A New Home for the Unboxed Life

Faithful readers! The Unboxed Life has moved to a new home. Find me here: http://www.mindamagero.com and follow my current national book tour from the West Coast to the East Coast and back!

Talk to you soon!

Men Are Delightful Creatures

Picture by gq.com

I’ve written a few posts to celebrate women and only one about men so far (one gentleman, to be specific). So I thought it was time for another post celebrating men. Did you know that November 19th is the International Men’s Day? I found out too late, but I’ll let this piece count towards that.

For this post, I got together with a group of my single, female friends and asked them what they admire in men. While we certainly appreciate the benefits that women’s lib won for our generation of women, we also find that we quite enjoy men. Here are twelve manly qualities we can write home about:

Courage/Boldness: we all seemed to think that this is the essence of a man. When a man acts boldly in the face of uncertainty, like approaching a woman whose feelings he is not sure of, or risking difficult conversations even with the possibility of losing relationship in the process, we fairly want to give him a standing ovation.

Gentleness: the dictionary defines this as a deliberate kindness in dealing with others. Not severe, harsh, cruel, rough or violent. Gentleness is one of the qualities we most treasure in men. We see it, for example, in a father playing with his children. He must be gentle in order not to hurt them; he must constrain his strength.

Action: men are about fixing things; they quickly look for solutions to problems. We appreciate this about them because it actually gets things done. Although sometimes all the lady wants is a sympathetic ear.

Brawn: hallelujah! We are thankful that men are generally strong enough to lift and carry heavier things than we can. So helpful! The last time I moved, a female friend and I were lugging a queen mattress between us, trying to get it into the truck. A male friend who was helping us move came to the rescue with the words, “Here, let me take that.” He lifted the thing above his head as though it weighed just a few pounds, and had it neatly stacked in the back of the truck in no time at all. OK, then.

Steadiness, Stability: now, my friends and I agree that there’s something about being in the presence of manliness that just makes us feel safe and protected. Men have this uncanny ability to remain unperturbed in crises, and to give reassurance. A man’s steady presence comforts and gives the sense that everything will work out just fine, even if he can’t do anything to change the current situation.

Leadership: we love it when men rise to the occasion and show leadership, assessing what’s important in the given situation and communicating direction. We find confidence that is tempered by kindness very attractive.

Attentiveness (a.k.a. Gentlemanliness): we know we’re living in post-feminist times; however, we are of the mind that gentlemanliness will never grow old or become obsolete. Some women may not like manly attentiveness, but we do! We enjoy it when men are intentional about getting doors for us, pulling out chairs, helping us into our coats, offering to help with heavy loads. Thank you, men!
I strive to verbally appreciate attentiveness and not take it for granted. I’ll thank my future husband ten times a day, if that’s how many times he holds a door for me.

Male Bonding: men, when you hang out with “the boys,” we notice that a completely different side of you comes out. We enjoy watching that: the humor, camaraderie, competitiveness, and your working side-by-side. It’s so different from the way women bond, and it’s wonderful.

Vulnerability: one of my friends got a letter from her dad when she went off to college. It read, in part, “I know I haven’t been a good father, but I’m trying to change.” Her dad went on to acknowledge specific shortcomings and list ways in which he would change. How beautiful is that? Glimpses of the tenderness behind the armor deeply touch us.

Speaking Affirmation: there’s something about the sound of a man’s voice that can grab hold of you and make you pay attention. When men speak affirming words, they burrow deep into the soul and make a person blossom. No wonder children are so deeply affected by their fathers! Fathers communicate identity–either positive or negative. It’s a wonderful thing when a man uses the strength of his voice to build others up.

Provision: men delight in providing, whether they have families or not. Provision goes far beyond “bringing home the bacon.” As single women, we have experienced this when our male friends have, for instance, checked that our cars are running as they should, or that our apartments or houses are secure enough.

Male Perspective: it’s no secret that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Still, the consensus in our girl-talk session was that we are grateful for the male point-of-view. Case in point: a few years back I was in an emotionally unhealthy relationship. I kept overlooking the red flags. My good friend William, after observing things for a while, stepped in with sage advice: “Forget that dude. He doesn’t value you, and he’s wasting your time.” That helped get me out of a rough situation.

My friends and I have had the pleasure of knowing men that embody these wonderful qualities, and we are better for it. We love you, men! You delight our hearts (most of the time).

Fiery Love

Wow, it’s already May! The older I get, the faster time seems to go by. I have so much going on in this season of my life and I’m trying hard to keep up with it all. I’m in the middle of writing my 2nd poetry book (The Book of Mysteries is the first one). Along the way, I’ll be sharing a few selections from it. It’s a book about love; its different stages and faces.

Today’s selection is about a violent attraction I had for a fine, young man. One day, I walked into a room to find him alone, sitting there, looking impossibly handsome and asking after my day. Sparks flew between us. The pull towards each other was so strong that, for the first time in my life, I was afraid of it. Afraid that it wouldn’t take much at all for us to discard our clothing in pursuit of that deepest of intimacies.

Thankfully, we chose to keep our clothes on and to honor each other physically, since we weren’t married to each other. We chose to wait. This poem sums it all up:

Some days when I walk into your space
You’re smoldering like embers
And I’m kindling for the fire.
The winds pick up
Sparks crackle between us
The temperature inches towards boiling point.

But because I love you
And you honor me
We choose not to light this fire today.
We choose to rein in our passions
Until the covenant is sealed.
For a fire contained
Will warm us and our children
But a fire that rages
Will raze our house to the ground.

© 2011 Minda Magero

Picture: Christine Kysely

The Pursuer

In celebration of love, I submitted the following extremely short story (140 words) for the Burning Love Contest at the MikChiks blog. Thought I’d share it with you, too.
_____________

Thilo begged for English conversation lessons. Nina consented, little suspecting he was mad for her. It became evident after a month of conversations. Since he wasn’t her type, she kept things formal to spare him the heartbreak.

On a group weekend getaway to the countryside, a friend said, “Rumor has it you two are dating.”

“There’s nothing between us!” Nina quickly pointed out.

“Let’s give them something to talk about,” Thilo said. “Let’s pretend we’re engaged.”

He called her sweetheart, sat next to her at meals, held her hand on snowy walks.

That last morning, Nina felt Thilo’s eyes adoring her across the breakfast table. She sat opposite him, suddenly shy after months of knowing him.

“Honey, don’t hide your eyes from me.”

She looked up at him, lost in the wonder of love, grateful that he’d loved her first.

Image: by Jan

I Love Women

I’ve wanted to write another positive post about women for a while now (earlier posts are here). All because of a female blogger I stumbled upon last year. She is a misogynist, even though she’d be the last to admit it.

Apart from her small group of immediate family and close friends, she holds the view that women are bickering b*****s–insanely jealous of each other (in her case, of her good looks), and unable to get along with each other. She is well-traveled and swears that women are the same everywhere: argumentative, petty and mean. She prefers to work and play with men. Her posts always made me want to say, Billions of Blue Blistering Barnacles and Thundering Typhoons! Excuse me, what??

I’m almost certain the problem lay with her; not with other women. There is just no way all the women she met could have been so terrible. I have known many women in my relatively short life, and they have been the support that has carried me through some of the worst seasons of my life. They also make up the fabric of some of my favorite memories of being fully alive and happy.

One of my BFFs and I were once unwittingly caught up in a love triangle. Jean-Marc had just told Sofia he had feelings for her; she didn’t have feelings for him. As she shared this with me, I informed her that I had feelings for Jean-Marc, which he seemed to reciprocate. Sofia and I were both shocked. Jean-Marc later declared he had no feelings for me. As you can imagine, it was a hot mess. I wanted the world to end.

The months that followed were difficult, at best. But early on, Sofia and I had decided that we would fight for our friendship. We valued it too much to allow this storm stirred up by a man’s mishandling of relationships to destroy it. Sofia and I showed up for needful conversations with each other that were sometimes beyond painful. We honored each other. Privately, we each wept and railed and agonized. And we continually chose love and forgiveness, sometimes several times in one day.

As months went by and healing came, our friendship emerged from the storm even stronger than before. Sofia is one of my greatest champions. She fights for my dreams and I for hers. She wouldn’t hesitate, if she had to jump into the path of an oncoming train to save me. I’d do the same for her. You can’t convince me that women are horrible.

Women are deeply relational, tender and compassionate. When we live from our true selves, rather than from our woundedness, we release a fragrance of beauty that smooths out the rough edges of life. We love fiercely and well. We invite the world to life, to elegance and laughter, to vulnerability and goodness.

I love women.

*Picture by Sujin Jetkasettakorn

Dating in the City

I thought I’d start 2012 by doing something really new, so I went speed dating (perhaps subconsciously inspired by Hitch). I’ve begun to notice a pattern with dating: in smaller cities, I get asked out more, even by strangers I run into on the street. In bigger cities, the fish aren’t biting. And in the church, there is a crisis. I much prefer to meet people face-to-face, rather than date online, so speed dating was the next best thing to being asked out by someone in my circles.

The only information I had about the evening was that I should expect to have 12 dates in the 2-hour period. Not bad for one who hasn’t been on a formal date in years. I arrived at the midtown lounge with a good friend, whom I’d convinced to join me on this adventure. We signed in and were directed to our seats, based on numbers that were assigned to us. I had expected more fun and games at the event–more structure–but the 5-minute dates were free-form.

My dates ranged from highly entertaining men (some with the help of mind-altering drinks) and decent conversationalists, to socially awkward ones. The 5-minute slots seemed alternately too short, just right or never-ending. Right off the bat, most men wanted to talk about work. Once that was out of the way, I’d steer the conversation to my favorite question of the night: What do you do for fun? Invariably, those who were stumped by the question were the ones who made the 5-minute date seem like an eternity. No life outside of work = No date!

One of my dates pontificated about the Greeks and their varied expressions of love for our entire 5 minute-slot. Greek lesson? No, thank you. Running one’s mouth is no way to pique a woman’s interest. I might have told him that, had he let me get a word in edgewise. Two men made me laugh so hard with their ridiculous stories about daily life, that when the bell rang and our time was up, we felt like we had just begun. I’m so glad one of them was my final date for the night. It was a good way to go out.

Although I’d actually expected that more fun activities would be incorporated into the evening, I enjoyed the evening and would do it again. Now I’m trying to come up with a modified version of speed dating to add to my Bringing Sexy Back repertoire, the relationship seminars I have hosted since 2010. See, I’m bothered enough by the scarcity of romantic relationships among my peers to do something about it. For the most part, I think today’s young adults don’t know how to do relationships.

What do you think?

Becoming You

As a multifaceted artist, I’ve grappled for years with the idea of finding my voice. Often we find it hard to become the people we were meant to be because we grow up in environments that constantly compare us to each other. No two snowflakes are alike, yet no one ever says, “I like this snowflake better than the other one.” Each of us is like a snowflake—unique and beautiful.

Well into adulthood and after pursuing a number of majors in college, I finally realized that I’m happiest when I’m creative. So I dove into poetry, writing, painting, singing—with little or no formal training. At first I was afraid that I wouldn’t measure up to people who had formal training or far more experience in these areas. But I have come to realize that my goal is not to be as good as other people are, but to be the best that I can be.

Vincent van Gogh, a 19^th century impressionist painter, said, “If you hear a voice inside you saying, ‘You are not a painter,’ then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.” That quote—and finding out that elephants could paint (what?!)—inspired me to attempt new things, including painting.

It’s not about who thinks you’re a painter or who doesn’t. It’s not about how many albums of your music you can sell or how much you can sell them for. It’s about whether what you are doing brings you joy, even if no one else likes your work. It’s about giving yourself permission to explore things you’re passionate about and room to come up with original ideas.

Take some time to list a number of things that make you come alive. Then ask yourself, “Am I doing any of these things?” If you’re not, what’s holding you back? One of my mentors, T. K. Henderson, recently said to me, “If you’re not walking in your purpose, the world is unbalanced. Don’t let fear hold you back.”

It’s your time. Become who you were meant to be.