Category Archives: Self Care

Why You Hate Rest

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nap_c2008_dumbrowski

I wish I could say this was the only time I’ve had a conversation like this.  A few years ago I was asking a clergy colleague about days off and he proudly spoke of writing his sermon at home in his underwear on Fridays. 

Isn’t Friday your day off? 

Yes, but this is sermon writing.  I love doing that.

Sure you do, but it’s still work.  That’s not a day off.

He didn’t understand my point.  Maybe you don’t either.  Maybe the allure of being able to lounge in underwear all day is the siren call drowning out the distinctions you might otherwise make between work and rest.  My point was you can love your job and still take your days off.  You can love your work and your leisure. 

Last week’s article in The New York Times, “Why You Hate Work,” suggests limiting work is actually part of how we are able to love it.  The authors are part of The Energy Project, which surveyed about 20,000 people (14,000 white collar workers and 6,000 employees at a manufacturing company) and found:

Employees are vastly more satisfied and productive, it turns out, when four of their core needs are met: physical, through opportunities to regularly renew and recharge at work; emotional, by feeling valued and appreciated for their contributions; mental, when they have the opportunity to focus in an absorbed way on their most important tasks and define when and where they get their work done; and spiritual, by doing more of what they do best and enjoy most, and by feeling connected to a higher purpose at work.

Simple, no-cost changes, like giving everyone a break every 90 minutes, result in employees with a “30 percent higher level of focus than those who take no breaks or just one during the day. They also report a nearly 50 percent greater capacity to think creatively and a 46 percent higher level of health and well-being.”  No matter how appealing the findings, many companies seem to have a hard time putting these findings into practice:

Still, the forces of habit and inertia remain powerful obstacles to better meeting employee needs. Several years ago, we did a pilot program with 150 accountants in the middle of their firm’s busy tax season. Historically, employees work extremely long hours during these demanding periods, and are measured and evaluated based on how many hours they put in.

Recognizing the value of intermittent rest, we persuaded this firm to allow one group of accountants to work in a different way — alternating highly focused and uninterrupted 90-minute periods of work with 10-to-15-minute breaks in between, and a full one-hour break in the late afternoon, when our tendency to fall into a slump is higher. Our pilot group of employees was also permitted to leave as soon as they had accomplished a designated amount of work.

With higher focus, these employees ended up getting more work done in less time, left work earlier in the evenings than the rest of their colleagues, and reported a much less stressful overall experience during the busy season. Their turnover rate was far lower than that of employees in the rest of the firm. Senior leaders were aware of the results, but the firm didn’t ultimately change any of its practices. “We just don’t know any other way to measure them, except by their hours,” one leader told us. Recently, we got a call from the same firm. “Could you come back?” one of the partners asked. “Our people are still getting burned out during tax season.”

“We just don’t know any other way to measure them, except by their hours.”

So, your lack of imagination and courage will be the downfall of the rest of us?

I’m not interested in never counting hours – it can be helpful to realize you spent 10 hours on something you thought might take two.  I find promise in the phrase “a designated amount of work,” though I suspect it will take many of us a detox-like cleansing period in order to have a true sense of what amount of work to designate.  Our sense of what’s possible and appropriate for the given amount of time has been damaged. 

Earlier this week another clergy colleague, preparing to take a weeklong trip with the youth of her church, wondered if it would be OK to take off one day when she returned.  This is a trip where she will be in charge and on call 24 hours a day the entire time and she was hesitant about taking off one day to recuperate and do laundry – or do nothing at all, it’s a day off! During the conversation another colleague wondered about doing this if it was an adult group.  Why would this matter?  Presumably she thought it was “less work” to supervise adults than youth but the point of leisure and rest time is that it’s the complement to work time and the necessary balance to it. 

Ministry doesn’t get a pass here.  Ministry cannot slide by on these findings simply because meaning and significance are “built-ins.”  My conversations with colleagues demonstrate how insidious overwork is and how glaringly absent deep rest, Sabbath, and time off are.

And I mean really off.  One of the biggest values of time off and away is that when you are taking it you are off and away.  Not tethered to people/situations/projects/deadlines/sermons/hospitals someplace else.  To be truly present in the place and time you are is a gift our culture has become too adept at refusing.

That’s one of the most interesting and life-giving findings in this study:  encouragement to focus on the task at hand.  Workers who are able to set aside time for only one thing and to give it deep attention for an uninterrupted portion of the day are happier, more productive workers.  Same goes for rest.  Being “on vacation” while “reachable by email” is not being on vacation; it’s divided attention.  Taking a nap with your cell phone ringer on and by your side is an invitation to be interrupted. 

I’ve had too many chocked-full, living by the outsized list, just-going-to-do-this-one-more-thing-before-I-leave days.  Part of it is because I love my work.  But I know I’m most centered, focused, content, and fun to be around when I have adequate work and rest.  I love rest, too, but I’ve turned my back on too many days of rest. 

This summer I’m going to enjoy a couple of vacation weeks without email and with a large dose of porch.  But before that even gets here I’m going to start the detox.  I’m going to take breaks every 90 minutes, reminding myself with a handy phone alarm.  I will be considering other ways to incorporate some of these findings into the way I work. 

For now, I might just take a nap.

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photo credit: “Nap” © 2008, Quinn Dombrowski,  CC BY-SA 2.0

 

Come on over. My house is a mess.

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My mom and my aunt giggle remembering the Ritter family in their 1950’s neighborhood.  Apparently, whenever my family would pass by their house the curtains were unflatteringly askew.  It came to be a thing they looked for and snickered about and, eventually, named “rittered curtains.”  As in, “Fix those curtains.  Look at how they’re rittered.”

My mom also remembers her mother ironing handkerchiefs.   

stylized maid serving tea

My parents tell another story about the house I grew up in.  At one point my mom took down the curtains in their bedroom to wash them.  Many weeks later when my dad noticed them missing he asked about it.  They were in a washed but wrinkled pile in the laundry room, waiting for my mom to iron them so she could put them back up on the windows.  Once she’d filled him in on the proceedings, my dad said, matter-of-factly, with no judgment, “I guess we’d better buy new curtains.”

My mom hates ironing.

I love the satisfaction of an ordered, clutter-free, no-rings-around-the-tub house.  I feel like I can relax and enjoy being in it when it’s clean and tidy.  I am definitely the kind of person who cleans for company – I even clean when I invite students over for dinner.  Company is company.  But we haven’t had anyone over in a long, long time.  Until this week – because my parents are coming – I’m pretty sure we hadn’t cleaned the entire house since New Year’s Eve. 

I know where my iron is but can’t say the last time I used it.

I fantasize about hiring someone to clean our house twice a month.  I have it all worked out, how the cleaners would arrive on Monday mornings after my lovely but magically-crumb-producing stepson leaves from the weekend.  I hesitate for many reasons:  I come from a family who invented “rittered curtains” as a category; I come from a family who’s always done our own cleaning; and, it’s not in the budget right now. 

I also hesitate because there’s a part of me that thinks If you’re too busy to clean your house, you’re too busy.  It’s a strange life when the things that sustain us –preparing food, cleaning our homes, sleeping, moving our bodies about outside, relaxing – are considered things for which we are “too busy.”  I don’t need enough time on my hands to take up ironing sheets (and undershirts and handkerchiefs, if men still wore these) but I would love to feel like we have enough time to keep up with the basics.  I would like to be on a cleaning schedule that’s more frequent than quarterly.

You can see from this tale how each generation of my family has relaxed the standard of the previous generation.  But I still want to invite someone over to a comfortable and clean house.  I can’t completely give that one up.  So we’ve had very little company or dinner guests lately.  Here we are at Easter weekend with our first company since New Year’s Eve.   

It’s Holy Week and I have been sick with the crud since Sunday night:  these two facts alone should be enough to cut myself some slack.  Nope.  I knocked myself out (and my husband, too) to get the house clean by Good Friday.

This isn’t simply about busy-ness or family lineage.  It’s about perfectionism.

Brené Brown tells a story about friends stopping by her house unexpectedly when the place was a mess.  Brown’s daughter came to find her with a worried expression on her face – worried in advance about the stress the surprise visit would generate in her mom.  But Brown, who was at that very moment working on her book (The Gifts of Imperfection),  simply changed her clothes and said to her daughter, “I’m so glad they’re here.  What a nice surprise!  Who cares about the house!”   She walked bravely to the door with a smile on her face and welcomed her friends in for a visit in her completely imperfect house.  She says she did so while putting herself “in a Serenity Prayer trance” (The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 58). 

Maybe someday Brené Brown will be the matron saint of vulnerability and glorious imperfection.  Maybe I’ll have a little statue I can shoot a glance at when the doorbell rings or a text chimes with the opportunity to entertain a guest.  I need the encouragement because I am not there yet on my own.  Clearly.

How about you?  How do you save your sanity while not living in swill?  How do you cut yourself some slack?  What family traditions have you let go of in order to make more room for life?  How’s your life becoming more gracious these days?

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photo credit:   Public domain.  Originally produced for the Works Progress Administration, circa 1939.

7 Ways to Improve Your Ministry and Your Relationship with Time

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sundial in snow_2010_noakes

Wondering how to fit in a vacation this year?  Can’t remember the last time you took a day off or experienced a weekend without work?  Stop that!  Here’s some of what I’ve learned and am still learning, offered for clergy and others who long for a healthier, more relaxed pace.

 [Click here for the rest of the story and my list of 7 ways to improve your relationship with time, over at the National Campus Ministry Association blog.]

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photo credit:  “Sundial covered in snow” © 2010 Will Noakes,  CC BY-2.0

 

5 Things that are Definitely Not Resolutions

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I am not into resolutions.  You can probably tell by the fact that I’m writing this in February. 

Increasingly New Year’s resolutions seem like one more thing.  Already, I don’t know a single person who does everything on the list:  checks her credit score every week, exercises precisely the number of times per week and minutes per session for optimal health, spends quality time with the children and spouse and herself, reads for fun, takes a class to push herself, optimizes job performance, relaxes fully, sleeps well, eats just enough, visits with neighbors, visits family on a regular basis, powerwashes the house before it starts to look green…Do I have to keep going here?

public domain_800px-February_calendar

Instead of resolutions, some folks receive star words to live with for the year.  These are meant to help you set an intention that’s a little more wide open than a list of resolutions and they are meant to unfold and illustrate and absorb meaning over the course of your year.  I like this idea better than naming a list of resolutions, but I’m just not looking for more to attend to – even a word.

Stepping out of my usual routine into vacation time over the Christmas break helped remind me of a world where people have each other over for dinner or show up for a visit and some coffee mid-afternoon.  I miss that world.  Of course I know it can’t be like that all the time, but neither can it all be saved up for a once-a-year-family-and-friends-fest – and then back to a starvation diet the other eleven months.

So this is not a list.  It’s not complete or authoritative.  If you are doing fine with your resolutions or your word for the year and you don’t need this, fantastic.  Come back when you feel hurried, crammed, or lonesome.

For the rest of us, 5 ideas for changing your pace and connecting to people and life at a deeper level…

Learn to cook something (new).  You can go big with something like fondue or simply make a homemade soup.  This one’s about delight, nurture, sustenance, and feeding your creative spirit as well as your stomach.     

Take a walk without having to get anywhere and see where it takes you.  You can do this in a mall or a nature trail or a state park.  Don’t set a goal.  Don’t rush.  Saunter or, as the French say, be a flâneur.  This one’s about being present and open to adventure.   Experience unfurling.

Sit down and compose correspondence.  You can do it by email or letter, but it should include thought and time.  (If you are unable to stay with the one draft you’re working on, rather than checking and responding to other email messages in one big multi-tasking mess, then compose offline.)  Say what you’ve been meaning to say to the other person or simply catch him up on your life.  This is qualitatively different than posting a bunch of Instagram pictures for him to cull through.  This one’s about going slowly enough to consider, gather thoughts, revise.

Give yourself regular time (daily or even weekly) to be unplugged, unscheduled, and unproductive.  Start with 10 minutes.  Turn off ringers and other intrusive notifications and set a timer so you don’t have to monitor the time.  You can sit on the porch, watch the clouds and squirrels, and be still.  You can use the time for mindfulness practice or prayer – but if that feels “productive” (One of my New Year’s resolutions is to spend time in prayer each day) then don’t.  Be.  Rest.  Catch up your body and soul with one another.  See where this leads.

Ask someone to show you what they love.  Why does your daughter love that song?  What does your grandfather get out of whittling?  How is running integral to your friend’s life?  Listen and pay attention.  You don’t have to love it, too, but love them.  Make space in your day and your heart to listen and receive (a gift in itself).  Let the other person take you by the hand and let yourself follow.

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photo credit:  public domain image

 

How to Quit Like a Scout

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old girl scouts sash with badges

I don’t know where I got my notions and expectations, other than the word scouts, but I had the impression we’d be camping and spending time in the woods and, while not exactly learning survival skills, at least learning how to tie a knot. Nothing in my family life encouraged these expectations. We weren’t a camping or hiking family. My dad grew up on a farm but we were firmly planted in the suburbs. I was the oldest child and the oldest grandchild, so there weren’t more experienced siblings or cousins to suggest my Girl Scout experience wasn’t up to par.

I just had an inkling…

[Click here for the rest of the story at catapult magazine.]

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photo credit: © 2012 Steve Snodgrass, CC BY 2.0

A Year of Snow. Sort of.

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Last week marked a year here at Snow Day.  As I said in my very first post, “I decided to invest more of my days with that snow day feel – space and pace…A walk through the snow makes it easy to taste and see what’s holy.  But there is holiness everywhere, every day.  I’m trying to leave enough room to notice that.” 

greenhouse in snow

 

I’m not all the way there yet.  I caught myself in a tizzy in December, fretting aloud to my husband about the craziness of my schedule that week and the domino-effect of changing one teeny thing in the line-up.  In full-out rant, I stumbled upon a deep truth as I blurted out, “I do this to myself!”

 

Then again, we took a Snow Day Weekend before students returned in January and it was the deepest relaxation I’ve experienced in a long time.  The fact that there was no actual snow involved should probably count as significant progress.

 

Relevant Magazine recently ran a piece about what to ask yourself before posting to social media.  The whole thing is good, thoughtful advice, but the question that has stuck with me is this one:  Is this a moment to protect?  The author talks about our cultural tendencies to interrupt ourselves in the midst of intimate, important moments in order to “share” those online.  

 

But the question hangs there for me, implicating other tendencies.  Is this a moment to protect?

 

I’m not picturing a smothering “protection” based in fear or controlling behavior.  I’m picturing the way tented plastic protects fragile plants from an early frost.  Just enough cover to allow them to grow and thrive, to assist in what they are already trying to do.

seedlings in plastic cups

 

A year in, I’m still looking for more internal snow days.  I’m not holding out for real snow days to do the work for me (though I’m ready any time, Mother Nature!) and I’m trying to rely less on permission from others.  This little plastic tent of a blog has afforded me a few protected moments and I hope it has for you.  Thank you for being part of the journey.

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Photo credits:  © 2008 Axel Kristinsson,   CC BY 2.0 ; © 2007 Tess Watson, CC BY 2.0

 

 

Tip of the Iceberg

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Sometimes I wish we still wore mourning armbands.  The kind Jimmy Stewart wears in It’s a Wonderful Life at the board meeting after his father dies.  That simple black band around the upper arm signaled to everyone else something was up.  Maybe you wouldn’t have known who had died when you saw a teacher at the school wearing one, but that signal would have prompted you to say, at least, “I’m sorry for your loss.”  iceberg

One of the strangest sensations for a mourner is the sense that the rest of the world can somehow keep turning and bustling while time stands still for her.  Absorbed by grief, routine questions like “Would you like room for cream in that?” can suddenly seem out of place and too normal to fit the terrain of her new world.  I wonder if having the stranger, the barista, say “I’m sorry for your loss…Would you like room for cream?” would help.  I wonder if that outward signal to others to make some room for mourning made those interactions less bizarre.

Death has come near several times this fall.  Not to my innermost circle but close enough – too close for comfort.  Three people cut down well before we expected.  I learned about two of the deaths online.  Distance and screens didn’t make them easier.  I’ve found it difficult to mourn, to know how to express feelings and connections not readily apparent to those in my daily, physical community.

Meanwhile the calendar turns.  Advent arrives.  Trees and decorations go up.  Special playlists serve as the seasonal soundtrack.  We cook dishes reserved for this time of year.  All those physical, sensual triggers that this is a different time now.

Like the mourning armband, reminding others – and the wearer herself – to make room for grief.  This is a different time now.

We rely on rituals to cue our behavior and mindset.  Sleep experts advise establishing and maintaining certain rituals, signals to your mind and body that it’s time to slow down and sleep.  Dark, quiet, cool room.  No screens for an hour before bed.  Same time every night…  Eventually your mind and body recognize the signals sent by the rituals so that brushing your teeth and turning off the screens starts you yawning.  Similar to the way listening to Christmas music while baking helps you get in the spirit of things.

What did we lose when we lost the mourning armbands?  Grief – an iceberg whose puny tip showed up as an armband for a few months – became even more hidden, less able to be shared.  More private, less communal.

Put yourself back in the coffee shop, in a hurry, preoccupied by your own agenda.  When the man in front of you fumbles for his wallet, appears spacey, takes too much time, and doesn’t know how to answer the cream question, how exasperated are you?  What if that man were wearing a simple black armband?  Would that give you the signal to go easy, make room, and let it be?  I suspect it would.  I imagine the odd relief the band would give its wearer, not having to explain anything out of the ordinary but also wearing a sign of his emotional and spiritual journey – literally – on his sleeve.  Exposed and protected by the same signal.

Advent and the incarnation it heralds proclaim the bold, unnerving story:  God lives here, too.  It’s not “out there” or “later” or “in spite of” this world and the bodies we inhabit.  The place of God’s revelation is in the midst of our lives and there is no place to hide but every place to be holy.  Exposed and protected by the same sign. 

Most of the year bodies are just bodies and time is just time.  Death reminds us that bodies are the only way we know one another, the only medium we have for encounter.  Advent proclaims time is not “just” anything.  It’s holy.  Permeated with the presence of God.  All those gingerbread-Baby-It’s Cold-Outside-fir-scented-purple-candles-lessons-and-carols-once-a-year signals to wait a minute.  Take it in, sense by sense, ritual by ritual.  Can’t you see?  Feel?  Taste?  Hear?  Real, sensual, physical signals – just the tip of the iceberg – reminding us to make room for the One who came into time, into a human body, and filled it with holiness.

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photo credit: Sunset Iceberg 2, CC / Free Cultural Works

Advent: Embodiment and Cultivation

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old hand plow

There is no way to be a spiritual person without your body.  There is no enlightened height you can reach where having a body is no longer necessary for your life.  This is the package we come in:  dust and breath, body and spirit.

It’s the package Jesus came in, born with all the human vulnerability and fragility we experience (naked, poor, manger) while still, mysteriously, being God.  Fully human, fully divine.

Advent is an invitation to consider your body.  As we anticipate the feast of Christmas, God’s incarnation (embodiment) in Jesus Christ, how is God calling our attention to our own embodiment? 

I’m talking with college students tonight about de-stressing.  Tomorrow’s the last day of classes so you can imagine their stress level.  Like the rest of us, they tend to think in terms of “when this is over.”  When this semester is over, I will read that novel.  When I graduate, I will learn to cook.  When I have a real job, I will make time every day to pray.  When I land that promotion, then I’ll have enough money.  When my kids are older, then I’ll be able to exercise….

The obvious problem with this thinking is there is never a perfect time to do the hard, counter-cultural work of cultivating our lives.  It’s far easier to let life happen to us, gathering us in a huge rolling snowball of stress and hurry and other people’s agendas.  There is no perfect time, thus, every time is perfect for this life’s work. 

The other problem with this thinking is we are always training ourselves.  What we practice is how we live.  A life spent out of control and waiting for perfection is just that.  A life spent choosing – even in very small ways – to get out of the way of that huge snowball, is a life of slow, steady cultivation.  Of body and spirit.

Advent has already gotten off to a rocky start for me but I am trying to remember and practice exactly these things.  I’m looking forward to the wisdom of my students as we talk together tonight.  I know tomorrow will be just as imperfect and lovely as today.  So, in this season of waiting, I am not waiting to practice what I preach, even as I wait on the mystery of Christmas.

Here are a few tips I’m sharing with students tonight, ways to help bring body and spirit together more intentionally.  Blessings as you cultivate an embodied spirituality.

Practice resting in God for 3 minutes a day.  Sit in a comfortable position and breathe deep belly breaths.  Try to focus your attention on physical sensations and the sound/feel/movement of your breath.  Let that be enough prayer for these three minutes.  Do not try to be “holy.”  Just be present.  Pay attention without judgment.  Don’t “say” anything to God; just know it’s enough to sit still in God’s presence without controlling or narrating the encounter.  No matter how rushed you are, I guarantee you always have 3 minutes.  Choose to use them this way.

Set aside a time each day or each week to be completely offline.  Do it for at least an hour or two, but a whole day is wonderful.  You don’t have to pray and meditate that whole day/time but as you go about time offline, notice how and where you are.  Being connected isn’t “bad” but it can be disorienting (taking you to other places and people than those where and with whom you actually are) and a huge time suck (“just one minute” online turns into an hour) and the frenetic, hyperlinked nature of it contributes to a racing, non-resting mind and spirit.  Choose to check out and live a human pace for discreet periods each day or week.  It will put things in perspective.

Before you eat a meal, before you even offer a prayer before your meal, take three deep breaths.Notice the feel of the cool air entering your nostrils and the warmer air leaving.  Three deep, slow breaths.

Do the same thing right before you open your email in the morning or start the mountain of laundry.  Three deep, slow breaths.

Drink water.  As much as you can possibly stand.

Sleep.  Make this one of the choices you exercise.  This is another way of expressing your confidence and trust that God can keep the world spinning without your help for a few hours. 

Sleep without your electronic devices on your pillow or nightstand.  If your phone is also your alarm clock, set your phone to airplane mode, then set the alarm.  Then turn it off and leave it alone until it wakes you up at the appointed time.

Move.  If you are too tired or busy to do an actual workout, at least try a few stretches or walk around the block.  Get out of your head and into the rest of you for a few minutes.

 Eat.  Try to make it nourishing food.  Try enjoying it instead of wolfing it down.  If you know you’ll be busy, take a few minutes to stock up on easy, healthy snacks you can grab in a hurry (rather than ordering late night pizza because you don’t have any groceries).

Prepare.  Don’t just get up and start running until you drop – choose what makes your list for today and how you will go about it all.  Yes, the choices might not be ideal, but you do still have choices…What really has to get done today? (Exam at 2pm, call Mom on her birthday)  What can wait? (Reorganizing my shoe or spice collection, researching best post-graduation trips to Europe)  Remember that you need to eat, drink, sleep, and spend at least 3 minutes resting in God today, too.  Write down those things and the things that really have to get done today.  Then take a look at the list:  is it reasonable (can a non-bionic human being actually accomplish these things in the waking hours of a day)?  If it is, great – that’s your guide for the day and for saying “no” to other things that try to worm their way into your list.  If it is not reasonable, take a second look.  Can anything be taken off the list?  Is there a way to move anything to another day?  If all of those are “no’s” then decide how much time and effort you will give to each of your list items in order to get them done – this will likely mean that you won’t be doing all of them at 100% but that’s OK.  Choose for that to be ok for these items on this day. 

Remember God loves you exactly as you are, with all of your unfinished business and half-assed efforts.  God loves you no matter what happens on the exam or the relative cleanliness of your house or your Christmas shopping list.  This hard-to-love, beautiful you who God loves is the one you are also called to love.  You cannot “love your neighbor as yourself” if you don’t love yourself.  Start now.  If you are good enough for God to love, you are good enough.  Trust that.

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photo credit:  © 2006 Jonathunder, CC BY-SA 3.0

5 Old-fashioned Things Everyone Should Know How to Do

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I read Nick Offerman’s Paddle Your Own Canoe last week and when he got to the chapter on maps I knew I needed to say something about that.  That lengthy chapter goes on about the horrors of navigating by GPS and I agree with much of what he writes, though I’m not here to chastise you for liking your GPS.  Or to chastise you at all.  grand lake, colorado

But it got me to thinking about the markers of progress that aren’t always what they seem and the things we leave behind in a hurry and then wish we knew how to do.   I work with students, fledgling adults still trying a lot of things on for size, so I see first-hand how narrow and confining a technology-will-solve-it world view can be and also how empowering it is for a 20-year-old to learn to bake a loaf of bread from scratch.

I can be just as much of a nostalgia-waxer as the next person but this isn’t about looking back longingly for a bygone era.  This is about handling your life like a grown up.

Without further ado, I bring you 5 old-fashioned things everyone should know how to do:

  1. Use a map.  Paper, hard to fold – yes, that one.  This is about context.  If all you do is plug in an address to your GPS you have no context for assessing its directions.  Even when it is 100% right, if you make a mistake you don’t have the greater context to see what you’ve done and how to fix it.  I have been on many spring break trips with students to remote areas where cell phones and GPS gadgets don’t receive their lifeblood signals.  Then what?  Even if you prefer to use the GPS (and it works and its signal is strong), if you take the time to review your plans on an actual map so that you can see more than just the step you are on – that you are going east and the river should be on your right until that last turn – then when the river shows up on your left you will know something is amiss.  You don’t have to love maps or frame them as art in your house or purchase a sextant or be able to find north by the moss on a tree.  But learn how to see the bigger picture.
  2. Follow a recipe.  “I don’t cook” is not acceptable.  If, after following this step, you choose not to cook because your personal chef would be out a job or you like spending all your money at restaurants, fine.  But make one thing from scratch with a recipe.  See that it is not magic and that if you can read you can do it.  Know that if you had to or started wanting to, you could make meals for yourself and others.  Know you are not helpless and you have seen at least one thing become something edible and nourishing, assembled from raw ingredients and the work of your hands.  (Get started.)
  3. Place a phone call to someone you do not know.  Though some would argue this is becoming less necessary, there are still occasions when you will need voice-to-voice interaction and help from someone you have never met.  You will not be able to text it or just call and hang up and wait for them to notice the missed call and return it.  It’s likely you will need to do this at the least optimal time for learning an uncomfortable new skill, like after the death of a grandparent when you are trying to call the insurance company or the funeral home.  Practice before you need it.  Role play it with a friend and some tin cans connected by string.  Whatever it takes.
  4. Make a budget.  I know it’s not sexy.  I know you may not follow it to the last cent.  But know how to do it.  There is no mystery to this at all.  You don’t have to be a “math person” (I’m not).  This is a skill enhanced by computer software like Quicken or websites like Mint – you don’t even have to do the math yourself, but you do have to sit down and think about it and get it all in one place.  You write down your sources of income (How much do you get paid?  Any other side gigs or family inheritance income?).  Then make a list of your routine expenses for each month (rent/mortgage, utilities, cell phone, groceries, gas, loans, retirement and savings) and more occasional expenses (insurance, property tax on your car, Christmas gifts, clothes).  The total of the things you listed for income should match or be greater than the total of all expenses.  If it’s not, you need to make more money or spend less.  It’s simple but hard.  Not knowing how to make a budget while wondering every month why you don’t have enough money to cover your bills is silly.
  5. Make something – anything – with your hands.  You can run full-on into a new artistic endeavor like caning your own chairs or throwing pots or painting with watercolor.  Those are fine pursuits bringing pleasure and relief and the inspiration of creation to your life.  But you can also create a centerpiece for your Thanksgiving table out of construction paper and fall leaves.  Make a card for someone who’s been ill or grieving.  We spend more and more of our life – like me typing this and you reading it – on screens with only our brains and fingertips doing the work of creating and receiving.  Keep the rest of you alive with tangible projects that beautify your life and the lives of those you love.  You don’t have to think of it as “art” if that makes you squirm.  Think of it as the gift of your time and attention – a gift to you and to those who will share it.  Watch what happens to you as you pour yourself into it.  Appreciate how it’s still there when the power goes out.

Study Abroad, “Before Sunrise,” and the Beauty of Snow Days

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snowday flavor beer

It’s not even time to “fall back” but I’m already dreaming of our first snow day in Virginia.  I revel in the permission a snow day grants.  Permission to stop adhering to the schedule, to take a pass, to stay home and off the roads, to make cookies in the middle of the day and nap just because I feel like it and I can.  I could give myself this kind of permission more often, but it’s harder when there’s nothing external forcing my hand.  This is the beauty of a snow day, when permission to be takes precedence over the obligation to do. 

These days I sometimes go online during a snow day, if we still have power.  It’s fun to see what other people are doing with the unexpected time and space.  But in some respects, staying offline (imposed or by choice) is better.  It helps me stay present in the day itself, with however I am filling it or emptying it.  I have to rely on my own resources.

Back when I did it, studying abroad was like this, too.  It was 1989 and I had barely heard of a fax machine.  I was only able to call my parents three or four times the whole semester.  My main mode of communication with friends and family back home was through letters squeezed onto every inch of the blue, striped aerogram paper which folded up into its own envelope.  I was homesick and spent copious amounts of time in coffee shops writing home while gazing out the window and sipping a café crème.  I’m sure if we’d had email or cell phones or Facebook I would have checked in incessantly and in real time, as today’s study abroad students do.  I often have trouble remembering these students are gone when they’re away for the semester, since I spend just as much time liking status updates from Zurich as I do from across the campus. 

Before Sunrise came out six years after my semester in France and, like a band you stick with over the decades, I’ve been growing up with this story, told now over three movies and decades.  When I re-watched Before Sunrise a few years back, I was struck by the certainty this movie couldn’t be made now.  Both of the young and footloose characters would have cell phones now, through which they would stay tethered to conversations and posts and people time zones away, no matter what ancient city they were in.  When the characters in that first movie meet on a train there’s a long, quiet shot of Ethan Hawke looking out the window at Europe blurring past.  I remember doing that through France, Italy, Sweden, Ireland.  The movement of the train lulling me deeper in thought.  Fabulous plans for the future were hatched on the train and in journals when I was alone and out of touch in Europe.  The whole adventure of that film began out of un-tethered solo travel and that slim, delicious bubble of time before sunrise.  Today, the characters might be so immersed in updating their Twitter accounts they’d never meet – and, if they did somehow strike up a conversation, surely the cell phones would ring and interrupt that lovely lingering night in Vienna.  What was out-of-time but deeply grounded in one place and another person would surely be dissolved, jerked back into splintered time and attention with the ring of a far-off call or the beep of a text.

I know today’s parents and students would never consider a semester abroad without the availability of constant contact.  But some of what was hard and strange and scary and wonderful about the time I studied abroad was precisely how out of touch it felt.  The connections were largely distant and time-lagged.  Letters I wrote took time to make their way into the hands of my friends and family.  My observations were considered and honed before they were shared – or they were forgotten.  The night my train hit and killed someone in Sweden and I missed the next train and had to rely on the kindness of a Danish woman who helped me find a hotel in Copenhagen for the night – that night was experienced without Google Maps or Trip Advisor or Facebook.  I had to be where I was and trust a stranger and try to get a good night’s sleep anyway. 

A lot of my time in Europe I felt small and inexperienced.  Sometimes I felt scared.  And, though I relied on my parents (and asked them to wire money – more than once), I also spent a lot of time relying on my own resources.  By the time I came home I felt changed.

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t recommend students plan study abroad trips without cell phones.  But I do recommend taking technology breaks on purpose – here and abroad.  There are times and places better absorbed without the rest of the world watching.  Like an all-night stroll through Vienna, standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, the birth of a baby, a walk through the woods, or a snow day.  And when one’s not forthcoming, you can always declare one for yourself.  You might even call it Sabbath.

But Wait, There’s More: Butternut Squash Soup, Standby Recipe for Fall

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fall leaves, fall color

I know I said we were finished with our Standby Recipes series, but when a couple of cool late August-early September days came along, I started to crave this soup.  Once you’ve had it you’ll know what I mean.  Simple and deeply satisfying (and vegan and gluten-free if you want it to be).

My friend Alison first made it for me when I landed in England, barely awake and hungry after a long night of travel.  It revived me and felt so much more nourishing than any of the easy-grab things I would have eaten, left to my own devices.  When I’m feeling lazy or tired and debating whether or not I want to get involved with a butternut squash, I remember how bone-deep-wonderful this tasted on that early English morning and how it only took her half an hour. 

Butternut Squash Soup

1 small-medium onion, diced

1 T butter or vegetable/olive oil

2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, chopped

1 small-medium butternut squash, peeled, seeds discarded, chopped into 1” pieces

1 quart vegetable stock

1 can white beans (like cannellini), rinsed and drained

Salt and pepper, to taste

Melt butter (or warm oil) in large pot or Dutch oven.  Add onion and sauté for several minutes until soft and translucent.  Add rosemary and continue sautéing for another minute or two.

Be careful peeling and chopping the squash.  (I use a good vegetable peeler (not a knife) to peel and then work on small sections at a time – it will be slippery.)  When you’ve tackled it, add it to the pot and pour in the vegetable stock.  Turn it up to a boil and cook, stirring occasionally, until squash is tender and easily pierced with a fork.

When the squash is getting close to done, add the beans and some fresh black pepper. 

Before I had a blender, I used a food processor for this next part and it’s perfectly yummy and acceptable to do so.  But if you have a blender, I recommend using it.  The soft, velvety purée you can achieve with the blender is perfection.  So, get whichever device you are going to use and, in small batches, purée the soup.  It is very easy to have it explode out of the blender when it’s hot and you put too much in, so be conservative.  I keep a bowl handy and pour out the blended soup into it, while continuing to blend the soup from the pot in batches.

When you have it all blended (a few stray beans left in the bottom of the pot is fine and adds a nice random texture to the final product, so don’t stress about those), pour the soup back into the pot.  Turn it down to warm and taste.  Adjust with salt and more pepper, if desired.

That’s it.  Homemade soup in half an hour.  Bliss.  Yum.  Go, make and enjoy!