Giving a Little Thanks

The other morning my husband called me at home on my cell phone. As soon as I heard his ring tone, I assumed he needed me to do something. No big deal, that’s often the gist of our telephone conversations.  I hit the green ‘answer’ button and said hey.  He responded with a ‘hey’ back, and proceeded to tell me that I’d been on his mind and he just wanted to call and tell me he loved me.  I think my jaw dropped open. Not that he doesn’t love me or that he doesn’t tell me, but…he hadn’t done anything this spontaneous and sweet in quite a while. The call came out of the blue, and you know? It really made my day.

Simple, random, spontaneous displays of appreciation – what a wonderful and relatively easy way to lift the spirit and warm the heart of someone.  Makes me think.  Makes me think of those who have zipped in and out of my life over the years, the wonderful family and friends who currently touch my little world, and the people who I will meet in the future. Each person leaves me with a blessing, causes me to learn a little bit more about myself, more about our world, and for me – each one brings me that much closer to God.

Those of us here in America will soon be celebrating Thanksgiving.  Most will surround ourselves with family and friends – some whom we adore and some whom we find a little nutty. We will stuff ourselves with a nearly ridiculous amount of food, and we will play games, watch football, engage in good and not so good conversation, and participate in a host of crazy traditions that we find we absolutely must carry on whether they’re worthy or not.  As we sit down to a table full of turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and Grandma’s famous cranberry sauce and the stuffing that no one eats – most of us will take a moment to share our thanks.

Of course I won’t see most of you on Thanksgiving, and I know I’m not always good at letting you know how much I do appreciate you and how deeply you touch my life.  My husband’s act of a simple phone call, a few words expressed with sincerity and affection, lifted my spirit and brought about the theme for this blog. And I know I won’t be able to get all of this out when we sit down for dinner at our house and it’s my turn to share. So, here are my thanks:

Thank you…

To my husband – for your sense of humor and your support and encouragement, for never ever giving up on me, for loving me unconditionally, for the simplicity of being you.

To my kids – for your inspiration, for your hearts that have infinite depth and your spirits that reach out and touch everyone around you, for the connection I have with both of you that I will never have with anyone else, for being my little girls.

To my to-be son’s-in-law – for your faith in God, for your faith in my girls, for your open hearts and open minds, for the good families and friends who raised you.

To my extended family – for believing in me when I didn’t, for holding my hand when I needed it to be held, for carrying me when I needed to be carried, and for still being here.

To my female friends – for coming into my life when I needed you, for making me laugh and smile, for inspiring me to be a better person, and for movies and lunches and dinners and yoga and wine and skiing and Tahoe and walks and golf and childhood memories and the incredible act of friendship.

And to all of those who touch my life whether you’re a ski patroller, a fellow writer or blogger, a facebook buddy, or just an new or old friend  – Thank you all for bringing your smiles and your encouragement and your joy of living into my life. Thank you for teaching me a more about myself every time I’m with you or every time I read your words. Thank you for all of your gifts and for your willingness to share them.

Happy Thanksgiving

 

My Alter Ego

Every once in a while the goofiest thing happens when I’m alone and left to the follies of my own imagination – I find that I am possessed with new and exciting talents as my alter ego consumes me. I turn into a much sought after speaker and book writer, occasionally I’m the great communicator and know just the right words for any and every situation, there are moments when I’m a champion Olympic skier, and most often I turn into this singer with an incredible voice and a fan club full of millions of groupies.

Most of my greatness occurs when I’m alone in the car, especially when my drive is longer than fifteen minutes – not unusual for where I live. And the talent of the moment is dependent upon my mood and my current life circumstances.  The writing and communicating and skiing usually are a result of a recent incident or an upcoming event. Especially if I’ve just sent my novel to a publisher, or I’ve got to sit down with someone and hash out a difficult problem. Or, on the flip side, my trip to excellence happens after I have tackled a tricky issue and I’m now obsessed with reviewing the conversation with the person and coming up with all of the great and motivating things I should have said.

But a good eighty percent of the time, my gift is not any of the above mentioned aptitudes.  Generally when I’m in the car the radio gets cranked as loud as possible without blowing out my eardrums, and my vocal cords strive to reach the same caliber as singers and bands such as ZZ Top, Big and Rich, Sugarland, and Alison Krauss.  I pay no attention whatsoever to whether or not I’m on key, instead I let the music fill me and I bellow the words to my heart’s content.

And I know I’m not alone in these bursts of stardom.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve pulled up to a stop light only to glimpse the man or woman next to me totally enwrapped in a concert of their own.  Smiles, tears, anger, love, heartache,… one of those emotions is often written all over the faces of my automotive neighbors as the song in their car is turning them into an amazing singer who can capture the hearts of the masses.

In many respects our alone time really should help us to increase our focus, boost our confidence, and even delve into our emotional and ever-so-

slightly irrational side where glory and adoration reside.  That’s the beauty of that time we spend by ourselves, no matter how we spend it. For me, and for many of my roadway buddies, it’s often all about the song.   And I say good for you and good for me – let the singing commence.

Now I gotta go – my car and my fan club await me.

Getting Eve

It’s similar to an oxymoron – you know, that little sign at the museum or in the blown glass store that boldly states “Don’t Touch”?  I don’t care where I am or what I’m doing, those words call to me, like the apple called to Eve.  Without any kind of self-control whatsoever my hand develops a mind of its own, reaches out, and strokes the forbidden object.  And I have a similar issue with taste, usually off of my fingers.  Fortunately this is generally a home-based problem, but it’s still disgusting and often uncontrollable.

It all started when I couldn’t have been much more than three or four years old. Our family had gone on some kind of vacation and my mother took me into a souvenir store. Trinkets and breakables filled the tiny space, and I needed to touch every single thing I possibly could. Of course my mother, and I think even the store attendant, told me to stop – ‘don’t touch’, rang in my ears, and I’m pretty sure they had a sign. But no one understood, my fingers and my hands simply could not cease their meanderings, especially once I knew that touching everything was totally taboo.  In the end I broke a small salt and pepper set, and the shop keeper made my mother purchase the items.  Evidently the incident made little impression on me, because I still have the need to touch.

My husband has the same problem. Just last weekend he ventured onto the back of our property where he had piled a fairly good amount of wood that needed to be burned.  The day had been declared a ‘burn day’ by our county, so like a child in a candy store he proceeded to ignite his fire. The blaze grew and heated up, to the point where the creosote on an adjacent fence pole began to bubble up.  Somewhere deep inside he had to have known that touching that hot, boiling tar-like substance could not end well.  But that thought didn’t surface.  Instead, curiosity won and his finger dipped right into it. Once again, that which should not be touched got touched.

Sadly I do the same thing in my kitchen. Except that I touch, and then without any thought whatsoever my finger goes straight into my mouth. The sticky substance on the outside of the peanut butter jar isn’t always jelly from the day before. And the creamy glob stuck to the bread bag?  Not mayonnaise, or if it is, it’s very very old.

I think it’s human nature, maybe even our evil twin emerging from within during those times of rebellion. When our kids are little we scold them when they eagerly put their little fingers all over Great Aunt Sally’s 100 year old china, or absent-mindedly stuff their filthy hands into their mouths, or think they are defying their older sibling when they stick their tongue to the frozen side mirror on the car – been there done that a couple of times.  But we adults tend to do the same things. We see or hear those words and our brains go haywire.  The forbidden somehow takes on a new and exciting bent and that prohibited act practically becomes an obsession.  After all, there must be something incredibly wonderful about that object if we aren’t supposed to touch it.  And the sticky stuff on the counter? I don’t know, maybe it will taste like chocolate from heaven.

So yes, I get Eve. The apple was forbidden fruit. Maybe God even hung a sign next to it that said “Don’t Touch”.  I don’t know, but I’m pretty certain that the next time I’m in a store or a museum where my fingers are supposed to remain by my side, they won’t. And when I pull the milk out of the frig and something brown and moist globs onto my thumb, I’ll try it. I just can’t resist.

 

I Think There Could Be Something Wrong With My Mouth

My mouth and I have been struggling for years to come up with some kind of amicable agreement during certain periods. Read my previous blog called “Shelley’s Theory of Social Behavior (Or Maybe it’s Misbehavior?)” and you’ll get an even better idea of just what I mean. At this point in the game I’m relatively certain that we are going to have to just agree to disagree on some things.  Like the numerous times my brain has been filled with the perfect words to orate in a given situation but my mouth has either refused to open or has jumbled the entire rhetoric into something similar to mushed pulp. Or, on the flip side, the frequency with which my lips open and my tongue wags only to spew forth a magnitude of embarrassment when I would much prefer the whole contraption would have been placed under lock and key. 

As the director of a private school I tried to be very careful about using my mouth in any kind of potentially inappropriate manner.  In retrospect I really should have pried the thing open much more frequently. It had a lot to say, especially when we made the decision to close. But, too often my jaw clamped shut and the words never came. Believe me, my mouth and I have discussed that problem and at this point we are chalking it up to a lesson learned. Sometimes it’s just too bad if someone gets their feelings hurt or finds out just how wrong they really are.

And then there are the other occasions. The times when my mouth opens and I cram my foot as far inside as possible and then proceed to suck on the darn thing for the entire evening. This problem goes way back. As a kid I had an issue with saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Like when at the age of twelve I asked our newly hired band teacher if the guy he’d replaced had been fired.  Not really a socially acceptable question. And then there was the afternoon my grandmother and brothers and I were headed to the store.  I couldn’t have been much more than five years old.  Grandma drove into the parking lot and some guy in a brown Chevy pulled out in front of her. She slammed on her brakes and I proudly sat up in my seat, glared at the guy through the car window, and called him an SOB.

All things considered, the behavior of my mouth should be dependent upon the situation and definitely on the company I’m holding. But, that’s not always the case.  My youngest daughter will never forget the time I jokingly suggested we buy her uncle a blow up doll for Christmas.  I’m thinking that may not have been an appropriate suggestion to my then seventeen year old? She still brings it up as one of my more humiliating ideas that truly never should have been spoken out loud.

Too much information, jokes that could be construed as offensive, and a jumble of useless data – these are some of the tidbits that have been known to flow forth.  And it’s only worse if I happen to have a drink somewhere within my reach. One sip and I’ll gladly spill my guts, and then I’ll spill your guts, and if anyone else happens to be around I’ll spill theirs too.

Fortunately my mouth and I aren’t always at odds.  It does know how to express love and appreciation, humor, and quite often well thought out ideas. My brain and my mouth do, for the most part, have a positive and fairly well run relationship. It’s just those few occasions where my mouth goes awry and steps out on its own.

The relational rift happens to all of us – my husband, my friends, and even my kids.  We all say things we regret and we all have things we wish we would say but don’t.  That amicable relationship may never fully come about, just do your best.  Most of it can be forgiven. And I still think a blow up doll is a funny idea!