Mange Takk

A couple years ago I shared a charming New Yorker article about Thanksgiving with friends, mentioning it was about one of our trustees and his family.  My friend Karen didn't  comment on unusualness of Iraqi general at a family holiday meal in Westport during the height of the war, instead she remarked she wanted to sign up for an international hospitality service like that.

Around June Karen starts mentioning "Maybe we can have him come for Thanksgiving?", pre-booking guests for an annual holiday fete at her home in Philadelphia, a 200 year old colonial row house in Society Hill.

I was part of Karen's original Thanksgivings, when she lived in NYC with her ex-husband Jeff two decades ago.   They were two Upper West Side investment banker yuppies (therefore the most "adult" in our friend group), so began hosting friends-giving Thanksgivings for those of us not traveling home to see family.

Karen continued her Thanksgiving tradition after she and Jeff moved to Philadelphia, and kept the house and the Thanksgiving party after her divorce.  She now co-hosts with her boyfriend and former Norwegian camp sweetheart Viggo,  a Viking by way of Minnesota.

I began attending Thanksgivings again with Karen and Viggo when I first moved back East from California, staying 3 nights for a true Big Chill style weekend. This year, like past years, was a similar gathering of the tribe for a meal, laughing about stories of past Thanksgivings (we determined I missed the 'dirty charade' year...), with a steady stream of people arriving early evening to late night after they finished their own family meal.

A notable guest missing from the gathering, was Alan, who passed away three months earlier from complications in surgery.  During Thanksgiving day discussions about Alan, I reflected on a yoga class Karen, Jen and I attended earlier that day, where the teacher Bruno opened the class with a discussion around gratitude:

"This is gratitude for all things, for everything - for the tough times too," he said, "For the tough times are what help you grow."  

I thought about my own losses earlier this year, with the death of my father and a close friend, and was also grateful for those months between then and now.  For peace.

On Friday, after a breakfast of leftovers, and looking at college scrapbooks and silently marveling at the duration of our friendship over the years, we bundled up to tour Philadelphia to visit the Christmas fair at Love Park and the Comcast Holiday Light Show, which Viggo was insistent upon.

"Because this is what we do," he said, and I smiled to think about new traditions.

New traditions freshen longtime traditions.

Who's not with us this year gets balanced with who is.

And for all things, we give mange takk, many thanks.

Resistance

After upgrading my computer, renaming the blog, enlisting support to trouble-shoot technical glitches and alerting many of you to the “relaunch”  ta-dah!— well….the blank page stared back at me. 

Hello Resistance, we meet again.  

I had never really defined ‘lack of action’ this way before until a wonderfully insightful book called “The War of Art” found me a few months ago.  As Steven Pressfield writes, “Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard or smelled.  But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from work-in-potential.  It’s a repelling force.  It's negative.  Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work…”

It's “Talking about a revolution,” as my friend Dave would say. 

Once I became aware of Resistance, I began seeing it everywhere, manifesting its many forms.  

It’s a daily occurrence at work, and I would even say that it’s the barrier between good to great, and truly realizing our potential.  Resistance can even be more apparent with loved ones, whose best self you see and believe in, and yet are armed with excuses you may know better than your own.

Steven Pressfield defines Resistance as the insidious enemy within, that thwarts plans and dreams, sabotaging small and large efforts, distracting with activity, vice and obligations.  

Distracting perhaps from a life assignment…that may go unrealized. 

With me, the blank sheet of paper gets tied up with waiting for inspiration to strike, in order to attempt to create something worth reading. Pressfield calls this waiting on the Muse.

The Muse seems to always be around during the seasons when life really flows, and everything clicks and falls into place. It’s in the ebbs, where things feel dry, dark and barren, when Resistance really shows up, sweeping in for the easy victory. 

It’s in these moments that you must begin (like I am beginning now), not knowing where you are going, though keeping the faith that if you just start, if you make the first move, eventually the Muse will show up again…

Back to the Now

This is the blog formerly known as "Back to the Future", that was first birthed on a warm late August night in 2009 in San Clemente, California with my friend Jen.

I had told Jen earlier in the evening over drinks that I wanted to create a blog about returning back to New York City for the second time after life in a sleepy southern California beach town. "Back to the Future" was the inspired title that came to me after my friend/massage therapist Heather gave me a massage to calm my relocation nerves using an oil called "Into the Future" which I mistakenly kept calling Back to the Future.

As I reread the first post I created, when I was supposed to be packing, and look at the photo on my "About me" section, I remember that girl I was....packing box after box with friends Suzi, Jane and Ellen, planning goodbyes, excited, scared, anxious, wondering if I was making a dreadful mistake, really unsure of what was ahead.  And of course in the back of mind, my friend Dave's voice was always there, the change catalyst, pushing me towards the leap,  "We're going to the future people, are you coming??"

I told myself I was writing "Back to the Future" so I could stay in touch with California friends and family members, though it was really more of a grounding salve for my own wobbly nerves in the weeks and months ahead.  After a while, I finally let go of "I just moved" essays (my friends Stacy and Greta both said, a few times, "You live here now!") and posts became less about the transition, and more about life in NYC part 2.

Sometimes I wrote for a particular person (my muse was my Aunt Ruth at the time); sometimes something seemingly out of nowhere would inspire the writing, and whatever I was wrestling with in my mind would miraculously resolve once I began.   I would write and publish quickly, knowing I'd lose my nerve and vulnerability if I stopped to edit too much.  Inevitably I'd notice a typo or two after I hit "publish".  "Your followers don't mind the typos..."  my friend Lauren said kindly.

Over time, I'm not sure what happened, though less of 'me' came through.  Sometimes there's the dry periods that comes to writers.  Though I think it was a matter of looking down on the tightrope, pulling up the drawbridge, closing your heart.  Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.  The words stayed trapped inside.

I told someone several months ago that perhaps I had writers' block, as I didn't have ideas on what to write about...which wasn't quite true.  A good friend was diagnosed with a rare cancer earlier this year, and my father was battling the awful disease of ALS.  I had a lot of 'content' and things to say... though they were subscribers and so I edited myself by not even beginning.

A few months ago, that 'problem' sadly resolved itself...

Resistance showed up in another form when I thought about dusting off the blog and thought about changing platforms, starting new,  clean slate, new title.   Then it became a matter of my own technology limitations, and not knowing how to actually move blog archives, a desire to move forward though not losing the roots of where I came from.  There's always a reason why you can't do something...

As in many struggles, sometimes it's the simplest answer when I realized, finally, that I could simply rename the blog.

I'm not sure what posts will be inspired for this 'new' blog of mine, though I am lowering the drawbridge and ready to share again.

Thanks for reading.

We Are So Lucky

My friend Dave once said, in his inimitable funny and wise way, that there should be a Death Channel to prepare us for the inevitable.   

Steve Jobs recognized the same truism in his famous commencement speech for Stanford grads:

“Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.  Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important….No one wants to die.  Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share.  No one has ever escaped it.  And that is as it should be as Death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is Life’s change agent….”

Though we are rarely prepared when it happens.   

We are blindsided when a good friend gets an unexpected scary health diagnosis in early February and puts on a fight, and her family, friends and loved ones (numbering in the thousands I think!) put on a fight, and then impossibly, shockingly we learn…the treatment isn’t working.   

We hear the facts, and yet somehow that doesn’t sink in.

About two weeks ago, Jen went into hospice care, and two days ago while I was away on a work trip we learned that Jen passed away.  And tomorrow morning we, her broken hearted loved ones,  go to her funeral, and honor the amazing daughter/aunt/colleague/dear friend she was. 

And then we do the impossible, and somehow move forward without her.

Beloved by all, her ad agency created a truly wonderful happy video, giving you a glimpse into the type of person she was, and the profound impact she had on so many people.   For  many of us, Jen was often the person you’d want to talk with about major and minor life events.  And of course, she’s the one who I want to talk with most about this.

When I moved back to New York 4 ½ years ago, she gave me this print as a homecoming present.  For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reflecting on its words - We Are So Lucky -  thinking that none of this felt very fair, or very lucky.

And yet...if truly lucky people recognize it’s the people they love and get to share life with that matter most, Jen may be one of the luckiest of us all. 

Lessons from Winter

The above photo is of Grace Court looking west towards the river, that I think I either snapped last week or a couple snow storms ago.  I have lost count! 

My first winter back I remember complaining a lot, wishing I was back in California and doing yoga on the beach surrounded by flowering trees and leaping dolphins in the magical coves of Laguna.  My friend Jen commented I sounded a lot like Caroline, our friend Lisa's young daughter, who had a temper tantrum one cold January because she put on her bathing suit and wanted to go to the beach.  Kindof cute when you're five, not as much when you're several years older...

After 4 winters back East, I believe I have finally learned how to appreciate, and most of the time, embrace winter.   My acupuncturist (I say this knowing a few of you may chuckle and think "California" still, and yes) discusses seasons with the Chinese Medicine perspective, as symbolic seasonal shifts to be in harmony with for optimal health and well being.

Ultimately, it's also a lesson in pragmatism...Winter in the Northeast is an inevitability,  and somewhat foolish to keep resisting it;  may as well go for comfort not style in big down coats and snow boots, keep your head and neck warm and be like those smart bears and stay inside with hot soup and warm tea and just go to bed early until spring buds eventually arrive.

Of course there's a certain beauty to winter,  a sense of stillness and quiet, when you can look at trees and see "rest" instead of "barren".  You can look at the absence of color whiteness, like the photo above, and think "how peaceful" vs. "where is Hudson River?" and "Is the sun ever coming back??"    Attitude shifts are the critical ingredient in glass half full vs. glass half empty thinking, though of course some days are harder than others to maintain that perspective...


Yesterday a friend of mine from Manitoba, Canada (who I would hope has perfected the idea of embracing winter even better than myself!) posted a high minded platitude "Gratitude with every step" on her facebook status, and I smiled appreciating the sentiment.

I learned a few seconds later she updated the post and wrote:  "Now that we can edit our statuses, I can tell you than about 20 seconds after I posted the above - while feeling the lift of gratitude in my steps, I stepped in shit, literally, and I forgot all about the gratitude.  Well played life, well played." 

It brought me back to earlier this week, during the snow/freezing rain/ice storm of Wednesday, when I was making my way into midtown with my fellow subway commuters, slogging our way through slow crowded trains, grumpy people with wet umbrellas, and small lakes of slush on Park Avenue.   Though I was wearing high Adirondack boots, I stepped into a deep puddle of slush and water, and got my feet wet,  and grimaced as I thought about being in a full day meeting with wet socks, wet hair and cold feet.

Finally making my way to the conference room where our meeting was held, I was pulling off my boots and socks and struggling to maintain a sense being calm and pleasant to my colleagues (though felt like growling "Our office is closed, why in the world didn't we cancel this meeting??"), when I happened to check my phone and saw a text from a good friend....sharing unfortunate news about her health diagnosis, and that she was in a state of shock. 

My heart sank as I immediately stopped thinking about my wet feet and ice falling off the building, thinking instead of my friend and trying to imagine what she must be feeling and struggling with.  

When you step into the unexpected large puddles or "shit" of life,  you immediately realize there's an enormous difference between the theory and practice of rolling with the punches and maintaining gratitude with every step.   During those blindsiding times, I think it's simply enough to just try to do the best you can, and when you're able, put one foot after the other...

Back to the Future

Last weekend I was in Chicago for Northwestern's homecoming and my college reunion.  

Initially walking into the reunion party on Friday night was a bit shocking as many people looked a bit older than how I pictured them in my mind from freshman year!  (My Rob has a theory that your friends don't age, though others do...).  Evanston also blossomed from a 'dry town' where the prevailing nightlife was going to a fraternity party or heading south to Chicago,  to a true college town with restaurants, shops and of course bars.

The next day, walking around the beautiful campus, located on the shores of Lake Michigan, we also noted what's changed and what's endured.  

Though the biggest change was the sense of school spirit, which I think is a direct link to having a great football team.    

When I was in school, Northwestern's football team was legendary for its string of losses, and the prevailing sentiment was intellectual apathy.   "Lake the posts"  referred to the rare victory tradition of students ripping the goal posts down  for a Lake Michigan bath.   

Though we weren't the ultimate underdogs,  we seemed to expect to lose...

Now, in dramatic contrast, last Saturday students and alums were decked in purple, the water fountain had purple water, ESPN was on campus, and the nationally ranked football team led by the beloved coach Pat Fitzgerald was going to play in a primetime ABC broadcast of the Northwestern Wildcats vs. Ohio State Buckeyes.  

Ohio State, #3 in the nation, consistently a "great football team" (and rival if you grew up in Michigan), was predicted to win.  And yet, during the game, it seemed as if, as if...a miracle might happen.

In the end we lost, yet played like we expected to win.   My friend Dennis commented that if we won, Northwestern might have moved up to a top 10 national ranking.  "But that can't really happen," he said,  "We're not supposed to have a good football team." 

Interesting to think about the limitations of the fixed ideas we carry with us. 

What's Right in Front of You

When I lived on the west coast, looking at a different ocean for six years, I often thought of the Atlantic.

Now the Atlantic didn't conjure up images of beach trails and drum circles, someone strumming a guitar around a fire pit, surfers turtling out under the waves for the last surf of the day before the sun slipped past the horizon.  That was California, the golden dream of the golden land, or "The great experiment" as my friend Dave would sometimes say.   A place so beautiful that when I saw it last, I almost couldn't believe I once lived there.

Now the Atlantic was ultimately more than dunes and soft grasses, the warm gulf stream waters of South Florida and big white sandy stretches of Eastern Long Island and the rocky coastlines and barrier islands of Nova Scotia.  It was who not what, that ultimately anchored me back East. 

(Though a good friend in California did comment that I could 'Take a lap around the room before committing to a location'.)  

A special trick of course is to make sure to mentally capture the moment, the time, when it happens, trying not to skip ahead too much, realizing that one day the "good ol' days' will be the actual day you are in at the moment.    A yoga teacher might say this is being present.  It's also about appreciation, which is often seen best in hindsight instead of the actual moment.

Over the 4th of July, I was at an annual party, where the lawn was full of people dressed in red, white and blue, and fireworks being shot off right over head (to the tune of Neil Diamond "Coming to America" no less).   It was one of those perfect East Coast July evenings, blue skies, mild weather and ice cream, crisp white beadboard and soft purple hydrangeas in full bloom.

More than once it has reminded me of the final scene in the film "Meet Joe Black" where Joe Black (death, played by Brad Pitt) is about to escort William Parrish (Anthony Hopkins) away, later that evening, during his 65th birthday celebration.  William Parrish has gotten a rare 'heads up' about Joe Black's nature, so he's given the rare gift of not wasting the moment.  Fireworks are exploding over head and everyone that William Parrish knows and loves are with him that night.  William Parrish notices Joe Black caught up in the beauty all around him and comments, "It's hard to let go isn't it."   Joe replies, "Yes it is, Bill."  Bill replies, "And that's life...what can I tell you."

Enjoying the ride, all of the ride, requires a certain discipline, and more often than not, you're only able to see the road signs when looking backwards.

Yesterday I was rushing from work to meet two close friend I've known for over 20 plus years, one who was in town for  a meeting.   My office air conditioning was broken and I was running late due to a train stall and being stuck underground with equally sweaty and grumpy people.    As I made my way down 6th Avenue, I had to laugh at the big reminder right in front of me.

EnJOY.