Age is a requirement. Old is an elective. And other things I learned at college last week.

Who can see the metaphor in this photo?

In a phone conversation with my college junior recently, I reported that he was over budget and asked what was going on. He reported that it had just snowed an inch on his North Carolina campus and because the administration had "freaked out over the snow," they'd cancelled classes, and so he and his friends threw a "snowpocalypse" party. 

And so he had to spend a little more on that. 

I'll bet all those morning commuters in NC who slid into each other on the way to work didn't  throw a party. 

Ah. Youth. 

A while back, someone in my writer group posted a question: when are we "old?" I thought about that, but not because age is troubling in my view. It is just unanswerable in my view, an issue of attitude more than years. 

I know everyone says that, but I mean it. I've known humorless thirty-year-olds who are older than whimsical sixty-year-olds. And while it's hard to describe the difference between an old and a young attitude, it's easy to observe if your four millennials range in age from snowpocalyse to married-with-a-masters.   

First, what youth isn't, is fewer years, or lines, or aches and pains, or better memory and vision. We aren't old if these things are going on. We're old if we complain about them, because nothing is more tedious.

And, we aren't "old" if we are no longer young. We're old when we feel we've seen the best of life already and don't bother to grow. 

Better to ask, what is "young?" Well, sometimes it's just offering a not-old response to a spontaneous opportunity for fun. 

It's this: 

We'd risen at four-thirty a.m. to catch an early flight from Boston to North Carolina to visit our snowpocalypse-throwing son, wishing to spend as much of our arrival day with him as we could.  We met him for lunch, and again for dinner at a "nice restaurant," after which, we planned, he would head to whatever-he-does, and we would head back to the hotel. 

But our son was eager to introduce us to his buddies, and had already invited them, and they'd already said "Sure!" and so he asked us to "come by at around ten" for a couple of rounds of beer pong before their actual party started at twelve. 

We would use water, he added graciously. "You don't have to actually drink beer." 

This could not have been less like whatever-we-do. We could have passed, we almost did. 

"We'll be there," I said. 

We went.
We stayed.
We played. 

The guys whooped and yelled when my husband got the ball in the cup and there was high-fiving when he and our son won, and then there was another round, and then I started asking questions about this and that, and then I said, "Can I try?" and five guys jumped in to advise me to "float, not toss" the little ball and use more wrist than arm, and so on. 

A little before eleven, we cleared out well in advance of actual party-goers who probably didn't want to see their own parents that night or anyone else's.

My notes from the plane:

Young is taking part in something fun even if it's hard.
Old is taking part in something fun if it's easy.
Young is looking forward to something that's even better.
Old is looking back on everything that's already happened as better.
Young isn't immature, young is energetic.
Old isn't tired, old is cautious.
Old cancels classes.
Young has a snowpocalypse party. 

The experience of hanging out with my son and his respectable (and authentic –  no pressure there to dial down the language in our presence) friends left us feeling lighter for having shed the parent cloak for a brief time, but mostly it left us feeling included in something spontaneous and happy and fun which, yes, felt like youth. 

What I learned at college last week is this: age is a required course.  But "old" is an elective.

Now go and organize a wine-pong party and act your age.

Everyone was once a five-year-old

Years ago, my very kind sister-in-law, Christine, taught third grade in a bad part of town. Many of the kids lived in poverty, some ran loose after school, a few had parents in jail. At one parent-teacher conference,  the father of one student showed up and demanded to know when his kid was going to be taught some f****** manners.  

I asked how she could tolerate people like this without getting angry or crying. She told me this:

"I picture them as a five-year-old."

What a simple and easy thing to forget. That, when the field of years beyond the very young ones still stretched ahead, whether we were privileged or disadvantaged, rich or poor, loved or neglected we were probably, still, universally compassionate.  

What happens to people?

A while back, I hurried to meet my mother for lunch. I was late, I was frustrated, I'd already texted her to change the time twice.

I found a space in front of the restaurant, opened the door and stepped into the path of a man walking by.  I didn't really apologize, I just rushed to the meter to pay. It was cold, I wasn't wearing gloves, and so on. The man  came up behind me. "Excuse me," he said.

I turned to face him and he adjusted his glasses, the way I've seen people do when they're about to assert themselves. He was around my age, ruddy-faced, a little taller than I am, and  thin. He wore a knit cap, a thin canvas jacket and he carried a backpack big enough for a couple of books. I thought he might be a teacher until I noticed that  his hands were scarlet from the cold, and his sneakers were ripped. He wore no socks. 

Homeless, I thought.

"I wondered if there was any way you could possibly spare just fifty cents," he said. "I can get someplace warm if I buy something," he explained, looking over his shoulder.

Fifty cents, I thought,  who couldn't spare fifty cents?  He looked put together,  like someone I might know in my own  community. Bookish. Like a science teacher. He had his teeth, his eyes weren't bloodshot. He didn't smell. So why was he here,  calling me ma'am and asking for change when he looked like he belonged at Panera?

What happens to people?

Like many assume about panhandlers at on/off ramps, I thought he was probably lying about the warm shelter. Fifty cents, I suspected, was what he needed to buy alcohol or cigarettes, or waste my money in some other way. 

I pulled my parking receipt from the meter. "No, I'm sorry, I don't have it." I said. He watched me for a few seconds, then walked on.

Across the street, another man was hurrying in the cold.  His shoulders were hunched and he was smoking.

My homeless guy called out,  "Excuse  me."

Without breaking stride,  the smoking man looked over and my homeless guy said, "Is there any way I could trouble you for one of those cigarettes?"

"Pay for your own habits," said the man, "That's what I do." He added over his shoulder as he passed,  "Don't waste people's time."

The homeless guy continued up the sidewalk. The other guy continued in the other direction.

"Sir?" I called to the homeless guy. 

He didn't hear me.
I walked behind him, back up the hill.

"Sir?" I called.

Nothing.

"SIR!" 

He turned, and I asked him to wait. "Sometimes, I'm in too much of a hurry," I said when I reached him. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, well!  Oh! That's okay," he shrugged, "No harm done! I'm just sorry to have bothered you." His voice was soft, accentless.

 I put a twenty in his palm.

"Oh..." he said, "This is more than...Oh, thank you, Ma'am. I'm sorry. I just needed something to eat, someplace warm."

I  told him I hoped the day would be good to him. I let go of his hands, and went back down the hill.

On the way into the restaurant, I thought about the way he'd welled up and I wondered if that was part of the act. I believed it was not, and I believed it was irrelevant anyway. Before he wound up begging for change, and enduring the scorn of strangers, and putting his hands and dignity last, he was a five-year-old. 

Some of us are born fighting the odds. Some of us are born sheltered from them. But every life starts with potential. If we are in a position down the road to help a person who has fallen, shouldn't we reach across the circumstances which have differentiated us, and conjure the humanity that unites us? 

If you are lucky enough to live in a community where people are struggling to come with up with real solutions to housing and rehabilitating the homeless, support them. If there are meetings where you can offer input, go, and give it. 

You were a five-year-old too. Who knows what happened to that kid who helped you back up when someone else pushed you down?

Writers: know your comment-bully

A writer-friend of mine recently published an essay in a well known parenting forum. In it, she considered the challenges her non-competitive child might face in the big wide world as he faces off with kids who have been groomed to "win."

I'll come back to that. But first, a word of support for parents of all children, new or grown:

Nothing makes parents fret like the big, wide world.

Our tiny people come into our little worlds and we fret. We fret about fretting. We fret about not fretting.We fret about projecting our fret. 

Then, they go to the elementary school world and we contain our fret. Maybe we stop fretting altogether. 

Then, they go to the high school world and we fret anew. Nails get bitten, faces get lined, tempers get tried, a good night's sleep is so elusive, we talk about it when it happens. 

But then...

Remember how masterfully you coped with labor, and how you felt when it was over and you discovered that in fact, you hadn't split in half? So too, will your children leave for the big wide college world and handle it so deftly you won't know if you fretted them into their successful transition or just fretted them away from disaster. Either way, you won't care because you'll be sleeping again and your face will look better. 

In the meantime, we have online parenting communities.

As published writers hope will happen, my writer-friend's thoughtful piece generated discussion, up and down.

And then... 

One called her a "navel-gazer," referred to her concerns as "comical" and  promised she'd screw up her child for life with her constant insecurity.  Another called her article a "fake mommy fail column" full of paragraphs of "meta-parenting self-righteousness." 

Not all comment-bullies are angry morons with limited vocabularies.  

The first time I was called out  by commenters like these, I had just published an agreeable little piece called "It's their nest too," discussing the differences in how men and women react to a last child's exit. It was not a divisive, provocative piece. It was as controversial as a weather report.

And then... 

In a couple of impressively worded, perfectly punctuated comments, I was accused of overstating the difficulty of the empty nest transition on purpose – for attention. It was suggested that I probably wasn't sensitive to my husband's experience at all, but resented him for not joining me in my "phony suffering." And, I was accused of wrongly speaking for the universe.That part was true.

Snarky as they were, these comments were polite compared to what many parent-writers experience. 

But these days, when it's not horrifying, I find the comment-think in these threads intriguing. I don't mean among  readers who disagree with a point,  or even those who get kind of hot when they make their own.  And I don't mean trolls who misspell their insults (which, trolls, game over). 

I mean the same, chronically fed-up readers who  appear in the same space, every day, as if by bus, who seem geographically mixed but advanced intellectually, and who revel in taking swings at the pinata-writer.

What do they want, I wonder, these articulate, often informed and mean-spirited people?  They don't want  normal intellectual discourse because they don't engage, they alienate. They aren't civil, they're hostile. They aren't  angry morons with the limited vocabularies, but they are troll-esque in their penchant for lobbing insults from behind obscure online identities that  in a million years, they wouldn't say to another parent IRL.

Some writers have learned not to take comments personally ( if they ever did), but it's counter-intuitive because they're meant to be personal.  And telling a writer, whose wish is to stimulate discussion, not to read the comments or be stung by a well-phrased insult is like telling a cook who has produced a grand meal not to be hurt when one guest says to another, "Well, that  really sucked."

Discussion is discussion. You want to be worth arguing with, even. But it's tiring to tease comment-bullies from the earnest, thoughtful ones. Much the way it was tiring to remember that your mother thought you were lovely when the mean kids were telling you that you were actually, well, other things. I feel for parent-writers in particular who are new to a national forum. They're harder on themselves than anyone and it's easier to believe wrong things before we choose not to.

Parent-writer friends, newly or oft-published, I offer this: when you get nicked, remember that we write because we have to and always will.  Comment-bullies don't care if we do or don't write, and never will.  They may not even read all the way through. What they want is a chance to push you from the swing, while their friends watch.

As my own comment-bully might suggest, they do it for attention. 

But whatever they do, and whatever you do, do not abandon that swing. Get right back on.

And then...stay in the write. 

Wearing jeans to the symphony and other ways to live out loud.

No, I don't lay out my clothes like this
every day. I just didn't feel like buying a
graphic and Gus wouldn't pose. 

I once received a card from my sister-in-law Christine which praised me for "living out loud."  It was special to be regarded that way, but it was also special because Oprah Winfrey hadn't yet started using the phrase every time she spoke, nor had it started to appear on every other cover of O Magazine.

I do live out loud. I lived out loud in particular two years ago, when I trailed a stranger in Boston to get the name of her perfume. She wrote it down for me on the back of a restaurant tab. I went home, looked it up, gasped at the cost, and half-seriously (half), put it on my Christmas list. When I received it I almost dropped and shattered  it in my half-shock. 

It's light and beautiful like a fragrant cloud and when I wear it I remember rich things I encountered before I discovered it, and those I have encountered since. I wouldn't trail a stranger for less. Once, I wouldn't have trailed a stranger for any reason but at some point, it was worth appearing odd to have that perfume. 

Which brings me back to living out loud. I am a person who has always dressed up for the symphony:  black dress pants, black heels, nice top, nice jewelry and of course, more recently, expensive perfume. 

A while back I would nudged my husband at the sight of someone in jeans and boots at the symphony and  said, "Nobody dresses up anymore. Nothing is special." 

A while back, I would have responded to the phrase of "living out loud" with, "As opposed to what, living in silence?" Because, years before I chased that stranger, I was that person - kind of jaded, kind of cynical,  kind of dumb and kind of smart. All dressed up and greeting the truth of simple, honest living with a snide response. 

I can't believe that I once behaved this way and still expected to attract friends, but anyway.

Along the way, enough to have earned that card, I've thought about this living out loud business, what it means and what it doesn't. Living out loud, is not about dressing appropriately for an experience meant for the senses.  It is about trading drama for grace and allowing hard truths to pass, while greeting and urging the gentle ones to stay.  It isn't about hiding behind correct formalities, but letting formalities cook off  so that the essence of experience can reach the senses. With others, it is about showing your belly, because any connection lacking the trust to do that isn't, as my father would say, "the real deal." 

It is about honesty. 

And so, I'm wearing jeans and boots to the symphony tonight. I'll add the nice jewelry and perfume, but I'm wearing jeans to the symphony. I'm going to listen to Brahms in my warm sweater and silky scarf. I will hear Don Quixote in flat soles and soft jeans. I will not be aware of the temperature while wearing uncomfortable clothes, or my correct posture in a too-small seat, and most of all, I will not be aware of whether or not I've won the approval of complete strangers. 

Living out loud is about remembering the best experiences with more heart than mind because your heart has perfect vision while your buzzkill mind is a keeper of information.

And, of course, it is about finding a delicious fragrance to bring it all back on demand. 

The magic of first babies

Magical Courtney

Twenty-nine years ago, our daughter Courtney Elizabeth Bonifant arrived and was handed to me swaddled and shell-shocked after a journey of nearly twenty four hours. I had two unique and unforgettable realizations: First, that this is what "complete" feels like. And, that I knew nothing.

Here was our tiny sweet creature, and here were our new lives changed with meaning I can't describe, and with fulfillment that was overpowering. Here we were, fumbling new parents fierce with the drive to provide and protect, weepy to know our unique importance to the life of another starting NOW. I realized I knew nothing, I realized I knew everything I needed to, for the love of Courtney.

Twenty-nine years later, our baby Courtney is a young woman who knows her mind and how to use it, knows her heart and how to honor it. She has found meaning in teaching others to bring music to the world, as she brought to ours, always and forever, the second we looked into those navy blue eyes.

For guiding us into loving like we never have, for showing us the meaning of parenting by heart, for helping us greet our instincts, and for showing us that what we needed to know, we knew before we met you, I have two words for you, Courtney Dollface, and they aren't Happy Birthday.

They are, thank you.

More than fourteen things I learned in 2014

"Wow, what a year."
---Writer cat, Gus Bonifant

With my entire being, I adore Christmas. I shake off stress, I smile, I hum, I hug and whistle off-key on purpose.  

Every 12/1, I slide papers and projects to the side and clear my schedule of all but essential appointments. I'm patient in heavy traffic and find the good in trying people. If I feel cross, I get over it. I tell people why I love them and leave 100% tips all over town.

I spend December panning for the best memories and this year's take was rich: an actual songfest around the piano (a few glasses of wine into the evening between us, but never mind), gifts that surprised someone into silence more than once, and cozy gatherings of people eager to be in each other's company. 

But enough is enough.

"You're welcome."

At the supermarket yesterday, and for the first time in six weeks, I didn't hear Madonna singing "Santa Baby" or yet another version of "The Christmas Song." I heard "Dancing on the Ceiling" by Lionel Richie.

 Good, I thought. Bring it. Bring all those other C+, tepid tunes from the seventies, too. Bring "Silly Love Songs, "Sad Songs" and "Reminiscing."

It is the big December morning after.

The refrigerator is full of foil wrapped items that are probably not "okay to eat" now, the unlit tree looks resentful, and the finally-silenced Christmas CDs are stacked and ready to be put back in a drawer which we will forget about immediately.  I am off restaurants for now and in fact, I believe I am actually craving raw vegetables today.

As our full house empties of people eager to get "back to normal," cheerful, easy spirits have gradated into the focused, all business mindset of jobs to do and places to be. New energy has begun to push us forward and the new year waits like an unopened gift.  

For now, and with hopes that you too, are remembering moments you could only imagine thirty-one days ago, I have been panning for the best things I learned – or practiced again – in 2014. 

Most of them have something to do with attitude. Not because attitude is important, but because attitude is everything.  

Herewith:

RELATIONSHIPS

• The best  relationship advice I heard this year came from writer-friend, Dr. Margaret Rutherford , a therapist who suggests we can end many of our relationship problems with one question which is here. Bottom line:  stop personalizing things that have nothing to do with you.
• If you're hurt, bring it up. If you're irritated, let it go. We don't forget hurt. We won't remember irritation. 
• The tiniest kind gesture can turn someone's mood and attitude around for a very long time. Think of that power you have. How  would it change your life to turn your own someone's mood and attitude around for a very long time?
•   Let people make you happy. Let them go to some trouble for you. When someone offers you something to make your life nicer don't hand it back with "No, you don't have to" or by downsizing a compliment.  Accept the offering if possible, say thank-you and mean it.
• If they ask for it, forgive people for things they didn't do on purpose and can't fix now. And if you've wronged someone, apologize.  "I'm sorry if you're upset" doesn't count.

COMMUNICATION

• When people give you unwanted advice, they aren't telling you what you don't know, they're telling you what they have learned. It's better to say "I can see why you feel that way," than to tell them they're wrong. You're both likely right.
• A mind can only expand by making room for the other side of things. You won't sacrifice your own point of view by understanding someone else's. Bonus points if you say this:  "So what you're saying is..." and then paraphrase correctly.
• When your gut feeling fights with your wish to be agreeable, defend your gut feeling.  It will give you back your bravery and with it, the confidence you need to do everything better.
• Don't interrupt. Everyone does it. Everyone should stop. I know someone who, when he interrupts, actually puts a knuckle to his lips so he won't keep doing it. Let's be like him.

PARENTING

• Don't punish yourself for the times you dislike parenting, or even the kids themselves when they're wretched.  Nobody is likable all of the time and our good and bad feelings exist to make us appreciate both. When they're most trying, you'd still walk into traffic for them and that's what counts.
• Embracing who and what our children are becoming can't happen without being willing to grow ourselves. It's one of the myriad ways they give back without knowing they're doing it.
• If you must  dwell on parenting mistakes of the past, don't forget context. Remember that there were circumstances which coalesced to make you into that huge jerk that you became for that brief time. Few people wake up and say, "I think I'll be a huge jerk today."
•  Be grateful that all of your parenting mistakes weren't worse and admit  them to your children.  Someday they will make their own mistakes, and they'll want to tell an approachable, knowledgeable person about them.  Be that person.
• The worst thing entitled parents teach their kids is how to be liked by a small population of very tedious people and vice versa, how to alienate large populations of people worth knowing.

PERSONAL GROWTH

• Don't ignore parts of yourself that you don't like. Fix them. Don't call the puzzle done when there are still pieces under the couch.
•  If you're aging and fear you're losing your looks, don't disappear with them. Remember: there were things about your nature and personality that made your mother love you when your teeth were too big for your face and you were cutting your own hair. There probably still are.
•  It's better to understand powerful things that only older people know, than cling to what you think you have in common with younger people.
• Be your own buddy. You have a 24/7 voice inside telling you the truth of things, including what you deserve. Don't let others talk over it. Don't confuse fear which hurts, with truth, which heals. It's time to find that inner peace you've been making fun of. It works.
• We shouldn't say we don't care what others think of us. Everyone cares about somebody's opinion. It's learning to ignore the right ones that frees us.   

Thank you for visiting in 2014  and helping me grow the blog. It is Worth Mentioning that many of you brought friends this year in numbers which surprised me into silence and I love you for that.

But mostly, I cherish the possibility that in some way, I've made your day, or any part of it just a tiny bit nicer.

Be loving, be safe, be happy in the coming year.

Love,

Susan

Here is my picture of the last sunrise of 2014
Everyone may be a writer, but clearly,  not
everyone's a photographer.

It's the holidays. Here's a tip.

Make someone's day.
It's the holidays.

When I was in college, I was a server at the legendary Durgin Park restaurant in Boston.  I only worked twice a week, but they were fourteen-hour days and it was excruciating to look at the clock at 1:00 and know I had nine hours left.

I tried hard, but I was terrible at it. I had trouble yelling, "Hot behind ya!", I couldn't deal with the sulky bartender's insults, and I couldn't do that stacking of plates thing on my forearm. The night I tried, one of the prime ribs I was carrying tilted, dumping au jus into the lap of a business guy who became furious and made me cry in the bathroom.

It was the penultimate serve of that long day, and the bill for the large party was sizable. My tip, of course, was $0.

The last party of the day left without paying and my boss took it out of my pay. 

It was the first and last time I quit a job without notice. 

A couple of years ago, I became writer-friends with Jacqueline Tierney DeMuro who maintains a blog called Ambling and Rambling , about the things and people she encounters as a restaurant server. Her writing is casual and comfortable and though her blog is sprinkled with posts not related to the serving industry, when they are, I read and think about her experiences. 

I only needed that one year at Durgin Park to develop a lifelong appreciation for restaurant workers. They work hard, they deal with countless aggravations, in the kitchen as well as on the floor, and even if most people are gracious and nice, one self-important jerk, one short-staffed evening, one wobbly prime rib can send a day toppling. 

Jacqueline's observations have only affirmed my respect for all servers.

It's the holidays. It's time to say thank you.

I'm proposing we all do something for our server community and for ourselves too, and it is this: pick a restaurant and take someone to lunch or dinner. Order as usual, and then, leave a 100% tip on the total. Then leave. Don't lurk, or wait by the door to be thanked.

Peering from the sidewalk is permitted, as long as you're not seen. If  you're the commenter type, come back here, report on your mission and get your praise coin.

I challenge everyone reading this blog today to do that, for two reasons:

You'll lift the spirits of whoever has served you, and who knows? You might be putting a small financial woe to rest for him or her. Equally important, you'll lift your own spirits to know you really are as gracious and nice as you tell your own kids to be. 

However and whenever and wherever, write out that amount, total it, draw a little picture of a heart, or a snowman or whatever, and be on your way.

But do it. 

It's the holidays. Say thank you.