When Push Comes to Shove - 2 Quotes That Mean Move On, Go Forward

This morning, as I walked into my place of business...I found my way to the library to return a copy of National Geographic I had borrowed earlier in the semester. On the 2nd floor wall there is a white board with a daily quotation.

Most days its inane or esoteric, and perhaps today I was looking for meaning. But this one was clearly meant for me to see. In Dan Rather's own words it read:

"A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well."

This stinks. But unfortunately...it is true. Be it misunderstanding or otherwise...it is human nature to fear what we don't understand, recoil at what we cannot control and rebut that which we find unfamiliar...even if its right.

Later this morning, the student government president came on the loud speaker with the announcements and quote of the day. Again these are 8th graders so its usually very vapid, a quote from Snoop Dogg or other such nonsense.

But today the voice of a child, in its child-like wisdom advised the whole school

"A couple: truly, madly, deeply in love will always find a way."

Well...it looks like we press on from here.


To my beloved...you are worth the striving. Always - Hanna Jane

More on my calender....

How interesting it is; I remarked to a friend, that when one finds oneself in a relationship, there seems to suddenly be so much to DO.

Only a few simple months ago I waxed poetic about banana cream pie and an impossible arrangement of meetings at my dear friend's camp. Dear reader, it should come as no surprise that the last few months have been a myriad of ups and downs with more up than down which is why...I'm making more pie tomorrow night.

In the last few months I have taken a serious shine to my blackberry. I say that because I think I have asked my darling paramour a few too many times, "what exactly are we doing this weekend????" But the ubiquitous plural possessive pronoun is a symbol of change all by itself; for "we" has so much more to do with what you discover with another person than what you even bring to the plate.

10 Lessons learned of late as a We rather than a Me:

1. How to cook lamb in any and all formats and ensure that mint is somehow included
2. How to recognize the "hungry grumpies"
   
3. How to accept compliments (current grade...C+) I'm being generous to myself
4. How to know where my boundaries are, and where his are and vice-versa
5. How to know when there have been too many "stay in the house" dates
6. How to play darts and bowl and win and lose
7. How to cheer for the New York Jets, and mean it.
8. How to win, and lose at Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune
9. How to intermingle with a large, loud family...which isn't the one I was born into.
   
10. How to slow dance ... and forget there is anyone else in the room.

The first two of these really have to do with that period of time where you suss out each others on and off buttons. For my partner, eating things he likes and eating well make a huge difference. To me it seems a way to communicate "I'm paying attention and it matters to me that you are well looked after because you are precious to me." In previous iterations of a relationship situation, I have been the sole provider of this courtesy. This is often a red-flag that I'd ignore because I would get "high" off the good feeling that looking after someone gave me.

But then number 3 comes along...and my significant (and he is) other begins to lavish me with the same little morsels of TLC. Only this time something utterly astonishing arises! This man actively goes out of his way to illicit in me the sincere belief that I'm truly being cherished...and pursued! What's more, he seems to do it for the same "high" that I truly relish...in other words, just because he likes to see me smile.

I will admit fully that I have never been the type of woman to say "oh well, yes, I'm attractive." I've never felt that way particularly...I mean, I don't think I'm, to coin a term, 'pug ugly' and I have been told I'm pretty by people but I just never felt good about saying it about myself. It probably sounds like false modesty...but I assure you it absolutely a darker driving force. Its the still small voice that says "be careful, the moment you feel good about yourself, someone will undoubtedly remind you that you shouldn't." Ah the demons of the past...

This voice has a new enemy in the form of this gentleman who, just today, declared, "Hate all you want... I'm still comin' for ya. Miss Nasty-little-voice is doomed." That nasty voice has really got a formidable foe as this man does NOT like to be directly contradicted when he believes he is in the right. Me, unfortunately...I seem only to be able to puff up my cheeks and roll my eyes when he calls me his "beauty worth waiting for." Humor is truly the most user-friendly defensive response.

Ahem...back to my list:

Lesson 4: I suppose boundaries exist on many planes, but the usual suspects are to be expected...they are personal...and so why on earth would I put them here? But a piece of this spectrum exists which is fit for public consumption that lends itself more toward introspective assessment. It begs the questions...."Are all my boundaries really boundaries? Or are some of them elaborate defense mechanisms built not to preserve me but to keep others away from me?"

Again these assertions in specific are not fodder for public display but it must be said that on both parts it appears we have had to do some deconstruction in order to further construct our "us." The only way this has worked....man oh man...is because we share some serious faith. If we did not have the Lord seated at the center of our decision-making processes...yeah we'd be in sore shape.

Lesson number 5 (golden rules la la la....ahem...sorry) To the end that boundaries are good, and Christ at the center is a good compass...it makes one sit up and pay attention to how many areas of a relationship have to be submitted to that standard. After a while...I won't lie to you, that man's face....and being near him can be a bit of an all-consuming desire. Where pit-falls go...yeah this can be a big one...for both parties. And so keeping my eyes open and my ears as well...I noticed on more than 2 occasions that our story would stagnate a tad and upon further reflection...it would happen when we spent too many "date nights" only in each others' company having a movie night in.

Its a strange thought I'm sure, as it seems counter-intuitive, but couples need community. I'm mentioning this because a very wise friend of mine, she once counseled me that one ought never to mistake their significant other for the person who will fulfill all your emotional needs. Its illogical, improbable and indisputably isolating.

I've had more fun learning about how he learns, in our small group, hanging out with other couples and seeing how he interacts with other men, and how he accommodates women altogether as he interacts with my key ladies. A word to the wise darlings...when he texts to see if you got to your girls night out and asks you to be sure you tell the girls hello...he's honestly glad you are having community time. *green light*

Point 6: Darts and bowling....ok so the darts are random. We played because there was a wait to get a bowling lane. This.man.loves.bowling.like.whoa!!! In our early days of dating he explained to me that he had been a seriously angry competitor in his youth. You know the type what screams at the TV during (enter sport here) and storms off staying mad for hours/days if the (enter game type here) did not end to his liking.

In all my interactions with him I must say I'd never seen this in him. But playing games more and more with him I have seen signs simmering beneath the surface. Very very mild, but familiar as a previous relationship with a man who actually fit that hot-headed description left me more than wary. I would find myself wondering "Should I throw the game? I don't need to win...what if he gets mad at me!?!"

Okay first of all if a man EVER does that to you it is an undeniable red flag!! If a man can't play with you,...really just kick back and have fun...this is not a good signal. However nervous...I had fun tossing darts and made it a point to laugh at MYSELF as well as use encouraging words and gentle ribbing toward him until I realized...he was really having fun and wow what a fun way to flirt!

The bowling let me learn an important lesson in practice...team dynamics. Not only did I try to enjoy myself and bowl a decent game...I made it a point to cheer for him and purposefully choose words of encouragement. And even though he didn't bowl as well as he seemed to want to...something incredible began to happen...he began to do the same for me...coach and teach me a little. It felt wonderful. I have no idea who won...really I couldn't tell you the scores (I'm certain he can) but what I do remember are the quick kisses, high fives done with crossed arms when one of us knocked down all 10 pins and the sight of him making gobbling sounds when I hit something called a turkey. My efforts were rewarded in the end when he actually told me afterward that what he enjoyed most of all was my voice behind him cheering him on.

Lesson 7 is really more compromise...melded with the boundary/wall distinction. I was raised a NY Giants fan. I really really like football...heck it was this love that initially got the two of us chatting in the first place. However...after an almost NY Mets caliber meltdown...my beloved Giants didn't even make the playoffs...Harumph.

Green is not only his favorite color...his NY Jets are a physical manifestation of his ability to be passionate about both the color and the sport! In truth...I couldn't tell you very much about this team. I confess I paid almost no attention to them. But when they arrived in the post season...I couldn't mistake that hopeful visage on my sweetheart and I wanted to be part of the adventure.

When I arrived at his mother's home to watch the Jets/Patriots game (in order to correctly convey his distaste for the Patriots...the word is vitriol) it was remarked that I was some type of traitor for wearing a pink Jets jersey for the festivities. I smiled very contentedly...fully having prepared for this type of commentary, and simply asserted, "No no...I'm not posing as a Jets fan, I'm not a NY Jets fan, I'm a fan of my man. So I'm cheering with him." This lesson really should be called "Its not always about me." Needless to say...I was awarded with many proverbial gold stars.

This is a great time to stop and make note that "It's not always just about me and what I want" is really a saving grace mantra of sorts when attempting to successfully stoke and maintain the fires of a courtship. When we make it all about us, it turns out that we downplay our partner and I want my partner empowered and to be empowered in kind. Saying this I will ask that you, dear reader, apply the same thoughts to how well we have turned Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune into party trick caliber stunts done by the smart "couple" in the room rather than just need for he or me to be the lone star. Besides...the high-fives are something to see. *wink*

Lesson 9 is an altogether different scenario. I have a very small family. It didn't used to be, however we are very small now. We more embody the quote from Lilo & Stitch where the little blue fella describes his family as "little, and broken....but still good." Though good, I miss the big family gatherings the gobs of cousins and the NOISE. Some would say its crazy to miss noisy relatives but the symbiotic rhythm of relatives co-mingling is wonderful. It smacks of community and involvement and generally people investing in you, your life and your choices because they love you.

His family is ENORMOUS! The funny part is that he was almost apologetic about their numbers and volume at the outset. True, at first it was a little overwhelming...but that was mostly just because it was so many new names/faces at once. I despise not knowing people so that I can call them by name. Personal pet peeve. Otherwise...it was a comfortably intense setting that took me back to the family I was missing on my own. In my wanderings through the large home of his aunt and uncle I met so many fun and loving people. I was welcomed into a kitchen, offered to cook, made a point to help clean and listened to as many stories as I could take in at a time.

Being snowed in around Christmas let me be cared for while sick, watch more family traditions and learn to be a gracious recipient of care. His aunt however, caught me by surprise. On my own I had surmised that there had likely been few if any women in my sweetheart's history who had ever been kind to him in the ways I so dearly enjoy. Moreover, I was given the chance to see him through their eyes. An incredible perspective; they love him because of his big, kind, gentle, quirky, distinctive heart. What a coincidence. Me too.

On the morning after the big Christmas blizzard I thanked his Aunt for taking in a relative stranger and letting me drink her clean out of mint tea in my sniffly state. She smiled warmly, put her hand on mine and said, "You're welcome Hanna. You have no idea how welcome you are."

His mother and siblings are another story...a good story too. Again...with respect to privacy which he and I truly enjoy, I certainly won't give specifics here...but I will say that this group represents another place where I thought I would be made to prove myself worthy when in reality I was met with a place wherein I could be appreciated as is. I have built bridges with the repairs I'd done in my own family through faith and even use some of the special gifts God blessed me with in my work place.

The secret to so much of this has been three-fold. Time to invest in myself and my partner as a pair and to understand how he came to be the man he is, prayer for all those things and a willingness to do more listening than talking because at the end of all this...if the usual heady Hanna had showed up and bossed and controlled her way through it all...I'd never have learned any of these things.

And ya know....I really make great lamb ;)

Lesson 10 ----- Two nights ago, all these lessons paid dividends for us both. For all the things we'd done...this was brand new and like all good things it wasn't planned to the teeth by either of us. While fulfilling another of our calendar appointments at a party for a friend in common, we found ourselves at a beautiful restaurant, dressed better than we'd ever been in each others' company, enjoying the company of our community. Then the icing...the DJ. In all our adventures, sports, car-rides, to-do's etc,...we'd never danced. I'm convinced we weren't ready to dance until then. Because all these months of learning, living, and leaning on the Lord and each other, brought us to a place where Garth Brooks crooned "To make you feel my love." We swayed simply on a small dance floor, to a song that talks about a love that would cross boundaries, build bridges and strip away all the old to make a way to a good new place where love can be perceived by all 5 senses.

As we swayed, the room shrank and the voices faded...and there in front of me, I saw him, maybe for the first time. I saw my love...and he saw me, and it was so very good.

Bread and Banana Cream Pie: Prologue

It isn't often that one willingly walks into a cliche with the feeling that there is no way the cliche could possibly apply to them. Either we walk in fully expecting the obvious; or we avoid the setting entirely, refusing to subject ourselves to the inevitable.

I went to camp that weekend to work in the kitchen. One of my closest life-long friends had recently become the director of a Christian Campground, and all I wanted to do was spend a weekend in selfless service to God in support of this ministry. I didn't exactly know who it was I'd be serving from that kitchen, but I knew I'd be spending it with my friend's mother who, for all intents and purposes, had long ago adopted me as her own as well.

In the wake of my own mother's passing away, eleven years earlier, this one woman saw through to the heart of who I was in good times and bad. She knew when to prod, when to push and when to simply sit and listen. Anything that felt like real mother-daughter interaction with her was so satisfying and the chance to serve her whole family, especially her son, Tim, in his new ministry was like being offered a cool glass of water after a day-long walk.

The previous year of my life had taken me so far away from my Christian identity. I had sacrificed myself on the altar of a Godless relationship because my desperate desire for a family and an identity within a family bamboozled me into believing that anything was worth sacrificing to attain that goal. I.was.very.wrong.

So in the wake of that marring detour I had rededicated my life and my focus to my job, teaching, and re-centering my identity and faith in Christ. I know it sounds prosaic and predictable, but I cannot apologize for the fact that a Christ-centered lifestyle is a remarkable anti-psychotic not to mention it helps heal a lot of wounds because it forces us to surrender things, weights that would break our own backs if we insisted on continuing to carry the burden of them ourselves. Not that it's easy, but its worth it. Completely.

And so there I was; focused, serving and driving out toward camp on a warm autumn afternoon with the top down on my convertible. I pulled up the long gravel driveway, with the radio turned up and parked in front of the main house. On the porch, I noticed a man with a piece of poster board paper, making a registration sign for what I assumed was the group we'd be feeding and hosting that weekend.

I park, turn off the radio, leave the top down and step out of the car. "Good afternoon" I wave to the stranger and bound down the service road toward the trailers where Mom and Tim and the rest of the family would be found.

Once everyone had hugged me hello I had my marching orders for the weekend. Apparently the group the camp was hosting was a men's group. I couldn't help but be amused at the irony of this fact. "Ha! Great, I'm going to be feeding a whole bunch of Christian men all weekend. Maybe one will like my cooking enough to ask me out."

There was once a wise man who said, "Be careful what you wish for."

I slept in the room right off of the kitchen area in the main meeting building. The men's group had all their meetings in the main room literally 20 feet from my room on the other side of the kitchen doors. Normally a curious little thing, one would assume I'd take no small delight in eaves-dropping on their comings and goings. I mean, the chance to listen to the inner workings of the Christian male pow-wow is an enticing proposition.

I should have figured it out from the moment when my little interior voice said, "This is not for you to be listening to" that this weekend wasn't going to be run of the mill. Once I had ascertained that the message their leader was sharing with them was one that truly encouraged their pursuit of a Christ-centered life, and the pursuit of a woman's heart through His eyes, I didn't need to listen any further. It was sacred, and I just couldn't, wasn't comfortable listening in. So I didn't.

On Saturday morning, 5:30am, I made and filled all the coffee, tea, cocoa pumps and set out the basics. When Mom and Mr. P arrived, I hopped on the griddle and started my mountain of breakfast potatoes. I heard a friendly booming voice from the main room coming in toward the kitchen. I recognized it as the men's group leader.

He and I had had a keen exchange the evening before when I recognized the book he was teaching the men with, and commented that I thought it was brilliant. The leader was dropping off 6 large loaves of round bread he asked that we warm for their lunch meal where they would enact a symbolic bread-breaking among their brotherhood. "Sure thing, Captain, you got it."

I smiled broadly at the portly, jolly man and put the bread away for safe keeping. A whirlwind, enamored with my current devotion to Christ in this service weekend, I fried potatoes, made sausage, filled coffee and checked on the tables to see what else might be needed.

It was somewhere in the middle of my practically dancing through my chores that I noticed someone noticing me having a little too much fun logically for someone up to their eyeballs in kitchen chores.

He cracked only a half smile and I could have sworn he gave an almost imperceptible chuckle. Our eyes locked for a split second, I smiled and thought nothing of turning around and bounding back toward the kitchen like a child running out to recess.

"One of those men sorta smiled at me." I threw the comment out halfheartedly for Mom to hear. "Maybe you will meet someone this weekend, sweetie." She smiled her wry grin and I rolled my eyes. "Puh-leeze. That's ridiculous and besides, that is SO not what I came here for." Another wry grin and a shrug sends me wandering off into the pantry muttering about fruit cocktail and pudding.


After breakfast, and pre-assembly of all the baked ziti pans, Mom and I make a run to the supermarket. Getting off the campground felt nice, driving in the beautiful Indian Summer sun, but I couldn't wait to get back. Camp was always a magic place. Whenever we'd go away on retreat as youth group kids in high school, the weekend always held a kind of magic, no matter the camp location. Some remnant of this magic lingered as one of my friends now ran the camp to boot.

Back in the kitchen that afternoon, pans of ziti flew in and out of convection ovens, garlic bread was buttered and meatballs boiled in vats of hand-spiced sauce. Having to use a jarred sauce is a necessary evil of cooking for the masses. But a balanced addition of all the right herbs, garlic, basil, and a little sugar to cut the acidity goes a long way.

As the meal finished cooking, the Captain appeared in the kitchen again. "Hello sweetheart." A smile, "Hello Cap, needing that bread?" He nods and so I head into the pantry, slice the round loaves into halves and pop them in the convection oven for 10 minutes.

"Mom I have to take this bread out to the men. Should I use the glass plates?" Nodding her approval, she sends me out to the tables with bread plates in hand. Two halves to each of the 4 tables were my instructions. I dropped off the first two along with a plate of sweet cream butter. The men had been incredibly thankful and gracious, constantly thanking us and complimenting the camps hospitality.

The second table was the Captain's. There were other men sitting with him but, as had been my habit all weekend to that point, I raised my eyes to meet no one's gaze save the Captain's. "Here you go fellas." I smile broadly and place the plates on the table. Then a voice speaks. The voice is resonant, fluid and actually rather remarkable.

"That looks beautiful...and the bread doesn't look bad either." I chuckle offhandedly and keep busy about my chore, not registering who spoke and what was said. But just before I leave the third table, I turn back toward the voice, and see him and meet my gaze. My ears turn red and I immediately retreat into the kitchen.

After serving the rest of lunch, we the staff partook of the spread we'd created. The Captain and one of his men, the tall, dark-haired man who had smiled at me earlier that morning, approached us as we sat eating our mid-day meal. "Ladies, this sauce was really incredible. I mean, I'm a New Yorker and I've had my share of good sauce, this was excellent."

Both Mom and I began laughing immediately. We confessed that it was doctored Ragu but thanked the Captain profusely nonetheless. Unwilling to believe that we'd merely "cheated," he insisted we were kitchen magic. "Well whatever you all are doing in there, keep doing it. We've never eaten this well at camp before, have we?" He gestured to his companion who looked directly at me and said his own thank you. Another smile, a protracted moment of eye-contact.

Why my stomach did a back-flip I could not have told anyone at that moment. Looking back it may well have been because I recognized this man. Handsome, but not overtly so. His eyes were kind as he walked away, smiling. I went to check the coffee again and he appeared suddenly again at my side, with the guise of surveying the dessert offerings. He spoke of the weather, the weekend, the camp. He thanked me for the food, and I quickly began telling him how his group being here at this camp was giving my brother a chance to live this ministry and do what he'd always wanted and I was just as grateful to their group as they appeared to be to the staff and the camp. I did not talk about myself. I did not ask him about himself.

One of his fellow group members sidled up along side to also offer thanks and I instead lobbied their group to help with the revamp of the camp in the weeks to come. He smiled all the while, and again looked at me with a countenance that spoke volumes but that I couldn't yet discern its intention.

"Well I'd better get back in the kitchen. Dishes need doing and your dinner needs prepping." We exchanged a look that said We'll talk again later, and off I went back into the kitchen. "MOM!" I didn't yell but I heard myself sounding gob-smacked. "What's the matter dear?"

I told her I was pretty sure I'd be talking to this man again later and that he kept smiling at me. I wasn't unnerved by this attention but it just seemed so out of place because, heck, I was so focused on just reveling in serving God and the camp. I desired no distraction, this was too important.

Sunday morning got a later start than we'd have wanted. The men told us that breakfast would be at 7:30 and it wasn't until nearly 8:45. Admittedly a little annoyed, as its hard to explain how difficult it can be to maintain fresh pancakes freshness for 2 hours once in the steam tray, we served them breakfast and began prepping lunch.

Running again to the supermarket, mom and I decide that the vanilla pudding the men have not been partaking of needed to be reincarnated into banana cream pie. A fortuitous choice as that afternoon, their last meal, the smiling man opted for a double portion.

"Try the one on the right." He raised an eyebrow. "Why that one?" I told him it was filled with jello mix rather than the re-purposed pudding. "It'll taste better. Whipped cream?" He smiled his smile. "I love banana-cream." I felt pleased he was enjoying my little invention.

"So where do you all hail from?" He explains that the men's group is an amalgamation of several 'platoons' from several states including NY, PA, VA and New Jersey. He is from New Jersey it seems. Its only at this point that I tell him I also hail from the same state and am a French Teacher at Piscataway.

"So you are a Chief" he grins while telling me the name of the High School mascot. "Yes, oh yes, I'm a huge Chiefs fan. I'm really a huge high school football fan." Now his expression goes wide as do his eyes. "Really?" I reaffirm my enjoyment of the sport in general and he enthusiastically explains that high school sports are his job. He is a writer for a news paper and covers sports exclusively.

With an almost unnecessary but equally involuntary amount of awe in my voice I gush, "You're a writer? Reeeeallly?" and immediately felt like a big ball of cheese. Gathering my thoughts I blurt, "Well I'd love to hear more about what you do." He smiles a little. "Sure yeah yeah I'd love to chat." I suggest we perhaps get coffee some time. He grins a bit wryly. "Actually, I should be asking YOU to coffee, so, coffee some time?" I apologize for doing his job, and he laughs along.

Quickly I scurry back into my kitchen to let the men get into their closing session before the end of their weekend retreat. Back in the kitchen, I announce a little mystified, "I think I just got asked for my number." Many eyebrows raise. I confidently assert that I'm not here for this kind of thing and immediately immerse myself in kitchen duties.

Not at all looking in this man's direction again that early afternoon I dash in and out of the main room picking up after the meal. In my peripheral vision I can see him occasionally glance my way. But I cannot take my mind off how delicious it is to be at camp, in service to God!!! I hum praise and worship songs and keep my focus on the goodness that is this service experience.

As we begin our final cleanup the voice approaches me a third time. "Um, so I did want to be able to get in touch with you so I went to my car and grabbed a business card." I thank him and put the card in my pocket without looking at it. "I'm really best reached via email." I dictate my address once aloud and then finally endeavor to look him squarely in the eye and shake his hand.

That moment is suspended in eternity somewhere. It had the feeling of a prologue to a play's first act. An act which we are presently engaged in playing out.

I left camp at 4:30 that Sunday afternoon. There was a first email in my inbox by 9:45am the next morning. I did not expect to see it ever, but there it was. A week later, the first date, then a second and third and so on.

This prologue is the beginning of a story I am committing to let God write. I'm writing it down Lord. Trusting you with its contents, and with its outcome, every breath, every moment, every day and night.

Looking back on those first days and moments, he tells me a story that involves the voice of God in his head. He was not there for me that weekend, as I was not there for him. But God said, "Go talk to that woman." What's more, he tells me how God bids him pursue me every day. His beauty worth fighting for.

If in this life I never know anything else of love, I will always know what it is to surrender my heart to God and have Him welcome me home, make me beautiful in His service such that a man after His own heart would find the desire to know me because I know Him.

I'm happy with today, sitting on my couch in a living room this smiling man helped me design, lit by a Christmas tree he helped me decorate. Rooting for a football team in which I, prior to these last months, had no vested interest. Simply because seeing this man smile makes me feel like I can take on the world, with God's help.

Stay tuned my friends, I'm on one heck of an adventure. Pray for us.

On taking the job home...

My chosen profession is amazing. Its a full contact sport mixed with a reality TV series meets a live-action adventure roll playing game. Pick your genre of human interaction and well...you can pretty much bet that inside of any given day I will run the gamut.

Today was really heavy. I have no other word for it. It was full, and it had range...lots of range. I am in love with my students. Yes it sounds odd and those who want to take that statement in some lewd way, well then just stop reading now. Because what I have to say has nothing to do with lechery, stupidity or foul intention.

I have learned to give myself, my time, my all away to 150 people at a time and its addictive. My love for teaching is as strong today and it was the first day and probably as it will be my last day. High school is an infurating and challenging and inspiring setting. It is my mission field, my Eden...I understand it. I survived one of the cattiest places on earth myself. But public high school, wow...

Perhaps it is because I am in search of a "good man" in my own life that I have so eagerly undertaken the task of helping to build good men in the school where I work. I am a staunch disciplinarian, friend of manners, chivalry and acting not like a boy but a man. These young men...and many of the young women, they flock to me, seeing someone who doesn't see them for their young years but for the human kinetic energy they possess. I envy them, I extoll them...I admonish as best I know how.

Today I watched one of my "sons" realize his dreams of championhood. He is strong, willing, determined and, now, focused. Focus. I am busting with pride to know I had 5 minutes worth of time in helping him realize for himself this good way. It is return on an invaluable investment. The best kind.

Today I realized that one of my littlest ones has tried a few times in the last few months to end his stay on this earth. I wept. I weep as I write. So bright so young so fun so dramatic and special and intuitive. So heavy with worldly woes at 14. Yet...he gives hugs whenever we meet, seeks me out to have an occassion to laugh and morphs from stone faced and sober to a wild-waving fanatic from across a quadrangle when he sees me and OOHH! in that moment he is the carefree child he should be again. How I want to give him as many of those moments as is possible.

Today I realized that one of my seniors is sabotaging himself purposely. He is testing those who are trying to see him realize a most patriotic and noble goal. He has all the tools and oh when he is in his little cadre he is in complete control however....he's just been reduced to deck swab on my watch. This young man is daring me to quit on him. Begging me without word or gesture to discipline him...keep him accountable. And now...I'm afraid I won't be enough.

Today I wallowed momentarily in the knowledge that the student I have had the longest is giving up on himself. He has no goals...only a social agenda that I suspect he doesn't realize will pass him by with age. How do you help a person achieve who believes they are worthless, brow-beaten and well...lazy. How do you help a man who is failing 6 classes stop the slippery slope...how? How can I, as a teacher, love him better, teach him best, reach him, HURRY! I'm running out of time.

Today I was reminded that another of my "sons" is beyond my reach and I can't help him when he's out of my little snow globe. Sadly I am not omnipresent...and I can't do for all...but I can do all for some.

Today I was given back the inkling of a gift I thought I would never see returned and I scarcely have the heart to hope...so I'll just lay down my hands and let God do the driving.

Yes I seem to have taken my work home with me tonight. I'm not just some French teacher....I'm helping or hell trying to help be a good influence to build good men and women. Men and women who know truth, hard work, hard play, hard love, and hard laughter. Perhaps if I build enough good men...I'll know one when I meet him and he me.

But for now I'm souled out *pun intended* to these, my "sons" and I will do all I can. I am single-minded...but not obsessed. I feel called, compelled. It is not a game, it is not a chess match. These are real people, real lives...and I a lynch-pin, hair-trigger season ticket holder.

God give me wisdom....please!!!

Quarter Life Catharsis

It occured to me one over cast Monday morning as I sat at my desk in Georgetown, that I was created. I'd had a chat with a good friend over the previous weekend, and it was he who brought up this unwittingly prolific statement. Since then, I hadn’t been able to really get it out of my mind. Created…what does that mean anyhow?

Well there’s always dear old Merriam-Webster which states the obvious, “To cause to exist; bring into being,” but that’s not very inspirational. Sure the old B-I-B-L-E says that in God’s image we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” but again, I ask you…what does it mean? Okay, I promise I’m not about to launch into some creepy diatribe about the meaning of life, Aristotle’s theory on the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God or anything so mundane. For mercy’s sake it IS only Monday.

I will say, however, that another definition of the word created did strike a cord with me in a way I never would have seen until today. The same dictionary, in its 4th definition defines the word created as a verb meaning, “To produce through artistic or imaginative effort.” The key words that stood out in my mind are artistic and effort. Somewhere, somehow, regardless of your personal convictions or belief system, each of our lives has been created. The evidence is, well, self-evident. There you are. But the notion that this has happened with effort, that we were artistically produced, tells me that it’s on purpose. Life is no accident.

Now, personally, I’ve had a bit of a go of things lately. Since my last entry I’m no longer locked in the dungeon of corporate America. I was “down-sized” for “budgetary purposes.” I thought I was bitter…but now that I’m gainfully employed elsewhere, my perspective on a lot of things have changed. In some ways that’s natural. But in other ways, it’s taken a conscious effort to see past my own foregone conclusions about the process of life to see the reality of life for its own good sake.

What I mean is…I’ve looked at this created life of mine; what it has been up to now, where I am this minute and what I hope it will be in the future. All the usual rigmarole comes to light. Health, wealth and prosperity, but that’s only natural. Everyone is a relative subscriber to Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs. What I’m finding is, even though mathematically, the quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line; life is not geometry.

It’s a convoluted process this coming into one’s own. I laugh at the many versions of myself that I thought I had figured out. As a high school senior I wanted to be a physical therapist. As a college freshman I was enthralled with languages and astronomy. And I’ll never quite forget the day I tripped over a knapsack in Saint Thomas Hall and smacked right into the poster on the wall of the graduate school I would attend the very next academic year.

Life, as I’m learning, is a process of reinventing yourself. Not for the sheer need to bend to the will of those who keep you in their employ. No…it’s more a factor of continual self-discovery.

Sitting now, in my office at a marketing firm in Georgetown Harbour, I’m munching calmly on sushi and potato chips. I have no pressing engagements for the afternoon and I aspire to get to the gym this evening as I am on one of my health kicks again.

Finding contentment where one is at is a virtue, I believe. For a young woman such as myself who, since age 13, and probably before, has been pushed and nudged and challenged to succeed and excel and blow the doors off the world at large, it’s come as quite a shock that, right now, my Creator requires of me nothing more than to be silent, simple and still. And where silence and stillness are not so much the challenge, simple, in a world of drama queens and Jerry Springer scenarios, is less attainable.

You see I fall within a range of young people just at the bitter end of generation-X and not quite within the same frame of mind as the generation-next. We are the founders of the quarter-life crisis, the survivors of the dot COM revolution and the victims of the corporate chasm and hiring freeze generated by the War on Terror.

We have Master’s degrees, some of us, Doctoral degrees. We work 50 hours a week for forty thousand dollars a year and we all have an average of fifty thousand dollars in college loan debt. Myself, I boast a bit above the average…but who’s counting?

We are commitment-phobic. Marriage is no longer a social norm, monogamy is easily scoffed at and singleness…for my fellow ladies out there, is viewed more often than not as a season in purgatory, to quote Josh Harris, rather than a time during which we can simply enjoy getting to know ourselves.

Yes it’s an interesting age. But I think, perhaps, I’ve decided I don’t wish to subscribe to this norm any longer. I don’t want to work 50 hours a week for people who hate each other and say loathsome things about you, me and everybody under the guise of raising money or lobbying the Appropriations Committee to make up the short-fall of Fiscal Year funding.
No. No I think perhaps, in a world, which all my life has demanded excellence of me in terms of productivity, I turn now to myself and decide to produce a more mentally and spiritually healthy and prepared human being. Not as a means of steeling up against a destabilized job market but, rather, to contend with the face in the mirror.

It’s a good thing to have knowledge, but wisdom and knowledge, I’m learning, simply aren’t the same. Gaining wisdom has shifted my priorities to aspire to a lifestyle and work ethic that has less to do with gathering an abundance of ‘stuff.’ Rather, I believe this is a time in my life to make good memories again. Like a born-again childhood, I can look at age twenty-something and even perhaps 30 something and know I don’t need to have all the answers today. To find these answers I’ll need to embrace many adventures and mysteries in days to come. Wide-eyed trepidation and nervous anticipation for what lies ahead on the road of life should not be gone by one’s mid twenties.

You see I realized that I have the entirety of my life to toil away on analysis of legislative strategy initiatives and policy briefs, homework and lesson planning. I do not, however, have the rest of my time to enjoy being a young woman, falling in love as an adult for the first time, traveling, having a home of my own and trying one last time to know the family I love with all my heart. I have only this season to enjoy this part of who I was created to be. If I fail, I will miss it, undeniably and irrevocably.

To be sure, there are plenty of clichés to toss around regarding this renaissance or cathartic overture to la vie en rose, but I think I’ll abstain. There is a freedom I find when one will simply absolve themselves of the irrational and unreasonable bars we set for ourselves at unrealistic heights.

This epiphany is not a license to slack off. No, certainly it isn’t. I’ve never been very good at slacking off. (A long since diagnosed over-achiever, I can’t sleep when I feel I’m not doing my best.) Rather this realization seems more in line with giving yourself permission to live a life you enjoy and to work hard at preserving the joie de vivre that goes along with it. For without this, I fear that life becomes little more than a chore, a checklist of to-do’s that never seems to get shorter despite our sweat and strain.

Perhaps this translates as an exercise in literary homiletics. Perchance it is because the dear friend who shared with me how he marvels at his created nature is a pastor that his tone has pervaded these pages. Regardless of my muse, I sincerely believe that what Anne Shirley says to Gilbert Blythe at the end of L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Avonlea sums my point up nicely.

“It’s just that I went looking for my ideals outside myself. I’ve discovered it’s not what the world holds for you. It’s what you bring to it. The dreams dearest to my heart are right here.” Judging from all I’ve lived and learned up to this moment, I suspect the bottom line is, at the end of any of our days, rich or poor, young or old, man or woman, the race is only with ourselves. To not actively seek out joy in the life that purposefully was created for us is a misuse of the gift.

We as a consumptive race go scrambling about trying to ingest from the world as much as we can, afraid that we won’t ever get enough or as much as the next guy. We walk an imaginary line trying to personify some standard of what it truly means to be “male” or “female” prescribed by goodness only knows who and yet we fail to actually meet ourselves in the process.

What seems to have been forgotten is that the real joy comes when we take the time to give the best of who we are and what we’re made of back into the world; to our children, our grandparents, our spouses, and ourselves. Will we spend our entire lives taking as much as we can rather than appreciating the world as it was fashioned or valuing the simple beauty in ourselves as we have been created; artistically and purposefully? When the sun sets on my brief race through this lifetime I want to know that I took the time to enjoy it and to make it enjoyable in kind. That being said, I think that I’ll walk this lap, and savor the scenery for a change.

How the Other Half Laughs

Well I meant to post this years ago...my favorite funny vignette. Jess if you're out there...thanks!

Do Men Giggle???

Being women, we notice the little nuances about life that, often, men will overlook. It's not that they don't care, they just don't think the way we do. You know, Mars and Venus and all that. Quite often it's these petites choses quotidiennes that lend themselves to why women laugh so darn much.

Take for example you and your best girl friend at age 13. I know that I remember Heather or Kristen and myself driving my poor father bananas with the sound of girlie giggling until every ungodly hour of the morning during all-too-frequent sleepovers. Worse yet, more often than not, if you asked us, we probably had little to no idea what was so blessed funny. Often things that normally would not be so funny on their own would appear, for that moment, the funniest damn thing you'd heard or seen in a century.

It came to my attention late one night, not so long ago that I had never actually heard a man giggle the way that I so often did and do with my girlfriends. I even went so far as to pose the question to some of my own girl friends to see if they, too, had come to the same questionable conclusion. Does the male species actually giggle? Not laugh, not chuckle...giggle.

Phone Parts, Farts and Marshmallow Hearts

I can think to put it no other way; we cavorted! Through the driving snow, Jessie and I laughed until it hurt. The whole weekend was an utter and complete loss. We’d driven 5 hours with the band (presumably to work all weekend helping with album pre-production…) but upon arriving we were, instead, perceived as “band aids… or groupies.” Heinous. The lady of the house hated us; the guys were in recording session more than 12 hours a day. The best we could do was run errands; which we did.

Between preparing and serving meals, retrieving items left behind at pre-production, grocery shopping, obtaining copious amounts of pink bismuth for the drummer who had elected to dine on cold pizza for breakfast and buying flowers, we laughed. We laughed at things that were mildly to uproariously funny but despite their level of laughability we giggled like 15 year olds until we were doubled over.

First on our list of goofy guffaw-worthy scenarios were men in the morning. More specifically, why it is that men expel gas at an alarming rate upon waking up out of any which orifice is most readily available. Per our query, the drummer, Scott, offers that he must swallow a lot of air while sleeping open-mouthed, then promptly farts and gives us girls a satiated cheese whiz grin.

Next on our list of inter-gender inquiries was food. Men will eat anything...anytime. Our trip to Maryland with the guys was over Valentine's Day weekend and so Jessie and I decided to get each boy a rose. We quickly amended our choice, however, to marshmallow peeps in the shape of hearts when we saw the price tag on the flowers. Yikes! We reasoned that the guys like junk food so they'd appreciate this. It was red, sticky sweet and smelled like the strongest strawberry flavored bubble gum we'd ever encountered.

On our drive back to the studio, Jess and I decided we'd give these sugar bombs a try. The red sugar melts on your pallet as the sweet scent of strawberry assails every sense. Your mouth puckers at how sweet it tastes but you chew and chew and chew knowing full well that this IS your dentist’s worst nightmare. The marshmallow disintegrates in your mouth and the candy dissolves. After one and a half of these crazy treats your body goes immediately into the preliminary stages of diabetic shock at which point we decide anything this sweet is better off left as chewing gum.

With that in mind, I turn to Jessie saying, "Whoa." She agrees and says. "Yeah kind of intense, like bubblegum on steroids." I smile at her assessment and with a loud burst of laughter respond, "ABSOLUTELY...Strawberry cream hearts,....good for chewing, not for eating." Well that was the end of us. The ride to Mechanicsville from Waldorf takes 20 minutes. We laughed the whole way.

About a year earlier, I experienced the same phenomenon with two other girlfriends. At this point we all of us were over the age of 22 and decided we needed to have a girls night in, or, in plain English, a sleepover! I had just bought a new cell phone, which I was fiddling with all evening in a vain attempt to master all the little technological nuances thereof.

Along with my phone came a little plastic pack complete with the hip clip and a little rubber stopper with directions as to how to use each with my phone. According to these, the plastic plug in the back of the phone had to be removed so the hip clip could be used. That seemed straight forward enough. However you can imagine the kind of raucous laughter that was generated by the instructions concerning how to employ the little rubber stopper while the hands free jack is not in use.

Now I KNOW someone did not proofread these directions or they would have known that, in modern colloquial American English, an instruction to "Jam plug in jack hole" would set a LOT of people laughing. Truth be told, I'm having a good laugh about it now. I collapsed out of my chair onto the floor, with my two girlfriends demanding to know what in the name of heaven was so funny. When I handed them my "directions" it took two hours for the laughter to cease and more than two weeks before statements like "Pssst....Hanna! You're jack hole is showing!" to finally slow to a halt.

A Hung Jury

With these stories retold, I truly want to know, do men laugh themselves silly the way we women do? I really hope so. Last week while falling asleep with my friend Jessie and laughing so loud about David Bowie's "obnoxious package" in Labyrinth, that we had to lay face down in our pillows, I asked her again, "Do you think Tucker and the boys actually giggle like this?"

She gave it a good minute's thought and came to the conclusion that, whereas she'd seen her boyfriend give a good belly laugh or two, she hadn't known any guy to really giggle for a prolonged period of time. "Not like we did just now" she said.

That's too bad, I thought. I mean, although I don't relish the stomach cramps and reprimands from tired parents in rooms only across the hall, the incredible freedom in that moment when you laugh so hard you cannot see straight is a feeling no one should ever miss.

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Requiem unposted version

Requiem

This blog is dedicated to C. Anderson. No one will ever read it, I don't intend to publicize it...it's just here.

Someone told me that you were not going to be part of the thing I identify you most with anymore. Well, no they didn't actually TELL me. I read it. Several times in fact, in press release after press release after blog posting after Myspace bulletin.

It's a strange concept to me, you see. For I remember the very first night we met, the very first words we spoke and I remember holding my breath with excitement and delight the first time I saw you walk up my driveway to hand me promotional materials (I still have the box they came in)...for I had been acquired by your band. Kicking and screaming.

I remember an e-mail on a cool October afternoon announcing I was "on board." I distinctly felt my guts say, "Hell, no, not this again." I remember the first time I realized...I was safe with you and yours.

I remember CBGBs, recording over my 25th Birthday in Waldorf, Maryland, I remember road trips to Connecticut, nights at the Frat house in Long Island. I recall, fondly, practices off Route 46 and the night I told you all I was leaving for Washington in a week. I remember our one and only fight, I remember the sincerest apologies from us both. I remember laughing more than I remember worrying. I remember nearly killing a roadie from Wakefield for smoking "you-know-what" in your bedroom.

I want you to know that though my sincere prayer for you is that you wake from the Peter Pan identity you cling to...I will never forget you as you were, as you have been, as you one day promised you would be.

You see...the thing you did for me was recognize me. You saw the diamond that had been roughed up, you knew its value and you pursued it with vigor.

Sir... I have the open doors I have because I was brave enough to follow my heart and your invitation to step out of myself and into the world as it was ready to receive me.

My dear brother I pray for you to wake up out of your musical dream, awaken to all God has called you to become and I pray, oh Sweet Heaven, it gives you your wish...but I promise, you'll never "Sprout" wings living like this. So embrace your true age, and know that with it, wisdom will be profound. Live so you can be proud of your track record, and record tracks in kind.

I may never know what happened but I've seen the inside of the T the P and the R... and I don't know how it can possibly go on existing without you in it. I cannot fathom the pain but if my words mean anything I pray you hear me say Hope with abandon, pray with ambition and thrive in your grown up identity. It's time to grow up Peter Pan....and that's okay. I cannot wait to meet you on this side of the fence when you finally cross over.

MIAMISBURG RHAPSODY

written in August 2006

I have inherited a nightmare. It is a legacy of achievement that seems, without fail, to prevent me from being, in any way, simple. There is NO simple in my life. Looking around at my peers I see their lives carving out sensible and tangible niches in front of them. I have no niche. I have multiple ports of call…and I’m beginning to question WHY?

Raised in a loving but mostly non-practicing Catholic home, I was pushed, by my parents to achieve. My father, an ex-marine who only has his GED, had been a construction worker then a project manager and finally an administrator for buildings and grounds facilities in school systems. My mother was an educator with a bachelor’s degree so naturally education was a focal point in our home if not always than at the very least, from the time I was about 10 or 11. Just in time to send me off, admittedly of my own choosing, to an all-female, private, elite, Catholic high school. Let the fast tracking begin.

The faculty whispered, “College,” in our ears from the first day of my freshman fall semester…it wasn’t a suggestion. This was our reality. Academy girls went to college; and so I did. Then came three years of grad school because, hey, if anyone in our family was going to be the first woman with Master’s degree…it would, of course, have to be me. After all, mom had said, “don’t stop, go and get all your education finished!!”

At the same time my only sibling pursued a bohemian lifestyle funded by my newly widowed father. Six would-be months of study in Europe turned into a full year. The later six months of her jaunt were nothing more than a sabbatical for my poor sibling who simply couldn’t “deal” with the loss of mom. Meanwhile I studied, taught French, worked part time and got straight A’s.

To what end?

Well let’s skip the music industry mental breakdown period. It’s a tired subject. Fast forward…

I live in the busiest Metropolis on the East Coast. Perhaps some would argue that title is rightfully held by New York City; but this year being a presidential election year, I’m going to have to beg to differ.

So anyway here I am. After surviving a rough freshman year in DC, I finally feel like I have my feet under me,, (a real job, health insurance, good roommates, friends I care for, a car I like, a city so beautiful and majestic that I fall in love with it anew every morning (though perhaps groan at its traffic at night). Then three months ago BANG, shockwaves!!!!!

I’ve attempted to set aside all the most complicating factors in my life, or so I thought. I ditched the political career, quit music consulting, and just decided to accept a regular Joe job. I figure I can just enjoy my life a little now and smell the roses. Perhaps it’s just that I am twenty-six, but it’s as if there are things I so deeply desire in my life that I feel short of breath at the mere thought of their absence. What are they? Good question…let’s run a list.

Intellectual stimulation – I need challenge. I need to be surrounded by people with whom I can discuss books and music and law and government, fine wine and movies. Ya know, stuff I like.

Intimacy – I’m talking the real stuff. The kinds of relationships with people that let you speak to them, really. Close together, spatially and shoot right from the hip.

Family – I don’t have one anymore. Time with them is the thing I desire more than anything, I think.

Culture – I am a creature of internationalism. I am anything but white-bread. I can not subsist on a culture of norms and status quo.

God - the most important of all needs. It is that force which drives my search for the four previous desires and, at the same time, confounds me. It leads me to question what I am destined for and what I must consider an acceptable opportunity cost to achieve it.

So why create a list as “heavy” as this?

I’ve just spent the weekend in Dayton, Ohio *enter long blank stare and the sound of crickets rioting*. I will admit I was rendered completely claustrophobic by all the wide-open spaces and huge industrial plants. I felt ridiculous but couldn’t help wondering to myself, good grief where in the heck would a girl get a decent set of highlights and pedicure around here? And even if she could find them, who would ever know?! They’d be hidden under her hard hat and steel-tipped Doc Martens!

But then there is the question of him. (Of course there is a man involved.) We’ll just call him the Prospect. He’s tall, decent looking, has a good heart and a real love of life. Oh, and did I mention, he really likes me. He’s the settling type, a family man in the making. A lot of his closest friends have wives. Almost all have steady girlfriends. He speaks to those things on my list, which I feel I desire in my life most.

He is close with his fraternity brothers and remains exuberant about his college days. He talks with his parents often. He’s educated and appreciates art, beauty and a cold beer with a simultaneous and fluid adaptation. The Prospect works hard at his job because he truly likes it. He’s quirky in an endearing fashion and is floored by my capacity to read his body language. Again, he feeds my need to set up intimacy.

However, he’s contented in his mid-western surroundings and is acutely aware of my instant culture shock the first night I arrive. Perhaps it was the cool manner with which certain friends of his treated me. Perhaps it was that they could not seem to understand why I spoke of politics and wore a pashmina and Vera Wang perfume instead of Eddie Bauer and Vanilla Fields.

I am an initial outcast; too smart and way too metropolitan for their tastes. A night at the fancy Irish Pub serves as the living end of fine dining in their realm. When he visited DC we took him for Ethiopian cuisine and outdoor dancing at the Reagan Building pavilion. But, to be fair, I reflect back to the rooftop hotel jazz bar we sat in that first night in Ohio. Lovely low lights with a view of downtown Dayton. (mainly parking garages and non-descript edifices)I sat there, swilling Cabernet, as they drank Zinfandel and Budweiser. One drank Merlot, but grasped the stem of the glass as though it were a lollipop handle. I stifled a chuckle.

My thoughts drifted to a similar rooftop bar view I’d seen from the top of the Ritz Carlton in Pentagon City. The Capital Dome, Washington Monument and all of Downtown DC glittering in the panoramic distance. I relay this view verbally to the Prospect who blinks and nods in non-committal fashion.

Oh my word I’m a snob!!!! But I feel as if it’s a nurtured thing. I don’t mean to be perceived as believing I’m of a superior frame of mind. I think that it’s just that, unlike the other 5 people at this table, have seen most of Europe, shopped in the market in the Old City on David Street in Jerusalem and seen Broadway musicals on Broadway. I grew up in New Jersey for pity’s sake! It was right there. Those are MY only bases for comparison. I’ve never felt so stupid for sounding so “smart.”

My absolute confusion and angst derives, lately, from a true desire for familial attributes to my life and the unavoidable blockade to this reality. For starters, MY WHOLE LIFE!!!

I am what one might call a debutante, educated by the best to work for and with the elite. Sometimes I’ll admit that lends itself to my feeling like a trained seal. Lately it makes me feel like I have no way of communicating with regular people. I like fine wine (and don’t have to pay more than 9 dollars a bottle b/c I know the difference between what is good and what is just pricey). But even that is a product of actually taking a viticulture course in Burgundy itself. Oy!

I am a showpiece; an unintentional braggart. I have limited means of interacting with people from the Mid-west who have no concept of a life like the one I’ve lead. Up until this past weekend I felt mediocre, same as everyone I knew. I thought I hated it. I was wrong.

I know for a fact that the men I have met in the greater DC-Metro area are much like the, ahem, ‘gentlemen’ I attended graduate school with. We referred to them as “men who believed they were currency on two legs.” I rolled my eyes a lot. Self-importance, I think, is one of the great intimacy killers. I know that I prefer to marry a simple man who can latently appreciate some of the finer things in life for their own sake, not for the sake of status or erudition. That is my honest approach to these same things.

My dilemma lies in the fact that I can’t even speak to men like this for the most part. Simple men that is. Why not?? I scare the hell out of them or come across as “high-maintenance,” or at least, snobby. I’m not snobby. I just, ya know, had pushy parents who made me do all kinds of brainy stuff as a kid. Like that’s MY fault. I’m feeling moderately annoyed at the fact that my educated upbringing saddles me with a need to apologize for that which my first life lessons predisposed me.

Oh it’s not just men. My own godmother has disowned me for reasons which, until recent years, escaped me. All my formative years were spent with members of my family whispering to me how bright I was and how I should go here and do this and what an intelligent young lady I was. How they bragged. Frankly it was embarrassing! But as I grew and gained diploma after diploma, what was once pride was quickly replaced with reproach, as if to say, “Humph, just who do you think YOU are, Miss Smarty-pants?” Well that’s just great.

By about my freshman year of college, I realized I liked being smart. It felt right. I didn’t like not knowing things or not being able to offer relevant and interesting contributions to discussions and research. I’m hardwired like that. I have no problem with that. It’s what has always been expected of me and now it’s what I expect of me.


I’ll never forget my first semester freshman public speaking class where a boy named Dan Ferisse, who continually sniggered each time I spoke, said the following when I asked him what his problem with me was. He’d said, “why do you have to sound so smart all the time?” with a wry grin on his plump face. I shook my head and very levelly replied, “Why do you have to be so negative all the time? At least I’m productive.”

Years later I’d meet Brian. He’s a dear friend and had, at first, been a romantic interest. We talked often and he pointed out how he enjoyed being challenged by my intellect. The caveat always came, however, when we spoke of significant others, that I probably was still single because, and I’ll quote him directly, that, I’m “too intelligent, too quick and too witty. It’s a turn off sometimes. Guys don’t like to feel intimidated.”

This conversation, though it had me looking at my calendar to, in fact, be sure it was not 1953, called up the same old question. Smart outspoken women are under appreciated and avoided or castigated because they use the gift they are given. If Jessica Simpson, who, in my humble opine, cannot find a coherent intellectual thought with two hands and a flashlight, forevermore uses her beautiful voice to sing, no one will knock on her all that much. True, she’s goofed about using all the requisite blond jokes, but she has a hunky hubby, a fat bank account and all the nice things in life. Why? Pretty and sings.

Now most of the female population does not look like Jessica Simpson or even Marge Simpson (thankfully), but what I know to be true is that if it were a man, whose pursuits were intellectual he’d be considered a renaissance man or an aficionado of some kind rather than a snob or a know-it-all. Okay, okay let’s not go down that road. You’re right. I’m not a feminist; I’m a humanist. I like people and believe if you have a gift it should be appreciated rather than scoffed at.

So here I sit, missing the Prospect. Unable to get my mind off the whole weekend I fluctuate from looking at job postings in Ohio to feeling claustrophobic at the thought of the entire state of Ohio.

What do I do? I feel short of breath at the thought of forgetting about the Prospect and starting over. Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. Mostly I’m afraid that whatever it is I have been raised to become was a mistake.

I have no niche. I am not skinny, rich and/or the daughter or some well-known professionals. But I have two bachelors and two masters degrees in business, international relations and government. This means I can be somebody’s administrative assistant in DC speak.

But I can’t hang out with regular blue-collar folks either. Why? Because I have two bachelors and two masters degrees in business, international relations and government. And these people pigeonhole me as someone who will pigeonhole them before even asking if I mind drinking light beer. (Make it a Coors Light thanks).

Not erudite enough for the erudite and too smart for the commoners. Is this an actual sect of the human race, or am I and others like me just the mal-contented enigmas who live in limbo?

How much of one part of my life and personality must someone in this situation sacrifice or view as opportunity cost to fit-in with one side or the other? Does a choice need to be made at all? Why can neither extreme acquiesce to my middle? Do they?

All the while I dream of an empathetic spouse and warmly lit home in the country to which I can return after a long day of work at a job I love for a glass of dark red Burgundy wine and a meat and potatoes meal.

A divine and elusive juxtaposition.