“Wait, so I don’t really get WHY the act needs to be RANDOM.  What if I wanted to do something nice for someone I know?  Or someone who clearly needs help?  Then it wouldn’t be RANDOM.”  Just call her Lady Literal.

“Right….well, the randomness might just refer to the fact that you don’t expect anything in return.” I said.

“Well, OBVIOUSLY, Mom.  That’s what CHRISTMAS is all ABOUT.”

I decided “ignore daughter’s exasperated eye roll” was my first act of kindness.

We took a break somewhere in Connecticut for a bathroom-food break at McDonalds.  As Phil placed the order, I tried to think of an act of kindness that would serve as a good example for the girls.

Turns out I didn’t need to.

Phil turned around: “Someone just paid for our Happy Meals.”

“Huh?  Who?”

“Someone came in a while ago and paid for 26 Happy Meals.”

I love when God lobs me a nice, underhanded pitch, just begging me to hit it out of the park.  It’s like He’s saying, “Ok? This is how you do it. You get it now?”

For the next week, while visiting family in PA and NJ, we tried to follow in the footsteps of our Big Mac Benefactor:  We over-tipped cab drivers, gave to the local food bank, and picked up trash.

We had fun with these gestures, but I felt like our small kindnesses were not enough. I mean, shouldn’t we be donating a kidney or something? I probably shouldn’t be allowed to participate in anything that involves the word “Challenge.”

On Christmas Day, we planned to deliver a Box of Joe and Munchkins to the local police department.  As we prepared to leave, my sister walked in the door.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Oh, I just delivered donuts and coffee to the FP Police Department….spreading some holiday cheer!”

“WHAT?!  THAT’S WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO!” I said a bit too aggressively.  Leave it to my sister and I to make benevolence a competitive sport.

“Oh….well while don’t you try the Fire Department, or the First Aid Squad?”

“Yeah, ok”, I grumbled.

After procuring the goods, we were off to find the lucky recipients.  We pulled into the empty driveway of the First Aid Squad.

“Hmmm. Maybe everyone is just on call today,” Phil offered.

“Ok, let’s try the Fire Department.”

Nope. Empty.

I was happy that the dedicated civic volunteers were home with their families, but I was beginning to see barriers.  Emma, on the other hand, saw opportunity: “So if no one wants the Munchkins…”

I saw where this was going.

“DON’T EAT THEM! SOMEONE WANTS THEM! WE WILL FIND OUR PERSON!”

I took a deep breath and prayed silently: “God please help us find our person before we binge on donuts.”

“I got it!” Phil announced. “How about that home for the disabled near your parents’ house?”

I was silent for a moment. The Cheshire Home, a facility for physically disabled younger adults, is a mere .5 mile from the house where I grew up.  As a kid, I would visit to sing Christmas carols or deliver Girl Scout Cookies….and it made me really sad.  And a little scared.

I remember feeling startled awake by how much shit some people have to deal with, and humbled by how little control we have over it.  As a sheltered kid, I lacked the courage to look suffering square in the eye.  I didn’t want to admit that it could just as easily be me….which would then lead to the guilt of it NOT being me.

So I decided to replace my guilt with some gratitude.  Anne Lamott writes, “Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior.  It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides.  It means you are willing to stop being such a jerk.”

I was willing to stop being a jerk.

I turned to Phil: “Great idea, let’s do it.”

After a few minutes of knocking, a nurse finally answered the door.  Turns out there was only one resident remaining for Christmas, a man named Steve.  He was gracious and welcoming. We talked about Boston, where Steve’s sister lives, and the Red Sox.  Emma told him that Santa bought her tickets to see Annie on Broadway; he told us which subway to take from Penn Station.

After we said our goodbyes and got back in the car, Emma said, “Steve is really nice, we should tell Aunt Mo to go visit him since she lives so close.”

Not only did Emma tell Aunt Mo to “stop by and see Steve;” my sister actually did it.  While out for a walk earlier this week, she saw him sitting outside and introduced herself as the aunt to the “little girl with the donuts.”

“Emma!” he exclaimed.  “How did she like Annie?”

They chatted for a few minutes, and as they parted ways Steve said, “Hey, tell Emma her visit was the best part of my Christmas.  It was just what I needed that day.”

Maybe the truest acts of kindness are not necessarily the grandest gestures, but the ones that feel awkward or uncomfortable to give. The ones you don’t REALLY want to do, because they make you feel vulnerable and helpless.  The one’s that make you think, “but really, what difference could I possibly make?”

But you never know: that next time you hold a door for a stranger, or mail your crazy aunt a hand-written note, or offer to babysit a neighbor’s kid for a few hours….

It could be just what they needed that day.

But then there was this smaller, meeker voice who whispered, “You feel scared and alone.  This week has rocked you to your core. I bet other people feel the same. Maybe holding each other’s hands would help.”

I decided to listen to this one, because of the two I figured the second was the voice closer to God.  I don’t think God is supposed to tell you to shut up.  I like to think he good-naturedly calls out: “Quiet Contest!” and then waits patiently for the roulette wheel in your cranium to slow to a tentative stop.

C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures…but shouts in our pain; it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  I feel that megaphone in my ear.  It says: “What has happened to this world?  How, as a nation, could we LET this happen?  What are we going to do to see that this never happens again?”

My heart breaks for the families who are living an incomprehensible nightmare, and this act of hatred and violence fills me with a bone-chilling fear.  As a mother of a 1st grader in a quaint little town a mere 177 miles away from Newtown, CT, this could have been Emma.  Or Claire, or Cole, or Maeve….or any other of the little 6 year old faces who sat so wide-eyed and attentive as I read “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” last Wednesday afternoon when I volunteered at her school.

On Friday afternoon, when I went to pick Emma up from the bus, it was really quiet.  Eerie. I yearned for another mother to show up – to be grounded by human contact – but I was alone. I thought of the parents in Newtown.  Where were they right now?  I thought of them arriving at that fire house….their eyes scanning that room, darting around desperately…thinking every pony-tailed head is the one they have kissed and shampooed and checked for lice countless times.  It is, as many of us have said: “unthinkable…unimaginable…unbelievable.”

I saw a flash of yellow as the bus rounded the lower corner of the street.  I stood there waiting, waiting…..how could the bus take so long to get around the corner?  I knew it was coming, I knew any second I would see that pink jacket, the glittery headband…but still…the fear was great.  The fear was huge.  What if, what if, what if.  I felt changed.  My heart felt full and heavy, like a wet towel hanging in my chest.

Emma and I have a deal: when other kids get off the bus, I am instructed to “be cool” and not embarrass her.  But if she is solo, I can do a crazy Will Ferrell inspired cheer to celebrate her arrival. She gave me a little devilish smile and said, “So are you going to do the cheer?”  Of course.  The cheer, hot chocolate with a million marshmallows, a pony, the moon, whatever you want, I will give it to you today.

Over the weekend I had a hard time pulling myself away from the computer – reading every article, wanting to know more, wanting to know why. But then I realized what was coming.  The stories. The photos. Suddenly they are no longer “the victims.” They are Emilie, Jack, Noah, Jessica, Catherine, Olivia, Charlotte, Daniel, James, Grace, Allison, Ben, Avielle, Madeleine, Joey, Ana, Dylan, Jesse, Caroline and Chase.  They loved horses and orca whales and the color pink…cupcakes and football and tae kwan do.

Phil doesn’t want to know; he can’t bear it.  “Stop reading me these things,” he says. “It’s too much, I can’t hear it.”

But I have to hear it. Grieving mother Krista Rekos said that the “tiny moments of comfort” come from talking about her daughter, Jessica: “I just want to keep talking about her and all the things she loved to do.”  If she wants to talk, I want to listen, even if only through cyberspace. To witness the depth of her pain is to to be splintered open.  But in that brokenness comes a freedom from my own fear, allowing space for deep empathy and hope for healing.  I close my eyes and try to imagine a beam of light connecting my heart to hers.  I ask God to give her the strength to keep breathing in and out, to somehow find a way to survive.

To again quote C.S. Lewis: “Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.  Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter, but darker.”

The town of Newtown is full of brave knights: A teacher who shielded her students from a rain of bullets with her own body.  A principal who lunged at the gunmen in order to stop him. Another teacher who held the faces of her terrified 3rd graders huddled in a closet, telling them she loved them because: “I wanted that to be the last thing they heard…that someone loved them…not gunfire in the hallway,” she said.

These heroes believed that good triumphs over evil, and were willing to sacrifice their lives for this belief. They did not allow themselves to be paralyzed by fear.  People paralyzed by fear cannot create change.  In fear there is no light.  The brave knights of Newtown chose -and continue to choose – to be faces of light, of love, of community.

In honor of them, let’s spread a little light today.

Photo: Hardcore Christmas Caroling in the rain

I often feel fraudulent when it comes to yoga. When I attend trainings and workshops, I tend to feel out of place – kind of like the ugly American tourist who doesn’t know the language and wears a fanny pack. I have been told in Yoga-speak that I am “too in my head,” “blocked from peace,” and “caught up in the drama of my story.” Ok, but what does that MEAN? Can I take something for it? By the end of a workshop, I am surrounded by all these shiny, happy people who have “broken through” and I’m sitting there scratching my head, wondering how I missed the Bliss Train….again.

These feelings of illegitimacy are especially prevalent when it comes to teaching. On Facebook, the status updates of my yoga teacher friends typically say things like: “Fired up to teach at noon!” “Up to something BIG!” or “Gonna rock your ASANA at 6PM!” My pre-teaching ritual is less Tony Robbins and more Bill Murray in “What About Bob.” In order to avoid getting “too up in my head,” I fill my brain with exactly what I am doing in that moment so negative thoughts can’t sneak in: “I am driving. My hands are on the wheel. I am parking. I am walking down the street. My feet are touching the ground.” It’s a practice I call Mindfulness for Mental Patients.

I also have a really hard time with meditation. One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, said “my mind is a bad neighborhood that I try not to go into alone.” That pretty much sums it up for me. But when I found out that the second day of the life coaching training closed with a Yoga Nidra, I really tried to keep an open mind.

We were instructed to lie down and get comfy with a pillow and blanket. How bad could this be? Then my stomach started making weird noises. Maybe what is left of my GI tract needs to work extra hard to digest food, but “growling” or “gurgling” does not capture the symphony of sounds emitted from my small intestine. But then a few people started snoring, so I figured, whatever, it’s all good.

As the teacher walked us through the guided meditation, I could really feel my body relax, and then suddenly imagined myself falling through floating hula hoops. Maybe I was entering some secret portal! But then, my mind was filled with a crystal clear image of Ron Howard. Not sweet little Opie, not clean cut Richie Cunningham, but a bald, red-faced, demonic Ron Howard, complete with horns and beady eyes filled with fire.

Again, I ask: Who the hell am I to coach someone in life?

After the Yoga Nidra, I went out to dinner with some of the other trainees, and I seriously had the most fun I have had all year. We just laughed our asses off for two hours. Maybe they were still trippy from the Yoga Nidra followed by 2 glasses of wine, but these ladies thought I was the next  Chelsea Handler.

When I shared some of my concerns about feeling unqualified for coaching, they were shocked by my insecurities, claiming that I was confident and capable in the practice sessions. One of my new gal pals went so far as to say: “By the end of the first day I looked at you and thought, wow, she really has it together” (as red wine comes out my nose)

All this time I have been blaming other people for making me feel different, when the only person actually doing that was me. And the reason I seemed confident and capable in the practice sessions was because I was listening to someone else for a change, rather than the self-defeating voices in my head.

The thing that most surprised me about life coaching is that it is actually much more about listening than it is about coaching. Once I had that realization – that I am not supposed to fix anyone or have all the answers – I was able to settle into the moment and just be with the other person. It is so effortless and uncomplicated to see truth, beauty, and value in someone else- why do things get so sticky when it comes to seeing it in ourselves?

So who the hell am I to coach someone in life? I am me. And that’s enough.

This morning I re-read my post from last week with a mixture of compassion and bemused awkwardness, rolling my eyes to mask the subtle squeezing of my heart.  I feel equal parts critical and protective of this girl woman girl who declared this challenge with such pomp and circumstance, filled with confidence and “I’ve got this!” optimism.

I find my earnestness both endearing and slightly embarrassing. The vision of myself as a laid back beer and pizza chick struck me as so naïve, so simple and sweet…like a little boy, proclaiming, “When I grow up, I am going to be an astronaut!”  And you pat his head, and say, “Of course you are!” But just one week ago, I felt caffeinated confident.  Breezy, even. 

Then the days began to creep by.

 Uptight, anxious, bitchy? Yes.  Breezy?  Uhh, not so much.

The adrenaline rush that comes with “Signing Up” was wearing thin as the Buyer’s Remorse settled in.  Hey, that rhymes!

This past week felt similar to the one leading up to the triathlon I did in Florida a few years ago.  It was all sunshine and lollipops when I was swimming laps in the safe little pool at the gym…but as the date of the race approached I started thinking about the Tampa Bay, and how it had things like waves, and no black line on the bottom to keep you in your lane. I started Googling “Shark Attacks in Tampa Bay.”  My vision of slicing effortlessly through the water began to melt under the hot interrogation lights of fear.  

 The point is, it wasn’t all “I Am Woman, Watch Me Pound Pizza”.  There were some angsty moments.

But then I started to do what I am beginning to learn is what real grown-ups do when they are scared, in lieu of sobbing uncontrollably or hiding under the bed. I talked myself off the ledge by reminding myself that I always have a choice to throw fish at the crazy Muppet-guys-in-the-balcony (aka. the voices in my head),

or I can run off the stage crying. 

I remembered something my favorite writer, Anne Lamott said: “My mind is a bad neighborhood I try not to go into alone.”

So, I called in some troops in the form of our good friends, Todd the Bod, (named for his bulging biceps) and his lovely photographer wife, Mrs. Todd the Bod, aka. Danette.  They busted in like the Party Patrol, armed with champagne and Danette’s intense looking camera to document the event.  I think God sends me these ridiculously fun people quite intentionally…crackpot crusaders on a mission to remind me that life is short and that IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE SO HARD. 

Special Agents of Joy, armed with fart jokes and a case of Coors Light. 

While the Muppets in my head may think that I suck, my friends must think otherwise…because they keep on showing up. 

And by hanging around people who think you are awesome for reasons that have nothing to do with the size of your jeans…and they tell you those reasons….and you actuallly let yourself see what they see…well, I think that’s where the change happens.  That’s where the pizza cutter starts rolling some new grooves in your cranium. 

Speaking of the pizza…it was yummy.   Just as I remembered it.

 But I can honestly say, that amidst the laughing and storytelling, the pizza itself became quite secondary…which was exactly the point.

Oh, and incidentally….as a kid, my sister had a friend named Paul who would say, “When I grow up, I am going to be an astronaut!”  And you know what? 

He is.

While waiting in the pediatrician’s office for Malcolm’s “well child” appointment yesterday, I read that Annie Lamott has a new book coming out.  This did not stir the reaction you’re probably expecting.

Can I be honest here?  I don’t like Annie Lamott.  I am apparently the only person in the entire nation who does not adore this author.

My whole book club made a pilgrimage to hear her speak at, I don’t know, the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church or the Philadelphia Free Library or maybe both.  And I did not go along.  Instead, I made excuses.  I probably pretended to be busy that night, because – correct me if I’m wrong – it is not cool to not like Annie Lamott, with her victory over alcohol addiction, her little cornrows, her love of attending a black church in Oakland, her ”look what I made up!”  theology.  

You know what else I dislike?  I don’t like coffee.  Or gum.  I tried coffee once when I was 27 and met with a new client who was introducing this new-fangled invention called Voice Mail, and I felt I had to accept the offer.  That was the first and last time for java for me.  I gave up gum long ago.  Not only do I shun it myself, but I can’t stand hearing others chewing it.  I bet Anne Lamott is a loud gum-chewer.

I don’t like sushi either.  I don’t care if it’s what all the hip people eat, and have done for the past 20 years, I prefer my fish cooked, thank you very much.  Grilled salmon is heavenly.  Tuna melts are delicious.  Steamed clams dipped in butter?  Beyond amazing.  But sushi – no.

In my opinionated world, guys over 40 should not wear Oakleys.  No man in a business suit should wear a baseball cap.  Women over 40 should not embarrass their children by wearing Uggs.  Nobody should wear Crocs.  Everybody should say “thanks” instead of “theenks.”

When my persnickety perfection occurs, politicians will stop referring to themselves in the third person.  As a codicil, they will also stop posing fake questions of themselves, then answering them rhetorically.  Will Jennifer be glad when this tired device is retired?  Yes.  Does Jennifer expect this to happen anytime soon?  No.  This trick may have been clever and refreshing once upon a time, but that was about 5,000 politicians ago.

Listen up, people.  Stop saying: at the end of the day, boots on the ground, and what does that look like? (in describing an abstraction).  Long ago, I gave up on railing against how the word “issue” had replaced “problem.”  Everybody says it now, although the other day I read an article where the writer put the word “issue” in quotation marks.  Someone else remembers!

I am bothered every morning when I listen to the BBC on our local PBS station.  The Brits love to take the high ground on matters of pronunciation, especially as compared to Yanks, but they are polymorphous perverse when it comes to pronouncing foreign words.  They screw them up on purpose.  Sri Lanka should be pronounced Schree Lanka (rhymes with Tonka) but the Beeb calls it “Siree Lanka” (rhymes with Sanka).  This is just wrong.  The original English speakers mis-pronounce Capri by putting the accent on on the first syllable.  Regatta is mangled so that the “gat” ryhmes with “cat”.  Why they do this is a mystery to me.

But enough about my annoyances.  it’s your turn.  Tell me I’m not alone!