Moments in Montclair: The Land of Docken Part 1

 

When I turned seven I was informed by adults of all sorts that I was now the Age of Reason.  Supposedly, I could discern right from wrong. I took this very seriously and thought through the morality involved in everything.  Rules became complicated, reasons for decisions became layered, black and white became gray.

My parents were patient and talked important things through with me, the reasons why we needed clean rooms, why green beans were more important than jelly beans, why David’s bed time was nine o’clock and mine was seven-thirty.  Generally, I found peace with all of these decisions. But there was one reason that I could not come to terms with:  the reason why Mrs. Docken was employed as the second grade teacher at school.

The night before second grade began, I lined up my extensive collection of holy statues and prayer cards on my bed side table in the shape of a cross. I laid in bed with my glow-in-the-dark rosary and prayed as hard as I could that I would be placed in 2-A the next morning. I longed to be among the chosen who would spend their year with Miss Faith Daley.  Not only was her name a fitting Catholic teacher name, she was perfect. And lovely. And soft-spoken.

In the weak morning light, I donned my plaid jumper, smoothed my blonde hair into place with matching blue plastic barrettes, and climbed into our white station wagon with my three older brothers and traveled the short distance to school in a mild panic. David, Timmy and Todd all joked about my upcoming incarceration to 2-B. They had all traveled through the land of Mrs. Docken, why shouldn’t I? I had heard the stories ad nauseam over the years, how she made Todd sit in the waste can one afternoon, how Timmy had to stand with his nose to the black board. How she would ask her students to tattle on older boys who had bullied them at lunchtime and then send for them to be yelled out in front of the room. But surely, my brothers hadn’t bothered to pray so fervently in their rooms the night before the school year began.

We arrived at Immaculate Conception Elementary and my brothers dispersed in a burst of jagged laughter. I took my mother’s hand and walked, with my new book bag, past first grade to the end of the hall where the two second grade classrooms sat on either side. The class lists were typed on crisp white paper taped to each door.

A happy gaggle of smiling faces stood in a straight line outside of 2-A. Surely I would be among them.  We walked over and scanned the list.  I took my chubby index finger and pointed to each name listed in alphabetical order…  Anderson, Billings, Carson… and so on until I got to the H’s.  What??   No H’s???  I looked into my mother’s horrified face and then together we looked across the hallway to a quivering pack of students with glazed eyes and knocking knees.

The bell rang as I took my place at the end of the line outside of 2-B.  The door swung open and there she stood, a mighty block of woman in black orthopedic shoes and a patterned dress the mottled colors of a bruise.

“Straighten that line!” she bellowed. “You’re in second grade now. Act like it.”

I glanced over my shoulder at my mother’s grimace and returned her final wave. Off we shuffled in absolute silence to The Land of Docken.

Moments in Montclair: Clubs Part 2

There came a moment when I knew.  Something was going on in the attic, and I wasn’t invited.  My older brothers, David, Timmy and Todd, came down the stairs in the afternoon, smug and suspicious, and swaggered into the living room.  Timmy flipped the channel to Hogan’s Heroes acting like they didn’t notice I was mid-Father Knows Best.

“Hey, I was watching that,” I said standing up and crossing my arms in anger.

“So,” David said as he smoothed his dark bangs down into his eyes.

“So turn it back,” I demanded as the three of them would laugh.

“I’m telling Mom.”

“Go ahead.”  They knew I wouldn’t.  I wasn’t a tattletale as I knew what that would get me… a mouth full of teeth. So I stormed off into the kitchen for a few Mallomars and a glass of milk with Nestles Quick.  Something was different and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it had something to do with the red ink drawing on all of their right forearms of a sword piercing a bloody heart.

The next day I followed them up to the third floor and watched them disappear through a tiny half-door at the edge of the third floor landing.  A space I knew was reserved for Christmas decorations and dead bodies.  It could only mean one thing… a new club had formed.  And that sickening feeling of not belonging enveloped me like Linus’ cloud of dust.  I tip-toed over and placed my ear to the door. I heard murmurings and chants, something like “We Are the Sole Members of the Death Club.  Susan, Kevin, and Joe are not allowed.” I wanted more than anything, at that moment, to be in that club.  Sure I hated the thought of Death, it scared me out of my wits…  but it was cool, and I, clearly, was not.

We lived in a three-story (four if you count the basement) house that had a fair share of odd-shaped closets, dark corners and three attic spaces with separate doors  all of which were home to a secret club at one time or another. The six of us took turns declaring ownership, writing up rules, and deciding who could belong.

One year the Fireball Club was all the rage where you had to be able to suck on a fireball without any facial expression as your tongued burned in order to join. Then came the Let’s Play War, Go Fish is for Sissies club, the Dad is Mean Because He Makes us Do Chores club, the Let’s Light Matches in the Basement club, and the Our Gang knock-off He-man Woman Hater’s Club of which I was not a supporter. The closet on the stairs was home of the Hide From the Monsters club, and the other attic room off the bedroom on the third floor was the perfect spot for weekly meetings of the Seance, Ouija Board and Levitation club. But my favorite, and most memorable club, was The Dance Club.

I was about nine years old and Soul Train and Laugh-In were about the coolest shows a kid could watch.   One Saturday, noticing the house was suspiciously empty, I ventured into Todd and Kevin’s room and heard dance music coming from the closet.  I knocked and pulled on the doorknob and felt it pulled shut from the other side.

“Hey! What’s going on in there?” I yelled through the door.

Silence, the music shut off.

“Open the door!”

Murmuring on the other side.

After a few long minutes, the door opened and Todd, dead serious, stood in bell bottoms and his best shirt with the Nehru collar. His metal medallion glinted as he said, “Come in.”

Timmy sat like an Indian chief with a cassette player on his lap. Patchouli incense smoked in snake-like curls around his head. A lone lightbulb overhead shone down between clothes on hangers pushed to the side. Kevin, my younger brother sat to his right, his chest puffed up beneath his patterned vest.

“We have a new club,” Timmy announced as if the U.N. was listening. “Are you interested?”  Does Dan Rowan love Dick Martin?

“Yes!” I exclaimed with just the right amount of enthusiasm… not too much. “How do you join?”

“You have to wear your coolest clothes, then you have to pass the dance test,” he said matter-of-factly.

“The dance test?”

“We get to pick the song and you have to dance for three minutes here in front of us.  Then we get to vote if your dancing was good enough.”

“Ok.”  I ran to my room and searched for the new tangerine and cream paneled mini skirt my Aunt Catherine had recently bought for me.  I pulled it on, rubbed the six gold buttons to a gleam, and then zipped up my white vinyl knee boots and strutted my stuff back to that closet.

With the seriousness of the Pope in heaven,  the door opened. I stepped below the hanging bulb and Timmy pushed the shiny black button of the cassette player. Bend Me Shape Me  blasted and I shimmied like I was Goldi Hawn trying out for Laugh-In.

When the music ended I was politely asked to leave and the ballots were cast.  Ten minutes later I was inducted into the Closet Dance Club of ’68.  It would be one of my finest moments, a time when I knew who I was and how I fit into the family. I was a sister who mattered and a mighty fine dancer. What more could a nine-year old want?

Looking back, I have plenty of memories of trying to make it. Plenty of memories of wanting to get in. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I admitted people into my clubs and sometimes I didn’t.  The funny thing is that I have very little memory of clubs lasting more that the initiation phase, because, after that, we lost interest. After that it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that we made it, that we belonged; we were someone others wanted in their club. We felt like a person who counted, someone who deserved to know the secret handshake and the secret password.

And, funny, after all of these years…  it’s still what counts. That we matter to people and that we make them feel that they matter to us.

Moments in Montclair: Clubs Part 1

Childhood was one long parade of clubs.  Whether you call them troops, patrols, leagues, societies, teams, gangs, dens, or packs, there was always the pressure of getting in and then fitting in.  Half the time I simply hated it.  Of course I kept these feelings to myself as everyone else seemed to thrive in these atmospheres.

I was constantly battling sarcastic banter in my mind. Even as a young child, I was cursed with a sense of ironic humor that I kept to myself in fear that the devil had something to do with it. That these inner caustic remarks were somehow connected to the swirling evil whispers to which Sr. Kenneth, my first grade teacher, always referred.

It started with ballet class in some studio in Upper Montclair that smelled like mildew. I was not limber, not prone to good balance, and my feet cramped even with the thought of toe shoes.  The teacher separated our class into two groups. My section ended up in bare feet, bent over at the waist with arms hanging to the floor as we swayed and made elephant noises. That was the end of my career with The Joffrey Ballet.

Then came Scouts. I proudly wore my Brownie uniform with a little chocolate-colored beanie and smart leatherette belt. We met in the church basement and did activities that earned us merit badges that said things like “Bugs” and “Flowers” and “First Aid”. God help the person that fell on a sidewalk with a heart attack in front of me. Though I swore I’d place my hands on the sternum and manually pump blood until help came along, I knew I would just cry and stare in panic.  Give me a bleeding scratch, though, and I could place a mean band-aid.

My poor mother, after a day filled with the needs of caring for six children, would sit up nights sewing these round and triangle badges in neat rows on my sash. I was diligent in earning as many as I could because we were being lured to become full-fledged Girl Scouts with the promise of camping trips and s’mores by a roaring fire under the stars.

I dreamed of these camping trips because my brothers were in Boy Scouts and they went camping all the time. Their eyes would light up as they re-told tales of daring and adventure around our dinner table when they would return.  They even spent two glorious weeks at Camp Glen Gray in Mahwah, NJ every summer in these cool tent lean-to’s and ate camp food and paddled canoes like the Indians.

Our troop leader kept referring to the night we would “fly up” to Girl Scouts. I had visions of grand ceremony and lightness of feet. I was disgusted to find that “flying up” referred to clomping across a wobbly bridge nailed together by Mr. Parker, the church custodian and standing next to adult women dressed in pale green uniforms that matched ours.  I remember searching the crowd of twenty parents perched on metal folding chairs and locking eyes with my mother knowing that we both knew this was lame.

Somehow the allure of scouting began to fade at that moment.  We never once camped anywhere, but we learned to sell cookies, by golly, and earn a badge that said “Business Owner”.  And once I got a gold star.

Maybe I was meant to play a sport.  Pre-Title IX, our town was about boys’ sports. If you  were a girl, you were limited to cheer leading, gymnastics, basketball, and tennis. My early ballet experience told me that the first two choices were out. My tennis experience was limited to spaghetti stringed wood rackets and hitting balls in the street with my brother Kevin, so I decided to give basketball a try. I’d played a few rounds of HORSE and Around the World in my life.

I tried out for the eighth grade basketball team.  I knew I how to dribble and I had a decent foul shot, but I was soon benched when it became clear I had no feel for the game. When the coach put me in, I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran around avoiding any possible contact with the ball. I was enthusiastic, however, and good at cheering on my teammates. Back then, we didn’t get trophies for simply making the team, but the uniform was cute.

I knew these organizations were striving to help me “know myself” and build “self-esteem” by being an integral part of a group, but for me, the closer I got to high school the less I seemed to know who I was.  All I knew at that point was that I was good at joining, following directions, making fun of it all, and quitting.  The clubs that really taught me about life were the ones we created in our own home and neighborhood.  Those I will get to next time!

Peace is a Group Effort

Kindergarten Can Be a Tough Place

Grove St. School

There are plenty of folks who claim that their first memories reach all the way back to the womb or at the very least, toddlerhood.  I am not one of them. Squeezing my eyes shut and searching my inner filing cabinet, I thumb through the folders and land squarely in Mrs. Kreager’s kindergarten class at Grove Street School. There are three memories to be exact, and I find it interesting that they were seared into the hippocampus of my brain by the driving emotions of anger, fear, and power.

It all started with my white jewelry box. Adorned with pink roses and a golden latch, it set a tulle dressed ballerina a-twirl every time I opened it.  She danced in a circle on her satin toe shoes before an oval mirror and guarded the rings and necklaces that lay perfectly arranged below her. It was my most precious possession and I had brought it in for Show-and-Tell. Dutifully, I placed it on the Special Shelf reserved for Show-and-Tell treasures that was off-limits to the class.

Mid-morning, as I carefully inserted a half-circle shaped block inside a larger one to complete a block tower of architectural excellence, I heard the familiar tinkling of a music box. I turned my head and saw two boys, Tommy and Robert, trying on two of my rings. As I charged toward them, Tommy slammed the top shut and they both ducked into the corner playhouse.  Incensed, I gently opened the box to make sure all was okay, and to my horror, my lovely ballerina laid sideways, limp and broken at her slender ankles. I carried it, sobbing, to Mrs. Kreager who decided, in the end, that there simply was not enough evidence to convict Tommy and Robert of wrongdoing. The weight of injustice and the accompanying anger covered me like my electric blanket when I turned the control dial-up to number ten.

Tommy and Robert, however, were not happy that I would have the gall to tell on them. So during lunch hour they cornered me by the jungle gym and proceeded to scream in my face and push me to the ground. I curled into a ball and protected my head as I imagined my own legs bent sideways forever like the ballerina’s. To make matters worse, they followed me as I walked home pushing me into pricker bushes and threatening death if I told anyone.  In 1964 we didn’t know about bullying, I didn’t have words for what was happening. Petrified, I endured these attacks for a week until Mrs. Powers, our neighbor, drove by one afternoon and witnessed it.  A few phone calls later, Tommy and Robert were doomed.

Suspiciously, they went missing from class for a few days so I was able to regain my composure.  When they returned, Mrs. Kreager reseated them on the opposite side of the patchwork gathering carpet that everyone knew was just a bunch of samples from the rug store across the street. I saw them whispering throughout the morning and I felt that familiar panic rise though me as we lined up for recess. As we streamed out the door onto the black top, I ran for a swing thinking I could kick one in the face if I pumped hard enough.

Then, the most curious thing happened.  To this day I wonder about the dynamic of it all as it surprised me as much as anyone else. How easy it was to indoctrinate a mild-mannered five-year-old girl into a life of crime.  Tommy and Robert grabbed my arm and then stood on either side of me creating an uncomfortable bully sandwich.  Instead of pummeling me, Tommy said, “We’re sorry.  To make it up to you, we will beat up anyone you want us to.”

“Yeah,” added Robert, his fists pumping, “just point ‘em out.”  Now, I was not the aggressive type and had no other enemies that I knew of. The last thing I wanted to do was beat anyone up.

“No, that’s okay,” I said, shaking my head.

“I said point ‘em out,” Robert repeated through gritted teeth.

“Come on,” said Tommy,”recess is only ten minutes.” They started to squeeze against my ribs and visions of the broken ballerina began to swirl around me.  The memory of pricker bushes and the taste of raw fear bubbled into the back of my throat. This was survival of the fittest.

“If you don’t pick someone we’ll do it for ya,” said Robert. “We might even pick you again.”

And then I heard these words come out of my mouth, “That kid in the red jacket.” And off they ran.  Seconds later the kid in the red jacket, whom I had never seen before, had a mouth full of dirt.

This scenario played itself out every day until it started to feel good.  It was like I was the queen of the playground. All I needed to do was point, and the girl who had taken the last snack that morning was shoved into a tree trunk, the boy who had hogged all of the Lincoln Logs was pressed against the chain link fence until diamond shapes imprinted on his cheek. I was suddenly drunk with power. I felt like a player, a somebody, a contender.  I had no idea I had become a bully myself until Tommy and Robert were apprehended once again and sang like canaries in the principal’s office.

Then the three of us disappeared for a few days to learn a few lessons about kindness and how to control base human behavior. Upon our return, the patchwork gathering carpet had been divided into three sections and each of us sat at a different one.

Looking back on this I realize the power of human emotion to override what we innately know to be harmful to others.  Powerful, instinctual emotions can rise up, like flood waters, and carry us to a place we never wanted to end up.  Anger, fear, and power rule our decisions and our world in many ways.  It takes patient and loving guidance from parents, teachers and friends to help us understand ourselves and develop empathy for others. Our schools have come a long way in educating  us and our children in the arena of bullying, but I dare to say that as a nation, we have a ways to go.

Mother of the Year

Lately, I have been sifting though some of my old “mom-oir” pieces.  This one sent me into a nostalgic giggle. My son, Matthew, didn’t go through the terrible two’s until he was four.  During that tumultuous year, I learned more about the inability of men and women to communicate effectively than I did from the previous ten years of marriage.  Every conversation was about power and control, but I didn’t realize it until it was over.  I fell for it every time, like a child that is continually surprised to see the Jack in the Box explode from the can after five cranks of the handle.  A perfect example was a cloudy day in March when we went to Safeway for a few groceries…

 Mother of the Year

After circling the block three times in my navy blue mini-van, I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw that Matthew had finally calmed himself. He gazed at the tree-lined street, one pudgy index finger tracing circles on the window as the other twirled a chunk of sweaty blonde hair into a knot.  I exhaled with relief knowing that the dreaded Phase One of Every Car Trip was complete. Weeks earlier I had resigned myself to the reality that every excursion would begin with a wrestling match that would result in my pushing against his rigid little body of steel with all of my might to get him to bend to a point that I could buckle his car seat. Without fail, it would leave us both out of sorts and screaming.

Heading toward the grocery store I put in his favorite tape, the one where his name had been electronically inserted into every song.  Both of our moods lifted as we sang together about Matthew going to the moon on a magic rocket ship, and Matthew sailing the high seas with pirates.

The third song was about to begin when he called my name.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Is stupid a bad word?”

I turned and gave him the exaggerated head nod and wide eyed stern look, “Yes!  Stupid is a terrible word. You should never call someone that.”

“What about shut up?”

“Shut up is awful!  An insult to the person you are talking to.  Never, ever say shut up.”  I saw him pondering my words, his blue eyes shifting left and right as he thought about what I was saying.  It felt so good being able to impart manners and social skills to my little guy.  Mother of the Year, that’s who I was.

“What about jerk?”

My jaw dropped with another dramatic expression of horror as I looked back at him again. “That could be one of the worst words of all time.”

“Hmmm.”

“Where are you getting these words?”

“I don’t know.”

“They’re all bad. They hurt people’s feelings, and  we don’t use them in this family.” I turned off the music for the remainder of the trip so my motherly wisdom could sink in.  Finally, he was listening to me.  I hadn’t connected with him on such a level in days.  We were forming his conscience together.  He would grow to be a fine man. A priest, or the president.

We pulled into the Safeway parking lot and he climbed into the cart without incident, an event so rare it made me grab the handle with sure hands and whistle while I pushed him up and down the aisles. I even took my time for a change, scanning the shelves for new products and the usual staples.

When I rolled the cart down the cereal aisle, I could sense a mood shift.

“Can we get Captain Crunch?”

“You know the doctor said no sugar cereals.”

His hands tightened around the cart’s handle until his knuckles and fingernails turned white.  “I want Captain Crunch.”

“We’re getting Crispix.”

His heels pounded a slow, tribal rhythm against the cart. “I-hate-Crispix.”

“You love Crispix.”

His kicking picked up speed and the sound of the vibrating metal turned heads toward us. Our empty aisle was now crowded with carts. Where did these other shoppers come from?

“I want Captain Crunch!  Captain Crunch! CAPTAIN CRUNCH!”

“WE’RE GETTING CRISPIX.”

“I WAANNT CAPTAINNN CRUUNNCH!”

Like a freeze frame in an action movie, time stood still as I looked up and down the aisle. Staring eyes to the left.  Staring eyes to the right.  Everyone was unabashedly waiting to see how Mother of the Year was going to handle this.

I took a deep breath to regroup, flashed my best fake smile to my growing audience, and dropped my voice to a gravelly whisper, “With that attitude we are not getting Captain Crunch or anything else today, Mister.  We are going home right now.”

Matthew looked me straight in the eye, and at the top of his little lungs he screamed with the utmost confidence, “SHUT UP, YOU STUPID JERK!”

My mouth dropped in unison with all of the other mothers in the aisle.  Shocked that he would string together all of the worst words he knew against me, I pulled his rigid, screaming body from the cart, and carried him over my shoulder, like a writhing sack of potatoes, toward the door.

Humiliated that all of the other mothers saw me as a failure, I gave them a final glance.  Imagine my relief when I saw them clapping with looks of sympathy and understanding as Matthew screamed unintelligible sounds and pounded his fists into my back.

“Go Mom!” were the last two words I heard as I stepped outside, thankful that my cheering section wasn’t coming with me to witness the upcoming wrestling match at the car seat.

Advent and the Nature of Hope

 

I love Advent. I love everything about this time of grace.  It is a thought-provoking, layered season when a family remembers that it is holy, or at the very least, wants to be.

The night of Christ’s birth holds every possible intrigue.  It is a storyteller’s delight. Year after year we tell and retell these themes of journeying, wonder, mystery and promise. We look into the bright eyes of our children, snuggled in new pajamas around the hearth, and whisper of cold mangers, wise shepherds, angels and silent midnights that hold only peace.

As an adult I have grown to treasure Advent’s grand reminder of  the nature of HOPE. That God does unimaginable work with unlikely beginnings and difficult situations. His elaborate plan of salvation began with the creation of a family in precarious circumstances. A frightened young, pregnant girl with an entire village looking at her askance, an older husband who is not so sure about the whole thing (certainly not used to having angels tell him what to do while he is busy dreaming), and a birthplace that was far from home and extraordinarily unsanitary.

I sometime imagine a chummy angel leaning over to Mary during one of her 3:00 AM feedings and whispering in her ear things like “…just a reminder that this IS the Son of God, don’t make any parenting mistakes as the salvation of the entire world is at stake (no pressure or anything). Oh, and the family business?  He won’t be taking that over.  Your baby will become the greatest revolutionary of all times so don’t be surprised when the empire turns against you after you are forced to watch your sweet boy die the death of a common criminal.”

The holiest of families didn’t have it easy. Not by a long shot. So why is it that we think we should?  Their hardships remind me that God does not live on Easy Street.  That is not where we will witness His great power.  Rather, He lives on Damn This Is Hard Avenue.  Difficulties push us from our safe havens to seek answers.  Pain calls us to wander down that unexplored, often scary, side of town knocking on doors we never would have chosen.  How surprised we are when we find Him in the unlikeliest of places.

He is tricky like that. A king disguised as a baby leads me to open myself to the thought that other miraculous contradictions await if we slow down to consider the nature of HOPE.  If we embrace the notion that God offers possibility when there is no evidence present. To see that sometimes beginnings are disguised as endings.

Advent reminds me to choose Hope as a way of life. To pull my family close and recognize our sanctity in good times and in bad times.  That God uses our joys to strengthen our love, and He uses our sorrows as teachable moments that draw us close to Him and to each other.

The life of a holy family is not always an easy one, but it is the Christmas Story, the one so many of us seek. May God bless us all as we tackle the challenges inherent to family life in this season and every season. As a mother with children off to college and life beyond, I look forward to December 24th, when, God willing, we will  sit as a family, perhaps visited by friends and sung to by angels, on a midnight that holds only peace.

The Commonwealth Club

Please enjoy this recent presentation at The Commonwealth Club of California.  Thank you to Laura Fraser for moderating~

Susan Pohlman at the Commonwealth Club of California

Be Inspired!

I was honored to be interviewed by the inspiring Erica Jefferson of  Be Inspired!   It is my pleasure to share this podcast.

Thank you, Erica~

 

Interview with Erica Jefferson

The Whistle

A Father’s Day Tribute!  Love you, Dad~

The Whistle

My dad is one of those people who can place two fingers into his mouth and blast out a whistle that can stop a train.  It was our family’s signature “get your fannies home this minute” signal that would reverberate through the neighborhood at dinnertime.  It was also the signal he used to wake us up on Saturday mornings, hours before our teenage bodies would have naturally awakened.

“Pancakes are on the table!”

I hated those words.  I hated pancakes.  I hated trudging down the stairs in line behind my equally grumpy brothers still smelling of sleep and unwashed hair.

“Hurry up, they’re getting cold,” Mr. Handsome in his White Apron would bellow though we stood within whispering distance, pointing his silver spatula like a policeman’s baton.  “I’ve been up since 6:00 getting this ready for you all.  The least you can do is look alive. Show some respect.”

The six of us would take our places at the table, exhaling loudly and scraping the legs of the chair against the floor extra hard.

“Pass the orange juice.”

“Could you leave some syrup for the rest of us?”

“Why do you use so much butter?

“These are cold”

“Do you have to chew that loud?”

“Kevin, wake up and get your head off the table before Dad sees you.”

I would methodically cut my pancakes into exact squares and move them around.  When Todd wasn’t looking I would take a handful and throw them onto his plate. We had come to this arrangement some time ago as he would always pay me back in vegetables at dinner.

“Up and at ‘em. That’s what I always say.  Early bird gets the worm,” Dad would announce as he barged through the white swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room balancing a platter of steaming pancakes that would have made Aunt Jemima dance the jig.

“Elbows off the table.  Where should that napkin be?  Come on, backs straight, chins up.  A little class goes a long way.”  He would make one lap around the room emptying his platter onto our plates whether we wanted them or not, none of us saying a word.

“Beautiful day, lots to do.  You’ll find your lists on the fridge as usual.  No one leaves the house till your chores are done.  Work before pleasure.  Key to success.”

And so it went, week after week, as sure as the passing of the seasons. We grew up in a home built on a foundation of shoulds.  Though it was a constant source of irritation and emotional kindling that ignited many a fire between Father and Child, it also ingrained in us a deep sense of duty and order around which we could build successful lives.

My father, an electrical engineer, found comfort in rules and formulas.  A product of his generation he played the role of the “DAD” to the hilt.  Emotions were for sissies.

And he was very good at lectures.  He had a stockpile of them ready to go the instant they were needed.  He had lectures about jumping on the beds, and not pulling on the banister when we raced up and down the steps, not sitting on the edge of chairs and couches so we wouldn’t break down the cushions. He had a very emotional lecture that had something to do with not putting away his tools after we used them, and also a fiery one we only got to hear on special occasions like the one that lit up the back yard the day David decided to sneak the car out for a joyride before he got his license. And by god, if our mother took the time to make that dinner we were going to enjoy it.

I still don’t know what was going to happen if he “had to turn around one more time while driving the eight of us seven hours to Maine on vacation, or “if he had to come up there” when we giggled and played past our bedtime.

But what he was the best at, was the whistle.  It was a loud, commanding three-note signal that cut though the neighborhood and sent six pairs of legs racing home faster that than the bells of the ice cream truck. He understood that a family who eats together shares a life of meaning.

Yesterday, we sat in the bleachers at my son’s volleyball game as they battled the opponent point by point.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw my dad put his two fingers to his lips and take a deep breath.

“Dad, don’t.  You’ll embarrass him,” I laughed as I tugged gently on his arm.

“You think so?” He asked eyes softening with resignation.

“Yes. He doesn’t know about the whistle.”

“Probably for the better. I have a hard time with it now that I have these new teeth.”

“You’re still belting out your whistle?  In Sun Lakes?” I asked as he looked away thinking that I could not see his eyes cloud with memory.

“You know,” he said, “once in awhile, when the quiet overwhelms me, I pretend that it’s still magic, and you will all run home for dinner.”

A Peaceful Heart and a Happy Home

What does the pursuit of happiness look like in your house? In our home, it used to mean the quest to actualize the picture perfect life; a lovely home, big careers, high achieving children. However, our search for the American Dream was quietly laid to rest once we figured out that the stress  that came along with that dream did nothing but drive a big, fat exhausted wedge between the four of us.  Our wildest dream is now about owning less and simplifying even more.

This month, take a step back and see how much of marital and family strain might be fueled by cultural norms that you may never have given yourself permission to question. The abundance available to us in our communities and our constant search for happiness and a sense of accomplishment outside of ourselves begins, at some point, to work against relationships. Begins, at some point, to erode the sense of intimacy that keeps families close.  A lifestyle anchored in achievement does not necessarily equate to happiness.

Years ago, my brother Joe, then employed in development for George Washington University, called me one day and invited me to be his guest at a dinner party at Arianna Huffington’s house in Los Angeles.  Not one to ever pass up an interesting party, I met him there and proceeded to endure a most humbling evening.  Sharing space with the likes of Gloria Allred and many big wigs of the Democratic party, I was clearly out of my league. When people around me made small talk and told uproarious jokes about issues and people I had never heard of, well, let’s just say I felt like a kindergartener at the eighth grade lunch table.

I always remember that evening, feeling like I was less.  Like I would never live in an elegant home like Mrs. Huffington’s or be the type of person that would understand jokes about the inner workings of Washington, D.C.  I left that night promising myself to work harder, read more news magazines, watch more serious TV and avail myself to more intellectual discussions. I promised myself to find a way to have more.  More, more, more…faster, faster, faster to make sure I didn’t feel less.

In October 2009,  I saw that Mrs. Huffington had chosen, as her first book club pick, In Praise of Slowness, by Carl Honore, a book about less, less, less…slower, slower, slower to make us feel more.  Life has its ironies.

I agree with Carl Honore. In his book he discusses the current trend toward deceleration saying that “The problem is that our hunger for speed, for cramming more and more into less time, has gone too far.”  That “the current recession is a stark reminder that an economy based on fast growth, fast consumption, and fast profits is not sustainable.”

The pendulum is swinging in the opposite direction.  Not only can our economy not withstand such a pace, neither can our families.  Divorce rates remain around 50%.  I wonder how that might change, how children’s lives might remain innocent and intact, if families were given cultural permission to slow down and own less.  The greatest indicator of success is a happy family, not a beautiful home as glossy magazines and TV shows might suggest.

Our experience of selling all and living abroad for a year to reconnect as a family supports Honore’s theory.  It was a sacred time of owning nothing but possessing everything. Simplification has helped us maintain a level of sanity and intimacy that supports rather than strains our family. Perhaps the American Dream, as we know it, has run its course. Perhaps it is time for a new one. A slower, less materialistic one.

Taking things out of your life will help you and your spouse find more time for each other. So much of what we choose to fill our days can be argued as good, but too much of a good thing is still too much.  If you are seeking real change in the quality of your marriage, you must find a way to create the emotional space to interact in meaningful ways.

I challenge you, this month, to think outside our cultural box and create your own recipe for happiness according to what works best for you and your spouse.  My wildest dream is a peaceful heart and happy home, the very same two things that I wish for you!