Maybe it was the end of summer and my brain was fried from sun and children.  Maybe I ate too many carbs the night before, or had too little coffee that morning.

Or maybe it’s because I get so tired of being cynical and hard-bitten that I let go briefly.

Whatever it was, as the founders of Las Vegas used to say, there’s a sucker born every minute. And this sucker was born again that day, the most recent of several sucker- incarnations. If there’s sucker nirvana, I’m sure to get there any day now.

The first time, I was a junior in college, traveling in Spain with a friend, both of us age-appropriately naive but old enough to know better.

In the train station on our way back to school in Paris, we were approached by a dapper, but frayed-at-the-edges older man, a Swede, who told us this tale of woe: his Mercedes had broken down in front of the station, his wife was home ill and he had no way of getting cash (he’d left his wallet at home, you see). He needed as much as we could spare to get his car fixed so he could get home to his poor darling.

With a mixture of feeling-like-such-good-people and trepidation, we gave him the equivalent of $70 in French francs — a fortune for us at the time — and our addresses in the US to which he was to send repayment.

As we got on the train back to Paris, the holes in his story began to worm their way into our silly, sweet brains…why didn’t he just take a cab home to get his wallet? Why wouldn’t the garage where he was getting his car fixed take him home? Couldn’t he call a friend to help? And his shoes…did you see his shoes? They were pretty crappy for a rich guy.

Ugh. We (finally) realized we’d been duped. Taken. Hustled. Grifted. Fooled, in the most awful way one can be – not through our greed or vanity, but by playing on our best impulses, our desire to help, our empathy, our basic humanity.

All that sweet goodness we’d filled up on turned into roiling sourness and acid, like too many bags of cotton candy, mini-donuts and cheese curds after you’ve left the State Fair.  We both felt nauseous, upset and burned.

I guess that’s what loss of innocence with a side of humiliation tastes like.

We vowed to never, ever be taken in by anyone again. We also vowed to never speak of it because we were so embarrassed.  Yes, I am “speaking of it” now because I’m no longer embarrassed (who was that dumb, foolish kid?), and I figure the statute of limitations is up after 20-plus years.

Have I mentioned I learn things the hard way? Because after that horrible, scarring experience, lo and behold, it happened again. That same year in fact, while I was in Italy with a different friend. Another older Swedish gentleman, this time claiming to be deposed royalty (beware, young travelers — Europe abounds with ancient Swedish grifters posing as earls seeking to separate you from your riches!). He somehow bamboozled us into believing such astonishing stories, and feeling so sorry for him and moved by his infinite, ex-pat loneliness, that we ended up at his very seedy apartment high above Rome. At night. With no way back down to the train station.

Did I mention that no one who cared about us knew we were even in Rome?

I won’t go into great detail, because the statute of limitations will never run out on this stupid move, but suffice it to say that we got him to take us back into the city, relatively unscathed, but shaken by our own stupidity, gullibility and the fact that we obviously weren’t as ready for the world as we thought.

Through the years, living and traveling in big cities, I have come to believe no one, trust no one asking for money is on the up-and-up. But I have occasional, inexplicable lapses. Like the time I gave money to the guy standing at the Dupont Circle Metro stop in DC. You know the story: I just need a few dollars to get the bus back to Baltimore where I have this great job waiting for me, which I really need so I can pay the medical expenses for my poor, sick elderly mother.

I knew it was bull-crap, but something about the way he told the story, his bravado or gall at using such a tired line, something, made me stop. “Look, I know you’re bs-ing me. Tell me the truth and I might actually give you some money.”  A sheepish, but somehow winning grin spread across his face. It was nice to stop playing the game for a minute. “Alright, lady, but don’t tell no one else. I’m gonna use the money to get a drink.” Normally, I am beyond opposed to contributing to someone’s addiction, but he’d told me the truth, so I gave him a buck.

My cynicism is truly and fully intact. My belief system hardened and formulaic: anyone asking for your sympathy, or money for food, bus fare, medical expenses, broken-down cars, wants it for something else, is using your best impulses to pay for or get something awful and dirty, some horrible vice like drugs, alcohol, sex or gambling.  I ignore people at freeway entrances and street corners. I am an immovable object…except for that pregnant woman that one time…and, oh yeah, the mutilated child in the Paris metro. Other than that, though, I am stone cold.

Fast forward to a couple months ago. My doorbell rang. Outside stood a woman with a desperate look on her face.

“Do you have any work I could do (ahh, we have a work ethic — good one!)? I need $28.97 (brilliant use of a specific number!) to buy antibiotics for my sister who had back surgery at Hennepin and they messed it up — it’s their fault (poor, poor victim of the system!).”

After some back and forth, even the offer that I could keep her phone until her boyfriend dropped off money to me later that day (of course I wasn’t going to take her phone, dumb rich lady like me!), I gave her $14, all the cash I had on hand, spoke to her sister (who called just at the right moment to seal the deal!) who God-blessed me a few times (the sainted, unselfish invalid!) and lauded her self-sacrificing sister for walking all over the city for her.

It was…sublime. I fell for it on purpose. With calculated innocence, an abandonment of everything I’d learned about the worst of human nature. Because I really, really wanted to believe it, and deep down where I was honest about knowing that it was a ruse, I decided that it really didn’t matter why she needed the money. She actually needed it –  her desperation was real, palpable, cloying.   And, I think, underneath the lie, and (perhaps?) a faint feeling of self-loathing, she was truly grateful to me for being willing to fall for it.

So call me a sucker, a naive, an innocent idiot. My humanity got the better of me again.

Sure, those women “fooled” me, but deep down I hope I never lose the occasional willingness to see beyond a lie to the core of emptiness and despair that drives people to such depths. It could have been me in their place, having to lie for a few dollars. I guess I figured it wasn’t much to pay for the luxury and good fortune of always being on the other side of that very sad equation.

I don’t know if it’s a seasonal thing — summer certainly wore me out psychically.  I lacked  a spiritual room of my own, no schedule per se with fragmented, hectic mothering and coordinating to do. As for recharging — ha! Summer is a frantic race to pack it all in, “enjoy” the outdoors, wring the most of every sweltering, shortlived minute.

So to reiterate, I am not recharged, revivied, renewed. I am creatively drained. I’ve started writing at least five posts in the last few months of my hiatus and either finshed one and hated it, or didn’t finish it because I lacked any feeling around it. They all felt wrong and overworked. I was afraid of not being “perfect,” a word that sits like a bitter berry in my throat with one hell of an aftertaste.

Thus I am freewriting today, an exercise I haven’t done since college, but one that has been used by writers through the ages to end a “block.”  There is a simple joy in not worrying too much about how something will turn out, what the tie-in will be and whether what I write will appeal to my readers. If this isn’t the most profound or topical of blog entries I apologize, but it’s probably my most personal blog  in a way, a crying out for nourishment from my poor, starving little muse. It is what I needed today. And it is enough.

That stupid refrain was ringing through my head when I awoke this morning.  But what I actually feel about it, I couldn’t tell you.

I’m completely numb.

I know what I want to feel: relief, elation, a sense of righteousness, justice — but none of that has come.

I watch the commentators, the crowds, the current and former presidential advisors, the president, and I know I should feel like them. But I don’t. Not yet.

Just a pervading numbness and a sense of guilt that I can’t get there. It’s a little different than the numbness I felt on 9/11, which was more like being in some sort of protective fog, as if my brain was enveloping itself in a cushion before the hard fall of real comprehension. But it could only protect me for a little while. After that, of course, grief set in, manifesting in a lump in my throat and ready tears that wouldn’t go away for several months.

Part of me wonders if Bin Laden’s death isn’t more symbolic than actually meaningful in “the fight against terror” — can we really kill hatred with the death of one man, odious and powerful as he was? A blogger I follow (Amy Parmenter) pointed out that his death occurred on Holocaust Memorial Day – a great and appropriate metaphor.

But the fact remains that even since WWII, hatred of Jews didn’t disappear with the death of Hitler. It just went a little further underground.

The other thing that keeps niggling at me is how he died. We took the law into our own hands and just gunned him down – no tribunal, no court of law. Very Old Testament, sort of “hand of God,” or “eye for an eye.”  I can’t help it – it feels barbaric to me. We know for certain that he orchestrated the horrors of 9/11, but I don’t understand how we get away with this. Is it because what he did was an act of war and therefore we have the right to kill him on sight?

You may think I’m anti-American, but I’m not.  I’m just laying it out on the line here, a gut reaction I can’t put away – I feel the tiniest bit that we’ve sunk to some primitive level as I watch the joy-drunken faces of the revelers in front of the White House or at Ground Zero.

Ugh. Did I just write that?

Please don’t get me wrong.  I know this is a great thing, a REALLY great thing – intellectually. I know he is evil incarnate…I guess I travelled down Nihilism Road carrying a little too much mind-numbing baggage today.

Perhaps I’ll feel elated tomorrow.

It’s a business piece, but I think you might find it interesting anyway, so please check it out.

Here’s a little taste:

Why a Personal Blog Can Boost Your Business

My little personal blog, called seriously, scares me to death.

Okay, not literally, but every time I post my gut clenches a little, my heart pounds and I bite my nails down to stubs in anticipation of the comments I will get. That’s because everything I write about is mine — my experiences, my thoughts, my observations – anything I feel like really, and it is bare-all honest and real no matter what. If I’m not a little afraid to post it, then I know it isn’t quite right.

While my blog is personal and honest sometimes to the point of pain (which I try to defray with a dash of humor), my one rule is to never, ever blame others or write negatively about the ones I love. In that way it has become cathartic and better than cognitive therapy – it forces me to reframe my thinking and air out my dirty laundry publicly at the same time. It’s absolutely frightening and the most freeing, transformational thing I have ever done in my life.

And believe it or not, this uber-personal blog has been great for business…Read more

When a friend without kids told another friend with kids and me that she was sort of, kind of, maybe contemplating children and did we have any thoughts to share, my experienced friend and I took a deep breath and looked around, whispering sotto voce, ”Do you want us to tell you the whole truth?”  Well, of course — who wouldn’t want to know that?!

So we did. We told her the dirty little secrets about babies and small children.  We launched into unsanctioned territory, threw stones at that temple with a vengeance…and probably went too far.  We told her how alone you feel when you’re a new mom. How you may not even love the little mewling, demanding creature you birthed, though you feel passionately mama-bearish about its welfare. That breast-feeding is really difficult to master and might not actually work for you. We told her about unrecognized post-partum depression and unreasonable fears for baby’s safety making you a crazy woman. About sleepless nights, very strained marriages and even divorce, as in my friend’s case.  How you give, and you give, and you give so much more than you thought you had in you to the point of potential loss of yourself.

Early childrearing, we told her, is a mind-melding blur, the lines of your personhood so merged with that of your child or children that you literally cannot see straight.  And you may even believe you are the only woman in the world who feels unhappy with this little “bundle of joy” that feels as if it will be hanging around your neck 24-7…for the rest of your natural life.

Beware, we told her, of all the focus on pregnancy and birth, because the end-product of both is an actual baby, one you have absolutely NO idea how to care for (other than a random lesson or two on taco-wrappng and belly-button cleaning from a nurse as you lay dazed in the hospital post-partum) nor how it will really truly affect you and your primary relationship.

Our basic, uplifting message? Have a baby and go directly to jail, do not pass go and definitely do not collect $200. Call it verbal birth control. I mean it’s not like she was pregnant and we were unfairly freaking her out after the deed was done…forewarned is forearmed, I felt!

“So, do you regret having children, then?” she asked, saucer-eyed after what we’d just dumped on her.

We both were silent for a second. But only for a second. What may surprise you (although it is what society would expect) is that we both answered a quite emphatic “No!”

Because what we hadn’t told her yet was the good stuff (I guess we felt she could get that somewhere else…everywhere else, in fact). We didn’t tell her that there is a light at the end of that dark, babyhood tunnel. That what you reap you do sow (at least until they turn 12 or 13 — but that’s another story), sometimes a lot sooner than you think you will.  You begin to see something rise out of the fog and the mist of early parenthood: a little person, more and more separate from you, who you can’t imagine living without; someone who gives you far more joy than gritted teeth; someone you actually like hanging out with (okay, not all the time, but you do catch glimpses).  And as you look back on those early years, they may have been rough, but they really weren’t all bad, and you do miss those sweet baby kisses and hugs, the funny questions and cute drawings, little feet and hands, sweet-smelling heads and delicious, chewable arms and legs.

Then, too, there’s that  hot, fierce love that has grown so strong inside of you — on what used to feel like such thin soil — that it sometimes hurts.  It’s a breathtaking thing, when you look at them sleeping or playing peacefully, and know deep down that without them, life simply wouldn’t have had as much meaning, such richness. In fact, they have pretty much become the most meaningful thing in your life.

A couple weeks after that discussion, which I’m sure was a very confusing one for my child- contemplating friend, I read about new international studies showing that parents are significantly less happy than their peers who don’t have them.  Hello.

But, the kicker of these worldwide studies is this: it only holds true until retirement, when those with kids surpass their childless peers in the happiness quotient, by quite a bit.

I wasn’t surprised. Despite what we said to our friend in an effort at full-disclosure, and despite a recent spring break trip to New York so filled with juvenile whining, complaining and dragging feet I wanted to put myself out of my misery on the subway tracks, I can see it and even feel it because it grows in that direction every day.

Raising children is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. It is and will be the longest commitment (other than my marriage) I’ve ever taken on. It has pretty much defined my adulthood – made me an adult, frankly – and has taught me more about myself, my parents and other people than I could have possibly have learned without doing it.  My working life/career pales in comparison as far as self-formation goes.

I hope my childless friend will read this for a little bit more perspective – both sides of a single story, if you will. For it is truly only one story, and may not be anything close to what she might experience or will experience. Could be early parenting for her is a piece of cake, full of butterflies, rainbows and light, airy days of utter delight.

But if it isn’t quite like that, if it’s a bit more difficult, I just wanted her to know she’s not alone.

My plea: If you like my posts, please become a subscriber — it’s easy! Just look right, where it says “subscribe” and plug in the info requested.  Thanks for reading! (that is my photo at the top, fyi)

My mother-in-law and I are about as far apart in age, experience and culture as two women from this diverse nation can be.

Only 10 years younger than my youngest grandmother, she grew up in the thirties on a dirt farm in rural Minnesota, the oldest of eight children of Polish immigrants. The surrounding community was also mostly Polish Catholics, first generation Americans trying to hardscrabble a living off such unforgiving land in such a harsh time that I imagine some might have wished they’d never left the old country.

Education past eight grade was rare in that community, as it was in much of the rural United States in those days. Who needed more if you were just going to take over the farm or be a farmer’s wife? She was a shy girl, retiring even, but she was determined to get her high school diploma. She worked for a year to save enough to pay for the bus to get to school so she could do it.

She joined the army during WWII, a decision so far out of her normal comfort zone she still shakes her head, amazed by the audacity of her younger self. In basic training she met “girls” from all over the country, maintaining friendship with one until that friend passed away about 10 years ago.

She met and married a man from her home town she’d known from childhood. In 1954, they moved to a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis and bought the small, two-bedroom house she still lives in today. She raised nine children and is now surrounded by them, 18 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. My husband is the youngest of her progeny.

Up until a few years ago, my mother-in-law went to Mass every morning – she’s now down to once a week – and she still makes quilt after quilt for the poor with her fellow “Mission Belles,” embroiders baptismal bibs for the church, and bakes goodies for fundraisers and funerals.

This was her life when I met her and, until recently, I’m ashamed to admit that I subconsciously felt a little superior to her. I saw her world as “small,” lacking in education and sophistication, an old-fashioned woman with pre-feminist views and Depression-era ethics.

And while it’s been a few years, we had our issues. Actually, I had my issues. If you’ve read my entry about moving to Minnesota 12 years ago, my pregnant-, new-mother-touchiness had a lot to do with my lack of patience with her indirect, yet somehow abrupt way of asking for something. Often something that to me seemed insanely trivial.

“Oh, hi Molly. Is P. there?” she’d ask over the phone.

“Hi there,” I’d respond. “Uh, no, he’s not. He’s at work until 6-ish.” (Seriously? It’s noon on a weekday, I’d be thinking, already be gritting my teeth) “Anything I can help with?”

“Oh no,” she’d say. “I was just thinking that a light bulb in the dining room is about to go out and I don’t know how I’m going to reach it to change it.”

And I’d be simmering by now, cursing what I perceived of as extraordinary passive aggression (ach, the horrible impatience of me!). “Well, do you want me to see if Paul can come over to change it soon?”

“Oh, no rush!” she’d exclaim, because I had breached the first rule of the Minnesota indirect exchange: you do not rush into the actual goal of the call too soon. You draw it out, just for the pleasure of it. And besides, the light bulb was not her real aim at all. Duh.

“I have an idea,” I’d say, because the light bulb had finally gone off in my dim, East Coast brain. “Why don’t we bring dinner over on Friday night, visit for a while, and then Paul can change it?”

“Oh, great!” she’d say. “But you don’t have to do that – I’ll make dinner and you just come over with the girls.”

Now, why didn’t she just say that in the first place?

Thinking she was in serious decline recently (she has since recovered) made me reassess, well, everything about her, to really focus on why I love her so much (because I do). She is in actuality one of the most naturally wise, kind people I know, and reveals this through her actions – the way she lives her life — not just her words.

I could probably write a best-selling self-help book based on her innate, mid-western wisdom, but I thought I’d share, gratis, a few things she’s taught me. She’d want me to do it for free anyway:

1. Forgive and forget. My mother-in-law never seems to hold onto anger or remember a grudge. Though she feels sad when her friends are less attentive to her than they could be, she gladly and happily accepts invites when they happen – without bitterness or irony.
2. Patience really is a virtue. If the conversation above doesn’t illustrate well enough my severe deficiencies in the patience department, perhaps the fact that I created the phrase “Patience hurts you” when I was three, does. But my mother-in-law comes from a time when time was better spent on idle chit-chat with a real human being than hurried interactions via email, when drawn out niceties were not considered superficial, but necessities and a pleasurable way of being. Besides, you can’t be impatient when you’re making a quilt or bread from scratch.
3. Do sweat the small stuff. Contrary to popular self-help literature, she knows that the small stuff, like making sure each grandchild got their Christmas chocolate Kiss from her, is the stuff that matters.
4. Love unconditionally. This one is tough, but doable. My mother-in-law is one of those rare devout Christians who actually and naturally lives by the teachings of Christ. She actually cares about people she doesn’t know, about their welfare, and does something about it. And if she loves you, she always will, no matter what. Her friend from basic training days was a racist, bitter and uncharitable woman, but my mother-in-law appreciated her for her audacity, sense of humor and the history they’d shared. She loved her anyway.
5. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Another tough one for most of us, but I’ve never heard her say a harsh word to, or about, anyone. If she can’t say something nice, in other words, she doesn’t say it.
6. Do good things for others. Again, something self-help books decry…”Be selfish” seems to be the mantra of the modern age. But my mother-in-law gives and gives. Not until it hurts, though– until it feels right and good.  She actually derives a great deal of pleasure from selfless acts — regular donations of money, sewing a bedspread for a college-bound grand-child, the aforementioned church-related works, etc. — something one happiness expert calls “selfish altruism.
7. Remember birthdays. A card, a phone call, a home-baked cake. Mark those moments. She made me a cake to celebrate the fact that I’d quit smoking for a month when my husband and I were merely dating – I was extremely touched.
8. Cry when you need to cry. Tears well up freely in my empathetic mother-in-law’s eyes at the plight or unhappiness of those she loves, a sad bit of news or a minor catastrophe like spilled milk. But her willingness to live it and move through it is one of the healthiest things I’ve ever witnessed.
9. All are welcome anytime, so pull up a chair and visit for a while. My mother-in-law isn’t hung up on the house being absolutely perfect before people are invited over. She comes from an era when dropping by unannounced for a “visit” was common practice, and if the house wasn’t perfect, so be it. People who care enough to drop by don’t care about dishes in the sink and a visit from a friend is a golden moment.
10. Happiness is family and friends, not greater material wealth. The wife of an airline mechanic and mother of nine, my mother-in-law never aspired to wealth, a bigger house, more than one car. If she had, she would have been miserable. Instead, she focused all her energies on that big family, her friends, her church, and has achieved an inner calmness many of us would envy.
11. Recycle and save everything you can (waste not, want not). When I first visited her tiny house in the early ’90s, I couldn’t believe how crammed full of junk it seemed to be — cans, leftover fabric, plastic Cool Whip containers, bits of string, old clothing, broken sewing machines. This was before recycling was common practice, and I have since learned that she had a purpose or use — or at least an intended purpose or use — for every bit and scrap. I’m not advocating we all become hoarders, but she and her Depression-era counterparts may well have something to teach us about not only saving money, but the planet as well.

Having just spent the week before Christmas in Daytona, Florida, where I saw tourists vacationing from all over the country, I’m concerned that obesity is to the United States what lead water pipes and decadence were to the Romans.

If you look at the decline of the Roman Empire, it’s striking how similar many of the criteria for its eventual demise are to happenings in our own country right now. I’m not a kook — this is not a new theory. Historians differ as to the number and kind of contributing elements, but they agree on some of them. This, from About.com, sounds just a little too close for comfort:

There are adherents to single factors, but more people think a combination of such factors as Christianity, decadence, lead, monetary trouble, and military problems caused the Fall of Rome. …Even the rise of Islam is proposed as the reason for Rome’s fall…

Sound scarily familiar? Okay, we don’t use lead pipes, which the advanced Romans used for indoor plumbing, way before Christ was even around, to pump water from aquaducts into their homes for bathing, drinking and cooking. You can imagine the eventual effects continuous heavy metal consumption had on the mental and physical health of the empire’s leaders and general populace.

Probably pretty similar the effects produced by continual overconsumption of bad food.

I live in a little bit of a bubble here in Minneapolis, which is annually rated one of the top three fittest cities in the country by several media outlets (Men’s Fitness,  and Forbes, for example).  In my neighborhood I probably rate as a schlub: all I do is play tennis, run and lift weights to keep fit, whereas many of my neighbors are in constant training for marathons or triathlons — their next 10k at the very least.  I am constantly berating myself for the extra 10 pounds I believe I should lose.

But in Florida, I felt like a freaking movie star. My husband kept asking how it felt to be the thinnest person in the hotel, at the pool, on the street. Other than at Cape Canaveral where there were more foreigners than Americans, he was not exaggerating too much.

While we were there, we ate out at least once a day, initially a luxury slowly morphing into dark dread as we contemplated the indigestion and salt-induced bloating it would inevitably incur. Portion-size and ingredients at family style restaurants are truly — how do I put this delicately — hideous. If we ate the whole meal, we felt like crap afterwards and even sharing meals, which we often did, we still felt overfull.

I know many people eat like this a lot more than we do. Fast food is practically a never for us, restaurants every few weeks, frozen or pre-fab meals (more often now than ever, I hate to admit) once a week. Even so, my husband and I struggle to keep the scale needle from creeping ever-upwards.

I don’t want to seem negative, uppity or elitist. I just know how I feel when I eat food that makes me gain five pounds in four days — logy, tired, crabby and depressed.  Is this how 50 percent of our populace operates every day as they fill their stomachs and their brains with empty calories, saturated fats and salt, salt, salt?  Ugh. Feels like getting hit over the head with a lead pipe.  It’s a wonder we get anything done in this country.

And as we are learning, the associated health risks and costs of obesity are as gargantuan as our waistlines.

Part of the problem is our culture, I think. We’re not only a nation of overconsumption, with a bigger- and more-is-better mentality, but we’ve also become a nation of two camps: the ultra-fit vs. the ultra-fat.  No matter which camp you’re in, whether you aspire to be in it or are there by default, you’re bound to be unhappy, feel bad about yourself.

If you’re an “ultra-fit,” there will always be someone thinner, stronger or more buff than you.  And if exercise is fun, you’re obviously not working hard enough. It should hurt.  If you’re an “ultra-fat,” and the only alternative camp is the ultra-fit, good god, might as well give it up — it’s simply too far to go and most of us don’t have the luxury of a Jillian Michaels from “The Biggest Loser” to whip us into shape from the depths of our fat-folds. Besides, exercise hurts, right?

Perhaps we need a new movement. I offer for consideration the “ultra-moderates,” those of us in that middle-ground who should feel pretty happy about only carrying ten or so extra pounds, who mostly eat pretty well and who exercise for health and fun — not ’till it hurts.

Maybe my movement will take off and give the other two groups something attainable to aspire to.  Rise up! Eat half that restaurant meal even if you love it! Run four miles instead of 15 if you hate running that much!  All it takes is moderation.  In everything. Which I think Aristotle and his ilk called “The Golden Mean” and Buddha, the “middle way” – a middle-ground between excess and deficiency or the “extremes of sensual indulgence and self-mortification.”

In both philosophies moderation is seen as the only way to achieve harmony, happiness and true freedom.

When you look at us through that ancient lens, hasn’t excess in everything brought us most of our current economic and societal problems?  I think we need to look to the past in order to move forward. If not, we only condemn ourselves to repeat the failures of history. Unlike the poor, lead-addled Romans, we are fully aware of the obesity-issue numbing our minds and destroying our bodies.

Yes, unlike them, we as a nation can change it before it’s too late. Get some Aristotle and Buddha on and spread my nouveau-ancient moderation philosophy!

Just don’t go overboard.

As I write this, the three other members of my family are crashed out, taking well-deserved, or at least necessary, naps. All I can hear is the whirring of my stupid dying refrigerator, which will stop cooling any minute, meaning I’ll have to put all the food in coolers for the third time in as many weeks…but I feel supremely and stupendously above it all.

No, I did not do shots this afternoon or up my meds. It’s just one of those days where I feel grateful to be here, in this space, with these people, my people; grateful that we are all in perfect health, that we have a more-than-adequate, warm house, and that we have the resources to replace that dang refrigerator should it go ~ and not really feel the impact financially.

And believe it or not, I am really looking forward to preparing for the holidays (which I sadly often dread) and hosting a big, boisterous family Thanksgiving.

Obviously we can’t live in a state of rapture 24-7. It would be weird, and I think human innovation would have stalled thousands of years ago if it were part of our nature. A little dissatisfaction, plus a sprinkle of curiosity and a dash of genius goes a long way to prompt the invention of a faster computer, a more fuel-efficient car, or better gray-coverage hair color. Besides, I think constant, low-grade joy is something only Buddhists can achieve during intense meditation. Could be lobotomy patients feel it all the time, but have traded the ability to count to 10 for it.

No, what I’m feeling today is sustainable for only moments or days at a time for us (relatively) normal folk, and, at least in my case, it can’t be forced. It’s too hot up there close to the sun, and if you stay too long, your wing-wax starts to melt, and you tumble to earth anyway. Which hurts. Substance abusers know this all too well, I’d bet. Heck if we felt happy all the time, how would we know that we were happy if there were nothing else to compare it to?

So, I gather in this moment like a precious bead, string it next to the others I keep ~ the pretty, the heartwrenching, the interesting, the enlightening ~ and store it in a temperature-controlled part of my soul. Because I know tomorrow, or even by five o’clock when everyone is up and crabby after their late naps, I’ll need it in crystallized, preserved form, a talisman-moment of clarity about all that’s right and important in my world minus the meaningless difficult and confusing details of daily life.

And when I’m breaking bread with the bigger clan on Thanksgiving, I’ll quietly pull out my beads and, one by one, give thanks for each little flash of what life on this gorgeous planet is really like without those smudged glasses we’re given too soon after birth.

And I will give thanks for something deeper: a newly realized belief that each of those beads, as real as the turkey on the table, gave me a view into what heaven must be like. Through them, I think I know that when we’ve shuffled off this mortal (not to mention refrigerator-) coil, we can fully and truly know the joy of being and what is, without needs, wants, pain or fear.

Happy Thanksgiving, my dears.

A friend of mine died recently after an awful two year battle with cancer. He was young, only 48, and a truly good man.  A great physician with a great love of life and his family, he was extremely intelligent, inquisitive and kind, lacking pretension and pretty unconcerned with the trappings of material wealth. He was funny in an impish sort of way without ever being mean and could make you feel like the smartest person in the room, even though you probably weren’t.

Ed was a Russian Jew who really lived up to that great Yiddish word mensch, which means being human in all the best ways one can be.

Of anyone I know, almost, Ed deserved a long happy life. As a man who lost his mother — and his mother country — when he was a young boy, he could have been a victim, a lost and idle soul, but instead he rose up from a rough start to become a stellar, highly accomplished human being.

So why him? Why not serial killers or rapists? Why not certain world leaders who perpetrate heinous crimes on a grand scale? Shouldn’t Ed, whose intentions, actions and energy were all positive, by rights live a long, happy, and fruitful life?

According to much of the self-help theories around abundance, visualization, quantum physics, creating your own reality, etc, he should have.

But I have another theory. It’s not new. It’s not innovative. But I think if we are baldly honest instead of holding onto wishful or magical thinking, I think we all know it to be true.

Here it is: Life is ruled by chaos. What we can control in our lives is minuscule compared with what we can’t.  It really isn’t someone’s fault that they were hit by a runaway bus or that they were a victim of random crime.

Crap just happens, and Ed’s death was total and utter crap.

I’m not a complete existentialist or nihilist, however. I do believe our actions and decisions– over which we have a modicum of control — can affect the outcome of our lives to some degree. And I believe we can create a great deal of intentional meaning through them, that they add up to a certain direction or path in life. We have choices about how we are going to react to the random hands we are dealt, choices that separate the good person from lost one, the self-created victim from the survivor, and so on.

It adds up, too. Call it karma, the law of attraction or being a righteous person, our choices ripple through the universe and back, affecting the course of history, the energy around us, the people we love. But no matter how “good” we are, how many chits we’ve piled up, there is no protection from inexhaustible chaos – we are powerless to avoid that runaway bus.

So, what is my point? And what is the point of being a good person if ultimately it can’t keep bad things from happening to us?

I guess it’s this: if you possibly can, live your life like there are no tomorrows, because they may be in shorter supply than you think.

But that doesn’t mean partying like it’s1999, uh…at least not all the time.

It means living well, striving to do no harm, leaving your corner of the world in better shape than you found it – being the best person you can be every day, despite curveballs, screwballs or other baseball metaphors that chaos throws at you.

In that tiny sphere of influence we have over what happens to us, Ed chose to create more positive than negative experiences for himself, his friends, his family and his patients. Bit by bit he shaped his life in a meaningful way, and the world is absolutely a better place for his having been in it.

And though he had regrets – he admitted to me the week before he died he wished he’d had more fun – and, as a human, couldn’t possibly have always made the right choices, he stayed true to a core that an unruly universe couldn’t shake.

He towed his line, and in so doing, and despite dying so young, I believe he ultimately won out over almighty chaos. That is his legacy, at least for me. I only hope I can live up to it.

I’m talking about the beginning of the school year, a Nirvana that mothers around the globe anticipate with a longing that grows exponentially with each passing week as their patience, tempers and sense of humor verge on being permanently lost.

After more and more frequent — and sometimes (but not always!) regrettable — episodes of losing it (“Will you PLEASE, for the thousandth time, PUHLEEEZE, hang your dang wet towel on the rack, do your chores — I don’t care whose turn it is – stop FIGHTING — and GET OFF THE COMPUTER!!!!!!!!!!!!), I was decidedly ready for “those people” (as my friend Lynn likes to call them) to GO BACK TO SCHOOL.

And two weeks ago, they went. Hallelujah, praise the Lord!! In what can only be termed “a frenzy” that first week I rearranged my house, picked out new paint color for the living and dining rooms, built a rocket ship, had lunch with my friends, put together new furniture, played tennis, finally went to the chiropractor and thought about looking for more freelance work for the first time in weeks.  Okay, so I didn’t rearrange the whole house — or build a rocket ship — but I felt like I coulda’.

But last week and this week were…different.  Rather than bursting with energy and purpose, I’ve felt strangely empty. I even thought about looking for a “real” job, which happens to me periodically when I lack the creative juices to figure out how to use my creative juices.

What is this malaise, then? Is it the let-down after an amazing summer — Paris for three weeks, the beach in Virginia to cap it off? Is it a lack of motivation to scrounge for piecemeal, peanut work in this lousy economy (can you blame me?)? Is it the change of seasons, the snap in the air that seemed to hit on the first day of September?

Or…could it be…do I actually miss my children?

It is…possible.  Despite my cynical ravings above, my daughters and I had lots of fun this summer – not just on the amazing trips, but in the wonderful  day-to-day of an easy summer rhythm that hummed along — sometimes  lazily like the cicadas, sometimes more fervently — and seemed like it would last forever, but simply didn’t: waking up late; staying up late; going to the pool; going to camp; running through the sprinkler; eating grilled food, fresh vegetables and ice cream; riding bikes and wearing shorts,  telling ghost stories  and playing ”RIP” into the night or until the mosquitoes chased everyone in.

Maybe it’s that with each passing, mixed-bag summer, the transition to school becomes more and more bittersweet, more sharply focused and frankly, while I look forward to it heartily, a little heart-breaking.

Could be because each summer I have with my children, every summer that they are still young enough to enjoy all those things we enjoyed, is a poignant and beautiful gift. Soon enough – and it already started a little this year with my 13-year-old — they will no longer want me around. And then, as quickly and abruptly as they entered my life, my sweet little girls will no longer be here.  I imagine it will feel much, much emptier around here when they’re gone.  And their wonderful innocence, their unburdened childhoods and, frankly (and selfishly), my chance to be a kid again with them will be gone, too.

And if I listen carefully, a tiny, whiny, pathetic voice whispering in the back of my mind wonders, “Without them, who am I? Without them, what will I do?”

Sigh.

I guess it’s about time I figured that out.