The trouble with being an editor is that the meter's always ticking. You never know when you'll have to yank yourself out of the role of Participant in life's events and start taking notes.
Such was the case on a Saturday night not long ago. The stress articles that make up the cover story had long been edited. The hard work of the issue--kneading ideas into shape--was done. I was looking forward to a weekend not clouded by un-met deadlines.
True, I was meeting a psychologist for dinner on Saturday night, but that was hardly a chore. Robert Epstein, Ph.D., was passing through town, we had already chatted a couple of times on the phone, and we were just going to bat some ideas around. A very lively disciple of the late great B.E Skinner, he had already contributed a news article to the magazine--about the long-term outcome (excellent) of kids (his son was one) raised in "Skinner cribs."
Dinner turned out to be a blast. One of those gabfests where you instantly feel like old friends. A synchrony of interests and ideas.
As we were leaving the restaurant, I mentioned the stress articles I had recently edited, and the new thinking they represented. "You know what that means," he said without missing a beat. "You need a little black bag of tricks you can pull out very easily, without anybody even noticing, throughout the day. Because if you wait until you're feeling stress to take action, then it's already too late. But if you take a proactive stance, you can raise your threshold of stress tolerance." Of all the stress experts we'd talked to, no one had quite translated the new view quite so succinctly into a plan of action.
"It's not just that you have to go the whole nine yards of biofeedback and meditation," he said. "There are lots of little things anyone can do, and all of them have been proven to partake of some of the physiologic benefits of meditation. Sometimes it's just as simple as breathing a certain way. Or sitting.
"C'mon," he said, "let me show you just one simple posture."
And so, dose to midnight on a chilly fall night, I did what any respectable editor would do. I plunked myself down on the stoop of the fancy building next door and got the scoop from my source. While my husband went to get the car, Epstein tutored me al fresco in the finer points of sitting calm.
Legs out, feet splayed, hands upturned, jaw dropped. I was just getting the hang of it, literally, when a very New York thing happened. The building doorman caught sight of us and urged us to leave. "You don't understand," I said, pointing to Epstein, "he's a very important guy." Frown. I pulled out all the stops. "Look," I said, "I'm doing a story."
My husband rolled up at the perfect moment. "I've been thrown out of much better places than this," I sniffed at the doorman, and as I turned away, Epstein and I convulsed in laughter.
No surprise that I always carry a notebook. And should I be traveling light, there's always a note pad and pen in the glove compartment.
PHOTO (COLOR): Woman beating stress
Tags:
cribs,
disciple,
new thinking,
news article,
old friends,
participant,
robert epstein,
saturday night,
Skinner,
stress,
synchrony,
term outcome,
threshold
