Browsing Category

Family

Candidly Yours

God Whispers & the Cost of Kindness

February 26, 2019

One of my favorite, cut-to-the-quick sayings is: “There’s something about that person I don’t like about myself!”

Whenever I catch myself judging, criticizing or feeling squirmy about another person’s public behavior, (and I truly hate to confess how often this happens), I receive what some call insight, but what I have come to refer to as a “God Whisper.” A whisper might sound soft, but this one comes with a harsh slap of reality!: ”Elizabeth, there is something about this person you don’t like about yourself!”

Today, after work, I caught  a talk show episode concerning a mother with two severely mentally ill children. I do not exaggerate when I tell you that instantly, this woman was intolerably unlikeable:  She was intense, overbearing, over-talking, interrupting, interjecting, occasionally arrogant and it was clear that the host, every invited professional, as well as the entire audience were crawling out of their seats with dislike for her and her grating, annoying way of interacting.

Well, who could blame them? She was simply unbearable. The entire, collective  virtual “we” who were watching all wanted to smack her upside the head and shout “JUST STOP!  JUST STOP! PLEASE … JUST …  STOP!”

And as I barked at the television over her cringeworthy unbearable-ness, I got ‘the whisper:’  “Elizabeth. There is something about this woman you don’t like about yourself!”

And with that eye-opening, I began to look at her differently.

I wondered if anyone in the audience noticed that her exasperating, frenetic yammering came from her fear of not being heard, for years, and the utter exhaustion of having been in the trenches, advocating daily for her children — however ineffectively and probably to the point of maximum frustration — 24/7, for close to two decades, without a break, had made her lose all self-awareness.

Beneath her exhaustive, irritating manner was an even more exhausted mother who had lost her balance, lost her perspective, probably lost most of her friends, and was utterly desperate.

I recalled a time in my life, when I had become stretched beyond reason, while opening a restaurant overseas with my then husband, working often 20 hours a day, literally 20 hours a day, whilst also raising and fretting over our twelve year old whom I had never previously left alone, whom I had never been late to pick up.

Additionally, I was marketing the business, training staff and so much more while maintaining a home, plus school and social schedules, cooking, and managing some astonishingly ugly, local expat gossip in a small tourist retirement town. All that with a smile on my face and coupled with a complete unawareness that I was maxed out beyond sanity. 

I had little awareness of how overworked I was or of how I appeared to the world at large at any given moment. There were few or no resources left to manage emotions, crises, day-to-day pressures, so much so that once, while standing at a neighbor’s gate, waiting to purchase some fresh eggs, I fell asleep, on foot, at her gate. I literally fell asleep standing up.

I had arrived at a point where I couldn’t maintain calm or have any sense of self-presence. I had become the woman I watched on television today.  I remember being judged harshly, unfairly, even with cruelty, and that was painful and difficult to manage.

Still, and  in defense of those who were unkind, I understand that high levels of apparent stress do not attract kindness from the casual observer just expecting a nice meal at your restaurant or understanding from  your son’s seventh grade teacher expecting a normal, parent-teacher review.

 

There were some who judged me so harshly, even tried to destroy our livilihood,  but who never guessed that on top of all the above, I was in a constant state of worry over my husband’s life- threatening illness, and illness we lived with, quietly, for twenty years.

Today, that time in my life is a memory I can hold without bitterness. It is also a good “note to  self” to take time out to consider the circumstances of the other, sometimes a very grating “other,”  and to put kindness before judgment, to look beyond the tantrum, the rant, the rudeness, or the ugly, and to consider the pain or stress, the frustration and perhaps the need that might lie beneath.

Of course, I can’t expect strangers to pause in the name of compassion, but  I can require it of myself. And when I fall short in this area, I am reminded by the “God Whisper,” reminded to stop and ask: What ails you? Can I help?

We can run around on a high and mighty and happy plain, often, and that is to be celebrated. But what goes up, eventually falls down and we all know, or will know, that pain and stress are great equalizers. It is my belief that real life catches up with even the luckiest of us, eventually. We are all standing in the same leaky boat, just not always at the same time.  I am reminded of another saying:  It costs nothing to be kind.

 

Candidly Yours

The Value of a Vote

November 8, 2016

It was as a very young woman, living without family and under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, when I became a patriot.
That experience changed my world view and my life, forever.

There, in Davao city, I learned the value and privilege of voting by secret ballot. (There was no free vote, press, or speech under martial law.)

I have lived, collectively, over 10 years outside the USA and while I miss it, and often prefer life overseas, I remain a patriot.

(Even today, I become emotional when I stand alone, pencil in hand, to cast my ballot.)

This means that no matter who is elected today, the next president will be MY president and I will hope and pray that she or he will be the best president for us all.

So vote thoughtfully.
Vote with pride.
And for those of you who have never truly understood that voting is a right and a privilege not enjoyed by all, vote with gratitude.
But by all means, vote.

Candidly Yours

A Good Saloon

May 13, 2015

In memory of my father, William Lee Ballard, 1926 – 2007

One of the things my dad passed on to me was an appreciation for bars and bar life in general.  I’m not referring to loud, hot nightclubs, but to a good neighborhood bar, the type of place dad referred to as a “good saloon.”

Back in the 1960s, when the business of advertising was still fun, Billy Ballard was a bit of a legend.  Those were the days when four-martini lunches and after hours cocktails were part and parcel of the job. Dad had an extraordinary wit; he was notorious for his colorful tongue and outrageous irreverence, as well as his thoughtful generosity and unpretentious ways.  He was also a resolutely unapologetic drinking man.

Over the years, during our many father-daughter lunches and dinners, I learned that a good saloon can take on an element of sanctuary. It is at once a meeting place, a book swap, a podium for debaters, and a message hub where you could also pick up sound advice.  It was where you caught up on the latest news or local gossip, or where you could ask about a reliable plumber or a good stockbroker.

A good saloon was usually an establishment frequented by locals who expected or demanded the trusted absence of change. It was a place with a rhythm all its own, its dependable beat tapped out daily by the steady coming and going of its patrons.  You could tell the time of day by who walked in the door, who was already settled into their regular spot, or by the absence of a particular patron.

And, for the last ten years of Dad’s life, that particularly good saloon was The Gator Club, in Sarasota, Florida.

Part of Sarasota’s early history, The Gator Club is a pinkish brick building on the corner of Main and Lemon and has served, over time, as Sarasota’s first grocery store, a brothel, a dive and a package store, and an upscale gentleman’s cigar and scotch bar.  And for a good stint, the Gator Club served as what my dad referred to as his “office.”

Rose, the day bartender, said she knew it was opening time when dad’s face appeared at the side entrance, his wicker and Styrofoam ice bucket in tow, filled with his own ice cubes made in those aluminum, pull-handle trays. “Rose, don’t give me any of your half-assed ice cubes!” dad would protest.  He also carried with him his own mixers in small bottles, feeling strongly that “the stuff that shoots out of that bar gun is shit, Rose.  I’ve strongly recommended to Ernie (the owner)  that he change to bottles, but Baby, I’m fighting an losing battle.”  And of course dad always had with him his signature Tervis Tumbler he’d been carrying everywhere and at all time since the early 1960s, when they were hard to find.

Dad would take his seat at his table, the central-most round, marble high-top set on a heavy, filigreed iron pedestal, and directly beneath the line of wicker fans that swayed gently to and fro under the tinned ceiling.  From about 11:00 a.m. until around 1:00, the place really belonged to dad. He even had a telephone installed at the back bar (which remained closed until the Gator transformed into a nightclub after dark) to use for personal calls with some degree of privacy.

15055863_10209696720593769_1411557716229617307_n-2

Entering in dribs and drabs as lunch hour neared, the group would gather and the conversation took on a momentum that reflected whoever was present.  There was quick-witted banter and serious, heated debating, or, more often, bawdy, ribald and racy exchanges.

At first glance into any local pub, and taking in each character one-by-one, they look like a pretty squirrelly bunch; a mix of kooks and misfits.  But taken together, they made up a collective ethic you could trust, even to look after a lost kid until a parent or the police were contacted.  And as far as characters went, The Gator certainly had its share.

At the next table was the unstoppable and loquacious, fidgety telemarketer, “Talking George,”  whose left hand was limp from a war injury and who went in and out of jail.  If the television channel was set to the stock quotes,  “Flaherty,” a stockbroker whose eyes never strayed from the ticker running across the bottom of the screen, was in the house, sipping a vodka on the rocks.  For a time there was “Alabama Rick,” an outrageously funny, loud and commanding gay dope dealer missing three bottom teeth. Alabama Rick held court at the table next to dad’s as his buyers came and went, until one day he was hauled off to prison.

One of the most colorful characters was a tall, albino diabetic, a double-amputee who managed to also be a gay veteran with no less that four angry ex wives.   Dubbed “Peg Leg Charlie,” he once strode into the Gator on a new set of prosthetic legs and proudly  announced  that he was now a full two inches taller.  And at the helm was Billy, my dad, the guy who set the rhythm going every day, the one everyone gathered around, asked about, checked in to see.  The one they all went to for advice, for an occasional loan, and of course, for a drink.

Once, during dad’s Gator Club tenure, I overheard him on the phone in his kitchen as he gently directed the rescheduling of a planned, outpatient eye surgery so that the operation would end in time to allow for his usual Gator Club stop.  He was polite and soft spoken with the receptionist as he gently explained his predicament. “Darling. You have them operating on me at noon. By then I’ll have had nothing to eat or drink starting the night before.  That’s a full seventeen hours, dear.  Now I’m a serious drinking man.  I’m what you might call an accomplished alcoholic.  And I’d like to have my driver pick me up from the surgery by one o’clock, at the latest.”  (I was his so-called driver.)

Eventually the days of dad and his Gator group fizzled out. Talking George changed companies and had to switch bars.  Peg Leg Charlie drowned in his tub after an evening of too much wine.  Flaherty fell out with the group and stopped showing up.  Others moved away. Alabama Rick went to prison.

But for a good while The Gator Club was a fundamental and integral part of dad’s and our daily rhythm.  It was when and where he started his day, where plans were made, books and opinions exchanged, news and gossip shared.  For a long time it was his compass.

And for a long time, he was mine.

Lucky me