Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

Today’s Serenity is called “Life Lessons from Cheeto the Cat.”

Cheeto will not be preaching, as he refuses to wear a suit and tie, but I’ll be sharing a few observations about the Orange Boy that we could all learn from.

The best example of human vs. cat is how we start our day.

How I Wake Up
The first thing I do in the morning is check the clock to see if I’m already late. I’m not. Because I wake up anywhere from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. If it’s 3, I try to go back to sleep. But then I start thinking about all the things I could get done if I got up. Eventually, my mind’s insistence on work overcomes my body’s need to rest, and I’m staggering to the kitchen to turn on the life-preserving coffee pot. I feed Cheeto whatever he wants. I take my blood pressure meds. My cholesterol meds. In short, my over-the-hill meds. I take coffee to my TV viewing corner of the sofa and turn on the news to see what’s happening in the world. This is always a depressing mistake. Eventually, Cheeto and I flee to the Story Shack, where my day begins.

The Take-Away: I wake up doing things I feel I have to do.

How Cheeto Wakes Up
He yawns. He does a reclining full-body stretch. He yawns again. He looks around to see if anything interesting is going on. It’s not. He commences personal grooming, taking his sweet time. Eventually, he stands on all fours and does a big cat-back stretch. He jumps off the bed/sofa/chair he’s not supposed to sit in, and then he does his version of a downward-facing-dog yoga pose. This prepares him to make his way to our upholstered chaise lounge in the living room, which he loves to scratch. Now he’s fully alert and ready to meow for food. If he doesn’t like what goes into his bowl, he just sits beside it, staring up at me with an expression of total disgust. I open a different flavor. When he wants milk, he sits by the refrigerator and meows till I open it. The minute he hears me unlock the back door, he bolts for it because he knows that’s the way to the Story Shack, where his velvet napping chair and his cat treats live. Cheeto’s day has begun.

The Take-Away: Cheeto wakes up doing things that make him feel good.

Take a pause (paws?), human friends, and consider this: How much time do you spend every day doing things that make you feel good—just because they make you feel good? For me, that’s been a big zero lately, but I’m trying to make some changes.

I’m not talking about being selfish in an all-about-me way. I’m just talking about telling myself it’s okay to take a few minutes throughout the day and do something just because it brings me joy. (If I could figure out a way to put a pedicure chair in our living room, I would do it. Can you imagine watching Netflix from a massage chair with your feet in a spa tub? I would never leave the house.)

Allowing yourself joy doesn’t have to be entirely selfish. It can make you happy to surprise a friend with a just-because greeting card. Or to drop in on an elderly neighbor just to say hi. Or to give yourself an extra 5 minutes at the gym to sit in that steamy sauna and relax.

Life can’t be all “have-to.” There’s room for “need to/want to.”

That’s what Cheeto would tell you . . . if he weren’t sitting on the Story Shack porch, gazing across the front yard to see if there’s anything worth chasing before he goes back to sleep.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Do you ever feel out there on a limb all by yourself—personally, creatively, professionally, spiritually—it can happen in all sorts of ways, even to those of us who are blessed with a loving support system, which I definitely am.

There’s a difference between loneliness and what I call “alone-ness.” I’m lonely when I’m away from Dave or the rest of my family, but I know I’m not really alone. As soon as I get back home, everything will be fine. But “alone-ness” is that feeling that you truly are solitary in some sort of way.

I’ve been feeling that way about my fiction writing, which makes no sense, because everybody involved with it, from my agent-and-friend Leslie to a truly wonderful editorial and marketing team at Revell Books, couldn’t be more supportive. But still. There it was.

My cousin helped me figure it out on his way to reading the announcements at church last Sunday:) We were just chatting at the piano, and he said he thinks that God presents us with opportunities, but we have to trust Him enough to take them if we want to enjoy everything He has in store for us. When we’re doubtful, we hold back. But if we’ll just have faith that God will provide whatever we need, and take that step, amazing things can happen.

I thought about that all week. And then yesterday, I had lunch with Kelsey, Karen, Michele, and Hannah from Revell. We had never met before. And let me tell you, people of the digital age, there is STILL a big difference between emailing folks and eating barbecue with them. Kelsey chose Missing Isaac and was the editor who guided me through shaping the manuscript. Karen, Michele, and Hannah are teaching me the ins and outs of book marketing and publicity and working hard to help me.

Okay. So the alone-ness was in my head. It usually is. But that doesn’t make the hole in my heart or the pit in my stomach any less real when I'm in the throes of it. The real source of it? In my case, it’s usually fear. Why did I do this, what’s going to happen next, will this be a total disaster, where’s a pillow to cover my head with?

The cure for fear is faith. Like my cousin said, you just have to follow the path that lights up in front of you and trust that God will guide you to a good place.

There’s an old hymn that, to be honest, I never liked growing up because I didn’t think the melody was pretty. But last night, the words just popped into my head. And I found a lot of comfort in them. Maybe you will, too, the next time you find yourself in a cloud of alone-ness.

Have faith in God when your pathway is lonely.
He sees and knows all the way you have trod;
Never alone are the least of His children;
Have faith in God, have faith in God.

Have faith in God when your prayers are unanswered,
Your earnest plea He will never forget;
Wait on the Lord, trust His word and be patient,
Have faith in God. He'll answer yet.

Have faith in God in your pain and your sorrow,
His heart is touched with your grief and despair;
Cast all your cares and your burdens upon Him,
And leave them there, oh, leave them there.

Refrain: 

Have faith in God, He's on His throne,
Have faith in God, He watches o'er His own;
He cannot fail, He must prevail,
Have faith in God, Have faith in God.

[From “Have Faith in God” by Benjamin Baylus McKinney, 1934]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Put me in a car (preferably with Dave) on an open road with my suitcase in the trunk, a big plastic cup full of iced tea with a splash of lemonade, and B.B. King on the sound system—I’ll go anywhere. Happily. Joyfully even. Excited for the journey. Eager to see what we might see. But I don’t love air travel. There. You just heard the understatement of the year.

I don’t like watching the clock to make sure I leave in plenty of time to get a parking space and make it through security even if the line is long. I don’t like trying to memorize the exact location of my car so I’ll have a shot at finding it when I return. (I really should valet.) I don’t like feeling that I’m part of some anonymous herd, or that the people racing past me to make their connection in Atlanta would trample over me if it came to that. I don’t like tight spaces or turbulence or motion sickness (I’m a Dramamine flyer). The one part I do like is landing, which a pilot friend tells me is the sketchiest part of the whole process. I REALLY don’t like knowing that, after enduring all of the above, I saved myself at best 2 hours each way by flying instead of driving. And I didn’t get to see anything interesting on the way, unless you count the little TVs on the seatbacks of your bigger Delta aircraft. (Is it me, or do I sound the teensiest bit grumpy?)

By now, you’ve guessed it—I recently spent two days in planes, trams, and automobiles.

It stresses my parents out to know I’m in the air, so when I have to fly, I do what any good Christian daughter would do. I lie to them. This trip, I made it all the way from Birmingham to Atlanta to Tampa and back to Atlanta without telling a serious lie. I’d say things like, “I’m just working” (sort of true since I was traveling to/from a book conference) or “It’s pretty crazy around here” (I had just spotted a male passenger wearing bright red knee socks, baggy short pants, and sandals, so . . . not technically a lie.)

I thought I was home free, so I called Mama from Atlanta while I waited to catch my final flight back to Birmingham. The end of that conversation went something like this:

Mama: How’s everything at work?

Me: Oh . . . pretty busy.

Mama: I hear a lot of background noise.

Me: [Nervous laughter] Really? I guess everybody’s chatty this morning.

Atlanta Airport PA System: ATTENTION, ALL PASSSENGERS! ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS! THIS IS YOUR SECURITY REMINDER TO KEEP ALL OF YOUR BAGGAGE IN YOUR POSSESSION AT ALL TIMES!!!!!

Mama: Are you traveling?

Me: Yes.

Mama: Thought so. I can always tell.

The moral of this story: Even when you’re feeling like part of an anonymous herd, you’re not. God loves you. And the people who love you might be far away, but they’re still there—even when you aren’t.

Feeling thankful this morning for all the bonds—human and divine—that get me through my daily turbulence.

[Image by Ian L @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

Assumptions about other people can be so misguided, not to mention unkind and, taken to the extreme, even dangerous. They also waste a lot of time because they send us barreling down a dead-end road, which we’ll eventually see was heading in the wrong direction from the start.

A lighter example: Whenever readers don’t like something they see on Southern Living’s Facebook page, they will invariably comment: “It’s not written by Southerners any more. Everybody knows they produce it in New York now.” Actually . . . Southern Living has never left Birmingham (our parent company was in New York for many years). As for the staff, yes, we have a couple of amazingly talented New Yorkers on board. We also have an editor in chief, senior homes editor, and digital news editor from Memphis; beauty editor and senior foods editor from Florida; style editor, Charleston; assistant managing editor, Savannah; copy chief and assistant to the editor in chief, Mississippi; digital producers from Georgia and Louisiana . . .

I can’t remember a time when people jumped to conclusions about each other as readily as we do now. And I think we see the results of that every day: Very little real conversation, just shouting matches. No compromise and thoughtful debate, just blame. I’m starting to depress myself. Thank goodness Cheeto and I can still have a meaningful dialog.

We just need to remember how to walk around in each other’s shoes (I think I stole that from Atticus Finch) and assume the best, not the worst, until we have good reason to think otherwise. You never know what the person sitting next to you at the office or on the church pew is going through.

Show me the alley
Show me the train
Show me the hobo who sleeps out in the rain
And I'll show you, a young man
With so many reasons why
There but for fortune may go you or I

[from “There But For Fortune” by Phil Ochs]

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

We spend a lot of time thinking and worrying about stuff that doesn’t matter. That is my great pearl of wisdom this Sunday morning:)

Sometimes I wonder if that’s the primary lesson we’re supposed to learn down here—that most of it doesn’t matter. The size of your house or the cost of your car—they don’t matter. The number of promotions you get or the amount of money you make—no matter. Even when you think about people we consider extraordinarily gifted like the two who were honored this week—John McCain and Aretha Franklin—the same is true. It’s not the number of military commendations Senator McCain won that matters—it’s the courage that earned them. And it’s not the number of gold or platinum albums the Queen of Soul collected—it’s that powerful voice she shared with the world. And in both cases, it’s their willingness to use their considerable gifts for causes they considered worthy that set them apart.

Recently, Daddy told me he feels like he missed my college years because he was working all the time, and he wanted me to tell him about the classes where I learned to tell stories and write for magazines. I told him I didn’t learn any of that in college—I learned it at Southern Living, from seasoned writers like Dianne Young, Gary Ford, Les Thomas, Karen Lingo, John Logue, and too many more to mention.  They coached me, encouraged me, and in Dianne’s case, even took me on a trip or two so I could shadow her and learn from her. The knowledge they passed down is lasting because I like to think my best stories are lasting, or at least I hope so. (There are some I’d rather forget, but the best ones will maybe hang around for a while:)

This week at work we had a town meeting with our new parent company and, as is custom, they laid out the new corporate vision. I’ve heard a lot of corporate visions over the past 30 years. From a business standpoint, I can see the need for them, but from a human standpoint, I’m going to do the best work that I can for as long as I can, no matter what’s going on above me, and I’m going to try to be a friend to the people around me. That’s all. Because it’s all I can control. And in the end, it’s what will last—whatever good work that I leave behind and whoever I help along the way.

It has been a great joy this year to start coaching young writers because I want be, for them, what Dianne and other veteran writers were for me. I want to see them shine. I want to see them learn and grow, to catch the same excitement for stories that hooked me a long time ago. Because those things last—a passion for something you do, a desire to share it, and the friends you make because of it.