Self

Anxiety and Oil Paint

By / March 17, 2011 / 1 Comment

I woke up this morning in hard-core problem solving mode. This means that I am impatient with emotional reactions. I just want to brush emotion aside and pick the most likely path to success. Kiki has an art project this week. She decided to use oil paint for the project despite the fact that she has never used oil paints before. She doesn’t know how they work. I don’t know how they work other than the fact that they are harder to clean up and they take a long time to dry. She base coated a board yesterday and it was still tacky this morning, despite having sat in front of a warm air source last night. I desperately wanted to say “I told you so” and make her use water color instead. She went off to school with all her oil painting supplies and the board.

My problem solving mode was triggered by anxiety. For me anxious thoughts often break loose from their specific causes. It becomes a free-floating feeling that seeks to attach itself to whatever passes by. There are many responses to anxiety. One of them is to pull back, to play it safe. This reduces anxiety by staying comfortably in a place where risk is minimized. The response I prefer is to stare the Anxiety down. I’ll look it in the eyes and say to myself “I see you, but I’m going to go do this thing I want to do anyway. I’ll curl into a ball and cry later.” Yes I do have to curl and cry, but by that time I’ve already accomplished something.

I really wanted Kiki to play it safe with this art project. I wanted her to switch to water-color which is familiar and predictable. My head is a-swirl with many anxious thoughts and I wanted to reduce the count by one. A Kiki art-related meltdown is guaranteed to rearrange my day. The teacher doesn’t care what medium is used for the project. I care that my daughter learns the things she needs, and she needs to learn oil paint at some point, but it could be a different week. I would love for it to be a different week. Except, Kiki wants to face down her fears and meet this challenge now. And so I let her, even though it makes me anxious.

Repetition and Patterns

By / March 15, 2011

I have several projects in process right now. I’m working on my book of essays, which has me combing through blog entries from 2007 and 2008. I’m working on creating family photo books and I’m two years behind, so the project has me reading through blog entries from 2009 to pull the family-related ones to be matched with pictures. Each year I pull all the blog entries and use a Print on Demand service to create a blog book which goes on my shelf. For the 2010 book I decided I wanted to make it pretty with actual layout. So I’ve been glancing over the 2010 blog entries as I put them in place. Then of course there is my ongoing blogging.

Most of my projects spend lots of time idle. This is why the family photo book is so far behind. In the past couple of weeks each of my projects has had a turn being in the front of my attention. It is very retrospective. As I read through these snatches of my life and the lives of my kids, I remember things I would have otherwise forgotten. I find hidden treasures of thought. I just wish more of them stuck. All too often I read entries written a year or more apart where I come to a nearly identical epiphany. Just a couple of days ago I wrote a post about how I can’t fix everything and I shouldn’t expect myself to. I came to a similar realization last March too. I keep over scheduling myself and struggling to clear spaces in my schedule. I get stressed. I get anxious. I’m excited about events. I stay home from events for the benefit of the kids. Around and around I go tromping over landscape which looks remarkably similar.

Last night I was inclined to be discouraged with myself for needing to learn the same lessons over and over again. I would like to just learn the lesson and move on. The thing is, I do. The fact that I have to come to the same epiphanies is not because I forget, but rather because I need to recognize the new iteration of a particular problem. Life is cyclical. I should expect to cycle through patterns of thought in response to the patterns of my year. For what ever reason, early March appears to be the time of year when I need to remember that I am not responsible for solving all the troubles in the world. September is a month when I plan, organize, and take control of many things. In Fall I shoulder my burdens. In Spring I learn to put them down again. Winter I hunker down and survive. In Summer I run fast and be busy. Not a bad pattern really.

The patterns do shift from year to year. I can see that bit by bit I’m finding more balance. I also am more understanding of my past failures. When I read the lists of things which all happened more or less simultaneously, I am amazed that we survived intact. We’ll probably stay pretty close to variations on these themes while I’ve got all my kids home and in school. The future will hold different patterns. It will be interesting to see what they are when I get there. For now I’m content to repeat the current patterns. They have far more good in them than bad.

When Disaster Strikes Far Away

By / March 11, 2011

Half way around the world people’s lives have been permanently altered. My life is normal except for extra chatter on twitter, facebook, and news sites. My heart goes out to the Japanese people, but my hands are too far away to help them. The temptation is to glue myself to my computer, watching every update as it rolls in. I did this on September 11, 2001. I did it for Katrina. I’ve since learned how unhelpful such behavior is to anyone. It is important for me to be generally informed, but up-to-the minute updates only create urgency and stress in my mind and body. Images of disaster cause a physiological reaction, my body prepares to respond to imminent danger. There is no danger for me. The danger is half a world away. I am left in a hyper-reactive state during which my brain retains information more fully. By hyper-focusing on disaster news, I can create in myself a traumatized state. I can trigger the same in my children if they follow my lead. I think the world has a sufficient load of trauma today. No need for me to add to it unnecessarily.

Two days ago Kiki was host to a Japanese exchange student. This girl went with Kiki to every class. They talked, laughed, exchanged email addresses, and discovered that they share the exact same birthday. The exchange student was due to return home to Tokyo tomorrow, she will now be staying in the US for another week as she waits for the chaos to calm down at home. Her family and friends were in the middle of the mess. Kiki’s Japanese class spent most of their class time today watching video and talking about the earthquake and tsunami. Then, of course, they talked about how Utah is located on a large fault which is geologically overdue for a big quake. Kiki was a bit shaky and scared when I picked her up from school. My calmness reassured her instead of adding to her stress.

I spent some time today looking up the current status of other disaster zones. Christchurch, New Zealand has just begun to repair. Haiti still needs help. New Orleans is still far from where it was before Katrina. But in all these places new stories emerge, stories of strength and overcoming adversity. It is easy to forget in the deluge of stunning video that there are places which have been through as bad or worse and have begun to recover. So I scan the news lightly every couple of hours. I make donations to disaster relief organizations who have the hands, experience, and personnel to deal with the emergency. Then I take my hands and find something to do in my own neighborhood which will add to the good things in the world.

Emotional weight and things which matter

By / March 8, 2011

Out of the blue comes a day like today when I get all of the important things done all on the same day. This is not to say that I accomplished everything on my task list. Not even close. I haven’t even caught up on all the things which fell behind during the weeks of sickness. But last night my paper journal and I had a good long talk and I was finally able to identify which of the perpetually postponed tasks were the ones filled with guilt. Today I put those things first. I worked on the Emperor Pius Dei layout. I worked on editing my book. I made dinner and enforced a homework hour for the kids. I helped my son make a boat for cub scouts. I did some other stuff too, but those were the things which really mattered to me.

Sometimes the things which matter are not the things I think ought to matter. This is another case of my emotional brain not communicating clearly with my logic centers. The logic center is the place from which I write all my to do lists. My emotional brain is the place which assigns emotional weight to all of the tasks. I can accomplish a hundred things which seem important, but the day will feel like a failure if I leave the weighty things undone. This is true even when the weighty thing is “shop for new shoes” a thing which my logic brain is not at all sure should even be on the list. Whether I think they should or not, some things matter more to me than others. The things which matter will shift and change according to my emotional currents. I have to take time to observe those currents so that I can make my lists to match.

Managing a bad day

By / March 6, 2011

Some days, today for example, I feel like a failure as a parent. My logical brain has a whole list of reasons to explain this feeling. It supplies them in regular rotation, proving them to be completely interchangeable and thus not the cause of the feeling. The feeling pre-exists the reasons and can not be quelled by logic or by copious contrary evidence, both of which my logical brain also supplies. It is a mood. It will pass. Some other day, perhaps even as soon as tomorrow, I will look at the same lists of faults and triumphs, and I will come to the conclusion that I am pretty good at this parenting thing. Logic and emotion are often only passing acquaintances in my head.

So on a day like today I cry some, hopefully in private, but more likely in an embarrassingly public location like church. I sort my thoughts into piles so that I can re-examine them on a more energetic/rational day. Then I find something to do. It has to be a small thing because I really need it to succeed. Today I succeeded in pulling copious quantities of lint out of the dryer vent pipe. In theory this will improve the function of our dryer, but even if it doesn’t, I still succeeded in removing a sack full of mess from our lives. Also I gave two kids haircuts and they don’t look awful. That’s three more bits of evidence to weight the scales on the side of being a competent human being. It’s a start.

In which I explain my current sleep deprivation

By / February 20, 2011 / 1 Comment

Three days of high intensity social and public presentation time came to a conclusion when my cell phone rang multiple times. Link, having been an excellent baby sitter for most of the evening, abdicated his post 30 minutes too soon. Kiki failed to back him up and to do a couple of simple chores that I specifically requested. So instead of coming home to a clean quiet house, Howard and I had to come home and be parentally disapproving. The kid are contrite and perhaps a lesson has been learned which will result in long term good. We all dragged off to bed, quite thoroughly drained.

Sleep was interrupted at 2 am when Patch crawled into bed with me and declared “I need a pot!” I ran for the pot, he ran for the bathroom. Thus began twelve hours of a particularly vicious stomach flu. Howard stayed home from church with the sick boy. I went to church with the other three. This was when I learned that my newly acquired church job (Relief Society Committee Member) came with an attached afternoon meeting that precluded me taking a long nap. I’ve been sleepwalking all day, fortunately the day is drawing to a close and the kids have no school tomorrow. I will be shutting off the alarm clocks and sleeping late. Patch seems to be feeling better and has managed to keep water down for two hours now. As long as no one else comes down sick in the middle of the night, I should be able to sleep.

I’m far too tired to feel much about the concatenation of tiring events. At most I feel a mild amusement, knowing that this will be fodder for good stories in the future. It really has been a good week and a good weekend. I need to hold tight to that thought as a shield against anyone else in the family getting sick.

Notes from LTUE panel: The Writing Life

By / March 26, 2011 / 2 Comments

My final panel of today was The Writing Life. On the panel with me were Julie Wright, Berin Stevens, and Angie Lofthouse. It was one of those panels where I scribble down notes, not only to help me remember what I wanted to say, but also because other panelists said things I want to remember. It was also one of those panels where I say things which I then have to write down because somehow the act of talking about living a writing life reshaped my thoughts in new ways, then the new thoughts spilled out of my mouth.

I knew before the panel began that I wanted to mention the inevitable break down of systems. Creative people get very excited and enthusiastic about their goals and plans for achieving those goals. When the plans fall apart three days later, they get very discouraged and are inclined to give up. The thing is to pick up the pieces and make a new system based on what you learn from the old one. Through iterations of this process a writer can find what works for her. Then life changes and iterations begin again.

The other panelists made excellent points about finding your priorities, setting goals, and scheduling time. I particularly liked the statement that writers need to not wait around for writing to be convenient. Time is made, not found laying around. Several panelists discussed getting up early, writing on work breaks, or staying up late. There was also much discussion of sacrifice, specifically giving up things like television and video games in order to make time for writing. We also touched on the importance of community. I loved all these thoughts and nodded agreement while scribbling notes.

Then I found myself thinking of fractals. The defining attribute of a fractal is that the large pattern is repeated when you zoom close to any particular part of the fractal. As you get closer and closer you see the same pattern ever smaller. Our lives are fractal. We don’t have to make our whole lives meaningful, but if we make each day balanced and good then the larger pattern will reflect that. I seized a microphone to share this insight and ended up talking about the five things I am still trying to put into my life daily. Every person will have different things, but the point is to try to balance each day so that priority items are front and center.

Since this was a symposium at a religious university, the authors on the panel with me shared that they often begin their writing sessions with prayer. They talked about how this calmed them and that they felt it inspired their writing sessions. I think this is a marvelous idea and I intend to try it.

A question was asked about specific practicalities of making time for writing. The truth is that I don’t always make time for it. There is a level of guilt attached to writing because sometimes I have to sacrifice things which are more important than television or video games. Sometimes it is a choice between writing and doing the laundry. It seems like a no-brainer, who likes laundry. But I know that if the laundry does not get done, then the next morning’s school scramble will be awful which will lead to a cascading failure of day. There are times when laundry is more important than writing and I choose it. Or I choose some other thing in my life. Other times I choose writing. Each day has its own answer and the only way I can find the right answer for today is to be in touch with my own priorities and inspiration. This is where my five daily things are so critically important. They center me in the priorities of my life. Often I discover that, contrary to what guilt would have me believe, writing first makes the laundry easier.

The panel wrapped up on the thought that sometimes what we have to sacrifice for writing are our own neuroses. We have to relinquish control of some things. We have to be willing to let kids do jobs poorly or to let them struggle and fail. We have to be willing to emotionally untangle ourselves from dramas which we can’t really solve, but which sap our energy. We have to find ways to allow ourselves to not be perfect. This can be very hard.

It was a really good discussion and I am glad I got to participate.

Gadgets

By / February 2, 2011

I was on the couch absorbing the sunshine streaming in our front window while also using my phone to check up on twitter. Howard came to the top of the stairs at my left and looked down at me. He stood there for a long moment, and when I looked up at him he had a half-puzzled, half-pouty look on his face.
“You have more gadgets than I do.” He said.
My first thought was that this was patently ridiculous. Howard is definitely more tech oriented than I am. He always has been. He had a cell phone and a pager back before most people did. He upgraded to an iPhone before I did. His computer was always the good one and mine the hand-me-down. Except I just got a new computer. And I have a little netbook laptop that we bought for my writing. With the addition of the Kindle that my dad bought for my birthday, my personal gadget count exceeds the number of fingers on one hand. This is somewhat baffling to me. Why on earth would I need so many little electronic things? It hardly makes sense for me as a writer and mother. But they are so very useful for me as a business manager and publisher. Also I now have every gadget I can conceive of needing at this point in time. The next four gadgets our family buys will be for Howard and/or the kids, while I continue to use the ones I have until long after most people consider them obsolete. Thus will the natural balance of the household be restored.

Middles

By / January 27, 2011

Today I am 38 years old. Twenty years ago I was in my last semester of high school and had my whole life ahead of me. Twenty years from now I will know for sure that more of my life is behind me than ahead. Right now I am somewhere in the middle. I am comfortable with middles. I am the middlemost of 7 children. I live in a geographical nexus point so that most of my relatives stop by as they are passing through. I’m probably about half way between the birth of my oldest and the departure of my youngest. US culture would have us believe that middle age is to be dreaded. It is when people are supposed to have a crisis of identity. I feel I know who I am and who I want to be, and I’m tired of crisis right now. I haven’t the energy for it. So I think I’ll keep going along and knowing that the middle is actually a good place to be.