All the noise provides a good excuse to skip meditation. Whenever I do attempt it, I spend way too much time stuffing the voices away, clamping them back into whichever box they escaped from as I try to achieve pure silence.

Doing that is pretty much anti-meditation. Trying to quiet everyone down only adds to the stress I’m looking to overcome. I’m defeated before I even begin.

I’ve always thought that because I’m incapable of achieving completely silent headspace, I’m no good at meditating. But the original definition of meditation (as derived from Latin) focused on contemplation and reflection rather than on emptying the mind. Required letting go came later.

Apparently, there’s more than one way to approach a meditative state.

Lately, I’ve started letting everyone have their say. Without me stifling them, words flow through my mind and upward, released into the stratosphere. Some phrases are nonsense, word soup strung together in non-sequiturs that don’t make sense. Sometimes, images appear after the words float away. They don’t always make sense, either. Why do I often see a neighborhood I never lived in and only briefly knew? Why am I sometimes in an alternate future that might have been but never was?

“Making sense” is relative. Maybe the trick isn’t to muffle the sounds and sights that pass through my mind, but rather to hear and see them. The frazzled, busy ones tend to dissipate, curling upward like wisps of smoke. The more resonant ones stick around, even out, invite me to stay with them for a while. I think of them as guides meant to lead me through memories and issues that still need resolution.

Finding my peace may be less dependent on stashing thoughts away than on understanding them more completely. Once I better understand a presented situation or examine a lurking fear, the nagging tends to go away (at least for the moment — my concerns can be very tenacious).

I’m grateful for however I find my peace. Inward focus helps me cope with the cacophony of the outside world, where the noise can out-blab anything my own mind produces. I need all the centering I can get to keep my balance there.

I was good at the game. Very good. I learned tricks and glitches, each ghost’s distinctive way of chasing Ms. Pac-Man. Pinky was the fastest ghost, while Blinky was the hardest to shake. Sue was slow, which could lull a player into a false sense of security. There were nerves-of-steel routes where Ms. Pac-Man could brush “shoulders” with a ghost without getting caught. But when I really needed a breather, I used safe-spot glitches on the screen where Ms. Pac-Man could hide and become “invisible.” Theoretically, she could stay tucked away in her little corner forever while the ghosts sped past, unable to find her.

Hiding was not danger-free. One little toggle of the joystick, and the ghosts buzzing around in frenzied search would immediately attack. It was way too easy to accidentally jiggle that stick, because somewhere deep inside, you were never completely convinced that Ms. Pac-Man was truly safe. You wanted to stay ready to GO in case a ghost’s eyes turned your way.

I could identify with this. I liked my own safe corner of the ice-cream shop. My “ghosts” were multiple term papers to finish in limited time, cramming for final exams, and (especially) what exactly I planned to do with my life after falling off the cliff of rapidly-approaching graduation. But safely isolated in the ice-cream shop, all I had to do was play the screen in front of me while the rest of the world whizzed past.

Of course, there was another factor to invisibility. Sure, Ms. Pac-Man was tucked away where nobody could find her. But she was no longer part of the game. She never did anything or went anywhere. Since she wasn’t eating pellets or fruit, no points accumulated. She didn’t take any chances, but nothing happened, either. She was just …there.

Playing it safe meant you missed stuff.

Back when I was super-good at Ms. Pac-Man, I once turned over the game. I went through many different iterations of the Ms. Pac-Man Acts (They Meet! The Chase! Junior!) I passed through screen after screen of images and colors I’d never seen in the game before. Even then, I knew I’d never experience that again. I’d just maxed out of Ms. Pac-Man.

You not only miss stuff when you play it safe, but there’s a second part, too: what’s the point of learning the game if you never give yourself the chance to use what you’ve learned? It was time to leave the ice-cream shop.

Put me in front of a Ms. Pac-Man screen now, and I’m respectable but not amazing. I could say that the game itself has changed (it has), but the truth is that once I stopped playing regularly, I lost my chops. But moving on came with new benefits. I don’t regret it.

Besides, it opened the door to pinball.

But they take a piece away from us as well. Their passing leaves one less person in the world who remembers our personal times and spaces, who witnessed our struggles and celebrated our victories. We lose stories–it’s hard to reminisce when our partner in crime isn’t physically present to chime in with their perspective of the narrative. Inside jokes fall flat; the one who “gets it” isn’t there to laugh, and nobody else knows what we’re talking about. We’re left to safeguard precious memories on our own.

The future is impacted, too. It doesn’t look like we thought it would. We lose the ability to hash out worries and hopes with a person who was always part of the scenario. We can no longer bounce ideas and solutions off someone whose insight we valued. A main character available to us in every vision of our future … isn’t.

The person we lose takes not only a part of our shared experiences with them, but a reflection of who we were in their eyes. Nobody else saw or will see us in quite the same way. Nobody will infuse us with the same energy or recognize the same potential in us.

We’re often reminded that our loved ones will always be with us and that we will see them again. Sure, but this isn’t that essay. This is the pissed-off, bewildered essay. What we lose is irreplaceable, and attempts to soften the loss sometimes feel pat.

I do know one thing: our person is gone, but for some reason, we’re still here. We still have the opportunity to radiate the essence of who they were. Did they bring joy? Clarity? Were they generous with their emotions, appreciative of the gifts others brought to a situation? We can still fill the void in both our hearts and the world with energy sourced from this. Emanating positive power won’t bring our person back, but it will reflect the best of not only who they were, but who they believed we could be …

…which may be the reason we loved each other in the first place.

The mall was more crowded than usual when I walked in. (I’m never quite sure how the stores in this place stay in business.) But busy or not, it was easy to spot a little girl of maybe two or three a short distance away to my right, holding onto her grandmother’s hand as she walked. She moved with that determined little march kids have when they realize how well they can navigate on two feet. But when I stopped to adjust my purse strap, I realized that her march had a set destination: me.

The little girl kept her eyes on me as she weaved through shoppers to come closer. She never stopped moving. Without a word, she grasped my hand and kept walking, not missing a beat. “Hello,” I said, falling into step beside her. The grandmother cleared her throat, at an uncomfortable loss for words. “I don’t mind,” I told her. “I’m heading to Trader Joe’s anyway.”

“We’re going to the parking lot,” the grandmother replied, clearly relieved that there would be a natural ending to this odd encounter.

The child stared at me as we walked hand-in-hand past stores, never loosening her grip or changing the solemn expression on her face. I imagine we looked a little silly walking as a linked threesome through the mall, but I didn’t see any reason to disengage.

“Thank you for the walk,” I told the little girl when we reached the doors to outside. “I’m going to the grocery store, now. I hope you have a very nice day.”

She let go of my hand. I waved. She waved back. Then we turned in opposite directions and left.

Never mind the cuteness factor; I appreciated the human contact. I don’t get enough of that these days.

I like face-to-face interactions with people, and those experiences are getting harder to find. I avoid self-checkouts in stores whenever I can, even though standing in line for the one or two checkout lanes still manned by real people means a longer wait. That’s okay. How else would I hear about the cashier’s surprise eightieth birthday party (and be impressed by the fact that this square-dancing grandmama is decades older than I thought she was). There’s no other way to meet the young man who knows so much about jazz, classic rock, and whiskey and who always lightens my day with a seemingly sincere compliment. And where else would I find the gentleman whose curmudgeonly comments reveal more about his interesting past than he realizes? Getting in and out of a place as quickly as possible is seldom my goal.

I don’t like crowds (and my definition of “crowd” has a low threshold), but I do appreciate opportunities for exchanges with people who … well, aren’t me. How do we learn to appreciate other people if we obliterate our chances to deal with them in everyday life? Online communication isn’t enough.

Kids need that human connection, too. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I still have fond memories of childhood lollipops from bank tellers who weren’t ATMs and book recommendations from librarians who either checked out my new stack of books or checked in the ones I returned. I remember the reminders to say good morning, please, thank-you.

My little friend’s grasp reminded me that despite a barrage of internet/text messages and the convenience of breezing more quickly through automated errands, something inside us still longs to just reach out and grab someone’s hand. We haven’t evolved beyond an innate need for physical human contact.

I hope we never do.

Twenty-four different colors (although two different yellows and one barely-there orange don’t count, because what’s the point of ink you can’t see?)! Extra-fine point! Less than .75 cents a pen! I scooped them up without a second thought.

They haven’t disappointed. They’re fun to use. But now that I’ve had the opportunity to study them more closely, I can see that their colors were named by someone either with different color concepts from mine or for whom English is not a first language. There’s Ruddy Pink, which is as languid and pale as a pink can be without disappearing, despite the fact that “ruddy” means “red.” There’s Magenta, which would make sense if the ink was not obviously brown. There’s Grass Green, which my eye insists is Olive. There’s Moss Green, which looks like it belongs next to Magenta on the pen color wheel.

Don’t get me wrong. I love these colors. I just don’t understand them.

This got me thinking about the Crayola crayon colors I remember growing up. Maize, Raw Umber, Violet Blue … I loved those guys. But according to Crayola.com, those colors were retired in 1990 along with Blue Gray, Green Blue, Lemon Yellow, Orange Red, and Orange Yellow. They were replaced by colors with snazzier names: Cerulean, Dandelion, Fuschia, Jungle Green, Royal Purple, Teal Blue, Vivid Tangerine, and Wild Strawberry. (Don’t worry about the older colors – they’re enjoying a cushy retirement in the Crayola Hall of Fame.)

At least I can visualize those new 1990 colors. I don’t do as well with some of the colors added later. Exactly what color IS “Inchworm” (introduced in 2003)? My mind’s eye does better with more recent colors like Macaroni and Cheese, Mango Tango, Outer Space, and Purple Mountains’ Majesty.

There are different reasons why certain Crayola colors are retired. Crayola started making crayons in 1903, after all. Back then, maybe it was easier to envision colors like Permanent Geranium Lake (seems like a lot to print on the side of a crayon), Chrome Green (which came in Light and Medium), and Van Dyke Brown (huh?). Sometimes, a color gets booted after fans vote it out of the box to make room for a new one (which sounds like a reality show to me). Some colors stay on and are simply renamed. Prussian Blue became the first renamed color in 1958, changing to Midnight Blue after teachers pointed out that their students no longer related to Prussia. The color Flesh became Peach in 1962, reflecting Crayola’s recognition that not all skin tones are the same.

Crayola has created over 400 colors over the years. There’s a shade for every mood, and many of them come in neon and glitter versions. Despite this huge selection, past surveys indicate that the favorite Crayola color is … blue.

Consumers can get involved with naming new colors through various promotions. If the thought of this stirs your creative juices, check in at Crayola.com now and then.

Or you can just contact the people who made my pens. They could probably use the help.

My daughters and I are on the fourth day of what will become our first cross-country road trip. Armed with maps and Triptiks, we’re traveling from Baltimore to San Francisco, down the California coast, and back through the southwest part of the country. In an era before GPS technology, whoever rides shotgun knows they’re responsible for emergency navigation help should the driver (me) need it. I’m not, however, a road-trip novice. My father’s love for road tripping (combined with his natural curiosity about cultures and history) means that my childhood was filled with them.

We’re only about an hour and fifteen minutes out of Omaha, our stop for the night. So, following the now-ubiquitous road signs, we veer onto IA-173 N in search of the Danish Windmill.

Part of Dad’s job with AAA involved mapping out Triptik routes for AAA members who’d ordered them. With no computers to reference, Dad used road maps and memory to carefully mark each route in yellow highlighter. We used to joke that if there was a gas station at some remote intersection in Wyoming, Dad knew about it and used it as a landmark. All of this means I have full faith in a map’s ability to get us to and from any place we want to go.

The Danish Windmill feels a lot farther than the signs promised (“Just off I-80!”). It probably doesn’t take even fifteen minutes, but not knowing where you are tends to elongate time. The signs, however, seem even more excited (YOU’RE SO CLOSE!).

Finally, as promised, the Danish Windmill appears on our left.

It’s exactly what it says it is: a Danish Windmill. It’s the only working Danish windmill in the U.S.–a fact that doesn’t surprise me, because how many Danish windmills can there be in the U.S? But, of course, there’s more to the story. We learn that Elk Horn, Iowa is home to the largest Danish population in the U.S. (who knew?). We also learn how the windmill ended up in Iowa.

Back in 1975, one of Elk Horn’s residents visited Denmark. He already had a passion for windmills, and it concerned him to discover that the old windmills there were falling into disrepair. Hoping to save one for posterity (and benefit his home community as well), he spearheaded a project to dismantle an 1848 windmill in Denmark, ship it to the U.S., and reassemble it in Elk Horn. (You can read about it here.) The reconstructed windmill now anchors a museum complex that provides education about and preservation of Danish culture.

The windmill isn’t working on the day we visit, but it does its job: we leave knowing more than we did when we arrived.

The drive back to I-80 feels quicker than the trip to the windmill did. We’ve traveled this patch of road before, so we know what to expect. Still, I value the disorientation I felt when we first pulled off the highway. Seemingly endless cornfields, an unfamiliar roll to the land, signs for different foods, brands, businesses … aspects of Iowa are as different from back east as Denmark is.

I confess to occasionally rolling my eyes when Dad showed us how to follow our daily road-trip route on a Triptik or made me stop reading in the back seat to look at an interesting landmark or beautiful scenery. If we were driving to Quebec, he told us the history of French Canada. If we were passing through Lancaster County, we learned about the Amish. Sometimes, I was mostly thinking about what I’d order for dinner when we stopped for the night. I didn’t yet appreciate the shift of perspective that travel can ignite.

But I know, now. It’s illuminating to feel “other” now and then, to explore a place where you have more questions than answers. A map can get you there, but the rest is up to you.

Thanks, Dad.

Of course, I was not the only one. So many women I knew juggled care, schedules, and appointments for four or more people, along with property maintenance, groceries, bills, and battles with the various institutions attached to all of the above (looking mostly at you, insurance companies). It made perfect sense that we would do this. Most of us had stepped away from careers to raise families, and our minds were still in achievement-mode. We arrived at our new stay-at-home frontier primed to organize and accomplish. In that world where very little stays finished and instant gratification is hard to come by (looking mostly at you, kids), there was satisfaction in knowing we could provide stability and security for the people in our lives. We were quite possibly the reason everyone stayed afloat.

I still have a lot to do, even though the scope of responsibility has changed. My household is smaller. School schedules and extra-currics no longer fill my calendars, and I’m not making medical appointments or arranging activities meant to keep my children in one healthy piece. But although taking care of kids can be exhausting, their wellbeing was one of the major gratifications of multitasking in the first place. Without the kid component in the picture, the tasks on my list often feel like dreck nobody else wants to do.

Resentment is not a particularly satisfying emotion.

According to NIH, multitasking is defined as trying to perform two or more tasks at the same time. Research shows it isn’t good for our brains. When we multitask, we switch back and forth between several tasks all at once, leaving one job unfinished while we flit to another. We’re constantly processing competing streams of information, most of which is completely irrelevant to the other tasks we’re trying to complete. This can increase mistakes, decrease efficiency, and lead to memory problems.

Apparently, our brains are wired to work on one thing at a time … which sounds great to me–almost like a vacation–so why am I still multitasking?

I can’t blame the world for this. This one’s on me. Other people’s expectations don’t even enter into it. Somehow, I’ve let “more” equal “best” in almost everything (looking mostly at you, weight). This ability to do too many things at one time has morphed into more than accomplishment: it’s become the measure of my self-worth.

This is not a stop-and-smell-the-roses post. (Like most multitaskers, I can do that at the same time I do everything else.) This is about giving ourselves the grace to stay in each moment and trust that our response to it will be enough. It’s possible that the layers of busy-ness and piles of action we cram into our brains prevent us from accessing wisdom and value that’s uniquely ours. By doing less, maybe we’ll offer more.

There will always be things to do. They just don’t always have to be done at the same time. Who knows? Given space, we might even do them better.

I have a manuscript box like that. Stashed in a dark part of the basement, it’s filled with stories that, through no fault of their own, just … well … stink. Yeah, I wrote them. At one time, I even thought they were good.

Fortunately, we all get a chance to evolve.

Looking at my earlier drafts (as if I’d ever let you), it’s clear my writing has been character-driven from the start — especially if you consider character sufficiently developed when he/she can be summed up in a word or two, as in “the sassy one”; “the troubled one”; “the one who surprises even herself.” (My earlier work is more accessible if you like stereotypes.)

You always knew exactly how my characters were feeling, because the adverbs attached to the dialogue tags told you. Readers were subjected to a lot of stuff like “she said questioningly,” and “he said evocatively.” If it still wasn’t obvious enough, there were many different ways to “say” things. Characters purred, chirped, and grunted. It was a regular zoo in each chapter. And, to make sure there was no doubt whatsoever, sometimes the dialogue tags were double-barreled, a fun reading experience for everyone: “she whimpered miserably,” “he snarled angrily,” “she commented pertly.” Dialogue tags, meant to be unobtrusive, were prominent enough to become their very own characters.

Plots were linear. Sure, there were stories to tell, but they lacked depth. Sometimes there was no hook, no compelling reason for anyone to want to turn the page to discover what happened next. Basically, I was writing for myself. Self-indulgent? You bet! Awful? Right again. And, yet, those stories have a special place in my heart. Those characters and I were friends.

There are some manuscripts a writer puts away knowing that they’ll be back. The plot, although in need of editing, is compelling enough to revisit. The characters have something to say. When the time is right, that manuscript will be revisited and edited into something sharp and readable.

The manuscripts in the box downstairs are not those stories. There’s a reason they live deep in the basement, out of sight.

If I remember my Rudoph correctly, the inhabitants of the Island of Misfit Toys are eventually picked up by Santa and delivered to children who will appreciate them. While nothing quite as heartwarming happens on the Island of Misfit Manuscripts, those early drafts do serve a purpose. Every once in a while, almost by mistake, I wrote a description or phrase back then that was actually good. There was effective use of imagery. There was a character who didn’t inspire cringing and/or eye-rolls. Like old cars that have outlasted their use, these old manuscripts can be mined for “parts” to use in newer stories.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling frustrated with my current manuscript, I re-read one of my oldies-but-baddies. It never fails to make me feel better.

(This post was originally published on Sept. 15, 2015.)

It was “like-at-first-sight” between them, but nothing more. Their roomies were the love-birds, falling so hard for each other that one or the other of my parents found themselves locked out of their room on a nightly basis, forced to spend much of the evening waiting for re-entry outside on the playground swings. My parents began keeping each other company, talking late into the night until the door to the room unlatched and they could finally turn in. Soon, friendship blossomed into something more. My sibs and I grew up hearing stories about how Dad, a vocalist, would serenade Mom out there in the summer evening. By the time the season ended, my parents had not only a relationship that flourished despite a Brooklyn-Bronx subway commute, but a song to call their own: the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves,” which my multi-lingual father sang to my mom in both French and English.

My parents married in mid-September 1954, a week after my mother turned nineteen. Their anniversary and Mom’s birthday became two of the September celebrations and new beginnings I looked forward to each year. In addition to those two events, there was a fresh school year and the start of autumn. From there it was a short hop to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays. September launched a happy time that I could ride straight through our household’s February birthdays, making it one of my favorite months of the year.

That’s changed a little over time. Both of my parents passed away in September, my father at the beginning of the month, my mother nine years later at the end. These days, September can be something of an emotional landmine, although it remains as jam-packed with memories and new possibilities as it ever was.

I write a lot about change, because it’s inevitable. No matter how much we wish otherwise, nothing stays the same. We don’t get too many choices in the matter. Usually, we can either cling tightly to what no longer exists or do our best to continue in a changed reality.

My mom passed away after a slow, obvious decline. Her final week with us was a hard goodbye, knowing what was coming but not sure when it might arrive. By the time the funeral and life celebration were over, we were exhausted. While driving my daughter back to college in central New York, I reached into one of my car compartments to blindly pull a CD from the stash kept there. Although I thought I knew every CD in the pile, the one I selected from the middle of the stack was unfamiliar. I inserted the mystery CD and pressed “Play.””Autumn Leaves” filled the car.

Maybe I could find an explanation if I tried. The CD turned out to be the playlist a friend had compiled for the gathering following my father’s funeral nine years earlier. Still, I can’t explain how it got into my car, nor do I know how it remained undetected through two long cross-country road trips, nearly eight years of college dorm/apartment hauls, several trips to and from Chicago, and a few drives to Canada. It’s also unclear why out of the more than twenty CDs in that compartment, that’s the one I randomly chose.

Fact is, I don’t care if there’s a “logical” explanation. I welcome all reminders that no matter how many changes life throws us, love remains eternal.

As strains of “Autumn Leaves” enveloped us, my parents were out on the swings again that first summer, laying the foundation for a lifetime they didn’t know they’d share. And, on the other end of that journey, “their” song let me know that they were together again.

Despite this, I bet you still had to go to work today. That may be because none of the holidays I mentioned are federal holidays.

There are eleven federal holidays recognized in the U.S., holidays the states are not required to observe but mostly do. Those federal holidays were either designated by congress or by presidential proclamation.

(Because you never know if there will be a huge prize waiting for people who know this stuff, I’ll list the federal holidays at the end of this post. Go ahead — jot them down right now. See how you do.)

August 30th is also National College Colors Day and National Beach Day.

Bet you didn’t get a card. That’s understandable; today’s holidays aren’t Hallmark holidays, either.

Hallmark holidays are defined as holidays that seem to exist more for commercial than commemorative reasons. Their primary celebration involves sending a card or flowers. Often a special meal is involved. Hallmark holidays include old favorites such as Mother’s Day (first celebrated in 1908, established as a national holiday in 1914) and Father’s Day (first celebrated in 1910, but not a national holiday until 1972), along with fresher upstarts like Grandparents Day (1978) and Nurses’ Day (1982). One national Hallmark holiday was actually proposed by the founder of Hallmark cards back in 1930. Joyce Hall thought that Friendship Day would encourage people to send caring cards to their friends. In 1935, congress agreed with the sentiment and proclaimed the first Sunday in August as National Friendship Day.

Some Hallmark holiday lists include Groundhog’s Day. I have never received a Groundhog’s Day card, but they’re out there. So are celebratory recipes made of exactly what you think. Don’t invite me. (People can be so harsh with that six-more-weeks-of-winter thing.)

Don’t worry. If you believe strongly that something deserves attention, you can register your own national holiday at nationaldayarchives.com. You’ll choose from three levels of listings. Perks for the top-of-the-line premium choice include a permanent listing on the National Day Archives Master Calendar and a permanent web page linked to your day. All you need to do is fill out an application form and pay the fee.

There’s a day for almost everything. According to the website, the most popular national holidays include National Drink Wine Day on Feb. 18th (duh), National Coffee Day on Sept. 29th (double duh), and National Catcher’s Day on Feb. 2 (a little baffling since Feb. 2nd isn’t even baseball season).

Although many of the holidays registered through the National Day Archives seem lighthearted, some commemorate events or histories that are often overlooked (August 30th is also National Black Beauty Founders Day, National Grief Awareness Day, and National Screen Time Awareness Day). But no matter what the apparent tone, each holiday is heartfelt. Even National Drinking with Chickens Day (May 23rd).

The problem seems less proclaiming a national holiday than finding one that hasn’t already been taken. Even National Create a New National Day Day is unavailable (June 21st).

Fortunately, National Blogging Day is still out there, ripe for the picking.

Wishing everyone a safe Labor Day weekend!

The eleven national federal holidays are (in order of yearly appearance) New Year’s Day (est. 1870), Martin Luther King Day (1983), Presidents’ Day (est. in 1879 as George Washington’s Birthday), Memorial Day (est. 1888 as Decoration Day), Juneteenth (2021), Independence Day (1870), Labor Day (1894), Columbus Day (1968), Veterans Day (est. in 1938 as Armistice Day, name changed in 1954), Thanksgiving Day (1870), and Christmas Day (1870).