Not that easy, being green

When I was growing up my parents were full of all sorts of odd bits of wit, wisdom and poetry. And my mother occasionally spouted a verse to me that went something like this:

When she was good,
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

It seemed to me then that this poem, since it ultimately ends with a spanking, was meant as a cautionary tale to keep me in line, behavior-wise. It worked, for the most part: I may have been an irritatingly stubborn child, but I was never evil or purposefully destructive -- always too afraid of the punishment that might follow.

But it seems to me now more like a commentary on relationships -- not just with spouses and family, but also with friends, neighbors, and co-workers. I'm lucky -- I have lots of even-tempered folk in my life. But there do seem to be certain relationships that, for whatever reason, never seem to have that middle ground: they're either very very good or they're horrid.

My solution over time has simply been to extricate myself from the worst of those, the most extreme cases. There's just too much drama for my sanity. I know that for some that drama looks like passion, but for me it becomes a distraction, a way of keeping me caught up in the mechanics of things, lost in a relentless cycle of people-pleasing and tiptoeing when things are good and blame, guilt, anger, resentment and whining when things fall with the inevitable gravitational pull into the horrid spectrum.

...and as I type this, I realize that pretty much describes my relationship with my mother, which is probably why I always tended to align myself with my more sanguine father.

So why this photo? For some reason, when I looked at it I was reminded of some only children I know -- little ones, not grown. There is an innocence to this young leaf, a certainty that of course it deserves center stage, a confidence as it shows off its pretty skirts, surrounded and protected as it is by all the mature, slightly damaged leaves around it. It is good, very good, and certainly entitled to its feature story.

But life doesn't stop here, at the young and perfect stage, the coddled you-are-the-center-of-our-universe stage. Eventually these perfect children go off to school and find themselves surrounded by lots of other equally perfect and equally doted-upon children, and suddenly center stage is no longer a given. What happens then?

If they - and we, the parents and friends and society that surrounds them - are lucky, they become what my mother-in-law called "civilized:" i.e., responsible, contributing, sharing, forgiving, compassionate members of their community and society. They learn to relinquish center stage, to work with others for the common good, to brighten the little corner where they are with whatever gifts and talents they have without becoming drama queens: sweet when they get their way and horrid when they don't, always demanding constant feedback and attention or the biggest slice of the pie.

But they don't do that alone -- none of us do. We come into that maturity with the assistance of the constant, thoughtful and intentional feedback -- correction, applause, and forgiveness -- we get from those around us. And if we're lucky, we come to find that the pleasures of occupying center stage are fleeting, and that there is a deeper joy to be found in the productive, cooperative, supportive and compassionate connection with friends, family and community.

Once part of that larger connection, we, too, must learn the skills of correction, applause and forgiveness. I still struggle with that. Though I, too, am an only child, I mastered applause early -- I had to, in self-defense. This year I am doing a lot of work with forgiveness, and I find it immensely satisfying. As Samuel Johnson said in a quote my husband sent me just this morning,

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

But correction is trickier, for me, at least: easier when my children were young, but harder as they age, and incredibly difficult with friends and neighbors -- partly because I hate to set myself up as a judge and partly because I hate the potential repercussions that can follow. Hmm. I guess that's a part of me that hasn't quite grown up yet, the part that still avoids making waves or rocking the boat for fear of the punishment that may follow.

It's good, of course, to be careful about claiming that right is on your side. But if we step TOO softly, we can end up rather like much of the Democratic party over this last decade or so, too awash in confusion and self-recrimination to stop the horrid -- war, greed, environmental rape and pillaging -- from taking center stage. Hopefully with this election America will come of age.

But it will take work. Or should I say, "It's not that easy, being green."