Family Reunion Re-Set

I just got back from a family reunion. We have them every two years and I always meet them with a myriad of different emotions. They can be challenging. There are never enough beds or bed rooms and single members of the family are left to curl up on couches and on the floor in alcoves. I never get enough sleep. We have some challenging personalities as well. Sometimes you get allergic to one or the other. It's just natural in a group so large. And, then there's the grief. With every coming together, we must remember those who are no longer with us. And we pay tribute, because that's what we do. And it's good, but sad, too.

The best part of these reunions is how well I get re-set. Like a clock to the atomic. For two years, I go about my life and allow other influences and try on other perspectives and get swayed and convinced. And when I come back to my family -- and get so immersed -- there is no way to escape my center, the core of myself. The compass that points true north.

These people combined can be nothing other than what we are. The memory is too long. You can dye your hair, or take up smoking, or cop a huge attitude, or bring yet another wife along, and the group remains. Centered. Solid. Flexible, forgiving and forever what it was and will be.

At the core of this group is the core of me. And regrouping every two years re-centers my middle. What seemed so important that it was making me sick the night before I left, now doesn't matter a bit. Values are regained and remembered. A path forward now seems so clearly possible.

I am so thankful for these wonderful people.

Another Feminism

Front Line Leadership Lady said a curious thing during class.

We were doing a communication exercise where we had a murder mystery to solve. We all had cards with bits of information on them, and we had to tell each other what our cards said and piece the story together. There were different characters -- all who had motive or suspicious behavior. We had to determine who was the real killer.

And as we all came together to talk about our conclusions, it became obvious that one woman character was meant to distract us from the true killer. And the Front Line Leadership Lady, voicing how we all were thinking, said:

"Why is she important? She's a Miss, not a Mrs!"

And this stuck me as so offensive. Just because she's not married, she's unimportant?

Whooo dang.

Minutes before, in a smaller, break-away group were we were to brainstorm something, my comments were made fun of by a male Director and dismissed. He shut me down. A male group mate restated my suggestion. When it was said again, the male Director wrote it down on the brain storming list.

I think it might be time for another Feminism. We had the first good go-round, and then the neo-Feminists and the post-Feminists, but I think we might need another little dose of it, to remember. Some tri-Feminist movement. Or, what? What could it be called?

Maybe it's just me . . . noticing again because my situation has changed so completely at work. Maybe I'm just anticipating past wrongs resurfacing and needn't be so over-sensitive.

But when you really start listening with your Feminism on . . . you too will hear it. Everywhere.

Whooo dang.

On Excellence

I have been thinking about excellence lately. At work, we are going through a thousand and one changes, and it's been really stressful. This week I exploded all over my boss man. He was coming at a problem in a way that totally offended me . . . because it wasn't assuming excellence in all we do. It took me most of the morning to figure out why I bit his head off. But it was because he was directing me to be less than perfect and it infuriated me. When we eventually sat down and talked about it, I voiced this to him. He said his loyalty was to "you and Paul and the team, and I wanted to protect you from all this."

Protect us? From doing our job?

Yep. That's what it came down to. It wasn't what he meant to do. He was worried and just didn't want to overburden us. But what he didn't realize is that excellence -- Excellence -- is a huge part of how I do my job. If I didn't have Excellence to do . . . then what would be the point?

In a front line leadership course I took before vacation, the teacher was talking about performance evaluations and asked why everyone thinks a meets is a bad grade. She couldn't figure out where that came from. "Where does that COME from?" Although she didn't hear me, I said "High school." Big duh on that one, Lady. Meets is a C in high school. And I was never, and will never be, a C student. Thank you very much.

If we didn't have perfection to strive towards, what would we be doing? Isn't it perfection, excellence and achievement that drives human kind forward? If we just wanted to breed and jet ski, then where would we be? The only reason to live is to continue to strive to be Great. To do everything we do, as best as we can do it. To be more better. And this isn't about being the Best in the World (although that still underpins a lot), it's about doing what I do completely. To the best of my ability.

Isn't that a great phrase? To the best of my ability.

Always and completely.

Invisible Spears of Love

You know what's not true? It's this . . .

"If I feel this sure, it MUST be true."

That's just not true.

Today I have been thinking a lot about love feelings . . . or lust feelings . . . or that absolute, crippling pain you get just under your heart when someone catches your fancy. And you think to yourself, if I'm feeling it this deeply, if it's making me this sick and light headed and distracted, it must be true! Because certainly I wouldn't feel sick if there weren't these little rays of love shooting into me from him. Right?

But you know . . . it ain't true.

Little rays of love between you don't exist.

I can make myself sick thinking about someone, seeing them walk across a room, sitting near them. I can make that horrible, piercing pain appear under my heart when I take a fancy. And it is so painful and so convincing and comes so absolutely out of the blue, that I convince myself it must be some phenomenon. Some physical thing happening to grab hold of me so completely.

But it ain't true.

I must always remind myself to fall back to the basics . . . if you have to ask, it isn't on.

Luckily, this time, I didn't ask.

And isn't timing something? Tomorrow, I'm leaving for a long vacation. And today I got confirmation that the wing-span beauty from the meeting is dating someone else in the office. Aren't they adorable? And today I found out that my girl friend recently took up with a guy who, a million years ago, took his name tag from his parka and sent it to me as a remembrance. He's now married. But, I guess, not that happily so. She's torn up, blaming him . . . but she slept with her married friend. I have little sympathy . . . but I still feel sad, none the less. Sure, I don't want to be sleeping with my married friend. But I would have liked a little follow-through on the whole name tag thing, a million years ago.

Ah me. What isn't to be, doesn't become. It doesn't manifest. Little signs, like kissing feet, and getting nervous, and sending name tags, just don't mean dick.

When it's on, it's all the way on. And you'll know it. Right?

Because there aren't little rays of love. And there isn't physical magic. And I can't sense another's secret feelings from across town.

There are only real actions, real questions, and real declarations.

And that's it.