Something astonishing hit me in the wee small hours. I am, by nature, collaborative. That might not seem like a mega AHA to you,
but is radical to me. Of course I am
collaborative – look around The Retreat, where I am writing this, or The Front
Room (formerly Mom’s), or the living room or den or even the basement. Look at all the books on so many topics –
personal growth, spiritual growth, creativity – each bearing witness to my
search for other voices, other viewpoints, other possibilities.
Looking at the successes in my life ~ ~ the 6th Grade Carnival & Craft
Sales (which were radical in their day), the 7th Grade Raffle Quilt
(also radical), my customer service & Provider contact work at USHC, Brand
Voice Bulletin – national coordinator of the PHCS 50th Anniversary celebration,
BISYS account exec, Dad’s memorial service, my wedding, Mom & Mim’s
memorial services, The Cupcake Lady, tomorrow’s Creativity Jam for Age Justice. They all resulted from collaboration.
But I have never ever seen myself as a collaborator. I’ve been one, but it never registered.
It makes a difference, knowing. It will make it easier for me to tackle my
first Twilight Wish assignment. I’ve
been on the TW Foundation’s (hq’d in Doylestown) selection committee since
January, but this is the first wish I’m in charge of granting. An NYC 84-year old composer, who writes music
gratis for foundations & charities, wants an Apple computer & a printer. I have to get more background to consider the
request. Last Thursday was the first
time I really spoke up at a meeting, shared perspectives & opinions. It was the first time I had the confidence to
be part of the foundation’s driving purpose – to grant wishes of low income
olders.
A Creativity Jam for Age Justice is, by it’s nature, collaborative,
but until the wee small hours of this morning, it didn’t hit me how much easier
it would have been to organize it WITH another person. Easier & way more effective. And fun.
Big eye opener.
It makes me realize why I longed to be part of ANC’s Dormie
Warmie events – taking goodies once a week to the high school dorms. I was never a natural part of the group &
there was nothing I could do to get around it – I’m not a Mom & everyone else
there was.
Am remembering the HUGE aha that hit over ten years ago. I belonged to The Saturday Club out in Wayne,
a group of women who did wonderful community projects. After belonging for a years, two things
struck me smack between the eyes – a) while I shared their devotion to
community service, I didn’t play tennis or golf, didn’t have kids - outside of our mutual devotion to community
service, there wasn’t anything connecting us together; b) I gravitated toward
groups & situations where I’d feel out of place, which I figured out
tied back to the fact that feeling like an outsider was my norm – it felt
comfortable, while feeling like I was part of something was so outside my norm, it
made me feel ill at ease & waiting for things to go horribly wrong. It was an
interesting realization. An early
aha. An unexpected fresh awareness. I sought out situations where I’d feel out of
place.
Am proud to say that I immediately STOPPED.
But it still hadn’t hit that I am, by nature but certainly
not nurture, a collaborative soul.
Over & over again, my experience of being older is being
able to see my nature more clearly, to be better able to peel off the many layers
of contrary nurture that have obscured, hidden it.
I am a collaborative.
I need other people working by me to be my most effective.
In many ways, John is an ideal collaborator for me. Our natures get each other, which is no small
thing, since both of us can be, shall we say, a tad quirky. But there are many areas of my life where he
isn’t. I’ve become friends with Tom, with whom
I breakfast on Tuesdays. He’s asked me
to help him get his writing in shape for publishing. His request, teamed with his different way of
looking at things (mention something about time & he can talk ad infinitum
about how time is an illusion), helped trigger one of my existential crises. Tom pares things down, stirs up the pot, makes
me look at things in a different way. He
is just the gad fly needed in my life!
But when he asked me to review & set in order his writing, I shut
down. For over six weeks, I found reasons
to skip breakfast with him at the Lumberville General Store. Who was I to be reviewing his work? That was the set up to the crucible of April
& early May.
Here’s what I discovered last Tuesday: I am just the right person for the work
because, unlike most of his near & dear, I am his target audience – someone
who needs their brain disrupted. And
there was a reason I balked at doing the work Tom requested - he was giving me
his thought pieces in dribs & drabs, but to get an overview of them, I need
to have them all. As for Tom, I need to
shake him out of his 70-something thought process. I’ll happily do what I can, but he should be spreading
his message right now, through podcasts & online postings. His goal is reach a particular type of
restless mind, a group that’s hard to identify in olde tyme ways – he needs a multi-pronged
approach, adding YouTube (he has a great voice & is about as telegenic as
they come), twitter, Instagram to his mix.
He should be talking to Edie, the friend through whom we met,
who is an old hand at this, to Christa who just followed her
crazy dream of finding herself a performance space & mic, who now
sings regularly at PAID gigs with the totally terrific Cherry Lane Band.
Saturday a week ago, I went to my first story swap. The Patchwork is a Philadelphia-based guild
of storytellers. Got an e-mail ~ no idea
why ~ about the swap, being held at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore in Mt. Airy. Off I went & had a wonderful time. It was a small group, five all told – three
from Philadelphia, me & a fellow from India, who’s visiting his son &
thought it sounded like an interesting event.
I didn’t expect to add a story to the swap – have no experience in the sort
of storytelling at which they’re old hands – but loved hearing about a wind-swept
night lost on a Welsh moor, about bringing a small plane in for landing &
having a hawk fly alongside, feathered wingtip keeping pace with the Cessna’s
wing, peeling off in a salute as the plane throttled down. With their encouragement, I did add my own.
We are all stories. In
key ways, we are more our stories than by our dna. Although I never saw myself as a loner, it
sure felt like my natural state was to be alone. Dave & Candy are my - now our - best friends. We have been friends since 1973, when Dave, who hails
from Iowa, was auditing courses at our local college while his wife, Candy, finished up a
nutritional internship in Iowa before moving here, where he would be working as
a researcher at Wills Eye Hospital. On
the night of the day Dad died, our house was filled with friends of Mom &
Mim, but not a single one of my acquaintances.
Being a practical person, I called up Marie & asked, “Hey, Dad
died. Where is everyone?” Turned out she was having a dinner party
& the whole group decamped for our house.
Six women & Dave. Dave became
part of our lives on the day Dad died.
That is about as cool as it gets. After Candy arrived, they moved into the apartment
at Kenneth Synnestvedt’s at the end of our road. Dave became like a brother. We were so close, his mother was highly suspect
of this woman who was tight with her son but wasn’t related to Candy – that is,
until she & her husband visited & she got one look at me, at which
point she burst into a huge smile, wrapped me in a warm Mom Zeigler hug &
declared, “She looks more like my daughter than my daughter!” Mom & Dad Z became part of my family, too. But it wasn’t until years after Mom died,
when Dave & Candy invited us out to South Dakota, sent us the air fare,
that it dawned on me that they might actually like ME. As dorkish & DUH! as it seems, I’d
assumed that they tolerated me as a necessary addendum to Mom. It didn’t fully hit me how they felt until
Candy’s nephew, Greg, died going on five years ago & they came for the
service & Candy collapsed in my arms. Five years ago. When I mentioned my amazement to Marion, she
was shocked – “Honey, you've always been part of our family.”
We are more our stories than our dna. My story was that I was alone, someone others could barely tolerate. Yeah, reality didn’t come into it. But that story drove my life, blinded me to
people who think I’m the bees knees. Just
over a week ago, Bethany Kay Zeigler, at 37, received her medical degree. She is my namesake. Mine & Mom’s. Elsa BETH & Kay. I knew that 20+ years ago & still thought
Dave & Candy put up with me to be with Mom. It went against my origin story of being
apart, separate, unconnected (aka pure fiction).
FACT - -
I love collaboration. I DO play
well with others. O be joyful!
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