do we know when enough is enough???

one of the great memories from my childhood was going to work with my father...i loved getting up early, putting on my 'work' clothes and going through the adult motions; grabbing coffee to go (a novelty in the 70's) rushing for the train, folding the paper along the crease to make it as compact a reading experience as possible and listening to great conversations...oh before i go on you want to know what my father did/does, right...yes of course you do...this was a question never asked when i was a kid...and if anyone did inquire just 'cause they did i usually told them that he sold dream and illusions...which i guess is not much different from the guys who sold mortgages to everyone who wanted to be part of the great american dream in the early part of this century....yes of course i grew up in suburbia and my dad was a math wiz, so you guessed it, he is a wall street guy...back when men wore 3 piece suits, had outlandish lunches and played cards in the smoking car on the way home, a time when no one asked 'what does your father do?"...in fact i did not even know what some of my friend's fathers did until long into my 20's when i moved back to the same suburban town from whence i came...at which point i started to meet people who went to college with my childhood friends and acquaintances and would say 'oh you must know sallyjoedavid and their father who started-owed-tookpublic thegreatestcompanyever!!! wow...well now i know and good for sallyjoedavid and their family!

the other thing i knew was that 'back then' there was a sense of enough...as in you, me, us, we have enough...
and if you had enough or were lucky to have more than enough you had the good graces not to let everybody know how much enough is...one lesson i learned on the way home from work with my dad one day was told to me by his partner...a man of the same age who loved cars...and who had enough...this lesson was shared with me on a day we drove to work...after work when we walked to our spot in the garage on a side street west of broadway behind Trinity church i noticed a really nice car and commented to that affect...our friend said, 'let me tell you what you can learn about a person from their car'....the person who has nothing drives a jalopy and happy for the simple mode of transportation enabling him to get to and from....the person who has cash to burn but has not saved drives a cadillac (remember this is the last 70's) or a mercedes...the person who is comfortable in their own skin or has a trust fund drives a BMW 2002...no one will look twice and its great car...the man who told me this story still drives his subaru wagon and flies coach between his homes in the north east and california....his point was well taken...it has less to do with how nice your car is, how big your house, how fancy your vacation and more to do with how much is enough and when enough is really enough are you aware how blessed you are and realize it is time to give back...we all have our own idea of what is enough...no one can set that thresh hold for us...as good citizens however it is up to us to interpret how much enough is.

so often we let life get the better of us..we need and have to have...we want people to know us for our set pieces; our cars,  our parties, our vacations or our homes...what we do for a living...rather than what we do with what we do for a living...when we have enough we need to give back, share the happiness...give ourselves a hardy 'congratulations' and realize our enough.

Supermarket Psychology

no don't be silly...i am not talking about those wonderful trash rags that we all  love  reading on the checkout line while contemplating the danger of eating the Nestle's Crunch bar as a crowd of strapping supermodels are  staring at us from the airbrushed covers of fashion magazines...no, i am talking about the cathartic feeling after you bump into someone in the supermarket or encounter a perfect stranger and share a deep conversation about life, love and the pursuit of happiness in the burbs...its a funny phenomenon...you start with a cheerful hello and then someone opens the proverbial can of worms with a question about family, friends or work or a comment about the service on the checkout line, the weather or something about the community at large...and bam you go into a dissertation about what's good, bad and currently on your mind as if you are lying on a shrink's couch rather than standing in your local grocery store on your way home from the gym...now mind you the supermarket physiologist is most likely not your bestie or they would know that answers to all these pressing questions and would know the turmoil or the levity of your current sitch but non-the-less you start in on a conversation....

okay so here is the thing...i like my supermarket psychology...i enjoy the intense conversations i have while pushing a cart full of yummies and whiling away the hours at my local market...i enjoy the exchange of stories, the advise and even the small talk...there is a comradery in sharing with an acquaintance and an unwritten rule that what happens in the market stays in the market.

but here's the thing...my little town no longer has a supermarket, at one point we had two...now we have 8 banks, 6 nail salons and 4 real estate offices among our 24 storefronts...we can get money, buy and sell our homes and keep nicely groomed but we can't get 3 cans of sauce for 99 cents...we do have a delicious gourmet market which is now thankfully open on Sundays...and i must say i was delighted last Sunday when i went out to grab some provisions for Sunday supper and bumped into 2 friends...one old, as in we have been friends since elementary school..the other new, as in we meet 18 years ago...they too are friends with each other and i found them in the middle of a pow pow about their kids...at which point i felt the need to interject and add my shared experiences to the conversation...which turned what should have been a 20 minute trip into an hour and i walked away having shared good information and gotten great validation of my circumstances...i left with my head high and two bags of meat and veggies!

since our 'supermarket' closed down after the great flood i have found myself moving about from market to market to procure my provisions, and as such have expanded my repertoire of communal psychologists...in Bedford Falls i bumped into two women i mostly talk to on the sports field...one who's company i quite enjoy...i felt compelled to discuss with her the sports captain selection at my kid's school...she offered wise advise and shared a personal story...i left feeling propped up and armed with a good antidote...in Pottersville i had an encounter at the bagel store over boars head and nova with a smart lady who i have hardly talked to but have known for the past 15 years...she and i discussed books, backgrounds and futures...no, not stock futures...we shared some stories and offered advise and our mutual concern about teenagers and their choices....and again i left behind the menagerie of bagels as well as the baggage of my concerns dujuor...i took something away and left my fellow shopper with food for thought

so relish a chance encounter, i promise you there is an unwritten governance that covers the privacy of your conversations, you will feel better as you connect and share and leave with some groceries to nourish your soul.

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