Monday's Metaphor -- Pondering the Puddles

Came across this path of puddles on a recent morning run after a desert night-time storm.  I love how the trees and sky are reflected in what the storm left behind.  Looking DOWN at the puddled ground soaking up through my running shoes reminded me to look UP at the clear, glorious sky above me.

Made me reflect on the fact that the storms of life often leave lingering remnants.  But also that those storm puddles offer lessons (and hope) in their reflections.

Possible Impossible

Flying Bathtub at the local children's museum
June 2011

I've been thinking of this quote from Alice in Wonderland:

Alice laughed.  "There's no use trying," she said:  "one can't believe impossible things."  "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen.  "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."  [Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 5]

These days, my life feels full of impossibilities, with every option a painful one.   Maybe I need more practice believing impossible things?

Forming Them in Our Own Images (and then realizing it's futile)

Athena "born" from Zeus's forehead

I've been thinking lately (for about the past 8 1/2 years) about the seeming futility of trying to shape my children into the beings I'd like them to be.  Back when I was a psychology minor in undergrad (years and years before children), I really thought nurture must have more muscle than nature.  But parenting has convinced me otherwise.  When it comes to parenting philosophies, it's a buffet (of course).  You've got Tiger Mom over on one end, and Serenity Parenting over on the other extreme.  Like me, you probably dine somewhere in the middle.

But what does astound me over and over again is how pre-formed my children seem to have come.  Like little Athenas leaping fully formed from the head of Zeus ("fully grown and armed, with a shout— "and pealed to the broad sky her clarion cry of war.")  Although you can provide a good example and provide positive reinforcement for behaviors you want to encourage (and you should), each child is who she is from the start.  I see this in my own children as I go to battle with one child to fight against her natural tendency to accept mediocrity, and then stand back and watch as another one of my children does what she calls "fake homework" (non-required work she prints off the internet to complete in her spare time) because it's "fun."  That had to have come  programmed in the genes, I tell you.

None of this is to say you can't make a difference as a parent.  I had a long (and I think productive) talk with my "middle-of-the-pack-is-good" leaning daughter several days ago when we (amazingly) found ourselves alone in the kitchen.  (I do believe the only way this occurred is that the other two must have been in time out at the same time.)  I explained to her that the most successful people in life very often are not the ones who are so smart that everything is a piece of cake.  In every class (and other life circumstance), there will be that person who finishes her work lickety-split and sits legs crossed, arms-smugly-folded, surveying the rest of the class with a self-satisfied smile.  In my humble opinion, it's the ones who have to work hard who have the best shot in life.  I explained to her that I have always known in my heart that I'm rarely the smartest or best in any situation, but I also know that I have a secret weapon:  I outwork and out-try and out-persevere.  I have to say that I think a light bulb flickered on for her during this conversation.  She understood me.  And that made me happy.

On the topic of nature vs. nurture, here's an extreme situation that sure makes for a great book.  I'm currently reading a memoir called The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.  What can I say about the abysmal parenting described in this book other than WOW, just WOW.  It's a terrific book and provides an astounding example of a child who lived through an unbelievably trying childhood to rise from the ashes into something amazing.  Definitely worth a read.

I'm also currently reading See Jane Win by Sylvia Rimm on how 1,000 girls became successful women.  I would highly recommend this read as well -- particularly if you have daughters.  So what are the best practices for raising confident, happy and successful daughters?  what do successful women share in terms of childhood influences?  The women studied in the book are actually a pretty diverse group, but here are some of the (interesting to me) recommended guidelines:

1.  Set high educational expectations for your daughters and don't be quick to back off if your daughters have to cope with pressure.
2.  Help your daughters to understand that they don't need to be the smartest to feel smart.  Help them to understand that studying pays off.
3.  View your daughters as intelligent, good thinkers, and problem solvers.  Value work, and be positive about your own work.  Have family work projects.
4.  Encourage your daughters to develop math and science skills (even if it has never been your personal strong suit).  Also make reading a very high priority.  Girls who are truly interested in learning have a better chance of success.
5.  Encourage your daughters to enter competitions.  Girls sometimes avoid competitive activities unless they are certain they'll be winners, but while winning builds confidence, losing is valuable too; it builds character.
6.  Travel as a family.
7.  Let your daughters know that popularity is not important, even if it feels important to them.  Be careful to avoid pressuring them to have lots of friends.
8.  You are your daughters' best supporters.  Remind them you're their ally and definitely not their enemy.  Be a coach, not a judge.  Set firm limits.
9.  Be sure that your daughters get leadership opportunities and responsibilities regardless of birth order.
10.  As mothers, don't hesitate about fulfilling your own life dreams by returning to school or entering a career.  Your daughters are watching you.  If you achieve, they see you as competent and are more likely to believe that they, too, can be competent.

All of these strike me as sound pieces of advice.  Maybe "serenity parenting" economist-dad Bryan Caplan is right and we should all relax and just enjoy our children more.  Or perhaps Tiger Mom Amy Chua is right and we need to challenge our children in more intense ways to meet their potential.  As for me (spread-too-thin-and-stressed-out mom), I'm going for a hybrid approach.  And perhaps everything will turn out alright.

The Metaphors, They Find Me

I'm out of town and out of pocket this week, immersed in a week-long leadership training course at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Fascinating stuff. Spent the day getting at least a flavor for what it would have been like to go to business school.

On a break, I literally made a run for it -- down along a path that hugs the lake. It was blustery, cold and gray -- and lovely. What to my glazed over eyes should appear, but a flock of kites, trapped in the air. I stopped in my tracks and was blown away (blustery, I tell you) by the symbolic significance--at least to a metaphor hunter like me. About a dozen kites caught in a stand of leafless trees, blowing in the wind, but going nowhere. Abandoned. So vibrant against the lifeless gray sky and yet-to-leaf trees. Took my breath away.

Ever feel like a trapped kite against a lifeless backdrop?

Pruning Hurts, But It Encourages Growth

I have a black thumb.  You can hold that truth to be self-evident.  Because I lack nurturing skills, I have been ever-impressed with the desert plants here in this part of the country that will grow and thrive despite the circumstances.  

Take the plant at left as Exhibit A.  Nearly all the plants, bushes and trees here in Arizona were damaged by repeated frosts this winter.  Now that the weather is warming, all these damaged plants have been pruned down to the ground.  Nothing careful about it.  

How amazing that this doesn't kill them.  They grow right back, stronger and more vibrant than before.  I did a bit of research on pruning, and here are a few interesting things.  Pruning forces growth.  New growth happens close to the pruning cut because dormant buds are stimulated by the cut.  New growth generally results in several stems replacing the single one that was removed.  Pruning permits you to choose the direction a plant's branches will grow.  Thinning plants allows light and air to reach inner branches, and this prevents disease.   

How's that for a metaphor?  (I've pondered on related metaphors here and here.)  I've been feeling much like a pruned bush of late.  I'm just waiting for the new growth to sprout.  

Wednesday's Word -- Encourage

Fortitudo by Botticelli

I'm not afraid to admit it.  I'm an introvert.  And I have two daughters who are too.  Ironically, I expend all sorts of effort trying to encourage them toward extroversion.  In truth, I don't know that you ever transform an introvert into an extrovert, bibbety bobbity boo.  Some pumpkins are just pumpkins.  

Despite the coaching I impose on my daughters, though, introversion is not a disease.  In many important ways, it's an asset.  While I don't expect (or even really wish) to change them, I do very much want to instill a confidence in them that the world can't shake.  When the moments call for it, I want them to stand up, and speak with strong, intelligent voices.  That ability can indeed be nurtured and developed.

So the word I'm thinking about today (with daughters braving the back-to-school world) is:

Encourage

This is one of my favorites, because it's the kind of word that you've seen and used countless times, but yet you've probably never really seen it for what it is.  Break it apart.  It is en and courage.  The prefix en means in or within.  The word courage means the state or quality of mind or spirt that enables one to face danger or fear with self-possession, confidence and resolution.   Courage comes from the Indo-European root kerd, meaning heart.  So, to encourage means to instill courage (or heart) in another person.  And on the flip-side, to DIScourage means to take it out.

In a real sense, that is what a parent tries to do for a child -- to pour heart into that child until it overflows as goodness, kindness and virtue, and the child can face all manner of dangers with a self-possession that shines like a well-polished shield.   

Wednesday's Word -- Cell

Today, I've been thinking about the word "cell," as in "cell of my circumstance."  The most obvious meaning is a room of confinement, as in "prison cell," but here are some thoughts to ponder.

Cell

The word "cell" comes from the Latin "cellula," meaning "a small room."  In a biological sense, a cell is the smallest structural unit of living matter that is able to function independently.  An English physicist named Robert Hooke was the first one to use the word cell in this way, when in 1665 he compared cork cells he saw through his microscope to the small rooms monks lived in.  

Put simply, the cell is an organism in miniature.  The building block of life.  The blueprint is contained in the DNA, which is packaged into chromosomes in the nucleus of each cell.

So, while the word "cell" sounds confining (a small room for pacing), I like to think about it as a word of potential.  Your circumstance may feel like an imprisonment at times, but your own personal "cell" contains a blueprint (perhaps packaged up tight in some corner) for potential, for growth, for something amazing.  You already have everything you need to make a start.     

Lightening Your Load {and regretting it}

Have you ever thrown something away, only to find yourself in desperate need of that very item a week later?  That sort of thing seems to happen to me with some frequency.  Of course you had zero need of the thing for the year it was sitting untouched and neglected in your junk drawer or hall closet.  But that's the way it goes.

Have you ever cast aside some aspect of yourself, only to regret it later?  It won't be the next week or the next month, and maybe not even the next year.  It takes longer.  But have you ever taken a hard, long look at yourself and missed the you you used to be?  It happens.

I have travel on the brain, so here's the metaphor.

In Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, he gives an entertaining account of his efforts to hike "the AT" (Appalachian Trail), which spans 14 states (from Georgia to Maine) and 2100 miles.  (I sometimes dream of doing this myself, but then come to, and remember that I have responsibilities . . . .)  His family has recently moved from England to New Hampshire, and he discovers that the Appalachian Trail snakes right through his town.  The idea starts as a crazy whim, but then he actually decides to do it.  He reconnects with Steven Katz, an old high-school friend from Iowa (who provides much comic relief, but uses bad language at times, so be warned).  Katz is ill-suited to the task in every imaginable way.

Bryson and Katz pack all sorts of equipment and provisions for the journey, some of which are useful and important, and some not.  Tents, sleeping pads, nested pots and pans, eating utensils, water purifiers, patching kit, sleeping bags, water bottles, ponchos, matches, pack covers, compasses, stove, gas bottles, head lamps, knives, clothes, etc.  Katz insists on some other items, many of which are hanging off the side of his pack on the first day on the trail:  grubby sneakers, boots, pepperoni sausages, rice, cookies, oatmeal, raisins, M&Ms, Spam, Snickers, sunflower seeds, bricks of cheese, canned bacon, Little Debbies (lots and lots of them), and bologna.

The first day on the trail requires a hike up Springer Mountain in Georgia.  Bryson and Katz are both completely overwhelmed by the difficulty of the task -- especially Katz, who is very much weighed down by all his provisions.  Bryson finally leaves Katz behind.  When Bryson stops late in the day to wait for Katz to catch up, it takes quite some time.  Katz finally appears, with a pack that has been emptied of much of its contents.  In his anger and exhaustion, he threw all sorts of items out, lightening his load in the process.  Some important and some foolish in the first place.  Spam?   Over the edge of the mountain.  Brown sugar, peanuts and cheese?  Gone.  Extra shoes?  Gone.  And so on.

As we all ascend our own personal Springer Mountains, there will be times when we cast aside parts of ourselves to continue the trek.  Some of what we send flying over the edge is good riddance.  Spam.  Goodbye.  How much of what we carry is dead weight -- something we should have never packed in the first place?  Something that must be cast off if we are to progress.

But sometimes, I think we cast off pieces that -- while perhaps not essential -- will be missed at some later point in the journey.  That has certainly been true for me.  How much of what makes up your own individual essence have you flung to the side of your path as you trudged forward toward your goal?  Have you tossed aside talents, interests and priorities only to later wish you hadn't?  Do you ever look around your destination at your fellow travelers, struck by how unlike they are to the you you used to be?  Might have been?  Or maybe only I do that.

Here's a "me" (from an old yearbook) that doesn't remotely resemble the present "me."  At least some days, I think that's a grand shame. {I don't look anything the same, but that's certainly not the part that's the shame.  Who knows why I thought this look was a good one back in the late 80s!}

*In truth, I was actually never a very good artist.  But I did have a great love for the arts of all kinds and was happiest in the midst of it.  Now, I still get my liberal arts kicks in my own way.  For me, there is a certain joy when I can insert a literary allusion in a speech, brief filed with the court or oral argument.  Even if very few of my fellow travelers notice or get it. It makes me happy, and that's enough.

Potential {and a little request}

Hello there.  My photo "Potential" is a finalist in a little photo contest over at the Bloom blog (which is a great blog, by the way).

This cactus jumped out of nowhere from the side of a busy desert road--unintended, untended and beautiful. 

It made my day. 

To me, this image is a reminder that even under the prickliest of circumstances, 

all things--including cacti and people like you and like me--have BLOOM potential.

I'd love it if you'd take a minute to click over and vote for my photo.  The winner will be determined based on votes cast through the weekend.  Thanks!

Amazing Yourself

On a very regular basis, I have to think of a way to respond to the well-intended comment "I just don't know how you do it all!"  This comment, or some variant of it, is usually intended as a compliment, but the cold hard truth is that I don't.  Granted, I have a crazy, busy life.  But time is a finite resource.  You can't manufacture more.  You can sleep less and multitask more.  You can skip meals, eliminate television.  You can even delegate some of your tasks to someone else.

But I am here to tell you that no one does "it all."  My response to the comment is typically some self-deprecating assurance that I'm actually not so amazing.  Actually quite ordinary.  Sometimes quite deficient.  As T.S. Eliot put it:

I am no prophet — and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
. . . 
No!  I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

One day this week, I had a business lunch with two successful women.  As is par for the course of my life, both expressed awe at my ability to "do it all."  Neither woman currently has children and both exclaimed that they struggle to keep their own lives in check and couldn't imagine managing a three-ring-circus of a life like mine.  My response this time was simply:  You might be surprised at your own capacity.  You can do so much more than you think you can.

I have been enjoying the Winter Olympics.  Have you too?  The other night, I watched Shaun White blast off the top of the halfpipe like a rocket headed into orbit, only to race back towards the earth and straight into a mind-blowing contortion of twists and rolls.  

I stared in slack-jawed awe at the wonder that such a feat is even possible.  That a human being should have such capacity!  Watching that display, I couldn't help but think about my own capacity--and the capacity of each and every person--for the amazing.   

I like the way C.S. Lewis expressed it:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship . . . .  It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. . . .   [I]t is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit." 

It is true that I am no prophet, nor even a Hamlet.  I will likely never compete in the Olympics or disturb the universe in any cosmic way, but I can amaze myself by stretching beyond my own perceived possibilities.  (You can too.)


Post Script:  The beginning of this post makes me think of a book that I quite enjoyed.  I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson.