What have you birthed?

While it takes a womb to hold a baby, giving birth is not limited to gender. Giving birth is a process of creating something. It is putting together ideas or processes or people or materials in such a way that there is something new. That original thinking or combination may not last or may be the foundation of a modern branch of science. There is labor involved, if your creation is of import to you, even if it is only for you, such as pouring your heart into a journal. 

Perhaps you've instilled a love of golf or reading in a niece or nephew. Maybe you started a business or took over one that was failing and made it thrive. Do you plant flowers for a passersby to enjoy or have you stood on stage and made people laugh or cry? Creating moments and memories and gardens are as important as writing code that results in Word or Excel or Facebook and are often as painful as the exertions on a maternity ward.

Our offspring, whether two-legged or something ethereal like the awakening of a love of nature in a friend, will struggle and won't always be perfect. Creations may be fleeting, a happening that was here only to provide something shared, a respite from loneliness. Or, they may keep you company, be part of your life every day. Like children, they may become independent or turn their backs on you such as when they no longer bring you comfort or your talent at them ebbs, flows or fades. Or you sell them off or give them away. Gone, but not, never, forgotten.

Next week will mark the 200th blog in this format. It was preceded by a year and a half of simple Monday Musing emails. It was during that time that my book was published. If you had asked me a decade ago if I had birthed anything that might be considered a legacy,I would not have known how to answer. But today, as I think about nearly six years of putting words together around a random thought every week and inviting others to read and comment on it, I celebrate my Monday Musings baby and say thanks to all the readers who have helped nurture them along the way.

Erich Fromm wrote, “Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.” Today, do something to acknowledge and celebrate what you have birthed!

Marilyn

10 life lessons from doing the laundry

When I was on vacation in Bosnia last month and saw all of the laundry hanging on balconies, the germ of an idea took root and I started jotting down thoughts. I remembered watching my mother use an old wringer washer and recalled learning how to overlap items on the clothesline using one clothespin, which led to how great sheets smell when allowed to dry on the line outdoors. I smiled at the memory of the young people who received a scholarship from a program I managed, and how surprised they were to receive a laundry bag along with their check. For many of them it would be their first time on their own and responsible for everything in their day to day lives. I researched, and suggest that you Google “history of laundry.” You’ll learn a lot and have much more respect for our foremothers.

Then, when I got down to the lessons themselves, I started explaining each one until I had a couple of pages of material. It was when I got more serious about getting this blog ready to post that I realized the explanations were not necessary. Each lesson can have its own meaning for each reader. I hope you’ll have more to add to the list below of life lessons from doing the laundry:

1. Things we thought needed to be separated don't.
2. Reading the instructions helps.
3. Once you've mastered the basics, you may not be great at it, but no one fails.
4. It is a short term chore with an immediate sense of accomplishment.
5. Multitasking is easy.
6. Everyone has quirks about the right way for each step along the way, from sorting to folding.
7. Not everyone has to think about it, but everyone benefits from it being done.
8. While manufacturers offer many choices to cater to what they think are growing needs, we really need only a couple of options.
9. Colors do fade but are sometimes better than the original. 
10. Despite all the products on the market, sometimes the old fashioned remedies are the best.

Marilyn

 

Drawing a _________

Have you ever watched someone walking toward you with a delighted smile on their face (after all, who wouldn’t be glad to see you?) and while you are certain you know them, you experience a sense of dread because their name eludes you? Or, have you been in the middle of describing something, and the one word that brings the whole story together remains on the tip of your tongue (TOT)? Of course you have. It doesn’t matter if you are seventeen or seventy. Those are common experiences.

My problem is that that’s indeed what they are: common experiences. Until I was forty, I was great at names and faces, then, suddenly it seemed those brain cells died. I gave up trying and just keep apologizing with the pat phrase, “Sorry, I’m terrible at names.” When it comes to the TOT times, I try to not be one of those who jokes, “Must be early Alzheimer’s” for that is no joking matter.  Once you reach a certain age, every time the next word isn’t right there, there is a moment of panic.

While a certain amount of forgetfulness might be a result of age, mostly I think it comes from the stresses and stressors in our lives. We move at such a fast pace, and are usually multitasking, so our brains have a hard time being the in the moment at the moment we need a certain something, be it a name or a word. I find that a comfort. Unfortunately our hearts are racing at the same pace. I think we’re getting worn out, so it’s no wonder we can’t remember one thing in a conversation or one name of the hundreds (if not thousands) of people we've met.

It is Sunday as I write this. There used to be things like Sunday afternoon family drives and sitting on the Mayberry-like front porch greeting neighbors who walked by. We need to build up peaceful and calming moments like those in our lives and lessen the multi’s. I believe that in whatever life comes after this one, there will be all the time in the world to do things one at a time. Oh, and we will have name tags.

Marilyn

The success of failure

What have you failed at? I actually hope there is a long list indicating that at least you tried and gave lots of things your best shot. Also, I trust that your list, like mine, covers a variety of topics. Here are a few of my failures and what I’ve learned from them.

In 10th grade I was failing Chemistry, a subject usually taken during one's junior year back

then. I was in an experimental accelerated college prep program and our curriculum was both ahead of schedule and crammed full. That year we had Latin and French during one period every day, so perhaps it was all the other subjects or just how my brain worked. The combination of NA+CL for table salt just didn't click with me. In a conference with the teachers they told me they thought if I stuck to it I could get a C and that would be OK. It wasn't for me, so they made an exception and allowed me to drop the class and pick it up the following year. On that second try I did just fine. 

From that experience I learned that what can sees like a very public failure and humiliation to me does not really matter to others. I saw that people define failure differently and that bad timing can be part of why one fails. Finally, having a second chance taught me I had to not let the failure define me and to try again. 

Sometimes I remembered to put those lessons to work in relationships, but all too often I didn’t. There have been people who have passed through my life and then the relationship went sour. We both walked away feeling we had failed, instead of recognizing the poor timing. And when I think about failed relationships, I remember all the people I failed at changing, until I learned another life lesson that the only person I can change is myself.

In a box in my closet are many rejection letters from publishers and on the computer or in notebooks there are dozens of ideas that never went anywhere, or have yet to be explored. There are lots of projects I've failed to complete, games I've not mastered. There were jobs I interviewed for but didn't get and things I dreamed of that never materialized. 

Failure can result from not trying hard enough, but practice does not necessarily make perfect. I may have memorized the periodic table but needed that extra year before what it stood for really clicked. Practice may not even make competent and we may simply fail. We try things and either find a good fit or not. And, having tried, we can and need to move on, or as C.S. Lewis wrote, "one fails toward success."

Marilyn