In the spirit of Veritas…

Truth. Veritas.

The motto of Providence College, the only college/university in North America of the Dominican Friars.

The sound of wooden beads gently knocking together, hidden inside folds of long woolen-like brown robes as Friar/Teachers walked the campus, holding their notebooks and books for classes they were teaching. A gentle nod and sweet smile to students, from most.  Others would walk with head down, preferring to make no eye contact at all.

It was the first full year of girls on campus. Living in dorms once the bastion of boys in sport coats and ties, khaki pants and loafers.

And there we were – the girls – in our rather strange groups of three to a room – matched alphabetically, not in the fashion of today which usually means an extensive “similarity” questionnaire.  So, Sullivan, Taylor, Thomas we were. Two from Rhode Island, and one from Connecticut. Two from private school. One from public school in Pawtucket. We were all Christian, Roman Catholic – that was our similarity match.

Most of the rooms on the rest of the floor were taken by girls from Catholic Connecticut high schools. Me? A public school student from Pawtucket; having lived with an extended Portuguese family. First to go to college.

I started working a work-study job in the fundraising and public relations office.  Logging in donations and pledges in boxes of index cards. Always gravitating to the PR part of things.  It was easy to work at this job – sometime around 3pm I’d wander in after class, and leave in time for dinner at Raymond Hall, (named for Raymond Patriarca).

About six months into my freshman year I learned that my father had left the home and a divorce was imminent.  (It would take three years of courtroom trips – fighting for the sake of it – my father was not Portuguese, and always felt outnumbered by both numbers of people and the primary foreign language spoken in the house).

So, my circumstances were about to change. Dramatically.  The savings bonds that had dutifully been collected by buying them one a week from grammar school on, by my mother, were in jeopardy. They were paying for my college education, in addition to scholarships due to my excellent academic standing and testing.

The bonds had been put in my father’s name. That’s just the way we did things all those years ago. And in his anger and angst, he took them. He took all of them. I suddenly had no funds to pay a bill.

I became a homeless co-ed on the campus of this prestigious, expensive, Catholic college. And no one knew.

With a first semester paid for, I took another part-time work-study job. At a hospital two buses away, in East Providence, where I would go from 4pm to 9pm. Three days a week, right after my first job. I had just enough money to buy my meal ticket and books. Scholarships would pay for the next semester.

At Christmas, I stayed alone in my dorm room, with the lights off. We were supposed to vacate the dorms so they could be cleaned. But I had nowhere to vacate to. So I stayed in the dark, literally, and quietly, in case campus maintenance people came by. Jamming the door so it could not open. I had a hot plate and some cup-a-soup (never Ramen noodles) – and bread. The library was open during times the school was closed, so I spent most days there.  But nights were in darkness, less anyone find out that this homeless co-ed was living in a dorm room, in an empty building.

Summertime came soon. I found a living situation with four other people in a 2nd floor of a three tenement on Smith Street, a few blocks away. I got a job in some manufacturing company, in the kitchen, or at a check-out line, my memory is foggy on this. Buses back and forth.  I made enough to just pay my share of the rent.

As August came money ran out.  There was none to pay for tuition, or food, or clothes, or even buses. My scholarship would be in, in September, but how would I survive?  I went to the state’s “welfare office” and applied for help. But I had to sit in a large room, and as I looked around at the moms and babies I just got up and left. Surely I could find another way.

My favorite meal – my only meal most nights – was white River rice with butter and a generous sprinkling of some fake Parmesan cheese.  Occasionally I had frozen white fish for $1 a block – I wonder now – though I didn’t then – just what that was?  I would offer to cook for my roommates so I could eat a little of their food – I never told them why my shelf in the refrigerator had only a pound of butter on it and some bread.

At one point I took a bus to Maine and arrived on the steps of a house where I thought a nice boy I was dating lived. I must have gone by some sort of faith that drew me there, because I had never even checked his address. I arrived. I just stayed there. Somehow I knew that this family – with 6 children – could be my safe place for a few weeks.  To this day my love for the mom, and my dear nice boy who turned into a wonderful, heart-filled man, remain. The man from Maine and I went on to have 2 daughters each, with our spouses, and we both were divorced. We’ve always maintained our friendship – and sometimes more, and we talk to this day of our love for each other, a deeper love than any romance might involve.

I could go on. But the picture has been made.  The next three years were hand to mouth, as they say. The kindness of one Dominican who wore white robes, and not brown, must be mentioned. He was the brother of the president – he was Father Peterson’s brother, Father Peterson. The tall slim one.  Somehow he knew without words of my situation. And as the end of each year passed, he would remove some of the charges on my bill.

In my final months I was struck by a car leaving my hospital job going to the bus stop. I crushed my hip and pelvis and never completed my final days on campus – never walked the stage for graduation. But Father Peterson was there, helping always.

Ten years. That’s what it took to pay back my education. Probably as much interest as principle. But each payment was made with a thank-you to this small (at the time) soulful college that knew I needed help, and I didn’t fill out a form, or tell my story too completely, to anyone. I didn’t match the PC co-ed from Connecticut profile, whatsoever. Sometimes I think not knowing what to do about me was my salvation.

I had my pride. Big Portuguese pride. I would “make it”; of that I had no doubt. It is the same feeling I’ve had all my life. Through trials; ridiculous job situations; a divorce; money challenges. I would make it – because, well, what else would I do but make it? It was simply not an option not to.

I tell this story in my later years – not even my family has heard it. I tell it in the spirit of a liberal arts education, the kindness of men in robes with the sound of wooden rosary beads that comforted me on hot summer days, as I sat wondering if that dorm door would still be ajar when I got back to it, so I could  put my head down and wonder what my life would be like. I tell it to inspire others to look inward – first – rather than outward – for help. And never walk away without a plan to pay it back – even if it takes you a decade.

As PC says, “the search for truth is the basis for dialogue with others and critical engagement with the world”.  My story is far less than many people’s story of hardship. Far, far less. But it is my truth. And the core of who I am. It is my veritas, and in that spirit, I share it.

 

 

It’s been a year…

I was really getting into this blogging thing – and then 2018 happened.  On a completely personal level, many good things…on a business level, doing some of the best work I’ve ever done.

But on a political level, and on social media, where much of my work lives for clients and causes, the dichotomy of friend/foe, liberal/conservative, progressive/right-wing, and more, split my world in a variety of ways.  So, I stopped blogging. And watched. And listened. To everything, until some days my eyes and even brain physically hurt. Sure I commented profusely in mini-posts here and there, but no deep dives.

The glee has been tempered in my last 365 or so days. The easy smile has become a squinty-eyed, intense look; an effort to understand people and institutions, especially those I thought I knew best.

I’ve said – and been misunderstood about – that sometimes life is in need of a good shaking-up; a disruptor force. Be that being fired from a long-held job, a divorce, a dramatic change of circumstance.  An iconic company goes ‘poof’. The friend who held your life’s story in her mind inexplicably is gone – without warning. Or, be that a larger world shift.

There are disruptors all around us now. In our infinitesimally local world. And in the immeasurably larger world around us. We are in that disruptor time, and I hold hope that the virtual – and real – shaking around us will pour out a much better world – a kinder and gentler personhood for each of us. Where we seek first to listen, and then to speak. Where we regale in the diversity – of thought – and opinion – around us. And seek, once again, to understand one another – and to accept the very personal histories we each bring to the table of the lives we live – and those we interact with. Acceptance.

I’ve seen struggles to view diversity dissolve into a broad brush where we no longer see the individual, but only see a dissected collection of his/her most obvious parts. A generation with so little knowledge and respect for history – how do we know where we are going – if we do not know where we have been?

Hope is a Choice…

Can’t live without love?  Can’t live without hope!  I’ve heard it said that love is a choice we make (but never fully believed that). So, today, 20 days into 2019, I choose hope. I choose to live in it. To find my smile. To respond more with “this too shall pass”, or the familiar greeting of Aussies, “no worries”. And to hold firm to the words of President Jimmy Carter, who recently said, “I think in the past we have proven as a country that we can overcome any major challenge that presents itself. So I have confidence or faith in the future of America.”

 

Hope is a choice. Choose it.

With hope, we can – begin again.

Old enough to remember…

I wrote to the author of this hidden little piece, below, in today’s New York Times: “Thank you for sharing this – I think back to all the Sunday rides we took as a family – it was my mother who was the adventurer – spontaneously calling out – turn here! – to my dad, who just did whatever she told him to. And I giggled at the adventure – for no more cost than an ice cream if we found a place, or some french fries, maybe. Sometimes, summer tomatoes from a fruit and vegetable stand. No worries about the price of gas.

I was much too structured with my children – wish I had transferred the carefree spontaneity of my mom (but I suppose there’s still time)…

My treat on my birthday – which today is – is to spend most of the day with my all-too-grownup girls – I hope for giggles and memories – less worry and fret – less planning and structure – as our world’s concerns have descend upon them like a heavy cloak.  I can no longer protect – distract – cocoon them – with arts and crafts, or food, or entertainment. I suppose there were worldly concerns in my childhood, back on those dusty Sunday road trips – but I don’t remember what they were.

This world’s dark and ominous cloud needs aggressive bands of sunlight – people who can drag us out with inconsequential moments of wonder.

Maybe that’s my role now.  I’ve done far too much planning and prodding and pulling them along. So I’ll go back to the moments … some of which have already been forgotten.  “Do you remember that? When we went to Maine, just the three of us? When we went to the beach in our clothes because we didn’t bring suits?”  – “No, not really…” Sigh…

Maybe they are not “old enough” yet – to remember. Anyone near my age will know what I mean…

I encourage them to write, to journal, to blog, to keep boxes of memories…because one day something will come back to them…and they’ll giggle and pause – and maybe, when it is their time they will take their little ones spontaneously to Maine – or to the Cape – without a reservation, with no bags packed.  Or, they could go on a Sunday drive – and shout out, “turn here”!

Thanks to author Christina Baker Kline…

“At the steering wheel my father consults his large paper map, turning it this way and that, squinting at the small blue lines that squiggle through tiny Maine coastal towns. He’s heard that the author E.B. White’s house is somewhere around here, and he’s determined to find it.

My mother, next to him in the passenger seat of our rusty gold station wagon with my baby sister on her lap, raises her eyebrows at my other two sisters and me, free-ranging in the second row. It’s the early 70s, and seatbelts haven’t caught on yet. We gaze back at her, knowing that once Dad gets an idea into his head, it’s almost impossible to stop him. We range in age from 1 to 10 (I’m the oldest), and all of us are literally and figuratively along for the ride. Besides, we’re excited at the prospect of meeting this author we already feel we know. We’ve been lulled to sleep every night by the soft cadence of my dad’s Southern accent as he reads us stories about a wise spider and a hapless pig, a resourceful mouse and a mute swan.

Dad pulls off the road into the dusty parking lot of a country store with a lone gas pump, and gets out of the car. We hear him chatting with the attendant through the open window. “Sure is nice around here.”

The guy shrugs.

My sisters and I glance at each other. Rural Mainers tend to be stranger-wary and small-talk averse. But as usual, Dad doesn’t seem to notice. “You lived here long?”

“Ayuh.” Amazingly, before long, and with only a little coaxing, the attendant is telling Dad about his grandkids and his lobster boat and pointing off into the distance, giving him the intel he’s come for. “Mr. White lives right over that hill there. Privet hedge in front. Can’t miss it.”

Back on the road, my sister Cynthia ventures, “Isn’t it rude to show up on someone’s doorstep without asking?”

Dad grins and winks at us in the rear view mirror. “He’ll be flattered.”

We pull up to the farmhouse to find a courtly white-haired man trimming the hedge with a set of clippers. “It’s him!” Dad whispers. He rolls down his window and leans out. “Hello, good sir!” The man seems a little nonplussed. “I have a car full of young readers here who’d give anything to meet their favorite author. A word from you, and they’ll remember this moment for the rest of their lives.” What choice does the poor man have? Within a few minutes, the famously reclusive E.B. White is demonstrating to a cluster of little girls in bathing suits that when you crush pine needles between your fingers and hold it to your nose, the smell is as strong as patchouli. And Dad is right — we never will forget it.

The writer E.B. White passed along an appreciation for the scent of crushed pine needles to the author and her sisters when they arrived at his house unannounced in August 1973. Credit Courtesy of the Baker family.

My childhood was rife with moments like this. Dad was always going out on a limb, befriending people who didn’t necessarily seem to want new friends, trespassing on private property, pushing the boundaries of acceptable behavior in quest of adventure. His philosophy was that you don’t need money or plans, only a willingness to be present in the moment and to go where inspiration takes you. If you don’t, you’ll miss the entire point of being alive.

Raised dirt poor in rural Georgia by a mill worker mother and a father who often went to the bar rather than home after work, Dad learned early on that his quickest route up the social ladder was through charm and smarts. He got himself to college — the first in his family — on a football scholarship, then used seminary to springboard to a doctorate in a foreign land.

As a young academic in the ‘60s, he grew to reject traditional values and had scant respect for the social codes of privilege. At parties, he could often be found talking to the bartender or a 95-year-old Irish grandmother in the kitchen rather than the hosts. A Southerner through and through, even after moving to Maine, he was constitutionally incapable of walking down a street in New York without stopping to chat with doormen, bodega owners and homeless people. He never met a taxi driver whose story he didn’t want to know. Dad’s unorthodox and sometimes embarrassing friendliness got him, and us, into trouble now and then. Some people didn’t take kindly to probing questions. Others found his puppy-dog openness suspect or unsophisticated. But his innate, bottomless curiosity about the world also taught his four daughters to be open to new experiences and comfortable with improvisation. Even now, in his late 70s, he lives each day with a kind of purposeful recklessness, asking provocative questions and seeking new experiences in the belief that he can break through to something better, more meaningful, more satisfying.

Though my parents had little money, they took us on adventures all over the world. Driving through Scotland in a rainstorm, we pulled over to the side of the road and rode the wild ponies grazing by the fence. We coaxed a stray lamb over to our rented R.V. to feed it. One year my father switched houses, cars, teaching jobs, committees and pets with a professor in Melbourne, Australia, sight unseen. Another year our family of six flew to Crete without a plan; at the airport Dad bought a map and started asking random strangers, with the help of a woefully inadequate Greek phrase book: “What should we do?” “Where should we stay?”

This spontaneity meant that we missed flights, lost luggage, drove on perilous roads late at night, stayed in some cold-water hovels, and sometimes went hungry. But it also yielded beautiful surprises: an undiscovered beach, a fisherman’s hut with a breathtaking view, a hillside breakfast of goats’ milk yogurt and fresh honey that I still remember 35 years later. It led to his daughters’ sense of the world not as a huge frightening place but as a wonderland ripe for discovery.

The Maine farmhouse in Andrew Wyeth’s iconic painting “Christina’s World” was not yet a museum or even open to the public when my father got it into his head — soon after our ambush of E.B. White — to take a family field trip there. Following his usual routine, he pulled into the small village of Cushing and asked a local how to find the Olson house. When we arrived (no doubt trespassing), we picnicked in the field where the woman in the pink dress in the painting had lain. Looking up at that weathered gray house on the hill, and hearing the story of the woman with my name who spent her lifetime there, I was entranced. Years later, I drew on that experience to tell my own story of the painting in my new book.

There’s no doubt that my dad’s endless curiosity has shaped who I am. I often find myself — to my own kids’ embarrassment — chatting with strangers in lines, accepting spontaneous invitations, and seeking out-of-the-way adventures.

I think the most important thing I learned from my dad is that when you go out on a limb there’s a risk it will break, but you’ll get a whole new perspective on the world. And if you’re really lucky, it can feel like flying. ‘

Christina Baker Kline is the author, most recently, of the forthcoming novel “A Piece of the World.”

# # #

Terror at Christmas

Christmas past…

Every Christmas I waited for one gift.  It would usually come a few days before Christmas, and it was never wrapped.  But I knew it was coming, when I heard my uncle bound up the stairs, rather than plod one step at a time. “Is she here?” he’d bellow.  I was always there. Where else would I have been?

As the only boy in his family, growing up with two sisters, one my mother, and a father who was more into gardening and puttering, than hunting or big physical exercise, I imagine he was thrilled when my mother was having a baby.  I imagine he was a little disappointed when it was a girl.

But quickly he figured that it made no difference at all.  And he would simply treat me like a boy.  So, gifts of clothing, of which there were very few, were often blue sweaters or orange and black gloves and brown boots bought in the boy’s department. As I said, he didn’t buy clothing very often.  What he did buy, though, was pretty spectacular.  Especially for an “only child” being raised like a princess (as a recall). Barbies!  Carriages!  Baby dolls!  All were plentiful. But they never came from my uncle.

No, when my uncle would come bounding up those stairs, I would just wait for it!  What magical toy would it be?  Lincoln Logs.  Those little plastic Indians and Soldiers in their war stances.  We’d play and make forts and have some big battles! Sets of tinker toys. And we’d build giant spaceship type structures. One time there were racing cars, complete with a curving roller coaster track.  There was the police car, all black and white and heavy, that you could rev up by running it back and forth and then letting it go and the red light would shine and the siren would shriek.  There was the police gear. And a badge I could wear. And we would play and run around the house. Never for very long, though. We’d start to play and then he’d run off to do some adult thing that he needed to do.

My mother would say “Sonny!” (what we always called my uncle) “Sonny! She’s a girrrllll!” But, I loved it all.  The gun shot caps.  Then he bought me real caps – the kind you stepped on and it sounded like pistol shots.  There was a science kit or two, and then, one day, there was a “pearl” handled silver gun.  It was big and heavy.  You could cock it back and it would snap out a loud POP.  I can still remember how it felt in my hand and how there were ridges on the inside of the hammer.  Better, yet, this gun went into a holster – a black holster that went around my waist.  Eventually I got a cowboy hat to go with it. And bullets on a cross strip.  And boots.  I was banned by my mother from playing outside dressed up like that because the neighbors might see.  So I played inside.  Lost in a world of Gunsmoke and Bonanza. Even Andy Griffith carried a gun!  And, for that matter, Ellie Mae Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies prided herself on her shooting prowess.

As growing up will do to you, it changed things.  And the Christmas came when the boy-toy didn’t get such a gleeful response from me; and it stayed unopened.  “Hey, you didn’t open it… yet” he said, a few days in a row. Eventually the boy-toys stopped coming.  Eventually we didn’t play together anymore.

These memories are vivid this year; the same year my uncle passed away at 92.  I remember it because of how things have changed. And also for how they have not changed very much at all.

Christmas present…

Today, gun toys for young children are not cool.  But yet, they are on our shelves…waiting to be bought for little boys and little girls this Christmas.  The violent video games target the slightly older children, whose unformed minds bounce between fantasy and reality. This December begins with terror. Terror from San Bernardino – but living inside all of us today. When we’re shopping at a crowded mall.  Eating in a restaurant. Attending a concert.  Now, when we’re at work at a holiday party?

Gun control.  It seems an impossibility.  The little tweaks are purposeful, but in fact, all the guns we will ever need are already out there.  Guns are forever, but ammo degrades. It has a shelf life.  Ammunition is gun food. If we can starve the guns a bit, or change the way ammunition sales are regulated and controlled, perhaps we can change the way guns are used. As Marc Ambinder wrote in The Week in 2012, “Guns need food. Starve them”.  We can be distracted by all the focus on gun control – let us ask ourselves, what else can we do?

Here’s another thing we can do – we can ask to have these toys removed from our shelves. We can stop buying them. These are some of the gun type toys available for purchase on this one day in December in Rhode Island. They are at Benny’s, K-Mart, Toys ‘R Us, and Walmart stores.

The first store I visited was Toys R Us and while there were a few gun-like, nerf-type toys available, I didn’t see the more realistic looking, AK-47 types.  When asked, the department manager told me, “I haven’t seen them here in this store in about 10 years.  We stopped carrying them after Columbine.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Christmas Future…

What will be our Christmas future? What terror will hold us close?  How will we harden and adapt?  Is this our new normal?  I think about my children.  My grandchildren yet to be. I hope they can find the answers.  And we – the elders now – must stay engaged.  Let us bring our memories of our own childhood and see what we can do to our tenuous hold on happiness and peace in our loved ones’ future.  As Scrooge said at the final ghost appearance, “the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!”  Let us pray there is truth in this tale.

 

I saw Jesus again today.

The first time had to be about five years ago.  He was walking slowly down a city sidewalk, parallel to the four lanes of traffic – he walked against the two lanes closest to him. So, the drivers could easily see his face as he walked.  You couldn’t overlook him or let him meld into the background, much as we often like to do when we’re disturbed by a person’s physical appearance. This man walks with his head slightly down, long, black, slightly wavy hair, parted in the middle.  Thick black eyebrows.  He is slim and tall.  He wears khaki cargo pants, the kind with lots of pockets and a little polyester so they have a bit of a swish to them as he takes his strides.  They fit close to his body, and hang low on his hips.  A black jacket hangs from his broad shoulders, past his thin waist. He did not walk on the main part of the sidewalk, but similar to the cars being driven in their thin lanes, he walked on the cement curb, one foot in front of the other.  He is barefoot.  The walk reminds me of that of a runway model and how they place the toe of one foot precisely behind the heel of the foot in front of it.  He didn’t totter.  Not at all.  Neither did he raise his hands out to the side to balance like a tightrope walker. He simply walked, in a steady, strong, slow cadence.  He walked with – grace. I remember thinking that the straight posture and balance came from something – dance classes? Fitness or core strengthening exercises? Gymnastics? Modeling, perhaps?  It was a trained walk.

Years before I had seen this man in my neighborhood. The neighborhood is not known for having homeless people walking about. Almost never. There was an occasional disheveled looking person walking to a bus shelter, carrying a white plastic bag, with little in it. You could tell by the way it hung from the wrist. I’d imagine toothpaste, toothbrush, maybe a bottle of water? Over the last few years there were just a few people with these white plastic bags. You knew only a fraction of their story by seeing them – the part of their deep, convoluted, complicated story – the part they could no longer hide.

This man stayed in the neighborhood season after season.  He would just appear one day. If the weather was cool he wore that long black coat – similar to an oilskin duster worn on a ranch – and work boots.  In warm weather he would walk without shoes. That’s when he took to walking toe to heel on the cement curb rather than the sidewalk.

One day my daughter said she thought he looked like Jesus – Jesus walking so gracefully, so quietly, with a presence that belied his obvious present lot in life.

There have been a few times when his eyes have met mine as I looked out from behind my steering wheel. And there was the unexpected meeting in the supermarket.  He was picking out a few pieces of fruit and I saw his eyes as he looked up at me with his head still bent downward. I was startled. Kind, deep, filled with “knowing” – and, somehow, familiar. I did not know him, yet the familiarity factor was there, and it startled as it commanded to be seen.  It wasn’t like the wild eyes of the deranged, but a kind and steady, sure look. A “don’t look over or around me” look. A look “at” me look.

I watched him walk through the fresh produce section, and maneuvering slowly around displays.  Grace.  An athlete’s grace.  A dancer’s grace.  Maybe an angel’s grace. This Jesus was food shopping.

It was then for several years that he was absent .  When I would see a person panhandling for donations at the end of an off ramp, I would often think of Jesus. Where had he gone?  Had it been time to move on?  Had he died?  Was he sick, in the hospital, or more likely, in prison? He would never have been standing at an off ramp. That I knew.

My daughter recently moved to the city over from mine.  This morning it was quiet in my kitchen as a text message came over my phone from her.  “I just saw Jesus! Walking near TGI Fridays – he’s down the highway. He’s making his way south!!” So, he was back, but had moved on a little further away from me.  It isn’t warm enough yet for him to walk barefoot.  Will he stay close by, or is he steadily moving south – a little late in the season for a RI snowbird migration. Do the nomadic homeless go south for the winter? Do they walk all the way to Florida?

Now my daughter will look for him, this Jesus walking.  A little more disheveled, and looking a little bit older. With the perfect posture and the dancer’s cadence.  Walking with grace.  Maybe she will see Jesus food shopping.  And he will look up at her with his deep kind eyes – eyes that held his life’s story behind them. Eyes that simply say, “I am here.”

“I am fearless now….”

“I am fearless now….”.

“I am fearless now….”

There are different kinds of memories. Events and happenings. Climactic moments. Hallmark days, such as a wedding, a funeral, a graduation. There are other memories that run deeper.  Memories of…scents…sounds…sight. Memories of emotion and feeling are perhaps the strongest.  The overwhelming moment when something happened inside of you; it changed the way you thought or felt about something. Like you could almost feel your brain morphing. The light bulb went on. The “aha” moment. The door shutting – for good this time – on a path of the past, a path that had been worn down and was going nowhere, and you struggled to get out of its rut, and now you can. These moments are, as they say, more ’emblazoned in our memories’ – because they go to our core – our heart and soul – they become more memorable because we were changed in that moment, that moment that we’ll always remember. We are different going forth.

This week the President gave an interview on radio which was somewhat controversial – but he stood rock solid, with a smile to his critics.  Something had changed in him.  A light bulb moment. An “aha” moment. A door shutting, or perhaps opening.  He put it simply when he said it: “I’m fearless now.” With that familiar jaunty full-faced smile we see more of these days.

This week I listened to a speech made by our new “fearless” President, this new Barack Obama.  And as he was expected to do, but no one could have truly anticipated, he gave a rousing one. But he went beyond rousing. He made a substantive one. He used high emotion, tragedy and deliverance to talk about issues that our country has yet to solve – poverty, poor educational systems, unfair housing, gun control, mass incarceration, jobs, racism, subtle prejudice – and he couched it all in the word “grace”.  Not “hope”, but “grace”.

And as natural as the gently waving program books in that church of 5,400 people – and in our homes and offices as we listened – our President began to sing. Low and deep he began. With the words, “Amazing grace. How sweet the sound…”.

I closed my eyes. I wanted to remember this day. Friday, June 26, 2015.  I wanted to emblazon its memory into my mind. I wanted it to change me. I wanted to call my children to gather and listen, but I was frozen watching this all transpire.  And as I thought of my children, grown and working now, I remembered Tuesday, January 20th, 2009.  My daughters were 20 and 22. Just coming of age in this adult world. We sat in the living room with snacks. Dip and chips, Guacamole, Nachos, and fruit. We wore our baseball caps of red, white and blue – one for each of us – with the word “HOPE” stitched right on them. And we watched our President take the oath of office. He delivered another speech that day – and it was a rousing great one, too.

I remember thinking back to another day – September 11th, 2001.  The day when hope died. When ‘future’ seemed grim and hard to imagine. My daughters were 12 and 14. I knew on that day as I watched them come home from school, that their lives had changed. Forever. 2001 began a time of war and fear in our country – faded only somewhat into the hope and change promised to us in 2009.  Things seemed so bright. There was hope again.

Six years we have walked this path with the first black president in our country’s history.  We have seen polarization and stagnation – and yes, we have seen change, and progress. Healthcare. Immigration. Employment. Yesterday we watched as same-sex marriage become the law of the land – and in a moment of glory and grace it became – just – “Marriage”.

We have watched our President age and turn grey. The memory of that promised hope has tinged grey, too.  But he has moved beyond hope. As legacy looms in his mind and for history, he has moved the conversation along and called upon ‘grace’.  He says he’s fearless now. He carries this new state of being with him, as he carries forth with a song from deep inside. He’s making new memories. With new words. Grace. Fearless. Legacy. He says he would have been a better president – today – than he was. Self-awareness is not lacking here.

But what can we learn? Have we learned that “hope and change” is not a plan? Do we need to conjure up some grace to lead ourselves along? And, if we can conjure up being fearless…think what we might do? Legacy looms closer at my age. The older-agers that 20 year olds grow weary of having around, are so important to moving hope and change along. The young-invincibles with a lifetime ahead of them, with things we need in this country – spark, energy, new ideas, and yes, hope.  But fear stalks the young. It limits them. It holds them back. Fear of speaking out. Of repercussions. Of loss of friends, colleagues, or opportunities. Of career short-circuiting. Of brass-ring missing.

But with the legacy years comes a sense of fearlessness. And that is power. Yes, it’s time to perfect the chocolate chip cookies – to be remembered forever for.  And to try for that hole in one.  But let’s not drift away too far. Together, wrapped in hope, wrapped by grace, together, think what memories we could make. Think what legacies there could be, not just for us as people, but for these United States.

Everything I needed to know about patient care I learned from my vet

My “Bella” is a long-haired, black-and-white “Tuxedo” rescue cat. Her veterinarian, Dr. Cathy Lund, opened an all-cat practice in 1998 in Providence, RI.  As her website states, she thought being an all-cat vet was just “purr-fect for her”.

I work on the fringes of healthcare, now, usually in promotions or marketing for a particular advocacy initiative or to raise funds for the cause du jour.  However, I spent over 25 years engrossed in healthcare – most of it in the marketing end of a large, national nonprofit.  Some of it as a communications professional for a small local hospital in an urban setting.

I spend a great deal of observation time these days looking at healthcare and its changes, improvements, and fragmentation bringing those professional perspectives to bear.  A year or so back I looked at these issues from the inside, when my daughter had a short and sudden illness.  But, a few times a year I look at it from the perspective of a cat.  A black and white perspective, you might say.  And each time I wonder, what lessons can be learned from the world of vet care to the world of human health care about a more patient-centric system.

First, I imagine how her medical record “notes” section might read:
“Bella is now in her 13th year, and is relatively healthy, though has struggled with mild obesity for most of her life. Her weight-loss attempts appear to have been exacerbated by a psychological need to overeat, perhaps as a coping mechanism resulting from post traumatic stress disorder of unknown origin, occurring early in life. Genetic traits are unknown, as Bella was taken in as a homeless stray at a few months of age. Our family accepted Bella into a home that had experienced a recent loss of two adult cats to old age.  Bella’s earliest days included gender confusion, as she was first thought to be male and referred to as Mason. She was also aware of early desires to take her to a shelter and adopt her out to another home. However, these additional early traumas soon resolved themselves, and Bella acclimated well into her forever family. “

Bella, which translates to “The Beautiful One,” aptly describes the prominent place she has taken in the family.
While Bella has not had any extraordinary illness, other than a mini-surgical procedure for a five-foot long piece of string down her esophagus and the extraction of several teeth, she is not an easy patient. Her unknown past, and suspicion of being feral, has meant a delicate handling. All eyes are on prevention. Preventive care has meant regular check-ups, shots, nail clipping, and blood work. It has also meant dealing with a progressively standoffish attitude, which has deepened with age into full-blown rage at invasive examinations and the sight of any other feline. Her “mental health problem” has exacerbated the provision of her medical care. Bella does not take well to invasive procedures, yet requires regular examinations of nails, teeth, and ears. Inoculations. Blood work. Cautionary procedures include full-length protective gloves for all medical staff. Mild sedation is recommended. Experimental prescription of valium proved to be ineffective and was halted.

Throughout her years of care, reminder postcards and e-mails are received when it’s time for a check-up. Appointments are made on the phone or by request over the website. You can even request an appointment on Facebook; there’s an app for that. Waiting time is less than a week [same day if there is a crisis, and phone calls returned within an hour, if needed].  Appointments are confirmed by e-mail, and again, a few days before the appointment, there will be another e-mail and a phone call, along with any special instructions, such as nothing to eat and drink after midnight. The day of the appointment there is no waiting, and because Bella is a mild-sedation patient, a first-in appointment is always available, so the distress of not eating or drinking since midnight is not too discomforting. When she is brought in, given her mild state of a building mental health crisis, she is talked to calmly and gently by staff. They pet her paw through the gate of her carrier and she is quickly taken in.

In an attempt to take care of her quickly, due to her sedation, one can only envision the Mario Andretti racing team pit crew being called to her tableside. They swoop down and, in quick order, in less than half an hour, the care is done. Using sedation on an older cat is a concern that grows with age, so the quicker, the better. Their specialists have come together, each taken his/her turn – nails, teeth, ears, shots, blood work, a little shaving here and there, and good to go. Recovery is almost immediate as the sedation wears off. With a groggy “hisssss”, we know all is well.

There are follow-up instructions and education at the front desk. A quick checkout and then the next appointment is set. There is the constant reassurance, explanations, and calm demeanor. There is even a pat on the back for me, when I’ve needed it. We are good to go.  Within a few hours of being home, City Kitty will call to see how Bella is doing and if I, her caretaker, have any questions. They refer to her by name and speak in an unhurried manner. Later that afternoon I will get an email. It asks us to submit a review: how did we do, and are there any suggestions? A few days later, there is another call. How is Bella? We’re thinking of her. Here is the result of her tests. Guess what? She is at her ideal weight! May she live long and well, and just call us with anything.

I am often struck by the quality of the “kitty care” provided to Bella – and what we could learn from it that might be applied to “health care” provided to humans.

Slow down might be a start. Look the family and the patient in the eye. Call the patient by name. Speak as if you genuinely care, because I assume you do. Don’t be afraid to touch the patient, or put your arm around a family member or caretaker. Repeat instructions. Ask if there are questions. Ask again. Provide information. And, educate and follow up, in several ways, by e-mail and again on the phone. Have a website that has a picture of the patient and their information, too, so they can see their records.

Keep good records. Have a resource link that is tailored for different types of patients and conditions. Tell us about who works there – not just their medical credentials, but a little bit of the personal, too – and perhaps show us their photo. Include a way on your website, or by e-mail or on social media, for us to ask you to call us, or to make an appointment.

Bella’s birthday is in February. She will be 14. She will receive a birthday postcard from City Kitty – and an email greeting, too – just as she has every year.

As published in the June 8th issue of ConvergenceRI

http://newsletter.convergenceri.com/stories/Everything-I-needed-to-know-about-patient-care-I-learned-from-my-vet,158

We are every one of those 50 shades of grey…

Yes, I’ve seen the movie and bought and read all the books. I am 50 Shades of Grey literate. I watched the live debut in London yesterday afternoon, on the internet, complete with the red carpet walk, and interviews with the producer and the writer who said she never dreamed she would be at a debut of a movie made from her books.

I thought the movie would not live up to the books, such as they are.  Regardless of the success, or not, of the movie, the success of the books cannot be denied – if you judge success on books sold and money made.  100 million women anticipated to have read it.  The formula these days seems to be in writing trilogies and in something that lends itself well to images, blogs, and social media – to hype the hype.  50 Shades has all of this.  The book – as in any book – brings images to mind. Images that are as private as the image of each of us reading the book – in our easy chairs, in bed, late at night, on our computers, or ipads, hidden in our offices, or even reading on our cell phones, if we didn’t want to have the book in the house.

As the movie has come closer to opening, we hear a variety of words – anticipatory giggles, “when are you going”, “are you going with your husband”, “…with your boyfriend”, or “with the girls”?  We hear angry words, mainly from women.  Women talking about violence towards women, disrespect, abuse, and challenging each other to boycott the movie on behalf of the cause of feminism.  Or we hear psychologists talk about the damage it will cause to young girls.  We hear little from men.  They say it’s a chick flick. And they don’t know what it’s about.

The Valentine’s Day opening was moved to the 13th, so ladies could go with their lady friends and still have their date nights on the 14th.  Would couples attend together?  Would there be giggles?  Shifting in one’s seat?  Sighs of mutual acknowledgement? Nods to each other when we leave the theater?  Rushes to our cars?  Would we post our thoughts on Facebook? Or would we be as quiet as we were in the private time when we read the book?  Alone with our thoughts.  With our ponderings. With a smattering of confusion.The theater was filled.  Mainly women, but a few with male dates, too.  We began with quiet applause, as if we had all been waiting a very long time in our lives.  Popcorn at the ready, we snuggle down.  Women in sweat pants and comfy clothes, no dress-up needed. There is humor in this film.  Mainly it is comedic timing and natural instinct by Dakota Johnson.  Jamie Dornan does not meet our expectations of Mr. Grey as neatly.  How could any actor meet what each of us had imagined and created in our own minds?  A little too slim.  Curling up of the upper lip makes him always appear as about to giggle. Shoulders not broad enough. Though his hands are striking, and brought about an audible gasp from the audience as he clasped a table edge.

In my opinion, the movie is not about BDSM or violence against women.  Or degradation. Or disrespect.  It simply isn’t about any of that.  It is about the fantasy.  The fantasy of what women – mainly older women – might think about – sometimes.  Maybe it’s even an offering of a fantastical thought, should the woman have run fresh out of them. The exploitations that may roll around in one’s mind, while the reality of acting upon any of it would equal the chagrin of a couple watching mid-core porn in a hotel room. Really, honey? But we might think about it. We might.

So, just what is the appeal of all of this experimental sex?  What were the sexiest moments?  Were they the riding crop, or were they by the piano listening to him play a haunting melody?  Were they the necktie around her wrists, or were they taking her up on an air glider, a day completely planned by him, from beginning to end?

As I sit writing this I am listening to some “national expert” talking about the grave damage this movie will do to young girls….and I think about Bill Clinton and his declaration of “I did not have sex with that woman”.  I think about how oral sex replaced intercourse by definition for young girls in an instant.  And how a “goodnight, I had a nice time” with a kiss, became lost to the acceptable act of quick oral sex.  One sided, I would add.  How has HPV been spread exponentially?  By young people – men & women – believing an STD could not be spread this way. Because this is not sex.  The president said so.  Talk to young women today.  The sexual act, for many of them, is about their performance with their man.  Not about receiving pleasure, or sexual skill of their partner.  It is yet another giving act – much like making dinner, and doing the laundry. And if the money equation is tipped on the male’s side, even more.

50 Shades of Grey is fantasy.  Speaking as a feminist, I believe men probably don’t get it (nor will they take the time to read or watch), so we need to tell them how we are feeling about it.  It is not the black and white of sexual pleasure.  It is the grey of our lives, of our minds, of our exhaustion.  It is the grey of our feelings – of what might be, or could have been.  It is a lifetime of fairy princesses and handsome princes, with broken promises for our lives, watched when we were very young. To be followed next by Donna Reed and Lucy and Laura & Dick Van Dyke. We have the ‘right’ to equal pay and our careers.  Yet our “before” lives and responsibilities remain largely intact, too; just with more stacked upon it, very little removed or replaced. Many of us do all of this while also being the sandwiched caretakers of our aging parents. And still we hear we aren’t doing enough and that we need to “lean in” and do more. Be more.

The fantasy is freedom. It is putting our shoulders down and not worrying about what is for dinner or the buying and cooking of it, or where we will go if we go out (pick the restaurant, arrange for the babysitter, get the concert tickets, call the friends).  It’s not worrying about buying our own car, or servicing it. Or paying all the bills.  It’s not even thinking about what we will wear.  It’s about looking good, being fit, being healthy, being taken care of. It is a fantasy of release.

But as the books and the movies are clear to reveal, the control in this fantasy is always the woman’s.  She realizes it herself, half way through. Nothing is done to her she has not consented to, or actually asked for.  Her inquisitiveness did take her a little too far, but sometimes that happens with a safe situation and a mind free to wander.

This movie is not for the young, and certainly not for tweens.  Much damage has already been done by an ex-President, and what we watch on our televisions every day. Sex mixed with violence is power.  Not sex.  50 Shades of Grey is none of those things.  It is mature content, for a mature life.  It is a gentle, ‘what if’. It is not a blonde princess spinning on the ice singing about her true love. It is, however, fodder for conversation between couples about that private part of their lives.

The fact that this movie is about to enjoy success at a time when the popular movies are showing some of our more famous female actresses at their worst – no makeup, abused, beaten, raped, going through physical challenges, etc. is an interesting coincidence.  This time, we seem to want another fantasy. In the yin and yang of life, this time we want to be the woman offered an easier life, love, and consensually great sex (and of course we want control).  But sometimes we also want to be seen as the woman who has been torn to the ground and has risen again, scathed and damaged, but alive, and the wiser for it, too. A survivor.

We are a complicated hot mess. We are not black and white.  We’ve earned every one of those fifty shades of grey.

“We” are not amused…

It is almost a knee jerk reaction.  I hear a politician tell us “I need you to…” or “I will be asking for this in my budget…” and I’ve already had a gut reaction to the start of the sentence, such that I really don’t hear what comes after that.  I imagine myself on that podium, saying that sentence.  And I realize that the word I would be so hard for me to utter.  In writing, yes, I can use it.  But in speaking?  To a group?  No, I just sticks in my throat.  But why?

Linguistically, there is the use of the royal “we”.  First, made famous by Queen Victoria when a vulgar joke was told in her presence. When she replied, “we are not amused”, she “clearly intended to speak on behalf of the other ladies whom she knew were equally offended.” Later, used by royalty to note the collective body of a politically organized nation – most commonly used as a term of separation – them and those – we and they – the intelligentsia and the peasants.

The use of pronouns such as I and we are called functional words.  When used by politicians, the choice can mean the difference between claiming authority and creating community.

There are even studies done about one’s mental state and the use of these functional words.  More people who are suffering from depression use I as opposed to we or they.  Kind of fascinating.

Having spent almost an entire career in the world of nonprofits, I learned quickly that the use of we was, indeed, to build community. And not at all spoken like the “royal we”.  What seemed so odd, at first, became rote.  “We hope you will…we ask you…we thank you.”  Sometimes I felt almost like turning around to see who else was standing there with me.  Never the bolder use of I.  Never as though the individual, the staff member, even existed, except as a title of function, certainly not a separate person. What mattered was the greater good, the cause.

“I would like you to donate a major gift towards research.” Imagine! “I would like you to?”  “We need you to donate a major gift towards research.”  OK, but who is the we?  The we is you – and me – and collectively, all of us.

So, staff were in the background, writing the words, designing the photo opp, poised with conductor’s baton, or wind up key, if you will.  It was an adjustment – to deny one’s self – personality – personae – to become invisible.  But soon I came to understand the benefit of this group-being. So, for 20 years I was on behalf of and quite content in that role.  It was deemed to be a best practice of success for a nonprofit.

Today, the role of staff in a nonprofit is quite different.  Today the staff member is often front and center.  Someone whose life has never been touched by the disease du jour is speaking at a podium about the tragedies of some type of cancer they’ve never had.  Often, the volunteers or ‘survivors’ are right there, and willing to speak, but they are not invited to do so.  It is the staff member’s job now.  One they may truly love and be dedicated to.  But one with distance built all around it. Between community – and cause.

All this goes through my mind when I hear the word I spoken by an elected official, over and over again.  What is the purpose?  It must be to reinforce one’s role of power, surely not to build a sense of community – not to sing kumbaya with the people at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9AH4vG2wA

I think about the organization I worked for and how the tagline, or slogan, it used, changed over the years, reflecting part of this new word order. “We’re fighting for your life.”  Outwardly focused. Inclusive. Involving. Engaging.  “I’M not fighting for your life.  YOU are not fighting…WE are fighting.”  Kumbaya. Exponential engagement!

Today, that slogan has morphed to several others, with degrees of warm and fuzzy. “Learn and Live”  (don’t listen to me and you’ll find out for yourself);  “Your Life is in Your Hands” (it’s up to you, do what you want, you know what you need to do)’ and, today, “Life is Why”. (we’re tired of giving you all the reasons why – you should know why by now).

We have made today’s politicians into caricatures of themselves.  The media has done that.  And we expect it now.  We tweet about the color of the Governor’s jacket and how her hair looked on any one day.  Our obsessiveness would lead one to believe that we have relegated them to use the “royal we”, yet we have created a new level beyond that. Today politicians ask us to do things, to support things, in first person.  I need you to do this.  There is leadership in that, and a sense of authority, but I suggest there is no sense of community or coalition building.

If I were the speech writer I would reserve the authoritarian use of “I” for select moments of crisis.  Rather, I would bring back the royal we, the friendlier we.  For, “it’s all in our backyard”, isn’t it?  It’s not your backyard, or my backyard, it’s ours.  How might we all better respond if we brought back the use of the plural personal pronoun?  Just as your mother saved the use of your middle name for “those times” when obedience meant right now, and no discussion, politicians might command a more communal sense of engagement with the use of we, forgoing the assertive first person singular pronoun for crisis and woe, for that time when “we are not amused”.