Maximize Your Life

The other day I was in the garden watering pots of wilted shasta daisies when I noticed my husband scrounging through the shed, gathering up speciality car products to detail his brand new car. It made me think how helpful and interesting it would be to write about people who detail their brand new cars. People who even think of detailing their brand new cars. So I put down the hose and walked over to the shed.

"I'm thinking of writing a blog entry called Maximize Your Life, based on what I've learned from you." It's better to let Morgan know when he's about to appear in print or in a talk, just in case someone surprises him on a Saturday morning at Peet's with the news.

He chuckled, paused for a few seconds, glanced up at me and said, "You should put all your blog entries together and send them to a publisher."

This, dear readers, is the heart and soul of the art of maximizing: take anything that looks pretty good - your car, your wife's blog, your business, your surf equipment - and make it into the best it could possibly be. Plunge ahead against all odds and what the rest of us would consider rational thought, against the doubts and opinions of others, against the uncertainties of this world. The glass is not just half full, it's on the verge of overflowing - even if only you can see it.

Several years ago Morgan and I went to a Strengths Finder class. We each bought a book and looked inside to find the access codes that took us to the online test. The results of the test would indicate our personality strengths which, we were promised, would be useful in business, leadership, team building, and life in general. I liked the "life in general" category; Morgan liked the rest.

On the back cover of the book I saw that Strengths Finder had been on the best sellers list in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Business Week, and had become a standard in personality profiling. So we took the test and identified our top five strengths. Then we read our handouts, listened to the conference speaker, and participated in small group activities. In the end Morgan and I looked at each other and admitted that we had indeed gained better knowledge of ourselves and garnered new insight into our behavior, talents, and . . . strengths.

I remember three of my strengths: Communication, Connectedness, and Ideation. All three focused around words, ideas, and seeing connecting links between things. Morgan's list sounded much more practical and useful: Achiever, Analytical, and Maximizer. While it all sounded exactly like him, it was the word maximizer that made all the puzzle pieces of my life suddenly fall into place. "People strong in the Maximizer theme focus on strengths as a way to stimulate personal and group excellence. They seek to transform something strong into something superb."

For example: the first thing my mom said this morning when I picked her up for her hair appointment was, "Look what I found in the pouch of my walker after Morgie dropped me off last time." I peeked into the walker and saw two big spray bottles: High Gloss Hot Shine Tire Spray and Quik Mist & Wipe Detailer. Some of you might be thinking, "How can I get some of those? They sound amazing!" The rest of us might be thinking, "Really?"

I asked Morgan about it and he explained that in the trunk of his car he has a organizer with car products, surf gear, a couple of hats, and some emergency equipment. He said that while the walker was in the trunk, the spray bottles must have slipped into it. Does that sound unlikely to any of you? My suspicion is that while my mom was very slowly getting out of the front seat Morgan opened the trunk, got out the walker, grabbed the spray bottles and a microfiber cloth, quickly did a little hot shine on the tires, and mist & wipe on the back of the car. He realized he'd better get around to the passenger door with the walker, so he quickly stashed the spray bottles - but in his hurry he stuck them in the walker pouch instead of the trunk organizer.

I have benefitted enormously from Morgan perfecting the art of maximization. Sometimes it drives me a little crazy but I love how it's a one man job and I don't have to get involved. While he maximizes I have space and time to talk, connect, think, write and dream. I can go for a walk, grab a cup of coffee, and watch in amazement as he solves complex business problems, makes the most of every opportunity, works like play and plays like work.

The only thing in the back of my car right now is a crumpled, sandy beach towel and piles of dog fur that magically reappear every time Morgan maximizes my car. The good thing is that in some mysterious ways our strengths work together to strengthen each other. His maximizing is intriguing to me, alluring, and gives me stories to tell. My storytelling is entertaining to him, mystifying, and reminds him that there are always more products waiting for him in the trunk of his car.

Life Lessons from My Grandson

Our daughter and her five-year-old son came to visit this month from London. Their family always makes the trip during the holidays when English winters press in, so this summery adventure was a whole new experience for young Oliver. "Is this the same San Diego I have been to before?" "Are you sure, Mommy?" "Am I dreaming, Mommy, or am I awake? I can't even believe I'm here!"

Welcome to paradise, dear Ollie-O with your precious English accent. This is where morning clouds burn off before Sesame Street is over, daytime temps are in the mid-70s, ocean water is 69, sunsets are bright and beautiful, and balmy evenings wrap up the day. And this is where Gramsie is waiting to treat you right.

I thought it was the best visit ever, and I'm grateful they endured the eleven hour flight to get here. Our time together brought back treasured memories of my summers growing up too. I'm sure I have photos from back in the day that are replicas of the ones I just took of Oliver. Summer delightfulness, full of the things I never meant to forget --

1. Take off your shoes 

On their way here Ashley told Oliver he wouldn't have to wear shoes in San Diego because it would be nice and warm. So when they disembarked at customs, he took off his shoes and never put them back on. "You said, Mommy!" 

That was fine with all of us. We never wore shoes in the summer when we were little and neither did our kids. Our family has always preferred to burn our feet on scorching hot pavement until callouses develop a few weeks into the season. "Run for the pickle weed! There's some shade! Pick me up! Ow ow ow! Jump on this beach towel!" It's a summer ritual and Oliver understood its importance even before he got out of the airport.

I haven't gone shoeless much in recent years. I pay for pedicures to get rid of callouses, not build them up. I don't want to step on anything sharp or get stung by a bee. But after three weeks of living with a gleefully barefooted boy whose self-imposed foot torture didn't push him to put on his flip flops, I felt called to set my shoes aside, at least now and then.

2. Go in the ocean

It's an easy walk down the hill from our house to the beach. But until young Mr. Summer arrived on the scene I don't think I'd been in the ocean for two years. My usual list of reasons: the water temperature is below 68 degrees. There's kelp. It's sting ray season. Jellyfish season. Tide is too high. Great White shark sighting. The path is slippery. Grownup fun-quenchers.

Oliver's first encounter with the Pacific Ocean was entirely different. On day one of their visit we piled into the car and headed to OB, Tower 2. Ashley and I found a place to spread our towels, open my beach chair, and put sunscreen on each other's backs. While we settled in, Oliver, in his new Hawaiian print trunks and bright yellow and black rash guard, stood facing the ocean, transfixed. After a long look he laughed out loud and ran down the beach right into the water. For the rest of the day Ashley and I took turns braving the waves with him. He laughed and screamed and got knocked down countless times by waves that broke over his head. He proved himself a true beach kid, just like his mom. He had salt water up his nose, sand in his trunks, and seaweed wrapped around his legs. And he had a huge smile on his face.

My family spent every Sunday of every summer at the beach where my dad grew up bodysurfing. Oliver brought those treasured memories back for me. Sitting on the beach with him I could almost taste the plums my mom tucked in our picnics and the orange sodas we drank at the end of the day. I remembered the feel of the ridges on the inflatable rafts that bounced us into shore on the biggest waves of the day. There were memories of my Dad teaching me to body surf and how to spot riptides; and images of the elegant drip castles that were washed over by the incoming tide. That reckless beach joy drew me back and I realized it's all still there for the taking.

3. Embrace your age

Oliver told almost everyone he met that he's five and three quarters. He's proud that he's turning six. He knows that older is better, bigger, stronger, smarter, and closer to being allowed to watch Jurassic Park. I hadn't thought of aging in quite the same way but now I've reconsidered.

Oliver: "Are you really old?"

Gramsie: "I'm not that old."

Oliver: "Well you look really old."

Gramsie (laughing): "I need to look old enough to be your grandmother."

Oliver (taking a closer look): "Oh."

I'm pretty sure that was a compliment, at least that's the way I took it. I feel honored to think that I fit nicely into Oliver's "older" category. That's exactly where I want to be - in a healthy, vibrant, fun, grandmotherly kind of way. I told him I get to watch Jurassic Park and Jaws too and he was pretty impressed.

4. Relish your mornings 

My friend and I still walk every morning at 7:00 and on the way home we stop by Peet's for a coffee. On occasion we get concerned that we've turned into idle women seeking purpose, but mostly we chat with neighbors, watch babies grow into toddlers, and entertain the baristas.

Oliver knew that every time I got home from my walk I'd have a kid's cocoa in hand. He was always sitting right in the middle of the couch in his pajamas with his teddies and blankies next to him in a big pile, hair in an adorably matted mess. He was barely able to look up at me because he was busy phonetically spelling the secret word of the day on Super Why!, but he'd take his cocoa, say thank you and open the lid to make sure there was chocolate dust on top.

I know Oliver's mornings aren't like that at home in London. No television shows and cocoa to start the day, but that's what made his mornings here so . . . delicious. No guilt, no worries, just the confidence that he was where he should be in the moment.

I'm delighted that Oliver knows how to relish his mornings when he has a chance, and he does it to perfection. It's a luxury to have a predictable time to pause and enjoy the day before it officially starts. I knew I liked that kid.

5. Climb a tree

There are three big juniper trees in our front yard, perfect for climbing. Whenever Oliver felt bored or stressed or tired, or just on a whim, he told Mommy he was going outside to climb a tree. Scrambling up to the top, and hidden by the needlelike leaves, he'd ask me, "Did Mommy climb this high when she was little?". There was something that felt so right about sitting on that upper motorcycle branch, revving his motor and pretending to zoom off on a race. He knew he needed a little space to recharge - or just have fun - and he found it in a safe place nearby, above the rest of the world, with a view.

I'm going to start doing that more often - probably not by climbing a tree. But I have places I like to sit  and dream and think and pray: at the lighthouse up the street, on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, on my back deck. I can't believe I'm being reminded to pause and reflect by a busy five-year-old, but Mr. Summer is a pretty special guy.

Pretty Gross But I Lived Through It

Yesterday I finally went in for a colonoscopy. Parts of it were pretty gross but I lived through it. Why I waited so long to have it done is a mystery and a true confession rolled into one.

At my last annual checkup, Dr. Lischke said, "So, have you had a colonoscopy?" Unfortunately he has asked that same question, with exactly the same wording - So, have you had a colonoscopy? - yearly for way too long, and my lame excuses have varied little. I told him that getting a colonoscopy was on my list but I hadn't gotten it done yet because I lost the last two referral cards he'd given me. Then to support my tenuous position, I rattled off multiple semi-valid reasons for avoiding the test: travel, busy life, family obligations. I could have added jury duty, but I didn't actually show up when I was called last year, so that didn't qualify. I cringed at how, once again, I must have sounded unbelievably flakey. He looked at my chart and replied, "Well, let's see, you're only thirteen years late."

In that moment I told myself that I wouldn't go back for my annual exam until I had gotten the colonoscopy. I would set a personal deadline and just do it. Still I stalled around and around to the point that whenever I noticed colonoscopy on my list I imagined the gastroenterologist saying, "If you had come in ten years ago, no wait, thirteen years ago, we could have saved your life."

Two months ago, which was about six months after I missed this year's annual checkup with Dr. Lischke because I still hadn't gone for the colonoscopy, my brother and his family came down from Idaho for a beach vacation. Our extended family gathered for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Leucadia and I sat next to my cousin, Eric. I hadn't seen Eric for awhile, and I asked how things were going. He said, "Did you hear that I have colon cancer and I just finished my third round of chemotherapy?" Then he said the words I'd been running from for thirteen years, "Have you had a colonoscopy? You really need to do it. It's really important."

So after thirteen years I finally called Dr. Lenz's office, made an appointment, went to the preliminary office visit, and scheduled the procedure for one month later. They had an opening that same Wednesday but I couldn't quite get myself to go for it. Still, at long last I had an appointment on my calendar.

During the month leading up to the colonoscopy I asked thirteen friends if they'd had the procedure. I was hoping for reassurance that I wasn't the only one avoiding it, but it turned out I was the only one. Everyone else had seen it as a routine test and had gotten it done when they turned fifty. A couple of them had already had it done twice. Each one said the prep the night before was awful, but the procedure itself, under sedation, was nothing at all. They were right, of course. The new and improved cleansing drink the night before was just five ounces and tasted like Tang - that orange powdery drink mix. It was followed by five glasses of clear liquid over the next five hours - and diarrhea of course, which was . . . cleansing. The actual colonoscopy was effortless, the people who took care of me were lovely, and thankfully all was well and healthy up there in my intestines where no one had ever looked.

But in the recovery area where the beds are separated by a thin curtain, I heard the guy next to me get his results. The nurse told him he had so many polyps in his intestines that the doctor was unable to remove any of them. There were polyps upon polyps, and several were flat, on the wall of the intestines. She showed him the photos and said they would refer him to a surgeon. "You will need surgery," she said. He was silent. I'm guessing polyps don't grow overnight and I wondered how long he had postponed getting the test.

If I had gone in for the colonoscopy thirteen years ago I wouldn't have had to: have it on my list, quietly haunting me all that time; face Dr. Lischke with dread every year as he repeated the same question; come up with excuses for avoiding the test; and worry that I had colon cancer.

I'm guessing that most of you who are over fifty have already had a colonoscopy and you're reading this as simply my personal true confession. Hopefully none of you will ever be like the guy on the other side of the curtain who got the bad news. Or live in the kind of avoidance that adds a layer of stress to your life, and one more item to your to-do list.

But let me know if you're stuck in the shadowy place where I lived for thirteen years. I get it and maybe I can encourage you to step out of the guilt and worry and step into the endoscopy office. I have to say the prep was pretty gross but overall it really wasn't that bad. Today I feel relieved that I finally did it and relieved that I don't have cancer. And really proud of myself for getting it done. Dr. Lischke will be shocked - but he'll probably try to be professional about it and not fall off his chair.

Kind of makes me wonder what other things in my life I've been putting off for thirteen years?

Sea Glass Girl

I love sea glass - smooth, colored, old, rare these days. It has to be the real thing though, the kind that has a found treasure feel to it, not just broken glass from last summer. A piece of sea glass is the detail of a story almost lost but always meant to be found. Maybe it was a part of a champagne bottle left behind after a sunset marriage proposal. Or a beer bottle that kids tossed under a pier at low tide. Or maybe it was a small vial of poison silently sipped by a desperate lover before walking hopelessly into the sea, her gossamer gown flowing, aglow in the moonlight. Probably that. 

Whether the original vessel was tossed out, smashed in anger, shattered on the bow of a new boat at its christening, dropped on the rocks, tossed overboard, or taken down with a sinking ship - one way or another it found its way into a watery grave. But then, as if joining a choreographed salt water dance, the glass fell into the rough and tumble of the ocean where rocks and coral and sand transformed it. Jagged edges were smoothed and polished, and a soft patina replaced the former sharp clarity and color. Years and miles and tumbles later, some of the glass was tucked safely into the sand of the shore by a final tide, half hidden by kelp and driftwood, waiting for treasure seekers. 

We went on a fall cruise to the northeastern U.S. and Canada a couple of years ago. It was fun until wild winds and 21 foot swells overtook us. Even that was exciting and dramatic until a rogue wave knocked our ship silly, leaving us listing at a 45 degree angle. Pianos slid off stages, food and dishes flew all over the place, the pools emptied. After that close call, Morgan and I went on a lovely, tranquil walk on a rocky beach near Bar Harbor, Maine. And there they were - pieces of sea glass waiting for us with hidden stories of endless storms and calms.

I guess we all feel like Sea Glass Girls sometimes. What we imagined to be the leading story of our lives was crushed and tumbled and is being remade, but maybe we're emerging with smoother edges and lovelier patinas. When things aren't as clear as we thought before, it seems that the mystery is creating depth in us. And even when we fight against it the fight is good and worthwhile and life giving. We're all in it together too, the dance of life. Look around and breath it in: we care about you. I care about you.


What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived - these are the things God has prepared for those who love God. (1 Corinthians 2:8-9)