On the Road Again

I spent a lot of this past summer on the road. I mean – A LOT. And, I’m not even counting the beautiful trip abroad that warrants its own entry.

Late in June we drove from Georgia to Iowa to spend some days finding a place to live here. In that trip, we went from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City to Des Moines to Iowa City to Cedar Rapids. Then back to Georgia. In July, we moved from Georgia to Iowa. In early August, we went from Iowa to Kentucky and back to pick up youngest son. The end of August found me on the road taking middle son to college in Pennsylvania; then, back home and back to work. 

Just today, as a function of my job, I put over two hundred miles on my car driving to two schools and to one of the agency facilities from which I work. 

Yes, I’ve seen lots of roads this summer.  You know what I’ve noticed? 

There’s construction out there. I believe the reports that our infrastructure is crumbling, but while it crumbles there are groups of men and women all over the nation trying to gird it up. Here’s the thing I noticed about construction and driving: I don’t mind waiting in construction traffic if work is actually being done. I understand the need for road cordoned off for no apparent reason until you approach the crew, and you note that the long stretch where nothing was being done is actually a buffer for people who are doing a job I would never want to do much less be able to do: repairing bridges and roads.

The same is true in life. There are times when we cordon off parts of our lives because we need to repair them.  We need to recover from a bad relationship; we quit dating. We need to nurture ourselves after a loss; we don’t go out much. We need to focus energy on building up a skill set; we go to the gym lots or garden lots or write lots. Precious else gets done when we shut down our roads to repair or build ourselves up. Eventually, though, our roads are repaired and they reopen.

The thing that pisses me off is when you’re driving down the road, as I was this past weekend, and the two lane highway becomes a one lane highway. There were cones tall and skinny and short and fat blocking three four-mile stretches on I-80 between Iowa City and Des Moines. I waited for it. 

I knew that workers need their space for safety. I also knew it was the weekend, and it was likely that there weren’t actually any workers, but I would see where they were shoring up the highways and byways that I had used so much this year. 

Nope.

There was no machinery. No workers. No sandy gravelly area where cement or asphalt would soon be poured and smoothed. Nothing. Just a blank, empty lane of a highway. No work being done. No activity whatsoever.

Have you ever met such people? They are shut down and tuned out. Whole avenues in their lives have been blocked off, but there’s no evidence of work being done. Everything appears usable. It seems like it all works.  But they have this shut-off area that may or may not ever reopen.

Such people are traveling through life, but perhaps not traveling well. Maybe they put up the cones for defense.  Maybe they guard their cones jealously, afraid others will trample them. Perhaps they put up the cones so long ago that they forgot all about them. 

I am thankful for the travels I had this summer. I am thankful that middle son drove most of them. (I miss you!) I am thankful for the travels I am having now. But more than all of that, I look around, and I realize while sometimes I’ve had cones up because things were being repaired, there have been time when the road has simply been closed – for no good reason. And, in those instances, I’m thankful for friends and family (you know who you are) who stopped their cars, got out, and helped me reopen those stretches of road.

The metaphor has gone a bit stale at this point, so I’ll leave you with this lyric from Rascal Flatts: “Life is a highway; I wanna ride it all night long. If you’re going my way, I wanna drive it all night long.”

Take down the unnecessary cones. Open up the possibilities. Use both lanes. Keep going.

Home

"Turns out they were right again . . . if it's true home is where the heart is, 

I guess now I'm homeless." 

That lyric has been haunting me over the past two months.  I have felt without a home for a while now.  The transition from Augusta to Cedar Rapids - from Georgia to Iowa - will perhaps be complete when the last box is unpacked (that will take a while!) or maybe once I've been here a year of seasons or maybe there is some other definition of adjustment that I am not thinking of at the moment.  

Change takes time.  I was out of town this weekend, and when the thought of going home flashed across my mind, it was not Cedar Rapids that my mind called up, it was Augusta.  I didn't realize it the first time, but the second time when discussing with my son when we would leave to go home, again, it was a flight image of Augusta that came to mind.

I start a new job tomorrow; when I think of that, an image of my old school grounds scampers through my mind.  I consciously know that I will be working in a different setting at a different set of tasks, but my mind has an ingrained image of work as that old setting.

A quick review: I moved to Augusta to be married.  When that reason no longer existed, I thought of leaving; however different reasons kept me in place. For a long time, I complained - even railed - about Augusta, Georgia, and the South. It was where I lived, but as  location, I never thought of Augusta as home until this past weekend.

In fact, my friends in Augusta can tell you that I have talked about being an outsider or not at home there in varying degrees over the years.  I probably mentioned it most in relation to lack of snow in the winter and high summer temperatures.  Even having lived there fourteen years, when someone asked where I was from, I would say that I lived in Augusta, but I was from Iowa.

Everyone has moments in life when you just feel foreign.  I had it when I first lived in the Soviet Union. The language, the culture, the KGB - it was all foreign.  When I first moved to Augusta, I remember hearing a conversation between a bricklayer and another man; I could not understand one word they were saying.  I asked what language they were speaking.  English.  Huh?  I have a degree in linguistics and have studied languages for the past 25 years.  I was in East Central Georgia, USA, and I could not understand the English being spoken.

It's not just language that will make you feel foreign.  Customs, foods, pace of life, even time zones can play a role on whether people feel comfortable or at home.  People choose their homes or move their homes or stay in their homes for so many reasons.  Whether you have stayed in one place your whole life or moved multiple times, as I have, where, really is your home?

There is a host of aphorisms to define home.  Where our story begins.  There's no place like it.  Where you can be yourself.  Where we love.  Where one starts from.

As I was packing and unpacking boxes and feeling homeless, I started thinking that my home is actually a patchwork.  I have squares from childhood, college, and beyond.  I'm just now realizing that, yes, Augusta is part - an integral part - of that patchwork of home.  Places and people around Augusta will always be home.

My home is
Tara's patio on a breezy Sunday evening, the smells of Shishir's cooking wafting over us;
Liberty's winter solstice party;
the horses that used to run behind our house in Harlem;
Jamie's garage while he grills, Carrie makes her killer onion rings in the kitchen, and we all drink beer;
a chat with Jennifer in the hallway;
our book club with more wine and food than books;
Iris mowing her yard in the mid-day summer heat;
closing Monterrey's with Erin;
the classroom and office and auditorium at my old school;
boot camp and Tracy's "slower than pond water" shouts;
a tour of Franklin's most recent art acquisitions;
Christmas Eve brunch at Katie's;
the purgatorial Kroger parking lot;
appetizers and long talks in Jan's kitchen -
Augusta is part of my home.

I am most in agreement with Tad Williams on the concept of home:  "Never make your home in a place.  Make a home for yourself inside your own head.  You'll find what you  need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.  That way it will go with you wherever you journey."

So, that song may need revision.  Because, if home is where the heart is, I'm not homeless - I have homes everywhere, including with my loves in Augusta.

Ice Storms and Earthquakes: Why Words Matter

The state of Georgia and other points south of the Mason-Dixon have had an uncharacteristic number of wintry encounters in the last month.  We had about three days of surprisingly cold weather, coupled with a few inches of snow. SNOWMAGEDDON paralyzed traffic in Atlanta and in parts of Alabama.  This past week we had some ice and snow that led to downed trees, lost power, and displacement of the population. It was...(drumroll)...ICEMAGEDDON. It was scary.  It was inconvenient.  It was not the end of the world.  Neither of these events were cause for the proliferation of  “-mageddons” that I have seen and heard. 

Not every meteorological anomaly constitutes the end of the world.  Exaggerating is certainly a part of everyday lexicon, but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy.  After surviving a plane crash and parachuting into the ocean, Mrs. Incredible (aka Elastigirl from the movie The Incredibles), instructs her children: “…both of you will get a grip or else I’ll ground you for a month.”  We could do with some more people who have a grip.  But, we all lose control of what we actually mean and just say things, right?  Especially in the heat of the moment.  I have heard and been guilty of such extremes in every day speech since the New Year.  To wit:

Example One:

Son #2: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse, a hippo, and four puppies.”  He had pasta and was satiated.

Example Two: 

Me: “Son, I have told you a million times not to have toys in the kitchen. Not a million times, but it sometimes sure feels like it.

Most of life is just living.  It’s just snow.  It’s just a tree branch (or ten).  It’s a hunger pang.  We seem to have become so bored and complacent in regular life that we need to exaggerate to give meaning to regular happenings.  Normal things can be meaningful, even important without crazed invented language.  Sure, snow in Georgia isn’t usual, but it isn’t Snowmageddon either.  This linguistic phenomenon crept out of social media and into mainstream journalism. A certain amount of serious concern is in order when things go awry, and when this does happen, we certainly get a large dose of perspective, don’t we? 

Then, just as some power was restored, the ice began to melt, and people settled in to watch the Men’s Figure Skating Finals, we had an earthquake.  The quake had an epicenter in Edgefield, South Carolina that was felt distinctly at my home, 28 miles away.  And, by some reports, it was felt from Florida to North Carolina to Alabama; it was 4.4 on the Richter scale.  Youngest son thought it was the coolest thing ever.  High school students were talking about losing their quakerginity.

Um, what?  This is a perverse use of neologism + hyperbole to talk about what is happening. The “–maggedons” had taught their offspring well. Granted, teens have long been notorious for calling everything “awesome” or “epic.”  Unfortunately, there are repercussions from such exaggeration.  If so many things are amazing, then nothing is amazing.  

The movie Notting Hill was unremarkable as a romantic comedy, but the main character, William and his flat mate Spike share barbs, reminding each other to keep things in perspective:

Spike:  Hi, hey, you couldn’t help me with an incredibly important decision, could you?

William: This is important in comparison to let’s say whether they should cancel the third world debt?

Spike:  That's right.  I'm at last going out on a date with the great Janine, and I just want to be sure I pick the right t-shirt.            

Perspective is important.  This is the film where I believe I lost my Hugh Grantaginity, and I didn’t actually remember the main story line, but I did remember the perspective checks that these friends toss at each other.  Words matter and perspective matters and the words we choose for the things that happen around us matter. It is the language that we use that frames our outlook.  Our outlook helps define our resilience in the face of unusual and commonplace events alike.  How we use language defines our interpretations of daily routines and world events.

Can you imagine reading a history book if everything that happened had to have a nickname or the suffix  “-mageddon”?  It was an awesome negotiationmageddon in Yalta where Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt all lost their meetingaginity as they discussed the epic future of the post-warmageddon world. Huh?  It seems that in the past we were able to frame events more appropriately.  The Yalta Conference was certainly important, but it was not equivalent to the Rapture.

Our world may have many things going wrong; we will encounter events that require preparation. We will be caught unprepared.  However, we simply need to deal with things, appropriately and with correctly corresponding language.  Snow – even in ill-prepared southern states – is not the end of the world.  Likewise falling branches. Below zero temperatures in the Midwest don’t constitute the Second Coming, and a heat wave in the summer doesn’t mean the mouth of hell is yawning open to swallow us whole. Power loss for three or more days is not fun, for sure; maybe is a challenge; it’s disheartening and worrisome.  That’s it.

William:  (about not being able to find his glasses) It’s one of life’s real cruelties.

Spike:  That’s compared to like earthquakes in the Far East or testicular cancer, yeah?

I don’t advocate that we go around always forcing ourselves and others to realize how much worse others have it than we do.  However, a balanced view of the relative importance of the events in one’s life is really an asset, and having accurate vocabulary to discuss one’s mindset is important, too.  Frightening and bad things do happen.  But, as Mrs. Incredible orders, “I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do: panic.”   To their credit, most people around here did not panic as snow and ice rolled through.  Most people prepared and dealt with the cards that nature handed out.  Many people reached out and helped friends and strangers alike.  It was not epic; it was not awesome; it was not amazing.  What was it then? 

Quite simply, it was inspiring.    

The Icing on the Cake

 “Mom, I think you're going to find the love of your life one day.” 

Son #3 and I went for a walk yesterday after school.  The walk is a new addition to our routine, and he has always been known for blurting things out.  These walks are designed to clear the cobwebs before homework time; they must also shake loose ideas he has floating around.  More often than not, his exclamations have granules or even cupfuls of truth.  Yesterday was no exception. 

“Oh, really?” 

“Yes, you’ll definitely find the love of your life…just not here in Georgia.”

Yes, that is precisely what he said.  And, I nearly fell over.  What proceeded from there was a conversation about the time that we have in life and the things we choose to do with it.  “Being in love,” as this twelve year-old understands it is what everyone is looking for.  Of course, there are plenty of 50 year-olds that think this, too.  If you don’t believe me, go have a look at match.com or okcupid.com or some other equally heinous website.  True enough that in middle school there is a lot of effort being put into being liked.  Wearing the right clothes and avoiding saying the wrong things – these are key to success in the middle grades.  Son’s thoughts on this no doubt swirl around his anticipation of his first ever middle school dance. 

We do spend a lot of our time looking for love or wanting to fall in love or wanting to fall back in love or some variant.  But, it’s really so unnecessary.  As I told son #3 yesterday, there are so many, many things to do and thoughts to think and books to read…and…he added: “Doctor Who episodes to watch” that looking for the “love of my life” is pretty low on my list right now.  He looked a little worried.  He assured me I could find someone.  I couldn’t tell him it’s not on my list at all because I think that the cats eating your corpse story if you die coupled with the cat lady jokes that son #2 and I bat around when talking about my future may have gotten to the youngest. 

If I could convince pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults (or all those folks on match.com) of one thing it would be this: searching for love and/or having lots of sex should not be your primary activity in life.  You are worth more.  Do not waste time, money, or tears on these activities.  Go and live your life.  Find things that are interesting to you that have nothing to do with finding a significant other.  Read.  Write. Dance. Sculpt. Compose music.  Eat food.  Have friends.  Have lots of friends.  Quit making Pinterest boards for a distant-future wedding.  Quit hooking up.  Do not spend time pining for the “love of your life” or “the one that got away” or even “the one that sleeps next to me but I don’t trust him or her enough to not go through his or her phone when he or she is asleep.”  Quit.  Go and live.  Find things that fascinate you.  Live life.

This is a hard pill to swallow and there are certainly hundreds of clichés and self-help books that lurk around this pill but here it is anyway:  Fall in love with yourself.  By doing this, you free yourself and your friends to love fully.  So many young people seem to believe that “needing” someone is equivalent to loving someone.  They convince themselves that they need someone to complete them, to insert in their Face Book relationship status bar, or to spend Saturday nights with.  If you fall in love with yourself, you free those around you.  This bit of dialogue from the 1985 movie Out of Africa illustrates:

Karen: But I do need you. You don't need me.

Denys: If I die will you die? You don't need me. You confuse need with want. You always have.

Sure, most people want love.  Someone to come home to.  A partner.  A wife.  A husband.  A “love of their lives,” but it is not a necessity.  You won’t die if you don’t have that someone.  You very likely will wither up and die if you neglect yourself.  It may sound selfish, but in the moment when you fall in love with yourself, you will find that you won’t need anyone else.  If someone else is in your life and you love each other, it’ll be icing, not the cake.

“Well, son, I’m pretty busy right now; I don’t really have time for anyone else.”

“Okay, but, Mom…at least you have me and the brothers.”

And that’s my icing.

Parenting, Punishment, and Protesting

Did you know that in the great state of Georgia it is possible for a parent to bloody a child's lip and chip his teeth with closed-hand blow to the mouth, and the police will decide that because the child was talking back to the parent, the blow is an acceptable form of punishment?  Did you also realize that in the great state of Georgia if that same child attempts to fight back or strikes the adult, it can be decided that the child is the one committing the crime?  Never mind that the child is cornered by an adult twice his size with the adult grabbing and twisting the child's arms to "get him to settle down."  Never mind that the adult in question is the child's parent.  Never mind that it is the nature of pre-teens and teens to talk back as they stretch their wet wings, getting ready for the flight into adulthood.  Never mind that parents should have a host of tools in their arsenal for dealing with the host of issues that arise.  Oh, and in this case, let us throw in that the disagreement that led to the argument that led to the blows that led to the cornering began with the child sharing some opinions that the parent simply didn't like.  

Maybe this kind of thing is at the root of protesters at pride parades and festivals around the country. Maybe the protesters feel that the people who attend pride events are sharing something about themselves that the protesters don't like.  So, since they can't strike a physical blow to the mouth of the pride attendees, they attempt to strike a mental or emotional one.  Maybe the thought process goes something like this:

1.  Pride attendee:  I want to attend this event to have fun, be happy, and communicate who I am.

2.  Protester:  I don't like who this person is.

3.  Protester:  I want to hit this person because he is different from me.

4.  Protester:  I can't hit this person because I might go to jail.

5.  Protester:  I will protest with a vitriolic sign and shout mean slogans to try to harm this person.

I don't know.  I don't think like this.  I want to believe that people in general don't believe that literally or figuratively popping someone else in the mouth will make the injured party change their ways or agree with the attacker, but history proves me wrong.  Indeed, the root of the vast majority of local and global conflicts start with one group deciding that others should not be different.  

Here's the thing:  in the great state of Georgia a parent doesn't have to employ the fourth and fifth lines of the thought dialogue.  A parent can simply decide that he does not like the child's opinions. Then, if unsuccessful in changing the child through argument, the parent can hit the child in order to silence the child or attempt to force the child to the parent's way of thinking.  In doing this, the parent has not committed a crime.  Even though in the above thought dialogue, had the protester decided to hit the attendee, he would most likely be charged with a crime.

I am the mother of three boys.  Over the years they have told me thousands of wonderful, silly, witty, alarming, scary, tear-soaked, clever, mundane, sad, worrisome, joyous, pride-inducing, and just plain old fun things about themselves.  Never once in any scenario has my first thought been to strike them.  No matter how earth-shattering the announcement was (although it is incredibly hard to surprise me), have I ever thought, "I don't like that.  I'm going to hit you."  What kind of person does? 

The history of corporal punishment in Georgia schools is still being created because it is still legal.  In fact, corporal punishment is legal in 19 states nationwide.  In Poland corporal punishment in schools was outlawed in 1783.  Georgia state code has three sections that regulate corporal punishment in public schools.  Yes. These are laws about the proper situations, people, and settings in which corporal punishment should be administered in a public school setting.  If there are laws regulating who can strike the children in this state when they are at school, it may be no wonder that a bloodied lip and chipped teeth are seen as a perfectly fine form of parenting. 

Here’s the thing:  no matter their ages, our children will have enough bumps and bruises in their lives. The world will beat them up pretty good - it is not our parental duty to prime that pump. We don't need to inure them to the pain of the world.  No matter who a person is, he will get his lip bloodied in life.  More than once.  Parents need to love the kids when they are smelly and weird and silly, and even and especially when they tell us something we might not want to hear.   We should model how we wish the world would be:  accepting and wonderful and loving.  It is our job to teach children that the world is a wonderful, fascinating, wildly varied place where, yes, they will see a protester along the way, but where, ultimately, they can be their wonderful, fascinating, wildly varied selves.