It's About Time

Reflection on Creation

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara

December 2, 2012

audio link: http://www.ussb.org/mp3s/2012/20121202reflectionCBregante.mp3

A couple of weeks ago, my son Miles' teacher snagged me in the parking lot. I was just wondering, he said, why Miles is about 15 minutes late to class every morning. I stalled and tried to hide my blush. I've known this teacher for several years now. I wanted to say, oh, you know Miles. He's so absent minded and easily distracted, it takes him 15 minutes just to get his shoes on. However, while this may be true, it is not the reason why he is late to school. So I sort of gulped and said, I'd love to blame Miles for this, but it's me. I'm the one who can't get out the door on time. Then I made a vague promise about trying to do better.

I have a very slippery relationship with time. I am often breathless trying to catch up with it and, like a greased pig, it slips away from me all too often. I am a master of magical thinking when it comes to time. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, each new day I believe that I will be able to get everything done in the exact amount of time that proved to be insufficient the previous day (OK, the previous year, but who's counting). My relationship with time is like that definition of insanity: I do the same thing over and over again, but always expect different results.

This is not how I want to live my life of course, rushing from one thing to the next, always late, adrenalin coursing through my veins. If I ruled the world (god help us), everyone would be required to pause when they finished one activity before moving on to the next. Let's say you just finished a project at work. I would ask you to sit down in a nice, cozy armchair with a cup of tea or stretch out in a grassy meadow and watch clouds drift overhead. Perching on a rock overlooking the ocean would be permissible, as would twirling and dancing like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music (for those who just can't sit still). Gazing at a delicate flower, a grand tree, or a passage of poetry would be highly encouraged. Then I would have you close your eyes for a few minutes of reflection or meditation. Just breathe in and out and begin to gently guide yourself back to yourself. Only when you feel sufficiently centered and present, would you be allowed proceed to the next activity in your planner.

I am not in charge, however. The clock ticks on and I must play by the same rules everyone else does. But I do have some choices in how I relate to time. I can slow my pace just a bit and focus my full attention on what I am doing in any given moment, rather than trying to absorb my entire to do list all at once. As Sister Joan Chittester says, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. The tragedy is that we ignore so much of it in the interest of getting to the real stuff.”

The real stuff of every day is making breakfast, helping Miles find his shoes, taking a shower and getting dressed. It's going to my job and helping the disabled students I work with manage the real stuff of their lives, something that requires a special kind of attention to detail on both their parts and mine. The real stuff is a conversation with my daughter, Frances, about hair color or homework. It's walking the dog on the Ellwood Mesa and noticing the green grass beginning to poke through the grey. It's asking my husband about his day, it's making dinner and folding laundry.

I can do these things on auto-pilot or I can look at each of them as an opportunity to create a small moment of beauty, grace, awareness or connection. In an Op-ed piece for the NY Times Bill Hayes writes, “One can be alive but half-asleep or half-noticing as the years fly, no matter how fully oxygenated the blood and brain or how steadily the heart beats. Fortunately, this is a reversible condition. One can learn to be alert to the extraordinary and press pause — to memorize moments of the everyday.”

THIS is how I want to live my life: Alert to the extraordinary, aware of the beautiful hum of the ordinary. When I slow down, just a bit, just enough to pay attention and breathe more deeply, I create a sort of spiritual space, a place where relationships and ideas can grow, poking up through the grey field like the grass after the first rain of winter. Slowing down and paying attention invites creativity into my life. Because creativity begins with paying attention.

UU Minister Karen Hering writes, “For me, creativity is an act of slowing down. Paying attention. Taking time. Never doing in one day what could be spread out over seven, including a day of rest. It is no coincidence that this is also how I meet the divine.”

Why Don't We Just Start? (Revisited)

Reflection on Joy

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara

September 30, 2012

(includes "re-purposed" 

stories from earlier blog posts)

When I was in college I wanted a pair of low heeled red pumps. With a limited budget, I began haunting the Macy's sales racks, just waiting for the perfect pair of shoes to go on sale. I became obsessed with finding these pumps, certain that my life would be magically transformed and filled with happiness and fulfillment once I found them. Like Dorothy's ruby slippers, these pumps would take me wherever I wanted to go.

I developed a rich fantasy life around these shoes. I would meet the perfect boyfriend who would accompany me to art museums and cafes. I would find an amazing job with hip coworkers who would join me at coffee bars and happy hours. My clothes would be perfect, and I would never have another bad hair day ever again. My red pumps would lead me down the yellow brick road to happily ever after. I was so convinced of the power of these mythical shoes that my roommate Laura began referring to them as the “life perfecting red pumps.”

And then one afternoon I found them: A pair of size 8 Nine West, low heeled red leather pumps, on sale at Macy's. My heart soared as I handed my check to the sales clerk. No, I don't need a bag. I'll wear them home. I walked on air back to my dorm room, and my feet WERE beautiful in those red pumps. But alas, as time moved forward, my life was not magically transformed.

This is a silly story, but those red pumps became a metaphor for me. I began to see that I was a person who waited for people or things to come along and fill me up. I tended to believe that joy was outside of me, something that other people (or things) had the power to grant me. When I met the perfect man, I'd be happy. When I found the right job, life would be good. If only I had better hair or the right clothes, THEN everything would fall into place. I wasn't able to take even the first step toward finding joy until someone came along and put ruby slippers on my feet. But, of course, ruby slippers are only found in Oz. And wizards and princes only exist in fairy tales. Where, then, was joy found?

***

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to sing. When I was in high school I would come home after school and stand in front of a mirror with a hairbrush microphone singing along with Carole King's Tapestry album over and over again. I had every nuance of every song down. At night, when I went to brush my teeth, I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror imagining myself on the Merv Griffin show. Remember Merv? Well, Merv would ask me questions about my amazing talent and my meteoric rise to fame. And I would dole out brilliant and witty answers like candy. Merv loved me. The audience adored me. Why let reality muck up this perfect fantasy?

The truth is for years I mostly sang in the privacy of my bedroom. Painfully shy and terrified of failure and public humiliation, I chose to keep the dream of singing largely in the realm of fantasy. At times I even thought it was a cruel joke that I was born with the ability to sing, but not with the personality of a performer. (I am no Ken Ryals!) There were years I managed to convince myself that singing wasn't even really all that important to me. I sang along with records and in the car. I sang at a few friends' weddings and in choirs where I could hide amongst a herd of altos. But mostly I kept the longing to sing safely tucked away where it couldn't be tarnished by reality. Someday, I thought, someone will come along and lead me out of my shell.

When my son Miles was in preschool at Starr King, a group of parents came up with the idea of having a fund raising benefit at SoHO. A handful of parents with musical talent were invited to perform. My renditions of “Little Red Caboose” and “The Wheels On the Bus” were well known from leading circle time at the preschool, so I was invited to perform, along with my friends Mari and Jeff. I started to panic immediately.

In fact, for two months every time I even thought about that impending SoHO gig, my blood froze and my heart raced. For two months a low level anxiety was the background music of my day to day life. Except when we rehearsed. Every time Mari, Jeff and I got together to rehearse, something else happened, something that felt just the teensiest bit like joy. I loved harmonizing with Mari. I loved hearing Jeff come up with the perfect guitar arrangement for a song. I discovered just how much I loved sharing music with them, and it was a comfort knowing I would not be up there on that stage all alone.

The day of the SoHO benefit finally arrived. I was the poster child for anxiety disorders all day long. I couldn't eat. I couldn't concentrate on work. My breathing was shallow and my heart raced. I couldn't believe I had volunteered for this torture. How was this joyful? During the sound check I felt like a fraud. What the heck was I doing on stage at SoHO for a sound check? That's what real musicians do. When the sound tech asked if I was getting enough sound in my monitor, I had no idea what he was talking about. Any minute now someone would surely realize that I had no business being there and kick me out.

Finally we walked up on stage to perform. My heart was pounding, but I was also relieved that the months of anticipation were over. We started to sing and I relaxed a little. By the time we were into the second song, I was hooked. I was doing something I loved with people I loved. And the audience responded with applause and supportive cheers. I was actually enjoying myself. I was “in joy,” experiencing joy from the inside out, right then and there, fully present for it. When our set was over, I wanted to do it all again.

I learned something from that SoHO experience. Sometimes the path to joy is rocky and a little scary, especially if it is a path toward a long held dream. But I don't long for ruby slippers for the journey anymore. I prefer to walk barefoot, my feet touching the ground, feeling the sweet wet grass and the occasional sharpness of a rock on my sole. And I am no longer waiting for other people or things to bring me joy. Instead I am looking, really looking, both inward and outside of myself at what is already there. I have gifts to share and amazing people in my life. I have had all the ingredients I need for joy all along. But it's up to me to create it.

There will never be a perfect time to follow a dream. I continue to face obstacles to singing, some self imposed, some beyond my control. But I figure I have a choice. I can use those obstacles as an excuse. Or I can sing as much as I'm able to right now and wring all the joy I can from the experience.

Beloved educator and children's musician, Tom Hunter, begins one of his recordings by musing, "How to begin?" After a moment of guitar noodling as he tries to craft the perfect introduction to the song, he says to his fellow musicians, "Why don't we just start?”

Audio version:
http://www.ussb.org/mp3s/2012/20120930reflectioncbregante.mp3

Know My Name

Reflection on Dignity

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara

August 12, 2012

Deportees, by Woody Guthrie
performed by Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harris
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN3HTdndZec

reflection audio link:

http://www.ussb.org/mp3s/2012/20120812reflectioncbregante.mp3

The song, Deportees, is the story of a 1948 plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon that killed 32 people, four Americans and 28 migrant farm workers who were being deported back to Mexico from California. The farm workers were part of the braceros program of the 1940s through the 1960s, a program designed to bring in temporary, low paid contract workers from Mexico to harvest the fruit fields and orchards of California. Today these workers would be referred to (somewhat ironically I think) as “guest workers”.

During the time of the braceros, it was common to bring workers over the border from Mexico with intentionally flawed contracts (in English) so as to make them legally invalid. Following a season of backbreaking field work in California's orchards and fields, the braceros would ocassionally be rounded up as illegals because of the invalid contracts and deported without being paid at all. I do not know if this was the case for the victims of the crash over Los Gatos Canyon.

Everyone on board that 1948 plane crash died. News coverage of the event gave the names of the four American flight crew members, but referred to the migrant workers only as “deportees.” The Mexican victims were buried in a mass grave at Holy Cross Cemetery in Fresno. Only twelve of the victims were ever identified.

Woody Guthrie was outraged that these people were not identified, that they were robbed of the simplest measure of dignity, their names. He responded by writing Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) originally as a poem. And while he did not know the actual names of the victims, it was crucial to him that they have names in this poem. Goodbye to my Juan. Goodbye Rosalita. Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria. 10 years later a schoolteacher named Martin Hoffman set Woody's poem to music, and it became the song we know today, arguably one of Woody's most powerful and relevant songs.

I find this story heartbreaking, both for the individuals who died without their names in this particular incident, and for the fact that we still treat the people who harvest our crops with little dignity and respect.

I could continue this reflection by talking about the abuses and injustices with which we continue to treat our farm workers. And I could feel rightous about speaking out about these injustices. But the truth is, we all rob people of their dignity all the time. We don't always promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, as our first principle instructs us. Sometimes we forget that this principle applies to every person, not just people we like or agree with. We all rob people of their dignity.

I rob people of their dignity.

Whenever we group a bunch of people under a heading, be it illegal immigrants, gays and lesbians, Republicans, or Unitarians we must be very careful. While these labels provide a short hand for talking about a group of people in similar situations or with similar beliefs, they remove the individual identities of the people who make up those groups, making it too easy to stereotype. The names and faces of the people belonging to any group (with the exception of the most prominent members) are erased.

I do this all the time when I refer to the Religous Right or Republicans. I am quick to laugh at jokes made at their expense and to lump them into narrowly defined groups with little compassion, a people I view as brimming with hatred and self-rightousness. Granted, most members of the Religious Right, and probably even more Republicans, do not suffer the humiliation and cruel injustices faced by migrant farm workers. But that's not the point. What does it say about me when I am quick to crack a joke that might deeply offend someone I know? Someone I love? Because when I talk about the Religious Right, I am talking about people I love.

The Religous Right is my sister-in-law, Mary, who paints beautiful, delicate water colors of Texas wildflowers.

The Religious Right is my dad's wife, Nelda, who grew up playing the piano in her Baptist Church on Sunday mornings.

The Religious Right is my cousin, Rod, his wife Susan, and their four beautiful children who I share Christmas dinner with every year, and enjoy catching up with.

The Religious Right is my late grandmother, Effie, who loved to go camping, who knew how to laugh at herself, and baked the most delicious dinner rolls on the planet.

The Religious Right is my own father who loves me unconditionally, a man I can openly disagree with on politics and religion, but whom I will always love and who will always love me in return. My relationship with my dad is the embodiment of the words we UUs hold so dear: “We don't have to think alike to love alike.”

***

Last week's shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek Wisconsin made me think of Woody Guthrie. How would he react to this tragedy and the slow response of the media to report on it? What sort of poem or song would he write to remember the people who died? Would he write a song like Deportees that reminds us that Sikhs are not nameless faces, but our brothers and sisters? Would he remind us that we cannot fight hate with hate? As the son of one of the victims said, “My father used to say you could not put out a fire by putting gasoline on it.” Would Woody tell us that if we do not ask hard questions about this event, about race and religion, that we are in danger of losing what is best about America? At it's best this is a country where we can practice our various faiths, celebrate our many cultural heritages, and disagree openly with our politicians. These are things worth protecting.

I don't know what kind of song Woody would write, but we can be sure he would give the victims of this tragedy the dignity of their names. Goodbye Suveg Singh Khattra, Satwant Singh Kaleka, and Paramjit Kaur. Goodbye Ranjit Singh, Sita Singh, and Prakash Singh. May you always have your dignity.

On Wisdom and Reflection

Reflection on Wisdom 

Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara

Sunday, June 24, 2012

. 

If you prefer an audio version, click on the link below.

http://www.ussb.org/mp3s/2012/20120624reflectionCbergante.mp3

We all have stories. Things happen to us every day, big and small. If we make time to think deeply about these stories, to chew on them as we go through our day, we often discover that our stories contain wisdom. I like to use journal writing and blogging to reflect on my experiences. Here is one of my stories.

When I was offered the job as a Vocational Assistant for students with severe disabilities, I almost didn't accept it. In the interview I learned that the young adult students I would be working with were non-verbal and some were aggressive. They needed intimate assistance in the restroom, and there would be some lifting of wheelchair bound students. And I would be one on one with these students at job sites out in the community. Oh boy. I left the interview thinking, I hope they don't offer me the job. I'm not cut out for this. But they did and, with some trepidation, I accepted.

When I walked in the classroom the first day, there were six students, the teacher and two classroom aides. After about ten minutes, the teacher took me outside and gave me the rundown on each student, warning me about one in particular. Helene (not her real name).

Helene is nineteen years old. She has severe autism. She does not speak, but she understands. She is slow moving, but outweighs me by many pounds. When frustrated, she is prone to self-injurious behaviors such as hitting and biting herself, along with screaming and hitting or grabbing staff members. The teacher told me that I should ignore these behaviors if they occur. I should not express sympathy or concern or she would target me, increasing the frequency of her maladaptive behaviors. Back in the classroom I kept my distance from Helene, not daring to even make eye contact with her, certain that she would smell fear and come after me.

In the coming weeks I got to know the students a bit and I witnessed Helene scream and grab a staff member. The other staff members assisted Helene with all of her tasks, including the restroom. I was never alone with her. I noticed that other staff members were not very warm with Helene. And I supposed that detachment was what was called for in working with her.

Finally, my time came. The other female staff member went out on disability leave with a bad back and I, green as I was, became the senior female staff member in the classroom. This meant I would be the one taking Helene to the bathroom.

Well, the bathroom was one of the places Helene had the most trouble with. And it wasn't long before I got trapped in a stall with her screaming, biting her arm, and eventually grabbing the front of my shirt in a tight grip while slapping at me with her other hand. Foolishly I had let her get between me and the door, so it took some careful maneuvering to get myself out of the stall. Helene continued to scream and bite her arm while I waited outside, my heart racing. When she calmed down I helped her back to the classroom, shaking, but feeling like I had survived a rite of passage. I could do this.

That was two years ago. Through presence, patience, and persistance, Helene and I have built a strong relationship. We walk arm and arm when we go to her recycling job. I fix her hair and look at fashion magazines with her. After she completes her job, I give her hand massages with sweet smelling lotion. We listen to music together in the car and she smiles and rocks while I sing along. Although she is pretty much non-verbal, she does let out a good humored expletive on occasion. (This is considered “inappropriate” behavior, so I turn my head when I smile.) I compliment her on her clothes and tell her that if her green cowboy boots were in my size, she'd have to worry. I give her choices whenever I can, because she has so few in her life. I even know what type of guy she likes (it's all about muscles for Helene). She still has outbursts, but not as many as she used to. And when she does, I do not ignore her behavior (and neither do other staff in her new classroom). I assure her that she's OK. I tell her that I'm not going to let her hurt herself. And I tell her that I'm not going to let her hurt me either, because we are friends. I wait her out.

Helene does not talk, but I am learning to listen. And she has taught me a lot about about what it means to be fully human. Here is some of the wisdom she has imparted, all without uttering a single word (except for the occasional expletive):

• Everyone wants to be seen, really seen, and accepted for who they are. Pity only tells someone there is something wrong with them. As the author Temple Grandin, who also has autism, says, “I am different. Not less.” Aren't we all?

• Everyone wants to be heard. We want people to listen when we are upset, angry, sad, happy, confused. If we are having trouble expressing these emotions, we want someone to take the time to help us figure out what we are trying to say. Temple Grandin says, “I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.” I can't begin to count the times I have wanted to scream (and occasionally actually have screamed) when I just couldn't get the words out or did not feel heard.
  
  
  
• Everyone wants to be touched sometimes. Remember that when you are around someone who is maybe not immediately loveable and cuddly. A gentle touch on the hand can go a long way. How many times has a touch or a hug or a back rub been your saving grace on a bad day?
  
  
• Patience gives you time to really see, hear, and care for a person. Slow down and just be present with someone, fully present. And be persistant. Don't assume that what other people say about them will be true for you. Every relationship is a new beginning.

I am grateful to Helene and the other students I work with for reminding me of these things every day.

Wisdom can come from many sources, some more obvious than others. But whether it comes from a sage or from a young woman who cannot speak, I believe it's impossible to fully embrace wisdom without reflection. THAT particular piece of wisdom is something I have learned time and time again from so many people and experiences right here in this place. We all have stories. And in every story, there are truths and wisdom just waiting to be uncovered. Be present. Be patient. Be persistant. And take time for reflection.

Tangles

Hair is a great way to try on different identities. My own hair has been colored, permed, and cut into many shades and shapes. I know first hand, that no hairstyle is fatal. But when my twelve year old daughter, Frances, came to me and said she wanted dreadlocks, I was not prepared. Dreadlocks? Really? I stalled. Would she consider tiny braids? No, it had to be dreads. She argued that I'm always on her case to brush her hair. With dreads, she claimed, there would be no more brushing. I tried to explain that getting cute, non-rodent nest looking dreadlocks required more than simply tossing away your hairbrush, but she was adamant.

I'm not opposed to dreadlocks. In fact I like them when they're small and tidy, maybe with a few beads. One of the cashiers at my local Trader Joe's has tiny little dreads that she wears piled on her head in an artful knot. Some of her dreads are dyed magenta. She looks terrific. And I'm a huge fan of writer Anne Lamott who looks lovely and wise in her dreads. She describes them as being “like snowflakes, each dreadlock is different, has its own configuration, its own breadth and feel. It's like having very safe multiple personalities.” Still, it took consultations with many trusted friends before I took a deep breath and said yes.

Frances made me watch a Youtube video from a hair salon in Canada that specializes in dreadlocks. The stylist spent something like five hours on this guy's hair. And then went on to explain that it took up to a year for dreads to really take. Until then it was a matter of constant teasing and waxing the dreads. Frances asked if I would help her with this project. Hmm. Did I really want to spend the better part of a weekend ratting up my daughter's hair, only to have her yell at me that I'm not doing it like the video?

I was visited by two different visions of Frances as an adult. In vision one, I allow her to get dreads, but do not help with the process. In this narrative she remembers a mom who let her take a few risks and deal with the consequences. She is a stronger person for it, though not terribly appreciative of my maternal wisdom. In vision two, I eagerly help her with the dreadlocks. We spend the whole weekend locked in the bathroom with combs and beeswax. We tell each other secrets and laugh together. It's a bonding experience that she never forgets, a story of her mother's love and devotion that she will tell her children and grandchildren.

Call me lazy. I went with vision one. I purchased beeswax for her and sat in the living room while she teased her hair and became increasingly frustrated by how long it was taking. I helped a little bit with the hair in the back, but not enough to inspire memories of love and devotion and stories for grandchildren.

She worked on her hair for several days, spending way more time ratting it than she ever had brushing it. When I picked her up from school each day, moms would come up to me and offer sympathy. I developed a new mantra which I shared with anyone who would listen: It's not sex. It's not drugs. It's not tattoos or body piercing. It's only hair. Hair can be cut. Hair grows back.

After a couple of weeks of teasing, waxing and complaining, it happened. The dreadlocks actually started to look kind of good. And I had to admit they fit Frances' vegetarian, outdoorsy personality. She was a girl who played in the mud, climbed trees, hiked for miles, and was not afraid to get dirty. She was passionate about animal rights and shopped at the thrift store. The dreads were working for her. Some moms started telling me that she looked cute. They admired her self expression. Her friends thought she was cool and gutsy for getting dreads. Maybe this was a good idea afterall.

And then she got lice.

We were no strangers to lice infestations, Frances and I. Talk about a bonding experience. We had already logged many hours of “nit picking” during previous infestations. But lice AND dreadlocks? That was uncharted territory. Anyone who has ever spent any time wielding a lice comb knows that they have very fine teeth. There is no way a lice comb could make it through the tangled mass of a dreadlock. I didn't know where to begin, and Frances was devastated. There were tears and the sad realization that the only way out of this mess involved scissors.

Well, you can't just waltz into a salon and ask for a haircut when you have lice. You will be shown the door very quickly. And I have zero talent when it comes to hair and scissors. So I got on the phone to my Aunt Edna who owns a hair salon. She explained that she could lose her license for knowingly cutting lice infested hair in her salon. But she would meet us at my grandmother's house after work to see what she could do.

Later that day, after a lice shampoo, we gathered at my grandmother's house: Frances, her mother, two great-aunts, and her 96 year old great-grandmother. Aunt Edna took a good look at Frances' hair, lifting and examining the dreadlocks. As a stylist it must have taken an incredible amount of self-restraint not to pass judgment on what Frances had done and I had allowed. But whatever her thoughts, she kept them to herself. Slowly and carefully she began to cut. One by one she snipped the dreadlocks and Frances and I watched them fall silently to the ground.

But then Edna began to work real magic, shaping those jagged cuts into a stylish layered haircut. There were sighs of relief and gratitude. This was a good moment. We were a family, a gathering of women helping Frances on what will be a life-long journey of self-discovery. There will be other knots to untangle as she grows up. I will be able to help her work through some of them, but not all of them. This is one of the hardest lessons of parenthood: Letting go and trusting that your child will be ok without you. Hoping that she never finds herself alone with a knot too big to untangle.

When she was a baby, I held her tiny fingers in my hands and helped her take one awkward step after another. When I sensed she was steady enough, I let go. But here's what I hope she remembers. When she fell, there was always someone to help her up. She was surrounded by people who love her. All she had to do was reach out.

At age 14, Frances says she is glad she got lice before a more drastic haircut was required to remove the dreads. 

Half Full

“Some look and all they find
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one sixteenth full
I'm getting there, but the getting's slow.”

Glen Phillips

Released

Just the other day I looked at the glass, and I saw that it was half full.

This may not seem like earth shattering news, but for me it is life changing. For as long as I can remember I have been a glass half empty person. Even as a child. Even before my parents divorced, tearing a hole in my safety net, I looked at life from a small cautious place. I've always been a worrier, and on the obsessive side. If I were offered a free trip to Paris, I would immediately start worrying about how many pairs of shoes to pack and if I owned a warm, yet stylish, jacket. Lately though, I find that I'm a tad more buoyant. When I look at the glass, it is no longer half empty. Most of the time it is at least half full.

When I was in kindergarten I spent afternoons at our neighbor Martha's house, waiting for my mother to get home from work. Martha was a nice woman. She made my birthday cakes and, let me tell you, that woman worked magic with frosting. I especially remember the princess cake with the doll standing in the middle, adorned in a full length floral gown made entirely of sugary sweet icing. Once, she helped me decorate a cake that won first prize in my elementary school cake baking contest.

Yet my memories of kindergarten afternoons at Martha's are small and tight. I remember waiting anxiously for my parents. Of trying to sneak down the street to my house where my father, who worked the night shift as a deputy sheriff, was sleeping. Wrapped up in my longing for my dad to wake up and my mom to come home, I was unable to make something joyful out of those afternoons. I do not remember drawing or looking at books. I have no memory of bouncing a ball or playing with neighborhood kids. Only of waiting and longing. When my mom got home and my dad woke up, THEN my life could resume. It would be that way for a long time. For years I waited for someone or something that would enable me to really start living.

When I was in college I wanted a pair of low heeled red pumps. With a limited budget, I began haunting the Macy's sales racks, just waiting for the perfect pair of shoes to go on sale. I imagined how my life would be better somehow if I could walk through it in just the right pair of red pumps. Like Dorothy's ruby slippers, these pumps would take me where I wanted to go. I developed a rich fantasy life, one where I met the perfect boyfriend who accompanied me to art museums and cafes, my red pumps leading the way down that yellow brick road to happily ever after. My friend Laura began referring to these mythical shoes as the “life perfecting red pumps” as the weeks of my search carried on. When I found them, a pair of size 8 Nine West, low heeled red pumps, on sale, my heart soared and my feet were beautifully adorned. But, alas, my life was not dramatically altered.

It's a silly story, but those red pumps became a metaphor for me. I began to see that I was a person who waited for people or things to come along and fill me up. When I met the right man, I'd be happy. When I found the right job, life would be good. If only I had better hair or the right clothes, THEN everything would fall into place. I wasn't able to take even the first step toward joy until someone came along and put ruby slippers on my feet. But, of course, ruby slippers are only found in Oz. I had to learn to live in Kansas (well, California actually) without the help of a wizard whose magic is only smoke and mirrors anyway.

I don't long for ruby slippers anymore. I prefer to walk barefoot, my feet touching the ground, feeling the sweet wet grass and the occasional sharpness of a rock on my sole. And I am no longer waiting for my parents or prince charming to make me happy. Instead I am looking, really looking, both inward and outside of myself at what is already there. I have gifts to share and amazing people in my life. And damn if there isn't love and beauty all around me. I swear I did not trade in the life perfecting red pumps for a pair of rose colored glasses. I know that terrible things happen to good people every day. In fact, I am better equipped to really see the tragedies and injustices of our broken world now. You see, a few years back I began to focus on gratitude as a spiritual practice and I think it's starting to take hold.

To really practice gratitude, you have to be present for what is happening in your life right now, not looking ahead to the future. You also have to turn off what writer Anne Lamott calls radio station KFKD (yeah it's what you think). That's the station inside your head that tells you how misunderstood you are in one ear, and raps about what a loser you are in the other. When I can do those two things (no easy task), it's amazing what I find to be grateful for. In his book, Simply Pray, Erik Walker Wikstrom says, “Spending some time each day in Naming prayer – naming and noting the ways in which the sacred is moving in your life and reminding yourself of all you have to be thankful for – might just tip the balance toward seeing the glass (at least) half full.” I think he's right.

So, gratitude. Who knew that's what it would take to fill my cup? I keep asking myself if there is anything I can do to help my kids learn this so they don't have to wait until they're in, what my husband calls, their extremely late mid-forties to figure it out. I hope so. I want them to know that bare feet are far more comfortable than ruby slippers. And when they're thirsty, there's a big old glass right in front of them,and it's more than half full.