Five Things I Never Say to My Kids, And What I Say Instead: #2

(These are being published one at a time. Go here for #3. Stay tuned tomorrow for the final installment! #1!)

#2 Be happy. 

I try really hard not to harp on happiness. 

“Happy” is so very American, something valued very highly in this country. It’s all at once perceived as a right – due to us – and a destination – absent until we earn it.

The truth is that Happy, as a feeling, is elusive and temporary. It comes and it goes and it just plain ole doesn’t stay for long. In fact, the tighter we hang onto its tail, the more aggressively it tries to get away. So that leaves us grappling after something that would have been pleased to come back on its own (after a short snack break) but that instead, intimidated by our obsession, lurks tentatively at a distance with its ears up and tail still soar. 

Poor thing.

Happiness can’t stand that we want to force it, control it, leash it.

To find out how this all applies to our kids, all we have to do is watch “Inside Out.” I’m sure you would agree that the take-away from the movie is this: Honor all your feels. I think the story nails it with what happens when kids (and adults) don’t honor all their feels. Riley shows us by shutting down. Her emotional control center CANNOT TAKE THE DENIAL. And so, it refuses to produce anything, feelanything. No good. (For those of you who haven’t seen it – don’t fret -  I promise the movie doesn’t end there)

Here’s what we get to say instead of “Be happy” to our kiddos: 

“Be well.”

People in many non-Western cultures have lots of practice with Wellness. I’m learning that wellness is understood and enacted within those cultures as completely separate from happiness... 

WHAT FREEDOM!

(To illustrate our culture’s predicament: how many of us experience unnecessary suffering simply because we repeatedly encounter the American-obsessed thought that we shouldfeel happy? If you could see me, you’d know I am raising my hand high). 

Wellness, after all, understands sadness and angry and confused and nervous and scared and upset and frustrated and disappointed and is all like, “Hi Sadness! Hi Angry! Hi Confused! Hi Nervous! Hi Scared! Hi Upset! Hi Frustrated! Hi Disappointed! Whazzup?” 

Wellness eats in a deeply impartial way from the emotion buffet. Remember how Riley’s childhood imaginary friend Bing Bong only settled from his grief at Riley having outgrown him once he sat down with Sadness?” 

When we promote Wellness, we get to show the Rileys in our lives how to appreciate the wild animal of Happiness when it comes in close for a nibble out of their hands and then peacefully release their attachment to it when the critter decides to move on for a while. 

That, my friends, is Well.

Five Things I Never Say to My Kids, And What I Say Instead: #3

(These are being published one at a time. Go here for #4. Stay tuned tomorrow for #2!)

#3 Do your best.

Here’s why “Do your best” bugs me: because “best” to me is like infinity on the number line. 

A brief math review: you could start counting from zero this very second and you would die not having finished. That’s what infinity means: there is no end. And “best” has that same quality. 

In my own life, particularly as a parent, I’ve often exhaled with a “Well, I can say I did my best…” and I get about three seconds of peace before a voice says, “But really, was it really your best? Be honest, you coulda done more.” There’s alwaysmore. There are more hours you coulda stayed up before hitting the pillow. There’re more books and information you coulda digested before making a decision. There’re more miles you coulda clocked on the treadmill. 

Our kids, especially if they’re of the perfectionist, achieving variety, will eventually catch on to this trouble. 

I say teach this: Plot a point. Stamp down a marker. Dangle a ribbon across a finish line. Have kids predetermine what their fixed cut-off point of labor will be, how far they want to and are willing to go and – the toughest part - have it based on life circumstances.

The hard and cold truth: Anytime anything is based on life circumstances, stuff gets complicated. Meaning, since no two seconds are the same, the marker-for-success is going to have a new location each and every time we undertake any endeavor. This, done well, is way more challenging (and interesting) than the blanket mandate “Do your best.” Instead, we get to teach that the markers our kids set are transient; their bull’s eye gets to move according to each pursuit’s value and placement and season of their lives. They get to recreate the wheel of discernment each time. 

That’s lofty stuff. It requires intimate self-knowledge. I know lots of adults (ME, ME!) for whom this is  freaking hard.

In this way, your kids might find themselves wondering: 

"Am I so whipped that habitually falling asleep standing upright at the bus stop is causing neighbors to question my sobriety? I plot my current pursuit’s marker-of-success accordingly.”

"Is family life so high-drama-cray-cray at the moment that I find Jerry Springer’s guests deplorably boring by comparison? I plot my current pursuit’s marker-of-success accordingly.”

"Am I bursting with such ample amounts of ambition, energy, and sass that a gorilla couldn’t hold me back? I plot my current pursuit’s marker-of-success accordingly."

“Best” gets too much attention, if you ask me… way too much fanfare. I want to have a “I’ll die trying” attitude with approximately one thing in my life (certainly, I’d need to be a cat to have that attitude with more than one). Everything else is going have to get slightly less than that. And I think our kids, instead of slipping down a slope of laze towards homelessness, will actually perk up when they begin realizing that they don’t have to be doggedly limping towards the infinity of Best all the time.

Six Things About the United Methodist Decision Yesterday We'd Be Silly to Overlook

(If you are uber-short on time, please be sure you digest - if nothing else - #5) an #6))


Preamble (cuz I'm always ambling): Yesterday evening I posted the message below on Facebook. I cannot stop there, though, because I know there is going to be so much confusion and misinformation surrounding what happened. And, as a Methodist myself, I want to stay ahead of it. To that end, this blog post is an attempt to educate, to the best of my ability, the details.

Facebook post:

"If you know me a bit, you know that I love God and have chosen Christianity as my conduit to and my language for God.

If you know me more, you know that I believe sexuality and sexual immorality to be separate things, i.e that homosexuality is not a sin.

If you know me really really well, you know that I can back up how to reconcile scripture passages that seemingly convey the opposite.

I have strong hope that the decision made today by my United Methodist denomination globally will be revisited in the future, the same way its stance on slavery and female clergy evolved.

But today my United Methodist (and other) LGBTQ friends are tired, hurt, and weary of the wait.

So I pause to say: I see you, and I am deeply sorry."

With no further ado, I shall get to it with Six Things About the United Methodist Decision Yesterday We'd Be Silly to Overlook:

1) How United Methodist decisions get made

Lemme explain how United Methodist business is conducted. Like with any large body, the way it gets managed is by its organization into smaller entities. Around the globe, therefore, there are hundreds of United Methodist "conferences." Conferences are composed of individual congregations divided up geographically. Every year, representation (clergy and non-clergy) from each United Methodist congregation within a Conference meet together at an event called "Annual Conference Session." Every four years, something different happens, and it is called "General Conference." Naturally, General Conference is one level up, an international body of nearly 1,000 delegates (elected by the Annual Conference sessions). Here is where the church's official policies and stands are made regarding everything including contemporary issues. 


2) This is not a new United Methodist dilemma

Whoowee. Now that we have that boring stuff out of the way, let me be clear about the next thing: United Methodists - like so many other Christian denominations - have been wrestling over this issue of sexuality for decades. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the United Methodist "constitution" (or Book of Discipline) reads that "The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." And there has been discourse after discourse at both the Annual Conference Sessions and the every-four-year General Conferences about either a need to do away or edit that phraseology, not to mention discourse after discourse about what to do with the following: increasing numbers of LGBTQ worshippers were showing up in the pews of United Methodist congregations and  increasing numbers of LGBTQ folks were seeking ordination as United Methodist clergy - sometimes closeted ones, sometimes openly practicing ones. Oh, and P.S. same-sex marriage became legal in the United States, so United Methodist clergy began performing marriage ceremonies of LGBTQ pairs. In other words, the cultural inclusion of homosexuality was catching up to the church, little at a time, even though the hierarchy of the church has over the years not had enough votes to itself turn the corner.

3) There has always been a contingency of United Methodist leaders that has fought for the inclusion of LGBTQ folks.

Clearly, #2) means within the United Methodist church at large, there has been great discord. The contingency that does yearn for the inclusion of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters has grown in size over the past fifty years, but it has never reached majority. Somewhere along the way, the following became a thing: United Methodist congregations that wanted to communicate their openness and inclusion of LGBTQ individuals began using a common identifier: "Reconciling Congregations." UMC congregations who described themselves with this label ("Reconciled") started popping up left and right, certainly in the United States as well as in other parts of the world. This is what my home church has to say when you click on its website link about "Reconciling:"

                                                                            St. Andrew UMC has a place for you.

We embrace Jesus’ message that God loves everyone and affirm that all persons are of sacred worth. We are proud to celebrate diversity as we work to live our vision of radical hospitality. We welcome people of every age, race and gender identity; diverse nationalities, ethnicities, and sexual orientations; any family structure, economic reality, physical and mental ability, education and faith history. While there are differences among us, we can love alike though we may not think alike. You are invited to join this nurturing community on a faith journey toward greater love, understanding and mutual respect.
If this is your first visit, welcome. If you are returning, welcome home.

(To read the rest of what St. Andrew UMC has to say about its reconciling status, click here and scroll down.)

This language became commonplace for so many United Methodist places of worship. And so many more closeted gay United Methodist Ministers became openly practicing ones.

4) See the prob?

If you're following here, you now see that although the United Methodist Church's Book of Discipline's wording about homosexuality has never had enough votes from its governing body to be revised, there have been plenty of United Methodist leaders and worshippers for years - decades - fully living and teaching contrary to its wording.

What to do? What to do?

Here's what was decided: A "Special Session" was called of the General Conference; not one that would have happened on its every-four-years track, instead one whose sole purpose was "to receive and act on a report from the Commission on a Way Forward, authorized to examine paragraphs in The Book of Discipline concerning human sexuality and to explore options to strengthen church unity." (from UMC.org website). In other words, the result from this Special Session was to be the final say...no more "to-each-their-own."

This Special Session just happened February 23-26 2019 in St. Louis. And the final say as of late yesterday afternoon is this: Church policies on homosexuality are affirmed and enforcement of them will be strengthened. 

No more practicing LGBTQ clergy. No more clergy conducting the marriage ceremonies of LGBTQ couples. Is what it said.

5) The decision was made by United Methodist leaders around our globe, not national ones alone.

The percentages vary depending upon where you read it, but round about 30% of the nearly 1,000 United Methodist delegates who placed their votes on this issue yesterday were from the continent of Africa.

I really need your attention to clear up something: In certain parts of Africa, homosexuality is considered to be a crime. In certain parts of Africa, your life is literally at risk if you are found to be practicing a same-sex relationship.

I cannot emphasize enough how this affects things.

To paint the picture a tad more clearly and a tad more through-the-eyes-of-Tricia:
I lived in Africa for two months when I was training for the Peace Corps and one of the the initiatives we American volunteers were charged with was AIDs education. The team of volunteers of which I was part experienced a collective jaw-drop when we learned that there was a widely-held and grossly inaccurate belief by men in some parts of Africa that a cure for AIDS was to have intercourse with a virgin woman.

To be sure: I am not belittling the people of Africa who have misconceptions such as these, nor questioning their intelligence (furthermore, certainly, let me be first to say that millions of people living in Africa hold none of the beliefs I've cited). I am attempting, instead, to convey the power of cultural influence over a place or a people. I am attempting to convey that handed-down belief systems, no matter their adherence to fact, flourish in the gaping space made by a void of information or exposure. I am attempting to convey that people cannot know something they don't know until they know it.

But there's more to this that I cannot shake: How did Christianity get to Africa? The answer is Christian missionaries. I am not an anthropologist nor a sociologist, so I will not venture to assert whether the rejection of same-sex relationships in many African cultures is specifically because of Christian teachings on the subject, but I will say that I find it deeply ironic that United Methodists there - who got to be United Methodists because mostly-Western Christian missionaries descended upon their African traditions/religions, replacing them with those of the Christian variety - are the ones today holding more tightly to the legalisms of the Bible than those in the Western world.

What I'm saying is this: Please, please, please let us realize, when we digest yesterday's news, that it does not reveal an altered theological pattern in America... nor that United Methodist progressivism has taken a slide backwards here in the U.S.. Hopefully, instead, you will see by #1 - #4 above that the United Methodist titanic has been steadily, if not slowly, pivoting towards more inclusive waters (the vote, even with the African third-ish, was 438 to 384 - only a 53% majority), especially here in America.

This does not take away ever-so-slightly from the blow. The vote to strengthen enforcement of the church's policy on homosexuality's incompatibility with Christianity is going to mean big things for our congregations here (I won't detail the possible paths for Reconciling Congregations in this forum. Google to find out. Spoiler: Inclusive congregations are not backing down. **Insert a celebratory "yay" from me**). Furthermore, I worry that this decision will have the unintended consequence of drumming up fuel for under-the-surface ignorance, that hate groups will receive it as an open door to validate an increase in bullying, harassing, and ill treatment towards LGBTQ individuals and groups. Most important of all - and really the source of the spot of sorrow I am in now - individuals in the LGBTQ community, whether they are United Methodist or Christians at all, are experiencing great grief, pain, and distress as the result of yesterday's decision. This is not OK with me.

My hope, though, is that framing the statistics and the culture of international communities making up those statistics will paint a more accurate picture of How This Happened.


6) Most United Methodists who believe in upholding the church policy that "practicing homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching"are not heartless nor hateful people. 

This might sound to some of you like a slap in the face... like I am defending or protecting those with a conservative view on this topic. There's no real hook here, but perhaps it seems like I'm letting those who voted to uphold conservative church language about homosexuality off of one.

Here's what I will say: I was reared with some downplayed-yet-conservative interpretations of the Bible. I was squirmy with them from the very, very beginning (and did not get comfortable with my Christian faith until I learned there were equally serious and valid Biblical interpretations of the more generous variety). But - back when I subscribed to Christianity under the mainstream/conservative interpretations and despite my squirm with them - I didn't know how to come up against that which didn't set well with me because it's what God said. 

Damn if that's not a tough authority to be screwing with.

I realize now that what the church often teaches "what God says" is truly a perception, and that a more progressive approach towards the Bible, without taking a hint of power or truth away from it, can allow God's voice to have a wildly different ring to it.

But, like I said, if you believe the inerrant-word-of-God business about the Bible's literal words (and furthermore trust all the language translations to be spot on), then disobeying a few of them is literally disobeying God. In other words, if your theology tells you that homosexuality is a sin, if your God tells you that homosexuality is a sin - who are you to judge what God commands?

I cannot tell you how often I heard this growing up in the church: "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Embarrassingly, I for a time felt comfort in its allure. It was how, during my squirmy phases, I was able to sustain within the conventional church of my youth. I'd venture to guess it is how the United Methodists now who voted NO to inclusivity are getting through. I'm sure there are some whose hearts are stone, but I want to believe that most are trying so dang hard to do what they think God has told them to do. (And until their fundamental view of God and the Bible changes - which believe me is painful, sort of like a nasty belief-system-divorce - the God they believe in will continue telling them to do the same things).

I have mucho Christian friends and family members who believe that practicing homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Almost all of them are deeply loving, gentle, kind people. And almost all of them are suffering through this concrete belief (and what it means played out) with tears in their eyes.

Let us not stop demanding inclusivity.

Let us have compassion for those from whom we demand it.


*******************************************

UPDATE: I think the Senior Pastor of my beloved UMC congregation captured everything I've said here with more poise and precision than I'll ever have (I'm now obsessed with the phraseology "biblical disobedience" - HOLLA!). Now that you've labored through my clumsy words, see what he had to say in a message sent to parishioners yesterday here.

Interrupting regular programming to bring you...

... SOMETHING I'M A MESS ABOUT.

So, I'm smack-dab in the middle of posting, one at a time,  "Five Things I Never Say To My Kids"...

And THIS happens.

Don't click the link. I'll just tell you:

The United Methodist Church at large voted in a specially held General Conference to uphold one line from its Book of Discipline (layman's terms: the constitution for United Methodists) that says "The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching."

How this plays out: No more practicing LGBTQ United Methodist serving as clergy, no more United Methodist clergy conducting gay marriage ceremonies.

At bedtime, when my 5th grader had had the chance to give his day's highlights and the spotlight turned to my day, I didn't hold back in letting him know that I was deeply sad. And then I laid it out there.

It took me a second to remember that this child has already been taught and believes that being gay sexually is what hair color is aesthetically: a benign variety. Nothing more, nothing less.

Because when I described the fact that there has been for centuries a beef in the Christian church with homosexuality, that traditionally - because of certain Bible passages - it has been viewed as a sin, he stared at me in dismay for a good long while before saying, "What? That doesn't make sense. Why in the world would it be a sin?"

It was then I realized I needed to dance all the way back to the days the Bible was written to help him see that there was a lot of confusion, even after Jesus came to clear stuff up, about what God wanted for us all. And at that time, people who had same-sex partners were seen to be weird, disgusting, repulsive, bad. And that that cultural understanding got wrapped up into lists of other things authors of the Bible said God didn't want for us along with: being a drunkard, a reviler, an idolater, a stealer, a swindler, greedy.

And then, from me, out came this: I mean, I love God like crazy and have a pretty groovy relationship with God... and I can't say for sure what God would say about everything. How could I? How does anyone say they know for sure?

Enters an addition to Things I Never Say To My Kids: I'm certain. 

Shoot me the day I say I am certain about What Is What About Life, much less What God Wants For Us All.

Sometimes I think I have a pretty good idea.

But I sure as hell am not certain. 

So, back to my 5th grader:

After I did my "I'm not certain what God wants... how could the author of those passages in the Bible or anyone else be?" schtick, he pauses and then goes, "Well it sounds a lot to me like the Civil Rights movement. It sounds like discrimination. I don't think being gay is any different than having dark skin. I just don't see how it is a sin."

Sometimes the eyes of children are the only ones I ever want to see through.

Yes, buddy, yes.

***********************************************************

If you are certain (see what I did there) that I'm done, you're be wrong... because I feel convicted, as a United Methodist myself, to unpack today's decision with integrity. There will be oodles of confusion and misinformation swirling around this news in days and weeks to come. I plan, in the coming day, to share what I am fairly certain to be true surrounding today's decision. Stay tuned.

Update: here it is.

Five Things I Never Say to My Kids, and What I Say Instead: #4

(These are being published one at a time. Go here for #5. Stay tuned tomorrow for #3!)

#4 Don’t give up

The message this sends when we say it to our kids, I worry, is not just that they ought to stick with the things worth striving for – the grueling track work outs to become faster runners, the menial apprentice work necessary to earn one’s stripes in a profession, the heavy lifting of submitting application after application and essay after essay to dream colleges in the face of rejection letters – but that they also must never stop something they’ve started. 

I feel it’s a little delicate to discuss this very topic, since – at least by my estimation – a new generation of parents is rightfully tapping into a tool the previous couple generations didn’t harness as successfully: Grit. Grit is quite the trending thing right now (just open any parenting magazine) – AND IT SHOULD BE. We should be teaching kids that pushing through adversity is absolutely the only path to a courageous and meaningful life. We should be telling tales, the whole and messy stories, of the tenacious characters behind all household names – the Walt Disneys, the Einsteins, the Wright brothers of our world – whose list of failures far outnumber the final success that landed them big.

We should give quitting a bad name.

It’s just that it’s not always bad.

Amiright?

Stuff changes. Sometimes it’s circumstances that’s doing the changing. Sometimes it’s us that’s doing the changing. 

I’ve definitely started some stuff that was smart to stop, and I bet you have, too. (Raise your hand if you spent a year applying, getting vaccines, and packing for a two year assignment in Africa with the Peace Corps, only to get there and realize a romantic relationship you rekindled back in the states weeks before departing was one you decided to risk seeing through in exchange for passing on what you thought was your lifelong dream of teaching math to wide-eyed village students) (P.S. Four kids and a goofy marriage later, I’m glad I decided to jump back over the pond for that dream-disrupting guy.)

My point: Don’t persist just to persist. There is such a thing as persistence-turned-stupidity.

When my kids tell me their psyches are telling them to, “Abort,” “Change Course,” or “Quit,” the conventional wisdom police in my psyche want to immediately counter with “No, no, no. DON’T QUIT!” But what I’m learning to do instead is to coach them, “Listen deeply, my sweet: What is the tone of your “quit”? Is it a whisper? Or is it all lights-flashing-siren-bleeping-exclamation-mark-ending alarm? 

One is a request for space, a clearing of the path for something new. One is saying “ESCAPE IMMEDIATELY: THIS. SHIT. IS. TOO. HARD. AND. SCARY. FOR. US.” 

Fear is loud, and inspiration is quiet. 

So, here’s the formula to teach our little people: 

Stick with stuff, even when it’s hard

(and when fear is all loud and alarmy, simply place it as a background soundtrack, and get back to work)

UNLESS…

Life changes or you change or your persistence to see through certain stuff was misguided to begin with 

THEN…

Listen to the quiet whisperings that inspire a compass-pivot

THEN…

Be free, little birdy, be free!

Five Things I Never Say to My Kids, And What I Say Instead

(These are being published one at a time. Stay tuned tomorrow for #4)

#5 Stop arguing! 

Sike. I say this every other hour (And let me continue to be real: Pretty much every numbered item here is about what I REACH towards, not necessarily precisely what I’m actually doing… it’s my blog and I’ll lie if I want to).

If you are lucky enough to have more than one kid living in the same physical space, then they’re going to be mean to each other. 

I’m beginning to wonder: what’s so wrong with that?

I was sitting in an Adirondack chair on my front lawn one late afternoon overseeing my three boys engaged in a tussle of rage (Note: this was not voluntary rough-housing – I’m pretty sure at least one was captured and crying) when a gentleman walking his dog approached. When his mouth opened (the man, not the dog), I was sure the words that came out would be some variation of, “Aren’t you going to dosomething about that?” 

I wanted to hide.

Instead, he locked eyes with mine and offered, “I raised a couple of these myself. I always thought they shouldn’t fight. But they will. Trust me, they just will.”

I still think that day an angel with a silver mustache and a wiener dog came down from heaven just to tell me this. (And to verify this, I will say that I never saw that dude, nor his dog, in the neighborhood again. Clearly: Angel).

If you’re anything like me, your tackling of your kids’ sibling rage towards one another vacillates between CUT THAT STUFF OUT YOU NEED EACH OTHER IN LIFE WHERE IS THE LOVE? And BE MEAN TO THE DEATH IT’S ALL PART OF GROWING UP YOU’LL FIGURE IT OUT. (Frankly, I’m also wildly forgiving of my inconsistent emotional states that lead to snaps of polarity on this subject, cuz, well, not everyone can be Gandhi). 

In the end, I try to remember that I’m a somewhat mature adult and I’m mean toward my roommate all the time. I pick fights and argue and lose my cool with him. So, why shouldn’t I assume it to happen with kids whose brains and mediation skills are still dramatically underdeveloped? Sure, I don’t want them bickering, nor causing one another physical pain. But my Angel said it’s going to happen. So, I may as well accept that it will. 

When I’m at my wit’s end, I also try to remember that somewhere beneath the pummeling there are lessons happening. Tougher skin. Resiliency. A sharper edge in a less-soft-than-we’d-like-it world. I mean, at least if nothing else, they will have insults and punches at the ready whenever a real-life brawl in their future stirs up.

As for my lesson, I think it’s more simple than I sometimes feel I need to make it: Next time I’m in my Adirondack chair, I will a) move the physical and psychological abuse my kids are issuing one another to the backyard (because not all neighbors are angels, some call Children’s Services) and b) put in my ear buds (because everyone knows Gandhi-state can be more quickly realized when classical music replaces the sound of war).

Five things I Learned From My Butt

#5. It tightens when I’m not at ease. 

Of course, this happens when all muscles are under some sort of siege... a brace-myself moment of in-balance on an icy patch, sitting on the edge of my seat when my ball-handling-challenged kiddo gets passed the basketball on game day, an abrupt awakening from a dream involving one-eyed flying hippopotamuses out to get me.

It happens when my body is thoroughly unthreatened, too. Then, it’s my thoughts that aren’t particularly at ease. When I find my butt, place attention on it, and recognize the clenching I’m doing there - that’s when i can see my not-at-ease-ness for what it is. The butt muscles are like clues for me. Recognizing them knocks me into inquiry: what was I just thinking about? What task is challenging me right now? What am I dreading? What is causing distress?

I reverse-Kegel to get myself back on track. But, mind you, not so much that I get a worse butt affliction.

*I should pause here to make the confession that, for me, there’s a lot of mystery about all the muscles down there. Is pelvic floor muscle tightening different from butt hole muscle tightening? Would a reverse Kegel induce a hemorrhoid? I suspend all anatomic research and let you be the judge.

#4. I look at it a lot. Do you yours? I need to pay attention to how I look at it.

A woman’s butt is a funny thing, because it’s the source of much levity, the woman-and-her-butt relationship universally acknowledged as a comically complicated one and, meanwhile, it’s very, very serious. In dressing and bath rooms across this great globe, pensive stares and glares at one’s toosh are issued with great frequency. 

I have, on more than on occasion, dispensed a playful correction to my elementary school boys, when they say my butt is in the way (squeezing past me in the kitchen, not feeling they have enough space while cuddling on the couch)... “You saying my butt’s too big? Listen good, cuz this will take you far, son: Never... and I mean NEVER… speak about the size of a woman’s butt.”  We giggle. I often wonder what message I’m sending, but my unbridled silly side generally drowns out further contemplation.   

It’s so fair game to joke about that in the children’s movie The Incredibles, when Elasta-girl catches her reflection in the heat of a rescue, she haults, doubling back to inspect her rump’s size. Even with her face masked, you can see Elastagirl’s disapproving expression. 

Why can’t we all just accept our butts the way they are? I suspect the answer boils down to the fact that we rarely manage to accept our anythingthe way it is. Butts – maybe because of their bumpy break-away from the rest of our figure, by nature “sticking out” – are a convenient scapegoat for the inner self-loathing we don’t know we are already carrying. Next time I pass my 80s style wall-to-wall bathroom mirror naked as a Jaybird, I will know where my insides are by what my face does looking at my outsides, ass-specific.

#3) We people are subconsciously obsessed with the backs of things.

For a long, long time, the English word “ass” meant the animal of the horse family and - derived from “ars” - it also has for some time been used to describe the bottom or backside of a person. We all know this. 

What I was fascinated to find out was that ass as a description for a contemptable personis relatively new. According to the book Ascent of the A-word, the word itself did not become widespread (in the U.S. anyway) until WWII. Soldiers used it as an epithet for superior officers they were annoyed with who acted too superior, and when they returned from war it stuck. Goodbye to the former minor insults of the day, hello “ass.” When I went to find out what the minor insults of the day were, I learned prime among them was “heel,” also known as the back of the foot. 

Backside of a person. Backside of a foot. Someone so annoying you want to kick them off the backside of a bus. All synonyms.

#2) I talk out of mine incessantly.

It took me awhile to realize that I have this unflattering habit of filling the space in a sentence when the facts at my disposal reach their finite end. What do I fill that space with? Why with more words, of course. It would be rude to just stop in the middle of a sentence, when my brain’s limitations are met. So, I do the polite thing and keep talking.I believe what I’m saying, it’s just that I make it sound like the truth. 

My husband is the one who put the mirror up on this. And, since I’ve been a life-long welcomer of All-The-Ways-I’m-A-Lovable-Idiot, it’s become a bit of a warm joke. In social settings, I only know I’m doing it when my husband does a subtle charades-move of thrusting his finger towards his own butthole. That’s code for, “You’re talking out of your ass. Proceed it you wanna, but pretty soon you might sound like a heel.”

Turns out, talking out of your ass can make you sound like one. 

#1) Given the proper care, they can be spared unnecessary multitasking.

I went all plural here, because “butt” is short for “buttocks” and it’s TWO, not one, rounded portions of the anatomy that fill up that region. 

But you wanted to know what I meant by “proper care,” and I shall tell you. 

I sorta used to like no one but me going near my naked butt for the first good chunk of my life… until I let someone else near it: MY DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE THERAPIST.

When you’re in your plush robe in the dimly lit room and your masseuse busts out that opening set of inquiries using big words about which muscle groups to tend to, just make sure you perk up when anything close to “gluteus” comes up and say this, “Yes, yes, I totally want you to give attention to my butts.”  

Because apparently we store some shit there (intended). And its lovely when it’s unlocked, when the butt can return to its singular physiological function of enabling weight to be taken off the feet while sitting… not a place for our deepest psychiatric stresses to fester. 

Practice it now: “Yes, yes, I totally want you to give attention to my butts.”

And then let them roll and needle and lean and nudge and press the hell out of them.

You'll be surprised how much happier they - and you - are.

"Where you go?"

“Where you go in your mind?”

I was on my belly, my cheeks snug against the massage table’s doughnut pillow, my muscles getting nudged this way and that, when the gal doing the magic asked this question. 

Jean was short, shorter than me even. Round cheeks and a stocky build. Conservative shoes and black clothes. Maybe 50. Just minutes earlier, when I arrived at the quaint, creaky little massage studio desperate for relief both from my two toddler children and a bad case of winter cabin fever, she had greeted me with a soft smile that made me want to curl up inside it and stay. 

But once the massage started, I was distressed to learn her sweet-smiling mouth could get audible. And I wasn’t counting on a massage with words.

“Where you go, you know, in your mind?” She repeated, drawing out the final word.

Stumbling, I said, “I… I don’t have a place I go. You mean like visualization?” 

“Yes, yes. You must have a place you go. A place that brings you peace.”

Jean was like what would happen if Miagi and Yoda could somehow produce a stout, magic-fingered, middle-aged Chinese woman.

She went on to say that I was holding a lot of negative energy and, “Why you do this to yourself? Why you so stressed? This energy… it not good.” 

Unlike Yoda, Jean didn’t hide her exasperation with her student. And I couldn’t help but notice that there was a new sound: between broad sweeps of pressure across my back, her hands would pause off of my skin in what sounded like an intermission to flap them out while grunt-hissing under her breath, “Ooo. Eee. Tsss. Not good, not good at all.”  I could only presume, with my head still facing the floor, that Jean was shaking out all that bad energy transmitted to her hands through me. 

I guess I was making her 55 minutes particularly difficult.

“Find a place you go. Everyone needs a place to go in their mind. Find somewhere you go.”

If it weren’t for the warm, motherly vibe Jean gave off and a deep wisdom I was pretty sure I wasn’t in the sort of shape to ignore, I would have been off-put by her unrestrained scolding, voodoo flapping, and absolute disregard for the fact that we were basically fully strangers. 

Naturally, I went back to Jean six hundred twenty-two times more. 

And here I am today using the same place I came up with the day I first met her. My place looks like this: I go to the waves. I see myself from above, lying on a bright red raft… the red contrasting against magnificent blue-green sea. It’s a gentle lull, what these waves offer. I have sunglasses on and my arms behind my neck. And not a thing on all sides of my red raft except endless water. 

I go to this place mostly when I am lying in bed at night, churning on. When no amount of eyes closed or deep breathing or pillow puffing will settle down the conveyer belt of thoughts lined up like UPS boxes in December, endless. I remember my red raft and let the waves do the rest.

What Jean never taught me was what to do with this:

One night I was particularly in bad shape: stressed, worked up, the movie of my mind on fast-forward, heart beating fast. I just could not calm down. So, in bed on my back, I plopped on my mental raft. I worked real hard to get there, nudging myself to smell the smells, see the flecks of gray in the feather coat of the seagulls flying overhead, hear the squeak of the plastic when I repositioned on my inflated surface. 

Finally, I was there. 

Within a couple seconds of finding it, though, the scene changed. Instead of my clear skies, clouds holding menacing blackness rolled in. Instead of an occasional sweet dolphin visit, creatures of another kind greeted me with their teethy, wanting presence, circling closer and closer around my flimsy flotation device. And my rocking waves disappeared, in their place white-capped intimidation, what could take a ship down. 

My fear had busted through into my safe place. Even my imagination, my own creativity, was alive with it. 

And then I remembered something that a different teacher had recently imparted, something that had been echoing in me the previous days, weeks: “Always take the position of the hero.” 

I tried manifesting this, lying there in the midst of my mind’s raging lightning storm, deep sea enemies, and threatening water. I found myself rising from my raft, standing erect on it. Despite the pelty rain and whippy wind, I couldn’t help but notice that my wavy hair was long and bodacious, parting on either side of my fierce face. Where’d my leisure swim suit go? Not sure. All I knew was that now I sported a metallic breast plate no shark teeth could muss up. My balance was assisted by the trident in my hand, and I’m pretty sure a couple times the lightning bolts came down to a clap on the spear’s middle point, just so I could show the sky that electricity couldn’t get me, either. 

Still with fear nipping around all the edges of my safe place, and still with my physical-bed-body tightly tense and its heart racing, I noticed – eyes closed – that my lips pursed ever so slightly. 

By golly, I was smirking at my scene. 

Just when I believed myself to be rendered defenseless, my favorite visualization tool infected, I stumbled upon a way to make my safe-place-gone-dangerous work again for me: 

I tossed in a dash of absurd. 

Heroes always do. 

Because that’s what fear does, too. 

If fear will use ridiculousness to keep me balled up shaking on my flimsy raft, my hero will use ridiculousness to stand up cloaked in movie star fairy tale cheesiness, complete with a mythological prop. 

A hero’s safe place, that which cannot be overcome, lies in her ability to turn fear on its head with a tool called wild absurdity. 

And a smirk.

Jean, I think, would be amused. If she were to put her hands on me today, I hope my muscles would tell her stories of a salty hero, a hero who shows up in most any storm with an untouchable, barely-detectable, absurd little grin.