Take a measure of me and my heart.
This line from President Biden’s inauguration speech made time stop. As he said it, words flowing before and after, those words rang through the air for me as if they were on fire.
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Pause for a moment. Can you touch the tentative, anxious energy out there right now? It is a thin, vacuous cloud. If you are quiet enough, you might be able to sense it, feel it. Tension hangs in the very air we breathe.
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I have always wanted 20/20 vision.
I’ve never had it.
I had to start wearing glasses when I was in fifth grade—blue frames that helped me unite with fractions on the board in math class. But the frames did not accessorize my Guess jeans and turtleneck very well. And who wanted to be called “Four Eyes”? So I barely wore them.
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Sometimes, you simply must choose.
Do I take the new job with greater pay but more travel? Do we use this day care or that one? Do I buy that new car or stay with my paid-off SUV? Do I stay in this tired relationship or go out on my own?
Two choices that are equally plausible make for the toughest decisions.
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Much of my job is to observe, to see. As a consultant, coach, and facilitator, people pay me to see what they may not, to help them navigate through challenges differently, to move a group forward in new directions.
I was feeling pretty good about this role, until I read a quote by Mark Nepo: “Are you teaching those around you how to see or to see what you see?”
Ugh. I wish I knew this idea when I was a manager. When I was supervising young staff, I thought my job as a leader was to show them the way. They would come into my office with their latest operational challenge, and I would help them see a path forward. But instead of helping them to see what I saw, what if I instead showed them how to see for themselves?
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I have a friend who has lost 40 pounds in the last six months. She said—like many people do—when she was heavier and saw herself in photos, she didn’t recognize herself. And now that she is 40 pounds lighter, she looks in the mirror at her reflection and says, “Oh, there she is!”
There she is!
Such a beautiful thing to recognize one’s self.
Ever hear yourself talking and mid-sentence, you find yourself outside the one doing the talking, hearing this weird voice, and thinking, who is that voice?
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Merry Christmas, Everyone!
One of the best gifts I ever received was from my son Duncan. I had lost my leather gloves before the holiday, and was distressed I couldn’t find them.
My favorite meme so far this year: Travel books for 2020. Instead of France, Italy, Australia, and South America, it’s The Bathroom, The Kitchen, The Stairwell, and Locating the Front Door.
Have you noticed more Christmas lights on houses this year? People are spending time decorating their homes. We’ve focused more deeply on where we are: in our home or apartment, stuck, not going on anywhere.
Feel like you are stuck on a glacier that is vast, ice-cold, moving at the pace of about 25 centimeters a day?
Families everywhere are trying again to manage working virtually with young kids and college kids schooling at home, Zooming on shared Wi-Fi, and not enough spare bedrooms for offices.
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I learned a painful lesson last week.
Aren’t you dying to know what it was? Be honest—as humans, we’re a teeny bit fascinated in others’ minor suffering. It probably comes from 1000s of years of watching fellow cavepeople get trampled by wooly mammoths when you’re the one safely hiding in the cave.
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The topic of the week: what is Thanksgiving going to look like this year?
I saw a map yesterday showing the percentage likelihood of getting exposed to COVID-19 on Thanksgiving if you participate of a gathering of more than 10 people. Internet memes advise that it’s better to have a Zoomsgiving than to spend Christmas in the hospital.
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Anyone else ready to jump off?
2020 has been one dramatic ride. But unlike most rollercoasters, we have had no real shoulder restraints or safety bars. Just a lot of strong opinions circling, suffering and loss, angst and confusion, sprinkled with sporadic moments of peacefulness.
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Mr. Duffy “lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts with doubtful side-glances.”
How did James Joyce know when he wrote Dubliners what life would be like in 2020?
These days, it’s easy to plow forward so fast that we forget we are carrying around a body with us. There is always something juicy to watch, think about, scroll past, or respond to—a way to engage the brain. Who wants to stay in the rest of the body, especially in these times?
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I was driving home from an appointment the other day, winding down a long back road, and suddenly remembered something I needed to do. I don’t have a great memory—if I don’t write something down, it might as well not exist.
So, I said, “Hey, Siri…”
And Siri responded cheerfully as always, with a curious “Uh huh?”
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I am an eighth-generation native Californian. My family has been in sunshine for 200 years. Warm rays are in my DNA—they might as well flow through my veins.
But I live in the northeast, where winter is just cold—and long. Like below freezing cold. Like it just snowed on October 30. Meaning five months long.
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Imagine it’s your 99th birthday.
Your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren form a devoted circle around you as you sit quietly, reflecting on a life well lived.
“We want to know what you know, Grandma,” they say to you.
What would your top 10 pearls of wisdom be?
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At night, porcupines shriek in trees around our house.
They could be mating. Apparently, they are quite vocal (something about the male doing a dance and urinating on the female’s head.). They will moan, grunt, wail, whine, cough, and click their teeth. It’s the freakiest thing late at night. Like a baby’s desperate wail.
A link to my recent blog post for DBD Group - dedicated with great thanks to those exhausted volunteers, leaders, and organizations that struggling and suffering, but still plowing ahead, showing up.
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I woke up this morning to snow falling outside my window. But it’s April 18: the sun should be shining and the birds singing. All this about coronavirus can be overwhelming, enough to make me not get out of my warm bed.
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My son once said to me, “I want to be homeschooled,” imagining his cousins’ lives and what being home all day would be like.
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