Searching for a Voice

Lying in bed listening to the birds begin to sing as the day dawned here in the heartland of America I thought about this new project/assignment to be an Empowerment World Mentor.  What a wonderful opportunity and what an amazing challenge to help another woman find her voice and to encourage her to speak her truth and change her world forever.

And what a tremendous responsibility.

It made me think, again, of the prayer I have been saying - the mantra I have been repeating - for several years.  'May I speak my truth with courage, wisdom and love.'  This prayer originated, really, with the second-guessing I continually put myself through either on my job or with my family and friends, or in my life in general.  It seemed that at the end of the day I would find myself questioning the things I had said and their impact on the people around me............  Did I speak wisely?  Was what I said fair and truthful?  Did I make a fool of myself or, worse..... someone else?

So much of what is written or said is through the emotional lenses of anger and fear manifesting often as sarcasm and contempt - which only seems to inspire the same in others.  My personal initial reaction to the expression of anger is to put up a wall and attempt to remove myself.  Not healthy, I know, but as they say in some parts of the country.....'just sayin'.

It appears courageous to share anger and fear when that seems to be what is really going on.  Whether it be the political situation or personal.  Maybe it is discussing religion or relationships.  The environment or education.  But is it really the truth?  And is it really effective?

I believe we have to look for the impulse behind the words that we speak - either out loud or in writing - to determine their impact.  When we speak from anger, righteous or not, we speak from fear and a position of weakness.  And people usually respond accordingly.

But, when we continue digging through the layers of anger and fear and keep looking for the kernel of truth we should eventually find it in love.....  there is something, eventually, based in love that motivates us.  Think about it - when we are angry or scared... isn't there always love threatened at the emotional center?

When we find the love based truth, then the words we speak can have the most lasting impact.  When we speak our truth with courage wisdom and love then we can never question or second-guess what we say.

I think the secret of being heard always is and will ever be in using the language of love.

Just sayin'.....

Handprints

I am just home from a weekend in the woods with a growing group of friends that have known each other, some of us, since kindergarten.  All of us from high school because we graduated together.  This is not some notorious group of friends that were inseparable then and have maintained the 'clique' all these years. No, this is a group of strikingly different individuals who have come together after 30 years and fallen in love with just being together talking and laughing, sitting around a campfire or a dinner table (or the occasional bar) sharing memories and stories. 

Sharing life.

When I came home, I felt a definite loss of air in my 'joy balloon'.  Coming home meant my sweet husband and warm bed and much healthier eating, to be sure.  It also meant several hundred miles between those wonderful people and months before I would be able to laugh and love with them again.  And I started thinking about the song from the musical "Wicked" that has always touched me deeply.  One of my favorite lines goes like this:

So much of me 

Is made of what I've learned from you 

You'll be with me 

Like a handprint on my heart

Handprints on my heart.  What an incredibly beautiful concept!  What a lovely way of thinking about all the people that have touched our life in some way.  And how completely true.  

So I started thinking about the handprints on my heart that have been left there throughout my lifetime.  This really correlates to the "Listen to My Life" class in which a group of women have gathered to listen to the telling of our stories and to help each other figure out how God/the Universe is working in our life through our experiences. I struggled last week with how to share my story, and now I know it will be telling the story by those very handprints.

Our hearts are covered with handprints.  Parents, siblings, friends, teachers, lovers have all left their marks.  Some are more gentle than others.  Some are more like bruises.  Each and every one of them has made an impression.  The trick, really, is in learning how to appreciate each of them for what they were.... for what they are. 

And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

The people that come in and out of our lives are responsible for helping us rewrite the way our stories are to be told, if we only will take the time to understand the impact they make.  The parents who, though imperfect, were doing the best they knew how.  The friends who were wrestling with the same fears and insecurities.  The colleagues who had the same things to accomplish and prove.  The lovers that appear and then leave, but from whom we have discovered one more aspect of ourselves.  The spouses who appear and stay through thick and thin teaching us that commitment is a working gift.  The children who are born to us with their own lives to lead - joys to experience and sorrows to bare - and from whom we can learn much, if we just take the time to watch and listen.

 Thousands and thousands of handprints.  

And some of the 'prints' are not from hands, but from events.  Imprints maybe?  Some are from a whole list of the 'firsts' - first day of school, first time we learn our parents are fallible, first time a bat or a ball or a club connects with a ball so perfectly, first time we look into the face of our child, our first wish for a 'do-over' in life.

And some are historic events.... the assassination of a president, a war that leaves the world shaken and grieving, a car accident that leaves classmates dead or permanently scarred, a wall and a country that crumbles after a lifetime of being 'the enemy'.  September 11th, 2001.

I am learning to be thankful for all the prints that have been left on my heart - even those that felt more like a pinch - and hope to keep making room for more, because.... 

   

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?  

But because I knew you 

I have been changed for good.

I just want to make sure that all of these handprints are changing me for the better because I am recognizing them for what they are and learning from them.

And I pray that the handprints I am leaving are ones that translate to love.

I'm Listening

A couple of weeks ago I started a class entitled 'Listen to My Life' that has been run several times in the past by one of my dearest friends.  Penny is a pastor at one of those monster churches - we fondly refer to it as 'Six Flags Over Jesus' - that is attracting people by the thousands.  She has more work to do than any 3 people normally can manage AND she worked with this group of women who were gathering to tell the story of their lives and listen to the tellings. 

Penny, knowing me as well as she does, knew that this class would be something I would be drawn to and fall in love with.  What's not to love, really?  Women?  Gathering together to talk about the things that matter most to them?  Talking about their life stories?  Talking about how God has worked through and played in their lives?  Learning to listen exquisitely and ask questions - not for clarification, but to help others better understand their story?

Eating brownies, for God sakes?!

Yeah, that sounds like me, alright.  Penny knows me well.

So, last night was the beginning of the reflection of lives, not just the 'meet and greet' that has been happening the last two weeks (in which this WOO thrives, by the way...)  I knew it could be awkward.  I knew it would be hard.  I knew there would be tears.  And laughter.  I knew some people would be uncomfortable.  I knew my heart would open and break at some of what was going to be shared.  I knew that we risk much telling these stories.  (We have all sworn to confidentiality, so there won't be any sharing here, unless it is my story.)

What I didn't realize and am now processing is how much the stories of others would unlock places inside my heart and my mind and my memory.  I had a journal there with me and was quickly writing as others spoke, remembering things that needed to also go into my story.  I didn't want to miss a word of what was being said and didn't want to work on me as others were sharing to the depths of their souls.  But, I was surprised that I could forget some really important events that made such a difference in my life.

So I scribbled furiously, listening as attentively as possible and wondered at the forgetting.  Why would I forget the jobs?  College?  Talking about my father?  My mother and brothers?  Odd things, really, to leave out of a life's story.  And then the pit of my stomach started churning.... really hurting in a fear-like kind of way.

I took a picture once that reminds me of this familiar feeling.  We had been hiking in New Zealand with a tour and were told that early one morning our guides would be going to the river and feeding the eels.

Really.

So early the next morning I hiked down to the river and watched as the chicken scraps were thrown onto the river bank.  Within moments, the water was churning and writhing with these eels, all black and sinewy and slithering over each other. 

It looked like my definition of Hell.  And it reminded me of the way I feel, sometimes.  

I recognized the feeling I was having during this Tuesday night class as a stage fright kind of feeling, but didn't know why I should be suffering from anything like that.  I didn't have to say anything that night, I wasn't going to be 'on' with a less than complete life story... I had another week or two to be able to fill it out more completely.  And, besides, no one in that class would know whether I had really done my homework or not.  I had nothing to be afraid of.

If that was what it was.

What was I feeling?

Ah, yes.  The sadly too-familiar feeling of not being authentic - not really being 'true' to myself.  This prayer for authenticity I have said for years continues to be answered in opportunities to 'be' my prayer and here it was.  Again.

I have spent so many years being 'the strong one' - in my family, in my church, with my friends.  Goodness, even as a little girl I felt like I needed to be 'strong' for my mom.   She had gone through so much heartache in her life that I decided at a very young age never to do anything intentionally that might hurt her. 

And here I was, again, presenting the 'strong side' of Ruth.  Although the story I had mapped out was one that had ups and downs, I recognized that I had left out anything that might show me as fragile or flawed or weak.  I was mapping out vulnerabilities... but I was leaving out the stories that might really show some of the inner rooms of my heart that had never been truly explored.

There is a reoccurring dream I have that puts me in a house - a familiar house in my waking - that, in the dream,  I live in.  The house changes occasionally, but thematically it is the same.  I am walking through a house I know intimately, but keep opening doors to new rooms or finding stairways to new levels that I had never explored or discovered before.  Mostly, the dream house rooms are crowded with the trappings of life - furniture and clothing, dishes and pictures.  And cobwebs!  But occasionally, those rooms are painted white and pristine and echo-y empty.

Always I wonder, in my dream, how I could live somewhere and not know all that is there to know about the house and the rooms and the things in them?!  How could I occupy something as important as a home and not know everything in it like the back of my hand, not explore it and open all the doors and the closets and the drawers?

And clean it up, for pity sake?

And how is it possible for me to occupy my own life and not be opening all the doors and climbing all the stairs?  And yes, even cleaning out the cobwebs if need be.

So, life.... I am listening.  Truly, lovingly listening.

And I know what you have to teach me will be profound.

Continuous Loops

I just finished watching a movie called "Happy Accidents" with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio that neatly fits in my all time favorite love story category of 'love through space and time'.  My fascination with this kind of story started with 'The Ghost and Mrs. Muir' when I was a little girl and was later fed by 'Somewhere in Time'.  Other notable offerings in this genre are 'Ghost',  'The Lake House', 'Sliding Doors' and, most recently, 'The Time Traveler's Wife'.

The all time great, though, (in my opinion) is 'Groundhog Day' with Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell.  This movie qualifies on so many levels of the requirements of love transcending time and space that it almost represents its own category.  It also represents, in my opinion, one of the finest lessons on Buddhist teaching made available for mass audiences to 'get' (or not).

In a nutshell for anyone who may not be familiar with the story; the hapless hero so despises his life that he shows nothing but disdain for himself and others.    He wants only what feels good immediately and has zero empathy or compassion for anything or anybody.  So, life (that great equalizer) conspires to make him repeat the same day - ad nauseum - until he 'gets it right'.....

He gets to do the same day - the exact same things - over and over again until he learns to make the best of it all.  Until he learns his lessons - compassion, loving-kindness, empathy, balance, joy.

In other words, he gets to relive that one day of his life until he learns to 'love' enough.

A movie-primer on reincarnation, the greatest of continuous loops.

I happen to believe in reincarnation and always have from probably my earliest thoughts on life and how we came to be here.  I have never accepted the premise that we 'only go around once'.  My mother always told a story of looking into my newborn eyes and marveling on the wisdom they contained those first precious days.  She recited this poem to me often....

Baby

George Macdonald (1824 - 1905)

Where did you come from, baby dear?

Out of the everywhere into the here.

Where did you get those eyes so blue?

Out of the sky as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?

Some of the starry spikes left in.

Where did you get that little tear?

I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?

A soft hand strok'd it as I went by.

What makes your cheek like a warm white rose?

I saw something better than anyone knows.

Whence that three-corner'd smile of bliss?

Three angels gave me at once a kiss.

Where did you get this pearly ear?

God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?

Love made itself into bonds and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?

From the same box as the cherubs wings.

How did they all just come to be you?

God thought about me, and so I grew.

But, how did you come to us,  you dear?

God thought about you, and so I am here.

How could I not believe that I had come from something and somewhere else?  Continuous loops are just in my personal programming.

Some have told me that reincarnation is just an elegant and convenient way for us to 'get away' with (literally) murder - amongst other things - here and now and never really get 'caught'.  They argue that if everyone believed they could just come back and get another chance at life as opposed to fearing an eternity of punishment, then we would be giving ourselves permission for all sorts of gratuitous and bad behavior - why would anyone live their lives with any decency or morals if there aren't immediate consequences to fear?  Personally, I think that argument speaks more to individual feelings of repression than a true sense of human decency.  And I know that argument has made most of the world's religions a lot of money over the centuries.


(I also happen to believe that reincarnation was an early accepted tenet in Christianity......  after all, we Christians have always talked about and continue to expect 'the second coming' of Christ and we are NOT referring to a different guy!)

But.  The continuous loops that got me writing today are the ones we experience in this lifetime.  Everyone has them.  Call it karma, if you want, but it is dealing with the same nonsense over and over again; the same obnoxious boss or co-worker, getting stuck - again - in the slowest moving line, dealing with the same kind of relationships again and again.  Basically, running into the same reoccurring storyline with different situations and people.  Same stuff, different day.  Over and over again.

For me there are a couple reoccurring story-lines that I just know are mine to figure out in this lifetime. (No, not sharing what mine are, just that they are....)   Even though there was always a 'deja vu' quality to them, I was floored by them each and every time and they left me - often - devastated or flummoxed or both. 

I recently heard a sermon on prayer that discussed the possibility that an answer to a prayer is not being given what we have prayed for, but being given instead the opportunity to be what we are praying for - to live into the prayer, if you will.  If our prayer is for courage, the answer is being given the opportunity to be courageous.  If my prayer is to be authentic, then maybe I am continuously being given the opportunity to choose authenticity.

To go back to the movie 'Happy Accidents',  the character played by Ms. Tomei has a need to fix people - boyfriends in particular - and is seeing a therapist to try to break the legacy she has made for herself and feels she is making progress, repeating her self affirmations into the mirror day and night.  Then she runs into Sam who seems healthy and normal, until he starts telling a story of being a time-traveler who has come back just for her and she just knows she is in her continuous loop.  Again.

(Just in case anyone wants to see it, I won't be giving any spoiler information so keep reading.)

The therapist has convinced her that until she learns her lesson she will continue to doom herself with picking wrong men and ending up broken and alone every time.  The solution to her reoccurring storyline is to learn her life's balance and to look for her joy without letting anyone invade her boundaries and upset that balance.

(Okay, one spoiler.  All things aren't as they appear.  There is another continuous loop playing out.... and there is a happy ending.  I guess that really was three.  So there.)

In my current love-through-space-and-time life story, the great good news is that I have started to see these story-lines for what they are as they are beginning.   That doesn't mean I am always responding differently, but at least I am beginning to recognize them for what they are - one more opportunity to work on something that I still have to do in this lifetime that will make me stronger.  The chance for me to - again and again - live my prayer for authenticity and truth.  I think that when I figure out how to live consistently into the opportunity presented, maybe the deja vu of that loop will cease to be.

So, there may be Grace in continuous loops.

Who knew?

First Day of School

I wonder how many books, essays or stories have been written about the first day of school? Probably a daunting number, but no matter.  That's what was on my mind today as I was walking and that's what I want to think about here in this out-loud, online kind of a way that is a blog.

Today was the first day of school here. School buses were out early stopping traffic to pick up their passengers clad in shiny new everything - clothes, shoes, faces, book bags.  Everything.  As I watched those kids board those buses, I started thinking about all the first days of school that have been a part of my life and all the emotions that accompanied them.  And so I write.

That real 'first day of school' - the one with no prior experience of anything having to do with school other than what my brothers and mom said - was probably one of the most emotionally charged days of my life.  The pure excitement and joy about a new human experience.  The first steps of independence - of growing up and walking away to do and be without mom's help.  Anything could happen and everything could be accomplished!

Mom has a picture of me walking down the lane to the bus following my brothers like a baby duck with a handkerchief pinned at my shoulder.  I remember it so well... even the embarrassment of that handkerchief.  Climbing on that bus was entering a new world.  There were children of all ages.  A few were my age, obvious by the very wide eyes (and handkerchiefs or notes pinned at their shoulders).  Others ranged in age just like my brothers up through high school.  Even though I had a 16-year-old brother, the teenagers frightened me at first, but ended up being kind and helpful probably remembering their first day of school, too.

Our bus was driven by Charlie who owned a small country store and had been driving a bus almost as long as all the kids on it had been riding to school.  Charlie was kind and strict and everyone on his bus knew his rules and obeyed them so we all felt safe and our parents knew we would be okay.  I recently heard that Charlie finally retired at the age of 80. 

I wonder if anyone drives a bus anymore for 50 years?

That day was the first day of being in love with teachers and classrooms and circles of kids like me.  There was a snack time with graham crackers and milk, and nap times lying on the floor like little puppies on rugs with the lights dimmed.  Did we sleep?  Could we manage being still long enough?

I couldn't manage being quiet.  I was moved every day for the first I-don't-know-how-many days because of talking.  Well?  Everything and everyone was so interesting and I had something to say! Probably today little people like me are considered attention deficit something and medication is recommended to keep us still and quiet and focused.  Back in the once upon a time of my first days of school my teacher just loved me enough to quietly move me and remind me that talking caused that.  I talked therefore I moved!   A lot.

Then, subsequent 'first days' came into being, bringing sights and smells and sounds that are ancient history now.  Purple print on slightly damp pages being one in particular.  Brand new leather shoes.  Girls in frilly dresses and boys in dungarees.  Children playing red rover and on monkey bars.  I imagine the smell of freshly sharpened pencils and new boxes of crayons are still wafting through the classrooms today, but that may be obsolete soon, too.

I wonder what scents from today's classrooms will be remembered years from now?

And I wonder when it was we started being more worried about what others thought of us than of what we thought of ourselves?

Maybe for me it was when we moved from the house in the country to live in town with my grandmother.  The new school was only blocks away from our house, so we walked to school and even home for lunch because it was assumed that most moms stayed home.  My first day of school there was my scariest because this time everything was new to me, but known to the rest of my classmates.  And I was in a full length cast and on crutches.  That was the first time I remember feeling like everyone was looking at me.  Maybe they were.  Probably they weren't.  May be they all felt like they had something stare-worthy. 

That twisting, tugging, self-conscious phase lasted through middle school when on that first day of school I was more concerned whether the cute boy who sat behind me in home room would notice me (he didn't) than what class I was taking.

I wonder if that kind of preoccupation is the fodder for the life-long dreams of getting half-way through a semester and not remembering what or where the classes were?

Lots of 'first days of school' followed, through high school and, for me, college.  Music will always be a major anchor through those first days;  'War' (Huh! Good God, y'all!), 'You've Got a Friend', Brandy (I didn't say I always liked the songs!) and my all time favorite.... 'Let's Get It On'.......  because by that time, of course, I was.

Then the first days of school were those of my children (not immediately, though from the previous sentence it might appear possible...) and I was the mom waving bravely at the bus keeping the separation tears at bay until the little person I loved most in the world was safely on his or her way.  I wanted Charlie to be driving.  I wanted to pin handkerchiefs to their shirts.

I should have pinned a note to my little boy saying he was NOT a walker because his first day of school ended with him coming through the door having navigated the mile-plus of busy streets and no sidewalks on foot.  I learned what a courageous little man I had and hugged him hard against me, imagining all the things that might have happened but didn't.  Then I learned the touchy role of angry parent with a school system that could determine my child's attitude toward school for the rest of his life.  I trod gently.

I remember watching my pre-teen daughter walking into her middle school for the first time and tugging on the hems and tails of her clothing in obvious self-conscious discomfort.  And I remembered it again.  I remembered thinking I was the one others would be watching critically and determining 'un-cool' before I had a chance to prove myself.  I ached for her.  I wanted to run up and put my arms around her to tell her she was completely beautiful and, more importantly, smart and talented and didn't have anything to be self-conscious about.  I didn't, though, because that would have made it worse.

She wasn't alone.  I watched every other girl her age twisting and tugging and looking to see if anyone was watching.  And I knew there were other moms and dads out there remembering and hurting for their little girls.

And guess what?  My children were 'talkers' too!  Unlike the teachers or my mother from long ago, I knew that talking would NOT be the curse that was impressed upon me.  Their teachers were kindly told that, though I would indeed discuss appropriate contribution in the classroom with my kids, I would never see it as anything but a blessing.  I would always prefer that my children have the confidence and courage to speak out as opposed to sitting and watching silently on the sidelines.  And the teachers couldn't  - and fortunately didn't - disgree!

I wonder if I did the right thing?  I will probably always wonder if I did the right thing when it comes to raising my kids.

So, today was the first day of school and for the first time in my life (almost) I didn't have any connection with it.  My daughter is a college educated woman with a loving husband and no longer tugging on her shirt tails (mostly) and my little walking boy is newly graduated and now commuting to his job in a town more than a thousand miles away from me.  It is an end of an era.  And the tears are close to the surface.

Except.

This past year has been my year of being 4-years-old with nothing to do but wake up and look forward to a fresh, wide-opened day of discovery.  I loved being 4 now as I did then.  It has been a freedom and a joy.  And just as I was excited then about being 5 and looking forward to my first day of school, I am joyfully looking forward to this next great adventure, whatever that may be.

I am, though, entering this next stage with the full knowledge that there will be emotions of every kind to explore along with new ways of being in this world.  There will be fascinating people to know and love as well as so many places yet to explore.  And there is much work to do which I consider to be our love made manifest in this world.  

All this while I am still learning not to tug at my clothes and worry what other people think of me.

Woo is a Strength

The 28 years prior to this last one of me 'being 4' were spent in the belly of corporate America.  To get to the belly, of course, one must be chosen, tested, tasted, consumed then swallowed - sometimes whole.  And once in the belly, the corporation works on digesting the consumed into something useful to the corporation and, many times, unrecognizable to what that 'one' once was. 

This isn't being bitter.  This is just being honest about the experience.

I often wondered, after the many interviews for the various positions starting with the original and then slogging through the 'lateral' moves and the actual promotions that followed, why would they interview me, choose me, place me, then want me to be different?  My manner of 'being' in an interview was to always - always! - be authentic to the best of my ability.  I always figured - and later coached people - that if the interviewer liked who they saw in an interview and ultimately chose that person, no one would ever be disappointed in the hire or the resulting job - not the interview-er or -ee. 

But.

Invariably along the way the message came across 'we love you, now change'.....(there is a play with a similar title and I am not trying to usurp their creative product... it's just what I want to say.)

For a lot of years of my life this message just seemed to go along with the new job.  Once the new position was landed, the newly hired me went through some amazing metamorphosis that included getting 'less good' at what stood out so brightly in the interview.  (Many will recognize this strange tendency for employees to be less admired or heard , I am sure.  It is why consultants are so popular and so well paid and why so many people once they leave their company will be accepted right back as a consultant...probably making more money!)

And that just never made sense to me.  I didn't change.  I didn't embellish to get the job.  I knew I would have to grow to fit a new position, but a learning curve was an expectation of mine that I never thought unreasonable.  It sounds like I am saying no one was ever pleased with my performance, and that is far from being the case.  But there seemed to be a lot of trying to make me into something different -  something un-Ruth.

My loving husband just reminded me that for most of the years I was working my way up the ladder, corporations were trying to diversify; hiring something other than white males.  His comment is very astute.... they were hiring others but hoping for them to fit the same mold.  'It' looked different, but they wanted 'it' to act the same.

My last position -which I loved with a passion - was a training position which went hand in hand with a lot of different kinds of self assessments to be used in the classes that were given ranging on any number of different criteria from leadership style, emotional intelligence, communication style to personality style or conflict resolution style, etc.  You get the picture.

One of the last, hottest assessments we were using looked at what a person's 'strengths' were.  The idea was that working with strengths was a heck of a lot more productive than trying to 'correct' weaknesses and everyone seemed to agree with that!  Books were purchased, tests were taken, personal strengths were identified and workshops were scheduled to look at the individual's strengths to identify how teams were diversified and how best to work with those individual strengths.

The trouble began after the assessments started being taken and results disseminated.  It became quickly apparent that, in the opinion of many 'leaders', there were good strengths - the kind you wanted more of on your team and even considered interviewing for - and bad strengths - the ones that raised eyebrows and were considered risky or questionable.  Sidebar conversations could be overheard (easily) discussing who 'had' which strength and now having the easy answer to why people acted the way they did. 

Now to say that this was completely NOT in keeping with the intentions of the program is to truly understate intentions.

The workshops did let people know strengths could be over-used, which then made them liabilities, but the bottom line was the message that strengths were just that - strengths.  And when one worked to their strengths, really great things could be expected.  And joy. 

My number one 'strength' is identified with the simple, strange word of 'WOO'. 

So, what does it mean, to be strong at 'Woo'?  Allow me to explain further, and I quote; "Woo stands for winning others over."  Strangers aren't scary, in fact they can be enthralling (this was always a problem for my mom!)  A Woo-er loves getting into conversations, making people comfortable, making connections, then moving on.  There aren't strangers, only unmet friends.

Oh, that is me!

I loved getting this assessment!  For the first time I felt like some corporate one out there finally 'got' me!

Unfortunately, Woo was not a popular strength in my particular fold of corporate America, which was made clear in those 'overheard' sidebar conversations.   Managers said they would ask strength questions in an interview and if 'Woo' came up, would avoid it at all costs.  If a team member were struggling, 'Woo' might be the 'well, it figures' diagnosis, but with no real prescription other than weeding it out.  Jokes were made at the expense of 'Woo'-types, not realizing that a 'Woo' was in the room.

My strength started to become something I wouldn't divulge unless it was absolutely necessary.  Kind of like having herpes - if you were just flirting, nobody needs to know, but if you are going any further, better say something. 

Then I started doing my own self-assessing. I began to embrace this identified strength and listen to my heart and not the murmurings of others.  If others have a problem with someone like me, maybe it isn't my problem.   

Everything that made me who I am - the authentic Ruth that I had been praying for all these years - isn't a problem.  I am the person who loves to walk into a room and meet everyone.  I am the person who believes friends are around each and every corner. I am the person who understands that people want most to be seen - really seen - in this world and go about seeing them and loving what I see.  I am the person who listens - and hears - what others have to say and generally remember it after.  My family calls me 'The Governor' because we are always the last ones leaving church.

I never learned why my company tended to sideline 'Woo's, because I determined that being authentic was more important than being corporately acceptable.  On one of my last evaluations the comment was made that my  'enthusiasm can be overwhelming'.. and it wasn't meant as a strength. 

I am a Woo.

And that is good enough for me.

Peacocks are Pretty

When I was a little girl I used to twirl around and pretend I was a ballerina because I thought ballerinas were the most beautiful, graceful human creatures I had ever seen.  I wanted to be a ballerina and for a few exquisite months was able to take ballet lessons from Miss Sheila at the YWCA Armory in my little town.  Which meant my hard working mama needed to stop what she was doing and take this 5-year-old ballerina wanna-be to those lessons and wait around until they were done.  That didn't last long, though, because mom's rule was that if I didn't practice 30 minutes every day she wouldn't spend the money on those lessons.

Well, I couldn't practice 30 minutes a day on anything besides playing so the lessons stopped and my dreams of being a ballerina were limited to the amount of twirling I would do through the house and in front of the big mirror in the bathroom.

Inevitably as I twirled, I would ask my mom to 'look at me' and then want to know if she thought I was pretty.

My mother was and is one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.  She isn't beautiful from outward fussing about makeup or clothes.  Back then she wore old house dresses and only put on lipstick when we went out of the house to town or to church.  I can still remember watching her opening the lipstick tube and twisting the bright red out and circling her lips, smacking them just once.  Perfection.  That's all it took!   And she had beautiful wavy hair and elegant, upright posture and the most luxurious voice and a laugh like wind chimes - the lower, mysterious ones that I have hanging all around my home now.

I worked for years to be able to answer the phone and say 'Hello' the way she did.  She used to work as the church secretary and a family story was when she answered the phone with that sultry 'hello' and the man on the other end of the line, who had been attempting to contact his favorite watering hole, confessed he had the wrong number but was sure glad he mis-dialed a house of God just to hear that voice.  I am proud to say that now I do answer the phone with my mother's voice and my daughter is following in her footsteps, too.

But, when I was twirling and stopping to ask my beautiful mother if she thought me pretty, her reply was always the same;

'Peacocks are pretty, but they have tiny brains.'

I knew she was teaching a lesson about being humble and to value things other than outward appearances.   I knew she loved me.  I knew she was encouraging me to be smart and kind and good. I knew that she did not admire women who were too focused on the outward - clothes and makeup.

And I still wanted to be pretty.

Like her.

I didn't stop asking because like most little girls who were beginning to see glamorous women on the television I was very much aware of what was considered beautiful and wondered how I compared.  And every time I asked, the response would be the same....'Peacocks are pretty'.

Did my mom think that pretty always meant not very smart?  Which did I want more; smart or pretty?  Did it have to be a choice?  Couldn't anybody - ever - be both? 

Eventually I started junior high and had to start figuring out those answers on my own.  There were pretty girls with beautiful clothes.  And makeup.  And a mother who couldn't afford the one and wouldn't allow the other.  Somehow I had to learn to fit in and honor my mother as well as my dreams of having it all. So I did what most 13-year-old girls do to fit in; I packed makeup in my bag and rolled my skirts up past my knees as soon as I left the house. Eventually, as is always the case, mom caught the tell-tale smudges of mascara and knew that she had lost a battle.  But she won the war by allowing me to wear as much makeup as I wanted as long as she couldn't tell I had it on.  

I was convinced that prettiness and small brains were not necessarily hand-in-hand commodities. After all, my mother was both.  A girl could be very smart, kind AND pretty.  A girl could also be very pretty and very silly or, worse, beautiful and cruel.  There were choices and my mom had given me the gift of making them.

I wanted my mama to tell me I was pretty, but she did me one better.  She convinced me I was beautiful and worthy and could do anything I chose to do.  She encouraged me to work hard and was happy for me when I played hard.  She supported me in every decision I made and loved me through all the many mistakes.  She gave me her shoulder to cry on when my heart was broken and she talked me through my fears of getting married again when I had met my soul's match on earth.  Mom encouraged me to be a good and loving and consistent parent with my two beautiful children.  When I was being a selfish partner, she called me on it.  She even was there to help me decide when I had 'enough' and should climb off the corporate express train and become my own non-career person.

My mom taught me the really important lessons in life.

Peacocks certainly are pretty and not very bright.

And I am not a Peacock.

Thank you, Mama.