you've been hacked

A week or so ago, my family gently shoved me out of my comfort zone (having grown weary perhaps of listening to me talk about this for a couple of years) and just like that, I jump. I go ahead and start working on the website I have been wanting to create. A place to make public the artsy things which until now have been private and carefully shared in small, controlled settings. For a social reluctant like myself, this is kind of a big deal. It’s out there now. I’m open to whatever fill in the blank feedback that might come this way (including being ignored). But I'm not really sure how to blast out to my people that the site is live. Self-promotion is not my thing. I prefer self-deprecating humor and sarcasm. But I know I have to do something, so I email all the contacts I think might care. The email is, in retrospect, a bit cryptic. I don’t mean for it to be. I'm not going for coy. I realize now I should have just said hey I made a website, here it is, check it out, or don’t, whatever. But as I reflect on what I'm doing and words begin to find their way into the message to my people, I find myself growing sentimental.  This message, after all, is going out to people who have, for years, been wonderfully supportive and positive forces in my life. People whose belief in me is unwavering. People who have been encouraging me to do more than just make cards for my friends and co-workers. Telling me to follow my heart and put my stuff out there. These are my people! They're in my corner and I'm so lucky to have them in my life. Unfortunately I get it dead wrong. The email I send out uses words like dreams and manifestation and gratitude... blah blah blah. Some of my people who are more acquainted with the spicy and cynical side of me do not recognize the smarmy emotional flavor of my missive. It sounds like spam. The very first response I get says, uh, dude, I think you’ve been hacked, but don’t worry I didn’t click on the link, just thought you should know. I get curious and go back to re-read the email I originally sent. She’s right. It sounds terrible and exactly like spam. This, right here? This is exactly what it looks like when the introverted dork steps into the open and says, “ta-da!” and then trips. Woops.

to-do lists

On weekends or non-work days the whole day stretches out in front of me, wide open. I crave this kind of freedom all week. But now, standing at the kitchen window with my coffee, I realize the openness of unstructured time gives me a certain amount of anxiety. I'm not so good with down time. Let's not dwell on the pathos of that particular reality. Moving on. To quell the mounting angst (which to be fair is really mostly stemming from the fact that I've had two cups of coffee and haven't gone for a run yet) I find a scrap of paper and create a tidy little to-do list, items bulleted with small perfect squares to their left: Run. Dishwasher. Garbage. Recycling. Vacuum. Art. Thank you note to [fill in the blank]. All at once the day has structure and I can relax. As I attack the list, I get to make a satisfying little check mark in the box next to the item. Some tasks take just a minute or two, others take longer. Distractions along the way sometimes cause me to stray from the list. But if it's a productive day, I notice I also completed a whole bunch of things that weren't even on the list. Confession: when this happens, I go back and add the things I already did that weren't on the original list so I can check them off too. Someone told me recently that she does this too — she creates the after-the-fact to-do list just for the satisfaction of putting a line through the already completed items. Here I was keeping this guilty pleasure a secret all this time. If you are reading this and shaking your head at us, well, I get it — it's a bit off beat. But if you see yourself in this odd little rant and are thinking, "I thought I was the only one," then think again. You are not alone.

letter to my dad on his 80th birthday

Dear Dad,                            

I wonder what it is like to be turning 80 years old. I know what it’s like to be a bit more than half that age, and to be filled, still, with wonder. Embedded in who I am in the world is a series of questions you have been asking me my whole adult life. Questions I now ask myself every day and questions I now ask my daughter, too. The questions are: When you wake up in the morning what are you most looking forward to in the day that lies stretched out in front of you? When you look out your window, what do you want to see? What do you want to spend your time doing? If money were no object, where would you be living and what would you be doing? And there have been a lot of other questions too. Sitting with our toes in the sand on the west coast of Florida, riding the chairlift up the Continental Divide in Colorado, sitting across from each other at a little table in a street cafe in Alexandria Bay, riding a ferry across Lake Champlain on a cold January night, or during commercial breaks while watching the Stanley Cup. Always the questions. What are you doing? What do you want to be doing? What’s important to you? What’s stopping you from doing what’s important to you? And then the really big questions: Why are we here? Where exactly is here? What are we in the universe, what is the universe, why is the universe, how did it start, and if it has a beginning, what was it before?

The thing is, it’s not like we sit and talk and figure out the answers. It’s the sitting and talking and asking the questions that has created this way of being in the world for me. The asking has centered me so that each day I figure out how to do the things that are important to me. And in case this sounds overly egocentric, the other thing I think about regularly is the table blessing we grew up hearing during those occasions when we all sat down for dinner together. Especially the last part: keep us ever mindful of the needs of others. So it’s not all about us and what we want. But isn’t it cool that the more we follow our passions and remember to think about the needs of others, the happier it makes us? And the less egocentric we become as we shape our lives into these creative enterprises that are driven by what makes us happy.

I imagine that at 80 years of age you might be asking yourself what your life has meant. Even if you weren’t someone who has been asking it every day for the 46 years I’ve known you. You’ll be glad to know that the confluence of forever asking these centering questions and the glass is half full outlook on the world that I’m convinced I learned from you has flowed into a very full and happy life for me. My hands in the dirt, or holding a book, or working a paintbrush. My mind wrestling with questions. My legs propelling me over mossy rocks and leaf strewn trails. My gardens full of beautiful green things to eat and colorful flowers. Fresh eggs every day. Hiking and skiing right out the door. Enough time in my day to notice that there have been more hummingbirds this year. Enough busy-ness to keep me honest and to pay the bills. Enough intention and awareness in my life to notice that I am much more about putting down roots and making every inch of the land around me special, productive, healthy, beautiful. Time to spend with my daughter and to build a positive and fulfilling relationship with her. And a sense of humor that keeps it all in check.

These are the things that are important. And I want you to know that I know this because you taught me. Because you were relentless in your efforts to teach me. Because instead of letting me sleep, you bothered to wake me up in the middle of the night to walk down to the beach and watch the moon set over the ocean. Because you bothered to drive all that way and take me to Alexandria Bay for the day. Because you bothered to penetrate the silence and ask me things when we sat next to each other on the chairlift, knowing the conversation could only go as far as the chairlift ride. But I remember it, don’t I? And it has shaped me, and my life is happy, and you are a part of that. So thank you. And I love you.