How to build a porch

My mother wanted a back porch.  A porch would mean we would no longer track mud into her kitchen. It also would mean we were keeping up with the Joneses, and so, my father built a back porch. In the summer, it was a place for meals and relaxing in chairs or on the daybed, where I sometimes slept on hot nights. During the winter, since this was Buffalo, NY, it was a place to thaw the turkey, store containers of holiday cookies and, of course, our boots.

The second bedroom in my first apartment was really the unheated back porch, but my roommate was quite content, even on cold Chicago nights, to wrap up in several comforters and retreat to her space. In my third apartment, I had a balcony, the urban equivalent of a back porch. It faced south and was a great space for a morning cup of coffee but then often unusable until the sun started to set. Another place had a rather large landing, being the top of three flights of back stairs. Two chairs just fit and I bought an umbrella that came with a large clamp that attached to the railing.

I'm writing this on the back porch of my new place. It's enclosed, but with four large windows and a breezeway panel that is now hooked up for the season. My $2 dollar estate sale chairs are cheery with striped cushions and there are geraniums in colorful pots. It is peaceful here at daybreak as the bird chorus accompanies the sound of rain on the roof. 

That's what I've come to understand about back porches. They are a place of peace and quiet, of contentment and a sense that all can be right in the world. My father built one with concrete, wood, steel and linoleum tiles. With muscle, sweat and friends. I've found or recreated one in the midst of a busy barbecue on a crowded deck or dealing with writer's block trying to draft a musing from a rocking chair on a wraparound porch of an old Victorian mansion here in Oak Park. It's finding that feeling within yourself that makes the back porch ambiance, not the actual space that matters, although a view can help. While I smile at the memories of watching dolphins from a balcony in Hawaii and a herd of sheep from a front porch in New Zealand, being able to breathe and find a moment of rest in the midst of busyness at the office is what helps get me through the day. I wish you an easy way to build a back porch this week when you need it.

Marilyn

Making sense of scents

They say our strongest sense is the sense of smell, possibly because it evokes memories. Last weekend I followed a contemporary into the grocery store. In his wake, I was suddenly back in high school walking down a busy hallway behind any number of guys who had started dowsing themselves with English Leather. At that time, we girls were graduating from Evening in Paris to Chantilly. My mother wore Chanel No.5 and my dad, Old Spice. Any of those scents would have sent me back decades. 

Smells tell us of the change of seasons and when something is going bad is the fridge. I started a list of distinct odors and pared it down to: a walk through a spice market or past a bakery; a fishing boat, a barnyard, a freshly mown lawn; peonies, lilacs and eucalyptus; bbq, gingerbread and a fresh tomato. Like everything there is a flip side, so I need to include a dirty diaper and sulphur. One of my favorite TV series, Tenko, about British and Dutch female prisoners in Japenese camps during WWII, included an episode where they were traveling between camps and ended up at a compound that had showers. One of the women turned to the other and said, "I can smell that I don't!" I love that line.

After writing the above, I stopped and thought about our noses breathing in whatever smells there are in the air around us. A friend who recently broke her nose had said her appetite was diminished, in part because she couldn't distinguish any tantalizing scents. Another friend grieves no longer being able to bring her favorite flowers, stargazer lilies, into the house for they make her sneeze. At the office we have a conversation with new employees about being mindful of strong odors that can trigger a migraine for colleagues. I also thought about how various military organizations have utilized airborne weapons like mustard gas and how pharmaceutical companies experiment with sprays that can make some medicines easier to take.

Back to the gentleman wearing English Leather. After I smiled, I took a quick detour down a different aisle because he had been quite generous in his application of after shave. You've had a similar experience in an elevator or seated next to you at a concert. When you look, it is either someone who has started to lose their sense of smell and therefore overindulges, or someone who is just starting off and hasn't learned subtlety. Wherever you are on this spectrum, take some time this week to find a favorite smell, take a deep breath, and find someone to whom you can say, "Get a whiff of that!"

Marilyn

I know what I know

There are people who are Subject Matter Experts (SME). Sometimes one gains this status through academia, but most often by earning a reputation that may be based on book learning but that is honed through experience. Whether it is the person on the witness stand or the local mechanic, there are go-to people in small towns and metropolises who everyone knows will have the answer or get the job done.

I've been an SME on a variety of things in my career, and there were times when that fed my ego as well as paying the bills. In this wikipedia and google era, however, we can all be SMEs in an instant on any matter. It can be easy to overlook the blood, sweat and tears that many put in to earning the spot that enabled them to pen what others may claim as their own from digital sources. 

Now, I'm at a place in life and my career where, I think simply through age, persistence and experience, I have evolved into an SME generalist, a Jill-of-all-trades. I'm a trusted consultant, confidante and problem-solver. As such, I'll pass on the two most important things I've learned over the decades.

The first is that the greatest gift someone can give you is to really listen to you, and in this day and age when multitasking is valued and attention span is minimal, it is a rare gift indeed.

The second is that the words "I don't know" can actually take you farther in life.

Marilyn

What will?

Fill in the blanks: If ___________ doesn't force me to ______________, then what will? 

I don't know where your mind went with that, but a couple of things prompted this thinking for me. Current headlines, for one. If anger and disgust over what's happening in our country today doesn't force me to do something to facilitate change, then what will? Try though you might to prevent it, every conversation seems to get around to politics. One colleague has started keeping track of how long it takes. Now, talking about politics is not a bad thing. It can indicate engagement. But, what it mostly means is that people are complaining, expressing opinions, looking for agreement but not active solutions. Opposition counts on apathy to ensure the status quo. Our discontent doesn't seem to be at the tipping point yet. What will that be? For us collectively? For you? For me?

This 'what will' thinking really started last December. Cancer was behind me. It was the holidays, my first December in this home and I was thoroughly enjoying it and them. But, one morning during my quiet time I said to myself, "If having cancer doesn't force me to lose weight, then what will?"

For my whole life that been the biggest 'what will?' It wasn't love or logic. It wasn't embarrassment or encouragement, challenge or comfort, theology or therapy. Or, it seems, cancer. So, I don't have the answer to that question or the one above. Perhaps, as I continue to go mindfully through day-to-day life, at least being aware of the issue is enough. For now. Is it enough for you, with whatever is the biggest 'what will' in your life, to also simply be sitting with an awareness and contemplation of it to feel as though you are moving along its continuum? If not, what will?

Marilyn

Open and shut

Our lives are full of doors. Other people may open or close some of them for us while often we have to take the initiative ourselves. From relationships to careers to rites of passage, we make decisions whether to turn the knob on real and metaphorical doors all the time. I remember standing in the the doorway to my kindergarten classroom on the first day of school. My mother nudged me forward and once I was inside, I never looked back; many years later she told me that made her very sad. Fast forward to the day my driver's permit was securely housed in my wallet, I was thrilled to finally open the door on the driver's side of the car.

Some doors are part of our collective history. Think of George Wallace blocking the entrance to a school or the prime minister in front of #10 Downing Street. You may be of an age to remember the actress Loretta Young, whose trademark for her 1950s TV show was a dramatic entrance through a French door. Harry Potter and his fellow Gryffindors must know the current password to enter their residence hall and Dorothy and her companions arrived at the door to the Emerald City. Ding Dong meant Avon was calling (as well as the witch is dead) back in the day when Fuller Brush also went door to door.

What have been the most important doors - literal or not - that you have opened or closed in your life? Going off to college? A breakup? Opening a book? Your first home? The emergency room? Just from those questions you can look back and realize doorways you have walked through, doors you have opened, those you walked past, those you slammed shut and those you locked and threw away the key. I'm a fan of Ivan Albright, whose painting style is called magic realism. One of his most famous canvasses is of a door. The title of the work is That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (that which I should have done I did not do). Ah, now, that gets us into opening and shutting doors, whether real or metaphorical.

Marilyn

Front and back door people

There are front door people and back door people. You know what I mean. The friends who use the back door, whether real or metaphorical, are the inner circle of our lives. The back door is the friendlier, don't-mind-mess entrance that we only show to select people. Either door is open to them, day or night, no matter who initiates the visit, or if the hinges need oiling or if the door is stuck from the weather or misuse. 

When I moved from an apartment in Wheaton into Chicago and the first home I owned, I also was shifting from a building complex to a neighborhood. One Saturday, I baked banana bread and, putting some slices on a paper plate, knocked on Ruth and Elaine's back door. They and their extended family had lived in the house right next to mine for more than five decades. I realize now that they were very surprised to see me there. We had certainly chatted over the fence, but this knock on their back door was something new. It was several years into our friendship when one of them asked if coming to the back door with baked goods was the norm in the suburbs. I said that no, I'd not done that with my neighbors down the hallway, it was just something that I associated with houses and was seeking to recreate from my childhood.

Looking back, I see that I went into that relationship assuming back door status. Perhaps that was naive, but it turned out just fine for they became back door people. Some back door friends move away or things change and they shift to more front door status or circumstances turn front door folks into back door relations. There have been a couple of times when I hoped for back door admittance, but the door was slammed in my face or not opened at all.

I've lived in places with just one door, and my last three apartments have had both front and back doors, but only one was easily accessible to friends and neighbors. That's what I have now, and when I hear the doorbell it's because I am expecting someone. Here I get to tell people after they ring the doorbell to open the door and walk out of the elements onto the enclosed front porch. But then there is an action I must take. I have to climb down the stairs and turn the knob to let them in. Then they have to act. They have to walk over the inner threshold. That's like any relationship, whether front or back door types. There are actions that are needed on both sides to keep the connection strong with no barricades. Think about one back door friend who could benefit from any type of knock on the door today and go ahead and knock.

Marilyn

Versus

We live in a versus world. Us versus Them. The 'us' and the 'them' varies depending on geography, age, religion, politics, income, job, education, race, gender, well, things that make us human. Whether it's the Hatfields and the McCoys, the North and the South, the Cubs and the Sox, red and blue states, competition, opposition and a dividing line is part of our culture. 

As social beings we seek out and are a member of many Us's, which, then, by definition, makes us many Thems as well. Some are obvious, some we embrace, some we advertise and some we attempt to hide. We all, in our desperation to not be alone, have made some unwise choices. Whether it was a momentary attraction, passion or need, some relationships create an internal struggle and we end up with an unhealthy Us.  Sometimes an Us shifts and we have to reassess if we still are in alignment or if we suddenly are on the outs and have shifted to a Them. Some Us's last.

The 'us' makes each person part of something, a contributor providing value. Fans in the stands do high fives when a player on their team scores, figuring that their cheering and support led to that point, that run, that touchdown. Robust 'us' groups will acknowledge when someone of the 'them' makes a good play as well. 

Versus helps us stretch and grow. We study to make sure we have all of the facts for our position in a debate or to know when to make a stand. Some Versus themselves become famous, such as Roe or Brown, and shape portions of our society. As I moved up the ranks within AT&T, I went from an employee who was a union member to someone in management. The divide was always there, heightened every three years during contract negotiations. 

You may be wondering where this is headed. Me, too, as I write this. It could end one way or the other. That's the problem with versus. It's an either/or dichotomy when I'm trying to find more 'and' in the world and in my life. At least when we were young we played cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians. To be fair, you had to switch sides. Maybe we wouldn't have such a sense of contentiousness in our Us vs. Them world if we did some role reversals and at least came to understand the other position from a different perspective. One can only hope. Or not.

Marilyn