I recently picked up an old software project that had been collecting a bit of dust. It was something I worked on with a friend a couple months back, and we had a lot of fun making it. But life things crept in and took focus for both of us, so we got it to a good place where the project could be left in “storage” for a while, its future features’ by-when dates set to the nebulous “TBD”.

And then last week, I decided it was time to give our project the nice coat of paint we always wanted it to have. I checked out our prototype, decided on the feature to fix, and a feature to add. Keep it simple to start. My brain reached for the next step…

…but nothing appeared.

At the moment, I’m able to decide my schedule each day. Of course, there are a couple important nodes that MUST be attended to at certain times. But what I’ve become present to is something I had only dreamed about years before — distinct pockets of blank open time.

As soon as I started to realize this space existed, thoughts of should-be-doing filled my mind. Every role I hold for myself or others worked to make its obligations heard, arguing for its tasks to be attended to. And why not pick one and do it? And then another, and another? There was available time, and the thought of doing nothing filled me with fear.

He was hurt when I found him. A man from the store was bent down, seeing if there were some way to help the little bird. The man told me I looked like an animal lover, and asked me if I knew anything about birds. I didn't. But that didn't stop me from taking him home with me in a small cardboard box to see if there was something I could do.

I love this thought provoking piece from Corey. My last blog also fell under the topic of receiving feedback and I enjoyed the process of reflecting on what I learned from one specific professor I had and what I did with her critiques. But I think Corey brings to light yet another compelling outlook to consider when receiving an evaluation from someone, no matter how big or small. I've slowly learned that constructive criticism doesn't have to be personal 1, because someone is simply believing in me to grow and be better. But 2, because the feedback helps in thriving as "part of the whole." Specifically, after reading Corey's writing I consider more deeply how my own growth can benefit the cohesiveness of the entire unit or mission I play a role in, as each part needs to be doing their best to flourish as one unit. Thank you Corey. Your sharing of your experiences and lessons from different points in your life help to broaden perspective in my own and to try to keep in mind the bigger picture as I walk through it.

- Amanda

I’ve been off of work, and with my kids this whole summer. It’s been a blur filled with equal parts daddy school, activities and chilling out. Last week, while breaking down our days before getting to sleep, my wife asked me a really good question that I haven’t been asked in a long time. “You’ve been with the kids for 2 months now… what have you learned so far?”

I was recently let go from my job. It brought up a lot of things for me. The usual, concerns about finances and healthcare, and also a few things out of the ordinary. I wouldn’t have thought losing a job would mean losing part of my identity, but it certainly feels that way.

At bedtime the other night, my son Teddy told me, “Dad, I love you… even though you’re boring.”

I kissed him on the forehead, and couldn’t disagree. I kept thinking about how I can find a better balance between being the coach and the referee; in my relationships with my kids, and in my life. And then it leapt out at me, all of a sudden. A position I’d totally missed thinking about. I’d forgotten how to be the player.

When did I stop playing pretend?

It’s been hard to write recently. I think it may be as simple as having gotten into a routine and omitting dedicated time to write. Getting to this point — fingers on the keys, mind directed to one singular focus and thread of thought — involved quite an elaborate dance: getting fully dressed, finding my keyboard, ignoring the half-done household chore I abandoned last night for sleep, and turning on the kettle for coffee. I bet it’ll be ready halfway through one of these upcoming sentences. But wait — come back, mind! — I’m now HERE to write. It’s happening. And it almost feels like I’ve been in this moment for hours and couldn’t be asked to do anything else, ever again. I’ve gone from doing a puttering polka into an aimed adagio.

A friend once told me he noticed how I was careful with opening and closing doors — treating them with care, and aiming for quietness. It’s a thought I hold dear, because it was one of the first times I remember feeling truly seen in my adult life. He went on to wax philosophic, talking about it as “a good way to see who is practicing everyday mindfulness”. I think about this a lot.

I noticed my neighbor communing with his yard the other day. The simplicity in the brushes of his broom, and peace with the labor of lifting the leaves into piles inspired me. I told him so. And then I got to work on my own place.

My toil wasn’t terribly different. I went through the same process he did: lots of repetitive, but focused work. Almost a tunnel vision, as I kept my mind on my goal. I even mimicked his method of bagging, a novel style that was effective, to boot.

In recent months, I’ve spent most of my days living by my calendar appointments. 8AM? Make coffee. 9:15AM? Check in with my to-do list for the day. 1:00PM? Lunch. 2:00PM? Check back in with the calendar for the day. Weekends and evenings (FKA non-work hours) often get calendar events, too, whether for doing life chores or seeing friends. My past self (or someone from work) had made the decision that it was a good thing to schedule all these doings, so I went along with each one as it came up, more or less. And then, vacation happened. A chance for a break from my regimented routine. I thought, for fun, I would do my best to look at my watch and my calendar as little as possible during the week.

It finally happened a couple weeks ago. My streak of 8 years of not being injured finally came to an end.

The first couple of days of managing my body’s recovery were the most challenging — lots of hopping, RICE, and moving carefully. An ankle sprain is maybe one of the better injuries to have, I think, if I had to choose. It forced me to slow down. “How ridiculous,” I thought as I replayed the incident over and over, “a yoga and meditation teacher getting injured as he’s racing his kids to school”. Sometimes I think the expected traits of the characters I assign to myself often move me farther away from them. But I hadn’t been keeping up with my morning meditation practice… so, in a strange way, maybe my ankle was helping me make up for that lost practice time by slowing me down.

I attended a virtual conference a couple weeks ago. It was for work, so both my observer mind and participant mind were in attendance. As I was running down the list of sessions, figuring out which spoke to me, one leapt off the page. It was called “How Many Mondays?” I’m a big believer in trusting my gut when I feel big reactions like this (thanks theater and yoga training, and this awesome podcast with Rudy), so I made sure to put it on my calendar.

My son, Teddy, has started reading; piecing together words sound by sound. It’s a remarkable experience to witness, and makes me burst with pride.

This morning, when I asked him to practice reading the words on a note card from his teacher, he was game. The first 5 times Teddy “read” the sentence, it said “Teddy did all his work.” (See the attached photo to see what was actually written.) Despite a couple minutes of coaching to practice actually reading, he wasn’t interested, and wouldn’t hear that it said something else (though of course the message is similar).

How many times in my life have I behaved this way? When have I listened to or read something juuuusssssst well enough to make some guess as to what the transmitter was working to get across, without truly listening? I know I did this while learning to play the cello in elementary school. It was a lot more work to pay attention and play what was actually written on the page than to play what I imagined the piece to be. I was skimming the page and reading only what I THOUGHT was written.

There’s a complexity to the human experience that, for me, often seems overwhelming when I attempt to communicate it. So many feelings come up about so many things so frequently, that the prospect of expressing anything in words and speech sometimes seems paltry. Even now, the thesaurus doesn’t have an answer for the exact state I’m working to get across.

When I was young, I idolized my Grandpop’s ability to speak with anyone, anywhere, about anything. His curiosity about the questions he had always seemed to win compared to the social worry of putting himself out there and connecting with a new human. It didn’t even seem to be a factor for him, which was quite remarkable to teenager-Corey. He’d speak with policemen, passers by, store clerks, and even engage telemarketers in diversions from their sales script. It was the gift of gab, his inner curiosity; and to me it was like magic.

I was about 25 when I first heard about the idea of reciprocity. It seemed like a great idea from the cosmic lens — a spiritual, communal, light side version of “quid pro quo”. There was this Pilates training I hoped to do. I was earlier on in my career, and had much more time than money. The studio owner offered me the chance to join the training, and pay for it by working shifts managing the front desk for a number of months. It felt great to have another way to consider trading with someone else. Of course, the barter system only works in certain places and circumstances these days, but it was a relief to have a way to move forward that was out of the expected “ordinary”.

It’s finally been happening lately. Something I haven’t felt for a long time. Maybe not since I was a kid. I know other people have been experiencing it, so this feeling does still exist, somewhere, just not in my experience recently. But there I was, raking the tenth pile of leaves as my kids blew bubbles in the yard when it hit me. This week I felt bored. A couple times, even! And it was wonderful.

Hunter S Thompson observed that writers are either peckers, laboring over every word, or swoopers, getting lots of words down and doubling-back later on for edits. I see that people tend to be this way in their interactions with other people, too: one may concentrate solely on a few very strong connections, or more widely distribute their attention with a greater number of weak connections. Between these two ways of being, I’m certainly the latter.