Life and Work by Design Blog

Technorati tags: summer camp, life lessons, Chautauqua Lake

It’s a damp, cool morning with a heavy misty fog hanging over the lake. As I sit at my favorite bench on the shoreline, I hear loud screams and laughter coming from the children’s camp pier nearby. It takes me back many years to my own experiences on that pier as a camper.

Every one had to pass a swimming test at the beginning of each summer and invariably, because it was early June in Western NY it would be chilly and rainy. The lake looked gray-black and very, very cold.
We would be lined up on the dock, a bunch of skinny little kids covered with goose bumps, wiggling and laughing and dreading having to jump into the water. We would all beg to do something else until the teenage counselors would finally yell, one…..two…..three …and gleefully shove all of us in.

Oh how I hated that! At that age I was somewhat afraid of the water, especially in lakes where I couldn’t see the bottom. And in this lake, a perennial seaweed of sorts grew on the bottom that would tangle around my feet and ankles. Nothing could be creepier! Who knew what else lurked down there?

My only motivation to do this was that once I proved that I could swim to the raft and back, I could graduate up to the canoeing and sailing lessons that I loved. So we would all take off swimming, in any fashion we could, to finish the test and climb out with our blue lips, shivering all over.

It was a rite of passage every summer, and a bunch of kids learned the lesson that it’s better to just get the bad things over with so that you can go on to the good stuff. An important lesson at a young age.
Now I just go straight to the sailing part on sunny days when the twinkling lake light draws me in willingly. I can’t remember the last time I swam to that raft…..

I hope all of you have enjoyed a Thanksgiving celebration of some kind.  For so many families, this holiday is done in the same way every year down to who sits where at the table, and which cook will contribute each item.  I was part of a group that did that for 18 years. 

But in the last 5 years or so, my traditions have changed.  With a series of weddings, divorces, births, moves etc., the players have been re-arranged and new possibilities have opened up.  Each year has meant a new setting, some new faces around the table, and even new menu items. 

One year, I joined my daughter and about 10 of her friends in New York City for an international dinner.  She and I provided the turkey and mashed potatoes and everyone else brought a holiday dish from their country - about 5 nationalities were represented.  It was not only good food, but a great cultural learning experience for everyone. 

This year all of my immediate family traveled to the retirement center where my Father resides.  We shared a wonderful meal in the dining room there much to the delight of my Dad and many of his friends and acquaintances.  The great-grandchildren actually behaved pretty well and the seniors enjoyed just having them around.  Due to long distances, this was the first year in many that I and my children, my brother and sister-in-law, and our Dad were together.  It was such a treat!

In a recent post I discussed climbing out of our ruts. This holiday gathering was just another indication that we can make changes in our lives.  Even something as sacrosanct as a family celebration can be changed and even improved. 

We are creating new holiday traditions in our family - a tradition of openness to possibilities and creative change that benefits all involved.  

How about the traditions in your life?     Maybe it’s time to create new ones…….  

Is it really almost Thanksgiving again?  I used to dread this holiday.  Oh, I love turkey, cranberries and pumpkin pie, but it is also the beginning of the end of the year.  And that would bring the realization that I was still in the same old rut.

 Same old boring work…..same old miserable marriage…..same old place where I didn’t belong.

But it’s so hard to make changes to life. And it’s scary.  And there are so many things to consider. And there is never enough time to just be quiet and think about it all. 

 Have you been there?         Are you there now?       What are you doing about it?

Let me tell you what I did.  I suddenly knew that I just couldn’t keep getting up every day in that house, in that town, to go to that office.  I took off on a two week vacation much to everyone’s surprise. I was a mother of two teenagers, an owner of a business, and an involved member of the community. 

I just left and went to a family summer home by myself. I spent my days on the shore of the lake, on a sailboat, and walking miles through the countryside thinking. Sometimes I would speak my thoughts aloud to myself, to the animals, to the wind.  Sometimes I screamed at the heavens.

I bought a notebook and started writing down all my feelings.  The frustrations, resentments, disappointments, lost dreams and anger came spilling out.  Then a funny thing happened. Once I had emptied my bad feelings onto those pages the courageous, rational and independent person I used to be started to emerge. I remembered, and believed, that I was a smart, capable and caring woman who had a lot to offer the world.

By the time I left, I had made up my mind my life would be different. I identified five areas of conflict that I needed to work on. These were not small things. They were large challenges, and I knew I could not fix them overnight, but I went home with a new resolve to expand and grow. That year (1997) I started to climb out of my rut. 

I’m writing this now because I recently found that notebook.  I actually had forgotten about it. I’ve shredded most of it.  Those days are long gone and I’ve always believed that we have to look forward, never back. But I was startled by the page with the five challenges on it.

I had never looked at it again, but over the course of the past 10 years, I have accomplished every one of them.  It took me 2 years to resolve the business ownership problems (I sold out to my partner); it took another 4 to decide that the marriage could not be saved (I left); it took another 3 to move to the place where I belong (back home to PA); and another year after that to finally launch Life and Work By Design (my dream work).

So what is the moral of the story?  Positive change takes determination, planning, self understanding and time. Whatever it is you are struggling to change, you can do it too. You can climb out of your rut a little bit at a time. Make this year different.

            make the time…..take the time…. stop losing time!

Wow! I have had one of those wonderful AHA moments again. I love it when this happens! All of a sudden, all the forces of the universe come together and something that has been worrying, challenging or puzzling you suddenly comes clear.

From reading elsewhere you know that I had a supreme change of heart about a year ago when I quit what others considered a perfectly good, (actually gravy-train sort of corporate job) because I believed that I was meant to do something much more meaningful in this life. Friends and family thought I was nuts. Then Barbara Winter, my solo-preneur guru, suggested that I become a creative careers consultant. That was a great idea -it fit me very well  and I proceeded to take the certification training with Valerie Young at Changing Course.com and hung out my shingle. But I have been struggling with trying to find just the right corner of the career coaching world to fit into. I just hadn’t defined that special area that really excited me.

Then I read an article by Marc Freedman, author of a book titled, Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the 2^nd Half of Life. AHA!   I have found my special project!

In a nutshell, Mr. Freedman, the founder of Civic Ventures, The Purpose Prize and The Experience Corps, makes the point that this huge group of Boomers who are beginning to retire has the knowledge, experience, energy and resources to make some profound contributions to society both at the local level and around the globe. And, they care about doing something that makes a difference.

It seems that I’m only one of many who want to make a social impact somehow. We want encore careers that combine needed income, a search for personal fulfillment and a desire to make a real impact.”

The article highlights ordinary people like a retired Marine Corps general who transformed a Chicago food bank; a former corporate manager who joined the Peace Corps and ended up staying in Romania to start a non-profit to help the children there; a retired hospital executive who started a program for the homeless in Philadelphia.

I will have much more to say about this in future blogs and articles.I’m going to the book store to buy a copy of the book now. This phenomena which Freedman calls “the biggest transformation of work since the women’s movement” has gotten my attention. I want to play a role in helping my fellow boomers find their talents and gifts and a way to share them with a bigger world.  Read more about Marc Freedman’s projects on his web-site. It is truly inspiring.

Marc Freedman’s Site

I am leaving tomorrow for a couple of weeks of R and R at a family summer home. This place is dear to my heart and I have not ever been able to spend much time there but this is my second trip this summer and I am grateful to be able to do that this year.

The best thing about this modest home is the swing on the front porch. Suspended from the ceiling, it makes a sweet tiny squeak each time it moves back and forth.  It is loaded with a variety of small pillows so you can arrange it just right for visiting with neighbors, reading a good book or taking an afternoon nap.

I’ve written many journal pages in that swing over the years, done hundreds of crossword puzzles, and read a milliion pages.  This year has been special though because I’ve been sitting there listening to my 90 year old father tell stories of his childhood and of family members whom I barely knew as a child.  What a privilege thishas been!

We all need time like this but unfortunately, they don’t build houses with porches and swings anymore. A whole generation has grown up not knowing the joy of just sitting and swinging. You can hear the birds singing, watch the squirrels and chipmunks run in the woods, feel the cool breeze in your hair, and just let your mind go for that time.

And of course, you can take a good nap. This is my daughter who has been napping on this swing her whole life and who discovered this summer that she still fits!

Swinging and napping - it just doesn’t get any better than that! Try it if you can…..  I’ll be blogging from here for the next couple of weeks.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned here that I was stymied by the cybergods who were making it difficult for me, the best problem solver in the world, to make my blog look better.  Realizing that one woman can’t do it all, I went in search of a truly technical person who could also use the creative side of her brain.

I found K C Gagne, a work-at-home mom who is not only good at html design, but has patience, a sense of humor, and good marketing sense.  So, voila, this page is now beautiful and functional! And then she transformed my web-site. Thank you, K C!!! 

K C  has her own blog where she writes about life balance with a house, husband, kids and a part-time business. Go visit it at www.connectingrainbows.com/blog and if you need web-site design help, I can highly recommend her services.

I’ve been on a two week hiatus from blogging while I enjoyed two of my favorite vacation spots. The first is Newport, RI where the tall ships were gathered.  It was a fascinating and educational experience to step aboard these beautiful sailboats. There were ships from many countries - some had sailed for months to get there - and the crews proudly showed off their vessels.  It was a real joy to watch these young sailors working at something that they obviously love enough to spend months away from their families, and to endure the good and the bad of sailing on the oceans of the world for the better part of a year. What a thrilling experience they are having!

It brought to mind my favorite quote from Mark Twain, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. “

I have a long list of artistic skills that I want to work on some day but even though I haven’t found the time to learn how to actually do them, I enjoy seeing other artists’ creations. Hand-woven fabrics are one of my absolute favorites and I had an opportunity this past weekend to sit and watch a woman dressed in Revolutionary garb weave a table runner on a floor loom at a local festival.

 As I watched, it occurred to me that our lives are much like her weaving.  Woven cloth is made up of two elements - the warp and the weft. The warp is a series of long threads, yarns or strings that are affixed to the loom and run continuously through the length of the cloth and are generally all the same. The weft are other fibers, which may be absolutely anything, that are woven in between the warp threads in a variety of patterns.  Often the weft is a different color, a different thickness or a variety of different fibers, strings or yarns.  In weaving projects that are created as art for hanging, other elements such as feathers, buttons, sticks, ribbons or wires may be used. 

Then I realized that I have been changing the texture of the weaving that is my life in the last few years.  The warp threads that hold me together are my family members and long-time friends, my spirituality, my ethics and moral code, my love of learning, my eternal optimism, my independence and even my stubbornness.  These will always be the basis of my life.  But, I have been adding a lot of new weft yarns in recent years.

First I created a couple of holes with some hard but important personal decisions, but they are hardly noticeable now. Then I changed the background color by moving to a new locale and home; I’ve added lots of interesting buttons and beads in the form of new acquaintances and friends; there was a short strand of color for a JOB that turned out to be all wrong for me, but that has been replaced by rows of thick, lush brightly colored yarn that represent a new direction for my life’s work. There is a sparkly golden thread starting to appear for a new romantic relationship. There are a few feathers for travel and adventure opportunities, and a scattering of sequins for a whole new set of goals and dreams.  Suddenly, the fabric of my life is colorful and interesting again!

How about you?  Has the fabric of your life become a monotonous pattern in pale colors?  Think about hanging it up on the wall.  Is it a work of art to show?

There are so many ways to add interest to your weaving.  Join a new hobby group; take a class; explore a neighboring city; spend two hours in the library just browsing whatever catches your eye; take the time to set some new goals; make a decision to change something that is toxic for you.

Create a vibrant new pattern - you can do that - and you might discover new things about your self in the process.