Stuff I didn’t do today, or, I know what happiness tastes like

These are some of the things I didn’t do today, each one of which had at least some remote possibility of occurring:

• Clean house
• Eat 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables
• Floss (don’t tell my dentist)
• Put in two hours on the bike trainer doing sweaty intervals
• Take Younger Daughter to her two performances in Charlotte’s Web
• Pick Younger Daughter up from her two performances in Charlotte’s Web
• Update the Web site for Bike to Work Spokane to reflect this year’s plans and send a bunch of organizing emails to committee members
• Update my Quicken connection to my credit union account and balance my checkbook

These are the things I did do today:

• Ride my bike in the sunshine to Spokane Yoga Shala, where I made it through 90 minutes of a really sweaty yoga session alongside my friend Betsy
• Bake whole wheat/oatmeal bread
• Read some entertaining blog posts (thanks, FADKOG, for the usual laugh-out-loud experience) and some that contributed to my professional knowledge (a link you will follow only if you’re interested in higher ed use of Facebook and Twitter), and make extensive use of the “mark all as read” option in Google Reader so I could feel all caught up
• Go shopping with the aforementioned Betsy and get some seriously cute new shoes* for only $8.96, along with a couple of very sensible sweater sets that were not $8.96 (*You can't tell from the photo but these are a beautiful deep bronze-y metallic brown. Yes, my feet will hurt after a day in these. No, that doesn't matter.)
• Browse at a bookstore and make notes about ones to put on my request list at Spokane Public Library (how I love being able to request a book online! I get an email when it’s available, I pick it up. Magic.)
• Make the vegetarian tacos my daughters requested for dinner
• Prepare a batch of Rice Krispies Treats—only to be honest, they are Generic Crispy Rice Treats—that my family has almost finished off within about 30 minutes of finding them

Any guilt over the first list? Nope. (Well, maybe the fruits and veggies thing, although I did have a few servings.)

Without going all profound on you, I’ll just say that I have gotten far better at cutting myself some slack and not beating myself up over things undone than I was 20 or even 10 years ago.

I used to lie awake nights berating myself for all the things I hadn’t done that had been on the oh-god-can-it-really-be-this-long? to-do list that I kept both on paper and with some extras in a mental tally.

Extras like, “One of these days I really need to go through all those boxes of memory stuff, organize everything, set up some scrapbooks, write names and dates on all the photos, and create a lasting legacy of curatorial splendor for my children to ignore after I’m dead.”

Or, “It’s been far too long since I took all the books out of the shelves, dusted and polished the bookcases, and reorganized the books to figure out which ones I can put in a box in the car with every intention of trading them in at Auntie’s Bookstore sometime within the next six months so I can buy some more.”

Or, “The bathroom feels grungy. I need to do one of those deep-cleaning sessions where you start with the ceiling and work your way down. While I’m at it I’ll take everything out of the storage closet, pretend we’re moving, get rid of anything I wouldn’t pack if we really were moving, run to the store for some pretty containers to organize the cotton balls and Q-Tips, repair the broken bracelet that has been in a little container with tiny tiny beads and jewelry wire for the past six years, and turn some of those old T-shirts into eco-friendly grocery bags by following directions on the Martha Stewart web site.”

THAT kind of to-do list.

This went on until one sleepless night—out of desperation or inspiration, I don’t know which—I got up and took out my journal (which, at the time, I wrote in pretty faithfully every day or every other day; since then, it has become a victim of the slack-cutting I’m writing about here).

I initially intended to write a list of all the things that belonged on the to-do list, since I was lying awake worrying that I would forget some detail or other on some work project.

Instead—I wish I knew why because then I could write self-help books, make millions and retire to a life of yoga, coffee, cycling and naps—I wrote down everything I DID do that day. And I mean everything. I had cooked a healthy breakfast for my daughters. I had moved some projects along. I had made time to go exercise. And on and on.

What do you know? Turns out I accomplish a boatload of stuff in a perfectly ordinary day. I deserve credit for that. You do. We all do. So I don’t even need to feel guilty that I haven’t posted on this blog for a month.

I don’t know if this all fits the Bicycling Magazine Fit Chick’s definition of a balancing act, but I know what happiness tastes like—Generic Crispy Rice Treats.

I’ll get a rise out of you: Bread-baking meditation

The timer dinged next to my head. I awoke in disoriented grogginess from my nest of blankets on the living room floor, an old black and white movie flickering quietly on the TV set. Time to check the bread dough and see if it had risen to the appropriate level of springiness, whatever that was--this novice bread-baker wasn't sure and she had a long way to go before she tasted bread.

Bread Baking 101 lesson learned one Saturday night in high school, many years ago: Read the recipe all the way through. 

In your mouth-watering anticipation of the cinnamon swirl bread recipe in your mom’s Joy of Cooking, you may miss the cumulative clock effect of two risings in the bowl, followed by a third rising in the pan. Thus you may find yourself sleeping on the living room floor, the retreat you chose in recognition of the deep, deep abyss of sleep into which you will fall if you get into an actual bed since you are Sleeper Girl.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, off and on over the years I’ve been a bread baker. Usually whole wheat, sometimes bricklike. I used the Kitchen-Aid I got as a wedding present in 1986 from Grandma Humphrey so much for the kneading phase that eventually it gave off a light burning aroma when I ran it with those heavy batches of whole grain.

This led to The Great Kitchen-Aid Debacle. It makes me sad to relate this tale, as my mother raised me to believe in the brand virtues of Kitchen-Aid. She wasn’t wrong, as that 1986 mixer ran well into the early 2000s (outlasting the marriage). It worked even with the light burning smell, but that made me a tad nervous.

Hence my decision to invest in the new heavy-duty model with a bigger engine. BIG mistake. About five minutes into the second batch of bread dough the thing stopped dead. I mean DEAD. What the--? Let it rest a minute or two, try again. Nothing. I had the joy of finishing a big batch of bread dough kneading by hand when that hadn’t been part of my time calculation for the process.

This heat death happened not once, and not twice. When the third one quit—the second replacement unit—I just gave up. The guy at the local small-appliance repair shop (these do actually still exist, at least in Spokane) told me I could spend $75 on parts and labor and still have a problem because this super-duper Kitchen-Aid came from a line that had a faulty thermostat or some such.

The mixer sat in the garage for a while and then eventually disappeared, possibly in a cleaning/donating frenzy. I didn’t bake bread for a while. Life got pretty full and the hours it took to knead dough by hand and then tend it through three risings seemed too big a commitment.

I wondered why today as I stood at the kitchen counter, rocking slightly as I leaned into the batch of whole wheat bread with yogurt and quinoa I was kneading. The calm of the kitchen soothes me and I achieve a level of meditative peace as I work the dough.

I can’t tweet or post Facebook updates or read email while I’m kneading bread. I can’t get distracted and turn from the activity I’m engaged in to something else entirely and then jump back the way I do at work with my two monitors and long to-do list. I can't go to Google in search of some random factoid and find myself an hour and a half later catching up on my blog reading backlog. (Thank all the gods for "mark all as read." Those people at Google know me.)

There is only the bread, and the anticipation of eating it warm from the oven with butter and honey.

I stand where I can’t see the clock so I can truly get lost in the rhythm. The New Laurel's Kitchen serves as the holy text for my practice. Its friendly and practical descriptions of what to look for and how to turn dough into various items has tempted me from straight whole wheat bread loaves into whole wheat pita, wheat/oatmeal, and this week’s wheat/quinoa/yogurt rendered as a loaf and eight English muffins.

The first loaf always disappears in a family feeding frenzy reminiscent of those South American death-by-piranha scenes in bad old jungle movies (probably what I watched all those years ago on my lonely bread-rising vigil). The second might last a day or two longer. Since I can’t devote a full day midweek to a second batch we do still buy some store bread for sandwiches, but I’d like to drop that and turn out a batch of four loaves on the weekend to get us through the week.

Problem is, I really can’t knead THAT much dough alone. I’ll need a Kitchen-Aid….

Thank you for the gift of friendship: Goodbye, Christianne

This post is an extended version of an email I sent out today to the wonderful women of Second Saturdays. The notes I got back as replies made me think I should post this and give them the chance to add to it, if they want to.

First, the saddest thing I've had to type in a long time: The memorial service for Christianne Sharman is this Saturday, Jan. 30, 4pm at Millwood Presbyterian. 

Many of us knew and loved Chrissie. It is just SHITTY (there is no other word for it—good thing Mom isn’t on the Internet to watch my language) that she is gone. She was such a strong and beautiful woman who taught me things without even knowing she did.

I miss her.

She never knew that she herself was the inspiration for Second Saturdays, the “grownup friendship space” I’ve blogged about. I should have told her this story when I could.

I had been meeting all these great women in various circles and wishing I could get to know them better, but never really doing anything about it. I got to know Chrissie a bit thanks to suggesting her as a possible board member for what was then the Spokane PR Council (now the Spokane Regional MarComm Association).

(I don't know if she ever knew THAT, either--that I was the one who suggested her for the board--not sure she would have thanked me since she ended up being the treasurer, which is always a thankless job in any small all-volunteer board :D).

I was so impressed with her and wanted to get to know her better, but didn't have a way to do that because we were all so busy being board members when we met.

So I sent out that first email suggesting the idea that we need to schedule girlfriend time--not just with people who are our friends now, but with people who might be great friends if we had the time to get to know each other. I went through my contact list and picked lots of wonderful women I encountered in professional circles.

We have so few playgrounds in our adult lives that it's tough to get to know someone at the swingset or teeter-totter level. Hence that first gathering at Rockwood Bakery years ago.

I don't even know how many years ago now, but others who were there at the beginning think we may have started in 1999. Over ten years? I believe it. 

At the same time, thinking about how quickly those years have flown, I realize all over again how easy it is to lose track of time, to forget to say the things you need to say and to see your friends because calendars get full.

Why didn’t I just call her up and see if she wanted to have coffee? Well, I was shy. (Insert maniacal laughter here from people who know me.) But I was.

She was so strong, and so very clear about her boundaries. That had already come through in our board meetings, where she was polite and firm about what she would and would not take on as a board member. If she declined the coffee I would never know if she didn’t have time, or wasn’t really interested in getting to know me beyond our contact as board members. She would be too kind to hurt my feelings.

It sounds so funny to me now, all these years later after having the privilege of her friendship. But back then it was kind of like giving a party in high school to which you invite the guy or girl you secretly like.

You hope he/she won’t end up hooking up with your best friend at the party. You hope you’ll have a long and meaningful talk in somewhat dim lighting, planting the seeds for something that blossoms over time. Having other people around provides a social buffer so you’re not left hanging while your heart gets broken.

Okay, now I’m really taking dramatic license. But I do remember feeling slightly (or more than slightly) intimidated and at the same time hopeful that I was about to make a new and fantastic friend in Christianne, along with all the other great women of Second Saturdays.

It worked. We did form those friendships. No dim lighting, just great coffee and pastries and conversation. And Chrissie, with her beautiful long hair, scarves draped carelessly around her neck in that effortless way that magazine stylists strive to imitate, such a style and strength and kindness, all that warmth and encouragement, funny, wry insights and indignation about crazy/bad politics and focused listening so you knew she really heard what you said. 

I still hear her voice.

Thank you, Chrissie, for all your gifts to me as your friend.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light: Phrases not to use in my obituary

Get real. People die. Do it all the time. Right now, this very minute.

But usually not in the obituaries, nosirree bob. What happens there, according to my hometown paper, is that people:

• Pass away, sometimes peacefully/ at home/ with family at one’s side/ following a courageous X-year battle with [disease name here]
• Go to be with our Lord, or with our Lord and Savior (in our town, at least since I started paying attention, no one has gone to Paradise, attained moksha or nirvana or samadhi, or moved on to any other non-Christian afterlife destination)
• Enter into rest
• (or, more dramatically and definitively) Pass into eternal rest
• (with more detail about how they qualified for the rest) Peacefully are set free and enter into an eternal rest
• (in fiestier mode) Fight [disease name here] successfully for X years but finally succumb

Today was an exception to the general DER (Death Euphemism Rule). Four people actually up and died, according to their obituaries. (For a much more entertaining short list of euphemisms with a lot more down-home flavor, see this page.)

Writing obituaries is an art, as observed by a writer for the Washington Post. There’s even a study about the obituary from which I learned that obituary publishing site Legacy.com is one of the 100 most visited on the Web. Who knew?

I read the obituaries every so often. Not just to find out whether I’m listed so I can get on with my day, as Benjamin Franklin once observed.

Sometimes I mean to scan the page quickly, but something catches my eye: someone dies quite young, or at an extremely advanced age, or has the same last name as someone I know, or has an especially appealing twinkle in the eye in whatever photo the survivors chose.

Sometimes I read every last one in a kind of silent homage to the lives they led, whether they were World War II veterans like my dad (still alive at 92), a woman who spent most of her life in Catholic orders, or a good ol’ boy who loved hunting, fishing and hanging out with his buddies (they may even name a favorite tavern where he’ll be missed, in this type).

Life companions, remarriages, children and grandchildren and stepchildren, work lives and military service—an entire life captured in a couple of hundred words.

Families pay for the obituaries I’m reading and presumably provide the information. I like it best when it feels like a truly well-rounded view of the person, not just the shiny outer shell. If I get a sense that the person loved to laugh, formed lasting friendships and left behind a family that will miss him or her, that tells me more about a life well lived than honors and awards.

What makes it harder right now is that I have a friend who is dying. When that obituary appears, it is one that will make people say, "Oh, so young!" and "I didn't even know she was sick."

I'm close enough to have visited her in these days of winding down, but so many people would be on a "short" list for phone calls that I may not know she has died until I read it in the paper.

That gives this section more weight every day, and I know that no matter how wonderfully it's written her obituary will not capture all her strength, grace and beauty. I don't think she would opt for the euphemism, but that's not my call.

As for me, I suppose that thanks to my time as an elected official I might rate an actual article, not a paid piece that my family has to come up with while they’re still grieving (I assume—you’d miss me, right?). But that would focus on the externals of public service, not on whether I was a decent mom to my kids and stepchildren, a friend you could rely on, a generally good person, kind, or a great cook J.

When I first started blogging I stumbled across a timeline site, Dipity. I started building my life chronology, although I also noted in a blog post that life isn’t just chronology.

It will do as well as anything for that official business of what/when/where, so can my obit (written many, many years from now, I hope) say a little more about the why and the who? And you can just say that I died. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
Mary Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.