The Smells Have Changed!

In the last of the Mowgli stories, author Rudyard Kipling wrote of the coming of spring in the Seoni Hills of India as "the day the smells change". My mother used to refer to it as the day the mockingbird changes his song.

Perhaps you have experienced it yourself. You go to bed in late winter and magically awaken to the smells and sounds new growth and early spring.

This week, the smells changed in northern Virginia. Over the course of 24 hours, the mood and the season has shifted from winter to spring.

Yesterday, few of the trees showed any trace of blossom. Today, the maples all have buds. The spring blooming magnolias have gone from barren to full bloom overnight. And the forsythias, few of which showed trace of life a day ago are now clouds of bright yellow. It shouldn't surprise me -- spring happens every year -- and yet it always does.

Spring has come!

The earth is alive!

The smells have changed!

Enjoy it!

How I Remember Things

I have been blessed, I am told, with a good memory. Friends often ask me how I remember distant events, off-the wall facts, and bad jokes. I generally reply by asking them how they don't. In truth, I don't know exactly how I remember things but I have developed some habits that help me. I learned to memorize stuff. I found out at an early age that when all else fails, rote memorization almost always works. Here's how I do it: I read a sentence or recite a fact. I read it aloud. I close my eyes and speak what I just read. Then, I go to the next sentence and repeat the process. Then I go back to the first sentence and recite them both together and proceed like this until the entire paragraph, poem, chapter, or verse is locked in memory. I may even write it out, in longhand, from memory. That's how I learned the Gettysburg Address many years ago. The next day, I come back, read, recite and maybe write it down again until it is locked in. It may sound boring, but the key is repetition, repetition, and repetition. If the item to be remembered has a rhythm or a tune, so much the better. Poetry sticks much faster than prose. I also write things down. The act of writing makes things stick more quickly and firmly in my mind. I date all of my notes. I may not remember exactly what was said or done, but I will remember when I said or did it. I review my notes regularly and often. The act of reading them further sets them in my mind. If I want to keep something in the front of my mind, I write it on a card or piece of paper and put it in my tickler file to be read once a day for a week, then once a week for a month or so until it becomes part of me. Then, I refer to it once a month for as long as it is important. I read through my notes and suspense items early in the morning when my mind is fresh. Then, I go about the business of the day. And I remember.

Land of Giants

I was raised by giants in a land largely untouched by time.

Except, they weren't giants in the normal sense of the word, but men and women of normal stature. There was little to differentiate them from others of that time and place.

The men were mostly farmers or tradesmen, and often craftsmen of great skill. Most had served their country during the second World War and then come home to marry, to make their living, and to raise their families. Few, if any, had ever seen the inside of a college or university.

The women were almost all wives and the mothers of my friends, yet they were home makers of great skill and prowess.

For someone outside of the community, these giants probably appeared altogether too average. But they were nonetheless giants, at least in terms of their influence on the boy that I was and on those with whom I grew up.

My Dad, who was one of their number, was quick to point to them as examples.

One of the highest compliments Dad could pay was "He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it." But it went beyond mere generosity to encompass the kind of charity in which neighbour helps neighbour simply because he is a neighbour and help is needed. And neighbour accepts the help of neighbour knowing that they will one day be moved to return the same kind. It was all a normal part of life.

Most deals were sealed with a handshake among friends. Even at the bank, where signatures were required by law, it was the handshake and not the signature that sealed the transaction. Ditto the auto dealer, the implement dealer, and the farmers' co-op.

Signatures were for transactions between strangers. Neighbours trusted neighbours, and woe be unto the neighbour who proved unworthy of that trust.

Almost everybody in the community knew everybody else. And, to a small boy, it seemed that everybody greeted everybody else when they met, even lifting two fingers from the steering wheel to greet one another when they met on the road.

I went back to the community a while back, and there have been changes. Most of the farms have been supplanted by residences. Instead of dairy barns and corn fields, there are houses and not a few McMansions. Yet, even with the changes to the geography the attitudes that permeated my upbringing remain.

Neighbours still look out for neighbours. Neighbours still trust neighbours. And neighbours still greet neighbours when they meet. In these things, it remains a land untouched by time. I pray that it ever remains so.

One of the advantages of having been raised by giants is that one takes on their characteristics. Perhaps, one day I will be a giant too.

What Do You Get?

In the mid 1950's, singer Tennessee Ernie Ford had a hit with the song "Sixteen Tons". The chorus went, in part, "You load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt." On this last night of 2010, I find myself asking a similar question. "It's the end of the year, and what do you get?" Certainly, another year older, but no longer in debt for the first time in over 40 years! Our goal is to remain that way. What else did we get? A good feeling, the feeling of independence, and the freedom to pursue new adventures in 2011. What else did we get? We got two weeks in Alaska. We got memories of brown bears and wolves, moose and caribou in Denali National Park, of Mt. McKinley exposing its summit through the clouds, of massive ice bergs calving off Hubbard Glacier, and of eagles fishing the Mendenhall River near Juneau. In 2010 we mourned and celebrated the lives of friends and family members who departed this world for the next. They shall not grow older as we grow older. There were none like them before and surely none shall follow in their stead. They are sorely missed. But now, it's 2011 and what do we get? We get the promise of a new year! Where we have met our current goals, we get a "keep up the good work!" Where we have fallen short, we get a "do over." Where we want to re-invent or re-image parts of ourselves we get the opportunity to do so, or to try and try again. And this opportunity is renewed every day. In 2011, I resolve to make the most of every second of every minute of every day -- to be all that I can be, and to live every instant to the absolute fullest. I resolve to pursue every opportunity placed before me. And I resolve to enjoy myself in the process. May you also be blessed with limitless opportunities to be everything of which you are capable.

Multi-tasking -- Who? Me?

I have a confession to make.

 In accordance with the advice of some of the most well-respected authorities on effectiveness and efficiency, I don't multi-task.

Neither do I single task particularly well.

Rather, I tend to ping from task to task like riccochet rabbit, hitting a lick here and a lick there as first one thing and then another captures or forces its way into the center of my attention.  Somehow, in the chaos of bouncing from task to task like a ping-pong ball in a clothes dryer, work gets done. Somehow, in the midst of the interuptions, thoughts get put on paper. Somehow, the analysis get completed and the report gets produced. Somehow.

At the end of the day, I feel like I've spent much of my time spinning my wheels, and I am exhausted.

I am capable of single tasking. If a task is compelling enough, I have been known to pursue it to the exclusion of all else. But such compelling tasks are few and far between, and all tasks, compelling or not, require dedicated time and effort to bring to completion.

Keeping current project and action lists and attempting to order my efforts by those lists helps, but not always.

Closing my door helps, but again not always.

Attempting to keep my desk clear of all except that on which I'm working also helps and I'm getting better at it.

Really.

I'm working on improving my focus, but focus is fragile. I can disconnect from the internet, but can't ignore the person who knocks on the door to ask "Did you get my email?" and then proceeds to spend the next fifteen minutes explaining something for which no immediate action is needed. By the time the subject is sufficiently dealt with, time has passed, focus is gone, and starting over is the only option.

Is there any solution short of mayhem?

Maybe I could seal my door with crime-scene tape. Maybe the answer is to pack up my laptop and files, occupy a table in a corner of the cafeteria or an unoccupied office, and bang out whatever is needed.

If anyone asks, I'm not available. I'm hiding out, single tasking, being productive.

Not a Minimalist

I am not a minimalist. Those who have visited my comfortably cluttered household will agree that I am not a minimalist. I read and enjoy minimalist blogs like Zen Habits, Becoming Minimalist, and even mnmlist.com to name a few. I read of challenges to live for 30 days with only 30 items of clothing, or to pare ones possessions to less that 100 items, or to live in a tiny house or apartment of less than 200 square feet. I have even taken steps to allow me to work from wherever I am to the point that I am writing this post on a netbook from my easy chair with a cup of coffee at my elbow. The point is that few if any of these challenges fits my life style, wants and desires. I desire not necessarily minimalism, but abundance, and not complexity but simplicity. And I desire not the simplicity of earlier times -- I don't want to return to the days of chopping wood, drawing water, and using an outhouse -- but the convenience of today, with central heat, modern plumbing, and inside facilities. Unlike Thoreau, I don't really want to spend two years in the woods contemplating the simple life. I want to live it today in suberbia! I want to live it among things that I enjoy. And, since I can only really enjoy things I use, I want to either divest myself of all of the things I no longer use or bring them out and use them. If I don't use it, I can't enjoy it and if I can't enjoy it, I might as well not have it. Life is too short not to use your best.

Simplify

In his book, "My Life in the Woods" or "Walden", New England transcendentalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau penned the words "Life is frittered away by detail. Simplify. Simplify." Simplify: Have less stuff, but have better stuff. Have stuff that you really use and enjoy. Simplify: Do less things, but do better things. Simplify: Buy less, but enjoy more. Eat less but taste more. Pack it up and put it away. If you need it, go get it, use it, and assign it to its place. If you haven't needed it for six months or a year, get rid of it. Stuff accretes like barnacles on the bottom of a ship. Let life show you what you really need and let go of the rest. Simplify.