The Workout

It was dark on her morning walk as she forced herself to smile.  There was nothing funny about the dark, but she smiled anyway. 

She had seen faces with mouths in a permanent frown. Mitch McConnell’s face popped to mind. She was not going to become him. She was not going to become a grumpy-looking old lady. His dour lips inspired her to smile as part of her workout.

The workout was harder than she expected. Not the walking, but the smiling. She was out of practice. Her job wasn’t a laughing matter and single-parenting left her exhausted. Exhaustion at days’ end dampened her smile response.

Trying to smile on command, without any obvious stimuli, felt weird.

Which is why she started practicing smiling on her morning walks. There were no other pedestrians, and drivers wouldn’t see her face. She could feel awkward without her awkwardness being seen.

After a winter of smile-walking mornings, the weather got nice. She was walking in daylight hours now and her smile felt comfortable.

Then a funny thing happened: life started to serve up all sorts of things that sparked a smile. Like the mom pushing a baby carriage through a crosswalk, her three-year-old in tow pushing her own doll carriage along.

She had started her smile-workout motivated by vanity, then discovered an unexpected benefit. A torrent of smile-worthy things suddenly surfaced.

They had, of course, always been there: the hummingbird that flits by, the smell of baking bread, a friend’s hug, the warmth of the sun.

Now, thanks to her winter workouts, they elicited easy smiles.

Photo source: CreativeMagic on Pixabay

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Tilting at Windmills

The Vermont hills, peppered with farms and cows, rolled before her as she drove. Small towns and communities rose up then faded away.  Green scenery enveloped her with its splendor while an occasional tree hinted at autumn.

She rounded a turn. There on a hill was the shock of a half-dozen windmills.

They claimed the ridge like a crown on a queen’s head, their white towers and blades contrasting against the leafy green of the trees they towered over. 

Windmills, she thought, nodding approvingly.  Elegant in their design. Wind power would help shift society away from fossil fuel.

She tilted her head and suddenly, reservations arose.

These weren’t quaint windmills. They were turbines. Huge things that killed birds. They overshadowed the trees. They looked completely out of scale in this bucolic setting.

She was surprised by her waffling, by her uncertainty, given her support for clean energy.

Another head-tilt, and she imagined oil derricks perched atop the ridge instead.

Her disapproval was instantaneous. Singular and unquestioning.  Even if they had been smaller or blended in better than the wind turbines, oil derricks did not belong on Vermont hillsides.

That would be wrong. No waffling or uncertainty there.

While still giants, these wind devices were not, thank god, oil derricks.

She took a breath, straightened her head, and left the windmills behind.

Photo source: VIVIANE6276 on Pixabay

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This is Not Good (again)

My dad, as a teen, hit a skunk at night while driving his father’s car past curfew. When he got home and climbed out of the Pontiac, the skunk smell was strong. He smelled of skunk. There was no chance of slipping unnoticed into the house. His father would ask questions.

This is not good, he thought. This is not good.

I’ve had that same thought, said the same thing when something went wrong.

This is not good.

We don’t say, this is bad, which is odd.

This is bad is shorter. Precise and to the point.

The opposite of not good is bad.

But this is bad somehow sounds worse than this is not good. 

This is bad is clearly bad.

This is not good subtly leaves open possibilities other than bad.

This is not good is maybe…OK? Permissible? Forgivable?

Not good interrupts a definitive and final conclusion of bad.

It gives wiggle room; buys time; offers hope.

Fuzzy logic? Probably. But it works for rice cookers and my dad, so it’s good enough for me.

How’d my dad’s story with his father end? I’ve no idea.

I just know he survived.

Photo source: OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

I wrote a version of this in July 2019. This is similar, but I’m exploring style, voice and layout, so this reflects changes. If you read both and like one better than another, I’d love to know which one you like better and why. Me? I’m of two minds about it. Thanks :-).

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Not Just a Car Crash. Also a Relationship Lesson.

Bubba and I were having a tiff. It was a Sunday night around 10 pm. We were in the house, face-to-face, quibbling about something.

Suddenly, from outside, the crunching sound of metal crashing into metal screamed at us.  Whatever Bubba and I were talking about, it stopped. We turned, in unison, and headed down the hall.  As we neared the front door, we heard a second crash.

Our neighborhood is filled with cars parked on the street; mine was one of them.

That doesn’t sound good, one of us said.

And how the ‘eff can there be two crashes?

My 5-year-old Nissan was in front of our house, shoved a couple of feet forward from where I had parked it. Slightly behind was a black sports car, askew and partially jutting out into the road. I walked over to my car. The rear, left corner was smashed, the tire and rim damaged; clearly not drivable.

Bubba walked over to the window of the black car and confirmed the driver was okay; dazed, but okay. License and insurance information was obtained. The driver, distraught over a fight he’d had with his wife, could barely hold back tears.

We asked questions: Had he hit my car twice? Yes. How had he managed that? He’d turned his steering wheel to drive his car around mine. Unbeknownst to him, his steering column had broken with the first crash, so his tires hadn’t turned. When he accelerated, his car ran into mine a second time.

Neighbors who had come outside upon hearing the crash drifted back in. Their cars were fine; it was a hiccup to their normal Sunday nights. I called my insurance company; this was more than a hiccup for me.

I drove a rental car while the insurance process proceeded. Someone advised me my insurance company would stop paying for the rental once my vehicle was either fixed or deemed totaled. The insurance adjuster hinted that totaled was likely; I felt an urgency to decide on a replacement car. Two weeks after my Nissan was totaled, I came home with a Honda CR-V.

I was initially ticked-off that my low-mileage, great condition Nissan was destroyed.  But it turns out I like my replacement car better. Plus, no one was injured, and I’ve since received multiple attorney letters claiming my old Nissan is currently on a lemon list.  Not my problem! I don’t own it anymore!

The best lesson for me was I got to see how quickly Bubba and I switched gears; how we went from being at odds with each other to uniting, joining together to take on whatever was out there. My car may have been totaled, but my relationship with Bubba was strengthened.

 

Photo source: Pixel-mixer on Pixabay

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Meditation Quote: Freedom of Mind

I recently wrote a two-part piece about navigating relationship when things aren’t going smoothly.  My kernel of understanding is reflected in this Headspace quote. Being okay with my mind—accepting it, even when it’s anxious—feels kinder than disapproving of it.   There’s freedom in that.

Here are my posts:

• Part 1: A Wretched Mess
• Part 2: Finding a Different Way

 

Photo source: Headspace

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Part 2: Finding a Different Way

I want to prepare meals with Bubba without getting defensive and having a tiff. But what if defensive is ok?

Bubba and I have relationship patterns that sometimes scuff up against each other. It can result in momentary relationship glitches. Or derail a day.

Some are random and rare; others, predictable and more frequent.

In A Wretched Mess, I wrote about a common kitchen scuffle we experience: Bubba offers to help me cook, and I resist it, experiencing his help not as help, but as a statement I’m doing it wrong.

Bubba wants to enjoy making meals with me. My getting snippy takes away the fun, so he leaves the kitchen, usually with disapproval.  His leaving means we’re not doing it together, plus we’re both upset. It all feels crappy.

Is Early Good?

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Part 1: A Wretched Mess

Do you ever respond to something—or someone—in a way you wish you didn’t? Yet you respond that same way repeatedly, butting heads in a familiar dance pattern?

When Bubba and I started living together, one place we ran into relationship speed bumps was the kitchen, usually when I was preparing food. I rarely work off a recipe, so my style is free-form. I don’t actually know if what I’m making will work, but based on having watched mom cook—and enough personal success of my own—I’ve been content with my approach.

Then Bubba moved in. He’s comfortable in the kitchen. Sometimes he cooks; sometimes I do. When I’m cooking, he often offers to help. But instead of welcoming his offers, I’ve often resisted them; gotten defensive.

This is Not Good

My dad told me a story from his youth about hitting a skunk at night while driving his father’s car. When he got home and climbed out of the car, the skunk smell was strong. He smelled of skunk. He knew his mother would ask questions.

This is not good, he thought.

I’ve had that same thought; said the same thing when something went wrong: This is not good.

Like my dad, I don’t say, this is bad.

Why is that?

This is bad is shorter. To the point. Clear. Definitive. The opposite of not good is bad. Right?

But this is bad somehow sounds worse.  There’s good and there’s bad and this is bad is clearly bad.

This is not good subtly leaves open possibilities other than bad. Maybe this thing that is not good is actually…maybe…great? Not good slows down thinking; interrupts a clear and definitive conclusion of bad.

It gives some wiggle room; buys some time with the inner Judge.

Maybe that sounds like fuzzy logic, but it works for rice cookers, so I’ll take it.

And…I never learned how the skunk story ended.

But my dad survived.

 

Photo source: OpenClipart-Vectors on Pixabay

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Relationship Tip: Don’t Be an Ass

The Golden Rule is short and to the point: Treat others as you want them to treat you.  It’s pretty simple, yet we often complicate it.

In his book The Zen Commandments, Dean Sluyter says “our personal relationships can be simpler than we usually make them.” He summarizes the principles he thinks make relationships work.

“Whether in a romance or a marriage or a family, the principles are the same: you take care of one another, you be as kind as you can, you do your share of finding new sources of fun, you quietly pass up opportunities to score points or be a wise guy, you give the benefit of the doubt, and you try to make things less insane rather than more.  If you think the other person is off the program you address the situation gently and with respect. But since the problem is often your own perception, you can save everyone a lot of grief by waiting a little while first to see if your perception changes.”

The Zen Commandments: Ten Suggestions for a Life of Inner Freedom, Dean Sluyter, from Lesson #5: Keep it Simple

Here’s my summary of his Principles

1. Take care of each other
2. Be kind
3. Do your share
4. Avoid being an ass
5. Assume the best (not the worst)
6. Make things better (rather than worse)
7. Before jumping to a conclusion, wait
8. If, after waiting, there’s still an issue, address it

Sluyter’s advice resonates for me, both the words and the simplicity of it. If both people in a relationship apply it, a lot of perceived relationship problems disappear.  Did the thing go away or did our thoughts about it change?

I know thoughts in my mind impact my perception of things, and that can affect how I experience stuff. I’ve received new information in situations and been shocked at how quickly my perception has pivoted.

I want to keep #7 in mind. Life promises change; guarantees it. I’ve been amazed at how something that had a hold of me can lose its power simply with the passage of time.

What relationship principles guide you in life?

 

Photo source: RJA1988 on Pixabay

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How a Decision I’d Felt Fine About Suddenly Felt Wrong

A lot of my childhood stuff was discarded over the years, but neither I nor mom ever discarded Sad Baby.  Plush in all parts except the face, she had a zippered-pouch in back cradling a music box.  The soft body, with lilting musical tones, was a comforting snuggle.

The plushie eventually made her way from the east coast to California, her cloth frayed and worn, the music box long dead and disposed of. I washed her face, aired her out and alternately displayed her on my bed or stuck her in the garage.

Years passed. Sad Baby had been in the garage a while when a desire to declutter arose. My decluttering urges loop around regularly. Each time, something that survived the last cycle, does not make the current cut.

One de-clutter tip I’d read was to take a picture of an object cared about but no longer wanted. It would keep the memory without having to store the thing.

I looked at Sad Baby. “It’s time,” I thought. “Time to let go of you.” Sad Baby had been mine for 55-years.

I took a picture, tucked her into my trick trash, and she was gone.

Sad Baby comfortably lived in my memory. I didn’t miss her. I was content with my decision.

Until…I wasn’t.

Road Lesson #3: Don’t Take it Personally

I’ve written two blog posts inspired by a place I dubbed mindfulness intersection. It was a stretch of road I drove regularly, giving me plenty of opportunities to practice mindfulness.

My first lesson was about my rage at another car cutting in front of me.

My second lesson had me being the cutter, at a different, but similar, intersection.

My third lesson—I’ve stopped saying final because life keeps surprising me—I tell here.

This lesson captures the essence of Don Miguel Ruiz’s second agreement—don’t take anything personally—in his book, The Four Agreements.

“Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”^[1]

This third lesson, surprisingly, happened while I was walking. Having had a disagreement with Bubba, I was outside, stomping up the street, trying to clear my head and make sense of what had just happened.

Wintry Mindfulness Moments

My blogging efforts remind me of learning to drive a stick-shift: fits-and-starts. In January, I met my goal of posting three-times a week. So far this month? Sketchy.

My excuse? I went east to spend time with dad, to celebrate his 95^th birthday. Generally I avoid flying cross-country during winter; too unpredictable. I haven’t been home for Christmas in decades. I tried to get east for dad’s 90^th birthday, but snow-storms cancelled that year’s trip.  With mom’s death last September, the urge to go east for Christmas or for dad’s February birthday was strong.

I opted for dad’s birthday, both to miss the holiday madness, and so I could get information together for his tax return. Dad might discourage my traveling for his birthday; but to get the taxes done would be a compelling enticement.

Whether I was going to get east seemed dicey.

My New Swear Word

I have a new swear word.

Actually, it’s less a swear word and more a cheery way to acknowledge a minor mishap.

The word was born in the kitchen, while scooping quinoa out of a bag and into a pan. No matter how careful Bubba and I were, grains of quinoa always leapt from the measuring cup onto the counter.

Have you ever found yourself muttering under your breath about being clumsy, careless, stupid over something minor? Over something you’d never criticize a child for?

Well, when the quinoa fell, our voices muttered.

Some things are habitual; tracks laid down years ago and reaffirmed so often they’re solidly etched into being automatic.  Bubba and I have a few of those tracks; we work at counterbalancing their automaticity with more intentional responses. Sometimes we find something that works and is fun.

It was in the kitchen, with quinoa falling and voices muttering, that we found our counterbalancing tool: the quinoa itself.

Quinoa, when spoken, sounds like keen-wa. Which is quite fun to say, especially if you elongate the vowels.

Now when the quinoa falls, we call out keeeen-waaaa! with a cheery voice; it’s so much easier to feel upbeat when the music is soaring. It’s become our way of simply recognizing what is—the quinoa is going to leap—rather than responding as if it shouldn’t be doing what it’s doing.

It’s been so effective at quieting our spilled-quinoa-muttering-minds, we now use it regularly, in all sorts of situations. Because, at least in our house, life serves up plenty of spills, drops, tumbles and minor mishaps.

Spilled milk?

 Keeeen-waaaa!!!!!!!

 

Photo source: ponce_photography on Pixabay

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I Love Stuff. I Hate Stuff.

I have a love/hate relationship with stuff.   I own too many things.  Not all of it sparks joy, that Marie Kondo test to decide whether to keep something or eliminate it.

I’ve gotten rid of things along the way, but unless I move and have to do a major purge, things flow into my house at a faster rate than they flow out. Having lived in the same place for nearly 20 years, stuff has accumulated.

The percentage of stuff I use regularly is…small.

Some of the stuff is seasonal, stored until the season rolls around again.

Some is aspirational: those pants I’ll fit into once I’ve dropped 10-pounds.

Some is, if I’m brutally honest, fantastical: am I really going to read Daniel Pink’s To Sell is Human or George Lakoff’s Moral Politics?

Postage Stamps are Little Marvels

The price of a U.S. first-class stamp goes up January 27, 2019 from $0.50 to $0.55.

If you’re of a certain generation you might ask, “What’s a stamp?”

If you were alive 50-years-ago, when stamps were $0.06, you might grumble about the higher price.

But focusing on the price misses something bigger: the marvel of what you get for the price of that stamp; that stamp affixed to an envelope you can send to a friend 3,000 miles away.

Road Intersection Lesson #2

Have you ever thought you’d squeezed every morsel of learning out of some lesson, only to have it say, wait! there’s more!

My Road Rage story was like that. I dubbed the location where I learned to reduce my road rage, mindfulness intersection. After blogging about it I thought, ok, that intersection is dry; I’ve learned all there is.

But life continued. And I realized so much depends on perspective. When I first wrote about taming my road rage, I wrote about it from my perspective: the one pissed off that another car cut in front of me.

My second lesson had me being the cutter.

Tilting at Windmills

I love moments when I see my perspective shift on something.  I tilt my psychological head and, bam! things are suddenly different.

I was driving to the hospital to see mom. The Vermont hills, peppered with farms and cows, rolled before me, small towns and communities rising up and fading away.  The green scenery swaddled me in its splendor; an occasional tree hinted at autumn.

I rounded a turn. There on the hill before me was a display of a half-dozen windmills.

Ice Cream, Safeway and Letting Go

Ice cream is the secret to a long and happy life. My dad, an almost daily eater of ice cream is, at 94, my evidentiary proof.  If red wine drinkers have convinced the world of the medicinal argument for their lust, I’ll go with the longevity argument for mine.

So, I eat ice cream, leaning toward anything with salted caramel in it.

When Birthdays Go Awry

My birthday was a fizzling failure. Or a shimmering success. It depends on what lens you see it through.

Breakfast seemed simple: go out and have someone wait on me, bring me exactly what I want, clear things away and do the dishes. Luxuriate in some morning spoiling all while checking out a new café in town.

It was the heart of your typical breakfast rush hour when we walked in, and the place was…empty. Not a single customer. No greeter. No wait staff. Utter silence. Not a good sign.

“They’re new,” I said to Bubba. “Still working out the kinks.”