Three years ago, her report card said “Nicole is reluctant to speak up in class”. She was tentative, never raising her hand, never sure enough that she knew the answer.
Today, at parent teacher conference, we heard words like “confident, leader, self-assured, contributes willingly to class discussion, mature beyond her years, raises her hand for almost every question, and consistently does exceptional work.” The word “reluctant” never came up.
And I got a little choked up.
We are settled into our new offices, and it’s lovely, but I’m having to get used to the noise of the mall on the other side of my wall of windows. It’s hard to resist the urge to people-watch when I should be working (or even blogging about people-watching when I should be working :-). Right now there’s a crowd of school kids leaving the theatre that’s just across the atrium from my office. They just passed the makeout bench (a place that’s normally fairly secluded when there’s nothing going on at the theatre so people seem to think it’s an ideal place for making out – not realizing the people in the offices can watch them).
Christmas is in full swing in the mall, and so it’s a little noisy. To help me shut it out, I’m listening to Ani DiFranco. These words just caused me pause. I suspect some of those people wandering beneath me in the mall could relate to these lyrics.
what kind of paradise am i looking for?
i’ve got everything i want and still i want more
maybe some tiny shiny key
will wash up on the shore
This morning I heard on the news that Barack Obama was encouraging the heads of the big banks to forego the big bonuses they usually get every year. Ummm…. duh?! Wouldn’t that be a foregone conclusion? I thought the whole purpose of bonuses was to reward people for meeting or exceeding their target. Seems like $900 billion in debt is a little short of the target, wouldn’t you say?
With all my office packing done (and nothing for me to do at work, since my computer is wrapped in bubble wrap), I took the day off today and took myself out on a little artist’s date to a local retreat centre. Mostly I was there to do some writing, but while there I also had some fun with glue, construction paper, and old magazines. When I’m trying to imagine a new project, it’s fun to step away from it for awhile and let my artist-child come out to play. Sometimes great truths can be found when you’re paging through old magazines looking for fun things to glue onto a collage.
I’ve done this activity at leadership and teambuilding workshops sometimes. It’s rather delightful getting a bunch of business people down on the floor, throwing some old magazines around the room, giving them scissors and glue and telling them “get creative, imagine the future, and then tell me what surprises you find in your collage.”
Here are a few clues about what I’m working on.
If, by looking at those little cryptic messages, you guessed “she’s writing a book!” then you would be correct! If you guessed that it’s about art and life and passion and reimagining truth, then you’d also be right. For more clues, you could check out answer #4 in the blog post below this one.
It feels a little scary to admit it, but there it is, out in the open. Now that I said it, I guess I’ll have to actually live up to it and produce something one of these days, or you’ll all call me a liar.
Take a deep breath… and here we go…
Just what you were looking for…
1. How do you put up with 2 kids that are puking AND whining and not just climb back into bed and lock them out of the bedroom?
Ha! If I had the answer to THAT, I could write a parenting book, make millions, and then hire you a nanny so you could lock the bedroom door for a few hours.
Seriously, just like every other mom I know, I just muddled through (and continue to muddle through) and gritted my teeth through the really rough spots.
2. Your life seems very full – you have kids, work, craft, travel….how do you find time for just yourself? What do you do to relax?
Yeah, my life sometimes seems impossibly full, but despite that, I’m actually fairly good at finding time for myself – partly because I have pathetically low standards for some of the things other women excel at, like cleaning house and actually putting the folded laundry back into dresser drawers. (That’s what laundry tables are for – just line everything up in piles for every member of the family and let them fend for themselves.) Part of the reason I’m quite fond of my business travel is that it allows me guilt-free time to do some of my favourite things, like wandering, reading, taking pictures, and spending uninterrupted time in a bookstore. The other thing that helps me find time for relaxation is the fact that I have a really cool husband who is very much an equal partner on the home front – he does most of the cooking and lots of the cleaning and stays more on top of things like what forms are due at school and who has a soccer practice each night – and who sends me out the door when it’s clear that I need some “me time”. One of the other things I do, when the world seems to be unraveling, is take my journal to my son’s grave and write whatever comes to mind. (Sometimes I wish my dad’s grave were closer so I could do it there too.)
3. You’ve traveled all over the world, but where’s one place you haven’t and would love to?
Here are the countries I’ve been to: Canada, U.S., Mexico, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, England, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Greece, France, Holland, and Spain.
And a few of the countries I want to visit some day: Brazil, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Kuala Lumpur (I know that last one is kinda random, but I loved the book Democracy by Joan Didion and that was the first time I ever heard of Kuala Lumpur. I’ve been intrigued ever since.)
4. What do you love to write about most?
Funny you should ask – I’ve been working on building my own website lately (because I want to build up my freelance career in writing and leadership consulting) and I’ve been wrestling with trying to find my “unique voice” so I know what I most want to sell myself as. I’ve done alot of different kinds of writing (poetry, drama, essays, research articles, lots and lots of business writing, and I’ve even written a novel), but I think in recent years, my favourite thing to write would fit in the category of personal essay. If I were to narrow that down even further, I think I would say essays about issues such as social justice, leadership, experiences in other cultures, and unique approaches to spirituality. (I’d love to turn this question around, though – what do YOU most like about what I write?)
5. In your experience, what are most important ingredients necessary for a creative writing workshop?
Ooo… Stephanie, you ask GOOD questions! I think some of the most important ingredients are:
– enough freedom to write in the voice that’s most comfortable, but enough challenge to test voices outside of your comfort zone
– trust among the participants and instructor – that they can respect each other’s unique perspectives and world views
– unique, outside-the-box writing exercises (one of my favourites was a brown bag exercise where each participant was given a brown bag with a few things inside that they had to incorporate into a piece of writing)
– an instructor (or facilitator) who knows the “rules” but is confident enough to know the right time to break them
– an instructor who provides some constructive ideas for how to use/share your writing and challenges people to get good writing out into the world
6. What I want to know is, how does having a cold or allergies affect that nose ring?
The nose ring really has little affect on my life, even when I have a cold. Once you get used to it, it’s pretty easy to blow your nose, wash your face, etc.. Now and then you have to pick the boogers off the little curved wire in the inside (is that too much information?), but it’s really not a big deal. I’ve never regretted it, and the only time it has caused me discomfort was the time shortly after I got it that I caught my ring on it while washing my face in the shower. Ouch.
7. You have a nose ring?
Why, yes… yes I do! I got it on my 4oth birthday (2 and a half years ago) just for fun. I’d wanted to get one back in my twenties, but chickened out because I didn’t think I had the right nose for it (my friend had a lovely regal nose and just seemed to suit it so well) AND I was much too concerned about what people thought of me back then. By 40, I was much more comfortable in my skin and no longer cared as much about what my nose looked like or what other people thought, so I went for it. Call it delayed gratification. 🙂 (Julie is trying to convince me that at 50, I need to get a tattoo. We shall see.)
8. Who’s your favourite sister-in-law?
Well, it’s ccap, don’t ya know? 🙂 (For those who don’t get it, my sister is also my sister-in-law, and since I only have one sister, that seemed like the most politically correct choice.) Truthfully, though, I’m rather found of all of them, INCLUDING YOU, ACCIDENTAL POET/HOUSEWIFE/CANDLE CARVER/BEAUTIFUL WOMAN WHO MARRIED MY TECHNOGEEK BROTHER! (Yes, you’re beautiful, despite what my bumbling 15 year old self once said to you!)
9. Who’s the favourite man in your life?
Why that would be YOU, Mr. Anonymous, a.k.a. Studmuffin Husband!
That was fun. Any more questions?