Today I took a day
And held it just for me.
A day off, rare, it’s true
Not done so easily.
I asked if it sparked joy
Before I did a thing.
I’m thankful for the chance.
I needed recharging.
Today I:
It’s January!
But only for a few more hours.
Per tradition I began this month with ideas, thoughts, and intentions for being more organized, focused, and productive.
I’ll state right up front: I love new beginnings, first days of school, fresh notebooks, and blank sheets of paper.
The potential!
I’ll confess here and now: I can quickly become overwhelmed with lots of new ideas, projects, and plans… and notes.
Pages and pages of notes.
Computer notes.
Sticky notes.
Emails to myself with things to note.
It’s true:
There is so much to do!
There are so many things needing my attention.
There are so many ideas and thoughts to jot down.
Also true:
There are just 24 hours in a day.
As these last hours of January 2021 tick past I’m thinking back over the month, the flurry of meetings, the deadlines, the projects underway…and I am feeling a bit scattered.
For the past week or two, though, I’ve been trying a new approach to each day.
It’s one I was familiar with but had not practiced; one my parents mentioned recently and reminded me of; one that is already helping me focus. (Thanks, Dad and Mom!)
Boulder – Rocks – Sand
It goes something like this.
You have a container and you have a boulder (or two), some smaller rocks, and some sand you need to fit into that container.
If you put the smaller rocks or the sand in first, the boulder may not fit.
But if you put the boulder in first, you can then add some of the smaller rocks and sand around the edges.
Translation:
Let’s say the “container” is your day.
Each day has lots of work to do, some of it more of a priority than others.
If you fritter it away on the less important, the important will remain unfinished.
That priority (let’s call it a boulder) may be based on long-term impact or simply on an actual hard deadline.
The idea is to build your day around the “boulder(s)” that MUST be done when the clock strikes 5 (or 10 or midnight.)
When it’s time for “pencils down.”
If you fit the boulder in first, then you can probably also squeeze a few smaller rocks (important tasks to keep moving) down into the spaces around the boulder.
And there may even be some grains of sand (non-urgent tasks) you can pour in.
This has helped me focus and prioritize my days.
The beauty for me is to start each day with that boulder identified, permission throughout the day to stay focused, and the grace at the end of the day to acknowledge major progress even when smaller “to-do” items remain on the list.
There are lots of ways to do things.
For me this is helping.
For me, this is the boulder plan.
2020.
The year I came home from work in mid-March and stayed put.
Pandemic protocol and common sense meant I did not physically leave our house except on a few rare occasions…and then only if masked and socially-distanced from others.
I never ventured more than 50 miles from our house.
Thanks to books, however, I still managed to travel the world.
I made my way through multiple parts of Quebec (and Paris) with Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, including visiting a remote and mysterious monastery.
Daniel DeFoe invited me to London as he described one man’s story of surviving the 1665 bubonic plague.
I’ve been to Budapest and Istanbul.
Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck.
Harlem, the Underground Railroad, and the Jim Crow south.
The Dominican Republic.
Ghana.
Erietown.
I accompanied two young girls as they fled from massacres in Rwanda, traveling through several African nations and on to Chicago; and refugees from war-torn Syria through Turkey, Greece and on to the United Kingdom.
Private investigator Kinsey Millhone let me tag along throughout California and beyond as she solved mysteries N through R.
I traveled cross-country from New York City to the southwest Mexican-American border in search of lost children.
I visited the upstate New York home of some childhood friends.
I am thankful for books; for the authors who write them; for the libraries that lend them; and for the worlds they reveal.
Here’s my 2020 reading list:
N Is For Noose (audiobook), Sue Grafton
Finished 1-12-20
A Trick of the Light (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 1-31-20
The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James H. Cone
Finished 2-6-20
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (audiobook read by the author), Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
Finished 2-8-20
Fleishman Is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Finished 2-9-20
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (audiobook), Heather Morris
Finished 3-6-20
The Photographer at Sixteen, George Szirtes
Finished 3-14-20
O is for Outlaw (audiobook), Sue Grafton
Finished 3-26-20
Southern Horrors, Ida B. Wells
Finished 4-5-20
Lost Children Archives, Valeria Luiselli
Finished 4-18-20
Small Great Things (audiobook), Jodi Picoult
Finished 4-22-20
Normal is Just a Setting on the Dryer, Adair Lara
Finished 5-3-20
Trixie Belden #1: The Secret of the Mansion (audiobook), Julie Campbell
Finished 5-9-20
Clap When You Land (audiobook), Elizabeth Acevedo
Finished 5-18-20
The Water Dancer, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Finished 5-24-20
The Beautiful Mystery (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 5-30-20
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi
Finished 6-7-20
How the Light Gets In (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 6-13-20
Untamed, Glennon Doyle
Finished 6-20-20
The Long Way Home (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 7-3-20
A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel DeFoe
Finished 7-19-20
The Nature of the Beast (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 7-20-20
Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century, Alice Wong, Editor
Finished 7-29-20
A Great Reckoning (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 8-1-20
Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For, Susan Rice
Finished 8-14-20
Glass Houses (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 8-16-20
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes Next, Clemantine Wamariya and Elizabeth Weil
Finished 8-30-20
Kingdom of the Blind (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 9-3-20
Christ in Crisis: Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus, Jim Wallis
Finished 9-6-20
Invisible: The Forgotten Story of the Black Woman Lawyer Who Took Down America’s Most Powerful Mobster (audiobook), Stephen L. Carter
Finished 9-7-20
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, Elif Shafak
Finished 9-13-20
Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again, Rachel Held Evans
Finished 9-16-20
Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times, Jennifer Worth
Finished 9-19-20
A Better Man (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 9-20-20
Three Daughters of Eve, Elif Shafak
Finished 10-7-20
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, Atul Gawande
Finished 10-10-20
Transcendent Kingdom, Yaa Gyasi
Finished 10-17-20
P is for Peril (audiobook), Sue Grafton
Finished 10-22-20
Q is for Quarry (audiobook), Sue Grafton
Finished 11-9-20
All the Devils Are Here (audiobook), Louise Penny
Finished 11-16-20
The Daughters of Erietown (audiobook), Connie Schultz
Finished 11-27-20
God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath, N. T. Wright
Finished 11-28-20
R is for Ricochet (audiobook), Sue Grafton
Finished 12-17-20
Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Anxiety, Walter Brueggemann
Finished 12-20-20
Mary Had a Baby: An Advent Bible Study Based on African American Spirituals, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan and Marilyn E. Thornton
Finished 12-23-20
You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters, Kate Murphy
Finished 12-28-20
The Beekeeper of Aleppo (audiobook), Christy Lefteri
Finished 12-30-20
I’ll cut to the chase.
2020 is the “Year of the Prune.”
Not the dried plum sort.
The cutting back kind.
Cutting back can lead to growth.
And if there is one lesson 2020 has taught me, that’s it.
In “normal times” I would be much more mobile and on the go, commuting 40 minutes to work, navigating across the city during the day through crawling traffic for meetings across campus, and commuting 40 minutes home.
I’d be out and about evenings – to choir practice, to my small group, to a movie or campus event.
In “normal times” I would plan itineraries, calculate travel times, and still somehow manage to be double-booked or be late because of traffic jams.
2020 and its pandemic-caused work-from-home reality changed things.
I, the 300-miles-per-week commuter, have pumped gas only one time since March.
For the most part, I have been at home.
I’ve been at home for 250+ days.
I’ve made short trips on very rare occasions.
With masking and social distancing, I have ventured out, but probably fewer times than I can count on my fingers.
It’s been weird.
It’s like part of my life has been pruned back, chopped off, cut away.
There are definite downsides to this reality.
Not getting to physically be with family, friends and colleagues.
Grieving with the thousands of families who have lost loved ones to the pandemic.
Worrying about the stamina and safety of those working in hospitals, nursing homes, ambulance services, grocery stores, postal and delivery services, restaurants and coffee shops.
It’s been heavy.
But there has also been opportunity for growth.
I have read lots of books – those available through our library’s Overdrive app, those I’ve ordered online, those I have rediscovered in our home.
I’ve attended virtual worship services far beyond my geographic area.
I’ve streamed virtual musical performances from around the world.
I’ve attended virtual panel discussions and webinars on a variety of topics.
I have zoomed and texted and talked with family members and friends, perhaps even more than before the pandemic.
I have zoomed and talked with colleagues more than before the pandemic.
We can’t see each other.
But we can connect.
Virtually.
And we have.
Rattling around in our house for eight months, I’ve noticed and taken stock of what we really need and what we probably don’t.
If even after eight months of being confined in a building you have no occasion to use or touch certain things, well…perhaps there is more pruning ahead.
This summer we had landscapers come and prune the bushes in front of our house.
They had grown VERY large.
We’re not sure they will grow back.
The landscapers could not guarantee it.
But we wanted to give them a chance.
And in this “Year of the Prune” – the signs are encouraging.
There are signs of growth.
May it be so for all of us who are living through this weird and heavy time.
May we come out on the other side – different and growing.
1-800-DO-I-HOPE
(Classical guitar music – with an indeterminate and generic rhythm…not too upbeat, not too solemn, not too loud, not too soft – plays down the line.)
“Thank you for calling our ‘what comes next’ hotline. We value your concern and your call is important to us. Due to a heavy volume of calls all of our representatives are currently busy. We will let you know what comes next as soon as possible. Please stay on the line.”
(Classical guitar music continues.)
“Thank you for calling our ‘what comes next’ hotline. We value your concern and your call is important to us. Due to a heavy volume of calls all of our representatives are currently busy. We will let you know what comes next as soon as possible. Please stay on the line.”
(Classical guitar music continues.)
“Thank you for calling our ‘what comes next’ hotline. We value your concern and your call is important to us. Due to a heavy volume of calls all of our representatives are currently busy. We will let you know what comes next as soon as possible. Please stay on the line.”
(Classical guitar music continues.)
“Thank you for calling…”
It’s back to work tomorrow.
It’s the end of a nine-day “staycation” – an action that took on new meaning and new form in the midst of a pandemic.
Goal
The aim of this staycation was to unplug – completely (more-or-less) – from work and the world, while remaining within the same building and location where I have been 24-7 for most of the past six months.
Methodology
I moved work email and Teams apps to the second screen of my phone and turned off notifications. (I did not check them once. My out-of-office reply referred people to a teammate and my colleagues knew to text me if something was on fire.)
I moved the Twitter app to the second screen of my phone and aimed to check it less frequently. (I checked it off and on, but mostly succeeded in tuning it out.)
I don’t have Facebook on my phone, but aimed to mostly refrain from logging in on the computer. (I hopped on to send birthday greetings and answer any messages, but mostly succeeded in avoiding it throughout the week.)
I binge-watched several episodes of silly shows on Netflix.
I read books.
I exercised.
Definition 1
This morning, as I thought about my coming-to-an-end staycation, my mind noodled with the various meanings of the word “stay.”
Naturally, I googled it.
The word can be used in many ways, but one entry on the Merriam Webster website caught my eye and my thoughts.
“Stay” can mean “capacity for endurance.”
Staying power, if you will.
This jumped out at me because, in the midst of the soul-crushing trauma of the year 2020, I need such a capacity for endurance.
My capacity for endurance – my staying power – felt very thin and weak as I began my staycation.
I was burned out.
Sadness
On the Friday night of my unplug-from-work-and-the-world staycation, the world shifted.
There was no fire at work, but a sudden inferno in the world.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.
I plugged back into the world.
I read the news stories.
I scrolled through Twitter.
I did my best to plug into the shared grief and mourning without getting sucked into the nearly-immediate political firestorm. (I only partly succeeded at this.)
Definition 2
A second entry on the Merriam Webster website also spoke to me this morning.
“Stay” can also mean “to stick or remain with (a race, a trial of endurance, etc.) to the end —usually used in the phrase stay the course.”
Go
It’s time to go back to work and the world.
It’s time to put my capacity for endurance to its intended use.
It’s time to stay the course.
The peacemaker reaches out
In all directions
Finding breaking points
And missed nuances
Seeking common ground
And knitting solutions
Transmitting information
Translating perspectives
Transforming – on good days –
Situations of discord and
Frayed relationships
Into forward movement
Of help to everyone.
The peacemaker stands exposed
To anger and resentment
From all directions
And often ends – on not-so-good days –
With nothing but a heavy heart
And a troubled soul
And no peace.
By design and plan
They undermined all service,
Abused all power.
“Make America
Great again”: code for “screw you.”
No decency left.
Shameful display of
Sycophantic obeisance.
Such trumpish treason.
November calls us
To stand united and firm
Against the madness.
Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote
Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue
End the dire distress.
100+ days into the 2020 pandemic quarantine, I am tired.
Very. Tired.
Very. Very. Tired.
A work email I received at 2 a.m. last night explained why.
“Quiet Days” for me are apparently as rare as toilet paper was this spring.
It’s a bit jarring to see it laid right out there as an in-your-face reminder that being home 24/7 for months on end does not translate into being rested and ready.
Staying home does NOT mean being able to “disconnect” and “recharge.”
There is no delineation between being “at work” and being “off” – no start or end to the day.
24/7.
Week after week.
Month after month.
As I write this it is almost midnight and I am up this late for the second night in a row.
NOT normal for morning-person-me.
But in the age of COVID, so it goes.
Sometimes I get so tired about all I can do is scroll through social media.
And sometimes I find that I am not alone in experiencing this “COVID Fatigue.”
Turns out “COVID Fatigue” is not just about being tired of COVID.
It just means being tired.
Period.
Very. Very. Tired.
America needs a ventilator.
America can’t breathe.
America has a cancer.
America can’t breathe.
America’s cancer is stage four.
America can’t breathe.
America’s cancer is racism.
America can’t breathe.
America’s racism is both personal and systemic.
America can’t breathe.
America’s vital organs are shutting down.
America can’t breathe.
America needs a transplant.
America can’t breathe.
America needs intensive care.
America can’t breathe.
America needs a cure.
America can’t breathe.
America needs a miracle.
America can’t breathe.
America needs a ventilator.
America can’t breathe.
America can’t breathe.
America can’t breathe.
