Patience.

So, it's true.  I'm not known for my patience.  I'm not.


I'm really, really not.


While most of every one of my friends and family knows this, it is still something we can chuckle about - enjoy a little light laugh over.  No one (to my knowledge) is ready to stage an intervention.


This leads to a confession: I'm a real *sshole on my subway commute. I am, but no one has known this but me.  Well, no one knew until I decided to write this post, but the word's out.  I'm a real jerk. I have no patience for bad behavior... or behavior that doesn't take others into account.  And by others, I mean me.


My survival method is New York City is to mumble under my breath or scream in my head, whichever allows more emotional bile to escape my body in a given moment. This behavior can be non-stop as I shuttle from home to work and home again.


Often, I have got a running commentary in my head that is so impatient and bitter, so unlike the self I like to admit to. When I witness behavior like in the pictures below (and p.s. these are borrowed images that roughly illustrate my experience) I find myself silently screeching things like:

"I really love the sound of your clipping your nails across the car from me." 

"Kid, your cuteness wore off before you opened your mouth to sing the entire score of "Annie."  And that is not a jungle gym.  Sit down, precious snowflake." 






 "Thanks for buying cheap headphones and cranking the volume so you could share your awful music with the entire subway car." 







•   



"Your standing smack dab in the middle of the doorway really helps speed up the loading and unloading.  Thanks, Mensa Men."  








"Hey thanks, lady leaning against the pole so other people can't hold on. I'll just jam my knuckles in around your back fat." 






 "Wow, you two, watching you make out and rub each other's bodies like genie lamps gives me exactly the lift I need in the morning."

"Stopping at the top of the stairs right in front of me so you can check your texts really helps me slow down and relax. Ommmm!"
(I used Kim Kardashian for this because she is my nemesis.  It only seemed right.)

And the kids who perform their dance-acrobatics show on the train... Man, hearing the words "Show time, show TIME!" makes me want to punch someone.

So. Last week, I went back for my 4th class  death wish at CrossFit Harlem.  I won't go into the entire routine, but know that we donned 50 lb. weight vests and did death squats while throwing 14 lb. medicine balls against the wall.  It was a BLAST. I celebrated the fact that I'd survived, but the shock wore off the next morning when I realized I couldn't bend anything.  I lumbered to the subway like Frankenstein, arms straight out ahead of me to balance and brace for a fall. And wouldn't you know, I became one of those people.  I couldn't help it; I couldn't move!  I had to stand smack in the middle of the doorway.  I had to lean against the pole and pretend not to feel the knuckles grinding into my back fat.  I started up the stairs in my regular 1st position because I like to run up the steps, but my legs seized up like the Tin Man's.


I think I heard some silent screaming behind me.

Pause

"The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."
David Foster Wallace

When I first came across this quote, I thought I'd use it for a post about the personal relationships in my life. Daily, my parents, my husband, my brother, and my friends all offer me the freedom to be myself by making space for me to fail and grow. They make allowances for me, they sacrifice for me, in the most banal, trivial ways. But those seemingly small allowances add up to something invaluable to me. Amazingly, they do this often without any need for immediate compensation. They live with the hope that I will hold up my end of the social compact and return the favor, but the score is by no means even.

This weekend, I can't help but see these words differently. I am humbled by all the ways our servicemen and servicewomen uphold freedom for our nation and for others around the world. Through their attention, awareness, discipline and effort, they sacrifice for us day after day in the most unsexy ways.

It is easy and convenient for me to remember their sacrifices on these big, shiny event-filled holidays. May I do a better job remembering them always.

Mom

I asked my husband, "What do you think is the best quality I inherited from my mom?"  Without pausing for breath he quipped, "Well, you definitely didn't get her patience."

Very true; painfully so. But ha ha.  Yes, I laughed at that.  I tried to show I had a sense of humor, but quickly (remember the patience problem) moved back to pressing him.  He said, "Give me a moment to think about it."  I stood nearby, patiently waiting a whole few seconds, thinking that he'd be able to connect my mom and me somehow, but time stood still.

This didn't look good for me.

I'd like to say I left the scene to give him space to think, but I was feeling a bit prickly.
After 90 seconds, I approached him again.  "Any luck?" I asked.
"Still thinking," he said.
"You do think I have some good qualities, don't you?"
"Well of course, or I wouldn't have married you."
"Huh," I grunted.

Later I spoke with my mom.  She was on her way back from her 50th year college reunion.  Imagine?!  She was on a layover at the airport and texted me to say hi.  (By the way, I love that my 70-something year old mom texts 45-year old me. How cool is that?) I texted her back, nonchalantly saying that she could call me if she wanted; I was home alone because Mike had taken a drive.

God, I wanted my mom to call me.  I wanted my mom.

She called.  She never fails.  We talked about her weekend, which sounded reflective in a way I can only imagine.  What is it to reflect back 50 years to when you were in college?  What is it to tick off the successes, but also the deaths, the illnesses?  What is it to remember youth and to see decline?  Talking with her reminded me of a time I was speaking with her mother, my grandma Erickson, and Grandma was saying very matter-of-factly, "I'm one of the last of my friends.  Everyone has died."  Grandma Erickson volunteered at the senior living center and helped people far younger than she was.  She watched people wither and go. It's a brutal reality.

At that moment, I didn't want to be a voice on the end of the phone. I wanted to stop time, to sit across from my mom and hold her hand.  Not that she needed me, but that kind of reflection - one of really seeing what's in front of you - seems too honest and cruel.  My mom's nowhere near there.  Right?  She is vibrant and lovely and ALIVE for a long, long, long time.

I listened as my mom dealt with this somewhat painful reflection.  But shamefully, as I listened I wanted something from her.

"So, Mom, what do you think is the best quality that I got from you?"  It felt dirty to even ask; to plead for something good.

After a moment, she replied, "Your empathy."

And I wanted to cry.
Because my mother had said what I wished for most,
because she valued that part of me so much,
because even while in her own emotional churning, she was as generous as ever.

After I got off the phone with her, she texted me.
"Kindness would also apply! xoxom"

I will never be the woman my mom is, but I know I will die trying.

May you all know the love that I know from my mom.

=

I have been having a hard time writing funny lately.  Normally lightheartedness comes easy.  I play the fop well.  And while I'd prefer an amusing post, this has been weighing heavy, and my struggle with it has been incredibly humbling.

Somewhere along in my learning, I was told that we should have many opinions, some beliefs, and few convictions.  If we start with just opinions, we can recognize what is both strong and faulty in our own way of thinking, and we can be appropriately swayed.  We can learn a thing or two, that's what open-mindedness can do!  It's good to have opinions.

With time and reinforcement, opinions can shift to beliefs; something more substantial. We nurture our understanding and get different perspectives, and decide actively what to believe.

Finally, beliefs solidify into convictions. They are solid and unmoving; they are our foundation. They are a part of us.  They make us who we are.

Marriage equality is a conviction for me.  I am not merely of the opinion that it is right.  It is not just a belief for me.  It is a conviction.

My previous marriage was interfaith.  Adam was a Jewish kid from the Bronx, and I was a Connecticut/Iowa WASP.  We were young kids in love, so I didn't give our different religions much thought.  I thought love trumped all. After sharing news of my engagement,  I was told point blank by one of my close friends (at the time) that I was stealing from her pot.  She said that Jews should marry their own kind in order to continue their religious identity and value. I tried to explain that I actually was more connected to Judaism than my soon-to-be-(ex)-husband was, and that I was planning on instilling the knowledge and value of his religion - and my own - in our children.  I did not manage to assuage any of her discomfort.

I am now in an interracial marriage.  My husband is African-American (although he refers to himself as "brown, baby, brown"). I don't think of it consciously as interracial, just like I didn't think of my first marriage as interfaith; I think of it as marriage. Did you know that in 1967 when a Federal law was enacted to protect interracial marriages, there were still 16 states with prohibitive laws in place?  Oh, but the discomfort lives on.  Look, we live in a country where just last week, a store owner called our president a n*gger on his store's sign. My husband and I had a woman register her disapproval of us by yelling and spitting on the ground in front of us. I keep making people uncomfortable with whom I love, apparently.

The reason for my conviction that marriage should be a right for all is this: Everything beautiful and pure and selfless and committed and joyful and loving that I have learned about relationships, has been built and reinforced by ALL types of couples in my life.  Straight, interracial, intergenerational, interfaith, gay and lesbian, you name it - I know them and love them for all I've learned from them.  I thank God that I've learned from them how to be part of a happy, healthy, successful couple myself.

There are moments I look at my husband and I am breathless.  I can't believe what it is to love him and be loved by him.
How could I ever deny another person of this? Not just the right to love, but the legal, ethical, moral right to to be acknowledged by the state, by banks, by health providers, by the church, by the military, and by the public. Not only am I unable to deny it, I must fight for their rights.

Love is humbling.