Rising to the Occasion of the Publix Interlude

There were many years when stopping by Publix on the way home was my social life.  Picking up three children from day care, then driving to the store was a moment of transition.  It let me move between work and home.  It let me make a plan for dinner.  It let me see people in a casual environment, while towing three behind me.  I would see other neighbors, mothers with kids in tow, work comrades, and of course the folks that worked there. Nothing like hanging out in the vegetable section, gabbing about someone's new baby over the carrots.

Flash forward and the kids are gone.  Guess what?  Publix continues to be a source of meeting and greeting my neighbors, my horse club friends, my co workers and the Publix employees.  Nothing like talking about your daughter's graduation over the organic yet packed in plastic, spinach boxes.

So, sauntering through the dairy section, a woman spots me and comes over for a hug.  She is a FB friend and a former employee.  She is happy to see me; she is one of those enthusiastic happy to see you everywhere, people.  Her smile is bigger than Texas and her hug equally so.  We are catching up on family, while I secretly eyeball the discount shelf. She asks about my only daughter.  I tell her she is backpacking through Europe for two and half months, she graduated form UF, she has not decided on her life and I am scared.  She is going to be alone for many weeks.  somewhere by now is her blog, which I can tell you doesn't make me feel better.  I tell her that her father is joining her in Croatia and that I will join her in Paris.  We are chatting and  a voice comes from behind the discount rack, "Oh my gosh, she will be fine, don't worry a second!"

And we look around and this woman comes out to tell us her story.  Her daughter fell in love here in Tallahassee.  She dated and then the young man decided to go back to his first girl friend.  The daughter is distraught and calls Mom and says, "I am selling everything and I leaving for Europe for as long as I can."

Her cart full of cheese and chips, she stops to tell us her daughter's story.  She left after the break up, touring Europe for a few months.  She lived mostly in hostels and then several nights on the streets.  Not good decisions, the mother says.  My daughter went right after the 9/11 attack.  " I was terrified and begged her to wait. She emailed me every two days.  And at some point, I needed to believe she would be okay.  And I did." Then she told us that something changed.  The young man realized the mistake.  He flew to Paris to propose.  Or maybe he flew to Rome.  I sort of forgot where he went, because this is a movie moment.  And now, they have two children and are celebrating their 10 year anniversary.  Romance, success, love and a grandmother.  Gotta love Publix.

It reminded me of my sister's visit so many years ago.  My then boyfriend had dumped me.  I took my dog to the vet, and the vet said,  "why don't you go stay at my farm in Indiana and meet my nephew?"  I was planning on going, but then, I got a job.  My sister chose to go, thinking she would be a writer, living on a farm.  Well, that story ends with three beautiful children.  And my family had many fun years in Indiana.  I bet she had many years in the local store, picking up the children and visiting with the neighbors.  Farm communities arer different, but all mom's yacking is the same.

The last three Publix stories I have to tell you are about cancer and worse.

I saw a person that I used to work with standing in the check out line a few years ago.  I said, "Hi, oh my gosh, you cute your hair!"  When I saw her, I reached up and touched it and said how cute the cut looks.  The hair clumped in my hand and fell on the floor in the check out line.  Her chemo was kicking in and her hair was falling out.  Breast Cancer.  She died ten weeks later.  I hated that moment.  I loved her courage standing in a check out line trying to do normal things while she knew she was dying. This story is ten years old.  Flash forward.

A fellow horse mom lost a child.  The disease was sudden and so sad.  Back then, I did not have the back bone or skills to say hello to a mom across the vegetable isle.  How does the social chat work in a grieving situation?  How do you look at her across the carrots and express your empathy?  I failed.

Next, I saw a woman in the vegetable isle, who I knew had breast cancer treatment.  She is also a horse person.  A brave, creative, fun, energetic, person.  I told her about my daughter, and she said, "oh my, Peggy, be so happy for her that you can afford it, that she can do it, she is having the adventure of her life!"  And I worried about terrorists and bombs.  She is finishing chemo and terrorists can't scare a cancer fighter.  Especially one that fights like a girl.

Who is safe, who is not, how can we be better, stronger, protect them more.  I am asking all of you to look into their eyes.  If they are busy and on the way home, then good.  But if they are slow, if they are teary, don't turn away.  Stop.  What most people want it comfort and safety.  Hug them and tell them that they are confirmed.  You don't have to agree.  You just have to validate who they are and how they feel.

So here is to the stores, the visits, the Mom's on the way home. Next time you see her, every her and any her, ask her how she is doing.  I bet she needs to tell you.  And you need to hear her.  And best of all, you might hear some good advice about your life.  None of knows when our daughters will leave for Paris or when cancer will strike.  Ladies, take heed.

Huffington: Put spotlight on new ideas | The Florida Current

Huffington: Put spotlight on new ideas | The Florida Current

Rising to the Occasion of Our Future

Today, I listened to Arianna Huffington deliver a speech to the 2013 Florida Leaders Summit. She was amazing.  The title of her speech was technology and journalism.  But the real meat of her speech for me, was on integrity, responsibility and vision.

She spoke of the speed of technological change, the balance of a meaningful life, and the inclusion of the elderly back into the family and not in far away congregate living.  She said that studies show the active giving person has less risk of Alzheimer's disease.  She spoke of education and her mother's sacrifice to educate her and her sisters.  Who knew she came from a lower income working family.

She is inspiring as a leader and as a woman of conviction for family, freedom and happiness.  I appreciated her coming to Florida, where the headlines always seem to be so unfavorable.

Her speech reminded me of the article in the WSJ A Full Life to the End article, where the daughter explains the mother's choice to not go to the hospital.  Not to go to extraordinary lengths.  Not to accept a prolonged death.  She chose instead to accept a lucid, shorter life.  She chose to be here fully, rather than be here longer in part.

And in a way, it parallels what Arianna said today.  Technology is fabulous and it is changing the world.  Soon, machines will do most, if not all of the menial labor.  Education on the net will be accessible to more than ever.  Travel and international interaction will increase more than ever.  But what happens to us as families and people?  Does making access to the internet or online education easier make it better?  Does the income gap increase or decrease?

As a mother of the Y generation, the spoiled and lazy generation, the smart and gifted generation, I think, do they care about this?  Can they see and hear what may be lost?  Will we end up with people sitting at computer screens instead of living life? And where will I be in this mix?

The theme is always: we compromise the good we know for the new and shiny.  We are Americans. We want new, fast, better, more, and more.  We go to MCDonalds, when we could make dinner.  We stress maximum participation in organized sports or activity, instead of individual freedom and discovery of the backyard; we use phone conversation instead of face to face dialog.  We are too connected; we check in too often, not allowing mistakes to happen and consequences to follow.  We drink water from bottles, when cups would do.  We make money doing anything and everything and we fall for trends.  We fall because we have no tradition.

America is young relatively speaking.  Growing up in the south, tradition is part of your upbringing.  Please and thank you and yes Ma'am (no ma'am was never something offered to me) /I have photos of funerals.  Old people talk about funerals.  Death is part of the life we live.  But, I find that the tradition is not the same for our youth. Old people don't live with the family.  They move to the extended care home.  My own mother in law and father in law decided to move to an end of life care facility, only to have my father in law die in a hospital.  Their best intention of not wanting to be a burden to the family, put them far away from us who want to see them and include them.  A different burden.  And while I don't want to say that all families should live together, I do think it is a good idea to have them close.

I think the past should be passed on, and the best way to do that is to have multi generational interactions.  The best way to do that is the old way of passing on tradition. Even if it is modified.  Why do Americans jump at new and cast away the old?  The spirit of the quest.  The new adventure. The go west young man mentality.

But we are better than that.  We can seize the moment and embrace the past.  We can accept technology, and include the physical environment.  We can be on line and and still actually touch each other.  So, I guess the end is the beginning, and I am suggesting that we listen to Arianna, and include our whole family, include the environment and the internet.

I am suggesting that America should set some traditions, and that the tradition should be to not throw away the past, while embracing the cowboy technology future.  And to thank a cowboy leader, Arianna gave out her email address : arianna@huffingtonpost.com

Thanks to Arianna and to Katy Butler.

.

rising to the occasion: Funeral Etiquette, Clothing and The Swing

rising to the occasion: Funeral Etiquette, Clothing and The Swing: Rising to meet the world today was a little harder than usual.  My husband and sons had already discussed our morning plans the night befor...

Funeral Etiquette, Clothing and The Swing

Rising to meet the world today was a little harder than usual.  My husband and sons had already discussed our morning plans the night before, so when I rose to let the chickens out, I knew what lay ahead.  Today was the funeral of a friend, my brother's father in law Mack.

The day before, my brother had called and told me the obituary was online in the local web version of the paper.  I looked.  It simply said he was born, he died, the funeral will be held at this place.  But below the small lines was a link on funeral etiquette.  I clicked, how could I not.  I was surprised to find several writers talking about how to dress, what not to say, what not to do.  Being raised a southern woman, there were always rules.  Summer black, simple dress, pearls.  Bowed heads, folded hands, modest steps.  Reading through the posts, I realized how uncomfortable this will be for many.  My own husband says, "I don't know what to say."  The advice of the bloggers: tell the truth.  If you say, "our prayers are for you", mean it.  Otherwise, stick with sorry for your loss.

With this back drop, I was proud when both my boys opted for ties and shirts (no they left the jackets off given the 90 degrees and humidity of Tallahassee).  They both asked if they looked okay, clean shaven and khakied up.  My husband, old school, wore the jacket and tie anyway.  I stuck to black skirt and seersucker jacket.  We left together, all dressed on a Saturday morning, headed for the funeral.

We have known Mack and his family almost twenty years.  We met through his lovely daughter, Lisa,who eventually married my brother.  Hence forth, all family gatherings included them or us.  The generosity and kindness of Lisa's family was exemplified by Mack's questions.  He always asked the same ones:

Where is Charles (my husband)? and Where are the children?

Mack was a kind and gentle soul.  And arriving to the funeral home did not seem so hard.  I had fond memories and knew the family and Mack had lived to 89, a full and rich life. I was surrounded by my family and Mack's family.  Then, one of his grandchildren came up to hug me.  I have known him for almost 20 years as well.  I told him that my fondest memory of his grandfather was the swings that he made for all the children, including mine.  Round wooden discs that had holes in the center for the rope to run through and to extend upwards to the sky over a high limb.  All the children had one in their yard.  All the children congregated there, for fun, for talking, for fighting, for crying.  I can still see my teenage daughter sitting on the swing, long legs twirling around and round,  talking on her phone and crying over some awful teenage thing.

The swing sits idle today.  But even now, when the "kids" come home, there can be fights and shouts on whose turn it might be to swing. And I am sure that there will be more joy and happiness and emotion and jousting over that swing.  Mack knew how to relate.  Keep it simple, keep it accessible, keep it fun.

Not a bad way to be remembered, if you think about it.  So here is to you Mack.  Thanks for the lessons in making children happy and funeral etiquette.  You will be remembered warmly.

Rising to the Occasion of the New Supreme Court Decisions and Their Bold Interpretations

the new definition of marriage

The rulings leave in place laws banning same-sex marriage around the nation, and the court declined to say whether there was a constitutional right to such unions. But in clearing the way for same-sex marriage in California, the nation’s most populous state, the court effectively increased to 13 the number of states that allow it.

voting-rights-act decision

The decision in Shelby County v. Holder revolves around Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which establishes a "coverage formula" to determine which states and local governments fall under Section 5, and therefore need to get approval before changing their voting laws. The justices ruled that Section 4 is unconstitutional, and that the formula used for decades — revised and extended several times by Congress — can no longer be used to establish those "preclearance" requirements: "The conditions that originally justified these measures no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions." 

I am not a lawyer or a policy analyst, but I am a mother, boss, taxpayer, tuition payer, wife, and female.

What those roles give me is the experience that knows and feels difference.  Whether it is the good old boys at work regaling us with chauvinistic stories of the past or nuns telling the girls that science was a waste of time or the people who still talk about colored folks, I know this feeling of difference.  And it doesn't feel good.

I think regardless of the law, the judges are saying that different doesn't feel good.  Whether the remedy to the difference is a 50 year old law to right a horrible wrong or whether the cancellation of the difference is a nullifying a state law, the effect is the same: NO DIFFERENCE.  There shouldn't be a difference, not to the blind eye of the law, not to the open eyes of the judges and not to the feelings of those that are not in the norm. +GayWeddings.com 

The judges are saying that difference does not have to be embraced, it doesn't have to be "guaranteed by numbers" and it doesn't license some and not others.  The judges are saying what every speaker on the gen Y generation says: Get Over IT.  They are different, they are staying, and soon they will be in the majority.  Technically, They already are.  Women have been different for a long time.

Different may not be acceptable to you, but it is not a reason to legislate the relegation of others to a lesser status.  The court is saying to the southern states, okay don't use the numbers to mandate difference.  Let the difference be in the voting booth.  I am nervous.  I don't trust that equal access is there all the time in Mississippi.   But I don't trust that it is there all the time in Minnesota or Michigan or Florida. 

When  the civil rights laws were passed, the people who needed protection were all considered black.  Now, the different people are African American, Muslim,  Jewish,  Irish American, gay, female, Hispanic American, Indian American, Haitian American, Colombian American, Mexican American, Chinese American, need I go on? +Equality Texas 

 They are as different from the 1965 act as can be:

"The chief justice concludes that times have changed: the formulas that govern singling out one state from another for different treatment, which once "made sense," have lost their relevance, and "nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically." 

"But history did not end in 1965. By the time the Act was reauthorized in 2006, there had been 40 more years of it. In assessing the “current need[]” for a preclearance system that treats States differently from one another today, that history cannot be ignored. During that time, largely because of the Voting Rights Act, voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registration and turnout due to race were erased, and African-Americans attained political office in record numbers."

I am worried about the change in the Voting Rights Act and the absence of change in the Gay Marriage issue.  "If California becomes the 13th state to allow same-sex marriage, about 30 percent of Americans will live in jurisdictions where it is legal." says the decision on gay marriage.

So the court is saying that 70% of Americans live in a place of difference.  We are not yet to a place where we can be at least treated by the law as the same, whether or not our neighbors do that.  The court is placing that burden on the American people.  Do we want to be a place of difference.

And the court is saying that while the laws of 1965 are precious and were necessary for the time, that the time has come for us to stop the difference for all states, not just the few.  Again, the court is placing that burden back on the people of America.  Almost every southern state voted for the republican candidate in the last election.  But almost all the midwest did too.  And yet, what a difference there is in the white house.

Please check your heart and check your beliefs and check the future, because the nation called America is not the brave and free for some; it is the home of the brave and the free for all.  And I for one will embrace the court rulings and trust in the future.  And more importantly, I will not accept being treated or treating anyone different.

of the graduating daughter

In looking at my beautiful baby girl who could never wear clothes on the beach,
never met an animal (including reptiles)

she didn't love and thought dirt was a badge and paper never had enough space for her essays:  I say congrats Morgan.

 Job well done.

You turned the lousy high school experience into the lovely collegiate pursuit and graduated with honors.

I love you more and miss you a great deal.
 Every day.

 and I searched for songs to toast you and there is a list - of course there is a list...

 http://voices.yahoo.com/top-30-songs-dedicate-daughter-7942458.html?cat=25

But there was one, that did not show on the list and it is not the standard send off, but the warning type song.

The group is called Daughter, and the song Youth

And I love the part about being the lucky one.  Being in this world, across all nations as you want to be, you are lucky.  You have had a loving  family and enough money and a public education.  You have a wonderful heart and common sense and sense... of what is around you and whom. And Whom.

I know that you are struggling with what is next, but not me.  I trust you. I trust all that you are.  You are amazing and smart and beautiful and strong. You are passionate and love your animals and your garden and mass transit.  You supported Obama but not blindly and you care about the implementation and you object to the blind obedience.

You and the others of your generation are the best of the best. You have more education and the luxury of thinking about it.  You have the time to grow up and the time to ponder and the time to not judge and the time to rethink.

You have been more places by 17 than I at 55. You have a broader perspective and more tolerance and less judgement than anyone in my generation. You can make jokes with friends that don't insult and know with friends when jokes are not funny.

 You know the importance of the online communication and that abrupt words in email can hurt and that Facebook is forever, but not for everyone.  Twitter is only 140 bad characters and YouTube videos are now more than 15 minutes.

And yet.

You still want a graduate degree and to compete on horses at the Olympic level and to speak foreign languages  You still hold yourself to expectations that I never dreamed of.  You are truly amazing.

So here is to you my young daughter.  If you go to Cornell, or Portland State or Aachen, they are the ones blessed to have you.  They are the ones who should look to you and say why in this world of on line education should we be fortunate enough to have you at our brick and mortor?  They should look at you and say here is our future now and later.

If they are smart, they will look at you and see that they will never see all that you and your generation will be, but make it possible for you to be the next, the best, the bold, the edgy, the strong the weak, the timid, the future. Our future.

So the average elephant baby matures at age 70 and that means that now that humans live to 100, youth should last to 25 and adulthood should be 30.

And these are arbitrary numbers as are all things projected.  So enjoy your youth.  You can at least surpass the elephants.