february is NOT JUST for lovers!

february is a dreaded month for many. on the heels of multiple holiday and new years celebrations, people who move through life “un-partnered” turn the calendar to february and sigh. or roll their eyes. or feel suicidal. i’m not kidding. even those who are in romantic relationships or committed loving communities often feel a sense of heaviness when doilies and lace and hearts show up on the supermarket shelves. here’s my response to the upcoming holiday, however. i want to take the month back. i want to stand on top of parking garages downtown in big cities and yell, at the top of my lungs, “february is not just for lovers!” as soon as i write this, however, i realize that, perhaps it actually it is, but not in the way we might think.

i don’t know about you, but i love a whole lot of people in a whole lot of ways and these people are every bit as in need of february love as the daily loves of my life are. 

my dentist and his support staff recently welcomed me so warmly that i realized my strong feelings of gratitude for them. i love the familiarity i have developed with the members of my weekly dance class and have come to look forward to intersecting with a planning team i meet with each week. i frequent the lanes of certain checkers at the market and my feelings for the person who has cut my hair for the past 20 years goes well beyond love. we have genuinely shared life. i have decided that these are all varieties of love that i want to celebrate this month.

it is so much easier to do this when i drop the traditional february expectations. while i would be thrilled to make valentines for every person i encounter that matters to me, it wouldn’t be possible or wise to attempt this feat. half way through the making process i’d be burnt out and resentful having spent more of my time than i could realistically afford. what i can do, however, is commit myself to truly seeing the people i interact with, respecting their uniqueness and personhood. as brene brown says about her exercise options, “the 10 minute walk i take is better than the 5 mile run i don’t take” so is the fumbling, on the fly loving gesture i can make better than the perfectly crafted one i don’t have time or energy or resources to make.

and so, i can leave a simple thank you note, scribbled on scratch paper for the person who clears my plate at a restaurant, in the mailbox for the postal carrier, or the person who will eventually clean the bathroom at target. i can take 3 minutes to fill out a comment card and praise the sales associate or server or can ask to be transferred to a manager after a customer service call to praise the rep who has assisted me. i can blot my lipstick on my friends’ rear view mirror or scribble traits i admire about my office mates on our shared white board. i can text affirmations to people (e.g: “you are smart.” “i’ve noticed the way that you go out of your way to...” “you are a gifted teacher/parent/writer/snowboarder/student/cook/social networker/friend/etc.”). i can speak first and with focus to all the children present before i get too involved with their parents. i can get down on their level. i can drop off a plate of cookies (even store bought ones) at the dentist and tell my fellow dancers that i truly notice them and enjoy seeing them each week.

i was recently loved like this and it was a profound experience. knowing i’d faced a very challenging week, a young adult friend left me a message, in the middle of a week day, stating that she had decided to play hooky from a class and wanted, along with her fiance, to take me bowling. right then. immediately. how soon could i get to a bowling alley? the reason this was so meaningful to me was that i have a secret love of bowling that not many people know about and that i am not a person who typically receives spur of the moment offers for silly fun in the middle of the week. this opportunity to be loved so spontaneously and specifically spoke deeply to me. it made me realize how my efforts to love might accomplish this for others. 

so, this month, i am committed to the ways in which february can be for lovers of all kinds. i can take relational risks big and small and do so boldly, being willing to handle the awkwardness (and rejection) that might (but often doesn’t) result. will it always work out well? no. will i attain perfect consistency? absolutely not. might i sometimes end up feeling like a fool. sure. even still, i want to take back the month (and the year) and love as often and as fully as i can afford to. not with the kind of love or gestures that leave me resentful or overspent but, instead, with the kind of small do-able intentions and actions that make small dents in the hard hearts around me. like my dear friend tanner (age 14) said at his last swim meet, “i’m learning how to pace myself and i want to get it so that i don’t have anything left in me at the end of the race.” i want to love at the level that my capacity lasts to the end but doesn’t have much left when i get there. finding that balance can be tricky. and oh-so-worth-it.

early adoptors: us and them

when it comes to technologies it is fair to say that i’ve not historically been an early adoptor. i didn’t have a smart phone until last year (and it’s still not updated to the new os), my twitter account went unused for nearly 3 years, and i still listen to cds and keep a paper calendar. today, however, as i eagerly count down the hours until a new release, i feel like an early adoptor. i suddenly understand the excitement that anticipation invites and i look forward to getting to be ahead of the pack, smugly nodding my head knowingly tomorrow when others partake in that which i’ve already enjoyed. this is a heady feeling. 

sometimes when people hear me speak they assume that i am anti technology. many who come to hear me are. they are proud of the fact that they don’t have cell phones, still read actual newspapers, and have no idea what a tweet even is. this is fine. even virtuous for some. conversely, others in the gathering have their cell phones in hand throughout the talk, tweeting, facebooking, and texting their way through the time. they love that i have a twitter handle and an online presence. i am constantly reminded that finding folks who live comfortably between these two extremes is difficult.

it seems to me that the topic of technology is rarely a unifier of people. we all want to label ourselves and know where we stand and who stands with us. it seems to me, however, that the divide between the early adoptors and the late to the gamers will only grow if we continue to engage in “all or none,” “us or them” conceptualizations. if those who don’t engage technology do nothing but sit on the sidelines judging those who do, how will they ever begin a conversation? if those who tend toward tech immersion never put their devices down to look up and around how will they have anything but a uni-dimensional life?

i am a person who is a connector. messy, face to face, embodied person to embodied person encounter doesn’t typically intimidate me. i am also, however, an introvert who takes full advantage of the efficiency and expediency that messaging and texting offers. i both use technology and i don’t and i find that i can’t point a finger at either “side” of the debate without three fingers pointing back at myself. perhaps you can relate. i hope you can.

and so i’m looking for the common these days. instead of shaking my head when i see folks lined up for the release of a new video game, i’m embracing that i, too, have things i’ll go out in the middle of the night for. we may not be driven by the same passions but we are both driven by passion.

tonight my passion is for the movie “her.” i’ve been waiting for its release in much the same way that others anticipate the drop date for a new game or record or device. i anticipate that the story will make me feel known, understood, and inspired...less alone in what i believe to be healthy and difficult and important. i assume the film will afford opportunities for discussions around an issue i feel strongly about. it will put a topic i’ve devoted a lot of time and effort to front and center. i could use this to make me feel important and above and more insightful than. seeing it before it’s wide release will provide me with all kinds of opportunities to say “i told you so” and “i saw it first” and “you should really see...(because, Lord knows, YOU need it!!!),” and all other manner of ridiculous things that i will be tempted to say. 

i hope, instead, to use this experience to remind me that i am human. that just as others head out late into the night on a release date, i am driven by passions personal and corporate. that the things that i will sacrifice sleep for are simply that...things that i will sacrifice sleep for. perhaps i can use this to understand and relate and to learn and include and connect and, in so doing, create opportunities for true encounter where "us and them" can learn from each other.

your [own] year in review

this week facebook is blessing us with a new feature. if you are the proud claimant of a facebook account, on the left side of your wall is a clickable link which will take you to your “2013 year in review.” figuring we either can’t do it for ourselves or they can do it for us more effectively, facebook has put together “a [personal] look back at the 20 biggest moments from the past year” for every one of their users. thanks facebook. how helpful of you to fill me in on my biggest moments by highlighting those i happened to post about.

first of all, let me be honest: i find things like year end reviews to be really fun. it’s important and instructive to take time now and again to review where you’ve been and how you’ve been there. technology is amazing in its ability to provide us a detailed record, of sorts, of how we’ve spent our time and our selves. adding to this digital record, social networks provide the opportunity for our friends to reinforce those happenings/posts they find most interesting/beautiful/fabulous/smart/impressive/etc by clicking “like” and/or commenting. it is from this complicated amalgamation of data that facebook has created for each of us, a personal year in review.

i’d like to propose that this sort of review might not be the most reliable reference for our feelings about the past 12 months. our “year in review” in facebook-land is seemingly created by showing you for what you got the most attention. this is rarely a good way to determine the depth, shape, or “success” of anything.

it’s important for me to be honest about the fact that i am not a frequent visitor of my personal facebook account. i opened it years ago and use it only occasionally to post photos of unusual occurrences and to offer my blog posts to friends (and acquaintances and friends of friends and...). because i know that i’m prone to feeling less-than, i need to be careful about hanging out in spaces built on communal, filtered sharing about shiny-happy moments. i know that not everyone feels this way. i also know that facebook is used by many in quite authentic and honest ways to build, maintain, and cultivate community and support. plenty of people find huge comfort and connection through their involvement with facebook. that is just not my experience. just as in life, where we find the evidence that supports our beliefs about ourselves, five minutes on facebook is all i need to reinforce a deep fear that i’m not nearly successful/smart/caring/involved/attractive/connected/giving/humble enough. once that belief takes root it’s hard for me to move past it. even still, i feel a need to understand the way in which social networks impact our current relational economy so i choose to be an infrequent user, working diligently to post that which is enough without crossing the bounds of that which is self serving, sensational, insincere, insensitive, or frivolous. 

that being said, this was a big year for me personally. i had some personal and professional successes alongside plenty of defeats. i experienced a few mountain top moments with my family, friends, clients, and mentorees and also had plenty of days that were simply good enough. i slayed some personal dragons this year and lost plenty of battles as well. i suffered some and i grew some, as did my friends and family.

look at my facebook “year in review,” however, and you’d think that this was a year of nothing but smiles and light hearted capriciousness. i played around in photo booths and sat on santa’s lap with my college roommate, i made goofy faces when people had their cameras out. by what facebook chose for me it appears that skateboards, silly antics, and my husband’s and kids’ activities are about all that matter. and i don’t even skate board.

only 4 of the 20 facebook features would even make my top 50 important experiences of 2013 for me.  what i would never post on facebook, and therefore never find in my year end review there, are some of the things that shaped me most. the intimate and cherished conversations, the shared confidences, the hurts, the sleepless nights, the photos taken of me when i wasn’t looking...double chinned and cross eyed, dark circled after hours of play or worry, or looking grumpy/frazzled/less than hospitable after a particularly taxing day. i didn’t post status updates about how little i knew and how out of control i felt. there weren’t opportunities for my “friends” to affirm me for my efforts at becoming a more authentic, centered, and contemplative soul. i didn’t put those status’ out there. 

as a result, i am given the gift of a list of the highlights of my year based upon nothing short of that which others most responded to among the few things i felt appropriate sharing in such a nebulous space. never mind that the posts about deeply personal disappointments or successes, large scale failures, and/or deeply intimate moments went completely unwritten and, therefore, “un-liked” by my facebook friends.

as you say goodbye to the year that was and hello to the one that is to be why not take a few moments to contemplate your own, very personal, year in review. write it out if you like...or draw it in pictures. sing it or dance it. chart it, graph it, or record it as an equation. find it and honor it in the way that is truly you. make sure, however, that it includes events that could never be “liked” because they were never shared in cyber space. make sure the list holds things you’re proud of and experiences you’ve learned from, times your heart has swollen with love and times it has been bruised by pain, images of people you have loved well and awarenesses of how you might love people better, times where you’ve “won” and times where you’ve been strong enough to admit you’ve “lost,” gratitudes and apologies, the good and the bad. once you’ve made it, see this list as the real year in review and honor it as such...not by hoping for likes by others but by learning to accept it/embrace it/learn from it whether you like it or not.

being "learned"

i try to keep a little moleskine journal with me at all times. in it i write lists, thoughts and feelings, reminders, and things i hear others say that i want to come back to. in looking back over the last several recorded quotes i found this gem shared by the ceo of blackberry’s rim, regarding their newest phone, released in february of this past year. “this device learns you...learns your personality. after one week, it knows you.” i felt odd when i first read it and even more so now. largely because i believe it to be true.

i’ve noticed that both my computer and phone know me well. better than i ever imagined they would. spell check doesn’t auto correct “doreen” to “Doreen” anymore and is no longer confused by my frequently used “ugh” and “arg” exclamations. i’m reminded of calendar items with incredible consistency, push notifications suggest spots i might enjoy along my walk, and my basic searches are anticipated with frightening accuracy. yesterday i had only gotten to the “i” in “short list” when “2014 oscar documentary category” filled in for me. that was exactly what i was looking for. i hadn’t been searching anything related to award shows or documentaries and yet, based on all the data i’ve provided in the past, my search engine guessed what i might be looking for based on 7 letters: short li.

i’m guessing you’ve had this happen as well. when you have, have you stopped to consider how amazing it is? this tiny computer (with massive capabilities) that you carry in your backpack (laptop) or back pocket (phone) knows you. it caters to you. it makes your life easier and assumes that you and your preferences/patterns/choices truly are the center of the universe. this makes these devices far more desirable as companions than real (pesky) people who come complete with their own preferences/patterns/choices/inconsistencies.

more and more it seems to me that we are attaching to our devices with a similar kind of emotion we experience when we attach to people. increasingly unable to be alone with our selves, we use our phones (and/or laptops) to engage us, entertain us, or to connect us to others in a weird sort of “arms length” way. don’t want to commit to a whole coffee date with someone but don’t feel capable of sitting at a table alone looking up and around, we text and facebook our way through our cup of joe. uncomfortable at the thought of standing in line and letting our minds wander we adopt the new national posture, head down, arms bent, hands curled around a small glowing screen displaying never ending images seemingly more engaging than those around us. we have siri type messages and make calls. all the while we teach our devices to know us better and to cater to us more effectively

about a year ago a movie called “robot and frank” was released, telling the story of an aging ex-jewel thief whose children procure a caretaking robot to help him in his declining years. frank develops a deep and complex connection to his robot and faces difficult ethical and relational choices throughout the film. in a few weeks, “her” will be released telling the story of a young man who falls deeply in love with his operating system. both of these films are said to take place in the “not too distant future.” 

the thing is...i feel quite certain that these realities are here now. we have fallen deeply in love with our devices (and, if not “in love,” then most certainly “in dependence upon”). more young adults than i can count have told me that they feel a sexual surge associated with the “powering on” sound of their phone or laptop. not only do these devices deliver the porn that is so often their norm but they also contain the primary place of connection to everyone and every thing they love. equally frequent is the reported surge of anger experienced by the partner of an individual who is addicted to their device, consistently choosing time with their phone or computer to time with their spouse/friend/partner. possibly even more wide spread than these reactions is the simple experience of mild to severe anxiety that many feel when they accidentally leave their device behind for a period of time. (e.g: how will i get directions? how will i let people know where i am? how will i take a picture? know the time? find my way? update my status?)

our devices have become pseudo partners of sorts. years ago we pulled cell phones out of our pockets in order to look important. they made us appear cool and connected and significant. no longer, however, do we pull them out. instead, we carry them constantly as extensions of ourselves, no longer making us look important but, instead, making us feel complete. there’s no need for silence or discomfort or unknown or awkward or human encounter or wandering/wondering. it’s all there for us...all the information, entertainment, distraction, and even people we could ever want in the palms of our hands. we can turn them on or off at will. start 10 texted conversations at once and leave them whenever we want. know when someone has received and read our message so that we can resent them when they don’t respond immediately.  get exact directions to the location we desire without any need to navigate. watch all the youtube clips possible without ever tapping-in to our own creative imagination. immerse ourselves in the environs of endless games (crush candy, fling birds, and all other manner of mindless activities) never knowing what is really going on around us.

it is up to us how connected we are to the devices we carry. we are just as responsible for our relationships with them as we are for the relationships we maintain with entities that have beating hearts and breathing lungs. the former are based solely upon our myopic “button pushing” and the patterns created therein. the latter are less of a sure thing. by engaging these embodied relationships we might, at times, be bored or look awkward or get lost. we might try a restaurant we end up not liking or miss an opportunity to better our score or need to ask the person next to us to teach us something. this might provide for the rich (and often unknown/out of control) opportunity to “learn from” the silence, the spaciousness, the neighbor, the world, and the experiences around us rather than relying on “being learned.” this might matter because, while being learned well makes for an interesting movie, in the long run it just might make for a very unfulfilling (and possibly even un-lived) life.

being a light in the dark

several decembers ago, i was in a season of personal darkness. my sister in law and three nieces had been murdered only months before, i was central to my mother in law’s care, i had a two year old and a 6 month old, and was balancing being a mostly at-home mom with an “on the side” private practice. that same year a new christmas song was released. perfectly winter-quiet and lullaby-like the chorus featured a children’s choir singing three words over and over and over. those three words? all. is. well. 

the song made me sick. all was not well in me or around me and i felt stunningly un-merry. up to that point in my life december had been a highlight of the year. it has been redeemed for me since. that particular year, however, i came to understand how oddly isolated one can feel amidst glowing candles, sparkly lights, bulging mail boxes, and general cultural merriment.

this week i attended an interfaith service hosted by christian and jewish congregations that share a physical building. people of all faith traditions gathered to create a welcoming space for those who needed to express sadness, receive solace, or find hope for consolation. in the email invitation i received the rabbi and pastor stressed light as a symbol that works in most religious traditions and promised that each faith tradition represented would “bring its own form of light to illuminate and warm the gathering.” throughout the course of the hour we sang songs, lit candles, and listened to the wisdom of others through poetry and homilies.

the entire evening was a gift. the gathering was small and participants were offered just the right opportunities for engagement and solitude. i was touched by all that was shared but one analogy stuck with a particular urgency. urgency that prompts me to share it with you.

as the rabbi shared the significance of light in the jewish tradition, she pointed out that when one is standing in the beam of a spotlight he cannot see anything outside of the circle he is in. when you are in the light, it’s hard to imagine that anyone might be in the dark. not necessarily self centered, the person in the spotlight simply can’t see past the light they are bathed in.

many of us see this month as a season of nothing but light. we move merrily from holiday gathering to church to the mall to the tree where we sip cocoa and watch “it’s a wonderful life” and sigh deeply. this is not a bad thing. in fact, it is deeply good to have times and seasons of joy and tradition and nostalgia and warmth and faith and belonging and love and giving and receiving and and and... what is important, however, is to remember that these can serve as spotlights of sorts, capable of blinding us to those among us who hurt or need or who celebrate holy days different from our own. 

as you move into the final days of this year and the first of the next, make sure and step out of the spotlight now and again. gaze out and into the dark, into the unfamiliar and unknown, and look for ways to be the light for those you find there. you don’t need to create a spotlight. in the dark, even a spark can light the way.

need ideas? here are a few suggestions of easy ways to be the light.

consider those in your community who have lost loved ones during the year (including pets) or who have faced particularly difficult challenges. send them a note/email/text to tell them you are aware of the sadness they might be feeling as they face into the holidays.

cut a 3 x 5 card (or any paper) into small business card rectangles and write encouraging phrases on them such as “you are great!” “you matter!” “you made my day.” carry them in your pocket and leave them behind with the restaurant check, at the grocery counter, with your outgoing mail, or with the retail worker who helps you. better yet...send one back to the cook in the kitchen, the dish washer, or hand one to the person cleaning the bathroom at the mall.

get your side walk chalk out from summer storage and head to someone’s house (after dark) that needs encouragement. chalk words and phrases of affirmation on the sidewalk and street in front of their home or around their car.

send an encouraging, empathic, or soothing song to someone who needs comfort. you can do this through itunes by selecting “send as gift.”

carry power bars, hand warmers, or a couple of $5 mc donalds gift cards and give them away to those living in the open on your next trip downtown.

deliver simple treats (store bought cookies work just as well as home made ones) to a few folks working at gas stations, fire/police stations, or hospitals on christmas day.

light a candle and spend a few moments offering a prayer of blessing for those who have no one else to do so for them.

bend down or kneel when you talk with children. get on their level and listen fully to their answers when you ask them questions.

look people in the eye. smile. compliment them. use their name if they’re wearing a name tag. let your interaction with them be the thing that makes their day.