Waxing realistic

I confess, sometimes when I just can't seem to wrap my head around something, I give in and simply refrain from thinking about it all.

A good example, politics. Someone is always bending the truth, and I just can't justify siding with anyone whole-heartedly, so I endorse policies rather than people. (But that's problematic too, because of that thing they call pork...) I wanted to watch the recent State of the Union, but I was so distracted by the childish game of who stood and clapped at which statements, my brain exploded and I fell asleep.

Lately, too, I've been thinking long and hard about how upsetting it is that I feel helpless in the face of big problems like homelessness. I'm asked for money daily, but my crushing student loan debt and perpetually tardy utility bills usually stop me. And the inevitable conundrum of, if I help one person, must I help the next one? And the next? How do I choose who gets to eat breakfast this morning? Again, my head feels like it's overflowing and I shut down. I put on my blinders when I walk the streets.

These are bigger issues that will forever be unsolved. That's not pessimism, it's realism, and the difference can be slight.

Recently, I've learned a similar lesson about the business world. But first, some background. Most people who know me not as well might say that I'm relentlessly cheerful and friendly. As a friend once put it, "un-jaded." Those who know me a little better would agree, for the most part, but also know the part of me that is stubborn and sometimes hot-headed. I guess what I'm saying is that inside I don't always feel like the soft-spoken, blissfully-naive person I tend to appear to be. But some recent events have left me doe-eyed, realizing that, yes, I do have lots more to learn about the world. And here is what I learned this week:

When it comes to a job, you are not your integrity. You are not your work ethic. You are not your I-got-your-back coworker relationships. Those things will only get you so far. You are, actually, your billable hours. You are your productivity. You are your dollars and cents on an invoice. Somewhere, you are a sliver of a pie chart in company's budget. Party favors at office Christmas parties are nice. But they are not the bottom line.

But even in lieu of my perhaps long overdue existential epiphany, it still helps me to think that there is a way to run a business that really cares about people, where no one gets lost amongst the padded gray cubicle walls. The ones that are only five feet tall, but reach to ceiling...

Here it goes again. My mind is overwrought with thoughts of equality and humanity and it's starting to make me think about politics, so it's time to stop. And with that, I will venture on to think about something much simpler, and hope reality doesn't creep in to ruin it.

Be a good one.

There is a gentleman who stands on the corner of 16th and Market Streets each weekday morning and evening during rush hour. He wears a driver's cap, a long coat and scarf and always has a suitcase sitting by his side. He stands in the very same spot with a resolute and confident way about him. He preaches about his love for Jesus loud and proud, day after day. I pass him twice daily. He is always there.

Most people act as if he doesn't exist. I never make eye contact, but I listen. I stare straight ahead, but my ears are paying keen attention. I've become accustomed to the sound of his growly booming voice, just as I have the the squeaky brakes of the city buses and the clink-clank of the street vendors spatulas on their grills.

Sometimes he reads straight from the bible, other times he sings songs that he seems to be creating on the spot. Sometimes he seems angry, and other times he's very calm. Either way, his message is the same: be damned if you don't accept God as your savior. Be damned if you fornicate, drink alcohol, adulterate, or whatever else. His words condemn and ostracize, but otherwise, he seems a nice enough man. I've seen women and men stop to say a prayer with him or just to say hi. His reply is always, "have a blessed day." Once the men in the giant garbage truck honked and waved.

I used to seethe a bit when I passed him, offended how he thinks his way is the only way. I wrote him off as crazy, but I still couldn't (and still cannot) ever help but stretch my ears as I pass.

Then the New Year came. In typical self-actualizing fashion, I openly adopted my 2011 motto, the Abe Lincoln quote: "Whatever you are, be a good one."

And then it hit me.

I sure don't like or agree with what the crazy man on the corner says, but he does it with passion and persistence. He does it well. Rain, sleet or snow, he wakes up early each morning and returns each night, to share what he believes to be the path to an enlightened life. And even though his words are often harsh, I've seen him respectfully ignore the people who scoff as they walk by. He's completely unfettered by the fact that 99 percent of passersby completely ignore him, and, I assume, inspired by that one percent he manages to reach.

If just half the people in the world believed in something as ardently as he does, (something good, that is) then the world might be a happier place. If I can take the things I believe in and share them with nearly as much gusto as he does, then I can feel pretty good about my time here.

Junebug vs. hurricane

When I was a kid, I went through phases of obsessions with different disasters. I saw Twister and became terrified at every even slightly darkened cloud. I watched a murder thriller and lost my ability to be alone in a room. Back then, people said I had a wild imagination. It even kind of passed as cute at times. As a teen, I was "just sensitive" and "a bit of a worry wart." Nowadays, my doctor calls it "anxiety" and says Celexa may help.

So when I was faced with the potentially most devastating news of my life--like when we were told two weeks ago that my mom likely had late stage ovarian cancer--you'd probably guess that I'd pretty much just lose my shit.

And while I can't say that in the week leading up to her hysterectomy and tumor biopsy that my mind didn't entertain the most tragic outcomes, still I was somehow, almost strangely, uncharacteristically calm. Because even though my heart held an unshakable sense of utter despair and melancholy, the small everyday things that usually freak me out faded almost completely away. The sense of impending doom I became so used to waking up with was replaced with a legitimate fear. And I suddenly just didn't care so much about the orange level terror alert at the airport, any of various random, depressing statistics that pass for news headlines each morning, or even my chronic nagging sense of guilt from my bratty childhood disposition and how I feared it would come back to me one day.

And as it turned out, my mom's tumor was benign, and she's recovering from surgery quite admirably. I've since resumed my post in Philadelphia after many grueling hours in hospital waiting rooms. Things are back to normal, other than the fact that I'm going to be much more meticulous when it comes to scheduling my regular checkups and encouraging all my friends and family to do the same.

I consider myself an un-believer in miracle cures or other sappy-movie-esque life transformations, but the impact my mom's cancer scare had on my family did bring us closer. If nothing more, it was a brief intermission from our everyday stressful lives that reminded us things could be a lot worse, and that we are by far the most important things in each other's lives.

My calm in the eye of the storm felt almost like a fight-or-flight survival instinct. When stakes are high, sometimes you do things you never thought you were capable of. When you're dying of thirst, you'd do anything for water. And when someone you love may be in trouble, you do whatever it takes to get to their side as fast as you can.

Home sweet everywhere.

As I sit here in my relatively new apartment on this pleasantly warm Monday night in July, with my kitten staring up at me from my lap, I can't help but look back on my day and think about how much of my life is spent in places other than my cozy little home. And how I have so many almost-homes scattered about the city and beyond. It seems a little silly how I try to make all these places feel familiar, but I also like the thought of a second home, a third, that gives me this same, warm safe feeling that's wrapped around me right now.

First, there's my cubicle at work. Always within eyesight is an artfully done photo of none other than Jason and Grizabella, the two people (or mammals to be precise) I'm lucky enough to spend most of my time with. Among the other home-making accessories: a decorative plant of an unknown species I stole off a table at our corporate center's grill out. A couple office supplies, including a purple stapler that doesn't work, but was given to me at my internship at Sunrise Greetings. I keep it for the memory. All my writing books. I love them all, especially my grammar bible. I could read it all day. And the heart-shaped Love Boat Princess Cruises coffee mug that holds my pens and pencils. I don't like boats, but I do like hearts and love and the word princess.

And then my locker at the gym. In what I feel is the most secluded corner of the room (I'm more on the naked-shy side). I leave the extra-strong deodorant in there, along with my travel sized hair brush. And, for whatever reason, a pair of Jason's sweat bands that I will never wear in public. They just hang there, unused, but I like them there.

While most people have a third or fourth home in their very own vehicles, I settle in the second car of the R5 train each morning. Always on the window side of a three person seat with my bag snugly slid between my hip and the car wall, coffee mug in one hand, New York Times magazine in the other. Always half awaiting the welcomed vibration of my cell phone, bringing quips and conversation with friends and family via messages quickly hammered out by fingertips. Especially Emily. When I'm really lucky, I get a picture of my little "nephew" Elijah with a big smile.

In my old neighborhood, there was almost-home potential in one of the back tables at Manny Brown's, especially Thursday nights when Lagers are only $2. We haven't been back since the move last month. Still on the hunt for that new homey bar with the good specials and perfect corner booth.

There's a lot of bad news on the TV and a lot of things about my repetitive days that are really easy to complain about. But most of the time, I try to just sit back, and find those little things that make me feel like I'm right at home, where ever I am.

City-me?

The first week since my move from Society Hill to Rittenhouse was an adjustment. It even started to make me wonder if, after almost a year in the city, I may be losing some of my midwestern manners.

My first weekday morning picking up the train at Suburban Station, rather than my usual Market East Station, I arrived with plenty of time. I took a seat to relax for a moment and enjoy my orange juice. My eyes were fixed on my magazine, but I sensed a man walking timidly towards me.

"Miss? Excuse me, Miss?" I heard him say.

Now, a whole lot of panhandling goes on at Market East. I don't make a habit of carrying cash or change, so I generally turn the people down, never without at least a small twinge of guilt in my gut. I'm not proud to say it, but the more time passes, the more I feel myself becoming slightly desensitized.

Which is why, I suppose, the words "I don't have any money" spilled from my mouth before my eyes had even met his.

As soon as I said it, my heart sank. One full look at the man, tall and burly, and the small group of friends that stood behind him--and I lowered my head back down in shame. Before I could muster the courage to apologize for my hasty, heartless assumption or even try to explain myself, the men retreated.

"Money?" He said to his friends as they walked away. "Man, people are sick."

Then, the following morning on the train to work, a guy who looked about my age in a bright green polo shirt took the seat next to me. Like I'd been doing for the most of the week as I fought my way through a cold, I coughed a rattling cough and wiped my nose with a tissue.

"Not feeling well this morning, are you?" He said with a smirk.

I was half surprised, half embarrassed. No one likes being the sick person on train. I was pretty irked he felt the need to draw attention to it. "No, I'm not."

"You're not gonna get me sick too, are you?" That smirk again.

"I'm gonna try not to," I said with a sniff as I shoved a my soiled tissue into my pocket.

I knew I didn't sound too psyched to talk about the nasty germiness I was spreading around, but I didn't realize I was so standoffish that he felt the need to move a few rows back at the next station stop.

I've always thought I was well-mannered, thanks almost completely to my impeccably polite mother. I refuse to give up the old art of the thank you note and I'm proud of my promptness and perpetual smile. But I'm learning that even occasional apathy can come off harsher than you may intend.

And the more I think of it, lately, I do sometimes find it more odd than endearing when a stranger smiles or holds the door for me. On one hand, I'd like to say it's not all my fault--that the harsh and unforgiving city life is simply taking its necessary toll on me. But deep down I know that real manners apply always--not just when it's easy or when your reputation's on the line.

As it often happens, a passage from a book I'm reading seems to speak some sense to this situation:

"There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, I invited it in. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back. We were locked in a stare of mutual disgust...One day I woke up and said to myself: It's not too late. The first days were strange. I had to practice smiling in front of the mirror. But it came back to me. It was as if a weight had been lifted. I let go, and something let go of me." (From 'The History of Love' by Nicole Kruass)

Ode to a former shuttle driver

The first thing I noticed about Scotty wasn't his bushy gray-white eyebrows or thick tube socks that stuck out of his big white sneakers.

It was the sign he taped above the dashboard of his shuttle bus. Scrawled in thick, black ink on a plain piece of white paper was a message that read:


Hi My Name is
"SCOTTY"


The i’s were dotted with big circles. It looked like a third grader's handwriting. I wasn't sure if the quotation marks indicated a nickname, or if it wasn't really his name at all.

He never actually introduced himself by name, but he did greet me and the various, five to ten other commuters that rode on his bus from the Radnor train station to the Radnor Corporate Center each weekday with a jolly "Good morning!" He was a big, elderly man with thinning hair that peeked from underneath a baseball cap. I imagined he was recently retired and worked part-time.

On the train, people go out of their way to avoid contact of any kind with each other. But rarely could anyone help but break out of the common stranger shell when climbing aboard Scotty’s bus.

Inspired by his friendliness, I often thought about calling him Scotty but I was hesitant to assume it was his name. It wasn’t until the long, lanky twenty-something who works at the Corporate Center’s deli said, “See ya, Scotty,” for the first time before hopping off the bus that I was confident enough to do the same.

And it wasn’t long after I began greeting him by name that he donned me with the nickname “Happy.”

It began like this: “It’s great to see you, you’re always smiling, always happy,” he said as I found my seat.

I laughed, a little surprised. “I try,” I said unsurely.

I thought maybe he'd mistaken the squinty face I make when I forget my sunglasses for a wholehearted, I-love-my-life kind of smile. The truth is, commuting an hour and a half to work every weekday doesn’t leave me feeling particularly jubilant.

After that day, whenever I boarded the bus he always said, “Hi, Happy, good to see you,” or “Hey, Hap, how are ya?”

Sometimes he’d yell, “YAHOO!” as I walked down from the train platform towards the curb where he always waited.

Whether or not I was really smiling before, I couldn’t help but smile after our interactions, and sometimes it lasted into the afternoon. Whether or not I was really all that happy in the morning, I was now—at least a little bit more.

One day as we approached my stop he asked me my real name.

“Caitlin,” I said as I stepped down the stairs towards building number three.

“Caitlin, huh? That’s an unusual one.”

I always thought my name was pretty common, but I just laughed and waved goodbye for the day.

A few days later, it was just me and two others on the bus. I got on first. After our usual exchange, I found my seat. Then I glanced up and saw him looking at me from the big rearview mirror that hung right under his sign.

“Caitlin, do you have a man at home that takes good care of you?”

I paused, then told him that yes, I certainly do.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” he said with a chuckle.

“What about you?” I asked.

“I live with a woman,” he said, “A widow. Her name is Bridget. We’ve lived together for ten years.”

“Wow, that’s a long time.”

“We like to go to car shows together on the weekends,” he said as he made his way out of the parking lot. He told me he’d bring in a picture of the vintage car he fixed up to show me.

I pictured Scotty coming home to a little red brick house in his big white sneakers and khaki shorts, lunchbox in hand—excited to see Bridget. Every now and then, I asked him how she was doing.

Then one gloomy, rainy morning I got off the train to find two shuttle buses in line instead of one. I approached the first one that looked like Scotty’s, but he wasn’t inside. A slight, middle-aged man was in his place.

“Going to the Corporate Center?” he said dully. “Which building?”

Scotty knew everyone, if not by name, by which building they worked in. I figured the change was temporary. Maybe Scotty was ill, or maybe they just altered the shuttle schedule due to the weather. He had to be coming back, I thought, because his sign still hung above the dashboard.

The dull man took his place for a few weeks or so. He rarely responded to pleasantries and made rough, abrupt stops. All the commuters continued the friendly greetings and goodbyes they’d become accustomed to, thanking him for each short ride. He remained oblivious and completely apathetic.

His somberly silent spirit was as contagious as Scotty’s glee, and the passengers’ pleasantries eventually tapered off. The shuttle felt more like the train.

Eventually, Scotty’s sign was taken down. A small scrap of one of the corners of the white paper remained, barely noticeable. It may have been the warmer weather, but fewer and fewer people showed up on the shuttle each morning.

A fellow rider and coworker of mine asked the new guy what happened to Scotty.

“He’s on vacation and stuff,” he said in his monotone voice.

For several days after that, as the train approached the Radnor station, I’d wonder if this day would be the day Scotty came back. I imaged how excited everyone would be.

Finally, another man—older, and slightly more personable—showed up in the driver’s seat one morning. He was friendly, and announced to everyone that his name was Gene and that he’d been on a leave from his position but that now he was back for good.

That was when I officially gave up hope for Scotty’s return. I was glad to have a nicer driver, but I still think often of Scotty and Bridget and wonder what they’re doing now. I think of how just a few of his words made me believe a lot more in my ability to make myself happy.

Today, before the bus began bounding across Matsonford Road, Gene told everyone to please read the sign he’d recently posted.

In bold typeface it read:


FOR YOUR SAFETY
Please remain seated until the Bus has come to a COMPLETE stop.


Below the words was a clip art image of happy commuters reading the paper and drinking coffee, all seated as requested.

I liked Scotty’s sign better.

Please please me, advertising

As far back as I can remember, the first thing I've always done before reading any magazine is remove and discard all of those subscription cards that fall into your lap. I grew up in a mute-all-TV-commercials house. I've only ever listened to NPR radio stations. Even at a young age, I found the “See, you looked!” gotcha-ads on city street benches offensive. My first instinct when my computer screen is taken over by a web banner ad has always been to divert my eyes as if it was a total eclipse of the sun--as if glancing at the interruption is letting it win. The obtrusive nature of billboards, promotional emails, and people handing out flyers on the street typically tends to make me a little angry.

And I'm a full-time copywriter at an advertising agency.

No, I'm not into self-torture and I'm not acting as a mole. Since I've started to immerse myself in the industry, I began to give ads more of a chance. I've learned to appreciate them for their clever ways of finding their way into my line of vision or earshot, and their ability to create suspense that really makes me want to click "learn more." I've learned to appreciate ads that speak right to me, to my gut or to my heart--and that show that the agency behind the ad has really done its homework. (I've also disproved my long held belief that all pop-up ads link you to porn sites.)

I feel my negative disposition to ads adds valuable insight to my agency. I equate it to a chef without a big appetite or a teacher who doesn't take instruction well. It's not that I turn my nose up at any ad that I didn't write, but rather that my highly skeptic nature drives me to create good, strong advertising. Advertising that catches your attention because it speaks to a universal truth or has an emotional tug--not simply because it's loud. Advertising that catches your eye because it's beautifully simple, not just because it's busy and bright.

If it were up to me, all ads would be understated, polite, and would tell a good human-interest story. But it's not up to me, and all I can do is bring that to the table in the work I do--and make use of the mute button and collapse link as needed.