Do you get frustrated when you have to wait for a train? What happens when a second train comes across on the other set of tracks?
We have a double set of tracks we have to deal with on our most convenient route from our neighborhood. And yep, have had the situation where a second train comes speeding the other way as the first train passes by the crossbars.
I’ve had to take a deep breath to keep the frustration from spilling into the air of the car.
But I haven’t gone through that routine in a while, my third daughter changed my perspective on the moment. And now, I enjoy being stopped by a train because it means more time…for music!
About two years ago we were headed home from school. As we approached the railroad crossing the red lights started blinking and the crossbars slowly came down. By chance a song my girls liked (I don’t remember what it was) was playing on the radio. They were singing as they still do, and my third daughter noticed the crossbars coming down. In flow with the song she said,”Yes! More time to listen to music!”
I had just taken that first frustrated breath, but held it for a second, then just let it go and sang with my daughters. When we are stopped by a train now, I sometimes say, “Oh, more time to listen to music!” If there is a good song on, I turn it up and we sing.
This morning I saw five, five cars run red lights. Three of them at our major intersections. (Where, yes, most of the accidents happen in our town.)
I wonder where people are going in such a hurry. On the street with the railroad tracks, you see people turn around and find a different route when a train comes. Honestly, most trains are through the intersection before you can get to the overpass route.
My daughter reminded me that we are in control of our response to time. How we decided to respond to small moments. How we spend, even a few minutes, watching a train go by. We will be singing to the radio.
For my regular readers, you know the importance of the tradition of making blueberry muffins this morning. We had bacon and scrambled eggs, as is the norm now. We had left over tortillas so I made a breakfast burrito. So, good!
I had to miss a Twitter Space started by one of the members of the writing group I am a part of on Twitter because of breakfast.
Why did I mention that? Because this post is about the power of traditions or routines, both in the real world and the digital world.
Again, if you read my blog on even a semi-regular basis, you know about our family tradition on Sunday morning. How important it is for us to spend time together. My second son who lives in town usually still makes it to Sunday breakfast. It keeps our family bond strong.
The writing group I belong to has a routine of starting spaces, especially in the mornings. In fact many times they are in a space before I have even had a cup of coffee. During the school year, I find time to stop in to listen or chat before the school day starts but not on a consistent basis.
Honestly, their morning routine is no different than my father-in-law meeting with his buddies to drink coffee at the local McDs. It’s just in digital form.
Recently, a handful of the group has been able to meet in real life. They have traveled to see each other, went to open mics, or had ice cream together. I am a little jealous and feel a little bit like an outsider in the group. Not because of anything the group has done, but I share my feelings to reinforce the power of routines or traditions.
Almost every morning the group starts a space. In fact, if a member needs to talk they will start a space at any time and people will join to talk with that person. They have a routine in the morning that connects them. That has built such strong friendships that they are connecting in real life. Relationships are strengthened by shared experiences, shared routines, shared traditions.
It doesn’t matter if it is in real life or in a digital space. It doesn’t have to be every day. My best friend and I have a tradition of making CDs or playlists of our top 20 songs… that year, the last decade, or even of all time. Just depends on when we decide to make the list. (Yes, we will make CD mixes and mail them to each other.)
Traditions or routines are one of the elements to the quality of our lives. Whether it is a personal routine, for me taking a walk each day (lots of writing ideas come to me), or a Twitter Space every morning that allows the members to build friendships by sharing successes or hardships. These purposeful moments bring us joy, help us through tough days, and create meaning to our everyday life.
If life seems shallow or lacking in connections, I challenge you to evaluate your routines. What traditions do you wish you had? What connections do you want to make? There just might be a Twitter Space dedicated to that…
For those who may be new to my blog. My word for the year is Moment. To enhance this year I decided to do a monthly challenge. Something I could do each day that month. Here has been my year so far.
January: Drawing
February: Write a letter / email
March: Photography
April: Poem a Day (Which I do every year anyway)
May: Yoga
June: Listen to a different artist each day. A full album or random play their catalog.
I have also been involved in a few other different challenges, like reading all the Curious George books with my youngest daughter. We are up to 57 books.
Also, my wife and I are doing a movie challenge for the 90s. The basic rule is to pick a movie from each year of the 90s to watch. We both get to choose one and we move through the decade. The only aspect I don’t like is that I don’t get to choose any horror movies, but I understand.
I decided to blog each day for the month of July. If I can’t think of something I will answer one of the questions WordPress provides as a prompt for bloggers. We have some travel planned and I am working on how to handle that.
It has been interesting challenging myself each month. Especially since there have been some rough moments this year. But the challenges help remind me of things I love (drawing) and help to create moments (photography).
So, I hope you will join me on this month’s journey. You can read about it each day…
My in-laws recently moved into an assisted living community. For the last couple of weeks we have been getting their house ready to sell, cleaning and organizing things. Of course I was excited to go through the books. I found one box filled with a range of self-help books.
If you look closely at the book, How To Stop Worrying and Start Living, there is this information, “Revised for the 1980’s!” So, I had to check the copyright date… 1944!
According to a report from SkyQuest (a growth consulting firm) in 2021 the global personal development market made 41.7 billion dollars.
A Google search for self-help books produced 3,940,000,000 results.
I have read some of these books.
Some of my blog posts would fit under this umbrella term Self-Help.
What’s going on with us?
First, there is nothing wrong with gaining information from others to help you reach your goals, or to become a better version of who you are. Honestly, one of the reasons I blog is to help others. And I don’t make any money from my blog.
So, discovering insight from others or even just getting inspiration to help us in life is great. For any part of our lives. I attend conferences for writing, teaching, and coaching to gain ideas, to be inspired, to learn.
But it seems we are spending a lot of money searching for something.
The first self-help book was published in 1859 by Samuel Smiles, Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct. (Yes, I see the unintended irony of his name for this topic.)
What is interesting is that Samuel Smiles’s book was based on the idea that a person should actively learn and help themselves, which is one of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.
I don’t think our modern self-help philosophy is based on this idea.
Now, you might be thinking this is where I go off on a rant about the change in our society… Nope… Because in 1859 Samuel Smiles wrote a book trying to help people become happier, to become better versions of themselves.
In 1807 William Wordsworth wrote the poem, “The World is Too Much with Us”. I teach this poem in class, and we discuss how the poem reflects our modern day.
So, we have always looked to the stars for something. Walked to the horizon, but never reached it. Love has broken our hearts. Yet, we get lost in the eyes of another. Hugs heal us. We take time for granted, over and over again.
We are human.
There is no easy answer to our lives.
What I do know for sure is that LOVE is real. That we need each other. That happiness is found in small moments, like a board game, or in big events like moving your son to his new town.
I’m not selling an answer to your quest for a better life, I’m just here with you, and that is a start.
Troubled by the loss of someone who didn’t have to take me in, to help me get through college, help buy my first home, be a grandma to my six children. Who demonstrated what family is. After confirmation of cancer is gone in less than six months. How do you deal with the empty space in life after their death?
Troubled with doubt, as are many creative people, I know. But each person has their own dreams. Each person has a definition of success that drives them. I seem so far away from mine.
Troubled by the state of the world.
Troubled, in a good way, by books and movies and other media. Yesterday I finished a book that left me silent for a few minutes. Last night I watched a movie that hit on so many emotions that I cried (so did my wife). Isn’t that the beauty and the importance of creative expressions? To move our spirit. To give voice and connection to our own emotions.
Troubled by the past and the future. Learning to handle the way both forces create hurdles in the present. Yes, I know about being present in the moment and not worrying about those things… doesn’t mean you automatically spend each day free from those factors. They have their own ways of creating trouble today.
Troubled by love.
Troubled by the muse. Who always seems to want more from me, wants my very soul on the page… and so I give it, but all it seems to do is make me feel troubled.
My mom passed away at home as dad held her hand on June 9. Just four days from her 69th birthday. She battled cancer for five months, but we didn’t know it was cancer until April. My wife and I made a quick trip home in April. I wrote a tweet to share with my Twitter friends that my mom was sick and that my engagement on Twitter would be erratic.
Over the last few months I gave quick updates for my friends and colleagues of my mom’s journey.
My wife and I again headed home on June 3 because my mom was in the hospital. Again, I sent a quick update for those who know me. I also recorded my poetry lesson for Move Me Poetry on the way home. I was scheduled to provide the lesson for Tuesday. My mom was released on Sunday, things were looking good. So we headed home on Monday.
My dad texted me Friday morning (June 9) that she had passed. I called my brother, called my two sons, and broke down sharing the news with my four daughters that afternoon. Then I tweeted the news on Twitter.
Why am I sharing this? Because something powerful happened.
As I am writing this blog, that tweet has been seen 15,684 times. It has been retweeted, liked, and commented on thousands of times. What happened? Why did this simple tweet make its way to so many people and why did they care enough to interact with me? I have some thoughts…
First, and the most important thing, is that some aspects of life connect us on an important level. Grief, heartbreak, but also joy and love are emotions and moments we all share. The stories are different, but at some point we have to deal with the loss of someone important to us. We all grieve, yes in our own way because of the uniqueness of our stories, but we feel that loss.
Some of the interactions with my tweet were of the stories of people losing their mothers, some just as recent as mine and others were years ago but they still missed their mom.
I tried (and I think I did) to respond in some way to everyone that left a comment or an emoticon for me. There were some small but powerful conversations because of sharing the pain of the moment.
For a few days, I have connected with strangers because we shared a common moment, understood a powerful emotion. For others, they simply wanted me (a stranger to them) to know that they understood and cared.
That’s a powerful thing. I wonder what this world would be like if we could do this in the real world, on an everyday basis.
The second aspect isn’t about the tweet, but the stories, including mine and my family’s.
I mentioned that people did share their stories, as best they could in the space Twitter gives us. And life is not that simple, and neither is death.
As a dad I broke the news to my children. The three oldest took it the hardest because they have had their grandparents involved in their lives for over 19 years. Summer vacation, Thanksgiving trips, graduations and other big moments.
My youngest three have had their grandparents in their lives too, but that relationship has been different and less interactions. (We now spend Thanksgiving at our own home instead of traveling.) I realized that they all had their own story with their grandma.
My dad lost his wife. He held her hand as she passed, married over 40 years.
She was one person, who played so many parts in different life stories… her death is just as complex. As is our lives.
My wife has said a number of times that life never lets you handle just one thing. It doesn’t. As my mom’s health declined, my oldest daughter was graduating and we had college orientations. My youngest had art camp the week of my mom’s death. We moved our oldest son to his new town as he starts his first year teaching, then moved my wife’s parents into assisted living and then headed home to see my mom the first week of June.
Life will not allow us to handle just one thing at a time, it is a complex mix of joys and heartaches. Stress and good music. Eating on the road and tweeting to friends. But it is also, just sitting, holding the hand of your mother, trying to give her all the love you were going to share with her in the future.
At the end of the tweet, which is now at 15,753 views, I wrote that we should say “I Love You” more, laugh more, and that life is a gift.
I hope that message goes viral for everyone today, and each day they are given to experience this life.
They say life is a highway… Well, they sing it anyway.
It is a strong metaphor and I agree with the theme of the song, that life has twists and turns, and you drive the best you can to the next day. But I was walking this morning and noticed how the road has a crazy pattern of tar filled cracks. Not every road in my neighborhood is like this, but the road I walked this morning is the most used, needs the most maintenance.
No, I wasn’t listening to the song “Life is a Highway” but I was thinking about it and how actually, our everyday life is a road we travel over and over and over again. Yes, we adventure out onto the interstate, go someplace new, but really we travel the same roads during our routine of living.
Now, I’m not saying that is bad, but stay with me and the metaphor, the roads we travel everyday need maintenance from us, or they will become hard to travel. The routine roads we travel are not just our actions; it includes the people we see everyday. From our loved ones to the cashier we see every Saturday when we buy groceries.
If we don’t maintain that road, those relationships, even ourselves, our everyday life becomes filled with potholes, cracks, and at some point will become so rundown we can’t travel down it. In extreme instances, we abandon that road and find another road to travel. But that road will fall into despair too.
We can repair a damaged road, but that takes more energy, more time, more work than if we would simply maintain our life on a regular basis. Fill in cracks when they appear, paint new lines, take care of the people we have in our everyday life.
Life may be a highway, but living is a road we travel everyday. And maintenance is required.
According to Radoslav Chakarov, writer for Web Tribunal, as of 2022 there are 600 million blogs, with 6 million posts going live everyday.
There is nothing I can add to that monsoon of writing.
And let’s not forget, I could ask AI to write for me. It would be quicker and produce content at a more constant rate (which I’m not good at). I did write this post by the way.
But what I mean, honestly, is there is no reason for me to write anything. No logical reason. I don’t make any money, Radoslav Chakarov shares that less than 10% of blogs make any money.
So why am I even doing this?
For the few people still reading, why?
Yeah, I will go Dead Poets Society on you:
I write because that is who I am. I am a poet, storyteller, blogger… I am a dad, a husband, a person who can get lost in the stars. My spirit is at ease when I write, even if I have nothing to say.
Life has been busy, to say the least. There are some heavy moments going on, and sometimes you just need a soundtrack to get through the days. Honestly, I like writing these types of post. Music is an important element in my life, has been since I was about seven years old. I had a basement bedroom and I played the radio all the time to help with my fear of the dark.
Life
But now I have a fear of time. Of losing important people. The first song is from one of my mom’s favorite bands, Simply Red. The song is in honor of her as she deals with some serious health issues.
Memories
The second song has a little bit of a story. My wife and I did a quick visit home to see my mom a couple of weeks ago. We listened to some of the music we use to listen to when we were younger making road trips. One of the albums was Jo Dee Messina’s first album with the song, “Heads Carolina, Tails California”. On the way home I was channel surfing the radio and Cole Swindell’s song, “She Had Me At Heads Carolina” came on. We had never heard the song (or artist) before. But it made us smile:
Defeat
I have adventured out of my comfort zone with my poetry. I participated in a slam poetry contest where the winner would represent the state of Nebraska at Nationals this summer. I worked on my poems and my delivery for months. Felt like I had a real chance at winning. I didn’t make finals… I haven’t felt the pain of defeat like that in a long time. I know that I improved in different aspects of my poetry, for that I am grateful. But maybe it’s just everything combined, I feel like I won’t ever achieve my writing goals. “Born and Raised” by John Mayer reflects this emotion…
Makes me dance and sing
Now, life still has joy and wonderment to it. This next song has been my jam for awhile now, “Remind Me” by Tom Grennan just makes me dance… and my daughters hate it when it comes on my playlist when I am washing the dishes because I have to stop to sing and dance to the song (and maybe to tickle them or get them to dance with me). This is also the first song I used for my podcast For Love of Lyrics.
Last Words
Life, when fully lived, is an adventure filled with days that hurt the heart from joy and sadness. But there is only so much time we are given. We spend too much time on things and people that don’t really add value or depth to our hearts. Yes, I have regrets, but I also still have big dreams for the time I have left. I try to add something to everyone’s life that I get to be a part of… and I am trying to simply love more… so this last song, “Where the Heart Is” by Haevn is my little bit of inspiration for your day!
Just a forewarning… this post will probably be all over the place, and that’s OK.
Today is May 1, 2023. I am starting a photography challenge for this month. In January I completed a drawing challenge. February I wrote a letter or email to someone each day. March I did yoga everyday (which I need to get back to). April was poetry month, so I wrote a poem each day. You can read this years (and past years) poems at my blog, Creative Corner.
I also have a reading challenge with my youngest. We are reading every Curious George book. We have read 25 books so far.
These challenges are part of my word for the year, Moment. The challenges gives me a focus for each month, but really remind me that life is more than a screen or the routines we have. Life is a crazy mix of heartache, joy, work and excitement to live.
Even with the hard emotions provide a depth to the moments in our lives. However fragile they are…
Last month I sat holding my mom’s hand. We quietly talked, but lost more in the precious minutes we were together, hand in hand. She is fighting a losing battle against cancer. And I am sharing our moment as a reminder that nothing stops time and that no notification on a phone will fill your heart. An icon is not the same as feeling the warmth of a loved one’s hand.
And that no matter the outcome, chase your dreams. I competed in a poetry slam last weekend. The winner would represent Nebraska at nationals this summer. I practiced every day. I got feedback from a number of people. I worked on my cadence, my pauses, and voice inflections.
I didn’t make it to the final round.
I drove home hurt, mad, and disappointed. I saw this as a chance to do something really different with my poetry, but also to finally be seen as a poet. Didn’t happen. So now what?
First, I improved my skill set. A lot! From understanding pauses and inflections, to writing the ideas and words in a way that flow well together, to create natural breaks. I am thankful for that.
Second, it was a cool moment. I shared poetry with people who had never heard of me before. After my first poem, an audience member got up from their seat to tell me that they enjoyed the poem.
Third, I was an example for my children. I want them to go after their dreams. Plus, nothing is guaranteed, no matter how much you work. The hugs they gave me when I got home were better than winning.
So today is May 1st. I posted my picture for this month’s challenge. I texted my family. Called my internet provider about a problem. Handling the last little details for graduation. I’m living life, one moment at a time… the difference is that I am trying to feel the moment, be aware of the moment, and not just let time go by…
It is all Connected 