Passing It On

The instructor in a class I attended this evening mentioned the loss of the "corporate memory" in the unexpected loss of a mentor and business associate.  I've heard the term before, related to the loss of corporate memory associated with the high turn-over in highly skilled jobs due to corporate mergers and acquisitions.    I actually feel quite strongly about the loss of that long-term-experience and how it negatively affects the growth of companies and businesses since people tend to no longer be in one position long enough to gather corporate memory to pass along to younger colleagues, subsequently resulting in an increase of duplicate effort, repeats of past mistakes.... you get the picture.

But what about "life-lesson memory" that used to be shared among generations, passed down from grandad to son to grandson.... from grandma to daughter to granddaughter?  Those might be practical (woodworking, sewing, cooking, gardening), or more esoteric (love of adventure, appreciation for nature, joy of creation).  Retirement communities often "contain" the grandparents today, the parents are locked into highly scheduled days of work and activities, and the children are firmly segregated in their classrooms to only have contact with others of exactly their same age.  These factors play a critical role in the loss of "life-lesson memory" that used to be shared so routinely.   Multi-generational households may not be practical today, and I'm not advocating a return to the one-room schoolhouse, but my own life experiences argue in favor of a closer, more intimate sharing of time and experience between ages and generations to the benefit of all.

Due to the vagaries of war, I grew up never knowing the presence of a grandparent in my life, other than for a brief time via letters (y'remember?....ink on white paper, placed in an envelope with a stamp that you lick to activate the glue (yuck!), and then wait for days or weeks for it to be delivered and to receive a response in the same format).  My life felt complete, because I didn't know any different.

When I had children, my parents and those of my husband were there and available to fill the role of grandparents that I couldn't even picture.  What a revelation!  My teen years and early adulthood were filled with love for my parents but also typical (I think) anger and frustration and pulling away from them to become ME, rather than a clone or the "perfect" child.  Then, all of a sudden (well...almost...after hours of labor...), my parents became supporters, babysitters, spoilers of grandchildren, passers-on of family lore and long-forgotten games and treats of childhood.  They became our friends! The ones who helped us nurture, love, protect, and TEACH our children.  And the kids - how they adored the visits from grandparents, or visiting grandparents at their homes.  The cookies, the treats, the spoiling!  We saw our parents in a different light, and I suspect they saw us in a very different light as well.  We valued stale family stories in a different way, reveled in the times we could share, in seeing our children playing on the beaches and fields of our own childhoods.  We gained a sense of the importance and value of continuity...continuity of memories, of skills and hobbies as we watched our parents sharing those things with our children.

Today I am at that potentially-grandparent age, with adult children but no grandchildren.  In a sense, I have been fortunate to be "adopted" by a family living a few houses down.  Their oldest son has become my "slave labor" - helping me in in my greenhouse and garden; his sisters have begun to visit me for quilting lessons, a delight that I cannot begin to explain, since I love sewing (quilting in particular) and have never had daughters with whom to share that love (my sons are remarkable, wonderful, kind, talented men, but sewing has never been high on their list of interests, perhaps not surprisingly); the younger siblings of my "adopted" family like to tag along and explore my garden and my house, a never-ending flitting from one exciting find to another, as young children are wont to do, forgetting to call me Mrs. Greenfield, and instead blurting out "Grandma" periodically, since I fit the mold, I assume.

And I? I delight in the opportunity to pass on gardening information and experience to my young gardening-slave-apprentice.  I revel in the excitement of his sisters as they learn a new sewing skill and discover the joys of designing and creating warm and snuggly quilts for their family to use.  And I am renewed by the unbridled joy and curiousity of the youngest siblings, reminding me whenever they are around, that even the things I take for granted are new in their eyes, and perhaps should be in mine as well.

I am blessed to be in a position to pass along some "life-lesson memory" to an appreciative audience.  

Who is benefiting from your life-lessons?  If not immediate family or neighbors, are there community groups, school groups to share with?  I guarantee, your time and effort will be well-spent, well-appreciated, and most rewarding!

Happy!

My friend Wendy said in a recent blog post: “What makes you feel better about yourself regardless of what the scale says? How do you see what's within?”  I’ll take the liberty of changing that to “What makes you feel better about yourself regardless of what the MIRROR says? How do you see what's within?” 

Possibly like Wendy, I’ll likely never again weigh the 110 I did when I got married; more than that, my hair has gone from dark brown to gray, my formerly smooth and soft skin has developed wrinkles and spots, and my waist and a couple of other body parts have...let’s say…shifted.  Some mornings I look in the mirror and think to myself: “who IS that old person?” because I don't like what I see; other times I look in the mirror and think “not too shabby for an old broad”.   What makes the difference? 

For me the obvious answer is that I perceive that I look good when I am happy.  I can be grimy from working in the garden, but when I look in the mirror I see happy eyes and a smile on my face, and sun-touched skin that makes the gray of my hair appear to sparkle – I like what I see. When I’m dressed to the nines, but feeling sad, I look in the mirror and see a furrowed brow, pasty skin, and dull eyes – I look and feel OLD.   Even if you are young and beautiful, think about how often someone says to you “Are you feeling alright? You look [sad, ill, worried].”  How we feel SHOWS, and that - more than the color of your hair, or your current weight, or the shoes you wear, determines whether people think we look good or not.

The advantage of being in this stage of my life is that I’ve finally stopped caring what everyone else thinks of me or expects of me, and am happy just BEING. I am delighted to have been blessed with the continuing good health to do the things that I love to do, the time in which to do them, and a life-partner/best-friend/husband who encourages me to do the things that make me happy and likes me just as I am.  Does life get better than this?   I am one very lucky lady! J

Silly Bird! Silly Everyone?

Since arriving at Guadalupe River State Park,  a male cardinal has been pecking on the windows and sides of our Airstream trailer every morning for hours.  At first it was fun to see him fly right up and cling to the window sashing as we were sitting there eating breakfast, but soon it became annoying as he constantly flew at and pecked at the camper as hard as he could.  

This is apparently mating season and our little cardinal has decided to chase away all the rivals that he sees reflected in the glass and the aluminum skin of our trailer.  I suspect his girlfriend is about to trade him in for a REAL rival while this poor fellow knocks himself silly fighting imaginary competition.  Is this where the term “bird-brain” originated, I wonder?

The more I reflect on his actions though, the more similarities I see between his futile pecking and some of the equally futile behaviors we all occasionally demonstrate.  Who hasn’t felt they were just banging their head against a wall on the job, in school, or in our personal life?  Sometimes there is a very fine line between futile effort and heroic effort, between determination and stupidity, between knowing when to persevere and when to quit. 

Artisan Bread...easy as falling off a log...?

I love good bread.  You know the stuff I mean: NOT the soft, lives-on-a-shelf-for-30-days-without-mould-forming bread, but the "staff of life", fills-your-house-with-heavenly-fragrance, crunches-when-you-bite-into-the-golden-crust, best-alone-or-with-plain-butter bread. One of the goals I've set for myself on and off over the years has been to learn to bake such bread. To that end I've purchased books on baking bread, purchased a bread machine, purchased a baking stone, practiced and practiced, and generally have decided that I'm a dud at this.  I'm really not bad in the kitchen, but great bread seems to be out of my reach.

A couple of years ago a received the gift of Jim Lahey's book, "My Bread; The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method".  AHA! No work, no knead sounds just right!  I threw out my bread machine (hated those square loaves of bread anyway) and trusted that 1/4 tsp yeast, salt, flour, and water was really all it would take to make a loaf of bread like the photos in this book.  I was disillusioned fairly quickly about it really being all that simple.  You still have to know/develop a "feel" for the dough, have to learn to quickly form and transfer a very wet dough into an extremely hot dutch oven in an extremely hot stove, and be willing to always have some dough sitting around on a counter top for several days, aging to perfection before being baked.  I tried, it was ok, but I didn't stick with it.

Last year my husband got me a really good stand mixer, so that I could mix and knead bread dough more easily than the painful, tedious hand-mixing I was trying to do.  This was a step in the right direction, and some of my experiments turned out quite well.  The problem was that most of my bread recipe books were from my days with a bread machine, so had to be adapted to being mixed and kneaded by the stand mixer, risen and punched down by hand, formed, given a second rise, and baked, all with guessing at ideal times and temperatures since the recipes assumed my now non-existant machine was doing all this for me.  As you might imagine, this too was a rather short-lived experiment.

We still yearned for really outstanding fresh bread.  This dream was made more intense through having friends who bake really great bread, and who recently built an outdoor bread oven to be able to make an even more perfect loaf.  Between that and losing my argument of "lack of time"  due to my recent retirement, I once again renewed my vow to learn to make GREAT bread.

Santa brought me encouragement by way of the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day; The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking".  There we go! The answer to my prayers! Even I can do 5 minutes a day for the reward of great bread!   I read the book cover to cover, pulled together the ingredients, made my first batch of dough (enough for 4 loaves), refrigerated it and started pulling out enough for one small boule a day (great way to have fresh bread daily).  OK, but not good.  Crumb (interior of the loaf) was too dense and wet, and there was minimal rise, though crust was pretty and taste was acceptable.

Being a researcher by former career and natural inclination, I found that the authors also have a web site with lots of useful FAQs and the ability to contact them with questions  (Yay! - REALLY good move!).  So....I learned that: 1) while I was using all-purpose flour, mine was bleached, they base their core recipe on UNbleached all-purpose flour, which affects the rise and the crumb and 2) my oven is off-kilter, so while I set it to the required temperature it was actually almost 50 degrees cooler. OK, now we're cooking! My kind husband offered to go to the store to get me unbleached all-purpose flour and I made another batch of basic dough.  The difference in the rise of the dough was like night and day!  Remarkable!  I could hardly contain it in the large storage container that before was only 3/4 full of risen dough.  Terrific! Off to the races!   Formed and baked the first loaf from this batch of dough using a separate oven thermometer to ensure the oven reached the correct baking temperature.  What!?!?  The dough rise was still not good; while the first rise was outstanding, the second rise - the one that gives the bread its finished shape - was a dud, so the loaf was rather flat, if a pretty golden color with better crumb texture.   Back to the FAQs, back to the book, back to various other baking web sites that talk about the factors that affect dough rise.  Discovery: I'm using quick-rise dry yeast (what I always used for the bread machine) but the recommendation for THIS recipe is for active rise yeast.  Apparently, the former does all it's rising in the first rise leaving little energy for the second rise, while the latter has enough energy for two rises.  Poor hubby volunteers to return to the store for more yeast and more flour - I take him up on it.  It's a good thing that this experiment is one that is light on the pocket-book although somewhat time-greedy.

I think I've learned that bread baking is more of an art than a science, but that you have to make sure you've learned the science behind it before expecting to experience really excellent results. It also takes more than 5 minutes a day, no matter HOW you calculate the time!  I leave you with a photo of today's experiments, in the hopes that in a few days I'll be able to post:"Eureka! - I've got it! I can produce a GREAT loaf of home-baked bread!"  And THEN begin the experiments with whole-grain breads....

Rituals

When I was growing up, my mother prepared herself and the family for the new year by thoroughly cleaning the house, having us all take evening baths and dress in our best clothes to welcome in the new year.  There were other traditions for New Years Eve as well, but this part sticks with me after all these years - the idea was to start the new year clean, with a fresh slate.

My husband and I have welcomed the new year with a different tradition for the past 22 years; sharing the same seafood meal for our New Year's Eve dinner, and going to our cottage for lunch and a walk on the Lake Michigan beach on New Year's Day, remembering not only the past year, but the preceding years and experiences as well.

As much as my mother reveled in the idea of a clean start, we revel in the repetition, the remembrance of past years as we welcome the coming year.   Her rituals were based on cultural traditions; ours are based on the second chance at life and family we experienced 22 years ago, an affirmation of life and the strength of our relationship. We look forward to the new, the unexpected, the unknown, and face it with the strength gained from past shared experiences.  

Rituals can be affirming, comforting, challenging; what rituals do you observe, and how do they reflect your personality, your life, your hopes and dreams?

Of letting go...

I plan my gardens: I plant the seeds in trays in the greenhouse, I water, I provide light and warmth and watch them sprout; I watch some grow big, some grow more slowly at first then catch up to their larger "siblings" in time.  I transplant them into the garden or flower bed, I fertilize, I mulch, I pamper...and watch some take off immediately, some just sit there at first and reach their peak when their "sibs" are fading. I learn that I can provide good soil, fertilizer, and to a certain extent correct moisture, but I cannot control the sunlight they receive or fail to receive despite my best plans, I cannot control the over-abundance or total lack of moisture mother nature provides that season, nor can I control late frosts, or early frosts and the damage they may do.  Sometimes, despite the best-laid plans, gardens go to waste for reasons beyond our control; and sometimes, despite all the adversity mother nature can throw at them, plants surpass all predictions to grow lush, fruitful, beautiful beyond our expectations.

So it is with family relationships, with raising children, with nurturing friendships: sometimes, despite our best efforts, things just don't work...and sometimes, despite our mistakes, our omissions, our failures, the children grow into magnificent human beings that do us proud, relationships thrive, and friendships flourish.    I have no doubt that it is important to strive to provide optimum environments for the growth of relationships, but sometimes, I think, it is wise to just let go of the expectation, let go of the stress of not having done what we hoped to do,  and instead to appreciate the unexpected joys, the unplanned rewards of relationships that flourish due to the efforts of others, or to the unexpected.

I have such examples in my life....do you have them in yours?

Today's Work

When I started this blog at the beginning of this month in response to the 30-day blog challenge, I said it would be a reflection of what I do with my days and how I live this part of my life called retirement.  So far, I've not really done much of that at all; instead I've shared my views and perspectives on a variety of topics, sometimes playing off fellow bloggers in this challenges, sometime based on events, songs, photos, or other things that sent my mind in a direction that seemed worth commenting on.

Today though, I'm sharing my retirement "work"; three quilts that I'm working on concurrently, each in a different phase of completion.  I mostly design my own quilts now, rather than relying on copying the patterns of others, not because those patterns aren't lovely, but because I've always liked creating things from scratch.  The challenge I've currently given myself is to see how many very different quilts I can design based on simple squares and rectangles, obviously one of the easier forms for any quilter to work with, but this gives me an opportunity to really concentrate on and play with color and pattern.  Here they are:

1)  Nearly finished - only needs about 2 more feet of it hand quilted, then will be set to go, in time for the holidays!

2) Gift for a friend.  Will be starting the hand-quilting by end of this week and taking it on a 3-day train trip with me - should have lots of time to work on it.

3) Gift-in-progress.   This one will still take a considerable amount of hand-work before it's completed, but then, the winter lies ahead, and the garden won't be calling me....

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.

Sandbox Redux

When I was little, my father built us a sandbox in a tree - REALLY!  Our city property dropped off into a neighborhood ravine; there was a huge tree with three trunks that reached up from the ravine through our property, and reached into the clouds (at least that was my perception at the time). My dad - my hero - built a combination tree-house/sandbox surrounding those three massive trunks.  An adjacent branch held our rope swing.  From our sandbox, we could swing into the abyss...or build sand castles, farms, sand pies.  I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED that sandbox, and spent many memorable childhood days playing in and around it.

I still loving playing in my sandbox; my "sandbox" now is our 11-acre country property where I can dig, plant, dream to my heart's content.....and I do.  I spent today doing the last of the fall transplants to new locations, will spend tomorrow digging in the last of next spring's bulbs.  I don't even know how to begin to explain to others the joy I get from digging in the garden or flower beds, inhaling the rich earth smell, seeing the fruits of those labors emerge next spring and summer as a  bright and varied array of flowers, foliage, fruits.  I hope that I will never outgrow the joy of this "sandbox" endeavor!

Gifts

I've been fortunate to receive many deeply meaningful gifts throughout my life; the unconditional love of my parents; the Shirley Temple doll I yearned for as a 6 year old; the purple pansy quilted bedspread that I yearned for as a 10 year old; parental support for attending the college of my choice, even though it was more than we could afford; the enduring love of my husband;  the photo my sons had taken of the two of them as a gift for me, though they hated having their pictures taken.  There have been many more, but these few examples serve to display the range of what I consider "gifts" - these have all been tokens of love, deep affection, respect.....tangible things that represented people's feelings and their awareness of what was important to me.     

I hope that through the years I have also given my share of such meaningful gifts.

What then, is this advertising blitz about Black Friday gift purchases, and how does it square with those gifts that still reverberate in my memory, many years after I've received them, or given them? I value gifts given from the heart, so my heart is heavy that increasingly we have forgotten that meaning and replaced it all to often with obligatory giving of presents - prettily wrapped - but given with little thought or sacrifice.     

Call me Scrooge if you will; I'll gladly do without the mad rush to purchase more than we can afford, wrapped in expensive paper and ribbons which will be tossed in the trash the next day.  I'll trade them in a heartbeat for the hand-knit imperfect scarf, or the day spent baking and chatting with a friend in preparation for the holidays.  Let the economy deal with my refusal to buy beyond my means and pay for months to come - let's take back the meaning of the term "gift" as defined by someone in Wikipedia as: "anything that makes the other happier or less sad, especially as a favor, including forgiveness and kindness."