Something New for Y'all…

CLICK HERE for the audio version

 I get a lot of ideas about which projects to pursue in my work.

My job description is broad: I help people live their lives with more awareness + choice.

There are a hundred different pathways people can take to awareness and choice. On any given day, any one of these paths seems attractive to me – I could write a book, offer a workshop, plan a retreat, launch an online program.

The truth is, I don’t always follow through on my ideas. Or I try them for a minute and then decide to try a different one. Or I just get into my family and I don’t pursue any unique projects for a year or two.

This year, however, I did have an idea stick – and it’s the idea to start my own podcast.

Over the years, I’ve had clients suggest that I start a podcast. As much as it’s encouraging to have someone believe in your point of view enough to request that you share it more openly, I didn’t have the desire or energy to consider the significant effort that is a podcast.

And then, in August, this happened.  These two people got into a silver Jetta that we bought for them – and they drove to their high school campus and parked this car in a spot reserved for juniors.

Boyd and I stood in the driveway as they pulled off – we were sort of holding hands and sort of clutching each other – sort of terrified and sort of sad, sort of joyous and definitely proud. As soon as the car was out of sight, I had a rush of something to the head – space. Invigorating headspace!

With a fresh openness and a whole bunch of energy to create, I turned to Boyd and said the thing that didn’t surprise him at all, “I want to start to a podcast.”

He said the thing to me that didn’t surprise me at all, “OK, how can I help?”

And so began the journey of I’ll Meet You There – a podcast that is conversations with people I admire who are living a life that is true to their values and they’re willing to share the highs and lows of that journey.

It’s been humbling to venture into the podcast format – the microphone is unfamiliar, every button, every link, every technical detail is completely foreign to me, the psychology of being recorded is unnerving, the vulnerability of offering something to the world, which means exposing yourself to judgment – the reality that someone will listen once + never listen again and the hope that someone will listen once + look forward to next one all serve up an emotional experience that has been super exciting and at times, overwhelming.

I’ve had moments of really encouraging and supportive self-talk and I’ve had internal tirades peppered with f-bombs and also waves of apathy that I know are a common response to the frustration of being so new at something.

Ultimately, I’ve landed on a simple phrase that seems to be doing the heavy lift of my sometimes faltering “growth mindset” – that phrase is:

I am here to learn.

When I get those familiar feelings of self-doubt that I’ve faced my whole life, that I know you’ve faced, too – I often turn to the Big Picture.

 The Big Picture has always been a steadfast + liberating pathway for me.

I’m not interested in making a point – I’m interested in the whole point.

What is the whole point of it all? It’s definitely not to know. No one is born knowing.

We are here to learn. We are each born to experience – and come to our unique knowingness through living.

I am here to learn.

Try it this week. Try it when you’re not getting along with your teenager or you haven’t made eye contact with your spouse in three days.

Try it when your jeans don’t fit or you’re sitting next to your brother’s hospital bed as he recovers from surgery. Try it when you’re holding a boundary with an aging parent or you missed a deadline at work. Try it when the new dinner recipe you cook for the first time is a fail.

Try it when you realize you took on too many responsibilities this fall. Try it when you know you need to start something that scares you. Try it when he doesn’t call. Try it when she does. Try it when you’re not sure if you should take the job, sell the house, get another dog, change your medication or have that hard conversation with the friend who hurt your feelings last weekend.

I am here to learn. WE are here to learn.

Learning is actually the thing that makes us so complex and brilliant – and if we remember that it is one of the most exhilarating things about being human, we have a chance to mitigate how terribly vulnerable it is to be human.

At every turn, this community – YOU ALL – have given me a pathway to more awareness and choice. It’s with your curiosity, your engagement and our connection that I experience the whole point.

We get to learn together.

And I’m delighted that I’ll Meet You There podcast is something I can offer you – listen any time, anywhere – and be invited to learn, to feel less alone, to be inspired.

You can find a link to listen to the trailer for I’ll Meet You There trailer below – and please follow + subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Episodes will be shared every few weeks – when you subscribe, you will be the first to know when the next conversation is available.

As always, thank you for being here – I'm so grateful we get to take this journey together and meet each other right where we are!

xx

Paige

Gateway

Open the Gate….

One of the things I’m most grateful for in my life is the field behind our house.

It’s a stretch of government owned land – no one is allowed to build houses in this area – and on the other side of the field is a grassy park where people let their dogs off leash, even though it’s not officially a dog park.

When we first moved into this house, I didn’t think about the field that much. We had two middle-aged dogs but they weren’t dog-park-friendly dogs. We had a bunch of young kids but that field isn’t great for young kids because too many dogs.

For 10 years, I drove by that field hundreds, maybe thousands of times. I appreciated the land of it – it’s so nice to see space land in the middle of Los Angeles – but it wasn’t important to me.

For those 10 years, I can’t claim full-body gratefulness for that field. Today, I can.

Today, this field is everything. It has become truly central to my peace of mind.

And it was all because of this simple, white gate.

In 2020, we had the time at home to carefully consider our living space – and we decided to renovate. We added square footage, an office for me, a bedroom and bathroom for Myles and a bunch of upgrades like a new roof, new windows, exterior stucco and a back deck.  We didn't anticipate that we would change the backyard but once everything looked so beautiful – it seemed right to elevate the landscape.

And then it seemed right to install this simple, white gate.

Our two dogs were just over a year old and they needed the field.

I needed the field – but I didn’t even know I needed it.

And then there was the gate.

 
The gate offered me access to this field in a new way – the land feels so personal now. Like it’s mine for the long walking. It’s been here the whole time but without the gate, I couldn’t find it the way I arrive to it now.
 

Tonight, I’m grateful for the gates of our lives.

 
These are the people, places, experiences and things that come our way that open us to peace of mind.
 

 
Maybe your gate is a pair of running shoes or a teacher who has led you to an inspiring idea this year or a friend who has held space for your suffering so you can feel more at home in your own skin.

Maybe your gate is a new piece of furniture in your living room or a new showerhead or a slip of sunlight that comes through the backdoor at the same time every day – and catches your attention, even for a moment. Your gate could be the stray cat that’s made his way to your back porch. Maybe your gate is the friend who loves to cook with you or the reality TV show you watch to let go of all that didn’t get done today.

Maybe your gate is an actual gate, like mine, that leads you to a field or a charming outdoor café or into the front yard of your sister’s house.

Look for the gates. They’re everywhere, but mostly they’re where you go.
 

Appreciate the thresholds you cross – be led to peace but don’t overlook what opened for you to find that way.
 

Blink and You'll Miss It

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Our family recently traveled to my hometown, New Orleans, to celebrate my dad’s 80th birthday.

We gathered for dinner in a second story private dining room of Arnaud’s Restaurant with a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. Dad didn’t want a big party, just his sisters, his daughters, and our families.

And the location was important – he wanted his five grandchildren to enjoy the sites and sounds of the French Quarter on a Friday night from the vantage point of a balcony.  It’s a classically New Orleans experience, and my dad is a proud New Orleanian.

There were toasts.  There were songs (this is the way my husband, Boyd, toasts people). And, of course, there was delicious food and bananas foster for dessert.

If I had to describe my dad’s state of being on his birthday night in a word it would be – grateful. And it was not just a count-your-blessings kind of gratitude. I mean he exuded an alive, pulsing thankfulness that animated the entire evening – and activated that same thankfulness within each of us.

We’re in the kitchen the morning after dad’s party and I ask him if there’s any newfound perspective he can offer now that he’s made it 80 years on the planet.

“Blink and you’ll miss it,” he smiles. “It really does go that fast.”

Now, here I am, five days into Myles’ summer break (he is a rising 8th grader) and five days away from Ryan and Mimi’s summer break (they are rising 11th graders) and not only do I find myself slow blinking, but I damn well near have my eyes squeezed shut.

 I want to miss parts of the summer experience – the waves of worry I get witnessing my teenagers’ extended screen time, my splintered focus just knowing someone may need a ride at any minute, the kitchen being in a perpetual state of disarray. (*Why do they eat so much? So often? So late at night? Leaving shit in the sink is not cleaning up after yourself.)

“There're so many times in life,” Dad shares with me on a call a few days after his party, when we’re still talking about all of it, “you just want to be past it. And the times you want to get past become some of the best times of your life.”

Spoken from the perspective of someone who has lived a life true to his values – family, fatherhood, fishing, professional satisfaction + success, enduring marriage, friendliness, sports, and a reverence for the most everyday acts of nature – like a cloud formation, a cardinal outside the kitchen window, a cat stretching in the driveway – and it’s turned out all right.

As someone in the middle, in conversation with myself about prioritizing my values and constantly balancing the extent to which I express which one and to what degree, I appreciate this perspective – and as much as I can embody it, I want to.

It will be all right.

“Do you think it’s possible to understand life at my age in the way you understand it at your age?” I ask him.

“I’m not sure. Is the candy sweeter when there’s few left in the box? You naturally appreciate the days more when you know they’re numbered.”

***

I guess the closest we can come to my dad’s wiser point of view is to number the days – even if you’re not facing your mortality in that confronting way that older people do or people living with a shorter life expectancy diagnosis do. 

Remember that the times you want to get past contain within them days that offer the best times.

That happened to me yesterday with Myles.

He had two of his friends over – they played basketball, took a long bike ride, went swimming, ate Chick-Fil-A for dinner, then went to see the movie Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 in the theater. I picked him up at 11 PM – and when we got home, he wanted to snack (of course!) and I immediately started cleaning the pots in the sink. (Where do they even come from? It’s like teenagers are insatiable, cooking ghosts.)

“That was a good day,” he tells me over a bowl of Brussel sprouts. “I did so much.” 

“I know, right,” I reply. “That was a really good summer day. I love when you’re not on your screen.”

He rolls his eyes. I roll my eyes back at him…about me. Because really? Can I beat a dead horse anymore? It’s so dumb. What does the term “screen time” even mean with teenagers? We both smile.

A minute later when he comes over to deliver his bowl into the sink, he gives me a hug without saying anything.

And you know what it felt like?  It felt like a number.

A finite, singular summer day, maybe even just a moment, that can only happen in the summer, that can be counted as good. Just to hear him laughing with his friends, just to see the fast food paper bags in my trash, just to smell his smelly 13 year old boy sweat after a movie knowing that the only way he got that sweat is by not sitting in the movie for 3 hours, but running running around the mall, just to see it – as it is – is the only thing we can really do to live by the wisdom of our elders.

***

“The party was so special, I’m still thinking about it,” Dad says as we get off of the phone.

“Me too. It was one my most favorite family nights of all time. Everyone was in such good spirits….”

“Well,” dad says, “that’s because no one was blinking.”

***

At the start of this summer, I have a renewed sense of presence to family life inspired by my dad’s birthday. I have an intention to let the good days be even more meaningful in this season. I want to remember the days are numbered, because they are, even when they feel like they’re not.

And when I’m blinking, I’m going to decide that it’s ok to blink. This one is harder for me, but it’s worth it to note. There is no point in wasting precious energy on judging oneself for not being present – as it just adds a layer to overcome on one’s way back to presence. 

After all, blinking is the eye’s natural way of maintaining clear vision.

Happy Summer, y’all!

To the sights and sounds of these first summer days + nights – may you see them well.

Love, Mom

CLICK HERE for audio version (5 minutes)

Ten years ago, in my childhood home in Louisiana, my husband, Boyd, stands in the light of my parents’ refrigerator and points to the middle shelf.

“What is happening here?” Before I can even see the details of what he’s referencing, I’m smiling.
 

I know what’s it going to be.

 
It’s going to be chaos. It’s going to be a bunch of random pieces of food, leftovers or slices of half-eaten fruit – it’s going to be a condiment, only halfway closed, that in Boyd’s meticulous mind should be kept on the door next to the other condiments. It’s going to be something insufficiently stored or pointlessly saved.
 

This haphazard scene is endearing to me – it’s familiar.

 
It’s of my mom’s making – a signature sign she’s been here.  And it’s a part of her way of being and doing in the world that I really like. It’s loose, it’s not sweating the small stuff. My mom can be a perfectionist. She wants things done a certain way, she has a clear idea about how things should go – and she prefers to be in control, especially in the kitchen. She’s an absolutely phenomenal chef. It’s a good thing she’s in control in the kitchen.

So, a disorderly fridge – she gets to live. She doesn’t care if the top to the strawberry jam is screwed on correctly or not. She doesn’t care if there is strawberry jam on the side of the jar – she doesn’t care if it’s sticky or secure. It’s a relief, actually – to have her not care – it’s a relief for her – and for all of us.
 

But Boyd didn’t grow up in our family, which is why he’s baffled.

 
“I don’t understand….” He’s reaching in to adjust the situation as I peer around the door to see what has him so bewildered.

I find what I consider to be a classic scenario – halfway covered raw chicken breasts placed a little too close, maybe even touching, a slab of butter that sits on top of a small, glass plate.

There she is, I laugh. It’s lovable. It’s not a mess, it’s the opposite of chaos – it’s my mom’s presence in her own kitchen. It’s the ordering principle of my childhood.

“I don’t know,” I speak through my giggles, “this is just how she is – she’s not a stickler about germs….she handles meat and then you know, keeps going – I rarely see her washing her hands and she doesn’t really….”

“A stickler?!?!! Raw chicken shouldn’t be resting on top of butter – that’s not me being Type A – that’s like, avoiding death.”

“It’s also just my mom.”

A few months later, Boyd and I are visiting St. Louis. It’s our first night in town and we’ve been out with Boyd’s brothers and friends. We’re back at Boyd’s mom’s house, perusing the kitchen for late night snacks. We pull out leftover pizza slices and coffee cake and I’m making us big cups of icy water.

I open the freezer drawer and sitting on top of the ice tray is a neatly folded, Ziploc bag, containing a dead bird.

“Uuum, what’s happening here?” I turn to Boyd, pointing down into the freezer.

Without even a word, we have an entire conversation that is mostly laughter.

“That’s my mom,” he says.

It’s lovable. It’s Boyd’s mom’s presence in her own kitchen. It’s her effort to teach our children – show them the details of some species of bird indigenous to Missouri. It’s her love for the natural world. It’s her instinct as a lifelong educator. It’s a signature sign that she’s been here. It’s the ordering principle of Boyd’s childhood.

As much as we share a universal understanding of moms and mothering – each of us has received a unique offering from the one we’ve called ‘mama.’ Now that I am a mom, I think about this sometimes. What am I offering to my children? What can I give to them that could help them in their adult lives? What values do I want to impart?

These are good questions to ask – these are inquiries worthy of reflection.

Also, there’s the way I keep multiple containers of butter on the top shelf of the fridge. We don’t run out of butter. This is my presence in my own kitchen. There will be warm buttered toast. There will be comfort food. There will be comfort.

And no matter what I aiming to give my children, regardless of how effectively or ineffectively I believe I am mothering – there’s the butter.
 

There’s the raw chicken. There’s the dead bird.

 
Our motherhoods are more than the foundation we offer our children when we write them notes that close – Love, Mom.

Our motherhoods are more than what we imagine them to be when we meet, and even exceed, the expectations of the mother role.

Our motherhood, the true gift of motherhood in a child’s life, is the way we sign our names, our proper names, across the ordinary days of our lives.

I don’t know that it’s ever possible to see ourselves in the way our children see us – I don’t think we’re supposed to. I think we’re supposed to *be* ourselves.

And trust that one day, in the light of the place we spent so much of our time as a mother, our (adult) children will laugh and delight and joyfully appreciate the way we have not only uniquely marked their lives, but also the way we have uniquely marked the world.

“I Was There!”

On Friday, September 23rd around 8:30 PM (pacific standard time), St. Louis Cardinal icon, Albert Pujols, hit the 700th home run of his career, becoming just the 4th player in baseball history to reach 700.

Boyd was there.

I’ve known my husband, Boyd, for 28 years now. Every single one of those years, he’s been a St. Louis Cardinals fan. Boyd was born and raised in St. Louis. He grew up watching Cardinals games on TV with his father and two younger brothers. He remembers falling asleep in the summertime, windows open, to the sound of Jack Buck on the radio. When Boyd and I got married and moved in together, 25 year old Albert Pujols was starting his illustrious career, along with young stars like Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright. These guys became the all-stars in our home and legends in St. Louis. We entered the years of some exciting, World Series winning Cardinals baseball.
I’ve never been able to sit through an entire baseball game but I have felt my way through many – because Boyd’s feelings fill up the whole house. I can tell when the Cards are up and I can certainly tell when they’re faltering, without even a glance at the scoreboard. I can tell when there’s a chance that they can turn it around for a win – and I can tell when it’s a long shot, all from the way Boyd is positioned on the coach, or standing with is hands on top of his head, fingers laced.

I can tell when Pujols is up to bat.

Before he yells through the house, “Paige! Paige, you gotta see this…” I know that he’s going to yell through the house that I gotta see this. The play will be made by some up and coming player who is not familiar to me or it’s going to be Wainwright delivering a curveball or Molina with an impossible throw to nail a would-be base stealer or you know, Albert, with that super smooth effortless swing where he bombs another one into the ether.

When Pujols announced he would be returning to the Cardinals for one last season, before retiring, there was no way Boyd would miss the chance to see him play again on his final lap.

Boyd bought tickets for this particular Cardinals game back in early August. He knew that he would be seeing Albert Pujols play one of his last games – he didn’t know that he would be seeing Albert hit his 699th and 700th home runs in the same game. Boyd also didn’t expect to be getting texts during the game from friends and family who could see him on TV when Albert made history.

So many things we don’t know about any one event in one’s life – experiences don’t happen in fixed points, they unfold. And you never know when you’re going to get an I Was There Moment.

A lot of people I know have had I Was There Moments as it relates to historical events, like Boyd’s moment at that Cardinals game. Some of these moments are more joyous than others. I was in New York City with many beloved friends on September 11, 2001. My sister was graduating from University of Southern California amidst the Los Angeles riots of 1992. My dad, a long time New Orleans Saints fan, attended the only Super Bowl the Saints have played to date – and they won, in 2010. My aunt got to see The Beatles play their one and only live concert in New Orleans in 1964. In fact, she got to see so many of the greatest bands perform live in her lifetime, her ticket stub collection is one long running list of I Was There Moments in music. It’s a powerful feeling to live through a historical moment. Even when it’s terrifying or traumatizing, there’s a meaning to it after the fact, that you were a part of something so monumental.

It’s also quite a triumph to live through our own personal histories.

Why should we reserve the thrill of feeling a part of something remarkable – history-in-the-making – when we are each making our history, and thus shaping our future, daily?

What would it feel like to go to bed each night feeling so a part of your life, feeling so connected to the fact that your life matters and impacts so many other people’s lives, that you say: I Was There  – and that feels significant to you?

When Boyd got home from the game, we talked about his joy. He described the details of the night: the way the Dodger fans went crazy for Pujols, the mutual elation between the spectators in his section, how much he (and all of baseball) admires Albert as a man, his boundless gratitude to be in Dodger Stadium for such an epic moment, how he misses his late dad who had also been a Cardinals fan from boyhood, and how he can feel the passage of time – the years since those summer nights falling asleep to Jack Buck on the radio.

I listened. I could relate to all of it.  “You were there,” I said. “You were really there.”

“I was there,” Boyd answered and we both had tears in our eyes.

There is a weight of importance to the present moment when it is a shared moment that changes the future. There is a reverence for being there, inside an experience, when you know that event will echo through our collective history and thus send a different sound into what is to come. We can sense we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, and so we engage our senses. We pay attention. Mostly, it is because we must – and if we don’t have to for our survival, we are compelled to because it seems important.

And there’s something else about these I Was There Moments – they don’t happen often. They are rare. They are unique. They have impact and they won’t happen again.

Guess what else fits that description? Any given Tuesday of your life, any given Wednesday, any given Sunday.

I woke up this morning really early and watched the sun rise. I wrote three words in my journal to start the day: I am here. And then I thought of Marguerite. Sometimes, when I am up in the first of daylight, I think about my sister’s friend Marguerite. I didn’t know her well but I met her enough times to know she was very kind and very gentle and she knew how to live to be here, until the very end. She died in her early 40’s. And in the months leading up to her death, she got up every morning to watch the sun rise. I’ve wondered if her presence to this Earth, her presence to the time she had left here, brought her peace to let go – I’ve wondered if at the very, very end of her life she had that thought: I was there. I hope she did.

I hope I do.

It’s special to be alive in the mundane moments. It’s important in the same way those bigger, historical moments carry weight. We forget how valuable it is to pay attention, to feel like we are a part of something bigger, to believe our lives have meaning and impact for the future. To remember we make history when we decide to make the moment matter.

Most of us won’t break records or be inducted into Halls of Fame, most of us will never run the bases or play music to a stadium full of people on their feet cheering, most of us won’t be named in history books or be the subject of an academy-award-winning biopic – (some of you may 🙂 – but most of us won’t) – however, all of us are living I Was There Moments each and every day of our lives. We have to choose to be inspired by them.

Today, my dog, Riggs, chased a low flying crow in the field, full speed – as if he had any chance at all. I was there. I overheard my daughter, Ryan, singing an Adele song in the shower. She was on key. She’s always on key. I was there. Boyd and I went to the grocery store together for the first time in ten years – it really wasn’t that fun to do that together – but it was funny. And I was there. Myles said I love you three times last night from the time I stopped rubbing his back until I left his bedroom. I was there. Mimi walked around the house wearing noise-canceling headphones this evening, grunting and moaning that she doesn’t know what to eat for dinner. (I never know what to feed her because I’m a terrible cook + she’s a foodie). I was there. My dog, Lou, is curled up like a pinto bean on top of my foot right now and the sight of her, the little tiny bit of her soft fur that touches my ankle is a living, breathing weighted moment in time that won’t happen again: I AM HERE.

There are no sirens, there are no screams – no one is running – no one is cheering – no press conference will be held about this day…but I just decided: it is one for the books. A history of my own making, a presence of my own mind, a fullness in my open heart, and a conviction that where I am is worth a boundless gratitude that can only be described in three words: I Was There.

A Certain Kind of Hope

It is the last weekend in May and I sit beneath a beautiful oak tree in Louisiana next to my mom, dad, sister and niece – to watch my nephew, Scott, graduate from high school. The students take the stage in all white, their faces lit by the fading sunlight of the day and white string lights that hang from oak branch to the columns of the front building of their school. With no rain, no humidity – not even a bug – the outdoor audience, including me, cheers and claps and takes in the magnificent sight of each student walking up the stone steps to receive the diploma that marks this monumental accomplishment in his or her life. We are all bursting with pride – not just for the beloved person we came to see achieve such a moment – but for an entire class of people who have achieved this and who will each have opportunities in life because of it.

With the final remarks of the ceremony, we’re on our feet – cameras aloft. No flash needed – graduates are lit up from the inside out and so am I.

I’m not used to the warmth of this feeling – I’m not used to the potency of such lightness, the power of this kind of hope – full-whole-heart-hope.

It’s not that I’ve never felt this way – it’s just that I used to feel this way more often. It feels like a hug from an old friend and a high five from all that is possible in a future I don’t yet know.

I settle in to this kind of hope for the rest of the evening. Scott is joyous. He will leave for college in just a few hours as he will play football and has to train over the summer. His commitment to the here and now is a thrill to behold. He’s just having fun with his friends and that’s all he’s supposed to do. My sister is proud and celebrating – she is at peace with this chapter ending – in her son’s life and in her own. It is a new beginning for both of them.
 

The hope is undeniable and easy to feel – and we know, all too well, this is not always the case.

Hope is hard work – and I think, as a nation, we’re tired.

How do you keep a full-whole-heart-hope when your heart is broken? How do you get a big enough heart to hold the truth of children being killed in classrooms right next to the hope of children (everywhere) safely thriving in classrooms?

How do you get a heart big enough to hold the reality of war, of corruption, of deception, of abuse right next to the power of peace, the courage of truth, the joy of acceptance, the abundance of being alive?

I don’t think the answer is in the bigness of a heart – the answer is in the openness of one.

We have to be open to a certain kind of hope, a full-whole-heart-hope, if we are going to move with that kind of hope. If we are going to act in a way that reflects our highest hopes.

And that means we have to believe in the miracle of this life, of this world – we have to believe in the miracle of community and change and wellness and nature and creativity and peace and maybe even mostly, the miracle of truth. We have to believe in the miracle of even one student learning, growing up, taking responsibility, and ultimately, graduating – and everything that goes in to making that possible for that student.

Hope is a tricky virtue to maneuver – a miracle may be too dangerous for some to imagine – and that’s why hope doesn’t work alone. You can find faith and love wherever you find hope. In fact, it is these virtues that make hope the instigator that it is.

Faith and love call the shots from a better angle and drop in to protect us so hope can do its thing – encourage us forward.

You’ve got the heart you need to live and love well.

Your heart is, in fact, big enough for the complexity of this life. Your heart is whole enough with all of its bruises and breaks – it is complete the way it is. This is true because our hearts have us here now.  We are where we belong.

Our hearts will always be big enough for the pain we choose to carry – it’s if they are open enough to work with hope, faith and love that counts the most.

Watching Scott graduate and taking in the images of all of *your* graduates these past few weeks has definitely inspired my intention this month: to let myself hope, in the fullest, most wholehearted way. I believe in the power of my faith. I trust the truth of my love.

And I am open to that certain kind of hope the feels like a high five from all that is possible for a future in my life, the life of my children and family, your life and even in the life of this country that we don’t yet know.

I don’t have to go to a graduation to get this kind of hope. I am determined to find it in everyday ways. I’m going to look for it all summer and then in the fall and in the winter after that. I am not going to give up on miracles – because that is exactly what we need right now – not only because we need it but also because young people need to see us believing, hoping and loving and acting with these virtues in motion. After all, having them step up and achieve their own greatness has everything to do with each of us stepping up to achieve ours as well.

One Way to Get More OK…

I collapse on a coach in a therapist’s office on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and announce I am afraid to ride the subway, I can’t swallow food and from the moment I open my eyes until I fall asleep at night, I am afraid I will have a panic attack. This makes me feel like I can’t go anywhere and my life is over and if it’s *not* over, I don’t want to live it like this anyway.

Ok, she says.

She calls me on a Sunday morning, the morning after her husband is charged with a D.U.I. – his second offense. She has the name of the person who will facilitate the intervention. There will be friends and family flying in from various parts of the country. It is time for rehab. She is not sure she will be waiting for him when he completes the program.

Ok, I say.

We are brushing our teeth in the bathroom, side by side, when he says he doesn’t want two dogs. He has changed his mind. His face is pale, his voice is quiet, eyebrows raised – I can’t do this. I can’t do two puppies.

Ok, I say.

The deal that has been in the works for two years and actively in negotiation for the past six months is one signature from being complete.  The financial gain will make it possible for him to finally leave the company – it will make it possible for him to consider retiring from the this particular business all together. A dream he has had for a long time. The deal is dead – he writes in a text – I’m not in a good headspace.

Ok, I text back.

There are a million moments in life when we are not OK. Whether those moments are sudden + unexpected or slow burns that are ever-present just beneath our surface for periods of time – it’s easy to get swept into the slipstream of doom where we falsely believe we will never be OK again.

Our hurting demands a level of attention that narrows our view – we can only see the pain and it’s a fixed point of fear that presses upon us.

This is not OK. I am not OK. I don’t know how to be OK with or in this.

How quickly we overlook the possibility of our wholeness when a part of us is shattered.

How quickly we forget more than one thing is true at once.

The reminders come when we reach out of our own darkness towards the light of another – a friend, a partner, a helper, a healer, a family member – and that person responds with the most common word in the English language: OK.

The word is short – only two letters long – and yet it stretches into an infinite field of acceptance. In the space of OK we can help each other be more open to what is not OK.

I am an OK-ness Specialist. My work is to walk alongside people as they figure out what is OK and not OK in their family, in their work, in their lives. But the walk of my own suffering is how I’ve become particularly well practiced at OK.

I’m really good (expert level) at thinking I’m not OK. If I’m not conscious of my anxiety having anxiety – I am quickly ten minutes into I am *never* going to be OK.

One minute is aplenty hell in the space of that forgone conclusion.

I’ve definitely had the not OK moments during emotional influx points in my life – big changes, uncertainty, challenging circumstances with health or marriage or professional responsibilities. But, you know, I can also get not OK in a traffic jam.

This past weekend, I was not OK in a shopping mall with my teenage daughters.

One minute I’m in Hollister Co. baffled that a crop top costs $35 (what material?!) and the next, I am outside of Hollister Co. box breathing and reminding myself that heart arrhythmia is not a fatal condition.

As I am writing this, I still don’t know exactly why I’ve had so much anxiety this week, beyond the fact that anxiety is a friend of mine + visits often – maybe also, the collective world + cultural chaos that is a sign of these times.

Nonetheless, I’ve noticed it and in the mall, I become unsettled enough that I have to abort the shopping trip and find myself nearly running to the car, girls in tow.

When I get home and share with Boyd that I’m having a hard time breathing (because saying it aloud to someone, anyone, including you, always helps me – obvi) he says the thing he always says to me – the thing we are each called upon to say to another, a million times in life:

OK, he says.

And there it is – the neutrality, this is not good, this is not bad. Without resistance, with a calm and centered OK, there is an implicit approval of the moment. This is OK. I am here. We are here. It’s OK that it is this way. It can be this way because it is this way.

There is so much that is not OK in the world right now. There is so much that is not OK within each of us – right now and always.

And yet, when another person allows for it to be as messy and emotional and confusing and vulnerable as it is inside of you – it all feels…OK.

I think this is what we could do for each other. Right now and always.

We can offer a simple common acknowledgement of each other’s pain – it’s just a moment. There’s going to be conversation. There will be a longer exchange.

But when someone arrives weakened and scared, it’s the first response of OK that is so important. It’s a foundation for connection. It’s a safe zone. It’s a matching game. I go to you with my troubles – you flip up the square cardboard piece of OK and within me, there is a matching square cardboard piece of OK revealed.

You show me you’re OK with me being not OK and you give me a wider perspective, I change my view – and if I want to, if I am supported enough to stretch my awareness, I can see the other parts of me…I may have shortness of breath, but I am walking just fine. I am capable. I am courageous.

There is a part of me that is not OK – there is a part of me that is.

No one gets to be OK for an entire lifetime – we get OK days and some of us get more of those than others – but all of us, if we are tuned in to our emotional lives, will most certainly feel not OK more than we want to feel that way.

There’s this really nifty, redeeming quality of life that is the reason the whole thing is ultimately compelling – we have the power to offer compassionate acceptance to another person’s life when that person’s life seems unacceptable. (We  get to do this for ourselves as well.)

We get to help each other expand beyond what is not OK and in to the territory of all that is.

How beautiful it is to go beyond.

If you’re reading this and you’ve lost your OK for tonight, just know – you can have some of mine. Because as soon as you receive it, you’ll see – yours was there all along – and every single bit of your Ok-ness and not Ok-ness belongs.

p.s. Trees are also a pathway to OK – and maybe even the most reliable reminders of all time.

A Different Kind of Love…

We are standing in a little clump in the kitchen doorway, watching a young Ryan and a young Mimi (my daughters) toddle up and down the stairs, when I ask my mom and dad:

        “Do you like grandparening because it reminds you of when you raised your own kids or because it’s a totally different thing?”

They are too captivated by the twins playing to be looking directly at me, but with the sound of this question, they both whip their heads around and answer in unison: “totally different thing.”

        It is significant to see them turn together and hear them answer with the same cadence of the same words at the same time, the shared conviction of their response compelling.

        “Why?” I ask it like ‘whoa’ – I had no idea they were going to feel so sure.

        My mom has a quick response, “Because when you’re 40 years old, you’re so busy with what needs to get done and you care if you get invited to the party or not.”

              My dad thinks for a moment, “I was so consumed with work when y’all were little.” He looks at the girls, smiling. (Still, he is smiling when they are around.) “I can enjoy your children in a completely different way at this stage of my life.”

For the past 13 summers in a row (minus last year), I’ve taken my children to Louisiana for a month to live in my childhood home with my parents. I can say from those weeks under the same roof – with my parents’ grand parenthood on full display – it’s no wonder there was no hesitation in my parents’ answer that day. It’s no wonder they agreed so wholeheartedly. The way a grandparent loves a grandchild is, indeed, a totally different thing.
It’s really hard to be a parent right now. It’s really hard to be a parent always. And in today’s world – as parents, we are navigating so much novelty: between a virus + and all its variants, handheld devices that change the way we live and get information, social media platforms that impact the way we relate, and culture wars – some days, it feels our society is on the edge of being unrecognizable. Maybe every generation of parents before mine has felt this way – certainly, every generation has had its challenges. And our challenges come with a whole set of decisions parents before us never had to make – the vulnerability of these choices weighs on us, exhausts us.

I arrive to my parents’ home this summer carrying all of them.

And guess what my parents are carrying when we see them on the front porch? Nothing. They’ve put it all down to be able to greet us with open arms. What a difference!

A few days later, when my mom gifts my son with a virtual reality headset for his 12th birthday, the house erupts in total joy. Myles is so happy he looks like a beam of light. Each one of my children straps this white lens thing on their head and moves around the room engaged in a private world playing out in the front of their eyes alone. This is a novelty I can appreciate – its certainly more exciting that wearing a mask to school – but I know my smile is half-cocked.

I will have to enforce rules around this device.

I wonder if there are groups who join this virtual reality thing. Will he need a password? Can we make his account private to protect him from the adults trolling for young people online? Will he become less open to trying new things in real life because he’s tried them virtually?

Just curious. Just worried. Just dealing.
You know, just feeling – the responsibility of it all.
And as I am breathing deeply, there is some serious laughter going on.
         
My dad is taking pictures of the children, texting the images to his sister. He is giddy. My mom has the giggles. Smart kids. Silly kids. Look how quickly they figure it out. Look how they play. Look how they learn. Look at this wacky world – their world – this beautiful, wondrous world where these grandchildren of ours get to grow up and experience new things.

What a love! This grandparent kind of love – a yes kind of love.
I see it so clearly every summer. I paid closer attention to it this year – because the reality of mortality is ultra real these days and I think, also, I need this love. I want to know this love, whether I become a grandparent one day or not. I want to able to give this kind of love. I want access to it even if it's not all mine.
It's a generous love.
A healing love that is grown from some well-earned perspective, a love that doesn't just know fleeting – a love that has lived fleeting. It's unique in this way. While other loves heed the warning of the mind – “don't miss this part” – this love is already loving this part because it's heeding the heart.

It's not that my parents don't worry about their grandchildren, they do. But as grandparents, they've loosened their grip. The love they express to my children is easier going, it yields, it responds with less attachment to outcome. It's a kind of love that doesn't glean power from being in charge over another. This kind of love is all-powerful because it stays in step with, close to, another. It doesn't turn away. It doesn't argue or bristle. There is an abundance of pure presence that flows from this love to awash any tension of authority. The very nature of the potency of this love commands respect, so it never has to demand respect.

Of course, this love has guidelines and limits, as love requires, but it's a wide open field – wide wide open – with a million soft blades of delight and a thousand open petal faces of joy leaning into the sun of right Now.

It is a place to be free.
The gift of this summer was this kind of love, this totally different thing that brightened my outlook – because it widened my outlook. If this kind of love has a signature sound – it is laughter, some serious laughter coming from the other room. Something I need to do more of as I navigate the newness of all of it, the decisions of all of it, the precarious nature of it all changing again tomorrow.

If it does, that's all right.

This love has taught me – nothing stays the same, it's all stages and phases that pass in the end.

It's our job as parents, as people, to reach for a wiser perspective, take some time on the field, even before the exact view of end-of-life comes into focus – we can learn from the ones who have been through most of their journey and who live the Now with their whole hearts. We can be amused. We can laugh. We can admire.

We can love our children and I believe we can even love each other, with this kind of love that is more complete, vibrant, far-reaching into the moment.

Even for a few moments at a time, we can let our love be grand.