Trying to See A Star as Enough...

It's been harder to write blog entries recently. I find myself avoiding my computers, all three of my barely-functioning ones. It's not because I'm not giving out gold stars, not because I'm not out there every day trying to recognize people's sometimes Herculean efforts. It's not even because of snow days and being busy with all the various and sundry things a mom trying to be a writer has to do. It's because, many days, a gold star doesn't seem nearly enough, not even a powerful puffy glittery one.

Take yesterday. Everyone I talked to seemed to have a tragic tale to tell about themselves or someone close to them, someone who was sick or had died.

"Man," I said when I ran into a friend who was running out quickly, leaving three kids at home with her husband who had just had his tonsils out, "all the gold stars in the world don't seem like they could even make a dent today..."

She smiled. Is it the thought that counts, I wondered? I have given out hundreds of gold stars, enough to know they often brighten someone's moment if not their hour or their day. People have started conversing in local establishments, sharing stories about the stars when they see them. I love that something I have done, that I do, might have the power to bring others together toward something positive. I have not lost faith in the star's ability to shine, to make a small difference in its own way. But, man, sometimes it's a challenge to sing out loud and proud when people are up against so much.

I guess it's really about focusing on the trying part, the pushing through that people have to muster every day in some way. The snow is a good metaphor. It is beautiful, magical in moments. The park was mesmerizing as I hiked around, sometimes up to my knees in thick crunchy powder. I laughed as I tried to hike up mountains where stairs used to be, as I plunged through places where I knew there were once paths. In the far-reaches, along the frozen ponds, it was mostly just me and a few starlings, every once in a while an urban cross-country skier. Icicles clung fast to the trees, little clear buds that glistened in the sun. Amazing. It was so easy to enjoy it at my leisure, nowhere to be for a bit.

Back on the city streets a bit later, hurried mothers back-brakingly braced themselves to push strollers through the same said snow, albeit blackened by dirt and exhaust. It was a different story altogether.

"Enjoying the snow?" I said to one of these mothers, a friend. She just sighed and rolled her eyes as she passed, pushing her young daughter.

"Trying..." she said.

I laughed. It's amazing how many times a day the word is used, how many times a day we think it to ourselves or say it to others. There are so many opportunities in any given day to see the positives, to think of snow as a beautiful and awe-inspiring show instead of something that's a pain in the ass to shovel. No matter how much I might momentarily falter, I always manage to pull out a little ray of hope that someone is going to be o.k., even when they're headed to the hospital. I make that promise to myself to not get cowed by fear, to pull it together despite the many sad stories, because of them in fact. I break out stars even when I'm afraid they are not nearly enough. They are, at the very least, something, right? Sometimes, a little something is all we can do.

Stars That Brighten

"I'm sorry," the mailman said, shaking his head as I handed him a gold star. "My wife won't let me take things from another woman."

I looked at him quizzically. "Really?" His fellow mailman had been ribbing him about something he'd done, whether he'd told his wife, as they sorted the mail at the storage box on my corner. I had noticed them then, real people, working hard at their jobs and trying to keep themselves entertained, talking about real things.

"Uh huh," he said, still not taking the star from my finger. But the ruse was up, he cracked into a deep smile then took the star, just as his colleague had. "Just kiddin'..."

"Phew. I was going to say...that'd be rough. Thanks guys for your hard work!" I said and waved as I walked away, into my building.

It was going to be a great gold-star giveaway day. I had popped open a new package just for the express purpose of giving out some big ones, the ones there were only a few of. I had tons of sheets of little stars lying around. They seemed sad after a while, they felt not nearly so fresh as those in a new pack. Strange how that is. On days I needed to re-ignite the fire of the project, renew my energy, I had to tear open a totally new pack.

I found myself a while later in the dressing room at Anthropologie in Rockefeller Center. Along with a new pack of stars, this is a place I turn to for inspiration. Trying on various things from the sale room, I solicited the advice of the male dressing room attendant. He was sheepish, very cagey. I didn't care so much since I knew I didn't really like the pants that much. I gave him a gold star for trying. Then, I tried on a dress I really wasn't sure of, that I suspected might look really weird but could have been super cool.

"So?" I said, "what do you think of this?"

He got nervous. "I don't want to say...I don't want you to get mad," he said.

I laughed. Typical guy, except one thing: "You're working in the dressing room!" I said. "You have to have an opinion!"

He looked sad. "Are you going to take away my gold star?" he asked.

I laughed. "No, you can keep it...but what do you think?" I looked in the mirror, gestured to the strangely cut top of the dress. "Is this weird?"

He nodded. "That's what I meant when I said, 'ugh,' when you first walked out."

I hadn't heard him. So funny. Sometimes people tell us things but if we're not ready to listen, we don't hear it.

"Thanks for your honesty. If you saw me in what I came in wearing and said, 'ugh,' then I'd be mad, but if you are helping to stop me from buying something that doesn't work, I appreciate it!"

He nodded. I hoped I helped him think about how to communicate with other patrons as well. It's important not to let people buy things that are bad on them, that don't work, especially at these prices.

I hit another pricey shop I figured I'd just walk through to get ideas on what to look for at the discount stores this spring, and I found a fabulous shift dress for a mere $29.99. Amazing. A young guy helped me, offering up his opinion that it was good on me, that I should buy it. I'm always skeptical of the sure, convincing sell, but he seemed genuine. And, more importantly, I loved the dress, especially at the low price. I even wanted to wear it out.

"Will you tell me what I should wear tonight, the top I came in in or this?" I asked the guy.

"Sure," he said, more than happy to oblige. He preferred the new dress, so did I. I gave him a big gold star. "Thanks!" he said. His accent was of indeterminate origin, maybe he had never even received a gold star from a teacher. But it made him smile from ear to ear anyway. "Have a great night!" he said.

"Thanks, you too!" I did have a great night. Giving out gold stars had, once again, helped me appreciate the world around me, most especially, the people in it, the people really trying hard at the jobs they do.

The Pull of NYC

The hairdresser looked at my hair, not me, as he started to explain a little bit about himself.

"I'm from Arizona..." he said.

I looked up at him in the mirror. "Really? Where?"

"Oh, around Tucson..." he said, vaguely, pulling my frizzy ends toward himself with the comb, clipping.

I laughed. "I'm from Tucson. No one in New York is from Tucson."

He stopped cutting and stared at me. "Wow."

"So where did you grow up?" I said, knowing he would give me the specifics now, now that I would understand.

"Nogales," he said.

"Mexico or the Arizona side?" I asked.

"Arizona."

I smiled. I had a friend who had lived in the little border town, who I had gone to visit a couple of times, had a great time with her friends and family. I told him this. Told him she had worked at the Walgreen's, that my family used to park in the Safeway parking lot and walk across the border to shop, to buy Marionnettes that got instantly tangled and little chicle from the kids on the street.

"My mom's favorite flavor was the violeta," I explained, shuddering at the memory of the purple gum that tasted, to me, like chewing flowers.

He shook his head. "It's all changed," he said. "The Walgreen's is gone, the Safeway, no one really goes over the border to party anymore since they cracked down on underage drinkers and since the drug fighting has gotten so bad. Somebody gets killed every single day."

I shook my head. I had heard this from a lot of people, warnings about the Mexican borders. I was sad to hear that it was true, not just an exaggeration of xenophobic fear.

"That's terrible," I said. "My friends and I used to drive down for the day to go to this department store that had a liquor license on Saturdays from noon to four and sold these great, strong fruity drinks in little clay pots that you got to keep. It was so fun."

Here I was, walking down memory lane when I had really just come in to the Antonio Prieto salon on a Sunday afternoon as part of a fundraiser for my sons' school and to get a much-needed cut and color. This was unexpected and great. My new hairdresser thought so too.

We chatted about our separate paths out of Arizona to New York City, out of the constant sunshine into the iffy world of seasons, out of small and slightly more predictable into huge and scary and full of possibility.

He had started down the safe road, the one moms encourage, going to school for accounting. But it hadn't felt right. Two years in he pulled the plug and caved to the pull of his creative spirit, heading to school for cosmetology instead.

"Then," he said, "it all started to fall into place." He began working for a salon in Scottsdale then decided one day to sell everything and move to NYC. He loves doing hair and makeup and, I have to say, he is the first person who has ever done my hair where I haven't wanted to take matters into my own hands, grab the gel and do it all over again. I loved it. It was exactly what I would have asked for had I not purposely exhibited a rare bit of self control and let him have at it.

He has been in New York three years, struggling, like most artistic people, to make his way to wealth and fame in the Big Apple.

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

He nodded. "But you have to try..."

We both are a long way from home. We came here, like so many people, to give it a try. Gold star to him for going for it!! And, also, of course, for giving me fun springy curls!

Passion for One's Position

I walked into Parco the other day and my barista friend handed me an inter-office envelope, a book, Against the American Dream: Essays On Charles Bukowski, which had been left for me by my professor friend.

"Oh, good, I've been waiting for that!" I said. I looked around for a plug to charge up my Blackberry and sat down with my carpenter friend who I was meeting there to give keys.

"Wow, this is cool. This is now feeling, officially, like my office," I joked.

I love my new office. I visit it at my leisure, when I feel like it, and I am most often passionately engaged in the work I do there, the work of soliciting the opinions of real people who are out in the world dealing with real problems, real issues, people who are really trying and whom I try to reward with a little gold star.

I left my "office" after a brief stay, on to chaperoning a first-grade field trip to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. Our first stop was to visit Fantasia, the Museum's 20-foot-long albino Burmese Python, who was putting on quite a show in readiness for her weekly feeding, small pigs we were lucky enough to miss being poured down her gullet. We also got to see--and touch--a beautifully-patterned Ball Python.

As I stroked its soft skin, I said longingly to the Museum guide holding her, "Ummmm, I want a purse just like this..."

She gasped and held the beloved snake close up to her face protectively. "No!" she said. I laughed. "Not her, just something LIKE her," I said. "You can't create patterns as beautiful as those found in nature."

She agreed. "You should see her right after she sheds her skin," she said, "Gorgeous." I gave the guide a gold star. Her love of the animals she taught us about shown through. The kids were mesmerized.

We wended our way around the newly renovated museum, visiting mock-ups of various ethnic shops found around Brooklyn as well as learning a lot about local nature, and ended up at the cafe for lunch. As I picked out my lunch, having forgotten a brown bag for myself, I overheard two of the cafe workers in discussion.

"I'm sorry," said the one young girl, clearly complaining about someone, "but if you're a teacher, you have to have a passion for it, you can't just go through the motions."

I nodded in assent. "But that's true of most jobs, isn't it? Wouldn't it be great if everybody had a passion for their job? The problem is, sometimes, after you've done it a while, it stops being interesting, you stop being interested in it."

"You have to find new ways to make it interesting," the cashier piped up.

"Agreed," I said. "And, with teachers, it does make a big difference when the teacher is enthusiastic. The kids know it," I said, thinking of the enthusiastic woman who had taught us all about snakes and other animals and the kids' enthusiastic response to her.

"Well, I'm going to get my bachelor's, and then I'm going to teach, passionately," the young girl said definitively, passionately.

"That's awesome, good luck," I said. I gave her and her friend gold stars, which they took gratefully.

"You have to at least try," the would-be teacher said. I agreed.

The Clothes Shows: Uniformity v. Individuality

I often give out gold stars to people who are wearing appealing apparel, donning something that makes me smile or makes me think, two of my favorite things.

This morning I failed to pull out a star but should have to a neighbor whose flirty socks-and-flats look brought a definite sparkle to my morning.

When I commented to her about them, complimenting the look, she offered up that she needed the pick-me-up they brought.

"I hear you," I said. "I always look to the little girls for fashion cues, on the things that just make you happy 'cause you like it and you just don't care."

She looked at me. "You know.." she said and nodded. She has two adorable girls and being with them and all their friends, I'm sure, sparks loads of ideas, plans for fashions those of us facing forty square in the face often fear.

I have a four-letter word for that fear. I gave a gold star to an older 60-something lady at the grocery store the other day for saying *%#@ to that fear, to wearing a fabulous sun-yellow chenille sweatshirt I couldn't help myself but to touch when I told her I loved it.

"Well, thanks Sweetie, thanks so much!" she enthused as brightly as the sweatshirt.

I walked away toward checkout, kicking myself for not having given her a star. But then, as luck would have it, she showed up in my line. Her smile was contagious, her funny comments too. I gave her a star. She deserved it. She was dressing and playing the part. I loved it.

This morning, I saw a friend who I know works in a pretty casual office setting wearing a suit.

"Meeting?" I said.

"No. I just wear a suit sometimes."

I nodded. "I totally understand. Sometimes you just have to put on something that will put you in the right frame of mind."

"That's right," he said. "Sometimes you just have to put on the uniform."

Amazing how much what we wear can make us feel, how a certain "uniform" can literally unify us toward a common goal, especially one we might not be feeling like working toward.

Example: Eli's 8th birthday. It was a camp-out party, which began with a nature hike through the wilds of Prospect Park and ended with a sleepover in a tent hung from the rafters in our living room. (City-living sometimes demands ingenuity:)) I prepared for the event by buying bush hats, water bottles they could sling across their chests and fanny packs filled with trail mix, a granola bar, a fruit leather and a bug catcher.

As the boys wrestled their way to the door up to my apartment, I stopped them and formed them into a line, giving them instructions on what they would be receiving upstairs and what they needed to do with it (put on the hat, fill the water bottle,etc.) I marched them upstairs. After a few weak complaints and threats not to wear the hat, not to don the fanny pack, uniformity won out. We walked to the park calmly in formation and the day, until the end, when the sugar from the smores we'd made in the park kicked in, they kept in line. I am convinced fully that it was the uniform.

Before that day, I understood vaguely the concept of how what we wear can have an affect on our individuality versus our conformity, but it had never really sunk in. I now don't think it, I know it: what we wear matters, it changes us, whether we realize it or not.

An End Doesn't Mean There's No Means...

Retirement is hard, for so many reasons, not the least of which is that, often, you've been looking forward to it your whole life. The time carries with it so many expectations. In my semi-retirement, quitting my job a few years back with no particular plan, I was shocked at how little I knew about myself, about what I wanted, who I was, who I would be if I could. And I still have young children to take care of, a reason for getting up in the morning if ever there was one. Real retirement, in your 60s or 70s, at the point at which you could really just take the time for yourself, maybe together with a spouse, means facing an infinitely blank slate and having to ask yourself the question: How on earth do I fill this?

There is a man now visiting a cafe I frequent daily. He is, he tells everyone happily, blissfully, recently retired. I gave him a gold star. He had worked a full career as a psychiatric social worker for the City of New York, in hospitals mostly, had definitely put in his time I imagine, seen a lot.

We talked a bit. He planned on doing some consulting, he said, after a well-deserved break. I nodded.

"Older people with experience and historical knowledge are so valuable, so necessary," I said.

He just shook his head. "These young people, they come in, they think they know everything," he said. "They think technology is the end, not the means..."

"I agree!" I said. I had had this same conversation a while back on the train with a woman as we sat staring at someone in the grips of a handheld device. "There are so many great things about technology, so much great information it affords us access to, but we don't seem to be looking beyond creating it for its own sake."

It is sad that the generation heading into retirement is taking with it so much information that they gathered in their own brains, long before they could compute it or commit it to one application or another. We have to tap their knowledge, learn from their hands-on approaches, make sure we don't forget in our rush toward modernity that people make most everything and they make it in their own image, rife with potential errors.

Figuring out my new phone, my Verizon guru suggested that there was a glitch in the system when someone went to perform a particular function because the system felt it had already done too much and would stop.

I laughed. "Are you telling me this device has an ego?" I said.

He nodded. It wasn't so crazy, as I thought about it, imagining the man who created the system saying, 'screw it, I've done enough,' and heading out for a drink. Sipping at that drink, I imagine, he was dreaming of retirement.

Trying to Find Love

Some people are very aggressive about looking for love from an early age.

"I set up an office in the corner of the classroom in first grade," a wry barista offered up this morning. "The girls would come in, and I would kiss them."

My head went back and I gave him his deserved guffaw. I had already given him a gold star.

"That is great!" I said, "I love that!"

He shook his head. "Sadly, I had to give up my office. The teacher didn't like it..."

I smiled. "Too bad..." I told him the story of my romantically-inclined son who, early days of kindergarten, was hugging all the girls. I think I've written it here before that the teacher was a little non-plussed, imagining that all the parents would complain.

But there were no complaints, only comments about how, "my daughter can't stop talking about Oscar!" Playdates were scheduled, including one where a little girl barricaded the door and tried to hide Oscar's backpack when I arrived. She wanted him to stay.

It is funny how some people believe in true love from early on, others eschew it or just don't think about it constantly, obsessively. Some people are skeptics, imagining that love can only do so much, that it brings, often, more harm than good.

My new friend at a local cell phone store bought a hedgehog recently and told me the fabled story of hedgehogs, which I somehow hadn't heard.

As it goes, he regaled me, hedgehogs want very much to be close, to be together, but because of their prickles, being close is painful...

I laughed when I said this, he being the same guy who said he can't look at dogs 'cause they would see his soul and wouldn't like what they saw.

"People are so funny, they seem to buy pets based on how much love they think they deserve," I said. Dogs, mostly, will love you though it depends on the breed, cats are pretty aloof but can sometimes allow for some love, hedgehogs clearly offer up a bit of the self-fulfilling prophecy of love not working out. I imagine there are a whole host of pets that say a lot about how people love and get loved that I have yet to explore. I look forward to my research. I think it will tell me a lot about human love.