Okay, it's not this bad...

This week, we’ve been discussing to-do lists.  Life to-do lists.  Cosmic to-do lists.  But one astute reader reminded me that sometimes those little items on our lists can be just as satisfying to cross off—once the bigger items have been achieved.  And as Elizabeth captured yesterday, having some concrete, achievable goals can motivate us—keep us moving forward.

This leaves me wondering…are there current goals?  Goals I can achieve in the more immediate sense, that will also bring me peace?  That will help me feel settled?  (Always that need for “settled”…it deserves its own post, I tell you.)  If I were to follow the guidance of The Happiness Project, (which accompanies me on my commute to work these days), I would start with something like…clearing my clutter. This is easy, right?  And very satisfying. Maybe I should set this goal today!  And cross it off next week!  But I have a secret…

I kinda like clutter.

Not everyone knows this about me.  I tend to hide this dirty little secret, shoving piles into drawers and preventing anyone from seeing the twisted mess of unfolded sweaters in my closet.  And it may come as a surprise to some of you readers, as I’ve frequently declared myself a lover of all things list-like.  But I have news for you.  “Planners” are not always tidy.  I can prove it.  Currently, on or around my desk, are the following items:

1.  A bright green post-it bearing a hastily written chocolate chip cookie recipe that has proven to be the Holy Grail in my ongoing quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.  (Because I’m nice, I will share.)

2.  A phone number.  No clue whose or what.  Maybe I should call it and find out.  But I won’t.

3.  A souvenir golf ball from a course I played 7 MONTHS ago.  It sits inside a cute little box that holds notecards, which means I have to remove it every time I want to snag a notecard.

Now, before you are totally grossed out and stop reading this post, I should clarify.  I am clean.  And relatively orderly.  For example, my kitchen rarely goes without cleaning, and is actually very organized.  But the stuff in my kitchen?  It’s everywhere.  Pitchers, utensils, and bottles of olive oil.  My immaculately clean kitchen is still…cluttered.

A card I once bought. Ironically, I just found it the other day...amidst the clutter.

For some of you, just reading this declaration of clutter would be enough to drive you bonkers.  But I have to admit…none of it really bothers me.  I like my clutter.  To me, there is warmth in my clutter.  My piles—albeit relatively organized piles—create a sense of lived-in comfort.  There’s just something about seeing my stuff—being surrounded by books, pictures, notes, or balsamic vinegar—that makes me feel simply…at home.

But there is another reason I remained relatively cluttered.  It’s just not a priority.  Frequently, when I come home in the evening, I buzz around—rarely sitting—fixing my lunch for the next day, cooking dinner, and prepping my coffee for the next morning.  I can’t even count the number of times my husband has called me in from the kitchen to pat the blank space next to him on the couch and say, “Why don’t you just sit for a minute?” He’s asking me to be present. To stop bothering with the little things.

Would I feel more present–more “in the moment”–if I led a clutter-less life?  Should I add it to my -to-do list right now?  I have a very dear friend whom I visited a couple weeks ago in Seattle, and I’m always astounded by her lack of clutter.  And not only that, but I find her home soothing, relaxing, and not frenetic. Her space is homey, but free of all the junk.  But still…I can’t shake the feeling that if I truly decluttered, I’d miss the reminders, and the elements of my personality that are scattered and strewn all over our home.

So here’s my conclusion on these self-improvement lists—and “projects” that we seek to check off:  There are no easy solutions, and what works for one person (Gretchen Rubin) may not work for me.  My list must be my own.  My life to-do-list does need items more easily checked off than “have a family” and “buy a house”.  But these items will be my own priorities.  I will hold onto a reasonable degree of clutter, and live in my swirl of stuff—my cluttered, but stimulating stuff.

Am I alone on this one? Does anyone else like a lot of stuff around their house?  Or does clutter make you antsy?  What are some check-off-able things we can do to be more peaceful, and more present?

Posted by Elizabeth

When I heard that Elizabeth Gilbert had written a new book, I was nervous.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to read Committed, which picks up where Eat Pray Love leaves off, chronicling her difficult decision to marry Felipe, the man she literally sails off into the sunset with at the end of the story.  There was no way this book could ever live up to EPL, for I am one of those women – and I know there are many of us – for whom EPL changed my life.  Although Maikael and I had already been toying with the idea of taking eight months out of our life to embark on a journey of self-discovery around the world, EPL sealed the deal for me.  Inspired by her tale, we even spent two weeks lapping up life and culture in Ubud, Bali, which she details in such a mesmerizing way.  For me, Gilbert’s prose captured what I was feeling but was unable to put into words at that time in my life, feelings about being caught between a conventional and unconventional life, about being unsure what I wanted from life, about not knowing who I was or what made me happy in the slightest.  As different as our lives were – I was ten years her junior and not considering divorce – I identified with Liz Gilbert.

But I know not everyone felt this way.  When my former bookclub read Eat Pray Love, our group was fiercely divided by equal amounts of adoration and dislike of the book.  Some felt her journey was trite, her head inflated, her love story too tidy and saccharine.  Other just simply didn’t “get it,” which was unfathomable to me, who had found such connection and solace in the book.  As I traveled around the globe, the subject of the book often came up in conversations with fellow explorers (it really was a worldwide phenomenon), and, even amongst the highly self-selecting group of long-term travelers, the division of opinions was just as acute.  Love it or hate it, the book clearly made people feel something.

However, when I learned that Elizabeth Gilbert was coming to town – and that $35 could buy me two tickets and a hardback copy of the book – I was Committed.  So last Wednesday night, me and 500 fellow Liz Gilbert fans, including my former therapist, filed into an expansive ballroom at the University of New Mexico, which was stuffed to the gills with conference seating and estrogen.  The audience was one loud hum, buzzing with the anticipation of a cultural icon about to speak.  But a loud hush fell over the room as soon as Elizabeth Gilbert stepped to the stage, a flowy grey cardigan draped over her thin frame, her tousled blond hair pulled away from her face in a messy twist, a genuine smile etched on her face.

For the next 30 minutes she talked about the process of writing Committed, which represents the fruits of her second attempt to write a follow-up book to EPL. She spent two years writing a 500-page manuscript…and then threw the entire thing away. As she spoke these words, I’m pretty sure I heard myself groan audibly.  I’ve never written anything 500 pages in length, but I’ve written something a tenth of the size, and even throwing that away is vomit-inducing.  Gilbert discussed how difficult it was to ditch the manuscript, one in which she had received a considerable advance from her publisher and who, after two years of work, was soon expecting a publishable book.  “But the book was horrible,” she said.  “It wasn’t ‘me.’  It wasn’t written in my voice.  It was written in the voice of who I thought I should be after the success of Eat Pray Love.”  Her best bet, she reasoned, was to take six months off to figure out the follow-up book she was meant to write.  In the meantime she gardened.  And one day, with her fingers dug hard into the soft earth, a single sentence – the sentence that was to become the opening line to the book – simply came to her.

Late one afternoon in the summer of 2006, I found myself in a small village in northern Vietnam, sitting around a sooty kitchen fire with a number of local women whose language I did not speak, trying to ask them questions about marriage.

From there she “took the sentence for a walk across the page,” and proceeded to pen Committed in a mere two months.

While not all of us have the luxury of time or literary advances, as I sat in that overheated ballroom, surrounded by a sea of like-minded New Mexicans, it dawned me on me what a powerful lesson her process presented for living a life in pencil.   There is nothing more important in this life than learning to be YOU – whoever you are.  In fact, is it even something we should have to learn? If we are skilled and equipped to be anything, it’s to be ourselves.  And yet, how difficult it can be to discover and then speak our voice, whether we are writers or not.  It shouldn’t be easier to be someone else, but that is often the case.  Borrowing someone else’s tastes, pleasures, preferences, and aversions is a simple game of mimicry; to truly face who we are, and not who we think we should be, is a lifelong project.

When we are living a life that isn’t attuned to who we are, it’s been my experience that things take forever to manifest themselves.  Everything feels like a Sisyphean task, making it difficult to differentiate between sheer hard work towards a difficult goal and being engaged in the “wrong” thing.  The difference, I think, is that when we are living a life attuned to who we are, things come more easily, more quickly.  While there are bumps in the road, setbacks, and hard uphill battles, the effort feels purposeful.  We feel a deep sense that, while the path is bumpy, it’s the right path to be traveling down.  No amount of construction can reshape the wrong path.

While we talk often here at Life in Pencil about making changes within the parameters of our existing lives, Gilbert’s story teaches us that sometimes life requires us to start over.  If a plan is born from a place that doesn’t feel true or authentic, no amount of “editing” is going to make it right.  Sometimes, major revisions are required.  Sometimes, we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Sometimes, we have to start from scratch.  When Gilbert threw away that first draft, without another story idea in sight, she was facing a problem that needed to be solved, a puzzle of the highest order.  “A puzzle,” she said, “is just a crisis with the volume knob turned down.”  But rather than panicking, she trusted that time – and a vegetable garden – would eventually bring order to the puzzle.  “Problems are like cheap underwear,” a Buddhist monk friend once told her.  “Eventually they wear themselves out.”

And it’s true, isn’t it?  Over time, even the most pernicious problems wear themselves dull and raw, until we genuinely wonder what we were ever worried about in the first place.  Such was the case with Gilbert’s book, and such may be the case with any dilemma, crisis, or life change that you might be facing.  Sometimes, the best thing we can do is take a break and trust that the process will work itself out.  I have always believed that the only way out is through.  Whether we are talking about a failed book project, a career crisis, or a relationship gone awry, there is no easy shortcut or “work around” (as my computer programming husband would say).  We need those seemingly impossible puzzles, those failed attempts, to push us through to the other side.

Just last week I was cleaning out my office, and I discovered a draft of the first essay I had ever written nearly six years ago.  Back then, I was a graduate student in counseling psychology, and a career in writing was the furthest thing from my mind.  And yet, much like Elizabeth Gilbert, I was drying my hair one morning before school when a single line popped into my head.  I immediately scrambled to write it down, and proceeded to skip my morning classes – which I never did – to write an entire essay, which tumbled forth from that one line.  I wasn’t sure where this line had come from, or where it was going, but two years later I submitted that essay to a local writers’ conference.  I remember feeling very proud of my effort, a reflection of the best I could produce at the time.  But reading this essay six years later, while there are lines that are still gems, it struck me that it just wasn’t very good!  The ideas are there, but the execution is sloppy, amateur.  It dawned on me how much I have grown as a writer in that time span, but how necessary it was to write those first stumbling drafts on my way through to becoming a writer.  And when I read this post in another six years, I’m sure I’ll be struck by the same thought.

Gilbert’s friend, an artist, often reminds her, “The creative product is the unidentical twin of the dream you had in your head.”  In other words, what we produce while pursuing the creative process – be it writing a book, baking a pie, or even living life itself – is often a flawed copy of the perfect image we held in our head when we conceived the idea.  It seems to me that the purpose isn’t to create a facsimile but to simply chase after that image to the best of our abilities.  Whatever we produce will never be as perfect as we’d hoped.  But with time and experience, I think our image and the real thing grow closer together.  Just like Gilbert’s book, this blog, as imperfect as it is, couldn’t exist without that first humble essay.  And whatever goal you are working towards in your life couldn’t be accomplished without whatever fumbling efforts you are making right now.

Are you a fan of Eat, Pray, Love (or not)? Have you read Committed?  What lessons do you take away from Gilbert’s process that I have missed?  Do you think that sometimes starting over is the best thing?

Posted by Elizabeth

I just finished reading The Happiness Project (book #5 since The Waiting Game started last month!), Gretchen Rubin’s account of one year spent trying to lead a happier life.  What struck me about the book is that, when she begins her experiment, she’s already a fairly happy person.  And yet, there is something wanting in her life.  But rather than starting her life over from scratch through drastic and dramatic measures, she concludes that she’d like to implement change within the context of the life she already leads…which is basically what we here at Life in Pencil espouse!  Given that Rubin’s book is currently ranked #2 on the New York Times’ Hardcover Nonfiction Bestsellers’ List, this tells me that a lot of people feel this way:  their lives are pretty good, although not all they want it to be, but starting over from scratch (if that’s even possible) either isn’t an option or very appealing.

Throughout the book, I was surprised to discover that Rubin persistently mentions bluebirds (even the cover art features a little bluebird winging its way over New York City).  As I’ve mentioned before, bluebirds represent a powerful symbol in my life; in a sense, they’ve been with me all along.  When I was five, my mother registered me for an art class, wherein we created giant masks fashioned from chicken wire and papier mache that slipped over our head.  Where I got the idea to create a bluebird is beyond me, but for years that massive mask, which I slathered with electric blue paint, sat at the top of my closet, gathering dust but unable to be thrown out.  At some point my mother started gifting me bluebird tokens and trinkets – again, why or when that started baffles me – which I’ve continued to be drawn to my entire life.  My Christmas tree is literally filled with bluebirds.  I often see bluebirds in nature – even in places where the birds aren’t known to nest.

Once somebody asked me, “But what do the bluebirds mean?”  I honestly had no idea, but after pondering the question for awhile, I responded, “I’ve always taken it to mean that I’m on the right path.  It’s a symbol of reassurance.  When I see a bluebird, I know that whatever I’m doing in my life at that time is the right thing.  If I’m considering some sort of change and a bluebird wings its way into my life, I feel good moving forward.”  As I was nervously finishing up a writing project last fall, silently wondering to myself where it might lead and if it was worth my time and trouble, I suddenly looked up to see a fat bluebird perched on the wall of my courtyard, staring intently at me.  I took this as a very good sign.

On one hand, Rubin’s use of the bluebird is not surprising.  Bluebirds have long been associated with happiness (we’ve all heard of “The Bluebird of Happiness”).  On the other hand, when Rubin decides to start a collection and chooses bluebirds, I couldn’t help but feel a little spooked out, for I have never met another soul who felt as drawn to bluebirds as I have (they’re not exactly kittens or cows or any of the other ubiquitous animals that people tend to collect).  However, I got the sense that Rubin selected the symbol for its significance more than being genuinely drawn to it.  The thing about “spirit animals” is that you don’t choose them; they choose you. If you pause for a moment, I bet you can think of certain animals that consistently seem to make their way into your life, who you feel an unusual connection to.  These animals – what they symbolize – have something to teach you about yourself, about the choices you’re facing, about the life you’re trying to lead.  Last week, Kristen from Motherese wrote about woodpeckers, making elegant connections between their behaviors and being a writer.  I encouraged her to do some reading on the bird, because I bet there’s something she needs to learn about herself as a writer that’s revealed through them (just as I enjoy diagnosing people with existential crises, so, too, do I like to assign people spirit animals).  Over the past few weeks, usually-timid roadrunners have made a happy home in my yard, literally waiting for me by the front gate (which, coincidentally, is blue); I probably should do some reading on them, too.

I’ve always wondered about the origin of “The Bluebird of Happiness,” and Rubin gratefully answered the question for me.  The earliest mention was in a 1908 play called The Blue Bird, and the plot goes like this:  two kids go in chase of happiness, guided by a bluebird around the globe.  When they return home, they find the bluebird waiting for them.  “We chased you all around the world, and here you are, right where we started!” they exclaim.  “Happiness is right where you are, not something you need to go in search of,” replied the bluebird.   The hairs on the back of my arms stood at attention as I swallowed these words, for if there is one lesson I’ve have spent my life trying to learn, it’s to be content with wherever I am in my life.  Perhaps that is what the bluebirds have been trying to teach me all along.

What animals are you naturally attracted to in your life?  What do you think they are there to teach you?  Do you think making an already happy life happier is a worthy goal; or, do you think we have to start from scratch to enact any meaningful change?

This Sunday’s New York Times Book Review featured a great article on the recent surge in happiness-related books (including one called Bluebird!).  And, if you’re interested in reading more about your “power animal,” or discovering what your power animal might be, I highly recommend Ted Andrews’ Animal Speak.

One final note:  I had no idea what an uproar my Groundhog Day post would cause!  Apparently, I was under the (false) assumption that everyone hated the Bill Murray/Andie McDowell movie as much as I did.  To quell the fire, I am offering this YouTube video from LiP Reader Meghan, featuring her nephew Zach and his eloquent thoughts on Groundhog Day (the holiday, not the movie).  Enjoy!

Posted by Anne

Another December come and gone.  (Almost.)  This is always an interesting time of the year for me…when I pack away the remnants of another holiday season, and begin looking ahead.  I heard someone say on TV the other day that the New Year is all about “starting fresh”, and wiping away the follies and mistakes of the year that’s becoming past tense.  Truth be told, this philosophical nugget came from a perky FoodTV host, and probably had more to do with calorie consumption than existential goal-setting.  But regardless of the source, the sentence resonated with me.  And that’s because I just love a “fresh start”. 

I’ve always been this way.  “Fresh starts” are the reason I love buying a new day-planner each January, and why I literally adore the idea of “spring cleaning”.  Starting fresh is perfect for a change-phobe like myself—it’s a transition that doesn’t constitute drastic change per se—just a new attitude, a new lease on life, and a more organized garage.  And so, each January, I’m usually ready for life to resume its normal rhythm.  I’m ready for routines, to-do-lists that don’t require trips to the post office, and grocery lists that don’t involve cranberries or canned pumpkin.  I’m ready for…normal.  But I’m ready for a new normal.  A “fresh” normal. 

For some reason, this year has been different.  This weekend, my yearly ritual of packing up the holiday decor—which I usually find cleansing—felt somehow hollow.  This year, it was not so cleansing…and not so fresh.  It felt premature and hurried.  And I have no idea why.  I have no idea, because for the first time since I was a freshman in college, I spent the holiday season in one place.  No travel.  No hectic family visits.  Very little “rushing around”.  December progressed right here, in my home.  And December felt longer than it ever has before.  But still…

The literal end of our Christmas...right before bed.

Packing away our tree, the nativity, and the lights—it all felt a little gloomy this year.  When my husband and I dumped our tree at the local tree recycling center, I felt a pang of…something.  When I placed the holy family in their styrofoam packing material, I felt…something.   It’s odd, isn’t it?  When you’re happy—genuinely happy—but something inside you wants for something else.  Even odder when you can’t define it. 

I’m still unsure why the end of the holidays affected me.  All I know is that I wanted to bask in the ending of the season.  I wasn’t ready for the disappearance of pine needles, or to load up the box labeled “Christmas” that sits patiently in storage for 11 months of the year.  I wasn’t ready for the “fresh start” I usually anticipate.           

As a planning addict, this was a new emotion for me.  I’m unaccustomed to this desire to prolong, rather than move ahead.  But finally, I found comfort.  And I found it Sunday morning.  Ryan had to work (the reason for us staying put this year), so as he trudged off to the hospital, I trudged off to Church.  When I arrived, I was relieved to see the Christmas decorations still in their place.  Red and pink poinsettias still graced the front of the sanctuary.  Hanging stars adorned with hand-written prayers hung above my head and danced in the quiet breeze.  The sanctuary—usually full—was thinner, and mostly filled with older couples.  I sat alone, and felt relieved.  I sang the hymns and carols.  And for one more hour, I thought about the season.  It was quiet, personal, and necessary.  For that hour, I stopped moving forward and gave myself what I needed—a goodbye to the season. 

And now I’m ready.  I’m ready to welcome 2010.  I’m ready for my fresh start.  So bring on the New Year!

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Anne

The book that launched an afternoon.

One of my favorite holiday decorations has always been…the book.  Each year when my Mom hauled out the usual decorations—candles, nutcrackers, etc—she also pulled her favorite seasonally appropriate books off the shelf.  During the holidays, A Christmas Carol in its leather-bound glory would sit in a place of honor on the coffee table, along with Twas the Night Before Christmas.  But there was one other book…a poem…that Mom set out to read.  It’s called A Cup of Christmas Tea, and my Mom just adored it.  It tells the story of a busy modern woman who must go visit an elderly friend (or was it a relative?) for a “cup of Christmas tea”…hence the title.  And despite the woman’s reluctance, it’s a wonderfully touching tea party.  She finds herself slowing down, and learning something new.  It’s a lovely poem, soaked in estrogen and filled with holiday cheer. 

Now, as I kid, I didn’t find this poem particularly thrilling.  Even though I wanted desperately to attend tea parties (and magically become English), I still preferred that other poem about St. Nick clattering around on someone’s rooftop.  But this old poem of my Mom’s must have rubbed off on me, because this year, in a moment of holiday inspiration, I asked a neighbor of mine over for a cup of tea to celebrate the holidays.  I wouldn’t exactly call her “elderly”, but she’s certainly not a peer, either.  She’s someone who often wants to chat, but in the break-neck speed of my weekly schedule, I rarely allow a word in edge-wise.  This was my chance to redeem myself…my Christmas gift to her.     

So this past Saturday, I gathered together my tea party…determined to make the whole affair decidedly cheerful and elegant.  As it turns out, my neighbor doesn’t like tea (or coffee).  Hmmm, not to worry.  I decided to make cookies and some kind of punch.  As it turns out, she doesn’t eat sugar.  Hmmm….my fantasy tea party was tanking by the minute.  I called my Mom—the expert at feeding and entertaining senior women, and asked her what to do.  “Well, hon, obviously you serve some savory snacks and wine or sparkling water.”  Oh, Mom.  Brilliant that woman.    

My holiday spread.

And so I did just that.  I laid my coffee table with the prettiest water I could find, and arranged cheese straws, crostini, and spreads.  I used platters and pitchers we received for our wedding—the stuff that people always think is too formal for everyday (but shouldn’t be). My guest arrived on time, bearing a gorgeous poinsettia and sugar-free cider.  We sipped the cider, and munched on the snacks.  We covered everything from marriage to travel to real estate.  She told me stories.  I told her stories.  I learned about the origins of the town I’ve called home for over a year now.  We talked, and kept talking…for somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple hours or more.

It was lovely because it was slow.  It was an afternoon “in pencil”.  And for all the chaos of the holidays, it felt so warm…so civilized…and even a little old-fashioned.  I had nowhere else to be, and nothing else to do.  I was present with her—enjoying the company of someone I otherwise never would have taken the time to appreciate.  And ultimately, I was glad I’d done something other than bake her banana bread, and stick it on her porch.  She loved my conversation a great deal more.  (And apparently doesn’t eat sugar).  So as it turns out, my Mom’s poem was spot-on.  I hope you all have the opportunity to take an “afternoon off” this holiday season, and find someone—young or old—with whom you can share a drink, and simply talk. 

Any holiday books that have ever inspired you?  Do you ever find a moment to slow down during the holidays?

Simple. Sacred.

When I was growing up, I knew two versions of Christmas.  There was the Santa-version, with reindeer and presents, and stockings that abundantly overflowed.  And then there was the religious version, with a manger, the baby Jesus, angels, and Wise Men from the East who carried stuff I couldn’t pronounce.  And I always understood this latter version to be “the real Christmas”, even if it lacked the pizzazz of flying reindeer and magical elves. 

In my youthful psyche, these two versions of Christmas were decidedly uncomplicated, and not mutually exclusive.  For Santa-Christmas, I bought presents for my family with money that I didn’t really earn, and wrapped said presents with paper my Mom purchased.  I helped my Mom with the cooking a little.  I might have set the table for Christmas dinner.  Oh, and I made cookies for Santa Claus.   Very simple.  As for the religious Christmas?  I went to Church.  I attended a Christmas Eve service, and held my candle high in the air while I sang Silent Night.  I stared at the greenery and bright red bows that draped our sanctuary, listened to the story that ended in Bethlehem, and said my prayers.  Very simple. 

Yes, it was all very simple.  Until the year I truly grew up, and really started contributing to the Christmas I’d known as a child.  I think the turning point was late college—back when I still had obscenely long breaks and lots of time to kill.  I proudly announced to my Mom that I’d be helping this year….and I delivered.  I shopped for aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.  I purchased the wrapping, and sat hunched over the kitchen table wrapping every gift.  I did the grocery shopping for Christmas dinner, studying recipes and planning my menu.  I cooked the meal (with some help).  And when we visited family?  I was aware of family dynamics.  I looked for subtle cues as to whether people really liked their gifts, or just sorta did.  And when the whole whirlwind was over, I felt exhausted.  I felt really relieved the whole “business” of Christmas was behind me.  And I felt sorry for my Mom, who’d been doing this for as long as I could remember. 

Fun. Not-so-simple.

It’s funny though—that other Christmas?  The one with a manger and shepherds and a big old star?  It never became any more complicated.  And it still doesn’t.  No matter what chaos I create in my secular-Santa-Christmas, this other version is the one that remains quiet, peaceful, and actually…pretty simple.  I don’t bring this up to make a religious statement, or make any naïve proclamations that I will forego Santa Claus.   I realize there are all sorts of religious and spiritual traditions.  And frankly, I like Santa.  He’s a nice guy, and I wouldn’t want to lose him.  But I wonder…

I wonder how different the holidays would be if words like “sacred” and “spiritual” were as likely to come out of my mouth as “sale”.  I wonder how stressed I would be if I chose the Christmas that was all about mystery, blessings, generosity, and gratitude.  I wonder what would happen if I spent my holidays in quiet contemplation.  What does it mean that when I feel myself overwhelmed with the season, I always retreat to the sacred, the spiritual…the quiet?  Those are the moments that feel simple. 

No matter what your beliefs, I’d venture to guess we all feel that teeter-totter of holiday focus.  The battle between Santa and spiritual simplicity.  The need to make the season more about faith in a better world than faith in a guy in a red suit.  I don’t have a solution.  For now, I guess I need both.  I don’t think I can ever give up my two versions of Christmas.  So I’ll keep trying to make my secular Christmas more reasonable—more simple.  And when I’ve had it?  I’ll sit in my living room—the perfect expression of both Christmas realities.  My nativity scene sits on a table, in all its simple glory.  And it shines in the light of my Christmas tree, with stockings hanging patiently overhead.  

Is it hard for you to get in touch with your religious or spiritual side over the holidays?  How do you find balance?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

“I think I’d like to give a goat,” said my friend and hairstylist, Sarah.

“Me, too,” I chimed in, stabbing a pillow of French toast.

“But a goat.  I don’t know how people would feel about a goat.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “Not everyone could appreciate a goat.  And how do you determine if someone is a ‘goat person’ or not?”

We were discussing holiday gifts over brunch, and other than a few carefully chosen gifts for a few select people, I’m not a huge gift giver.  Because I give so few gifts, each selection takes on unexpected weight and meaning.  As an adult, what do most of us need or want that we can’t buy ourselves?  But when a catalog arrived from Heifer International, emblazoned with a close-up shot of a ridiculously cute lamb, an animal for which I have a soft spot, I was intrigued.  An increasingly popular idea, Heifer International is one of many humanitarian organizations that make it possible for people like me in the first world to give farm animals as gifts to people in the developing world, animals which provide food, byproducts, and a source of income.  The thought is, rather than buying a foot massager that Aunt Mildred neither needs nor wants, why not use that money towards gifting a Trio of Rabbits ($60) on her behalf to a family in Peru?

Two by two

After reading the catalog, I carefully studied the order form.  A goat would run me $120, but I could buy a share of a goat for only $10.  The Tree Seedlings ($60), the Honeybees ($30), and the Flock of Chickens ($20) were more at my price point.  But while desperately needed, I found my ego getting in the way:  they lacked the cache of the goat.  At $5,000 there is “The Gift Ark.”  Just like Noah’s ark, a pair of animals, ranging from water buffalo to geese, are given to a family, with the understanding that they will pass on one or more of the animals’ offspring to another family.  Genius!  But the granddaddy of all gifts is “Hope of the Future.”  For $25,000, Heifer International will offer extensive training to families in sustainable farming, microenterprise, and community development.  It’s the ultimate expression of “if you teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime.”  And the order form allows you to denote quantity – you know, in case you want to order two or three.

The idea of gifting essentials first struck me as an excellent idea when I was traveling around the world last year.  The majority of our time was spent in the developing world, and the need – for just about everything – was evident.  We know this.  And we know we have so much to give.  But I can’t help but wonder what Aunt Mildred would really think if I gave her a Trio of Rabbits.  As much as I’d rather receive something useful and even vital, I’m not sure everyone on my gift list feels the same way.  Would people be disappointed to receive a gift that’s not for them?  And perhaps more to the point, I wonder if I am feeding my own ego in some way; if I am giving something that I think people should want and have and value?  Am I being a self-righteous gift giver, even if someone halfway around the world benefits?  Is my gift altruistic, or an advertisement for how socially conscious I am?  In my muddled attempt to read the minds of the people on my short gift list, I’ve become mired in all sorts of internal philosophical debates.  And in the course of this mental Olympics, I began to wonder when gift giving became such a complicated affair?

When I was about three, my mother took me to the drugstore to choose a Christmas gift for my dad.  There wasn’t a lot of money to go around that year, so it was a token more than a full-fledged gift, but nevertheless I was excited to choose something on my own.  I selected a fantastically unique gift, something I had never seen the likes of, and was excited about giving my dad something I knew he would love.  When he arrived home from work that evening, I jumped excitedly at his feet, gleefully shouting,

“Dad, I got you the best Christmas gift today, and you’re never going to guess what it is!”

“Why don’t you give me a clue,” my dad asked.

“Okay,” I said, thinking hard of a hint that wouldn’t give the gift away.  “Soap on a –“

“—rope!” my dad blurted without thinking.

My face crumpled, and I began sobbing.  How could he have known?

“Well, I don’t know what kind of soap on a rope it is,” he offered, hopefully, to which I immediately began to dry my tears.

And come Christmas morning, my dad did an excellent job of feigning surprise when he discovered that it was Old Spice soap on a rope, which was completely different and far superior to the other soap on a ropes that he’d been acquainted with in his 33 years on this earth.  This, to me, captures the spirit in which we should approach this season of giving, focusing on the intention in which gifts are given.  Sometimes the simplest gifts are the best gifts, and when they’re given in the spirit of love with thought and care, they are always the best gifts.  So if you receive a goat, of a flock of chickens, or a stand of saplings from me this Christmas, know that I don’t hate you.  Rather, I think enough of you to give the gift of love – it just happens to be to a stranger halfway around the globe.

Be honest:  how would you feel about receiving a goat for Christmas?  What’s your biggest gift-giving (or receving) disaster?  Does anyone know of other organizations, besides Heifer International, who are offering similar programs this holiday season?

Today we continue our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, we will share what it means to celebrate the holidays — Life in Pencil style.

Posted by Elizabeth

This week of the year is always a strange one for me.  Thanksgiving is a fading memory, but the holiday season hasn’t yet shifted into high gear.  The week after Thanksgiving feels like the holiday hinterlands, the afterglow just before something new emerges.  We dredge the past rather than creating something new, pilfering the remains of a forgotten holiday meal before the parade of parties and feasts begins.  Yesterday I found myself contemplating what to make of the final bits of our coveted heritage turkey (the ones that Maikael would prefer that I save for sandwiches, but that I can’t help but refashion into a new dish for dinner).  Because my mother is never far from my thoughts this time of the year, I felt inspired to make her very simple recipe for chicken noodle soup.  It is a dish my family often enjoyed on lazy Sunday afternoons, or whenever some leftover poultry was in need of a second life.  The recipe is not entirely of her creation; my mother was a magpie, searching for the shiny bits amongst recipes and gathering them to make her own version.  But my mom had a way of recreating something that always tasted better than the original recipe, a gift I did not inherit.

As the late autumn afternoon cast long shadows on the kitchen table, I followed her recipe to the letter, tossing rounds of carrots, thick slashes of celery, shards of turkey,  and flakes of parsley into the amber broth.  My cast iron pot, the color and girth of a battleship, happily simmered on the stove while I rolled a long, stretchy sheet of dough.  As I cut the dough into imperfect ribbons, I remembered the day, just weeks before she died, that she taught me, with unexpected urgency, how to make this soup.   It was if she knew on some deep, internal level that her time was growing short.  A few weeks later a dear friend’s husband died, young and without warning.  At a loss for what to do or bring, I took my solo, maiden voyage into the world of my mother’s soup.  What could be more curative, I reasoned, than chicken noodle soup?   I recall with precision clarity the cold, grey day that I dashed through my neighborhood farmer’s market collecting crisp apples the size of baseballs and handfuls of fresh walnuts, which I knew my friend loved, to accompany my modest offering.

When I think of that particular late-autumn I think about this soup, which I made often during that period.  I made it upon returning from my friend’s, where I commented in my diary, “I feel as if the other shoe is about to drop.”  I made it a few days after my mom died, lacking the energy or appetite to fix much else.  And I continue to gravitate towards this soup when my heart longs for my mother, when both my body and soul are in need of nourishment.   Last night, as I sucked fat, rustic noodles through my lips and sipped spoonfuls of the most flavorful broth I’d ever made, I found myself completely content, the waves of memory lapping against me.  It dawned on me that this soup, more than any other dish, is a touchstone of my mother.  Nowadays I rarely make this soup, and I don’t know why, because there is no easier way to connect to her spirit than through such a simple pleasure.

If you find yourself needing to use those final bits of Thanksgiving turkey, or discover that your body – or soul – is in need of some warmth, please make this chicken noodle soup.  I guarantee it will set you right again.  What foods connect you to your past this time of year?

Sheri’s Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves 4 -6

Soup base:
Two (2) cups of precooked chicken (anything will do – rotisserie or leftover) or two boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and then shredded

Twelve (12) cups of chicken stock (store-bought, homemade, or bouillon cubes added to water)

Four (4) large carrots or six (6) small carrots, cut into thick rounds

Three (3) celery stalks, cut in large slices

A handful of parsley, chopped

Noodles:

Two (2) egg yolks

½ of an egg white

1 ½ Tbsp. water

½ tsp. salt

1 cup flour

Directions:

If using precooked chicken, measure and set aside.  If not, bake chicken breasts in 375 degree oven for 40 minutes.  Once chicken is prepared, place in large stock pot with chicken stock, carrots, celery, and parsley.  Simmer for one hour.  While soup base is simmering, prepare noodles, combining all ingredients with a fork until well-mixed.  Flour a countertop and knead dough until no longer sticky.  Roll dough very thin, into a 14”x14” square.  Carefully transfer onto a cutting board.  Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into strips (approximately ¼” wide and two inches long).  Lay the noodles on the board to dry a bit.  Once stock has simmered for an hour, add noodles to the stock, stirring to distribute.  Bring stock back to a boil, and gently boil for 20 minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth

My mother died suddenly, without warning, on Thanksgiving Day seven years ago.  It was a strangely symbolic day for her to die, a holiday that revolves around food, one of the great loves that she and I shared.  I don’t remember the exact date, just the fact that it was Thanksgiving, the two events forever coupled in my mind.  When I think about Thanksgiving, my grief is wrapped around the pumpkin pie; the turkey is stuffed with sadness.

I want to put my heart into preparing the foods I love, that my mother loved, but it is all so complicated.  The year after she died I baked my first bird; a proud moment for most women, indicating the baton had been passed from one generation to the next.  For me, the baton hadn’t been passed so much as dropped abruptly at my feet, the resounding “thud” still echoing 12 months later.  Over the next few years I couldn’t even think about Thanksgiving, preferring to let the day slide by without notice (if that was possible).  Maikael and I went out to a restaurant one year, a very expensive and nontraditional affair, the slab of turkey on the plate the only reminder of what day it was.  Most recently I’ve purchased boxed dinners for two from Wild Oats, shoveling mashed potatoes out of plastic containers onto casual dinner plates.  I know it sounds pathetic, but I preferred it this way.  Although I tend to elevate food on a pedestal most days of the year, today – the one day on our calendar where food is placed in highest esteem – it was important to downplay its meaning.  I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge that there was anything special about the occasion, because remembering wouldn’t allow me to forget.

This year I’m finally ready for things to be different.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps enough time has passed.  Perhaps it’s because I spent last Thanksgiving holed up in a hotel in New Zealand, where I supped on an entirely too-large steak – jarring enough circumstances to conclude a seven-year cycle of wallowing.  Whatever the reason, I’m ready to move on, to pick up the tradition of Thanksgiving again. It was important to start small, to imbue just enough pomp and circumstance to help the day feel special, but not so much as to feel disappointed if things didn’t go as planned.  I invited my friend, Tim, the consummate foodie who maintains the appropriate level of reverence for good food.  We built a menu together, drawing on classics while incorporating what we hope will become new favorites.  (A nod to custom while celebrating tradition seemed fitting.)  Everyone agreed that rolls were in order, but a fierce debate broke out between homemade, tinned, or store-bought, each evoking different childhood memories.  There had to be pie, but we were divided on what kind, finally settling on pumpkin sour cream, made with real pumpkin puree.  Maikael insisted on mashed potatoes and stuffing, and we all agreed that we could do without the Jell-o salad we grew up with.

But the piece de resistance, the only thing I insisted on, was the Heritage turkey.  After reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where she devotes an entire chapter to this bird, bred for hundreds of years in our country, I knew I had to have one.  Superior in taste and quality, I ordered my turkey from a local farm last March, giving it enough time to mature for Thanksgiving.  On Tuesday I picked up the bird from the back of a dusty white pick-up truck parked in front of a local furniture store, one of only six butchered by a lone farmer’s hand for the year.  Valerie, the farmer, had lost her husband around the holidays last year; we shared an instant kinship, participants in a club for which we maintain a reluctant membership.  She handed me the turkey, wrapped in white paper with the words, “Happy Thanksgiving, Elizabeth!” scrawled in black.  It was regal and special.  It was the kind of thing my mom and I would have spent hours talking about over the course of the year, waiting and wondering what the turkey would taste like.  It was the perfect way to move forward.

And yet, as I prepared for this modest feast, I could feel the past tugging at me.  As I flipped through my recipe file I stumbled upon the recipes for the dishes my mother had planned on preparing seven Thanksgivings ago, pages torn from Country Living and Martha Stewart and stuffed haphazardly in the front pocket.  I had found them sitting unceremoniously on the kitchen counter alongside an already-cooked turkey that day, and couldn’t bear to throw them out.  It meant too much.  There was the recipe for the Pumpkin Sage Cream Sauce to dress the pumpkin ravioli I brought from an upscale market.  And Cranberry Bean Salad with Butternut Squash and Broccoli Rabe, whose ingredients weren’t destined to come together in the dish.  Amongst the many mysteries that day held, there are certain questions I will never have the answers to.  Why had my mother ripped four pages on roasting vegetables from an obliging magazine?  Was she planning on making the roasted carrots or the roasted beets?  It wouldn’t have mattered; my mother knew I loved both.

When I thumbed through my copy of The New Vegetarian Epicure, searching for inspiration for this year’s dinner, I was stopped in my tracks, as I always am, by the recipe for the Walnut Tart.  It was my contribution that day, my mom having supplied the walnuts, which she received from an itinerant walnut farmer who stopped by her bakery every fall. Every time I see that recipe I remember insistently knocking on my mother’s apartment door for 45 minutes while, unbeknownst to the world, she lay splayed on the cheap blue carpet on the other side of the door, her heart having mysteriously stopped hours earlier, while I cradled that ridiculous walnut tart in the palm of my hand.  I brought the dessert back home at the end of the day, too distraught to eat it and too distraught to throw it away.

I am working hard to free myself of these culinary shackles; you cannot celebrate Thanksgiving without addressing food.  (I can’t help but marvel at the fact that my relationship to food is so comfortable the other 364 days of the year.)  But rather than let myself be ruled by my discomfort with food during this 24 hour period, I am reclaiming the positive connotations.  I love cooking.  My mom loved cooking.  She’d be proud to see me scurrying with authority around my own grown-up kitchen, basting my heritage turkey.  I wish she could be there to sample a slice of my homemade pie.  But when we gather around the table this evening, I know her spirit – tucked in the folds of the rolls she taught me to make, nestled in the crinkle of the pie crust she showed me how to prepare – will be with me.  My mother is always with me in the kitchen, especially on Thanksgiving.

Today begins our Holiday Season Extravaganza.  Between now and December 25, Anne and I will share what it means to celebrate the holidays – Life in Pencil style.  We’ve made a commitment to focus on simple pleasures this holiday season, and we’ll be sharing our experiences, experiments, favorite holiday memories, cherished recipes, time-honored traditions, and small ways to make the holidays more fun…or at least more bearable.  That’s right, folks:  a month of posts to make your holidays—and life – richer.

Posted by Elizabeth

Maikael slipped through the door, a brisk fall evening pushing in behind him as he cradled a vintage silk blouse that I had spilled pumpkin gelato on a few days earlier.  He hung the blouse, shrouded in plastic draping, in the closet and settled in next to me on the sofa.  “I had an interesting conversation with Frank today,” he said.  This is not news to me.  Maikael is always having interesting conversations with Frank, our drycleaner.  A wisp of a man with a goatee and fading New York accent, Maikael discusses all manner of deep and weighty topics with him between selecting starch levels and pinpointing stains.  I’m honestly not sure how Maikael manages to learn so much about him in the course of a brief business transaction, but over the past five years I’ve come to learn that Frank is an interesting guy.  He’s traveled extensively.  His sister is Liz Tuccillo, co-author of He’s Just Not That in to You (how and why this came up in conversation, I have no idea). And he’s a modern day philosopher.

“I can’t remember how we got on the topic, but Frank said he was traveling through India on a ‘spiritual quest.’  He was walking down the street in Calcutta, where he was staying at a Buddhist monastery, and all of a sudden ‘He’ spoke to him.”

“Wait,” I interrupt.  “Like ‘He’ as in God-He?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Like, Christian-God-He or Buddhist-Shakyamuni-He?”

Maikael paused.  “Well, I don’t know.  He was practicing Buddhism at the time, but has since converted to Christianity, so I’m not sure.  In any event, He spoke to him.”

“What did He say?” I ask.

“No place is better than any other place.”

I stare at Maikael for a moment.  Just that morning at the breakfast table, we had been debating the relative merits of living in different places.  We had more or less reached the conclusion that different places offer different pros and cons; the key is knowing which things are important to you and which things aren’t.

“Whoa,” I said to Maikael.  “Is that a message from the universe or what?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.  “It was so bizarre.”

“So what did he do?”

“Even though he was only half way through his journey, he packed his bags and went home.  He figured he learned what he needed to on his quest, and that the message was that he should go home.”

“Yeah,” I said, “like whatever he needed to learn he could learn anyplace, perhaps maybe best at home.”

*  *  *

As I see it, Frank the Philosopher/Drycleaner’s story presents a primer for the student who is trying to live her life in pencil.  There are, by my estimation, three important lessons to be learned here.  Can you see them?  Give up?  Allow me to elaborate:

Lesson #1:  Sometimes it’s okay to abandon the best-laid plans

A major component of learning to live a life in pencil is knowing when to stop traveling down the path you’ve been traveling; in Frank’s case, that message was literal.  Sometimes things that worked once, or seemed like a good idea at the time, cease to be.  It’s as simple as that.  I’m always amazed by how long people are willing to stay in situations that aren’t necessarily wrong or bad, but just aren’t right for them.  I remember countless career counseling clients, students who were failing their math courses but were bound and determined to stick with their dreams of being an engineer because “that’s what I’ve always wanted to be.”  Even though they hated math, even though they despised their pre-engineering courses, they held onto the plan with an iron grip because it was the plan. It’s not about giving up on onself so much as it’s about recognizing which plans are worth giving up.  Just because you made a plan doesn’t mean you need to follow it to the grave.  How easy it would have been for Frank to brush aside the message and say, “You know, I spent all this money to come to India and stay in a Buddhist monastery, and damnit, I’m not leaving until it’s over!”  Think about your own life:  is there a situation you’re currently in that has reached its prime, but you’re too afraid to leave because you’re “committed” to the plan?

Lesson #2:  The closer we get to ourselves, the clearer the answers become

Since I was a little girl, I’ve always enjoyed being out in the world more than I’ve enjoyed being at home.  I clearly recall long days spent shopping or at a museum with my mother, the consummate introvert, who must have found these marathon outings purely exhausting.  I was always begging to stay longer, and five minutes after we returned home I was whining about going out again.  I really could have used a sibling to play with, being an extroverted only child, but I quickly had to learn to entertain myself.  I thank long, rainy afternoons afternoons at home for my (overly) active imagination and a general awareness of myself.  Being out in the world is still fun for me, but it’s when I stop moving that I listen and learn.  I think it’s telling in Frank’s story that he received the “burning bush” message not at the monastery in the midst of a spiritual exercise, but walking down the street, in humble surroundings, in the midst of the most mundane task.  And where was he advised to go to continue finding answers?  Home.

Lesson #3:  Synchronicity is nearly always right

When I was in 12^th grade, my English teacher taught my class how to examine literature for hidden meanings.  “There are all sorts of clues,” she said, “if you just know where to look for them.  For example, if you see something mentioned once, it’s a coincidence.  Twice, there’s probably something more there.  And three times is the equivalent of a flashing neon sign.”  That, in a nutshell, is synchronicity, and it’s the same in life as in literature.  I am constantly struck by the different ways in which the universe is speaking to me, lessons often appearing when I am ready and need them most.  For Maikael, Frank’s story was a major synchronous moment.  He needs to pay close attention to messages that might be coming into his life about the meaning of home.  Sometimes it’s as simple as a billboard that says, “Digging Deeper,” like I saw two weeks ago.  Usually, if we’re paying attention, the answer will present itself.  Seriously.  I’ve seen this happen time and again.  And when the answer appears, we need to be ready to act.  Synchronicity does us no good if we take in the information and simply say, “Huh, isn’t that funny?” But “collecting” those synchronous events gives us time to prepare for action.  We’re usually ready when the time is right.

What lessons do you see in Frank’s story?  Do you have philosophical discussions with your drycleaner?  Because I’m just sorta wondering if we’re the only ones out there, or if there’s, like, a League of Drycleaner Philosophers.