Light up

One of the best things my Dad did for me growing up - which partially shaped my regard for myself - was the way he lit up when I walked in the room.

Now from one moment to the next he doesn't remember I'm here. So, he gives me this same look of delight pretty much every time he closes his eyes and opens them again.

Focus on others

I find that life is less frustrating and painful when I stop focusing on myself and start focusing on others. For me - for me - frustration, anxiety and sadness have a high level of self indulgence. Every time I feel a bit better I realize that I have shifted my attention to something other than my own struggles. Remind me.

You can't change the past

You can't change the past" is a fallacy. Time changes our perspective and our feelings, and we constantly acquire new information; all of which casts our already compromised memories in a different light. Nothing changes more than the past.

How do I refer to the man I love?

(This article was originally published in The Daily Beast.)

--

“I don’t want to see other people” he announced after our third date. “I want to see you exclusively”.

“Does this mean you are my boyfriend?” I asked.

“Boyfriend?”

He cringed.

When this dialogue took place I had been out of the dating scene for a bit. 20 years, to be exact. The world had become a different place and I found myself unequipped to interpret a whole new landmine-strewn nomenclature. An overwhelming amount of subtleties and implications were going over my head. I realized, a bit too late, that certain words I had always known were now loaded, and therefore off limits. Apparently, “boyfriend” was one of them.

To be clear, I was not treading anywhere near the even more incomprehensible realm of (gasp) relationship definition. Nothing even close to “where is this going? What do I mean to you? Before we go any further, will you love me forever?”

This was more about a dilemma about vocabulary. How am I supposed to refer to a person of the opposite sex whom I am not married to but who is, well, “special”? (I was going to say “mine”, but I now know better.)

And what do I call him now that we are living together but are not engaged or married?

I could refer to him as “my dude”, but I’m not that hipster. I find both “admirer” and “suitor” to be presumptuous and one-sided. “Betrothed”sounds too royal. “Beau” does have a je ne sais quoi, but isn’t homey. “Confidant” holds too many secrets. “Escort”sounds like I would need to look into service renewal. “Flame” is hot, but flickering. “Fellow” is affectionate, yet too casual. I could call him my “friend”,which he is, or my “companion”, which is technically accurate, but then, for the sake of precision, I’d have to mention the additional benefits our friendship comes with, which you’d rightfully consider TMI.

“Significant other” is stiff. “Lover” is too one-faceted, as is “object”. I could call him “cutsicle”; according to the urban dictionary it’s the word to use “when someone is so cute you can’t handle their cuteness”which certainly applies but doesn’t really suit his personality. Tragically, this is also the case with “stud muffin”.

I could call him my “boo”, but when I tried it out he rolled his eyes. Or “bae”, except I can’t really pull that off. I’m not even sure exactly how to pronounce it.

I could go for “fiancée”, but that would be misleading. “Partner”sounds like we work in a law firm or should be on horses and “roommate” leaves out one of my favorite parts, the one that hints at romantic entanglement and other shenanigans. As exuberant as I tend to be, I did feel “knight” would be too melodramatic.

After weighing all my options I decided that referring to him as Boyfriend gives him a solid title that clearly explains what he is in reference to me, is both socially appropriate and universally understood.

As an added bonus, Boyfriend subtly honors the fact that he makes me feel like a teenager, in an exciting, adventurous, I-really-wasn’t-expecting-this-to-happen-to-my-life-and-thank-you-for-being-so-wonderful sort of a way. It’s committed, yet fun. Exclusive, without being excessively possessive. Young, which we both are.

I’m going with it.

Now

Whenever I'm doing something I really enjoy, I fantasize about repeating the experience. I then realize that instead of living fully in the moment I am distracted by fervently yearning for what I am actually doing. Sigh. Humans.

Things I know about PR. But remind me anyway.

(This article was originally published in The Holmes Report.)

It's about the people.

I know you know. And I know everyone says it. And I know you are so very tired of hearing it. Still, you'll forget. One cloudy morning you will desperately need to make a hire, and will make an offer to someone you aren't sure about.

It's about the people: good people make everything work. With people not right for the job, nothing runs well.

Take your time to hire; and if someone doesn't work out, resolve it quickly.

Attitude is more important than experience.

You can’t change someone’s attitude. Everything else can be taught or learned.

It's about the client.

I don't care how magical your PR skills are. No one can do good PR for a mediocre product.

Networking events = waste of time.

Networking events are not a good way to network. Discover your own personal way to meet people relevant to you and stay in touch with them, preferably because you genuinely like them.

"Working a room" at a networking event is rarely going to be worth the time.

It's about what is happening out there. Not what we do in here.

The best PR people are curious. Go explore. Travel. Devour books. Develop a point of view. Every morning fall in love with the New York Times.

Within our industry (just like within every industry) we are trapped in an echo-chamber. Get away from the reverberation and go get something fresh.

On this note, put your devices down. Look up.

PR is a roller coaster.

You will be hailed as a hero one day, and as an incompetent disaster the next. Develop your own sense of what you are worth and don’t heed neither criticism nor praise. Let me know when you've successfully figured out how to do this.

It's not "a fire".

I have a friend in PR who is married to a chemist. He runs a lab with deadly pathogens. Late one night, his phone rang.

Voice on the line: “Sir, the lab is on fire. What do we do?”

The chemist: “Ummm, call the fire department?”

Voice on the line: “Sir. This is the fire department.”

You can call your PR "crisis" "a fire" the day the fire department calls you at 3:00 am and asks you what to do.

Please. This doesn't mean that what we do doesn't matter. It doesn't mean it's not important. It just means we could all use a little perspective.

Things will bounce back at you so fast you’ll get whiplash.

Your intern will be your boss (someday very very soon). And I hate to tell you this, but your boss will be someone you come to understand better as the years go by, regardless of what you think now.

Don't regard peers as competitors; don't concoct rivalries. We are all in this together. I believe this to the bottom of my heart and it’s one of the principles that regulate how I do business.

Your ego will get you every time.

Examine the reason - the real reason - behind the decisions that you are making and behind what’s affecting you at work. Your ego will get you every time. Make your ego an advisor, not your master. Then show me how.

Don't confuse your profession with your situation.

I have had good people quit PR over this common misconception. Separate what you do from the situation you are in. The situation is transitory. PR is fun.

Trust the people you work with.

Assume they will do a good job and they will rise to the occasion. Check everything they do and tell yourself that you and only you can do it right and they will second guess themselves constantly.

Say yes.

One of the most interesting things about life is that you don't really know what you like, and what you like is quite possibly going to change. Say yes to that assignment you think you are not interested in. At worst you will learn something you wouldn't have been exposed to otherwise.

Let life surprise you.

Life lesson

A young guy and an old man are sitting beside me on the bus, speaking Spanish. 
"To be healthy" the old man says "your cells have to reproduce." He continues. "Cells are about 4.5 centimeters, at least the long ones, and look like veins. For them to reproduce you have to have sex. This is why old ladies get sick and die. They're no longer interested in sex so their cells can't reproduce".
The young guy is impassive.
"Life's nice" adds the old man. "But there's so much to learn to understand how to live it".

Your name

I dream I lose you in a crowd. I try to keep up but you are walking too fast. I see the back of your head in the distance, then notice all around me things likely to have caused you to veer off in an unpredictable direction. I open my mouth to call out to you but I don't remember your name.

Believe it.

The man who just got on the bus is really drunk. Wasted. Trashed. Plus, you can't trust him. He's bad news. 
I know this not because he's stumbling and slurring but because he's yelling that he's drunk, wasted, trashed; that we shouldn't trust him, that he's bad news. 
You should pay close attention to what people choose to tell you about themselves, because it's usually true. Right?

No one loses to cancer

(This article was originally published in The Daily Beast.)

"You are the only person I've called" he says. “I have cancer".

I knew right then I would lose him. But I didn’t know I would lose him like I have, in installments. I was not prepared for the staggered, ruthless falling apart of one of the people I love most in the world.

The man with prodigious memory became forgetful. I don't mean he didn't know where he left his glasses. I mean he'd be angry for the fact we had not talked in weeks when in fact we had spoken that morning. He was always idiosyncratic but became contradictory, confessing he did not want to fight , did not want chemo; then scheduling appointments, then not showing up for them. He, never easy but frequently reasonable, became unwilling to adhere to any order by any doctor, refusing, for example, to take the antibiotics prescribed after a life-threatening surgery.

The man I knew as the most charismatic influencer became insatiably lonely. My superhero became afraid. Not just of death. Of life, of leaving his house, afraid of the dark. I could hear him pacing straight through the night. Ambition, diminished, gave way to restlessness. He lost all evidence of inner peace.

The strongest, frankly dictatorial authority figure I have known would look at me blankly, unable to make even simple decisions. "Tell me what to do" he would say to the person he once instructed. "I don't know what to do".

"I have trouble imagining what the world will be like without me" he told me one day. "I don't want to live in that world" I replied. I meant it.

I looked at him while he was sleeping - a ghost of him, see-through almost - and began to cry, I hoped quietly. He opened his eyes and held my hand with his so very frail one, veins showing blue through his skin. I saw a faint, sweet glimmer of the ferocious protector he once was. "Don't worry" he patted me. "This is nothing. I will recover".
 

A few days later I overheard someone say a person they knew had "lost the battle" against cancer.

Lost? How can you lose after so many years well lived, after spending yourself every day in your endeavors, after being so impossible, after forging relationships with people you will come to count on, after reading so many books, after making your mark in so many different unsuspected places, after so much success, so much failure, after being such an active participant in this thing we call life?

That’s when it hit me. Our vernacular is all wrong. I resent how cancer is represented. Just because something kills you cannot possibly mean it defeats you. If that were true, we would all - masters and poets and liars and sinners and dancers and writers and heroes - be destined in the end to be losers.

I believe that my human is a winner who will one day go, triumphant, to his own secular heaven, where he will survey the newspaper over freshly pressed coffee, eat delicious food, sip the best scotch, partake in really good sex, jog on a long beach, and spend a lot of time watching over the people he loved and left here, including me.

And cancer, deceiver, pretender, coward; it cannot even subsist without the vibrant people it depends on. It will end up shriveled up, dried up, dead; rolled up in dirty gauze and tossed into a wastebasket, quickly forgotten.

So suck it cancer. No one here will ever lose to you.

Longer than you've been alive

Boyfriend was in his teens, just starting to drive.
One afternoon a man in his mid sixties aggressively cut him off.
"Whoa!" Boyfriend said, "watch where you're going!"
"I have been driving longer than you've been alive" the man replied. "YOU watch where I'm going".

Multiple conversations

I'm on the bus and six different people are talking loudly into their phones she was late for school again the truth is we are both confused I don't know if I will make the meeting it's a real scorcher today serve it on slices of sweet potato would it be wrong to dress up as the Ebola virus for Halloween

A long shot

Many wonderful things that have happened to me I once considered "a long shot". If you regard something as a long shot, go for it anyway.

Choose carefully

Choose with care the people you spend the most time with because a lot of what they are rubs off on you.

It just is

Love is related to who you are, not what you do. You don't have to earn it. There is nothing you need to do more of to deserve it. It just is.

For the kids

My parents split up when I was three. For a long time they remained in touch "for the kids", except we left home over 25 years ago and they still see each other twice a week.
"I want to make sure he doesn't need anything" she tells me.
"I visit your mom" my Dad confides "because I need to see if she is OK."

Jumbled message

Imagine if everything around you - music and license plates and phone numbers and snippets of conversation and coincidences - were all part of a jumbled message. I believe there is language all around us and that on a good day I understand a bit of it and it fills me with wonder.

Flying car

When I was little my Dad told me that pressing the button on the hand break would make the car fly and that he only used it under duress as it was very very dangerous. I knew he was teasing and still when I am stuck in awful traffic I gently graze the button and tell myself it's there for me to deploy as a last resort.

The stories we tell ourselves

Woman on bus: Wow. I love your boots.
Me: Thank you.
Her: I want boots like that but they don't look comfortable. 
Me: They are!
Her: If I walked in them I wouldn't be.
Me: OK.
Her: They aren't, right? Be honest.
Me: I have no reason to lie.
Her: I so wish I could get a pair. But I don't want uncomfortable shoes.

I'd complain about her, but we're all stuck on the stories we tell ourselves.

I don't care about none of that

A couple is walking behind me, arguing. At the street corner, they say a quick goodbye. She goes one way, he another. He turns and yells "I adore you! I don't care about none of that!" 
I loved how he said it, so loud and full, arms extended. 
Life is a romantic comedy.

Seven more reasons

I'm on the early morning bus. Two guys stumble on. They're drunk.
Guy 1: (laughing) I have seven DUIs, man. Seven!
Guy 2: (Slurring) You need to see a psychiatrist if you like drinking and driving so much.
Guy 1: Makes no difference. Haven't driven in over 15 years. Let's go find a beer.
Seven more reasons to love public transport.

Teacher

He patiently explains that love is a big word and then calls her, drunk, to blurt out he is falling for her. She wonders if this slurred declaration could be a sign of anything lasting. Can the trajectory of a fall be corrected? Isn’t it by definition something that cannot be remedied?

The next morning he calls again to clarify that “falling for someone” and “falling in love” are two very different things, and that he meant the first and not the second. So you can, she thought. You can protect yourself from gravity.

He did say he loved her a few days later, but that he didn’t need her. This defies every love song she’s ever heard. So she takes in a full breath, then another, when he isn’t anywhere nearby. She confirms it’s indeed possible. She can love well and not need him like she needs air.

She asks if he will always love her, and he shakes his head; then points out there would be no way for him to accurately predict that. That is when she truly grasps the value of living in the present. He loves me now, she thinks. And now is all we have anyway. So I have all I need.

The first time she visits his place she sees he comes with stuff. An antique chest, accouterment suited for a chef, leather jackets, raven paintings and haiku books. It’s the narwhal whale sculpture that makes the question irresistible.
“Who are you? And, how are you single?”
"I was waiting for you.”
She nods. It will take her some time to articulate her predicament: she believes him. In particular the very things she knows aren't true.

She notices how messy he is, the coffee stains on the kitchen counter, how his dirty clothes pile up high and spill out of the hamper. He doesn’t put things away or make the bed. He stacks mail everywhere.

This will work, she tells herself, as long as you don’t move in. You are too different. You can’t tolerate clutter; you give away a book after you read it. He owns bookcases.

This isn’t working, he says late one night. We barely have time to see each other. We really need to move in together.

At the end of each day he comes home to their apartment and demands room, even before he can say hello. She realizes that needing space for himself is not a form of rejection but an imperative that has nothing to do with her. It’s through living with him that she learns not to take things personally, that what people do is more related to what they are already carrying than to anything she could incite. This is how he sets her free.

One day, they are strolling through their neighborhood. She notices the wooden posts on every corner, covered in staples. “Who walks around driving staples into posts?”

He stares at her incredulously. “People post signs” he explains. “Signs are removed. Staples remain.”
“Oh.” She pauses. "I wonder how many other things that are obvious to the rest of the world are not obvious to me.”
“Many” he replies. “But a lot of things that are obvious to you aren't to the rest of the world.”

He leaves his motorcycle helmet on the chair, pairs of black boots near the door and under the sofa. He points at used cups and requests they not be put in the dishwasher, since he is likely to need them later. She, once labeled obsessively neat, realizes that evidence of him is more significant than living in a sterile apartment.

Saturday morning. They are sitting on the sofa. He's contemplating breakfast. She’s contemplating life.
“ Are you hungry?” he says. “What would you like?”
“Sometimes” she says “I feel like nothing is in its place.”
“Have you considered that maybe everything is in its place?”
She looks at him.
“OK.” He strides towards the kitchen. “I'll scramble some eggs.”

He is nocturnal and comes to bed late, then dozes off quickly, snores loudly and throws his leg over her stomach, his arm over her neck. She tells him he’s hard to sleep with. He offers to use the couch downstairs. She decides that getting a good night of rest is not the most critical thing.

She accompanies him to the radiologist. He needs an ultrasound of his leg. While looking at the screen she sees that the insides of his veins and arteries have a topography, similar to Earth seen from above. He carries within him the pattern of planets.

Patterns

If you talk to a radiologist she will tell you that the inside of our veins and arteries have a topography, similar to Earth seen from above. We carry within us the patterns of planets.

Good driver

A man gets on the bus, mumbling in a non-existent language. He stumbles over to a woman sitting alone, leans into her ear and yells unintelligibly. No one moves.
The bus stops. The driver gets out of her seat and ambles towards the man.
Her: get out of my bus.
Him: Aw, no!
Her: Now.
Him: I will behave!
She glares.
He walks out.
"Phew" someone says. "The dude sounded satanic".

I adore drivers with balls.

Tough night

At 1:30 a.m. I hear gunshots. People scream. Cars screech. "THEY TURNED LEFT! OH MY GOD!" Sirens. Flashing lights. Police cars. An ambulance. Boyfriend sleeps through it all.
I get up after a bad night. 
Him: I don't think I slept well.
Me: Did the sirens disturb you?
Him: Huh?
He leaves for work skeptical; comes home that evening to report there was a shooting the night before, right below our window.
I wish I slept like that.

Hoodwink

My father and I walking around. He asks a question and I provide an answer I consider both swift and smooth. He gives me a sideways glance. "For a person with such clarity of thought" he says "you have always been a terrible liar".
Don't even bother trying to hoodwink a Dad. Remind me.

Library

Among many other things, my dad gave me my love for books, reading and writing. This is his library. When I conjure an image of him this is where I see him. I know the memory of the two will be forever intertwined.

Impatience

Impatience runs in my family. I am having breakfast with my dad and am surprised to find he's rather mellow.
Me: you seem mellow.
Dad: I do feel more patient.
Me: Teach me! What changed?
Dad: I got old.

There is hope that our flaws can be mended. Sort of.

Just show up

I was recently talking to a guy who was in a coma for two weeks and woke up to find his friends had taken care of his family: helped drive the kids, brought food over, held his hand at the hospital. The experience changed him. Not just coming close to death, but realizing the power of being there for those you love. 

Food is a nice touch, but all you really need to do is show up.

Mercury in retrograde

I love that in San Francisco, “Mercury is in retrograde” and “our feeling is that you have an understanding of where we are going with this energetically” are legitimate things uttered during serious client meetings.

Take who you already are and stretch

This article was originally published in The Elephant Journal.

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/06/take-who-you-are-already-stretch-dushka-zapata/

For years I rejected yoga. It would help me, enthusiasts insisted. I would sleep better. It would make me less anxious. My response? Please. No. No to chanting and no to being still and no to being cooped up in a room when I could be outside.

Then, my life started behaving unpredictably. I found myself sitting cross-legged in a yoga class, then another, because I craved peace in the struggle my days had become.

Over the past three years I have witnessed this practice seep into every area of my life. Not because I strived to achieve it; but because I discovered I just needed to get out of the way.

To which you might rightfully say: What on Earth are you talking about?

Who you are shows up everywhere.

Often, I come to a pose I can't do. I see others do it. I know, I know. You're supposed to focus on your own practice, but I always look at people around me in awe. And think "I will never stand on my head. It defies gravity."

About a year later, there I was, holding a tripod headstand in the center of the room. I realized that anything that seems impossible - anything - would become easy, because that is what happens when you practice. Practice, and all will come. Once your brain has grasped that, it extrapolates it to other areas (without you telling it to). "I don't think I can ever do that" becomes you surprising yourself with all you can do.

Let go of what doesn't serve you.

What you're thinking is "Of course! But, how?" And the answer is: I don't know. But if you focus on your breath instead of your thoughts, and you want to stop holding on to something that hurts, one day it will loosen its grip on you. Breathing in and out through your nose doesn't just calm you. It changes you.

You want a better explanation. But that would be intellectual, and you are not your thoughts. You are their creator, and sometimes, for a glorious, lucid instant, their observer. Yoga works not with you the thinker, but with you the witness. With your thoughts out of the way, things have space to get sorted out. You don't need to know how. You are not making it happen. It happens on its own.

Stop thinking.

Thoughts are meant to be your servant. If you let them be the master, they will lead you astray. They will betray you. They will make you suffer. If you, like Descartes, are convinced that is why you exist, this practice reminds you that everything you could need - even the cure to loneliness - is already inside you. It's just that it doesn't reside where you think.

How can this be easier?

There you are, locked in a bind. And the teacher asks - "how can it be easier?"

What if I told you to relax when you felt you needed to struggle? You don't have the stamina to muscle your way into every pose. That's when the energy you're expending that you don't need to be expending reveals itself. Why is your jaw clenched? Why are you putting all the weight on the tips of your toes? Look at yourself. Look at your job. Look at your relationships. How can it be easier?

How can you work harder?

And of course, the reward. How can you work harder? Certainly not clenching your jaw. But once your jaw is relaxed you have more energy to put into where it matters. In lifting from the upper back. Or, anywhere.

How can you be comfortable within uncomfortable situations?

Have you ever held plank for more than a couple of minutes? When the teacher says you can "drop to your knees" you want to flop on your stomach. You learn that while it hurts, that's ok. While it's hard, that's ok. Soon you stop desperately trying to escape other uncomfortable situations. Less flailing (which is in itself exhausting). More acceptance.

Whatever you push pushes you back.

I used to believe pushing was the only way to get things to work out the way I wanted them to (OK. I still do. I have to re-learn anything I think I've already understood.) And there I was, trying to touch my toes, frustrated with myself for not "doing it right". "Don't push", said my teacher. "Whatever you push will push you back." (Whoa.)

Surrender.

This concept is counter-intuitive to anyone who believes you have to fight for what you want. Surrendering and trusting - having faith - that whatever is happening is happening in your best interest, and that things will unfold as they should without the need for you to interfere. Surrender is always my last resort and I feel awash with gratitude when, despite my tendency to refuse its solace, I always find it there waiting for me.

Meeting people where they are at.

And on a related note, don't try to change the other person's mind, opinion, or outlook. In fact, don't try to change the other person. Stop trying. It doesn't work. It never will. It never has. (There. That should free up more energy to put into other things.)

Multitasking. As in, don't do it.

I often go into a class dragging work (or whatever it is I'm dragging) in with me. The teacher says, "Whatever you have to do won't get done while you are here. Focus on breathing and moving through the poses". It hits me that I can take time off from whatever weighs on me any time I want. Let me say it in another way, because it's amazing: if you do one thing at a time, you can take a break from everything else.

Getting off the roller coaster.

There isn't room for your ego on the mat (you'll get injured fast by doing something everyone is doing if you aren't ready for it.) In yoga, you are strong one day and you suck the next. You eventually learn to feel equal regard towards the powerful you and the sucky you. (You might not believe me, but I assure you both of you are already perfect.)

And my favorite thing for last.

Being better requires minuscule steps. One of my teachers asks: can you go a bit lower? Can your back be a little straighter? Can you breathe just a bit deeper? Stretch!

It's such an incredible concept. Think about it: Depression makes you want to curl up. Darkness makes you shrink. Fear makes you wither. Stubbornness makes you narrow. Hate makes you lessen. Guilt makes you contract. Regret makes you shrivel. Negative feelings constrict. They diminish you. Stretching opens up your heart. It fills you with strength. It makes you more flexible. And it doesn't take much. You don't need time to learn how to get everything just right. There already is beauty and power inherent in you. Because it is inherent in everything.

You just take who you already are, beautiful, radiant, and stretch.

Definition of stubborn

Stubborn (adj.) a very very hard headed individual insistent on doing what he wants to do rather than complying with what I want him to do.

Conference room

This is our conference room. In a few days it will have a long table and chairs and lots of useful things and I will miss when it used to be airy and light and full of a hundred meetings that had not yet happened.

Delusion of privacy

"You were barely human" he says.
"How so?" 
"I saw you with your husband and found you so attractive. You're not like I imagined".
"Explain".
"You're so much better. Now that I know you."
"We're all only human" she whispers.
Our collective delusion of privacy: we so easily believe no one is listening, even on a crowded evening bus.

Moderately grateful

My view of the world is black and white. Conversations with Boyfriend go like this:
Me: I’m giving up coffee. I’ll drink tea instead.
Boyfriend: Why don’t you just drink coffee sometimes?
Me: I’m sick of my hair. I’m going to cut it like Annie Lennox.
Boyfriend: Why don’t you get a trim and see how you feel?
Every time he gives me an un-extreme option it blows my mind that it’s even available to me.
I’d declare this fills me with such gratitude my heart could burst; but he’d feel more comfortable if I instead stated I’m moderately grateful for his perspective.