Where Everybody Knows Your Name (and Your Business)

I’ve been in Texas all week visiting my sister and her family. She lives in Glen Rose, a town of 2,100 people. It’s the kind of town where the pharmacist knows my sister by name; the kind of town that turns out in full force for the opening of the new school gymnasium; the kind of town where gift shop owners on the square encourage shoppers to visit their competition.

Glen Rose is double the population of the town where I grew up; a town I dreamt of escaping my whole childhood. And boy, did I. I went to a state university of 50,000 students. I’ve lived in cities with populations in the millions.

And yet, I ended up living in a small town myself. And although it’s 10 times larger than my sister’s community, it gives me the things I took for granted as a child and the things my sister experiences daily.

My pharmacist knows me by name – which is tough with a name like Mikulencak. I’m likely to see 10 or more people I know just by walking down main street. I have a main street! My office building’s landlord cut my rent in half just so I’d stay in her building.

I’m confident that even big city dwellers find this sense of community in little pockets of their bustling cities.

What about YOUR town (city) makes it home for you?

Try a Little Tenderness in 2012

My goal in 2011 was to blog once a week. You can see from the posts listed at the left that I did not achieve that goal. I didn’t even make it to two posts in December. On this bright, sunny New Year’s Day morning, I have vowed to let it go. No guilt. No regret.

Which brings me to the word of the year: compassion. Consider it my one resolution for 2012.

A dear friend used to remind me that we seem to have a limitless capacity for compassion – but for others. We rarely have this level of compassion for ouselves. When I speak of ‘compassion,’ I’m referring to its less-used definition: tenderness.

The world is a hard place to begin with, and we tend to make it harder by living with regret, guilt, judgment, self-doubt, anger. When we make a mistake or fail to live up to someone’s (our own?) expectations, we should try a little tenderness. (Hey, that’d make a great song. Oh, it’s already
one. First recorded in 1932 and re-recorded hundreds of times since then. Good job. We need the message to sink in.)

In its most simple form, compassion (tenderness) is the act of just letting it go. Acknowledge the pain or sadness or regret or failure and then say to yourself, “Self, you deserve a break. Let’s move on from this.”

Rarely do we make our deepest inner struggles and fears and doubts known to our friends and family. So, it’s not realistic to hope or assume someone will show us compassion when we need it most. We have to do that for ourselves.

Nothing Like Memories to Send Sadness Packing

During the holidays, I can get as giddy as a 9-year-old. I listen to Christmas music 24/7 (just the oldies like Bing, Perry and Burl) and watch my lit Christmas tree in a darkened room, and bake cookies to deliver to friends, and obsess over wrapping paper and ribbon and tags. I even think about renting a child so I can show up at the Santa pancake breakfast at McDonald’s.

With a few pounds, I could be Mrs. Claus. In fact, I’ve thought about using Ancestry.com to determine if I have relatives from the North Pole.

All kidding aside, the holidays also make me kind of sad. I have no immediate family in the area. My dad died when I was 18. My mom died eight years ago. My sister’s family is in Texas and they celebrate there to be close to the remaining grandparents. So, I’ve never *hosted* Christmas at my own home.

Still, I’ve decided to tell Sadness to take a vacation in Phoenix this Christmas. This year is about gratitude and remembrance.

As a writer, I value memories – mine and others’ – because they provide the rich details that make any story come to life.

Here are a couple of my fondest memories. Each year, Mom would give a special ornament to the three of us kids (and I still have mine on my tree to this day). Often, they’d be in the same *theme* but my brother would get the Santa, I’d get the angel and my sister would get the elf. The photo to the right is probably 38-40 years old!

Fruitcake was a big deal in our household. And not for giving! The kids would chop the neon-colored fruit and nuts while Mom would make the batter. We’d end up eating fruitcake for breakfast the whole season.

And now for a memory shared by my cousin Kathy. Her dad would hide money in their stockings and my cousins would have to figure out where the bills were hidden. No easy task! One year, he carefully opened a candy bar wrapper and inserted the money, then resealed the packaging. Another year, he went to the trouble of opening walnuts (!) , hiding the money inside, and then gluing the nut back together.

Would you please share one Christmas memory with me while I help Sadness pack its bags?

Savor the 'Now' Like It's the Best Sandwich You've Ever Had

It must be a function of aging that time seems to fly by at an astounding and alarming rate. December? Already? What happened to November and the six months prior to that?

My (mostly unspoken) fear is that time flies by so quickly because I’m not fully awake; present and attentive to what I feel and do and say each and every day. Kind of like when you drive a familiar route and then, wham…you’re home and you don’t remember passing landmarks along the way. Just yesterday, I was 18. And today I’m 46. That's a helluva blink of an eye.

On Saturday, my nephew graduates from the University of Texas at Austin. He’s very stressed: money woes, grad school applications for himself and his girlfriend, the future.

I wish I could stop time for him so that he could fully be present in the moment, to savor the current milestone before worrying about the next.

It’s hard to do. I often worry about “when” and “if” scenarios instead of sitting with the now.

For me, that might mean having a holiday coffee drink and reading the paper without my Blackberry on the table, blinking at me to check it. Or it might mean enjoying each bite of the amazing BLT at Poppy’s sandwich shop instead of inhaling it so I could get back to work.

What’s going on in your “now” that you want to savor? There’s no time like the present.

Society's Idea of Beauty is Beastly

My brain is noshing on the notion of beauty today – what it is, how it differs for each of us, how society shapes our ideas on what’s attractive or sexy.

Tawna Fenske, a writer I follow online, recently posted a fun blog entry called “Not so hot boys who make me want to get naked.” She talked about men who have a certain charisma that transcends societal norms of attractiveness. Case in point: Lyle Lovett. (yummy)

Then, last night, I had dinner with my dear friend, Joelle, who is dog-sitting for someone. Sissy, the sweetest little bulldog you’d ever hope to meet, isn’t pretty by anyone’s standards. But to me, she’s BEAUTIFUL. I couldn’t stop kissing her mushed in face. I can’t define in words what attracted me to her but I wanted to scoop her up and take her home.

Joelle and I then talked about how our ideas of beauty have changed as we aged. She’s an avid (i.e., obsessed) road- and mountain-biker so naturally her cute little body is muscled, lean and athletic. She finds the ‘strength’ in her legs beautiful and thanks them for bringing her so much joy.

I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of my hands. I type all day, every day, so I look at them a lot. My fingers are long. My nails have always been really healthy. And now that they are professionally manicured, I can’t stop staring at them! Not only are they utilitarian but they’re sensual and expressive.

What’s beautiful in your world today? Do you find you buck society’s idea of beauty?

To Deonne, my writer friend in Taos: would Billy Bob Thornton make your sexy man list?

When $35 Million Doesn't Equal Success

Last night I stayed up until 11 p.m. (I know! Can you believe it?) to watch From the Sky Down, a documentary about my favorite band U2 and the production of their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The film chronicles the difficult recording period and the group's creative process.

In April 1987, my friend, Christi, and I saw U2 at The Summit in Houston. Joshua Tree was an astounding album and a phenomenal tour. In fact, we had to stay up all night at IHOP, eating blueberry pancakes and discussing the experience. The four boys from Ireland had skyrocketed to success in a matter of months, moving from arena to stadium venues.

I was astounded to learn in the documentary that the band was far from thrilled about the Joshua Tree tour. They said they’d often leave the stage and have a morose sit-down about how disappointed they were in their performances. Lead singer Bono said they were musically unprepared for their success. Drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. said, “We were the biggest, but we weren’t the best.”

WHAT THE F***? Boys, did you hear the gazillions of women screaming and crying? Did you see the lighters held high? Your album sold more than 25 million copies! The 79 North American shows on the tour sold more than 2 million tickets and grossed $35 million.

The point I’m making is that despite outside appearances, the band still didn’t think they were good enough.

How often do we feel this way in the face of success? Do we downplay milestones in our creative journeys or attribute them to luck? Or worse, do we beat ourselves up that we haven’t lived up to some ideal?

The whole documentary left me feeling a little sad because that album defined an important period in my life and the concert was an extra-sensory overload experience that stays with me today – 25 years later. But it taught me a powerful lesson. Money and fame and millions of adoring fans couldn’t make the boys feel good about themselves at that time in their lives.

I hope I can define success for myself in a way that is more compassionate.

On Growing Old and the Kindness of Strangers

Last night as my husband and I were about to fall asleep, he said, “I can’t believe you’ll be 64 tomorrow.” Then, he backtracked furiously about having dyslexia and of course, he meant 46. I told him I feel awfully spry for a 64-year-old, or awfully rickety for a 46-year-old. Most days, I fall somewhere in-between.

Just a couple of weeks ago, my sister visited me. It’s weird to realize how we’d both started worrying about our aging bodies at about the same time in our lives. Age spots, wrinkles, neck waddles, crepey skin (girls, you know what I mean).

Naturally, we found ourselves in the Oil of Old Lady (Olay) aisle at the Rite-Aid perusing the various skin care miracles. The price of that stuff is enough to scare the wrinkles right off you!

Anyhoo. After a few minutes, I grabbed a kit that contained a few different products. I turned it over to check the price. On the back were two yellow Post-it notes. One said: Yes, you are! The other: Beautiful just the way you are.

I grinned. A huge grin. The kind of grin that stays with you for hours. Days.

We left the Rite-Aid without purchasing anything. One simple, beautiful note from a stranger erased a lot of the self-judgment we’d arrived with.

I’m left with two thoughts:

1. Let’s be kinder to ourselves and to all women and girls. Life is too short to feel inadequate at any age.
2. Words are powerful. Let’s be careful to use them to uplift rather than tear down.

If you have a Post-it note handy, write a kind note and leave it in a library book, a menu, a bathroom stall, the gym locker room. I'm guessing you'll be responsible for a huge grin.