Molly Davis's Blog, page 28

Planting The Fields Of The New Year

With two days left in the year it is tempting to start drafting a mental list of resolutions for the year ahead. What we will change, do, not do, etc, etc. etc. While that isn’t necessarily a bad approach, it might not be the best approach either. Or maybe it just isn’t the best place to start. Instead of looking ahead just yet, maybe these are the final hours of looking back. Of taking stock of how 2019 has equipped us to step into a new year, and a new decade, more at home in our own skin, and more resolved to connect who we are with how we live. Every experience, good, bad, ugly, or otherwise has the potential of helping us become more true to who we are and what we care about.

Before beginning another trip around the sun, let’s find time to look back and harvest the gifts of the past in order to sow fruitful seeds for the future.

Over The River And Through The Woods

In conversation with others about holiday plans, there is often reference to what could best be called an obligatory trip to visit parents and grandparents. The kind of trek made out of a sense of duty. Maybe relationships have become strained, political viewpoints sit across aisles that seem too wide to cross, or years-old wounds have never healed. Whatever the reason, such trips are difficult at best, and even damaging at worst.

Whenever I hear others speak of making such trips it reminds me of how much I don’t ever want to become one of those people who is the recipient of a visit made out of a sense of obligation rather than connection, one of duty rather than delight.

How do we become the elders that people can’t wait to visit?

Is it by becoming stuck in our ways?

Is it by being certain of what the younger generation should do to fix their lives?

Is it by sticking to our political, moral, and religious guns no matter what?

Probably not.

Photo: Pexels

Making Peace With It

We all have something we wish we could control, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could fix, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could change, but can’t.

Whatever it is, it is time to make peace with it.

Photo by Pixaby on Pexels

Is This The ______________ That I Want?

Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

Young Love

If I loved Christmas when I was a youngster, I loved Christmas night most of all. That was when the house grew quiet, the fire got another log, and a new world opened up with the turn of the first page of my new book. Every year that new book was the present I looked forward to more than any other. It fed an early love of the written word, which grew into the love of penning my own. It was then, and is now, a love that asks to be fed, and in feeding it, I am the one who is nourished.

What we come to love in life often shows up in our earliest years. Whatever your is, it is a love that deserves to be fed. Feed it well, and you will be the one who is nourished.

A stack of food for thought-Christmas 2019

Christmas Then & Now

When I was a little girl Christmas was one of my favorite times of the year.

It wasn’t so much about the presents under the tree as it was about the gathering together around the tree.

It wasn’t the amazement that Santa could make it down the chimney, although I did think that was pretty cool, but about the fire that blazed in our fireplace all season long.

It wasn’t the call from my dad’s friend Jack Figenson to let me know that Santa and his sleigh just flew over their house and I’d better get to bed, but the certainty I had that magic is as real as anything else.

It wasn’t the nativity scene that we put up every year to recreate that long ago story of the birth of a baby, but that I never once questioned the idea that the Love that set all of creation in motion would want to join us in our humanity.

My childish mind couldn’t imagine that the Love that is behind, and around, and within everyone and everything would want anything other than to live amongst us.

To this day, I can’t imagine anything else.

Unnoticed Resources

One of my favorite exercises when working with teams involves a can of Tinkertoys. At the end of the activity, in which each team has been given a can of these wooden toys with which to complete an assigned task, we debrief the lessons learned. While there are many that come out of it, my favorite is the discovery of unnoticed resources that are close at hand but rarely used. Resources that are so close and so familiar that we lose sight of their value. This insight certainly applies to the workplace, but it applies everywhere else as well.

One such resource is right outside our door back door, and it is our gravel road. The obvious purpose of the road is access to and from our home. But that ordinary gravel road has so much more hidden value than merely a way to come and go.

On that gravel road, new friendships have been born and old ones renewed.On that gravel road, old wounds have been uncovered so that reconciliation could occur.

On that gravel road, many a writer’s block has been removed.

On that gravel road, thoughts are cleared, problems resolved, questions answered, and the frustration of a Seahawks loss fades away (almost).

On that gravel road, thresholds have been crossed and lives changed. (Hello BLUSH: Women & Wine-page 6)

On that gravel road, a dog takes her humans for a daily walk.

On that gravel road, the courage is found to ask for help.

On that gravel road, it becomes safe to have courageous conversations and to ponder scary questions.

On that gravel road, bodies are moved, hearts are strengthened, and lungs are filled with clear, mountain air.

And, on that gravel road, marriages are strengthened, children loved, babies held, and life is shared.

If an ordinary gravel road, right outside our door can provide so much value, how many other unnoticed resources are close at hand just waiting to be discovered?

Something Afoot Just Beyond Our Sight

This morning, Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle and I were out for our normal morning walk, but somehow it didn’t feel like a normal morning. Rather than wander about and explore as she usually does, she stayed close, stopping often to peer out into the woods as if sensing that something, or someone, was afoot, just beyond our sight.

Partway down the road I stopped and turned around, the sky above the hills behind our home ablaze with color. Gold, pink, orange, and crimson. Reaching for my phone to capture the image, probably for use in a blog, I was disappointed to realize that I had left it at home.

In that moment it was as if whatever it was, and it was something, that was afoot in the woods and just beyond our sight, invited us to stop observing the moment and actually be in the moment.

Time stopped. The mental chatter silenced, and the sounds of cars on the road faded away. It was just a girl and her dog on the road. Gracie quietly sat down and together we weren’t watching life, we were life. The calls of two ravens caused us both to turn around just in time to see them emerge from the pines, leisurely making their way to the grove of cottonwood trees just beyond the fence. Landing on the highest branch they talked to one another as ravens do, taking turns, not talking over one another as humans often do. Just beyond the cottonwoods the morning sun was hitting the flanks of Mt. Adams, the light beating back the darkness, as given time, the light will always do.

The ravens flew off, still deep in conversation. Gracie and I watched until they disappeared from sight beyond the pine trees. Turning to head back to the house, the sky that had just minutes before been bright with color was now just so many shades of gray.

The moment was over.

Walking back to the house I wondered how often whatever it was, and it was something, that was afoot in the woods and just beyond our sight, is beckoning us to stop observing the moment and actually be in the moment. To stop watching life and be life. My hunch is, whatever it is, and it is something, is there all the time.

(NO PHOTO FOR OBVIOUS REASONS)

Self-Imposed

How do we determine what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and when it must be done?

It’s true that we all make commitments that we need to follow through on like it or not, and, there are deadlines that are unmovable and non-negotiable.

But.

What about those deadlines we create for ourselves even though no one else is waiting for us to hold fast to our self-imposed timing? Or the self-inflicted expectations that others don’t care about, or for that matter, even know about? What about them?

Do we really have to get our holiday cards in the mail before Christmas? Or even send any this year?

Is anyone else actually expecting us to make the perfect holiday dinner that we’ve always had,? And if they are, maybe that’s not on us.

Do we actually need to get “just one more gift” for ___________?

Is it imperative that we take on that home-improvement project in January?

Is it critical that we take on three new clients right now?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating being a flake, or neglecting to practice good planning, goal setting, and time stewardship practices. Nor am I suggesting that there aren’t important ways in which we want to diligently spend our time and energy. What I am pondering, and maybe you would like to ponder along with me, is the cost to us and those around us when we cling to our notions of what needs to be done, exactly how it must be done, and when it has to be completed?

Photo by Frans Van Heerden from Pexels

Time-Frame

A recurring thought as I look ahead to a new year is that it not get away from me before it even starts. It is so very easy to allow my days to be in charge of me rather than me of them. There is a distinct difference between being in charge of, and being in control of. In charge implies that I’ve built a framework within which life can organically play out, making room for both the planned and the unexpected. Control on the other hand, suggests attempting to desperately hold on to all the moving parts. Of which there are too many to count.

Having had the unexpected privilege of building a custom home, I was able to observe first hand the process of framing the house. This wooden framework is later hidden behind the walls within which we live and work and play, but it is what makes all that living and working and playing possible. It creates the shelter within which we live. It defines the different rooms and areas we inhabit, and creates a kind of order within even the most chaotic of days can occur.

Our time can be likened to a kind of home as well. It is the shelter within which we live, and to hold up to all that life brings our way, it too is in need of a solid framework. One that creates and defines distinct spaces for who and what we care about. A structure that both protects us from taking on too much, and enables us to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach. Which, I believe, is why any of us are on the planet in the first place.

Putting such a framework in place doesn’t happen by chance. First and foremost, it requires our intention. How do we intend to spend our days? What gifts do we intend to offer to the world? What and who matter to us, and based on that, what impact do we intend to make and how will we do that?

Along with intention, creating our framework requires our attention, not only to details, but to the bigger picture as well. How can we bring our attention to who and what are right before us, and yet not lose sight of the larger view? How can we commit ourselves to what is ours to do, and refrain from jumping in to what is not?

As Annie Dillard reminds us, How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. The timeframe of our lives is unknown to us, which is all the more reason to build a solid framework within which to live whatever time we have.