Meditations on Life and Parenting
“Be the moon and inspire people even when you are far from full.” – K. Tolnoe
I’ve thought a lot about why I write – to process my experience in life and to connect with this great Word Press community. But recently a friend asked me how I write and it became the topic for my post on Wise and Shine today: When I Write.
(featured photo from Pexels)
“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts
The other day I was out for breakfast with my brother, his wife and my kids. We went to my neighborhood cafe that we used to meet at every weekend before the pandemic but have only been back about a handful of times since. Greeted warmly by the staff who marveled at how big the kids have gotten, it was such a feeling of homecoming. As we left, my sister-in-law said, “Thank goodness they survived.”
I find myself saying that a lot these days about businesses that I love but imagine didn’t have an easy time weathering the pandemic. There has been much hardship but it’s also been combined with innovation. Like with the theater. As an example, my friend and colleague Jack Canfora is releasing a theatrical podcast this fall – his theater company is performing one of the plays he’s written and then releasing it in seven podcast episodes.
I had a chance to interview Jack about how he came up with this idea and that not only democratizes our access to theater but also lets us all participate and be patrons of the arts. It’s the topic of my Pointless Overthinking post this week: Adding Innovation to the Grand Theatrical Tradition
(featured photo from Pexels)
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” – Gandhi
This weekend my kids and I went to a wedding. As we were going through the receiving line, the bride squatted down so that she could be closer to my 2-year-old son’s level. And when she squatted, he squatted.
As I laughed, I thought about how we mirror the people around us. Neuroscientist David Eagleman, says that who were are is shaped by the five people that we spend the most time with.
But lately the grown-up people I’m spending time with seem to mostly be feeling a general sense of despair about the US and the world. I feel like I’ve hit my saturation point of not being able to take in more bad news.
Then I stumbled on this paragraph from poet Mark Nepo, “I realize that, when things fall apart, they make a lot of noise. When things come together, they do so quietly and slowly. And so, we often miss them. Our culture is obsessed with how things fall apart. The news reports only the noise of things breaking down. The weather is even called Storm Watch. Yet things are constantly coming together, though we have forgotten how to hear them.”
That is when I turn to the WordPress community because unlike the news, I find people writing stories of things coming together all the time. Here are 5 posts that recently gave me joy and delight.
A touching story of kindness from Stuart Perkins of the Storyshucker blog: A Nugget of Kindness | Storyshucker
A researcher joke from the Candid Cerebrations blog: I stole this… – Candid Cerebrations
A beautiful walk through a garden with Rebecca from the Fake Flamenco blog: 5 Local July Flowers ‹ Fake Flamenco
A photographic trip to Venice from Natalie on The Hot Goddess blog – Silent Saturday Solo Sojourn – The Hot Goddess
Camping and Canada Fireworks from the view of a child from Ab and the My Life with T blog – Ignite the Night and Let It Shine – My Life With T
And those are just a few of all the wonderful and creative posts that make me laugh and inspire me.
Thank goodness for all you amazing bloggers that are writing posts about how life comes together. This is what I want to mirror and reflect.
What’s inspiring you this week?
“We drink the poison our minds pour for us and wonder why we feel so sick.” – Atticus
I woke up this morning in a sheer panic at 5am worried about money. Getting up at that time isn’t unusual but the panic is. And I wasn’t worried about money now – I was worried about money in 6 months for no particularly good reason because as a self-employed person (or maybe even an employed person), the future that far out is never possible to see.
Sitting on the meditation cushion 15 minutes later, I went diving to find the source of the panic. As I peeled back the layers, I kept stumbling on the idea that I hadn’t been working hard enough.
Taking two days off to take care of Mr. D as he’s recovered from his cough had been enough to awaken my inner hustler. And this beast was telling me I wasn’t keeping up with my hustle for self-worth.
I find it so insidious that the more work I do to meditate and be aware of my internal state, the more I sometimes have to face the things that are as natural as breathing. Hustling for self-worth being one of them. As the daughter of two parents with a strong Protestant work-ethic, I like to say that I come by my productivity panic honestly.
Sure, I have to be responsible for my little family and that means constantly juggling trade-offs and boundaries as they relate to the work I do. But managing practicalities is a completely different reality from appeasing my inner hustler – you know the one that tells me that I have to DO something to be WORTH something.
Looking for some perspective on this panic, I found this passage from The Gifts of Imperfection by researcher, professor and author Brené Brown. “We convince ourselves that if we stay busy enough and keep moving, reality won’t be able to keep up. So we stay in front of the truth about how tired and scared and confused and overwhelmed we sometimes feel. Of course, the irony is that the thing that’s wearing us down is trying to stay out in front of feeling worn down.”
The remedy that Brené prescribes for letting go productivity as self-worth is cultivating play and rest. She quotes psychiatrist, clinical researcher and author Dr. Stuart Brown, “Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process.”
Play, as in activities that have no purpose, isn’t a part of my life that I have been focusing on even though I have two very willing playmates. I count this morning’s panic as my wake-up call to incorporate more of it.
(featured photo from Pexels)
“Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.” – Mark Twain
My kids and I were driving in the car up a long, gently rising hill when my son noticed a jogger on the sidewalk beside us. Here’s the conversation that ensued:
[My toddler]: What man doing?
[Me]: He’s jogging.
[My 6-year-old daughter]: Jogging is what you call it when grown-ups run because they are really slow.
Of course, I immediately burst into laughter and my daughter was delighted to have said something so witty that she has been trying to recreate the humor of it ever sense. Which is hard to do without the setup.
One of the things that fascinates me about witnessing my kids and their friends grow up is the development of their story-telling capabilities. Knowing that narrative shapes our inner lives as well as our interaction with others, I love talking with my daughter about the stories we read and see.
So when Mitch Teemley published this great post Hitting the Creative Bullseye, I thought about my daughter’s witty remark to see if his breakdown of the hallmarks of creativity helped analyzed why we laughed: is unexpected, feels right and surprises them.
Ticking through the points:
Of course the problem is in repeating it. But that’s why we practice — so that we can access both wit and wisdom, the “Feels right” insight in the moments that are both unexpected and surprise us. Because after all, wit is often how grown-ups deliver wisdom so that others will remember it.
“The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.” – Lao Tzu
Almost 4 years ago I was out walking on the day after the mass shooting in Las Vegas and came across these beautiful rock cairns on the shore of a little local lake. It was a calm and quiet morning with the chill of October in the air and I just stopped in my tracks, wanting to spend a sacred moment in the presence of this inspired creation.
I imagined that in the wake of something so horribly violent, someone needed to make themselves feel calmer by creating something beautiful. Of course I’ll never know if it worked for them but I do know that just looking at this impromptu art installation worked to soothe that raw and exposed grief I was feeling.
When I think about whether anything I do, say or write has any meta-effect on the world at large, I think of those rock cairns. I might be working out my own grief, demons, cares and worries but if I do it in a peaceful and creative way, I have a small chance that it will express empathy and understanding for others walking a similar path.
Most of the rock cairns I’ve come across are on hiking paths marking the way to go. They are minimally invasive ways to communicate that the trail continues here. They are ways that one human tells another that they’ve walked this same way and don’t want anyone else to feel unsure or to be lost. May we all continue to be rock cairns for one another, marking the trail with peace.
“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” – John Muir
There is a small room on the top floor of my house that isn’t on the way to anywhere so it’s filled with kids toys: wooden blocks, games, a big dollhouse, barbies. I was helping (that’s code for doing all the work while my kids were present) clean it up the other day and wondering why kids don’t want to play somewhere that’s messy. After all, they aren’t living up to any social mores that tell them they need to be tidy. And when we were interviewed on the local news during the heat wave, my toddler licked ice cream off the table so some portion of the greater Seattle area knows he’s not worried about dirt, dust or germs. It must be something like to be creative they need a clean slate.
That reminds me of my writing process. I meditate and then I write. Meditation declutters my head of to-do lists and chatter. And clears the game board so I am free to make new associations. Most importantly, it erases any sign of “me” so my inner editor is not calling the shots.
Something I read in Shonda Rhimes memoir, The Year of Yes comes back to me as I think about writing. To paraphrase (because at the moment I can’t find my copy of the book which has certainly been disappeared in kid chaos) that her writing process is such that it feels like she has to run 5 miles to just get to the start of writing. And then if she’s interrupted, it’s like she has to run 5 miles back to get back to reality. And to start again, it’s running another 5 miles. I’ve heard other writers describe their process similarly like Brené Brown saying that she has to go deep to write and normal life ceases to be possible.
These descriptions make me think that like with my kids, creativity is sparked when we make some space to begin. There is a Zen saying, “You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day unless you are busy. Then you should sit for an hour.” And that makes me laugh, but mostly because it’s true. Just think of what I could create if I could clear my mind…
“Fill the paper with the breathings of your heart.” – William Wordsworth
The other night we had some friends over. In the raucous atmosphere of an audience after so many months without one, my kids were showing off. My toddler was falling off a bouncy horse over and over and when I went to video him on the fifth time through, I asked, “Did you do that on purpose?” and he turned to me and winked.
It has taken me five days to write about that one funny and wondrous moment of connection with a not-yet verbal human. For me, I need to write in the morning, when I am still fresh from sleep. I can’t write when taking care of my kids, I can’t write in the middle of the day when I’m in work mode, I can’t write at the end of the day when I’m completely worn out. I once heard an interview with the author Ursula Le Guin and she said something about writing whenever she could. Except when her kids were young because she said, “of course you can’t write when your kids are young.” My reaction at the time was, “Why not?”
But now I’m starting to understand three things about being in the thick of life. First, that the moments that I see into the depths of life are precious. Just because we love them doesn’t mean our loved ones can’t muddy our waters. Second, that I can’t be a participant and an observer at the same time. Like the danger of being behind a camera on vacation, seeing everything through a viewfinder with one eye closed instead of seeing the full experience, I can’t digest the meaning of whatever is happening at the moment without creating a barrier to whole-hearted participation. I have to process it later. And third, that the conditions of creativity must be right to write. Even though my kids are so much of the inspiration of living without reservation, the attention they require engages my head in a way that blocks the quiet presence of the heart behind my words.
So I’ve waited until I was clear before writing this to you. That I can do so feels like a miracle, having a free moment, finding some words and depth about how they come, and even to have a medium that allows me to connect with others. It feels a lot like that wink from my son, a small sign that we might truly be communicating. Hopefully the sacred flow of creativity stays open long enough for me to ring true for you.
Surprised By Joy 