musings as the days shorten

The penultimate month of 2011 is almost at an end. This is the time of year where I wonder where the time went. Yes, it's also the time of year when I think about family, thankfulness and all of the other holiday season things. But right now, I seem to be thinking about what I set out to do this year. I started 2011 with an influx of energy and ideas. I had projects for my non-work time. Travel plans abounded. I felt good about where I was and what I was doing. As I assess, I think things came out at a 50/50 split.

my windowsill on a Sunday afternoone

I did well on follow through with the travel plans. I went to Vegas to celebrate/reconnect with three amazing friends from college who I rarely ever see anymore since I moved to SF. I went to NYC for the first time and had an amazing time with Martin, my aunt Michelle and uncle David. We spent 5 summer days in Michigan with Martin's family and got some quality time hanging out with his oldest niece. There was the stormy Valentine's night off the pacific coast at Costanoa. And my first camping trip ever. Most recently my Thanksgiving trip with my family to Oklahoma City. So, I did well in that respect.

sticker graffiti on 13th near Valencia

My projects haven't come off so well. This blog was one project, and while it has been successful in some ways, it's hasn't been what I imagined. I finished knitting a hat for my dad. But everything else - building a lamp for Arielle, making a cookbook for my sister, making in inappropriate cross stitch for my brother, writing letters to Resa every month - did not happen. Some got started, but none got finished. Perhaps my eyes were too large for my stomach in this instance. But since all of these projects that were supposed to take up my free time didn't happen, what did I do with that time?

old sign in chinatown, SF

Finally, how do I feel about where I am and what I'm doing? Unsure is the best answer I can give. I don't feel content in my work anymore. I feel restless. I'm dreaming more. I'm reading more. I'm imagining more. I don't have any answers, but rather multitudes of questions. Perhaps as I go through the rituals of closing the year over this next month, I'll begin to feel some resolution and some consensus about this year. Then again, perhaps the process that I'm going through will take a little longer to suss out. We'll have to see.

the nature of habits and myself

Earlier in October, I signed up for an online course that was committing to do a yoga practice at home for 30 days. The commitment would be supported through video and email support by the yoga teacher. After the course, theoretically, one has gotten into a habit of daily yoga.

While I have enjoyed the course and practicing yoga at home, I have not been able to manage to make it a habit. In fact, I believe I have an unusual predilection for not forming habits out of daily practices. I'm not saying that I don't have things that I do regularly - showering, checking email, etc. Or that I don't respond to certain stimuli in certain, patterned ways - over-eating when upset, tearing at my nails when nervous, etc. Those ideas aren't what I mean when I say habit. I mean willfully and purposefully putting in place behaviors that become so ingrained that eventually they become almost subconscious. Things like daily yoga/exercise, filling my bike tires weekly, regularly writing on a blog. I have great ambitions and seem to have rather poor follow through.

For example, all of my journals before my 17th birthday look like this - one week of daily writing, an entry two weeks later that tries to catch up and fails, one more aborted attempt to catch up, the rest is blank pages. This was my habit. By the time I was 17, even I had recognized this pattern in myself. So, when I received a beautiful journal from a friend for my birthday, I was reticent to do anything with it. I didn't want it to end up like all the others. I thought about it for a while and wondered what would happen if I didn't date my entries? What if I just wrote what I wanted and then put it aside? And then, it wouldn't matter if I picked it up the next day or in two weeks or in two months or two years. It would look like I was just starting from where I left off. I started the journal in January of 2000 and finished it, my only complete journal to date, around 6 years later. I started my current journal in January of 2006 and am not nearly halfway done.

What does this example say about me? And, can I translate it into something useful in my other goals for myself? How do go about setting up a habit without holding myself accountable to time? I guess I can't really say that I made journaling a habit. I did the opposite. I removed the element of regularity. It worked for what I wanted - to finish a journal - but it didn't make journaling a consistent part of my life. How can I remove my self-sabotaging expectations of myself while still holding myself accountable? Maybe I'll go contemplate it while in downward dog.

Understanding Graduate School

Well it's October and the heat is on in graduate school. If I make it through this month, I believe all will be well. I think back on my preconceptions of what school would be like and how I even imagined I could hold down a job while in school. School is a job in itself. The readings, the research and writing papers, attending class, studying, on-line lectures all combine to utilize a majority of my time. Even factoring in my age and unsharpened skills, I think even a non-stressful job would have been too much for me this first semester. But it is so much fun to be a student again, learning things new to me. I have been a generalist most of my teaching career, which means I know a little bit about a lot of things. I am eager to focus on a narrower agenda.

Critical thinking is an area of concern for me now as I read to understand and then share my views and interpretations back to the professor. I knew I would be good at test-taking, at least the tests that cover content. I have a mid-term coming up that is all essay and short answer. In order to get an A on the long essay, I must form a thesis statement and develop the essay using various readings and class discussions to fully explore the topic. I believe I can do this, then there is the but.....but what if I fail to have a convincing argument? What if the information just leaves my head at the last minute and I draw a blank? What if what I see as important and relevant is not the key point the professor had in mind. There is so much information to be aware of and only a fraction of it is covered on the test and you don't know what it will be, so you study it all. Talk about a narrower agenda! What have I signed up for?

Then I remember life is about process and all I can do is do my best. As a teacher, I remember the students who involved themselves in their learning generally fared well and were able to articulate what they learned in a reasonble manner and I can do the same.

September Retreat

on retreat in September in north Georgia

"The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life." 
~Robert Louis Stevenson

self-portrait on a leisurely walk around the lake 

I think many times we often forget how the everyday simplicity of our lives hold the key to happiness. This year of writing with Lauryn has helped me discover how much pleasure I find when I simply notice what I am doing as I am doing it. It leads me to respond to my circumstances in a genuine way, bringing joy into my life. Just stopping and taking note of my breath. I can slow it down and focus on how grateful I am that I am here now. I always have tea candles to light and lighting them on a dreary day lifts my mood. The red flowers on the labyrinth path share their beauty for free as I walk the circuits in prayer.

sun-kissed foliage of red and green

It wasn't always so in my life. If there is any wisdom in living to be an elder in our society, I believe it is in the understanding of this principle. It makes for a twinge of saddness that my realization of this did not come sooner, but then I am reminded of all the days to come and I am grateful for the awakening, for it did not come too late.

Unbalanced

September usually marks a time in my life when I lose any semblance of balance between my work life and my non-work life. The start of the youth & teen program fall session at the dance organization where I work means that I work the first two weeks of the session straight.  This year was no different. I worked the Tuesday after Labor Day, the 5th through the 17th. Twelve days of working. Most of the time I was putting in 8 hour days, if not longer.

The over-achieving, workaholic is a standard image in our contemporary, western culture. Definitely within the corporate culture. I think it's just as bad in non-profit culture where I work. There is this idea that we have to sacrifice our lives for the good work we're doing. When there is a gap to be filled in, we jump in and roll up our sleeves. There's a constant idea of there being no money and no resources. You're supported by your ideals and the knowledge that what you're doing is important.

I have always had a strangely strong work ethic. I have been noted of going above and beyond in all of my jobs - student (6-22), receptionist (15), sales clerk (16), restaurant hostess (17-20), library circulation desk attendant (18-22), au pair (22), Americorps volunteer (23-24), non-profit arts administrator (24-29). I'm not saying I haven't slacked off or wasted time while on the clock. I read a romance novel at the library one semester that a professor had put on the holds shelf for a class during the downtime of my shifts. Note that I wasn't in the class. But, overall, I've always focused on being present and engaged in the workplace, which has served me in finding better and better jobs and employment.

So, when does this become a problem? When does being a good employee go beyond what's healthy? How do you say no when you know there is no one else there, and no money to hire someone to be there, to do the job? How do you stop being good at your job for the sake of being good to yourself?

Sweet and Lovely

I did not want to go. Labor Day weekend was coming up and plans were being made. "But you have to go!" says my daughter. My argument was sound. I had just started the first semester of graduate school and I had assignments due, so taking the whole weekend off to go to the beach seemed outrageously frivolous. I had my first paper due the following Tuesday. Her urgency and tone were clues that something else was up. When I discussed it with Terry, he seemed unconcerned and wanted me to lighten up about school. After all it is just the beginning of the semester. I am not sure anyone really appreciated then or even appreciates now, how truly scared I am about being able to handle the rigor of academic study. It has been 32 years since I was in college.

I did earn three certifications through my Montessori career in order to teach children ages 3-12 in that educational paradigm. But those courses of study were mastery level, in that we learned what we needed to know, and if we learned it, we earned it and there were no grades. One either passed or failed. Even that is not quite true, because there was always the opportunity to revisit what you had not quite mastered and show that you had learned it, so the only true failure would be if you gave up and decided to fail. This is not the case in university graduate school. There are reading assignments, periodic tests, quizes, due dates, participation grades, research papers, midterms and finals, all of which are part of your final GRADE. How you perform on these various evaluations determines how well you do. Sure, I am old enough and secure enough to know that my grade does not equate my self worth, but I am taking out loans to acquire knowledge and a skill set to begin a new career and I am not going to take it lightly. So I really was not enthusiastic about going to the beach for three days at all.

Then I found out the real reason for the trip and my perspective altered. It was not just another three days at the beach, but three days to celebrate my daughter's commitment to the special person in her life. A ceremonial act of joining two people in a common bond of love. It was not unexpected in the long run that these two young people that I care about would decide to make this kind of commitment. I was surprised at the timing, the pressing need, and the private nature of its unfoldment. On many levels it provided a wake up call for my responsibilities as a parent, a friend, a wife and yes, to a lesser degree, a student. The trip fulfilled its purpose as I fulfilled my role as both mother and a student of life's passages.

Circles

by Hafiz

The moon is most happy

When it is full.

And the sun always looks

Like a perfectly minted gold coin

That was just Polished

And placed in flight

By the Universe's playful Kiss.

And so many varieties of fruit

Hang plump and round 

From branches that seem like a Sculptor's hands.

I see the beautiful curve of a pregnant belly

Shaped by a soul within,

And the earth itself,

And the planets and the Spheres-

I have gotten the hint:

There is something about circles

The Beloved likes.

Dear Ones,

Within the Circle of a Perfect One

There is an Infinite Community

of Light.



The joy of drawing a labyrinth in the sand and witnessing Krista, Tommy, and Colton walk together, with Tommy leading them in and Krista leading them out, as I recited the Hafiz poem as a blessing, is in my heart forever. And so it is. 



the outdoors

My first backcountry backpacking/camping trip, ever, happened this Labor Day weekend. While I was a girl scout for many years growing up, we never actually went camping. I had never carried a pack, set up a tent, or done a dozen things that I did this weekend. 

Conversely, Martin was a boy scout. He went camping at least twice a year. One might say that this was an instance of him growing up in a rural area, while I grew up in a suburban area, but I don't think that's particularly accurate. I'm pretty sure boy scouts who lived in Roswell, GA went camping. I'm alos pretty sure that other girls who may or may not have been girl scouts but lived in Roswell, GA went camping growing up. 

Instead, I would say that camping was just not part of my family's lifestyle. My father and brother didn't go camping without us women-folk; they just didn't go camping. My parents never owned a tent. Our sleeping bags were the Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony style ones, not the keep you warm in under 30 degree weather kind.

And I think that my total and complete lack of camping and backpacking experience in the 80's and 90's actually may have been a good thing. You see camping gear used to be a lot heavier. A lot. And I was a tiny, tiny little thing growing up. While I loved the outdoors, I don't know that I would have loved hiking with a big external frame pack.

Now, they have ultra light tents and sleeping bags/pads that scrunch up into little bundles. Now, I have friends who have so much backpacking experience that they can lend us 95% of the gear we need to go. I think the only thing we actually had to buy was a pack for me because, as I mentioned, I'm kind of small. The best fit for me was actually a youth pack, not a women's pack.

I wonder if my parents went camping as children. I wonder if my brother and sister have been camping. I must say that I never perceived it as a lack growing up. But, I'm glad that, as an adult, I have had this experience. Sadly, it has made my non-consumerist goals much more difficult, because now I want to be able to do this on our own.

Getting out of the city. The silence of the evenings. The clean air. The easy tiredness in the evenings knowing that you have earned your rest. The sparkling fresh water of the mountain lake that we swam in. All of these things must be experienced again.