INTERSECTIONS

This is an image taken some time ago on Beale Street in Memphis.  I ran across it late tonight scrounging around in some old archives instead of doing what normal I’ve-been-sick-all-week people do in the middle of the night.  They sleep.  I think about writing.  There should probably be a blogging rule about writing in the middle of the night when you’re grumpy, don’t feel well and can’t sleep, but then I guess I’d just go and break it, so it’s probably just as well no one’s told me about it.  And if you’ve heard it, don’t enlighten me until I’m over this damn cold, ok?

There’s not a lot of television that I watch consistently, but Mad Men has become a can’t-miss.  In last Sunday’s episode a lot of relationships were changed.  I won’t drag you through the story line, but in a review of the episode, Maureen Ryan stated (about Joan), “She’s still in the role-playing stage that Roger and Don were for so many years — as they were, she is married to someone to whom she doesn’t reveal her true self.”  When I saw this image tonight, it brought that quote home to me.

I remember standing in front of those doors at the end of Beale Street with my camera in hand feeling an aching sadness.  I’d completely forgotten that reaction until I connected the image with the quote tonight.  Looking at the image now makes me think about all the valuable pieces of ourselves we keep locked away from those closest to us.  We all do it to some degree.  Treasures that reveal who we are, what we care about, how we feel, where we’ve been and where we want to go.  Gems of ourselves that would enrich those around us…if we had the courage, opportunity and ability to share them.

The locks become so comfortable. We don’t even notice their constraint after a while.  The patina blends in with the trim on our doors.  They belong there, those locks.  They protect us.   There are some good reasons for locks.  But if yours are rusted, if the key is floating around in the bottom of a junk drawer, if you’re not sure the hinges on the doors really work anymore–maybe it’s time to re-examine your relationships.

Where’s your key?  Do the doors of your heart open for those who should be closest to you?

P.S.   Maybe I can sleep now.

The Betelgeuse of the 1988 film was more humorously disgusting than frightening, but this scarecrow re-creation was fairly fearsome.  It was the one scarecrow of the afternoon at Cheekwood that creeped out my young son, (though, in all fairness, that’s really not such a difficult feat).  I wrote my last post about the importance of protecting our dreams and ideas as it related to a happy looking scarecrow image with stuffed crows on his shoulders.  The reality of our internal lives, however is that there is a lot more that needs protecting.  And I’m afraid that a happy looking scarecrow gently waving straw fingers in the breeze really isn’t good enough to scare off the things that need to be scared off.

I’ve been spending some time this week thinking about the variety of ways that cultural messages infiltrate our lives.  Sometimes those messages benefit us and other times they don’t.  The problem is that most of us don’t bother to think about filtering the messages, for ourselves or our children.  If we are even aware of the harmful messages we internalize, we feel hopeless against the sheer magnitude of the messenger.  Our personal scarecrows are few and far between and often not scary enough.

Wikipedia defines a scarecrow as, “a device – traditionally a human figure or mannequin dressed in old clothes – placed in fields by farmers to discourage birds such as crows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.”  Crows high-tail it out of town each Fall when Cheekwood fills up its grounds with scarecrows of all shapes and sizes.  Some are scary, some sweet, some ghoulish, some silly, but all interesting.  As I enjoyed the perfect Fall day and wandered around the grounds enjoying the creativity and variety of the 65 plus scarecrows on display this year, it occurred to me that we all need scarecrows.

How many times have you had an idea, a plan, a moment of inspiration that became bird food?  Maybe you negative-talked your way out of it before it even saw the light of day.  Maybe you mentioned it to a friend or family member and they laughed.  Maybe you pitched it to your boss and were shot down.  Maybe its happened so many times that those ideas now enter stage left of your mind and saunter across to exit stage right without bothering to pause to let you get a closer look.  Maybe dreams don’t even make it on stage anymore.  Maybe they just slink around in the shadows, evaporating soundlessly.

Inspiration, dreams and ideas need a safe place to grow.  A recent blog post by Darren Hardy, publisher of Success magazine linked to a document in which a man listed several pages of pithy advice earned in his 102 years of life.  One of those nuggets was to nourish the dreams of your children, no matter how outlandish or unrealistic.  I’ve thought about that several times today.  Initially I saw it as a call to support our kids.  But, as I thought about it more, I realized how truly important it is to teach and encourage our children—and each other—how to dream, how to create a safe haven for ideas and inspiration.

I’ll have a few more things to say about scarecrows in the coming weeks, but for now…

What are the crows in your world?  Negative mental voices?  Or other people?   Do you ever play the part of a crow to your family, friends or business associates?

What kind of scarecrow can you construct to keep the seeds of your inspirations and ideas safe until they’re healthy enough to stand or fail on their own?  I’m interested in your ideas, let’s hear ‘em…

P.S.  From now on, expect to hear from me every Monday and Thursday!