Blog On

William Blumberg, a fellow member of the 30-day blogging challenge wrote: "I am sure every blogger has asked the question of with so few people reading my blog, why write." 

His post hit home with me.  I began participating in this blogging challenge partly on a whim, and partly because a wonderful person invited participation, not because I expect a large audience.  I've always loved to write but if one is not a professional writer, life gets in the way of practicing this craft.  I read often, relishing well-written books, often re-reading and stopping to consider why a particular passage is so powerful, so evocative.   Participating in this challenge, I've been rediscovering my love of words and written expression, and now find that I enjoy blogging (or journaling, as some would term my blogs) just for the opportunity of honing self-expression, regardless of whether or not anyone else reads what I write. 

Blog on!

From My Heart

My heart is full today; full of gratitude for so many blessings in my life; full of sadness for friends who are enduring incredibly hard times; full of desire to reach out to all who are important in my life to somehow share my blessings, lighten their burdens.

I like to think that I inherited my sense of wanting to give to others from my mother, who would quite literally give you the shirt off her back; if I complimented her on a new dress or new sweater, her response - UNFAILINGLY - was: "Oh let me give it to you - it will look so much better on you!" I became quite hesitant to give her compliments, lest I leave her homeless and unclothed on the street through her desire to give to others rather than to take from anyone. Obviously, that last sentence is an exaggeration, but not by much as those who knew my mom would attest.

What is that elusive factor that fills some hearts with bitterness, and others with joy; some with stinginess, others with overflowing generosity?   The simple answers would be that these are learned emotions, learned responses based on our experiences; yet I know many people who have shared similar experiences and have incorporated those experiences into their lives, their beings, their personalities and their hearts in very different ways, so I think that is too simplistic an answer. 

My mother had a rough childhood, lost her entire immediate family in WWII, nearly lost her own life to typhoid fever, began rebuilding her life in the DP (deported persons) camps in Germany following WWII, then continued to develop a new life in an unfamiliar language in an unfamiliar country (the USA), with nothing but the clothes on her back, her husband's support, and two babies in arms. Yet she continually showered those around her with love and generosity.  Granted, that caring sometimes came with some strings attached; she had lost so much in her life that she was sometimes hesitant to let go, to turn control over to others, but the remarkable thing to me was her unparalleled capacity for love, for caring, for giving.  I miss my daily contact with her, her interest in how her grandchildren are faring, her presence in our home, our gardens, our lives. 

I sometimes joke with my sons, niece and nephew that I am "channeling" their grandmother, but in fact,    

I hope and trust that I have inherited some of her tremendous capacity for for loving, and for giving, for the capacity to empathize, to serve others, to care.

Joys of Imperfection

The Thanksgiving turkey that was a bit more dry than I would have liked.  The flower garden in full and glorious bloom that is unfortunately filled with weeds.  The quilt I've spent days working on, to discover a mistake that cannot be corrected.  What do these have in common?  They are all imperfect, yet all have brought me great joy.

The somewhat dry bird is forgotten after the meal, but the memories of the time together with family and friends who gathered around that table remain in my head and heart for years to come.

The weeds in my flower beds prevent them from looking like the the glorious gardens we see when visiting arboretums in our travels, but I can see, smell, and enjoy the blossoms EVERY day, and feel the sun on my back as I lean in to pull those pesky weeds - what a glorious feeling!

The handmade quilt that I've spend many hours on, over a period of several months, when I finally step back and realize that I've placed a block wrong, or turned a quilting design in the wrong direction still has provided hours of enjoyment during the process of creation, and will continue to provide warmth and memories for years to come.

It's admirable to strive for perfection, to set it as a goal when we begin new projects, start a new job, or bring home a new baby to raise.  But it's also unrealistic to expect that we will reach that goal in ALL that we do, and sad to see that people give up, or become bitter when that goal is not reached.  Families are not perfect, but they are heart-warming, life-affirming, and provide such richness in our lives.  Bosses become problematic, jobs turn sour, but they provide the money that allows us to live the life we choose AWAY from the job.  That beautiful and remarkable baby cries all night, or gets a lower grade in school than parents would have liked, or struggles with choosing a career, but what a remarkable person that baby becomes, despite parental mistakes and life throwing curves.  

Let's STRIVE for perfection - but gather joy from all that is rich and wonderful in our lives even though imperfect, because those less-then-perfect moments, tasks, and creations will form the majority of our lives.  Enjoy these moments!

How Many Ways Can We Say "SHALLOW"?!?!

The day following Thanksgiving hardly seems the time to be posting a blog as negative as this one is going to be, but several of this morning's headlines and and other recent "news" reports have me boiling, so bear with me.

On NBCNews.com this morning:
  And this headline yesterday, with an update today: "Removing a toe to fit into heels" (What's next? Back to foot binding for girl babies?) Another "top" headline today:  "Halle Berry's fiance fistfights with her ex". (why should I care? Is she a dear friend?)  Top TV shows in America? "[“Honey Boo Boo"] was the highest-rated cable show in that category, ... on Comedy Central. ...That included the Aug. 29 episode, which drew more adults between 18 and 49 than Fox News’s coverage of the Republican National Convention, and the Sept. 5 episode, which tied CNN’s coverage of the Democratic National Convention." (underline is mine) (Don't even get me started on this spoiled, nasty child as entertainment).

Enough of pandering to the lowest common denominator! I know SO many people who are wonderful, kind, productive, generous, thoughtful, pleasant, considerate, knowledgable....   Why is it that media focuses so heavily on the most shallow and unpleasant among us?  And more to the point: why do we let them?  When there is nothing of value to watch on our 200+ channel TV's, why not just turn them off?  When the weird and the wacky get top billing on a web newscast, why click on it? Our lives are too short, and each day too valuable to spend any of it on junk like this, when there are so many opportunities for entertaining ourselves that are both pleasurable and/or instructive.  Go for a walk with your spouse; read a good book (or even a not-so-good book); sew something; make something; plant something and watch it grow; play with your children, talk with your friend.  For heavens sake, clean something - even doing pots and pans is preferable to watching Honey Boo Boo or supporting the media machines that feed us personal tidbits about real-life Barbie dolls, passing them off as news. 

Hmmmm - I wonder if eating turkey makes me grumpier than usual?

Reward Worth the Risk?

A recent Wall Street Journal Article about playground safety, citing several recent studies, states that not exposing children to risk may result in increased phobias and anxieties in those children.  A friend going through a really tough time hangs her hope on the well-known saying "That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger".  Numerous articles cite the failures of highly successful entrepreneurs as the experiences upon which their ultimate success was built.   Other articles focus on helicopter parents crippling their children's self-confidence and abilities.  The common thread here is that risk is one of the elements in our lives from which we learn and grow, and that significantly reducing or avoiding that risk can limit us in ways we may not even recognize.

I know a young man for whom all learning and most other achievements came easily; he took it as a matter of course that life was just that way.  In fourth grade, suddenly he was struggling with math. Not knowing how to deal with something that did not come easily to him, he hid his papers and the notes from his teachers, thinking that if he just ignored the problem it would go away.  Eventually of course, the papers and notes were found, the problem brought to light, and the piper had to be paid.  We tutored, we encouraged, we did all we could to make math understandable, but his resistance, the fear of failure that had developed over the weeks and months of struggle just weren't easily put to rest. Demon math and a newfound recognition that all life is not easy, made for a rough year.  The following summer we took a much-anticipated canoe-camping vacation in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness BWCAW in northern Minnesota.  The BWCAW is a remote wilderness area consisting of thousands of interconnected lakes and rivers,  with few if any roads, most of which prohibits travel by motorized boats; when you set out to camp, you are miles from others, miles from help, and have to be prepared to be self-reliant even in emergency situations.

The week passed well, good fishing and lovely vistas,
 water smooth as glass, campfires every day, hammocks hung in trees - life was good!

 The day we were scheduled to paddle out the weather turned miserable: cold, windy, rainy, and the waves kicked up in exactly the wrong direction.   My husband and I, along with our youngest son were in one canoe; the older boy and his godfather were in the other canoe, boy in the front, having to carry his weight with the paddling, no way out of it.  We hugged the shore as much as possible, but it was a miserable, frightening day.
Boy started to whine that he was cold and wet and tired and wanted to stop, but there was no place to stop, and if he stopped paddling, his godfather could not paddle effectively against the waves alone.   We coaxed - he complained; we encouraged - he pouted.  Godfather - in fear of his very life - said to the boy: "Just shut up and paddle" - boy did exactly that.  When we reached the outfitter, once again warm and safe, reveling in our adventure, boy said: "If I could do that, I can do math!"  And he did.

When the large pharmaceutical company in our town shut down the research operations in our town and moved them across the country, an unprecedented number of their top employees elected to remain in the area and risk starting their own businesses.  It's been nothing short of inspiring to see those with 30 years of experience as bench-scientists set out to learn about business, learn to partner with those who can provide their business the expertise it lacks, learn to pitch to investors, learn to deal with clients, and learn from their own mistakes and those of others.  Some businesses started at that time failed, but many more - a much higher percentage than is normally expected from start-ups - have not only survived but thrived, for nearly 10 years now. Many have built a name for themselves nationwide, and are even finding world-wide recognition.  The people who remained here and risked their financial futures, their life-savings, and even their professional reputations did so for a variety of personal and professional reasons.  One common thread was their determination to take charge of their lives and their careers, rather than letting the winds of change carry them hither and yon.  They too said: "We can!" and they did.

http://www.kazoosmic.com

Hard as it may be to take the risk, or to let our children take the risks and fail or get hurt, risk-taking is imperative to our growth, our sense of self-worth, and our future successes.

Teaching Passion

Reading my fellow 30-day blog challenge posters (#30DBC), I'm inspired to write a follow-on piece to one written by Wendy Cobrda, which was in turn a follow-on piece to one by Cliff Cardin. 

Cliff wrote about "focused effort", which is based on knowing what you want, and being willing and able to devote time and effort to achieving that goal.  He emphasized that the degree of effort people put into achieving their goal is what distinguishes experts from those who are merely educated or knowledgable.    Wendy added another dimension to that idea, talking about passion as the third key element in enriching one's life and making it all it can and should be.  She said: "It's the reason you get up early in the morning, and the excuse for why you can't quiet your mind at night".  Wendy writes about passion being a gift that gives joy and purpose to your life and is sad for those who seem to never find their passion, but rather plod through their lives in a fog, not even realizing that something is missing.

I agree with both my fellow bloggers, and would like to add yet another element to this discussion: learning to recognize and follow our passion.  Passion per se, cannot be taught; it just IS. But seeking  and recognizing ones passion can be encouraged, coached, taught.

The world at large and the major institutions  (schools, churches, governments) tend to encourage uniformity, partly through necessity. While they hopefully also emphasize and teach excellence, it is an excellence in things proscribed by others.   Who then, can teach us the search for passion?  If they are lucky, children learn this life-giving lesson both from their parents and from individual teachers.

One of my all-time favorite movies, Dead Poet's Society, is about teaching passion.  Robin Williams is masterful in this role, literally teaching non-conformism in a very structured institution bound by tradition and rules. He challenges his charges to reach deep within themselves to find what excites them, to reach beyond expectation, to experience and relish moments of the sublime. "Seize the day boys! Seize the day!"

As parents we can also teach our children to reach into their hearts and souls to identify the activities, the ideas, the interests that make their souls sing, and encourage them to follow that song, even if it means they will be marching to a different drummer than their peers.  We can encourage them to follow their hearts rather than peer pressure, reward them for standing up for what they believe, teach them that variety is what makes the world rich. We can not only talk about how people came to choose the paths they've taken, but how happy they seem with their choices.  We teach it by exposing them to our own passions, talking about how those have influenced our life choices, and how that compares to what others might have hoped or expected from us.

And when all is said and done, we turn them loose and admire them for the passionate experts they have become.

Playing with color and texture

I love to play with colors.  I drew endlessly when I was a kid (getting in trouble once for drawing on my brothers face with colors that would not come off), learned to use oil paints as a teen, falling in love with the concept of adding dimension to color (laying it on thick, spiky, smooth, thinned out with turpentine so it becomes a wash).

Wearing my "working world" hat, I color-coded all my files, partly because that's just the way my brain sees things best, partly because it was fun and I could.

Now that I'm retired from that working world, I finally have enough time (ok, not enough, but more) to play with colors and textures.  I do that through gardening and quilting.  I have to say that I'm not a "coloring-inside-the-lines" kind of person.  I don't enjoy following the patterns of others in quilting as much as I enjoy designing my own.

I don't want someone else to design my flowerbeds, my gardens, our landscape - I want to play with it myself.  The great news is that now I have time to not only dream and plan, but to execute at least some of those dreams and plans.

I am retired from being an information professional, but am just beginning my new life as Master Gardener and master quilter; I have a badge that says I've earned the right to the former title, and am hoping to earn the latter title sometime in the next 20-30 years, now that I have time to work on it.