Substitutions

One year a friend and I were going out for Thanksgiving dinner.  She called a couple of restaurants and asked if they were serving real turkey and made reservations at one that said yes.  When our meal arrived, it was rolled turkey loaf, that meat equivalent of plywood.  We asked for the manager, who, when we explained that our meal was not what we expected based on the phone conversation, apologized but stated that what they were selling was indeed real turkey, just not carved from a bird.

We come to understand the concept of substitutions in elementary school when faced with a different person standing at the head of the class.  It’s not fair, but we somehow interpreted that ‘substitute’ did not mean ‘equal’ and first graders long for their ‘real’ teacher to return.  Unfortunately, that concept has been strengthened by a bad experience with ‘fake,’ be it fake fur that did not keep us warm, or someone who turned out to be a fake friend.

We’ve gotten used to a lot of food substitutes – sweeteners in small packets, whipped cream in a can, imitation butter in a plastic tub.  There are hydrated potatoes and onion flakes and reduced fat cheeses.  Silk flowers and replica art pieces adorn mantles.  Unbreakable plastic dishes sit in cupboards.  Synthetic materials hang in our closets.

Some of these alternatives are actually healthier plus they may save time and money or even our environment.  Our tastes can shift and we actually prefer diet drinks to regular, low sodium salami, and light mayonnaise. We’ve heard stories or seen All About Eve where the understudy gets a break and becomes a star or watched a game where the 2^nd string athlete is sent in at the last moment and makes an outstanding play.

Many of us will gather around a table this Thursday to celebrate with family.  For some, that family will be substitutes, our family of the heart, because distances of all kinds separate us from relatives.  For some, the substitutes have become real through adoption or blended and foster families.  Some of us may simply settle in front of the TV or monitor or curl up with a book, alone by choice or circumstance, creating our own substitution for the feelings the Norman Rockwell Freedom From Want painting represents.

However you spend Thursday, may you experience one genuine connection, and may that connection remind us all that there is no substitution for our relationships with one another.  For those I am most grateful.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Marilyn

Two for the Road

What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness? John Steinbeck

By the time I started kindergarten I knew there were boys and girls and that Santa put kids into two categories: naughty or nice.   A couple of grades later friends fell into one of two activities – dance or music lessons.  The families in my neighborhood were Protestant or Catholic and some of us were good at sports and there were non-jocks. 

Through high school and college we experienced the ‘study all along’ vs. the ‘cram for exam’ groups, encountered friends who were of the ‘on-time’ or ‘always-late’ variety, and came to know who were morning or night people.  Then there was perhaps the hard lesson that there are givers and there are takers.  We learn compromise when one is a neat freak and the partner a casual housekeeper.  Financial advisors bridge a gap between spenders and savers.  We enjoy talking books with both fiction and nonfiction readers.

When I was a consultant and led workshops on leadership I would include a section on understanding other ways that we are wired differently and how such diversity can benefit one’s life and the workplace.  Now, as a mentor, I try to pass on these tidbits I wish I’d known about earlier in my life and career.  Some of them we can control or change.  For example, I might ask a young colleague how they want to be known – as someone who blames others or one who takes responsibility and stands accountable?    However, most of these other ways in which we are opposites reflect how we process things or view the world.  These characteristics reflect who we are, so while we may not want to – or be able to – control or change them; it will truly help us in our relationships if we understand ourselves and the natural tendency of others to be different.

ü  Some people think-to-talk and others talk-to-think.  One cannot lead a brainstorming session nor have great discussions without taking this into account.  Otherwise we talk-to-thinkers take over and half of the team remains silent. 

ü  Some people are what and others are how.  Big picture and idea people need the balance of those who are process and strategy.

ü  Some people talk facts while others talk feelings.  Even being a writer and knowing the importance of details, my natural inclination is the essence of the story not whether the man’s shirt was red or orange or the if amount was $22 or $22.22.

What other learnings about our differences do you wish you’d known earlier in life?  Let’s take a minute today to celebrate – viva la difference!

Marilyn

The Gift Exchange

Part of me misses the holiday shopping I saw going on in stores this weekend.  I used to enjoy the hustle and bustle, the search for that special item. These days my friends and family and I give each other the gift of time, a shared outing, or donation.  One reason we no longer do presents was that we came to know that often we weren’t satisfied with the gift and would exchange it.

I wonder what life would be like if we could exchange one of our talents for something we truly desire.  I’m not talking about when we successfully make radical changes.  What I mean is, what would you and I do if offered the opportunity for a true gift exchange?  Would you trade in your math skills or your ability to play the guitar for a chance to be a great photographer?  Would you give up being a mediocre cook to be a famous chef?  Perhaps you’re tired of being good at or the best at golf and want to master watercolors or crochet. 

Other things that one can argue are gifts in our lives are our circumstances, persona, viewpoint, body, and soul.  What if the gift exchange were extended to those?  I cling to the hope that in the next life I’ll be tall and willowy, but I don’t know that I would give up my early years as a musician just to experience that here and now.  Well, perhaps I would change out being able to give myself a decent manicure for a few more inches and fewer pounds.

What do you consider your greatest gift?  Patience?  Being a loving friend or mother or father?  Would you give that up in order to have a dream?  Notice that I’m not playing fairy godmother and suggest all you need to do is to ask for your heart’s desire.  This gift exchange fantasy calls for sacrifice, for one thing we all know about the best gifts we give ourselves is that we work for them.

Having given thought to what gifts you might like in exchange for something you do have, let’s close with a thought from Gian Carlo Menotti: “Hell begins on the day when God grants us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts that we have wasted, of all that we might have done but did not do.”

Let’s celebrate and use the gifts we have.  We live in a country that allows us to do that.  Thanks to all who serve who have made that so.

Marilyn

Equal Time

After commenting on last week’s blog about my father, a friend pointed out that I rarely have written about my mother.   “Hmmm,” I said.  “I’m sure you’re right.”

I believe that my experience is not unusual, that a parent and child can struggle a whole lifetime and never truly understand one another. They can each long for that special bond that is supposed to be there.  They can work very hard to either continue to search for ways to find that deep connection or develop masks that say to the rest of the world it is there while knowing it is not.  They can develop a love that makes a relationship, but, if they do not accept and embrace and work on that relationship rather than the one they wish they had, it is never enough.

All relationships contain dichotomies and interesting contradictions. On some days it is the differences that spark the right amount of tension but on other days it is what the two people have in common that provides strength.  While my mother would have never called herself a feminist, she was one. Well, an early one, who had ambition, worked outside the home, even for a little while after she married, in an era when most women did not.  When a guest speaker at her church circle had them start off an exercise by simply writing their name at the top of a piece of paper, she was one of the few who understood the facilitator’s point when it was revealed that 100% of them had written “Mrs. Husband’s First Name Last Name.”  She tried to not limit or define herself by dad’s name after that.

She was a lifelong learner, was good at most things she tried, and had an opinion about everything.  She valued her friends and loved nature.  Her competitive streak developed early in her life and continued even when she couldn’t speak or shuffle the deck but still wanted to play cards.  It was over cards we had the best times.  Somehow that shared activity provided a venue for talk and laughter.

You know how some things tickle your fancy and in trying to describe what is so funny, it just gets lost?  This is one of those stories. My mother’s and my biggest laugh came on a summer day in 1962.  We were returning home from a picnic with relatives at Niagara Falls.  Growing up in Buffalo, trips over the Peace Bridge connecting the US and Canada were common and easy. That day we picked up Aunt Alice and Uncle Reg from their apartment in Fort Erie and had a lovely afternoon.  Later, at customs the Canadian officer asked what was on the back seat.  “Just the rest of our lunch and some berries I saw,” my mother said. 

He waved us on.  About halfway over the bridge we started to laugh at that description, both of us laughing until there were tears.  Up to the week she died we could mention that afternoon and both of us would smile.

Memories can warm or chill.  I’m glad my friend encouraged me to find warmth from a different source for this week’s musing.  Wishing you courage to find an old smile as well.

Marilyn