WHY I AM A BAD GUEST

I have just returned from our annual family vacation and my annual reminder that I am in fact a really bad guest.  This year’s infraction was minor in relation to many in my past, but still notable.  To set the scene, what you need to know is that every summer my son and I join my Mother and younger sister as guests of the world’s MOST GRACIOUS and GENEROUS hosts, my sister-in-law’s Mom and Stepdad.

Every year for the past I-have-lost count, they open their homes, gardens, refrigerators and wine cellars to our invasion…this year, it was the wine cellar that got me in trouble (BIG surprise there).  As part of the communal living deal, we each choose a night to host a meal.  On my chosen night, everyone was over at the main house socializing while I was finishing prep work in the guest house kitchen.  You know what goes great with prep work?  A glass of wine, of course!

Although I had brought my own wine I had not brought a wine opener, so this device had been borrowed from next door.  As a longtime waiter/caterer, I routinely use the old-fashioned waiter corkscrew and was a bit bemused by the fancy gizmo I was given.  My sister (who doesn’t even drink!) showed me how it worked…now it was my turn at the wheel, metaphorically speaking.

Everything seemed to be going just fine; a little handle at the top that rotated in a consistent direction not only drove the corkscrew into the cork, but then back out again!  As I was marveling at this, the entire device exploded in my hands.  Literally shattered in several pieces.  There was no moment of resistance before this happened—it almost seemed like part of the show. Except it wasn’t.  I had irreparably broken their fancy gizmo.

This mishap was greeted with gracious good nature, but it did prompt a bit of a walk down memory lane with my sister-in-law about the time I was the world’s worst guest at her house.  First of all:  I invited myself to stay over, the epitome of bad form.  I was 8 months pregnant and my own home was being treated with chemicals so I wanted to stay away for the recommended 24 hours.  Because her and my brother’s guest room was already occupied on the night in question, she had blown up an air mattress for me.

But I was 8 months pregnant.  Not super comfortable in my body and a whole lotta peein’ goin’ on, so I opted to sleep on the couch in the family room instead.  Not so far to get up and down for those bathroom visits.  At some point during the night, some kind of alarm started chirping.  This did not rouse the rest of the house, so I began to wander around searching for the source.  I stood under fire alarms; put my ear up to doors, all to no avail.

Finally I determined this noise was coming from my sister-in-law’s phone.  Her phone was much fancier than my phone, so therefore I had no clue 1) what the alarm was for or 2) how to turn it off.  My solution?  Take the phone into the furthest room from where I was sleeping and stuff it down between upholstered cushions to mute the alarm.

As we reminisced about this bumbling bit of bad-guest-behavior, my sister-in-law also reminded me that I had borrowed her bathrobe during the visit and somehow managed to dunk it into the toilet while struggling to get up (8 months pregnant).   In the interest of full disclosure, I will now admit that I have dropped the sash of my own bathrobe into the toilet more times than I care to confess while decidedly NOT pregnant.

There are other, more subtle examples of my horrible guest acumen that involve carrying on bad habits from my home while in another’s.  I constantly open cupboards and drawers to get things and then forget to close them again.  I am always drinking something, so there is often an assortment of mugs and cups strewn about the place.  And I am hands-down the most unskilled bed-maker on the planet!  I have the ribbon somewhere.  The only time the beds in my house look tidy is when my husband makes them.  So there’s that.

But my very best worst-guest-ever story took place in the home of the parents of a dear high school friend.  I had driven the 95 corridor from NC to CT in one horrible, belabored shot, complete with an all-lane closure in the DC area that had me fumbling with my atlas and my terrible sense of direction for a detour around it (this was before GPS—and lo and behold, I figured it out without one!).  By the time I was crossing the Tappan Zee Bridge (why is there always so much traffic???) the world was swimming before my eyes.

14 hours alone in the car had rendered me slightly catatonic, so when I arrived at whatever impolite hour I arrived at, I was soon ushered to my sleeping quarters, which turned out to be a converted office space over the garage with a very comfortable pull out couch.  I quickly fell asleep but was just as quickly wakened by a chiming clock.  I lay there in the dark completely disoriented--the bed actually felt like it was revving forward as a side-effect of my long drive—and after a bit determined that the clock was striking on the quarter hour.

I stumbled out of bed and stopped the pendulum.  My parents were fans of the antique chiming clocks, so I figured I could start the pendulum in the morning and reset the time and no one would be the wiser.  I had just begun drifting off when the clock chimed again.  WHAT THE BLOODY HELL?????

I fumbled with the clock again—this time, the pendulum came out in my hand.  I was obviously mortified, but assumed this would solve the problem and I could express the mea culpa first thing in the morning after a good night’s sleep.  Except the clock quickly chimed again. 

Now this was full-on war…in my delirious and exhausted state, I proceeded to entirely dismantle the thing until I finally realized it was actually battery operated and all I ever needed to do was take out the batteries.  Oopsie!

Naturally my destruction of their clock was acknowledged not only with gracious good manners, but also an apology for the nuisance.  If there is anything worse than being the world’s worst guest, it has got to be being the world’s worst guest to the world’s BEST hosts. 

And btw, I’m a mediocre host at best.  Because if you come to my house and start breaking stuff and dropping my bathrobe into the toilet, you are going to get at the very least a whiff of my utter exasperation with you.  And that’s if I’m having a good day.

WHY I LEARNED TO 'LET IT BE'

I’m an answer girl.  Years ago, before we all had the world wide web at our fingertips to reveal anything to us at lightning speed, my friends would often call me to ask questions, from personal advice to just random trivia… “Just ask Kara, she will know” was sometimes injected into debates as the closing bell.  Even after Google swept in to usurp my authority, I still found that people contacted me so frequently for information they could easily access themselves that my sister began to joke I should set up my own business called “I Google For You”.  It sometimes feels like that could be a viable money maker, especially when it comes to politics.  People so often claim that there is no evidence of facts they could find in just a keystroke, it is difficult not to call their ignorance feigned or willful. 

I won’t lie; I mostly enjoyed being the answer girl because being helpful is a top bell-ringer for my soul.  But later I became more like Holly Hunter in “Broadcast News”, when her boss snarkily says, “It must be nice…to always think you are the smartest person in the room”.  She replies in anguish, “No, it’s awful.”  Yes, it was nice, before I was a Mom, without the responsibility of this little person’s life on my shoulders.  Now it’s awful.

That is life’s big game changer, isn’t it?  When we realize we are actually responsible to and for people other than ourselves.  It doesn’t have to be a child, either…it can be a sibling or parent who is struggling; a spouse, an employee…anyone who is looking to you for real answers and support. 

Still, the perspective we have on other people’s lives can make us very effective guides to whatever they are grappling with; our own struggles are an entirely different story.  Especially when life has got you “up to your ass in alligators”, there is no brain space for strategizing and wisdom.  So often when we are facing incredible stressors we just downshift into survival mode, and that is as good as it gets.

The first four years of my son’s life were spent entirely in this survival mode for me.  Life dealt a series of blows so hard and quick that I never even got back on my feet before the next one came.  In the first year alone we had to deal with scary health issues for our tiny newborn, my husband losing his job, my living alone with a baby who never slept, a dog and a house on the market when my husband left to start his new job, the move itself, a terminal cancer diagnosis for my Father and the death of my husband’s Dad.  That was year one, and it turned out the universe was just getting started with me.

I remember at one point in the second (even worse, believe it or not) year, I was sitting in my car at the side of the road.  My Mother was watching my son and we were waiting for the results of some frankly terrifying genetic testing the doctors had decided to run on him, tests that took 2 weeks to “develop”.  I was so afraid and broken; I just sat there alone sobbing my eyes out, until finally I started screaming, “I DON’T WANT THIS!”  Over and over again.

And after I had finished, I felt calm and somehow reassured.  I had already absorbed so much loss and grief that was beyond my control, it felt good to state a preference.  It felt empowering to claim my desire NOT TO BE MESSED WITH anymore.  And though life continued to be very challenging for all of us after that, those particular tests came back normal.  Although if they had not, I know I would have managed that too.

By the time my son turned four, we had also suffered the death of my Dad, the very untimely death of my 39 year old writing partner and friend, a serious hospitalization for my sister, another job loss for my husband and another quite horribly bungled move...that, in addition to the difficulties my child faced.  In short, it was awful.  And there were no answers I had at the time that could have made it any better.

But I survived and my son is now a happy, healthy almost 11 year old boy.  And while I learned that it is critically important to our mental health to both KNOW and be able to VOICE our preferences, the tactic that is most effective in coping with back-breaking stress is to just LET IT BE.  Circumstances happen that are beyond our control and there is no good in banging our heads against walls or pushing up against a fact. 

LET IT BE is not about giving up; it is about acceptance and our ability to receive the help and answers we need as they become available.

When we are coping with grief, stress, crisis or all of the above, it is cruel to believe we should have all the answers, or should be able to handle it on our own.  We all have experienced times in our lives when just getting out of bed in the morning and taking a shower feels like a Herculean accomplishment (and it is!).  As counterintuitive as it may seem, it is when we are most under pressure that we must relax and let it be. 

I remember reading a story once in which a woman asked her gardener in exasperation, “Will it EVER stop raining?”  He answered her quite simply:  “It always does.” 

This is the essence of letting it be.  Even though we ourselves are powerless to stop the rain, it WILL stop.  And so we get out of bed and take a shower and keep putting one foot in front of the other until it does.

And also:  even in the most turbulent downpour, there is room for joy.  As horrible and devastating as those years were in many ways, I was also the mother of a precious boy.  And a physically healthy and capable woman.  And a friend, daughter, sister, wife.  These were things that helped keep me anchored in the storm.

Now, when I face challenges and disappointments, I know that I have not been done in yet and am unlikely to be taken down any time soon.   I have learned that sometimes, when I don’t have the answers, the best thing I can do is just let it be.  And wait for the rain to stop.

 

WHY I REMEMBER

So I find myself reflecting on the nature of memory this Memorial Day; most everyone who knows me regards my elephant-like recall as one of my super-powers, but as a recent feature of middle age I have found my short term memory becoming a bit faulty.  For example: a few weeks back I was invited to attend a girl’s night at one of my neighbor's and agreed to be there.  I did not end up going, however, because I completely and totally forgot about it in the time that elapsed between invitation and event.

This was not an oh-it-slipped-my-mind due to busyness or interceding occurrences.  This was flat-out it never crossed my mind in the days leading up to it nor on the night in question.  It was not until the next morning when I was out walking and saw a woman who resembled my neighbor that my brain finally kicked in and set off the reminder DING! that was approximately 15 hours too late.

And while you are probably laughing and thinking that this sort of thing happens all the time and it’s no big deal, to me it was a very big deal because it had NEVER happened to me before.  My ridiculously reliable and detailed memory has not only been an incredibly useful tool in my life, it has actually been a critical part of my identity.  I have clear and vivid memories of some events themselves but also of my perception of those events starting at around the age of two.

One of my favorites involves 3 year old me pushing a doll carriage up the street and filling it with wildflowers.  Although from the outside I am sure this presented an idyllic portrait of childhood, I was fearful the whole time that some adult would think I had a live baby in the cart and admonish me for smothering it in weeds.  My linear memory doesn’t kick in until school age, but the idea that I was probably being watched and should therefore behave in a way that reflected well on me was deeply ingrained in my psyche from day one.  This was many decades before the internet or Facebook or YouTube, so perhaps I was after all a prescient child.

The thing I enjoy most about memories, apart from the fact that they give you tremendous insight into who and how and why you are the way that you are, is that nearly all of them are good.  That is not to say that the remembered events are always good, but the place they take in the mosaic of life, if you are like me and take each experience as an opportunity to learn and grow, is usually positive and helpful.

When I remember some of the worst things that have ever happened to me, I have to be impressed with how well I handled them, even as a kid.  When I remember my lowest and most depressed moments, I feel such compassion and yes, again some pride for how I managed to eventually lift myself back up.  Thinking about relationships that came to an end reminds me of how each of them taught me a little bit more about healthy boundaries and who I am and what I need to feel safe and engaged with other people.

The wonderful thing about memories is that they generalize in a positive way.  I  recently saw a headline that said something to the effect of “anyone who says they had a happy childhood is lying” and thought to myself the only people who are going to read an article like that are those who had unhappy childhoods because they are looking for validation.  Sorry whoever wrote that article, I had a happy childhood!  Generally speaking, of course.

Yes, some unhappy things happened during my childhood, but they did not make me an unhappy person.  My parents had a remarkably good marriage, my siblings and I were all healthy and capable, my Dad was always gainfully employed, my Mom kept a clean and comfortable house well stocked for healthy meals and all the daily needs of life, I had friends and relatives I loved and even the occasional pet.  Plus, it was the 70’s!!!  The 70’s were an awesome time to be a kid!   Generally speaking, of course.  So I had a happy childhood.

Memories generalize the positive, I think, because although positive memories are a wonderful underpinning to a happy life, it tends to be the more specific negative memories that were the “game changers”.  We all want to protect our children from bad experiences, but the truth of the matter is that those are the ones that develop our courage, strength and compassion.  Bad experiences teach us how to cope, show us that we are difficult to break.  We remember them so specifically because they help us to trust ourselves above all others.   Bad experiences are where we get to demonstrate our strengths.

The last thing I love about memories, good and bad, is that they are always there waiting for you.  The good ones are there to buoy your spirits, give you a chuckle or a bonding moment; the bad ones wait patiently for you to be ready to deal with them and receive their lessons.  I think of them like in those old cop movies, when the detective has to find the file of some long forgotten mystery; he is always taken to a room with racks and racks of cardboard boxes…the piece of information he seeks has been just sitting there all along, ignored until it became critical to crack the case.

I recently had a bad memory come up that helped me “crack the case” of a certain behavior pattern that had been dogging me for years.  I wasn’t ready to process it earlier, but like a crime solver in film, recent events had led me back to it as key.  Remembering helped me to understand myself and why I had made certain choices better; it also served to remind me that I survived.  And we have all survived something.  It’s good to remember that when dealing with each other, I think.

Living in the present is a glorious thing; we enjoy our experiences as they happen and at face value.  But the memories we store are the foundation for our functioning not only productively but with well-ordered priorities.  I remember loss because it reminds me to appreciate what I have.  I remember trauma because it reminds me I am strong.  I remember sadness because it reminds me to be compassionate.  I remember mistakes because it reminds me I can make different choices. 

I remember my life because it made me who I am.   And I am happy with who I am.   Generally speaking, of course.

Why Life is Like a Sand Mandala

As a much younger woman, I worked for a Buddhist chef as his Gal Friday.  I sort of plugged in all of the holes in his small operation, from office duties to running errands to working the front desk to bartending.  This was mainly a positive experience as he was a kind and gentle person and I got to don my beloved superhero cape on a regular basis, swooping in to save the day with my MAD COMPETENCE.  There are few things in life that invigorate me more than being of genuine help to someone, and this was the actual function of my position.  When I left, I missed that sense of purpose and accomplishment; it might not have been world changing work, but knowing you make someone else’s life better and easier is a pretty sweet gig.

One of my most indelible memories of that time is when the chef invited some visiting Tibetan monks to take up daily residence in the restaurant and create a sand mandala.  If you have never seen that done, I encourage you to check out this time lapse video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2PQg6mws4k).  It is one of the most incredible things I have ever witnessed; the patience for minutia, the intense focus, the peaceful aura.  As I watched them transform a blank slate into a work of art with a level of skill and creativity most of us can only dream of, I found myself growing increasingly anxious.  I’m sure this sounds like an irrational response, so let me explain myself:

Once this intricate and painstaking masterpiece was completed, the monks fully intended to destroy it. 

I watched day after day as they gently tapped cups full of colored sand in tandem to create a mosaic of breathtaking symmetry and beauty.   I pre-emptively entered a state of mourning…why did they even bother to finish it?  What was the point?  An errant gust of wind could sweep it all away anyhow, why dedicate the heartbreaking hours of mind-blowing effort to something so fragile, so unsustainable???

I know you are laughing at me right now, because of course what I am describing is life.

But I was a young person, as I mentioned, and mortality had not yet impacted me meaningfully.  I was still trying to climb the mountain without any cognizance that all reaching the top would do is afford me a better view of the next highest peak.  I had not yet grasped what I now refer to as “the hamster wheel of effort”; or, more elegantly as “the sand mandala we call living”.

Before I go on, I would like to share with you the sweet irony of my story—the monks did NOT in fact destroy the mandala when they were done!  So we can add “worrying about something that never happened” to my mad skill set.  Somehow my sweet (BUDDHIST!) boss convinced them to allow him to sort of spray glue the sand into place (still not sure how it was accomplished, but it was accomplished) and he owned this magnificent work of art for as long as I was with him.

But the wisdom of the monks’ intention stuck with me:  nothing in life is permanent.  Most especially life itself.  And also, there is an even deeper wisdom to everyone who is engaged in the culture of “merit by accomplishment”…while it seems to be coded into the human experience to strive towards goals, once a goal is met there is always the “next” thing to achieve.  One sand mandala is swept away and we begin another. 

My son is rapidly approaching his eleventh birthday and I am watching the sand of his childhood blow into the wind.  When he was a baby, it felt heavy and almost eternal; but with each passing year I hold on to him tighter and cherish those moments I now know will too quickly pass.  He asked me once what I thought heaven would be like and I told him that if heaven is perfect happiness, then I will return right here to his childhood—always knowing where he is, always knowing he is well and profoundly experiencing what it is like to purely, fiercely love and have that love returned so easily and openly.

That Buddhist chef I worked for was an artist in his own right in the kitchen.  He had a magic touch with food and presentation and nearly everything produced by his hand was “to die for”, in the vernacular.  Of course his masterpieces were also instantly destroyed by hungry (but usually appreciative) guests and each day he would start all over again.

That is the reality we all live in; or as my Father would have said “It’s the GOOD news AND the BAD news”.  Most of what we work so hard on in life will eventually (and often instantly) be destroyed…much of what we accomplish will be quickly eclipsed by another accomplishment, either our own or someone else’s.  That is why it is pretty critical not to allow yourself to get too worked up about or overly invested in anything.

Hmmm, I’m sounding like a Buddhist now.  But don’t worry, I’m not going to go all “life is suffering” on you here.  Instead I will point out that when we are always fixated on the end result (or even worse, “what’s next?”) we are living from a very uncomfortable place.  We are sitting in the seat of dissatisfaction instead of enjoying the actual experience of things.

Working for the chef, I knew the job would never make me wealthy; I knew I wasn’t “going anywhere” in the position.  I knew it was impermanent.  But I derived tremendous satisfaction out of doing the job well and being truly helpful to someone.  Now that I am older, I figure if I can hit those marks on a regular basis in life, I am doing okay.  Especially if I remember to pause and notice the incredible and painstaking beauty that surrounds me each day before everything changes again.

 

WHY MEAN PEOPLE SUCK!

When my son started kindergarten, my biggest trepidation was regarding the bus ride; in my day, buses were hotbeds of bullying and intimidation, especially for the littlest and most vulnerable.  I was endlessly reassured that the kindergarten class was isolated at the front with a monitor supervising their behaviors.  Plus, the kid was jazzed to ride the bus!  For him it was like a status symbol; so I relented and let him live the dream.

Naturally he was seated next to the worst bully in his class, a child who would continue to plague us throughout his early years of elementary education.  My first indication that something was wrong was when he suddenly no longer wanted to wear a knit panda hat that had previously been his pride and joy.  It took some digging before I discovered that he was being teased and ridiculed.  Of course, like any normal mother, I wanted to wring the neck of the little assh*le who was torturing him.

But because parenting from prison is a tough gig, what I did instead was explain to my boy that MEAN PEOPLE are UNHAPPY PEOPLE.  And that instead of feeling angry that someone is mean, we should feel sorry that they are so unhappy that they are lashing out at others.  My kid, being the sort of kid he is, took this information to heart. 

Unbeknownst to me, he took money out of his piggy bank and bought a gift for the brat at the school store.  He wanted to help make him feel happier.  I was secretly aghast that my lesson had prompted him to reward his tormentor, but you know what?

It actually worked.  Temporarily, but that was good enough at the time.  I did tell him that it would not have been my advice to act as he did; but I also realized that MEAN PEOPLE are EVERYWHERE and he is going to have to learn how to deal with them in his own way. 

They had another run-in two years later when the bully stole something off of my son’s desk and then flaunted it as his own.  By that time he had become a professional tough like Draco Malfoy, complete with a set of Crabbe and Goyle-like mouth-breather sidekicks.  Apart from the heartbreak of having his small treasure lifted, my son and I actually enjoyed a good laugh at this cartoonish display of villainy.  We eventually just referred to the kid as Draco and his sidekicks as “the Henchmen”.  Draco’s exploits became legendary, at least in our home.  He went from being a problem to being a source of entertainment.

Obviously anyone who follows the news knows that bullying is an epidemic and that technology has made it easier for children (and adults) to be cruel to one another while maintaining a safe distance from the emotional consequences of looking someone in the eye when you spit on them.  We all know intellectually that bullying is for weaklings; the insecure, the lost, the angry and yes, the sad.  We understand that bullying is wrong; we also realize that as long as humans exist, so will bullying.  It’s part of the human condition.

My son is in a new school now with different children; as we near the end of his first year, the class bully has asserted himself.  Although his existence was inevitable, I still feel myself tied up in knots about the fact that MEAN PEOPLE feel the need to be MEAN to my only child, who is an easygoing, flexible and respectful person.  But rather than figure out a way to pinch that kid’s earlobe until he screams, (as Harriet the Spy would suggest) I must instead embark on part two of my son’s lesson in bullying…

Yes, MEAN PEOPLE are UNHAPPY PEOPLE.  But you cannot fix someone else’s unhappiness for them; not with gifts and most likely not even with kindness and respect.  Because MEAN PEOPLE are not MEAN in response to YOU; they are MEAN in response to their own inner turmoil.  In other words, you are not responsible for anyone else’s unkindness, one way or another.  In fact, you are not responsible for anyone else’s behavior in general, so my advice in dealing with this new tormentor has been one sentence long:  just be yourself.

In life, the most important lesson we can learn is that we are responsible TO and FOR ourselves.  Many parents delay the impact of this truth by trying to shield their children from the consequences of their behaviors.  But consequences are the number one teaching tool the universe has to offer in helping us become our best selves.  As a parent now observing the parenting of those who are (quite unintentionally, I’m sure) raising bullies, this is the consistent mistake I am seeing.  Children who are never forced to “face the music” for their actions stop hearing the music at all; instead of joining the symphony of life, they remain isolated outside of its natural rhythms and out of step with other dancers.

MEAN PEOPLE SUCK.  And they are a part of everyday life, so we must learn how to cope with them.  Also:  sometimes WE are THEM.  Somedays it is our own inner turmoil that causes US to lash out at others, even people who have been kind to us, even people we love, and most especially at OURSELVES.  So not only does the anti-bullying campaign start at home as we teach our children to face consequences for their behaviors, it starts most profoundly with our relationship to our self.

“To thine own self be true and it must follow…Thou canst not be false to any man.”  How about to thine own self be KIND?  When we practice kindness and compassion with ourselves, it MUST FOLLOW that we are better able to extend these behaviors to others. 

So the next time you catch yourself being MEAN to YOU, remind yourself that MEAN PEOPLE SUCK.  Make a better choice and start a revolution.

 

Why You Are Man AND Superman!

I just showed my 10 year old son the 1978 version of SUPERMAN for the first time.  I had not planned to watch it with him, but I got sucked in by the mesmerizing opening credits and iconic music (he did ask:  “why are the credits at the beginning of this movie?”).  Then I just thought I’d watch the beginning (Glenn Ford has TWO SCENES and I STILL WEEP when he dies!) and then, you know.  Suddenly it was the end of the movie. 

Christopher Reeve, in the role of Superman, is the purest incarnation of everything we want our superheroes to be:  handsome, kind, smart, strong, honest, compassionate, righteous-- but not judgmental.  The scene where Miss Teschmacher saves him from destruction at Luther’s hands in return for her mother’s life epitomizes the character; not only does he agree to the bargain and fulfill it (even though he knows it will almost certainly cost him his own beloved) but instead of rejecting the kiss the villainess plants on him in his weakened state, he is touched by it.  Superman is driven purely by his moral imperatives; Superman is darned near perfect, just like most of us ***wish*** we could be.

I think almost all of us dreamed of or played at being superheroes as children; I went through a period of being fixated on Batgirl and my son’s life ambition at 4 was to grow up to be Spiderman.  He used to promise me that although he knew he would be very busy fighting crime, he would always find time to check in and make sure I was okay.  The desire to be heroic feels coded into us; but then as we grow up we become acutely aware of our fallibility and flaws, our weaknesses and limitations.  We realize we will always be man and not Superman.  We think we are not good enough to fly.

The shift happens for most of us in those gruesome years of adolescence.  We are suddenly all about what is wrong with us and how we are not “measuring up”; we become quite negatively narcissistic.  Naturally our peers are happy to assist in this and add on to the already exhaustive list of our frailties.  Raise your hand if you’ve ever been told that you’re too fat!  Or too thin! Or too smart!  Or too stupid!  Or too pretty!  Or too ugly!  Or too opinionated!  Or too nice!  Or TOO ANYTHING AT ALL!!!

I would like to pause here to acknowledge the irony that many of us have been told we are TOO MUCH OF two TOTALLY CONTRADICTORY THINGS.  Double bind, anyone?  But a friend of mine recently posted the following quote and it really got me thinking about what it means to be TOO MUCH:

“I know now that whatever you've been told you're too much of…is actually your superpower."--Jeffrey Marsh

That, my friends, is what we like to call a “radical reframing”.  One of the consistent messages of adolescence is that we need to learn to blend in; anything that sets us apart from the pack makes us easy prey.  We begin to strive for neutrality, shades of beige; we want to wear the same kinds of clothes as the others, have the same type of body; listen to the same music, share the same opinions.  Like Clark Kent, our true identities must remain a secret.  Differentiating ourselves means we are open to attack.  Parents often unwittingly aid in this by purchasing the trendy gear and participating in a “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality; who would want to leave their child vulnerable?

But like an untamable cowlick, our inner selves tend to stick out.  And we get pegged by our peers; nerd, jock, Brainiac, popular…now we are juggling both fitting in with the crowd and playing our assigned role.  We are not “getting along” in the spirit of cooperation; try more in the spirit of SURVIVAL.  Is it any wonder so few of us grow up to be “superheroes”???

But what if your secret identity IS your super power?  What if the very thing you’ve been told to be ashamed of, to hide, to “tamp down” is your greatest strength?   What have you been hiding because you were told it was TOO MUCH?

Superman, as I said before, was driven by his relentless moral imperatives.  We ALL have inner imperatives driving us too…political activists are driven by an imperative for justice, artists are driven by an imperative to create, teachers are driven by an imperative to inform and uplift and so on.  But sometimes…often, in fact…we receive a message that our imperative is an unworthy one.  An activist whose family disagrees with his viewpoint, an artist whose parents’ value material achievement; a teacher whose message falls on deaf ears.  When we push back on this, we are accused of being strident, selfish, unrealistic.  But embracing and fulfilling our inner imperatives is the only game in town; it is the only way we come to know our own true selves.

Watching those rousing opening credits of SUPERMAN I could feel myself slide back in time, back inside the head of a little girl who still believed she could be heroic.   Just like Superman, she could be kind, smart, strong, honest, compassionate, righteous-- but not judgmental.  She could take a stand against divisive elements.  I loved being reminded of her, because some days I am and do all of these things; other days, I succumb to my own personal forms of Kryptonite.  One of which is, and always has been, a fear of being TOO MUCH.  Too honest, too opinionated, too pushy…too much myself.

And isn’t this Kryptonite for all but the most evolved of us?  The fear of being “too much ourselves”?  The fear we dragged along from adolescence that if we stand out, don’t fit in, ask for too much, we will be rejected?  Maybe it’s time we all realize that being ourselves IS OUR SUPER POWER.  Being ourselves is HEROIC.  And allowing others to be themselves is the KEY to our HAPPINESS.  Remember, on Krypton EVERYBODY was a Superman.  Isn’t it possible that this could be true for us as well, if we could just allow it?

WHY WOMEN NEED TO MAN UP*!

If I hear one more woman act horrified by what Donald Trump has said about women I am going to lose it…Ladies - toughen up - your great grandmothers worked freaking hard to get you where you are today. Let's keep going and focus on real issues...Sorry Donald Trump said things about women being fat or hot or the myriad of dumb. Move on. For the sake of your great grandmother.

This quote has been brought to you by a very smart, very successful, very dear old friend of mine from high school.  In the interest of full disclosure, before I go on:  yes, she is white and from a privileged background, just like I am.  We never had to worry about having roof over our heads, or food to eat, or being exposed to violence in our homes; there was no question about whether or not we could attend college if we achieved in high school. 

Ironically, women who did NOT grow up in the berth of safety we did are much more likely to not give a damn about Donald Trump’s idiotic, blatant sexism.  They have much bigger fish to fry—when you are working overtime to barely meet your basic minimum standards of survival, things that a foolish billionaire may or may not be saying tend to roll off your back.  It’s those of us whose needs are being consistently met that have got to MAN UP about it!

Truthfully, although Donald Trump’s views on women are obviously abhorrent, I prefer his brand of brazen idiocy to the more insidious and institutional forms of sexism that are so naturally a part of our day to day lives that we barely even notice them.  I read an article recently that accurately pointed out that Hillary Clinton is frequently criticized for not having her husband’s “charisma”—the same charisma that apparently makes him so appealing to women who aren’t his wife.  And while he publicly humiliated her by cheating on her and LYING about it, she is the one who gets called “untrustworthy”.  It boggles the mind, truly. “Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame” seems to be the answer to every question, even now.

The manipulation of images of women also remains an incredibly dangerous and mostly unchecked societal danger.  It is no longer enough for models to be beautiful and fit; computer programs now must make them seem as supernatural, god-like, unattainable visions of perfection.  One young woman, as an experiment, posted pictures of herself without makeup on the internet; she is genetically very beautiful but suffers from an unfortunate skin condition.  The cruelty and viciousness of the comments she received were staggering—Trump-worthy.  Then she applied her makeup and posted new images.  These were accepted with a good deal more praise and support…and yet still, some brutal attacks.  For wearing too much makeup, "Respect yourself, you damn slut"; for “false advertising”.  This is the definition of “damned if we do, damned if we don’t”.

Women are sexualized in film, TV and advertising to an alarming degree; the argument that “sex sells” has become so ingrained in our culture that it barely even registers anymore.  However, the backlash against this has been somewhat misguided, in my opinion.  For example, if a woman chooses to dress provocatively—let’s stereotype this as short skirts and cleavage revealing tops—this is NOT an invitation to physically or verbally harass her and is empirically NOT an excuse for rape or assault.  But yes, it is an invitation to notice her sexuality.  Just as a man who highlights a nice form is inviting admiration for it.  There is nothing intrinsically WRONG with human sexuality or the expression of it.

HOWEVER—and I’ve heard all the arguments against what I am about to say ad naseum—if a woman dresses in a way that provokes a sexual response, she is not allowed to be offended that she has in fact provoked an appropriate sexual response.  What is an “appropriate” sexual response?  Admiring looks, compliments, respectful invitations for interaction if she is single (i.e. “dates”).  None of this is harassment, ladies.  It used to be called “courtship” but I guess most of that is done online these days.  Btw, if you post a profile pic that is all-cleavage?  Don’t be mad if the boob men come out from under their rocks to respond to that.  You are perfectly entitled to feel proud of your mammary glands, but if you promote them over your mind, heart and soul, you are going to attract a different sort of fellow than a woman who doesn’t.  And you aren’t allowed to feel sorry for yourself about it, either.

This is what I mean when I say that women need to “man up”…there are so many forces at work against us but IT’S TRUE that our great-grandmothers FOUGHT for the rights and privileges we have today; whether as suffragettes, or immigrants making a life in a new country against the odds; or as an oppressed minority struggling to overcome the blight and stigma of racism…we’ve come a long way.  But there are miles to go before we can rest and we need to focus on the important issues and fight for education, women’s health initiatives, equal pay, etc., and not get distracted by bozos like Trump or asserting our “right” to wear a micro-mini in the workplace and still be treated with respect. 

Yes, the double standards we are up against remain legion…in thinking about what women wear in the workplace, I couldn’t even come up with an example of what it would look like for a man to dress in a sexually provocative manner…would his fly be unzipped?  Would he be wearing robe, perhaps?  And this proves the larger point that men are NOT sexualized in society and have no stigma to push back on.  Again, sexuality is an important part of the human experience but NOT a productive or necessary part of most workplaces; so let’s promote that trend by dressing the part of a worker--men do.  Let’s stop buying magazines and investing in products that encourage the belief that “perfecting” our looks is a worthy goal; most men don’t feel the need to look perfect, quite obviously.  Let’s stop getting hysterical about what morons like Donald Trump are saying about women; I guarantee smart men aren’t listening to him and dumb men are dumb men.  No fix for that.

We are women and we are powerful; let’s stop apologizing for it—men don’t.  We have a right to maintain control over our own bodies, whatever that means to us and we MUST STAND TOGETHER against any movement, party or candidate who doesn’t agree.  We are allowed to express our beauty and sexuality in a way that feels safe and empowering to us; we are NOT allowed to impose our sexuality on people or environments where it is not welcomed or invited any more than a man should be.  We are women…mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, lovers, fighters, workers, soldiers.  We are indispensable vessels, creators, partners, visionaries.  Let’s work together towards the day when men are told to “woman up”—*be yourself unapologetically but with compassion for all.