Wrong You Are: There Is Always Try

“Do or do not. There is no try.”

---Yoda

 

Ok, who am I to argue with a tiny Star Wars puppet that is beloved by so many, but…sorry my little green friend, you are so wrong. Because we are on this frustrating pandemic times calendar shift, it’s finally graduation season. Well, at least it is at my house. If I might just brag for a quick second, since December, my daughter has held a co-op job at a medical practice, passed the state boards for cosmetology, passed the state written and practical exam to be an EMT, and passed the national EMT license exam. She also navigated losing her last season of track, kept up with her duties as a class officer, and arranged college classes for the fall. I mostly stood by watching, and occasionally writing a check. The rest was all her.

 

Sure, that is a lot of doing. However, if you think there was no trying behind that, you’d be wrong. Like all of us, she tried, tried, and tried again. Also, like all of us, some of what she tried didn’t work out so well. And so it goes. We were chatting about everything that’s coming up for her in the next few months, and there will be a ton of choices she has to make. It’s daunting when you think of it.

 Last week I talked about decisions, and the times we have to choose between multiple options, even when none of them are ideal. There’s a big decision coming in November, and it’s going to be wicked hard for me to look at all the facts, search my soul, and try to pick the right one. So far, I think carrot cake will be the winner. Come November 6th, my birthday cake will be carrot cake, with cream cheese frosting. Decision 2020, made.

Kidding aside, I know that the Yoda quote is supposed to be inspiring, but honestly, it’s not for me. It's like this. I’m a big fan of space exploration. The research, the cutting-edge technology, the going where no man has gone before and all the rest is exciting, and, in my opinion, crucial to our survival. The Star Wars movies get that. Sure, it's fiction, but they show us that there’s so much out there. Truly, we should be looking skyward every day and finding new ways to get to, “infinity and beyond.” Space exploration starts with someone, somewhere, saying, “What if we tried this?” If you look back at the very beginnings of NASA, there were a lot of attempts that, well, flopped. Did we stop trying? Nope.

 

As we look toward schools reopening, the economy righting itself, and a political landscape that seems fraught with peril around every corner, it’s important to remember how to try. We need to think of new ideas, even ones that sound a little off the wall. Before this year, who would have thought of a drive-by commencement? Who could have conceived of a virtual baby shower, via a Zoom video call? An event I always love to attend is Harrington Reads, at Harrington Elementary in Lynn. I get to meet young readers, authors, and educators and share what they love about literacy. This year, it went virtual. All videos, posted on YouTube. It was that or cancel it altogether. Someone was smart enough to ask, “What if we tried to…” and then made it happen. That is try. It leads to doing, but first, there is try.

 

So far no one has asked for my advice on any of the conundrums we are facing, but, for the record, here it is: There must always be a way to try. No doing can happen before we dare to try. If you’re job hunting, try looking in a field you might not have considered. If you’re facing a decision on whether or not to send your kid back to school? Try it, see what happens. If it’s not the right move, move on to another option. My father was always spewing forth what he thought were incredibly wise words. Some were, and others, not so much. One of my favorite pieces of advice from him was this: “Brenda, the only part of your life that will be carved in stone are the dates on your headstone. Everything else is up for grabs. Try it all. If one path doesn’t work, go another way. You’ll get there.”  He was so right. Let’s keep trying.

 

 

Were Those The Days?

“Nostalgia. It’s delicate but potent…It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.” – Don Draper, Mad Men, AMC TV

Mad Men was the best show I’ve watched since The West Wing, and that is saying something, because I am a huge Wing Nut, and can quote whole episodes in their entirety. I am a child of the Mad Men era. My mother was a stay at home mom, as were all the moms on our street. They hung out laundry, did dishes, made weird Jell-O mold salads for church suppers, and were often found counting up Green Stamps and lighting up a Lucky Strike. My mother raised my brother and me in those few years after the fabulous 50s, but before the social uprising of the 1970s. My childhood was all about Saturday morning cartoons, toys with lead paint, dresses for girls, pants for boys, and all the expectations that went with those distinctions.

I still live on the street where I grew up. When we moved here, there were more than a dozen children the same age as we were. We roamed the streets like feral animals, prowling around the playground, hitting the beach, riding bikes, and going on adventures in the woods along the train tracks. Neighborhood schools meant the kids that lived near you, were usually in school with you, and I’m lucky to still have so many friends from that time.

While you don’t have to have been brought up the same way to be friends with someone, it’s true that birds of a feather do tend to flock together. The other night, while sitting in my back yard having socially distant drinks and snacks with two childhood chums, it kind of hit me. There we were, three fully grown, extremely capable women, a few kids between us, decades of careers and shenanigans behind us, and who knows what ahead of us. We are all the product of being raised in Irish Catholic homes, so we all had similar memories of Easter dresses, with matching hats and gloves, meatless Fridays, church every week, and the same two choices for every meal…eat it or starve. Yet, here we are, so very different from the women that raised us.

We are modern women, but we came from women that, while amazing, did not have the opportunities and experiences that we enjoy. We own houses, condos, cars, all on our own. We don’t have to ask a husband, or a father or a brother for permission to do anything. When we want something, we go after it. Now, our mothers were not shrinking violets; Mary, Ruth, and the other Mary were incredibly strong, unbelievably wise, and truly the best examples of parenting anyone could imagine. However, they came of age in such a different environment.

How can women who were not allowed to open a bank account on their own, or have a mortgage in their name, raise confident women that, not to brag, are pretty much running the world? So many women who married and raised families in the 60s were told what to wear and how to act. They were funneled into “pink-collar jobs” and working wasn’t about career advancement but rather a nice way to spend some time while finding a husband. They were denied so much of what my friends and I take for granted, and yet, they still pulled it off. They produced fabulous children that are literally changing the world for the better, and they did it while dusting, baking, and hanging cloth diapers on clotheslines.

We look back with nostalgia on those years. We go through photo albums of faded Polaroids, and we smile at the silver Christmas trees, the avocado green kitchens, and the shag carpeting. Do we really want to go back though? Of course, I’d give anything to have my mother, Mrs. H. and Ruthie here today, because there is so much I never got to ask them, but there’s no way I could be a 60s housewife. Looking back on a period of time and fondly remembering people and places is one thing, but I would have failed miserably at being a mother in the Mad Men era. Being raised by one, however, has been a very good thing.

The Times They Are A-Changing

“Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.”

--Bob Dylan

This song came up on a playlist I found on Spotify that included the songs that were popular in any given year. I chose 1964 because it’s the year I was born. Also, the last half of the 1960s fascinates me because while it was a tumultuous period in history, in so many ways, it’s also a period where my memories may or may not be accurate. It’s like I have to know what was really going on then. My parents are no longer here to tell me about what it was like having two small children toddling around while world leaders were being shot on a regular basis, some students had to go to school with armed guards around them, and, to make it interesting, astronauts were hopping around on the moon.

Change can be scary. The character of Sheldon on the show “The Big Bang Theory” is an extreme example of someone resistant to change, but it’s probably fair to say we all have a little Sheldon in us. We have our favorite spots in our favorite places, we delight in the familiarity of having a coffee, or a sandwich made just the way we like it, every time. How many of us buy the same flavor of yogurt every week? The same kind of chips or the same brand of cereal? Sure, that strawberry kiwi flavor is excellent, but would a couple of containers of peach mango kill you? So maybe you like those three little hyperactive guys on the Rice Krispie box, but take a step outside your comfort zone and have a bowl of corn flakes once in a while. Don’t be a chicken; buy the rippled chips instead of the same old kettle cooked and take a walk on the wild side.

OK, enough about the groceries, because Bob Dylan wasn’t talking about your weekly trip to Stop and Shop when he sang this song. He was saying that despite what side we stood on, we were all dangerously close to the edge of a massive leap into a stormy sea of the unknown. Sink or swim? Hmmm…sounds like a great book title…but I digress. While it may not be the 1960s anymore, it’s universally true that in any decade, year, month or week, the times are always a-changin. We don’t even have to look at the national or world stage to see it either. Been a busy week or two in local politics, hasn’t it? While it has to be difficult for those right in the thick of it, some of it had to happen. Change is a critical part of growth, and especially when it comes to educating our children, growth is essential, even when it hurts.

Change doesn’t have to be quite as earth-shattering as what was happening when Dylan sang about it though. Every day we can look for what isn’t working in our own small bubble, whether it’s a job, a home, or just a pair of shoes and shake it up. Making the world a better place doesn’t just happen with fire hoses and freedom marches, it can be as simple as volunteering for a cause you believe in, reading a book by an author you never heard of, or sitting across from someone you have nothing in common with and hearing them out. Seriously, listening to another side of an issue has literally no downside. What’s the worst that could happen, you might learn something? G-d forbid some new ideas creep into your life, anything but that!

Sarcasm aside, it’s important to remember that what’s happening now in politics, locally and otherwise, is what is supposed to happen. Dylan warns “Come senators, congressmen/Please heed the call/Don't stand in the doorway/Don't block up the hall,” but it’s good advice for all of us, not just those in Washington. He was referring to the relevant events of those turbulent years, but let’s remember, the man won a Nobel Prize. He’s not your average 60’s hippie. It must have freaked him out a little too since it took him six months to accept it. Change is all around us, so we should probably get used to it and at least try to ensure that when it does come to us, it moves us forward and makes us better.