By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 12, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Obviously!
When my son was about 11 years old we were in a heated debate about something utterly trivial and I stopped us and decided this could be a great “teaching moment.”
“In life, Johnny,” I started, “We often have to decide, Do we want to be right about every little thing–even silly things– or do we want to be happy.”
I paused.
“Which would you rather be?” I asked.
Johnny shot back “Both!”
I said, “No. You can’t do that. You have to chose one….Not both. Which would it be?”
Johnny, dug in and was trying to simultaneously make a point and get the correct answer. “Well, Dad, I’d rather be right, obviously.”
“No. No…no, no, no. That’s not the right answer. You’d rather be happy.”
Johnny snapped back, “Maybe you’d rather be happy. I’d rather be right. Being right makes me happy. So I do get both.”
I haven’t checked back to see if he’s modified his position on this issue but think I will this weekend.
I hosted a women’s mini-retreat at my house on Saturday, and it was everything I’d hoped it would be — with terrific women ranging in age from 34 to 61. Many of them were strangers to one another when they arrived, a couple having travelled 80 miles to be here; but in just 3 hours, the group had become what many women’s groups become after any heartfelt period of shared time: a sisterhood.
Yes, whether its 30 minutes or 3 hours, when it comes to heart, women of diverse backgrounds inevitably relate to one other, empathize, laugh with, support, and encourage each other, because we share an emotional language of understanding what it means to be this gender. Our stories and contexts of experience might be different, but what’s the same is perceiving life through female eyes and spirit, and extending forward from a long line of female ancestors.
Women like and need time to gather for the purpose of healing. I remember the light-bulb moment of this realization 15 years ago when I read Anita Diamnont’s historically accurate, Red Tent, in which the women of the village lived together according to the moon cycle, about 7 days of each month.
A get-away every 4 weeks? Yes, please.
I’m still moved by the image of women washing the feet of their “sisters” and massaging the abdominal pain away as they convalesce. That’s what I’m talkin ‘bout.
I’m going into my 9th year of coordinating and facilitating women’s gatherings, and what never fails to happen in the first hour, is a collective settling into togetherness. It’s very much like coming home; and if the facilitator’s agenda is to focus on emotional strength instead of failure, these homefolks become the functional, happy family we always wanted but didn’t know could exist, at least for the duration of the gathering. Even if participants never see one another again, what was shared becomes a sacred experience of connectedness that fostered self-reflection.
I find this incredibly interesting, and though it’s not new (women’s circles go back 1000’s of years), it might be news to some that we do have an unconscious understanding of our feminine-divine need to have sisters. On her way out the door on Saturday, one participant commented, “I really needed to be with other women like these; I’ve been so tired of being with people who complain, but I didn’t realize there was another option. “
After all the gatherings goings-on I’ve observed, what I continue to find special is articulated beautifully by another participant who e-mailed me later saying, “We uplift each other simply by being there. Yet, as each person enters the group with an honest intention of her own forward motion, the whole group moves forward.”
Read the rest of… Lisa Miller: The Healing of Sisterhood
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
“Don’t you know you’re my everything?” Chaka Khan sings in Sweet Thing. She is singing to her lover who is being shady and trying to run away. “I wish you were my lover, but you act so undercover.” Oh shoot- now I am distracted by “Chaka Khan let me rock you, let me rock you Chaka Khan. Let me rock you.” That’s all I want to do. Rock you. I feel for you. Chaka. I really do. But I also feel for me. Waiting for you is really hard. Chaka.
The waiting is always the hardest part. Waiting in line especially. I was waiting in line in the Ladies Room of the Empire Hotel Lobby recently and a stubborn-looking older woman was in front of me when I walked in. There were a few stalls there and one looked vacant to me, even though the door was closed. I attempted to check to see if it was available and the woman cockblocked me. Well, not literally because this was the Ladies Room but she did it in her own feminine way—by standing in front of me and blocking me!
Then in a very faux helpful voice she said “there’s someone in there.” I had fully intended to let her go in first if it was free, but being the good girl that I am, I backed off, fuming. (She did have about 50 lbs on me.) As soon as she went into her stall, I breezed into the stall that was supposedly occupied and of course it was vacant. (I do know how to peek under and look for feet!) The dilemma was that there was no move for me to make that would bring me justice. Should I wait for her to come out of the bathroom just to say: “man, were you wrong, lady!”? It would defeat the purpose. But it’s still bugging me two months later.
Don’t blow my high, that’s all I’m sayin’. Chaka. (sorry it’s going to keep coming out of me like a hiccup now.) I feel for you, and if you want to wait in line in the Ladies Room, that’s your prerogative. But don’t stand in my way, please.
Now, in a love relationship, this dilemma gets even trickier. There are times when you’re waiting in line together, driving in the same car, planning timing for your future or making big purchases together and you can’t just push Betty White out of the way. I actually like Betty White. She stays relevant for her age so that’s a bad example. But I think you know what I mean. You can’t push your girlfriend out of the car just because she’s telling you to drive slower. At least not when you’re driving over 25mph. Chaka.
So here’s what I do. Or I should say what I try to do when I’m having more than my usual patience and confidence. I rock you. I wink at Betty White and make a “shhh” symbol. I tiptoe over to the door, slowly swing it open and make a grand gesture, just like a Manhattan doorman right before Christmas bonuses. Then I usher her into that stall like the queen that she believes she is. She’ll be thanking me and I’ll be in the next stall in no time. That’s on my good day.
Or I sneak past her so fast that she doesn’t even see what happened and I pee before she has a chance to stop me. In that case, I rock me. I haven’t tried that one but I may be about to try it. Either way works though, and there are a million other creative ways to self-actualize. The fun is in the figuring them out. Chaka.
The words I say they may sound funny, but whoa sweet thing, don’t you know you’re my everything?
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Dec 10, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
Love this, from The Huffington Post, a North Bend, WA couple marrying on the first day of Washington State’s new marriage equality regime:
According to US News, Larry Duncan, 56, a retired psychiatric nurse, and Randell Shepherd, 48, a computer programmer, of North Bend, Wash., have been together 11 years. They wore the matching outfits as a “fashion statement.”
“We were at a party and we met eyes and fell in love,” Duncan said to the news source.
“He came up and asked me out, and I said yes,” Shepherd added
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 7, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Advice texted to my son today after we had lunch and he asked an important question I didn’t answer adequately at the time.
Me: “You asked me if there were many dishonest people in government and business. The answer, as I said earlier, is no. There are very few and they are radioactive and never last long.
But there are plenty of people everywhere who can sometimes be selfish or short-sighted or petty. And that is disappointing. You can’t change them and just learn to maneuver around them. And then you must be careful not to get sucked in to their game of playing things small.
Playing small is not a game worth getting good at if you are going to ask a lot of yourself in life–whatever you end of doing in your work.
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
Must read book review by Ashley Fetters at Atlantic.com about what’s bound to be my next Kindle purchase: Alan Light’s The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah.” Here’s an excerpt:
Click here to review/purchase book
Pop standards don’t really get written anymore. Most of the best-known standards were composed before the arrival of rock and roll; perhaps something about the new brand of mass-marketed, Ed Sullivan-fueled stardom just didn’t quite jive with the generous old-world tradition of passing songs around the circuit, offering to share.
So when an obscure Leonard Cohen song from 1984 was resurrected in the ’90s, then repurposed and reinvented by other artists so many times it became a latter-day secular hymn—well, that was kind of like a pop-music unicorn sighting.
Alan Light’s new book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” traces the bizarre cultural history of that very unicorn: “Hallelujah,” a song that lay dormant in Cohen’s vast repertoire for more than a decade before its popularity surged up again with a posthumous Jeff Buckley single. “Hallelujah” has metamorphosed over the years from a cheesy, reverb-heavy B-side oddity on an album Cohen’s label rejected to a mystical, soul-stirring pop canticle that’s played today at just as many weddings as funerals. Light reverentially details every stage in the evolution—and along the way, he reveals the compelling stories behind some of its most iconic interpretations.
So what’s your favorite version? The original Leonard Cohen? The Jeff Buckley masterpiece that made it famous? The mournful use of the song in Shrek 2 or the third season of The O.C.?
I will go first: As I reluctantly admitted in my column last year, Top 5 Pretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire, I’m a closet J.T. fan, and his gritty collaboration with Matt Morris at the 2010 “Hope for Haiti Now” benefit concert is my second favorite performance in the Timberlake portfolio. (Behind, of course, his globally significantwork on The Barry Gibb Talk Show.)
Please share your favorite in the comments section. And to guide your selection, we’ve posted some videos below of the most popular renditions:
Read the rest of… What’s Your Favorite “Hallelujah”? Listen & Vote Here
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 5, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
“Oh my gosh. That is such a heterosexual thing to say.”
No one has said that to me yet. But I think one day it will be commonplace phrase in our culture if we heteros don’t get it together. And quickly.
I just walked out of a coffee shop where four well groomed, physically fit , articulate and nice looking men were sitting having a serious and substantive discussion. And I was envious. I thought to myself, “Part of me is jealous and wishes I was one of them.” Not a practicing gay, of course…but just gay in the other ways that my sexual orientation seem to be falling so far behind.
Oh, you are probably thinking to yourself “John is stereotyping gays by ‘assuming’ this group of men are gay because of the way they look and talk.” No. Not really. Think about it for a minute. When was the last time you saw four well-groomed, physically fit, articulate, nice looking heterosexual men having a substantive conversation about anything?
Oh sure, we heteros were represented at the coffee shop, too, alright. Don’t worry about that. Two of us were spread out at a table bitching about politics and why they couldn’t catch a break, in work or in romance. I couldn’t hear specifics because I was only in line for a few minutes. But it appeared they had a lot of misfortunes to cover today because it looked like they had been there most of the morning. And had enjoyed breakfast and a follow up snack. Put it this way, if the average male waistline is 34- 36, my two hetero colleagues were doing their job of balancing out the 4 other men’s trim waistline in the coffee shop (with a little help from me, size 38).
I was so embarrassed I almost wanted to say, “Hey guys. At least fix your hair and speak in complete sentences. You’re giving us heterosexuals a bad name.” But, of course, I didn’t. My hair was unkempt too. And I was eating a cake pop with my coffee.
As I walked out I remembered kids when I was younger saying things like, “That’s such a ‘gay’ thing to say” and meaning it as a put down. Heck, I am sure I said it myself. But today, if someone said to me, “That is so gay of you, John.” Well, I think it would be about the nicest thing anybody said to me all day.
And I wouldn’t even correct the person offering the compliment by telling them I was really heterosexual. I would just let them think I would not be out of place in a group like the one I saw today at the coffee shop –and most everywhere else for that matter.
And that’s when I worried about the next step after that. When someone accuses me of sounding hetero for the first time, and meaning it as a put down making the point that I am overweight, lazy and unimaginative or have no taste in clothes or don’t understand movies. As in, “That is such a heterosexual thing to say.” It could happen. And these days, when we heteros can’t seem to stay fit, keep married, stop complaining or come up with anything interesting to say outside of rattling off some sports scores, asking if there will be a Porkies III, and deciding when the next game of fantasy baseball will be, well, them are darn near fighting words, if you ask me.
And the worst part is, we heteros aren’t even very tough any more. I’m afraid we’d lack the energy to even fight back or have the cleverness to come up with an adequate “retort.”
The more I thought about it the more I thought of this video clip, imagining what our retort to the hetero put down might look like.
Then again, uhhhh, well, that’s just my opinion, man.
“I’m not eating this weekend because the girls at school want to be skinny.” Emily, 9.
In 2004, after years of processing my own body image issues, and with a determination to have things be different for my daughters, I didn’t expect my own child to begin that steep slide into dieting misery so soon, if at all.
I took a few hours to recover from my little girl’s statement of deprivation, and then I came to the conclusion that if I really wanted things to be different, I would need to take action myself, and fast.
The conversation and research that followed opened my eyes to several truths:
Kids talk. And they are all affected by media messages (billboards, commercials, print ads, Hollywood glamour) about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms.
Women talk. We do, and it’s a lot of self-criticism about protruding stomachs, fat thighs, and jiggly arms. And, we talk about other women in relationship to all those things, and about how she looked in that outfit. Constantly, constantly, constantly. Conversations overheard about appearance become messages about what is acceptable, desirable, worthy of love, and they are more potent than any billboard costing 1,000’s of dollars to print, because they are personal—about real people we know—about ourselves. And, our girls are listening closely, all the time.
The seeds of self-esteem and self-image are planted long before girls approach puberty. Though criticism may be directed at others, and even if we only ever compliment our little girls, they grow on the reality that criticism is just around corner if they grow into women of stomachs, thighs, and arms, of any type.
So what’s a mother to do? I wasn’t certain, but I was sure that I wouldn’t allow one more generation of women in my family to struggle with the self-hatred that comes from a legacy of criticism, peer pressure, never ending dieting, and debilitating low self-esteem.
I did have a hunch that in order to help make changes for my daughter and her friends, I needed to help make cognitive and emotional changes for moms, too. Because after all, we were all once girls who grew on those very messages. No one ever told us to stop listening.
And so, with mother-bear determination, I called health and wellness professionals in my Lexington community who seemed to carry some authority: pediatrician; nutritionist; psychotherapist; police-officer. And I asked them to become a part of the community that Hillary Clinton talked about in, It Takes a Village, where everyone helps raise healthy children.
Click on image to purchase book
With professionals on board, Girls Rock!: Workshops for Girls and Moms, was born. We would all come together, pre-teen girls, mothers, and professionals, for a big empowering day of programming that would make all of us responsible for healthier language, relationship to self and friends, and habits at home.
But still, the kids in attendance would need real, up-close and personal role models to emulate—people they could think of as big sisters—the ultimate role models of omniscient authority to a girl.
So I recruited a diverse team of teenagers with leadership potential who seemed to defy what Mary Pipher identifies as one of our culture’s greatest tragedies when she says, “Adolescence is when girls experience social pressure to put aside their authentic selves and to display only a small portion of their gifts.”
Read the rest of… Lisa Miller: Empowering Your Daughters…And You
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Dec 4, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Polygamy vs Monogamy.
An ordinary married couple discusses the pros and cons. And realities.
I love laughing with my wife about about bizarre speculative situations….Like just now. My wife and I are talking about Muslim culture, women’s roles, and polygamy. Rebecca asked if I would practice polygamy if I had been born into Muslim culture. And smiled anticipating my answer….Kind of put me on the spot… a little bit.
I said, “Look honey, you know me. I’m not…..I’m not really the martyr type. I wouldn’t want to marry other women, of course. But would do it to, you know, so people wouldn’t talk bad about you. Because, like, if I was the only monogamist in a polygamist culture people start talking and assuming things about me and, you know, maybe think you were the cause. I could never allow that perception of you to happen and so would marry other women just to preserve your reputation in the community. Again, not that I’d want to. You know, When in Rome….”
We were both laughing hysterically at this riff….and then it was Rebecca’s turn.
“You’d be an awful polygamist. You know how I get upset when you are late or or don’t give me your full attention when talking sometimes? Or if you text me instead of call me? Well, multiply that 5 times! Those 5 wives would be so angry and fed up with you.
“Where is he?” “Are you kidding?” “He’s a mess.” “We know he’ll never take the garbage out.”
“They would be talking about you all the time and you’d be miserable. And begging for a monogamous relationships. ”
Laughing even harder….as I have to completely agree. I’d be a dismal polygamist.
It’s good to laugh with your spouse. And I’m grateful to live in a monogamous culture. And to have a mate who keeps me always on my toes…and laughs with me (as often as at me).
While The Recovering Politician is dedicated to making the most of our second acts, we’ve usually focused on the second (or third, or fourth) acts of adult professionals. We’ve ignored literally the second act of most everyone of us — the act of leaving home for college or adulthood. Until now.
Our newest Friend of RP, Emily Miller, started Miami University this fall; and she will be sharing her thoughts about this awesome, scary, exciting, bewildering transition. She’s a very insightful, thoughtful, and eloquent writer. And she also happens to be The RP’s oldest daughter.
Enjoy:
Dear Grandpa,
You were here for such a short part of my life, and I missed you during so many of important events. You could have watched my failed attempt at trying to play basketball, and you could have listened to Daddy and me play guitar together on the holidays. I would have loved having you read an Aliyah at my Bat Mitzvah while watching me grow into an adult in the Jewish community and in the world. I missed you at my high school graduation, and I should have been able to call you with the news that I was going to attend Miami University.
While I begin this new chapter in my life, I have been reflecting on my past. What did I learn during the past 18 years that prepared me for college? While specifically reflecting on the past year, I realized something that I learned from the death of a good friend; let the ones you love know how much you appreciate and cherish them.
When you died, I was much too young to understand the importance of this idea, and I never got the chance to tell you about the big effect you had on my life. It might be too late to tell you now; and whether or not these words reach you, I am hoping I can at least honor you by showing people the great influence you had on my life.
There are so many things that you did for me for which I am eternally grateful, but when I think about how you inspired me, two big things come to mind. The first is your love of books and literature. Thank you for always reading to me and insisting that I learn to read myself. I could always count on a stack of books being there when I came to visit. Thank you for assuring me that I would some day be able to read fluently and not letting me give up when I struggled. I didn’t believe you when you told me that some day I would enjoy reading, and I could not believe that anyone could do such a thing for fun. Not every child gets the enriching opportunity of constantly being read to, and I am so thankful that you provided me with this. I know people to this day who do not enjoy reading, and I feel sorry for them because they are truly missing out on a wonderful gift. Thank you for this gift; my love of literature is all thanks to you.
