Where ya been? Oh, right, it's #NaNoWriMo

So it's National Novel Writing Month or #NaNoWriMo2017 and I've been under a rock. I haven't worked out since Nov 1 though I have been getting up early every day.

I've been writing. This year's project is a Neverland story which you can read more about here. And I might stick a little bit on the end here just for fun.

So this 41st Year post is about falling off the wagon. 

I'm a professional wagon-faller. Oh, sure, I euphemize it with words like "redirect" and "pivot" but the truth is, when the wagon doesn't seem to be making any progress, I topple right off.

Some of my most famous wagon-fallings include the six-week no-alcohol "tradition" I had for about five years. It stretched from New Year's Day until the Daytona 500. It was meant to give my liver a break after football season because September through December is rough. After 2008, though, I gave that giving-up up. Be sober for nine-ish months and you'll stop inflicting that shit on yourself, too.

Another great wagon-jumping happened when I decided to scrap book Hollie's baby book. I did two mini-books and have been collecting stuff for the rest ever since. She's nine. I'm never, ever going to catch up. Which is fine, I realized, when I learned no other moms are doing a week-by-week log of their kid's growing up except via Facebook (collective groan and eye roll).

I've started and stopped dozens of fitness programs from half marathon trainings to swim team to Beast Mode and even a personal trainer. I've started and stopped dozens of diets meant to offset the booze, lose the baby weight, make recovery easier, make my metabolism faster, and make me hotter for my 20th reunion.

In spite of my wagon-falling, I've also been faithful and steadfast in a number of pursuits. I've attended my South Carolina Writers Workshop (SCWA) group sessions two Mondays a month for about three years. I've been at the Tuesday Twitter chat #wschat for more than 5 years. And I've done NaNoWriMo for five years. 

Writing, it seems, is a wagon I'm glad to be on.

For the last 18 months I've been faithful to 1 Million Cups which meets weekly and I've volunteered to read in Hollie's classroom every November since kindergarten. I'm not afraid of commitment -- I'm framing an assembled 1000 piece puzzle this week -- I'm just easily persuaded to drop relationships that aren't working.

The 41st Year blog is about the things I wanted to do that I felt would give me evidence of a life well-lived. Live events, visits with my Papa, and meaningful time with friends. What I didn't account for in that planning was the downhill slope my work life would take from January until now. 

The 41st Year is turning out to be less about charting new territory and more about resilience, persistence, and steadfastness. 

Lest you mistake these as synonyms, let me explain.

Resilience is about recovery, a return to the original form. I've been working over Clemson Road Consulting for months. The original mission of the company was remote, asynchronous work in storytelling -- a writing studio. We're there. Again.

Persistence is about continuing, a constant effort in a single direction. I've been pushing into fiction writing for half a decade and broke through this year with some highly-regarded work, opportunities, and recognition. 

Steadfastness is about being firm in purpose, resolved to a specific direction. I have not abandoned my dream of being either a writer or an entrepreneur. It's tough but if it wasn't, everyone would do it. 

I have a vision for my life and I plan to achieve that vision. It's just taking a few setbacks to earn the breaks I need to leap forward.

My faith remains. 

Faith in the vision, faith in my partnerships, and faith in myself. It's funny how spending the entire month with a kid who discovers The Neverland is a lie has made me more resolved than ever to make the most of the real world in which we're living.

Now, as promised, a little hint of the #NaNoWriMo project:

The ship anchored off the coast of Neverland, its black sails visible like an ink blot on the horizon. A flag with a skull and crossed bones waved on the highest tip of the highest mast, above a crow’s nest where stood a man peering at the shore through a long, retractable telescope.

I peered back through my own lens and tried to make out the whiskers on his face, the set of his jaw, the evil in his eye.

“How many?” Peter asked.

On deck I’d counted twenty-one. Six pulling at ropes and raising sails, five turning cranks and wheels, four tying knots, three securing ballast, one in the crow’s nest, one studying a map, and one at the helm. The last one wore a wide-brimmed cap with a feather that fluttered in the wind, a long duster trimmed in gold, and tall black books that caught the morning sun and shone as though just polished.

“Looks as though they’re getting underway,” I said, watching the anchor emerge from the water and climb toward the rail.

“And go where?” Peter’s voice had mocking in it. He hovered just above me, legs akimbo, arms crossed. Did he see what I saw? How keen was his vision for such things?

“Let ‘em go,” Hickory said. “They may return with treasure.”

“Or chocolate,” one of the twins piped.

“Or down blankets and feather pillows,” Peter sneered and spat at the ground beneath him. We’d raided the ship before, stolen the materials they’d captured from wherever it was they’d gone. The luxury of those items hadn’t left our memories and the five of us, Hickory, twins, Rocky and me, could share the same fantasy of fresh peaches, warm silks, sparkling jewels, and crisp wafers.

“How long will they be gone?” Rocky asked.

Peter’s sneer turned to a glare that he threw carelessly at the bear-costumed boy beside me.

“No time,” I whispered. “There is no time.”

Rocky blinked, nodded, “Sorry, Peter,” he said quickly so that all the syllables merged into one sound of contrition.

Peter turned his gaze back to the horizon.

The Power of Audible Play Calling

When a quarterback changes the play at the line of scrimmage it’s called “Audibling.” Yes, that’s a legitimate verb-ing of the word “audible.”

Other ways to say it: He called an audible. He made adjustments. He changed the play.

The QB sees something he doesn’t like (or something he does like, maybe a favorable match up or a weakness in the defense) and he changes the play. The ability to adjust on the fly is one of those skills veteran quarterbacks acquire after thousands of snaps, thousands of defensive reads, thousands of hours watching tape. The best quarterbacks make the right play-changes: they recognize something, make adjustments, and turn the play into a big gain.

It’s their experience that justifies their audibling.

So how do I get away with it? I have just one child. I did not raise my little siblings, have nieces or nephews on whom to practice, nor a close friend who showed me the ropes. I’ve always been a rookie at this. What gives me the confidence to repeatedly call audibles where Hollie is concerned?

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a change junkie. I don’t want the same thing to happen every day. I don’t want the routine that is so ingrained that weeks or years pass and I don’t even notice they’ve slipped by. While Hollie has a schedule, I provide as much flexibility within that schedule as I can.

I like to call it Mickey Mouse Parenting, working off a checklist. As long as all of these things get done before we move forward, we’re okay; they don’t have to be done a specific order.

Maybe it comes from experience with software implementations which try to do as many things simultaneously as possible. Maybe it’s the milestone approach my PhD program took where things happened concurrently. I have a flexible approach because I know the best laid plans are only plans until you start to execute them. Then they’re life and life sometimes has rogue linebackers who sneak through the line and sack the quarterback. Life sometimes jumps up for the interception and turns your running backs into tacklers.

In every play, you have to be ready to shift from offense to defense. 

It helps if you call an audible. If you adjust to the defensive schema you see.

I have always called audibles in my relationship with Charlie. He’s used to it. Toward the end of the day I might call and let him know we’re doing happy hour this evening, so meet us at the bar. We used to make spontaneous road trips, extend weekends into Monday, and buy last-minute tickets for shows.

We once decided on a Friday night to go to the Daytona 500 on Sunday. We got in the car Saturday afternoon, met a buddy in Florence, drove through the night, and made it to the race three hours before green flag.

Admittedly, we’re less impulsive now. But our Friday driveway parties are part of my audible-calling nature, trivia night at the bar is an audible I keep in my back pocket, and I very rarely turn down an invitation to go anywhere unless it requires giving up my Sunday.

Where Hollie is concerned, audibles can mean instability. 

It can mean she comes home from school and I’m not here because I added an extra meeting downtown. Maybe after swim team we have to go to the grocery store or maybe we have to pick up a friend’s kid from school today. Audibles make teachers and administrators crazy because they have hundreds of children. But I have just one. And she can bend, flex, go-with-the-flow because I resisted that type-A parenting advice of scheduling your baby to keep your own sanity. A schedule for Hollie would have made me miserable.

Being able to audible means being able to adjust to current circumstances. Adjusting doesn’t mean accepting, it just means recognizing that your wide receiver is double-teamed which means your running back can get open. So change the play.

Be the Neighbor You Wish You Had

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Write the book you want to read.

Build the company you want to work for.

Be the neighborhood you wish you had.

Last time we got together with our neighbors, I told them how I’d been bragging about how awesome they are. We frequently have happy hour on my driveway, cookouts in our adjoining backyards, and cornhole games that get a little too competitive.

Last Friday I was talking about the camaraderie in our neighborhood with a colleague in New York City and she said, “I wish we had that.”

My book club ladies all echo the same sentiment. We all know people who won’t let their kids play outside unsupervised.

Then it occurred to me: I built this.

It started with me sitting outside with Hollie and beckoning my next-door neighbors over whenever they were outside. Then we started inviting people who walked by up on to the driveway for a game. When the kids found a new friend, I walked over to the friend’s house and invited the mom over for wine.

When it was time to go home, the neighbor parents walked over and collected their children and we chatted for a few minutes.

It seems obvious to me now that you would introduce yourself to the people your kid knows but, really, how many people do that? I don’t know any of the moms at the dance studio. Admittedly I haven’t invested in them at all.

But I did invest in my neighbors. I got to know them: which ones are Clemson fans and which ones are Gamecocks, which kid belongs to what adult, where the house is, what they do for a living, if and when they’re home in the afternoon or over the weekend.

Knowing my neighbors keeps my kid safer.

Not safe. She’s safe because she’s been taught how to spot danger, how to stay with others, and how to find help when she needs it.

Looking for Disruption in 2016

From the beginning, some 100+ posts ago, this blog has been about life in transition.

Photo by: Naldz Graphics

There was very little transition in 2015 and so fewer blog posts than in the years before.

But right at the end, late December, things began to shift.

Maybe it was test driving a sweet BMW 428i and seeing what I would have to do to afford it. Or maybe it was being offered a job I couldn’t possibly take. Maybe it was drawing nearer to the moving dates of my two best buddies.

For whatever reason, I started feeling the old churning of change. Like I’d been sitting on the top of the ferris wheel and was now slipping into the downward arc.

Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child

A lot of GenXers are loathe to admit we should have been wearing bike helmets as kids. It seems silly to us that our kids see them as essential as a seatbelt in the backseat or hand sanitizer before snack.

When did we get so deliberate in our safety efforts?

While I may forget to remind her about the helmet, I have been very deliberate in a specific realm of Hollie’s life: communication. Charlie and I are really, really good at communication. We expect Hollie to be, too. 

It takes work, though. Especially when she doesn’t always have the vocabulary to express herself.

Hollie and I stood on the stairwell and looked up at the family pictures I’d assembled there.

“What do the words say?” I asked her.

“Caring. Kindness. Love.” She read each one, rolling the syllables over in her mouth. “Honesty. Trust. Integrity.”

“Those are our family values,” I said. “Caring. Kindness. Love. I expect you to treat your friends with those values. Do you understand?”

She nodded. She’s learning. And I’m doing the best I can to teach her. 

So this is an apology to her friends, our neighbors, and any other kids we come in combat with. She’s learning.

I don’t want Hollie to adopt “hug your sibling” apology skills. 

I want her to understand what an apology actually is:

1. acknowledge what you did
2. acknowledge the outcome of that action
3. recognize why the outcome was hurtful or bad
4. demonstrate remorse.

And if she can do one and two but doesn’t think there is a bad or hurtful outcome, then I won’t force her to apologize.

Now Hiring

The correct response when someone says, “I need to lose 30 pounds,” is:

“What? You don’t have 30 pounds to lose!” (my BFFs Tami and Jodie).

Not, “How are you gonna do that?” or, “By when?” or, “Oh, that’s totally doable,” (the trainer).

That’s right, I hired a personal trainer.

This is a big move for me because I’ve been an athlete my whole life. Since leaving competitive sports in 1997, I have often trained with teams, groups, or friends. I swam with the Team Greenville Masters when we lived in the Upstate. I did spin class at the Y, ran with a Couch-to-5K group, finished a 10K and a half marathon.

What the hell happened to May?

So I knew it had been a while since I’d posted here. I’ve done some posts on GenX Stories. I participated in Submit-O-Rama May, so I had to update the progress there.

I have also been on the Northeast Area Update on the Chamber blog, though I have a great ghostwriter this summer, my cousin Preston.

But when I came over here just now to check on Clemson Road, I saw I’ve been gone since April.

Whaaaaaaaat?

Yup. Sorry, dear readers, but Life on Clemson Road has not stood still while I was away. In fact, it picked up momentum and all these things happened:

What the Will to Lead Looks Like

On Wednesday, I met Governor Haley.  She looked me straight in the eye, shook my hand firmly, greeted each of the panelists to whom I had been speaking, and took a question I had prepared for her.

“We were just about to share the best advice we’ve ever received,” I said. “Would you like to offer some?”

 

Governor Nikki Haley stops by Lean In Columbia

She smiled and there was a slight pause as she gathered her thoughts during which others in the room chuckled awkwardly that I’d put her on the spot.

This couldn’t possibly be the hardest thing anyone has ever asked her.

She said, “I use a 24-hour rule.” Whenever there is a decision to be made, she explained, she gives herself 24 hours to ensure it’s the right one.

“We have talked before about emotion being one of the challenges to women leaders,” I said, indicating the group, my Lean In circle, about forty of whom were in the room.

“But it’s also what makes us great,” she said. “We’re passionate.”

Our Lean In circle is gaining traction.

My co-founders and I bonded over Sheryl Sandberg’s book and we’ve been taking to the stage in Columbia to publicly encourage dialogue about issues facing women in business.

We Might Be Red Giants

There are a lot of reasons people stay in their own small orbits.

Maybe it’s safer there, surrounded only by objects you know, pulled by the familiar gravity of your own life.

 

Photo courtesy of NASA

Maybe there’s no opportunity to travel. Maybe location or position or conditions keep you grounded.

Nana lived in South Carolina almost her entire life. Granted, it was a much bigger world back then. Before interstates, traveling city-to-city could take days and state-to-state longer than that. International travel was more than unlikely, it was almost unheard of.

Now the world seems smaller. Now the 22 hour flight to Australia sounds painful but do-able. 

When I was in the Philippines, twelve hours ahead on the clock, Charlie called me “Future Girl.”

Even easier is connecting over the internet, where we can feel like we’ve been transported. We can experience culture, language, and perspectives from people who seem far removed from us.

We could feel even more distant. The Far East. Down Under. Across the pond. The Left Coast. Another hemisphere. Another continent. Unknown worlds of wonder and worry.

Thank You Notes to My Constellation

Taking a cue from Jimmy Fallon, I’d like for this week’s post, just a few days after commencement, to be my Thank You Notes.

Thank You

Charlie, for putting up with the days I was reading and the days I was writing and all the boring conversations I made you listen to that involved my dissertation. But mostly thank you for believing in me and for being the person I high-fived when I heard those all-too-important words in August.

Thank You

Hollie Russ, for slowing down the dissertation process and forcing me to live in the moment – which is where Nana always said I should try harder to be. I know this journey started before you got here, but I hope you’ll carry with you forever the memories of its conclusion.

The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

The snow and ice pounded my hotel window last night. What looks like a winter wonderland actually sounds like an aggressive shudder of cold and misery.

I’m in Maine and this is a Nor’easter, the most violent of the storms in the final throes of winter.

It’s not hard to imagine the depth of desperation a storm such as this could dig. Isolated, stranded, freezing, scared.

But the people here go on about life cheerfully and diligently. They warn us to be careful on the ice and cautious on the roads. They don’t suggest we’ll never leave the hotel, our flights will be canceled, we’ll need an emergency escape plan.

Life here has learned to adapt to the weather. They say spring finally comes in May.  I tell them it was 70 degrees in Columbia yesterday. They just smile.

The storm puts me in mind of home.

My most creative work allows me to stay at home in my jammies, meet the school bus at 3, have dinner made and chores done.

But my most lucrative work requires travel.

This week Charlie and Hollie have had to go about their routine without me to piece their lives together. Without me to fill in the gaps.

A Mom's Lesson to her Unbrushed Princess

We don’t brush Hollie’s hair on Sundays. Well, not if we can help it.

Every weekday morning after she’s prodded from bed, stuffed into clothing, and dragged into the hallway, Hollie is propped up at the bathroom sink for a teeth scrub and a hair styling.

She hates this.

“I’m sooooooo tired!” she wails.

“You’re hurting me!” she grouses.

“Oowww! MOOOOOM!”

There are no witnesses to this nonsense except me and someday these mornings will be long gone and I’ll get nostalgic thinking of them. But as they’re happening, I feel like Eleanor Bear in Brave.

“Och, you’re acting like a child!”

Of course she is.

I like to let her be one as much as I can. I like to let her be petulant and reluctant and pouty and emotional as much as I can.

There will come a time when she must control these emotions. When she must conceal her frustration, her annoyance, her anger. 

There will come a time when she will be so busy being polite that she’ll forget to be herself.

She may one day catch herself in that moment and think, “How have I become the silly woman who smiles and nods while I’m screaming inside?”

It’s taken me a long time to define the boundaries between being myself and being someone others find acceptable. For years I lived under the mantra of “Be Yourself,” and believed that in all things, myself was good enough.

Then someone told me it wasn’t.

And I believed that person.

I know there will come a day when Hollie thinks being herself isn’t enough. I hope she’ll ask me about it. I hope she’ll say, “Mom, what should I do?”

So that I can say, “You’re more than enough. You’re amazing. You’re brilliant. You’re lovely. If other people don’t like you for who you are, that’s their own problem.”

Because, really, the very best lesson I can teach her is to have the grit to persevere. She shouldn’t kneel before adversity and hope to be blessed by others’ power. She should stand tall, take aim, and loose another arrow. 

Aye, keep shooting until the Self-Doubt and Insecurity are vanquished. 

On Sundays, she gets just a little taste of that. She gets to be a ragamuffin: tangled, tousled, knotty, and free. She gets to be herself in all her untamed glory.

It’s as much a break for her as it is for me. One day a week I don’t have to hold her down and rip the brush through the knots. One day a week where I have to forget about what others might think of the ragamuffin we’ve brought to Applebees or to Publix.

One day a week when I have to remind myself that it’s no one else’s damn business why she looks like a disaster.

Fuck them.

One day a week that I get to remember when I got my tattoos, when I pierced my tongue, when I started cussing in front of grown-ups and stopped pretending to have a faith I don’t.

I know she’s a child. I know it’s my job to teach her how to behave around others. I also know that she’s learning that. Really. 

I get manners. I get polite company. I get that she needs to be able to move among society and that people’s opinions of her will largely impact how successfully she is able to do that.

This un-brushed hair thing is a phase, like wearing two different shoes was. She’s outgrown that and she’ll outgrow this. But I let her wear a boot and a sandal. A flip flop and a sneaker. A sparkly red shoe and a sparkly black shoe because those small freedoms built her confidence.

She’ll match her clothing someday.

She’ll brush her hair.

She’s a child now but she will not always be.

If I have any say in it, though, she’ll always be original, confident, and willing to be herself even when others disapprove.

Just so long as she does not place her weapons on the table.