The Wisdom of My Children

If you are passionate about something, go for it.
Don't be afraid to aim high. You may just succeed.

Surround yourself with people who share similar values.
It's not about economics or race or religion, or even politics (well, perhaps a little).

Talk to strangers.
Yes, that's right. Talk to them. What interesting people my children have met.

Travel.
My kids have created opportunities for themselves to travel and explore and meet people like I never would have dreamed of doing when I was young. It has made them confident and independent.

Don't listen to people who say you can't.
You are usually your own best judge of what you are capable of doing.

Diving off this rock will impress everyone.
Yeah, well, maybe not.

If it looks yucky or smells funny, don't eat it.
Why do we bother trying to get our kids to eat things? Offer healthy choices. They'll figure it out.

Be loyal to your friends.
I'm so proud of the way my kids have shown their friendship during some unfortunate circumstances.

Dress appropriately for your age.
I'm not sure whether this is about looking out for her parents or that our youngest child does not want us to embarrass her. Either way, we've learned to listen when she has a critique about what we're wearing. She's always right.

Read voraciously.
My children are full of interesting facts and knowledge of literature.

Get lots of exercise.
Lots and lots and lots and lots.

Do not pass up an opportunity to have fun.
Really, just don't.

The Wisdom of My Parents

Always leave your campsite cleaner than when you found it.
Substitute your own location as it may apply to you: beach, park ... planet.

Think about the comfort of your passenger when braking or turning. 
I've been driving for 34 years,  and I can still feel my dad cringe beside me if I approach a stop sign too quickly.  

Make square corners.
Can you guess this one? My dad was a Marine. He wanted to be sure his children knew the appropriate way to make a bed. I think he was trying to teach us that there is a right way to do things and that we should take pride in our work. Or maybe he really liked square corners.

Pasta: lid off. Rice: lid on.

Every good boy does fine.
My mom was a piano teacher.

Say "please" and "thank you."
Remember when we heard those words all the time? Is it really that difficult to be polite?

Count how many days you're going to be gone and pack one pair of underwear for each day plus one extra.
In case of accidents, I suppose?

Hold out your hand and let him sniff.
My parents loved dogs, but they always respected the fact that they were animals. They never ever let us approach an unfamiliar dog without that admonishment.

Let go of your anger.
Holding onto anger toward the person who treated you badly lets him keep control over you.

Keep banging on this pot with this wooden spoon while we hike. You'll keep the bears away.
Why do parents tell their kids these things?

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
Ah. Now, you know why I tend to sit quietly so often.

Think Before You Snap

I said goodbye to a friend. He died way too young.

As I stood in front of his casket, I was overcome with grief. I reached out to the friends who were on either side of me. It was our own, private moment. At least that’s what we thought at the time.

A couple days  later I got a notification from a social networking website. I’d been tagged in a picture. Curious, I followed the link, and I was shocked to see that someone had posted and shared my moment of grief with the world.

When did it become a thing to take a camera to a funeral? I’d already been distracted during the service by one of my friend’s relatives flashing away with her camera.

As a journalist in a past life, I was trained to always have my camera at the ready. But I always knew when to keep it put away.

One time in particular comes to mind.  I was the newsletter editor of a statewide volunteer group.  I was invited to a party hosted by the movers and shakers of our parent organization. As the alcohol flowed, and people moved toward the piano,  I instinctively reached for my camera. Then I hesitated.  These people were my friends and highly respected in their profession. What purpose would it serve to expose their private fun in the media?

And that was before the days of Facebook,  Instagram,  Snapchat, and Twitter. Now when you post a picture, it's out there forever.

Let people have their private moments.  Think before you snap.

Relax and Go Along for the Ride

After several years of frustration, wondering why I wasn't getting any better at snow skiing, a little voice popped into my head one day. “Relax and go along for the ride.” I relaxed my stance and did just that. 

For the past several years, I’d heard my acting coach, Ryan McKinney, tell fellow classmates, “Relax and go along for the ride.” This advice would usually come when the actor was struggling with a scene that brought up uncomfortable emotions in himself. That’s the thing that people don’t always realize about acting. The emotions have to be real in order to be believable on screen or stage. Sometimes it’s difficult for an actor to relax and go along for that emotional ride. 

Skiing is my very favorite activity. I love the cold air on my face, seeing snow-filled mountains in every direction with a clear blue sky, the stillness of the air, the smell of ski wax. Heck, I love skiing so much that I even like it in a blizzard. 

Yet, I’ve always envied those skiers who make skiing look beautiful. I’m not one of them. Even though I spend most of my time on the black diamond (expert) runs, I’m awkward and clumsy. On that day a couple years ago, it dawned on me that I was fighting my skis. I was watching the bumps in the path below me and plotting how I could avoid them. Before hitting a bump, I would stiffen my entire body and fight for control. 

When I finally allowed myself to relax and go along for the ride, those bumps no longer intimidated me. I didn’t lose control, as I’d feared. I had more confidence. I was able to quit looking down at the slope below me and lift my head to enjoy the trees, the hills, the sky. 

I still look at those beautiful skiers with envy. I know that I’ll never be at that level. But I have learned to enjoy my days on the mountain. I’ve learned to relax and go along for the ride.

Come On In

“Come on in” and “How the heck are ya’?” These are words I long to hear again. With most of our neighbors behind security fences and locked up tightly, it’s rare that anyone knocks on a door just to visit and say hello.

I first encountered Jack when my daughter Kelsey and I were searching the neighborhood for a wandering cat. Jack was out for his daily walk with his walker. “Come by and see me sometime,” he said as we parted ways.

We tried a couple times to knock on his door with no luck.  Then we learned from another neighbor that the trick was to go around back to his kitchen door. Really? Do people still do that? And so I did. I hesitantly creaked open his gate, feeling like an interloper. I walked behind his house and right up to his kitchen door. And there he was. Jack was sitting at his kitchen table watching his little television. “Come on in!” he beckoned.

This was the beginning of a friendship. I wish it had been a long friendship, but that was not meant to be. At the time, Jack was 87 years old and already in poor health.

As we got to know each other, Jack shared stories about his life. I had a feeling as I listened to each new story that I would be hearing them again. Like the story of how that cute nurse who took care of him following a tragic accident became his wife.

I’d like to say that I visited often, but I didn’t. Sometimes several weeks would pass before I’d open the gate and be greeted at the kitchen window with “Come on in!” On some visits, I’d have one of my family members with me, and we’d all sit and visit. He wanted to know about each of us. He wanted to know how to use his computer, and we happily tried to teach him, albeit with very little success. We invited him to family parties and celebrations. One of my favorite memories was when he came to our house for an old-fashioned backyard 4^th of July barbecue. It wasn’t anything fancy or spectacular, just a small group of family and friends in the backyard, but he laughed and smiled the whole time, and over the next couple years he reminded us several times about how much fun he’d had in our backyard that night.

That’s what was great about Jack and our time together. It was always those simple things that made him happy, like the time my husband, Terry, fixed a loose board on his floppy gate and the time Terry replaced a burned out string of Christmas lights with a functioning set for Jack’s kitchen window. I remember his words that night. He said, “You people are so nice to me.” It was almost embarrassing to accept praise for something so simple.

Jack also had his spirited side. He told us how much he loved watching the Summer Olympics, but I suspect that, for him, it was really all about the Swedish women’s beach volleyball team. One day, while returning him home from a dental appointment, I realized that I had parked too closely to his shrubs on the passenger side. I laughed and said, ‘Jack, I don’t know how to drive my car.” His response? “You drive just fine. You just don’t know how to park.”

And, as predicted, over time those family stories of his that were once new to me became repeated and familiar. I took comfort in them and happily listened again and again.

After Jack turned 90 years old, our visits shifted to a room at a nursing home. He’d had a stroke and was on a decline. He knew that he would not be returning home again, but he never lost his cheerfulness. Then, after his 91^st birthday, I stayed away for several weeks because I’d had a cold. One day when I was feeling better, I had an urgent, inexplicable need to go see Jack. When I got to his room, a nurse was tending to him. She looked at me with that look that you never want to see from a nurse. Jack was too weak to speak, but I sat for a few minutes, held his hand, and told him that I loved him. The next morning we got a call from his son. Jack had passed away.

Jack taught me a lot during the four years that we were friends. Sometimes good things can come from tragic accidents. You can never have too many dahlias in your backyard. Family and friends and neighbors are always welcome.

Sometimes when I walk past that empty house, I pretend that I can still hear those words. “Come on in. How the heck are ya’?”

Let Children Be Children

We’ve seen Beyonce’s privates up close, and we’ve had the word “twerk” thrust into our language. As our culture becomes desensitized to what used to be socially taboo, I wonder, where does it stop?

When my kids were in high school, it bothered me to learn that part of the cheerleading routine was for the girls to lean over, facing away from their audience and shake their behinds. It’s bad enough that their audience consisted of their peers. What made it worse, in my mind, was that these girls were shaking their booties at their teachers. With the all-too-common story about teachers, coaches, and people with authority being revealed as sexual predators, how can we condone this?

And maybe I’m reaching a little here, but how can it be all right for girls to shake their scantily covered butts while we chastise adults for looking?

All of this was bad enough back in the day when my concern was the teenagers. Now, however, I’ve been confronted with an even more disturbing trend. That is parading teeny boppers around in provocative clothing.  I’m not talking 10 or 11 year-olds. I’m talking about four- and 5-year-old girls, with the excuse of being a dance team, wearing bikini-style tops and short shorts.

I’ve recently seen photos of girls dressed in these costumes, proudly displayed on the social-networking pages of their adoring grandparents.

Since when is it okay to sexualize little girls? Where do we draw the line?

Maybe the grandparents don’t have much say in the raising of the newest generation, but I surely hope that the parents (yes, Dads, I’m talking to you) will start to stand up and insist on less revealing clothing on their little ones.

Please, let children be children. They will all grow up soon enough.

Now That's a Keeper

I discovered this photo of my husband, Terry, and me in an old album. I love this little spot at Disneyland, perhaps because of the memory of that day.

That photo was taken in the fall of 1983. Here's the back story. Terry was just starting his first year of dental school, and I was about to start my last year of college. So what did we do? We drove down to LA from Northern California, picked up my Grandma and her sister, my Great Aunt Ruth, and took them to Disneyland. Now that's a keeper, ladies, a man who spends his free time entertaining his girlfriend and her elderly relatives.

That's pretty much a typical example of my guy. All those little things that he does that make me feel loved. Like calling me to tell me about some cute little critter in our yard because he wants to share. Making me go to the gym with him in the mornings. That time that he was outside in the cold one Sunday night getting our SUV ready for me to take to the mountains with my girlfriends when he would be going to work the next day.

So, no, it's not jewelry, candy, cars (well, ok I DO like my car). It's all that other stuff.

Thank you, Terry, for loving me and putting up with me for 34 years.