The wisdom of beaches

sunset

I’m spending some time with my sister this week in Newport Beach. I booked this trip a day before I was fired in January and I suppose that is fortunate for my sister because otherwise, I may have left my return trip open-ended.

The world just feels so much bigger here – in all manner of ways. I guess the Pacific Ocean has something to do with it. Cue the ocean if you really want some good reflection time.

I find myself thinking less and less of my old life, the one where I was responsible for 17 staff and several hundred clients. I certainly think about many of my beloved colleagues and I’m so grateful that I had a chance to properly mark our time together at a gathering a few weeks ago.

It was a chilly night but we sat outside in a circle around a tall heat lamp in a makeshift cabana. We laughed a lot and we cried a little and we held each other in embraces free of any self-consciousness, the ones where you don’t worry if it’s too long are too tight. It was a remarkably intimate evening and I’m certain that we all savored every minute of it. We know what we shared was special – almost sacred in some ways – and that can never be taken away.

Today, I am more angry than sad. I know that I was treated unfairly and ungraciously. I also know that life is rarely fair and the deaths of two friends in January certainly gave me some sobering perspective on the magnitude of my loss.

I find myself looking forward and while that can be a little scary, it is also terribly exciting. I feel lighter these days, more present.

Yesterday on the beach, metaphors were practically bopping me in the head like a cartoon character.

I get it!

I took a long walk and stopped to watch the waves crashing against the jagged jetty – that’s how I felt for several weeks earlier this year – battered. And later in the day, I saw three children frolicking in the water – the frigid water. They were so impossibly brave – standing there to face the oncoming waves and they squealed with delight as they got smacked back on their heels.

Enough of that.

I want to be brave like them. I want to not be afraid. I want to delight in the unknowing.

I wish this photo had a soundtrack.

Late in the day, my sister and I walked to a perfect perch to view the sunset – the magnificent California sunset. It was brilliant and so quickly vanished. And then there was that exquisite time of every day – the gloaming. The sun is gone but it is not quite yet dark and there is a peace in the air that is almost palpable. My dear friend, Sarah, shared a wonderful song with me by Over the Rhine about this magical time, “Favorite Time of Light.” It goes like this:

It’s our favorite time of light
Just before the day kisses the night
You see the redwing blackbirds fly
The sun’s a big ol’ lazy eye
When they lay me down at last
And this life is finally past
Just remember me this way
And don’t forget to say
It’s our favorite
Our favorite time of light

The gloaming.

I’ve been reading on the beach, too, and yesterday I finished The Great Spring: Writing, Zen, and This Zig-Zag Life by Natalie Goldberg. She has long been one of my favorite authors and I’m fairly certain she wrote this latest book just for me. Of course, that’s what all the truly great writers do – make that connection that the reader so desperately longs for.

Goldberg writes, “The Great Spring includes the Great Failure, the thorough-going reduction to nothing, to loss, disappointment, shame, betrayal. If we can stand sill and attentive in our lives and not run away, even right in the middle of the ruins, we will find fertile ground.”

I’ll be home soon. I have some planting to do.

That’s me, looking forward.

Invincible summer

summer sun

January was a rough month for me. I lost my job and two dear friends.

While I feel certain I’ll find another job, I know that Kristel and Regina can never be replaced. As my dear veterinarian said to me years ago when I was agonizing over the decision to put down my 19 year old cat, “Death is so final.”

I’ve never forgotten her stark wisdom.

I’ve been writing about my friends for several weeks – in my head – and now it’s time to put the pen to it. I suppose I’ve resisted doing so because it would make their absence on earth truly final for me – permanent ink if you will.

Regina died on New Year’s Day. She had a great sense of humor so I’m sure she would have appreciated that irony.

She was 66 years old.

My wife and I attended a New Year’s Eve dinner the night before her death – a treasured tradition shared with several wonderful women who have known Regina and her wife, Miki, for years. Before we sat down to eat, one of our hosts offered a beautiful prayer for our missing friends. It was a muted evening as celebrations go but very comforting in its intimacy.

We all laughed a lot – that knowing laughter steeped in the history of shared experiences. We wiped away tears, too, softly. I think we all knew that were already sitting Shiva for our friend.

Regina was diagnosed with peritoneal cancer about a year and a half ago. It is a rare form of cancer that started benignly – she couldn’t get comfortable at night in “her” chair when she and Miki were watching television draped in their dogs. She had some nagging discomfort that eventually worsened and led to her diagnosis.

Miki, left, and Regina and their children.

And then began the barrage of several rounds of chemotherapy. Miki started posting on the website CaringBridge, a personal health journal, soon after Regina’s diagnosis and she was remarkably disciplined about it – writing often and sharing not only clinical updates on Regina’s condition but also her personal reflections along the way.

Regina was a private person and even though she would have never personally posted, she apparently really enjoyed hearing Miki share all of the encouraging comments from friends at the end of those interminable treatment days.

And Miki’s posts were staggeringly beautiful. She is a former journalist and law professor, so I was not at all surprised by the quality of her writing but I was deeply moved by its intimacy, particularly as Regina was dying.

Regina responded well to the brutal regimen and was declared in remission by early last summer. She was always a great athlete and was elated to return to the other two great loves of her life – softball and golf. The girl of summer was in her element.

Miki and Regina in the Florida Everglades. They were homebodies who traveled the world.

But winter came with no mercy and in early December, an MRI revealed widespread cancer throughout all portions of her brain. She declined rapidly and was transferred from the hospital to hospice.

No one knows for sure, but it seems there is little time left. The most important thing now is her comfort. I’m sorry to bear this news. It has been a very hard day. The worst day, really, ever. 12/20/16 ~ Miki’s journal entry

Miki and Regina were together for over two decades and married in New York a couple of years ago. In an almost lyrical post, Miki revealed that they weren’t really that engaged in the same-sex marriage movement – they had been together for so long that they didn’t think they needed that legal validation. But Regina’s impending death made her realize that it did matter.

It gives me comfort that we are married. It means something. It is big. 12/26/15

Miki and Regina on their wedding day. Newlyweds after more than 20 years together.

My wife and I went to visit Regina a few days after Christmas. I’m always astonished by the quiet – the deafeningly reverent silence in the halls of a hospice. We slipped gently into her room and found Miki on her iPad beside Regina’s bed. Regina looked remarkably vibrant and very tan for December. That made me smile.

She did not speak but she raised her slender, weak arm in recognition and smiled. I talked to her a lot – mostly about sports and she would nod her head slightly. I’m not at all a medical person but I am comfortable with the dying. This was a gift to me when my parents both died in 2002. I wasn’t afraid and I wanted to be very present to their final journey.

If you have not sat with death you may not understand this, but I have found that leaning into it can be powerfully life affirming. And I think we owe this to the dying.

We knew that this would be the last time that we saw Regina and we both kissed her on the cheek and told her that we loved her. There was nothing left to say.

There is one final story about Regina I need to convey. During our happy life together, Regina considered it her sacred duty to take care of me. I have had my share (okay more than my share) of serious health problems in my life. Regina always took the most wonderful care of me and, I think really loved doing so. As I sat with her, it was obvious that the end was near. I asked the nurse whether she could tell us anything about the time frames, and she, of course, said she could not but that she believed through her experience and knowledge that people at the very end of their lives seemed to choose their moment to die. I immediately knew what I had to do. I whispered to her, and I held my face against hers for moments and told her everything was okay and that I was going to go home. Ten minutes after I got home, Beverly (a dear friend) called to say she had died. Though it could be wildly coincidental, I believe that, even in dying, Regina took care of me — she did not want me to see her go. 1/3/16

Amen…

I thought that I would also write about my friend, Kristel, but it is just too much for one post and I think that spring will be the perfect season to share about her bright and hopeful spirit.

Regina thrived in the long, hot days of summer and as winter wanes, I picture her in her golf visor, tan and happy, and I recall the words of Albert Camus: “In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.”

Game on, sweet friend.

Regina celebrates a good out.

Inside Job

pink-slip (1)

I lost my job about six weeks ago. Well, that’s not entirely true. I didn’t lose it. I know exactly where it went.

You see, I gave someone a second chance and it came back to bite me. It could all make for ripe fodder for a Lifetime movie. We would need a catchy title, something like Behind the Ledger: Her Secret Liability and Meredith Baxter would have to play me because, well, just because.

I can laugh a little now because the absurdity of it all lends itself to farce but there is nothing funny about it. A lot of people that I still deeply care for are suffering greatly. These are people I’ve shared my days with for a long time doing some very hard work for folks in great need.

I miss these good people more than I can put into words but there have been so many exquisite words from them in the past several weeks that have saved me. Phone calls, emails and texts – some of which would make the Baby Jesus cry.

After a late night round of emotional texts with a long time colleague who said, “You know me better than anyone – I would rather lose an arm,” it struck me that I was in the surreal position not unlike attending my own funeral. I felt like I was listening to a series of eulogies every day.

It was rather wonderful and it was truly awful.

It has been tremendously gratifying to hear that I have made a difference in the lives of many of the people I’ve worked with for over a decade. I know I tried to but those intentions don’t always convey.

I’m not a conventional boss. I smiled typing that last sentence knowing that anyone who has ever worked with me will bob their head up and down when they read it.

I don’t like to be micromanaged so I have never done that to others. My mentor and beloved friend, Phyllis, was a big proponent of the weekly To Do List when I worked for her years ago. She wanted to know what her staff was working on each week and even though she was more intimidating than me on her weakest day, she always appreciated my style and instead of squashing my independent spirit, she nourished it.

Years later she would joke, “Addison would always turn in her To Do List but it might be on the back of a cocktail napkin.” Phyllis let me be me and it worked out quite well for both of us and the organization we represented.

1982969127-unemployment

I’ve always tried to emulate Phyllis as a manager but I’m sure I’m really more of a Phyllis-Lite. I tried to nurture and appreciate each staff member’s unique skills and gifts but I imagine that she would have been more discerning about that second chance than I was.

I’ve always tried to be the kind of boss that people can talk to about personal problems, too. And Lord knows, over the past 11 years, I’ve been through divorces, illness, births and deaths with these folks. These are the ties that truly bind and this is why so many of us are grieving.

As one of my closest colleagues wrote just the other night, “I know more about you now just in seeing what your people miss and are reaching out for.”

Yes, my people.

Some of the messages have been angry, many of them have been sad and others so sweetly genuine. I heard that one of my younger staff made an impassioned defense of me by saying among many things, “Addison wrote me a note when my grandfather died and when my dog died. And I don’t mean a Facebook note.” I love this and the memory of it will always make me smile. (I never met her grandfather but I really loved that dog.)

944008_10153321711037190_5094882858512280359_n You’re probably wondering if I regret giving that second chance since it was ultimately my own undoing. I’ve thought about that a lot the past several weeks. I certainly regret the pain and havoc that a misguided malcontent has wreaked on so much of what I have loved for so long.

Every fire has a point of origin and even Fire Marshall Bill could trace this one.

Someone told me a heartfelt story about how they had been the victim of someone else’s maliciousness and I believed them. I’ve been there, we’ve all been there. I chose to not hold someone’s past – fact or fiction – against them.

I remember my dear and devoted former CFO, who retired a couple of years ago, shaking her head at me one day when I gave a staff member a pass on something and saying, “Addy, you always give everyone the benefit of the doubt.” I wanted to take her observation as a compliment even though her tone was more scolding in nature.

I try to live my life by the Christian principles that I believe in. The God that I love is a God of second chances. I know this because I have been the recipient of many of them. And the agency that I gave my heart and soul to for so many years is dedicated to creating second chances for people who have never been afforded that luxury.

Second Chance Just Ahead Green Road Sign Over Dramatic Clouds and Sky.

I truly believe that this is what we are all called to do.

President Zachary Taylor once said, “I have always done my duty. I am ready to die. My only regret is for the friends I leave behind me.”

While I admire his sentiments, I think I’ll claim executive privilege on the question of regret for now.

And I hope I have many more years to serve my community but I most certainly know that I will never work with a more compassionate, committed and crazy crew of characters if I live to be a 100.

Lucky me.

The Boss

Do You Hear the People Sing?

les mis

Faces of kind strangers – that’s where my mind went racing after I learned of the horrible attacks on Paris last Friday.

I immediately thought of the robust older woman behind the Metro ticket window who reminded us of a character from The Triplets of Belleville and teased us about our spotty French as she helped us figure out our route to Versailles; the handsome young waiter who cheerfully and patiently translated an entire menu into English for us; the two little girls gleefully running around on a perfect Saturday in the Tuileries Garden; and the owner of the patisserie who smiled sweetly and playfully told us that she would speak English to us if we spoke French to her.

So many kind faces under attack.

Yes, yes, all lives matter but I have to be quite honest, this feels more personal to me than some of the other acts of terrorism across the world. Just last week I posted about my magical trip to Paris six weeks ago. It was my valentine to the City of Light. It was a bright and joyful post written before 129 faces were brutally erased. I could not write that post today.

I was grateful on Friday evening that my wife and I had made plans earlier in the week for a movie and dinner with dear friends. Otherwise, I’m sure we would have been glued to the television all evening. As it was, when our movie ended I checked my phone for an update on the situation and was so touched to have a handful of text messages from family and friends telling me that they were thinking of us and were grateful that we were home and safe.

I couldn’t help but wonder if those faces that had touched us were home safe, too. I felt afraid for them and heartbroken that their beautiful city had been attacked.

These global tragedies seem to bring out the best and the worst on Facebook. I find comfort in mass mourning on a public forum – like an ancient wailing wall. “Pray for Paris” was the overwhelming trending message on all social media Friday night.

This Instagram post went viral after the attacks on Paris.

And then, of course, before the blood stains were dry, came the blaming for the attacks. Pick one, pick two – Obama, Bush, Cheney, religion, Muslims, always the Muslims.

Why are we so afraid of intentional silence? Why can’t we be comfortable creating a space to ask ourselves some hard questions before spewing out empty answers?

I suppose it is fear because, deep down, we know we don’t have the answers.

I know I found a balm, as I so often do, in the words of others much wiser than me.

Saturday morning, I saw the author Anne Lamott’s post pop up in my feed. I felt better before I even read a word of it. If you’ve never read her stuff, leave this post and go straight to Amazon to download one of her books. I mean it. Go. You will thank me later.

On Facebook she writes in a rambling and raw stream of consciousness that makes you feel like she’s drinking coffee with you at your kitchen table in her bathrobe. Here’s an excerpt from her post on Saturday:

We’re at the beginning of human and personal evolution. Whole parts of the world don’t even think women are people.

So after an appropriate time of being stunned, in despair, we show up. Maybe we ask God for help. We do the next right thing. We buy or cook a bunch of food for the local homeless. We return phone calls, library books, smiles. We make eye contact with others, and we go to the market and flirt with old or scary unusual people who seem lonely. This is a blessed sacrament. Tom Weston taught me decades ago that in the face of human tragedy, we go around the neighborhood and pick up litter, even though there will be more tomorrow. It is another blessed sacraments. We take the action and the insight will follow: that we are basically powerless, but we are not helpless.

I have no answers but know one last thing that is true: More will be revealed. And that what is true is that all is change. Things are much wilder, weirder, richer, and more profound than I am comfortable with. The paradox is that in the reality of this, we discover that in the smallest moments of amazement, at our own crabby stamina, at kindness, to lonely people who worry us, and attention, at weeping willow turning from green to gold to red, and amazement, we will be saved.

Amen.

I have been deeply moved and inspired by the resilience of the French people, so brave and adamant in vowing to retain their way of life, their precious joie de vivre. Yesterday, Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine, responded to the attacks with a provocative cover of a bullet-ridden man drinking a glass of champagne. The cover translates from the French: “They have weapons. Fuck them. We have champagne.”

charlie hebdo

This is not to imply that their reaction is at all cavalier. They are in deep mourning and carrying a grief that cannot be contained in the graves of the dead.

Love > Terror

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American Girls in Paris

Oscar Wilde once said that “When good Americans die, they go to Paris” and while I’m certainly not ready to test his premise, I certainly hope that it’s true.

My wife and I spent a week in Paris in late September and we may never get over it.

We’ve been home several weeks now and when someone asks how our trip was, we both still crumble like a flaky croissant and swoon.

People almost always ask the same question, “What was your favorite part?” My wife has the best reply – “All of it.”

I know we’re hardly unique. People have been falling in love with Paris for centuries for all of the same reasons we did – the art, the history, the architecture, the food, the wine, the baguettes…Okay, you get the picture.

We followed The Gospel According to Rick Steves for our trip as did every other tourist in Paris. I was sitting on the Metro one morning beside a beautiful Asian woman who was pouring over our exact Rick Steves’ Paris guidebook – only hers was in Mandarin.

The Book of Rick

On the platform waiting for the train to Versailles, a Midwestern woman traveling with her husband and two grown sons struck up a conversation with us and announced with great fervor, “We’re following Rick Steves.” We felt compelled to bow in reverence and say, “And also with you.”

Throughout the week we overheard folks prefacing comments with, “Well, Rick Steves says…” Make no doubt, when Rick Steves speaks, tourists listen.

Funny how an average looking Joe in a camp shirt and Mom jeans became the Travel Messiah for the free world. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a believer after following his recommendations saved us from standing in line in so many places.

One thing is for sure – you won’t see any Mom jeans in Paris – even on moms. Parisians are an intimidating lot when it comes to fashion. My dear friend Jeff and his partner Michael were in Paris a week before us and had prepared us to feel not worthy. Jeff posted from Paris on Facebook, “I feel like I just climbed out of a Salvation Army donation box.”

Granted, the French have an advantage over us because they are all beautiful. No, I’m not kidding. There are no ugly Parisians or they must keep them in a remote arrondissement far away from high traffic areas.

So you start with beautiful and then add a minimum of two artfully draped scarves and you have your “average” looking Parisian. I really do think part of their secret is in the scarves. They are all Houdinis when it comes to tying one. Even the children! I swear French children learn to tie a scarf before they tie their shoes. And everyone looks so natural in them – not pretentious like us. (Granted, that didn’t stop me from wearing mine to try to assimilate.)

Oh, and while we’re talking about children – Parisian children all look like they just skipped out of either Madeline or Le Petit Prince. They are well-behaved and charming and we adored hearing them speak in their tiny French voices.

We want one.

We really didn’t do any shopping because we were on an Amazing Race pace to see everything that Rick Steves told us to see but we joked about nabbing a French child as a souvenir.

If I had to pick one favorite thing about Paris I think it would have to be the iconic cafes. I loved sitting outside at lunch every day with a glass or deux of rosé just Parisian watching. I learned a lot, especially about French women.

First, the term “gluten-free” does not exist in the French language. You never overhear people saying things like “Can I get that dressing on the side” or “No, thank you, we don’t care for any bread.” In short, Paris is where low-carb diets go to die.

The café life

I could devote an entire post to French baguettes. They are, in a word, perfect – light and airy with a thin crust. And they are an accessory in Paris. You see people throughout the day carrying them under their arms. It was especially fun to see young mothers with small children buying baguettes in the evening for that night’s dinner.

My wife had done all the homework for our trip and trust me, the Invasion of Normandy was not as detailed as her itinerary. My task was making some dinner reservations. Which reminds me, how did people travel before the internet? I perused TripAdvisor and used thefork, the European version of OpenTable, and made some fairly educated selections which all worked out deliciously well.

Say cheese.

I made most of our reservations for 7 or 7:30 knowing that we would be hungry and tired after a frenetic day of sightseeing. Who knew that a 7:00 PM reservation in Paris is the equivalent of the Early Bird Special? We were amazed to see folks coming into a restaurant after 9 – even on week nights. Damn the French – we had chic envy.

The art. Sacre bleu! Where do I begin? You could spend a year in the Louvre alone but we took St. Rick’s advice and made a bee line for our “priority” items first. For me, that was Venus de Milo.

Venus is out of this world.

Growing up, my beloved Aunt Phyllis had a small replica of this statue in her living room and I thought it was the most exotic thing I had ever seen. My uncle was an Air Force officer and he and my aunt lived abroad for several years and collected some beautiful mementos.

I would be mesmerized by my aunt’s tales of travels all over Europe. She knew I loved her Venus statue and as she began to downsize in her later years, she gave it to me. I treasure it and to see the real thing in person at the Louvre took my breath away and I felt as if Aunt Phyl had her arm on my shoulder.

My wife’s moment came at the Musee d’Orsay when she saw Monet’s Field of Poppies. I saw her tear up and asked what that was about. She told me that her high school English teacher (not her favorite) had a poster of the painting in his classroom and that she would zone out and escape into the beautiful fields during class. To see the original exceeded even her high school imagination.

It’s not your English teacher’s Monet.

And perhaps that’s the true elixir of travel, particularly to lands foreign to us. Travel makes our world view so much larger. As Saint Augustine noted, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

I’m only a few pages in on my book but I can’t even pretend to be blasé about Paris. And I think the author Paula McLain perfectly articulated my magnifique obsession in The Paris Wife when she wrote, “Though I often looked for one, I finally had to admit that there could be no cure for Paris.”

I can live with that.

C’est si bon!

Happy, happy, joie, joie!

We’ll always have Paris or maybe it’s really Paris will always have us.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

Author: addisono