Happy Feet

On any gift-giving occasion, when I am asked what I want, a pedicure is usually on the list, because when I’m armed with a gift certificate I feel less guilty about an hour of pure self-indulgence, a time when someone makes you feel relaxed and beautiful. Plus it’s the gift that keeps on giving: I am excited to receive the certificate, I enjoy the anticipation of going to the salon, and if I get a pedicure late in the spring or early in the summer, with occasional polish changes my feet look great all during sandal season.

And so one Saturday afternoon I found myself, armed with said gift certificate, at Happy Nails, a windowless salon in a strip mall near my home. The employees, most of them young Vietnamese women with limited English skills, do a fine job with both basic manicures and more detailed nail art. My friend calls the women who work in these salons “nail slaves,” although when I arrive one of them is enjoying an iced coffee from Starbucks, so she must be doing okay financially. But then, not all slavery is related to income.  

Lei, the young lady who will be doing my nails, leaves me to select my polish color as she prepares a pedicure chair. I bring her my choice—pale blue with a touch of green—climb into my chair, and slip my bare feet into the warm water. I am seated next to a silent gentleman who reminds me of Burt from last season’s “Project Runway.” I’ve never seen a man getting a pedicure before, but I don’t judge. Getting a pedicure feels pretty wonderful, and there’s no reason that this should be a luxury reserved for women.

Lei makes no effort at conversation with me, which I appreciate, but chats happily in Vietnamese with the young lady who is attending to “Burt.” I hadn’t remembered to grab a magazine, so I watch the European soccer match playing on the TV. It seems an odd program choice for this venue, but because it is the Dutch team playing, I feign interest.

A woman across the salon flips through a magazine with cover text that boldly exclaims 352 MUST-HAVES for SUMMER! Must-haves? While I don’t doubt that the list contains many fun, innovative, and perhaps even practical products, 352 must-haves seems a bit excessive. Beyond sunscreen, plenty of water, and a great pair of sunglasses, what else do you really need for summer? I’m hard-press to think of 352 things I MUST have for all of life, let alone for the summer of 2012.

My must-haves for summer—the season of dress-down, kick-back, and stress less—are really more in the category of want-to-dos:

·         Consume lots of ice cream, and eat fresh tomatoes from the famers market weekly

·         Spend as much time as possible in or near water

·         Get a couple of projects done around the house

·         Spend time with my family doing all of the above

There are other things I like to do, too, but none of them is critical to my life, and a long shopping list seems counter-intuitive to all of them. And there are things I’d like to have, but as long as I have food, shelter, transportation, and a means to maintain those things for myself and my family, my life is really pretty good.

Burt’s manicurist has asked him a question, and he quietly says, “My cat died yesterday” before falling back into a far-away silence. His manicurist finishes her work without further comment; Burt pays and leaves.

Loss reminds us that our must-haves are not the things we buy or apply or possess, but the things we wear in our hearts. The world is full of beautiful things, but must-haves are the living beings we love and the memories we make with them. A life well-lived is touched by love in every moment.

Lei finishes putting the polish on my toes, and I admire the color. She smiles, and I am struck by her beauty. I hope that she is happy and loved, and that life will lead her beyond this place. In the meantime, I leave her a good tip, in the hopes that she can use it for whatever must-have brings her joy.

The Story of My Father

At some point a few years back, my dad decided to write his autobiography. It began as he was sorting photos. He knew that many of them would need context to be meaningful (always the psychologist!) and so he began to write about the photos, which triggered other memories, and soon the project took on a life of its own.

He wrote the chapters in no particular order, and when he had one in pretty good shape, he would pass it on to me, relying on my editing eye to sharpen his material. The writing was part history and part myth; every once in a while I’d correct something that I knew was misremembered, but for the most part having my dad’s take on any given detail was more important than having the facts straight. He and I both recognized that the process of writing was therapeutic. He was able to understand his relationships in new ways as he put his reflections on the page, and the passing of time and his own accumulated wisdom allowed him to come to terms with choices made decades earlier.

After sorting and scanning the photos and writing and editing the two dozen chapters, Dad had invested enough of himself in the manuscript that he wanted to create an actual professional-grade book. A friend had tipped me off that there are companies that do this sort of thing, and so we found one online, and together he and I got to work. While the kids were at school, Dad would come over and, chapter by chapter, we’d sit at the computer and tweak the pages I had roughed in earlier.

Dad was very particular, and the book program was not able to do some of the things I wanted it to do—at least not easily. This was tedious work, and there were days when I wanted to tell him to find himself another editor. But then I figured, he’d done a few things for me over the years that were probably not his first choice (my seventh grade band concert comes to mind), so I kinda owed him. We rearranged, we argued, we changed our minds, and together we built his life story in 400 pages. Then we sent it to the publishing company and ordered up copies for family members. It had been a long, intense, expensive process, and we couldn’t have been more proud.

My siblings, of course, were delighted with their copies. I love mine, too, and treasure it. It’s an amazing gift to us and to the generations that are to come. The book has taught us so much about my dad and his “ordinary” life. He’s cheated death multiple times, has known great love and great loss, and has initiated programs that have impacted individuals and institutions. He’s also been a great teacher, a great friend, and a great father. He’s continued to grow and learn and enjoy life into his eighties. He really is an exceptional human being.

The book is for me a double blessing, because I not only got to learn all of this about my father, I also got to work with him on the process.  We’ve generally worked well on our share of projects together over the years— wallpapering, painting, gardening—but this was the first time I was the expert and he was the trainee. Although he was calling the shots, we were shifting roles. It was a holy moment.

Even at my advanced age, some things don’t change. Although he loves and respects me and has seen me do many grown-up things successfully, I know my dad still sees me as a kid, someone who still needs his advice and approval. And he’s right; I still do. I’m grateful that we are still learning from each other.  

Dance Moms

Our son Lewi is five, and he exemplifies perpetual motion. To harness some of that enormous energy, we thought about getting him into gymnastics, but when I got a great deal on dance lessons, we decided to give those a try, since he loves moving to music.

With tap and ballet shoes in hand, we show up for the first lesson. The studio’s door opens into a long, narrow room with a reception area where parents—usually moms—can appraise their kids’ progress by watching the dancers via live video projected on large screens.

Although we’re not required to stay on site, most of the moms stick around, especially the first few weeks. Most of the moms seem to know each other. Two of them—I call them the pretty moms—usually sit together in another part of the waiting room, away from the rest of us. I sit near the door and flip through magazines while the other moms chat, and while it’s impossible not to eavesdrop, initially I make no effort to participate.

On the second week Cindy begins to make work of drawing me into the conversation. She’s perennially chatty and upbeat and, like most people, she’s curious about Lewi. I tell her our adoption story, and she tells me about her kids. She has five: four young adults with her ex-husband, and Alicia, a six-year-old charmer, with her second husband. I always think that our family, with older parents and a huge age gap between our kids, is so unique, but in this small dance class I’ve encountered another family much like ours.

Chris, one of the other moms, knows Cindy, although I’m not sure how. Chris, too, is a little bit older than your average mother of young children (although still much younger than I am).  Her husband died five years ago in a work-related accident, and now she is raising her two daughters alone. She’s a non-stop advocate for her older daughter, who has a list of special needs as long as your arm. She is often on the phone with the school, with various doctors, with her insurance company. She is kind and intelligent, and she still wears the pain of her loss.

A nanny brings a pair of dancers—sisters—to class, along with Paige, a sister too young for lessons.  During class Paige has the run of the lobby, climbing on chairs, hiding behind the vending machines, and shaking the candy machine until it yields M&Ms, while the nanny texts on her cell phone. About halfway through the year, the nanny stops coming and the mother, Kate, begins bringing the girls because Kate is no longer working. I thought she was a candidate for the pretty moms group, but she joins our conversations, probably because her girls go to the same school as Chris’s kids. Kate and her second husband have six kids in their blended family, and Kate would like more.

As the year goes on, we don’t all stay each week, but when we’re there, we talk. Initially the conversations revolve around our kids, but it’s amazing how quickly we move past small talk into conversations of real significance. We laugh a lot, and we develop a common story and an intimacy that I could not have anticipated. When I showed up on that first September afternoon, feeling like the new kid, I did not think I would fit in with them, and I didn’t want to. I was not looking for friendship, especially among these women whom I judged—misjudged—to be unremarkable.

Lewi’s not going to continue dance, and I’m okay with that. But I will miss these women. I’m grateful for our time together, and that the places where our paths collided became points of grace.

Lockers

I spent part of a summer working as a custodian at my daughter’s high school. It was not my favorite job ever, but it had its moments, and it was a little income, which helped put food on the table. I worked with some interesting folks: people for whom this job was a career, not just a way station, as it was for me. Some of them lacked work ethic, it’s true, but most of them were pretty good at what they did. They had occasional disdain for the school’s privileged and pampered students, but they also honestly loved them and wanted to do a good job for the district.

Cleaning a high school during the summer is done at a slower pace and offers a lot of opportunity to work with others. The team varies a little from day to day, as does our work, but for the most part we spend our time together cleaning classrooms. We fall into a rhythm: some prefer dusting lights and replacing bulbs, while others wipe down the walls, scrub the sinks, or scrape gum from every possible surface. I often choose to clean the windows. As a team we clean the desks and move them into the halls, and after the carpets are cleaned we move everything back in. There is enough variety and work to keep it fairly interesting.

Another big job summer for unskilled labor like myself is cleaning lockers. This is really a horrible job; everyone hates it. The head custodian grins a little when he gives me the assignment. Perhaps it is intended as a test of my character.

I work with Red, a career custodian and confirmed slacker. He’s kind of an institution at the high school, having worked there for over a decade. Many years ago Red served in the Navy, a fact that creeps into virtually every conversation. Perennially single, Red spends a chunk of each weekend helping to maintain his mother’s home. He’s mostly sweet and a little awkward. With him as my partner, I know that there will be little opportunity for meaningful conversation.

We gather our supplies and meander to the first hallway. Red picks a side, I pick a side, and we begin. My locker is number 1700, and they go up from there, so it occurs to me that there are several thousand lockers in the building. It’s overwhelming to imagine cleaning them all. I try not to think about it.

I open the locker and look for the remains of the life that had inhabited it for the past nine months. There are scraps of tape where photos had been positioned, and scraps of paper from homework or missives from friends. The scraps I toss on the floor, and I take my blade to the tape. Rags and cleaning products finish the job, and I’m off to locker 1701.

I move slowly down my side of the hall, meticulous in my work. In the back of my mind, it occurs to me that any one of these might belong to my daughter or one of her friends, and I want to make sure that their lockers are perfect. I find graffiti and use a special spray to clean it up. The spray smells horrible and is toxic—banned in California, in fact—so I try to use it sparingly. After I’ve used it on a few lockers I start to get light-headed, so I try to avoid sticking my head into the lockers to clean them, but I still develop a headache. It’s slow going, and Red is already far ahead on his side of the hall. I try to hurry, but the image of the students—my daughter and her peers—keeps coming to mind, and I want this little home of theirs to be in good shape when they come back in the fall.

To give meaning to the mind-numbing monotony of the task, I begin to meditate on the lockers as I clean them. I pray for the students who used it in the past, and I pray for the students who will inhabit it in the future. I pray that they will be successful in school and in the future, that they will be kind, that they will be happy. I pray for their health and for the paths they are on.

Red finishes his side of the hall well before I do and wanders off to find something else to do. I resist the temptation to touch up his lockers, mostly because I still have plenty left on my side of the hall.

When some people hear that I’m a custodian, they say that sometimes that sounds good to them: to have a mindless job with no stress. But it’s not low stress for me. The pay is low but expectation is still surprisingly high. The long-timers don’t worry too much about this, but I do. I’m genetically designed to want to do a good job, even for minimum wage.

The other thing is, if you’re a thinking person, you don’t stop thinking just because the job doesn’t require it. My head never shuts off while I’m working; I am always thinking, but without a way of expressing my thoughts, I am endlessly frustrated. Happy people are those who are able to use their talents, and while I am a good cleaner, it’s not my only skill.

So I add another prayer as I clean: I pray that the kids who use these lockers will not have to work as custodians, or in any other job that doesn’t make them happy. Of course, not everyone spends his or her entire career in the perfect job. So I pray that, if they do find themselves in such a job, that they can find something meaningful in the work. Finding a job you love is a special blessing. But if that doesn’t work out, it’s good to find the blessing in the job you have.

It's an Honor

The week before my oldest daughter graduated from high school, I went to the honors assembly for the senior class. Another rite of passage, another chance to remember her childhood and to help her transition to the great things that are to come.

The other parents and I shared the gym’s bleacher section for the two hour ceremony. I was surprised that I recognized so many parents and how many members of the class of 2012 I have gotten to know. There were lots of special awards, and while there were a few kids who took home several, in general the faculty seemed to have done a pretty good job of spreading the wealth. Kelsey went forward to receive a special stole for her participation in the honors society and a special cord signifying her graduation as the first class of the district’s Spanish immersion program. I don’t know if she expected something more or something else, but I was pretty sure she wasn't up for anything else. She’s a very talented kid, but she’s not the kind of kid that gets awards. She pursues many interests and has never dedicated herself to being the best in any area.

I’m proud of many of the kids who did receive awards; they are a talented and deserving lot. Awards are great, and certainly a reason for pride and celebration. But they aren’t necessarily an indicator of future success.  Kelsey is going to do just fine in life, even without the endorsement of her high school teachers. She’s smart, well-spoken, creative, and has a good heart and a great capacity for joy. In my book, she’s already a success, and her dad and are proud of her.

The day after Kelsey’s honors assembly, my husband, Bill, got an email message from someone who knew him in high school. I didn’t know Bill in high school, but I know him pretty well now. He’s told me that back then he was into sports and was especially talented in tennis. He carried some of the typical jock arrogance but still had lots of friends, and while he had a robust social life, he had little interest in academics.

So out of the blue this high school classmate, friends with some of Bill’s Facebook friends, saw his picture and sent a friend request. He hadn’t known Bill well, but he remembered that Bill was a talented tennis player who was also gracious. He also remembered a time when Bill’s mother saved him from a bully, breaking up a fight and dragging the trembling bully home to his mother. Clearly Bill and his mom had made an impression on this guy, enough that he would retell the story several decades later.

The funny thing is, Bill has no memory of this particular classmate. Even finding his picture in an old yearbook sparked no recognition. 

What an amazing gift: that someone—a virtual stranger—would remember your positive attributes years later, and take the time to tell you.

While I know that Kelsey can be sassy and stubborn and sometimes unthinking, I also have seen in her acts of graciousness that take my breath away. She has a great capacity for kindness, and each day I see it grow. And this is my wish for my daughter: that when people from high school remember her, they remember her not for her grades or her awards or for the roles she played in musicals—all the things that have seemed so important over these past four year. But I hope she is remembered as a person with integrity, a person who is willing to stand up for what’s right, a person who treats others with kindness and respect. That’s the real prize, and the key to a life well lived. I’m proud to say she’s well on her way.