Holding Fast with a Special Package

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If this were a medieval story, I would begin with a year and a day trope. But since it a true-life tale from someone who cut teeth on once upon a time, that's where I'll begin this storytelling.

Once upon a time, long ago and far away in BC time (Before Cancer), like everyone, I had my tough times to handle. I survived, endured, and triumphed by holding fast with an unlikely approach--my horse. I knew something beyond my children needed to focus and root me firmly so I could think, act, and move beyond the trials life handed us. Holding fast with a horse had its benefits; everyday I was outdoors, weather friendly or not. I had my own time and space for reflection, planning, mapping life and legal strategies. For living quietly in sync with my best friend.

Today, I face a different challenge, and an opportunity to grow in a different direction. And I am holding fast with something equally unusual to most, but quite ordinary for me. Her name is Stimulus Package, but I have changed it to Special Package. Both ways, SP for short, and she is what I was searching for. She is quiet, steadfast; a waiter, a walker, a companion who never tires of the attention we share. She is good with total strangers, and although Uncle John is a household word, it is the first time he is meeting SP. If you know llamas, you will appreciate how unusual it is for one to remain kushed down when someone enters, even if gently.

Whether or not we are conquering cancer, all of us at some time in our lives will have to beat back something, find a survival mechanism, something that will hold us fast to the task at hand. It may or not be life threatening, but it could be something that threatens to change life as you know it. Having an anchor helps, whether it is as simple as a song, a book, a TV show or a human helping hand. Whatever it takes, IF you can find and recognize it, you can continue holding fast with a very special package.

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Growing the Moment

Most of my friends are at getting ready to leave the ISTE 2010 Conference in DENver, CO. Since I could not attend, I followed them on my social networks to get a pulse of what they were absorbing and the fun they were having. Wish I were there. One of the tweets I noticed about growing the movement initially I misread as growing the moment. During my AM routine on The Farm, I gave much thought to the misread. How do you grow a moment? I have written about living fully-freighted inside moments, and I understand the metaphor. Engage fully, really live, sensory participation, enjoyment, fulfillment. But growing a moment or moments may be another thing entirely.


I suspect it has a lot to do with removing stressors from our lives, and that is a cultural shift difficult to make. Everyone I know is frightfully busy, multitasking themselves (eventually) into some illness, short or long-lived. We value engagement as an indicator of self-esteem, as part of an ethos that makes us and our country great. If we are busy, we must be productive. Fallacious thinking. Busy is just busy; getting something done is different. I am not advocating Zen Buddhism or an effort to achieve nirvana. But I am questioning my approach to life and comparing now to then, and of course, the difference is exponential. Although I am not abrogating my responsibilities, I am re-thinking them. That's very easy to do when you are not driven by anyone else's bells and whistles. I can grow moments of doing what I love, selecting the sequence, time allocations, priorities. And because I can control these factors, I can live in and grow moments. Indefinitely.

But if true balance is the goal, then I need a huge cultural shift from doing too much to doing what is possible, and that includes the workforce. Alpha overachievers need constant reminders to live inside the possible, and to say no. Saying no goes against my grain, but I am learning, and as I do, I begin to live within and extend the moments that truly matter in my life.

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Talking to God

Early in my childhood, I learned to speak to the pet puffin I adopted as an imaginary friend. And I talked to God. In later childhood, I sadly realized the truth about Puffin, and our conversations ended. But I continued to talk to God. Trouble with Him, however, was, unlike the puffins that played in my imagination, God did not answer.

Still, I continued my one-sided conversation. Years of Catholic school taught us that we could, much like the early television show, make a deal with God. I was naive enough to believe that God really needed me to exchange a week's worth of masses for the prayer flavor of the day or week. Sometimes I got what I wanted, but often I thought it was just serendipitous. Ultimately, I knew that God listens, but I was slower to realize that He answers us in ways we need to learn to understand.

God speaks in silence, and we need to learn to interpret his signs of conversation. A dear friend, colleague, and cancer survivor, Jennifer Piagesi, recently opened a whole new way of understanding God's answers. I was relating to her the really good news about my cancer diagnosis and treatment, and told her that as I entered the room in which I would be seen, the room number was 22. That's my lucky number, and the moment I saw it, I was childishly happy. Jumping for joy, almost. I knew I would be okay; I was just waiting for the doctors' confirmation. Jennifer reminded me that God was talking to me, telling me in advance I would be fine.

For many, this quaint way of thinking seems strange, but I have always been a believer in things beyond what was tangible. In many ways, I suspect I live on and in the spirit and meaning of things, like the philosophy of French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's novella, The Little Prince, one of the best selling books ever published. So, Jennifer's explanation went to my heart. After a lifetime of talking to God, I finally have begun to understand that all those years, He was really listening.

The Promise

Life is good. It's a company, a festival, fun gear, fuel, a fundraiser, a foundation. It's for kids, women, mothers, home, and dogs. For everyone, really (well, nothing for llamas, yet). It's athletic, organic, fitted (and fitting, on many levels). It's contests and activities. LIG is a philosophy, good karma, a way of living, ubiquitous...and it's my mantra.

Several seasons ago, I found the apparel and the company in the shape of the softest green hoodie. Not really sure what sealed the deal: the color, the look and feel, or the philosophy--on which the business is built and/or the message. Or just everything. But there you have it; I bought the sweatshirt (far too fine to sweat in, though) and I bought into the philosophy because it evoked everything I learned from my grandmother.

Like most women of her generation (she would be over 100 were she still alive, though she lives in my memory), life was not good. It was the worst 2 wars, the worst depression, the worst recession, and if you walk on the side of half-empty, it was nothing to brand. Yet for my grandmother, life was good. Grandmother used to tell me, when we picked giant blackberries at the summer cabin (yes, it was real wood and quite large logs at that), or when I sat at her side, amazed at her sewing savvy (a skill I did not absorb) that life was good. I heard it when I got sticky dough fingers learning how to make noodles from scratch. She told me every chance she had. Sweetie, (my pet name, so much easier than the one my Mother stuck me with when she could not make a decision), she would say, Life is what you make it, so make it good.

I can still hear her voice in my mind's eye, remember the years and years of spending summers with my grandparents, living for the lake summers. It was magical. I had a dog, a boat, a great lake, the woods, my books and bathing suits. I gained an unerring ability to make the simple fun. That was my grandfather's legacy, learned from hours of sitting with him from first light, fishing for trout, or eels, or whatever was in the waters. I learned patience, discipline, self-possession, and I knew that life was good because that was what I had promised to make it.

As I face a challenge that I leaned from the PET Scan results yesterday was a bit larger than I had anticipated, I still hear my grandmother's voice. I see the first light rising on the lake and through the mist I see my grandfather reaching for his line. I hand him a worm and wait. In the distance, I hear the stillness of time past reiterate that life is what you make it, so, Sweetie, make it good.

I have, and I will. Promise.

Joseph Seaman
Anna Seaman
Grandparents