"Don't Look Back"

"Ask me how good I used to be"

I remember it was reported that the figure skater, Scott Hamilton wore a T-shirt with this phrase on it when he was working as a commentator at a competition after he was 'past his prime' as a competitive skater (I'm unable to verify this through google, so you'll just have to trust my over 40 brain on this one!). I've quoted the phrase pretty often-I should get a t-shirt!--because it so often seems to fit. Having been pretty active trying to keep up with my husband and bro-in-law through the early years of my marriage, I got to be decent at kneeboarding and wakeboarding, snow skiing, and even did some pretty 'gnarly' mountain biking trips.

Now, when I say 'decent', I'm not talking "impress virile, adventurous young men with my amazing aerial 360's" decent. I'm talking, 'wow, you're a mom of 2 kids and you can get a foot of air when you jump the wake behind the boat' decent. (I actually was able to do 360's on the kneeboard, but if you've done any kneeboarding, you know that's not that hard). It was exciting pushing my limits, and the bros were usually pretty encouraging ("come on, don't be a wuss, it's only a black diamond run!"). In my high school years, the closest I got to being 'athletic' was being scorekeeper for the girls softball team. Yup, that pathetic. The team I had the most success with was the forensics team. As in, speech team--'prose & poetry' division. I rocked in the duet competitions. I was even asked to be on the local college team before I got married. Stop snickering. It is not becoming.

Anyway, as our kids grew up, they got to be gnarly, awesome snow skiiers/boarders and waterskiiers, even doing some mountain biking (oddly, more my daughter than my son, although he has his own great skills). I found myself falling into the "I used to be able to...." trap as my own skills were waning. Sometimes due to injuries and wrist issues, something I seem to be plagued with, and sometimes, though it pains me to admit it....due to just getting older.

As my husband says, "it's not that you can't do the same things, it's just that it takes longer to recover from doing the same things you did when you were younger". So you begin to count the cost, and somehow it's often just not worth it to be able to impress someone who already loves you anyway (your family) or someone who likes you for you (your friends AND family, if you're lucky).

(you can see here the hubby is reaaallly slowing down...)

I thought about this as I read an interview with Mick Jagger in today's Parade Magazine. He's now 65--waaaayy older than me--and has what appears to be washboard abs and great hair. His face shows a map of a lifetime of partying and rocking, but he's amazingly well preserved. He mentioned that he has to make choices now since he "can’t party as hard and go onstage the next day" and still do a good show.

How difficult for you, Mick!

I liked what he had to say about looking back though:

“My thing is, if I don’t constantly try to move forward, I’m afraid that I’ll just get lost in the welter of nostalgia. I’m not really much of a looking-back person. I mean, I don’t mind having a laugh talking about things, but I don’t really get into it. Otherwise you end up like one of these football players sitting in a bar, talking about how you made that play in the game in 1975. You don’t want to be there.”

So, don't ask me how good I used to be. I'd like to still be that person in some ways, but darn it, you can't always get what you want.

"I'm a Ranker"

Recently, while discussing a particularly bad movie, my daughter relayed a comment from a friend. They had been discussing movies, and the friend promptly rattled off her top 3 (Shawshank Redemption, Jaws,....). Her friend also offered up this comment: "I'm a ranker"--someone who likes to rank things in categories. I thought this was a very odd and interesting turn of phrase. Technically, "ranker" is a word meaning "a commissioned officer who has been promoted from enlisted status". But, to use the word as she did, haven't we become a nation of "rankers"?

Pop media is all about rating and judging and categorizing things. Google "top ten" on the internet and you'll get 68,900,000 entries (Top Ten most facinating urinals was one of the first listed and amazingly, very cool!) . Try to find a newspaper or magazine at the start of the year without a "year's best" listing. The three big shows on TV tonight are American Idol (which I am watching while I type this, I must admit), Dancing With the Stars, and The Biggest Loser (which I guess at least has a quantitative element, and is not just opinion) which in a way train us to rate various qualities in others. Now, I'm not saying that we don't already have this built in to our nature anyway. I was amazed how my children at an very young age could tell you who in their class was the "prettiest" or the "smartest". If I had asked, I'm sure they also could have told me who was the "ugliest" or the "meanest."

I've heard it said that the true consequence of eating the fruit from the tree "of the knowledge of good and evil" is that we are unable to just love someone unconditionally as God does. Instead, we can't help but judge others. If you don't believe me, try to sit in a mall, watch people go by and not attach a descriptive label to them in your head. (credits to my pastor for this concept). What it boils down to is that it's easier to put people in categories than it is to get to know them. Easier to rank them than to understand where they're coming from. Easier to judge them than to help them.

Even the disciples were "rankers"! A select group had been on a mountain where they had just seen Jesus as He really was/is--transfigured and displaying His glory. It was a moment where God visibly and unequivocally showed and told them who was "numero uno". Almost the very next thing they do? Argue over "who among them was greatest"! (Text message "2" for Peter..."3" for James....) Don't you just wonder how deeply Jesus must have sighed before his reply? "He sat down and summoned the Twelve." Notice, he gathers ALL of them together. I'm thinking the ones that had been arguing about it must have felt like they were suddenly "in the bottom 3". He then said to them, "So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all." (Mark 9:35, The Message)

In God's kingdom, ranking is turned on it's head. God doesn't say, "good job, you made the top 10 (or 10 million)", he says, "the first will be last, and the last will be first", in what Eugene Petersen calls "the Great Reversal". Later, James puts this concept into very practical terms:

"For example, suppose someone comes into your meeting dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. If you give special attention and a good seat to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, “You can stand over there, or else sit on the floor”—well, doesn’t this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by evil motives? Listen to me, dear brothers and sisters. Hasn’t God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren’t they the ones who will inherit the Kingdom he promised to those who love him?" (James 2:2-5)

If the whole point is to not seek to be 'first', then don't you think there's something wrong when all we do is try to place people in first through last, most to least important categories? At the very least, aren't we training our minds to think in patterns opposite of the way we should react? Instead of of thinking, "pretty", "too tall", "overweight", "rich", or "poor", shouldn't we be thinking "lost", "hurting", or "searching for meaning"? In a way, that's still categorizing, but these are labels we can only use if we know someone, and have some degree of empathy and compassion for them. One of the results of maturity should be the ability to accept others as having worth and merit just for being God created (and loved) individuals. My desire should be to grow into "the servant of all"--regardless of how unlovely, how undeserving they may be be in my own eyes.

So the competition is on! What will you do this week to try to end up in last place?

Happy Wife, Happy Life

Overheard in the office:

At a recent wedding, there was one of those dances where they dismiss couples married the shortest amount of time, and gradually longer until only a couple that had been married over 45 years remained. The mc asked the husband, "what's your secret-what advice can you give?" The man said 2 phrases: "Yes, dear." and "What else can I do for you?" When the woman was asked the same, she simply said, "He said it all!"

An Ode to Ear Piercing

"You don't need another hole in your head",
Said my mother when I was a kid.
And asked- no pleaded -"can I get my ears pierced?"
In what I hoped was an irresistable bid.

Made to wait until the more responsible fourteen,
which was deemed the acceptable age ,
and though I don't even remember it now,
I know it was entrance to the current teen rage.

Young married, I remember my brother-in-law,
growing up in a home quite conservative,
coming home one day with a stud in his ear,
his parents annoyed reaction was superlative.

My young daughter next pleaded, though of needles afraid,
that "everyone had them", she'd seen!
"You have to be able to take care of them", I entoned,
And I made her wait until she was a teen.

Fast forward, and she is now married and grown,
and showed up with an extra hoop on the side,
From a tattoo shop with a needle no less
she'd been woosy, but somehow not cried.

And her husband! Our Favorite son-in-law,
had opted for both ears, which is now in,
And we rejoiced that he had stopped short with that,
and didn't go with ink under the skin.

And so here I am the latest example,
of answering a strange kind of call,
But one more piercing was the cry,
and I ran with it down at the mall.

It hurt, and still hurts, and I chose the pain,
(I can't even sleep on that side!)
But, it wasn't for cool, or trendy, or angst,
Or a mistaken type of rebellious pride.

In the end it was simply, "I thought it would be cute"
And "I'm a grown up" to husband I said!
I called my mom to admit and of course she remarked,
"Like you really needed another hole in your head!"

How I Wish I Could View My Stretch Marks...

"....over the stretch marks that were like inlaid streaks of mother-of-pearl that would never fade, whose brilliance spoke only for the body's decay."

From "Unaccustomed Earth" by Jhumpa Lahira, a book I have not read and therefore am not recommending. I just like anyone that can make stretch marks sound like a gift!

Acceptance is a Bathingsuit Thing

"But part of being over 40 is accepting the fact that certain doors are closing--and growing up enough to notice that other doors are open." (Kelly Corrigan, 40, author of "The Middle Place" in an interview in More magazine)

I went bathing suit shopping this weekend. This was not as completely torturous as a friend pointed out it usually is due to two things. One, I'm buying it in anticipation of a week long trip to Cancun with my husband coming up in mere weeks, and secondly, I have lost over 15 pounds since the last time I bought one. But, alas, as I told my shopping buddy, even at a smaller size there are still difficulties. No matter what the size on the tag, they each fit differently, and as you wrestle one after another over your head or up your hips, the large store security tag pokes you under the armpit and you end up doing this weird hopping dance to get your feet through the holes! There also seems to be no rhyme or reason to the size match ups for tops and bottoms, neccesitating several trips back out to the racks for a "slightly larger or smaller" bottom to go with the "just a little bigger or smaller" top. And as you know, this means re-dressing and undressing yet again. The whole thing is just exhausting! I needed a nap when I got home, and hubby was only mildly enthused about my selection. "Why didn't you get a bikini?", he asked totally straight faced.

He doesn't get that I am willing to accept that certain doors--bikinis being one--are closed to me. But I am growing up enough to know that others doors are open. And that's why I bought the new jeans. On clearance. 2 sizes smaller than last year.

Six Word Memoirs

Gore Vidal, defines a memoir as "how one remembers one's own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked." As Wikipedia goes on to state, "It is more about what can be gleaned from a section of one's life than about the outcome of the life as a whole."
About a year ago, the online "storytelling community" called Smith magazine, challenged their readers to write their life story in only six words. After receiving more than 15,000 entries, they put 832 into a new book called "Not Quite What I Was Planning. " After reading many of the entries, you just can't help trying to come up with your own. I came up with a few:

"Fully loved, able to love unconditionally."

"Country girl embraced city, then lake."

"Drama Queen meets Prince of Peace."

"True love found early lasts long."

My husband could borrow one from the book: "Would settle for a bad hair day."

I don't think anyone's life can really be summed up in six words, but like a snapshot, a six word memoir captures a part of your life, that though not fleshed out, can be revealing.

I also had a lot of fun writing six words for Biblical figures:

Paul: "I have fought the good fight."

Moses: "Knew the Lord face to face."

Solomon: "Gift of wisdom brought no peace."

Saul: "Impressive young man without equal, rejected."

Jezebel: "Killed the prophets, devoured by dogs."

Peter: "If all fall away, I won't."

Jacob: "Wrestled God and birthed a nation."

This was a good exercise and could even be a good tool for remembering biblical characters. So, admit it...you're doing one in your head as you read this, aren't you? Share yours!