When I was a kid, I used to trail after my Mom while she did various tasks around the house. Sometimes, after a while of me talking steadily, she’d turn and say, “Enough.” It wasn’t said harshly – it was more of a plea of exhaustion followed by an endearment. I always felt ashamed at those moments, but if I’d been honest with myself I would have admitted that I too was exhausted. Often I was talking in my sleep. Leftover frustration and sadness were driving a somewhat unconscious me; I was distractedly trying to talk my way out of discomfort.

Early in our marriage, my husband described that kind of talking as “searching”; he said it seemed as though I was just talking in search of relief with no real direction. This analysis wasn’t a big hit with me; I felt guilty and defensive. My unhappiness seemed important; my need for comfort, relevant. But he too was exhausted, and though I could not defend this kind of talking, I knew there was something worth defending. I was hoping to hear my own voice, not the scared, negative, reactive one, but the one that knew I was going to be okay, that I was good and valuable, and that my natural state was happy. Little did I know you have to be awake to hear that voice.

I’ve learned that when I feel unhappy, I’m not all the way here. I’ve vacated; now is a stranger to me whether or not I believe I’m in it. I’m standing on the head of the present moment attempting to reach for something else, looking to get to the next thing or just out of where I am. It seems like being unhappy is a sure sign of being where I am and not liking it, but it turns out that is incorrect. What’s happening is that my thinking (and talking) is, at the moment, out of accord with who I really am and what I really want.

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We’ve lived in our house for twenty-one years but only recently did we see our first bunny. It arrived with no fanfare, just fur and long ears – so still – a fixture in the grass. Never having seen a rabbit in our backyard before, we experienced the moment as a special occasion and stared at it much the way it seemed to be looking both into and out at life. People can do this kind of seeing too, one with the moment; it’s just that our thinking sometimes gets in the way of us taking in what’s right before us, and what’s actually in us.

My grown son was talking in depressing depth the other day – doubting his ability to go forward with his education, feeling stuck, panicked, and regretting decisions he’d made in the past. At first, I was compelled to argue him point-for-point, trying to disprove his hopelessness. But everything I said just made him argue his position more. Then I started talking about who he is underneath the story he was telling. I spoke of his calm, steady, intelligent self. I talked about how that self is always right here, how it doesn’t go away, regardless of our current narrative.

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The truth is, there is reason to love this story.

My character (me), though self-doubting and insecure regarding her ability to accomplish the task, ultimately does so. She keeps trying and, though she falls apart to some degree, never completely unravels. She perseveres and, whether she gives herself credit or not, shows up and accomplishes what she’d set out to do: pick up her damn husband at the damn airport. Plus, if viewed from the right angle, it’s funny.

I actually like quirky, wobbly characters – those who have some of their wires hanging out. I find them endearing. I appreciate stories in which those personalities manage to bloom. When I create characters, these are the types about whom I’m most excited – the awkwardly quiet or loud, the clinically negative or upbeat, the scared ones who still try – whether too hard or not hard enough.

I’ve hated the Picking My Husband Up at the Airport story because I didn’t want to be seen through its lens and didn’t yet understand how to tell the whole story. I am not an insecure, distressed, and disoriented person, but I do act like one sometimes. In order to be comfortable being seen (in the world, and through my work), I have to allow my authentic self to be made visible, and also the asymmetries of this unique vehicle for my expression: my personality. And when we write, it’s the same challenge. We have to appreciate the character’s personality stylings, which can be both endearing and problematic, while simultaneously knowing who they are in their integrity.

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At 85, my father went through a brief period in which he was in and out of hospitals. There was a lot of communication between family members regarding what did – or didn’t – need to be done. I found myself mentally on call, though most of the time I was unneeded. The business of waiting for news that I would have to do something put me into a state of hyper alertness more stressful than any event that occurred during that time. I was in mental overdrive. My focus was fixated on a future over which I had no control and on living up to responsibilities I could not yet define. I was overwhelmed – not from what was happening, but by the idea of what might happen.

During World War II, the Nazis developed the Blitzkrieg – in which columns of tanks rushed into Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. As Ryan Holiday says in his book, The Obstacle Is the Way, the Blitzkrieg was constructed to capitalize on the enemy flinching when faced with what seemed to be an “overwhelming force.” The enemy had to fall apart, otherwise the Blitzkrieg strategy wouldn’t work. It was Dwight D. Eisenhower who demanded his generals no longer see the situation as a disaster. He envisioned taking advantage of the onslaught of Germans, rather than recoiling. They would bend, not break, in the face of the upset. Holiday says the Allies were “. . . able to see the opportunity inside the obstacle rather than simply the obstacle that threatened them.” This new perception helped change the course of the battles to follow.

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Sometimes I watch a program called, Dr. Pimple Popper. For the uninitiated: this is a show about a dermatologist who attempts to resolve extreme skin conditions, including the removal of some dramatic, severe lumps and bumps. At first, based on both title and concept, I didn’t understand why anyone would ever want to watch it. I don’t recall what led me to sit through my first episode, but I am now up-to-date and have seen them all. I have discovered why I like to watch it. Most of the patients come in believing they are trapped and diminished by something beyond their control, and leave feeling freed of that sense of limitation. This kind of transformation makes for a satisfying story - though every happy ending marks a new beginning and not everyone is prepared to tend to that themselves.

A recent episode included a woman with lesions and scars, but her previous medical tests showed thickened skin from chronic scratching and rubbing, which meant the damage to her skin was self-created (factitial). There was no skin disease or underlying condition. But the woman didn’t believe she was creating the problem. The doctor told her she had the power to change the pattern. The patient seemed open to the idea at first, but then said, “It just puts the burden back on me.”

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Over six months ago, I was summoned for jury duty. As we all know, it’s a very good and noble thing to do one’s civic duty; however, I did not want to go. The other times I’ve been summoned, I was excused. So, with my dad having just died, and one or two other factors at play, I submitted my explanation and hoped to be excused again. This time, though, I was not. My summons was just delayed. During this period I was busy with executor duties, but still able to routinely find the time to dread going to jury duty.

I am a person who is often inclined to stay home. As a child, I remember looking at our pear-shaped, gray tabby, Muffy, wishing for her situation – the permanently excused life of a cat. Though she occasionally ventured out to the front steps of our house to observe life, once done, she could quickly return to the mother ship, something I often wished for at that time.

The first day of jury duty was spent in a very large, open room with floor-to-ceiling windows, a panoramic view of downtown, and lots of people. From 8:30 to 4:30 we waited to be called to a courtroom for voir dire – the jury selection process – but the majority of us were not called. Mostly I didn’t know or understand what was coming next, only that I couldn’t go home. By the end of the next day I was selected for a trial. For a time, my routine involved arriving early at the courthouse, going to the twelfth floor, putting my lunch in the refrigerator, chatting with fellow jurors, following the bailiff, lining up, being instructed, etc. 

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I was seventeen and had recently performed in our high school play. A fellow cast member approached me one day and told me his brother (who went to a different high school) had seen me in the play and would like to go out with me. He then took out a family photo and pointed to his brother. I looked at the boy in the picture and facetiously said something like, “Hubba hubba”.  The guy in the picture was cute but I had no desire to go out with him. However, I felt uncomfortable rejecting the idea outright, and thus it was that the guy was given the OK to call me.

And he did. I was chatty and friendly, though resistant, and we set a place and time for meeting. As luck would have it, it snowed heavily right before our date and I used this as an excuse for canceling. But the boy rescheduled. I did not want to go, but I did. It was raining that day. I wore my raincoat with the hood up and waited for him outside the frozen yogurt place. While dragging him on a hunt to buy a present for someone, I talked a lot, occasionally allowing him to participate.

We returned to my house and stood outside. I reached out to shake his hand – a cordial and professional thank you and goodbye. He said he would leave it to me whether we got together again. Later, I wrote in my journal that he was a good guy and that he’d left it to me, which I appreciated and would not be acting upon. But he persisted. We got together many times after that. About ten years later, that guy and I married.

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I cannot remember which birthday it was; I think I was turning thirteen. Unbeknownst to me, my Mom was attempting to orchestrate a small surprise on my behalf. I remember my friend Wendy asking me to go somewhere in a manner that seemed out of the norm. My antennae went up; it felt as though I was being covertly steered. Things were happening, behind the scenes, over which I had no control. I became uncomfortable and resistant. The thing is – I liked birthdays and I trusted my friends and family. It was a knee-jerk reaction: I wanted to know what was going on. In the end, due to my lack of cooperation and hyper-awareness, I effectively ruined my own surprise.

On the other hand, as a child, I once hid a dollar in hopes I’d forget where it was and happily discover it later. When I eventually did find the dollar, even though I’d forgotten about it, the experience was lackluster. Having engineered my own surprise, I just knew too much. It’s those incalculable factors – in life and in story telling – that make things so interesting and joyful. I had wanted the delight a surprise can bring but without any of the unknowns and uncertainties. As the years have gone by, I still can’t consider myself an embracer of surprise. But recently, I encountered a surprise that made me think about them differently.

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When I was a child, my mother took me shopping for shoes. I tried on a pair; she pressed on the toes, squeezed the sides, and instructed me to walk around the store. Then she asked, “Will you wear them?”  I stared down at my feet, hoping to find the answer there. The question was difficult. What if, for some reason, I did not wear them? It seemed important - maybe too important. And that importance weighed on me. The more I pondered the question under the dominant influence of my mother’s interest and concern, the more tentative I became.

 During my school years, I believed almost everything was important. In high school, I had trouble sleeping for a year because of that belief. There is a way to redefine importance so it doesn’t lead to indecision, insecurity, manic behavior and/or sleep deprivation. Focusing on interest more than importance can put us in a naturally engaged, unpressured position. For most of high school I didn’t think I was interested in anything. In truth, I was focusing so much on assignments and grades and so little on what was compelling to me, I didn’t even realize just how interested I was. I had accidentally taken myself out of the equation.

 Our human minds are capable of making us feel wobbly about almost anything, and the story of importance sets the stage for just how much we wobble. A so-called important decision is much harder to make than a seemingly unimportant one. And we believe things are important when we think our happiness is somehow on the line, and that the power to be happy lies outside of us.

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For many years, whenever my husband went out and was the slightest bit late in returning, my youngest son would inevitably declare, “He’s dead.”  It wasn’t just his father; he routinely came to this conclusion regardless of the person or circumstances. He was also quick to diagnose physical symptoms as cancer or, less specifically, something terminal.  When we watched movies together, at the start of every film he would question why a character was upset or happy, ask what had happened, or demand explanations for just about everything. We encouraged him to wait and allow the story to unfold. There simply wasn’t enough information available to answer. But he continued asking – striving to pin things down that were still in the process of unfolding.

 

Watching my son rush toward answers (even unwanted and wrong ones) sheds light on how my own preoccupation with solutions and outcomes takes me out of the flow and into anxiety. I might believe it’s the unknown that’s causing my angst but, in truth, labeling uncertainties as “problems,” as well as the urgency to fix them, creates the distress and unease.

 

A bud needs time to open. There is no manual or mechanical method for expediting that process. It has to happen on its own using the natural intelligence that knows how to bloom. Noodling with it won’t help and most likely will hurt. We don’t call a bud a problem because it has yet to bloom. An experience can also be seen similarly – as in progress, in the process of blooming into the next thing. This is a less stressful way of receiving life and keeps us working with things rather than trying to fix them.  

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