Faith Like The Fishes

I’ve had a lot of time to think about things this year. Losing my job certainly freed up chunks of time and allowed for some serious reshuffling in my life, my perspectives and the very foundation on which everything I think and feel is based.

But while 2012 hasn’t been a blockbuster financial year, it has given me much for which to be grateful. So many times, I looked at my own predicament with great fear. It took all that I had to steady myself and focus on the future. It also took all that I had to let go of the anger and disgust that I have felt for my former employer. It felt as if I had trusted a longtime friend who had, inexplicably and without warning, kicked out my front teeth.

Of course, it’s far more difficult to take steps forward if you keep looking back. It takes time and a concerted effort to only look ahead. It takes faith to believe there is something for which to look forward. When my telephone started ringing with offers for new opportunities, it was as if I had been lifted by the collar and shaken by a universal force that was reminding me that my needs would be met if I could only believe things were happening right on time.

As new freelance jobs emerged just in time to pay my bills, so many times, I recalled the biblical story of the boy who helped feed a multitude of people with only five loaves of bread and two fishes. Back in January when I was told that my job was being eliminated, I wondered how I would make it? How would I survive with no income in a time when there are so few jobs – and even fewer in my field as a golf writer, where I had worked for the last 20-some years?

But just as the two fish and five loaves of bread in that story fed the masses, the opportunities continued for me. This year, there has been work with four magazines, three organizations, and 15 (so far) writing assignments in the New York Times. And then a grant opened up in August that has given me the opportunity to work with high school science students in my county to teach them about marine science.

I also enrolled in a program offered through the University of Florida to study to become a Florida Master Naturalist, which I recently completed. With that certification, along with my work as an eco-tour guide at a non-profit organization and the county’s educational grant program in the estuary, my focus has grown more in line with a new perspective about tomorrow. I can see myself transitioning into environmental writing. I can let go of the other things that I used to think were so important. I can dare to see beyond my own – and sometimes self-imposed – limitations.

Someone recently told me that, “faith is the belief that you already have what you have not yet received.” I buy into that notion. And if I have anything for which to be grateful during this Thanksgiving season and as this year comes to a close, it’s that it took a dramatic change of fortune for me to realize that the greatest gift I have is the gift of faith. With it, anything is possible. Without it, nothing is possible.

That might seem like such a “no-brainer” for many, but consider that I am a person who tends to want proof or evidence for any statement of fact. I want to see things to know them as truth. I need facts and validity. It’s just the way I am wired.

Interestingly, a new truth has emerged for me this year. It has been that as I have grown to trust that things will fall into place, they actually have. And in the weeks when I wanted and needed work, I got it. I hustled. I prayed. And it was provided.

I still don’t have a full-time job, but I do believe it will come. I have told friends that I have no reason to be so optimistic, but I feel like something good will happen and that all of this will someday make sense. Maybe that is how faith works. Maybe you have to clear out the trash in your head and heart and create an empty space to be filled by abundance.

And maybe like that child in the biblical story, faith is just as possible in mapping out a new career as it was when two fish fed 5,000 hungry people. I’m grateful I now know that if I believe strongly enough, good things will happen, but more importantly, the real blessing is the gift of faith. Without it, the paralysis of anger and the oh-so-tight grip of fear would never allow hope to reach for what lies ahead.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Nov. 22, 2012

Gift Of A Song

Mickey’s Meanderings

Gift Of A Song

I had already taken 12 people kayaking for two hours on a warm and sunny Saturday. Now, I sat in the shade with a bottle of water, waiting for the second group of people to arrive. I reapplied sunscreen and bug spray and adjusted my sweaty visor. I considered changing my shirt, but it had already dried. No worries, I told myself. Nobody will notice.

As much as I love kayaking and being around the water, I really just wanted to go home, unpeel my sweaty clothes and make a nice dinner. This was my sixth straight work day and I was starting to feel it. “Don’t complain if you have work,” I told myself. And “never, ever, ever complain when you get to do something you enjoy.”

This particular afternoon kayak trip was a special charter trip with 12 musicians. The musicians are visiting here in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., in a special program at the Atlantic Center for the Arts. They came here from around the world to study for two weeks with top mentor musicians and to perform concerts both here and in Orlando.

So as I sat there waiting for the musicians to arrive, I wondered how this kayak eco-tour would go. How many of them could speak English? How should I adapt the tour for people who speak English as a second language? What would they understand about the Indian River Lagoon? What was important for them to understand? And how much should we focus merely on paddling and the experience of being in the water – away from cellos and percussion – and in an environment that most of them had never experienced.

I advised my kayak assistant that this group likely would not be athletic, so we would take a much slower pace on the paddling route. I also surmised that we would probably need more small-sized life jackets, since these musicians would not be Americans who typically need the larger sizes. (Sorry, but this is true!)

A big white van pulled up and an eclectic group of young men and women jumped out of the van, excited about this new adventure. They walked over to me with giant smiles on their faces and a readiness that gave me the kick in the pants that I needed. They were here from Poland, Egypt, Lebanon, South Korea, Beijing, China, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, England, Venezuela and India.

I signed them in, fitted each with a life jacket and gave each paddler a whistle to use for emergencies. They were thrilled to receive the whistles and soon sounded like a creative chorus of crickets, finding ways to make sounds with the whistles that had never occurred to me.

As we prepared to head to the kayaks, I watched the young man from India carefully tie his hair into a topknot. I counseled the young woman from London about the safest way to bring along her rather large camera. And then I locked all of their arts center room keys into a waterproof box and the parade to the water began.

As suspected, these folks were not especially physically gifted, but their spirits were willing. I loaded the man from Cairo into a kayak and he leaned frighteningly to the left and to the right. I felt, for sure, I would soon be in the water helping him back into his boat. Even though he paddled in a zigzag fashion, running into mangrove trees that snagged his beard, and T-boning my boat from the side at least three times, his joy was apparent. He paddled fast, as if he were on a mission, and when I suggested that he might have a little more control if he could slow down his boat, he just laughed and said, “I don’t know how to stop.”

One very tall young man from Senegal plied carefully through the water with his dark skin glowing in the sun. The fair-skinned young man from Poland had a perpetual smile on his face from start to finish. Two young women from Beijing and Seoul shared a tandem kayak and squealed with delight as fish leaped from the water around their boat.

I kept the narrative simple. For example, rather than explaining the virtues of mangrove trees, I simply told them they are tropical trees that grow around the world. And then I asked how many of them had mangrove trees in their countries. Several hands shot up. The young man from India added that there are estuaries in his homeland, but said they were not allowed to paddle there. “Why not?” we asked. “Because of tigers,” he answered.

I took this group of paddlers to a sandbar in the middle of the lagoon. It was low tide and we were able to wade on the sandbar. Some got out and rolled around in the warm salt water. The African men began singing a song about walking on water. The British woman gathered the group and photographed them standing together, colorful kayaks providing a backdrop for their radiant faces.

I showed the paddlers some clams and where they lived on the sandbar. One clam was dead, leaving behind its two large shells. The paddler from Egypt asked if he could have the shells and seemed pleased with his prize from the lagoon.

We paddled on. As I spotted birds, I would identify what they were. I could hear the paddlers repeating the words in their respective boats around me. Ibis. Egret. Osprey. Great blue heron.

Soon, it was time to paddle back to shore. The musicians were tired, but they were still excited and determined. The Egyptian led the way, still speeding in a leaning zigzag, followed by a musician from Kenya and a bright yellow tandem with a Venezuelan string player and a young woman from Lebanon. The group pulled into shore and took more photos together.

And then, as if it were as normal as breathing air, the paddlers drifted into a circle on the sand and began making rhythmic music out of their whistles and water bottles. I looked over and the paddler from Egypt was leading the song with a sophisticated, syncopated downbeat by cupping his clam shells. That out-of-control paddler was a percussionist extraordinaire, albeit with mollusks in his hands and sand in his toes.

Their song filled the air with its impromptu delight and the musicians fed off each other. Their feet moved in the sand and their faces reflected the music that lives within each of them. They were black, white, Asian, Muslim, Catholic, Hindu, Buddhist, Protestant.

And they were 12 people from around the world who came to the water for a simple Saturday afternoon activity. Maybe they did not notice that they absolutely left their kayak leader gobsmacked and amazed with the simple beauty of their heartfelt song. They probably did not see the goose bumps on her arms as their song swelled in the late afternoon sun.

Even as they climbed back into their van and waved goodbye, I could hear the whistles and water bottles exploring new notes. I’m sure it was a concert inside that van all the way back to the arts center because it was a simple symphony today among the mangroves of the Indian River Lagoon.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Sept. 15, 2012

Discovery: From Birdies To Barnacles

“That’s a polychaete, which is a marine tube-building worm that helps stabilize tidal sediment.”

“And that’s a southern quahog (a large clam). Over here are hatching baby crown conchs. Oh, and here’s a comb jelly!”

A year ago, those words would have never jumped out of my mouth, let alone, pop out with the joy of discovery on a sandbar in the Indian River Lagoon. But here I stood, leader of a kayak eco-tour, prodding the soil with tourists from Orlando who wanted to see more than Mickey Mouse and the attractions of Central Florida.

As the saying goes, “It’s funny where life takes you.” And indeed, it is.

A year ago, I was dutifully documenting the birdies and bogeys of young women golf professionals from around the world. I jumped into that segment of golf journalism full time 20 years ago and made myself a student of the game.

I covered golf tournaments and learned everything I needed to know to write a record of those competitions on deadline. I knew the players, from rookies to veterans, and took seriously the responsibility of telling their stories right. I knew the history and the context of today’s victories against the broader backdrop of yesterday’s champions. I knew exactly what a Hall-of-Fame career looked like and what it needed to be.

And, as an equipment writer, I learned about the components of a golf club, visiting the factories and learning about the epoxy and graphite of shafts, the rubbers and polymers of grips, and even the metallurgy of clubheads. I visited golf equipment foundries and watched them pour molten metal into molds to create clubheads for the consumer market.

I also learned about agronomy and why certain grasses will grow in certain places. I understood why greens roll faster if mown in a certain way on a particular grass that has been fed a prescribed amount of water. In recent years, I also made myself aware of how course superintendents have found new ways to use less water, less herbicides and pesticides, and to mow less often to make golf courses more friendly to this fine old planet.

I thought I had done my homework. I wrote for three national golf magazines, won a few national awards, met my deadlines, maintained good contacts and sources, operated with a sense of fairness, honesty and professionalism in my work, and recorded history, one day at a time. I blogged, Facebooked, took photos and videos, and did the things that modern communications require.

But I soon learned that regardless of my competency, passion, interest and experience, the truth is, I didn’t have control over my future when my objectives didn’t necessarily match those of new leadership. Just like that, a new boss with new ideas and no great love of the written word, waved his hand and I was gone.

It was a shock, to say the least, and a decision that seemed shortsighted for an organization clamoring for respectability within the industry. When I left, I counted the years of experience among the staff of my former department and shook my head. Immodestly, I had forgotten more than the collective bunch of them had ever known. Of course, that wasn’t the point, and experience isn’t necessarily needed when the treadmill of disseminated information is rote, superficial and sometimes, even contrived.

Still, I wondered if some of the remaining staff would have even recognized the faces or names of Hall of Famers had they walked through the front door? And to be honest, I worried about that for many months -- not because I fretted that those individuals would embarrass themselves, but because I felt that those players who had earned their accolades deserved to be treated better by the organization they helped establish.

Time has passed. My mind is no longer occupied with concerns about the recording of golf history or the matters that once kept me awake at night. At some point, you simply must turn your back and walk away. And in the same stride, you also must ask the universe to provide guidance toward the next frontier.

I still love golf and its rich history, and I still care about the players in the game and their pursuit of records and milestones. But in so many ways, I can now find peace in a place where the constancy of purpose has no relevance to the mercurial nature of man. The tide comes and goes, whether we like it or not.

It’s scary to start over. Suddenly, the competencies that once made me valid in the game have changed to foreign terminologies, baffling biologies and ancient genealogies. Sometimes I am wading in water that is up to my knees. Sometimes I am paddling like crazy in waters that are over my head. And always, always, always, Mother Nature dictates what will happen next -- and when.

Discovery in a new place is both scary and tantalizing. It’s as challenging as leading others in small boats in a torrential rain storm with hammering tides, insisting that what’s next is worth seeing. It’s about believing in what’s out there. And it’s also sometimes about convincing others that what’s out there is worth our interest and involvement on a grander scale.

I guess I’ve started trading in those birdies and bogeys for barnacles and bivalves. It’s a whole different world, but I’m learning again. Truly, the joy of any competency is in the pursuit of discovery and the willingness to wade into unknown waters, one toe at a time.

- Lisa D. Mickey, July 12, 2012

Healing: With Manatees As The Teacher

“You’re not sick, are you?”

I looked up at the young girl who had wandered over to stand by me as I watched a group of manatees munching on low-hanging mangrove limbs. It was Mother’s Day and I was missing my family. Watching the Florida manatees roll around in the water kept my mind from feeling so alone. The comical creatures also made me laugh as they snorted in the water and flapped their tail flukes.

I had not been paying attention to the girl, but when she spoke, I looked up at her. I saw that she was thin, pale and wore a bandana over her thin hair. I could see purple veins in her legs and a scar on her chest that probably had once served as the port entry for some type of vile chemical that had pulsed through her veins.

“I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” she added. “I can’t be around people who are sick.”

The girl introduced herself as “Becca.” She was 15. She had recently undergone a bone marrow transplant at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and was trying to regain her strength. She has HLH (hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis), a rare but potentially fatal blood disorder.

Like me, Becca loves the manatees. And like me, Becca was looking for a distraction on Mother’s Day Sunday. She was back home in Florida, staying with her grandparents while her mother was still in Cincinnati with her sister. Her sister also has HLH and was still at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital receiving treatment. Becca told me that the Ronald McDonald House in Cincinnati is nice and comfortable. That’s where her mother is staying while her sister is in the hospital.

I assured Becca that I did not have a cold or feel sick. I asked how she was doing? I asked if she was feeling stronger? I told her how people in Japan wear masks over their noses and mouths when they are sick so they won’t spread their germs to others. (We agreed that everybody should follow the Japanese and wear masks when they are ill.)

Becca just needed to talk. It was 7 p.m., and she said this was the time of day when she could go outside. She couldn’t spend time outdoors in the sun.

She talked about having gone on a school field trip once to the Marine Discovery Center (MDC), where I currently serve as an eco-tour guide on a part-time basis. She talked about how much she loves dolphins and manatees and wants to become a veterinarian some day.

I suggested that she come to the summer camp for kids at MDC. She shook her head and said that because of her disease, she can’t be around large groups of people. She can’t risk picking up a virus and getting sick. Her body is not yet strong enough to fight germs.

Becca told me that she had been so sick that she dropped down to 80 pounds in body weight. But she weighs more now. She feels better. And doctors say she’s “doing better than expected.” She’s one of the lucky ones and she hopes her sister will be one of the lucky ones, too.

The thin teen asked if there was anything she could do at the MDC just to be around creatures? She said she would feed the fish. She said she would even take care of files or take out trash. Only thing, she just couldn’t mingle with the number of kids who would come to the center for summer camp. Besides, she said, they probably would think they could catch her disease.

“They can’t catch it from me,” she said.

“And it’s not cancer,” she added quietly.

Becca and I stood there for a while in silence, just watching the creatures in the lagoon. She asked about the scars on the backs of the manatees and I told her that these slow-moving creatures get struck by boat propellers an average of 15 times during their life span. They get injured. They heal. And they move on. The words kind of hung in the air for both of us.

I’ve made a habit of walking across the street each Sunday evening to visit the manatees. They hang out in a little cove near the beach where I attend a 6 o’clock Episcopal church service. I usually remain there alone to watch the sun sink over the lagoon. It’s like the Amen at the end of the sermon. It’s like God’s signature at the conclusion of another day. As many times as I’ve seen it, I’m always awed by the beauty of the lagoon at sunset. It is as peaceful a place as any that I know.

I finally told Becca goodbye and walked back to my car across the street. As I walked, I thought about this chance encounter with the teen. I also recalled the words in a book by Pema Chodron in which she says, “Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our ... ordinary everyday lives. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us.”

The manatees may have brought us there, but the moment of pause was, indeed, the teacher for both a girl fighting for her life and a middle-age woman looking for peace in a time of transition. Each of us had gravitated to the lagoon to let the creatures there reach out to us when no other human being could. Nature seems to work that way. 

And like the manatees, sometimes we are stricken, but we heal and we move on.

- Lisa D. Mickey,  May 13, 2012

Mickey's Meanderings: Judgment (Bumping Into Jesus At The Gas Pump)

Mickey’s Meanderings

Judgment #7 (Bumping Into Jesus At The Gas Pump)

It had been a long day. I got up early and drove three hours across the state of Florida through the traffic of Orlando and Tampa for an assignment for the New York Times. I did the reporting at the event, filed my story by 6 p.m., and then got back in the car and did the same drive in reverse.

Tired and hungry at 9 p.m., I was staring into space beside a gas pump as I filled up my car’s tank. I was 30 minutes from home and ready to be there. Clutching the handle of the gas pump, I watched the gallons and dollar marks roll on and on. I was already irritated as the meter ticked past $55. Ticked, was the right word.

Suddenly, I realized someone was standing beside me. At first, I thought I was being robbed, but then I saw that what the young man was holding was a plastic gas can – one of those red containers you fill when you’re either in trouble on the highway or filling up a lawn mower.

“Ma’am, can you help me out?” he asked. “I’m trying to get home and I need gas.”

Gas?!! At first, I wanted to say, “You want me to spend more money after I just got gouged at the pump?”  And then I wanted to say, “I just lost my job, buddy, so go beg somebody who’s hauling in a regular paycheck and not sweating every dollar like I am.”

But I looked into the face of this young man and all of that momentary indignation vanished. He had long, brown, shoulder-length hair and a longish brown beard. He wore clothes that nearly swallowed his slender frame. And he stared at me with calm, brown eyes that were apologetic, kind and pleading.

For a moment looking at him, I said to myself, “Wow, this is a test! What if this guy is really Jesus? What if he’s asking me to help the poor, the indigent, the needy? And what kind of person am I if I don’t help?”

And then the cynical city dweller in me said, “Lisa, don’t get hosed by somebody who doesn’t want to pay what gas costs -- like you can afford to fill his car and yours?”

But we talked. The young man, whom I guess was no more than 21 or 22, said he grew up in California and wanted to see this country. He started driving in his Honda Civic last year, working his way to the East Coast. He said he had lived briefly in Arkansas and Georgia, and now he lived in Ocala, Fla. Ocala was about an hour north of where we stood at the gas pumps and his Honda needed gas to get home.

True, when these things happen, I never really know what to do. And these days, a lot of people have many needs. I know better than to give cash. If someone is hungry, I’ll give them food. I don’t currently have a regular, predictable salary, but I still try to give a little money to an area homeless shelter. But gas? That was a first, for sure.

I capped off my expensive tank of gas, then asked him to place his gas can on the ground. I filled it up with the two gallons it held. He thanked me and clutched the red can to his chest, baggy pants touching the oily pavement of the cement lot.

Driving home, I wondered if his story had been true? Who knows? And who am I to judge? Sure, all of us can decide whether or not to help someone who asks and it’s fair to wonder about the authenticity of their pleas.

But all I know is I looked into the face of that kid and saw the hopeful face of youth. I wondered if his parents knew he was begging with a gas can? I wondered if his parents cared? I wondered if he really were on his way back to Ocala? And yes, I also wondered if, unknowingly, I had just bumped into somebody who would “file a report” on me to the higher being and say, “She was willing to help.”

I can laugh about that now. I kind of doubt Jesus Christ would be hanging out at a Mobil station in Lake Mary, Fla., waiting with a gas can to see who would give and who would not. Then again, you never know.

But you give because it’s in your heart. You care because that’s who you are. You judge because you are human. You reserve judgment because you have the intelligence and rearing to understand that there are things you can’t know for certain, so the default then becomes simply to do what is right. Further, you never give to receive.

I wish I still had a regular salary. I wish I could give to every charity that needs help. And while I’ll never know if that bearded young man’s story was what he told me, it doesn’t matter. That $9 can of gas was a small gift to a stranger. No strings attached.

Well, almost.

As I turned to get into my car, I smiled at him and said, “Dude, just remember to pay it forward. When you are able to help somebody else, pass it on.”

- Lisa D. Mickey, March 19, 2012

Redesign #6 - Feb. 10, 2012

Redesign

I leased a beautiful, brand new home back in 2007 when I moved to the east coast of Florida to work at the LPGA. At the time, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to live, but I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a development that was stuck in the bad real estate market. The owner needed cash flow and I needed a place to live. We struck a deal and I moved in.

But the irony was during that time, while the LPGA underwent numerous staff changes and restructuring, I never hung my framed pictures on the walls of my home because I never felt secure with my own job. Those pictures – still wrapped in moving paper – leaned against the walls for four years.

Finally, last fall, I felt at peace in my workplace and decided to decorate the walls of my home. The pictures were carefully positioned on the walls and I even joked to a friend that it took me four years to do it. And then, in January this year, I lost my job. Trying to find some humor in my new predicament, I joked to the same friend that I should have left the pictures leaning on the wall.

I doubt the framed pictures had anything to do with my present set of circumstances, but they have symbolically morphed into a greater concept of “redesign” that has taken center stage in my life. In fact, sometimes I think God -- or the universe -- puts things out there as hints for what you need to see and what you need to do as you stumble along in your daily existence. And as I follow the metaphoric breadcrumb trail leading me to who-knows-where, I’m struck by this whole concept of redesign. It is everywhere.

And not just on the walls of my home. The neighbors across the street, for example, have been sawing and hammering for weeks to redesign the interior rooms in their home. A few days ago, I walked with my neighbor -- a very thoughtful former Catholic nun -- and she talked to me about where I am right now – “redesigning” my life. Those were her words.

And that’s what it is. I’ve come to believe that is the healthiest way to view this hiccup called job loss. Even in those deep moments of fear and despair, I have to remind myself that all of these hints, messages and directional coincidences are there for a reason. I just have to be observant enough and intuitive enough to “get it” and to realize the options I have in redesigning my life.

I also have to see this redesign as an opportunity for growth and not a time to be angry. I don’t want to spend this precious time being pissed off at the LPGA or at anybody else, but rather, to see it as a space that has been opened up to shape my future and to restructure the floor plan of my present. Just as the neighbors cut and saw closets and flooring in modified patterns from the original design, I have to find comfort in my own redesign and see the rest of my life as “here’s where I want to go and here’s how I want to do it.”

The concept of redesign for me is very important because it allows me to take an unforeseen and detrimental situation and turn it into an opportunity to redefine my objectives and to more clearly see how I want to live my life. It also has forced me to explore what I want my purpose to be. Sometimes when life is easy and the pictures are hanging nicely, you sort of operate on cruise control. You never dream of taking a wrecking ball to your own peaceful existence. Happy or not, fulfilled or not, challenged and stimulated or not, you settle for status quo, draw your paycheck and marvel at how fast the years are blowing by.

These days, I shake my head a lot at so many coincidental reminders. From the screaming band saw across the street, to the wise and even-keeled nun walking her dog, to a friend who is a cancer survivor who assures me that “everything is happening right on time,” and to the tourist from San Francisco in a restaurant who overheard my conversation about spirituality and stopped by my table to say this is a “peaceful place to be,” the directional hints seem to be as abundant as my many blessings.

I am doing a redesign right now. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how all the pieces of the parquet are going to fit together or even if they will. And I have no idea what the “windows” will look like or even how to anticipate the feel of the finished product. It’s all up for redesign, but it is happening. It seemingly takes some degree of demolition to produce the optimal environment for contentment and comfort.

Maybe if I just go with it, do the hard work, try to initiate movement, network, ask good questions, follow up and really give some thought to what I want the rest of my life to look like, this redesign could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

So what if I finally hung up the pictures after so many years? Even if I have to take them down, pack them up and leave, the few months of pleasure I received while they adorned the walls of my home were – unbeknownst to me – the real beginning of a new plan. And maybe as my friend says, everything truly is happening right on time.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 10, 2012

Structure #5 - Feb. 2, 2012

I was scratching my head during that first week away from the office. Normally, I'm a pretty buttoned-up kind of person. I make lists each day and scratch out what I have completed as I go down the list of things I hope to accomplish. Typically, that list keeps me busy well before sunrise to well after sunset.

But I was a mess that first week! Not because I missed getting up at the crack of darkness, stretching for 30 minutes, riding my windtrainer (bike) for 35 minutes, packing my breakfast and lunch (to be eaten at my desk), grabbing a shower and getting on the road no later than 8:11 a.m. Nope, I was a mess because the very structured life I had created was now disrupted.

My routine had been jolted and now I would find my morning teacup on the front door step -- outside!! I also misplaced car keys, cell phones, turkey bacon, flip-flops and notepads. I would enter one room and forget what I came into the room to do. When I told one of my friends that I had suddenly turned into a scatterbrain, he laughed and said, "Well, your brain is probably enjoying some time off. You have always been heavily scheduled."

Scheduled? Indeed.

When you lose your job and now must put yourself on a new schedule, it is an awakening. What you learn is how jam-packed your life has been. And while I certainly could pack a lot into a day -- and still can -- what I'm learning is that sometimes my busy-ness caused me to miss a lot of living. True, you don't always have a choice when you are working in an office setting, but over the last few weeks, I've noticed things I've never seen in the nearly five years I have lived here in this Central Florida town.

For instance, I never realized the flight path between Orlando and Jacksonville regularly stripes the skies with contrails over my house all day long. I never knew a pair of bald eagles regularly perch in the top of a dead tree in the woods behind my home. I never knew how many dogs and dog walkers were in my neighborhood. And I never knew how many people of all ages hammer away in their daily workouts at the gym around the corner. I also didn't know how often my home phone rang each day with people trying to get me to buy or upgrade something. I'm a pretty observant person, but I didn't even actually know where the sun rose and set each day.

Structure is a funny thing. In one sense, it's like it puts a spine in your day. You get up and think of what you need to accomplish and what you want to do. When I went to the office each day, I was on autopilot and did nearly the same thing at the same time each day just to stay on schedule. When or if there was any time left for leisure at the end of the day, it was like a rare bonus. But what I have realized since losing my job is how little of my day was actually spent on myself. And the cumulative result of that is suddenly, nine years later, you realize that it's been like running in place on a treadmill. What do I have to show for that time? And in the course of life, what did it all actually mean?

As a culture, we are busy and most work places are currently understaffed, meaning that workers come to know their slammed-jammed work days as normal. After a while, it became normal to eat breakfast at my desk and several hours later, to also eat my lunch in front of a computer. Some days, I would be so focused on getting through my "to-do" list that I would look up and realize I was one of three cars left in the parking lot as the sun sank into the trees. My goal each day was to leave the office before the staff attorneys finally headed home!

Now, I know that focus, stress and dedication to complete a lengthy list of tasks was in vain. It didn't save my job. It didn't really make a difference. I lived my life faster and missed so much for the sake of making deadlines. But at the same time, I would probably do it all over again. It's ingrained. Maybe it's even generational to work hard and feel a sense of pride in your work. It's also satisfying to give your best efforts at all times even though, admittedly, I would like to take back a few sleepless nights in which I awoke and found myself muttering in the dark about the use of a "better verb" than what I had written earlier that day in the crunch of deadlines.

I still have my lists and I'm still busy as I settle into a new routine. Now, I can stay up later and sleep a little later. I can hop on my bike whenever I want. I can interview people on the phone for freelance projects in my bedroom slippers. I can write freelance stories at my dining room table with my hair sticking up like a woodpecker. I can work away on various projects with my cat sleeping in the chair beside me.

There is structure in place, but this time, I'm trying to do a better job of juggling real life with work. I'm trying to pay attention to where the sun comes up and where the day ends. I'm also trying to say, "How are you today?" to the lonely older lady down the street and to truly listen to her answer.

I know that someday in the near future, I'll get back on that "treadmill" to work, but this next go around, I hope that the structure of work won't ultimately supersede the essence of living. Ultimately, it's not worth it. And I don't want my friends and family to see me as so "heavily scheduled" that they need appointments to get my attention. If I have learned anything in these last few weeks, it's that structure might keep me on task, but too much of it only snatches away chunks of my life that I can never reclaim.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 2, 2012

Grace #4 - January 16, 2012

I've always admired people who can make the best of every situation. They seem to be at their finest when they can convert a bad turn of events into something not as daunting, detrimental or devastating. They're like magicians who can take unwelcome circumstances and turn an incredible hurdle into a catalyst for positive change. I have friends who have that ability to operate with grace in everything they do. They're like experienced diplomats in the face of life! They're so constructive in the way they conduct themselves with others, as well as in how they treat themselves when circumstances out of their control suddenly and dramatically impact their lives.

I think to operate with grace in your life is such a gift. Maybe it's something you are born with or maybe it's something you can learn. I'm not sure. I believe I have some degree of grace because I don't usually blow up and make a mess all over the place, but I think I can be better. Perhaps that comes with maturity and experience as I gain perspective with things that happen throughout my life -- both good and bad.

I also think that grace is dependent on how you view your many blessings and the things you have learned in your realm of understanding of creation and respect to the universe. It's about being respectful. Grace seems to be a concerted understanding that everything is not just about you. It's about something much larger than yourself. It's about what was here before you got here and what will be here after you're gone.

To me, grace seems to be about embracing where you are in life and embracing the world you are in and respecting it. It's also about trusting it and believing that in spite of hiccups along the way and surprising mishaps that catch you in the worst surprise, grace is reacting with a sense of acceptance. In the case of athletes, of course they want to win every contest in which they compete, but the reality of losing more often than winning sculpts a sense of practiced acceptance to negative outcomes. That said, grace is about reacting with a sense of peace and a sense of gratefulness to all of the other things that are good. In spite of the bad things, there's so much for which to be grateful.

I had an amazing colleague when I worked at the Golf Digest Company a few years ago. He was diagnosed with ALS, an inhumane disease that slowly diminishes the body's functions. He was a young man in his early 40s with a wife and a young child. He knew he only had two to three years to live so he dealt with the disease and his own certain early death, and then went to work every single day until he died. Before he lost his ability to speak clearly, he made a video for his son to watch someday when he was old enough to understand. He wanted his son to grow up and to know something about his dad. The video was a father talking to his son about important things in life.

I remember how my friend never tried to hide the terrible symptoms of this disease. He was eventually reduced from a scratch-handicap golfer with a steady swing to a man in a wheelchair completely dependent on others. He needed help eating his lunch and visiting the restroom. He had to have help just to pull up his socks. He eventually could only write his stories by using a special computer that typed letters by the movement of his eyes. But this man showed such courage in incredibly dire circumstances. We all watched both with horror and amazement at what was happening to our beloved colleague. He never complained. He showed grace with death literally hovering as the clock ticked down. He showed us how to live. And he demonstrated with each day the very preciousness of life. When he died, it was easy for all of us to feel that this kind man had been dealt a bad hand in life. We were sad and angry, but what he showed us while he struggled each day was how to not spend the energy he had on being angry about his circumstances, but rather, on how to shift his focus to the things he could control and to appreciate every single minute and every single breath he had remaining. His life was our lesson in what grace looks like!

While I am not dealing with the same life-and-death challenges as my former colleague, I also aspire to have grace. I aspire to understand grace and to exemplify it in my behavior -- especially in times of trial, where everything I have and know and believe is being tested. I genuinely respect those who have their acts together to be graceful under fire and masterful in reacting in a way that shows a sense of self-control. When bad things happen, others can't help but watch to see how you react. Will you rant and storm about your misfortune? Will you melt down? Will you absolutely wallow in your sorrow and disappointment? Will you withdraw in isolation? Will you become bitter? Or will you stand up, dust yourself off and know that there is nowhere to go but forward? There is no point in looking back. People who spend too long staring into their rear-view mirrors are destined only to crash into what lies ahead.

A kind person recently called me on the telephone when she heard that I had lost my job and said, with a sense of cheerfulness, "Lisa, losing your job is not the worst thing that can happen to you in life." She's right. It hurts and sometimes it is confusing and scary, but the unemotional side of me understands that today's workplace is ruled by numbers. When not enough numbers show up in the right places in the accountant's ledger, other numbers must shift. It's small consolation, but it is reality. I get it. It's not personal from a business perspective. It's survival for them and then, in another way, it becomes survival for you.

So while I transition forward with whatever is next for me, I hope people will think I have some degree of grace in my little journey. I want to have a sense of grace about my daily living, a sense of peace, a sense of respect, and a sense of responsibility in how I handle my disappointment. I know that the way I react is a reflection of me, my family and all that I've ever known and done in my life. I suppose if I had to choose between having a job and a genuine sense of lifelong grace, the decision is easy. Jobs come and go, but grace is that underlying essence that shapes your acceptance of everything that lies ahead.

- January 16, 2012

Egalitarianism #3 - Jan. 11, 2012

It's been one week and one day since I lost my job and I've had a lot of time to think about it. It's probably human nature to wonder what I did wrong, or if I did anything that earned me future eligibility for unemployment? I'm certainly not perfect, but I made my deadlines, haven't had a sick day in several years, often don't use up my vacation, work around the clock, take complaints from people when it's not my job (and actually try to help them), and generally, came to work every day excited about my assignments. I certainly was not one of those people who burst out the back door to the parking lot each day at 5:30 on the dot!

Interestingly, there is one thing that probably did not help my cause, and that one thing is something that is essential for all people who go into newspaper reporting. It's a sense of egalitarianism. That's a big word, but the dictionary defines it as "a belief in human equality, especially with respect to social, political and economic affairs." In other words, a big part of my professional training, starting as a "Teen Page Correspondent" at the Winston-Salem Journal/Sentinel (N.C.) around age 16, was the required sense of treating all people equally and not getting star-struck. I can remember my old editor telling me that I had to be objective and impartial if I wanted to "make it in this business."

People in the news industry are around movers and shakers all the time, so you have to program your brain early to see sports figures, entertainment figures, political figures and the Donald Trumps of the world with equanimity. So what if they are the greatest basketball player, actor, world leader or richest man in Manhattan? At the end of the day, why should that make him or her different than the UPS guy or the cat sitter or the person who dumps your trash cans each day at the office? And truthfully, do you have the most contact with the sports hero and bazillionaire or with the UPS guy and cleaning crew?

I've done a pretty good job with that throughout my career and honestly, I think the only person who caused me to get a tiny bit rattled was tennis legend Billie Jean King. Maybe that's because I had a poster of her up in my room as a kid beside Swedish tennis legend Bjorn Borg and Australian tennis great Evonne Goolagong, and in my mind as a kid, it was almost as if Billie Jean invented women's sports. After all, she started Women's Sports magazine and was a founding influence in the Women's Sports Foundation. She helped put women on the map in sports and insisted to newspaper editors around the world that women athletes were relevant.

But what does all that have to do with why I lost my job? Maybe nothing, but also, maybe a lot. Everybody knows how office politics works. The "squeaky wheel gets the grease," right? So if you just hunker down in your office and work and don't "play the game," maybe you are regarded differently. Maybe you are perceived as not being fun or even respectful. You're not awed by much. You're not genuflecting or kowtowing. And if you treat others equally, which, ideally, should be an admirable trait, could that potentially come back and bite you if you don't stroke egos?

Maybe it's a case of genuine misunderstanding. I behave professionally as I have been trained. Perhaps others want or need another kind of person as a colleague or staff member -- one that does not have an egalitarian view of the world. If that's the case, then showing me the door was the only option because it's seemingly not in my DNA to alter my approach to people. Sure, it's fun and interesting to see what "stars" are like and to engage with them in conversation, but for me, unless it's Jesus Christ, Gandhi or Buddha, I'm probably not going to get too rattled in my interpersonal dealings. People are people. I believe that and respect them all on the same level. If that's a bad thing, then let me open my own door.

Anger #2 - Jan. 11, 2012

Anger might be one of the most primal human behaviors. It can flare up like a flame and cause a lot of damage. It seems to take shape sometimes before the brain even realizes that this deep, seething wave of energy is steamrolling through the body.

But as you mature, maybe you just have more experience in snuffing out the flame of anger. Maybe you recognize it faster and take action. Maybe you're old enough to not want to embarrass yourself by saying or doing things you will later regret.

While anger is not an admirable trait, it is a "normal" reaction, but if left to linger, anger is debilitating and destructive. It can totally compromise your objectives for happiness or success. It can eat you alive.

I was told by a close friend who is a practicing Buddhist to try a different approach to the things in life that are hurtful or cause anger. She told me to embrace the moment and to feel the things the moment causes me to experience. Through that process, the anger begins to dissipate. I'm not sure why it works, but it's almost as if you meet the source of your anger face to face, stare it down and then it slinks away.

Sure, when bad things happen, anger comes and goes, but I have learned to again, feel what I'm supposed to feel as a human being, and then let it go. Be angry, understand why I am angry, peel away the layers of that anger, and then release it.

Another thing that helps me is to go spend time on the beach. So many times when I have been angry or irritated, I have gravitated to an oceanside spot to try to escape the personal misery I have created. Standing there looking at the sea, comprised of wave after wave on a beach comprised of zillions of grains of sand, I realize what a small dot I am in the universe. I realize that God is pretty busy. I realize that my anger is not even worth a grain of sand in this beautiful place. And if I am fortunate enough to stand in such beauty with the gift of a new day, I am a fool to waste my emotions on the ugliness of anger.

Jan. 11, 2012

Capacity - #1

THE TRAILHEAD

I've been wanting to publish a blog for a long time, but I didn't know it would take losing my job to motivate me to do it.

So, I plan to explore some simple topics for however many more weeks or months it takes for me to get a new job. Each word will reflect a thought in this new journey, and each thought is considered a stepping stone in my growth as a changing person and as a human being engaged in the process of reaching some unknown and distant destination.

Sometimes the path is linear and sometimes it meanders and seemingly feels off course. The objective is to make my own path and to be fine with it, and also to understand there is no one way of getting anywhere.


Destinations and goals are always subject to change, just as status quo is subject to disruption. But while change has a way of rocking our world, it is not only good, but should be expected. It's just that most often when it happens, we have become comfortable, and suddenly, a change has forced into a scrambling mode. 

True, I'm patting my pockets right now, looking for the cell phone or the compass and wondering exactly where I am? The truth is, I am where I am, and where I'm supposed to be at this very moment. What I'm learning is there is a difference in being lost and not exactly knowing where I am.


Anyway, I'm taking you on this journey with me. Come along. We'll learn together.

- Lisa D. Mickey
January 8, 2012


1. CAPACITY

Capacity is an interesting word because it means so much. It means we have the capacity to live a life in a place that makes us happy. It means we have the capacity to think thoughts and to explore the world. We have the capacity to be whatever we want to be in life -- to live, to learn, to love, to explore, to work, to rest, to recreate and to move comfortably toward the end of our mortal existence. It means we have the ability to be what we want to be.

Capacity is the absolute potential to do anything or to, at least, attempt anything, but it requires effort. You can have the capacity to do anything, but if you don't exert or extend yourself, or if you don't explore or dream, then you will never know what your capacity is. The thought without effort is a mere concept.

Your capacity can take you in places you never knew you could go, doing things you never knew you could do, or even  thinking thoughts that never before interested you. Capacity is the threshold for infinite possibility. That's what human capacity really is -- possibility with effort.

And when you're looking to move ahead or beyond any transition that feels uncomfortable, or if you're just looking to move to the next destination, wherever it is, whatever it is, you have to have a belief in your own capacity to accomplish those goals, to engage and to venture forth. I think human capacity is the enabling aspect of human existence. Without capacity, we're mere objects -- stationary, transfixed, immobile, dreamless and without goals. Fortunately, we all have capacity. And because of it, perhaps the objective is to explore what our lifelong capacity is and where it can take us, fearlessly moving forward.