“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of
the overcoming of it.”
—Helen Keller
I was going to post something today about personal space,
and how much my husband and I are enjoying having our offices separated—but it
just seemed too frivolous in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. We’ve weathered a few
hurricanes since we moved to Florida ,
but nothing like what the people in the northeast are experiencing with Sandy .
More than 100 people have died, and more than one million homes are still
without power, with a nor’easter bringing cold, snow and wind predicted for
later this week. (Click here for a state-by-state summary of Sandy ’s
aftermath. Jason Good, who lives in New Jersey and still has no power ,
blogged about Sandy here.)
I’ve been thinking about the people affected by Superstorm
Sandy—wondering how I could help. I can’t volunteer up there, so I’m looking
for ways to help right here. Cash donations may seem less personal, but they
are highly useful to relief agencies. Cash doesn’t have to be sorted, packaged
or transported, and agencies have more flexibility to provide for the true
needs of survivors. Here are a few organizations that are taking donations for
those affected by Sandy .
The Red Cross. Visit www.redcross.org,
call 800-Red-Cross or text the word “Redcross” to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
You can also give blood, since many blood drives had to be canceled because of Sandy .
In conjunction with the Red Cross, ABC is sponsoring a “Day of Giving” today. All day long, ABC’s shows will offer viewers a chance to donate to those
affected by the storm.
The Salvation Army provides food, clean-up kits, shelter and
“emotional and spiritual care” to storm victims.
Feeding America
operates food banks all over the US ,
and is distributing emergency food, water and supplies to the storm’s victims.
AmeriCares provides medicine, medical supplies and
humanitarian aid.
The Humane Society is working to help pets affected by the
storm, especially those were not able to be evacuated with their families.
In addition to the above organizations, you can visit the National
Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster website for a list
of volunteer organizations in your state.
I’ll get back to the personal space issue in a future post
(and include some pictures of my husband’s new office). Today, I’m just
grateful to have a roof over my head and electricity to power my household.
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| Photo courtesy John Nyberg |
Do you get tired of being told to look on the bright side
when you express a negative thought? Do you find yourself stifling your
concerns out of a desire not to sound “negative”?
Turns out, there’s a place for negative, especially if it’s
in the form of defensive pessimism.
I just finished reading The Positive Power of Negative Thinking, by Julie K. Norem, Ph.D. In this book, Norem introduced me to the
concepts of defensive pessimism and strategic optimism. People who use
strategic optimism seek to avoid stirring up anxious feelings, often by setting
high expectations, then not thinking about what could go wrong. Those who use defensive pessimism set low
expectations and mentally rehearse how things could go wrong.
On the surface, defensive pessimism sounds pretty dismal.
However, Norem explains, “Defensive pessimism involves learning to tolerate negative emotions in order to
get things done. [Defensive pessimists’] tolerance isn’t passive wallowing in
negative feelings; it embodies confronting those feelings and rejecting the
premise that feeling good should always be our most immediate aim.”
These two strategies are used by people who have differing
psychic make-ups: those who typically feel anxious and those who do not. Those
who feel anxious need to find a way to handle their anxiety so that they can
act, and those who don’t feel anxious need to find ways to stay anxiety-free.
As Norem demonstrates, the strategies that work for one don’t work for the other,
and if you try to change someone’s strategy, their performance suffers. Norem
writes, “Defensive pessimism and strategic optimism develop in response to
different experiences, and their strengths lie in the ways they address
different problems. Defensive pessimism works to manage anxiety and help people
feel more in control, whereas strategic optimism works to keep anxiety away and
to protect self-esteem. In both cases, these strategies motivate effective
action and often lead to good outcomes for those who use them.” (Norem notes
that these concepts are different from dispositional
optimism or pessimism.)
As in most things, if taken to extremes, both of these
strategies can be dysfunctional. Defensive pessimists can spend too much time
preparing for disaster and become such perfectionists that they never complete
anything. Strategic optimists may become overconfident, ignore real dangers, or
keep working at impossible tasks they should abandon
Norem doesn’t believe you should give up your natural
tendencies. Whatever your strategy, be it defensive pessimism or strategic
optimism, embrace it while making sure not to carry it too far. In addition, accept
the strategies of others without trying to change them.
I think I fall more towards the defensive pessimist end of
the spectrum, and this book clarified for me strategies to help get me through
the anxious period and into the active period. (Truthfully, I often use
“self-handicapper” strategies, discussed in chapter five—a tendency I need to
overcome.)
Which do you use most often—defensive pessimism or strategic
optimism?
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| Photo courtesy Karolina Michalak |
I’m not alone in noticing how time accelerates as we grow
older, and as the seasons grow ever more brief the holidays are gone in a
wink. This poem by Nancy Price about
Halloween catches a little of that.
She’s an Iowan whose poems are so heartfelt, clear and useful that we
could run them every week and none of you would complain. [Introduction by Ted
Kooser.]
Trick or Treat
The ghost is a torn sheet,
the skeleton’s suit came from a rack in a store
the witch is flameproof, but who knows
what dark streets they have taken here?
Brother Death, here is a candy bar.
For the lady wearing the hat from Salem :
gum.
And a penny for each eye, Lost Soul.
They fade away with their heavy sacks.
Thanks! I yell just
in time.
Thanks for another year!
Something’s not quite right with the color of the
photographs, and several are completely unrecognizable. The color problem
probably stems from keeping the film on my dresser for several years before
having it developed, but what’s up with the unrecognizable ones?
I just had my last roll of film developed, and it made me
kind of sad. I entered the digital photo age kicking and screaming. I loved my
35mm camera, loved the packets of shiny photos I had developed, loved the photo
albums and scrapbooks I made with them. I feared my digital photos would never
make it off my hard drive into prints. (I was mostly right about that, too. I
don’t know which is worse: boxes of unsorted prints or computer files of
unsorted images!)
I’m totally a digital convert now—I love the ability to take
tons of photos and, even better, the simple software that allows me to crop and
otherwise enhance them so I have images I think are beautiful. I’m looking into
websites that allow you to make photo books to replace the scrapbooks and photo
albums I used to make. The excitement of sending my film away and seeing if the
photos I took are as good as I think they will be has been replaced by
immediately checking the images, then popping a memory card into my laptop. Now
that I’m converted to digital, I’m going to sell my 35mm SLR
camera. It makes me a little sad, but I don’t need it or use it anymore.
So what was on that roll of film? Before-and-after photos of
our kitchen when we changed the countertops from Formica to granite and added a
new backsplash. (We made this home improvement right before Christmas—that’s
when we do all our home improvements. It adds that perfect touch of panic to the festivities.) My
husband and I were thinner. Nick was shorter. And Crusher was still with us.
(Sniffle.)
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| Look how young Nick is! |
Sometimes technology makes life better—it certainly has made
photography more fun and easier for me, even though I still have a lot more to
learn. My husband says I’ll soon exchange my paper books for an e-reader, but
I’m not so sure about that. There’s more to reading a book than seeing words on
a page.
How has technology made your life better? Is there anything
you said you’d never do/try/use that you now find indispensable, like my
digital camera?
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| Recognize the face on the mouse pad? |
I’ve spent far, far too much time meandering through (in?
on?) the internet lately. In order to justify that to myself, I thought I’d
share some of my happy discoveries. Because I want everyone to waste as much
time have as much fun as I do…
Puppy cam! Click here for a peek into the puppy room at the Service Dog Project in Ipswich, MA where mom Chaos is caring for her week-old puppies.
Already thinking about the holidays, I found this post to have some really sweet handmade gift ideas.
Scott Adams (the creator of “Dilbert”) on “engineering happiness”.
Laure Ferlita shared this link with me. Gorgeous
photography.
For a good laugh (no pun intended), visit Jason Good at http://jasongood.net/. One of my favorite
posts is here.
I just discovered this blog, which has a philosophy I can
agree with. I particularly liked this post.
Have you discovered anything fun lately?
“Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim
struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be
happy in the moment.”
—J. Donald Walters
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| Danger! |
Finally we had
some gorgeous, fall-like weather this weekend, so my husband, mother-in-law and
I checked out an orchid show and sale at the USF Botanical Gardens in Tampa .
Lucky for us, there were only 12 vendors. We still managed to buy six orchids.
It’s a sickness, I tell you.
My husband and I go for variety in both size and color. I’m
partial to scented orchids, my husband likes the dramatic and unusual ones. (If
it’s variety you want, orchids are your flower: according to Wikipedia, orchids
are one of the largest families of flowering plants, with more than 20,000
species found in 880 genera. Horticulturalists have produced more than 100,000
hybrids and cultivars since the introduction of tropical species in the 19th
century.)
The new additions joined their brethren on our lanai where I
hope they’ll be happy. One of my next chores needs to be writing down what
types of orchids I have and what conditions they like.
I never thought I’d be interested in orchids. I’ve always preferred
flowers like peonies, hydrangeas, roses. I can’t grow those here in Florida —at
least not very successfully. (I’ve also become resigned to the lack of tulips
and daffodils in my life.) But I can grow orchids—they thrive in our humid
climate, so I’m going with the flow. If I can’t have a cottage garden, I’ll
have a tropical one instead. At least I have flowers.
Here are the new additions. This one is tiny:
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| Oncidium Tsiki Marguerite |
At the other extreme, this vanda is huge:
This one, also a vanda, is scented:
Just love the color of this:
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| Miltassia C.M. Fitch ‘Izumi’...or so says the label... |
This was unlabeled, but I think it’s a phaleonopsis:
I don’t know what this is, either, and am not sure of what
the label says. Any ideas?
It felt good to be outside (and not be sweaty), to drink in the beauty of the flowers, to be with people I love, while at the same time fanning my passion for orchids. A satisfactory Saturday.
How have you fed your passions lately?
I mentioned here that I’ve taken possession of my new office
after my husband moved to his new space in our formal living room —really it’s my
“old” office as it was mine (hence the lavender walls) until my husband took it
over three years ago. I’ve spent many happy hours in here in the past week and
a half—would you like a little tour? (Click on the photos to make them bigger.)
I’ve shared pictures of the shelves before, but this is what
they look like now. A few things moved around, a few books disposed of and a
few more purchased.
Under my window, I have a white bench with some magazines,
an African violet and some storage boxes for hiding messy projects (if only I
could remember I put the projects in there…).
My desk—so wonderful to have room to spread out, and to have
my little bits and bobs displayed. Last week I had some fresh flowers in that
bare space on the left. On top of the hutch is my collection of old Nancy Drew
books.
I love this glider rocker for reading, writing (I write most
first drafts in long hand) and thinking deep thoughts. I’ve had this chair
since before my son was born, and I spent countless hours in it, feeding,
rocking and singing to him. We recovered it a few years ago so it could go in
the office. When I’m not in the chair, one of Scout’s dog beds is. She divides
her time between my office and my husband’s.
Next to the rocker is a lateral filing cabinet and hutch. I
still need to purge the files as well as arrange the photos and books a bit
better.
This is the armoire desk we bought for me when my husband
and I were trying to share the office. It’s now my—trumpet fanfare—art station.
I keep all my supplies here, and can use the desk top to sketch and paint. It
also stores some random office supplies I don’t have room for elsewhere.
Having my own space means a lot to me. I can play music. I
can shut the door. I control the ceiling fan, a major bone of contention
between me and my husband. It means I (we) take my work seriously because we’ve
made a space for me to do it, rather than keeping me bouncing from one place to
another.
I didn’t realize until I had to share how much having my own
space meant to me. Every other place I tried to work (except my bedroom and that
was an issue in itself) made me feel I was on display and I was frequently
interrupted. I felt like I “wasn’t doing anything” when I was sitting quietly
reading or thinking or even web surfing for work. Now I can daydream, think,
and read to my heart’s content and no one looks over my shoulder while I do it. Or asks me what’s for dinner or if I’m doing laundry later.
And that, my friends, is my new artistic space.
I am very happy.
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| Scout is happy, too. |
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| Photo courtesy andrechinn via Flickr |
At the beginning of the famous novel, "Remembrance of
Things Past," the mere taste of a biscuit started Marcel Proust on a
seven-volume remembrance. Here a bulldozer turns up an old doorknob, and look
what happens in Shirley Buettner's imagination. [Introduction by Ted
Kooser.]
Discovered
Discovered
While clearing the west
quarter for more cropland,
the Cat quarried
a porcelain doorknob
oystered in earth,
grained and crazed
like an historic egg,
with a screwless stem of
rusted and pitted iron.
I turn its cold white roundness
with my palm and
open the oak door
fitted with oval glass,
fretted with wood ivy,
and call my frontier neighbor.
Her voice comes distant but
clear, scolding children
in overalls
and highbutton shoes.
A bucket of fresh eggs and
a clutch of rhubarb rest
on her daisied oil-cloth.
She knew I would knock someday,
wanting in.
Twice on Wednesday I found myself talking to someone about
how lucky I am. The first time, I was sitting on the back of my horse, talking
to my friend and trainer, Gayle, about how my experience with Tank has been one
of the best things in my whole life. We talked about how lucky I feel first to
even own a horse, and also to have one that I’ve been able to bond with so
closely. I mentioned that my life is so much better than I ever imagined it
being. Though I was speaking out of the emotion of the moment, glossing over
the pain and emotional storms I’ve weathered, it is true that I am lucky. If I
started to list the struggles and problems of my life, that lucky feeling would
certainly fade. It was then that I realized it’s my choice what version of my life to dwell on, and ultimately my
choice whether I feel “lucky” or not.
In the second instance, I had emailed my friend Laure an
image of some sketchbook pages I loved, expressing a desire to have my
sketchbook resemble them. We emailed back and forth about developing artistic
style, and I finished one email with, “I’m lucky to have some lovely artists to
be influenced by, aren’t I?” While I’m still learning the basics of drawing and
painting, let alone working on my “style,” between the support and
encouragement of my friends (my classmates in Laure’s classes as well as Laure
herself) and the wealth of material available in books and online, I have the
ability to enjoy and learn from many different artists. I can’t help but be
inspired. This may seem like an insignificant matter to feel lucky about—but
isn’t life made up of “insignificant matters”?
Coincidentally, we have a new resident at our barn, a tiny,
elderly pony whose name is Lucky. Poor Lucky was essentially starving to death
because his previous owners (well-meaning but ignorant) didn’t realize the
condition of his teeth made it impossible for him to eat normally—his food
needs to be soaked into soupiness. Aside from his thinness and the neglect of
his hooves and coat, he seems healthy. He’s
lucky to have been found by caring
people who hope to help him, and a vet who is willing to take on some of his care
without compensation. With any luck, he’ll live out his life in comfort, being
spoiled by the girls (and the adults) at the barn.
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| Lucky doing what he does best |
I guess what I’m trying to say is that feeling lucky is to
some degree a matter of perspective, acknowledging the negatives but choosing
to focus more on the positives. It’s part of my “Catching Happiness”
philosophy, when I remember to live by it.
What makes you feel lucky?
“There are few things
more sacred than the moment you come to peace with your pieces.”
—Marney Makridakis
The craziness continues, but it’s good craziness.
After “sharing” home office space with my husband for three
years (translation: I had a desk in there but I was rarely at it because our
working styles were not compatible), he moved to his new office in our unused formal
living room last week. I’ve spent much of the past few days cleaning and
organizing my space and collecting my things from where they were scattered
throughout the house. I’ve still got some organizing to do, but at least I know
everything is here (somewhere) and I again have a door I can close when I need
to.
I took the day yesterday to relieve my horse of his winter
coat. (Click here to see what that entails.) Yes, even though it’s still near 90 degrees and humid, Tank was sporting
his usual premature wooliness. I’m not quite finished—I have three legs left
and some tidying—but he’s much more comfortable. Since he’s now shorn, that
means it’s likely a cold front will come through and drop the temps. (Bring it
on! I have a horse blanket.)
I expect to have a more “normal” schedule in the next week
or so and will get back to more regular posting soon.
So what’s new with you?
So what’s new with you?
Much of the poetry that has endured the longest is about the
relentless movement of time, and in ways all art is about just that. Here’s a
landscape in which time is at work, by Geraldine Connolly, who lives in Montana .
[Introduction by Ted Kooser.]
The eagle floats and glides,
circling the burnished aspen,
then takes the high pines
with a flash of underwing.
As surely as the eagle sails
toward the bay’s open curve,
as surely as he swoops and seizes
the struggling fish, pulling
it from an osprey’s beak;
so too, autumn descends,
to steal the glistening
summer from our open hands.
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| What is this thing? It smells like treats. |
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| Nope, can't fit the whole thing in my mouth... |
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| Maybe if I use my mind powers on it. |
 |
C'mon, man! |
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| Ohhh, if I roll it, treats fall out! |
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| Triumphant |
That’s what I feel like I’m doing. Anyone else? Is it just
me, or does life seem unaccountably, almost unbearably busy lately? I feel
frantic! I have no down time between activities. I’m distracted—more so than normal.
I shudder to think what the holidays will be like when I feel like this in
September.
Since reading World Enough and Time, I’ve become more aware of time and my use of it, even
going so far as to keep a time log a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it’s because
I’m more aware that it seems like life has sped up?
From keeping the time log, I learned that I multi-task A
LOT, and I do a lot of small tasks that add up to big chunks of time. I had to
use a pen with an extra fine tip in order to fit all I did into the half hour
boxes of the time log! Even if I was working out on the elliptical machine, I was also reading a magazine. If we had the TV on, I was cooking or cleaning the
kitchen, balancing the checkbook or folding laundry. The only time I had large
stretches of time doing one thing was when I went to the barn, and that’s
because I didn’t record each individual thing I did while I was there.
No wonder I’m so tired by the end of the day. I really do
cram a lot of little tasks into my days, often doing them one right after
another. Since I can’t really point to any major accomplishment, except maybe
keeping our lives running, I never get a feeling of satisfaction and
accomplishment from what I do. So many things I do “disappear”—they must be
done again, and again (and again). They’re not even noticed by anyone unless I
stop doing them.
Is this a problem? Maybe. If I’m running around filling my
days with the little details, I never have to face my fears—the fear that I
won’t have anything to say when I sit in front of a blank page, or the fear
that if I stopped “doing,” my worth as a human being would plummet. I want to
be a contributor in life, not just a taker, but the way in which I’m going
about it now is not sustainable.
I don’t want to live like this anymore. I’m stepping back
and calling a halt, starting with a day off tomorrow. I’m going to look at my
current schedule and activities and ask:
*Does this need doing?
*Do I need to do
it?
*Can it be done less frequently?
*Can someone help me with this so it will go quicker?
It’s a start. Maybe then I’ll be able to get my head above
water.
Do you have any tips on controlling your schedule and
commitments you can share?
“Am I going to change the world, or am I going to change me?
Or maybe change the world a little bit, just by changing me?”
—Sarah (“Sadie”) Delany, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years
It’s fall! Can you tell? Our weather still says
summer, but that didn't stop us from a this-and-that weekend, here at the Johnson household.
My husband and I puttered about the house and yard, together and apart—a relaxing and
satisfying way to spend Saturday and Sunday.
Some of the things we did:
I began putting out fall decorations, with this little set
of votive candles I just bought. Everything else is in the attic…time to send
someone up there to bring the boxes down.
We cleaned our potting bench. My husband has taken up
vegetable gardening, so we now share the bench which I had let get into quite a
state:
Better:
I cleaned and refilled the bird bath and squirrel bird
feeders:
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| Ick |
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| Much better |
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| Come and get it! |
I found a little friend keeping the orchids bug free:
Scout enjoyed the warmth of the sun:
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| Baby basils |
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| Dendrobium Salaya Candy |
There was also a little laundry, a little horse time, a
little online puttering (Pinterest, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Blacksburg Belle and more), a little vacuuming, some
sports on TV and, of course, some reading.
I'm at my happiest when I'm savoring these little moments, small accomplishments and simple pleasures. I’m grateful I had the time to
slow down and enjoy them.
What did you do this weekend?
I found my own “treasure within a treasure”! I bought The Art of Happiness at my
library’s used book store, and this was inside:
A happy little surprise, and the simplest of simple pleasures.
What was your happy surprise today?
Jane Hirshfield, who lives in the San
Francisco Bay
The Promise
The Promise
Stay, I said
to the cut flowers.
They bowed
their heads lower.
Stay, I said to the spider,
who fled.
Stay, leaf.
It reddened,
embarrassed for me and itself.
Stay, I said to my body.
It sat as a dog does,
obedient for a moment,
soon starting to tremble.
Stay, to the earth
of riverine valley meadows,
of fossiled escarpments,
of limestone and sandstone.
It looked back
with a changing expression, in silence.
Stay, I said to my loves.
Each answered,
Always.
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 ©2011 by Jane Hirshfield, from her most recent
book of poems, Come, Thief, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Poem reprinted by
permission of Jane Hirshfield and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012
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.
