Tag: stress

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At A Time Like This

It somehow feels wrong to feel normal.

I know. “Normal” exists on the washing machine, not in the world. If the last few years haven’t proved that, I don’t know what will, between pandemics, protests, wildfires and … well, you don’t need the litany from me. We’ve all lived it.

And now we have a war half a world away. Demanding attention. Stirring up its own bizarre mix of feelings.

Part of mine come from old memories – those of my generation and my parents’ – of the old Cold War flare-ups. Like a standoff in a room full of nitroglycerin, you had to wonder if any sudden move would have devastating results.

Part of it is the same helpless feeling I get in the wake of another school shooting, where the alarm keeps going off with no clear way to answer the call.

On top of it all sits the clash, the collision between peril and mundanity. The little voice that whispers  about how frivolous, even silly some of my thoughts and activities are. Maybe you’ve heard it too: “How can you even bother doing (x) at a time like this? Don’t you know what’s going on in the world?”

If so, take heart. You may be doing more than the voice knows.

I’m not advocating a callous denial of reality. The world doesn’t need another Nero fiddling while the world burns, or a Scarlett O’Hara complaining about how war is ruining her social life. It’s not about locking out another’s pain to make yourself feel better.

But we’re complicated beings. We’re capable of attending to more than one thing at a time. And when we turn to something that doesn’t have to do with either a crisis or a day-to-day need, it’s not necessarily because we don’t care.

Many times, it’s a release. One acquaintance of mine dances in times of stress. Others turn to music, or to books, or to a mile-long walk to free the anxiety that has nowhere else to go. Engines can’t run hot all the time, and the soul needs cooling down and maintenance just as much.

Sometimes it even goes beyond that. It becomes transformative, channeling the fear and anxiety and anguished hope into something that lifts up instead of presses down.

One of my favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien, took this above and beyond. A veteran of World War I, he mingled old battlefield horrors with his love of language and nature to produce a mythology that’s still giving people hope, inspiration and release today.

Naturally, he also had his “times like these “critics – after all, with so many real problems to address, why waste time on fantasy? His pointed response was that “Escape” could be a virtue … except, maybe, in the eyes of jailers.

“Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home?” Tolkien noted in a lecture. “Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it.”

Regeneration. Transformation. Hope. These become especially vital in hard times – not in denial of them, but to better grapple with and endure them.

Don’t turn away. But don’t fear the ordinary, either. It doesn’t have to be a dereliction of duty. It might even be just the thing to make you readier than ever.

Even in times like these.

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Happy Humblebrag?

I love collecting words. And a long time ago (though not in a galaxy far, far away), I came across a prize specimen: humblebrag.

You probably know the term. I’m sure you’ve met the reality. It’s the boast disguised as modesty, or the “aw, shucks” that checks itself in the mirror. An old pastor of mine used to call it the competition of “I’m the most humble man in the room.” It never really rings true, yet people keep trying it, whether it’s to look good to others or feel better about themselves.

So why the language lesson? Because it’s that time of year again.

Too often, we let Thanksgiving become a humblebrag holiday.

At its essence, it’s a great idea … a holiday that whispers where others shout. Instead of filling the skies with fireworks or the airwaves with music (aside from 18 minutes of “Alice’s Restaurant”), we’re encouraged to turn inward, reflect and appreciate.

It sounds good. Heck, it is good.

But there’s a danger in counting blessings. It’s easy to stop taking stock and start taking inventory.

“I’m so thankful that I have them … and those … and that … ooh, and the other stuff … and especially that …” All too soon, it becomes a celebration of abundance, where the important thing is to have. After all, a long list means you’re a really appreciative person, right? It’s the sign of someone who knows how to celebrate the good things!

But what happens in a year when the good things are hard to see?

There’s a lot of stress and strain hemming everyone in right now. It might be tight times. Or a family that’s divided, or scattered, or has someone missing that should have been present. It might even be too many days with too much darkness, in a world where stories of pandemic, injustice and hate seem to shout everything else down.

When you’re in the middle of that storm, Thanksgiving can sound kind of hollow. Thankful? For what? Where?

 It’s an old story. One as old as the holiday itself.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears reminding: the first national Thanksgiving was born in war. In 1863, the country remained torn by a civil war that was far from over. Far from a time of peace and prosperity, it was a time when even national survival remained in doubt.

So when President Lincoln declared the holiday, humblebragging was notably absent. Read today, his proclamation seems to hold a note of astonishment. Despite everything, he noted, the nation was still carrying on: still growing, building, trading, interacting with the world. In the midst of pain, and with much yet to do, there still was much to be grateful for.

That’s the real heart of the holiday. Not a feast of abundance, but hope amidst hardship. Even when it’s a hard light to kindle.

Maybe especially then.

There’s no need to throw out the turkey and the stuffing if you’re fortunate enough to have them. But if this is a hurting time, then don’t forget that this is your holiday too. You don’t need to have a mile-long self-satisfied list, or be a model for Norman Rockwell. If you’re here, somehow, against all the odds … then that may just be enough.

Hold on. Hold hope. And when better times return, remember the ones that were less comfortable. Both as a source of gratitude and as a reminder to reach for those still struggling. To be thankful and a cause of thankfulness in others.

I hope you find some of that thankfulness this season. I know I’ll try.

You have my word.

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A Place of Peace

“All right, Missy, are you ready?”

Sitting up in bed, Missy grinned her crooked smile and nodded. I set our bedtime book to one side.

“Ok, close your eyes.”

Two hands eagerly went up to her face.

“Take a breath … no peeking now … here we go.”

Carefully, I picked up a tiny photo album of hers, one she loved to page through. And set it with great delicacy on top of her head.

“One … two … three ….”

Missy waited through the count, trembling with excitement as the album balanced precariously … but without falling. On “10,” I removed the book and she broke out in joyful laughter.

“You did it, Miss!”

“Yeah!!!!”

That’s what happens when your nighttime reading takes a turn for the Force-ful.

For about 10 years now, Missy’s bedtime story has been an unbreakable ritual. We’ve journeyed with Bilbo Baggins and studied with Harry Potter. We’ve peeked into The Secret Garden, cracked the riddles of The Westing Game, and laughed loud and long as Anne Shirley broke her slate over a classmate’s head before returning to Green Gables. In the process, my wife Heather and I have seen how engaged Missy becomes and how her developmental disability is no barrier to following the plot or caring deeply about the characters.  

This time around, we’ve been able to mix in something different. The story is a familiar one, a junior-level take on The Empire Strikes Back titled “So You Want to Be a Jedi?” But the take is unusual, placing the reader in the role of Luke Skywalker and offering “Jedi training exercises” in between each chapter.

The first ones simply involve closing your eyes in peace for a few brief moments, learning to quiet yourself and concentrate. Then it adds simple (and often silly) things. Like balancing a book on your head. Or batting aside thrown socks without opening your eyes. Or balancing a book while batting away thrown socks without opening your eyes.

For Missy, it’s a fun way to show off. It also, in disguise, is a neat little lesson in balance, awareness and mindfulness.

And time and again, they start in the same place. Take a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe.

That’s valuable no matter how old you are.

And it’s something that’s oh-so-easy to forget.

We’ve all had a lot more than socks thrown at us lately. From the personal to the national, we’ve had worlds upset, lives overturned, familiar things disrupted and shaken and broken. Stress and worry pile up on every side, and not without reason.

Everything demands our attention and concern, but there’s still only one of us. It’s easy to become a balloon in a hurricane, tossed this way and that before something finally makes everything pop.

In the midst of that, taking a step back sounds impossible. Like Luke trying to lift his own X-wing, the situation just seems too overpoweringly big to get a grip on.

But that’s when a place of peace matters most.

It doesn’t have to be long. But it does have to be. Just for a few moments. Just long enough to set the shouting of the world aside and find your own thoughts again.

It’s hard. We live in a world of urgency and “do it now!” where action is valued over contemplation. And finding that moment doesn’t solve the problem – but it puts us in a better place to understand it, to see rather than just react.

Take that moment. Find that place. It’ll probably take practice. But it may just give a bit of balance in return.

And if that balance involves a photo album, Missy’s got a trick she’d like to show you.

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Stalking Joy

“Scott,” Heather asked in a voice that was just a shade too serious, “I have a very important favor to ask you.”

“OK …” I tilted my head slightly, waiting to see what she would ask for next.

“Would you …. be celery for me?”

I laughed hard. Oh. THIS game.

“Sure!” I said, still grinning as I stretched up to my full height with my arms at my side and curved my shoulders inward. A perfect celery stalk imitation, if I do say so myself.

“How about … a turnip?”

My knees bent into squatting posture, hands over my head to form the greens.

“A carrot?”

Back up tall, still with the greens, but this time shoulders out and feet pointed. Now both of us were laughing.

“Thank you, bear,” Heather said, a smile as bright as any Christmas tree on her face.

None of this was going to win me a spot in the revival of “VeggieTales” or impress anyone with my mastery of interpretive dance. This was a gag  so old that it went back to the earliest years of our marriage, so old that we’d practically forgotten how it started. It may have even begun with the typical new husband declaration of “I’d do anything for you!” and a mischievous wifely response of “Oh, really?…”

Whatever the cause, it’s been one of our secret weapons. A way of snatching back a little silliness from a stressful world.

And oh, has it been stressful lately.

Picture an Advent calendar designed by Dr. Evil and you get the idea. Instead of a chocolate, each new day has revealed a different little ball of anxiety. Like straining my back while fixing a shower. Or racing Heather to the ER for Crohn’s issues. Or having our ward Missy turn into a squirming ball of unhelpfulness at a dental appointment. Or a series of minor and not-so-minor breakdowns in the house. And that’s without adding the magic of 2020 to the mix.

You know what I’m talking about, I’m sure. It seems to go with the holidays, whether it’s traffic on the streets or a missing person at the table. And it all gets underlined by the constant reminders that this is a season of joy.

Joy?

It’s a conundrum that Charles Dickens himself knew very well. “What’s Christmas time to you,” his Ebenezer Scrooge groused, “but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer?”

Sometimes joy can be a very hard candle to light. And seeing it stay dark makes it even harder. Resignation’s much easier, an emotional distancing to go with the social, a mask worn over the heart instead of the face.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Because joy isn’t something we make. It’s something we make ourselves open to.

Joy lives in the unexpected moment.

When we turn a corner and Missy shouts “Lookit! Look!” at a house ablaze with lights from every seam, joy has come.

When a friend leaves something on the doorstep without warning just because it’s the season, joy has visited.

And yes, when Heather asks for a vegetable imitation and the laughter of 22 years of marriage suddenly breaks out across both of us, joy is in the middle of it all.

It’s still close at hand. Waiting.

Even in 2020.

May joy find you this season, wherever you are, whatever your circumstances. May you always be open to it, even in the hardest of times. Whatever flock you’re watching by night, may it give you the chance to watch the skies as well.

Be ready. Be hopeful.

And if you can, be celery, too.

It’s amazing how useful that can be.

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Gee, Thanks

Written Nov. 23, 2019

The film critic Roger Ebert once noted that if you want to show a family coming together, you set a movie at Christmas – and if you want to show it falling apart, you set it at Thanksgiving.

If you’re nodding along, I can’t say I blame you.

On the surface, Thanksgiving is one of the most wonderful holidays there is. It doesn’t shout and try to sell you a million things, it doesn’t involve recreational explosives or hastily-ordered last-minute floral bouquets . All it asks is that we appreciate what we have, eat, spend time together, and maybe watch some mediocre football before trying to remember the box of house lights is. I mean, there’s even a Charlie Brown special!

And yet … we know better.

Heather and I have had several Thanksgivings where one of her chronic illnesses suddenly switched into overdrive, canceling a plan to visit friends or family.

Or where something vital broke down at the holiday (a computer, the plumbing, our last nerve), adding that much extra delay before repairing.

Or when we received staggering news, like the fact that our much-missed Duchess the Wonder Dog had cancer and maybe a month or two left to live. (She passed a few days after New Year’s.)

And for many, that family togetherness can be more stressful than recuperative. Maybe feelings are still simmering a few weeks (or years) after an election. Maybe it’s the annual debate about which family “gets” Thanksgiving and which gets Christmas. Or maybe there’s an empty chair at the table that won’t be filled this year – or at all.

Whatever the reason, sometimes it feels like the universe is conspiring to turn a moment of “Thank you” into “Gee, thanks.” That stress and crisis are natural companions to the stuffing and can-shaped cranberry sauce.

I get it. I’ve seen it. I’ve lived it.

And yet.

We know the ideal: that Thanksgiving is a space apart from crisis, or to celebrate having surmounted one. (OK, I’m laughing, too.) But the real is no less powerful – that it can be a space in the midst of crisis. Maybe even one that crisis throws into stark relief.

When Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving holiday, the country was in the midst of civil war. He neither denied it nor ignored it. But he did note how, even in the worst moment of the nation’s history, the country was still growing, still abundant, still at peace on foreign fronts, and (outside the Southern battlefields) still upholding the essential work of being a nation. Great wounds needed healing, but there was still much to be grateful for.

Maybe that’s true on a smaller scale than a civil war.

Our “illness Thanksgivings” turned into one of our favorite stories, about how Domino’s pizza started becoming the centerpiece meal instead of turkey.

Our own empty chairs (and collar) have given us occasion to hold loving memories close again and remember the wonderful lives that touched our own.

Our stresses have remained real – but with something beyond the emergency of the moment that lasts. Maybe even something summoned by the crisis, the way that a community comes together in times of flood or blizzard.

“Forget your perfect offering,” Leonard Cohen once sung. “There is a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.”

I’m not saying Thanksgiving has to be stressful to be special. But the stress doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

We can still find the space. Maybe a weary one. Maybe a painful one. But still a chance to look within and look without, and find something still standing. Some light in the crack that reaches us, or that we can reach toward.

That’s worth a bit of gratitude.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all.

Want to go take in a movie?

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Double-0 My!

As the first flakes of Longmont’s snow season crept to the ground, Leroy Brown stood ready for action.

That may sound a little incongruous for Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, the ace child detective of Idaville (as opposed to Jim Croce’s ill-fated gambler). But for our new-ish brown Hyundai of the same name, its moment had clearly arrived. The heater roared. The engine hummed. And the newly-attached license plate declared its tough-guy status to the world.

Or at least, the last three digits of said license plate.

Leroy Brown was now agent 009.

As you might imagine, the prospect of our car now being part of the British Secret Service has inspired much hilarity from friends and family, especially when we all considered whether the Q Branch Option Package might be installed. (For the record, there’s no smoke screen and no oil slick, which probably wouldn’t pass emissions tests in Colorado, anyway.) But among the shared laughter, one friend introduced a note of reality – well, cinematic reality, anyway.

“As I recall, 009 suffers an unenviable fate in the Bond canon …”

Hmm.

For those who aren’t deeply familiar with the series, the James Bond movies do have an agent 009. A few, in fact, but the one who gets the most screen time appears in the opening minutes of “Octopussy,” fleeing an East Berlin circus in a clown suit while chased by a pair of knife-throwing twins. (You kind of had to be there.) Fighting back hard against his pursuers, he’s mortally wounded and knocked into a river … but still survives long enough to stagger to the British Embassy and deliver, with his dying breath, the Faberge’ egg that kicks off the rest of the plot.

So, OK, you could argue that it’s an ill-omened number.  But I liked it better than ever.

This was a double-0 agent to identify with.

Everyone knows James Bond, agent 007, the handsome expert on a dozen plot-relevant subjects, who makes the ladies swoon and always has the right gadget to get out of a tough situation. Bond walks through life with expensive clothes, expensive cars, and a plot armor that guarantees he’ll always come out on top in the end, even if many of his lovers and associates aren’t so lucky.

That’s not most of us.

Most of us, I suspect, are a little closer to 009. Struggling against situations that we’re not really prepared for. Having to constantly keep moving to keep from being overwhelmed. Fearing that one mistake or bit of bad luck will bring everything crashing down. Maybe even feeling a little ridiculous while doing it.

And yet, still doing what we need to do, with everything we’ve got in us.

That, too, is a hero. Much more of one than Commander Bond, in fact.

And it’s a heroism we see every day.

Maybe it’s holding a life together in the face of physical or mental challenges … or a family together with finances and nerves strained to the limit … or facing the world while the heart quietly screams for someone who’s been lost. It may be any of a million other situations – the details are personal, individual, private.

But the strength shown is one that speaks to us all.

So Leroy Brown, agent 009? Absolutely. In fact, it’s an honor, one that I’m happy to carry on behalf of all the 009s out there.

It’s a bond. Universal bond.

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Shooting for the Moon

Fifty years ago today, the surface of the Moon was still quiet.

The Eagle had not yet landed. The world was not yet watching the arrival of three men in hope and wonder and anxiety. Mankind’s first words on an alien surface had not yet been spoken – and screwed up ever so slightly. (Sorry, Neil.)

So much had been planned. So much had been prepared. But nothing was certain. Astronauts had been lost before. It could happen again.

Anything could be in the future. Wonder. Disaster. Chaos.

Anything at all.

***

This column was born from a slight mental glitch.

I am a space geek going way back. And so, like all the other fans of the final frontier, I’ve been excited about the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon. By any standard, the date of July 20, 1969 deserves to stand out in human history.

Which is why I have no excuse for momentarily remembering it as June 20 when I started to plan my column.

All right, I’m laughing, too.  Brain cells do amazing things – such as the first President Bush declaring September 7 as the “day of infamy” or President Obama momentarily gifting the U.S. with 57 states – so at the very least, I’m in illustrious company.

But the more I thought about it, the more the idea intrigued me. And not just because I was up against a deadline again.

Consider, for a moment, the world of 1969.

A lot had been happening in this country. And unless you were a New York Mets fan, most of it didn’t feel like champagne and roses. John Lennon may have been singing “Give Peace a Chance,” but for the first half of the year, the headlines didn’t seem to hold much of it. War in Vietnam. Protests. Riots. Even a major oil spill and a spring training boycott.

Sure, preparation for the moon mission was there, too. But unless you were part of the not-so-small army laying the groundwork, it was probably one more item among many, and not an especially loud one. Not yet.

Not with about a month left to go.

Not with crisis so loud and the future not yet known.

***

We’re good at focusing on crisis. It’s one of the things that’s helped us survive as a species. But when we have the ability to be aware of crisis across the country – heck, around the world – it gets overwhelming. Too many alarms, all of them screaming “NOW!”

It’s easy to drown. Easier to surrender.

And easiest of all to forget that even at our worst, we’re still capable of our best.

It doesn’t just happen, any more than winning lottery tickets just happen to show up in our mail box. It takes work and hope and maybe even a little craziness. Just enough crazy to decide that what we do can matter, that a little light can be kindled in the smoke.

That we can do something that matters.

Apollo 11 was the culmination of seven years of effort (and built on what had come before). Right down to the end, nothing was certain. President Nixon had a speech in his pocket in case of fatal disaster. The Eagle overshot the intended landing site, forcing Armstrong to guide the craft to safety and touch down with 23 seconds of fuel left. So much could have happened.

But what did happen captured the eyes of the world.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed.”

What are we a month away from now, maybe?

What future could we be building among the chaos of today if we refuse to quit? To stop hoping?

I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to it.

Especially if it includes one more column finished on deadline for this space case.

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First Gifts

Every year, you could count on it. The Rochat Family Christmas Eve Parade of Nightwear was the most exclusive ticket in town.

You could tell simply by looking at the invited audience, a bustling throng of three people, max, plus assorted pets. The models were not under contract anywhere else. Heck, for much of its existence, the models hadn’t even entered secondary school.

No runway in New York or Paris could touch it. Not when it was Dec. 24, the first packages had been opened, and my two sisters and I were modeling our brand-new pajamas.

“Oooh! Aaah!”

My parents, reinforced by Grandma Elsie, were most appreciative. And well they should have been. After all, they had once again completed an amazing double act: they had gotten young children excited about receiving clothes for Christmas AND ensured that said children would look presentable in family pictures the next morning.

Amazing, did I say? They made it look easy. And maybe it was. After all, they had just harnessed the most primal forces of the universe:

 

1) The desire of a child to open a gift, any gift, before Christmas morning actually arrived. Pajamas and out-of-town presents were always the exception for us, and thus eagerly torn into.

2) The desire of these children – especially my sisters – to put on a show for their parents.

3) The raw power of accumulated tradition, where something becomes exciting and anticipated simply because it’s always been.

 

With those forces on their side, even the most mundane items could become something magical. Even wonderful.

That’s a power I think the holidays still hold, though sometimes I think we’re in danger of inverting it. At a time that can be so special, we risk turning the magical into the ordinary.

It’s easy to do. We hurry and we hustle, weighed down with stress and worry and the accumulated cares of the world. December can all too easily become an obstacle course, one more list of things to do and accomplishments to check off before breathing a sigh of relief and packing it all off into the attic for another year.

We don’t stop. And look. And marvel.

Each night, someone somewhere has put out lights. They might be a soft gleam or a Disneyland glare, but it’s a moment of beauty free to any passerby. So routine we don’t think of it anymore.

Each day, you hear music you hear at no other time. And yes, some of it is silly or annoying or cringe-inducing. But some of it touches hearts and memories, different strains for different people. With me, “Good King Wenceslas” and “Here We Come A Wassailing” still bring back my English grandma; “Silent Night” still evokes my family decorating the tree while the vinyl-aided voice of John Denver explained the song’s origins.

Somewhere, always, small acts of decency and kindness and hospitality are offered and accepted, just because that’s what you do. It may not always be visible in a crowded parking lot (all things have their limits) but even if the practice sometimes falls short, the ideal is known and at least attempted. A training ground, maybe, for something quiet but vital.

Before the first bits of paper are torn and the first ribbons cut, these things and a hundred other ordinary things like them are the first gifts of the season. And if we can see the gift, if we can anticipate the gift and even desire to share it, we can re-awaken the magic all over again.

Christmas is coming. Check your gifts. The ones without labels and bows.

If you’re really lucky, there might even be some pajamas waiting for you.

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Burrowing In

As I brought Missy to her bedroom, all the familiar comforts were waiting. Her Hogwarts pillows. Her bedtime story on the nightstand. And 95 pounds of midnight-colored canine, sprawled across the carpet.

Sigh. “Hi, Blake.”

Big Blake hasn’t always been part of the bedtime routine. In the past, our English Lab preferred to camp out in the master bedroom with Heather, waiting for her attention to wander so he could sneak off and raid the Christmas trash. But sometime last June and July, when the fireworks turned into a Normandy-level barrage, Blake decided it was time to relocate.

For a while he hid under my desk, which was a little like trying to fit a genie back into its lamp and about as miraculous. So after a while, he chose the comforts of Missy’s room instead. Even after the fireworks stopped, he’d plunk himself down, just in time for storytime.

I can hear everyone saying “Awww!” And yes, it makes a rather cute sight. But after the book gets put away and the last good-night hugs are shared, there remains the Herculean task of getting Blake to leave the room.

“C’mon, buddy.” Pause. “No, really, it’s time, let’s go.” Pause. “Blake ….”

Leaving the door open at night isn’t really an option, since it’s harder for Missy to sleep. Leaving them alone together is a little like leaving the Marx Brothers with a cream pie and a society matron close to hand. Lifting him up and out … I did mention this was 95 pounds of Lab, right?

So we coax. We call. We lay trails of food to lure him or ring the doorbell to get him charging out. We always feel a little bad about it, since we know it’s a comfort spot for him. But sooner or later, he needs to move.

I think more than a few of us can identify with that.

There has been a lot going on over the last year or so – enough that I sometimes wonder if the Cubs broke the space-time continuum with their World Series win. Hurricanes and wildfires. Torches and Nazis. And of course, the political becoming perpetual, with every day seeming to bring a new issue to discuss … no, debate … all right, argue.

Now, I worked in the media long enough to know that we’re never completely at Condition Green. We live in a world where we can instantly know every crisis and feel pain from half a world away. Not every alarm bell is necessary, but sorting out the ones that must be dealt with is a non-trivial task, even in the best of times.

Even so, the volume has been creeping up as surely as Missy’s stereo. And it’s being felt. I regularly see people who just want to disengage and break off from it all. Turn off the TV, put down the paper, clear off anything on the Facebook wall that isn’t puppies and flowers. Find a good bedroom at storytime, and plunk down on the carpet, away from everything else.

I understand. And to a certain extent, it’s necessary. No one can battle all the time, everyone needs a time and place where they can pull back, regroup, and recover. Having a space, online or off, that’s a “No Politics” zone can be essential to sanity.

But while it’s a great place to visit, we can’t live there.

In a free society, politics is everyone’s business. In an interconnected society, no decision leaves anyone untouched. And in this society, pulling back from a situation because it’s stressful doesn’t mean the situation will go away – it just means that you’ve removed any voice you might have had about how to deal with it.

And the voices that stay are not guaranteed to have your best interests at heart.

Yes, rest. Recover. Care for yourself, renew your joy and your strength. No job can be 24 hours, including our job as citizens. But remember that recuperation is different from surrender. Sooner or later, however comfy the place, we have to move back to where we need to be.

Trust me. You’ll be dog-gone glad you did.

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When Life Gives You …

The cardboard signs are out. The kids are waving eagerly. The shout goes up loud enough to carry half a block in any direction.

“LEMONADE!”

In some ways, Longmont has changed very little. I remember doing the same thing – very briefly – when I was in grade school. It’s not a business model that any investor would pitch to Wall Street. Foot traffic is less common than it used to be. Cars are insulated against your pitch unless you’ve got a really good sign. And lately, the weather has been closer to Seattle in springtime, further depressing your product’s demand – except of course, for Mom and Dad, who are usually also your major wholesalers. (Don’t tell the FTC).

All of which is to say that I’ve already purchased two cups in two days from two different sellers. And I’ll probably buy another tomorrow if I see the chance.

It’s what you do.

This isn’t just me being a nice guy. A while back, I read a book of little things that police officers typically picked up on the job – small details, habits, trivia that might make its way into a novel someday. One of the items on the long, long, list was simply this: if you are on patrol, and you see kids on the sidewalk selling lemonade, you WILL buy some. If you have no cash, you WILL get some from an ATM and come back.

In that case, it’s part of community policing. But many of the same reasons apply even for those of us who don’t wear the badge. It makes you a neighbor instead of a face. It establishes trust. It means that if they or their family see you again, they’ll have a smile and the knowledge that you’re one of the good guys.

And these days, children can use all the good guys they can get.

Sometimes it seems like we do a lot to push them the other way. Oh, I know, if you look at the long-term trends, this is a pretty good time and place in history to be a child. But we fill the world with so much stress, and with so much to stress about, that it can even overwhelm the adults among us, never mind the young.

I was almost 13 when the Challenger exploded. It seemed like every classroom that day had a television or a radio on with images and news of the disaster – almost none of it new news, just the same trauma recycled over and over again. Schools don’t generally do that anymore, and with good reason: it doesn’t help. It’s like asking a Volkswagen Beetle to tow an elephant; even if you succeed, the slug bug’s not going to be in the best of shape afterward.

You measure. You moderate. You don’t isolate a child from reality, but you help them handle it on their terms. And you always let them know that there are people to turn to with their worries and fears. Parents. Teachers. Helpers and friends.

You don’t have to helicopter or coddle or swathe them in cotton and plush. But never destroy a child’s hope. Be the face to trust, the ear to listen, the proof that there are still people in the world who want to make it better instead of worse. Even if it means carrying an extra 50 cents in your pocket in case of lemonade ambush.

Besides, most of the time, it’s not bad lemonade.