We'll Be Home for Christmas

“Home is the place, where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”

Robert Frost

The concept of “home” is much on my mind.  With all the Christmas songs about being home for Christmas, I’m much aware that it’s been just a few months since we moved from our home of 26 years, where we raised our two daughters. My husband and I have been quite deliberate about turning our new house into a home.

But, what is home?

By the time I was 13-years old I had lived nine places – apartments, rental properties, and finally a house my parents purchased. Among all those stops – from Texas to West Virginia to Virginia to Texas to Virginia and, finally, to California – I kept looking for home.

I experience strong feelings of home and belonging when I return to my mother’s hometown. My younger daughter moved there for graduate school; visiting her gives me an excuse to return to my old haunts and sensations. The town holds vivid memories of love and laughter and family ties.

It is where the family roots are. And, it’s where they grow deep into nurturing soil.

My relatives, after decades of absence, like Robert Frost wrote, took me in.

That’s the feeling – belonging – that my husband and I are striving for in our new house. Comfortable guest beds, to be sure, but also good food, drink, conversation, and cheer. But, most of all, we want our visitors to feel welcome.

Our daughters will both be here for this transitional Christmas. The old house was home. The new house has their Christmas stockings and ornaments. And us. I’m pleased they are telling their friends they are going home for Christmas. Even if they stumble over the word “home.” That tells me that home is where you find your traditions, unconditional acceptance, and love.

What is your definition of home?

Much Ado About Lighting

 It’s grey and gloomy today. If I were working, I would be grey and gloomy. In my work experience, especially working for the federal government, which is stingy with windows, daylight was of paramount importance.

Deskbound for years, I craved light. On weekends, I would find every reason to be outdoors.  Our porch, even in winter, functioned as another room. If I met a friend at a restaurant, I raced to claim the chair facing the window.  I always felt like a plant leaning toward the light. Now, I am upright. I take the seat that makes sense.

Our new house is filled with windows. Life-affirming light surrounds me. Sunset:  no problem. My new hobby is acquiring lamps:  floor lamps, desk lamps, lamps for our daughters’ colleges, lamps with birds on their bases or translucent leaves on their shades, and more. The illumination possibilities are endless.

Earlier this week, my new friend took me to a local lamp sale, bringing even more light to my life.

Photo courtesy of Ikea

Best yet for this retired person, there’s no timetable for when I can be in or out. I enjoy the same freedom as our dog.  Once she figured out how to use her new dog door, going out, coming back in, going back out, offered Piper her own endless possibilities.

Yet, I realize there must be more to retirement than light and a lightened load. What about reflecting amongst all this light?

That, too, is coming. Reflection sneaks in at unexpected moments when I question my new role, identity, and how I can contribute. For now, as we approach the shortest day of the year, I know this:  Daylight, lamplight, and the warmth of new friends are good. They make me happy.

With Thanks for a Dynamite Career

“I just called Lynn and offered her the job. She said, ‘Dynamite.’ Do you think that means she wants the position?”

That’s what Grace Warfield, head of publications, told the editor at The Council for Exceptional Children. Mrs. Warfield had just offered me a job as an editorial assistant. It was my first RJ, or real job, after college.

In 1973, dynamite meant that you were pleased.  Indeed, I was explosively pleased to get a job, especially one that would give me skills and experience for what I really wanted to do -- write -- rather than use the library degree I had just obtained.

I am thankful Mrs. Warfield took a chance on me.  As I celebrate my first Thanksgiving as a retiree, I realize there are many who followed her, took chances on me, and fostered my growth.

In 1977, I did appreciate that Dave Shipley and Jack King hired me to write the employee newsletter at Allegheny Airlines (later USAir and now US Airways). I knew little about aviation; it was my love of travel that led to a letter seeking employment at the only Washington, DC-based airline. 

What I didn’t appreciate at the time was what good bosses Dave and Jack would be. Now, after numerous superiors, I realize they were way above average. For one, they weren’t threatened by capable subordinates and, two, they gave me many opportunities to spread my wings.

I got to start USAir Magazine and work with talented editors and graphic designers. Then, after reading Douglas Starr’s booklet on How to Write a Speech, Jack and Dave said “Sure” to establishing the airline’s executive speechwriting function. My scope expanded to encompass financial communications and producing shareholder reports as well as to being the “logo cop” and responsible for corporate identity.

Jack’s successor, Pat Goldman, increased my responsibilities. And, Pat made sure I was promoted; this when I was five months pregnant with our second child. Later, she tapped me to work on marketing communications for the airline’s alliance with British Airways.

Meetings in London. Working with internationally known design consultants. Interviewing and writing about Sir Colin Marshall. Traveling on the Concorde. 

Yes, work can be fun.

Later, after two years working with the smartest man I know – my husband – in our small PR firm, aviation came calling again. That was 1997, when Eliot Brenner and Drucie Andersen hired me to write speeches for the to-be-confirmed Federal Aviation Administration chief Jane Garvey. Eliot and Drucie thought Jane and I would be a good fit as client and ghostwriter. It was a great fit. Those were rewarding and challenging years, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when all eyes were on the FAA and its role in aviation security.

It was a privilege to write for Jane, an outstanding leader and dedicated public servant, who gave me a far greater appreciation for policy and for public service. As Dr. Paul Light says, public service is a noble calling. It is “work that matters.”

After Jane’s five-year term ended and after several moves within the FAA, I was becoming one of those sad-sack employees who counts the days toward retirement. The first time I checked the retirement calculator:   777 days to go.

Fortunately, those daily retirement-calculator checks were short-lived. Tom Zoeller, head of communications at the National Transportation Safety Board, came to my rescue with a detail assignment to write for the NTSB Chairman.

The six-month detail turned into ten months and then into a full-time job that lasted long after my 777-day countdown date.

What an opportunity for this sexagenarian to apply decades of experience – and more than 30 years in aviation – to write for such a dynamo. Chairman Deborah Hersman is smart and savvy with high standards. At my retirement gathering, she said I was the wind beneath her wings. Well, this client got me to soar higher than I thought possible.

Yet, speechwriters don’t fly solo.  There are muses, colleagues, and other sources of inspiration. My last shout out is to my fellow NTSB communicators (you can’t find better colleagues) and to Kelly Nantel, my NTSB boss. Kelly is a one-of-a-kind creative energy source. She deserves her own patent.

What a fitting way to close my career – doing work that matters with smart, talented, and dedicated people.

It was dynamite.

NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman and Kelly Nantel
at my Aloha farewell party.

To All the Girls I've Loved Before

With apologies to Hal David, this blog entry is dedicated to all the girlfriends I’ve loved before, love today, and will love tomorrow.

With our move, I miss friends, neighbors, and colleagues, but I especially miss my girlfriends.

I miss the shared history. I miss trusting relationships where you can be vulnerable and weak and silly and stupid. I miss the freedom to whine and not be judged.

I want to giggle.

Can you remember your last good giggle?  You know, the kind of glee where you snort or cry or both. My last good giggle; I can’t remember. Maybe years back with my sister, my cousin, or Elaine.

For those of us who carry only X chromosomes, XX friends are essential. There’s even a study that validates what women have long known about the value of female friendship. Research published last November in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment found that strong social ties lower women’s mortality rates compared with women who are socially isolated.

Now, that’s a bit of a no-brainer, but it’s nice to have peer-reviewed journals back up what we girl-peers know to be true.

Hundreds of miles away from my long-time networks … well, I’d better not get cancer. Or, if I do, ladies, the towels are clean. The guest beds are made.

If you need more validation, Y-chromosome-carrying Jeffrey Zaslow provides it in The Girls from Ames.  He writes about a group of Iowa women and the power of female friendship. And, his book shows they didn’t have to stay in Iowa to stay connected.

Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve lived far from dear friends. I went East, young woman, years ago. At age 22, I left the Golden State to search for gold and riches, actually education and employment, in Washington, DC.  The California bonds I left behind are now well-tested for time and distance. It’s a quick jump from Memory Lane to Fullerton’s Dorothy Lane and Troy High School with girlfriends who shared so many pubescent traumas. Next, my ag school (UC Davis) provided especially fertile ground for nurturing lifelong connections.

I know I can and will stay connected with my Washington, DC, friends. Because I’ve done it before. And, Web 2.0 makes it easier to stay in touch – texting, e-mailing, Facebook posts and FaceTime conversations. Dozens of friends (and even more strangers) have seen our house, our dog, our yard, my “Selfies.”

Yet, there is no touch in the modern ways of keeping in touch. There’s no face-to-face in Facebook. Those women who survived breast cancer had women friends bringing covered dishes, crying with them, and providing comfort.

You can’t hug a Tweet.

But, leave it to the 21^st century to have high-tech solutions for high-touch needs. There are female friend-dating websites, such as GirlfriendSocial.com, SocialJane.com, and GirlFriendCircles.com.

Or, there’s the modern woman – Rachel Bertsche – who documents her quest for girlfriends in Chicago, her new hometown, in her book MWF Seeking BFF. Over the course of a year, she uses a different method each week, including speed-friending and a rent-a-friend website, to meet potential girlfriends. Clearly, she has more energy and stamina than this retiree.

But, finding new girlfriends is worth a try. BFF in the here-and-now as well as the time-tested versions are too essential.

I’ll start right here in the neighborhood. There are two fun, bright live-wires right down the street.

Coffee, anyone? Or maybe whine?

A Tale of Two Body Shops

No one was harmed in the writing of this blog. Or, fortunately, in the events that gave rise to this entry.

That is good news, since automobiles, as I know full well from my last job at the National Transportation Safety Board, can be two-ton weapons of destruction. Bumper cars are best left on the carnival fairway.

Yet, bumping into vehicles seems to be how I’m meeting people in our new town. The first incident was after my second-ever yoga class. I backed out of a diagonal parking space into an unsuspecting Nissan. The second close-encounter-of-the-car kind came two weeks later, when I was trying to get to a third yoga class. I’d missed a week when my husband’s recovery had a setback.  This time, I sideswiped a van of indeterminate make and model as I tried to park in front of the yoga studio.

After exchanging information with my poor-driving’s second victim, I drove home. Actually, I sobbed home. I have never been wracked with sobs. This was also the first time I’d hit two cars in two weeks.

But, with the convulsive sobs I knew that I had lost it.

I'd lost my prized resilience on the front of a Nissan and along the side of a van.

My daughter, the psychologist, offered this analysis: “Uncle Sigmund would say you’re feeling guilty about doing something for yourself.”

I think more than guilt about leaving my husband alone, I was on overload. Now I know that my stressors – retiring, moving, and caretaking – aren’t high up on the Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory – but somehow those three combined that morning to exceed the sum of their stress-scale parts.

Instead of feeling guilty about doing something for myself, if Dr. Freud is on to something, I realized (with coaching from dear friends) that I should do more for myself. Perhaps the van owner, a personal trainer, knew this when he offered a creative way for me to make amends.

I could pay him a modest sum since his van is old or I could sign up for eight personal training sessions with him. With a body in worse shape than my car, I jumped at the silver lining in this story.

This week, the car went to one body shop and I went to another.  The car looks great. The trainer provided a workout tailored for my age, abilities, and physical issues. With a little custom bodywork, maybe I can look as good as the car.

ISO of a Wild Flower

Whatever happened to Virginia Waterleaf?

That’s what a friend of 40 years asked during last weekend’s visit.

Virginia Waterleaf is a woodland perennial plant. It gets its name from the water-stained appearance of the leaves. Its range, like mine for the last 40 years, is the eastern United States.

A biologist and nature lover, my friend had pointed out the wildflower on a long-ago hike. To me, a child of the suburbs, the plant seemed fine enough, but I surely loved its moniker. I immediately claimed it as a pen name.

Wouldn’t “By Virginia Waterleaf” look grand on a dust jacket?

I was in my early 20s and was going to be a writer, not just any writer but an important one, a writer with a capital W.

Four decades later, I am a writer, just not of the dreamed-of novels and stories or scripts and screenplays. Yet, I made a living with my words and wits. First, I wrote  “corporate fiction.” Next, I moved to government service where I put words in other people’s mouths and excised them from other’s people’s material.

And, while Oprah never called and the only book signings I attended were to see other, published authors, being a lowercase writer was satisfying. Because as Bulwer-Lytton wrote, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” Words, well put and placed, can move minds and mountains.  Even save lives.  My words may have helped make a difference.

But, back to my friend’s question. I realize that more than being about a published writer, my woodland persona was about me. About who I was before a lifetime of demands and commitments as wife, worker, mother, mentor, and more.

Whatever became of Virginia Waterleaf? It’s a good question. Thank you, dear friend, for asking. As a retiree, I have the time to find out. Now, I need the inclination. Maybe I’ll start tonight on Halloween and discard my sheet and ghostwriter costume and see if I can start the transformation into a flower. Maybe even one with a little wildness.

As Long As You Have Your Health

Health, it’s the new album by the Canadian orchestral pop group The Heavy Blinkers. It’s also a topic that weighs heavily – with each passing year, to be sure, and with my husband’s recent surgery, recovery, and setback.

The lead track on the Heavy Blinkers album offers a fresh interpretation of “As long as you have your health.” As I adapt from working fulltime to retirement and to caregiving, fresh interpretations are welcome.

To quote The Heavy Blinkers, as I “walk the tracks until my time is done” and go to the drugstore or take my husband to appointments, my list of retirement activities that start with the letter P grows. Pedaling and paddling have been joined by patient advocacy, physician visits, prescription refills, and physical therapy.  

And, in the waiting rooms and at the pharmacy counters, I see other family members who are caregivers. They all seem to be more proficient and patient. Yes, I am struggling with this role. Work was easier. 

We have encountered many caring and dedicated healthcare providers. And, we've experienced some not so wonderful, to be kind. The most vivid was the intake administrator at the ER. With her rod in her neck and missing vertebrae, she said the most important thing for rehabilitation is to “Keep moving.” Now, as I encourage my husband to exercise, thanks to our musical neighbors to the north, his rehab program has a soundtrack.