Simple Pleasures

On a summer trip to visit family in Massachusetts, I spent a morning with my husband and son at Walden Pond, the former haven of the simplicity-loving Henry David Thoreau. Every time I visit, I can understand why Henry D. chose Walden as his respite from the oh-so-complicated world of nineteenth century Concord. The pond is deep blue, ringed first by white sand and then by lush New England woods. Even with the summer crowds, the reflective stillness of the place hasn't been lost over the centuries. It's peaceful and it's beautiful.

As a true American and millennial parent, I couldn't resist the urge to pick up something for the little man in the gift shop dedicated to Thoreau (which is a bit ironic) on our way out. Nestled between the Audubon stuffed birds and the framed prints of Walden throughout the year was a children's book incorporating Thoreau's philosophies about life with beautiful illustrations of the pond. I had to have it, even though I'm sure it will be many years before my son chooses An Afternoon with Henry David Thoreau over Monster Truck Mash-up as bedtime reading.

One line from Thoreau has stayed with me: That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

I've tried over the past year to glory in simple pleasures, which I believe is a form of gratitude. The first step to enjoying simple pleasures is to recognize them--and often, because they can be so simple and mundane, it's easy to overlook them. Here are a few of mine (in no particular order):

Taking a really hot shower when I'm really cold from sitting in wet clothes after a run in the rain.

Diving into beautiful water and keeping my eyes open until right before I break the surface.

Sitting on the my deck at dusk and looking up at the trees and sky.

Planning trips--real or fantasy.

A run that doesn't feel painfully hard, where my stride feels natural and my breathing easy.

Skiing on Radar Lake, a private lake that holds a special place in my heart.

Opening the mailbox and seeing a new magazine and then savoring that magazine while eating a meal alone.

Getting into bed next to a man I adore.

The smell of my son's breath--morning, afternoon, evening.

Standing on an open field in the sun.

Watching mist rise off water.

Researching restaurants for date night.

Nightly dessert with my husband--the actual dessert matters far less than the ritual.

Hearing my son call for "Mommy."

Getting an insight into a scripture that I've read a thousand times before.

Connecting with my Heavenly Father in prayer and then feeling his love and care surround me.

Singing simple songs of praise (always off key given my musical acumen).

 

Best of Both Worlds

I’m living the dream. I quit my full-time job at a Fortune 100 company to stay at home with my first baby. Since then, I’ve been working part-time, contract, and freelance positions as a marketing consultant. When I tell people what I’m doing, the response is usually something like, “That’s great! You really have the best of both worlds.”

“Oh yes,” I say, smiling. “It’s just the best.”

Let’s talk about conference calls… the thorn in the side of every work-at-home mother without a nanny. Do they always have to be scheduled at 9 am, the one time during the day when my baby will never, ever be asleep?

Conference calls fall into two camps: the ones where you can stay on mute the entire time and pretend to listen, or the ones where you actually have to participate.

For the stay-on-mute version, I pick a floor of the house to trap us on and then get out every toy/item-that-could-potentially-be-a-toy, hoping that these will provide enough distraction to get us through the next hour of living hell. It never is.

The first few minutes are trickiest because you might be forced to make small talk while everyone’s getting on the call and a toddler screaming, “Nurse! Nurse!” while Bobby from sales starts sharing his newest monetization strategy might as well be screaming, “my mommy’s completely unprofessional and disengaged from her career!”

Then there’s the actual call…those 60 minutes where you let your child run completely loose around said floor of the house while you struggle to focus enough that a) you hear your name when someone asks you a question and b) you can respond with something better than “Um, yeah, I think, sure, yes.”

I’ve let my son tear apart every drawer in my bathroom and spread the contents of my make-up bag across the floor (sparkly eye shadow is so crumbly). I’ve drawn dozens of animal stick figures on sticky notes as a distraction technique. I’ve whipped out my boob and shoved it in his mouth as a “calming” technique, hoping he doesn’t suck too loud if I’m forced to say something. I’ve let him bang (with hands and feet) on my husband’s keyboard. I’ve given him a head start on the art of teenage TP’ing by letting him unfurl rolls of the stuff around my bedroom.

And those are the easy calls. The ones where you actually have to participate the whole time…those are brutal. It’s literally impossible to keep an 18 month old quiet for an hour, even a half hour. They just can’t do it—nor should they. But the point is, if you’re going to not look like a complete idiot, you just can’t have your baby babbling while you brainstorm about business models. Which leaves only one choice: crib prison.

Now to me as an adult, the idea of being put in a soft, quiet place with nice books, warm blankies, and lovely classical music and being told I have to chill there for an hour sounds like a sweet deal. Apparently not so much to a toddler. By the way my son reacts, you’d think I’d stuck him in a Gitmo cell. He screams, cries, throws himself on the mattress, and hurls those warm blankies and nice books on the floor. I lock myself in the far corner of my bedroom and hope the microphone on my phone is too weak to pick up the prisoner pleading for release in the background.

Just as a comparison, here’s how conference calls work in the “real” world. You sit in your quiet office by yourself or with a couple (adult) co-workers and listen intently while you stalk old high school friends on Facebook and buy a new pair of shoes (for yourself) on Gilt. Yeah, that’s definitely worse.

Writer's Block

It frustrates me that I can’t write. I feel like there’s a story inside somewhere, but when I sit down to actually write it, I freeze. Can I really only write 500 words or less in corporate business speak?

When I was a little girl, writing “books” was one of my favorite things. Anything was story-worthy. Now I feel like I have to write the great American novel every time I have a quiet evening to myself. Those quiet evenings usually end in frustrated Facebook surfing.

I still love to write. I feel like it’s what I do best. The one skill I have that’s actually marketable. But I really want to write a story. I want to be invested and involved in characters. I want to craft a plot. But how? When I think of an idea, I’m usually sick of it by the time I’m done thinking about it. Probably not a good start to a book. I feel like I need to let my mind just go. Let it be free of the constraints of seven years of marketing pointless products of all shapes and software.

I've thought a lot the past year about what I want, who I am, and how I want to spend my life. I think these are answers I'll ponder for many years to come, but one thing I'm sure of is that creative expression through writing is something I want. Now that I know I want it, I need to make time to do it.

But first, I need to free myself of my own expectations. Stop worrying about perfection and just writing. Stop worrying about finishing and actually get started.

That’s my goal for 2014. To write something that means something to me. 

Gravy Train

Making gravy makes me anxious. But my attempt this Thanksgiving proved to be successful—both as a butter-laden blanket for the type of poultry we thankfully only eat once a year and as a new definition for the wonderfully hard stage of life known as new motherhood.

The story starts one afternoon as I was sitting on the floor, naming farm animals with their accompanying sounds as my one year old pointed to their pictures in a book. Time wasn’t even crawling; sitting still would be a better description. Anyone who has ever categorized fauna with a toddler knows that minutes have a mysterious way of doubling in length. We’d been at it for a quarter hour when an odor hit me that would have been right at home in a barnyard. I picked up Max and with a cheerful voice announced, “Time for a diappy change!”

Arms flailing. Legs kicking. Diaper flying. No more needs to be said to provide a sufficient image. The first thought to cross my mind: look what my life has been reduced to.

I used to make lots of money. I used to be a top-reviewed employee of a major technology company. I used to be complimented on my clothes. I used to be told I was smart, that I excelled, that I had potential. Now I try to figure out ways to change a diaper without getting poop smears on the carpet.

Life reduced? Yes, I thought, reveling in the self-pity that seems to come so easily to my stay-at-home self.

A few days later, as I prepared to make my gravy attempt, I read the recipe for the twenty-seventh time in the November edition of Bon Appetit: simmer until reduced to about 2 ½ cups, 20-25 minutes. There it was again: reduce.

I’d been previously thinking about reduce in the most basic way: to lessen, to deplete. In cooking though, reducing is a process of enriching. Simmering down a sauce concentrates the flavor and thickens the body. By lessening, you enhance the final product.

Reducing requires heat, which can’t be comfortable for gravy and definitely isn’t for me. I think of the heat in this case as the long hours, days, and weeks where you put someone else before yourself. Where you put yourself on the back burner.

Yes, my life has been reduced by having a baby. It’s smaller in scope and income. But I’m hopeful that this reduction will ultimately enhance me. By evaporating my own unselfishness and impatience day by painfully slow day, I hope to become a more fully developed person. By boiling down life to my most closely held values, I hope to eliminate materialistic success as a primary motivator in my decisions. The next time I think about what my life has been reduced to, I hope to see the richness rather than the want.

Message in the Leaves

Leaves' final color burst at the downhill edge of their lifecycle deliver a message from the Creator of us all. Don't fear the end, they seem to say. The yearly transformation of trees show us that there's beauty in change, even glory in death. In the same way that there could be no spring without winter, there can be no resurrection without death.

I've been thinking about death lately--the mystery rather than the macabre. For all our vast collective achievement, humanity still has not been able to permanently prevent our own end. Our mortality eventually catches up to all of us--no matter how indispensable we are, how accomplished, how needed. Death's inevitability is reason alone for humility. How can we, who cannot thwart the end of life, dare to say that this life is the end? How can we trust that our scientific method, that cannot find a solution to the most basic and universal aspect of the human condition, has all the answers to life's other pressing questions?

We stand continually in death's shadow. But that shadow can be more like the welcome shade of a tree in summer heat than a dark menace lurking on twilight street corners. If we accept that our time is limited, we can decide more wisely how to spend our short allotment. If we accept that there is only one Way to overcome death, we stop fearing the end and embrace the beginning and middle. Understanding death helps me appreciate life in all its simple grandeur, like the coral leaves waving starkly against a sharp blue autumn sky, telling me that life, even in death, goes on.

Change is History

A ship cannot sail until its loosed from its moorings.

Oh, history. That great teacher of lessons. No matter what the postmodernists say, I still believe there is much to be learned from looking back. By examining humanity's big picture, we spot trends or patterns that help us find understanding in our much smaller lives. For example, the different ways change can function.

Some historical transitions are simply the product of time. Minutes and days gently tick away and slowly, almost imperceptibly, things change. Flat medieval art gains Renaissance perspective. Romanesque heaviness loses weight and becomes Gothic splendor. Commonly held attitudes slowly change until what was once forbidden is openly lauded. It takes the benefit of hindsight--perhaps several hundred years of it--to see the change, let alone understand it.

Then there are the other kinds of transitions. The events or moments that pivot the world, taking it's course from one direction and forcibly twisting it toward another future. The dates that we have and will continue to pound into the minds of generations of school kids in the history classes they abhor. Columbus sailing the ocean blue. The shot heard 'round the world. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. In these moments, life, as we collectively know it, irrevocably changes.

Such it is with our own lives. Some transitions happen organically just by living. Friendships ebb and flow due more to circumstances than deliberate action. Relationships evolve, becoming better or worse depending on the daily acts we put into them. Haircuts grow out. These kinds of transitions are relatively comfortable. Yes, they require dealing with change, but not the in-your-face, aggressive kind of change.

And that kind of change can do a number on the most solid of us. These are the big events, the ones we mark our lives by. Leaving home. Getting married. Having a baby. Losing a loved one. Dying. For most of us, it's impossible to remember every moment of our lives; however, few of us ever forget the first time we hold our babies or the way we felt when we moved far from home, walking away from all that was familiar.

These transitions are the ones that can make us feel like strangers in our own lives. We wake up wondering who we are and how we got here. Even if we're grateful we're there, such seismic shifts in our existence understandably throw us off balance, making us question the fundamental elements of who we are.

As a mother whose first baby just turned one, the last year of my life has been one of searching. Who is this new baby, and how can I raise him well? Who am I now that I can't measure my worth by the checklist-paycheck productivity that's been my mainstay? What is really most important to me--and perhaps more precisely, how do I live my life in accordance with those most important things?

With great events, the aftermath is often as compelling as the moment itself. The event sparks the change, but it's what happens next that actually makes the change. Giving birth was the catalyst to a period of intense soul-searching that made me think about what is soul-satisfying. I think transitions unmoor us for good reason: if we were always tied down, we'd never have the chance to chart a new course.

Kool-Aid Allergies

Without brushstrokes, there would be no painting.

It's easy to see a big picture. We understand it - we know exactly what it is (unless it's modern art, in which case you at least know that you're too provincial to get it). But when you look closely, you see the details. The painstaking layers of paint and gesso applied, erased, reapplied. The brushstrokes that start hesitantly and then grow bold. The exact lines and the curved lines. Without the details, the big picture would never come to be.

Life is that way. It's easy to envision the big picture - happy family, financial security, fulfillment. What's tricky is the details that get you there. The minutes and hours and days that make up the months and years that eventually make up your life. Experts say you need a vision for you life if you want to make something of it. I don't disagree - after all, before there can be a painting there has to be an idea of a painting - but I do think that finding the path to that vision can be a lot more work than we anticipate.

I'm in the closing years of twenties. When I think back over the past almost-decade, my biggest regret is that I spent too much time being unhappy. Most of the unhappiness was the result of jobs I hated, particularly the one I had right out of college and later one at the place that is my personal Voldemort (the Giant-Tech-Company-That-Must-Not-Be-Named). I kept both these jobs for two-plus years because they provided what I needed. I let two companies suck the joy out of my life and the life out of me because I put practicality over fulfillment. Never again, I vowed.

And now here I am again. Doing a part-time contract gig that's fine. It's easy. I can do it during naptime. But it's so boring. On calls, I type almost verbatim notes just to keep myself awake. I find myself wondering how anyone can dredge up such enthusiasm for nothingness. For jobs that make not a shred of difference and are just endless, acronym-filled calls with pretty slide decks (although I love listening to people talk about the way their jobs change the world...it's probably the most creative they ever get to be at work). I think I have an allergy to corporate Kool-Aid.

I know what I want my Big Picture to be. It's my family. That's so easy to say, but what are the brushstrokes of that family portrait? What do I want my days to look like? That's what I don't know yet. When people talk about raising children, I wish they'd talk more about what that looks like. What does raising a one-year-old look like? What does it mean to do it well and how do I know if I am? How does child bearing and rearing fit with a career? Does it? What if I hate that career but have no idea what would be better?

These are the questions that haunt me right now. I have the big vision but I don't have the tactical execution plan. But maybe that's part of trusting. Aligning your strategy with His vision and then trusting Him to help you sort out the details. Line by line. Day by day. Stroke by stroke.