Stephen’s post today was about “In defense of laziness,” and he pointed out that different lifestyle choices are just that – choices. For instance, he said, if you enjoy living in a pizza box, beer bottle strewn apartment, but then hook up with a neat freak who wants “more” out of life, chances are you’re going to be miserable, or you’re going to change or at least compromise because you love your lifestyle choice. Why? Because one person may see the pizza box life as “lazy,” apparently. I don’t know that the post (for me anyway) was as much about “being lazy” as it was about our choice of lifestyle in many ways.

One of the reasons I’ve been single most of my life is because the men I’ve met have a definite idea of what kind of life they want to live, and shall we say – it’s not usually in sync with my idea of nirvana. They either want (early in my life) a trophy wife, beautiful, fit, sexy thing to show off – or later in life, a rich and attractive wife to support them while they don’t work. Being a 24-hour on demand sex machine, meeting a man’s every whim, is not how I want to spend my life. My generation may have been teens during the women’s equality movement, but they were raised during the 50s and 60s when a woman’s place was in the home, barefoot and pregnant and waiting on their man and that’s what most of them expect in a woman. The 60s and 70s were about free sex for them, not liberation of a woman’s spirit. So, I rarely meet a man who shares my idea of what a relationship is – and when I do, they’re married already. Oh well. I’ll keep looking. There’s a man out there somewhere who wants to RV, fish, travel and work enough to enjoy life, pay the bills and be in the moment, and treat me as an equal! Some men think that people ought to work hard their entire lives and would see me as “being lazy” because I don’t want to retire in a million-dollar condo on the beach and drive a $50,000 car. That’s just not me. I’m not lazy. I just don’t want to work that hard to get, keep and maintain a material goods life.

So after reading Stephen’s post I started thinking about how I would describe how I choose to live and if it’s lazy or not. Some people think so because I’m not chasing the 9-5 and take work home dream. Then I realized that I’m living the way I am and I’m not happy with it a lot of the time. It’s not because I don’t like the lifestyle. It’s because I keep feeling like I have to defend my choice – like it’s wrong somehow. Stephen writes:

Despite working extremely hard through a lot of my life, I’ve been called lazy at times. I’ve called other people lazy when I probably shouldn’t have. Most of the time people are simply projecting their values on someone else. We throw the word “lazy” around far too often when we are judging other people’s free choice to live their lives as they see fit. If you are taking care of yourself and are not a burden on others, as far as I’m concerned you can be as lazy as you want.

Same as me. All through college I took a full load of classes and often worked two or three jobs as well. I’ve been called lazy and called others lazy (some when they truly were) because we were projecting our values on each other. But when it comes down to it, my lifestyle choice is mine, and theirs is theirs.

I have several friends, all younger, who have big homes, several kids, matching SUVs and are scrambling to pay their mortgage and live their American dream. And they are truly happy – challenged at times – but happy. I would enjoy the pool, the vacations, the kids, the yard and the dog, for about a month – then I’d be severely depressed. That lifestyle to me is like a pair of golden handcuffs – shiny, pretty, but restricting. Every decision you make is based on whether it will help or hurt your ability to maintain that lifestyle. I’d like all the stuff – but not enough to commit to doing whatever I had to to keep up that particular lifestyle. Stuff doesn’t matter to me – relationship does. Am I lazy for not chasing it? I don’t think so.

I was once involved with an alcoholic who came with a large extended family, a beach house, nieces and nephews and the sort of family (Thanksgiving, Christmas etc) I wished I’d had as a child. But the drinking, the lack of intimacy, the fights, mistrust, misery and all the things that go with having an alcoholic and non-supportive spouse weren’t enough to keep me living the house-with-a-picket-fence dream. It reminded me too much of my childhood (surprise!). So I left. I’m much, much, much, much happier now than I ever was then. I miss the family stuff, but I’ve found other ways to meet that need – including finding healthy friends and social networks where I feel that same sense of belonging.

So I’m taking care of myself, paying my own bills, and yet until I read Stephen’s post today I didn’t realize my “unhappiness” has come NOT from my spartan lifestyle – but from feeling like I have to defend or fight off people who are telling me how I should be living. I’m unhappy at times because I’m still trying to live just “normal” enough to make other people happy. I’m not focusing enough on ME.

I quietly severed ties recently to another friend who obviously thought my lifestyle wasn’t appropriate. She made comments about everything from the color of my office curtains to the fact I’m still living in, and driving my van. I quit returning her calls and haven’t heard from her in awhile – which is good.

I was thinking about that, then I remembered a friend of my brother’s. He comes from a wealthy family, but after a horrific accident changed his life, he took a different path than the med school, law school, business expectations people had for him. I don’t think he’s ever seriously looked back. He now chooses to make a good living selling t-shirts and hang-gliding. He’s very good at what he does and is very well known for both his designs and his athleticism. Here’s a video – you can see for yourself. He too gets asked, “How can you live like that?” And his answer is perfect, “The pay-off is worth managing the risk.” He’s doing what he loves – flying. If you wonder if the accident changed his life – made him love the freedom of flying more than life on one leg – possibly. But life changes us all, shapes us all.

The point is, I just realized I was focusing more on “How can you live like that?” than on deciding exactly HOW I want to live. It’s a subtle point – but an important one. I’m off to think about it. Do you know how YOU want to live as opposed to how others expect you to be living? Leave a comment. I need the inspiration!

“Most often, heartbroken people are unknowingly grieving a loss or trauma rooted in childhood or adolescence. That’s because we tend to fall in love with people who remind us of those who care for us – even badly – when we were young and totally vulnerable.” —Martha Beck

I think Martha’s right. But I think we also tend to seek out friends, jobs and employers who also remind us of those who cared for us – even badly – when we were young and vulnerable. I call them shadow relationships – the flitting, unseen darkness cast by the people we seek out as we grow up.

I believe we are always trying to resolve or fix or change those relationships (subconsciously) and so we return to our childhood caretakers in the form of finding the abusive boss, the demanding boss, the absent or passive aggressive or narcissistic boss. We try to do our jobs in a way that will “please them” and recreate or bring resolution to the pain of our past. It never works. We keep trying, as Einstein said, to solve our problems with the same thinking that got us into them in the first place.

If we look closely enough at ALL our relationships we will find that the stickiness, the arguments, the disagreements, the things we both love and hate about them remind us of our parents. We respond to our friends not as adults – but as children. We learn well. The habits and patterns of relating in adulthood are so similar to those we used in childhood – and usually not effective. We are adults in an adult world. The manipulations and coping mechanisms we used as powerless children don’t work as powerful adults. Our power is there. It’s waiting to be seized and used. Yes, we will have to learn HOW to use it, and how not to overpower others with it. But that’s the part of life we missed out on growing up. It’s something we get later in life is all. Fortunately we can usually learn and master it quicker than we would have as children – especially if we have a good therapist, safe friends and if we take time to think about our actions.

Throughout my life I have lived with, roomed with, or been friends with alcoholic partners. It took me 25 years to realize I was living with some version or other of an alcoholic father. My partners, friends, roommates and employers were no more capable of intimacy or caring or setting and honoring boundaries than I was. So we played out the same arguments and battles as I did with my father. It wasn’t until I realized that and began to set boundaries for myself and to change ME, that that dynamic began to change. I still have a lot of friends who are alcoholics or who admit they drink too much. But I don’t have the same relationship with them. I don’t try to please, rescue, avoid them. And if they get abusive I don’t stick around and think I deserve it. I’m able to love them and let them be themselves without any compulsion, guilt or judgment from me. I’m not their keeper. I’m their friend. I’m there for them because I love them and I know their relationship to alcohol is like mine to food/sugar. I know that love and boundaries, not judgment and abandonment, heals us. Those who are growing, healing and dealing with their issues stick around and we grow and heal together. Those who are not – they tend to fall out of my life without me doing a thing.

I’ve noticed a real churn in my friendships lately – a really different mix of friends coming into my life and a lot of old friendships going out. I recently parted ways with a critical and judgmental friend – and a kind and gentle friend who loved her. He needed a critical mother (her) and she needed someone to judge to feel good about herself (her father’s way of relating to her). They are trying to work out their childhood traumas with each other. I decided I didn’t need or like being judged (her and my parents) and simply said, “This isn’t working for me.” And like that – poof – they left. My gentle friend NEEDS to be judged and I won’t do that, so there is no appeal in being a friend with me. I don’t provide what he needs – a critical parent.

The most freeing thing about it all is in realizing that when some people reject us, they reject us not for who we are, but for who we are not for them. We are not the critical parent, the angry parent, the judging or passive aggressive, or unavailable parent. It’s more likely that we are not the negative drama that a person is looking for, and craving – the very person they need to work out their childhood dramas. Those who are looking for the positive, healthy person they want and appreciate and can change for the better with are rare indeed! Our relationships are not simple things. They are shadows or mirrors – reflecting our own needs and personality back at us, or showing us what haunts us from our past. Our challenge is to determine which they are and to learn to separate out, and enjoy the love that hides in-between the shadows and reflections.

Life is change. And as I realize how right Martha is on many levels that change becomes easier. It’s never easy. But understanding what is happening and why certainly makes all the heavy lifting we need to do to become more comfortable with ourselves.

Some people call those emails “The Pottery Barn specials,” or “The Container Store bargains”. I call them “Container Porn.” I thought I’d managed to unsubscribe from them, but one snuck through the spam filter today and triggered my container addiction. As part of my 12-step program I readily admit I am powerless over containers. Seriously. If time, space and money allowed, I’d be swimming in boxes, crates, and matching file folders.

In a past life – one where I actually had an apartment and a job and money to spend, I spent hours drooling over containers. I made friends with people who shared my obsessive compulsive need to compartmentalize everything in my life. I once struggled with how to tell people how tense and irritated it made me feel to see spices and cans of soup sitting around un-alphabetized in their kitchen cabinets. Even worse, seeing that someone mixed tall spice bottles with short, fat spice bottles from a different brand was enough to make me weep.

I remember sighing with relief when I first watched my best friend come home from the grocery store and empty all the boxes of cereal, rice, beans, flour, sugar and whatever into mix and match tupperware before putting them away. When she and her husband fought she would invite me over and we’d wash out all the containers and repack them for therapy. She had kids with sticky fingers and feeling all those freshly filled, clean containers go back on the shelves was pure rapture for us both. Seriously sick, I know.

Other women saved for the jewelry they saw on the home shopping network. I pined for the mix-and-match bowls and handy dandy kitchen cabinet storage rack.

I actually bought those 24 and 48-pack packages of toilet paper and paper towels at Costco and Sam’s club. I just liked the way I felt when an entire shelf or two in my bathroom closet was crammed with toilet paper. After a time in my life when I had to ration toilet paper or steal it from gas station restrooms, the sheer joy of abundance for life’s little pleasures was intoxicating. But being able to put them all in plastic cases designed to hold them and keep them dry was almost erotic. I know. Stupid. Sick. But true.

So I’m working today and get an email from the Container Store in my in-box and I opened it. I know better. But there it was – (see photo above) and I got distracted. I started doodling what I’d like my new organized and containerized office to look like. Sigh.

I confess. I spent several hours this weekend sorting tools and paper and odds and ends into boxes and labeling each one. On one shelf of my office I now have 10 lime green topped shoe boxes ($1 each at Walmart) filled with assorted stuff I’ll never use or find even if I need it. But at least it’s all organized and labeled. I’m still a container queen.

Okay – back to work.

“Oh no,” she said. “Christopher’s been hurt. She sighed – interrupting our conversation and turning to look over her shoulder at the pool.
“How can you hear anything?” I said listening to the roar of kids, splashing and whistles blowing behind her. I was amazed, but truly wondering more if she’d been listening to me at all.
“I was listening to you,” she smiled.

Mothers are also mind readers. I want to go to that school – wherever it is they go, or get a copy of the manual they are all issued when they become mothers. Why? Because the next words out of my friend’s mouth when Christopher came up crying and holding his bloody nose were, “Sure, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” (My mother said that. My mother’s mother said that. Now my friend was saying it. There has to be a book somewhere.)

“It’s not my eye, it’s my dose,” he said stuffily, dripping blood on our towel.
“What I meant was, well, never mind, tilt your head back.”
As my friend tended to her bloody child I thought about the phrase:
“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Later I looked it up on the internet and learned it allegedly originated in ancient Rome – where the only rule during wrestling matches was – “No eye gouging.” Everything else was allowed. The only way to be disqualified was to poke someone’s eye out. Of course by the time someone loses an eye, it’s too late for them. Survivor’s guilt kicks in. Everyone is truly sorry for the loss and secretly glad it wasn’t them. But the blind warrior still has to live with their decision. They can sit around and blame whoever they want, but as Christopher was learning, our decisions – good or bad – have consequences. And, whatever the outcome is, accepting it and dealing with it is part of life.

As Christopher’s tears, sobbing, whining and his blood abated Jane asked, “What were you doing?” Christopher tried to explain who had hit him in the nose and cast blame, but Jane wasn’t having any part of it. She kept repeating, “What were YOU doing?” Well, he and his friends were rough housing and his nose got in the way of someone’s elbow in the mix of bodies flailing around on the grass.
“And whose decision was it to play with David and Clay?”
“Mine.”
“And if you hadn’t been rough housing?” He shrugged. Obviously he’d had this conversation before. She waited.
“I wouldn’t have gotten hurt,” he sighed.
“What are you going to do when you go back?”
“Stop playing?” he asked?
“Or?”
“Have fun, but be more careful,” obviously something he’d heard before as well.
With that admission she waved him off – wads of tissue paper still stuck up his nose.
“You took that pretty well.”
“Yeah, well, he’s my third boy. As long as they’re conscious and walking I don’t get too excited if they’re bleeding,” she laughed.

What intrigued me more than her acute sense of hearing and her laid back attitude about the blood was her insistence that Christopher take responsibility for his role in the bloody nose.
“He had a part in it and he needs to see that,” she said.
“I don’t want him growing up blaming everyone else for his decisions or thinking someone is going to rescue him so he gets off scott-free.”

That’s what really struck me. Christopher, “age nine and a half, going on ten” is learning that his choices have consequences, but that they are really his choices and he is responsible for what happens when he makes a choice. He’s learning he can control what happens to him by a pretty significant degree. If he doesn’t do his homework, he’s the one who has to face the teacher, or stay after school, or see his grades affected. His parents don’t rescue him. He gets to experience the full brunt of his decisions. He is also learning that even if he is a totally innocent victim he can still make decisions after the fact to change the outcome – in fact he must take responsibility for outcomes if he wants to deal with the cards life hands him.

When a neighbor backed into his bike last spring it wasn’t his fault. The bike was parked where it was supposed to be, but it was still up to him to get estimates on the repairs and to go over with his father to present the estimates and collect the check from the neighbor. It was his bike so he was still the one who had to go with his father to the bike shop and learn what to do when bad things happen to innocent people. You can sit around blaming and be a victim, or you can take action. Fair? Life isn’t fair. Sitting around and complaining and whining doesn’t accomplish anything. Action does, even if it’s not technically your fault, it’s still your life and that you are responsible for.

It’s a lesson that not many adults seem to have learned. It’s also one of the most valuable lessons Christopher will grow up with. I can’t wait to see how this kid does in college, or in life. He’s already pretty self-confident without being arrogant. It’s something that comes from true self-esteem, not the hyped up “What a great job you did!!” and smiley face stickers that adults put on kid’s papers and projects. It comes from learning, failing and trying again and taking responsibility for his actions – succeed or fail.

I hear from two kinds of people every day – those that blame others for what happened to them as children, and sit back and wait for someone to fix or rescue them; and those who acknowledge what happened to them as children, but who focus on their responsibility as adults to change their lives in the here and now. It’s a subtle difference at first – both were wronged. Both were victims. Both can point to who “did it” to them – whatever it was. But only one knows it’s up them to act.

The big difference is those who own their lives, who act, who heal, who grow, who stop being victims all understand and acknowledge it’s in their power to change their lives. Just as Christopher is seeing that his decisions have consequences for good or bad, and that he can change his outcome with different decisions (have fun, but be careful), we too have the power to change our lives if we own our choices.

“You know you can’t return it if you do that,” I said.

“I’m not going to return it,” she said smugly.

A week later she picked out a name.

“I know what you’re up to Sarah,” her mother told her. “And it’s not going to work. You’re not getting a dog.”

Sarah smiled.

“I’m going to call her Tootsie.”

The week after that I gave Sarah $15 for helping me weed my garden.

She used it to buy a small water bowl and a food bowl which she set on the back porch.

“Don’t encourage her,” her mother told me.

“She shouldn’t work for free,” I protested.

I got the frown and the “bad friend” stare.

Months rolled by and Tootsie’s bowls remained unused and the collar had begun to gather dust on the door knob of Sarah’s room. But she wasn’t deterred.

Instead of watching television in the evening Sarah began drawing pictures of dogs.

“What kind of thoughts are you putting in that child’s head?” Elizabeth asked me.

“I haven’t said anything,” I protested. I too was as baffled by Sarah’s behavior as her mother.

“She’s read something,” Elizabeth said. “Someone has her doing all that ’see it happening’ and visualize your dream’ stuff.”

“Well, it works you know,” I said.

“I know. That’s the problem. We can’t afford a dog,” Elizabeth said, chewing vigorously on a fingernail as she watched Sarah drawing.

Two weeks later I walked into the house and was greeted by a kitten who immediately clawed its way up my leg to swat at the dangling cord on my sweat pants.

“Owch! A cat!?” I asked. “I thought you said no pets.”

“Well, we were afraid someone would show up and give her a dog,” Elizabeth said.

“We’re hoping a cat will take her mind off of the dog.”

Sarah listened, petting the purring cat and smiling. The phone rang and as Elizabeth ran off to answer it I said to Sarah, “Well, you didn’t get the dog you wanted after all.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t really want a dog. I just knew if I asked for a cat I’d have ended up with a goldfish and I hate fish.”

Is there something I want and am not going after? I need to follow Sarah’s example and just buy the collar.

Okay, I reread my rant about Apple this morning. My Mac is only getting worse. Apple is not going to do anything. I’m tired of it. You guys are tired of it. I’m saving my $$ for a new machine – I don’t know what yet. The cursor on this one jumps all over the place – Apple charges $49 PER service call and doesn’t guarantee an answer. At least I know I’m helping pay for Steve Jobs multi-billion dollar empire eh?

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if it weren’t for the fact that Apple employees I know, who know me, tell me this is a lemon. Lesson learned? NEVER EVER buy ANY Apple product without buying the Apple Care Warranty.

Other lesson learned? Apple black balls you in their files. If you are the least bit frustrated, rude or don’t worship the brand – your name goes in their files and you don’t get the level of service other people do. FACT. It’s how Apple punishes those who don’t comply. Remind you of say….Hitler? So, suck up to get what you want. Next time I’ll register under a different name and practice sucking until I can draw bowling balls through a garden hose. Whatever it takes to make sure homeless kids get their book.

Anyway. I will deal with my Apple issues and continue to let people know how Apple will let them down…. at least until hell freezes over or they REPLACE my MacBook….whichever comes first (hell is in the lead.)

And I’m going to switch to a PC….and hopefully find something I love as much as Pages. Pages rules – but if the Mac crashes and the cursor jumps all over – who can use it?

Thanks for your letters of support and encouragement. But Apple isn’t going to do anything – as much as all my Apple owning buddies keep saying – it’s not happening guys. Sorry….So I need to change and quit focusing on it. Like I say, deal with the cards you’re dealt. That’s what I’m doing. Moving on!!

I’m writing a magazine article for Airstream Life, and another for submission to The New Yorker (are you listening NY?) I recently interviewed one of the van drivers at NASA about being a shuttle driver for the Airstream Astrovan. One of his off handed comments fascinated me and made me think:

They have walked on the moon, walked in space, orbited the earth, touched the universe in ways none of us ever will. They strap themselves onto rockets, endure incredible G-forces, risk their lives, leave their families, risk death each time they undertake a mission.

And when security shuts down the roads, and an armed helicopter and guard pulls into position behind the transport vehicle there is only 10 miles of long flat road to travel. 10 miles to a shuttle that will hurl them into space again as the world watches in awe. Media, scientists, spectators, all waiting. All watching. And on the return trip – there is relief at having lived through another mission.

The most elite, highly trained group of men and women on the planet traverse that 10 miles of concrete. And what do they do, what do they talk about on the way there or the way back?

“Well,” Ronnie King, a transport driver for NASA said.

“Sometimes we looked at alligators. We’ll see one on the road, they get to be about 14 or 15 feet long you know. And we’ll stop the bus and get out and look at it.”

NEVER forget the wonder in the ordinary things around you. You can walk among the stars – but remember that remarkable can be something as simple as a giant lizard.

I had a sudden and terrifying revelation last month and I’ve spent the last few weeks trembling with a new fear of ignorance. It’s not that I mind being ignorant. I don’t. I like learning. When I don’t know something I ask, or learn, or read or watch a video about it. What scares me is that I just realized  how much I don’t know that I don’t know about! If you’ve ever started a new hobby or job and learned that some little thing you assumed was no big deal could kill you – you’ll understand. I was watching “World’s Dirtiest Jobs” and saw that the host was not allowed to wear a “safety belt” when working on the inside of some dam turbine. Safer to fall 50 feet in the water and be fished out than to dangle by a safety harness the guy said. Odd, I thought. So I looked it up. Yep. Hanging from a safety harness CAN kill you – in as little as 5 to 15 minutes. Who knew? So, deer hunters, construction workers, people who wear these harnesses (and I was one at one time) can die? How did I not know I didn’t know that? It never occurred to me to ask – can a safety harness kill me? So now I’m on this kick about how do we learn what we don’t know we don’t know? Answer: Ask lots of questions and never assume anything.

I spent about 15 minutes last week watching a guy jump start his truck. It made me about five minutes late for an appointment. I told my friend why I was late and she said, “I thought you knew how to jump start a car. You’ve done it dozens of times.”

I nodded.

“I have, but he was putting the negative cable on a nut, not an engine part. I thought you had to put the negative cable to an unpainted piece of metal, but he’s a mechanic and he said that a clean nut is the same thing as unpainted metal, so I wanted to watch and see if it really worked. It did!”

“I thought you were supposed to connect the positive cable to the positive cable and the negative cable to the negative cable on the battery!” she said.

“Only if you want to risk blowing up the battery,” I said. “If the battery won’t start any other way, then the negative post to post will work, but only as a last resort.”

“I didn’t know that! All these years I’ve been doing it wrong!” she said.

At that instant I knew why we were good friends – she was willing to take in new information. She was open to learning – like me. Friends like her are hard to find. More and more I’m seeing just the opposite.

In any good martial arts wisdom movie you’ll see what I’m talking about – it’s the “full cup, empty cup” wisdom – “You can’t put tea (or coffee) into a cup that’s already full.”  You have to empty the cup for new wisdom to flow into it. People don’t know there are things they don’t know they don’t know. Some even assume if they don’t know it, it’s not worth knowing!

Most people like to hold onto that full cup of what they do know. They think they know it all. They really do. I’ve had a week full of people who are convinced that after doing something three or four times they “know it all.” The truth is, they don’t even know what they don’t know.  But who am I to tell them?

Wisdom for the day – it’s not what you don’t know that will hurt you. At least that you know to look out for. It’s not knowing what you don’t know you don’t know that will hurt you. So keep an open mind and a closed mouth. Listen. Learn. If you already know it- great. Someone just re-enforced your knowledge. But if you listen and watch chances are 9 times out of 10 you’ll learn something new – and it might just be the thing that you didn’t know you didn’t know that will save your life.

I just finished writing an article for Trailer Life Magazine on a rapidly growing group of women called “Sisters On The Fly.” They are a group of women, married, single, widowed, divorced, heterosexual, lesbian and whatever, who buy old camping trailers, fix them up with a cowgirl theme and meet at rallies around the USA to laugh, drink Martinis and/or wine, fly-fish, go antiquing, do crafts or just hang out around the campfire with no men, boys or kids around. Adult daughters and mothers go – as do older women who just want to learn how to camp without a man around telling them how to do things.

I won’t duplicate the article, but I will tell you I just received a reviewer’s copy of the book, Sisters on the Fly: Caravans, Campfires, and Tales from the Road in the mail today and I’m drooling. Photographer David Foxhoven is brilliant – and the author (a new sister herself) Irene Rawlings, has done a wonderful job capturing the story of the sisters.

For those who don’t recognize the name, Irene is the host of an award-winning radio program, “Focus,” aired on the Clear Channel stations. She has been editor-in-chief of Mountain Living and Log & Timber Style magazines as well as group editorial director of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles. She has written about food, art, travel, and the environment for Art & Antiques, Sunset, Style 1900, Town & Country, ForbesLife MountainTime, The New York Times, Country Home, Country Living, Country Living Gardener and numerous inflight magazines.

Irene has also been art reviewer at the Denver Post, curator of the Anschutz Collection of Western Art and editor in chief of Country Home magazine.

I interviewed Irene for the article and she had some funny and insightful comments – read the article in “Trailer Life” to find out what. You can buy the magazine through Amazon, at Barnes & Noble and online at the website. Trailer Life is published by Affinity Publishing – part of Camping World – a major magazine with great articles.

Anyway – Irene sent me a copy of the book and it’s like a miniature version of a coffee table book – meaning PACKED with awesome photos, good writing, great tips on how to find and select a trailer yourself and lots of recipes…stories, interior shots of some of the trailers and wow….just the kind of book you want to linger over for hours.

The photos are yummy. Seriously. This is some heavy duty eye candy here. What makes this more than JUST a group of women going camping is the time and effort they put into creating a theme for their trailers – along with vintage collectibles, fishing and cowgirl gear and hand painted exteriors. With every trailer is a story – something meaningful, fanciful or fun – and revealing about the owner.

I was going to watch a movie tonight, but I think I’ll curl up in bed, listen to the rain on the roof and read. Want to see for yourself? Check out the inside.

Part of solving any problem comes down to two things – understanding the difference between responsibility and fault. Fault is about who to blame. Responsibility, in this instance, existential responsibility – our responsibility to ourselves – is what we do for ourselves after we determine who is at fault.

When I was 20 years old I was taking a wrestling class in college and ended up being thrown to the floor and rupturing a disk which compressed my spinal cord and paralyzed me. I literally could not move my legs. The woman who threw me down had violated the class rules and was at fault. If she had obeyed the rules and done what she was supposed to, I might not have been hurt. So she was at fault. Had we gone to court she would have been found negligent and forced possibly to pay for her actions. That is what fault is – who is to blame? Who caused something to happen? It is a matter for the courts or a referee to decide. The result of “finding fault” means we identify who is to blame. Most of us have no problem getting to that stage. A homeless addict or alcoholic may find fault and say:

“I lost my entire family in a car accident and so I started drinking and lost my job and my house and now I’m homeless.” The car accident is to blame. The car accident is at fault. It sparked the subsequent chain of events.”

I found fault when my father died and I quit my job to travel and ended up homeless. My quitting my job was to blame.  I was at fault

People rarely have problems deciding who or what to blame for their lot in life – especially if the culprit is not themselves. They have a much harder time when they are the ones to blame. Either way, and no matter who is ultimately at fault, many of us have an incredibly difficult time learning and deciding to take responsibility for whatever happened. We want whomever is “to blame” to fix it. Sorry. Not going to happen. They may pay for the hospital bills, but it’s up to you to survive the surgery, do the rehab and carve out a new life for yourself. Getting on with, and taking control of your life is YOUR responsibility.

Taking philosophical or existential responsibility for something isn’t the same as taking responsibility for “doing your job,” or doing what is expected or that you agree to do. I’m talking about the responsibility of where you are in life. I’m talking about “owning” your behaviors, thoughts and decisions. When you own something – whether it is a car, a pet, a computer, a sleeping bag – you are responsible for it. You take care of it, fix it, maintain it, repair it, guard it and decide what to do with it. You can decide to be careless or careful. Either way, you are responsible for it and what happens to it is under your control.

I was paralyzed and in the hospital for six weeks, in a wheelchair and unable to walk. Doctors told me I had a 50/50 chance of never walking again. Surgery was an option that might make that 100% chance of never walking again. Either way, I had to do something, to take control of my decision, my body and my life. So I opted for surgery. The odds weren’t good, but they were better than what I had – definitely not walking again. Finding fault, laying blame did me absolutely no good at that point. It didn’t  matter. Having someone to blame would not change what had happened to me.

I had the surgery and within a few months the swelling went down and I was able to walk again. It changed my life. My left leg and foot have always been numb as a result of the accident. I have nerve damage. My foot drags when I’m tired. I have no feeling in much of my lower leg. But I own my condition. I do what I have to do to take care of the leg. I went to physical therapy. I do my exercises. I compensate. No one is going to do that for me. It’s my responsibility to deal with the cards I was dealt.

I was thinking about this this  morning as I looked at my  dead MacBook. Apple is “to blame” for giving me a Lemon. They are “at fault.” But what I do from here on out is my responsibility.  To continue to blame Apple won’t do me  much good. But to take responsibility for my dead computer and to act to find a way to play the cards Apple dealt me is within my control.

I’m saving my $$ and looking at alternatives to make the most of what I have to spend. To do otherwise is to be a victim. I have a 35-year-old van with $800 worth of repairs to do before I can drive it again. I can find someone to “blame” or I can take responsibility and own it and find a solution.

That’s what life is guys. Owning your life, finding solutions, moving forward. Lots of us get stuck in the fault-finding stage – including me sometimes. It’s not fun to admit when WE are the ones to blame for bad decisions or choices. It’s frustrating and painful to see that friends and family and co-workers and strangers are to blame or are at fault too. We can rarely change “who is to blame,” but we can ALWAYS change how we respond.

No, it’s not easy. But what are your options really? But take heart – the good thing that follows taking responsibility is – freedom. Yeah, that’s right. Freedom. When you control your life, when you own it and you take action(s) to change it regardless of who is at fault, you become free. You become free because you are deciding what happens next. Suddenly all kinds of options open up for you.

For me, taking responsibility for my back and legs meant deciding to do more physical therapy, to swim, to work out, to heal. I was no longer a victim or a cripple. I was healing. I was in control of my life, calling the shots and becoming free. Sitting around blaming the person who hurt me wasn’t going to heal my legs or make me walk again.

The “Do something” strategy worked for me then, and has worked for me over the years when I remembered it. So now I’m remembering it. And I’m owning my situation – no car, no computer, no money. And I’m feeling very free right now. It’s so much better than the alternative of feeling like a victim.

What cards has life dealt you this week? What are you going to do with them? Sit on them? Throw them at the dealer? Or play the hand? I hope you play the hand.

I had to laugh. I had to. I have been interviewing people all week for several articles I’m writing on RVing. I spoke with three women today – two older than me, one younger. And they all said pretty much the same thing – “When I learned I could use a bucket with a plastic bag and some cat litter and an old toilet seat for an emergency toilet in my trailer, I was okay with the idea of camping.”

Folks, these are attorneys and government administrators I’m talking to. Women who wear pearls and high heels to work, women who spend more on haircuts than I spend on food every week. And they’re using buckets for toilets because it’s part of camping.

The thing is – when you use a bucket when you’re homeless – it’s sad, disgusting, unhygienic. But when you’re at an RV rally with 40 other trailers with no bathroom and you don’t want to make the trek to the bathroom in the dark (usually on the other side of the campground), it’s “an adventure.”

So yeah, I laughed. How odd we are. What strange meanings we attach to the simple acts of being human. How funny that having a home to return to that has a toilet that flushes can somehow reach out into the wilderness to erase the stigma of a bucket and a bag of cat litter in a cheap little trailer we call “home” for a weekend. When we play at living in a toilet and showerless 20-year-old trailer – it’s fun. When it becomes our only option, it becomes shameful. It’s not the trailer, now is it? It’s the poverty. Let’s stop calling homelessness a disaster. It’s not. Poverty is.

Photo credit: blondieb38 from morguefile.com

13 homeless kids will die today. And 13 more will die tomorrow. They will die of suicide, drug overdose, murder and exposure. That’s the average – 13 homeless kids in America die EVERY DAY. The ebook I started on “street smarts for smart kids” with how to find food, shelter and how to avoid predators and what to do if you are raped, mugged or beaten or sick along with how-to-open a bank account, and how-to-get a job won’t be written because my MacBook is a piece of SH*T.

The fourth power cord in four years just melted and I am on an OLD and very slow, but VERY dependable PC. I’m rethinking my decision to put in the FOURTH hard drive in the MacBook since it crashes so much I know it really wants to be run over by my van and put out of its misery. The power cord I ordered is coming from CHINA and won’t be here for two weeks – sometime in October.

I’m now on a PC that I bought before XP came out. A very generous friend GAVE me her copy of CS3 (license transfer), for PCs when she purchased CS5, but I don’t have the memory or speed on my existing PC to run it. I can’t do my usual work to make the $$$ to pay bills so I have free time to give to the causes I do. I can’t do the book for the kids because everything takes 6 times longer on a PC and the programs I use on here aren’t as fast and don’t have the same look as Pages on a Mac.

For four years Apple employees have told me I “have a lemon” and yet Apple has refused to replace the laptop – opting instead to replace parts - which costs me downtown and travel time and time away from work. I think now they didn’t replace it because they don’t make it anymore.

On top of that, the damn thing still doesn’t work. It never has and never will. I’m so tired of it and I’m tired of hearing other Mac owners say, “But I NEVER have problems with my Mac.” I do. I have TONS of them. I USED to love Mac. But now I see they don’t deliver.

APPLE CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS. They say, “Yes you have a lemon, but let us replace it part by part with stuff we know is buggy until your Apple Care warranty expires and you’re screwed and go away and leave us alone. We don’t want to be associated with homeless kids.” (remember, Steve Jobs was homeless once. He couch surfed and depended on the kindness of friends when he was in college. Maybe he’s forgotten what that’s like?)

I think I’m at the point now where I believe no one else really cares. Or they care, but can’t help. My creative efforts with the Haircuts for Hope project have stopped because I can’t finish that ebook, or work on the website. Thanks Apple. I can get on the phone, make calls, but I can’t create the book, not do the work that allows me to work on my pro bono cases. I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE THIS MACBOOK LEMON. I love the the software, but not the hardware – although I USED TO. My MacBook crashes constantly. I don’t understand. Apple is supposed to be so awesome but I get NOTHING from them. Any Apple folks out there willing to donate a WORKING Mac to this cause, or email or twitter Steve Jobs asking him to JUST fix mine? or to suggest someone who might fix it for free (I’ll buy the new hard drive)? I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for the kids.

“I don’t feel good daddy.” He put one hand on her head and looked down in concern before stooping to hug her.

“Okay,” he said, smoothing her hair back with one hand and feeling for a temperature. He kissed her forehead. “We won’t be long. Let me get these stamps and then we’ll go home.” She looked up at him and nodded. The line moved slowly forward. They stood, side-by-side until they reached the window.

She swayed and hung listlessly, reaching for his hand as he let go of her to pull out his wallet and pay for the stamps and hand the clerk his package.

They almost made it out the door before “I don’t feel so good,” became projectile vomiting – all over the tutu, all over daddy, all over the floor.

He stopped. He knelt down. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket as he watched her struggle with the next wave of nausea. As he watched the tiny mouth open he picked her up and held her up so she could vomit into the trash can. Her pink tutu trembled and he whispered in her ear and kissed the top of her head. He knelt again and wiped her mouth carefully with the handkerchief and found a piece of candy in a pocket.

“It’s okay,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sometimes people get sick. It’s okay. It’ll wash out. I’m worried about you. How do you feel?” And he wiped and he reassured and he calmly took a handful of paper towels someone handed him and cleaned up his fairy princess and himself as best he could, smiling kindly the whole time. Slowly, patiently. No rush. We’re okay. It’s all okay. And then he held her hand and they walked out to the car.

It is in the small things our love shines through.

~ Julian Antonio

Bitter and angry people actually choose to be that way. That’s my conclusion, and the conclusion of most therapists and counselor’s too. Who we are and how we view life is a choice. To be a victim is to invite life to dump on you. To be a survivor is to get through what life dumps on you. To thrive is to turn what life dumps on you into a feast.

I was talking to a friend the other day about being homeless. I was laughing about a lot of the really horrible things that happened and telling him what I learned from the whole experience. I was raving about the gratitude I feel every time I take a shower, or get up in the middle of the night and use a real toilet, or open a cold refrigerator for ice. More than anything else my year and a half being homeless taught me was gratitude. It’s nice. It makes the small favors I get every day so much richer. He listened for a moment and then asked me why I wasn’t bitter about my homeless experience. It kind of took me aback. “Bitter?”

“Yeah,” he said. “A lot of the men and the women I work with at (homeless shelter) are really bitter and I think they’ve got it pretty good. It’s not great, but it’s better than you had it. I want to know why they’re bitter – you’re not,” he said.

I said, “Hang on, let me get the exact definition of bitter and I’ll call you right back.” So I got on line and found out what places on the internet say bitter is:

“Bitter people are those who cannot get past the disappointments of their life. They dwell on them, hug them to their chest and make them the defining factor of their lives”

Or

“They lack gratefulness, are very self centered. When something good would happen to someone they were always so cynical, could never be happy for others. I just took it as envy and jealousy..these two emotions have been around since Cain. Dangerous.”

Or

“The angry person is seeking love and acceptance, but often they are so filled with anger, bitterness, strife, and jealously that love simply has no room in their heart.”

I called my friend back and said, “I’m not bitter because I learned from my experience and I let the bad stuff go…”

The truth is I’ve had a horrible life in terms of what others have done to me, and what has happened to me. Yes, I get angry, but I don’t hold onto the anger. I eventually forgive and forget, let it go and move on. I certainly remember the deed and the person, but I learn from the encounter and avoid them so nothing else happens. I’ve learned that hanging onto the past, reliving it, resenting it, blaming everyone and everything you come in contact with because you’re miserable only makes it harder to move into the future where good things are waiting – if you let them. It also chases away the very people who could help you find good things and want to help.

After we talked I spent the evening looking back at some things, and some people I met on the streets. And I have to say that of the people I knew who were most likely to continue to be chronically homeless, bitterness characterized them most. Even when people reached out to help they responded with bitterness and anger and resentment. They wanted help but there’s not enough help in the world to drown the anger festering in them. So people stop trying to help, which makes them angrier. I wrote them off as mentally ill. There’s no other word to describe someone who deliberately chooses to be miserable in spite of people around them willing to help, to show them a way out, or to listen. They tend to be paranoid -something which forms as a result of their bitterness and people’s reactions to them.

They may occasionally do a “good deed,” for someone – like share a bottle of water, or a sandwich, but the recipient can never be grateful enough, or return the favor in the right way at the right time – so they become even more angry, more resentful. It’s like they turn into bitterness magnets – attracting bad things, bad people and bad experiences to them. They are throwing gasoline on a fire and wondering why it never goes out.

So David, this is my take on what you’re seeing.

People become bitter. They aren’t born that way. Chances are the people you’re working with – the chronically homeless, the homeless by choice, are homeless BECAUSE they are bitter. It’s not something being homeless did to them. They were probably bitter before they became homeless. They probably lost jobs, lost friends, never connected, never recognized – let alone were able to take advantage of opportunities that came their way because they were so busy resenting the world and everyone and everything in it that they can’t see goodness when it bites them on the ass. I’d wager money on the fact they were bitter before they were homeless and their bitterness contributed to their homelessness.

Bitterness is a choice. They will tell you otherwise, but bitter people fail to take responsibility for their life, their choices, their thoughts, or anything that tells them they did something wrong or unwise. When you can’t admit you’re a big part of your own problems you’re not likely to change. So, as long as bitter people continue to keep choosing bitterness they will continue to be bitter.

A lot of happiness in life comes from having a belief in something – a belief that there is a plan, that God loves us, that better things will happen to us. Bitter people have no faith. They are certain that they’re the only ones in the world that bad things happen to. They’re very selfish that way. They even resent it when something bad happens to someone else because they’re so bitter they get jealous when someone else gets a rash of crap too! Strange, but true. Or, they secretly leap for joy at the misery and suffering of others.

Either way, bitter people have a sickness in their souls and I feel deeply, deeply, deeply sorry for them. The only way out of their miserable little worlds is through themselves – through a change of heart, a change of perspective and a change of thought, word and deed. They are the only ones who can decide to drop their resentment, their anger and their wounds and walk away from their pain.

David, keep being the loving, understanding and kind person you are – and hope that God works in them. Other than that? Re-enforce and love the ones who do see life has gifts and that clouds have silver linings. They need love and attention too.