Sometimes it’s hard not to covet, and other times I feel like I go the other extreme and use anti-materialism as an excuse for being negligent or sloppy. Often I’m not sure where the middle ground is.
As far as coveting, I have gadgety tendencies and find it easy to desire those electronics and office accessories that seem to make life easier. I’m the only person I know – well, not the only person, but the only 40-something semi-professional in Carlisle – who doesn’t have a cell phone that can do more than just call people, and I’m the only serious writer I know who doesn’t have a Netbook. One evening last week, I was feeling covetous and fell into a long contemplation on which I would rather have: an iPhone or a Netbook. With a Netbook, I could write and have web access even when I was away from my home office. Currently I have a little Alphasmart, which is a portable word processor that can store a few files and then sync up to my computer. This is enough to enable me to draft documents when I’m away from home; it’s just that the small screen prevents me from doing much revising.
Then I thought about the iPhone. With an iPhone, I could email or look things up on the web from anywhere, though that wouldn’t expand my portable writing options much. I covet both; I couldn’t decide which would help me more in the long run.
But after spending a couple of hours not only thinking about iPhones and Netbooks but even doing some online “window shopping” (screen shopping?), I woke up the next day thinking I didn’t really need either one that much. The fact is, I can write when I’m away from home – whether at Starbucks for the afternoon or on a weekend getaway or even in the car while Rick is driving – on my Alphasmart, and I’m not convinced that having constant portable access to email, Twitter or other internet functions would actually be a good thing for me. Sometimes, walking away from my desktop computer and over to where other activities are going on – such as where the kids are playing, or into the kitchen where I should be preparing dinner – is the most effective way for me to switch my concentration away from work and on to other equally important things. With portable email, I fear I’d be one of those people who Never Stops Checking, and the fact is, I’m not someone who gets constant emails or tweets or instant messages. Maybe having more access to email would only serve to underscore the occasional sense that I’m not in very high demand.
I covet electronics, and I also covet clothes. It seems everything I own right now is at least four years old and doesn’t fit me very well anymore; and yet now that I work from home and hang in not-very-fashion-conscious social circles, I can’t justify to myself the need to buy more clothes, or accessories, or jewelry. So instead I try to affirm the positive value of being minimalist; I tell myself not acquiring a lot is a positive thing; it’s good to be light on one’s feet and not carry a lot of clutter on one’s person or in one’s household.
At the same time, it’s possible to be too minimalist. I feel a certain disdain for people who find it too easy to disregard style, in terms of their clothing or their home. The world is, after all, full of beautiful things for the body and the home; to appreciate them is part of cultivating an aesthetic sense. I admire those people whose beautifully decorated homes reflect not the message that they can afford to buy a lot but that they possess inherent artistic style. It’s easy for me to say “Oh, I’m a minimalist, I do well with clean lines and a lot of open space in my home rather than a lot of knickknacks,” but the reality is that I’m not very good at choosing things for my home, even things that might enhance those clean lines and sunny spaces. Sometimes it seems to me it’s almost too easy to be anti-materialist; it becomes an excuse for not even trying to appreciate things of aesthetic value.
So for today, I’m writing on my portable word processor at the indoor pool while the kids swim, unable to indulge in the distraction of checking email or Twitter. Back home, my bedroom is, at the moment, neat but not overly accessorized. My clothes for today are very plain but clean and undamaged. I’ll just tell myself that I’m doing fine, in my minimalist way, and leave the tabletop candles, the trendy jewelry and the newest seasonal fashions -- along with the latest electronics -- to those who can pull them off in a way that I don’t seem able to do.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
It's National Clean Off Your Desk Day!
After learning via Twitter that it’s National Clean Off Your Desk Day and finding out through some quick research that this annual event takes place every year on the second Monday in January, I started thinking about a good exercise for home-office workers: List What’s on Your Desk.
But the phrase “clean off your desk” also reminded me of a company I worked at ten years ago that had a so-called “clean desk policy,” meaning every employee was expected to leave a pristine work surface in his or her wake at the end of the day. Although I chafed at the implied paternalism of allowing Corporate to dictate my office organization habits, I have to admit it was a worthwhile standard to try to uphold. Leaving a bare desk surface is really just a visual representation for having reached the end of your To Do list by the end of the day. If your goal is to leave your desk clean, that suggests that the expectation is that you will get to everything you absolutely must do before the day ends. Or you won’t leave the office until you’ve gotten to that point, regardless of what time it might be. Walking through the halls at the end of the day at that company and seeing all those shiny green desktops gleaming in the nighttime fluorescent light did convey a sense of efficiency; you felt that you were truly walking through a business in which people spent their days accomplishing things and then went home with a clean conscience along with a clean desk.
Needless to say, employees found ways around this policy when necessary. There are desk drawers to place unfinished work in, of course, and there is also the ever-convenient desk chair, which ensures – unlike a drawer – that you will see the unfinished pile as soon as you arrive the next morning. Moreover, the idea of paperwork representing unfinished work is somewhat anachronistic, as electronic files make for a paper-light, if never truly paperless, office. These days you could have a clean desktop but a full email in-box, and leave a neat office at the end of the day without having accomplished much of anything at all.
Which brings me to the home office in which I am sitting right now. Although I do generally work almost paper-free, relying on electronic files for documentation, websites for research and information, and email for all correspondence, you wouldn’t know it to look at my desk. Here’s what’s on it right now:
* A stack of stories, handwritten in pencil on blue-lined primary-book pages, from my daughter Holly’s second grade class. The teacher needed a parent volunteer to type the stories up, and I offered to do so. At this point I’ve finished two and a half stories out of twenty, so I still have some work to do.
* A book called Running the Spiritual Path: A runner’s guide to breathing, meditating, and exploring the prayerful dimension of the sport by Roger D. Joslin. This book was recommended to me by Episcopal priest Tim Schenck of St. John the Evangelist Church in Hingham when I mentioned to him that I had been asked to give a church sermon on the spiritual aspects of running at the end of this month. I started the book yesterday and haven’t yet started drafting the sermon, but seeing the book on my desk reminds me that I’d better get going on it.
* A stack of odds and ends including empty picture frames, a box of child-protector drawer locks and a can opener. These are items I found yesterday while cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen; my goal is to take them up to our third floor attic and put them in a box destined for the swap shed at the town transfer station, which means of course that I’m bringing them up two flights of stairs only to eventually bring them back down and put them in the car, but it will get them out of sight for the time being.
* A plate with bagel crumbs. No further explanation needed, I imagine.
* A plush red cube-shaped beanbag about 2” square, one from a set of three that my 11-year-old son Tim is using to learn to juggle.
* A papier-mache dragon painted bright pink, purple, orange and green that Tim made in school last year while studying the Chinese New Year.
* A birthday card from Holly with the following penciled inscription: “Wat are you wishing for, wat is your grant. It’s the pretest thing in all the land. I wish I could help with all the hard work…and aspeshally the wish which I’d make come true!” Technicolored magic marker hearts and rainbows encircle the text.
* A pencil mug from my 20th high school reunion.
* A ceramic box holding paper clips and rubber bands that Holly made on her last trip to the pottery painting studio.
So as you can see, I’m a long way from a clean-desk policy here in my home office, but it could be worse. The artifacts and card are cheerful to glimpse as I work; the running book reminds me to get started on the sermon; the second graders’ stories urge me to get that project done as promised. The juggling cube makes me wonder whether Tim will get good at juggling. It’s an inspiring mix of distractions, even though Corporate at my former company would surely disapprove.
As for other home office workers: What’s on your desk right now, and what does it say about your life?
But the phrase “clean off your desk” also reminded me of a company I worked at ten years ago that had a so-called “clean desk policy,” meaning every employee was expected to leave a pristine work surface in his or her wake at the end of the day. Although I chafed at the implied paternalism of allowing Corporate to dictate my office organization habits, I have to admit it was a worthwhile standard to try to uphold. Leaving a bare desk surface is really just a visual representation for having reached the end of your To Do list by the end of the day. If your goal is to leave your desk clean, that suggests that the expectation is that you will get to everything you absolutely must do before the day ends. Or you won’t leave the office until you’ve gotten to that point, regardless of what time it might be. Walking through the halls at the end of the day at that company and seeing all those shiny green desktops gleaming in the nighttime fluorescent light did convey a sense of efficiency; you felt that you were truly walking through a business in which people spent their days accomplishing things and then went home with a clean conscience along with a clean desk.
Needless to say, employees found ways around this policy when necessary. There are desk drawers to place unfinished work in, of course, and there is also the ever-convenient desk chair, which ensures – unlike a drawer – that you will see the unfinished pile as soon as you arrive the next morning. Moreover, the idea of paperwork representing unfinished work is somewhat anachronistic, as electronic files make for a paper-light, if never truly paperless, office. These days you could have a clean desktop but a full email in-box, and leave a neat office at the end of the day without having accomplished much of anything at all.
Which brings me to the home office in which I am sitting right now. Although I do generally work almost paper-free, relying on electronic files for documentation, websites for research and information, and email for all correspondence, you wouldn’t know it to look at my desk. Here’s what’s on it right now:
* A stack of stories, handwritten in pencil on blue-lined primary-book pages, from my daughter Holly’s second grade class. The teacher needed a parent volunteer to type the stories up, and I offered to do so. At this point I’ve finished two and a half stories out of twenty, so I still have some work to do.
* A book called Running the Spiritual Path: A runner’s guide to breathing, meditating, and exploring the prayerful dimension of the sport by Roger D. Joslin. This book was recommended to me by Episcopal priest Tim Schenck of St. John the Evangelist Church in Hingham when I mentioned to him that I had been asked to give a church sermon on the spiritual aspects of running at the end of this month. I started the book yesterday and haven’t yet started drafting the sermon, but seeing the book on my desk reminds me that I’d better get going on it.
* A stack of odds and ends including empty picture frames, a box of child-protector drawer locks and a can opener. These are items I found yesterday while cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen; my goal is to take them up to our third floor attic and put them in a box destined for the swap shed at the town transfer station, which means of course that I’m bringing them up two flights of stairs only to eventually bring them back down and put them in the car, but it will get them out of sight for the time being.
* A plate with bagel crumbs. No further explanation needed, I imagine.
* A plush red cube-shaped beanbag about 2” square, one from a set of three that my 11-year-old son Tim is using to learn to juggle.
* A papier-mache dragon painted bright pink, purple, orange and green that Tim made in school last year while studying the Chinese New Year.
* A birthday card from Holly with the following penciled inscription: “Wat are you wishing for, wat is your grant. It’s the pretest thing in all the land. I wish I could help with all the hard work…and aspeshally the wish which I’d make come true!” Technicolored magic marker hearts and rainbows encircle the text.
* A pencil mug from my 20th high school reunion.
* A ceramic box holding paper clips and rubber bands that Holly made on her last trip to the pottery painting studio.
So as you can see, I’m a long way from a clean-desk policy here in my home office, but it could be worse. The artifacts and card are cheerful to glimpse as I work; the running book reminds me to get started on the sermon; the second graders’ stories urge me to get that project done as promised. The juggling cube makes me wonder whether Tim will get good at juggling. It’s an inspiring mix of distractions, even though Corporate at my former company would surely disapprove.
As for other home office workers: What’s on your desk right now, and what does it say about your life?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Remorse over letting a beautiful day get away
I can’t help feeling like I blew it yesterday. And as trivial a matter as it was, I can’t stop feeling remorseful about it today.
I went out for my daily run at about 10 AM and did a short one, just barely over the minimum mile necessary to maintain my daily running streak. At this time of year, with six inches or more of snow on the ground, it’s hard to do much more than a mile with the dog because the footpaths aren’t cleared and I don’t feel safe running with her on the road, so up and down our long common driveway is about the best I can do.
But it was a sparkling sunny day, not as chilly as earlier in the week, and as I finished up my 15 minutes of running, I found myself thinking, “This is the kind of day that would be perfect for snowshoeing.”
But I didn’t go snowshoeing, and that’s the source of the remorse: because there was simply no reason not to. I had a couple of deadlines to meet but knew I could wrap them up shortly after noon, if I put in a little extra effort. The kids were at school and no one needed me home. There was no reason not to agree with myself immediately and put a plan into action: “Yes, this would be a perfect day for snowshoeing, so let me just finish those two articles and take care of that 12:00 conference call and then I’ll go!”
What really bothers me about it is that I can think of so many times when I’ve had similar impulses but following through simply wasn’t the viable option that it was yesterday. When I was working full-time, I would often look out the window and think “If only I didn’t have to be in this horrid office building, I’d go for a long walk.” When I was a stay-at-home mom with small children, I’d think “If I didn’t have a baby to care for today, I’d go out and enjoy the beautiful weather, but it’s too cold to bundle her up, and I’m not really sure I can manage snowshoes with a baby in a backpack on my back…” Back when I lived in a different town, I would think “If only I lived in a beautiful place with fields and woods for tromping through, I’d go snowshoeing on a day like this.” But now I do, and I still wasn’t heading out. And even as I thought about those real-life situations, I could imagine other, worse situations in which one might look out the window and dream of snowshoeing in the bright sunlight: from a hospital room while watching over a sick family member, for example. Or from prison.
And none of those was the case yesterday. Not only was I not in prison or intensive care, I didn’t even have to wait for a repair person to show up or take part in a conference call that couldn't be rescheduled. I had at least two hours, maybe more, when not a soul in the world would have been negatively impacted if I’d walked out of the house and cut across the fields in my snowshoes. The dog would have loved it; I would have felt good for the rest of the day for having gotten in an extra workout. My endorphins would have been soaring all afternoon, and quite likely in the meditative silence I would have come up with a new article possibility or essay idea that could have been fruitful to future work.
But it didn’t happen. I have no excuse; it just didn’t happen. I went back inside after my short run and started e-mailing and copy-editing and doing other things that did not absolutely have to be done on the sunniest, most beautiful January day of the season. And I’ve regretted it ever since.
It’s so easy to stagnate, to submit to the lure of inertia, and sit down indoors rather than strap on the snowshoes. But there are days like yesterday that truly feel like once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Today is grayer, with light snow falling, but I’m going to try to get out anyway. I feel like I owe it to the universe to get out there today, to appreciate the opportunity and to try to make up for the one perfect day yesterday that I let get away for no good reason whatsoever.
I went out for my daily run at about 10 AM and did a short one, just barely over the minimum mile necessary to maintain my daily running streak. At this time of year, with six inches or more of snow on the ground, it’s hard to do much more than a mile with the dog because the footpaths aren’t cleared and I don’t feel safe running with her on the road, so up and down our long common driveway is about the best I can do.
But it was a sparkling sunny day, not as chilly as earlier in the week, and as I finished up my 15 minutes of running, I found myself thinking, “This is the kind of day that would be perfect for snowshoeing.”
But I didn’t go snowshoeing, and that’s the source of the remorse: because there was simply no reason not to. I had a couple of deadlines to meet but knew I could wrap them up shortly after noon, if I put in a little extra effort. The kids were at school and no one needed me home. There was no reason not to agree with myself immediately and put a plan into action: “Yes, this would be a perfect day for snowshoeing, so let me just finish those two articles and take care of that 12:00 conference call and then I’ll go!”
What really bothers me about it is that I can think of so many times when I’ve had similar impulses but following through simply wasn’t the viable option that it was yesterday. When I was working full-time, I would often look out the window and think “If only I didn’t have to be in this horrid office building, I’d go for a long walk.” When I was a stay-at-home mom with small children, I’d think “If I didn’t have a baby to care for today, I’d go out and enjoy the beautiful weather, but it’s too cold to bundle her up, and I’m not really sure I can manage snowshoes with a baby in a backpack on my back…” Back when I lived in a different town, I would think “If only I lived in a beautiful place with fields and woods for tromping through, I’d go snowshoeing on a day like this.” But now I do, and I still wasn’t heading out. And even as I thought about those real-life situations, I could imagine other, worse situations in which one might look out the window and dream of snowshoeing in the bright sunlight: from a hospital room while watching over a sick family member, for example. Or from prison.
And none of those was the case yesterday. Not only was I not in prison or intensive care, I didn’t even have to wait for a repair person to show up or take part in a conference call that couldn't be rescheduled. I had at least two hours, maybe more, when not a soul in the world would have been negatively impacted if I’d walked out of the house and cut across the fields in my snowshoes. The dog would have loved it; I would have felt good for the rest of the day for having gotten in an extra workout. My endorphins would have been soaring all afternoon, and quite likely in the meditative silence I would have come up with a new article possibility or essay idea that could have been fruitful to future work.
But it didn’t happen. I have no excuse; it just didn’t happen. I went back inside after my short run and started e-mailing and copy-editing and doing other things that did not absolutely have to be done on the sunniest, most beautiful January day of the season. And I’ve regretted it ever since.
It’s so easy to stagnate, to submit to the lure of inertia, and sit down indoors rather than strap on the snowshoes. But there are days like yesterday that truly feel like once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Today is grayer, with light snow falling, but I’m going to try to get out anyway. I feel like I owe it to the universe to get out there today, to appreciate the opportunity and to try to make up for the one perfect day yesterday that I let get away for no good reason whatsoever.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
What I've lost
I am not a loser.
I don’t mean that exactly the way it sounds. Not the way we used the term in high school, anyway. In that context, the status of my loserdom is not for me to judge. What I mean is I’m not someone who loses things.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and was surprised to see this essay in today’s Boston Globe by Professor Robert Brown, who apparently is a loser: that is, someone who accuses himself of frequently losing things.
When I misplace something, it’s the exception rather than the rule. I think this is for a number of reasons. The foremost explanation is probably just that we keep our house unusually tidy. (I say “unusually” because so many other people have remarked upon the neatness of our house over the years. To me, it seems reasonably tidy, not remarkably so, but enough visitors have commented on the way we keep our house over the years that I’ve come to see it as exceptional.) It’s hard to misplace things when drawers stay organized and surfaces bare to the extent that items placed anywhere are readily visible.
I think it’s also to some extent a matter of focus. People who lose things sometimes make rapid mental transitions from one thing to the next: for example, they’ll enter their house with keys in hand and immediately go see what their children are doing or listen to phone messages, meaning that keys get put down after the next activity has already begun. The first thing I do when I enter the house with keys is put keys away. The first thing I do when I receive a check in the mail is put it in my wallet for deposit. And so on.
But once in a while I do misplace things, and it bothers me for a long time when that happens. This month there are two things I can’t find, and they are distracting me inordinately. Well, one is a distraction; the other is just a frustration, but I’m not still looking for it because I know it’s long gone. The one I know is long gone is an envelope that Tim’s report card arrived in. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was supposed to sign the report card and return it to the school. Although this instruction must have appeared somewhere, I think I disregarded it because we were going in for a conference with Tim’s teachers the next week so I didn’t think there was the need for further proof that I’d received his report card, but yesterday – nearly a month after the fact – I received an automated call from the school saying that I was late in returning the signed envelope. It is not in the paperwork basket where I normally leave paperwork that needs to be sent back out of the house, and it’s not in Tim’s backpack: both the basket and the backpack are as neat and organized as ever, and the envelope would be readily apparent if it were either place. I think I must have accidentally recycled it with other empty envelopes. I emailed Tim’s teacher, apologizing profusely but admitting that I did not think I’d be able to come up with it and asking her what corrective steps I could take.
The other thing I can’t find bothers me more. It is a key, not a key to a lock but the key that winds an antique tabletop clock we inherited from my grandparents. I have always kept it in a tiny china vase next to the clock, and although the vase is still there I haven’t been able to find the key for weeks. Now I can’t wind the clock, and so of course it has stopped, which bothers me. I keep thinking of that mundane yet creepy children’s song about the clock that held the grandfather’s spirit. My grandmother – who, it should be noted, was a world-class champion at losing things; there are those who believe the national debt could be balanced with the jewels, cash and credit cards she misplaced over her lifetime – managed to keep that clock wound weekly, and now I’ve let it stop because I can’t find that key.
A few days ago, having checked every decorative bowl, box and other vessel-shaped knickknack into which a small child might stash something he or she picked up, peered under every baseboard, and even sifted through the vacuum cleaner bag, I realized that there might be a resolution to the problem other than finding the key. We know two local clockmakers; I could ask them about whether there might be another key in existence that would fit the clock or whether I could have a new one made; or maybe another tool, such as jeweler’s pliers, could be used to wind the clock in the meantime.
I’m not going to do anything about it for a little while longer, because our monthly housecleaner comes next week and my last hope for finding the key is that she’ll come across it while cleaning. In the meantime, I’ll keep searching, and hoping it turns up, and reminding myself that there are other solutions to the problem of winding the clock. In some respects, occasionally losing something might be less an opportunity for self-recrimnation than a chance to relax rigid thought patterns and come up with creative solutions. I’ll find out from my son’s teacher how to resolve the problem with the missing envelope, and I’ll continue being my generally well-organized, well-focused self in hopes of not losing anything else important for a long time.
I don’t mean that exactly the way it sounds. Not the way we used the term in high school, anyway. In that context, the status of my loserdom is not for me to judge. What I mean is I’m not someone who loses things.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while and was surprised to see this essay in today’s Boston Globe by Professor Robert Brown, who apparently is a loser: that is, someone who accuses himself of frequently losing things.
When I misplace something, it’s the exception rather than the rule. I think this is for a number of reasons. The foremost explanation is probably just that we keep our house unusually tidy. (I say “unusually” because so many other people have remarked upon the neatness of our house over the years. To me, it seems reasonably tidy, not remarkably so, but enough visitors have commented on the way we keep our house over the years that I’ve come to see it as exceptional.) It’s hard to misplace things when drawers stay organized and surfaces bare to the extent that items placed anywhere are readily visible.
I think it’s also to some extent a matter of focus. People who lose things sometimes make rapid mental transitions from one thing to the next: for example, they’ll enter their house with keys in hand and immediately go see what their children are doing or listen to phone messages, meaning that keys get put down after the next activity has already begun. The first thing I do when I enter the house with keys is put keys away. The first thing I do when I receive a check in the mail is put it in my wallet for deposit. And so on.
But once in a while I do misplace things, and it bothers me for a long time when that happens. This month there are two things I can’t find, and they are distracting me inordinately. Well, one is a distraction; the other is just a frustration, but I’m not still looking for it because I know it’s long gone. The one I know is long gone is an envelope that Tim’s report card arrived in. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was supposed to sign the report card and return it to the school. Although this instruction must have appeared somewhere, I think I disregarded it because we were going in for a conference with Tim’s teachers the next week so I didn’t think there was the need for further proof that I’d received his report card, but yesterday – nearly a month after the fact – I received an automated call from the school saying that I was late in returning the signed envelope. It is not in the paperwork basket where I normally leave paperwork that needs to be sent back out of the house, and it’s not in Tim’s backpack: both the basket and the backpack are as neat and organized as ever, and the envelope would be readily apparent if it were either place. I think I must have accidentally recycled it with other empty envelopes. I emailed Tim’s teacher, apologizing profusely but admitting that I did not think I’d be able to come up with it and asking her what corrective steps I could take.
The other thing I can’t find bothers me more. It is a key, not a key to a lock but the key that winds an antique tabletop clock we inherited from my grandparents. I have always kept it in a tiny china vase next to the clock, and although the vase is still there I haven’t been able to find the key for weeks. Now I can’t wind the clock, and so of course it has stopped, which bothers me. I keep thinking of that mundane yet creepy children’s song about the clock that held the grandfather’s spirit. My grandmother – who, it should be noted, was a world-class champion at losing things; there are those who believe the national debt could be balanced with the jewels, cash and credit cards she misplaced over her lifetime – managed to keep that clock wound weekly, and now I’ve let it stop because I can’t find that key.
A few days ago, having checked every decorative bowl, box and other vessel-shaped knickknack into which a small child might stash something he or she picked up, peered under every baseboard, and even sifted through the vacuum cleaner bag, I realized that there might be a resolution to the problem other than finding the key. We know two local clockmakers; I could ask them about whether there might be another key in existence that would fit the clock or whether I could have a new one made; or maybe another tool, such as jeweler’s pliers, could be used to wind the clock in the meantime.
I’m not going to do anything about it for a little while longer, because our monthly housecleaner comes next week and my last hope for finding the key is that she’ll come across it while cleaning. In the meantime, I’ll keep searching, and hoping it turns up, and reminding myself that there are other solutions to the problem of winding the clock. In some respects, occasionally losing something might be less an opportunity for self-recrimnation than a chance to relax rigid thought patterns and come up with creative solutions. I’ll find out from my son’s teacher how to resolve the problem with the missing envelope, and I’ll continue being my generally well-organized, well-focused self in hopes of not losing anything else important for a long time.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
January farm scene
Midwinter is a breathtakingly beautiful time of year here. This week, a thick snow cover lies over the ground; the tree branches are bare. Today the sun is beaming out of a milky blue sky, and the trees and fence posts throw crisp shadows onto the snow cover.
December, even after snow falls, often has a muddier cast. Because the temperatures are warmer then, the snow that falls often partially melts on a ground that is not entirely frozen to begin with. But now, in the coldest part of the year, no mud mars the sparkling whiteness. The fields shimmer with gently rolling curves of snow; the pond is indistinguishable from the surrounding pasture other than being flatter. The dog runs across it, looking confused by her new ease of access through the woods where once a large body of water lay.
When I go out in the mornings now to feed the cows, I find them standing shoulder to shoulder by the barn waiting for me. Their spirits apparently rise as hay bales tumble from the loft; they butt each other out of the way to get their heads into the bales even though there’s enough for everyone, not just in the general sense but quite specifically: I feed out six bales for six animals. Nonetheless, for reasons I can’t understand, they clump together, preferring to shove each other around over one or two bales than to spread out a little and eat solo. It’s tempting to anthropomorphize and assume they prefer the conviviality of breaking bread (or hay) together, but that seems so counterintuitive based on what we know about animal nature that I can’t believe it’s that simple. The sheep, meanwhile, trot out of their enclosure when I open the gate and find four or five untouched bales in their path; since this is four or five times more than they normally eat, this has to be pleasing to them.
What strikes me most at this time of year, even more than the beauty of a pristine blanket of snow or the sharp gray branches and evergreen needles against the blue sky outside my home office window, is the light at the end of the afternoon. Just two weeks past the winter Solstice, I know the days aren’t growing substantially longer yet, but the light appears different to me than it did a month ago. Late November and December afternoon light has such a grayish muddy look, like the ground, as if the early sunset means the afternoon never opens up entirely to daylight. At this time of year, perhaps because of the sparkling white snow cover or perhaps because of something more celestial, the late-afternoon light looks brighter to me, even just before sunset.
Whatever the reason, it feels like a promise of milder days and longer afternoons ahead, but there’s no rush. Right now we are in the coldest and most frozen time of year, and that has its own beauty, a winter luminescence of snow and ice and blue sky. When I go running midmorning these days, I frequently see the brilliant red feathers of cardinals in the trees, or the bright blue of a blue jay flying by. The colors are sharp, the cold bracing, the air clear, and the winter breathtakingly lovely, and so right now there’s no hurry for spring.
December, even after snow falls, often has a muddier cast. Because the temperatures are warmer then, the snow that falls often partially melts on a ground that is not entirely frozen to begin with. But now, in the coldest part of the year, no mud mars the sparkling whiteness. The fields shimmer with gently rolling curves of snow; the pond is indistinguishable from the surrounding pasture other than being flatter. The dog runs across it, looking confused by her new ease of access through the woods where once a large body of water lay.
When I go out in the mornings now to feed the cows, I find them standing shoulder to shoulder by the barn waiting for me. Their spirits apparently rise as hay bales tumble from the loft; they butt each other out of the way to get their heads into the bales even though there’s enough for everyone, not just in the general sense but quite specifically: I feed out six bales for six animals. Nonetheless, for reasons I can’t understand, they clump together, preferring to shove each other around over one or two bales than to spread out a little and eat solo. It’s tempting to anthropomorphize and assume they prefer the conviviality of breaking bread (or hay) together, but that seems so counterintuitive based on what we know about animal nature that I can’t believe it’s that simple. The sheep, meanwhile, trot out of their enclosure when I open the gate and find four or five untouched bales in their path; since this is four or five times more than they normally eat, this has to be pleasing to them.
What strikes me most at this time of year, even more than the beauty of a pristine blanket of snow or the sharp gray branches and evergreen needles against the blue sky outside my home office window, is the light at the end of the afternoon. Just two weeks past the winter Solstice, I know the days aren’t growing substantially longer yet, but the light appears different to me than it did a month ago. Late November and December afternoon light has such a grayish muddy look, like the ground, as if the early sunset means the afternoon never opens up entirely to daylight. At this time of year, perhaps because of the sparkling white snow cover or perhaps because of something more celestial, the late-afternoon light looks brighter to me, even just before sunset.
Whatever the reason, it feels like a promise of milder days and longer afternoons ahead, but there’s no rush. Right now we are in the coldest and most frozen time of year, and that has its own beauty, a winter luminescence of snow and ice and blue sky. When I go running midmorning these days, I frequently see the brilliant red feathers of cardinals in the trees, or the bright blue of a blue jay flying by. The colors are sharp, the cold bracing, the air clear, and the winter breathtakingly lovely, and so right now there’s no hurry for spring.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Let's pretend we're having a meeting
Kids who enjoy games of pretend as much as my 7-year-old does – the technical term, I now know after having two children go through kindergarten, is “dramatic play,” but the use of the word “dramatic” always makes me laugh in the context of small children – tend to favor scenarios depicting real-life events. My daughter and her friends play school, house and birthday party; they never play “climbing Mount Everest” or “deep-sea scuba expedition.” Although I’m occasionally surprised that my daughter still keeps busy with imaginary friends well into second grade, the pretending games themselves aren’t foreign to me; my sisters and I played a game in which we were caterers until we were, okay, if not old enough to hire our own caterers then at least old enough to get jobs with real caterers.
Still, the allure of reality-based pretending exceeded even my experience yesterday afternoon when, as I prepared dinner, Holly announced we were going to play “Meeting.” She instructed me to meet her in the kitchen with a notebook and pen, because I’d have a lot of notes to take during this pretend meeting.
It’s so amusing to me that she chooses one of the hands-down most mundane elements of adult life to turn into a game. I think of meetings as one of my least favorite components in a typical week. I’ve been known to declare at church that I’d rather single-handedly update the entire membership directory in longhand than attend a meeting about it.
At yesterday’s pretend meeting, which Holly explained to me was a gathering of “the Rufflemuffle Committee” (“and you have to be invited,” she clarified, so I guess I was meant to feel honored), the first order of business was for me to be introduced individually to each of the other two-dozen or so participants. Even as she presented me to each of my invisible peers, Holly made small talk about how she was sure I’d met most of them before: “Kayla was at that party I had last spring. Jenna owns the house where I house-sat over Christmas. Petey was on that other committee with you last year. Ellen –“
“—ran over my dog,” I interrupted.
Holly glared at me. She never appreciates my obnoxious attempts to amuse myself at her imaginary friends’ expense.
Introductions over, Holly brought the meeting to order and gave us our assignment. “Everybody write a list of the things you like about ice cream,” she instructed. That was easy; I could complete the task even while I tore up lettuce leaves for a salad. “Variety of flavors. Sweet. Creamy. Rich,” I wrote.
“Good. Now everybody write a list of the things you like about cake,” Holly ordered. This exercise, I discovered, was a little bit more challenging. I do love cake but couldn’t come up with as many reasons. “Crumbly. Moist. The frosting,” I wrote a little bit more pensively.
The last instruction proved to be the hardest. “Now, a list of what you like about meetings,” Holly said.
Meetings! I don’t like anything about meetings! I looked at Holly and she frowned back at me. “Write!” she hissed. “Everyone else is!” I could almost hear their imaginary pencils scratching against imaginary paper.
“Refreshments,” I wrote. “A comfortable place to sit down.” I thought harder. “Getting together with other people.” There had to be more. “Coming up with ideas. Feeling like you’re going to accomplish something as a group.”
Strange, I realized as I was writing, this isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. And it made me appreciate Holly’s pretending in a way I hadn’t before, because by turning a regular element of my life into something of a masquerade, she had helped me see it in a different way. All of the components on my last list really were things I liked about meetings.
Perhaps not coincidentally, I actually had a meeting that evening after dinner, the monthly meeting of a nonprofit board of which I’m a member. As I sat at that meeting taking notes, I had to acknowledge that I actually was having more fun than usual. People were making amusing comments; some of the issues we needed to resolve were thought-provoking; and the decisions about whom to invite as a keynote speaker at our spring event would be fun to discuss.
So I learned something, thanks to Holly. Meetings aren’t so bad, as seen through a child’s eyes. Now maybe we can play an imaginary game of dental surgery or trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Maybe Holly and her imaginary posse can make events even that mundane seem fun too.
Still, the allure of reality-based pretending exceeded even my experience yesterday afternoon when, as I prepared dinner, Holly announced we were going to play “Meeting.” She instructed me to meet her in the kitchen with a notebook and pen, because I’d have a lot of notes to take during this pretend meeting.
It’s so amusing to me that she chooses one of the hands-down most mundane elements of adult life to turn into a game. I think of meetings as one of my least favorite components in a typical week. I’ve been known to declare at church that I’d rather single-handedly update the entire membership directory in longhand than attend a meeting about it.
At yesterday’s pretend meeting, which Holly explained to me was a gathering of “the Rufflemuffle Committee” (“and you have to be invited,” she clarified, so I guess I was meant to feel honored), the first order of business was for me to be introduced individually to each of the other two-dozen or so participants. Even as she presented me to each of my invisible peers, Holly made small talk about how she was sure I’d met most of them before: “Kayla was at that party I had last spring. Jenna owns the house where I house-sat over Christmas. Petey was on that other committee with you last year. Ellen –“
“—ran over my dog,” I interrupted.
Holly glared at me. She never appreciates my obnoxious attempts to amuse myself at her imaginary friends’ expense.
Introductions over, Holly brought the meeting to order and gave us our assignment. “Everybody write a list of the things you like about ice cream,” she instructed. That was easy; I could complete the task even while I tore up lettuce leaves for a salad. “Variety of flavors. Sweet. Creamy. Rich,” I wrote.
“Good. Now everybody write a list of the things you like about cake,” Holly ordered. This exercise, I discovered, was a little bit more challenging. I do love cake but couldn’t come up with as many reasons. “Crumbly. Moist. The frosting,” I wrote a little bit more pensively.
The last instruction proved to be the hardest. “Now, a list of what you like about meetings,” Holly said.
Meetings! I don’t like anything about meetings! I looked at Holly and she frowned back at me. “Write!” she hissed. “Everyone else is!” I could almost hear their imaginary pencils scratching against imaginary paper.
“Refreshments,” I wrote. “A comfortable place to sit down.” I thought harder. “Getting together with other people.” There had to be more. “Coming up with ideas. Feeling like you’re going to accomplish something as a group.”
Strange, I realized as I was writing, this isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. And it made me appreciate Holly’s pretending in a way I hadn’t before, because by turning a regular element of my life into something of a masquerade, she had helped me see it in a different way. All of the components on my last list really were things I liked about meetings.
Perhaps not coincidentally, I actually had a meeting that evening after dinner, the monthly meeting of a nonprofit board of which I’m a member. As I sat at that meeting taking notes, I had to acknowledge that I actually was having more fun than usual. People were making amusing comments; some of the issues we needed to resolve were thought-provoking; and the decisions about whom to invite as a keynote speaker at our spring event would be fun to discuss.
So I learned something, thanks to Holly. Meetings aren’t so bad, as seen through a child’s eyes. Now maybe we can play an imaginary game of dental surgery or trip to the Registry of Motor Vehicles. Maybe Holly and her imaginary posse can make events even that mundane seem fun too.
Monday, January 4, 2010
My New Year's Resolution: To wake earlier
I made only one New Year’s resolution this month, and it is this: I will try to arise earlier in the morning, even when I don’t have to.
“That’s not a good resolution for you,” Rick declared. “You should resolve to get more sleep, not get up earlier.”
He’s right that I do need more sleep. Like most mothers of school-aged (or younger) children, I work hard all day to maintain my household, my career and my family’s lives and then greedily hoard the late-night hours for those matters that require my undivided concentration. When dusk falls I always promise myself I’m going to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but once both children are asleep, the temptation to savor the silence rather than to sleep through it usually proves irresistible.
Jerry Seinfeld did a very true-to-life, at least true-to-my-life, monologue about “The Morning Guy” and “The Night Guy.” The Night Guy is the hedonist, always insisting that those few more hours of waking time won’t really hurt anything. The Morning Guy is the working stiff always faced with the reality that it’s really hard to get up after five or six hours of sleep, and Morning Guy makes impassioned speeches to Night Guy about being more reasonable and more considerate in the future, about acknowledging that it’s Morning Guy who will have to pay for Night Guy’s bad choices. But Night Guy laughs it off once evening comes again, insisting that (at least in my case) the relief of having finished an assignment, or the rush of triumph I get after coming up with a new story idea, or even the warm glow of conviviality from an enjoyable email exchange with a friend, will more than compensate for the early morning exhaustion.
But I’m always wrong, of course, and feel lousy after six hours of sleep even if I wake with the knowledge that staying up late the night before allowed me to turn in a story on time or craft a seemingly brilliant first draft of an essay. Or relay to a friend a hilarious story about the kids.
Nonetheless, getting to bed earlier isn’t the focus of my resolution, though it may be the necessary corollary; getting up earlier is. On weekdays I need to arise only about five more minutes than I normally do in order to keep everything running smoothly, and that shouldn’t be too hard to pull off; it’s weekends and other non-school days toward which this resolution is really targeted. I know there are beautiful early-morning hours in which I could be writing, exercising or just enjoying the solitude – indeed, the same solitude that I often stay up until nearly midnight to exalt in – but I am instead sleeping through them. I remind myself of that old faithful rule of thumb that habits take three weeks to instill, and if I could just get over the pain of those first three weeks, the payoff would be indisputable: I’d be an early morning person, greeting the dawn, and two hours later greeting my waking family with the smug awareness that I’d already accomplished precious minutes of creativity, or meditation, or something else important. (Of course, since this resolution really pertains only to weekends, three weeks could take me almost four months to accrue, but I’ll try not to think along those self-defeating lines right now.)
The obstacle is that it’s just so easy for me to justify my submission to the urge to sleep late. I tell myself it’s one of the only self-indulgences that costs neither money nor calories. It harms no one – even sleeping until 8 on weekends, I’m still up as the rest of my family is waking – and it gives me so much immediate pleasure. I also remind myself of the years with babies and young children when sleeping late was almost never an option, and how much I craved it then, and how reasonable it therefore is to give in to this small luxury now.
But then I remind myself of the other side of the coin. A lot of times on weekends or school vacation days when I sleep until 8, I feel stressed and frazzled for at least the next four hours, trying to make up for it. If there’s someplace I need to be in the morning (and more often than not there is, between church on Sundays and the usual social or other commitments on Saturdays), I’m usually running late for it because I indulged in extra sleep. I burden myself with the mental stress of rushing, or leaving the house messier than I’d like, or omitting an important-but-nonessential morning task like walking the dog.
I was already thinking about this resolution at the very end of December when I visited a cousin who just moved to a house on the beach. She told me about her new ritual: running along the water’s edge before sunrise every morning. She leaves the house at 6 AM to do this. And I realized that if I can’t overcome my late-sleeping tendencies, I might never have the experience of running by the beach at sunrise, given that I live inland and if I ever wake near the beach, it is likely to be on a weekend or vacation day. And then, as if I needed an even more tangible omen, as I was taking a quick tour of her new beachside house I spotted on her bedside table a volume by the poet Mary Oliver entitled Why I Wake Early.
We had a lot to catch up on, so I did not stop then to ask her about the book, but later in the week I looked up the title poem myself. It opens like this:
Hello, sun in my face.
And ends, three stanzas later, like this:
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
I’ve heard that waking early is a typical symptom of aging, and I have to say it’s probably the only one I look forward to. In the meantime, I’ll continue to pursue my resolution. On January 1, since we’d been up well past midnight the night before, I didn’t even bother to try (this is perhaps one resolution that by definition should not kick in until January 2). On January 2, I failed dismally, waking at 7 and easily persuading myself that school vacation was almost over and surely I deserved one more morning of laziness, upon which I feel back asleep until 8. But on January 3, the last Sunday of the vacation, I was up at 7.
There are a lot of online articles around this time of year about how not to break resolutions, but unlike glassware, broken resolutions can fairly easily be fixed. I did poorly the first day of my campaign but did well the second, and hope that by writing about it here my success will continue. Night Guy will learn that no one is listening when he says an extra half-hour at the computer late at night won’t really hurt anything. And maybe by summer vacation, I’ll be ready for that 6 AM run on the beach.
“That’s not a good resolution for you,” Rick declared. “You should resolve to get more sleep, not get up earlier.”
He’s right that I do need more sleep. Like most mothers of school-aged (or younger) children, I work hard all day to maintain my household, my career and my family’s lives and then greedily hoard the late-night hours for those matters that require my undivided concentration. When dusk falls I always promise myself I’m going to get to bed at a reasonable hour, but once both children are asleep, the temptation to savor the silence rather than to sleep through it usually proves irresistible.
Jerry Seinfeld did a very true-to-life, at least true-to-my-life, monologue about “The Morning Guy” and “The Night Guy.” The Night Guy is the hedonist, always insisting that those few more hours of waking time won’t really hurt anything. The Morning Guy is the working stiff always faced with the reality that it’s really hard to get up after five or six hours of sleep, and Morning Guy makes impassioned speeches to Night Guy about being more reasonable and more considerate in the future, about acknowledging that it’s Morning Guy who will have to pay for Night Guy’s bad choices. But Night Guy laughs it off once evening comes again, insisting that (at least in my case) the relief of having finished an assignment, or the rush of triumph I get after coming up with a new story idea, or even the warm glow of conviviality from an enjoyable email exchange with a friend, will more than compensate for the early morning exhaustion.
But I’m always wrong, of course, and feel lousy after six hours of sleep even if I wake with the knowledge that staying up late the night before allowed me to turn in a story on time or craft a seemingly brilliant first draft of an essay. Or relay to a friend a hilarious story about the kids.
Nonetheless, getting to bed earlier isn’t the focus of my resolution, though it may be the necessary corollary; getting up earlier is. On weekdays I need to arise only about five more minutes than I normally do in order to keep everything running smoothly, and that shouldn’t be too hard to pull off; it’s weekends and other non-school days toward which this resolution is really targeted. I know there are beautiful early-morning hours in which I could be writing, exercising or just enjoying the solitude – indeed, the same solitude that I often stay up until nearly midnight to exalt in – but I am instead sleeping through them. I remind myself of that old faithful rule of thumb that habits take three weeks to instill, and if I could just get over the pain of those first three weeks, the payoff would be indisputable: I’d be an early morning person, greeting the dawn, and two hours later greeting my waking family with the smug awareness that I’d already accomplished precious minutes of creativity, or meditation, or something else important. (Of course, since this resolution really pertains only to weekends, three weeks could take me almost four months to accrue, but I’ll try not to think along those self-defeating lines right now.)
The obstacle is that it’s just so easy for me to justify my submission to the urge to sleep late. I tell myself it’s one of the only self-indulgences that costs neither money nor calories. It harms no one – even sleeping until 8 on weekends, I’m still up as the rest of my family is waking – and it gives me so much immediate pleasure. I also remind myself of the years with babies and young children when sleeping late was almost never an option, and how much I craved it then, and how reasonable it therefore is to give in to this small luxury now.
But then I remind myself of the other side of the coin. A lot of times on weekends or school vacation days when I sleep until 8, I feel stressed and frazzled for at least the next four hours, trying to make up for it. If there’s someplace I need to be in the morning (and more often than not there is, between church on Sundays and the usual social or other commitments on Saturdays), I’m usually running late for it because I indulged in extra sleep. I burden myself with the mental stress of rushing, or leaving the house messier than I’d like, or omitting an important-but-nonessential morning task like walking the dog.
I was already thinking about this resolution at the very end of December when I visited a cousin who just moved to a house on the beach. She told me about her new ritual: running along the water’s edge before sunrise every morning. She leaves the house at 6 AM to do this. And I realized that if I can’t overcome my late-sleeping tendencies, I might never have the experience of running by the beach at sunrise, given that I live inland and if I ever wake near the beach, it is likely to be on a weekend or vacation day. And then, as if I needed an even more tangible omen, as I was taking a quick tour of her new beachside house I spotted on her bedside table a volume by the poet Mary Oliver entitled Why I Wake Early.
We had a lot to catch up on, so I did not stop then to ask her about the book, but later in the week I looked up the title poem myself. It opens like this:
Hello, sun in my face.
And ends, three stanzas later, like this:
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
I’ve heard that waking early is a typical symptom of aging, and I have to say it’s probably the only one I look forward to. In the meantime, I’ll continue to pursue my resolution. On January 1, since we’d been up well past midnight the night before, I didn’t even bother to try (this is perhaps one resolution that by definition should not kick in until January 2). On January 2, I failed dismally, waking at 7 and easily persuading myself that school vacation was almost over and surely I deserved one more morning of laziness, upon which I feel back asleep until 8. But on January 3, the last Sunday of the vacation, I was up at 7.
There are a lot of online articles around this time of year about how not to break resolutions, but unlike glassware, broken resolutions can fairly easily be fixed. I did poorly the first day of my campaign but did well the second, and hope that by writing about it here my success will continue. Night Guy will learn that no one is listening when he says an extra half-hour at the computer late at night won’t really hurt anything. And maybe by summer vacation, I’ll be ready for that 6 AM run on the beach.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)