A Warm Day in December

Isn’t it always the unexpected that reminds us to be grateful for everything we’ve got?
Yesterday it was unexpectedly warm and I went to the lake to read at its bank. As the sun shone on my back I thought how good it felt and how many other warm days I’d spent in that same spot not particularly grateful for the weather, just used to it in the spring and certain days in the summer. Yesterday, after such a long spell of rainy, cold days, I was grateful for every sun ray that shone on my hands, face and back. Today it was cold again and I remember yesterday with a certain fondness but also look around at the way things are now. I’m grateful to have a job and a roof over my head and to get to spend my lunch breaks reading. I’m grateful for my house and my dogs. It took a warm day in December to remind me to be grateful for everything I’ve got.

Friendship Rules

Friendship is one of the greatest gifts life has to offer. But sometimes a good friendship can go bad, and you have to know where to draw the line when it comes to being friends with someone. Recently this happened to me, and, although it was hard, I came out all right in the end.

First of all, it’s important to realize that friendship can have a big influencer on your behavior. Your friends, in other words, can affect the way you act. For example, if you are surrounded by people who are doing things like constantly using drugs or drinking alcohol, you are more likely to end up experimenting with these kinds of things. Likewise, if you are usually surrounded by people who are experimenting with things like reading different kinds of literature, going to art shows or museums or watching different types of films, you're more likely to pick up something of that from interacting with your friends and you might do a little experimenting in the arts, sports, volunteering, etc, yourself.

You are subconsciously drawn to different people who either have the same outlook on life as you, who find the same kinds of things funny as you do, and /or people you share interests with or have things in common with. These typically make good friends.

Sometimes you can have things in common with someone and become friends with that person. But, then, rather than finding yourself in a rewarding friendship, something doesn’t feel right and you find yourself asking yourself if maybe it’s time to move on.

Several things are reasons to end a friendship. If a friend is pressuring you all the time to do things you don't want to do and/or things that can be harmful to you and won't stop when you ask them to, that's one reason. Betrayal, constant back-stabbing and doing anything else that hurts the other friend, such as humiliting her, if you do it more than once, is another reason. Repairing a friendship is possible because a friend may not realize that what she is doing is hurting you, or she may be doing it because she is upset with you about something unrelated or related; but, if you discuss her behavior with her and the "friend" keeps displaying the same harmful behaviors, that's definitely reason for ending a friendship.

A good friend is someone who actually cares about you and your well being, who listens and who can (or at least: who tries to) understand -- someone you can count on who is trust-worthy and also someone who has integrity. Without these qualities, it’s hard to really be friends with someone, no mater what else you might have in common. Remember: friendship is great. It’s one of the greatest things there is. But treat it like you would anything else in your life: with care.

Try Something New

So tonight I’m trying something new…I’m going to my first-ever round of speed-dating. I’m not really meeting many guys in other areas of my life, so I think, why not try something different? Will, the organizer, calls me up and asks me a little about myself. Somehow we get around to talking about the novel I’m working on and he says he’s an agent, and asks am I looking for representation?

I say sure, I’ve got 276 for the most part unedited pages and need some motivation to speed things up. He says he represents writers and is in contact with other people who represent writers so maybe we can find a fit, which makes me a little less apprehensive about going tonight. I mean, at least I know there will be an agent there.

A little later Will calls again and says I can bring a friend for free because someone cancelled and I tell him how I don’t have any single friends right now – they’re all hooked up with somebody. “Well that will probably change tonight,” he says. “The single women who come by themselves usually end up making friends with each other.” Another reason to go.

Next he explains to me that in addition to talking to the other women I’ll have a series of quick “dates” which last exactly eight minutes.

“Sounds great,” I say, and something inside of me lifts a little. It’s not that I have any expectations either way about how tonight will turn out that makes me excited, it’s the fact that I’m going to be trying something new and different. A fun, new step in a different direction today – tomorrow, who knows what might happen?

life and rainbows

On my way to class on Wednesday I saw a rainbow. It made me think of other times I’d seen rainbows and also of how it had been so long since I’d seen one. I’m taking a Spanish cinema class where we talk in Spanish so the proper word to call it by the time I’d made it from the rainy pathway to the classroom inside was “arco iris.” I told the class I’d seen one. It wasn’t visible from inside.

Everyone got excited but they couldn’t see it even by craning their necks at the windows because a building was blocking the way. By then it had started hailing. So no one went outside to invesitgate. We were talking about the film “Guantanamero” and I mentioned I’d heard the song from it a million times but had never known the context, which was true. I had heard the song a million times. I knew it by heart, but, until that moment, I’d never known what it meant.

And by then, even though it wasn't that big a deal, and even though it was hailing, I wanted to go outside and see the rainbow again, just because everything was reminding me of those little pieces of information that get picked up here and there that start to make things suddenly make sense, whether it’s just a song or maybe a moment or even your whole life. Life can feel strange. But life is like a series of little bits of information that get picked up along the way and make the picture shine through clearer somehow, like the rainbow breaking through the sun-drenched clouds right before my class, rain and hail and all.

Escaping the Heat, and Learning Something

Batteries for fans are a popular item for people seeking relief from the late June heat, and I happen to be at the CVS cash register buying bottled water when a woman in a pantsuit walks in and addresses the friendly cashier in a voice tired from being outside in the sunshine.

“If I were batteries, where would I be?” she asks, putting her hands on her sweaty back, and the woman behind the cash register, Elsie, leans over the counter and says “Right here,” and points to the battery display not six inches from where the woman in the pantsuit is standing.

I laugh as much at the phrasing of the question as at the answer. Elsie and the woman grin back wholeheartedly, and then the woman continues her shopping.

“You know, it’s so funny to me,” Elsie says. “People come in here all the time lately and ask me where the batteries are, and they’re always standing right in front of them when they ask me.”

The heavy heat was driving even more people than usual into the drugstore that day…in fact, into any store, I knew from personal experience, given the number of places I’d already been that day. There would also be more people at the library.

The first library I went to was closed. The second one was packed – with even more cars than in the drugstore parking lot. People were reading magazines and busy checking out movie titles and using the library computers. Some people, I guessed, were probably there for the air-conditioning and a cool place away from the sticky heat of home. But many people who went to the library not really looking for anything -- besides escape -- often left with something more specific and valuable.

“Oh my god! I’ve been wanting to read this since I was a kid! I forgot!” I heard one teenager exclaim as she yanked a book off the shelf next to the empty table with the sign on it that said “Teen Center, For Teens! And Teens Only!”

Needing to escape the heat of my own house that day -- after typing some things up on my laptop at the one free library table left, by then -- I get into my air-conditioned car and drive over to the shady part of the lake, where I know there will be a breeze and a bench where – with binder in hand -- I think, if it’s not too hot, I can work on some things. I park and walk past the barriers to the restrooms and then make the shady walk back. By the time I get back to the bench my head is already swimming with words and phrases which arrive fully formed even more quickly than I can write them down. Oh my god, I think, this hasn’t happened to me in so long! All right!

Sometimes something has to be sitting right in front of you before you can find it. And the lake, I remembered -- now that it was sitting right in front of me -- never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

Keep on growing!

When I was ten I tried to grow pumpkins in our tiny backyard in Texas. I had spotted the seed packet at the five and dime one day after school and had begged my mom to get them for me. She finally agreed, then handed me the packet with an illustrated pumpkin patch on the front of it, which I proudly brought home in the front pocket of my red corduroy pocket-dress – my favorite outfit at the time besides my Walt Disney Jeans, which happened to be in the wash basket at the time or otherwise I probably would have been wearing them with my Keds sneakers.

Once home, I found a spade in my dad’s side of the garage, went around back, and started digging. I had read the instructions on the back of the packet very carefully three times, and cleared as much land as I was allowed to clear, which was about two square feet, and I dug up the grass there and made sure everything was done just like it said on the packet‘s directions.

Then, I watered my pumpkin patch faithfully. A lot of vines came up that year, but a pumpkin wasn’t showing up like in the Charlie Brown series.
I tried everything pushing the flower and stalk together to “cross-pollinate” them (that’s what I thought I was doing, anyway) with my hands. Watering them more. Watering them less…the Internet was years away from being invented for reasearching purposes and the books I found at the Dallas library didn’t go into much detail on pumpkins so I was stumped. I really really wanted to grow my pumpkins but I didn’t know how.

Years later I realize I could easily have gotten my mom to take me to the local gardening place and simply asked someone how to do it. I don’t remember the specifics of our backyard anymore, but the vines probably weren’t getting enough sunlight or vice-versa or maybe I’d just picked a place too close to the sidewalk. (All of thes little things can be important factors). Had I discussed my patch with someone who knew a lot about gardening themselves, I probably could have gotten a pumpkin of my own that long-ago season.

When we’re young, and growing up, or older (and still “growing-up) sometimes we go it alone too much and forget that people can be the best resources ever. I wasn’t the world’s most outgoing kid and I think that fact ended up having something to do with the fact that I was never able to grow a pumpkin in my tiny garden that year. But I’ve been through a lot and learned a lot since then. I’ve grown up a lot. I realize now that people are life’s greatest teachers and treasures. Now I ask for advice and help from people all the time.

It helps me keep on growing.

Anticipation Rocks!

When I was in fourth grade we had this pretty famous (at least: famous-in-our-classroom) object called the “jellybean jar.” The jellybean jar was a huge glass jar filled all the way to the top with an unknown number of jellybeans. The number of jellybeans was not actually a mystery. Our teacher had counted them before filling the jar and she knew Exactly how many jellybeans were in there down to the last bean. But no on in the class knew. So each day, upon arriving at school, each one of us got to take out a piece of folded paper and write down our guess, or “vote,” as to how many jelly beans we thought were in the jar, the anticipation building daily with each wrong guess, because with each wrong guess, we knew we were getting closer to the right one. And the person who eventually got the number right – if any of us ever did – would eventually get to keep the jelly bean jar.

Every day, I was exited to get to school and place my vote. Each day I hoped it might be the day I would become the proud owner of The Jelly Bean Jar. (I didn’t really like jelly beans that much, either way, but that hardly mattered. I would have displayed the jar on the desk in my room with genuine pride).

These days, it occurred to me, on facing the same challenge, a more saavy fourth-grader might just go out and buy a similar jar, fill it up with jelly beans, dump them out, and just count beans one by one to see how many fit into the same-sized jar. But it never occurred to any of us to do that, no similar thought ever entered our heads.

Years later, upon reflection, I’m glad it didn’t because that would have stolen all the magic. All the jelly-bean-count-winner would have won was a jar of jelly beans just like their store-bought one -- immediate gratification and an end to the jelly bean counting contest. With a winner declared, and without the possibilities of the jellybean jar, arriving at school each day would not have been anywhere
near as exciting or interesting.

Here’s a video with Miley Cyrus about the anticipation that builds on the road to always-changing and evolving dreams, or: “the climb.” When I listen to this song, I remember fourth grade and our Jelly Bean Jar.

( Hope you have a great day, whatever your "jelly beans" are. : )