Being comfortable with the uncomfortable

Photos by Carla Kucinski.

I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about the idea of being uncomfortable, accepting where you are in your life and making peace with it. In my yoga class, my instructor often talks about this because it’s a huge element in the type of yoga I practice – yin. In yin yoga, seated postures are held for three to five minutes at a time, which forces you to surrender to the pose and allow your body, mind and spirit to just “be” no matter how much your body, mind and spirit fight you. It’s an exercise in letting go.

I’ve been practicing yin yoga for a little more than one year now, and it has helped grounded me in situations and periods in my life where I’ve felt groundless. February was one of those months. Sometimes life hurls at you one big explosion that pulls the ground out from underneath you. In one moment everything changes. That’s how my February started. It forced me to have to process a lot of difficult things and emotions all at once. Feelings I sometimes didn’t know what to do with. Every day felt like a freight train of raw emotions plowing into me.

After taking a brief hiatus from yoga, I returned to my practice last week to help find my footing again. Coincidentally, the lungs were the focus of class that night. The lungs represent courage; it’s also where we hold our grief.

spring blog web

During the class, my instructor talked about a YouTube video she posted on Facebook earlier in the day. The video features a rabbi talking about how lobsters’ bodies grow, but their shells do not. When the lobster is ready to shed its shell, it retreats under a rock, casts off its armor and then re-emerges to begin growing a new shell.

I feel much like a lobster these days. For the last three weeks, I’ve been in hiding and spent a lot of time reflecting and processing. But something has shifted in me recently. I’m starting to shed my shell. With each new day this past week, I felt the ground returning beneath me. The chatter in my mind quieted. My emotions began to find balance. I started to make peace with this uncomfortable place I’m in. I’ve accepted that this is where I need to be right now, so I can grow, like the lobster.

“Times of stress are also times that are signals for growth.” I keep coming back to those words from the rabbi. They grabbed my heart.

A friend remarked over brunch this morning how good it feels to see pops of color beginning to emerge outside, after enduring a bleak, grey February. Winter is starting to let go, and so am I.

Spring is a transitional season. It’s a time of growth and renewal. It’s a new beginning. Letting go is all about moving out of something, so we can move into something else — another wise observation from my yoga instructor. (Are you noticing her pattern of awesomeness?)

I do not know what I will be moving into, but I do know what I’ll be leaving behind (fear and grief) and what I’ll be taking with me (hope and promise).

spring flowers web

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.

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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.

House Call

Harrisonburg, Virginia

Cancer never plays fair.

One of my oldest and dearest friends was recently diagnosed with cancer of the tongue. She has never smoked, rarely drinks and could be a poster girl for fit over 50.

I’m not a doctor but even I know that on paper, she has about as many risk factors for this type of cancer as Snow White.

She retired a few months ago after 30 plus years as a pediatrician. Her father was my pediatrician. Yes, we go back a long way.

I met her in the 4^th grade when my family moved to Harrisonburg, VA and we have been friends for 50 years.

She was always the smartest one in the class and went on to be our valedictorian when we graduated high school. But she wasn’t smart in an intimidating or condescending sort of way. She could be as silly as any of us and was often the butt of our practical jokes because she was so absolutely gullible.

I think she knew she wanted to be a doctor before she went to kindergarten. Her father is still living and I had the pleasure of seeing him recently at the funeral of another old friend’s mother.

He looked remarkably well for a man nearing 90 and he has retained his impish smile and charming bedside manner.

My friend (I don’t want to use her name for privacy’s sake and it feels weird to make one up) married a doctor and her son is now in medical school. I guess you could say it’s the family business. She has been a healer most of her adult life and now she is the patient.

She has one of those websites that keeps everyone updated and I have been blown away by her courage, grace, honesty and humor as she shares this journey with those who love her.

Her initial post was very clinical and written like well, a doctor. She wrote about how her cancer presented – an ulcer on her tongue – and the path to eventual diagnosis and surgery. She wrote in medical terms – cms and resections and such.

She had hoped that once her tumor was removed the pathology on the lymph nodes in her neck would reveal no more than two nodes involvement which would mean no further treatment. She had three positive nodes.

And that’s when the tenor of her posts changed. They became more vulnerable and very intimate.

It was real before that but if all it took to be disease free was an operation, I can do that. When (her doctor) started talking about radiation and chemo that hit hard. This wasn’t just a battle anymore. This is war and sometimes people die in wars. I was forced yesterday to face that possibility. I had to listen to my husband and children cry as we processed the news.

It doesn’t get any more real than that.

My friend noted in another post that she is much better with numbers and reasoning than talking about feelings. And she made me smile when she shared that her SAT scores were Math 720 and Verbal 520. Mine were the exact opposite but it turns out that she is much better at writing than I am at math.

Her posts have been a balm to those of us who love her and are still reeling from her news. She has a great faith – a faith that has been severely tested in the past few weeks – a faith that will sustain her through radiation and three rounds of chemotherapy.

Our high school emblem. #bluestreaks

I last saw her at our high school reunion last October. She, of course, served as one of the chairs of the reunion committee and had spent a crazy amount of time on the fabulous decorations. She was a cheerleader and still retains that youthful enthusiasm for life.

We had a blast and giggled like school girls again. And, yes, she may have done a cheer or two. The girl’s still got it.

Her first grandchild is due any day now and she wants to get in lots of grandmothering before she starts her treatments at the end of the month.

Today the sunrise was beautiful. (A friend) and I prayed together and I feel at peace with all the treatment decisions. Now I need to get myself physically, emotionally and spiritually ready for this war.

Onward, Christian soldier, dear friend. We’re cheering for you now.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.