Tag Archives: personal change

L.A. Snow Day

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imagesUKL5P5N9Yeah, yeah, I know:  we don’t have snow days in Los Angeles.  Except for me.  I had a snow day this week right here in Pasadena, California.  Of course, with roses blooming in my garden and a lime tree covered in fruit it required a bit of imagination.

I missed snow days when I moved from the land of freezing winters to the land of sunshine and palm trees. Snow days often bring power outages and travel delays, but they also give a guilt-free reason to cancel everything and slow down the pace of life. Who can argue when the governor or school superintendent tells everyone to stay home?

When smog made me cancel my calendar for two days this week and stay inside my house, I had a brainstorm.  I said, “Self, these are snow days. You love snow days. Pretend you’re in Upstate New York again and this is a snow day.”

Every time I felt frustrated at where I couldn’t go and what I couldn’t do, I filled myself with remembered feelings of coziness, leisurely reading on the sofa, comforting smells from the kitchen, and relaxed puttering around the house.

It worked.  For two days I kept frustration at bay with the wackiness of my imagination.  Then the weather changed and cleared the air, which is good because even actual snow days give me cabin fever after 48 hours and I don’t think I could have sustained my willing suspension of disbelief much longer.

My snow day/smog day framework improved my attitude by changing how I reacted to the smog.  I consciously chose how to perceive my limitations, chose how to act, and chose my attitude.

Life is all about choices, after all, some writ large and others known only to us. I chose to have a snow day in L.A. and it made all the difference.

The Benefit of Imperfection

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Herbie Hancock, one of the all-time great jazz musicians, remembers when he played a wrong chord on the piano while performing with Miles Davis in Paris years ago.  Hancock was horrified by his mistake but “Davis didn’t hear the chord as wrong.   He heard it as something new and went with it.  There was no negative judgment,” said Hancock in an interview on National Public Radio.

Last December, I experienced similar newness birthed in imperfection when I was too ill to decorate for the holidays and a friend offered to decorate for me. The only opening in her schedule, however, was a time when I wouldn’t be home.  “No problem,” she said.  “Tell me where your decorations are stored and the house will be finished by the time you get back.”

That evening I stepped into a home that radiated hospitality and Christmas welcome, my home.  Since my friend didn’t know where each angel and bit of greenery traditionally went, she had put them wherever she wanted.  I no longer felt badly about not being well enough to decorate my own home.  My “imperfection” let in the light of newness from a good friend.  How could one ask for a better gift?

Perfection certainly has an important place in life–when building the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, making a souffle, or developing a website for the Affordable Care Act, to name a few examples.

On the other hand, if we try for perfection in every part of life and beat ourselves or others up for not achieving it, our drive for perfection causes damage.  It constrains us and strains our relationships.  It fills backpacks with impossible expectations, and our lives with unnecessary judgment and stress.

One of the unexpected gifts of my life having turned upside down a few years ago is that I am constantly invited (or should I say, challenged) to accept vulnerability and imperfection in myself, and to welcome the grace and newness imperfections make possible. In the words of Canadian composer and singer, Leonard Cohen,

The birds they sang at the break of day
Start again I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be…
Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.

 From “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen

Go Karts, Speedos, and What Not to Wear: Change Happens

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After flooring contractors moved everything from half our house to lay wood floors, my husband and I decided to keep what we no longer need, want, or use.  In the process, I held examples of how much change has happened over the years.  Some change happened in the ordinary stages of life.  Some we noticed at the time, but much of it we didn’t.  Some change was intentional, responsive, and creative, expanding life and stretching into new experiences.  And some was embarrassing.

I looked in horror at clothes I’d worn until they appeared on What Not to Wear.  I gave away curtains that no longer match our decor and affirmed that I like our current palate better.  I read my old sermons and compared them to recent ones.  I held pictures of our sons grinning in Speedos at a high school water polo game and smiled as I pictured them now happy and creatively challenged as adults.  I tossed 3-1/2″ computer discs, wondering why I keep so many vestiges of the past that are no longer useful.

“Change happens,” I thought, as I looked around. “Embrace it, incorporate it, and keep going.”

It is up to us whether we lean into change and creatively engage with it, or we deny its impact on us and our ability to affect it.  Choosing not to change in positive ways is a certain outline for disaster and unhappiness.  If we stay frozen, inevitable changes harden our spirit and life and shrink our space.  The choice is ours.

Did you ever build a go kart?  Leaning into change is like that: we turn random wood, pipe, tires, wire and rope from the garage into a marvelous invention of freedom.  It’s like making pottery: we moisten our hands, spin our potter’s wheel and shape bowls and pitchers from what had been just a mound of clay.  It’s like making a quilt:  we arrange pieces of fabric we already have and stitch them together for a new purpose.

In life we straddle a hinge from which we look back at change already navigated and forward to change yet to come.  If we stretch our arms in both directions we discover we have room to move.  Our mind and life muscles flex to incorporate new ways of being and doing, of relating and living, if we encourage them to do so.

I’m glad I ditched some of those clothes I used to wear.  Some of my sermons were better the second time I preached them.  My sons no longer wear Speedos (that would be scary!).  Clean closets and less clutter gives my husband and me space to consider new possibilities.

Change happens.  I have the evidence.  It can be good.  Embrace it.  Claim it.  Lean into.  Dance with it. Create with it. Make it your own.