Tag Archives: gifts

She Won’t Remember Any of This

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Last night, we kept the TV on Max & Ruby.  I grilled hamburgers and boiled up some corn on the cob.  Carlos stomped around in one shoe while saying, “Cars!  Shoe!  Banana!  Hug!  All Done!”  Vivi and I made banana muffins with the new mixer.  She and G read a book called “100 Ways to Make Your Dog Smile.”  She asked the difference between a terrier and a bird dog, so I told her all about hunting dogs–terriers, pointers, sight hounds, retrievers.  I told her about the German Shorthair Pointer we had when I was her age, a dog named “Circles” for the three aligned spots at the base of her tail.  The TV sat silent.  Vivi made up songs about my favorite colors and belted them into a plastic Dora the Explorer microphone.  We packed her lunch for camp the next day–she chose strawberry milk, sour cream and onion potato chips, carrots, applesauce, ham and cheese sandwich and a couple of banana muffins for snack.

We didn’t talk about tornadoes.  Just like after Boston, when we didn’t talk about bombs, or Newtown when we didn’t talk about guns.  Or all the other days before that, when we kept the TV silent, those days where G and I shared long looks over the top of the children’s heads and whispered sadnesses behind closed doors.

lairFriday was her last day of kindergarten.  When I asked her what she thinks is her biggest accomplishment this year, she chirped, “READING!”  This weekend, G bought her a big stack of Junie B Jones books about kindergarten and first grade.  I think we both assumed that we would be reading them to her, but Vivi has other ideas, grand ideas.  She built herself a hidey hole under my desk on Saturday morning.  She filled it with two warm blankets, a pack of gum, a box for treasures, a couple of stuffed animals and her stack of books.  She calls it her “lair.”  She’s already tearing up the books and I am online ordering more, like feeding coal into a roaring furnace.  The Magic School Bus is in the mail.

Our town has sirens.  Our brick house has a basement.  There is a small room down there with cinder block walls and no windows.  She knows that when storms get dangerous, we all sit in there.  She needs to know that, but she doesn’t need to know…this.

I see her reading in her lair, cozy in her Sonic pajamas, with Pengy tucked under her arm and a bountiful lunch in the fridge, all waiting on tomorrow.  One phrase comes to mind:  “Shield the joyous.”

I haven’t participated in any kind of religion for 20 years, but after Richard died, my friend Robin gave me a red leather Book of Common Prayer from the Episcopal church.  She knows how I love words and poetry.  She wanted me to have the words that were said at our wedding and at his memorial.  What a gift Robin has been to my life.  There is one prayer in particular that she gifted to me, as I had spent so many sad nights alone in my house.

“Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, sooth the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.”

Many times (even if I edited it some to match my beliefs), I have read this prayer for Compline before bedtime and choked upon the words “weep,” “sick,” “dying,” depending on the time of my life.  Now I read it and choke back tears on “shield the joyous.”  This night, I am a mother and one of the few things I can do in this life is shield the joy of my children from the weary truths of this suffering world.

It can’t last forever.  There will be a time when Vivi and Carlos are old enough to know.  There will be times when we turn the TV on and set them in front of it so that they can KNOW.  I remember a time like that when I was 10 years old–1978 and the Jonestown Massacre.  My parents watching the news, as cameras panned over silent fields of corpses, bloating in the jungle heat.  Poisoned by their own hands because their leader told them to.  My mother thought that they should turn the TV off, that we were too young to watch.  I vividly remember my father saying firmly, “No.  You kids need to know this can happen.  You need to know about this kind of bullshit so you don’t get caught up in it.  Sit down and watch.”  He was right.  I’ve never forgotten it.

As Vivi was dancing off to bed last night, a thought hit me:  “She won’t remember any of this.”  She is turning six in a couple of weeks.  When I think back to six, I don’t remember much, just a general idea about life and how it was.  A couple of school memories.  A few friends.  There are a few pictures, somewhere at my mom’s house.  So Vivi won’t remember this day, those banana muffins, the songs we sang.  She won’t remember the tornadoes in Oklahoma because I shielded her from that.  I hope that she remembers that she was loved every second of her life by people who put a lot of effort into keeping her safe and healthy and happy.  I hope she knows that we kept watch over her while she slept, all for love’s sake.

The Reverend Lauren McDonald has written a lovely meditation on “Shield the Joyous” on her blog, Leaping Greenly Spirits.  She’s another one of those super awesome kids from the Governor’s Honors 1985!

Scientia Et Pietas

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Tonight I had dinner with my friend, Tara, who writes “I Might Need a Nap.”   There ain’t nothing in this world that two fishbowl margaritas (both mine!) and a three-hour talk can’t fix.  Well, maybe not full on fix but at least make a far sight better.

Pardon me, gentle readers–it seems that tequila makes me talk like Ellie Mae Clampett.  I shall clutch my pearls at myself forthwith.

We have known each other since Governor’s Honors in 1985 and we both ended up at Wesleyan College.  We talked about raising kids, the fish tacos in Hawaii, ICU waiting room chairs, Jesus, cheer moms, first husbands, high grass snakes, The Young and the Restless, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and churches that rely on PowerPoint.  We talked until my voice gave out.

I wrote this haiku once when I lost my voice:

I croak, squeak then try to speak.
My little one asks,
“Mom, are you leaving your voice?”
 

Word were new to Vivi at the time and she got “losing” and “leaving” mixed up…but dang if she didn’t hit on something.  I don’t mind the periodic losing of my voice–I’ve usually run it into the ground through excessive use, not neglect.  Losing my voice gives me a reason to hush, to rest, to listen.

But leaving my voice?  Oh, I’ve done that too.  Those are the times that make me sad when I look back.  The times I didn’t speak up for myself.  The times I didn’t ask for what I needed.  The times I left a question unasked.  The times I witnessed injustice and didn’t say anything.  Or the times I saw injustice and ONLY said something about how wrong it was but didn’t do anything to fix it.  Those are times when I left my voice.

Bare Bulb Coffee and the Women of Wesleyan...two groups that are changing the world for the better

Bare Bulb Coffee and the Women of Wesleyan…two groups that are changing the world for the better

As we were saying goodbye in the parking lot, Tara pressed a small gift into my hand.  She said, “We’re both red clay girls and I thought of you because this is made from red clay.”  I looked at the small medallion under the street light and thought at first that it was an alien head (might have been the two margaritas talking…and just for the record, I was walking back to my hotel on the other side of the parking lot).   Tara works with an organization called Bare Bulb Coffee.  It’s a coffee shop/community center/art gallery/church/social service organization with a Quiche of the Day and an actual plan for righting some of the wrongs in the world.  Nikki Collins McMillan is the Ministry Director and Head Percolator…and another Wesleyan Woman.

The shape on the medallion and the name of Bare Bulb Coffee both hearken back to the coffee farmers who grow the fair-trade beans used by Bare Bulb.  Tara told me, “In the homes in that region, you walk into their houses and there’ll be a string with a bare light bulb hanging down.”  I croaked, “Oh yeah!  My Grandmama Eunice had one of those over the dining room table!”  Tara replied, “No…that’s the thing.  There’s no electricity wired to the houses.  It’s just a string.  The bare bulb is a symbol of hope.”

On the Wesleyan College seal, the official motto of the college reads Scientia Et Pietas–“knowledge and responsibility.”  Tara and Nikki have taken their knowledge and translated it into service to those among us who are underserved.  I can’t think of two better examples of Wesleyan alumnae who are making a difference in this world.  They’re using their voices and that gives me hope.

Also on the Wesleyan College seal, the seated figure of Wisdom holds forth a laurel crown.  Above her, a ribbon bears the words “Niminum ne crede colori.”  The phrase is from Virgil and I was told back then that it meant “put not your faith in outward appearances.”  I’ve always interpreted this as “don’t judge a book by its cover,” but tonight when I looked up the translation again, it turns out that Virgil addressed this line to a lovely youth.  The words in their full context mean:  “Oh, handsome child, trust not too much in your youthful color.”  So I guess that’s more of a “pretty is as pretty does” or “looks won’t last, honey.”

These women?  Nikki and Tara?  They are women I first met when we were all handsome children glowing with youthful color.  They’ve grown older and wiser.  They give me hope.  They make me proud.  They make me want to do more with my voice.

In Another Life, 46.

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A few months ago, I wrote a piece about the circular nature of grief (A Tuesday Kind of Miracle).  When we lose someone, the path through grief is a looping line, not a straight one.  As the years pass, the loops become smaller and spaced further apart.  I ran headlong into one of those loops today and that’s how I found myself sitting at my desk sobbing into a Kleenex…all because of a typo on some paperwork.  Or maybe it wasn’t a typo.  In some world, it might be true.

It’s been eight years since Richard died.  I’ve slogged through the months and months of estate paperwork and had it all settled.  I hadn’t looked at that brown accordion file in years.  Nevertheless, at the end of 2012, I got a big envelope from the university where he had taught.  I inherited one of his retirement accounts, but I didn’t bother to open the envelope because all that was SETTLED.  I got another envelope…put it in same dusty stack.  (I know, I know, I know)  He ended his career as a professor of finance, so both of us had great retirement plans and aggressive commitments to our savings.  So I already had and have “My Own Money.”  When this account came to me after his death, I kept it separate for tax purposes and viewed it as my super duper safety net, a sad windfall.  Whenever the financial news got me scared, or I had a bad day at work, I would pull up that account online and take a deep breath.  That money was an extra egg in the nest.

(TAKE HEED:  If you ever inherit a retirement account, DO NOT roll it in with your own funds.  If you ever have to take money out in the event of an emergency, you can withdraw from the inherited account at a much lower penalty rate.)  (This message brought to you by the ghost of Richard A. Grayson, MBA, PhD.)  ‘

Well, one day after the beginning of this year, I was feeling kind of blue so I logged in to the account to cheer myself up.  The balance was $0.00.  GACK.  The image of those big white envelopes from the university came racing back to mind  Might have been a good idea to look in there!  I’ve had other estate related glitches (like the letter from the IRS that said I owed $86,543.78…that was a sphincter release notification).  I calmed myself down pretty quickly and opened the damn envelopes.  Yep, the university had switched investment management companies and I was going to have to do the paperwork ALL OVER AGAIN.

Damn it.

It took me a month to call Investor Relations.  Another month to fill out the Beneficiary forms.  Another month before I made it to the bank for the fancy Medallion certification stamp (who knew?).  Seriously, I haaaaaaate this kind of paperwork, even if it puts me back in my safety net.  ARGH.  Hate it.  Hate it hate it hatey hatecakes.

Now it’s been a couple of weeks since I mailed all that stamped and certified stuff in…and I get another white envelope in the mail.  I took it out today and opened it up to read that they need a copy of his death certificate.  Sigh.  While I was bracing myself to open up the big brown accordion file to find a copy of that clinical green document with Dr. Marrano’s signature and all those dates and codes and finality, I skimmed over the letter from the investment company.  I was listed as the primary account holder, with all my information as I had entered it on the forms.  Richard was listed as the secondary account holder.  And for some unknown reason, the form listed his age:  46.

He died at 38.  He’s never going to be 46.  Not in this world.

My late husband is growing older.

My late husband is growing older.

Thus the sobbing.  46.

For the first few months, maybe years after he died, I sometimes thought I caught a glimpse of him in crowds.  He was distinctive looking–5′ 4″ tall with reddish hair, an Irish tan, broad shoulders and a narrow skier’s butt.  His body was  beautifully proportioned and compact.  When we hugged, he fit right under my chin.  So if I was in a crowd and saw out of the corner of my eye a body shaped like that or a russet haired man with a bouncy step…I kept looking, out of the corner of my eye, and I pretended that it was him.  It was a way of hanging on to the notion that he wasn’t really dead, just NOT HERE.  I don’t believe in a heaven where this that is “I” and that that is “you” remain.  I believe more in the conservation of energy and the way our selves remain part of the great equation of the universe but not in any distinct being…but it will never be mine to know.  I do know that when you have to wake up one day into a world that no longer is home to your beloved, it’s easy to pick out pieces of them in a crowd and let your brain relax into the fantasy that they are still somewhere nearby.

But to think of him as 46?  Right there, in black and white on a form.  Stomach punch.

I once found myself on a train across Canada with the Cowboy Junkies and some of their favorite singers and songwriters.  One of them was Fred Eaglesmith–his song “Crowds” speaks to me when I think about Richard being 46, somewhere:

So I look for you in crowds
In train stations and bus stops
On sidewalks in the middle of the night
When I go driving by
Little churchyards on Saturdays
I check to see if you might be the bride
Hope you’re happy now
I still look for you in crowds
 

Forty six.  In another place, maybe, another life.  In a parallel universe, he is 46.  And maybe now and then, he misses me too.

Eight Million to One

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Yesterday, I told the story of the chalk portrait of Spencer Cox, drawn with such skill and love by Jose Luis Silva.  I’d tell you where to find it so you can see for yourself, but it’s already gone.

Why sweat over art that will be washed away before you lie down to sleep that night?  Why write stories and fling them into the digital winds?  What remains of the work we do?

I am a storyteller (genetically, historically, unabashedly) so I tend to attach roles to the people in my life.  (You’ve met Fartbuster, right?)  Spencer was “the AIDS activist.”  I know other people who are HIV positive or who have AIDS, but Spencer was “my friend who lives with AIDS.”  I remember where I was sitting back in the early 1990’s when I heard the news that he had the virus.  I was sitting in a dainty mahogany armchair with Queen Anne legs, mother of pearl accents and a pink taffeta seat that my mother had covered with scraps for my graduate school apartment.  That was the same year that Arthur Ashe revealed he had AIDS.  So Spencer was dying, then.   I filed that away.  I hadn’t seen him since college.  I didn’t see him again for years.

Then came the 20th year since we all met at the Governor’s Honors Program in 1985.  We had email by now and a reason to get back together.  I had a freshly broken heart from the death of my husband from leukemia.  Spencer knew a lot about watching people die, so we began to talk about grief and surviving and getting back to living.  I remember a time when he compared grief to the silt at the bottom of a lake–sit still and it will clear, let it sift down and you will see the glints of gold.  Grief will rest after a while.  Mud distills into gold.  He didn’t make it back to Georgia for the 20th reunion, but we were connected again and I was grateful for his wisdom about dying.  And I was grateful that he was still alive.  I had no concept of how much he had done to make life available to people living with HIV.  Really, no idea.  I thought he was a fundraiser or something in New York and wore an ACT UP t-shirt on weekends.

Then came Facebook.  The years collapsed into nothing and we were all back together again.  My Vivi stories convinced Spencer that they were soul mates and he looked forward to serving as her Auntie Mame.  We got together a few times and I joked that he was the only friend of mine who doesn’t get a lecture about quitting smoking.  He barked out a sooty laugh and said, “The cigarettes will NEVER have time to catch me!”  Oh, how we laughed.  Twenty years and he was still here.  I told him that he was the most interesting person I knew and he snarled, “Jesus, I’m a 40 yr old man who lives with my mother.”  He was 43, by the way.  What a luxury, to outrun AIDS long enough to lie about your age!

Spencer cox ACT UP marchWe did get to praise Spencer’s work before he died–there was the movie, the Oscar-nominated documentary “How to Survive a Plague.”  We who had loved him at 16 began to learn what a giant contribution he had made to the fight against the plague of AIDS.  Spencer had always been larger than life and now he was getting to tell his story on the big screen.  He changed his Facebook name to “Spencer Squeaky Cox” after meeting Sarah Jessica Parker at a showing of the film and deciding that he needed a catchier triple moniker.  He was so alive in those heady days of interviews and panels and premieres.

I knew it was bad when I didn’t hear back from him for a week.  Then I got two phone calls at work within minutes–Bryn and Debra.  I answered the second one because I knew.  He was gone.  I didn’t have a “friend with AIDS” anymore.

At the memorial in New York, the eulogists spoke in chronological order:  his brother, his GHP friends, a college buddy, early NYC friend, ACT UP comrades, his ex, his broken-hearted and furious apologist.  Spencer’s magnificent work unfolded before us.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.  The video tributes from Anthony Fauci, Anderson Cooper, Larry Kramer–talking about that boy I met in Valdosta.  Tony-winning composer Tom Kitt played the piano as his sister, Katherine, sang “I Miss the Mountains” and I sobbed.

It began to sink in that even as Spencer was gone, there were people in that theater who were alive today because of him.  The face of AIDS that I had attached to one person in my life was all around me.  Many men who sat there in the light from the stage and nodded with an understanding that glowed from their sharp cheekbones and careful eyes.  Spencer’s drive.  His passion.  His pig-headed genius.  He did it.  He got protease inhibitors pushed through.  He found a way to fight the plague.

I heard the eulogists say “eight million people are alive because of Spencer,” several times but that number is so large that it is impossible to envision.  Then the man sitting beside us turned and said, “I’m one of them.”  Eight million people living.  One man, living.  I could touch this man.  I did.  Not a handshake or even a hug.  With some reflex that came from deep in my heart and overrode all my polite training, I reached out and stroked his fine cheekbone.  I cupped his aging face like I was his mother.  I wanted him to know I was happy he was here.  Eight million….to one.

Short But Sweet

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My car smells like old french fries.  The bottom of the washing machine is filled with the fine gray sand of the Georgia coast.  Carlos’ little wrists are more tan than they should be.  Vivi’s curls have been tied in knots by the sea breeze.  Yesterday, we woke up to the sound of the surf and fell asleep to the sound of rain on our roof.

My newest happy memories were made with my oldest friends.  It must have been a Road Trip Weekend.squish

It was short, but sweet.  I’ll write more about the art at the heart of it tomorrow.  And maybe I’ll write about the man whose portrait stopped traffic.  There’s a “feet picture” story to tell and Vivi’s lesson on math.  For today, I can only think about the shortest and the sweetest member of our family–my son.

Carlos has been to the beach 4-5 times in his short life, but this was the first time that he was REALLY into it.  He squished his chunky baby feet across the sand and rolled around in rippling tide pools.  The wind blew so hard off the ocean at night that it wobbled his baby cheeks–but he couldn’t stop giggling.

luis and carlos

At our picnic in Forsyth Park, Carlos lolled around under the trees, stuffing himself with a celebratory amount of Chips Ahoy cookies.  If I offered him an apple slice, he shook his head and answered with his curt little “no!”  I handed him a sandwich and he reached for another cookie.  What the hell.  Why not?  He fought off his nap valiantly but chilled on Richard’s old raggedy bedspread (our family Adventure Blanket) for over an hour.  After Tio Luis finished the sidewalk portrait, he and Carlos sat and pondered for a while, like men do.  One of them enjoyed a beer; the other had another cookie.  One was covered in chalk and sweat.  The other in chocolate.

shivery

We went back to the beach for the evening.  Carlos learned that the wind is fun as long as you’re dry, but not so much once you’ve gotten wet.  That’s when it’s best to be wrapped up, snuggled up, loved up in a lap.  Even when his lips were blue and he shook with cold, he couldn’t take his eyes off the waves.  I remember a trip I took to St Simon’s on my own when I was about six months pregnant with Carlos.  I walked out into the water to cool down and that baby started flipping and dancing and getting down.  I stood there for so long, bouncing along with the waves, that a school of tiny fish started nibbling on the green skirt of my swimsuit.  That was a September, and the monarch butterflies were resting in Georgia on their long trip south.  Small things–the fish and the butterflies–small things with great journeys ahead of them, making their way across the wide sky, through the deep sea, into our lives.  My boy.

Happy Anniversary, Fartbuster!

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yellow rosesIt’s April 22, y’all!  Happy Anniversary to Fartbuster, wherever he may be.

We married in the backyard at my dad and stepmother’s house on a perfect spring evening.  Now, don’t be picturing some trailer park hoe-down.  Their backyard is SWANKY.  Boxwood hedges line a lush clipped lawn under soaring pecan trees.  Beside the midnight blue lagoon of the pool, bright clouds of pink and white peonies dance beneath a tumbling waterfall of yellow Lady Banks roses.  A yellow and white striped tent sheltered the buffet–cornbread and tomato bisque, pineapple sandwiches, and all sorts of Southern delights.  Sunflowers dotted the tables that were scattered around the pool.  My fairy stepmother is a genius at making things beautiful.

She planted 500 white tulips for the wedding.  But you know how it is with gardening…the Earth works on its own schedule and cares not for the plans of gardeners.  She called me about three weeks before the big day.  I could hear ice cubes tinkling in a glass of bourbon and the flick of a lighter.  She took a long inhale off her cigarette and said, “Heeeeeeey, Love.  You know those tulips for the wedding?  They’re GORGEOUS.  And they’re a teeeeeeensy bit early.  I swear, if your Daddy would let me use the pistol I’d walk out there in the backyard and shoot every one of their goddamn heads off.”

It’s fun to sit here today and think back to the wedding.  In the wake of the bad times that came five years later, some of the details of that day were overshadowed, but they deserve their due.  My mother made my dress for me and it was exactly what I wanted–a French lace bodice, eight layers of tulle for the skirt, with beaded medallions and seed pearls scattered here and there.  Wally played “Ode to Joy” for the processional and “Zip a dee doo dah” for the recessional.  My brother lugged chairs and tables and anything else that needed lugging.  The ladies of the garden club arranged flowers in silver punch bowls, crystal vases and anything else that would hold still.  Jan baked both cakes, lemon with white butter cream frosting in a basket weave and chocolate fudge with sugared grapes.  My sister made table arrangements of sunflowers and stattice and sent me off to the spa for a mani/pedi/massage.  She even wore dyed to match shoes and I still owe her an apology for that.  Mandy came down from Baltimore to read a poem.  Rhoda sent over a spray of green orchids.  Laura performed the service and would accept only a bouquet of peonies as payment.  So many people, so many hands, such light work.  It rained, then it stopped and everything was fresh.

The focal point of the backyard is a magnificent pecan tree, so that was our cathedral.  My stepsister had married in the same spot the spring before.  We called it “The Marrying Tree.”  Later, after two divorces, we renamed it “The Tree of Doom.”  When my sister got engaged a few years later, Daddy and Gay said, “Don’t even THINK about it.  We’ll cut it down ourselves before we let anyone else get married down there.”  They ran off to Vegas and are happy as larks.

I would show you pictures from the wedding, but I packed most of them up after the divorce and put them in the attic at my dad’s house.  I didn’t want to throw them away because they chronicled so much love (from the people who made the day possible), but I didn’t want them around me.   It might be time to dig them out.  I’d like to see my great Aunt Eula again.  She was always so dear to me.  When it was time for wedding day portraits, I had one taken with my grandparents (with whom she lived in a little spinster apartment) then I asked Aunt Eula to pose for a picture with me.  She lit up in her little pink dress and pearls and said, “I’ve never had a picture with the BRIDE!”  Later, when I threw the bouquet and they asked all the unmarried ladies to gather around, Pop hollered, “Get up front, Eula!”  She was about 80.  I did my best to throw it right at her.

In all the fuss and hubbub of that day, there are two moments that stand out in my mind, because they relate back to that idea of “When people show you who they are, believe them.”  There were so many words exchanged that day, and Fartbuster and I had chosen the words of our ceremony very carefully.  He said the vows….but they were just talk.  After Laura pronounced us married and invited us to share a kiss, I reached up to fling my arms around my new husband’s neck.  He held my arms down.  In the picture, he’s holding my arms down like I’m a lunatic and I might hurt someone with all that joy.  That was his first action to me as my husband–tamping down my enthusiasm.  When the pictures came in weeks later and I saw the awkward way he was pinning my arms to my sides, my heart was heavy.  But I buried that feeling and took what I got.  For a while.

I rarely think of that moment anymore.  This next one, I think of frequently.  It’s another case of a man showing me who he was and me believing him.  I can’t convey how hard everyone had worked to put together this wedding.  It was a feat.  A miracle.  A gift.  At the moment when Wally started playing the opening notes of “Ode to Joy,” my Daddy took my hand and tucked it into his arm.  We stepped out on the porch and I got my first look at the finished product…my wedding that I had dreamed about for so long.  I was overwhelmed by the moment.  It was my wish come true.  I whispered, “Oh, Daddy!  It’s perfect!”  He patted my hand and said, “So are you, Sugar, so are you.”

Some people hold you down.  Some people lift you up.  

Word Swaps: Have To and Get To

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Here’s a synopsis of my weekend:

“I have to drive to Macon for Alumnae Weekend, where I have to host a bunch of events.  I had to go out and buy three new outfits for all the parties.  I have to speak at a luncheon.  I have to come up with something to say to open the Celebration Concert.  After the concert, I have to run across campus to host a cocktail reception.  Then I get to go back to my hotel and crash.”

Parenthood705All of those statements are true, and it’s pretty much the way I’ve been thinking about a very exciting weekend that’s coming up. But that paragraph sure does remind me of  the scene in the movie “Parenthood,” where Mary Steenbergen and Steve Martin are discussing the fact that they might be having another baby.  He is being pulled away from the discussion.  She asks, “Do you really have to go?” and he moans, “My whole life is ‘have to.'”

Ugh.

This is a habit that I have noticed in myself and I think it’s a habit among busy grownups.  We mentally list all the things that we have to do, our responsibilities.  The danger of a “have to” mentality is that it places more weight on the responsibility of an event or a task and makes it less about the opportunity.

What if we swap “have to” for “get to?”

“I get to drive to Macon for Alumnae Weekend, where I get to host a bunch of events.  I got to go out and buy three new outfits for all the parties.  I get to speak at a luncheon.  I get to come up with something to say to open the Celebration Concert.  After the concert, I get to run across campus to host a cocktail reception.  Then I have to go back to my hotel and crash.”

It’s a verbal shift that inspires a mental shift.  Like that piece I wrote about calling yourself a woman instead of a girl.  The words I use to describe my life don’t just reflect my attitudes about life–they help to create those attitudes!

Yes, my weekend is filled with events that are my responsibilities as president of my college’s alumnae association.  The words I use to talk about them should honor the fact that they are also delightful OPPORTUNITIES!  I get to drive to Macon because G is taking care of the kids all weekend.  I get to host parties–the joy of an extrovert!  I am lucky enough to be able to afford some new clothes.  I get to talk into microphones and I do loooooove talking.  There’s music!  And wine!  And reunions!   Why am I saying “have to” when I am lucky enough to “get to?”

Sure, sure, some have to’s are just WORK.  It’s hard to say, “I get to have a biopsy!” or “I get to clean up this dog barf!”

Nevertheless, here’s my challenge to you today.  Listen to yourself talk.  When you hear a “have to, ” can it be swapped out for a “get to?”  If you try it, let me know how it went!