BAReed Writing, Business Writing

The Passage of Time, Accumulation of Dates

Random thoughts September 12, 2014 Comments: 2

Weeks ago I called my eye doctor’s office for an appointment. I wanted the first morning appointment, which was more important than the day. I was given Thursday the 11^th and I accepted. The date gave me pause as I wrote it in my calendar. I participate in a group that meets on the 2^nd and 4^th Thursdays of the month so we met last night and as I prepared the agenda prior to last night’s meeting, and wrote the date, I paused again.

We accumulate dates that have personal meaning and broader social meaning. Some are good – births and weddings – some less so – deaths and other endings. It is hard to live a life and not accumulate dates, whether you acknowledge them or not. A few can make a generation shudder, close their eyes and review the sights of the original moment when the date became etched. Dates rarely carry meaning past a generation or two except as something obscure to memorize for a history test.

I’ve been to Gettysburg twice in my life so far. The first time as a child whose father studied the Civil War era and passed on his interest in history. The second I was there alone, as a stop on a trip to see family in Philadelphia. I happened to come in to town on the same route that the Confederate soldiers had taken on a hot July day in 1863. I was there on a hot August day almost 150 years later but the area retained an aura of the momentous occurrences of those 3 days in July that shaped our country.

I felt the need to try to express to those who never moved on from those quiet fields that we had learned something from their sacrifice.

Gettysburg Division monuments, photo credit Wikipedia

This past summer we have been reminded that the hundredth anniversary of several significant moments of WWI have occurred. This series of events that gave shape to a fair portion of our modern world, but is fusty and musty to most. My thoughts turn to what we have learned from those events.

And the date that resonates for this generation, 9/11. Although I overheard a father saying yesterday, with dismay, that his child was born in 2005 and had such different points of reference. I didn’t personally know anyone who died that day. If I know anyone who was somehow directly affected by those events on that blue sky, no cloud Tuesday, they haven’t mentioned it. But it is a date that gives us all pause.

I ask my usual question, what have I learned? How do you pause?

Now Resume Our Regular Life, Already in Progress

Random thoughts September 9, 2014 Leave a comment

Do broadcast networks still say that? It used to be when they had breaking news that they would cut into regular broadcasting to inform their viewership of that news and then tell us that they ‘now resume our regular programming, already in progress’. I heard it often enough that the phrase echoes for me sometimes.

Last week I apparently tempted Fate when I wrote this piece. (Although Fate may want to take a refresher course in reading comprehension – I was empathizing with people dealing with anything outside the norm of their regular lives.) Fate is nothing if not capricious and possessing a strong sense of the absurd. Not that anything truly awful happened to me, not last week anyway, but plenty of little and middle sized things were piling up to keep me just off balance from routine. Mostly things at work.

Friday afternoon we looked out the windows of the office and noticed it was ominous, like deep twilight, and then the rain came along. This has been such a regular occurrence in recent time that we got back to work. This time my son called to ask me if it had rained heavily and I said it had. He hadn’t experienced heavy rain where he had been, but was surprised to find trees and branches down all around our neighborhood and our power out.

I could see that the storm had been more intense as I drove north toward home after work. More leaf and branch litter in the roads, and then I started to come across traffic lights without power. (FYI treat them like a 4-way stop, please.) And roads blocked by police cars. Oh, my. Now I could see big branches down and large wounds on trees.

I have 2 large cottonwoods in the front yard and 3 large maples in the back along with some smaller trees (plus 2 done-for ash trees). I love my trees, but at moments like this, I cringe a bit. But my son hadn’t mentioned any significant damage to our house and yard.

these will become firewood (taken through the screen because the mosquitoes are viscous)

Our power was still out when I arrived, which is somewhat unusual. We have been pretty lucky that it is rarely out more than an hour or two. Thankfully I have a gas water heater and a gas stove… That has electronic ignition. We can light the burners for the stove top, but no oven. Don’t open the refrigerator too often and wait it out. We did go out to eat, partly out of curiosity to see the damage. And felt pangs of jealousy for all those who had power.

We played some Yahtzee by the light of lanterns and talked, then went to bed early as earlier generations often did before electricity. Hoping that the power would be back over night.

The power wasn’t restored until around 5 am on Sunday. Saturday became a struggle to maintain modern life. My son’s phone had died, he needed to print something before work that evening, we could no longer access our internet because the back-up battery had died, the computer’s battery was running low and most ominous of all the fridge was warming up.

Have I mentioned before that my father was a professional Boy Scout for 33 years? We figured out short term solutions to each problem, and it started to look like we were camping out in our own home. My sister, bless her, has a generator that we got set up by Saturday evening and started the process to cool the fridge back down. My son’s various finds like work lights and extension cords came in handy.

When the power came back on I had been in a deep sleep in a pitch black room. Suddenly the small red glow from my bedside clock seemed like klieg lights and I had to chuckle at myself a bit how quickly I went from grateful to grumbly.

Electricity flows into our houses and we pay the monthly bills without thinking about how much more comfortable our lives are because of it. My son kept trying to turn on light switches. I kept forgetting to grab the lantern when I moved from room to room. Thankfully it was a beautiful day in the high 70s, but when we got warm we wanted a fan…

I really needed a restful weekend so I could hit the reset button for this week at work. At least I got a fairly normal Sunday. I’ve had plenty of personal lessons in resilience, this was just the latest. ‘Normal’ life resumed, for now.

(Disclaimer to Fate: I’m just telling a story here, I read an article on electricity in India, where it is not yet widespread or terribly reliable. I get it, there is always someone doing better and always someone doing worse.)

Season’s Change

Random thoughts September 5, 2014 Comments: 2

Summer is over if you count the season as lasting between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Or we still have a handful of days left if you take into account these days before the first day of autumn. The leaves on the trees are still green, but clearly worn. Some are tinged with other colors after hanging onto branches for quite a few months.

Walking at the back of the nearby park with the dog recently, I got a strong whiff of the sharp smell of fall. A bit of pungent decay, once growing things ready to enrich the soil for something future to grow.

I’ve written a couple of times over the past few months about summer, this season that most causes us to think of leisure. One that we are more likely to feel concern about wasting than the other three. (Assuming that we live in a place that has seasons, which I do.)

How did I do in my effort to enjoy moments of summer? I mentioned choosing the patio option as often as possible in my early summer post. I’m afraid that I didn’t meet up with family and friends all that often, but I can say that I logged a bit of time on decks and patios. Nor did I manage to get to more than one outdoor concert.

I took stock again early last month in my effort not to let summer pass unnoticed. I can add the taste of our own tomatoes to the list I made in that post. They have a heady flavor, but unfortunately thick skins. And I experienced mosquito bites too, darn it.

This summer wasn’t hot enough for a lot of people, but it was just about right to my thinking. (I’m sure they at least appreciate the more reasonable utility bills from the moderate summer heat.)

Now plenty of people are already bemoaning the coming of winter. But, please, let’s give fall its due first. The weather will continue to be pleasant for weeks to come and then turn crisp. While the plants all settle into a dormant state.

I’ve lived most of my life in regions that experience all four seasons. I most enjoy spring and fall, I see benefit in summer, and I endure and accept winter for the sake of the other seasons.

While I think about how I met my own summer expectations and where I fell short, I have to remind myself that I shouldn’t just lament but decide what I might do better. How about you, did your summer turn out how you expected?

The Strangeness of Ordinary

Random thoughts September 2, 2014 Comments: 3

The litany of ills and travails – big and small, natural, geo-political, economic – seems to be unusually long around the globe right now. Many people in many parts of the world are steeped in or trying to fend off chaos, their ordinary life set aside for the time being. But plenty of other segments and corners of the populated world go about their ordinary business day after day and only encounter the chaos when they access the news.

Does that seem a bit strange to you? While the main part of my mind is keeping track of my appointments, facilitating tasks at work, planning and cleaning and ticking through my days another part is contrasting my regular schedule against the topsy-turvy days of all the people affected by these various storms (manmade and natural). And wondering how these people that I don’t know are coping.

It is back to school season and I see the effect at the school across the street as I leave for work. My company supplies products to schools which means that we are quite hectic these days. But aside from some people having flooded basements thanks to all the rain, or difficulty getting in to the office for the same reason we are all going through actions that we have done for ages, routine.

I do know someone whose son was evacuated from Liberia due the Ebola outbreak but that is as close as I personally come to most of the turmoil. How about you? Do you have relatives in Ukraine or Israel or Syria or Ferguson, MS or…

August 2013 Political Map, credit Wikipedia

The world is a big place and it has always been true that there will be turmoil here and there and normal life will occur everywhere else. Routine is annoying, but also comfort. A seismic shift – either literal or not – that removes a person, a group, or a whole region from the ordinary usually seems to happen elsewhere. Until it doesn’t. Most of the time ordinary is just that, but every once in a while there is such a spike of chaotic activity, or the chaos hits too close to home, that ordinary seems rather strange.

I remember my first jolt of the strangeness of ordinary. We were all called together because my grandmother was not doing well, but when I woke up the next morning at my uncle’s house and heard laughter downstairs I believed that she must have made it through the night. Until my dad came up to tell us that she hadn’t. How could they have been laughing?

I used the phrase ‘seismic shift’ earlier in this post because I have experienced real earthquakes, including a major one, and it is quite disorienting to have the ground beneath your feet move violently. To see the damage that an earthquake can wreak up close. The mind can’t quite take it in.

Knowing that disquiet I can’t decide if it is right to carry on normally or that there is great strangeness in the ordinary.

Running Inner Commentary

Random thoughts August 29, 2014 Leave a comment

There was a noontime broadcast this week for Chicago’s current heroes – the team that won US Little League Champs, Jackie Robinson West – that reminded me of the worst trait of commentators. Their inane blather to fill the air while we wait for the event, or the next stage of the event. I’ve only watched Netflix or streamed shows on the computer for the past year and so I had forgotten. But then it made me think of something else that I think is interesting.

There are parts of the brain that keep up a running commentary – did you remember to bring your phone, haven’t made an appointment to get your teeth cleaned yet, oops your cousin’s birthday is coming up. This is the part of the brain that sometimes doesn’t want to cool it so you can sleep. The part of the brain that spews your self-talk.

Notice how my brain commentary examples are slightly or definitely of a negative bent? Your failings – real and potential – on a permanent loop inside your head. Yippee. Or how about; so busy, can’t keep up, busy, busy, busy.

sometimes my thoughts resemble my niece’s zendoodle

All of it just about as useful as the filler from those news commentators.

Do you ever stop and listen to these thoughts looping through your head? Somewhere in the past few years I did start to realize how unhelpful these thoughts usually are and started to challenge them. When the thought ‘you can’t do that’ came up I asked why not. When they said ‘busy, busy’ I asked how productive. And so on.

Not every day, but regularly enough that I think it has made a difference. Of course sometimes I have to agree because I really do need to make that appointment for the dental cleaning and my cousin’s birthday is coming up fast. Now if I could just get the thoughts to look up the number for the dentist and make the call.

Things I did Instead

Random thoughts, Writing August 26, 2014 Comments: 2

I have a post that I have been working on for the past couple of days, but it isn’t ready to show yet. I have other half done posts that aren’t even that close and time says it is up, post time is at hand. Crap.

How many others have sat down to write today’s blog post and noodled on one thing until it petered out, and then fiddled with another until it seemed garbled? How often have you stared at the screen for a little bit and thought about how you got farther today than yesterday when you didn’t even bother to open up a new post and stare at the screen?

public domain image

When writing isn’t happening, eventually I stand up and wander about the house and:

Clean the tracks on the shower stall and the tracks on the sliding door
Water the indoor plants
Take inventory of the kitchen and bathroom for a grocery list
Pull out the lambswool tool and get rid of cobwebs
Go for a walk (and I’m even nice enough to bring my son’s dog along)
Collect quotes cut out from various magazines that have appealed to me and put them in the book that I keep for that purpose
Go through the pile of mail, flyers and papers that breed on the table
Ponder what to make to use up the 2 overripe bananas on the counter
Watch Sneakers or other dated, but still entertaining movies
Thought about going out to get plants for my 2 hanging baskets but then realized that wouldn’t appear to be writing in the slightest

And this is the post that you get today. What do you get done when you are ‘writing’?

Rule Bound

Random thoughts August 22, 2014 Comments: 2

Where do you stand on the role that rules play in life? Do rules create valid boundaries for protection of yourself, others, property? Do rules hinder you from doing what you really want to do? Do they offer guidelines? Is the rule the most important thing, what the rule is meant to safeguard, or is it the spirit of the rule? Do you think that rules should have a shelf-life, come up for periodic review?

I know people for whom rules are a means to an end. The rules are to be applied or ignored in whatever fashion necessary to achieve the goal. Perhaps sometimes just bent or loosely interpreted. Creative thinking is liberally applied.

I know people for whom the rule is the ultimate. The letter of the rule, the face of it – each rule stitched together with all of the others to provide these people with the comfort to get through all the moments of life. No creative thinking necessary.

And I know plenty of people of varying stripes between these opposites. And some who don’t seem to think much about rules one way or the other.

photo credit: Wikipedia

It couldn’t have been long after people started to congregate that it became clear that some sort of standard was necessary. Rules were born. And they can be found in nature – plants and animals have them. Do this, don’t do that.

Rules serve a purpose except when there are rules for the sake of rules. They help to create commonality and structure. But they can and should be examined for validity. (Old laws on the books can be very odd, and sometimes hilarious.)

I used to tell my boys that if they thought any of my rules didn’t make sense, they should tell me. Along with why. Scoffing at a rule is easy, but putting together a compelling argument why the rule should be removed or changed is important.

It comes down to one of my favorite questions – what is the intent? If the intent isn’t clear, well hmmm…. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it is ok to ignore or flaunt the rule.

How are the bindings on the rules around you?

There is Joy to be Found

Random thoughts August 19, 2014 Leave a comment

It doesn’t seem possible for a person to get to my stage in life without experiencing dark, lonely and painful moments. Perhaps it is possible for a small group of people with certain constitutions. But then there are the rest of us, and for another small subset dark moments are entirely too common. They can become dark days, weeks, months and even years.

Like the majority of the population, my heart contracted when I heard the news about Robin Williams last week. But I didn’t have to ask why, I knew that in that moment he just couldn’t find his way past the pain and the dark. And I wished that I could have reached out and helped him to refocus, just enough to get through that worst moment, on some small bit of joy. Or even just the knowledge that joy does exist and has power too.

There is always joy even though the cruelest aspect of dark moments is the way they work to rob a person of joy. A pensive Robin Williams would appreciate the irony in the fact that someone who represented joy to so many wasn’t able to summon it for himself at a crucial moment.

I learned this lesson well the year that my father died suddenly and my husband left me the following month. The dark loneliness was crushing. But spring still came and brought delicate new leaves and tiny hardy flowers. My children still laughed with their friends in the next room and the sound was a balm.

I have kept this lesson close in these following years as I have grappled with more trials, more dark and painful moments. I have learned many things about this dark, this melancholy, this depression as it has been a companion for most of my life.

Mary Schmich, of the Chicago Tribune, wrote a thoughtful piece in which she said “Suicide is a mental health issue, not a moral failure”. She also introduced her readers to a lovely poem called “Wait” by Galway Kinnell, which says in part:

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.

…

Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands.

…

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

He understands the dark. And he found his own methods to find joy. And he knows that sometimes when the dark and pain are working hardest to block out joy, the best method is just to wait and trust that the joy is strong too and will find a way to seep in and make things interesting again. Given time.

Pain and dark do have power. They are heavy to carry around and exhaust a person. Joy is light and therefore seems inconsequential but it has power too. Joy’s might is everywhere. We have to be able to receive it.

Here You Go

Personal Growth, Work Life August 15, 2014 Comments: 2

Problem solving has been an important part of my job description for as long as I can remember. I like to put on the detective hat and sift through things to find the parts that are important, put them together in the right configuration and arrive at a solution. Sometimes it’s pretty straightforward to figure out and sometimes plenty about the situation is a bit ambiguous.

There is one thing about problem solving that got old a long time ago, but is part and parcel of the problem solver’s lot in my experience. It is the person who makes it a habit to hand over partial information, or fragments here and there in multiple email or phone messages. They want you to solve it, but they can’t be bothered to try to put anything together in any sort of cohesive single place.

public domain image

I’ll take the person who isn’t sure what they want or need kind of problem over the person who dumps a mess every time. Most times. Every once in a while I use the big mess as an excuse to be left alone to puzzle it all into something coherent. But mostly I see it as a different facet of rude. That person’s time is more important than mine. (Though I concede that there may be other ways of looking at it…)

Sigh. Focus on the boost that I hope to get upon resolution and not on the drudgery of slogging through the junk. This is why there are stories of the really good stuff one can find hidden in junk. Think of ways to prevent the junk dump from repeat offenders. Get caught up in the chase for the best solution.

Don’t be a here you go, dump and run person. Please.

Waiting Patiently, Part 2

Random thoughts August 12, 2014 Leave a comment

Patience – endurance, fortitude, perseverance, persistence, forbearance, resignation… Do any of us have enough of this trait in any given moment of our days? I like this definition: ‘an ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay’. Ah, a willingness to suppress – this implies that, if I want to, I can nurture this trait in myself.

Curiosity doesn’t have much patience with obstacles – it wants to know, and it wants to know right now. Or wants to be or have or feel or experience… Right now.

Having children requires a person to cultivate patience, Herculean patience in the face of unexplainable infant fury. Empathy for their misery led me finally to patience. It was my job to use my curiosity to understanding their needs and meet them if I could. And soothe if I couldn’t. Soothing requires patience. Which comes in handy when the endless questions come, then the pushing of boundaries…

Gardening requires patience. Plants grow even more slowly than children, but thankfully don’t have hours-long crying jags or want to know why. I have one houseplant that I bought back in 1986 that is still going. (My former mother-in-law even revived it from the mild frost-bite it got on a cross country trip.) What will thrive, or make-do, or perish? Why? Patience is necessary to get these answers.

In our vegetable gardening this year, we are watching the tomatoes form and we are full of questions. Impatient questions – how will they taste, when will they be ready? Patient questions will get us there – how much sun, how much water?

Diligence is part of the definition of patience. This one I understood from childhood on – because of its importance to structure and process and ritual. Curiosity can’t really be sated without some understanding and application of methodology. Where would I fit the new information if I didn’t have a means to categorize it in with the information that I already possess? Diligence comes in handy to retain the information or experience that curiosity prompted.

Timing is an important component. We bought the tomato plants in May, already a couple of inches tall, knowing that tomatoes wouldn’t actually be ready until sometime in August. Now that it is August, the patience is wearing a little thin. The ability and willingness to suppress our restlessness for our homegrown tomatoes is getting harder to apply. But more crucial to a successful outcome.

There are so many places and instances where I can apply this patience I have learned, am learning. At work, while driving, in line, when I’m out of sorts…