M. Nack’s Blog

OK, so maybe I’m over-reacting. When you live with the motto “All Things With Exuberance”, that tends to happen from time to time. I heard back from Neil. He didn’t tell me why or how he found me. Instead, I got a litany of the sad things that have happened to him in his life. I suspect he’s a lonely guy and the internet is his avenue of contact with the outside world. Which is not a bad thing, in and of itself. Many people are shut-ins and the internet provides that service for them - my 92-year old mother being a prime example. It’s just sad that Neil chooses to use his unhappiness as a way to connect with someone he has had no contact with for 35 years. Herein lies the rub: I find myself disinclined to respond to him - which he will no doubt interpret as rejection and which will ultimately lead to even more loneliness. I can’t help but be reminded of Dale Carnegie’s little classic How To Win Friends and Influence People. Basic social skills that seem obvious to the point of being silly can make all the difference in our interactions with others of our species.

Man is the only animal that seeks meaning in facts. We tell ourselves stories about why things have happened - which may or may not be useful. Since we are making up the story anyway, why not choose to make up stories that empower us? It’s called “realistic optimism”. Using the facts that lie before us, we can choose what those facts “mean”. It’s like using numbers and statistics to prove whatever point we are making. (You know, like the fact that 78.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot.) In fact, we only see what we choose to see. What are those things in physics that move when you try to observe them? We can know where they are or how fast they are moving, but we can’t know both. Kind of like that.

ALL THINGS WITH EXUBERANCE! 

mary!

I received an email yesterday from a fellow that was the valedictorian of our 1971 high school graduating class. As could be predicted, he has gone on to incredible intellectual achievement. Now, what is utterly amazing to me is that we have had absolutely no contact with each other for (wait for it!) 35 years! I am waiting to hear back from him as to what’s up. His email was simply to determine if I was indeed the person that attended school with him. Maybe he’s in charge of organizing the 35th class reunion - which seems highly improbable since my class has never had one. That I find his email extraordinary amazes me in and of itself.  In this day and age, finding someone is not that difficult. Maybe it’s the fact that he even bothered. Or maybe it’s like opening a long-sealed door. High school was not a particularly rosy period of my life - in fact, quite the opposite. And yet, there is something about those childhood connections that stay with us forever. We think we’ve grown up, gone on, made something of our lives - and yet there is this child inside of us that still exists. I imagine that Deepak Chopra would say something profound and convoluted (that you can’t make any sense of) about Essence of Being, Truth and the quantum-mechanical universe.

How is it possible that it has been 35 years since graduating high school? My husband has this joke that he likes repeating often: inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened. I maintain that I’m not old - and Denial is not a river in Egypt.

ALL THINGS WITH EXUBERANCE!

mary!

Sometimes, the reality that we live in a charmed universe breaks through in unequivocable ways - which is a fancy way of saying that you can’t argue with the universe because the universe always wins. I attended a conference this past weekend in which the keynote speaker has written a book on - and discussed in his keynote address - the power of building relationships and making connections. (Keith Ferrazzi of www.FerrazziGreenlight.com: Never Eat Alone.) Why should that surprise me? My primary goal in attending the conference was to, in fact, make connections - and here was the key note speaker addressing my exact purpose in attending. The best part is that he laid the groundwork and set the stage for me to make some amazing connections. Time will tell, but I just know some great things are going to come out of the connections I made this weekend. After all, the universe organized it all just for my benefit. The fact that other people benefitted from it as well is just frosting on the cake.

ALL THINGS WITH EXUBERANCE!

mary!

My mother-in-law passed away this evening at 96 years of age. It was not an easy going. She literally starved herself to death; dying of thirst in the end. Nothing had passed her lips since last Friday, except morphine.  A nose bleed for which she required hospitalization right after Thanksgiving marked the downturn in her condition. From that time on, she seemed to “give up”. The hospice care people call it “failure to thrive syndrome”.  Yet, at the end, she seemed unwilling or unable to let go. The only thing keeping her alive was sheer force of will. Norma never took things easy, so I suppose it was predictable that her death would be no different. I wonder if the reason she hung on so was because she felt that Life had cheated her. She was wrestling with Life, demanding that it give her every bitter drop she had coming. That would be like her.  A highly intelligent woman with an 8th grade education, she was fettered by the constraints of her upbringing and the culture in which she lived. Those who knew her well knew that she was not a particularly happy person. My hope for her these past 8 years being in the home was that she would, at long last, experience her share of happiness -  to be cared for, to eat properly and to be given the medication she needed but would never take for herself. Dear, dear Norma, at last you are free. Tonight, you dance with the angels. I hope you do so with utter joy and exuberance!

Norma Anna Nack 

Sep 26, 1909 - Feb 8, 2006   

R.I.P

“Let the good times roll!” I don’t know, this expression strikes me as ersatz French - kindred to this example of ersatz Greek: a tombstone in Graceland Cemetery has Greek lettering on it which says, ”One foot in fairyland”. It’s not Greek at all, of course, just confounding to the uneducated - on many different levels. Apparently the occupant of this particular grave wore a ring during his lifetime with the inscription, making it a suitable epitaph for when he finally arrived at that destination. I know just enough Spanish to know that you rarely say things the same way you do in English. You turn nouns and verbs around and so forth. I know an even smaller smattering of Greek - and I am quite certain that it would be altogether different. As for Ground Hog’s Day, when, in Chicago, has Spring ever arrived on Feb 2? We have actual real live ground hogs living under the deck of our cottage in Door County. I didn’t know what they were at first. Being a Big City kid, I was quite certain they weren’t rats, since they don’t have long hairless tails. Ground hog is synonymous with woodchuck. Like bears, they hibernate for the winter. They emerge in the Spring with voracious appetites - if they don’t starve to death in the meantime. When they go into hibernation, they truly are “one foot in fairyland.” Not unlike us humanoids plunging into the deep, dark days of winter. “L’aissez les bon temps roulez!”

“All Things With Exuberance!”

mary!

My oldest childhood friend has been a nun for the past 30 years. She is leaving her order. I applaud her courage in so doing. The decision has been agonized, prayed and cried over. I know that she is doing the right thing and I have encouraged her to act. I feel certain that God has something else in mind for her. As much as she wants to be “cloistered away”, she has extraordinary and piercing insight into the workings of our secular world. Part of her reason for wanting to leave is that her order has become too much of the world. She feels the need for more quiet, more space, more separateness. Even as she expresses the need for more, she is leaving her secluded existence behind the convent’s walls and rejoining our cacophonous world. And God has miraculously opened avenues for her making it possible for her to leave. All the mundane concerns of “Where will I live?” and “How will I provide for myself?” have been answered in the most effortless way. When we listen and obey the small, inner voice that guides us into our true path, strife and struggle fall away. Even so, the only way the caterpillar becomes a butterfly is going through the strife and struggle of breaking out its cocoon. And then we fly…

Mary!

ALL THINGS WITH EXUBERANCE!

COOTIE: American Heritage Dictionary says it probably comes from the Malaysian word for louse - “kutu”. I find it interesting that a word originally intended to describe body lice has come to mean anything personally icky and contagious - germs a/k/a “a bug”. Did you know that 93.2% of the population doesn’t know that ” cootie”  actually means body louse? (Did you also know that 78.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot?)  This brings us to the word “lousy”. When you say “I’m feeling lousy”, does your audience back away to avoid contracting your lice? And who could forget that lovely child’s game from the 60’s? A big, colorful plastic louse that had to have it’s parts assembled.  Oh! Those halycon “Days of Camelot”!

“Pass the biscuits, Miranda, ’cause I know you ain’t got none - cooties, that is.”

“All Things With Exuberance!”

mary!