You is Fearless

Miss Cherry can remember, oh so distinctly, being sent out into the hall for talking. It was the First Grade…supposed to be learning something, supposed to be thinking about self-control…and there she sat, happy as a lark…visiting with the kids and teachers who walked by. They’d stop…have a nice conversation…laugh…then, walk away. “Aren’t you supposed to be in trouble?”

Eventually, Cherry’s First Grade Teacher would come out and say…” What is the point of sitting you out in the hall, if you are going to talk out here? Go to the Principal’s office.”  So, Little Miss Cherry would go to the Principal’s office, and she’d talk there. They would give her treats, have her sit in the corner… give her some kind of work to do. Try to act all stern and discipline-ish. That wouldn’t last long.

They hugged on her, smiled at her…and told her…” You know, your Teacher really likes you, you’re not bad but when you talk during class, it makes it hard for her to teach.”  A light bulb went off. It wasn’t that the teacher didn’t want her to visit with her friends, or contribute to the class…she needed Cherry to reign it in…and save it for recess and P.E. The school secretary…who was Cherry’s new best friend…told her…” Your teacher needs you to be a good little girl so she can teach all of the other kids. You are helping your teacher when you talk at the appropriate times.”


That changed the world. Now, Cherry could help her teachers and be good. And although she had some socializing to do…there would be plenty of opportunity at the “appropriate” times. This idea became more of a guideline and not a hard fast rule. It was a study in setting limits for a kid who didn’t believe that limits existed. Limits didn't fit into her view of the world.  After all, Cherry was a little social butterfly.

Up to this point…Cherry’s parents lived in fear that she’d just disappear one day, as she never met a stranger. Matter of fact, Cherry had absolutely zero fear as a kid. The only thing that stopped her dead in her tracks was the Devil. Apparently, he didn’t like nice little Christian girls – and was going to get her if she didn’t watch out. So – here was the quandary through the eyes and mind of a First Grader.  "


If I’m too good of a little girl, the Devil will get me. Bad, bad – scary bad things will happen because you are good, never sin and love Jesus."


Thank you, Fundamental Baptist Church and their children's program. Anyway...


"If I’m not perfectly good all of the time, I’m a bad little girl who is sinning and Jesus won’t be happy."


And, since Cherry had seen that picture of Jesus living in her heart, waiting each day to come by and say hello, be good and not sin…she was torn.


So, each day she’d say 'Hello' to Jesus. Talk to him on the walk to school. Visit. Socialize. People would walk up and say…” Who are you talking to, Cherry?” …and she'd tell them…


” Well, Jesus lives in my heart…and it makes him sad when I forget to tell him 'Hi' every day. So, I’m talking to Jesus. He’s great. He talks back.”


And, so began the struggle of being good, semi-good, perfect, bad, semi-bad…whatever. I’d talk to Jesus every day, because he was hanging out in her heart, they’d socialize…everyone was happy.


Anyway, to round out the story…this was the pattern. Each year, year over year…Cherry would have a teacher or teachers, coaches, principals who fed her creativity, independence and fearless nature. They wouldn’t punish her for being the way she was…they would actually help her express, expand and evolve her talents and skills. She’d walk around talking to Jesus, trying to be good.


And then, she would have the opposite…with the teachers, coaches who would punish, shame, mock and be hateful. And when she wasn’t good or perfect…she would wrestle with how to tell Jesus – as if he didn’t already know. Cherry felt disrespectful, silly, awkward.


Things didn’t always line up. She was either punished or rewarded for who she was and what she accomplished, depending on the source. Cherry was shown her school record going back to the First Grade. It was covered in the following comments…


” Sweet girl, talks a lot."
“Talks, disrupts and needs to focus.”
“Social, talks a lot, kind”
“Talks and doesn’t follow the class rules.”
“Always smiling, needs direction, contributor”
“Thinks she owns the school”
“Funny and fearless.”


Looking back…Cherry did think she owned the school. It was her happy place. She loved being there with her friends, loved her teachers, loved her coaches…loved the library…loved the administrators (especially her stellar line up of Principals who encouraged her to be fearless with Orange Crush, candy and tasks in the office when she was sent there to sit – Mr. Bradham, Mr. Hillman, etc.)


Cherry thought that school was the perfect place. It was what happened after she had breakfast and walked to school – oftentimes, stopping to visit with all of her favorite neighbors along the way, as Cherry was a true morning kid. Then, when she arrived at school…there were activities before class…and they were fun. Learning stuff. Hanging with friends. Art class.


Recess was amazing. P.E. – wouldn’t miss it for anything.


Followed by after school activities – which usually were sports, cheerleading, Camp Fire Girls, walking home with friends…church stuff...you name it. Being a kid as she knew it.


"Fearless"


Let’s talk about what being fearless means today.


Companies will hire Cherry because she can walk into a room and not meet a stranger. She likes all kind of people. They will hire her because she is smart, well rounded, hard-working, a team player and a leader. All of these skills honed from birth on…with socialization, imagination, creativity, fearlessness…allow her to have a seat at the table.


It means that out of a lifetime of learning comes that there are people who are fear based, and people who aren’t. People who say what they think, and people who don’t. People who color outside of the lines of their life with the big box of crayons with the cool sharpener, and people who worry about what other people think about their choice of one crayon. And, everyone has their reasons and framework.


It’s a big world out there…and it runs on balance. People are people are people. Plenty of room for the smorgasbord of opinions, cultures, and approaches to life. One person’s talent and gifts are another person’s worst fears. You terrify them.


One person’s talent and gifts are another person’s inspiration. You help them.


One person’s talents and gifts are par for course for another. You can run at their speed.


For another moment, another day, another year, another decade...the world spins around on it’s axis.


Miss Cherry learned that being fearless was her nature from birth, and a gift. That we have all of these talents and gifts rolled into our DNA, ready to be unleashed on the general public for a purpose.


But, what she remembers most about her elementary school folder was that fearless was written in red.


And, red is her favorite color.

Accidental Realism by Way of Proxy

Miss Cherry believes that the more you get out into the world and have those difficult conversations, the more the world makes sense. It’s like watching rose colored glasses come into style early in your youth, and then learning that it was a manufacturing problem which resulted in a class action suit. You know, the one time someone was cleaning up near the machine that put drops of tint into the assembly – and you got that one batch with too much pink in the lens. And that pink interacts with some weird part of your eyes that you never knew about – and your world, as you know it, mysteriously is skewed.

Makes Cherry think about the movie…”The Jerk.” And that maybe she was little like Steve Martin who grew up thinking he was a lucky black kid of a sharecropper family who held different “jobs” and then, magically became a millionaire who invented a handle for glasses named it the Optigrab which made people cross-eyed. Yada Yada Yada. Bernadette Peters. One day he grows up. He keeps the lamp and the ashtray, and resets his view of the world.

It’s those conversations when you realize that the reality you used to frame up the world was just a little bit off from the actual.

You didn’t understand why someone just dropped off the radar as you entered high school. And then you find out, they were living in a 500 s.f. abandoned shack on a piece of property, illegally, with 10 people – and were trying to go to school and be a normal kid. But, reality and survival stepped in and they dropped out to support their family and help put a roof over the head of their brothers and sisters, food in the belly, and all of this without electricity or running water. I’m sorry – I can’t play football anymore – or go to the dance – or have a girlfriend – or let anyone know about my life. That’s all good and fine for you, but I need to help my family survive. Literally. Now I’m an investment banker with the girl who loved me from childhood on, and we have a wonderful life and family.

Or you find out that someone’s Dad went to prison – and your friend had to drop out to lie about his age to drive a semi, to support his family.

Or you find out that someone’s parents died, one and then the other…horribly…and they were on their own from the 9^th grade on. Survived, did it all alone. Graduated early. And made it. Intelligent, wicked humor, amazing…it’s her truth.

Or you find out that the family skeletons are kinda freaky in your family, your friend’s families, and so on and so forth. But at this age, who cares. It is what it is. Blood. You could write about it and make a million off of the reality of the freakiness. And, it would be a great read.

Conversations.

Of course, they happen when you are all grown up, and have framed the world through the years. And then, the rose colored glasses come off…and reality hits you smack in the face. Miss Cherry likens it to a mixture of amazing Technicolor, with weird, obvious realities mixed back into the shadows. It’s a pretty, amazing picture in your head – with the essence of Tarantino splattered everywhere.

You realize that inside every person is the dark and the light. The good and the bad. You realize that life was an early struggle for some, and a later struggle for others. You have the difficult conversations that you don’t walk away from feeling all relevant and peachy. They change you, make you honest about the realities of your life. Your strengths and challenges. The colors deepen. Memories are reframed with truth. It's done.

You take off the glasses, and realize…I have actually earned my space in this world. The Technicolor is beautiful, the colors are amazing, and there’s an alligator chasing me somewhere in Florida because I went into a lake with a cardboard box singing “Yellow Submarine”

Made sense at the time.

Life.

Miss Cherry, Atomic Bombs, and a Coconut Cream Pie

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But, as that 86-year-old Iron Nun said in my now favorite Nike ad…” Unlimited Youth” …” There are a lot of times when I had to think about failures and not reaching the goals I may have set for myself,” Buder said in a Nike video, “Then I realized the only failure is not to try because your effort in itself is a success.” A nun. A devoted, God fearing, God loving badass nun triathlete. She gets it.

Hard wiring.

That moment in an action film where the bomb squad is called in to disarm a nuclear bomb – let’s make it…

…set in the middle of Gotham…which will destroy mankind – or Gotham – which is – in DC Comics world - so key to mankind…

…let’s try this again…

Batman is in some deep dark hole with his back broken. The Wayne Mansion is toast, which freaks me out. Like when they blew up that absolutely amazing house in one of the Bourne movies – the one that the scientist was restoring. The three story with the fabulous staircase - hand hewn probably sometime in the 1800’s. But, now she can’t, because some assholes shot it up and then it was blown up as a cover for a getaway. Men. As if they couldn’t have just gone out the back door. That kind of crap keeps me up at night.

Anyway, the Wayne fortune is gone. The Batman beam thing is broken. The Bat phone is in a museum somewhere because it’s a rotary.

And, the bomb isn’t digital.

Yes, I know…just work with me here. It ISN’T smart. It can’t call an Uber for you – or track your moods like a mood ring.

It’s one of those crazy, thousands of wires, all of the colors of the rainbow…hard wired bombs. You open that compartment with mere minutes…seconds…to disarm…which in my mind…looks like a cartoon atomic bomb.

Wait. Let’s switch it up here.

Bugs Bunny has climbed into the door of an atomic bomb with his carrots…it says “Acme” on the side…because it is really there for the Roadrunner.

Anyway, Bugs Bunny is holding a pair of scissors, trimming his whiskers, cutting out snowflakes, singing and eating a carrot… “When the swallows come back to Capistrano, la da dee de dah de dah,” vicariously next to the red wire that says…” DON’T CUT…BIG BOOM!!!” …there is a knock on the bomb door…and in comes Batman

Bugs says…” Yes, may I help you?” as he has been cartoon slicing up vegetables – scissors and knives cutting stuff everywhere – all of it going into the pot. He then throws in a kitchen sink.

“I’m Batman””

So, of course, Bugs hands him a perfectly executed paper snowflake, tells him, “You should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque,” and shuts the door.

Batman is all serious. Knocks again. He is there for the bomb. The good people of Gotham must be saved.

“What’s up, Doc?” …Bugs asks, chewing on his carrot and cutting wires for dental floss.

Fast forward…it’s Looney Tunes meets DC Comics – so, Bugs is floating on a cloud playing a harp…swimming in the air…backstroking…sees St. Peter…heads on over to jack with him

Batman is pissed. I mean, what the Hell just happened.? No pun intended. Batman was there to avert disaster.

Which kind of sums it up how we work. Hardwiring. The two sides of our ego. Popping up out of a toaster, either under cooked or burned to a crisp. Yen to our Yang.

One that says…all is good, all is great, I am unaware. Autopilot. Rolling from one thing to the next. The other who is a serious badass, completely aware, there to input some serious sense into our reality. Knows better, expects better, knows what needs to happen, when it needs to happen and how to succeed.

When you open up that psyche of yours, and look around at all of the crazy wiring…there are trip wires, connectors, necessary and unnecessary…the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Miss Cherry knows there’s a bowl of spaghetti inside her noggin. Knows there is hard wiring which makes her a badass in so many amazing ways. Talent, personality, intelligence, heart…spirit…that special something. Knows that there are some wires buried deep that send off a signal at the wrong times. Sends off that ego which is there to strike fear in her heart, set up the caution tape, inject doubt. Sometimes things get framed up as a combination of both. Dark, dark humor and the ability to express it so well. Sometimes with perfect execution…sometimes not so much.

Aren’t we all this way?

And, when we ask our egos…” Why did you hit me in the face with a coconut cream pie?”

It will answer…” Because you were trying, you will succeed and you like cream pie.”

Wear that mess across your face like a badge of honor.

Rinse and repeat…” It’s my ego, I’ve chosen to embrace it and I’m going to take that left at Albuquerque. I’m Batman. “

And, maybe someday Nike will create an ad about you. You are amazing.

That’s all Folks.