Some people very rightly identify themselves as "huggers." These are people who will know you for seven minutes and think nothing of giving you a goodbye hug. Or a hello hug. Or a "just because I feel like it" hug.
I am not one of these people. However, I have no problem at all when one of them hugs me. In fact, I kind of like it. I think it's nice.
Yet I would never think of doing the same thing to someone to whom I'm not, say, married.
I guess it's that I don't mind receiving the casual hug, but I'm not someone who will willingly initiate that kind of hug.
Make sense?
I just don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable. And a lot of non-huggers definitely feel uncomfortable when someone moves in for a hug. They usually will grin and bear it, but they don't like it. And I don't want to put anyone in that position.
I think that, deep down, there's a hugger inside of me. But my fear of offending, angering or otherwise upsetting others keeps me from following through on this latent desire.
It's kind of sad. I think I need a hug.
Showing posts with label hugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hugs. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Thursday, April 4, 2013
If my children want to make me happy, here's what they'll do...
(1) Stop leaving lights on in unoccupied rooms
If you leave a room and there's no other person left in that room, and if the light is on, turn the light off. Off. Turn the light off. Just turn the light off. Don't leave the light on. Turn it off. On = bad. Off = good. Is this clear? You're shooting for the light being in the "off" position here. That's what I'm trying to get across. If you leave the room, and you're the last person in the room, the light should be off when you leave. Not on. Off.
(2) Be respectful to your mother
Most of the time you do this. Sometimes you do not. It makes me extremely angry when you are not. If you want to talk disrespectfully to me, then you and I will have a conversation that will result in you changing your attitude. But if you're disrespectful to your mother, then you and I are likely to have a physical altercation that will also result in you changing your attitude. And a possible trip to the emergency room.
(3) Don't spill anything on the kitchen floor I just washed
I always want you to be careful not to spill anything on the floor, but you need to be extra careful in the 24 hours after I wash the floor. I work very hard on the floor. I like it to be nice and white and clean. At least for a little while. I understand that eventually it will get dirty. But please, not in the day following a floor washing. Please. Keep your juice, popcorn, and/or crumb-producing foods away from my nice floor, OK? OK.
(4) Don't lie
You will be in trouble if you break the rules. You will be in Level 1 Trouble if you also lie about it. Most of the time (I would say 85%), we know when you're lying. And your mother especially knows when you're lying. It's scary. Like she has some superhuman sense for untruths. Don't cross her. I'm telling you, don't cross her.
(5) Give me a hug
I don't care if you're a male child of mine. And specifically if you're a nearly-6-foot-1-inch male child of mine. I like when you just come up and hug me. Continue doing this. Always. Your father will be greatly appreciative.
If you leave a room and there's no other person left in that room, and if the light is on, turn the light off. Off. Turn the light off. Just turn the light off. Don't leave the light on. Turn it off. On = bad. Off = good. Is this clear? You're shooting for the light being in the "off" position here. That's what I'm trying to get across. If you leave the room, and you're the last person in the room, the light should be off when you leave. Not on. Off.
(2) Be respectful to your mother
Most of the time you do this. Sometimes you do not. It makes me extremely angry when you are not. If you want to talk disrespectfully to me, then you and I will have a conversation that will result in you changing your attitude. But if you're disrespectful to your mother, then you and I are likely to have a physical altercation that will also result in you changing your attitude. And a possible trip to the emergency room.
(3) Don't spill anything on the kitchen floor I just washed
I always want you to be careful not to spill anything on the floor, but you need to be extra careful in the 24 hours after I wash the floor. I work very hard on the floor. I like it to be nice and white and clean. At least for a little while. I understand that eventually it will get dirty. But please, not in the day following a floor washing. Please. Keep your juice, popcorn, and/or crumb-producing foods away from my nice floor, OK? OK.
(4) Don't lie
You will be in trouble if you break the rules. You will be in Level 1 Trouble if you also lie about it. Most of the time (I would say 85%), we know when you're lying. And your mother especially knows when you're lying. It's scary. Like she has some superhuman sense for untruths. Don't cross her. I'm telling you, don't cross her.
(5) Give me a hug
I don't care if you're a male child of mine. And specifically if you're a nearly-6-foot-1-inch male child of mine. I like when you just come up and hug me. Continue doing this. Always. Your father will be greatly appreciative.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Of hugs, happiness and human connections
So the Brazilians are gone.
After 12 days with us, Paula and Luiz flew back to Washington, D.C., today with their fellow Youth Ambassadors. There they'll meet up with other young Brazilians who spent time in Seattle, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Bozeman, Montana. The full group of 45 will fly back to Sao Paulo on Saturday.
We saw them off with a potluck dinner -- such an American event! -- at the home of the Fortkamps, one of the other host families, on Sunday night. There was plenty of food, a lot of laughter, and more than a few tears.
The tears you can understand from the Brazilians. They're a very open, emotional people to begin with, and when you combine that particular national trait with the fact that they're 15- through 18-year-olds, the waterworks were to be expected.
This was, after all, an intense experience for each of them. They were visiting the United States for the very first time, staying with families whom they had never met, speaking a foreign language and trying something new every day for almost two solid weeks. Seen through teenage eyes, the words "life changing" and "profound" come readily to mind.
But there were also a lot of red-eyed suburban Americans gathered in that basement, which is maybe a bit more surprising. As the Brazilians stood at the front of the room and one at a time expressed their gratitude to the families that had taken them in, there was a lot of sniffling among the natives.
Why is that? It's not like this was a true exchange program in which the students spent an entire school year here. They were here for 12 days. People get less attached to their own relatives in that time.
Well, I was one of those who were teary-eyed as the young Brazilians spoke, especially a very emotional Paula and the normally boisterous but clearly speaking-from-the-heart Luiz. And I have a theory as to why that was.
It stems from the very human need for connection, and specifically connection to people worth connecting to. These Brazilian teens were the cream of the crop. They were 45 selected from a group of more than 7,500 applicants. Each was picked for their character, community service, and (I'm guessing here) the intangible quality that just tells you someone is headed for great things. The "it" factor, if you want to give it a name.
I know I'm better off for having gotten to know Paula and Luiz. God puts certain people onto the earth, I'm convinced, so that the rest of us can benefit from interacting with them. Paula and Luiz are two of those people.
Does that sound melodramatic? Does it seem strange for a 42-year-old man to be gushing over a pair of Brazilian teenagers with whom he didn't even spend half a month? Yeah, probably. But to say that is to miss the value of human connection. And especially those connections that occur when people from different cultures and different circumstances are thrown together unexpectedly.
The thing is, I've lived my entire life in the same city. I've done this by choice, of course, but there are obvious limitations to spending four decades in the same place: Your opinions and attitudes can become static, and you in turn become fairly set in your ways.
When you're forced to confront the "other" -- different places, different people, different perspectives -- you benefit in unforseen ways. This is especially true for Americans, a people conditioned from birth to believe that we are the best and that everyone else wants to be like us.
I've mentioned before that the Brazilians are huggers. They don't always get the concept of "personal space," and that's a good thing. I'm not a natural hugger, but even when I met the other Brazilian kids besides Paula and Luiz, they leaned in for a "hello" hug. It was wonderful way to connect, and it forced me to drop my puritan inhibitions on physical contact between strangers.
Because that's just it: they weren't "strangers." Or at least they didn't think of themselves as being strangers to me. I was a host parent, and therefore I was someone who, to them, was worth meeting. And people worth meeting get hugs from Brazilians. That's just the way it is, and I think it's wonderful. It changed my view of them and their country immediately, and for the better.
There were a lot of examples of these moments when the Brazilian kids caught me off guard. They constantly made me think, made me laugh and -- on Sunday night in that basement -- made me cry a little. And now that they're gone, I'm forced to rely on myself a little more to create those moments where I suddenly realize, "Hey, I think I just learned something." As I get older, I find those moments are the most worth living for, and therefore I chase them all the harder.
I guess it's difficult to convey all this in a rambling blog post, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about and have experienced it yourself. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you're standing in your living room watching your kids line dance with two crazy Brazilians.
I guess that's sort of the same thing.
After 12 days with us, Paula and Luiz flew back to Washington, D.C., today with their fellow Youth Ambassadors. There they'll meet up with other young Brazilians who spent time in Seattle, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Bozeman, Montana. The full group of 45 will fly back to Sao Paulo on Saturday.
We saw them off with a potluck dinner -- such an American event! -- at the home of the Fortkamps, one of the other host families, on Sunday night. There was plenty of food, a lot of laughter, and more than a few tears.
The tears you can understand from the Brazilians. They're a very open, emotional people to begin with, and when you combine that particular national trait with the fact that they're 15- through 18-year-olds, the waterworks were to be expected.
This was, after all, an intense experience for each of them. They were visiting the United States for the very first time, staying with families whom they had never met, speaking a foreign language and trying something new every day for almost two solid weeks. Seen through teenage eyes, the words "life changing" and "profound" come readily to mind.
But there were also a lot of red-eyed suburban Americans gathered in that basement, which is maybe a bit more surprising. As the Brazilians stood at the front of the room and one at a time expressed their gratitude to the families that had taken them in, there was a lot of sniffling among the natives.
Why is that? It's not like this was a true exchange program in which the students spent an entire school year here. They were here for 12 days. People get less attached to their own relatives in that time.
Well, I was one of those who were teary-eyed as the young Brazilians spoke, especially a very emotional Paula and the normally boisterous but clearly speaking-from-the-heart Luiz. And I have a theory as to why that was.
It stems from the very human need for connection, and specifically connection to people worth connecting to. These Brazilian teens were the cream of the crop. They were 45 selected from a group of more than 7,500 applicants. Each was picked for their character, community service, and (I'm guessing here) the intangible quality that just tells you someone is headed for great things. The "it" factor, if you want to give it a name.
I know I'm better off for having gotten to know Paula and Luiz. God puts certain people onto the earth, I'm convinced, so that the rest of us can benefit from interacting with them. Paula and Luiz are two of those people.
Does that sound melodramatic? Does it seem strange for a 42-year-old man to be gushing over a pair of Brazilian teenagers with whom he didn't even spend half a month? Yeah, probably. But to say that is to miss the value of human connection. And especially those connections that occur when people from different cultures and different circumstances are thrown together unexpectedly.
The thing is, I've lived my entire life in the same city. I've done this by choice, of course, but there are obvious limitations to spending four decades in the same place: Your opinions and attitudes can become static, and you in turn become fairly set in your ways.
When you're forced to confront the "other" -- different places, different people, different perspectives -- you benefit in unforseen ways. This is especially true for Americans, a people conditioned from birth to believe that we are the best and that everyone else wants to be like us.
I've mentioned before that the Brazilians are huggers. They don't always get the concept of "personal space," and that's a good thing. I'm not a natural hugger, but even when I met the other Brazilian kids besides Paula and Luiz, they leaned in for a "hello" hug. It was wonderful way to connect, and it forced me to drop my puritan inhibitions on physical contact between strangers.
Because that's just it: they weren't "strangers." Or at least they didn't think of themselves as being strangers to me. I was a host parent, and therefore I was someone who, to them, was worth meeting. And people worth meeting get hugs from Brazilians. That's just the way it is, and I think it's wonderful. It changed my view of them and their country immediately, and for the better.
There were a lot of examples of these moments when the Brazilian kids caught me off guard. They constantly made me think, made me laugh and -- on Sunday night in that basement -- made me cry a little. And now that they're gone, I'm forced to rely on myself a little more to create those moments where I suddenly realize, "Hey, I think I just learned something." As I get older, I find those moments are the most worth living for, and therefore I chase them all the harder.
I guess it's difficult to convey all this in a rambling blog post, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about and have experienced it yourself. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you're standing in your living room watching your kids line dance with two crazy Brazilians.
I guess that's sort of the same thing.
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