Tag: ultimate optimism

Crazy, Magical Life

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Welcome, friends, to this grand adventure we call “life.” Come as you are—we are not formal here, at least not much of the time.

Here in life, you may be anything you wish to be—within reason, of course. You cannot be a unicorn for the simple reason that unicorns don’t exist within the realm of real. Also, you cannot be younger, though I haven’t quite figured out why on that one. Younger exists in reality, though I suppose that negates the statement, “Come as you are,” so perhaps that has something to do with it.

You can be a dreamer. An innovator. A creative. In fact, those types of individuals thrive around here, especially in pandemic life when we’re kinda making things up as we go. The innovators will discover ways to keep busy in the most challenging times. If you would like to be a plumber, you can do that. A teacher is a noble choice. A philanthropist, an accountant, a millionaire… all are within your grasp. If you put your mind to it, and you are willing to do the necessary hard work and persevere through the tough times and the setbacks, you truly can be anything you want to be (well… except for a unicorn).

You will have adventures here in life. Some may be amazing, planned adventures based in travel or exploring or taking risks. Other adventures may be unexpected and threaten to derail you from the path you are traveling. Each of these adventures has many lessons to teach if you are open to learning. Life’s lessons can be hard but internalizing them will allow you to move forward freely and more informed for the next adventure. Or mis-adventure, as the case may be. Always keep in mind that difficult roads often lead to beautiful places.

Welcome to this crazy world where things seldom go as planned—sometimes for long stretches at a time. But there are always other people here to share your experiences and help you through. To celebrate your joys, and to help you bear your heartache.

So come as you are to this crazy world. The people make it all worthwhile. The love, the joy, the laughter, and even the tears. These things are precious. And even if there are no unicorns, life can still be magical beyond measure.

{Photo by Pierre Châtel-Innocenti on Unsplash}

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Hope and Possibility

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The past year has been one of sorting old photos. I have been through many years of photos, revisiting memories of times gone by, discovering images once captured but long forgotten. Occasionally, I am struck by people I barely remember, events I don’t recall attending, and images of the girl I once was.

Years back, I had taken a large box of photos from my mother’s home with the intention of preserving them in some way. Mom had (somewhat) organized them by year, but they remained in a cardboard box, untouched and seldom seen. The years (decades really) had not been kind—they were deteriorating, fading and discoloring where they had been in contact with the cardboard. When I initially took them, I had moved them into a photo-friendly storage container. This year of lockdown and isolation seemed the perfect time to examine and sort and scan as many photos as I could.

While I was scanning, I found several pictures that made me reflect on the girl I was a long time ago. These pictures hinted at the carefree nature and silliness I had when I was young, back before life came in and swept all the glitter from between the floorboards and blew the magic out the window. Life has a way of doing that, you know. Through carefully examining the girl in these pictures, I began to reevaluate who I was and who I am.

This girl in this time—there is much I can learn from her. The possibility she had for the future was nearly infinite. Silly was an option for her. Fun was a choice. She was lighter before she had the responsibilities of adulthood.

This girl—she hasn’t completely disappeared, but she doesn’t command the room in the same way. My children, they have learned much from this girl. Photo after photo of them fooling around and refusing to be serious—perhaps this is a familial trait or perhaps it is the prevailing attitude of youth. Does it need to go away? Is the world really so heavy that it crushes the fun from us?

“Who you become is infinitely more important than what you do or what you have.” This girl in the pictures, she was still becoming, though I don’t think we are ever truly finished with that process—we merely lose sight of it.

Adulthood may have stripped the carefree from this girl, but I am going to work on reclaiming at least some of that part of my younger self. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to become the girl of so many years ago—I have already been her. I want to recapture the energy and hope with which that girl approached life. I want to reframe my choices and reorder my priorities to move some of the heavy out the door.

And I’m going to start leaving the windows of possibility open, and maybe some of the magic and glitter of youth will blow right on back in to my life.

{Photo by Alistair MacRobert on Unsplash}

Loss

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Sometimes, I see something strange or out of place, and I am overcome with an inexplicable sadness. On Friday, I was out for my quick walk-before-work. A crispness has begun to creep into the air here in New Hampshire, and the cool morning temperatures are bittersweet. The close-to-home summer is coming to an end, and the leaves are beginning to turn color. The impending winter will bring more unknown to the year of the pandemic.

As I strode by the dumpster in my condo complex, I spotted a nearly new red tricycle abandoned near the fence. I felt an immediate ping of sadness. I recognized this tricycle, and in my mind, I could picture the joy on the face of the young rider. The previous evening, as I pulled onto my street after work, this tricycle was being enjoyed to the fullest. My young neighbor was speeding around our circle, laughing and giggling as his father and an older neighbor boy stood watch. Until dark, they stayed outside, talking, laughing, and engaging with each other and their neighbors in a way I hadn’t seen them do all summer.

Now, this tricycle was placed here for someone else to take, to use, and to love—a gift for another child. There is no doubt the next owner will make his or her own memories on this trike, speeding away from his or her parents and laughing all the while. The former owner and his family, off to new adventures thousands of miles away, crammed as much stuff as they could into a moving van and their two cars, but just couldn’t fit everything.

The sadness I am feeling is a sadness of loss—loss of innocence in the case of this toy. But increasingly in society, there are deep losses that affect all of humanity. Sure, there is the loss of the ability to navigate the world without consideration for virus and illness and germs, but we’re all figuring that out as we go. The losses that are hitting me the hardest are the loss of kindness, the loss of compassion, and the loss of humanity. These losses… they strike at the core of who we are as a people. They stand in the way of our ability to get along, to come together as a community, and to make the world a better place.

In this moment, the tricycle is symbolic of the all the things we’ve lost, and I wonder if we’ll ever be able to regain some of our childlike nature. We need to re-learn how to get along with people—a lesson from our very early days when we learned to share and take turns. Someday, I hope we can go back to approaching other people with curiosity rather than fear. With love rather than hate. And with joy rather than anger. I hope we can give other people—friend and stranger alike—the dignity and respect each of us deserves. Then, and only then, will we truly be able to live in harmony.

Change (and a bit of Creative Reframing)

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This morning, I woke up with Billy Joel’s “I’ve loved these days” stuck in my head. Why this song? I have not heard this song in years, and yet, there it was, going round and round in my head. So… I started to think about it.

Now, there are a lot of things that I don’t like about these days: the loneliness, the fact that I can’t see my students, the monotony of the same few rooms that keep me confined. But truth be told, it’s comfortable here, and if I look at things in the right light, there are blessings in this situation.

Since I’ve been working from home, I am not up at 5:30 in the morning to see my son out the door. Nope. These days, I’m often up at 7:00, but I can get up as late as 8:30 and slide into work with slightly damp hair—coffee in one hand and toast in the other—by a 9:00 meeting. I can wear jeans and slippers and wrap in a blanket when I am cold. Better yet, if my “office” is cold, I can bake a batch of muffins to warm things up a bit. When I need to clear my head, I step out into the fresh air and go for a walk. I don’t have to plan ahead if I want lunch.

When I am outside, I see more families spending time together. Because the weather is beginning to warm up, children are out riding bikes, and parents often accompany them, either on bikes or maybe walking the dog.

In the space of only three weeks, there have so been many changes, but they haven’t all been bad. Our space may have grown smaller, but the pace of life is noticeably slower. People are more patient and understanding. “Oh, it’s fine that you didn’t get that done. We are all trying to figure this out.” And despite our distance, people are coming together more. They are organizing drives to help others, checking on their neighbors, and offering a helping hand.

When things eventually go back to “normal,” I will try to remember what I’ve loved about these days. I really hope some of these changes stick around. The challenges of a global emergency might just make us better people.

{Photo by Kylo on Unsplash}

Nothing

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Nothing. That is where I am. Still. After weeks of struggling with nothing, I am still at nothing. No ideas. No motivation. No creativity. N-O-T-H-I-N-G.

So… I have decided to go out and steal some ideas. I’m going to go and listen in on other people’s conversations. I’m going to use their ideas to jump-start my writing. Maybe, if I’m feeling particularly persnickety, I will interrupt their dialogue—jump in and try to redirect their ideas. I might even mess with them just a bit to see if I can incite a heated debate or two. You know what might be fun? I could follow someone around the grocery store while they carry on a phone conversation. I could keep reaching in front of them to collect items from my list, and since I am there, I might offer them advice to deal with the person to whom they are talking!

I am going to engage in some random acts of mischief. Maybe I’ll swap some price placards at the grocery store (those things are so easy to change out!) or leave messages on chalkboards in random classrooms: Today’s class has been moved to room 302. I could walk around in a Halloween mask, or—if I’m really feeling daring—flip the arrows on construction detours. (This last idea would be best carried out under cover of darkness…).

I am going to pretend to occupy myself with some intensely secret projects. These projects will involve all kinds of crazy equipment and supplies, none of which will be related in any conceivable fashion. But I will collect everything I “need” in a massive pile on my front lawn, all the while touting my “top secret endeavor.” Or maybe I’ll just dig a six by six by three-foot hole in my front garden. That might make  my neighbors curious about what I was up to….

I am going to plant seeds of kindness. I am going to leave post-it notes with inspirational messages in places where their discovery will be a pleasant surprise—next to the toilet paper dispenser, inside the elevator door, on people’s car windows, and on the napkin dispensers in the dining hall. I am going to hold doors, offer words of encouragement, and hand out flowers on a street corner.

I am going to hold a wacky raffle and give away tickets for free. (How many people will write their names and emails on wacky raffle tickets for a stranger?) I will raffle off items from my home that I no longer need or want. This will be a much easier way to get rid of my clutter than selling it or hauling it away. And imagine what a pleasure it will be to email strangers and say, Hey, you’ve won this week’s wacky raffle!!

I am going to go out on a limb once a day for the next week and step out of my comfort zone. I am going to sit with a stranger who is crying or upset. I am going to talk to the children whose parents are consumed by their phones and not paying attention. I am going to offer a helping hand, a hug, or a kind word or bit of encouragement and hope that I can make someone’s day just a little brighter.

And maybe when I’m done with all of this, maybe … just maybe … ideas will start to flow. Because right now, I’ve got no ideas. Not even one. I’ve got nothing. But if you want a wacky raffle ticket, let me know. I’ve got those!

{Photo by Mark Eder on Unsplash}

Transformation

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I’ve been away for too long. I haven’t been hiding (well, not really…), but life grew chaotic and crazy, and I’ve kept myself super busy swimming upstream. Responsibilities piled on top of responsibilities, and for a while, I felt like the donkey that got stuck in the well.

Multi-layered family obligations coupled with increasing work commitments and the normal operations of everyday life were nearly overwhelming and threatened to pull me under. But then I stepped back and looked at the big picture. It wasn’t that these things—taken individually—were overwhelming; it was that they all hit at once. If I plotted out a careful path and schedule, I could actually see the proverbial “light at the end of the tunnel.” So I took a deep breath, put my head down, and went to work. And surprisingly, everything got done.

Outside my window, the world reflected my inner transformation. Slowly but surely, spring emerged—because March and April are magical like that. Where the winter world is cold and bare, warming temperatures coax new life out of the ground in green shoots and tender flowers. Year after year, nature draws on its own ability to make spring happen.

I worked hard, drawing on what was inside of me, and I got through, but more importantly, I experienced my own transformation. My hard work brought tender shoots of possibility and promise, creativity and innovation. Just like the donkey, all the dirt and obligations that were thrown at me became my stepping stones. I drew on them for strength until I was no longer stuck at the bottom of a well, but boldly stepping out into the world, newly empowered and ready for the next challenge.

Looking Ahead…

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At the end of year, I was going to write a wrap-up post, talking about all of the things I learned in 2018. But that didn’t happen. And then when we got to 2019, I was going to write a “looking forward” post, telling you all about the exciting steps I am taking toward self-improvement, life improvement, and blog improvement. But that didn’t happen, either. Because right after Christmas, a winter cold-virus caught me… and I have not had the energy to pry myself from the rut into which I fell in the last half of 2018.

The last half of 2018 was taken over by changing schedules, different demands, and shifting priorities. As I have mentioned once or twice, my blog suffered, but the lessons of the past months were well-learned. The biggest blogging lesson of 2018 is that creativity is fleeting. Like a flowering plant, creativity must be fed, watered, and cared for daily. With the proper nutrients, attention, temperature and light, a tended plant will grow and bloom and thrive. If it is not nurtured—constantly—it will wane and fizzle and wilt and die. The same is true of creativity.

But this is a new year and we are starting on a positive note. So for 2019, I will commit myself to once again uncovering and nurturing my creativity. I know it’s in there somewhere, and with a bit of attention, it will peek from its hiding place, step out into the open, and begin to grow. With a little daily writing attention, the ideas will start to flow once more, and the floodgates will open up.

Of course, daily writing is a challenge, especially with my schedule ramping up in the next few weeks. I’m hoping the experience of last year has helped me to recognize the importance of maintaining creativity, something that comes into play in so many parts of my life. But if I am writing regularly and nurturing my creativity, the freedom and ideas will scatter and spread like a fine mist permeating all aspects of my experience. Creativity will become a way of life and a way of thinking rather than an “extra” that requires its own attention.

As I look forward, deep into 2019, I am excited! I am approaching the year with a lean in attitude. With creativity and positivity, I can lean in to the experiences that come up. I can create new opportunities through the ideas and plans I put in place. And I can make 2019 a wonderful year of growth and development that will push me to be the best I can be.

Here are some steps I’m putting in place to help me expand myself and lean in to all that  2019 has to offer.

Daily

  • Set aside a few minutes of reflection time
  • List things I’m thankful for each day
  • Engage in (and share) exercises in creativity
  • Stretch myself to think (and act) outside the box (my normal box, that is)

Weekly

  • Plan one new experience
  • Keep a list of life possibilities (as if they have already happened)
  • Write about my journey

Monthly

  • Take one risk that “2018 me” would not take

What’s on your list for 2019?

{Photo credit: Gaelle Marcel on Unsplash}

Wonder

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The other day, I was on my way out to the car for work when I noticed that the azalea bush at the bottom of my front steps had little pink buds on it.

Let me backtrack for a moment. When I say “azalea bush,” I am exaggerating just a bit. When I first moved here in 2004, there was an azalea bush there. Over the years, it was overtaken by some unexplained rot/mold/disease, and each spring, it appeared to be closer and closer to the doom of nonexistence. One year, when the condo association landscapers came to prune the bushes, I asked them if there was anything they could do to save it. The manager surveyed the sad little bush, shook his head, and told me that he would cut off the dead parts, but the bush would probably need to be removed. He worked away at it for a bit and when he was done, there was little left. “I don’t think that’ll help, but we’ll see,” he told me.

And for the past several years, my struggling azalea bush has been little more than a bundle of sawed off stumps with some dried twigs sticking up. Every now and then, a leaf appears, but nothing more.

So imagine my surprise when I walked out the door on a beautiful spring morning, and the beginnings of an azalea bush were growing from one side of the bundle of old rotten bush-parts. Tiny shoots flaunted bright pink buds that caught my eye. It wasn’t just one twig with a bud or two. It was a forest of shoots, each with multiple leaves and buds.

That afternoon when I returned from work, I gave the little bush some TLC. I carefully removed all of the rotten pieces, one by one. I pulled them out and created a pile of refuse next to my walkway. Now, there is more room for the shoots to grow and flourish.

I had almost given up hope on this little bush, but somehow I knew the life would return and the azalea would see spring again. And I was right—there was just enough life left in the roots connected to those old, dry twigs to send up shoots that will someday be a whole new bush.

“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.”     – E. B. White

Apps

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“There’s an app for that.”

It seems there’s an app for everything these days. I have this growing list of apps that I’m supposed to check out because they are all the rage and using them will be life changing. Today, as I was cleaning off my desk at work, I came across a post-it note that had just one word: “Wunderlist.” So I spent a few minutes Googling Wunderlist and wondering what it was about this app that was so compelling. Like so many other apps that have been recommended to me, this one will help me organize my life. I can make lists, set reminders, create folders, share my lists, collaborate with friends….

It seems that these days, apps are designed to do everything for me except the actual tasks that need to be done. Like shopping for groceries, for example. And cooking dinner. Or finding a recipe or cleaning the house. An app that schedules these things, lists all my tasks, and reminds me to do them is not really what I need. After all, wouldn’t I have to spend the time to input the list into the app in the first place? That requires time spent not doing the actual tasks….

While I’m sure these apps are notable—as someone has recommended them to me in the first place—they are not what I need.

I don’t want to organize my life. I want to simplify my life. And by simplify, I mean I want to stop relying on technology to make my life easier. I want to interact with the people around me. I want to enjoy nature, climb a mountain, play in the tide. I want to be present as I live my life. I want to be mindful enough to observe what is going on around me. And I want to be reflective about who I am, what I’m doing, and who I am becoming.

Apparently, “There’s an app for that.”

Nope. I don’t think so.

Positivity Post: Light

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The weekend gave us a taste of some beautiful spring weather, and on Monday, I drove to work through falling snow. It has been a long, hard winter—literally and figuratively.

This morning, as he was disappearing out the door into the churning gray fog of an indecisive season, W turned to me and said, “Is it supposed to get light out today?”

Now, I knew what he meant, but it seemed an odd thing to say as the sun struggled its way over the horizon, sending as much of its radiant light as it could through the thick cover of rain-snow clouds.

My gaze followed him out the door, but I said nothing. Grey and dreary with a cold, soaking rain. This was as light as the day was likely to get.

But outside my kitchen window, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips and daffodils are poking their little green heads out of the ground, testing the air to see if it’s ready. Because outside my window is the promise of spring, and the light that is destined to arrive.