Category: Rules To Live By

Schwarzenegger, Strauss-Kahn, and Working Women

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Every day I thank God that I am not a maid or a housekeeper. People take advantage.

First, the news about Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the hotel worker — and now, Arnold Schwarzenegger and the housekeeper. WTF!!! Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (from Machiavelli) — even into our homes and hotel rooms.

I worked at the front desk of the Vista Hotel in the World Trade Center all through college. It was no secret. My room service and housekeeping friends told me that business men made inappropriate, illegal requests just about every single day. My friends would knock on the doors to clean the bathrooms or deliver the food with a certain dread, not knowing what lay on the other side of the door.

I am so pissed — Who do men like Strauss-Kahn and Schwarzenegger think they are! The women who work in service jobs are simply women making a living — trying to feed the kids at home, maybe support a disabled spouse, and even pursue their our dreams of an education. (I can identify!) They do not deserve such treatment!

This world is so messed up. People swoon over celebrities like Schwarzenegger and flip off working women who make beds and deliver food.

Women’s service work is not valued and too often women’s income is based on non-existent tips so we don’t even feel entitled to speak out. Our innate niceness keeps us down.

Nice no more! We need justice for the working women!

Maybe the Schwartzenegger affair was consensual. I don’t know. But I do feel sorry for the women — especially the imbalance of power — if you are a woman who cleans houses and hotel rooms. They are almost always immigrants and they should not have to put up with such BS.

I wrote about this, too, a year ago: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/the-end-of-men/ when I learned that women still make 80 cents on every dollar that a man earns.

As a society we profess to value women’s skills of team work, collaboration, and service, we really do not care about the women, especially nameless nannies and housekeepers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/la-times-schwarzenegger-shriver-split-up-after-he-acknowledged-fathering-child-with-staffer/2011/05/17/AFBMTW5G_story.html

How Lucky — To Work So Hard!

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My fake spouse reassured me, “It takes a long time to become an overnight success.”

We were at a call back for a Kodak commercial. I was auditioning for the part of a young mother. I didn’t get the part, but I got that awesome advice!

I had been bitching about my slow-moving talk show career to the actor who was auditioning as the father. I said, “You know I worked so hard on my cable show, Mary Beth & Friends, and honestly, I am surprised I haven’t become the new Katie Couric.”

This was years ago. I never forgot my pretend husband’s wisdom. It kept me going. Success takes time. Fake husbands (and actors) can be so smart.

But now it seems the whole world is discussing this wisdom:

Luck is out. Hard work is in.

Last night, I was listening to the Ted Talk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE6lWGzO_7A from David Shenk, author of The Genius in All of Us. http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/

Here’s what I got. Genes don’t matter a hill of beans unless you work hard. There’s no such thing as born smart!

This is a difficult revelation for me – me! The daughter of a genius (okay, two geniuses)! I always felt I had a slight genetic, intellectual advantage — swimming as I was in the Mensa gene pool. But no, sorry, not so.

My working 3 jobs, auditioning for commercials, and producing and hosting my own cable show probably mattered more to my current success (ahem!) than my brainy family tree.

I was thinking about this today, when from the LinkedIn group, LinkEds & writers, Indy Quillen, emailed her introduction.

Indy said, “Many years ago, when I excitedly showed my martial arts teacher my first place trophy, he smiled and said, ‘See how lucky you are when you work hard?’ I’ve never forgotten that lesson!”

Love that!

I don’t know how to fit in my awareness of the importance of hard work to my Rules for Living.

Maybe Rule Number 3? Remember your hoops of steel (priorities) — even when you think success should occur magically and quickly. Success takes time.

And hard work is 1 of 3 parts that makes up community:  https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/what-is-community/

Sidewalk Art

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image

Enough with the sidewalk art!

H. and I had just come from the New Museum where we saw George Condo’s Mental States and met the great man. http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/george-condo/

On the way into the park, we stepped on De La Vega’s sidewalk art.

A man with a feather in his cap sat near the first chalk drawing, around 97th and Central Park East. H. wondered if that was the artist, Jamie De La Vega. But not all artists hang near their art. Like all bloggers do not hang near their blog.

One message on the sidewalk did not have the silly helicopter or fish image — simply words across the pavement with a message, “It will continue to get better.” That made me happy.

Chalk artists have to know the forecast.

Minutes after we arrived at H’s Little League game, a dark cloud hovered, opened up, and sent me running to the field house.

My first thought was I should not have spent that $25 to get my hair blown out. And my second thought was all that sidewalk art  probably did not survive the downpour.

Art is ephemeral. Like the bubbles in George Condo’s paintings.

Life too is fleeting. This applies to My Rules Number 6 and 7.

6. Live every day as if it were your last

7. Embrace uncertainty

And yes, it will continue to get better. But there will be rain.

What Is Community?

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Community is 3 things — hard work, passion and diversity.

Hard work. A ton of research shows you need 10,000 hours of practice to be a world class master. Malcolm Gladwell reported this in Outliers. Hard work, dogged effort and continual engagement are more important than talent, inclination and ability.

Hard work is probably more important than luck. Resilience – not giving up — is key.

Note to self: Remember this when exhausted by my writing load (much of it self-imposed). I am logging my hours towards mastery. I may be closing in on my 10,000 hours of writing. For five years, I have written probably for 3 hours every day, which equals about 5,000 hours. And then considering my writing life before the last five years, it’s possible I’ve nearly got 10,000 hours.  

Another note to self: When talking to my kids, I must praise their effort and not their fabulousity! (But then I’m so crazy in love with my kids that I tell them all the time, you are so wonderful. I guess I should say, your hard work is so wonderful!)

Passion. I’ve been reading Thomas Moore’s A Life at Work. The guy’s good. He talks about following your bliss and paying attention to the stories you tell about yourself – your archetypes and night dreams.

Note to self: Moore says it’s okay to have a whole lot of passions (or 4 blogs!) – for work and life. When I heard Moore speak at Marble Collegiate Church years ago, he said the one word he couldn’t advise as a guiding principle in life is “balance.” Moore said, “If you have to choose between two things — do both!”

The Hero's Journey & The Matrix

I’m with him. I’m up for following my passion and following my bliss. Remember Joseph Campbell and the hero’s journey? Loved it way back when. Still love it today. The Matrix is based on the hero’s journey: http://www.mythsdreamssymbols.com/herojourney.html

Diversity. Diversity is not only having diverse classes, races, religions, ages, but points of view.

Note to self: Do not become so in love and so entrenched with my own point of view that I see the world solely through my own Matrix glasses. 

Thanks to Dominic A.A. Randolph, the head of school at Riverdale Country School who shared these 3 thoughts on what makes for community at a gathering last week.

Riverdale’s tag line is Mind, Character, Commitment, Community. His smart blog post is: http://blogs.riverdale.edu/headofschool/2010/09/25/ms-and-us-parents-day-speech-september-2010/#content.

Wow.

Become Your Dream Part III

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Yup, I stepped in it, more sidewalk art by De La Vega.

On Saturday afternoon, the girls and I were heading into Central Park around 96th Street with our picnic to watch H. play Little League in the North Meadow, 23 acres of fields (thanks Wikipedia). And I saw the chalk drawing beneath my feet.

“Move, girls, I want to take a picture,” I said.

“Of what? There’s nothing,” C. said, shrugging, looking around.

“Look down. See? A little guy dragging a vase.” No, that may be wrong. That might not be the image. Maybe the little guy wasn’t pulling the vase, but the vase was pushing the little guy. As if to say — art propels you, not drags you.

The other two times along with the little helicopter guy, De La Vega had written three words: Become Your Dream. And that was an apt message for me — because the first time, around New Year’s Day, I had been wondering, “What are my three words for the New Year?” And there they were, resting on a pile of trash. Become. Your. Dream. Three excellent words to guide me in 2011. https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/my-3-words/

And then almost exactly two months later, I saw his sidewalk art when I was coming from picking up my number for the 5K Coogan’s fun run at the New York Road Runners office. I took the words — Become your dream — as a sign. I should set goals for myself, like running a 5K, and then achieve them. https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/become-your-dream-part-ii/

When I saw the words on Saturday, it was almost exactly two months after seeeing them on the night I picked up my race number.

I was again committed to a goal. The next day I was going to ride in the 5 boro bike tour. I was going to pedal 50 miles, go over 5 bridges and visit every borough in one morning. http://runningaground.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/5-boro-bike-tour/ And yes, I did it.

The girls and I only stopped for a minute to notice the sidewalk art and for me to snap this picture with my phone. We walked on to meet our friends in Central Park and to watch our team, the Giants, play baseball. They lost, but not by much. There’s still time left in this season for the Giants to become their dream.

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Volunteering at the Shelter

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Last night I volunteered at the women’s shelter at St. Paul and St. Andrew’s. I sat around with six volunteers and my family of five (whom I’d made come to drop off the homemade cookies). My husband and son cut out as soon as we finished our job of setting the table with plasticware and my son was assured he’d get community service credit for the help.

The girls wanted to leave too, but I told them, “Stay until the women arrive.”

I was sitting by the door when the six or so women arrived. I jumped to my feet and greeted them. “Hi! Welcome! Good to see you!”

One women looked confused and indignant, “Do I know you?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just being friendly.” I was embarrassed. Behind the woman’s back, one of my daughters, C., lifted her eyebrows at me protectively. I rolled my eyes, shrugged. Maybe, at times, I can be too friendly. Maybe she didn’t want friendliness, she just came for dinner and shelter. I didn’t mind.

I chatted with a woman who sat beside us. I complimented her on her camouflage-patterned rubber rain boots. We chatted about the ease of slipping on rain boots and all the pretty patterns they come in nowadays. One of my daughters has a pretty pair.

The food was ready and one of the volunteers suggested, “Please help yourself.”

I suggested, “How about a quick grace first?” Then I asked my boot-wearing friend to lead us in prayer. She stood up in the center of the room and blessed the food. I think that’s what she did, I couldn’t hear her too well and she mumbled. It was a short prayer and heartfelt — my favorite kinds.

The girls and I left before dinner. As we said good bye, the Do-I-know-you-woman gave me and the girls a big smile — a huge silly giggly smile — like a kid who’s made a new best friend. We smiled equally wide back at her.

I said good bye to another woman one who was smoking on the front steps. “I’ll come right in after I finish this cigarette,” she said. “Thanks for volunteering.”

“No problem,” I said. And for some reason, she reminded me of my mother. We hopped in a cab and came home.

I don’t know which of my rules this experience relates to. Maybe to the rule about Expect the Best, Love What you Bet. Even from your overly friendly self.

Asking for Help

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Do you ever borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor?

Asking for help — even a half-cup of help — is difficult for most of us. We  like to be the helpers, not the helped.

I have borrowed an egg or sugar from a neighbor. I’ve got several go-to neighbors in our apartment building. I’ve done it more than once.

Honestly, I’ve usually sent the kids to do my borrowing. (The same way I’ve sent them to the subway musician with a dollar to put in an open guitar case.) Kids are good at doing the begging, borrowing and paying out for the parents.

I’ve been thinking about all of this while reading The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids by Madeline Levine. She says:

Women often slide into unhealthy dependency when we turn to our children for the loving connections missing in our adult relationships…The idea of trekking over to a neighbor’s house when the pantry is short an item or two seems almost laughable now. The easy camaraderie that existed among working-class women, a function of both desire and necessity has been lost to take-out food, housekeepers and a fear that revealing our problems, no mater how incidental, will result not in support but in embarrassment.

Hmmmm, yes. To counter the self-reliance I feel imposed on me (by who? my church? my education? my status?) I’ve made my Rule Number One: Pile on the People. While I don’t like asking for help from anyone, I do need it.  A husband with Parkinson’s Disease, three kids, a full-time job and a time-consuming writing habit, I, in fact, need all the help I can get. (Another mantra — draw the circle wide.)

There is a benefit not just for us, the borrowers, but for the friend across the hall, the one whom we borrowed from. In exchange for the egg that she lent (gave) us, she received a handful of warm kid-made peanut butter cookies. I wanted to take a picture of the cookies to post on the blog, but there are only a few crumbs left. 

(I wrote about this book on my other blog, my blog about writing and being connected: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/a-generation-of-disconnected-kids/)

Not Remembering 9-11

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The 10th Year Anniversary

I don’t want to relive it. I don’t want to see any of it. I’m planning to be away from the city. I’m so glad 9-11 is on a Sunday so I can get the family out of what I expect will be a relentless media frenzy. I don’t want to have a TV on. I want to walk in the woods.

The wound is still very fresh. Some time I may write about it. I may write about the beautiful morning, how I had voted that morning, saw a police officer’s face — her face as if in close up — her worried face as she listened to a report. She was in a squad car, I was crossing Broadway with the kids. I forgot it. Then walking towards Central Park with my friend, J., how I got an urgent messages my sister on my cell phone but I had to call from a pay phone because my cell suddenly didn’t work, how we walked a little ways in Central Park then saw all the business people entering Central Park from 59th Street, how we knew something was deeply wrong, all these people in business attire walking into the park, how I grabbed my daughters from daycare, how I found my son’s pre-K class at the public school – with the principal standing with everyone in the hallway holding hands and praying with the kids — telling them that we love our families, our schools, our country. How we began to walk home, saw a grey cloud in the sky, south. Too close to be the WTC, we figured it was the Empire State Building. As we walked I insisted we avoid Lincoln Center, it could be a target. How we began to see all these people on the promenade in Riverside Park walking from downtown covered in dust, business suits and hair covered in grey, all grey. How we smelled the burning in the middle of the night. How we left the city and still past Albany, I could hear sirens. Chris said there were no sirens. I heard sirens on and off the whole way up to the Adirondacks.

Someday I will write about this. But not now. I dread the 10-year commemoration of 9-11. This year, I refuse to be traumatized again with news replaying images I don’t want to see.

Other years, on the anniversary of 9-11, the city was somber, especially the first couple of years. There was quiet. Especially in the morning. One year, I was walking down my block. A construction worker was sitting on the brownstone steps. It was the time of quiet and of remembrance. Our eyes locked. We looked at each other and we shared some sadness. He nodded at me. He knew. He knew and I knew. We didn’t want to – we didn’t need to – relive the whole thing. We didn’t need to write about it. Talk about it.

This year I might be in the Adirondacks far from a TV. I might go to church or maybe I’ll go to the church of walking in the woods. The Adirondack mountains will look lovely then. A long walk will do me good – seeing the colors of the pine trees, the splotched orange, the red leaves afire. 

I know the day is months away. Here I am the first weekend of April. I don’t want to wish away my spring, summer, fall dreading that September weekend. But it calms me to know I don’t have to be in the city.

At the time I knew that time would heal me from the trauma. I take comfort in the passage of time. I don’t take comfort in anniversaries. Continue reading “Not Remembering 9-11” →

10 Good Things

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On most nights I tuck my darling daughters into their beds and I whisper 10 good things about each of them. I don’t know where I came up with this random number.

I have a thing for setting random-numbered goals for myself. I always swim 8 laps in any size pool. I clean for 10 minutes. I run for 13 minutes without stopping.

My children’s recent brattiness has laid me low. Why are they mean to me? ME? I am the nicest person/mother/friend in the world! [See my post from a few days ago: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/when-kids-are-mean-to-mom/ ]

In any case, to overcome this mean-to-mom moment, let me say 10 good things about myself. This is difficult. I feel confident pointing out my failings, but not my strengths. Here goes:

1. I am funny. 2. I am friendly. 3. I am a good writer. 4. I like to work out. 5. I am creative. 6. I listen well. 7. I am tech-savvy. 8.

I have to stop here and admit I am running out of good things to say. I am bored. I am staring out my window at work and looking at Riverside Church blanketed with snow. It’s almost 9 am and I should get to work. Okay, moving on:

8. I am a hard worker. 9. I love my job. 10. I like staring out the window.

That’s it for me. What are 10 good things about you?

I love my aunts

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Have to wake the darlings in a minute or two, but wanted to dash this off.. Aunts are the best. They love you unconditionally.

I just finished reading this blog about Aunt Ba and pancakes, how Molly’s aunt told her stories of fairies and made her pancakes every Wednesday. Delicious writing at:  http://mollyandtheprincess.com/

Another great read — Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, where Francie Nolan talks about her aunts. Smith writes:

“Mama came home at six with Aunt Sissy. Francie was very glad to see Aunt Sissy. She was her favorite aunt. Francie loved her and was fascinated by her life. She was thirty-five now, had been married three times, and had given birth to ten children, all of whom had died…”

Betty Smith is as wonderful and loving at creating amazing characters and locales as Dylan Thomas or James Joyce.

Aunt Kathy is far right, gazing off.

My aunts too are characters. So are my kids’ great aunts, aunts and cousins. They can be quirky and eccentric, always smart. I love that Chris’s cousin, known as Aunt Betsy, tells my kids stories about Johnny Jump-Up, the gnome who lives in the Big House basement. I love that my Aunt Kathy has a dolphin collection that the kids can touch. The aunts, especially Aunt Kathy and Aunt Betsy, talk to me and the kids like our opinions really matter. Like they want to know what we think.

Yesterday was International Women’s Day, the 100th anniversary. This morning at work, I am co-leading a worship service to remind people of the women who make history, in big ways and small ways. We are going to celebrate the women whom we work with and live with every day. Our everyday heroes? They are my aunts. (And my kids’ aunts.)