I Love Love.

Valentine's Day had me thinking about love.  Thinking about love led to thinking about past loves.  Thinking about past loves led to thinking about the things I have learned about love over the years.  And you know I love to share what I've learned...

My first love was also my best friend from kindergarten through elementary school.  It was a love built around pulling pig-tails, playing King of the Hill, and being in the same class year after year.  From this love I learned:

• Drama is a waste of time.  Say what you mean.  Mean what you say.
• Love is worth the risk of cooties.
• Boys can be sensitive.  Sometimes you have to let them win.
• Loyalty is important.

My junior high love was a love of firsts.  First love letter.  First date.  First dance.  First kiss.  First break-up.  This love was exciting and new.  It was thrilling and terrifying all at the same time.  Eventually, my insecurities got the better of me.  From this love I learned:

• Love is about sharing.  Your thoughts.  Your feelings.  Your science homework.
• Even the toughest guys are afraid of something.
• Nothing smells as good as your boyfriend's jacket.
• Picking a 3 hour drama for your first movie date is a mistake.
• Giving your friends too much influence over your relationships is a bigger mistake.
• Those 80's movies starring people like Molly Ringwald and John Cusack in which couples break up over misunderstandings but then end up back together as the music swells at the end of a montage showing how miserable they were apart are a bunch of crap.  Romantic, misleading crap. 

One of my high school loves was a long, drawn out, on again - off again affair while the other was largely confined to my own head.  In the first, I reveled in the feeling of being pursued and desired despite being ambivalent about the relationship myself.  In the second, I fruitlessly longed for a friend to realize that we were perfect for each other.  From these loves I learned:

• Balance is essential in a relationship.
• Pity is not a good reason to be with someone.  Nor is it a good reason for someone to be with you.
• What comes around, goes around.
• Love can make you act like a crazy person in a great many ways, all of them embarrassing to think about after the fact.

In college, I was sure I had found the love of my life.  We had so much in common.  We liked the same food and the same music and the same goals.  We were perfect together.  Except, under these surface commonalities we had very little in common.  I was traveling through life on a freeway toward a well-mapped location, and he was traveling on a winding, overgrown path to destinations unknown.  I needed organization, plans, and focus while he needed freedom and the unexpected.  I was learning to appreciate my new-found responsibilities while he was learning to appreciate the newly hired girl at work.  From this love I learned:

• There are still some true romantics out there.
• Sometimes good things come to an end.
• From the inside a relationship looks very different than it does from the outside.
• It isn't called compromise if one person is making all the sacrifices.
• Loyalty is REALLY important.
• I am a hell of a lot stronger than my high school self would ever have guessed.

Shortly before moving to California, I met my husband.  I could use up all of the space on the internet telling you how wonderful he is, but I'll save that for another post.  Let me summarize by saying that from this love I have learned:

• The difference between "a love" and "The Love" is immediately obvious.
• It is possible to know you are in love with someone without ever having seen their face.
• Keeping two completely different people, each with their own backgrounds and personalities and issues, rowing together smoothly isn't impossible, but it takes a whole lot of practice.

It is now long past my bedtime, so I am going to stop trying to come up with an appropriate conclusion and just end this.  Ain't love grand?

Siblings, part 3

*So it turns out that knowing where you want a story to go and getting it to go there are two very different things. This is what I got from about an hour of very distracted writing. Meh.*

Chapter 2

They drove in silence. Sam wasn't sure if his mother's silence was because she was wrapped up in her own thoughts or out of respect for his own, but he was grateful for it either way. He stared out the window, watching the lights from the equalizer reflected in the glass. As the the green and red dots darted along the dirty snowbanks lining the narrow streets, Sam remembered how Karen always used to pretend those lights were her Guardian Fairies, pacing the family car the way the Secret Service would pace the president. “Nothing bad can happen to us while my Fairies are out there,” Karen would say. Sam sighed. “At what point in my life did the Fairies stop paying attention?” he wondered.

Looking back, it seemed that his college years had been just as pleasantly uneventful as his childhood. Very little drama or tragedy, just one normal day following another. In those days he could answer the phone fearlessly.

(to be continued)

Sophia Sisters

I have shared just about everything I am about to write with pretty much every living being who has crossed my path since August, but I want to document it here for my own sake.

My extended family is, well, quite extensive.  I come from several pretty long lines of pretty amazing people.  And I say that with absolutely no bias what-so-ever.  :)  This past August, I lost one of my beloved aunts after a lengthy battle with cancer.  Her name was Kate, and she was my father's youngest sister.  Even as a child, she was the kind of person who went out of her way for others.  I have heard stories of her coming home from school, baking cookies, and handing them out to local homeless people.  She was the person who would double back on a crowded freeway in a snow storm on Christmas Eve to help complete strangers.  Even while battling her own illness, she was the embodiment of the Prayer of St. Francis:

Oh, Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; 
to be understood, as to understand; 
to be loved, as to love; 
for it is in giving that we receive,

While saying my last goodbyes to Kate, I had the opportunity to see how her kindnesses were returned to her ten-fold.   One of the things Aunt Kate did as she faced her own mortality was to gather a group of like-minded women for regular meetings during which they would talk about life, family, spirituality, and all the other things that are important.  They called themselves the Sophia Sisters (sophia being the Greek word for wisdom), and Kate's sisters were there for her though everything.  This group of women (along with their families) made sure Kate and her family had hot meals, renovated her kitchen, and made sure the planters on the front stoop were filled with beautiful flowers to greet her many visitors. 

Although I learned a remarkable number of things during that difficult week, there was one thing I couldn't stop thinking about.  Kate was surrounded by love during her most trying times for two very important reasons:
1.  She cared openly about the individuals she came across on a daily basis.  She wasn't afraid to wear her heart right out on her sleeve.  She didn't shy away from the risks involved in relationships.
2.  She made an intentional effort to strengthen the connections she had made.  She took the time to reach out.

Upon returning home, I couldn't stop thinking about Kate and the way she lived her life.  I have never been good at socializing.  Although my close friends might describe me as gregarious, I am painfully uncomfortable around people until I get to know them.  I enjoy talking on the phone, but hate making phone calls because I am sure that my call is interrupting something more important.  I tend to wait for others to reach out to me, whether to begin a relationship or to maintain it.  Genetically, I am predisposed to live "in the moment".  Like my father, my mother, and much of my extended family, I tend to forget about holidays and important events until they are happening.  Even though I am often thinking of my family, I fail to follow through on providing evidence (sending cards, making phone calls, etc) of such thoughts on a regular basis.

Because of these traits, it has always taken me a long time to develop meaningful relationships.  The connections I manage to make are often woefully neglected whenever distance becomes involved.  Although I would count just about all of the 70-some students who went to high school with me as "friends", there were only a handful who knew the real me, and I haven't seen a single one of them in almost 15 years.  In 4 years of college, I managed to cultivate exactly ONE lasting friendship (and even that was only renewed recently thanks to FaceBook).  I have lived in the Temecula area for nearly a decade, and until this past year I could count the people who had made it past the "acquaintance" stage on one hand.  I would watch movies about friendships that spanned lifetimes and wish that I could be so lucky.  I longed to belong to a group with all my heart and eagerly awaited the day when that group would magically appear.

Watching Kate's Sophia Sisters come together for Kate and family, I realized that I was waiting for something that wasn't going to just happen.  The beautiful, meaningful relationships that surrounded her and supported her weren't the result of sitting around wishing for something to happen.  Kate built them, slowly and carefully, just as her father, a carpenter, built spiral staircases.  With empathy and honesty as her hammer and nail, she could turn the briefest of encounters into a lasting friendship.  If I wanted to have what Kate had, I was going to have to pick up my own tools and put them to use.
I have challenged myself to consciously create more meaningful connections to those in my life.  One way I am doing this is by working harder to recognize important events in the lives of others.  I am trying to send birthday cards on time, make phone calls more regularly, and provide tangible evidence of my feelings for friends and family.  The other thing I did was to call up some of the wonderful women I am surrounded by and create my own Sophia Sisters group.  We meet on a monthly basis with the intention of create a support system for ourselves while collectively working to support the less fortunate our community.  These intentional efforts at empathy and openness are already paying off.  As I am honest and caring with those I meet, others are becoming more honest and caring toward me.

I'm going to wrap this up now, because I know that I am rambling...  My thoughts on this topic tumble over one another like puppies outgrowing their birthing box, and consequently my words do the same.  I could save this and put it away in the draft folder to revisit another day, but I am more interested in getting my thoughts out than in making them perfect.  So, I will resist the urge to re-read this yet another time. Instead I will leave you with a message that came to me via a student this evening and seems to fit the mood of this post perfectly:

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

~ A Noiseless Patient Spider, by Walt Whitman

Dear Giant Corporate Competitors,

I had a 30 minute telephone conversation with a prospective client today, and at it's conclusion this parent made a comment that was something of a revelation to me.  "I'm looking forward to starting.  Just talking to you has made me feel so much better.  It wasn't like this after talking to *Big Name Company*.  Thank you."

I suddenly realized that it's not my ridiculously low prices that make parents decide to come to my tiny little business.  The majority of parents are going to do what it takes to get help their child, and if that means paying $50/hr, so be it.  It's not the advertising we do or our semi-successful attempts at looking like professionals, either.  Parents trust the recommendations of friends and teachers over fancy fliers and color coordinated furniture sets.  It can't be our experience or academic knowledge that does it, although we have plenty of both.  I know you have the budget to hire as many qualified teachers as you can get your hands on.  There is one thing, and one thing alone, that makes us stand out from the crowd.

When parents call to us, they are treated as one-of-a-kind rather than one-in-a-million.  When I answer my phone, I am 100% focused on what they need and how I can help them get it.  I listen to their situations, and I validate their emotions.  They hang up knowing that their fears and frustrations have been heard and that they have a new ally in the fight to overcome them.   In short, I give my concerned parents the same personalized attention that I plan on giving their kids.

It is amazing how immediately parents respond to this.  Our entire relationship is built on the foundation laid in that first interaction.  From that point on, my parents know that I am going to do my best for their children.  They know they can trust me to treat their children with respect and understanding.  This relationship of trust means that I can raise the level of expectation.  Even when I'm asking them to make difficult changes or try challenging new things, my families trust me.  They know that my praise is honest and my concerns are legitimate.  We all work harder for each other and my kids progress faster as a result.

I am grateful for your business-oriented environments and your factory model approach to teaching because it makes my little company look even better by comparison.  I would have to work much harder to stand out if the rest of you were to realize that parents aren't looking for more of the same old thing.  They need something different, and thanks to you, I'm one of the few providing it.

Some day, Escuela del Sol will be a household name.  And on that day, I will remember the phone conversation I had today, and I will continue to make every single family feel as if they are my only clients. 

Sincerely,
Sol

True Story

Hubby:  I'm going to go read the words of my book in order.
Me:  What order?  Alphabetical?
Hubby:  Probably left to right following the page numbers.  Alphabetical might be challenging.
Me:  How boring.
Hubby:  It would take a long time to get ready for that.  You'd have to go through the whole book first.
Me:  Yeah.  The first several words woul be "A", "A", "A", "A", "a", "a", "a", "an"...
Hubby:  It wouldn't go to "an".  There would be words like "about".  And "abate".
Me:  Really?  You think you'd find the word "abate"?
Hubby:  I wouldn't be surprised.
Me:  I don't think "abate" is in that book*.
Hubby:  Now I'm going to search the whole book just to prove that "abate" is in it.
Me: I dare you.
Hubby:  I will find it.  I'm a master-abater.
Me:  I'm so blogging that.

*He's reading Under the Dome by Stephen King, in case you were wondering.  He has requested that you post the page number if you happen to find the word "abate" in that illustrious text.

**Update**
As I have been writing this, he has been reading and announcing each "a" word he finds.  "Affairs."  "Almighty."  "Ability."  "Acting."  My husband amuses me so.