Mentors, Teachers, and plain Hoodwinkers

My friend and itinerant blogger designer, Barbara De Vries  wrote a post called Womentor on her Barbidoesmiami blog that got me thinking about mentors, preachers and teachers. Preachers have been left on bookshelves in my long vacated houses. Mentors, in my case is a vacated position. Can’t think of a single one. My father died as I was busy lining up my life’s journey when I needed his guidance in what I thought were serious matters. He was in turn father, mentor, teacher, guide.  Now, some thirty five years and countless questions later I still ask the empty room I’m in from time to time, what he might advise when baffled in this complex life. There is no shortage of people ready to assume the role of advisor — offering conclusions about what I should do, where I should go and judgements about my doings — obviously individuals who have not seen enough pain.  My teachers now show up for a eureka moment, for half a day, a weekly email, a TED talk, or they sit on my night table buddha-like, words from the ancients, insistently relevant forever. I read a few sentences and stare at the wall in admiration. They don’t provide answers as much as reframe my questions. I am profoundly grateful to every one of them. I am also incredibly grateful to so many friends, a circle expanded by technology’s touch, as after decades we burst into laughter and throw a ring of support around one another. Preachers, charlatans, spiritual pitchmen, and old new agers, I have learned to spot ‘em before they say a word. They are the hoodwinkers.  Keeping one’s guidance takes practice like anything else. The actual subjects keep shifting. A schoolroom in a shoe. Each viral step leaves me flapping looking for a place to land this soul I own. There are guides for this too, but chosen with even greater care. There are no experts. At all. Anymore.  Knowing now that I don’t know anything, a mentor might appear.