Running with Scissors

I remember learning that the root of the word "decision" is "to cut". I checked myself on www.dictionary.com this evening, and my memory is correct. The root is Latin, evolved to Middle French, and then Middle English meaning literally: a cutting off.

Maybe that's why decisions are so hard to make. Maybe that's why it is sometimes so hard to live with our decisions. There is, quite literally, an amputation involved in every decision we make.

I often find it difficult to appreciate the spoils of my decisions, because I spend so much time lamenting the casualities. What a special kind of warfare.

When we were married, my husband recommended that we be always like the blades on a pair of scissors -- forever connected at the center and cutting anything that comes between us. Careful to never harm each other. I suppose I can accept the decisions I make as long I have the balancing strength of both of our tandem blades.

To Pieces

When we were little, I remember my dad saying, "I love you to pieces." I didn't really get it at the time. For some reason, it always reminded me of potato sticks (remember that silly snack that came in a can? Messy to beat the band. I could never really get a full mouthful of those things. They just made your hands greasy and litter the front of your shirt with salty debris and potato detritus). Anyway, I can't explain the mental connection between being loved to pieces and potato sticks. Maybe, quite simply, I just found them both to be messy propositions.

Lately, I've been thinking about what holds us together. Isn't it the same thing that breaks us to pieces? Think about it. If we walked around each day, fully aware of all the love that we hold in our hearts, surely we would shatter to pieces. There would just be, no feasible way, that we could function as human beings, if we were cognizant, at all times, of all the emotion glueing us together. The weight of the wonder would surely make us crumble. We would love to pieces.

Maybe we put it at a safe distance. A space that we can tolerate in our ordinary lives. But moments come, when the distance between us and that safe space collide, and the same force that is holding us together is the very force that breaks us apart. All that emotion, brewing, brimming, stirring, and stifled rushes in to raise us and raze us.

Paradoxically, the days when I am standing on the shoulders of giants, are usually the days that bring me to my knees.

Swing for the Fences

I'm pretty high-strung. Baseball is one of the only things that relaxes me. I love it's predictability, it's symmetry, it's order. Three outs, nine innings. Top and bottom. Baseball just makes perfect sense.

The other thing I love about baseball? Baseball deals hope.

Every pitch is an opportunity. Everyone gets a second chance. You just gotta believe. Even the worse curse can be reversed.

I love baseball. l love the hope of opening day. Every pitch is an opportunity. And if you strike out looking, well, guess what? That just means the pitcher was better than you. And that's ok. Because you'll see him again. And you'll get him next time. And if you strike out swinging, well, guess what? That's ok too. It just means you put up a fight -- you went out swinging. And your mama would be proud.

Every pitch is an opportunity. Swing battter batter swing.

The Prince

It doesn't always work out the way we plan. Accept it? I will. Here's why.

For far too long, I have placed too much importance on my professional accomplishments, and was far too driven, madly some may say, to achieve great things -- professionally. A colleague recently referred to me as "unsinkable" and a former employee earmarked me "an ox". Flattering, isn't it? That's certainly the legacy I want to leave on this earth: an unsinkable ox.

But, that's just work. I'm other things too. I'm a mother mostly, a wife, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a faculty member, a 4th grade classroom coordinator, and most recently a Little League caoch. My mother recently asked, "Did you write the book on time management?" I can only answer, "No." Truth be told, I've never actually written a book ... but it's on my list.

You may be familiar with a gentleman named Machiavelli. He wrote a book, a little piece called, The Prince. It is in this book that the phrase "the ends justify the means" is often mis-attributed: if the goal is achieved the measures taken to accomplish it are justified. Victory! But in life is always that simple?

I don't want to resurrect that tireless debate about working mothers versus stay-at-homes mothers. There are circumstances that compel any of us into any variety of choices, decisions, situations, compromises, and ways of being. I work by choice. And, for the longest time, I worked because it satisfied me. It was the thing that made me confident, it was something of which I was proud, it was a place I went to be challenged and enriched. I like to wear high heels, and work accommodates that. Recently though, I've refocused. I will still choose to work and I'll still wear high heels, but work is now nothing more than a means to an end, rather than the end which I am tirelessly trying to achieve.

I choose to work, not because I any longer need it to define me, but because work is the means that allows me to put my children in a great school. Work allows me to help my youngest son practice his lines and be in the audience when he plays God in the school play. Work allows me to be the baseball manager during his first season ever on a Little League team. Work allows me to never miss a basketball game, a tennis practice, a swimming lesson, or a home run. Work allows me to help with homework and read stories at bedtime. I worked this hard for so long, and for too long, I measured my success in the accomplishments I achieved at work. When, all along, it's the accomplishments I was accruing outside of work that demanded an inventory.

So, now, when I leave work, on time, to clock out, I am grateful. I am grateful for all the things that work allows. Work, a means to an end, not an end of the means.

Work allows my family comfort and stability. Work allows my boys to send care packages to troops we have never met, far from home, keeping us safe. Work allows me to buy plane tickets and college textbooks and kitchen utensils for my stepkids. Work allows for trips to San Juan with my husband. Work allows me to be at baby showers for my niece and basic training graduations for my brother. I choose this. I worked hard for this and I am happy to give almost all of it away.

So, yes, I work and I won't ever apologize for it again. I work because I am among the fortunate few that gets to play baseball with God.

Saying My Piece (Peace)

It's been fits and starts. My husband bears the burden of my uncertainties on his indefatigable shoulders. Imagine if my Atlas shrugged. How would I ever recover my balance? Last week, he asked me if I had been blogging lately. I think he was suggesting that maybe it was time for me to process my anxieties and incoherence somewhere else. He knows me. Knows I need to reflect to make sense and find peace. So, I'm here. Reflecting. Searching for peace. Searching for the piece that always evades. My peace, my piece, my keystone to clarity.

Did you know I love words? The problem with loving in words is that I believe them to be true. I drink words, eat them for breakfast, sing them in the shower, post them, tweet them, text them, blog them, catalog them, speak them, hear them, seek them, absorb them, digest them, devour them, underline them, research them, adore them, and most importantly, trust them.

But words are fickle. Words are dubious. Words are unreliable. Words, meretricious words. Handle with care.

Words haunt me and taunt me through long sleepless nights. Echoes of words -- both those shouted and those unspoken -- tempt me, tussle my memory. All those lingering words hang in the balance. All those words uttered against my better judgement. No restraint. My impertinent tongue does not respond to reason. Not prudent. My voice box is often reckless.

I'll show you my soul with my words. I'll use my words to comfort you, abhor you, praise you, and deride you. I'll use words to express myself, define myself, and assert myself. Words as emollient, words as daggers. Listen, please listen. My words are me at my best, at my worst, my strongest, and my weakest.

So when you talk talk, and I listen listen, just know that I'm remembering remembering. A transcript of words, both yours and mine, catalogued, tagged, archived, and playing forever on the tireless tape in my head. Stuttering, puttering, listing, twisting, weaving, weary, proud, loud, smart, swift, truth, and dared. Words. Yours. Mine. Ours now. In perpetuity.

And when I can't silence it, when the cacophony hits a deafening roar on the inside, a clamoring jamboree, when words have failed me, I muster all my strength and push down harder on those mighty shoulders. Reaching tall, I stand on the shoulders of my personal giant, and he helps me see further, with greater clarity, more forgiveness, less judgement, and higher hope. Hope, "that bedraggled daughter of fear and desire". My Atlas deals me hope. And even though hope is not a brilliant strategy, it is a beautiful word.

Baby, please don't shrug.

ps: credit for this blog title goes to my good friend, Koreen Olbrish. Thanks K!

Taking it All In

We're moving in to November and I figured I better get a blog post off before my birthday hits and sweeps me reluctantly forward, adding yet another year to the passage of time. This hasn't been a typical year and there is lots to consider, plenty on which to reflect, and reflections too abundant to measure. Where to begin and what is next?

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I look around and take inventory of my space.

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I have a beautiful apartment in the middle of what my father refers to as "the concrete canyon". Will I ever love living here? Probably not. But, I can make the most of this area: enroll my children in an excellent school, register them for sports, and find local friends to enrich us with their company. I can also hold on to my home in New Hampshire, visit if often, and think always about its many memories. The love that was shared, the anger that was spared, the relationships that were raised and those that were razed, and the legacy that survives, evolves, and continues. Home.

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I see my children. So much their own people now. Bringing home report cards, batting in home runs. We travel with a giant bin of sports equipment on the back of our car. I have thrown countless pitches, hosted endless fielding practices, punted infinite footballs, blocked, passed, served, volleyed, spiked, tackled, outrun, outwit, outlast. Their childhood. I hope it's enough.

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I see my husband. I am calmed.

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Turning a corner, another year, and the road continues to stretch before us. I'll probably still ignore the posted speed limit. I move at my own pace. Try to catch me. I'll consider the traffic signs and the guideposts, but chances are, I'm going to do this my way.

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I feel the momentum of 35 years gathering behind me. All the mistakes. All the regrets. All the lost opportunities. All of missteps. All of the errors in judgement. Everything I've bumbled, jumbled, tumbled, and tangled. And I see it for what it is. The most imperfect road through the most perfect storm. And I have arrived at the most likely place. The place where I am. And, oh! The places I will go from here.

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1001 Ways to Lose With the Shoes: Just Average July August

I know, I know ... you're probably all thinking that I forgot to write a blog post in July and that I am probably going to forget again in August too. A-ha! NO SUCH LUCK. Suckers.

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I haven't had much time to write blog posts about my boring life, because I have been going cross-eyed grading papers, writing project plans, and trying to decipher the four-page, seven-column, tri-colored, school supply list for my children. I had NO IDEA that one child could possibly need to so many varieties of glue (but no pencil box?), or that it could take fourteen hours in the school supply aisle of Target to locate the last-standing 1.5-inch, soft-cloth, three-ring, zipper-snap-velcro-close, durable, bottom-folder, binder. I'll be honest. I'm not proud. I didn't even know there was such a thing as a 1.5-inch soft-cloth, three-ring, zipper-snap-velcro-close, durable, bottom-folder binder. But I found it.

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Hell yeah, I did.

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In other news, I've been working. Watching way too much "Real Housewives of New Jersey" (did someone say train wreck because I simply cannot look away?), and listening to a lot (too much) American Top 40 (don't even act like you don't have Adam Lambert or Lady Gaga in your iTunes library.).

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Well, it's not all AT40 all the time. I've been digging back, way back, into my old school archives, and stumbled upon this little gem in my iTunes library. Just when you thought you couldn't love Ray Allen more (and I might never be done loving Chuck D.)

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It's also been hotter than Hades out here on the Atlantic Coast this summer (Al Gore, I've got your number. Global warming is for the birds). This heat, combined with my recent obsession with hot vinyasa yoga, makes me think that I have probably sweated out all of my genetic material and every last possible ounce of hydration that my body might have ever hoped to retain. On the bright side, sometimes, after leaving yoga, it actually feels cool outside, when the heat index is 103 degrees with 571% humidity. Also, as widely chronicled on Facebook, I also flipped my dog, popped out a wheel, and somehow managed a fully bound extended side angle. I think I might look taller now.

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How do my boys deal with this heat? Easy. They play Twister on their Twister beach towel, courtesy of Miss Sara who always finds the best gifts everrrrrr. When it comes to gift-giving, she really makes the rest of us look lame.

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I hope this update isn't a tragic disappointment. In the words of Adam Lambert, "Whadd'ya want from me?" Not much to report: It's Just Average, July August.