Duck and Cover

Often the best plans work out serendipitously. Last night, my friend and I made a last minute mad dash for our favorite mahogany watering hole for champagne, and what always turns out to be ear bending conversations for the eavesdroppers around us. The bartender would no doubt report that last night’s musings did not disappoint.


There is always a point in our conversation where I threaten to use a line of hers as a Facebook status. Her witticisms are among the best I have ever heard and last night’s implication along the lines of ‘If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably not a cat’ was a favorite. It isn’t so much that her spin on the maxim was so clever; it was the context in which she cautiously used it to illustrate a gaping hole in my reasoning.

We have a code word we use to clue the other one in to the fact that they are venturing onto thin ice. The ability to deliver harsh reality and truth among best friends is something to count on and cherish, but there are times when our vulnerabilities are too close to the surface and our armor is too thin and then it is best to cut the dose in half or hold back altogether. She and I pull the ‘eggshell card’ in these instances. But last night, and with the benefit of a nice dry champagne, I gave her an eggshell pass and let the insight fly!

I won’t address the context of our conversation as what happens within those mahogany walls, stays within the mahogany walls, but I will say her point was that perhaps life was once again showing me that people are who they are and it is a great time saver to believe them when they first show us their true colors. On the subject of dating, Elizabeth Gilbert says in Eat, Pray, Love “I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism."

I find irresistible the self-exploration and honesty of that proclamation and find it applicable in any number of circumstances. We want to see the best in those who share our air. Being a victim of one’s own optimism is a cruel affliction because it has its roots in goodness, compassion and empathy. If wielded against us, these blindside hits sting like a whip to sunburn. The hidden agendas of others masked by pretty words are no more truth then the foreign object floating in my wine glass is a grape stem, but still we cling to the hope that everyone will mean what they say and do what they promise. The optimism of youth promises transformation and growth and idealism. The wisdom of age poignantly says, “See that thing waddling over there? It’s a duck.” Quack.

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.

A Bird in the Hand

I get pleasure from irony! It wakes me up, smacks me on the tush and makes me walk taller. It is incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs. This morning while balancing my latte as I drove, I swerved my minivan to avoid a Robin that had made a most daring left bank into my path. In doing so, I nearly caused a head on collision with an oncoming SUV. It was a dazzling start to my day!

When my children were small I felt sure that I would meet a regrettable end careening down our staircase after tripping over a Polly Pocket playhouse left precariously at the top of the stairs.  I made my husband swear that, upon such an ill-fated occasion, he would write a wonderfully descriptive obituary that would claim my demise was a result of a heli-skiing accident and that he would groom the kids accordingly so they would support the bleak tale in their preschool, thus leaving me in memoriam with some shred of dignity.

Even now the idea, that I would perish trying to avoid the great Turdus Migratorius is fitting in an oddly satisfying sense. I have leapt willingly from airplanes, flown them solo a time or two, taken 1200 pound horses over stone walls, and dove down to the ocean depths with sharks, but today my obituary nearly read “died tragically and suddenly while irresponsibly drinking her morning coffee and maneuvering her minivan out of the path of an oncoming songbird”. As I brought the vehicle I fondly refer to as the MomBomb, which ironically emits a gentle airplane-like engine hum, back under control I remembered the days behind the yoke of my Cessna and laughed at the irony of this day and the many many days that had passed between then and now.

How had so much changed? There is a canyon like chasm between bypassing ultralight aircraft or even birds in flight under a parachute canopy and this. As an avid skydiver, I have spent many days mixed among clouds and azure skies doing the former and yet to use the term 'distant memory' is hardly descriptive enough. Continuing my drive to work, I laughed out loud at my choices, and time, and moments that force us to see ourselves clearly. I put my coffee mug securely into the cup holder and surrendered to reminiscences of the past.

Twelve years ago my husband and I boarded a King Air at Bay Area Skydiving in Byron, California. Our three month old daughter was on the ground with friends as we enjoyed another skydive. The engines revved and the smell of jet fuel filled the fuselage; a rush of adrenaline that I had become so dependent on filled my veins. A deep breath, a look around at my fellow jumpers, no doubt a smile from ear to ear and we rolled down the runway. Perfect blue skies. Seated on the floor, I leaned back between my husband’s legs and pressed my back up against his chest.

I had jumped hundreds of times, but the anticipation was different that day and I remember it well. I leaned back with my mouth near my husband’s ear and said “What are we doing? We are throwing both of our baby's parents out of a plane.” I can't remember if he heard me over the engine noise, but I heard me loud and clear. I love skydiving, I miss it, and I believe in it for everyone, parents included. But the irony of our actions that day made me see something about myself I had not seen before. It was my last jump.

I do love a thrill and admittedly adrenaline is still my drug of choice, though my fixes are few and far between. Life is kind that way, there is irony in the ordinary - subtle wake up calls to grab onto gratitude and acknowledge the value of simply being content.

I hope that Robin appreciates what I did for him this morning? He owes me a thank you. And I him.

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.

Rural Route Today December Column

I am, not by trade but by choice, a hunting widow. Every weekend for a few weeks a year I give up my husband and farmhand and take on all chores and family responsibilities so he can hunt. I embrace my inner pioneer and support his effort to bring in a winter’s bounty of meat. Yet, time and time again…well…nothing. No deer. While driving they leap out in front of his car as though they are extras in a driver’s ed video. Yet once he is in full camouflage, armed and in the woods, the deer are nowhere to be found. I wish I could tell you that this has only been his experience since hunting in Vermont. Sadly, this luck as followed us across the country from our home state of California.


Early on in our marriage my husband found my favorite Ralph Lauren hunting jacket that I’d had since college. He explained that it was an authentic hunting jacket meant to hold a variety of paraphernalia one might need when out in the woods. It has been his ever since. One morning, wearing my jacket, he left to go deer hunting just before daybreak when the Northern California tule fog was thick. He was gone all day. Late that evening when he finally pulled in the drive I saw the empty bed of his truck and knew the day had been a bust. Ever the optimist, I asked “How’d you make out?”. He answered, “Not bad” and went on to pull a sorry little dead creature from every pocket of that Ralph Lauren hunting jacket. That night we feasted on a 3.3 oz of mixed grill of assorted vermin and fowl. The deer rested comfortably in the woods of California that entire season.

The truth is, my husband is a skilled marksman. If the deer were to emerge while he was in woods, we would surely eat like kings all winter. Maybe he smells like the predator he is and they keep their distance as they should or maybe they graze at his feet and he just watches them. Whatever the reason, he loves to hunt, looks forward to the season year after year, enjoys the camaraderie with his mates, and truthfully I don’t think he could care less if he bags his buck.