Everyday adventures

Living With Men

August 05, 2016


You want an everyday adventure? I’ve got one for you: living with men.

Let me explain. I grew up in a home with a single mom. Though I visited my dad, I didn’t live with him. In college, I lived in single-sex dorms, and after I college I had one female roommate before getting married. Life in our house was feminine. Since I didn’t have anything different to compare it with, I thought this feminine way of living was “normal.” Living with my husband, and eventually our son, proved eye opening, to say the least.

Here are some areas I’ve found living with men different from living with women. (In case you are unclear, I’m about to make some major, tongue-in-cheek, generalizations. Your mileage may vary. In other words, please don’t send me letters.)

Men laugh at different things than women do, often involving bodily functions or slapstick-y pratfalls. Most women I know don’t find The Three Stooges all that funny, for example. Men’s humor tends to be insulting and directed at others. Women tend not to tease as much for fear of hurting someone’s feelings. We tend to prefer clever, witty jokes, puns, and stories—we like to use humor to connect with others. (Hey, I told you I was going to be making generalizations, didn’t I?)

Here’s a quiz for you: Which of these foods would typically be ordered by a man versus a woman at a restaurant? Wings or quiche? A double-decker cheeseburger or a large chopped salad? I’m not saying the woman wouldn’t want the cheeseburger or wings, just that she probably will not order either, especially if dining with someone else. What I cook for my masculine family is considerably different from what I cook for just myself, or for a female friend or relative with no guys around. Artichoke hearts and goat cheese never figure in meals I cook for my guys. Velveeta is not a crucial ingredient in hors d’oeuvres I serve my female friends.

Noise. When my son was still tiny, I bought the following saying, framed, somehow divining the truth about boys: “A boy is noise with dirt on it.” Most women I know go through life with the tread of a cat burglar, do not slam cupboard (or microwave or bedroom) doors, do not clang spoons and clatter plates on the counter. My husband is an exception (thank you, Dear), but I’ve found that once a man is awake in the morning, so is everyone else.

In a family composed primarily of men and boys, family outings tend to be activities you do (mountain biking, swimming, hiking, fishing), rather than passively observe (movies, window shopping). And you will likely never get your family of guys to partake of high tea, complete with scones and little crust-less sandwiches (see: Food).

Hiking in Yellowstone National Park

Which brings me to energy. The energy of men has a different feel to it—a combo of testosterone and Funyuns, perhaps? Women don’t have less energy (some have considerably more), but it has a different feel, sort of like an underground power source, always humming in the background.

Physical strength. While I pride myself on being strong—opening jars, lifting 50-pound bags of horse supplements—it’s nice to have someone who can do it for me, and do it easily. Just because I can do it doesn’t mean I always want to.

Tolerance for smells. ’Nuff said.

To this woman, men can be puzzling, exotic creatures, sometimes exasperating and insensitive. But they can also be wonderfully tender and loving, and hugs from my husband and son bring me pure joy. While I often feel more understood and accepted among my female family and friends, I value the different perspective my male relatives and friends bring to life. Living with men has made me a stronger, more balanced, more adventurous person. I wouldn’t trade this everyday adventure for all the scones in the world.

What differences have you found in living with the opposite sex?

My men

Denis Waitley

Happiness Is Living Every Minute

August 03, 2016


“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
—Denis Waitley

Art

The Tale of Beatrix Potter

July 29, 2016


I enjoy Beatrix Potter’s children’s tales with their detailed and charming illustrations, but after reading a biography of her a few years ago (Linda Lear’s excellent Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature, see links below), my respect and admiration for her grew until she became one of my heroes. In honor of her birthday yesterday, I want to share with you a little of what could be called “The Tale of Beatrix Potter.”

Once upon a time...Helen Beatrix Potter was born 150 years ago on July 28, 1866 in London. She was educated at home by governesses, as was the custom for girls of her social class. She and her younger brother, Bertram, kept a number of pets in the schoolroom, including rabbits, a hedgehog, mice, and bats. She observed these pets closely, sketched them, and wrote stories about them. During family holidays in Scotland and the English Lake District, she explored freely, spending hours observing and sketching what she saw. From 1881 to 1897 she kept a journal (in a code that wasn’t cracked until 1958) where she wrote down her observations.

She loved the study of natural history: archaeology, geology, entomology, and especially mycology, the study of fungi. Scottish Naturalist Charles McIntosh encouraged her to make her fungi drawings more technically accurate, and her studies resulted in a scientific paper on how fungi spores reproduce. Fungi expert George Massee delivered that paper on her behalf at a meeting of the Linnean Society, where women couldn’t even attend the meetings, let alone read papers. (Though I’m not enamored of mushrooms myself, I always think of her when an interesting one pops up in my yard.)

Her earliest published works included greeting card designs and illustrations for the publisher Hildesheimer & Faulkner. Her work on other people’s stories made her long to publish her own, so she adapted one of her earliest stories she’d created for a picture letter sent to the son of one of her old governesses. In 1901, Beatrix published The Tale of Peter Rabbit herself after several publishers turned her down. After seeing the success of the book, in 1902, the publishing firm of Frederick Warne & Co. decided they would publish it after all, if Beatrix would redo her black and white illustrations in color. After that, she wrote two or three little books a year, until 1930 when the last one, The Tale of Little Pig Robinson, came out.

Beatrix was also a smart marketer, and created the first licensed literary character, a Peter Rabbit doll. She invented other toys, a Peter Rabbit game, and painting books for Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck.

In 1905, Beatrix became engaged to her editor, Norman Warne, but sadly he died of leukemia before they could be married.

After Norman’s death, Beatrix used income from her books and a small inheritance to buy Hill Top Farm in Near Sawrey in the Lake District. Hill Top became a sanctuary for her, and she wrote and painted some of her most popular tales there, including The Tale of Tom Kitten and The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck. If I ever get back to England, I’d love to visit Hill Top Farm, which is part of the National Trust and open to visitors. 

Potter and Heelis on their wedding day
In 1909, she bought Castle Farm, the property across the road from Hill Top. Beatrix wanted to preserve the Lake District from development, and this was one practical way to do that. During this time, she met solicitor William Heelis who helped her with her property purchases. They married in 1913, when Beatrix was 47, and moved to Castle Cottage on Castle Farm. Happily married for 30 years, the Heelises were deeply involved in the community. In addition to her writing and art, Beatrix grew fascinated with raising Herdwick sheep, becoming a respected breeder and winning prizes at local shows. When she died in 1943, she left 15 farms and more than 4,000 acres to the National Trust.

Beatrix Potter’s work and life inspire me. I’m amazed by what she was able to accomplish at a time when not many options were open to women. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about this remarkable woman, and that you’ll check out some of the links below.

Do you have a favorite Beatrix Potter story? 

 “I have just made stories to please myself, because I never grew up.”
—Beatrix Potter

More Fun Stuff:
The Beatrix Potter Society 
Many Beatrix Potter stories are available on Project Gutenberg. 
Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature 
Beatrix Potter with Patricia Routledge 
The Journal of Beatrix Potter: 1881-1897 
Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: The Plants and Places That Inspired the Classic Children’s Tales 
Miss Potter (fictionalized movie version of her life)
Stamps released by the Royal Mail

Arden Levine

Faced With Loss

July 27, 2016


Introduction by Ted Kooser: Faced by a loss, and perhaps by a loss of words, many of us find something to do with our hands. Here's a poem about just that by Arden Levine, published in 2015 in an issue of Agni Magazine. Ms. Levine lives in New York.

Offering

She tells him she's leaving him and he
bakes a pie. His pies are exquisite,
their crusts like crinoline.

He doesn't change clothes, works
in slacks, shirtsleeves rolled.
Summer makes the kitchen unbearable

But he suffers beautifully, tenderly
cuts the strawberries, pours
into the deep curve of the bowl.

She hadn't missed his hands since
last they drew her to his body.
Now she watches them stroke the edges

of the dough, shape it like cooling glass.
When the oven opens, his brow drips,
he brings his hands to his face.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2015 by Arden Levine, “Offering,” (AGNI Magazine, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Arden Levine and the publisher. Introduction copyright ©2016 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Happiness

Summer Rerun: Happiness Busters

July 22, 2016

Welcome to summer reruns! About once a month, I’ll be sharing a post from the archives. I hope you enjoy this one, from 2011.


If you’re like me, you know what makes you happy. You probably sprinkle those things through your days, like chocolate chips in a cookie (speaking of things that make me happy…) to make life sweeter. But what about things that make you unhappy—your happiness busters?

Photo courtesy D. Sharon Pruitt, Pink Sherbet Photography
Some happiness busters you can’t do anything about. Unpleasant situations and tragedies strike us all from time to time. Fortunately, there are some you can change, and thus boost your level of happiness. Here are three to think about:

Comparisons. I can be feeling perfectly fine about myself and suddenly crash and burn because I started comparing myself to someone else…my neighbor, a fellow freelancer, a friend, even my husband! I look at my personality and accomplishments and feel inferior. How does she achieve so much in the same time I have? It sure looks like he is having a great time while I’m over here tongue-tied and sweating. You get the picture.

This is where my shaky self-esteem reveals itself. I tend to denigrate what I’ve done—“Oh, it’s not that hard to do such-and-such (because if I’m able to do it, anyone can)”—or compare what I perceive to be my weakness with someone else’s strength.

Comparisons in which I come out ahead can be dangerous, too. I become less empathetic—because, once again, if I can do it, anyone can! It’s easy to become critical of others when you “compare down.”

Guilt. I must have some sort of overactive guilt gene, because I fight guilt feelings all the time. Even when I’m occupied in something “productive” I find myself feeling guilty about not doing something else that’s productive. Crazy, huh? And the guilt alarm bells really go off when I do something just for me, which I do quite frequently despite the guilt. I may do whatever-it-is, but the guilty feelings shadow my happiness. It’s far too easy to let guilt become too large a part of the emotional landscape.

“What people think.” How many times do we do things—or avoid doing them—because of what other people think? Women especially have a hard time with this because we’re often raised to be people-pleasers. We want to be liked and we want to fit in. That’s not bad unless it causes us to give up essential dreams and parts of ourselves to do so.

I wish I could say I’ve conquered these happiness busters, but I’m still working on it. At least I’ve learned to recognize when they appear, and sometimes I even manage to banish them. It helps when I remember my belief that we’re basically all doing the best we can. Sure, we fail and make mistakes, but we’re human. At times, failures and mistakes are the best we can do while we stretch outside our comfort zones.

What are some of your happiness busters? How do you handle them?

Being present

Your Life Is Happening Now

July 20, 2016



“Make treating yourself a priority and always remember your life is happening now. Don't put off all your dreams and pleasures to another day. In any balanced personal definition of success there has to be a powerful element of living life in the present.”
—Mireille Guiliano

Attitudes

Dropping the Rope: The Power of Letting Go

July 15, 2016

 “Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”—Eckert Tolle

I’ve done it a thousand times, but this time something went wrong. I was bringing Tank out of his paddock to go up to the barn, when another horse squeezed between us, pulling Tank’s lead rope tight. In response to the pressure, Tank pulled back, jerking the lead rope out of my hand. Because I didn’t have the good sense to drop the rope when I first felt a tug, the result was a severe rope burn on the palm and middle finger of my left hand. I spent the remainder of my time at the barn with my hand wrapped around an icy water bottle, and the rest of the week healing.

While this was an instance of literally needing to let go, it reminded me that there are plenty of attitudes, expectations, fears, worries, opinions, burdens, and limitations we—I —should let go of. We’re often taught about the importance of persevering—not so often about letting go.

I’m now of an age where letting go is taking center stage. My son is grown and my role in the family is changing. I’m becoming less interested in what others think of me, so I’m reevaluating what I do and how I do it. I’m setting aside certain desires and dreams to make room for new ones. None of this is easy, and it starts with letting go.

As you might have guessed, letting go does not come naturally to me. I’m more inclined to cling, to fight change, to stay rigid. What am I so afraid of? Pain? Discomfort? Chaos? Pain, discomfort, and chaos are part of life. Holding tight to that lead rope reminded me that holding on doesn’t protect me from pain. Sometimes it causes it. And here’s the thing about letting go:

It reduces the pain. If I’d dropped the rope as soon as I felt Tank pull against it, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. I don’t know why I was hanging on so hard—there was no real reason for it. Sometimes we hang on so hard, and for what?

It allows us to regroup and move on. Tank trotted off only a couple of strides and the other horses did nothing but sniff noses or flick an ear in his direction. I was easily able to collect him and resume our walk up to the barn. Sometimes it’s only when we’ve let go that we see the way out of our difficulty, or the excellent alternative to what we were clinging to in the first place.

If we’re in a situation where we’re clinging hard to a person, belief, or outcome, and we’re miserable and frustrated much of the time, perhaps it’s time to at least consider letting go. Take a few minutes, close our eyes, imagine what it would be like to let go. Do we feel relief? Panic? Deep sorrow? Visualizing letting go might offer us the breathing room we need to see a better option for moving forward. If our attitudes and expectations rob us of happiness, we should let them go. If we’ve tied our happiness to a particular outcome that we just can’t seem to produce, it might be time to let that go, too.

In a case of perfect timing, yesterday, our yoga teacher, Tina, finished the class by reading us the following poem as we lay in final relaxation pose:

She Let Go

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the “right” reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all the memories that held her back. She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.
—Rev. Safire Rose

What are you clinging to? Is it time to let go?