Tickets and Tutus ~ Grateful List #3

1. Territory
2. Tickets
3. Tutus

I'm a lucky girl and I know it.  I'm so grateful to live where I live for all kinds of reasons.  I'm within an hour or so of mountains, gorgeous beaches, deep pine forests and the greatest city in the world.  Living near to New York is a real blessing.  We have access to the best doctors, fabulous school systems and private schools, unlimited shopping (if you have an unlimited checkbook), history, parks, sports (at least two of everything) and the largest arts scene anywhere.  From museums to Lincoln Center to Broadway Theater--there is more soul-satisfying art than one can appreciate in a lifetime.  And there's live music.  Every night of every day.  Local musicians scratching out a living (maybe) and the lucky ones who've hit it big and come through town at the larger venues.  Those of us who live close to (or in) New York have all of this bounty from which to choose.  We can experience the grandeur of opera at the Met to the heart-pounding excitement of Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden.  I know how lucky I am that my favorite singer happens to come through New York, where his career began, and the surrounding area several times each year.  My territory--I can't imagine moving too far.

It's ticket week!  My favorite singer has not yet completed his current tour and in fact I've yet to use my tickets to three shows on the spring tour.  But earlier in the week, tickets went on sale for the summer tour and I have four shows to look forward to in August.  I'm so grateful for these opportunities to reinvigorate my senses and meet up with friends near and farther away.  I realize that many of my concert friends don't have this lovely advantage of living so near to a wide variety of venues and I sometimes feel guilty at the richness of it all.  

When you work in a school, your day is scheduled.  There's homeroom followed by a bunch of sections of time we call "periods" to organize our student's days of learning.  You would think this very scripted day would fall into a certain rhythm of predictability.  But you would be wrong.  Because you just cannot predict what 479 kids will do or say on any given day.  And sometimes it isn't anything really special or amazing that they do or say...  It's just them being them and you'll spot something that triggers a response that makes you giggle or smile or swells your heart with the unique glow that only a child can put there.  Such was the case yesterday when I spied a very little girl pausing for a drink at the water fountain.  I could barely see her.  She had come to school in a bright pink tutu and black tights.  Bent over the water fountain, all that was really visible of her was some long blond hair and waves and waves of pink tulle.  How do you not smile over that?  I'm grateful for pink tutus.

My cup runneth over.

I Didn't Ask You

My mother always told me "Diet quiet."  In other words, other people don't need to know your business, your struggles, your personal stuff.  And in the roller coaster decades of intermittent stabs at trying to lose weight, I think I was mostly quiet about it.  Maybe not within my family ... but pretty much everywhere else.

This time it's been a bit different.  I guess because the change was dramatic--at least at first.  Finding myself again was sort of amazing to me.  After so many false starts to finally experience success was so  ... liberating, energizing, inspiring and exciting.  At first everyone was supportive.  Those who hadn't seen me for a while were visibly surprised.  My favorite reactions were when people actually didn't recognize me.  That happened a bunch of times.  One night when I was working at church, a family I'd known well when I worked there full time was leaving their kids with me.  I was chatting away normally and finally the mom said to me "I'm sorry.  Should I know you?"  Me: "It's me -- Katherine."  Oh gosh.  She was sort of embarrassed.  She needn't have been.  It was a good moment for me.

Dinner tonight on Weight Watchers app.
(Olives are my favorite!)

So at first there was support and surprise.  Then came the questions.  "How much have you lost?" was, of course, the lead-off question followed by "How did you do it."  I answered them both.  The answer to the first one changed by the week as the number grew and grew--the number of pounds lost that is.  The answer to the second was always the same:  Weight Watchers, walking and music.  

I used Weight Watchers online and the Weight Watchers app only.  No meetings for me this time around.  That whole group thing really used to make me uncomfortable.  I only ever had one group leader that I could relate to.  The others were not very interesting or motivational.  I sat through a lot of them over the years.  But working the program for myself was my way to success this time around.  I journaled and weighed and measured every mouthful.  I was accountable.  To myself.  I weighed myself everyday (a Weight Watchers no-no--they want you to weigh only once a week).  Weighing myself every day kept me on track.  It kept me from straying.  Boy, I was so strong the first 15 months or so.  It was an almost steady decline.

The walking provided immediate results too.  It wasn't long before the diabetes basically disappeared.  I could walk longer and farther every week.  It also wasn't long before I started to crave the walks.  I know this isn't unique.  People get addicted to exercise and I think I was.  As often as possible I walked 3-5 miles in the morning and 4-8 miles at night.  A 7-mile walk felt perfect to me.  I exercised more and needed less food.  It was a revelation.  Or a revolution.  My own personal revolution.  

Another important aspect of the walks was the peace it gave me.  Sunrises and sunsets, my river and the lakes in my town, the spring, the pond ... I love them all and they give me endless lovely vistas to capture with my camera and my imagination.  I've put up with dogs, a cat that used to follow me, two skunks, and warnings of a bear ahead several times (though I never saw him).  There have been birds, ducks, geese, swans, dragonflies, frogs, a beaver and deer.  The walks are a blessing and I'm so grateful I gave myself the gift of time to do them.

The music was a huge factor.  Listening to Gavin DeGraw and the other musicians I discovered as a result of having discovered him allowed me to find the space in my head to sort through all sorts of thoughts and doubts that had been pestering me for decades.  If you've read this space once or twice before you already know that this music is very special to me and I mean it when I say it changed my life.  The live music adventures that ensued provided so much fuel for the journey.

After the questions came the comments:

"You've lost enough now."  Really?  I don't remember asking you.

"You're fine the way you are." Really?  Shouldn't I be the one who determines that?

"You can eat that [cake, cookie, burger]."  Really?  I know that.  I can eat whatever I want.  But I'm choosing not to eat that [cake, cookie, burger].

I didn't ask you.  I know you mean well.  I know you think I "need a treat."  Believe me, I treat myself--a little too often lately, actually.  From August through January my friendly scale went for a roller coaster ride and there were far more ups than downs.  I'm not sure why although the beginning of this latest ride was a bit of a professional crisis that propelled me smack into my old habits of self-medicating with food.  I think I'm back on track now.  

"You were getting too thin anyway."  Really?  This latest comment has been coming my way often these days.  People ask how the eating plan is going so I answer pretty honestly.  "I've put a few back on."  

"That's okay; you were getting too thin anyway."

I didn't ask you to weigh in on my weight.  I've politely answered all the questions.  I've been encouraging to those who share their struggles with me.  I've shared the tricks that worked for me.  My journey hasn't been a secret.  I mean ... there I was: big. Here I am: smaller.  It's noticeable.  I can't deny there was stuff going on.  

I don't mind the questions.  Ask away.  I'll talk to you forever about the struggle that has occupied the last twenty or more years of my life.  I know many people also struggle with a few or a bunch of extra pounds.  I don't mind talking about the ups and downs of the weight loss process.

But I didn't ask for your opinion about my body nor about what does or doesn't go into it.  I know you think I'm "all better now."  The truth is that a lot of the stuff that caused me to eat in the first place is alive and well in my head, just waiting for me to have a weak moment.  When you say I was getting too thin, it's like telling me I don't know what's good for me.  That I'm not capable of deciding for myself.  It's not an encouraging thing to say.  

It's a daily, hourly struggle.  To find other means of dealing with feelings, doubts, highs, lows other than with food.  It's a struggle to plan healthy meals and much easier to drive through somewhere (anywhere) for dinner.  It's not easy to walk by the concession stand in theaters, to not have a glass of wine with dinner.  For me, it's really hard to like broccoli.  (Raw, okay; cooked, please, no.)  I may never be out of the woods with this thing.  It will probably challenge me every day for ever.

But it's my body, my issues, my baggage and my decision (to eat or not, exercise or not).  I own it all--the successes and the setbacks.  I get to say what the goal is and when I've reached it.  I say when.  I say how much.  Ask me questions.  Let's compare notes.  But, please, no comments.  

PS ~ I'm still Weight Watcher-ing, walking and listening to music (lots of music and sometimes dancing) every day.

~~~~~

This song has meant a lot to me on this journey.  I was here, sitting next to the person who filmed this.  And yes, it was pouring.  And yes, we were soaked.  Gavin DeGraw, Soldier (Rye Playland, July 23, 2012, with Billy Norris, Jimmy Wallace, Ian O'Neill, James Cruz)

Socially Acceptable

Once upon a time .... to say something was "socially acceptable" meant that it was within the bounds of the generally accepted social practices of the day.  These practices have evolved over the years as the pendulum has swung from corsets, bloomers, calling cards and gloves to dates without chaperones to short shorts and corsets now worn on the outside.  Like everything else in life, what's socially acceptable has changed.

Enter "social media."  Boom.  Total game changer.

The cyber world has changed the real world ... I like to think for the better.  There's so much good happening on the internet:  information to be had, conveniences like bill paying and reservation making,  shopping, the ability to take classes and much much more.  And then there are the social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr among others.  

I, for one, was totally sceptical of the worth of social media at the outset.  I didn't see the point or value in connecting with people this way and could never have pictured myself doing so.  But when my Girl Scout community (yes, the Girl Scouts tweet!) started using social media as a way to communicate, I decided to check it out for myself.  And I became a believer.  I've enjoyed renewing acquaintances on Facebook, sharing my thoughts here and engaging with people on Twitter.

For the purposes of organization and to try to rein in the rambling which I'm so prone to do (see, I did it right there), I'm going to use Twitter as the basis for the thoughts I'm about to share although I'm a frequent user of Facebook, cruise through Pinterest once in a blue moon, dipped a toe into Tumblr and enjoy reading sites like Huffington Post which I consider more social media that true news outlets.  I will mention however, that because of Twitter, I feel like I do hear about real news much more quickly than I ever did before.

I've loved my time on Twitter, about two years now.  I follow lots of different people there from the different Girl Scout adults and organizations that first brought me to it to various priests on the national and international levels of my church to friends and relatives and of course, the musicians, actors and entertainers whose work I believe in or whom I feel have something interesting to say.  I also follow people "seasonally" (my term).  That is to say, during the Olympics, for example, I followed a few athletes to read their reactions during the games and then unfollowed them after the games were over.  I've "met" a lot of wonderful people with similar interests through Twitter and subsequently have actually met many of them and count them among my friends.

Most of the time my Twitter time line, because of the people I've chosen to follow, is a fast-paced stream of information, ideas and opinions that is interesting, humorous, thought-provoking and often inspiring.  To me.  Because I've chosen the people who contribute to my feed, I'm comfortable with the vast majority of what I see and read about.  If you were reading my time line, you might be bored or uninterested or even appalled--because I lean liberal and you might not--by what you're seeing because what I've chosen to indulge in might be of no interest to you or in complete opposition to your beliefs.  That's part of what's so interesting about social media.  You get to choose.  You choose for yourself who or what or how often you'll check in.

You also get to choose how you'll express yourself. You can decide to be friendly or not, funny or encouraging or not.  You could be a light or light-hearted or passionate about the things you care about.  You can advocate for causes--social and political. You can do one of these things all the time or all of the things sometimes.  Most of the people I follow and especially those with whom I interact hold to the norms of socially acceptable forms of expression in a public forum which is what social media is.

But sometimes there is a disconnect in my time line.  I mean, there is a disconnection for me.  Here's an example:  I follow a priest (an Episcopal priest) who wrote a book I liked to use with parents in my former career as a Christian Education Coordinator for a large local church.  The book was a collection of funny touching spiritual essays about raising young children, marriage and church.  His on-line blog is much the same on a wider variety of topics.  He's very funny and his approach to the ancient institution we call church is fresh and energizing.  The disconnect for me is how totally and utterly snarky he is on Twitter.  All the time.  And he knows it and is rather proud of it.  While I think it's funny much of the time, the snarky edge is getting old and tiresome.  I wish he'd just make his very astute comments without the snark and choose that attitude to make his point more emphatically when the occasion warrants it--not all the time.  When did it become socially acceptable to inject sarcasm into everything?  Isn't it exhausting to have to couch ideas in such a way as to blanket the world with crabby, snappish comments every day?  However, when I weed through the attitude, I find truths I can live with so I'm willing to put up with it.  For now.  I predict I will one day become tired of having to read through the snark to find the truth.

Sometimes the disconnect comes in the form of mean-spiritedness.  I must be very naive but I'm afraid I don't understand how the invasion of meanness and rudeness finds it's way into my little world, which, after all, I've carefully constructed and chosen.  While I realize that I won't agree with everyone at all times and that all people are entitled to their opinions, most people are aware of socially acceptable ways of discussing the endless variety of subjects that might catch one's attention.  We talk about our ideas and beliefs in a civil way and offer our points of view without being offensive.  We agree to disagree and generally agree that it is this diversity of opinion that can force one to examine a question from a new angle.  It contributes to a broader perspective.  When done with care and respect, friendships are open and honest and relationships grow despite fundamental differences of opinion.

The meanness which seems to be rising all around us in society saddens me.  When did it become socially acceptable to reach out to people whom one doesn't really know and attack them for their personal opinions?  When did whining become an accepted form of expression?  When did polite debate devolve into derisive commentary?  When did a minority of very vocal people decide to hijack the conventions that allow us to freely discuss ideas within boundaries that keep the discussion civil?  When was common courtesy thrown out of the window.

I will not engage these people in their tirades.  I can't be part of the negativity that they thrust on me.  Even though I have banished the worst purveyors of snark and meanness from my created world, I can see that they are still out there and that the nastiness lives on.  I'm sad about that and I genuinely feel sorry for people who spend their days criticizing others' beliefs, putting down those who don't agree with them and spreading gossip and hate.  It must be very draining and constraining to live that way.

So I would like to propose something:  If we who regularly use social media as a way of connecting, learning and sharing could refrain from engaging with those whose expressions cross over from healthy debate to meanness and attack, could we raise the bar of civility a little?  Could we find and revel in the potential of all the good in social media?

I hope so.

I hope you join me.