chaos

Chaos is 22 members of my family converging in a cottage, on an island, for a week. Fun, crazy, stimulating, wonderful, exasperating.... I have no idea what to expect!

How to be unremarkably average

I borrowed this from a remarkable, unconventional thinker. It made me stop in my tracks because so much of this reads like how I've chosen to live parts of my life. The good news is that I am neither going to accept this at face value NOR do I agree that this is how I want to live my entire life!

It still made me think. How do you feel reading it?

Simple Tips for a Risk-Free Life:
Accept what people tell you at face value. Surround yourself with people who think like you. Don’t stand out. Stay close to home. Get a normal job. Do things the way everyone else does, because there has to be a method to the madness.

College
Go to college because someone said you should get a degree, not because you want to learn anything. Take four years to finish, or maybe even five. No one’s counting. Take out student loans to “invest in yourself.” Follow the plan in your course catalog even if you hate some of the classes. Believe your advisor when she says you have to do things a certain way. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.

Personal Finance
Use your credit card as your primary means of spending. Get the largest mortgage you can qualify for. Fill it with plasma TVs and expensive furniture. Buy a big, new car and complain about the cost of gas. Spend all you earn, or maybe even more than you earn. The government will help you if there’s a recession. Spend money on things you don’t want but will help you impress others.
Give token amounts of money to charity. Change the channel when a charity appeal comes on. Believe the 3,000 marketing messages that the average person in the U.S. and Canada receives every day. You need things you’ve never heard of before because they will help you feel better about yourself. You deserve to buy luxury products because you’ve earned the right through your hard work.

Travel
Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England. Tell everyone what a great cross-cultural experience it was to visit London. (“They talk so differently over there!”) Wherever you go, make absolutely sure that you will be safe and comfortable. McDonald’s is now in 119 countries, so you can always find something good to eat.
If you want to be brave, go to somewhere like Mexico. Never travel unaccompanied to any place “really foreign.” Don’t try to speak any language other than English. If people don’t understand you, speak louder. Africa is for safaris and Asia is for cities with big shopping malls. Don’t drink the water!

Work
Work at a job you don’t like for the majority of your professional life. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work. One day, the corner cubicle will be all yours. Until then, get really good at Minesweeper. Read every article on CNN.com every day. Attend useless meetings. Take the credit when things go right. Put the blame on someone else when things go wrong. Never take responsibility for anything. When you fail at something, resolve to never try again.
Form alliances of convenience to survive office conflict. When you are forced to mediate a disagreement, make your judgment on the basis of personality instead of principle. To advance in management, don’t confront anyone and only give positive reviews. Instead of trying to fix big problems, focus on unproductive work that everyone notices. In times of crisis, wonder out loud what someone will do. Polish the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Authority
Don’t question authority; it’s there for a good reason. Believe in and actively defend “the way things used to be” even if your memory is hazy about when that actually was. Feel threatened by new ideas. Never be the voice of dissent. Support your country’s foreign policy when it is popular and reject it when it is unpopular. Don’t wonder about someone’s motivations for pursuing one choice over another.

***
Don’t worry, be happy
Don’t worry about being average, because no one will ever question you about it. Average is the status quo. Politicians pander to the average out of political necessity. When they try to promote their own unconventional ideas, they quickly learn how risky it is to be truly different. If you go through life following this advice, you’ll find yourself in good company with virtually everyone who lives an unremarkably average life.

What more could you want?

camp SARK

I signed up for an e-camp with SARK - the quirky, inspirational, creative soul who seems to pop into my world at just the most perfect times.

Camp is 30 days of thought-provoking emails to get your juices flowing. To dig deep into your world of words and see what comes to the surface. I thought it would be fun to play a little, before school starts. Something to challenge and excite me.

Today was Day 1:
1. Create a list of gorgeous moments
2. Write about one item on that list more deeply
3. Create another list of gorgeous moments, centering around nature and the outdoors
4. Write a poem from the contents of the list

gorgeous moments, list #2:
- Sunshine on my face
- Wind whipping around my hair
- The smell of the ocean
- The roar of waves crashing on the shore
- The sound of birds in the early mornings
- The deafening vibration of frogs in the summer
- The crackling sound of an orange hot fire; flames licking the wood
- Fresh rain on the grass
- Watching animals just be
- Lilac bushes in the spring
- Hiking to the top of a mountain – my heart pounding with exertion and altitude, the blood coursing through my body, tingling my fingers, and the breathtaking feeling of being able to fall off the world

The world outside
I crested the top of the mountain
Feeling the sunshine on my face.
The wind whipped around my hair
And I could smell the ocean.
Like the salt of your skin when I pulled you close.

I stood still – my heart pounding with exertion and altitude –
and I could feel the blood coursing through my body.
My fingers tingled, in time with the roar of waves crashing on the shore.

I knew that I would be here, watching you;
Hearing the crackling sound of an orange hot fire as the flames licked the wood.
Like I’d lick my lips after our kiss.

And the sweat between us; as fragrant as fresh rain on the grass
Would quench my thirst. Until the next time.
The next breathtaking feeling of being able to fall off the world.

-lml, July 24

sewing love

I held her face between my hands and I kissed her furrowed brow. Trying to soften the deep fissures that threatened to reveal the depths of her sorrow. I smoothed back her hair and looked into her eyes. I told her that our little patches, little fabrics of love - the pieces of ourselves that we share with the people we treasure and the people who fill our souls - can be sewn together to make a beautiful quilt. Alone, that one square may seem small and insignificant. But together, they bring warmth, comfort and peace. That beautiful weight that envelopes and covers you just before you drift off to sleep.

I told her that was what family was. And I told her that was what she had in her life already. That she just needed to bring those pieces together and sew her own quilt. And then I wiped the tears from her face and kissed her lips.

~ That was my dream last night. I don't know who I was speaking to but the message moved me a great deal.

social - work - life

Those people who know me know that I'm a social person. I truly enjoy people. I like interacting with people on a regular basis. The times when I'm not around folks, I often feel a little hollow - a little askew - like something is missing or something is off.

I guess I am a bit of a community whore - I like being around people. I like sharing laughter and friendship. I like feeling that I belong. I know I feed off the positive energy that comes with connecting. And I'm equally as affected by interactions with people who send off negative energy.

So, it's been an interesting discovery for me to realize that 9 months into my new job (I guess it's technically not new any more), I've yet to make a close connection. Don't get me wrong - there are some fun and talented, interesting, enlightened, and really beautiful people who work here - but I'm not participating. I'm not engaged. I'm eating lunches alone, working on an independent team who functions quite competently on their own, and I'm not socializing with folks outside of work.

Interesting.

I suspect some of these tendencies have to do with the fact that I'm changing; gearing up for school and anticipating that I will be busy and unable to have much of an existence outside of work/school. I suspect some of it may also be that's my extroverted and social tendencies are shifting. I'm more restless, more impatient with myself, less open to the world around me.

A lot of those feelings have to do with me steeling myself for the next year and half. Some of those feelings have to do with many unanswered, "what is my purpose in life?" questions that I have in front of me. Some has to do with learning to hunker down and get done what needs to be done in the little time that I have. Some has to do with recognizing that the people I am close to are blazing off on their life journeys. Some has to do with anxieties coming to surface.

Wherever these feelings come from, I'm just quietly observing this shift in me. Recognizing that it's a change, a rather momentous one, in my life and my temperament and my desires. Acknowledging that it's neither permanent nor absolute.

Happiness in the midst of Blues

To me, there is nothing more that screams "It's summer!" than a series of outdoor concerts, hot weather, cold drinks, throngs of people laughing, waving their arms, connecting with friends and loved ones, singing and dancing, and getting up to mischief.

It's Bluesfest time in Ottawa. It's time for 10 days of bliss. Time to put you day-to-day drudgery aside; all those noisy, irksome responsibilities. It's time to put on some comfortable clothes (don't forget your shades!) and head down the Lebreton Flats for a rockin' good time. Discover some new sounds, hear some old favorites, let everything else go in the presence of music.

See you there!

Right brain vs Left brain

I watched this video of a brain scientist who had a stroke. She used her stroke as an opportunity to really understand how the left brain and the right brain work. (Talk about the ultimate science experiment!) She goes into great detail about the differences between these two parts of our brain; blending spirituality and science in a captivating way.

Watch it for yourself! I'd love to hear what you think.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html