A Welcoming Hand

Thanksgiving and Easter can often be orphan holidays in my neck of the woods. Most of us expect to be home or at least with family at Christmas and maybe over New Years. But often Thanksgiving and Easter find families far apart perhaps because of time and distance.

The LaComb family entourage spends time in Palm Springs around either Thanksgiving or during the Christmas holidays depending on their own individual family obligations. When the whole gang is around for Thanksgiving like last year it’s a whirlwind of family activities, assorted adventures, and very little quiet time. But when they’re not here it’s an entirely different story. It’s still a family gathering but of a different nature.

It isn’t the holiday per say that makes the day different. The drinks and ordure’s ahead of time are the same. The meal, and often, the games we often play afterwards, remain the same. It turns out that Thanksgiving and Easter are no different here than Christmas or New Year’s Eve back in Minnesota. It’s still a wonderful gathering of like-minded friends and acquaintances. They’re just not immediate family.

It’s become a long-standing tradition for Sharon and I. One might say it was born out of Mother Hen’s need to entertain and the joy it brings to others who don’t have a place to call home on that special day. It’s what we do when regular family members aren’t around.

Perhaps, it’s like the lost generation in Paris who gathered for comfort, companionship, and mental stimulation. It’s like a folk gathering in Greenwich Village or a poet’s corner in North Beach. It’s a modern-day version of the Triangle Bar on Saturday night. We’re all ex-pats from different parts of the country brought here for a variety of reasons and simply trying to spend quality time with like-minded souls. Singles or couples are often a part of that equation.

More often than not, someone will know somebody or a couple here in town that doesn’t have a place to go for Thanksgiving or Easter. They then become a part of our extended family for the day. Familiarity is formed over good conversation, great food and genuine warmth and appreciation for the presence of others.

That’s when Palm Spring’s own version of Martha Stewart west gets to dress her table with relish…literally. There’s Rosenthal China, Waterford Crystal, antique silver settings, antique salt cellars, individual silver butter knives and place cards with crystal bowls. Sharon likes to say presentation sets the mood. It’s light and festive and warm and welcoming.

And for that brief afternoon, we’re all gathered among friends or newly-made acquaintances sharing a bountiful meal and enjoying one another’s company.

And when the day ends and we’re all disperse back to our regular lives, we’ve been enriched by that shared experience and the joy of giving.

I recently found out that young people nowadays have a new name for Thanksgiving. They’re calling it ‘Friendsgiving.’ I like that. It’s a fitting description of what we do here in the desert.

Three Strikes and I'm Getting Better

Failure can wrap itself in a cloak of many colors. Unexpected job loss and life-changing events can become pivotal points in one’s life. It’s that water-shed moment where what was once present is now past and the future is nothing more than a dim hope or vapid expectation on the horizon.

In her new book entitled: ‘The Up Side of Down,’ author Megan McArdle says that: “Getting to the upside of down often means letting go of your instincts, ignoring conventional wisdom and leaping for something no one has done before.” It’s changing course in mid-stream and forging ahead despite the uncertainty of what might lie ahead.

Ed Catmull was one of the founders of Pixar along with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. In his book ‘Creativity, Inc: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration’ Catmull says that the ultimate goal here is to uncouple fear and failure. It’s changing that stigma that failure is bad and a sign of weakness. We must recognize that mistakes aren’t necessary evil. Instead, they are an inevitable consequence of doing something new. Echoing the mantra of many forward-thinking ventures: “If you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t taking enough risks.”

I’ve been there several times in my life; three in particular stand out. Yet in each instance I never knew just how fortuitous my failure would turn out to be. I never anticipated to fail so there was never some grand plan to deal with my stumble. Instead, some innate survival instinct kicked in and pushed me forward. At the time, I didn’t see it as a failure as much as a minor distraction like a foot-stumble off the starting line.

My first failure was running out of money at a private college and transferring to the University of Minnesota. While a large University may work for a lot of students, it was an unmitigated disaster for me. Beginning with 2500 students in the Introduction to Psychology class to the smallest class of 300 in Economics, I was lost before I stepped one foot on campus. I lasted two quarters and was politely asked to ‘take a break’ by the Admissions Office.

Two weeks after dropping out, I got my draft notice and spent the next two years in this man’s army. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It was two years of learning to live on my own, continuing my focus on education, writing, travel and the beginning of collecting a lifetime of writing material (only I didn’t know it at the time).

My second failure came in my boss’s office at precisely 8:34 a.m. on July 23^rd, 1993…but who’s counting. It began with the usual pleasantries and then quickly evolved into “…(bla-bla-bla)…so we’re going to have to let you go.” And with that non-descriptive lame-ass explanation I was out of a job after thirteen years in public television.

It was the best thing that could have happened to me. In reality, it became a clean break from a mundane and political jungle to a forced self-reliance on my own skills to survive in the marketplace. It made me focus on my business, Sharden Productions, and my real estate ventures. And again, I never looked back.

My third and final failure came in the form of an obnoxious e-mail from an ego-inflated anal-retentive individual who didn’t like the video programs I was producing for local community television broadcast. His criticisms were ripe with subjective opinions and self-induced visions of grander. It was at that point that I declared to my computer that “I don’t need this _____ anymore” and with that eloquent announcement, I folded up my video production and distribution business and focused my fulltime energies on writing.

In retrospect, each stumble, loss, rejection, distraction, and life-changing event in my past has nudged me toward this stage of my life where story-telling in multiple disciplines has become my new passion. Catmull reminds us that: ‘we must think of the cost of failure as an investment in the future.’

Some folks are much quicker at failing their way to success. It took me sixty plus years and a life-time of learning just to get where I am now. I’d love to say it’s all part of some grand plan but it’s not. Just one more attempt at doing what I love best and stumbling every couple of steps on the way.

Each failure was a step in the right direction for me. I just didn’t know it at the time. Life stumbles can be that way sometimes.