Friendship isn’t easy on a good day

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, forgiveness, friends, friendship, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, listening, passion, relationship, teacher, trust, words, writing

 

5 Things I Want to Tell My White Friends

Having close contact with young people, like my three grown children, has helped me take steps to educate myself about systemic racism in America. With their current interest in the injustices around us, I have been inspired to also learn. Robin DeAngelo’s White Fragility taught me much, opening my eyes to issues that have been right in front of me my entire life but to which I have been blind. Movies like Selma, Fruitvale Station, Do the Right Thing, I’m Not Your Negro, Who’s Streets, 13th, and Malcolm X, gripped me and illustrated themes that drive home what I have learned recently by listening better.

I am trying to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and so I welcome articles like this one above that focuses on cross-racial friendship. It’s a heartfelt and generous letter from author, Christine Pride, to her white friends.

BOOK TRAILER: You’ll Get Over It, Jane Ellen

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being yourself, dreams coming true, express feelings, friendship, goals, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, video book trailer, writing

After months of working on a book trailer for my memoir, You’ll Get Over It, Jane Ellen, my team of three high school students and I, finished the project. We previewed it in May at a discussion group of my readers that a fellow writer’s club member had already organized.

Those in attendance gave overall positive reviews to our visuals but pointed out issues with tone, pace and messaging. It was a “back-to-the-drawing-board” moment which had me loading more furniture into the truck and heading back into the woods with fresh ideas a few days later. What we have ended up with is vastly different from our earlier version yet strikingly similar as well.

You might wonder, like I did, why a discussion group would gather for an unpublished manuscript and book trailer viewing. The lively, heartfelt #MeToo debate that unfolded would not have been on my radar ahead of time since my story is primarily about isolation and loneliness, but I get it and I loved it. Many thanks to all who were there and all who have helped make this manuscript and this trailer satisfying representations of a story I have been eager to tell.

Sisters

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, forgiveness, friends, friendship, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, love, play, relationship, security, trust

 

To all my acquired sisters (and brothers) out there: I love you and appreciate all that you bring to my life!

But my background is unusual, and a little fraught, and so the idea of having carried a sister with me from that difficult past into today, to help interpret what was and what is now, would be terribly sweet.

A scene like this picture above always makes me take pause. It is two sisters. Before the pandemic, I used to see them often and just like this, eagerly engaging in whatever it is they have to share, obviously friends. They report, lest I be confused, that as sisters things are not categorically smooth all the time.

I do love romanticizing the idea of two women who have know each other their whole lives. Partners in life who have seen it all. A trusted friend who knows what others do not and can engage in the lifted eyebrow communication reserved for so few in our lives.

My own sisters and I took different paths, primarily characterized by flight. One ran away physically, and the other, although she did move a thousand miles from home, fled by engaging with everyone through that effective distancer, anger. I haven’t gone as far away on the map, but my world is profoundly different than the one I shared once with them.

I’ve always thought it would be fun to have a sister. But it’s kind of too late now. One is gone at the hands of breast cancer and the other has herself hidden far away. There was so much threat in our lives we learned not to trust anyone, even each other. Real communication, like sharing our feelings about anything as it seems these two sisters above have been doing for a lifetime, that’s off the table.

Too bad, too. I was always up for it.

Join me at the Langhorne Writers Group

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being yourself, change, control, dreams coming true, express feelings, friends, friendship, goals, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, mentors, passion, psychotherapy, trust, words, writing

Next week I’ll be talking to a writers group in Bucks County about the lengthy path I have taken as a writer. Meet me at the Sheraton on Oxford Valley Road in Langhorne, PA at 6:30pm to join in the conversation about This Writer’s Journey.

I knew I had a story to tell when I realized I’d reached adulthood unwilling to trust anyone. Back then I knew to take things seriously. Not to say out loud anything that mattered to me. Not to expect anyone’s help. To be leery of people who wanted to help. To leave my body if I needed to. That is all different now and it has been eighteen years since starting my project.

I’ll be using Austin Kleon’s book, Show Your Work “a best-selling guide to getting your work discovered,” to help me describe my own path. I’ll be using his points to make my points. He says that work, or in our case, writing, “is about process not product and that by being open and freely sharing your process you can gain a following that you can then use for fellowship, feedback or patronage.”

My own process has been slow for good reason, and I’ll talk about the hurdles we all face in trying to move forward in the seemingly solitary pursuit of “being an author.”

 

Is it possible to be more romantic than this?

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being yourself, dreams coming true, express feelings, friends, friendship, higher power, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, love, marriage, passion, relationship, words

Paris Opera House Ceiling

Everything about this moment was romantic. It wasn’t enough just to be back in Paris thirty-five years after we’d honeymooned there, but we were also staying at the same hotel and stopping in at Fouquet’s, the same place on the Champs-Elysee we’d stumbled onto late one night when we were newlywed where we had chocolate mousse we hadn’t ever forgotten.

No, all that wasn’t romantic enough.

My husband thought we should have a date out on the town and lined up a trip to the opulent Paris Opera Garnier. We donned our fanciest travel clothes and sat beneath the blessing of Marc Chagall’s colorful celebration of art itself.

And as if that wasn’t enough, the program that night, an homage to Jerome Robbins, harkened back to our early days. As newlyweds we often attended the New York City ballet at their outdoor summer home at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. The staging of “Glass Pieces” in particular was so familiar that it took my breath away to know I was in Paris, France, at the Opera House, with my boyfriend who was still following me around and delighting me with his thoughtfulness and kindness and shared joy of all things artistic, that I could barely watch through the tears in my eyes.

We left that night, awed by the layered gilded building, the rainbow of Chagall’s ceiling, the drama of ballet and the deep thankfulness in our hearts for one another and for the great good fortune to be able to hold each other’s hands still and take it all in.

Keeping young people around as friends

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being yourself, friends, friendship, Jane Butler, relationship

I was so delighted this week to get a call from a friend I hadn’t seen in months who said she was in town and wanted to catch up. She’s twenty-fiveish, but I’m fifty-sixish. We spent New Year’s Eve together a few years ago that stands out as one of the best because she and my daughter and I stayed up all night watching different “Pride and Prejudice” movies! The point is, she’s half my age but still wants to say hello and spend a few hours together.

Now I know it might sound good to live to be 100 but I am not sure I want it for myself. My grandmother was 96 and alone in a nursing home far from family at the end of her life. She said she wanted to be near the ocean, but really her immobility and lack of visitors reduced this to only a dream. Her husband had died over ten years before, her friends were gone or in other nursing homes and her three children were estranged from each other and her. My grandma was quite alone.

My husband and I visited her with our three young children a few times a year, but more than that I found it easier to keep our friendship alive via phone. We had plenty of chats about books we’d read and places we’d been. But once grandma surprised me by bringing up her loneliness. She told me something I have never forgotten because her circumstances made it quite clear how valid it was.

Her message was to actively, during my lifetime, make friends with young people. She told me to cultivate friendships with those who are younger than me in order to keep myself young, and in order to have friends when I am old and infirm.

So my out-of-town friend who visited this week, and the former babysitter friends who I see raising their own children now, some neighbors I really appreciate, a few nieces and nephews, and my own children, all constitute the friends I hope to still have around when I am old and gray and have earned the privilege of their company when I cannot get to their doors anymore.

So thank you dear friend for stopping in to visit this week, and hoping I make it worth your while so we might remain friends a long long time.

Special friends

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being yourself, friendship, Jane Butler, joy

I lay down on the floor in front of my dog today and stroked under her chin. I asked if we could be special friends and she said yes.

I often ask my kids if we can be friends for life, and they always say yes, too.

Apparently I need this kind of thing.

Contact sports

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being yourself, change, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, friendship, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, relationship, trust

I called my sister’s grown daughter yesterday, all the way across the country, and had such a good time. It sounds easy enough doesn’t it? But I have only done it once before because it is tricky. Afterward I thought, oh no, this is not good because it will mess up the relationship I have with my sister, that is, one of nothingness. It is actually frightening to think of disturbing that. It has taken me a long time to be able to accept the idea that my sister ran away and has never come back. That she doesn’t want to know me as if I did something wrong, when really I am pretty sure it is about our difficult past. It is much more likely about our problems of growing up in isolation and then having to figure out how to relate to others, than about her wanting to dismiss me personally for something I did. I tell myself this, and therefore the idea of disturbing that carefully crafted story of what happened to us is not welcome.

I loved talking to my niece, though, because she was open. She wanted to know what it was like for me as a young parent because she is approaching that period of life herself. She wanted to know what I do now and she wanted to know about me. I felt flattered that she shared her plans to move soon, to be with her boyfriend and start a new chapter in a distant city. I loved having a niece for a few minutes, one old enough to decide for herself if she wants to talk to me, and not feel guarded by issues of before. In the moments we were talking it was delightful.

Now, however, I worry that she will tell her mother about our conversation and that it will be ruined. My sister has shown signs of not wanting me and her daughter to be friends, just like my mother didn’t want me to be friends with my aunt, the aunt I eventually grew to love and trust. Lessons of before are hard to rearrange. But my niece was clear that she wishes for more contact with her relatives. And now she is old enough to choose for herself.

The point is, reaching out once a year to say happy birthday to my sisters and brothers and their children yields varying results. It would be nice to have more relatives and have contact with the younger generation, but do you see what I mean about it being a little tricky?

God was friendly today as usual

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being yourself, change, control, dog, dreams coming true, express feelings, fear, friends, friendship, goals, God, higher power, inspire, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, joy, listening, love, pup, security, teacher, trust, words

I grew up isolated and in the woods so I am always looking to nature for signs of communication. You know, a breeze or a thunderbolt or a special crash of a wave in answer to my question, whether posed aloud or in my heart. And so today is no different, as I have found my whole life, it is good to discuss my problems with the earth. I do not know why, but no one else as far as I can see up and down the beach, wanted to walk along the sand at seven in the morning in February except my pup, who heartily agreed when I asked her. So there I was again, under my own personal sky. I looked out to God and said, “I have stood on these shores countless times in my life, and I have looked out at your grandeur and your beauty over and over. You are always here no matter how many years go by. No matter how many times I look to you to show me the way, no matter how many times I look to you to hear me and see me and know me, and no matter what, you are still out there being solid and present and beautiful. Nothing much seems to change with you, gorgeous sunrise above the earth, but boy, my world sure has changed.”

That’s when I saw the sun, shrouded by gray stormy clouds, peaking out a bit in answer. Oh, yes, I thought to myself, that is how it is, my earth always responds. I can always trust that. Well what about all the troubles I feel, the pains about getting out of my isolation, and trusting that the world can take the frightened person that hides in me? How perfect is it that I feel ready to share myself more, at last, and not let fears rule my life? How perfect is it that you have been standing ready for me to say these words, because you have been sharing yourself and your perfect glory for eons already, so you know what it is. I walked along some more feeding treats to my pup every time she came back from a dig at a crab hole to let me know she is still my friend for life. The clouds shifted and a few tears flew into the wind. I stopped, and as is common for me, I addressed the world directly, after all I could not feel safer than when entirely completely all alone, and I said thank you. Thank you for still being out there for me even though so many people and ideas and hopes and dreams have come and gone. I know I can do this. I know I can carry on and be myself out in the world despite the confusion I feel.

That’s when the sun glided bright suddenly forcing clouds aside to say directly to me in a broad and winning smile, “Yes.”

And that’s when I laughed out loud, because I am sure that one footstep washed away by the sand at a time, I am getting to precisely where I have always been going.

Junk television is great

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being yourself, control, friendship, Jane Butler, Jane Paffenbarger Butler, junk television, love, mother, parents, play, relationship, The Bachelor

I appreciate junk television for its instructive value. No really. I am sure there are plenty of other ways for me to teach my daughter my values, but watching The Bachelor together, something she really wants to do, seems like a good way. Where else do I get to point out that the young lady so carefully dressed and coiffed and made up, has just erased all that by falling down, a little tipsy, at the cocktail hour? Where else do we get to witness together as objective third parties, the too low-cut dresses and too short short-shorts because we are actually seeing across the miles and into our home more high definition body parts than we want, no matter how cute the clothes around them? And where else do I get the chance to point out that I like the guy because he has sent home the girl who admits to playing up her injury roller skating just to ply more time from him?

The whole contrived situation of twenty-five women and one bachelor all ‘looking for love’ is pretty ridiculous, but just getting to say that and to have a reason to hold conversations about actually finding love is worth the farce.

Besides this my daughter helped me out all day today, not to mention all weekend. We painted woodwork together, then she did several loads of laundry and even helped me fold things and put them away, then she took out the garbage, and put away dishes, walked the dog, and otherwise made it quite possible for us to keep a schedule we wanted. We wanted to be able to walk together on the beach and go out to dinner with friends and see a movie, and do other fun things that did not have to do with housework. She works hard in high school, and works hard at the all-day work day our church sponsors in a nearby town.

So, looking forward to The Bachelor on television tonight seems quite fitting. Should we not balance our lives with mindless drivel and contrived lives to entertain and instruct ourselves?

Yes.