A Real Reach

I have lived long enough so that almost everything I do has been criticized by someone for some reason. Being a quick learner and a bit too sensitive, I have been way too fast to drop those things from my repertoire. Now I am going around, re-collecting them, and reinserting them at the appropriate places.

It is not easy, but if I don't do it soon, I will be as blank and bland as a paper doll cut out of that old newsprint our art teachers handed out in elementary school. I personally have always preferred crusty old people, who have definite opinions and even gnarly personalities, as long as their hearts are good. If I had to choose between one of them and Polly Perfect, guess who'd win?

I am discovering that as long as there is a twinkle in my eye, people will put up with an awful lot from me! Twinkling should not be under estimated, it is a very valuable commodity. Those big eyes with long blue eyelashes I drew on all my people in first grade were just harbingers of the really important things in life. I look for them in the faces I see now. I also look for the big smiles and open arms with hands and fingers wide open.

Teaching taught me that you can have a productive and lively class filled with leaders if you make sure there are many choices available and all of them are acceptable. Thirty people in sync is good in a Broadway musical, but once they step off stage it becomes a little spooky to me. Now, thirty people, all doing something different, yet each one contributing something to the whole? That's awesome! Complicated. A real reach for some of us, but still awesome.

That is what I am reaching for.