One word: Striving

I've discovered an interesting end of the year blogging challenge at Reverb10 and decided, what the heck, better late than never. So even though it was supposed to start December 1st I'm going to jump in and do what suits my fancy. The idea is to use daily writing prompts to reflect on the year that is ending, and make plans for the coming year.

Day 1 challenge: One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My word for the year 2010 is striving. I've been striving toward goals, striving toward high standards, striving toward perfectionism. Want to know how much striving I've done? Even this blog post has been started three times, with three different words each time.

About eleven months ago, I went on a two day retreat. Beautiful place in northern Minnesota, staying in a compact hermitage/cabin that held everything I needed and nothing I didn't. Serenity outside my windows with snow and woods and cardinals; the warmth of a log fire inside my cabin. Space and time to think and dream and reflect.

I spent those two days thinking about how to balance my life. I knew that's what I was supposed to have as my goal, I know that's what my life lacks. Balance between work and play, giving and receiving, obligations and freedom, calendar and free time, clients and family, doing and being, checking off items on the to do list and giving myself the space and time to feel the spirit.

I made some really good plans. I had a list of things to do to create a better balance in my life. Take time for yoga every day, set a weekly date night with my spouse, be intentional about getting together with friends for coffee. I knew what I should do, I had measurable goals, I set up a way to track progress toward my goals, and I made a weekly appointment with myself for time for reflection.

And I want you to know, I've stuck to my goals at least 80-85% of the time. Excercise, check. Date night, check. Friends, check. Weekly check in, check.

So I've been striving toward balance, and guess what? I don't feel any more balance in my life, I just feel more striving.

I remember that just as I left that place of retreat and tranquility last January, there was this niggling voice in my head saying, "I don't really want balance. I want all the things I've always wanted, a loving family, a comfortable home, challenging work, fulfilling commitments, a place to express my creativity, and the chance to make a difference in the world somewhere. I want it all."

Maybe my life is not going to be perfectly balanced. I guess I will always be dropping one ball or another. But I'm looking more closely now at the rhythm and the tempo of my life. My days often resemble a classical sonata in three movements, with the Allegro opening, an Adagio in the middle of the day, with a fast Rondo to close the afternoon and evening. Sometimes it's a four movement work, with a minuet or scherzo thrown in for good measure.

Most of the time this year, that rhythm and tempo has been okay. It enabled me to do work I love, get paid enough to allow me to do other stuff I love, go places I wanted to go, do things I wanted to do and accomplish things that give me great satisfaction.

I know I'm in a really extraordinary place where I don't do and I don't have to do anything that I don't really want to do. How many people can say that about their work and other commitments? It may be that I have a few too many things that I love and want to do.

So I've been striving, and there are many good things about that. Every once in awhile I think about how life would be if I adopted another way. Right now I haven't got another word for where I want to be this time next year. I could work on coming up with one. Or I could wait and see what bubbles up.

What I'm Reading

I like to talk about books and music. Today it's books. Hopefully you like to read about books that I like to talk about. So, here's what I'm reading:

Emma, by Jane Austen.
I don't know exactly why I read Jane Austen. In some of her books, the dialogue is so snappy (as snappy as Victorian dialogue can be), and the plot twists and characters so memorable and entertaining. For me, those books are Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion: Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy, Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth.
With Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, I don't think it was quite the same, and I'm getting that feeling with Emma, too. I have this detrimental tendency of skipping ahead a paragraph or two when I'm confused with something, hoping it will all be explained clearly in the end. (Never read Da Vinci Code like that.)So, now that I'm more than halfway through the book, I realize that I should have taken better care with figuring out who's Emma's suitors are: I'm pretty sure it was Frank Churchill and Mr. Elton, and I can't remember if it was Mr. Elton or Mr. Knightley who led Emma on and then married another lady. Or did he lead Emma's friend Harriet on? The whole plot of the thing is that Emma is the self-appointed match-maker, and has vowed to never marry, but the match she set up went wrong, and the suitor went for her instead of Harriet. I've gotten that bit. The sad thing is that I usually understand Austen stories better when I watch the BBC/PBS miniseries FIRST and the book later, which is kind of backwards from my personal philosophy of reading, then watching. And Emma is the only one I haven't watched on tv. But, other than being slightly confused at times, I like Emma. It just doesn't seem as strong as Austen's other novels to me.

Walking on Water, by Madeleine L'Engle.
I never read L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time, but I've always known about her from all her works that my mom and grandma keep on their shelves. And when we were at Thanksgiving the other week, this book was lying on the coffee table. I dipped right into the middle of it just for the heck of it, and was instantly drawn in. In Walking on Water L'engle melds her Christian perspective with the search for meaning in the vocation of being an artist, and what that vocation means for us. I've never found a book like this before, and it seems to have appeared to me at the right time in my life: When I know what I love and want to keep doing it, but wondering if it can give me the stable life I want. In her own words L'lengle emphasizes that artists are the only ones that don't need to be told to believe or have faith in God, in the world, like little children, as we're told in the Bible. She says to keep that sense of learning and wonder in us. We don't need to be told this, because that way of living comes to us naturally in whatever thing we decide to create, be it music, sculpture, or novel. We search for meaning in the world in a totally different way from others, and it effects everything in our lives. Even though L'engle is a Christian, and writing largely from those influences, I find it not insufferable like other Christian books I've read. God is God in her book, not a superhero. Madeleine L'engle is Madeleine L'engle, not a prophet sent to save others. She's not ashamed, but she's not converting.

Corduroy Mansions, by Alexander McCall Smith
I have friends who see me reading all these books and they say, "What do you read for fluff?" I give them a blank stare. I'm very against fluff. "You know," they continue, "light reading?" What they really mean is stuff not by Nelson Mandela and Sinclair Lewis.
I won't say that McCall Smith's books are fluff, though it's definitely in the light-hearted comedy category of my mental bookshelf. Thing is, he's a lawyer by training first, and author of humorous serial novels second. He's a bioethics expert. People like this can't write fluff. They just can't. A few of his characters show an unnaturally good taste in expensive French wine and can talk for paragraphs about it. And about Scottish art and architecture. And Aristotelian philosophy. This is not ordinary light reading. This is light reading for smart people who don't want their brains to leak out their ears to have a good read.
The plot here revolves around a group of people all living in the same apartment building in London, Corduroy Mansions. William is a middle aged widower who's 24 year old son Eddie tries his best never to move out and get a job. William's tried everything, and is about to get out the big guns: Eddie can't stand dogs, so his father buys one, a former airport bomb sniffing terrier named Freddie de la Hay.
There's a group of roommates with boss and relationship problems, (one of which works for a nasty politician named Oedipus Snark, who's mother is writing an equally nasty biography of him), and...that's all that I can tell you, because I haven't gotten too far into the story yet. I do love his style of writing, though, how McCall Smith writes chapters from everybody's point of view, even the dog.

Travel bug

For as long as I can remember, our family has always gone on a trip for summer vacation. Nothing exotic (think Wisconsin on the lake, a cabin in the middle of the Rocky Mountains, Northern Minnesota), but a good time away. Every summer since 6th grade I've gone on some sort of service trip with my church: Rapid City, Quad Cities, then a big leap to Tanzania (though technically it wasn't a service trip...), then to Kentucky with Appalachian Service Project, Tanzania again (I know, awesome, right?), and Milwaukee with Habitat for Humanity. I'm going there again next summer (woot woot), but I'm getting the antsy travel bug now. My list of places to go keeps on getting bigger and bigger: Germany, the U.K., Scandinavia, Spain, Argentina, Canada, the Gulf Coast, the Boundary Waters (and every national park in the U.S.), France (not Paris), India, Iceland, New England and Australia.
It's kind of odd, because if you give me too much time to think, I'll be too afraid to get on a plane, as a fairly new driver I'd rather not be the one behind the wheel, and if you asked me where the money to fund it all would come from I would just stay home and watch "Globe Trekker" on PBS for the rest of my life. So what to do with this? (Suck it up) Yes, there's an idea.
If I went to some of these places, I'd want to see a bit of everything, of course. For example, if I went to England, yes, I'd go see a few things in London--the things you're "supposed" to see, but I'd want to take the road less traveled, not too much tourist stuff. I'd have to do some music geek stuff, but that's my only real requirement. Along with getting my picture taken at King's Cross Station between platforms 9 and 10. I'd also want to watch the Welsh language news because I can't understand how all those consonants can be pronounced. But that's it. Those are my only must-dos.
That's the fun thing about traveling, getting to see what real life is like in a place, hearing how people talk, and meeting those people. I think it would be really cool to go someplace with only the smallest inkling of what's supposed to happen when I get there.
I suppose my time to travel will come soon. It could happen!

First Snow and Robert Frost

I wasn't expecting this much snow today, were you?

Despite the crappy driving conditions, this first snow makes me feel good. I don't know why.
It reminds me of the Robert Frost poem, Walking in the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

To me it always sounded like Frost (or his character) was looking at the snow in wonder, reveling in the solemn beauty of it. But in Now Close The Windows, Frost doesn't care how pretty the snow is and just wants the darn windows shut so the house doesn't freeze.

Now close the windows and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

(first stanza)

And of course, we'll all feel that way eventually, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

The College Search Continues!

I just got back from visiting U of M-Morris and Concordia College in Moorhead. I had never driven that far north-west in Minnesota, and the fall colors were beautiful!

These were two distinguished schools that I knew I wanted to visit for awhile. I have trouble remembering, though, that I am the consumer, and they are trying to impress me--not the other way around. Of course I have to look respectable and interested, but they have to act like they want me. Hence the snacks and sugary beverages every school I've visited has offered us.

I was thirsty, and you gave me a Pepsi. I was hungry, and you offered me Fritos.

I never had a ditzy tour guide, but coincidentally they were both biology majors who confessed to not possessing a single musical bone in their body. Morris was nice and small, and architecturally it reminded me of the Twin Cities campus. I talked with a member of the music faculty and had a very good conversation with him. Although the town is very very very small to me, it looks like they make a good effort to bring entertainment to campus. All in all, it's making itself a suitable option. My next task is to imagine being at Morris...in the winter.

Concordia was someplace I expected to like, and I'm glad my expectations were realized.

I'm very much into the small, private, Lutheran, liberal arts schools, in case you didn't know already. We were there during homecoming, so there were alums everywhere.

So many blond haired people wearing maroon and yellow...so many corn cobs...

I didn't speak with any music faculty, but I was aware that--in the tradition of many Lutheran schools--that its music program was highly solid in general, and I wasn't too worried about it. (Especially after hearing their orchestra, band, and concert choir perform for the homecoming concert.)

Then I got to have lunch with my friend who is a Cobber, and I was so glad to see her and get a real student's (good) opinion of what it's like there.

So, if I get accepted to the ones I want, it'll be hard to make a decision.

Who has the faculty that's right for me?

What's the financial aid like?

What's the choir like?

Who has the better food?

Which one has carpeted dorm rooms?

Who has an intramural quidditch team?

Important decisions indeed.

Sorghum

In my family, the last weekend of September means only one thing:
sorghum.

What's sorghum, you ask? Okay, you didn't ask, BUT...this is sorghum:

In my family, sorghum also means that we all pile into the car and go down to the family farm in Iowa, where we celebrate the sorghum harvest. For 20 years--rain or shine--our relatives and Iowa friends have been coming to harvest, eat a good potluck, and visit all day. It's not very glamorous, but it's fun. I've been going almost every year since I was two years old, and I love seeing all my people who I don't usually see enough of.

So when we get there in the morning, what we do first is cut down the sorghum out in the field.

Any kid or adult can help with the preparations. I remember being eight or nine years old when somebody handed me a machete (which gets the job done), and before I knew it I was cutting down sorghum that was five feet taller than I was.

Meanwhile, someone starts a fire.

A contained fire, that is.

Then we take the truckload of sorghum over to the press.

It's powered by a tractor, and there's a belt that turns the press. Then you just feed the press some yummy sorghum, and the juice comes out the side in bright green trickles into the designated plastic ice cream bucket, which is then poured into the designated metal milk pail to be strained.

I remember one year where instead of using the tractor, they had this wooden contraption where historically you hitched up the draft horses and they would walk around in circles to power the press. But nobody there had a horse, or bothered to bring one, so they enlisted all of us kids to grab hold of it and carry it in circles. It was heavy. Eventually a few grown ups took pity on us and helped, and we managed to get some juice that way.

After you have the juice, you pour it into the vat, which sits atop the aforementioned fire, and you let it boil, but not too much! And stay clear of the smoke and steam. After the juice thickens up a bit, you have yourself a fine jarful of sweet greenish sorghum goo. It's basically like molasses, and tastes very good in cookies and other things.

In between all that, we break for a potluck lunch in the dairy barn. It's all cleaned out and hasn't housed cows for a long time, but you can still see the stations where they stood.

The neighbor's dog likes to come and beg for food, and we always wave the Norwegian flag from the barn. I just loved the color of the soybeans that were all around us.



Ahhh yes, sorghum weekend was good.

My idea of a fun weekend

Johanna and Emily sharing a laugh

Life is good.

I often over-work, I spend too much time at the computer, and I tend to think/obsess/worry about tasks left undone when I'm not actively doing them. My weekend activities don't usually look too much different from my weekday activities. I like things that way, but every once in a while even I need a break from routine.

That's when I rent a toddler.

You can rent them pretty cheaply. Actually, all you have to do is offer their parents some free time and you can pretty much get a toddler whenever you want one.

I'm blessed to have two toddlers in my life who are often available. This weekend Johanna is visiting. She laughs at the dog, she has enthusiasm for the most tedious household task, she takes us to the playground "over this way," and she keeps us laughing with her commentary on life. "I not a baby, I a girl," she says emphatically. To my dog, she says, "Puppy, that's enough barking." She's right.

Parenting a two year old is exhausting, but hosting a two year old for a weekend is not. For me, it's a shot in the arm, a break from routine, an opportunity to dwell in the moment and remember that the ordinary things of life are extraodinary.

Thanks, Johanna. Thanks, her parents.