For instance, during the first Invincible Voice call, I had several revelations.

Number One: Although it makes sense to record these calls from my home office (the reception is better there), it is important to move the parroting parrot away from the phone.

Number Two (closely related to Number One): Maggie, the elsewhere-mentioned rescued-and-not-housebroken golden, must be let out before the call begins or she will loudly ring the brass bells by the door.  Alternatively, she can be locked out of the kitchen, but this incurs some risk as 70-pound dogs drink in liters.

Number Three: The land line will ring while I am talking.  Therefore, it must be stuffed under a pillow.

Number Four: Eating a (really good) fudge brownie before trying to talk for 20 minutes straight: drooly mistake.

And Number Five — well, upon realizing that I had forgotten #5 last time, that is, to put Joggie, the grunting hedge hog (and Maggie’s favorite toy) on top of the refrigerator,  I just muttered to myself “Jelly Side Down” and carried on.

Actually, I thought perhaps if Joggie were to be heard grunting through the phone, as long as people knew it wasn’t me, it would likely be the best call ever.

(Disclaimer: It occurs to me to mention here, to eliminate any possibility of confusion, that Maggie also has a habit of walking up to me and burping loudly into the phone.)

As my aunt, who used to launch into peals of laughter over similar questionable behavior, likes to say, “Who has more fun?”

My own practice field for living is the piano, and the power of this metaphor resurfaced as I was preparing for a No Lost Voices talk. Each group that I speak to is a little different from all the others. There are many threads to weave together and multiple objectives to be kept in mind while facilitating this conversation. As I mentally outlined all of this, my mind leapt to Claude Debussy’s Reverie which I’ve recently taken out to play — and which I invite you to listen to, sink into, for a moment now while you read.

Playing — it means to study, to channel the composer’s intentions through the keys, to experience. The pianist is charged with ensuring that none of the voices in a complex piece of music are lost, that each is presented and can be heard in its own range and volume.  Follow the separate voices in this deeply beautiful piece with your ear and you will hear always two and sometimes three threads simultaneously telling their parts of the story.  Each thread is spectacular in its simplicity; together they form an eloquent whole, a whole that is compromised unless each thread is played fully.

And so it will be when this next group of friends meets in a cozy living room, a spot of light on a dark January night, to take up the topic of No Lost Voices.  Each person in the room is a container for the multiple strands of voice that we think of as Self; the group is comprised of the threads woven from those strands.  I can hardly wait to hear the sound of this group, a blend of voices unique to this winter night.

* * * * * *

Emotions swirl more wildly than snowflakes during the winter holidays; an abruptly developing storm is not so much a surprise as an expected part of the mix of the details and pressures of families, those unlikely collections of quirky individuals, getting together.  So when my daughter, in the midst of an undignified wrestling match with a dull, right-handed scissors (she’s a lefty) and a roll of flimsy (okay, cheap) wrapping paper announced in utter disgust that she was staying home, it was just one of those holiday things to be gotten through.

To her in that moment, what was the point of all this fuss; of expending blood, sweat and tears (perhaps literally; I should have replaced the scissors, but honestly, I was using the good one and was in a rush of my own) — to wrap gifts in paper that would “end up in a landfill the day after tomorrow?”  Obviously, she was going downhill in a wheelbarrow, as her father would say.

Earlier that day, I had heard a recording of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, played on the air by Terry Gross (Fresh Air).  Terry’s affection for this particular delivery summoned up imprints in my mind, bright images of moments when my daughters and I had created occasions to be together with friends or family.  The efforts to make these things happen had been monumental — but all the mess is largely forgotten; only the constellations in that inner sky of memory remain.  So my Leo’s and Orion’s are a midnight campfire on the beach, a ferry ride on the ocean, a Hendrick-style birthday for someone who had never experienced one before, a drive in the country so baby Belle could be there while my younger daughter and son-in-law chose a tree for her first Christmas, and most recently a one-day round trip to Chicago for a bridal shower where we (I) accidentally drove almost to Iowa by mistake –

Every single one was logistical chaos, impractical and tons of trouble.

I wouldn’t trade a single one of those moments.

This I explained to my daughter, saying some other possibly (read: definitely) unhelpful things as well, and falling into sudden hysterical laughter at her flash of rage over paper that “tears from the corner of a box but is impervious to scissors!“  This, too, was not useful to her; she threatened to simply drop the gift into a grocery bag; I gave a withering response about how the way gifts are given demonstrates caring.  Suddenly I realized that this was my gift, and I was quiet after that, fortunately, since it turned out to be a gourmet 6-quart saucepan, unwrappable by the best… But wrapped, nonetheless.

The squall subsided, but of course; the holiday was better than wonderful.  Its pure wonderfulness underscored the sadness that followed.

Upon our return home the next day, my daughter was faced with the terrible, indelible, incomprehensible news of the loss of a friend.  Without warning and for no reason that could be accepted, her friend had been taken.  “This is  crazy!” she thought to herself, “I have to call Juana to ask what in the world is going on –” and then realized with that deeply human despair that she could not call Juana, ever again.

* * * * * *

Your voice, the spark of the universe that resides within you — please share it today.  Tomorrow is not promised.

And so, I wish for you and yours a joyful new year filled with the sounds of your voices ringing clearly as bells.   Our stay is brief, but if we look and listen, we truly are surrounded by The Beauty of the Earth (your gift — and you can open it now!).

I don’t think I fully appreciated this possibility as the first-time mom of an infant who seemed to have only two settings: scream and catnap (with one eye open). But the perspective of years and the tremendous advantage of a good night’s sleep seem to have a substantial positive effect on one’s powers of observation. That is my impression, anyhow, though I’ve chosen not to ask anyone directly, “Don’t you think I see more clearly than I did 30 years ago — or is it just me?”

But to return to the point, take this engaging conversation with my very first grandchild, Belle who is now six and a half.

Mimi: “Belle, how delightful to see you!”

Belle: “I’m so happy to see you, too, Mimi! But Mimi! Please note that there’s not so much as a scrap of breakfast left in my tummy!”

Mimi: “How about a little snackerel of something, Belle?”

Belle: “Well, yes, I think I might!”

Mimi: “Ummmm! Yummy milk!”

Belle [by turns]: “Now I want it, now I don’t.  Ha!  How clever am I! Now I want it, now I don’t.  Look what I can do!”

And so she went on, fascinating me with her fascination.

You’ve determined, of course, that Baby Belle is six and a half in months, not years.  While my daughter and son-in-law and I each secretly believe that her joyful exhales of “Haaaaai!” actually constitute an official greeting directly personally at us, mostly we’re not delusional and know that she can’t talk yet (probably).

In words, that is.  Because Belle and I absolutely had this conversation today, but I would have missed it if I’d been busy or distracted or if I’d just been listening and not watching.  Belle’s sharp eyes dart around, watching everything, and her face and hands and actually her whole body speak for her.  She breaks into a smile of delight as a greeting and exhales (or says –  you decide), “Haaaaaaai.” She reaches for her bottle, takes a few long satisfying slurps, and then looks up and pushes it away.  She smiles, then, and reaches to pull it back, deliciously well-pleased with her ability to express and implement a choice.

Belle is talking.  And she is surrounded by people who are “raising” her voice by carefully paying attention and receiving her messages. Already she speaks with joy and confidence.

Hers will not be a lost voice. And if someday as a teenager in search of independence, she offers us fewer words, how important that she is teaching us now how to listen without them.

“Why are you doing this?”

There was some skepticism, maybe a fear that I’d show up and deliver some kind of sales pitch.

Well, I actually understood that when I thought about it later.  I’d just come from a presentation much like that.  The promised information was re-promised — for $3000.  If you purchased before leaving the room.

But the idea that I could be perceived that way hadn’t really occurred to me as an issue.

It was a good question, I decided.  Tough questions often are.

So no, No Lost Voices is not a sales pitch.  I’m committed to this project because I intend to make a difference.

There’s far too much needless pain that results when people are prevented from speaking.  I want to get people talking about that.  I want to get parents — and teachers –thinking about it for their kids.  And I want to free up those voices because our communities need them.

But most of all it’s because each individual human being is entitled to self-expression.  Without it, our sparks dim and become buried out of our reach, hopelessness gains ground, despair sets in.  Human beings should not be locked away inside themselves.

Not ever.

That’s the why of the No Lost Voices challenge.

It’s not like women don’t already have enough of a fight against feeling inadequate. Trying to be a 50′s mom with a new millennium career and manage a household flawlessly, often with no outside help — well, believing that this is possible is simply a delusion! At least for most of us. Okay — certainly for me.

And now all of that is no longer enough. The bar has been raised. “Adequate” people are supposed to be able to point to something and say, “This is my passion” — and then build a life or a career around it.

Which is great in theory. But it leaves women hammering away at themselves trying to pound out whatever their “passion” is supposed to be. And you usually can’t find it that way.

But what really is possible is to have passionate moments by following sparks of curiosity and energy. I think out of those sparks a pattern emerges, over time, making it possible to have and share more and more of those passionate moments.

I think that’s good enough. Imagine what the world would be like if more of us did that –

[Read the No Lost Voices kick-off post here.]

The promise of that statement is the heart of No Lost Voices .

The challenge: to deliver the message of No Lost Voices to 100 groups in 50 weeks, come rain, snow, sleet or stagefright. It is about reaching women – whether adults or teens — whose selves are buried and whose voices have been lost; it is about informing parents, mentors and people in positions of influence and authority so that this happens to fewer and fewer girls and women – and when it does happen, it is not so extreme. It is about sparing as many as possible the pain of struggling to know Who am I? Do I have a right to be that? Am I good enough? It is about encouraging you if you must travel this difficult path.

The vision: No Lost Voices

Inspiration always seems to strike when there’s not a pen handy.  No Lost Voices started that way – at 70 miles per hour in the dark.

My older daughter and I were driving home from Indianapolis late at night after a pleasant little day trip.  Élise is very politically aware – and outspoken about her beliefs.  Inevitably our conversation drifted to the state of the world – and of our own country — which, it must be admitted, is in all too many aspects in serious trouble.  What can one person do in the face of such rampant abuses of power, I wondered.

My answer to that, shaped in the car that night, is that we can each throw ourselves into what we do best.  For Élise, that is writing, internationally.  For me, it is helping women reconnect with the essence of themselves – which they have so often lost along the way in the interest of meeting the needs and expectations of everybody else.   Change at any level begins with people finding their own voices.

If I look back, that really was the start of the No Lost Voices challenge.

So that’s what I’m setting out to do.  It’s liable to be a path filled with fascinating people (and some really rotten ones), heroic stories, unexpected (and expected) stumbling blocks, continuous learning, and metaphorically dropping a peanut butter sandwich “jelly side down” (thank you so much, Nancy Stahl) more than a few times.  I’ll keep you posted.  Starting tomorrow.

Oh, okay! Starting now.

Trying to capture in words what I understood in the car driving home in the dark — paradoxically, insight always dawns at night, it seems. I had turned on the radio and entered into a collage of Erich Kunzel’s life and work, a memorial. Kunzel, the conductor of the Cincinnati Pops, left this life just recently, conducting, in spite of cancer, almost to the end.

Erich Kunzel: a life fully lived; his gift fully shared and not held back…. This thought immediately overshadowed by another — The brevity of life; what’s the point, I felt in that moment. The enormity of the loss combined with the brevity of the gift of his presence; what’s the point, I asked again…

But it is the life we are in. Whether it is, by turns, hell or purgatory or heaven, we are not allowed to know while we are in it. There is nothing left except to live it.

And living it for me – I have just now understood, little by little I am understanding – it is about no more lost girls. It is about finding the ones whose selves are buried; it is about teaching parents so that it happens to fewer and fewer – and when it does happen, it is not so extreme – so that as many as I can touch are spared the pain that I myself experienced and are encouraged if they must travel through it.

It is a sacred purpose worthy of a life.