I turned back

On the way to Paragon yesterday, I noticed a woman sitting on the sidewalk, crying.  (The photo I’ve included provides a pretty close approximation.)

Although I would like to be the kind of person that offers emotional support in a situation like this, all sorts of doubts tend to get in the way.  What if her problem is so big that you can’t do anything to help?  What if she just wants money and who knows for what?  What if she’s hopelessly depressed and any goodwill or positive energy would just get thrown down a bottomless bit of despair?  What if she’ll get angry at my presumption that she needs anything from me?

I walked past her.

Before I got to the revolving doors of my building, a question popped into my head.

“Is this how you want your day to go?”

It turns out that it wasn’t.  What was the worst thing that could happen, anyway?  Maybe she would just need someone to talk to and I could definitely help with that.  I turned around and walked back toward her. 

As I approached, doubt began to settle in again.  Not knowing what else to say, I interrupted her with a self-conscious “I know this is a stupid question… but are you okay?”

She looked up at me.  “That’s not a stupid question at all.”  I was immediately taken by how generous her response was.  She motioned to the sky with her eyes and added “I’m okay.  I’m praying to my heavenly father.”

Without thinking, I held my hand to my heart.  I stood there for a few seconds until the words “I wish you well” unexpectedly wafted up through me and into the air.  She smiled at me weakly through her tears and again, I was taken by how considerate she was, even through her pain.

I’m glad I turned back.

Playing with language

I may have mentioned before that word recall is not my forte.  Despite this, I love playing with language.  Games to play with a set of words that have fallen on my lap present themselves without warning, and often without reason either.

The rules usually develop as I go along, incorporating the use of homophones, metaphor, double entendre, or whatever else strikes my fancy.  Unless I happen to be in the right company, they often only make sense to me.

Whenever I dust off these two sentences, for example:

“Oh dear, you have stolen my heart.”

“Oh deer, you have stolen my hart.”

Christian just shakes his head.  The first few years of our relationship, I was convinced that explaining the rules of the game that led to their creation would help him understand why they please me.

No such luck.

….

Years ago, my best friend and I were discussing words with strong connotations that have, for the most part, taken over the word’s original definitions.  I remember we had lots of fun with this.  Here is one of the results:

“We won!  We won!” the quarterback ejaculated during the half time show.

“Now, don’t you think that’s a little premature?” chastised his coach.

(You’re allowed to groan if you need to.)

So, how about you?  Do you juggle with jargon?  Do you mess with meaning?  If you find yourself creating clever clauses that amuse yourself (and perhaps no one else), please share them with me.  Better yet, invite me to play along.

 

 

 

Why I don’t honk

I try to be a patient driver.  Although I see no reason to swerve from lane to lane between sets of traffic lights and think that heavily stepping on the gas only to have to slam on the brakes a few seconds later is silly, I keep my mouth shut horn quiet.

This apparently baffles some people.  Recently, my passenger was so outraged by some other driver’s bad decision-making that he demanded that I honk.  When I refused, he reached over and tried honking on my behalf.

This was not okay and I let him know it.

“But why won’t you honk?!”

1. If the driver I am directing my honk toward is purposely being inconsiderate, he really isn’t going to care about that honk.  A little toot isn’t going to magically make him say “Oh, you’re right.  I really should stop behaving so boorishly.  Thank you for pointing it out.”  If anything, it will annoy him, making him even more aggressive and inconsiderate.
   
2. If the driver being honked at is just plain clueless, he won’t even realize that the honk is for him. 
   
3. It’s possible that what may look like aggressive, uncooperative, or selfish driving could actually be the result of a genuine mistake.  Honking in this circumstance would only serve to make an already stressful situation worse.
   
4. Not just your target can hear your honk.  Other, alert drivers may assume they have somehow triggered your outburst and may become anxious since they will have no idea what they have done (or may still be doing) wrong.

I believe that honking out of anger, frustration, or any other negative emotional state can lead to road rage.  I don’t know about you, but I’m of the opinion that we would all do well to have less of this in the world.

The next time you are about to press the palm of your hand against the center of your steering wheel, ask yourself the following question: What do I want for this action to result in and what is the likelihood that it will?

If it turns out you are compelled to act out of gracious concern, knock yourself out and honk away.  Otherwise, keep your hands in the 10-2 position and take a chill pill for all our sakes.

Thank you!

Barred advice on Prince Charmings

At a favorite local restaurant, Christian and I overheard a bartender dispensing advice to a young, single woman, looking for a new guy.

“Stop limiting yourself!”

This statement, her pleading refrain, was peppered between observations regarding the single woman’s previous fishing attempts.   Why would anybody would look for love in a bar?  If you meet a guy at a bar, you end up with a guy who likes to go out drinking!

She began to offer alternatives.  Church, for example.  “Those guys are very well rounded.”  Taking up a new hobby was also an option.  “Then you’ll definitely have something in common.”  But my favorite recommendation?

“Go to college for a month!”

We joined the conversation at this point.  The women were friendly, and we had fun coming up with a few recommendations of our own.

That night, I started thinking about how that bartender’s advice can apply to more than just finding one’s Prince Charming.  If you don’t like the results you’ve gotten so far, no matter what you’re doing, you really have no choice  but to try something new.  And why limit yourself to what you’ve already tried or what you already feel comfortable with?

Since then, “stop limiting yourself” has been swirling around in my head.  In fact, as a direct result of this, I recently took on some contract work that I wouldn’t have considered before.  I plan to continue contemplating this piece of advice.  Although I have no idea what the outcome will be, I’m pretty sure it will lead to something new or different and that should make for an even more interesting year.

Word patterns

I attended a talk Temple Grandin gave at the Harvard Book Store a number of years ago.  Her presentation was fascinating -- I walked away with plenty of things to think about.

For example, she described her experience with “conversation loops”, bits of conversations she would repeat over and over to anybody who would sit still long enough to listen.  Eventually she figured out that people found this behavior annoying and remedied this, not by getting rid of the loops, but by increasing the length of her tracks.

I do this.  Perhaps it’s not in the same way or to the same degree, but I tend to create sets of words or phrases that get significant amounts of “air time”.   Often, I’m not fully aware of these word ruts until they begin to weave their way into colleagues’ vocabulary.

A few days ago, while re-reading something I had just written, it occurred to me that I have been using the word “brim” quite a bit lately.  This piqued my curiosity – I wondered what word ruts have been making their way into my blog.

I used Wordle to create word clouds from the text of my 2010 posts to date.  Thinking once again of Temple Grandin, I wondered how different the word clouds would appear if I limited the clouds to just a few words (a short track) versus many words (a long track).

I’m relieved that I kind of like the results.

My parking karma

Today, while driving around Harvard Square, I called out to my parking karma.  Within a couple of minutes, I spotted a car pulling out from a really sweet parking space and was in the perfect position to take it.

What’s up with that?

Not too long ago, a friend asked me exactly the same thing.  She was in the car with me as I drove into a section of town where a legal spot was hard to come by.  After one unsuccessful loop around, I shrugged and explained we were just going to have to rely on my parking karma.  A few minutes later we were feeding a hungry meter.

Really.  What’s up with that?

I had never given it much thought, but as she pressed me for an explanation, I came up with this. 

I find the parking spot because I am expecting to find it.

I don’t mean this in a metaphysical kind of way or anything.  I just think that you look more carefully through a haystack when you know with certainty there is a needle in it.  My calling upon my parking karma is way of reminding myself to look seriously and systematically for that spot that I’m pretty darn certain is available somewhere.

My mom’s advice

The first time I ever heard about MIT, I was a sophomore in high school.  I immediately decided that was where I would go to college.

It turns out that very few people in my community had any idea what MIT was.  In fact, since most college-bound graduates from Del Rio high school go on to Texas-based schools, most people didn’t even know what the initials stood for.

After I had been talking MIT this and MIT that for a few days, my mom started asking questions.  I’m sure she asked me plenty of things, like “Why MIT?” or “What will you study?” But to be honest, I can only remember the last question she asked.

“What is MIT short for?”

As the “setts” from “Massachusetts” left my mouth, my mom burst into tears. 

Up to that point, it hadn’t dawned on me that the distance would be an issue.  I felt terrible and made a point of not bring up anything MIT after that.  Days passed.  Eventually, my mom pulled me aside and apologized.  She explained that she and my father had been raised to keep family close by.  She told me that she felt she was just being selfish.  And, before bursting into tears again, she made a promise.

Start a family tradition: Learn how to make cascarones

Easter is a big holiday in my family.  Three days of celebrating include a fajita cook off, a volley ball tournament, a live concert, and a PARADE -- to name just a few things.   


It didn’t start off this big.  In 1953, my grandmother and her next-door neighbor simply decided to celebrate Easter together.  Year after year, activities and family members were added to the mix until it grew into the huge event it is now.

 




This kind of family tradition is the coolest.   And, with a little effort now, you could have one of your very own!

If you’re interested,  follow these simple instructions for creating cascarones, a core component of my family’s Easter.  In my opinion, they are a must have.

With time and practice

I took my driver’s test when I was 16.  With a year’s worth of practice under my belt, I passed the test.  But exactly how road ready is a newly licensed teenager?

I remember that it took active concentration to maintain constant speed.  Corners were often taken either too sharply or not sharply enough.  Merging into traffic was terrifying. 

And I could not parallel park to save my life.

Fast forward through many years of living in Massachusetts.  I found a tight parking spot in front of the library where I was meeting a friend.  Quickly, and with little effort, I squeezed my car in.

Before I stepped into the library, it dawned on me that this was a bit of a victory.  I was compelled to turn around and take a few snapshots to document my parallel parking job.

Time and practice had taken the things I thought I would never be good at and turned it into a skill I usually just take for granted.  I wonder what else I’m good at now?

How about you?

What you look at can keep you from seeing

I took this picture of a baby squirrel hanging out outside the window of a hospital cafeteria. 

It wasn’t until later, after I downloaded the images off of my camera, that I noticed the reflection of my handbag super-imposed over the cute little ball of fur.

Although I had been so focused on the squirrel that he was all I noticed when I took the snapshot, it’s possible, if I were to hand this photo to someone without an explanation, they might focus on the red, white, and blue pattern.

What the handbag is to the squirrel, examples or presentation data can be to the concept you are trying to get across to an audience.