Thursday, November 18, 2010

Thanks, Einstein!


The other day a glass landed on our tile floors and exploded, like always. For me this is generally a time of mourning and wishing I was more coordinated or something. I feel bad no matter how small the loss. Part of it is growing up with a feeling of scarcity and part of it is reading how Gandhi made his grandson crawl over the ground to find the stub of a pencil so as to honor the work of the man who made the pencil.
The particular glasses we are breaking at the moment are thick and when they break there is a sparkly pile of generally non-threatening shards, and as I started to sweep them up, I heard a voice inside saying "e=mc2." I immediately relaxed. I know it's not an exact application, but in general principle it's true. Somehow the entropy that my clumsy choice unleashed is not final. In a mysterious, grand theme of the universe kind of way, my glass isn't lost--it's just transformed. I'd never thought of it that way, and it backed up and illumined the ways I'd considered loss before.
The last year has been a shower of death and loss and it looks like there are at least two more coming. All of them were/are men that I expected to live much longer. I lost Uncle Ed who always provided a sort of quiet bass to my father's tenor. He was the sort of person who was comfortable with a kid watching him fix a stone wall for hours. I lost Uncle Tom who introduced me to the joys of rare meat. My favorite memory of him is the pride he took in getting a grant for RIF. I lost my biological Uncle Bob. He was funny and he took my side against Mother. He helped me to have faith that brainy genes really were in there somewhere. On our wedding day, he prayed over Kurt and I just as he had prayed over Mother and Dad.
"All things work together for good..." is sometimes as hard to see as the usefulness of a pile of broken glass, but that doesn't make it any less true.

Monday, November 01, 2010

S.H.E again!


Mother had this book lying around the house. I have always been a reading omnivore, so if it was there... I liked the logic of delineating each task on a card and setting them aside was almost as good as ticking things off a list without the trouble of drawing up a list every day. I didn't put it to work though until we were expecting our third and all warnings were that this was when it got tough, so I wanted to be ready. I bought my own and a bunch of 3x5 cards and Attila the Hun was born. (I name nearly everything I use frequently including my 3x5 card file.) After a while my natural need to complete all remaining tasks took over and Attila was overkill. I respectfully put her away and then the slow slide into slovenly got worse with each new baby. After a move and three more children I'm not sure I really know how to make it work anymore, so I remembered Attila and all those 3x5 cards. The number of tasks is simply overwhelming, but I've been meeting with the kids and parceling out responsibilities. Everyone but Kurt will have their own card box. I'm hoping it's a success not just for me, but for all of us.
If you are looking for a good system to help you master whatever is going on in your house, I recommend Sidetracked Home Executives. Even if you're not a slob it helps you picture what needs done and how to accomplish it.