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Galloping or Inching

Personal Growth, Work Life July 29, 2014 Leave a comment

Progress is progress I tell myself on a regular basis – whether by inches or gallops. I need this reminder because inches don’t feel like progress, especially when new things get added on faster than stuff gets done. (Clearly this is on my mind, I return to some version of this theme quite a lot lately.) Did I push it forward, or can I change the priority, or can I get some help?

Most people I know, particularly women, focus on all the things yet to do which makes it harder to feel like progress has been accomplished at all. There is always more to get done, it doesn’t matter what you are talking about – personal, professional, family household, etc. Relentless obligations. Job security. Life in our modern, complex world.

We want to gallop through our endless lists, but mostly we inch.

Inches matter and they do add up, but sometimes we have to remember where we started at to see how far we have come. Reminding myself of the steps that I have taken that day to affect progress is a habit that I work to keep up. Done, started, planned, researched, delegated, reprioritized. Don’t spend all the time looking at what hasn’t yet been done. Breathe, and then review what was accomplished at the end of each day – work and personal.

public domain image

I admit to being better at sharing this nugget with others than I can be at following it for myself. Although this is one of the ways that I put myself on the path to being a reformed perfectionist years ago. (It is a path with no finish.)

A coworker came across a free webinar offering about remarkable women in leadership roles and sent out an invitation for anyone interested to join her in her office for this presentation. A handful of us expressed interest and so spent an hour together listening and actively thinking about where we are and where we could be. This aspect of accomplishment came up in relationship to confidence.

If a women is apt to focus on this things yet to do then she is less likely to feel confident in her abilities. A rearranged focus that acknowledges the things completed or well on their way is a step toward confidence. Doubt loses some of its foot-hold.

I wanted to ask my coworkers a bit about this and some of the other points from the presentation, but since we had spent an hour listening everyone felt pressed to get back to their lists of to-dos. The march to inch forward.

Generosity Toward a Parent

Random thoughts July 22, 2014 Leave a comment

I have had a variety of conversations in recent weeks that when strung together in my thoughts seemed to have similar elements. The conversations weren’t about the parent-child relationship, but the theme took shape. It is a central relationship, one that plenty of people experience from each side.

As I became a parent, I started to look at my relationship with my own parents differently. I hadn’t evaluated it since it was a child to adult dynamic. But I realized that my mom particularly had changed the way that she approached our relationship so that it was adult to adult. That shift doesn’t always happen when the child moves into adulthood – one or the other side, or both, may prevent it or resist it.

I used to have conversations with my mom about the parent-child relationship dynamic – in relation to ours and to mine with my boys. The conversation tended to come up as the boys transitioned to a new stage of development. I have really missed the conversations these past years as the boys moved through their later teens and now as I work on forging my side of the adult to adult version with each of them.

The shift really starts to come along at the point that the child sees the parent as a person separate from their parental role, it seems to me. There are glimpses throughout childhood. I am reminded of a period when the boys took to walking over to a flower shop that a neighbor ran and each buying me a single cut flower. I think that they initially got the idea from a neighborhood girl, but then kept it up because I showed such delight in their generosity. They were in early grade school so maybe about 6 or 8.

the first flower

I’ve mentioned before that my mom went to college starting when I was in grade school. This meant that she was enmeshed in her own homework and learning experiences. She graduated from college the same year my brother graduated from high school. She became an instructor at the same college that I went to and I had to learn to call out her name and not ‘Mom’ if I saw her around campus. (Which was weird.)

The conversations that I have had recently range from a parent of a brand new teen to a friend with sons the same age as mine to a friend who is dealing with the infirmity of her elderly mother. Generosity toward a parent is so rare as to be non-existent during teen years. It is a spotty thing, it appears, for twenty-somethings. And it is hard to sustain in the midst of a crazy-busy middle life toward a parent that is acting more like a stubborn teen.

I’ve thought about my responsibility as a parent to encourage my boys to be more giving in our relationship. It seems to me that learning this must be more deliberate for children of single parents. When parents are still a couple then each can teach the children to be giving to the other parent.

I’m going to have to spend some more time thinking about this. What do you think?

What Do You Want?

Random thoughts July 18, 2014 Comments: 2

My most recent cat companion had a prickly personality. (Which is clearly exemplified by the accompanying picture, don’t you think?) She relied upon me for food, to clean her litter box and to provide the occasional chin scratch when she was in the mood. The rest of the time she liked to be alone.

We invite animals into our lives with the hope that they will offer comfort and support when we are feeling unsettled or restless, in need of reassurance. That they will offer that unconditional affection and be available when we are having a moment, even if the moment is in the wee hours of the morning when a human companion wouldn’t feel terribly obliging.

It took a couple of years for the cat and I to reach a state of some type of peaceful coexistence after dancing around each other. She came to me as a full grown, though small, three year old feline, pushed out of her original home by more aggressive cats. I came into the relationship still mourning my beloved previous cats who had each died a few months from one another at the relatively young age of fourteen.

She had long fur and delusions of grandeur that her stature could not support. The expression on her face was often a bit sour, discontent so my older son called her Captain Angry Pants, which bruised her tender ego. My sister was enthralled with her delicate size, soft fur, and her beautiful markings but since my sister is part of a package deal that includes my three rambunctious nieces, the cat disdained her attentions as well.

She came to us bedraggled and quite wary, used to the name Itty if she noticed a name at all. She had lived with her mother and father in quiet comfort, except for the dog, at a coworker’s house until the entrance of four more cats disrupted everything and she became a target, and began to misbehave. We initially let her roam, until she proved herself unworthy by marking the newest piece of furniture in the house, so we closed her into my home office to acclimate in private.

This strategy proved more successful and she eventually came up to me in a low to the ground, slinking and quick to run manner when I would go in and sit quietly. Interestingly, she first responded best to the person who became her sworn enemy, my younger son. She actually bumped up against him, where she would just make quick passes under my raised hand for bit of touch therapy. As she adjusted and cleaned herself up, her regal view of herself became quite apparent and so I began to call her Anastasia, Kitty of Mystery – but her disdainful expression earned her the nickname Miss Kitty Thing-thing to help her to understand her place in the household.

I didn’t exactly start our association ready and open to bond either. I had woken up a couple of months prior on a work day February morning to find my cat, my baby girl in the corner fading. I think that she was waiting for me to wake up, because she breathed her last within moments. Of course there had been no sign of illness before that moment, as cats are wont to do. My beloved cat and I had been together since her mother had pushed her out of the nest, almost as soon as she had opened her eyes. She was fierce and feisty from that first meeting, clawing and shredding my hands when I fed her with a bottle, regardless of how tightly I would try to bundle her into a towel before we’d begin. Over the years she dug deeply into my heart and made it clear that I was in hers as well.

Miss Kitty Thing-thing needed a place to live, but I just wasn’t ready to offer her a home any more than she seemed to want one. We struggled, often out of sync, to create a relationship. I rarely felt that I was getting much out of the relationship and she was most content when left to her own devices. Finally I understood, in a small way, what many people have against cats. They don’t need you like dogs do. Some make it clearer than others.

The right cat companion will want you, will seek out your company, as my previous cats have done. This one just didn’t have it in her, and I didn’t really try either.

On a cold February day this past winter she breathed her last, having barely shown signs of feeling a bit off. We had been uneasy companions for 5 years. She had been a bit more open to affection in recent days, had even sought me out, which I had seen as a good sign but clearly misread.

This time I am going slow, putting in more thought before I seek out a new kitty companion.

Possessing Something New

Random thoughts July 1, 2014 Leave a comment

There is a certain pleasure in having something new, or new to you. There are those who have no interest in new acquisitions and on the other end of the spectrum there are those who go into debt to feed this pleasure regularly and wind up with too much useless stuff. But for the majority of us, it is nice to have that occasional thrill of a new possession.

I’ve gotten to the stage in life when I consider each purchase; whether it will be useful, where I will put it, do I already have something similar, will it replace something else. I can easily walk away from something that is mass produced when it comes to decorative items, but artist-made is another thing entirely. Particularly wood.

Depending on the item, I might need a period of introduction. Adjustment in thought. Perhaps I took those words mothers and grandmothers say too much to heart – be careful, don’t ruin your new (insert name of new item here), you just got that. I did, after all, manage to ruin a few of those newly acquired things in my growing years.

I need a new 4 quart sauce pan. But so many these new ones have glass lids – yikes. I’ll keep looking. (Come to think of it, we had several nice pots that didn’t have lids when I was a kid. They’d been wedding gifts to mom and dad that came with glass lids… Maybe it’s hereditary?)

I can tell a story about almost everything that I have in my house. Many of the things were my parents’ or my grandparents’ things. Other things have come from trips – you can barely see the front of my fridge thanks to all the magnets. The story and the thing are intertwined. Perhaps it is the story that captures me most. But I can’t touch the story like I can run my hand along the secretary that was my grandmother’s.

I didn’t buy anything new recently to prompt the thought for this post. I went to a fine art and craft show with a couple of friends. We checked out all of the things that people had made. I was especially drawn to a burled wood bowl that felt like satin. I had gone hoping to find a gift or two, particularly something for one of the friends because it was her birthday.

I’m kind of sorry that I didn’t get myself that bowl.

Maturity Doesn’t Preclude Enthusiasm

Random thoughts June 27, 2014 Comments: 2

My son’s dog likes to remind me that there is always a place for enthusiasm. We think of her as a puppy, but we recently noticed the gray coming in on her chin which is supposed to be a sign of maturity. When she likes something or someone, she really likes them and everyone knows it. And she likes a lot of things.

I enjoy a walk around the neighborhood to get fresh air, exercise and ideas from other people’s gardens. (And it is a good time to think.) I let her come with me. (I do not take her for walks, let me be clear. Because she is not my dog.) She knows she is only allowed to go if she behaves herself. She must start by waiting calmly while I put on my shoes. Far enough away that I can get my shoes on without conking her in the head with my foot when I raise and lower it. Or trying to give me kisses when I bend down to get my shoe. Then she is supposed to calmly let me put on her harness without licking me. Then she is supposed to go calmly to the door and wait to the side while I go out first. Lastly she is supposed to wait calmly while I shut the door.

But she just really likes to go for walks and she wants to make certain that I know how happy it makes her that I am preparing for a walk. Even if this delays the start of the walk while she gets hold of herself.

It is good to have a constant reminder that life is better when you have things that make you feel all wiggly. There is plenty on the mature side of life that draws the enthusiasm right out of a person. It should just help us to enjoy things more, but for too many people these things seems to mean the preclusion of enthusiasm entirely. I think maybe I should send them on a walk with my son’s dog. She’d love to go.

Staying Calm

Random thoughts, Work Life June 24, 2014 Leave a comment

Someone went in the basement of a government office in England a couple of years ago and found themselves a gold mine by unearthing a WWII slogan, “Keep Calm and Carry On”. With my tagline on my old blog being Reasonable Expectations, which is along the same vein, you probably believe that I find the phrase has plenty of merit. And I do believe in the sentiment. (I almost bought a plaque myself when I first saw one in a catalog because it is a pithy and practical mantra.)

Google search of keep calm and…

But ever since I was told the first time as a child in a tizzy about some long forgotten irritation to ‘calm down’ I have thought that is the most useless phrase in the English language. In the history of the world the number of people who have actually calmed down just based on being told to do so might be legitimately calculated at one. In my experience, both personal and observed, it is more likely to be equated to waving a red flag in front of a bull.

But, since chronologically we are all adults, we do need to temper our tempers. We are civilized after all, aren’t we? Therefore we must find a means within ourselves to defuse any mounting irritation, frustration, anger, or rage before it gets the better of us. Before we get into full tantrum mode. And there is plenty to be frustrated about – businesses seem to create rules for the specific purpose of frustrating their customers. Or, knowing a particular time of day is a high volume time there will only be 2 cashiers with a long row of empty checkout stations and a longer row of people who have somewhere else to be.

Anyway, back to defusing frustration. Reminding myself to breathe is a good mantra – have you ever noticed that your breath is shallow and rapid which makes your pulse get shallow and rapid? And your shoulders head north toward your ears? I can’t make the store bring out some more cashiers, but I can make myself breathe more deeply and shake out my shoulders until they are back where they belong. And try not to listen while the man behind me tells the woman he is with to calm down.

The Changing Landscape

Random thoughts June 17, 2014 Leave a comment

I am not a gardener, more of a putterer. I admire gardeners and I enjoy the effect of a garden. My back and knees don’t want to garden, though. (They are protesting as I write this because I am itching to go and putter in the garden.) There is something so elementally pleasing about watching things grow and thrive.

Last year I read an interesting book called Founding Gardeners. I realized that I had something in common with Jefferson, Washington, and Adams besides a vested interest in the ongoing success of the ideals that created this nation – I enjoy a lot about gardening but wish that I could hire people to do the hard parts like they did. Sometimes I manage to get my son to step in.

A few years ago I decided to create a garden area in my backyard in my mom’s honor. We call it the Grandma Garden. The object was to add plants each year for Mother’s Day and my mom’s birthday. It was a way to stay close to her. For many years it didn’t look much like a garden and plenty of the plants that were added didn’t make it. (Often times thanks to the dog or other creatures, darn them. The dog inexplicably dug up a sand cherry repeatedly and I kept finding her playing with it until it died.)

Last year I got a bunch of mostly evergreen plants from my sister early in the season. I put a few in the Grandma Garden and for the first time it started to look like an actual garden area. I had to move around a couple of boxwoods – moving plants was a revolutionary idea to me that has changed my puttering entirely. The dog hasn’t been too kind to the boxwoods – digging near their roots unless I am vigilant. They have been tenacious though.

The Grandma Garden last year.

I worried about my new plants during this past harsh winter. The deep snow cover protected much of the plant bases but I have noticed signs of stress on the upper parts that were subjected to the wind and bitter cold. I tried waiting to see if they would revive, and then a bit of trimming.

I just had to pull up one of the boxwoods. The larger one, the one that had been more successful. Because it was larger, it got greater doses of the winter punishment. Now there is a big space which I am currently pondering.

One of the points of the garden was to find things that made me think of mom and the stories that she used to tell. She wasn’t a gardener, but she had an appreciation for nature and she liked to dabble (a step or two more distant from gardener than putterer happens to be) in planting now and again.

There were large bushes in front of the house that she grew up in and every year when her dad got out the pruning tools, mom would pester him to let her trim. That’s what the boxwoods were representing. For now, the stunted little one that remains represents these moments in my mom’s life all by itself.

We think of plants as stable, but when you start to work with them you realize that gardens are ever changing. Things thrive and things die – sometimes it doesn’t make any sense. Sometimes the changes are subtle and sometimes dramatic.

Do you pay attention to the landscape around you?

Come Banging After Me

Random thoughts June 13, 2014 Leave a comment

I have lost count of the number of times that I started to learn to play the piano. My mom had an old black upright piano that moved with us from state to state and sounded beautiful to me whenever she played – but the years and the moves weren’t kind to the poor instrument. It was a relic of her childhood, carried over into mine. At some point during my college years she treated herself to a new piano that now lives at my brother’s house.

Mom was more than happy to teach us to play when we took an interest. But she wasn’t going to come banging after us to practice, or in any way harangue us for this or any other endeavor. She loved to play, but had her moments during those learning years when she had to be pressed to continue by her mother. She had a picture of herself as a concert pianist, unrealized because she didn’t put in the necessary hours of practice and single minded dedication.

Mom at a piano, not the one I mention – and long before she was ‘mom’.

My nieces’ dance recital has brought this and other creative efforts to mind, as it does every year. I am enchanted by the growth of their skill, poise and grace each year. I don’t have to be there for the moments when they just don’t have it in them to go to a particular class. When they have to make a choice between practice and another activity. I just now realized that I haven’t ever asked my sister how much effort she puts into banging after them to work through a momentary dip in interest and effort. I know that she puts a lot of her own time and effort into making their ability to dance a reality.

I took dance classes too, here and there – now and then. We didn’t ever have the facility and the talented people that my nieces have had the pleasure to be exposed, that perhaps they don’t recognize as a gift. The other gift that they may not recognize is the time and expense that my sister puts into their pursuit.

There are so many options, so many interesting pursuits that we could take on – intellectual, creative, etc. A whole lot of factors have to convene just so to create excellence – dedication and a support system being just the start. Regardless of dedication, sometimes the difference just comes down to having someone to come banging after you when your energy and dedication flag a bit.

Lazy Days of Summer?

Random thoughts June 3, 2014 Comments: 2

I regularly read Mary Schmich’s column in the Chicago Tribune and one of her frequent themes is to remind herself and all readers as well to enjoy these brief summer days. Despite a hefty work schedule that no longer breaks for the summer months. It is so easy as we dash from air conditioned house to air conditioned car to air conditioned office to air conditioned store to air conditioned house to completely miss summer. But we really earned this summer after the winter we just had.

summer is getting ready to burst open like this peony

I have been watching all of the plants come out of their dormancy, unfurling their leaves and sending out new shoots. I enjoy the return of the leaf canopy on the streets that I normally drive (except my own which has been devastated by the Emerald Ash Borer, where all the trees sadly await a saw.) I take in the changes of plantings as the dog and I walk our usual routes.

It is my intention to choose the patio option more often this summer when out with friends or family and enjoy the breeze, the rustling in the trees and the play of light. (And try to stay in the shade.) I’ve already managed to do this twice, which is a good start. When meeting up with friends, I hope we pick outdoor options more – open air concerts are offered by several entities as one choice.

I need to dig out some of Mary’s old columns that I have kept to check for some of her suggestions. I remember one had something to do with a stack of notecards, one for every summer day, and as the day ended she would jot down a summer-specific activity that she accomplished that day and move the card to a new pile. As summer progressed the pile of blank cards shrank and the filled cards grew. It is a nice visual way not to let the days of summer slip past unknowingly.

How will you enjoy a lazy day or two or three of summer?

Not so Great Now, But Later…

Random thoughts May 30, 2014 Comments: 2

My niece had a bad few moments yesterday afternoon that is primo material for a great story later. I am part of the phone tree for the alarm on my sister’s house and sometime before 3pm today my cell phone rang but I was in the middle of something so I let it go to voicemail. When I checked the phone later, I had a message from the alarm company that ended by telling me that the police had been called. Curious, all this time that I have been on the phone tree and this is the first time that they have called. (I couldn’t tell you what I am supposed to say to them… I think I have it written down somewhere.)

Anyway, my niece got home from school and set off the alarm and got to have an unpleasant conversation with a local police officer. I feel empathy for her embarrassment frustration and worry, she is that lovely age of 13 when almost everything is potential for embarrassment. I won’t mention yet that she will be able to tell this story for years.

I think back on some of my moments that still get laughs when I trot out the stories… There was my high school graduation when I was the only one out of 700 plus proud graduates who managed to catch the sleeve of my gown on the stair rail and I had to walk backwards up the steps, in high heels, to unhook myself. There was the time when I was dressed like a ghoul and I locked myself and my kids out of our house and car when we were trying to go to a Cub Scout Halloween party.

I have to laugh when I think about the time when I was dropping off my older son at preschool and accidentally locked my younger son in the car. He just kept smiling and waving at me when I tried to pantomime him unlocking his car seat and hitting the button to unlock the car doors. (I had a bad habit for several years of locking myself in or out of places.)

I’m not going to say that I don’t lose my cool when things go a bit haywire, but honestly having something go a bit off just makes better memories. I try to remind myself of this in the moment. To err is human, and makes for a fine story.