Mom, I love you.

All of us have that guilty pleasure.  Whether it is watching Ellen or Maury, or reading bodice rippers, or fixing key lime fudge just to eat by ourselves, there is always something that we do that just gives us a little thrill - something that is not part of what we would willingly share with the world.

I have a number of guilty pleasures, but one of my regulars is reading the Postsecret blog.

For those five of you who don't know what Postsecret is, it is a website that updates every Sunday, providing anonymous secrets that people mailed in from around the world.  The idea is that nobody will know it is you, and that there is something quite liberating to give up the secret.  It also provides a voyeuristic thrill to read other people's secrets, and let you share a little bit with people you don't know. Somehow, it  seems to make the world just a little smaller, and more likeable.

Last night, I was working on some classwork, and midnight passed; to celebrate, I opened a window to the website.

It is Mother's Day.  And people share some of the most heart-rending, saddest, happiest, joyous postcards ever on Mother's Day.  Common themes: Mom, I forgive you; Mom, I miss you; Mom, you are my heroine; Mom, please get off of heroin.

And this one.

This one resonated with me.

Let me tell you about my mom.  Patty Lawton is a caretaker.  She is a facilitator.  She is an enabler. She is a cheerleader.  She is a lover, and a fighter, and is devoted beyond all imagination.  She gives of herself, and loves with a fierceness that I have never seen in anyone else.

When we were in Brasil, I fell off the boat.  Mom, hearing my screams (I couldn't swim) woke from a dead sleep and dove over a four-foot rail straight into the Amazon River to save me. I knew I was saved, and stopped yelling (which was unfortunate, because she could no longer see me because of the glare.)  The she-bear instincts were strong in my mom, and she rescued me.  (Little Bear got his bottom warmed after that incident, but it was done in love...)

Excited to learn

I'm not worth it.

It's too much.

I won't make the best use of it.

I'm not ready.


I have mentioned my banjo before (over and over again). My wife bought me a banjo last March. It was too much money, and something that we should not have spent the money on.

To be clear, I do not have a great track record with making good use of musical instruments. I got a guitar for a birthday in my teens, and never learned more than a couple of chords. The dulcimer Dad bought me in 2002 is a beautiful piece of wall art. I borrowed my sister's keyboard, and never really used it.

I have friends and relatives who play instruments. Some of them (Bruce, Caroline, Windi) learned to play as adults. I envy the focus that they bring to the task.

And as much as I liked listening to the banjo, I found it hard to justify buying one for myself. I am a singer.  A singer who suffered through piano lessons in the fourth and fifth grade. I can read music... But have never been able to summon the focus to really learn an instrument.

So the banjo was a bit scary.

It would have been easier if the banjo had cost fifty bucks, was impossible to tune, and had been a funky instrument that didn't follow the rules.  It is easier to justify failure if there are mitigating circumstances.

But Kathe did not allow me that luxury.  If I was going to ignore the banjo in the corner, if I was going to not practice, if I was going to avoid becoming the musician I wanted to be...iIt was not going to be the fault of the instrument.

We did not get a $2,400 instrument.  But we also did not get a garage-sale banjo, either. Even though that was what I was looking for.

I wanted an instrument that I could feel no guilt about not succeeding at playing. What I got was an instrument that I could succeed with.

It is now 9 months later. I have learned my basic four chords, and can play a number of simple tunes (I balked at the "Go tell Aunt Rhody" tunes, and just played the ones I wanted to. After learning the lesson on backward roll associated with that infernal tune, of course). I read the tablature, and play out-of-rhythm versions of a number of tunes that I like.

I even can sing along to my clawhammer efforts, as weak as they are.

It gives me a surprising amount of joy. 

Today I take my first banjo lesson, and I am suitably scared.  I don't know whether I will be able to play the way I want.  I know my hands will shake (one of the main reasons I hated performing on piano when I was a kid.)

But I am going to learn.  I am going to demand a lot from the instructor.  I am going to squeeze every bit of value out of the interaction, or I am going to find a different instructor.

I am excited.

Take that, ego. 

Ellipses

My name is Crorey Lawton, and I am a mid-level bureaucrat with the Federal government.

This is not how it was supposed to be. This is not the dream.  Even when I started down this burrocratic pathway, I recognized that I was selling out; at least it seemed like that. Listen to how it sounded at first:

My name is Crorey Lawton, and I am a mid level bure‎aucrat....and I am finishing my dissertation in Maya archaeology.

See the difference? The first one has a sense of finality‎. The second has an ellipsis. Those three dots are so important to the ego. They define who we are in ways that let the dust mote scream to the universe.

So when I got ‎booted unceremoniously from the PhD program at Tulane, I could no longer use that ellipsis. I was surprised at how much I missed it. It let me tell people that there was more to me. That I was worthy of consideration. That I was of note.

Losing the dots was harder than losing the three letters I had hoped to put behind my name. I had lost an essential part of who I defined myself to be, and its loss was something that I mourned deeply.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the key to 'who we are' is held in those three dots. 

But....

But there is great joy, and even fun, in finding the ellipses in those around us.

Suzanne, a friend of mine, is a master at seeing the ellipsis in others.  She is a novelist, and so she is always looking at the cast of characters around her with an eye for what makes them unique. (Chicken/egg problem - does she see the unique, and is therefore a writer, or is it a developed tool?) So she speaks to the homeless guy outside her office, asking his opinion on last night's game, and the blossom of his personality opens like a flower under the sunlight of her questions.  

That, right there, is a magical moment.  He is no longer just the homeless guy.  Clyde is defined by his ellipsis, by those unspoken parts that make him special.

It makes me want to look carefully and see those around me in a different light.  That Tea Party co-worker that makes me grind my teeth every single day?  What does he do when he goes home?  Does he volunteer to coach little league?  Does he give every extra dime to feed kids at a foodbank?  Is he a novelist, or a closeted clarinetist?

The cashier.... the gas attendant at Costco.... the people around us all the time that we don't see.  What are their stories, and what are the pieces of their lives that make them special? Those who are closer have ellipses, too. 

Go, find out about somebody's ellipsis, because that is where their life is being lived. Finding that special-ness in others means that you get to share with them the wonder of who they are.

And it brings us closer together.