Who Are You?

Have you ever wanted to change your name?  Redefine who you are to the world?  It's not as simple as one would think.

In one of my graduate psychology courses, we explore who we are in relation to others.    My astute professor was not going to let me off easy.

She asks:
Do you prefer Pat or Patricia?  We'll find out just in time before group is over.  I think we really should be called by our "true name", whatever we wish that to be.

I think to myself:
My God, it's worse than she thinks.  She doesn't even know about Patty.

I answer:

So wise you are, that we should be called by our "true name". I'm finding mine.

    For the first 35 years of my life, I was Patty.  When I started a new job in 1985, I felt that "Patty" was far too diminutive for my level of maturity. It stuck to my tongue like taffy when I said it with my last name.  I became "Pat Mothner".  This carried me into my career-climbing stage.  Then, in 2012, when I entered graduate school in psychology, I was seeking a new beginning.  I had separated from my husband, but kept my last name -- my family remained so much a part of me.  However, I was in a process of redefining who I was. This was my chance to introduce myself differently.  

So, now I have old friends who would still call me Patty. I have my newer friends and professional friends calling me Pat.  I have graduate school friends knowing me as Patricia.  I am different things to different people.  (So much for integration!)

But sometimes we forget who we are trying to be.  We forget once to edit our automatic email signatures, or we slip during an introduction.  Somehow, my other name surfaced. The past always reenters the stage, no matter how good the set design.   It's like a liar finding it hard to keep his stories straight. Well, I certainly want to get my story straight.  I certainly do need a name, one name, that is me.  

The truth is, I don't know who I am really --Patty, Pat or Patricia.  "Patty" is sweet and earnest. " Pat" is competent and nurturant.  I've already been Patty; I've certainly established myself as a "Pat". But -- how I would like to become "Patricia"!  "Patricia" is creative, expressive, gracefully mature, spiritual and passionate.  I'm not there yet.  I am still Patty, and  I am still Pat.  I'm becoming Patricia.

You're right to ask me about my name.  We can learn a load of facts, but the one thing we really need to know is who we are.   

Sincerely,

P Mothner

Valentine Advice

       Have you ever noticed how the traditional gifts on Valentine's Day don't last?  Flowers die within days.  Candy is consumed, or melts, or is thrown away in a virtuous act of guilty avoidance.  Consider the attempts to hang on to these gifts.  What is less romantic than frozen candy?

     Consider the endurance of Valentine cards.  How many Valentines have you kept over the years?  How did you decide to keep that special one, or two?  Starting in grade school, Valentine cards have been counted, and tossed.  Their life in the cubbyholes of our bedrooms are generally shorter-lived than that bag of Halloween candy.  How different is it now?  How will you make your "valentine" to your loved one different this year from all others?

     If we want our love to last, we should definitely avoid durable goods on Valentine's Day.  ( If you have already bought you wife a washing machine for Valentine's Day, consider bestowing it upon her on Groundhog Day instead.)  I would even go so far as to say, avoid anything at all that is returnable.

     If we want our love to last,  we must find something that doesn't last, and cannot be exchanged for something else.  Something that is fresh, fleeting, ephemeral, delivered with whimsy and enjoyed spontaneously.   Something that must be reinvented anew each year.  Something that keeps our dearest wondering, "What is around the next corner?"

     Thinking of initiating a panicked online search or a frenzied shopping expedition?  Don't.   It may not exist in a store, not even a virtual store. Instead, look within.  Easy?  No.  Scary?  (You may now even be tempted now to rush out with the throngs and buy that candy and devour it yourself.)  Is lasting love easy?  No.  Is staying young at heart easy?  No.  No. No. No.  But say "Yes" anyway.

     You need no purchase as you approach your love on Valentine's Day.  It is about what you carry in your heart, that speaks of the moment, felt in that moment.  It is about giving the great gift of time and undivided attention, those precious commodities so hard to find and impossible to buy.  It means honoring that  young, free, ageless spirit.  It means cherishing the nuanced feelings that cannot be contained in a heart-shaped box.   It is about dipping deeply into the well, and sharing the eternal waters.  Splashing, sprinkling, showering, or tidal-waving -- your style, your moment to create . . . a water dance of the soul.

     And . . . a few flowers to go along with it all are never a bad idea.
 

The Power of YOU

     Don't underestimate the Power of YOU.  I'm back.
     I'm back after an extended Leave of Absence.   I left in an absence of hope, inspiration, or joy.  I had to go.   This blog is all about finding the joy, the wonder and the amusement in life.  I couldn't find it.  I couldn't write it.  I couldn't give it.   My readers could no longer find those weekly lifts, and so they left, too.  We were all gone, dear and departed.
      But words endure, and nowadays rest in peace somewhere in the ether.  My missives remained posted inspite of my silence,  and some of you found them.  Some of you found them uplifting, still, as they were frozen in time.  If it is real, if it is genuine, if it catches some truth in its lines, it will somehow still be found.  It will somehow still be read, and it will live.
     We, too, still live -- even through troubled times.  When we awake from our nightmares, gasping for breath, we know we are alive.  We breathe.  We open our eyes.  We face the day.  We find a blog with a byline that says, "Life teaches those with open eyes."  We know there is a reason for things.
     I'm back because of YOU.  I'm  back because one of YOU found this blogsite, read the words here, and felt something.  Call it inspiration.  Call it reconnection.  I call it intuitive.  This reader was someone I knew in a previous lifetime, not so very long ago.  It was a time that seemed perfect.  It was a time when I had a previous job, a previous career, a previous husband and only the distant rumblings that there was more to me that what appeared  and more of life that must be lived.  This reader didn't just read. This reader felt and believed in what she felt.  This reader lifted the phone and called me.  She told me how beautiful my words were.  It was her words that were truly beautiful, don't you see?
     How did she know it was the perfect time to lift up the phone?  She had no way of knowing that a reconnection was exactly what this writer needed on exactly this day.  She could not have known that I had just experienced a wrenching loss of friendship at one of those points in life when you need a friend more than ever.  But she knew something, and she lifted the phone.  
     I pulled over to the side of the road to take that call.  I came home, fired up my computer and found my own blog again.   I began to write --  for the first time in a long time.
     If you have greeted me here today, you too must have awoken to a curiosity about life and people, a search for the names for the nuances of life,  a quest of some sort.  We all seek the narrative that tells a little piece of our own story.
     What you must know, is that I am here because of you.  I am here because someone was seeking.  I am here because I am seeking, too.
     Don't underestimate the power of your words.  How often do we let things go unsaid? How often do we have a fleeting intuitive response, a knowledge that comes to us from we know not where?  Too often we kill our own inspiration before it forms on our lips.  We jump to our task list or hop into our car to go somewhere unimportant. Instead, I urge you to pay attention.  When someone inspires you, it is a treasure.   Don't bury it.    Walk up and introduce yourself.  Write that comment.  Send that note.  Lift that phone.  When the words tumble in your head, let them flow.  Little do you know at the time your profound and rippling effect.

A Good Dog Life

Cody
May 17, 1995 – May 8, 2011


You were always there when we came home, smack against the front door, so we had to slide you over and slip in sideways.

You were always there when dinner was served, right at our feet, alert for any fumbled morsel.

You were always there in the kitchen when we were doing your favorite thing, preparing food, and you were doing your favorite thing, tracking food. There you were, a large, furry lump that we would goose-step over as we went from refrigerator to sink.

You were always there, building fond memories for us, one dog day at a time.

You came to us as a round, fuzzy double-handful of puppy love. Your little legs could barely pull your round tummy up the front step. Your arrival was the result of the most mature decision your girl, age ten, had ever made in her life. She promised to take care of you. And she did. In turn, the whole family did their part. In many ways, you brought us closer and grew us wiser.

For years, you slept on your boy’s bed, with your hind legs and front legs stretched out straight. But as you grew, you took up most of the bed. Your boy, too, had grown. But he still slept around you, squished onto a sliver of the bed.

When your boy went away to college, you would go up to bed with Mom and Dad, sleeping on the floor so close that if we got up during the night you would know, because we would step on you. You never minded.

You were one of the few dogs with an imaginary playmate. We called her Tinkerbell. She would appear when the sun glinted off a wristwatch and she would dance on the ground. You would spot her shimmery image, and leap and lunge and bite thin air. You never minded that you could never catch her. We became your gods after the sun went down, when we turned on our flashlight and summoned her back.

We never thought you were the smartest dog on the block, but you had an uncanny sense of gamesmanship. Do you remember the stare game? We would lock eyes, without either one moving a muscle, to see who would break first. Then, at the first flinch or flicker of an eyelid, your tail would wag and the chase was on, circuiting around the couch or looping through the rooms of the house.

You had a beautiful howl. You would hear a siren, lift your chin, eyes to the sky, and let out a mournful, wild and soaring howl. Dog song. It was pure canine music.

As in all good lives, you had some once-in-a-lifetime experiences. One autumn day, the whole family loaded into the car and went to a beautiful park. Mother, father, daughter, son and dog clustered and posed for Suzie’s camera. Every time, you would get so excited about the camera, you would break the scene and bound forward. Finally, we temporarily gave up, and it was the luckiest moment of your life. You spotted a treasure, a huge beef bone. God knows how or why it got there. One lunge and you possessed it. Horrified by all the festering bacteria invading your mouth, not to mention the unseemliness of a family picture with a gruesome bone hanging out of your mouth, the whole family chased after you in hot pursuit. What fun! This was a high-“steaks” game of tag and you were up for it. We all raced around the park, and finally outsmarted you with a rear flank maneuver. But you still had the upper paw. With a primal growl, you put every ounce of your energy into your big jaws, and locked your jaws tight around that carnal pleasure. It took two adults and a strong teenager to pry that bone out of your mouth. Never mind that you didn’t get to keep that raunchy thing. You had had the thrill of your life.

You were in your glory when you were naughty, and somehow I love you for this, too. AWOL was your other favorite game. You would see your chance when a back was turned or a door left open, and off you would trot, down the street, around the corner, and to see your dog friend, Woody. Long after Woody had passed away, you would still go and sit by his gate. You made many neighborhood friends that way, who would keep you safe and call the numbers on your tag. Except for one day. It was a rainy day, which made the manure on the neighbor’s lawn all the more aromatic. Oh, how you rolled and rolled and relished the pungent odor. It was earthy heaven. Then Animal Control spoiled the fun. For hours, you performed a public service by residing in all your smelly glory in the jail cell adjacent to a slightly intoxicated law-breaker. Once he came to his olfactory senses, that fellow was probably reformed by nightfall. You never lost your wanderlust, even when you were over a hundred dog years old.

In your golden years, you found doggie love. It happened the day Daisy bounded through the door. Daisy, the prettiest little golden you’d ever want to see. Someone to eat with, flank by flank. Someone to lie down with in the afternoon sun. Someone to butt shoulders with and mouth on the neck. Someone who was never far away. This was simple bliss.

So, Cody, you’ve had a good dog life. You have watched children grow into adults, and you have watched two adults progress all the way through their middle age. These have been good years for you and good years for us.

You have been there for us every time we have opened the front door, every time we have gone to bed, or made coffee in the morning. You have been with us when we have been sad, and with us when we have been happy. You have known it all.

We are here for you today. You have us lie down next to. You have us to rub your neck and smooth your ears. You will drift off in deep peace today. You have lived a good dog life.

Thirteen Things I Want to Remember

Over ten years of knowing her, my friend Beth taught me many things by example. Here are a few that I hope never to forget.

Thirteen Things Beth Taught Me . . .

1. Be real. You will get the “real” back from people.
2. Make fun. It is different from expecting to have fun.
3. Play games.
4. Greet each day. Greet the people in your day.
5. Find something funny and get silly with it. Collect smiles.
6. Find something interesting and run with it. Take someone along.
7. Learn to take a week to eat one chocolate bar.
8. Care about what you do.
9. Love your work but love yourself more.
10. Indulge in your favorite color. Put it everywhere.
11. Read literature, write poetry, sing, dance, and make music. Teach others.
12. Buy your grandchildren matching pajamas and have pajama parades.
13. Believe in yourself. It helps those around you believe in themselves.


Beth died last Monday. She was 64 years old. Her resiliency and spirit was evident during her first bout with breast cancer at age 42. While coping with divorce and raising five children with few funds,she determined to finish her B.A, and went on to earn a master's degree.M.A. She launched her career as an educator, and saw to it that each of her five children got their college degrees, too.

She triumphed over her second bout with cancer, and her first two grandchildren were born. Four years ago, she had a third recurrence of cancer. Although she came close to losing that battle, she emerged cancer-free. Three more grandchildren came into her life, two on the same day! What a happy day that was. It was a day we had feared she wouldn't have.

The score then was Beth - 3, Cancer - 0. She was a winner. Then, this fourth and final time, she brought to the process all the wisdom and patience in her power. You could see and feel that power.

One could say she did not win this one. Or, one could say she surely did. Who would not consider a score of 3 to 1 a winning score. And who could say that gleaning an additional 24 years of life is not indeed a triumph and a gift? Surely Beth would see it as a win. It takes a certain kind of grace to know this. Beth had that kind of grace.

Ostrich Burger

It all started with an ostrich burger.

In the high desert, amidst miles of Joshua trees, dry washes, scrub grasses and sand, streets turn into roads, roads fade into trails, sign posts become sparse, and you quickly think you are far away from home. Just in the very fact of being there, you have taken the road less traveled.

Last week, it was work that took me there, to a small town, deep in the Antelope Valley, with the charming name of Pearblossom. It was noontime now, and my afternoon was free until my return in the morning to observing classrooms and talking educational jargon with intelligent administrators.

MacDonalds reared its yellow arches up ahead on the Pearblossom Highway. No, not MacDonald’s, not today. The sky is too blue, and the snow is white on the distant mountains. No, today it must be something more authentically indigenous. Charlie Brown’s, touting fresh picked peaches, buffalo steak, date shakes, exotic game meats and . . . ostrich burgers. Within 15 minutes, I had ordered an ostrich burger and sweet potato fries, changed out of my pantsuit and pumps and into my jeans and plaid shirt, and was settling onto a sunny picnic table in the middle of a tiny, fake, wild west ghost town. I took my first bite of ostrich burger.

I don’t know how the fella at the next table knew it was an ostrich burger. It looked as tame as a burger of beef. “How’s that ostrich burger?”

“It’s quite good. Lean, mild, almost like turkey. I like it.” “It’s my first time trying one,” I added needlessly.

“I’ll have to give it a go next time. My buddy and I, looks like we had too big a breakfast up at the top.”

“At the top? Of what?”

“The mountains. We rode our bikes down. Do that every once in awhile. We live up in Wrightwood.”

“Bikes? How on earth do you get back up?” I put down the ostrich burger.

“Motorcycles, dear lady.”

“Oh, of course. How far away is it from here?”

“Just about thirty minutes.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Those mountains looked huge, and distant.

I quickly calculated a comparison to my intended drive to Palmdale for the night. Visions of pine trees danced through my head.

Within fifteen minutes, I was on the road going in the opposite direction. Within half an hour, I was at 4,000 feet, noticing patches of snow. Ten minutes later I was at 7,000 feet, in the town of Wrightwood. I reeled out of the car, drinking deep, bracing breaths of mountain air, my eyes lifting a hundred feet up to catch the tops of pines that brushed the sky blue.

I started to walk -- I didn’t know where and I didn’t care. I was in a place I didn’t expect to be, and it was glorious. An hour later, I had walked all the streets named after birds, and all the perpendicular streets named after trees. I was near the edge of town, when a fluffy little white dog tumbled off a front porch and gamboled up to me and started licking my hand. A man got up from a wicker porch chair, laughing and apologizing, and we exchanged the usual greetings that occur when one’s dog has just shared intimacies with a stranger.

We chatted on, as the shadows lengthened.

“So, where do you recommend someone stay here in Wrightwood?”

“I have the perfect place. I’ll show you.”

In another half an hour I had met his wife, written a personal check, and Iwas installed for the night in a cozy little apartment over the detached garage.

I sank into a leather couch, opened my laptop, and buried my head into curriculum analysis. When I emerged, I was ready for the meeting tomorrow and ready for something else, though I didn’t have the foggiest idea what. I hopped into the car, wrapped myself in two sweaters, and drove down the road called Pine.

Three minutes later, I was drinking a glass of Merlot at a little wooden table in a little rough-wood-paneled coffee shop. Packed into the corner were two guitar players, a bass player, a keyboard player ,dreadlock-bedecked drummer and a tambourine man.

The singer’s name was Gale and she had a clear, true voice and she smiled as she sang. She was singing all the songs I loved when I was in my twenties. One by one, the locals showed up, greeted each other and settled in. After a bit, they started introducing me, too. I was swept up by the natural friendliness and abandoned my usual reserve. Sure felt good, by golly, sure did.

At a pause in the songs, we all trooped up wooden stairs to the singer’s new studio, where sunlight shone in the daytime and moonlight shone at night, through the windows wide and high, onto the drafting tables with paintings held in suspense. Everyone mingled, and milled, and mulled over the possibilities of watercolor classes in May, acrylics classes in June, and starting life anew in a redwood loft.

Then we all trooped back down the stairs, and settled into our chairs. The drummer from Chicago, the school teacher-turned-artist, the newcomers, the old-timers, the several woman clinking glasses and proclaiming their success in forgetting their lost loves, the few men drifting on memories of youth, and the husband and the wife producing sandwiches, pouring wine, and forgetting to tally the bills.

Gale told the story behind a song she had written about her retirement from teaching, just a few months before. It was called The Time of My Life. When she sang, the story of the wild, fast ride up the mountain, on the back of a Harley, with her hair and her spirit flying, not knowing what her future was going to bring. somehow it felt like the time of my life.

The song ended, and I heard my own voice blurt out, “Oh, yeah, you go girl!” Everyone’s glass was raised with my words, and the room clinked.

“So, how long have you lived here, Pat?”

“Me? Oh, I just got here today.”

“Today? This is your first day here? Well, let’s all give Pat a big welcome to Wrightwood!“

“Where do you live?” I think they expected me to name one of those bird streets.

“Oh, I live in Manhattan Beach. I came here on a whim.” A dozen faces were looking at me with incredulity.

“Well, see, It all stared with an ostrich burger.“ And so I began to tell my story.

The Pad

I went disguised as a writer. I was carrying glasses, laptop, pens, and a yellow tablet. If I put on my reading glasses, I might be convincing. I had found the red brick building, deep in the mysterious industrial zone of downtown L.A. It had no door. It had a gate, which rolled open if you said the right thing, to the right person, after pushing the right button. Aha! I gained entrance. Three flights up the fire escape, and I was in. The Writing Pad.

The door opened to shoes. Many shoes. Bare feet evidently enhanced either the experience or the shine on the blond hardwood floor. I sidled my Sketchers up against a masculine pair of New Balance. The floor was smooth, cool and clean on my feet. I stepped in.

Just past the white bed,on the left, a computer hutch and stacks of books defined a work area. To the right, a rectangle aburst with sunlight shining through gauzy curtains defined a mysterious space, with a couch.

I was immediately drawn to this veiled and lighted space, curious to know what mystical acts were performed in there that required more care in privacy than the bed. A peak revealed vaulting floor-to-ceiling windows and, yes, a couch. Then, the answer: Huge canvases asplash with colors, all colors, bold colors, bold shapes. Multiple easels and stacked canvases. A place to worship to the artistic process and nature’s sunlight.

Beyond, working towards more huge windows, were couches and chairs, a fireplace, and about a dozen people lounging everywhere, on the couches, on the chairs, on cushions, on the floor. Everyone was barefoot, and had something to write with and something to write on. In a corner kitchen, the hosts shared their morning coffee. Kindred spirits, surely.

So here I was amidst writers, not knowing quite how I got there, nor what I was going to do. I was in another world, in an artist’s loft. The building used to be a mattress factory, and yet here now were fifty artists creating art -- and me.

This space was everything. It defied norms, boundaries and separations. It was workplace and bedroom merged. It housed both a private life and a public life. All was skylit. Walls did not exist. Everything was movable. Chairs glided, the bookshelves rolled, cabinets shifted.

Here was a place where minds could change, hearts could roam, and spirits could investigate. And here I was. And so, there was just one thing to do. I began to write.