My friend Elizabeth
In a fit of efficiency
Had her three kids play with chicken pox
Roll, hug, wrestle,
With the infected neighbors
To get it over with
All together like
Two weeks later
Not a dot
Which got me thinking...
I run around hugging sick people
Like there was no tomorrow
(they need love too you know)
Never caught a thing from it
So maybe we’re all mixed up
About what makes us sick
“Don’t be caught dead without antibacterial soap!”
But the FDA just found it doesn’t do squat
I’m wondering if maybe these massive immune systems
Of ours
Need something different from what we might think
Sure vitamins and sleep and the like,
But maybe laughter, hugs, kisses, sunshine without sunscreen
Ripe tomatoes
Being barefoot, afternoon sex, the warm fur of animals
Sinking endlessly into one activity where time fades into the horizon
Eye-contact
What if eye contact proved to be the greatest deterrent to disease?
The slap in the face of my theory is, perhaps, teachers
I’ve heard they can get sick a lot
Staring into all those puppy dog eyes
Astride the runny noses
But maybe if we told them what gems they are
Gave them lots of massage certificates
And heck what about some more
Money
They wouldn’t get sick at all
I’m just thinking...
But I feel better already.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Frugality and Wonder of Waiting
For most of my life I have been an immediate gratification junky and frankly I would still rather have those new shoes right now instead of next Thursday or two paychecks from now. But several things happened to make me change the way I viewed waiting for what I want. First I read some time ago that the sign of maturity is being able to wait for gratification. Ugh! That sentence has definitely plagued me. Then I saw an article about a study done by Stanford University in which they tested whether preschoolers were able to delay gratification by not munching on the marshmallow (the ultimate toddler tempting treat!) in front of them. Turns out some could but what was really interesting is that later studies showed that those toddlers did better in life, had better life satisfaction. Hmm. Also the researchers found that the trait could be taught later on and that those individuals were also happier than their "give it to me now" counterparts.
But frankly nothing drives a point home like real life experience. So I started to notice what would happen if I resisted my urges- be they of the shopping, munching, or imbibing variety- and I discovered several miraculous things. First many of these "oh so urgent" wants simply disappeared in a very short time and left me with a better feeling than if I had engaged in them. Turns out I didn't really want to spend two hours in a mall for a blouse, eat that greasy donut or drink that third glass of wine. Weird. Because not too long before it had really seemed like that activity was truly required if I was going to be happy and yet there I was happy- nay happier- without it. But what was even weirder was how frequently it turned out that the very thing I would have raced out to acquire came to me later in a much more enjoyable way.
Silly recent example, I am redoing our garden box for winter and needed more dirt. I have been delaying because I am more addicted now to the feeling of wonder I get when things arrive in an effortless and unique way than I ever was to the feeling of acquiring it immediately. Last night our friend Laurent came by because he is moving to France and needs to store stuff in our barn and low and behold he brought with him a bag of dirt. So not only did I not spend the money or effort on buying dirt, I got to have a great exchange with a friend about how nice he was for bringing it to us. Wow. This kind of thing happens over and over and I would truly love to hear others' stories because I know it can't just be us experiencing this.
I think our society has given waiting a really bad name- an expensive name, like Muffy or Biff- because in order to be frugal you need to stock up at Cost Co. on everything you might need, EVER, and be prepared. But what happened to the frugality of waiting? And maybe even doing without. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes an impulse is just so fun and so is the satisfaction of fulfilling it. We want a movie and ice cream and we want it now. Blasty blast. But like anything else- too much of a good thing really isn't better. So I now try to be choosier about what impulses I race off to fulfill and which ones I try to give a little breathing room to.
Just had to write about this- right away! Whew.
But frankly nothing drives a point home like real life experience. So I started to notice what would happen if I resisted my urges- be they of the shopping, munching, or imbibing variety- and I discovered several miraculous things. First many of these "oh so urgent" wants simply disappeared in a very short time and left me with a better feeling than if I had engaged in them. Turns out I didn't really want to spend two hours in a mall for a blouse, eat that greasy donut or drink that third glass of wine. Weird. Because not too long before it had really seemed like that activity was truly required if I was going to be happy and yet there I was happy- nay happier- without it. But what was even weirder was how frequently it turned out that the very thing I would have raced out to acquire came to me later in a much more enjoyable way.
Silly recent example, I am redoing our garden box for winter and needed more dirt. I have been delaying because I am more addicted now to the feeling of wonder I get when things arrive in an effortless and unique way than I ever was to the feeling of acquiring it immediately. Last night our friend Laurent came by because he is moving to France and needs to store stuff in our barn and low and behold he brought with him a bag of dirt. So not only did I not spend the money or effort on buying dirt, I got to have a great exchange with a friend about how nice he was for bringing it to us. Wow. This kind of thing happens over and over and I would truly love to hear others' stories because I know it can't just be us experiencing this.
I think our society has given waiting a really bad name- an expensive name, like Muffy or Biff- because in order to be frugal you need to stock up at Cost Co. on everything you might need, EVER, and be prepared. But what happened to the frugality of waiting? And maybe even doing without. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes an impulse is just so fun and so is the satisfaction of fulfilling it. We want a movie and ice cream and we want it now. Blasty blast. But like anything else- too much of a good thing really isn't better. So I now try to be choosier about what impulses I race off to fulfill and which ones I try to give a little breathing room to.
Just had to write about this- right away! Whew.
Monday, September 14, 2009
The hardest thing to do- Nothing
In the song Highway Cafe of the Damned, the Austin Lounge Lizards (thanks brother Eric for getting me hooked) do a pretty good job of listing vices: "sloth and avarice, fornication, television, whisky, beer and wine." Yesterday my husband and I tried to have as hedonistic a day as one can have with kids around. The impetus for this was the fatigue of several weeks of diehard activities with nary a vacation in sight. Suffice it to say that we had no whiskey or beer, felt no ill will toward anyone, and hey, we had kids around. That said it was truly a lazy, rejuvenating day and an incredible learning experience. The idea was to hang out at home but not do ANYTHING productive- nothing of any real value. We watched Star Trek the movie (as our eleven-year-old daughter has become truly obsessed with Spock), then an episode of the original series, ate whatever we wanted (read Nutella and Mac and Cheese) whenever we wanted it (read continuously), played Farkle (a dice game, rules on the internet- don't blame me when you can't stop), read and napped and sipped wine. I have done these activities before so that wasn't really what was so amazing. What turned out to be enlightening is how hard it is to actually NOT do anything productive for one day. I truly think of myself as someone who can laze around at will, so this came as a big surprise to me. Even my type -A husband seemed to take to the slothfulness better than I did. My mind kept searching all day for the thing I should be doing. Laundry, gardening, dishes, meal prep, writing, e-mails, groceries! It was like a periodic alarm was going off warning me that I was missing something. Now I'm not saying I want to live like that but our "do nothing" day did make me wonder when I had become so focused on doing. My husband who was raised Catholic pointed out that what we were engaging in wasn't so much viceful as honoring a Sabath- actually refraining from work, and catching up on rest. Since I wasn't raised religiously I'm not sure what a Sabath is suppose to impart but I think I like the idea. I see a lot of stressed out, exhaused people in this society so maybe some rest days built into the system might be a good idea. I think I would need to eat less Nutella and perhaps move a little more though. Maybe I'll give it another try next weekend!
Monday, August 10, 2009
Searching in the Dust
In light of our recent Good Housekeeping Article I thought I would elaborate on our purchase-free year in a way that a short article does not permit. Here are a few thoughts on why we undertook this crazy experiment in the first place.
Searching in the Dust
I recently found a Persian story about a quirky sage named Mulla Nasrudin. One day he was kneeling on the ground, carefully inspecting the dust. His vigilance caused a young man who was passing by to stop and ask, “What are you doing?”
“I have lost the key to a great treasure and am trying to find it here,” Mulla replied.
“A great treasure?!” exclaimed the man. “Let me help you search for it.”
A woman passed on her way to market. Seeing two men crawling around in the dust, she asked, “What are you doing?”
The man replied, “We are searching for the key to a great treasure. It has been lost. I am helping this sage find it.”
“A great treasure!” exclaimed the woman. “Let me help you search for the key too.”
A large caravan came along. The head camel driver stopped and, seeing three people crawling around in the dust, inquired, “Why are you crawling on the ground?”
The woman replied, “We are searching for the key to a great treasure. It has been lost, and I am helping this sage and this man find it.”
“A great treasure!” exclaimed the camel driver. Like the others he thought, “Perhaps when it is found we can share it!” He invited everyone in the caravan to help. “Let us all assist you in this important task!”
A large crowd now crawled around in the dust, looking for the key. After a long while of unsuccessful searching, a young boy asked Mulla Nasrudin, “Are you certain that you dropped the key right here?”
Mulla stopped poking in the dust and replied, “No. I lost the key somewhere inside my house.”
The crowd stopped searching, stood up and asked, “Then why are we wasting our time looking for it outside?”
“This is an excellent question!” Mulla replied. “Your insight is clear! It is too dark to look for the key in my house. There is far more light out here.
~
We, as a family, were also searching in the dust. Or, since we lived in Portland, Oregon – the mud, which on this particular occasion, in December of 2001, was accompanied by freezing rain, of the sideways, in-your-face variety. We had been traipsing around in it for a half hour searching for a Christmas tree.
My husband Tim is nothing if not committed, and he was not about to give up on his annual quest for “the perfect tree.” This was the third U-Cut Christmas tree farm we had scoured that day, and Tim was the only participant who still seemed up for the challenge. Our eldest daughter Jenna (then 9 years old), our middle daughter Sage (then 6), and I were shuffling along pressed together in a penguin like huddle. In desperation, one of us would point to a random tree near us and shout through the onslaught of stabbing precipitation, “Hey, what about this one?” Tim would do his best to pretend he was considering a clearly unsuitable selection and then condemn it with one of the following: too skinny; too short; too dense; not dense enough; too weak (to hold a heavy ornament); not vibrant enough; too crooked at the top (to hold the star); too patchy; and the catch-all criticism: not quite right. Then he would throw us a quick, conciliatory smile and the shuffling would begin again.
Periodically we would come into view of Tim’s father’s black Lincoln, which hummed away on the side of the road awaiting our return. Since the windows were fogged by the beckoning heat, I could only barely make out the forms of the occupants, but I knew the rising tide of desperation was filling the car as well. Tim’s father, who was fighting a nasty cold, sat in the driver’s seat while our ever-active youngest daughter, Laugan, flung herself from the back seat to the front in a tireless stream of three-year-old euphoria. At least someone was having a good time.
I will spare you the details of the expletive I used when we finally arrived at the chosen tree, and of the dirty diaper fiasco that ensued upon our return to the car. Suffice it to say, that at some point in our ardent quest for holiday glory, we had begun looking in the wrong place.
Our ill-fated searching was not, however, limited to the holidays. Like everyone else, we seemed in constant pursuit of the illusive idea of happiness, which increasingly revolved around buying just that right thing: the right curtains, the right clothes, the right CD, the right television set, the right car, etc. If we succeeded, then wouldn’t it follow that we would have just the right life?
While joy and happiness swirled sporadically around our family, our success at procuring it seemed rather haphazard. Even at times, in pursuit of this rightness, the feeling was so terribly wrong that I would wonder how we had arrived at this place. Why was I cursing at Christmas trees? How could a family with the best of intentions go so astray? There must be a better way and I was desperate to find it.
Little did I know that “it” would find me, and soon our family would embark on what would prove to be a truly life-altering experiment: an entire year without purchasing. Over the course of a year, our crazy adventure would reveal the key to a more appealing and valuable treasure than we ever could have purchased.
Searching in the Dust
I recently found a Persian story about a quirky sage named Mulla Nasrudin. One day he was kneeling on the ground, carefully inspecting the dust. His vigilance caused a young man who was passing by to stop and ask, “What are you doing?”
“I have lost the key to a great treasure and am trying to find it here,” Mulla replied.
“A great treasure?!” exclaimed the man. “Let me help you search for it.”
A woman passed on her way to market. Seeing two men crawling around in the dust, she asked, “What are you doing?”
The man replied, “We are searching for the key to a great treasure. It has been lost. I am helping this sage find it.”
“A great treasure!” exclaimed the woman. “Let me help you search for the key too.”
A large caravan came along. The head camel driver stopped and, seeing three people crawling around in the dust, inquired, “Why are you crawling on the ground?”
The woman replied, “We are searching for the key to a great treasure. It has been lost, and I am helping this sage and this man find it.”
“A great treasure!” exclaimed the camel driver. Like the others he thought, “Perhaps when it is found we can share it!” He invited everyone in the caravan to help. “Let us all assist you in this important task!”
A large crowd now crawled around in the dust, looking for the key. After a long while of unsuccessful searching, a young boy asked Mulla Nasrudin, “Are you certain that you dropped the key right here?”
Mulla stopped poking in the dust and replied, “No. I lost the key somewhere inside my house.”
The crowd stopped searching, stood up and asked, “Then why are we wasting our time looking for it outside?”
“This is an excellent question!” Mulla replied. “Your insight is clear! It is too dark to look for the key in my house. There is far more light out here.
~
We, as a family, were also searching in the dust. Or, since we lived in Portland, Oregon – the mud, which on this particular occasion, in December of 2001, was accompanied by freezing rain, of the sideways, in-your-face variety. We had been traipsing around in it for a half hour searching for a Christmas tree.
My husband Tim is nothing if not committed, and he was not about to give up on his annual quest for “the perfect tree.” This was the third U-Cut Christmas tree farm we had scoured that day, and Tim was the only participant who still seemed up for the challenge. Our eldest daughter Jenna (then 9 years old), our middle daughter Sage (then 6), and I were shuffling along pressed together in a penguin like huddle. In desperation, one of us would point to a random tree near us and shout through the onslaught of stabbing precipitation, “Hey, what about this one?” Tim would do his best to pretend he was considering a clearly unsuitable selection and then condemn it with one of the following: too skinny; too short; too dense; not dense enough; too weak (to hold a heavy ornament); not vibrant enough; too crooked at the top (to hold the star); too patchy; and the catch-all criticism: not quite right. Then he would throw us a quick, conciliatory smile and the shuffling would begin again.
Periodically we would come into view of Tim’s father’s black Lincoln, which hummed away on the side of the road awaiting our return. Since the windows were fogged by the beckoning heat, I could only barely make out the forms of the occupants, but I knew the rising tide of desperation was filling the car as well. Tim’s father, who was fighting a nasty cold, sat in the driver’s seat while our ever-active youngest daughter, Laugan, flung herself from the back seat to the front in a tireless stream of three-year-old euphoria. At least someone was having a good time.
I will spare you the details of the expletive I used when we finally arrived at the chosen tree, and of the dirty diaper fiasco that ensued upon our return to the car. Suffice it to say, that at some point in our ardent quest for holiday glory, we had begun looking in the wrong place.
Our ill-fated searching was not, however, limited to the holidays. Like everyone else, we seemed in constant pursuit of the illusive idea of happiness, which increasingly revolved around buying just that right thing: the right curtains, the right clothes, the right CD, the right television set, the right car, etc. If we succeeded, then wouldn’t it follow that we would have just the right life?
While joy and happiness swirled sporadically around our family, our success at procuring it seemed rather haphazard. Even at times, in pursuit of this rightness, the feeling was so terribly wrong that I would wonder how we had arrived at this place. Why was I cursing at Christmas trees? How could a family with the best of intentions go so astray? There must be a better way and I was desperate to find it.
Little did I know that “it” would find me, and soon our family would embark on what would prove to be a truly life-altering experiment: an entire year without purchasing. Over the course of a year, our crazy adventure would reveal the key to a more appealing and valuable treasure than we ever could have purchased.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Remembering How to Live
Now that the economy seems to be pushing the covers aside and venturing from its sick bed, we may find our economic worries easing up and giving way to a golden opportunity: a chance to consider what we have learned. When Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez wrote the book "Your Money or Your Life" Vicki's grandmother thought no one would buy it because "everyone already knows this". What she didn't realize (but the soon-to-be uber successful authors did) was that in two generations traditional wisdom can slip through our fingertips as easily as a credit card through a machine. Startling as this economic alarm has been, it has successfully jolted most of us out of our cultural amnesia and given us a moment of clarity to rediscover who we really are and what truly makes us happy. So what had we forgotten?
Little things, of course, like how incredible it feels to actually fix something yourself. In my grandparents generation it was a daily occurance to see someone prying open an oven, or a radio or a clock to see what had made it stop functioning. People in my generation might think someone had lost their minds if they started cracking open their appliances but it is quite surprising how easily many things can be fixed. My teenage daughter Jenna and I have had incredible success fixing our DVD player for years by simply unscrewing the billion little screws that hold the top in place and cleaning the lense which reads the DVD's. Not everything can be fixed by an amateur but the feelings of empowerment and creativity which come from attempting these repairs are so delightful and profound that even failures seem well worth the effort. And what about those things that aren't made to be repaired, like most electronics today? Our grandparents would never have put up with being sold such garbage, but in the blur of our fast-paced lives we've forgotten what to insist on. How about electronics which come with repair manuals and a number for ordering parts? Now that would be a product worthy of our hard-earned cash.
We had forgotten some big stuff too. Like the whole idea that money and things cannot actually bring you lasting happiness, but health and relationships can. We all think we know this, but then why have we become a nation of where neighbors rarely stop by for a chat, vacation time is shrinking, and mall time increasing?
The great news is we have been given that proverbial second chance to get it right. Since the rat race has been temporarily called for lack of funds, we get an opportunity to poke our heads up and see what lies outside the confines of the racetrack. How had we forgotten that beyond the asphalt is a lush, verdant and juicy existance? All we need now is to give up on all of those perceived prizes for some good old fashioned living. Remember?
Little things, of course, like how incredible it feels to actually fix something yourself. In my grandparents generation it was a daily occurance to see someone prying open an oven, or a radio or a clock to see what had made it stop functioning. People in my generation might think someone had lost their minds if they started cracking open their appliances but it is quite surprising how easily many things can be fixed. My teenage daughter Jenna and I have had incredible success fixing our DVD player for years by simply unscrewing the billion little screws that hold the top in place and cleaning the lense which reads the DVD's. Not everything can be fixed by an amateur but the feelings of empowerment and creativity which come from attempting these repairs are so delightful and profound that even failures seem well worth the effort. And what about those things that aren't made to be repaired, like most electronics today? Our grandparents would never have put up with being sold such garbage, but in the blur of our fast-paced lives we've forgotten what to insist on. How about electronics which come with repair manuals and a number for ordering parts? Now that would be a product worthy of our hard-earned cash.
We had forgotten some big stuff too. Like the whole idea that money and things cannot actually bring you lasting happiness, but health and relationships can. We all think we know this, but then why have we become a nation of where neighbors rarely stop by for a chat, vacation time is shrinking, and mall time increasing?
The great news is we have been given that proverbial second chance to get it right. Since the rat race has been temporarily called for lack of funds, we get an opportunity to poke our heads up and see what lies outside the confines of the racetrack. How had we forgotten that beyond the asphalt is a lush, verdant and juicy existance? All we need now is to give up on all of those perceived prizes for some good old fashioned living. Remember?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
The Perfect Present
Last Christmas, my lanky sixteen-year-old daughter, Jenna, gave me a gift so profoundly wonderful I just had to share it with you. Aware of my increasing bliss over decluttering and streamlining she labored over what gift would bring me as much joy as that things absence ultimately would. On that twinkling morning, amongst the wrappings of generous offerings, she handed me a simple white scrap of paper, rolled into a tube and tied with a little red ribbon. "I think you'll like it," she grinned with a confidence born of intimacy. This is what it said:
"Little Mammas, You are very hard to shop for. How do you buy for a woman who has nothing and likes it that way? It also doesn't help that I had very limited mall-time.
So here is your present: On the day of your choosing, you and I are going to the grocery store and buying a whole bunch of food (about now you are probably thinking: worst gift ever, well you are wrong). Next you and I are going to go downtown and give it all away to the people on the street. So what do you say? Be my kick-ass do gooder pal? Love, Jen."
It actually took us many months to embark on this excursion, but a warm day in May found us downtown with 45 homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a huge basket. My thirteen-year old daughter Sage, Jenna and I had just come from the dentist and we were all feeling the vulnerability of the truly flossed, as our courage began to weaken. Who were we going to give these sandwiches to? I mean do you just walk up to someone on the street and assume they are hungry? Sore gummed and confused we stood on the street corner gazing at the well-fed passersby. "Are you planning to hand those out," a gentle woman asked and when we nodded suggested that we go down to the Portland Mission. "They don't start serving for awhile so people may be hungry there."
As we walked around the corner we were met with a long line of faces, most of which were more downtrodden than any dentist could procure. We slowly began to ask each individual if they wanted a sandwich and with each eager reception our courage mounted. By some stroke of good fortune the final person in line received the last morcel and as we walked back down the line we heard "thank you" after "thank you" and even some "these are delicious".
Halfway home Sage observed that we had all forgotten about our aching mouths.
"Little Mammas, You are very hard to shop for. How do you buy for a woman who has nothing and likes it that way? It also doesn't help that I had very limited mall-time.
So here is your present: On the day of your choosing, you and I are going to the grocery store and buying a whole bunch of food (about now you are probably thinking: worst gift ever, well you are wrong). Next you and I are going to go downtown and give it all away to the people on the street. So what do you say? Be my kick-ass do gooder pal? Love, Jen."
It actually took us many months to embark on this excursion, but a warm day in May found us downtown with 45 homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a huge basket. My thirteen-year old daughter Sage, Jenna and I had just come from the dentist and we were all feeling the vulnerability of the truly flossed, as our courage began to weaken. Who were we going to give these sandwiches to? I mean do you just walk up to someone on the street and assume they are hungry? Sore gummed and confused we stood on the street corner gazing at the well-fed passersby. "Are you planning to hand those out," a gentle woman asked and when we nodded suggested that we go down to the Portland Mission. "They don't start serving for awhile so people may be hungry there."
As we walked around the corner we were met with a long line of faces, most of which were more downtrodden than any dentist could procure. We slowly began to ask each individual if they wanted a sandwich and with each eager reception our courage mounted. By some stroke of good fortune the final person in line received the last morcel and as we walked back down the line we heard "thank you" after "thank you" and even some "these are delicious".
Halfway home Sage observed that we had all forgotten about our aching mouths.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
