On Change

Change is so hard. We butt up against it constantly and yet we fight it. Just this morning, a bright cool Fall one covered by an impossible, endless blue, I encountered so many people grappling with this.

First, there were the two engaging barristas at Red Horse who willingly entered into conversation with me about the ills of America's capitalist system and the necessity for change. I had paid, excitedly, with a new Red Horse card the owner had loaded up with a few dollars he owed me. What a great idea to inspire loyalty, I thought, and, of course, to get people to spend more than they normally would.

"It's so much easier to spend on a credit card than with cash," I said as I handed it over, paying happily even though it was still money. "My son, at nearly 6, is totally on to that idea, isn't taking it. He said to me the other day, in answer to how much he thought would be fair for a weekly allowance, '100 million dollars...And NO CREDIT CARDS!!'"

The barrista laughed. "He's no dummy. He wants cash only. Well, maybe that's good, maybe it'll change things, make things better if kids are more aware of how dangerous
credit cards are."

I just shook my head. "I'm afraid not. I'm afraid that we will get back on track economically in a year or two, then quickly forget how we got into this predicament in the first place. Then, we'll go back to our bad old ways. If history tells us one thing, it's that. We didn't learn much from the stories our grandparents told, it seems. Basically, we don't do things unless we have to."

I then launched into my usual rant about switching to a barter system. I have this idea of creating a directory of the many talented musicians, artists, writers and creative entrepreneurs in Park Slope and connecting them to one another, to share skills and services without monetary exchange. My lawyer and financial services friends warn me against this, about heading up what virtually amounts to tax evasion. Our government is no friend, they feel, to skirting the whole "money" thing.

"I used to do that all the time, when I was a pastry chef," the other barrista piped up. "I had a friend who was a woodworker and we often traded services," she said.

Aaaah. It was a utopian ideal, can you imagine? 'Hey, I'll bake you a cake, and you can make me a table.' How perfect would that be? Nirvana. I guess it would probably be a little more complicated than that, unfortunately, but maybe it could work...The conversation went on a bit, we were all in agreement that things needed to change, to really change, and they probably wouldn't. A little heavy for first thing Sunday morning, but there it is. That's why they got their gold stars. Finally, they had more coffee to brew and I had to hit the gym.

Arriving at the Y, I was asked by the young guy behind the counter to step inside and around the desk to sign in manually.

"The computer is broken, again, still," he said. "They should really get a new one."

"Yes and no," I said. "They'd get a new one, and then that one would break too. We have three computers now, and now we have three constantly-breaking computers. Change for change sake isn't always good."

"I guess you're right," he said, rubbing his eyes, yawning. "I just want to go home."

"When did your shift start? Have you been here all night?"

He nodded. "Yep, all night."

"Do you have to keep your eyes open the whole time?" I asked, hoping, naively, that he'd been able to get some shut-eye during the night shift.

He just laughed and nodded.

"Well, you deserve this then," I said, digging out a gold star. He took it, as most people do, without question, with an appreciative "thanks!" His tired colleague behind him got one too, got up gratefully and came over to accept it. I'm always amazed that people seem to want the stars, to put them on happily, as if they mean something important. I now believe they do.

Back in my building's lobby, I ran into a neighbor I always enjoy chatting with. "What's new?" I asked.

"High school!" she said, referring, I knew, to her smiling daughter's beginning of the 9th grade. Wow. I remembered her as a little confident, chatty kid, before braces, pulling my toddlers around on a sled in the courtyard. Her braces had come and gone now, and I barely recognized her as she breezed by me with a dazzling smile, nearly my height, on her way into the city, alone.

"Wow, how's it going?" I asked.

"She loves it," she said, relief in her voice. Bullet dodged, for now.

I shook my head, thinking of so many kids in our building who had such a hard time adapting to the changes in their bodies and brains, to growing up, to getting along on their own. I found the last gold star in my little bag and proffered it up.

"It's so hard, isn't it?" I said.

She nodded and we discussed the sadness of seeing little happy kids turn into sullen, even deeply sad teenagers. Some come out of it, some don't. It's hard, as a parent, to help kids deal with the changes in their lives, to pay attention in the few tired hours in the evening enough to help, to stay connected. I knew she was trying, this mom, doing the best she could do, really trying to communicate with her daughter despite the challenges to doing so.

I thought on the way upstairs of how my gold star giveaways help me deal with change, how they help me appreciate new people who enter my life, new experiences, to look around with wonder rather than with worry. Sometimes, though, like with any job, they also take time away from me noticing the people in my own home, little people who are changing into big people before my very eyes, that I need to pay close attention to.

As I spoke of my project the other night, sat in front of the computer writing or trying to spread the word, Eli approached me.

"I haven't even gotten a star..." he said, somewhat sadly as he stood behind me, his newly long legs shooting out from his Paul Frank underwear.

I turned around fully to face him, shocked. "Really?!" I said. I know he probably took some at the beginning, know they're always floating around. But I realized that I probably hadn't placed one on him as I had on others whose efforts I'd paid close attention to and rewarded. I guess I figured they wouldn't be meaningful to my kids because they knew the shtick. I guess I thought he'd be skeptical and think it silly, like my belief in dragonflies. I guess I was wrong.

"I'm glad you told me that, glad you asked for it," I said. I grabbed a package next to me, and peeled off the biggest gold star on the page. But as I started to place it on him, he backed away. "I need a shirt..." he said. Apparently, that's how he'd pictured it. But he quickly adapted, looking down. His bare chest would do. He beamed as he placed the big glittery star front and center in between his nipples, puffed up like a big, strong man, like the one he'll be far too soon.

On Promotion and Oppression

I woke up at 3:33 this morning. I don't know what that means. At this hour, I don't know what anything means. I am up, though, my brain humming, so as I might as well get out of bed, be useful. I might be okay for the day, to remember and to get ready to atone for all my sins this Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, cause I crashed early, after the curry my friend made for dinner sent me home in a hurry, to lie prostrate, in pain. It was good going down but...If I ever get to India, I'm going to have to bring my own food or go hungry, otherwise I might die in the street. It kills me that I can't eat Indian, cause I love it. But it doesn't love me. It is going to have to be, forever, an unrequited love. I hate those, but there it is.

Yesterday, before the curry felled me, I had an amazing day. I have decided in earnest to more vigorously promote my blog, not that I know how. I've started, though, with my own guerrilla marketing, hitting the streets even harder than usual without a hint of shyness, ramping up the gold star giveaways, writing down the blog name for people who take them excitedly.

Sick of having to dig out a pen, to make my writing legible enough to read, I in desperation designed a slap-dash business card with newly-mustached Win at 7th Avenue Copy Shop. He patiently but proddingly moved me through the various fonts until I found one that fit me. As I've said before on these pages, I don't make decisions easily. The line of customers waiting, sighing, around me made me go more quickly than usual with my instinct, with the one whose name had made me laugh the most. As it turned out, I loved it. "Yummy Apology" it is called, who knows why. But it's swirly and, indeed, yummy. I'd love to meet the people who design fonts, who name them. They definitely deserve gold stars.

The great thing is that, in my newfound aggressiveness, I have noticed so many deserving people. In fact, it is hard not to just stand on a street corner, like the hawkers of the new sports drinks or energy bars I wrote about at Advertising Age for so long, and hand stars out to whomever I see. I could easily stand in front of Methodist Hospital and give stars to all the doctors and nurses and technicians and janitors. I'm going to say it straight up: aesthetically, as a daily office environment, hospitals suck. I can only hope that the idea of doing good work saves these people from focusing on the depressing lighting, the strong anaseptic smell masking the stink of the sick. It is a far cry from Anthropology, let's just say that.

But I don't just use scrubs as a reasoning, even if I should. I walk past the hospital without stopping. I shy away from giving out stars willy nilly because they have to be given out for a specific act, in a specific moment to really work, to really resonate. And, anyway, I only have so much energy to expend, so many stories of people's lives that I can take in, that you can take in. I think that, as witty and insightful as I try to be, there is a small catchment zone between the tipping point and jumping the shark. I must navigate carefully. Readers, even readers of blogs, have lives. So, ostensibly, do I, though mine has been ignored during my push. The breakfast dishes from yesterday, with now-dried apple slices and remnants of Life cereal, stare at me from across the table as a reminder that I have been remiss at my housewifely duties, so too the empty-of-all-but-rotting-food refrigerator and the disgustingly dirty white-painted-wood kitchen floor. My super was right during the renovation, painting this floor white was completely ill-conceived.

But enough about me. Yesterday's star receivers were an amazing lot. First, there was the woman who I heard from behind me in Red Horse Cafe thanking another woman profusely for the seat she was giving up, the one that the gracious thanker had been "coveting forever." I laughed and turned around.

"Really?" I said. "How long has it been that you've been wanting to sit there?"

She smiled, "Weeks," she said, shifting her computer from the high counter, herself from a backless stool onto the coveted corner table and chair, respectively.

She was cool, I could tell. She proffered something about how getting the seat she wanted was a good sign for the day, an otherwise bad-omen day that she called something I didn't recognize, can't remember, some universal sign she said, "I used to not believe in, but now I do..."

I got it. I feel the exact same way as I age, holding greater and greater stock in theories I once dismissed, explanations that seemed too strange to be true that I now pray could shed light on at least some of the things I can't understand.

I gave her a gold star and one to the woman who had given her the precious place to do her work, sans backache.

She loved her star, touched it appreciatively, and, siezing the opportunity, in full promotion mode, I told her about the blog.

"Oh, good, can you write about my movie?" she asked enthusiastically in a fabulous English accent. I have to get used to this barter of services, this tit for tat. With people and things I believe in, it shouldn't be hard. I don't know anything about the movie, but I'm willing to believe, based on her seeming savvy, that it's good.

"Sure," I said, "what's it called?"

"It's called 'As Good as Dead'," she said. "We're going to have some secret screenings, to get reviews, to get the word out."

I just shook my head, frustrated. It's crazy. I am amazed in my travels, in talking to the tons and tons of talented artistic people in my neighborhood, in Park Slope, that I hear every day how hard it is to promote one's art, even when you're a somewhat known quantity, even when, as in this case, your film has a big star, Andie McDowell.

My gold star recipient was a producer of the movie, she said, with an Israeli partner. I had noticed the kafia she wore, the scarf that symbolizes, to many, support of the Palestinian plight.

"Did you say your partner was Israeli?" I asked.

"Yes, so is my husband," she said.

"Aaah...Well, I noticed your scarf?!" I questioned hesitantly, but she didn't skip a beat.

"Yes," she said, "I wore it today because I'm angry at both of them."

I died laughing, wishing in that moment, I told her, that I'd waited to give her her gold star til now. Hilarious. I think often of my Lebanese friend, his mother a Palestinian, who came back to New York after a vacation in Beirut to deal with his faltering band and its Israeli leader, wearing a kafia. I always say that politics are incredibly personal and it is proven to me again and again.

We exchanged information, my new friend and I, e-mailing one another from our side-by-side tables, and both went back to our respective efforts to promote our work.

Strangely enough, although it's hardly strange to me anymore, this crazy kizmet I have to think about someone and then see them (my small neighborhood helps), I next ran into my temple's Hebrew School coordinator, a beautiful girl, bright-eyed in every sense of the phrase, who recently returned from Israel's West Bank where she was working on The Palestine Education Project, an organization of educators and artists from New York, Beirut and Ramallah that develop interactive workshops for high school students and youth groups using hip hop and other creative ways to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle and connect it to the similar struggles of oppressed communities in the U.S. This summer, she had told me, she brought a group of Native Americans with her to Gaza to connect them with Palestinian refugees. Amazing. Big gold star to her (actual) and all involved (virtual). These are not easy tasks, solving world hatred and oppression, no walk in the park. Though walks in the park with people from the opposing side might very well help...

The clock reads 5:55 now, right as I look at it. I don't know what that means. Hopefully you are not as tired and bleary as I. I guess if you were, you'd have stopped reading this incredibly long blog entry by now. But I don't digress. This was all in a day's work. I will end on the last gold star of the day, given to a stressed-out first-time mom who I saw standing, ordering, at the counter at Hanco's, a new place I'd gone for a Vietnamese sandwich. The fact that there are not one but two Vietnamese sandwich places that have sprung up recently within blocks of my apartment when I looked for years for one near my office, googling "Vietnamese sandwich New York" in vain on many days when I suddenly thought of its fresh pork and cilantro flavor, is, again, a matter of kizmet I now take for granted. But I do digress here, away from the panicked new mother.

As I watched this woman, bouncing, as I used to do, on her feet to keep her dangling baby happy in her Baby Bjorn, the Vietnamese girl behind the counter said to her, with a smile, "Your baby, she looks so angry!"

I could hear in the mother's response how the comment wrecked her, "But I always hear how happy she looks..." she faltered, questioning. I put my head in my hands. Really? Really? Even if you're young, even if you don't have kids, even if you're not from this country, you should know better than to tell a new, angst-ridden mom that her baby, facing forward so she can't see her, looks "angry." With force, I jumped out of my seat with a star.

Quiet, quiet as I can be, so as not to insult the insulter, I handed her the star to counter the counter-girl's upsetting remark and offered up what I hoped were comforting words.

"I am SURE your baby isn't angry," I said. "She is adorable."

As the woman turned to directly face me, gratitude in her worried eyes, I had to stop myself from laughing. The baby's downturned pout did, indeed, look slightly angry. But I'm sure she wasn't. She is too young to understand all the things she should be angry about.

The mother placed the star right in the middle of the Baby Bjorn, right within baby-finger-grabbing distance.

"Um, maybe you should put the star somewhere else, so she doesn't put it in her mouth?" I suggested gently. I didn't want to kill the kid before she had her chance to be angry.

The mom looked down, thanked me for the idea, moved the star. She shook her head.

"There is so much you don't even know about to think about," she said.

"I know," I said, "Oh, I know." All we can do is try.

The Beauty of Being Giver and Receiver Both

I was moved to tears this morning when I opened my e-mail and found a note from a childhood friend in which she told me she was an avid reader of the blog (thank you!) but, more importantly, that she had had an experience, a profound one that she had been waiting 20 years for, that she came away from feeling both deserving of a gold star and as if she had given one. That, I believe, is the perfect scenario.
In this particular case, my friend achieved such a state of grace when she finally, at long, long last, got an apology from an old, loved boyfriend, a seminal one, one who had wronged her, pretty despicably.

“Gold Star,” she said, “for all the girls who have had their hearts torn apart just wishing that one day, just one day, that jerk would fess up and say those difficult words, ‘I’m sorry.’” That group, of course, includes her, or at least did, before yesterday, before “the jerk” fessed up that he had, indeed, been a jerk. Gold star for you babe!

She happened to look great when he did it, she said, which helped her feel good in the moment, of course. But she came off the best because she gave him what he was looking for: forgiveness and the peace of mind that she had moved on and that he should too. Do we ever really move on? I don’t know, but his apology went a far way toward helping that be true for her. In fact, she told me, she even, in her great relieving generosity, thought that he deserved a gold star.

“It was a hell of a try,” she said, “and if guys knew they could get a gold star for doing it, maybe more would step up. What do you think?”

Here’s what I think: Definitely! We are all of us so afraid to do things because we don’t know what others will think, are afraid of how they might view us. But more often than not, if we go with our instincts, say what we really want to say, step out from in front of the mirror where we inspect ourselves too harshly in ways that no one else will or wants to, we would all be better off. Whenever I get mired in worrying about what others think, I seem always to make the wrong choice, the wrong one for me and, probably, for that other person too. Maybe if we all imagined that there would be positive acknowledgment for taking responsibility, for not hiding behind a scared façade, if there were a gold star or some fantastic or real facsimile, we would begin to do it more?! Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Look, for those who have wronged me, take note: I hereby promise to give you a gold star for your apology. Thanks, in advance. I guess, though, that means I have to do the same…ay, there’s the rub. That’s when it begins to feel hard.

Reciprocity is fundamental, though. Call it 'paying it forward,' 'tit for tat,' 'you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' or a thousand other phrases we have developed to describe it, but it is what it is: crucial to feeling even halfway decent.

My sage yoga instructor again today read my mind, or the universal unconsciousness, which feel like the same thing on good, connected days. During a moment when we all stood, asses high, stretching our legs taut as if our lives depended on it, she told an inspirational anecdote from a recent subway ride. Yes, ye of little faith, there is such a thing.

She had been feeling good, she said, up and ready for teaching a great class, when she unwittingly clocked a stranger with her bag. Instead of understanding that it had been a mistake, he showered her with, she recalled sweetly, "not nice words." In a flash, her zen-like readiness for helping to restore others' minds and bodies was destroyed. She was angry. In true guru fashion, however, she didn't let her anger get the best of her. She immediately looked around for something good, she said, something to remind her that she wasn't wrong, that the world was a generous, understanding, happy place.

She lighted on goodness immediately, as one is wont to do if looking, in the form of a 20-something punk kid helping an older person with directions. She went on to find a variety of other things, small acts of kindness. I smiled to myself as I listened. It was exactly what giving out gold stars did for me, turning me from foul-tempered to foolishly, impossibly optimistic all in one fell swoop. As usual, she deserved a gold star for imparting her story, for helping all of us disciples on our stretchy, spongy mats try to make sense of things.

"I think I'm going to cry!" she said when I handed it to her. I hope she felt the same way I did after she said that to me after she taught the class, that she felt the blessing of being giver and receiver both.

Trying to Get Laid...

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so nosy, but sometimes it pays off. Take yesterday. Sitting alone in a diner I frequent, putting the last minute touches on a piece of writing for a new workshop,finishing my tarragon chicken salad (yum!) I overheard one of the girls behind the counter wishing a departing co-worker good luck. He was a young, sweet guy who often remembered my finicky veggie sausage and egg sandwich order correctly before I even had to ask, who chatted with me amiably as I waited for it.

He waved her off somewhat sheepishly. "Aw, thanks," he said, "I'm hopin'..."

I couldn't not ask. "What's up?" I said, "What do you need luck in?" I thought maybe I could offer my own well wishes.

He looked at me in a bit of a panic and then back at his co-worker. "Thanks," he said to her, joking, "why don't you just tell everybody?" But he didn't seem to mind sharing as he turned quickly back to me and spilled it:

"I've got this lady friend, see, and I'm hoping she'll sleep with me tonight," he said enthusiastically, no longer even sheepish just straight-up desperate. "Really," he said, eyes wide, leaning in toward me "and if not, if you know anyone who'd be interested..."

I threw back my head against the booth, dying of laughter. "Nice, very nice. Well, by all means, I wish you luck...hey, you deserve it!"

It seemed to me he should have no problem, but it has been a while since I've been single. As I thought about it, put myself back in that place in my head, I recalled that it wasn't always easy to find a bedfellow despite the knowledge that all single people seemed to be in search of one much of the time, in search of the same thing, maybe just not with each other. Things often seem like they should be simpler than they are.

"Where are you taking her?" I asked.

"My house," he said, pursing his lips in cock-sure fashion. "I'm making her dinner..."

I laughed. "Aaah, well," I said, "then it seems it will be yours to lose. You'll be mere steps from the bedroom, no problem."

He smiled, crossed his fingers. As to not leave it wholly to luck, however, he said he was making filet mignon, "pulling out all the stops...only the best!"

"I'm sure she'll love it...good luck!" I said, again for good measure.

He waved and walked out. Smiling, I paid my check and walked out myself. No sooner did I see my sex-starved friend up ahead than I slapped my forehead. Stupid. If ever there was a gold star moment, it had been this one. I picked up the pace and finally cornered him a ways up the street.

"I forgot to give you this," I said as I pulled out the biggest gold star in the pack and slapped it right on his chest. "Tell her a stranger gave it to you, just for being such a good guy..."

He patted his star happily. "Ooh, that'll work, that'll definitely work! Thanks!"

I can only hope it did, that his efforts on his lady friend's behalf, for his own best interest, paid off. I'm not sure, though, that I'll ask when next I see him. Sometimes you have to know when not to ask the question. I'm bad at that. What would I say if the answer was no, that his efforts didn't pay off? That he was left hanging? What would I say if it was yes? Either way, it's none of my business. But, who am I kidding? I'll have to ask.

Precision Parenting

First Monday back to regularly scheduled programming, kids happily ensconced in school, me back at Parco, I was bound and determined to give out gold stars, to stop the incessant whining about my indecision and focus on others' efforts, on someone else's abilities or inabilities to decide what to do.

I didn't wait for a chance encounter, I just willy nilly started out giving out gold stars to regulars, to the lovely barrista and to a few of my fellow coffee-drinking time squanderers, women who I well know are trying in a myriad of ways.

Stars in place, one in the middle of a beautiful new tattoo of boxing gloves, others on shirts, interesting conversation, of course, ensued.

One woman, a fiery former journalist back in school for interior design in between raising two kids, began talking about a chat she'd had with her 12-year-old daughter. She had some concerns about the mega-popular Stephenie Meyer series, Twilight, which her daughter had just read. She was concerned about its conservatism.

"It's about vampires and they don't even have sex, because the writer is Mormon and doesn't believe in premarital sex," she scoffed, waving her hands excitedly. "So I said this to my daughter, I said, 'They don't even have sex, do they?' and she corrected me,'They have sex in the last book, Mom.' But, I said, "By then they're married, right?' and she said, 'Yes.' So I said, 'I just want you to know, I don't want you to have sex right now, but I think you should have sex before marriage...' At this point, she said 'Ew! Mom!!' So I said, 'What, you don't want to talk about this now?' and she said, 'I don't want to talk about this ever!' "

I died laughing. She'd already gotten her gold star but I was tempted to give her another for the great story. I have been talking so much lately about what I have come to refer to as Precision Parenting, the painstaking, swiveling navigation between various courses of action to be taken in any given circumstance that is required in the attempt to raise open, communicative, independent, understanding, sometimes-happy people, a navigation no GPS system could ever attempt to speak to. If one could, I might waiver from my adamant anti-GPS stance.

It might seem strange to be guiding your 12-year-old toward sex before marriage, but I find myself in just the same boat. While I sometimes steer clear of actually recommending courses of action that some might see as morally questionable or in some cases that even break laws (there are, frankly, some laws I just do not wholeheartedly endorse), I try to at least offer up my own openness toward, well, toward most anything, anything that might in some way help them lead fulfilling lives.

Take a recent sidewalk exchange between me and Eli.

"Mommy," he said, "have you ever kissed a girl?"

I didn't skip a beat. I am well accustomed to the inquisitive ways of my constantly pondering 8-year-old.

"You mean, like how I kiss Grandma or like how I kiss Daddy?" I asked.

"Like how you kiss Daddy..."

Here I paused, not because I didn't have an answer, but because I was disappointed that my answer offered up a conservative behavior, one that might seem to imply judgment that I really don't have, especially when it comes to others' choices.

"No," I said, somewhat sadly, "I haven't." I thought to add more, like my friend to suggest that he should kiss someone of the same sex, especially if he was so inclined, but I didn't. I didn't really feel that my judgment for or against was germain. Hopefully, in my not condemning the question, in answering it honestly and not balking at it or taking it as silly, he would see that I didn't think the topic was untoward, that he would feel free to do or not do what he wished when or if the situation should arise.

My Precision Parenting skills have been tested, as well, with Oscar. I am reminded this fall of last year's first days of school, when my deep-brown-eyed kindergartner was reprimanded in school for hugging all the girls. The teacher was hesitant and sweet when she told me, "I don't care, but I'm afraid other parents might complain..."

Complain? If by telling me daily how their daughters spoke about nothing but Oscar was complaining, then they complained incessantly. Playdates were demanded by a series of girls, one after the other. I was a little flummoxed as to what to do. On the one hand, I could see that invading people's personal space, even if the little girls liked it now, in kindergarten, could pose a potential problem down the road. Grabbing what you like at the gym, for example, is a no no. But, then, it was Oscar's interest in connecting, his openness and affection, that were the drivers of such "bad" behavior. How could I squash one without squashing the other? Challenging.

This year, I have heard nothing yet of hugging, but have heard tale of Oscar's charming ways by a few mothers in not altogether positive tones. "My son says, 'Oscar is so funny in music class!'" one mother says and we both sigh.
There are times to be chatty and silly and times to listen, to stay silent. To be fair, my husband and I, sad or no, never learned the difference between those, opting always for the former rather than the latter. It is hard to teach what you yourself do not know. And, as for what we do know...oh, wait, that's so little. All we can know, like doctors, is what we've seen before. And even that often doesn't apply.

I was running through the park yesterday, a beautiful still-summer Sunday, when I caught a glimpse of a flying something overhead. Could it be a dragonfly, I wondered? Could I be on the right path? There are so many paths in the park, it's hard to know...I looked more closely and saw that it was a bee. I laughed. Why should we be afraid of one flying insect and inspired by another? Especially when from way down on the ground it is hard to distinguish one from another? Bees sting, I know, but rarely, and they certainly do more good than harm. As I thought about this, trying to determine why what inspires us inspires us and what scares us scares us when often there is little difference between the two, I looked up again at something flying overhead and saw that it was, indeed, a dragonfly. I guess, I thought, just the questioning of things puts me on the right path.

To Decide or Not to Decide...

I can't decide. I will do anything not to decide. I will spend money I don't have, borrow time better spent on other more necessary tasks, and strain my voice as I wander around talking to all and sundry--any stranger will suffice--about what I should do.

On different days, it is different things I can't decide upon, but whatever it is, large or small, matters of life and death, or just simple questions of what to wear or what to eat for lunch, it cannot be decided without a quorum.

It can be draining, certainly for my husband, who is nearly always consulted, and for the friends and family who still take my calls and e-mails, even for the neighborhood at large. There are a fair number of people in the vicinity of my apartment who have been pressed unwittingly into service to help me decide. I see them on subsequent occasions and recognize "the look." It is fear, panic even. As they pass, quickly, sometimes with a wave-off, they often make excuses for where they have to be as I near, cross the street even if they think I haven't seen them. I don't blame them. After all, I am avoiding me myself, avoiding listening to my own excuses and explanations. If I can't convince myself, maybe I can convince others, I think. A stranger often believes I will act instead of just talk, but only once, at most twice. I, of course, know better but I like the look of enthusiasm I see in someone's face as I tell them my ideas anew.

"Good idea!" they'll say.

"Isn't it?" I'll say, as if I haven't told it to a million others, as if I've done anything toward completing the story, book, song, whatever let alone beyond coming up with the idea and a killer beginning.

This weekend, the first following the end of summer, the beginning of school, I am faced with myself and the myriad of tasks I have laid out in a list, in a new academic-year calendar,for myself to complete, in no specific order. I want desperately to reach out to people, personal and professional acquaintances, people who love me or even those who couldn't care less. I want them to tell me what to do first, to tell me how, to make me do it. I know this is impossible, but, like the tales of my own ideas,it it disappointing anew to find out that no one but me can decide, let alone do it.

I have said a lot lately, as if it is an epiphany, that advertising copywriters are the philosophers of our time, the ones who create the aphorisms of our time. Someone I said this to recently stared up to the sky, in thought, and nodded.

"Yah," he agreed, "that's true: Just Do It..."

Right, I thought. Just do it. I would say I'm trying, but am I? I know I'm talking an awful lot about trying. Is it the same? I guess it depends, depends on what it is I want to do, what I need to do. Turns out, only I can decide. Bummer.
I have wasted so much time and I'm looking to waste more. I am afraid.

Dealing with Impermanence...

I walked into yoga this morning, the cool fall air following me through the screen door. I try to get to the studio, to relax and elongate, every Thursday, as much as possible. But I am unwilling to commit. I have been burned before, buying a multiple-class card that must be used within a certain time frame and losing money when one or another crucial thing has kept me from coming.

"Single class?" asked the girl behind the desk, familiar with my fickle ways.

I sighed. "Yes, I just never know for sure..."

The teacher, a calm and rational presence always, piped up. "Aaah, that fits our theme this month, Impermanence, so maybe it's ok..."

"Maybe," I said. "I just have to reconcile myself to dealing with things day by day?!"

She nodded, understanding.

It is funny, because I have of late buoyed myself in difficult moments, boosted myself up out of funks with the idea of impermanence. This is new, a sign, I hope, of much-needed maturation.

I have never navigated through life and its near-constant change of people, place and events easily. In my early years, not travelling much or enduring much in the way of change, I would literally lose my footing when I found myself elsewhere than home. I fell out of beds, down stairs and even just tripped on my own two feet 'cause I was so flummoxed and out of sorts.

Later, when college presented changes of rooms and roommates more often than my mind could accommodate, I began packaging up my little sack o' safety, a straw bag that held my white metal makeup basket, my flowery jewelry box and a little happy yellow strip of fabric that I could lay these things upon wherever I might light. It helped me a little, but I still did not flow easily and fluidly through the many ripples real life presented. I ached over friends and family who might get busy or be gone, those people I had left back at home or those who had left me. I had little experience, thank goodness, with death, but the tales of others' losses were enough to scare me into a deep funk.

It is maybe as a parent or simply to save my own self that I have begun to grapple with change and loss and deal with it more honestly, put it in a place, recognize my lack of control over it.

I picked up a book at Barnes and Noble a few weeks back in search for answers to some angst I was experiencing, ignoring the silly self-help cover because the name appealed to me. It was The Age of Miracles, by Marianne Williamson. I bought it because its first few pages resonated deeply with me, mentioning as it did much of what I have been trying to figure myself during the past two years, a period many have termed my Mid-Life Crisis. I prefer to think of it as a time of necessary growth and acceptance and have not developed an easy label to describe it, but suffice to say it has been a very reflective time and I value having had the luxury to take it.

Anyway, sulking over the loss of a close friend, I came upon a passage where Ms. Williamson describes a relationship with a younger person in which there was what she calls a "built-in time limit." Such a limit, she says, "seems terrifying at first, until I realized, but isn't that what death is?"

Of course, I thought. Every end is a kind of death, our inability to deal with it a denial of that death. She went on talk about the deep learning this relationship brought and warned that "the only thing that can ruin such an experience is when someone doesn't know how to let what happened in Paris be simply that."

That's it, I thought. I have never been good at letting go of Paris. But I am learning. To do so, I am hosting a lovely French student, here in New York from outside of Paris itself, for an 8-month stint as he helps Human Rights Watch watch the atrocities in the Middle East and North Africa. It is a period where, I hope, we can gain much from one another and walk away without despair but with great joy at the experience. I hope to understand more from him about how to deal with the eventual independence of my own young boys, who are every day bigger and bolder and more assertive in their own reasons for being. I have to be able to help them as they too struggle with the idea of impermanence.

"I am happy," Eli tells me yesterday as he reads a book for his homework, in the late afternoon, after a long, trying day, the first day of third grade.

I am so thrilled to hear that he is happy on what can be a day of difficulty.

"Excellent," I said. "Why are you happy?"

"Because," he said, looking up from his little paperback, "if an asteroid hits the earth, it will probably only kill a million or so people..."

Um...huh? I am lost but I pretend I am with him.

"So, you are worried about asteroids and the fact that it won't kill us all, but just a million of us, makes you feel happy?" I said.

He looked pleased, understood, as he nodded. "Yes," he said.

"Well, honey, I know you're worried about asteroids and such," I said, walking over to stroke his thick dark hair, remembering vividly his his sheer panic as we watched Cosmic Collisions at the Planetarium, "but it is pretty much out of our control, so I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it. Just enjoy..."

"I know," he said, back already to his reading, to making the best of things in his own way.

Does he know? Do I? I hardly think so. But all we can do is try.