Category: Happiness

Pants on Fire

7/8/2013

I lied.

I thought I was back—here, at the blog—but apparently there's quite a disconnect between my intentions and my actions.

I shouldn't be surprised. And I'm not. But I am disappointed. It's humbling to fail a commitment—to others, to oneself. In this case, both.

The struggle against failure is a lifelong battle, isn't it? This weekend I was participating in a book event at a riverfront park. Mid-afternoon the wind reared, and a sudden gust made havoc of our book table. A friend lunged to shelter what she could against the assault, using her body as a shield and grabbing at flying papers and broadsides and some lightweight signs that had been propped on the table. I had been standing back and away—useless in the moment—and just as my friend stood up again, I called out to her from behind, scolding like an angry parent, Bad! Bad! Bad! as if she had been the cause of all the mayhem. She froze, and when she turned around, I saw in her widened eyes a child's primal fear.

I had brought it all back. Whatever darkness that this gentle, caring, altogether magnificent grown-up has carried inside her for a lifetime was instantly roused by my unfortunate attempt at easy humor.

Oh boy oh boy. It's tempting to spin off from here into guilt for my own social clumsiness, but the point is that we just go on from our failures, don't we? The moment passed as quickly as a rare whip of wind on a blameless afternoon, and afterward, my friend and I laughed and shared an interesting conversation about how well and how poorly we carry our traumas with us. How they're always there, so very very close to the surface, whether our consciousnesses are aware of them or not. Sometimes it takes only the slightest of breezes . . .

It's time for grown-up me to stop blithering about my failures, all the things I've done wrong. It's time to just get to the business of moving forward. I'll meet you back here next Monday or thereabouts, come hell or a helluva wind.

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Color Me Bad

4/22/2013

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Confession time: I am in love with color.

Passionately, irrevocably. Color blinds me. Makes me want to do the wrong thing.

Most recently, this: I was wandering in a furniture store, testing a few pieces, as usual non-committal. And then I turned a corner and all visions of sofas and sugar plums danced right out of my head. I had come face-to-face with a taller-than-I display of leather swatches, samples of cowhide dyed in colors straight out of a Crayola box.

O frabjous day!

I went straight for the purples: iris, orchid, lavender. The names were stamped on the reverse of the three-inch square swatches, six or seven of each color hanging by their corners from small, gold hooks. A wall of leather diamonds, and no treasure chest in a dental office, no arm-deep bin of pinto beans could give me such a rush. I wanted them. I wanted them all.

I want to be an outlaw. Really, I do. I want to say that my pockets were half-stuffed, that I only stopped due to the untimely arrival of a salesperson nearly catching me in the act. I want to say I slipped out the door stained with guilt but thrilled with the kill. That the smell of leather is still on my hands.

But I left the entire bouquet behind: bluebell and iris, sunflower and fern. My inner scold was with me that day, nag on my shoulder, the finger of accusation tapping on my chest. Fifty-five years old, but the impulses of a kindergartner are still alive and kicking. And that's a good thing, I suppose. I didn't keep my life-slate pristine by succumbing to my every impulse. But oh the disappointment of not being someone other than myself for just one kaleidoscopic moment.

As with the rest of life, there's always a way to compromise. I'm willing to give that a shot. So off to the hardware store I go—the rack of paint chips is calling me.

WATCH AN INSTALLMENT FROM ONE OF MY FAVORITE TELEVISION COMMERCIAL SERIES EV-ER:

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Long Day's Journey into a Brand New Month

10/1/2012

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I have to admit, I love the first of the month.

Not just today, October 1st, but the first day of any month. It has to do with starting over, that heady feeling that old is old and new is new. That just about anything is possible.

New Year's Day is, of course, the big one. Everything clicks over—month, day, year. The holiday wrappings have been balled up and taken to the curb for the trash truck* to haul off. The dastardly leftovers** no longer hog the refrigerator shelves. And the new calendar with a fresh assortment of artwork or bird photos or comic-strip dogs*** is push-pinned to the wall. O all those blank squares yet unfilled, hopeful with promise! More than once have I found myself looking forward to that date, thinking, well, how different (i.e., better, brighter, cheerier) everything will be when the new year comes.

Remember that sticky-sweet saying from Synanon, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? Well, let's get real here: optimism for every day is just way too much work. Life throws its chewed shoes, its burnt potatoes. Slipped discs. Cracked mirrors.

But on the other hand . . . if winter's taking longer than usual to clear, and the gray, potato-sack skies have you eating Top Ramen raw out of the package, or if the cidery briskness of early fall has you deep-breathing for renewal, there's no reason to wait until the calendar lines up in its many austere columns. The first of any month is as good as any to begin. Again. Again.

* Yes, yes, I know all about recycling, but the trash truck makes an oh so strong image.
** Oh, of course everyone knows the leftovers are the best part.
*** Sure, go ahead and add "Cowgirl Poets of the Wild West" to the list.

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Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well

4/30/2012

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One of my favorite things to do on Sunday morning is read the "Corner Office" feature in the Business section of The New York Times. Every week, a different corporate leader is asked a series of questions relating to her or his management philosophy. The responses are insightful and well-considered, and with rare exception, the executives cite personal work experiences which have informed their points of view.

I'm a better behind-the-scenes person than a leader myself, but having spent 26 years with the postal service under managers ranging from A+ to Abysmal on the effectiveness scale, I've given a lot of thought to what qualities make a good workplace leader. "Corner Office" has offered me some new perspectives. But it also could be that I'm so enthusiastic about the feature because so many of the great ideas I read there reinforce and validate my own opinions about what it takes to be a successful manager.

So, Sunday after Sunday, Owners and Presidents and CEOs sit with me at my dining room table and tell me about how they run their worlds. These are the exceptional parents of their industries, paying keen attention to their employees' needs, listening to their concerns, encouraging openness in the sharing and discussion of ideas. Theirs is a position of command, tempered by reason and fairness and compassion. These are the leaders who will be shaping corporate culture for years to come.

Or it would seem. With all this love drizzling down from the top, are the workers at the bottom of the cake feeling content? A while back, one of my physicians, whose practice consists entirely of women, told me that she routinely asks her patients how their worklives are going. My doctor told me that in the prior 2 1/2 years, only one of her patients had responded favorably to the query. And that was a woman in her early twenties who worked primarily with young children. Of course this was definitely a most unscientific survey. But it had me wondering, so I poked around a bit to see what workers are thinking about their jobs these days. A recent CareerBuilder survey has 67% of transportation and utility workers expressing satisfaction with their jobs. The number drops to 48% for retail employees. If you're a half-full kind a person, perhaps 1-in-2 or 2-in-3 are comely figures. But I'd give my nod to half-emptiness on this one. If a half or even two-thirds of workers are content, that still leaves a large percentage of employees feeling out on the edge.

I'm not naïve. The jewel of happiness contains many facets, and I'm not here to discuss all the cuts and bevels. But I'm thinking of these leaders whose words I've read, their top hats a-sparkle with good ideas. If those ideas were implemented from top to bottom, I believe they'd go a long way toward increasing employee satisfaction. There appears to be a gap between upper management's ideals and how those ideals translate to the workers in the field. So where's the disconnect? A clue comes to me from my mother, her ghost-words tagging after me all these years. I always thought the buck stopped with her, but perhaps she was merely a middle-manager herself, forever negotiating the distance between the realities of the larger world and the imperatives of bringing up children within it. I can still hear her voice today: Don't do as I do, just do as I say.

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Pants on Fire

Color Me Bad

Long Day's Journey into a Brand New Month

Do Do That Voodoo That You Do So Well

Nancy Carol Moody

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