So far from home

The other day at work, my friend Travis offered the opinion that today's parents "baby" their children, making it impossible for college-age kids to truly be independent.

All I can say is: There are a few kids Travis needs to meet.

I've had the privilege the last couple of years of spending time with and getting to know some friends of my son at Iowa State University. Scott is a member of the ISU International Student Council and has been fortunate enough through his work there to meet ISU students from more than 30 countries.

When I was in college, international students were the "smart kids." They had a dorm all to themselves, and they all seemed very serious. I was intimidated by them and didn't take the opportunity to get to know any of them.

I've always known that was my loss, but I didn't fully understand why until I met Onalie and Ahmad and Sarini and Shun and Wiwi and Kanchana and Yeonji and Nidhi and Vishadi and Isaac and Ashvin and so many others.

It turns out one stereotype I had believed in the '80s is true: International students are smart. But they're not magically that way: They're smart because they value education, and because they study. They know why they're thousands of miles from home, and they're not about to squander the opportunity to earn a degree.

But that's not to say they hole up in their dorm rooms 24/7; quite the contrary. They also know that the college experience is not just about studying, so they take advantage of the many extracurricular activities that are available to them. Most of them choose activities such as International Student Council and UNICEF -- ones that can enable them to increase awareness while they're in this country.

But the most important thing I've learned about them is this: For all their intelligence and capabilities, they're young, and they're really, really far from home. And for that reason, I've determined that they're among the bravest people I know.

I visited with many of the kids today about their summer plans. Some of them are staying in Ames and taking summer classes, and some are going home. Of those, many haven't seen their families for a very long time. One young man mentioned today that it's been three years since he's been home.

Another student, a young woman who also hasn't been home in more than a year, mentioned today that the hardest times are holidays or long weekends when her American friends have plans with their families. Although they invite her to join them and she's never alone, it's not the same; the families are not her family. The activities are different, the foods are different, and she's not home.

My son's girlfriend is from South Africa. Her sense of longing for home is ongoing; although she's adapted well during her time in the United States, she longs for familiar sights, smells and tastes. Our vegetables aren't as fresh as the ones she's used to; our meats aren't as savory. Americans don't typically eat the stomach and the chicken feet she loves. Everything is simply ... different.

And yet she -- and all the international students I know -- press on because they're keeping their eyes on the prize. Once they have their degrees, some of them will find good jobs in this country and raise their own children here. Others will go back home to use their educations to benefit their own families and cities and countries.

I'm amazed by them -- and by their parents. How difficult it must be to kiss your 17- or 18-year-old child goodbye and not know for sure when you'll see him or her again, or if he or she will be safe and comfortable and happy so far away. I see my kids weekly, at least; sometimes Scott's international friends can't even make a phone call home because it's too expensive.

I respect these students tremendously because of the people they are: They are unfailingly polite and pleasant and welcoming and appreciative and respectful. And I value them because of they many ways they've enriched my son's life. As he told me the other day, "No matter where I go in the world, chances are pretty good I'll have someone to stay with."

So, thank you, Onalie and Ahmad and Sarini and Shun and Wiwi and Kanchana and Yeonji and Nidhi and Vishadi and Isaac and Ashvin and so many others. Thanks for being so nice to this middle-aged lady with her camera and her questions. And thanks most of all for being so courageous, and for making a bigger difference than you'll ever know, no matter where the rest of your lives happen to take you.

What – or Whom – I Want to Be When I Grow Up

When I was little, I really liked a movie called “To Sir, With Love.” It starred Sidney Poitier as a teacher who made a difference to a disadvantaged group of kids. I find myself thinking a great deal about that film this week, because my own personal “Sir” is getting ready to leave.

Let me clarify: This “Sir” is a woman, and she’s not only leaving me, but a couple dozen other folks in the cube farm we call “home” five days a week. And to say we’ll feel her absence is an understatement; Linda has clarified, for many of us, what we want to be when we grow up.

Linda is of the “a lady doesn’t tell her age” generation, but to suffice it to say her retirement comes on the heels of more than five decades, give or take a year or two, in the workforce. She has worn a number of hats, from writer to project leader to the manager of a store that sold, among other things, whoopee cushions.

And not only has she adapted to her environment, no matter what it’s been; she’s taken it and commanded it and made it her own. Linda takes no prisoners and makes no excuses; she is who she is, and she’s never, ever apologetic. She’s a proverbial force with which to be reckoned, and that’s but one of the things that makes her worth our admiration.

Linda does more in a day that people half her age do in a week. It’s hard to find a spot on her calendar unless you book her weeks in advance; she chairs committees and volunteers on boards of directors, and at her church. She has standing lunches and dinners with various groups, regular theater engagements, and weekends of dressing up in period clothing to interpret at an outdoor museum.

She travels frequently to see her daughter, son-in-law and grandson in Colorado. She rides bikes and fixes plumbing and will probably end up building a new deck with her own two hands.

And yet she’s never too busy to lend an ear or a word of encouragement -- no matter who you are, and no matter how long you happen to need her.

Linda hasn’t been immune to adversity, and that’s one of the things that makes her relatable; she incurred some pretty monumental losses at a young age, and she’s seen her share of struggles. But what I admire most about her –- and what has bonded us most, I think -– is her behavior in the face of adversity. She chooses to be strong because that’s what she was taught, and because there’s no other option.

You won’t find Linda making excuses for anything, nor will you find her relying on any type of crutch to get her through a trying time. A client was upset with her about something? The boss shared a concern? Her response, most likely, is this: “You know, that person had a point. I really should have done such-and-such. I need to remember not to make the same mistake again, and now it’s time to move on.”

She grew up in a matriarchal household and understood the need for women’s rights before the issue became part of the public lexicon. And in a “stand by your man” era, Linda made the decision to leave a marriage that was no longer working for her. (She even found a way to handle divorce the right way; she talks often about the close friendship she and her ex-husband enjoyed till the day he died.)

No one’s perfect; Linda certainly won’t be surprised to see in print that I think she starts chatting too darned early in the morning! But hearing her go from cube to cube, greeting all her co-workers while enjoying her coffee, is something I daresay most of us will find ourselves missing.

When Linda walks out the door for the final time tomorrow, we probably won’t think about the contributions she’s made to communicating about variable universal life insurance, although her years of expertise in that realm will be missed as well. I know that I'll think of her support during my dad’s illness and death. I’ll think about her empathy and her ability to zero in on what makes a person tick -– and her wish that humans in all walks of life would treat one another with a little more respect and a little less judgment.

I guess this is what it means to leave a legacy. Linda, you’ve left one indeed, and your sensible shoes will be hard ones to fill.

Let's hear it for the boys

A few days ago, my friend Jeff posted a photo in which he and another of my almost-lifelong friends, Bill, are standing in front of an ice-cream shop. It's a typical photo, albeit a bit whimsical; we're all in our late 40s now, and going to the ice-cream store probably constitutes a little more fun than we have in our everyday lives.

The photo made me smile for any number of reasons; the years have treated both men well, and the faces that smiled back at me were the ones I remembered from our high-school days. But the way I felt was derived from more than that; these guys, and a few others, were a huge part of my history. And my friendships with them were considered a bit odd in an age where, as my dad often told me, "Nice girls don't call boys."

I don't think I'm the only woman who has ever been more comfortable having friendships with guys than with girls. During my formative years, from junior high through college, although I had female friends, my maximum comfort level was achieved when I hung out with boys. (And let's cut to the chase here -- I'm talking about platonic friendships. The guys who were my friends were not the ones I dated.)

Friendships didn't work out with all guys, mind you; I gravitated toward the ones who had more to them than met the eye. They weren't necessarily the jocks or the student-council representatives; they were nice guys who liked to write or read or listen to music or talk for hours. It was easy to open up to them about other, less worthy boys, or about school anxieties or family issues.

And the crux of it was just that: They listened, and they didn't seem to judge. We attended a Catholic school, and through eighth grade, we were grouped with the same 40 kids, give or take, year after year. We all knew each other, and we all had formed opinions, right or wrong, about our classmates.

In some ways, I was a square peg in a round hole. My hair wouldn't part in the middle and "feather back," and I read the dictionary for fun. I was also the only person in my class who didn't have a mom. Maybe some of my perceptions about others' opinions of me weren't correct, but at that point in my life, I didn't feel I fit in.

And my guy friends didn't care. They seemed to value the fact that I was smart and a good listener, and that I wasn't too shy to ask the kinds of questions that would lead them to talk about things they had wanted to talk about, but didn't know how. They didn't care that I had glasses and looked nothing like Marcia Brady, or that I was way too tall, having hit my full adult height of 5'4" when I was all of 11.

And there was more: If one of them liked a girl and was reluctant to let her know, I was the go-between, the eighth-grade romance broker. And I was also there to sympathize with them if that first crush just didn't work out.

High school and college were much the same, but on a different scale because I had boyfriends to factor into the equation. Everyone caught up to me in height and I lost the glasses; I was suddenly dateable, but that didn't put an end to my relationships with my guy friends. I still laugh at a yearbook inscription from the guy who was my boyfriend for two years in high school: "You spend more time with Marty and Steve than you do with me, and that's kind of weird. But I guess it's OK."

In retrospect, the fact that my guy friends valued me for the person I was had a great deal of bearing on the fact that I reached adulthood with my self-esteem intact. A boyfriend may have turned out to be not so great, but Bill or Jeff or Chris or Steve or Marty or Tom was there to remind me that my self-worth should be derived from so much more than the opinion of a boy who had dumped me because he fancied someone blonder or skinnier.

Don't get me wrong; I had some tried-and-true girlfriends during those years, too. Tricia and Susan and Francie and some others helped me understand that not everyone was a "Mean Girl," and my friendships with them, all of which still endure to some degree, led me to reach out to some of the women who are my best friends today.

Male/female friendships are more difficult in the adult world; I still have them, but they're different, as no one wants to be perceived as a boundary-crosser. I'm really happy, though, to see that each of my kids has close platonic friends of the opposite gender, and that my husband counts at least one woman among his closest allies at work.

As I look at the picture of Jeff and Bill and see photos of some of my other pals and their wives and families on Facebook, I wonder if those guys have any idea just how much they meant to a girl who was trying to find her way in the world. I doubt they realize that just by being themselves, they helped me let down my guard, let people in and begin to reach out.

My ability to be a good person in adulthood -- or to try to, anyway -- was shaped, at least in some degree, by their tutelage. And all these years later, as I smile at those still-young faces in the photo, it's high time to say "thanks."

The Memory Board

I've been meeting with a few former classmates in preparation for our 30th class reunion, which is scheduled for later this month. I was signed up to help organize the gathering, but because the meetings began in earnest around the time my dad was very ill, I didn't pull my weight. So to make amends with the folks who have been working so hard and demonstrate my appreciation for their understanding, I volunteered a couple weeks ago to create and donate the Memory Board.

The Memory Board is a sheet of foam board onto which I've crafted a memorial to the members of our class who have passed away. The members of the West Des Moines Dowling Class of 1981 are all 47 or 48 now, and we've lost 10 people.

When you think of the raw numbers, losing 10 people in a class of 507 doesn't sound like many, but we're not all that old -- besides, I dare you to look into the faces of these people, as I've been doing the past few days as I've added some finishing touches to the board, and still maintain that losing 10 people is not a huge deal.

One person died before we graduated. Unlike many in our class, I remember him; Joe was very quiet, but we were in the same homeroom and for some reason, I always tried to draw him out. He was tall and sweet and from a small town, and he drowned on the fourth of July.

We had no deaths in the '80s, but in the '90s, they began, continuing until last year. Cancer, traffic accidents, suicides. Substance abuse claimed at least one member of our class. Another was murdered out of state.

There they are -- sweet Neil, whom everyone loved because he was just so darned nice. Susie, the grade-school friend I lost track of when we reached high school. Anna, who was beautiful and funny; in one of my yearbooks, she signed, "Why aren't we better friends? We seem like we're a lot alike. After all, we're both ITALIAN!" Indeed.

Cute Chris, cute Stephan. Mike, who had special needs; everyone cared about and tried to include him. Mary Pat, with her gorgeous wardrobe, somehow had even managed to make her school uniform look sophisticated. Kathleen, the band girl I never knew. Curt, who had always looked sad.

I look at the faces on the board, and kids look back at me. The photos are from our high-school yearbooks, black and white and grainy. Everyone is smiling. No doubt they all believed they'd be back for every reunion we ever held.

I imagine everyone at the reunion will look at the board and wonder how many faces will be added by our 35th. Statistically, as we all near and pass 50, our health risks will increase. We refer to ourselves as middle-aged, but if this is truly the middle of our lives, we'll be around till we're in our 90s, and that likely won't be the case for most of us.

With just a couple of exceptions, the people whose pictures look back at me from the Memory Board are not ones I knew well. I guess it's my goal, then, to make up for lost time later this month. Many of the 100-plus former classmates coming to the reunion are not close friends of mine. If we're adding their faces to the board in five years, I hope I'll be able to say that within the last few years, I had gotten to know them.

And if my own face is added, I hope perhaps a few more of my classmates will be able to say the same about me.

I want to be an athlete. (No, not a mathlete. An athlete.)

Let's get this out of the way right now: Yes, I was the last girl chosen for kickball. I'll take that back: I was almost always the last girl chosen. Sometimes people had broken legs or sprained ankles, and I was chosen before them.

I was reminded again Friday night that I'm not an athlete, and that sadly, chances are pretty good that I will never be.

In 2008, Karen Coaldrake, a friend to many of us in the Johnston area, died suddenly. To honor her, a group of people organized the 5K for Karen, a walk-run in her honor. Friday night was the fourth annual, and as we have in past years, my husband, Kevin, and I signed up to participate.

Now, here's the backstory: Due to a combination of rheumatoid and early-onset osteoarthritis, my knees are a little unreliable. I underwent replacement of my left knee in 2008; my right one's not doing so great now, and hasn't been for several months. My former boss used to say she could hear me coming because I clicked; my orthopedic surgeon says I'm bone-on-bone and have even lost a little bit of height on that side.

So, given those facts, what did I decide to do? Walk in a 5K with my husband, who, despite the fact that he's not a tall guy, has a ridiculously long stride. When I walk -- which I do daily, two or three miles, believe it or not -- I cover a lot of ground, but tend to like to do it in my own time. And my own time is not fast.

Have I mentioned that I'm not an athlete? I come from sturdy southern-Italian stock, which means I'm genetically predisposed to fits of temper, a fair amount of gardening talent, the ability to talk with my hands, and relatively easy labors. It also means I'm rather endomorphic -- except that I can't even use large bones as an excuse. My wristbones are tiny; my waistline is not. I'm built for standing in front of a steaming cauldron of minestrone ... so it's really too bad that I never do that.

What do I want to look like? Rhonda, the mom of my stepson's friend Jack. Rhonda is about my age, and is nothing but sinew and muscle and brute strength. She's so amazing that I'd like to dislike her, but I can't, as she's really nice -- and she is also amazing to behold because she's the closest thing I've seen to the Bionic Woman. She runs something like 2,000 miles a day. For her, a 5K would take about the amount of time it takes me to irrigate my sinuses, and she could probably run it backward, while reading or singing.

But to me, the 5K is a huge deal each year -- not just because it honors the wonderful and magical Karen, but because it lets me pretend, for about 50 minutes, that I am on the way to becoming Rhonda.

So I left work a little early Friday night, changed into my "running clothes" (ha!), and set out for the venue. When we arrived, I put on my race T-shirt, greeted folks I knew, took some pictures for the paper, and tried to act as if I belonged. Inside, though, I carried on a one-sided conversation with my pal Karen. "Please don't let me come in last," I begged her. "Give me an otherwordly nudge from behind. Levitate me. Anything. Just. Please. Not. Last."

The starting gun sounded and the race started. All was good at first; Kevin and I talked with friends, greeted our kids' former teachers, laughed, joked, and kept up a pretty good pace.

But then we turned the corner, and the sun was staring us full in the face. Sunshine is all well and good, but not when you're walking uphill and trying to keep up a conversation while not letting on that you're sweating into your socks and gasping for breath. Which, by the first mile-marker, was what I was doing.

I watched my husband's stride and marveled at it. He was sailing along while I, only about an inch shorter than he is, was mincing like a geisha. But was I going to allow him to beat me? No way in hell. So I settled on a sort of walk-skip-almost-jog routine while trying to ignore the stabbing pain emanating from my right knee.

We passed a Casey's. I was burning up, longing for a bottle of water and a brief, shady respite. I considered stopping. But then I looked across Kevin to the other side of the sidewalk and saw that people had turned the corner at the 1 1/2-mile mark and were starting to come back the other way. My 14-year-old stepson was one of them, Justin Bieber hair firmly in place; he hadn't even broken a sweat.

At mile 2, the sun was still full-on and I was panting. Kevin, a few steps ahead, was carrying on a conversation with a friend of mine who was meeting him for the first time. I didn't have enough breath to introduce them. My walk-skip-jog-ouch!-stabbing-pain routine was beginning to fail me, and again I wondered how the knee and I were going to finish the route.

Then, blessedly, we were out of the sunshine and in the home stretch. Karen must have shoved me from behind at that point, because suddently, Kevin and I were neck and neck. We finished the route at around 50 minutes -- not good, but not last.

My face was purple. My knee was screaming. My hair was matted, my t-shirt had ridden up around my waist, and I had no idea where my sunglasses had gone. But still -- I had finished. I was not only Rhonda; I was Flo-Jo. The "Rocky" theme played in my head.

I looked around for my medal, as we had received them in years past. Imagine my chagrin when I was told that the organizers had run out. I ended up going back to the sign-in tent and whining to my friend Sue, who knew people -- and suddenly, my medal appeared. As Kevin shook his head in embarrassment, I looped the purple ribbon around my neck.

Chances are my right knee soon will go the way of my left, so I guess that in a way, the race was its swan song. As I admired my medal and drank some water, I thought of Karen, who started running at age 45, jogging from driveway to driveway in her cul-de-sac until she had the stamina to venture out into the rest of the world. And I thought: I’ll never be Rhonda. But at least, following Karen’s lead from long ago, I got off my a**.

And, wait a minute. Speaking of Rhonda, soon I’ll have two titanium knees, so if we’re going to be literal about all this, by next year I’ll be more bionic than she is.

5K for Karen 2012: Watch out.

  

Why are we still asking if women and men can be "just friends"?

So, my most recent blog post raised a few questions among people who continue to wonder if men and women can truly be “just friends.”

Needless to say, I respond with a resounding “yes,” but that question makes me crazy. Why in the world would that not be the case? Are we all so amazingly alluring that people of the opposite gender—or those of the same gender who happen to be gay—can’t keep their hands off us?

I’ve always, always had male friends, and a fair number of them. Some of them have been gay, and some have been heterosexual, but one thing remains constant—in all my platonic relationships with men, we’ve managed, somehow, to keep our hands above the table.

I’m being facetious, but come on. How demeaning is it to assume that because I have one set of body parts and they have another, we can’t keep things on a non-sexual level?

I broached this subject with a college friend of mine who has been a mental-health professional for two decades. Her take on the subject: It makes sense that I have a number of male friends, because I possess a number of "stereotypically male" character traits. (That's something Kevin, my husband, loves hearing, I'm sure.)

Simply put, in most areas of my life, I have a tendency to shoot first and apologize later, and I also tend to be attracted to strong, quick-thinking, opinionated individuals. Society rewards those traits more often in men than in women, so that's why I gravitate toward males, she says.

OK, I have a hard time agreeing with the "stereotypically male" categorization, as many of the women I know are stronger than any of the men I have ever encountered. But I do tend be a little boisterous, and I have no trouble standing up for myself. Kevin, interestingly, is on the quiet side; for the most part, though, I do usually lean toward people with stronger personalities.

Maybe that explains things, but I don't feel as if my propensity is strange in any way, and I have difficulty with people who question it. In fact, I find it amazing that some people my age have never had friends of the opposite gender.

A conservative man I know asserts that such relationships are “not advisable” because when you fraternize with people to whom you could feasibly be sexually attracted, “it’s always going to go that way.” Um, wrong. I can guarantee that would make a lot of my male friends laugh really hard.

I also find that whole premise insulting. What if it so happened that a 40-something man and woman were friends in the workplace, and one of them were to think, “Hey, back in my 20s, when I was single, it would have been fun to date that person.” Does that mean the man and woman are going to make off for the Country Inn & Suites on their lunch hour? Of course not. Each one of them can appreciate the other while continuing to be respectful of their marriages or other relationships, and not allowing things venture into uncomfortable territory.

Kevin has a female friend at work to whom I frequently refer as his “work wife.” When he and I were first dating, I admit to having been a tad unsure of their relationship; Crystal is cute and smart and really, really funny. Now, 10 years into my relationship with Kevin, I’ve come to not only be entirely relaxed about the relationship, but appreciative of it.

Crystal is a good influence on my husband, who isn’t always the world’s most outwardly sensitive individual. I have a feeling she often helps him see a softer side of things. And the two of them share a wicked sense of humor that sometimes makes me wish I worked in the office next to them.

My son has many female friends; my daughter seems to be following in her mother’s footsteps as far as her propensity toward strong personalities and has several close guy friends as well. Thankfully, that fact doesn’t seem to adversely impact their romantic relationships. Perhaps this generation is a little better at understanding that everything is really, truly not all about sexual attraction; I’m sure that’s why they’re so much better than we were at embracing gay individuals.

So this week, I’ll probably take a walk with my friend Tyler and text with my friend Chuck and have lunch with a friend who happens to be a lesbian. And chances are pretty certain that I won’t end up sleeping with any of them. Because, really, the focus in all of those relationships tends to be what’s between their ears rather than what could conceivably happen between the sheets.