A Bright Red Sloop in the Harbor...

This is how American poet Anne Sexton once defined luxury. An informal poll of my friends and family revealed pipedreams of private jets, maids and summer homes. Definitions of luxury are as subjective and varied as the dreams attached. To me, luxuries are not pipedreams unlikely to ever be realized, but a mindset of attainable, non-essentials that contribute to my pleasure and comfort.

I believe that luxury can be separated into sub-groups, the first of which is, “Stuff that is easier to complain about NOT having.” Into this category, I put bubble baths, pedicures and eyebrow waxes. None of these are “big-ticket” items. If they were a true priority in my life, they could be attained with relative ease. It would take no effort for me to lock myself in the bathroom, light scented candles and hang a sign on the door that says, “If you dare knock, something had better be bleeding, burning or broken!” Apparently, these things aren't all that important, or I would pamper myself a bit more.

The second sub-group I call “Back in Black” luxuries. These are things that seem like novelties in the beginning, but when the reality hits that you couldn’t financially survive without them, it stings. These are things like shopping at garage sales; fun when you’re 16, a little harder to reconcile at 36. A true luxury for me would be shopping at Target and not worrying about it. Coupon clipping also goes into this category. I would love to shop at Hen House and stop running between bakery thrift stores and double-coupon days. Creative bill paying also goes here; comfort would be not paying bills based on which ones were in danger of being shut off.

The luxuries I have now though, far outweigh the above and are the most dear. I call them “Karmatic Luxuries”. These are home, family, truth, beauty and goodwill. They are luxuries because when I can share these with people around me, I immediately receive both pleasure and comfort. The true reward, however, is that I am also “paying it forward”. Every time I see one of my children reach out to help a stranger, or comfort a friend, I know how blessed I am. If I can inspire people around me to keep faith, and not lose hope, I am paying it forward. If, by example, my children see that material rewards should be the pleasant by-product of a life well-lived, not the purpose, then I will happily clip coupons forever.

Is my definition of luxury today different than ten years ago? Absolutely. I would expect no less of life’s journey. Do I expect it to change in the future? Certainly. As I stated in my opening, luxuries are attainable, and as I do that, I expect new desires to fill those vacancies. I think the key to success is to recognize that wants are different than needs, and if you can separate the two, a life of luxury isn't that hard to realize.

I despise exercise...

but not for the obvious reasons. I dislike it because I have to commit to it and anyone who knows me can tell you, I can't commit to wearing the same pair of socks for an entire day! I also despise it because I am now at a point that even I know I MUST do it...no longer a choice...and I HATE being told what to do - even by my own body. At this point, it almost seems futile..I have no desire to be the next Susan Powder (sp?)...you know, the "Stop the Insanity" hardbody...which is good, because she's a freak of nature. I know, I know...they always say, the best time to do something is when you don't feel like doing it etc...builds discipline or some squawk like that...but if you really think about it, that would mean that you will NEVER be able to give yourself an out. If every time you feel like slacking, you bully through and do it anyway, you become just another robotic drone with no free-will whatsoever! If I subscribed to that life-choice, I would never be allowed to say no to myself...now there are plenty of things in my life that I cannot say no to without dire consequences: car payments, utility bills, laundry...but I guess I would like to control just one thing in my life...my body...and by george, if my body says, "Today isn't gonna work for me..." I would like that to be okay...without the guilt and failure complexes every Nike and Mountain Dew commercial has subliminally implanted in my brain. So today, I give myself permission not to exercise...and my body is thanking me...so free yourselves...exercise when you feel like it - as a reward for loving youself - not a persecutorial punishment for merely channel or web surfing (both highly underrated activities)...and not because someone says you have to...c'mon...the Great Bambino lived on a diet of hot dogs, alcohol and cigars...and that's part of what makes him so spectacular...anyone can break records on a diet of granola and steroids! So on that note...I sign off...having only exercised my metacarpals!

Independence Day

United we stand
For just one night
Beryl skies the palette
Starbursts bloom as sanguine rain
And Minutremen pay homage
With mortar shells that pierce through time
Recalling Death is Freedom's utmost tariff

To My Dad...

Sometimes the pedestals we put people on don’t seem quite so high the taller we get, with time and maturity, perspectives change. As an adult, I reflect on the idolatry I had for my father when I was a child as compared to the platform of respect and understanding I place him on today.

My earliest recollection of my father is cast through a dazzling, sunlit filter. He is crouching next to me in our garden; I am “petting” a daisy and he is whispering softly, “Gentle, just gentle.” Not to discount my mother, but I was a Daddy’s Girl. His first, my mother’s eighth. My world revolved around him. As soon as he hit the door from a long day at work, I would leap into his arms. He would then carry me upside-down into the living room where we would have “con-ver sa-tion”. It was the biggest word I had ever heard, and he was the smartest man I knew. He became a deity to me, encompassing my ideal of perfection and infallibility; and with every godly act he performed, the pedestal where I had set him lifted a little higher into the sky.

As an adolescent, I took those early impressions and continued building on them – oversimplified, he was never wrong. Dinner conversations were peppered with truths to live by like, “Be true to yourself” and “Your handshake is your word”. His pedestal was now so high, I had to make it self-buttressing so it did not collapse under it’s own weight. I had the same acme of perfection set for myself – because I was his daughter.
As a young adult, I spent years resenting his omnipotence, doing just about everything I could to defy him. I can remember playing Devil’s Advocate in arguments, just to challenge his correctness. Every time his unheeded advice proved right, it only increased my resentment and underlined my failure. Could I not be perfect without him? I kept that flawed perception of him well into my twenties, and it was only recently that I was able to put everything in proper perspective.

The shift began when I went to work for him. Another personal setback left me wanting for work; and, as usual, I ate crow and he threw me a bone. Working for his company afforded me the not only the opportunity to learn the business, but also to meet the people with whom he had professional relationships. These were people I had heard about my entire life, a few of whom I had previously met, who were now getting to know me as someone other than “Bob’s Daughter” ; I was a business associate.

I spent nearly twenty years in financial services as an assistant, a broker, a wholesaler and finally as a financial planner. In that time, I met many people who had known my father in a different context and for much longer than I had. I heard some of the same stories I had heard as a child, but in a different light. This was not dirt digging on my part, nor mud slinging on theirs. This was a common thread we wove into a new fabric. Through their narratives, both professional and personal, the “deity” became tangible to me; the hero started to become human.
The pedestal is now realistically proportioned. I see my father as a fallible human, not an infallibly deity. The platform has also broadened to include all the qualities my previous, singular perspective had obscured. My father is three-dimensional. He has feelings, and can be hurt. He has flaws, and can be wrong. What I know now is that he never thought himself perfect, I did; and he never asked perfection of me. All the times I expected perfection from us both, I was the only one disappointed. By letting my father “out of the box” of my childhood perceptions, I have released us both.

7 x 16

I wandered through the literati looking for my voice,
And in the streets of Dublin, I bumped into James Joyce

He was running to the doctors, having awful stomach pain
But he said that he found Dedalus, reading Ibsen on a train

The Wife of Bath I went to next, and knocked upon her door
But alas, she could not hear me, so I traveled to the moors

In Denmark I found Grendel, who left me in a fright
And our ever tortured Hamlet, chasing phantoms in the night

The Hollow Men, their voices dried, could only bang and whimper
And Dylan Thomas in a rage – the man had quite a temper!

Byron and two Shelleys were busy snubbing Britain
The Brownings, they had too left home – with Italy were smitten

My last stop was in Paris to give a Rose to Gertrude Stein
She made a batch of brownies (I must admit they were sublime!)

In searching for the perfect voice, I had tramped through many tomes
And finally had reconciled - the voice must be my own