Archive for January, 2009
Cindy on January 21st, 2009
Last year, a dear friend of mine fell from a ladder while working on a home-improvement project. She needed emergency surgery to repair her shattered knee, and had to spend weeks recovering at home with a battery of medical equipment.
My injured friend had a family to care for — not to mention a full-time office job that had to be put on hold while her injury healed. Meanwhile, she practiced her physical therapy, learning how to use crutches and trying not to collide with the furniture. But her biggest challenge, as she put it, was “learning how to give up control” while she rested on the couch with her leg propped up.
Nobody likes being injured or ill, but I’m convinced it’s twice as hard for mothers who suddenly find themselves incapacitated for weeks at a time. It doesn’t matter if we’ve been hit by a bus or a flu bug. Moms are programmed to be nurturers and fixers. We roll up our sleeves and pitch in when someone needs to be fed, bandaged, or chauffeured to softball practice. We’re more comfortable offering help than asking for it. Sitting still goes against our maternal grain.
While the moral of this story could be: “Girlfriends, never do home repairs that require a ladder,”I promise it is not.
Watching my friend move gingerly on her walker, I was reminded of the time I found myself in the same position seven ago after I had bilateral hip-replacement surgery.
A serious health crisis can be an excellent teacher — albeit a tough one. And this much I know for sure: I never would have grasped the full meaning of the word generosity had I not limped my way through several months of surgical rehab. During that time, a number of incredibly nice people conspired to make my life easier. Neighbors drove my son back and forth to school. Friends baked casseroles and delivered them to my family while I recovered in bed. In particular, I remember the savory chicken noodle soup a friend dropped off at exactly the moment I craved the taste of comfort.
I often wondered what I could ever do to return so much kindness. The answer came from one of the terrific nurses at William Beaumont Hospital who took care of me after my second surgery.
“Watch for opportunities to help someone else,” the nurse told me. “Be there when the time is right.”
Even the smallest acts of kindness, after all, are links in the great chain of generosity. Whenever we receive an abundance of love or care, our well overflows and we have more to share. Better yet, real generosity is boundless. It isn’t about keeping score or simply repaying the same people who’ve done favors for us. (I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week, after hearing President Obama’s call to community service.)
So, as soon as I learned about my friend’s accident, I headed straight for the kitchen and did what I’ve learned to do best in this type of emergency: I made enough minestrone to feed a family, then delivered it in Tupperware containers to my friend’s house. The following week, I made chicken soup and a batch of stew, alternating with other friends from church who had offered “meals on wheels.”
I don’t deserve special recognition for doing this; cooking for my friend was a selfish act. It made me feel better (or at least not so useless) in the face of her misery.
Recalling her long weeks of recovery, my friend told me recently that she couldn’t imagine how she’d ever repay all the generous people who’ve been so helpful. I told her that she doesn’t owe any of us anything in return, and I meant it.
“Next time someone else falls from a ladder,” I added, half seriously, “it will be your turn to bring the soup.” And I’m sure that’s what she’ll do. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on January 19th, 2009
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” – Barack Obama
Every TV in my house is turned on and tuned to the inauguration coverage. I don’t want to miss any of it. This morning, I listened to CNN’s special broadcast of Dr. Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have A Dream” speech. The line about being “judged by the content of our character” never fails to move and inspire me. I’ve always been proud to be an American, but this week I’m more proud and patriotic than ever. Watching people of all races gathered peacefully and exuberantly in Washington D.C., I am moved to tears. And I’m filled with renewed excitement and hope for this country — something I haven’t felt in a long time. – CL
Cindy on January 18th, 2009
“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.” — E.B. White
Mothers and sons are as different as mineral water and motor oil, and there are times when the distance between us seems impossible to navigate. The road to a smooth relationship often depends on the vehicle.
Just as the automobile is crucial to Detroit’s economy, cars have always been a key part of our household, not to mention our family mythology.
Before he learned to talk, my son Nate was drawn to anything with wheels â garbage trucks, trains and, especially, sports cars. And during the early years of his adolescence, the sanctity of the sports car was often the only non-combustible topic the two of us could discuss and agree upon. Whether we were driving in my SUV or his dad’s business sedan, a cool sports car never failed to turn our heads and inspire us to dream aloud.
These memories came tumbling back because the 2009 Detroit Auto Show (known officially as the North American International Auto Show) opens this week. It’s the first year I won’t be attending it with Nate, who graduated college last year and moved to Chicago. As I type this, he’s flying around the country on assignment. Since he lives in the city, Nate doesn’t even own (or need) a car now.
Flipping through the Detroit Free Press this morning, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic for years past, when touring the auto show was the highlight of our snowy Michigan winters. Our whole family enjoyed every chrome-flashing highlight of each year’s awesome displays, from edgy concept cars to sexy luxury sedans.
In 2007, when I covered the show for our local daily newspaper, for instance, my husband and I drooled over the elegant Lamborghini display while Nate coveted the handcrafted Aston Martin V8 Vantage, which would have earned a thumbs-up from James Bond himself. And we were especially impressed the futuristic concept models, one of which actually promised a gas-free daily commute for Americans whose drive to work is 20 miles or less. (Remembering my dad’s gas-guzzling â60s Chevy Impala, I gave GM an enthusiastic thumbs-up for eco-friendly progress.)
As a mom, I’m forever indebted to my automobiles for safely transporting my son back and forth to school, music lessons, field trips, and family vacations.
But like everyone else who sustains a longtime romance with cars, I also like to think of them as vessels of good memories.The mere flash of a chartreuse Camaro, for example, is enough to conjure a few reveries of my own carefree college days. And every time I spot a Jeep Cherokee on the road or at a car show, I recall the times I traversed the suburbs with a cargo of neighborhood kids and their backpacks. Likewise, my son still waxes nostalgic about the old Honda Prelude — our first family sports car — that was sold to another driver several years ago.
I’m tempted to revisit the Detroit Auto Show with my husband this year. If only for a few hours, maybe the two of us can forget winter’s chill and Michigan’s droopy economy. We could inhale the heady scent of new leather interiors and recharge some old memories. Or we could picture ourselves driving off into the sunset — at 100 miles an hour — in a brand-new, bubble-gum yellow Dodge Circuit EV concept. Oh yes, we can dream.
Cindy on January 12th, 2009
“I take rejection as someone blowing in my ear to wake me up and get going, rather than retreat.” — Sylvester Stallone
This week I’m filling out entry forms and taking photos of my work for an art competition. I’m new at submitting my artwork to gallery competitions — and nervous about subjecting myself to a brand-new form of rejection. Here’s a column I wrote a few years ago about learning to deal with rejection as a writer. . . .
The Slings and Arrows of Rejection
I meet them every time I attend a cocktail party or a business function. They’re the stressed-out professionals who’d love to quit their jobs and try “something more fun.” Most of them want to get published. I was cornered by one of these aspiring authors at a seminar last month. A colleague of my husband’s, the man works as a designer for a high-profile architecture firm, but he really wants to be recognized for his byline.
The colleague said he wrote essays occasionally. He had experienced the fleeting thrill of seeing a couple of his pieces in the local paper — “a real high,” as he put it. He wanted to publish more often in Sunday newspaper magazines, and he wanted to earn some money for his writing. But after receiving several rejection slips, he was ready to give up.
“How do you handle the rejection?” he asked. “I just hate rejection.”
“Well, I deal with it the same way architects do when their designs get shot down,” I told him.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s not as personal.”
Rejection and its evil twin, Criticism, are part and parcel of the writing life. I don’t care much for either of them, yet both keep in touch with me periodically. And while it’s true that rejection letters can sting for a few days, eventually you get used to them. You learn to accept that you can’t hit the editorial bull’s-eye every time.
A fellow writer once offered this consolation, and I believe she’s right: If you’re not getting rejection letters, you’re not aiming high enough or sending out enough material. You have to toughen up, get busy, and hold your breath every time you open the mailbox. And you must start the process all over again.
As I reminded the guy from the architecture firm, “personal” rejection is hardly the sole province of publishing. Anything you dearly hope to achieve, including love itself, holds the possibility of loss. That said, I’ll admit that the very word “rejection” dissolves bone marrow and turns warm blood to ice water. On a really bad day, it can make even the most aggressive self-promoter drop her best ideas and run home.
That’s why I often share a favorite story about Madeleine L’Engle, whose award-winning children’s book, A Wrinkle in Time, was rejected by more than forty publishers before it finally went to press. “Every rejection slip was like the rejection of me, myself,” L’Engle wrote. But she believed in her book, believed in its power to inspire children, and absolutely refused to let it die. Today it remains a beloved best-seller for young people.
It also helps to remember that the craft of writing offers second and third chances. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, “A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” Thankfully, redemption is so much easier for writers. We can reorganize, revise, revamp, and send our stuff out into the world again.
But the real secret to coping with rejection — aside from keeping faith in your own abilities — is to enjoy the process, the work itself. You have to fall in love with words and take pleasure in the way you string them together. And it’s essential to remember that publishing, as novelist Anne Lamott once said, is an addictive drug. Your last hit will never feel like enough.
Still, the small victories are sweet. Not long ago, one of my favorite pieces was rejected by a regional magazine. Several postage stamps later, it was accepted by a national publication for more money than I’d expected — and I hadn’t changed a word. That doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, of course. Just often enough to fuel my hopes and make my work more fun than architecture. – Cindy La Ferle
*This piece was first published in The Daily Tribune, Royal Oak, MI, then in my book, Writing Home. Last year it was excerpted in Sixty Candles: Reflections on the Writing Life, published by the American Society of Journalists and Authors.
Cindy on January 10th, 2009
“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” — Francois Gautier
The answers to our most difficult career questions are rarely “clear as glass.” Sometimes we need to pull back and get quiet in order to gain fresh perspective. Curious? Read more in my January 2009 Michigan Women’s Forum column. – CL
Last year, a dear friend of mine fell from a ladder while working on a home-improvement project. She needed emergency surgery to repair her shattered knee, and had to spend weeks recovering at home with a battery of medical equipment.
