For the longest time I enjoyed a smugly self-satisfied sense that (due to my limited writing time or imagination or some wonderful gift) I almost never suffered from writers’ block.

I made this determination based on the fact that I was never at a loss for words.

Because I assumed that writers’ block was like artists’ block: the literary equivalent of staring at a blank canvas and not knowing where or how to start.

Hint: for writing– especially with a computer– you just start. Put words down.  Make a muddle.  Build of your chunk of marble so that you have something solid from which to carve out your masterpiece.

But I was wrong.  Because I have struggled with finishing. With delivering.

I like to say (just because it sounds cool) that my Super Power is instant extrapolation. But what that really means (as I hinted in the last post) is that I react to things before I need to.  I anticipate, flinch, before the burn.  I call that way of life exhausting! because it is, but didn’t really see an alternative and got a bit fixated on the exhausting! (Because it really made me feel like I was working hard.  That’s what makes you tired, right?)

Well, here’s one alternative to consider.  It’s in a free ebook called The Flinch, and can be summarized like this:

• Name this gut-reaction that is not very (if at all) useful. They call it The Flinch.
• Recognize that the purpose it serves (keeping you safe), done too well, can hold you back from anything meaningful. Can keep you from taking good risks that will grow you.
• Overcome the fear of The Flinch by reminding yourself failure isn’t permanent, and pain doesn’t last forever.
• Use the momentum, the speed and impulse of The Flinch to react forward rather than cringe away.

Anyway, it was a short read, and brought up some good thoughts.

Best question it raised for me:

“Have you ever asked yourself why your stomach tenses up and your can’t watch imaginary characters on a television screen to awkward, embarrassing things? You should.”

My flinch has to do with my writing.

In experimenting this month with a regular posting schedule (on my other blog– it’s more focused than this one.  So far. So far.) I have found in me a surprising and painful resistance.

First there was the concern that using someone else’s recipe on my  blog would be not-acceptable, but then she saw my link and was very kind about it.

Then there was the question of Am I just adding to the noise?

Which created this imperative to be excellent.  To say the most Profound and Meaningful things that had ever been said on the topic.

It wasn’t so intimidating when talking about rabbits (the “competition” is slim), but there are so many excellent and articulate bloggers in the GF niche that pressing on with that “series” and adding my stuttering voice to the throng made the latest article painfully slow to write.

It was another form of perfectionism, based on a critical view of myself, through the eyes of a critic.  I asked, What’s really the point of this? Am I the best person to be writing about this stuff?

This was totally writers’ block, because it kept me from moving forward.  It was perfectionism, sure, and pride, because I want to do the best.

I mean, what’s the point of thinking, “I’ll just get by”?

Telling myself “I’ll just get by” is beautiful and welcoming and inspiring and effective for something like NaNoWriMo, but when it comes time to fill in the gaps and getterdone, that doesn’t work for me.

And maybe that’s my problem.

Who I am is displayed in my work.  Therefore, I want my work to be the best I can do in order to give the most favorable impression of me, myself.

It’s sort of like the process of choosing my new profile picture: all of them look like me, but some are decidedly more flattering than others.

The thing was, the best pictures are still only going to look like me,  so eventually I’ll just have to admit this is how I look and move on to the next thing.

I like the idea from the book about feeling the fear, the whole desire and direction of the flinch and then pushing past it.

Jump through the sprinkler.  How  much can it hurt? Okay, and how long can that last?

It was funny to think about my flinches– not starting new books (reading fiction), not letting some less-than-perfect escape (writing fiction).

At the moment I’m re-inspired to just Get in and get it done. Just to be done.

Finishing and releasing is a fear too– it requires more skills and tests of my limits than I’ve had to front, up to this point, but I can see that that is one of the biggest blocks I’ve encountered, all along this noveling road.

]]> http://untanglingtales.com/2012/02/theres-more-than-one-kind-of-writers-block/feed/ 0 http://untanglingtales.com/2012/02/is-there-a-way-to-stop-caring-if-i-look-like-a-fool/ http://untanglingtales.com/2012/02/is-there-a-way-to-stop-caring-if-i-look-like-a-fool/#comments Sun, 05 Feb 2012 07:44:32 +0000 Amy Jane http://untanglingtales.com/?p=2965 I’ve been (re) reading the bit in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy about the logic of Elfland, and how the wonder that exists in that story-world is to remind us of the wonder we forget of our own world.

And I’m filled with this surge of remembering. Of my capacity for wonder and delight.

Then just as quickly it is checked, by the cost of that wonder and delight.

To immerse without reserve means there is no net when I fall through the broken parts of this world.

I lost a whole litter today.  Mneme’s, that I just mentioned on Monday that I was eagerly looking forward to. My first litter since just after Christmas.

At 7:30 this morning I found nine naked kitsicles.  Three on the straw outside the nest were misshapen, and one was bit open and laying on the wire, but the other five looked perfectly formed.  On a last wisp of hope I immersed those in a bowl of warm water, up to their noses. My wonder expanded with my hope when four of those five began to kick weakly, and make gasping motions with their tiny mouths, revealing incisors as delicate as toothpick tips.

But the motion gradually slowed.  They were so cold the water cooled almost at once, and I couldn’t leave them to refresh it or their little noses would sink under the water.

I did what I could but eventually dried them and returned them to their nest, warming in front of the fire. But I knew I’d lost another litter.  And I grieved it.

And I hated grieving it, because it wasn’t necessary.  There were other things I’d expected to get done today.  I also wanted to not-care because if it can happen now after what I’ve learned, it can happen again any time.  And if it can happen any time, I am continually vulnerable.

And since I had just let two new babies into my heart, I did not want to be reminded of my vulnerability.  I didn’t want to think of all the ways I could lose these delicate little lives.

~ ~ ~

But what reading Chesterton tonight reminded me of, was that I am exchanging– surrendering– deep delight for the cheap payment of neutrality.  That is, in exchange for connection, and awe, and wordless wonder, I can now anticipate the worst and practice being numb both before and whether or not it happens.

I don’t limit my pain to events that are actually painful.

But the other cost of the delight– of indulging it– is being willing to look (or at least feel) like a fool.

To be surprised, burnt or wounded by something any pessimist or “realist” could have told me would happen.

I want the delight.  But I’ve forgotten the road. And I still care too much what others think.

But  am praying about what to do about that.  And what not to do.

Sometimes those emotional plot points turn the song on its head.

This one for example:

It’s a great story-song on its own (I don’t know enough about music to know objectively if it’s a great song, but it’s a good storyteller for sure), but the mash-up of hearing it while working on my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel gave it a really vicious, twisted angle.  That is, in the Shadow Swan novel, the man singing this song is– put delicately– not the one who was dumped.

He abandoned the girl, and the song-moment (No. He doesn’t actually sing to her; this is the idea of the song being a plot-point) is when he tells her how horribly she treated him and how lucky he is to still have the heart left to seek out a true sweetheart.

I get a delicious set of the creeps now whenever I hear the song– this guy (not Aiken, of course. I don’t know anything about him), his name’s Raquile, is a master manipulator.  Way too good at what he does.

This is the whole soundtrack for Shadow Swan if you just want something to listen to sometime. It’s almost four hours long. Yeah. I’ve been collecting all year.

And the last dozen additions aren’t in chronological order– they were added to hang onto them, but I haven’t detail-worked my soundtracks since last summer.  I still listen to them though.

Could be why I don’t have a consistent drive to finish it: The story is told in my head over and over again, so I’m satiated.

But that theory doesn’t work either– the more I listen the clearer the story crystallizes, and the hungrier I get to work on it.

A less spectacular song but still very influential in one of my stories is Sweet Betsy from Pike.

Go ahead and laugh.

There is a line part way through the song where everything has tanked and her husband/lover Ike (depending on your version) has announced he’s giving up and going home.

The alkali desert was burning and bare.
And lke cried in fear, we are lost, I declare!
My dear old Pike country, I’ll go back to you.
Said Betsy, You’ll go by yourself if you do.

My kids have this in one of their song collections, and that last line gives me goosebumps.

There’s just something about a woman (anyone, really) saying ‘This needs so much to be done I’ll do it alone.’

It’s a key moment in Lindorm when a rather mousey character calls out her husband’s cowardice/wishy-washy and brings in the cavalry.

And I don’t even like the song all that much, but (as in so many inspiring instances) the perfect phrase makes all the connections.

Have I ever mentioned here (on Untangling Tales) that I wrestle with depression?  Usually seasonal, and usually manageable, but there are times and varieties that just eat my mind and (as a result) basically freak me out.

Well, this post is a chewing on that variety.

Last summer I went back to Weight Watchers for a while, to see if their new system was a good match for me. The first group I visited was a  convenient time for me, but I was “twilight zone” weirded-out by the emphasis of the majority on consuming.

That is, they never talked about recipes they were discovering and trying out with their own twist (what I was used to from my old group) so much as they talked about the right websites and recipe designers.

Now, this is a subtle distinction, so it took me a while to decide what felt so off.  These were women who were not (as a group) creative people.  They didn’t experiment on their own (at least from their talk). They were good at sussing out the “perfect” recipes and following them exactly for perfect results.

Objectively I see nothing wrong with this, but it is (to use an Alaskan analogy) like warm dark.  I know it exists, and is even normal to some people, but it is so far from my life-history I can’t be all that relaxed in that environment.

Shifting groups actually helped me stick it out longer in WW.  My later group was (as a whole, at least in what they shared) much more creative.

~ ~ ~

I have found a fairly tight correlation between creativity and managing depression. That could be why a non-creative group felt dangerous.  Depression feels like zombie-mode to me, so being surrounded by folks who didn’t need it… Well yeah, was just creepy.

Because the majority of my depression is darkness-related, I feel worst from November to January.  Emphasis on the back-half of January, probably because I’ve been hanging on so long.

For the last two years I have chosen to participate in NaNoWriMo as a sort of creative therapy.  It happens in November, so it’s a good strong push right at the beginning where I need it.

There is the back-of-my-mind terror that if I can’t keep up, or if I crash, that I’ll tank even deeper than otherwise, but since I’ve been able to maintain it both times the combination of enforced creativity plus proof-of-competence has been very stabilizing both years.

And that sense—of active creativity staving-off a more debilitating depression—explains why attacks on (or even questioning the need of) Creating feels like a threat.

I’m reminded of those old commercials for… what was it, Head and Shoulders?   A dandruff shampoo.  A friend would notice what shampoo the good-looking lead used and protest, “But you don’t have dandruff!”

And the lead would flash that white, straight-toothed grin and say, “You’re right.”

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a less-gleeful version of that commercial.  I do 16 things (I’ll make a list someday for the real amount) to maintain a level state, at bad times preferring to be exhausted rather than consumed by depression, then (as the result of that effort) be stable enough to present a level front to most of the world. So I get people who don’t understand that, yeah, *I* can get depressed.

I don’t think this is about being un-genuine.  Usually I feel it is a service to others to keep my issues to myself.  Sort of like collecting my baby from the church nursery when he started screaming.  It’s my life, my responsibility.  I don’t think I’ve ever rejected help I could use, (even for the boy), but knowing my resources are usually at capacity managing my own world, I’m not in a hurry to put more on anyone else.

The point is, I find creativity—both recharging, discovering and expressing it—a key player in my personal stability.

This week I had the delight of presenting on the topic of Myers-Briggs personality theory, and how it connects to parenting.

The next day, yesterday, I was exhausted.

I watched at least three body-a-week type shows yesterday.

You know what I mean, right?  The show only happens because a new somebody dies each week: Castle, Bones, Body of Proof.

These are my quick story-fix when my life doesn’t have room for a novel. They serve a dual purpose; not only do I get a complete (usually well-written) story in only 45 minutes, but they are of the physiologically soothing type.

What? You don’t find murder soothing?  Well, I don’t either.  Really. I’m not that sick.  The reason these stories have value to me is because they seem to be the last hold-out in our society today for absolutes.

Somebody was murdered. That’s bad. It’s good to find the truth. And they do.

• My kids were invited to play in town this morning, giving me three hours to line-out my mind and projects.
• I dreamed last night.  A good, thought-provoking story-dream.
• I woke up with how to fix POV issues on two different novels

With these gifts, the ideas and the time to process them, I felt life coming back into me.

I’m still as physically tired as I’ve been (short nights for about a week) but my mental state is back from zombie-land.  I’m not as scared I’m going to lose my grip.  I am so excited about where my stories can go now, and I’m reminded of a definition of HOPE I picked up somewhere:

Hope is the assurance that now is not permanent.

That might sound a bit negative for some tastes, but most of the time when I’m in need of hope it is because the *now* is not welcome after all, hope that we can see is not hope.

Here’s a reprint from about two-and-a-half years ago.  Because the idea of ambassador is one I want to keep in front of me. For many reasons.

I mentioned  that life will be getting even busier soon since school will be starting, then added the clarification that we are homeschooling.

“Oh,” says Person-A, “Will Jay be teaching them math?”

“He could,” I said, surprised at the question and not wanting to make Jay look bad by saying he’s not currently planning on doing any of the teaching.

“I was just thinking he ought to be able to,” Person-A finished.

Then (this was my moment of lucidity) I realized Person-A had just insinuated it took an engineer to teach 1st-grade math.

“Are you implying,” I asked, genuinely hoping to embarrass him, “That I can’t teach 6-year-old math?”

Yes, that’s what he was implying.  He didn’t even try to defend himself.

I was surprised, but shrugged it off.  It wasn’t important to me what he thought.

It wasn’t until later that night, thinking again of the leggy Darwin fish on the car in his driveway, and remembering the sign during voting season for the local fellow I wasn’t voting for, that I began to feel something about our interaction wasn’t right.

And then this morning I realized that I had gone into the conversation utterly unprepared.

I had gone to admire a delicious new baby and prattle family small-talk and keep up positive neighborhood relations.

It was not in my mind that I was entering as an ambassador of Christ, and Homeschooling, and Conservative Thought, and Purposeful Parenting.

Lord-willing, that will never happen again.

I acted as though I was a friend among familiars, being sloppy in my explanations and imprecise in my reasons.  In short, I did more to reinforce any (diminished) view they may have of those things than to correct it.

And maybe it wasn’t that bad, but the problem is that I didn’t enter as an ambassador, aware of what I represented.  If I’d had the right mentality going in, I know I would have done better (If I’d only know this was a job interview…).

I might have recognized the “playing” of me and my ideas before the next day, and maybe refused to play.  I want to think I’d still not be offended (it never serves a diplomat’s goals or purpose to be offended), but I could have been more “professional” and less of an airhead.

Again, not that I’m sure I was the opposite extreme, it’s just that I muffed a fine opportunity to muck up their stereotypes.

And I find that disappointing.

All the same, I haven’t yet learned how to respond politely to subtle insults, and it occurs to me that had I fully known what was going on I might have been a poorer representative of Christ than I otherwise was.

I’ll get back to you on that in 15 years or so.  When I actually know how it is they learned.

In the meantime, I’ll share the philosophy and materials I work from.

Now, I am fairly fluent in writing.  But I never liked to write as a kid. (I hope that encourages anyone who is in despair over her child’s abhorrence.) My understanding of teaching writing was first influenced by Donald Davis’s book, Writing as a Second Language. 

I never finished it, but the title and what I did read set my mind in a direction it had never been before: to see writing as a completely different animal than speaking or reading. Which I believe it is.

This sense of something different was solidified and put into a usable/applicable for when I read the introduction to Susan Bauer’s Writing With Ease.  In that book she points out that when we teach writing we are expecting the student to learn, not one but, four separate skills.

1. Generating ideas. Content that will be conveyed.
2. Translating those ideas into words
3. Holding those words in mind while they are transferred to print
4. The physical act of writing them down.

When you have a child resistant to “writing,” a good first step is looking for where in this chain the process is breaking down.

The first book (Writing as a Second Language) encourages “rehearsing” stories in one’s “first” language (speech) before ever taking them to the paper.  In Classical learning this is referred to as narration.  In its simplest (and most accessible) form, narration is simply answering questions in complete sentences.

The words children create in response to questions (for example, about something they just heard read aloud) may not seem particularly original, but certainly at the beginning originality is not the teacher’s goal.  You are working specifically on the second part of the process: creating words that make sense.

This is why the “complete sentences” part is important.  The child is learning sentence structure by example.

Where did God place the man he created?

In the garden.

Can you say that in a complete sentence?  You can use the same words I did.

God placed the man he created in the garden.

In fact, by getting in the habit of using the words he hears to re-frame the answer, the student is practicing #3 along with #2.

With my girls I use the workbooks Bauer developed to accompany the text I read at first.

The workbooks are not essential, but they replace the planning that I would otherwise have to do myself, and so I find them *absolutely* worth the $20-30 they set me back. (Not forgetting that I can use them for each of my kids if I continue in this method.  Copyright permission clears each book for an entire (single) family’s use.)

The other resource I’ve found useful is the English worktext put out by the same publisher we buy our math curriculum from– BJU Press.  Natasha isn’t using it this year, but did last year, and I was impressed with how systematically it worked through the basics in her 2nd-grade text.

She wrote her first personal essay last year, following the step-by-step instructions as guided by the curriculum.  She couldn’t hardly get through a sentence without a giggly-happy squeal of “I’m writing!” Because it’s a big deal to her to be like Mama.

And there’s the motivating bit about enjoying writing, or words, or Story, yourself.

Kids learn what’s “normal” through observation.  If they regularly see you writing (or reading, or singing or dancing) and enjoying it, finding value in it, that will increase its value in their eyes.

My children may not see it (writing) as important as I do, but between reading and writing, I have what I want most for my kids at this stage in their learning: they are not afraid of language.

Yes, Natasha learned to read without really trying, but, as we guessed in that blog post, the “different minds working differently” means we weren’t surprised when our other two were (are) different in their learning to read.

The wonderful thing is that the younger two– for whom reading is a harder slog– are enough in love with Story that they are not driven away from all print by their hard road.  I’ve known kids (it made me sad) who had no interest in stories because they were too much of a reminder of their struggle.

Elisha and Melody are both so wired for story they’ve got steps #1 & #2 just *nailed.*  Even #3 isn’t that far away.  So, as a rule, I encourage storytelling, and have them practice their letters, either with tracers or copywork.  They get to advance (grow in strength) in all the steps, even if they aren’t doing them all self directed yet.

We have plenty of time.  And especially with their prolific storytelling and spontaneous narration, I expect a time will come when they’ll want to record their visions to hang on to.

At least, that’s what happened to me.

All mine.

Only and completely for my own enjoyment of life, and nothing to do with what anybody else thinks.

This is a big deal because it means if I’m happy, the task is successfully completed.

For the first time I realized that for me this is guitar and piano.

Previously when I’d try and go through the process of making a schedule (Always beginning with a list of everything I’d like to fit into my life) I’d include the “good” stuff I knew a disciplined me would do everyday with intent. That meant music practice (along with bible-reading, prayer and cooking), and even writing it down would leave a sour taste in my mouth. The reminder of something else I must not want enough ’cause I can’t make it happen.

If I’m really going to go out of my way to do a creative something every. day. I want it to be writing!

What Amy (different Amy, not me) suggests instead is a step back, to first define the roles you have, and draw tasks from those roles.  It is, I suppose, a way of looking at priorities, but in a specific way.

For me, God, Jay, kids, house, is *way* too generic a list.

By saying the activities/jobs that are tagged under each role, I am able to break things into smaller chunks– but not so small that “musician” could make the list.  She limits you to seven roles (blanks on the worksheet, anyway) so *everything* isn’t included.

And I was able (because of her very specific insistence) to include self in those roles.  Once I saw music as an activity I did to become my best self, not a goal of it’s own, I felt instantly freer.  For the first time I saw that every time I dink around (and get a little better, and show my kids music is play and a delight), I’ve done enough.  With very. few. exceptions I have no need to perfect any one song for outside consumption.

Another bonus was seeing my list of “jobs” (what I want to do to become the best I can be) in my wife role, were basically covered by fulfilling a couple of the remaining roles on my list: home-managing and teaching the children.  These are the big things (I asked!) that make my husband feel loved and that he has a peaceful home/happy family.

So I’m recommending Amy’s (short!) book on time management.  Short reason: it’s about knowing where you want to go, and making small steps toward that every day.  It’s moving beyond wishing to living.

And that is delicious.

I see someone on the defensive doing poorly, I jump in on their side.  Especially if it’s an argument I know and think I could do better than them.

I think I lost a friend this way last year.  He hasn’t spoken to me the same way since I took the other side of his literal-6-days creation debate.  It is in my nature to try and homogenize, to find the perfect faerie* argument to make everything “technically” mesh.

For the record: I think the “specific Hebrew word for a 24-hour day” argument is weak.  The argument that brings me to a literal creationist stance (which, for the record, I hold) is my belief from scripture that death did not exist before the Fall.  Therefore, billions of deaths over millions of years– in order to get to a human creature, sentient and capable both of communion with God and division from him– is not possible.

I have a high degree of empathy– the ability to get into other people’s heads or emotions and imagine how certain things affect them.  As a result I can take far too much responsibility for their comfort.  For their feelings.

And I recently figured out that to be healthy as me I have to quit thinking so much of others.

Whoa! Is a Christian allowed to say that?

You see for about three years now, about as long as I’ve been homeschooling, I’ve been feeling responsible to keep my choices (for example, to homeschool) from making other parents feel guilty for making a different choice.

Before that it was about being a stay-at-home mom, but it seems more people do that with preschoolers so I didn’t feel the separation as keenly.

The point is, I imagined how I’d feel if I were the other parent, and I downplayed the significance of our different choices because, well, if she wanted to be home, I didn’t want her to feel bad, and even if she didn’t, I wanted very much to avoid any possible conflict or fight over which choice was better or (an even worse word) “correct.”

This sheltering or defending of others has continued as Jay and I made our lives more complicated and atypical: gluten-free, debt-free, tiny house, homegrown (I like to call it “ethical”) meat.

I’ve avoided talking about our choices, especially the whys, because I didn’t want to draw such stark lines as I knew they’d create.

So I basically said what anybody chooses doesn’t matter, because we’re all different, with different needs and different stages.  And while that’s true, and I really don’t want to create a hierarchy or polarize folks, it killed me emotionally.

Because I had just said– continually said, over years– that what I invested in, the hard stuff I chose because it was important to me and I felt it was worth it and made a difference– Didn’t. matter.

And I don’t want to do that any more.  This is where I need to be my defender and trust everyone else to be grown-up enough to own and love their own decisions.

I’m certainly not going to pick any fights, but I’m going to quit being embarrassed of how hard I work. I do it for real reasons, and those reasons carry me through. Make me stick with things even when they’re hard.

What I do is valuable. Not something to kick under the bed like the shoes my husband won’t get rid of.  I’m proud of what I do. It is important and worth defending.

*Faerie are creepy to me on a couple levels.  The main one is their commitment to the truth– as it is useful to them.  Their methodology is to manipulate the “mortal” they speak with by speaking nothing but the *exact* truth.  Of course they will direct, imply and manipulate to their purpose’s end, but they will never be culpable to the charge that they ever spoke falsehood.

When I talk of me speaking faerie I mean it in terms of working words or reality as a puzzle that I’m trying (by means of the exactness or slipperiness of language) to meld differing views enough to bring cooperation if not true peace.

So here’s your chance to tell me.  I’m always shocked at the number of hits my stat-counter tells me I’m getting, and while some of it is Google sending people to my archives, I’m curious what makes the rest of you come back.

This is the place where I feel like I’m talking to myself in an empty room.

I am having a great deal of fun with my rabbits.  I’m thinking of starting a category for pictures and projects.  (For example, we have Before:

and After:

Both pictures and a project. Whee. About an hour it took me to shear him; I hope that gets shorter as I get more practice.)

And really, the only connection to what I already do here is the atavism I mentioned yesterday.  The idea that animals and fiber arts are a part of life as much as reading and writing (storytelling).

But then, perhaps that’s just my life.

But you’re welcome to peek in and enjoy.

So there’s the question: Are you interested?

I tripped over the term earlier this year.

I’d stopped into a yarn shop to see what blends they sold of angora yarn, and to buy a pattern.  My girls were with me (we’d just come from a baby shower), and between us we started talking with a woman who was probably in her 50s.

It came out that we raise rabbits, that I spin their wool and knit and love old stories– the old tales where spinning and knitting could be critical elements.

“Ah,” said she, “so you’re atavistic.”

I’d never heard the word, and asked what it meant.

“It means you love the old ways,” she said.  “Traditional things.”

I really enjoyed being given a useful new word (I had her spell it for me).  It is used more frequently in an evolutionary context, but her explanation is still solid. (The word is related to the word for ancestor.)

Anyway, all that to say, that I’ve been looking for a focus on Untangling Tales, and this might be what I end up with.

I do not automatically agree with Older-Is-Better (expect a post on that, eventually), but I am also against reinventing the wheel.  Such a waste of time.

With such a full life, I often think about time and how we have to make the most of it.  One of the ways I look at frequently is How did other people manage?

“There is nothing new under the sun,” and that concept gives me hope: I don’t need to know everything, or even figure out everything. If our generation has fewer physical resources because of the “depletion of the earth,” we can at least benefit from the many generations that have come before us.

Stories, songs, skills, delights: What a gift that we are not limited to ourselves– the past or the present.