not one to cry at weddings but when I listened to the minister list a lifetime of joys and unspeakable sorrows, I couldn’t help but feel the healing had come full circle for this family and wept like a willow.  If we can be patient with the process, love will save the day.

There is something exhilarating about finding love at midlife.  Whether this love is with a partner you’ve known all your life or the one you met by chance at a conference in Orlando after accidentally walking into the men’s room, finding it again removes all memory of age and all semblance of sophistication.  (Especially in the latter case.)

To me, love at midlife illustrates the classic case of hope triumphing over experience.  By this stage of the game, if you haven’t had your heart broken a time or two, I would venture to say you haven’t really loved.  Loving anything or anyone is a heartbreak waiting to happen. But who would willingly forgo the inexplicable thrill of love just to avoid the inevitable pain? 

At midlife I’d like to think our chances of enjoying healthy and satisfying relationships are higher because we know who we are, what we want, and what we are or are not willing to negotiate.  We’re not as likely to lose ourselves in another person because we have become a highly complex person in our own right with a purpose, passion, priorities, and quite possibly a penchant for plaid.

When we fall in love in our younger years we tend to believe we are falling for another person who holds the key to all that completes us.  But as we mature, daring to fall in love offers the opportunity to fall in love with ourselves again.   When was the last time our wickedly witty or secretly sassy self got to come out and play?  And would the leopard teddy and four inch heels really be chosen over the ratty t-shirt and Elmo slippers under normal circumstances?

For a brief period of time the running list of what is wrong with us, what needs improving, and what is never going to happen in this lifetime gets thrown to the wind as we consider the possibility that by joining forces with Prince or Princess Charming, we have just received a get out of jail free card. We might actually be able to let go of the list of grievances against ourselves until the aforementioned royalty catches on. 

Of course, if our beloved really is the Prince or Princess we know them to be, they’ll never catch on - or if they do, at least they won’t report their findings at the company picnic.  They’ll remain that version of Shallow Hal that sees only the beautiful, the true, and the good.  They’ll never treat us as terribly as we treat ourselves on a typical day of self-loathing. 

These are just a few reasons why love is a many splendored thing. (Yes. Go ahead a click on the link to hear this unforgettably sappy song from the 50s.  Did our parents really listen to this and subliminally subject us to knowing the lyrics for life?)

None of us can do it alone.  We all get by with a little help from our friends.  Last weekend, I was delighted to help my friend renew his vows and my faith in this thing crazy little thing called love. (Click on this to hear one of my favorite versions of this snappy - not sappy - love song.  You wouldn't expect to read all these words of love without a little love mix running in the background, would you?) 

Changes & Choices

“Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. “ – Robert C. Gallagher

If change is a constant, why isn’t it easier?

Midlife is rife with one change after another.  Whether children are moving out, parents are moving in, neighbors are moving too close, or friends are moving too far away, this revolving door of relationship changes can bring about all kinds of emotional upheaval. 

Add to that the physical and psychological changes.  For example, when did my body become an exact replica of my mother’s?  And when did my brain start behaving like eccentric Aunt Lola’s?

Then there’s the general disorientation that accompanies a visit to box stores, grocery stores, or  malls.  Questions like, “How long was I in there?”, “Did I leave without the one thing I went in for?” and  “Where did I park my car?” can easily cause a person to age ten years. 

If I could effectively use the technology available to me, I might be able to tweet my way out of my predicament by finding a friend who could help me use the GPS on my smart phone to get the coordinates to the only twelve year old car in the lot with a “Life is Good” tire cover.  (It’s important for me to stay optimistic in bold ways.)

Just when I start to feel like it’s all too much, I consider the possibility of what would happen if nothing changed.   What if children never grew up, politicians never left office, snow never melted, ideas never evolved into action, or a bad haircut and color never grew out?

I shudder to think.

Some days, however, I’m just not that into change.  I don’t want to adapt, adjust, or allow for the infinite number of consequences that result from upgrading a phone or switching billfolds. When familiar things take an unfamiliar twist the learning curve can be brutal until I can muster up the “this will ultimately be worth it” attitude that gets me through the initial exasperation.

Some days I feel every year I’ve been on this planet and find myself dangerously close to declaring, “I’m too old for this!” 

With the exception of Garanimals, I’d really like to think I’m not too old for most things.  I might be a middle-aged dog, but I am certainly capable of learning new tricks.  Ironically, frustration and fatigue set in when I’m not learning, changing, and growing.

Of course, change merely for the sake of change is just another weapon of mass distraction.  Enter the quest for meaning.  Meaningful change, change with a purpose, intent to grow, learn, evolve…I’m into that kind of change.

Most of my life I've had a voracious appetite for learning. Ever since I got to consider where I might go, what I might do, or how I might spend my free time, I've chosen some kind of learning adventure that promised to shed light on the meaning of life.  This quest for meaning has been the driving force behind most of my decisions.

In the grand scheme of things this quest compels me to continually take risks, travel far from home, engage in life changing conversations, and invest in new relationships.  In the daily course of events it compels me to get out of my pajamas and attempt the ten-minute fat burning Kettleworx  workout before heading to the office, write at least three decent paragraphs before going to bed, listen to amazing audio programs while driving in my car, and dispense the most helpful advice I can to students who trust me to have the answers. 

Many times I have to fall back on the wisdom of Dory from Finding Nemo.  “Just keeping swimming, swimming, swimming.  What do we do?  We swim, swim!” Not just because I absolutely love to swim, but because we’re all swimming in this sea of change and if we're lucky, improving our strokes and breathing patterns as we go.  Fortunately, we can learn from  wise sea turtles and others who are further along or at different points on the journey and willing to share their experiences, or at the very least, their sense of humor.

The thing about change is that it catapults us out of the place of perceived comfort and opens us to the possibility of learning more not just about ourselves but the world in general. 

It's fascinating to be living in times of rampant and radical change.  Like getting what you wish for, living in changing times can be a blessing or a curse.  Today, I'm choosing the blessing.

What about you? 

Let Freedom Ring

For many Americans, having a 3-day weekend is cause to celebrate.  Throw in some fireworks, food and beverages, friends and family, and a little patriotism and you have the incomparable 4^th of July holiday.   In honor of Independence Day, I declared last week Independence Week and took some time off work to savor all that freedom and independence mean to me.

My freedom fantasy goes something like this.  I have the whole summer off and a beach house where I spend each day writing the next New York Times best seller.  Of course, I’d have a bicycle with a basket for loading fresh fruit and veggies sold at a local market where  I congregate with other creative types also spending their summer casually cranking out their best work.  We agree to meet each evening for captivating dinner conversations, music, and dancing as a reward for making it through a day in the company of characters we've only imagined.  Naturally my dogs would be with me to encourage regular stretch breaks, beach walks, and daily swims. And, since this is a fantasy, maybe someone might also show up around lunchtime to do something exquisite with the fruit and veggies.

My reality is I work four 10-hour days at a community college and have Fridays off during June and July.  If I take a strategically placed vacation I can maximize my days off and write full-time during that time period.  I live in the Midwest (nowhere near a beach) but have access to a swimming pool and a cabin, although they are not at the same location.  I can get farm fresh eggs from my friend Karen's happy hens and fresh fruit at the farmers market and check out  the Food Network for something fabulous to do with these ingredients. 

Even though one is not so far removed from the other, either my reality or my fantasy needs tweaking.

There’s this thing that happens at midlife when we accept that this is our life.  Whether or not this is who we thought we’d be, where we imagined we’d live, what we hoped we’d be doing for a living, and who we thought we’d be doing it with, here we are now.  And though we’ve been involved in every decision that brought us this point, we may still, on occasion, ask ourselves just what happened.

The more constructive question might be, “What do I want to do about it, if anything?”

Sometimes I think I have to do something so big, so bold, so grand that I completely psych myself out and do nothing. For example, in the above fantasy, spending a whole summer at a beach house and writing a best seller are two humungous goals.  While possible, they require planning, financing, connections, talent, and ultimately luck.

Most course corrections start with one simple adjustment followed by another.  Like guiding a person to an object by telling them they are getting hotter or colder, we find out what works for us by trying out one small and slightly less scary step at a time. 

During my ten days away, I spent half the time at the cabin surrounded by trees and hawks and hummingbirds with my dogs at my feet and various people joining me in the evenings.  The other days were spent overcoming my technophobia by upgrading my phone and securing a wireless modem and laptop so I can take my writing on the road.  

Even though these felt like baby steps to me they were actually huge leaps moving me forward.  Now I am free to move about the cabin (literally) and stay connected.  No more excuses for me not to post to this blog on a regular basis.

Having the time and space to breathe deeply and pay attention to all the little ways the universe rushes in to wow anyone who's paying attention, is what I feel freedom is all about.

Now, on with the fireworks... or fireflies.  This week I discovered they also can light up the night sky.

Leap Year

A year ago I was sitting at O’Hare airport waiting to board American Airlines flight #54 to Manchester, England. A riotous storm had just barreled through town so a timely takeoff was unlikely.  In order for the airline to claim an on-time departure, we boarded and left the gate at the designated time but sat on the runway for two hours where we were offered granola bars as a distraction before embarking on the eight hour flight.

My mistake was thinking I could be distracted or even relax enough to catch some sleep during the overnight flight.  If I had made this trip before or was sharing this adventure with a friend, I might have succeeded.  But since I was traveling alone to a foreign country to spend a week with strangers, I felt like I was leaping off a cliff.  

Now I have leapt enough times to know I will grow wings on the way to what looks like certain death.  I have even written a book about it.  (If you are interested in Read It and Leap, email me and I'll tell you how to get a copy.)

Still, this trip was different. 

This was one of those trips that define a life.  There was my life before the hiking trip with poet David Whyte and my life after.  So in some ways, I was facing the imminent death of life as I knew it.   As I flew east into the light throughout the night, I couldn’t close my eyes for fear I might miss the instructions on how to navigate the afterlife.

For most people a European vacation might have happened much earlier in life and involved a backpack and Eurorail pass instead of a two checked bags and a carry on.  But I’m a firm believer in reinventing your life at any age and traveling light, despite the checked bags.  When the planets align and give you a sign and you happen to have a current passport, you are duty bound to heed the call of the wild.

Instead of attending my high school reunion, I boarded a plane and headed to Melmerby Manor, where twenty members of my new tribe awaited my arrival as if they had been waiting thirty years for our reunion.

Like most true adventures, I really had no idea what was in store for us for the next seven days.  I knew there would be hiking.  I just hadn’t anticipated five hours of intense hiking in breathtaking locales each day.

I knew there would be poetry. I just didn’t know how incredible it would be to hear it from the source in the land of his ancestors.

I thought there might be rain but was delighted to discover it was sunny every day and stayed light until almost 11pm. 

I figured there would be interesting food.  I just hadn’t expected the world’s best organic bakery to provide our midday meals and sack lunches for the hikes.  Or that sustenance could come as much from conversation while making the evening meals as from the meals themselves.

I knew I would make new friends.  I just had no idea how meaningful these bonds would become since opportunities to make new friends aren’t always as prevalent at midlife as they are when we are younger.

One of the great lines in David’s poem Learning to Walk speaks to the fact that at midlife we are "present enough to know true friends when we meet them” and “mature enough to keep them for a lifetime.”

Six of these new friends have agreed to help me write a book about our experience in The Lake District.  On one particular hike we lost our way, therefore dubbing ourselves The Lost Ladies of Cumbria.  Of course, we eventually found our way back to the rest of the group.  In the process we discovered so many parallels between getting lost on the hike and getting lost at midlife, we decided to collect them along with our stories for anyone who might dare to follow in our footsteps.

We all met again this April at the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island near Seattle where David hosted a reunion weekend for those who had been on any of his tours over the years.  We spent five days getting reacquainted and plotting and planning what is to become The Lost Ladies of Cumbria book, blog, and guides to just about everything.  In a very short time, these women have become an essential part of my life.

When you take an educated leap, not only do you grow the wings I mentioned earlier, but you also gain a sense of self that may have become dormant in your everyday life. 

For example, who would know I love to travel when my daily commute is five minutes from door to office and an hour to visit friends and family on the weekend? 

Who would suspect I’m really quite funny when my day job is advising students on such serious matters as what to be when they grow up and overseeing the daily operations of a new satellite campus?

Who would guess that walking and writing are as essential to my well-being as eating and sleeping?

Who would know that inside you, just like me, there lies “some wild risk about to break again on the world”* given the slightest opportunity?

If you are reading this, I’m counting on you to leap when that opportunity arises. 

And then you must tell us about it.

This is how the Midlife MacGyver Movement begins!

*From Learning to Walk by David Whyte.