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2002-11-13 - 5:41 a.m.

You can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself.

More than just words from an old Ricky Nelson song (Garden Party), the line is a guide for life, or at least for my life. Self-indulgent? Maybe, but trying to meet everyone else's expectations is like pouring water in to a sieve. Spending our lives trying to please others doesn't satisfy anyone or make anyone happy, least of all the contortionist trying to fit into a mold cast by someone else.

I may have grown into a cantankerous, independent and egotistical adult, but I was not unlike most small children: sweet, agreeable and with a huge need to be accepted and loved. Even as an adolescent I was malleable. I don't exactly know when the metamorphosis from amiable and compliant to self-pleasing and non adherent occurred, but it's been a long time since I've been putty in someone else's hands.

My noncompliance is not always well received, but the lack of enthusiasm and joie de vivre doesn't bother me. I flat out don't give a damn.

My co-workers would say I'm nonconformist (among other unfavorable things). The summer I first started in my current position I arrived in tennis shoes and khaki shorts and was greeted by one of the more uptight and stoic staff members in dress slacks, long-sleeve dress shirt and tie. One disparaging look at me and he announced a dress code was in place. He, after all, was wearing a tie. So, okay, the next day I came wearing shorts, chambray shirt--and a navy corduroy tie. It’s not that I haven’t owned some dressy little numbers; I once wore business suits and soft linen blouses and dress pumps (I haven’t been in heels since the mid-70s!). But I wasn’t happy in them. Those clothes aren’t me, I’m more L.L. Bean, LandsEnd and J. Crew. So that’s what I wear. In the eyes of some I may be dressed down, but it works for me. It works especially well when I tromp through the ditches and gullies and ghetto-like dwellings in search of a lost kid!

Part of what I do five days a week, 40 weeks a year is coordinate alternative education programs for kids not fitting the conventional mold. So many of my approaches and behaviors are--well--unconventional. My response to: “You can’t do that,” is “Watch me!” Sometimes (many times?) judged erratic and insurgent, I prefer to think of my wheelings and dealings as flexible and creative. It works for the kids; it works for the programs; it works for me.

When I moved to the wilderness several miles from town I was continually questioned about the wisdom of living out here alone. Had I truly lost my mind? Well, no, and I wasn’t alone. Emma was coming along. BlueDoggy was packed and ready to move. Mavis, the varmint catcher who’s afraid of mice and snakes, would soon join our family. Although the upwardly mobile yuppie neighborhood where I had been living might be a desired location for some, it didn’t fit me. Or maybe I didn’t conform to it. No matter, I grew weary of the muckity muck, loaded up my duds and fluffies and headed for the hills.

In my collection of 48 hats, I have 36 baseball caps. Although a baseball cap may not be haute courtre for females (though they appear to be just that these days), any time I’m told I can’t wear one because it isn’t acceptable the first damn thing I do is mine for my most vile hat and pull it low on my brow and glare at anyone daring to say anything to me. It fits my internal picture of me, and that’s the only picture of me I care about.

Though not a complete maverick, in some ways I do think rules are written for other people and not for me. Nowhere is there a rule saying I have to be what someone else wants me to be. Not for nothing is my theme song “My Way!”

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