Invisible People

I went through the drive through at McDonald's on the way to work today. I got my standard breakfast of champions. Cindy was in the window as she is most mornings. I try very hard to exchange polite greetings with her through my sleep deprived state.

Sometimes we engage briefly. When the line is long or people are taking too much time, she tells me to have a great day and continues her work.

I can imagine that her job is filled with grumpy coffee cravers who pay her no mind. She is a means to an end rather than a person  with needs and dreams. I wonder if she feels invisible........ like nobody really sees her in that window. They just want coffee and egg sandwiches as quickly as possible.

Today was different. There was no line. So when I asked her if she had a good holiday, I learned more about Cindy than I ever thought possible. She told me about her children, their partners, and her grandchildren.

Some of them live with her. They were all together for Christmas in rather close quarters. All her grandchildren are under the age of 8. One of her sons  has partial custody of his children.  Her son's fiance doesn't like her much. She has no idea why. She wishes that she made enough money to put her grandchildren in nice preschools. In spite of that,  she thinks the kids do OK anyway.

I probably listened to her for 7-8 minutes until we the saw the bag with my burrito in it being impatiently flagged out the pick up window. She stopped talking for a second, thanked me for asking, and told me to have a great day like she always does. What I noticed was how excited Cindy was for getting to share 7 minutes of her life with someone she barely knows but who was willing to listen. The thing is that it really was my pleasure to talk to her. She is still in the window at the drive through and now I know her. Visible!! And she knows me! Visible!

We all know what it's like to feel invisible, dismissed by someone we care about, unheard by a boss, uninvited by a peer, disconnected from our neighbors, ignored when you need help the most. Deny it if you like, and I would be shocked to find one human being who can say they have never felt invisible.

Are we not all striving to be visible?  In this quest, we forget the other invisibles around us. If we all lived our lives in a such a manner that nobody was ever invisible to us, what would that look like? What would the world be like if we all connected? Would that make us more visible to others? Conduct your own experiment. Tell the world what happens.

Dear Mr. Claus:

I don't really remember writing a letter to Santa Claus. I suppose I did it once. These days by the time most kids can write, the secret is out. I recall making lists of things I wanted and at least pretending to ask Santa for those things. Sometimes I got what I requested, sometimes I didn't. My parents did the best they could to make Christmas fun for my sisters and me.

If there really was a magical Santa Claus, this is what I would write to him:

Dear Mr. Claus,

I apologize for my lack of communication over the last 40 years. Somebody told me you weren't real, and unfortunately for both of us, I believed it to be true. I have since discovered that reality is mostly made up. So I am choosing a new path for this relationship, a path paved in belief and completely NOT contingent on truth.

I suppose I could  say I have been good this year;  however, the definition of "good" is rather subjective. What qualifies as good? If I behave well on the outside, and in my head and heart have no love for anyone or anything, was I good or bad?   To be honest, I rarely make my bed or vacuum the carpet which could be construed as being bad.  I think you might like to give some thought to how you define "good".  The fact is that I have done my dead level best to be responsible, and whether or not I have been good I can't really define. Have you thought about sending out some guidelines?

As a child, asking for what I wanted was easy. I had no idea what disappointment was, and I believed I deserved everything I wanted. All grown up, it's not so easy to ask. The voice in my head talks me out of deserving or expecting anything. Today, I won't let that voice win. My requests follow.

1.I have a friend that needs a kidney. I would give one up for her and  I can't qualify. I understand the ramifications of this request, the whole circle of life thing. I get that. So I rely on your magic more than science. I want my friend to live a really long time. She deserves it and so does the world she impacts. Maybe you could spare one yourself?

2. Please, make it possible for me to see my family more often. I miss them sometimes. Especially this time of year. Not too often, mind you, just enough for me not to feel like a foreigner. Maybe you loan me your transportation system a few times a year?

3. Can you please make it stop raining in the kitchen? I would love a roof that works. It doesn't have to be brand new. I would be super satisfied with a gently used roof as long as it didn't leak.

 4. Lastly I ask for a big dose of hope. In fact, if you can make that happen, I would forego the other stuff. Sometimes, I  have a hard time manufacturing it for myself. So having some in reserve would be so useful. I don't care how you package it or what it tastes like. If it's a pill I would swallow it or a drink I would gulp it up. Maybe, it could be something I wear or carry around in my sock.  And when life gets insane,  in that minute when I think there is none, I could just take a little of it with a side of Oreos and keep moving.

Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to read my letter. May your deliveries go well this year. And if you need anything, please let me know. I am a great cook and can leave out much more than cookies and milk.

Sincerely,
Laura

P.S. The dogs will bark.  Throw them some biscuits that I will leave by the door and  they will shut up and love you.

2013, Sonic, Casey (RIP) , Pi

2014 , Pi 

2015, Sonic and Pi

Thank You Ms. McFarland ... Where ever you are.......

My high school English teacher was a tough cookie. The rumor was that Ms. McFarland never gave anyone an A. I was not the exception to this rule. I scored a few A's on some papers but overall, even super students like myself failed to win over Ms.McFarland.

Ms. McFarland's commitment was that nobody left her Sr. English class without the ability to put a few paragraphs together without sounding like an idiot. She forced a group of "so done" high school Sr.class to read the worst classic literature ever written and vomit up analytical papers on the significance of such loathed literature. As a student, it never occurred to me why in the world she would have us read Barn Burning, A Rose for Emily, The Cask of Amontillado, or the ever horrid Fall of the House of Usher.  Why, oh why, Ms. McFarland would you have innocent high school kids read this stuff? I could not have cared less about Abner Snopes' outcomes or Fortunato's fate.

I hear her rantings about spelling and punctuation in my sleep sometimes. 

"There is A RAT is separate!!" she would declare. I never misspell this word. 

"A lot is two words, people, not one. " She would scrawl it on the chalkboard in giant letters. 

A  LOT

"Semi-colons and colons are not the same!! Colons are for lists. Lists, people, lists."

In spite of her scowls over the top of her of glasses, I liked her. She taught me to read unusual styles of writing with a critical slant, to embrace the English vocabulary, and to write without looking like an idiot. While my peers struggled through English 101, I thought it was a cake walk because Ms. McFarland had already taught me what I needed to know to survive. As a bonus, I got a great love for reading and writing!

I propose a year end toast to the teachers in our lives who gave us a skill or two which keep us from looking like idiots. And another toast for instilling in you something you love.

Thanks Ms. McFarland.......... where ever you are!!
lw

For some of you younger readers who have yet to suffer through this literature, I added some links for your informational pleasure.
Abner Snopes
A Rose for Emily
Cask of Amontadillo
House of Usher

Granny Was Not a Great Cook

It's been a while since I posted. I decided to share a story that I  wrote in the birthday card of good friend recently. It's a grandmother story, and who doesn't love a grandmother story?

My grandmother, who I called Granny, lived in West Virginia while I was being raised in Texas. As a result, I didn't see her often.  A few weeks vacation every summer until I was a teen and maybe another week around some holiday was what there was. 

We didn't have cell phones or e-mail back then.  A few expensive long distance calls were allowed around birthdays and holiday. So we didn't talk often and I don't feel like she knew me very well. In spite of this, upon arrival, my Granny would hug me and mutter something about how big I was getting (until I was too old to tolerate that) . Sometimes she would grab my face and kiss me on the head ( again until I was too old to tolerate it.) 

While I didn't get a ton of time with Granny, from the little time we had, three things became apparent:

1. Granny's cooking was awful. We were happy for the store cookies or a box mac and cheese.

2. Her Christmas gifts were sometimes shocking. When I was really young I would get upset about the terrible gifts I got, thinking Granny must not like me much. My mother would smooth it over by explaining that Granny didn't know me that well or that she sometimes forgot how old I was. By the time I was a teen, our family competed to see who could get the worst Granny gift.

3. She loved me. Even though she didn't know me that well, I was FAM, so I got loved in automatically. It was done deal....... even when I was a cranky teen. Didn't matter. Loved in automatically.

One time my Granny mentioned to me something about her pastor. She was quite complimentary of him as he had be generous to her family in some times of great stress. I don't remember the situation really only that she had said that she was "beholdin" to Pastor for his help when Grandpa was ill or something. I had not heard the word beholdin' . It was not a word that we used in Texas. Maybe it was a West Virginia word. Anyhow, I asked her what it meant. She told me it was being really grateful combined with  "I owe you one." She said the key was that the person you "owed one" would never see it that way. That person just did what they did. Maybe they thought they were doing something good or needed or just the right thing. It didn't matter why to her.  

If you are really lucky you will have at least one friend in your lifetime that gets loved in automatically like FAM, even if......... Oh it doesn't matter. Maybe that friend will have changed your world somehow and your grateful heart will leave you beholdin' to them. Take heart is knowing that your friend probably doesn't see it that way. `

Lucky me! I have more than one person like this in my life. They know who they are. 

lw