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)

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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!

Quote of the Day - 03/13/2012

Tea, food, and routine paperwork had a normalizing effect. - Nevada Barr in A Superior Death (An Anna Pigeon Novel)

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Everyone develops their own approaches for making adjustments prompted by the changes in their life. Activities that tend to have a ‘normalizing effect’ tend to be ones that provide ‘something to do’ during the time we are mentally adjusting to whatever has changed; the objective is to help ourselves be as resilient as possible and sustain our healthy outlook on life. Nevada Barr’s list (‘tea, food, and routine paperwork’) are good examples. Do you have others - ones that are perhaps even unique to you? My list would include looking at botanical prints, sleeping and cleaning house.

What are some characteristics of these ‘normalizing effect’ activities? For me - they must 

• Be done alone
• Relatively quiet (i.e. I don’t find having television or radio in the background helpful...music without vocals is appealing)
• Secure
• Comfortable temperature…perhaps a little warm
• Not totally sedentary (this may mean that there needs to be a variety of activity instead of just one) 

Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Isle Royale National Park. 

Note: Botanicus provides digitized historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library....one of my favorite web places. 

Quote of the Day - 03/12/2012

The sun was low in the west. The last of its light struck gold from the shale wall and turned the subdued greens of the desert a brighter shade. Above the cliffs, the sky was a turmoil of clouds, round and fierce, their bellies sagging close to the mesa. Sunset fired their edges and cast deep purples into their ephemeral canyons. - Nevada Barr in Borderline (An Anna Pigeon Novel)

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Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Big Bend National Park.

This description reminds me of vacations in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona….and that it would be good to be there again. What about you?

Quote of the Day - 03/11/2012

A bony forest of iron and steel scratch against the blue of the sky. - Nevada Barr in Liberty Falling

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Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island.

I haven’t visited Ellis Island so the sentence above dredged up another image for me: the ruins of the World Trade Center after 9/11/2001.

Quote of the Day - 03/10/2012

Dreams and desires haunted the mesa the way they haunted the rooms in old houses. Traces of unfinished lives caught in the ether. - Nevada Barr in Nevada Barr Ill Wind

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Nevada Barr writes mysteries set in National Parks - in this case, Mesa Verde.

We do feel ‘traces of unfinished lives’ in places that we know people lived before us whether or not we believe the place is ‘haunted’ or approach it more analytically with the tools of an archaeologist…or just our own curiosity and imaginings.

The strongest feeling I’ve ever had of this ‘traces of unfinished lives’ was a Chaco Canyon. It was early spring and quite cold. There were not many people around and most of the sounds were made by wind in the ruins. It was easy to imagine the walls roofed and clay plaster on the walls - decorated with designs seen elsewhere pecked into rocks. It could have been comfortable in those rooms even on a cold day. The wind sounds were mournful and gave the place a very lonely emotional impact.

Where do you feel the ‘traces of unfinished lives’ the most?

Quote of the Day - 03/09/2012

After the printing press was invented in 1436, paper became affordable to nearly everybody. It took on a variety of uses – paper table coverings instead of fabric tablecloths, edgings for shelves, paper dolls, makeshift curtains, even Christmas tree ornaments. The Victorians really immersed themselves in the paper craze. As photography had not yet been invented, they cut out silhouettes of each other that functioned as pictures. Paper doilies became extremely common. - Emilie Barnes in The Twelve Teas of Christmas

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These days - the amount of paper in our house is actually decreasing. We read more books and magazines electronically. Books we only need to read once have been sold or given away. We read news online rather than in a newspaper. There are still lots of catalogs that come in the mail but maybe not quite as many as several years ago; they are the bulk of the recycled paper. We don’t print documents we are working on very often - sometimes they only exist in electronic form.

What about those other uses of paper? Haven’t we all made paper ‘snowflakes’ or cut hearts at valentines? Or folded paper to make an origami swan or geometric shape? For a look at elaborate stories cut in paper - watch the Béatrice Coron: Stories cut from paper TED talk video. 

Quote of the Day - 03/08/2012

On April 13, 1360, while Edward’s soldiers marched toward Chartres, the skies went dark. The air became bitterly cold. The heavens opened, and an apocalyptic storm sent hail stones the size of pigeon eggs smashing into Edward’s army. Tents were shredded. Luggage carts were swept away. Lightning electrocuted knights in their armor. Hundreds of men and more than a thousand horses died. - Bryn Barnard in Dangerous Planet: Natural Disasters That Changed History

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The event described above resulted in the end of the first phase of the Hundred Years War….significant enough that it was judged to be a natural disaster that ‘changed history.’

What about the more frequent weather disasters that we hear about in the news and may even experience? They change lives of individuals and give virtually every family a cache of weather disaster stories that builds up over the years.

Hail has a place in my family history. My dad’s parked car was totaled by a hail storm in the early 1950s - a cautionary tale in the family supporting the ideas of parking cars in the garage and keeping yourself inside during hail storms…and having good car insurance.

In the mid-1960s I remember being in the backyard of our house on a semi-sunny day and hearing what I immediately thought was hail (not sure why I thought that it was) and ran to the cover of the large porch with my sisters just seconds ahead of the hail cloud coming overhead…and watching the small ice balls dropping on the yard from safety. It was over almost as quickly as it arrived.

Some 10 years later my husband and I were on a canoe trip; we were camped by a river. A storm came through during the night with howling winds. The tree tops were whipping around and it was raining very hard. We heard the canoes banging around but the stakes were holding them to the shore. The next day as we canoed on down the river we immediately noticed uprooted trees and debris along the banks. Later we heard that tornados have come through the area. The bluff we had camped beside had evidently protected our campsite.

Quote of the Day - 03/07/2012

The old stone house, solid, substantial, and unadorned, suggested unlimited spaciousness and comfort within; and was redeemed from positive ugliness without, by the fine ivy, magnolia trees, and wisteria, of many years' growth, climbing its plain face, and now covering it with a mantle of soft green, large white blooms, and a cascade of purple blossom. - Florence L. Barclay in The Rosary

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Ivy covered stone….as appealing now as it was in the early 1900s when Barclay wrote. Sometimes the appeal carries over to the inside of the building if the windows become partially covered as well. Several years ago I toured a law library and the main thing I remember was the greenish color of the light coming through the large windows at  both ends of the long narrow room. The space felt more like an outdoor bower than an enclosed, climate controlled room. The ivy was almost covering the windows…transmitting the light.

Ivy can damage walls after many years. Wisteria does not take as long to do damage and most of the time you see it on an arbor rather than a wall for that reason. The tendrils grow into any little nook and then expand. They tend to take their support apart. My mother once planted trumpet vine next to a fence because she liked the color of its flowers then separated it from the stockade fence with chicken wire for its support and trimmed it frequently to keep the fence intact when it became apparent how damaging the trumpet vine could be.

Quote of the Day - 03/06/2012

When I was 6 weeks old my father and mother went to Ireland on business and I went along in a bureau drawer of the old Cunard liner Umbria. - Thomas Barbour in Naturalist at large

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I know my grandmother used a drawer pulled out of the built-ins of her bathroom - padded with a blanket - when a small grandbaby was visiting and I always thought it was a clever idea. The quote from Thomas Barbour reminded me of it.

Would we buy something special for the baby now…even if it would only be needed temporarily? How much ‘stuff’ could we avoid accumulating if we thought of re-purposing what we already have first?

Quote of the Day - 03/05/2012

Beautifully illustrated books were prized possessions at the courts of Islamic rulers, and during the 15th century Herat (in modern day northwestern Afghanistan) became the center of book production. - Nicola Barber in Islamic Art & Culture (World Art & Culture)

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It is easy to lose historical perspective in the bombardment of current news. Then a single sentence prompts some quick research. This was such a sentence for me.

Found in a book for late elementary school children, it reminded me of the different perception the west has had of Persia and Afghanistan. Now our perception is of religious fanatics and isolationists - a people that do not want to move toward a future that is like the West. We forget that while knowledge bled away in Europe after Rome fell, the Middle East and Islamic world retained and embellished the legacy so that it was available to filter back as the foundation for the European Renaissance.

Can we develop a vision of the future where the diversity in the world can be a positive element rather than a source of conflict and atrocities?

Quote of the Day - 03/03/2012

Like all men of genius, he had no heirs; he carried everything in him, and carried it away with him. The glory of a surgeon is like that of an actor: they live only so long as they are alive, and their talent leaves no trace when they are gone. - Honore de Balzac in The Atheist's Mass

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Has our technology sought to change the scenario - to negate the ‘their talent leaves no trace when they are gone’ by capturing it on film (actor) or a technique that has been learned by others (surgeon)? Much has changed since the 1830s.

Perhaps our concept of genius has become more strongly linked to extreme deviation from the norm both in terms of result and day to day habits of the individual. When ‘genius’ is used today it is more likely associated with an Einstein-like person than a surgeon or actor. In fact - did Einstein somehow act as a pivot point for the changed perception of ‘genius’?

Quote of the Day - 03/02/2012

Houses have personality.  Have you never seen a dignified house looking disdainfully, critically down upon its frivolous bungalow neighbors?  Or an old weather-beaten one trying to appear debonair in new shingles like a withered old woman in a wig? - Bess Streeter Aldrich in The Rim of the Prairie (Bison Book)

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Does the house or building where you live have personality?

My house has a dark hip roof and very dark green (almost charcoal) trim with lighter siding and brick. It looks more formal than its neighbors. It is different from the back where the deck, a full story off the ground, softens the overall contrast.

Is it possible to change the personality of a house? The architecture can be pretty overwhelming. Changing the trim color or just the color of the front door could make a difference.

I like the subtle personality differences of the houses in our neighborhood. It’s good that no extremes have emerged!

Quote of the Day - 03/01/2012

The most promising words every written on the maps of human knowledge are terra incognita - unknown territory. - Daniel J. Boorstin in The Discoverers

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The unknown. It is appealing and a little scary at the same time. There are so many areas ‘on the map of human knowledge’ that are still unknown. New bacteria...planets and stars…how the complex chemistry of the human body actually works. As a society, we still have a lot to discover.

On a more individual level - there is our own personal ‘unknown territory.’ Focusing on it requires us to retain the curiosity of our younger selves for our whole life; it is the drive that keeps us learning new things. What ‘unknown territory’ are you exploring today?

Quote of the Day - 02/29/2012

Everything mourns for the forgotten, For its own springtime dream - Anna Akhmatova in The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova

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We are forging into springtime (in the northern hemisphere) - the grand reawakening of all outdoors after the ‘sleep’ of winter. It’s is easy to spot something growing fresh and new…to be caught up in the wonder of the present and lean toward to make the future…warm summer fruits and bountiful harvest of fall.

In the midst of this waking dream of springtime, we sometimes have a niggling at the edges of our thoughts for things not quite remembered or maybe not known at all. This brings an overlay of nostalgia to springtime. For me ‘mourns for the forgotten’ does not exactly describe it. It is a savoring of what I do remember and recognition that there are some things I will never know. I’ll never know any details of my great-grandparents relationship or what really happened to my grandfather’s older sister that died as a teenager or my great-grandmother’s feelings about leaving behind all her family in Europe or how my great grandfather’s fiddle playing sounded.

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

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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 - 2/26/2012

Brilliance in youth does not guarantee worth in maturity. - Isabel Allende in Daughter of Fortune

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Brilliance. Isn’t it strange that there would even be an assumption that ‘brilliance in youth’ would correlate to ‘worth in maturity?’ Yet - somehow our culture hones in on how ‘smart’ a child is more than any other characteristic. When positive differentiation occurs in school - it is most frequently based on criteria of brilliance. We know it is imperfect but it can reduce the complexity of the school by grouping the students into more similar groups…and then curriculum/teaching can be more finely honed to their needs. It works very well for some students…but not all.

In a perfect world, learning opportunities would be abundant and tuned to the individual rather than a group…and brilliant or not so brilliant…everyone would have the opportunity to develop a ‘worth in maturity.’

Worth. Oftentimes we associate ‘worth’ with how much we are paid or have accumulated. That is a quick way to quantify worth but is it the whole story? For some it might be…for others it is clear that their value…their worth…to their family or community is much higher than the quantification would indicate. For example - someone that cares for young children may not have a high salary but the worth of that job to the families of the children is tremendous.

In summary -

brilliance transformed into worth

is what we are after. Making the transformation is the key.

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

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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 - 2/23/2012

Here, write it, or it will be erased by the wind. - Isabel Allende in Of Love and Shadows: A Novel

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The ephemeral ‘it’ captured in writing thereby becoming something longer lasting and sharable across space and time. 

Have you ever noticed that you remember better if you take notes during a lecture/presentation or jot down a few sentences about something you did? It is certainly true for me even if I don’t look at what I wrote ever again. There is something about the physical act of writing that aids memory or learning. It is the bulwark against erasure ‘by the wind.’

Satisfaction and Joy with Life (Quote of the Day - 2/22/2012)

Life is a little work, a little sleep, a little love and it is all over. – Mary Roberts Rhinehart

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This quote is somewhat like ‘Life is short. Eat dessert first!’ - using the word ‘little’ and ‘short’ to point out the potential of our life being ‘all over’ relatively quickly in the scheme of things. The underlying message is to enjoy your life all along the way rather than thinking to wait for some future time.

In recent years, more and more people have attained the ability to appear ‘always working’ with the advent of mobile devices that enable work to be accomplished virtually anywhere and anytime. Farmers - or anyone that cares for animals as part of their work - have always been in this mode so there was really only a short interval in history when most people could easily distinguish between their work/not work time.

For many of us, our definition of work is evolving. Having a component of satisfaction and joy in our work is more important than ever because time boxed ‘balance’ is often not possible. In other words - work/life balance is no longer a viable strategy. Instead - a dynamic mix of activities make up our life. We can categorize a snapshot of our current activies in various ways if that helps us decide their relative value for us. Here's a quick way to do some analysis using the color coded 2x2 matrixes at the bottom of this post: 

1. Check to make sure you agree with my color coding; make adjustments as needed.
2. Make a list of activities that are taking the majority of your time. Usually the top 10 or so are the ones to focus on.
3. For each activity - look at it from all the perspectives in the 2x2 blocks below and note any that are 'non-green' 
4. Are there activities that have a lot of red? If there are - find a way to stop doing them or to change them in some way to make them more satisfying.
5. Are there activities that have a lot of yellow? Those may be activities to keep but make sure your motivation for continuing is still great enough to overcome their negative aspects.
6. For activities that are 'green' - good for you. These are keepers!