HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

January 1st just doesn't do it for me as a "new" year.  I approach it with a kind of regret orientation or obligation.  "OK, I'm soaked in sugar and glutted with too much stuff and now I'm supposed to get on a major self-improvement program!"  I don't think so. I'm usually ready for hibernation which is a great form of denial.

Now September 1st is a different story.  From years of back to school ritual, I am ready for a true new year.  Ready for:

--Going into something new, never done before.

--Being with new people (like them or not)

--To learn, to be in an environment that makes me learn and stretch

--To face a few fears (nothing more courageous than a first day Kindergartner)

--To take action and work after a Summer slump--the good kind

--For the support of new books and maybe shoes to highlight the challenge

That's how a New Year should look and for me it's September.
Let's hear it for the life long learners who start a new year whenever they want!!

HOW AM I? EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's my deal:
  
—I know so many people going through tough times and I'm empathic so I absorb feelings.  I don't want  people I care about to hurt.

—ISIS makes me nuts with pure fury and then defeat.  The destruction of antiquities combined with the beheading of an 82 year old scholar got on my last nerve.

—Forest fires once wiped out my husband's home. The wildness and size of the flames and the thought of courageous young people working so hard and earnestly to fight the giant blaze makes me get weepy. Goodness and generosity in the face of huge danger and possible death.

—The lack of gravitas and dignity in our presidential candidates seems so juvenile.  I want an adult to run our country--a healthy, balanced, open to difference, and sane adult.  

—Race??? I sigh. The issue can become so vague when we talk solutions and so ugly and raw and violent when it becomes person to person.  

This is just some of the things on my 'easy to get hopeless' list.

BUT BUT BUT. I am thinking of a person in my workplace quite a few years ago who was unfailingly, buoyantly energetically positive. We teased him. We made a little fun of his stance. He never varied. He carried his optimism with him regardless of his personal day.

Brian St Pierre, where are you?  Today I remembered you and your energy during my optimism dip. So people, how about this week carrying a little optimism, leading the way, regardless of your day. As an experiment.
I'm starting now.

How am I???  EXCELLENT!!!

I HAVE A NEW TITLE

Please refer to me as Matriarch Joyce. "Thank you dahlings. So kind. So kind"

I have turned a corner into a new stage of life and it deserves a title.
And Matriarch is it. It applies to both home and work.

At my recent family reunion I began to practice it. And at a leadership workshop last week, I did the same.

--I focused on the newest generation, grand kids at home and hi-potential talent at work.  Both needed lessons from experience and a soothing voice that understood (and a break from the demanding of day to day parents and managers.

--I didn't cook one meal at the family gathering.  At the workshop, I did no preparation but spoke only from my experience.

--I imposed moments of wisdom or learning when I wanted to, stopping proceedings to do so. AND was thanked for it--a clear indicator of Matriarch status.

--I gave perspective to the new generation by sharing history and stories

--I felt a little lazy BUT deserving of it

Maggie Smith, move over.  Or better yet, "Maggie, would you like to pour the tea and laugh at the foibles of the younger generation and gossip behind our fans? We are so much more able to see clearly than those who are living so close-up to the action. One cube or two?"  

KNOWING WHAT MATTERS MOST AND DOING IT = DEEP SATISFACTION

You can stop reading if you are a person that is never pulled in two or four or twenty kind-of, sort-of equally important directions. It means a constant choosing. Today I'll focus on this. Tomorrow I'll take care of that. This matters more------ or does it?

I'm not talking about tasks so much as I am about different activities or goals.
Garden versus reading. Family versus reading. Exercise versus reading.
I'm kidding!! Mostly.  You know what I mean.

I just had a week and a half of family reunioning. And here's what I'll miss most. I knew that grand kids mattered most. My focus was clear. Everything else was secondary. My kids--secondary.  Food--secondary.  My reading and writing time--secondary.  Relaxing in beauty--secondary.  What a relief when there is no juggling of goals or large activities.  So I played in the basement when the day was Summer perfect. I gave up playing fairy houses for dress-up with scarves.. I watched a goofy pre-teen TV show rather than paint and color.  It was not relaxing. It was mostly fun. It was tiring. BUT IT WAS SO SATISFYING.  It re-connected me with far away grand kids. 

I knew what mattered most and did it. 
May I carry that clarity into this week that has quite a bit of juggling in it because I haven't decided what matters MOST.
Lesson for me? Don't waste life energy through not knowing where you want to most use it.

SUMMERTIME! SUMMER TIME??? IS THERE ANY?

This is not a philosophical question.
Summer used to mean a broad expanse of fluid time, open-ended--one activity (or no activity) transforming into another with no rush or hub-bub.
Activity meant something that happened on your street, not something you were driven to.
At least, for kids, this was true.
Is it still?
Is Summer timelessness a function of childhood or culture?

Oh, how I want it to be true for kids now.
Because I loved the Summer quality of "enough time" and the gifts it gave me.

There was abundant time to:
--Have an ongoing Canasta contest that ran across weeks. The table stayed set-up on the porch.  Scores were kept in blue composition books. Little kids watched older kids play.

--Have a croquet tournament with my best friend that lasted through a whole summer. We were careful to be tied at the end of each day.

--Dream-up an all enveloping world like "Scientist" where we poured water from container to container making magic serum. Tin bouillon tube containers were the best equipment.

--See who could finish a popsicle the slowest. (A pop-sicle had two sticks)

--Decorate bikes with crepe paper wound in the wheel spokes and around the handle bars. Popsicle sticks inserted for click-click sound

--Make a fire fly hotel with everyone contributing their jars covered with wax paper punched with holes and sitting around them in the dark, past bedtime.

--Ride bikes (decorated) around the block one hundred times irritating everyone as we counted and cheered

--Invent games that were harshly refined or given up depending on the staying power of the game to the street as a whole. I will teach my grandchildren one that stays with me called, "I'm Going Away to Smoke My Pipe and I Won't Be
Back Til Saturday Night". This was a winner with a witch and a mom and misbehaving kids and magic that turned them into pies.  

--Make canals in the sandbox, fill them with water and float Ivory Soap boats in them

I say all this as my family gathers for a week long reunion and I already feel the compressed time for play and connection. May it feel like expanded time for
my grandkids when they look back at lobster on the lawn and the childhood games I will teach them. 

LIFE LESSONS FROM A TODDLER

1.  Timing and Transitions either make or break a day.  Learning the timing of switching gears, activities, people, or places has to be graceful like catching a wave with the timing just right. Anticipate and prepare for the change and then move quickly and do it.

2.  Sleep matters. Rituals to relax are key.  So is habit built by consistency.
Lack of sleep turns little things into huge emotional turmoil.

3. My toddler teacher is quite commanding. She is direct. Keeps requests to a few short words said with authority.  Popsicle!  Outside!  Potty now!  The back-up is to lead the other person to what you want and point.

4.  Attractive distraction is a major tool for redirecting energy. The drawing power of each needs to be weighed to the value of the redirect. Talk is not as good as physical example. Want to change from puzzles to drawing?  Put the crayons on the table and begin to move puzzles away.  To leave a playground takes lots of drawing power. Of course food is the best and ice cream the best of the best.  Be positively enthusiastic about what is next.

5.  Punishment doesn't work and carries forward an attitude you will pay for later.  Clapping like a fool for what you like and want does work to create  new behavior.

6.  Please and thank you actually ARE  magic words and never get worn out. Ever. Teenagers take note.  My kids could work me like crazy when they were polite.

7.  Toddlers are just smart enough to be scared. Don't talk them out of it.
Reassure some, teach some, and protect a lot.

8.  Follow behind supporting-- allowing freedom of movement and pace of learning and risk taking. Don't lead or push. Just allow and protect invisibly.

9,  Slow down. Speed ruins everything. One good moment leads to another good moment that leads to another and saves you lots of grief.

10.  Lovely, adorable, smart toddlers can also be boring, trying and exasperating.  Expect it, accept it, complain about it-------so you can go back to seeing the lovely, adorable, smart toddler.

Now substitute, "husband", "boss", "mom" and "me" for "Toddler"

I'VE BEEN MARRIED SEVEN TIMES----

----To the same person!!!  That is a quote from a famous family therapist whose name I can't remember—so much for fame.  He said it to me and I was enraged and, oh so, innocent and young.  Not so young or innocent anymore and more amused than enraged.

He is talking about the eras and stages of any marriage that stays vital and allows for two strong and different people.  For better or for worse, I have one of those. So as we grow and bring new aspects into our individual lives, it almost always irritates the hell out of the other person. We are in a state of continuous adaptation without subjugation. If you don't know what I'm talking about, move on. I'll be here next week. Not everyone wants or can tolerate this type of marriage. Two strong I's and one strong WE is the goal.

Anyway, when one person throws the relationship equilibrium out of sync, there is usually a period of irritation followed by negotiation and then a new normal.

This can take a year or a day depending on the depth of the change. "I want to sleep on the other side of the bed" may take a couple of days. "I want to change careers" is a whole other animal.

Why am I talking about this?

ONE is because I think my husband and I have graduated into a new stage after about five months of bickering, then real talks, then real negotiation, then resolution. It takes a willingness to stay in strong disagreement without turning every moment go to hell. In a long term marriage, there is experience that this canl happen so the intensity level doesn't have to go as high. Doesn't HAVE to. Still may. Quick recovery is the key. And I think we are through another narrow passage.

TWO is because he has just published five books on relationship stuff that has helped us to be married at least seven times to one another.

Here they are:
Starting Right
Marriage Conflict
Intimate Marriage
Talking Together
Healing A Marriage

All the books are clear and wise and real.  Go to Amazon under David E Sanford.
We are in a new stage because he is not glued to his computer.
But to laugh, I am working on several books and want to be glued to mine!!
That's what I mean about making room for two people in one marriage.