The Waiting Game

A recent study found that 49 percent of the US population has a smartphone and, on average, each person spends 132 minutes a day using the phone.  80 percent say checking their phone is the first thing they do in the morning and one quarter admit they cannot recall a time during the day when they are not in the same room as the phone.

Another study reports that today’s children are so busy they are never bored.  This includes the fact that their activities include technology.  Experts are concerned as they believe that this generation may miss those creative-inspiration-moments that emerge when one is fighting boredom.

There is much to be said for being able to answer a trivia question during a dinner conversation or tell someone you are running late.  It’s great always having a camera at hand.  While many computer tools foster creativity, I do understand what the second study implies.  When I was a kid and bored, I sometimes discovered a new author, game, or friend, or tried my hand at writing.

To me an underlying theme of both studies is patience.  I wonder if we as a people are losing that virtue.  Patience is defined as ‘the capacity to accept delay, trouble, or suffering without getting upset or angry.’  Based on those studies, let’s amend that to read ‘…accept delay, trouble, suffering, boredom, loneliness, or disconnection.’

In today’s world we are not good at waiting.  We toot the horn at the driver in front of us when the light changes.  We are impatient for that promotion, for the baby to arrive, for the war to end. Someone said that the secret of patience is doing something else ‘in the meantime.’ We don’t have many ‘meantimes.’

I’m going to look for ‘meantimes’ this week and invite you to join me in doing some intentional waiting, patiently.

Marilyn

We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.  Helen Keller

Fight Club

What kind of Fight Club do you belong to?  The kind that runs from controversy and conflict or those who thrive in discord?  What are you willing to fight for or against?  In your most intimate, most important relationships, what happens when there is a disagreement?  Does everyone fight fair or does someone, even you, play dirty?  Who usually wins?

Recently we have seen a small town in Ohio torn apart by a trial involving a young woman who could not fight back.  My godson was jumped as he rode his bike through a new neighborhood.  He didn’t fight back and lost his phone and a part of his innocence. 

Last week a good acquaintance died.  Her circle of friends watched in sorrow as she gave up the fight for her life.  Another dear friend remains in the hospital fighting very hard and working with a team of doctors to figure out what’s wrong.  Other wonderful people wake up every day and struggle with and against depression or the challenges of an aging mind and body.

Headlines inform us about foreign and domestic leaders that seem to be looking for a fight.  While a few skirmishes may be about ideology, most seem to be about power.  Many seem to be part of a game I would call “it’s not so much about proving that I’m right as much as it is about proving that you’re wrong” even though President Obama used the phrase “genuine disagreements” in his weekly address on Saturday. 

As a conflict avoider I belong to the Flight Club.  It bothered me in high school and college when they taught us some self- defense moves.  I didn’t see it as empowering, even after some reported attacks against female students.  With my brother 16 years older than me, I was raised pretty much as an only child, so consequently didn’t learn nursery or sibling conflict techniques on how to stand up for myself.  Add to that the Sunday School ‘turn the other cheek’ message and my upbringing that women deferred to men and I marvel that I ever found my voice.  Those few significant times when I have spoken up, when I initiated a difficult discussion to express my own needs, share my hurt, look for comfort, I’ve had mixed results.  It did not get easier over time and things did not always go smoothly. 

What I really struggle with, however, are the lost opportunities to speak up, to fight, not for myself but for others.  The problem with so many of these situations is that they were surprises – the offhand remark overheard, the racial slur snuck in casual conversation.  My gut reaction is a ‘what? Did I just hear that? How can s/he say that?  And by the time I finish processing my shock, the moment has passed.

Today I have nowhere else to go with this, other than to share other’s thoughts.  I would love to hear yours.

There are three principles in a man’s being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action.  The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow man is that I do not say what I mean and I do not do what I say.  Martin Buber

When times are tough and people are frustrated, and angry, and hurting, and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good, but what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world.  What works in the real world is cooperation.  Bill Clinton

Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Marilyn

The Roaring Twenties

The fads of the 1920s.  That was the topic I chose for a term paper my junior year in high school.  I thought my parents would finally talk about their youth.  They were in their 20s during that era, so I figured they had some firsthand knowledge if not experience.  Maybe they didn’t eat live goldfish or sit on top of flagpoles, but they were there.

Here’s what I would get as answers during my interviews.  “I don’t remember”, “We didn’t do any of that silly stuff”, “I don’t think I had a coonskin cap”, “I don’t know why they did that”, “I liked the music.”  In today’s terms those discussions could have been summed up with shrug and ‘it was what it was.’

My parents met in 1926 when he was 22 and she was 20 and married in 1928.  My dad played the drums in bands in speakeasies while they courted.  My mother taught in a one room school house and then worked as a comptometer operator.  There should have been stories.  I’m sure there were stories.  They just didn’t think their stories were important enough to share, even when persistently asked.  Even to help their daughter with a term paper.

So I changed courses from the frivolity of the decade to the harsh realities of the Great Depression.  Would they talk about that?  No. “We made out ok.”  Dad had started as a repairman with the phone company and had regular work.  At another time in high school, I tried to get them to talk about the 1940s and the war.  What about rationing, what did they do without?  Again, “we did ok.”

As I reflected on their continuous use of the phrases “it wasn’t like that for us” and “we did ok,” I came to believe that they felt some guilt because they didn’t have any extreme story to tell.  They were in the middle.  There was little to no documentation of any silliness or hardship.  An occasional ‘remember when…’ involved some prank that my father did – the typical locking people in or out of the outhouse.

If I think of my own roaring 20s, about coming of age in the 1960s, how would I answer the questions I posed to my parents?  It might be in the same manner.  I too was in the middle.  Yes, I marched for and against, but not in the forefront.  I have no mementos or pictures.  In some box there is probably proof of teased hair and a miniskirt, but the Peace and Smiley Face and the ‘If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem’ buttons are gone, the wine bottle candles are at the flea market, and pop music is  on channel 724 on the TV.

Our stories are important.  They tell how we were molded, of our reactions to the mundane and major experiences of life.  Stories put us at a place and time to validate our existence and our purpose.  They enable us to connect to one another. 

So, if I think about those in their 20s today and about the generation just born, whose trends and personal experiments with and feelings about those trends are documented and immediately shared, I think their children may find a term paper much easier.  “I don’t remember” and “It wasn’t like that for us” won’t be an option.

Marilyn

A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth. Instead of its bringing sadness and melancholy prospects of decay, it would give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world. 
...Maurice Chevalier

Can You Come Out and Play?

Yesterday morning as I was sitting quietly with a cat on my lap and sipping a cup of coffee there was a “caw, caw, caw, caw, caw, caw!” outside the living room window.  I’m still adjusting to the sounds around my new home and have grown accustomed to the chirps, peeps, and tapping of the cardinals, sparrows, and woodpecker in the neighborhood.  But here was a crow come a’callin.  As I listened, it repeated the same pattern and it sounded to me as though it was saying, “Can you come out and play?”

Setting Millie aside, I got up and looked out the window.  It gave one of its repetitions and glanced around, it seemed to me, with hope.  Then it turned and faced the other way, cawed, and surveyed the tree and sky, seeking a caw in return or the sight of a relative in flight.

As it waited it started to groom itself, beak to wing, as though signaling to any and all watching, “It’s cool.  I’m fine.”  This reminded me of when Millie goes to jump on something, misses, and begins washing her face in a “that’s-what-I-meant-to-do” fashion.  After two minutes of grooming and surreptitious glances, the crow flew away. 

We’re not so different from the animal kingdom, brushing off our embarrassment, covering up our longing for companionship and connection, and taking flight when seemingly rebuffed.  Our patterns are developed early on. Perhaps growing up you lived in a busy household where privacy was a premium.  Or maybe you’re like me.  Solitude was the familiar and a ‘can you come out and play’ was a welcome invitation.  Some days I would think who I could go ask, but there weren’t a lot of kids around and back then I was shy about reaching out to my peers.

Reflecting on the crow made me realize that maybe it’s time to rethink the ‘can you come out and play?’ patterns in our lives.  If you’re sitting waiting for a call or email, send out your own “caw, caw?”  If you’ve already “cawed” and are on the branch, head under wing waiting, go “caw” elsewhere.  Let’s all spread our wings a little and fly differently this week.  Maybe we’ll find a new flock.

Marilyn

Oldies but Goodies

Does anyone quote poetry or Shakespeare anymore?  Aunt Lucile knew her Wordsworth and Tennyson and cousins Helena and Alice their Shelley and Bronte.   In college we were exposed to Plato and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry; classical phrases flowed during some professor’s lectures.  These days who in your world is able to insert a relevant quote in a conversation, when was the last time they did so, and whom do they reference?  Do kids even have memorization exercises anymore?

When I was in school, sure we knew all the lyrics to Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini and Heartbreak Hotel, but we also learned the Gettysburg Address and Longfellow’s The Village Blacksmith.  Maybe you’re like me and have trouble remembering a complete joke (both set up and punchline) let alone a poem.  [An aside: here’s one I heard twice in the last week.  What do you call a pig who knows karate?  A pork chop!] 

As our attention span shrinks into sound bites, so, I think, has our active love of more formal language that connects us to the past.  That’s a shame since as our world has gotten smaller, with a library at our fingertips, there is so much more language to enjoy.  When I was writing my book and weekly as I muse on a topic, I often seek inspiration by doing a search that starts with “quotes on …” or “quotes by …”

I’m sharing three quotes that maybe you can work into some discussion this week: 

“Age appears to be best in four things: old wood best to burn, old wine best to drink, old friends to trust, old authors to read.”

“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies, but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.”

“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.”

Why these quotes?  Because the author, Sir Francis Bacon, is an ancestor of mine, a great-uncle times nine, and I’ve enjoyed reading some things he wrote.  Next time you run across an interesting phrase, joke, and quote, or if you learn any tricks on ways to remember them, please share.

Marilyn