Chronic Fatigue, long thought to be a “malingerer’s” disorder – something lazy people claimed to have when they didn’t want to work, is finally being recognized as a real disease with a biological marker. It’s an autoimmune disease – meaning the body attacks itself. The immense fatigue – much like what you’d feel at the height of a bad case of the flu, combined with the body and joint pains of Fibromyalgia, sucks, to put it simply. But it is what it is. My doctor believes the disease stems from severe childhood trauma (been there, had that). But whatever caused it, it’s pretty easy to say, “It’s not fair.” And it’s not. That and $400 will pay my rent. I’ve learned that whining and blaming makes it worse, not better. So now when I rest and feel discouraged I go online in search of inspiration. And I find it. Today I found Cha Sa-Soon.

Cha Sa-soon, is a 69-year-old woman who lives alone in the mountain-ringed village of Sinchon. According to the story in The New York Times about her, she recently got her driver’s license after failing the test 960 times. She got the driving part. It was the written test that she couldn’t pass. Her ability to read and write had to be overcome first. Even taking the audio version of the test didn’t work. But she didn’t let that deter her. She had to take two buses to the office where she could take the test. Missing one meant a two-hour wait. Persistence is a much admired trait in South Korea, and just about anywhere I’d say.

So when I read about Cha Sa-soon I responded to an email I’d been waiting to answer. I sent them the link to the story and wished them well. It won’t do any good. People like that just write back and say, “But you don’t understand. I can’t just do it,” and then launch into a long list of reasons why their age, their health, their lack of schooling and their childhood created a perfect excuse for not trying. People like that think you’re being “selfish” if you respond with stories about your own challenges, or if you point to others who have overcome blindness, paralysis or cancer or amputation to create a life. I don’t share my challenges to get pity. I share them to say, “Yeah, I really DO understand. I do!” Apparently that doesn’t penetrate some people’s anger over what they see as injustice directed right at them.

They are so focused on their own misery they become HUGE energy vampires and wonder why no one wants to be around them. So they complain louder, get angrier and drive more people away. It’s a vicious cycle. I know. I used to do that. I work hard at not doing it. One way is by realizing that accepting the cards and learning to play the hand dealt you is a lot more productive than anger, bitterness and whining. I do complain. But I don’t let it stop me. And I’m working on getting to the point where I don’t even bitch and complain! It’s coming!! I’m so much better than I used to be, but I’m not there yet. I’m a work in progress. But that’s why I write these blog posts. Because I want people to know it IS a process – and you have to persist – not resist the lesson.

The fact is persistence, not resistance, is how we all get through this thing called life. If you have a home, be grateful! So many don’t. If you’re on the street and you’re alive, you’re doing something – eating when you can, sleeping where you can, and doing what you can to survive, be grateful. You could be much worse off. And if you’re doing enough to stay alive, then you’re already doing the baby steps you need to succeed. I’m already doing it. No, I’m not as fast or capable as I used to be. I can’t work some days. But I don’t look at what I can’t do. I look at what I can do. It’s a choice.

Cha Sa-soon could have given up, said life wasn’t fair, or settled for riding the bus. But she didn’t. She needed the license for her vegetable selling business. So she just kept taking the test and taking the test. And she passed. All she wanted was the driver’s license, but her efforts inspired so many that Hyundai gave her a new car and put her in a car commercial. Her life is much better now because she focused on what she could do and did it.

“Her tenacity,” The NY Times writer noted, “has struck a chord with South Koreans, who are often exhorted to recall the hardship years after the 1950-53 Korean War and celebrate perseverance as a national trait.

“The country’s most popular boxing champion was Hong Su-hwan, who was floored four times before knocking out Hector Carrasquilla to win the World Boxing Association’s super bantamweight championship in 1977. His feat gave rise to a popular phrase about resolve: “Sajeonogi,” or “Knocked down four times, rising up five.”

We are all inspired by persistence, but rarely understand how truly inspiring effort is until we try and fail ourselves.

I have no great goals other than the ones I set and work on. Some days I can work longer than others. Some days are normal. I get little or no advance warning until I wake up. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I look at what I have, not what I don’t have; at what I can do, not at what I can’t do. I grieve the things I will never get to do, and look forward to things I think I can. Wherever you are on your journey – remember – I DO UNDERSTAND!! ANd I tell you, it’s persistence, not resistance. It’s not a race. It’s your life. Enjoy every precious minute you have. Even that can be taken away in an instant. All you have is NOW. Persist.

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.

“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.

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 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

“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.

Fleamarkets. Yardsales. Thrift sales. We’ve all been. And the thing I find fascinating is that with all the experts, all the collectors, all the people with the mind set that, “I might find a real treasure” – that so much treasure goes undiscovered. Not only that, much of what is true treasure goes home with people who hold priceless artifacts in their hands who bought it not out of knowledge, but because “it looked interesting.”

And so that multi-million dollar painting or that rare Ming vase will sit on a shelf, gather dust in an attic or be recycled back to another yardsale…as was the case of a rock quite a few years ago. (I apologize…I’ve searched for the news story but can’t find it to get all the details so I’m relying on memory…)

But the gist of it was a geologist stopped into a flea market and was looking around when he spotted a large rock in a shoebox. The sign said, $5. He told reporters later that his hands shook as he took the money out of his wallet and dug for a $5 bill.

“$5?” he asked the gentleman sweating in the folding chair behind the table.

“Yes,” the man apologized, “I know that’s a lot for a rock, but it’s an unusual rock.”

Unusual indeed. It turned out to be the largest blue sapphire in the world worth more like $5 million dollars. Yet the rock COLLECTOR didn’t know what he had. The GEOLOGIST did.

Somewhere in a small fishing village years ago villagers were angered when a dock worker stopped fisherman from cutting up an unusual catch. The worker, a college student, was working to become a marine biologist, making good money working summers at a fishing dock to earn tuition. He was quick to recognize a squid unloaded by a fishing vessel was one of the rarest and largest of a certain species. He stopped fishermen from chopping it up for fish bait and/or calamari and called a university with a Marine Biology program and saved the creature . To the fishermen it was a week’s pay. To scientists it was a priceless discovery.

Just last year a man had a childhood toy appraised only to find it was a million dollar artifact his archeologist grandfather had given him years ago. It languished in a shoe box under his bed for decades and was probably destined for a flea market as well until a an expert appraised it. Odd isn’t it? That there are so many ordinary things with extraordinary value all around us. And we fail to spot it.

Every day one of us tells ourselves, “I am remarkable. I am different, unique and good. Why doesn’t anyone notice?” Because my friends, we live in a world of rock collectors and dock workers, not geologists and marine biologists.

I have, on the one hand, a client who was thrilled to get my services for $100 an hour today. On the other – another client is screaming that I am charging $20 for a project I committed to months ago out of fear my rent wouldn’t get paid if I didn’t. Rock collector? Geologist? Dock worker or Biologist?

I ask, when we meet people what do we see? The “odd looking rock,” or the uncut sapphire within? We are all clamoring to be remarkable, to stand out…but as I wander the internet and the world I see rooms full of uncut gems, odd rocks, rare squids…. There are the polished garnets who want to be diamonds and the diamonds who think they’re only garnets. There is talent around me that I wouldn’t recognize if it bit me. I’m no better than the worst rock collector. But I do know to listen to my gut and to trust my intuition and if something or someone seems “interesting,” I go with it. I move in to take a better look.

But it doesn’t matter how remarkable or valuable you or your product/service is if you’re no more than an “interesting rock.” The world, sadly enough, is filled with rock collectors – not geologists. So how do we move beyond that?

If your sense of worth comes from the value the dock workers and the rock collectors place on you…it’s hard to believe you can “do better.”

We too easily dismiss the “odd,” or the “unusual” and go on in search of the cut diamond ourselves, yet we expect others to see our potential. I marvel at these stories every time I read them – stories of discovery but really more stories of rescue. We have a chance to be geologists and Marine biologists by spotting the rareness in each other. I hope you all take time to stop and really look at the “odd,” or the offbeat or the quiet ones….the “rocks” and squids and what looks for all the world like a battered toy and see their true value.

(Forgive me if I’ve posted this before. It’s one of my favorite blog posts.)

I just got back from St. Petersburg, Florida from the Poynter Institute’s seminar on “Becoming an Entrepreneurial Journalist.” It was an intense, week-long course on how-to-write a business plan, how to start a business, social media, and all the things you need to know to, well – to start a business. I met 18 of the most fascinating and talented journalists in the country – each with their own business dreams and plans. I can’t tell you what their business plans are, but I can tell you about the journalist…or in this case, the film maker.

Juanita Anderson is a veteran producer/director and executive producer of public television programming and independent media. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Studies at Wayne State University. Between 1982 and 1993 her work as managing producer of two of the longest running African American community based public television series – Detroit Black Journal and Say Brother (Boston), was awarded seven Emmys in public affairs, cultural affairs and documentary programming. Her work as a documentary executive producer also garnered a 1988 DuPont Columbia Silver Baton and a George Foster Peabody Award. A co-founder of the National Black Programming Consortium and board member of the Independent Television Service from 1998 to 2005, she has maintained a career-long commitment to the authentic representation of America’s diverse community voices in public media.

So, credentials aside we talked a lot all week – mostly about businesses, business plans and journalism. We’ve partnered to create a short ebook to answer the top 10 questions new film makers ask. But we need your questions. What do YOU most want to know about film making, documentaries etc.? Please just post your question in the comment’s section of this blog post. It can be a technical question, a script-writing question or anything related to documentaries. We’ll post the answers and the book here. So ask away!

FearJuly2010 <click on link to the left> Share it. Give it away. Read it. Post it on your own blog.

The question I get most from people, other than – “What should I do with my life?” is, “Aren’t you afraid?” I thought about it and the two really are more related than you’d think at first glance. Of course I’m afraid. We all are. That’s how we’re designed. Fear keeps us alive. Without fear how would we be able to associate love, abandonment and being turned out of our tribe to die for not driving the right car or using the right mouthwash? Seriously. Fear is part of our lives.

We’re afraid to be different. We’re afraid to be the same. We’re afraid to stand out. We’re afraid we’re not remarkable. We’re afraid of spiders, snakes, heights, death, being homeless, public speaking and clowns. We’re afraid we’re too young, too old, too fat, too skinny, too ugly, too smart, too dumb, too pretty, too plain, too black, too white, too ethnic, too out of it, too up-tight, too uncool.

We are afraid our partners will leave us, or afraid they won’t. Face it. We’re a fearful creation. We may push fear away with alcohol, drugs, the promise of sex or money, but it doesn’t disappear. It just shape shifts. A fear of being fat is really a fear of being shunned or outcast or not loved. A fear of being poor – same thing – a fear of loss of the things we do have that we fear are not enough.

Trace fear back to its origins and you find the same thing – the “lizard brain” those organs in our brain that used to warn us that tigers or dinosaurs or weather or threats were approaching in order to prepare us for “fight or fight.” Now it prepares us for the boss criticizing us, or our parents disagreeing with the way we live our lives, or our best friend’s comments about our wardrobe. That’s not what fear was intended to do.

Advertisers and marketers have twisted fear so that what used to look like a saber tooth tiger now looks like driving the wrong car, or wearing the wrong brand, or shaving with the wrong razor.

But back to the question. Am I afraid? You bet I am. But not so much of not fitting in, or looking silly, or challenging the status quo. I am afraid I will not be able to defend my boundaries, or that in a moment of weakness I will choose what is easy over what is right. I’m afraid that I will stop caring when I should care more. I am afraid that one day evil will triumph over good and I will be in its path when it does its dark, celebratory dance and it will crush me.

I do not hate fear. But I respect it. And I think we should. I also think we should listen to it and learn to tell when it is telling us a Chicken Little story, or when it’s pointing out that that friendly neighbor has a lot in common with the serial killer in that documentary we just watched.

Be aware of fear. Know where it comes from and how to stop it, or at least how to live with it in such a way that you can enjoy life around you. Fear is finite. We control it with our thoughts. We can, in time, learn to talk to it and reason with it rather than run screaming from whatever boogie man in whatever shadow it points to. That’s why I wrote this book on fear. It’s for writers with writers block, but the principles are true for anyone. And it’s free. I’m not selling it. I’m just sharing it. I just want you to think about fear and it keeps you from doing. See it as something you can control – because for a lot of us – with the right training, diet, practice and insights – we can control a lot of our fears. Consider this the first step into self-exploration. Because – that’s what it is.

Download it and enjoy. And thank you. If the link isn’t working – email me. Thanks!

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about dancing in the rain.”

My power was off for about 30 hours recently. I lost most of the groceries in my small fridge, but thankfully all that was really in there were cans of Slimfast! Several other families I know weren’t so lucky. They’re already struggling financially and losing a freezer with a month’s groceries was just one more straw on the growing pile.

My whole life seems to revolve around email and the internet since I mostly work online. Without power my only alternative was to work from my laptop in a hot van since the library didn’t open until 10 a.m. Too hot to sleep. Too hot to work. But not too hot to drive around the country side with the breeze in my face, so I did.

I stopped to get gas and a cup of coffee at the local gas station. It was packed since it was the only station in 20 miles with power. I anticipated the gripping and complaining and wasn’t surprised to hear it all around me this morning as customers complained to clerks and each other. Some areas regained their power and others did not and the “fairness” of it was a major topic of conversation. My area did not get power. After the hospitals, nursing homes and apartment complexes industrial and retirement areas were near the end of the list. There was a lot of anger and frustration as people’s days dawned dark and hot, but there was one guy who prompted me to find the quote I did and to write this post.

I’m not going to be a Pollyanna here, but I am going to point out, as I like to do, that how you think about what is happening to you can change what happens after the bad stuff goes down. The guy who inspired me was someone I ran into at the gas station early this morning. He was laughing as he told the clerk “Power outages are God’s way of telling me to go fishing.” Seems instead of bemoaning the fact the power wouldn’t be on until noon that was all the reason he needed to take a few hours to hit his favorite fishing hole. It was like a kid waking up to snow and thinking “No classes!!”

“I can’t get anything done at the office, so why get angry? It is what it is,” he grinned. “And I can worry just as much in my boat as I can sitting in a hot office in the dark.” He grabbed his purchases and headed off. He planned to fish until about 10 or 11 when the fish stop biting anyway, and then head back in to see if the power was up. It’s my guess that when he returned and the power was on that he was in a much better frame of mind and would just work a little later or better to make up for the so called “lost morning.”

I like his attitude. The looks around the cash register (the stores did have power, the industrial area where I am, did not) were ones of envy. “Oh, how I wish I could do that,” I saw people thinking.

What he did, and what I strive to do is to learn to dance in the rain. It’s why I got out of the van to look at the stars at 3 a.m. With no lights around for 40 miles they were brighter than I’ve seen them in a long time. It’s why I got up at 5 a.m. to drive to the library so I could stop at the bridge that crosses the James River and watch the sunrise. I was up anyway. Might as well enjoy it!

Are you dancing in the rain? Or cursing it? You might want to try to find a reason to splash in the puddles. Something bigger and better might come out of fishing rather than sitting in a dark office, or star-gazing instead of tossing and turning in the heat of a night without air-conditioning. It’s up to you.

“He thinks the girls are stupid and gives us lame assignments. I’m bored. I think he hates women,” she was saying to her friend while the mother picked out fresh veggies.

I got it that she thought she had more in her, more brains, more possibilities, more brilliance. But her teacher didn’t and her mother didn’t – or if she did, she didn’t think it was safe to express her thoughts or emotions. Rather – she encouraged her daughter to dumb herself down to be accepted. Bad advice. It bothered me. I heard and still hear the same thing – “Dumb yourself down if you want to be liked. Stop sounding so smart. You intimidate people.” It’s kind of like how the Chinese used to force girls to bind their feet so they couldn’t walk because they felt large feet were unattractive and small feet were beautiful. The girls had no choice. If they didn’t bind their feet they weren’t accepted, rarely married and were shunned.

Beginning around the age of six a girl’s toes were broken and her feet were bound with cloth. Every day the girl’s feet were bound and rebound. The mother would tighten the bandages, then make the child walk back and forth until all the toes were neatly tucked under the foot. The government didn’t outlaw this practice until 1958. It’s hard not to recoil in horror at the image of the foot binding. However, when mothers and family and friends and society does the same to young women by asking them to “bind” or restrict their minds, souls and passion for learning, for exploration, for risk and for life – they’re doing the same thing – just with the spirit and mind and soul. The damage is even greater because the binding, if successful, hurts the girl and everyone who might have benefited from her intelligence and passion. The only thing more heart-breaking than loved ones attempting to bind our minds and spirits is when we ourselves impose limits upon ourselves. There’s a wonderful quote about this:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?… Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson

I still fight the tapes in my head from years of hearing, “Girls can’t do that. Girls shouldn’t do that. Let the boys win or they won’t like you. Don’t be so intelligent, you’re intimidating. Better to be liked than to be smart.”

The next time you get a chance to encourage a young girl to explore and push the limits – please do. And the next time you think you can’t do something, or should be quiet, or not risk speaking up – do. And if you can’t, think about the foot binding. Is mind binding really so different? I think not.