Remember My Name

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." - William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

I am revisiting my earliest insecurities lately: I have breached the “100^th Query” ceiling in my submissions to literary agents, trying to get representation for my novel. I’m running out of agents and every “no” is an opportunity to remind the young child in me that I’m not good enough, that I don’t have what it takes, that my dream will never be realized. I will never achieve greatness.

Some part of me says that’s o.k. If my book never becomes successful, then I don’t have to deal with success. Oh well. I tried, I can tell myself. And that’s permission to keep on feeling bad about being me.

It’s one of the most basic human emotions. At our very core, every single last one of us wants to be remembered for something. We all want some part of ourselves to live beyond our life span, whether that means creating a child, or an idea, or an invention, a work of art or a book. It’s common knowledge that public speaking ranks above death on the fear factor scale, but on the iwanna scale, I believe the desire to be remembered for something great—beyond the reach of one or two generations—ranks above any other human desire. And that's not necessarily hedonism. That is just simple, elemental addiction to the belief that we will not pass this way again, and dammit, we want it to count for something.

From my own life, I can point to my single greatest accomplishment: my child. She is my opus and I am so proud of her I could bust a gut. She goes to college at the school  I chose to attend. I was keen to go there because it was a top-notch university that offered excellent training in my chosen field, and because a very dear friend was going there too. But it was expensive.

Mom and Dad scraped that tuition and room and board together though, and I packed my belongings and went there. For one year. I absolutely hated it, almost immediately. It was a very long year.

But because Mom and Dad had given me that opportunity, our daughter was able to attend the university of her heart's desire. She wouldn't have been able to go there without the university's legacy scholarship, awarded to her because I spent two miserable semesters at that institution.

Does that make Mom and Dad great? Does it get me remembered? Perhaps not. Beyond our daughter, the story is likely never to be told. History will probably not record that fascinating piece of higher education trivia. But it does make me feel like I made a difference. And I hope it makes my folks feel like they made a difference too.

And that IS the difference.

I truly believe that those who are born great, achieve greatness, or have greatness thrust upon them are mostly just following their hearts, trying to have an impact, hoping to make a difference. I believe these special people—people just like you and me—have a God-given passion that absolutely propels them to do a thing. They are ordinary bipeds who passionately pursue a dream without regard for the historical footnote. It is something they can’t not do. That is greatness, in and of itself. That is more greatness—if there is such a thing—than doing a thing just for the accolades.

That realization takes all the pressure off. It frees me to relentlessly follow the desires of my heart out of gratitude to God for the life and gifts I’ve been given, without regard for the footnote.  I can leave it to someone else to pass judgment on whether it was great or not.

As Patti LaBelle wisely notes in the song attached below, one of these mornings—it won’t be very long—they will look for me, and I’ll be gone. That’s really the only book I hope to see my name written in.
One of These Mornings

Etymology of Love

Does it ever cross your mind that, when you die, someone will probably search your computer’s web browser and find out all your nasty little secrets? All your weird little google searches and favorite pages…what would they find?

Before you post answers below about what you THINK I mean, let me clarify.

 

What subject would your computer records say interests you the most? Maybe most of your web searches are for vacation rentals. Maybe you google shoes. Recipes for diabetics. I don’t know. I can only answer for myself.

And for me, the answer would be “etymology of…”

I type it in several times a day, with different words. “Etymology of ‘licentious.’” “Etymology of ‘groovy.’” “Etymology of ‘etymology.’”

I am fascinated with words. I want to know where they came from, when they came into use, how the diagram tree breaks down, what part of speech they are, how they’re used in a sentence, and (have I already lost half of you??) their definitions—then and now. When I die, my computer will lay to rest the huge debate—finally—over whether I am, in fact, a nerd. (Noun, from the 1950s, origin unknown.)

I bring it up only because a member of my extended family--someone who means quite a lot to me—faces some new horizons soon. This person is scared about these new horizons. I use the word “scared” because change is frightening. But a better word might be “apprehensive,” which means anxious or fearful that something bad or unpleasant will happen.

So I typed in “etymology of apprehensive,” just to confirm that I had chosen the best word for this situation.

And because I’m a nerd.

The word actually hails from late Middle English (who knew? Right??!) So it’s been around a while, like a long while—since the 1400s. Our English word springs from the Latin word “apprehendere” and from the medieval Latin word “apprehensivus.” Along that same Medieval Latin timeline came the French word “apprehensif” (with an accent grave or aigu over that first “e”...sorry Miss Morgan, I forget my basic French). The word originally meant “to seize or to grasp.” The cool little diagram tree is pasted below for your enjoyment:

 

 

So if “apprehensive” really means to seize or grasp, as in without fear, as in wholeheartedly, as in with everything you got, then that puts a whole new spin on my family member’s new horizon. Apprehension is not fear and loathing. It isn’t that little sick burp you taste in your mouth when you’re so nervous you’re afraid you might puke. Apprehension is quite the opposite, apparently. Something to be pursued.

So I was wrong about that. Wonder what else I was wrong about. About which I was wrong.

Could my definition of “horizon” also be erroneous? I wondered. Maybe “horizon” doesn’t mean boundlessness. Maybe that’s the wrong word to use for my family member’s new horizons. Better check….

I typed in “etymology of horizon” and damned if I didn’t miss that one too. The original definition was not what I expected. Again, just the opposite. Horizon meant “limiting.”

Hmmm. Square One again. I thought I knew more about this stuff. Maybe I should search the etymology of “knowitall.”

Isn’t a horizon something to pursue? Isn’t a horizon something to be seized, and grasped?! Something to charge into with verve, as if everything depended on getting that thing for yourself? Something of excitement, and value, and warm fuzzies and Darius Rucker singing, “It’s awlright”?

Apparently not in late middle England.

Then I remembered something I read while researching my novel. It’s a quote from William Penn, founding father of the Pennsylvania colony back in the late 1600’s. It is also a funeral prayer: the time when most of us feel our saddest, as if everything has been lost. Hopelessness and grief crowd out everything else.

Penn said:

“We give back to you, O God, those whom you gave to us. You did not lose them when you gave them to us, and we do not lose them by their return to you. Your dear Son has taught us that life is eternal and love cannot die. So death is only an horizon and an horizon is only the limit of our sight.”

A horizon is only the limit of our sight. We can’t see around that bend, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t something wonderful waiting for us there.

There’s so much hope in that, don’t you think? That just because we can’t see around the curve, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, ready to be seized, welcoming us, and offering so much more than we could ask or imagine? Horizons, then—those  limited views of ours—are  something to charge into, to chase apprehensively, to seize and grasp without fear and trepidation. With everything you’ve got.

So to my family member, I say, Grab your future. I love you. I know what you're capable of. Of what you are capable.

 

I'll see you around that bend.

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.