Tues Ten 091509: The Post Behind the Post

Over Labor Day weekend I had the opportunity to do some thinking, brainstorming and evaluating about my blog in between looking after a little one-year-old flu statistic and giving out big-brothers-of-the-year awards. I’m still hammering out the results, but so far they involve some re-thinking of how I approach my writing. I thought I’d share some thoughts as a preface to the “PBP” Tues Ten list.

As you might imagine, I have precious little time to devote to writing, what with 3 preschoolers, a full time job, a house and a family to feed and care for. Even less of that theoretical time is uninterrupted. I wouldn’t have it any other way. The hugs and “I love you”s and DVD changes and “why”s are all little motivators to focus on what really matters.

I started EyeJunkie.com as a creative outlet with just those interruptions in mind. Unlike other creative pursuits I enjoy like painting or crafting or book-making, writing lends itself more easily to the serendipity of day to day living, and requires very few materials. And, from the mundane to the profound to the much sought after to the little noticed, subject matter is all around for the taking.

As I was thinking about my writing habits in general, time constraints seem to be the deciding factor for much of what I envision. I enjoy writing. Time is limited. Facts. I want to make sure I use my time in the way that brings me the most joy. To that end, I decided to re-appropriate my writing time and focus less on writing freelance articles. While I enjoy writing about specific topics, it doesn’t give me the most joy. And, life is too fleeting to choose options of lesser joy. In short, I want to spend less of my “free” time frenzied by a deadline, writing pieces I’m not all that excited about. I’ll be limiting the weekly and monthly commitments I make for article writing in search of more writing joy. Yay!

I hope to focus more attention on this blog as my primary writing outlet, building it with more regular content–writing that gives me fulfillment. Quality writing that earns your trust and support–and maybe even a few of your giggles and tears. I’m sure I’ll fine-tune themes and goals more specifically as I delve in, but suffice it to say that I want to write it for my own joy. I hope it will, in turn, add something to your day as well.

In my brainstorming, I’ve made lots of notes about the post series on this blog–what’s working, what needs extra attention, what I’m tired of. I’m made notes on how to incorporate more of my design work as a supplement to the writing–how to give it a fresh look, how to extend the life of pieces I post, how to share more. I’ve listed out a few hair-brained ideas that may see the light of day at some point. Time will tell. I’m sure I’ll share more “writing about writing” as thoughts gel and turn into some kind of gooey subscriber-worthy confection. Until then, I give you this week’s Tues Ten Twelve:  The Post Behind the Post.

The Queen once gave me a book called QBQ: The Question Behind the Question. It is a little book that challenges some of the traditional notions of customer service with a heavy slant toward personal responsibility–a concept I can absolutely get behind. It challenges us to answer the question behind the question in our dealings with others in a business setting and beyond.

So, I listed (in my compulsive list-making sort of way, the way that involves illegible hand-writing) out twelve post subjects or goals that underly much of what I write. Articulating the post behind the post is a good barometer for whether I’m writing for the most joy (woo!) or settling for a lesser joy (bleh!).  Hold me accountable with your comments! I love hearing from you.

I find the most writing joy and fulfillment when my words:

1. Observe and communicate effectively

2. Tell stories

3. Get real

4. Articulate values

5. Make me laugh

6. Turn the mudane into the profound

7. Find ways that faith intersects with real life

8. Show how kids are gifts that keep on giving

9. Encourage responsibility

10. Share working mom antics we all know, but are reluctant to admit

11. Remind that media and culture are often ridiculous

12. Help me pay attention

Waking Up on 9/11

“We are living in a time of pervasive sleepwalking.”

I first read this quote back in 2000, and it has stayed embedded in my thoughts ever since. It speaks to the numbness we often feel in lives of complacency. The statement was attributed to the Greek 20th century poet, George Sefaris (circa 1939) in a book I read called Inventing Paradise by Edmund Keeley. It was an account of the so-called “generation of the 30s,” writers who cut their teeth during the years surrounding World War II in Greece, many from the exile to which they fled during the German invasion. It chronicled their activities and lifestyles through the war, the Greek occupation and the subsequent civil war. The book was primarily about Henry Miller and his friendship with many notable Greek nationalist poets, and it contained beautiful excerpts from some of their writings–many of which were not political in nature, but told the story of daily life in their homeland. George Sefaris was one of those poets. He spent much of his early life in exile, but later became a diplomat and was the first Greek to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963.

In reading the book, I found it very compelling that through writing so vividly about life as a Greek, poets like Sefaris tapped into common thoughts and hopes that transcend geography. Such is the way of poetry! Henry Miller wrote of George Sefaris that he “had begun to ripen into a universal poet–by passionately rooting himself into the soil of his people.”

So, why am I writing this now? On this, the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on our country, I’m thinking about the pitfalls of freedom–how though we are jarred from our slumber, we often so quickly slip back into its complacency. I almost forgot about 9/11. Eight years ago we were riveted to our computers and radios at my office. The second plane hit the towers shortly after I got to work. By the time we got out of a scheduled client meeting, the towers were down. This week it’s been just a fleeting thought.

As I often do, I was looking through one of my old journals this week and found my notes from Inventing Paradise, including Sefaris’ quote, and I could clearly remember the vivid thought process surrounding Keeley’s description of that time period. I read the book in 2000, a year before the attacks of September 11th. In my journal entries, I recorded how accounts of the German occupation of Greece and the subsequent exile of many citizens reminded me that the only reason I can learn about some of the atrocities that occurred then is that those poets and statesmen survived. The stories of the ones who were murdered can only be pieced together, and some may never be told.

In 2001 we had the benefit of video cameras, cell phones, impromptu photographers and all that 21st century technology has to offer to record the events of 9/11. We have amazing collections of photos like those from the LIFE collection above documenting the heroism of so many. Still, some stories are only pieced together, and some may never be told. In these past eight years, the concerns, red or orange alerts and daily images of destruction have diminished. The shock and horror are not nearly as acute. And, though it’s colored much of our public and social policy, at times in the day to day it’s so forgettable.

My how freedom so easily settles into complacency of spirit. We live in the excess of a generation who has never known famine, lasting fear or often the sacrifice required by honor. My generation. September 11, 2001 only gave us a glimpse. Sadly enough, our freedom is often taken for granted because we only know how to be free. We’ve never experienced anything else. The events of 9/11 were the closest my generation has come to thinking our freedom was in real jeopardy–and even that jeopardy has turned more into an outrage and a springboard for the hot button issue du jour.  When I read about the pervasive apathy or disillusionment associated with “generation X,” I wonder. What do we have to be disillusioned about? We’ve lived our whole lives in the lap of freedom’s luxury. Entrenched in freedom, I can so easily default to laziness, restlessness, and ingratitude–to being asleep to the things that really matter, to the responsibilities inherent in this place of freedom. George Sefaris’ observation of 70 years ago is telling. Have I become lulled by my excess, my good fortune to have been born free and my privelege to have been granted freedom for all my life? Have I settled again into slumber, into contentedly closing my eyes to the world and the stories I encounter each day? Am I sleepwalking through this life of freedom?

Guest Post: Parenting the Nearly Grown

As I mentioned on Sunday, I’m pleased to post an essay written by Masha Hamilton. Ms. Hamilton is an author I’m just becoming aware of, and I’m eager to read her new novel, 31 Hours, which launches today. As I wrote in Sunday’s post, there is a level of fear that seems inherent in parenting that comes from the challenge of watching those so precious amble around outside your ability to intervene. I’ve heard it descibed as watching your heart walk around outside your body. True.

In addition to that fear, as children grow, we are faced with not only the dangers and entrapment of the big world, but also the realization that they are increasingly able to make their own choices–and bear the consequences outside of our control. For my gifts, I can see (sometimes in slow motion) the chair as it’s tipping or the feet as they’re stumbling. I can scoop them up with hugs and kisses. I can apply ointment and bandaids and all the sympathy my heart can muster. As they grow beyond my ability to scoop, I’m left with the same poignant questions Ms. Hamilton poses.

I clearly remember the unavoidable sorrow in the first few times I realized Little Drummer Boy would one day disappoint me–disappointment in the sense that he would make a choice I knew wasn’t good for him. I remember discussing it with his daycare “teacher” when he was an infant. She was at a different stage, much like Ms. Hamilton, faced with the possibility  that her grown children might be on verge of losing their way. Does the fear and responsibility of parenting really ever end?

Parenting the Nearly Grown
by Masha Hamilton

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.” Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, 106-43 B.C.

Not long after the second of my three children was born, I sat at the kitchen table late one evening talking to my dad about parental responsibility. It’s a big topic and we were covering lots of philosophical ground, but what I remember most is my pronouncement that my primary job could be boiled down quite simply and starkly: I had to keep safe these beings released into my charge. I needed to keep them alive.

These were the musings of a new parent, of course. The circumstances, too, should be considered; the first child had been born in Jerusalem during the intefadeh, and the second was born as I was reporting from Moscow during the collapse of Communism.  In both situations, I repeatedly came face-to-face with life’s fragility.

But even in calmer times, even after the birth of my third child, I never lost the feeling that my main duty was to pass them on into adulthood as unscathed as possible, as healthy in every way as they could be.

It sounds pretty simple, on the face of it. We perform many jobs as parents: nurturers, playmates, cheerleaders, short-order cooks, nurses, disciplinarians, detectives, spiritual leaders. Keeping them safe should not be the hardest, not with the help of baby monitors, plastic devices to cover electrical outlets, pads for sharp corners, child-proof medicine bottles, the list goes on.

And in fact, we passed through well, with just the usual rounds of stitches, one violent dog attack, a rabies scare and a few months when my youngest fell so often and got so many bumps on his forehead that my husband and I joked someone was surely going to call child services on us.

Now, though, my youngest is 14, and as they’ve grown, I recognize my job has been transformed. It is to give them trust and space so they can develop confidence in their ability to make their own lives. And yet the two oldest, at ages 19 and 20, are in a period of time that seems almost like a parentheses in their lives. They are certainly not children, but nor are they quite adults. Meanwhile, I say and think all the usual things parents have been saying and thinking since—well, perhaps ever since Cicero, whose words I keep taped to my office wall: it’s rougher out there than it was in my time. More chaotic. More violent. More dangerous.

And everyone is writing a book.

It was, in fact, into my latest novel, 31 Hours, that I channeled my fears. Among other things, the novel offered a chance to explore what it means to be the parent of someone on the cusp of adulthood but not yet there. The mother in 31 Hours, Carol, is strong and independent, free of empty nest syndrome, but her maternal intuition is strong and she’s concerned about her 21-year-old son’s growing emotional distance, the way he seems tense and depressed. Her fears are amorphous and hard to convey; nevertheless, as she lies awake in the dark, she decides to trust the hunch that something is wrong, and to spend the next day trying to track her son Jonas down and “mother him until he shrugs her off.”

There are many themes in the novel, but one question it asks—one pertinent to all parents and one I’m still trying to answer for myself—is this: after years of being vigilant and protecting our kids, what should we do—and what are we allowed to do—to keep them safe once they are nearly, but not quite, grown?

A special thank you to Masha Hamilton for  this essay, and to Unbridled Books for providing a copy of 31 Hours for me to read. Stay tuned for my review posting in a few weeks!

Monday MeMyBook&Eye: Geek Finale

For my final Bringing Up Geeks post for the MeMyBook&Eye solo book club, I thought I’d highlight a few of the over-arching lessons in parenting (and life) that I’ve gleaned from this inspiring book by Marybeth Hicks. I haven’t specifically commented upon 6 of the 10 geek parenting principles Marybeth outlines: Raising a Late Bloomer, Team Player, True Friend, Homebody, Principled Kid and Faithful Kid. However, I found those chapters  just as timely and challenging as the first 4 “rules” in Marybeth’s practical and common sense approach to parenting in today’s cool-obsessed culture. I hope you’ll go to your local book store or library and form your own opinions about the principles she outlines.

From page 1 of this book, several general themes have stood out to me consistently as very significant, perspective-shifting reminders of the realities of parenting my gifts in society today. While many of the themes reflect beliefs I already had or demonstrate facts I already knew, Marybeth’s observations and advice on how these issues play out in the real day-to-day decisions of 2009 have been invaluable. At the end of this post, I’ll share several specific sections of the book (with page numbers) that I strongly recommend as resources–ones I’ve marked to read again periodically because of their power and practicality. But, first, my list of 8 smart parenting realities I’ve learned from Bringing Up Geeks:

1. Culture cannot be trusted. (As if there were any doubt.) No, culture doesn’t want the best for my child. Culture does not want to educate my child, to keep him healthy, or to help him be the person he was created to be. No, that’s a fallacy perpetuated by culture itself. Culture is not an adequate judge of what is acceptable. For my kids, that would be my job. The cultural machine is made up of people and companies who’s goal is to make money. Bottom line: Culture defines my babies by their demographic markers and their ability to influence spending–end of story.

2. Parenting is longterm. My goals need to be centered in “life,” not in the passing phases of popularity. Children become adults. There’s the ball.

3. Take responsibility. Get a set of standards and stand for them. Parenting my kids is my responsibility. If I abdicate that responsibility to culture, it’s not CNN’s fault, or public school’s or the left wing agenda’s. “We don’t lose authority, we give it away.” (pg. 17)

4. Innocence is worth protecting. Culture’s rushing of my children to know more and do more is motivated by money. Countless research studies show premature exposure to entertainment and activites that are fitting for mature adults increases the danger and risk to children both physically, developmentally and socially. We don’t stop the cycle because we are lazy. Period. I MUST recognize the value of innocence and take the necessary steps to guard it–even if it makes me “that” preschool mom.

5. Standards produce free children and free adults. Culture offers a seductive, but false, freedom centered in a life without boundaries. But children whose status is subject to the whims of the popular crowd, the latest trends and the size of their pocketbooks are chained to just those things. They become adults who are chained to those things raising more children chained to those things. Standards and boundaries provide a safe and secure place for my children to explore the world and become the people they were created to be–FREE of the dictates of culture and popularity.

6. Value true value. Culture establishes a false sense of value that is derived primarily from possessions. I want to base my parenting (and purchasing) decisions on what is truly valuable.

7. Knowledge is parenting power. If I am to make the best decisions and open the most opportunities for my gifts, I have to take the time to evaluate. Going with the cultural flow (even at preschool) is the easy way out, certainly the path of least resistance. When I make the effort to know what is out there, to measure it against my standards, to pause before saying yes, to make an informed decision, my choices have meaning and power.

8. Family trumps friendship. That’s not to say that friendship isn’t important. It is very valuable. But, I don’t want 4-year-old or 6th-grade or even 11th-grade friendships to be the basis of my child’s view of the world. Despite what culture may have us believe, families (not peer groups) are the building blocks of society and the primary means of nurturing and growing productive and principled adults. Family time is vital, and it’s ok to say “no” to protect it.

A few passages of Bringing Up Geeks I’ll be reading again:

1. Rules for Surfing the Net (page 75-76 & 78)

2. Essential Media Literacy concepts from the Center for Media Literacy (page 80-81)

3. Tips for fostering play and hobbies (page 105-109)

4. Guidelines for electronic games (page 109-112)

5. Encouraging Modesty in Dress (page 165-169)

6. Elements of Good Character (page 263-265)

7. Basic “tenets” of “moralistic therapeutic deism” (page 282-283) – yikes!

8. Letter to Katie (page 290-291)

9. Chapter One — just a good reality check!

One final note before I move on to other reading selections: A special thank you to Marybeth Hicks for giving me a copy of her book to review and for her willingness to communicate with me directly rather than through a media rep. It’s been a pleasure!

Stay tuned in the coming weeks as MeMyBook&Eye shifts focus to living by the numbers with 10-10-10 by Suzy Welch!

15 Minute Fruit

Two posts about writing/blogging back to back must be a record for me. Writing about writing can sometimes be a little redundant and sometimes a little too theoretical for my tastes, but the post behind the post on this one is really about discipline.

Given the wild hare trail of the previous post, I was reading back through some of my notes and early paragraphs that were spent defining what EyeJunkie.com would be. The trip through cyber memory lane reminded me that one of my beginning goals for creating a blog was to discipline myself to actually write more consistently. Journaling is a practice I’ve enjoyed for much of my life, but had gotten away from it a bit. I had become entangled in the burden of recording thoughts, and the burden of the actual thoughts that are a prerequisite.

If you read the tips and how-tos on writing (whether creative writing, blogging, or freelance writing) you will invariably find this one: The best way to become a better writer is to write more. (My paraphrase, of course.) And, I suppose there’s a reason why so many people advise it. The daily practice of writing requires practice. The daily practice of idea-generation requires practice. The daily practice of picking content fruit before it sours on the vine requires practice. In keeping with the theme of EyeJunkie, the daily practice of paying attention to what’s right in front of me before it escapes requires practice. Practice, practice, practice. (Now I’m sounding like Mrs. Winstead, my childhood piano teacher.)

To that end, I think I’m ready to get back to some of the entanglement of that journaling process again. I’m ready for that daily activity of simply recording aspects of daily activity, and the profound thoughts it often generates. Recently, I have been thinking about the Mississippi painter, Walter Anderson, because of a project I’m working on at my day job. His watercolor and block print works have long inspired me, and there is no better example of the practice of paying attention with a paint brush or pencil in hand than his. I remember reading somewhere that when Mr. Anderson was a child, his mother required he and his siblings to write and draw some each day. It was part of there routine of “chores” so to speak. I like that. Time spent each day in self expression is so valuable to nourishing the creative spirit.

My day job offers me the opportunity to draw (or at least design) most days, and while it’s not quite the same when done for someone else’s marketing pursuits, I’m willing to let it suffice for the drawing requirement. For writing, on the other hand, I’m ready to regain the discipline of that daily, intentional, time-sensitive writing diary again. I’ve decided to begin the “practice” of writing for at least 15 minutes at the end of each day about something relevant to my experiences during those 24 hours–whether deeds, words, distractions or thoughts. I originally thought of the concept with my “500 or 15″ posting tag featuring 500 words or 15 minutes on the topic at the top of the heap. I still like that topical approach (and will pursue it), but I’m eager to hone my attention span with a more time-centered requirement. I don’t promise to share the fruit of every 15 minutes, but I’m sure you’ll be privy to the scores and highlights.

Day one of the 15 minute experiment down.