Introversion Aversion

In the '60s when I grew up, it was difficult not to be an introvert. We were told to use our inside voice when my sister and I sat in church, whispering and tee-heeing in the pew while the minister droned on, and on, and on.

"Keep your thoughts to yourself," was Mom's response when I commented that a lady smelled bad.

On our annual vacation to Myrtle Beach the Big Event was getting dressed up for dinner at a fancy seafood restaurant--gloves, patent leather shoes and all--and I was told to be quiet and sit still.

Children. Seen. Not heard.

People say the '60s were about revolution, challenging conventional wisdom, and letting it all hang out. Not from where I sat, on my little chair, with my legs crossed, and my hair in a swing cut, parted on the side and barretted in place like a big stupid doll. As a child in the '60s, I can honestly say the only revolution that took place in my corner of the world was when I did a little twirl from the runway of Miller's Department Store fashion show.

I didn't like that either.

To make it worse, I was taught a charming tune early on, from the movie, "Annie Get Your Gun." Sing along with me if you know it: "Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you." If you don't know the song, or need reminding, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0

To me, that song was a fun little game about how really and unequivocally untalented I was, compared to only everyone else. I was 6, for crying out loud. I really couldn't do anything better than anyone. It was confirmation that there was always going to be somebody bigger, taller, prettier, stronger, funnier, nicer, smarter and meaner than I am. So why bother?

I didn't. And AS an introvert, that was fine by me.

There were times, of course, when I wanted to stand out, be noticed, or even just be heard. But my inside voice kept telling me to keep my thoughts to myself, that children should be seen and not heard. Years of practicing that habit just made me an older introvert who was, ironically, very, very good at being just that.

Finally. I had excelled at something. But nobody noticed, thank God.

So I have been my own best and worst friend, for most of my life. But two books I've recently read have helped me rethink that paradigm. Not to change into an extrovert, necessarily--just to be more accepting of who I am, and more eager to not let my own fears limit who I want to be, and who I can be. The first book is Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. The second book is The Sixth Extinction, An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Quiet helped me own my own introverted virtues. Believe me, contemplativeness is definitely a virtue, especially in a world that won't stop talking. The Sixth Extinction helped me understand that it really isn't all about me. There's a much bigger thing happening out there, and all of us--intros and extros--need to just get over it.

There is no changing your basic personality, and frankly, how many of us really want to? I will always be an introvert. I'm good with that. But I can choose not to let that label limit me. I can choose to do some "extroverted" things. I can decide not to be afraid. I can take criticism, because no one is perfect, least of all me. I can allow myself to fail, and notice that I'm still alive. So much of the beauty in humans is in the failure, and the getting back up again. The try, try, try until I may never succeed, but keep trying nonetheless, and keep moving beyond the limited view I have created for myself.

"I can do anything better than you can." The song still rolls around in my mind, but these days I change the lyrics to suit my purposes: I can do anything better than I can. Who can do me better than I?

A Simple Challenge

When I exercise I like to listen to music and think about things. I call it "going to my happy place" until the workout is over, but it's also my attempt to make good use of the time, mentally as well as physically.  Other times I talk with friends who are working out as well, and that helps pass the time pleasantly.

Today I did both. I had one ear bud in on the far side of my head; on the other side I listened to two of my friends carry on a discussion. I was not involved in their conversation at first--just a Listening Tom, as it were. Not until I made an uninvited comment about their topic of hair, and gave my eavesdropping away.

When both gentlemen had finished their workouts, one man left. The other, a friend of mine from church whose wife is a mentor to me, stayed behind to talk. We talked about kids in college and other genteel topics before turning to global issues. I shared with him some of our takeaways from a trip to Belize many years ago. He shared with me some of his takeaways from Guatemala. We discussed our own country, and the problems we face domestically in what can seem like a broken system in so many ways and on so many fronts.

I cannot solve the world's problems. I can't solve America's problems. I don't know any one individual who can. I have a laundry list of my own issues that I can't even seem to solve. And talking about them all leaves me overwhelmed and depressed. Which then leaves me inert. Which validates my personal status quo and leaves me with my collection, intact, of really great reasons why I am powerless to do anything about anything.

But before we both became disheartened over our own personal failure to "fix" things on a grand scale, my friend Frank suggested we take it down a notch.

"What one thing," he asked, "can you do, right here, perhaps in your own neighborhood, to make things better?"

Frank mentors students. He has a passion for it. And he is changing lives, one at a time.


My friend wisely noted that generally what "moves" us is God stirring in our hearts. I have a passion for the environment, specifically avian species. I believe that passion is God-given. I also believe it was placed in my heart for a purpose. Our own red-cockaded woodpecker (pictured at left) is on the Endangered List due to lack of suitable habitat; www.birdlife.org reports that more than 1,300 bird species are threatened worldwide with extinction as of 2012. Of these 1,300, almost 200 species are so rare as to be categorized as "on the brink of extinction." While I am unspeakably sad about this awful fact, it is even more sad to me that I have yet to determine how to best express my passion in a constructive and meaningful way.

Most of us have stirrings that compel us to get involved in something. Many of us listen to those stirrings and become active in our passion or passions. So that is my question to you:  What one thing can you do or are you doing locally--in your city, or neighborhood, or on your street, or inside the four walls of your home--to make things better?

I thank you in advance for your thoughtful input and truly look forward to reading your comments. I'll be thinking too.

Who Loves Ya, Baby?

    
Theo Kojak played an important role in my upbringing. He and my mother had some sort of thing on the side, or so it seemed, along with a whole lot of other women back in the '70s. My sister and I heard, "Who loves ya, baby?" about as often as we heard, "Does a wild bear live in the woods?" But that is a post for another day.

Telly Savalas, if we're honest, was an inordinately unattractive man. No offense to bald-headed men or people of Greek descent, but he was not what you would call an Adonis. (There is Greek, and then there is Greek...) So why all the swooning, Mom?

Why did you love him, Mom? It was a fair question for a 13-year-old kid to ask her mother in 1973.  My answer to his question, "who loves you?" back then was, "Not you I hope." Let's face it, he didn't look a thing like Donny Osmond.

But Kojak's question is also a fair one. And it is being asked again, by corporate America, as it is always asked, on February 14.

Who loves YOU, baby?

For women, Valentine's Day can be bittersweet (pun intended.) It invokes a series of mental floggings that attempt to answer the question: "Who loves me?" Am I in a relationship? If I'm not, what is wrong with me? If I am, is that relationship working? Where is the relationship going? Will it last? What if it doesn't last? If it doesn't last, what will I do? Will I be lonely? Will I always be alone? Will someone remember me on that stupid day? (It's pretty messy in there, between those  double-x chromosome ears.) We spend a lot of time trying to answer Theo Kojak's question. And many of us, myself included, get it wrong every time.

Corporate America wants the answer to the question to be demonstrated at the cash register. Flowers, jewelry, candy, cards, a plush animal holding a puffy red keyboard with the words, "You're my tweetie," on it. We have been trained to associate a price tag with depth of feeling.

But unless and until the answer to the question, "Who loves ya, baby?" is ME, it can be difficult for anyone else to love you. That is the beauty, the genuine beauty, of Theo Kojak.

He was confident, strong, fearless, yes. All those things are true. But even if you are not those things, you can still be just like him. Because Theo Kojak was the best Theo Kojak he could be, flaws and all. And who else, really, could have been him better? Who else, alive on this planet today, or anyone else who has come and gone, or who WILL come and go, can do you better than you?

Now really, you gotta love that.

So whether you have a big nose, a bald head, a curious oral fixation, wear a stupid hat, are slightly overweight, or have any one of a million different flaws or idiosyncrasies that make you the unique and beautiful person that you are, Be the best you you can be. BeYOUtiful. And when the answer to the question, "Who loves ya, baby?" is unequivocally, "I love me," you'll be amazed at how unimportant external justification can be. And how much of a people magnet you have curiously become.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Toddy Time

Wow. It's been, like, two years since I wrote anything...at least wrote anything here, on the blog. Where have those two years gone? Things happen so slowly, day to day, and yet, when I look backward at the time I cannot regain, it seems to have slipped through my fingers. And I feel left with nothing--or at least very little--to show for it.

And so now you know, if you didn't already, that my glass of pinot is perpetually half EMPTY. My first thought is never (at least not without great effort) focused on what I have accomplished. And my second thought is rarely focused on what wonderful opportunities might still lie ahead. Those of you who can do that have my genuine envy. I have squandered so many minutes that it leaves me feeling ungrateful and a wee bit sick to my stomach.

But apparently not enough to actually DO anything about it.

Still though, if I am honest with myself, I have done some stuff. ("Check the records," says Bill Murray in "Scrooged"....) We successfully launched our girlchild into her first year of college. Much of my time was poured into her, with activities at school and elsewhere. During her senior year I devoted myself to building her resume, finding scholarships and filling out forms. I do not begrudge the time invested at all.

I also finished another book. This one is historical fiction, and I await an answer from a New York literary agent concerning that project.

The rest of my days were spent cooking and cleaning, exercising and fellowshipping, reading and chatting up our parrot. Every evening I sat down with my husband and a glass of wine, and we talked it out.

Did I squander some time? Yes. I could fairly be accused of pissing some time away. We each get 1,440 minutes every single orbit. Funny how that number, which seems so large for things like car repair bills or cormorants shot in one day during hunting season, feels so, well, minute (as in small) when it's your freakin' LIFE.

And I do recognize, cognitively, that there is much stuff still left for me to do. I do not know what that looks like yet, but I hope and pray I will be open to opening the door, when those opportunities knock. There will be more assignments for this old gal, and more decisions to be made, and more pinot to be drunk as my husband and I mull over the events of the last 1,440 minutes each evening.

We all must make our peace with the accounting of our days, because each second that ticks off will not return. The only "return" I may ever see will be based on how I invested that time. Some days it is a good investment just to sit with my girlchild on my lap and breathe in the scent of her hair. Other days a good investment might look like making a batch of ambrosia for a certain neighbor who has been an angel to her mother-in-law. Ambrosia is what angels eat, after all. Often it is just taking a breath and having a chat with God, about someone who has suddenly crossed my mind.

At my moment of judgment, will I be called to justify how I chose to spend my time? I do not know. (I trust He will not see my woefully inadequate self at all, but His own son in my place. I'm putting a lot of eggs in that basket.) Will He look straight at me, through me, seeing my soul and my good intentions and my faults and inadequacies and bad judgment calls and just plain laziness, and accuse me of pissing my life away? I cannot say. But one thing I've learned in 25 years of evening toddy time with my husband:

I have drunk enough wine to know that one man's piss is another man's pinot.

Those Pesky Memories

My earliest memory is sitting in a high chair at the family dinette, with my back to the kitchen, happily eating cut-up pieces of pancake. Behind me, my sturdy country grandmother from Alabama had fallen face-first to the linoleum with a spatula in her hand. Without missing a bite I said, "Granny fall down" as effortlessly as I might have said, "more please."

My mother's mother, Granny, had come to "help" my mom, who was ripe for popping out my little sister. On that particular morning Granny apparently had become light-headed, standing over the stove flipping flapjacks, and had fainted just behind my high chair. My sister was born 2 days later, probably arriving earlier than predicted because my mother could take just so much "help."

I am reminded of Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends. "And some kind of help is the kind of help that helping's all about. And some kind of help is the kind of help we all can do without."

Granny certainly meant well. She had tried to provide the kind of help that helping's all about. In fact she probably had provided it, until she keeled over and suddenly became the kind of help that needed the kind of help that helping's all about. It wasn't her fault that things took an unwelcome turn. But it still left my mother, 40 weeks and counting, on bed rest with an additional patient in the next room. At that moment in time, I feel sure Mom would have categorized Granny's help as the kind of help she could do without, just then.

Which kind of help would The Help have fallen into?

If we're talking about Minny in the movie The Help, for which Octavia Spencer won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, then I believe we can safely say, both.

Minny was a surly sort of servant. The kind of help nobody wanted. She had a streak of nasty in her the width of a polecat's hind quarters. The white women in control of the town blackballed her even though she was certainly a capable employee, and even though they certainly had it coming. According to them, Minny's kind of help was the kind of help we all could do without. But as the Ghost of Christmas Present sagely noted in the Christmas classic "Scrooged," "Sometimes you have to slap them in the face just to get their attention."

And sometimes you have to bake'em a pie.

Ultimately, Minny's kind of help was what helping is really all about. Like bad medicine, sometimes help can taste like...well, it tastes real bad. But thank goodness Minny was the kind of help that didn't put up with...well, with what she served up. Her kind of help helped things change. Things needed to change. And her kind of help had the courage to insist on it.
I often call Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook a prequel to The Help because the slaves of Janie's time, and Janie herself, were the original "help," ephemistically speaking.

Which kind of help would Janie Mitchell have fallen into? I believe we can safely say, neither.

Janie was definitely not the kind of help we all can do without, because she was clearly a valued employee. Her career with each family was one of longevity. She performed her duties to the very best of her ability. She cooked and cleaned and cared for her white families. She raised children and grandchildren. She counted her employers as her friends, her family. They were lucky to have her, I say.

But in Civil War Charleston, she was still a slave. And in post-Civil War Charleston, she was still the help. And that kind of help can never be confused with the kind of help that helping's all about.

Last weekend I spoke to a group of educators about Janie Mitchell, Reliable Cook in the hope that our book will become supplemental reading for Language Arts and History classes in middle and high schools. At our presentation half the room was black. I considered, only briefly, softening the presentation for the audience: leaving out the part where she thanks God for her days of slavery, for example. Janie tells an alternative slave story, and I often wonder if that is offensive to black people. Distasteful, as it were. 

But the neatest thing happened. After the presentation one of the black women thanked me for presenting an alternative point of view to that time in southern history. She said, "You know, it wasn't all bad. And we need to hear that too."

Memories are what they are. There's no changing them, no getting them out of your head, no pensieve to retrieve a particular remembery and hand it off to someone else to experience the same sensory input, the same frame of reference, the same emotions that were available to the rememberer. Janie's memories, shared with us in her journal, are set in the framework of the social system of her time. We read her memories based on our framework, and logically find it egregious that things were as they were. Her memories are not ours, and ours are not hers.

In this time now, we have new memories, based on our shared history. Remembering that fact is the best way to help ourselves move forward.

Post-Christmas Post

Christmas makes me sad.

It's never perfect like I suppose I expect it to be. The commercialism of it all leaves me feeling like I missed the message. I hate that I get wrapped up in wrapping, buying, shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, and entertaining. And all the work--physical and emotional--trying to create Christmas in my ideal image leads to a massive denouement that leaves me flat like a deflated balloon.

This year the only time we spent in church, during the entire Advent season, was on Christmas Eve. And that was on a whim. Apparently, keeping Christ in Christmas was one of  many things that didn't get checked off my to-do list.

Some Christmases I have worked all year long, hoping to spread out the chores, just so Christmas could be quiet and reflective. But it never seems to pan out that way. In my mind, though, The Perfect Christmas continues to be a sought-after ideal.

I recently told my sister that the Christmas in my mind is quiet. It takes place in the mountains, in a small log cabin, and the only gifts are bird seed, table scraps, and suet. I am putting up preserves. It's snowing.

Trouble is, there are no other humans in that scenario. So what's wrong with me?

And here's my self-diagnosis. Maybe you have some of the same symptoms. Maybe this will help you too.

Call me an old curmudgeon if you wish, but the Christmases of my memory were more meaningful. We used to have to wait for that special toy. Baked ham was served once a year, and fudge was made only at Christmas. Stores weren't decorated until after Thanksgiving.

Now, we are all drunk on the must-haves. We wait for nothing. If we want something, we buy it, from houses we cannot afford to the latest techno toy. There are no more Christmas lists, at least none that exhibit any amount of self-denial.

We do not write letters. We email. We Skype. We text. The world is a smaller place. And this smaller planet no longer has need for a child's artistic, imperfectly drawn Christmas cards, or once-a-year Christmas phone calls. If we want to watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" we just pop it in the dvd player. No more waiting for that magical night when it came on television once a year.

When our family went on vacation, it was either to Myrtle Beach or to visit relatives. If summer included the beach trip, then it was something Mom and Dad saved for all year long. I was 26 before I visited a Disney Theme Park. My daughter, on the other hand, has been to Disney at least six times. She is 15 years old. That's every other year, folks.

Humans are the only animals with the ability to delay gratification for a significant period of time. But we choose instant gratification more often than not, grasping the quick reward rather than the long-term benefit. In doing so, we as a race, as the king of the hill in terms of superiority in nature, are collectively choosing to take a step back on the evolutionary scale.

Ironic, wouldn't you agree?

And the problem with that is that there is value in waiting. There is value in working for something.

When we must work toward a goal we often come out on the other side more resolved, more committed, more appreciative. It toughens us. We form personality "scars." And just like physical scars, personality scars are "thicker skin" that give us dimension and build character. They are the clear evidence of determined growth, despite setbacks.

I recently read an article that described just this phenomenon. It articulated very well that the tough times of our parents taught them to cope. Psychological researcher Dr. Mark D. Seery found that people who experienced no negative life events shared similarities to people who had a miserable life.

Bingo.

Perhaps I find it difficult to enjoy Christmas because I expect too much out of it. Perhaps I am like a spoiled little kid who didn't get everything on her list, and now is throwing a temper tantrum rather than being grateful for what I did receive.

So how to fix? Do I deprive myself of things I would like to have?

Yes. If I don't need them. Yes, even if I think I do. And how much do I really need, after all? Maybe I teach myself to wait, instead of pedagogically determining to teach others. Maybe I start with me.

Do I make a conscious effort to appreciate the people in my life who are important to me?

Yes. Above all. Because relationships are the most important ties to other souls we have here.

Do I quit worrying about the gifting and the wrapping and the cooking and the decorating?

Yep. I do not allow the trappings of commercialized Christmas to overshadow the holyday, while still being careful not to neglect friends and family in some meaningful way. Maybe that looks more like washing my mother's car once a month for her, or showing up at a neighbor's house with a steaming pot of beef stew in advance of her holiday company's arrival. Maybe I spend time with my daughter in the kitchen, making memories and thumbprint cookies. I definitely spend more time with God, whether that is in church, in nature, or in prayer. He'll meet me anywhere, even the layaway line. He'll even meet me in the tone I take with that rude shopper.

And what do I do when Christmas has come and gone again, and once again I haven't done it well enough?

I take my cue from Clark Griswold's mother. When all Clark's efforts to illuminate the exterior of his house resulted in an infestation of twinkle lights that didn't work, his mother said she could picture it in her mind, and it was beautiful.

I determine to side-step bitterness, and instead, choose thankfulness. "Count your blessings," mother always said. There is eternal value in that commandment, even though it doesn't show up in the first Ten. There is value in being grateful for what I have, rather than ungrateful for what I don't. There is value in remembering that there is value in waiting for something you want most of all. Some things are worth waiting for.

Christmas is worth waiting for.

Shittah Happens

Last week as Thanksgiving Day approached I remember thinking how blessed I am, how blessed we are, as a family. We are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.

Just as I was feeling pretty good about my life, that's when the shittim hit the fan.

My work computer caught a virus and it looked like everything was lost. My credit card was hacked and had to be blocked. In the meantime my other credit card expired. My car started making that "I'm going to start flinging metal objects soon" sound and the same day my husband had to limp home in his truck, fearing a valve was on its way through the engine block. We are being financially eaten alive by a high mortgage rate; our refinance application came back with a low appraisal, and we don't have the balance to throw at the loan. (Yoo who! Mr. Banker Man! That's why we're refinancing!)

And that was just Wednesday.

Come to think of it, isn't that when bad things always happen? Not on Wednesdays. I don't mean that. I mean that one day we're rocking right along, thinking we're impervious to the minor annoyances other people have to deal with, riding high in April, so to speak, only to be shot down in May. Why is that? Did I do something to cause these problems? Did I get too cocky? Did I say something unkind to another human being? Did I forget to pray? Was I not grateful enough? Is this my karma comeuppance? What did I do to make all this "bad" happen?

The truth is, sometimes I do contribute to my own difficulties when I make bad decisions, and maybe some of this can be attributed to bad decisions. But I'm inclined to believe most of this was not our fault, since we're really just doing the best we can with what we've got, trying to be frugal, smart, and faithful. And the truth is, sometimes shittim just happens.

I'm not referring to the pejorative potty-mouth slang expression that has come to be commonplace in our English language. I'm referring to the Hebrew word, which has a very different meaning.

Shittim, from the shittah, if you will, isn't what you think it is. Shittim IS yellowish-brown, and it does take a shittah to make it. So far, so the same. But shittim is really a type of wood, from the shittah tree, an acacia species, and was used to construct the tables, altars, boards and ark of the Jewish tabernacle.

Pretty cool.

So maybe when shittim happens, maybe it is a blessing in the shape of a turd. Allow me to elaborate.

Maybe shittim is God's way of getting our attention, of reminding us that He is the tree, and we are the branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing. Sometimes I have been lulled into believing that I can do all things through my own power, not through Christ, who gives me strength. Sometimes I need a gentle whack, broadside, like from a two-by-four, to remind me. Might as well be shittim wood.

Maybe shittim is God's way of giving us perspective. Carl Sagan noted in "Cosmos" that our universe is billions of years old--hard to grasp until you factor it down and put it in the relative terms of a calendar year. Using the calendar analogy, the universe was born on January 1st, at 12:01am but we homosapiens didn't show up, relatively speaking, until December 31st, at about 11:58 pm. We're newbies. The universe and its creator have been around a shittah-load longer than we, and the fly in our ointment today is hardly worth a passing glance in the cosmic scheme of things. There is a much larger picture here than my computer coughing up nonsense and refusing to let me do a web search. I take much comfort in that.

Perhaps shittah helps me remember to count my blessings, rather than focus on what seem to be curses. Sure, my computer problems are a pain, and our credit card, automotive, and financial woes are an unwelcome, unbudgeted bunch of inconveniences. But we are in good health. Our daughter is a beautiful and charming, intelligent, level-headed young lady who doesn't do drugs, isn't a Goth, and thinks boys are still an annoyance. My husband is gainfully employed. After 22 years of marriage (tomorrow!) he is still the one person with whom I want to spend all my time. We are weathering the economic recession, maybe worse than some, but certainly better than others.

Sometimes I can't see the forest for the trees. Sometimes those trees are a collection of shittah, and sometimes it's useful to step in it so I'll remember to step back occasionally, and take a good long look at the forest of blessings I'm right smack in the middle of. And be thankful that shittah happens.