Not only does an ebook not sit on my shelf and remind me of the epic adventure we once had, it also does not lend itself to cool cover photos. Oh well!
I’m reading this because…I don’t remember. Sheesh! I think I heard about it in a Facebook Book Group. It’s about England electing a woman that bans sugar, makes exercise mandatory and regulates and controls everything you eat, among a myriad of other “healthy” things, all in the name of ending “avoidable” illnesses.
Sound like a nightmare yet?!
I’m only two hours into it but I love it. It’s extremely stressful!
This plant has been thriving for a couple years now. It’s in the corner of my bedroom, getting the damp soil and indirect sunlight it needed, and making me smile each time I see another leaf bud or another tendril start to grow and reach toward the window.
It wasn’t always this healthy. It came to me as three wilted leaves in a giant plastic pot filled with dried out dirt. I found it in an office with one west-facing window that never had its curtains opened. I’m not a big plant person, but every house has these and I knew it just needed water and bit of sun to thrive.
I’m not sure why I felt compelled to take it home and adopt it, but there I was each day growing increasingly frustrated with my co-workers when I’d leave for a few days and no one would water it or open the curtains in the afternoon.
After weeks of coaxing and no improvement, I decided to throw the whole thing away. The old plastic pot was starting to crack and any day now it would leak all over the filing cabinet anyway. I picked up the pot, carefully so as not to dump dirt all over the office and started walking toward the dumpster outside. Somehow…some way…the plant ended up in the bed of my truck. I might have been possessed by Groot. I just couldn’t throw those three leaves away.
Originally, I planned on putting it in a smaller pot with new dirt, getting it growing good and healthy, and then bringing it back to the office. Maybe I’d put it upfront near the big window and it would do better. Several months later, when it had really taken root and began to climb up my bedroom wall, I changed my mind. No one loved him like me! No one even noticed he was gone! He’s mine!
It’s sick really, the way I feel about plants sometimes.
Why in the world am I going on about a plant? Because no one is worthless. No person’s life is pointless. No matter how young or how old, there is an environment that they will thrive in. Don’t throw people away. Help them to find their place in this world and watch them grow into what they were born to be.
I started reading this yesterday morning! I’m absolutely in love with the Philosophy & Pop Culture series. I’ve read the Walking Dead, Hobbit, Star Trek, Star Wars, and Lost ones in the past. This one is already proving itself worth the time and money!
I think there three kinds of people in this world: reporters, people to report about, and those that haven’t learned to accept who they are. I’m one of the ones that haven’t yet learned.
I don’t want to be a reporter. I’m uncomfortable there, looking into things, finding out what’s going on, jumping into what everyone else is doing, but I’m also afraid to walk away from the crowd. I’m afraid of being alone. I’m afraid that if I’m not out there watching and reporting, I’ll miss out on something important.
I believe that I want to be alone and creating, alone and thinking, alone and at peace with myself. What stops me? Why do I allow the other voices, the ones outside my own head, tell me what it is I SHOULD be doing, what it is I SHOULD be caring about?
I read the book “Essentialism” by Greg Mckeown last year and it began to change my outlook in positive ways. I just added it to my “re-read in 2020” list. Through it, I learned that I can pare down, not just my stuff, but my thinking and my obligations so that I can focus and do my best on what is most important to me specifically.
Everyone is different. Some people need the community, the feeling of being busy, the camaraderie, to be happy. It has only brought me anxiety and confusion. I want to be more outgoing, but it doesn’t serve me. It drains me and leaves little energy for me to create with. From the outside, it may look like I have plenty of time to help you with your project, but I don’t, not without sacrificing my own.
I need more quiet, reflective time, away from outside obligations. I can start by curbing my social media habit. I can’t sit among three hundred conversations and have a clear thought of my own. I’m reacting 90% of my week. It doesn’t feel conducive to creativity.
Funny…I know I’ve complained about this before, very recently. I’m not complaining this time. I’m making observations and (hopefully) adjusting a course. To start, I took the social media buttons off my phone’s main screen. I had to go find the button to open it, remember that I was looking out of habit, and it gave me the space to stop myself. It didn’t last long though. I noticed they were still at the bottom of my “recently used” screen and my brain rerouted the habit through there.
Over the weekend, I took a complete social media fast. That worked well. I just did not look until Sunday evening when I wanted to share something cool. I put the phone away and focused on working in the yard all day on Saturday until I was exhausted. And then Sunday was spent going out to breakfast and then shopping at Costco with my husband. Yes, that is considered one of our favorite dates! We go up and down every aisle just looking at things, laughing, and wondering if we need that or if it’s a good deal. I think we were there for three hours. We’re easily entertained, and we came out with a month’s supply of our favorite foods, a new whiskey to try (they don’t give samples of alcohol, whatever), and some new sheets.
I was feeling overwhelmed and addicted but I willfully chose to do something else than my habit. I didn’t have to make an announcement. I didn’t have to find a way to stop the app from working on my phone. I didn’t have to call in reinforcements to make me stop. I simply chose not to open the apps. I gave myself a goal and I achieved it. One day without any social media turned into two. It was the start of a new habit.
On Monday, I kept the ball rolling by making the choice to only post my article and spend thirty minutes over lunch replying and checking in with friends. Then I put it away. By Wednesday, I was scrolling here and there to occupy myself while I waited and then it snowballed. My time total on Wednesday was over an hour and a half, far less than in the past but still too much. On Thursday, I started first thing in the morning and before noon I was grumpily tapping away responses to people (in my journal, not online) instead of writing anything productive.
It’s Monday now and I’ve refocused once again. I’m looking for a reminder, like a bell when I meditate, that pulls me out of my unconscious habit and brings me back to what I choose to focus on. Like learning to meditate longer and longer, instead of getting angry or frustrated that my mind has wandered, I notice it and bring it back to my peaceful focus. Each time I do, the focus is sustained longer and longer. It’s practice. And practice makes progress.
I’m trying really hard not to worry that I may be losing my marbles, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult. Today, it’s about “American Gods.”
Last year, I was scrolling through looking for interesting TV shows and found Neil Gaiman’s American Gods on Starz. I’m a Gaiman fan, so I watched an episode with my husband one evening. It was bizarre and my husband is not a bizarre tv show watching type of person. He wasn’t enjoying it. I do enjoy a bit bizarre storytelling. Watching a whole season, trying to figure out what’s really going on, how things are connected and why this was shown there and not here, is one of my favorite pastimes, but this was too weird even for me! I decided to get the book instead. Maybe it was the visual storytelling that was confusing.
I got the book a few days later. I remember devouring it and thinking it didn’t read much at all like the tv show. I just went back to see if I posted anything about the book, but it looks like I was in a faze of just reading and not writing much at the time.
Last week, after running out of Lucifer episodes to watch over lunch, I remembered American Gods. I decided to re-subscribe to Starz for a month and watch the rest of the series. Maybe I just need to watch the whole thing on my own and see where it goes.
Today I was watching episode 4, shaking my head, and wondering. “Was this in the book and I don’t remember? Or is the tv show that much different?” I thought, “This isn’t what I remember reading?” But then I started to wonder what I DO remember reading. I can’t say the tv show isn’t following the book because I can’t remember the book!
And here I am again wondering if 2020 should be the year I go back and read books I have on my shelf that I don’t remember much of.
It’s not that I don’t retain what I read. If the story has a big impact on me, an ah-ha moment, or scares me somehow, I remember. I still remember IT and Dragon Tears, Ender’s Game and World War Z. It also helps a lot if I get the chance to talk about the book with others.
So. What to do? What to do?
Should I do some re-reading? Go through my bookshelves and start pulling out books I don’t remember reading? It does sound intriguing. I’ve already re-read one book this year and am working on another. But then, what about all the new books I want to read? My Amazon Wishlist is a mile long!
Maybe I’ll go through my library and make a re-read pile and pull from it once a month or so? But…will I just forget them again? If it didn’t stick with me the first time, maybe there was just nothing in it I needed.
The dramatic life of a compulsive reader! This is only going to get worse, isn’t it?
We found our camping spot without any trouble, compared to last time when we started late, couldn’t find the road, got turned around and then learned what a “soft shoulder” on the highway really meant. We had sat on the side of the road for hours with a man that had stopped to help, getting his own truck stuck in the process. Luckily, he had AAA and all we had to do was wait; all the while wondering if the “kind stranger” was really a psycho killer waiting for his chance to strike.
The tow truck driver was quick and efficient, pulling our truck and trailer out of the sand and then the stranger’s, righting both our vehicles on the side of the highway. When we told him where we were headed, he was happy to lead the way to the entrance road, stopping to give us a few pointers: head down the road about a mile and then pull off to camp, look for a better spot during daylight. It seems so simple once you know where the road is, but it seems that our memories of childhood camping spots, twenty years after the fact, aren’t as clear as we thought they were.
We went looking for the perfect spot at daybreak and have been returning to it for the last fifteen years.
This was the second time we had pulled our tent trailer, filled to the gills with three days worth of food and supplies for the five of us, out to what we now called “our spot” in the desert for a few days escape from city life.
Three kids piled into the backseat of the truck; my husband’s daughter, age 10, and our two sons, ages 3 and 5. They were so excited to be out in the wilderness again. The boys spent most of their days digging holes and playing army, bb guns within reach just in case there was an attack. Nikki spent her time reading and writing stories. She would play with the boys for a while when they begged her to join in their game. Listening to them was one of my favorite parts of camping. I wish I could have recorded them and all the fantastic stories they came up with together. From Indiana Jones scenes and Nazi invasions to Civil War reenactments and Star Wars scenarios, you just never knew what they’d come up with.
We took long hikes with the kids. I’d pack our adventure backpack, the one with all their favorite tools: binoculars, magnifying glass, baggies for collecting, bandanas, and first aid kit, with snacks for the “trail” and a few extra bottles of water. The kids all had their own canteen they carried, ones they got from Santa Claus the year before. The boys had their cowboy hats and camouflage on, bb guns slung over their shoulder for protection.
We’d head out away from the trailer in the direction of some rocky hill off in the distance. At first, the kids led the way and we followed along behind. They said they were “scouting” for a good trail to follow. We’d watch them walking and talking ahead. Every once in awhile, one of the boys would stop and stand alert, crouch down and signal for us to do the same. They’d pump their bb guns and fire a few rounds into a bush and then signal that is was safe for us to keep going. They’d scared off whatever bad guys that had been waiting to ambush us.
At some point in the walk, they’d get hungry and tired and we’d sit under a big creosote to picnic on salami and cheese or nuts and granola bars. That’s about as far as the trail went. From there, we’d begin to circle back toward the trailer, at some point ending up with us in the lead and the kids dragging along behind. The enthusiasm for the adventure had waned and they had reverted to simply three kids camping with their parents. We spent much more time getting back than going out, stopping every few minutes to let them catch up or to rest and get a drink of water. By the time we got back to camp, they acted like they had been dragged across the open desert for days, flopping into camp chairs and begging for someone to bring them a coke.
We got comfortable in our own chairs, thinking they’d be good to relax in one spot for at least an hour, but within minutes they were up and around again, digging through last nights campfire, looking for rabbits and birds in the bushes, and eventually back to being “bored with nothing to do.” Maybe we could play a game or build a rocket or pile these rocks up! We would have sworn they had been on the edge of death just a few minutes ago, but kids recover more quickly than their parents.
A “long” walk, a snack, a board game, lunch, another walk, a snack, a short foray into the wash on their own and then the sun started to set. I went inside the tent trailer to start getting dinner together while Dad and the kids built a campfire and dragged camp chairs around it.
When I came out to the fire, a bag of buns, a cylinder of Pringles, and a package of hot dogs in hand, they were all happily tending to a small fire in the fire pit they had dug out and surrounded with rocks the last time we were out here. Nikki was walking back and forth beside the fire relating the story of the ghost of a gold miner with pet goldfish that wandered the rocky desert chanting “Who’s going to feed my fish?” Dad and Tom were kneeling next to the fire poking it with sticks and finding little things to set on top of the logs to watch melt and burn. Jake, the youngest, was standing just at the edge of the firelight staring out into the darkness.
I set the hot dog fixings on one of the camp chairs and asked if anyone had seen the roasting sticks.
“They’re right here!” Tom said, reaching beside the fire to pick up the long wooden handled roasters his Dad had made the previous week.
Nikki threw herself to her knees beside her brother and reached for one of the sticks. Tom grabbed his stick and I slid a hot dog onto each. Dad helped them to keep them from burning up too quickly.
“Jake. You want a hot dog?” I called to my youngest, still watching the desert. No answer.
“Jake.”
“Jake!”
He just stood there, stock-still, looking. I walked over to him to get his attention. That kid always could get completely lost in his thoughts and not hear a word of the world around him. I walked up and knelt beside him, putting my hand across his back.
“Baby. Pretty out there, isn’t it?” I thought he might be watching the last of the sunlight seep out of the desert. He didn’t answer. He just stared out into the increasing darkness; his little brow furrowed.
“What ‘cha looking at, baby?”
Without looking away, “The black people.”
I laughed lightly and looked out into the darkness. “The black people?”
“Yeah.” He said in his tiny most serious voice.
“You mean the shadows? They do look like people.” Looking out at the bushes and trying to see what he saw.
“No. Shadows are under bushes.” He said, and then in a whisper, “The black people. They’re dancing.”
A chill washed over my body. What could he possibly be seeing? I turned his face to look at me and smiled nervously. “You have a clever imagination kiddo. Those are just shadows in the dark. The moon is coming up.” And I turned him toward the fire. “Let’s get a hot dog.”
He came with me but glanced back over his shoulder as we went. I refused to let his imaginings creep me out any more than they already had. I didn’t look back, even though the hair was standing up on the back of my neck.
As we joined the rest of the family, the kids were “sacrificing” a hot dog to the camping gods and Dad was dutifully putting blackened but cold hot dogs in buns because the kids said they were done and he wasn’t about to argue with them.
“Everything ok?” he asked as I reached for a hot dog to cook for Jake.
“Sure. He was just fascinated by the shadows.” I considered relating the story to him but thought better of it. I’ll tell it in the light of day, no need to freak everyone out with that. We had enough ghost stories already.
Jake sat beside me as I put a hot dog on the roaster and then helped hold and turn it as I kept it above the flames. When he said it was done, I put it on a bun, and he sat in a camp chair quietly munching it while staring out into the darkness.
Once we had finished eating and the kids had had enough of playing with the fire and singing silly songs, we all went inside the trailer to snuggle in for the night. Teeth brushed, jammas on, they all settled down in their sleeping bags, side by side, like three pigs in blankets. Everyone got a kiss goodnight and then Dad and I got into our sleeping bags on the other side of the trailer.
Once the lights were out, the giggling from the kid side commenced, followed by “Don’t touch me!” and “Mom!” and then more giggling.
“Ok, you guys. Settle down.” Dad’s business voice.
The ruckus quieted a little, picked up again, and then finally settled into quiet snores. They were asleep and I lay there next to my snoring husband, still wondering what in the world he could have been seeing out there.
What is the purpose of the yellow light at a traffic signal? There are two classic schools of thought, right?
“Go real fast!”
and
“Slow down!”
Honestly, though, the yellow light is a warning that a red light is imminent? What you do with that information depends on a lot of things; your personality, where you’re headed and why, how far from the light you are, etc.
The purpose of a yellow light is to warn you that things are about to change. It’s to prevent you from being surprised by a hard stop. If you’re paying attention, you won’t have to slam on the brakes at the last moment. If you’re close to the intersection, you’ll hurry up to get through and not be in the intersection when cross traffic gets there.
I think we get a yellow light in our lives from time to time as well. If we’re paying attention, we’ll get a warning that things are about to change suddenly and, hopefully, make some decisions based on our own needs and desires.
We meet people that change our lives for worse or for better. We get test results that make us think about the future and start plans. Our bodies slow down, ache and take longer to recover, making us realize that the ultimate red light may be just around the corner, prompting us to do the things we’ve wanted to do or say the things we need to say.
Don’t let the red light take you by surprise. Pay attention to your surroundings and the road ahead. See the warnings, not as a hindrance or a burden, but a reminder that we don’t have all the time in the world. Create the thing, go see the place, repair the relationship. There’s so much to do.
My geocache went missing! What’s a geocache?! Seriously? You’re missing out, friend! Go check it out. What do you need to play this game? A smartphone and the app, a pen or pencil, and some trinkets, coins, buttons, or whatever you have lying around that you’d like to leave behind. I collect things to take with me on geocache hunts. Buttons, coins, cards, stickers, small toys. I even bought a small bag of “Live a Great Story” buttons to leave behind because it was just such a cool thought. Most of the caches I’ve found lately have been pretty sparse, nothing much in them to trade, but I leave something cool for the next person that finds it. It’s probably because the ones I find are out of the way, out in the desert, or along mountain trails. I tend to travel most in those places where people are not.
I lost a geocache (a dying hobby of nerds) and I didn’t have a negative reaction. Sure, I was sad to have lost it after all those years of having it up there, but I do have pictures and shit happens. Who knows what happened to it and who besides me even cares? I thought as I sat on the hill, “I should write about this experience.” I mean, I know a lot of people that would lose their shit about it, blaming it on kids these days or the times we live in, but really, who knows what happened to it. People are weird and do strange things. Maybe some kids were hiking and brought it back to camp and forgot about returning it. Maybe some drunk 20 somethings thought it would be hilarious to fuck with a geocache geek. Maybe a BLM person found it and thought it was trash hidden under a rock. Or maybe it dropped into a time portal when someone came from the future or another world. Or a hawk decided it was a cool thing to take to its nest somewhere on the mountain. Maybe I’ll find it years later, hidden in the cleft of a rock a mile away.
Moral of the story, we don’t need to jump to conclusions or dwell on the fact that something we had is gone. We can choose not to react and move on.
I’ve replaced it. Maybe it will go missing again! Too bad I can’t put a tracker on it!
I get discouraged when I spend a lot of time reading, listening, and experiencing but rarely creating. I feel like I’m consuming life instead of adding to it when the scale tips more to the input than the output side of creativity.
And then I heard the analogy of “a block of clay.”
The artist is in all of us, born within us. What we spend most of our life doing is gathering a block of clay to sculpt in the future.
I gather clay by reading, watching, and experiencing life. I stay curious. I research and study. I travel and listen. And each experience adds to my block, making it bigger and bigger.
When I make time for myself to reflect, I look at the block of clay and start peeling away pieces, chiseling out parts and sculpting it into a piece of artwork that is unique from my hands, from my perspective. My story, my article, my social media post is the result of that creative time.
The time we spend consciously gathering input from any source added to the time we take to reflect and process it, equals our creative output. That output can be anything, from poetry, painting, music, and storytelling, to our children, our businesses, and our homes.
What are you gathering these days? Do you know what that creative output will be or are you still searching for it?
nly does an ebook not sit on my shelf and remind me of the epic adventure we once had, it also does not lend itself to cool cover photos. Oh well!
