Category Archives: Life Lessons

Wisdom gained

Maria Diecidue: Empowering communities in India for water sustainability

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The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
– Mahatma Gandhi

Preface: I met Maria Diecidue at a healthcare information technology conference meeting about four years ago. Each year, at this same conference, we got to know one another a bit more. When Maria, who lives and works in Chicago, briefly mentioned having gone to India through a corporate service program the last time we saw one another, I wanted to learn more. We didn’t get a chance to catch up, but when I started my blog last December, I knew I wanted her to share her story not just with me but with a wider like-minded audience.

A ‘bleeding heart liberal’ meets a ‘blue washing’
When she was young, Maria Diecidue, who describes herself as a “bleeding heart liberal,” wanted to join the Peace Corps. But as so often happens in life, she went down a different path. Years later, after IBM acquired the healthcare information technology company she was working for, Maria learned about IBM’s culture of giving at an employee orientation or “blue washing.” “It’s nice to hear that a multi-billion dollar corporation can be self-deprecating once in a while,” she said, of the “blue washing” reference. During the orientation, she was especially pleased to hear about IBM’s commitment to corporate citizenship. And, when she heard about the Corporate Service Corps, a four-week program modeled after the Peace Corps, she was ready to “drink the Kool-aid.” In the Corporate Service Corps, volunteers bring their knowledge and skills to an emerging country to address a community problem. Maria’s initial response was: “Where do I sign up? When can I go?”

Maria with her IBM colleagues and NGO India@75 (left to right): Arun Chaube of India@75, Miguel Contreras, interpreter Namita Goel of India@75, Zach Waltz, and Maria. (Photo credit: Mamtha Sharma, IBM)

Maria with her IBM colleagues and NGO India@75 (left to right): Arun Chaube of India@75, Miguel Contreras, interpreter Namita Goel of India@75, Zach Waltz, and Maria. (Photo credit: Mamtha Sharma, IBM)

Once she met the requirements to apply – employed for at least a year, good performance rating, and manager approval – she eagerly submitted her application, which included her preference to go to Asia from among IBM’s four geographical service areas. In her application letter, Maria talked about how population health has always been a challenge and how industrialization has made it worse. She firmly believes and is impassioned by the idea that technology should be used, not only for profit, but to solve global problems. In her essay, Maria also described her passion for environmental issues and the importance of a sustainable environment. As a docent for the Chicago Architecture Foundation, Maria was interested in the built environment and its impact on the earth.

Meeting members of the local NGOs. (Photo credit: Arun Chaube, India@75)

Meeting members of the local NGOs. (Photo credit: Arun Chaube, India@75)

Maria, who is an IA Communications manager for IBM Information Management, was accepted into the program in May 2011, but not given her assignment until six months later. It wasn’t until the end of April 2012, however, after receiving about ten hours of instructions and cultural immersion lessons, that she and 12 other IBM employees were deployed to Indore, India, a city of two million people in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. They were divided into four groups, with each group assigned to a local NGO (nongovernmental organization). There are some 18,000 NGOs, which are supported by the business community, working throughout India, according to Maria. She and her two partners, both business consultants, Miguel Contreras from Chile with a background in mining and Zach Waltz, a fellow American with a background in government, were assigned to develop a basic toolkit of do’s and don’ts for water sustainability and management.

The "water goddesses" of Indore. (Photo credit: Miguel Contreras, IBM)

The “water goddess” (in red) of Rahul Ghandi Negar. (Photo credit: Miguel Contreras, IBM)

Tackling India’s water issues
Maria and her colleagues were dispatched to vulnerable communities – or slums, as they are called in the U.S. As many as 600,000 Indore citizens live in vulnerable communities. In most of these communities, water is delivered by big tanker trucks and the women and children who were responsible for collecting and transporting water via buckets and tubs to their communities. In Indian culture, women raise the children, cook, clean, and gather and distribute water. Many kids don’t go to school because they have to wait for the water trucks to show up, which at times is in the middle of the night. Even though the women had interpreters who could translate Hindi to English and vice versa, Maria said, “You could actually understand the women, understand their passion. It transcended language. It was magical.” During her visit to the Rahul Ghandi Negar community, Maria met some amazing women who she refers to as “our water goddesses.” Despite being treated as second-class citizens in their own country – by virtue of their ability to get cooperation and collect money from the community members – they established themselves as community leaders. They convinced the local municipality that they can manage a bore well and got one dug in the Rahul Ghandi Negar. Now, water is available in the community a few hours a day, several days a week. Maria’s hope is that the kids will be able to go to school regularly now that they are closer to the water source.

Maria and her colleagues at a meeting with the BGMS NGO, which is dedicated to women empowerment. (Photo credit: Arun Chaube, India@75)

Maria and her colleagues at a meeting with the BGMS NGO, which is dedicated to women empowerment. (Photo credit: Arun Chaube, India@75)

In addition to observing the vulnerable communities, Maria and her colleagues visited developments for the growing middle class and schools for upper-class students. “Everyone is tapping into the same underground water-aquifer,” she explained, so all communities need to be educated on water sustainability. When the three saw how India’s natural water sources – its lakes and rivers – were polluted, Maria said, “We realized [access to clean water] was a problem not just for vulnerable communities but all communities, and it can’t be solved by one person.” One of the causes of water pollution in India is the lack of infrastructure for waste. All garbage, including plastic, is burned, which releases toxins such as fluorocarbon in the air and further exacerbates the environmental problems plaguing the country, she pointed out.

One of her colleagues was trained in a methodology developed by McKinsey & Company, in which transformation change requires changing the mindset, behavior, and capabilities of people. “A big part of that is recognizing and cultivating leaders and then replicating leadership within the community,” she explained. Maria and her colleagues worked with other NGOs in the area, comprising anywhere between five to 50 people, giving them the basic toolkit and designed to cultivate them into the green leaders of Indore by modeling the characteristics of the women they observed – the “charismatic ‘water goddesses.'” The toolkit itself teaches average citizens sustainable water management – how to  manage water supply by harvesting rain water, recharging wells, and reusing grey water in the house, office, and community. Once the NGOs are trained, they continue the process of identifying and cultivating leaders, which creates a culture of self-sufficiency. “We worked nights and weekends [within the four-week period] to get it done,” she said.

The future green leader of Indore. (Photo credit: Maria Diecidue)

The future green leader of Indore with Miguel Contreras. (Photo credit: Maria Diecidue)

Maria and her colleagues conducted an awareness class in the schools, asking these students how they would manage water if they couldn’t get it from the tap or only had access to it for one hour a day but not every day of the week. Maria and her colleagues asked them if they knew anyone who did not have water running from the tap at home. They did. “We went through exercises with the students to try to enlighten them of these conditions that people in their own town have to deal with because they can’t access water,” she said. When students were challenged to come up with solutions, initially, their response was for everyone to get rid of the swimming pools. By the end of the program, students learned, for example, to take short showers, turn off the tap while brushing teeth, and washing and reuse gray water from dishwashing for watering plants. “They were very receptive, and it worked really well,” she said. “It was very moving.”

Great expectations and life post-India
Going into the program, Maria was hoping to “do some good and make a difference,” although, she admitted, “I had no concept of how I could make a dent in this whole big problem of water management.” She knew, however, that the experience would have a great impact on her – learning about an entirely different culture. The people she met were very warm and generous, sharing what they had, regardless of their socio-economic class. When they visited families in their homes, Maria and her colleagues were greeted with flowers and bindis on their foreheads. “It was like a religious ceremony; there was something spiritual about it,” she said, of the visits.

When Maria returned, she gave a presentation on her team’s efforts on water sustainability to her immediate and higher-level management groups. “In some ways, everything’s changed,” she said, of her experience. Not surprisingly, she is more sensitized to the sustainability of water and the environment. Coincidently Maria’s significant other had previously adopted six children from India, and spending time there gave her an understanding of his children’s birth country and created a deeper bond with him. She also formed a bond with the IBM team members in her group and her circle of friendship has expanded to Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, Japan, and Mexico.

Maria with some of the children from Indore. (Photo credit: Miguel Contreras, IBM)

Maria with some of the children from Indore. (Photo credit: Miguel Contreras, IBM)

The physical challenges of living for two years in an emerging country at this stage in her life (Maria is 62) will likely preclude her from joining the Peace Corps upon retirement, which was something she thought she considered years ago, she doesn’t shut down the idea completely. “I don’t know, maybe, we’ll see,” she said, gamely. For now, she volunteers with IBM’s mentor program at a Chicago high school, which is collaborating with businesses and being funded by the federal government as a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Academy. She recently presented at the academy, talking about her experiences in India and emphasizing the message of sustainability. She continues to do volunteer work, the most recent one for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. “Volunteer work,” Maria said, with conviction, “will always to be a part of my life.” In the meantime, she is happy to be working with a company that encourages its employees to do volunteer work and in doing so is a model for corporate citizenship. “We need more of this in the world,” she said.

What youth baseball has taught me

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Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.
– Babe Ruth, Major League Baseball player

Opening day with friend and teammate Isaac, Pinto Seals, March 2008.

Opening day with friend and teammate Isaac, Pinto Seals, March 2008.

When my son Jacob began playing tee ball in first grade, I never attended a single game that season. Don’t get me wrong. I was a long-time baseball fan since before high school – this dates me, but my favorite player was Carlton Fisk of the Boston Red Sox in the 1970s – and I have been a San Francisco Giants fan since moving to the Bay Area in 1990. But I wasn’t ready to join the ranks of parents who spent their weekends at their children’s sporting events. I didn’t want to give up my weekends. Fast forward two years. In third grade, he showed skills and a love for the game, which reawakened my love for the game. Fast forward four more years, after David has been coaching Jacob’s teams and managed one of the league division’s summer all-star teams for two years. David now manages Jacob’s travel team, the Hornets, who play in tournaments every other weekend.

Jacob at the plate, Pinto Seals, spring 2009.

Jacob at the plate, Pinto Seals, spring 2009.

Baseball is life
They say baseball is life, and if you love the game you understand why. Team sports teach kids how to work together towards a goal, instead of as individuals. Every player on the field has a role in every play; the moment the pitcher is in the wind-up, the other eight players are moving (or should be moving) in anticipation of the ball coming to them. I’ve heard David tell all the kids on the field, “The ball’s coming to you!” (Years earlier, David once told Jacob that when he was playing the outfield as a kid, he always wanted the ball to be hit to him. That was fire in the belly.) If the ball isn’t hit to them, they should be moving, either to where the ball is or to the next play, covering the bases or the immediate areas to back up their teammates. You should always have your teammate’s back.

Little League Day with the Oakland A's: Geo Gonzalez signs baseballs for Jacob and his buddy and teammate Nic after participating in the pre-game Chalk Talk on the field.

Little League Day with the Oakland A’s, April 2010: Geo Gonzalez signs baseballs for Jacob and his buddy and teammate Nic after their participation in the pre-game Chalk Talk on the field.

Moms in the stands
Like most moms, I wanted my son to do his best and to suck it up when he made an error, but, of course, he wasn’t supposed to make any errors. During summer ball after third grade, Jacob had meltdowns when he made an error. He took himself out of the game by stomping around in the outfield or defiantly putting his arms to the side in right field, basically giving up while his team was in play. I was aghast – horrified – and angry. David had long talks with him about not letting his team down. It was one thing to beat yourself up and quit, but you can’t shortchange your team. (We used to call him the master of self-flagellation, a trait no doubt he had gotten from me but had taken to new heights.)

He still gets upset when he’s pitching and not getting the support defensively or when he’s still thinking about his called-strike-three at bat to end the inning before. I can see it in his body language – the slumped shoulders, the hard blinking to keep the tears at bay – but he isn’t melting down to the point of being useless to his teammates. That comes from slow-growth maturity. And as painful as it was and still is for me, his mom, to watch from the stands, I realize that he is learning on a stage – the baseball field, in front of coaches, teammates, and families – which is something that I, as a painfully shy child, could not imagine.

Hornets, 2nd place at San Anselmo, July 2011.

Hornets, 2nd place at San Anselmo, July 2011.

Embracing risk
When he moved up from the Pinto level (grassy infield and squishy ball) to the Mustang level (dirt infield and hard ball), he worked himself out of the position of shortstop, which he had played with such fierceness and command the year before. He confessed to his fear of the ball, which greatly disappointed me. I kept telling him he just needed to overcome his fear. Although he has embraced centerfield, overcoming fear is still an important life lesson.

I never realized that I was risk-averse, too, when it came to youth baseball. If Jacob pitched two great innings in a game, I wanted him to come out after that inning, not only to preserve an unblemished pitching effort but also to have him leave the mound with more confidence. If the team was winning or in a tight game in the latter innings, some of us moms in the stands would hold our breath, wondering if our son was going to pitch, and then breathe a sigh of relief when our son didn’t trot to the mound and pick up the ball.

Hornets, 2nd place, San Anselmo, July 2012.

Hornets, 2nd place, San Anselmo, July 2012.

Last year, in one of the tournament games he pitched a great two innings and in the process threw very few pitches. His team was ahead and it was the other team’s last chance to overcome the Hornets. Jacob overthrew the ball, trying to strike out the side in the bottom of the sixth. He walked batters and gave up hits. Soon the lead shifted and the other team won. Jacob was devastated. I was devastated, too. But the other emotion that coursed through me was anger. How could David let him pitch that third inning, when two is the modus operandi? Why push his limit? Why, to be more pointed, ruin the great two innings he had just pitched? David’s response: He pitched well those two innings and threw 19 pitches total, so they put him out there again, expecting the same stellar results. He has to learn how to handle the pressure, David concluded. I didn’t agree with the reasoning. The season ended with me still believing a new pitcher should have been inserted.

After three games on a Saturday in Fremont, we're still standing.

After three games on a Saturday in Fremont, we’re still standing, May 2013.

A New season
In a recent tournament in Sunnyale, one of our Hornets moms, Yoko, told me she accepts that we can’t control many things in life and has developed a Zen mentality for everything, including youth baseball. She sings the Kelly Clarkson song, “What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger,” to her son and daughter. In that same tournament, in their first game, Jacob had pitched well in his first inning, and although he pitched well his second inning, the opposing team tied the game. I didn’t expect to see him come out for the “sudden death” extra inning, but he was sent back to the mound for a third inning because he had a low pitch count and he had pitched well overall.

Ready for a Hornets game!

Ready for a Hornets game!

In sudden death, the opposing team gets to determine where in their line-up they want to start their inning, with runners already at first and second. Jacob overthrew a pitch or two before collecting himself to record the first two outs. Then he gave up the game-winning single. Jacob walked off the mound, devastated and crying. I was disappointed for him. But this time around, I was surprisingly calm. I finally understand – in a way that he doesn’t yet – that adversity and defeat build character, even as it hurts mightily now, even as it hurts us parents to see our children this way. I bit my lip and watched David talk to him, as Jacob’s shoulders heaved up and down. David later told me he was telling Jacob that he noticed him overthrowing, then taking a deep breath and composing himself for the next pitch. He told Jacob that his response on the mound was a huge step – regardless of the outcome – because last year he couldn’t regain his composure. That was David’s takeaway. My takeaway was that it’s not about preserving the perfect, it’s about becoming a stronger player and a stronger person. And a wiser mom.

What happens in Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas: Applying business concepts to everyday life

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Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
– Mary Oliver, American poet

Daniel Pink gave an entertaining talk at a healthcare supply-chain management conference in Vegas.

Daniel Pink gave an entertaining talk at a healthcare supply-chain management conference in Vegas.

I’ve been to a lot of business conferences and reported on a lot of sessions in the last decade for my work. Sometimes I’m fortunate when conference sponsors secure a big name as their keynote speaker. I’ve been close enough to snap a photo of President Clinton’s nose (yes, it was red) after his opening speech at a conference in Las Vegas many years ago. I heard Mitt Romney at the same conference a few years later when there were whisperings of him being a potential presidential candidate for 2008. I had the privilege of hearing Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen, who coined the term disruptive technology. I got to talk with Steven D. Levitt, economist and author of Freakonomics after his speech when he was signing books. I reported on a speech given by Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker staff writer, journalist, and author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference and Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.

At this particular Las Vegas conference, Daniel Pink, author of Drive and his recently released book To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, and Jeffrey Ma, business strategist and author, were the featured speakers. I eagerly attended both events, though I was not reporting on them, because I knew I would come away with lessons from their research that I could apply to my everyday life.

How to move people
Though I was familiar with the book Drive, which was published in 2009, I have not read it. In the book, Pink argues that we are motivated not by carrots and sticks but by autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The book’s intent is to change the way we motivate ourselves and others. In his new book, Pink makes a case for all of us being a salesperson. A survey conducted in 2000 revealed that 1 in 9 people in the U.S. workforce identify themselves as sales people. When asked, however, if in their jobs they have to convince or persuade people to give up something they value for something they can offer – be it attention, commitment, time, and so on – the number shot up to 41 percent. Everyone at some point engages in this activity. It’s essentially selling but without money trading hands.

Pink conducted an attunement exercise with volunteers from the audience to determine how attuned they are to other people's perspective.

Pink conducted an attunement exercise with volunteers from the audience to determine how perceptive they are to other people’s perspective.

In this activity, people are trying to move others. Pink gave some pointers on how to move people, without coming across as a sleazy, untrustworthy sales person. (He also noted that we should move away from thinking negatively of salespeople and consider it a positive skill that can be honed when both buyer and seller have information parity.) Pink identified three fundamental qualities to effectively move people: attunement, buoyancy, and clarity. In order to have common ground with the people whom you’re trying to move, you need to be able to see their perspective; you need to be attuned to them. In a sea of constant rejection, you have to find a way to stay afloat. Instead of pumping yourself up, Pink encourages questioning yourself, which at first seems counterintuitive. However, he says we should think of failure as external rather than internal, temporary rather than permanent, and temporal rather than constant. When you approach failure as an intellectual exercise rather than a pep rally, you’ll actually be stronger in the face of adversity. Lastly, you need to pull the signal from the noise, curate the relevant information from the mountain of data that assaults us on a daily basis, so that when you present your argument to those whom you want to move, they have the right information and nothing more.

Pink cited a study in which “ambiverts,” a term from the 1920s, were more successful selling a product than extroverts and introverts. Being in the middle on the spectrum, ambiverts know when to push and when to hold back, when to talk and when to be silent. In other words, they know how to modulate themselves. We can learn from ambiverts and we can work towards becoming ambidextrous ourselves, so to speak.

Lastly, when trying to move people, make it purposeful – at the core, you’re trying to help people – and make it personal – put a human face on it. People are persuaded by this. “Make it real,” Pink concluded. In moving people, we are serving people, so we should always look upon ourselves as role models and therefore act as role models.

Learning from blackjack
Jeffrey Ma is better known as the subject of Ben Mezrich’s New York Times bestseller Bringing Down the House, published in 2003, which chronicles how Ma and five of his classmates from MIT used statistics to win big – as in hundreds of thousands of dollars – at blackjack. (He has since been barred from playing in Vegas.) Ma contends that we can learn how to make decisions by taking a page from blackjack.

Jeffrey Ma also entertains in Vegas. I think authors of best-selling business books must take acting and comedy classes.

Jeffrey Ma is also entertaining. I think authors of best-selling business books take acting and comedy classes.

Given that I don’t know how to play blackjack, I’m going to dispense with the references to the game peppered throughout his talk. Ma cited a study about why people put off making difficult decisions. Ma put his spin on it, pushing us to carry on and make those difficult decisions. We have the data to make the right decisions, so don’t count on dumb luck. Don’t be afraid – “be okay with risk,” so long as you understand the risk and what the upside is. And don’t subject yourself to “loss aversion,” which is making decisions based on what could be lost rather than on the potential gain.

The biggest lesson Ma imparted was to embrace failure. Stick with the data-driven decision, even if it means a poor outcome. When we try to innovate, no matter what the innovation is, oftentimes we encounter poor outcomes, but Ma encourages us to stick with it, if we truly believe in what we’re doing.

My “I Love Lucy” moment
So I’m compelled to conclude this blog entry with what I call my “I Love Lucy” moment. I left the luncheon soon after Ma stepped off stage. It turns out he was right outside the ballroom, talking with a woman, with his assistant or handler toting his luggage. I stood by the bathroom entrance across the hall for several seconds, trying to figure out if I should go up and ask to take his picture or have our picture taken. On the one hand, is having my picture taken with him on par with having my picture taken with, say, Daniel Day-Lewis? On the other hand, the opportunity to have my picture with someone who is somewhat famous – depending upon who you hang out with – was right under my nose. And lastly, he’ll never see me again, so why not be that crazy person who asks for your picture at a healthcare supply-chain management conference.

While this internal argument continued to play out in my head, Ma and his assistant walked down the hallway. They were several hundred yards away when I decided I was going to make a fool out of myself – because now I was stalking him – and walk quickly after him. He turned around one corner, and then another. It was two long hallways before I could catch up. Ma was surprised, but amiable, as I blurted out that it looked like I was stalking him but, well, never mind. He obliged my request for a photograph. After several attempts of turning the flash on and off and on again, his assistant took a few decent shots with my iPhone, and then we went our separate ways. Here is the picture of the crazy lady and the Vegas-banned card-counting blackjack player:

Is it considered stalking if you run after someone who is well-known in some circles and ask to have your picture taken with them?

Is it considered stalking if you run after someone who is well-known in some circles and ask to have your picture taken with them? As my friend Jack use to say: What would Supertramp say?

Just remember: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. Not.

With one last look at you: Fare thee well, Wynn Vegas hotel room!

With one last look at you: Fare thee well, Wynn Vegas hotel room!

Remembering my father on the anniversary of his birthday

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I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
– Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

I took a lot of photos of my father in his garden while taking a photography class in 1982.

I took a lot of photos of my father in his garden while taking a photography class in 1982.

Yesterday was my father’s birthday. Given that he was 55 when I was born, he would have been 106 years old today. He came to the United States in the mid-1920s, following his older cousins when he was a teenager. His relatives laughed at him because he didn’t know how to speak English, and his defiant response was, “I know ‘yes’ and ‘no.'” This should have told me a lot about my father. But I didn’t appreciate his courage and resiliency because first I had to overcome the generational and cultural gaps between us, which didn’t happen until I went away to college.

Dad liked making cakes. He lined the kitchen cabinet shelf with a row of Betty Crocker yellow cake mixes.

Dad liked making cakes. He lined the kitchen cabinet shelf with a row of Betty Crocker yellow cake mixes, 1985.

When I went to UC Davis and wrote stories in my fiction workshops, in a nod to youthful naiveté and indulgence, I modeled my writing after great writers such as Hemingway and Joyce. Not surprisingly, my stories were artificial and awkward. Prompted by an unknown reason, I wrote a short story about a father and daughter. In one scene, Emily, the protagonist, is embarrassed when her elementary school teacher mistakes her father for her grandfather and tries to hush him when he speaks in broken English and proclaims that he is so proud of his daughter – who helps him with his spelling when writing letters to his relatives – because he never made it past second grade in his home country. My classmates, and my professor, really liked the story. The father, they enthused, was endearing and human; they wanted to know more about him. They wanted more of his story. On the other hand, they disliked the girl, who was cruel and disrespectful to her father. In writing that first story, which I still have, I, too, wanted to know more about him. And I, too, disliked the girl, and I wanted her to change.

My father loved to read the newspaper every day. He always bought the Los Angeles Times.

My father loved to read the newspaper every day. He always bought the Los Angeles Times, 1988.

Confronting the past
Growing up, he was already an old man to me, retired by the time I was 10. As a child, I couldn’t appreciate his idiosyncrasies. He thought the new microwave we bought would blow up the house. I can still see him scurrying in his house slippers after the delivery men – from the truck, through the garage, and into the family room – telling them that the new color television console they were carrying would make us go blind. Sleeping with socks on would make our feet grow big (my sisters and I have big feet, so perhaps he was right). Sweeping the kitchen floor at night would disturb the fairies that ventured out at night. When I would come home from high school with severe menstrual cramps, he would follow me all the way to my bedroom, insisting I got sick because I went to bed with wet hair the night before. And yet, as soon as I crawled into bed, he would rush to the kitchen to boil water for my hot water bottle.

My father posing with one of my Christmas presents to him - a Giants baseball cap, 1994.

My father posing with one of my Christmas presents to him – a Giants baseball cap, 1994.

Instead of admiring the fact that he actually watched Babe Ruth play in Yankee Stadium, my sisters and I focused on how old that made him out to be! He loved major league baseball, loved the San Francisco Giants, though we grew up in Los Angeles Dodger territory. His favorite player was Willie McCovey. Once when McCovey hit a home run during a televised game, he stood up from his recliner – his version of the Wave long before the Wave became popular – and threw up his arms, yelling, “Home run!” When the network replayed the swing of McCovey’s bat and the ball sailing over the fence, he stood up again, waving his arms, and yelling, “Another home run!” This happened on more than one occasion with different players and teams. My sisters and I would laugh in a painful kind of way, and scold him, “Dad! That was a replay, not another home run!” He would look at us, confused, his eyes foggy through his forever-smudged reading glasses. We just rolled our eyes at him.

Life before fatherhood
I never learned about his life before he became a father until I took a number of Asian American Studies classes at Davis. That’s when I saw some parallels of his life to Carlos Bulosan’s America Is In the Heart. When I was home from college, I would ask him about his life. He didn’t like talking about the bad things – just as many of my relatives didn’t like to do – though when I pressed him, he admitted that he had experienced bigotry in America. “They called us monkeys,” he said, his lower jaw jutting out. While you could hear his wounded voice, he was an apologist, adding that there were some bad-seed Filipinos who ruined it for the rest of them who were no trouble at all to the whites.

Laura Leventer of Personal Pizazz showed me how to pair this maize-colored skirt with appliques with a chocolate brown blouse.

Laura Leventer of Personal Pizazz showed me how to pair this maize-colored skirt with appliques with a chocolate brown blouse.

It wasn’t until after his funeral, after his passing on Christmas Day 1995 that my sister Heidi and I learned why he was so eccentric. (Another example: When I was in college, coming home from spring break, I came home to find out that he had imagined the bus driver who was taking him and his relatives to Las Vegas to gamble was instead going to take them to the desert and kill them. So he hopped into a cab once they got to Las Vegas and the car drove off; he was found three days later, wandering the oilfields outside of Bakersfield, 280 miles away, without his trousers and wallet.) Whenever his imagination ran wild, such as the time he insisted that fish were swimming in his bed, even as he threw back the covers and shined his flashlight on his empty wrinkled sheets, my relatives would click their tongue against the roof of their mouth and say, “That’s your dad!” I had this secret fear that his zany behavior was hereditary, and that at a certain point I, too, would be saying and doing loony things. Our uncle, his cousin, in fact told us that he was perfectly normal before the war, but that he had fought in the Battle of Leyte, which was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He was never the same.

Upon hearing this revelation, I was relieved and then profoundly moved and saddened. What was he like before the WWII? How much of my father’s life would I have to piece together from relatives whose ability to recall was faltering, recognizing that he himself was an unreliable narrator when he was alive and I prodded him for stories? How much had I missed for good?

A Gorgeous & Green reclaimed vintage necklace made of chandelier pieces goes well with a contemporary glass bracelet.

A Gorgeous & Green reclaimed vintage necklace made of chandelier pieces goes well with a contemporary glass bracelet and textile earrings by Paz Sintes of Spain.

One of my greatest regrets is not having published a book and delivered it into his open hands. While my mother wanted me to go into nursing or business school in college, my father appreciated my writing. He proudly wrote letters to his relatives about my modest accomplishments. After his funeral, when we were cleaning out his possessions from my parents’ bedroom, we pulled out an old green Samsonite luggage from beneath his bed. Among the papers inside was a yellowed clipping – dated 10 years earlier – of a UC Davis Aggie newspaper article and picture of the chair of the undergraduate English department standing beside me after having given me an award for one of my short stories. It was a painful reminder that I didn’t give him the gift of a published book after all. But more importantly, it affirmed his belief in me.

And in celebrating his birthday yesterday, I keep the faith alive in my borrowed mantra: Keep writing, keep writing, keep writing. And my echo: Yes, yes, yes.

Vintage floral purse mixes well with maize, chocolate brown, and contemporary and vintage jewelry.

Vintage floral purse mixes well with maize, chocolate brown, and contemporary and vintage jewelry.

Beyond the seven-year plan

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I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.
– Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist

Now that the weather's warm, unabashedly throw lace and flowers together.

Now that the weather’s warm, unabashedly throw lace and flowers together.

The other night I was thinking about what I would blog about for Friday’s entry. I have several irons in the fire, so to speak, but none fully formed to post. I told myself that I can always “go fishing” again if I wasn’t inspired. And then my sister Heidi called yesterday morning, and in our conversation she marveled at the fact that three months ago she would have scoffed if someone had told her she would be spending her retirement from elementary school teaching, at age 53, investing and working on new business ventures. We were talking about what we had planned to do and what things we stumbled into. It got me to thinking about my “seven-year plan,” which I had never told her about but shared with her on our call.

When I was a senior in high school, my two older sisters were already in college. My mother told all of us that she and my father, retired since I was 10 years old, could not afford to send any of us to a four-year university. We had to attend the junior college in the next town over for two years and then transfer to a university. Fair enough. I held a 20-hour-a-week job at a dry-cleaner shop and loaded up on classes every semester. There was not much to do in either my hometown of Terra Bella or the next town over, Porterville, but I was bound to be productive. And I was bound to get over my painful shyness and introversion, and bust out of my small town. I dreamed big and developed this seven-year plan, which commanded that after graduating from Porterville College, I would attend UC Davis, join the Peace Corps for two years, work for a year to earn money since I wouldn’t have any after volunteering, and then go to a creative writing program (see my Welcome to the Dress at 50 page).

Trying out my vintage dance card pencil pin with reclaimed vintage button ring, and vintage Weiss earrings.

Trying out my vintage dance card pencil pin with reclaimed vintage button ring, and vintage Weiss earrings.

I ended up staying in school three years at Davis, working a year at the UCD law library the year after graduating, and going to Alaska and then San Francisco for my two years of volunteering with the Jesuit Volunteer Corp. instead of Africa with the Peace Corps. Minor adjustments. But I would stick to my plan of attending a creative writing program, which I did. I had met my first husband while a JVC volunteer in San Francisco. Our organization, a prisoners’ rights union run by a Jesuit priest, worked with my husband’s criminal justice nonprofit, and I very much admired his passion and commitment to social justice. His family was from Syracuse, and I chose Syracuse’s creative writing program because of a certain well-known writer in residence and the fact that the university paid my way via a teaching assistantship. The location ended up being central to cementing the relationship, as I grew very close to his parents.

Navy and orange go well together. Think Syracuse! A nude Mad Men pump ties it all together.

Navy and orange go well together. Think Syracuse! A nude Mad Men pump ties it all together.

After graduation, I returned to San Francisco. It was the natural thing to do. But it was also the end of my seven-year plan. I did not have goals or concrete plans after that very precise list of things to accomplish. I assumed I would get married, get a job, buy a house, and raise a family. Indeed, on the cross-country drive home, my husband proposed to me. I have asked myself a number of times long ago – and then recently while on the phone with Heidi – why I slipped into the pattern of get married, get a job, buy a house, and raise a family. It was a comforting life plan, and perhaps I didn’t trust myself enough at the time to think I could really succeed as a writer. Sure, I could write stories in an undergraduate fiction class or get into a creative writing program. That wasn’t hard, and at times it didn’t seem like “the real world.” It seemed, at least or me at times, that we were just pretending to be writers in this artificial environment. But could I get published? Could I be bold enough to say, I am a writer, and really mean it? Did I have the perseverance and patience?

You can make lace on lace work by mixing the colors.

You can make lace on lace work by mixing the colors.

The short answer was no. I was too much of an amateur. I didn’t trust myself or have confidence in myself, especially after being told in my last semester by a cantankerous poet and professor that I didn’t know how to write. This manifested itself in my not writing at all. I remembered the nervous laughter my fiction-writing friends and I exchanged when we told one another to keep writing after leaving Syracuse. Of course, we would. More nervous laughter.

Another way to break up lace on lace is with accessories: The Edwardian-era purse and mottled brown (animal print) bring more texture and interest in vintage and contemporary.

Another way to break up lace on lace is with accessories: The Edwardian-era purse and mottled brown (animal print) bring more texture and interest in vintage and contemporary.

There is a certain comfort, after going bold, in burrowing in a secure place. What if I had stopped myself and said, this is not where I should be going. When I told my co-worker – at her wedding reception, no less – that my husband and I had separated, all she could say was, “Oh, Patty!” in a forlorn yet knowing voice that deflated me. Months later, she brought up a time during my wedding planning when we were riding up an escalator at the Union Square Macy’s during our lunch break. I had looked off into space and said to no one in particular, “Is this all there is?” My heart broke when she told me. Soon other co-workers reminded me of the many times I showed up to work in the mornings with red eyes and a swollen face from crying. We were not compatible in marriage and indeed had different ideas of marriage. I was unhappy, stunted in every aspect of my life, and I did not know what to do.

I remember scoffing at my husband at the time of our separation when he concluded that one of the problems was that I had married too young, had only been in two serious relationships, and had never really lived on my own. I was 29 years old at the time; how could that be too young? But he was right. I should not have stopped at seven years with my dreams. I should not have entered a place that I wasn’t ready to be. In fact, I had retreated to this place.

A bejeweled collar ties together a striped pink and cream casual blouse and green faux ostrich handbag.

A bejeweled collar ties together a striped pink and cream casual blouse and green faux ostrich handbag.

To be clear, I am not advocating not getting married or having a family. I am advocating getting married because you and your partner love one another very much and want to spend the rest of your lives together, learning, exploring, sharing dreams big and small, and helping each other achieve those individual and combined dreams. And if one of those dreams is to buy a house and raise a family, that’s fantastic. But at the same time, job, marriage, home ownership, and family should not be taken on because that’s what people do, that’s what our parents did. Or because at the time it was safe and comfortable. All of those things should not blunt who you are or want to be.

The dreams, the goals, of becoming the person we are meant to be should never end. Don’t stop at a certain timeframe. First and foremost, take time to bloom as a person – the other stuff will either happen or not. But don’t force it. Instead, focus your energies on dreaming big. Go bold. Never give up. It’s never too late, no matter your age, so long as you are young in spirit.

A close-up of the bejeweled collar (Anthropologie) and Carmela Rose bird and sphere earrings.

A close-up of the bejeweled collar (Anthropologie) and Carmela Rose bird and sphere earrings.

Empowering our daughters early on

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The robb’d that smiles, steals something from the thief.
– William Shakespeare, British playwright

Here I am, at 51, having to deal with girl problems – my daughter’s, that is. One day she’s in; the next day, she’s out. At 10 years old, in the fourth grade, she is experiencing what many friends of mine who have older daughters have told me would happen. She will come home, complaining of various transgressions committed against her, though the usual scenario is that she and another friend weren’t allowed to play with a trio of other friends.

Feel elegant and powerful in a full, flowery dress, sleek faux fur jacket, ruffled bootie, and crossbody bag (perfect for our school auction buffet - hands free for finger food and glass of wine).

Feel elegant and powerful in a full, flowery dress, sleek faux fur jacket, ruffled booties, and crossbody bag (perfect for our school auction buffet – hands free for finger food and glass of wine).

When I first heard her stories of woe, I cringed, remembering my own painful past. My best friend in elementary school and I were in the same class from kindergarten all the way up until fifth grade. That year we were in different classes, and then I lost my best friend to a new girl in town. I made a new best friend in my class, but the following three years (I attended a K-8 school) were spent battling to stay atop and not be ousted from the threesome that comprised my old best friend, my new best friend, and me.

High school can be brutal, but thankfully I was blessed with big-hearted best friends and a circle of other good friends. My first best friend, Kathy, moved to Washington State when we were juniors, and my other best friend, Kimi, and I were inseparable until she got her first boyfriend our senior year. College had its bumps, but I was most surprised that I have encountered mean girls throughout my adult life. Up until the last few years, even the slightest cruel comment would dwell in my head for days. It was a step up from feeling mortally wounded by such a comment when I was younger, but not something I felt a woman my age should still be bothered by – if at all, if raised and emboldened with healthy self-esteem. I told myself, however, that no one is too old to learn a life lesson.

Show off strong arms in a sleeveless dress. Booties, as opposed to strappy sandals, give off a tough vibe.

Show off strong arms (use hand weights to keep your arms toned) in a sleeveless dress. Booties, as opposed to strappy sandals, give off a tough vibe.

Learning by teaching my daughter
I decided that I would give my daughter coping mechanisms and tools to deal with mean-girl behavior – something that I wish I had been given when I was a girl. First of all, I told her she had better not be a mean girl, particularly by not excluding someone from the group. Invoke the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Unless you’re a masochist, if everyone lived by this rule, we’d have a more compassionate planet. Next I told her if she witnessed mean-girl behavior, she was to defend the girl on the outs and let the others know it’s not nice to exclude anyone.

The harder part was giving her tools to defend herself when she was on the outs. How do you convince a girl to not let mean comments hurt her feelings? To not cry? Some girls are hardwired and hardy, and they can naturally withstand such assaults. For many of us, however, it takes a few years, many years, or even decades to master invulnerability, depending upon our upbringing, mentors, and other factors.

Reclaimed vintage earrings (Gorgeous & Green, Berkeley), my mother's vintage ring (given to her by her parents), and Jan Michael bracelet (Philadelphia shop) and necklace (Lava 9, Berkeley).

Reclaimed vintage earrings (Gorgeous & Green, Berkeley), my mother’s vintage ring (given to her by her parents), and Jan Michael bracelet (Philadelphia shop) and necklace (Lava 9, Berkeley).

So I told her it takes practice and more practice. Telling ourselves over and over again until we mean it. I told her mean people say mean things because they want power over you. When you cry, when you crumble, when you get angry, when you say mean things in return you have given them power. Don’t give them power! You don’t have to kill them with kindness, either. You either call them on it – that’s not a very nice thing to say or do – or you walk away and completely ignore what was just said or done.

This lesson must be sinking in. While I was away on a business trip last October, my daughter was walking to school one morning with one of our friends and her three daughters. The youngest girl told my daughter she wanted to be a hot dog for Halloween, but she was afraid the other kids would make fun of her. My friend related to me that my daughter’s adamant response was, “If you want to be a hot dog, be a hot dog. Who cares what other people think?” Amen.

When I came across the Shakespeare quote, it embodied exactly what I have been trying to teach my daughter – as well as my son. Turn the tables, and don’t give that person your power. I tried to explain what the quote meant to them during a dinner conversation, but I realized it would be another year or two for her to fully appreciate what Shakespeare was saying. I could have said, instead, “Don’t let your emotions become your bit*$,” but I’ll save that for when they are in college.

Combining florals, faux fur, red leather, insects, reclaimed vintage, and vintage jewelry.

Combining florals, faux fur, red leather, insects, reclaimed vintage, and vintage jewelry.