MOVING YOURSELF FORWARD

I was lucky to have not ever needed to be PERFECT. I remember meeting this very beautiful girl in my 20’s who became, and still is my best friend. One day however, several months after we met, to my astonishment, she suddenly burst into tears. The cause was apparently because she was not Perfect.

Meanwhile back in my world, I had already been told that I must be terribly conceited if I thought that people seeing me among all the people they saw, especially pointed me out and commented on my flaws. After my initial shock at being called conceited in the face of my own timidity and shyness, I saw the point.

It’s been a long time since either of those events but I have come to believe that in reality, most of the people out there have enough of their own concerns, including about their own appearance, to give more than a passing thought to mine.

The latest craze for selfies is something I find very odd. Maybe it translates into a belief that you are the ‘star’ of your own life. That’s the only reason why I could see someone wanting to chronicle so much of their lives in photos. Meanwhile the ‘photo bomber’ approach to someone else’s photos strikes me as crude, rude and childish* However, considering how often it’s done, maybe other people think it’s stellar.

I think the rest of us are more likely to be somewhere in between on just how much notice we deserve and how much we get, especially based on looks. Likely safer to say that, your average person (texting virtually non-stop) can probably hardly be counted on to see anything they aren’t taking a photo of.

Generally, I suggest that you leave most of your self-consciousness at the door, along with most of your ego. In short, work on Getting Over Yourself. Everyone else probably has moved on to someone more interested in people other than themselves. Who knows you might learn something new, make a new friend, or just generally feel that the people you saw, seemed glad to see you and enjoyed your company. Sounds good to me.

*PHOTO BOMB - pho·to·bomb - ˈfōdōˌbäm/ - spoil a photograph of (a person or thing) by unexpectedly appearing in the camera's field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke.

TIME PASSAGES

The end of something often makes us think back to what has gone before. Perhaps we are just made this way. Possibly it is how we mark the passage of time in our lives.

Last night one of my nieces went to her High School Prom. Next week both of them will Graduate from High School. If such an important day in their lives doesn’t remind us that time is passing, probably nothing will.

At the same time, this particular event usually makes each of us reflect upon our own graduation. We later realize that this day is really important in our lives because it actually turns out to be the first time most of us realize that we have grown up and are adults.

We can’t help but remember how we felt at that time in our own lives. Most of us heard somewhere that our whole lives were ahead of us and the world was ‘out there’ and filled with opportunities. Something in us seemed to tell us that ‘the sky’s the limit’ and everything in life was ready to welcome us with open arms.

Do you remember when you still had no sense of mortality? Many of us do feel, and act with some sense of immortality, especially when we are that age. For some reason, you think you are going to live forever, or at least, many of us act as if we do. We seem ready to try anything, go anywhere and charge forward. It is, I remember, really exhilarating as well.

Meanwhile, when I meet my mother’s friend and contemporary who is 92 now and we have lunch together, we reflect on the fact that my mother died 21 years ago next month.

We also remember that the nieces who are graduating next week never met their grandmother. Something in us makes us pause and realize again that time ‘marches on’ and is again undeniably taking us through a new generations passage into adulthood. How can you not marvel?

An interesting song by Al Stewart and Peter White from 1978 called Time Passages reflected that ‘the years run too short and the days too fast’ and ‘the things you lean on are the things do not last’.* In retrospect we know how right they were in seeing this, when they and we, were still pretty young. I would say however, that they just saw this a lot sooner than most of us did.

Perhaps the rest of us just play catch up with what is important when we pause and take the time to mark important events and ‘rites of passage’ in our own and other people’s lives.

Maybe it doesn’t matter when we become wise enough to acknowledge important events in our lives and in the lives of those we care about. Maybe the important thing is that we somehow have reached the point where we understand that to go forward, you need to be smart enough to acknowledge and reflect upon where you have been. 

To consciously move forward in life, I think that, most if not all us, must be willing and able to take a breath in between, the passages of time in our lives.

*Time Passages by Al Stewart and Peter White, 1978.

DUSTING OFF THE BUCKET LIST

Another half year passing has me looking at my current Bucket List. Usually I have one going and although I don’t write it down, always somewhere in the back of my mind is a great long bunch of things I’d like to do.

This year for example, I began watching ALL of the Anthony Bourdain programmes I could access. Pretty soon, I had seen all of the No Reservations and other series, begun reading his books and bought the Les Halles cookbook. I found myself really enjoying these.

However, as the saying goes, I CREATED A MONSTER because, as usual, one thing lead to another. Soon I found myself viewing DVD’s and programmes about as many of the 3 star Michelin chefs as I could, then buying their books, then watching programmes about food bloggers and A Year in Champagne etc. The above is, I assure you, just the tip of the iceberg.

Ultimately the result is that I have seen wonderful programmes and series and my DVD and book collections have vastly increased.

For good or ill, Chef Jose Andres has with his 2 season ‘made in spain’ series, reinvigorated my interest in visiting a lot more of Spain and shoved it right up to the top of my Bucket List.

Considering that Spain has become a Culinary Mecca and also since I have found that the food (and wine?) leaves me feeling so healthy, I am pretty happy about dusting off my Bucket List and, at the very least, making another trip around this fascinating country ASAP. So much so that later this year, my major trip of the year will be to Spain.

If like me, you have wondered where the time has gone this year, perhaps like me, you too will dust off your own list of hopes and dreams and check off a few more life experiences you want to have while you can.

Hope you move along with yours, and wish me well with mine. Meanwhile, I can already taste the delicious Valencia orange juice, olives, Paella and think the Prado and flamenco and even sunny Espana in general might just be what I need to give the latest Bucket List a good kick start. Ole!

STILL STANDING or STANDING STILL?

You wake up again in the morning and you realize that another half a year has passed. Every time you do this, you are a bit shocked. It’s not however the first time you’ve noticed that time seems to be flying by. Perhaps that’s what makes it easier to push the thought of time passing away and go on with your day. This is something we all do.

None of us however, especially if we are Women, has not on some occasion or other had a friend or relative, or especially a parent, remind us that we are not getting any younger. The value of pointing this out is perhaps debatable. Nevertheless, they may also be reminding us, and themselves that there are things we want to accomplish before we are finished with this life.

I think this is what the passage of time signifies and why each of us to some extent is effected, or possibly sometimes even ruled by the clock. Even when we don’t think we are, some helpful soul comes up and says ‘chop, chop – 'tempus fugit’ or some variation of the same.

Would I be ‘raining on your parade’ and my own, if I mention that they are right and we know it? I say this because next week another half year has passed and my latest ‘bucket list’ has been on the back burner for far too long.

Time truly feels to us as flying by, passing far too quickly with each passing year. Possibly the person who says ‘there is no time like the present’ to get moving on some project, or plan or dream is the wise one. Maybe they are more aware than most of us are and actually have or may actually accomplish more by being more conscious of this reality.

Meanwhile, instead of continuing to push our hopes and dreams back, we might actually take a moment when next we realize that time is flying by to finally consciously bring something from our ‘wish list’ into our lives.

I fear and suspect that this is probably the only way that we might ever include and bring our dreams and hopes into our actual lives. As people say, ‘time waits for no man’ and it truly does seem to ‘fly’ by otherwise.    

IT’S NOT EASY TO SAY GOODBYE

I’ve never found it easy to say goodbye. Even when I have to, I always feel that whatever has put this person into my life, they have been there for a reason. Trying to understand and learn from them is therefore important for someone who thinks as I do.

Yesterday, feeling I had been neglecting my ‘musical’ friends, I and dozens of people I know turned up at a club we have been going to for many, many years for the matinee performance of our friend’s group.

We all remarked on how many of us were there yesterday all of a sudden. It is a long weekend and the weather is fabulous, but sometimes I think we all feel a need to reconnect at the same time as well.

In meeting again though, we catch up and sometimes get a shock at the same time as we do.

Not one, but two of my friends had died earlier this year. Speaking with their Widows is like reliving my own time in that traumatic first year after. I know what they are going through and they know I know. It is like a club, an association, that no one wants to be part of, but which life has put us in.

I give advice, but only to tell them to acknowledge and accept that this first year is rotten. I warn them not to change things much the first year, because you don’t realize that you are a ‘zombie’. You will see it later. You will also deeply regret the many changes you made when you took the ‘helpful advice’ of those around you.

In one case, what a loss there is after a 62 year marriage. The amount of time you were together isn’t the main thing though, it is the history and connection that was your life that you feel the most. You were part of a pair, a couple, two of you; now you are just you yourself. Somehow you have to deal with this.

One time a friend suffering through the ‘mourning’ of Divorce, compared it to that of Widowhood. But, no it’s a different thing. I realized that the difference was that: Divorced you hope you will never see the other person ever again; Widowed you would give anything/everything you have to spend  even a minute with them again.

No matter how much you would love to feel they are with you, they aren’t, and won’t be again in this life.

However long it has been, every memory is a tiny stab in your heart. It’s only the scar tissue getting thicker over time which lets it feel less like a direct hit than it was.

My last advice snippet is always the most important. Allow yourself to mourn. You have a right to do this. It is the time to do this. Do not stop yourself. You need to express what you feel. If others are there and you can/want to talk, this is the time. Your loss however, is so profound that it make take a while to say what you really feel, if you ever can or want to.

Mourn as long as you have to or want to. Never mind what someone else says or feels. They are having their own experience. It is not yours.

You will say your goodbye when you can and realize one day that you were singing one morning. You have come out on the other side. You are surprised but you’re still here and ready to move forward at last.  

REPACKING IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA

Turn around and look behind you. Now turn around again and look ahead. Now decide which way you want to go. It’s that simple. It’s that hard.

Because you don’t know what might be ahead of you, it might sometimes seem a bit scary to go forward. Meanwhile, you already know what is behind you.

You also know that what is behind you isn’t going to change or improve, it is what it is, or rather, was.

It’s likely that there are new challenges, experiences and opportunities available whenever you start moving forward. To take advantage of them however, you need to make room for them in your life.

Most of us need to work on putting the past behind us, if we ever want to get some distance from it. It usually doesn’t go away from us by itself. Each of us seems to carry a lot of it around with us.

In fact, most of us don’t put enough of it behind us, but instead seem determined to carry it around with us everywhere we go. 

We definitely can’t walk away from the past if we insist on carrying it around with us.

  

It can be pretty heavy, but most of us probably don’t notice that too much because we’ve been carrying the same weight around for a long time.

We can let ourselves put it down for a while. Only after we put it down are we able to see how heavy it was.

However, if you pick it up again as you leave, you are still going to be carrying around whatever you’ve accumulated. You might notice, however, that it’s a lot heavier than you realized it was.

Nevertheless, just by putting it down you may have started to put some distance between yourself and the past.

At some point you might think about what you have been waiting for all of this time. Knowing this can help you decide that you are ready to move forward again, or even just start off in another direction.

When you are ready, it is always a good idea to consider how much your baggage weighs. Immediately after this I suggest you repack it.

  

You can start by dumping everything out in front of you where you can see all of it.

I can guarantee that you won’t be putting all of it back into your luggage. However, you need to look at it to see that this is true.

Almost immediately you will realize how many things you were thinking about bringing along with you. There is usually quite a lot more than you thought. No wonder it felt so heavy when you picked it up again.

You will realize that you probably haven’t used some, maybe even most of these things recently. Nevertheless you have been carrying them around with you for ages.

You will quickly realize that a lot of it is stuff which you threw into your baggage out of habit. In fact, some of it has been there for such a long time that you forgot you had it with you. You think that maybe you could leave some of it behind, or maybe even throw some of it out. You figure out that you probably wouldn’t miss it.

If you aren’t ready to take anything away at first, you might consider the things that you actually have used recently and perhaps put them aside to repack.

Next, consider that every item which you bring with you, whether you ever use it or not, adds to the weight you will have to carry everywhere you go.

You will now have become aware of how much you had been carrying around with you. You will also have noticed how much lighter it feels now that you took out some of the old or unused things.

  

Perhaps, because of this, you will replace some things. You could bring something else which might be more useful than all of that old, worn out stuff, you used to carry around with you.

  

Repacking is always a good idea. Do it often. You will be lightening your baggage and making the load you carry around with you easier to manage. You will also be leaving some room for some new things you have made some space for in your life.

CHANGE BEGINS WITHIN

I am a great believer in fresh starts. A new year, a new month, a new week; sometimes even a new day, can call for a resolution or plan to get going on some project or plan which we have delayed until now.

In the hope of reviving and remotivating ourselves, most of us try and changes things around from time to time. To feel a real sense of progress however, it is probably more important, to act on making the changes we are willing and ready to make within ourselves.

I wonder why so many of us, treat ourselves with so little respect? Whether it’s our health we are neglecting or some dream that we are always putting away; many of us take better care of the needs of strangers and our pets, than we do ourselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of us actually take better care of almost anyone else than we do of ourselves.

In fact, I suspect that many of us have probably done more in our lives to learn how to get along better with others, than we have in learning how to get along with ourselves.

It is probably part of the human condition that, each of us wants to belong somewhere, to feel we are part of the life around us. Unfortunately, sometimes we accept someone else's, perhaps even a stranger’s opinion as more important than our own?

I believe that sooner or later, each of us needs to decide how much we are going to continue letting those around us effect our lives going forward. Having decided this we take steps to bring more of what we need and want into our lives.

I suspect most of us secretly hope that, someday soon, some magic will bring us the life and the things we feel we need to make us happy. The problem is, that in the present, most of us, still aren’t living the lives we would really like to be living. Worse still, we secretly wonder if we ever will. It would probably do us more good, when we are daydreaming to dream up which small steps we might take to decrease the gap between who we actually are and who we would have liked to have been.

I also think that each of us, at some point in our lives, needs to think about what kind of person we feel we are. I am convinced that most of us would like to feel, and probably would like to believe, that we are good people.

Then again, how good can we be when most of us can’t admit the truth about our weak points and shortcomings to ourselves? How does being a good person jive with living a life which still has episodes of bitterness, envy, anger, temper tantrums and road rage? I’d love to know. While, none of us is perfect, some things could use our attention and we know it.

Like me, you may have deliberately left Type A people behind you a long time ago. Most of us wonder how anyone could be happy if they knew that everyone around them finds them tiring, and tiresome, to be around. Who could be impressed by someone who seems inexplicably to need to ride over other people as they bulldoze their way through life? What’s eating them and how insecure can such a person possibly be?

Meanwhile, however, why don’t more of us ask the demanding and obnoxious, the self-centered and rude to be responsible and explain themselves? Why instead do we meekly step out of their way and thereby permit their rude, crude and ignorant behaviour to continue?

If we’re such good people, why do we still sometimes envy others? Why do we demand so much attention? Why do many of us appear to be so angry about everything and at everyone around us? What are we trying to prove? And probably more importantly, who are we trying to prove it to?

The big question for each of us to ask ourselves, in whatever area of our lives which needs improvement might be, ‘What is it going to take for you to stop running on all cylinders 24/7?’ We might also ask ourselves, ‘Why are you and I still doing this to ourselves?’ While these and other questions will put each of us on the spot, being honest means recognizing that none of us is exempt from the need to do better in one area of our lives or another.

Most of us understand and accept that our lives are, and will always be, a work in progress. This may not be a bad thing.

Luckily, most of the time, we usually are only accountable to ourselves. In fact, none of us must change anything, unless we actually want to have a better life and become the person we always wanted to be, when we grew up.

APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEIVING - 2

Over the years I have spoken about The Blanket Man. Since I am one of the first people to think we should not judge someone by their appearance, I once again need to remind myself to take my own advice.

Never mind that we only get seconds to get a first impression about someone, the fact remains that every one of us has a story to tell about themselves and your first glance, based on your personal filters, is probably not enough to tell you all you need to know.

What I am saying is that, by now, I should know better than to make quick judgements, especially about how someone looks to me, but I don’t.

Last month, a McDonald’s conversation with two men at the next table, told me things about some of the local street people, among them a person I have called The Blanket Man. Like every other opinion we have, what I heard was, as it so often is, just another small piece of the puzzle.

Trying to mind my own business, I was reading a book on Boomers (by Tom Brokaw) and have something to eat. We have a local diner style restaurant and from time to time, I go in and have something to eat, either by myself or with a friend.

Suddenly I notice The Blanket Man standing at the door. The Waitress gives him a package and he leaves. She tells me that she has known him for 15 years. He always calls her honey or baby (I forget which) and he only wants her to give him Sausages. He goes next door for Sushi. He goes down the block for a drink. If he gets the wrong drink or not what he wants, he might ask her for something else.

He will not take money, he does not want your warm coat. He will tell you that you need both, more than he does. Nevertheless on a cold day, you will still see him with blankets over his shoulder standing in a subway doorway shivering and wet. I am always shocked when I see him so bedraggled. I am dismayed but nervous about speaking to him.

I am now told that, in an earlier time in his life, he was a lawyer. The waitress told me that a customer said that the man I call The Blanket Man, was a lawyer and a partner of his.

One day he was driving a car with his wife and two children and was in an accident on a slippery road. His family was killed. 

What can I say? What can anyone say except, we need to remind ourselves that his life and our own have a story to tell.

We might remind ourselves that the only life story we know, even a little about, is our own. Even our own story is still a work in progress and things can change in a heartbeat.

Perhaps the next time, I start to dismiss someone, I might remember this. I know I should. Whether I will or not is another story.

I write this to remind myself, and you that maybe we all should slow down a bit and take a second look before we pass over someone next to us, without a word being said to give us enough information to make more than a totally superficial judgement.*

 

*See also October 7, 2015 and earlier THE BLANKET MAN