Tag: daily prompt

Nice, SuperNice

Published on by mbcoudal14 Comments
Mother Theresa statue, Struga
Mother Theresa statue, Struga (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like 20 years ago, I was temping at a bank in New Rochelle. I was working for a banker — I forget his name — but he was younger than me by a few years. But he seemed older. He was getting over some kind of cancer. He used to buy me lunch almost every day. He seemed confused by me.

Then, he told me why. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”

“Really?” That seemed weird. I’m no Mother Theresa. I get impatient and insecure on a daily basis. I felt sorry for this banker — I mean, if I was the nicest person he’d ever met! Well, that just seemed sad.

Still. Nice gets a bad wrap. I remember in the book The Happiness Project when Gretchen Rubin is super-nice to everyone in her life for a week as a path to happiness. No one really notices her niceness and she’s glad when the week’s over ’cause it feels like kinda a waste of time. And niceness requires a lot of effort.

I have felt that my niceness is, at times, perceived as stupidity. (Especially at work — when the cynical males were perceived as smart and the young female optimists were seen as fools. Well ha! Fools have more laughs than cynics!)

I can’t help it. I am compulsively nice. And this kind of “nice girl” syndrome has cost me. Maybe in being nice I have swallowed some honest emotion.

Still. In the long run, I’d rather be overly nice than overly critical or mean.

My daughter and I had a screaming match yesterday and she accused me of being so mean. And ugh, that hurt. In a quieter moment, I asked my husband, “Was I mean?”

“When you two lock horns, no one wins,” he said. Which, I think, meant, ‘Yes, you were unfair or unkind.’ Hey, I thought, I’m sorry. And you only hurt the ones you love.

I don’t want to get into the deets of the argument, but my daughter and I talked it out later and we both promised to do better next time — to give each other a little more patience and more room to breath. Tough stuff. At least for me. Me? The nicest person you’ve ever met.

I have blogged about this before. And interestingly enough, I also wrote about my daughter four years ago in the blog post the power of niceness. I, then, too, referenced the Happiness Project and my resentment about workplace sarcasm winning over niceness. Weird. Four years later. I’m writing about the same stuff.

And still. Niceness wins. Every time.

Compassion, too.

This post was inspired by Daily Prompt: Nice Is as Nice Does

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta

Halloween Begins the Holiday Madness

Published on by mbcoudal1 Comment

Happy Halloween! Wait! I’m not ready. Did I celebrate my daughters’ birthday, or even, 4th of July or Easter, well enough?

This is the first of the marching holidays and I’ve hardly finished my last holidays. But they march on, whether I am ready or not. I have to comfort myself that I do them well enough.

I am a do-er and I do the holidays well enough. But sometimes I want to celebrate Easter in November and Thanksgiving in March.

I am a do-er but also an iconoclast or an anarchist (or some big word that means rule-breaker.)

I can change some things, but I can’t change big things like the seasons. Christmas is good in the winter. Maybe it’d be better at the beginning of December? Maybe I should start a campaign to change the date of Christmas. I could start small.

Here’s my idea: Let’s pump up the less celebrated holidays, like Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Let’s make it a big peace and love day — bigger than Christmas. Same with International Women’s Day. Let’s really love on our international sisters that day.

And I can use the money I save buying shit nobody needs at Christmas to throw some really big Pace and Love parties.

I’m not a Scrooge. While I like, and even love, Christmas and other holidays, I reject the disgusting materialism and commercialism that pervades our culture. I don’t want new things. (I want new experiences.) I don’t want my kids — or anyone for that matter — to think the acquisition of goods leads to the acquisition of happiness.

I have been happiest traveling light. The less stuff I have, the happier I am.

I have been happy with friends, having — and going to — parties, being with my kids, my family. Happy Halloween! March on holiday madness!

So,  “If bloggers had their own Halloween and could go from blog to blog collecting “treats,” what would your blog hand out?” asked the Daily Prompt today. And I answer: more fun, more love, more peace, and more parties. 

Related articles
20131031-125550.jpg
At the church retreat at Shelter Island last weekend, some of the teens carved awesome pumpkins. This is one.
beach scene in October
Leaves blew on to the beach on Shelter Island.

Lost on Siesta Key

Published on by mbcoudal4 Comments

“On the day of the miracle…”

I got up early from our condo on the south end of Siesta Key. I decided to walk the two or three miles to Crescent Market to pick up juice and breakfast for the girls. I would walk via the beach, taking photos, meditating, cogitating, generally meandering, until I could cut over to the main drag of Siesta Key, Midnight Pass Road. So far, so good.

20130105-085539.jpg
I set off early and happily for a beach walk from our south end of Siesta Key condo.

I walked and snapped a few pictures with my phone. So far, so good.

20130105-085605.jpg
pretty sights along the way

Then the beach was interrupted by a big jetty of brown rocks. Simple enough.

Time to head to the road. There was no pathway. I walked a little this way and that, but there seemed to be no simple (or public) walkway to the road from the beach

I could see the road, but I couldn’t get to it. “Well, I’ll simply have to run across this millionaire’s lawn to get to the road,” I thought.

“But run fast,” I told myself, “these Southern folk pack heat for this very occasion — a middle-aged mother trespassing.” I picked an unoccupied mansion and I bolted across the manicured lawn, ready to dodge a bullet if necessary.

Phew, I looked back. I made it. Here I was on Midnight — What the hell! I wasn’t on Midnight Pass Road, but trapped on some private millionaires’ road. Shit. I figured I’ll have to walk back towards where I came.

20130105-085623.jpg
This was the first lawn I trespassed on, running across the lawn, hoping to get back to the road.

I started to get sweaty. I walked out on an abandoned dock to locate the bridge back to Midnight Pass, but there was only a wide lagoon that seemed to go on for miles. No bridge in sight. I thought for a fleeting second, Could I swim that? I thought about gators. No! I couldn’t swim it.

I continued walking back south until the road ended. I walked on a trail, clearly marked private property.

Shit. I’m lost on Siesta Key, a slip of land that I thought only had one road. I called my brother Brendan. He told me to use my phone’s GPS.

The phone told me I was just off of Sanderling Road. It told me to head north for miles. I walked back through the trail to the millionaires’ road.

There were no cars, no people, only manicured bushes, fences, walls along Sanderling road. I heard a sprinkler and thought I spotted a gardener who eyed me suspiciously. I finally saw a garbage truck headed for me. I flagged him down. But the driver couldn’t hear me over his truck and told me to go back to the beach. “There’s no way out from Sanderling road, except the way I’d come,” he said, gesturing north. “Way back there,” as if the entrance to this gates community was just a memory.

I called my brother again, getting desperate. asking for rescue. “Okay, I’ll come get you. But I don’t know if they’ll let me on the private road. I have my boat in tow.” I walked back to the beach. This time, I thought, let them shoot me. I am freely trespassing. I am flaunting my trespass. At least I’ll get out of this nightmare.

My brother called me on my phone. (I noted, my battery was running low.)

“Hey, I’m almost on Sanderling Road. But I’m stuck. The guard waved me through, but there’s a tree down in the road. See if you can walk back towards me.” Again, I trespassed. This time, through a manicured Buddha garden. I even stopped for a moment to admire the sculptured tranquility separating the empty beach from the Sanderling community.

I walked. I perspired. I was hungry. Walking north, I passed a dogwalker who wore headphones and a black tee shirt. I nodded at her (or him, I couldn’t tell). He/she ignored me.

Apparently, the only human beings on Sanderling road are the hired help and they look suspiciously at anyone they encounter.

This story ends happily. After all, I have lived to tell the story. I walked a ways. My brother eventually showed up, because they cleared the downed tree. He managed to circle around with the boat and get us off of Sanderling.

We had a beautiful day out on his boat. My getting lost on Siesta Key will become a distant memory (I hope!)

But I offer this advice to any walker on the south end of Siesta Key beach: never leave the beach, thinking you can get back on Midnight Pass Road. If you do, you may never return.

I took the first line from this post from The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman, a new and brilliant novel I was reading on the beach yesterday. I add it as a prompt from today’s daily post challenge.

Related articles

Les Mis

Published on by mbcoudal5 Comments

Yesterday I saw Les Misérables. This is my guilty pleasure. I love the musical. I have always loved it. Loved Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman and their vulnerability. I loved that they let themselves look like (or be covered in) shit. That’s an actor!

Today’s prompt is:

Tell us about a guilty pleasure that you hate to love.

I hate to love the movies, but they are my therapy.

They take me away. In the last month, I have seen a couple of awesome French films, Amour and Rust and Bone. And now Les Mis, which is set in Paris. The city is moody and dark, yet it is the city of light. This year we need a lot of  light.

I’ve wanted to go to Paris for years. I have friends there and a place to stay, but I feel it’s too far or too expensive. With Chris’s illness, I feel I should only travel close to home and only for a few days.

When I go to the movies, I go to Paris and am still home in time to greet the kids as they walk in the door after school.

One of the darlings went to the premiere and met the celebs. Here she is with Amanda Seyfried.
One of the darlings went to the premiere and met the celebs. Here she is with amazing Amanda Seyfried.

The life lessons in Les Mis are brilliant:

  • To love another person is to see the face of God
  • Show faith in and forgive people cast off by society just as the priest forgave the thief Valjean, played by Jackman
  • Let your children love and let them go. This song, “Bring Him Home,” by Jackman was a real tear-jerker
  • Care for all children, as if they were your own
  • Show kindness, always
  • Have passion for your cause
  • Know that change will come
  • Workplace squabbles can lead to prostitution

Maybe that last one is not a good life lesson, but you get the idea.

Believe in the power of passionate individuals to change the world. I know there are many more life lessons in Les Mis to explore, but I am heading to Middle-earth today.

Yes, I am going to see The Hobbit at noon.

And so I leave you with the words of Valjean.

And from a writing teacher’s point of view, I must point out these lyrics are so brilliant because they are so simple. Almost all of the words are one syllable, but they pack in so much emotion, just like the musical.

“Bring Him Home”

Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy

You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home

Related articles

Daily Prompt: Time Capsule

Published on by mbcoudal5 Comments

2012 is drawing to a close (3 weeks left!). What would you put in this year’s time capsule?

collage for UMCOR
collage for UMCOR

I would put:

  • My collage art to promote UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief). Am so proud! This was an early version.
  • My bike. Oh, my bike. I love my bike. Biking in NYC makes me happy.

    seen in a bike shop window in Portland
    seen in a bike shop window in Portland
  • My first (ever!) unemployment direct deposit check. Definitely mixed feelings, but overall grateful.
  • My new business cards.
  • Masks that the girls made at Art Students League. We all play roles, wear masks, make art.
  • Chris’s SAG movie pass. Going to the movies together has been a great way to connect. Due to Chris’s illness and our busy-ness, I feel we are ships passing in the night. But we’ve sat together at such amazing movies this year! Yesterday we saw Amour. Formidable! (my favorite French word!) Today we are going to see The Guilt Trip.
  • Abeach handful of sand from Siesta Key beach. The kids and I had such a restorative time hanging out at the prettiest beach in the world last spring. Great times, too, with my bro, Nicole, dad, and Marty.
  • A mosquito from the kids and my ill-fated camping trip to Fire Island.
  • Yoga mat. Because my mom still practices yoga and stands on her head.
  • Shake Shack fries. After teaching a semester of middle school creative writing, I take my kids to Shake Shack to celebrate.
  • School Swimming Pool and Van Cortlandt Park. I watch my kids play basketball, soccer, and baseball, but I spend most of my spectator time on the sidelines of the long benches of the pool or on the edges of the Van Corltandt Park track.
  • all the cousins
    all the cousins

    All of the cousins. Being with my four siblings and their kids for Thanksgiving was definitely the highlight of 2012.

  • President Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Just in case anyone, in the future, has any questions. The man is an American, all right already. Forward.

2012 was a very good year.

Related articles