I found myself strangely free of responsibilities for a brief time last weekend. In a burst of spontaneity, I broke my self-imposed “read-the-book-first” rule and took myself to see The Hate U Give. A classmate from high school had challenged friends on social media to see it, process, think, listen. I have a lot of respect for her, so I did.

Well, I’m stuck on process.

Every time I start to try and even talk myself through my response, I just stop. I tried to write about it, which led to the title of this post. So I decided to just tell you a story. It requires me to share a bit more about myself than I normally do. It’s hard for me to hit publish on a post like this, because the sad truth about writing is that you do not control the reader nor the reception. But I’m going out on a ledge.

Some time ago, Austin had just enacted the ban on handheld devices in the city. I knew this was the case; I did not know that included using your phone for GPS unless it was physically mounted somewhere (i.e, propped on your dash counted as handheld, whether you had a hand on it or not). While on my way to photograph a building for a client, I was pulled over on Mopac Expressway by a police officer on a motorcycle.

For those of you who are not from Austin, Mopac is a much-travelled highway west of downtown, by which the wealthier parts of town are accessed. People drive extremely fast, there is virtually no shoulder in many places, and there is significant space between exits. So, when the officer signaled for me to pull over immediately with no exit in sight, I did my best to get as far over on the (non-existent) shoulder as possible. It is important to note that I had NO idea why I was being pulled over. I wasn’t speeding. I wasn’t texting. I wasn’t calling anyone. I couldn’t imagine it was something like a taillight, or surely the officer would follow me to an exit for safety.

The officer came to the passenger side and indicated for me to roll down the window, which I did. The conversation went something like this:

Officer: “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

Me: “No, sir, I do not.”

Officer: “Austin is a handsfree city and you were using your handheld device.”

Me: “No, sir, I was not holding my phone. It is running navigation for me.”

Officer: “We will discuss this in a moment. For now, please hand me your license and proof of insurance.”

PAUSE. At this point, I have to share something I have kept fairly private, until now. When I first began photographing real estate properties, I sometimes found myself alone in remote and vacant homes. I had some safety measures in place, including calling my partner when I arrived and when I left, or sometimes taking her or my husband along. I had the frightening experience of walking in on a squatter once. Even more often, I would arrive at a property to find myself alone with a male homeowner, and a few times my inner radar sounded the alarm. In response, I would call my husband on my cell phone…or pretend to if he didn’t answer. Now, inside I consider myself quite intimidating and fierce, but the reality is, I’m a pretty small woman. I’ve taken self-defense in the past but I am smart enough to know there are limits to my abilities. So, after a few such instances in a relatively short span of time, I decided to get my concealed handgun license. I took the course, legally purchased a gun, and began to carry it with me on these shoots. Because I am a responsible, licensed gun owner, I know that when pulled over, you are supposed to hand over your CHL with your license and inform the officer if you have a gun in the car, and where it is. So…

Me: [handing my license, CHL, and insurance card] “Here is my license and my concealed carry permit. I do have a gun in the car. It is in my camera bag in the back seat.”

Officer: [stiffens a bit, and takes a more authoritative tone] “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to exit the vehicle. Do not make any extra movement; just step out of the car now.”

Me: [looking out my window at cars whizzing by at 80mph about two feet from my door] “Sir, I can’t step out of the car! That’s oncoming traffic…I’ll be killed! I can tell you exactly where the gun is, and you can remove it while I keep my hands on the wheel.”

Officer: [a bit sterner] “Ma’am, that will not work. You have to get out of the car while your weapon is there. You may not make any move except to step out of the car.”

Me: [still not okay with dying on Mopac, so I straighten my back and respond, respectful but firm] “Sir, we are not pulled over in a safe place for me to exit this car from the driver’s side. YOU won’t even come around to the driver’s side. I can direct you to my weapon, or you can watch me climb over the passenger seat to get out, but I am NOT stepping into the right lane of Mopac!”

Officer: [really stern] “Ma’am…” [stare]

Me: [staring back] “Sir…”

Officer: [continues to stare at me; I stare back with excellent posture] “Fine. You say the gun is in the backseat? You can climb out on this side. Do not reach toward the back seat while doing so.”

So out I clambered, in a skirt and heels. He gave me a ticket and a lecture, and I stood as tall as possible and took it, knowing the entire time that I would be showing up to that court date (which I did, and won). When all was said and done, I drove off, furious. He was willing for me to endanger my life (Austin people can back me up – this is not hyperbole) over phone navigation, despite the fact that I clearly respect the law and genuinely sought not to be perceived as a threat (as evidenced by my handing over my CHL and identifying my gun and its location without waiting to be instructed).

As I later relayed the story to my husband, I was angry. I could easily have lied about there being a gun in the car, and I guarantee the officer would have believed me. I was polite, and respectful, and disagreed without being aggressive or combative, and yet he was going to insist that I step out onto Mopac. How would he feel if it were his wife being asked to do the same, I fumed. I am generally a huge fan of police officers, but I was NOT a fan of this one.

Shortly after this event occurred, a friend posted on Facebook about a talk she had with her teenage sons. I did not know then to call it “the talk” because that was vernacular that never entered my parenting world, unless you were referring to the birds and the bees. No, I mean “the talk” about her black sons driving, and what to do if they were pulled over for any reason (or, for no reason they were aware of, as I was on Mopac that day). Where to put their hands. If they were wearing a hoodie (like the ones their baseball and football teams wore for warmups), make sure the hood was down. The voice to use. The words to use. The best way to show respect, to obey, to comply. Basically – everything they should do to avoid violence, or worse. Even if they knew they had done nothing wrong.

I remember telling my husband about it, in the light of my own recent interaction at a traffic stop. The truth is, I knew I was on the side of right in my situation. There was no reason for that officer to be concerned about violence from me, because I followed the letter of the law and simply didn’t want to endanger myself due to the choice he made about where we would stop. So I felt confident and justified in standing up for my own safety at that traffic stop. But reading my friend’s words, I realized that, were I to trade places with her son and all other circumstances were equal, no one in the world would advise me to take that same confident and justified stance. No one.

And I just don’t know what to do with that. Still.

It was midway through Year Two of #FridayCookies when a friend messaged me and condescendingly sweetly told me that it was a little embarrassing how I kept trying to make #FridayCookies happen, and maybe I should just, you know, make the cookies and all that, but stop with the hashtag. If you had read it, you’d have heard Mean Girls in your head, too. I didn’t bother to respond. Truthfully, I felt a little embarrassed for her because she completely missed the point.

Given that #FridayCookies is presumably my version of “fetch,” you probably need a little background explanation. In the fall of 2014, I had a 7th grader and a 5th grader, both involved in time-intensive activities and high-level academics. My husband was split between running the baseball/softball facility, coaching high school baseball at a local charter school (the only one in Central Texas to compete in UIL – so, no pressure!), and doing his best to sneak in hunting and fishing getaways with his dad and brother. I was working full time from home, consulting in marketing, development, and photography, and had just “retired” from serving in ministry with our church’s high school choir program after 12 years (sniff). It was the inaugural year of Today’s Teenager Family, and it hit me hard. Really, really hard.

On a Friday in early September, I returned from school drop off and sat in my kitchen wrestling with despair. What a week it had been, and yet, I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was that made it so. It just WAS a week! Every day seemed to bring some new and inexplicable challenge. After a lifetime keeping on the sunny side, my rosy glasses seemed perennially fogged. Sitting at the kitchen island, I told myself, “This will not do.”

I had been participating in the #100happydays instagram challenge in the hopes of continuing to focus daily on the good things of life. But it seemed I needed a bit of a boost. So, as I was looking for something to be happy about (and yes, I read that and cringe, but I’m just being truthful), I spotted my citron Kitchenaid mixer. I decided to make some cookies just because, and whipped together a batch of toffee brickle drop cookies from the Heath toffee bits bag. And you know? It worked. My despondency dissipated. I posted a picture on instagram and went about my day considerably lighter.

The following week, which played out much like the one before it, I woke up on Friday already determined to make cookies again. At the time, my oldest niece and I had an ongoing joke about hashtags, and in a flash of inspiration I searched the hashtag #FridayCookies. Thinking surely there would be hundreds of posts, I was surprised to find just a few, one being a bakery far away. No one was using it regularly, so I decided I would start. That very day.

When I picked the children up from school, I told them that I understood how difficult this season seemed to be for all of us. I knew that they were both facing big challenges at school, we were all feeling the effects of changing friendships, and sometimes it felt a little cloudy around the house. So, I was going to bake cookies every Friday. They were welcome to tell friends or neighbors. Or, we could just eat them ourselves. But no matter what happened in any given week, we would ALWAYS have something to look forward to on Friday. Cookies.

They reacted with an enthusiasm reminiscent of their pre-middle-school years, which was affirmation enough for me. From that Friday on, I baked. I generally stuck to favorites, but reserved the right to try something interesting from time to time. And I instagrammed virtually every one.

Did #FridayCookies take off? No, not really. My friend was right; it didn’t turn into the next big trend. When I say my friend completely missed the point, I mean this: I didn’t start the whole #FridayCookies thing to start a movement. I did it to build a connection in my own little family. My people were individually struggling with hard things, and it was showing up in our family dynamic. I only started with the hashtag because my oldest was on instagram, with my youngest soon following, and it was a way to reach them in their own language. And I think in many ways, it worked.

The advent of high school brought Friday night sports, which made #FridayCookies a bit harder to pull off, but we’ve kept it going most of the time. I don’t instagram them all anymore, and sometimes it’s more like #FridayCookiesOnTuesday. But after four years, my favorite Saturday breakfast is still two cups of coffee with a couple of #FridayCookies I stash away for this exact purpose. And every now and then, I see someone on social media decide to do their own #FridayCookies, and I say a quick prayer for their sweet family to enjoy that little connection as much as I have.

Group projects. In school, they are everywhere. Love them or hate them, you can’t avoid them. It was true when I was a student, and it is even more true for students today.

When our kids started participating in group projects, my husband gave them one excellent piece of advice. “Look around, find the smartest person in the room, and get that person in your group,” he said. He went on to explain that he knew our kids would want the project to go well and be successful, but wouldn’t want to carry the whole thing themselves. By choosing someone very smart, they were pretty likely to have at least two in the group who cared about the outcome and therefore invested in the process.

I thought that was brilliant advice, and it has worked quite well for both kids. Personally, I have always despised group projects. Well, I thought I despised group projects, until a conversation this week got me to thinking: our lives are a series and collection of group projects! 

I’m not necessarily referring to the workforce, the usual justification for all the group projects students complete in school: “you will work in groups throughout your career.” While that is true for many, there are many others whose work is autonomous or at least mainly so. I’m thinking about the whole of life. Our friend groups. Our families (because marriage is definitely a group project, and parenting even more so!). Our neighborhoods. Our schools. Our churches.

As I mulled over this idea, I realized a couple of things. First, based on that expanded definition, I am actually a fan of group projects! And second, my husband’s advice rings true for all of those groups.

So, how does that advice translate to the group projects of life? It isn’t meant as a put-down for others (including ourselves), but rather, an encouragement to find people who elevate the standard you are seeking to reach. It’s pretty well documented that people tend to adjust up or down to the standard of the status quo in any given scenario. Challenge them, and almost always you will find that they rise to the occasion. Require little, and they will deliver the bare minimum necessary.

This idea of choosing the smartest person in the room really resonated with me following a recent lunch with friends. Our particular group goes back 25 years, to our college days. Four out of the six of us met for lunch, and nothing earth-shattering happened. We talked water leaks in houses, dogs, books and podcasts, jobs, cheese, trips, friends, families, cheese again, haircolor. Nothing of consequence. However, I realized after our conversation how much I value these women, even when it’s an ordinary lunch on an ordinary day. Each of the friends at the table (and the two in the group who were not) holds a unique place in the dynamic we have created over these decades. They are individually gifted in different ways and different fields, and have made us collectively smarter as we teach each other, question each other, and listen to each other. Although I could highlight many strengths of each, it’s easy to separate out one way in which I feel each of these friends is the smartest person in the room.

One of us* is a true model of kindness, consideration, and love with no strings. I will never be the kind of friend she is, to all she befriends, but I can aspire to it! She remembers everything. It’s an insane skill set. I quit trying to be her years ago, and am content to just watch her transform the people around her with quiet support. (yes, she inspires so many italics!)

One of us is amazing in her field; if I had a question about navigating a professional environment, she’s one of the first I would call. Throughout her career she has shared her successes, challenges, risks, and new opportunities, and I have learned so much that I can apply to my own career path. Her viewpoint is fascinating.

One of us has been a phenomenal example as a wife and a mom. She married first in our group, and was the first mother of boys. The laidback attitude and easy flexibility she shows have been an absolute example to me as we’ve built our family. She has created a beautiful life, and I admire her so much more than she knows.

One of us is a drop-everything-and-be-there friend. I can go ages without talking to her, and even longer without seeing her, but when life blows up in my world, I can call her, and I do. Her response to her friends in crisis is immediate, practical, and guaranteed. She has saved my life a couple of times, and that’s not hyperbole.

One of us is the very example of self-awareness and confidence in who she is. She is very, very smart. Her intelligence shows in the way she comfortably inhabits her views, interests, beliefs, and relationships, whether they look like everyone else or not. She is literally one of my favorite people, which I’m pretty sure she knows.

I’m not fishing here when I say that I’m not exactly sure WHAT I bring the table; there isn’t really much needed! These are five women who are bringing the highest and best to an always-evolving friendship. And the kicker?

This is only ONE group in my life’s collection!

Although I am not especially social, given the pace of our life and the strange schedules we have always followed in our careers, it is still easy to identify the many group projects that make up my world. Considering these people and their strengths, I seem to have subconsciously taken my husband’s advice in many different areas, to my absolute benefit. The challenge is to figure out how we all can be the smartest one in the room for someone who needs it.

*I’m leaving out names to protect the innocent! 🙂

I normally try to write intentionally, thoughtfully, with integrity.  This is not one of those times.

I am perplexed. I find myself in such a strange time of sweet, and painful, and stretching, and a confusion that makes me feel far younger and more foolish than I should be while wearing a mantle of weary and hard-earned wisdom. I know I am not alone in this. For some, it stems from current events and the resulting reactions – from people we only observe from afar, and from people in our every day world. For some, it is finally experiencing, full stop, the long-lamented racing away of time. For many, it might be the constantly shifting world we live in, so much faster and more difficult to adapt to than times in the past (and the inner battle to decide if that’s middle age talking or objective reality). I just know that the layers of life are sometimes light, and sometimes almost unbearably heavy.

In one of these moments today, after too long on the road, Spotify randomly played “Maybe It’s Time” from A Star Is Born, a movie I haven’t yet seen. The song is sung by Bradley Cooper, an actor who continues to surprise me (I’m still not over the way he speaks fluent French!), but I didn’t know that when it first started playing. I just knew that it crept into the Jeep and quieted my mind. Music does that sometimes, and this song was a long sigh of relief.

At the end, he sings, “it takes a lot to change your plans, and a train to change your mind,” which may be my new favorite lyric of all time. Like my father before me, I love trains, tracks, and the promise of the next adventure just around a corner. That promise helps me navigate the perplexity of life sometimes. It certainly did today.

So thank you, Bradley Cooper, for singing out the breath I was holding today.