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Thanks to Lynne’s help, we know have video capability!

Early yesterday morning, I rode my bicycle up Route 1A in North Hampton towards Rye along the most beautiful stretch of winding coastal road in New England—endless ocean to my right, stately homes and fresh-cut lawns to my left. The salty smell of the sea, the pounding sounds of the waves, and the sparkling sunlight on the water reminded me how grateful I am to be alive and how fleeting and vulnerable our time here is. We are in the midst of a family health scare, waiting for test results and clutching fervently to optimism. To all who have experienced that treacherous road, my heart is with you for I now understand how terrifying the uncertainty can be. While I pedaled and prayed (and yes cried a little too), I found some peace in the realization that my life has been a series of decisions, relationships, and efforts to contribute to the world around me. At that moment on that stretch of road, it seemed the world—so full of light and fresh air and hope—was affirming those efforts back to me. And I was comforted. 

That’s how many people had watched The Last Lecture by Professor Randy Pausch on YouTube as of last night when I saw it. I’m sure many people know about this already, since the original lecture was given last September, but if you haven’t seen it yet, you should. Pausch died on July 25th, but he left us much to ponder.

(I wish I could embed the video, but haven’t figured out the technology yet…)

If you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting…blame it on our vacation. Our family trip to Europe was a great adventure although somewhat stressful and definitely expensive (more on that later). Each moment of the 16 days abroad was totally consuming, whether it was driving through Ireland very fast on the left side of twisting tiny roads or figuring out when to get off the bus for Piazza Navona, I had little time or energy to write while I was there. (I barely slept. It was one of those “trips of a lifetime” that will never be forgotten and will take a lifetime to pay off!) That said, since returning to Lowell last week, I have been distracted and not transitioning as productively as I expected, but I have had my reasons:

First off, the last day in Venice I fell and sprained my ankle pretty bad. Both my son and my husband ended up with nasty colds. We literally hobbled home only to discover there had been two deaths while we were away. So, in addition to doctor’s appointments for myself (not broken but needs a brace) and my son, we had two wakes on Tuesday and a funeral yesterday. Not only that, the brand-new laptop we took with us—keeper of all the great photos from the trip—crashed a few days ago. Also, the car engine light is aglow with a special icon (something to do with emissions), and both cats need to visit the vet. My house is a dust bowl, my ankle throbs, and I’m exhausted. Thank God the heat wave ended. At least now I can imagine myself getting back to work at some point…  Consider this post my attempt at re-entry.

I read the book, Driven to Distraction, a few years ago and became convinced that I and everyone in my family had ADD. Now, I just think there’s too much going on in the world – ‘the world is too much with us’ as Wordsworth put it. There’s too much in daily life to handle without a disciplined approach, which means focusing on one thing at a time. This is hard if, like me, you’ve always prided yourself on being a multi-tasker (and I don’t even own a PDA!). You know, read a book and cook dinner while listening to language tapes and checking email, oops, burnt the broccoli.

And so it goes. Research has shown that the added mental effort of switching tasks makes you less productive even as you have the illusion of getting more done. Some of this data is almost 10 years old, which shows the way the public only hears what it wants to hear as in the plethora of left-brain, right-brain popular psychology books (Drawing from the right brain, etc) that mushroomed in the wake of a study that was shortly disproved (see link in previous post). I’ve been taking a time management course and one of the first things they demonstrate is the fallacy of multi-tasking. They ask a person to walk a straight line along a piece of masking tape on the floor. It’s morning, the guy had had coffee, no problem. Then they ask him to do it while reading a book – the results are comical. This is oversimplified, but a good way to think about what you are asking of yourself when you rely on multi-tasking to manage your life. For more information on this subject, read this highly-entertaining, very informative and thoughtful article by Walter Kirn from Atlantic Magazine. Here’s a quote that sums up the problems and dangers of multi-tasking:

certain studies find that multitasking boosts the level of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and wears down our systems through biochemical friction, prematurely aging us. In the short term, the confusion, fatigue, and chaos merely hamper our ability to focus and analyze, but in the long term, they may cause it to atrophy.

EEK! Who needs that? (Note: While working on this post, I forced myself not to go downstairs for more coffee, look at my calendar, read incoming email or clean off my desktop. Reading the Kirn article was part of my task, but I resisted reading other interesting Atlantic articles that I noticed on their site.)

You know when you go to conferences and they figure out ways to divide the room into smaller groups? I was at a seminar last week and the presenter put this slide of a dancer up and asked us to say whether she was turning clockwise or counter-clockwise. Supposedly, the direction you see the dancer twirling indicates if you are a “left brain” (methodical, logical) or a “right brain” (creative, imaginative) thinker. I was definitely seeing clockwise and still cannot fathom that anyone would see it another way, but a good portion of the room was in the counter-clockwise camp and quite a few people could see it both ways. I’m pretty sure this left brain/right brain theory has been disproved and that the real truth of brain function is way more complicated. This sci-blog article goes into more depth if you’re interested. Still, it was a fun and creative way to divide the room, the next step was to count off and then meet your left or right brain counterpart for discussion. We all had to laugh when the right brainers messed up the count-off.

Remember the song from Bye, Bye, Birdie? The father sings

Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way?
What’s the matter with kids today?

That song, written over 40 years ago by Charles Strause and Lee Adams, came to mind when I read the following quote:

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter inplace of exercise. children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households.

Guess who said it? more »

I’ve been congratulating myself on my gardening success this spring – my lilac was loaded with scented purple plumes, the struggling azalea is clothed in scarlet flowers, my non-performing smoke tree has the beginnings of frothy buds that I hope will soon be ’smoke’ and most exciting of all, my peonies, normally putting forth from zero to one or two blooms per plant, are covered with round buds about to burst.  My kindly neighbor, a landscaper, once shared with me some advice he had received when starting out in the business, “It’s not rocket science,” he was told, “when laying sod, just make sure to put the green side up.”  So, rather than hoping for dramatic success and magazine-perfect beds, I’ve been trying to follow this common-sense approach and take small steps to improve my yard – put lime on the lilacs in the fall, feed everything early in the spring, fertilize the lawn at regular intervals, and I’ve been thinking that that guy was right. You just have to do what needs to be done; when it needs to be done.  However, my bubble was burst when talking to a friend who claimed that her peonies were also doing better than ever; maybe it’s not me, but some combination of forces – rain, sun, the fates – that has given my yard a boost this year.  Anyone else having unusual success in the garden?

Every Memorial Day I am reminded of my Uncle Joe, my mother’s oldest brother. He’s been dead for more than a decade now but whenever I think of the sacrifices our soldiers make and how most are changed forever–even the ones lucky enough to make it home–I think of my Uncle Joe. He talked often about his experiences as a medic in World War II, and as a young girl, I learned that war changes people in ways that are irretrievable, that stay with them into old age. (This Sunday’s Boston Globe has an essay by George Masters that addresses this poignantly.) For now, I want to share one particular moment from my uncle’s war. An immigrant, who came to this country when he was eight years old, Uncle Joe had struggled with belonging in Boston, often running away from my grandmother, his stepfather, and his siblings in the North End, trying to find his way back home to the beaches of Sicily where he was born. My grandmother would find him at the docks, drag him home, and make him go to school yet again, to learn English, to get an education. It wasn’t until the war when he was a young soldier marching the streets of London, and the Brits, who were so grateful for our presence, would shout to him “Hey Yank! Nice to see ya Yank!” that he felt like an American for the first time in his life. 

Our daughter was born on a morning much like today—exactly12 years ago. I remember bringing her home from the hospital and while holding her tiny body in my arms, seeing as if for the first time, the huge magnolia blossoms that crowded the blue sky outside my window. Those blossoms, like fluffy white and pink handkerchiefs, seemed to wave to me in celebration of her birth and the promise of her life. I gazed into her sweet face and felt the magnolia blossoms were a good omen—how auspicious to be born on such a day. As I have watched her grow into the beautiful, smart, young lady she is becoming, whether she is dancing, drawing, creating board games or texting her friends, she carries that light and hope within her. And every year when we celebrate her birth under the glorious magnolia blossoms, I am reminded again that she is our gift to the world and its blessing back to us. Happy Birthday precious girl—we love you!