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.

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.

Today’s lead news story about the USAirways flight safely landing in the Hudson River in New York City has really inspired me. It is stunning and wonderful to see the media coverage that is typically devoted to a catastrophe focus instead on a catastrophe averted.

The superb reactions of the USAir flight crew to land and evacuate the plane safely, the seemingly orderly participation of the 150 passengers, who let women and children climb out first, and the fast response of ferry captains and rescue personnel to race to retrieve the passengers from the wreckage, remind us how well people can react to crisis.

I have been struck watching some of the interviews on the TV news tonight how measured the passengers appear in their comments. They are balancing joy in being alive with wonder that they could have come through something so nearly awful. One gentleman, a young doctor, struck a note that resonated with me: he said that, right at impact with the water, he braced for what he had learned to expect from the movies, an explosion, some object to tear him apart. Instead, several of them started shouting, “We’re OK. We’re OK. Let’s get out.”

I love the fact that the people had the presence of mind to figure out immediately that real experience could be better than one had been led to expect. This is grounds for celebration. The skilled pilots and the flight attendants all remembered their training and managed a once-in-a-lifetime challenge with intelligence, poise, and efficiency. The passengers who relied on them adopted the same level of thoughtful responsibility to assist in their own rescue.

What a triumph. It fills me with happiness. Reuters has some great photos.

I’m struggling with the diet my wife and I started after New Year’s. It’s only day 4 today, but the first week is always the worst, because that’s when you kick the sugar habit. Eating too much sugar is a life-long bad habit for me, ever since childhood, when I could eat everything I wanted and not gain a pound.

Weaning yourself off sugar (or caffeine, for that matter) does make you ask why you became so dependent on it in the first place. I haven’t read that much about what experts say about “comfort” eating or “emotional” eating, but the sense I have is that they are ways to find a quick, super easy way to feel better.

Of course, the real point is that there are more lasting, reliable ways to feel better, and most of these involve doing something worthwhile like helping someone else or helping yourself by eating right and exercising. Like most things that are worthwhile, these take more work than eating out of a vending machine.

Which takes me back to the first week of a diet. I find that I go into mourning for snack foods that I love (”I wish I had a black and white cookie.” “I wish I had a piece of chocolate cake.”) Then, the further into it I get, the more I admit to myself that I will appreciate being fit and in shape, and I will also appreciate not being controlled and hypnotized by processed, fatty foods.

Smokers say that after they quit smoking, they get to the point where they can really taste their food, and the same thing is true to a lesser degree with eating less junk food. All of the fresh vegetables start to taste delicious. I’m not allowed much fruit in the first week of this diet, but the fruit I am allowed (a tablespoon of raisins, a dried apricot) taste like candy.

There is a metaphor in this, that giving up quick, empty joys clears the way for you to notice deeper, more substantial joys. In three weeks, this will make me really happy.

For today, I am clinging to the fact that I have lost 2.5 pounds, and I get to eat a little applesauce for a snack later today.

Last night was one of those nights in a hotel room when I couldn’t get comfortable. I was congested and, alternately, too hot and too cold and kept my wife awake by tossing around all night. So I got up and now have the early morning to myself in the hotel lobby.

The one thing I really like about winter is being awake in the early morning darkness. Somehow it feels like you are living a secret life, with only a few other earlybirds. It reminds me of winter mornings in my childhood during ski trips. We would get up early, complaining and grumpy, but then there was a hot breakfast and the promise of a full day on the slopes.

I don’t ski much at all any more, and it’s one of the things I have given up that I would like to return to. That is the best part of New Year’s for me, imagining what I will do this year to improve on last year.

I’m feeling optimistic about this year, confident that there will be lots of fun things to do. I’ve learned in the last year to look forward to the good things that are ahead of me most of the time, even when I’m struggling a little bit. It has really helped me be grateful for all the wonderful people in my life, who make me feel happy and appreciated at work, at home, and around town.

Happy New Year. (I intend to think this for at least two months.)

There is probably a word for what I experienced last night. It is similar to an epiphany, the word that James Joyce revived to describe a transformational moment, in which you suddenly experience a profound insight about yourself and your life. It can hit you unexpectedly and without warning.

Last night, after my wife cooked a delicious dinner for a small group at her parents’ house, we came home to wrap presents. The three of us each took a room, Nina in her bedroom, Sarah in her study, and I in the living room with the Christmas tree. I turned on a CD of Diana Krall singing Christmas carols, plugged in the lights on the tree, and sat on the floor to wrap stocking gifts.

When I had finished wrapping, I put away the paper, ribbons, and tape in the attic and returned to the living room to sit in a chair and listen to the music. We live on a quiet street without street lights, and the neighbors at the back were away, so outside was silent except for the steady rain.

I sat right in front of the tree and gazed from one ornament to another, lingering mostly on the hand-painted, ceramic figures that my stepdaughter’s great-grandmother sent to her, every year at Christmas, and also at the hand-made ornaments that Nina herself brought home from school as a small child.

Christmas tree ornaments have a special, evocative power over me. They appear every year for a week or two and recall other Christmas Eves and Christmas mornings, first in your own childhood and then in your children’s. They are celebratory and colorful, and the best of them are simple. These favorites of mine are tiny reminders of our family’s joy and love.

The word I am looking for describes a brief, personal experience that allows you a sweet, simple appreciation that you are who you are, that there is nothing you would change.

You might call it a blessing.

I woke up this morning feeling angry and tired. I made the problem worse by staying in bed till I was going to be late for work. For some reason, and maybe it is withdrawal from caffeine, I couldn’t get myself to feel any sense of vigor. I haven’t been exercising regularly for 3 months, maybe 4. I stayed up too late 4 nights last week and drank coffee the next day, which I never do. I haven’t been a regular caffeine user for years.

So maybe today I was feeling disappointed in myself for not eating and exercising well. It doesn’t really matter, because I have been doing a lot of things I’m proud of. The way I am working through writing Christmas cards this year still makes me feel each night at bedtime that I know how to set a goal and work toward it.

I’m thinking that a day like today is a good test of how well I respond to the negative voice some of us carry around in our heads, the one that says, “You aren’t making any progress.” One good sign is that I recognize these bad moods for what they are. I realize they are not a permanent sign of a problem. In fact, a colleague at work told me this afternoon that I hadn’t seemed like myself all day. Naturally I felt good to think that my true self is more upbeat and friendly.

I am trying to learn lessons from days like today: that you can make things better by asking yourself at each moment of the day, “How can I feel better? What can I do?” Today I decided to try to solve a problem for a friend of mine. It was a small problem involving a computer, and it required me to run up and down the stairs to our computer support department. Up and down I ran, and on the third trip, I bumped into a work friend who has been out of the country for three months. We are having lunch next week. He looked great.

By 4:00 p.m., I felt fine, almost back to normal. And normal is good. It felt great to turn around a bad mood by helping a friend with something small. Maybe I’m learning.

For years, I have joked about hating the shortest days of the year, the ones we have now in the two weeks leading up to Christmas. I start worrying about them in September, when the arrival of cooler weather reminds me that the sun is setting earlier and earlier. I no longer remember when they started to bother me, but this week I’ve been trying to figure out why they do.

It’s impractical to waste energy on this, because there’s nothing I can do about it and because it isn’t really so bad. We are fortunate to live in a world with artificial lighting.

Years ago, I lived in Berkeley, CA, and, later, in Denver, where it is almost always sunny, and I preferred the bright moods that I always felt on a bright day. The trick, though, is to allow the longer days or the sunny days to pick you up, without letting the cloudy days and the short days to bring you down. That’s the challenge I’ve been working on.

This year, it occurred to me that the days start to get longer before Christmas, so if you can convince yourself to be really excited about the arrival of the Christmas season, you can create a reason to appreciate the short days.

Also, there is something cozy about the long, dark nights, with wind howling outside. I climb into bed at night and fall instantly into a deep sleep. I am grateful for this, even if it is extra difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

Contrast is the key, appreciating that the spring and summer seem especially wonderful because they follow winter. People we know in the Palm Desert, California, area, tell us that out there, they scan the skies all spring and summer, hoping for clouds and rain. They would give anything for a little less sun. I’m trying to remember that on December 10. We have less than two weeks to go before the days start getting a little longer. And only a few days after that until Christmas.

More and more often, I’m finding that a good day includes successes in more than one area of my life. Today there are four areas to feel great about.

1. Job. I had to pull together a group of 7 people on very short notice to take a meeting with some people who had traveled half way across the country to meet with our company. Many of my colleagues pushed back their own priorities to accommodate the visit. I was grateful, and the company that traveled to meet us was grateful. There is nothing like a spirit of cooperation to make a group of people feel great.

2. Writing. Michael and I spent the late afternoon and evening working on a writing project that we have underway. Michael is great at organizing us, and he put together a chapter schedule for us a few weeks ago. Tonight we realized that we are a few weeks ahead of schedule. So far so good. Both of us have a sense of progress, and I have the satisfaction of not being a source of frustration over lateness. Another double win. I like getting the project done, and I like living up to Michael’s expectations.

3. Christmas cards. I may write an entire blog post on Christmas card writing. It’s often a two-month-long ordeal for me to get all of my cards written. In fact, it’s been 3 years since I finished an entire set. Last year I didn’t write any, though I did leave the stack of cards I received sitting on the floor of my study for 11 months, in case I was inspired to answer them. The great news is that I finally realized I could answer them by starting early on this year’s cards. So starting November 30, I’ve been writing two cards per night, before bedtime, and mailing them in the morning. Tonight I’ll write two more. At this rate, I will have made a good bite out of them by Christmas. Not only will I feel good about reaching out; I will also feel good about cleaning the pile off my floor for the first time since January.

4. Finances. Thanks to my wife, we had some good financial news today. She works hard and is very clever with money. She is always taking the pressure off us with her hard work. So often, I find myself thinking, my wife makes my life so easy and so pleasant.

Oh, and there was actually a 5th great thing. Last night, an old, dear friend of my found me on Facebook. I had been trying to think for a couple of years how to track her down and catch up with her. Last night, lo and behold, there she was in the Friend Requests. I was thrilled and have already swapped notes back and forth with her.

The good news snowballs. I love that any time, and especially this time of year when the days are short, and we’re starting to gear up for winter.

It’s eight days since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. Usually I won’t blog on politics here, because I want to encourage a wide audience, but I am thrilled by the number of Republican observers who seem as awestruck as I by the historical significance of our finally looking past race in the election of a President.

It too me several months to recognize how inspiring Obama is as a leader, and when I did, I wondered that I didn’t see it all along. Maybe I have finally put down my skepticism of professional politicians and campaigns long enough to appreciate that hope has triumphed. I know that millions of people hoped for President Bush to win election, twice. What is different is that President-elect Obama somehow knew all along, for two years, that there were millions of Americans who wanted to believe in a brighter future, one in which large challenges can be tackled with large ideas.

Mostly, though, I have spent this past week gobbling up every scrap I could find about people who look at Obama and see the answer to their hopes: finally, an African-American; finally, a Hawaiian; finally, a man who grew up abroad; finally, a great orator; finally, a son of a single mother. He carries himself well, with dignity and sensitivity and intelligence.

And also with purpose. Much has been said about the high expectations for his presidency. We need so much right now. I am not troubled by the high expectations. One of President-elect Obama’s gifts is to inspire people to ask what they can do to help. It feels to me, at last, as if we are in this together. That is what I have wanted to believe.

I keep waking up happy.