Hiding in Plain Sight or Who is that Woman in the Lawyer Suit?
So in the fall of 1986, alone in a tiny rented cottage on an island in San Diego Bay, I set off on the journey of motherhood. My lawyer suits, one gray, one beige, one black, one navy, one brown, hung listlessly in the closet of the bedroom I shared with the husband I never saw. My black, tan, and navy four-inched heeled pumps remained in their shoe boxes. For the first three months of the journey, I rarely got out of my bathrobe. After that, it was elastic waist pants and frantic dieting until, finally at my daughter’s first birthday, I could sigh with relief and zip my jeans.
The task of dealing with a constantly crying infant wiped my memory clean of what it had been like to be a lawyer, pulling twelve and fourteen-hour days in major law firms back east. I truly wanted children when I finally decided to have them, but I also think I was on the run from a profession I hated and that I had never intended to join.
When I was eleven years old, I decided I wanted to be a writer. I read constantly even before I went to school, and I began to write stories in third grade. I had no doubt in my child mind that I was born to be a creative artist until the night I announced my intended destiny at the family dinner table. My rational, linear father went crazy, outlining the impossibility and stupidity of trying to reach that goal. I slunk back to my bedroom, full of shame for aspiring to be something so outrageous and totally WRONG.
The trouble was, the dream of writing stories would not go away. I realized it was safer to hide my identity underground, as I went on writing. By age thirteen, I had finished a three-hundred page novel.
I thought by going to graduate school and getting a Ph.D. in English, I would move forward with my dream of being a writer. But by the time I had my Masters in English, I could see the reality of every graduate student’s situation: THERE WERE NO JOBS IN UNIVERSITIES TEACHING ENGLISH. And graduate school, like all the other forms of school I had encountered, did not foster creativity.
In the 1970’s, disappointed liberal arts majors of all kinds were going to law school, including, for the first time a significant number of women. I went to talk to the Assistant Dean at the University of Tennessee College of Law about enrolling. She said, “The law is only words. You’re good at words, right?”
Good at words, yes. Good at nit picking trivialities, no. I graduated second in my class; I was admitted to the Order of the Coif, the Phi Beta Kappa for lawyers. I was wooed by major law firms in New York, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, and Richmond, Virginia. I studied for and passed the Virginia bar in 1981.
But as soon as I sat down at my new associate desk in Richmond, the overwhelming lack of creativity that is THE LAW began to choke me. I had never been so bored in my life.
Next: Driving the wrong way down a one-way street (my perilous adventures as a baby lawyer) and how I was nearly gobbled alive by a female partner with a penchant for hats
The Joys of Flying Solo or Why the Bar is A Better Choice Than the Door
Single life has many advantages. No problems with toilet seats up or down. No one to say you didn’t need yet another pair of killer heels. No one to steal the covers on a cold night. No one to complain if you would rather Zumba at supper time instead of cook. And you can’t fight with yourself over who takes out the trash. (Well, you can, just to stay in practice, I guess.)
But despite these advantages, I recently overheard a fellow single complaining about her single life. She had visited her neighborhood restaurant for the first time alone, and the hospitality was not the same as when she’d come paired. She’d decided to take herself out solo on a busy weekend night; and instead of being given the table she’d requested, she’d been asked to sit at the bar. Insulted, she left, vowing never to return. And cursing singledom.
Many years ago, I had exactly the same experience in a small neighborhood restaurant in Richmond Virginia’s Fan District. On a Friday night, having just come back from a business trip to Washington, D.C, and still in regulation lawyer gear, I encountered the same choice: the bar or the door. I chose the door. But since then, I have discovered that was the wrong choice.
Here’s the thing. The joy of going out alone is the opportunity to observe the world on your own. Sometimes you meet new people; sometimes you don’t. But the information you gather while out alone is entertaining and enriching.
The bar is not a bad place to eat when you are alone. Why? Watch people eating at the bar sometime. They chat and interact with each other. If you are there with your friends, you enjoy the evening; but you don’t hear a new story from a new potential friend or silently watch a drama played out between strangers while being happy you aren’t on that stage. When you’re out in pairs or groups, it’s same old, same old.
Last weekend, for example, I headed up to Los Angeles to hear jazz at Vitello’s on Friday night. Alone. Now, downstairs at Vitello’s is strictly a restaurant. But the room upstairs, quaintly named “Upstairs at Vitello’s,” is a jazz and supper club. Those of us with tickets for the show were waiting downstairs while the band finished its sound check. An elderly couple were waiting with the rest of us to go upstairs. The man had a bandage over one eye. The woman used a cane. Suddenly a small woman, around my age, got up from one of the chairs along the wall and offered them her seat. Impressed with her good manners, I complimented her. She laughed and said with twinkling eyes, “It’s karma. I hope someone will give me a seat when I’m their age.” Petite, with short dark hair and laughing brown eyes, she looked like an elf that had just materialized from another, more magical world.
Soon we learned we were expat daughters of the South. She was originally from Richmond, Virginia, but had traveled widely since then. We compared notes on adapting to life in SoCal and why we finally came to love it here. But the most touching part of her story was her description of her marriage. “I’m a widow,” she said but with a smile. “My husband died seven years ago. He was the only man for me. My soulmate. It was wonderful, and I could never replace him. I’m happy on my own. I miss him, but I’m so very grateful for those years we had.” Not a trace of bitterness in her voice. Just joy and exuberance and gratitude. She was obviously a very happy person. Happy in her life right at that moment. And her happiness was contagious.
I wanted to sit with her, but Vitello’s had other plans. So I went on to hear other stories that night from the people around me as I listened to the music. None were as interesting as hers, but I had a fabulous time solo, entertained by not only the music, but by the people who had come to hear it.
So single life is quite fabulous when you stop telling yourself you have to be validated by the presence of someone else. You are wonderful company for yourself. And perfect just the way you are. Love yourself right where you are, and the world will love you, too. That’s what I learned from my elf friend that night.
The Meaning of BLING or Why Questions in Line at FedEx are Entertaining
The Irish and Southerners are born storytellers. Think James Joyce or William Faulkner, or John Grisham. When I was a child in Tennessee and we visited the extended family, the women sat in the kitchen telling stories about their lives as wives, and the men sat in livingroom telling stories about sports and jobs and politics.
By accident I became a lawyer. But by birth I am a storyteller. Fortunately, lawyers tell stories, so I got it half right.
In California people do not like to wait. Show Californians a line, and they will begin to complain. This annoys me because growing up Southern, I learned it is polite to take your turn. Even if that means waiting. And polite waiting is not grumbling about it.
As you can imagine, as an appellate attorney who essentially writes legal term papers for a living, I am a huge patron of FedEx. They make all my briefs ready to go to the court of appeal. So one of the places, I am often in line is my local, favorite FedEx.
On Sunday morning I bopped in wearing my workout attire because I was on my way to the gym. (And no makeup, by the way. A real switch up for a daughter of the South who wouldn’t leave the house without mascara for most of her life. I am certain I will die with my mascara ON.) Before the guy working the counter could find my latest legal gem, now copied and bound and looking oh so All Pro, he had to wait on the customer ahead of me. She was involved in directing him in some sort of copying job. I immediately switched into “waiting mode” and studied my counter companion. She was a middled aged woman, wearing sweat pants, t-shirt, and jeans jacket. I could tell she had spent at least ten seconds pulling this outfit together. She was definitely not thesartorialist.com material. But what set her apart was the plethora of gold and diamond jewelry on her hands. Literally a ring on each finger. A BIG one with a BIG diamond in each.
Now, it was a bit much. And I wouldn’t do it. But it worked on her for some odd reason. So I complimented her jewelry.
She broke into a huge smile as people often do when they know you are interested in their story. She explained the rings were gifts from her children although she had chosen them herself. “I ask them to give me money throughout the year for birthday and Christmas and Mother’s Day. And I save up in a special account, and I buy something I want.” Then I realized she now carried with her every day on every finger a visible reminder of her children’s love. So her jewelry wasn’t too much, after all. It was just right for her. It’s amazing how you enrich your own life when you give away a compliment and receive a story in return.
Why Music Matters or “It Ain’t Right”!
In 2004, Russell Shedd took over the music program at Scripps Ranch High. My first contact with Russ was when he called our house looking for my oldest child, Catherine, who was a rising senior at Scripps. A percussionist, she had organized the percussion cabinet at the end of the year and had left a note taped to the door with her phone number, threatening death or great bodily injury to anyone who put anything on top of the timpani. In that era, parents and students alike thought the timpani were convenient way stations for books, hoodies, and backpacks. Never mind the concept of tuning.
I had to tell Russ that Catherine was at Tanglewood in Massachusetts and wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks. Right away I realized I’d given him the wrong impression of the Scripps music program. In those days the kids took band because it wasn’t Phys. Ed. Catherine’s trip to Tanglewood was the product of her own drive to become a musician and our family’s deep reverence for all things musical. I have studied clarinet since I was nine. We were the exception, not the rule.
But Russ had a vision for that program. He wanted to make it his own. And he wanted to teach kids MUSIC. He fought his way past the parents who didn’t understand what a music education from Interlochen and the University of Cincinnati meant. A fine clarinet player, he took the time to actually give recitals, so the unbelievers could become believers. And they did.
And because band can be fun, he thought of ways to encourage the kids to work hard but to have fun. Responding to his enthusiasm and joy for teaching music, the good kids began to come. One by one, including my youngest child, Michael. Little by little, the program grew. The marching band might be small, but everyone on the field was playing. No horn holders. And the depth of sound that Russ could create with fifty kids rivaled the big bands where half the kids weren’t playing because they were just there for the Phys. Ed. credit. And when he wanted new uniforms for the band, he led the fund raising drive by training for and entering a 50-mile run to get money for the uniforms.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the orchestra grew and thrived. It went from four violins, a viola, and a cello – none of whom had a clue about tuning – to seventy amazing musicians. So amazing, in fact, that in April, Russ won the California Association for Music Education’s Award as Orchestral Music Educator of the Year for Southern California. Oh, and in his spare time, he became the full-time choir teacher and the AP music theory teacher, too. In other words, he became the entire music department.
So how does this story of great talent, perseverance, and love for teaching end? With a pink slip. That’s right, dear reader. For all his hard work and dedication, the school district sent Russ a pink slip in May. Raises to more senior teachers – even though Russ has tenure – required the district to let some teachers go. And hire date was the determining factor – not achievement.
In my attorney life, I hear a lot about injustice. And I see some, too. But not nearly as much as you’d think. But this injustice tops the record books. No wonder qualified dedicated people don’t want to be teachers. I left that field many years ago, heartbroken because I couldn’t find a job doing what I loved, teaching writing. And watching Russ’s efforts, achievement, and education be discounted this way, hurts me to the core. And tells me I made the right decision all those years ago.
Children and their education are our future. The study of music will teach a child everything he or she needs to be succeed in life even if he or she doesn’t become a musician. We need to stand up for our outstanding teachers because the school district doesn’t appreciate them. If Russ does finally have to move on, I know there is a school district out there that will highly value his dedication and talent. It’s just that it should be the one here, right now, where he has worked so hard for the past eight years. As a local TV commentator says every night, “It ain’t right!”
Finalist, Beverly Hills International Book Awards, 2014
Finalist, Foreword Reviews Book of the Year, 2013
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