The royal "we"

In 1999, I returned to my parents' house to help out when my mom nearly died of an aneurysm. The doctors had said she would only live for a matter of days, but she rallied and defied all expectations for a year and a half. I am grateful for this time with her. What an intelligent, well-spoken woman. She was never, ever boring. But the aspect I will always remember most is that it brought out her inner queen. During much of this time, she was confined to the house (or taken on well-organized and orchestrated car trips.) Her gold upholstered wing chair, old but not antique, was her throne. She had access to the television remote and the portable phone. Their small living room was her court, and I suppose you could say I was her courtier. While I did not do everything for her (I had outside paid work during these eighteen months), I arranged the timing of home health nurses, doctors' appointments, respiratory therapists and cleaning lady. I helped Mom keep on top of medications. I did shopping or compiled lists for my dad. I cooked. And I helped her arrange visits by friends. No dressing gowns or bathrobes here. Janet was always immaculately dressed in a pair of trousers, button-down shirt and sweater. She wore lipstick and her engagement ring, but was otherwise unadorned. She had a commanding presence, and friends who visited even right up to the end probably barely grasped how limited her movements were and how hard it was for her to breathe. All they experienced was that they came into her presence, she graciously invited them to sit, and she was as interesting and mentally alert as ever.

However, behind the scenes, Mom was the queen of the royal "we" (or, as it is also called, the "majestic plural"). She did not use this construct the same way as Queen Elizabeth, however. It was, "Why don't we vacuum the living room?" Or, "why don't we make spaghetti for supper tonight?" I would as gently as possible call her on it. "Mom, are you asking me to vacuum? Are you asking me to cook?" I mean, there was no way she was going to get up and push a heavy vacuum around the house, much less carry it upstairs. And I totally expected to do these things. It was just so odd to be "asked" so indirectly and left out of the equation. I think this kind of back-door manipulation was such second nature to her, she didn't even know she was doing it. Perhaps it was a way of denying that she could no longer do these chores, or discomfort in asking others to help. But as time went on, I also realized that it was part of a larger life of disempowerment, of never having really been an agent of her own considerable intellectual and leadership powers. At this last gasp, literally, she was trying to govern, and also finally to be "waited on," but she couldn't quite bring herself to do it openly.

I have noticed that these kinds of strange, almost strangled, efforts at expressing power seem to be common in the earlier generations of women I have known. I'm not quite sure what to say about my generation -- goodness, Angela Merkel and I are just about the same age. Clearly, it has been a mixed bag. Some of us found ways to be genuinely powerful, and some of us haven't...yet. I know I have my squirrelly, indirect moments, and I work every day to clear up the tangle. On a day like today, in a world going mad, why is this relevant?

Because it is a moment that cries out for women to find their authentic and considerable power as quickly as possible, and to align with it and act gently and lovingly -- and visibly -- out of that place. Honoring our moms who absolutely did the best they could in their era, let's use our royal "we" to declare our intentions for global peace and understanding and compassion. ("Why don't we live in peace?" "Why don't we act from our hearts?") And then, if we need help with the vacuuming and cooking, may we simply come out and ask for it. It's OK to do that. Yeah, Mom, it really is.

Dawn

I don't usually write at dawn, but I am this morning. It's hard to see the sunrise through the grey skies and drizzle, but it's there. It would have made more sense to go back to sleep, but I'm thinking too much. As usual.

"Enough with the metaphors!" you're going to say. But oddly enough, for the first time in months, I feel like light is breaking on what has been a really long, dark night. However imperfectly, the vast majority of countries, institutions and people on the planet have an impulse toward life and toward the survival of this beautiful planet, and it looks like we are simply going to bypass the roadblocks and move forward. That's really all it takes, isn't it? You drive around the boulder in the road. You pull back the curtain on the "great and powerful Wizard of Oz." You release or raise your anchor and allow your boat to head downstream. It doesn't have to be a big and dramatic action, although sometimes it will be. It doesn't require superhuman strength. In the end, it's just a simple turning of the steering wheel, or a simple pulling back of the curtain, or a simple pulling up of the anchor. A simple, gentle swipe of the hand through space, and you are free and moving and alive again. 

Yeah, a new day is dawning. There is more reason for optimism than you might think.

That Competitive Thing

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm now utterly convinced that in the future, I will look back at the spring of 2017 as the time that everything became clear. Piece after piece of the puzzle is falling into place. And the catalysts for these realizations are...unexpected.

Regular readers of this blog have figured out by now that I seem to have no stomach whatsoever for competitiveness, much less conflict or violence. Even the prospect of hunger or homelessness isn't enough to propel me willingly into the world of the "profit motive." When I was involved in sports like tennis or rowing, I never really cared whether I won or lost. Indeed, I often actively wanted the other person/team to win, or just to forego the competition altogether. It was all about the learning journey. In the end, it has been less a case of judging this competitive model as wrong as it has been a case of simply not understanding. I just cannot seem to grasp the need to be best, have more, beat others, win the race.

But this weekend, I found my exception, or to put it more accurately, re-discovered it. I happened upon the TV coverage of the early heats of the America's Cup (sailing). Now, first and foremost was my astonishment at the nature of the modern boats themselves, catamarans (with slim, trailing "foils" like fins or rudders) that literally race above the water. I had never, ever seen such a thing before, and it was utterly magical, miraculous.

The starts of the races, however, have brought out the competitor in me for the first time in over forty years. Back when I was a teenager and our family had a summer cabin on Lake Champlain, I sailed quite a bit. I raced solo in Sunfish races with other teenagers, and then crewed in the adult races which took place in old, 18-foot wooden "knockabouts." I mentioned in an early blog that in these latter races, the "captain's word was law." The skipper was almost always a man, and you simply did not question his decision. If he said, "come about," you immediately released the jib line, threw yourself across the boat, and tightened the line on the other side.

But the starts of the races were particularly thrilling, and were the test of a skipper's talents. For about ten minutes, the six or eight boats would meander lazily around the starting area, but at the five minute horn, things started to get very tense. All the boats would start to jockey about, with the skippers trying to figure out, based on wind strength and direction, wind gusts, and what direction we would be heading in after crossing the line, how best to time getting to the starting line. This was all done with multiple other boats also coming about or jibing over and over, and there were always near misses. Boats on starboard tack (wind coming over the right side of the boat) had the right-of-way, and in the heat of the moment, it was a challenge keeping that straight. In those last few seconds, especially in a strong wind, the margin between beating a competing boat over the starting line right at the horn and crashing into him was extremely thin. I remember that I had a passion for these starts...my eyes jumped up and down from my watch to conditions on the course and I had really good instincts about how to get to the start at the right moment, instincts that, as a crew member, I had to keep to myself. Sometimes when we got a bad start, I knew in my heart that I could have done better, but my family didn't own a boat and women rarely skippered anyway. In those days, I just didn't have the assertiveness to ask for the opportunity, yet another example of keeping my power under wraps.

So it was this weekend that, when I found myself literally screaming at the television screen, "Come about, come about!!!!" and cheering the skippers who pulled tricky maneuvers to cut off the other boat at the start, I realized that "that competitive thing" is not, in fact, completely dead in me. Dormant, perhaps, and limited to one small field of endeavor, but not dead. I'm not quite sure whether this is all metaphorical or a message that it would be nice to return to sailing. And I'm a little embarrassed to have been caught in an inconsistency. But I console myself that if the most "violent" things that ever happened on this planet were sailing regattas, this would be quite a nice world.

A Festival of the Little Things

When you are yearning for big things but they don't seem to be coming, and you are daily saddened by the world outbreak of hatred and corruption, it's very easy to lose heart. Thus it was that Thursday turned out to be a Festival of the Little Things, and it was a day to be thankful for.

A little money was direct deposited into my account, and early in the morning I also received a newsletter about spirituality written by a dear friend. The letter has a donation link, and so I sent her a small gift. It felt good. I'd like to do that more often for more people, not to mention the dozen or so huge things that I need or want to do. For the millionth time perhaps in the last few decades, I begged whatever gods there be for guidance. Please, lead me to more money or a physically, emotionally and ethically tolerable way to make it! And I swear, within about twenty minutes, I received a call from the place where I am a part-time receptionist, asking whether I'd be interested in more hours the next few months. Yes, yes, I said. Thank you.

Later in the afternoon, I went downtown and withdrew $20 from a cash machine. I went for a much needed hair trim, then went, yes, to church for Ascension Day. Theologically, I can tolerate the ascension a whole lot more easily than Holy Week/Easter, and the music is good too. To my great surprise, I was invited to a pot luck dinner party after the service, and really enjoyed myself. Because no one was driving back to my part of town and the buses were no longer running, I called a taxi, and I didn't have to wait for it. The minute I walked out the door, the taxi was driving up the street. And, because of having gone to the cash machine, I actually had $10 in my wallet for the ride. Things were simply flowing.

The festival continued yesterday, when I came "this close" to pouring an entire glass of ice tea on this dear computer, which would not have been a good thing. I almost literally felt an angelic hand push my hand in the other direction at the last minute.

Some people will say, it was the giving. Some people will say, it was the asking. It is probably both. Throwing off some old constrictions around my heart in the last week or so must also help. All I know is that each day is potentially a festival of the little things. May I stay mindful of how great that is!

What was I thinking?

There is nothing even remotely funny about almost anything that is happening in the news right now. And yet there is one thing I keep coming back to that makes me chuckle.

I am old enough to remember actively being told that we women could not serve in positions of power in the world (President, Congress, corporate leadership, spiritual leadership) because we were too emotional, too "hysterical." Particularly at the time of our periods, we couldn't be trusted to make rational, thoughtful decisions.  Not born to be leaders, we were expected to remain silent, passive and in "follower" mode. Yes, kids, we women of the 1950's got that message loud and clear.

The last 48 hours or so has surely been the final death knell of that belief. There is a lot of "wigging-out" going on, and relatively little of it seems to be by women. Why do I chuckle? Because I cannot help laughing, just a little, at the irony.

Yes, I bought into that lie, and so many others. I loved the 19th century paintings of women in white dresses, languishing on window seats staring out into manicured gardens. I resonated with the notion of filling my time with such rumination, along with art, music and writing -- but the Victorian, dabbling, take-the-paint-box-out-into-the-garden version, not something empowered and visible. I bought into the idea that, if I wasn't fortunate enough to live in that milieu, I was destined to be a slave, working myself to exhaustion for menial wages. Either that, or I could chose just to bypass it all and wander. I bought into the notion that even though I wasn't "strong" enough to engage in the kill-or-be-killed male world of business, politics, and leadership, that was entirely my deficiency.

What was I thinking?

I won't lie. I wouldn't mind the white dress and the garden, and spiritual contemplation, art, music and writing are "what I am." But the genie is out of the bottle. I do them now because they are "me," and they are powerful. They are my form of leadership, my way of creating a new paradigm, not passively escaping an old one. Many people are saying this in different ways, and I'll keep singing the chorus: all of us must claim our unique, loving forms of leadership now. Yes, it will be something we adore doing, even something that makes us smile. But the time is now. We cannot wait. There is nothing "funny" about it.  

Again

Again.

I guess that's about all I can say today.

So much out there is so heartbreaking, it's a miracle that so many of us have tender hearts when we could be numb by now. I don't think we can stop what is happening. I don't think we can change or push back other people. It will take all our energy to stand tall and keep opening our own hearts further every time, to become more vulnerable, to become even more open and fearless.

Again and again, if need be.

Something in the Air

There must be something in the air. Last week was just about the most intense of my whole life (and that's not even taking into account anything in the news!) Somehow, Mother's Day opened up a previously blocked channel to my heart, and revelations and emotions have come rushing in.

One was major. Big. Huge. It was almost like walking onto Times Square, looking up at a billboard, and seeing three words large as life and knowing instantaneously that they are the belief system that has held you back, probably throughout this lifetime and even earlier ones. I could see how this belief has steered many decisions I have made, and magnetized most of my life experiences. It is so big that some of the things I was on the verge of talking about in this blog may have to wait; I know I am going to need some help from a compassionate counselor or spiritual advisor to walk through upcoming weeks, and articulate a new, more constructive and self-loving core concept. I also want to give thought to how this discovery might help me help others.

The gift of it is that I already feel lighter. I know I can change the belief, and I am already catching myself just as soon as I fall back on it, Eeyore-like. As a first step, I'm just gently reminding myself that this belief is being updated. New "site" under construction.

If this revelation had come to me in time, I could have gone to reunion after all, and proudly held up a sign saying, "I've finally identified the personal belief that has been holding me back all these years!" For a lot of alums, that might have been considered just as tangible and desirable as a house, a career, and a car. Ah well, just wait till our 45th or 50th... 

When I can, I'll tell you the three words, and, more importantly, the re-write.