Meditations on Life and Parenting
Does anyone remember the car cake when our car turned 100,000 miles and we made a cake for it?
After we blew out the candles, Miss O turned to me and asked, “Are you going to be alive when this happens to me?”
Oh boy. I thought I better not go with the reply that she better get a used car with a lot of miles already on it. So after thinking about it for a few weeks, I’ve written my answer on Wise & Shine: The Next 100,000 Miles
“A lifetime is so precious, and so brief, and can be used so beautifully.” – Pema Chodron
I was standing around the elementary school yard the other day watching parents and children at pick-up time. There was the mom standing with her 1st grader, listening to her and occasionally smoothing back the child’s hair behind her ear. There was a dad standing behind his 3rd grader with his hand proudly on his son’s shoulders. And off to my right was the mom embracing her 4th grade son in a big and long hug.
I’ve been thinking about the scene and how we reconnect with our loved ones because yesterday I had to be sedated for a colonoscopy. Even though I had no particular reason to be concerned, I feel a little nervous anytime I or my loved ones have to go under. I remember feeling this acutely anytime I had to take my now departed dog, Biscuit, in for a procedure, especially when he got older. Something scares me about the way you are there one moment, then they turn up the mixture and you’re out.
I’d worked out the details for my procedure yesterday so that my kids had their normal school day routines. But the anxiety amped up the good-bye sweetness, making me remember that I’d once read that good-bye derived from God Be With You. As Miss O jumped out of the car to run for the gate at school, I said, “Good-bye, my miracle girl!”
And she turned, smiled and replied, “Good-bye, my miracle mom.”
I felt that all the way through. It is a miracle that I’m a mom. That modern medicine enabled me through IVF to have babies at age 46 and 50 is astounding. Once I felt that, it was a short walk to feeling how this all is a miracle – to be a human on this earth at this moment with all you other delightful humans, understanding we have the capacity to appreciate this in a way that we might not if we were ants or alligators.
The trip to pick my kids up again at the end of the day, my loop around the little neighborhood lake that I’ve driven countless times, was all that much sweeter. To reconnect, scoop them up in my arms, look at them proudly, tuck their hair behind their ears, and celebrate a little more consciously how lovely it is to be here was pure joy. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I was glad to have a colonoscopy… but hey, anything that reminds me to hug my loved ones a little bit tighter can’t be all bad.
“At some point, you have to realize that some people can stay in your heart but not in your life.” – Sandi Lynn
I’ve written so much about my dad that it’s surprising that I still have something more to say about him. Except that even eight years after his death he’s still teaching me things.
There’s a phrase that my brother used for my father at his funeral, “He met you where you were without leaving where he was.” When Vicki graciously interviewed me about the book I wrote about my dad on this week’s Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast, she asked me about it. In the same way that my Presbyterian pastor dad said that every time he wrote a sermon about a topic it made him more focused on that topic, her asking me about it has made me so much more aware of what an awesome trait it is.
I’ve been thinking about the part of the phrase “without leaving where he was.” Because it’s a lesson that I am learning all the time. I get around my climbing friends and have an enormous urge to work out, my emotive friends and I want to prove I can match their disclosure, or spend time with my children and my creativity explodes. I think that urge to blend in to our current environment is strong for humans – or at least for me.
Here are some of the things I noticed about how my dad, who was also a people pleaser handled this. I’ve spent some time reverse engineering it and come up with five examples:
If he was around someone grieving or sad, he’d definitely dial his energy down. If they were secular, he wouldn’t say anything particularly faith based to them. But he still radiated his love that was based on the belief there was something bigger than this moment, this life, and this pain. He never left his faith behind even when he wasn’t talking about it.
If he was on the golf course with foul-mouthed partners, he didn’t start swearing. But neither did he seem to mind if someone else did. He knew what his values were and was confident in them that he didn’t trade them to fit in. But he was certain enough of who he was so that he seem to understand that others’ behavior didn’t diminish him and therefore freed him from judgment.
If my dad walked into a room or you crossed paths with him in the store, on a hiking trail, waiting for a table at a restaurant, or anywhere else, his presence was palpable. He exuded well-intended welcoming. It wasn’t about him, as it can be sometimes when someone charismatic enters the room, but instead was about a curiosity and interest in others. He didn’t need to tell you who he was but instead was excited to find out who you were.
In that same way, he assumed a lot about the capabilities of others. He was the quintessential “I see things in you that you don’t see in yourself” guy. He would extend himself to help get others to the starting line – but had faith that you could continue on from there. He could help on an effort without needing to own it or control it.
My dad worried over relationships and conflict. It was palpable when something worried him – but then he’d move to do whatever he felt would restore his part of the balance. He definitely followed the advice of one of his favorite quips, “If you have to eat crow, eat it early while its tender.” Then he seemed to be able to let it go so that time and faith could do their parts.
When I break down that phrase that my brother used for my dad, I realize how much magic there was in not leaving where he was. It’s one of the reasons he accomplished so much in his life – because he didn’t waste any time or energy being someone else.
If you are a podcast person, I’d love for you to listen to the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast (and subscribe). It’s now on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Amazon podcasts, and Pocket Casts as Sharing the Heart of the Matter. And here’s a link to the shownotes to this episode about Finding My Father’s Faith.
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.” – Bertrand Russell
My 83-year-old mom had a ping pong accident this week. One minute she was playing a game at her senior residence and the next she dove for the ball, fell on a cot-like thing, hit the rail with her back and was injured enough that the firemen, paramedics and ambulance came and she was on her way to the hospital.
She’s out of the hospital now and doing fine. With a couple of cracked ribs and a little bit of bleeding, the injury is painful but nowhere near as serious as it could have been. She’s chalked the whole thing up to “her competitive nature getting the best of her common sense.”
I’m fascinated by that phrase because I can think of any number of things that have gotten the best of my common sense. Usually pride and stubbornness because I’m not particularly competitive. All the times I’ve carried too much (I’m thinking of my post about efficiency), haven’t asked for help, and stayed at something far too long.
And it seems to be passed down in families. The other day Miss O wasn’t feeling well and I asked her if she wanted to cancel anything or take a rest and her answer could have come right from my mouth. “NO! I’m fine, I’ve got this!”
On the other hand, the things I do out of love almost never make common sense. I’m thinking of the time I celebrated my friend Phil’s 400th ascent of Mt Rainier by buying 400 of each his favorite mountaineering provisions. The cough drops and tea bags were fine but the chips and the cookies were quite voluminous so that I ended up delivering 8 storage bins full of stuff.
In honor of my mom, I’m taking a deeper look at what gets the best of my common sense. For the times I extend myself out of love, I’m keeping it. But if I’m extending myself out of duty or pride, I’m going to try to let it go.
Because sometimes when we lunge for things we end up in the hospital. The good thing about taking a dive at a senior residence is that there’s a good portion of the population that can’t remember the gossip. A woman with a great sense of humor but maybe not such a good memory said to my mom when she returned from the hospital, “I heard something about you but now I can’t remember what.”
(featured photo from Pexels)
“Do not learn how to react. Learn how to respond.” – Buddha
Yesterday as I was getting the kids in the car to drive them to school, Mr. D became very upset because I hadn’t picked the right socks. “The dinosaur socks upstairs” he insisted and I went back to scramble for the right ones but when I came back, they still weren’t the right pair.
Now we were going to make Miss O late for school if I continued to hunt for the mythical socks. Mythical in my mind at least because the problem wasn’t the socks, it was that he didn’t want to go to school yet. So I gave Mr. D a choice between monster socks and airplane socks. He chose airplane and when I got them out it started a whole new round of crying, “That’s helicopters.”
Oh, holy hell. It reminded me of a theory my brother passed on to me about relationships when we were in our twenties. Our beliefs about what’s important will always differ from those around us and that’s the topic of my Wise & Shine post this week: Navigating the Gray Area
“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W. B. Yeats
I watch a lot of Disney movies these days and I’ve noticed there is always a pause before the magic kicks in and works. Like in Beauty and the Beast, Belle comes back to the castle and the Beast is fighting off Gaston and is gravely injured. Belle goes to him on the terrace and says, “I love you” just as the last petal falls from the flower that held the magic of the curse that turned him into a beast.
Everyone thinks its too late and Belle is crying over his crumpled form…until the magic lifts him up and transforms him into back into a prince.
As I notice the pattern, it makes me think about magic in our lives – and that the pause is of indeterminate length and certainly of a length that we can’t predict. For example, establishing a gratitude practice. My kids and I made gratitude boxes, little boxes to slip the things we are grateful for on a daily basis. But starting that practice and feeling the magical onset of a good mood of the soul isn’t instantaneous.
And the same goes with blogging. It’s not like we write our first blog, and then instantly we’ve perfected our style, know what we want to write about and are surrounded by supportive blogging buddies. It takes time to find our sweet spot and build our WordPress community.
Ditto for passion and love. And everything else where we step forward and then life meets us.
So I know what you’re thinking – none of these examples involves any the special juju as depicted in a Disney movie. There are simply hard work and time.
But I think there is magic involved. It’s magical that we find our way to the things that work for us. And beautiful that we get enough to keep us at it. That we open just long enough for someone else to be open and see us. The magic is in that it can happen in the time between when I open and you close.
It’s magical that when we risk, we open ourselves up to opportunity. When we make ourselves vulnerable enough to be seen, that someone else comes along to hold us is rare and then we tell the stories to inspire others to do the same and we get those tingles all over again.
In The Princess and the Frog, the prince gets turned into a frog by a voodoo man. Then he kisses Tiana because he thinks she is a princess, but she isn’t and they both end up as frogs. [SPOILER ALERT – I’m going to tell the ending here.] After a Disney movie length adventure of making friends and finding out what is truly meaningful, they fall in love, give up their human dreams and get married. Once they do, Tiana becomes a princess because she married a prince, albeit in frog form. The prince kisses her and they both turn back to human.
They stop struggling to be what they thought they wanted and just love each other as they are – only to get it back again. The magic of life.
The secret is in the waiting through the moments where all seems lost, holding the faith for as long as it takes for the magic to work which will likely be longer than the pause in a Disney movie. The magic is in believing it will still happen even as we wait. And then, when it does happen, seeing it as one whole story and telling it to others so they too will last through the wait.
(featured photo from Pexels)
“A child can teach an adult three things: To be happy for no reason, To always be busy with something, and To know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.” – Paulo Coehlo
My sister-in-law recounted a conversation she had this week with my daughter, 7-year-old Miss O while holding hands and walking through an outdoor shopping center near our house.
Miss O said, “I love this place. Fun stores, good food, no BS”
My sister-in-law paused for a beat, wondering if she should ask, hoping Miss O didn’t know what it meant, and then asked, “Do you know what BS is?”
Miss O replied brightly, “Of course! Bad Service!”
After I stopped laughing, I wondered why it is that we think it’s bad for 7-year-olds to know swear words. Other than the fact that their executive brain function isn’t fully developed and they might deploy them inappropriately, indiscriminately or both. I landed on the fact that it feels like a loss of innocence.
I heard an interview once with singer and songwriter Billy Bragg where he posited that the opposite of faith isn’t doubt – but cynicism. If I think of Miss O using bad language, it feels cynical as if some beliefs of childhood would have had to have suffer in the process.
At their age, Miss O and Mr D believe that:
They are loved beyond measure and worthy of love
If you pray, those prayers will be answered
There is magic in the air so that sometimes fortunes found in fortune cookies will reveal the next fun thing
Potential new friends are everywhere
If you cry and show your vulnerability, you will be taken care of
Looking through this list I’ve typed, I think that I need to unlearn my way back to those beliefs. Because my cynical self might have been feeding me a lot of BS instead – and by that I mean bad service, of course. 😉
“Know all the theories. Master all the techniques. But as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.” – Carl Jung
“Guess what?” Miss O says to me and when I reply, she says, “I love you.” It’s a little call and response that I started with her when she was about 4 years-old. But I stopped doing it. She asked me why the other day and I don’t know. Was it because Mr D got older and I didn’t want to leave him out? Or was it because she started to know what I was going to say every time?
These little bids for connection matter according to Drs John and Julie Gottman of the Gottman Institute. They are our ways of turning towards our loved ones and even though the Gottmans primarily focus on partner love relationships, I think it applies to children as well.
On a recent Unlocking Us podcast with Brené Brown, they were talking about their latest book, The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection and Joy, and what caught my attention was how grounded in research their advice is. Not surprisingly since these are the psychologists and researchers who proved their ability to tell if relationships would last and be happy from just 15 minutes of observation with a 90% degree of accuracy.
They made the distinction between turning toward a bid of attention (responding or engaging when your partner says something like “look at that blue jay out the window”), turning away (ignoring) and turning against (responding with something like “why are you interrupting me?”).
In happy relationships, people turn toward their partner’s bids for attention 86% of the time, couples who were not successful only turn toward each other 33% of the time. John Gottman explained the result, “Couples who increase their turning toward wind up having more of a sense of humor about themselves when they are disagreeing with one another, when they are in conflict.”
As Brené Brown summarized “Turning toward gives us a sense of confidence about our togetherness.”
“Love is a practice. It’s more than a feeling. It’s an action. It’s something you do and not something that just happens to you and you need to give and get a daily dose to maintain a healthy and thriving relationship.”
The Love Prescription: Seven Days to More Intimacy, Connection and Joy by John Gottman and Julie Gottman
The funny thing about when Miss O does the call and response with me lately is that she gets me almost every time. She says “Guess what?” and my busy head doesn’t anticipate the next part. It’s the surprise that breaks through the momentum of the day.
I can’t remember why I stopped this particular ritual but now that I’ve been reminded, I am delighted to start doing it again. Because what relationship doesn’t need to be grounded in connection and fun?
“Would I rather be feared or loved? Um…Easy, both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” – Michael Scott
On the first weekend of August, Seattle holds its Seafair festival. There’s a parade downtown, the Blue Angels do their airshow and at the center of the activity is the hydroplane races on Lake Washington. Most summers my brother hosts an outing on his boat to watch the Blue Angels fly. The featured photo is a picture I took from my brother’s boat this summer of the Blue Angels.
When my dad was alive and we were together watching, I’d make him recount the story of watching the first Seafair hydroplane race in Seattle when he was 15 or 16 years old. It was one of my favorite stories that Dad told.
So in light of this week of the anniversary of my dad’s death and of talking with Troy about writing about him, I put together this audio recording of my dad telling this story. It’s rough, informal and short (five minutes) – just a recording I made of him on my voice app but for anyone who loves my dad’s humor cards I feature on Sunday Funnies and is curious to hear his voice, here it is: Wynne Leon on Recording Your Loved Ones
“We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.” – Japanese Proverb
The other day a friend and I were talking about a conflict that’s arisen in her multi-decades marriage. She’s taken up ballroom dancing and loves it. It engages her mind and body in a way that feels like something generative and renewing. She loves studying the movements and the thrill of putting it all together.
Her husband doesn’t have any interest in doing it with her but also has a problem with her dancing with other partners. At times the thought of her dancing with someone else makes him feel queasy. He wants her to quit.
Before I continue, I must interject that these are both very smart, well-intended, committed and gracious people. This particular conflict occurs amidst the backdrop of a loving marriage, not as a crack in something that is already falling apart.
As my friend has progressed with ballroom dancing, she’s learned a great deal – but there have also been injuries that come with learning something new and moving in different ways (usually minor). Every time she has an injury, she wonders if this is a sign that she should quit or if she is learning to push through adversity. And every time it renews the conflict in her marriage. To push through both an injury and the resistance of having her husband against the idea is more than twice as hard but the idea of her hanging up her dancing shoes makes her feel sad and a little robbed of joy.
This is where things become muddy for me. First as someone who has been single for over a decade, I am sorely out of practice at compromise. But mostly because it seems to me that this conversation, and maybe most conversations where we can’t be supportive of what someone else wants to pursue with good intentions, are about something else. Unresolved conflict, old stories, wounds that haven’t healed, insecurity?
When I look at the situation, I can see the ripple effect that comes from one person forcing another to quit something they love. But it’s of course far more complex with that when you have more than two decades of history. It seems like my friend and her husband are already dancing but somehow have gotten out of sync.
So how do they find the wisdom to get back in step?
(featured photo from Pexels)
Surprised By Joy 