Category Archives: deep thoughts

Today’s Most Important Thing

Because some days, the most important thing is taking some time for coffee with Stijn.

Because some days, the most important thing is taking some time for a spiced latte with Stijn.

I often feel a bit at odds with “productivity” articles. Perhaps this resistance began last year when I realized that most of my goals were actually about slowing down and reducing the frantic, seemingly “productive,” pace that I’d been maintaining and that probably led to some of the significant health problems that I was grappling with.

So lately, to combat the tendency to fritter away much of my time at time-consuming tasks that aren’t actually all that productive, I’ve started each day with a question for myself:

What’s the most important thing that I could accomplish today?

Leading with that question, rather than beginning with whatever is screaming on my To-Do list, is not only giving me more peace of mind, but is also helping me to better-prioritize my daily work schedule.

Note: This excellent article at ProfHacker is what inspired my thoughts about productivity this morning…

confessions of a sort-of-organized-minimalist

my vintage lingerie, folded and organized into my drawer

At a recent work party I had to offer one detail about my life that none of my coworkers already knew. My “secret” was that I have moved my household 14 times in the past 20 years. Ugh. And have I mentioned just how much I hate moving? (maybe once or twice)

One of my coping mechanisms for having relocated so many times is to live a fairly bare-bones existence. Just about every time I am tempted to buy something I imagine myself exhausted and packing boxes and ask myself if that new widget is really worth the effort that it will take to relocate it when the time comes (as it inevitably will). Though I’m no Miss Minimalist, I’m not too far off from that end of the extreme, either.

Despite the fact that I’ve already internalized a fairly simple lifestyle, when a friend recommended The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering & Organizing, I downloaded a copy of the book despite an earlier decision to avoid decluttering self-help books. I found that it affirmed a few of the habits that I’ve already incorporated into my life. For example, I only keep things that I love (or as Kondo says, “items that bring delight”). So if an item has a bad memory associated with it, or if it brings up negative feelings rather than pleasure, then off it goes to the Goodwill. Ditto for items that are redundant or broken or threadbare. Then for those delightful items that make the cut and stay in my home, I find a permanent place for them so I can put them away and keep the house tidy.

One element of Kondo’s book that rang especially true for me is that she recommends folding one’s clothing and linens into tidy squares and stowing it upright, in drawers. A favorite time of the week is Sunday afternoon when I’m doing laundry and I take the warm clothes out of the dryer and fold them into tidy piles based on who they belong to and/or where they are stored in the house. I have particular folding patterns for cloth napkins and bathowels and tshirts and sweaters and skivvies. For me there’s a lot of comfort in the ritual of folding the same dishtowels and tank tops and pajamas every week, and I especially love how the fabrics of such things become softer with age (and as I touch each item, in my mind I rehearse the story of how I acquired it–that crazy pair of socks from Portland or that blouse from Brussels or the tidy stack of matching washcloths that I bought to mark my move from my student apartment to my first real house).

The satisfaction that I feel from folding my laundry is certainly heightened by the fact that such rituals are how I have made “home” in so many places so quickly over the years. Because home has not been a precise location, but a set of comfortable behaviors that I brought along with all of those packing boxes, to each new space.

resolved #2, 2015

This photo has nothing whatsoever to do with poetry. It’s a snap of the kids sitting on the back porch in the sunshine over the holidays. 🙂

For those of you who are longtime readers of my blog, you know that I have a certain fascination with poetry. At times I’ve penned a bit of poetry for this space and have often linked to, or included poetry in my posts.

Why poetry? I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with the chewiness and brevity of a poem. It does so much work in so little space. This appeals to the minimalist in me.

So as a way to include my poetry in my year, I resolved to listen to The Writer’s Almanac podcast each morning as I sit down to breakfast. I must say that it’s great to start the day with beautiful words.

resolved

Photo taken at sunset on a long ramble in Central Park, January 2015.

Last year, my resolutions were:
-sleep more
-cook most of my meals at home
-plant a bigger veggie garden
-fret less about money
-read more books
-take long walks
-write for pleasure
-own less stuff
-do yoga, daily
-go camping, monthly
-be a better friend/neighbor/colleague/family member
-live closer to where I work

Though I did not do as much camping as I’d hoped to when I penned this list, I believe that three months of homeless research sabbatical, probably counts a bit towards the camping goal. I also didn’t grow too many veggies (see: homelessness), so I am rolling that goal over to 2015.

Perhaps the accomplished goals that give me the most satisfaction are the daily yoga, being a better friend, and walking more. The ones that I hope to continue on into this next year include writing for pleasure and increasing the number of home-cooked meals.

In addition to these very personal resolutions I also set a number of aims for my scholarly productivity. Checking many of these goals off of my to-do list has brought a great sense of accomplishment. I feel so very fortunate to have a work environment where I am constantly striving and mastering new things.

and 10 years later…

Tonight I attended the 10 year anniversary of the groundbreaking of the Fish Interfaith Center at Chapman U. The dedication of the Interfaith Center was the first time that I set foot on the Chapman campus–I’m not even sure I knew that the university existed before that.

I covered the dedication for the Mormon news media and interviewed Jeffrey Holland, a visiting apostle of the LDS church who spoke at the event. Some photos:

It was impossible not to sit in that space tonite and reflect on all that’s happened in the last decade…

That Chapman is now “home” to me and the Mormon church is not, is such a dramatic turn of events that it seems hard to believe that it was a mere 10 years since that I sat in the Chapel chatting with Elder Holland. I look at the me in those photos and wonder if she could have ever imagined the me now. I suspect not.

But I also see clues of who she was becoming: the long dark skirt (which later became my simple Quaker attire), the business-like button-down (almost like the one I wore to work today), the short simple hair, and the obvious curiosity that registers in my posture and which has continued as a constant in my journey ever since.

Because I am not an “IT Guy”

While I was at THATCamp DHSoCal last weekend, I heard numerous attendees refer disparagingly to their “IT Guy” or “those guys at IT.” The references made me uncomfortable because I am an affiliate of IS&T at Chapman (and I’m not a “guy”) and because the term was generally used to indicate staff who are unhelpful and uninclined academically. The term “IT Guy” often appeared in the same sentence as “Blackboard” to compound the insult.

Apart from my concern that Chapman faculty might feel negatively about me or others from my Office because of our IT role, this trend of dissing IT staff is especially disconcerting for those of us who inhabit the Digital Humanities. Because, for our projects to be both attainable and sustainable we very much need IT support and resources. Disparaging (or dehumanizing) those who have technical roles at the university can only widen gaps that might already exist in the organizational structure of our campuses, and thereby reinforce barriers to team-building and project progress.

Perhaps I am particularly sensitive to this issue given that I’ve worked so hard over that past four years at Chapman to gain the trust of faculty and staff. That work has included my attempt to speak and write in ways that don’t alienate others by using technical jargon or assuming a certain level of academ-ese. Also, I purposefully refer to IT staff by their names, roles, and/or titles rather than as the generic “IT guy” (just as I do when I discuss faculty or administrators).*

Because, while the divides between “operations” and “academics” are undoubtedly deep at many campuses, that does not mean that there should not be efforts to effect change, and using inclusive language to describe our colleagues is one big step towards doing so.

*at Chapman we have a CIO who is a woman, about half of IT directors are women, and many of the affiliated technical staff are also women–I suspect that it is a rare IT division that does not include many women.

The glamour (of travel)

This article (h/t Steve) about the so-called glamour of travel hit home with me tonite…

Although the past few weeks of traveling have had more than their fair share of glamour, if you’d seen me schlepping around the city today, you probably would’ve wondered if I was homeless–carrying too many travel bags and crutches and an umbrella, wearing clothes that hadn’t been washed in 2 weeks that included mismatched socks, scratching at my many mosquito bites, looking for somewhere cozy to sit while I people-watched. It was fun, but it was not glamorous…I was a bit cranky and achy and trying to find a fun way to pass the hours until we could get the key to our temporary apartment. We ended up finding a fun little street fair to wander, but after so many of ‘those’ looks from bystanders, we realized that luggage-carrying odiferous and slightly grubby (although happy and well-intentioned) tourists were not really welcome there…

The good news is that my clothes are now I the laundry (yay and please keep your fingers crossed that this odd Finnish washing machine does the job) and tomorrow I will once again be fresh and maybe even just a wee bit glamorous. But tonite, I’m settling for a cozy and domestic and not-so-fancy evening in my gym clothes, writing and making lists of things that need to get done before we launch again….

(photo taken last night from the deck of our ship, in the rain, as the sun was dipping low on the horizon)

I was lost and then I was found…

Today got started a bit late and it seemed that so many things were going wrong. That was confirmed when I accidentally ended up on a bus heading to the wrong city with only 40 cents in my pocket–not enough for any kind of bus fare to get to where I needed to be. And of course I was in a country where I don’t speak the language, not even a few basic words…

I wasn’t feeling very adventurous at that moment. In fact, I was near tears. I was looking around, wondering who I might beg to help me. (It didn’t help that I had another freak out dream last night, once where I was in the middle of a shooting incident at a college campus, waking up as the shots were ringing all around me at the same time that some passersby we’re screaming outside my bedroom window). I was tired and rather desperate for something familiar…

So, the bus driver helped me figure out what to do to get where I wanted to go, and due to his kindness the next bus driver let me ride for free. And then I got to where I wanted to be, which turned out to be magical. I took a long stroll into the woods, letting myself get lost and not caring, knowing that the road was not far and that I needed some time to clear my head and recover from the fears of earlier.

That that walk ended up in a picturesque ramble through a patch of knee-high stinging nettle should hardly surprise me given the many things that already went wrong.

But then again, so much more went right than went wrong, and I know that someday I’ll such a great story to tell as a result….

P.S. The internet gremlins aren’t allowing me to upload any photos today, so that will have to wait for another time….

Things can happen…

gorgeous peonies at the market this morning

When in the end, the day came on which I was going away, I learned the strange learning that things can happen which we ourselves cannot possibly imagine, either beforehand, or at the time when they are taking place, or afterwards when we look back on them.” – Out of Africa, 1937

Realizing today just how much of my life has been beyond my imagination–both for the good and for the bad. It seems one of those truths that is most easily recognized at moments of transition.

And, channeling my inner Karen Blixen as a reminder to keep writing and telling my stories even in the midst of so much change…

control issues

Some mornings I wake up realizing that all night long I’ve worried about stuff in my dreams, hashing and re-hashing things over which I have no control.

Last night was one of those nights.

I woke up early this morning, my mind racing with everything to do. And I was stressed out before the day even began (this, on the heels of a day where Stijn said that I was finally looking relaxed and “myself” again…). My morning fears were confirmed as I realized that my extra leg battery had gone missing and that it hadn’t charged overnight.

Sometimes I feel so vulnerable, where the inability to charge my knee will mean a loss of mobility and heaps of frustration (and pain). I’m not sure what to do with that vulnerability except to recognize it for what it is and to check (once again) that my batteries are charged and at the ready. I can’t plan for everything that might go wrong, but somehow I will still keep trying to do so.

The wooden ceiling of an ancient Beguine chapel.

But of course there have been days that everything has gone wrong (I’m thinking of that trip to China a few years ago when my new bionic knee completely malfunctioned) or those random moments where I’ve completely lost my charge or just a few days ago when my foot fell off while I was walking home from the market and I had to zombie-drag myself two blocks while leaning on Stijn’s arm. So far, I’ve survived just fine. Every time.

So why do I still spend so much time worrying?

PilgrimSteps

just one step at a time…