Invictus

I dream of a capacious light-filled space with high ceilings and bright white walls primed for an ever-changing canvas, storage space cleverly designed to display its treasures for a constant stream of creative inspiration. A large table sits in the center of the room with plenty of surface to spread out and stools to pull in close, inviting into my atelier a muse, a loved one, or any tender-hearted soul with a cup of coffee and time for compelling conversation.  There’s music when the spirit moves me and silence when I’m still.  A comfortable chaise sits in the corner begging me to stretch out and read under the light of a lamp dripping in sparkling crystals.

Twenty years ago, I started a slow fade away from commercial design toward project management. It was a safer place for me, hiring all the experts who would design and build a space rather than being responsible for designing it myself. I haven’t spent much time thinking about why this happened.  I’ve always chalked it up to being a “bad” designer. Maybe I haven’t given myself enough credit.  The notion that I really can’t stand having my creativity questioned and judged is probably closer to the truth.

 

I placed the “bad” designer label on myself when I was challenged by colleagues who didn’t agree with what I was doing, didn’t like my ideas or style. These professionals did this work for far longer than I did, they must know more, know better. Contemplating the experience now, I conclude I’m far more willing to back down stewing in resentment than to stand up and build a compelling argument for my case.  Which is so interesting to me because I can defend my position with the quiet and methodical logic of a seasoned barrister almost anywhere else in my life.  But when it comes to my creativity I am rendered mute. It’s a crippling fear that I now realize limits me.  I’m sure it’s what keeps me from hiring an editor and finally publishing a book.

Selling is a skill I’ve never fully developed.  I would much rather be back stage, comfortable in the role of influencer. Sales is front and center, under the spotlight; a whole other realm.  But one you need to enter if you want to take on the naysayers, defend the relevance of your own work and see the vision in your mind’s eye brought to life.  It’s almost sad how our strengths can unwittingly be stifled, even sacrificed by our own incestuous determination to conceal and protect our weaknesses at all costs.  What kind of designer could I be if I was willing to stand strong in the face of judgement and just sell my heart out?

Creative ideas are born in my mind and killed off multiple times a day. There is no requiem; no flowers at the gravesite.  I move on, in fact, I probably forget more great ideas than I actually execute. Yet these days when an idea dies on the table I find myself compelled to induce CPR with a ferocity I don’t recognize, and I’m the only one who can pull myself off the body and call time of death.

It’s easy to be generous in the face of abundance, to surrender when there is so little at stake.  But when every idea is challenged, when nothing is guaranteed to be a sure thing, I begin to wonder if somewhere in the steady drip of acquiescence or compromise I will wake up one day to discover I’ve lost myself.

And this is the beauty and promise of my dream studio, that one place where my creativity lives out loud, untempered, unapologetic and requires no explanation, no defense.  It’s the threshold that beckons, and when crossed by those who know me well, reveals a haven recognized as unmistakably mine.

I know in my heart that creativity cleaves, that I wear it on my sleeve and it always finds a way.  I know I could no sooner stop its flow if I wanted to.  But I long for abandon somewhere.  It is my saving grace. 

Galoshes

I invite them over to my house for dinner. During the course of the conversation he is having with his brother I learn he is wearing cloth gym shoes to his dishwashing job and coming home at night with soaked feet.  He takes me up on my offer to buy him a pair of rubber boots he can slip over his shoes; I’m on Amazon later that evening making arrangements for them to be shipped directly to his place. 

I know it’s an awful cliché, but this stage – adulthood – IS the hardest stage to parent. Yes, I said we were at the hardest stage when they hit high school, and before that when they went to middle school, and likely before that when they entered elementary school.  I know I definitely said it during potty training, and when I changed diapers, toted them around in a car seat I could barely lift, and woke up to feed them in a fog in the middle of the night. And okay, maybe during childbirth, too. But I really mean it now.

I am not a helicopter parent.  If I were to place myself on the involved parent continuum, I’m definitely farther to the left. This is proving itself to be true as the time between when we all parted ways last summer and now stretches out a bit; more and more stories of my parenting negligence and ignorance are coming to light.  While it’s embarrassing, they survived and I’m certain I’m not alone.  Regardless, all parents spend a fair amount of time doing for their children.

We try to feed our kids nutritious foods, at least what was deemed to be nutritious at the time.  We make sure they get their vaccinations, take their vitamins, visit the dentist regularly.  We read to them, send them to school, do our best to pester them to do their homework. We encourage them to have friends, to pursue their interests, cheer them on at their sporting events.  Yet, all the while, in the background, they are quietly absorbing what they really need from us:  A value system, a sense of justice, a work ethic, resourcefulness, persistence, resiliency. They glean from us how to express compassion and empathy, manage anger and frustration, show leadership, listen for understanding, how to choose to love. They say the beauty of a Liberal Arts degree is the focus on teaching critical thinking.  Isn’t this something we teach at home, whether we realize it or not? 

I know these are things I learned at home.  And maybe it feels obvious and that it all happened by some happy accident because it seems like it was a simpler time.  Our family was large by today’s standards. One salary supported us all. Time and money were spread thinly across many. My parents couldn’t physically do as much for us, but they made sure what they did mattered.  Mom volunteered at the school.  Dad was a den leader for Cub Scouts.  They both taught confirmation classes attended by me and a group of my eighth grade peers in our living room, much to my horror at the time.

As I start to realize what my adult children need from me now, I have a greater appreciation for the parenting my dad has done and continues to do for his own adult children.  Drawing the line between helping out and enabling (and staying on the proper side) takes an enormous amount of courage and restraint. My dad asked us to take out student loans and carry the burden of paying them off, and then one day requested the payment book so he could take care of the balance himself.  Listening without passing judgement can mean a tongue perpetually scarred from being bitten.  I don’t recall ever hearing “I told you so” when I slunk back home after having experimented with some aspect of living that didn’t go as planned.

I now understand that Dad continues to show up and be lovingly present in our lives even though he may harbor wariness or unexpressed disagreement with choices we make, whatever those may be:  Where we live, who we live with, how we raise our own children, how we conduct ourselves in this world. And he somehow finds peace in the ceaseless silent worry for the health, happiness and well-being of his offspring that is starting to slowly strangle me. I can only hope to be this good.

We want to redact our stories, to share only the highlight reels with our parents.  We want them to be proud of our every move. Yet, there are times when we need to expose our flaws if for no other reason than to validate that we are still worthy of being loved. Conversely, as parents we want only the best for our children.  We know we sometimes can’t bear to watch their struggles, and that at any time they could call with news that has the power to break us.  Yet we show up anyway because love for our children makes us impervious; we will weather any storm they bring to us. We show up because love offers no other option.

It’s hard to stop doing for our children and trust that they’re equipped to find their own way. Amazon allows me to get my fix occasionally, to let them know in some small way I am still looking out for them, sending love from a safe distance. Yet if I had it to do all over again, I would do less and counsel more.  Sure, they were responsible for their laundry in high school, cooked their own meals when I was out, secured steady part-time employment at 15 or 16, but despite their burgeoning maturity, I spent a fair amount of time mired in telling them to act differently instead of helping them see why they should want to act differently. While I didn’t always succeed, I strove to be a sounding board instead of sounding off.  And this is what they need more than ever from me today. 

Thanks, Dad, for continuing to do the hard work, for supporting choices you may not agree with, for resisting the urge to tell us we screwed up and you saw it coming, for letting us be our own people, for displaying a love impermeable to our imperfections, and for showing us how to put on our rain gear and head out into the storm. 

Origami

It is supposed to be fun and exciting, using our professional talents in such a personal way.  I am an interior designer by education; I spent twelve years working in commercial design and architecture, another twelve years after that managing the process. He’s the owner operator of his 28-year-old remodeling business.  Between us we have 52 years of  experience. 

Designing and building an addition for our house should be a seamless, efficient process; something we can do in our sleep. And yet, we’re in the eighth month of design and we’re still pushing pencil on paper.  Literally. I think I might lose my mind.  Why is this so hard?

There have been several times over the course of this project that I have questioned whether we should continue.  As more and more road blocks are thrown in front of us, I wonder if a divine messenger is trying to tell us this is a bad idea, or if we’re meant to persevere despite the challenges we encounter.  I’ve asked myself if this is truly our dream or if we are making it our dream because it seems like it’s what we are supposed to do.

 

Alan Moore, in his book, “Do/Design: Why beauty is the key to everything” is bringing some clarity, showing me, in actuality, I am fighting the very design process I claim to know and love. There is no doubt I am in a hurry.  I moved out of my house and put the majority of my belongings in storage ten months ago.  I lost my art studio in the process, and the current living situation affords little space to spread out, surround myself with my tools and inspiration, and create.  

Living in the Midwest means our construction window is dictated by Mother Nature.  As the grass greens, flowers bloom and die off, as June drifts into July, I am fearful our window will close before the first shovel is pushed into the ground.  I know I should be embracing all the planning.  Instead I’m fixated on getting it done.

 

We are, for the most part, aligned on what “it” is, how we want this new space to look, but how it will all come together can’t be seen yet.  He knows instinctively what will happen in terms of constructability, and I know instinctively what will happen in terms of finishes, but neither of us knows exactly. We need the help of some experts versed in building codes and calculations to assist. Yet we’re perennially confounded and frustrated by the fact that they don’t seem to understand us. We’ve told them what we’re looking for in their vernacular, and in as many different words as we have available to us. We’ve sketched ideas with pen and trace.  We’ve resorted to redrawing portions on our own computer-aided design program.  We’ve gone so far as to use white-out (I know). What we’re really asking for is some unconventional design, we’re asking our experts to change their mindset, to think outside of the box. We are pushing boundaries, but we’re supposed to be in order to bring our vision to life.

 

It's easier and faster to simply go along with the first ideas presented to us.  In the name of speed and a bit of impatient desperation, this is my default position.  I’ll make it work, I tell myself, whatever it is.  Let’s just get it done.  He is the master of his trade and I have, at times, underestimated the strength of his vision. I have misinterpreted his curiosity and persistent questioning of the conventional, chalking it up to a mere difference in philosophy.

He is willing to create conflict in the name of achieving his vision. He is willing to cut ties mid-stream and find a more like-minded expert to take us to the finish.  He knows we need to surround ourselves with those who are open to our vision and willing to share it, even if it means abandoning their own. I don’t show it very well, but I am grateful for his relentless pursuit to be heard, and the courage he invokes to challenge and make a change in favor of what he knows can be done. To cite an example in Moore’s book, if our home addition were a piece of paper, it was doomed to be a simple paper airplane that would never fly. Now it has the opportunity to be folded into a beautiful and graceful bird. Our thing of beauty.

It’s leading to some painful consequences and a protracted timeline that feel a lot like failure. But again, this is the essence of design.  We are going through an iterative process of sharing ideas, talking about them and either enriching them or tossing them out. It’s this constant working of the form that brings what’s in our mind’s eye to the surface.

 

I experience this in sketching class.  In front of an impossibly challenging sculpture, foreshortened arms and legs coming at me, I am furiously flipping fresh pages of newsprint. The charcoal glides across the page, first in thin, light lines, progressing to heavy, dark marks when I’m reasonably sure I have the proportions right. Somehow an image emerges from this fervent application, the working of the form.  Two hours go by in an instant and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself the entire time.  

How do I put myself in this same place as we work on the design of what will become our place?

As a kid I dabbled in the Japanese art of folding paper. If you skip a step or make sloppy folds you end up with something less than the beautiful piece of art you envision. I know firsthand it takes time, patience and precision to create beauty. The divine messenger tells me so.

Impermanence

“Celebrate with me!” I say as I come up the stairs with two champagne flutes and a bottle of Cava from the basement refrigerator. It’s spontaneous and I don’t care.  We’re not doing anything special, planting a vegetable and herb garden, watching poppies flower from their buds. We forget sometimes how much there is to celebrate in the course of an ordinary day. We spend our lives wishing for extraordinary, attempting to keep up with the highlight reels our friends and strangers we admire post on social media.

Scrolling through LinkedIn posts this evening, I came across a woman sharing her disappointments, her failed sales calls in the past work week, deliberately debunking our redacted stories in the name of humility and truth. It’s refreshing and something we need more of.

We spend time trying to stay in front of trials and tribulations.  Our expectation is that life should be pain-free and we’re doing something wrong if we’re presented with hardship. We think we should agree with each other all the time, we high-five when we’re on the same page.

I say it’s easy to be on the same page.  Too easy.  If we’re on the same page all the time than maybe we’re surrounding ourselves with people who are too much like we are, people who can’t offer an opposing point of view and therefore shelter us from bigger ideas, prevent us from growing.

 

Aren’t we better off being challenged with an opposing view, and instead of trying to debate or litigate our positions, putting our energy into managing conflict, in finding compromise?  It’s not always going to be pretty, we’re not going to be proud of our outbursts or what we look like when frustration boils over, but we’re human and real and taking the first step toward seeking understanding.

And this is what I want to celebrate today.  I’m here on this earth for another day with a partner who never stops working toward understanding. I’m his flower; he’s my gardener.  That’s the mission of his soul.  I’m so fortunate.    

Homemade

He says he’d like me to make him a cookbook for his birthday; one with all his favorite recipes.  I’m flattered and touched.  It won’t be Julia Child’s tome on French cooking, but I can certainly cover a few pages. Enough to get him started anyway. As this piece of artwork comes together I decide what I’d really like to share with him as he takes these tender and tentative steps into adulthood, more than anything in the world, is a recipe for happiness.  

I think about the ingredients for a happy life.  Are they exotic specialties we need to hunt down in obscurity?  Or are they staples we can find anywhere?  I settle on the idea that happiness consists of endless blends of plentiful items readily available wherever we are, yet made elusive by the ever present doubt we have in our worthiness.  A mouthful, for sure.  The recipe for happiness is not precise, anyone can serve up this dish. Nor does it have to be complicated, but we sure make it so. 

The first, and really only required ingredient is belief in yourself.  A yoga instructor strikes a chord for parenting when she says, “I will believe in you until you believe in yourself.”  Can we really transfer the reins in this way?  Can we impart worthiness on another?  I hope so.  I have been believing in my kids since the day I met them.  I’ve been telling them so since they could understand my words.  

Those who conform to society’s standards of success appear to have an easier time with self-worth.  There are signs all over the place showing them they are on the right path, that they fit in.  It’s those who feel the inescapable pull of the tide compelling them to be different, to hone strengths and use gifts others don’t see or understand who really struggle.  It’s these fragile hearts who need to believe in themselves the most.  And who are most vulnerable to self-sabotage.  

Being different is scary and hard.  Doing things differently than everyone else can be exhausting.  We have to endure a barrage of questions and explain our thoughts over and over again.  We’re misunderstood.  Our direction is misinterpreted.  We’re slowing things down, we’re getting in the way.  Easier to just give in, or crawl into a hole and give up.  Better to push away, even throw out all those other ingredients waiting to be added to this happiness recipe. Without a belief in yourself they won’t be needed. 

Self-belief is the magic ingredient, it keeps the soufflé of happiness from sinking.  It doesn’t matter what else you put in the bowl.  You can have a wonderful partner, lots of friends, a nice roof over your head.  You can travel the world, run your own business, none of it makes a difference if you don’t believe in yourself. 

Supporting those we care about while they are searching for the primary ingredient to happiness requires faith and fortitude.  We see it on the shelf. We measure it out.  We wait patiently until they pour it in the bowl.  We believe in them until they believe in themselves. 

Simmer

“Wasn’t it great to have a snow day yesterday,” her words are more of a proclamation than a question. “I got so much stuff done!”  This was not my experience; I wasted massive amounts of time in frustrated hand-wringing over the fact that the weather spent the week dashing my best laid plans.  While I finally made it to my yoga mat to hear my instructor’s delight in this unexpected respite, all my attempts to attend exercise classes during the week were either thwarted or aborted by snow.  She spent her day in frenzied productive bliss; I wallowed, insipid and conflicted, unable to regroup with any kind of positive energy.

I’m an alpha dog, a friend observes. This is not news to me.  I used to think I just like to be in charge.  I’m discovering now that I have pretty much put myself in places where I am in charge.  This, I’m learning, makes me horribly out of practice in situations where I am second in command or expected to partner. And worse yet, I am dissident, defiant and literally unable to bear it when my partner doesn’t see it or do it my way.  How humbling and embarrassing.  Any skills in diplomacy, arbitration or mediation escape me. I am desperate to recoup them; the alternatives are non-starters. Submission leaves me feeling marginalized, dominance is hollow.

When I think about my alphaness, it’s more than not being able to follow along, it’s this feeling that my ability to put my time to my definition of “good use” is stripped from me.  I don’t know how to handle it.

Ambition is a cruel catalyst. There is so much I want to create and achieve in this life. I abhor what I view as the necessary nuisances required to keep me going. I have trained myself to shut it down and sleep at night only because my body flips on the irritation switch when I’ve been awake too long. It’s the same thing with eating.

I’m mad that my hips and knees won’t let me run anymore, as I believe this is the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to maintaining fitness.  It’s the original moving meditation and I’m bitter that this fulfilling practice is no longer an option for me.  I long for the “Born to Run” life of barefoot footfalls and chomping on chia seeds. And this alpha dog misses the family dog.  She was my reason for getting outside and walking at least once a day, if not twice.

I overhear my nephew in a conversation about Stephen Hawking.  His matter-of-fact comment is “the guy’s body just crapped out on him”.  These words come from an 18-year old who has never walked. What rich perspective.

I’ve been told I don’t like change. I ask myself if that’s really true.  I have weathered massive amounts of change, both forced upon me and ignited by me. The transforming is unsettling and emotional, but I can’t in all honesty call myself resistant.  Sure I wish I used the stereo enough to remember how all the buttons work.  Same with the technology in the conference rooms.  But I don’t think this is so much a resistance to change as it is a frustration with my own limitations and an impatience for any learning curve taking time away from my relentless drive to get to what is important to me.

Yoga is good for me in that it begs me to slow down and be kind to myself.  The 90 minutes is excruciating, not because the room is too hot or the exercise is too difficult, but because time is such a precious commodity.  Can’t I get the benefits without investing so much time?  The answer, of course, is no. The instructors always say the postures we hate the most are the ones we need the most.  Apparently I need the whole damn 90-minute experience. And so this is yet another gift yoga presents to me. It just may explain why I am compelled to go to class while at the same time repelled by the time it demands of me.

Maybe the lesson here is striving to create the best experience possible wherever life dictates I spend my time?  I don’t eat lunch with friends. Breakfast, if I eat it, is shoved down behind the steering wheel. People talk about sitting down at the family table for dinner at night, resurrecting this lost art of connecting over a meal. What if this happened three times a day?

The other lesson is gratitude. Every alpha dog doesn’t always get her day. But lots of great stuff comes her way every day. Maybe if she was brave enough to step into the paws of a beta dog or even an omega dog she would learn how to be instead of do?

Stephen Hawking says, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”  A snow day seems like a safe place to start.

Parity

“I want to be a human being, not a human doing.”  Her challenge hangs in the air as we’re packing suitcases for a week at the beach, two Type-A personalities trying to unwind how we will balance the guilt we feel leaving behind our busy work schedules with the glee and inspiration we know will appear when we unplug. We’ve just spent a piece of the morning sipping coffee in a hot tub high in the mountains attempting to solve this and other world problems.

We talk about work as an addiction, albeit an acceptable addiction; something just as debilitating as alcohol or drugs, yet strangely coveted because society has deemed constant running on the corporate treadmill as the path to monetary rewards spelling happiness and success. But aren’t all addictions the same in the end, excessive practices waxing compulsive with the power to eventually consume us?

 

Think about it.  The runner pushing her legs unhealthy distances week after week in the name of training for a marathon.  The gamer in front of his screen, fingers working the joystick level after level on a quest for the top.  Our unnatural attachment to social media and the constant checking up on what everyone else is doing or, more importantly, how they are responding to us.  Are we living our lives or posting our lives?  These behaviors, and others like them, when practiced in excess can intrude on our relationships, isolate us and diminish the quality of our lives. 

I’ve decided the warning flag is time. It’s not the activity itself that is offensive, but how long or how often you are subjecting your body or your mind to any one task. Vices stealthily overtake us when we continually dose more than is prescribed.  I remember vividly friends who, while many of us had to bribe our children to read, deprived their son, a voracious reader, of books as punishment for bad behavior.  With only a finite number of hours in the day, when we spend a disproportionate amount of time on one activity, we leave room for little else.  We humans need a rich life of social interaction, quiet meditation, physical activity and heads-down concentration. Spending too much time in any one place starts to interfere. And those who make us aware of our imbalances tend to be the ones who care about us the most, those who suffer when we are absent from other parts of life.

   

So maybe the answer isn’t to completely disconnect from your work while on vacation.  Sounds horrifying, I know, and it’s not healthy to be that person who attempts to conduct business at the same pace on vacation as at home.  You may think you’re staying on top of things, but while your travel companions silently steam, your back-up at the office is wondering why you asked them to cover for you in the first place. What I’m suggesting is checking in, reading messages periodically and responding only to what’s critical, or taking a call or two to keep what feels urgent moving.

Conversely, and infinitely more difficult, I submit we don’t completely disconnect from vacation while at home.  How can we routinely carve out time for other elements of life during work days that have grown exceedingly protracted with the onslaught of technology?   We think we’re expected to be available and responsive in the wee hours of the morning, during the lunch hour and deep into the night, but are we?  What would happen if we set boundaries around our time or allowed other activities to weave in and out?  Can we truly define and maintain our own balance?

Human being or human doing?  In order to thrive and find happiness we are both.