The upshot of arranging my life so that my work is portable is that I can spontaneously move the whole shebang outside for the day. This is the view as I work on some pretty wonderful contracted tasks this afternoon.
Bliss.
Blissification
What I’ve Been Doing When I’m Not Doing What I’m Usually Doing
August 8, 2011 By 5 Comments
I try to be super-predictable in updating my site. It’s probably out of some childhood guilt over neglecting my 5-year diary. You know the one… it had a faux leather cover, a lock and space to write about 3 words for each of 5 years? Yeah. I think I may have managed to put 11 entries in it before it got shoved into a box along with my Garfield pencil toppers.
Anyway. I’ll save that for analysis. Back to the point.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been slammed — in a good way — with all sorts of wonderful opportunities, deadlines, and events. Here’s a sampling:
- Ned Andrew and I drove 2400 miles in 12 days to visit folks we love. (Posts to come: here and here.)
- We bought and received Lizzy’s scooter, in large part because of the generosity of folks who read my July 4 blog post. (Post to come.)
- Our son turned 13. (Post to come.)
- We took on some fabulous, but intense freelance work. (Post likely not coming. I mean, who wants to read about word counts and deadlines? Okay, that guy. But no one else.)
- Encouraged by that other Independence Day Weekend (can that be right?) post, Ned Andrew rekindled his love affair with his Martin (It’s okay. It’s a guitar, not an old boyfriend.) and is playing like mad. (Post to come.)
- And — drumroll, please — we launched Ned Andrew Solomon online! It’s like my site, only slightly sexier and way more polished. Like Ned Andrew. Think of him as the New York City to my Temple, Texas. He wears all black, is busy 19 hours a day, and manages to be exactly what you need at every moment. (I’ll leave the analogy there. You can finish it in the comments.) Go look. I won’t be jealous.
So, I wasn’t really neglecting you. I was giving you a whole new way to fritter some time online. Er, I mean, be informed and entertained on a very regular basis.
You’re welcome!
A Long Drive for a Local Author
July 29, 2011 By 2 Comments
I live in Nashville, TN. Coincidentally, so does Ann Patchett. As a matter of fact, she’s in the process of opening an independent bookstore in the area. So, it made me giggle just a little when I realized that I’d driven 1300 miles this week to my favorite little bookstore in Great Barrington, MA only to buy a book from a local-to-me author.
I did balance it out with a copy of Alphabet Juice by the Berkshires’ own Roy Blount Jr. But I’m thinking the only way I can really even the score is to head back to Nashville and race into Ann’s store the moment it opens for a copy of Moby Dick.
On third thought, I bought my Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edith Wharton novels in Tennessee. While I’m pretty neutral on The Scarlett Letter and honestly can’t recall much about Mr Hawthorne’s other efforts, reading Ethan Frome and not extending my grudge against Ms Wharton to all of Massachussetts was an act of generosity unsurpassed in my lifetime. (I’m still in contact with my high school English teacher, and my consistent expression to her of how much I loathe that story is entering into its third decade.)
Perhaps I should take a page from Berkshire history as inspiration and start my own novel while I’m in these hills.
Hmmmm…
But then again, when would I manage to find time to read the dozen or so books I added to my already-toppling pile of to-be-reads at home?
Such dilemmas. Good thing I have another 1300 miles to get it all sorted out.
Gina’s Reading: 5: Where Will You Be Five Years from Today?
July 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I am a chart-the-course junkie, so Dan Zadra’s book is right up my alley. 5: Where Will You Be Five Years from Today is very similar in nature to other coaching-by-book volumes (see: Martha Beck and Stephen Covey) in that it asks you to identify those things that are important to you and points you in the direction of achieving them.
The one thing going for this version of that well-known exercise is that it is presented workbook style in about 60 colorful, big-print pages. If you are not one to slog though theory and background, and just like to get to the point and get moving, this might be the format for you.
The downside of many self-coaching books is the lack of accountability to another person. No matter how gorgeous and worth-while the exercises, many people do better with someone to hold them to their promises. Zadra attempts to overcome this inertia by creating a volume that is visually pleasing as well as chock-full of encouragement in small bites.
Zadra’s graphically-exciting book may also be a useful volume for coaches and therapists to share with clients as “homework” as they go through the process of looking at Values, Mission Statement, Life Balance, Goal Setting, and Stretching.
As someone who enjoys the theory behind the go-get-em, this wouldn’t be my only goal-setting book on the shelf. But for folks who love to collect them or who would like a straight-forward workbook for inking their visions, this work is worth a look.
Thinking About “Happiness, Joy and Big Fat Klout Scores”
July 19, 2011 By 2 Comments
Mark Schaefer is one of my favorite online colleagues. We’re from the same town and run in the same e-circles, but have never actually managed to be in the same room at the same time. At any rate, his is one of the 3 or 4 blogs I try to catch up on each week. It’s a rare day that what he’s thinking (and writing about) doesn’t inspire some more thinking (and writing) by me.
This morning was no different.
Mark shared some thoughts about, well, happiness, joy, and big fat Klout scores. I’d love you to go read the whole post, but the essence was this:
One of the things I discovered is that there is a difference between happiness and joy. You can be happy about a hamburger. You can be happy about a song. Happiness is temporary. Joy is peace.
Living in a joyful way is a challenge but one key idea is staying focused on the reason for your journey. If you KNOW why you are on your path, then you also have internal guideposts to lead the way. Stay focused on WHY you’re doing something.
But if your life is guided by external guideposts like Twitter followers, blog rankings … and even money … you might experience happiness but you will never experience joy because you will never achieve your goal. There will always be more, more, more to acquire. You won’t experience joy in the journey.
I was inspired to hijack comment on Mark’s post and he responded that my comments made a good blog post all on their own. I kind of chuckled — it was a long comment — but then I thought, heck, maybe I should include my thoughts here.
What I said:
Your thoughts send my thoughts in about 14 directions. The inner perfectionist in me wants me to go create a gorgeously written comment. The joyful Pollyanna I’ve chosen to cultivate says, “Just say it.” So here goes…
(1) The anecdote about the guy who is so focused on a Klout score that he’s forgotten to live life made me sad. It reminded me of the guy I knew who spent his entire summer in front of Joust so that no one could bump him from the leaderboard. At the 7-11. In College Station, TX. What a way to spend a summer.
(2) Then I got a little nauseous about the guy cheating on foursquare. It reminds me of my son. He’s all about the cheat codes. Why solve a puzzle if you can “mod in the solution”? It’s baffling behavior to me. What is an “accomplishment” worth if you didn’t actually accomplish it?
(3) Then I did a little whoop yell of joy over your choice to keep your blog spam free. While I completely understand the desire (and need!) to monetize our online realities, I like ads to look like ads, endorsements to look like endorsements, and articles to actually be articles. Those lines feel like integrity to me. Living with integrity — and surrounding myself with folks who do — brings me joy.
(4) It’s true what that say about joy v happiness. Flourishing is all about getting in touch with our authentic inner self, identifying the gifts we bring, and following that internal path. Sometimes it feels awkward to change our focus that way, but, as you’ve so beautifully said, the reward is pretty wonderful.
Mark’s post and my thinking about Mark’s post has colored my whole day.
I’m wondering how I help my son see the benefit of doing some stuff the hard way. I don’t mean that it’s never okay to take a short cut or get help with something. I do know that those peak experiences we seem to want in our lives rarely come without some self-satisfying effort in pursuit of them.
I’m reevaluating my online presence and how I spend my energy here. It’s not a new thing for me, but I think Mark makes a good point when he underlines that it really is something you have to keep refocusing your attention on.
I’m integrating my reaction to his turning down a pile of cash for his endorsements within his posts into how I do business. It isn’t a new reaction, but it demonstrates to me what I’ve known for years — I want people to choose to spend time with me because it is good for them, I bring them joy, I inspire them, and not because I’ve talked them into it through some magic of slick marketing.
Yep, I’m doing a whole lot of thinking. And the really cool thing is that I’m pretty delighted with where I am and how I’m doing with all of this stuff. Of course I have tweaking to do! I’m the last to declare that I’ve arrived at peak perfection. But, I do think I’m solidly on my journey and am so very grateful for those thoughtful colleagues who are along for the ride.
Values: Generosity aka Lizzy’s Launch Update
July 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Most of the shots from the test drive are a blur...
When I put “generosity” in my list of values it was really about my desire to be generous with my time and talents and creativity and love and joy. I like giving. It feels good and it gives me a boost and the folks around me seem to like it, too.
So, it never really occurred to me that the lesson would be around accepting generosity. I mean, sure, I appreciate it when someone thinks of me or sends me a hello on my birthday or treats me to lunch. I’m always a little uncomfortable with it, though. If I dig down deep I know it’s because I’ve been the recipient of lots of “gifts” with ropes attached. So, I don’t trust generosity. Not really.
And then something breathtaking happened.
We decided to purchase Lizzy a scooter for college. I spent some time thinking of ways to make that happen without having to make the Little Kids go without school clothes. In a move that is completely unlike me, I put up a post about this goal and offered my coaching services, you know, out loud. At the urging of a colleague, I also included a donation button in case folks wanted to chip in.
I clicked “Publish” and then went to lunch with Ned Andrew. When we arrived at the restaurant, there were emails telling us that folks were sending money. What?? Yes. And not just a little money. Over the course of the 2 weeks since I went public with our goal, half the price of the scooter has been gifted to us by incredibly generous friends from around the country.
Wow.
Of course, I’ve sent thank you notes to each of them. But I am just floored by the response to our request.
With half the money in hand, Ned Andrew called today and placed the order for Lizzy’s ride. The company we are buying from is installing that cup holder Lizzy asked for and will ship her new wheels next week. She’ll have a couple of weeks to get really facile at driving it before she’s off to college.
She’s in for the ride of her life.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Your generosity is absolutely overwhelming.
Lizzy & Berns Off to the Races!
Baking Bread: How I Made That Loaf
July 17, 2011 By 2 Comments
Having decided that happiness has as much to do with what I don’t do as anything I might accomplish, I am pretty protective of my time and to-do lists. I don’t volunteer for boards and committees that suck my oxygen. I don’t spend my time watching movies that contain peril or violence or mean people. I don’t sign my kids up for every activity sent home on a flyer.
All of these don’ts add up to a wonderful amount of time to focus on the things I do.
One of the things I do is bake bread. And if I’m going to spend my time baking bread, I’m going to use tools that feel and look wonderful. It’s going to be a process that feeds me as much as the product does. I mix the dough with a wooden spoon that was carved for me by Karen Davis in a batter bowl that was hand made for me by Patrick Green. I think about these sweet souls as I measure, pour, and mix.
There is something magical about creating bread from simple ingredients — flour, water, salt, yeast. You mix around these staples and wait a bit and then shape them into a loaf and then wait some more and then put them in the oven and wait some more. And then… bread! But it’s hot, so you have to wait some more.
I could draw all sorts of correlations between the process of baking bread and life in general. We all get the basic ingredients when we start out. Sure, some folks get nicer spoons and bowls. But in the end, given patience and practice and effort and even time to rest, we can bake a pretty decent loaf. And just because we don’t like how the loaf turned out doesn’t mean we’re stuck with it. We still have choices and the ability to transform what we’ve created into something else.
Of course, sometimes bread is just bread. But there’s a reason the traditional Christian prayer begs, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It’s food. It’s sustenance. At its essence, it is the stuff of life. And, yeah, I can pick up a loaf on just about any corner for a couple of dollars, but there’s something to be said for knowing how to make your own.
I certainly understand how folks get to the point where they are scrounging for crumbs and taking whatever morsels are tossed their way. Sometimes life is really hard. Crappy stuff happens. People can be pretty mean. We get blindsided by a bad choice or two or ten. It just seems futile to keep pushing the rock uphill. There is nothing that makes me sadder than to meet someone who feels defeated or to hear about a suicide. I’ve certainly had my share of low moments, but I’ve lived through them and beyond them and can report from the other side that it gets better.
It takes a decision, though.
In order to live a delightful, on purpose life of abundance and bliss, we have to first decide that we, ourselves just as we are, are enough. We have everything we need to be just fine. And we can be okay if we add nothing and take away nothing away.
We are enough. We are plentiful. We are abundance. We are bliss.
Flour. Water. Salt. Yeast. Time. Effort. Rest. Warmth. Love.
It’s all we need.
But a little butter or jam or cheese or fruit doesn’t hurt.
About the Bread:
I make several kinds of bread, but quick loaves and No-Knead breads are my favorites. I’ll share more about quick breads in a later post.
The loaves in the pictures above are cooked in my home oven using a variation on Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread. It’s basically 3 cups of flour, a cup and a half of water, a quarter teaspoon of yeast and 3/4 of a Tablespoon of kosher salt and a lot of waiting. Sometimes I shorten the recipe by doubling the yeast and adding a bit of red wine vinegar. Sometimes I bake it in a covered pot or a Dutch oven. Sometimes I put a broiler pan of water under my baking stone. Sometimes I leave it gooey inside because Ned Andrew loves his bread that way.
For step-by-step instructions, no one does a better job of explaining Mark Bittman’s No-Knead bread than Jaden Hair.
If you like videos, here’s Mark Bittman and Jim Lahey demonstrating the original No-Knead Bread and a faster version.
If you bake a loaf, I’d love to hear about it!
Baking Bread
July 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I have a confession to make.
I honestly have nothing intelligent, witty, or inspiring to say about this loaf of bread. I’m just hoping that by spending a few minutes posting a picture of it, I can hold off cutting it until it is cool enough to touch without risking a burn.
Yes, I made it. Yes, it’s a variation of Mark Bittman’s No-Knead Bread recipe.
I’ll post some links to the recipe… but not until I’ve had a huge chuck of this particular loaf smothered in really real butter.
Or two.
Yeah. I’ll have two chunks.
I Always Wore the Colors of My Country
July 3, 2011 By 4 Comments
Back in 1972, Ned Andrew became involved in the McGovern for President Campaign. Like Aaron Sorkin, Ned was interested in a girl who was stuffing envelopes in an attempt to oust Nixon. As part of his work, he and his friends headed to White Plains, NY, put on Nixon masks and lined up on the motorcade route to jeer and boo the embroiled president.
Inspired by this event, the Watergate scandal, a general disillusionment with the integrity of politicians, and his desire to catch the ear and eye of one cute girl, Ned Andrew penned I Always Wore The Colors of My Country.
He later sat down with producer and bass player, Mark Dann to record the song for the September 1984 issue of Fast Folk Magazine. It was kind of a combo deal — a magazine and a record album — that came out somewhat irregularly between 1982 and 1997. Fast Folk eventually recorded some 2000 songs from 600 artists including Lyle Lovett, Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, and John Gorka. The Smithsonian acquired the collection and houses it in their Folkways Recordings Archives.
I found the recording listed with the Smithsonian about 5 or 6 years ago when I was googling Ned Andrew for some reason or another and contacted their curator to find out whether it was available. He dug through the archives and uploaded the track to their webstore for me. (Lucky for you, they’ve since put all of the archived tracks into their online store.) I purchased it and sent it to Ned Andrew as a surprise.
Ned Andrew Solomon and Jon Crenson
Of course, at that point he was destined to be my sweetie. I mean, how many folks have work they wrote in high school archived in the Smithsonian? That’s right. Ned Andrew does. He’s an amazing guy in lots of ways, but this was the clincher.
Now, please know that Ned Andrew is an amazing patriot. He works for the state running incredible trainings for folks with disabilities and their families under a federal program. He votes. He cares. And he sings his heart out when he plays this song.
It amazes me that he was exercising his rights to free speech when I was just learning to speak.
Anywho, Ned’s given me permission to share his song with you. Enjoy!
And Happy Independence Day!
[powerpress]
I Always Wore the Colors of My Country — Ned Andrew Solomon
I wanted to be thankful, to be hopeful, sentimental,
To be grateful and deep down satisfied
I felt like I was lucky, born with freedom, educated,
A native in a country filled with pride
And I always wore the colors of my country
I always wore the colors of my country
Now the red white and blue
Just doesn’t do
Doesn’t say what it said in creation
The red doesn’t glare and the white doesn’t care
And the blue’s just a wave
On the ocean
I heeded all the warnings, looked both ways, used my head
And I weighed both sides of every question
I exercised my vote and I exercised my mind
And I exercised my wallet to exhaustion
And I always wore the colors of my country
I always wore the colors of my country
Now the red white and blue
Just doesn’t do
Doesn’t say what it said in creation
The red doesn’t glare and the white doesn’t care
And the blue’s just a wave
On the ocean
Just a wave.
© 1981 by Ned Andrew Solomon
Values: Connection
June 27, 2011 By 2 Comments
Uncle Chuck's Green Candle
Last week I spent some time plotting out how I would go about making and keeping the commitment to myself to update my site with something new almost every day.
My thinking was something along these lines, “You want to do this and you need a deadline in order to do what you want to do. You manage to announce your every eye blink on Facebook. Surely you can pause long enough to connect with folks in a more meaningful way.”
Thus the plotting. I planned to offer a post on each of my core values on Mondays, a more practical “how to” post on transitions on Tuesdays, a book review on Wednesdays… I even created really neato-skeeto graphics for the Monday Motivation series over the weekend and sorted through my ideas for the one I wanted to write about.
And then I stared at the screen for about an hour.
Because my planned post isn’t what I’m thinking about and it just isn’t very me-like to fake a post. That wouldn’t be authentic. (See, there are those values now!)
What are you thinking about, Gina?
Well, to be quite frank, I’m thinking about my Uncle Chuck, who died about 10 hours ago after being in the hospital for three months in a city far away from his home and his family. I’m thinking about my Aunt and my Cousins and most especially my Mama E who is just starting the journey of grieving the loss of her brother and all of the specific sadnesses and joys they’ll each experience as we move through these days.
I’m thinking about relationships and what makes us fond of one another. How do we determine who gets in and who stays over there? What ties us to someone enough to miss them when they are gone? How is it that you can feel connected to someone you haven’t seen in 20 years while barely taking note of the guy who serves you coffee every day?
One of the things I love most about Ned Andrew is that he connects with people. Not just the people who have letters after their names or hold some major sway in his day. He couldn’t care less whether you have a PhD or M&Ms in your pocket. He learns the names of everyone in his milieu — including the folks at the seafood counter. (Kim at Publix. Al at Kroger.) He greets people on the street. He calls people back. He connects.
I value that connection.
When I was in sales I was accused of taking too long on each customer in spite of leading the team in numbers. “Get ’em in! Get ’em sold! Next!” I suppose they thought if I could sell faster, I could sell even more. I tried to follow the scripts, but not only did it feel awful and awkward and phony, my sales plummeted too. It didn’t work because I’m not comfortable interacting with people that way. I’d rather slow down, ask questions, really listen to the answers, ask another question, call a colleague, research solutions, and actually find a way to help that person get to what they’re hoping to do/be/have. I’d rather treat people as, well, people deserving of my attention and respect and patience as they make their own choices. (Wow. There’s self-determination. Values everywhere.)
Anyway.
Connection.
It is vital to my feeling like a whole, healthy, on purpose human being to create and sustain connections with other people in my life. I’m not interested in the analytics of our digital realities. Of course I love to see trends (I count my workouts!) but I’m not interested in doing integral calculus on my relationships. Because does it really matter how many followers I have? My reach? Clicks? Views? Pings? Trackbacks? if at the end of the day my only ROI is a cool graph showing more of… whatever those things attempt to count?
Honestly, I’d rather have one really amazing conversation with another fascinating individual over the course of months and months. I’d rather be in relationships that are rich enough that that the day after my death someone misses me enough to inspire people they know to pause, light a candle, and think about what matters.
your thoughts