When I started in my second career, leaving journalism for marketing/communications, I focused on building relationships between companies and their clients. It is still what I do today and it is proving to be the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach to building business.

I’m happy with this premise. I love what I do. And it amazes me that when I reflect on my 38 years, on all the varied experiences I’ve had and created, relationships are at the core of everything.

You may say that’s a given, a “duh”! But it’s not. I more than most have trained my energies and my desires on relationships above all else. There are moments when I lament that I didn’t go to Harvard or live abroad because I was so focused on the relationships of the moment.

Now, I realize that relationships were my raison d’etre. That it’s ok, that we gravitate toward what we need and what we do well, whether we want to or not.

How many of us spend our lives perfecting the art of the message? Navigating the bumpy road of communicating?

Today, I beseech each of you to think about what it is that drives you, what your core focus is, what you were meant to do. I teach my children that we are put on this earth to help make it a better place, to contribute positively to the future. I am imbued with this message because otherwise the moments are meaningless.

Have a good day. Make sure you do.

Time has been good to us. To me. At my 20th high school reunion Saturday night, a classmate commented that he thinks we’re in the best times of our lives. I have to agree.

It was surreal and fun and uncanny. People I’ve known since I was small, sat behind in stiff chairs or at play tables in Kindergarten. (Fraser Wylie, that’s you!) Reminiscing about inflatable letter people and tennis team and pom pon and big hair and brightly-colored, oversized clothes and all the other minute details that made our lives in the 1980s.

And we shared details about today, too. Babies on the way or just born, children compelling all of our time, careers and spouses and ex-spouses and no spouses.

If I am an amalgam of my experiences, then I have to say that many of the people I spent this past Saturday night with have a little corner of the sculpture that is me.

For some, high school was their heyday and they spend every day since looking back. Not me. I loved high school but it was formative, not ideal. I had big hair and big insecurities and lots of odd boyfriends. (Well, some things don’t change!)

Have we all forgotten those aimless summer nights driving around in a half-baked car late at night, searching for something called Self? Inhaling the heady scent of youth, that’s something powerful. I am more grounded now, happier, confident. I suppose that’s what is supposed to happen in time.

In time, we all find what we need. At least most of us do. And the ultimate irony is that it was always there all the time, right inside.

Is that just the path of youth? To look outside ourselves until we can no longer and then turn our eyes inward to see the truth? The truth that rode shotgun the whole time.

I loved high school. I loved so many of the people I knew then but you know, I think I like them even more today. We’re all refined and focused and, well, fun.

I loved college, too, but it wasn’t that same sense of cohesion and community that you get from growing up down the street from people. Maybe everyone in their 30s had this, but in Farmington Hills in the 1970s and 1980s, we had neighborhoods where all the kids ran free in between the houses. We played in the Commons and jumped on the trampoline and drove to Burger King for lunch or back to my house because it was ok to have everyone over all the time.

I had a great childhood. And still I made some bad decisions as an adult. Nothing is ideal. It’s only real.

Real life. Full of unfortunate breaks, wrong turns and missteps. And most of us recover. And some of us don’t. And the sun rises again each day, a new chance. Jason A., this blog is for you.

Nothing is quite as it seems. There is the surface meaning and then what lies beneath and then the perception, which varies from individual to individual.

You already know I’m a fan of Seth Godin, who favors leaders over followers and preaches about building tribes. His exact history is hard to pinpoint - he has made it so that we cannot learn much about who, exactly, he is but rather focus on his pervasive messages.

I am also a fan of Steve Jobs, Apple founder. Today I’d like to share with you some of Jobs’ wise words because in these difficult times, when so many people are seeking to reinvent themselves and find anchors and dry land amid a tumultuous economic storm, we need the simple but powerful inspiration that comes from hearing something phrased in a way that is different than it sounds between our ears.

* Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. Perhaps you don’t want to be a leader - you just want a job, a paycheck, an easy-to-follow set of instructions. That may come and it may not and in the meantime, be the determiner of your own destiny.

* There is no shortcut to excellence. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Pay attention to the details.

* Seek meaning, and success will follow. Strive to make a difference in the world and contribute to the greater good. Don’t preach, don’t be self-righteous, eschew competition. Talk about what you’re doing because in the urbane discussion comes enlightenment and inspiration. There is always enough to go around. 

* Embrace mistakes. Every successful person has failed at something - and changed their lives or work or perspective because of it.

* Live and work with purpose. We are here to make a difference, to “put a dent in the universe.” Each of us was born with a gift - find yours and let it guide you. It is your purpose.

I’ve just returned from a week in northern Michigan, with my three precious children running on the grass and at the lapping shores of Lake Michigan with their cousins. I went sailing and my eldest son dipped his legs in the cold waters of the deep lake. My little one steered the boat and charmed the captains. My daughter doted on her 9-month-old baby cousin. And we barbecued in the evenings and watched movies until well after dark.

During this reprieve, a yearly gift from my parents to me, my siblings and eight children among the three of us, a series that I wrote appeared in ReadTheSpirit.com. Here is the link.

It is a series about inspiration and reinvention and innovating our self-definitions. It is about my client, Hiller’s Markets, and some special programs that I have been fortunate to be part of. Please read this. I hope you find it as inspiring as I do.

Times are tough. But the world is not at an end. I am from a city that has for too long defined itself on the successes (and failures) of a single industry. We face a new time that can, if we let it, give us gifts, open our eyes and redefine how we live each day. I believe there is a new dawn ahead, if we can only look for the fingers of light between the trees.

I can see the lake from my bedroom window. So many times I’ve found myself in the far reaches of this state I’ve always called home and every time I am soothed by the quiet, the tall pine trees, the smooth view of endless lake. The cool air, the long slow sunset, the immediate sunrise and melodious song of morning birds. All of this wrapped in a week away from tasks and to do lists.

                Once, it was Interlochen and a small rented rustic cabin with John, my first love. Late October, the air colder than anticipated. I slept in a man’s brown sweater and the arms of my college boyfriend and not a sound occurred in the night.

                We ate in restaurants and canoed glass-still lakes and walked on silent, pine-needle carpet of forest trails. And I listened to his boom-deep voice and wondered where we would end up, was our love real enough to last.                It is sixteen years since that weekend escape and I am a mother of three young children alone in the

                The sailboat at the dock beckons, its sails tied up tight, its sobriquet painted in delicate swirls on the hull. Behind closed eyes, I feel the wind’s pull and the luring fingers of the tide and freeing crest of waves.

                How the sun dances on my nose in the coolness of a confident sail. Where I am right now … it is good. The fear of the unknown paralyzes; I will not give in to the swell and pull. The clarity of a new morning before me, understanding nuance of lawn and pavement, hill and cliff, tree groves and deep, deep lake.                Sometimes our path is not as clearly outlined as we had imagined. Sometimes it is the unexpected turn in the road that is the best journey yet.                When I was a graduate student in the hills of

It’s that voice in my head, my personal party line from long ago, the insistence on low weight, straight hair, blond, and blue eyes, as if we have total control over our very being. As if how much I weigh will in any way determine the kind of person I am.

The other day, my daughter said she won’t wear glasses, even though she has trouble seeing in the distance. Why? “Because I won’t look good in glasses,” my 5-year-old princess proclaimed. She is beautiful. Nothing will change that - which is what I said to her, but somehow she has already at this young age inculcated into her being that exterior factors will somehow change how she is perceived by the world.

My message is still with me. My parents’ insistence that ultra-thin is the goal to strive for, that straight hair trumps curly. My mother has spent 30 years asking for her restaurant food to be grilled “dry,” sauces “on the side,” and melting fat-free cheese slices (which do not melt) on a slice of bread for breakfast. She does not enjoy her food but my father proclaims to all who listen what a great figure Mom has “for her age.”

I say all this with the caveat that I love my family. Truly I do. But when I am away from them, I am comfortable in my skin. With my curls. With the curves of my stomach and hips. I have no desire to suck away under doctor’s lights the evidence of my 38 years and I do not want to eliminate taste and pleasure from my food.

The words we hear from early on shape us forever more. Pave our paths for years to come. One of my supreme challenges of motherhood is to measure my words and carefully carve my children’s self-images so that they stand tall, forward-facing.

Daughter, you are lovely. Flaws are inevitable and, frankly, lovable.

From Fast Company’s July/August issue:

Nature’s Simple Rules for Survival (which can be extrapolated across mediums)

1. Diversify across generations.
2. Adapt to the changing environment.
3. Celebrate transparency.
4. Plan and execute systematically, not compartmentally.
5. Form groups and protect the young.
6. Integrate metrics.
7. Improve with each cycle. Evolution is essential for long-term survival.
8. Right-size regularly, rather than downsize occasionally.
9. Foster longevity, not immediate gratification.
10. Waste nothing - recycle everything.

That is something that doesn’t happen to me often.

I went away for a week and had great adventures. I came back and immersed myself in my children. My eldest son had a minor surgery last Tuesday but a surgery nonetheless and the trying-not-to-fear-the-worst consumed me. And then after, I fell into bed with him at 8 o’clock on Tuesday night, so relieved that he was fine.

And then what?

The rest of the week ticked off like an oven timer and then it was the weekend and a holiday and I just fell into the velvety richness of my children surrounding me. A warming calm Shabbat dinner, then tranquil, inspiring services the following morning. Lunch with my grandmother after and swimming and a July 4th barbecue with friends and a party with old, old friends that culminated in fireworks high over Rackham golf course in Huntington Woods.

And so my life is full. All the lines drawn in vibrant hues and the music playing loud and the moments so dear that I didn’t want to waste one, musing.

But this blog. It is my mouthpiece and my journal and my wandering and my journey recorded. In a way, at least. And so I don’t want to neglect the words nor the page. Hell, I write so many words for others that I must reserve a most creative piece for myself.

And so here I am.

When I was in graduate school, I liked to begin a poem midway through a thought or a scene so the reader would immediately grip on and catch up to the storyline. I liked beginning with incomplete sentences and punctuating in unexpected ways.

I adored W.S. Merwin, for the challenge of having to read aloud his lines two, three times to understand where the breaks were and the emphasis.

There was a certain thrill of the page to do these unorthodox things and still craft a brilliant vivid poem.

Isn’t that the meaning of it all? The unexpected and the trusted, together? The stopping to inhale the scent of a moment so that you’ll always remember it? Committing to memory a feeling, a texture, the sound of a favorite voice.

I realized, walking along the sea wall at Vancouver’s Stanley Park that being beside, amidst or immersed in wild waters is the ultimate salve for me - all at peace, thoughts silenced to a degree, and the breeze tasted as clearly as a drink of water after a rigorous hike. 

The other night, on a cool day when rain threatened from dark gray clouds, I took the kids to a lakeside restaurant for dinner. We sat on the deck, but in the covered part, and my children kept jumping up from the table to stand at the rail and watch the reeds in the shallowest part below. Swans came close, with their ducklings, all soft white fur and smooth slow progress.

When the rain began, we were already into our food. It was enough to see the repetitious music of drops we could neither hear nor feel break the surface of the water, evidence that they were there.