If you grew up in a disrupted home, where alcohol or gambling or marital strife tore people apart, where domestic conflicts were your family’s soundtrack and your parents fought night after night and you heard it all of this, this was your normal. It was easy to believe that everybody lived this way.

When you were around peaceful and loving families it was hard to trust they were not pretending their love and their happiness was fake. 

If you grew up around bullies, people who made fun of you, belittled you, were cruel to you, that was your normal. You’ve probably spent much of your life trying to find the truth of who you are and what you can be rather than have it filtered by the belittling voices of your childhood. 

If you grew up with warmth and affection and affirmation, and a ready welcome from both or one parent and who affirmed your skills, honored your opinions, recognized your abilities, you developed an inner-confidence.This was your normal. You had no need to compete for attention. You didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. You had a voice and knew how to use it even in early childhood. 

Be grateful. Your beautiful normal was quite unusual.

What was your normal?

“Parsnip, curried. Lightly” Tommy said when I asked about the soup of the day, “but let me check with Katie.”

Primo Kingpin Katie, affirmed. 

‘Yes, slight kick,” reported barman Tommy and so, hearing “curry” and “kick” in the same sentence, I ordered, not a cup, but a bowl.  

The soup, I tell you,  was superb. 

I wanted it to last all evening. . 

Yes, this was at New Castle’s Primo on a Friday night, where Katie runs the show and barman Tommy knows what the whole city drinks and may even get it to you before you’re seated.

You have surely noticed? 

Several new restaurants have joined Primo in the downtown area. 

There’s “Ink and Ale,” “Ky’s American Bistro,” “Blue River Tap House,” “That’s My Dog,” and the newly renovated “Twin Lions.”

While I have visited some newbies in town I like to drop into Primo, slide in through the front door and take the first bar seat on the left. It’s an observer seat and it gives me a barfly feeling (a secret longing I have harbored for years) when I “007” in this way. 

At Primo I have Tommy, my own barman.

I’ve never had a barman before, a man who knows exactly how to serve Club Soda,  my drink of choice. It’s the only drink I’ve really ever over-indulged in any bar my travels have taken me, although, to be perfectly honest, I did have a White Russian in Sicily on one occasion. I repeated the act when the friend who challenged me in Sicily did so again when we visited Primo together. 

Back to the Katie soup: the texture was divine, the spicy kick was just strong enough to warm my inners but not enough to water my eyes. 

Perfect. 

I’m sure there was a little carrot added for coloring but I could be wrong. 

Katie did say there was leek and coconut milk.

Perfect, I tell you.

Downtown I am not only encouraged by the restaurants, you might also have noticed that apart from restaurants, there’s a rapid rise in the number of AirBnBs.

 As the same goes “a rising tide lifts all ships” and so, yes, the increase in restaurants, the increase in the number of AirBnBs, and by the way, an increase in the use of Uber, is all good news for all us who live here. It’s good news for the local economy, for the mayor and the city council. It’s good news for all involved in the county’s economic development, and for the Henry County Community Foundation.

I love so much about living here: the fact that there are no parking meters and there are seldom traffic jams, the fact that I can get to major shopping outlets within five minutes from my home. 

And, I love it here because Tommy knows just when I have enough to drink on my undercover barfly jaunts to Primo so I don’t find myself in the soup.

Rod Smith is the director of OpenHand International, INC. a New Castle based nonprofit which supports local and international causes.  

• Make contact with your estranged sister, brother, in-law, former friend, whomever, and check out if there is an opportunity for reconciliation. Reconciliation is good for the soul, all souls. 
• Do some writing about your life: take a simple memorable moment (good or not so good) and put it on paper using a pencil and paper. Edit and enlarge and you will see it grow into further recollections. Getting these on paper will do its part in restoring your soul and you may discover you’re an excellent writer.  
• Take at 24 hours of a break from your several electronic leashes, then see if you can do it for a whole weekend. I predict, once conquer the withdrawal symptoms, you’ll discover connection and beauty with the immediate people and things in your life.
• Leave your phone at home or in your car when you meet with friends. It may result in your being able to give them your full and undivided attention.
• Next time you meet with a group of friends see if it’s possible to NOT talk about your children, spouses, people who are absent. You may discover you have nothing to talk about – which is exactly my point.   

Early morning outside my Dream Center window…..

Some things are always a choice. The choice may be loaded (difficult to make). The choice may be obscure. The choice may seem unreasonable and/or counter-intuitive. But, some things remains a choice: 

To choose to be decent (kind, well-meaning) to people, difficult people, people who seem hurt and hard to please, people who are rough and tough as a result of things that have nothing whatsoever to do with you and perhaps even nothing to do with them. This choice, to be decent under all circumstances, is a choice that must be made long in advance so that when encountering such people you’re already in the captain’s seat of your own life, your emotions, and your responses.

To choose to be non-reactive, to be a non-anxious presence, when a context or conflict or foes anticipate a reaction from you. There is no inner-switch you can turn on or off in an instant and be this way. Non-anxious behavior, being a non-anxious presence takes years of practice in smaller matters so that when larger matters come along your responses are natural, an expression of who and what you are.

To choose to listen and to wait before you speak and to weigh your words before they leave you is again, a choice, a habit worth forming.

Let it be, all three, for you and for me.  

An original card, received from a friend

• Empower children to be adventurous without suggesting danger exists at every turn. Over-hearing some parents you’d think calamity is possible at every moment.

• Empower children to settle sibling differences. Adult intervention is sometimes necessary but negotiation skills are worthy of development.

• Empower their children to speak up for themselves. You may have heard parents “shush” their children and create “no-go” topics.   

• Empower children to speak about what is important to the children. They avoid “tell Aunty about your……..” and encourage “tell Aunty whatever you want (or not).” 

• Empower children to wait when adults are talking and to be respectful of adults engaged in conversations. Constantly demanding and getting center-stage is hardly helpful to the other adults or to children. 

• Empower children by speaking in your normal voice and by using your normal language. While it is tempting to “ooh” and “coo” with a baby he or she will respond to your regular voice, too, and learn the language you want him or her to speak.

• Empower children by promoting the idea of private space among siblings and conversations that do not include the parents. The hope is your children will have each other longer than they will have you.

No-strings-attached Superpowers 

All humans have Superpowers. When acknowledged and deployed, we have the capacity to radically positively transform our immediate circle of influence.

Hospitality is a superpower. As powerful as opening our home to guests and strangers is, it goes beyond that. It’s opening our hearts to all whom we encounter. It’s simple friendliness, a no-strings-attached welcome to all. 

Generosity is a superpower. It’s instinctive to share, to give, to alleviate burdens for others. When we extend this natural gift to those who least expect it from us, it elevates natural generosity into a superpower. It’s planned, no-strings-attached sharing of time and resources. 

Listening is a superpower. When we offer people undistracted, no-phone-glancing attention or one-eye-scrolling distraction and hang onto every word someone says, we validate his or her story, his or her existence, and our own. It’s a no-strings-attached gift proclaiming “I see, hear, value you” in an often indifferent world. 

Equality is a superpower. The capacity to treat all other people as equals (which we are) and with respect (which all deserve) is a superpower. We can learn powerful lessons from anyone and everyone. This no-strings-attached acknowledgment of the treasures within all people, respects and elevates and empowers all.

Combine and live The Four, and you may well unearth beauty and power you’ve intuitively always known are within you.

“My daughter-in-law is known to be a difficult person. She wants her own way in  all things. Even her mother says this. I am fine with this except when it comes to their children who are 3 and 5 years old boys. When I get to baby-sit the children I get a list of rules and times and even some of the things I am not allowed to say. I feel as if I have never raised children and I did. I have 5 sons and daughters who are all now successful and loving adults and who love me and show it. What should I do?”

I’d suggest you do not resist her wishes when caring for your grandchildren. As a new and comparatively inexperienced mom she is adjusting to what it means to love her children and she wants to do a better job than all the mothers who have preceded her. I’m suggesting that the mother (and your son) will start to see how resilient and willful children can be and will in time let up on their rigidity. Your on-going relationship with your adult children and their spouses and with your grandchildren is far more important than you getting your way, much like your daughter-in-law wants hers. Ma’m, you have parented 5 successful adults! You can do anything.

It’s not a widely known but I drive Uber some days. 

And, just short of 1500 trips over 2.5 years, I love it.

I love it because driving for Uber allows me to meet people I would otherwise hardly have the opportunity to meet.

In the process I’ve become thoroughly aware that it is often the so-called rich who are truly poor, and the poor, who are often really rich.

Uber rides are often reserved by providers of specialized services. These organizations (like adult day-care centers, hospitals, rehab facilities) reserve the rides for the clients.

We either bring the passenger to  such services or take the passenger home after the services have been rendered.

Last night I picked up a man (J) and his support dog (D) who were headed for a rehabilitation facility.

J and D entered my vehicle in quiet humility. We chatted about many things in our hour-long drive. We talked about cars and healthy living. We talked about our sons and daughters. J offered brief and poignant insights into some of the pain he has endured.

J revealed the hope he was experiencing as we drove to what would be his home for at least a number of weeks. 

He gave me hope for my future as he revealed his hope in his own.