Lessons or Logic

As a Senior in high school at St. James in Montgomery, Alabama, I decided that I wanted to leave a memorable footprint as Class President. But I had to get there first. If you haven't seen the movie "Election," it is truly a gem. In the campaign sequence, Tracy Flick (played by hilarious Reese Witherspoon) and Tina Tatum (yours truly) are soul-sisters (aside from the fact that she was ridiculously manipulative, and I never slept with a teacher...ever). Tracy Flick is a little miss goodie two shoes (until, of course, she sleeps with a teacher), who is a shoe in for the election. She has it in the bag until the popular guy/jock breaks his leg and is talked into running as her opponent. Then she gets a little naughty. I was Tracy Flick...great little slogan, well-thought out speech, fabulous posters. It's amazing that I won the election, given that I was so annoying about it. But I did. And the only footprints I recall making as the 1996-1997 STJ Class President are as follows: The theme for our Homecoming dance was "Through The Looking Glass," and I designed the t-shirt and had a large hand in the decorations; Our Prom lead-out song was Jimi Hendrix's "Castles Made of Sand," for which I nominated for no other reason than the fact that I liked the tune and I liked sandcastles; and my speech at Baccalaureate - a service the day before graduation (I know, impressive resume', right!?). It was an honor to give the speech, and its message is something that I still truly believe in. It was my Tracy Flick moment...the reason I wanted to be Class President, a goal realized. And it also propelled me into the Communications program at the University of Alabama, where I discovered that I wanted to be a speech writer...turns out, you have to go to class for that.

My speech at Baccalaureate was centered around a piece of prose that I have referenced on several other occasions, including my Radiography school graduation, organizational Orientations and department Team Meetings. It has resonated with me on many levels, and today is no different.

All I Ever Needed To Know 

I Learned in Kindergarten

Robert Fulghum

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life.Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK . Everything you need to know is in there somewhere.The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politics and sane living.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Now if that's not wisdom, I don't know what is. But if this were an infomercial, and I were the host, this is the point where I would say, "But wait! There's more!" There is no more to Robert Fulghums' Kindergarten prose...I wish it were that simple. There is simply more to life. More than what you learned in Kindergarten, that is.

Sisterhood Carla asked me after I had Logan how I made it look so easy. Now, there wasn't a single bone in my body that doubted that Carla doted on her new little one just as I did Logan, and I know she worked at it just as hard...I think we just had different transitions. First of all, I was the kind of pregnant woman that women hate! I had a textbook symptom-free, healthier than I startedpregnancy. I had never felt more balanced emotionallythan I did when I was pregnant with Logan. I ate more, gained less, smiled more, cried less. It was as if I was BORN to be pregnant! I recall wearing 4 inch heels at nine months pregnant. People would say, "You are NEVER going to have that baby because you don't FEEL bad enough to have that baby!" And then I had Logan - this amazingly wonderful little creature who was born to breastfeed (every 3 hours from the start, as opposed to every two), gained weight well, and slept reasonably well when he was supposed to do so. During my maternity leave, I slept in 3 hour increments, but I was getting 9 hours of sleep per night total! That was a big increase from working 10-12 hours/day at 9 months pregnant, sleeping 5-6 hours/night! 

Likewise, I recall little sis Jayme asking me once how Nathan and I made marriage look so easy. Ha! It didn't hurt at that point that we had been married for all of 1 year! Five years later, we've been together for over 10 years, and I think we still make it look pretty easy. During that time, we've lived in 3 states, lost jobs, had more than we've lost, gambled, had babies, had cancer, etc. There just hasn't been anything easy about it. But we work hard, and life is easier because of it.

And then there was cancer. There's nothing about cancer that is easy. I don't want to take that away from anyone who goes through it. It's hard. It hurts. It is scary. But you can make it appear "easier," just like you make anything else look easier - you do this with a lot of hard work.

When I had Logan, Mama told me never to get behind on my laundry. She said, "I know it sounds silly, but if you stay on top of your laundry, you will feel like you have control over your day. But if you get behind on your laundry, you will feel like you'll never catch up." Like she is most of the time, Mama was right. I stayed on top of my laundry by placing one load in the wash every morning. By the end of the day, if I had completed one load of laundry from wash to fold, I was in control of my day - I was accomplished. I'm going to add a shower to that list. I was bound and determined never to be one of those mamas who said, "I didn't even have time toshower today!" I never understood those women until I had my second child. At that point, there was no making it look easy!

When I married Nathan, I thought, "If we are going to make this work, I am going to have to be wrong sometimes." It took me a while to figure out that I couldn't just think that, but I had to live by it. I learned to apologize, and I learned to choose my battles. I lapse from time to time, but for the most part, we don't argue a whole lot. We work really hard at our relationship, we respect one another, we support each other's dreams, and we work hard. It all falls into place easily because we work at it.

And then there was cancer. I work hard to make it easy on me. I fight hard. I take the support that is offered. I believe in the prayers. I have faith. All of that is work. So if I make it look "easy," just remember that the support and the prayers and the faith make that possible. And you don't really learn that in Kindergarten...you learn that in high school...maybe some in junior high school.

Junior high school isn't "easy" for anyone. It is high drama and high energy and all about me...whoever you are. Anyone who tells you that it was easy emotionally or physically is lying...or was a hormonally imbalanced adolescent. It seems to me that the fact of the matter is that everyone has an equally indecent time in junior high, whether they have acne, a growth spurt (that puts them ahead of or behind their peer group), falls in the path of peer pressure, has parents who expect too much (or too little),  or just plain don't fit in (I like to call these people "the smart ones"). The problem with junior high students is this: You have people who let their circumstances define them, and the people who rise above the circumstances...those who choose to learn from them. I say that's the hard way. It's hard to make things look easy, especially when that isn't your goal.

Tracy Flick acted with intent to achieve an end result. She had goals. She was determined to achieve those goals because she believed in her destiny to succeed. She often did things the hard way. She worked hard. She didn't have to do it the hard way, but it worked for her in high school. And in turn, she made it look easy. Mama always did say that I like to make things harder than what they have to be. I just like to achieve my goals. I believe that I am destined for something more than what I have experienced (and I have lived a full life for my 32 years). I work hard. Perhaps that's how I make it look so "easy."