Winter is Coming

For the legions of Game of Thrones fans, this phrase has been tossed about since the books came out and the show began airing.  It is a vague threat of something ominous, something that may start and never stop.  Apparently, in the land of Game of Thrones, when winter actually comes, there is no guarantee of when it will end.  The threat is that it will be insanely harsh, that many will not survive and that it will go on and on and on.  Maybe forever.  Well, for those of us who do not live in the Seven Kingdoms, we know that winter will end, although around mid March one starts to wonder.

For those of us who survived last winter on the east coast, there is some natural PTSD that lingers.  When the snows came in January and did not let up until well into the spring; when the drifts piled up in Boston above cars and windows; when many people could not get to work for days- it was a winter of epic proportion.  I heard a radio reporter announce recently she was creating a new rule. Not only is there no crying in baseball, but there is also no whining in political debates.  I’m going to add a rule to that list and say that there is no complaining about the weather in New England.

For those of us who live in the North Country, winter does indeed come every year. It shows up around the same time and is characterized by bitter cold, lots of snow and short, dark days.  So how does a person prepare?  Willem Lange is a wonderful local writer and storyteller.  He is very wise and salty and tells authentic stories of a life well lived.  He advises that there are three things that northerners need to do to get through the winter happily.  

First, they need a strategy to get outdoors.  That could be chopping wood, or cross-country skiing, or snowshoeing through the woods.  With a new puppy in our household, it is pretty much guaranteed that we will get outside every single day.  The next strategy is to have people to be with and enjoy.  I have always felt that New Englanders have cultivated the unique ability to hunker down and have good, meaningful conversations.  Perhaps the long winters have helped us learn this art.  In our family, we, like Jimmy Fallon love games.  Whether the game is Catch Phrase or Quiddler (my personal favorite) or Salad Bowl (a great party game), games bring people together when the winds are howling outside.  And the last suggestion from Willem Lange is to have something to look forward to.  I love this one.  If you are lucky enough to have the means to get away in the winter, planning a trip to some southern clime in the wintertime is a surefire way to keep your spirits up.  Getting off the plane in Mexico or the Caribbean in mid February is pretty much guaranteed to make your heart sing.

But the winter that happens somewhere between December and March is not the only winter that we need to prepare for.  What about those seasons of your life that you know are going to bring big challenges.  At my last company, BiddingForGood, we had two very busy seasons in the business.  The biggest and most demanding was in the spring.  This is high season for fundraisers and this was when our company went into overdrive.  We had learned after years of experience that it was going to tax the company in any number of ways.  We knew our team was going to be stressed and exhausted and would struggle to “keep it together”.  This is the winter of BiddingForGood.   So what’s a company to do?  Well not unlike the way New Englanders develop a strategy for gracefully surviving the winter, businesses can too.  Businesses can prepare themselves and their teams.  We encouraged staff to take time off when they could, to be as “ready and rested” as possible.  We tried to find ways to show appreciation for the extra work and extra stress.  Whether that was a constant supply of snacks or a fun holiday outing, there is always some way to tend to the flock and show them you care about their well-being. 

There are other "winters" that we experience.  Maybe it's bringing home a new baby. While this is one of the great joys in life, it also comes with a host of new stresses- sleepless nights, changing routines and priorities.  Or what about dealing with sickness or injury?  Managing health challenges can indeed feel like a long, endless winter. 

There is fine line between being prepared and being a worrier.  Some people get a big jump on worrying about what’s to come.  Some blithely go along, without giving any thought to what is looming.  There is probably a strategy somewhere in between.  Knowing what’s coming and having a plan for it makes sense.  Worrying about it before it’s even happened is probably not a great strategy.  A colleague of mine taught me the great lesson of “ only worry once”.  Don’t worry about something before it’s even happened.  Who knows, maybe El Nino will deliver and we will have a balmy dry winter.  Wouldn’t that be swell?  The odds are against it so I am going to make sure to have a plan in place.   I’ll be happy to see you, dear reader, in the woods on a snowy day or maybe gathered around the fire for a rousing game of Salad Bowl.  If we’re really lucky, we’ll run into each other on the beach in Mexico, tropical drink in hand.  And to that I say salud!

A Report From the Slow Lane

A Report from the Slow Lane

What do you do when you no longer get 250+ emails a day?  What do you do when you no longer have a line of colleagues waiting outside your office to grab your attention or to ask for help?   What happens when there is no real urgency about “getting things done”?  Well, a lot of things happen and some of them are unexpected.

I wrote several months ago about stepping off the fast lane.  I also invited the right side of my brain to step out and get busy.   This has proven to be a much harder process than I anticipated.  How many of us yearn to slow down, to step off the treadmill?  How many of us dream of time in the sun, or in the kitchen, or in the woods, or on the open road?  I am fully aware that this time that I have been granted has been a gift.   It has been a real luxury and one that should not be squandered.

I came into this time with a long list of ideas.  I have several business ideas that I want to develop.  I have some writing that I want to get to.  I have a long list of organizational projects at home.  You know, the ones that get neglected when you’re too busy to attend to them.  I have some creative projects that I hope to tackle.

I have not been a complete slouch.  In fact, I’ve actually done a lot.  Here’s a short list of what’s been keeping me busy:

-      
Performed in a professional production of Our Town and did 28 performances during the month of October

-       Planned,  planted and harvested the best garden in memory (still harvesting beets, carrots and cabbage)

-       Began raising and training a new puppy (this I'm told will go on for years)

-    Helped some friends who were filming a web series called Parmalee. 

-    Launched the Great Gifting Experiment that had me helping me friends on a number of projects

All of these activities have been worthwhile and fairly consuming, but I have not felt the crazy busy-ness that has characterized the last two decades of my business life.  I have been able to meander a bit.  I have been able to put things off, sometimes for days.  I have been able to be, dare I say it, unfocused.

A friend suggested to me that being “unfocused” is part of the recovery process from the five grueling years at my last company.  Mind you, when I say grueling, I am not complaining.  In fact, there was much to be proud of at BiddingForGood.  How many of us can point to helping raise millions of dollars for nonprofits and schools?  But it was hard work and it was relentless.  When you are forced to be really focused all of the time, your brain is ecstatic to be unfocused and to be given a breather. As I reflect, I can look way back,  past the last five years, to the last 20 years.  It’s been 20 years since the early days of the Internet when so many of our careers started moving at warp speed.  The pace at which we have learned to work and to live has accelerated each year and doesn’t show signs of slowing down. 

Perhaps this is why taking the time when you can get it is becoming increasingly critical.  Just like world class athletes take rest days after big athletic contests, so too should we who toil at fast moving companies.  We should enjoy the gift of settling down on a rainy afternoon with a great book.  We should enjoy the pure luxury of unplugging.  Believe it or not, there are days when I have neither looked at my phone nor my computer for the entire day!  What you say?  Yes, it’s true and I really, really liked it.

There is still a long list of things to tackle.  Not the least of which is organizing the papers and documents of our lives.  It was a full hour of searching today for us to find the container with all of our tax returns.  They were ultimately discovered in the garage no less.  My husband and I laughed that some day neither of us will remember where we put anything, so our days will be characterized by searching for the wayward document or receipt or tax return. 

But as I wander, I continue to sniff around for interesting ideas and companies doing meaningful work.  I continue to chat with people who are passionate about building their companies.  I have no doubt that I will find another organization to throw myself into.  It won’t be long before I will set my alarm in the morning and I will start to drive a bit too fast as I rush to get to the next meeting.  I will once again wade through an ever-exploding inbox.  I will be a bit breathless.  And when that time happens, I will be ready for it.  I will be energized by the possibilities.  But for now, what’s the rush?  There are books to read and puppies to play with and companies to research and blogs to write.   There are walks in the woods to bring inspiration.  For now, the slow lane is just where I want to be.

The Fine Line Between Joy and Grief

There is a framed print in my office with the quote- “She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.”

It is well-documented that I have always been quick to tears.  This has been the topic of much joking amongst my family and friends for some time.  But last summer, sitting by a river on a star-studded night, I talked with a friend about what is behind the tears.  We explored the idea that just behind many joyful moments, there is some form of grief for how fleeting the moments are or how crushingly beautiful they appear to us.

I have just come off a very special experience as a cast member in a production of Our Town.  The play is a masterpiece and articulates some important truths about the way we live our lives.  Life is indeed too short and we are often not able to appreciate that which is around us each day.  There is a scene in the play when one of the leading characters , who has died in childbirth, wants to return to her life and live over just one day.  Another character explains to her that to return to earth to live over a day is painful because not only do you live it, but you see yourself living it and you know what’s going to happen.  That scene has been rattling around inside me for two months now.  It is a scene in which many audience members were reduced to tears and the actors on stage experienced profound grief.  I’ve wondered how often we are aware of the exquisite preciousness of our days and at some level know we will never see them again.

One of the times when this feeling was especially vivid for me was at the wedding of our daughter.  I even spoke at the rehearsal dinner and tried to articulate the idea of how fleeting it all is.  I reminded the assembled guests to be aware and to be alive and to hold onto the specialness of the occasion.  Through all of the busyness of the wedding weekend, the details, the logistics, the various comings and goings of family and friends, it was very easy to get caught up in the swirl.  And maybe, just maybe, we are reluctant to hold on too tight to the specialness of moments like this because it is heartbreaking to do so.

Perhaps because I am having some difficulty shaking the feelings that Our Town stirred up, I am feeling this bittersweet melancholy in other places in my life.  If you have read any of my blogs in the past or follow me on Facebook, you know that I have a new puppy.  What is remarkable about this dog is that she is a dead ringer for the first and until now, the best dog of my life.  Her name was Morganetta and she too was a yellow Labrador retriever.  She was devoted to me and when she died I was wrecked.  It took years, and I mean years,  for me to be able to talk about this dog without weeping.  So some 25 years later,  to get another yellow lab, this one named Smooch, is to revisit the pure love that I had for my first dog.  Smooch is almost six months old and has slowly but surely worked her way into our hearts.  But here’s where the fine line between joy and grief comes in.  Smooch has some kind of infection that we are trying to get on top of.  I have now had three visits to the vet and we are puzzled about why such a young dog is suffering with this infection.  Now I am an eternal optimist almost all of the time, but yesterday in the vet’s office I felt the nearly hysterical voice of doom creeping into my mind.  I began to go to the worst possible place of- what if we can’t fix this?  What if she’s going to have to eat this expensive, medicated dog food for life?  What if she gets sicker?  What if she dies?  Crazy talk, right?  But right behind my absolute love for this little creature, I am worrying about losing her. 

I honestly think that is why I weep.  My tears are my expression of what is precious.  Sometimes it is real sadness and sometimes it is unmistakable joy, but almost always, these feelings are right near the edge of the opposite side of those feelings.  For where there is joy, there is grief and where there is grief, there is joy.

So for now, I will celebrate the experience of being part of Our Town, I will love my puppy and happily feed her expensive, medicated dog food and I will savor the special moments in my life.  What about you?