Today...

Today is a challenge and a comfort, a dream and a rock, a reflection and a creation, a path and a destination...

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Inspired by a prompt from Self-Reliance. #trust30

Gardening

This morning I received a message from the Domino Project about joining a 30-day writing challenge inspired by quotes from Ralph Waldo Emerson. The first prompt was from Gwen Bell and was called "15 Minutes to Live":

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.

2. Write the story that has to be written.

Here is the story I wrote. Not about my current life or significant philosophical meanderings. Instead, about the life of a child playing on a hot summer's day and the lessons I know now that I learned lo those many years ago.

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I remember hot summer days when I was a kid and I ran through backyard sprinkler for relief.

The water would arc one way and then the other, hanging in the middle for a poignant moment before continuing on its appointed course. I would dash into the artificial rain and squeal and laugh as the cold water hit my sun-baked skin. It always was a shock but I'd run through quickly because my sister and brother had to have their turns. That was the way of our large family. Everyone took an equal turn. Although we each tested the rule in our own ways, we always found that equity was the most satisfying way for everyone.

Eventually, we discovered that if you walked at just the right quick pace into the spray, you could stay under the water’s arc for the sprinkler’s entire spread. As we tested our theory, our mad dashes became scientific explorations of arcs, parabolas, and trajectories, though we didn’t know what to call them then. Our sole goal was to remain under the sprinkler’s influence for as long as possible while our parents pulled weeds, pruned bushes, and cleared away debris in the garden.

In my mind’s eye, how old was I then? Probably around eight. That would make Danielle around six and Stephen three. The one-year-old twins, David and Richard, could have been in their playpen, watching us with curiosity. Or, maybe they were toddling behind us only to shy away, frightened by the cold spray of water. Or maybe each one was scooped up by one of our parents and they ran together through the sprinkler, learning the life lesson that taking out time to have fun while you were working hard in the garden was good.

I loved that backyard. The garden was edged by coral bells with their variegated scalloped leaves and long, stiff stalks with tiny pink flowers that waved in the breeze. There were even big clam shells marking the edge of the garden some years. Against the wooden fence, a huge spray of tiger lilies sent out their orange blooms and their name -- tiger lilies -- intrigued me. The corner of the garden held a small, shallow concrete pond, surrounded by rhododendrons that bloomed pink and light purple in the spring and provided a dark backdrop for the pond. The temptation to step in was always overwhelming when the water was clean and fresh at the start of the season.

By August, the heat would be overwhelming and if we didn’t have the sprinkler set up, I wanted to step into the pond so badly, but the water was murky and mysterious. Once, I gave into the urge and felt the refreshing water followed by the slippery tickle of furry algae under my feet. After a moment, a primal fear crept into my chest and I quickly jumped out, shaking off my feet and my fears, and I ran off to find another adventure on a hot summer day.

Cold drinks in the olden days

Remember when you were a kid how you had to struggle to pull up the lever on the aluminum ice cube tray until you heard a satisfying crack of the frozen water as the lever did its job? The top layer of your fingerprints would get stuck to the cold, cold metal as you inverted the silver, pink, or blue tray to get ice for a drink on a hot summer's day.

Creativity

Sometimes you've just got to have a spur to create. It's NOT, as contemporary culture would have you think, a luxury or an indulgence. Creativity is what makes us human. We create. We adapt. We evolve. We flourish.

Here are some ideas and links for getting your juices flowing:

NaNoWriMo.org -- National Novel Writing Month comes around each November. I'm in love with it. Take a 30-day deadline, write like mad each day for at least 1,667 words, and, voila, at the end of the day on November 30, you have a 50,000 word novel. I've done it four and a half times. I know it's possible. (Now, if I could only focus on the re-writes…)

Sabrinawardharrison.com -- Sabrina Ward Harrison is my new role model. Messy, creative, fearless AND fearful at the same time, she published her journals about creating and re-creating herself. She writes and creates beautiful and complex art.

Writersdigest.com -- Check out the writing prompts section. Create and post.

Theartistsway.com -- The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a classic. Do the book in order, pick and choose what you like, come back again and again. Yes, it's time consuming, but isn't it time you invested in yourself?

I'll add more links as I find them.

Happy creating!

Heat of the Moment

I'm not usually a big one on studies, but two came up recently that, when looked at together, explain a LOT of bad decisions.

The first was that productivity and critical thinking plummet when a negative or bullying person leads the process. Not only do people not want to work, but when they shut down their natural intellectual questions about the issue at hand, they move into "Group Think," in which they can justify any bad decision. One example is Nixon's White House staff planning a burglary to violate the privacy of Daniel Ellsberg. The "Final Solution" devised by the Nazis is another. Both situations had incredibly strong willed leaders and a breakdown in checks and balances of multiple points of view.

The second was in Harvard Business Review. Two researchers found that short-term negative emotions led to some irrational long-term decisions. Read more here.

Lesson: Don't make a long-term decision if you've been upset and keep your intellectual integrity by asking questions even in the face of a bully. It'll be better for the world in the long run.

Time to think...

Here's to vacations... time to travel (or, as for this coming week off, to not travel), to think, to take photos, to read books and magazines, to fix up the house, to create new things, to laze around, to laugh, to watch movies, to search through websites, to enjoy talking with John....

I'm all for vacations. And vacations are all for me. :-)

Snow. It still brings a thrill as it courses down from the heavens, cloaking the ground, the trees, the buildings, and everything with a soft mantle of white.

This morning, CBS Sunday Morning featured wonderful photos of snowflakes taken by Cal Tech physicist Kenneth Libbrecht. (See more pics at SnowCrystals.com, which kindly permits bloggers the use of images such as the one at left.)

Individually, they are a wonder. As a group, they can be spectacular.

Right now, they are collecting outside. By morning, everything will look different. The colors will be gone. Just white.

A delight.