G's Cottage

NaNoWriMo Week 2 Update

2009-11-10T15:00:00.004-05:00

We’re at week two of National Novel Writing Month.

For those interested in the stats: I have logged 22K words, my 15 NaNo buddies combined word count is hovering at about half a million and therefore halfway to our group word goal. Of course that doesn’t count the nearly three-quarters of a million words in support posts we have published on our group forum thread and Facebook walls.

That first week went by in a blur. In way that first week reminded me of the start of the Great Ocean of Fire race in the film Hidalgo. It’s a long distance race over many days but the way some of the competitors charged off the line gives the impression that it’s won on the first day.

NaNoWriMo is a month-long novel writing challenge – a race if you want to think of it that way. It’s possible, and some have even done it, to write all 50K words on the first day. If the only thing you come for is the 50K words and the purple bar in your profile, then that’s what you’ll get. Some of us come for other reasons in addition to the purple bar.

I find there is a spiritual component to doing NaNo. In a way it is every bit a wilderness experience as the Great Ocean of Fire or Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. In order to get to the finish at all you have to strip your life down to essentials.

In the film Hopkins has his horse, as much food and water as he can carry, a shifting mixture of faith and his wits, and the guidance of his appointed interpreter to survive the desert and its hazards. The Bible says that Jesus had nothing but spiritual communion with God for 40 days to sustain him against Satan’s temptations. During NaNo it comes down to the writer and his or her writing tools, infusions from a support network, and overcoming their own demons in order to write a novel in 30 days.

No one comes out of any of these experiences the same person they were when they started. You learn something about the stuff you are made of. Participating in NaNoWriMo challenges what is really important on your list of activities. The process of writing day after day forces you to start listening to the things that are floating around loose in your head and making choices about those ideas.

Only a few NaNoWriMos will ever become published and paid as an author; that’s the reality. Far more, however, find and eventually act on what is really important to do with their lives that contribute to the greater good.

Have you undertaken something challenging and found you came away with something you didn’t expect?

Creating Home: update

2009-11-05T12:57:00.004-05:00

In August I wrote about creating a new home as part of a transition in Home is not just where you hang your hat. With the holidays coming up, home and a sense of being at home is more important that ever. So it seemed a good time to do an update on my own home creation in conjunction with writing about getting ready for the holidays.

First let me be clear that I am not finished settling in. My original plan was to allow a full year for getting through all the cartons and becoming truly settled in. Since this is more like a marathon than a dash my pacing feels about right overall. There are occasional sprints for position like finding a conversation space in the living room or the space to have my granddaughter spend the night; but overall I am rather methodically going from project to project.

A lot has been accomplished since my last post. When I wrote that post I was wedged among stacks of furniture, cartons and storage tubs. The dining room was box city and unusable. There was a single path from the front door through the length of my apartment. I was in the door but not really living.

Since then I have unpacked and tossed half the cartons as well as sorted and downsized about half the tubs. I can entertain guests and eat at my dining table. I have living, work and resting space. The best part is that my bedroom is starting to feel like a real retreat space.

But some of this progress came at a price. Some things I had to give up. Some things were easier than others things to give up. Five cartons of used books had to go. I still have plenty of books, never fear. I also had to choose between the dining table and the buffet since there wasn’t room for both. There will probably be more things to be given up as time goes by, but I’ll cross those bridges when they come.

I made a couple of acquisitions too. You may wonder where I had room for anything else but trust me these earn their keep. When the buffet went I knew I would eventually need a small serving cart. Well a free one showed up across the street. It’s very compact but can be unfolded to make a longer serving space. The other piece I picked up was a headboard for my bed. I found a lovely one at a charity fundraiser for $15.

One of the things I have started doing is getting out my decorative pieces and hanging things on the walls. My fall things have been out since Labor Day and will stay up through Thanksgiving. I’m not expecting to host anybody’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner but I have plans to do some small-scale entertaining and that means I need to take care of some unfinished tasks. Anticipating the holidays and the indoor living of the winter months takes some fore-thought for a new or temporary home.

The biggest consideration is space. In the warmer months when most activities took place outdoors a few unpacked or out of season items probably weren’t that noticeable. Planning for at-home dinners, game nights, or watching movies requires some open space for guests to feel comfortable and not cramped. This also means that the scale of holiday decorations needs to be adjusted; not only for space considerations but for how much time is practical to invest in decorating.

Between now and Thanksgiving week I will be finding a place to store my warm season gear I am not getting rid of. At the same time I have some cartons and tubs to sort through and consolidate in order to find more space. Finally I will redo how my home office sits in the corner of the living room so the conversation area is roomier. The goal is to have the rooms set for Christmas decorating before the seasonal change over begins.

How are you getting ready for the change of seasons?

NaNoWriMo Week 1 Update

2009-11-03T09:52:00.004-05:00

Well, NaNoWriMo is off and running.

My online buddies and I celebrated by participating in a first 15 minutes writing challenge. Some of the women in the group are pretty fast typists and yours truly is not one of them but I can hold my own. Still our resulting word counts ranged from just over 300 to almost 800.

As of this morning I have the equivalent of three chapters done and about 6000 words tallied.

What is a word challenge and why bother?

NaNo can become terribly solitary when you’re writing for hours at your own laptop or desktop. It’s like running a race against a clock without another runner to gauge your pace or pose a challenge. Word wars, challenges, and dares create a sense of competition for short spurts and helps Wrimos over writing droughts.

But it’s also fun. Maybe the text that comes out in these dares and challenges can’t be used in a real book but once in a while when you stop trying so hard to be brilliant a really brilliant, or at least useful, thought sneaks out. Some of those thoughts that slip out in during a dare can take the next section or chapter or even the course of the rest of the manuscript in a whole new direction. A direction that is sharper or more insightful or more active. In general it can take the piece in just a better direction.

Short and sweet posts this month

One effect of doing NaNoWriMo is that posts will be shorter this month. Probably readers need a break from my usual lengthy epistles anyway. However, there are only so many typing hours in a week and I have to meet all my deadlines.

So the November schedule, subject to modification, will have NaNo updates on Tuesdays and more typical posts on Thursdays.

Edit: Added title; sorry I missed it in my rush yesterday.

Fall: change and anticipating the holidays

2009-10-29T13:13:00.007-04:00

As the photo illustrates, Fall is in full color here. I think this is the loveliest Fall color season I can remember. I know my camera is getting a real work out trying to capture it all.

We think of the Fall as a season of change and transition, as we do the Spring. Really though change is taking place constantly. Today is different from both yesterday and tomorrow, just as things are different from month to month. But we more closely associate Fall, and Spring, with change because so much change takes place within a relatively short period of time.

Fall not only is the transition from summer to winter it also signals the beginning of the end-of-year holidays. For those in a life transition the anticipation of the holidays may be accompanied by anxiety or sadness but sometimes there is relief as well even if that seems strange.

The upcoming holidays, and their anticipation and preparation, need not become an “end of the world” experience. It is possible with insight, communication and planning to create and participate in holiday celebrations that can become a bridge to the future. The keys to building that bridge are in how the old traditions are handled, staying grounded in the present, and finding a few new traditions.

If you have traditions that are no longer possible to do choose carefully how they will be dismantled. Try to make letting go of some activity a group decision if you can, and find a way to remember it well in its former context. Maybe starting a family or group journal of holiday memories will help put aside the old if the former traditions are allowed to be discontinued but not forgotten.

It is okay to reminisce about past holiday memories; however, it is not useful to carry-on about the things this holiday or future holidays will not have. No holiday is dependant upon an event or anything else. If you need a reminder about this “the Whos of Whoville” in Dr. Seuss’s classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas! might help; and I recommend this video version. Choose to be a model of healthy acceptance rather than of tragic remorse.

If all the changes—the letting go and dealing with the things that are not possible this year, maybe not in the future either—are becoming overwhelming or all-consuming then get outside help and don’t get stuck playing out a tragic role. Find some kind of counsel; either a pastor or professional or a support group of some kind. Any or a combination of these can help you anticipate, move through, and build a holiday experience to move you into your future; but you must be proactive and choose a healthy response to your feelings.

From time to time we’ll look at different holidays and ways to avoid the pitfalls as well as different kinds of traditions that might create springboards for future celebrations.

NaNo: the Plan, or not to plan?

2009-10-27T14:39:00.005-04:00

T’was the week before NaNo and all through the house… (with apologies to Clement Moore). Actually it is five days and counting until the start of National Novel Writing Month 2009. So that begs the question; are Wrimos all settled down or are they scurrying frantically to get those last minute preparations done before the stroke of midnight Saturday?

The real answer is both, and neither, which includes everything in between. There are some who need a full outline and characters a map and a day by day schedule of what they plan to work on. I have known some that have done nothing until November first when they log-in to activate their NaNoWriMo account and then start writing the first thing that pops into his or her head.

This will be my third NaNo. By conditioning I am a planned writer but I have learned to let go of so much control and allow the story to unfold. I also think my age and life stage influence my tendency to be a planner. However, most of my preparation for NaNo has to do with other stuff that supports my ability to get through the month in one piece.

Last year I did not reach 50K words because I did not have the emotional stamina to write for such long periods about something I was inventing; but the writing I did do on last’s project was helpful for maintaining some resemblance of normalcy in my life. So if you are in a transition and think that means you can’t do NaNo because you have too much chaos that might not be true.

My preparations fall into five categories: story, social, calendar, materials, and media; not in any particular order.

Story

Under the rules of NaNoWriMo there can be no prewriting of the actual text. I have, however, found it helpful to know a handful of likely main characters, a timeframe, and a starting location. The first day or two feel less like a time warp even if I discard or change them later.

Social

NaNoWriMo is a community as well as an activity. The first Wrimos realized they would not have made it if it had not been for belonging to a group during the first NaNo. My social preparations include letting my family and friends know I’m doing NaNo. Some are supportive and others think it is nuts, but I tell them to communicate that while my November is busy they are still part of my life.

I also reactivate my NaNo account and connect with my local group and my online buddies. I met such a great group of women my first year who were so funny and have continued to be so supportive despite all our quirks and warts. We now have an online writers group at LiveJournal. I would not have made it the first year and likely would have taken last year’s failure much harder if I had not been connected to this group.

Calendars

I set up three calendars. I know it’s a bit anal but it reduces confusion even if it sounds confusing. I built blank calendar pages that I can put in my notebook in Excel. The first is my personal calendar of things that I have to do in November and the days I have to do them. Then I fill in my non-NaNo writing deadlines on another calendar. Then consulting those two calendars I can fill in a rough schedule of NaNo writing deadlines on the third calendar.

While the NaNo rule of thumb is 1,667 words a day to reach the 50K for a purple bar I need scheduled blank days. I plan 25 days of 2,000 words a day which gives me 5 back-up or catch-up days.

Materials

Okay, how much stuff does one need to write 50K words in a month? Well if you’re just doing it, and don’t plan to get a word count check or print out the certificate at the end, then you only need a lot of pens and notebooks. The rest of us need and/or want a few extras, such as:

- a computer and internet access because it’s convenient

- back-up storage devices because having the only copy of a work in progress stuck on a crashed hard drive isn’t funny

- paper, pens, and pencils because sometimes stepping away from the computer is inspiring

- a mascot because you're going to spend a lot of time alone in your writing space

- munchies like teas, hot cocoa, chocolate, and something special because writing consumes a lot of calories

- media like music to write by or a few movies for inspiration or procrastination

So how do I stack up?

While, in its listed state, my preparations look complex in actuality they are not. I am probably in the middle of the middle of Wrimos I know. There are some who have full 2-inch binders stuffed with character interviews, maps and street names, plot treatments and even chapter by chapter outlines. There are some who have been on cleaning and cooking blitzes for the last week. I have never done those things even when I hosted Thanksgiving Dinner in 2007 and had houseguests.

That said, I have never been able to try Chris Baty’s suggestion in No plot, No Problem to prepare nothing and just show up and start writing every day for 30 days. I doubt that I ever will.

So, what’s your style? If you did NaNoWriMo would you be a planner or a non-planner?

What happened to Fear.less.com?

2009-10-22T16:26:00.003-04:00

On June 5 this year I wrote about an online magazine called Fear.less.com. I am not including a link because it hasn’t been updated since July which was when it was supposed to be available.

Other that two preview stories I can’t find that anything is being updated. I apologize to any readers who clicked over from that post, subscribed, and have been subsequently disappointed not to receive the product or even any updates as to when to expect delivery.

It seems that the producers are busy being interviewed and attending conferences and launching a forum and even planning a second Fear.less edition but these do not substitute for the missing product. I’m sure these will be wonderful; but really, I just wanted to read the stories that were promised.

Note: I don't normally open post my grievances; however, the authors have not responded to email recently.

Write a novel as a transition tool

2009-10-20T15:11:00.005-04:00

As you can see in my sidebar I will be joining the ranks of would-be speed novel writers during National Novel Writing Month in November. It starts in less than two weeks at the stroke of midnight on November first. That does introduce a tiny issue about the time change also scheduled to occur that night; when to you add the extra hour? But I'm ahead of myself.

Some have wondered, with having to navigate so many unknowns as I transition to life after marriage, how I can even consider doing it this year. I can only quote a line from Star Trek: Generations. -

"If something's important you make the time." (Mr. Scott to Admiral Kirk who wonders how Sulu found time for a family.)

I am a writer; and a writer has to write. NaNoWriMo is not economically viable at this point so I do not rearrange my paid work schedule to do it. I do, however, cut out non-essentials like movies and Spider Solitaire to make the time to do it. I also economize my household routines to do it; although my household routines are far more moldable than they were even a year ago.

While NaNo is important in my development as a writer, finishing 50K words is not a do or die deadline or goal. I did finish 50K word in 2007 and that was fun. Last year I did not finish the 50K words but I found a niche in my local group as a cheerleader for the over-50s group.

I participate in NaNoWriMo to stretch myself as a writer. It pushes me to sit down and write at lest 5 days a week for an entire month on one project. It is practice in storytelling and plot development. It is experience in managing a large manuscript where you have to keep track of the characters, thier personalities and demographics, and their role in the story.

I can't recomend it enough to anyone who has entertained the thought of "some day I'm going to write a book". While your NaNo manuscript may not lead to your own published book it will help you figure out if you have the endurance and passion to actually write a real book when that mythical "some day" arrives.

So, are you in?

Reader choice: What do you want to know?

2009-10-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

Reviewing the past year’s posts I realized I have been sharing a lot of information about me and the things I have been learning as I work through my own transitions. I think that’s fairly normal because one of the ways we learn is by teaching the material to someone else.

The two potential problems that may arise as a result are that you, as the readers, might not have any use for what I am putting out and you might be looking for information that I haven’t yet posted. No one has criticized any of my posts or topics – I think you are all too polite to do that – but the decisions have been mostly one-sided.

I am looking ahead to November and December posting schedules. November is National Novel Writing Month and December has all the end of the year holiday celebrations. These two months have a lot of activity competition so I like to know and have the probable topics outlined in advance.

This is a chance for readers to let me know if there’s a topic that relates to making a life transition that you would like to see a post about. It does not have to be a completely new topic; it could be a tangent to or an extension of a previous post.

I also have several topics that I have been holding for a while that may be of interest as well, and feel free to mention any of these; such as:

- the mid-life first apartment

- choosing and hiring an accountant, or attorney, or estate planner

- finding and talking to a car mechanic and other service providers

- living as a newly single adult

So what would you like to know more about as you move forward in your journey toward a successful transition to the rest of your life? Between now and the end of the month, let me know if there is a particular topic or subject you’ve been hoping to see. Post your topic or query interest in the comments or send them in an email by Oct 31 for this round.

Does confusion bleed into indecision in other parts of life?

2009-10-08T16:18:00.002-04:00

Ideas for blog topics turn up at the oddest times. My dentist was talking about building his own media component cabinet and installing a case fan for circulating air to the heat-producing devices. He made his own because pre-mades in furniture stores aren’t well-ventilated but he didn’t want the components on open shelves either.

Younger readers may find this laughable if they have always placed components on open shelves and consider cabinets unnecessary. But I remember in the 1970s we were called the confused generation and the guiding symptom was our preference to choose our own audio components a la carte but assemble them neatly in furniture quality cabinets we now call entertainment centers.

The generation of the 1950s had been persuaded to accept the status symbol of the entertainment console. It was a piece of furniture built for a company like Motorola or RCA, as examples, to house one of their built-in TV sets, a radio, and a record player. (link to a photo) If you bought from stock you took what came with it. If you could afford to custom order you could choose from components that fit.

Prices varied related to the size of the console and the type of wood plus the components. A console bought off the sales floor made from pine that would fit a 19-in diagonal black and white TV with only an AM radio and a monaural record player while not cheap was considerably less expensive than one made of maple to fit a 25-in color TV with AM-FM radio and stereo record player.

As the 70s marched toward the 80s, more and more individual components were being sold. You could choose the exact power receiver, turntable, and cassette deck as well as the type of amplifier and the size and number speakers for your stereo system; shoot you buy them from different labels.

This is where the confusion came in; those of us who graduated from college before 1975 (or should have) tended to want a la carte components but housed them in enclosed entertainment centers while those who graduated later tended to put the loose components on open shelves. The explanation at the time was that we pre-1975ers wanted the sound quality of the discrete components but had not disengaged from the visible status attached to the console.

Because we straddled the console versus component divide with entertainment centers as a new status symbol we were believed to be confused about whether we were establishment or anti-establishment. The effect of this so-called status confusion was purported to be at the heart of much of our generation’s indecision across life; and so it went.

I think in some ways we’re still caught in this crisis of recognition. The old symbols we used to collect to reinforce our value or worth are becoming clutter in the twenty-first century lifestyle. When a number of cartons of so-called family heirlooms came to my charge I saw how much was just broken junk and tossed the junk out. My current transition from married to single and downsizing to build a leaner lifestyle has prompted me to question why I do and have and pursue the things I do. Are they truly meaningful to me? Or am I leaning on them to create a superficial sense of status when I am uncertain of my own value in the world?

As a neutral example, quilting goes way back in my families. I did not learn how to do the running stitches because no one would teach a left-hander but I spent hours at grandmother’s elbow while she quilted and slept under them all my life. Several unquilted tops and her frame came to be mine by default and it is my chance to really become a quilter. But while I have one halfway done, it hasn’t been accompanied by the same feelings for the process I remember from childhood.

The question I struggle with is this: am I quilting because I am a quilter; or am I quilting because it’s the one thing that family did well and I don’t want to be remembered as the one who killed family quilting?

I could give other examples but you can think up plenty of your own. There is only so much time in a day, really in a lifetime, or space in our homes. So it is important to invest in and collect only those activities, and achievements, and changes we truly want to be remembered for irrespective of the established status symbols; and let the rest of it go to somebody else.

Breathing lessons: in deep and out wide

2009-10-07T14:07:00.004-04:00

In April of 2007, the paper advertised for a corps of correspondent columnists to supplement the staff. I had been out of university for two years and blogging for three months by that time. The publisher was clear there was no glory and the compensation would be modest. It probably sounds crazy for someone who had once studied journalism. But my long-term goal wasn’t strict journalism.

Paid to learn

I saw an opening to write on a weekly deadline and be read by a couple thousand people in the area. People reading my blog was already creating shifts in my writing style, grammar and usage. But I still wasn’t telling stories and from my journalism background I knew soft news was a form of shorthand storytelling. So within the paper’s agenda I developed my column style from a reporter’s internship perspective. This meant I showed up to take my own notes and photographs whenever possible.

Actual internships tend to get a bad reputation. They’re temporary and restrictive so interns don’t get grounded nor do they get to shoulder much responsibility which is where the learning happens. At the paper I have a declared geographical area where anything not hard or breaking news is fair game. So I had to get grounded, recruit my own sources, and take responsibility for the coverage and the content. The buck stops with me.

Move forward

Of course the reality of news is changing, even for small print-in-the-hand communities like this one. The occasional memos about budget restrictions have been changing and the tone seems to indicate the future of the correspondents could be in jeopardy altogether. That would be sad for the communities who have grown fond of their columnists.

Even though I have never expected it to be permanent, I would miss it and the people and groups I cover. But for some weeks I have sensed that it was time to move beyond interning; that I should step out and do something with what I have learned from writing and telling stories every week. And this amazes me because four years ago I wondered how that would happen.

First go deep, and then go wide…

This was a “charge to the graduates” talk I heard in 2005. The audience was made up of honors graduates at Wittenberg University. The speaker was physics professor Dr. Dan Fleisch.

These talks, given to such an illustrious group of students, must be accompanied by a great deal of pressure for the speaker to urge them on to further achievements in their post undergraduate careers. Dr. Fleisch though took a more basic approach; he just talked to us.

Dr. Fleisch talked to this assembly of overachievers about a handful of remarkable things; the two I remember were the Power-I football formation, and a space antenna in Columbus. Then he talked about how these were developed by seemingly everyday people. Those people, he stressed, first studied what their predecessors learned before they tried to improve or change it.

The heart of his charge that day (paraphrased in my journal notes even though I use quotes here for emphasis) was to “First go deep; and then go wide. Learn as much as possible about what is already known (in your field); and then see what you can do with it. And anybody can do that.”

Transferable concepts

The application was clear in the examples he gave. By studying some football formations that didn’t work a coach developed a new one. A radar physicist studying waves and how they behaved created new antennas that could “listen” for noises across the universe that were otherwise unknown.

But I wanted to write. I had just spent three years studying communication and crafting the technical aspects of the writing process. In every sense I was straining at the starting gate that would soon open; and here was one of my professors suggesting that my education had given me a set of tools but I needed to break them in first.

And really, I knew he was right. While I wanted to write, to tell people’s stories, I hadn’t the slightest idea where or how to do that. Now, having written every week for nearly three years about this neighborhood, coupled with writing on my blog, has given me not only well-sharpened skills but insight on how to find the stories and who needs to hear them.

So this is in thanks to Dr. Daniel Fleisch whose short talk was long on wisdom.

Now it's your turn. As you transition through your life or career, has someone's support or insight helped you move toward your aspirations? Have you let them know?

Tuesday did not happen

2009-10-06T20:15:00.000-04:00

The post planned for today has been overtaken by technology glitches. Sorry. I will try again tomorrow.

A want-to-be storyteller’s tale

2009-10-01T19:44:00.005-04:00

I wrote on Tuesday about making some changes and that I have been working on how to become more transparent as a blogger and unify my online identity. In addition to blogging here at G’s Cottage, I am on Facebook, and my print articles are archived on the internet. I also belong to a private writing group but that is a closed group.

So who is G?

“G” is me. Professionally I’m known as Deborrah, but here you’ll notice that I socially go by Deb. Please do not call me Debbie unless you are on the short list of relatives and old professors who have permission to do that. There is nothing wrong with Debbie as a name but I don’t prefer it for myself. So thank you in advance for honoring my wishes and I will do the same for you.

I am recently divorced after being married for nearly 35 years to the same person. Yes I kept my married name. I have no objections to the name and I do not regret that it is now my name. From a practical standpoint I had used it for a long, but I had also created my own identity under that name. As a writer with almost three years of printed works name changing would have created reader confusion. Finally, both of my college diplomas are in that name and it keeps my credentialing straight by not changing names. Of course name change is an expense, too; and it cost enough to get a driver’s license with my new address.

I have four grown children, one is married; and I have one grandchild with another pending in the spring. I was primarily a stay at home wife, mother, and homemaker but I did earn an associate’s degree 18 years ago. In addition to a lot of volunteer positions over the years I worked part-time on and off between 1991 and 1999 while I still had children at home.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies in 2005. I did a lot of writing while I was at university. The curriculum was writing intensive but I also took advantage of other opportunities. I occasionally wrote guest columns for the student newspaper and I submitted essays twice to the annual campus nonfiction journal competition earning published slots both times.

Since finishing my formal studies I have been on a quest for where and what to write about. I originally studied journalism and I currently write a neighborhood news column for the local paper. While I approach it like a beat reporter the content is really telling stories; stories about do-gooders, and charities, and honorees, and long-time public servants. Everybody has a story to share, it just takes some ferreting to discover it and shape it. Helping people tell their stories was the one thing I came away with from my three years at university.

Why do I want to tell people’s stories? I think there are a lot of people from who we can learn about the world. Many of these are people we don’t know or can’t see; not because they are physically far away, although some are, but because we are separated from them by convention. While people’s stories might take decades to bring about face-to-face connections between separated people I believe it is possible to connect their hearts at least through sharing their stories.

I recently discovered Chris Guillebeau at the Art of Nonconformity website who wrote a free ebook titled A Brief Guide to World Domination. In it he asks two questions: “What do you want to get out of life?” and “What can you offer the world that no one else can?”

I incorporated my answers into my vision board that I completed recently. My answer to the first question I summed up in the 4 “L’s” live, love, legend and legacy. I see myself as having a second half of my life still to live and I want to spend it by living well so I can finish life well, I want to love and be loved (this is not about remarriage), I want to write something important which I think are people’s stories, and through those stories I want to build connections between people which will lead to not just understanding and knowing but taking care of each other.

My answer to the second question refers back to the answer for the first one. I think the reason I went through all the things I have gone through in my life was to give me the credentials I would need to earn people’s trust with their personal stories because I have been there and I know what it is to risk being vulnerable by sharing these things.

Hopefully you know a little more about me and maybe you will be encouraged to risk visiting more openly as time goes by.

Deb

Without change there is no movement

2009-09-29T15:07:00.003-04:00

This is the end of the third quarter of 2009. Autumn is coming upon us and like the wetlands grasses going from greens to grays that remind us of seasonal changes we need to remember that transition is marked by visible changes as well. Now seems a good time to commit to and make known some changes I am working on. The plans aren’t yet final so this is a preliminary notice.

These upcoming changes will be broad but narrow. That sounds contradictory but what it means is that the small changes I am preparing to make occur in multiple areas. The areas where I anticipate these changes will take place are how and where I blog, expanding my freelancing, and developing a long term community project that hopefully will eventually be both online and on the ground. If I want to move forward and mature as a writer, community developer, and influence people’s lives then I have to change how I do some of the things I am currently doing.

In the beginning...

When I started this blog I wanted to write and be read regularly, develop my writing voice, and improve the quality of my writing while building an online portfolio (blog archives). I have been writing on and off that my long term plan is to expand my freelancing beyond a weekly column in the local paper. But I have also been scouting and trying out different niches to anchor my text and authority, to find my audience, and to create a project that would support others and would have the potential to outlast me.

I don’t have all the details worked out yet. One of the things that I struggle with is balancing between knowing enough and striving for a perfect plan. The longtime readers and supporters here are only too aware of the weight of this issue. What I have been struggling to come to terms with is that plans can be perfect as long as they stay in the planning stage.

Taking a chance on imperfection...

In a perfect scenario I would follow all the advice of the blogging, marketing, business-building gurus and get a domain, and hosting, and take a crash course in WordPress self-hosted version, and figure out SEO, and whatever else is on the optimal list for working online. I have a far from perfect scenario. I’m not even certain that my scenario qualifies as good enough but the inner prompting is that I should start anyway and *gulp* improvise.

I wrote last Thursday about Madson’s book Improv Wisdom. In that post I wrote about getting to “yes.” For me one of the issues with getting to a yes in my plans to expand my freelancing is the backward planning and getting past the intermediary “no’s.” Madson addresses this issue in the next three of her maxims of “don’t prepare,” “just show up,” and “start anywhere.” One of her mantras is “ready-fire-aim” meaning just move out, use whatever the world makes available at the moment and improvise. But it is hard to choose to risk looking messy and making mistakes when feel I have marginal credentials; it is hard to risk throwing further credibility away.

Learning to be okay with less control...

The one thing I am starting to realize is that if I keep trying to shore up the scaffolding for the perfect scenario I will never get my ideas off the planning table and I’ll never know if it will ever work. That may save me from failure but I will never know; and as scary as it is, that need to know is the driver behind just doing it. So, even if I have to make a lot of adjustments to what is after I set out, it seems the only way to find out if any of this will work is to just jump in and start doing it.

So, is there anyone else who has recently made a significant change or planning to make one soon? Did you create a minute plan or are you taking the “step on the stage and improvise” approach?

I haven't been posting on Tuesdays recently, but part of my plan is to increase my posting frequency and I hope to make Tuesdays a regular day.

Do you do life by the book or improv?

2009-09-24T00:01:00.001-04:00

Note: Since I often write about books I am reading but do not specifically review them, I am starting a new topic called Book Club. And sorry no photo today.

Improv Wisdom (book), Patricia Ryan Madson, (2005 Bell Tower)

Why would a non-theater person read a book about improvisation? Because it isn’t only in the theater that improvisation takes place or serves a purpose. But the reason I read Madson’s book had nothing to do with the title, which in truth scared me half to death that she might suggest something I could not agree to try on principle, and had everything to do with her personal story posted on Allan Bacon’s site Avocationist.com.

Madson says says she was on the mainline to tenure when she was informed she wasn’t selected. She says she used to “color neatly inside the lines” and not being selected served as her wake up call that the script wasn’t a life. An acting professor with experience on the stage she started studying and applying the principles of improvisation in every part of her life. In other words she says she "started coloring outside the lines." Through her classes and workshops she encourages her students to do the same.

The ways she describes the elements that allow improvisation theater to work – faith, trust, being present, giving, contributing, showing up, jumping in, risking mistakes, having fun, and others – are applicable to creating a life and building relationships. Her most important lesson, not that any are unimportant, is in her words to “say, yes.” Until a person says “yes, I am” or “yes, I will” or “yes I do” it’s all theory and according to Madson the average person is far more studied at saying no to the new than saying yes.

I have been an improviser all my life. Improvising goes hand-in-hand with an unconventional life. For me though, improvising took on the more pragmatic labels of “make do” or “use what you have.” When you don’t get or have much but you still have to get stuff done, you improvise. Madson, however, is not referring to substituting this for that but rather how to let go of the life script, and the quest for the perfect building blocks, and instead start building a life and career and relationships from the raw materials that show up in everyday life.

I don’t know why Madson’s suggestions both intrigue and frighten me. Maybe it’s the uncertainty or the risk of failing; or maybe it’s the possibility that they work but conventional wisdom says they’re not supposed to. Madson believes that being chained to a properly scripted life plan full of the things we’re supposed to be, and have, and do in order to illustrate our success or our devotion can limit our experiences and our growth and the people we can reach out and help to achieve their dreams.

I have finished reading her tight little volume and have started working through the “try this” sections in each chapter. This week I’m working on the first maxim “say yes.” I realize that saying yes to everything is not possible. However I have started asking why I say no to some things when doing them would seem support building my writing career. I told you this was scary stuff.

The only reason I could come up with for saying no was that I would have to write and risk being a total flop at it. The problem with that is if I am a flop at the one thing I have wanted to do all my life, which is to write and tell people’s stories, what do I have left? Madson suggests that successful improvisation theater is the result of the elements coming – location, actors, story, audience – together in the right mix. So maybe my writing won’t be a flop but it might be in the wrong platform or niche or target audience or format and can’t be seen in its best light. And that is an optimistic proposal worthy of exploring.

So, are you an improviser; or are you chained to a script you sense is no longer serving you and your role in the world well?

Note: Allan Bacon wrote the winning essay Moving to Paris at the Art of Nonconformity site hosted by Chris Guillebeau which is where I found him.

Adventure: the lost part of transition

2009-09-17T00:01:00.000-04:00

Looking over my recently completed vision board (okay it needs a little tweaking) the word ADVENTURES jumped off the poster board and hit me between the eyes. Having adventures and seeing my new life as an adventure is important to me; important enough to be noted on my vision board. But somewhere along the way I seem to have forgotten that; or at least I have been forgetting to include it in my recent posts.

How do we lose that sense of adventure? How did I lose my sense of adventure?

One reason adventure gets lost is that most of life is a marathon rather than a sprint. It has its sprinting moments but our day-to-day journey is better lived on the pace of the 6-20 minute mile rather than the 10-12 second 100 meter pace.

Two kinds of marathoners or life adventurers

The start and the finish of the Boston Marathon are an exciting adrenalin rush. The middle, between mile 2 and mile 25, is primarily a grind. It takes reaching and looking inside for a different definition of adventure and accomplishment. The runner who doesn’t figure that out and tries to run the race framed in the start/finish definition of adventure and excitement is unlikely to get to the finish line for two reasons: hunger and exhaustion.

Hunger and exhaustion are the racing companions of every long distance runner. The difference between those who finish and those who don’t is often the context in which hunger and exhaustion are framed. Those who get to the finish usually see hunger and exhaustion a signals from their body that they need to change something that isn’t working.

There are others though who view hunger and exhaustion as obstacles to their goal of crossing the finish line; obstacles to be crushed into submission. The problem with fighting against or ignoring hunger and exhaustion is that even the well-conditioned body has limits. When the reserve stores are depleted the body will crash to a stop regardless of the will or drive of the runner.

The adventure of a life transition has similar traits.

My current adventure to discover and build my new life began the day I moved out of my old life. There was at the time very much an early race sense of exhilaration mixed with fear and uncertainty and panic. It was also surreal, or maybe unreal. So much ground had to be covered in the beginning to not only move out but move to someplace. Memories of those first weeks now seem like old home movies played back at double speed (sorry, those who have memories only of VHS and DVD will not really get this).

Then I hit week two (mile 2) and day-to-day life began to shake out as the distance from the start increased. I needed to move forward. I had to find a place to do my writing work. I needed to unpack and settle in and create a home out of a blank apartment. I also had to be mindful of needs like eating and sleeping, and a routine for getting things done. At times there has been a sense of almost impending doom as though I was watching myself in some slow-motion crash.

And that’s where the adventure started to get lost.

All the things nudging me that they weren’t working and needed adjustments got out of hand. True, part of the reason is that this particular set of circumstances has a higher than ordinary number of start gates to clear but at some point the clamber of the everyday became seen as an obstacle to my new life rather than a voice of wisdom suggesting how to get there better.

Somehow circumnavigating stacks of boxes, an extra piece of furniture, a bike, and the cat’s scratching post to find the next meal isn’t quite as invigorating as getting over the top at the marathon from which vantage point the finish line can almost be seen with its visions of fresh fruit and cold unopened water bottles instead of the power gels and dust covered cups of tepid water on the course.

Getting back in the flow.

There is a point in a run where the work of listening and making adjustments pays off and you hit your stride. It doesn’t last very long although elite runners may have longer periods of stride than the rest of us. I have run in the past just enough to have experienced it a few times and it is a moment not easily forgotten. It is truly effortless because everything is working in harmony, the pace, the arm-leg coordination, the breathing. It indeed feels like flying and it is easy to grasp why runners run, or even why gazelles and cheetahs run; because you already feel like a winner whether you reach the finish first or catch that version of dinner.

Noticing the runner’s stride and its emotional reward are easy because somewhere deep inside your being you hear your spirit start singing “I’m flying” in a way that makes you pay attention. Hitting the stride of a day’s routine might not have the same emotional effect. Because daily stride is buried in the everyday normalcy of life, and other reasons, it might be hard to recognize it when it arrives; and it might be even harder to see it as a positive and powerful thing that is helping you move forward.

The stride of daily living serves a purpose similar to the runner’s stride – creating rest at work. Even though work is being done, it is being done so efficiently that there is a kind of micro-resting taking place. This resting is cumulative and it gives you the mental space to start noticing things around you. As a runner you might start seeing the banners held by the spectators or that your pace partner has started favoring one foot. As a life transitioner you might start noticing things like passing the same people bike riding around town regularly or some books you didn’t have room for turned out to be very popular at the library book sale.

Adventures are because they are noticed.

What’s the difference between an adventure and a disaster? There are notable exceptions – the tsunami of December 2004 comes to mind as an example – but for many events in our lives what makes the difference between labeling an event as a disaster or an adventure is how we see it in the context of our lives. When we are overextended and not paying attention to cues that things need adjusting and we are out of our stride, then the next turn of fate we will likely declare as a disaster or blame for a resulting disaster regardless of any long-term positive effect it may eventually have.

So if we can get into our stride a bit each day and create some space and start paying attention; we are more likely to take notice of those everyday adventures that show up to amaze and encourage us as we move forward on our major life adventure.

How’s your adventure going?

If you would like to make your own vision board Christine Kane wrote about them in her post How to Make a Vision Board.

Is backwards the new forward?

2009-09-10T20:27:00.003-04:00

Oh I kept the first for another day, yet knowing how way leads on to way I wondered if I should ever come back - Frost “The Road Not Taken”

I first memorized “The Road Not Taken” in Mrs. Polen’s sixth grade class in 1964. Over the years it has served as a steadying voice when life seemed particularly difficult or solitary. Over the years it wasn’t so much a voice suggesting I take less traveled roads as much as it seemed a reminder that my unconventional existence put me on paths that few others chose or stayed with.

For some time now I’ve been searching for my second calling. I have a lot of good years left and I want to earn a decent living but I also want to invest my talents in an area that will make a difference. So I’ve been going down the conventional road floating my resume of work and volunteer history and getting next to no interest. I also prowl the want ads and job sites faithfully with no success.

Then a while back I was driving at night when the thought came to me that the last regular job (I currently freelance which is not regular) I got because I knew somebody. The problem with this idea was that going through a divorce tends to reduce the people you know; you find out very quickly who your friends are and often they aren’t.

Later, though, I remembered not a friend but new business owners I had interviewed for their opening. I had heard around that it was going well and growing. The downside was that it was a lower-level of a type of work I had done previously and left the field. But it keeps coming to mind even though I have all these reasons why it can’t be right. Afterall how can going back and working at the level over which I used to supervise others in a field I couldn’t work in when I was younger be the right choice now?

And then Allan Bacon’s essay about Moving to Paris is posted on The Art of Nonconformity site last week. Bacon found his path to moving forward by stepping back to a lower job he had left that gave him enough income as well as more time and energy. When he stopped trying to find his calling at work he was able to work at finding his calling.

I started out as a wife and mother who wanted to write for a living after the kids left home. But then I ended up without a home and started to wonder why the path suddenly dead-ended. The freelance gig I have helps but isn’t going to become something else. Other writing jobs are either intern or a lifetime of experience in a very narrow subject area.

Slowly the wisdom of Bacon’s assertion has started to creep in. Do the thing that pays that you can do well with low stress to get the income you need to keep working on finding your calling. For me, that has meant backing down the path I’ve been traveling on and choosing to move forward on a different path. I tend to approach things unconventionally because I never learned the standard ways they were done but this was an idea that escaped my notice until someone else pointed it out.

Will this road be more crowded than the one I was on? It is hard to say. However, it is interesting that while Frost’s verse reads that he doubts he’ll be back to try the other road his own life was riddled with false starts and reverses of course. So maybe he would understand Bacon’s going backward to move forward.

Learning to wait: lessons in letting go

2009-09-03T19:47:00.003-04:00

“…believing isn’t the hard part; waiting on God is.” - Anne Lamott quoting Pastor Veronica

This hummingbird seems to have no trouble letting go and hovering around this bush perilously hanging over the edge of North Mountain near Phoenix. What does he know that we don't?

Letting go and waiting (trusting). The gap between the letting go of what we have or what we can see and waiting for the help or the change or the answer; therein lies the rub. If we could wait while hanging on to whatever we’ve got a firm grasp on we might not be happy campers but we’d feel reasonably secure in the interim. However, God often asks us to let go of whatever is serving as our security blanket and wait in free-fall.

It isn’t another belief versus doubt debacle.

It would be easy to turn this into a belief debate but belief is the easy part; it’s really about the wait – the free-fall. That makes it all about faith because faith takes both believing and doing. Do we spend the fall in expectant anticipation of the catch; or do we spend it wracked with anxiety about how bad it will be IF the catch misses and we hit the ground?

It gets trickier if we have to work on something else while we wait in this free-fall; could you put that baby bird back in the nest on your way by, or collect some rock samples? Huh, we think; but what about my fall or my rescue? Like with most things in life we base our perception of how much we are cared for by the speed of the response.

Maybe your transition was precipitated by a cliff, or during your transition you’ve encountered a cliff or maybe more than one. How do you handle the wait, the letting go? It is one thing to believe help is possible. It is another to wait knowing we will be helped. When we can wait with the knowing that help is arriving on time we start to undo the tension and reconnect with our humanity. This frees us to reconnect to those around us; secure in our own surplus and ability to share.

Two types of cliff experiences.

When I was transitioning from being a full-time mom to having all the children grown and moved out, that was not a cliff but I encountered a few along the way. I was secure in moving from the needs of children defining a major portion of my worth to creating a new definition of who I was. Along the way though little things tripped me up like not getting a job I especially wanted and so forth, but other things moved into the gap and I would regain my footing to keep moving forward.

Going through a divorce, on the other hand, was a major cliff; and it came with many other cliffs as time went by. It was definitely a free-fall; and it was tempting to grab the first thing in reach and cling to it for dear life. But again and again at each cliff fall this tripartite message would bubble up: “Let it go.” “Things are happening on time.” “Do the next right thing.” I wish I could report that it got easier each time I tumbled over a cliff but human that I am I would have to relearn that hanging on for dear life halfway down was not going to work.

What really matters?

Maybe it doesn’t matter that waiting by faith is not the first response to a cliff. Maybe what matters is that we’re eventually open to getting to the waiting by faith. Maybe we need to give ourselves a break if we manage to get there at last because maybe it is completely appropriate that the initial reaction to going over a cliff is not letting go but hanging on. But staying on the face of the cliff is not a place to live and eventually you have to let go and get off.

Let’s face it, falling is messy and doesn’t put us in our best light. All that messiness becomes ample fodder for the accusing voices that would hold us back or persuade us we can earn being helped or at least hurry it up. But really all we can do is wait; and trust.

Note: Anne Lamott is a writer and speaker. Some of her books are Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith and Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith.

Biking forward and discovering a new you

2009-08-27T00:01:00.001-04:00

I haven’t written much about biking even though I practically live on my bike. It hasn’t been a deliberate omission; rather I think biking has become so naturalized into my life that it sort of blurred into the background. Let’s see if we can make up some lost ground today.

I did write a post titled The Big Bike for Scribbit’s monthly Write-Away contest about my first two-wheeler which was a 1961 J. C. Higgins with single speed, balloon tires, and coaster brakes. I rode it until 1974 after which it rusted away in my parents’ garage until 1995 when what was left of it was scrapped.

I was bike-less from 1974 until 1987 when I once again became a bike owner-rider and have had four bikes over the past 22 years. The current bike, a Trek, I have owned about nine years and has an estimated 3,000 miles on it. It would have had more but 2006-08 were low riding years. The early years were long summer weekend rides. This year, however, I have put about a thousand miles on it so far. Did I mention that I’ve been biking a lot?

So why do I bike so much at my age?

Some of the reason I bike so much goes back to the first Big Bike; biking is freedom. On an off-road trail or a road with low traffic, the feel of the breeze on my face and the fact that I can cover more miles than on foot is an empowering sensation.

Biking has a lot of side benefits that I was not aware of until about 30 days ago. As I have been putting more and more regular miles over mixed terrain into my biking I have gotten stronger, more resilient, and more confident. There is something about being able to keep upright in loose gravel or not needing to ride the brakes all the way down every hill that creates other internal shifts.

I feel – and have read many other testimonials – that biking as a regular source of exercise has helped me through the multiple transitions I have been moving through. Biking has provided an escape from the daily grind, beneficial physical activity, increased my strength, endurance, aerobic conditioning and balance; and also my stress levels are significantly lower so I am less erratic emotionally. Just being outdoors in fresh air and a change of scenery to hear birds and see the seasonal plants brings refreshment to the spirit.

Where do I bike?

Of course I ride just for the fun of it to wherever suits me at the moment. With just my bike, safety gear, ID, water and a snack; I can head out on the local rail-to-trail and have access to 500 miles of off-road riding. You could say I’m in biking heaven since these trails connect to other trails, so it’s possible to go anywhere in the state if you’re up to the mileage.

I am also a destination biker. I bike any place I safely can around town. A half-mile roadway stretch puts me on the trail from home and I can get to the post office, library, shopping centers, banking, restaurants and two ice cream stands. Unfortunately my freelance reporting cannot be done on a bike since most events take place where the roads are not safe for shared use or after dark. Still my gas consumption has been cut in half this summer because I bike whenever possible.

What’s the point?

Most agree that biking is a pretty green activity but that was not my main point. The point for me, and the one I want to emphasize for those going through the upheaval of a life transition, is that regular exercise is generally recommended as a coping strategy. I found biking to be far more interesting and motivating than just doing sit-ups or jumping jacks (those have their place but I can only do so much before I get bored).

If you own an under-used bike or have toyed with getting back to bike riding again this is a good time to start. You will have low expectations for wowing other riders because your focus will be elsewhere. Just start slow and don’t be bullied into challenges you are not ready for. Every activity has its snobs, so don’t let irregular people persuade you to stay at home because they didn’t burn up the road when they started out either (they just prefer to forget that fact).

How do I start?

There is no one way to start. However, if you’re having trouble overcoming inertia here are some suggestions:

1. Make sure you have a well-fitted bike (does not mean most expensive) to improve your comfort and success.

2. Make sure the bike is in good working order to minimize your risk of injury or being stranded.

3. Invest in basic safety equipment like an ASTM or Snell-rated helmet, portable ID, good tires, reflectors, and a cell phone at least; a safety yellow vest or windbreaker is also good if you ride shared roadways.

4. Become familiar with the rules of the road or trail and etiquette so your movements are predictable to other users.

5. Learn some basic repairs if you do long rides away from town.

6. Set a modest schedule and benchmarks to measure your progress but the important thing is consistency.

Most important though is to know your own physical condition. If you haven’t gotten off the couch in a long time you would be wise to check with your physician to see if you’re up to biking or need pre-ride conditioning to start out successfully. Everyone needs to take into consideration their age and pre-existing conditions before starting any new physical activity and that includes biking.

Now, go out and have fun. Find some friends to ride with. But most of all prepare to be surprised by the new you who will emerge through regular biking.

Home is not just where you hang your hat

2009-08-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

“Home where my thought’s escaping, home where my music’s playing, home where my love lies waiting silently for me…” Homeward Bound, Paul Simon

Today seemed like a good day to look at creating a new home during transition. Often moving is involved in the transition process whether it is due to death of a partner, separation or divorce, moving away from home for the first time, or changing or losing a job. Occasionally, though, moving is not required but recreating the space as a home for one’s new life is still an important step. Most of this discussion will pertain to moving to a new place, however, many of the suggestions here can still apply.

In all of these cases it becomes important to think about your ideas and definitions of home and what it means to be “at home.” In your former situation home was partly created out of the joint visions of everyone who lived in that home. That does not mean every person was vested or participating in the actual creation phase at equal degrees but the influence of all was there even if it was primarily one person’s vision or demands.

What does it mean to create a home for your new life?

Well, it should be fun and an adventure. It should also be a process for becoming at home with your personal style, tastes and budget. There will be personal variations, in how it progresses and how the timeline develops, that will reflect the person, the reason for the transition, and constraints that have to be taken into account.

So where’s the fun and adventure?

If the reason for your transition is a positive or happy one then having fun and enjoying the adventure is probably a no-brainer. For the rest of us though, the idea that we should have fun and view creating a new place to call home an adventure just makes us shake our heads with incredulity if not to outright scoff at the idea.

In the first place it is hard to let go of a home you have spent any amount of time living in, and even more if you have had a hand in the creation of that home. This is not just true for homes we love. In fact if you are leaving a home you felt very vanilla about or even one you couldn’t stand you may be surprised at how much angst the move has created.

So maybe it is asking too much to see it as fun at first, but an adventure can be created in both good and bad situations so try to become adventurous. To pass along a suggestion I received recently, the more investment you make in your place the more ownership you will have that it is your place. So perhaps the best course is to have faith that as your place takes on a reflection of your tastes and personality you will begin to be at home there more and more.

How do you discover your personal style and tastes?

Well, you ask yourself “what do I like” and “do I like this” over and over again. Some people know this intuitively. Others might have known this but having lived under someone else’s tastes they have absorbed it as a norm rather than an arbitrary choice. Other ways to find out what you like are to visit friends’ homes or furniture stores with sample rooms (you need thick skin to fend off zealous salespeople), look at magazines in your library, and check designer rooms online.

In a typical transition you likely came away with some stuff. First, before you arbitrarily chuck it, take time to live with it and ask yourself some pointed questions about the pieces and how you feel about them.

Here are some questions that can guide you:

Do I like this? How do I feel about it? Is it comfortable, attractive, serviceable, well-made? When I’m in a room with this furniture I see myself as…? With this furniture am I proud or embarrassed to invite people into this room? Is this in a price range that will allow me to complete the look? Does it fit the space?

But my decorating budget is tight or nonexistent.

Finances are an area that takes a major hit in any transition and some take more than others. What it takes to create a home out of where you live is first and primarily creativity. You should use your brain and imagination first, and your wallet second. Limiting financial investment in creating a home is especially important if this is a transitional move that will be followed by another move in 6-30 months.

The items that are critical to the bare minimum standard of living are:

Lighting; a way to create privacy; reasonable bedding; something to keep perishable food cold and safe, something to prepare food; something to sit on, a multi-use table; basic dishes and flatware. These are the basics, everything else you acquire and all the ways you personalize the basics have to do with making yourself at home. Making yourself at home needs to reflect your personality and your socio-economic status which includes the budget.

The good news about the current economic crisis is that more styles and labels of furniture are showing up at garage sales and second-hand shops. Sometimes perfectly good items are free on the curb so swallow your pride and drive a step-up neighborhood the evening before trash day to see what is being discarded. A word of caution: take a list of things needed and do not pick up stuff just because it’s free; know what you will use it for and with minor tweaking or repurposing it should be perfectly attractive and serviceable; and make sure it is being discarded.

Finally, if you have any practical skills or are able to trade skills – sewing; light carpentry like hammer, screwdriver, sandpaper, paint; picture framing; etc – getting what you want on a budget becomes a fairly simple matter of logistics. There are loads of how-to books at the library, just be sure to finish and enjoy what you start.

Have you created a new home recently? What helped you through the process to becoming “at home?”

Book review: Everything Happens for a Reason

2009-08-13T00:01:00.001-04:00

I haven’t done a book review for a while even though I have been a reading fiend in recent months. Starting today I will move back to posting an occasional book review as space permits and where the book is a good fit in the theme here.

Everything Happens for a Reason by Mira Kirshenbaum (Harmony Books, 2004) was not a book I went looking for but rather it was one of those books on a library shelf where the title was so intriguing I could not leave it on the shelf. I was in the middle of a divorce that I was struggling to make sense of because I feared it meant that 35 years of my life had been a meaningless waste*. I had trouble believing that was true but I did not know how to find out what it did mean or what it gave me.

For those who are not familiar with Kirshenbaum or her background, she was born to Holocaust survivors to a Jewish family shuffled across Europe and Asia until they finally were settled in New York. Most of her extended family did not survive the invasion of Poland or the Holocaust.

A professional psychologist and researcher Kirshenbaum struggled herself to find the meaning for the Holocaust and the things that happened to her own family. She actually gave up for a long time and adopted a posture that it didn’t mean anything, that today was all that counted. Then one day her work with a client reopened this issue of meanings in a new way she had not considered.

Previously she had tried to make direct correlations between the bad event and what the person got from the event. In this client’s case, the thing he realized he needed to see about himself had nothing to do with the bad event; the bad event just put him in a position to see that he needed work in a particular area of his personal development.

This renewed vision that things happen for a reason in our lives launched Kirshenbaum on a quest for people who had discovered reasons for the things that happened in their lives happened. She discovered that people often find a reason why they went through what happened to them; and the reason or reasons tend to relate to one or more of ten categories like fear, strength, hidden talent, personal mission and others.

In my own situation I found more than one category applied and that it was a mix of things hidden and things needing work. The three strong areas that the assessment questions revealed were likely reasons for things happening had to do with fear and letting it go, strengthening my core qualities, and accepting myself unconditionally.

Many reading this have strong religious connections especially in the conservative evangelical Christian doctrinal lines. My own background is rooted in Christianity and I write from my experience of faith even if I do not quote chapter and verse. Probably some reading this wonder why I would read a book written by a non-Christian when I could find an answer to my question in the Bible. The short answer is that sometimes a fresh perspective can help us see things better. Kirshenbaum’s book is not a substitute for the Bible or any religious text and for me her points would not have been as insightful if I had not had a strong foundation of faith.

Kirshenbaum seems to take pains to be faith-neutral in her language, although her term “cosmic kindergarten” might raise issues with those who avoid anything to do with the New Age Movement. I made a choice to step over the language issue and hear her heart intent which I interpret as helping people get unstuck from a bad event, embrace the reason, and live the full live they are given. I can find no conflict with the Bible on that score and there are numerous examples of Jesus meeting people with a similar message.

The most important lesson Kirshenbaum writes that she learned through her research was that bad events do not have only bad meanings. We may talk about silver linings, or point out that Joseph saw his brothers’ bad plans for him were actually part of God’s good plan for him. But the bulk of what gets emphasized in faith circles when something bad happens is all the bad things that will be the fallout from it. It was refreshing to hear someone say that silver linings are part of the plan not just happy accidents if we’re lucky. That point alone reinforces my hope for my own future as I move forward.

The book is a fast read if you just read it. It is, however, a workbook of sorts. In each chapter of part two she introduces one of the categories with an example, then gives the assessment questions, and then follows up with suggestions for those who find that category relates to their situation. I should mention that Kirshenbaum points out that just because your example matches one in the book it does not indicate your meaning will be the same.

Mira Kirshenbaum has written a number of books to help people make sense of the events in their lives. You can check out her titles and her work at the Chestnut Hill Institute online.

*Footnote:

To clarify what might be taken incorrectly, I do not consider my nearly 35 years of marriage a waste nor do I consider it a failure because it ended in divorce. Life is more complicated than we might wish it to be, so suffice it to say that I have many meaningful memories from my marriage and family; and I would not be the person I am today writing here if it had not been for those years.

Miracles are a team venture

2009-08-06T20:16:00.005-04:00

The four ducks in the photo may be looking for a miracle but they are not a team.

Those of us in transition might have a similar problem. We're looking for a miracle but we are not building our team or even getting on our own team to move to the level where a miracle is possible.

The movie Miracle (2004) about Coach Herb Brooks and the 1980 US Olympic Gold Medal Hockey Team (sometimes referred to as the original dream team) has a few sub-themes running through it that are of value to those of us in transition. Let’s face it, for each of those coaches and players, the change from being former rivals and stars of college hockey to being teammates and rookies in the international league was one heck of a transition.

It would be easy to shrug off this example of transition as having no relevance to our own transitions which might not always be a move up (at least they don’t start out as a move up). I’m going to suggest that it doesn’t matter at what point or in which direction a transition starts out because really it’s a cycle and every transition will have points of moving up, moving down and marking time.

Actually I think this is an excellent example of how a seemingly positive transition isn’t necessarily any easier than a seemingly negative transition. It also illustrates how hard people can fight against even the things they actually wished for. (Are we fickle or what?) But the big messages for those of us in our own transitions come through in five sub-themes captured in five revolving questions that get asked again and again through the film.

The questions:

What’s your name?

Where are you from?

Who do you play for?

Why are you here?

Did you leave anything on the table?

I’m jumping in here because somebody is going to get in a huff that these questions don't apply in their situation because they are a solo act. This is probably going way out on a limb for some readers but from what I have been able to observe if you are human you are part of a team. Humans need traveling companions through life. So there is a team or many teams you belong to even if it’s with your aspiring self or your childhood dream incarnation.

If you are going through a transition as a solo traveler you likely have a team-like relationship with your self that filled the roles in your former situation and you also are building a team-like relationship with the self you are grooming to step into the roles in your new situation. So you can put these questions to yourself the same as Brooks and his players put them to each other in the course of transitioning into a new team and coach.

What do these questions mean and why do we care? Let’s take a look-

What’s your name? On the surface this is simply “Who are you?” It highlights that the team is made up of separate individuals with separate names and characteristic. It is not an army of clones. Of course for a solo you might not change your name but the you here in the transition is markedly separate from the one in the situation that has been left or the one being moved into.

Where are you from? This asks where’s home or what’s your history or your background? This is about sounding out your foundation. This can incorporate a lot of characteristics like your family structure, or regional influences, your education or training, and life experience. These are the external things that influenced your path and whether it was easy or a struggle so far. And how the question is answered tells a lot about what the person answering it thinks is important. Sometimes the answer isn’t obvious and it takes work to figure it out.

Who do you play for? This is about “Whose team are you on?” In the film the right answer to this question very subtly changes. The first time it is about who had coached the teams they were chosen from because it is asked before the team is selected. But later that becomes the wrong answer. Everyone in transition has to shift between the coach and roster of the team they are no longer part of and the coach and roster of the team they are now playing on.

Why are you here? In the film this question is about “Why do you play hockey?” But it’s a question that everybody has to have an answer for: why do you this and not that, why are you in transition, why did you leave that situation or why do you want to get into that situation? Be very clear that if you don’t know why, you won’t have a reason to keep going. So it is imperative that you get straight about your why and put it into a clear statement to remind yourself why you do what you do.

Did you leave anything on the table? This is a very subtle presentiment in the film and it can be so easily missed or dismissed, but the issue has to do with the level of commitment and playing all-out even in the face of defeat or failure. The question is “Did you hold anything back?” I have heard the phrase “don’t leave any cards on the table” which is similar to Brooks line. In a card game it can mean did you play every card at your disposal or did you leave something on the table; or it can refer to folding early to freeze your loss.

Brooks himself never answers this question but (and I do not know Brooks whole story) it seems that he hints that his being cut at the last minute from the 1960 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team might have had something to do with holding back; or leaving something on the table. For a person in transition it is a question to get at one aspect of the truth about why they are in transition as well as assess their past performance and make pertinent corrections where needed.

You might ask why you got laid-off ahead of others, or why did you train for a field you actually hate working in. You might ask it to see why you have more talent but less success that your peers. It is especially a useful tool to sort through a failure that was presumed to have resulted in success. The question can tell you what kind of team player you are and if you need to remediate your approach.

So now it comes down to me and to you. Even if our transitions don’t seem as daunting or important as moving from a relatively small college hockey team to the Olympics, our transitions are still events of great moment for us. And really for everyone who loves or supports us in some way. If nothing else we each owe it to ourselves to get on our own team and be our own best team player we can. Answering the questions and reflecting on the answers might bring forth the insight we need to move to the next level of our game of life.

As a sort of post script, I think it is interesting that Brooks never once asks what position any of the guys played. On a team it doesn't matter what position you play; what's important is the position the team needs filling.

Secrets: are they good, bad or indifferent

2009-07-30T14:30:00.004-04:00

Everybody has stuff they don’t share with others. Much of this stuff is benign like someone’s actual weight or their SAT scores from way back when. These may not be particularly flattering if they would be discovered but most would not significantly change the life of anyone.

Of course there are some practical secrets like surprise parties and Christmas presents which are fun happy stuff to keep secret for a little while at least. How much of the excitement of Christmas morning would be lost if all gifts were known in advance and placed under the tree unwrapped?

There are also secrets though that exact a terrible cost to everyone associated with them in some way. These secrets usually have to do with how a person, family or group is different from its outward appearance. Secrets of this nature, regardless of the specific topic, tend to be toxic to everyone they touch. And this is despite the possibility that the secret may have gotten started because someone believed keeping the secret was for the best.

The project Post Secret started a few years ago demonstrated, and continues to demonstrate, in a tangible way just how burdened people are by all the secrets they feel compelled to carry and how much they wish to be relieved of their burden. This desire to have the courage to stop carrying a secret that could potentially change for the worst the life of a person, family or social affiliation is an old one.

Who can forget Hawthorne’s portrayal of the ill-effects his secret would have on the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter? True, Dimmesdale’s secret also carried a lack of confessing his sin, something he should have been well-acquainted with since he preached it to his congregation every Sunday. Of course the argument can be made that many of these types of secrets include an element of confessing, or rather refusing to confess, something.

Then there is Hester Prynne who kept the secret about Dimmesdale. She could not keep her secret from that community; but she could have called him out publicly, or she could have left and joined another community with a different identity where no one would have been the wiser. Yet she stayed and kept the secret. And while the keeping of the secret did not take her physical life it did cost her a decent livelihood, and there were the regular threats to remove Pearl, and the constant barrage of ill will lobbed at her by those who would desire to make themselves look better by comparison.

There is one question that begs for answer although that answer is likely as varied as the persons who have and keep secrets. If the ill-effects of these kinds of secrets is so weighty and in some cases devastating, why do people continue to keep them and therefore continue to bear the consequences? The question is not why do people decide to keep a secret that becomes a toxic burden to bear; the question is why do people whose secret is having an adverse effect on them continue to keep the secret?

I don’t have a singular answer. Like I said above, I think there is a spectrum of answers like the people who have and keep them. I have had a few of my own, and I kept secrets for others, and I have come upon through my genealogy research the devastating effects of secrets that linger across generations in some ill-conceived scheme to protect the memory of those long dead. The consequences of these secrets have affected family unity, civility, personal growth, and denied to far too many any access to forgiveness, amends or absolution. And that is such a pity when these stories come to light because they were not the end of the world; really, none of them were. There would have been consequences to work through, yes; but done appropriately there would in time have been a moving on and forgetting about it to some extent.

This is a very private matter so I am not asking for people to air their dirty laundry in the comments. Although, I suppose you could follow the Post Secret link and do it anonymously on that site. However, if you care to share about how you were able to be excused from keeping a secret you thought you shouldn’t keep or keep any further that might be useful to everyone. Please, no personal details about the secret or the person(s) involved in the secret.

Temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement

2009-07-23T00:01:00.002-04:00

Most of us have seen signs with similar words in our travels. It's summer and in the U.S. that means orange barrels and road work. Highway construction and repair is a transition phase the traveling pubic has to deal with. It's a transition that can have an enormous emotional upheaval component as well.

There are basically three ways to deal with the upheaval of road work:

1. Hang-on; and ride/wait it out.
2. Plow through; power jockey for position and minimize your inconvenience.
3. Detour; seek an alternate route.

These all have their pros and cons. Also, some of them work better in some situations than in others.

A major life transition and its emotional component is sort of like road work. It is probably a given that it's happening and finding a way to deal with it will be necessary.

The three way so dealing with road work also describe some of the common ways of dealing with life transitions and their attendant emotions. Let's take a look.

1. Hang-on: sometimes the easiest choice is to go along for the ride and hope it's short. The advantage is that you just hang-on; the disadvantage is that you just hang-on. It only requires one long continuous decision; do not let go or get out of line.

2. Plow through: this is where the focus and all the energy is directed toward shortening and smoothing out the situation. The advantage is possibly minimizing the length or degree of the upheaval; the downside is everything that gets run over in the process.

3. Detour: sometimes there is an alternative route for all or part of the journey, like taking a break or a parallel path or even choosing a different destination where the route is not so torn up. The advantage is that a break from the intensity may bring fresh energy or resolve. The disadvantage is that it may take longer or to some place you weren't planning to end up.

At this stage I have experienced many construction zones and life transitions from minor to major. With varying degrees of success I have used all of the suggested options for dealing with those situations, and for some a combination has been needed. The point is that life is rarely cast in a mold and being open to a new solution often makes getting to the destination possible.

It is important to note that none of these ways of dealing with transitions precludes taking advantage of support networks or appropriate professional help. A car that breaks down in a construction zone needs a tow truck and mechanic just the same as one out on an open stretch of road. Just because you have a standard way of handling transitions does not mean you can't or shouldn't take advantage of every tool at your disposal to facilitate the journey and your outcome.

So how do you tend to respond when faced with a construction zone of a life transition?

Note: I am not a professional counselor. I share my experiences in order to facilitate personal thought, inquiry and reflection. Questions and decisions about dealing with a specific life transition and its emotion upheaval should be referred to a competent professional.

Annual Inventory; it's good for you

2009-07-16T00:01:00.001-04:00

The thing about making a major life change, and moving, and decluttering is that you start to realize that your insurance inventory is out-of-date. So putting the question to you: if you had an event which was serious enough to prompt a call to your insurance agent would you have the information you needed to fill out a claim form with actual data?

Having data on the items you actually own, instead of hedging by finding comparables and estimating, is the best. The information can be compiled in a computer program as comprehensive as Access, or on a simple spreadsheet or Word document, or in good old hard copy in a wirebound notebook. Accompanying photos, in print or on a CD, or video footage of your items is also helpful.

But I don’t own anything and it isn’t worth insuring anyway…

First, I don’t believe you; and second, there’s more to it than the insurance. Doing an inventory of your stuff, not just your valuable or insurable stuff, is a very educational process. You can learn a lot about your lifestyle and choices by doing an inventory. One thing you may or may not be pleased to learn about yourself is whether you walk your talk; in other words do the things you own match the values which you affirm to hold and support

Back to the insurance, doing an inventory will help you evaluate whether or not you need to insure your belongings and for how much. If you already have your stuff insured, is the policy adequate or overkill. This is also a good time to see if you are paying extra riders for items you no longer own like your back-up laptop or granddad’s coin collection.

Remember the point is to do the inventory not obsess over the perfect way to do an inventory. Get a notebook, write it all down in some order, take some digital photos, burn the photo files on a CD, put the CD inside the notebook cover and put it all in your fire safe.

Yes, a fire safe is a good idea for a few important papers. They come in all sizes and are far cheaper than the hours you will spend on the phone trying to recreate your important documents in an emergency. If you really want to create a digital blow-out inventory you can transcribe it later and make a copy either to keep in a bank deposit box or for a friend or relative to keep.

More benefits of an annual inventory…

- Doing an annual inventory has the advantage of being a big project once, and then just needing a brief review and adjustment in future years. It’s really helpful if a file of additions and receipts is collected between inventories.

- An annual inventory points out things that aren’t being used and that could be decluttered. Is your old dorm fridge you keep plugged in for extra beverages really contributing or is it just costing in terms of taking up space and the electricity that keeps it cold?

- Doing an inventory annually can help manage replacements. By tracking how old things are or their efficiency ratings helps to anticipate the potential for a major item like a computer, TV, car, or even items in your wardrobe to need replacement due to age or wear in the next 12 months. It can also help you decide whether a broken item is worth repairing or should be replaced.

-And finally, figuring out what you own and its value can help you approximate your networth. While your value as a person far exceeds the sum of your possessions, occasionally it is helpful to know your approximate networth. I wrote about Net worth and the woman at home last year but in its simplest form networth is the value of what you own minus the sum of the outstanding debt you are carrying.

If you are in a legally binding relationship you have a share of the joint networth and a personal networth that is based on stuff and debts solely in your name. There are complex formulas for calculating how your joint property and debt affect your personal networth that a qualified financial advisor can help assess.

But I don’t have time…

Yes, like other things that are good for you, doing an inventory of your stuff may not be convenient but like everything else you can make the time now or something will come up – at an even more inconvenient time – and force you to do it later. It’s your choice.

Disclaimer: The above discussion is for entertainment, and for promoting personal thought and inquiry. Specific questions about your needs for insurance, the insurable value of your property, or your networth should be directed to qualified professionals.

Change one thing; repeat

2009-07-08T19:10:00.007-04:00

“…Figure out one thing that would make your life better, …and make it happen. And once that’s done, then go ahead figure out the next thing, and do that, too.” – Joanie, 80 (in Breaking Point, Beck, 1997)

Those who have been reading a while are aware that my life is in transition. Actually I am juggling several transitions that are overlapping. There have been losses to adjust and compensate for; but these transitions are also bringing about the possibilities of making some gains in areas of my life that I did not have control over previously.

It is one thing to realize that something isn’t working in your life and it needs changing to work better. But how often do we follow up on those insights and make the changes that would make a real difference in our lives.

What is it about change that it becomes a blockade to the things we say we want in our lives. We can want something different so badly but we seem to have such difficulty bringing it about?

Change is difficult but it is not impossible because all around us change happens every day; at least for other people it seems. (And yes, changes we don’t want are often thrust upon us but this is about deliberate changes and choices.)

So, if others can bring about change why not us? Do we lack insight or skill, strength or courage? Do we think we need a good reason or permission or to be deserving? Maybe we think we’re broken and deserve things the way they are?

Change is complex because it’s not just a destination; it’s the means to other ends and other changes. Really, change is similar to an obstacle course. If we accept the challenge of the course it can teach us how to do it better.

At boot camp part of the training regimen for new recruits includes an actual obstacle course. The point is not to memorize the course but to clear the obstacles clean and fast. Clean is this case means without getting a “hit” which in a real combat situation would mean getting wounded, killed or captured in which case the soldier would not make it to front lines to engage in the main battle.

The obstacle course at boot camp is part of the process to change raw recruits from civilians into soldiers. The early courses aren’t easy for the new recruits but as they gain confidence and experience they are able to clear increasingly more difficult obstacles. While no points are awarded for style or artistic impression there is a skill to training the body to make adjustments to each obstacle efficiently.

Likewise when we choose to change something in our lives we also start changing who we are or how we see the world. As we gain experience and confidence in our new situation we can handle more challenging changes. So if we look at bringing about change in our lives how can we apply the soldier and the obstacle course to our process?

These three came to my mind:

1. Don’t quit, don’t retreat - get through the first one any way you can. If someone is ahead of you learn from their circuit so you don’t repeat their mistakes.

2. Debrief yourself - how did it go, what would you do differently, what mistakes did you make? Don’t overdo this, you want to eliminate inefficient moves but retain the “can do” spirit.

3. Do it over soon - don’t lose the experience or information you paid dearly to gain. Make your next change sooner rather than later to reinforce the learning.

If you thought of something else put it down in the comments so we can all learn.

The Miracle of Courage: getting started