Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Just Below the Surface
There are plenty of aspects of our lives, of society and its variety of traditions available to be unwrapped at this time of year. More than I can do justice to explore in the limited time I can reserve to actually compose in words the wide variety of thoughts I experience. It is much easier to just go with the flow; to play the superficial role of a smiling, happy consumer, member of my community and member of my family.
I truly believe there is a wealth of valuable raw material available in the thoughts and feelings that exist just below the surface of our activities and experiences when November and December events and holidays arrive. Choosing to actually recognize them and even take conscious action to mine them for purposeful application is one step further than I think most people feel they have signed up for.
But the reality is that we tend to find we are dealing with life challenges whether we want to or not. Some are simple. It’s not that everything needs to be at a level that determines life-long commitments or vows of loyalty or questions of spiritual faith and moral value. Some involve choosing to be less wasteful.
For most of my life, I have been inclined to want to wrap presents in old Sunday newspaper comics pages. It was born more out of a contrarian attitude to be counter to the culture that produced and marketed wrapping paper. Now it is becoming more renowned as a “green” choice. Whatever. Save the planet, or avoid contributing to the over-commercialization of the season. Consider wrapping your gifts in something that you didn’t purchase to wrap a gift with this year. I think it’s fun.
Something Curious
There is something about child-produced art that can capture both rudiment and preeminence. Every day, I walk past paintings that my children created when they were in school and I hardly ever notice them. It is a curious happening that I can suddenly become fascinated by something that is always visible, yet primarily neglected, as I pass by multiple times a day.
This image is of a painting that my son, Julian, signed his name to. One of the primary things that appeals to me in this painting is how well he captured the background, of all things. It is not just that I am happy with the colors present; it is that he captured an image I know so well. That is the base of an old Zenith radio and record turntable that had been around my life for as long as I can remember. There were volumes of 78 rpm records kept in the colored bindings slid into the slots on either side of the speaker. Even the double X of the wood grate in front of the fabric that covered the speaker seems spot-on with deep memories I hold about this classic antique piece.
The cat sprawled on her back with feet pointing in odd angles, seems to be one of the features that looks both a bit primitive, yet at the same time, very appropriately depicts the strange positions she actually assumes at any given opportunity. Last night, I suddenly found myself so enthralled with looking at this painting in the hallway that I had to get the camera so I could share the image with others. Then, in a day or two, it will fade out of sight and return to almost invisible in the hall as I pass by multiple times a day.
It is curious.
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Sing About It
I couldn’t stay away from all the relative somethings for very long, but my available time is measured in mere minutes of late. The amount of unavailable time is measured in a consecutive series of hours and is being filled with non-stop action at the day-job, wonderfully secretive holiday projects, obvious chores, as well as unplanned ones like snow shoveling, errand running and a variety of elfish duties while my lovely bride is on the road. Meanwhile, the guitars rest neglected in their cases and the creative writing is reduced to an almost imperceptible amount.
Regardless the hectic pace occupying my extremely limited time, it has not escaped my notice that one of the popular trends moving through current culture just happens to be one that my mother would have really enjoyed. Glee clubs appear to be all the rage of late. Mom was a Sweet Adeline and I saw that a current vocal competition being broadcast on NBC included a Sweet Adeline barbershop quartet as one of the final five groups competing. FOX Broadcasting has a series called “Glee” and a I’ve noticed features on the CBS Sunday Morning program and in the local newspaper highlighting the renewed interest in high school glee clubs. Could standing around the piano singing at house parties be far behind? I’m not sure I ever witnessed it actually happen, back in the good ol’ days, but I’ve seen it done in pictures. I wonder if anyone will know the words to obvious sing-along songs if the opportunity presents itself. Pass the eggnog.
When It Snows
I may be wrong about this, but it sure seems to me that people today have come to expect that snowstorms shouldn’t alter their regular routines one bit. To a certain extent, I am as guilty as anyone else, but I have always been one to venture out in snow events. I have almost always driven 4-wheel drive vehicles. But in the past, I was one of a small number of people who were out before the plows. Now I find all sorts of vehicles forging their way, devising arbitrary routes and pathways, and parking in vague proximity to normally expected spots. The poor snow-plow drivers must execute their maneuvers with the added challenge of navigating traffic.
Yesterday, I guess the snow didn’t accumulate early enough for the plows to get ahead of the regular morning traffic. As I crested a small rise at the approach to my health club driveway, I found two county plows stopped, the back one with the driver’s side door open. A car ahead of me went around them and turned right in front of them to enter the club parking lot. I chose to follow, thinking the plows weren’t headed anywhere with that door open. A couple of vehicles approaching were waiting to make their left turns into the same lot, so I felt I shouldn’t dawdle there and leave them waiting.
I made the turn as I cleared the first plow, only to find the pickup that was trying to clean the parking lot, in my lane, in what appeared to be a standoff with the county trucks. To get by him, my only option was to enter in the wrong lane, and of course there was someone trying to leave at the same time, so we were now face to face. I had very quickly made myself the center of the multi-faceted problem. I was very happy not to be trying to plow snow while cars continue to move about as if it was just another day. It’s gotta be frustrating.
Later, on the freeway, cars whizzed past me as if the pavement were clear and dry. But evidence to the contrary was visible in the tracks of the spinouts that must have bounced against the concrete center barrier and from the paths blazed into the ditches on the right. People expect to be able to drive the posted limit, regardless the snow event. It is expected that the Department of Transportation should remove the snow and salt the roadway and that cars should be able to move about the roads just the same as any other day. My workplaces have never designated a “snow-day” and the schools in town rarely ever do anymore… it’s as if it has come to pass that a snow event should no longer even be an event after all! Just carry on as if nothing’s wrong; that is, unless you are a snow-plow driver. Then you’ll need all the luck you can get to accomplish your chore, uninterrupted.
Mmm Mmm Holiday Good!
Sometimes, when Monday arrives before it is really welcome, it helps to go back and look at what Sunday was all about. Especially when it was the Sunday in December when Cyndie gets busy makin’ oodles of Christmas cookies!
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Any ideas I had about being disciplined with what I choose to eat have been rendered useless this year against the onslaught of sights and smells which rendered me helpless against the irresistible power inherent in fresh-baked, love-filled holiday baking. Honestly, I give up. Sweeeeeeet!
Teach or Do?
Have you noticed a trend? There is a commercial where automobiles being driven by teens are actually being carried by groups of parents to keep them safe. The groups of adults hold the car up in the air and lift it over another car to avoid a collision. In another shot, the adults are bringing a car to a stop at a railroad crossing. If I recall correctly, the ad is for an insurance company and they make reference to having cameras in the car so parents can see how their children are behaving as drivers on their own. How ‘on their own’ is that? The next thing you know, parents will ‘helicopter’ over kids that have left home to be in college. Of course, that is exactly what some parents are doing.
In a way, it seems logical to look at something tragic that happened and react with a plan to prevent the possibility for that tragedy to ever happen again. But I think it always runs a risk of punishment not fitting the crime. It is very sad that children die. I ask, is it logical that we should devise a way to live that will prevent any childhood death, or near-death and the resulting disabilities? I think it is an over-reaction. At what point do we actually become the problem we want to solve? We want our kids safe, but if we get so busy over-stepping our bounds to protect by doing for them, we rob them of the actual, valuable lessons that teach them to make responsible, intelligent decisions that lead to outcomes ultimately desired.
It makes sense to control the urge to over-protect our children and instead, teach them the lessons to discern the right course of action in unexpected situations. Instill confidence in their abilities to best face life’s risks. Risks not dissimilar to the ones that we successfully survived to ultimately become their parents.
Life is lived, it is not controlled.
Being Grateful
It seems a shame that I should need to muster the resources to be grateful. It ought to just rise up over me to overflowing for all that I have. I should be thankful to be gainfully employed, and to have the chance to work extra hours, when others can’t even find a job. But I don’t want to be at work on Saturday morning. I don’t want to work so many hours in a day that I never see daylight and by the time I get home, it is after my dinner hour and I don’t want to eat. I arrive home so exhausted that I just want to lay down and sleep. Then I get up early the next morning to hustle back into the workplace. It feels like I just left, and I’m back for more.
We are experiencing a boom in business. I should be grateful.
I do appreciate the opportunity, to a certain degree, to rise to the challenge and give the extra effort and energy in response to the bounty of orders placed with our company. It reflects a confidence our customers have in us. We are proud to respond rapidly to the demands made on us and to provide the short turn-around sought by both our loyal businesses and the newer companies that hold potential for becoming regulars. Too bad that all of a sudden, everyone is wanting our services at the very same, short time.
There is a small level of adrenaline in response to the heavy pace of business and all the challenges that come with it, and it can be exciting. But in my case, it comes at the expense of other aspects of my life that I value more highly. I just don’t have the reserves to accomplish the tasks and passions of my non-work related life. So at this time of year when non-work life activity is peaking, this year I am finding my work load at the day job is also at a peak. At least, we think it is a peak. There has been no indication when and if it might let up. Very soon we will be faced with making a decision as to whether we are being forced to grow the company, or not.
I should be grateful.
Is there a difference between feeling grateful and being grateful?
Arbitrary Lines
I’m guessing there wouldn’t be much argument to the idea that people perceive they have limitations even when no actual limitation exists. Some versions may even present as common phobias. We often hear people admit to a fear of something that is not necessarily a threat that deserves such focus. It is my belief that we each have the ability to make a decision that alters these limitations we allow to exist.
When I was young, I drank milk with pretty much anything I ate. Some foods, I felt it essential to have milk. Toast with peanut butter comes to mind. Then I suffered an episode of a kidney stone. Seems I wasn’t practicing advisable levels of hydration, especially given the high level of dairy products I consumed. I must say, pain is one heck of a motivator for change. I was advised to reduce my intake of all things calcium, and to drink more water. At the time, I literally believed it not possible to eat peanut butter toast without milk. I was wrong. In the end, I found the adjustment to be rather easy.
For much of my life, I wore a wrist watch. After I returned from a week of vacation one year, where I had been without my watch the whole wonderful time, I decided to try going without it when I resumed my regular routine. I found this change to be a little more difficult than not drinking milk with certain foods, but not by much. I used to believe that I could not get along without my wrist watch. Now I realize I can, and I do just fine sans wrist watch.
I used to be a pretty regular viewer of television news broadcasts. I grew up in a house where we watched the news to get a sense of things. I recall the dramatic feeling of being lost when I first moved out of the house where I grew up, to a place with no television. We solved that within days, and I maintained my fixation with television news for decades. Then, in similar fashion to my changing the habit of having worn a wrist watch, I came home from a vacation where I had not seen news for over a week and realized I was doing just fine without it. As a matter of fact, I felt a little bit better without it. The newscasters used to feel like part of my family. We watched their hairstyles change and listened to their chit-chat between stories, as if they were people we knew. I really like not knowing about them any more, and I don’t feel lost at all.
I seriously felt the possibility of changing these things was not only unlikely, but even ill-advised. But these were artificial boundaries I allowed myself to claim. And as such, I have all the power to choose to move and change them at any time. Next time you notice yourself clinging to something a little tighter than makes logical sense, consider the possibility it is a product of your own construct. You have the power to change those arbitrary lines to move yourself to a different place. Shoot, you could even obliterate them altogether.
When people talk about coloring outside the lines, the first thought is of the lines that are presented to us. But we also can choose to color outside the lines we create for ourselves. What would it take for you to become aware of the limits you are choosing to live within? They might not be as limiting as they seem, after all.
Holiday Shopping Struggle
I belong to that subset of humanity that has little in the way of an internal drive for buying new things. When December arrives and the holiday shopping craze begins, my ambient level of typical day-to-day stress automatically takes a step up. I sense that I am expected to become one of the cogs in the retail juggernaut.
It was during last year’s shopping season that I had an insight about the role I inadvertently play in messing up the whole process. Not only does business go up for retail locations, but it is going up because of a large number of people like me who don’t regularly shop. There should be no surprise that it becomes a spectacle of awkward inefficiencies. I can’t even decide where I want to park, and I notice that most of the other cars in the lots appear to be having the same problem. I don’t know where the store in the mall is located. I end up walking a lot more of the mall than is necessary. I don’t know the layout of the stores. I’m up and down aisles and back and forth across the store. I don’t understand the new checkout routines. Where is the queue? Do I swipe my own card? Do I need to sign something? The whole time, I’m bumping elbows with others having the same problems, as well as stutter-stepping left and right in the face of some poor person who already knows how this is all supposed to go, but is unable to properly execute with all these unskilled shoppers bungling the process.
At the same time, I have been asked to create a wish-list to assist others in finding the perfect gift for me. I didn’t realize the exercise would suffer for similar reasons as my difficulties with shopping. Since I don’t buy a lot of things, what I already have tends to get well used and might charitably be described as threadbare. I’m the kind of person that becomes attached with a product when I find something that works well for me. What I want on my wish-list is often an exact replacement for something I already love. I discovered over the weekend that much of what I wanted to put on my list is nowhere to be found. Brand name stuff, but not even showing up on the clearance rack. It’s a hard reality to discover you are outliving your favorite merchandise.
I can’t let it get to me, though. I just gotta pull myself up and get out there and shop! I just learned that the more I spend, the more I can save! Why didn’t I discover this sooner? Think of the savings I have missed over the years.
