Be a Tree

"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." (Psalms 1:3-4)

Lately I've been thinking about trees. I realize this may sound crazy, but I'm now beginning to realize that in order to really appreciate life I must learn to be a tree. Trees, you'll notice, bend with the force applied towards them. They lean into the storm and never try to resist. Those trees that hold rigid are soon uprooted and cast aside and forgotten, while those that surrender to the elements remain rooted for years. I'm now only starting to see that when I am faced with an obstacle, I don't need to fight back. I can just be still and let the attack pass. When I try to fight in my own strength, I always fail. I am exhausted and discouraged and I usually don't win because resisting is futile. It is when I surrender and allow the forces to blow about me that I'm victorious. How silly it would be for a tree to throw up it's branches and attempt to fight the wind, yet I try to fight my own squalls with feeble attempts.

Although I've always been fascinated by trees, I've never really stopped long enough to think about how they symbolize all of the lessons that I need to learn in my life. It's true. I've felt most comfortable around trees. When I was a child, I would spend all of my free time in the woods behind my house. I got such comfort from the green sanctuary and have always felt closest to God when I'm near his creation. Just like Jessie in The Other Side of Through, I have found my own way in life whenever I've made my way to a wooded path. There is just something about trees that make me feel safe, protected and a part of creation. Through the years, I've complained about living in Florida and it wasn't until recently that I realized what it is about Florida that I don't like: It's the fact that, for the most part, I don't have access to the huge, towering trees of my childhood. Trees whose limbs I could climb in or whose leafy branches I could sit beneath. Trees that bore fruit that I could reach up and grab. Filling my mouth with the very taste of God. Yes, many of you will argue that Florida has trees, but, in my opinion, it's not the same sitting beneath a palm tree or a citrus tree.

Trees truly are symbols to help guide me--no, all of us-- in life. Almost every major religion and faith uses the tree as a symbol of humanity and creation. The Bible, The Qur'an and other sacred books speak of The Tree of Knowledge or the Tree of Good and Evil. This tree, whose branches reach up toward the sky, connect the heavens to the earth. It is the fruit from the tree that represents the choices we make-- some better than others--but we always have the freedom to make those choices. Like trees, we are constantly growing. I am not speaking of the growth spurts we have as we move from infancy to childhood or childhood to adolescence, rather the growth we make as we live our lives in an attempt to truly live and to finally get it right. I believe God put trees on earth to remind us of these lessons.

Scientists say that they can tell the age of a tree by counting it's annual rings, but more importantly they can read between the lines of those annual rings to discern even more information. They can learn the climate of the area, whether or not there was sufficient rainfall, and they can learn about parasites and other trauma that the tree may have sustained. Isn't that the same in our lives? We can look at the beautiful faces of people who have lived through some stuff, but we can also read between the lines. We can learn so much from laugh lines and furrowed brows.

The most obvious symbol is that trees bear fruit. It may be an apple, an orange, an olive or a pomegranate. It may not actually be something we eat, like an acorn or a pine cone, but trees produce something. Just like the tree, each of us is producing something in our lives that is meant to sustain someone else. Is the fruit that you're producing helping someone grow as you are growing? Are the trees you're eating from yourself sustaining you or is it time to do some pruning in your life? Do you need to cut back those areas that are not producing what you need or perhaps you need to feed from another vineyard or orchard.

So, as I sit beneath my favorite tree and write this, I realize that I must be a tree and stay planted near all that sustains me so that I can produce fruit at the appointed time that helps someone else.

I Can't Change the Outcome, Only My Outlook

There for a moment I took hit after hit from a series of unfortunate events. It seemed that as soon as I recovered from one blow, life took another swing and once again I was knocked to my knees. Over and over again I called out to God "What is the lesson?" and of course my pleas were met with silence. So many times I needed a burning bush moment and all I heard were crickets in the midst of the silence. I was desperate for some answers because I wanted to hurry up and learn the lesson so I wouldn't keep repeating the same painful experiences. Finally while journaling one morning I had an epiphany. It seemed that all of my bad luck could be grouped into one category: lack. I never seemed to have enough of something. Whether it was money, time, energy, faith, my tank was always running on empty. That's an easy fix I reasoned, so I changed how I thought about what I had. I began to show gratitude and appreciation for what I was given even if I felt I needed more. I was confident that I had learned the lesson and then I received a one two punch that didn't knock me on my knees. Instead I landed flat on my back.
I was devastated. Shouldn't I be able to move on if I understood the problem? I was a good student, I reasoned, why couldn't I proceed to the next life lesson? Finally God spoke to me, but it wasn't the larger than life Morgan Freeman voice that I expected. It was a still small voice that sounded very much like my own. "Michelle," it whispered, "how are you reacting when you don't have enough?"
Aha! It wasn't that I didn't understand the principle of gratitude, it was that any time I was faced with a problem I would freak out. I would go into a full tailspin until I figured out a way to fix the problem. What all of those setbacks were showing me was that I needed to change my reaction to the bad event. There was nothing I could do to change the event itself because bad things happen and that's just a part of life, but I could change my reaction!
As you know, I am a teacher, so I feel compelled to teach those things that I have learned. I'm by no means declaring that I've learned all of life's lessons, but I have learned this one and I want to make sure you learn it too. Here's the lesson: There is nothing you can do to change a bad event in your life, but you can change how you react to it. If someone cuts you off in traffic, smile. If your pay check is too small, smile. If your lover leaves you, smile. If you burn dinner, smile. It's all good so count it all  joy.

Never Let A Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You and Other Lessons Learned

Former talk show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey always finds a way to ask the signature question "what do you know for sure?" to the high profiled guests she interviews. This has me thinking about the lessons I've learned through my own experiences or by bearing witness to the pain of others close to me. These are the things that  I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to be true. I apologize in advance for the crude way I've worded some of these lessons, but life doesn't sugarcoat it when it's being taught, so I'm not going to try to make it sound fancy.

Lesson One: Never Let a Fool Kiss You or A Kiss Fool You
Sometimes a kiss is just a kiss and there is absolutely no emotion behind it. A kiss is not a commitment or a promise and it's important to learn how to separate the two. All too often people,especially women, put too much meaning into gestures that are just that, gestures. Even worse is that we allow people access to our bodies without knowing exactly what kind of person they really are. It's not always the love making that means anything, but the person's non-sexual actions that show where his or her heart really is. Furthermore, it takes time to really get to know someone and physical contact can cloud judgment.  The bottom line is don't kiss (or have sex with) someone who you are unsure about. Take sometime to really get to know them before the intimacy. If you've decided to wait until marriage, perfect, but if you haven't, my advice is to slow down and make sure that the person wants you and not just that part of you and also be absolutely sure you want them.

Lesson Two: Don't Give It All Away
No, I'm not referring to that age old question "Why buy the cow when the milk is free?" What I'm suggesting is that we learn to give from our abundance. Through the years I've seen others, and I've been guilty myself, of giving what they don't have. Like so many, I've volunteered my time and my energy when my body, mind and spirit needed rest. I've given above tithes and offerings for the "whatever fund" and then worried if my bills were going to get paid. What I've learned is that it is important to give, but we also have to give to ourselves. We have to make sure that we make ourselves as much of a priority as anyone else. If we need something, then we deserve it. Please hear me because I am not talking about material things nor am I promoting selfishness. What I am proposing is that we take care of our emotional, spiritual, physical and fiscal needs before giving it all away. You can't give what you don't have so stop trying.

Lesson Three: If You Haven't Given Birth to Me, Married Me or Financed Me, Then Your Opinion of Me Doesn't Really Matter
I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way I stopped trying to please everybody. Of course I'm concerned with what my mother, husband, children and employers think about the public choices I make, but other than that I really don't care. Through the years I spent a great deal of my time hoping that people would like me. I tried to always be agreeable and polite and bent over backwards to accommodate other's needs. Unfortunately, there were people who didn't like me because of the way I looked, the car I drove, the way I spoke or whatever and there was absolutely  nothing I could do to please them. So I stopped. If someone likes you, great. If they don't, two tears in a bucket...I wouldn't suggest that you upset your mother, your children, your spouse or employer by your words or actions, but I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about what others think. Everyone has an opinion about you, and it's just that-an opinion. And like noses everyone has one.

Lesson Four: Chocolate Really Can Make Things Better
If I'm sad, chocolate will lift my spirits. I don't care if it's dark, white or milk, Hershey's or Godiva it  makes me happy. On those occasions when I feel sorry for myself I consume as much chocolate as I want. Sometimes it's Hagen Daz chocolate ice cream and other times it's chocolate covered peanuts. Regardless, it's the adult equivalent of a pacifier and it comforts me for a while. Thankfully, this doesn't happen often. Otherwise I would be obese. Also, when others are sad, I've found that a piece of chocolate can brighten their day.

Lesson Five: You Can Tell A lot About a Person by the Way They Speak to the Help
People can put on their best manners when talking to the Chairman of the Board or the most important guest in the room, but do they value the person who cleaned the toilet, mowed the grass or cooked the food? People who are only impressed by titles always let their true colors show when they have to deal with anyone who they deem as unimportant. I avoid these fake people at all costs because they're opportunists. They don't care about the individual's worth, only their net worth.

Lesson Six: Trust But Verify
U.S. President Ronald Regan often used this phrase when discussing the tense U.S.-Soviet relationship in the 1980s. Like President Reagan, I want to believe what people tell me, but I've learned that if I don't verify what people tell me as "truth" then shame on me. It's my responsibility to discover the truth for myself.

Life is full of lessons, but these are the first seven. Thankfully I'm still learning.

Pen-demonium: Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candl...

Pen-demonium: Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candl...: Driving home from Orlando today I returned a phone call from my longest and dearest friend, Natalie. She'll appreciate that I didn't say old...

Happy Birthday to Me (And if You Add Another Candle I Swear I'll Kill You)

Driving home from Orlando today I returned a phone call from my longest and dearest friend, Natalie. She'll appreciate that I didn't say oldest because that was, after all, the topic of our conversation. She and I will both be celebrating birthdays this month and as we joked, it seems like just yesterday we were 4.

Now don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to be celebrating my 44th birthday on Monday! I'm healthy, I'm happy and I have the love of family and friends, which truly makes me wealthy. But damn. How did I get to be middle aged? Seriously, it seems like just yesterday I was trying to decide what I was going to wear to Prom and whether or not I wanted to have children when I grew up. But grow up I did, and two children later, I try not to be angry when my daughter sashays in front of me in a bikini with her perfect little body and comments on some imperfection of mine. Doesn't she realize my body looks like this because of HER!!!

How is it that I now have a career and a mortgage and very adult responsibilities, but I don't feel grown up at all? Of course I feel mature, but I don't remember actually growing up. I remember all of the milestones...the first kiss, the first time I drove a car on my own, my first date, my first college party, and the list goes on, but I honestly don't remember the passage of time. Was I so busy doing life that I missed it?

Other than the occasional gray hairs that insist on raising their fists in victory along my hairline, and the tiny lines that are slowly creeping around my eyes, I don't really see the passage of time when I look in the mirror. I see it instead when I look at my loved ones. I see it at family gatherings: The adults who once sat me at the children's table are now the ones whose food I have to cut in small pieces so they can chew it easily.  I see it my children who speak such words of wisdom about things they see happening in the world and how they wish to make a difference. So full of youthful indignation and optimism they are!  I see it also when I meet up with friends who I have not seen in a while and the passage of time is clearly written across their faces, and I'm sure they see it on mine.

Although I joke about growing older and watching my youth fade, I am truly grateful for every birthday because it means that I've spent another year on this earth learning more about what it means to be human. I honestly don't mind that I'm no longer 24 (or 34 for that matter) because I am finally at a place in my life where I love me! Imperfections and all! I'm old enough not to take myself too seriously and to understand that every day is a gift.

On Monday, there will be cake and lots of well wishes, too. I am sure I will receive phone calls and texts and birthday messages on Facebook and Twitter. Most likely there will be gifts, but there isn't really anything I want other than to be able to appreciate -truly experience-every day of my 44th year!

To My Baby Boy in the Hoodie (To Trayvon Martin)

I am a mother of a 19- year- old son whom I love fiercely. From the first moment I held him in my arms, I knew that my only job on this earth was to protect him and make sure that he grew to be the type of man that his father and I knew he could be. As he matured, I watched as society tried to set limits for him. Once in middle school, during a parent-teacher conference, the arrogant young teacher told me that she had high expectations. I had to explain to her, in no uncertain terms, that whatever her expectations were, they were no where near the ones I had for my son.

Every time he and his friends get in the car and drive away, I pray that every person who deals with them sees them as young black men with bright futures and not just some black boys in hoodies.

To some, my son, Matt is a big black man standing at 6'2" and 205 lbs, but to me he is my baby.  Just, as I'm sure, Trayvon was his mother's baby.

Like many of you, when I learned the details of the Trayvon Martin case here  in Sanford, literally my own backyard, my heart broke because I felt for that mother and for every black mother who has had her hopes and dreams buried along with her son's body. We love our daughters, but our sons are precious, too, because it is through them our story continues. Daughters have a way of marrying and assimilating into their husband's families, but it is our sons who continue the destiny in addition to carrying the name.

There are many places where I am supposed to be tomorrow afternoon, but I feel compelled to be in Sanford. I, along with so many other mothers, need to know why our son Trayvon Martin was brutally gunned down on his way home carrying only Skittles and an iced tea. More importantly, however, we need to know how his death is not considered a homicide in Florida.

My son Matt and I talk about everything and thankfully he feels comfortable  confiding in me. When we last spoke, we discussed the Trayvon case and my son said, "Mom, isn't it funny that the black man is one of the most despised things in America, but the most often duplicated?" He went on to say that others try to imitate the way the black man walks, talks, dresses, etc. but he is still considered to be less than.

My Matt will be home from college on Spring Break next week and I will have the luxury of hugging and kissing him. A luxury that Trayvon Martin's mother will never have again. Although I will be happy to see him, it will be bittersweet because I know that he will not be able to stay in my sight forever. He will want to go and hang out with his friends dressed in jeans and his favorite hoodie. I can no longer protect him as he moves about in the world. I can only pray that he be protected.

It is not much, but it is all I have.

The Only Way Out is Through

Sometimes bad things happen:
People we love get sick and die; people break the promises they’ve made to us; our dreams get deferred, and all too often people who we trust betray us.

          When we are going through these things- in the midst of our despair- the first, probably most natural reaction , is to flail. To kick our legs about wildly and to scream. To try desperately to escape the agony which surely feels like it will be the death of us.

During these times we panic and don’t take a true assessment of the situation. We go into full survival mode.

         When I was a small child, my mother and I were at a wedding reception at the clubhouse of an apartment complex in Indianapolis . The other kids and I had grown bored so we decided to go outside and play by the pool. Since some of my cousins were teenagers the adults didn’t hesitate to let us smaller kids tag along as long as the big kids promised to watch us.

         A group of us were running around and one of my male cousins, who was a year younger than me but much larger, thought it would be funny to push me into the pool. Either he assumed that I knew how to swim or in his immaturity he just didn’t think it all the way through.

         People say that when you’re dying your life flashes before your eyes. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I do know that everything seemed to be happening in slow motion  and even to this day I can vividly remember the details of those moments as if they were time-lapse photographs showing each action  moment by moment.

What I remember most vividly was thrashing about desperately in a vain attempt to get my head above water. My legs, though long, were not quite long enough to reach the bottom of the pool and I kicked frantically hoping that I would be able stand on my tiptoes and crane my head up toward the blue sky. I had never thought about the air I breathed before, but as I gasped for it, I realized how beautiful it was and how much I had taken it for granted.

         When one of the older cousins realized what was going on, he threw in a life preserver, but in my panic I accidently pushed it away.  Had I calmed down I would have been able to hold on to the buoy and he could have dragged me over to the side of the pool. Finally my cousin tore off his suit jacket and jumped into the pool fully clothed. It was necessary for him to wrap his arm around me from the back or I would have hurt him in my attempt to save myself.

         Later when I was in flight attendant school and we learned water drills. Since I worked for Eastern Airlines and was based out of Miami a possible crash in the Everglades was always a possibility. At any rate,  I was instructed that in the event of an emergency landing, I was  to always subdue the person first and if that didn’t work to basically put them  in a headlock so they wouldn’t knock me out as I attempted to save their life.

         It’s interesting how that happens in real life. When we are going through something we sometimes hurt those very people who are trying to save us. We are so desperate to get our head above water that we lash out, often striking and sometimes hurting those who love us most.

         There is an expression that hurting people hurt people and it’s true. In my novel The Other Side of Through the readers see it with Edgar who is hurting from his own abusive childhood and hurts his wife Claire and later their daughter Jessie.  We see it also in Claire who is trying so desperately to hold it together that she hurts Edgar, Daphne and unintentionally Jessie. And of course Jessie hurts David, Marcus and potentially Shayla should the story continue.

         It seems the older I get the more the wisdom of my older relatives speaks to me. Growing up I often heard that the only way out is through. Had I not gone through the ordeal of nearly drowning I probably would never have learned to swim which would have kept me from water and prevented me from having some of the experiences I’ve had. For one I probably would have never moved to Florida-too much water-no one ever said fear was rational. I also wouldn’t have been adamant about my children learning to swim and I don’t dare think about what could have happened if they  hadn’t learned at an early age.

         Those first days at the YMCA learning to swim were not easy. I was afraid but I had to keep pushing.

         The only way out is through because on the other side there is freedom. Not

 necessarily in a physical  sense, although some may infer that, and not just in  a physical sense, though that’s true too.

That’s what the old woman in the woods was trying to explain to Jessie. Push, baby, push! Push even when it hurts and it seems easier just to give up because it hurts too much.

         There’s a story that you may have heard before. It’s about a man who prayed to God because he wanted to be closer to Him. God spoke to the man and said “See that enormous boulder over there? I want you to push it.” The man was so excited that he had gotten a word from God that he immediately went out and began pushing. He really put his back into it and used all of his physical strength to try to move that huge boulder. Hours went by and sweat was dripping from his face. His body ached from the strain but he didn’t give up. Hours passed and then weeks. Still no progress. Before he knew it years had passed and finally after ten whole years he cried out to God: “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me suffer Lord? For ten whole years I’ve been pushing that boulder like you told me to and it still hasn’t moved.”

The man heard a gentle voice that said “I told you to push it. I didn’t ask you to move it. Moving it is my job! But look at yourself now. Notice how beautiful your body has become. Look at how strong you are today as a result of pushing. You were so weak ten years ago but look at what you’ve now become.

         Like that man, like the characters in my novel, we all face boulders in life. The boulder may be regret, fear, anger, doubt, jealousy  or temptation but to get to the place where we need to be we have to push. We have to push through to the other side.

         People ask me all the time what is my novel about and that’s it: I think it’s really about pushing through no matter how badly we want to give up          There’s another expression that I heard the old folks use and that’s “I’m through” as they would throw their hands up in surrender. Unfortunately they were sometimes doing that in response to something outrageous I had done.

But like the man with the boulder and me in the water once we surrendered and accepted help and the reality of the situation-not as a punishment but a lesson-  there is an understanding that the process of struggling is necessary to get to the product of who we are supposed to be. 

         It’s all necessary because the only way out is through.

         Not long ago I was talking to a friend who told me about some one of the horrible things he had experienced in his life. When I asked him how he  had managed to keep on going when most people would have given up because the odds were stacked against him. He said that he realized that those negative events were commas and not periods.

         As a writer and a teacher of English, that really resonated in my spirit. Commas. Not periods. Commas you see are a place to pause and then you continue on with the rest of the story. In life those setbacks, those commas, are places for us to reassess what we are pushing for.

         The writing process is very lonely. We writers spend hours sitting alone at a computer screen or with a pen and pad of paper pouring our souls onto the page.  Never knowing if this painful work will produce something beautiful, but we keep pushing.

There are so many times when we want to give up. Nathaniel Hawthorne said easy reading is damn hard writing and anyone who claims otherwise is a liar. Writing is hardwork because it comes from a place deep inside of us. I know I agonize over every word hoping that I’m saying exactly what it is I mean to say and I grow frustrated because my medium is words. My mother is an artist and she has the luxury of choosing between oils or watercolors. I just  have words and words can only do so much. But I keep pushing. Every discarded draft ultimately brought me to this place.

         And to hear people tell me that Claire’s story, Jessie’s story, Edgar’s story, David’s story and Marcus’s story helped them push through to the other side has been worth it.

Thank you