I gave them up for lent, so naturally I think about them all the time, even though I am now three weeks invested in this hiatus. My current preoccupation with sweets may very well be the impetus for this slice, but at the very least it is a convenient segue into the subject of marshmallows.
I have been thinking of The Marshmallow Experiment.
The Marshmallow Experiment was a study done by Stanford Professor Walter Mischel in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In the trial, a child (age 4-5) was escorted into a room and a marshmallow placed before them in easy reach. The child was told that they could to eat the marshmallow right away, or if they were willing to wait 10-15 minutes to eat the marshmallow, they would get a second one. The adult then left the room leaving the child to decide for themselves what to do about the enticing marshmallow. Eat it, or wait?
One treat now, or two treats later?
The decisions of hundreds of children tested (and tempted!) in the trials were noted, and those subjects were revisited in adulthood, decades later. It ends up that the ability to delay gratification – even in toddlerhood – is a strong predictor of future success in life.
I often put myself in front of that marshmallow.
Would I eat it or would I wait longer for double the payoff?
Some days I feel like I could wait it out, and other days, not so much.
What has forty seven strings, seven pedals, and over two thousand moving parts?
If you guessed a harp, you are correct.
This weekend, I accepted an invitation to attend a solo concert given by a renown harpist. In doing so, I was treated to an afternoon that I will not likely forget.
The soloist was Merynda Adams, a lovely musician who is as experienced playing gigs at celebrity weddings as she is accompanying philharmonic orchestras world-wide. The delightful setting that afternoon was a quaint farm church in the small village of Meyersville, at the juncture of three off-the-beaten-track country roads in central New Jersey. No bigger than an average sized classroom, the church provided a cozy gathering place that seemed the perfect vessel for an intimate concert.
When she began to play, two things struck me immediately. The first was that the cascade of notes swirling, dancing, and cavorting through air could not possibly be coming from just one instrument; the assault was overwhelming in its beauty. My second reaction was to be mesmerized. Watching the artist’s hands flutter fluidly, rapidly, lightly, effortlessly over the strings gave me reason to affirm the capacity of human intellect to accomplish miraculous feats such as this one – the playing of this harp.
I was reduced to tears on more than one occasion for the splendor of the music.
Experiences such as this garner faith in the propensity of the human spirit to do good things. For all of the negativity we encounter each day, Merynda Adams and her harp give me opposing hope. Hope in the tenacious notion that if we use our gifts wisely and well, the results can transcend our human condition to lift us above and beyond, in spite of ourselves.
We parked the car in the lot and climbed the steps of the funeral home to the wake. Scanning the gathered, we spotted our neighbors Nancy and John, and made our way toward them, shimmying through the crowded room. Nancy’s mother had died, and although we never knew her well, we were happy to pay our respects. We had known the deceased’s daughter and her husband John since we moved into our home fifteen years prior. They lived in the lovely yellow house on the corner – their home was the gem of the neighborhood – brimming with an ambiance that mirrored the friendliness of its two habitants.
Through the years, John often knocked on our door to give us half a bushel of cucumbers or something delicious from his garden, and Nancy was one who had a kind word and a smile for everyone. They had raised their children and now spent time keeping their corner plot picture-perfect, with manicured landscaping and eye-catching rock gardens. We often saw the two of them sitting on their shady portico, passing evenings with Nancy’s elderly mother, enjoying the warm summer breeze.
At the wake, the two of them were busy with family and friends, so we moved toward the photo albums and picture collages to browse, eventually making our way to Nancy and John to offer our condolences. We greeted and hugged one another and I put my hands on her shoulders, offering sympathy for the passing of her mother. She looked at me and hesitated, allowing a slight smile to grace her lips. Taking my hands doubled over in hers, she looked at me and said, “Deb, I have something to tell you.”
I leaned in intimately, clasping my hand over hers in a reciprocal gesture of comfort, and murmured, “It’s okay.. of course…”
“Deb,” she whispered, “my name is not Nancy. It’s Pat.”
I drew back sharply.
“PAT?!?!” I blurted.
“Yes, Pat,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
(a question I will never live down to my dying day).
“I’m quite sure that my name is Pat,” she offered gently.
“Well, where in the hell did I get Nancy?” I exclaimed.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ve been calling you Nancy for fifteen years!” I lamented in sharp anguish.
“”It’s okay,” she offered, “It’s okay.”
She patted my arm – smiled, and gave me a hug. I hugged her back, slightly wilted.
My husband slipped his arm into the crook of mine and steered me gingerly toward the exit. Together we left the parlor in silence and headed out to the car. I shook my head in disbelief, and he chuckled and looked at me.
“Are you sure?” he mimicked, with a twinkle and a grin.
Our middle child is a plumber, and in visiting houses for a living, he meets a lot of great dogs. He told us about an old dog who passed the time lying on his dog bed on the back deck, warming himself in the sun. Every now and then, the dog got up to reposition his pillow back into the sunlight’s shifting path across the deck, then plopped back down to nap. Waking to find himself in the shade a few hours later, he’d rouse himself again, drag the cushion to a new sunny spot, and sink back down to warming slumber.
I was thinking recently about which room is my favorite room in our house, and this story of the dog came to mind. I realize that I am the dog on the deck. My favorite room is the room where the sun is.
That would be the kitchen in the morning where we sit at the breakfast table each day, watching the sun rise in the east over our mugs and plates, surmising the day’s weather by the tinge of color the sky offers: pale pink for stormy, light blue for cloudless.
Midday, the sun streams through two windows framing the living room fireplace on the south side, so that’s where you’ll find me then. Even the dog finds a good nap on the sunny swatch of sunlight falling onto the carpet there. Like minded, we two.
Late afternoon has me swing open the big old front door to let the sun stream in through the glass just beyond, and also there, through the dining room windows on that same side. This part of the day gets a little tricky for the front porch that spans the width of the house tempering the light coming from the west. But step outside on the porch in such a case, and there you go! Bright and beautiful with just enough warmth, but not too much. After all, it is late in the day and the yellowy orb is lowering in altitude and intensity.
If you wonder where I’ll be sitting with my favorite book, you’d best check the time because honestly, I’ll be following the sun.
The first death is physical, when your body ceases to function.
The second is the last time your name is spoken aloud.
The third is when the last person who remembers you dies.
I encountered this notion some years ago – from where, I can’t recall – and it has remained with me since. I think about it from time to time, not in a morbid way, but with curiosity and fascination. It prompts me to consider those who walked the planet before me that no one here-now can conjure up. I wonder about the conglomeration of unknown people for which there is no record – who they each were, what they were like, who they were important to, and how many of them there must be.
I think about the loss of my mom six years ago. It was her first death, because we still talk about her often and remember her vividly. In time though, all of us who talk about her and remember her will pass on. When that happens – when her name is spoken for the last time – she will die again, and when she is no longer remembered by anyone, she will die her third death and be gone from the earth, in permanence.
Eventually, this will happen to me, too. I will be a person – and a life – that the ones to come long after me will never know. I will die three deaths: in body, in name, and in memory.
That’s okay.
If what I believe is true, we will regain the chance to know, somewhere on the other side – forever.
That awkward moment when you wake up and realize you may need to move the venue for the evening equinox celebration from the back patio….
A few of you may recall an earlier slice where I explained why we feel minimal need to secure our home by locking doors. A suitable case in point is this newly altered view of the backyard from our bathroom window this morning.
Don’t ask – we don’t know what it is either, but we think that there are people under there.
There appears to be a tent beneath the flapping blue tarp. It is likely – and we are presuming – that it is our son Ben and assorted friends, as we also encountered several (breathing) members of his cohort asleep in the basement this morning.
When I left for yoga and a haircut this morning this was the scene.
We’ll see what emerges from the blue behemoth when I get back, if it is still there. Past practice says it will be.
Between the kids, the friends, and the dogs, one never knows.
“I should have known the temperature would be cooler here,” I thought as I hunched lower, pushing my way through the headwind toward the water. Lifting my head briefly, full into the wind, I could see the rise about a half mile away – that’s where I was headed. I was hoping to get to the top in time to catch the sunset to the west over the river, and the moonrise to the east, behind me. I had calculated to be there in time, having left shortly after dismissal to make my way across the water and up to my vantage point between moonrise and sunset. They were to occur within thirty minutes of each other today.
I had been been ruminating on whether to make the trip all morning, but once I committed, my anticipation grew with each passing hour. Although I had no one to accompany me, I was excited to go, nonetheless. I wanted this day to be different. After all, how often does the advent of spring and the rise of a super moon coincide? Hardly ever, as far as I could tell. I was going to do my best to honor two momentous occasions that Mother Nature was offering today.
Pressing into the bluster, I reached the base of the incline near the water’s edge, and climbed quickly to the top. The wind was considerably stronger at this altitude. Turning north, I pushed forward, the chill buffeting my layers. I went on, glancing upward at the threatening haze in the waning light.
As the temperature continued to drop and the sky grew increasingly overcast , I realized that my reason for trekking here tonight was not meant to be. The view of sunset and moonrise was slipping through my fingers as quickly as the clouds were rolling in. Even so, making the trip across the river had earmarked this day as unique. Just being here – on the High Line in Lower Manhattan – had made it a day set apart.
I paused on the path, once an abandoned railway track, now embraced by silhouettes of trees – and took in the sights around me. I was one story up, on a nearly-two-mile-long suspended, forested walkway directly above the busy streets of Manhattan. I squinted across the Hudson River at the coastline of New Jersey due west. “Home,” I thought, and probably time to make way way back there, before nightfall.
I didn’t get to see the super moon rise over Manhattan, nor did I catch the sunset over the eastern shore of New Jersey. I had hoped it would work out just so, but sometimes the best moments are completely different from those originally planned for. This was still one that will be with me for a long time. The day I crossed the river to the city, ushering in my fifty-ninth spring.
Last year we tried earning a pizza, but lost it at the eleventh hour because of a serious transgression.
We tried earning free time on Friday but rarely got it.
We tried extra recess to expend energy, but they fought often, which sometimes necessitated going back in.
We tried charts, stickers, prizes, and emails…
We limped ourselves to the end of the year and finished with a concerted “flop,” having worn each other out, completely.
This year, I have the same group of students and everything is different.
I don’t need to dangle a “carrot on a stick.”
We don’t need a pizza party.
We don’t need extra recess for decompression.
We don’t require stickers or prizes.
In fact, we don’t require group incentives at all.
Why?
This year, we meditate.
We meditate for five minutes at the start of every math class, and that has changed everything.
The transformation is nearly miraculous because the current situation qualifies as a veritable perfect storm – ripe for failure – for a group of students whose default mode can be impulsivity and stirring the pot. Mostly boys, they come to my resource room for the last two periods of the morning; a double math period that is sandwiched diabolically between specials class and lunch. By this time, they have been following directions, listening, and producing for almost 4 hours, and the only thing standing between them and recess+food – is me.
Despite these tremendous odds, we get two full periods of math in every day without incident, and enjoy ourselves in the process. I almost always send them off to lunch with a “Good job today, guys! I’ll see you for science later on. Well done!”
Meditation and mindfulness.
From the start of class the children enter a darkened room lit only by the soft glow of strands of white lights hanging on the wall behind them. They hand in their homework and sit at their desk or table and lower their heads down on folded arms, usually choosing to close their eyes, sinking into softly playing music in the background. Almost immediately they begin to quiet and I begin – inviting them to pause their day, inviting their bodies to relax and their minds to be somewhere else, or nowhere at all.
One day they are jellyfish floating on the sea, their cares and worries sliding down their tentacles, rippling away on the ocean swells.
Another day they draw a mind castle and explore it, room by room.
Another day they find a rainbow and lay beneath it, noticing the bands of color arching over them, each one representing a positive quality within themselves.
Yesterday they sent a golden glow of kindness from their heart to someone they thought might need extra care, imagining that person surrounded by the soft light of love, from them.
And so it goes.
The meditation draws to a meandering close and the children gently wiggle their fingers and toes, bringing their awareness back to the room. Floating their eyes open, they settle in to the lesson just before lunch, quiet, calm, focused.
Through this interlude, they experience the notion that handling emotions and behavior is a simple matter of going inside to a place that is peaceful, safe, and accessible, wherever they are.
Just Sifting 