Category: Rules To Live By

Become Your Dream Part II

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I first noticed  the words propped up with the thrown-out Christmas tree. I might have seen them around town but they didn’t click.

Just now, I noticed the words again written in chalk outside the Whitney Museum. It might be hard to make out the words from my pictures, but the words were, BECOME YOUR DREAM.

I had just picked up mine and the kids’ registration for our 5K Coogan’s run at the NY Road Runners Club on East 89th. Yes, it’s been a dream of mine to run a 5K. [The last and only time I ran a 5K (hoping to beat 41 minutes): http://runningaground.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/i-did-it/ ]

So I felt a frisson, an emotional charge, an old friend, a coincidence, an epiphany, an Aha!, a click, an all’s-right-with-the-world feeling when I saw the words again.

Of course, I snapped a couple of pics on my phone. (I think this photo is upside-down.) When I got home to the West side, I googled Become Your Dream. I learned the artist is James de la Vega  http://dynamomagazine.com/?p=1646

There are pictures and sightings of his words and the spunky Keith Haring-like helicopter all over the city, mostly on the Upper East Side. Bitchcakes (love her name!) has a nice photo and thanks the artist responsible “for this act of pure joy and positivity.”

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitchcakes/5386588568/ Nice.

I want to thank the artist too. It was about 5:45 when I walked towards the Whitney. I thought. ‘Maybe I’ll duck in and see some art. I hope I have enough money for admission. Ah, no worries. The museum closes at 5:45.’ So I started down 5th Ave. That’s when I saw the sidewalk art next to a bit of construction in front of the museum.

Seeing the words thrilled me. It reminded me that art is on the street. Art is at my feet. Art inspires me to keep walking or to get running. To keep going. To get out of my comfort zone. I love my beautiful New York. http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/ 

I love street art. I love the idea of it and the feel of it. I love Become Your Dream. These are my three inspiring words for 2011.

Here is my blog entry about my three words when I saw them for the first time in the garbage two months ago: https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/my-3-words/

Stocks and Numbers

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Women don’t spend much time figuring out their money. At least, this woman doesn’t. And most financial planners are men who speak in a language of competitiveness and acquisition. Women, on the other hand, speak in a language of protecting and providing. Women live longer and they need to pay fiscal attention. At least, this woman does.

About seven years ago, my husband Chris and I met with Mark, a financial planner whose services were offered free through work. It was right after Chris was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. I had hoped for easy answers. I got a lot more questions.

To almost every question Mark asked, I shrugged or mumbled, “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”

How much money in your bank account?
How much money in your retirement account?
What have you got saved for the kids’ college?
What do you spend every month?

I had two guiding princilples for financial management:

1) benevolent neglect
2) generosity

Mark understood these principles. But still he prodded me to get life insurance. Although he suggested that Chris might not be eligible with his diagnonsis. He suggested I save for the kids’ schooling and my retirement. He suggested researching some other shared assets. To all of these suggestions, I reply, seven years later, “still working on it.”

My lack of interest in my financial state was the topic for one of my first blogs. I wrote this at the height of the recession a few years ago, http://hubpages.com/hub/Stocks-Slide–I-Shrug And it still holds. But there’s a power in blogging, that once I turn my attention to a situation through writing, I gain clarity or at least acknowledge that I am challenged. I still would rather plan a vacation than look at the financial state of the union.

Let me end by quoting my mom, as I quoted her in that early post, “Stocks Slide, I Shrug” which was about losing a ton of money in GE stock. Meh. Like mom always said, “They can’t repossess your vacation.” I’m pretty sure GE has gone up since then. Not sure, but I remain optimistic.

Fun experiences, like vacations, are so much more valuable than things. Memories live longer than mutual funds. I think I know what mutual funds are. I really should research them though. I think I have one. I wonder how it’s doing.

Rule #2 Escape Through Literature

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I hope my kids always think of me as someone who loves to read. I think of my parents as book lovers.

When I remember my mother from my childhood, I remember her head bowed to a book, especially late into the night. My mother- in-law was like that too; she always had a book close at hand.

I think reading helped my mother and mother-in-law cope with their respective tasks and stresses of each raising five children. And it wasn’t nonfiction, how-to books that they read. No, they found their answers in literary fiction. They read heavy hitters like EL Doctorow, John Fowles, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Atwood.

Reading, like meditating, does good things to the body. I’m sure there’s some science that shows physiological benefits to the body when we curl up with a book — the heart rate slows and the breath gains depth. We enter another world when we read, as if in a trance. We focus intently and we lose ourselves.

When I am stressed from working or parenting, I grab a book. Right now I am reading “The Other,” by David Guterson. It is good literary fiction, a great way to escape. I have to bow my head to it now.

Good Enough

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Perfect is the enemy of Art. Perfect stands like a little vampire on my shoulder, pointy pen and pointy teeth, waiting to pounce.

Perfect plots revenge on Creativity. She gathers her posse – Self Doubt, Superiority, Righteous.

Ah, but Creativity drags her friends from their hang out at the coffee shop. Creativity’s two good pals are Art and Good Enough. Good Enough is tall, although she has a limp. She brings her sister, the one with the lovable shrug. Her name? Whatevs.

Tensions mount.

Perfect squares off against Creativity, like the Sharks and Jets of West Side Story. They are ready to rumble in an abandoned schoolyard. The Righteous goad Perfect. They are going for blood.

But Good Enough and her friends can’t take it any more. They begin to giggle. There is nothing Perfect hates more than giggles. It is like a pail of water on the Wicked Witch. Giggles melt Perfect. Giggles are contagious.

The girls all get silly. They all fall down. They stay out all night, playing hopscotch, jumprope and basketball. They all become friends.

These are the warring factions within me: Perfect, Righteous, Self Doubt and Superiority against Creativity, Good Enough, Whatevs and Art.

Who are your rumbling righteous? Who are your creative conquerors? Whose side are you on?

How does your creative self make your perfectionist side giggle?

Public School Rules

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Although this blog is dedicated to My Seven Rules for Living, I do have two other non-negotiable rules for my kids:

1. No ball playing in the house.

2. No running with sticks.

You’d think the kids would have internalized these rules, but on a weekly basis I have to remind them not to bounce balls off the walls or whip them at their siblings.

Every school, every family, and every person lives by rules. Even if you have no rules, that’s a rule.

And so it is at the public school where my son plays basketball on Saturday mornings, the rule stands that the innocent ice cream cone is not allowed. She is not welcome. Poor little ice cream cone. She shows up at school ready to learn, wearing her back pack and her sunniest smile, but no, my little friend, you are not allowed.

We have to have rules.

She could come to my house, I could homeschool the little ice cream cone. But someone would eat her. And that would be the end.

The End.

Why I Am Happy

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This morning, like every morning, I awoke before the family. I sipped my coffee, scrawled in my journal, glanced at my smart phone, and scanned The Times’s headlines. I felt connected and happy.

I wondered, Why am I happy? I ask myself why I’m unhappy, because that needs fixing. But my happiness usually goes unquestioned.

I figured, My happiness is from my relationships. I have good relationships.

My weekends are usually an accumulation of pleasing others (the kids). Yesterday, there was enough in the day that pleased me too. I watched my son’s basketball game, sitting on the gym floor chatting with an old friend and making a new friend.

I went to Chelsea Piers for one of my daughter’s camp reunions. I ice skated and chatted with the Treetops Camp family. In the evening, I attended my friend’s art show and chatted with artists about deep things. (I see that in the day I chatted with a lot of other adults. Happy!)

Then I came home from the art event and watched Mike Leigh’s ‘Happy-Go-Lucky.’ (Usually the kids monopolize the television. But I had prepared them: “I’m going to watch a movie tonite.”) The film’s heroine is a happy, giggly, silly teacher who tries flamenco dancing, trampolining and learning to drive. (Sally Hawkins = brilliant.)

The day also was happy because not only was there a lot of chatting. But I had pockets of Me Time in it too. I walked in the rain to the St. Agnes library. For five minutes, I sat in a cozy chair and read a weekly news magazine. And the library is where I borrowed the movie, ‘Happy-Go-Lucky.’ New York Public libraries so rock.

My #1 rule is Pile on the People. And it’s working out.

I joined a Facebook group of bloggers who post every day, because at times I need a push to write these daily blog posts. I was reading one post http://peterweis.com/inspiration/what-should-you-really-be-doing/ because the title intrigued me. (It prompted this post.)

I think I am doing what I should be doing. Making others happy in a way that makes me happy too. Happy.  And happy-go-lucky.

Pile on the Book Groups

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My first book group is reading Guterson’s “The Other.” My mother/daughter book group is reading Smith’s “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” My office book group is reading Zusak’s “The Book Thief.”

My #1 Rule is Pile on the People and my #2 is Escape through Literature. But I may be outdoing myself. 

On a night like tonite, when I’ve finally finished my writing, the dishes, and homework patrol, I don’t know which book to open. Rather than choosing any one, I let all of them languish. It’s not just the books, but my classmates’ “Bootcamp for Journalists” writing assignments. And on the Kindle, I’m in the middle of Miller’s “Blue Like Jazz” and Brown’s “The Lost Symbol.”

I lump them all and dive into a long article in The Atlantic or The New York Times magazine.

Why do I place so many reading demands on myself? I like drowning in literature.

And maybe one of my rules could serve as an antidote to my habit (compulsion?) to pile on too many book groups and too many books: Rule #5 “Expect the Best/Love What You Get.”

Rule #5 Expect the Best, Love What You Get

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I was inspired by “A Complaint Free World” by Will Bowen. So for a while, I gave up complaining. It was difficult. I felt like a Pollyanna, nodding politely while people complained about work, the weather, or their commute. I said nothing in return.

I do think complaining begets complaining. No one like a complainer. (And I tell my kids this, but it doesn’t stop them! Wait! I don’t want to start complaining about their complaining.)

In our Leadership Academy, last weekend, I discovered one of my strengths was labeled positivity. I felt negative about my positivity. Especially at work I have felt that coworkers believe me to be intellectually lightweight because I am optimistic and affirming.

At times in life it takes more intellectual energy to remain positive than to give in to a world of complaint. I have plenty to complain about. Believe me! I could start with the weather. It’s pouring snow again tonite. I just heard thunder!

But really, I’m sure someone (me?) can find something good in another snowstorm. I have to believe that Spring will arrive eventually. The hardships we now experience will seem distant.

The other morning I woke the kids, made them breakfast, got myself ready, got the kids out the door. I realized, too late, one of the girls had left her homework on the kitchen table. I ran for three blocks to the block right before school. I handed her the half-finished homework. She hugged me.

I saw a friend on the street. I was panting for breath, shaking my head. “Someday, we’ll look back and wonder how we did it all,” I said.

“Someday we won’t have to do it all,” she said, catching up with her kids in front of her.

And probably we’ll miss it.

Football Rules

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I played Mighty Might football during the pre-season of 5th grade. I have always felt proud of that. As we head into Super Bowl season, I offer you some life lessons from a girl who played football:

1) Stay nimble. Keep moving. A moving target is harder to hit.

2) Pass the ball. Remember, you play on a team. Give someone else a chance to shine or do that little touchdown dance. I did not play football long enough to dance in the end zone, but I think, for me, as for most people (women?), that is the highlight of watching the game.

3) Look good in your uniform. This, too, is a highlight for spectators (women?). Stay in shape.

4) Behave. You may be creating a fan for life by the way you play and represent your team.

5) Remember you play for a place. I played for the Minnesota Vikings with my Uncle Tom Nierman as my coach. I learned life lessons from him. I still like the Vikings. I like the Chicago Bears better, because I am from Chicago and that is my birth right.

Greg Olsen, permission from creative commons

5) Listen to the coach. At my high school reunion last October, my classmate Joe told me that Uncle Tom was the best coach bar none. Uncle Tom gave pointers to Joe that he remembered throughout his long football career. He gave better advice than Joe’s college football coach. Don’t dis the little league coach.

6) Call time out. Regroup. Recharge. Take all of the time necessary to debrief and plan.

7) Wear protection. Pads, helmet, etc.

I am following my own advice — staying nimble, looking good, recharging.

I am returning this blog to its previous incarnation about my 7 Rules for Living. Last summer and fall, this blog was a place for me to report on my daily visits to random churches. My Church a Day blog was by far my most popular. I received between 70 and 18o readers every time I posted. I loved that.

I began visiting a church a day when my kids were in summer camp. But now that they’re not in camp, I’m finding visiting a church a day a challenge. I may go back to visiting a church a day. I don’t know. The game’s still on.

I still blog daily. If not on this blog —  My 7 Rules site — then I post about:

health and fitness:  http://runningaground.wordpress.com/

my beautiful city: http://mybeautifulnewyork.wordpress.com/

my hopping off the grid: http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/

My 3 Words

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On my walk to the subway this morning, I received this message. It was being thrown out with the Christmas trees on Amsterdam Ave.

I had been wondering What are my 3 inspiring words for 2011? Here they were: Become. Your. Dream.

Social media guru Chris Brogan http://www.chrisbrogan.com/my-3-words-for-2011/ suggests giving yourself 3 guiding words for the New Year.  (I love this guy’s blog. My Connected Life blog http://gettingmyessayspublished.wordpress.com/ is my homage to Brogan.)

Become

I decided to visit a church. The image on the sign seemed to be a helicopter. Move. Go. Do the thing you say you will do. For me that means Visit a church a day. I tried to go to St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University, but it was locked. Columbia U. must still be off for the New Year’s  holiday.

I wish church doors were never locked. The gates nearby were locked too.

So  I  wandered out of Columbia towards Morningside Drive. Morningside is such a great name for a street. Here it was morning and I was on Morningside. I remembered the ephiphany I had on Morningside last time I walked there — gratitude. My heart was full of gratitude for every single person I knew.

Yesterday was Epiphany Sunday. I thought of James Joyce’s epiphany in The Artist as a Young Man. I think it happened as Stephen Dedalus watched a flock of birds in the sky. I thought James Joyce is gone, but I am alive. Yes, that was my epiphany. I am alive. I looked up at the sky in honor of James Joyce. Because he could no longer look up. And I saw a hawk or eagle circling. It was my ephiphany. I took it in, the literalness and then the symbolism of it – to dream, to helicopter, to fly. I am alive.

I remembered another message from yesterday’s Epiphany Sunday at Rutgers Church —  love is hard.

Your

I decided to go back to the Mary in a grotto church again. https://mbcoudal.wordpress.com/2010/09/25/a-cave-for-mary/

Although I’ve said I will try to visit a new church everyday, maybe any old church is just as good. I had to get to work.

Since the Montreal Notre Dame Church, I’ve started to feel an affinity for any Mary or Notre Dame church. I love Mary. Maybe because my name is Mary or the idea of Mary reveals a softer side of God or religion.

Dream

The church doors facing Morningside were wide open. Two priests and a woman in a coat were saying prayers towards the altar. I marveled at how bright the church was. I love bright. But who pays the electric bill? (My mind leaps from epiphanal to logistical in a moment!) I sat in the last row. I remembered a dream I had last night about a woman holding a bird and a snake, laughing while her picture was being taken.

I could not understand a word the three at the front said. It was all a mumble until after about five minutes when they concluded, audibly saying, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Those were their three words.

I remembered to cross myself as I left. The holy water at the Church of Notre Dame is flown in from France.