The Little House in Miami

“The house is closed.  Your keys are now mementos,” was the text that I received from my brother Steve after the family home had sold last week.   I stood there in my office and let out a small gasp.   I knew the closing was supposed to be that Friday or Monday in Miami depending the last minute details from the buyers.   Still, the idea of never going into the house which we had owned since 1958 seemed at bit surreal.   My arrival at the house on 90^th court did not happen until 1963, so my sister Kathy and brothers Bill and Steve had some extra time to make it their own before they had to deal with a new baby.  Sharon was born in 1964 which then made the family complete. 

I had not been home since my father died in 2002 when I went down for the funeral.  Being in the house and not seeing him sit in his recliner also seemed to be surreal although ironically that’s where he passed away.   Max and I had moved to Georgia in 1998 and had been down periodically, but Mom and Dad came up so often it didn’t seem necessary to go down there to see them.   A few years ago when Mom could not live alone anymore she moved up to Tallahassee so the house had been vacant since then.  My mother still had to pay the taxes and run the AC so that her South Florida home would not be overrun with mold which the moist tropical weather can do in just a few weeks.  

The words of the text were still stinging.  Fighting back tears was a losing battle so I quickly ducked into the bathroom so none of my co-workers could see me.  The house I grew up in was no longer ours - I could never go home again.  I had to work late that night so I didn’t get home until after 10:00 p.m.  I told Max the house was sold and he could see it affected me.   He hugged me and said it was a very good house.  I told him I wanted the new family to laugh and love as much as we did. 

The next morning I cuddled with my husband, put my head on his chest and started to cry.  A large chapter of my life was now most definitely closed and could never be reopened-and now it belonged to someone else.  So much had happened in the Cody house.  I knew how rare it was that one family could own a house that was not a farm or an estate in England for over 56 years - in the South Florida suburbs that is just unheard of.  

Gazing out of the second floor window of my own house, I thought about when I was a little girl.  I would look out my bedroom window during the Christmas season and I felt especially safe seeing the holiday lights.  I guess as a kid, I reasoned that nothing bad could happen as long as my window was framed in multiple colors of red, green, blue and orange.  When I put the Christmas lights up at our house, I make a special effort to have lights frame our bedroom window so I can look outside and feel that all is right with the world.  Our ranch house did not have a fire place (we lived in Miami, which is not a place known for cold weather hence the lack of a hearth) - so my parents would tell us that they would stay up and let Santa in.  

On Christmas morning, the Cody kids would descend on the presents that were in five different piles that all had the same number of presents.   We got to open two before church and then the rest after services and going out to breakfast.   Since Miami never really got cold in the winter, we’d run around in Miami Dolphin Jerseys with shorts and go to our friend’s houses to see what sort of  holiday haul they got.   Yeah, back then, you could just walk down the street and hang with your friends - there was no cell phones, Facebooking or Tweeting.   You could also smell the different holiday feasts being cooked as you walked on the sidewalk from house to house.  

Our backyard had a swing set that my sister Sharon and I would play on since we were close in age - just 16 months apart.   Unlike Georgia, the terrain in Miami is pretty flat so our backyard was fenced in but connected to four other houses in the back and to the side.  You could cut between the yards to go directly across to Southwest Sr. High which was literally a stone’s throw from my house.  If the jalousie windows were open, you could hear the marching band practicing for football season.   The backyard also kept a little plastic kiddie pool which Sharon and I splashed in as little three and four year old girlie bears.  It was an idyllic little house on a little lot in a simple middle class neighborhood - it was home.  

It was the place I learned to walk, talk and  have my hair done by my big sister Kathy.  It was the place where we did Easter egg hunts year after year even after we had grown up and gotten our own homes and apartments nearby.  It was a place where you could walk for hours on Halloween and come back with a pillow case full of candy.  It was the place where my family discussed around the dinner table what was going on the Vietnam War and my sister’s need to demonstrate against it, the assassinations of the Kennedys, why Nixon was a crook, the first gay rights demonstrations with Anita Bryant, the Dolphin’s perfect season, etc.  It was a place where you could eat politically incorrect food like a sausage noodle casserole, ham & corn pudding and bacon and swiss cheese quiche (which my dad and brothers devoured easily because they didn’t care whether people thought they were real men).  It was the place were I got my two front baby teeth knocked out riding a bike in the street and where I hit my head on the water heater and sliced my forehead open both of which resulted in panicked runs to South Miami Hospital (luckily, my being a genuinely clumsy kid did not warrant a visit from DFACS).  It was where Max and my dad bonded over cooking and our refrigerator made chirping sounds like a bird - that went on for years which Max found charming. 

As I look out my own living room window writing this, the leaves are beginning to change  because it’s autumn - something I never got to experience in Miami.  We’ve lived in this house for 10 years and it’s bigger than that petite house in Miami.  Each of my kids has their own rooms and the bathrooms are a pretty good size.  It’s two stories which is not something you saw a lot of in Miami in the late 1950’s to 1970’s.  We get snow here from time to time and are not any better prepared then the folks in South Florida were when it snowed in 1977 as Snowmaggeon this year so painfully pointed out.   I’m not sure we’ll live here for 56 years, but I hope that my kids have the sort of happy memories I had in that little house that managed to shelter two parents and five kids who could not have been more different.  Maybe the proximity in that house helped us learn the fine art of having to get along.  The beauty of having a big family in a little space is that it’s always noisy and sulking quietly in your room is impossible because once one sibling pisses you off something else happens and you form a temporary alliance for pay back.  

As I texted back to my brother Steve - he reminded me that I still have the

memories and I reminded him I still had the canisters of home movies in which I transfer every year for the family to look at for the holidays.  Maybe this year I can find footage that is strictly about the house - that little house that held a family together through for almost six decades of Easter Egg hunts, Halloweens, Christmas mornings, Thanksgivings, five weddings, 14 grandkids and a funeral.  Maybe my brothers and sisters will remember how close we were physically and emotionally - even though we live in different states.   And maybe my kids and I will watch TV together in the master bedroom because watching TV in your parents room while sitting on their bed is the best thing ever and we’ll have bacon and swiss cheese quiche for brunch.  Yeah, Max was right - it was a very good house. 

Thanksgiving – The Other White Meat

It's October 31^st around 9:00 p.m. and the candy fueled decaying corpse of Halloween wasn’t even cold when the commercials for Christmas started.  The bright lights, festivities and the message was that the best time to get with your family is that magic day in December. There was no message about that holiday that falls on the fourth Thursday in November - the holiday that is traditionally reserved for reflection to give thanks for all we have and the blessings bestowed on us.  Thanksgiving is now officially a speed bump on the way to the more financially bloated Christmas holiday. 

I have always loved Thanksgiving even if it does give me a dose of angst as I know that my days of getting everything done before December 25^th are starting to tick away.  It used to be the one day that you knew you had to slow down because the stores were all closed.  If you worked in retail, it gave you a day to rest before the onslaught of Black Friday  - a day when legions of shoppers try to take their local malls, Targets and Wal-Marts like soldiers storming Normandy in WWII.  Black Friday is not for the faint of heart – it takes steely nerves, a strategy and a take no prisoner’s attitude – on that day, you keep your head down and know that fear is good, fear will keep you alive.  It’s precisely why taking Thanksgiving to take stock of your life is so important – you never know when reaching for that drastically reduced big screen TV might be your last.  But seriously, it’s supposed to be a time to be with family – enjoying football and avoiding a political discussion with the uncle who thinks the last good president was Ronald Reagan.  You take the time to go around the table and talk about what you’re really grateful for, not leaving half way through dinner to get to Target hours before it opens at 5:00 p.m. Thanksgiving night to get the $1 DVD door busters.

I guess the bigger question in my mind is – “Have we lost the fine art of being thankful?”  It’s a steadily snarkier world out there where people like Simon Cowell are praised for their brutal honesty and running people down on Twitter and Facebook seems to be America’s favorite past time.  You create a family video on YouTube with the baby’s first steps only to have someone leave a comment that the baby sucks.  Really?  What is happening out there?  Is the need to be the most negative the one who wins?     

Reality shows are steadily showing us the heightened effects of the demise of the human condition that include meltdowns, accusations, selfishness and a total lack of cooperation because you need to stab the other person in the back to get ahead.  But the constant barrage of negativity can take its toll after a while and skew your perception of what you should be grateful for.  If you are not rich, famous and have camera crew documenting your every move in our society, then you have nothing.  If you are not keeping up with the Kardashians then you have little to talk with other people about who would rather discuss the empty twisted adventures of pseudo-celebrities rather then taking the time to be introspective about their own lives.  

There are tons of distractions to keep us from taking stock and realize that what we have is pretty good.  There are smart phones that keep us on track so that we can get the latest tweets and instant messages from Facebook. We can use Outlook to schedule ourselves into oblivion and not have a quiet moment to think because if you are not plugged in, then you are missing out. Those quiet moments are essential for us to connect with who we are, but silencing the mind and really discovering ourselves can be flat out scary.  How many people do you know who are constantly running from appointment to appointment (almost always late I might add) or rehearsal to rehearsal, regaling you with how many projects they are working on. They are always dashing off to the next thing - never really forming tight bonds because keeping things on the surface is much easier than a heavier emotional investment.  It’s easier to cancel at the last minute when you are not deeply bonded to something because you assure yourself that something else will always come along to distract you.   You post the schedule of your exhausting day on Facebook only to be one-upped by someone who is equally over scheduled, because the one who drops dead first while working on that important project wins.You spend so much time trying to assure yourself that things are going great because you’re going at the speed of hyper-space that you don’t have the time to see much of anything until you are so emotionally or physically exhausted, you are forced to stop and hopefully ask yourself why you are so busy.  Why can’t we be thankful for what we have rather than always looking for something more?

An article by Melinda Beck of the Wall Street Journal, reported that in a landmark study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2003, Dr. Robert Emmons and Dr. Michael McCullough showed that counting blessings can actually make people feel better.  A group of 100 undergrads were split into three groups.  Each group had to report on different things for 10 consecutive weeks: one group had to report five blessings each week, one group had to report five negative things each week and the last group just had to report five things that happened.   Needless to say, the group that counted their blessings were happier, exercised more and felt better about their lives than the other two groups.   As simple as it sounds, gratitude is actually a demanding, complex emotion that requires "self-reflection, the ability to admit that one is dependent upon the help of others, and the humility to realize one's own limitations," Dr. Emmons explained.  You’re simply not going to be able to do that if you are constantly rushing from one place to another without the time to reflect on what you really need.

One of my favorite all time movies is It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart.  It’s a great movie about the power of being grateful.  In the 1947 movie, George Bailey tries all his life to get out of Bedford Falls because he’s sure they he’ll be completely happy if he can just “shake off the dust of this town” and start anew somewhere else.   The entire movie addresses the yearning of this man to do big things in the world but every time it looks like he might get out, he’s thwarted by his father’s death, his brother’s marriage and his duty to the town he loves and hates.   He marries the love of his life  and has four kids in the home she’s always wanted to live in.   Things are going along pretty well until one Christmas Eve when his uncle misplaces $8,000 (which in today’s market would be closer to $100,000) and everything seems lost.  He’s given everything to this town and now he might go to jail for something he didn’t even do.  When he’s told by his nemesis Mr. Potter that he might be worth more dead than alive - George clutches his life insurance policy and tries to kill himself only to be saved by his guardian angel Clarence.  When he wonders what the world would be like if he was never born, Clarence grants his wish.  He ends up in an alternate reality and sees Bedford Falls empty of happiness and compassion.   All the people he ever cared about and helped fall into despair because he was not around to touch their lives.  He begs Clarence to send him back to his real world, even if it means he’ll go to jail because having the people he loves in his life is worth the risk.  In the end, his family and friends rally to his defense and he realizes that he didn’t need to leave his home, because the world he has created there is amazing and special.  It’s a movie that still resonates with people today – probably more so because it’s easy to feel overlooked and forgotten in our technological age.   

In the same Wall Street Journal article, Ms. Beck discusses “The George Bailey Effect” which asks the readers to subtract a positive person or event from their lives and think about how things would be different.  If you take that flight of imagination, it’s easy to see how your life would be different if you didn’t have that significant event or person, good or bad to help define who you are. For instance, I met my husband Max when I was 25, coming off a bad relationship with an actor and the last thing I wanted was to date another actor.   He was coming off a break-up with an actress so the both of us started off as friends who met doing a play called All Men are Whores (yes, that was the actual name of the play).  We’ve know each other for over 30 years and have been married for 27.  I will tell you that I would be a neurotic self centered person without Max in my life.  I would not have my two amazing girls.  I probably would have been married and divorced a few times to men who would not have treated me very well.   I’d probably either be very skinny or overweight from stress if I was in the entertainment business full time and having crying jags everyday. To put it simply, my life would have no balance - I would be a hot mess.  So when I look across the table and see his face, I’m thankful that he’s part of my life and thankful for the times that we’ve had together.  We have a long history and our life together has definitely seen the “for better or for worse”  sides. We’ve met those times with tenacity, love, laughter and plenty of “That’s What She Said” jokes. 

Eight year ago, my life was very different. I had just been laid off, one of our two cars had died and our sick kitty had also passed.  I could have given into the negative, but I started to volunteer for Hands on Atlanta.  I also helped sort thank-you letters to the soldiers serving overseas which helped put things in perspective because those serving in the dangerous parts of the world needed prayers and support way more than I did.  I was happy to do what I could to help them out.   During the low points in my six months of being unemployed, I made myself take walks at a local park and appreciate the beautiful trees and the sounds of the running brook. I was grateful that I was healthy and had a family that loved me even if I didn’t have a job.

This Thanksgiving, rather sitting around griping and commiserating about the election and threatening secession from the Union (really people – it didn’t really work out so well 160 years ago) or gloating because your guy won, why not talk about all the great things we have in this country – like the right to talk about seceding, the ways can help people affected by Hurricanes recover, the games you used to love to play as kids and how wonderful dinner was. I guarantee if you focus on the positive instead of the negative, everyone will leave the table feeling better and closer. 

Thanksgiving should be about more than just a huge meal to get you from Halloween to Christmas.  It should mean something.  It should mean a heartfelt thank you to those that you appreciate and do kind things for you.  Saying thanks for something specific can mean so much.  The other day, I went to Publix to pick up a few groceries and the cashier asked me if I wanted to donate a few boxes of food for their Food for Sharing program to help needy families in the area.  I said, “Sure, why not?” as she rang up an extra $4.50 to my bill, because that easily could have been my family a few years ago. She thanked me profusely since I was the first person who had taken her up on the offer.  Her supervisor walked up and started to help bag my order and was told that I had just donated to the program.  “That’s great – now we’re ahead of the other team – thank you so much and the family who will get the food thanks you too.”  They were both so happy over what would amount what I would spend on a grande salted caramel coffee from Starbucks – but this was a much better use of my money.  I left with a big smile on my face.  I had made those women’s day and they had made mine because they were sincerely thankful.

You could save yourself so much time and frustration if you just took the time to sit and ask yourself what you are grateful for and what you really need.  The lightening speed of your life can take a pause while you contemplate that.  What are you thankful for?  My guess is that it’s not the fifth project that you’ve just taken on in addition to your regular job.  I’m not going to take the holier than thou attitude because frankly I’m guilty of doing that to myself – I'm an insurance agent, I sell Mary Kay, I've finished a novel that I'm submitting to an agent, and if people ask me to help them do things for non-profits, I have a hard time saying no.  But I have gotten better – I try not to give so much away so that I’m too exhausted to be present for the people that I love and who really need me.   When I take the time to see all the great things I have in my life, I won’t be looking outside of that nucleus to feel complete.

So this year, start a new tradition - sit back and ask yourself what you have to be thankful for and let those near and dear to you know how much you love them.  The last few years have included some really tough times and the loss of my mother and sister-in-law but I got through it. I learned who really loved me, who my friends were and would stick by me no matter what. When you get right down to it, I have everything I need to be happy. Feeling grateful should always be the meat of Thanksgiving – it’s what’s for dinner.

Scary Stuff!

It’s Halloween time and the scary decorations are out in force only to be taken down and replaced by snowmen, angels and the ever popular Christmas tree.  I love Christmas but I have to say for a pure no pressure enjoyment holiday, Halloween has got to be it.   There are no family commitments to deal with - you don’t have to make an appearance to keep the peace or drive hundreds to miles to make it in time for the stressful family dinner.  No, it’s just primo candy, ghosts, ghouls and the scores of Disney Princess costumes.  When I was a kid and you got to a certain age, like 10 to 11, you would go out trick or treating with friends instead of parents carrying pillow cases which were your Halloween bag and you'd get them filled with an assortment of M&Ms, Milky Ways, Baby Ruths, Snickers and LifeSavers.   You would also get what I call “lame candy” like Neeco Wafers (if you read my blog Nana and the Grudge – you would understand my aversion to those things), Mary Janes, cinnamon candy, peppermints or gasp – candy canes (left over from last Christmas).   We used to walk for hours on Halloween and almost all of the houses gave candy.  It was a magical night where kids owned the streets.  Back at my house, my dad would dress up as the headless horseman.  We had a mannequin head and he would hold it next to him and button his shirt over his head with a red washcloth to make it look blood (that was a gory as my parents would get).  When he would open up the door, the little kids would freak out which was fun and the big kids got a laugh.  He was always a big hit in the neighborhood and we would go through tons of candy. 

After our Halloween trek, we  would came back home and my mother would dutifully go through the pillowcases of goodies and make sure that nothing untoward had been put in there – no apples with razor blades, and any baggies of popcorn or other seemingly harmless treats that were not factory sealed were thrown away.   This was the 1970’s and there were always stories of people putting LSD into homemade candy (although to be fair, what respectable druggie would actually waste perfectly good acid on a bunch of neighborhood kids?).  We were only allowed to eat packaged candy and she would pull out the fun size Snickers because she swore that we hated them (when I finally tasted one I realized that my mother was really calling dibs on those confections under the guise of saving us from ourselves).   We had so much the candy – it would last into the New Year since my parents would only let us have one or two a day - minus what they sneaked when we weren’t looking.

When I got too old to go out Trick-or-Treating, I took over the rite of giving out candy.  I had been a huge fan of Shields and Yarnell and loved the robots that they created on their show.  I would dress up as a Robotic mime in white face.  I would stand outside on the front stoop of the house and when the children came up – I would robotically turn to them, nod, give them candy and then go back to my original position once they had moved to the next house.   The funny thing was once the kids had gotten the treats, they were perfectly happy to move onto the next house, but the parents would stay behind to see if I was going to move.  I would always end with my head down so I could blink and breathe without it being noticed.   Their kids would be three or four houses down and still the parents would stay and watch to see if I would move.   After a few minutes, I would pop my head up robotically and look right at them, shaking my head mechanically back and forth.  They would gasp or scream and move on.   It was not about scaring little kids - freaking out their parents was way more fun and I was able to do it bloodlessly without an entrail insight.

I guess that’s why I’ve never been a huge fan of slasher flicks.  It me, you’re working really hard with blood and gore give people nightmares when some good old fashion editing and scary music will do the trick.  Who can forget the shower scene in Psycho?  When my mother saw it, she spent a year only taking showers if my dad was home.   I love horror movies where the evil guy is perfectly normal vs. the guy in a hockey mask with issues – give me Norman Bates over Jason or Michael Myers any day.    One of the drawbacks to having done movies and videos is that I’ll look at the technical aspects – the lighting, the point when the dramatic music comes up, where they might have put in computer generated image, etc.   The Blair Witch Project did not scare me because I was too annoyed at the sloppy camera work.   Nightmare on Elm Street with Freddy Kruger as the man of your dreams – really?!  Maybe if he was buff and had an uncanny sense of style then the idea of him turning into a guy with bad skin and scissor hands would be scary.  Frankly Freddie just seems to be trying too hard.

 Now while I don’t really watch horror movies, I’ve always thought that Jigsaw of the Saw movies was a thinking man’s serial killer.   If you’re not going to take your life seriously then why should he?  So those that are careless with the gift of life have to fight like hell to save it.   His methods are sick and twisted but those stories have more of a moral rather than “Hey kids, if you stay a virgin, there’s a real good chance a murderous psycho will allow you to make it to the end of the movie.”   Jigsaw is more scary than the rest of them because in the back of your mind you are thinking about all the stupid things you’ve done and what if that guy had honed in on you before you got your act together.  Now that’s some scary stuff.

I do remember being scared of the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz.  For as cheesy as those special effects were, those winged primates grabbing Dorothy and Toto used to really upset me.   When I got older and found out how they did it, I wasn’t scared anymore although I don’t really enjoy that scene.   I also remember having nightmares about my younger sister and I being in the back seat of a car and the motor would start on its own and start driving at a really fast speed.  We’d be in the back seat, screaming for it to stop and it would go faster – I would wake up right before it crashed.   I remember having this dream every few months for years – then when I learned to drive – it stopped completely.   I guess subconsciously I knew that if the car went out of control, I could handle it. 

So, I now try to see what scares me and overcome it.   I really don’t like being in a dark enclosed space – it’s not a simple fear that is momentary – I mean I really hate the idea of being stuck in a small place with no light.  My breathing starts to get shallow and my heart races.    So every summer, what do I do?  I make myself go to the public pool and I wait in line with a bunch of damp kids and get on the slide that is completely enclosed.   That’s right – it’s dark, it’s small, it’s wet and I’m hurling in the dark.  My panic starts to take hold as I’m twisting and turning blindly until I explode out of the slide into the daylight with such unexpected force, I get water up my nose every time.  It takes few seconds to get my bearings and then I burst back up through the surface of the water gasping for air with what must be a look of shock and relief.   I then get right back in line and do it at least two or three more times.  Why you might ask?   Because by the third time, it’s not so bad and I feel like I can handle things better. 

Public speaking can scare the hell out of people.  Because I do improvisational theater, I’ve never really had a hard time getting in front of people and speaking.  I remember doing it in middle school and high school and never having a problem.   I’m always amazed at the number of actors who are flat our terrified of doing improvisation and the idea of going up on stage without a script literally scares them witless.   It’s not just actors, most people are afraid of public speaking – it’s one of the number one fears that people have.     They’re afraid that they will forget what they need to say or their mouth will open and nothing will come out.    They have been watching too many reality talent shows where the image of Simon Cowell savaging them in front of everyone is enough to make them sit quietly during meetings and say nothing because putting yourself out there is pretty scary stuff.    When I teach improv to non-actors one of the first things I tell them is that if they allow ideas to flow – if they can relax and trust that they will think and speak clearly.   It’s the fear, the idea that they will screw up that is the self-fulfilling prophesy.   

I’ll have my new improvisers do an exercise called The Library where I will walk them through imaginary rows of shelves and ask them to pick out an imaginary book at the library.  I’ll ask them what it looks like, what it smells like and how heavy it is.   They start to imagine that they have a real book in their hands.   I’ll ask them to give me the title of the book and flip through the pages; I will then say “Stop, now read me a page of the book and the name of the chapter.”   At first, they will look like a deer in headlights, but I will ask them to look closer and just read the words, that they are right on the page.   Then something clicks, the resistance falls away and they start reading like they see the text.   After that, I ask them if they want to keep the book and they can sit down.   The look on their faces is usually one of astonishment.   I’ll ask how it felt and they’ll usually say that once they stopped fighting the exercise and just went with it – their perception changed and they could see all the information in the book.   They faced their fear and it melted away and was replaced by articulate thought that was not going to let them down. 

Lest you think I’m a total bad ass or a zen master that can just about anything, I will confess that I do have a huge fear of heights.   I mean I really hate being up in high places and I really hate roller coasters.   So last year, when the kids and I were offered free tickets to Six Flags, I almost turned it down.   But since we’d never gone as a family, I decided it was worth it to go.   Of course the first things the kids wanted to go on were things like Dare Devil and the Georgia Scorcher.  Then there is Goliath, a $20 million ride that pulls you slowly up the 200 feet incline before it drops you 175 feet and kicks to its top speed of 70 miles per hour.  As we start to go up I’m thinking, “Holy crap, I really don’t want to be on this.”  I’m starting to panic, but I have no choice now and can’t get off.  So after traversing 4,500 feet of roller coaster track, the ride ends and I make it out alive.   We spent the rest of the day going on six roller coasters while I scream at my anxiety “suck on this baby!”  as we loop de loop through another twist and turn.   We went again for Fright Fest this year, this time staying after dark and dealing with roller coasters at night and zealous zombies who are pretty chill about photo ops. 

 

 

Facing your fears is something I’ve had to do a lot in the last year.   I’m coming up on a year since the layoff of a job that I had been working at for almost four years.  It paid very well and had good benefits.   When I found out that I was being let go - that fear of having everything crash in around me like a roller coaster started to creep in.    I got a three month severance package but what if I didn’t have another job by the time it was finished?   Unemployment would not pay the bills.   What if Max was laid off too?  Would we lose the house?   Would be my family be homeless?  Screw Jason, Michael Myer, Samara Morgan or Freddie Kruger, those fears were terrifying enough to keep me up at night.   Losing financial security scared the crap out of me way more than taking a shower with Norman Bates, but I learned that I could handle it.   I got another job in May, six months after losing my other job.   We’re still digging out financially but we’ll be fine.  I learned that my marriage is as strong as it ever was, and that my family will stick by me no matter what. I learned to look at what I feared the most in the eyes and I didn’t blink.   I didn’t crumble and I didn’t give up.   So to all you movie psychos who think you have the market on creating fear – sorry to disappoint you but this past year I’ve been there – done that and you are just not that scary anymore.  So Jigsaw, if you want to play a game, I have one for you – it’s called Don’t Screw with the Blond or You Might Get Burned!  - because this peri-menopausel cougar knows how to scratch her way back.  Happy Halloween!

Thanksgiving Lost and Found

I was just recovering from a fun Halloween with the kids and an evening of way too many Reese's peanut butter cups when my Outlook reminded me of a tree lighting the next day.  After 8:00 p.m. the door bell ringing got lighter and lighter as the trick or treaters were getting ready for bed because it was a school night.   All that Hallows eve on TV there were references to the spooky holiday.  Then the inevitable happened:  a new slew of Christmas commercials started running around 9:00 p.m. before Halloween's body was even cold (okay, granted I had tombstones on my yard, and a fake dead body that was parked next to the one that said, "I'll be back).  This grand rush to Christmas seemed to be a bit premature and annoying.  The next night, I was watching an 18 foot Christmas tree get it's first lighting to great fan fare for an event at work.  It looked beautiful and put everyone into the Christmas spirit, but what about Thanksgiving? Didn't anyone care about that holiday anymore?  I mean it's two and a half weeks away!

You hardly see commercials for Thanksgiving anymore.  Maybe that's because the industry that profits the most from it are the supermarkets - not departments stores, not toy stores, not computer stores and not car dealers.  Thanksgiving is all about food and football.  Who really needs to think about preparing the feast aside from the holiday martyrs (moms, sisters and grandparents) that volunteer to have the dinner at their house?   Thanksgiving is not about anything material - it's about being with the people you love or at least have to stomach one or twice a year to keep the family peace.   Besides, the next day is Black Friday - the greatest shopping day of the year.  Thanksgiving has now become a speed bump between Halloween and Christmas.  

Unfortunately, I think the act of giving thanks has been lost along the internet highway.  As our society has gotten more tech savvy and let's face it - more snarky - it's not cool to think about all the gifts you have and to be grateful for them.  It's easier to hide behind a laptop and send instant messages rather than talk to someone directly to hear their voice and really gauge how they're doing. It's so much easier to make snide comments on YouTube  anonymously about Lindsay Lohan or Kim Kardashian's 72-day marriage rather than praising your spouse and children for sticking it out with you.  You can share a link to a pithy saying on Facebook rather than just taking the time to actually thank the people who need thanking.   You see and hear folks being rude to each other on TV on a regular basis and unfortunately our kids are beginning to model it themselves based on the diva fits they see on Real Housewives and other reality shows.   But few programs show people taking someone's hand, looking into their eyes and just telling them how much it means to have them in their lives and making it look cool. 

I began to believe that we had lost the art of being grateful.   It's not easy to  say a heartfelt thanks to those that help us rather then just assuming that they know how we feel.   So we numb ourselves into silence hoping that we'll get appreciated without taking the step of showing it first.    So I began to wonder if with all the bad economic news, the political backbiting and negative media stories, was the United States losing it's optimism?  Were we becoming the snarkiest country on earth - unable to appreciate even the smallest things?  I was wondering if I had lost that ability myself as I struggled to deal with a recent job loss and now know first hand the anxiety that many Americans feel in this questionable job market.   

I was driving into work on my last day and listening to the Bert Show on Q100.  They had recently completed Bert's Big Thank You and had asked their listeners to hand write letters to thank every soldier serving overseas for their service so that they would know that someone took the time to tell them how much they cared.  Amber and I had done some letters through our church.  The drive had been iffy - they needed over 400,000 letters and just a week out from the deadline only had 40,000 - but human nature being what it is, a slew of letters came in that last push and they had actually received over a half a million.  Now that they had the letters, they needed volunteers to help sort them out.   Realizing that after today, I'd probably have some time on my hands, I signed up to help. 

I went to the radio station and was brought to a large room with hundreds of mail tubs full of letters.  They asked us to take a tub, count by sets of 100, and spot check the letters to make sure they were appropriate, i.e., were not greeting cards that someone had just signed, pictures without any writing on it or had anything political or inappropriate.   As I combed through my large mail tub, I saw stacks and stacks of letters from people in Atlanta, Indianapolis and Nashville - the three markets that the Bert Show presently reaches.  They were on notebook paper, construction paper, personal stationary, artwork with a note inside, etc.  A lot of the letters were from kids who expressed how proud they were of the soldiers who were helping other children overseas.  There were letters from retirement homes that expressed support as many of the residents had served in WWII and the Korean War and knew what it was like to be far away from their own families for the holidays.  Letters from mothers who prayed for the soldiers safe return to their mothers, wives and children.   Many expressed in simple terms their gratitude for the service that these brave men and women were giving to our country.   It was inspiring and humbling to see so many people pour out their hearts to these strangers - praying for them and knowing that on Thanksgiving a soldier they wrote to would read their words of love and support.   

I also loved the artwork that some of the people included in their letters.   There were a lot of drawings made by tracing a little hand and coloring it to look like a Thanksgiving turkey complete with pilgrim hat.   There were letters with kids dressed as Harry Potter who represented the soldiers and a picture of Valdemort who represented the people we were fighting.   There were also pictures of the children holding the soldiers' hands and smiling.  Perhaps the one that touched me the most, was a picture that a teenage girl who was an art student drew on the back of her letter.   It's of her giving a soldier a hug.   Her notation on the back reads:  "not finished yet, but you get it :).  Me being thankful for the soldiers."   I love the expression on their faces - it's so genuine - something Norman Rockwell would be proud of. 

I left that day feeling very proud of the people who had written those letters and of helping to sort them so that they could go overseas in time for Thanksgiving.   It seems that Americans do what we've always done:  listen for an appeal on a way to make the world better and respond the best way we can.   Do we still have problems in this country?  Hell ya, but what country doesn't?  Instead of each political party vilifying each other, let's appreciate what we have here, which is that we can talk about what's wrong with the government without being hulled into prison for having that conversation. We can be grateful that our daughters can aspire to be Secretary of State or President instead of treated like second class citizens in countries where many of our soldiers are based.  In short, I got my Thanksgiving spirit back.   

I'm grateful for what I have and plan to play that forward.   Sure my job future is uncertain, but I'm trying to look at it as a chance to reinvent myself and when I apply for a job - that is one more opportunity that I didn't know about yesterday.   If I see a serviceman in uniform, I'm going to thank them for their service to our country.   It's all any of us could do no matter which side of the political aisle you sit on.  You can hate the war, but love the warrior.  Probably the best line I saw all from those stacks of letters  was from a teenager who wrote, "Heroes don't wear capes, they wear dog tags."  That's a great line - it made me realize how much people care and for that I'm grateful -- very, very grateful. 

Parenthood and the Freedom of Speech

A few years ago, I was standing around with a group of parents at our church watching our children on swing on the monkey bars.   A young dad-to-be came over with his pregnant wife and started talking politics --  spouting about how the President and Congress were all losers, that the system was pretty corrupt and they were all crooks.   He still was raging against the machine when my daughter Amber came over and asked me she if she could get a cookie in the kitchen.   After she left, another dad pulled almost dad aside and explained that he needed to watch the "People in Power Suck" stuff.  Once his daughter was here, she would need to learn to respect adults that have authority in their life such as teachers and coaches.   This man looked at the group of us and said, "So once you become a parent you lose your freedom of speech?"

The rest of us looked at each other, laughed and said, yes - when you become a parent,  you do lose that part of the Bill of Rights around your kids.   We went onto explain the other rights that parents lose: the right to sleep in late on weekends;  the right to go out whenever you want to; the right to watch the late night talk shows; the right to watch movies that are not animated and the right to curse like a sailor when your little one is in the back seat and a truck has just cut you off from the exit lane.   Yeah, those good old fashioned human rights. 

Parents make a lot of sacrifices - eating the burnt toast at breakfast, waiting until your next paycheck to buy those new shoes because your child needs money for their field trip, etc.  Probably the biggest one is giving up the freedom of speech particularly when talking about other adults when those little ears are around.    I learned this when I was teaching acting in an after school program.   I was getting ready to start the class when a little boy named Conner started to talk about how Bill Clinton was ruining this country and that he was a lousy human being.   Conner was a first grader and I doubt that he came to that political viewpoint on his own (last I heard in first graders are still trying to figure out shapes and colors, not the dynamics of a two party system or the moral leanings of the Commander-in-Chief).   Conner was parroting what he heard from his parents.  Not surprisingly - he was also one of the kids that had the most trouble taking direction from adults.   Why should he show respect to a bunch of educators when his parents didn't show respect for the office of the President of the United States?  Amber was four at the time and I was pregnant with Daniel and from that time on I resolved not to speak badly of other adults in front of my children.  If Max and I had to talk about President Bush - the code name was "Commander Banana Cookoo."  If the kids over heard us talking and asked who Commander Banana Cookoo was we'd just say that he was a character on cartoon that adults had to watch.   When we were with other adults and there were no children around -- then it was cool to let the political river flow. 

I realized that I must have done something right when Amber was eight and the 2004 election was in full swing.  She asked me if I was voting for George Bush.  I had to think very carefully since as a liberal the last four years had been challenging to say the least and the idea of another four years of Bush made me feel as warm as an ice water enema.  I knew that if I couldn't say something nice and said nothing at all - it would invite more questions from my curious eight year old.  I took a breath and said that he is always is dressed neatly and that I'm sure that he loves his mother very much -- but that it was time for someone else to have a turn at being president.   She seemed satisfied with that as I tucked her into bed.    I told the truth without being disrespectful to the highest office in the land and faced four more years of intestinal fortitude.  

Now that Amber and Daniel are older and becoming more aware of the world,  I'm more likely to answer them directly if they have a political question like:  "Are people who disagree with President Obama racist?"   "No,"   I respond, "It's okay to disagree with the president - everyone does at one point or another and that's what makes our country great, you can respectfully disagree."    Sometimes it's hard to explain the personal attacks that pundits on both sides of the isle lob at each other like Molotov cocktails.  You have politicians walking out of meetings with other leaders when they don't get their own way.  How can we use them as examples for our own children to learn how to share and compromise when the people running our country seem incapable of it?   We can't ask more out of our children then we expect of our leaders.  

I'm sure that our founding fathers were not immune to the urge to talk smack about each other but hopefully out of the earshot of their children.  Imagine George Washington giving a speech at Constitution Hall and introducing Thomas Jefferson only to have his nine year old yell out - "Thomas Jefferson, that guy is a crazy ass wipe and a total douche bag!"  (insert awkward silence and  cut to Ben Franklin shaking his head).  My point is that you can't expect children to keep those comments private and they will more than likely be blurted out at the worst possible moment.   

So for new parents that might be lamenting the loss of some of their basic human rights - here are some of the rights you get in exchange for the ones you lose:  the right to break out into silly songs that makes you infant or toddler laugh;  the right to blow a tummy tuba right after a bath;  the right to enjoy the holidays through a child's eyes; the right to show your child how to skate, catch a fish or ride a bike for the first time; the right to dress up for a princess tea party and finally wear that feather boa you bought for Halloween; the right to raid your child's Halloween bag for that last Snickers; the right to get up early on Saturday morning, watch cartoons with them and eat Rice Krispies; and the right to share the best parts of your childhood.     This Bill of Rights might be different then what our Founding Fathers might have envisioned -- but my guess is that even Ben Franklin's dad had to show his kid how to fly a kite.