It's all about me

"The pain and anxiety we experience in our lives are in equal measure to the size of our self-importance. Our attachment to self is at the center of ego's world--ego's empire. In our attempt to secure ego's empire, we must wrestle with the world and all its unpredictability. We have so much less control than we would like. All our hopes, fears, and preferences stir up feelings of insecurity within us and feed our mental unrest and aggression."--Dzigar Kongtrul, from his book Light Comes Through: Buddhist Teachings on Awakening to Our Natural Intelligence

Mike has been out of town on a business trip to Alaska this week, milling around among the burly, ax-wielding, red-plaid-wearing lumberjacks. Actually he's there for a science and computer conference, but the lumberjacks make the story sexier.

In his absence, I've been moody, more so than usual. I've grown accustomed to my husband being around. Without him, I start spending too much time in my own head--my monkey mind comes alive and starts swinging from limb to limb ready to grab all the bananas it can get. I become more self-centered. Why hasn't that person answered my email yet? Why didn't that person say hello to me? Why wasn't I included in their plans? In order to feel more in control of my world and to seal the leaking gaps in my ego, I reward myself in some way: I buy something pretty online, I eat TWO bowls of chocolate ice cream. My needs become foremost. Only later do I worry about the money I spent or the extra sugar I ingested.

Writing teachers tell you that to in order to write well you need to look outside yourself, to notice the small details that you miss when you're wrapped up in angry thoughts about some minor infraction you think you've suffered. When you pay attention to things outside your insular little world, you learn so much more. Instead of repeating endless unanswerable questions in your mind, like when will I be happy? you notice little things in your environment that were never on your radar before. That woman with the red hair looks tired, I wonder what happened to her today? That family of tourists is quiet, not speaking to each other, I wonder if they quarreled? What brought them here and why do they seem to be let down? Or that old man with the long gray beard playing his guitar and singing--where did he come from? What makes him so extroverted?

Taking an interest in others is a way to step out of ego. So much of the time I'm thinking about getting my share. I may think of others later, but my initial reaction is What about me? There are times I shock myself with my own selfishness. It should be me who picks the restaurant. I want that last piece of cake, in fact I'm taking it. Why does she get to ride around in a Mini Coop? That's MY dream car.

But when Mike is around he often calls me out for being self-referential, for thinking that the world is supposed to line up according to my needs, my desires. When I'm talking with friends I often find myself cutting into the conversation ready to give my take on something, and I have to force myself to step back and let the other person finish. When I'm able to refrain from jumping in, I feel like I'm actively listening, that I'm present for other people. Paying attention to others--whether it's a smile to a an old woman, letting someone get on the train before you, staying mum while a co-worker talks about their summer travel plans--that's often just as satisfying as immediately inserting yourself into the picture. Standing back and observing gives you a fresh perspective, one that is uncluttered by the narrow sight line of ME.

I'm also guilty of this on the Internet. The whole idea behind social media is to be social. But more often than not I'm talking and not really listening. I get on Twitter and it seems like so many voices talking at once and no one really listening--like a political debate without Jim Lehrer. But am I even listening? Or am I just adding to the noise? Sure, it's important to express yourself--to say I am here. But you reach a point when you might as well be talking to yourself. And isn't it far more interesting to hear other people's stories? Heck, you've got yours memorized.

The point is, I'm learning that there's a difference between a healthy self-interest and being self-absorbed. When you're self-absorbed, you miss out on so much. It's hard to make true connections with people if you always have a personal agenda. You can't take a good picture if the camera lens is always turned toward you.

She's crafty

"I've discovered many reasons why thrifting makes good sense: politics, nostalgia, economics, and perhaps most of all, the environment. More and more people are thrifting as a way to lessen their impact on the earth. And along the way, they're getting quality goods with a connection to the past."--Amanda Blake Soule, from Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures


I was on Block Island with Mike this weekend. We were walking around, climbing up hills to look at the B&B's and grand hotels--places where F. Scott and Zelda would have felt quite at home. Mike was impressed by how old the buildings were: The Spring House, for instance, has been around for 156 years. Maybe the Fitzgeralds DID summer there.

Our own B&B I had found on the Internet. The Oak Room was perfectly fine except that it was the front most facing room, so we could hear everyone's conversations from the front porch. We had come here with a decadent wish: for peace and quiet. But now we knew the whole story of one of our fellow guests, some nasally-voiced woman who disagreed vehemently with her condo association.

To make it worse, maintenance set up a ladder right between our windows, and as I lay on the Queen-sized bed, trying to relax in the humidity, I saw the dirty soles of a man's shoes step up one rung after another and then plant themselves, spreading roots there.

Plus there was no clawfoot bathtub (not that I saw one on the website. I just wanted to be pleasantly surprised.)

Anyway, it was our first trip to Block Island and we loved the scenery. Surely there were better accommodations to reserve next year. As we were scouting out places and picking up brochures we came upon a brick walkway lined with colored bottles leading to a small ramshackle old house. The edges of each step had been turned into mosaics, with cracked china and pieces of sea glass sparkling like rock candy in the bright sun.

I wasn't sure if this was a private residence but I wanted to take a closer look. The pathway curved like a parenthesis, and near the front door there was an arrangement of yellow flowers, it's soil spiked with a metal ornament of an angel and the rim of the pot circled by small ceramic creatures you might see on your grandmother's mantel.

The place appeared to be an artist's studio. Through the window on the door I could see various crafts arrayed on shelves and hanging from the ceiling. I walked into the small entryway (outside Mike had found a "husband's chair" and was leaned back with his Tilly keeping the sun off his face.) To my left behind a glass cabinet there were maybe thirty different shadowboxes, each lined with a different old-time postcard like the kind your parents probably sent when they were kids on vacation in the 1950's. There were shells and sea glass arrayed in each box. I picked one up, not realizing that the shells were not fixed in place. The clatter surprised me, and I jerked my head around to see if anyone had noticed. But when no one came to investigate, I placed the box carefully back on the shelf and gave the cabinet door a gentle push to seal it shut.

Lining the windowsills were jars and jars of pretty sea detritus--dried starfish, sand dollars, shiny colored pebbles and sea glass formed from bottles seaman tossed overboard without a second thought. There were also jars of old buttons. I was reminded of when I was a kid and my mother would open a small wooden jewelry box, revealing heaps and heaps of assorted old buttons inside. I liked to shake some out and line them up, or just scoop my hand inside and pretend the buttons were a pirate's lost treasure. I had no particular use for the buttons--I didn't know how to sew or make jewelry. But I liked to look at all of them, the clear glass ones and the colored plastic ones, the old Victorian style ones and the ones shaped like Tweety Bird. I have always been easily entertained by shiny things.

There was a second room with brilliant colored cotton pillows and bags and long sundresses--all sewn patchwork-style from scraps of vintage materials. Looking around me, I felt connected to a past I had never known, one that my mother had shown me in old photographs and which I glimpsed in antique store windows. The clothing and bags reminded me of some of the projects in Patchwork Style, but without the wacky Japanese sensibility.

In the final room, a woman about my mother's age stood talking to another customer. I moved quietly about, not wanting to disturb their conversation or be asked if I needed help. There were more jars of seashells, more pretty fabrics hanging from wall posts. The room had a counter and sink, and looked to be the woman's workspace. I flipped through some old postcards of Block Island in a cardboard box and plucked a few to bring home with me. When the other customer left, I stepped forward with my modest purchase. I looked at the woman more closely. She had blunt-cut blond hair that reached just over her ears. Her face was pink and wrinkled from years of sun exposure, but I could see that she was pretty. She wore one of her long sleeveless sundresses. I wouldn't mind having her life when I'm sixty.

Her name was Jan and she owned the shop and was its sole designer, except for a few pieces of sea glass jewelry her daughter sold there. Jan had been coming to Block Island for decades, and like the idealized middle-aged women at the center of Luanne Rice novels, she had finally decided to stay. She told me that she was once a designer for large clothing manufacturers. Among other things, Jan had designed a popular men's shirt for Banana Republic.

But that was a long time ago, she said. She quit the business once all the sewing got shipped overseas. "Now it's all just replicas of the past, not the real thing," she said with a soft toss of her hair, "You have people coming in here touching the fabrics and taking notes just so they can replicate the item so their customers will THINK they're buying good quality. But it's not quality. And then they charge the same amount as the authentic product costs, and people pay it!" She rubbed the edge of a tablecloth between her fingers, "This is what real cotton feels like. It's light but not insubstantial. And the colors don't run like they do with synthetics. It's hard to find real fabric anymore."

Then she put two identical starfish in each of my hands. "Can you tell which one is real and which one is plastic?" I could, but only because I was holding them side by side and could feel the delicate outside structure of the real starfish. "People go to boutiques and buy these plastic imitations, when the real thing is right on our beach for the taking!"

I thought about someone buying this plastic replica of a natural thing and displaying it on a shelf. A year or so later, it would end up in a box in the basement, or in the garbage because of some chipped paint.

Why did we buy this crap anyway? Why, when we want to remember our blissful island weekend, do we buy a memento that was made in some Chinese factory by people who have probably never heard of Block Island? Why did I covet expensive designer bags made to look vintage when in reality these same bags were assembled for peanuts in some far-off Asian country? Why did I buy so many new things when I could make valuable treasures out of the pieces I already owned?

It made me want to take up sewing, to go venture into some antique stores, searching for the good stuff, the real deals, the authentic past. I told Jan as much. Problem was I didn't know how to sew or do anything else that was very crafty. Jan told me that many people stop by her shop and just drop off old but pretty things, just so they can see what she comes up with, how she arranges their castoffs into something new, unique, and lovely. I was intrigued. I wanted to go home and make something. At the very least I could collage.

It did occur to me (briefly) that this woman might be feeding me a sales pitch, perhaps hoping I'd add a $50.00 patchwork apron or pillow to my stack of postcards. But I dismissed the idea. Jan seemed genuinely pained at the thought of a future made of plastic and synthetics. I also didn't get the impression that this woman was hurting for customers in such a tony, leftist neighborhood, where people loved anything handmade as long as someone else was making it. These people would pay any price, but at least what they got was the real thing, something new from something old that might otherwise be stuffed in a box in the basement, forgotten.


If you're in Block Island, RI, anytime in May through October, visit:

Jan McKillip Designs
Lightburne Cottage
Spring Street
02087
(401) 466-8894

A life less ordinary

"We must be willing to be completely ordinary people, which means accepting ourselves as we are without trying to become greater, purer, more spiritual, more insightful. If we can accept our imperfections as they are, quite ordinarily, then we can use them as part of the path. But if we try to get rid of our imperfections, then they will be enemies, obstacles on the road to our 'self-improvement'."--Chogyam Trungpa, from Ocean of Dharma: 365 Teachings on Living Life with Courage and Compassion

I was in a marketing meeting this morning and the editors were discussing their Summer 2011 titles (yes, 2011. Publishing, like the fashion industry, dwells in the future. But what I hate about fashion is that they start selling fall clothes in August, so when you're looking for, say, a pair of shorts during a heat wave, all they have is wool pants, as if to say, duh--why didn't you shop for shorts in March?)

One of the Summer 2011 titles is by Jan Chozen Bays, the author of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food. That book was well-received, and Jan has many followers who think she is the bee's knees when it comes to mindfulness meditation.

The new book, Adventures in Mindfulness, was described as "a guided program for bringing mindfulness and meditation into ordinary daily activities to reduce stress and enhance well-being." There will be an exercise a week for a year; one example: notice in your speech how many times you say "um, ah, like" etc. Then instead of using those words, try taking a few deep breaths, then resume what you were going to say. This would be a hard exercise for almost anyone, but especially for us girls from New Jersey who use the word "like" as a preposition.

But I've observed President Obama when he's giving a speech and how he pauses in between thoughts instead of "ahh-ing" or "umm-ing." Yes, every Toastmasters member knows this trick, but you don't have to be a great orator or the President to pay attention to your speech. Look how calm and collected Obama looks, even when he has something difficult to say (which is all the time.)

Another exercise is keeping a gratitude journal. I have one that's published by Chronicle Books. It's got quotes and ideas in it to inspire you. The problem is I feel like I write the same thing over and over because my life is pretty staid.

1. I'm grateful for my parents being alive and healthy.
2. I'm grateful for my husband who loves me even when I'm sick or tired or bratty.
3. I'm grateful for my job which I enjoy.
4. I'm grateful that I HAVE a job (not a given these days.)
5. I'm grateful I don't live in a war-torn country where "happiness" is defined as "not getting blown up or kidnapped or forcibly silenced."

These are all good things for me to remember when I'm feeling low, but I don't want to write the same thing every time. So I've branched out.

1. I'm grateful for my ten purple-painted toes. All functioning.
2. I'm grateful for my air conditioner (if you live anywhere in the Northeast right now, you know what I'm talking about.)
3. I'm grateful for books. And eyes that can see because I'm not crazy about audiobooks.
4. I'm grateful for my good taste. Yes, I can say that and not be snobby. Maybe.
5. I'm grateful for black olives.

My mother is a big believer in finding happiness in small moments. I have to practice being mindful so I can do that.

But I don't like being ordinary, listing ordinary gratitudes. When you're young you feel like so much is possible. Living in New York City I experienced that feeling several times a week just being there, dwarfed by the skyscrapers and constantly stimulated with novelty. Now I feel like life is stalled. The possibilities look less abundant now, and I'm supposed to be happy about that? Is being mindful and accepting yourself as you are just an admission of your mediocrity? Is celebrating the small stuff just another way of giving up your big dreams?

Here's what Thoreau says: If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours ... In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Can we do both? Dream big and succeed, and have a simple life?

I'm thinking that when I can get a hold of Jan Chozen Bay's mindfulness manuscript, I'll try doing the exercise-a-week and writing about my experiences on here.

Maybe by then I'll have come closer to understanding my favorite Emily Dickinson poem:

I'm nobody, who are you?
Are you nobody too?
Then there's a pair of us
Don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Facing it

The 91-year-old widow lived by herself in a tumbledown house on a desolate country road. But she wasn't alone, not really, not as long as she could visit her husband and twin sister.

No matter they were already dead. Jean Stevens simply had their embalmed corpses dug up and stored them at her house _ in the case of her late husband, for more than a decade _ tending to the remains as best she could until police were finally tipped off last month.

Much to her dismay.

"Death is very hard for me to take," Stevens told an interviewer. --Associated Press

That which you avoid will confront you again and again, whether it's grief or love or fear of heights. That's what I'm learning. Avoidance doesn't make the emotions go away. It just makes fear stronger.

I'm also learning that the best way to conquer fear is when you have no choice. Give me the option, and I'll say, Nah, I can't do that. I don't want that. I can't deal with that. But what about when you have no options?

I stopped driving a car when I was nineteen and got into a fender-bender in the White Street parking lot in Red Bank, NJ. I had just been Christmas shopping and among my purchases was a little something for me from Jack's Music--a Ned's Atomic Dustbin CD with free t-shirt. I can space out pretty easily and as I backed out of my parking space thinking about my cool CD and tee, I saw another car behind me also backing out of his spot. I blanked for a second before placing my foot on the gas. I hit him, of course. When he came out of his car, I couldn't believe my bad luck. It was my assistant principle from Thorne.

I was sure he would recognize me. Despite my geek status in junior high or maybe because of it I had been asked to deliver a speech to my eighth grade class at our graduation. That same week my best friend Heather and I were the winners of the lip sync contest at our graduation party at the Tradewinds beach club in Sea Bright. While the pretty, popular girls phoned in their performance of The Go-Go's "Vacation" Heather and I appeared in our matching pink miniskirts and long faux pearl earrings and sang "You Keep Me Hangin' On" as if we were singing our broken hearts out thinking of all the boys we loved who never noticed us. Our dance moves were primitive--pantomime, really--but our enthusiasm was undeniable, our pain the pain of all young girls who never got to shine while they were in school. We took first place. The asst. principal congratulated us and said to me, Wow, you're everywhere. I guess he meant I was not even a dot on his graph until the last week of school.

Maybe he didn't want to embarrass me that day in the Red Bank parking lot. Or maybe he genuinely didn't remember me. How many kids does a junior high school assistant principal meet in a lifetime? He probably only remembered the bad kids, the truants and greaseballs, which seemed unfair but that's life.

It was my mother's Toyota I had been driving and when she decided to get a new car with some extra money she had just inherited, she wouldn't let me drive it. I worked part-time in a bookstore in the mall, so I had no chance of affording a car on my own. So I got rides. And eventually I moved closer to the city where a car was actually a liability.

I decided I liked being carless. It was a convenient way to excuse myself from learning how to read a map or having to take over the wheel on a long car trip or navigate roads filled with everyone's rage. There were times I missed that brief window when I did drive, and I'd blast 106.3FM (once a great alternative station when the word "alternative" actually meant something, back when Matt Pinfield was a DJ not an MTV/VH1 talking head.) But who wanted car payments when I had restaurant meals with friends, unlimited boutiques and bargains, and a student loan to pay off? I was a city girl--no car required.

Which takes us to the present. I had talked for a long time about learning to drive again, but I had no real intention of following through. It sounded like the good, responsible thing to say, but inside the thought terrified me. I feared dying in a fiery car accident because I was, say, daydreaming about ice cream cake. Or worse, I'd survive a crash but my face would melt off. I had seen a woman on TV once who had her face melted off in a car fire and I thought, if that were me I wouldn't be appearing on TV. No way. I'd probably spend the rest of my life indoors, getting fatter and fatter from all the shut-in, emotional eating and I'd eventually die of heart failure.

The first time I realized I had no choice and had to re-learn to drive was when my husband was in a bike accident. He was riding his bike to work as he always does, but this time he was going down a hill too fast and he flew off the bike and onto a grassy patch of sidewalk. Among other things he had a broken pelvis and was taken to a hospital in Newton, many towns away from me. I didn't drive so in order to get to the hospital I had to be picked up by my brother-in-law who lives AN HOUR AWAY.

What would I do if another emergency like this occurred? Could I always rely on public transportation? And what about all the car trips my husband and I take? Mike ends up doing all the driving, and I get to do all the snoozing. Yes, it's an excellent deal for me, but hardly equitable.

The first step to re-entering the driving world was renewing my expired New Jersey license and get a new one for Massachusetts. Because my license had been expired for several years, I had to take the written driver's test again. I beamed with pride when I got a perfect score. I was disappointed that my 100 wasn't noted on my new license, but still it was a confidence-booster that I knew what the penalty was for a teen with two offenses and what to do if confronted by a large animal crossing the road (try as much as possible to avoid the animal without causing a serious accident.)

But even after I had my valid license and Mike had put me on the insurance, I still wasn't driving. Maybe a spin in the country now and then, one-lane roads where a car passed about once an hour. But no more than that.

Until the night when we were driving to Vermont for the weekend and Mike, behind the wheel, suddenly doubled over in pain. We pulled into a rest stop and he turned off the ignition to take a break and wait it out. But the pain was only getting worse. He feared he had a kidney stone. He had one once before and the feeling could only be described as labor pains (except other people get a baby for their troubles but all you get is a rock.)

I had no choice but to drive us the rest of the way to the motel. Once he was able to diagnose himself and knew that no ER visit was necessary, we switched places and suddenly I was in the driver's seat. I steered white-knuckled down the dark roads to Manchester, my hands firmly at 10 and 3 o'clock. When we arrived in one piece an hour later, my anxiety slowly turned to pride. I had driven us here! I had saved our trip! That feeling was way better than dozing.

Recently I was given another test I could not avoid. Once again, we were driving back from a weekend trip when Mike's mild headache morphed into a blinding migraine. It was eleven at night and we still had a ways to go to get back to Brookline--including the stretch over the Zakim bridge and through the tunnels of Boston. I didn't want to drive. I had avoided any major highways thusfar and never had to cross a bridge. I was terrified. But what other option did we have? We had brought one of the cats with us so we couldn't exactly check into a motel for the night. Plus we both had to work in the morning. Someone had to drive us home and it wasn't going to be the person with his eyes squeezed tight, moaning.

So there I was again, a reluctant driver about to face one of my worst fears. Yet by virtue of the fact that I had no choice I suddenly felt more focused, more confident, calmer. I would get this done. I had to.

And I did. Except for that one incident when I almost crashed into a truck cutting into my lane, I drove competently, if not smoothly. I pretended I was in a dream, but not the kind where you stop paying attention because you're thinking of eating ice cream cake. The one where you aren't scared because it all seems surreal and nothing can touch you.

It's sometimes a gift when we are faced with just one choice--to move forward. Last example: If you're afraid of heights and find yourself climbing a church tower with your Swedish relatives, you can't just disappoint them and scurry down to safety like a mouse. You must move forward, forward, each step in darkness bringing you closer to your goal. Your eyes are focused and your mind suspends fear until you're at the top and finally you can exhale.

Gone Baby Gone

The Missing All--prevented Me
From missing minor Things.
If nothing larger than a World's
Departure from a Hinge--
Or Sun's extinction, be observed--
'Twas not so large that I
Could lift my Forehead from my work
For Curiosity.
--Emily Dickinson, from The Pocket Emily Dickinson

There is a hole in my mouth where a tooth once lived. I, being a negligent landlord so preoccupied with keeping my front teeth white and clean, routinely ignored--even forgot--about the tooth in the far back of my jaw. Now there's a hole with just a few crumbling pieces of tooth that will soon be extracted. Gone forever never to be replaced.

My problem used to be having too many teeth. When I was a kid, once my baby teeth were gone, a surfeit of larger teeth moved in, crowding each other in my small mouth like passengers on a rush-hour bus. I had fangs, extra teeth hanging above my gumline on either side of my front teeth, pushing those teeth closer together, resulting in Laura Ingalls'-style buck teeth. Other kids called me "Bugs Bunny." I also had four impacted wisdom teeth. I didn't think they were doing much harm--I could have used a couple of back-up teeth. But they too had to go. Before I was fitted for braces I was sent to my dentist who pulled half a dozen teeth and an oral surgeon who, while I was sleeping, cut out my Wisdom. I was being stripped of excess, but now I wish I had some of those virgin teeth back.

Mike says that I focus on the wrong things. I worry about my outside appearance, but I ignore the fundamental things like sunscreen. Even though I don't tan, I like getting some color on my face, a healthy glow on my cheeks. Isn't that the beauty standard to which we all ascribe, especially our mothers? Go outside and get some color, my mom used to say when I was spending too much time indoors with a book. But when letting my cheeks turn pink, I'm also starting a process of aging that will be hard to reverse. Mike reminds me to put on sunscreen, even sometimes applies it to me as if I were a little girl with arms wrapped in swimmies. It's sweet that he cares so I let him do it. He does this because he's concerned about skin cancer and my fair skin, but he's also admitted that by slathering me in SPF 80 he hopes to spare me future dermatological procedures that will cost us the equivalent of a trip to Europe.

When the cap on my front tooth--the result of a rollerskating spill down my driveway when I was younger--started yellowing with stain, I immediately made an appointment with a cosmetic dentist to have it replaced, paying for the $500 bill out-of-pocket. I had seen pictures of our recent trip to Key West and in all of them is that amber splotch on my smile. When they introduced at-home whitening kits, I faithfully applied the strips twice a day for two weeks even though they made me drool.

But I was neglecting what I couldn't easily see. Those back teeth got only a modicum of my attention and care. And now one is gone and the other one is on the endangered list. I figured the dentist could do something with what fragments I had left, but two broken caps later I was running out of options. They could pull the tooth slightly by the roots like unfurling a line of floss to get to a clean piece. But even the roots were showing signs of decay. I could have the whole thing extracted and get an implant (for an other large out-of-pocket fee.) This option appealed to me. Start fresh, I thought. This time will be different, just give me another chance. But my dentist said an implant that far back in my mouth might push against my sinuses. I'd have to have a consultation before they could approve an implant. I was faced with the prospect of that gaping hole being permanent.

It's not like you can see the void when I smile. But I know it's missing and that I caused it. It's another sign that I'm mortal, that I can't always count on my body to pick up my slack.

Buddhism teaches us that clinging to the ephemeral causes much suffering. But there are things I could have held on to a little longer if I had just payed attention to the right things--regularly flossing my back teeth, for instance. My dentist advised that I pay more attention to preventive care. Unlike a sweater, my teeth could not easily be replaced by purchasing a new one every time there was a hole.

After receiving the bad news, I shuffled out of the office and went straight to CVS. I bought fluoride rinse because the Listerine Whitening mouthwash I was using wasn't effective against plaque attack. I'm paying more attention now to how well I'm flossing. I pay penance for my sweet tooth.

Which makes me wonder what else I may be overlooking.

Work Does a Life Good

"The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the things worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident."--Marge Piercy, from the poem "To Be of Use"

Last night I was having a friendly visit with Linda. We had eaten most of the bag of olive-flavored tortilla chips with mixed olive cheese dip. I always bring a snack for us to share, partly because after work I'm ravenous and I can't concentrate on anything--including convivial conversation--when I'm hungry. But also because it's a treat for Linda. When I first enter her apartment, I notice her eyeing my enviro-tote to see what I'll pull out. I try to go for healthy snacks like hummus and carrots, but at times it's a pint of Ben & Jerry's Boston Cream Pie or a box of Girl Scout cookies. Once it was a pumpkin pie with whipped cream--that was in anticipation of Thanksgiving. We started out with generous slices and followed that with significant seconds. I ate so much pumpkin pie that I had trouble sleeping that night because I was burping up pumpkin.

We start by sitting at Linda's kitchen table eating our snack. Linda's contribution is a can of seltzer water for each of us. When the food is nearly gone, we adjourn to the two green vinyl chairs in the livingroom. Almost all of Linda's furniture is stuff that her friend Chris found for her on the street. In particular, she has a copious assortment of chairs that could seat a large dinner party as long as matching isn't an issue. These include lawn chairs, wide-seat kitchen chairs, a rolling desk chair, a bright orange plastic chair, a chair too narrow for anyone but Olive Oyl to sit in, a chair that converts into a sleeping pad--although as far as I know Linda never entertains overnight guests. It's hard for her to refuse something free, no matter how many she already owns, even if she doesn't have room for it. Plus every new addition allows her to make more adjustments to the set-up of a room. I can always count on her to ask me if the desk lamp would look better on the table near the front door or next to the waterless electric fish tank. Would it change the aesthetic of the room to swap the display case of beanie babies with the low book shelf containing all her Dr. Phil books and John Denver CDs?

I don't think she really listens to my response. She just likes asking. Rearranging her apartment is something to do, a challenge, a never-ending project.

Because of her disability, Linda has never held a full-time job. She once volunteered at Mass General Hospital, assembling surgical tools for doctors. But that ended when she had trouble getting in and out of Boston on time.

I can see why Linda is endlessly moving her stuff around, why she changes her phone company as frequently as her bed sheets, why she quickly returns items she orders from catalogs and goes back and forth between a Verizon cell phone and a Jitterbug. These are the otherwise mundane tasks that keep her occupied and engaged. Granted, changing phone plans is one of many chores that busy people dread. Who wants to spend an afternoon talking by phone to customer service? Linda does. And if she gets a good rep on the phone it means the difference between a bad day and a great one. In the end, she's accomplished something, she's made a change in her world.

I find work to be essential to my well-being, too. Lately I've been thinking that working a second job--say as a freelancer--would probably make me happier than spending two hours watching "Intervention In Depth: Glue Sniffing" or "I Was Bitten and I'm Still Alive!" The times I'm truly caught up in my work--whether I'm writing a pitch letter or arranging coupons for a much-needed trip to the grocery store--are some of the best kind of present moments for me.

When my husband fantasizes aloud about winning the lottery and retiring twenty years early, I think, I don't want to be retired. The few times I was out of work I was too panic-stricken to enjoy waking up at 11 and having the rest of the day to myself. When I was laid off in 2003 I immediately hit Monster.com. My beach read was What Color is Your Parachute? When I was looking for work after moving to Boston I could hardly focus on decorating our new apartment; I kept checking my email to see if anyone had responded to my cover letter. Only AFTER I had a job did I think--I hope they let me start in a month! Then I can enjoy a day of rollercoaster rides and cheap beer at Coney Island without any intruding thoughts of destitution or shiftlessness.

My grandmother is another example of someone who needs work. She lives down the street from my parents in a retirement building similar to Linda's. When my father was growing up, his parents divorced and my grandfather sent for Josephine, who was living with the nuns in Sicily. This woman who knew very little about the world spent the next thirty years living in Bensonhurt, Brooklyn, raising three boys and a girl and cooking for her husband. When my grandfather died, the apartment they shared on the second floor was no longer suitable for my grandmother, an overweight woman with swollen feet who had trouble navigating the steep stairs.

After many tears and threats to return to Italy--which we knew was a bluff since she never seemed to enjoy her visits back to Palermo--Josephine conceded to my father and Uncle and moved to New Jersey. After some adjustment that included more tears and threats, she started to enjoy living there. And though she lived alone, she still cooked large pots of tomato sauce and pasta. At holidays my father would say, "Ma, you don't have to cook this year. We have it under control." But there she'd be, with her tray of stuffed artichokes (which my father has a hard time refusing) and breaded cutlets. Women of my mother's and my generations could go to Wegman's and buy a couple of party platters. But my grandmother has a NEED to cook. It goes even beyond love to necessity. This is her job. Without it she'd be lost.

My father is out of work right now, but you wouldn't know it. A construction project manager, he has switched gears out of necessity--from the construction site to the home front. Every day he has a mission, a vision of the next improvement he wants to make. He's taken up landscaping (he might take issue with the word "gardening.") The last time I visited my parents' house I was shocked at how organized he had made the garage. It was like the "After" portion of a show on HGTV. Every tool had its own hook. Bicycles and bicycle parts had their own corner. My mother's craft materials were arranged inside a work table on rollers. If I didn't live five hours away, I would have hired him on the spot to organize our place!

Mike says that if he were retired now he'd be doing the same thing as my dad--focusing on projects that would enhance both our lives. Perhaps he doesn't feel as passionate about his vocation as I do about book publishing. To me, my career is essential to my well-being. No matter what else is going on in my personal life, I always want to do good work. I know that tying your identity to your job title can be dangerous. I find it hard not to.

Feeling useful, productive, effective at something--more and more I equate that with happiness and longevity. Even my weekly visits with Linda are satisfying for this reason. Last night when Linda said to me, "You don't know how much I look forward to Monday nights when you come to visit" I felt myself tearing up. In some small way my efforts mattered. And so can everyone's if they dedicate themselves to something meaningful to them--be it grand or mundane--and stick with it.

I am a rock, I am an island

"We are each an island. It is your task to bring to your island what you need to live long and well: love, beauty, diversion, friends, work that sustains, a meaningful life."--Kay Redfield Jamison

Mike and I were up at the family cabin again this weekend. First time in the hammock this year, first time putting my bare feet in the water.



The wildfires in Quebec caused a grey haze to obscure the mountains and made the air smell as sweet as a late-night campfire. It was a very pleasant smell, something LL Bean might put in a sachet and sell for $9.99.

I experienced my usual love-hate relationship with nature. In the hammock with my book, a gentle breeze keeping the mosquitoes away, I was as happy as a kid getting a turn on the swing. Then there was a buzz near my ear. It startled me beyond reason and I lost my page in the novel I was reading. I have a very knee-jerk reaction to buzzing. It not only annoys me but it fills me with anticipatory dread. I can't relax until I know the perpetrator is smashed and his accomplices have fled the scene.

I looked around for the source and saw that half a dozen dragonflies were circling the weeds, rocks, and trees around the hammock. What a hypocrite I was! Dragonflies were the theme of our August wedding. People had given us dragonfly-themed presents: pieces of Kate Spade June Lane china stamped with golden dragonflies. Framed color photographs of dragonflies. A dragonfly candle. Even a dragonfly magnet. And how was I reacting to the real creatures? Like they were the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz--proving once again that I like the sanitized version of nature better than the real thing.

Mike and I climbed down the rocks to get to the lip of Lovewell pond. The feel of the mucky pond floor actually appeals to me. It must be all those times my parents took me to lakes when I was a kid. In the shallow end I could touch the floor, and though it felt slimy it was also cool and soft, like stepping into a bowl of pudding. My father preferred jumping into deep rock quarries, places where a kid would need to know how to swim (which I didn't and still don't.)

The pond water had receded and pollen had left yellow bands around the rocks like chalk marks on the sidelines of a football game.


Something about being in a natural setting on a beautiful day makes people want to say something profound about life or death or the state of humanity. I am not immune. Some of my most intimate talks with my husband or with a friend have been when we're away from the city. Like looking out the windshield of a car eases the discomfort of a difficult conversation, talking openly seems natural while watching the small ripples on the surface of the water, the setting sun an airbrushed orange.

I asked Mike why it is that even in a beautiful, peaceful place like this I still worry so much. Is it that I'm addicted to thinking of worst possible outcomes? Mike suggested that I might be trying to prepare myself in case something unforeseen happens--even unlikely things like him falling on a rock and splitting his head open. Of course, he doesn't make me feel secure when he's jumping from one unbalanced boulder to the next.

I'd make the most anxious mother in the world.

It didn't help that I had chosen to bring Nothing Was the Same, a memoir by Kay Redfield Jamison about her husband's death from cancer, as my Memorial Day Weekend read. Did I WANT to be depressed? My wiser cousin Mikki, who was also staying at the cabin, had gone into White Birch Books in North Conway and asked the bookseller to recommend something fun. Meanwhile I was wrapped up in a book about losing a life partner. Yippee!

Mike said that probably more people have these feelings than I realize. It is hard sometimes to imagine other people having neurotic worries like I do. As empathetic as I try to be, I still have the tendency to think that other people have it together where I don't. I'm confident in some areas, sure. But feeling happiness in the present moment without worrying that it will be taken away in the future is incredibly hard for me. How do other people experience life?

One of my favorite authors to work with, Ellen Graf, brought up this very topic last time we spoke. She's married to a Chinese man who came to America to live with her. In order for them to live peacefully together she had to let go of some of her assumptions about other people and how they think. This is harder than it sounds since we all look through the lenses of our own thoughts and experience. It's difficult to imagine a Republican's point of view if you're a Democrat, a life of poverty if you're privileged, or the perspective of someone from a different culture than your own. Graf had the opportunity to experience this firsthand and it proved essential to her marriage.

Knowing that I'm not the only one to feel sad or anxious sometimes, even when there's a spectacular sunset before me, cool water on my feet, and someone I love at my side, is enough to rouse me out of my funk. I may sometimes feel unmoored in life, but this is not a disaster, and I'm not alone.