Scatter Graph Hell

Oh Excel, some days you confound me...Why is it so difficult to create a scatter graph?

I beat you though. I win.

This time.

Categories

Back in the day, we used to play a drinking game called Categories. It was a little bit like Scattegories. Someone would shout out a category and then around the circle we would go, shouting out items in that category. If you failed to produce an item for the list for that category, you had to drink (of course) and come up with a new category. I think. My memories of the exact rules of this game are a little fuzzy for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, the reason I bring this up is due to a recent conversation I had about my propensity to categorize every blessed thing. I like to put things into boxes and tie them up with a neat bow. It serves me to be able organize people and behaviors. For example, I believe there are personality traits common to first born children. I believe that people who live in different areas of the country have certain regional tendencies. When you grow up orbiting around NYC, you snap your fingers and want things to happen tout suite. Things tend to happen tout suite, too. When I moved to Florida, I could not begin to tell you how much of a fish out of water I was in the culture there. Things just don't move fast like they do up North.

Anyhow, this little discussion was about my categorization of people by gender. I tend to do a lot of characterizing people by their gender. I even liked "Men Are from Mars..." I was very drawn to a PBS special years ago where I remember the thesis of evolutionary development of the different genders. Men, having to hunt and be out on the plains for long periods, were required to be mono-focused...to think more linearly...to not be as easily distracted. Women, whose survival required them to socialize and raise their children in community, learned to focus on many things at once. They thought more relationally, they attended to many things at once: the pot on the stove, the children, the peers, etc. This made just a heck of a lot of sense to me. It wasn't meant to be sexist or judgemental. It was meant to distill things down, to simplify. To find clarity where there is confusion. That is what I seek.

Here are some of the blogs I have written using my "categorization talent":

http://lemurandlou.blogspot.com/2011/04/further-understanding-of-momzilla.html

http://lemurandlou.blogspot.com/2011/02/women-are-from-venus-and-other-women.html

http://lemurandlou.blogspot.com/2011/02/we-havent-always-all-lived-on-venus.html

http://lemurandlou.blogspot.com/2012/11/carrots-or-candy-bars.html

http://lemurandlou.blogspot.com/2010/06/doing-man-up.html

Indeed. Timing IS Everything.

There are theories I have about life and the nature of things...humans being of the most interest to me. My thought today is this: timing is critical in all things. Right thing, wrong time. Wrong thing, wrong time. Right thing, right time. The worst are those things that you know are right, but they seem a little early or a little late...not dramatically so, just a tiny bit off, or those things which are ALMOST right, but arrive exactly when you expect them.

Love is like this. We find a person who plays that particular chord that we know has been missing. It even might not be the exact chord we had expected, but it's beautiful nonetheless. Maybe, in some cases we even think the dreaded thought that with practice, it will improve. We gloss over the small, not quite rights. If we are positive and hopeful, which are almost always characteristics of early love, we believe we can turn the almost into the just right.

Time is a brisk wind, for each hour it brings something new... but who can understand and measure its sharp breath, its mystery and its design? ~Paracelsus

Each hour, each second, each minute it brings something new and anew in it, we are. I am remembering the movie Sliding Doors, in which there are two versions of time which shunt off from each other and progress separately into two futures. Each moment of time that passes, creates a new me. Well, I am always me, but my willingness, stubborness, openess, closedness, moods, likes, dislikes, wishes, wants, expectations, all change. Suppose you meet the right person at a time when you are not open to meeting anyone new? Or what if you have your expectations set on something else, so you allow something amazing to pass you by? Maybe you were hurt and beaten down and so, in reaction, you will no longer let anyone in? Maybe you are in the healthiest of places you have ever been and you meet the opposite of you, someone in a deep, dark crevasse of their life.

The only way I know to be able to not overthink every single solitary interaction and influence in my life is to try to remain open. No, not try. If you try to be open, you are doing it wrong. To be truly open, you need to suspend judgement. You need to cancel the shoulds and shouldn'ts in your mind. You need to allow yourself to be swept away. Or, perhaps you have to just sit in the activity of not-thinking. How is a person right or wrong, how is timing right or wrong, but from our own perception and judgement of it as such?

If we do not judge the minutes as they traipse by, we can gleefully dance in them.
If we keep our expectations from being goal-oriented, plans of execution, we can free ourselves from a contrived future.
If we believe in a plan that is outside of time, does this mean that things can and will happen regardless of timing?

This is an awful lot of thinking and overthinking about timing, when the goal is to drop the stopwatch...turn off the alarms....stop staring in dread at the clock hands. Just be. Trust and be.

And here, at the end, I have refuted my first statement and title of this blog. Timing is only everything if you let it be.

A Pre-Savings Plan

I just completed my taxes and I'm getting money back. When my brain hears that I am getting money back, it gets excited for all the items I need that I might be able to buy. I saw a couch at the local second-hand shop...$200...seems like almost nothing with the refund I am getting. So, my question today is, "Why does $4000 in "refund" feel like spending money, while $4000 of savings feels untouchable?"

The reality of the situation is that a lot of people use their refunds as savings.

But what do you use your savings for? Vacations, furniture, big purchases? It seems I use my tax refund as a "pre-savings" plan. It's like I am just one teensy refund off from being able to have a savings plan. I live in such paucity year round, paycheck to paycheck with cash flow issues, getting a windfall is like a "pre-savings" plan. It gets my brain a-thinking about what I might want to buy with  my "savings." I have to stop the pattern!

The World Ain't Slowing Down

One of my favorite singers had a hit that was featured in a movie that had the above title. I love the song. I love the message of it. And I love the singer. This singer is putting on a show at an amazing venue on Saturday night and I've been given an opportunity to raffle off two free tickets to one of my loyal readers. To win, you need to:
1) Identify the singer
2) Name the movie in which his song was featured
3) Name two other songs by this artist
4) Tell me why I should pick you for the free tix

Please use the comments section to participate and I will make my decision at this time tomorrow morning.

Good luck!

It's All As It's Supposed to Be

OK...at the onset of 2013, I wrote about living in the moment. About how this means trusting in a plan. God's plan. Today, as I was walking, I got this message LOUD and CLEAR in my mind. Oh the rotating and repetive messages are the most persistent! Anyhow, today I realized although I am trying to let go and believe there is a plan, I am still thinking I can control the outcomes by doing the right things myself. I try to hold on to the living in the moment, but let's face it, if I don't like the moment, I am like a salmon swimming upstream, fighting the rapids.

So, today's message of "It's all as it's supposed to be" was a very freeing message. Imagine the power in truly believing this statement. This means the wars you fight internally. The temptations you succumb to, or those you beat down. The letting go of people, events and things...all of it. Even the attempt to control...even that...as it is meant to be. Oars up...I know I've said that before, but even if your oars are down, maybe even that is meant to be a direction changing drag? We are not pawns, but we are not unguided, uncared for or unloved either.

A Va-LENTEN-tines Message

This year, the church calendar has Easter falling as early as it can. This means Lent is also falling as early as it can. This means Lent is falling the day BEFORE Valentine's Day. Celebrating with excess and richesse is out of the question. Lent is about penitence and preparation...preparing for the day of Christ's death and the passionate betrayal of Him to the cross. It's odd to juxtapose this time of dark in the church calendar with the commercial explosion of hearts, pink and doilies. So, for Lent this year, I am giving up Valentine's Day.

This does not mean I am giving up love, nor does it mean I won't grant my kids' Valentine's Day wishes. No. It does mean that I will not be celebrating the glorification of romantic love. Instead, I am going to use the overlapping of Lent and V-day to seek unconditional love. Isn't Vaentine's Day love expression the opposite of unconditional love? It's bedecked in costume. It's a love that comes with an extended arm bearing gifts of sugar and hearts. It's love that is created and born out of the heightened expectations of a Hallmark holiday.

However, at the center of it is a craving for love. A craving to love and be loved. A giving over of oneself to loving thoughts and caring gestures for a day. Seeking to be connected, rather than disconnected. Isn't this just what Jesus did? Didn't He come to us to connect us and love us? Maybe I don't have to give up Valentine's Day for Lent, but I do want to reframe it, see it in a different light. I want to imagine a love so great it is completely without condition.
A love so all emcompassing, it can barely be imagined by a human mind.
A love that forgives and forgets our shortcomings at all times.

The love God holds for us cannot be trimmed into a heart shape or even improved by a box of chocolates. It is pure and complete and it is there for us every day. Not just on Valentine's Day and not just during Lent and Easter. Not just on Christmas. It's something to be grateful for and to bask in every single day of our lives.

Amen.

Choice Overload

I am going to try to remember the cookie aisle from my childhood. I remember that Oreos were just a cookie. A singular cookie you could define as chocolate with cream filling. Period. Chips Ahoy were chooclate chip...they were crunchy and tasted faintly of cardboard. They came in one size of cookie and one flavor, color and texture. Maybe there were two box sizes depending on your penchant for cookies or size of your family. There were not the staggering number of choices a stroll down the cookie aisle affords today.

I am amazed, and even might say appalled, by the variety. There are currently birthday cake, chocolate on chocolate, chocolate mint, chocolate peanut butter, vanilla, half vanilla/half chocolate, doublestuff, strawberry, neopolitan, ice cream berry blast...there are FORTY FIVE varieties!!! How incredibly overwhelming. The Oreo brand has merely become a vehicle for different flavors and colors: an experimental platform for helping on the artifical ingredients. It's downright frightening. Chips Ahoy and the other brands offers no respite. And do NOT get me started on toothpastes...or shampoos...

The paradox of choice states that the more choices you have, the more stress you feel. Consider this:

 

The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less is a 2004 book by American psychologist Barry Schwartz. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

—quoted from Ch.5, The Paradox of Choice, 2004

Now, I know I have shown this video on here before, but it bears repeating. What do you think of choice? Is it a help or a hinderance to your shopping experience?

 

As of late, I have been (as I mentioned in a previous blog) frequenting some dating sites. The more cute guys I meet, the more nice potentials I meet, the more I just want none. I think I will just close up shop. Maybe when springtime hits I will feel more in the game.  The stress of a misstep in dating seems even more perilous than choosing the wrong Oreo or toothpaste.

Control Struggles

All my life, I have been prone to the "power struggle." It's not that I am a control freak, nor that I have these relationships with every person I meet, but I have found that if someone is prone to trying to wield control, I might lock horns with them. I am intrigued by how to help dissipate a power play. I am curious about passive agressive people and how they enter the equation.

First off, I think most power struggles come out of a stressed situation. If there is no stress, it seems even the boldest of characters and bulliest of people can get along. As soon as an external struggle is introduced, people feel their loss of control profoundly. Some try and regain their control through overt attempts and others through more back-handed, "lead from behind" methods. The key, I suspect, must be in the acknowledgement of the stress situation. Somehow, if you call out the stressor and point out the loss of control that everyone must be feeling, they are able to come to grips with it. If the stressor looms and everyone pretends it doesn't exist, it can really bring out the worst in everyone.

Here are some things I have found that definitely mitigate the high tension situation:
1) Acknowledgement of the stressor and empathy to how it might be impacting others.
2) Speaking openly and honestly about what you are feeling and what others must be feeling.
3) Asking questions...open ended and thoughtful questions and then actually listening to the answers.
4) Believe it or not, revealing your weakness...crying, showing upset.

Let's Talk About "Clicks," Baby...Let's Talk About You and Me...

So, I've been hanging out at the "Online Dating" meeting places as of late. It's a motley cast of characters who frequent these establishments. I have probably been on twenty dates or so and have really only found a couple of clicks. One click blew my socks off, but that faded quickly. The other is a slow and steady kind of thing...not mercurial and flashy, just there for sure. I am left wondering what kind of clicks are the best for love for life? Slow burn? Flashing heat? Butterflies?

It's truly amazing to me how I can meet someone and pretty much instantly know if there is any chemistry. My litmus test is whether or not I can look at their lips and want to kiss them. If I do, it's all good. If I don't, I spend a very long time staring at their lips in dread and thinking about the what ifs..."What if they try to kiss me?" "What if they really like me and I don't like them....how awkward." etc...

I have gone from having lengthy phone conversations and text marathons, to meeting early on in the process. I have found it's a lot easier to communicate that there is no love connection IF you haven't been talking to the person for three weeks. Since that "chemistry" is immediately evident upon meeting them, might as well use that as the initial screen. IF there is at least a foundation for common interests.

I have learned that that chemistry is not beholden to looks or phone connection. It's not made up of commonalities in life interest or height differences. It does not conform to reason or rule (and in my case even gender!). The click is a mysterious chemical equation - a reaction to what? I am not sure, but that does not stop me from knowing it exists and seeking it's hot embrace.

Heart Attack

"I see dead people." - The Sixth Sense

I don't see dead people, but I see hearts...for the last year (almost exactly) I have seen heart shapes EVERYWHERE and in EVERYTHING: trash, nature, the sky, ice, trees, snow, dirt, rocks, grasses...the list goes on and on. This begs the question "why?" Why do I see heart shapes so easily and frequently? There's been a lot of lost love this year...a lot of pain in my heart, is that why?

I tend to think not because I enjoy seeing the hearts and it makes me joyous, doesn't feel like a reminder of lost love. Feels more like the nature I love so well is returning the love. When I say I am an avid hiker and outdoorswoman, I cannot express how much this is true. I am truly happiest and free when I am surrounded by the seasons and out in the fresh air, regardless of the weather.

I think the hearts are Valentine's from nature and I think I see them because of my artistic training. I think I started seeing the heart shape and now my eyes scan constantly while I am out and about. I have introduced my kids to the game of heart hunting and now they proudly present the hearts they find too! They find them all the time when I don't see them...which makes me think that the over 500 hearts I have documented in the last year are just a fraction of the hearts that are out there.

So, start looking for them. You will see them too.

It reminds me of my first year at Skidmore when I took a class called 2-D design which was about creating two dimensional art, balancing compositions, color, dark and light. I distinctly remember beginning that class and how my eyes were opened. Everything became a potential composition. I felt like a film director with my hands forever up in a frame to view the world as two dimensional. Power lines cutting across in a strong diagonal made or the dark and light the horizon line all made me want to capture the design in mind's eye. Snap. Snap. I took mental pictures.

It also reminds me of "the Law of Recurring Infrequencies" which I blogged about a long, long time ago. My eye is primed to see hearts. I am just so glad it's hearts and not swastikas or something scary!

Here is the "Law of Recurring Infrequencies" post pulled out of archives:

Yesterday, I heard a great segment on NPR yesterday about a new girl group box set. It was all about the girl bands of the late 50s/early 60s and their music. I was struck by how similar they all sounded - same subjects, sound and doo wops. Imagine my surprise to come home to Elena's new activity. She moves around the house sing Da Doo Da Doo Da Doo. It's so cute. It's like she has to burst forth in song. She can't help herself. Is this an innate tendency? Are girls born to doo wop? Or is this yet another instance of the law of recurring infrequencies.

My great uncle, Jake Lingle, coined this term. The law of recurring infrequencies explains the bizarre tendency of something you have never heard before or infrequently heard, suddenly popping into conversation, or recurring, again and again after its initial appearance. I've always noticed this happening with new vocabulary words. I will hear a word and look up its meaning, and then lo and behold, hear it three more times that week. It's absolutely bizarre.

What I have always wondered, however, is whether is the learning of that new word, that primes your ear and mind so it sticks out in the subsequent conversations. It's like it raises its hand and shouts out...Look at me! Look at me! Here I am again! Maybe that word was always floating out there, but my learning it is what makes it appear to recur. In other cases, I know it is an infrequent concept that just happens to recur again and again in short time period. Either way, it's an interesting concept and one that I'm sure you'll notice in your own life as well. Got any examples of recurring infrequencies from your life?

Hearts are Found

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Thank you Deepak (and Oprah)

Googling "feeling lost' just to see what t'internet has to offer my predicament yielded an interesting answer...a prescription for something to do. I repost in full below:

Q: I am 59 years old, even though it feels like just yesterday I was 20. I have read most of your books. I am trying to write something smart, so you'll notice me, but it has taken an hour to write this much. My thoughts fly at 300 miles an hour, while my hands go so slow I put down my work and erase, over and over. My wanting to run from suffering is what gives me more suffering. How can I stop? Am I dreaming this life? How can I bring joy to my life? Simple questions, because in the day to day we forget. I need me to help me from feeling totally lost at this time.

— Luisa F., Salt Lake City, Utah
Dear Luisa,
Between the lines of your letter, one reads enormous confusion and distress. The issue isn't necessarily whether to run from suffering or not. Difficult situations fall into three categories: things we can fix, things we have to put up with and things we should walk away from. The ability to tell which is which doesn't come automatically. When your mind is racing with anxiety and you don't know how to make even basic decisions, suffering mounts on suffering. Seeing a way out becomes all but impossible when your energy is completely taken up with simply coping.

To find a way out, you first need to find some mental stability. At this point, you shouldn't focus on clinging to a few scraps of happiness, obsessively analyzing your predicament, running from one helper to another, escaping into fantasy, suffering in silence, wrestling with yourself or being in a state of constant complaint and worry. I'm not saying you are doing all of these things, but I have no doubt that at least a few apply. Please realize these are futile tactics. They are getting you not one inch closer to a solution. By an irony of the mind, we all do more of what never worked in the first place. I know how that works, and I'd like to see you get off the merry-go-round whirling in your mind.

It's time for a realistic game plan. Sit down with a piece of paper and give it the title "Mental Stability" or "Calming My Mind." Itemize 10 steps you could take to become less anxious, restless and worried. Once you've made your list, choose the top three things and actually follow them up. Your list of remedies might include the following:

• Learn to meditate
• Reduce everyday stress
• Avoid negative situations and people
• Find an enjoyable, positive outlet
• Open up to a friend whom you trust
• Ask for comfort from a pastor or a mature, compassionate friend
• Set down a cherished goal with steps for reaching it
• Organize your finances and live within a budget
• Heal old emotional wounds
• Clean and straighten up the house; make your work environment orderly

These are familiar steps to readers of this column, but if you take them seriously and act upon them, you will begin to regain your balance and feel more secure within yourself. Without control over your own life, the result will be inner confusion and distress. Make sure, before anything else, that you feel safe and protected and have trust in the people closest to you. When writing down your list, be specific. You need to know exactly what steps you plan to take and who you are going to approach for help, kindness and guidance. Your mind may be a present source of distress, but it is also your source of healing.

Love,
Deepak

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/How-to-Stop-Feeling-Lost-Ask-Deepak#ixzz2HNvGfh00

So, here it goes:

"Mental Stability" or "Calming My Mind."
10 steps to help me become less anxious, restless and worried
1) Keep walking....as much as possible, keep in the great outdoors
2) Focus on my children, loving them and being loved by them
3) Read...books on healing, but also read aloud to the kids
4) Work...everyday, hard and with a productive outcome.
5) Set a daily parenting, work and exercise goal and stick to it.
6) Remember my creativity. Find a long term project to engage the creative side of my mind.
7) Be alone. Be with myself. Enjoy my own company.
8) No drinking. It isn't like I drink all that much, but it costs money and is a depressant, so why do it?
9) Practice meditating during walks on letting go the unhealthy.
10) Clean up my environment.
11) Practice preemptively saying NOW instead of later or in a little while.
12) Delay gratifaction. I have always been instant gratification girl and this does not serve me. I make snap decisions and get myself into situations that are not well thought out.

The top ones I can do RIGHT now to help improve my mind are #1, #2, #7 and #8.

Love is a Strange Game

Source: kayskatour.com via Mobile on Pinterest

So, in an effort to clear my mind and start the new year afresh, I need to blog about something that happened to me last year. Perhaps it's my diehard optimism and hope which never dies, or maybe it's my watching of Downton Abbey's romantic wedding episode that has me all stirred up. Whatever the reason, I am moved to write this down today.

"As long as you walk the earth, I could never be happy with anyone else." This is what Matthew says to his dear Mary. This is a sentiment we are not all lucky to have been able to experience in our lives. It's definitely amazing to meet someone with whom you connect Matthew-Mary style. Someone who takes your breath away the minute you meet them. Someone with whom you immediately can imagine growing old. And, even if it doesn't work out with this person, if you are an optimist like me, you always dream it will. You always believe in the truth of the feeling, the click. And you pine for it.

Then, at some point, you realize that you need to let it go. You must leave it. If you do not, you will be stuck in a sort of purgatory, forever.

What do you do? How do you do it? In the words of the immortal Beegees, how can you mend a broken heart?

Well, first off, it helps to acknowledge that it's just a feeling. It's a feeling that you can live without. It also helps to tell yourself that if it's meant to be, it still might. As long as that doesn't leave you pining. If it makes you pine to think there's still a chance, then make sure you imagine there is none. No chance. Nada. Zilch. Done.com. Donezarilla. Kaput. (think I've tried this approach?)

You might even come to question if it was an obssession, rather than a love. Then, you might pick up a book or two on obssessive love and scare yourself. But then you also might read M. Scott Peck's  "The Road Less Traveled" and realize that what happened, what really, truly happened was that you fell in "infatuation." The relationship stalled there, in the honeymoon phase. It was, therefore, idealized because it was just that: ideal...it was all pink clouds and unicorns. It was the stuff of myths.

It was not real. It didn't get to become real. It was preemptively stopped from maturing into a grown-up love. It stays there on the pages of your life, a sighing teenager...an irrepressible crush...hopefully waiting for a future grown-up love to come along and make it feel inferior in comparison.

So, I turn the page. I move on. I leave the sighing, mooning teen behind, embarassed that it even came to that. To believe there is no hope is the only way. There cannot be. There must not be. If hope still exists, that stupid pining will continue and it cannot. Not this year.

1918 Called, They Can Have their Epidemic Back!

Couple of things. 1) The flu SUCKS. It sucks horribly when you have it, but boy it sucks ten times worse when your little boy has it. 2) The ticking time bomb feeling of lying in wait to be preyed on. I believe I had it already, but Elena has not. 3) Nasal swabs at the hospital are GROSS. 4) Even a skilled nurse cannot get my boy to take liquid Tylenol without vomiting on her (this gave me a feeling of satisfaction somehow to see that he is one of the WORST medicine takers in history).

Once I got a thermometer and could seee what his temperature actually was, then I was worried. I lived in unmeasured, ignorant bliss throughout my bout and for two days of Liam's. Then, I acquired a thermometer. When your son is running a fever of almost 104 ON Advil, you start worrying. I don't care who you are, seeing your child wiped out and down for the count is scary. So, despite having no insurance, we headed off the ER.

So, we had many tests...Liam gave snot, blood and snot. Pee was a piece of cake. Blood was unpleasant, as expected. Snot, however, was another story. A nasal swab is not fun business:

 

Luckily, the PA who administered the swab, did it swiftly and without warning. If I were a nurse, this would definitely be my least favorite chore, especially on a tender six-year old.

 



  

Feeling really punky...

 

"Mommy, this is great! You should put this on Pinterest"

An Engineer's Ear

Source: s1069.photobucket.com via Maggie on Pinterest

Might as well blog while I am laid up with the crud. A long time ago, I was given a very kind way of looking at a weakness of mine. I was told that I have an engineers ear...That I am listening to people with an intent to understand and formulate a solution or response. My brain is cranking overtime while the other person is talking, processing, analyzing and accessing its internal database for the perfect comment, answer or exemplum. I am listening. but not generously. "Listening generously" is the best gift you can give someone who is talking to you. It means withholding your own thoughts to concentrate on what they are truly saying...not the personal, internal schema it conjures up in your own mind. I am going to work on improving my listening generosity in 2013.

I think it's also often possible to fail to listen generously to God's voice and God's plan. This means, we often are so busy "processing" what we think is the message we are receiving, that we are not open to truly hearing and following God's intended path for us. .I read a quote that sums this up:

 

Source: relentlessgod.com via Danny on Pinterest

Help me listen with openess to hear God's plan. Help me to not find a path I want and try to convalute the message to suit my agenda.

This runs right into related concept I have always loved which is the idea that thoughts are creative. Any thought is a created reality, a homemade tale. We cannot truly think without it being a creative act. We cannot actually hear without it passing through the obscuring and judgelmental scrim of our mind's eye. We can merely choose to focus on the person speaking and to practice taking in what we hear without making a judgement on it. Just laying the meaning bare and letting what we hear stand on its own integrity.

Part of my "living in the moment" for 2013 will involve reserving judgement, listening generously, acknowledging that there exists a plan bigger than my creative thoughts and wants.

Source: wordsoverpixels.com via Linda on Pinterest

2013, I've Got a Bone to Pick...

In marched the new year, in spite of myself, I felt a renewed sense of hope, or at the least a vague sense of "do over." I rallied in my last post and figured out a way to flip the negativity on its head. "Live in the moment," I said. So far every moment of 2013, albeit very few have passed, has sucked. My best friend's dad died.
My illness continues to make me feel like I am in the throes of the bubonic plague.
Boy child came down with it and thus there was no sleeping last night after 1:30 AM.
I had to cancel a job interview due to said sickness and exhaustion.
Financially, this year is already a strain.
I've lost sudden touch with a good friend who was a daily part of my life.
I can't do my hikes because I am trapped in my illness and my house with quarantined child.

OK, so those are the moments with which I have been faced. Help me understand how I can live in the moment and experience anything but depression?

Now, my attempt to turn it around.
My best friend's dad was very sick and is in heaven with God and is no longer suffering his earthly pain. My friend can begin the long and painful process of grieving and letting go. This is not a very silver lining.

My illness has encouraged me to read in bed for a couple of days and I have almost completed a fantastic book, The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian.

 
My boy is sick, but he is still in good spirits.

Although up at 1:30, we did not get out of bed until 4 and even then, he played happilly with his Matchbox cars for hours. 





And, my girl child bravely and confidently went back to school while her brother stayed home. She was such a good egg to go out in the 25 degree morning and wait for the bus. (though she did have a little company of the neighbor dog, Bear, who has adopted us, especially her).

I had to cancel a job interview, but it's been easily rescheduled for next Tuesday when I most certainly will be feeling better and be far less distracted by my ill son.

Financially this year is already a strain, but my family is helping me out enough so that I don't get evicted.

The friend I have lost touch with in a sudden and painful way is teaching me a lesson about life. I am so open and so trusting...I need to move more slowly and be more skeptical. Plus, I am getting a much needed break from my iPhone. I needed to unplug.

Although, I have not been able to get out much, I was able to try my snowshoes I received from my sisters at Christmas and I love them! Also, if one is going to be held back from the outside, let it be when it is frigid and icy, rather than the first days of spring or colorful days of Fall's gorgeousness.



Sometimes Life Just Gives You Lemons....

And sometimes it can last a whole year. The acidic taste in my mouth leftover from 2012 has me in a permanent pucker. I am sad. I am disenchanted. I am disheartened. I am not amused. As we pop a cork to celebrate the incoming new year. I am looking for something, anything, to quell the blue emptiness I am feeling inside. Where is my lemonade?

Sometimes, after buoying up on hope and optimism for awhile, I need to enter a glum period. A down period of rest and quiet hibernation. 2012 was that for me. The bright spots of hope were short and ephemeral. The dark days of strife and challenge seemed ever present. The funny thing about being in the dark is that your eyes adjust to it and, after a while you can see some light in the darkness. That is the extent of the high points of last year...minor glimpses of something through a haze of dark.

But it will not always be this way. I know this. I am a woman of faith. I believe in a strong God who has plans for me that are not visible from where I stand. From where I stand, my view is obstructed, and like all human beings, I forget sometimes that this is not all there is. When people say live in the moment, that is all well and good, but in order to truly live in the moment, you need (at least) three other things:

1) You need faith. If you don't believe there is a God and plan, how can you set down your worries, cast off your burdens and kick up your heels in the now? If you don't have faith, and you're stuck in a horrible moment, how will you get through it? Living in a horrible moment really stinks if no one's got your back.

2) You need an ability to let things go. Letting go of the past you are tripping on in your present, letting go of your worries that are based on hard life experiences. Letting go with the belief that those things that are meant to be permanent in your life are there, they are permanent, even if you don't control them and hold onto them and make them stay in your life. This is not about being ok with loss, it's about knowing and trusting that you will be ok, in spite of your sad feelings and loss.

3) You need patience. You need to be willing to wait for things to happen in their own time and to be able to delay your need for instant gratification. We live in an American world that has served to make us lazy and impatient. We are so well stuffed on the consumptions of our life that we want for nothing...this means when we DO want for something, we get petulant like a three-year-old stomping our feet. I WANT WHAT I WANT AND I WANT IT NOW. This will not do...wanting is about yearning for the future. Yearning for something you do not have or cannot have is not living in the moment.

This year, 2013, will be one for me to practice living in the moment. I have already started collecting words of wisdom to help feed me on this quest. I can do it. I know I can.

 

Lord I Believe, Help My Unbelief

Usually, Doubting Thomas doesn't cross my mind until Lent. I have always adored him. Who doesn't love Thomas? With his finger probing Jesus' wound and his doubts, so human. We love him like we love the kid in sex education who is brave enough to ask the questions that are on all our minds. We all doubt. We all have reason to doubt now and again. When something happens and doesn't go our way, when a prayer seems woefully unanswered, or when a tragedy befalls us.

Let's face it, we all have dark periods of doubt. As Buechner puts it, "Doubts are the ants in the pants of Faith." Without doubting and questioning, our faith is blind. We move dumbly, in rote dogma, toward a God who promises good things, but are not in active discussion with that God. We don't ask the hard questions if we don't doubt. And now is the time for hard questions.

Why our community? Why TWENTY babies? TWENTY innocent children and SEVEN adults? What can we do to rectify our faith and this event?

The first question is "Why does God allow such horror?"

Then, "Is there even a God, if such horror exists?"

And lastly, "And, without a God, how will we ever recover?"

Our instincts are to try and regain control. We try and focus on the heroes and heroines of the story. We attempt to twist our belief system to fit such a monstrous happening. And when it doesn't fit, we are left with a big question, do we doubt the existence of a loving God in the face of such evil and hate?

There are not reasons for what happened on Friday the 14th in Newtown, CT. There is no lovely, Chicken Soup for the Soul answer that will box it all up and put a pretty ribbon on it. There was a horrible event. Sure there were good people peppered throughout said horrible event, but it was horrific. It stinks to the core.

So, what did we do? As a nation, we took it all in. Obsessive for details and more information. We wanted to know WHY? HOW? and awfully, WHAT HAPPENED? Now we know what happened in a timelined sort of way...at 9:40 this happened and at 10:10, this. But, we are interested in the motives, the drivers, the psychology and pathology of the occurence. Maybe, I think we think, if I can just wrap my head around why and how it happened, I can guard against it in the future? Maybe, I can regain some of the lost control I am feeling now that my world is topsy turvy?

I have fallen prey to all this humaness. I have taken to my bed and hid. I have obsessed over every detail. I have even become despondent thinking about the Mayan prediction stating that NEXT FRIDAY (not this one) is to be the end of the world as we know it....maybe they were off by one Friday? After all, it was thousands of years ago?

I have become a feather in the wind. No longer am I rooted and purposeful. No. I am floating and spinning and unpredictable. And then, I remember my faith. I remember that my faith is not there to provide answers and spell out science. Faith's world is the unknown and the unexpected. Faith shines light where there is darkness.When you are in a deep abyss, faith throws you a line and a flashlight. It doesn't. unfortunately, come down into the abyss and spirit you out. It requests that you meet it halfway. Here are the tools to save yourself. Now, go ahead and save yourself.

How? Give it over to God. Let God take the reins. Let God be in charge. Pray, hunker down and be thankful and grateful. Don't fall prey to the attemps to control it all yourself....blame, contention, anger, tenacious beliefs are all ways of trying to believe that we still are in control. Maybe, if we can campaign for gun control reform, or fight for safety in our schools, we can get an insured certainty that this WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. Not gonna happen.

This is the world. It's a human world. There are humans in it who will do both noble and abhorrent things. When noble things happen, you will stride into church and be proud. You will thank God for his righteousness and for the helping hands he has extended. When abhorrent things happen, you will cower. You will wonder where God is? You will doubt. You are human. It is to be expected. Faith is not a guarantee of a life without adversity. It's the promise that no matter what God is there with us. God is laughing with us when we are overjoyed.
He is dancing with us in ebullience when we receive great news.
And, when bad things happen, he is sobbing, like we are sobbing. God is not able to stop the bad from happening just as we are not able to, but when it comes, He is still by our side. Holding us. Stroking us. Continually there trying to breathe faith back into our deflated bodies.

He has the benefit of being outside of time and of knowing Heaven and we do not, but we are wrong in thinking He needed these kids with him or he took them to live in Heaven. He may have known what would happen on Friday morning, but it did not make Him any happier than it made us when it did. In fact, I think God is groaning with the weight of the entire world's suffering. His hands are open to allow us to pass as much or as little of it that we are willing to relenquish over to Him. For some, less close to the situation, we will be able to do that soon. For others, it may take years.. Much time will need to pass before the wounds stop being raw and open, before the anger dissipates. I pray for that day. I want it now. But I know I cannot control that any more than I can stop the bad things from happening.

I am left with no choice but to, however cliched, Let Go and Let God. Help my unbelief.

LIke a Spinning Top, Sometimes we Lose Our Balance

If you stand over a spinning top, one that is spinning cleanly, you can clearly see a dot around which the top is circling...a clearly defined center. If something knocks the top, even slightly, the orbit rattles and wobbles and there is a messy center...Off course it goes. Spinning out of control.

Life is like this. It's our ability to reset our spinning, refind our center and begin afresh that brings us back into alignment. What is it that helps you find your center? What tricks do you use for reset?

Recently, I lost a job opportunity about which I was very excited. I am usually able to look to God and pray for understanding that this was a path that was not meant to be. I am struggling this time. I want to know it all. I want to understand why this fell apart after two solid months of interviews and moving closer to the goal. Why?

Maybe, the way we recenter isn't always getting over it. Maybe, it's not always focusing on the fact that it wasn't meant to be. Maybe, it's about acknowledging that it sucks. Not everything is going to be easily rationalized and I am not always going to be able to justify it. Nope. Sometimes it just sucks.

Like the spinning top, sometimes the whole thing has to be knocked down. Comepletely off course, it has to be flattened to the table...and then picked back up and restarted on a clean path...on a new trajectory. Only to eventually peter out and fly out of control again.

In acknowledging the suckiness of life, we do not pretend we are spinning cleanly. No. We realize we have been flattened to the table. It's time to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.

Life is a series of these toddles. Down we fall, head over teakettle, onto our faces. But God is there either way...encouraging us to stand back up. Urging us on, like a one year old learning to walk, He is holding out his hands and saying, "C'mon, you can do it!"

We all fall down.
We get back up.
And we toddle forward.
And gather our steam and start spinning in control again.

Reprise: Big Undies from Momzilla

This morning I saw this picture on Facebook and it instantly took me back to a Momzilla incident from 2003...

Big Underpants

This one goes out to my friend Tiff. She's had a bit of a rough month, so this story is dedicated to her sense of humor. She once told me that mere mention of the word underpants can send her into hysterics. It comes from a high school variety show where one of her peers did a comedy act centering around the word "underpants." Classic Tiff. This is the story of some underpants...some BIG ASS panties.

So one day, my in-laws came over. They come over a lot and visit with Elena and help us out. My mother-in-law is a primo bargain hunter so she always has a few gifts to share. This particular visit, she had been to the local Filenes which was closing. They had "slim-pickings," but she was able to find a few things. She brought me a bra that could have doubled as a baby sling for the new baby. I think it was a 44 DD. I may be a bit more buxom while pregnant, but no where NEAR that size. I politely declined saying that lace bras with padding make me itch. Phew...that was a near miss.

She rummaged in the Filenes shopping bag some more and produced three pairs of underpants. I was looking down at the time, going through some pictures. She annouced that these were for when I "get big and pregnant." They were a size 12. Well, size 12 is smaller than my regular size of 16...in pants. Apparently, underwear are sized very differently. A size 8 is the equivalent of a size 16 pants size. So, a 12 is a touch bigger...Here is what a size 12 in underpants looks like:

(Note: It is with great humility, and the sake of a laugh, that I show this picture as I took it for a friend and it's just plain embarassing. It's the Friday night look, robe, hair up, no make-up, etc. So just focus on the underpants.)

Great Work, Anne?

Nothing strikes more trepidation in the heart of a parent than a child's first progress report, from a new school, with a new teacher, and when behavior is clearly be a problem. It's amazing in our modern technological world how little has changed in the world of report cards. Sure they used to be hand-written and now they are computer printed, but other than that, they still come in the same odd little privacy envelope, folded in thirds and with the same I-Inconsistent and C-Consistent...1, 2, 3, 4 grading scales...somehow not using actual grades, but breaking tasks down into skills and giving them a number proficiency is supposed to help direct the teaching and learning of a student?

Anyhow, it's that time. Time for my kiddos to get their first report cards. First I looked at Elena's which is almost always predictable. Good work in spelling and writing...pretty good in reading...math struggles...would love to see more class participation...more social interaction. Pretty much the opposite of mine as a child (from a behavioral standpoint). Definitely, the opposite of Liam's....Usually...

This year, however, Liam's held some surprises. First I noticed that there was Inconsistent performance at talking in turn and staying on task...oh yes, that's Liam, for sure. Then, the report card looked really good. Mostly 3's, some 2's. Pretty expected for a 1st grader working on the skills that they will need to perfect by the end of the year. It is with great relish I look to the "comments" section. This is the section where I get to really hear the voice of the teacher and understand what they think of my kids.

Liam's comments section derailed the whole report card experience.

So, my question is where does "Anne" end and "Liam" begin?

The 24-Day Mystery

Never once did our Advent calendar hold candy, or chocolates, or even small toys, or stickers. Nope. Always there was just a picture inside that little paper door. The picture might be of a hobby horse, spinning top or stocking if we had gotten the calendar from our secular grandparents,  or an image with a more "reason for the season" message if we had gotten it from the other side of the family. Either way, it should not have been all that exciting. And yet, somehow it was. Somehow, wrestling with the perforated edges of those tiny flaps became as exciting as any other holiday treat and, like other holiday treats, caused much bickering among the sisters Sassano.

Whose turn was it to open the door tonight? Who was going to get to open the "BIG" door on the 24th? Gathered around the tiny fingers of one sister prying up the paper flap, the other sisters were crowded around, impinging on her space and pressing their faces in close so they could be the first ones to see the blot of color behind it. We always started off the month of December with excellent rigor and discipline, but I fear we left many an Advent calendar opened through the twelfth or so and abandoned.

I even remember a year or two when we recycled a calendar for the next year's season. Opening the calendar loses all its luster when the perforation has already been ripped through and the doors are popping open willy nilly as the calendar is twisted in little hands. Pop. Pop. Pop. Go to open one door and three dislodge themselves and fling wide revealing their secrets. The mystery is gone. The secrets, last year's secrets, no longer interesting.

We are about to relive the tradition here in the Gill household. I wonder how the Advent calendar will compare to the electronic devices and Netflix shows. Is there still appeal in a mystery image behind a thin cardboard door? I am hoping there's enough to interest us, but not so much as to incite fighting. That would be a lovely Advent gift.

Struggle for Good? Good Struggle?

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
M. Scott Peck

 

I am currently reading The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck and am coming to terms with some facets of my personality I have never really acknowedged before. I believe I have a "giving-up neurosis." When I try to understand "why" I am stumped. I had a very supportive and loving family. I had a mother who was my best friend and was there for me, almost to her own exclusion. I did not doubt that I was securely loved. So, what might my "traumatic injury" be?

Then I started thinking about the moves. The sheer number of times I moved and left friends, sitters, teachers, neighbors, etc. Could it be that by moving on over ten times throughout my childhood caused me to have a problem with letting go? I'm sure it's possible. To a child, is a move where everything past is gone, never to be seen again, any different than a death?

Then I think about how I parent my child who has a personality like my own: Liam. He is overwhelming in his need for constant engagement. I am firm with him and forced to say things to him that a parent hopes to never have to say to their child. Things like, "Son, I am doing my own thing, you do your own thing and no, I do not want to hear about it." or "Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, please, please, please stop talking and go away." It's just too much.

When I think of how I was treated, it's not ever badly, but there was certainly a desperate need for escape on my mother's part at times. She would "conveniently" need to do laundry on the other end of the house and spirit quietly away while I was otherwise engaged. I'm sure she, like me, prayed that an engaging show would come on TV. Anything for a break.

Could that have had an impact? Maybe, the key is not to know WHY the problem exists, but to just know that it does. Maybe the thing on which I need to work is the letting go. I cannot tenaciously hold fast to everything or I will drown...like a hot air balloon, trying desperately to float, some baggage must be released.

And so I conclude with another Peck quote....one that seems to wrap it all up nicely with a bow...

“We must be willing to fail and to appreciate the truth that often "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived."”

Of Wood-Stock

I was asked to write about this by a fellow blogging friend, so I will. It's always been one of my guilty pleasures, to shock people with my "Conceived at Woodstock" credential. In some crowds, it buys me instant coolness. In other crowds, I have to quickly back pedal and tell that other side of the story.

My parents lived in Chappaqua, NY. They were both from decently well-off families. They asked their parents if they could go to this concert they saw advertised in the back of LIFE magazine. They sent away for tickets. They were 18, just young-uns. My mom attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, my dad, Middlebury in Vermont. They had been high school prom dates and sweethearts. It was the summer of love, 1969, and they were no exception.

Unlike some of the hippies who headed up to New York for the big gig, my parents were Boy Scout prepared. They had coolers, a tent, firewood, Swiss Army knives, an axe, food for armies...basically supplies up the wazoo. They even had bathing suits so they could be the only ones depicted in bathing suits in that ever-famous nude-mud-orgy bathing hole picture that is on the cover of at least one Woodstock coffee table book. Somewhere, in that picture is a rather tall leggy fellow (6'5") and his adorable Polly Pocket girlfriend (5'3"). They kind of stand out.

A couple of years back, they gave me their original Woodstock program for a Christmas gift. Sadly, their tickets (which of course never got ripped or punched) got misplaced over the years. I do actually remember seeing them. I also think I remember seeing some sort of a parking pass, which of course also became moot. Wish we had all that memorabilia now, though.

They stories they remember are chaotic and have come to me through the years like colorful snapshots. The two I remember best were when they had cooked up their steaks on their portable grills, how the hippies gathered zombie-like at their "campsite" to try and get handouts and when an errant zombie hippie wandered into their tent while they were having a real "sumer of love" moment. Let's just say, "Get out hippie guy! There's a baby to be conceived here!" I will remain eternally grateful for that tent my parents packed and took with them that offered them (however incomplete) shelter and privacy. Without it, I might not be here.

How To Derail Your Work Day...From An Expert...

Is there a world record for procrastination? How about dorkiness? Quirkiness? Nature loving? Pretty sure not, but I would be up there among the finalists...there is, however, a world record for "largest oak leaf" which I have just SHATTERED. Sorry little Plebon boy...I blew the doors off your record.

Carrots or Candy Bars?

Today I learned a new categorization. I think a friend of a friend made it up, but I'm sure all my myriad readers will inform me if this is not the case and this is indeed a social maxim I have missed. Anyhow, apparently women can be categorized quite simply as carrot sticks or candy bars. Carrot sticks are wholesome, good for you, healthy choices. Candy bars are sinful, tasty, ephemeral and bad for you. If you are a man and you categorize women like this, shame on you....but, do tell me where I stand on your continum. If you are woman, ask your man. Am I a carrot stick or a candy bar? Turns out I am carrot cake...interesting...

Lovely Innocence

Most of our deepest family conversations happen as we are bopping along on country roads in the Volvo...for example, yesterday I found out that my daughter wants to kiss a boy in her class! Gulp. This conversation was no exception.

Liam: "There is a boy in school who says that two boys cannot get married."

Elena: (piping right up indignantly) "You KNOW they can, Liam. What about Doug and Kyle? Or even T and A who are geting married soon?"

Liam: "Hmmmmmm..."

Me: "Maybe that boy comes from a family who does not believe that two men should marry each other. Not every body believes it is right. Like your Grammy Gill does not believe it is right. Her religion says it is not right."

Elena: (incredulous and getting feisty) "WHAT???!?!! What if when I grow up I want to marry a girl?"

Me: "Well, then you would be doing what you want and believe and not what others or Grammy Gill want or believe. That's what you have to do with love, follow your heart and your beliefs."

Tuning In to Tune Out

When you never watch TV, or rarely do...What happens?

When we moved to the Mountain, I decided to subtly encourage less TV watching as a family by discontinuing all live TV. We still have Netflix available for those long rainy weekends or parenting FAIL moments, but for the most part we live without TV. This means, for me, I live without the opiate of the masses. Without the distraction of a good plot or a steamy character interaction. There are pros and cons.

On the positive side, I am never lulled into inactivity by wanting to catch the end of a show, a movie or  just by the droning box. My kids choose to play outside much, much more than they used to. I get outside and hike much, much more than I used to. I read and find other diversions that are almost as distraction, without as much soul sucking.

On the negative side, however, I find my mind to be overactive. I seem to build stories and create long tales in my head. Thoughts are creative and sometimes my own created thoughts are killing me. It would be nice to plug into a TV show or two and just tune out. I miss the tuning in to tune out.

The ways I tune out as of late are far less socially acceptable than a person watching a TV program. When I was little, if my dad was watching a game or a show, we would be shushed, or told, "You make a better door, than a window" if we passed in between him and the screen. When you are lost in thought, daydreaming or texting on your phone, just try and hold up a hand to shush someone. See how that goes over.

So yeah, I am becoming far more addicted to my iPhone. Really, who needs to proudly say they have no TV if they are constantly staring into the tinier screen of their iPhone?

The New Mid-Life Crisis

The new mid-life crisis is not about money. It's not about acquisition of a new Ferrari or an extravagant vacation. Lord, wouldn't that be simple. Would that we could go back to the vapidness of the 80's. I wish a fur coat or a yacht would solve these crises. So, what ARE they about? As a 42-year-old woman, I feel I can speak to this because I have found myself in the middle of one for the past few years. The new mid-life crisis is still about wealth, but it's about personal wealth, personal value and self-worth.

Maybe the old mid-life crisis and the new mid-life crisis were both about self-worth, it's just that one generation was easily appeased by throwing a Porsche at it? I don't know. What I do know is that a lot of my peers and I are experiencing similar feelings of restlessness, wanderlust and a feeling like "something is missing." What do we have to figure out? What is it we need? Our answers do not fall in the material world. I have seen mission trips, religion, new jobs, starting new businesses, outreach programs, and other "solutions" abound.

I, myself, have been searching to fill my restlessness with many things: numerous projects, church, a new job, quitting my stable job, relationships, writing, hiking... I am seeking to understand what the restlessness is saying and to quiet it. I want it to shut up. God and being in nature are the closest I have come to being able to silence its needy voice. What do you need? What do I need to do? I am trying to just be...live in the moment and batten down the hatches until I again can attain a feeling of serenity and calm. I'm getting closer. The less I seek, the more I seem to find. It's really very ironic.

I do wonder though, if our stereotypical 80's mid-lifers rode around in their Ferraris with a bad taste in their mouths thinking, "I thought this was going to help..." At least I my Band Aids aren't costing me $100,000!