by Heather Plett | Dec 5, 2006 | Uncategorized
I just finished reading Augusten Burroughs’ book Magical Thinking. In it, he describes magical thinking as his ability to think something into being. When he wanted a bestselling book, he just thought about it hard enough, and sure enough, it came to pass.
In my little world, magical thinking is the ability to turn an ordinary box into a television, a computer, or a car. Last night, when I climbed into bed with Maddie for lie-with-me night, she was curled up next to her dolly who was sitting inside a small gift box. “We’re just watching TV,” she said. “Do you want to watch with us?” Why, yes I did. And so, lying in front of a cardboard box with the lid leaning at just the right angle so all three of us (dolly, Maddie and I) could see it, we watched The Amazing Race. Then, when the cardboard version of the show was over, the box became a computer, and Maddie taught her dolly how to play games at pbs.org. Before I left the room, the box had transformed into a car, and it was time to drive dolly to her bed. And to think I almost threw that magical box away!
Tonight, when I went to tuck Maddie in, the box had been dismantled and has now become a bed for dolly.
Imagine all that from a box! I want that kind of magical thinking.
And since we’re on the box theme, did you know that a 4-year-old fits perfectly in the Christmas tree box? And if your little sister climbs in and closes the lid, you can sit on it and she can’t get out.
The best part was that she ENJOYED being inside the box and actually WANTED her sisters to sit on it. I’m not sure what kind of magical thinking was at play in this case, but it didn’t end in tears, which is more than I can say for some of the things her older sisters put her through.
For Christmas, she’s getting a bunch of boxes in various sizes. Who needs more than that when you’ve got magical thinking on your side?
by Heather Plett | Dec 4, 2006 | Uncategorized
– On Friday night, we celebrated my oldest daughter, Nicole. No, it’s not her birthday, but given the recent step in her journey toward womanhood, I thought it was fitting to celebrate her growth. I’d read about “menarche parties” and “red parties” and new agey dancing-naked-around-the-moon type ceremonies that would totally freak her out, but instead of doing something completely outside her comfort zone, she selected a few female friends and mentors, and we celebrated her. It was a low-key affair – just dinner out, complete with delectable desserts and good conversations. The event suited the girl – classy, comfortable, and quiet and not ostentatious or overboard.
– Was there any sanity involved in the creation of Crazy Frog? After they’d put up with my music selection for about an hour, it was the girls’ turn to make a selection. I let them play Crazy Frog on the condition that it would ONLY stay on as long as they were cleaning the house. The moment I found them slacking off, the cd would get banished (possibly even destroyed) and it would be my turn again. The motivation seemed to work, because they cleaned for much longer than normal, which meant that I was subjected to synthesizer hell for about 45 minutes. And of course, for the rest of the day, I had the annoying voice of the crazy frog repeating inane words like “the crazy frog is jumping” ad nauseum in my brain. I think the cd may go missing between now and next week’s housecleaning binge. For the parent who let their child buy this for Julie for her birthday – I’VE GOT YOUR NUMBER!
– Saturday was about as long as I could hold out in the “we’re not putting up the Christmas tree until December” plan. The girls have been bugging me to do it for about 2 weeks, but I stood by my rule (otherwise known as “buying myself some time”). On Saturday, after the house had been cleaned (that was the other motivation for the 45 minutes of cleaning time), the girls and I made our annual trek to Ten Thousand Villages for their new ornaments. I used to buy them Hallmark ornaments each year, but now I just take them to our favourite fair trade store and they get to pick out an interesting ornament from another part of the world. Our tree is delightfully eclectic, to say the least. Some day they’ll move out, take their decorations with them, and I’ll be left with nothing more than a few bows, a sparkly egg that says “our first Christmas together”, a dough creation of Santa flying an airplane, and the pregnant bear that says “mom-to-be”.
– I had told myself that, since we won’t be home for Christmas, I would only put up the tree and forget about all the other decorations around the house, but then the tree looked so lonely and I couldn’t resist putting up the nativity scene, the garlands, the bows around the candles, the lights over the picture window, the nutcracker, the Father Christmas figurine – you name it. It’s beginning to look a LOT like Christmas.
– All those people who keep telling ccap “just you wait” about how challenging child rearing can get when they reach a certain stage (and of course the stages keep changing) can just shut up, because I’m lovin’ every stage. On Saturday, as I sat back and watched my tree get decorated without any effort on my part (except that I put the lights up), I quite enjoyed the fact that my kids are old enough to do it on their own without me having to reach the high branches and protect the breakable ornaments. The same was true on Sunday, when they decorated gingerbread men, and I could sit and sip my tea with the other adults and didn’t have to be forever fussing with icing and sprinkles. It’s not that I don’t enjoy doing it with them, but it’s quite lovely when it becomes less work and they can do much of it themselves. (Okay, so the truth is – I’m just lazy and I had kids so I could make them my slaves!)
– Marcel spent most of the weekend watching the Liberal leadership race, because that’s his idea of a GOOD TIME. I was interested too, because I want to know who might possibly lead our country one day, but the result is about the only information I really needed to know. I don’t know if they made the right choice, but I do know I’m glad Ignatieff didn’t win. He left a bad taste in my mouth.
– I finally got around to watching Hotel Rwanda this weekend. It’s one of those movies I’ve been meaning to watch for awhile now, and I think I actually rented it once before but had to return it before I got a chance to see it. On Saturday night, Marcel was out with his siblings, the girls were watching something else on TV, and I crawled into bed with a cup of tea and the portable dvd player that the girls won last year, and I watched the movie. It’s heartbreaking but beautiful. I love movies that show the beauty and grace of otherwise flawed people in the midst of ugliness and hatred.
– Have you ever seen a chicken explode? On Sunday, we invited friends (Yvonne and George, for those of you who know them), and family (ccap and her boy and girl) over for supper and we cooked a chicken. I’m not sure if it was because I put it in the roaster upside-down, but when I opened the roaster, the centre of it was blown open – almost like a small explosive device had gone off in the chest cavity. My first thought was “of COURSE the chicken blew up – it’s because I’m a lousy cook and even worse host”, but then when I was finished channeling my mother, I invited everyone into the kitchen to see the spectacle. I was a little nervous of feeding it to guests, for fear that I might inadvertently be subjecting them to salmonella or some other horrid form of food poisoning, but we all ate it, and as far as I know, no-one got sick. Whew!
– It’s a good thing I’m going back to Africa next month (more on that later) because I used my very last Kenyan tea bag last night. I thought I’d used them all up months ago, but then I discovered a small box I forgot I had. Yesterday, I pulled the last bag out and threw the box away. Sigh. I don’t know if it’s REALLY that much better tasting than the other stuff from the store, but I just like the fact that it connects me with my African experience every time I take one out of the box.
by Heather Plett | Dec 1, 2006 | Uncategorized
Remember the coat I bought for $90 and then decided it wasn’t quite right for me? Well, I returned it, paid a visit to the Sally Ann (otherwise known as the Salvation Army thrift store), bought this coat for $5…
And then for good measure, I bought this funky wrap/shawl for $3…
BUT the best part of all? With a few extra dollars thrown in, I bought THIS PAINTING from blog friend and talented artist, Andrea Pratt from Colouring Outside the Lines.
I’m SO excited and I can’t wait to get my painting in the mail. Like I’ve said before, when I make money freelance writing (and it’s not usually very much), I try to re-invest the money in myself by buying something that will inspire me – a book, a cd, something like that. Well I wasn’t sure a faux fur coat would inspire my creativity, but I’m pretty sure this fun and colourful painting will.
One of the greatest things about blogging (a rather unexpected delight) has been the opportunity to meet artists, writers, and other creative people from all over the world. I love to be part of a creative community like this, and I hope the brilliance of all these shining stars rubs off on me.
by Heather Plett | Nov 30, 2006 | Uncategorized
Today I read of a 68 year-old great-grandmother who made fresh pita bread for her family for supper, then left the house, strapped on a suicide belt, approached a group of Israeli soldiers, and blew herself up.
I can’t get this woman off my mind. I want to understand her. I want to be able to comprehend what it is that leads a person to do that. It seems important to me to be able to understand the tipping point for her. Maybe if I understand her, I can honour her in some way. Maybe if I understand her, both her pain and her hope can have more meaning than what seems like just a wasted death.
What darkness creeps into your soul and eats away at you until you are convinced that blowing yourself and others to bits is worth the pain and heart-ache you will cause your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren? Did she become obsessed with revenge, or did she really think she was contributing to a solution? If it was revenge, was it the loss of her grandson and the crippling of another? The injury and imprisonment of her three sons? The destruction of her home? Or the deep sorrow she felt after witnessing a massacre?
If she had loftier visions of helping to resolve the conflict, did she envision that the death of a 68 year-old grandmother would be a powerful wake-up call for the warring factions and those who stand by as witnesses?
Each of the things she had to endure is painful, and together they seem almost incomprehensible in their tragedy. It’s not hard to understand her anger and desire for revenge. But I just can’t quite get past the fact that, by avenging the pain she’d seen and suffered, she caused even more pain for all the people who loved her. You’d think that would have stopped her from pulling the pin.
Surely she knew how hard it would be to swallow her last offering of pita bread after they’d learned of the offering of her life.
Or perhaps the pain had buried her in its rubble, destroyed her capacity for reason, and rendered her only a shell of the grandma she wanted to be. Perhaps she thought the future for her family looked brighter without her bitterness and anger tainting their every waking hour.
On the other hand, maybe she was thinking clearly and knew the pain she’d cause, but she felt a strong calling from God to offer herself as a sacrifice. Perhaps, in the depths of her faith, she believed that this was what she’d been put on this earth to do.
Putting aside the complicated middle east politics that I don’t pretend to comprehend, I’m not sure whether to think of her as a hero for being willing to sacrifice her own life, or a coward and a fool for not sticking around for her family. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.
Given the same set of circumstances, would any of us do the same?
by Heather Plett | Nov 28, 2006 | Leadership, navel-gazing
Eight years ago, my supervisor at the time said something simple yet fairly profound in his assessment of me. He said that one of my strengths and flaws was my ability to see both sides of an issue. In his view, it was a strength in that I was able to understand people’s perspective and tend to refrain from being overly judgmental. But it was a flaw in that it held me back when it was time to make a decision and stand firmly on one side or another.
A few months ago, I had yet another annual performance review in a long line of annual performance reviews. As much as they’re necessary evils, I dislike them – both when I’m the one DOING the review (of my staff) and when I’m the one RECEIVING the review. I’ve had approximately 10-15 of them. I’ve done even more of them. I’ve grown weary of them. Partly it’s because they’re a little artificial and I think that people should be guided along a pathway on a day-to-day basis rather than face an annual assessment of how close to the path they’re staying.
I get along great with my boss, and mostly he said highly positive things about me, but one of the things he said about me has stayed with me because it reflected what I’d heard eight years ago. He said that sometimes I’m a bit too much of a “maybe” person – that I occasionally have trouble making a firm decision or seeing things as black or white, especially if it might negatively impact a person or group of people.
It’s true, it’s one of my greatest flaws. It’s also one of my greatest strengths. I am a leader and communicator partly because I can understand different people’s perspectives and can usually figure out the best way to get through to them and empathize with them wherever they stand. I can also find common ground in almost every disagreement. At the same time, I am held back in my leadership abilities because I am often not as directive or bold as I should be. I anticipate people’s negative responses to a decision (on one side or another), and so I hold back to avoid hurting them or causing dissent. I can usually see why something is a bad idea just as clearly as I can see why it’s a good idea. As a result, I get stuck in the middle of too many issues.
I think this strength/flaw explains why I prefer to be a “facilitator” rather than a “leader”. In my current job, I have to be a leader. I have to make decisions for a team, and every time I do, there are some people who disagree with me. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t like to “play the heavy”. I’d rather be the consultant they hire to help them come up with good ideas, help them see their way through impasses, and help them figure out how to strengthen their communication and build their teams. That way I can leave the decision-making up to someone else as I wander off to another project or task. That way, I can use my strength/flaw to its greatest advantage and nobody gets hurt.
The truth is, I want to embrace this piece of me, this strength/flaw. I want to embrace it and make it beautiful, so that it will in turn bring beauty to what it touches. I don’t want to be afraid to be bold, but I also want to be content with being a “maybe person”. Because sometimes the “maybe persons” are the most comfortable ones to be with in the middle of all these shades of grey. And sometimes, the “maybe persons” are the ones that lead us in the directions that feels right for all of us.
