What are you afraid of?

Beyond not liking spiders or heights or going to the dentist, and underneath the challenge of getting on an airplane or standing at a podium, and ignoring the fact that there is nothing you can do about getting older, deep down what's your biggest fear? For some it is a fear of intimacy, or being poor or dependent. Medical words like cancer or Alzheimer evoke dread, and while none of us like to fail, that fear can keep us from acting at all. New anxieties and fears stem from today's technologies.

For me, when all else is stripped away, my bottom line fear is that I'll be forgotten. Perhaps this comes from growing up in a family where after someone had died they were never mentioned. I look back and realize that grandma, the only grandparent I knew, was a huge influence and a major stabilizing factor of my first six years. After she died, she was simply gone. It's not like she was erased, as there were pictures in photo albums and in frames, but she was never referenced or outwardly remembered. When I inquired about the three grandparents I never knew, or about Uncle Harold who died from being gassed in WWI or other faces in some of those pictures, no meaningful personal tidbits or fun stories about them were ever shared. It was like it never mattered that they existed.

I've learned that the same is true in many families. Whether a family or cultural norm, I do my best to change it. I find it comforting to talk about someone who is no longer around to talk with. I understand that it is difficult when the grief is too new, when feelings are raw, but memories either make me smile or help me understand.

When my poker group gets together, at some point during the evening we usually remember one person no longer around the table. We don't speak of her with reverence, which can so often become the case when someone has died, but of who she really was. I like that. If I were hit by a bus tomorrow I'd like to think that group they would raise a toast to me occasionally also. 

Maybe my fear of being forgotten is quite common and one cause of the billions of selfies. I'm sure it's one reason why I publish these musings in a public way. Naming and facing a fear can be the first step to overcoming it. So, here are words I've put together on a road toward that. What are you afraid of that you're willing to acknowledge and take at least one step to face it head on?

Technological gluttony

This past week I ran across that jarring phrase. Those words came at the end of a paragraph in Richard Foster's book Sanctuary of the Soul where he describes how people complain about our wired world while utilizing all the gadgets at their disposal. He states that the Internet culture is symbolic of a fundamental problem, namely, distraction. We will do anything to fill time, to feel busy, to believe we are connected and engaged. Later on he quotes Blaise Pascal, "The sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room."

Since buying my iPad seven weeks ago my room is now seldom 'quiet.' I enjoy doing puzzles, playing dominos and a few card games. These I usually do while the TV is on in the background. While some might call it overlapping, Foster might call it distraction. I call it the inability to stay focused on one thing. That's part of my Myers-Briggs profile. I'm a high P and can easily flit from one interesting thing to another. Give me two to deal with at the same time and it might seem that I should thrive. But, actually, I'm getting worn out.

Someone recently mentioned that there is only one facility focused on technological addiction and that the waiting list is two years long. Part of me gets it. Once I didn't go to the health club because I had forgotten my MP3 player. How could I be on the treadmill without my story/distraction? At the office we wonder what to do when the server goes down. even though there is plenty of paperwork, planning, and simply thinking to be done.

Just like in everything else, technologically there are the haves and the have nots. There is a technological divide and there are technological deserts. I might be late to the table of phone and pad, but drawn in nevertheless because I live in a place where that is possible. Meanwhile schools around the world struggle for access to information. There are places where people still go to bed when it gets dark. Here we live in a society where we fight sleep in order to finish the movie or chapter or until we get to the next level of a game.

Even as I am grateful for the small mobile screen and separate keyboard that allows me to write, search, and play, and for all of the good that technology does, I shudder at the electronic speed of life today and its accompanying lack of need to sit quietly in a room. One goal for this week is to take a breather from the technological gluttony of my life and see if I can sit quietly in my room just for a little while. You up for the same challenge?

Marilyn

Getting to the root of the matter

One of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache stories has the characters following a lead into the basement of a centuries old library. Instead of the coffin they were hoping to find, they dug up boxes filled with turnips and potatoes. They had discovered a root cellar.

My mother would often send me to the basement, to the little room we called the fruit cellar. I was to get a jar of canned tomatoes or pickles or to pick out a couple of apples from the bushel on the floor so she could finish making dinner or packing my dad's and my lunches. The shelves also served as an overflow pantry where things purchased on sale could be stored. I think that my mother, a young housewife during the Depression, found comfort and some pride in storing up supplies and having a place to do so. 

As I was editing the initial draft of the above paragraphs, the importance of the word   'root' really struck me. In previous musings I've shared how my roots include Sir Francis Bacon and Susanna North, a brave widow in the early colonies accused by Cotton Mather and ultimately hung as a witch. I only know about those people because a friend graciously rooted out the information. Throughout the years I have written about beliefs and things that root me, helping form my foundation. I've mused about societal issues and what I might consider their root cause. I've shared images and talked about events that rooted me to the spot and mused on some good things I would hope to take root in me. Currently neighbors are transplanting impatiens and geraniums, gently handling the roots so the flowers can absorb nutrients while other folks are calling Rooter Router to destroy what might block sewers. 

Turns out root is one of those mighty words that we don't pay much attention to until a thought takes root and we follow it where it wants to go. Inspector Gamache ultimately found the murderer and thanks to a clue he left, I got my idea for this week's musing. Now it's your turn to root around for an idea to share.

Marilyn

Fire departments, schools, and town drunks

Long before national standardized tests New York State had the Regents exams. High school curriculums were designed to ensure that each student had the required courses in the appropriate year. At the end of each semester there were 3 hour exams in each subject and, if we achieved a passing grade, we moved forward, working toward accumulating the correct number of points to graduate. The June exam my senior year included an essay topic, "Every town has one."

As my friends and I walked home and talked about what we wrote, we all chuckled that a town drunk was something we each had thought of, probably because of the character Otis on the Andy Griffith Show. At that time we weren't aware enough to realize that it was probable that many of our classmates probably had an alcoholic family member. Fire departments were a touchy subject since our school had burned and students and teachers died. Writing about a town's school was a fairly obvious and safe choice, and some admitted they took that route.

Me? I wrote about the flagpole on the town square. A place where people gathered on a day like today, a day then known as Decoration Day, a day marked with parades and cemetery visits, not mattress sales. I wrote about the Girl Scout troop assigned to Tuesdays and how they carefully and reverently hoisted the flag in the morning and lowered and folded the flag at night. Decades later I served on a condo board where we had to enforce a 'no flag of any kind' rule.

If presented with the 'every town has one' topic today, I might write about gathering places. From a large suburb to a tiny hamlet, every village has a place where folks come together to talk, play, vote, worship, learn, celebrate or share a meal, be it the school auditorium, city hall, diner or town square. So on this day when traditionally people get together, may you enjoy whoever you are with, whether friends, family or fictional characters, and let's all toast those who have died in service so that we might do so.

Marilyn

Four life lessons from physical therapy

In recent years I've had physical therapy three different times. The first was after I got knocked down by a car as the driver was backing out of a parking space.  Last year a slight impingement in my right shoulder and a pulled hamstring muscle sent me back. Here are a few things I learned from those experiences.

Experts who demonstrate and explain the whole process are more effective than those who just tell me what to do. When I used to do leadership development for a living I followed the tell-show-do-review training model. Tell the trainee what to do and why. Show them how to do it. Allow them to do it and then review what they did. It's a model that works for any age and in any learning situation.

It's important to pay attention. The slightest angle off as I pull the elastic band or lift the weight can actually harm rather than help. I also have to pay attention to my instincts, such as recognizing when I hit a limit or need to change how I plan to lift, push or pull.

We have to to it ourselves. Once I've been taught, it's up to me to do the work that will result in an improvement. No one else can do it for me. It's my responsibility and my work alone that will make things better.

We have to keep at it. The pain may ease or go away, but for some, PT exercises need to be part of a daily routine to keep it that way. For many, we remember what to do when we feel a twinge and need to head off a return to the state that sent us to PT in the first place.

 

Whether or not you have had physical therapy perhaps you can agree with the truths of these learnings and along with me select just one of them to concentrate on today.

 

Marilyn

The u-turns of life

As someone with no sense of direction, I've made many u-turns on roads near and far. Sometimes I do have a feeling that I'm on the wrong road or going the wrong way but don't know how to fix it other than with a u-turn so I can backtrack. 

A u-turn is not a fork in the road where the decision is one way or the other. It is not an intersection with a left or right choice. It is a gentle or harsh half loop to intentionally go over ground already covered, to retrace our steps with the hope of a different outcome. That outcome may result in a total change of direction or perhaps going farther along the road we were originally on because we hadn't gone far enough. 

On highways along the median and at major intersections there can be signs that indicate if a u-turn is permitted or not. I find those signs oddly comforting, knowing that I'm not alone in needing such an option. 

U-turns are similar to do-overs in that they allow for a different outcome; however, in many do-overs you get to erase the first attempt. Not so with u-turns. The initial wrong choice and the lost time remain part of that trip and that experience that got us from home finally to point B.

It is not just when driving a car where u-turns may need to be made. There are times in our life journey when it would be helpful to u-turn, whether it is in a relationship or in a personal challenge we are facing. Too often we continue straight ahead, forgetting the u-turn option. Maybe we keep going because we've been taught to always plow ahead or to work through the pain and we interpret that as needing to continue forward. 

Our nation and humankind could do with a few u-turns. We are on so many wrong roads, are headed in so many wrong directions. If given the possibility of one collective u-turn, I wonder which power struggle you or I would recommend for an historic rewrite. Unfortunately the list is endless.

U-turns have been on my mind because of my recent vacation. My sister-in-law and I took a couple of day trips with neither detailed maps or a GPS.  Because she also is directionally-challenged, we luckily could laugh together over the number of u-turns we made on each outing. Decades ago, in the era of AAA trip-tix and after another vacation, my traveling companion gave me a key chain engraved with the title "U-turn Queen." Some things never change. Some things may be improved with the use of a strategic u-turn.

Marilyn

What is it called?

What is it called when you have a song in your head and you turn on the radio to hear that song being played? Or to be thinking of someone and the phone rings with them on the line or their email or text pops up? Or when two of you say the same thing ("jinx...you owe me a coke"), I mean beyond the word 'coincidence?' 

We've all had such an experience. It is different from but also similar to that eerie deja vu feeling. Whether or not it has a name, it reminds me that we are all connected to the universe in a variety of ways beyond walking on its surface and finding relationships with our own and other species. 

It's Earth Day on Wednesday. At the office the Green Team has been talking about ways to observe the day and decided to recommend we turn off all lights for an hour. Some people won't notice and a few may be bothered, but perhaps everyone will think about the action and the meaning behind it. 

Earth Day is one reminder of our inter- and co-dependence with earth, air, wind, and water. And each other. Just like those simultaneous radio or email experiences.

Marilyn