Nat

Last night, while my wife was inside a restaurant with friends, someone broke the window of her car and stole her briefcase. All it contained was her paycheck and documents she needs for her job, including two notebooks of handwritten notes for opinions she had to write. They were one of a kind originals, with no copies. Recreating them from memory would have been nearly impossible.

Local police spent the night looking for the briefcase, and my wife spent several hours trying to figure out what to do about the loss. She and I both said a prayer that, somehow, they would be safely returned. This morning, Sarah got up early to drive around some more looking and then drove to the auto glass shop, where the very nice technicians not only replaced her window by 10:30 a.m., but they even cleaned up every trace of broken glass and disturbance.

While she was on her way home, I received a phone call at the house from a gentleman who lives 3 miles from the restaurant. He told me that he walked his dog this morning near a highway overpass and happened to see some papers loose. When he looked more closely, he saw my wife’s briefcase and decided that it looked important. Carefully, he gathered up all the materials from the underbrush and cleaned them off. Finding only a business card and not wanting to keep my wife waiting till Monday, he rummaged around until he found a receipt from the car dealership, which my wife had stuffed in an outer pocket of the bag.

He called the dealership, told the story, and convinced them to give him our home number. I was able to call my wife with his address, and within 15 minutes, she had arrived at his house and retrieved everything in her bag except one cell phone charger. Everything of importance was there: all her notes, client papers, her paycheck, and a document containing our child’s name, address, and date of birth. Mike, the good samaritan, apologized over and over for going through her things to figure out how to contact Sarah. She assured him repeatedly that it was the best thing he could have done to make her happy.

On her way home, she told the wonderful police department that we had recovered everything. Then she headed to the bank, where she deposited her check in perfect time for me to pay some bills that are due this week.

All of this happened in 11 hours. Her faith in humanity has been completely restored. We all feel grateful. It’s a beautiful thing.

I’m still absorbing the impact of President Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday. It is hard for me to explain why it has made me so ecstatic. Of course it feels great to know that the candidate for whom I voted has become president, but I think there is more going on.

Many, many people have written and spoken about the historic significance of our having elected the first African-American president. They have said, and rightly so, that all Americans can now feel that race doesn’t have to be a barrier to achievement in this country, that we are collectively moving beyond our shameful past of discrimination. Watching the faces of many African-Americans who attended the inauguration, it was easy to see the joy people felt in seeing this color barrier fall. Many people interviewed said they never expected to see this in their lifetimes.

I guess, finally, what makes me so happy for us as a country is this: we are capable of surprising ourselves by being better than we thought we were. Millions upon millions of Americans have proved that the old hatreds, so much a part of our national history, can be put down.

There’s a hymn I really love, which opens like this, “A glorious day is dawning,/And o’er the waking earth/The heralds of the morning/Are springing into birth.”

What a glorious new morning. I am filled with hope.

Monday holidays are a super invention. I have felt for a long time that 3-day weekends are the perfect length to rest up for the work week. You get an extra day’s sleep without an early alarm; you have time to run errands, relax, and do projects; and you know that the rest of the week is a short one.

Mainly, the long weekends helps me focus on having fun and getting things done. But, there is also the holiday itself. In the case of Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday, we get the chance to remember the life and contribution of a man who inspired other people to change our society.

This new year, I am looking all over for inspiration, especially the kind that pushes me closer to a life that makes a difference. For some reason 2009 already feels like a year in which we can all make a difference, starting with our new president and the belief that he and his team will be able to help turn some of our problems around.

Inspiration and hope go hand in hand for me. I’m feeling hopeful, and that has made me feel ready: ready to write, ready to help my friends, ready to make a difference. MLK made a difference. Barack Obama is ready to make a difference.

Why not us? Why not me?

It’s easy to complain about the cold (we’ve been down to -18F in Chicago today). But, I just read in the New York Times that the canals have frozen in the Netherlands for the first time in 12 years. This is a very big deal for the Dutch, who think of skating, according to the story, as “part of our soul.”

I’m thrilled for the Dutch, who have rushed out by the hundreds of thousands to skate on the canals, an old national tradition. Older Dutch are euphoric to relive their childhood memories. For many children, of course, this is a new experience. I imagine how happy, how full of wonder and surprise they must be to see their parents and their grandparents bursting with childlike excitement. How great to learn to be a child from your elders.

Just this morning I told friends that I have never really minded the bitter cold, at least on a sunny day, but that I don’t love it as much since I stopped having the chance to skate outside. And now I’m reading about a country able to skate outside, in spite of water pollution, in spite of global warming.

Can’t you imagine it, the wind pushing freezing tears from the corners of your eyes, your skates ripping into the hard, rough ice, the warmth returning to your feet in your skates as you work your legs and arms. If you are lucky, you hold a small child in front of you with both hands, feeling him feel the ice, the startling lack of friction and weight, as you glide untethered away from shore.

God bless winter.

Kathleen Norris’s book “Acedia & me”contains this fascinating sentence, “The goal of ancient and contemporary methods alike [to attack depression and sadness ] is to break the vicious cycle of persistent thoughts” [p. 151]. She is writing a chapter on the usefulness of meditation to disrupt unhealthy thought patterns.

I have meditated on and off since I was 20. I’m in an off-cycle now, and it’s a shame. It’s like being in a period where you are out of shape. You remember what it felt like to take care of yourself, and you wonder when you will get back to it. The restorative power of meditation is that strong. It takes you out of the patterns your own mind uses to make you feel bad.

Norris notes that persistent thoughts–which are usually negative–likely harm you if they aren’t disrupted. I was great at that today. I just couldn’t stay serious, even when my boss looked stressed and frustrated, and I was worried about her. It is getting easier to remember to find something to laugh or smile at or to think of some worthy goal.

Today that was working for me. No bad thought stuck around too long. One of my friends finished a huge project, which her entire department pulled together to do with precision and excellence. It has been a long road for them, almost two months, and they are relieved it’s over and thrilled that everyone thinks they have done so well. I couldn’t stay worried long. There was too much to celebrate.

I used to dread heading home from vacation. The pressures of daily life just seemed far too heavy to enjoy. But I’m ready to go home today, and not only because we will be back in Palm Desert in February for a week. We just packed in so many great experiences to the last 6 days that it will be fun to head home and share them with our family and friends.

My stepdaughter’s hockey team played really well and nearly won their tournament pool. More importantly, though, they worked well together and treated each other and the parents on the trip really well. They were friendly and upbeat and sociable.

Thanksgiving dinner for 1,000 hockey players and their families, in the massive ballroom at the J. W. Marriott was a highlight. All of the girls dressed up, and for those of us used to being home with families, it made the even seem special.

The parents were terrific too. They appreciated the planning that went into selecting a hotel. All helped drive girls to meals, and the conversation was friendly and easy.

In all, it was great fun to spend the holiday with a group of determined young people and the parents who love them. More things for which to be grateful.

We arrived in Palm Desert, California, yesterday for the Thanksgiving long weekend. Our daughter is playing in a field hockey tournament. I’ve written before that I love life on vacation, probably most of us do. Something about discovering new people and experiences gives me a shift in perspective that reminds me to be on the lookout for experiences to appreciate.

One of the best things about it is that my wife and I travel exceptionally well together. On the road, I have a better sense of how to accommodate her and make her life easier. Here, as always, she also encourages me to strike out on my own and enjoy myself.

This morning I walked up the street to a hotel where we ate last night. I had seen they had a nice fitness center, and I hoped to buy a day pass. When I got there at 6:00 this morning, the attendant at the fitness center, a really nice woman from the Indian reservation on which the hotel sits, apologized and told me that they only allow hotel guests. So I asked her whether there was another gym close by, and she told me there was a really nice one just a short drive away.

I walked back to the hotel, took the car, and drove to the new 24 Hour Fitness in Indio, California. It was the nicest gym I can remember using. It’s only been open 3 weeks, so it is state of the art and super clean. The staff there were exceptionally helpful, and I had a tremendous workout. I’ve felt great all day.

Last night was just the same. Some of the team parents, the coach of the club, and half the girls went to the hotel buffet next door. There were 18 of us, and we had an all you can eat dinner. Not only was the food outstanding, shockingly great, but the head chef came to the table when he heard there was a high school team in the restaurant. He thanked them personally for coming to the restaurant, and he wished them good luck in the tournament. When we left, he waited for us at the door and thanked us again.

The entire team and I have been thrilled with how well we have been treated by everyone. It is just great how friendliness begets more friendliness. It is already a marvelous Thanksgiving.

Yesterday was a great day at work. A team of us had been asked two weeks ago to meet with a potential customer on a project they were interested in doing. We had only a partial understanding of their goals and preferences, and we were somewhat limited by time.

The most satisfying kind of work for me is when a group of people is thrown together with an objective, and we have to use our best judgment and each of our strengths to get to a quick solution. The less time there is to deliberate, the greater the group focus on what seems like it could work. It keeps me from over-thinking, which I often do given the time.

Our group of six people pulled together some ideas and talked out the pros and cons for four days. By yesterday morning we all had agreed on what the presenters would say. The lead presenter and one other team member helped us pull together the message points, and they talked effortlessly through some recommendations.

I’m not certain yet how it will turn out, but seeing the first stage come together better than our expectations was a lot of fun. I always appreciate being reminded that having faith in our colleagues and the expectation of a positive outcome often ensures that we are moving in the right direction.

The entire rest of the evening was wonderful.

It’s an important milestone in American movies and television shows, the high school reunion. My wife and I, who were high school classmates, went to our 25th reunion on Saturday. We had a great time. One of the funny things about our being married is that we had almost no friends in common back then, and we never really knew one another. So now that we are married, our classmates have a hard time connecting the dots. We don’t naturally fit together in the experience of most of them.

Still, it’s really nice to go back with someone who knows the school and the class as well as knowing you. We met some other very nice spouses, who brave the nostalgia, the in jokes, the reminiscences. They were all really good sports.

Contrary to what movies lead you to expect about reunions, ours was very low key. There are some very high-powered successes in the class, accomplished business people, artists, television personalities, but this group continues to treat the rest of us, mere mortals, as valued friends. Our class was never much about money–we were at a boarding school with small dorm rooms and no dress code,–so it was actually kind of hard to tell who was wealthy then. Now you can tell from the size of gifts to the annual fund, but people don’t throw it in your face.

Mainly it was a treat to be in the company of people who were my friends during an important stage of my life. We were the witnesses to one another’s dreams and ambitions and achievements. In an era at the school marked by very little faculty involvement outside the classroom, we raised ourselves and applauded one another.

The most meaningful part of our graduation ceremony 25 years ago was the actual handing out of diplomas. By school tradition, the Head of School stood at the top of a circle, which consisted only of the class. The dean handed him diplomas, he read the name, and the circle of students passed it around until it reached its recipient. We all stood witness to one another.

It was lovely to do so again, even for a day. To see the new children, the old smiles behind slightly wrinkled faces, to hear what our old friends think about, are proud of, worry about.

To remember who they were and who we were in their presence.

Last night my mother and aunt hosted a dinner party to honor my grandmother, in lieu of a memorial service. In addition to my mother and aunt, we had two families who had been friends of my grandmother’s for decades, friendships that had started with the parents and grandparents of those present.

It was a really nice occasion on every level and especially entertaining because my grandmother’s lawyer, Pete, told a handful of amusing stories about my grandmother’s sense of what was proper and improper about his business attire when he visited her. Pete was the third generation of lawyers in his family who had served my grandmother, and he drew the hardest duty in being the last. Not only did he manage all of her finances for the last 3 years, but he also managed her health care appointments because all of us in the family live 3,000 miles away.

The man is a saint, patient, good natured, philosophical about the extent of his duties, right down to waiting with the body while the funeral home came to the apartment. We were all extremely fortunate that he was willing to shoulder the responsibility.

My grandmother was demanding and particular, but she was also grateful and gracious towards those who assisted her. She lived long enough to appreciate those on whom she had to depend.

The other family included the surviving son of my grandmother’s best friend and his wife. They are very busy people, with substantial business and philanthropic responsibilities, and they are leaving tomorrow for a Hawaiian vacation. In some sense, this dinner was a duty, but they all performed it with lighthearted grace and kindness.

It was a wonderful tribute to my grandmother, to her indomitability and character that these friends have remained faithful for 50-70 years. It was also a tribute to their constancy to her and to us, the kind of support that we can’t ever repay.