I've been absent so long from my poor Melmoirs, and the guilt has been heavy upon me... I keep writing posts in my mind. This last one that has yet to be properly composed is all about the young lady who ran into me a few weeks ago, because although she had a stop sign and I did not, her GPS was instructing her to turn left—so she did, right into my driver's side front bumper.
But the point of that post would basically be how much control of our lives, and our minds, we have given up in order to have convenience-touting gadgets. I'd rant about how kids used to have to memorize things which (crazily enough) makes you better at remembering things, and how calculators and spell- and grammar-check have dumbed us down tremendously as a population.
And that would lead to my soapbox-ing about waste in our society, that not only are we spoiled and lazy and skill-less but now we throw so many things away that are perfectly good, or were never good for much to begin with...
Here's the problem. I have already written about all these things. When I searched my own blog for "convenience," I hit upon a surfeit of posts from years past that I almost recall penning... Posts like this, this, this, this, this, and this.
So, I'm not going to write that one again. It's been said, by me no less.
Should I be comforted by the fact that I am still so perturbed by the same things? Or disturbed that all the stuff I kvetched about years ago is even worse now?
I need a new shtick.
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brain. Show all posts
Sunday, April 8, 2018
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Outbuildings
I'm no stranger to outbuildings. You know what I mean: sheds, of course. Or little barns, perhaps. Any extra structure, usually smallish in nature, erected away from the main dwelling place, would fit the description. The outbuilding might hold hand tools or mowers, animal feed or fertilizer (the bagged or boxed type, or maybe even the fertilizing critters themselves...) An outbuilding can hold hobbies, like a wood-working shop, or a mechanic's playground. Perhaps it houses an old project car or motorcycle; it might host a child's pals or collections, plastic bins brimming with memories. It holds things that won't fit in the house but that need to be kept safe.
My husband built a shed at our old home, a beauty, nestled in the lovely garden that he'd also created. The shed stood proudly, a sturdy 8x12 building that briefly contained all his yard goodies and a handful of mine. More recently, it held all the overflow from our home—the extra stuff that made our small house appear smaller, and which the realtor advised us to hide so that potential buyers would be fooled and would make offers on our spacious dwelling... That realtor was smart, because her plan worked and now the wonderful shed (a selling point!) is likely being thoroughly enjoyed by the current owner of the house. Sigh.
My childhood home sported two outbuildings while I was young, and each was unique in purpose and style. The "shed," aptly named, was the favored home of my father's gadgets and noisy machines, plus old toys, a cot from Grandma, our bikes. It looked like a small house, with a real door and windows; it was roomy, had rudimentary loft space above, and was crammed full (it still is). The other building was "the chicken house," because that's the purpose it had once served; this little gem was often stacked full of hay bales, to feed the hungry cows and then, later, two spoiled ponies. It also housed a round bin of grain, as well as various litters of kittens, stashed by their mothers in impenetrable corners, and likely an occasional lazy black snake.
These buildings at my parents' home have since been joined by yet another shed-like structure that lives behind the large cement-block garage. (Come to think of it, the garage may also count as an outbuilding, because it is separate, and playing home to the family Jeep is only half of its job.) I don't even know what's in this newest little shack, and I don't need to, because it's not mine. It is my father's.
(My father—both my parents, in fact—like to hold onto things. I try to shake off this tendency and intentionally migrate toward minimalism, although I can see validity in the opinion that just because you don't need something right now doesn't mean you'll never need it again. I suppose that if times change in America, and I am no longer able to easily and cheaply locate more copies of whatever I cast away in the past, then I'll need to find some outbuildings and begin clinging to as many items as possible. For now, I will keep trying to make regular trips to Goodwill and its many cousins in the charitable store world.)
I'm pondering those useful shacks because of what they do: they hold all of someone's extra stuff that won't fit within the normal perimeter of space. They are specific to the owner. What's contained within can be shared, or kept secret. A little building like that can remain locked for years, or be perused on a regular basis; it's personal and practical.
The reason I'm thinking about outbuildings, though, isn't just because I want one for our yard. I do. But my brain has been feeling too full of upsetting facts and feelings, and I could use more space somewhere to store it all. I don't need a physical realm in which to pile stuff; I just need an emotional outbuilding, where I could store all my extraneous upsets and worries and frustrations and unanswered questions. If I could get them out of my regular storage space, then maybe I could improve my day-to-day functions. I could address freelance work, a commissioned painting, my son's school and shopping tasks, all without accidentally knocking down the shelf where I store the thoughts about the world, my family, illness. I could pay bills without having to rearrange the pile of concerns about ISIS; I wouldn't have to stop working so that I can re-order the now-confused observations about where America is heading. I could take all those extra burdens that are slowing down my processor (brain) and place them in neat, tidy, compartmentalized outbuildings for my head. Then, I could go about my business and stop being reminded of all that mental clutter because I accidentally bumped into it while looking for necessary information buried in the gray cells.
I don't have Dumbledore's pensieve, and therefore I need a thought shed, or two, or five. And I need locks on them. And loads of space inside. If only I could purchase something like that at Lowe's.
My husband built a shed at our old home, a beauty, nestled in the lovely garden that he'd also created. The shed stood proudly, a sturdy 8x12 building that briefly contained all his yard goodies and a handful of mine. More recently, it held all the overflow from our home—the extra stuff that made our small house appear smaller, and which the realtor advised us to hide so that potential buyers would be fooled and would make offers on our spacious dwelling... That realtor was smart, because her plan worked and now the wonderful shed (a selling point!) is likely being thoroughly enjoyed by the current owner of the house. Sigh.
My childhood home sported two outbuildings while I was young, and each was unique in purpose and style. The "shed," aptly named, was the favored home of my father's gadgets and noisy machines, plus old toys, a cot from Grandma, our bikes. It looked like a small house, with a real door and windows; it was roomy, had rudimentary loft space above, and was crammed full (it still is). The other building was "the chicken house," because that's the purpose it had once served; this little gem was often stacked full of hay bales, to feed the hungry cows and then, later, two spoiled ponies. It also housed a round bin of grain, as well as various litters of kittens, stashed by their mothers in impenetrable corners, and likely an occasional lazy black snake.
These buildings at my parents' home have since been joined by yet another shed-like structure that lives behind the large cement-block garage. (Come to think of it, the garage may also count as an outbuilding, because it is separate, and playing home to the family Jeep is only half of its job.) I don't even know what's in this newest little shack, and I don't need to, because it's not mine. It is my father's.
(My father—both my parents, in fact—like to hold onto things. I try to shake off this tendency and intentionally migrate toward minimalism, although I can see validity in the opinion that just because you don't need something right now doesn't mean you'll never need it again. I suppose that if times change in America, and I am no longer able to easily and cheaply locate more copies of whatever I cast away in the past, then I'll need to find some outbuildings and begin clinging to as many items as possible. For now, I will keep trying to make regular trips to Goodwill and its many cousins in the charitable store world.)
I'm pondering those useful shacks because of what they do: they hold all of someone's extra stuff that won't fit within the normal perimeter of space. They are specific to the owner. What's contained within can be shared, or kept secret. A little building like that can remain locked for years, or be perused on a regular basis; it's personal and practical.
The reason I'm thinking about outbuildings, though, isn't just because I want one for our yard. I do. But my brain has been feeling too full of upsetting facts and feelings, and I could use more space somewhere to store it all. I don't need a physical realm in which to pile stuff; I just need an emotional outbuilding, where I could store all my extraneous upsets and worries and frustrations and unanswered questions. If I could get them out of my regular storage space, then maybe I could improve my day-to-day functions. I could address freelance work, a commissioned painting, my son's school and shopping tasks, all without accidentally knocking down the shelf where I store the thoughts about the world, my family, illness. I could pay bills without having to rearrange the pile of concerns about ISIS; I wouldn't have to stop working so that I can re-order the now-confused observations about where America is heading. I could take all those extra burdens that are slowing down my processor (brain) and place them in neat, tidy, compartmentalized outbuildings for my head. Then, I could go about my business and stop being reminded of all that mental clutter because I accidentally bumped into it while looking for necessary information buried in the gray cells.
I don't have Dumbledore's pensieve, and therefore I need a thought shed, or two, or five. And I need locks on them. And loads of space inside. If only I could purchase something like that at Lowe's.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
How I became more stupid
Forrest Gump always believed that stupid is as stupid does... or at least his mama felt that way. I think Mama was right, but I'd take it a step further: Stupid is as stupid says. I spent a good many years of my life showing, through my words, that I wasn't very wise.
Growing up in a rather small pond, in a family of people like me, it was relatively easy to pass those early years believing that I was pretty smart. Kids can be obnoxiously confident anyway, can't they? And finding moderate to noticeable success in a school or home setting can lull a young person into feeling pretty darned special. I tried to be humble, but in my heart I didn't buy it.
I chose a less-than-large state school as my undergrad alma mater, and this experience continued to feed the fantasy that I was all that. I had to work a little harder, granted, and I had a little too much fun that first year-and-a-half and watched my grades suffer (much to my parents' chagrin and annoyance). But truthfully, even when I slouched and lazed along, I still didn't do that badly. It was more challenging, but still manageable.
Even my first professional job fell into the same camp of making me believe I was on top. I moved to a little, inbred town near Erie, and taught a variety of kids there. A few of my students were rather brilliant, but many were average; more than a handful were counting down days until their 16th birthday, when they'd proudly file their "outta here" papers and flee to the family farm. So, in comparison to the norm there? I considered myself to be somewhat intellectual. No one told me otherwise. (They were too kind, I see now.)
I had to move to a larger city, and rub elbows with some truly smart people, before I began to figure out I had quite a lot to learn... and that there was plenty I'd simply never learn. I remember this dawning of realization at one of the firms where I worked, while I watched one of my bosses work through an extremely complex piece of information. He sketched it, he explained it, he fleshed out the physics behind it. And I took it all in, gleaning simultaneously that I could never have made it so clear and easy to grasp. I simply did not have that sort of brain power.
There were others at that company, and many since, who have left me with my figurative mouth agape. Great artists and performers populate the group, of course, but more often it's made up of that rare breed of person who oozes grey cell greatness—the people who really understand the stock market and can simply explain why the housing market collapsed, the folks who truly comprehend world economics and the shortcomings of every proposed solution, the people who can describe with perfect verbiage how one splits a cell or creates a new combustion system or safely constructs a tall tower. I have learned, by shutting up and listening, just how much I really lack.
The longer I live, the more I get it: I am not so smart. Actually, I am quite dull. And the more I look for the strengths of others, the more I find them. Even when a strength isn't uniquely intellectual, it usually still has great merit. I know one guy, an everyday guy who isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, but you know what? He is absolutely fantastic at getting people to feel close to each other and open up; he is great at sensing when a person needs a community around him. And there's one lady who seems so fluffy and flighty, but who can deliver a word of truth in such a way that the recipient actually listens and considers the point instead of taking offense.
The list goes on and on: A neighbor's daughter who is mentally challenged but knows instantly when she confronts a lie; a fellow who is jovial and somewhat goofy, yet can tear apart any machine and put it back together better than before. One of the smartest guys I knew was my dad's mechanic, who repaired engines by ear, and also worked beautifully with wood; I believe he even made his own knives. When I cleaned houses for that awful two weeks last fall, the guy who was training me was a fantastic cleaner. He knew how best to do it, how to work quickly and efficiently, how to keep track of every tool and spray bottle... it was awesome. My husband is great at planting and cultivating things, and not because he studied it exclusively but just because he loves it and learns a tip or two from every gardener he meets. Some people are just born problem solvers, and we all should learn whom they are and admit their prowess and our own shortcomings.
The last time I had this overwhelming feeling, I was attending a luncheon with Todd for new employees at his current university workplace. We listened to a speaker talk about his superior, and how she'd created a new type of missile; we learned that a fellow employee had been the creator of the strange little code word system that I use every time I leave a comment on someone's blog. The other fellow at our table mentioned how he traveled a lot to train others worldwide to use the school's software. I sat unobtrusively, hoping no one noticed my sad state of brainlessness.
It's amazing how stupid I became once I stopped telling everyone how smart I was. It's also pretty embarrassing. To anyone I've ever bored with my own praise, I am sorry. Please forgive me.
Happily, one of the many perks of being a Christian is that my lack of impressive cells is not just tolerated, but sometimes actually welcomed. We are encouraged to do things like be still and be more like a child. I struggle with the stillness, but the childlike acceptance and questioning less? That I can handle.
Growing up in a rather small pond, in a family of people like me, it was relatively easy to pass those early years believing that I was pretty smart. Kids can be obnoxiously confident anyway, can't they? And finding moderate to noticeable success in a school or home setting can lull a young person into feeling pretty darned special. I tried to be humble, but in my heart I didn't buy it.
I chose a less-than-large state school as my undergrad alma mater, and this experience continued to feed the fantasy that I was all that. I had to work a little harder, granted, and I had a little too much fun that first year-and-a-half and watched my grades suffer (much to my parents' chagrin and annoyance). But truthfully, even when I slouched and lazed along, I still didn't do that badly. It was more challenging, but still manageable.
Even my first professional job fell into the same camp of making me believe I was on top. I moved to a little, inbred town near Erie, and taught a variety of kids there. A few of my students were rather brilliant, but many were average; more than a handful were counting down days until their 16th birthday, when they'd proudly file their "outta here" papers and flee to the family farm. So, in comparison to the norm there? I considered myself to be somewhat intellectual. No one told me otherwise. (They were too kind, I see now.)
I had to move to a larger city, and rub elbows with some truly smart people, before I began to figure out I had quite a lot to learn... and that there was plenty I'd simply never learn. I remember this dawning of realization at one of the firms where I worked, while I watched one of my bosses work through an extremely complex piece of information. He sketched it, he explained it, he fleshed out the physics behind it. And I took it all in, gleaning simultaneously that I could never have made it so clear and easy to grasp. I simply did not have that sort of brain power.
There were others at that company, and many since, who have left me with my figurative mouth agape. Great artists and performers populate the group, of course, but more often it's made up of that rare breed of person who oozes grey cell greatness—the people who really understand the stock market and can simply explain why the housing market collapsed, the folks who truly comprehend world economics and the shortcomings of every proposed solution, the people who can describe with perfect verbiage how one splits a cell or creates a new combustion system or safely constructs a tall tower. I have learned, by shutting up and listening, just how much I really lack.
The longer I live, the more I get it: I am not so smart. Actually, I am quite dull. And the more I look for the strengths of others, the more I find them. Even when a strength isn't uniquely intellectual, it usually still has great merit. I know one guy, an everyday guy who isn't the brightest bulb in the bunch, but you know what? He is absolutely fantastic at getting people to feel close to each other and open up; he is great at sensing when a person needs a community around him. And there's one lady who seems so fluffy and flighty, but who can deliver a word of truth in such a way that the recipient actually listens and considers the point instead of taking offense.
The list goes on and on: A neighbor's daughter who is mentally challenged but knows instantly when she confronts a lie; a fellow who is jovial and somewhat goofy, yet can tear apart any machine and put it back together better than before. One of the smartest guys I knew was my dad's mechanic, who repaired engines by ear, and also worked beautifully with wood; I believe he even made his own knives. When I cleaned houses for that awful two weeks last fall, the guy who was training me was a fantastic cleaner. He knew how best to do it, how to work quickly and efficiently, how to keep track of every tool and spray bottle... it was awesome. My husband is great at planting and cultivating things, and not because he studied it exclusively but just because he loves it and learns a tip or two from every gardener he meets. Some people are just born problem solvers, and we all should learn whom they are and admit their prowess and our own shortcomings.
The last time I had this overwhelming feeling, I was attending a luncheon with Todd for new employees at his current university workplace. We listened to a speaker talk about his superior, and how she'd created a new type of missile; we learned that a fellow employee had been the creator of the strange little code word system that I use every time I leave a comment on someone's blog. The other fellow at our table mentioned how he traveled a lot to train others worldwide to use the school's software. I sat unobtrusively, hoping no one noticed my sad state of brainlessness.
It's amazing how stupid I became once I stopped telling everyone how smart I was. It's also pretty embarrassing. To anyone I've ever bored with my own praise, I am sorry. Please forgive me.
Happily, one of the many perks of being a Christian is that my lack of impressive cells is not just tolerated, but sometimes actually welcomed. We are encouraged to do things like be still and be more like a child. I struggle with the stillness, but the childlike acceptance and questioning less? That I can handle.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Your own personal zenith
I was driving this morning, running yet more errands with the boy belted in the back seat. I was delivering a raucous outburst along the lines of my own idiocy and forgetfulness and lack of focus (I’ve delivered a number of these lately) and this outburst was more vociferous than usual because it was the third or fourth time that morning that I’d experienced my own shortcomings.
First it was the misplaced keys. I suppose they weren’t truly misplaced, because I knew where they were: in the right pocket of the coat I wore yesterday. That’s where I always leave my keys. But why do I keep doing it? Then, I remembered a paper I needed and had to go grab that from upstairs while my patient son sat strapped in his car seat. And then, as we headed to our destination, I got in the wrong lane and ended up going in the opposite direction, away from the store I’d meant to visit.
That was the point that drove me to vocal uprising—that final wrong turn that took me away from where I’d been headed. I wound down the declaration of my frustration, and tried, not for the first time, to explain to Marcus why I was so angry. “I’m not angry at you, Honey—you know that, right? Mommy gets frustrated because she’s not able to think as well as she used to.” And he said he understood, although Lord knows if he does; I’m sure if he’s sitting in therapy some day, he’ll think back on my self-abusive tirades and blame them for something deficient in him.
My waning brain is cause for alarm, though, if not for diatribes. I used to be a clear thinker, able to catalog lots of tasks, and put things back where they belonged, and make certain I was in the correct lane and that the day’s events were mapped out neatly and efficiently, in geographical order… No more. It just isn’t happening like that these days. And I don’t have a newborn to blame, don’t have a gaggle of children hollering and throwing things in the mini-van, don’t take any meds. I’m just not as capable as I used to be.
That goes for all areas. Not as thin, not as limber, not as pain-free, not as able to go without rest. I’m not as.
It made me picture a typical human life of average duration as a mountain of sorts, or even a bell curve (remember, I used to teach). It seems we spend the first half striving to acquire things that we hunger for: basic skills, then knowledge, coordination, perspective, increasing freedoms and permissions. We work for all those years on “arriving.”
I don’t know if I even realized when I had arrived—does anyone? For many of us, there’s no a-ha moment of achievement. Unless you’ve earned bank presidency at a young age, or have been hired to coach for the NFL when you still have little kids at home, or find yourself aboard your own yacht while you’re still agile enough to handle the thing neatly and swim ashore if it sinks—unless you’re extraordinary in some way, it’s quite possible you’ll reach the pinnacle of your arrival and completely miss it.
You’ll figure out soon enough if it’s passed, though—oh, you’ll figure that out without any problem. You’ll start to notice brain misfires and malfunctions, you’ll start to make involuntary noises when you stand up from a squat, you’ll notice your skin beginning to sag here and there where once it was firm. You’ll play a sport some weekend and suffer for the next week. You’ll stay out too late one night and suffer sleep disturbances for days. You’ll look around one morning at work and realize that, if you’re lucky, you’ll still be here in this cubicle many years from now, vainly yearning for that corner office. You’ll stop talking about traveling around the world.
Then you’ll know, in your heart, that you’ve passed that point: your own personal zenith.
But there are advantages to aging, to becoming seasoned. I’ll tell you what they are as soon as I can remember them.
First it was the misplaced keys. I suppose they weren’t truly misplaced, because I knew where they were: in the right pocket of the coat I wore yesterday. That’s where I always leave my keys. But why do I keep doing it? Then, I remembered a paper I needed and had to go grab that from upstairs while my patient son sat strapped in his car seat. And then, as we headed to our destination, I got in the wrong lane and ended up going in the opposite direction, away from the store I’d meant to visit.
That was the point that drove me to vocal uprising—that final wrong turn that took me away from where I’d been headed. I wound down the declaration of my frustration, and tried, not for the first time, to explain to Marcus why I was so angry. “I’m not angry at you, Honey—you know that, right? Mommy gets frustrated because she’s not able to think as well as she used to.” And he said he understood, although Lord knows if he does; I’m sure if he’s sitting in therapy some day, he’ll think back on my self-abusive tirades and blame them for something deficient in him.
My waning brain is cause for alarm, though, if not for diatribes. I used to be a clear thinker, able to catalog lots of tasks, and put things back where they belonged, and make certain I was in the correct lane and that the day’s events were mapped out neatly and efficiently, in geographical order… No more. It just isn’t happening like that these days. And I don’t have a newborn to blame, don’t have a gaggle of children hollering and throwing things in the mini-van, don’t take any meds. I’m just not as capable as I used to be.
That goes for all areas. Not as thin, not as limber, not as pain-free, not as able to go without rest. I’m not as.
It made me picture a typical human life of average duration as a mountain of sorts, or even a bell curve (remember, I used to teach). It seems we spend the first half striving to acquire things that we hunger for: basic skills, then knowledge, coordination, perspective, increasing freedoms and permissions. We work for all those years on “arriving.”
I don’t know if I even realized when I had arrived—does anyone? For many of us, there’s no a-ha moment of achievement. Unless you’ve earned bank presidency at a young age, or have been hired to coach for the NFL when you still have little kids at home, or find yourself aboard your own yacht while you’re still agile enough to handle the thing neatly and swim ashore if it sinks—unless you’re extraordinary in some way, it’s quite possible you’ll reach the pinnacle of your arrival and completely miss it.
You’ll figure out soon enough if it’s passed, though—oh, you’ll figure that out without any problem. You’ll start to notice brain misfires and malfunctions, you’ll start to make involuntary noises when you stand up from a squat, you’ll notice your skin beginning to sag here and there where once it was firm. You’ll play a sport some weekend and suffer for the next week. You’ll stay out too late one night and suffer sleep disturbances for days. You’ll look around one morning at work and realize that, if you’re lucky, you’ll still be here in this cubicle many years from now, vainly yearning for that corner office. You’ll stop talking about traveling around the world.
Then you’ll know, in your heart, that you’ve passed that point: your own personal zenith.
But there are advantages to aging, to becoming seasoned. I’ll tell you what they are as soon as I can remember them.
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