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Making
things happen - with integrity. A weekly CyberMemo designed to keep you on task. Monday December 25, 2000 Volume II Number 52 |
FOCUS - Anticipation
It’s been said that anticipation is generally much better than the real thing. And I suppose that’s true. Mostly.
Here it is, Christmas morning for the year 2000. You’ve been anticipating this special morning now for months. The newspaper announces its annual countdown every year. We look up from the paper and then at each other with incredulity popping out of our eyes, and we say, “Can you believe it’s only (whatever) days until Christmas?!”
And here it is.
At age eight, there was a streetlamp outside my bedroom window.
My head on the pillow, I’d gaze outside
at the bright light. I used to put
myself to sleep by imagining that
the plastic Revell P-51 Mustang model fighter plane I glued together perched on
my shelf could really fly, and that I could shrink myself down at will, don the
leather jacket, helmet and goggles and strap on a parachute then climb into the
cockpit and taxi out there in the dark on to President Street under the
streetlight, check in with an imaginary tower to clear for take-off and hit the
throttle. I’d lift off the
pavement in my mind and climb up to a hundred feet or so, and then bank left
into a tight turn back around to buzz the house, then pull back on the stick
climb out again, this time into a barrel roll and then head over to Lincoln
School where I’d buzz the playground and then my classroom in the moonlight.
Then I’d fly over the Seven Dwarf’s Restaurant where
during the day I’d ante up a dime for a lime phosphate over the counter at
the soda fountain. I’d tip my wings in salute to the owner and then I’d do a
late night cross country out to Grandma and Grandpa’s 
house
way out there on Kay Road. By the
time I could see the shape of their house on the horizon in the faint blue
light of the night sky, I’d usually be asleep.
On Christmas Eve I’d stare at that same streetlamp, and I’d take off like usual, buzz the house and then climb out to a maximum altitude in search of a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer in flight. I’d wonder what it would be like to pull up next to them at about ten thousand feet and fly in formation just for a little while. I’d wave from the cockpit at the chubby old man in the red suit holding the leather reigns and cracking a whip, and he’d throw his head back and laugh a big laugh and wave back… like we were both having the time of our lives. And, I guess, we were. I believed he knew my name. Then I’d roll over right into a steep dive, away from the flying sleigh and head home.
And I’d wonder how he made those rooftop landings in the slippery snow. And how reindeer could possibly fly. And how in the world he could cover the globe in a single night.
But mostly, truth be told, I’d wonder what was in that big sack piled up there in the back of the sled, the package with my name on it. I wondered what was in there for me.
The excitement, the anticipation of opening that gift was almost too much to bear.
In those early years, sleep usually eluded me on Christmas Eve.
* * * * * * *
When a ketchup company decided to make a television commercial that would make you salivate over their product, they chose Carly Simon’s hit tune, “Anticipation” to be their theme song. The camera’s lens moved in close, to an open bottle of ketchup, and as it leaned forward in slow motion, the bright red spicy sauce began a slow decent towards the opening as Carly sang “Anticipa-a-tion… is keepin’ me waitin’!” And your mouth starts watering. In your imagination, you can taste the zesty sauce between a thick sliced tomato and a cheesy juicy burger, and the anticipation triggers a need to head off to the Supermarket and bring home a bottle.
Oh the power of advertising.
* * * * * * *
If you have kids at home, you’ve watched them. They can hardly keep from jumping up and down. They wanna know. Their eyes widen. They inspect the packages. They drop hints. And they wake up early. Early early.
It’s one of those gifts from heaven that rewards parents for the hard work and the distractions and the interruptions and the annoyances and the tough choices, relentless every day. Parenthood is a perpetual tightrope walk between losing your cool and gushing with affection. Seems like it’s either one or the other. You know your angry outbursts can do damage. And you know too much gooey affirmation can smother them. You’ve gotta find balance, and it’s not easily done. So you walk that tightrope, tilting one way and then the other, sometimes slipping off and barely hanging on, then climbing back up and finding that balance once more. It never stops.
And this morning, Christmas Day, you get your reward. You hear the squeals of delight. You get the hugs and the thank-yous (in the early years, most of those “thank you”s prompted by parents still teaching – teaching the fine art of gratitude). You look around at the ripped up paper, the discarded ribbons and bows, you tune into Amy Grant on the stereo singing “my precious family is more than an heirloom to me” and you sip something hot and tasty from the Christmas mug and something deep inside resonates, you know she’s right.
There’s no other place on earth to be, except where you are this morning. There may be a few important ones missing for one reason or another (even the thought of the void left behind hurts), but these present and accounted for on Christmas morning are the ones who count.
Today.
* * * * * * *
Last night we enjoyed our office Christmas party. Hosted by one of my best friends, Mark and his wife Cathey, the house was lit and ready, the rooms filled with the smells of Christmas – the tree, a dinner cookin’ all day in anticipation, hors d’ouvres and candies and twinkling lights and flickering candles and easy stereo sounds of the season.
Holiday cheer in the tradition of Mr. and Mrs. Fuzzywig of Charles Dickens fame in A Christmas Carol.
We hugged and ate and laughed and exchanged gifts.
The party had a large contingency of brand new parents. Four young mothers brought their first-born to the celebration. For each, this is the first Christmas Day with a child. All four of these little rascals were born within sixty days of each other. Every mom held her precious little bundle of charm, dressed brightly for Christmas, with that unmistakable look of fulfillment and satisfaction psychologists call bonding. We call it magic. And three dads (one mom is single) strut around with that air of accomplishment and that recognizable grin, that button popping pride. This is only the beginning of a whole new life.
The babies were passed around along with the chocolate caramels.
Mark, who has reached grandfatherhood before me, held his first grandson like a seasoned pro. Rockin, and hummin’ and smellin’ on that little baby’s soft head of hair. He couldn’t stop smiling.
My day will come.
Carolyn opened her gift. It was a basket full of girl stuff. Smelly stuff. Lotions. Soaps. And then a little page-a-day calendar from Chicken Soup For the Soul.
I reached over, picked up the pad and read the first entry…
When I was done, I passed it around to four young women I knew would connect with the well written words – I said, “You've got to read this.”
My favorite
pair of jeans will never fit me again, wrote the author, herself a young
mom. I have finally accepted
this immutable truth. After
nurturing and giving birth to two babies, my body has undergone a
metamorphosis. I may have returned to my pre-baby weight, but subtle shifts
and expansions have taken place – my own version of continental drift.
As a teenager, I never understood the difference between junior and
misses sizing; misses clothing just looked old.
Now it’s all to clear that wasp waists and micro-fannies are but
fleeting trappings of youth. But
that’s okay, because while my jeans no longer button, the life I exchanged
for them fits better than they ever did.
For me, this is a barefoot, shorts and T-shirt time of life. I have slipped to easily into young motherhood; it is the most comfortable role I have ever worn. No tough seems. No snagging zippers. Just a feeling that I have stepped out of the dressing room into something that finally fits right. (Second Skin – from A Taste of Chicken Soup for the Soul, Canfield and Hansen)
Maren said, “Whoa… it makes me want to cry.” Shantelle agreed. So did Heather. And Jenny. Four new moms just beginning their journey.
Look around you this Christmas morning. What you’ve got fits right. Finally. You are where you belong.
* * * * * * *
Maybe we get used to the idea that anticipation is better than the real thing. Too bad, don’t you think?
We might be tempted to prefer the ideal over the real. The hopes and dreams more than the here and now. We expect disappointment. Not good.
You are a leader. It’s Christmas morning. It’s the day to embrace all that is good in your life. It’s a gift you know. You really don’t deserve it all. It’s yours in spite of you.
Because there is a good God in heaven who cares. He knows your name. And that little bundle in swaddling clothes lying in a manger is the greatest gift of all. That child was God’s gift to planet Earth. And He is God’s gift to you.
You’ve worked hard to get here. There’s more hard work waiting at the office for you tomorrow morning.
But between now and then, remember this. When Carly Simon sang a song about anticipation, she ends by reminding us - “THESE are the good old days. These are the good old days.”
Today… make it one so that years from now… you’ll look back and say, “what a Christmas day it was.”
Merry Christmas, good friend.
© Copyright Kenneth E. Kemp 2000
Special Thanks to my good friend David Belcher, owner of Rhino Media Group and creator of WisdomGram
LeaderFOCUS is a service of Good Stewardship Associates
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