To the Rescue

Here I am, charging in on my white horse once again. A couple of weeks ago, one of the players in my favorite handbell ensemble broke her arm and I received an SOS for help. After some hesitation, I agreed step in for the Christmas season, which is of course the busiest time of year for any musician but especially for handbells. With the first concert less than 2 weeks away, it meant extra rehearsals for the group and lots of practice time for me.

This rushing in to help out - to fill in for people who are ill or having a crisis or quitting or just overwhelmed - is an old and prevalent pattern. I do it everywhere - with former jobs and musical groups, at churches and schools. I’m on permanent standby for a whole slough of people and organizations.

Hi, My Name is Becca, and I'm a Rescuer.

"The Rescuer needs to be needed," writes Andrea Matthews, LPC. "The Rescuer not only depends on her role to give her a sense of self, but she also depends on it to bridge the gap between self and others. In other words she needs the Rescuer role just as much, probably more, than the rescued needs rescuing.  In fact, the Rescuer tends to feel as if her self-esteem has taken a big hit when there is a lag-time between rescues. Though on the one hand she might be relieved that she's not having to take care of every little thing for the rescued during that lag-time; on the other hand, she's wondering what she's doing here if it isn't to rescue someone else."

Indeed. The role of savior is a perfect fit for someone with a tendency to undervalue themselves coupled with a need for approval and a lack of self-confidence. Because I’m “only helping,” I immediately start out ahead with a couple of gold stars for my generous behavior. Plus, the performance stakes are lowered because I’m only “temporary.” And because I'm fulfilling someone's need, I'm doing that thing that gives me the most inner satisfaction of all.

Rescuing.

Forgive me for all this blatant navel-gazing. But I suspect we all have patterns of behavior which, if not exactly like mine, are more self-serving than might first appear. While most people probably think I’m just a good egg, I’m actually busily fulfilling a self-prophecy - namely that I can only be successful when I'm helping other people. More importantly, though, I'm reinforcing the (mistaken) belief that my own needs and desires aren't important, and must be subjugated to the needs of others.

Rather than spending hours preparing for my next round as a White Knight, perhaps I’d be better served by putting some armor around my uncertainties and charging into battle for myself for a change.

So - how about you? ‘Fess up - do you have patterns of behavior that fulfill your own self prophecies? 

TLC Book Tours: Flight Behavior

I've been engrossed in Barbara Kingsolver’s new novel, Flight Behavior. It’s one of those books that sets your mind whirling in all different directions. There are many hearts to this book, many core stories, and one of the most interesting is the story of the monarch butterfly and it’s migratory pattern. (Yes, this really is a novel, but she manages to sneaks a lot of science in there too, rather like the way your mother used to camoflauge vegetables with cheese sauce or buttered bread crumbs.) The way I understand it is that the monarch butterfly migrates north from a warm climate (like Mexico) and then back again, but because a monarch’s lifespan is only about six weeks,  the complete journey is played out over three generations. The mating occurs in Mexico, and the birth of new butterflies a bit farther north, perhaps Texas. These newborns then fly even farther north to avoid extreme summer heat.  But then, if all goes according to plan, come autumn these brand new butterflies make their way back to Mexico.

Where they’ve never, ever been before.

Something in their DNA - remember, this is the DNA of a butterfly we’re talking about here - tells them when to make this journey and where to fly to get back to the warm Mexican forests where their “family” came from.

Today I’ve been thinking about and marveling over the inner signals in that tiny insect. The impulses that set it on its journey, the integrity of a miniscule GPS system that guides it on it’s way. The compulsion it must feel to fly at just the right time.

And the way it honors that compulsion without thinking.

If an insect can be so firmly guided by it’s genetics, I think, then how much more are we, without even being aware of it, guided by the genetic soup that sloshes in our large and cumbersome bodies. How many of our own impulses, behaviors, desires, are governed by the mysterious and ancient forces of DNA?

I suspect many more than we like to believe.

But unlike the insect - or birds or fish or other mammals - humans so often ignore the signals our inner spirit sends out. We persist in doing things that go against our grain, whether it’s work, or relationships, or ways of dealing with people. When life doesn’t feel just right, we tell ourselves to buck up and get over it.

When instead we should heed those prickling thoughts and allow them guide us to where we should be.

But so often we’re afraid.

For a long time before we moved, I had those prickling thoughts. That the place I was living wasn’t where I was supposed to be anymore. For an even longer time, I had been ignoring them, afraid to migrate, to make a dangerous journey away from everything I knew. Now that I’ve made the trip, I realize the decision was right. I feel peaceful, as if I’m where I belong.

The monarch butterflies in Kingsolver’s story have taken a wrong turn in their migration, things have happened which set them off course and changed the natural progression of their lives. This is mirrored in the book by the circumstances of its heroine, Dellarobia Turnbow, an intelligent young woman who was ready to fly from the foothills of rural Appalachia and onto college when she was derailed by her parents’ deaths and an unplanned pregnancy. She has been at odds with her world ever since, though she has done her best to buck up and get on with it. Something inside her has never felt quite right, and until the butterflies arrived on her mountain, she didn’t know what it was.

Those tiny butterflies live without fear and follow the compulsion that sends them forth, even though in this case it could mean complete extinction. I haven’t finished the book, so I don’t know if Dellarobia will heed their example, or how her story will end if she does.

Change is never without price, movement from one place to another is always fraught with a certain amount of danger. But if you can connect with your inner nature, with the primal forces that make you healthy and whole and alive, I have to believe you’re more likely to migrate successfully.

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel.

Flight Behavior, by Barbara Kingsolver

The Sunday Salon: Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and What’s On the Reading Horizon

You must know by now how much I enjoy historical fiction, so it’s no surprise that I was eager to dive into a new mystery series with a unique historical setting. Mr. Churchill’s Secretary is the first volume featuring the intrepid Maggie Hope, who works as a secretary in Winston Churchill’s war cabinet. Maggie’s skills extend far beyond her expertise in taking Churchill’s dictation on the silent typewriter keyboards he’s had created especially for his staff. Maggie is a gifted mathematician and code-breaker, and these skills are soon discovered and put to very good use.

Like any good historical novel, the period details are just as interesting to me as the plot of the book. Susan Elia MacNeal does a wonderful job of setting the scene and introducing all kinds of information about the period. The behind-the-scenes look at Churchill’s staff  was reminiscent of watching an episode of West Wing on TV. In a recent interview at All Things Girl, MacNeal said she was "completely and totally immersed in World War II history — books, documentaries, talking with Blitz survivors. I even had the honor of corresponding with Mrs. Elisabeth Layton Nel, one of Winston Churchill’s actual wartime secretaries. I also learned how to darn socks, make wartime recopies and sniff vintage perfume; I went to second-hand clothing stores to look at clothes, gloves, and hats. And I was lucky to be able to spend a lot of time in London at the marvelous Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms, as well as the Imperial War Museum, Bletchley Park, Chartwell, and, of course, Windsor Castle."

It paid off big time, because Mr. Churchill’s Secretary was a wonderfully drawn portrait of its era. I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series, Princess Elizabeth’s Spy, which is already on my shelf.

But before I see what Maggie’s up to next, I’ll be reading Where’d You Go, Bernadette, by Maria Semple and Don’t Bother Me, I’m Reading, a memoir by Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air series.

What’s on your reading horizon?

PS - A serendipity...Before reading Mr. Churchill’s Secretary, I read the novel Motherland, by Amy Sohn, a witty and interesting novel set in the neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn. Oddly enough, Susan Elia MacNeal lives in Park Slope, and is acquainted with Amy Sohn. I love stuff like that :)

So This is...Thanksgiving

Despite what retailers and shoppers are trying to tell us, it is not Christmas yet - at least not in my calendar. I have a very firm rule about making no preparations for Christmas until every last shred of turkey leftovers are gone. This autumn in Michigan has been so lovely, with lots of just-right temperatures and sunshine to spotlight the brilliant colors at their best. I hate to give fall up, hate to see it morph into the dreaded cold of winter. For the first time in a decade we have no recourse to escape winter’s chill, and will have to tough out the entire winter here in the midwest.

Nevertheless, we certainly have much to be grateful for this year at chéz Becca- most especially our wonderfully happy, healthy grandson, and his parents who love him to pieces.

We also have a lovely new home and are enjoying making it “ours."

We have family and friends who support us and love us.

We have food on the table every night, hot water to shower, bathe, and wash our clothes.

We have cars and the fuel to make them go.

We have books and music and television shows freely available at any time of day or night.

We have freedom to write, sing, worship however we please.

We have so many choices about how to live our lives.

How lucky we are.

How thankful.

At the Top of the List

Wisdom sometimes comes in very unexpected places. I went in for a haircut late this afternoon and my stylist took one look at me and said, “Hey, are you okay?"

“Oh, I’m just tired,” I said, my stock answer when anyone asks me why I’m not quite up to par.

“It looks like more than that to me,” she said. She is a wise Muslim woman, about my age, with one daughter who is married and living in Texas. We commiserate about the distance between us and our only children. She rejoiced with me at Connor’s birth, and we talk about how much she hopes for grandchildren of her own soon.

“I think I’ve been trying to do too much,” I said. “Moving to the new house and trying to clean up the old house, working on a project for my office job, helping my friend with the community theater project, subbing in other friends bell choirs, doing things for my mom..."

“Bless you, Becca,” she said. “You are just doing too many things for too many people and not enough for yourself."

It’s an old story, and no doubt you’re tired of my complaints about it. But I can never seem to find the right balance between the outside world and my own inner needs. I spend too much time fulfilling obligations and not enough time doing things that are simply fulfilling. In trying to make life easier for others, I end up making life hard for myself.  If I don’t value myself enough to make my life a priority, why should I be surprised that other people don’t value it either?

I have never fully accepted the concept that I’m worthy of care, never given myself permission to put my own needs first. The things I do for me - writing, reading, taking walks, playing music - those always come last, in what little bits of time and energy are left after the work and the chores and the meetings and rehearsals.

Which means that I’m putting myself last in the long line of priorities I call my life in general.

Toady, the end result of that position was obviously written all over my face. My hair stylist could see it. I’ve been seeing it in the mirror every morning - in my dull skin, my limp hair, my sad eyes.

Time to start moving myself up from the bottom of the list. Time to put myself first and stop feeling guilty about it. Time to take time -  to read, to write, to start finding my way in this new place I’m living.

“Be happy, Becca,” my stylist says as we hug goodbye. “God gave you life to live and be happy."

Such wisdom for the price of a haircut.