Quote of the Day - 03/26/2012

We had no external limitations, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence. We created our own links with the world, and freedom was the very essence of our existence. - Simone De Beauvoir in The Prime of Life: The Autobiography of Simone De Beauvoir

~~~~~

Have you had a period of your life like the quote describes? The absolute of ‘no’ - ‘no external limitation, no overriding authority, no imposed pattern of existence’ - is what gives me pause. It is more interesting to think about a continuum:

Where are you right now on the continuum? Where have you been at other times in your life? Is there a correlation with age or financial security or relationships?

Often it is our interpretation of external limitations, overriding authority, and imposed pattern of existence that is more critical than anything that can be measured exactly. If the pattern of existence imposed is what we want to do anyway, is it counter to our concept of ‘freedom?’

Blue Tulip Glassware

I’ve had my Blue Tulip Glassware for a little over a month now. It appealed to me when I first saw it back in December and my appreciation of it continues to grow because its appeal has so many perspectives.

It is beautiful. The blue color of the glass depends on the lighting - all the way from turquoise to a pale Copenhagen blue. The smooth parts are tulip shaped but the nobs often give the impression of sunflowers; at first I thought the pattern was ‘sunflower’ and, based on some questions I noticed on some web sites, others may have made the same mistake. I started a project to photograph the sugar (a cup with two handles) 100 times; 10 of the best images are below.

It has history. Blue Tulip is Depression Glass. It was manufactured by the Dell Glass Company in the 1930s and 1940s. Most of the pieces that I have now were a wedding present given to an Oklahoma couple in the 30s. The set was purchased from the widow many years later by a couple that has known me all my life as they added to their collection of Depression Glass. They added some pieces they found at other places as well. When I visited them last December they commented that they were thinking about selling some of their collection and I offered to buy all the Blue Tulip. They gave me an excellent price for the antiques and it arrived in a big professionally packed glassware box in early March. Sometimes I think the glass is infused with all the happiness around it for the past 70+ years and somehow it rejected any unhappiness; it always seems to speak of home and long term relationships (both general and specific).

It encourages smaller portion sizes. The sherbet cups are a good size for ice cream or custard….any dessert served in a bowl. My husband and I have started using them frequently. The small plates are smaller too; a single muffin fits better than two. The dinner plates are the normal size but I find that the pattern encourages me to put less on the plate - so I can still see the pattern.

It fits the spring and summer season. I love the coolness of the blue color in spring and am anticipating I will like it even more during the summer.

Quote of the Day - 03/24/2012

A cat’s skin is a bigger envelope than is necessary to hold the flesh and bones inside it. - Muriel Beadle in The Cat: History, Biology, and Behavior

~~~~~

Cats have a grace and fluidity to them all the time and part of it might be that their skin is not stretched so tightly over ‘the flesh and bones inside’ as our skin is. Even when they contort themselves, their skin does not seem stretched. My first cat was one that had longer hair which made this observation difficult but now I have a short haired cat - and it is pretty easy to see. The cat’s skin is like a baggy coat.

Now for  a positive thought of the day about what happens to us as we grow older - think of the wrinkles and sags of aging as our skin becoming more cat-like - ‘a bigger envelope than necessary to hold the flesh and bones inside it.’ Are there other ways you want to be like a cat? I want to 

• Walk at my own speed even though someone is trying to rush me
• Be totally comfortable when I still
• Focus intently on what is happening around me (even if I am stealthy about it)
• Go to sleep easily

Quote of the Day - 03/23/2012

One of the truest pleasures of marriage is solitude. Also the most deeply reassuring. I continued to do my own job…she hers. - John Bayley in Elegy for Iris

~~~~~

I’ve been married for close to 40 years and I find that Bayley’s observation is true for me. It is the ‘alone but not too alone’ aspect of marriage. It is such a pleasure to have solitude without loneliness. These days my husband and I are often in the house together but doing separate activities. We come together periodically for meals or a project…or just because we need some interaction. Neither of us feels obligated to interact more or differently; we are well tuned to each other.

Is this true for all marriages that have been sustained over a long time? Does it make a difference if one or both people are introverts?

Sewing Skills?

In the first years of my marriage, I economized by sewing most of my own clothes and making quite a few shirts for my husband as well. It was an activity that made sense economically and was also a useful hobby – something I did while my husband indulged his photography hobby by printing photos or watched football.

Fast forward over 30 years - It is not possible to save money through sewing whole garments. The fabric stores now run to crafts like quilting rather than dressmaking and there are not as many of them. Fabrics, patterns, and notions are expensive. The turning away from sewing happened rather suddenly for me when I required suits for work and became overwhelming busy with obligations that had a higher priority. I’ve only recently cleaned out the drawers of supplies – fabrics, buttons, zippers, bias table, and interfacing. I kept the thread although I doubt I will ever use much of it. The sewing machine is still stashed in a closet somewhere. If I ever move to another house, it may get donated before the move.

So – is there any value from that experience from years ago…something that should still be taught as a ‘life skill’ to children and grandchildren? Maybe – but I think it’s the parts that don’t require a sewing machine. All of them have to do with altering or mending clothes already made. A trip to the local cleaners could accomplish the same thing (with an associate cost) and would be more time consuming than simply doing the job yourself. So – here is my list of still-useful skills from my sewing days:

• Putting in a hem. I’ve done this several times recently on pants that were slightly too long for me and on machined hems that have come out with one pull of a thread.
• Sewing on a button that has come loose or off
• Darning up a hole in a favorite sweater (that I can’t bear to throw away)
• Patching a ripped knee or covering a logo with an iron on patch then embroidering around the edges

I avoid more extreme alterations by simply buying clothes that already fit since I’ve had the experience of alterations costing more than the dress!

Quote of the Day - 03/19/2012

The process of improvisation that goes into composing a life is compounded in the process of remembering a life, like a patchwork quilt in a watercolor painting, rumpled and evocative. - Mary Catherine Bateson in Composing a Life

~~~~~

Are you satisfied with the way you are ‘composing’ our life? Is there enough ‘improvisation’ to be ‘compounded’? How vibrant is your ‘patchwork quilt’?

Mary Catherine Bateson has a gift for words that draw out positive associations. ‘Composing’ implies some amount of control and the application of our own creativity. It requires some planning for the future but is honed to action; the living of life always is in the present. But then there is the remembering that compounds everything; the older we are the more there is to remember. That doesn’t necessarily that we spend more time savoring the past than in living the present; it may be that we simply evoke everything we have been before into the way we are now and into our remaining days.

Springtime is a good time to make changes - to be like the opening blooms on spring flowers and ‘compose’ something new (or refreshed) aspect of our life.

Quote of the Day - 03/16/2012

Illusions are perhaps as countless as relationships between people, or between people and things. - Charles Baudelaire in The Parisian Prowler: Le spleen de Paris: petits poe`mes en prose

~~~~~

The quote today is from a book about 1850s Paris…but applies far beyond that time and place…maybe it is a universal.

Our day to day assumption is that we thoroughly understand our reality but there are so many things that don’t neatly fit our understanding. The reality we understand is only our perspective and even that can change over time. There is no absolute reality. So - we need to internalize the idea from this quote - that ‘illusions are perhaps as countless as relationships’ and be resilient enough to accommodate even those dynamic illusions into our perception of reality.

Some people do this quite naturally. They are the ones we say have good ‘people sense’ or ‘people skills’ - somehow they see perspectives of others more keenly and the actions they take reflect it. Others have to make a conscious effort to seek the perspective of others. Some find it very difficult to the see another’s perspective at all.

Today - think about the relationships important to you and how you are responding to the ‘illusions’ in them.

Summer Wardrobe Planning

We’ve had a few warm days --- and I am looking through clothes to decide if I have what I need for summer. Have you done your summer wardrobe check yet?

Shoes. I quickly realize that the flip flops and sandals I bought near the end of the season last year are still in almost-new condition…so new shoes are not necessary.

Capris/shorts. Last year I enjoyed capris more than shorts. There are more of them in the pile than I remember having…so no purchases needed.

Slacks/jeans. I don’t wear slacks and jeans much in the summer. I do have a pair of linen-like slacks that would be my top choice for summer wear; they should probably stay hanging in the closet year round. Maybe I’ll keep one pair of jeans out as well.

Skirts. I’ve been collecting more of them over the past few years. When it is really hot - they are always my favorite. There are enough skirts.

T-shirts. I have too many. Since I don’t wear them all the time, they tend to last a long time. Some of them are 20 years old! This year I need to focus on wearing T-shirts for working outdoors (with sunscreen to keep my arms and neck from burning) rather than just whatever top I have on at the time.

Tops. I prefer cap or short sleeves to sleeveless and have been collecting some I really like over the past few years. I have some long sleeved big shirts to wear over everything if I’m going to be out in the sun and/or wearing my photo-vest and need fabric between the vest and the back of my neck. Go anywhere tops may be the one area of my wardrobe that needs shoring up a bit for summer.

Swimsuit. It still fits and will work for the few times I need it this summer.

Overall I am in reasonably good shape for summer except for tops. I’m going to make some stops at the local thrift store between now and when it gets really hot!

Quote of the Day - 03/14/2012

To have and bring up kids is to be as immersed in life as one can be, but it does not always follow that one drowns.  A lot of us can swim. – Ursula K. Le Guin as quotes in Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori and Anthea Barron (editors) in Creators on Creating: Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind (New Consciousness Reader)

~~~~~

I really like this quote. The observation about having children and full immersion in life is apt…as is the idea that a lot of us either already know how to swim or discover how to do it before swallowing too much! Motherhood requires the sustained involvement from the whole of ourselves - physically and mentally - perhaps to a greater extent than anything else we will do in our lives.

Recognizing this does not mean that we don’t do other things at the same time. The life we want for ourselves is made from dynamic components, of which motherhood is one. These components enrich each other but can be challenging to blend together without undue friction. Have you thought about the proverb ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ linking the idea of motherhood with creativity? It’s all part of the ‘swim’ that we do!

My experience has been that motherhood has a core that is focused on the needs of the relationship to my daughter and tendrils that extend to every other facet of my life. Those tendrils are overwhelmingly positive - at work, within the community, with my extended family. The ‘immersed in life’ aspect forced me to understand more clearly the meaning of my life as a whole.

Even while focusing on the day to day aspects of children - the hope and optimism about the future is wrapped up in them too; from that perspective, being a mother is one of the most strategic things we do. What else has such long term impact directly on our life and has as high probability of extending past our lifetime?

Yes - children and being ‘immersed in life’ go hand in hand….here’s to enjoying the swim!

Ideal Mother

The story of the Indiana mother that saved her two children as her house collapsed around them from tornado winds has prompted me to think about the qualities that an ideal mother has.

1. Does whatever is needed to keep her children safe
2. Makes sure they are well feed (quantity and quality of food appropriate for their healthy growth and development)
3. Holds them when they need to be held
4. Knows when to let them decide or do it themselves
5. Supports their intellectual development by enabling them to satisfy their natural curiosity and presenting them with opportunities to expand their understanding of the world
6. Encourages increasing independence
7. Seeks medical or other expertise as needed
8. Emphasizes the importance of school and other preparation for adult life
9. Adapts to the individual needs of the child
10. Provides for basic physical needs like housing and clothing

This is not a complete list; it is just the first 10 things I thought of.  My perception is that almost every mother has the natural inclination to strive for the ideal and most of us have a very similar concept of what the ideal is although our ability to actually do it varies widely. Part of the ideal is probably instinctual - part of our human heritage. In the end, we want our children to become healthy and productive young adults and shift our parenthood focus more toward the friendship end of the spectrum of motherhood.

Isn’t it wonderful that in today’s world, there is a strong likelihood that we’ll know them for more years as adults than as children?

Quote of the Day - 2/28/2012

I live the history that I can tell.  And of course the history today in books that’s written a lot is not really the true thing, as it was lived. – May Wing as quoted by Susan Armitage and Elizabeth Jameson in The Women's West

~~~~~

Most of us probably start out thinking ‘history is history’ and we learn whatever is required for the test. But later we realize that history is quite complex and reflects the perspective of its author(s). One good analogy is that in most cases, history is a thread, rather than the woven cloth, of the past. Eventually we may construct a cloth but it is still loosely woven and rather forlorn compared to real life.

Of course, individuals have their own field of view and even living through important events of their time provides as single viewpoint of the event. A life is more than a linear series of events.

The passage of time is sometimes helpful to the extent that the threads having the greatest impact on the present can be traced back. Even then - the perspective of the person doing the track back influences selection.

Older pioneer women have often expressed the sentiment that ‘a lot is not really the true thing, as it was lived’ and some of their stories have been captured. Those efforts have enriched the historical ‘cloth’ for that time period but also made me more cognizant of how narrow the perspective is in traditional history.

Fifty years from now will the challenge not be a lack of perspective of this time but the tangle of threads - a myriad of perspectives…that won’t fit neatly into a woven cloth of history at all.

Quote of the Day - 2/27/2012

The significant fact about women in fiction as in life, is that after youth and childbearing are past, they have no plot, there is no story to be told about them. – Carolyn Heilbrun as quotes by Terri Apter in Secret Paths: Women in the New Midlife

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Really? It certainly seems to be a frequent perspective in popular media…that doesn’t make it a ‘fact’ though. Does this reflect what is going on in society or simply turning a blind eye? It seems largely out of step with the trends in the past 40 years. With the baby boomer women becoming part of the ‘after youth and childbearing’ set, they are a demographic that will have financial and emotional clout for years to come.

It bothers me to think that any major life segment would be such that ‘there is no story to be told about them.’ For many women, the ‘after youth and childbearing’ stage of their life may be over 40 years! The women I know in this phase are doing so many things….there are new stories that they tell on themselves and others every time I see them. They are matriarchs…enjoying the plot and story of their lives.

Quote of the Day - 2/24/2012

You don’t have to be beautiful; you just have to walk as if you were. - Sherry Conway Appel in From Mother to Daughter: Advice and Lessons for a Good Life

~~~~~

Your walk is the way you are most often moving through the world…it says a lot about you. As Sherry Conway points out…you don’t have to be - ‘you just have to walk as if you were.’

Do some people watching to confirm the notion for yourself? 

• What do you think when you see a person walking with their eyes firmly on the ground in front of them or someone that shuffles their feet?
• Pick a person that has a confident walk. If you saw a still picture of them, would you have the same impression?
• Alternatively - have you ever seen a picture of someone then met them later and found your first impression of them from the picture at odds with your second impression?

So - whatever you want to be - ‘Walk as if you were’ is very sound advice.

Quote of the Day - 2/16/2012

Many of us would just as soon have our choices made for us but the heroine, when at a juncture, makes her own choice. - Joan Anderson in A Year by the Sea

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When there is a choice that is truly important to us - either for right now or for our future - we should make our own choice. The challenge is recognizing when a choice is truly important. Maybe it isn’t too hard to make the determination if the impact of the choice will happen right away or in the near term. It’s the choices that are more strategic - have an impact months or years away - that are hard to always recognize. The best approach may be to always participate in choices (rather than abdicating) so that the results are still our own too. Only children are allowed to not be fully responsible for their selves.

Remember the old notion of a ‘grown up?’ The implication was that a ‘grown up’ was someone that was not growing/changing in contrast to children that were doing both. While I do know a lot of people that are trying hard not to grow larger, I don’t know anyone that is not changing. Change happens to us all even if we do nothing. Many people have discovered that change and continued learning is just the way they want to live. And that brings us back to the idea of the quote “when at a juncture, makes her own choice.”

Lessons About Work/Life Issues I Learned from My Grandmother

In honor of a grandmother than would have been 105 years old this month….. 

My grandmother ran the family mill/feed store while I was growing up in the 60s. She had assumed the role after the last of her 9 children started school. The feed store office where she worked accommodated young visitors and I enjoyed at least one day with her every time we visited my grandparents. She was probably the only professional woman that I observed both while she worked and at home during that time period. Here are some things I learned from her: 

• Blend (rather than balance) activities as often as you can. She enjoyed having a grandchild with her at work. The scales for trucks and bags of feed were opportunities for practical learning. There always seemed to be something going on. Sometimes it was just being together and quiet: I read and she continued writing her letter to a faraway daughter. She would get an extra case or two of ‘soda pop’ when the truck came to deliver to the vending machine…and take it home for a family gathering. She brought seeds for vegetables home and delighted in my grandfather’s garden experiments.
• Let people know you have high expectations of them. For grandmother - ‘people’ included children as well as adults. It didn’t take being around her very long to understand the boundaries of acceptable behavior and a very strong desire to live up to her expectations.
• Speak with confidence – reflect the authority you have. She very seldom raised her voice. She assumed that people would do what she told them to do; it worked for children and the people that worked for her. In retrospect, she was a very good ‘situational’ leader; there were times she gave very detailed instructions and other times minimal information - she honed her requests for the individual and her judgment of their abilities was very finely tuned.
• Use the best tool for the task. She actually articulated this axiom in the context of food preparation but she applied it everywhere….and she was constantly looking for new and better tools. If she were alive today, she would be using email rather than snail mail and maybe she’d have created a family social network online.
• Ask for assistance. She knew when to ask for help although most of the time she received assistance before she even asked. She never lifted the sacks of feed herself - sometimes she had to ask one of the men to come from the mill to load up for a customer but most of the time they just appeared to do the job. She told a story on herself about an experience in an airport on the way to Alaska. Evidently she didn’t know exactly where her next gate was and, being unfamiliar with the airport, stopped to read a sign more carefully. Within seconds, someone stopped and asked her if she needed assistance. They probably saw this small lady (just over 5 feet) with white hair staring at the sign…and concluded she needed help. She probably smiled at them and accepted their assistance gratefully even though she was seconds away from figuring it out herself.
• Wear comfortable shoes/clothes. Look professional. The mill/feedstore was not air conditioned and it gets pretty hot in the Oklahoma summer. Grandmother wore light weight, pastel shirtwaist dresses she made for herself (so they fit perfectly) with sandals. She always looked comfortable; she also looked like she owned the place --- which was true.
• Eat wisely. She always took her lunch to the mill - mostly ‘rabbit food’ - and stored the part that needed to be kept cool in a cubby hole in the ‘soda pop’ vending machine that she had discovered. At home, when there were large family gatherings and lots of food, she was always the one that was most choosy about what she ate. She liked a wide variety of food but she was very conscious of the way she needed to eat to feel satisfied and stay about the same weight.

Sometimes we think of our world changing so rapidly that nothing stays relevant for very long. When I make a list like this it helps me realize that my fundamental approach to life may not need to change; it’s the things around the edges that are changing. It’s OK for those edges to be volatile…in fact - I enjoy that kind of challenge.

Note: The dogwood picture reminds me of when my grandmother visited me after I moved to the east coast in the mid-80s. We sat on the patio for a picnic lunch while the dogwood petals wafted down around us.  

The Luxuries in Life

What is your unique perception of luxury? Suspend the outside influences on your perception (and there are a lot of them so this can take some effort).

When I did this for myself recently – I was surprised that the luxuries of my life are plentiful and often easily achieved. Here’s my list: 

1. Seeing a beautiful sunrise or sunset and not having to rushing off to some other activity (picture at right is a rainbow at sunset)
2. Confident enough of food availability to not eat excessively – ever
3. Dark chocolate for breakfast
4. Visiting my daughter on my birthday
5. Hot tea on a cold day
6. Having time to celebrate or grieve rather than soldiering on bravely
7. Spending the majority of my day on things I choose
8. A new computer that is working exactly the way I want it to
9. Beauty and function in the same object like the leaf coaster I have in my office (picture on right)
10. Naturally long fingernails  

Analyzing my list of 10, I discovered some themes: 

• Food (2, 3, 5)
• Relationships (4, 6)
• Visual beauty (1, 9, 10)
• Choices (7,8) 

Recognizing and acknowledging the luxury in life is closely linked to feelings of thankfulness and happiness for me. Maybe this exercise of taking a snapshot of luxuries is worth doing more often!

Quote of the Day - 1/18/2012

Freedom is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. - Viktor E. Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning

~~~~~

The quote today was written by a concentration camp survivor. The book was originally published in the 1950s. It provides historical examples from that time period but the conclusions are still very relevant today.

Here are some tangents my thoughts took:

• The connotation for freedom is overwhelmingly positive, whereas anarchy is scary. Is it because we associate responsibleness with freedom but not with anarchy?
• Law and regulations bound freedoms in modern society. Aren’t they in place to define responsible behavior? What if the bounds themselves seem arbitrary? What if they trend toward benefiting the few at the expense of the many?
• Do we assume that everyone has a similar understanding of responsible behavior and - therefore - there is no need to overtly talk about it as much as we talk about our desire for freedom?

Quote of the Day - 1/8/2012

When we were young, we thought we’d build a house

And happiness would happen in. By middle age, we’d feel

Secure, propped by old loves, certainties. All we’ve learned,

And that with luck, is to invent ourselves each day.

Nadya Aisenberg in Leaving Eden: Poems  (1995)

~~~~~

Have you reached the realization that “All we’ve learned is to invent ourselves each day?” As children we knew it and, unburdened by a lot of remembered experience, just did it. It is something we rediscover at different points in our lives; it is a positive response in times of transition or change.

Part of growing up included the invention of expectations of what would make us happy. They focused our early adult lives. Sometimes that focus was about a career or a relationship or the accumulation of things. Having enough money almost always was a component. We figured that happiness would be the result.

For me - the life expectations invented in my teen years included college, career, and marriage. The momentum carried me through my mid-20s with almost no tweaking. I was happy during that period but still believed ‘happiness would happen in’ because that was what my experience seemed to be. Then I decided to change plans for graduate school and focus more on career; it was a significant shift in thinking of life goals from academic/theoretical to business/tactical…one of those inflection points of life. Again life proceeded with that focus for years and happiness still seemed to ‘happen in.’ At some point along the line, I began to realize that my tendency toward optimism and trust made it easy for me to be happy. Happiness did not ‘happen in’ because others could view the same situation and not be happy. It was my choice to respond with happiness in the present rather than regretting something in the past or being so focused on the future to not enjoy the now.

As we truly mature we realize that happiness is not something that just happens accidently. In this case I mean something different than physical maturity. Maturity is the knowledge, and sometimes wisdom, that individuals achieve easily in their 20s or beyond while others never quite achieve. This kind of maturity is not tightly linked to an individual’s age. It can be linked to parenthood because that situation often prompts heighted caring for someone outside of ourselves (a child) and that motivates us to be better people than we were before. The key is to realize that our response to our life’s situation is what is important. Whether or not you are happy is your choice; it cannot be provided by someone else.

Happiness is the response we choose to the daily invention of our lives.

What is Excellence?

The word ‘excellence’ is so overused that it has taken on a glitz that it didn’t have 20 years ago. It implies over to top quality…lots of high gloss polish…best of the best.

Is that really it?

I’d rather think about excellence as being:

Exactly fitting a need or creating a whole new way of achieving something…

Without waste…

Aesthetically pleasing…

Non-toxic now and in the future…

Durable…

Relationship building or sustaining.

How do you define excellence?

Quote of the Day - 1/1/2012

There were two kinds of ambition. The wrong kind seeks power for the sake of power. The right kind of ambition for the power to accomplish any duty, no matter how hard or heavy it proves to be, for the sake of one’s country and for what one believes to be right. - Mignon Eberhart in Run Scared.

~~~~~

Ambition and purpose….the drive behind the actions we take to guide our life. Philosophically we associate the desire for control with integrity and high moral standards too. That is the positive side of ambition and counselors/mentors often encourage us to develop a driving ambition and purpose rather than drifting through life, accepting what comes along.

But - as the quote from Mignon Eberhart points out, you can do all those things and still have the negative result of being drawn to power without the underpinning of integrity and a sound moral compass.

As we begin 2012 and are thinking of the goals we are setting for ourselves, let’s keep in mind that ambition needs integrity and morality to be a healthy part of 2012 plans.