It’s autumn and this is second time I have ever really thought much about team sports.  In middle school and high school I enjoyed competing on the swim team.  Since becoming a mother, I have learned to love soccer (which I wanted to play as a kid) and now volleyball (which I also wanted to play but, by middle school, was too afraid of missing and looking “uncool.”)  This is the first year my girl could play volleyball for her school (she had been playing soccer for the YMCA in the spring) and she had no idea at first what she was doing for either sport.  In soccer she was not sure whose goal was whom’s and in volleyball she could not return the ball when she first started.  I found myself shrieking for my child’s teams, even as I only half knew what they were doing.  In volleyball I discovered I enjoyed visiting the other schools’ campuses as I developed my appreciation of the sport, just as I did with the different soccer fields when she was playing for the Y.  Her teams made it to the playoffs for the championships in both sports!  Far more moving was that her teams supported her even when she was goalie in soccer and let a goal pass (to forfeit the championship) as well as when she failed to make her serves in volleyball.  As a kid I had always been SO afraid about what others would think.  I know I never even scratched the surface of living up to my sports potential.  I love learning lessons from my little one.  Albert Einstein once said, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”  The older I become, the more important I realize this is.  No matter who you are, where you’re from, what challenges you may have, or how old you are:  if there is something you want to do, be thankful you can and take a shot.

I grew up with my mother’s baby grand in our small apartment.  It looked so elegant and yet, when I got married and my husband bought our house I just could not seem to make it fit.  Mama’s Story and Clark was over 100 years old and in need of significant repair.  When I was in college I acquired this little upright Kimball and that easily fit into our home.  Have you ever noticed when you hear something “off” long enough you can actually get used to it?  Our little one’s piano teacher informed me our piano was in need of tuning.  It was so cool to watch the guy who came out, and he told me my piano was over 75 years old.  It got me to thinking about time, and (literally) being “out of tune.”  The whole concept (which has a negative connotation in some circles) about being “woke” has simply helped some people become in tune with what the truth of history actually is.  My parents reared me to always do my best.  They also taught me to humbly accept there would be inevitable disappointments in my life:  crummy boyfriends; jobs that didn’t work out, or things that just weren’t fair.  I am not sure whether or not I have written this before, but my father taught me there was one thing I could always do.  He said I could ALWAYS be the most kind.  That really stuck with me.  It has been sort of the one thing I could always control.  How I wish my parents were still living.  In this picture it shows my daughter wearing her favorite T-shirt:  Be kind to all kinds.  She took it to mean plants and animals, while I took it to mean all the people who have hurt and/or betrayed me in life.  This was also when our piano was being tuned.  The Nobel Prize winning Polish-born American Jewish writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, wrote, “Kindness, I’ve discovered, is everything in life.”  Times change and, if we are in tune with them, perhaps we can hear/understand things a bit better.  Whether or not we agree with everything happening — we all can still be kind to all kinds.

Growing up I always felt my family had a deficit because we lived in an apartment, drove an old car, and we did not have many clothes.  Beginning in elementary school the kids all LOVED my parents, which made me happy.  Mama and daddy did everything together, always held hands, and always included me.  My parents were married only to each other, and they were whole-heartedly devoted to me.  We were all just so very happy.  I figured everyone had that, only with a house and money.  My father taught me to always be positive and thankful for all we had.  I have just come to realize how many families are seriously dysfunctional.  People can be incredibly cold, unforgiving, and hold grudges.  Frankly it is mind-boggling to me to NOT be loved:  truly and sincerely.  I remember when my husband and I first got married and we’d had a fight.  My mother told me that my husband was her son now, too — and she refused to take a side.  My mother truly loved my husband as her own son, and I am an only child!  Naively, I assumed all families genuinely merge together.  If that does not happen please know you do not need to win the approval of others in order to gain your value.  Instead I would say go where you are loved, appreciated, and/or at least needed.  In the Bible, Proverbs 15:17 (Contemporary Version) says:  “A simple meal with love is better than a feast where there is hatred.”  I discovered that is true even 2,000 years past the time it was written.  What I have learned is that you cannot expect or even hope for others to love you.  The reasons are not important and often it is complicated.  Sometimes it’s not even about you.  However, sometimes you just cannot please people no matter how hard you try — or how many years pass while trying to do so.  Being excluded from things can be both highly embarrassing and incredibly hurtful.  My advice to you is to be gracious and rise above it.  Other people do not define your self-worth.  Be kind, be forgiving, and be empathetic.  Do not ever exclude someone because of some perceived infraction.  I am writing this for everyone — regardless of race, religion, nationality, age, sexual orientation, gender, or socioeconomic level.  You deserve to be truly accepted and, if you are not — know that you are enough.

Once upon a time I was fortunate enough to have a best friend.  She was close to my age, beautiful, and smart.  We met at a pet store where her rescue group was offering adoption opportunities for cats.  We both loved animals, were both vegetarians, we both loved to sing, and we became instant friends.  She was the sister I never had.  She lent me clothes to wear on trips and I became the recipient of her considerable closet whenever she culled it.  Then one day we had a falling out.  I was hurt, and I believe I hurt her.  Of course none of that was intentional on either of our parts.  Over half a decade would slip by before I received a private message from her.  SHE reached out to me and said she was terrified I might not choose to respond.  It was sent during the first of January this year but, as heaven is my witness, I received it on a random day about a month ago.  Her words touched me, humbled me, and made me incredibly sad.  I am very much accustomed to being a “lone wolf.”  After my parents died I have been on my own, with the exception of my husband and daughter.  Lately I have been drowning in a sea of depression, despite knowing how fortunate I am.  In my life I have learned people can be incredibly unforgiving.  I have spent almost two decades trying to be loved and truly accepted by people who just never will.  It has finally dawned on me I need to stop seeking water from a dry well.  Tears were streaming down my face and staring back at me from my iPhone were words of love, hope, and forgiveness.  I answered my friend immediately and subsequently we had a three hour phone conversation.  It wasn’t even very awkward and the layers of time peeled back as if it had only been a minute instead of years.  For anyone out there who is struggling with old hurts or perceived “slights” I offer this:  it is never too late.  I am finally letting go of my Sisyphian boulder.  I am trying to accept the things I cannot change.  Go instead where you are truly wanted, valued, and accepted.  God bless my best friend for being braver and bigger than I and deciding to reach out.  The late, great Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

I am proud of my girl, and I am fortunate in that my parents were proud of me.  My father always told me to “work hard and do my best.”  He assured me that if I had done those two things, he and Mama could never be disappointed.  I was not paid for good grades nor for doing chores — lessons for which I am still immensely grateful.  Almost everyone must work in life, in one form or another, and we are not always compensated for everything we do.  I attended a financial meeting recently where one of the speakers expressed they felt their key to success was in having “a servant’s heart.”  I immediately recognized that as a reference to Holy Scripture; (the Bible.)  My father, who grew up very poor, never once said it was wrong to make money; rather he taught me it was wrong to profit off the backs of others.  Knowing my father did not have the benefit of “white privilege” or generational wealth as a half-Choctaw, I caught on very early as to exactly what all that meant.  I was reared never to envy, but always to aspire — through hard work, discipline, determination, and intellect.  We all view the world and our own life’s experiences through different lenses, and we all have a different point of view.  One of the great lessons my father taught me was to try to see things through another’s eyes and to always treat others the way I would want to be treated.  The 19th-century American poet, preacher, and suffragist Mary T. Lathrap is credited with having coined the phrase “Walk a mile in his moccasins” in a poem she wrote entitled “Judge Softly.”  In it she challenges the reader to see things from the other’s perspective.  How do we judge others?  Subconsciously or no, I submit we judge them by their teeth, their clothes, their accents, their careers, and where they live.  HOW I admire my father for always rising above it all.  He treated everyone the same — from prestigious “big shots” to the homeless.  It feels as if everyone is so quick to form their own opinion weighted in cement without having any firsthand knowledge or backstory about the person or subject in question.  As I write, there is a lovely young man in my house who has a heavy Spanish accent.  He is here upgrading our cable TV equipment.  In his native Venezuela he was a lawyer.  He is worried about the Bar exam here only because he is nervous about his English which, for the record, is excellent.  He thanked me for taking an interest but I told him I was so thankful to him for sharing his life and his experience, which he certainly did not have to do.  (Confession:  I am a journalist so I tend to naturally (and genuinely) ask a lot of questions.)  My husband actually cares about others and has always been quick to ask someone where they were born as well as their religion, heritage, and culture; free of judgement, but rather from a sincere desire to learn.  Much like my father, he takes an earnest interest in whomever he is speaking to … from a wealthy CEO to the kid who took our tickets at the movies.  Recently our little girl wrote a story in school from a book entitled, “Island of the Blue Dolphins,” which is based upon the true story of a twelve-year-old Native American girl named Karana.  She gets stranded alone for eighteen years on an island off the California coast during the 19th century.  During her time there she befriended a wolf whom she named Rontu.  The writer in me is beyond proud my child got a perfect score for her work.  Moreover, she chose to write her paper from the perspective of the wolf:  to be able to see through the eyes of another — particularly an animal — is an especially beautiful thing to me.  If only we all took the time to try and see things from another’s point of view.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the word, “frame.”  Surmising, Merriam-Webster defines it as 1) physique, 2) the underlying construction system or structure that gives shape or strength, and/or 3) an open use or structure made for admitting, enclosing, or supporting something.  At my age, I feel I have enough experience to comment upon this.  God forbid an innocent unknowingly infiltrates the ranks of the priviliged.  Why, it MUST be a setup!  The word “framed” cannot help but come to mind.  I think what we choose to frame says a lot about who we are.  I have our annual family picture changed out and placed above our fireplace.  On our stairway I have previous years of my precious family, magazine covers on which our little girl was featured, and lots of travel photographs we have had as a family.  In our daughter’s room she has framed, autographed playbills of performances we have seen together at the theatre.  Above every doorway in our home there is a cross.  I have original paintings of flowers, the Eiffel Tower, wolves, and various churches we have visited decorating our walls.  My husband has framed mostly maps of periods in time in which he is interested, ranging from the Old Testament to Native American lands.  Our daughter’s “art work” is also framed and displayed in our home.  In my all-time favorite move, “Ever After,” Drew Barrymore, the main character, recites Sir Thomas Mores’ “Utopia.”

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

I love this on so many levels.  It is my sincere belief that most people are good.  Desperation, however, can drive good people into doing things which they may not have ever would have chosen to do.  The way we “frame” the homeless all too often is that they must be “nuts” or on drugs.  How we choose to frame people and/or situations becomes our “truth.”  What do you choose to frame in your home?  Family?  Random pictures selected by an interior decorator which have no meaning?  Even in a photo, what do you choose to “frame” in that shot … only your “perfect” family close up or a wider view of the world?  Unfortunately, all too often, we “frame” a scenario in our mind which has no basis in reality.  Just because someone is rich does not mean they are benevolent.  Just because someone is poor does not mean they are lazy.  I submit we “frame” what we value.  I would adjure you not to do yourself the disservice of “framing” something based upon an initial meeting or someone’s past.  People live their whole lives without truly valuing what has been placed right before them.  Whatever your current situation in life — consider what to frame.

My little girl is covered in bruises and scratches, just as I was when I was a kid, and for many of the same reasons … primarily climbing trees and kissing cats.  I remember Mama always being horrified because I went to church black and blue and sometimes bloodied.  This picture was taken yesterday after my girl slipped and fell so hard her gums fuzed into her braces.  (That’s a cat scratch on her cheek she received after doling out one too many kisses.)  One of my earliest memories is of drinking my mother’s bottle of Avon Skin So Soft when I was four.  That was back before they had “childproof” caps.  I remember it because of the charcoal they gave me to throw it all up.  My little one was just four when she had to have both an endoscopy and a colonoscopy, and I recall feeling helpless as I watched her vomit.  When I was in kindergarten I completely severed a finger on my left hand just above the knuckle.  For the record it continued to grow normally even though I’d held it in my other hand separately for over five hours.  When my girl was in kindergarten she fell off the “monkey bars” at school and wound up having to have surgery.  She also had two rather large screws which protruded outside of her cast that pinned her elbow together at the growth plate.  I can still remember cracking my forehead on the corner of Daddy’s desk and hitting an artery — so blood shot out for feet in every direction but not one drop hit my face.  When my little one had to have eye surgery she involuntarily emitted tears of blood.  My beautiful mother was a red-head, and in the 1970s folks thought you were nuts if you said you required careful handling with anesthesia.  Mama fell and broke her hip and her femur bone when she was in her ’70s.  I tried SO HARD to warn them about the anesthesia; my little mother was placed in intensive care for DAYS after that surgery.  The hospital wing she was in was circular with pods that looked liked something out of Star Trek.  When my child had another surgery, an anesthesiologist dismissed my concerns that she’d inherited my mother’s red-headed genes even though she has auburn hair.  After the “routine” procedure my little one did not readily “come out” of the anesthesia.  In fact everyone else went home by noon and my child was still completely lethargic by sundown.  We finally got to take her home … with the doctor’s personal cell phone.  I shall refrain from mentioning some other pretty gory accidents I had as a kid in the superstitious hopes they won’t happen to my Baby Doll as well.  The American professional wrestler Johnny Gargano said, “You can never control injuries.  Accidents happen; that’s just how things go.”  I have various scars on my body which do not bother me at all; I guess I’m just not super vain.  Now my little girl has scars on her body that carry stories with them just as mine do.  However I confess I hope she does not get into anymore accidents.

When I was very little, I have a vague memory of sitting in front of our console TV and catching the end of “The Lawerence Welk Show.”  I know there was a big band and dancing, but mostly I remember the bubbles.  As I was trying to recall more, I discovered the bubbles were intended as a visual tagline for his “Champagne Music.”  To further date myself, I remember my folks liking a song by a singer named Don Ho entitled “Tiny Bubbles.”  I can remember loving Mr. Bubble and always begging to have him for my bath.  Skip ahead to more modern times and I think of 50 Cent’s “You can find me in the club, bottle full of bub” song.  I loved the same old school bottle of bubbles that my child does now and I started to fall in love with my future husband when I found out his email address had “bubble gun” in it.  I have brought bubble “guns” to the arboretum, picnics, outdoor movie nights, and listening to the symphony outdoors, all as an adult.  When our little girl was younger she had a birthday party at a bounce house place and I remember the deluxe package came with a bubble machine.  Well, yeah!!!  So recently when she got invited to a birthday party for her sweet friend it turns out they rented a bubble truck.  Here I am picturing something out of that old TV show and the woman in charge was wearing a “Ghostbusters” shirt.  My little girl had not seen the original movie, but did watch the remake with all female leads.  Instead of individual bubbles gently billowing in the wind, imagine a machine that just blasted them out for over an hour as they grew from ankle height to waist height to above all of our heads.  The weather was idyllic, music was blasting, and it was punctuated by shrieks of joy.  I’m not sure which one of us thought the bubbles were the most magic.  Tom Noddy, the stage name of an American entertainer whose TV performances of “Bubble Magic” with soap bubbles in the early 1980’s led to “Bubble Festivals” across America, once said, “Bubbles are always new; you just can’t find an old bubble.”  I have always noted bubbles were ephemeral — whether they are in Champagne, gum, or the tub.  Perhaps for that reason alone I shall continue to always delight in bubbles.

As a child of the 70’s I confess I am LOVING seeing the fashion pendulum swinging back around.  Of course there would be no way I could fit into my old jeans because I was a little kid.  Still, it makes me happy to see wide-legged pants coming back into vogue, little black girls either wearing their hair natural or sectioned off in braids and topped by those lucite ball hair ties I can still remember.  In the fourth grade, the same age my little girl is now, our elementary school got “busing.”  This was where they would take (black) kids from one side of town and bring them to another (white.)  I had a best friend who would “plait” my hair at recess everyday and she’d take her own different colored hair barrettes out of her own hair and put them into mine.  The next day I’d bring them to school and we’d switch.  She had barrettes in all in different colors, shapes, and styles.  My mother disliked my grandmother braiding her hair so she hated how I came home.  I can still remember sitting on the steps while Peggy divided my hair with her comb down to the scalp in precise little squares.  She would then braid each section and secure it with one of her cool barrettes.  We would sing “Ring My Bell” by Anita Ward and she would call me her “Honey Child.”  She always had candy and would share her Now & Laters with me.  It was such a happy time.  I’m not sure if it’s because my father was half-Choctaw and always had a foot in both the “colored” and the “white” world, but times were changing and suddenly I was playing tether ball on the black top and jumping rope Double Dutch style.  We would sit on the ground and play hand clapping games like “Down Down Baby,” “Miss Mary Mack,” and “The Slide” to name a few.  Ironically, I had a half-white/half-black girlfriend who was adopted into a white family and the black kids were merciless to her.  She looked “black” but she didn’t know how to do her hair, she talked “too white,” etc.  Frankly I never understood why I felt so at home with my black girlfriends with my strawberry-blonde hair and green-blue eyes.  It didn’t seem fair.  Of course Joy was the best friend I had in our apartments and I always stuck up for her.  Our parish recently celebrated its 75th anniversary and the theme was the ’70s.  Our now ten-year-old recently had a rollerskating birthday party at my childhood skating rink.  To an outsider, it’s like stepping back in time.  For me, it’s like reliving a bit of my childhood.  But I miss the carpet and the “toadstools” where everyone would would sit back to back in a circle to lace up their skates.  I miss the bi-colored streamers that would flutter from the paneled ceiling and how all the white globes alternated colors in time with the music.  The great big disco ball is still there, though, and turning in all its glory.  For me, being born in 1970, the decade meant “The Brady Bunch” and “Good Times” on TV.  I looked more like one of the Brady girls but growing up in apartment, watching my father always trying to get ahead, I related much more with “Good Times.”  I can still remember running down the hall of our elementary school and shouting, “School is out!  Out of sight!  DYNOMITE!!!” at the end of the year.  Nicholas Kristof, an American journalist and political commentator, is quoting as having said, “Since the end of the 1970s, something has gone profoundly wrong in America.  Inequality has soared.  Educational progress slowed.  Incarceration rates quintupled.  Family breakdown accelerated.  Median household income stagnated.”  In a lot of instances, I feel I must agree.  Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has described Kristof as an “honorary African” for shining a light on neglected conflicts.  For me “African-American” means a first generation “African” who became an American citizen.  I believe I have said before it was America’s 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, who barred the hyphenated nationalities from describing race.  I whole-heartledy believe this:  to hyphenate is to separate.  Our family decided to keep the ’70s “staying alive” by dressing up from that time for Halloween.  This picture I snapped of my husband makes my heart flip!  “Grease” was my favorite movie growing up and I still love it.  My formative years were a time of great change for this country; for American Indians struggling to be heard, for women whose voices were just coming into play in both the workforce and sports, and for so much more.  I do not wish to gloss over our nation’s painful past.  However, it is my hope that we can not only all acknowledge our history’s truths — but to press on toward a more perfect union … just like I learned about from the “School House Rock” cartoons I grew up watching every Saturday morning before rollerskating in the 1970’s.

I suppose it is erroneous to assume that women are all romantics.  As an adult, I realize it was my father who had the romantic heart and, as a girl, watching how he treated my mother inherently spoiled me.  Back in the ’70s (when people still actually got the newspaper) there was a “comic strip” entitled, “Love Is …”  I remember it was always one frame, in black and white, and had a saying in response at the bottom.  Daddy would often cut them out for my mother and leave them on the refrigerator.  Some were so cherished I remember pulling faded, yellowed ones down in the late ’90s after my father died.  It has been said that most people communicate in one or more of “The Five Love Languages” which are acts of service, gift-giving, physical touch, quality time, and words of affection.  When they were dating in high school, my grandmother asked that daddy stop bringing orchids every weekend because there was no room left in her refrigerator.  One of my fondest memories is that my folks always held hands.  They held hands in church, at the movies, walking into the grocery store, and at home when no one was around.  The sight of my half Choctaw father’s huge red hand dwarfing my petite half French/half Irish little mother’s dainty freckled one is indelibly etched into my mind.  In terms of quality time — when my father was not working he was home.  Oh I know many people pooh-pooh couples spending all their time with one another.  Of course they could spend time with their respective friends, but mostly they preferred to be together.  My father never failed to tell me or my mother that he loved us, or that he was proud of me.  He would say it every time he left the house and always before prayers at bed.  Freudian or not, my father shaped my life and how I view men.  I still believe I married the man who is the closest to my father in many ways.  He constantly leaves little things on my night stand he knows I might like.  He gave me a fossil he’d found in a parking lot.  It is a 3-D imprint of a shell he’d managed to spot that dates back to a time when Dallas was underwater … roughly 265 million years ago.  Fifteen years later it is still on my nightstand.  When we were first dating, he took me to a “society” ball and impulsively snatched a rose that was in the centerpiece of our candlelit, linen table.  As he presented it to me he said, “Baby Doll, you are not only more beautiful than this rose; you are the most beautiful woman here!”  My husband works INCESSANTLY and yet he never fails to call me during his sacred dinner time.  He also texts to see if we need anything from the store.  So, back to notes.  Now it is I who tend to leave them … mostly to our daughter.  I am so glad she really appreciates whatever it is I take the time to write.  That could vary from, “I love you so much!” to “Work hard and do your best!”  Recently we got a new refrigerator which is a “smart” one that stores family calendars, gives recipe ideas, lets you post photos, and suggests things to reorder for your shopping list.  It can even show you inside your fridge so when you’re at the store and you cannot remember if you have butter you can see.  I am hoping this high tech fridge keeps our little family more organized.  I do not always leave my daughter notes every day but, at a minimum, I try to once a week.  I envision her opening her lunchbox and feeling loved and encouraged.  The other day she was late getting out for her father to take her to school.  I kept telling her she needed to hurry but her little voice was so sweet as she asked me to wait.  It turns out she’d surprised me with a note of her own on Frosty (the name of our refrigerator.)  I am an only child and always signed things to my mother, “Love, Your Favorite Child.”  I’m not exactly sure if she was going for the same thing, but her sentiment struck me deeply nevertheless.  The American author and motivational speaker Leo Buscaglia, also known as “Dr. Love,” once said, “Love is always bestowed as a gift — freely, willingly and without expectation.  We don’t love to be loved; we love to love.”  I had left my now fourth grader a note in her lunchbox her first week of school, but it was her note to me the second week that made me feel so very loved … just a note on the fridge.