Nat

Yesterday a nor’ easter storm, made up of the remnants of tropical storm Noel, whipped into town and knocked out our power at 4:00 in the afternoon. Fortunately, other parts of town were unaffected, so we were able to have dinner at a restaurant right up the street. It was the best of both worlds. Other than having dinner in a warm, heated restaurant, we spent the late afternoon and evening enjoying our family’s company by candlelight.

In those circumstances, simple pleasures reassert themselves. Balancing the checkbook, a chore I detest, assumes a quaint, Dickensian feel, and reading a book feels like a special treat. After dinner, I hauled in the small pile of dry wood from the porch, and my wife built our first fire of the season.

We hunted down all of our candles, arrayed them on trays in front of the fire, and played Uno, the card game, for an hour. In that light, it was hard to distinguish green from blue cards, which added to the game’s suspense and surprise. Finally, we decided to beat the cold that had settled into the house by heaping extra blankets on the beds and turning in early.

Adding in the extra hour we gained setting back the clocks for Standard Time, I slept for 11 hours. In short, it was a simple celebration of winter pleasures like families would have experienced a hundred fifty years ago.

It is a great reminder to me that happiness can sometimes come from subtraction. What I mean is that we often think, “If only I had…” I would be more happy. But in this case, it was the absence of creature comforts and electronic entertainment that gave us one another’s laughter and companionship.

What a treat.

Today was a study in contrast. While hundreds of thousands of delirious Red Sox fans celebrated the team’s World Series victory at a raucous street parade, my office struggled with some very difficult news. I couldn’t really enjoy the thought of the victory parade, because it seemed frivolous.

This kind of contrast, between joy and sorrow, always raises the question for me how best to retain a sense of well-being when we are challenged with bad news and hardship. While I don’t always have the answer, I have learned to reach for the source of my greatest and most reliable comfort and peace.

For me that is my faith and my family. For you it could be something else, but returning to what always makes me feel better takes me beyond the circumstances in front of me. I think this is why so much of Buddhism focuses on giving up attachments. Being attached leads to suffering. I take from that the need to believe that there are enduring sources of joy. On days when they appear uncertain, I am learning to hang in there and wait for tomorrow.

My wife always makes me feel better after a day like this. She knows that words alone may not comfort me, but her presence always does. I’m hunkered down waiting for the wave to roll over.

Blogging has been very difficult for me this summer, following my father’s passing in May. Although much of my study and effort to address this loss spiritually and emotionally are related to the core mission of our work at Cloud 9000, I frankly felt that blogging about them would be a betrayal of my family’s privacy. Yet finding renewed joy and purpose in the face of sadness and loss has been the great work of this summer.

One of the lessons is that small gestures of sympathy and kindness from friends and acquaintances carry enormous power to comfort and uplift. I am the fortunate recipient of hundreds of these attentions, and they have delighted me again and again. I can’t thank these people enough for making the effort.

This may be the greatest lesson of all from the summer: that our efforts to serve others in even the smallest ways can make profound and lasting impressions and deep impact. Buddhists would call this effort compassion, Christians might call it charity (in the Bible it is translated from the Greek as “lovingkindess”), and I think the Hebrew term “mitzvah” describes acts of kindness like these, although there may be a better Jewish term for this act.

Whatever the name, kindness to those in need is a fundmantal principle of organized religions and is a basic human need.

I welcome any comments here that describe kind acts that have been offered to you this summer.

Today was my stepdaughter’s last day of junior high school, and we attended the student awards program. I loved the way the staff spread the prizes among a relatively large group of students. They gave awards in every subject, for the arts, and for good citizenship. I’m very proud that my stepdaughter won three prizes.

I’m proudest of the award she won for citizenship. It acknowledges a student each year who serves the school well at school and who represents it well in the community. The principal, a lovely woman who is retiring from a 35-year career in education today, talked about Catherine’s cheerfulness and her smile. She mentioned that Catherine brightens the school with her attitude and friendliness.

Nothing matters more to me than this trait, and I’m thrilled to pieces that she receives praise for demonstrating it. Mrs. Conlon, the retiring principal, started today’s assembly reading a quote from Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. In it the prince meets and befriends a fox. When they part, the fox tells the prince, “Remember that there are two ways to see, with your eyes and with your heart. The only way to see well is with your heart.”

It’s a lovely reminder, and Catherine needs no one to remind her. She sees with her heart every minute of every day. She is special. We are blessed.

We had a death in the family last week, and the response from family and friends has been remarkable. People have outdone themselves to be kind and supportive. It is a marvelous human trait that so many people surprise you with their goodness in times when you need it most.

For example, we received a letter from the grown daughter of family friends. The letter writer didn’t know the deceased well at all, yet she managed to capture all of his qualities precisely and warmly. Also, I have been flooded with cards and notes from people at work whom I don’t even know well, and many have said the most naturally reassuring things. There is nothing more moving for me in this than to be floored again and again by people’s ability to find words to make you feel happy and proud. Maybe this amazes me because I always struggle to know what to say to people who have lost a loved one, and I think of myself as usually knowing what to say.

All in all, I have found throughout my life that most people will do everything in their power to do good to you if you give them half a chance. At no time in my life can I remember feeling this more strongly. It is a great gift and one that also suggests to me the presence of a comforting God, reaching out through many, many people.

I have found new things for which to be grateful every day, and they start and end with our friends’ fundamental decency and caring. I am so grateful.

On the writing blog red Ravine, I posted a piece about my childhood school. I note that its structure and my social life there instilled great confidence and security in me.

I should add that my parents and my sister have always done the same, with their unflagging belief that I can do anything. My wife and stepdaughter later added their own level of confidence and support. That’s what family is supposed to do, among other things, let you know what to appreciate about yourself.

It’s quite a gift to have this deep, generous well-spring of support from the people who know you the best. My father, we used to joke, would drive 10 hours to change one of our light bulbs. It wasn’t really a joke; he would have done it.

I’m so glad for the confidence my parents have in me. It gives you the sense that you can achieve anything, when the first people you know and love tell you that you can, and mean it.

Thank you.

My stepdaughter is starting a training regimen for high school field hockey. It’s 4 months away from tryouts, and the training schedule is designed to begin 3 months from now. We’re getting a jump on it so that she can make slow, gentle progress and not be anxious this summer.

When I was her age, I never got an early jump on things, so it thrills me to see that she sees the advantage of preparation at age 13. I think every time she does something ahead of time that she is developing a habit that will relieve her of all kinds of stress for years to come, and it makes me happy.

If there’s anything I love, it’s seeing people avoid mistakes I made when I was younger. And it’s especially sweet when it’s a person I really adore. It’s hard for me to say why I so resisted advance planning for much of my life, and I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as I continue to improve. With Nina, the key is that she really enjoys the feeling she gets from relaxing after completing a task.

When we arrived at our hotel for the first day of vacation, the first thing Nina suggested we do was her workout for that day. She wanted to get it out of the way and enjoy the rest of the day.

So there’s the lesson: when you learn to earn your rewards up front, the rewards are sweeter. None of us needs to be told to do this. It’s just a question of doing it several times and learning to like the feeling of well being and satisfaction it brings. It’s a humbling lesson to learn from your 13 year-old.

My family and I leave for a week’s vacation on Friday. We go to the same place in Carefree, Arizona, each April school vacation. The weather is great. We rent a nice little house on the golf course, and we play a lot of tennis.

Then, when we’re tired, we sit by one of the five pools and read our books. My wife and stepdaughter love to read, and every time I watch them, it makes me happy to share a love of reading with them.

Another reason I look forward to this trip is that usually the cacti are in full bloom this time of the year. Two years ago, on our first trip, the desert bloom was the best in 30 years because of unusual, sustained rains in March. There is nothing more spectacular than brilliantly colored flowers on rough, prickly cacti. The flowers are coral, pale yellow, lilac, magenta, even Key lime.

What a metaphor for finding joy after struggle, I always think. But mostly I think that what is beautiful is always striking for its beauty. I’ll think that as I walk to the gym in the morning and to the pool in the afternoon. It will make me happy all week.

This is two topics, but I can’t decide between them, and I need to write about them both. The negative one first.

The last three days, I’ve crammed in an insane amount of activity. All of it was things I wanted to do, for myself, my family, my friends. Last night, the result was that I stayed up until 2 on a work night. Tomorrow I have training at 6:30, which means leaving the house at 5:30, so I’ll be tired again.

This is the only part of my adult life I find really demoralizing again and again: I would like not to feel so frantic about all that I have to do. I would like to do fewer things and get to bed earlier.

Still, they were all great things. I watched my stepdaughter and her band win a medal. I am commenting on a friend’s manuscript. I’m commenting on another friend’s blog. For my writer friends I would take on any small thing. They are busy, and they are determined, and I love what they are writing. Admiration has always motivated me. It is a great thrill to be in the company of other writers.

Now for the positive part of the post–gift giving. By coincidence, my wife didn’t have cases today. So she was able to go to the grocery store after dropping off my stepdaughter at school and buy a huge sheet cake to celebrate their band victory yesterday.

My wife took the cake to the school and left it for the band director, Mr. Farmer. Because he had given the band the day off from rehearsal, they all had time to eat the cake and drink some sparkling cider. Apparently they got a big kick out of the cake. My wife is a master gift giver. She always knows when and what to give. It makes all of us feel special. Her knowledge of what we want and need makes us feel studied and appreciated by her.

I love her for it, and I love the gifts she picks out. Tomorrow I’ll write about the quilt she gave me.

It was a really good day today. My stepdaughter’s junior high school concert band won a gold medal in a statewide band competition. They played three pieces, all of them quite difficult, and when they were done, one of the judges took them into a practice room and gave a critique.

In the past two years, these judges’ crititiques have been quite harsh. This year, the judge was incredibly gentle and supportive, even when pointing out passages they could have played more skillfully.

When the announcer proclaimed them gold medal winners, all 62 kids jumped into the air, screaming with delight. It was thrilling to see how happy they and their conductor were.

Which got me thinking about how all of us create opportunities to accomplish something worthwhile. I feel this most strongly when I write and when I play sports. Yet I’m very hard on myself if I do either of those things poorly.

My stepdaughter and her band friends don’t worry much about that. They try as hard as they can, and for the rest they have a good time. It’s why they’re here. I’m trying to learn from them.