We just got back from traveling during New Hampshire’s vacation week, which ended up being a complete tour of New England: Vermont over the weekend to see my childhood best friend and ski for the last time this year at Sugarbush Ski Mountain, then our condo in North Conway, NH, then to New York City to visit my best friend with my youngest daughter Lucy, then we all went to Connecticut for our dear friend’s parents 50th Wedding Anniversary Party. It sounds like a lot, and it was, but after the winter of isolation it was all very energizing, and we went to bed early and I fit in a few glorious runs which always makes traveling better.

It was such a full week that it surprised me to find that the current of my thoughts was focused on simplicity. Mostly because I finished the book The Life Changing Magic of Tidying-Up by Marie Kondo, which is a meditation on getting rid of everything in your home which doesn’t bring you joy. She is from Japan and incorporates a lot of elements of Zen Buddhism in her treatment of home organization. Which basically means it is filled with ideas that will act like a razor and cut out a lot of noise in our thinking that makes us hold on to things.

The title does not lie. This is life changing stuff.

Because you can extend this to your whole life. And her point is that once you tackle this you begin to see your life take shape, since you have more time and mental energy to focus on your deeper passions once your home is in order.

Can I get an hallelujah or two?

I am a BIG believer that books come into your life when they are supposed to, like people, and I think reading this book in the throes of spring fever, where we want to shed everything – all the layers that held us down all winter – really made the book speak to me more then if I read it any other time. Because now, making my life about simplicity is all I can think about. It is not a Pollyanna version of life with out work. There will always be messes and I dig hard work. It is just knowing exactly where to focus my energy, my effort, my elbow grease. It is knowing what matters the most. And somehow, woven in between all that simplicity, all I can see is beauty.

In the perennial classic, Elements of Style by Shrunk & White (as in EB White of Charlotte’s Web fame), they discuss how good writing is all about editing. Remove every unnecessary word. I love this way of writing. Since running a family and a home and writing for a few shelter magazines both happen to be my job, Marie Kondo’s book extended this idea to all the other areas of my life. By removing everything unnecessary, we are left with what is necessary. What matters. As one of Marie’s clients said, “Up to now, I believed it was important to do things that added to my life…but through your course I realized for the first time that letting go is even more important that adding.”

I will be chewing on this idea for a while, I can tell. But it sums up how I want to view everything in my life.  Let go of the noise, superficiality, angst, and bring in the joy of watermelon on the porch, playing hide and seek, reading  good writing, running in this heavenly spring air, and forging friendships over the best things – faith, family and food.

Here’s to closets with piles of folded towels and lavender scented poupori saches instead of skeletons. It may take time for me to get there, but every step feels lighter and happier already.

Now I’m out to go clean out a closet or two. Happy Spring, friends. xo

To the woman who sat near me at that brunch, with your perfectly coiffed cloud of gray curls, wearing pearls at your throat, bright red lips and a pastel sweater set, I just wanted you to know that I see you.

I see how you are doing womanhood. How you are aging, but you take such good care of yourself, how you are polite and strong but open and warm. You are in command of you, and your life, and you exude happiness, the kind that lets me know it is good to be where you are. And to keep wearing red lipstick.

And to the lady checking out before me at BJ’s, with your denture cleaner and wine and books and oranges, I will come over to your house anytime. Because I like to read and drink wine and eat oranges, too. And I hope I am doing it at every age. I can see by your hunched shoulders you could give a $#%&. That makes me love you even more.

To the mother of a friend, who loved us and hosted us and wore a killer dress at her son’s wedding, thank you. For painting a picture for me on how to do that: give your son away.

To an editor who keeps learning and growing and encouraging, I see how generous you are with your life and your time, and I hope to pay it forward someday. And I will try a Reiki massage because of how you talk about them.

I have recently noticed how much I am paying attention to women who have come before me. They are role models by default, as they inhabit the title of mature woman, which I am on my way to inhabit. So I am taking notes.

Some are happy. Some are defeated. I try to figure out why. Most are quiet, like they have learned to only speak when it is absolutely neccessary. Some are entitled. Some have for one reason or another blended into life not wanting to stick out, and so they don’t. But I still see them. They are still representing women. I see their cross necklaces and canes and bras stuffed from their mastectomies. And they are beautiful to me. Their life is a chapter under the definition of woman, and I am trying to learn, to see how to do this well, how to become a woman, using every example.

I am also paying attention to younger girls, studying where I came from, where my girls will be soon. To you teenagers, with your impossibly smooth skin and flat stomaches, who wear braces and bright makeup and straitened hair and cut off jeans and tiny shirts from Abercrombie, I see you too. I see the way you glance at my brood through the corner of your eye at the mall. The way you laugh uncomfortably when my daughters molest your neon fingerprinted nails. I see how bright and lost and hopeful and sad you are. I see how you stick together, and am jealous of your free time with close girlfriends, the ability to lay at the beach on a Saturday or linger over pancakes at the diner. You are exactly where you should be.

Middle school girls: you might be my favorite. You are so happy. You giggle and smile and your eyes twinkle. And you love kids. You love to sit with them and brush their hair and play duck duck goose and revisit your own childhood for a little while, and then go back and do your algebra and social studies and Lacrosse. You are at a bridge in between childhood and adulthood, a poignant moment that always seems to rush by too fast, like newborn babies and spring. You are so open – life has been nurturing you up to now and you are so willing to nurture it right back.

When I was your age, I used to study the mothers of little children, so you may be looking at me too. I used to watch how they pushed their kids hair back from their eyes and caress their chins, how they negotiated constant conflict and swung their toddlers on their hips. How they used to bounce their little babies, and wipe chocolate from little hands, all while carrying on a conversation. They operated at a high frequency, since their mode of living was wired to young children, and I was in awe of the importance of their work as mothers. If you are looking at me, if you are paying attention, I hope to be sure to smile at you. To let you know I see you, too.

We never know the seeds we may plant. But we are a tribe. A sisterhood. We may not be conscious of it as we race through our days, but we are always painting a picture, holding a seat in the auditorium of what it means to be a woman. We have the power to make our tribe stronger. By our noticing each other, supporting each other, by our presence, by the nod of our head as we pass each other on the street or at the store. By taking the few minutes to chat with each other about good books and sick children, where to find the best shoes or the best oncologist. To let each other know that they are seen and heard and counted. Or just how sweet the oranges are right now while we’re in line at the checkout.

We can lift each other up in a glance, a gesture, a wink. Being a girl is hard, but it deserves to be celebrated. I am picking out my red lipstick ASAP. With such strong beautiful woman around me, I’ll wear it one day soon.

(Alternate post title: Why Do We Talk About Cupcakes So Much?)

Among the myriad lessons from my childhood is the whole ‘crabs in a bucket’ story. It’s a lesson in resiliency: just like crabs pull down the one that is trying to get free and crawl out of the bucket, human nature has this interesting tendency to pull each other down when we don’t feel our own worth or when we feel threatened or trapped.  I’m pretty sure it was delivered by my parents whenever kids were being mean to us. Pithy metaphors are a busy parent’s best friend and it probably stuck because I heard it so many times.

But I’m sure going to use it on my kids because it’s true. And it covers a whole lot of what I see but sort of feel immune to: competition among moms. Mommy wars. Supermom ideas. I just don’t understand the ideas ‘competition’ and ‘motherhood’ used together.  If we are striving to lead rich, fulfilling lives, and teaching our children to do the same, where does comparing ourselves to other people fit in?

I recently read a post that included tips for new mothers, and at the top of this list was: don’t let what other’s find to be negative suck the joy out of something you enjoy. And I wanted to stitch it on a pillow and put it on my couch. Because mixed in with the whole conversation of motherhood is a tendency to put down the moms who are striving to create, to find their joy. “I can barely get out of my yoga pants, how dare she make a fancy dinner!” or “My kids haven’t stopped fighting and whining, how dare she have a happy crafting afternoon/lunch/trip to the park with her kids!”

I am here to say it is fine to stay in your yoga pants all day. And it is fine to make a fancy dinner and share the recipe. It is fine to be burnt out from kids fighting, and to have a happy day at the park. They are each true experiences of motherhood. One isn’t less real than the the other. And putting down either one because our day was a different experience is pulling each other down. Hopefully we can find solidarity without finding fault.

I’ve been reading a lot of Brene Brown over the past year. You may know from her popular TED talk about The Power of Vulnerability and her book, Daring Greatly. She is a shame researcher, and is very good at thinking about the parts of our life that are really really messy. (Wait, is this post about shame? What exactly are we going to explore here?) In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, she says that if we look at our own striving, we can see if it is motivated to please someone else or to please ourselves. And I think this is where a lot of the confusion comes from. Because some women are striving to please themselves. Especially if you are on the creative side. And others are doing it to feed their worth, or as Shauna Niequist would say, hustling for love. But the only one who needs to determine that is yourself.

For some reason, this topic keeps coming up in the context of cupcakes for our kids. It’s become a symbol of how we ‘do’ motherhood, an easy target. If a mother had a morning to devote to finding her joy in making organic gorgeous cupcakes, for love and mercy’s sake, let her bring in her healthy and cute cupcakes to the school party. Tell her they look great. And if a mother dashed to the grocery store for corn syrup and oil-laden cupcakes, tell her they look great too. If you find yourself judging her, saying ‘my kid is sensitive to sugar!’ or thinking ‘she should have brought fruit, mine is so much healthier’ Brene is gently suggesting that you might wrestle with some standard of motherhood that might be harming everyone, but especially yourself. I am lucky enough to live in a pretty supportive community, but I hear lots of rumblings from other women, in conversations and Facebook and blog posts that make me think Brene Brown is right about shame. Somehow we are mixing up the ‘doing’ of motherhood with the ‘being’ a mother and we are feeling some shame when we think what we do doesn’t measure up to who we should be.

In I Thought It Was Just Me, Brown’s book I am listening to an the Audible app (love it!) she focuses on human connection, how much we are wired for it, and how shame disconnects us. She talks about things like money, weight, style, prestige, or schooling and how they have similar shame and connection issues as the cupcake example. Lightbulbs keep going off about myself and other people when she talks about shame triggers. When we are more aware of them, we can handle them better. And I realized some of the most mystifying interactions I have had with other people are just shame triggers being pulled. Small things that made them defensive and go into attack modes inexplicably. Catty remarks, sarcastic put downs. Her books explain to me why hurt people hurt others. Feelings of shame make people shame others. It’s what makes us act like crabs in a bucket. Shame brings out our worst traits since we aren’t using the part of our brain that is circumspect and empathetic, we are in the part of our brain that is in fight or flight mode. Going back and tweaking my perceptions with this understanding has been really freeing (said everyone in therapy ever).

One of my biggest shame buttons (oh great, even more fun, she is going to tell us about her shame!!) is how messy my house is at any given moment. And my car. And it gets triggered when my friends with really neat houses/cars/garages drop by or need a ride. Even though I love a clean house, I know I regularly choose to play with my kids, make something in the kitchen, get out of the freaking cold or read something interesting over tidying messes (I prefer the term procrastinator to lazy, as I clean up every night, but potato, pah-tah-to). But by understanding the stress or trigger I feel about it, I can own my shame and my mess. And I am freed to make different choices. Like making my kids clean out the car.

Shame is like the zoom button on a camera. We see ourselves as zoomed in up close and we feel alone. But when we can zoom out, we realized many of us share our experiences. We are all human. We are all in different buckets of hardship trying to get free. To process hard things we need to find the people who have empathy, which is very often the people who have gone through the experience too. (We can’t demand that the people who haven’t gone through our experience should understand and be what we need. Lot’s of heartache at the end of that road.) It is the people who think they are going through them alone that are stuck and often hurt and judgmental. And the people who can connect and find others who can say, yes, me too! who are freed and can turn around and free others.

The most important thing I learned from her research is that by seeing our own apparatus at work in shame and worth and connection, and having compassion for ourselves, we grow in our compassion and understanding towards others. What would mommy wars look like if we all read her books?

Do your thang. Let others do theirs without putting them down. The end.

If you love life, don’t waste time, because time is what life is made of.

– Ben Franklin

Don’t you love it when life keeps delivering up the same message to you, in different forms, until you get it?

The lesson on the value of reflective, creative time has been in every field I’ve been in, but it is still one I forget.

As an econ student, it was called ‘Research and Development’ – or R&D. It was the single biggest variable in the equation to help a company or a nation grow. New creation, innovative ideas (hello, Apple), and new products are behind this R&D number. Investing time for creativity helps things grow.

As a finance business person, it was in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (a great book for anyone), in one of the habits called ‘Sharpening the Saw’. The thing about doing a task, such as cutting down a tree, is that sometimes just hacking away and doing it isn’t very productive. Sometimes you need to take a minute and sharpen your saw (i.e. educate yourself, take care of yourself, build up your skills) in order to really be efficient at a task. We looove to feel productive, don’t we?  It feels good to be busy busy busy, and we forget that in order to take one step forward we have to take two steps back at times. We have to plan time in our schedules to reflect, read, learn, grow, improve our skill set, learn how to create something new, something better. Investing time for learning helps us grow.

As a philosophy grad student, it was in a course called ‘Insight’. We read a huge book of the same title by a philosopher named Lonergan, and in it he was taking a long look and how we come to ‘know’ anything. And it turns out, there is a model we can follow. We have experiences, those experiences generate questions, then we take time to reflect on those experiences and questions, and then we have an insight, or come to higher knowledge. Investing time to reflect helps us grow.

As a mother, it was in a talk given by Anna Quinlan.  Of all of her messages the one that resonated with me the most was that she became a writer because she got to stare off into the mid-space as a child. To look out the window and think. She wasn’t overly scheduled, rushing to the next activity. She was dreaming and reflecting and wondering. That was my childhood too, and that is why I don’t like to over-schedule my kids. Sometimes staring out the window helps us grow.

As I sat down and set my writing goals the other day, something was nagging me about what I had written down. I had scheduled the hours I wanted to spend on various projects every week. And this morning it hit me – I haven’t budgeted in time for that reflection, sharpening my saw, reading the good fiction that will help propel my own, the photography lessons I should do to improve my food blog photos, read the writing books I so badly want to finish. The stuff that makes me wiser and better when I sit down to do my work. Will I write less if I take time to do this? I don’t think so. I think I’ll be ready to work sharper, with better quality as the result. I need to invest time to make things grow.

The author of the Hunger Games said the idea came to her while she was watching TV, switching between Survivor and news footage of the conflict in the middle east. She was relaxing, reflecting, staring at the TV. Watson & Crick credit the idea of the double-helix structure of DNA, which they had long been trying to understand, to a moment when Watson was peering into the fridge, looking for a snack, and the image popped in his head. Good ideas come when we have time to just be, to just stare – at the TV, or the fridge, or whatever the mid-space looks like to you.

So this year, I am going to make sure I have some R&R&D – reflecting, relaxing and dreaming – in my personal equation. Because of all my goals, growing – as a writer, mother, sister, friend – is at the top of the list.