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…