flawed but authentic

Routine can lull our minds to sleep.

Just for fun, at the beginning of the day, pick a color. Any color.

Throughout the day, look for that color around you.

This little practice can wake up your brain and show you things you have never noticed before.

I grew up the daughter of an office supplies salesman. I think it is quite possibly the best position, as far as being a daughter is concerned. My Daddy would bring home boxes upon boxes of map pencils, post-its, binders, markers, highlighters, scissors, staplers, paperclips, pens and anything else you can imagine filling a desk drawer.

My kids are growing up with a pyschologist for a Daddy, and he doesn’t bring home his work, nor are his freebies necessarily useful for kids. However, their momma has a car and there is an Office Depot in town, so we’re good to go.

When you are 5, 7 and 11 there are only a few tools to your trade…

I believe it is more than a little bit important to keep mine stocked. I imagine the CEO of Crayola himself will greet me one day and thank me personally for providing the income for 1.2 families.

IN OTHER WORDS, I BUY A LOT OF CRAYOLA PRODUCTS.

And not just for me and mine either. I give them as gifts. How much more perfect a gift can a child (or parent, for that matter) receive than a bin full of art and craft supplies?

Talk about FREEDOM. Imaginations loosed.

Transformers? Meh. I’ll show YOU more than meets the eye!

Star Wars? Nah. Darth Vader ain’t your father.

I want my kids to unpack their minds all on their own. Googly eyes, glue, markers and scissors can become anything - anything at all.

More than once we’ve used art supplies to work through issues with our kiddos. We ask them to draw how they feel…Draw me what scares you. Draw me what excites you.

As they get older the illustrations are punctuated with words, and then, a bit older, the illustrations are a sidebar to the dialogue. Map pencils replace markers and journals replace manilla paper.

And though I miss the squiggly one-eyed humans with their over-sized heads and uneven stick legs, a new dimension emerges and I’m so very grateful to watch the little person grow.

It all starts with the first pack of crayons - the first sheet of paper - the initial freedom to color, draw, write and make believe.

Positioned at Emelie’s desk, Kenny colors while Em talks with a friend that came home with us from school.

“What are you drawing right now Kenny?”

“Love”

“Love?”

“Yes. Mommy, this one is for you, because I love you.”

My heart implodes from the sweet pressure of his love picture.

I think I’ll probably remember drawings like this when I see his signature one day as a man - on a Mother’s Day card or maybe a birthday or other holiday.

And I’ll promptly go out and buy a few more packs of supplies for my grandkids.

A few days back, KarenTH sent an e-mail to share an article she had read on NPR.org.

(You should go read the article. And if you have twelve minutes, you can listen to the Talk of the Nation Broadcast at the same link.)

In a nutshell, an online magazine asked readers to summarize their lives in six words. The results were compiled in a book titled Not Quite What I Was Planning.

I’ve been thinking about this for the past few days.

After throwing around combinations like “Two Kids Later, Fifteen Pounds Heavier” and “Will my hair be short forever?” I’ve decided to go with the following six word summary.

Amateur Craves Pancakes, Yarn, and Wit

If you could summarize your life in a half dozen words, which words would you choose?

I’m normally late with my posting here.

Recently, I was absent for weeks. I blamed lack of internet access (partly true, but I could have dragged my sorry ass to an internet cafe!).

My girls (and I would give a shout out, but they know who they are) are being patient and caring and waiting for me to get my shit together.

My readers and commenters are slowing down at my own place. And for good reason: they’ve seen the passion drain out of my writing.

And damnit. I’m jealous of all the great things people have going on in their lives. My goal was to write about making a difference and sometimes looking for that difference is hard. Especially when you’re feeling more flawed than authentic because doesn’t ‘authentic’ have a more positive connotation?

So what I’m looking for is your authenticity right now. I want to know where you’re making a difference so I can remember what I’m doing this for.

We have a new writer here at FBA. Please give a warm welcome to Mrs. G. from Derfwad Manor. Mrs. G. lives in the Northwest with her husband and two children, ages 13 and 17. While she teaches part-time, her kids have been homeschooled since the beginning.

She loves public radio and was a regular commentator for two years on public radio station WUNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She has produced two radio documentaries for NPR’s Soundprint program.

Mrs. G. turned forty-one this year and, with her kids getting older, she finally has some time to do a little writing of her own.

The New York Times published an article this week about long-married couples needing to reinvent the popular tradition of date night. Brain and behavior researchers have completed a study which indicates, “Simply spending quality time together is probably not enough to prevent a relationship from getting stale.” Apparently, according to this study, one of the ways to keep a relationship freshly crisp is for long-married couples to try new and exciting activities such as enrolling in an art class together or taking on a new sport such as skiing-the idea being “…injecting novelty in the relationship.” The goal is to restore the rapture and sizzle of those first months of courtship. The conventional date night of dinner and a movie may not be enough to keep a marriage invigorated. The classic tradition of dinner and a movie may very well be inadequate, threadbare and dusty.

Sunday night is date night for Mr. and Mrs. G. And they almost always spend the evening…

going out to dinner

and seeing a movie.

Mrs. G. brought this article to Mr. G’s attention, and he asked her if she thought it had any merit. They considered some of the suggestions of activities that might energize their date nights and, thus, their marriage

 Mountain climbing? Mrs. G. doesn’t like the thought of date night being uphill. She wants it exercise free. Mr. G. doesn’t relish the idea of being cold or plunging to an untimely death.

Concerts? Too loud and a pain in the ass to find parking.

Dancing? Too crowded. Mr. and Mrs. G. only dance at home to horrify entertain their kids.

In a recent post describing an exchange between Mr. and Mrs. G. regarding Mrs. G’s lack of underwear, one tactful and warmhearted reader sent Mrs. G. an email suggesting a couple of book titles that might spice up her marriage. One or two commenters good naturedly implied that Mr. G. missed the opportunity to pull Mrs. G. into a corner and feel her up. It’s true he didn’t take this more seductive and aggressive route. But he didn’t miss the opportunity to gently place his hand on the small of Mrs. G’s back and make her laugh like no one else can.

So, yes, the butterflies of early love, for the most part, have fluttered elsewhere. They return occasionally when the valleys of a long-standing marriage slowly ascend, once more, to peaks. When children succeed or peace is restored or a neck is rubbed after a long week.

Fireworks are rare, but their infrequency makes those moments when Mr. and Mrs. G. realize they still have it goin’ on, all the more tender and sweet.

Undoubtedly, Mr. and Mrs. G. could make more of an effort to inject novelty into their relationship. And sometimes they do. Mrs. G. will sit on the left side of the couch instead of the right. Or Mr. G. will bring home a new flavor of Ben & Jerry’s. They might watch Law & Order on Monday nights at 8:00 instead of the Antiques Road Show. He might hold her hand and she might scratch his head.

Tomorrow, Mr. and Mrs. G. will have been married for eighteen years. And what will they do?

Probably go out to dinner

and see a movie.

Because that’s what they like to do. There may be bells and whistles and there may not. It’s impossible to predict. But there will be a celebration of love, steadfastness, kindness, loyalty and endurance. Mr. and Mrs. G. will toast their success in accepting the good and the bad and their long sought victory of learning to live and let live. Neither the New York Times nor studies done by brain and behavior experts will ever convince Mrs. G. that New and Improved is always superior and more exciting than Time-Honored and Works Just Fine. Mrs. G. wants to give a shout out to quiet, ordinary, content and constant, adjectives that aren’t sparkly and dramatic enough to make the cover of a magazine but, for many couples, are the ingredients to sanctity and sustenance.

So, Mrs. G. doesn’t need books or mountain climbing to spice up her marriage, because, after eighteen years, it is well seasoned and satisfying. It is dependable and, most days, a guaranteed good time-much like dinner and a movie.

We’ve all seen it so many times that it seems trite, a cliché. It is a mantra in recovery groups.

But it is bigger than that. Stop, look, listen:

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

This one little prayer fully answers the question “How do I get through this crazy life?”

I mean, what percentage of my life is spent resenting what is?

“Why are people so mean?”

“Why did my neighbor paint their house such an ugly color?”

“Why does Microsoft Word suck so badly?”

The prayer offers me two choices – accept it or do something about it.

And accept that I can’t always do something about it.

When my sister was dying, I was driving home from the hospital and saw a billboard for the state lottery. “Jackpot: $68 million!” it said in rainbow colors.

“Huh,” I thought. “Even if I won all that money, I still couldn’t help my sister. There’s nothing I could do.”

It was a shock to my system. There was NOTHING I could do.

Then there are those other times when I have known what needs to be done – I could feel it with every nerve, it kept me up at night – but lacked the courage to do it. So I used “coping skills” -  got depressed, blamed others, fed my addictions to try and keep the pain of failure away.

I know it is easy to spend years dangling between the two poles of resentment and fear.

Eventually, though, if one wants to grow, one has to step out and sort out what can be changed and what can’t.

The Serenity Prayer. 27 words little words that offer a path to sanity and peace. It’s not just for recovery groups anymore.