I have discovered that I have to have a playmate in life – or in actuality, several. I have a co-worker that knows how to put joy into the day and occasionally act like a twelve-year-old, thank goodness. I have family members, especially my daughter, Vanessa, who can also enjoy silliness. I truly don’t know how I’d survive without them.
I believe that play is essential to everyone, and those that are better at it are more balanced and mentally healthier. Needless to say, they are also happier people.
So, I had an opportunity to watch adults at play this weekend at our company picnic. It was so much fun to see people who I normally think of as very staid loosing up a bit and even acting like kids at time. One of the best surprises was the gentlemen, whose wife kind of poo-poo’d yo-yos for adults, who turned out to a yo-yo aficiando and the winner of the yo-yo competition. It was great to watch the grownups compete against the kids for the competitor with the most originality and style. Oh, the gyrations!
The next work day all of us were a bit lighter. We had bonded and – most importantly – played together. Letting down our guards for a few hours had made it easier to trust each other in our work environment as well.
So, here’s the lesson learned. Play = fun = laughter = REFRESHED AND REVIVED
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Everything Comes Full Circle
So, I’ve finished my novel, which was originally called “Full Circle,” and it's now called “Red Mojo Mama.” The title change and small shift in how I viewed my heroine, have given me a push in the right direction. The full manuscript is out to one agent and another asked for three chapters and a synopsis. Pray for me please!
My original title, however, had a meaning that I’ve found to be so true over the years. I believe in karma, in “what goes around comes around” and the cyclical nature of life. I’ve also come to believe that what you start out to accomplish and abandon along the way, can come back to you with more strength than ever.
I began writing when I was eleven years old. My first writing was a poem, entitled “Evergreen.” I still have the original, written on notebook paper in pencil. That same year, a few months later, I wrote a poem called “The Mark of Our Time”, which I sold to a magazine in the early 90’s. Isn’t that amazing?
While I experienced some horrific things as a child and young adult, those incidents built me into the person I am today, and offer so many touches to the stories and articles I’ve written. They’ve also gifted me with perception, understanding and kindness, I hope. So, where there was bad there is now good.
So, I guess this is an homage to my original title – boring as it was – because the truth is everything always comes full circle.
By the way, I've started two other blogs:
http://inthewritinggroove.blogspot.com/
http://aliberalstateofmind.blogspot.com/
My original title, however, had a meaning that I’ve found to be so true over the years. I believe in karma, in “what goes around comes around” and the cyclical nature of life. I’ve also come to believe that what you start out to accomplish and abandon along the way, can come back to you with more strength than ever.
I began writing when I was eleven years old. My first writing was a poem, entitled “Evergreen.” I still have the original, written on notebook paper in pencil. That same year, a few months later, I wrote a poem called “The Mark of Our Time”, which I sold to a magazine in the early 90’s. Isn’t that amazing?
While I experienced some horrific things as a child and young adult, those incidents built me into the person I am today, and offer so many touches to the stories and articles I’ve written. They’ve also gifted me with perception, understanding and kindness, I hope. So, where there was bad there is now good.
So, I guess this is an homage to my original title – boring as it was – because the truth is everything always comes full circle.
By the way, I've started two other blogs:
http://inthewritinggroove.blogspot.com/
http://aliberalstateofmind.blogspot.com/
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Solitary Explorations
Yesterday, a friend was bemoaning the fact that she had no one with whom to explore. Her husband was rarely up for anything that could remotely be called an adventure and she’d been so busy that her cadre of friends had dwindled to a just a few, none of whom could be called upon to venture out on a moment’s notice for parts and experiences unknown.
I started to recommend solitary explorations but stopped myself. This person may not enjoy that particular pleasure, although, in truth, I doubt she’s ever tried it.
I have found, over the past couple of years, there’s very little I truly need a companion to enjoy. Okay, a comedy film is more fun with shared laughter, but little else requires another mind to enjoy it. I’ve grown to prefer solitary exploration for it’s simple benefits.
First, I needn’t worry about the comfort and needs of a companion. I can literally go until I feel the need to stop. Then there’s the fact that which restaurant someone else would prefer doesn’t play into the equation. And, lastly, I tend to take joy in very small things and not to be very bothered by things that don’t turn out perfect. My daughter is the one travel partner of whom I’ve found this to be true. She, too, can extract enjoyment from slivers of a day. Consequently, she’s my preferred discovery cohort.
Yet, some things I still would rather dig into all by myself, because at the end of the day I don’t need to worry about anyone’s pleasure, except my own. And that, my friends, is a great luxury.
So, if you haven’t tried it lately, I highly recommend taking a jaunt into the unknown all by your lonesome.! Happy solitary explorations to you.
I started to recommend solitary explorations but stopped myself. This person may not enjoy that particular pleasure, although, in truth, I doubt she’s ever tried it.
I have found, over the past couple of years, there’s very little I truly need a companion to enjoy. Okay, a comedy film is more fun with shared laughter, but little else requires another mind to enjoy it. I’ve grown to prefer solitary exploration for it’s simple benefits.
First, I needn’t worry about the comfort and needs of a companion. I can literally go until I feel the need to stop. Then there’s the fact that which restaurant someone else would prefer doesn’t play into the equation. And, lastly, I tend to take joy in very small things and not to be very bothered by things that don’t turn out perfect. My daughter is the one travel partner of whom I’ve found this to be true. She, too, can extract enjoyment from slivers of a day. Consequently, she’s my preferred discovery cohort.
Yet, some things I still would rather dig into all by myself, because at the end of the day I don’t need to worry about anyone’s pleasure, except my own. And that, my friends, is a great luxury.
So, if you haven’t tried it lately, I highly recommend taking a jaunt into the unknown all by your lonesome.! Happy solitary explorations to you.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Tilting My View of the World
Have you ever made a change that seemed so simple, yet altered everything? A month ago, just that very thing happened to me.
For over a year, I’d been struggling with how to control the mess that was my domain at work. I was constantly overwhelmed, incessantly trying to remember what I had to do and recreating the same processes over and over. It came to me one day that my desk was basically a project and I was basically a project manager, trying to keep all the balls in the air and get to the finish line on time.
So, I endeavored to find a project management program that would work for me. Nothing quite fit the bill, so I started playing with an Excel spreadsheet. Previously, I had attempted to reign in my tasks with an Excel spreadsheet, but it was laid out horizontally. There were several repetitive tasks that looked the same horizontally, but most didn’t. So, I turned the task list to a vertical list. A very simple change in perspective, difficult to describe in detail here, but earth-shattering in its ability to change my work environment.
I essentially created a to-do list with the ability to create templates for a number of the things I had previously tried to keep in my head. For instance, instead of simply listing “make bread” as a to-do, I would now list every step of bread-making, checking each step off as it was accomplished. Next time I wanted to make bread, I’d simply take that template and paste it into the list of all the others things I had to do, so that I could make bread, do the laundry (again broken down into all the little steps), vacuum the living room, etc. weaving all the tiny tasks together so that I was essentially doing it all at the same time, making the most of the time in between the dough raising and the load of clothes drying for a half hour.
I also went from printing this list, checking things off and adding to the list manually to keeping the Excel spreadsheet open all day, as a living document. Now, the first thing I do each workday is open the spreadsheet. Then I work it all day long, adding new tasks or projects, removing the ones I’ve completed. I also cut and paste the completed tasks to another sheet on the workbook so that anytime I want I can go back and see when something was done.
About two weeks after creating the spreadsheet I which I now call Kathy’s Desk, I went on vacation. Instead of the two-day chore of writing down what needs to be done while I’m gone, as I usually do, I simply emailed Kathy’s Desk to a co-worker and went on my merry way. There, for anyone to see, was a completely up-to-date record of what needed to be done and what had already been done.
The biggest benefit to finally corralling the daily, weekly and monthly responsibilities of my work life is the ability to go home at night and forget all about it. For the first time, in years frankly, I don’t wake up worrying about if I did something or not. It’s all there on my sheet when I get into the office in the morning. At last, there’s nothing to worry about.
This minuscule change from horizontal to vertical has opened up my mind and freed my creativity. It has made me much more effective at work and far less stressed. It is a pleasure to go to work now, rather than a race against time and error. All because I suddenly tilted the way I looked at something, quite by mistake.
I’m now looking askance at many things in my life. What am I blocking from myself by not truly examining some aspect of the world around me with a new perspective?
Tilting the world on its axis could get to be a habit with me!
For over a year, I’d been struggling with how to control the mess that was my domain at work. I was constantly overwhelmed, incessantly trying to remember what I had to do and recreating the same processes over and over. It came to me one day that my desk was basically a project and I was basically a project manager, trying to keep all the balls in the air and get to the finish line on time.
So, I endeavored to find a project management program that would work for me. Nothing quite fit the bill, so I started playing with an Excel spreadsheet. Previously, I had attempted to reign in my tasks with an Excel spreadsheet, but it was laid out horizontally. There were several repetitive tasks that looked the same horizontally, but most didn’t. So, I turned the task list to a vertical list. A very simple change in perspective, difficult to describe in detail here, but earth-shattering in its ability to change my work environment.
I essentially created a to-do list with the ability to create templates for a number of the things I had previously tried to keep in my head. For instance, instead of simply listing “make bread” as a to-do, I would now list every step of bread-making, checking each step off as it was accomplished. Next time I wanted to make bread, I’d simply take that template and paste it into the list of all the others things I had to do, so that I could make bread, do the laundry (again broken down into all the little steps), vacuum the living room, etc. weaving all the tiny tasks together so that I was essentially doing it all at the same time, making the most of the time in between the dough raising and the load of clothes drying for a half hour.
I also went from printing this list, checking things off and adding to the list manually to keeping the Excel spreadsheet open all day, as a living document. Now, the first thing I do each workday is open the spreadsheet. Then I work it all day long, adding new tasks or projects, removing the ones I’ve completed. I also cut and paste the completed tasks to another sheet on the workbook so that anytime I want I can go back and see when something was done.
About two weeks after creating the spreadsheet I which I now call Kathy’s Desk, I went on vacation. Instead of the two-day chore of writing down what needs to be done while I’m gone, as I usually do, I simply emailed Kathy’s Desk to a co-worker and went on my merry way. There, for anyone to see, was a completely up-to-date record of what needed to be done and what had already been done.
The biggest benefit to finally corralling the daily, weekly and monthly responsibilities of my work life is the ability to go home at night and forget all about it. For the first time, in years frankly, I don’t wake up worrying about if I did something or not. It’s all there on my sheet when I get into the office in the morning. At last, there’s nothing to worry about.
This minuscule change from horizontal to vertical has opened up my mind and freed my creativity. It has made me much more effective at work and far less stressed. It is a pleasure to go to work now, rather than a race against time and error. All because I suddenly tilted the way I looked at something, quite by mistake.
I’m now looking askance at many things in my life. What am I blocking from myself by not truly examining some aspect of the world around me with a new perspective?
Tilting the world on its axis could get to be a habit with me!
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Holding Onto Our Stories
I first heard the concept of holding on to our stories almost nine years ago. Although I was able to recognize what was meant by this and the tendency of others to do it, I couldn’t see the same pattern in myself. Today I can and I think it’s such a vital thing to have an awareness of that I’m hoping writing this might help someone else.
The behavior is when someone is so rigidly attached to their life story as they perceive it or some portion of it that they end up telling it to as many as will listen. It also becomes their definition of themselves and often the world around them.
I remember the first person in whom I recognized this was a woman I became close to partly out of concern for her situation. Her story. She had been brutally divorced by a man who took her life away in her early forties. She had been fairly well-off and now she was struggling to pay her bills. The husband had hired a very good attorney – according to her tale – and left her and her children with little.
The longer I knew this lady, the more I heard the story. Everyone I introduced her to would eventually hear it, if they spent more than a few minutes with her. I got to the point where I could tell it as well as she. Okay, I thought one day, now it’s time to stop telling this story.
Why? Because she had trapped herself, her children and all of their futures inside the web of the story. She was destined to be and remain a victim. Powerless. Pitiful.
My own story is a little different, but has still frozen me in time. I lost my beloved Pete twelve years ago. He was the love of my life and an extremely good man. This is a true story, but the problem is that although I’ve dated several men, some seriously, they have all been compared to “the love of my life.” Nothing could ever happen to change my story, because I loved the object of it so much that allowing my heart to open meant giving up my Pete story.
So, I’ve recognized the legend I’ve created for what it is. However, I find I’m still not ready to give it up. I’m not sure how harmful sticking to your story is if you know that’s what you’re doing. Maybe I’ll have to look at this again in a year or so and figure that out. But for now, I know that I have trapped myself in the amber of a lost love.
Just that consciousness is enough for now.
The behavior is when someone is so rigidly attached to their life story as they perceive it or some portion of it that they end up telling it to as many as will listen. It also becomes their definition of themselves and often the world around them.
I remember the first person in whom I recognized this was a woman I became close to partly out of concern for her situation. Her story. She had been brutally divorced by a man who took her life away in her early forties. She had been fairly well-off and now she was struggling to pay her bills. The husband had hired a very good attorney – according to her tale – and left her and her children with little.
The longer I knew this lady, the more I heard the story. Everyone I introduced her to would eventually hear it, if they spent more than a few minutes with her. I got to the point where I could tell it as well as she. Okay, I thought one day, now it’s time to stop telling this story.
Why? Because she had trapped herself, her children and all of their futures inside the web of the story. She was destined to be and remain a victim. Powerless. Pitiful.
My own story is a little different, but has still frozen me in time. I lost my beloved Pete twelve years ago. He was the love of my life and an extremely good man. This is a true story, but the problem is that although I’ve dated several men, some seriously, they have all been compared to “the love of my life.” Nothing could ever happen to change my story, because I loved the object of it so much that allowing my heart to open meant giving up my Pete story.
So, I’ve recognized the legend I’ve created for what it is. However, I find I’m still not ready to give it up. I’m not sure how harmful sticking to your story is if you know that’s what you’re doing. Maybe I’ll have to look at this again in a year or so and figure that out. But for now, I know that I have trapped myself in the amber of a lost love.
Just that consciousness is enough for now.
Monday, April 12, 2010
In the Belly of the Beast
An acquaintance emailed me last week wanting to know if I had taken off in Wanda and driven into the sunset.
I wish.
Instead, I answered him, I have been swallowed whole by my job and am now living in the belly of a merger/acquisition and all that entails. To be truthful, the merger has less to do with my immersion in my workplace than the simple phenomenon of business getting better. As it does, the workload naturally increases and unfortunately the time to do it doesn’t. So, a job that I had hoped would be something like cruise control for me, is anything but.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m smart enough to be grateful for my employment in these times, however the time to write – the thing for which I live and breathe – has been limited. There are times when I’m tempted to fault myself. After all, a writer writes. However, I’ve come to realize that the part of my brain that makes me function successfully in the business world is a hinderance to the creative in me. I must forcefully turn it off when I attempt to let the words flow and that, my friends, is no easy task.
But, three weekends ago I managed to finish the first draft of my third novel, one I’m convinced will kick off a series of books featuring the heroine I’ve grown to love, and I can now employ the business brain to assess, fact-check, find holes, etc.
So, as I bounce off the gray interior of the Business Beast’s belly in the coming weeks, I will remember to draw its strength into my story. When I’ve managed to finish my rewrite, I’m afraid I’ll have find someway out of the belly. Now how did Jonah accomplish that? Or Pinocchio?
I wish.
Instead, I answered him, I have been swallowed whole by my job and am now living in the belly of a merger/acquisition and all that entails. To be truthful, the merger has less to do with my immersion in my workplace than the simple phenomenon of business getting better. As it does, the workload naturally increases and unfortunately the time to do it doesn’t. So, a job that I had hoped would be something like cruise control for me, is anything but.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m smart enough to be grateful for my employment in these times, however the time to write – the thing for which I live and breathe – has been limited. There are times when I’m tempted to fault myself. After all, a writer writes. However, I’ve come to realize that the part of my brain that makes me function successfully in the business world is a hinderance to the creative in me. I must forcefully turn it off when I attempt to let the words flow and that, my friends, is no easy task.
But, three weekends ago I managed to finish the first draft of my third novel, one I’m convinced will kick off a series of books featuring the heroine I’ve grown to love, and I can now employ the business brain to assess, fact-check, find holes, etc.
So, as I bounce off the gray interior of the Business Beast’s belly in the coming weeks, I will remember to draw its strength into my story. When I’ve managed to finish my rewrite, I’m afraid I’ll have find someway out of the belly. Now how did Jonah accomplish that? Or Pinocchio?
To Gray or Not to Gray
I was at an event this weekend that caused me to think twice about a recent move I had made from naturally graying hair back to “enhanced” color.
An elegant woman with very beautiful gray hair, who was obviously not old enough to have this color hair normally sat a long table’s length from me and I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair. There was a tad of the black it must have once been still peeking out between strands of hair the color of pewter, but much more shiny.
For about a year and a half, I tried to nuture the gray on my own head to multiply and cover it sexily, preferably just like Jamie Lee Curtis. Now, that’s a woman who knows how to wear gray.
However, my own hair is still a ways from the glittery stage and insisted on looking simply mousey. So, as much I desire to don a head full of silvery tresses, it’s not be for a few more years.
I have been bombarded by the incredulous comments of younger women who are horrified by a “choice” to go gray. It is beyond their comprehension that anyone would proudly wear white hair. I simply chuckle and wonder at their youth. They may easily change their views when their own hair turns on them. I hope so, because so often gray is softer and more lovely that the harsh colors some women insist on adding and nudging the lines in their faces cruelly.
So, I say – gray when you can and if it looks as great on you as the stunning lady I stared at this weekend.
An elegant woman with very beautiful gray hair, who was obviously not old enough to have this color hair normally sat a long table’s length from me and I couldn’t take my eyes off her hair. There was a tad of the black it must have once been still peeking out between strands of hair the color of pewter, but much more shiny.
For about a year and a half, I tried to nuture the gray on my own head to multiply and cover it sexily, preferably just like Jamie Lee Curtis. Now, that’s a woman who knows how to wear gray.
However, my own hair is still a ways from the glittery stage and insisted on looking simply mousey. So, as much I desire to don a head full of silvery tresses, it’s not be for a few more years.
I have been bombarded by the incredulous comments of younger women who are horrified by a “choice” to go gray. It is beyond their comprehension that anyone would proudly wear white hair. I simply chuckle and wonder at their youth. They may easily change their views when their own hair turns on them. I hope so, because so often gray is softer and more lovely that the harsh colors some women insist on adding and nudging the lines in their faces cruelly.
So, I say – gray when you can and if it looks as great on you as the stunning lady I stared at this weekend.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)