Light in Darkness, Motes and Planks, Specks and Beams

It’s holiday time, as in American Christmas holiday time, not as in American Jewish holiday time, which is High Holiday time. It’s holiday time, and all the lights are up and I love it. I love it because I can find my street now. I mean, it’s dark in our suburb. Not for nothing did the children dub it The Dark Divisions of Delmar when we moved here. No streetlights. Dark, dark, dark. So I'm always happy this time of year, especially for our neighbors the Bs, who light up a whole forest of pines, right on the corner of our street. I am serious when I say I love it because I can find the street.

I also love it this year because it means I made it through a semester teaching college first years how to write. I turned in my last grade yesterday. What a relief, at least for a moment. Now I have to write the syllabus for next semester. Oy veh. I nervously await their course evaluations.

In other news, my email newsletter distribution list keeps growing. I find this odd, because I’ve been posting less often than I used to. Fewer posts—more people sign up. What does it mean? They like what I’m not saying. Will they like it when I do say something?

Probably not. Who wants advice?

I follow lots of advice. So much it gets confusing. Eat no carbs. Eat no meat. Eat no fat. Eat only fat. Eat only carbs. Exercise before you eat. Eat before you exercise. Don’t do a shoulder stand if you have your period. Go ahead, stand on your head. Drink coffee. Coffee is the devil. Coffee protects against Alzheimer’s. Put butter in your coffee. You know the drill.

I would never—never—put butter in my coffee. But people do recommend it. Some people. They are currently hospitalized with clogged arteries and can no longer speak of this obscenity, but I promise you, they did.

But one topic of advice is pretty consistent: sleep hygiene. Sleep advice is never changing. Speaking of sleep hygiene. I just have to say that almost every woman I know over a certain age has gone for a sleep study. I have not gone for a sleep study, nor do I intend to; however, sleep is sometimes a challenge. I do all the things you’re supposed to do. I like advice.

Correction: I KNOW all the things I’m supposed to do—use the bedroom for sleeping and nookie only. Don’t read in bed or lounge in bed or watch TV or eat in bed. Keep to regular hours. Stay up until you’re ready to go to sleep, get in your pajamas or your altogether, whichever you prefer, perform your ablutions; then get in bed, turn out the light. Make your room really dark. Put an Auntie Mame sleep mask on if you want to—and I want to. And then you sleep.

Theoretically. This is what my father does, and he is 93. As far back as I can remember, he has sat up reading and listening to music until about 11 pm, then gone to bed and slept like a stone until 7 a.m. He seems to have got that right, and he’s doing just fine.

Anyway, I have my procedures.They involve my Auntie Mame sleep mask, and not drinking any liquids after 8 pm, except for the tiny sips of water to swallow my tinctures of motherwort and chickweed, and room darkening shades and all that jazz. Yet the best sleep I’ve had recently? Was after a huge dinner, late, a glass of wine, a large glass of water, in a hotel bed after watching late night TV in said hotel bed. Then I did it again, only at home. Up late after a large meal and wine. Slept like a baby.

So, screw advice.

But I am going to tell you something. A little story. A little story about how the husband, I noticed, had a thing about closing cabinet doors. I’d be in the kitchen with him and he’s be walking past a cabinet and he’d, you know, close the door. And, Readers, this irked me. I extrapolated all kinds of psychological metaphors from this behavior. He is uptight. He is closing doors around me. He is closing doors for me.

Get it? He is closing doors for me. Closing doors. On me.

Very dark interpretation. I was feeling hemmed in. Hard to breathe. Walls closing in. The star of my very own 1970s feminist awakening film.

Also, it was irksome behavior. And I was about to call him out on it. I was about to talk about the metaphoric implications, not to mention the more literal ones, such as the husband is type A, a control freak, whatever.

Then I noticed that he wasn’t just pressing on closed doors. That would be—what’s that word?—cuckoo. He was actually closing cabinet doors that were open. And when he wasn’t around, I noticed that I was —are you ready?—leaving cabinet doors open.

Not exactly gaping wide open. Ajar. I was leaving them ajar. Like all the time.

Now, I have a perfectly good reason for leaving doors ajar. Really I do. The reason is that usually both my hands are full—and sometimes my armpits are, too—so I can only get so much leverage to fling the door closed. My hands are usually full because I’m doing more than one thing at a time, such as carrying too many things so I only have to walk around the kitchen once, or trying not to trip because one foot is caught in the other pant leg because I am doing too many things at once because I am in a rush, frantic, a woman.

So, you know that old adage, that proverb? The mote and plank one?* Because there I was, about to unload my irritation on the husband, when he was probably irritated by me. And was shutting the doors on it, figuratively. I say probably irritated, because he didn’t show it. He just shut the door.

Just think about that one during this holiday season. I wouldn’t call that advice, because nobody listens to advice, and nobody really wants advice. But a story. That’s a different thing.

Happy Holidays.

*Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? —Matthew 7:3, Bible, New International Version

OR:::::::

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? — King James Version

The Problem of Advice

Ahhhh, it’s good to settle down after the holiday season. My computer and notebook are back on my desk. My study has returned to its former condition (study and meditation room), after being a guest room. The dog has returned to the floor at my feet—thanks to bribery with a delicious looking cheddar flavor treat. 

Oops, the dog is off, now. More enticing things elsewhere than stale cheddar flavored treats, I guess. The college student has gone away, too. More enticements in Cambridge, where she is working in a lab at MIT — and living off of ramen. Add some peas, I suggested. And an egg. (Thanks for that one, old friend Leif). To the ramen, not to the lab, of course. I don’t really need to say that. Then again, you can’t be too thorough with instructions and advice, can you? I’m thinking of the instructions my mother would leave for us to cook something or other. She always started with, TURN ON THE OVEN. 

Which, if you think about it, is insulting, but all too often, also embarrassing because necessary. 

So, no peas or egg in the lab. Unless instructed by the professor. 

The college student is right now not appreciating me at all, if she is reading my blog. But she was much more tolerant the other night when I experienced an uncontrollable need to text her about washing sweaters. This must be a phase of parenthood. I don’t know what to call this phase, but its characteristic is an unnerved sense that one’s child has escaped one’s clutches without all the proper instructions one thought one would be able to give her, in time. Instructions about washing sweaters, for example. 

Do you want to know what I told her? No, you don’t, do you? You already know it. My advice is useless. 

Meanwhile, the 10th grader cut her hair. I've done that. I stopped when, after one cut, my hair was distinctly lopsided and to even it out had to be made much shorter than I wanted. After that, it was special treatment for Hope’s hair all the way.

I figured the 10th grader deserved her own natural consequences. She invited over a friend who had cut her own hair a little shorter than she intended, and asked her to help. The result, after a part adjustment I suggested, is actually quite good. Advice: center parts are not for most people a flattering look. 

But you already knew that, too. 

I feel superfluous. Fortunately, I have banded together with a bunch of women from my high school class to form an accountability/support/what-the-heck-am-I-doing-with-my-life group. We started this month via video conference. We’re reading and doing the exercises in Designing Your Life: How to Build A Well-Lived, Joyful Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The book is based on a very popular course at Stanford, taught by these guys. The most popular course, apparently. It applies principles of design to the subject of living well. It was designed for undergraduates, but we're hoping it works well for those of us at midlife who are feeling a little, well, superfluous. 

The basic premise is that life can be considered a design problem. A design problem is solvable, but it  can have multiple solutions. "A well-designed life is a life that is generative -- it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise." (Burnett & Evans)

To look at life as a design problem means adopting the designer's mindset. This is characterized by five elements: 

1. curiosity
2. bias to action-willingness to try stuff without attachment to a particular outcome
3. reframing problems - to get unstuck
4. awareness - of the process
5. radical collaboration - connecting with others from various disciplines

I’m going to be honest. I’m reading this book for me, but also because I hope the daughters (and the husband) will read it, too. However, I know how advice from mom (and spouse) goes over. Lead balloon, anyone? So, if I’m the only one in the family who manages to design a joyful life and live it well, so be it. Readers, I invite you to read it, too. I’m sure to be writing about it in the coming months, and would love to hear your thoughts.