Life

The Present Rearranges the Past

October 18, 2017

Photo by SID ZHAO on Unsplash

“Something wonderful happens to you and you instantly look back over your life and see it as a series of fortunate events stretching off into the distance like mountain peaks. Something terrible happens and your life has always been a litany of woe. The present rearranges the past. We never tell the story whole because a life isn’t a story; it’s a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.”
—Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

Life

While I Was Making Other Plans

August 11, 2017

Life happened last week.

Tank hurt himself, doing we know not what, and I’ve been going to the barn twice a day to check on him, and clean and medicate his wounds. (He somehow injured his neck and put a puncture wound in his face—I’ll spare you the photos.)

I had intended to write some extra blog posts for Catching Happiness last week so I could take a little summer vacation.

That didn’t happen.

Life happened.

Tank is fine—it’s not a life-threatening injury, but it does require watching and extra care, and a little babying. Since the “feels like” temperatures are more than 100 degrees right now, these barn trips leave me dripping with sweat and exhausted by the end of the day.

I apologize for not having something new for you, but in the meantime, I’m resurrecting summer reruns. The following post first appeared in December of 2010 (hence the reference to the holiday season), but the message is good any time of year. 

With any luck, next week will be better!

The Gift of Permission

Most of us are thinking of what we and our loved ones would like as gifts this holiday season. Along with the wish lists we generally have, what about a gift we can give ourselves: the gift of permission? Here are three things we should give ourselves permission to do:

Permission to have the life you want
Do you, deep down, believe you deserve the life you want? If you don’t, your dream life will never become real. Women in particular often put others’ needs first, and sacrifice their own goals and dreams in favor of helping others achieve theirs. This is not all bad, of course. Many of us find deep satisfaction in helping others. It becomes a problem when you always sacrifice your own dreams and wishes in favor of others’ and never or rarely have a chance to pursue your own passions and pleasures.

Joy Chudacoff writes in “Smart Women Give Themselves Permission,” “There comes a time when you will begin to feel a calling to create more of what you prefer in your own life. It does not mean that you do not love and care for all of those people who mean so much to you. It’s a signal that the time has come for you to embrace more of who you uniquely are.”

This is definitely an issue for me: why do I “deserve” to have my dreams come true—owning my own horse, working as a freelancer (i.e., often getting paid more in satisfaction than in money), simply having what I have in my life? I feel guilty because I have the time and resources to pursue the life of my dreams, and then I begin to dissipate my energy to such an extent that I no longer do have the time and resources to do what I want. I realize I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me it’s OK to have the life I want. The truth is, I deserve the life I want just as much as—not more than, not less than—any other human being does. And so do you.

Permission to be imperfect
I’m not saying you consciously think you have to be “perfect,” but I’ll bet you think you should be better. We could all be “better” than we are—it’s part of the human condition to be imperfect. If you’re like me, you can probably name 25 things you wish were different about you and your life. Stop worrying over that and feeling guilty about it and give yourself permission to be imperfect. Admit your flaws, then realize that’s just how it is right now. If it’s truly something that must be changed, then commit to changing, but refuse to wallow in the feeling that somehow you should have already overcome this problem and you’re a bad person for not having done so. (Channel Popeye by saying, “I yam what I yam.”)

Permission to try and succeed…or to try and fail
This is one of my biggest issues. When I have a big, hairy goal or project in mind, I often become paralyzed, equally worried about succeeding or failing! If I fail, I’ll be embarrassed and disappointed in myself. If I succeed, people might expect more of me and then I could fail their expectations—or my own. Safer and more comfortable just to do nothing.

And what if trying for your big, hairy goal causes someone in your life discomfort or inconvenience? That may be true. How often does someone else’s important goal cause you discomfort or inconvenience? How do you feel about that? Probably you feel that’s OK, within reason, if the other person’s activity or achievement is important enough to them. (I also refer you back to my first point.)

Regardless of success or failure, you should give yourself permission to try. Either outcome is better than not making the attempt.

So this is what we’re going to do. I give you permission to follow your dreams, to learn something new, to succeed, to do something badly, to be imperfect. And you do the same for me. But truthfully, we don’t really need each other’s permission, do we?

What would you do if you had “permission”?

Seen on a store window in New Orleans

“If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.”
--Grace Murray Hopper

Growth

At the Edge of What's Possible

November 09, 2016

Photo courtesy Joshua Earle

“Life is lived best in the place of risk and trust. Things are more thrilling when we are at the edge of what’s possible, beyond what is expected or considered normal. And when we push ourselves to do what we aren’t sure is possible, we grow.”
—Jeff Goins

David Kessler

When We Have Truly Lived

August 31, 2016


“To age gracefully is to experience fully each day and season. When we have truly lived our lives, we don’t want to live them again. It’s the life that was not lived that we regret.”
—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler, Life Lessons: Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living

Happy birthday to two of my favorite people: my son, and my father-in-law. They both are great examples of living life fully.

Being present

Your Life Is Happening Now

July 20, 2016



“Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.”
—Mireille Guiliano

Hand Wash Cold

I Am This Life

March 16, 2016


“When I grow weary of what’s undone or anxious about what’s to come, I remind myself that I am not the maker or the order taker in this life. I am this life, and it is unfinished. Even when it is finished it will be unfinished. And so I take my sweet time. Time is savored when you take it by the hand.”
 —Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold

Fear

What's to Fear?

November 04, 2015

Photo courtesy Autumn Mott

“Nearly everything we’re afraid of is going to happen anyway, so what’s to fear? There is no secure or unchanging ground, and we make ourselves safe only when we see and accept the way life is. Utterly spontaneous and impermanent. When it is time to laugh, we laugh. When it is time to weep, we weep. We are cheated of nothing in life except that from which we withhold ourselves by ego’s narrow bounds.”
—Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold

Aging

From Squirt Guns to SPF 50

June 17, 2015

Photo courtesy Tori Campbell

Introduction by Ted Kooser: How’s this poem for its ability to collapse all the years from childhood to middle age in a matter of fifteen short lines? George Bilgere is one of this column’s favorite poets. He lives and teaches in Ohio.

The Wading Pool

The toddlers in their tadpole bodies,
with their squirt guns and snorkels,
their beautiful mommies and inflatable whales,
are still too young to understand that this is as good as it gets.

Soon they must leave the wading pool
and stand all day at the concession stand
with their hormones and snow cones,
their soul patches and tribal tattoos,
pretending not to notice how beautiful they are,

until they simply can’t stand it
and before you know it
they’re lined up on lawn chairs,
dozing in the noonday sun
with their stretch marks and beer bellies,
their Wall Street Journals and SPF 50.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2014 by George Bilgere from his most recent book of poems, Imperial, Univ. of Pittsburgh Press, 2014. Poem reprinted by permission of George Bilgere and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Life

More Like the Movies?

July 16, 2014

Photo courtesy mconnors

“They say the movies should be more like life—I think life should be more like the movies.”
—Myrna Loy


Which movie(s) would you like your life to be more like?

Happiness

This Week's Words to Live By

July 07, 2014

Do you ever have words or phrases pop into your head, seemingly from nowhere? I do—I had it happen to me this weekend, in fact. I’ve been working really hard the past couple of weeks, on both writing projects and around the house, and even though I was happy with what I’d accomplished, I was feeling a bit tired out. My mother-in-law was coming to spend the night with us, and I was looking forward to a three-day weekend. But sometimes it’s hard to switch from all-out work mode to relaxation mode. Fortunately, my subconscious kicked in with these words:

“This is your one, beautiful life. Enjoy it.”

So instead of fussing and over-working this weekend, I relaxed with my family. We sat on the lanai and floated in the pool. I made cinnamon waffles for breakfast and we ate ice cream while watching Independence Day on TV. Yesterday I slept in until 8 a.m.—almost unheard of because usually my pets wake me up long before that. Before I did anything, I asked myself, “What do you feel like doing now?” (Not “What should you be doing now?” “Should” was banished, at least for the weekend.)

Even though it’s Monday and time to get back to work, I’m going to continue to hold those words in my heart: “This is your one, beautiful life. Enjoy it.” Even while I’m cleaning bathrooms, or feeding the dog, or writing an article. This is my one, beautiful life.

What words will you live by this week?


Joy

The Way to a Joyful Life

July 02, 2014




“Experience has taught me that the way to a joyful life is always fraught with fear, that to find it you must follow your heart’s desires right through the inevitable terrors that arise to hold you back. If you don’t do this, your life will be shaped by fear, rather than love, and I guarantee, the shape will be narrow and tiny compared with your best destiny.”
—Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

Art

There Is No Short Cut

February 26, 2014


With Monday’s post in mind, here’s a quote on art that can be applied to life, too (just replace the word “art” with the word “life”):

“Sometimes, there is no such thing as a tutorial for the art we see. There is investigation. There is practice. There is appreciation. There is study. There is emulation. There is more study. There is more practice. There is searching for what's inside us. And if we are lucky, there is art. There is no easy tutorial for a process that blends all of that which could take the course of several years.

“There is no true short cut to art.”
—Jenny Doh, Crescendoh.com

Art

Life As Art

February 24, 2014


So many times our lives feel like they’ve been reduced to a to-do list we’re forever trying to finish. We tear through our weeks, striving to find a balance between doing and being, giving to others and taking care of ourselves. Even a happy life can be reduced to a black-and-white list of things accomplished. What if we think of life in a different way? What if we think about our days as blank canvases, waiting for us to paint them? What if we turn our lives into an art form, picturing each of our activities as a color?

Most of us spend a good deal of time working for the benefit of others, or to support ourselves financially. Even if we don’t especially enjoy our jobs, there is beauty in them, in the benefits they bring to us and others. We can think of them as the base color of our canvases, and picture those hours painted a favorite color. Our free time gives us a chance to add accent colors to our base color.

Just as each artist has her own vision for her art, each person will have her own vision for her life’s canvas: some people will want theirs primarily filled with one color, and others will want a canvas splashed with multiple colors. Some will gleefully spatter their canvases with bright tones, while others will choose a more muted, serene palette.  I like variety, so I’m happiest when my paintings have multiple colors. My ideal canvas would have plenty of purple and blue, the colors I associate with reading and writing. I’d also have strokes of red for physical activity, green for working for my family, even some yellow for doing nothing. (I’m not sure how a literal painting like this would look, but my imaginary painting looks great!)

At the end of each day, when we look at our finished canvases, what do we notice? Is our free time primarily filled with things we value? Have we let too much work take over? Or too much mindless entertainment? What about self-care, or acts of kindness? Do they appear? What does a week of canvases look like? A month? A year?

We are the artists of our own lives—why don’t we paint some masterpieces? (For more parallels between art and life, see “Artful Living: Applying the Five Es”.)

If your day was a painting, what colors would you fill your canvas with, and what would they represent?

Acceptance

To Be Alive

May 15, 2013



“To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive—the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourself is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our life trying to satisfy other people’s demands. We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.”
—Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

Death

Life Happens

May 03, 2013

I was preparing another Link Love post for today, but that will have to wait. We’ve had another death in the family, this time my stepfather, and I’ll be flying out to California to help my mom.


That’s always the way, isn’t it? We’re getting ready for our son’s graduation from high school and all that entails, but life keeps on happening around us. I say “life” on purpose, because death is a part of life. My family members both had good, full lives and are now at peace, no more suffering or pain.

My stepfather, Ron, married my mom when I was in college. He was good to and for her, and always kind to me, too. (I’ve been fortunate in stepparents—my stepmother is a gem.) Ron loved life, was extremely active—going to the gym early in the morning and working in the yard. When my mom needed to move north to care for my grandmother who had Alzheimer’s disease, Ron willing left Southern California where he had lived for many years, to live with my mom in her childhood home and support her in her care of Grandma. He loved USC (the University of Southern California), travel, drinking good wine and martinis, and smoking the occasional cigar with my husband. We will miss him at our family celebrations.

Fishing on the Sacramento River

With my mom in 2011
I’ll be back with you in about a week or so. Thanks so much for your support!

Family

Grandma B

April 15, 2013


One of my heroes is gone. On Saturday evening, my grandmother, Vivian Burch Holmes, passed away at the age of 97.

My grandma was my hero because she was so full of life, interested in living and in other people right up until the end. Until recently, she went to hospitals and nursing homes to visit and play bingo with the “old people.” She lived independently until November, when the effects of a small stroke made it too hard for her to climb the stairs to her basement-level apartment. I know she found it very difficult to move to an assisted living facility near my aunt, leaving her friends, her church and her independence behind.

I didn’t know my grandma as well as I would have liked. For all of my growing up years, I lived in California and she lived in Virginia. I visited her a time or two, and she came out to California a couple times as well, notably for my high school graduation. She wrote to me regularly, even up until a few weeks before her death. I’m so glad I wrote back and she was able to hear and understand my letter before she died. I always thought of her as Grandma Burch, even when she remarried after my grandfather died. (Her second husband passed away some years ago.)

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Even with our sporadic contact, I have many happy memories of Grandma. She tried to teach me how to crochet (I never advanced beyond one long string of yarn) and she did teach me how to do candlewicking. One of my favorite memories is of the time she came to visit us in Florida, and my dad and stepmom came from California, when Nick was about 3. It was near Grandma’s birthday, so every time we went out to eat, we told the servers it was her birthday, and they came and sang to her. The best time was at a Mexican restaurant where they made her wear a giant sombrero while they serenaded her. You can see by her big smile she’s enjoying the experience! Other memories of that visit include a trip to Disney World, and a looong toy guitar “concert” given by Nick out on our lanai which everyone endured more or less patiently.

Grandma lived a full life, and died a peaceful death. She was loved and she will be missed. She was not rich, famous or powerful, but she touched and inspired many lives, including my own. I was lucky to be her granddaughter.

Four generations: Nick, Grandma, me, my dad.

Life

Prairie Sure

September 05, 2012



I love the images in this poem by Carol Light, of Washington state.

Prairie Sure

Would I miss the way a breeze dimples
the butter-colored curtains on Sunday mornings,
or nights gnashed by cicadas and thunderstorms?
The leaning gossip, the half-alive ripple
of sunflowers, sagging eternities of corn 
and sorghum, September preaching yellow, yellow
in all directions, the windowsills swelling
with Mason jars, the blue sky bluest borne
through tinted glass above the milled grains?
The dust, the heat, distrusted, the screen door
slapping as the slat-backed porch swing sighs,
the hatch of houseflies, the furlongs of freight trains,
and how they sing this routine, so sure, so sure—
the rote grace of every tempered life?

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Carol Light, whose poems have been published in Prairie Schooner, Poetry Northwest and elsewhere. Poem reprinted from The Literary Bohemian, Issue 12, June 2011, by permission of Carol Light and the publisher.

Change

Slack Tide

July 30, 2012


Every life has a series of tides, times of transition and fluctuating circumstances. For example, as children grow up, a parent’s focus changes from the physical care of changing diapers and feeing babies to supervising homework, and on to grilling teenagers about where they’re going and who they will be with. Parenting is a series of ebbs and flows as children’s needs change from one day to the next. Marriages, friendships, jobs, hobbies and interests all have their own rhythms of ebb and flow.

I’ve been thinking about ebbs and flows as my son prepares for his senior year in high school. In most ways he requires little care, and can even be helpful. In others, we’ve had to tighten up certain rules and practices. We’ve also made it a point to spend as much time with him as possible (and as he will allow!) while he’s still at home. In a short time (God willing) he’ll be gone, and we’ll be faced with the complete ebb of our roles as parents.

While this is happening, I’m trying to shift my focus from household responsibilities to writing projects. I’m finding this hard to do because there’s no guarantee my writing projects will be successful (and they’re certainly not contributing to the family finances right at this moment) and it’s easy to see when the bathroom is clean, the laundry is done and dinner is on the table. The problem is, my writing projects will never be successful if they don’t get the time and attention they need to blossom. That time and attention has to come from somewhere, and I can’t (and don’t want to) give up all leisure time, so some household stuff is just going to have to take a backseat.

While I’m learning to cope with the ebbs and flows of life, I’ve found these principles helpful.

Pay attention. What you need, what your family and friends need from you, may—will!—change. Maybe instead of a nap you need a bike ride, or vice versa. Maybe your best friend needs a kick in the pants instead of a listening ear, or vice versa. What was soothing or energizing last month might not do the trick today. As a sailor studies tides, watch for changes in the current of your life.

Go with the flow. Don’t fight the current. Don’t get hung up on what you “should” do or “should” have or “should” want. If you feel strongly that the tide is taking you away from where you want to be, know that new tides will come. The ocean, and your life, is always moving, always changing. Down times give way to up times. Try to keep your head above water and watch for a break in the current. Fighting the tides will exhaust you and can be dangerous. Allow the current to take you. You might end up someplace wonderful.

Float when you get the chance. Slack water, or slack tide, is the moment that tidal current ceases. This occurs just before the tide turns and begins running the other direction. If you’ve been paying attention and going with the flow, you should be able to sense this change and float for a while before flowing off to who knows where. Relax, gather strength and look forward to what’s next. (That’s kind of where I feel I am now.)

Ocean tides are among the most reliable natural phenomena in the world. In life, we are sure to face times of ebb and flow, just like the ocean. How about you? What is flowing into your life? Out of it?

P.S. I’ve had a big uptick in spam lately, so I’m putting word verification on for at least a little while—sorry for the inconvenience!

Happiness

A Happier Life

July 25, 2012


There is a type of poem, the Found Poem, that records an author’s discovery of the beauty that occasionally occurs in the everyday discourse of others. Such a poem might be words scrawled on a wadded scrap of paper, or buried in the classified ads, or on a billboard by the road. The poet makes it his or her poem by holding it up for us to look at. Here the Washington, D.C., poet Joshua Weiner directs us to the poetry in a letter written not by him but to him. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Found Letter

What makes for a happier life, Josh, comes to this:   
Gifts freely given, that you never earned;   
Open affection with your wife and kids;   
Clear pipes in winter, in summer screens that fit;   
Few days in court, with little consequence;   
A quiet mind, a strong body, short hours   
In the office; close friends who speak the truth;   
Good food, cooked simply; a memory that’s rich   
Enough to build the future with; a bed   
In which to love, read, dream, and re-imagine love;   
A warm, dry field for laying down in sleep,   
And sleep to trim the long night coming;   
Knowledge of who you are, the wish to be   
None other; freedom to forget the time;   
To know the soul exceeds where it’s confined   
Yet does not seek the terms of its release,   
Like a child’s kite catching at the wind   
That flies because the hand holds tight the line.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2006 by Joshua Weiner. Reprinted from “From the Book of Giants,” University of Chicago Press, 2006, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

Art

Artful Living: Applying the Five Es

June 29, 2012


Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, Athens

I recently completed Laure Ferlita’s online art class, An Imaginary Trip to Greece, an experience that qualifies as both a simple pleasure and an everyday adventure. One of the main focuses of her classes is learning how to quickly capture a scene on location where conditions can change quickly, you can be interrupted, etc. One tool Laure stresses in class is the “five Es”—concepts that help us figure out what we want to sketch and how we can make each sketch uniquely our own. The Five Es are: Evaluate, Eliminate, Edit, Exaggerate, and Embellish. Always on the lookout for principles that could be useful in living a happier, more artful life, it occurs to me that the five Es could be quite usefull:

Evaluate. Just as an artist evaluates his or her subject to find its most pleasing aspect or determine what is sketchable in the time available, you can evaluate your life to see how it's running. What feels good and bad, how you’re measuring up to your standards, how you’re progressing toward your goals. Taking stock of the who, what, when, where and why of life. In stopping to evaluate, you bring awareness to your life instead of drifting (or charging) around mindlessly.

Eliminate. On location, once you’ve chosen your subject, you want to eliminate anything that doesn’t significantly add to the sketch. You simply won’t have time to get every detail down on paper, so choose your details wisely. In the same way, life is short! After you evaluate it, you might decide you have some things to get rid of. Maybe literally, like that closet of items you want to donate to charity or a stack of old magazines and catalogs you’ll never get around to reading. Maybe it’s a chore or other commitment that has outlived its usefulness. It might even be a person who drags you down every time you’re together. What can you get rid of to make your life better?

Edit. In sketching and life, once you’ve decided what you want to focus on and what you want to eliminate, what’s left? Maybe you don’t want to eliminate something all together, but you can pare it down or simplify it.

Exaggerate. In class, Laure advises students to “use your creative license to exaggerate the elements to make it a great piece of art.” In sketching, that might mean darkening the values, or adjusting the direction of the light hitting your subject to make a more interesting composition. To translate this into life, choose to focus on, encourage and support the positive.

Embelish. The fun part! In art, this is where you add your own style to your sketch. In life, this is where you find ways to make it more beautiful—buy the fresh flowers, eat the chocolate, go see that movie, play, concert or sporting event that interests you. Life should be more than a list of chores and responsibilities.

Just as Laure’s five Es make sketching on location easier and more fun by giving me a framework to help me choose a subject and execute a sketch, using the five Es as a framework for living helps me feel like an artist in my own life. (And thank you to Laure for introducing me to these principles in art and in life!)

Do you have any principles that help you lead a happier, more artful life?