Getting from A to Z: A Short Guide to Tuning In, Tuning Out and Turning it On

I’m never late.  I set multiple alarms, prepare diligently and build in time for unforeseen circumstances.  I also never stress in advance; but, it takes fail-proof preparation to ensure this model is successful. The key, I have learned over time, is to know when to tune out, when to tune in, and when to turn it up! Way up.

A very wise companion- ok, my husband- once assured me that in anxiety inducing situations I needn’t worry ahead of doom as should it actually come to pass, I’ll have adequate time to stress about it then. The assurance that I would be afforded the opportunity to worry eventually, allowed me to give up the privilege of worrying about things beforehand.  As the old adage goes “If it ain’t happening now, it ain’t happening”. I was previously sure that if I fretted ahead of time, the exercise might avert the anticipated crisis. I was unwilling to surrender my right to the uneasiness. Assured I’d have this chance should the need arise, I truly now let it go until the impending disaster is upon me.

For example, as I vigorously bobble on this tinker-toy of a regional jet in turbulence-the likes of which I've never before experienced- I'm soothed by the notion that I will indeed get a chance to shriek all the way down should we ultimately plunge to our deaths. Rather, I resist the urge to allow anxiety to take hold, my palms cooperate by not sweating, and I’m able to flash a smile of assurance to the nervous woman beside me.

Back in my skydiving heyday I was on a jump plane once where a jumpmaster was lecturing us experienced jumpers on the importance of wearing helmets. A follow skydiver, who was also a pilot, remarked that actually in the event of a crash the helmet would only melt into our heads as we burned in the fiery fuselage.  We all had a laugh and wouldn’t you know it, not a one of us perished on that day.

I am always prepared, but never too far in advance and this seems to work. Over the years I have accepted that I, in fact, do not blow deadlines, miss airplanes, or sleep through alarms. If my daughter were reading this she would no doubt remind me of the time I forgot her 2^nd grade science fair, and the other parents had to come look at her creation out of pity since she seemed to have no other support, but I was younger then. I had not developed the tools I have today, and this is only a blog, not an exact science. Everyone is perfect in a blog.

I travel extensively these days.  In the next 3 weeks I will take 12 airplanes, experience 24 takeoffs and landings, and meet with well over 100 people. I’ve become a master at tuning out things that don’t require my mental presence; thus amassing critical cerebral reserves. I don’t pay attention most times to where I’m connecting through and don’t look ahead much further than the next few hours. The key though is in knowing how to innately tune back in just in the nick of time. Most trips, I tune out the connecting city and often find myself looking at my boarding pass to see where I am. So this is Chicago? Good to know. However, when I take a call, respond to an email or meet a client or colleague for dinner, I don’t miss a minute, a look, a vibe, or a word.

When I travel, I sleep well, drink very little and make sure that my A game comes with me into every meeting. Someone once told me as I was preparing for a negotiation not to worry because my “B game was everyone else’s A game”. That felt good, but the truth is home and work get my A game. Everywhere else? Well, you’re lucky if you see my Z game.

Come to think of it, where did I park my car?

I Know You Are, But What Am I?

I love quotes. I often search the internet for one that will inspire my next thought and subsequent blog or column. But sometimes a concept is so concrete that I can make the quote up in my head, and there is likely to be a famous quote that matches nearly verbatim. I would imagine that “If you have to tell people who you are, you probably aren’t who you think” is already a searchable quote, but for me it was just a loud and clear thought I had the other morning.

I read new web content by an author who had taken the time to think through who he was and state it neatly. The sentiment was charming and prophetic. A headstone of sorts for a life well intended. “Here lies Joe, he had every intention of being these things, but never did get around to it”. While I appreciated the concepts, it was not in fact who he was; it was a collection of goals for who he very much wants to be. Ironically, the author is someone in whom I see profound hope, but who does not much care for me, and one can hazard to guess that this will not help the cause. Oh well.

I have spent years telling the world exactly who I am, though there has been a paradigm shift in the last few years to just show it. Here is the problem with the latter model. What if who you present to be by your actions, is not the stellar overachiever you wish for the world to know? When my cousin Lisa and I were little, we dissected my brother’s Stretch Armstrong doll in the basement bathroom to see what was inside. Stretch Armstrong, for those of you who are under 40, was a hulk-like action figure with bulging muscles, but he was stretchable. Think drawn and quartered, but with an indestructible flair. This is why no woman in her 40’s can be wholly satisfied by a mate: we are all looking for the bulging hunk with a soft core that we can pull in four directions and have him remain strong and unscathed. We took a razor blade to Stretch and found gelatinous red glop inside. I recall there was a pregnant pause between the two of us, in which I admit being a bit disappointed by Stretch’s pathetic secret. He felt like a fraud to me, and made me appreciate my solid plastic Barbies.

This is, though, how many of us go through life. We are our actions, our deeds, and our hearts. We are infrequently, if ever, our words. I still sometimes tell people who I am, but now recognize that if I feel the need to tell you who I am, it is probably because I am trying to convince myself as well. Here is a litmus test: If what you are stating is overwhelmingly positive and enlightened, it is probably a clue that you are sharing your goals rather than your truth; otherwise you would allow it to show through your actions. Here is my truth: I am a person who flosses a few times a week but tells the dentist I do it regularly, who rarely makes my bed, who often licks the spoon while I’m mixing something and hopes the germs are killed in the baking process (Sabrina, can’t wait to see you for dinner Sunday.) , and who complains about every load of laundry I have to do, but then tears up at the thought that the day will come when I won’t have a million tiny undies in every load. Now that is who I am, who are you?

Come Awake

Every year I am amazed at how our property turns from desolation to overgrowth seemingly overnight. Vermont Spring seems to be on fast forward as though the earth beneath our feet understands that its warm days are limited and it ought to hasten the process for the well being of those tasked with tending it. In late winter, the earlier whispers of SAD grow to shrill and defiant roars, and there is a conspicuous fog of relief when warmer winds blow. It must be that this is why we are so enthralled with the crocus’ that break ground often through the snow. They afford tiny, colorful reminders that we too should seize the fresh start. Indeed, there is a coming awake that happens universally in the spring.

We all have our own way of climbing out of our winter skins and coming to our senses. My hens begin to lay again, my neighbors plan barbeques and spread thick layers of aromatic mulch, and my kids spend hours on their trampoline. In my world, when trout season begins I feel revitalized. Our current river levels all but ensure my fly rod and I would be swept swiftly downstream as my waders fill with water and sink me like a stone. But, the very process of organizing my gear, renewing my license and picking out new flies the way most women shop for shoes, makes me hopeful that there will be sunny days spent in the river and warm afternoons spent at the Alchemist.

The digital revolution and our tendencies toward emailing, facebooking, texting and tweeting have resulted in a false sense of comfort among tightly packed villages that do shallow, distant relationships well. In this era of 24/7 connectivity are we sure we are spending adequate time connecting back to the natural world and to our humanity? Not only has this trend given way to new verbs, but it has bred a new generation and offered a sickle like tool to an existing one with which we can hack at human relationships. These paradigms allow us to disengage from more solid associations and more grounding forces that were meant to tether us back to each other and to the earth. It reduces our ability to cultivate intimacy, a key component to the emerging trend toward mindfulness.

Our work weeks have become so ambiguous with technology that the boundaries necessary to create the time and space we need to participate in the awakening have become virtually (pun intended) unrecognizable. Our accessibility and response times have become unrealistic now that everyone can answer an email on their phone. When did we decide that manners do not apply to technology? When was the last time you walked away mid-sentence while someone was speaking to you? Likely never. Ever not answer a text mid -conversation or have someone do it to you? Same thing. We are forgetting how to be part of the environment; and, the natural world does not wait for us and our creations. It moves at its innate pace bringing seasons to a close whether we notice or not.

From the closing line of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off which suggests that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it” to the Tao Te Ching which cautions, “Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings” we are reminded to be a part of our world and to not abdicate our innate ability to notice.

But Enough About Me

Sometimes I go to bed and find that while I try to suppress them, entertaining thoughts slink into my head and I start to laugh. My husband once said that if we could bottle whatever seemed to be in my pillow, we’d be rich. I do routinely get my second wind the minute I lay down. Tonight was no different and what crept into my head was the below blog that I started months ago but never finished. It made me laugh then, and it makes me laugh now, so here it is in all its splendor. I genuinely hope that it makes you laugh too!

But Enough About Me or It is an Honor to Serve or Allow Me or I Have All Day

It turns out there are many things you can do with fishing line. I know this, because somewhere in the middle of a conversation while I was sharing with a friend the story of a troubling family rift, I was unexpectedly educated about the remarkable concept that is the “wind knot”. Without adequate segue, he told me about his newly acquired skill as a clear indicator that my three second time limit on the soapbox had unknowingly expired. Likewise, while discussing with my teenage daughter the experience of her premature birth, she asked me where we were going for Christmas this year, to which I responded, “I like cheese” to illustrate the irrelevance of her inquest. The older I get, the more I realize that no one really wants to hear about you anymore. In fact, the self importance that you felt as a twenty something has evaporated and instead reincarnated itself into a Mother Teresa-like form where we live to serve. It is a captivating concept - one that the wise among us will embrace, occasionally toy with, and then ultimately accept. I am not necessarily casting judgment on it, as Oscar Wilde aptly said, “All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction”.

There is something brilliant, however maddening, to being on the other side of the offending equation. Listening breeds insight, and subsequently gives us navigational life tools that make it possible to steer through rough waters. Kahlil Gibran said, “The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say”. Human beings are complex and are forever in pursuit of that which they have to prove.

I like to talk. I like people who like to talk. But there is a shift that happens somewhere later in life, if we are lucky, where we realize that talking about ourselves precludes us from learning about others and that others need to be heard. Rick Warren, whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak years ago, opens his book The Purpose Driven Life with these profound words – ITS NOT ABOUT YOU. Those words, when fully digested, are life changing. The paradigm shift from self importance to selflessness is a gift and the younger it hits you, the better off you are.

Remember the scene from Casper the Ghost, where Casper becomes a real boy, but somewhere later on in his enchanted evening he begins to fade and is no more than an apparition? This, I find, is 40 or motherhood or marriage or wisdom. We somehow fade from everyone’s view but our own and that is where the wisdom lies, in seeing ourselves as we see ourselves, and not through the eyes of others. It is more than the idea of not caring what others think. I do deeply care what others think and it is a useful guideline for how we conduct our lives, but, there is freedom in having nothing to prove. This is less my personal experience and more my observations of the graceful and brilliant among me. Every day I see people who have achieved a level of comfort with themselves such that they seem to float across the room rather than amble. I can only assume that they are the ones who have walked through the fire, lived, and learned enough to know it is best next time to just go around.

Rural Route Today November Column: Honest Abe

As is the case with us all, I have been guilty of chasing the fairy tale and waking up in the pumpkin, but, I also make a remarkable pumpkin pie. As Thanksgiving looms in the near future with Christmas right behind, it is wise to reflect on our many blessings those obvious and those not so. This weekend on a Christmas shopping trip in New York, I grew deeply appreciative of three unsung blessings in my life –wrinkles, time and dirt.

In Buddy the Elf-like wonderment, I traversed the Westchester County Mall taking in the spectacle of the shops and of the moms in knee-high, 5 inch heeled boots pushing Burberry clad babies in strollers through a vast expanse of consumerism. It was not long before I was stopped by Abe, the kiosk skin care salesman who no doubt saw my pasty, 40-something, Vermont skin coming and thought he had struck gold. As he examined my face he told me my problem was that I smile too much, and as he smothered my face in Dead Sea salt infused oils, he repeatedly asked me to refrain from smiling. When his application by force was complete, he gushed over how youthful the left side of my face now looked and then built a strong case for me to purchase his $400 regimen. I politely declined his offer and turned both sides of my face, now separated by generations apparently, away. He grabbed the pamphlet I had been holding out of my hand and dismissed me.

Walking away, I smiled defiantly thankful for this consequence of aging. Years of smiling does, in fact, deepen the wrinkles around our eyes and how fortunate we are for that outward proof that we’ve been happy. As the day passed, I enjoyed the shops and the irony in learning that purchasing a Tory Burch wallet makes it less likely that you will have anything to put into it for awhile. I appreciated the opportunity to complete Christmas shopping in one place and in one day, were one to have the stamina. But, I missed the humanity of Vermont. There was a frenetic tempo to it all that was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I am thankful that the pace in Vermont allows time for pleasantries, and for discussions about the weather, for limited business hours during deer season, and for holding doors open for strangers to pass through.

The next morning I gathered my things and headed to the hotel parking garage. There among the New York plates and sparkling SUV’s was my mud covered Jeep with its new studded snow tires. In that moment, I was silently overwhelmed with gratitude that it would be taking me home to the dirt road that was responsible for its appearance. It is something to enjoy the Christmas shopping fervor, but it is quite another to quietly reflect on and give thanks for those things that cost nothing and that tether us back to this earth and to each other. Happy Thanksgiving!

One of My Favorite Things on the Planet

I am not a shopper. I am hard pressed to recall a time in my adulthood when I desired an item, sought it out and purchased it. My favorite things typically find me. Two years ago I happened upon a wrist watch while wandering through an antique shop in my home town. I wasn’t looking for a watch, and in fact, do not value the need to know what time it is at any point in the day. I enjoy flying by the seat of my pants. I like to watch the position of the sun in order to guess what time it is; and, I am amazed at my ability to guess correctly within a few minutes. Sometimes though, remarkable things present themselves to us and fill a void we never knew we had.

Venturing into empty shops is uncomfortable for me, knowing one foot in the door that there is nothing within that I wish to buy. Inevitably, the hollow eyes of the employee seem to beg to differ and there is an overwhelming guilt that sets in. On this one surprising occasion, however, I was drawn to a watch that seemed out of place in the shop. I picked it up, put it on and was surprised to discover how well it fit me. I vacillate between the extremes of dressing up for work and dressing so down at home that I cannot leave the house in my favorite ripped jeans without risking the penalty of indecent exposure. But the watch went with everything. It was large and strong and felt good wrapped around my wrist. It was unpretentious yet added style to my wardrobe without mocking my tendency toward that which is comfortable.

I have been surprised how much I rely on it for accuracy and to make my life run smoothly. On many occasions, I have left it home and have even lost it for extended periods of time, though mercifully it always seems to show up. It is as though it knows that sometimes I need to go back to the days of less structure, but that ultimately I am better when it is with me. I maintain a fairly structured jewelry collection- necklaces hanging from funky wall mounted racks, earrings hanging together in pairs from a brass tree I designed years ago- but I never really put the watch anywhere in particular. No matter where I leave it though, it seems to resurface at just the right time and as though we were never apart. Dependably, it remains sturdy, precise and cherished.

On the most recent occasion of its misplacing, I was certain it was lost for good. Usually when it is gone, I have that clear feeling in my stomach that it is not lost at all, it is just temporarily teaching me a lesson about how to better look after it. This time however, I began to question whether having a watch made me too structured and I justified its absence as a step back in the right direction - anything to make the sting of reality easier. Then, in early October, I missed a significant appointment that I had been anticipating for months. It dawned on me in that moment that had I had my watch, I would never have missed that date. A week or so after the fated engagement I set out to look for the watch once again, and once and for all. In part, I felt deficient that I had been so unbalanced without it, but I was unwilling to be without it again. I made peace with the fact that having it on my arm makes me comfortable; I feel more together, and more in sync. Finding it, as always, was easy. It was right where I had left it. It’s been two weeks now, give or take, and I haven’t taken it off once. Often times, possessions we are sure we must have the first time we see them become ordinary and unrewarding as time wears on. I’m not ashamed to say that I adore it as much today as I did that day I found it in that unassuming hometown shop.

Remains of the Day and Rebirth

As an evolving writer, I subscribe to numerous internet sources of encouragement. Strangers fling topics via Twitter in an attempt to thwart writer’s block and instigate imagination. Despondently, I offer that I can’t work this way. Having an unknown entity tweet about “ice cream” and then offer the inspired directive of “Now go write!” just doesn’t send waves of profound thought through my mind.

On this occasion I am too cerebral and too tired to create anything from something unrelated to me. This is not to say that I do not enjoy stumbling upon random, unrelated thoughts of my own to weave together into something cogent.

Tonight as I watch the sunset turn my outside view into subtle hues of cayenne, olive, and heather, I am feeling the slightest chill on my bare shoulders and accepting that the fading summer invites the resurrection of ritualistic bath time – a fall and winter benchmark. So tonight, we explore the Remains of the Day and Rebirth...because we can and why not?

Years ago I remember a particularly late night struggling through a college paper, fighting for inspiration and for the ability to stay awake and finish it. We find encouragement in the oddest places, and in that moment I self-soothed by assuring myself that ‘nothing in life will ever be that hard’ again. What I wouldn’t give now to regain the simplicity of those days. Though, as I tell my children on the occasions of their insistence that they are correct in a given situation, “I was as smart as I ever was at the time”.

Equally equipped and burdened with the souvenir of experience, I now recognize that complexity and pandemonium are talismans that graciously accompany age and family. The key to the city is knowing how to breathe it all in at the end of the day and feel appreciative and renewed. I worked with an older gentleman many years ago, who by all appearances had a less than charmed life, but you could no more than hand that man a pen and he would look you in the eye and say, not a colloquial ‘Thank you’, but “I’m appreciative”. And I believe that in every instance he was. Somewhere in his life he learned the value of gratitude; that everything, down to the pen he was handed by another, could be taken away and he was not going to miss an occasion to express his gratefulness for what he did have.

Some days we know enough to give thanks for grass, and sunlight, and for turtles that take their time crossing the road in front of our cars forcing us to stop and just watch their journey. Other days we ache for bedtime to shove one day out of the way and shepherd in the next. Years ago, around the Thanksgiving table, we all shared the treasured things for which we were thankful. When the gratitude soliloquies came around to my youngest daughter, then about 3, she said “I am thankful for doors”. We all laughed but have since humbly valued the promise of our many doors to keep out critters and keep in heat! Every Thanksgiving since, we have never failed to acknowledge our gratitude for doors as homage to the recognition of the uncomplicated. Not so simple a thought after all.

My landscape has vanished behind the veil of night, the prolific mosquitoes are beginning to give up their pursuit, and the cool air forces me to slip a blanket over my shoulders. I am grateful for the sweet summer that is now passing before my eyes. New England is awe-inspiring. Effervescent summers and radiant falls offer a reprieve that gives its inhabitants the potency they will need to prepare and thrive in the winter ahead. One more day passes and drags with it an opportunity for acknowledgement of our abundance - one less chance to see a silver lining. Life is many things, but mostly … it is short.

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere! ~ Dr. Seuss

There are times when people who write have to do just that. We grab menus, forms, gas station receipts, and paycheck stubs, flip them over and capture the thought stream that charitably surges through our brains. The flipside is also true. Sometimes creativity is entombed in mental concrete. I savor the moments when life flings you colorful caricatures on which to build. Sitting in my daughter's audition this morning I experienced a profusion of characters that both stirred my imagination and forced me to exercise sturdy pre-coffee restraint.


I sat quietly alone in the back of the theater eager to learn the process of becoming the mother of a would-be actor. To my left was a well seasoned stage mom forcing her son to drink from a water bottle to keep his - and I'm quoting verbatim here- throat moist. As I watched the boy reluctantly take several gulps I wondered how he would perform at peak whilst having to pee like a race horse. My daughter and I, on the other hand, had stumbled into the lobby wearing what we only then recalled were explicitly prohibited flip flops and reluctantly handed over our half completed forms. While Moisty and his mom were bathing his vocal cords, I was simply trying not to spill my latte down my shirt while ushering my daughter into the auditorium and hoping the effects of caffeine would hasten my ability to rise to the occasion.

Earlier, during the registration process, I was drawn to the strident and confident voice of a tall man who greeted everyone with preparedness and vigor typically unprecedented at this hour. I was drawn to his charisma. My mind carelessly entertained projections of my husband and me drinking oaky red wine with him and his wife. I pondered the strange process of making new friends at our age and how years from now we would share laughs telling the story of how we met when our youngest auditioned for local theater. Later my first impression would be shattered as first impressions often are despite the 'lasts a lifetime' myth.

I entered the auditorium, settled into my back row seat, pulled out the book I am reading and dove eagerly into the world Chris Bojalian creates in Secrets of Eden. I was jarred from my story land bliss by a rhythmical drumming that shook my seat every few seconds as though a Brachiosaurus was making its way ever closer to the high school gymnasium. Looking around in all directions, it seemed no one else felt this sensation. It appeared to be localized and I was alone to asses my safety. I closed my book and tapped fully into the feeling. I recognized that the relentless drone of the voice behind me was coming from the man I had only minutes earlier been fantasizing about. The only constant in the room was his voice talking incessantly at a helpless man while hitting the row of seats in front of him for emphasis which sent reverberations down the entire aisle and into my seat. I learned also via his self-absorbed pontifications that the man he was talking at was a police officer and I wondered if he was carrying a gun. If ever an individual might snap and shoot someone, and perhaps justifiably so, this was that occasion.

After a parental briefing the lot of us was excused. Children were led into the auditorium in small groups while the others mingled with the adults in the lobby awaiting their turn. I went back to my book only to be interrupted again. I am, by nature, a people watcher and this was the mother load. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that Moisty and his mom had appropriated the seats that had previously been occupied by a busy mother and her rambunctious toddler. By all rights, the mom -who purposefully left behind her diaper bag to mark her territory in the crowded room- abdicated her seat when she took her toddler to the bathroom. Mama Moisty pounced on the opportunity as only a water pusher could. Upon her return the evicted mom gently offered that the bag Ms. Moisty had moved, now on the table, was in fact a marker left behind to hold the bench open. The toddler was a tiny being of no more than two and capped with a head of curly blonde hair. Her mom was a once pretty woman who was now visibly tired and worn thin. Ms. Moisty, a large woman by common standards, looked up at her and offered only that she had been unclear if someone was sitting there, but she made no gesture to relocate or to scoot over. She and her damp throated boy were now engaged in a full blown game of dice in the space between them. The mom and her toddler took their ineffective diaper bag and played cards on the cold unforgiving linoleum.

Back to my book. Silence again was broken this time by a boy defiantly shouting at this mother as she whispered for him to turn his iPod down. It was a cartoon strip moment where he was unaware of how loud he was with his ear buds tucked in his ears. As he yelled, she instinctually put her hand over his mouth which made his eyes bulge with surprise or perhaps due to the inability for his breath to escape through any other available orifice.

Just as I became sucked into that moment, my sweet daughter emerged from the dark and intimidating auditorium. She took her number off her shirt, handed it in, assured me that things had gone well within and we were out of there… leaving all those characters behind, but surely not forgotten.

Cinderella in Wartime

According to Merriam Webster “memory” is the mental faculty of retaining and recalling past experience. There are countless quotes on memories- prose, short stories and musings about beloved recollections. There are mental health articles in abundance on retaining memories, jogging memory and improving one’s capacity for memory, but far fewer on how to obliterate a memory. In fact, the most available subjects when searching for ‘how to erase memory’ are largely relative to computer memory. While I am adept at extrapolating information from wise sources and applying it to the task at hand, I am hard pressed to find a mental delete button, and a metaphorical reboot seems to be the quest de jour of the Dr. Phil nation. Once after searching until dark, I was forced to ask a security guard to drive me around a parking garage looking for my car. I forget easily.

Nevertheless, memories of playing in the sand with our children do not wake us up at night; nor do they call on us to employ exercises of distraction to eradicate them. It seems to be the heartrending memories and the raw ones that attach themselves to us and demand to be brought everywhere we go. Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now says, "The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive. To put it more accurately, it is not so much that you use your mind wrongly—you usually don't use it at all. It uses you."

The Institute for the Healing of Memories (IHOM), based in South Africa, addresses the emotional and psychological wounds suffered by those in war ravaged countries. The IHOM attempts to help affected individuals remove painful obstacles which can keep them from moving forward. There is extensive supporting evidence that forgiveness promotes healing and thereby peace. The IHOM asserts that holding on to the anger and hate associated with wartime experiences can give way to future conflict and violence. Healing takes place by acknowledging the hurt that led to the feelings and working through a series of exercises intended to permit emotional and spiritual growth.

Rhodes Scholar and renowned teacher of Creative Thinking, Edward de Bono said simply “A memory is what is left when something happens and does not completely unhappen.” Overused expressions like ‘unfinished business’ and ‘closure’ often pepper well meaning advice; but finishing and closing are not always viable options. Death, distance, and circumstance are thieves who strike without notice, depriving us of options and time.

On the complicated subject of eradicating memories it seems everyone is an expert on everyone else’s pain. Most of us march through day after day thanking God for every experience, every sunset and every person who ever walked through the doors of our lives. Still other times gratitude escapes us and we are stuck in a decayed but vivid scene when we wished that the sun had not set so fast or that someone had just kept going or never reached for us in the first place. Like a white gull pressed against a dark sky, the shadow of a painful memory allows for striking contrast and makes the sweet ones shine.

Finding Balance in the Oddest Places

This past Memorial Day I spent the afternoon cleaning out our chicken coop. We have a good size coop that houses twenty one laying hens and their one rooster. How we ended up with 20+ birds is an amusing story. In moving to the country it was our hope to raise children with an understanding of sustainability, agriculture and the value of hard work. My husband diligently built our red and white coop next to our barn with the help of our daughters. Upon completion, we festooned it with a navy blue metal star and an American folk art sign that read “Cackling Hatchery”. It was time to order its residents. After asking around, we learned of a popular mail order hatchery and placed the minimum order of chicks that they would allow – twenty five birds with one free ‘exotic’ breed as a bonus. As first time chicken owners, we thought it best to stick to one breed and settled on Barred Rocks. We received 22 hens and 4 roosters. The free exotic bird turned out to be a rooster and, upon maturity, attacked anyone who misguidedly made eye contact with him. He, along with two of the other roosters, was eventually on the losing end of hutch combat due to apparent congenital aggression. Dexter is our one remaining rooster who either successfully perpetrated the battles or simply knew how and when to just stay out of it.

When the call came from the local post office that we had received a peeping package, we rushed to pick up our tiny box of 26 one day old chicks. We felt quite smart for a short while until we realized weeks later that chicks can be purchased individually from Agway this time of year. Nevertheless, we were now the proud owners of a fairly large flock of birds. They have provided us with eggs dependably ever since and thanks to Dexter neither I nor my neighbors have ever woken up late or slept in!

This was the first coop cleaning of the spring and the task at hand glamorously involved chiseling away at months of chicken waste. The process is time consuming, back breaking, and bicep building. Aside from the overpowering odor which seems to draw oxygen from the lungs, the process is admittedly gratifying. With the neck of my t-shirt pulled up over my mouth and nose to protect what waning lung capacity I had left, my mind wandered onto all the folks soaking up the sun on shorelines around the country on this reverent holiday. I thought of my friends and family who were likely on the Cape showering sand off their sun kissed babies and getting dressed for seafood dinners. I wondered for a moment why I chose this lifestyle over one that more easily accommodates impromptu vacations and relaxation over three day weekends. Then I remembered one of my favorite quotes from a commentary by Andy Rooney. He said “Eating is good, sleeping is good and playing is good but work is best”.

Our faithful flock of healthy, free range hens dots our landscape and adds a balanced layer of activity and tranquility to our farm. Dexter has grown into a perfect gentleman -proudly policing the yard and continuing to prove the naysayers wrong who assured us of his inevitable hostility toward humans. Their ceremony of going home to roost as the sun sets is often the only predictable outcome I can count on in a day.

As I finished the coop, I stood back to inspect my work - dirty, sweaty and tired but proud. I would have enjoyed some time on the beach that weekend, but that time comes too, and on this day I was glad for the undertaking and the resulting sense of accomplishment.

Perfect Tommy's

Recently while visiting my home, my mother recalled a story for my children that I had long since forgotten. As I listened to her recount the tale, I was equal parts horrified, captivated, and inspired by my own cunning the likes of which I have at least tempered in the decades that have passed since the incident took place. She told the story of a night about 20 years ago watching a then popular news program-A Current Affair-on television that was featuring a local competition in a New York City bar. As she and my father flipped through channels they stopped for a minute because they thought they saw someone on TV that looked like me. They were right.

David Letterman had developed a ludicrous activity using the magic of Velcro back in 1984. A contestant dressed in the hook side of the Velcro material would leap from a tiny trampoline and attempt to stick onto a wall made of the loop side of the Velcro material. The object of this competition, and I use the term loosely, was to stick as high up on the wall as possible. This ingenious ‘sport’ became known as “Human Bar Fly”. A New York City pub called Perfect Tommy’s hosted a weekly “Human Bar Fly” night. On one of its first nights holding the event I begged a dear friend of mine to accompany me to Manhattan so I could try my hand at this sport.

I am a bruiser by nature, a bit of a bull in the proverbial china shop. So this activity was appealing to me. I did not tell my parents where I was going, nor did I make the mental leap between the camera crews on site and my truancy. Once I got there I remained focused and my objective was clear. There were several dozen contestants and the event was initially divided into men against women. I won in the female category. The winning height was measured by how high your feet were off the floor. While you were stuck on the wall a small group of judges would measure your feet to floor distance, briefly confer, and then viciously peel you off the wall.

While I was an athlete’s athlete among the women I was simply no match for the conqueror of the men’s category and to declare an ultimate champion he and I would have to go head to head. In a tremendous show of chivalry my rival geared up to go first for our final show down, the crowd cleared a corridor for him to run down, and with every leg muscle bulging from within his Velcro suit he began his run toward the wall. His powerful spring from the trampoline was impressive and his belly hit the wall high and hard like an ejected F16 pilot. He stuck it high. It was physically impossible for me to jump that high.

Koichi Tohei, the founder of the Ki Society and the practice of Aikido said, “Power of mind is infinite while brawn is limited.” And so an out of the box, or off the wall strategy if you will, was imperative if victory was to be mine! I quickly clarified the rules and verified that the measurement was simply feet to floor. With the information affirmed I zipped into my navy blue suit, took my place on the starting tape, scanned the floor for beer sludge or any other possible impediments to my success and began my run at the wall. Rather than the hard leap on the trampoline that my adversary had taken, I took more of a balanced and calculated bounce this time and then made a strong, close to the wall, head first front flip sticking to the wall upside down, back to the wall, with my feet high above my head and way above my opponent’s marker tape! Ingenious.

I won the admiration of every beer infused patron at Perfect Tommy’s on that night, the adoration of my friend (which I already had to begin with) and an on air interview on A Current Affair which would later prove to be my unraveling. In researching for this blog, it turns out my brilliant flip has been used by the masses since, as you can read for yourself in the following 1992 Newsweek article. http://www.newsweek.com/id/125528.

That clandestine trip to Perfect Tommy’s gave way to a hilarious night back in 1991 even after the news program aired my interview, and it made for even more memorable giggles with my family nearly 20 years later in a sleepy farm house. A good night, indeed.

Way Up On the Hill

I grew up surrounded by my extended family, on a small but handsome farm embedded in a suburban landscape outside of New York City. By the time my cousins and I rolled onto the place there was very little farm left but the easy sentiment of the land remained intact and we all reaped from it what our elders had sown.

My grandfather and his brothers immigrated to America from Italy in the 1940’s. Initially, they were 13 people living in a single family dwelling at the top of a hill all working industriously to make their way in a unfamiliar land. As the families grew they moved out of my grandparent’s home and built their own houses, and subsequently their children’s houses, in succession down the hill. My grandfather’s middle brother was Jimmy.

Uncle Jim was a sturdy man with a wide smile and sparkling blue eyes that lit up when anyone he cared about, no matter how far removed in relation, walked into the room. He never had an irate word for any human being. In fact, the only angry words he ever spoke are immortalized in family lore as he tried to explain the nuisance that was the wild boar which roamed Italy and often killed farmers’ livestock. While I am unable to freely share the broken English expletive he used to label the beast, the hand gestures alone will go down in history!

He was gracious and kindhearted to my cousins and me; we on the other hand delighted in toying with him. We played practical jokes on him like tying tomatoes to fishing line and reeling them in from the bushes while he harvested his tomato crops by hand. Occasionally, he would run us off, but for the most part he took us in his stride.

This past week, at a most respectable age and still recently in his characteristic spirits, Uncle Jim joined his brothers and wife in heaven. I imagine he greeted them with his signature smile and crystal blue eyes. In so far as a life well lived and one that touched so many cannot be regretted, his passing does make me wish for simpler days. New psychology advises us all to be present in the moment and live our lives authentically. While it is sage advice for these days it is nonetheless how so many of our family members in past generations already knew to live.

Laugh off the pranks, tell your stories with passion, light up when your loved ones walk in the room, and make sure they can see it in your eyes!

Unlikely Rebel

I am a rule follower by nature. I miss opportunities otherwise seized by the majority on the basis that they may run a slight risk of violating some potentially unwritten law. To this end, I miss out on many a good parking spot on the off chance I could be towed. But today I broke as many written and unwritten rules as possible, most in the area of etiquette and human decency. In church this morning it was offered that we often express anger as a response to our own feelings of hurt, frustration and fear. While not angry, I did act out of all three emotions today and enjoyed doing so. Following service, which I attended alone, I drove without informing anyone in my family, to my favorite coffee house. Broken Rule #1. Off to a fine start. Upon arrival, I found that it had undergone extensive, and in my opinion unnecessary and unwelcome renovation. Nevertheless, I took a seat at the bar in the window and watched the prettiest snowfall, drank the worst latte, and enjoyed the solitude.

I chose this place because on past visits I had wondered to myself why such a gem was so sadly under patronized and today 'quiet' was on my agenda. Unfortunately, sleek cappuccino machines, shiny new bamboo flooring, flashy decking with modern handrails, and granite counter tops seem to coax the residents of Jericho out of their otherwise sleepy farmhouses on snowy Sunday mornings. In a misery loves company moment, a large woman dressed in pink sat uncomfortably close to me. I had taken the middle seat at the three person bar to make it less likely that anyone would sit next to me. These are not the rules by which I typically play, but this was not a typical morning. I was in an almost visible bubble and I was liking it. Her proximity was so close that it forced me to gather my newspaper innards, stack them neatly, tuck my elbows in and put my latte mug on top of my paper making it impossible to flip the pages at my leisure. I became so uncomfortable with this posturing that I hummed along loudly with the tune playing in the coffee house which seemed to work. A sideways glace in my direction on her part, and not one bar into "Round Here" by the Counting Crows and she was gone. Rule #2 shattered.

I was surprised to find myself feeling so mutinous after church and in the coffee shop to which I had come to soul search. But then I do enjoy the rare and sporadic digression into sarcasm and in fact at the inception of this blog I all but promised such forays to its readers. As a writer I find it fascinating to write in different states of mind and this was certainly a different state of mind. Immediately following the ingenious humming incident I decided that writing in this, at best overtired and at worst unhinged, state should yield something funny if not perhaps admissible in court. So I did what any Sunday morning-post church-rule breaker might do I grabbed the newly renovated coffee shop's menu, flipped it over and started writing. Rule #3...nearly unforgivable.

Sometimes I stare blankly at my laptop waiting for inspiration, but today I wondered how many menus I could swipe before they thanked me for my gracious $5.25 purchase and tossed me out onto the brand new porch. As the snow continued to fall the words gushed from brain to pen to menu and my smile grew wider and likely more odd to those around me. Two menus later I found myself less cantankerous, kind of liking the smooth granite counter, feeling bad about the girl I'd hummed out of there and looking forward to heading home. I am a rule follower by nature. So even when I set out to break them, I am generally the only one who notices. But sometimes going rogue, if only in one’s mind, is just the outlet we need to turn a bad day around. It really was a beautiful, sugary snowfall.











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An Honest Voice

""You're wishin' too much baby. You gotta' stop wearin' your wishbone where your backbone oughta be!" -Richard from Texas.

The world lost an extraordinary and honest voice this past week when Richard Vogt, a man made famous as, "Richard from Texas", a real life character in the memoir Eat, Pray, Love passed away suddenly in his sleep Thursday. His prominence would have been markedly less were it not for his implausible ability to shelf the appeal for pretty words and plainly say what he was feeling - a notion I sadly feel is fading into obscurity more every day. Among his many brilliant witticisms he said, "Sure those gremlins still gnaw at my heels but I keep kicking them aside". And isn’t that the objective anyway – to be better than what’s getting the better of us?

A little known fetish of mine, of which I am very proud, is my fascination with the origin of phrases and by fascination I mean I find it interesting not that it occupies time I don't have. In the 1800’s boots had a kind of tab or loop at the top known as bootstraps which allowed the wearer leverage in pulling the boots on. The phrase "to pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was conceived to metaphorically refer to an impossible mission or to convey the idea of bettering oneself without the aid of external assistance. It was the equivalent of saving oneself from drowning by pulling ones own hair.

Improbable though it may be, I like the suggestion of pulling yourself up by the bootstraps and Richard Vogt must have too. His hard-hitting cowboy love had a candor and truthfulness that made anyone who heard him want to do better for themselves. Some people have the ability to comfort others while not allowing them to go headlong into the chasm of self pity. These are the people who truly care for us.

In my experience there are three types of nurturers: the Enablers, the Hallmarkers and- in deference to the character we lost- the Cowboys. The Enablers need our depression. It’s a pillow top mattress into which they can contentedly fall. Our weakness minimizes their own, so they comfort us in our time of need all the while ensuring we become more deeply mired every step of the way in our own circumstance. The Hallmarkers are the card senders. Sorry for your loss. Their concern is genuine, but your pain does not supersede their children’s soccer schedule. The Cowboys are those who allow us to feel, but then spend the energy and invest in us enough to pull us out and back into the light.

Many years ago during our first misstep into foster parenting we were in the process of losing the first baby we set out to adopt. This was a baby born to a drug addicted mother and prior to the turn of events we were told by numerous attorneys that this adoption would go through. I will pause here to tell you that, as the parent of biological children, I can say unequivocally that the love you feel for a child you have raised from birth -biologically yours or not- is the same. Losing this baby was killing me slowly and surely. At this stage we had been told that the baby would be placed with biological family that had surfaced and had expressed an interest in adopting her. (Foster parents have no rights in this case.) During a candid and emotional conversation with the DCF Resource Coordinator, AKA “the woman who had gotten me into this mess”, she gave me a piece of the best advice I have even been given. A bit of cowboy logic, if you will.

She suggested I pick a sensible timeframe that was fair to me and to my family - three to five days- and allow myself the privilege of falling apart. She invited me to be reckless within reason, shop excessively, cry, scream, eat, whatever I needed to do to grieve, and then, pick myself up by the bootstraps. I think about that little girl often now and there was additional grieving that needed to happen, but the concept worked and the advice was compassionate and sound.

Things do not always turn out as we plan. Fields that looked wide open from the sky turn out to have barbed wire fences stretched across them as we attempt to set down our troubled airplane. People we trusted with our hearts sometimes unexpectedly mistake those very hearts for baby fur seals. And, as Richard Vogt’s Texas eloquence offered, the gremlins do continue to gnaw at our heels. But even when we don’t feel safe and our back is exposed during one long mad season we do have to persist and keep kicking them aside.

"Everyday when you wake up ask yourself, 'Am I going to be happy or miserable today?' Take it from me -choose happiness - I always do." - Richard from Texas*

*quotes were taken from www.richardfromtexas.com

Pretty Words

I was paid the highest compliment yesterday that a writer of my sort can be paid. As with anything I suppose, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for me this compliment hit the core reason of why I write. It was, therefore, an accolade whose high I will ride for years to come. A co-worker, who seemed reluctant to admit that she had read my writing late one night, offered to me that while no one may remember what I wrote, they will remember how I made them feel and that I made them laugh.

I delight in the world around me. I am fascinated by every detail to the point that it holds me up sometimes from accomplishing ordinary daily tasks. I see the world around me the way a scuba diver sees the deep sea. Everything pops for me and overwhelms me with its intricacy and usefulness. I recognize coincidence in what others likely take for granted.

A couple of years ago I was free diving in Mexico when it occurred to me that I had three shimmering silver bangle bracelets on my wrist. Earlier in the day I had bartered zealously with a man at a street fair for these and was proud of my exploit. Strangely ill timed, while diving, I recalled an article I had read where a woman was bit in the head by a Barracuda because she was wearing a silver clip in her hair and the jagged toothed fish are attracted to shiny objects which they mistake for food. Perhaps my bargain bracelets were not a good diving accessory after all. The second I finished the thought, I looked to my right out toward the deep sea, and about two feet from me was a perfect, thin, silver three foot Barracuda looking back at me. I did a double take, stuck the arm with those stupid bangles out of the water and swam back to shore fast as my flipper assisted feet would allow me to go. That is me. I invite the unimaginable in, likely because I am aware it is possible. And I love this side of life.

Today I stopped at a local Starbucks. I went to use the bathroom to find it was occupied and so I waited patiently and checked Facebook on my phone. Pathetic commentary aside, a minute later a woman emerged. Slightly hunched forward, in a lint covered coat that appeared to be made of industrial felt, she scowled at me. I smiled and said "Hi" to which she replied "bad design and it’s a mess". I assume she was referring to the bathroom, though she could have been just as accurately describing her own coat. Given the recent disasters in our world, the obvious evidence of horror and hardship, why would anyone let the state of a public bathroom with fresh running water and flushing toilets get them down, particularly when right outside it is a latte for $5.45 and you have the money in your pocket to pay for that. To me, that alone is a brilliant day by the worlds’ standards.

I say delight in the ordinary, take notice of the absurd and have a laugh at it to yourself, let gratitude overwhelm you each time you walk in the door on a cold day and it's warm inside, entertain yourself and those around you, and when one more day feels like too many remind yourself of all those people who would kill to walk in your shoes!

For The Love Of The Day

Readers, friends, and family sometimes ask me to write about a particular issue. Last week, on our way home my daughter asked me to write about shopping. So I did. I was pleased with the result and it flowed somewhat effortlessly. I prefer to write purely from my own inspiration and am fortunate now to have a monthly column where I can do that. However, in my business writing I write only about what others ask for, so honing this skill is necessary. Let that be an invitation to you. A few days ago came a new request from a friend.

Consequently, I have been tied up in knots the last few days trying to write about that particular subject. It was dropped in my lap, anvil style, riddled with the angst of the past and I have at best written a sentence a night. More honestly, I have written several sentences each night and consistently deleted them all. I have tried writing after exercise, writing after wine, writing while delirious with exhaustion, all with no constructive outcome. Finally last night with the benefit of a long midday bath I wrote several well connected paragraphs about the proposed subject of time travel and the idea of visiting one's past. Minutes before entering the editing phase of my writing, iTunes and Blogger decided they could no longer peacefully coexist and both dug their heels into technical ground. I was forced to restart and all was lost. Hours of writing vanished and the auto save feature of Blogger had betrayed me, perhaps for my own good.

This morning, on Valentine's Day, I had hoped to offer some thoughts on love - again a subject more topical than inspired. As I searched the internet for quotes that might jump start my writing on the subject I found one that sits well with me. It is by Neil Gaiman -an English born American Novelist, Journalist, Screenwriter, and Children's author. I am sharing it with you on this most amorous day. Enjoy.

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”

I am mildly tempted to hunt him down, take his hand, and run headlong into yet another brick wall in hopes of changing his mind. However, at the end of the day, he and I stand in complete agreement on this matter and would undoubtedly instead share a toast to rough roads and hard lessons learned. Cynical, world-weary, dark and twisted though it may be; it is fact. Love stings. Having walked this often broken road, I am certain that it is through these dreadful experiences he writes about that we find ourselves and are able to recognize what we want, pass on what we do not, and live with what is, and with what will never be. Time may not heal all wounds, but its generosity does infuse our hearts with all we need to make it to the day ahead and the next. AH HA! And this is why I have no need for a time machine to the past. Shheeww, I knew I'd figure out the connection eventually! Happy Valentines Day.

I Like It On You

I’m not a shopper. I am fairly frugal. I do not like clothes, crowded racks, narrow aisles, consumerism, materialism, dressing room attendants, 10% discounts if you sign up for store credit cards, buy-one-get-one-half-off, or any store that hangs items higher than 5’ 3”. I have always alleged that I do not have the shopping gene. However, I now know that I do have it, it was just recessive as I did throw a daughter who loves to shop and I do love to spend time with her. In order to meet her where she is, I sometimes spend whole days shopping. Today was one of those days.


These are the moments when God reveals to me that He is real, that He sees me, that He saw everything I did in college and that He gave me a daughter who loves to shop as a reminder that what comes around goes around. This is indeed a fair and merciful penance. It is a good thing, however, when a shopping day falls on a single digit Vermont winter afternoon when the mountain winds are too high and the chair lifts are closed. This takes the edge that I could be doing something more fulfilling off.

There are simple pleasures even when shopping that make the day a gift! Today they were too plentiful to mention exhaustively but I will highlight a couple. Nothing is sweeter than the little old man who sits patiently on the chair either outside the dressing room or at the entrance of the store waiting for his partner. I am choosing partner here because I have come to learn that it is not always a wife squeezing into something in the dressing room that the man waits on. I suppose earlier on I would have assumed this was the practice only of those married for decades; now I know those are very often men on their second or third marriages or even waiting on a girlfriend. Whatever the nature of the relationship, I think it’s sweet that they wait and that they are patient. So spotting the token sitting man has become a much loved part of shopping for me. A kind hearted Where is Waldo game.

Another highlight today was trying on dresses with my near teenage daughter in opposite dressing rooms. We had both taken in armfuls of clothes to try on and would periodically call to each other for a quick opinion. That alone was a favorite moment. At one point we opened our respective doors to find we were standing there in the same dress. A simple, casual, floor length, steel grey dress with black flowers fading out around the bottom. She looked beautiful, and graceful, and all grown up, but she said she loved it on me. Twelve and a half years ago I took a fairly uneventful ambulance ride to a Level One Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Oakland, California to set free a tiny four pound baby girl with an apparent recessive shopping gene. Grandma Moses said, “Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” Oddly, I suppose, so too is shopping.

Fresh Dirt

The below was originally written in early Autumn with the intention of being submitted as my first column. It was to set the stage as the column's ongoing title "Fresh Dirt". It was never published and the column, while regular, does not have a consistent title. My unexpected inspiration to write more last night convinced me to finally place it here on the blog site. It was written from the gut in a very genuine place.

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Being raised in a suburb of New York City I attended a catholic school where recess was held in the church parking lot. A blacktop swath surrounded by a towering chain link fence that literally rocked and rolled on windy days. I recently visited that New York parking lot with my girls and as we drove in I asked them to close their eyes and picture their recess area here in our small rural town. Really, take a minute to envision it, the views in every direction. Now open your eyes. They sat in silent disbelief. “Mom, this is a parking lot”. So it was.

They are being raised in a small farm town. A suburb, if you will, of Burlington. The drive to school, the library, every friend’s house, and the convenience store is breathtaking. Here fourth generation farmers know more about the commodities market than wall streeters and have the business acumen of our greatest entrepreneurs, Yale grads choose to stay home to raise their children, and surgeons wear their baseball hats backwards on weekends. We raise chickens by choice, swap greetings and tractor restoration stories at Carrie's Market, and it’s hard to tell who is of what means by just sizing someone up by their boots. Work waits when hunting season begins and we measure time by before and after “the snow flies”. I have learned that no one here is smarter than their neighbor because everyone truly brings some knowledge to the table. The mottled generations and backgrounds here weave a collective genius that floats on the air and sticks to the bare branches of winter.

For some this way of life has been a respected family tradition of hard work, for others it has come with tough choices and sacrifice, still others have fought the enticement of subdivisions to be part of something genuine and simple. Regardless of how anyone came to this suburban small town, I respect it, protect it, and preserve it.

It's a dry sunny day and today I have seen the same tractor go up and down my road several times which can only mean one thing - FRESH DIRT. A newly grated, pillowy flat open road on which to ride my horse down and wave at my neighbors who drive by and slow down when they see us. A true simple blessing in this sweet life we share and count on.

White Flags

I tend to stay quiet in almost all political debates. It is the result in equal parts of choosing to reserve my hubris for other opportunities and largely being more fascinated by topics pertaining to one's internal wars than I am those fought on foreign soil. A personal preference.

I do admit, however, that I am intrigued by whether the current war is being fought with purpose or in hopes of emerging victorious. No doubt, being the winner in any struggle sends a message of power that has the potential to shield us from future attack. But what if in our real lives, the small wars we fight -our battles of one - we realize we made a mistake getting involved in the first place? Do we wave the white flag of surrender and find any peace about making the decision to retreat or do we battle on to send a message and protect ourselves from future hurt. Is "giving up" so bad after all?

My grandfather accused me once of being willing to fight over a rotten peach if I thought someone wanted to take it away from me. A keen observation from a man with no filter. He was correct. I have always had the good sense to recognize the proverbial peach as something I did not want and would discard it in the bushes after my defeated adversary retreated, but I would nonetheless engage in the war.  Today after many battles fought and many prizes not worth the fight, I am better about walking away. I do sometimes still accidentally dance onto the thin ice of the battlefield, but I am more comfortable with owning the words "I give up" and skating away to other endeavors.

When you say nothing at all...

Today it was suggested to me, by someone I hold in otherwise high esteem, that perhaps I had been condescending. Dictonary.com a service of Ask.com defines the term as "showing or implying a usually patronizing descent from dignity or superiority". During the event in question I was not being condescending, though I admit that after reading its definition I am tempted to try my hand at honing this skill. My comment at the time was aloof and actually a poorly written representation of my own crowded thoughts of the moment.

We seem to live in a culture where we say more without saying a word and yet we have fascinating words to describe this nonverbal phenomenon. Condescending is just the beginning. My new favorite overused pop-culture term to describe one's intention with nonverbal communication is "passive aggressive". I love this concept. We can be nonverbally speaking while being passively aggressive. Where then do the possibilities end? Can we be extramaritally committed?

And speaking, or not, of this how is it even possible to determine one's nonverbals via technology? The aforementioned event took place over Facebook. How could one reasonably substantiate condescension, a presumed nonverbal communication tactic, over the internet? If ever a reasonable doubt existed this would have been it. I submit that we did not even have a conversation as face to face words were not exchanged. It is the same maddening concept as someone who offers that they read a great book when they have listened to the audio book.

If statistically speaking, and again I am not sure that is possible either, most of our communication is nonverbal then how we communicate via technology is limited at best and most often misunderstood. This is the challenge for the writer to capture all the emotion and imagery typically reserved for facial expressions, hand gestures, and voice intonations and painstakingly offer them "verbatim" in written form.

As for my friend, well, we were always better face to face anyway.