Math Awareness Month.  Reading Awareness Month.  Science and Technology Awareness Month.  Music in Our Schools Month.  It’s not like we don’t know that all of these subjects are taught in our public schools, right?  Or are they?

There are certain subjects in this country, at this time, that are considered to be, for lack of a better word “core”.  Reading, math and science are subjects deemed necessary for children to grow up and be productive citizens.  They’re the foundation for all other learning.  I’ve been told many times that in reading, and the areas of fluency, comprehension and vocabulary are essential to learn every other subject.  I am an absolute believer that reading is essential.  But that doesn’t mean that everything else is not essential.  There is more to a human being than being able to decode symbols to write and speak language.  In a world before written language, human beings were creating something different.  We were creating music.

Why?  I believe humans were created with the organic ability and desire to create, perform, respond and connect to and through music.  If my belief is true, why teach music in our schools if music is innate?  Why is it necessary?  

Most of us are born with the ability to do many things; walk, talk, eat, drink, sleep. We don’t stop teaching people how to refine these things just because we are born with these abilities.  Babies wriggle, roll over, crawl, pull themselves up, walk and run but we don’t stop there.  They coo and imitate sounds to speak words that identify objects, tie words together to create sentences, but we don’t stop there.  We take these and continue their progress in schools, through PE for motor skills and reading/writing for communication.  Music is no different.  Children naturally create songs and dances, play on pots and pans or whatever else they can find.  It’s no different from early people who took things they found in nature to create instruments.  It’s a part of what makes us human, and just like everything else humans are capable of doing, it’s important to make it an equal part of the education of the whole child. 

So, if all of this is true, why have a music in our schools month?  Because for some reason, there are those who believe music is fluff or entertainment, but certainly not academic.  Some believe music teachers who advocate for music education are merely advocating for their own jobs.  That music teachers are only there to give other teachers a plan time.  Because when the funds get low, the first things to go are the arts.  

Over the next 31 days, the goal is to write about the importance of Music in Our Schools Month, to share stories of why music is not only important, but essential in the lives of every child.  Who am I kidding;  it’s important in the lives of every human being.  Every day this month, let’s discover how and why music should be important to all of us.  

I knew better.  I told him, “don’t park there – we won’t be able to get out”.  Nah, we’ll be fine, he said, so against my better judgement, I said ok.  We parked in the last row where there were just a few spaces left, then went inside the restaurant to have a lovely dinner date.  Now I should explain, it has snowed a lot this season.  A. LOT.  So, with a packed out parking lot, we chose a spot where the lane behind us was half covered in a mountain of plowed snow.  The Beetle is small, so, how hard could it be to get out later, right?

About an hour later having had some great food and a little fun, we walked back out to the car thinking, our little car we won’t have any difficulty getting out, right?  Except now parked on the driver’s side was the biggest pick-up truck you’ve ever seen and on the other a full sized conversion van.  I’m not even sure how they got into those spaces unless they off-roaded it over the mound of snow.  For those of you not living in the frozen tundra, the mountain was up to my windows.  We were not going to drive over this. 

I won’t go into the details, and I would love to tell you I was kind and didn’t say “I told you so”, but I did.  There was a lot of trying to figure out just the right angle to get us out of the parking spot, but we couldn’t back straight out because of the mountain behind us.  He starts saying things like “the car parked in front of us was there when we pulled in, so maybe they’ll come out soon”, so I offered to try because it’s my car and I know how it feels.  He gets outside to guide me and the Laurel and Hardy episode begins.  

The plan was to get as close to the van as possible so that I could back out (hopefully) angle it just right and back out the lane.  Even if I got out to the lane, there wasn’t enough room between the back of the truck and the mountain to fit between, so I would have to go in reverse.  Yay.  Forward, back, forward, back – over and over and over again.  “Don’t turn the wheel so far”.  “Gun it” (in my Beetle – over snow – right).  The little bug complained as we spun out several times. So many instructions.  Fifteen minutes later and a high five with my partner in crime,  I backed out of the lane and out of the parking lot.  “It was an adventure” he says and I say, “I told you so”. 

Over the last 40 years, we’ve had a more than a few misadventures.  The night our car died in the shopping center parking lot. We were newly married, Doug has just started his first job, so no money and we had to leave it there and climb up the hills (ok, may one hill) in Northern Kentucky in a cold rain to our apartment.  Getting lost on the way to our honeymoon happened because surely we knew how to get there – we had been there on a band bus before!  We were several hours late to our destination.  When the van died on the south side of Chicago while we were showing the kids the United Center and the five of us had to ride with the driver in his tow truck because it was getting dark and he had heard a gunshot and didn’t want anyone to stay behind.  The great people allowed us to come into the United Center and the boys got to see the arena with their beloved bulls logo on the floor. The kind mechanics played with the boys while we waited for the van to be fixed and we grabbed fast food at a little mom and pop place up the street.  Have you noticed everything revolves around cars?  It gets better.  

Moving to Nebraska, the tires on the trailer towing our car caught fire, so Doug and one of the boys poured bottled water on it to put it out.  We spent the night in a hotel less than 45 minutes from the house we had just moved out of and while waiting on a new trailer to be delivered, a tornado came through, hitting just a ½ mile or so from the hotel.  We watched the wind blow sideways and prayed that everything we owned that was in the Ryder truck, our van and car didn’t get blown away. Maybe we shouldn’t have moved?  Nah.  It was an adventure.

We’ve watched through our window at 2:00 a.m. to see strange lights in the sky, seen a bright red ball of light zip across the road in front of us while wandering through Kentucky on a “short-cut” during the wee hours of the morning.   We’ve worked together to figure out where we were so many times I’ve lost count.  Let’s try this road and see where it goes, has been our mantra.  And yes, on occasion, the unexpected happens, but that’s part of life, right?  These misadventures have produced a few arguments, the occasional tears, a lot of laughter and some great stories. I’m always looking out for things that could go wrong, but the truth is when I have a great partner, we’ll figure out whatever surprises us.  Unless it’s in my car. Then I’ll decide where we park next time.  

For those of you who know me, you know I’m a lover of ghosts and ghost stories.  I have read ghost stories since I was a kid, gone on ghost tours and watch tons of paranormal shows on the Travel Channel.  It’s a thing.  So the other day, I switched it on and the ghost hunters were in a place called Pennhurst Asylum, formerly the Pennhurst State School and Hospital in Spring City Pennsylvania.

The stories of what happened at Pennhurst are horrific, adults and children suffering from physical and mental issues basically being thrown away, abused and allowed to die during their time at the asylum.  As I watched, I kept thinking that the name sounded strangely familiar.  Surely it was because some other ghosthunters had done a show about it.  And then it hit me.  

In 1946, a 21 year old man named Elmer married a 20 year old woman named Margaret in Philadelphia.  In December of that year a child was born – Thomas Elmer.  What should have been a joyous childhood was anything but.  Diagnosed with a mental deficiency (epilepsy), little Thomas passed away in March of 1955 at the age of 8.  The death certificate lists his cause of death as cardiac decomposition due to prolonged diarrhea, at Pennhurst Asylum, where he had been for several years due to his “mental deficiency”.  Within four years, Elmer and Margaret divorced, Elmer remarried a woman named Barbara and I was born.  Thomas was my half brother.

When I realized where I had heard about Pennhurst, as I heard the stories and saw the old buildings, I cried.  It’s all fun and games when you’re listening to stories about other people, you feel sorry for those who suffered so terribly, but when it’s your little half brother it shakes your world a little.  I didn’t know of him most of my life – my dad never spoke of him to me during his lifetime.  I saw a picture of him once when I was a kid and my mother explained who he was, but I’m not sure I understood.  I didn’t put it together that my dad had been married before and it wasn’t until I was about 40, when my mom wanted to join the Catholic church and my dad had to get his first marriage annulled in order for her to do it that I learned of Margaret.  It wasn’t until mom died almost eight years ago that I found the papers with the cost of Thomas’ burial that I finally put things together.

Ancestry has helped fill in the blanks which is where I saw Pennhurst.  The original name of the place where Thomas died was the Eastern Pennsylvania State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic.  It opened in 1908 and was almost immediately overcrowded.  For the next 79 years it was surrounded in controversy, a five part news report exposing the conditions in 1968 and a lawsuit that took nearly 10 years to close the place in 1987.  It is a place for ghost hunters today having been named the #1 Haunted Attraction in America.  It makes me wonder about Thomas.

It also makes me wonder about a young Elmer and Margaret, just kids themselves, having a child with health problems so difficult that they were directed to send him to this place.  He did not survive and neither did their marriage.  It’s no wonder it was never discussed.  I can’t even imagine.  However, when I think about it some more, had Thomas survived, had Elmer and Margaret’s marriage survived, I would not be here.  There’s a strange sort of guilt as I wonder why this child had to die so young, so horribly and why I was allowed to exist.  A question for God at some point.  It does make me think that I complain way too often and that perhaps I should be doing more with my life.  It tells me that everyone experiences hardships that we don’t have a clue about and that I should be more patient.  So many great lessons from a brother I never met who is no longer here.  Thank you, brother Thomas. 

It occurred to me the other day, as I left work with a smile on my face, that I had not cried at work this year.  The job I do right now challenges me, makes me feel like a make a difference and I feel encouraged and supported.  It’s what you hope any job in your profession would make you feel.  

In the last several years, because I felt less and less in control of my emotions, I assumed I was depressed.  A counselor and my physician listened to me and also assumed I was depressed and because of that prescribed meds.  For the next couple of years, I felt detached; I wasn’t crying anymore, but I wasn’t laughing either, music didn’t touch me, and I stopped dreaming all together.  I was functioning, but not feeling, so I made the decision to stop the meds because for me it was better to feel the sadness and cry than not feel anything. Now I had to figure out what was affecting me this way.

In my career I have been fortunate to work with many fabulous people, where the climate and culture were what I would now consider healthy, where leadership was not only supportive but found ways to help me grow as an educator and a person, helping me and others to feel part of the community.  What I taught and the importance of music in the lives of my students was recognized.  There’s no better feeling in the world than to realize your life’s calling and to have the people you work with affirm this.

In a culture like this, when leadership leads by example in a supportive nature, the people within the community follow suite.  It’s easy to encourage others when you feel encouraged, it’s easy to ask for help when you know you won’t be judged, it’s easy to participate and speak out when you know you’ll be listened to.  However, in an unhealthy culture, exactly the opposite happens and instead of participating you isolate, instead of feeling supported you wait for the next shoe to drop and the stress builds.  You don’t think of others within the community because you’re too worried about yourself.  The tension builds, cliques are created, and an “us versus them” mentality is created.  Oh, you may talk about “working together as a team” but the truth is, you’re just trying to survive. At this point, it takes major effort and transparency to even begin to turn this negative culture into a positive one.

I have only experienced this negative climate a few times, both in the educational setting and in my work on boards, and I believe this is a leadership issue – it begins at the top.  Is this purposeful on the part of leadership?  Perhaps, but I believe it has more to do with deficits in their leadership style.  Either they don’t know how to fix things, or they don’t know enough about themselves to use their strengths to create that healthy climate.  This assumes that leaders are made, not born which is something I believe in strongly.  We can always learn to be better leaders using our individual strengths and learning strategies based on those strengths to become a better leader.

So, does this mean anyone can be a leader?  Absolutely!  Within your sphere of influence, you can exhibit those leadership attributes and make a difference among the people you work with.  However, in a situation where there is inadequate or harmful leadership, you may need to make a decision.  Can you work to influence the leadership in order to make your job work or do you look elsewhere?  Life doesn’t have to be this way and there are other places that aren’t this difficult.

I once worked in a place where I team taught with a young man who had only taught at this one school, so this particular leadership was all he had ever known.  I on the other hand had had the experience of several great communities and I knew almost right away that this was not going to be good.  I actually knew when I interviewed but took the job for financial reasons.  Bad move and a story for another time.  This young man was discouraged and blaming himself for things when it was actually non-supportive and sometimes abusive leadership that was the problem.  He left when I did and found out that I was right – you don’t have to continue to deal with poor leadership.  Like a great marriage, there are great relationships to be built within a healthy community.  I’ve always made sure to tell every student teacher I have had to see how an interview feels in their gut – if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.  An inadequate leader will usually give that away even in their questioning during an interview, whether the interview is all about them or they just don’t know what to ask.  It may be time to run far and run fast because it’s a sure sign that the climate and culture in their community will not be what you would hope it to be. 

What I have learned from all of this is how important it is to make people I work with feel welcome.  I have also learned to be kindly honest with help them so they can be the best they can be, being there to help when I can or finding someone who can help them when I can’t.  I’ve learned it’s important to learn my own strengths and how to use them and when to find people who have strengths that I don’t have to partner with.  I’ve learned to observe the people I work with and to listen to them to try to get to know them in order to affectively work with them.  And I have learned that I can learn to be a better leader, learning from others and learning tried and true strategies.  As a leader, it’s my job to create a truly healthy climate and culture within any community or organization I’m lucky enough to be a part of.  What are your leadership gifts and how can you use them to make life better for others? 

The excitement was palpable.  I was going to be doing something I hadn’t done since March of 2020.  It’s not like I was crazy about doing it then, but you know how it is – when something is taken away, you want to get it back, even if it wasn’t your favorite thing to do.  

So yes, it was with excitement that I donned my mask and went through the automatic door and entered…the grocery store.  Ok, maybe not a big deal to you, but Doug has literally been doing all the grocery shopping since last year. Not that he didn’t do it before, but sometimes we would have a mini-date through the frozen food section and I would buy a few things that he would forget, and it would just be a sweet little moment – in more ways than one. 

Grocery shopping is on one hand extremely boring and on the other hand addictive.  In the early days of our marriage, we were counting pennies (literally) and created menus so we knew exactly what we had to buy.  There was no shopping just because something looked good or seemed a guilty pleasure.  So here again, I was getting ready to step into a world I hadn’t seen in some time and, well, it was a little exciting.

We walked through the door and immediately my eyes were scanning the shelves – what do I want?  What do I need?  Ooo!  Flowers.  Doug went one direction and I went another.  So I looked at flowers and got distracted by the fruit.  What do I want?  The deli smells great!  Everything was so distracting.  I hadn’t had this kind of distraction in a long time.  Doug on the other hand was on a mission.  This is the way he shops.  He has a list, he goes directly to those things on his list and he gets out of there.  I on the other hand, need to go up and down each aisle because being the visual person I am, I need to see everything to remember what I need.

I’m sure you can already see the conflict and I was very aware that Doug was used to doing the grocery shopping his way for quite a while and I wanted to make sure I didn’t make him crazy.  So, if I wanted to go up the next aisle, I would leave him looking for whatever was on his list and pick up what I wanted.  We’ll be having dump cake later this week.  Not on the list, but it just sounded good.

While there are always people who tend block aisles, this one was funny – I’ll call her “the potato chip lady”.  I watched her from the meat counter because with her cart placed diagonally across the front of the aisle where I wanted to go, she blocked anyone from going up or down, picking up bags of potato chips, reading the fine print, setting them in the cart, taking them out and reading them again.  For a LONG time.  Or the three friends at another end who obviously hadn’t seen each other in a long time, taking turns hugging each other, masks over their mouths but not their noses, laughing and enjoying each other’s company but none having ANY idea that someone was trying to get through.  It’s hard to social distance when this kind of thing is happening, you know?

This was early afternoon on a Friday and my assumption was that there wouldn’t a lot of people in the store.  I was wrong.  Friday is obviously old people day at the store.  Slow old people, grumpy old people, oblivious old people, old people who will run you over with their cart because YOU’RE too slow for them.  It was hard to anticipate how to behave around them.  At  one point I slowed down to wait on a lady who was very carefully checking out boxes of cereal.  I thought I was just being patient – after all, I really wasn’t in a hurry.  However, the lady coming up behind me wasn’t about to slow down.  If she had been driving a car, she would have sideswiped me.  Never looking anywhere but forward, she was on a mission.  

Now I know what you’re thinking.  Judy, you’re older too.  No, not this old.  But if I behave this way when I’m that old, please, someone say something to me, ok?  Regardless, I spent my grocery time chuckling at all of the many quirky behaviors I observed, while I spent my time thinking, oh I REALLY want to buy some Oreos.  I didn’t .  I was good.

Then it was off to check out and follow my usual, or what HAD been my usual M.O.  and that was buying a copy of my HGTV Magazine.  I looked at the end of every checkout counter.  There were NONE.  I looked at the magazine rack and there were NONE.  Had the pandemic taken away my favorite magazine?  I’m a tad bit bummed.  So, I followed Doug through the checkout counters (he switches if one is going faster than another) behind a lovely lady who was probably my age or younger.  

You know how it is when you’re checking out, right?  You take your cart and shift it over while you’re bagging your groceries so the next person can get through.  She had no clue that anyone was behind her as she slowly and carefully bagged her groceries.  Doug was at the end bagging our groceries and looking at me with raised eyebrows and a smile in his eyes (since you can’t see his mouth with a mask) until she very quietly finished her job and left, allowing me to get through.  At first I was thinking about how clueless she was and then I thought about maybe WHY she was clueless.  Was she distracted by something, and just going through the motions?  Maybe it had been a rough morning.  It was just this kind of interaction with people that I had been missing.  The kind of interaction that gets my mind going in the form of stories.  The kind that makes me wonder what people are thinking, that makes me wonder about their stories.

Staying at home, while the safe thing to do, has kept me from the very fodder I need in order to write.  I miss my kids at school, and the interaction with other educators. So even if it was only a little trip to the grocery store, a long overdue mini-date, it was enough to get the creative juices going, and things are beginning to feel a little bit more normal.  

As I sit here looking out the window, I see the smattering of snow from yesterday’s brief weather event.  Snow on the rooftops and on the grass, patches of snow on the road where melting hasn’t occurred from the ice melting concoction that the city spreads.  Two inches or so isn’t enough to get all excited about, so only a few plows have been out with a little bit of snow like this.

However…tomorrow we have a winter storm warning with the possibility of 6-13 inches of snow.  Every child’s dream!  Even as teachers, we do things like shake the snow gourd or wear pajamas inside out, or put a spoon under your pillow (I heard it works ; ) because it’s going to be a Snow Day.  Now for me, since I’m no longer in the classroom, and Monday is not my usual day in the office,  I consider it a wasted snow day.  However, it depends on how MUCH snow we get on Monday because it could affect Tuesday and even Wednesday.  If we’re lucky.  So, after two decades of teaching in Nebraska, Lincoln in particular, here’s what I believe the possibilities of snow days are for this week:

Monday:  For sure no school.  The snow is scheduled to begin at midnight Monday morning, meaning it will have a full 5 hours before they have to make a decision and it’s supposed to snow into Tuesday.  With even just 6 inches, we’ll be off for the day. (Just 6 inches?  I’ve lived in Nebraska too long!)  It won’t affect me, so here’s where we have to look ahead.  Now we look to see when the snow is supposed to end.  

Tuesday:  We’re supposed to get snow and snow showers through @5 a.m. on Tuesday.  The way this city works is that they won’t begin to do much plowing until the majority of snow has finished, so I’m thinking the main roads overnight on Monday going into Tuesday.  If it’s only 6 inches, we still won’t have school because the main roads will be done, but not the neighborhoods. If it’s the 13 inches their projecting, it will take the day at least to get just the main arterials going.  So I say, no school for Tuesday.

Wednesday:  Here’s the tricky one.  I’m going to say, if the snow is on the low end, we’ll have school on Wednesday.  Even if they don’t get to all the neighborhood roads and people have driven on them until they’re a solid sheet of ice, we’ll suck it up and proceed to complain about it all day once we get to work.  But we’ll have made it, even if we slide a few times on the way.  Even if we have to get in “snow traffic mode” and give grace to those who have to continue through red lights because they can’t stop.  I hate those days and I have to drive a lot further this year.  So, here’s hoping we get the whole kit and kaboodle, the 12 or 13 inches which will take Wednesday out of the picture.  Working now at the district office, it would have to be that much to make it a district closure day.  I hope – I’m a newbie at this district gig. 

Thursday:  We’re back regardless. It’s Nebraska and somewhere, a man in shorts is feeling the need to mow his lawn under all that snow.  

Please don’t misunderstand. For me and for most classroom teachers I know, it’s not that we don’t love our kids or the teaching or in my case, loving the teachers.  Most teachers I know love what they do.  However, like anything stressful, whether we love it or not, time away once in a while is healthy.  That’s why some people take “mental health days”.  Not teachers of course, because we would have to make sub plans which is more work than if we just sucked it up and went in, but for some people in other professions, taking a mental health day from a stressful job is great and fills our bucket so we can go back refreshed and ready to tackle whatever comes at us.  But for teachers, not only is a snow day (or two) a mental health break, it means these are days where maybe we CAN’T do anything for work, so we can focus on other things.  Those chores or projects that we haven’t had time to get to because we’re grading papers or creating lesson plans and assessments.  Time with family playing games or doing puzzles.  Having meals together because we’re not rushing off to do some event or sport.  Maybe it’s just sleeping in and reading a good book or two. Or something as simple as having lunch when we get hungry and going to the bathroom when we need to. The lack of job responsibility and freedom of choice is the best type of mental health day we could have.  

For those of you who have no experience within the education profession who are thinking to yourselves, “but they get the whole summer off”, I would be more than glad to educate you on the subject.  About the salaried positions that pay for a 35 hour work week and not the 11 hours overtime per week that research shows, and that we don’t get paid for summer.  Our 9 month paychecks are spread over twelve so that we get a monthly paycheck all year.  

And you know how you might get stressed dealing with your own child or children in the mornings, evenings and weekends?  Imagine 20, 25 or 30 , you can’t leave them alone all day, and try to teach them something they need to remember for a lifetime.  And then return home to your own children for the evenings and weekends.  Shoot, teachers can be superheroes, but we’re not THAT good. Hence, the need for the occasional snow day.

In my case, I have no more children at home and I don’t have a classroom full of little darlings to teach, but there’s something magical, something that brings back my childhood when you get that phone call in the morning telling you it’s a snow day.  The kind of day where you high five your teacher spouse, snuggle back under the blankets and look forward to a day of rest.  So yes, I’m weighing the possibilities.  At my age, I could always use a break : )

To say that life is different these days is an understatement.  So much has changed that it’s hard to remember what life was like before last March.  In my case, as some of you know, I changed jobs.  I went from the craziness of the elementary classroom to the relative calm of a room full of cubicles and adults. Let’s face it, kids say and do the darndest things.  Yes, you’re on a rigid schedule where there is little flexibility, but within the classroom, unexpected, funny things happen.  It’s just what happens when you have a room full of children.  There are times when you can’t help but laugh and others when you can’t do anything but shake your head in disbelief.  But through it all, as a teacher you are to be professional, careful not to say inappropriate things or talk about anything that that children shouldn’t hear.  If you’re talking to a colleague about something funny, but not for children’s ears, you’re careful to speak in hushed tones, away from them.  And you would never hear someone across the room say “bring some beer”.

The department where I work is full of consummate professionals, the hustle and bustle of the work they do is energizing, with multiple conversations going on at once, some in small groups or with a partner across the aisle from you or speaking on a zoom.  But the other day, a voice said out loud, “bring some beer!”.  I immediately looked to make sure there weren’t any children around.  Duh, we’re obviously all adults, but it still took me by surprise.  I quickly figured out it was a zoom meeting because I heard laughter from another closed office, repeating the beer statement.  

Why was this a big deal for me?  After all, it’s an entire floor of professional adults, self-directed, intelligent people doing their jobs who occasionally tell a funny joke or talk about things other than the next professional development session they’re going to provide.  But as someone who was usually the only adult in a classroom with 25 kids all day long, it’s taking a little time to get used to. And quite frankly, it’s funnier to hear a kid say something like “bring some beer”.  I had a kid ask me one time what my favorite beer was.  I had to tell him I don’t like beer, so I didn’t have a favorite.  I’m sure he was crushed.  

 As the eternal introvert, the idea of walking in, saying hi to a few people and sitting at my cubicle to work on projects in whatever order I want, not effected by the behavior of a group of 5-11 year olds is a great thing, something I’m thrilled I’m doing. But there is something about being in that room by yourself with the kids that is both energizing and exhausting.  In the last few years, it was becoming more exhausting than energizing, so despite the fact that I really loved making music with kids, I really began to hate the institution.  It was time to go, maybe going somewhere where I could work to improve the institution.

For whatever reason, I’ve heard from several former students this past week, and it brings bittersweet memories.  I miss them.  But it also gives me a little hope that somewhere I made a bit of a difference in the lives of my students.  That’s the idea, right?  Teachers teach to make a difference.  And now I work with other former classroom teachers to make a difference in the lives of other teachers so that students will have the best of the best in my district.  And once in a while, I suppose I might hear some things said that I would not have said in my classroom.  But if I had, I would have said, “bring some wine”, not beer.

The order had been placed, and I was looking around the new restaurant checking things out.  On the table was a block with a placard placed in it, one side about crab meat and avocado toast, and on the other, a pretty drink called a Purple Haze.  The color immediately caught my attention as purple is my favorite color, but it was the ingredient list that was intriguing – Lemon, Cane Sugar, a Hint of Lavender and Butterfly Pea Flower Tea.  Doug asked me what was in it and I read it to him.  After a moment of hesitation, he said, with a slight question mark at the end, “Butterfly Pee”?  Yes, I said, Butterfly Pea Flower Tea.  Then he began to laugh.  I thought you said Butterfly Pee!”  We laughed even harder as he asked how you would get pee from a butterfly.  If you know Doug, you’re not surprised.

One letter, same sound.  It was one letter difference that changed pea to pee. I don’t know what Butterfly Pea Flower tea is or what it tastes like, but now I want to know.  A funny story, something we had a great laugh over, but it made me think – if it is that easy to misunderstand something with just one letter, imagine how hard it is to understand something much more complex.  And instead of laughing, how often do people get angry over a misinterpretation or misperception based on words?

We’ve recently learned this lesson the hard way.  At least I HOPE we’ve learned.  What people say matters, how people perceive those words matter, what kind of clarification happens (or not) MATTERS.  People tend to hear what they want to hear, they come into conversations or listen to speeches with preconceived notions, with different life experiences.  Different words mean different things to different people.  Some people take phrases as a compliment and some take them as an insult.  This is why we have to be so careful about what we say, how we say it and who we say it to.  

Today we’ve celebrated a man whose actions matched his words.  He is the gold standard.  So many of my friends and colleagues have shared his quotes today, helping us all remember the inspirational words he uttered.  The assumption is that if you post these quotes, you also believe these quotes and if you believe, my assumption, based on my perspective is that your actions must match the words you have shared.  It’s all about educating others, inspiring others, holding ourselves to that higher standard we all strive for.  The man we honor didn’t just speak these words one day a year and do and say whatever he wanted the other 364.  The example is to not only share the words, but LIVE the words.  

Today I also read a story where there is a movement to “de-program” certain people to make them believe what they SHOULD believe.  There is no mention of helping or education or how this might manifest itself, and quite frankly I’m afraid of what this “deprogramming” might look like.  And does condoning something like this begin an avalanche of other “deprogramming” programs?  It’s a scary scenario.  I’m old enough and educated enough that I’ve seen and learned about things like this.  Who is going to make the decisions as to which words will be used?  Who decides what is good or bad, right or wrong?  

Have we gone too far or is there a way to sit down with people we don’t understand or don’t agree with or have preconceived notions about, and try to fix things?  Or are we going to stay in our corners and come out swinging?  Are we afraid we might actually have some things in common with the people we disagree with?  Or are there always going to be impenetrable deal breakers that will never allow dialogue?   Are we going to allow people to continue to believe we were talking about “pee” when we meant “pea”?  Over simplified?  Perhaps.  We all agree that we hate the direction this country is going, but someone has got to have the courage to step up and shift directions before we can go a different way.  Someone has got to step up and say, I’m willing to listen to you explain why you feel the way you do and then I’ll explain to you where I come from and we’ll try to find some common ground.  You might discover it was some fundamental misunderstanding.  Or it was the difference in a word.  Or the spelling of a word.  Or a letter. 

The masks were on down the hallway, onto the elevator and into the garage.  As we approached the car, I immediately took my mask off.  I appreciate the need, but really hate wearing them.  My better half however, instead of taking his mask off, proceeded to loop it around his ears and put the mask on his head, looking like a slightly demented nursemaid with a tiny bonnet on his head.  And I couldn’t. stop. laughing.  It was silly, slightly middle school and I needed that.  Nothing like unexpected humor.

I’m not a funny person.  My kids have always been quick to point out when I actually DO say something funny by exclaiming “mom made a funny!” as though it’s a once in a lifetime event.  I’m under no delusion that I’m the least bit funny, however, I married a guy who makes me laugh all the time.  Sometimes it’s a bad dad joke, a pun, a play on words or some slight physical humor like the mask on his head.  Sometimes it’s timely, sometimes it’s irreverent, inappropriate or dark.  Sometimes it’s too soon.  But it’s always funny.

I appreciate quick intelligent humor, the kind that catches you by surprise, the kind that makes you think, whoa, they actually said that?  The kind that makes my mother-in-love say, “Oh Doug”, in that slightly disapproving way, and then she giggles.  Laughter is food for the soul and for the psyche and in the last 9 months or so, humor has been a godsend.

Lately, is seems humor angers some people.  It comes at seemingly inappropriate time when we’re all supposed to be sad or outraged.  It might seem to make fun of people – or maybe it DOES make fun of people.  I understand sensitivity as I tend to be a sensitive person, but sometimes, we need to let it go and have a bit of a sense of humor, maybe even laughing at ourselves in the process.

According to an article I read recently in Psychology Today, humor keeps us psychologically healthy.  I don’t know about you, but about two to three months into this pandemic, I had no sense of humor, I was stressed and depressed.  Life was miserable.  But, like the blues, sometimes things get so bad, you either have to laugh or cry.  You give in to Murphy’s Law. And some people chose to laugh rather than cry.

Is there ever a time where humor is not appropriate?  Well of course there is, and obviously we have to check out the room.  But I’m reminded of the funeral scene in Steel Magnolias where grief and anger turn to tears and then laughter.  How many funerals have you attended where the stories begin and the tears turn to laughter?  This is not vicious humor, it’s a release. How many times have you witnessed something so ridiculous that you became angry and then began laughing about the ridiculousness of the situation?  Maybe you needed to laugh.

Some people deal with events and situations with humor because it’s their fallback.  It’s hard for them to be serious.  Just like most of us wouldn’t give someone a hard time for crying about something, maybe we should consider not criticizing someone for using humor to deal with something. After all, there is a very fine line between laughter and tears – sometimes we laugh through our tears, and sometimes we cry with laughter.  They’re just that close.

Victor Borge is quoted as saying “Humor is something that thrives between man’s aspirations and his limitations.  There is more logic in humor than in anything else.  Because, you see, humor is truth”.  This may explain why people believe some humor is politically incorrect.  Because humor is truth and sometimes people don’t want to hear truth.  As imperfect human beings, some of whom take themselves too seriously, humor can hit a little too close to home.  We might feel as though we’re not being taken seriously, that we’re being made fun of or someone disagrees with us, or we’re not given the respect we feel we’ve earned.  And for those of us who are a bit insecure, this is incredibly uncomfortable. How to we combat this uncomfortable response?  By taking a good hard look at ourselves, with a bit of humor and understanding the truth about ourselves.

Ever had a caricature done?  They tend to focus on your most prominent features and in my case, the things I’m most self-conscious about – my chubby cheeks, my chipmunk front teeth and my bulby nose.  Great humor can do the same thing.  I’m thinking satire, like  Saturday Night Live, where every gesture, vocal timbre and other features of the people they impersonate is brought to the forefront.  We laugh at it because it’s true!  Just like my chubby checks, it’s what makes me me.  Conan O’Brien’s hair, Cher’s vocal timbre, Joe Biden’s slow speech pattern, all fair game for humor.  We all, including me, may need to lighten up a little bit.  

American humorist Leo Rosten said, “Humor is the affectionate communication of insight”.  It’s the part of you that pays attention to things and people.  You can choose to take those things you notice and the craziness of life very seriously or you can choose to have a sense of humor.  You can choose to give people a hard time about seeing events through the lens of humor, or you can join them in the laughter.  Life is too short.  Don’t laugh at humor.

Please forgive my late response to the events of last evening.  When something of this magnitude happens, it takes a while for me to process and my thoughts go many different directions until the “trigger”.  Someone says or does something or I read something and everything suddenly comes to focus.  Please don’t limit this focus to one silo or another because like most major events, I believe it’s much more complicated than that.  I believe it’s the expectation of every human being that every other human being should think and behave the way they do because… we’re all humans.

But no, you say.  Human beings are unique creatures, no two humans have the same voice or fingerprints.  We encourage people to be their unique selves, to not body shame, to dress the way that makes them feel special, to celebrate their gender and sexuality, to worship as they please, to live as they want.  Until it’s something we don’t agree with. That’s when we put them in a silo and make it an “us vs them” situation.  

As humans, it’s natural for us to make comparisons.  We teach our children to look at opposites – loud/soft, high/low. We ask them to sing their favorite things.  Vanilla vs chocolate mint.  You like chocolate mint?  Me too!  We have something in common!  If someone likes vanilla, there’s obviously something wrong with them, my new friend and I joke.  A harmless comparison and camaraderie we’ve all experienced.  Blue vs purple, round vs square.  It’s all in fun. 

As we mature, the comparisons increase.  Black vs white, gay vs straight, rich vs poor, northern vs southern, Christian vs Muslim, democrat vs republican.  Like we’ve been taught, we look at opposites, and put things into categories.  I think of Sesame Street – “one of these things is not like the other”.  And just like we were as kids, we relate to the people who like what we like and believe as we believe.  It’s comfortable and doesn’t stretch us much.  But most of us don’t resort to violence.  We just choose to hang with people who are most like we are.

Where the problem lies is when as children, you like vanilla and I like chocolate mint and I tell you that you’re stupid because you like vanilla.  Have you ever worked with children?  Something like this usually results in a shouting match with leads to crying or anger, which, if not checked can turn to punching and kicking.  But we outgrow this, right?  I did say at the beginning that humans are – well – human.  We like to think that we outgrow this behavior or have strategies to deal with our perhaps inappropriate feelings.  We can walk away from how someone’s judgement makes us feel or agree to disagree with them.  That would be way too simple.

So much depends on our lived experiences and therefore, our perceptions.  Remember, perception is reality. And for those who perhaps didn’t grow up in the same circumstances you did, sadness and anger are real.  It doesn’t take much to set something off.  Ever been abused? It changes the way you think and how you react. We know we’re unique human beings with unique life experiences, and yet we STILL expect people to just think and react the way we think and act.

As you’ve read this, you’ve probably already placed me within a silo.  You’ve taken a complicated human being, made comparisons, and made an instant judgement as to where my alliances lie.  But you’ve never thought to ask me WHY I believe these things.  You’ve never asked about my upbringing, my parents, my life experiences, my hardships and my sorrows.  You don’t know what scares me, what my insecurities are or what I’m proud of.  You don’t know how I’ve struggled to change the person I could have been into the person I want to be.  Because change is a process, it is change of habit, it is growth.  I am not the person I was 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago.  Part of it is the people I’ve chosen to surround myself with, part is choosing to not follow the path my early life set me up to travel.  I’m fortunate.  Not everyone is.

There are so many who are under the false assumption that if the year would just change numbers, if the right person was in office, if you reacted the way I expected you to on social media, if you responded the way I would respond, that everything would get better and yet we have still not asked WHY.  We will not begin to heal as a family, as a community, as a state, as a nation until we have difficult conversations with people who think and behave and live differently from us and genuinely ask them WHY they think and behave the way they do and try to understand rather than tell them they’re wrong.  We also have to look at ourselves and figure out WHY we feel the way we do about people who think and behave differently.  It’s called building relationships.

So as I think about the events of last night, I’m not trying to get all kum bah ya on you and have you believe that if we would just begin some hard conversations without judgement, the world would immediately be a better place.  That would be too simplistic.  It takes a long time to build  trust with people when they’ve been told they’re stupid or too sensitive because they like vanilla and not chocolate mint or vice versa.  Told over and over and over again, only to dig in their heels, never wanting to have dialogue with you. I don’t care what side you’re on.  Just please be you. And I’ll be me. And let’s get back to being proud of who we are as a united nation, not a divided one.