Sunset
The sky gave me a lovely present today. I thought I’d share.
Hope everyone’s day had some loveliness in it.
Self
Why I Don’t Respond on Facebook Anymore
I am not the typical facebook user. From the day of my registration I considered facebook to be a public space. This means that I accept friend requests from anyone who does not trigger my spammer detector. That policy has gathered me some real friends whom I would not otherwise have met. Unfortunately the continual changes Facebook keeps making result in the site being less and less useful to me. I enjoy reading the things that people are intentionally posting about their lives and their thoughts. Instead my stream is full of things my friends read, updates any time someone friends another person, updates on games played, and comments that one of my friends made to someone I have never met. These sorts of updates would actually help me feel connected if I were only trying to keep in touch with 20-50 people I’ve met in real life. That’s not how I want to use facebook. Unfortunately every time I figure out how to filter my facebook stream, facebook changes again.
I still use facebook. I skim through my news stream once per day or so, but I miss a lot. Often I miss things that I would really like to know about while being bombarded with things about which I don’t care. Many times I see happy news, or sad news, and I would like to respond briefly with congratulations or sympathies. I do want to use facebook for me to connect with people. Unfortunately facebook wants to use my response to connect my friends with advertisments. Some of the people with whom I am facebook friends are very private people. They are extremely selective about who they let see information online. If I respond to a private person’s birth announcement, then that response is broadcast to all the writers, fans, and business contacts that I’ve also friended. Broadcasting a private announcement in this way would be extremely discourteous of me, even if I do it by accident. I know there is a setting to prevent this. I’ve toggled that setting. However facebook will change again and they may untoggle or change the way that settings are interpreted. The only way I can protect the privacy of my friends is not to answer them on facebook. This makes me sad. Because I’d dearly love to have these little conversational interactions which are the online equivalent of bumping into someone at the grocery store.
For the big things, with close friends, I use other means (like email) to respond to their announcements. For the little things, I just have to smile or sympathize silently. I do make good use of the facebook Thumbs Up button. It is a tiny way for me to cheer without also broadcasting that I’ve done so. Facebook still is useful to me, but I am always aware that to facebook I am a commodity, not a customer.
Making a Cascading Pillar Candle
The Holidays are a time for projects which aren’t exactly necessary, but which make the days feel special. Many people express this by baking. My social networks are filled with people talking about cookies, pies, and other assorted delights. We’ve done our share of making special food for the holidays. Some of the special food was acquired through purchase rather than effort. This is fine too. However this holiday season I found myself with a slightly different holiday project. I’ve been playing with candles and melted wax.
See that pillar candle to the left, the one with the pretty drips? I made it. Once I made it, I spent an hour watching the wax drip through the holes and down the outside. I like candles as projects because they are like sand castles. No one expects them to last forever. Instead the materials are organized, destroyed, and reorganized as many times as one feels inspired to create. Left over wax from one candle can be the seed of the next candle. It is all about playing. How did I make the candle? Click on through for instructions and pictures …
Two Quotations As Reminders to Me Today
I heard this first one as part of a church talk yesterday.
“Stay with your own life; don’t get distracted by trying to be somebody else. Learn to enjoy and be open to the beauty of any moment, even though there may be enormous pain, ugliness and injustice. Secondly, learn how to be in a relationship to fear and terror, because fear and terror drop us down to a less harmonious and less integrated form of behavior. Thirdly, cultivate a garden of daily delights that allows you to be you without demanding recognition or praise or any of those things. Also, find what you’re consecrated to, because we’re all consecrated to something. Finally, risk opening your heart and loving and allowing the beauty of love into your life as much of the time as possible.”
-From Interview with Annie, a cancer patient near death.
I find the sections on addressing fear and cultivating a garden of daily delights particularly relevant to my life lately. Her words reaffirm things I’ve been thinking.
And quotation #2 is probably much more familiar:
Every who down in who-ville, the tall and the small,
Was signing! Without any presents at all!
He HADN’T stopped Christmas from coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!
And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling; “How could it be so?
“It came without ribbons! It came without Tags!
“It came without packages, boxes or bags!”
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before!
“Maybe Christmas,” he thought “doesn’t come from a store.
“Maybe Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
-From How The Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
I was reminded of this by the lovely Catherine Schaffer, who added the thought that those of us who are still scrambling to arrange all those ribbons, tags, packages, and boxes can…perhaps…relax a little, as Christmas will arrive just fine without them.
Approaching Christmas
“Are you ready for Christmas?” the clerk asked as he passed my assorted groceries over the scanner. It was a perfunctory question, asked merely to fill the quiet of these few minutes while we stood facing each other over a transaction. He had no time to be interested in my answer; the line behind me stretched long. It was okay. I had not time to give a full answer. My To-Do list pulled me forward into the rest of the day.
“No.” I said with a brief smile as I swiped my card. Papers exchanged, I pushed my full cart from the store.
I used to be the person who bought all her Christmas presents before Thanksgiving. The tree was up and gifts under it during the first week of December. I planned it all carefully, balancing to make sure each child would be delighted. I made sure that Christmas came to a perfectly orchestrated climax on the appointed day. The day itself was a work of art with times of excitement punctuated by good meals and pauses. I loved doing it and the process made me happy. Mostly. I stopped being that uber-organized Christmas planner because of a spectacular Christmas Day emotional crash. I’d created the perfect day and in the process completely obliterated my own experience of it. I arrived at five pm so exhausted that I could not believe it had been a good day for anyone. The Christmas process which had functioned so well when I was the mother of toddlers with lots of hands-busy-brain-free time fell apart when applied by a working mother with a mix of teenage and grade school kids. I had to change my approach to the holiday.
To approach, as a verb, means to draw near to something. An approach, as a noun, is the entryway into something else; like the front walk to a house. I had been hitting the holiday season with a huge list of things to get done before Christmas. When they were done, I could enjoy the holiday. When I switched it around in my head, I realized that all of my preparations needed to be treated as a noun, not a verb. Any architect or real estate agent can tell you that the approach to a building has a huge effect upon the people who enter it. It sets expectations for everything which will come after. All of December is an approach to Christmas. The tree decorating, shopping, gift wrapping, and concert attending are not just the overture, they are a part of the performance. When I pause to savor the doing of these things, I discover which ones I enjoy doing for their own sake, and which should probably be evicted from my holiday traditions. When Christmas day arrives, it becomes part of a larger event rather than the sole receptacle of all our expectations.
So, no, I am not ready for Christmas. I’m in the middle of it, still with a huge list of things To-Do. I am harried and hurried. I’m often overwhelmed by the things which I need to accomplish in order to not disappoint people around me. I ship packages to worried customers who need the contents for Christmas gifts. I attend school concerts and make treats for class parties. I realize that in all my shipping, I still need to acquire and send gifts to my own friends and relatives. It is a crazy, awkward approach to the holiday. And yet sometimes I watch my fingers as they carefully tape down wrapping paper. Then I know that this small act is part of the gift. I (finally) open the box containing our nativity set and look closely at the porcelain baby Jesus’ face. I light the advent candle and pause a moment to watch smoke curl off the match after I shake it out. These are all pieces of the holiday. I get half a dozen tiny moments like that in a day and I know that Christmas is all it should be.
How things are going and cool stuff you should look at.
I have a blog post about anxiety that I’ve been trying to write for two days. It is still a multiple-draft mess. The only solution is to put it down and move on. Hopefully I’ll be able to come back to it in a few days and pull the things I want to say into some better shape. This past week I’ve been carrying anxiety levels which I’d hoped not to experience again. The good news is that this is directly linked to me tinkering with my thyroid dosage. I’ve learned my lesson and now merely need to hang in there while the re-lowered dosages take effect again. Should be better by this weekend and normalized by next week. Also good news is that I spent enough time over the past several months in a non-anxious state that I’m able to recognize my anxiety this past week as Not Normal. This is a huge improvement over thinking that a racing heartbeat and shaky hands were just part of my life. Even more good news: exercise makes things better. Exercise is something which is in my control. So expect to find me dancing to exercise videos later this afternoon. BUT first I have to ship a lot of things, go shopping for supplies to make school treats, and shop for a few last Christmas gifts. (Am I ready for Christmas? The answer to that is still complicated and still wants a blog entry of it’s very own. I’ll add that to the bottom of the to-do list.)
In the meantime, here are three cool things which I’ve been meaning to tell you about:
Last February I was out to lunch with my friends Jessica Day George and Julie Wright.
Jessica was really excited because she had just received a cover image for her latest book, Tuesdays at the Castle. She pulled the image up on on her phone and we admired it on the tiny screen. “I just want to hug it!” Jess said. Both Julie and I agreed that the cover was huggable. That book came out last month. My pre-ordered copy arrived and I read the whole thing. My oldest daughter read it too. We both agree that the whole book is just as huggable as the cover. I love Princess Celie and hope that you will all go out and buy copies of this book so that she can have more adventures.
Last summer I got to read this story which my sister Nancy wrote. It moved me to tears and resonated very strongly with lots of emotional themes which have come up in my parenting. I suppose it makes sense that Nancy’s story speaks so strongly to me, we grew up in the same house, our kids face similar challenges, and we have similar approaches to tackling those challenges. But if you enjoy reading this blog, you will almost certainly enjoy reading Nancy’s story. It is fairly short, but well worth $3. Additionally, if you buy Movement in the month of December, Nancy will donate her profit to a charity supporting Autism research. If you happen to be a Hugo or Nebula voter, you may want to nominate this story. I’m certainly going to.
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Most of my blog readers know that my husband Howard is an amazing and funny guy. So is Howard’s brother Randy. Of late I’ve had the opportunity to be in a writer’s group with Randy and so I got to read a draft of this book before it went live. It was already funny before Randy made it better. Mugging Leprechauns is a tweet-book. It contains bite-sized bits of funny which remind me of those Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy books. Even better, Randy’s book is less than $1. It’s almost like getting funny for free. Of course if you want an advance look at the jokes which will feature in Randy’s next book, you could just follow him on Twitter (@randytayler). That’s what I do and it regularly makes my day have laughter in it.
Why I Love Jellyfish
I love jellyfish. This is very likely because I have never met one in the wild. Instead I see them through glass with carefully selected lighting to display their beauty.
I did not expect to love jelly fish. In fact I had never given them much thought at all. But then, almost ten years ago, I took five-year-old Link to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They happened to be hosting a special jellyfish exhibit at the time. We wandered through with our mouths open, completely stunned by the variations in size and the way that the jellyfish moved. I took photographs. They didn’t turn out, except one which was only slightly blurry: the back of Link’s head against the blue tank next to some other child I didn’t know.
It completely failed to show the beauty which captivated Link and kept him sitting still for a very long time.
The jellyfish were beautiful aliens, only they lived right here. But even then, walking through the beauty, I did not know that I would forever love jellyfish. It was not until we came home and my son, who still struggled to speak comprehensible sentences, could not stop talking about the jellyfish. He drew pictures of jellyfish. He talked to his Kindergarten teacher at length. His small vocabulary doubled in a very short span of time. Something about all those earthly aliens opened a door in his brain and he began to find words. I had been so afraid for him, for years. I did not know whether he would be able to manage the challenges of being a teenager or an adult. But by jellyfish light I could see that perhaps he would.
Link is fourteen now. I wrote a post about him yesterday, describing his developing responsibility, reliability, and capability. I can’t credit those things to the jellyfish exhibit, they were his all along, but I still remember the strong sense that by seeing the jellyfish Link’s world had become larger and his brain grew in response.
So any time I see photos of jellyfish, or see them in an aquarium, I think about how much bigger the world is than I expect. I think about possibility and growth. Most of all, I remember that sometimes hope comes from unexpected places.
And that is why today’s post over on Light Stalking 44 Incredible Photographs of Jellyfish made me cry.
In the Space after Midnight
My eyes were open, measuring the various darknesses of the room. When last I’d looked at the clock it had told me 12:45. Moments had ticked past since then, enough that I suspected the clock of reading 1 am. Howard shifted next to me. Gleek sniffled from the small kid bed on the floor. Her hand pulled my arm fractionally further over the edge of the bed. I was not the only one who’d had trouble with sleep. A transfer to my room and my hand to hold were enough to secure a ten year old into sleep. Unconsciousness was more elusive for me.
Gleek’s hand was rough against my palm. Hers was a hand much used for monkey bars and tree climbing. I’d felt the strength of her fingers when she first gripped my hand in the darkness. The grip became loose as drowsiness claimed her. In a moment I could let go, my final parental duty of the night complete. I held on for just a minute longer. Her hand was almost the size of my own. Some wisp of memory reminded me of the time when her hands were small and soft. It was long ago and while the memory of that little hand carried tenderness, I had no desire to re-traverse all the years and challenges which had led to her hand being strong. I let her hand slide softly through my fingers and rolled over to contemplate my ceiling. The lights had been out long enough that the glow in the dark stars had faded. All our bedrooms have stars on them, now aged to the point that many of them fly free of their own accord. It is not unusual for me to step through a darkened bedroom and spot fallen stars on the carpet. A stubborn few still stick to the ceiling, or so I assumed. I squinted my eyes, imagining that a few spots still held a faint glow.
Mostly I lay with my eyes closed and follow the tracks of the thoughts in my brain. They ran over the pre-order of calendars and financial calculations based upon quantities ordered. There were side tracks into Patch’s multiplication memorization, Kiki’s art project, and Gleek’s colony report. Their homework was not mine to do or to track. Yet I did. I was not sure how to stop myself from mentally marking when these things should be done and nudging my children if I thought the work should be progressing. Then, of course, I worried that my habit of unconsciously organizing would mean that they never learned to organize for themselves. I could spend days spinning myself in circles of parental failure. I was supposed to be sleeping. Drifting to sleep would land me on the shores of morning with more energy and a mind ready to tackle the challenges of the day. Sleep did not come.
I swung my feet softly over the edge of the bed and placed them carefully on the floor, off to one side of Gleek. I wrapped my robe around my shoulders and padded my way through the house. Our cat had indicated a desire to go outdoors just as everyone went to bed. Perhaps she was ready to come back in. I opened the front door quietly. The bolt clacked loudly in the quiet and then the hinges creaked.
“Kitty?” I called, my breath misting in the nigh frozen air. I pitched my voice low, wanting the cat to hear me, not wanting to disturb any human inhabitants of my house and cul de sac. All was still in the light of the street lamp. Only the glitter of frost on the fallen leaves seemed to lend motion to the tableau. I clacked the door closed and returned to my kitchen.
If not for knowing I was needed in the morning, I would have relished the silence of post-midnight. My people were present, nearby and safe, but they didn’t need anything from me. I’d assigned nothing to myself for that hour. Assignments wouldn’t return until 6:45 am. Part of me longed to just stay awake, to expand into the quiet, read a book, watch a movie. Instead I stretched my limbs, grabbed a snack, and returned to the warmth of bed. Sleep waited for me there.
Merchandise and Gratitude
For the last three weeks Howard and I have spent half our business meetings discussing merchandise ideas, merchandise pricing, probable merchandise sales, and sources for the right merchandise. These meetings were followed by fast email exchanges to refine designs and make orders. This week I can feel things shifting. The design and ordering is still ongoing, but now we’ve moved into the stage where merchandise is beginning to arrive. We have patches and mugs in our hands. Our re-order of dice arrived today, as did our annual thank you post card. Tomorrow we’re expecting some t-shirts. By Thursday we hope to open up ordering on all of these things. We want to allow people to bundle their purchases together and plenty of time for those over seas to get their stuff before the holidays. My next few weeks are all going to be about order management and shipping.
This afternoon I printed out the labels for our thank you postcards. We send one to every single address which ordered merchandise from us during the year. There were over 50 pages of labels with 30 labels to a page. This means that I have more than 1600 people to thank for the fact that we are able to pay for car repairs, medical bills, mortgage payments, and cartons of ice cream. Sometimes when I think about how dependent our income is on the good will of others I get stressed and scared. I can’t control how or when people choose to order from us. When I see this list of names, and start placing labels onto postcards, I begin to see names which have become familiar. Most of them have never spoken with me, nor I with them, but they still are a part of my life. I love the familiarity of recognizing names on the list year after year. Other names are new. Then I know that somewhere during the year someone found the comic and joined us on our adventure. These names make me happy too. Sticker by sticker, stamp by stamp, I move the postcards into the to-be-mailed pile. By Thursday I’ll hand them over to the postal service and they will begin to disperse to the far corners of the world. Cards from my hands are going to people in my town and to people in India, Croatia, Germany, Australia, Abu Dhabi, France, Spain, Canada, Italy, and every state in the United States. They will travel far, expanding my gratitude so that it has enough lift to carry me where ever I need to go. I love sending the thank you cards. It makes me happy.
Things Which Help Me Be Happy
Based on the experimental evidence from the last month there are some things I need to make a more regular part of my life to increase my happiness.
Spend more time with people who are glad to see me. This past weekend I got to see several people whom I like very much, but whom I have not seen in a long time. Each of them lit up and faced me with a smile to greet me. Spending hours talking over everything small and large was truly enjoyable, but that instantaneous glad-to-see-you reaction was an instant mood lifter. I could hear it in the voice of a friend I talked to on the phone as well. It made the self doubting voices scatter and find somewhere else to be.
Seek out more new things. Going to Antelope Island was marvelous. Going to the art museum with Kiki gave my brain all sorts of new thoughts to think. Even the trip to the dump was interesting and sparked new trains of thought. New experiences engage my brain and feed my creativity.
Teach more often. I’ve taught some art lessons in kids’ classes as part of a volunteer program. Preparing was fun, teaching was fun, and I walked out feeling energized. A local conference has invited me to teach next spring. My brain has been happily percolating plans to make those classes the best ever. I love teaching. I love the moment when I look out at the audience and can tell that my words have been interesting or useful.
Embrace my organizational talents. I plan and organize almost reflexively. Even when something is clearly not my responsibility or not my problem some part of my brain will latch onto it and think through how it could be solved or done better. This is valuable and essential in our business. Yet somehow I wanted to discount this gift. I wanted to be appreciated for my creative efforts not my administration. But pulling organization out of chaos is a huge creative act. When I see my organization as creative it becomes a soul-filling activity rather than a draining one.
Save money to fund dreams, not just fend off bills. I’m not really sure how I forgot this one. I used to do it all the time. In our early marriage every spare bit of money was put away so that some day we could afford for Howard to quit his corporate job. Then that dream arrived and all the money went toward making sure we could keep it. We have kept it, but I lost the habit of stashing money into savings. This meant that when an unexpected expense came finding the money to cover it required juggling and stress. Three months ago I decided I wanted to fund a family trip next summer. I started stashing money away for it. Last month I raided that stash completely dry to pay a medical bill and was grateful that dreaming had preserved funds which otherwise would have disappeared somewhere less important. Today I stashed away money for that trip again. I honestly don’t know if we’ll get to take the trip, but saving for it makes me happy. Having a financial buffer to pull from makes me happy. Either way I am less stressed. Saving money is a good thing.
Snuggle and hug the kids. I sometimes forget the power of touch. When I hug my children regularly fights are less frequent and less severe. Snuggling little kids is instinctive, it is easy to fall out of the habit when they get bigger, particularly when they are bigger than me. I can’t snuggle my teens, but I can pat a shoulder as I walk by. I can hug them before bed. I can remember to focus my attention on them when they need something. All of these things remind me that being with my kids is fun, not just a series of challenges which need to be tackled.
I’m not going to try to organize a systematic plan to fit all of these things into my life. Instead I’ve written them on a page in my River Song journal. Since I’m thumbing through that book at least a couple of times per week, I’ll keep running across the list. Bit by bit I’ll absorb and internalize these thoughts. Then they will naturally express themselves in my actions. I’m also watching to see what other things I’ve missed observing that make me happy. It is like a scavenger hunt where I compile the list as I go.