Andy Smallman

I took this picture yesterday on Melinda’s 50th birthday. Man, just look at her. She’s one hot mama, don’t you think?

Well, it has been pretty warm in Seattle lately (for Seattle). And Melinda did give birth. Twice.

That makes her a double hot mama!

Anyway, my point, and I’m pretty sure I have one, is that I used to think people were old at 50. No, that’s not my point. My point is that Melinda looks great!

Somehow, though, there is an implied “for 50” as in “Melinda looks great for 50.” But that’s not right.

Melinda just looks great!

Say, it’s Day 2 of the 12 Days of Kindness and today’s theme is to Play Fair. I hope you’re playing along. And I hope you’re helping us get to 1000 Likes on Facebook by my 50th birthday on May 24.

I have every intention of looking great (for 50).

Here’s a photo from last night, a combined 50th birthday party/Mother’s Day dinner we had at Melinda’s parents’ house. Very nice.

Many things are significant today. Of most significance is that it is Melinda’s 50th birthday. I don’t know about you, but when my parents turned 50, they were old. Somehow when it is your wife turning 50, with you to follow in 11 days, 50 doesn’t seem so old. And just look at Melinda in this picture. Clearly, she is not old.

Also of significance, at least for me, is that this is the 1000th post to this blog. I started it nearly 3 years ago and have posted regularly since, and for well over 2 years I posted every day.

Lastly, today is the beginning of what I’m calling the 12 Days of Kindness. Designed to celebrate Melinda’s and my 50th birthdays, from her birthday until mine I am promoting a kindness idea each day. If you want to play along, sign up here. Today’s theme is to share.

For years I’ve described the interaction between the individuals involved in PSCS, the school in Seattle I co-founded with Melinda and continue to direct, with the overall school community as being like following the path of a Möbius Strip.

On one side are the individuals and on the other is the community. Individuals make up the community and the community is needed to honor the individuals. On a Möbius Strip one side becomes the other, and there is no beginning and no ending. Applied to PSCS, individuals and community co-create each other.

Melinda and I took this image so far to have made it into the school logo but with a unique addition. We added a twist to the strip to give it the hint of a heart, thus representing the love we want the school to represent and embody.

In 1974, Kurt Vonnegut had this to say as a commencement speaker at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York:

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. Young people should also identify and expound theories about life in which sane human beings almost everywhere can believe.”

Allowing our inner voices to be heard is an act of peace.

Too often we stop ourselves in order to make a “right” or “safe” choice. We worry that not doing the right or safe thing is selfish or self-indulgent.

Indeed, in our culture we seem to have made synonymous the prioritizing of ourselves, of our inner voices, with self-indulgence, selfishness, and even arrogance. But I think in our hearts we know the difference.

And in learning to listen to our hearts, to our inner voices, we bring peace to ourselves and to the world.

When Ella was in elementary school I’d walk her to her school bus stop in the morning and sing her a variety of songs, among them some by Jim Croce. A week ago tonight, she and I watched a Jim Croce documentary.

I don’t want to take for granted having this kind of connection with my 16 year-old daughter, that she’d want to watch a Jim Croce documentary with me on a Friday night.

On that note, look at this compilation CD I just discovered on Amazon. Think I should buy it?

50 years ago this month both Melinda and I were born, she on the 13th and me on the 24th (does that makes her, what’s that term, a cougar?). By the end of the month that means we’ll have been alive for a combined 100 years.

Go ahead, check my math.

In honor of this I’ve created something I’m calling “The 12 Days of Kindness.” From May 13 to May 24 I’ll be making a daily kindness suggestion via an email list. If you want to receive it, subscribe here.

Childhood has the feelings but not the words to describe them. Adulthood has the words but, in learning them, can lose the feelings the words describe.

How can we have the feelings of childhood AND the words of adulthood?

Be awed every day.

Listen inwardly. Doing so allows one’s inner and outer lives to come into alignment.

But in our society, one that puts so many external pressures on us to behave certain ways, it is difficult to do. In his book “A Hidden Wholeness,” author Parker Palmer helps people understand the importance of learning how to listen inwardly.

He refers to the direction one gets when doing this as coming from the soul.

You know that old adage, “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children?”

I was reading the book “Brain Rules,” specifically a chapter on exercise and its impact on how we age, and it got me thinking. What if I tweak the adage to, “I’m not inheriting my body from my childhood, I’m borrowing it from my old age?”

How might I treat myself now, on the dawn of my 50th birthday?