Month: July 2012

Creeping Contentment

Rachel Henry1 Comment

Last Saturday I had a few moments of not wanting my life to be any different. And even worse, I was not at all scared of this clearly unreasonable contentment.

You might be saying to yourself, but why is this unreasonable? Your life is pretty darn good. Yes, actually, it is, but popular thought in my brain holds that if you say that above a whisper, the complacency monster will jump out and gobble you up.

Though a few weeks back I proposed observing my life to see whether anything was truly running amuck, I didn’t really intend to do that for more than a couple of days. Any longer and this whole acceptance thing could get way out of hand.

Then obligation and discipline both took a long vacation. Two people I told about this said, “Oh, it’s summer,” dismissing any need for continuous improvement for at least another month.

So I floated around for a couple of weeks, not trying to increase my holiness quotient, reduce my impact on the environment, clean, or win a Nobel Prize. In other words doing what I usually do but with much less guilt.

Come Saturday I had succumbed to such an extent that I thought, wow, I like this. Even my usual “you will become an eternal couch potato of contentment” thoughts seemed inconsequential and possibly unlikely.

Couch potato fear does have reinforcements. The next attack goes something like, but you haven’t achieved everything you said you wanted to and since you are not a) actively pursuing it or b) feeling like you should be actively pursuing it, you are screwed.

I suppose this may be true. It may also be true that enjoying where you are helps you get where you want to be. But don’t tell anyone I said so.

Ode to Friends

Rachel Henry4 Comments

To really milk your birthday to its utmost potential, don’t organize your own party. That way, multiple small groups of friends will take you out for a lot of individual birthday meals.

This lack of planning also gave me a lot of chances to think about how great my friends are—and not only because they were feeding me. Here are just a few of the ways they are awesome.

They are courageous. Whether traveling through a developing country in a wheelchair, caring for an elderly parent, or facing their own death, they complain little.

They don’t deny the difficulties of life but don’t dwell on them too much. They allow anger and grief and joy and love and can laugh at the ridiculous during good times and bad.

They work hard and care not only about the quality of their work but also about how they treat those they work with. They don’t spend much time blaming other people.

They are willing to change their minds after reflecting on something and regularly take the time for that reflection.

They are funny and kind and resilient and generous and they make me laugh. And the crowning achievement—they like to eat and cook really well.

To steal a few brilliant phrases from a graduation speech by a young woman named Rebekah Frumkin who is much smarter than I was at twenty-two, my friends “[square] the serious with the silly” and “[view] the world with humility and candor” (from a commencement address given at Carleton College).

All this helps me inch toward accepting that life is not about having everything work out well for everyone—as defined by me—but about how we react to the highs and lows. Not because I like it or it makes sense. Not because the highs and lows aren’t real but because they are and life is simply more enjoyable when we focus our mental and emotional energy on the things we’re grateful for, like amazing friends.

Help Matters

Rachel Henry1 Comment

Sometimes crappy things just happen. I did not come up with this idea. Someone has made millions of dollars marketing products espousing various forms of that sentiment.

I recently watched a Zulu language film called Yesterday about a woman in a tribal village in South Africa who contracts AIDS. Though not based on any one person’s true story, I’m sure it’s a true story many times over.

The main character, Yesterday, is patient and wonderful and gets this disease that entails more suffering than those of us with access to hospitals and morphine will ever guess at. It’s hard not to wonder why the world is not more justly constructed after watching this story.

As the priest Anne Lamott quotes in one of her essays says, why is not a useful question, though I still want to know the answer. Seeing as I am not likely to get it, I decided to review what I think I know.

Here are some things I don’t believe:

  • God tests us.
  • God gives us trials to strengthen us.
  • Bad things happen so that good things can come from them.
  • We attract—through our attitudes, beliefs, or ways of living—everything that happens to us. Some things, sure, but not everything.

Here are some things I do believe:

  • Grace happens.
  • There are things that help.
  • These things are extremely important even though they appear small.

It helps to cry or yell or beat the pillow. It helps to lay all the crappiness before God and say, “What the hell? Would you do something about this please?” It helps to eat a hot fudge sundae with a friend or go for a hike.

Help doesn’t mean that the situation changes, that a miraculous healing occurs, that the next day a job offer arrives out of the blue. Those things may happen, but a lot of the time they don’t. More often, we feel less alone and more able to keep going.

That seems insufficient in the face of the AIDS epidemic in Africa or any number of other global disasters, but an epidemic is composed of individuals. In the movie, one person stands by Yesterday. When they are together the awfulness lifts a little. Bring on the hot fudge.

Celebrate Your Life

Rachel Henry4 Comments

Birthdays can be a time for reflection, but this year I’m opting for celebration. Some cool things that happened on or near my birthday:
•    My van erupted into spontaneous song on hearing news of the occasion.
•    A friend sent me a picture of her smiling, swinging baby with good wishes.
•    Three friends from two very different times in my life met each other in Johannesburg, South Africa.
•    My team won the over-30s division of the local soccer tournament.
•    I discovered someone in my new office has the same birthday I do. As a result, we got both a birthday breakfast and a birthday lunch. I think that’s what they mean when they say nirvana.
•    A friend baked me some healthy yet surprisingly tasty cookies, which is particularly impressive because I am generally opposed to combining the concepts health and dessert.
•    My mom took me out to dinner, and we had completely unhealthy chocolate torte with hazelnut mousse. Yum.
•    Another friend sent me this blog post by someone who spent her birthday doing random acts of kindness.
•    A number of people wrote cheerful texts.
•    My dad called.
•    The answer to one of life’s great mysteries—who buys Christmas ornaments in July?—was answered when my mom and sister bought me some I’d been eyeing in San Diego.

According to this list, what’s going to make the next year enjoyable is chocolate cake. That and the people who surround, nurture, and support me, who make me laugh and do me perhaps the greatest favor any of us can do for each other—keep me in mind, whether they are near or far.

And all of this for someone who only remembers others’ birthdays about fifty percent of the time. Thanks, everyone.

Laugh Until It Hurts

Rachel Henry2 Comments

Silliness apparently runs in my family. My mom, sister, and I traveled to San Diego last week. The most enjoyable part of our trip was neither the feats of marine mammals at Sea World nor the amazing Afghani food we ate, well, devoured (at Chopahn if anyone’s San Diego bound). The best moments had more to do with hobbits.

I don’t remember what inspired the first Golem impression of the trip, but that one inspired many others. They all had us laughing in that way that makes everyone around you in the restaurant either very envious or very nervous. The kind of laughter that makes you cry, the kind where you look at each other, not really sure why or whether the cause is hilarious enough to merit this reaction but nonetheless grateful for how good it feels.

This laughter differs from that invoked by even the funniest movie or most clever comedy routine. It has a refreshing quality, like dipping your soul in a mountain spring. No one would choose the Henry women over Robin Williams for a night of entertainment, yet when each of us curled her lips, rolled her eyes back in her head, and located her throatiest voice, we were, at least to ourselves, the funniest act around.

I suspect we could all use more of this breath-taking fun. I wish I could bottle it or write a recipe: mix three parts friends or family with two parts shared experience; add a day of relaxation and three drams silliness; mix.

The magic seems to arrive when it will, though, and the unexpectedness of finding yourself struggling for oxygen and wondering whether your abs will be sore the next day only makes the moment that much more precious.