Posts Tagged ‘relationships’
Cindy on April 16th, 2009
“My father used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a good life.” — Lee Iacocca
By the time we turn 50, we’ve established a complex social network of neighbors, friends, relatives, coworkers, and colleagues. At some point during midlife, we begin to reconsider some of those relationships — and where we need to devote our attention. We might try to reconnect with friends from high school or college. Or discover that we’ve outgrown a few relationships we enjoyed in the past. While midlife is all about growth and change, cutting old ties is never easy. Read about it in this week’s “Midpoint” column in The Oakland Press, then share your thoughts on how friendship evolves over time. — CL
Previous “Midpoint” columns are archived under CATEGORIES in the panel at right.
Cindy on February 17th, 2009
There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea. — Ralph Waldo Emerson (Letters)
Lately I’ve noticed a lot of magazine articles touting the medicinal wonders of tea, but I don’t need to be persuaded. While I still rely on strong black coffee for my morning jump-start, I’m primed for the pleasures of tea by the time my workday winds down.
Unlike coffee (tea’s rich but nerve-racking cousin), tea is a soul-soother. Whether you prefer the delicate jasmine aroma of Earl Grey, or the spicy citrus bouquet of Constant Comment, one cup is enough to transform the dismal hour between four and five o’clock into an uplifting occasion.
I can’t pour a teapot without remembering my paternal grandmother, Robina Scott, who grew up in rural Scotland, then immigrated to this country in the 1920s. A lifelong tea drinker, Grandma Ruby taught me the grown-up custom of “taking tea” when I was a child.
To a five-year-old whose parents drank coffee, tea rituals seemed wonderfully prim and sometimes a little exotic. According to Ruby’s native Orkney Island folklore, reading tea leaves was a reliable way to forecast a person’s future. Following old-country custom, she would interpret the various shapes of leaves left in a cup, then predict weather conditions, the health of an ailing relative, the sex of an unborn child, or even the arrival of a love letter.
But my grandmother never took fortune-telling seriously, nor was she a British purist who insisted on using loose tea in a metal infuser or strainer. At my urging, in fact, she’d generously stock her kitchen canister with Red Rose tea bags after I had pilfered all the collectible dinosaur cards from the box. As surely as I can spell brontosaurus, I can still picture the floral-print housedresses Ruby would wear when she “put the kettle to boil” and rolled great masses of dough for her perfect apple pies. During my weekend visits, I was always allowed to make my own cinnamon-sugar strips from her leftover pie dough.
“Use a bit less o’ the sugar, dearie,” Ruby would scold. “And don’t eat the dough before it’s done!”
While the pies baked, Ruby and I sat at her kitchen table, dipping and steeping our tea bags until the water in our steaming cups turned amber. Sometimes we talked between sips; mostly we stared quietly out the kitchen window and watched the sparrows, our silver spoons breaking the reverie as they chimed against cup and saucer.
As my grandmother liked to remind me, tea had Oriental origins but was a British import to the early American colonies. As most of us recall from our grade-school history classes, it was heavily taxed by the monarchy and eventually incited the boisterous Boston Tea Party of 1773. Since then, our country has harbored a stubborn preference for coffee.
A mug of coffee is quick, feisty, and all-American — easy to consume on the run in disposable cups.
Tea, on the other hand, requires that we sit down long enough to assemble its various accoutrements. Drinking tea entails a fussy battery of saucers, spoons, bags, lemon wedges, and pots with lids, not to mention the optional milk, honey, or sugar. Which is why most waiters don’t cater to tea drinkers; they think we’re a high-maintenance bunch and would rather not be bothered with our hot-water refills.
But there’s another revolution brewing here. Researchers claim that tea, especially green tea, is naturally laden with antioxidant properties that promote good health. A survey conducted by The Tea Council in Great Britain reported that drinking four or five cups of tea per day “may have a beneficial effect on high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure,” and may reduce the incidence of certain cancers.
If Ruby were alive today, I doubt these new-age health claims would have impressed her. The real merits of tea, as we both discovered years ago, are tied to its soothing, soul-filling rituals. — Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on February 15th, 2009
“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” — Oscar Wilde
When my son was a child, I often volunteered to help at his small parochial school. I supervised Valentine’s Day parties, traced Halloween pumpkins, carpooled for field trips, and baked countless cookies for fundraisers. In the process, I formed some warm and lasting friendships with the other volunteer moms. Except for one.
There was one mom who just didn’t like me — a mom who had a knack for making me feel like a social misfit in Mean Girls. I never figured out why. Sometimes I’d try to extend my hand in friendship, but she remained as chilly as the Eskimo Pies we handed out to the fourth graders on Ice Cream Day. It’s possible that I reminded her of an unforgivable person who’d wounded her in the past. Or maybe I said or did something to offend her. Whatever it was, my transgression remains a mystery.
Even if you’ve never been a homeroom mom, you know exactly I mean. You’ve probably got at least one social nemesis.
The woman who doesn’t like you might be the tetchy neighbor who criticizes your perennial beds or the paint color you chose for the front door. Or she’s the toxic relative who snubs you at family barbecues. And how about that envious co-worker who can’t bring herself to pay a compliment on your new blazer or congratulate you on your hard-won promotion? No matter what you say or do, you’ll never win these people over. Even when you’re as sweet as key lime pie, they’ll refuse to sit at the table of your friendship.
Sue Patton Thoele calls them âthe black holesâ in our personal universe. Thoele is the author of a book of inspirational essays I keep at my bedside, A Woman’s Book of Soul: Meditations for Courage, Independence & Spirit, (Conari Press). In one of the essays, Thoele recalls an awkward time when she wasn’t hitting it off with two women in her own social circle.
âThe energy I put out to these women was merely absorbed as if it had disappeared into a black hole and none came back to me,â she explains. As a psychotherapist, Thoele understood that we all tend to project our unconscious feelings onto other people. She knew that the qualities we find annoying in others are often the same ones we dislike in ourselves. But it wasn’t even that complicated. The cold-shouldered women in her circle were simply the wrong candidates for her friendship.
âIf we’re saddled with the belief that everyone needs to like us in order for us to be acceptable — or that we should be able to be friends with anyone — we cause ourselves a lot of pain,â Thoele explains. âWe’re simply âenergetic misses’ with some people.â
When I was a lot younger, I’d spend months trying to figure out why some relationships fly while others can’t seem to get off the ground. I struggled to understand why a simple case of envy can boil over until it scalds and spoils what might have developed into a mutually supportive alliance.
And I’m still in awe of the fact that most men, like my husband, rarely waste time wondering why some people don’t like them. They shake hands and move on. Women, however, tend to lose sleep devising ways to appease or impress folks who needn’t count so much. We work hard to avoid conflict and maintain the status quo, often at our own expense.
I know now that healthy relationships are reciprocal — a graceful dance of give-and-take. When I find myself feeling snubbed, neglected, used, or short-changed, I’ve probably stumbled into Black Hole Territory. I trust my intuition and quietly bow out.
Being authentic, after all, is a requirement for true friendship. Being authentic means that we fully own who we are — and stop trying to adapt to what others might expect of us. It can take years to arrive at that place. I’m not there yet, but I’m working on it. Meanwhile, it’s liberating to give up the notion that everyone has to uphold my political beliefs or religious convictions. It’s a relief to realize that even my closest friends and I won’t always share the same taste in books, movies, restaurants, or fashion.
I’ve finally realized, too, that there’s no shame in the fact that a few of the people I meet aren’t going to like me. And as long as I remain civil, I’m entitled to reciprocate the feeling. – Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on December 29th, 2008
“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each year find you a better person.” — Benjamin Franklin
I stopped making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago. They rarely stick — and only serve to throw me into a vicious cycle of guilt, remorse, and self-contempt for the better part of January.
Instead, I stumbled on another ritual that works in the long run. I call it my “lessons in the rear-view mirror” exercise, which is simply a review of what I learned throughout the past year. Here are a few of my hard-earned epiphanies from 2008:
* Change, hope, democracy, and possibility aren’t just verbiage for a campaign slogan. Despite an incredibly vicious presidential campaign that pitted neighbor against neighbor, the first African American was elected to the highest position of government in the United States. The epitome of grace under pressure, Barack Obama reminds me that anything is possible in America, and that people who expect more from life (and themselves) often get it.
* When friends and neighbors truly love you, they won’t sever the relationship just because you didn’t vote Republican or put Obama signs on your lawn. The really good ones still bring you coffee cake.
* Frugality is cool again. In the midst of a long recession, conspicuous consumption has gone the way of the manual typewriter. Many of us woke up to the fact that we already have everything we need — including a supportive family, longtime friends, good neighbors, and a closetful of unworn clothes that still have price tags hanging on them. Our houses are big enough, our cars are new enough, our lives are rich enough. Enough is enough.
* There’s no such thing as “getting ahead.” When everything around you is changing rapidly, slowing down to catch your breath is often the best course of action. I regret that I spent the first half of my life dashing frantically from one activity to the next, as if there were a contest for the achiever who got it all done first. “What will your tombstone say?” humorist Loretta LaRoche asks us to consider. “Will it say, ‘Got it all done, dead anyway?’ ”
* We all deserve to be paid what we’re worth, whether we practice dentistry, carpentry, or journalism. Our experience and expertise have value — and others have more respect for services they have to pay for. When I give away my professional skills, people not only perceive me as generous, they also think of me as a walking freebie. I also make it harder for my colleagues to earn a decent wage.
* Parenting is the most important job a person can ever do, and it’s worth giving it the absolute-best you’ve got. Kids grow up faster than you can say “empty nest.” It’s a sappy cliche, I know, but until you watch your kid pack the car and drive off to his own new place in another state, you don’t really believe it.
* When someone steals one of your best ideas, it’s hard to get it back.
* You can’t take anything for granted. The Detroit newspaper crisis got me thinking about my 25-year career writing for print media. My smallest paychecks — and my biggest thrills — were always earned from a byline in my local newspaper. As Joni Mitchell sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone…”
* Support networks really work. Having a posse of gifted writers with whom to commiserate has kept me sane — and hopeful — and I’m forever grateful for their friendship. Despite all the bad news for print media, writers are an optimistic bunch. Already, fresh ideas are brewing and there’s plenty of positive talk about publication start-ups and new ways of making a living with words. There’s hope in the midst of change.
* Love makes everything better. Everything.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
– Cindy La Ferle
Cindy on December 27th, 2008
“If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as work.” — William Shakespeare.
I love the small breathing space between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. As much as I enjoy shopping and cooking for family and dear friends, I also appreciate the chance to steal some quiet time to reflect on the past year. I’ll be back to share some thoughts for the new year in a couple of days.
P.S. A big thank you to everyone who purchased Writing Home as a holiday gift this year! Earlier this week, the book was sold out again on Amazon. From the proceeds I wrote a check to the Welcome Inn warming shelter hosted at the Unity church here in Royal Oak, and another to the Salvation Army. –CL
