Six games in three days. Win all six and take a losing season into the playoffs with one more win next weekend. In the middle of it all, we were getting good at losing the close ones. Extra inning games that just didn’t go our way. The tough losses that should build character felt like they were doing nothing more than beating us down. Tired, weary, emotionally spent, we geared up for the 6 biggest games of the season. We were either about to create more lasting scar tissue, or we were about to embark on greatness.

One thing that has been nagging at me lately is the feeling of forcing things to happen, both in life and in the game. Instead of forcing it, I have been realizing how much easier it is to just let things go. They will happen as they will, with little to no effort or need to control them. They just are. And my ability to get that has changed outcome many a time lately. I needed to remind myself a few times that forcing things isn’t really the answer. Learning to let go of things we can’t control is always best. It’s proved to be what has brought my team to this place right now. It’s been an amazing ride on the roller coaster, but there comes a time when you just want to get off… it’s been enough. The ride needed to end.

I was in 8th grade when I took early morning music lessons with Mr. Petit at the middle school. I was the only french horn player in the 8th grade band at the time and they needed me to really get it. I started my music career with the violin in 3rd grade. I wasn’t so fond of it, so I changed to the clarinet and by 5th grade made the “super orchestra” which was comprised of the best from each of the four elementary schools in my town. At that point, I remember the band teacher asking if anyone would want to learn to play something new. For some reason, I said yes. I was quickly given a new french horn from the school and was asked to learn to play it.

Mr Petit taught me the feeling of flow. He asked me to play a note and hold it, allowing my lips to just relax and find the center of the note. It was the first time I understood how letting go as opposed to forcing it, was a naturally better path to success.

As a lifelong athlete, I also started to grasp flow when Carol Erickson and Dot Maver taught me how to let my arms relax when I pitched or swung a bat. It was so much easier to not fight it… to just let go and relax in both motions. I found quickly that I was fighting my own body when I wasn’t relaxed. I still do.

These past 3 days, I kept reminding my team to stay in a state of flow… allowing their body to just take over and to trust it to do what it was supposed to do. To stop resisting, stop fighting itself. Stop trying too hard, stop pushing to make things be a certain way. Instead, they learned quickly how to best allow things to happen by just letting go. We did something that three weeks ago we wouldn’t have done. We stopped fighting it.

I am learning every day how much this fits into life.
Days that feel off, we try to make something happen. Puzzle pieces that just don’t see to fit, we try to jam into place, bending corners and ripping pieces off. They still don’t fit right even though we ignore the damage.

Today was a nice, relaxing, rainy Sunday. I wanted to do work. I felt like I was being lazy by not getting a lot done… but then I remembered the thought of just letting things go. Enjoying quiet time, listening to the rain while I could hear college softball on the tv softy in the background. I took a nap… something I NEVER get to do. I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be today. I didn’t force anything, I just went with the flow.

Life is meant to live in that way… not fight or resist. I am enjoying the flow.

It’s a simple thought really. One that I could end on before I started writing. But so many times recently I got myself thinking about what Love really is. Why there is so much to say about it. And why we often fear it, and accuse it of being too “soft” most of the time.

I opened up a folding chair and put it next to Helen as her daughter Carolyn was feeding her lunch. The Tuesday routine is simple. The sectioned plate full of pureed chicken or turkey or whatever it is that day. Mashed potatoes or mac and cheese. Also pureed. And veggies of course. Like baby food. We have to read the slip attached to the tray to know what they are.
And then there’s dessert. Always dessert. No resident skips that part. Like the child inside who couldn’t wait for the end of the meal, the dessert is the best part. Helen looked bright-eyed and awake last Tuesday. She made a satisfactory noise every spoonful of Jello she swallowed. It was easily the highlight of her day.

I sat and smiled as both she and my mom ate their red jello. When Carolyn came back from throwing something away, Helen was still eating. She smiled with red teeth and lips and reached out to grab my arm. As she did, she looked at Carolyn and said, “this is my friend and I love her.”

For some reason, a rush of emotion came over me and I had to choke back the tears.

So simple. So sweet and real. Helen knows nothing about me, doesn’t even really know who I am there visiting or who I am. She just knows that I am her friend. She recognizes me as someone who smiles and laughs with her. And that seems to be enough.

Love. That honest and true feeling of connection. A self-giving emotion that creates more of it as it moves through itself.
Love creates more love. I don’t know what my first memory of it is or how it came to be a very real part of my existence, but I know of it well.

Growing up as a preacher’s kid, I equated a lot of what I learned about love to church services and family. I remember when I was in middle school, one of my favorite church services was Maundy (Holy) Thursday. It was the night before Good Friday. The service started rather normally, but ended in a way that has always intrigued me. In the middle of the service, my dad would get on his knees with a bowl of water and invite anyone who wanted to, to come up and sit in the chair and get their “feet washed.” It was a very symbolic way of cleansing; stripping away all of the impurities, getting ready for Good Friday. It was also a way for others to come and take my dad’s place in a servant role, kneeling in front of those who wanted to be cleansed. I always wanted to go up front and participate. It seemed to simple. So loving. Such a symbolic way of serving others and allowing them to serve in my healing.

I always regretted not doing it. I wasn’t sure I was worthy. I think back now and it almost seems silly to think I wasn’t old enough. I knew love. That is all that mattered really. I guess I didn’t realize then how much I really understood it.

After that part of the service, slowly and quietly, the altar would be stripped by the older women in the church who would take away the flowers and the candles and the silver. The draped cloths and decorative pieces were removed, one by one. The church would get darker throughout  and would become perfectly quiet and still. In the darkness, you could make out a barren altar where there once was life. The cross was even covered with black mesh draping. Death was moving in as Good Friday was upon us. This was a very moving service, as it would always find tears in my mom’s eyes as we slipped out to make our way to the back room where we would soon greet everyone after the service.

This would be what we called “Agape”… our representation of the last supper. The table would be lined with cups of red wine in the shape of a fish, the tail lined with grape juice for those of us who weren’t old enough to partake in the wine. In the middle of the fish was a long, braided piece of bread. As people came into the room, we would break bread with them as a sign of love, or agape. We shared bread with each other, also sharing a love that seemed so simple. The funny thing is I never really knew what “agape” meant until one night, on our walk down the hill to our house from the church, I asked my dad. We were carrying the leftover bread and bottles of grape juice and wine. The darkness surrounded me with emotion again that night.
He told me it meant love. A selfless kind of love that is shown when we give of ourselves. When we serve others without thinking of what we may get back.  It meant loving all of humanity, regardless of their place in our lives or their status in society. That sparked a conversation as we walked in the door and put down the bags. We stood in the kitchen talking about how deep that love could go. We talked about what it meant to love unselfishly, unconditionally. I told him I knew. He and my mom gave that to me everyday. I was 13 and felt like I understood. Easily and simply. Love just was. There was never a question.

I feel the simple love of a woman who doesn’t really know her own name, as she touched my arm last Tuesday and called me her friend.
And the deep love of my parents who taught me the simple act of Agape.
And the love that stretches in between from those I don’t know and smile at as I pass, to the homeless man I gave $20 to so he could have a roof over his head for a night.
And the love I feel when I look at the cherry blossom tree in my front yard today to the love I see in my dogs eyes as he falls asleep on the couch next to me as I write this.

Love is simple and deep. It’s strong and true. It is scary and soft and difficult to understand all in the same breath.

It is all I know.
It is all I am and all I ever want to be.
Unselfish and strong.
Simple and true.

I was leaving the event, tired and not looking forward to the long drive home. I wasn’t sure what to say anyway. Maybe I will just walk by and pretend I didn’t see her. No luck. I feel her tug my left jacket sleeve twice.
“Hi Jen.”
“Hi… How are you doing?”
“Ok, I guess. Or as good as could be expected.”
“I’m very sorry to hear about your mom.” I choked back a tear that seemed to travel to my throat instead of finding it’s way out of my right eye. Thankfully. She wouldn’t see it there. God knows I wasn’t really opening my mouth very much.

I hate talking about death. I hate losing people. I guess I don’t fear it, I just am tired of talking about it.

I guess…

Fear is a funny word. I think I just let it become more if a nuisance than anything. And I change the subject. A lot.
I thought  about the last time I saw her mom. She looked frail and thin. She was so pretty.

I looked down at my phone and told her I had to run… I was going to be late.
For what, I don’t know… but I knew it would allow me to leave without feeling rude.

If I was rude, I didn’t notice. And I hoped she didn’t either.

Time is always the best excuse.
Another tear got trapped in my throat… waiting to see if it was free to flow out.
“NO.”
I made sure it heard me.
The picture of my mom on my phone came up when I checked the time. Her beautiful smile.
Her gorgeous eyes. I turned to leave. Tear in the throat number three…

Again, that tug. This time my right sleeve.

“How’s your mom, Jen?”
“Tell her I said Hi…”
There it was.  The dreaded request.

“I will. Thanks.”

Off I hurried…. to no where in particular.

I went out to my car and sat there. Wondering where I was going to go, I looked at my phone again. Her eyes told me a story.

This time, the tear found the corner of my eye.
I kept fighting.

After 18 minutes, I started driving.

To nowhere in particular, I was doing 68 in a 55.
I was on a mission.
To nowhere.
Maybe it was me being lost.
Maybe I just wanted everything to go back to “normal”…

Maybe I had a need to see or hear or touch her.

Maybe, it was just that I wasn’t sure where I was going and felt like I would figure it out if I drove faster….

Maybe I was just in denial.

Life continued to whiz by me,  tractor trailers and buses in the right lane beside me. I felt like I was standing still.

Tell her I said hi….

Part of me wanted to say, no…. YOU tell her. But instead, I just hurried off so as not to be late.

For something. Nothing. Anything.

I just wanted to get out of the grasp of the tug.

So much of the beginning stages of my understanding my mom’s disease was denial. It was the realization that at the age of 29 I was told my mom was going to die a slow death in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything but watch it happen.
I just wanted to get away from it all.
I ran, I drove, I kept my mouth closed for a couple years.
I cried choked up tears and silent sobs. I wanted to make it all go away.

I wanted to hurry up and be ok with the process.

I barely went to visit. I was scared of what it would look like.

I didn’t want to be the one to tell her anyone said hi, let alone me.

Then it hit me…

I can’t control the outcome…. but what I can control is my process through it.

I can control how I react to it and what I do to make it easier.
Driving home that night I took a detour.

I drove straight to my parents instead. I wanted to see her. I wanted to be there. I wanted her to know I didn’t really run away.
I just was “Busy.”
And when I had enough, I would leave because I was busy.
I have kept busy. I have hurried along from place to place.
But one thing that has changed in my growing process through all of it is my ability to just be there.

I am busier than ever and have seen my mom more lately than I have since she’s been sick.

I am comfortable where I am with the process.

And I tell her hi… every time I see her.
Usually at least 18 times.

She looked out from behind the Local News section of the Bergen Record. “It will work out… don’t worry.”
“But what if…” “STOP,” she begged in her calm voice. “You don’t have to worry about it. It will all be taken care of. Sometimes you just need to have a little faith.” She turned to find page B4, where the story continued.
I slowly walked away, wanting so badly to ask again… to find out if maybe she would know or could find out when… If maybe she had known something I didn’t, causing my doubt and worry to creep in.
I did not want to miss out on a thing… I wanted to know. When my shoes would arrive? When dad would be home with the car? When we were leaving to go to dinner so I could make plans around it? How I was getting to practice? What did I need to do next weekend?

I carried that worry and the constant need to know what and how into my adult life. It became an anchor I would soon identify as my very own. It was a part of my perfectionism. I needed it like Linus’s blanket, or more like a long fall from a short pier. I needed to realize quickly that I didn’t really need it at all. The letting go was like pulling a bottle away from an infant who hasn’t eaten in 5 days. I clung to it as if I wouldn’t breath if I somehow rid myself of it. Letting go is sometimes the hardest thing we ever do in life. Even if it’s letting go of the very thing that is building the wall in front of us.

I found that wall pop up again as recently as a few months ago. In a very dark and deeply saddened few weeks, I allowed myself to watch as despair, failure, desolation, worthlessness, and fear laid each brick, piling higher and higher right in front of me. I watched and didn’t say a word. I let it build. Almost as if I was cheering on those very bricks that would soon be my cell walls. I certainly didn’t stop it.

And then I was reminded in one moment by one voice, that I was stronger than that wall. I was reminded that I didn’t need to let the cell close me in. There were only three walls… I could certainly retreat and go back out the way I came in. BUT… I tried to argue with failure by reminding him that I came from that way and if I go back I MUST be doing it all wrong. I tried to reason with despair, telling her that if I could just one time get it right, I may feel ok about myself.

Stress, worry, failed relationships and hurting friends and a difficult family situation is enough to set me on a path to become a professional brick layer. But that’s too easy. That’s where my belief could have led me. I could go down a path and built walls. Wondered what and how and when… and been happy on those so called “stressless days” and spent the rest of my time chasing my worries around the cul-de-sac of the next dead end road.

But belief won’t write my story. At least not the way I want it to read.

Faith is stepping out into the darkness and knowing, without question, that things will fall into place when you need them to the most. That the bricks will not know how to fasten to each other. The world ran out of mortar. And when the time comes to go over, around or through those walls, there is no question. We choose the roads without worry. We walk our path without fear. Despair fell after the last strong wind, and failure never even made it to the road the wall was on.

We choose our path.
We know life will give us one hell of a ride.
We have faith the ride doesn’t have to include a crash ending.

Faith is in the knowing.

And I don’t really have to explain it anymore…

My big blue 8 year-old eyes looked up at mom in the candlelight. The sounds of instruments and choir voices filled the walls from the front to the back of the church. Well, I assumed it did. I didn’t know anything about the back of the church. I actually knew nothing other than the front pew, first seat. It would be mine for 11 years at least.

I watched as a tear flowed down her cheek. And then another. “Mommy, why are you crying?” I whispered quietly, just loud enough for her to hear me, but not too loud to interupt the flute 6 feet away.
Her light blue eyes reached down to me, held me for a moment and then answered. “Because the music is so beautiful,” she whispered back with a gentleness that made me feel in that moment that I may cry too.
The music. The voice of the soloist was piercing. It was mom’s favorite Christmas song. And to this day when I hear it, I can’t often hold back the tears.

Mom always made sure she was in that front pew by 9:30 every Christmas Eve so she wouldn’t miss the music. I didn’t understand what was so special about it, I mean, it was only instruments and people singing, often in other languages. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying which made it harder for me to connect. But I sat there, quietly, listening. Watching as mom would cry every year. I would reach out and hold her hand, thinking that at least I could console her somehow. When I was 8, tears meant sadness. I needed to just hold her hand.

Mom and I had a ritual. When it came time for the sermon, I would lean over into her left arm and she would run her fingernails over my arms to tickle them while we listened to dad talk. It wasn’t odd for me to listen to dad talk, and often I wasn’t sure at 8 years old really what he was talking about so I just enjoyed the time mom would spend rubbing my arms. Dad’s words were often as powerful as the music and the voices. When I would see a tear on mom’s cheek, I knew it must have been a good one… whatever he was talking about. I would reach out and hold her hand. She would squeeze it back.
The second part of our ritual was after the sermon and the prayers and before communion. It was the Lord’s Prayer. That was our time. When I was really young and learning how to read, I would kneel in front of her and she would run my finger over the words in the prayer book so I could follow along. Some days my finger would almost burn from all the words we rubbed my finger across because we would do all the prayers that way. Other days it was just the Lord’s Prayer. After a while when I was older, she would reach out and hold my hand instead. For years, we held hands during the Lord’s Prayer. Even after I turned 30. No matter where I was in relation to her in the pew, or even in the pew behind her… she would turn and look for me and reach out her hand. That was our time. The connection I had with mom during the Lord’s Prayer is something that to this day I acknowledge. Tonight, I held my own hand. And just like after every time, we would squeeze each other’s hand and whisper “I love you” at the end. I hope somehow it was enough and maybe tonight she heard me. There has never been a time after saying the Lords Prayer that I don’t whisper to my mom.

I drove to Reading tonight to sit in the back pew and listen to Dad. I went early to make sure I was there for the music. I sat at the end of the pew. First seat. As the procession started to the classic first song on Christmas Eve, O Come all Ye Faithful, I stood and sang in the pew alone. As the cross and the choir passed, Dad would bring up the rear. As he got to where I was sitting, he reached out his hand to squeeze mine on his way by. I squeezed back. A tear flowed down my cheek as I whispered “I love you.”

I sat and listened to the music. I felt all of it. I listened to Dad’s sermon. The tears flowed. No arm rubs or hand squeezes. No pew so packed with family that we had to spill into the two behind us. No laughing so hard that the floor would shake. A totally different experience as life changes year by year. A quiet solitude that brought introspection and a deep love for all that I miss.

As I drove home, I listened to Christmas music. I looked at all the Christmas lights I passed and the beautiful luminaries that some streets had lit. And then, when I was five miles away, it came on the radio. That song. Mom’s favorite Christmas song. One of my favorite renditions of course. Josh Groban singing O, Holy Night. I sang with him. And through the tears i could see mom’s eyes looking back at me. And for a moment I felt peace.
Because the music is so beautiful.

I get it now.
“I love you.”

Merry Christmas.

I took a chance once. Who’s to say if it was worth it. Chances are, my deep emotions picked it apart. And perhaps I never really knew the answer…. or if there was supposed to be one at all… anyway.
I always knew I was different. Take that as you will, but I never really fit the mold of those around me.
My friends often wanted to contain me in their own pretty little boxes. I was embarrassing them, they would mutter under their breath. Don’t get me wrong, I was too self-conscious most often to be that wild and crazy, but pushed my limits in moments I felt I could. Made people laugh more often than not. All the while, cringing inside as my funny faded away. For some reason, I have often felt alone. In the depths of myself, I have felt like I was missing something. Maybe in my rush to fix things and people, I have neglected the true center of my world… Me. I, too, have often tried to put me in a pretty little box. So I could fit next to the other pretty little boxes in my life. It’s a lot neater that way.
This is not in any way a plea for a circle of people to make me feel my worth. I just want to really be authentic with what this means to me. I will try to let my words find their way through the often misdirected emotions and assumptions.

I have had plenty of friends. Close ones, deep ones, friends that knew when to smack me upside the head, and those that let me just be me. I have known there were some who just don’t get me. That’s always been ok. There are days I just don’t get me either. To say we all understand ourselves with never a question would be a rarity. And that, too, is always ok.

I believe it is in the learning process that we truly become what our definition of ourselves is. That changes, yes. But we define it in ways sometimes we don’t understand either. And yes…. that also is ok.
That definition often becomes skewed when we rely on others to validate it. In fact, how can it not? It is OUR definition first and last, and to allow others the power to create words around our very soul just seems… well, wrong.

Why can I say that? I have done it. Often, before I knew better, before I was older and wiser, hell, just yesterday.
I found my way back to the center of my world. I wasn’t drifting for long… I renegotiated with my WHY. I fought it at times, but I won. This time. The only time that counts.

I have a tattoo around the Apollo Butterfly on my left arm…. the words read “Be the Change.” It comes from one of my favorite Gandhi quotes, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I thought for a long time that meant that I should be the things that I feel are right, and ethical and true, the things I expect to see in others.
While that may be true, I found myself wondering more about what the “world” is that I am looking to change. The globe seems pretty big. And we all know the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

So I picked up the trunk first… Ok, maybe not the visual I am going for here, but I took my first bite. I wanted to give to others. Not the first time, and certainly not a hard thing to do. I created a food drive to help fill the shelves at the Coatesville Community  Food Co-op. Gloria saved my number in her phone. I just may be on speed-dial now. I brought truckloads of food to her warehouse and still have food to deliver. I found that audacity isn’t really that hard when you declare and proclaim what you are going to do. So I did. That’s one little world that I helped create change in.

As I look around me to find what else I wish to see change in, I couldn’t help but walk past my mirror with my eyes fixated on something else. I dodge my glances. I think maybe there are others who need help. I pick up the phone instead. There is a friend who needs to talk. I take care of some work. I have a feeling my dogs needs to go outside.
And then I see it…. the eyes that look back from the glass as I shut the cabinet door. I am fixated for a minute. I am lost. And for the first time in a while I see something I haven’t seen. I am allowing those eyes to speak. To let go of the things they have held so dear.

I walked to my laptop and began to type. My audacity today has allowed me to be quiet. I wasn’t really talkative all day. Barely saying anything to anyone. And that, in this moment, seems ok too.
I realize the silence is my process. I am changing. With that comes a cathartic experience I can’t really put into words. You can ask those eyes I saw in the mirror… That center of my world. Me.
I don’t choose to stay in this moment.
Through the deepest pain and the deepest joy, I accept that my fate is to feel things. And that… has to be ok.
I will change the world, small bites, then big bites, internally and externally…
And for all of those who scoff at my audacity to want to do so I say this…

I will. Check my mirror.

Lint, a small pocket knife, two quarters, three pennies, a lighter and an almost worn down chapstick. When I worked at my corporate job that was common. Then a few years after that, I went out on my own and started my own business. I was in sales for the most part. We all are. Every day. I carried with me 5 paperclips in my left pocket. Every sale I went on, every person I talked to that day about my business was one paperclip moved to my right pocket. I wouldn’t finish my day until they all jumped from left to right.
From March to May, most days are practice plans or lineup cards that find a home in my pockets. And a pen to make changes. Always a pen.
Then there is teaching. My keys to my office and my phone are held onto in my front right pocket until class is over. I don’t like them to fall out or take up space. Although when I sit, if they dig in, I place them onto the desk in my classroom. Then there is nothing. A place for  my hand when it gets tired of hanging there.
As of this last weekend, I added something to my pocket. I am carrying around my FTR creed which I wrote out and carry with me. Just reaching in and touching it, no matter what I am doing, is a serene calm that washes over me, one fiber of my being at a time. I feel like I am home.

The Great Depression was a time and place I have only read about in an 8th grade history class and maybe heard a few stories once or twice from my grandmother, harping on how bad things were when they were younger. There seemed always to be something to harp on…how they stood in line for bread or how when times were really rough, they put cardboard box tops in their shoes to make them last longer when they would wear out. I think I have heard my mother tell that same story. Or how I was out late the night before and made sure my mom knew what time I came in, or the fact that my elbows were on the table at some point last week. Oh nana, God bless you…may you rest in peace.

Bing Crosby sang a song written in 1931 during the depression. You may have heard of it… “Brother can you spare a dime”
It goes like this:

“They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead,
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; now it’s done. Brother, can you spare a dime?”

This seems relatable in these times. Things are hard for some people. Money is hard to come by. Jobs are few. Extra is not normal.
I think though, it is so much more about what we choose to do with the money we have. What we choose to spend our dimes on. What we choose to spend our time on. It’s all a choice. Obviously, when you have it to make choices about. We also choose what we can spare, what we feel we can give out into the universe on any given day. The “dime” doesn’t have to be money. It can be your heart… your words of inspiration, your gift of love to someone who needs it today.
So I am wondering… What’s in your pockets? And can you spare any of it? Is it holding you down? Is it what you need to survive tomorrow? Can you give it away? Or is it even what you WANT? OR… are they empty? Maybe tomorrow, you will try replacing the emptiness with a picture of your baby while you are at work to remind you of your WHY. Maybe you will make a to do list and carry it with you so you can make sure you get to everything you need to. Maybe you can find a way to make a healthy grocery list instead of just walking in and buying whatever jumps off the shelf at you when you are hungry. OR, perhaps you will write down the FTR creed and carry that with you too. So you can find new inspirations during the day to be audacious, to see yourself and others…. to be a nexus, to follow the Kaizen path. To change the world. One piece of lint, one paperclip, one penny, one moment at a time. It’s all we have. It’s our choice. What you put in your pockets is what you carry with you every day. You get to choose that.
Choose wisely.
So I will ask you again… what’s in YOUR pockets, Brother? And can you spare a dime?

End of October means falling leaves, pretty colors, raking leaves, cooler temperatures and more falling leaves. I can feel the change in temperature affect my body already. Not my favorite thing but not too much I can do about it. The colors are pretty. I will focus on that.

October also means Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Emotional Wellness Month, Global Diversity Awareness Month, National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and National Pop Corn Poppin’ Month. Yes, really. Important stuff. All of it. I have found the more I focus on the important stuff the more important stuff there is. Popcorn…. Pretty important stuff.
In the midst of all of the awareness we, as a society, need to have we also need to focus on the “other stuff” too. Things that aren’t life changing or difficult to sometimes talk about. Made the right way in the right company, I have found popcorn can, in fact,  be life changing.

I like awareness months. I like to discover what months are dedicated to what things. October also is Tackling Hunger Month, something that has always been near and dear to my heart. I have found it hard to understand how some people in this country can’t eat because they don’t have the means to. We take so much for granted, it often makes me stop to think and often find myself sad because of it. We eat what we want, when we want. We don’t often think of those who would give anything for an 80 cent can of tomato soup. I have collected food for food banks on many occasions, understanding after a long conversation with a woman who runs one, how much they rely on those of us who can walk through the grocery store at will. Who can pick up that 80 cent can of soup and give it to someone who hasn’t eaten today without causing her own family to go hungry. What if we all bought one extra can next grocery store trip? Could we imagine how many families we could help… Why don’t we? It could be as life-changing as popcorn.

As I walked into the Coatesville Food Co-op two years ago, I saw empty shelves. I heard the stories of those who rely on them to eat. I walked out with a hole in my gut that was so much stronger than hunger. I felt the need to do something. We ran a food drive at our old facility and it felt good to make the trip with a full truck of food to drop off. They were ecstatic. There were families who would now eat that night. I drove away feeling that hole fill up.

I still feel the desire to do that all over again. And it doesn’t take any special time of year or any special awareness month to collect food for people who need it. It just so happens that the school is running a can drive this week. I am on my way out to the store right now to do my part. I feel strongly about always giving when I can. How about you? That next trip to the store is as good as any to grab an extra can to give away. Just another step toward paying it forward… for life.

Life has a way of popping up when you least expect it to… Funny things, tough to handle things, lessons and sadness. People often surprise us. In both good and bad ways. And sometimes we fight through the bad just to have the moment of good we have longed for. These weeks get busy. But my goal when I open my eyes every day is to find where my energy is to go and give all of it unselfishly. When I stop keeping score, I am truly living from my heart. I have struggled in my life in many ways. I have been fortunate enough to have a strong “network” who won’t let me fall.

Last week I was driving to pick up a client from school for our afternoon together and passed by an older gentleman on the side of the road. He was sitting on the curb with a cardboard sign. So often I see this and want so badly to help with more than a couple bucks. I have heard people question whether it’s true or if people who hold signs on the street for money then go home after a days work and get a hot shower and have a meal while watching the game. I just don’t think that way. If someone asks for help, I want to help.

I had to get to the school by a certain time, so I pulled in and parked, still thinking about the old man on the side of the road.
When I got her, we drove off to our usual pizza spot to chat, knowing I would pass that spot where he was sitting on the way.
When I got close, I told her about the man I saw and that I wanted to see if he was still there. I pulled over the hill and sure enough, he was sitting on the curb. As I was pulling over, my eleven year old client reached down into her bag to take out a dollar to share with the old man. I knew I had a twenty in my wallet, so I took that out and together we gave him our $21 dollars. I asked if he was ok. He smiled and said that he just started receiving food stamps within the past week, “even though you can’t tell” as he pointed to his bony body. He was trying to find a place to stay for the night because the rain was coming. He usually stayed with a friend when he could afford it, but his friend was charging him $20 a night to stay there. He smiled and said that he was thankful to us that he would have a place to stay that night. He also excitedly told us that he just started working at a pizza shop so that will help him afford food and a roof over his head. He thanked us again, and then said “God Bless you.”

His sign read “Homeless. Hungry. I need help.”
I thought about it as I drove off. We talked about it and it became a great life lesson moment for us to discuss.
We went on about our day, but something about that man stuck in my head.
The simple sign, asking for help written in faded black marker on a tattered cardboard flap.

“I need help” is a courageous phrase, not only to say, but to write down in marker.

I drove home in silence still thinking about the man and the sign. Thinking about his courage and his smile.
Wishing sometimes that I had a faded black marker and a tattered cardboard flap. Maybe not to write those same words, but to ask for help, to ask for understanding and love. To ask for forgiveness from family and friends. To just handwrite it, whatever it is, so it wouldn’t be perfect.

We so often take for granted the things in our lives that have been there, the people who have supported us, the fact that we will be able to make it right tomorrow if we just don’t feel like it today. Sometimes we need to hold up our cardboard sign and hope the people around us can or are willing to read it. Maybe one of my biggest faults is that I have gone through life asking how I can help others more often than how they may be able to help me.
Maybe I didn’t give them enough of a chance to be that in my life.

I still can see the cardboard. I wonder if it made it through the last rain, or if the writing smudged.

The irony of a permanent marker may just be too much.

I have gotten about 20 or so emails over the past couple of weeks asking where a new blog was… I have been dragging my feet. So unlike me when it comes to writing, but so like me when it comes to my perfectionism. Here it is. I started this over a week ago, and kept walking away from it. Tonight, I am going to finish it. I am tired of walking away from what is inside me for
fear it won’t be good enough. Tonight, I am going to let it be what it is…
Real.

So my goal when I started writing these blogs was to write 60. I would then have my goal accomplished to create a book from what I have written. Since I was a little girl, one of my life’s goals has been to publish a book, something that could share my thoughts on life with others. Hopefully, once I can, I will publish it and feel one of my life long goals in my hands.

I haven’t written for over two weeks. I have been waiting… wanting it to be perfect… number 60. I wanted to make it really special. Then I was driving today and started thinking about the fact that the more I wait to write it, the less perfect it becomes and the more stress I have to make it so. I have been thinking for months about what this last one should be. What five words could bring it all home. Then I thought about mom, as always… and thought about something she used to say all the time. I found those notes from her that I have saved. The ones she would leave for me in the morning before I left to go to school. They were usually in my cereal bowl she put on the kitchen table for breakfast. She always had a way of reminding me of the little things. But now I know they were the most important things. Like taking the garbage out. I look at that now and I realize how symbolic perhaps that was. Often, it would be followed up with “do it now… if you do, you won’t forget.” That used to make me laugh. I wouldn’t dare forget or I would hear about it for a long time. But now, I find solace in those words. Taking the garbage out is right where I am in my life. I get it mom.

Often her notes were short but seem to have such meaning now. It’s like watching a children’s movie as an adult. It’s a new movie. One note said a few different things but included her “do it good” saying then ended with Love, Mom. I have carried that with me. So simple, but something she used to say all the time. “Do it good.” No matter what it was, she always wanted to remind me there was really only one way to do anything.

And it was about whatever I needed to do that day, or today, or on April 13th or any day I can think of, that was important. I should give with everything I have, and not do things with less. Mom was always good about reminding me of that. I want that
to be my motto for my life. Mom was also a grammatist and always corrected us when we used the wrong words or parts of speech. But she insisted on using “Do it good” as her way of reminding me that I had a choice of how to expend myself and my energy. There was no point in doing something if I wasn’t going to give all of me. I have lived that. And I honor my mother every time I
do.

I turned 38 a few days ago and it was one of the toughest birthdays thus far. I can’t really explain why, except that I don’t feel like I
have done it as “good” as I could have. My life story has had as many crescendos and decrescendos as anyone’s and I have certainly created, torn down, started over, built back up, almost every aspect of my life to date. More than once. My life has been anything but boring.

Birthdays always come around so quickly. I find myself wondering where the year went and what I could have done to maybe stop the passage of time a little bit. I have not yet mastered that feat, and quite honestly know I never will. It’s a nice pipe dream to have when 40 seems just around the corner. Ok, maybe not seems, but IS. The reality of that sinks deeper as I sit here listening to the crickets making sweet music outside my front door.

Do it good. I have made a decision as a matter of fact to not allow less from myself. Even though I feel I often give it much by mistake, or inability to maybe pull my life together at times. I do what I can with what I have. My choice is to do that good. Regardless. When I screw it all up and have to start again, I even screw it all up good… At least there was effort involved. I
feel like life may never make sense otherwise. I think that’s what Mom meant when she said “do it good.”

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 was melancholy for us all. A day we will never forget. Ten years that have changed us to the core of who we are and what we find and maybe do not find important anymore. Our beliefs, our morals, all tested. Who we want to be and the legacy we want to leave are so much more important today than maybe they have ever been. We are a country still mourning, ten years later. We are still rebuilding, still asking if we will ever find forgiveness. In that ability to at some point find the forgiveness to heal, I find comfort in knowing that we will never forget. I believe in our ability to heal and to fill in the holes, not with new faces to replace the old, but new faces to honor and add value to those who left this earth way too soon, and with no choice of their own.

I spent time last Sunday reading through the names on that list. All of them. A few I knew personally. The youngest was a 2-year-old on the flight from Boston. 2,819 people lost their lives that day. The estimated number of children who lost a parent in the tragedy is over 3,000. I thank God that my nephew wasn’t one of them. The love we give our neighbors, our families, our friends and even those strangers we hold the door for heals this country faster. I think Mom would be proud that I want to give that love to anyone who crosses my path. Honestly and truly. There is no excuse not to. And I want to do it good.

I feel a higher intensity when I yearn to give freely, love abundantly, and feel wholly. I am excited about the possibilities.
I am 38 now. I can’t stop time. And writing this tonight, I don’t want to. I am not going to worry about it right now. I am not going to worry about if this is worthy of being blog number 60. Sometimes, things are just as they are and the beauty in that imperfection is it’s perfection.

Right now what I have is a full heart, a strong will and an open mind. And whatever I do with all of that, it will be good. Always.

I have taken out the garbage.
I have loved “good.”
I have discovered a profound meaning in the little things.
I have learned that in the middle of my deepest pain, or my hardest fall, I have a voice inside my heart that whispers as loud and as long as I need it to.
The good I have learned about on a small torn square piece of scrap paper from January of 1991 will be the good that I will hold forever.
I may have, for the first time twenty years later, fully understood what she meant.
I thank you for your patience, mom.
I got it.

Love, Jen.