Ordinary Life, Extraordinary Living

The End of the School Year or How I'd Rather Have a Root Canal Than Endure Another May

We’re in the home stretch. The awards ceremonies, choir and band concerts, and field days have come and gone. The seniors have graduated and finals are half over. Textbooks have been turned in and yearbooks have been passed out. Math club and chess club have met for the last time.

What’s left are a couple days of finals, completing projects, taking a last field trip, and cleaning classrooms.

It has been hell getting here.

Not the school work or activities. I've gotten good at ignoring the end of year hubbub and focusing on the essential. And during the year, there were a few assertive emails exchanged between my husband and my sons’ teachers and a mid-semester report for my older son that indicated serious lack of interest in school. Those issues get worked out with a little effort and attention.

No, I’m talking about something much more basic. I’m talking about the morning routine of getting ready for school. 

Two more days of waking the fifteen-year old from his overnight coma, placating the twelve-year old when he’s grumpy with chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and scrambling to get out of the house on time. Two more days of cooling my heels with the car in the driveway, my younger son egging me on to leave without the older one, and watching the drop dead time come and go. Two more days of cringing when my younger son beats me to car and totals up the “fine” that’s collected by those who are in the car on time from those who are not.  Each morning, as we leave our subdivision, my younger son reports how much he has earned that day by my older son’s and sometimes my own lateness.  It's been a lesson in getting rich by being punctual.

In the last month, even the daily fines had not been enough to erase the morning torpor that descended over the Ross household. Forget about enough time for the minutes of Sonicare brushing mandated after the last dental checkup, to make a lunch of a tortilla, turkey slices and a Clif bar, or to fill up an empty Gatorade bottle with water. Decaying teeth, a school-bought meal, and the water fountain became tradeoffs that my sons easily made. It was a victory to have a change of underwear, a mean pee, and a bowl of Froot Loops before opening the car door and shoving a bulging backpack in first. The panting in the back seat was my cue to burn rubber.

The goal of being on time turned to the avoidance of being tardy.  Even a couple of days knowing we would be late didn’t turn things around. After school conversations weren’t of much help.

“Were you late today?”

Andy replied, with little regret: “Yeah.”

Casey answered, with a sly smile in his voice: “No, the teacher didn’t notice me coming in late.”

One day, we reached the pinnacle of laissez-faire school readiness. Or maybe it’s the valley. Andy, complaining of allergies, suggested staying home. Casey chimed in, sensing an opportunity for a mental health day. The rationale was that several hours of the day would be devoted to a school fundraiser, running around the track to collect on pledges. They wouldn’t miss much and part of the day would be devoted to school work. They promised to make up any missed assignment. I had just returned from a business trip the night before and could have easily spent another hour in my pajamas. It was a done deal except for who would call the attendance line.

“Dear, the boys want to stay home today. What do you think?”

Husband, who is dead to the world before morning coffee: “Sure.”

“Will you call the attendance line?”

“No, you have to call them.”

“Why me?”

“Because it’s your job to take the boys to school.  I pick them up.”

“Oh, fine. What should I say?”

“Tell the truth.”

“Oh, fine.”  I hated the simplicity of his words.

A quick call to the recorded line, with words of a 7th grader run down from allergies and a 9th grader needing a mental health day, and we were done.

Soon, very soon, the tyranny of the morning routine will be replaced by the peaceful slumber of teenagers, interrupted only by my husband's grinding of coffee beans for his daily java sludge. I'll have time for breakfast on the patio, serenaded by chirping birds. A quick scan of the paper, and then down the stairs to my home office. It will be bliss. Until August comes and another school year starts. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Talent Well-Used

Three cases of talent being well-used:

• My niece, Taylor, is in high school. She's wired to think logically, do in-depth research, and articulate well-formed arguments. (Comes from my brother--who has a keen memory and at times, a sharp tongue.) This past year, she took an AP class on Constitutional Law. As part of the class, she and 26 classmates were in a national competition, debating parts of the Constitution as it applies to modern societal issues. After thousands of hours building their cases, practicing and competing, Taylor and the rest of the Denver East High School team won the national championship in Washington, DC.  Personal note: It's a thrill to see my niece on CNN.

• My son, Andy, is in middle school. He's wired for math--loves it, gets the concepts right away, and knows how to apply it. He participated in several math competitions this year (MathCounts, University of Northern Colorado math competion, American Mathematics Competition) and took home a lot of hardware.

• While competitions are an obvious way to observe talent well-used, it becomes even more important to use our talents in our day-to-day life. I had a chance to see talent in action yesterday, when several tornados touched down near Denver. With several hundred parents and students assembled in a gymnasium for an end of the year awards ceremony, the executive principal used his StrengthsFinder talents of Activator, Focus, and Strategic to move people quickly and efficiently to interior rooms suitable for a tornado drill. Only it wasn't a drill. His clarity and order in which he gave instructions ("please don't talk, we will be moving everyone in the next 15 minutes, adults move first to the auditorium, then all girls to my left move to the girls' locker room....") was useful in what many would consider a small crisis situation.

The good news is that we all have talents. Figure out what your talents are and find ways to make them well-used.

Ground Up

Lately, I've been thinking about bottom up vs. top down, first with my work with A Bigger Voice, and then with conversations with coaching clients who have hit the glass ceiling.

Bottom up seems to be what's up for others as well. This month's Fast Company magazine has an article about evolutionary economics--how the business landscape isn't controlled from the top as much as we think it is, and how smart companies focus on customers, instead of government bailouts.

And later in the same issue, an article about Chicago and what makes it great has this quote,

"We're conscious of what made Chicago great. We have a historical reputation to uphold. This is the city of Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, Lou Rawls. It's from the ground up."

We live in a world where a single lone voice can connect to others to make a difference. Top down is still powerful and with technology, becoming more limited when compared to the wisdom of crowds, users, consumers, customers. Or as Dan Pink has said, citizens. 

Women in Engineering

I'm always pleased when I can introduce friends to each other. This podcast interview with two friends, who I know from my days at U S WEST and Avaya, is an example of what can happen. Terry Morreale interviews Sarah Kiefhaber about her 29-year career in engineering. Sarah talks about finding mentors, the climate for women when she started and now, financial independence, and using all of her gifts in her work.  Enjoy!

I Owe My Sanity to Fairy Cards or How Taking a Vacation is Easier Than You Think

Lately, I’ve been feeling like there’s always one more thing on my list that needs to get done. Friday evening comes and I look forward to getting caught up on the weekend—the emails that I’ve neglected, the blog postings that have been ruminating since reading a newspaper article or having an insight while jogging or driving, or featured articles (like this one) that have yet to emerge before the end of the month. Not to mention business planning I should be doing for the two new businesses I’m starting this year.

It’s enough to drive me crazy. Forget about having a clean house, a weed-free lawn, or having enough foresight to mail a birthday gift on time. The kids are on their own for breakfast and lunch. Dinner gets put on the table only through the grace of my loving husband. Permission slips may or may not get signed. 

Several weeks ago, in the midst of this “never caught up” feeling and business travel, I decided to do something. I took out my fairy cards. When life gets hectic, move into the realm of the imaginary.  It’s so much easier.

For the record, fairy cards can be bought at your local New Age book shop, but you might also run across them in a nice gift shop, especially ones that cater to women. I got my set from a girly friend and I give them out at girly gatherings. If you never expect to get good advice from your spouse or supervisor, you can count on fairy cards giving excellent guidance. It’s short, sweet, and to the point.

The stack of cards, which I shuffle and draw from at random, have sayings like, “Financial Flow,” or “Family Harmony,” or “Letting Go.”  This is followed up with a detailed description, with words like, “The fairies want you to consider….” Fairy or no fairy, the card always makes sense for what’s going on in my life. When I turn to the fairy cards, I don’t care if I’m getting advice from a bag lady on the street or a stranger in the check-out line at the grocery store. I just want it to resonate.

So when I consulted the fairies recently, this is what they said: Vacation. How perfect is that? Trouble was, I was traveling for business for the next two weeks.  How was I supposed to take a vacation under those circumstances? 

Lesson Number One: Immerse yourself in another world, if only briefly. Even in the middle of a business trip. My colleague in Minneapolis took me to the Global Marketplace to pick up food for a working lunch. For 30 minutes, I was fascinated by the cornucopia of vendor stalls specializing in Mexican seafood, soul food, Scandinavian pastries, and food staples from the Middle East.  We ate our lunch on a picnic table, with the warmth of a 70-degree day, surrounded by the colors and sights of an emerging Midwestern spring.

Lesson Number Two: Go back in time. While meeting with an attorney, I marveled as I entered the historic Lumber Exchange Building. Built in the late 1800’s, it displayed solidly built Romanesque construction and an elegant entranceway, with scrolled gates. Inside, I was greeted by grand staircase and an ornate marble-floored lobby. The building reminded me of the some of the great architectural gems of downtown Chicago. Later, I found out that it was oldest building outside of New York with 12 or more stories. It was a treat to go back in time, just a few steps from the modern world. 

Lesson Number Three: Treat your taste buds to new sensations. One of my most memorable meals while traveling was a Thai appetizer that combined chopped lemons, hot peppers, shrimp, fresh herbs, a sweet and sour sauce, coconut, all wrapped in lettuce. Another day, I had creamy ice cream made with milk from a local organic dairy and hand-made pasta with a spicy chili sauce. 

Lesson Number Four: Take in some great views. In Minneapolis, I enjoyed the lakes and woods, a departure from the semi-desert landscape of Colorado. The following week, walking across a bridge over the Chicago River, I admired the vibrancy of an urban setting rich with history. The 60’s architecture of Marina Towers was in full view and the Sun-Times and Wrigley buildings, monuments to free press and free trade, lined the river’s edge.

Lesson Number Five emerged when I returned home: Engage in activities with friends and family. I’m so glad I made time for bike riding in Boulder with a friend, shopping with my sister and nieces at a consignment shop, and playing board games with my son, his friend, and my husband. I could have let my inner taskmaster overrule, chastising me for an indulgence that had no obvious outcome other than to bring joy and laughter into the world.

The fairies were right. A vacation is exactly what I needed. It was easier to create than I thought. Weeks later, my spirit is renewed. The world went on without me running alongside every milestone like a beleaguered marathoner.  No one suffered irreparable harm from a delayed email reply.

There’s still a to-do list but the never ending feeling doesn’t have the same hold over me.  I can let go at the end of the day or the beginning of a weekend. However I spend my time, whether laughing with my husband and sons at another episode of the looney British comedy Black Adder on DVD, or taking a long nap, or writing a few blog postings, it’s time well-spent.

Improv Wisdom

I've fallen in love with a gem of a book, Patricia Ryan Madson's Improv Wisdom. Madson is a retired professor of drama at Stanford University, with lots of credits in the areas of improv and creativity.

Less than 150 pages, the book is a quick read. It is organized by principles of improvisation that, when applied to everyday living, make for a better life. My copy of the book has numerous pages dog-earred with sentences underlined and notes in the margins. A few of my favorite lines:

"A good improviser is someone who is awake, not entirely self-focused, and moved by a desire to do something useful and give something back and who acts upon this impulse."

"Consummate improvisers are marked by their generosity, courtesy, and abililty to watch out for the needs of their teammates."

"The practice of improvisation...teaches [us] how to be in harmony with one another and how to have fun."

"Showing up is the key principle when we offer service to others. So often it is our presence alone, rather than some special ability, that makes the difference."

"The improviser focuses on making [an] idea into a good one, rather than searching for a "good idea."

"Never let an hour go by without giving credit to someone...Cultivate a generosity of speech."

"A constructive response to a mistake is to notice it, acknowledge it, and, if possible, use it....a mistake is just an unanticipated outcome giving us information."

In addition to her wisdom, Madson has provided exercises to strengthen our improv muscles--games to play with friends, small experiments in living differently, and new thoughts and beliefs to try on.

Postscript: Madson and I connected as a result of this posting. She's a lovely woman. A mutual friend points me to this YouTube video when she spoke as part of the Authors@Google series.

What Would You Say At the End of Your Life?

Two years ago, I did a series of interviews with Ilene Kouzel, a friend dying of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The inteviews eventually were packaged into episodes for a podcast, Conscious Living, Conscious Leaving.

Ilene loved to tell the story about adding one of her caretakers to her bank account, to make deposits to the account. What she thought would be a simple call turned into much more of an ordeal and in a moment of frustration, Ilene blurted out:

"I have a horrible and fatal disease. I just want her to be on my account!" 

After that incident, Ilene liked to joke that the "fatal illness card" trumps most other cards.

A friend told me about a woman he knew that was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Before going to hospice, she was hospitalized. At the hospital, a physician who came from another country and didn't speak English well came into her room and wanted to draw blood.  They argued a bit and finally the woman said,

"I'm going to be dead in 48 hours!  I don't need blood work!  You need to work on your English language skills!  Go!  Go practice English & leave my blood alone!"

Both of these women were known by friends and family as feisty and spirited. We die as we live and we live as we die.

And finally, I saw this follow-up by the Wall Street Journal on Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor with pancreatic cancer whose "last lecture" captured the hearts of people around the world. I was struck by this quote from Paugh, who is the father of three young children:

"When I cry in the shower, I'm not usually thinking, "I won't get to see the kids do this" or "I won't get to see them do that." I'm thinking about the kids not having a father. I'm focused more on what they're going to lose than on what I'm going to lose."

The pattern of our life doesn't stop when death is around the corner. It just intensifies.