Few activities bring me as much honest enjoyment as reading.  But I don’t necessarily need to read in order to find comfort in books.  Here, in a bookstore, with a cup of coffee and wi-fi, I feel as though I am in a little square of paradise.

I saw my friend Julie Connor yesterday (Dr.Julie, to you) and learned that she has published her book.  “I had to,” she kidded me.  “You told me I could do it so how could I face you and say that I hadn’t done it yet?”  I understood her sentiment.  I’ve been threatening to try to publish a collection of my essays for several years and have gotten no further.  The idea of having a book filled with my words seems to be enough, so far.

My basement and attic hold several boxes marked DO NOT THROW AWAY THESE CHILDREN’S BOOKS.  Some of them come from my childhood, but most date from the last two decades.  My son and his friends  read almost as often as they played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or raced Hot Wheels.  One of those friends designs computer games; one works with computers; my son is a writer.  The books stored in those boxes gave them their first fields of combat, the lyrics to songs,  stories of bravery and timeless life-lessons.

My son had a couple of books that frightened him.  One of them came from Sesame Street.  Grover proclaimed on every page, “There’s a monster at the end of the book!”  Grover urged the reader not to turn the page! because there was a monster at the end of the book! My child, two or three at the time, would plead with me to obey Grover’s admonishments.  I showed him, every time, that it was just Grover himself, loveable blue Grover, nothing more, at the end of the book.  But he didn’t care.  Don’t do it!  Don’t turn the page!

I  tried to give the book away but he wouldn’t hear of it; some other child might be frightened.

We read plenty of books that we both enjoyed:  Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?, Where the Wild Things Are, all the Max books while he was still in pre-school, and many more.  One book that he particularly liked was called, ironically, The Monster Under the Bed.  In it, a little boy, often warned of a monster under his bed by his well-meaning parent, wandered into the bedroom of a young monster who had been warned by his well-meaning parent about little boys sleeping in his bed.  What a delightful volume; and only after my son learned to read did he realize that I had invented lines for the last two pages, when the little boy dangles over the bed, the little monster looks up, and they both learn that their mothers were right.  “Eek!  said the boy,” I would intone.  “Eek! said the monster.  And they both ran away.”  I will never forget the baleful look that Patrick gave me when he realized that those words did not appear in the story.

Here among the books, I can imagine that I’m seeing countries that I’ve never visited and meeting people more interesting than I am.  While not all books end happily, the endings make sense and seem to flow effortlessly.  A well-written book might surprise but it never disappoints; the characters behave consistently with the personalities they’ve been given, even if nuances of their yearnings cause them to make choices that I find puzzling.  When I close a book that I have enjoyed, I feel satisfied, knowing that people whose lives I have come to understand have ordered themselves in a way that allows me to imagine them continuing, waking up the next day, doing the next thing, loving the next person.

I was recently asked what activity invites me to feel most like myself.  I chose writing.  But I could just as easily have said reading, for among these volumes, which beckon me to open their pages and curl in a chair to read them, I can both escape and explore, laugh and cry, feel longing and feel comfort, and in the last few paragraphs, draw a long, healing breath before I close the book.

Here’s where I am today:  Mysteryscape.

This morning, I had an MRI to find out if I have a brain and if there’s anything wrong with it.  A scheduled ultrasound to make the same determination as to my liver had to be postponed because nobody told me to fast — and I didn’t!  But the MRI was the more critical test of the two, and it’s done.  I either have something seriously wrong or not; and we’ll know in “3 to 5 business days”.

As I re-dressed in my street clothes, I chanced to see my form in a full-length mirror.  My gosh, I’m thin, I thought.  I cast my memory back to February of 2008, when a young orthopedic doctor admonished me about my weight gain, saying, When we gave you that artificial knee, you weighed 115.  You weigh 172 now, Ms. Corley; that knee can’t take anything over about 135.  Who knew?

While I didn’t know that artificial joints of that vintage were weight-rated, I certainly knew that my lily-white spastic legs suffered from any excess poundage.  I understood the situational sadness that had sent me to the cupboard, fridge and vending machine time after time until my 5-3 frame held over 170 pounds.  I watched my body go from a size 2 to a size 16.  When even the 16s felt tight, I started wearing loose-fitting dresses which I thought hid my bulk but really just accentuated it.

On March 1, 2008, I started on a sensible diet.  It had just two rules:  Eat less; move more.  While I can’t do much in the way of serious exercise, I could and did pursue the adaptive yoga techniques of Peggy Cappy.  I had a headstart on that front: My first physical therapist had been a yoga instructor also, and though I’d abandoned the discipline, its principles felt familiar.

By January of 2011, I had gotten down to a size zero and my doctor’s eyebrows raised as he suggested, mildly, that possibly I might have lost just a tad too much.

I’m back to a 2, now.  While size might be “just a number”, in reality, I’m very small-framed and I have weak legs, which fare better with less burden.  I eat healthy food (except that quick McD sammy that prevented the ultrasound and now sits like a brick in my stomach) and don’t drink alcohol.  I still do stretches and use a HealthRider for a bit of cardio, pushing its benefits as far as my long-ago dislocated and now-arthritic hip will allow.

I don’t feel “skinny” and I think, even though I was only heavy for three or four years, that my body image until today had still been allied with that chunky, middle-aged, dowdy divorced woman who felt miserably unsuccessful.  Whatever else I might know, or learn, or realize, today I faced the fact that my weight matches my body’s design.  I have small wrists and a narrow carriage.  I’m supposed to be this size.  And I am.  I’m not fat; I’m not ‘too thin’.  I finally cast off the perception of myself as fat and unattractive, after that long, telling look in the sterile mirror at St. Luke’s Outpatient Imagery.

Another woman, with a larger frame, might be perfect at 150.  For me, it’s 110.  My size.  Five foot three, 110 lbs, size 2.  I stood in front of that mirror and realized that I felt light, light as sunshine, and in serious danger of drifting away, into the sky, to dance among the clouds.

Peggy Cappy’s Website

When I was pregnant with my son, a well-meaning individual who shall not here be named counseled me to “give [my] child to a real family”.  By “real”, I think this individual meant “a family consisting of a mother, father, house, mortgage, cat, dog and regular church attendance”.  I didn’t, thankfully, and despite a few dire prognostications along the way, I think I made the right choice for him.

When I walk the halls of the Family Court, watching babies cry and toddlers squirming on the laps of social workers, I realize that my child’s life came nowhere near the disaster that it could have.  True enough, for his first eight years he had just one parent, and since then, he’s had two stepfathers.  But he always had love, and a roof, and food on the table.  He attended a private preschool and elementary school if not the most expensive in town.  He had opportunity to fulfill his potential, which I think he’s doing.

An appointed client of mine has her court-ordered supervised visitation at the conference room of my suite.  Yesterday, a technician came to take a urine or hair sample for drug-testing.  She went with him, quite docilely.  She’s twenty-one and pregnant with her fourth child.  A twin of her current pregnancy miscarried but this one persists.  The first two children have been adopted by her parents who foster child three.  My client rarely has a place to sleep, a job, food, or even enough money for bus fare.  We give her bottled water, the occasional sandwich, and spare change.  Perhaps it’s above and beyond.  But it seems the right thing to do.

There’s all kinds of sadness in the world.  Thinking about the sorrow of others prods me to put just a bit more happiness in each day, by smiling; by forgiving; by letting others know how much I care about them.  I’d rather be hung for a fool than a cad.  I don’t know how much time I have left on the earth, but I intend to exit laughing.

Here’s a link to a YouTube of Joni Mitchell singing “Little Green”.  I hear this song in my head every time I go to Family Court or one of my Family Court clients comes to me.  I hope you enjoy it; and more importantly, I hope hearing it inspires you to walk down the hall to your children’s bedrooms, peak inside, and make sure they are covered to their little chins, with their teddy bears tucked in beside them, and the night light burning.

Little Green – Joni Mitchell: 

I’m not very good at correcting people. I have moved closer toward being able to show people mistakes they have made and explain the significance of those mistakes and suggest a better course of action.  This mostly becomes necessary with respect to the people who work for me.

I have developed a supervisory style over the years that could best be described as erratic.  I give heaps of praise one day, and slash-and-burn condemnation the next.  I’ve been asking myself, “How’s that working for you?” And the answer inevitably came:  “Not so much.”

Now I create the entire speech in my head and have to deliver it without ceasing.  I’m a great lawyer, a loyal friend, a reasonably competent parent but a lousy boss.  I praise and instruct but I also snap and snarl.  With the preset speech, I avoid the temptation of harsh tones or sarcastic rhetoric.  So far, I have to get the whole speech out.  If I’m interrupted, I get sidetracked and regress to my old ways.

My new-found desire to emphasize acknowledging the essential value of everyone before suggesting changes in behavior tenuously balances with the practicalities of running a law firm. I’m not sure what “grace” really means, but I use it to describe both the attitude which I desire to adopt in inter-personal communication and the inspiration for that attitude.  In finding grace, in speaking from that place where grace dwells, I’m learning that I don’t need to complain to get my point across.  I need only explain, and appeal to the other person’s essential desire to succeed, and to the pool of grace within them.

Sitting on my porch this morning, I felt this state of grace rise within me, filling  me with peace and possibility.  I took this picture at the exact moment that the breeze rose through the windchimes and bells on our porch.  The gentle melody flowed around me, and I closed my eyes, surrendering to the beauty within me and around me.

I’ve been called an optimist, an idealist, a socialist, clueless, delusional and goofy.

But yesterday, the only label that would have fit me is joyful.  I received many notes from people reading this blog and following my personal journey to healing, and those notes triggered a sense of calm that I have needed for years.  I’d like to publicly thank each of you. Pat, Jane, Phil, Cindy, Katrina, Linda, Kati; over on Facebook, Marcella, Trini, Jeanne, Penny; am I forgetting anyone? Annie, A.J., Elizabeth; Theresa; and how could I not mention, the incomparable Puma?

I’m sure I’ve overlooked someone; I’ll stress about that all day.  But the point remains:  Without the people who support me, this effort would unquestionably fail.

My family supports me in other ways — my son,; my husband and the family I’ve been privileged to share with him; my siblings; and my family-by-choice.  But there is something about having each of you tell me how my account of this journey impacts you, which spurs me to continue both the quest and the documenting of it. If a blog exists on a web page but no one reads it, does it have meaning?  My words mean something to me, of course; but I see them as a vehicle for establishing a connection.  You are the people who hold on to the other end of the lifeline.  I no longer know who is pulling whom to shore.  Perhaps we are swimming together.

What draws me to this incredible pool of human interaction?  I see myself as reaching for something which has meaning beyond my daily existence.  I want to enrich my life, strengthen the spiritual underpinnings which sustain me, and also lend some of the joy in me to others.  What it is, is a longing for permanency in the fleeting moment that is our life here on earth.

My connection with my family, by marriage and by blood, intertwines with my connection to each of you.  The whole bundle provides that permanency and this blog process memorializes it.  Walking among you, sharing my words, hearing yours, provides me with a sense that we  all partake of something infinitely larger than ourselves but also become one with that vastness.

The Puma would say that I came late to the wonder of life but she would encourage me to continue wrapping my arms around this grandeur.  She is wise, our Puma; and I intend to aspire to that incredible goal — the goal of embracing life, with all its pain and pleasure.

Thank you, all of you, for coming along on this wild and wonderful ride.

Last spring, I brought a portable gardening kit created with the help of a wonderful sales clerk to my mother-in-law, Joanna MacLaughlin.  Together, we potted geraniums which then graced her window sill at The Sweet Life.

After Joanna passed, my father-in-law sent three of the containers from that little window sill garden home with me.  This weekend, my husband and  I made the annual Soil Service spring run. He got sod and feritilizer, and zinnias for the sunny edge of the driveway.  I got impatiens, geraniums and a few other annuals to scatter in clay pots on the porch and deck.

Pictured here is one of the clay pots that Joanna filled that day, working dark soil with her gloved hands and gently pouring water on the tender plants.  I thought about her as I potted this weekend, thought of the gleam in her eye when she saw the gardening kit that I wheeled into her room.  She touched the newly purchased gloves and said, “Are these for me?”  My heart soared then; and I knew I had done the right thing in bringing a sample of what she had so loved to do to the small room in which she spent the last months of her life.

I only knew Joanna for four years, but I carry a bit of her in me.  The smile with which she greeted everyone; her sweetness; her uncomplaining nature; these inspire me.  As does her love of gardening, in which my own mother, Lucy, also took pleasure.  I hope that I am, in some small way, their legacy — the legacy of two fabulous women, who worked the earth each year with such care, nurturing  new life, surrounding themselves and all of us with the beauty they created.

With the pale blue sky above me and the soft twitterings of birds drifting down from the trees and our rooftop, I find it impossible to be gloomy.  Here on my porch, a cup of coffee nearby, wrapped in a colorful sweatshirt, I feel more content than I have for a long time.

I’ve had a few challenges to my resolve to live complaint-free this week.  I found several fairly serious mistakes made by an employee and snapped at her, something for which I quickly and thoroughly apologized.  Nothing that needs to be said must be said in ugly tones; and on that day, my tone regressed to exasperation.  Within minutes, I realized what I had done, and asked for her forgivness.

Other personal challenges draw me away from my resolve to live complaint-free.  I’ve not necessarily handled those challenges well this week.  My greatest puzzlement lies in my inability to handle the suggestions of others for how I should change, even if the ideas expressed seem thoughtful and well-intended.  I’m told to work less, sleep more, do this, do that; and I find myself wondering if I’m just someone’s class project.  I can’t quite figure out why I resent the efforts of others to advise me.  Perhaps I fear that their attempts stem from their basic belief that I am incapable of managing my own affairs.

Whatever the case, I find myself rocking back on my feet, trying to see the goodness in the efforts of others to help me better my situation.  They mean well, I tell myself.  Don’t take it personally, I caution, inwardly.  Nobody’s criticizing you.  They just want you to feel good.  I move past the moment, smile, thank the well-meaning advisor, and stow their suggestions away for later reflection.

I listen to other people’s problems for a living.  I pursue litigation on their behalf, sometimes with complete success, other times failing utterly.  Most times, I find the middle ground.  As client after client sits in my office unburdening themselves, I find my mind drifting, my eyes shifting to the window, my spirit wandering.  I draw my attention back to my client; they deserve my utmost focus.  But decades of this rapt listening has worn me.  I crave silence.  I crave moments like the one in which I find myself this morning:  soft breeze, sweet smells, warm sun.  I yearn for peace.

At a gathering last night, someone asked me if I am close to my siblings.  I was closest to one who died, I told her, realizing that I had rarely spoken those words outloud.  How long ago did he die, she asked.  She gasped when I told her that it had been seventeen years; seventeen years this June.  Oh my, he must have been young, she sighed.  Indeed.  Thirty-seven.

Every year, as the anniversary of my brother’s passing approaches, I think about the burdens he carried.  Demons rode his back; as demons cling to all of us.  I have my own.  Most of mine hide just out of sight, snickering, telling me that I’m not good enough, or pretty enough, or successful enough.  These taunts inform me less and less as I let go of the twisted ways that my insecurities have made me behave.  My brother Steve and I had any of the same demons: A damaging father, essential insecurity, failed relationships.  Sorrowfully, he choose death as a way of escaping them.

I choose life.

I started coloring my hair in the 70s when henna — real Egyptian henna — could be purchased everywhere.  I had grey already back then, a shimmer of it through my red-brown curls.  My hair reached down to there! and the grey might have been considered charming by anyone who was twice my age, but at 18, I wanted to look young. Grey hair just didn’t cut it.

When I graduated from college, I cut my hair short, painted blonde streaks in it, and moved to Boston.  For the next two or three years, I experimented with hair painting in all sorts of imaginative colors, none close to my natural hue.  The curls grew until they again graced the region of my waistline, and the grey kept coming.  No one could tell; I became deft at the application of tint standing at the kitchen sink, rinsed with the hose or the shower.  Forever young.

After my son’s birth, I contemplated “going grey”.  But one afternoon, as the sun glinted on my brow, my little boy chirped at me, “Mom, I hope you don’t look like a grandma until you are a grandma.”  Strike a blow for Clairol stock shares; I kept on buying the box and covering the roots which surged forth, half-inch by half-inch, if I did not scrupulously attend to the process.

I got some alarming color results:  Purple, fire-engine red, and once, the most ghastly orange.  A year ago, a disarming stylist asked if I was aiming “for the ombre approach”.  Ouch!  I could only laugh.

At the beginning of March of this year, I decided to throw all caution to the wind and let the grey hair come.  I visited the lovely facility at Paul Mitchell The School in Overland Park, had a spray of forgiving “ash” highlights spread throughout the top layer of my new hair cut, and sat back to let nature take control.

Now, with my 59th birthday just four months away, I think I finally look my actual age.  It’s had a disturbing effect on me:  I’m starting to consider becoming a grown-up.

Stay-tuned!  Pictures forthcoming. . . when I decide if I’m staying the course, or reverting to type, in the next week or two.  Time will tell.

Ain’t that the truth!

Most people have an ideal reality.  Here in the United States, we call this, “The American Dream”.  A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage, college, new clothes, travel abroad, happy husband, happy wife.

For me, the American Dream has always seemed unattainable.  Oh, I’ve got the car, the chicken and a pretty nice house.  And I’m not talking about my marriage.  I’m talking about something more ephemeral.  I’m talking about the feeling of having reached a certain goal both personal and professional, where I walk down the street confident, comfortable and collected.

That American Dream.  The sweet feeling that I deserve the fine things that come the way of others, and not just material goods but the respect of people whom I meet.  The ability to speak without worrying that the person across from me will wince, scowl or shudder.  Rather, that they will lean my way, hear my words, share their own thoughts and feelings, and be glad for the exchange.  With me.

I’ve never had that.

As a consequence, my exchanges with people historically fall into one of two categories:  Either I am overly nice to the point of saccharine-coated syrup; or I snap pre-emptively.  Sometimes both reactions occur in the space of a single conversation.  I start out wanting to be genuinely cordial, but my fear takes over and I think, This person won’t like me.  I gravitate between gushing and grousing.  I feel as though I have completely made a fool of myself and clamp down on my urge to placate.  I walk away feeling like a total dolt.

This evening, I called to a clerk’s attention that she was about to over-charge me.  She became upset and defensive.  I kept my voice level and pointed to the sign with the price in question.  She grew shrill and insisted that despite the sign, the higher price applied.  She also could not accept my request for a paper container rather than a styrofoam one, despite the proximity of either to her reach.  A manager came upon the stymied scene, smoothed out her ruffled feathers, gave her permission to use paper for this application, and told her to charge me the price on the sign.  But, lo and behold, when I got home, tired and discouraged, I discovered she had, in fact, charged me the higher price.

Looking back on the situation, I knew exactly what I had done. I started out overly pleasant — “How was your day?  Oh thank you very much, oh no problem”.  These words dripped from my tongue.  Then, the request for the paper box came and she bristled.  My friendly tone could not withstand her youthful dedication to the script she had been given.  I succumbed to fatigue and stood my ground.  For me, the bottom line became getting the food I wanted, in a nontoxic container, at the advertised price.  Walking away with the clerk as a friend flew out the window.  I did not understand why she couldn’t do what I wanted.  Customers all around asked for variances and in no nicer tones than I.  Why couldn’t she just give me the paper container?  And charge the price on the sign above what I wanted?

Sadly, I find it hard to take myself out of these exchanges.  Essentially, I have always considered myself worthy of nothing less than abusive treatment.  But I crave better.  When I escalate a situation, it’s a sign that I resent the implication that the guy next to me asking for extra this or that has the right to do so, but I do not.  When I lay on the flattery, it’s from that deep-rooted conviction that I have to flatter to get even the most grudging of assistance.

These realizations have come hard for me.  This quest to rid my life of complaint has as its foundation the desire to treat others more honorably.  But what I am learning lies both in how I treat others, and in how I regard myself.  Distilled to its essence, complaining simply manifests my own insecurity, my own unmet need to feel important.  When I finally learn to value myself, I will be able to overlook the minor transgressions of others.  I will be able to hold steadfast in my self-acceptance, and find my center.

And then, finally, I will be living my own American Dream.