Day 45: Mate

Posted on February 14, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_1983Yes, I’m talking about socks. I mean, what did you think I was talking about, huh?

A couple of days ago, one of the blogs I follow posted a de-clutter assignment for clearing out your sock drawer. I thought it was a great way to start small–literally and figuratively. Truth be told, though, it would present more of a challenge for my eight-year-old fashionista’s sock menagerie than it would for my own meager  collection.

No, my task today was of a different order: I needed to get over my denial and face reality…..

I’m never going to find the mates for all of those stray socks.

We have a wicker basket that is literally full to the brim with socks that are, well, going through a trial separation. Yes, it is one of the mysteries of the universe where all the missing socks go. But facts are facts: those missing socks are gone, and they’re not coming back. I mean some of those solo socks have been hanging around in this basket for years….

Now I couldn’t just get rid of the whole lot, since I  knew that there was a pretty good chance that over time, two strays had both found their way into the Basket of the Lost, and were only separated from each other by sedimentary layers of mismatched cotton and wool. With a little digging and a little patience, I would probably find some mates. And in fact I did. The vast majority, though: lost solos.

It was quick work, really–let’s face it: they’re just socks. I ended up with fifty singletons. One confession: I held onto two strays that had only recently been separated from their mates–sadly, one of them is a favorite pair (or half of a favorite pair, I guess) of wool socks. If these strays aren’t reunited by the end of the month, they’re goners too.

The only question I have now is–what does one do with a bag full of stray socks? It’s not exactly a donation-worthy collection, but it’s not like I can drop them off at my local rag-and-bone shop either, to have them turned into fine paper….

For now, though, they go down into the basement with the other donation goods. Maybe I can think of a better way of passing them along to a better life (and outside of a landfill) before the next charity pick-up swings by our home.

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Day 44: Breathe

Posted on February 13, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_1959OK, so today was a major thaw day, but it was also yet another day of kids and parents at home during a work/school week. As I’ve written about before, remaining housebound for too long can put me on edge. It may be that I just crave distraction, but too many days in a row “trapped” in the house and I start to pace like a caged animal.

But it’s not that there aren’t 108 things for me to be tending to today. Unlike the last cluster of snow days, this time we were all better prepared to work from home for several days running. I’ve got plenty of busy to keep me busy, that’s for sure. No, it was just the opposite that I felt this morning. Even before I could sit quietly and have that first cup of coffee, the thought of all of my work obligations started to clamor for my attention. It seemed as though my multi-tasking chickens were coming home to roost, as storm-delayed meetings and postponed due dates were now starting to overlap with other looming deadlines, creating a perfect storm of overcommitment from now until the middle of March.

In short, I woke up feeling just a wee bit overwhelmed.

When I did my t-shirt purge back in January, I mentioned that I held onto an old shirt that my brother gave me that reads “Don’t Panic.” What I didn’t explain is that he gave that shirt to me as a gift in response to a t-shirt I had given him a few months earlier that read: “Don’t Forget to Breathe.”

Awesome advice.

I am often struck by how in high stress situations, people will tend to hold their breath. I’ve caught myself doing that while climbing, as I’m about to attempt something that seems beyond my limits.

How on earth could I forget to breathe at such a moment? How indeed.

So today’s point of focus is as simple as that: breathe. When I caught myself getting too caught up, I reminded myself to stop, and breathe.

There’s a reason why breath is such a powerful tool for meditation, and why it’s Mindfulness 101: whatever I’m doing, I’m breathing while I’m doing it.

Or at least I should be breathing.

Breath is a gentle reminder of being-present that nudges me out of my projections and speculations and back into the moment I’m actually living–the here and the now.

My guess is that over the next few weeks, I will frequently find myself in a situation in which I will need this reminder: all I really need to do, instead of stressing over looming deadlines and triple-stacked responsibilities, is to breathe, center, and carrying on.

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Day 43: Restore

Posted on February 12, 2014 by joshdaddy

Well, so far Part II of Atlanta’s Winter Weather Advisory doesn’t look too bad. The “wintery mix” showed up around 1am, mostly in the form of snow. It changed over to ice somewhere around 7am this morning, and it’s still falling now. The trees do not look too badly glazed, so hopefully we won’t be losing power. But just in case, I’ll get today’s entry posted early!

I have no interest in living in a museum, but clearly the entire family is benefiting from the ongoing de-cluttering of living spaces taking place throughout the house, such as yesterday’s assault on the office. The problem, of course, is that we have to live in these spaces, so little by little “life” has a way of marking its trail as we make our way through our daily routines.

So today’s focus really is revisiting my reflection on daily practice from a couple of weeks ago. Nothing monumental here, just a heightened awareness to the accretion of everyday life around the house, with an intention to restoring these spaces to their use and purpose in our home.

Other than that, and the at-home work I need to do, I expect most of today we will be hunkered down in the house, drinking lots of tea and enjoying another day with the entire family at home.

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Day 42: Work

Posted on February 11, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_1953Atlanta is expecting another “winter event.” After not preparing for the last bit of snow that came through, this time it seems we’re going to overreact. Schools were shut down today, even though it stayed above freezing all day, and the rain stopped by about noon.

So today’s cancellations seemed pretty unnecessary, but tomorrow is in fact shaping up to be pretty nasty–ice and snow, and temperatures in the 20’s all day. Just about every school in the metro area (including colleges) will be closed, and I would guess they will be closed again on Thursday as well. That means whatever work I need to do over the next couple of days, I better be able to do from home.

As I’ve mentioned before, we do have an office upstairs, but it is so cluttered with layers of daily life sediment that it really is not very inviting as a work space. So today’s task is another round of dedicating space in the house to a specific use and purpose.

IMG_1957It was a pretty straight-forward plow-through. Lots of stuff went directly into recycling. Other things–books, toys, and various other possessions–found their way back to their proper places. I also had three garbage bags going–one for trash, one for stuff that needs to be donated, and one for various papers that need to be shredded.

That last bag is something I will have to tackle in a major way soon. I have folders upon folders of papers squirreled away–healthcare notifications, bank statements, retirement statements, etc. I am not sure why I am hanging onto any of this stuff, since every record I will ever need is available electronically. So with the exception of tax-related material, anything that was within easy reach made it into the shred bag. Later, I’ll go for the big purge.

The end result? To quote my eight-year-old: “Wow. That is a much better place to live.”

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Day 41: Thin

Posted on February 10, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_1949Ok, I’m not quite as bad as George Costanza, but let’s just say that I’ve been known to tote a fat wallet…minus the cash, that is.

I’ve noticed it on long car rides before–I’ll have to take my wallet out of my rear pocket because I will start to develop some sciatic nerve pain. But lately I’ve felt that little twinge of pain just sitting at my desk for too long, or on the commute to and from work.

The solution? I could start carrying my wallet in my front pocket all of the time. Or, I could start sporting a “man purse.” Or perhaps, just maybe, I could clear out all of the ridiculous clutter that seems to gather in my wallet for no reason, and with no purpose.

“Seems to gather….” Who am I fooling? It’s not like anyone else is stuffing useless bits of paper and plastic into my wallet!

So today, I purged everything I could, except for the essentials.

I had a big stack of receipts in there–some weeks and weeks old. I never really check my receipts against my bills, so I don’t know why I hold onto these little slips of paper other than out of some sense of obligation (because that’s what a “responsible person” would do). I also decided it was probably time I stopped carrying around (two!) video store rental cards–for a store that is 300 miles away… and out of business. Gone also were the stray business cards, the loyalty cards, etc. etc.

In just the past few weeks, I’ve become aware of a rather obvious pattern in my life–I’m carrying around with me (literally and figuratively) stuff that I just don’t need. Sometimes the pain it causes me is acute, but for the most part, it’s just a low-level discomfort that I’ve managed to accept as “normal.”

It’s definitely time to lighten my load!

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Day 40: Follow

Posted on February 9, 2014 by joshdaddy

I’m going to keep this entry pretty short–we’re still recovering from our 24-hour birthday party extravaganza around here.

Leading is easy for me. Following, though–that can be more challenging. I often put myself in positions where I can take on the lead. But there are clearly times (and probably those times are more clear to others than to myself) when instead of jumping out front, I should be listening for guidance, and then following that lead.

So it’s not a mindless following I’m after–more of a mindful following, I guess.

I had a pretty good idea what I was going to do today–haul out as much as I could of the piled up cardboard boxes stored down in the basement and bring them to recycling. And trust me, it needs to be done. But then, my middle child asked me what we were going to do today. I tried to get him all excited about a trip to the recycling center, but he wasn’t buying it.

When I asked him what he had in mind, his response was: “I dunno. I was just hoping we could do something outside of the house.”

Now, I spend plenty of time with all three of my kids, but I don’t have a lot of one-on-one time with my middle child. So I made a decision. I told him he was in charge–choose the path, and I would follow.

We ended up taking the dog out to a big park the next town over. No big adventures here, but just the two of us and the dog. We walked a couple of miles and talked about whatever popped into our heads. We just hung out.

I guess what was refreshing here was to be able to drop whatever I thought was the next thing on the agenda and follow someone else’s priorities for the day.

And in retrospect, my son definitely had his–and my– priorities in the right order.

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Day 39: Share

Posted on February 8, 2014 by joshdaddy

I wouldn’t say I’m particularly selfish when it comes to things. I have no problem sharing what I have. But when it comes to doing things… now that’s a different story.

Today’s experiment: share responsibilities.

We have one heck of a day ahead of us. Our just-turned eight-year-old is having an anything-but-simple birthday party that starts in the afternoon with a tea party and ends sometime tomorrow morning with a pancake breakfast. Eight little eight-year-olds for almost 24 hours….

On top of that, our oldest has a team function tonight, and I’ve committed to making a six pound pot of chile verde. In a few minutes, I will be browning batch after batch of meat and cutting tomatillos, preparing them for their long, slow cook.

Oh, and I stayed up way too late last night doing really important stuff (such as, ehem, returning the Broken Star of Azura to its temple) so I’m tired and prone to being irritable.

It’s going to be super-important for me to recognize that today is going to be complicated, and pretty much all of those complications are a result of my own actions or plans that I was complicit in making.

So the solution: take every opportunity to share the burden, rather than do what I would normally default to attempting, namely: try to do it all.

It started this morning with staying in bed a little longer than usual and letting my wife get the day started for the kids on her own. Yes, I actually felt guilty–felt that I had to get up. I literally forced myself to get an extra half hour of sleep while my wife made coffee for us and breakfast for the kids. I know, I know… real monumental stuff here, right?

The cooking will be primarily my responsibility, but I have two (out of three) kids who like cooking with me. Perhaps I can find myself a sous-chef along the way.

I’m not sure what other opportunities today will hold, but I will need to make a conscious effort to do my share… and to let others do theirs as well. And, of course: thank each of them for their much needed help.

The truth is, at home and at work, I am surrounded by highly competent people. So why, then, do I default to this assumption that I need to do it all? Remember my short list of daily motivations? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s one of those, or some combination of all four.

So: another simple action that won’t be easy….

And wish me luck surviving a house-load of eight-year olds!

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Day 38: Release

Posted on February 7, 2014 by joshdaddy

Since yesterday was about being too much into tomorrow, I suppose today should be about yesterday, right?

Or something like that.

About two years back, I bought an e-book version of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Your True Home and loaded it onto my phone. In it, he gives short, daily reflections–most short enough to fit on a single page on my phone. I don’t use the book as a tool for reflection every day, but when I do turn to it, I almost always land on something worth my attention. Today, I’m thinking about this passage, on page 202:

Haunted by the Past

When we’re holding the mental formations of despair and suffering, we can look and see that this has been born from that; suffering is born because we are in touch with an image from the past. The reality is that we are safe, and we have the capacity to enjoy the wonders of life in the present moment. When we recognize that our suffering is based on images instead of current reality, then living happily in the present moment becomes possible right now.

I’ve already written about the importance of letting go–and the struggle it seems to be sometimes simply to release something that I have been holding onto, even if it is clear to me that all I really need to do to “get over” something is to let it go. It’s odd that this would be the case–and doubly so when I come to realize that what I’m holding onto is, almost by definition, something that is not really present except in my mind.

For me, clutter around the house is often the result of that entirely unfounded notion that some day down the line, this thing I’m holding onto will have some use or value to me or someone else. And what of emotional clutter? What misplaced sense of value would lead me to hold onto any one of 108 daily variations of suffering?

Clearly, it’s easier to toss some old plastic storage containers than it is to let go of “an image from the past.”

I’d love to say that today, miraculously, I became enlightened and freed myself from this grasping. No such luck. Today, though, I at least had a reminder with me, in the form of this short passage, that I need not clutch so tightly to what are ultimately phantoms.

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Day 37: Hope

Posted on February 6, 2014 by joshdaddy

IMG_1923So I found myself thinking a lot about the word “hope” this morning–mostly because I was writing the word “hope” over and over again on little, yellow sticky notes. An organization called Hope House was scheduled to come by sometime today to pick up bags and bags of donated clothes that have been stored down the basement for the past several weeks. They asked us to label each bag “Hope House,” so I just shortened it to the one word.

Writing this word “Hope” over and over again, and thinking about this yearlong experiment in living simply, I started to wonder: can hope be simple, and in the present? Or is hope always something that pulls me away from the present and into some wished-for future?

I heard a Friend not too long ago talk about two kinds of hope–a vague sense of wishing (as in “Gee, I hope there’s pie”) and a more focused–and often more active–sense of expectation of a better future. While pie is good, I think the simple hope I’m after will have to be caught up somehow in this more active and focused sense. But how to keep this sense of expectancy without losing myself in the future?

Maybe it’s true of all of us, but I know from firsthand experience that I don’t do too well if I project too far into the future. The less I focus on some perceived future outcome–good or bad–typically the better off I am. I don’t think that means I’m not capable of being goal oriented, but I do think as a rule, the more my mind gets fixed on some specific future life destination (again, good or bad), the more I tend to go off the rails.

So, how is it possible to hope in that stronger sense–not idle wishing but expectant waiting–and remain mindful and present? Perhaps the key to a simple hope is to keep the expectation but eliminate the focus on the arrival of some future outcome–to nurture a sense of expectation embedded and experienced in the moment itself as it unfolds.

That kind of horizon–that future moment that is just arriving–seems safe to me. And I don’t think it’s a paradox to speak of a hopeful present. In effect, it’s a call  to attend to the present moment with that same sense of expectation:

What hope do I hold for this very moment?

Ugh. Suddenly I feel I’m getting overly philosophical while trying to talk about living simply!

I have to say, though, it was somewhat amusing to walk out the front door this morning to see a dozen bags filled with donations, each labelled with the word “hope”–not quite the same as a dozen, elegant peace cranes, but a reminder nonetheless to experience and act upon hope in the living moment.

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Day 36: Fall

Posted on February 5, 2014 by joshdaddy

Fall_1So what could be simpler than falling, right?

OK, I get that today’s post may not be as meaningful to those of you who don’t climb. Yes, I’m being literal here. I’m talking about falling.

As in: through the air.

Fall_2My oldest son, by far the best climber in the family, likes to point out that most people aren’t really afraid of heights. They are afraid of falling from heights. This is a good point.

For me, I can’t say I am really afraid of falling per se. But the fact is: whenever possible, when I am climbing I will avoid falling and call for a “take” instead.

Fall_4Quick lesson: in “sport climbing,” you are advancing up a rock face or a wall, with a rope attached to you. As you advance, you are clipping your rope into “draws” that you attach to bolts in the rock (if you are climbing outdoors) or that are already bolted in the wall (if you are indoors). You climb to the top of the route, clipping in as you go, and then at the top, you clip into anchors and call for a “take” (as in “take up slack”). Congratulations, you’ve “sent” your route.

So up you go, move after move, draw after draw. And what happens if you can’t make the move?

You fall.

Or not. You can always call for a “take” while you’re climbing, rest, and then continue to climb. Which is what I try to do just about every time I climb.

So today’s challenge: climb until I fall.

I discovered a few interesting things today. The first: when I thought I was going to fall (that is, where I would normally call for a take) I didn’t. If I pushed myself to make a move, there was actually the chance I might make it. So it follows, therefore (big leap of logic here, I know): if I don’t try to make the move there’s no chance I will make it.

The second thing I discovered was that falling wasn’t really that scary. What was scary was the moment before I fell. I think what I was really trying to avoid was the welling up of panic right before making an uncertain move–not the fraction of a second in which I am actually falling through the air.

And I have to say: ultimately it felt good to commit to a move–rather than backing away from trying to do something because I think I’ve reached my limit.

So for you non-climbers, feel free to translate what I am saying here into something that makes sense in your world: what today’s experiment helped me experience is that climbing deliberately sometimes means being willing to take the fall.

Oh, and it always helps if you have someone you trust catching you on the other end of the rope!

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