No, this isn’t a plug for the army. Nor is it a plucky DaleCarnegieAnthonyRobbinsJackCanfield-esque attempt at motivation. It’s simply a helpful reminder.

Many neighborhoods in Baltimore, like most cities, set aside a certain night each month (especially during warmer weather) for organized revelry in the form of special deals, a variety of food, and/or live music. Indeed, if one took advantage of every First Friday, Second Sunday, and Third Thursday there would be plenty to keep one busy at least once a week, if not more frequently. One of my favorites in Baltimore is First Thursday in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood because it provides not only all of the above, but particularly good, non-Top-40 music, courtesy of our thoroughly enjoyable and eclectic Towson University-based radio station WTMD.

In October, the featured group for First Thursday’s concert in the park was Hoots & Hellmouth, a GREAT juiced-up-bluegrassy-Americana-roots band from Philadelphia that includes a harmonica, mandolin, and lead singer who looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman with glasses and a LOT of hair. According to their website: Hoots & Hellmouth see every show as an opportunity to help strengthen a sense of local community among their audiences. More than just a product, this music is at once a celebration and a mourning – championing the human potential to feel deeply and come together as a unified whole, while bemoaning the fact that much in modern life seems to work against just that. It’s a catharsis for damaged 21st Century humans and their environs. It’s new music for old souls.

How did they accomplish this at their October concert in Mt. Vernon? Well, besides providing an awesome playlist that had everyone up and dancing and grinning at the stranger next to them, about halfway through the event when things had really started to rock, the PSH-looking lead singer thanked us for our enthusiastic support and participation with this affirmation: “Balti-MORE?? Looks like Balti-MOST to me!! Whew! YEAH!!”

Besides making me cheer and give a proud fist pump for my adopted hometown, it reminded me of a catch phrase that many here in Charm City (i.e. Baltimore, or B’more) have started using: “B-more (fill in the blank).” B-more assertive; B-more creative; B-more against war … Not bad reminders for a town with a bit of a self-esteem issue due to TV shows like The Wire and Homicide, not to mention perpetually living in the shadow of more glamorous and worldly Washington, DC.

Whether it’s self esteem, town esteem, country esteem, gender esteem, race esteem, faith esteem, you name it, I’ve found that it’s been hard not to get pulled down lately. Actually, it’s not really been lately; this is something that’s been going on for over a decade. Much of it, I think, has to do with 24-hour news cycles that have to be filled with SOMETHING. And nothing makes news like bad news. So even events that might not be particularly positive, but aren’t, in the big picture, completely horrible, get blown up to “horrible status” and put in front of us (and often yelled at us) ad nauseam 24/7.

So imagine my delight a week or so ago when I heard this story about my 5-year-old niece, Sophia. She was riding in the car with her dad, who had the radio tuned to a sports station. The commentator was bemoaning the fact that many big Ohio teams had gotten beaten in the last few days. “It’s been a TERRIBLE week for Ohioans—Ohio State lost, Cleveland State lost, the Cavs lost … [he listed several others]. Like I said, if you live in Ohio, it’s been a bad, bad week!” Suddenly, Sophia (appropriately named!) piped up from the back seat: “Um … excuse me, Mr. Radio Man. But *I* live in Ohio, and I’ve had a great day and a great week. So you just need to be quiet … because you’re stupid.”

Out of the mouths of babes … I love that this five year old wasn’t about to let anybody bring her down or dictate how she was “supposed” to feel. But how often have the rest of us allowed those very things to happen to us? I sure have; and it’s made me less of the best I could have been. Too often, I’ve let outside forces make me surly and negative and divisive, turning me into a person I haven’t particularly liked. This goes way beyond a Pollyanna outlook on life (because, let’s face it, sometimes life DOES stink and righteous indignation, grief, or outright anger is the absolute appropriate response). It’s about seeing the world through realistic lenses, first of all, keeping everything in perspective. But it’s also about being the architect of our own lives, choosing attitudes, situations, and friends that will allow us to thrive rather than to get mired in a funky downward spiral. It’s about having the courage—when enough is enough—to speak up and say, “You just need to be quiet,” which may take the form of an actual quote to a person who can hear us or it might be more symbolic, nudging us to turn off the radio or TV and to take a sabbatical from the “stupid” 24/7 onslaught.

Another way to say it is in the words of Howard Thurman: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Like I said … a helpful reminder, no?

Are there sweeter words to a storyteller’s ear?

This past fall I performed at my sister’s church in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Among other things, I told a number of stories during the Sunday school hour to a group of pre-K through 5th grade kids. After three stories (one of which was Peter walking on the water), the preschoolers (which included my 4-year-old niece, Gaby) left to do other activities in their classroom while I finished up with a few more “older-focused” stories for the elementary-aged kids.

Later that afternoon we were all in the car and my sister asked what other stories I’d told (she’s one of the pre-school teachers so had also left after the first three stories). As I was telling her about them, Gaby, who had been busy watching a movie on her little portable DVD player in the back seat, perked up and said, “Aunt Tracy, tell me about Peter.”

At first, I took her comment literally, thinking she wanted more information ABOUT Peter. (Silly me … can you tell I don’t have kids of my own?!) “Well, what do you want to know?” But her mom quickly set me straight, “No, she wants you to tell her the STORY about Peter again.”

In all the years I’ve been telling stories professionally, and despite all the accolades I’ve received—and I’ve received many—I don’t know that anyone has EVER asked for an “encore;” or, perhaps more accurately (and touching), for a specific story to be repeated so immediately. It’s a storyteller’s dream come true, especially when it comes from someone you’re not even sure was paying attention.

So, it more than made up for the fact that during the entire time I was telling a story for the Children’s Sermon during worship, Gaby sat down front, before God and the entire congregation, sticking her finger down her throat gagging herself!

The Boy Scouts may have made this pledge their own but it’s not a bad piece of advice for any of us. Over the years, I’ve often been asked if I’m afraid to live alone (particularly in inner-city Baltimore), to be on the road so much, or to travel by myself to foreign lands (especially ones where the perceived safety is questionable). The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is that while I refuse to live in fear, I also strive to live intelligently—I’m aware of my surroundings, I don’t take unnecessary risks, and I try not to call too much attention to myself.  😉

Because I’ve now got decades (yes, it’s plural!) of living this way under my belt, it’s all sort of become second nature. When I enter a large crowd, I instantly turn my purse around so that the easy-to-access pouch faces in instead of out. When I get out of my car I automatically affix The Club to my steering wheel, no matter where in the country I am. And as soon as I enter my house or hotel room, without thinking, I lock the door.

Last August I had back-to-back gigs in the Chicago area. For one of them, I stayed in a hotel located in the heart of a thriving urban neighborhood. As soon as I entered my room, of course, I locked up for the night. Around 3:00 a.m. I was awakened by the sound of someone trying to open the door. It became clear pretty quickly that the woman was drunk. She was calling through the door trying to get her male companion—who was apparently in her room—to open it from the inside because she was obviously having no luck from the outside.  More than a little perturbed, I called out, “You’ve got the wrong room!” Hearing a female voice, and one she didn’t recognize, she immediately realized her mistake and, to her credit, started to apologize profusely. I heard her mumbling to a friend that they must be on the wrong floor and, thinking the problem was solved, I tried to go back to sleep.

Moments later, I again heard someone trying to get into my room. From the mumblings, I knew it was the same woman (she was REALLY drunk!) and when she knocked on the door I snarled from the bed, “WHAT?!?!” Realizing her double mistake, she apologized even more profusely and (finally!) stumbled down the hall to the elevators. Was I annoyed? Absolutely. Was I scared to be awakened in the middle of the night while sleeping in a hotel in the heart of a big city? Not really. Why? Because even if that drunk woman’s key card had managed somehow to open my door, I’d also used the “tuning fork-looking” lock which was added protection (and would have also bought me some extra time to figure out what to do next if it had come to that!). Always be prepared.

The next day I had a different gig about 30 minutes north of the city at a Catholic seminary that had converted part of its bucolic campus into a conference center. My room was in an older, clean but spartan dorm that did include a private bathroom, so I had what I needed. Upon settling in for the night I went into autopilot locking myself in. This door also had one of those tuning-fork locks and I did actually hesitate about using it. After all, I was way out in the ‘burbs, in a lovely serene setting at a conference center. Was this overkill? Perhaps it was due to the “excitement” from the night before … or the fact that I figured—despite the “safer” setting—the powers that be had included that kind of lock on the door for SOME reason … regardless, I used both locks that night. Always be prepared, right?

I’ve always been a sound sleeper, someone who could sleep well in most any bed (thankfully, considering all the beds I sleep in during a given year), and who enjoys sleep so much almost never wakes up before the alarm goes off. Well, some of that began to change last summer when I started having hot flashes. I’m grateful at this point that they’re really more “warm waves” and certainly not the extreme “bed sweats” I know some women endure. But they were warm enough to wake me up in some discomfort. The funny thing is, I think I was having these for a couple of weeks before I even realized what they were. Remember, Baltimore (like many areas) had record-breaking heat last summer and even under “normal” conditions, Baltimore summers are not particularly pleasant. This is why for the last decade or so I’ve simply left town for most of July and August.

Well, last year my schedule didn’t cooperate and I found myself in my uncomfortable, non-AC, third-floor home during some of the hottest days of July. So I finally broke down and bought a portable AC unit to cool my office during the day and my bedroom at night. The first time I was awakened by a hot flash, I just thought the AC wasn’t working very well. After all, we were having record-breaking heat, even in the wee hours of the morning. (The fact that the AC unit was RIGHT next to my bed and blowing directly on my leg, to the point where icicles were starting to form, wasn’t enough to alert me to the fact that maybe something else was going on!) I did eventually realize that I was having hot flashes and thus “prepared” for them the only way I knew how—to continue to sleep in the nude. (This is something I’ve done forever, never really seeing the need to wear pajamas, especially when living alone.)

So late last August, while sleeping in my bare little seminary-based conference center room on the peaceful outskirts of Chicago, I was awakened about 30 minutes before my alarm went off due to the discomfort of a hot flash. I kicked off the covers and lay there, in all my glory, waiting for it to pass. It was at that exact moment that I heard a key in the lock and the door to my room opened. Well, it opened as far as the “tuning fork” would let it. Obviously, as the lock indicated, the room was occupied so the door immediately closed and was relocked.

Had I not put that second lock on the door, I’m not sure who would have been more startled: me, or the intruder. But considering the fact that I later found out the intruder was a meek and mild, work-study seminarian making sure the room was clean and ready for the person he thought was to move in later that day, I’m guessing him. Regardless, let’s just say that it was a good thing I “prepared” by putting that second lock on—as overkill as it seemed—because, I must confess, while I do try to “always be prepared,” I wasn’t really prepared to have my hot, sweaty, naked middle-aged body be the topic of his next confession … or nightmare!