Lunch List

For several years, I've kept a list of people I would truly like to sit down and talk to over lunch. I think this stems from wanting to get a personal sense of them, not so much because they are celebrities or politicians. I've chosen not to explain who they are, even if they are known only regionally or locally. You might enjoy discovering them on your own.

You may also find some of these hard to accept. Please add your own comments. I would also like to know who you would secretly love to have lunch with if you could.

I will also add to this list, from time to time.

Men who served with my father in WWII
Jimmy Carter
Tiger Woods
Queen Latifah
Gail King
Hillary Clinton
George and Laura Bush
Barack Obama
Whoopee Goldberg
Angela Lansbury
Rick Warren
Billy Graham
Mohammed Ali
Colin Powell
Natalie Goldberg
Clark Howard
Jeff Lindsey
Pat Conroy
Caroline Kennedy
Richard Riley
Bill and Melinda Gates
Amy Roloff
Bruce Springsteen

Making Choices

Originally, when I wrote my new principles about how I would like to live the rest of my life, I said, "I will make choices that leave me with the resources to contribute to the lives of others." I'm finding it necessary to edit that one substantially already.

It turns out that I can't make choices to contribute to the lives of others unless I first make responsible choices about my own life. I've seen that very clearly in the last few weeks, in my decisions to live healthier both physically and financially.

First of all, I've lost over 40 pounds since the early weeks of April by following a bariatric diet and exercising. But, a bout of pneumonia in mid-July caught me by surprise and triggered the loss of electrolytes in my system. And then, somehow, my blood sugar went crashing through the floor. Since I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes less than three years ago, I've never experienced the lows and they are terrifying and dangerous. It helps that our dog Harry comes to my side or wakes me up whenever my blood sugar drops too quickly or too low. I have no idea how he knows, but I'm grateful that he is teaching me to be aware.

I've spent every day since trying to learn the rhythms of my own body and its needs and am beginning to get the hang of it. However, I've decided to let everything I was committed to go in order to finally commit to my well being. I've said each year since I retired that I was taking a year to improve my health and every year other things distract me. No more - I never want to stagger and lurch down the hallway again with a blood sugar count of 40. I never want to babble about things and people that aren't there again because my body is stripped of necessary nutrients. I may not have another year, if I don't get it right now.

My mother will be moving here in a year and I want to enjoy her as much as I can. I want to walk the dogs with my husband in the evenings and kayak with him in the early mornings. I'm looking forward to healthy dinners with friends and sharing the vegetables from our garden with them. I want to visit with my sister and brother-in-law both here and at their home. And I want to continue to see my children thrive through whatever life brings them.

One day I'll return to my volunteer work as an activist for educational opportunities for our community's children. I love it and believe it is the work I was born to do. There will be new challenges ahead for me, both as a teacher and a learner. But, I see this moment in my life as an opportunity, not a challenge, and I intend to make the best use of it that I possibly can.

One I Would Rather Not Write

Joe Lambert, a friend of mine from the Center for Digital Storytelling, recently wrote the following in the center’s summer newsletter:
A colleague of ours on Facebook … posted a link from the New York Times interactive feature on consumer debt. Although I recently read Kevin Phillips’ Bad Money, I still failed to wrap my mind around such an exhaustively complex house-of-cards. This interactive story really allows you to get a clear picture of how insane the US addiction to debt has become….and how far this country and many of its people have sunk.

What makes this story poignant to me is I find myself pondering the costs of indulgence these days. I recently found out that like 57 million other folks in the US, I meet the classification of pre-diabetic. Put simply, my body has borrowed more (in the form of fat and sugar) than it can handle, and it is going into a kind of shock as it tries to deal with its indebtedness. I have spent the last few months attempting to adjust, which is its own journey.

Obviously, many people are trapped in the desire of enjoying a pleasure today that they can’t afford, that they hope they can pay off in the future. While I am all for hope, unfortunately hope has a cousin, denial, and I am trying to find the balance between my aspirations and my actual resources. This seems critical at this stage, for me, and for the larger political culture in the United States.

How interesting that he should put it this way. Although I’ve lost over 40 pounds since this April and my diabetes is rapidly coming under control, I’ve had to face up to another problem that I would rather not address so openly. About the time my health fell apart, my mother’s health also worsened. Our youngest son went far away from Mom’s reach to China to study and we decided to build a dream house for retirement. I lost any sense of financial balance and managed to max out one of our credit cards and drain a cash reserve account, without George’s knowledge.

I’ve always been the one who could figure anything out financially. I insisted we save, even when it seemed impossible with two small children, a house payment, graduate tuition bills, and car payments. I worked extra jobs, did consulting, and made sure I could pay for the extras without putting a strain on our cash flow.

While I am all for hope, unfortunately hope has a cousin, denial, and I am trying to find the balance between my aspirations and my actual resources. Joe’s words again, but they couldn’t be more meaningful to me now. Denial came to a crashing halt when George opened a bank statement and I had to accept responsibility for the mess I had created. Thank God for pissed-off husbands. In finally exposing the problem, a weight was lifted off my shoulders and I found a way to work through the financial problem while I also work through the health problems. Denial is no longer as appetizing as it was a few months ago.

I have female friends who say frequently, “My mother says that a woman who would tell her age (her weight, her income, her story of sexual abuse, etc.) would tell anything.” I’m telling it all, because I can’t afford the cost of hiding behind it any more.

A colleague once told me that I had my own internal gyroscope and that my sense of balance made it so easy to work with me. I want that back and it’s no farther away than taking responsibility.

My jeans have come down three sizes in the last few weeks. My blood sugar is just slightly above normal, and, for the first time in I don’t know how long, I’ll close out the month with money in the bank. It won't stay there long; it's going back in our savings.