Don't Talk to Strangers

Of life's lessons, this is one I wish I hadn't learned. I grew up in the 50s—in other words, safer times. You could walk to school, go out at night, ask strangers for help. We were not cautious. Life was good. Times have changed.

I gave a stranded stranger a ride. She had a gazillion packages and a box of pampers. It was raining. Her car broke down, she said. Could I give her a lift? Otherwise, she would have to walk. Sure, I said and drove her into the city.

The next day Bank of America called to tell me there was suspicious activity on my debit card. The lady had stolen it, and my driver's license, and gone on a spending spree. I still haven't figured out how she did it. I called the local police who told me to call the St. Louis Police who told me I had to file a police report.

The detective was unbelievably nice. Actually, all three of them were. It seems I was robbed by a professional who had a very long record, a habit to support, a parole violation, and a lot of people looking for her.

I filed my report, shook the detective's hand, and left with this advice: Do not, EVER, give a stranger a ride. I am passing that wisdom along to you.

How to feel grateful: Think about Joplin

I live in Missouri, the heart of the Midwest. It seems to me that every other minute a rash of severe thunderstorms hits this state, spawns tornadoes, drops golf-ball-size hail, and just generally wreaks destruction. I spend a lot of time watching local news to keep track of the weather. On more than one occasion, I have hightailed it for the bathroom with a flashlight, transistor radio, and book and sat on the floor for a long time.

I watch the news in horror, feeling that at any moment I could turn into Dorothy and be whisked away to some place I don't want to go. Yet, scary as it is, it all seemed a little surreal ... until last night.

According to the National Weather Service, the tornado that killed 116 people in Joplin, Missouri, was the single deadliest twister in this country since 1953, with winds estimated at 198 miles per hour. Joplin is 247 miles from St. Louis. That really isn't very far. These people are fellow Missourians, neighbors, potential friends.

A town leveled and 116 people killed. What more could it possibly take to feel grateful every single day?

Pain is Relative

I attended my first aquatic therapy session last week, and it was not at all what I expected. The pool was very small. It wasn't a class but rather a small group of people, with one physical therapist for every one or two people. How hard we exercised or on which side of the pool depended on our levels of ability, flexibility, or pain. I was feeling well, so I got a great workout and left feeling refreshed.

What was memorable about the hour in the water was not how well I felt but how others around me were feeling. Two people caught my attention—a middle-aged man and young woman. They were both in a great deal of pain. In fact, they said so.

I recognized the tight facial expressions and stiff posture, and my heart went out to these two strangers. That acerbic saying, "I feel your pain," took on new meaning. But even more meaningful to me was the realization that everything is relative, especially pain.

A nagging headache may not be a migraine, but it hurts nonetheless. People tolerate pain differently. Some can take a lot; others not so much. Some days are pretty good; some are terrible. Some people wear pain on the faces; others hide it well. Out in the world, most of us aren't as open as we may be in the safety of a warm-water, therapeutic setting.

We encounter people every day—those we know and strangers—and we have no idea what they are feeling inside. It's worth remembering that it might be pain.

Social Networking Really Works

I have a new friend—not only a Facebook friend but an actual, talk-to-on-the-phone friend. Her name is Grace Bower, and she lives in New Zealand. It's not every day that I answer the phone and hear a totally unfamiliar accent—a little like Australia or South Africa yet completely different.

Grace read a comment on Facebook that mentioned something I had written. She looked up my Website and called me. Amazing! I had written about a book called Life is a Verb by Patti Digh. Patti responded (who knew?), obviously having better Google Alerts than I do. So, now we are a circle, Grace, Patti, and I.

I have never actually talked to Patti, though I want to buy her book for everyone I know. But I have talked to Grace, who is caring, considerate, and compassionate. I have a feeling many people feel that way about her.

That's what social networking is all about: reaching out, connecting, engaging. It's not just a theory; it's the real thing. You never know when a new friend is going to show up.

THINK before you hit "publish"

Being a savvy Internet user, I know that Feedburner "provides custom RSS feeds and management tools to bloggers, podcasters, and other web-based content publishers." (I found that definition on Wikipedia) This is a very good thing if one wants to reach a vast readership, which I do. So, after much trial and error, I finally figured out how to use Feedburner to forward my blogs to various Websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and BlogCatalog.

This means millions of potential readers—500 million on Facebook alone! Is that fantastic or what? Well, on one hand, it is every blogger's dream to have such a huge audience. But on the other hand, consider "or what."

Let's say something is driving me crazy—the way Congress is behaving, perhaps. That is definitely one of my favorite subjects for a rant. So, I write a scathing post, check the spelling and punctuation, and hit the publish button. Immediately, millions upon millions of people will know I am not happy with Congress right now. But what exactly did I say?

I view the blog post and must admit I came on a little strong. Maybe I could soften it a bit. Well, no, I can't. It's too late to rethink my pearls of wisdom when they are instantaneously soaring through cyberspace. They are out there, published, and very public.

Whoops. Maybe I should put a little note to self on my computer. It will simply ask "Do you really want 500 million people to read this?" No? Then, do not under any circumstances hit the publish button!

Measuring Success by the Numbers

This was the last class of the course I teach on how to write, publish, and promote a nonfiction book. We had a speaker, a discussion about marketing, a graduation party, and diplomas (customized bookmarks)—a tradition I steadfastly adhere to every semester.

It was a small class—only eight people—but most of them showed up every week. Only one person dropped out. Some never wrote a word, but two have nearly finished their proposals. I was feeling a bit disheartened until I realized that two out of eight equals 25 percent of the class!

I have always maintained that if I could influence even one student, I would consider a class a success. That means I achieved 200 percent of my goal. It doesn't take a math genius to see that as a very positive outcome.

Request for Rebuttal

OK, I agree: that last post on loss was pretty much a downer. I didn't mean it to be. I was just musing about life, and that's what popped up on the radar screen ... well, the computer screen, actually. My sister has pointed out to me that when most people have a thought, it's just a thought; when I have a thought, it becomes a blog post. What I tend to forget is that, if it is a blog post, it will show up on Facebook.

That's fine if what I write is entertaining or educational or erudite. Not so fine if it's going to make you run for the bottle of Prozak. So, here is something positive for those of you who are checking Facebook or LinkedIn or Twitter or Amazon this evening.

In case you thought John Wayne was just a cowboy who didn't say much, here is something he said that may surprise you: "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Wow. I love that!

Loss: the Absence of What Used to Be

Loss is a sneaky business. Sometimes, it’s so subtle we don’t even realize something is gone. We’re sad or irritable or forgetful, but can’t quite pinpoint the cause. Other times, we are hit in the head with something so obvious, it feels like we’ve been in a train wreck.

We know what loss is, of course. We have something, and then we don’t have it—a love affair, a marriage, a promotion or a job, a parent, wealth, a dream. We had it; we lost it. What’s left is a hole where it used to be.

Years ago, one of my favorite authors, Judith Viorst, wrote a book called Necessary Losses. It was psychoanalytic in nature, which made my head spin. Why, I wondered, are losses “necessary?” Personally, I would have preferred them to be optional.

Buddha may have asked the same questions when he set out on his quest for enlightenment. Why must we lose everything that matters to us—love, youth, health, beauty, security, even life? His answer: impermanence. Everything in life is in flux, constantly changing, ephemeral. In other words, nothing lasts.

Frankly, I don’t find that very comforting thought. Yet, it is so obviously true. I can’t think of anything that stays the same even from one moment to the next. When I am able to sit very still for even a short time, I become aware of the subtle changes taking place all around me. Even my thoughts come and go, capturing my attention, then dissolving—a perfect example of impermanence.

I have become my mother!

I swore it would never happen, but the inevitable has been sneaking up on me for years. For one thing, I see her in the mirror. The first few times I gasped out loud, but I'm getting used to it. The funny thing is I never looked like her when I was younger. Maybe all those genes were just waiting to let loose all at once. I know I sound like her, at least her inflections and little sayings. Every once in a while one of my daughters will catch me in a gesture and say, "Oh, that was such a grandma face!"

Some habits are engrained—taught, trained, repeated. As children, we learn them; as adolescents, we fight them; as grownups, we adopt them. So many things I do are because my mother either did them or drilled the behaviors into me. I see those same traits and expressions in my own daughters.

Today, I was particularly aware of how much I am like my mother. It is Sunday. I had no particular plans except to work (Sunday ... Tuesday ... Friday ... that's what I do). But first, I did the morning ritual: washed my face, brushed my teeth, made coffee, and drank it while I read a mystery. Then, I went into high gear, from shower to serious hair and make-up to straightening up my condo. My outfit, selected for comfort, was coordinated; so was my jewelry.

Here is the irony. I wasn't going anywhere. I never left the house; no one dropped by. The only person who even knew I went through all that effort was yours truly. I was ready for company or the mailman or anyone. But that really wasn't the point. My mother was always immaculately groomed and coordinated, earrings to toenails. That's what I remember most vividly. That's what I admired. That's what I loved about her.

My life, my resposibility

I relearned an old lesson today. This has happened in the past, but every time I learn it, I am surprised. It is as if I had never considered this idea before. Yet, it is so obvious, so fundamentally true, I am always amazed I have forgotten it.

I am responsible for my life. That's it, in a nutshell. I am the captain of my tiny vessel floating around in the sea of life. I am in charge of the route I choose, the decisions I make, my well being, my happiness, my responses, my actions. Everything.

That's a simple but powerful thought. In one way, it's scary; in another, it is liberating. As an adult, I have choices. But with choices comes responsibility.

This came home to me in two ways yesterday. The first was disturbing. I was talking to a doctor. When I complained that I was unable to reach him by phone or get straight answers to some important questions, he explained that he had thousands of patients of which I was only one. I guess I indicated that I really didn't care about the thousands of patients. He became irritated. He said, "This is your illness, not mine. It's your responsibility to follow up, not mine. You are responsible for your medical care." No mistaking that message!

Later, I was reading a book on the power of focus by Leo Babauta, and suddenly there were those words again in an entirely different context. "You are responsible for your life." I read it again. I fully expected to see a sky-writing plane overhead with the same words trailing behind it.

Funny that I have to keep relearning the same lesson again and again. I swear I'll remember it this time. Maybe I should write it on my hand in indelible ink.