Retrench!

The snow brushes up violently against my face as I hurried home from a job interview I was ambivalent about. In the interview a written test was asked. Out of 28 questions, I had to guess the answers to four. I refrained from beating myself up for the four I did not know. A thought occurred that I might not land a job that I’m not sure I even want. A feeling of being hemmed in came over me. One gets that when one feels options are diminishing.

Retrenchment is now reality. The first time I heard this word, it was in Persuasion, the movie based on Jane Austen's book. The heroine Anne's free-spending sister, Elizabeth, positively balked when her father brought up the need to cut down on family spending. Elizabeth's voice is full of disgust at the indignity of this practice: "Retrench?@!" Must we, she exclaimed! Yes, it seems we must.

Life has to happen this way for reality to set in. The imperious me meets the improvising me. In my head, I know I will resurrect myself. In actuality, cutting down hurts. If 2008 was the year of shock and sense-making, 2009 must then be the year of retrenchment.

In yesterday's New York Times, Karl Lagerfeld commented about the financial pressures of luxury purveyors and exclaimed that a "new modesty" is called for. This week's mantra comes from him: "There is no creative evolution if you don't have dramatic moments like this."

Self- Efficacy

Twenty-five people sat in a conference room borrowed from a local college yesterday evening. We were a group of practitioners of appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry is an approach that favored the examination of strengths and assets in assessing situations and problems.

How many times—the invited speaker of the evening asked us—did we look at situations from a deficit mindset: investing analysis and energy on defining problems and short-sighting the effort to define strengths, assets and talents inherent in us or in our environment? The speaker was an expert at conducting assessments of international development projects. He worked on seriously projects funded by the US tackling things like poverty alleviation in places like Nepal.

I sat there thinking of change programs of all types: from large scale ones above to small personal ones that some of us have known or have undertaken. How many projects started with hoopla and best intentions? How many stood the test of time and yielded results? I looked at my change efforts both professional and personal: to learn a language (in process), to find a partner through online dating (needs commitment) and to get a new sofa (stalled and renewed).

As the speaker last night recounted efforts (and successes) of poor women in Nepal learning literacy, banking, and small business development all at the same time, I realized how heavily resourced a country like the US is. So many elements contribute to success, yet nothing is as powerful as a person’s belief in her power to make a difference in her own life. Regardless of gender, this power is self-efficacy. More than one public health campaigns in the US have rested its success on it.

Self-efficacy is more than confidence. It is a deep faith in ourselves or in our dreams. It’s a strength knowing that we’ve got the means to effect the changes in our lives. Wishing you access to the depths of belief within you.

Fall – To Do List

Brooklyn, NY — Walking to Starbucks this morning I realize this is the time of the year when talk is frequent about “seasons”—as in Fall season and holiday season. Two big events happen in Fall that if you blink they will pass you by: Halloween and Thanksgiving. In the spirit of mindfulness and in an effort to take back Fall for our enjoyment, here are a few things to make the season better in New York City.

1) Start reading The Brothers Karamazov or Madame Bovary or any literature you’ve been putting off. If any season must be dormant, it is Winter. If that is the case, fuel your mind for the good hibernation that comes.

2) Say goodbye to summer clothes. Dry-clean them. Start wearing layers. Carry an umbrella. And a windbreaker.

3) Make dinner and invite a friend instead of eating out. Buy orange candlesticks from Ikea.

4) Run two extra laps around something: the track in your gym, the block in your hood or the perimeter of Central Park.

5) Write a long letter to someone overseas. Do not type. Do it by hand.

6) Leave your house 30 minutes earlier than usual for an appointment and feel how good it is to leisurely make your way there.

7) Get to your Starbucks or Dunkin Donut or wherever 1 hour earlier by waking up 1 hour earlier. Inversely, stay out 1 hour later one evening and see your borough as it looks at 11:00 PM. See what is in your world. See what has been in your world all this time.

8) Call your family and tell them a joke. Don’t get hurt if they don’t get it. Be nutty. Laugh crazily. Or call a good friend and be nutty. They’ll all wonder if you’re off your rockers. And that’s OK for this season. You’re allowed.

9) Go dancing once. Risk feeling like a fool. (See above.) Notice that the awkwardness will pass. And so will Fall. Enjoy it.


photo credits: Pensiero . Some Rights Reserved under Creative Commons license
http://flickr.com/photos/pensiero/

Manhattan, Pride Parade

This Sunday on June 29 the place to be is Manhattan as the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) parade unleashes marchers and spectators along the main arterials of the city. Along streets like 5th Avenue, cheers and music will greet parade supporters and occasional jeers and heckles will come forth from those who feel they must protest.

Why the hoopla? Why a parade? In this liberal and sometimes libertine city, why should anyone care for the plight of the LGBT? Because behind every celebration, there preceded a period of struggle. A parade like this couldn’t be possible without those who fought for the basic right of a people to be free—the right of LGBT people to be who they are, the right to be themselves without prejudices and without discrimination. In truth, discrimination exists still. But the parade is about progress and celebration of this moment in time. Parade marchers—some outrageously costumed, some utterly boring and normal—could not revel today if not for the many who challenged this country to practice the full equality before the law and before God in which it was founded by laying down their sweat, tears, and sometimes their lives to make this equality real.

The media machines will capture the colorful personalities, the fantastic costumes, and the grandstanding. What won’t get media attention are the quiet and normal lives of LGBT people. Day in and day out they struggle like anyone else to make a living. In this city, they can find legal respite from discrimination. In this parade, they can let their hair and their guards down. On this day, diversity, sexuality, artistry, and bravery are celebrated. And the right to settle back to quiet, integrated, normal lives after the parade passes through.



Photo by: Sir Mervs. URL:www.flickr.com/photos/sir_mervs/
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Summer

Seattle, WA - Many years ago—like the early 80s—I saw Stand By Me, the movie directed by Rob Reiner, in the Uptown Theater in Seattle with my sisters and mom. Stephen King wrote the original story that someone adapted to the screen. Both were works of art. The main character of both story and film was summer.

Summer provided the background for the four boys to take that fateful trip that led to the discovery of the corpse. The corpse itself wasn’t even a big deal. The tight relationships between the four friends under-girded everything they experienced. It all had to happen in one summer in Maine. Stephen King captured the whole gestalt of summer: Warm weather, free time, a certain attitude, and the need for adventure.

The boys in the movie used language freely—there were many a “cocksucker” and “cunt” thrown about. My mom asked me during these parts if we were in the right movie. I only nodded. These were boys around 12 or so. They used language that was uninhibited—the kind of colorful talk used when authorities weren’t about. It was the language of summer.

Leaving

Brooklyn, NY Gazing East - A good friend here in my neighborhood is packing today for a trip to a northern port city in Poland. In May, she'll be there.

It is one of the most thought-out trips I have witnessed and she has planned. She returns to her native land to prospect for work, to settle affairs business and personal. She is full of emotion: fulfilled in following an inner calling, anxious to walk into an unknown future, determined to follow a trajectory she's set out and excited for options that await her. She is someone who knows what she leaves behind and what she is running to.

My friend is also in pursuit of happiness, a worthy and an ephemeral goal. She knows this. We both know this as we talk. Does a change of place render happiness? This must be a hot topic in philosophy courses everywhere. Still, the motive to do what one feels one must overrides all. To leave is one of life's biggest compunctions, however right it feels.

In her place, I think I would feel liberated. To have been adopted and lived in America, to have Europe as a homeland in which to return, and to have these dual perspectives—this makes for a rich kind of life.

I can recall the feeling of liberation. I was on either on a train or a bus ride—it was long ago that I forgot— from Tarifa to Madrid as a college student. I knew not what laid in store in Madrid, especially as I spoke minimal Spanish. I thought one of the most southern points of Spain held some experience for me in my own search for ephemera. Having gotten there and seen that its attractions laid in its surfing, I stayed for a night only. I was anxious to leave and I did. I knew nothing but the joy of leaving on that ride. That is liberation I think my friend must feel. Or so I think—as one who is left behind of one who is leaving.