House Keys

Keri has been back from LA for two months. She grew up in Milwaukee and had been there 'five winters’, as she put it. She works as a hairdresser and had no problem getting back into the place she’d worked for sixteen years before she left.

We were about to pull up to her place and she realized she’d forgotten her keys in the car. No wonder. She had been waiting because her service was going to be quick enough she could wait - right up until it wasn’t. Better to wait at home. She really wanted this to be her fault and I had to tell three stories about other people forgetting their keys and having to make the extra trip before she could let it go.

"It’s okay. People forget their keys all the time."

I asked her about the west coast water shortage. She said that the folks in LA were in denial. What shortage? Yes, there are ever-increasing fines but the effect is a long way from altering common behaviors. The way people water their lawns is criminal even without a shortage. Stupid wasteful.

While still in LA she rescued a Jack Russell Papillion mutt-puppy that seems to be putting on winter weight here in Milwaukee. He used to get melancholy when it rained and she was concerned that he might not do well here. She says her blood is thickening and she’s put on a couple pounds as well. 

“It doesn’t take long to forget a Wisconsin winter after you’ve moved to warmer climate.” she said.

We talked about hairdressers, bartenders, customers, stories, and psychiatry. She said she runs into quite a few that go over the line into inappropriate sharing. It has happened enough that she knows she will not be seeing this person again. They have shared way too much and they both know it. That does not happen to me in the shuttle.

Otherwise, yes, by the end of the day she, too, has had it up to here with superficial chat about the weather.

I met Daniel Z of natrecstudio.com, a musician that runs a recording studio. We talked about business, general creativity and passion more than music or the music business. He’s worked in NY, LA, Japan for six years before coming back home to set up shop. He’s glad he can make a living doing what he loves.

He’s got tons of vintage gear, current Mac software and would much rather have musicians do their own performance magic rather than him patching it up with digital effects just because he can. 

“Yes, I can fix the pitch of that note,” he says, “but it's not authentic and it so often takes time that doesn’t get billed out." 

I was glad to be able to run out and grab him again after his car was done. When I pulled up at his storefront on National Avenue he was sweeping the sidewalk while waiting for me. Good local citizen.

He had also forgotten his house keys this morning. However, he remembered before I even put it in gear.

Bernie and Patty

I’ve driven Bernie home three times since I’ve been at this job. I could just about tell you his story. He’s funny and intense. There is little actual conversation. He’s giving a high-paced history of his life. His wife of 62 years has had Alzheimer’s for the last 6 years and he has no help at home. I suppose that he has so little interaction with adults that he has all this pent up need spilling out.

He and I left with two other people. He assumes he gets to go first because he has to get back to his wife. This time the logical and obvious  order of our route would let him out second. Even so, he commanded the conversation space the whole way along. As he was getting out in his driveway he did allow that the next time we met he’d let us talk more. 

Later that same day Patty and I are driving along toward her house. I ask her about her hobbies and her spare time. She’s thinking about calling Interfaith to see if she can get someone to come in a few hours, a few times a week so that she feels less guilty shopping and getting the car fixed. Her husband had a stroke a couple years ago. He has trouble with speech and self-care. Their adult son lives in town and comes over a couple times a week.

I think about this a little bit. The best I can. It’s not until I see an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in which they are dealing with characters broken in this way that I get a clearer picture. IT brings me to tears.

The upshot of this exposure is simply another reason to be grateful for whatever wholeness one can muster.

First words

“Come on. Let’s go. Whadd’ya - running for governor?”

First words out of his mouth - I promise.

I’d gone down to the other building to fetch a guy off to Oak Creek. When I walked into the building one of the advisors was walking the customer toward me. I nodded and proceeded right past him eight feet or so to shake the hand of another long-time customer I know; Lee, from church.

“Come on. Let’s go. Whadd’ya - running for governor?”

“No, but if you brought a baby I’d kiss it.” I said, heading back toward the van.

So, the guy, whose name I do not yet know, is overly boisterous and manipulative in that passive aggressive, ‘it’s-just-a-joke’ way. He posed a few questions he knew the answers to so that he could interrupt when I tried to respond. He is used to being in charge. He did say he was a long-time customer and this was his first shuttle ride. He was making the most of it.

“You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Yes … and …”  I started with gratitude - being thankful. I gave him a couple versions of my GoodWork Mini-Thanks cards. I talked about goals, motivations, gearing up for the day and finding what you expect to find: in my case, goodness and smiles.

He’s a 30 veteran of MMSD and a veteran of the fist-bump. The ’S’ is for sewer or sanitation.

“I don’t shake hands much.” he said. “You just don’t know where they’ve been.”

He’s also a long-time HS football coach. 

“Not a teacher, just a coach.”

“Well, you still understand kids, mentoring, and modeling behaviors, right?”

“Well, yes …”

Here I had a coach and an opportunity to ask about the rest and recuperation component of high performance. I gave him my standard little dance about one of my favorite books: The Power of Full Engagement, by James Loehr and Tony Schwartz. Amazon link here.

I might have said something like this: In high performance sports the athletes practice for an event or season. Then there is the event or the season. After that there is rest and recuperation. That is the recipe for high performance. Business, of course, does not do that. They whip the flesh from the starched-collars, the cube-jockeys, and general lackeys knowing there’s a line of fresh meat pressing at the front door.

“You’re making my skin tingle.” he said. We seemed to be heading off into his favorite topic: football coaching, but I stayed my course.

He thought maybe I should go into psychology or life coaching. I kid you not.  I took him home and a couple hours later I brought him back. 

“So, what about this life coaching thing?” he asked. “What if I were a drug-addled …. no, that’s too far out. What if …” and he named something else almost as far out.

“Well, as I might have said, I was in business. I refer people. I subcontract work to other providers as necessary. Simple, I think.”

“Of course.”

As we were pulling up he asked for a pen and paper and jotted down the name of the book. He asked if I thought it might be above his reading level. As if I would presume to comment on that.

“Some of it might have been above my level. Here’s how I read a book anymore,” I said, “I am no longer writing book reports and I really don’t need to prove anything to anyone. So, I decided that I do not need to finish a book just because I start it. I realized I am looking for a couple good ideas and a few quotations. I use a blank 3 x 5” card as a bookmark. I write down the page numbers of interesting stuff so that I can keep reading. Later I go back, look up the pages, and if the stuff is still interesting I might write it down in my notes.”

At the end of our ride he was asking for my boss’s name so that he could send along his praise of my behavior. Apparently I passed his audition. Unfortunately I gave him the name of an immediate upline worker that does not retrieve or answer his own voicemails, but now I am smarter about that little point, too.

You know, it all went by so fast I don’t even think I told him about my own books, blogs, or why I read at all.

And, I think this particular interchange has locked it up for me. 

I am goin' to school.

Soon. I have to finish my next book. Deadline: Christmas 2014.

Today. Tuesday.

I did not drive anybody anywhere. Period.

The day was as long as this story is short.

Synchronicity

Monday a gal I was driving opened up to me on something she was finally admitting to herself. She had sought help before on a number of occasions all to no avail. She recommended a book at the library where, in those pages, she found herself. And only recently had located a service provider that made her do some of the heavy lifting. A provider that broke through, made sense, got her; a real connection.

It wasn’t just that there is some overlap at our house. It’s that we had been up to our noses in it two days prior. It used to surprise me more often who jumped into the van and how the story they choose to tell has a direct bearing on some situations or curiosities of my own.

And, as I have come to understand it, I needed to see her that day. I needed her to get into the van and tell me that story. And she did.

Parked at the curb near her work we shared a hug; bonus for the hard work we’d done, a bonding moment for the many lonely moments ahead.

Be Reiki

Rhiana Tehan brought her car in for service Friday morning and I got to drive her to her day job. She’s a motivated creative writing teacher and we hardly spoke of that. She was called to Reiki in 2010, kept her day job, has continued her study, and opened a studio.

The peace and equanimity in the shuttle was palpable; remarkable. I have hardly a trace of memory of our conversation. Tension, strife, war, fear, health, educational philosophies; it all came up and it was all okay. And that fits rather well in a new recipe that I have been stirring up. I’m sure the ingredients are all here somewhere.

I’ll have what she’s having.

http://bereiki.com

Happy America Day, Joe.

Joe came to America on Oct. 1, 1967. That's 47 years for those of you playing along at home. He must have been 25 to 30 years old at that point.

Joe was not the name his mother called him and after 3 light-hearted attempts to call him something else he said, “Joe, I told you to call me Joe.”

Alright then. Of course ‘Joe’. He did seem a little playful for an older fellow, but only on his terms. He also seemed a little angry about the course that America has taken over his tenure.

“Excuse my language, but America is f@#$ed.” he said.

Where do you go from this point with a customer?

“I hear a little something that sounds South African, I said.

“People guess that and Australian and English all the time.”

“And you’re not going to tell me.” I said, after a lengthy pause.

"Maybe if I see you again someday.”

My gut said Rhodesia, but I searched that when I got home. There were a dozen African countries under British rule. It could have been any of them, I guess.

Thankfully, it was a short ride. Happy America Day, Joe.

Framing the day

Framing the day? Even a half day is sometimes too much to put into words. 

The honey locusts seem so bright yellow this fall. Extra bright. I wonder how much the cold dry winter had to do with this. I don’t remember last year. I ask people in the shuttle. Some have not noticed. Some do not know locusts. Some wonder with me as well.

Some predict a colder winter than last. My hope is that we read into the success of the Farmer’s Almanac what we wish to read. They may well be as wrong as the local weather person.

After the morning rush - and there was a rush - I met Mark again. We had had a lovely ride up to Glendale a month ago.

“You know that book about engagement and energy you mentioned?" he asked, as soon as we got into the van.

“Yes.” I said. “One of my favorites."

“It really clicked with me right now. So I’m reading it.” he said. “It’s great.”

“I’m glad you think so. I refer to it all the time in the shuttle and have just now taken it out from the library again to refresh myself. As a matter of fact, his ‘other’ book, The Power of Story, is even better. It’s about what we tell ourselves and how to upgrade that experience.”

“Really? And … how does he say to do that?”

“Well, the first thing is that a person needs to be aware that he is composed of the stories he has latched onto or has been immersed in. And then begin to examine them to discover their relative truthfulness or functionality. And then begin to rewrite their new story with an ear for improved performance.”

“Write their own story?”

"Yep. Journal. Diary. Captain’s log. Whatever you call it - write it down."

When we first met we found plenty to talk about and it was only as we were about to pull into his driveway that we spoke of his professional experience. I really thought I had missed out on something wonderful and I had.

He has been in high-tech start-ups in the energy field. That means fuel cells, hyper-conductivity, separating hydrogen and oxygen, membranes, molecules, pure water … on and on. He’s been ahead of the curve in several instances and sees that we are needing to think outside the fracking box and the sooner the better.

I said I continue to see great things coming from young scientists inventing new technologies and simply hope that we see how to wrest ourselves free from the fossil fuel dominance. He said he also saw hope in the young as evidenced by the interests and behaviors of his nieces and nephews as they grapple with the fast-arriving future.

We touched on several topics that could easily whisk us off in other directions Here's another guy I’d like to have a soup and sandwich with. Hmmm … he gave me his card.

…

My first group of 4 people out in the morning had all ridden with me before and one of them said she was glad it was me again. They all chimed in. Almost embarrassing. Almost.

...

My last customer was the festival choir director at Hales Corners Lutheran Church. Some of the folks from our church sing with their choir. My wife sings with them. He told me to say hello to her. I’ve seen him direct and run a half dozen rehearsals. It’s uplifting to watch him work. I asked him about his music selection process. How does he decide what to do next? It gets simpler when you cut the off-message offerings. Yes, he can hear music in his head by reading the sheet music.

...

Finally, if it had not been for the laborious transaction slogging along in front of me at the Parts Counter at Andrew Toyota I probably would have broken my record of miles driven in a 5.5 hour shift. As it was I hit 135.0 miles at 1 pm exactly on the freeway ramp at Silver Spring southbound. Two miles short of the record. A new second place record by 3 miles. The average miles-per-morning-shift is about 83. I worked an extra hour and ten minutes this day and finished at 162.9 miles. The only other time I drove more on the job in one day was last New Year’s Eve: 187 in 12 hours.

Today was a big day.

...

*The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time .. by Jim Loehr

http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Full-Engagement-Performance/dp/0743226755