Nat

My friends Flo and Connie have commiserated with me about the challenge of too much paper. Flo’s advice to take it one piece at a time is the only advice that solves the problem of mess, whether it is small or large.

The real problem comes when the mess grows so big that the sheer volume of it overwhelms me. At a certain point, I start to tell myself it is so bad that I wouldn’t know where to start. Flo reminds me: it doesn’t matter where I start, only that I start by picking something up and putting it away.

Tonight Connie told me that something told her to start cleaning up her mess, her paper. Then she hired someone to get her started, and they worked for 11 hours over three days. The most important piles had drifted to the top, she said. I found that encouraging because I have a sense of keeping the most important things where I can get to them, at the top of my piles.

My instincts aren’t completely dead. They are helping me even when I am weary. I feel the same about what I need to do to feel better about things: start with some small action. This week, Connie and I decided to call and coach one another twice a week until both of us are more un-stuck. She sounded full of purpose tonight, after what she would call a “rampage of appreciation.” There are far worse places to start.

I can start by being grateful that she and I have reached out to one another.

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.

Today I did some work cleaning up my grandmother’s apartment. She passed away in January. She had an amazing life, living almost to 100 and remaining in her own apartment to the very end. It was a good life for her, I think.

Cleaning up the apartment was bittersweet. Because she kept such an orderly home and because she kept to a tight routine in her later years, her apartment looked as if she had just stepped out to run an errand, except only for the plants, which hadn’t been watered in three weeks. I tried my best to revive the seven African violets, which lined the window in her study.

Mainly I looked for keys, threw away dead plants and food from the freezer, and visited with my memories as I dusted and opened drawers. As hard as it is to visit a loved one’s home after the owner is gone, there is a ready barrage of reminders of what we shared.

What really struck me, though, were the conversations I had with the manager and superintendent of my grandmother’s apartment building. When I thanked them for all they had done to help my grandmother continue to live in their building at the end of her life, they both told me how much they loved her and how difficult it was to have her gone.

That is the great lesson from today, and the abiding joy: there are kind people in this world, and they will go out of their way to help you do what you couldn’t do on your own. Love is quite a legacy.

For the last two days, my family and I have played tennis on vacation with several strangers, and the experience has been great. Players of all ages and skill levels have been polite, encouraging, and friendly to all of us. It has made the games great fun, while still providing a competitive outlet.

I’ve been saying friends whom I’ve called on the phone, that it is easy to be happy and friendly on vacation, but the point is that meeting friendly people always makes me feel good about my life and about humanity in general.

One lesson my parents taught me over and over when I was young was that it’s always smart to make it easy for people to be nice to you. They reminded me that good manners, helpfulness, and sociability combine to make a likable person, and they demonstrated by their own behavior that making an effort to be friendly all of the time made our home and their workplaces better.

Our family vacation this week is teaching the same lesson to my stepdaughter, but she has known it for years. I was proud yesterday when an older gentleman complimented my stepdaughter on how pleasant she was to play with.

Michael and I have been working on a book for a few months now, and we took this weekend to get away and make a major dent in it. It shouldn’t surprise me that the work would be so much fun, I guess, but I have spent much of my adult life afraid of long writing projects.

So, today we compiled the notes that we have been writing in 15-minute bursts since November, and we turned them into an outline. Michael did the typing, which I love because it lets me pace while we talk and think. Writing for me is easier when I’m not actually writing. It is typical of Michael to make things fun for me.

The best part of the day is finding work that doesn’t feel like work. To have any activity unravel from oneself effortlessly and focus the mind so that it requires no strain can be the best kind of inspiration. That was true for me over and over today. I have been wanting to remember what a joy it is to be working, and it’s easier for me when the work is entirely my invention. The collaboration makes it even better. It occurred to me in a cafe before dinner that writing a book with another person cuts the number of words in half for each of us. Huh.

Where am I going with this? Just that spending two days thinking about how to cultivate happiness automatically puts me in mind of how to appreciate being happy. My grandmother, who passed away this week, taught me about the state of happiness years ago when I was 18. I had broken up with a girl I adored. I had been moping around for days or weeks when my grandmother came to visit with my parents. She was always glad to see me, but she became very angry with me after dinner.

“You’ve got to snap out of this,” she told me after dinner in her hotel room. “Nobody wants to be around somebody as sour and withdrawn as you are. We will put up with you because we love you, but the people who don’t love you won’t stay with you for a minute if they don’t have to.” I was shocked to be called out by her like that, but she said it in a way that really shook up my thinking.

Naturally she was right. Unhappiness itself doesn’t drive people away, but the way you wear it does. Like it or not, that’s just a cold, hard fact. Better to adopt as friendly and hopeful a demeanor as you can. With any luck, it will draw toward you people whose company will console and reassure you. Maybe they will make you laugh, or at least forget yourself for a minute.

Friendship and love can be our salvation, even when it is friendship and love we have lost. This is what I have been feeling since last night, when Michael and I arrived at the hotel and started to work. I have felt it today. I feel my grandmother near as I write, and I am grateful to her.

My stepdaughter had a group of her friends over to the house today to watch movies and eat pizza. There is nothing like spending a few hours in the company of teenagers who like one another to make you feel hopeful about the future. Of course it helps if they also like adults and are polite, which her friends are.

They know how to laugh and how to be kids together. What is remarkable about them is that they don’t try to impress one another by being sophisticated, or worldly, or cynical. Teenagers like this are a reminder that adults could also choose to retain the best parts of their youth. The group likes to take pictures of one another laughing and smiling. They are easy to be with, and they are good to one another.

It is a relief when your child finds friends who are reliable, have good judgment, and know how to be good friends to one another. We would all be lucky to have such a group. The fact that many of them have been friends since kindergarten suggests that they know how lucky they are too. I’m very happy they opened up their circle to let my stepdaughter in during junior high.

I will stop with the baseball after this (probably). Thank you to all of you who are indulging me. But here’s the thing. I waited until I was nearly 40 to see the Red Sox win their first Series, and tonight, just three years later, I was sitting in the stadium in Denver to see them win their second Series in 4 years, in person. Because it was such a tense game, I didn’t really enjoy being there until it was over.

Now, though, all I can think is how happy my father would have been for me that I got to see it happen. He was generous about my love for the Red Sox, switching his childhood allegiances to root for my team, with the love of a convert, I should add. My mother is a big fan now, too. She especially loves Manny Ramirez.

My friends Derek and Karen made this happen for me. I can’t even describe how happy I am. But it feels great.

When I am around my friend Renee, I feel that wonderful things are going to happen. Perhaps it’s her quick sense of humor and easygoing affection. Regardless, it’s great fun to be around her.

Some people make me hopeful, because of their sheer determination to make the world a better place. That’s how she is, and the funny thing is that she makes the world a better place just by showing up.

Renee and I were talking about the future and what we would want it to be like. I want many of the typical things: to exercise more regularly, to learn to play a musical instrument, to watch what I eat, and to love what I do. We talked about the fact that all of these desires can be met. None depends on anyone else. The future is liberating.

My “best moment, worst moment” journal exercise was ridiculously easy tonight. My friend Chris called after work to say he had tickets for us to see Game 4 of the World Series this weekend. I’ve been a Red Sox fan since I was 10, and I watch a lot of games with my wife. My father was a huge fan, and one of the great thrills of my life was seeing the Red Sox end their 86-year World Series victory drought in 2004. I watched with my parents in their family room. My father and I both wept for joy, and my mother kept saying, “It’s because I became a fan this year.”

But I’ve never seen them play in a World Series game, and now I will. My wife is a saint to let me break weekend getaway plans with her and my stepdaughter to go. She is so kind to me. And it’s been three years, I think, since I saw my friend’s wife and children in Colorado.

What a thrill this will be. Needless to say, there was no “worst moment” today in my journal.

It is ridiculous how friends can surprise you beyond your wildest hopes and dreams. I am very fortunate.