Posts Tagged ‘Purpose’
Allaying Grief Through Books
Photo: Antonio Mantero/Flickr
FOR three years after the death of her adored eldest sister, Anne-Marie, Nina Sankovitch mourned by staying relentlessly busy. She felt a guilt-strafed survivor’s obligation to live life enough for two.
The mother of four sons, she signed up for PTA committees, coached soccer and a Lego robotics team, taught art appreciation classes to elementary school students, took Pilates classes and parenting classes, joined a book group and a tennis group, began kayaking, started a theater group for children in her basement and a Web site for trading books, gardened ferociously and wrote a novel (unpublished).
But in her increasingly frantic efforts to taste joy for herself and her sister, she tasted only ashes. She would still wake in the night, sobbing.
Finally, she jettisoned almost all her commitments in favor of the one pursuit that had always given her special pleasure. She committed herself to reading a book a day for an entire year.
“After years of chasing after joy, I finally sat down and let it come to me,” Ms. Sankovitch, 48, a tall, tennis-vibrant woman, said over coffee at her kitchen table in Westport, Conn. A photo triptych of Anne-Marie in thick reading glasses, posing in merry solidarity with Ms. Sankovitch’s son Peter, wearing his first pair, gleams from a rosewood frame nearby.
On Oct. 28, 2008, her 46th birthday, Ms. Sankovitch began the project, dedicating it to Anne-Marie, who died four months after receiving a diagnosis of bile-duct cancer, a week shy of turning 47. That last day, driving home from an encouraging visit with her sister in the hospital, Ms. Sankovitch got the phone call, pulled her car to the side of the road and screamed.
In the resulting memoir, “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair” (Harper Collins), whose title alludes to her reading armchair of cat-clawed, faded purple brocade, Ms. Sankovitch writes about that redemptive year of contemplation. The book is also an account of her family traumas: not only the death of Anne-Marie but also the World War II murders of three of her father’s siblings. It is a meditation on grief and healing, on values held sacred by her family and the life well lived. It is, of course, a paean to reading.
“I was looking to books for more than just escape and pleasure,” said Ms. Sankovitch, an accomplished environmental lawyer who gradually gave up practicing after she had children. Now she was seeking answers about “how to live with sorrow and how to find my place in the world.”
While the mechanics of the project could occasionally be daunting, Ms. Sankovitch found the solace she yearned for. Books like “The Laws of Evening,” the short story collection by Mary Yukari Waters, taught her about addressing loss. “The characters were past the denial stage, past anger,” she said. “They were figuring out how to go on living with loss. Everyone’s solution was different, but many used memory to cope, as proof that good things will come again.”
Diana Athill reinforced that lesson. “Somewhere Towards the End” is a memoir she published at 91. “Every day is still a new day for her,” Ms. Sankovitch said.
Sitting in Ms. Sankovitch’s sunny kitchen, as her sons, ages 10 through 17, tromp in and out of the house, and talking books with her can be just plain fun. As she trades ideas about characters, her blue eyes sparkle. She opens a worn notepad to jot down unfamiliar titles.
“I do read a Kindle on the exercise bike, but I love a real book, especially from the library or a used one,” she said. “I like knowing that other people have held it. I like reading what others have scribbled in the margins. I’ve even seen people make little grammar-correcting marks.”
Seeking safe haven in reading was natural for a woman who grew up in a family of book worshippers. Her middle sister, Natasha, had been a comparative literature professor (later a lawyer); her Belgian mother, Tilde, taught French literature at Northwestern. The year her Belarusian father, Anatole, now a retired surgeon, spent in a sanatorium for tuberculosis, he and another patient read novels aloud to each other. The books Ms. Sankovitch read to her young sons, all passionate readers, include volumes of poetry she had written for them.
Reading was a means of communication for her close-knit family, with its European formality. “My parents are private people,” Ms. Sankovitch said. “Americans are raised to ask personal questions. But I feel that if something isn’t my business, I won’t pry. Books are a shield and a way to get closer to those questions, so you can talk about taboo subjects. You can have those intimate conversations without prying.”
Anne-Marie was an art historian who loved the written word, and the sisters, unlike in many ways, often found common ground through books. “She was smarter than me and more beautiful,” Ms. Sankovitch said sadly, recalling her sister. “But I was more fearless and socially adept. She didn’t suffer fools. I’d been at dinner parties where she would up and leave if she was bored. But she was a saint to me.”
In “Tolstoy and the Purple Chair,” she describes how she and other family members would bring books to Anne-Marie’s sickbed. The visits often included book chats. After her death, the family dedicated a bench in her memory in the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, where passers-by can sit, contemplate the surrounding blooming beauty and read.
During her reading year, Ms. Sankovitch received recommendations for books from readers of a blog she had started (readallday.org), where she posted short reviews of each book. She also drew inspiration from the deep, eclectic collection in the Westport Public Library.
“My year would have been different with a different library, in a different town,” she said. She discovered new stacks, exploring genres outside her comfort zone of novels: essays, plays, science fiction, travel.
Typically reading 70 pages an hour, she’d try to finish each book in about four hours. She still did the laundry and carpooling, reading while the boys were in school, percolating at night, posting in the morning.
She described her reviews as “a public diary.”
“They’re not intellectual dismemberment,” she continued, “but more of my emotional response to the book.”
About “Little Bee,” the devastating novel by Chris Cleave, she wrote: “We connect to those we can see and touch; we protect the ones we can. But even then, a sister can die, and you won’t even know it until you get the phone call driving home over the Henry Hudson Bridge after what you thought was a very good day.”
The quixotic intensity of the project did not surprise those who know Ms. Sankovitch: she seems hard-wired for the full-bore experience. When tennis elbow threatened to forfeit her daily match with her husband, Jack Menz, a Manhattan lawyer (their home sits on two acres, including a clay court), she switched to her left hand, playing poorly but gamely. As a young associate at a Manhattan firm, a position demanding 16-hour days, she was focused and efficient, largely because other priorities called, including books. She would skip lunch and close her door to read for pleasure.
Once, while biking, recalled Stephanie Young, a friend from Harvard Law School, Ms. Sankovitch mentioned that her father advised “everything in moderation.”
At that, Ms. Young laughed. “Nina doesn’t do anything in moderation,” she said. “While she was telling us this, she was eating her sixth FrozFruit bar.”
As Ms. Sankovitch began to emerge from grief during her year of reading, her husband said the impact on the entire family was salutary.
“Nina had such a serenity,” Mr. Menz said. “And part of it was that the pace of her life was just slower than everyone else’s. We had fun dinners, because you’d not only hear about what our guys did during the day, but Nina would talk about the new characters she had just read. I’d watch Giants games with our son Michael, and she’d be there, but reading. We just gave her that space.”
Now, Ms. Sankovitch’s own readers have written her, saying that her memoir has become their handbook about how to read through grief.
“I am so happy that what I found in books, someone else might have found in mine,” Ms. Sankovitch said. “It’s all back to Anne-Marie, what a tribute to her.” She is thinking of writing a new book, based on letters from the late 19th century that she found in the family’s former Upper West Side brownstone.
And she is still reading. Last November, she proposed that she and her husband tackle “War and Peace” together. He somehow set it aside.
Naturally, Ms. Sankovitch finished. But not until January.
Some books are just not meant to be read in a day.
~Jan Hoffman
The Most Important Thing In Life
Photo: Kelly Vaclavek/Flickr
Lots of people have hobbies. Some people collect old coins or foreign stamps, some do needlework, others spend most of their spare time on a particular sport.
A lot of people enjoy reading. But reading tastes differ widely. Some people only read newspapers or comics, some like reading novels, while others prefer books on astronomy, wildlife, or technological discoveries. If I happen to be interested in horses or precious stones, I cannot expect everyone else to share my enthusiasm.
If I watch all the sports programs on TV with great pleasure, I must put up with the fact that other people find sports boring. Is there nothing that interests us all? Is there nothing that concerns everyone—no matter who they are or where they live in the world? Yes… there are questions that certainly should interest everyone. They are precisely the questions this course is about.
What is the most important thing in life? If we ask someone living on the edge of starvation, the answer is food. If we ask someone dying of cold, the answer is warmth. If we put the same question to someone who feels lonely and isolated, the answer will probably be the company of other people.
But when these basic needs have been satisfied—will there still be something that everybody needs? Philosophers think so. They believe that man cannot live by bread alone. Of course everyone needs food. And everyone needs love and care. But there is something else—apart from that—which everyone needs, and that is to figure out who we are and why we are here.
Being interested in why we are here is not a “casual” interest like collecting stamps. People who ask such questions are taking part in a debate that has gone on as long as man has lived on this planet. How the universe, the earth, and life came into being is a bigger and more important question than who won the most gold medals in the last Olympics.
The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live? People have been asking these questions throughout the ages. We know of no culture which has not concerned itself with what man is and where the world came from.
Basically there are not many philosophical questions to ask. We have already asked some of the most important ones. But history presents us with many different answers to each question. So it is easier to ask philosophical questions than to answer them.
Today as well each individual has to discover his own answer to these same questions. You cannot find out whether there is a God or whether there is life after death by looking in an encyclopedia. Nor does the encyclopedia tell us how we ought to live. However, reading what other people have believed can help us formulate our own view of life.
Philosophers’ search for the truth resembles a detective story. Some think Andersen was the murderer, others think it was Nielsen or Jensen. The police are sometimes able to solve a real crime. But it is equally possible that they never get to the bottom of it, although there is a solution somewhere. So even if it is difficult to answer a question, there may be one—and only one—right answer. Either there is a kind of existence after death—or there is not.
A lot of age-old enigmas have now been explained by science. What the dark side of the moon looks like was once shrouded in mystery. It was not the kind of thing that could be solved by discussion, it was left to the imagination of the individual. But today we know exactly what the dark side of the moon looks like, and no one can “believe” any longer in the Man in the Moon, or that the moon is made of green cheese.
A Greek philosopher who lived more than two thousand years ago believed that philosophy had its origin in man’s sense of wonder. Man thought it was so astonishing to be alive that philosophical questions arose of their own accord.
It is like watching a magic trick. We cannot understand how it is done. So we ask: how can the magician change a couple of white silk scarves into a live rabbit?
A lot of people experience the world with the same incredulity as when a magician suddenly pulls a rabbit out of a hat which has just been shown to them empty.
In the case of the rabbit, we know the magician has tricked us. What we would like to know is just how he did it. But when it comes to the world it’s somewhat different. We know that the world is not all sleight of hand and deception because here we are in it, we are part of it. Actually, we are the white rabbit being pulled out of the hat. The only difference between us and the white rabbit is that the rabbit does not realize it is taking part in a magic trick. Unlike us. We feel we are part of something mysterious and we would like to know how it all works.
~Jostien Gaarder
A Passion For Coffee
Photo: C-More Awesomeness/Flickr
My love of coffee developed when I first went to work as head of marketing for the four stores of a small coffee company named Starbucks. That was in 1982. I didn’t truly discover coffee’s magic, however, until one year later on a business trip to Italy. That visit was the seed of what blossomed into today’s Starbucks Coffee Company.
Early one day in Milan, I was strolling from my hotel to a trade show when I popped into a small coffee bar. “Buon giorno!” an older, thin man behind the counter greeted me, as if I were a regular. Moving gracefully and with precision, he seemed to be doing a delicate dance as he ground coffee beans, steamed milk, pulled shots of espresso, made cappuccinos, and chatted with customers standing side by side at the coffee bar. Everyone in the tiny shop seemed to know each other, and I sensed that I was witnessing a daily ritual.
“Espresso?” he asked me.
I nodded and watched as he repeated the ritual for me, looking up to smile as the espresso machine hissed and whirred with purpose. This is not his job, I thought, it’s his passion.
For a tall guy who grew up playing football in the schoolyards of Brooklyn, being handed a tiny white porcelain demitasse filled with dark coffee crafted just for me by a gracious Italian gentleman called a barista was nothing less than transcendent.
This was so much more than a coffee break; this was theater. An experience in and of itself.
After the espresso’s rich flavors had warmed me, I thanked the barista and cashier and continued toward the trade show exhibit hall, stopping along the way at more coffee bars. There seemed to be at least one on every block! Inside, there was always a similar scene: a skilled barista or two behind a bar creating espressos, cappuccinos—and other drinks I had yet to taste—for people who seemed more like friends than customers. In every bar I felt the hum of community and a sense that, over a demitasse of espresso, life slowed down.
The blend of craftsmanship and human connection, combined with the warm aroma and energizing flavors of fresh coffee, struck an emotional chord. My mind raced. It was as if I envisioned my own future and the future of Starbucks, which at the time sold only whole-bean and ground coffee in bags for home consumption.
~Howard Schultz
The Hunt For Approval
Photo: Stephane Photographie/Flickr
It is a good idea to look at how much we keep looking for recognition altogether. It can be embarrassing, but often, as soon as we do anything of note, it is as if we were little children at a playground shouting. “Watch me, mama! Look at me! Look what I can do!” And when whatever we have done is not acknowledged or recognized, how quickly we get puffy and upset.
This gives us a chance to examine our whole relationship to approval and recognition, even fame. The idea is not that recognition in itself is a bad thing, or that we should not encourage or recognize others. It can be inspiring to see the kinds of creative works, intellectual insights, ingenious problem solving, and acts of heroism and kindness that people have accomplished: it can inspire us to do similar things. Especially in a world dominated by bad news and focus on the many problems we face, it is good to applaud people who do good. The problem arises when we expect our actions to be rewarded.
It is surprising how quickly our expectations trigger emotions such as anger, jealousy, righteous indignation, and self-pity. Instead of being able to appreciate what comes our way, we fester about how we didn’t get the praise or recognition we rightfully deserved. And if what we are doing is all about being seen, when we are not seen, the wind goes out of our sails and we founder.
Another problem with the hunt for approval is that to gain approval you must buy in to the dominant values of the society around you. If what gets approval is getting rich, that is what you strive for; if it is beauty, that is what you obsess about; if it is power over others, that is what you focus on. The desperation for outer rewards goes hand-in-hand with an increasing sense of inner poverty. If you are successful in your quest for recognition, you may be able to ignore what you have given up to achieve it. If you are unsuccessful, you may simply blame the system. But in either case, since you have given over our power to others, you are left empty.
When you notice you are expecting applause, explore what lies behind that expectation. Notice the subtle shift between when you have done something and when you begin to look around you for recognition.
~Judy Lief
Never sell your soul to the Man…
Photo: Hitesh Sheladiya/Flickr
I tell my students, “Never sell your soul to the Man.” By that I mean, be your own person and never, ever let someone else own you, or control your life. The danger, of course, is that you get on a slippery slope where you enjoy the money, power, and recognition for what you’re doing, but it doesn’t stir your passions.
If you follow that course, you may wake up some day and find yourself so far away from the real you – and what you really want to do with your life – that you feel trapped, in a box, and don’t have the courage to give it all up and do what you want to do. Ten years later, you ask whatever happened to the person who dreamed the impossible dream?
I’ve dreamed that impossible dream many times in completely different situations. At first, I feel like I am climbing through solid rock; but if I stay the course, the dream not only comes true but goes far beyond anything I ever imagined. . .
~ Bill George
Change
Photo: Daylily18/Flickr
Change. Had more than your share? Wishing you could freeze-frame the video of your world? Would it help to stand in Saint Peter’s Square and tell the fellow on the balcony, “Stop! No more change!”?
Save your breath. He can’t help. If you’re looking for a place with no change, try a soda machine. With life comes change.
With change comes fear, insecurity, sorrow, stress. So what do you do? Hibernate? Take no risks for fear of failing? Give no love for fear of losing? Some opt to. They hold back.
A better idea is to look up. Set your bearings on the one and only North Star in the universe – God. For though life changes, he never does.
~ Max Lucado from the book It’s Not About Me
At the Crossroads
In our lifetime, we will encounter many crossroads that will bring life changing moments and alter our directions. We pray the shift will be for the better. Often, decisions made at the crossroads, or crucial points in our lives, will either spell the prosperous beginnings, or endings of our careers, relationships, and spiritual quests.
And when the choice has been made, the journey should begin with sure and forward steps.
Recent events, like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the conflict in Libya, the people power in Egypt, and the earthquake in New Zealand, may have awakened the sleeping indecisions in our lives. Life is too short to wait for opportunities. We must seek the opportunities and do what must be done. Life must not drift – it must flow. We observe in awe, Japanese strength, calm, dignity, grace, discipline, and sacrifice over the tragic events that befell their country. And yet in quiet resolute they continue to pick up the pieces to rebuild their lives amidst grief and hardship. And then we ask ourselves, what if the same things happened to us? What then?
And yet, as the world responds, life goes on.
At the crossroads, we tarry a little and move on. We should trudge on even if the path is unsure. We equip ourselves with fighting spirit – our armor – to conquer all obstacles, and the sword of positive opportunities determined to succeed.
We look back. We review the roads taken and not taken. We ask ourselves why? Have we been passive or active in our decisions? Have we thought about ideas and not acted just the same? We wait until the opportunity passes and then, it is lost forever. People who touched our lives will be retained in our memories and their images will always give us hope. They will be our Angels forever. There will also be people who will leave indelible imprints. Like a recorder, we will replay in our memories the people who gave us the stepping stones to succeed, and those who put shackles on our feet – making us stumble. Again, who were those who extended a helping hand so that we could stand up again? We shiver at the thought of plasticity. Then we smile, they were all part of our journey providing either a bumpy or smooth ride.
We decide finally, it is time to move on from the crossroads. We choose, then we glide cautiously, one step at a time – a step higher in spirit and knowledge, regardless of what people say.
We will not be burdened by the prognosis of a judgmental society. We will not be social slaves – unable to move without approval.
Since this is the month of graduation. Many graduates will be at the crossroads. Deciding whether to take a job that is not exactly the course he or she has taken. Some will dive into the opportunities and others will wait. The quandary will be real. Their new world will not exactly be perfect.
I am reminded of an inspirational story about a graduate who wanted a car for a gift from his father. When the father gave him a Bible, he did not bother to look into it. He instead left his father and ventured into the world. When the father died, the same Bible was given to him and when he opened it, there he found the key to the car he wanted. If only he had looked.
The crossroads presents itself in the most unguarded moments and times. It is the choice we have to make – and there is no turning back.
~ Stella de Guia
Lessons From Pacquiao Vs. Margarito
Manny Pacquiao does more than make Filipino hearts swell with pride and lower the crime rate to almost zero during a fight.
On a micro-scale—the family unit, the level that matters the most—he opens the opportunity for kids to learn what winning is all about, especially in this time and age when victory means crushing the enemy and gloating.
Sensing the frenzy online and my furious following of tweets on the fight, my twin sons asked me: “Why does Pacquiao always win?” “Because he practices like crazy!” I answer instantly.
According to Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, successful individuals—The Beatles, Bill Gates, for example—have spent at least 10,000 hours of their lives doing what they have become famous for.
Make this fact relatable to your children by pointing out what they like to do, or what skill or talent they have. One of my sons, Mateo, is heavily into origami—not just the paper boat and and plane stuff, but the hardcore, intricate creations: trilobytes, crane with feet, five-petalled lily, frog. He even gave “lessons” recently at Expo Kid in Rockwell. He began last year on his own, sans teacher, and was hooked.
Lesson no. 1: Practice, train, and rehearse your skills every chance you get.
But Pacquiao didn’t ALWAYS win. In 2005, he lost to Erik Morales. After, Freddie Roach came into his life and has since been unbeatable. I point this out to Marco and Mateo. “To also win, you have to have a good coach or mentor.”
Sports journalist Allen Barra writes in The Daily Beast: “(Roach) has worked with dozens of champions over the years and learned his training skills from the great Eddie Futch. He told me Pacquiao is, ‘Maybe the greatest two-handed fighter I’ve ever seen. You see a lot of great fighters who have one great punch and a good second punch. Joe Louis had the greatest jab I’ve ever seen. Joe Frazier had a great left hook, Mike Tyson had a killer right. But Manny has the best punch of anyone in boxing with either his right or his left.’”
Lesson no. 2: Choose a teacher that will help you excel.
While many get caught up in what people think of them, putting image before purpose, Pacquiao remains focused on his goal: winning the fight. Training with a single-mindedness chronicled in other reports, he also remains unfazed by criticism and trash-talk.
Marco sums it up: “You mean he believes in himself?”
Exactly. Stand your ground.
Lesson no. 3: Be strong within so you can be strong on the outside.
Pacquiao is also known for “lifting up” his fights to God and country. I point this out to the boys.
We are not a religious family, but—I like to believe—a faithful one. Mateo considers his good night prayers a powerful call to a Divine Force to protect him. This is the same God that allows (because He could very well NOT) Pacman to win.
Lesson no. 4: When you call to God to help you in a fight, you’ll know you’ll win; and if you don’t, there’s a really good reason why.
In the last rounds, I show the twins how Pacquiao is just prancing around, when he could have easily battered Margarito into a human burrito.
Post-fight, the 8-time Welterweight Champion tells the commentator: “Boxing is not for killing each other.”
Marco, struggling for the words in his 6-year old vocabulary, remarks when I ask him what he thinks about Pacman letting Margarito go. “It’s only a game…it’s about compassion.”
Lesson no. 5: The gracious and merciful victor is the best kind of all.
P.U.S.H. That Rock!
A man was sleeping at night in his cabin when suddenly his room filled with light and the Savior appeared. The Lord told the man he had work for him to do, and showed him a large rock in front of his cabin. The Lord explained that the man was to push against the rock with all his might.
This the man did, day after day. For many years he toiled from sun up to sun down, his shoulders set squarely against the cold, massive surface of the unmoving rock, pushing with all his might. Each night the man returned to his cabin sore, and worn out, feeling that his whole day had been spent in vain.
Seeing that the man was showing signs of discouragement, the Adversary decided to enter the picture by placing thoughts into the man’s weary mind: “You have been pushing against that rock for a long time, and it hasn’t budged. Why kill yourself over this? You are never going to move it.”
This gave the man the impression that the task was impossible and that he was a failure. These thoughts discouraged and disheartened the man. “Why kill myself over this?” he thought. “I’ll just put in my time, giving just the minimum effort and that will be good enough.”
And that is what he planned to do until one day he decided to make it a matter of prayer and take his troubled thoughts to the Lord. “Lord” he said, “I have labored long and hard in your service, putting all my strength to do that which you have asked. Yet, after all this time, I have not even budged that rock by half a millimeter. What is wrong? Why am I failing?”
The Lord responded compassionately, “My friend, when I asked you to serve me and you accepted, I told you that your task was to push against the rock with all your strength, which you have done. Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it. Your task was to push. And now you come to me, with your strength spent, thinking that you have failed.
But, is that really so? Look at yourself. Your arms are strong and muscled, your back sinewy and brown, your hands are callused from constant pressure, and your legs have become massive and hard. Through opposition you have grown much and your abilities now surpass that which you used to have. Yet you haven’t moved the rock. But your calling was to be obedient and to push and to exercise your faith and trust in My wisdom. This you have done. I, my friend, will now move the rock.”
At times, when we hear a word from God, we tend to use our own intellect to decipher what He wants, when actually what God wants is just simple obedience and faith in Him….By all means, exercise the faith that moves mountains, but know that it is still God who moves the mountains. Just P.U.S.H! (Pray until something happens).
- Patrick Kelly
Look Ahead
If you focus on what you left behind, you will never be able to see what lies ahead…
- Gusteau
- from the movie, Ratatouille
