Meditation on a Pair of Worn-out Shoes

The other day I threw out my dad's shoes, which look worse from the back than from the front. My dad has worn his Dr. Scholls ragged over the past ten years, and commented recently that it was time for some new ones. I found two similar pairs in brown and "bone" from eBay, and he snapped them up delightedly when I dropped them off with him. He didn't flinch as he handed this ragged pair to me to discard.

But I found myself hesitating before tossing the worn out shoes in our trash barrel at home. It struck me that these are likely the last pair of shoes I'll replace for my dad. He's 88 years old and fragile, suffers from a spinal stenosis, and his health has been known to go south in a minute. Realistically, the new-to-him shoes from eBay will serve him for the remainder of his time here.

Raggedy shoes resting on the lid of the trash bin. It was one of those poignant moments, thinking about how quickly life passes by, and how--despite awareness of the inevitability of it--I won't be ready to handle it well when the time comes that my dad's shoes are no longer needed.

Remembrance

This is what I said as I hosted a remembrance yesterday in the lobby of the School of Education where I am the Dean. The remembrance was for the first dean of the school, who passed away in January. I had only met him once. Does my subculture typically have remembrance gatherings? No. I made it up. This will explain why.

Why do we meet together after someone is gone? It’s not for them, it’s for us. This is when we consider how a life was lived, and reflect upon our own lives in the process. 

I am often inspired and surprised as I hear life sketches read at funerals and memorial services. I learn learn things about people that I never knew, and I often wish that I could have known them well enough to know these things. That I had asked the right questions. And listened. That they could be here to hear the appreciation for their value in the lives of others.

Why do we not hold an life celebration for people before they are gone?

The best memorial service I ever attended was for my father-in-law, a nonbeliever. Because church was not relevant, we all gathered in his daughter’s beautiful backyard north of Seattle, with a sumptuous potluck laid out. Relatives and friends reconnected and chatted happily under the evergreen trees, with a stream gurgling next to us as it ran by. 

And then someone got us started.

We told stories. Anecdotes about Dad, about our experiences with him, describing his character along the way. Mostly there was laughter and very few tears. The stories went on and on; he’d had a heart attack at 38 and yet managed to live to 80-something. There was much to tell, and the air was full of warmth. It was beautiful.

When I started working as Dean, four years ago here in the School of Education, there was a cardstock sign by the dean’s office door honoring Willard and Blanche. I didn’t pay attention to it until one day when Christine from Advancement invited me to go with her to visit Willard. We sat down and had a lovely little chat with him. He was lively and congenial. When I heard in January that he had passed away, I thought, "Oh no! Who got his history? He was Dean here for fifteen years, but few of us who work here now, knew him."

And then I thought of that gathering under the evergreens. It is good to sit around, with food, and tell stories. We can find out about this gentleman who shaped our School of Education.  We can extend his story by retelling, in the hearing of those who knew him, and new people. This is is our version today of sitting under the evergreens.

And it's past time to have something better than card stock. There is a proper plaque by our Dean's Office door now. Come by afterwards and take a look. We are gathered to tell stories. So let us begin, and enjoy the experience as many of us remember Dr. Meier.

There followed a lovely time of storytelling by former students, colleagues, neighbors and faculty members from the past. It was all that I had hoped it would be, and people expressed appreciation. I have a deeper sense of the history of my office, stories to inspire and inform me in my work, and that is ... very good.

Check "Yes" or "No"

We do this all the time, in so many ways, don't we?: It's about more than being liked; it's about checking with others on our value in this world. We devise all kinds of ways to find out the answer, some subtle, some overt, some dignified and some piteous. 

If the answer is "No," or--worse yet--if there is no answer at all, we fret. We worry. We feel fearful. We get angry. We employ distancing behaviors so we don't have to feel devalued at close range. Maybe if we get away from it, it won't follow us around.

I've thought about this often--the "Do you value me?" question--, and am not done thinking yet. It has occurred to me that practically everything we do, besides tending our basic needs for food and shelter and sustenance, can be attributed to this question: How can I confirm my meaningfulness in this universe?

Because I was brought up with basic philosophies and beliefs that established my sense inherent value, I navigate my own life with a semblance of balance. A semblance. I wonder how people survive who are told all through their formative years that they are worthless. It must be an agony, a death-while-walking-around.

The problem is that we also have a need for our inherent value to be recognized by others. Do you like me? Do you care about me? Do you value me enough to show it in these ways, which confirm my value in your sight? Can I get affirmation? How much difficulty or inconvenience will you go through and still stick around, and thus confirm my value?

"Do you like me? Check 'Yes' or 'No.'" Children pass the notes asking it outright. The rest of us? We still want to know.

Firstborn

Photo from here

I was re-informed by a friend the other day that oldest children are a bit of a necessary evil (my words, not hers). Perhaps we are evil without meaning to be. But we are necessary, because someone has to be the firstborn, even if just to enable a secondborn to point out that the firstborn is being bossy, critical, overbearing, manipulative, power-mad, selfish and... well... evil. I have heard epithets about firstborns before, and mentally tossed them aside because I don't much appreciate being maligned by stereotype and by virtue of something I have no power to change. I am an oldest child. I can't change that. Must I believe I am also inherently a burden to a younger sibling simply by dint of birth order? Well, there are clues. It has astonished and discouraged me is to hear occasional resentment expressed from younger-born adults towards their firstborn siblings. Clearly there is some pain felt and chalked up to the realities of birth order.

As we talked about it, my friend's comments started to make more sense to me. While I can't be held responsible for the dynamic, I suppose I am responsible--if I want to understand people's reactions--for understanding the effects of birth order on the lives of young siblings. I'm being confronted by the fact that as a firstborn I have always been perceived to possess more power, and power threatens, and therefore is seen as evil, and therefore...Voila! So am I. Perceptions are a reality of sorts, particularly to a second or third sibling who is both looking up to and feeling commanded by the oldest.

As a firstborn who emerged with a forthright and transparent personality, I tend to sashay through life "saying it like it is," feeling justified in commenting from my own reality if I think someone or something is out of line, or if I perceive injustice is being done. Someone needs to lead, right? Someone needs to name the rules, to say it like it is. Someone needs to float useful ideas for solving problems, and to stop people from dilly-dallying around and perseverating. If a younger leader would step up and lead, then I'd be happy to follow. [Maybe.] But the second- and third-borns don't, and I'm quick enough to fill the vacuum. 

What I haven't done so well at understanding, is that the younger borns hear authority in my tone of voice even if I'm just trying on an idea for size. My words and opinions carry more weight than I invest in them. After all I'm older and therefore responsible to be a guardian and dispenser of Truth, right? Younger children look to older children to tell them what the world is like and how to negotiate it. Comments are heard as truth-dealing pronouncements (or boldfaced lies, for you disenchanted younger siblings). Careless remarks from a firstborn are experienced as cutting, while a youngest child is tolerated to fling them around here and there, willy-nilly, with less import. Firstborns are supposed to be more grownup than the younger ones. I have not heard a younger sibling acknowledge that their big sister or big brother, too, needs the opportunity to grow up, to change, to become a better person.

I'm not sure where this is going. It wasn't meant to be whiny, just to acknowledge the dynamic from the point of view of a sometimes-beleaguered oldest child. Our culture is about protecting, supporting and cheering the underdog, and the firstborn rarely gets to be that. On the other hand, I'm starting to recognize the power and influence wielded by the firstborn, and how we who hold that power can miss that because of its invisibility. It's a dangerous weapon if disregarded. The word "gentleness" comes to mind as a requisite for being a more appreciated firstborn. Gentleness is always the tool that the a powerful person must learn to grasp and use. 

Easier said than done, my friends. I'm trying this idea on for size, pondering it. So don't hear it as a truth-dealing pronouncement just yet, even if it's kinda getting there. I'm still growing up.

The Why

Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Copyright GKW, 2016, all rights reserved

So, why did I begin blogging? This is the question posed for my newly (re)formed group of bloggers this week, nicknamed the Comeback Bloggers because we have decided to rise from the ashes of dying and deceased blogs that were once lively. And question #2: why did I stop blogging? I can't write about the first question without also asking the second one.

I started blogging because I'd signed up to work with a writing coach by the name of Karen O'Connor through the Christian Writers' Guild, and organization founded by "Left Behind" series author Jerry B. Jenkins, whose books I've never read. Karen was assigned as my writing mentor, and she had just urged me to hone my craft by blogging.

I had books in me. I still do. We can discuss them sometime if you like. I have always loved to write. Life has dished up plenty to write about, the only change being that over time I went from wanting to write fiction-based-on-life to writing nonfiction. But I wanted to do it well, and I knew I needed to practice. And I needed to network. Thus the writers' guild.

My first post, "Hair," produced no commenters. It still has never gotten a comment, as the blog is hidden--a casualty of being told later on by my brother that perhaps I was a bit too transparent as a senior university administrator who sometimes wrote about my work. But then my coach Karen commented on a few of my first posts. And then a guy named "MaximumBob" dropped and and said, "I learned something today. Thank you." And by the end of January someone named Michele had commented empathetically a couple of times. And with that feedback, I was hooked.

I wrote. People read it. They would talk to me about what I wrote. Could my writing life get any better?

What was initially an exercise for a wannabe published writer became a nearly daily exercise in saying things, getting feedback, and best of all, finding out what was in my head. This is no small thing. I found out there was wisdom inside that head, coming from somewhere deep down. I would reread, shake my head and wonder where that came from. This is not a pride thing; it's a self-discovery thing. I found out that I have a way of expressing myself, a style that I like. This too is a gift. How many of us struggle to like ourselves? Yet I discovered that I truly like myself, in writing. That's where I say things that are important, things that are thoughtful, that are reflective and true for me.

My life is deeper and more satisfying when I blog. Life provides fodder for blogging, and blogging provides fodder for life. Many times what I write makes its way into my speaking appointments, into my teaching, and into my conversations.

So why did I stop, back about 5 years ago, with only sporadic posts since then? I think it was a combination of things: joining Facebook a few years before; feeling ever more burdened and burned out in my previous job; feeling muzzled when I realized that I couldn't write freely about work; unable to openly discuss a completely unforeseen fracture that had taken place in my family; seeing some of my best blog friends become more vocal about turning away from faith while I still loved my own faith, and thus felt like I was writing for an audience that might not be inclined to understand; and stinging at times from watching some of my readers/commenters drift away because (by my perception) they found my writing irritating or irrelevant. I can do no other than honestly say what I think, but I also cringe in face of criticism or rejection. Life has been a journey of slow realization that I must be me "in spite of," rather than to please and obtain approval. I'm doing better, but I'm not fixed yet.

So why am I back? Because Jayne said so--dear sweet Jayne, my blog friend whom I've now met twice in person, and who is one of those open-hearted people who loves her friends unconditionally.  Combine Jayne's call to blog again with the fact that the siren song of blogging had crossed my mind a time or two in the last week, and I'm back. Me, my pictures, my thoughts, and the renewed anticipation of a circle of writer friends, old and new, who will read and respond, encourage, test, inspire and incite.

I believe in resurrection.

Throwback

A long time ago (11 years ago, in fact, on January 9), in a faraway land (in Washington state, to be exact), I began my life as a blogger. As background for my next post, I thought it would be fun to repost that very first blog post, which I entitled "Hair."

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There ought to be a law requiring the reading of "Miranda Rights for Hair" by anyone touching your hair either at home or at the salon. 

I considered myself a rather conservative woman until I began thinking today about the parade of hairstyles and colors across my life. I've now decided that I'm a rather daring and adventuresome soul, perhaps could even be described as a bit intriguing and somewhat dangerous!

I was born a redhead. The red hair fell out and, after a period of baby baldness, it came in platinum blond. It gradually darkened over the years, reached "dirty blond" in young adulthood, then turned a surprising mix of grey-peppered dark brown beneath years of blond weaves and streaking. 

And that's just the saga of the color. 

My first style was "koonky-koonk." No one else equaled my creative name for the fountain-like ponytail on top of my little blond head. Then came the China Chop, the Long-and-Stringy, the Curly Bushy, the time I had it straightened in 8th grade (lasting one day in the tropical humidity), the time I permed it into a Formidable 'Fro at the age of seventeen, the Upside-down-pear through young adulthood, the Grow-it-long-&-french-braid-it experiment of my thirties, and then back to the conservative Pear. 

Now we're in the Spikey Era, thanks to Maile at the Beehive salon and spa. 

Considering my saga, I should be viewed as admirably even-tempered about dealing with change. Especially even-tempered if you compare me with my friend Julie, who used to single-handedly support Kleenex corporation by bursting into tears after each haircut. 

If we had a Miranda Rights for Hair, it might go something like this: "You have the right to remain the same color and style. Anything you allow to be done to your hair can and will be used against you sometime in the future by your kids, your siblings, your spouse, your friends and likely even by you yourself. So there." 

And with that, Maile would brandish her expert scissors, and we'd be off at a brisk clip into the delightful unknown.