Where do all the good ideas come from?

I have this app on my phone called Blinkist.  It’s one I actually pay for.  It’s an app where someone reads a non-fiction book and then puts together a 15 minute summary of its key insights that you can either read or listen to.  These modern day cliff notes are available on books covering psychology, personal growth, management and leadership, biography, science, history, and many more categories.  The summaries are long enough to make you feel like you get the gist of the book but short enough to embarrass yourself at a dinner party should you claim to have read it. 

At this point, I have way more advice on better living than I have time to put into practice.  And, a few - bless the effort - books that feel repetitive even in brief summary.  It’s led me to buy a handful of the books in full and it’s been a way better use of my time now that I took the FB app off my phone.

People have been dishing out good advice with an aim to improve individual lives and public life, for thousands of years.  As CS Lewis remarked, “There’s no shortage of good ideas.”   But I was realizing recently that my early Christian life (where CS Lewis featured heavily) taught me that Jesus’ advice was all I needed. Full stop.  I was taught to be suspicious of influences - moral guidance in particular - that didn’t originate from the church.  My interpretation was that I was supposed to put my fingers in my ears and say “la, la, la.”

I carried around that suspicion — with a sense of danger for rock musicians, yogis, and democrats.  Ironically, Purple Rain was my first R rated movie and I did marry a democrat at 21 years old.  Yoga remains a stretch.  My first job out of college - a litigation consultant for Arthur Andersen - forced me to confront other people whose advice might be questionable: lawyers and people who worked on Sundays.  

Over time, my misgivings mellowed. And morphed. My fingers came out of my ears but mostly to politely listen, still cautious.  If Jesus didn’t say it or say something similar, it still wasn’t worth much thoughtful consideration.  I continued to seek the buzz words I’d been trained to hear as they related to peace, joy, love, forgiveness, purpose, wisdom, etc.  It was like signing up for Spotify but only listening to three playlists.  For a middle aged white woman, that’s an intolerable amount of Ed Sheeran.

In this last decade, however, I’ve become fascinated in what other people - different than me - have to say. It’s maybe why I love my Blinkist app. I have this hunch that Jesus has actually pushed me in that direction.

On reflection, Jesus wasn’t pounding his chest claiming to be the best moral teacher, dishing out helpful advice.  Instead, he talked about a new kingdom where all things are made new.  His challenge was much bigger.  He said Follow Me.  You would “stay and listen” to a great speaker but his invitation was “come and see.”  As in, let’s go on an adventure.  And adventures always involve food and music and big ideas and leaving buildings.

And when I focused on following Jesus - not just reciting his words - I started to notice all these other tracks and new artists.  Which makes sense because if he is truly God and the embodiment of love and goodness - the church walls and even the scriptures (which incidentally I read now with more enthusiasm than ever) have no power to contain him.  So today when I read a full book or a packaged up summary of one, or listen to a podcast, or enjoy a great meal, or experience creation, or have a conversation  — I listen more closely as I expect that Jesus will be collaborating with truth wherever it is found.  

Thanks for listening.

50 years

Today is my parents 50th wedding anniversary. I was able to fly home to Seattle to surprise them for their anniversary dinner. This was the toast I gave them. The other toasts that followed and my Dad’s in particular were so much better — which only makes me so much prouder to be their daughter.

******************

They say the path along the equator is roughly 25,000 miles. Assuming you were able to walk at a pace of 3 miles per hour for 8 hours a day it would take about 3 years to walk around the world. Ok so that’s the theory.

In 1970 (the year I was born) a guy from Minnesota named Dave Kunst set out to do just that and he became the first person verified to walk around the globe. It took him 4 years. Now that’s a college education for you.

Dave was no doubt a stud so let’s round up for the average human and call it 5 years. That means looking at your 50 years together, had you wanted to, you could have circled the globe 10 times.

Just imagine -   10 different times walking through Quito, Nariobi, Kuala Lumpur, Miami (with a little detour off the equator.) That’s how long 50 years is.

BUT Instead of circling the globe together, you have done something far more impressive over these past 50 years.  You’ve walked the path of kissing and making up thousands and thousands of time.

You have made a loving promise to stay together through times of closeness and through times of distance and you have kept it.  You have been our witness to what a committed, thriving, authentic, peace making marriage could look like.  All three of your children are trying to follow your lead. I’m half way there.

This promise to live out our days in relationship with another person is not easy.  We all know that. But we also know what it is to experience the mystery when we allow our hearts to be wedded together ... when we are still fully ourselves but also now part of a “we” ... this wholly other personality and adventure road map to discover.  This part of you that becomes more alive in the we.

You don’t take a girl from New Jersey and a boy from Kansas - who barely knew each other - without expectation that “we” will be in for an exciting ride.

The very last words Jesus spoke - his last and final promise - was this: “I am with you always.”  To be accompanied therefore is something he thought was kind of important.  That of all the parting words he could have said - work hard or chase your dreams or remember to take the trash out - he talked about company for the journey.

And while none of us could pull off something as audacious as permanently accompanying someone —- it makes me think that marriage is our closest, albeit imperfect, proxy.

The destinations and the milestones are special - and Mom and Dad you’ve had many - but it’s the fact that you had someone there with you the whole time that is the greatest gift.  And that gift doesn’t end even when your passports expire or your longest walk of the day is to the mailbox.

It’s the gift you can keep on giving each other for years to come.

So here’s to 50 years of David and Jessica and the beautiful “we” your marriage has created. We love you.

 *********************

New Year's Resolutions

In this season of New Year’s resolutions, we set out to grow by lunging towards a goal.  Forward progress or drying out bad habits is the focal point.   We bury the past, stay mindful enough of the present but soldier on towards a new and improved future.  It’s a well worn path navigated best by the self disciplined.  At 30 days in, with energy waning, a few can double down but most of us redraw goal lines or give up.

We are primed to live with expectation but we also need a rich remembrance of our history.  While it’s not healthy to dwell on the past, most of us don’t spend enough quality time excavating it for treasure.  All of our histories are dotted with a mixture of the mundane, milestone events, and meteors of various sizes.  Your pile of rubble may be bigger than my pile of rubble but I suspect neither of us has fully mined it for what else was left there to teach us.  

We have experience with that good thing that welled up unexpectedly in a place of pain or mess or disappointment - that mysterious sense of peace or joy - that strengthened us for the road ahead.  But what about the good thing forgotten?  The good thing never identified?  I wonder when we run dry after 30 days if we looked into the well of our own life experience, we would find hidden pockets of grace - rich with fuel - to keep us living into the future with sustained energy.  

It’s a small example but someone asked me recently what ever happened to that screenplay I wrote 7 years ago.  “Nothing” was the answer.  While over the years of reflection I’ve collected some good things that came out of that investment of time and energy, it still largely looms as a failure.   This time however I heard it as a nudge - not to try to resurrect the project - but to revisit that season of my life and ask what gifts did I miss that would be of valuable service towards my purpose today - here in 2019.  

I’m certain there are more jewels to dig up from all my years but especially 1984 (the year my parents moved me across the country at the start of 9th grade as a late bloomer with braces), 1997 (the year I got pregnant when I didn’t want to get pregnant,) 2010 (my worst year of parenting) or 2013 (my first year in the idyllic but not always easy country of Luxembourg.)  Perhaps there is something my 2019 self would be empowered by in the remembering.

I don’t buy the idea that “everything we need is already there” because I think we need plans and to do lists and people to help us and keep us accountable.  But I also think we try to muscle through on our latest gas up without remembering all the reserves we haven’t fully tapped into yet.  Connecting the dots of your own life reveals all sorts of patterns you couldn’t have seen otherwise.  

The dots aren’t going to map it all out.  And there will still be loads of crazy outliers because we all roll with some non sequiturs.  But also don’t be surprised if you make out the faint outline of a crown amidst the pattern. The Psalmist boldly says: “What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?  Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”  That’s one of those promises if you are willing to believe that’s bigger and better than our best and boldest New Year’s resolution.

So breathe deep and know that if 2019 turns out to be your best year or a bust, you can count on there being lots of dots to connect down the road.  And psst, remember your crown.

Thanksgiving and Eugene Peterson

It’s unusual to have deep affection for someone you’ve never met but we all have people whose writing has made us feel like kin. Eugene Peterson, the beloved theologian and author, who died last month at the age of 85 was one those people for me. So it seems fitting this Thanksgiving (since I won't be sitting around a turkey dinner tonight here in London which is also known as a normal Thursday) to express my gratitude for the gift Eugene’s words have been to me.

Last month, the day before leaving London for France, I went in search of one of Eugene’s books. I wanted to leave a second copy of The Message (Eugene’s translation of The Bible into contemporary language) at our new house in France. Too last minute for an Amazon order, I checked several local bookstores - none of which had a copy in stock. I aborted the search by early afternoon when I had to be in Regents Hall on Oxford Street for a school event. As it turns out, Regents Hall is an event venue AND the home of London’s Salvation Army Centre. And as providence would have it, there in the lobby was a small Salvation Army bookstore with exactly one copy of The Message left. My France bookshelves are mostly bare but Eugene is there. From Oxford Street to rural France.

It was only a few days later that I read in the news that Eugene was under hospice care. It was as if something in me knew that I would want his company in his last days.

I have learned a lot through Eugene’s writing but his most profound impact came from an interview I heard him do more than a year ago. In the interview he talked about his practice of reading the Psalms (the prayers and poems of the Bible). He described his attraction to the Psalms in this way: “Poets tell us what our eyes, blurred with too much gawking, and our ears, dulled with too much chatter, miss around and within us. Poetry grabs us by the jugular. Far from being cosmetic language, it is intestinal.”

Eugene had picked seven Psalms he described as “covering the waterfront” of what it means to be human in a spiritual world and committed himself to them - over his entire adult life. His practice wasn’t about figuring them out but rather “entering in” and allowing them to work on him. Over and over again. He spoke about his practice in what I can only describe as being a “small voice” - shy, humble, awestruck. There was no specific formula, no right way of doing it, only a commitment to listen ... and keep listening.

Stirred by his small voice in a time where loud voices dominant, I decided to give the practice a try. Since Eugene was far from prescriptive on which Psalm to use, I landed on Psalm 119. I picked it for the simple reason that it is the longest Psalm. I reasoned that it would both cover a lot of ground and do double duty in expanding my ever diminishing attention span. When my mind was regularly drifting during the solid 15 minutes to read the whole bit out loud (think of all the things you could accomplish in 15 minutes!), I thought I might have made a rookie mistake. That first month was mostly about staying awake. But somehow, I stayed with it.

I heard that same interview with Eugene rebroadcast this past September and when I went back through my journal, I couldn’t believe how much Psalm 119 has showed up. I’ve “entered into” Psalm 119 hundreds of times now. I read it, sometimes with attention and sometimes with lots of doubt. I listen to it as I walk or have it on in the background when I’m getting dressed or cleaning the house. When I’m feeling blah, I reach for it before I reach for anything else. And I really love coffee, chocolate and wine. It’s like Psalm 119 has become my secret best friend who always says what I need to hear even when I don’t know the question I’m asking.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that by allowing my mind to stretch over and over these words that have been spoken for generations, my heart now instinctually responds differently to things. The circumstances are the same but the way I relate to my own thoughts has changed. I know it sounds completely goofy but the words of Psalm 119 have become my new mantras. Now when I see something beautiful, my inner voice often responds with: “You are good and what you do is good.” Or when I’m feeling small and insignificant, my inner voice counters with: “Your hands made me and formed me.” Or when I’m dealing with a rude person, I hear: “Let your compassion come to me the I may live.” Or when I’m heading down a rabbit hole of wasted time and energy, I think “Turn my eyes away from worthless things.” Or when I think the world is a mess (I double down on that thought for another beat) but then the whisper always comes: “The earth is filled with your love.” And on and on ... because I still have a lot more listening left to do.

In the same way it’s unusual to have affection for someone you’ve never met, it’s also unusual to share a personal practice with a public audience. But it’s not every day you meet your secret best friend through the small voice of an 85 year old man on a podcast. Thank you Eugene for pointing me not to yourself, or to a program, but to deep truth and wisdom which you knew would do its gentle rehabilitation work if I allowed my imagination and heart to simply enter in.

Click Bait Headlines

Closet Check: 5 Must-Haves.

Not immune to the circus of consumerism we all live in, I took the bait and clicked the link.  I wondered if maybe I had one passable version of the 5 must-haves already in my closet.  When I got to the “5 Things You Need NOW” webpage, there were actually 84 items on the page. 84.  I didn’t have any of them.  Not even close.  See below.  Yellow Floral Pant Suit.

Now 0 out of 5 makes you feel like your missing out.  0 out of 84 makes you feel like you’re living on a different planet.  Either way, it’s designed to make you feel like you aren’t prepared for the next season until you click the BUY NOW link.  Of course I know that and yet when my guard is down, I’m susceptible to catchy subject lines. And then once I go down the rabbit hole, it makes me feel like there’s a hole in my closet.  See below.  Pink Power Blazer.  

The more destructive thing about the rabbit hole is that is stirs up dissatisfaction with things you can’t click a BUY NOW link to fix.  Like 20 years younger and a flat tummy.  Will your spring be better if you have this white top?  See below.  Because this one isn’t in the realm of possibilities for me.  

This Morning Drink Will Do Wonders for your Weight, Energy and Skin.

You’d click too, right?  So I had The Morning Drink this morning and weight = same, energy = negative, skin = still dry and tummy = very, very unsure.  Tumeric in a drink?  I want to believe.  I will try again tomorrow and for the next two weeks before I make a judgment.

We are all consumers and guidance can be helpful as we sort through the many choices available to us.  If not,  I would have never found my two most recent jean purchases from Jack Wills.  The best, softest, no butt cleavage jeans of all time.

But ….mostly the “Must Have”, “Must Do”, edicts leave me feeling disillusioned.  It falsely promises that the “perfect” answer is still out there.   It’s going to take a long time before the world is convinced that there’s a better morning drink than coffee.

Closet Check: 50 Must Purges.

It wouldn’t have the same click through rate. Also who besides a closet organiser or simplifying guru would write that?  But that’s probably the thing that would bring us closer to wardrobe harmony, and metaphorically, happiness. 

Deciding what to let go of is so much harder than adding something new into the mix. Cutting something loose requires a hard look at what we’ve outgrown, what we’ve made a mess of, and what we should have never bought in the first place. Likewise the path to happiness often involves pruning back the garden of your life to it’s barest essentials.

A tidying up of relationships that have passed their season allows you to focus on the important ones in front of you.  A ditching of bad habits that leaves us in threadbare knots brings new things to the forefront.  Weeding out the trivial things that we mindlessly gave space to is one of the best ways to foster growth.

To thrive, a garden really only needs the basics of sun, water, and the care of a gardener.  When something is missing, our natural inclination is to go out searching for something new.  But what if what you really need is already there, just buried under a whole bunch of stuff?

If that's true, and I think it is, we won't be needing the Pink Power Blazer this spring. 

A Dream

Last night I had a dream that woke me up from a dead sleep at 2am. It was so vivid and felt so real that I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m in London in a neighborhood I don’t know. I have my camera and am doing some street photography. It’s dusk and cold. An older woman approaches me. She tells me that I should be careful as it is getting dark and the neighborhood is not safe at night, especially for someone like me. There are no other faces that look like mine in this neighborhood. She doesn’t look like me.

I tell her I’m not afraid, thank you, and that I feel safe. She insists I follow her to the nearest Tube station. She looks trustworthy. Since this is her neighborhood, I follow her even though I want to stay and take more pictures. As I follow her down a side street, a group of teens causes a distraction and one of them grabs my phone. The older woman, my escort, grabs my purse and camera and everyone scatters.

Suddenly, I’m alone and it’s quiet. Everything I had with me is gone. It’s a scam and I’ve been set up. I’m not frightened but I am furious. Furious that I’ve been set up. Furious that I was so trusting. Furious that I fell for it. Angry that maybe the warnings I had been given about people like this were right?

I shout and swear to the empty street: “Why?!” A voice of someone I can’t make out (not the woman) evenly, unemotionally answers: “Because you have everything and we have nothing and you think you see that, but you can’t really see.” My fury shrinks and turns to shame and I begin to weep. Uncontrollably and for a long time, because maybe actually, that voice is more right.

When I look up, the young man who took my phone is standing in front of me. He hands me my phone and when I ask why he is giving it back, he softly answers: “Because I saw HOW you cried.” I tell him that I could call the police. He is returning the phone to me at great personal risk. Softly again he answers: “I know.” I don’t call the police. He does not seem surprised.

Later at home, a knock on the door. My husband tells me there is a group of woman at the front door, for me. It’s the older woman. She has brought friends. She hands me my purse and camera and says sorry. The tenor of her voice tells me she means it. She tells me that she took some pictures on my camera she hoped I might like. I thank her and close the door.

Back inside, I check my purse. Everything is in it. I pull out the camera and scroll through the pictures. The photos aren’t carefully framed or the work of an artist but they take my breath away. They have captured the soul of their neighborhood -- the joys, sorrows, hardships, humor – all scenes I couldn’t see when I was trying to photograph their streets. I cry again this time a mix of tears and smiles. It’s not my stuff they wanted. It was compassion they were looking for.

I run back to the front door and open it again. The women are still standing there. They are ready with their “Yes” when I ask if they’d like to come in.

I can’t help but wonder how this dream relates to this quote I read less than 12 hours later in Beartown by Fredrik Backman:

“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.”

Thanksgiving Top 20

Here's my list of 20 things that make Thanksgiving Day special.

1. 2 weeks of planning boils down to 20 minutes of eating and 200 pieces of silverware that need to be hand washed.

2. The unexpected +1 invited by your sister-in-law's second cousin turns out to be vegan and not a football fan.

3. Marshmallows meet up with casseroles, cranberries come out of cans, and jello keep it weird. Use the pass wisely.

4. The fake drama between this year's new and improved version of the brined, stuffed, organic turkey versus a Butterball out of the deep fryer. The fried bird always, always wins.

5. Name cards, napkin rings, electric knives, turkey salt and pepper shakers, Grandma's china and that embarrassing family story live to see another year.

6. Someone has overly ambitious plans for gratitude sharing around the table.

7. There's never enough mashed potatoes so you can practice being thankful for the small helping you got.

8. Somebody under the age of 10 is unhappy about being at the Kid Table and threatening to only eat a roll.

9. Everyone else is wondering how we can move that one distant relative "over the age of should know better" to the Kid Table.

10. It's totally appropriate, highly encouraged even, to double time on dessert and add liquor to your coffee.

11. You still have 12 hours before your forced to think about Christmas but are seated next to the Black Friday strategist who has already finished their Christmas cards.

12. It's a rough day for white tablecloths and single people who'd prefer not to talk about how their love life is going.

13. The smartest person in the room is the one who can get the young and old, the shy and loud, the football inclined and football resistant, to stop what they are doing and play a classic parlor game.

14. The dumbest person in the room is the one who wore skinny jeans.

15. Clean up takes a small army and is long enough that everyone's ready for leftovers by the time active duty has finished.

16. Having the wrong footwear won't get you out of the post dinner walk.

17. If you nap with your mouth open, someone will capture and share the moment.

18. In late night programming, The Return of the Gout airs. (a family drama, rated R for strong language.)

19. An emergency plumbing or ER visit is always a possibility.

20. You realize that there are family traits given and chosen and each of them have the potential to be a blessing.

Life is a Beautiful Ride

One of my joys this fall is that I’ve gotten back into spinning. I thought I would start spinning again right when I moved to London but it’s funny how inertia sets in when there’s been an extended gap from doing something you once did with proficiency. It took me nine months to work up the courage to give one of the boutique spinning studios a try. I felt like a fish out of water walking in alone the first time to Psycle in Central London but as soon as I clipped in, my body remembered what to do and I was hooked again. I just had my 15-Class Anniversary at Psycle which was my inspiration for writing this:

Life is a Beautiful Ride

By Kate Ballbach (Psycle Rider since 2017, Life Rider since 1970)

We ride alone in our own saddle, yes, but even in a darkened room or during a darkened time unless your eyes are glued closed, you know that we also ride together.

Sometimes we spin in circles, forgetting where we are heading, which is why it’s helpful to look up at an instructor you trust and mirror their body language until you find the beat again.

We can tune out and just ride when the coast is clear but when we need to add on or double time, we can go further and faster wherever people gather and where there is music.

The multifaceted wonder of music, that welcome distraction when we feel pain, that subtle builder of endurance, that megaphone to drive us deeper into synchronicity with ourselves.

In a world of nonstop talk, we forget that our ride does not depend on our ears or tongue. It's the position of our feet, clipped in and pedaling one push at a time, and our hands, open and not gripping too tightly, as we learn to build our core strength.

We can skate through, cheating our resistance dial, or we can choose to give it our all where we are guaranteed to get soaked in sweat but where we know it's the only way to find the zone.

The zone, where effort feels momentarily effortless and your Everest feels possible, isn't a place where we can live permanently but isn't it glorious to know we can pass through from time to time.

Life is a beautiful ride, yes, but it’s only when you get out and ride through headwinds, heartbreak hills, and heat that the promise finally makes sense.

Freaky Friday: When Your Children Become Fitter than You

Peanut M&Ms and sports trivia used to be our currency of choice when trying to get our boys, one boy in particular, to soldier on for family hikes (see above.)   I was remembering those years of vociferous reluctance and bribery during our recent 7 day hiking trip to Slovenia. 

My position on family hikes has always been the caboose, in part because I like taking pictures and because in those early years one parent needed to fence in any attempted escape back to the car.  In Slovenia however, I pulled up the rear because try as I might, I couldn’t keep up.  After years of hiking exposure, that boy in particular is now the young man who bounds ahead and waits for the rest of us.   And this time it was me not them that needed cajoling to carry on. 

It’s a funny thing, those inversion moments with your children, where they are the ones whispering in your ear: “You can do it” when you’re sure you can’t.  Twice I found myself crouched on a mountain paralyzed by my overbearing fear of heights and twice my children came to my rescue, not with peanut M&Ms, but with an unwavering confidence in me.   I, not gracefully or without tears, did eventually do it.  They then hovered around me until they knew I was comfortable again before they raced ahead to the next climb.

My boys have now traveled to 29 countries.   A lot of those first trips, like our early hikes, were hard because they were young and not entirely flexible.  None of our trips were a waste but some were sacrificial.  When we set out on this commitment 5 years ago to spend our time and money on travel, we hoped that the exposure to new cultures and experiences would make them more adaptable and curious about the world.   I admit that personality, and maybe even parenting, plays a large role in how travel experiences are ingested but the mere experience of seeing a new part of the world is enough to crack open children's natural curiosities.

It seems unlikely that without that unwavering commitment they would have passed the hours hiking in Slovenia by quizzing each other -- without parental involvement -- not only on NBA stats but mostly on African capitals of the world.  Or that they would start to genuinely love it when we, no longer embarrassing parents, stopped to talk to a local and asked bare (North London slang for "very") questions.  Or that they would be willing to eat whatever was on the chef’s menu, even if that menu wasn’t in English or the ingredients weren’t recognizable.  And in Slovenia, they eat bear ... thank goodness we got the venison.

I’ve noticed in these 5 years that as they have become more flexible travelers, I have become a more finicky one.  I’m not exactly sure why I’ve digressed while they’ve expanded -- maybe it has something to do with expectations?  More often than not when we travel, it is them urging me to be patient when service is slow, or when we get lost, or when we’re stuck in a standstill for 1.5 hours on a two lane road when it's late and we’re starving.   Whatever the reason for my backslide, it is pure pleasure to pull up your mental accounting of a trip and for there to be a legitimate zero under “kid complaints.”

Family travel is a muscle that requires exercise and like hiking, there is a point at which you as the parent will lag behind because they have become fitter than you.  Enjoy the view while you still have them in sight. 

I leave you with this beautiful quote from the book I'm reading now, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng:

“To a parent, your child wasn’t just a person; your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once.” 

A Window into a Child's Imagination

One of my memories about heading out the door for school was my Mom reminding us that she had spies watching us.  She was someone who knew the neighbors.  Mostly their job was to report if we took our hats and coats off before getting on the bus.  For a few years, until big hair and jean jackets made hats and parkas untenable, "Operation Stay Warm" worked.

Today was my boys first day back to school.  While I don't know enough neighbors to create a spy network, I may have found something even better ...

Last week our 10 year old son shared something about his life that he hadn't told anyone in detail before.  He told his 14 year old brother first, who in a fine display of teenage grace, thought it was really cool.  

That something was that our 10 years old has been in a movie for as long as he can remember.   We've heard him mention his movie a couple of times over the years but we didn't know how active the movie was playing out in his daily imagination.  He says the movie started when he was born but he only became aware of it when he was about 6 years old.  

The movie is about his life.  He is the main actor but he doesn't have to perform because the movie is about the real him and his real life.  There are about 15 people who watch his movie, seeing everything he sees through his eyes. The 15 people were born when he was born and will die when he dies and because they aren't in this world, they have time to just sit and watch his movie.  They don't talk into the screen at him but they do sit on a couch and eat popcorn.  (A few of them are also apparently overweight.)

He says he doesn't think about his movie every day, but when he does get down or bored he remembers that being in a movie is interesting.  He says the 15 people don't mind when things are a little boring but he sometimes spices it up with auditory "tutorials" like "how to properly shampoo your hair" when he's in the shower or "how to fall asleep" when he's going to bed.  Some tutorials, like "how to sit still in the hairdressers chair and make it easier for them to cut your hair" are thankfully conducted without audio.  (We now understand the regular chit chat coming from the shower.)

You might think that a kid that feels like his life is a movie would be either self-absorbed or with his head in the clouds, but Lawton is neither.  He is both empathetic and keenly observant of his surroundings.  Perhaps because the movie is about his real life not a superhero life, the movie allows him to keep his feet firmly planted in the here and now.  He seems to see the scenery, characters and lighting of life in way more color than many of us do.  Interestingly, he says he can't rewind or fast forward his movie.  (As as regular in his movie, I would have liked to cut a few scenes I didn't know were being filmed ...) 

But the most fascinating part is when he explained how being in a movie affects his life. He said that knowing people are watching makes him want to work harder and not cut corners.  (This is so much better than spies!)  And that even though the people watching his movie have seen him make mistakes and have meltdowns, they still keep watching because they are with him for life.  Also the audience will always be the same 15 people, even if his life gets way more interesting.  It's like having an angel on one shoulder, a devil on the other shoulder and a small brigade as a cape.

Many of us believe in a visible and invisible world but few of us know how to articulate it.  In the unique way only a child can, Lawton has painted a picture of what that duality might look like.  A world where you are the Director and Actor of your own movie but there is a committed audience to your every move and their role is to help you bring out your best self.

Lights, camera, action ...