My previous post shared a bit about RBF, Resting Bitch Face, and my plan to stop myself from being a poster child for it. My solution was to smile it away – and I am here to tell you that smiling is working its magic. And it came with an incredible gift!

Let me step back a moment and say that I am a bit angsty mentioning my RBF-related post since three people couldn’t unsubscribe fast enough after they received my email. Fortunately, many more responded that my plight resonated with them and they laughed right along with me. I love that!

I need to mention it, however, so that I can share what I learned about RBF and my solution. 

A Realization

A few days ago, the proverbial light bulb clicked on and I finally recognized what I saw in the expression on my face when it was caught forever in a still from a Zoom call. There’s an attitude that is related to the so-called “bitch face” that I do not have. (Thankfully!) What I now know is that I saw my mother’s face from the last half of her 90s up to her passing at 101 – and it was distressing.

I have read that muscle changes and the effects of gravity over time contribute to pulling down the corners of our mouth as we age. In the last five or six years of my mother’s life, the corners of her mouth pulled so far down that her mouth formed an upside-down U. Her face no longer moved so this was the expression she lived with, and it broke my heart to see.

Seeing my own face look so very close to that of my mother in her final state of being was too much to bear. But I now understand why this hit me so hard, and that helped.

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Smiling My Way Through

As I said I would in last week’s post, I started doing an internal face check-in throughout the day, every day. Specifically, I felt my way into understanding what my mouth was doing. If I felt the muscles had gone slack, which was typically the case, I would immediately smile. Not an “I am so happy” smile. Just a simple, gentle smile – similar to the llama’s smile at the top of this post. A smile of well-being that an observer might only recognize as pleasant.

I immediately noticed how good that felt. And then the smile broadened a bit. And that felt even better.

It took about three days for a new awareness to kick in. Checking in, the smile was present more often. And then happiness snuck up on me – and that felt like blissful peace. Or is that peaceful bliss? Whichever.

This is not totally unexpected since I am a happy person by nature – but I am also navigating a trying time. My work is between projects at the moment, and I typically do not do well when I am not working. Unlike so many who have way too much on their plate, I don’t do well when I don’t have enough – nothing crazy, just “enough.”

Now in week two of my break from work, my smiling intervention has produced a solid feeling of happiness and well-being. Nothing else has changed. I am truly surprised at how happy I feel, and I believe I know why this is happening.

Stanislavski and His Connection with Happiness

My first career was as an actor. I often used to say that acting books (they were all books back in the day) offered some of the best self-help insights – and self-help or psychology books offered some of the best acting insights. An example of the former is the work of Konstantin Stanislavski.

Stanislavski was a Russian actor, director, teacher, co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre who lived from 1863 to 1938. He found ways to allow actors to find what I will call “truth” in the roles they played. This came in response to the over-the-top performances in vogue at the time which had no connection with reality at all.

As I think about what I learned all those years ago, I believe he deeply understood the mind/body connection. One of his beliefs was that when we put our attention on an action, emotions will start to flow.

So, back to me. After three or four days of monitoring the look on my face, my repeated action to smile triggered a real emotion – happiness. There is no knot in the pit of my stomach, which normally would have appeared by now. There is only a feeling of well-being.

The way I live my life may well have skewed my results. I find joy and happiness in the smallest of things throughout each day – the beauty of a flower, the song of a bird, the nuzzle of a neighborhood dog, and more. My level of happiness is literally topped up morning to night. Even so, giving attention to my smile feels different in my body – it feels more deeply grounded. I fully believe it has positively affected my normal stress reaction.

A Reflection

I do believe that genuine feelings of happiness can be created by simply smiling and feeling the enjoyment that comes from it.

And just maybe, when those feelings of peace and well-being are present, we can think more clearly to focus on the bigger learning that needs to take place. That learning enables happiness to settle deep within our bones where it becomes life-changing. If a hack can help us get there, I am all for it!

A Question

What do you think about hacking happiness? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

The link to the RBF post that drove three people to unsubscribe is below. I hope it will bring a smile.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

I often have to look up acronyms, and RBF was a case in point when I came across it a few years back. Resting Bitch Face?! I knew I didn’t have to give that one another thought. No problem here! Ah, what a pleasant but misguided thought!

Some things sneak up on you and then you wonder how long they’ve been there hiding in plain sight. When did my neck change? And the skin on my hands and arms? I see the same face in the mirror I have always seen, but somehow that reflection is displaying more of a memory than showing the truth.

Mirrors often show us what we expect to see. I have to catch a glance by surprise to see the real me – or at least a more accurate version of me. Those glimpses mostly come from my reflection in the glass of buildings I pass as I walk through my day.

And they also come from Zoom. That one just rocked my world, and I do not mean that in a good way. I honestly did not recognize myself as I watched the recording of a session I attended. I felt a tightening in my heart when I realized who I was looking at. That woman was me!

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From Malaise to Curiosity

I sank into a feeling of malaise. Malaise is pretty much as low as I ever feel. It appears now and again, and it never lasts long. Often, I can sleep it off and wake up feeling myself again. This one lasted longer. Maybe it’s the proximity to my birthday, but I don’t think so. I love celebrating my birthday and, quite honestly, I am not fixated on age – mine or anyone else’s!

Then I became curious. Why was I making this particular face – and how can I stop doing that?

I noticed that my expression changes when I am thinking about something – especially so when I am deeply concentrating. In fact, I can feel my mouth inching to RBF as I write since I am clearly thinking about this. And then the proverbial lightbulb lit - smiling is an immediate fix.

When I am in conversation with someone, smiles spontaneously appear. As I walk, I started reminding myself to allow the smile I feel in my heart to show itself on my expression. On Zoom, well, I just may need to keep the camera turned off until I reset my facial muscles.

Smiling My Way Back

Curing RBF appears to have become a big business opportunity. Of course it has!

My curiosity led me to the not-so-great-anymore-Google, where a recommendation was to read about its morbidity rate. Thankfully, the reference was to Rat-Bite Fever – which, by the way, has a morbidity rate of 7-10%. Resting Bitch Face appears to be at zero, at least for now.

For the face variety of RBF, there are recommendations from injectables to face lifts. These are an easy “no” for me. I’ll just learn to smile while concentrating. I’m not referring to the crazy Joker-type smile of a lunatic, just a pleasant sort of Mona Lisa-type smile while I retrain the muscles of my face.

We will see how I do on my next Zoom call – if I turn on the camera.

Bonus Thought

Did you know you can hear a smile? It’s true! I have been doing voiceovers for decades now, and the first thing I was taught was to smile. It changes the sound of your words.

And in the spirit of fake it till you make it, I cannot wear a smile and still experience malaise. Instead, my heart starts to open and I feel a flood of well-being.

Who knew a smile could be so powerful?!

A Reflection

It is amazing how the small, petty stuff can drive us to distraction. I am quite sure I am not the only one affected.

I am aware that there are bigger issues here than RBF – the face, not the rat bites. My mother’s face was far too often filled with a look of pure negativity. To think I wore even a hint of that led me to a very uncomfortable place. But I am not my mother – and I am eternally grateful for that!

I am also very aware that I just have to laugh – at myself, at my angst, at this RBF craziness. Laughter is one of my default ways to feel better when life gets me down. I wasn’t able to fully sleep off my malaise, but smiling and laughing as I wrote this post is getting me there.

A Question

How do you work through inner crazies when they arrive? I’d welcome reading what you find helpful in the comments.

There’s no new post this week. Instead, I have for you one of my favorite Random Conversations, posted on Substack May 22, 2024. Its message is more timely than ever.

We continue to live in times of fractured communication. Often that means we don’t see each other as we truly are, and often that means that we are not seen either. Embracing the Zulu greeting of sawubona reminds us that we are unique, multifaceted beings.

I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

The Zulu greeting sawubona has been on my mind. I thought it was Zulu for “hello” when I lived in South Africa, and only learned its greater meaning years after my return home.

“I see you” was one translation I heard. The response was commonly translated as “I am seen.”  More recently I learned a second interpretation: “We see you.”  The response is Yebo, sawubona: “Yes, we see you, too.”

We?

A short video by Orland Bishop, the founder and director of the Shade Tree Multicultural Foundation in Los Angeles, explains that “we” includes me, my ancestors, my spiritual self – a multitude of complexity that I embody when I see you and prepare to talk with you.  When you respond that you see me, too, you are seeing that complex version of me through a filter of your own complexity.

Bishop says,

“Seeing is a dialogue. … It is an invitation to participate in each other’s life.”

I love that.  It is open and inclusive. It’s a coming together that is all too often lost in what has become a time of fractured communication. 

We Contain Multitudes

Beyond my ancestors and spiritual self, my interpretation of sawubona expands further.  I am the sum of all my life experiences, plus more. Younger versions of myself at different points of my life are still with me – including the little girl who never fit in.

The totality of who I am includes a blend of my greatest successes and biggest disappointments, experiences from my childhood to today, my hopes and aspirations for the future.  They are all present with me when I am in conversation with another, and I look for the same in them.

In doing that, I start to see a holistic view of others. What a gift to see each other in our entirety, and especially to do so from within our awareness of our own fullness. In this way, we honor each other.

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Curiosity

Sawubona is an antidote to the labels we put on each other as a way to bucket people by political beliefs, where we live, what we do for a living, and more.

Labels limit our perception and then lead us to assumptions of what those labels mean.  Human complexity cannot be reduced to a label.

Can we move beyond this limited lens and see each other in our totality? Absolutely! I believe it starts with curiosity.

Curiosity helps us see the uniqueness of each other while understanding our common bonds. It helps us gain a deep understanding, enabling us to see underneath the surface to understand what is coloring the words being spoken.

I am not referring to faux curiosity. That is the one that feigns interest in an effort to entrap someone in a belief that the “listener” then uses to judge and deride them. I grew up with that one, and I know it is not real.

True curiosity is driven by the need to understand – not to condemn. When we see each other in our full complexity, we can reach new levels of understanding.

Freedom

In his video, Bishop says that seeing in this way empowers us to explore our mutual potential in life. It also raises the question, “How do I have to be as a human being for someone else to be free?” He goes on to say.

“Freedom must be a mutual gift from one human being to another, recognizing that if I limit one person’s freedom, I limit my own.”

Reflecting on his statement, it occurs to me that freedom is the ultimate gift we can give each other. Freedom to be heard, accepted, understood.  Freedom to be seen in our entirety and to know that we are valued.

In the spirit of sawubona, we see you. Who is the you that sees me?

Orland Bishop’s short video may be viewed here.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

I had a thought as I walked in my neighborhood this past week. Building on my post about embracing my inner flâneur,1 it occurred to me that it would be wonderful to have you walk with me.

Each day unfolded into quite a mixed bag of sorts – mostly good. I’ve been trying to find a through-line – something that connects individual snippets into a cohesive whole. It occurs to me that just maybe the picture that forms is an experience of my world, a view through my lens of positivity, a window into who I am.

Let’s take a metaphorical walk together and explore.

Disaster

The week started with a computer disaster. A Microsoft update corrupted Windows 11 and I could not get past a forever-spinning circle. Microsoft was not helpful. I’ll come back to that. In desperation, I opted for help from the Geek Squad, which required leaving my laptop with them overnight.

Cutting to the chase, as they say, the Geek Squad was great! They wiped my computer clean (the thought of which still terrifies me), gave me a new Windows 11 operating system, and restored all the major elements of my computer life. I couldn’t have been happier with their work – and their patience with a whole lot of unhappy customers.

The person ahead of me at the Geek Squad started describing my same problem. I later asked one of the Squad how many she had seen with this issue since the update went out. She thought about it and said I was the fifth person that day. The fifth?! And that was only one location in only one rather large city.

And here’s the point about Microsoft that I wanted to come back to. I discovered that they rolled out this update in April and it had the same effect. Why would they roll it out again in May without fixing it?! One of the Squad explained that Microsoft used to roll out updates to a test site, but they stopped doing that. Well, thank you, Microsoft, for saving yourself a few dollars and wreaking havoc in my life!

My trust is deeply damaged. But I have gained respect for my local Geek Squad, and that makes me happy!

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Silver Linings

For such a rocky start, my week unfolded into something quite wonderful.

I stopped by L’Appartement 4F in the West Village for one of their tahini chocolate chip cookies. This is a tiny outpost of the original Brooklyn restaurant which started in the owners’ apartment – 4F, of course. By tiny, I mean that they have a window that opens to the sidewalk for people to walk up to.

After waiting my turn (there’s always a line), I ordered my cookie and watched as it was taken out of the warming oven for me. It was immediately followed by a second that was placed in the same bag and delivered with a big smile. (I ate them both.)

This was not a first for them. My previous visit, I asked for their sourdough baguette – my favorite baguette in the City. After placing it in a bag, I was asked if I’d also like their sourdough loaf for free. (Yes, please.) As it turns out, they start giving away what’s left as they run out of products to sell. But I have to say, they were not running out of their products when a second cookie made its way to me.

BTW, I was also gifted a free coffee soft serve from an ice cream store not far from there – a different day, a different week. The person behind the counter had gifted me one last year, as well. They are the only place I know that makes a coffee-flavored soft serve ice cream and it is delicious! He always seems genuinely pleased to see me, and that is gift enough. Though the ice cream was delicious and much appreciated.

Gifts of Laughter

I had a doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. The elevator in her building opens to a foyer which leads to a hallway to the right. As I walked to the corner, a woman rounded the same corner from the hallway and we almost bumped into each other. As I tend to do, I smiled, laughed, apologized, and went on my way.

And then I heard a disembodied voice loudly call out, “Thank you for smiling!!” I wish I could remember what either of us said after that – two voices echoing down an empty hallway. I know I burst out laughing. I think she commented on people not smiling anymore, or we need more smiling, or something like that.

Since I so recently wrote about the power of a smile and a hello, I loved this faceless exchange all the more!2

Heartening Comments

I truly love this Substack community! I have met so many incredible people and consider them to be an integral part of my life. Most of us chat via comments on one post or another, and a special few of us catch up on Zoom calls. And soon, my second in-person meeting will take place here in NYC!

The comments people leave on my posts lift my heart. They are wise and caring, and some bring me to tears. They enhance what I write, taking it to a new level. I greatly appreciate each of them!

This week (as I write) was especially profound for me. First of all, my post on Wednesday was a celebration of the birthday of a dear friend who passed in 2003 – which seems more like just yesterday to me. Not only were the commenters meeting my friend and sharing in the joy of our years together, they also shared their own deep relationships and how they celebrate them. How wonderful to read them all!!3

I often say that our words and actions create ripples that go out into the world. This week, a boat-load of beautiful ripples radiated out, and I couldn’t be happier!!

I feel very, very fortunate!

Apples on Friday

Friday always includes one of my favorite farms at the Union Square Farmers Market. They spoil me by setting aside a bag of my favorite apples (Evercrisp apples – a Fuji / Honeycrisp blend). I love knowing they will be waiting for me. Their asparagus is now in season and a bunch is also set aside for me. And throughout the summer, they always tell me when there’s something so delicious that I have to try it. They are never wrong.

How did I get so lucky?! Restaurants in the area buy directly from these farms in great quantity. I am only one person, buying a not-so-extravagant amount of food – yet they have offered me such special treatment the past 3 or 4 years, every Friday.

Another farm grows my favorite tomatoes (Purple Cherokee) and we are already talking about how “my tomatoes” are doing. (Very well in the greenhouse, thank you.) My favorite egg farm is each Wednesday – though I suppose that is more appropriately a chicken farm. They fill their dozen cartons with eggs from 4 or 5 heritage chicken breeds and they are all delicious!

I love these connections with such delightful people and their incredible offerings. It’s a feast for my soul.

A Reflection

Reading through these snippets, I am aware of what I have not mentioned. The conversation I had with a woman holding her dog. The kind couple who softly asked if I was OK after a bicyclist and I almost collided. (A rookie mistake of looking right when I should have looked left.) Eyes brightening and smiles appearing as I made my way through my neighborhood.

I could have easily held onto my Microsoft-fueled anger throughout the week and beyond. I witnessed that long-simmering reaction when my parents felt wronged. I felt it myself in years gone by. This week, however, I focused on the ease with which the issue was resolved and the peace of mind in having found a good source of help a ten-minute walk from home.

Choosing to focus on what went well, on what brings me a feeling of wholeness, on the joyous beauty and inspiration that surrounds us all waiting to be embraced, a window opened that brought so much beauty into my life. And that has made a world of difference.

A Question

What do you love about your neighborhood that you can share? I’d welcome reading your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

It is April 30^th as I begin writing this post, and it would have been the 93^rd birthday of my dear friend Bobby Lawrence.

This birthday started with a call to South Africa, as it has for almost forty years. The first 18 years, I was able to speak directly with Bobby – and with his wife, Milly, for the majority of those years. In December of 2003, however, Bobby left this world and joined Milly, who passed a few years earlier. I’ve been calling their daughter, Vivienne, on his birthday ever since. (And Christmas, but I digress.)

There was something special – otherworldly maybe – about my friendship with Bobby. I continue to feel him all around me, especially so since he was a sculptor and four of his pieces are within easy view. And a beautiful piece by Vivienne is resting to my right. Artistic talent flourished and continues to flourish in that family!

The Beginning

We met by chance, or more to the point, we met because we were supposed to meet. My (now ex-) husband and I were living in Johannesburg. The South African economy had collapsed and we were exploring new business opportunities that might be successful for us in the US.

My agent and her husband thought we should meet Bobby, and that led to a four-hour drive to an area of the country near Kruger National Park. The rest, as they say, is history. But with a twist. I’ll come back to that.

We had a year and a half or maybe two years together in person. My now ex and I would drive to spend a weekend once a month or so with Bobby and Milly. And then there was the private time Bobby and I spent together. He came to Johannesburg every now and then to go to his foundry or to the gallery showing his work, always with me by his side. A couple times I watched in awe as molten bronze was poured into its mold.

Those days were ours, and there was much I didn’t know until years later. Lunch was always a highlight. And once the foundry and gallery work was done, he’d take me to meet some of his friends, which included one of the most famous painters in South Africa and an extraordinary expert on Southern African tribes who published multiple books on them. Fascinating people – and so talented!

And then my now ex and I left South Africa, and telephone calls replaced four-hour drives.

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The Beginning of the End

My marriage ended, and I continued what had become our tradition of calls.

I learned on one of those April 30th calls that Bobby almost died of sepsis as a result of an accident during cancer surgery. I was very upset that I hadn’t known what he was going through. I told him that I could have been of support to Milly during that time. I could have been of support to him.

He told me that Milly asked him if she should call me and he said no. He knew I would call on his birthday and he wanted to be able to tell me that he was healthy and well.

And the comment that dissolved me into tears? As he reviewed his life, not sure if he would live or die, he thought about the people who meant the most to him in his life – and there I was on the top of the list. I am quite sure his wife and daughter meant more, but I’ll give him some poetic license.

Through sobs, I made him promise he would never again keep bad news from me. A few years later, he called to let me know Milly had passed. And then in 2003, he called to let me know his cancer had returned. I immediately told him I’d be there.

Our Farewell Visit

He had hoped I could be there for his birthday to share in the celebration of a profile of him that had been published which proclaimed him to be a legend – and legend he was. I just missed it and arrived the following month, and the timing was still perfect.

We spent two weeks talking and laughing about everything in our lives – past and present. I got to meet his extended family and many friends, most of whom I had not met when I lived in South Africa. At least once a day, we sat on the deck looking out over the water of the Da Gama Dam, and simply basked in the warmth of our friendship.

And that twist? Well, that was all about learning details from our earlier time together that brought a new light to my past experiences. I just had to laugh.

For one thing, every time my now ex and I would leave their home, Bobby would turn to Milly and ask, “What does she see in him?!” Milly would advise him to let it go, and he did for a whole lot of years until I sat with him again.

And I was surprised to learn that my agent’s husband made such a pest of himself that Bobby almost canceled our initial trip. Then, all those years later, he told me exactly what I was wearing when he saw me get out of the car, and the impression I had made on him. For my part, I couldn’t read the look on his face at all.

And my favorite revelation was that he and Milly made up a story to get me alone for lunch in Johannesburg. They invited me (only) to lunch to meet their friend who they thought might help with my acting work. Neither my now ex nor I thought anything about it – I was just happy to meet her and to see my friends. It was a total set-up and I had no clue. He was so proud of himself at pulling it off, and he had to wait all those years to finally tell me. I still laugh thinking about it!

The End

As Bobby’s cancer progressed, he moved to his sister’s home and I called him there so we could laugh together through his final weeks. I fully believe that laughter is the best medicine, but cancer won in the end.

Our last conversation was only a few days before he passed. I later learned that he reached out with arms extended, speaking with the African man who was formative in his life when he was young. He loved this man and that is who came to help him make his final transition.

Bobby’s niece called to let me know the news. Bobby kept his promise to call with any bad news all the way to the end. God, I love that man!

A Reflection

I often return to the deck on which we spent our last mornings. I take his arm and we sit. Words are no longer necessary. I question if they ever were. Water shimmers in the dam’s lake. The beautiful and often exotic birds of South Africa call out as they fly by. A cool breeze comes from across the water.

Love and peace fills my heart, and I cannot help but smile. Happy Birthday, my friend!

A Question

How do you acknowledge or celebrate birthdays of loved ones who have passed? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Waiting at the elevator to go up to my apartment, I stood next to two men and a very large piece of equipment. The older of the two (the uncle to the nephew, as it turns out) had the biggest of smiles – which, of course, I met in kind.

When I learned they were working on the building’s sewer, I immediately said, “That’s important – thank you for the work you do!” The uncle plumber’s smile got even bigger. And that’s when our conversation started in earnest.

He mentioned how nice it was to be so pleasantly greeted and told me of other buildings where his “good morning” been completely ignored – even though he had been working around these same people for multiple days. I find that very sad. And even sadder was the person who berated him for daring to be happy when there was so much adversity in the world.

Someone actually turned on a fellow human being for smiling and extending a pleasant greeting!!

I have experienced being ignored now and again over the years, and I often think it might be cultural. My dear former mother-in-law, Rose, offered a perfect illustration of that.

On her first trip to the US from her home in the UK, my (now ex-) husband and I took her to meet my family in Arizona. On a golf cart tour with my father, she sat perfectly still while my father greeted everyone along the way.

Finally, my father told her, “Rose, in this country we say hello to people.” And from that moment, a new Rose appeared. She smiled, waved, spoke to everyone she came in contact with – and seemed to enjoy it greatly.

I’m not so sure there is an equally easy fix for someone who turns on another for daring to be happy in tumultuous times. Just maybe, if that person had taken a moment to accept the offered human interaction and savor the beauty of a shared moment, the pain of the world might have felt a tiny bit lighter that day.

Tiny lifts here and there, again and again, and a feeling of peace starts to settle in.

Our words and actions create ripples that flow out into the world. Choosing the good ones opens feelings of well-being. And sometimes it’s as simple as saying hello.

Do you gift others with random hellos?

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

Two years ago today, my first post arrived on Substack. To celebrate this anniversary, as I do so often in my life, I pause to reflect on this time and where it has led me. And I bought myself white parrot tulips at the farmers market - as one does.

Round peg in a square hole

Over this time on Substack and the previous four years on Medium, I have continuously been asked my niche. Who, specifically, am I writing for? Who is my target audience? It’s a question I cannot answer, and I’m told that answering it is a major enabler of success. I hope that’s not true because I cannot comply.

I tend to see people beyond categories – even myself. People have sought to put me in a “bucket” my entire life and that, more often than not, feels like I’m a peg being hammered into a misshapen hole. I fail to see why that is genuinely helpful. I understand that it makes marketing easier, but it feels limiting to me at a time when my soul is calling for expansion and inclusion.

So I bumble along, writing to you each week – the you who do not fall into one specific category or another, just like me. And that leads me to follow my curiosity down paths that may appear disjointed to some, but are all highly pleasurable to me.

Following paths of joy started to make more sense when I read about flâneurs and discovered that I am one. “Exploring Life as a Flâneur,”1 a post I wrote in 2023, has been circling in my head for days now leading up to today’s anniversary. I think it’s time to revisit it.

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Discovering flâneurs

The word flâneur, according to Wikipedia,2 is derived from the Old Norse verb flana, meaning “to wander with no purpose.” The flâneur as a person first appeared in literature in the 19th century. The connotation has varied, becoming more positive over time.

I was introduced to the word in a New York Times travel article, The Art of Being a Flâneur,3 and saw myself as I read. The author, Stephanie Rosenbloom, shared her experience exploring cities by wandering through them.

Rosenbloom writes,

To walk a city led by your senses rather than a destination is to awaken to the city and, possibly, to yourself. It’s an opportunity to expand your capacity for wonder, to discover and delight in things you might have missed had you been aiming to get somewhere.

And she goes on to way,

This sort of aimless strolling is conducive to savoring, to finding joy in the moment, a practice that some social scientists have found can be cultivated and may help lead to a more fulfilling life.

This is my ultimate conversation with a city – one I engage in daily. I love wandering to explore the world around me, watching with wide-eyed wonder as my walks reveal their gifts to me. I savor the smell of a flower, the song of a bird, the delight of observing a tender interaction – and my heart feels full.

Reflecting on my inner flâneur

It is not surprising that I am reminded of conversation and how we communicate together.

Thinking as a flâneur encourages my curiosity about the person with whom I am speaking. I engage with fresh eyes and ears to learn more, allowing questions and comments to open a myriad of discoveries, unencumbered by preconceived ideas.

I collaborate more effectively by exploring multiple ways of being, of thinking, of doing – without feeling the need to own one in particular.

Most important, embracing my inner wanderer brings the promise of surprise – of learning or experiencing something new and potentially extraordinary. That newness offers a fresh perspective – one that validates my beliefs or presents something different to consider.

With all this to discover and experience, how can I ever put anything, no less anyone, in a hole or a box?! I cannot do it. Which leads me to turn to you as we travel down this random path together.

A request

It occurs to me to ask you, my readers, for your help. Since I do not see either of us fitting into a niche or category, I am curious to know what you enjoy about my wanderings and what keeps you reading. Knowing that would be an incredible gift.

If you are comfortable with this request, I hope you will leave a comment or reach out to me directly with your thoughts. I am quite sure I will find it illuminating.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

A giant eye seemed to hang in the air as I approached the Flatiron Building. I was walking to an appointment and didn’t have time to linger, but of course I had to stop.

Heading uptown (north, to non-NYers), the eye is brown. Looking back downtown, the eye is a bright blue. It took my second visit to discover the eye was supported by a pillar of tears, pooling at its base.

We don’t always see what is literally right in front of us.

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Dreamland Sirens by Charlotte Colbert

The Flatiron is my hands-down favorite NYC building. Its beauty has been hidden for the past few years as it goes through renovation and rebirth as condos.1 That said, the energy of its 120+ years can still be felt, and I’m sure it will get stronger as it once again fills with life.

Having the Dreamland Sirens 30-foot sculpture in this space seems like a perfect albeit temporary home. Links to information about the sculpture2 and its artist, Charlotte Colbert,3 can be found in the footnotes. They also offer far better photos than I could capture.

I was mesmerized by the reflections captured in the tears and eyelashes - each morphing into something new as I walked around the sculpture. Over the past few days as I sat with the photos I took, I kept seeing more and more - always the most beautiful of surprises.

I was curious to know what inspired the artist, and her answer was totally unexpected.

Oh, YES!!! Yes, our world is turned upside down and every other direction. And yes, we have the power to reimagine any and all of our agreed-upon conventions and bring change.

Reimagining the Future

How? Well, Colbert goes on to say,

That is one powerful invitation!! And how fitting that the artwork reminding us that we can always reinvent is standing next to a building that is doing exactly that.

Embracing Randomness

How can I not love that Colbert champions random conversations as we pause to reflect on this sculpture that holds us in its gaze and reflects us back?!

I could not agree more with every single word!

Reflecting on Reflections

I find myself getting lost in these reflections of my home city, seeing the sky appear both above and below, seeing the Flatiron stretch into new and graceful shapes, seeing a tear-shaped boundary framing the view. Nothing is as expected, and that fascinates me.

I am not an artist, but I appreciate art. And I especially appreciate art that draws me into a different perspective.

What I love most is Colbert’s invitation “to question, to dream, and to rethink what we take for granted.” Fresh eyes are critical to accepting her invitation. And just maybe that is why this particular eye is overflowing with tears. Only we can dry those tears.

A Question

Have you experienced a change of perspective that has stayed with you? I’d welcome hearing about your experience and what enabled it in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

It’s been such an odd few months. Well, more realistically, it’s been odd for what seems like ever.

Part of that has been the weather. NYC had two major snowfalls over the winter, the first of which brought frigid temperatures that did not budge for weeks. In February, the prediction of both local and regional groundhogs came true - New York’s Staten Island Chuck and Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil.

(For a good laugh, take a look at NOAA’s January 2025 Groundhog Rankings. Chuck is #1 – and #2 is a Prairie Dog statue!)

Another part of that oddness has been work-related. For six years this month, I have been fortunate to have had an incredible working relationship with a client I deeply respect. I have loved working with them! This current project will wrap up later this month, completing the work we set out to do all that time ago. Sadly, this experience has been very different.

I’ve been head down, bleary eyes focused on my computer screen, oblivious to the beauty that was unfolding around me. For too many days, I never even ventured outside – and that is just not good.

I have missed two of my self-imposed newsletter posting days. Letting the guilt go was the first step, and that was fairly easy when I realized that no one had Wednesday’s on their mental calendar to expect to hear from me.

It was more that I started to wonder if I could ever get back on track. I have missed writing these random conversations and hearing from so many of you! But now I’m back – just like spring.

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Spring – Beauty, Resilience, Renewal

I have often shared my love of spring in the northeast. Growing up in Arizona, spring arrived with the African daisies, and was immediately followed by the furnace blast of summer – like a simple tinkling of Chopsticks on the piano. In the northeast, spring unfolds in a three-month orchestration of spectacular becoming – a symphony of delights. I missed the symphony this year.

The snowdrops had come and gone, the crocuses and daffodils were already up and peaking, my favorite magnolias were about to burst open, and even the cherry trees in front of my apartment building were already starting to open their buds.

My late winter joy in discovering all the very first signs of spring and watching them grow had been lost, and I was deeply disappointed and disoriented.

Spring and its layer upon layer of beauty has been a yearly metaphor of resilience and renewal, and I arrived very late to the party when my need for it was strongest. And, since it was so cold for so long and followed by sudden high temperatures, this spring has decided to bloom all at once – the northeast version of Chopsticks.

I have felt beaten down to a breaking point the last few weeks, and I needed an influx of that metaphor’s positive energy. Now I am trying my best to catch up.

Work – the Dysfunction of Parallel Communication

I won’t bore you with the details. My current project is to re-record 40+ technical training videos I created over the past six years, due to updated branding and a new User Interface.

What changed is the person I interact with. The senior leader who led this work in the past is still present, but she stayed in the background and elevated a member of her team to lead the project.

This person is technically brilliant and I am in awe of that. She can easily keep track of a seemingly infinite number of data points – I cannot. For me to get there, I need context before I can process the details. Present me with too many details, and my brain literally shuts down.

This seems such a simple thing, right? But that simple difference churned through way-too-many budgeted hours of work, and it was only getting worse.

A quick example. I asked one simple and direct question, and her response was paragraphs of detail that did not answer my question. I thanked her and asked the question again, which brought more of the same. It was only in a long, frustration-laden, detail-filled response that the answer to my question was given.

I fully understand her frustration with me. After all, she gave me all the details she could think of. We simply spoke two different languages, which created parallel conversations that never connected.

Communicating effectively with highly analytical people can be challenging for me. Multiple communication and interaction style assessments over the years have helped me a great deal, but there is always something more to learn. I braced myself each morning as I checked to see how many messages she sent me.

Ultimately, I asked for help. I reached out to the phenomenal person who had been directly leading our work all this time, and she quickly stepped in. I explained why the project was in jeopardy. She listened carefully and asked questions for clarity.

She understood that the person on her team who had been leading this project was at the center of the loss of time and allocated hours. We created a plan to effectively move forward, and I am once again reminded what an incredible leader she is.

And that is when I finally went outside and discovered that spring had arrived without me.

A Reflection

Anticipation is such a powerful energizer. That may well be part of the reason I start searching for signs of spring while we are still in the grips of winter. It shakes off the dormancy of long dark months. Without it this spring, I now realize that a dopamine rush accompanies each sighting and fills me with well-being. I have really, really missed that.

But more is coming.

Nature will continue to unfold all around me as spring turns into summer, bringing with it a visual representation of resilience and renewal. The focus of what I missed is now shifting to the anticipation and expectation of what is yet to be.

My heart feels full.

A Question

What does spring mean to you? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

There must have been an association of thoughts that brought back a memory from college. I don’t remember the path my thinking took, but something reminded me.

In response to an assignment in one of my classes, a friend drove me through an area of Phoenix that I never knew existed. She referred to it as The Barrio, and said she used to live there.

She pointed out people and places along the way, sharing stories that broke my heart. The one that stays with me was a young teenager she pointed to, saying she had been a prostitute for several years.

When I got home, I told my mother about what I saw. My heart was hurting and it hurts again as I remember the experience. Her response?

Aren’t you happy we protected you from that?

I was not happy.

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An Earlier Memory

That memory circling around in my head brought back an earlier one.

I would have been one side or another of thirteen. Mom and I were at a restaurant having lunch and she told me about the affairs my father had. She found phone numbers in his pockets and who knows what else. He told her that all the men in their group of married friends were having affairs – every one of them. Clearly, it didn’t mean anything. Right?

She seemed calm – resigned to once again be treated without respect, just as she had from childhood. I was incensed and her acceptance only fanned those flames.

So, here’s the question that came to me. Why would my mother feel righteous for protecting me from knowing the poverty and squalor of an entire community, and yet feel that sharing one more example of my father’s reprehensible behavior and her own inability to stand up to him was important for me to know – and at that still very young age?

I don’t think she would ever have been able to articulate an answer to that. Self-reflection was not a strength in my family.

Years later, I confronted my father with examples of his horrible behavior. He looked me straight in the eye and lied. This was over one of his beloved three martini lunches, during which he told me how proud he was that he made his marriage work.

Really?!

What’s the Story?

Both these memories got me thinking about the stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell each other.

One story my family bought into was that family was everything. They both came from large families and family was their number one priority. It didn’t matter that relationships with their extended family were fractured – just like in our immediate family. Family was family.

Sadly, what neither could see was that those living in The Barrio at that time were our family, as well. That thinking, to quote my post from a couple weeks ago, was just hooey!

And my mother’s reaction to being betrayed by her husband again and again and again? To me, it was one more example of her suffering. In a very unhealthy way, I think she believed it would bring us closer. My parents had a habit of putting me in the middle of them and trying to get me on “their side.”

And that is part of my story, isn’t it? Fortunately, the angst I used to feel over the dynamics of my family is long gone. I remain very grateful that my relationship with both of them healed before they passed.

Stories Are Fluid

I am here to say that we can change our stories. We don’t have to live within their confined parameters. This is true for the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories we tell about others.

This even includes the most silly of stories.

I wore a Tuareg cross for years. My (now ex-) husband and I bought it when we lived in South Africa. At that time, Tuareg men were referred to as the “blue men of the desert” since their indigo-died clothing bled onto their skin as they crossed northern Africa. I was captivated by their story and loved the piece they created.

After wearing it for a year or so, I discovered that someone I knew only in passing created and shared her own story about it and why I wore it. The details she offered have been lost over time, but I remember that she wove quite a tale that had no basis in truth whatsoever.

I have no idea why she felt compelled to do that. The piece itself would have opened an interesting conversation between the two of us. Instead, she was invested in her own version of my life. And she was happy to share it. Asking me a simple question would have changed the entire story. We might have even become friends.

A Reflection

The stories we tell are tied to the truths we hold. Sometimes we hold onto them to make us feel good – and sometimes we hold onto them to make us feel bad. Reviewing them with a loving eye can be illuminating, to say the least.

A Question

What do you think about the stories we tell? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

It’s Wednesday, my day to post a new newsletter, and I couldn’t let the day pass without sending something.

All is well. It’s not health or sadness or anything else untoward. It has been more a case of too much of a good thing. I am very happy to say that I have been busy with my work - and saddened that it has been at the expense of my writing.

But I can share something – two somethings, in fact.

It’s been 2 ½ weeks since my neighborhood got covered in 17 inches of beautiful, pristine snow. A friend and I walked to Washington Square Park that evening and it was a magical experience!

There’s a softness in the air when it snows – you can feel it as well as hear it. Laughter was also in the air as art was sculpted and snowballs flew. It was a beautiful combination – one that changed by the minute since it was already melting.

It was a fleeting experience, much like life itself, right?

It occurred to me that I might share two of my favorite photos from that walk while I take a short pause. I hope you will enjoy them. With temperatures in the 70s the past three days, this snowfall seems like it was a lifetime ago!

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The second something is my thanks. It will soon be two years since I started writing on Substack. I have met the most amazing people – one in person (so far), quite a few on calls, and so many more through the words we share.

My heart is full and I cannot thank you enough.

Till next week….

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

Reading a post by my friend Jamie Wallace last week, I surprised myself by bursting out with an outrageously loud laugh – a laugh that kept coming in waves all the rest of the day. I’m still smiling.

In her post, Jamie shared her discovery of a 1942 book by Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods. The setting is the Maine woods during the time Rich lived there. The excerpts that fill Jamie’s post open a window into a very different time, with very different language.

In one of those excerpts, Rich pushed back on a commonly held belief she did not agree with and responded, “Frankly, this is hooey.” And that is what did me in.

And then it got me thinking about my family. What if my response to my father’s tirades had been to proclaim it hooey?! My guess is that it might have disarmed him and at least bought me some time to escape. It would be even better if it made him laugh.

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Words and More Words

I started to wonder what other magical words are out there that describe utter nonsense and turned to an online Thesaurus. Giggles immediately kicked in.

Wouldn’t it be fun to tell a deserving someone that what they just said was absolute twaddle or flapdoodle?! Fortunately, I am rarely in those situations anymore, but I will come armed if I know I’m heading into one.

Laughter and More Laughter

While fully enjoying my exploration of all things hooey, I got to thinking about how beautiful and powerful laughter is. I think we may take it for granted, and that will not do.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a laugher. I laugh a laugh filled with joy, and it appears to please people when they hear it – and then they cannot help but start laughing. It seems to be infectious – in only the best of ways.

I cannot tell you how many times over decades people have told me how much they love my laugh. I wish I could hear it myself – but I do feel it.

A fun laugh story took place when I was laughing with friends in a Connecticut restaurant. And then I heard a voice call out from the opposite corner of the very large room, “Cathy?!” If my laugh is what I am known for, I can live with that!

And another: a friend once said he wanted to program his computer to boot up to the sound of my laugh so he could start his day joining me in a laugh. I like that thought even though we never did make that happen.

When I laugh, everyone around me seems to laugh along with me. And that is simply joyous!

Laughing At | Laughing With

I had a very different relationship with laughter growing up. I was overweight with curly dark hair in a thin, straight-haired blonde world. There was a gap between my two front teeth, which was eventually closed by my wisdom teeth. And, for a horrendously long year, orthopedic shoes were added to the miserable mix.

It’s not a leap to guess that I was laughed at.

Laughter was also a tool of my family who laughed at me under the guise of “just kidding.” It was demeaning. Surely they knew that, but maybe not.

In better days of my marriage, my now-ex would make fun of something I did or said and I would tell him to stop laughing at me. He’d laugh some more and say he wasn’t laughing at me. And finally, I would say,

“Well, I’m not laughing so you are not laughing with me!”

I’m not sure why, but that would end it. Maybe it gave us something to laugh together about.

A Reflection

Charlie Chaplin is quoted as saying,

“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”

I am guilty of having wasted many days, but I question if I’ve ever had a day without laughter. Even in the most trying of times, there is something I see or hear or read that prompts me to laugh. My spirit needs it, and I cannot help but comply. And that’s not hooey – or fiddle-faddle.

A Question

What makes you laugh? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

This post started with a thought circling around in my head about regret and has expanded into something else – an exploration of truths and mistruths we tell ourselves. Humans are complicated. So are our thoughts.

Regret | No Regret

Regret is not an emotion I tend to experience. It does appear, but rarely where one would think. I don’t regret the big decisions of my life. Instead, I feel regret for interactions I could have handled better. Some of those feelings have stayed with me for decades.

I recently wrote about my mother-in-law, Rose, and the deep love we felt for each other before, during, and after my marriage to her son. That marriage limped along to our thirteenth wedding anniversary, which found us en route to England to celebrate Rose’s 80^th birthday.

Hearing that it was our anniversary, a kind flight attendant brought us a bottle of champagne to celebrate. The numbing of my emotions was very much appreciated.

Someone once commented that at least I got Rose and my sister-in-law out of that relationship. They have been a huge gift in my life, but saying yes to this marriage brought me so much more than these two people I love dearly.

I had been living in Los Angeles when I met my now ex-husband, and had no intention of ever leaving. Saying yes to my marriage led me to 3+ years in South Africa, followed by a move to Connecticut, and eventually my move to New York City.

Each location brought deep friendships and extraordinary experiences with people I never would have met.

A career path opened that I doubt would have appeared in California, since it came through people who were in my life as a result of my marriage. I had no love for New York City after a brief introduction to it in college and living here was never a consideration. Yet New York City is the one place in the world where I feel at home.

I will never know how this life compares to the one in Los Angeles if I had stayed there. I will say, however, that I cannot imagine it.

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Truths | Mistruths

Cracks in the relationship appeared soon after I moved to South Africa. There is nothing like moving 10,000 miles away from home to help you stay and work things out.

My first morning on the African continent brought a drive from Johannesburg to Zululand. There was a moment of truth over dinner, revealing a lie of omission. I had been allowed to think that I would be his second wife, but the truth was that I’d be his third.

We talked through it, and I told him that his previous relationships brought him to be the person he now was. He was visibly relieved and commented that I was so easy to talk to. He told me that his relationship with his most recent wife was one filled with lies, and that was something he did not want with me. I believed him.

I was not blind to his statement about his lie-filled marriage. I spoke with many who knew her, none of whom had been able to share a single good word about her. I never knew anyone who was so consistently disliked. I became willing to put that red flag aside.

Unfortunately, his practice of lying had only gone into remission. It surfaced again in all its destructive ugliness in the final years of our marriage.

Maya Angelou is quoted as saying,

Those are wise words which I have taken to heart, yet I am at peace with the choice I made.

What I have come to understand is that I tend to see potential. I see people in their best light. If this truly was a changed person, how could I not support that change?

Yes, there was pain, especially at the end, but the ripples that flow from a relationship reach far and wide. Those ripples have connected me to the most incredible people who have been a consistent source of unconditional love and happiness in my life, and joyous experiences that stay forever in my heart. I choose to focus on the ripples.

A Reflection

The lens through which I view life is one of positivity. I have been working on using that lens to more clearly see people exactly where they are, as well as where they want to be. That’s part of my path of growth and I embrace it.

I am beyond grateful to the very many extraordinary friendships that entered and still remain in my life as a result of saying yes. These relationships have spanned decades across three continents. Two of the dearest have passed from this earth, yet they are still very much with me in spirit. My life would lose its light without every single one of them.

I cannot regret this marriage – not when there is so much to celebrate.

A Question

Is regret something you experience? I’d welcome reading your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

There’s no new post this week. Instead, I have for you today my very first Random Conversation on Substack, posted May 7, 2024.

I strongly believe that we are being called to come together, to embrace our shared humanity, and to interact in a meaningful, non-judgmental way. Empathy helps get us there.

My brother recently mentioned a financial call-in program he likes to listen to.  What I found surprising is why he likes this program so much. 

He gave an example of someone earning $35,000 a year who wanted to know how they could best pay off $100,000 in student loans. And then he judged … and he laughed … and he derided. 

While my brother berated the decisions this person made that led to that mountain of debt, my thoughts immediately went to ways in which expensive degrees brought hope of a more solid future. This caller, like so many others, might have taken a bet on education opening doors for them, and then they didn’t open.

This conversation filled me with sadness – sad for the caller’s experience, and sad to know my brother listens so that he can have the pleasure of laughing at those less fortunate than him.

Ridiculing and diminishing were my family’s communication tools and were most often aimed at me. I was the outlier – the black sheep of the family for holding core beliefs that were opposite to their viewpoint. I still am and will always be.

Can Empathy be Learned?

It is generous to say that empathy is not a strong suit in my family.  It was rare that they could put themselves in the shoes of another to understand their perspective and associated feelings. It was only the perspective of my family that mattered, and everyone needed to agree with their point of view or a verbal belittlement followed.

I am the outlier here, as well. I tend to see multiple points of view in any situation. To me, life is not the binary of black/white or right/wrong, but shades of grey that are unique to each person’s perspective – or, as I more recently started to express it, not grey but all the beautiful colors of the rainbow.

Empathy allows me to see and feel from the perspective of another. Understanding their point of view gives me access to understanding the emotions people feel in relation to their experience.

I treasure this way of understanding the world around me.  Coming from a family in which this is a skill that has atrophied from chronic lack of use, I have started to wonder if empathy can be learned. 

I believe we have a default mode of response – focus on me (my feelings, my philosophy of life, my way of being), or focus on others (what someone is thinking or feeling that drives their behavior).

Defaults are simply a starting point, and they can change with effort. But what can guide exploration into an empathic way of being?

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An Actor’s Exercise: “There but for the grace of God go I”

My first career was as an actor, and accessing the thoughts, behaviors, and emotions of a character is at the center of much of the work.  I studied with the incredible Jeff Corey in Los Angeles, and my favorite exercise was one Jeff called, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Jeff always said, “At the core is you.”  You always start with who you are, but what if your life circumstances and experiences were a bit different?  Instead of taking one path, what if you took another? Or, instead of being raised by both parents, for example, what if you had only one – or none in your life? And so you start to build a solid understanding of the life of a person who might be very different from you.

We met monthly in Jeff’s studio outside his home on Point Dume in Malibu. For this exercise, he’d hand us the name of a real or fictional person, and we’d start to connect the dots between who I am today, and how I could have been this other person.  After the final dot has been reached, the gulf between two people no longer existed.

It’s a powerful and insightful exercise. There is so little that separates us.

Empathy as a Path of Healing

The pain of growing up as an outsider in my own family was healed largely due to empathy.  I can feel what it was like for each of my parents to grow up in the families they did – my mother orphaned young, my father raised by a tyrant of a father who ultimately abandoned his family.

I can see how their experiences formed the basis for their worldview and drove their behavior. I can see that they had limited positive role models and recreated unhappiness again and again. Of course they didn’t understand me, but I could connect the dots and understand them.  And I could forgive. They did the best they could, and I cannot ask for anything more.

My Favorite Question

My favorite question comes from the practice of Appreciative Inquiry, a strength-based change methodology:

What is the smallest step I can take, right here, right now, that will have the biggest impact?

If we want to build our capacity for empathy, what is the smallest step we can take to do that?  Small steps are easy, and they lead to additional small steps and, ultimately, to change. 

Often, a starting place is with a pet. It is somehow easier or safer for us to open our hearts and feel empathy with a four-legged friend. If we can experience it with them, we can experience it with humans. It’s something to consider stepping toward.

Moving Forward

Empathy holds no place for judgment, derision, or ridicule. We can understand at a deep level, the truth of “there but for the grace of God go I.”  If the circumstances in my life were just a bit different, that could be me. Compassion opens and we can feel peace.

What’s the smallest step you can take to embrace more empathy in your life?

Leave a comment

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

I am in awe of artists – their talent, their creativity, the breadth of their work.

I had seen photos of Ruth Asawa’s wire sculptures a few years ago and was taken by both their beauty and their uniqueness. This past weekend, I got to see them in person at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. They were incredible, but it was something else that surprised me. In viewing her work, I felt I was seeing creativity in motion. She could not help but create.

The first gallery I entered was filled with her ink drawings on paper – mostly botanicals, all breathtakingly beautiful in their rich simplicity. I had no idea! Asawa’s wire sculptures were displayed throughout the exhibition – spheres, spheres within spheres, trees. The trees were such a surprise!

In each gallery, more surprises waiting to be discovered – paintings, lithographs, paper folded to create a new texture upon which she painted. She appeared to see the world in an entirely new way and applied that view in what seemed like a never-ending array of mediums. Information in one of the galleries stated,

MoMA created a short documentary about Asawa and her work that can be found at the bottom of this post. What a life she lived! It’s not surprising that they titled it How to See. It illustrates the lens through which Asawa viewed her world.

The documentary is only 16 minutes long and I hope you’ll take a look. In the last two minutes or so, you can see the ink drawings that so captured my heart. Start to finish, I was fascinated.

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Art is Life – Life is Art

According to the documentary, Asawa had a profound understanding of nature and its rhythms, which are reflected in her work. She did not want to force her vision to reveal itself, but to allow something to become something it has never been. She called that becoming background.

I cannot help but wonder how non-artists might use this. Can I become background and observe what is being created on this page, in this moment, gently allowing it to grow without forcing my will on it? As I visualize that, I am aware that a subtle pressure has released. Instead of feeling the need to control the narrative, creativity seems to flow a bit easier.

And in communication? I strongly believe that fostering an environment in which multiple points of view can be expressed without judgment allows something new to be created. It is our ego that slips into the background so that diverse points of view can be processed and expanded.

I’m intrigued with something that was shared in one of the galleries – Asawa’s interest in both positive and negative space. Calligraphy was given as an example.

I believe this also applies to human interaction. Our words and actions have power. They are our paintbrushes.

If we observe carefully, we can see the effects those words have on the people around us. We can start to see when we are understood and when we are not, when we lift up another and when we wound, when we have made a positive difference and when we have not.

A Reflection

Are we not all artists of our own lives? We create ourselves in every moment of every day.

Ruth Asawa inspires me to look with fresh eyes at all that is around me. She prompts me to question what I am missing, what I am not seeing – and to celebrate the inherent beauty of it all.

A Question

How would you see the world if you viewed it through an artistic lens? Maybe you already do. I’d welcome reading your thoughts in the comments.

How to See - Ruth Asawa Documentary

Exhibition Book

The NYC exhibition has closed but the artwork can be found in the book Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, which can be purchased in person at the MoMA Design Store. It is not currently online at MoMA, but it is available online at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOM), where Asawa’s exhibition was shown in 2025.

The link can be found here.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

We loved each other from the moment our eyes met, soon after I married her son. My now ex-husband and I drove up Rose’s driveway in South Yorkshire and parked next to her garden. Getting out of the car, we instantly burst out in the warmest of smiles, and gentle hugs soon followed. She was a tiny woman and I towered over her, so gentle was my default hug.

There was so much to love about this woman. To this day, I cherish our relationship during and after my marriage to her son. I used to tease him that, if we ever divorced, his mother would come with me. And that is exactly what happened.

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A warning that never happened

As we flew to England, my husband (now ex-) felt it wise to warn me that his mother would pull him aside at some point during our visit for a private conversation. I would not be included since it is not British to air dirty laundry in public.

What occurred was something quite different. Rose told me about her husband, Ted, who had passed several years before – always adding, “You would have loved him.” She told me about several immediate family members as well as those more distant, not always in the most glowing of terms.

And my very favorite was when she told me about seeing a UFO. She worked as a telefonist during the war – that would be World War II. Rose always translated British English into American English whenever she thought I might not understand. “You would call that job a telephone operator.”

As she and two or three colleagues drove back from work one evening, they looked up and saw a UFO in the night sky. She was very specific about the experience, and I only wish I could remember the details as well as she did. They all agreed about what they saw.

Rose got home and shared the sighting with Ted, who told her it must have been something else. Nothing was written in the newspaper, and that seemed to validate Ted’s comment. She never told another soul about it until she told me – not her daughter, not her two sons, no one.

Unlike Ted, I totally validated what she saw and wanted to hear more. I felt honored that she would share this with me.

And this was only our first visit together!

The last visit during my marriage was her 80^th birthday – days before her son moved out of our home. There was a big party for her, and she took great pleasure in taking me by the arm and introducing me to everyone in the room.

A wonderful “old-timey” barbershop quartet supplied the evening’s entertainment. Mid-performance, one of them took my hand and led me to the stage where they sang “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” making me the object of the song’s desire. Rose loved it. Her son, not so much.

Post-divorce

At the end of the marriage, Rose knew something was wrong but her son didn’t want to tell her we were divorcing. Finally, she asked me what was happening and I told her, adding that this would not affect the relationship that she and I shared. She immediately responded, “You’re damn right!” I had never heard Rose swear! And it never did come between us. Nothing ever came between us.

My work brought me to or close to England three times after the divorce, and I returned to South Yorkshire to see her. Agents working at passport control became a fun stop.

The first two were men who asked the reason for my visit. When I responded that I was there to visit my ex-mother-in-law, they tried their best to stifle a comment that took all their resolve not to voice. I think that clenched teeth were keeping those tight lips from fully breaking into a smile as they stamped my passport. The third was a woman who offered a very different reaction. She was clearly touched and softly smiled as she said, “That is so nice!” And it was.

After one of my ex-husband’s visits, Rose took delight in telling me that he stood in front of my photo and started to reach for it. She stopped him with, “Don’t you dare touch that!”

Do not cross Yorkshire women. They will be only too happy to tell you exactly how they feel.

I was, by the way, his third wife – and not his last. During one of our ongoing phone calls, Rose said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. You were the only good one.” How could I not love that woman?!

Today

Today would have been Rose’s 109^th birthday. Since her passing, each birthday now starts with a call to her daughter, wishing her a Happy Rose’s Birthday. We then talk about how wonderful she was and how much we miss her.

Yes, it was not only Rose I got in the divorce, but it was also my sister-in-law. They both hold a special place in my heart. I feel very fortunate.

Happy Birthday, Rose. Wishing you and Ted a joyous celebration!

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

It’s not surprising that I’m thinking about friendship. It’s a topic that is dear to me since my friends are my true family and I think the world of them. And along with that, I am very aware that the birthday of one of my closest friends will be here on January 31^st. She no longer walks this earth but I feel her presence all around me.

I have long believed that the English language is deficient in at least one area. We have the words friend and acquaintance, but there is a vast unnamed world between the two. So we categorize friends to add more nuance – work friend, childhood friend, best friend.

But an acquaintance seems to stand alone. There appears to be no difference between someone you minimally know who works in a different department from you, or lives near you, or is a friend of a friend. You can know that person for twenty minutes or twenty years but they are still an acquaintance.

There was once someone in my life whom I referred to as “my friend who is not a friend.” We knew each other well, both at work and socially. I was a friend to her but, ultimately, I learned she was not my friend at all. She spoke ill of most everyone she worked with and, finally, I became the subject of her ridicule.

I immediately understood that our friendship was over. From this vantage point, I would say that it never was a true friendship. But was she now an acquaintance, or a former friend, or something else? It’s actually a moot point since she is no longer in my life, but it does serve as an example.

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Words matter

I watched a video interaction between a friend of mine and someone she thought was her friend. But friends don’t subtly belittle you or try to show how much smarter, successful, important they are – and that is what I saw inflicted on my friend. I believe this person belonged in the in-between – someone who was known better than an “acquaintance” and “friend” was the only other category.

What’s important about the in-between, is that we can assume people are our friends when they are not, and that can create a false expectation. We sometimes trust them when it’s not warranted. It most likely does not make a difference in pleasant greetings and conversations, but it can when we speak about something that is important.

When a disconnect takes place, we often make excuses – after all, they are a friend. But are they? They didn’t mean it. Are you sure?

Heart-speaking

It has been such a wonderful surprise and gift to discover Substack friends – people I have gotten to know well over this time who effortlessly moved from acquaintance to friend. When I think of this group of very different people, the common factor is that we speak together heart-to-heart – whether in comments on posts or in calls that we share to enjoy each other’s company. I was even fortunate enough to meet one in person!

I am so grateful for the presence of these incredible people in my life and for the depth of our beautiful interactions. Our friendships started as a mutual knowing of each other when we first connected, which has expanded over time and become an extraordinary connection.

A poetic example

I have shared this before and I am sure I will share it again. One of the best descriptions of friendship arrived in the mail eons ago from (I am pretty sure) my godmother. It was printed on a birthday card and it has stayed with me throughout my life.

Oh, the comfort—
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but pouring them all right out,
just as they are,
chaff and grain together;
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
		Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887) *

This is a relationship in which we are seen, heard, known. There is no judgment here. There is only kind caring with an open heart.

Our time together stretches endlessly as we lose track of how many hours we have been speaking. When there has been a lapse of months or years, we pick the conversation up again exactly as if we had just spoken days before.

This poem is also an example of what I call a delicious conversation. It is the ultimate communication.

A Reflection

My father used to say that if you can count your friends on more than the five fingers of one hand, then you have no friends at all. I strongly disagreed, just as I did with so much else he believed. But just maybe he was differentiating between friends and acquaintances. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

A Question

How do you know when someone has crossed the in-between and has become a friend in your life? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments.

* Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life for a Life (Collins’ Clear Type Press, 1859). Subsequently published separately under the title Friendship. Hazel Felleman (editor), The Best Loved Poems of the American People (Garden City Books, 1936).

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

A friend called last week to tell me about new medical conditions affecting her health. She was scared as she faced yet another upcoming test. Medical tests can be daunting at the best of times. But she’s dealing with more than new diagnoses – she’s now doing this alone. She very recently lost her husband of over sixty years.

I listened and she told me more. And I continued to listen and she told me even more. A thought occurred to me as it does when I listen in this deep way and I shared it, saying that facing this fear alone while she is still grieving is making it all the more overwhelming. She strongly agreed and said, “You understand me.”

Others had responded to her in platitudes: “You can do this.” “You are strong.” “Adversity makes us stronger.” While all of these statements may be true in the long run, none of them are helpful when the present moment is filled with fear and pain.

My friend did not ask me to help her in any way. Nor did she ask me to solve anything for her. What she needed was to talk to someone who would listen and allow her to experience being heard.

Being heard validates both her and her experience, and having that validated can be transformative. In contrast, platitudes diminish us by suggesting all is well when it very much is not.

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Listening Well

Too often we listen with half an ear while formulating a response to a conversation that is still unfolding – or we think about a list of things to do as soon as we can break away. And then there is listening well.

In the latter scenario, we listen to understand and we respond respectfully. Judgment is suspended. As we give our attention, we open ourselves to another. And when we do, the person talking feels safe enough to share more.

Listening well is done heart-to-heart. Sitting with an open heart was how I listened to my friend and how I responded.

A Reflection

I believe that people utter platitudes because they don’t know what else to say. But what if nothing needs to be said?

There is freedom in releasing the pressure to fill the silence. Sometimes the simple truth is, “I don’t know what to say.” Say that! Or say, “I’m so sorry you are going through this,” if that is something you feel.

Listening opens one person’s world to the world of another. By contrast, not being heard is dismissive and diminishing. It sends a message that neither the thoughts being articulated nor the person sharing them are valued.

Being heard soothes the soul. It allows us to better understand ourselves and each other. It validates our human worth. And in doing so, it presents an opportunity for healing, for a moment of peace, for transformation.

It is a gift to have this experience – one well worth sharing.

A Question

What helps you know you are being heard – especially during difficult times? I would welcome reading your thoughts in the comments.

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

Depending on how you discover and read my posts, you may or may not have come across my Substack short description:

I have been questioned a few times about what positivity means to me, and I thought it might be good to explore that after such a tumultuous start to the new year. Death is nothing to be positive about, and these new days of 2026 have seen more than their share – but positivity is still my default lens.

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A Lens of Positivity

I am unwavering in my embrace of positivity. As my friend once pointed out with a smile, I just can’t help myself. I may momentarily give in to fear, but my head and heart lead me to a different, more life-affirming direction.

Let me say that I do not play ostrich and bury my head in the sand to ignore the ugly or painful parts of life. Nor do I offer the toxic positivity of platitudes that might be inspiring on a poster or coffee mug but offer zero value in difficult or painful moments. I see the world in a different way. I see positive possibilities.

This is a mindset that grew from my viewpoint of life. As that worldview continued to take shape in my young mind, my positive focus strengthened. Ultimately, it helped me separate from the negativity and toxicity that too often surrounded me growing up, and allowed me to forge my own path forward.

My Beliefs

There will always be abhorrent behavior and sadness in the world but, in general, here’s a short list of what I believe to be true:

• Life skews to the positive – though it often does so in its own time, not ours.

• People are inherently good.

• Labels do not define who we are.

• Joyous beauty and inspiration surround us, waiting to be embraced – and shared.

• Life is nuanced. It is both powerful and illuminating to hold a space that includes multiple points of view.

These beliefs anchor the positive lens through which I view life. I consciously look for what might be beneficial in a given situation – a potentially positive outcome, if you will.

Yes, I feel the pain and horror shown to us in the daily news cycle, and the baby days of this new year have been way too full of examples. I do not hide from that emotion. Death, despair, despicable behavior – all negative.

But what if we pull our view out to six months from now, a year from now, longer. What if reactions birthed today bring actions that create something new and better. That is just as possible as a long-term negative outcome.

Choosing a life-affirming view changes how these events resonate in my body. It also allows me to bring more ripples of positivity into the world, which I believe to be a very real manifestation.

Positive Deviants

Am I a positive deviant? I hadn’t thought about it before I wrote this paragraph. Let me step back a moment.

I learned the term in 2004 as I completed my certification in Positive Business and Society Change at Case Western Reserve University. The underlying theory behind positive deviance is that examples of success, of people thriving, of well-being can be found in environments experiencing what appears to be the absence of those elements. We just have to look for them.

The example that stays with me after all these years is that of a program in Vietnam that was created to address malnutrition. People relied on food supplied from outside the country to feed their communities.

And then it was noticed that one community was thriving. Children and adults had enough to eat, build and maintain bones, maintain their muscle mass and health. The question became, “Why?”

This one community rediscovered and introduced wild shrimp from their streams along with other food sources that had fallen out of favor over time. With them, protein, iron, and calcium filled their diets.

This community was a positive deviant, and a program was created to share and leverage their success across the country. According to Wikipedia, malnutrition fell by 85% at the end of their two-year pilot program.

So, if the lens through which I view life makes me a positive deviant in my ability to stay centered throughout this challenging time, then maybe so. Sharing what skews to the positive in one form or another each week is something I cannot help but do.

A Reflection

One of the benefits of viewing life through a positive lens is that I always search for an indefinable something that will trigger joy, wonder, awe, hope. I know it’s there … waiting. Often, that comes from nature.

Here we are in the middle of winter. The excitement of the holiday season is behind us, and we have a whole lot of cold to experience before the first signs of spring. It tends to be a bleak time of year.

Soon, however, I will start my search for the first snowdrops gently announcing the return of longer days and warmth. And for a couple months now, I’ve been keeping an eye on magnolia flower buds getting larger every day, knowing it won’t be long until they unfurl into the magnificence of their spring beauty. Until then, they have been hiding in plain sight, waiting for their time to shine.

The signs of resilience and renewal that appear in such glory each year fill me with joy, awe, appreciation, hope for the future. I take those positive emotions with me throughout each day – and express them with a smile.

A Question

What is the lens through which you look at life? I would welcome hearing about that in the comments.

A Gift

I am a huge Monty Python fan. As I was writing about positivity, the song at the end of The Life of Brian kept playing in my head. My heart lifts each time I hear it. So, just for fun, I’m including the song in the hope it will bring a smile. Enjoy!

Random Conversations is a newsletter for those who believe in the power of a positive perspective and the joy it brings. It champions intentionally honoring ways of being and promotes the belief that we can change our world, one interaction at a time. Choose the change wisely.

Last year started with a question: “How will you be remembered?” It came as a result of my experience at the memorial service for the husband of a dear friend of mine. I knew him, but not well – and it touched me deeply to hear how profoundly he touched so many in that packed room. His legacy was voiced loud and clear. (A link to the post is below.)

Legacy comes to mind again through a special issue the NY Times Magazine publishes at the end of each year – The Lives They Lived. They write personal profiles of those whose lives had positive impact in some unique way. Most are not widely known, though famous people are included as well.

My dear friend Barb and I always talked through the profiles that touched us most each January. In her absence, which I still feel often, I’ll share one with you.

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Anna Ornstein

Anna Ornstein was a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the US in the 1950s. Her career was as a child psychologist, but her work and influence expanded well beyond this role.

According to her obituary,

It’s not surprising to me that someone would focus their life’s work on helping others heal after spending years in the horror of Nazi camps. What is surprising is that this one woman, decades ago, would have the inner strength to turn her back on the prevalent Freudian psychology and embrace a much different path. The pressure to conform must have been strong.

I was not aware of “self psychology,” the psychotherapeutic discipline she embraced. (A link to its Wikipedia page can be found below.) I love that it leverages empathy, something I believe to be profoundly powerful, and explores how we see ourselves in the world.

In a society and profession that considered Holocaust survivors to be “broken,” she saw herself and other survivors as resilient. She attributed that resiliency to the bonds of connection in her life – with her mother, others in the camps, her husband after liberation.

Embracing empathy, connecting with those around us, reframing how we see ourselves in the world are all critically important. But it is something else in the way she is remembered that stays with me.

Defiant joy. How can you not love that?!

She told her own story in her own way, healing herself and others over her 98 years. That is quite a legacy.

A Reflection

It might seem a bit odd to start the year with a focus on endings. Or, just maybe, now is the perfect time to reflect on how we want to be remembered. We have time to adjust our thinking, our behavior, our connection with others in the world.

I don’t want to be remembered for material success – though experiencing that success is certainly welcome. I want to be remembered for being kind and caring, for being a good friend, for being there for my fellow humans as we travel this earth together. I believe these actions create ripple effects of positivity that flow out across the world. When others act in kind, those ripples gain strength and flow anew.

That is a New Year vision that can unfold every day, in every action.

A Question

How do you want to be remembered? I’d welcome hearing your thoughts in the Comments.

Further Reading

Anna Ornstein – The Lives They Lived: (scroll down from this profile to access all those profiled in the issue) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/16/magazine/anna-ornstein-psychoanalyst-holocaust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.CFA.WVVI.wH5MiYsoG5vo&smid=url-share

Anna Ornstein, Psychoanalyst Who Survived the Holocaust, Dies at 98: (obituary) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/health/anna-ornstein-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.B1A.lT8u.Rqj1spYiyhXj&smid=url-share

Self Psychology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_psychology