Living Happily Ever After
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Dandelion Death

Date: April 24, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” (Charles Darwin)

While doing yard work and weeding a few weeks ago, my middle son surprised me with a bouquet of dandelions. I was thrilled, delighted and quickly rushed to put them in water to preserve them for as long as possible. For that day, they sat in a vase on my kitchen windowsill. Soft, puffy, cushions of yellow sunshine. The next day they were dead.

I confess, I was a little surprised. It has always seemed to me that dandelions, creeping into grass, springing up unbidden, are hardy plants. And although I’m not a weed, flower or gardening expert by any means (as evidenced by the many plants and flowers I’ve managed to kill), I think there’s a life lesson somewhere in their short life span.

From my perspective, dandelions have it pretty easy. They bloom into being uninvited and there they stay. Cheery, yellow, WEEDY; rain or shine. They don’t need water, they don’t need fertilizer and it seems like lawn mowers even have difficulty making an impact on them! It’s an easy life, as long as they remain in their expected and “natural” habitat—outside. But pluck a few, put them in a vase full of water, and they’re dead by nightfall (or at the very latest, the next morning.) I expected them to last at least as long as flowers do in a vase of water!

With such an easy existence, dandelions haven’t had to learn to be hardy, to adapt to change or to challenge. They don’t appear to have ever had to “hang on” when times get tough. They haven’t had to develop roots. Hand them an unexpected new life—indoors, in a vase of water—and they wither and die faster than anything I’ve seen.

Makes you grateful for the unexpected life, YOUR unexpected life of growth opportunities, doesn’t it? Because it’s through our trials that we become stronger. Our challenges strengthen us (if we let them) and by triumphing over them, we become stronger. Better. More than we would otherwise have been. Draught, hardship, the unexpected life…cause us to develop roots and to sink those roots deep to survive. The character-conditioning program called life, especially the unexpected one, makes us more than we ever could have become on our own. And in the end, we master not just surviving new circumstances or new challenges, but blooming wherever we’re planted.

We can find happiness and joy in whatever garden, or yard, or patch of dirt, or pile of manure we’ve had the good fortune (or misfortune!) to land in. Life is good regardless of where life transplants you to. Sink your roots into the soil of your unexpected life, look for the beauties of it, count your blessings and strive not just to survive but to bloom.

“I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” (Clarissa Pinkola Estes)

Spontaneous “Date”

Date: March 23, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I like Vegas for its spontaneity.” (Tony Curtis)

Due to the new developments at our Utah home, I went alone to my Las Vegas business trip. As part of the trip, my company was having an event in conjunction with “The Donny and Marie Show” at the Flamingo hotel. I was there in an official capacity, coordinating everything (including a photo of my corporate group with a photo company), working with Donny and making sure the meet and greet between Donny Osmond and the distributors of my company went smoothly. Afterward, everyone got to see their show. (Which, by the way, is fabulous. I recommend everyone see it! And Donny didn’t even ask me to say that.)

While waiting for the show, I was seated at the table of my assigned ticket. My co-worker on the project had been seated beside me but he left for a few minutes and another man sat down across from me. He introduced himself, I introduced myself and we chatted for a moment before a cocktail waitress appeared and asked if we wanted drinks. I ordered a bottle of water and reached for my wallet when my new friend said, “It’s ok, it’s on me.” I thanked him but said I would get my water. He insisted, “No, it’s on me, I’ve got it” and he paid for my drink and his. (Very nice, I guess, just very unexpected. I’m sure the man was just being friendly and nice but I confess, I did look down to make sure I had my wedding ring on and that it looked like a wedding ring; I also mentioned my husband a few times during the conversation.)

While waiting for the show to begin and now the drinks to arrive, a photographer approached and asked if he could take our picture. I didn’t know what to say. I’m a corporate employee of my company, my new friend was a distributor and I didn’t want to offend anyone. I’m also married and was wearing a wedding ring, but I didn’t want to offend a corporate distributor by making a big deal about that—so I didn’t answer. My new friend took over the conversation and said, “Sure.” (Maybe he didn’t want to offend anyone, either.)

The photographer directed him to move around and sit by me for the photo, which he did. Then he kept directing him to sit closer to me, to put his arm around me, for me to lean in to him, for me to put my hand on his chest, the photographer snapping photos with each new adjustment and before I knew it, I felt like we had a full-on engagement portrait session going!

Awkward!

Oh well, I reasoned, I just won’t purchase the pictures after the show. I wasn’t going to make a big deal about a very crazy, unexpected experience and a photographer’s mistaken impression. At the last minute before the show started, I was called away to take care of some work business and I returned just before the show started–long enough for my co-worker to hand me the bottle of water my new friend had purchased and to direct me to a seat on the front row of the show! What an unexpected surprise! (My thanks to Donny’s manager and my co-worker for working that out for me as a special treat.) I did as I was directed and didn’t even have the chance to thank my friend for the water.

After the show (which, by the way, in addition to being wonderful was so amazing that, according to Donny’s manager, I had a goofy grin on my face through the whole thing–he joked that these day, he watches the people, like me, rather than the actual show! haha), I walked out and paid the photo company who had taken the group photos for my company as an employee of the photographer came up, handed me a bag and said, “Here are your pictures with our compliments.”

I was a little surprised; I’d thought the photographer was simply going to provide me with a disk of the group photos he took but I thought, “Oh, that was nice of him to go the extra mile and print a group photo so I’d have a preview of what’s on the disk” and continued on my way. While riding in a cab back to my hotel I reached into the sack and pulled out the photos to take a look. Except that as I reached my hand into the sack for the flimsy photo I was expecting, instead, my hand grasped a leather portfolio folder!

I thought, “Wow, they REALLY went the extra mile for these group photos,” opened the binder and saw, instead of the group photo I was expecting, a lovely assortment of romantic poses and pictures with, apparently, my new boyfriend! Bound nicely in a leather portfolio! Official documentation of what I’d accidentally and unknowingly been up to in Las Vegas!

I busted up laughing at the crazy and unexpected gift, wondering how I end up in these crazy types of experiences, just as my phone rang. I answered it. Wouldn’t you know, it was my husband! Calling to see how things were going at the show and in Las Vegas! All I could answer was that things were going a little too well! LOL.

“…Vegas…It was quite an experience.” (Davy Jones)

Totally.

Dressed To Spectate, But…

Date: September 6, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Coaching is easy. Winning is the hard part.” (Elgin Baylor)

My youngest is playing soccer, for the first time, this fall. It’s something he has been begging to participate in for a couple of years, so we decided to try it this year. As the start of the season approached, I began getting emails from the league, “Your child has been placed on a team. However, we still need a coach, an assistant coach, and a team parent for your child’s team. Please volunteer.”

I confess, I ignored those requests. I was a basketball player; I never played soccer, I knew nothing about the game (other than I think you can’t touch the ball with your hands); not to mention the fact that I work full-time in another city from where the soccer practices and games take place.

As the day of the first game approached, the same emails kept coming. I finally responded with one of my own: “I’ve never played soccer, I know nothing about soccer, but I am willing to coach if you need me to,” thinking surely, one of those dads of the boys on the team would volunteer! I didn’t hear anything back, assumed a dad had stepped forward, and showed up at the first game. Expecting to spectate. To find out…I was the assistant coach!

I was dressed to spectate (in a skirt and flip flops), not coach, but I joined the boys on the field and did the best I could to provide encouragement, direction, to help control a little kindergarten boy-age chaos and propensity to wrestle even when they should be playing soccer and, of course, to learn the rules of the game. (Many thanks to Tyler, a little boy on my team, who coached the assistant coach that first game!)

We all survived the first soccer game. I’m not sure who won (I don’t think we keep score at this young age). I only know several boys on my team, including my son, scored goals; and that we had a very supportive cheerleader, my husband, cheering all of us on and making sure we had plenty of water during the breaks (especially the assistant coach) from the sidelines.

As I walked off the field at the end of the first game, all I could do was shake my head at ANOTHER unexpected adventure…in the unexpected life.

Life is like that, you know.

“Coaching in the NBA is not easy. It’s like a nervous breakdown with a paycheck.” (Pat Williams)

My experience is slightly easier than that, thank goodness! No paycheck, but no breakdowns, either. At least, not during that first game.

More to come.

Stay tuned.

Garden Report 2011

Date: August 29, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

Neighbors have begun sharing the bounty from their gardens. My co-workers are bringing their home-grown produce for lunch. Looks like it’s time for a report on my attempt at gardening this year. (Note the foreshadowing.)

Of the four almost two-year-old fruit trees I began the growing season with…two were chopped down by my youngest and his friend wielding toy swords. The third tree, loaded with approximately 30 little apples when I left on vacation earlier in the summer, was stripped bare 10 days later when I arrived home. (No sign or trace anywhere that there had once been the hope of fruit. I don’t know if little neighbor boys, birds or some other force of nature deserve the credit!) The fourth tree currently has 5 small nectarines clinging to two of its delicate branches; my husband is considering offering our youngest a cash reward if the fruit is allowed to remain there until it ripens!

The surviving peony bush (one of three hauled to Utah in orange Home Depot buckets from my Colorado yard in 2009 and transplanted in my Utah yard shortly after my arrival) still hasn’t bloomed. It has now been two years. I cut it some slack last year, wondering if perhaps it was still in shock at the upheaval and turmoil it had endured (I could SO relate!), but no fluffy pink flowers yet.

Of the flowers purchased by me and my husband at a local nursery earlier this year, the hanging basket (as I reported earlier) died within weeks; the rest were planted in three different pots and placed on the front porch. One pot died within a month, one is half dead, and the last bunch, though struggling terribly, is still hanging on.

Our pumpkin plants grew huge, beautiful leaves and approximately 75 blossoms (more blossoms than I’ve ever seen on anything.) The bounteous green vines are mounding and spreading…yielding, so far, two small light orange pumpkins and one tiny green one!

The zuchini starts we planted never did anything—in fact, they look about the same as when we bought them. The 8 tomato plants are all still alive, although two never blossomed or grew anything, one we harvested 4 small tomatoes from and the rest appear to be loaded with green tomatoes. Of the 6-7 lettuce plants, we made salad out of 3 of them before the rest died.

You know, life is like a garden. Some years, the growing conditions are easy-breezy; other years are more challenging. Some years plants thrive. Some years, not much appears to survive. The point is to keep watering and weeding, acknowledge every bit of growth or progress and to never quit planting. Always make the best of the plot you’re blessed with.

“I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.” (Abraham Lincoln)

The New Feel of Darkness

Date: June 14, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I wondered vaguely if this was when it would end, whether I would pull up tonight’s darkness like a quilt and be dead and at peace evermore.” (William Manchester)

When I was thrust into my unexpected life two years ago, it felt dark and very overwhelming. I confess, I probably had a moment or two where I could absolutely relate to William Manchester. Several nights I went outside in the backyard of my Colorado home to be alone, mourn my losses, cry, pray, and to try to figure out a plan: as in, how was I going to feed and shelter four children? By myself? And how was I going to not just start over, but start over “from a hole?”

Although, “There’s nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas,” (Mad-Eye Moody, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000), I was short on ideas and options back then! But at least I knew, “When the darkness comes, keep an eye on the light…no matter how far away it seems.” (Jan Berry) I’d been raised to believe in and have faith that “For every dark night, there’s a brighter day.” (Tupac Shakur) And it’s true. I know it now, just as I knew it then, as hard as it was to always believe it.

So I didn’t succumb to the night’s darkness. Despite the black hole that was my new world, I didn’t quit. I may have ended every day in tears by crying myself into a fitful sleep (what little I slept), and I woke up and cried when I opened my eyes to my new reality and realized it wasn’t a bad dream but my new life (THAT is something–when your reality is worse than a nightmare! LOL), but I carried on as best I could.

Last night, I was out in the backyard of my Utah home. It was late, close to 11 p.m., but I wasn’t alone or mourning anything; I was planting a garden with #5!

With our busy work and family schedules, that was the time we had available to do it–so I kept the dirt moist with water and held the camping lantern so we could see, and #5 dug the holes, placed the plants in the earth, and covered them with soil. We talked, laughed, worked side by side and enjoyed one another. And when we finished, #5 went to put the tools and equipment away. I was left, alone, in the late night blackness of a summer night.

It has been awhile since I’ve thought about the dark summer nights alone in my Colorado yard, but brief memories of that time came unbidden. I indulged in them for just a moment, wondering if I’ll ever experience dark summer nights alone without remembering that traumatic time in 2009 but also marveling at the difference time, and light, can make.

“I guess darkness serves a purpose: to show us that there is redemption through chaos. I believe in that.” (Brendan Fraser) So do I. Because I’m living proof. Out of darkness and chaos came redemption…in the form of a very unexpected life. Time and again I’ve seen it happen—in this century, in previous ones, to every person, everywhere, regardless of the challenge or struggle.

There is ALWAYS light, and life, at the end of the tunnel, your tunnel, whatever that challenge may be.

That’s life. And since that’s life, while we’re here, we ought to experience it and remember that, ”Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.” (Stefan Zweig)

And if you’ve never planted a garden late at night by the light of a lantern, I recommend you experience that too.

“See you in the darkness.” (Gary Gilmore)

Life

Date: January 4, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise.” (Patrick Stewart)

Jean Luc Pickard had it right.

Life doesn’t always turn out how you planned. And you’re not necessarily preparing for the future you envision. I’m not sure why we go through all we do…only to end up in some very unexpected places having experienced some unimaginable things.

But this I do know.

Our experiences teach us valuable lessons—IF we allow ourselves to learn. ”Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God, do you learn.” (C.S. Lewis)

Isn’t that the truth?

I also know this.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

We’re stronger because of what we’ve overcome. And if we got through something that difficult, we can get through anything—especially the next unexpected new opportunities we’re blessed with!

Late last summer I took my kids swimming at a friend’s pool one Saturday. Afterward, we enjoyed a barbecue. Then we innocently returned to our home after several hours of fun. We walked into the house and noticed a strange humming sound. I thought, “Darn! Someone left the television on when we left. I’ve asked my kids not to do that a thousand times!” and in a bit of frustration, went to the turn the t.v. off. Only it wasn’t on.

My oldest headed down to his bedroom right about that time, got to the basement and cried out. In a panic I raced down the stairs to see what was wrong, got to the bottom of the stairs, and unexpectedly stepped into a puddle of water at least 6 inches deep! The entire basement of our home was flooded! The “humming” sound I’d heard was the dying echo of ruined electronic equipment.

As I stood there, water sloshing against my calves looking at the utter ruin of the lowest level of my home’s interior and its contents, I belatedly thought, “Is it possible to get shocked standing in water with electronics humming and crackling as they float by?” And then thoughts of death-by-electricity fled my mind as I realized I needed to get the water to my home shut off. A pipe must have burst.

But wouldn’t you know, inept single woman that I am, I couldn’t find it? I looked high and low, everywhere I could think of, but I couldn’t locate it. I had my children down there hunting with me and it never turned up. I assigned my son to find a male neighbor who could tell us where the water shut-off valve might be located. He returned with an actual neighbor who helped us find it and shut it off. Then he suggested we look for the pipe that had burst–the source of the water.

Would you believe there wasn’t one? The entire basement was like a giant kiddie pool but there wasn’t a source of water! The ceilings were dry, the walls were dry, but strangely, in one room, there was water spray on everything below four feet in height. It was the craziest thing.

And I learned something about myself: unsolved mysteries (aka. house floods) make me think the darndest things! After hunting high and low with my neighbor for the source of the water, and never finding one, I’m ashamed to say one of my next thoughts was, “Oh my gosh! It has FINALLY happened! A Ponzi scheme victim must have located us, broke into our home, and unleashed their anger at the situation with a hose—by flooding our home!”

That was ridiculous. I put that thought out of my mind and unexpectedly it was replaced it with, “How in the world have we made an enemy like this already? Just one year living in Utah and we’ve offended someone so badly that they’d want to flood our home?”

That’s when I noticed it.

My son’s bedroom window was cracked and broken, pieces were missing. And then I noticed grass floating in the flood, mud and grass splattered everywhere inside my home, and mud and water floating in the window well.

My neighbor and I headed outside to find the source of the water. As luck would have it, the patio and everything outside near the broken window was completely dry. NO trace of water! Where were Fred, Daphne, Thelma, Shaggy, Scooby and The Mystery Machine when I needed them? There was a mystery to be solved.

Another neighbor saw us outside and came over to see if we had noticed the water outside my home. Due to the heat of the day, the outside water had dried up, so we hadn’t seen ANY water. (That was why the situation was so puzzling!) I told him, unfortunately,the water wasn’t just outside my home, the entire interior of the basement was flooded. But at least he solved the mystery for us.

It was entirely unexpected.

There are irrigation wheels in the corner of my backyard. While I was out, a farmer came to take his watering turn and failed to check that the appropriate gates were open when he diverted his irrigation water. He drove away…and my home flooded. I wasn’t home, the farmer wasn’t there, so I didn’t know anything untoward was taking place or needed to be stopped. The water ran and ran. Unchecked. Out of control.

A different neighbor happened to look outside and saw water flooding our cul-de-sac and the connecting streets so filled with water he assumed a water main had broken. Until he tried to locate the source of the “break” and saw a literal river of water running through my backyard, into my home, and into the streets all around it. Just a little house flooding, courtesy of a farmer who failed to check (as they are always supposed to) that the appropriate diversion gates are open. Just one little gate. I NEVER expected that!

I don’t think the farmer did either. As he told me later that night, “I’ve been doing this 30 years and I’ve never had a problem. I never thought to check that the south gate was open. It’s not your fault, it’s not my fault; these things happen. That’s what your homeowner’s insurance is for.” The farmer advised me to get my belongings out of my basement as fast as I could. I never expected that, either.

I stood there, alone, with my four children and thought, “How in the world am I supposed to clear my basement all by myself?” (I was tending a baby at the time, as well.) I was overwhelmed. But that is a great thing about Utah. (Get ready for another one of those, “Only in Utah” moments.) My son went to one neighbor and asked if he could help us move some furniture out of our basement as it had flooded, he came right over, took one look, made a phone call and within minutes, literally, there were 30-40 people from our neighborhood and church congregation hauling our belongings out of the flood and into our front yard. An impossible task was completed in a matter of an hour or so.

I helped, I hauled, and then I confess, I had a moment of meltdown. I escaped to the privacy of my bathroom, called a friend in Denver, CO, and lost it. For a moment there, I was afraid a house flood was going to be my undoing. Silly, I know, but after a year of shock, trauma, and attempted recovery, I was temporarily at my limit.

Thankfully, my friend “talked me down,” we laughed and I put the situation in perspective. Really, after EVERYTHING I had lived through, a house flood wasn’t that big of a deal.

Really.

Truly.

And I knew it.

Sadly, compared to decades of lies, betrayal, crime, drama, divorce, vilification and everything else played out in the media and on a public stage, a flood really wasn’t that big of a deal. I had lived through worse. Much worse. So that’s what I said when people expressed their sympathy regarding the flood. “We’ve lived through worse. Not a big deal. It’s just stuff. It will be ok.”

I never expected the collapse of my family and the public downfall we endured would  be preparation for a flood; would help me keep it all in perspective. But it was. And it did. We’ve certainly survived worse.

In the unexpected life.

Yet still, “I doubt whether the world holds for any one a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice-cream.” (Heywood Braun)

Or your first house flood.

Gotta Keep Your Feet Moving

Date: November 10, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

I’ve felt a kinship with Arnold Schwarzenegger for quite some time. Since the early 1990s, to be exact.

It began years ago. I was in downtown Denver, at an Eddie Bauer store, looking at a jacket.  A well-meaning young, male salesclerk approached and told me I should buy that jacket, that “The Arnold” was in town and had tried it on just hours before. (Hint: Never tell a woman THAT if you want to make a sale!) Needless to say, I left the jacket as it hung. But knowing I had touched something Arnold Schwarzenegger had, bonded us. At least from my perspective.

So I don’t take his wisdom lightly. Here’s some:

“What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.” (Arnold Schwarzenegger)

Isn’t that the truth?

When I was 9 years old, my best friend Rachel Cox, got it in her mind that we were going to walk 20 miles together and raise money in a March of Dimes walkathon. I got on my bicycle and pedaled all over the rural roads of Grand Jct., CO, asking strangers to sponsor me in my walk.

Things were safer in the 70s, but still not without their hazzards.

At one house, a giant and ferocious dog chased me down the driveway. I screamed and ran, panic stricken and crying. Thankfully, the homeowner came, rescued me, and sponsored me–probably feeling bad for the little girl with the racing heart, bawling in the driveway.

I survived the sponsorship part of the walkathon. Finally the day came to walk 20 miles.

My parents were out of town. They told me (later, and for the rest of my life) they figured I’d walk a mile or two and go home so they didn’t change their travel plan and just arranged a ride for me to the starting point where I met my friend. I was completely unprepared for the walk by today’s standards. I wore normal school clothes, Keds, I didn’t bring any water or food (kids don’t always plan for the essentials–they’d never even crossed my mind, actually), I didn’t have sunscreen, and while most walkers had adult supervision, Rachel and I were on our own.

At mile one, Rachel quit. For some reason, I carried on alone. (I was pretty shy back then, to this day I’m not sure how I dared continue on by myself.) It may have had something to do with the fact that I wasn’t tired, or maybe I was motivated by the pictures of the poster children I was trying to help, or maybe it was all I’d gone through getting sponsors–not just the dog attack, but even talking to people I didn’t know and asking them to help me; I hated that part of it! Or maybe I just wanted to see if I could do it.

So I kept walking.

I didn’t really know what I was doing or where I was going, but I followed the way marked by cardboard arrows, got my card stamped at each mile’s checkpoint, and watched the stream of walkers lessen until I was mostly alone and felt even more alone knowing my parents were out of town. I wasn’t always sure where to go. Thankfully, I didn’t get lost. I felt a little like I was blazing my own trail and I was a little afraid, but I carried on most of the day.

By late afternoon, an unfortunate thing happened. The walkathon route went right past my neighborhood–just before mile 18–and I gave in to the lure and safety of home. I detoured through Paradise Hills to my house and quit, without even getting my card stamped at mile 18 and getting credit for that last mile I walked.

My feet were killing me.

My house was quiet.

But I had accomplished something.

When my parents arrived home that evening and found out what I had achieved all by myself, they were dumbfounded. They took me to dinner to celebrate–my dad carried me to and from the car and into the restaurant so I wouldn’t have to walk any more that day. They told everyone what I had done.

The prospect of walking 20 miles, by myself, in the 4th grade seemed incomprehensible. But I learned something that day. When I thought I couldn’t go the distance, I did. When I was alone, and afraid, I carried on anyway. And in the end, I learned I was stronger and more capable than I’d ever imagined.

That’s sort of how last year was for me. I found myself facing a challenge so huge I didn’t know how I’d go the distance. I was alone, afraid, but I carried on anyway. There weren’t signs showing me the way this time, I had to rely on inspiration, common sense, the advice of good friends, absolute faith and sometimes, pure endurance.

And in the end, I learned I was stronger and more capable than I’d ever imagined. And I accomplished something I wasn’t always sure would be possible: a new life; happiness and joy out of the disastrous ruination and ashes of my former life.

The unexpected life is its own walkathon. But if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when your feet (and your heart) hurt, eventually you’ll accomplish something great.

“I always tell my kids if you lay down, people will step over you. But if you keep scrambling, if you keep going, someone will always, always give you a hand. Always. But you gotta keep dancing, you gotta keep your feet moving.” (Morgan Freeman)

Keep your feet moving.

The unexpected life.

Lemonade That’s Real

Date: October 27, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons.” (Alfred Newman)

When my ex-husband went to prison, I told him I hoped he used the time to learn what he needed to learn; to grow and change in the ways he needed to; and that I hoped he chose to make the best of the experience, whatever it might be. In other words, make lemonade. Even in prison.

I LOVE lemonade, but it’s also how I believe in living life. However, the fact it has to be easier said than done in prison is not lost on me. I knew what I was asking of him. So lest I have painted too rosy a portrait of prison, let me share some reality.

About his environment he wrote, “This is such a harsh place. There is nowhere to go for peace. Nowhere to be alone or even escape the constant barrage of foul language. Just for kicks one day I decided to count the number of cuss words I heard in a single hour–I stopped at 1200! It is a daily onslaught from which there is no escape. I think we have every kind of degenerate scum bag in this place. Every day I wake up refreshed, feeling clean, and by the end of the day I feel like I just can’t take the filth any more. A deputy summed it up this way: ‘I view my pay not as income, but as worker’s compensation, because every time I come through that door I feel millions of brain cells commit suicide.’ It’s the shallow end of the gene pool to be sure but there are a few gems in here, and I consider myself to be blessed with the friends I have here.”

Rather than dwell on the negative, I was happy to see he focused on his daily routine and tried to make the best of his situation. He kept busy exercising, playing games, tutoring men for the G.E.D., reading, writing, making friends and trying to make the most of his incarceration. Not bad lemonade, especially for prison.

“When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. I have several stands around here.” (James Brady)

You can make lemonade wherever you are. All you need is lemons (abundant in the challenges and trials of life), water (which is everywhere) and a little sugar supplied by you–the way you choose to look at things and rise above them, the blessings you acknowledge and are grateful for, the positive things you focus on and the happiness you choose to create from your fruit regardless of where it comes from.

Make the best of what you have, regardless of how sour it is, and somewhere along the way the bitterness is overpowered by the sweet. It happens every time.

Lemonade.