There and back again.

We joked that this whole London | Paris adventure was our own little game of chicken and since neither of us ever blinked, we went. Really, it's not far from the truth.  Both of us have had to cancel previous trips so what were the chances that this would happen? I think we were were both a little stunned and delighted that it actually came to be.

It was the best of times, it was the...no, it was really just the best of times. It was spectacular, really. Christie's the perfect travel friend. No dramas, no conflict. Just great conversations and good laughs and general marveling at the beautiful world beyond our usual borders and comfort zones. There was only so much we could see in the few days in each city so we made a few choices and embraced as much as we could.

Highlights:

high tea at the Orangery at Kensington Palace
Driving Miss Daisy with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave
lunch with Therese at Jamie's Italian
Les Mis (even without the calling-in-sick Alfie Boe)
catching a rainbow over the Tower of London
Westminster Abbey & Poet's Corner
high speed chunnel train from London to Paris
Fat Tire Bike Tour around Paris
then, the next day , an all-day Fat Tire Bike Tour all around Versailles (sometimes in the rain)
lots and lots of great pastries and food
our signature drink, chocolat viennois
buying our lunch of bread + cheese + veggies at the Versailles market
catching High Mass at Notre Dame

And that's all I can scrape together with the words jet lag has not robbed from my little brain. It's equally divine to be home. Travel has a remarkable way of rebooting my settings and making me feel so grateful. I really am.

*No pictures of Christie here since she is bound for home and unable to give the thumbs up approval on any photos including her image. But check in here for her version of the trip once she finds a few minutes to post. C, miss you already! Happy re-entry to real life.

Snippets

"No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today" ~ Fra Giovanni

1. I'm going camping in New Hampshire tonight with the family.  G and Sam planned all of the dutch oven meals, shopped for the supplies, and packed us all up. Apparently all I have to do is pack my sweatshirt, pajamas, pillow, and toothbrush. Heaven.

2. This morning I sat in the September sun on a bench with a good friend. We talked for two hours and felt the breeze and twinges of autumn. It was so restorative and helped me remember to look upward and outward more. Heaven.

3. I'm giddy with anticipation for a girls' adventure starting Monday. Christie and I are heading out on a long-planned, much-postponed and eagerly anticipated journey to London and Paris for eight lucky days.* (Believe me, I know how lucky I am. Europe? In October? With Christie? For a whole week? Heaven.) My happy dance looks like this:

Note: I don't know about the song's hypothesis about the relationship between wifely ugliness and any subsequent husbandly happiness that springs from it. I just like the dancing, not the message. But, oh, what dancing!

4. What I do know, however, is that I married a terrific man who really is willing to find ways to build bits of heaven for us here on earth. He continues to amaze me with his kindness and support. He not only tolerates my pursuits and wanderings he nudges me to do them, knowing me as he does. Here's to G. Heaven to me.

. . .

*please let me know what your Londan and Paris faves are. I admit I've been to London a few times but I've still got a lot to see and learn about that city. And I've only been to Paris once, when I was 18. What to see/eat/walk/experience?

Special.

When I first returned to grad school, I remember that I had visions of emulating Mr. Rogers. Not his fame. Not even really his medium of puppetry and television. Just his wholehearted authenticity and work to make the world a better place for children.

I'd kind of forgotten of that inspiration lately so I was delighted to read these letters this morning, via my daily treat read of a site, Letters of Note:

letters via the fabulous Letters of Note

What a remarkable exchange, especially knowing that it was probably replicated hundreds, thousands of times with other young and old correspondents. Just brim-full with compassion and...namaste.  It reminded me to look up one of my all-time favorite articles, a 1998 profile of Fred Rogers in Vanity Fair magazine (reposted here; you might want to know there are a couple of profanities).

Indulge me with another favorite (I think I posted this before but I can't find it for sure).  I dare you to watch it and take the 10 second challenge he issues. 

I can't be Mr. Rogers. I'm just not that guy, not that good or thoroughly guileless, don't have the sweaters or the single-focused discipline. 

Over time my interests have evolved to be oriented more around parents than children. But this morning I realized I still take a great dose of inspiration from him. I think parents (everyone, really) experience processes of development and growth and change in their roles with accompanying emotions and challenges that can be equally bewildering and novel. Mr. Rogers's preschooler friends are not the only ones trying to figure out their world and thirsty to know they are known, understood, and supported. We don't outgrow that.

So, in honor of Mr. Rogers, I'd like to say to you, reading this: you are good and capable and special.  Just the way you are.

Your blog friend and neighbor,

A.

Liner Notes 40-46 : Things I apparently forgot to say

40. To determine when to flip pancakes, wait until the edges set and start to bubble. Cook them on medium to make sure that the middle gets done and the outsides don't burn*

41. Check the bottom of dishes to see if they're microwave safe. Otherwise, you might explode your roommate's bowl when you're cooking lunch for that boy you know.*

42. Sometimes awkward people will overstay their welcome or make you feel uncomfortable with their lack of boundary respect.* Not everyone reads social cues very well or wants to get the message. Be kind and compassionate while also finding a way to be firm and stand up for yourself and your discomfort. No, I'm sorry you can't come into our apartment right now. We're all studying/busy/have plans.  Or we feel uncomfortable when you show up alone at all hours and expect to hang around our apartment...maybe next week we can all get together with a group. 

43. Staying up really late will catch up with you eventually. Case in point, 3:30 a.m. is too late to stay out, weekend or no.* I'm pretty sure most people will back me up here.

44. Sometimes the hype about attending the football game makes the actual game a disappointing let down.* This applies to most over-blown hype. It's hard to live up to.

45. It's a good idea to double check where your classes are held to make sure you'll be at the right place the first day.* When you realize your mistake and read where the class really is, it's a good idea to note the right building so you don't rush into the wrong classroom a second time.*

46. When serving guests breakfast and you have only a couple of dishes, consider giving the guests the plates and serving from the pans, not the other way around.* :)

. . .

With the first of my children having left home this fall, I'm writing occasional Liner Notes, bits of advice to my kids concerning my take on how to be a gracious, awesome grown-up-type person (both trivial bits and major advice). Why "liner notes"? Because, back in the day, I pored over the liner notes of my cds, curious to find the story behind the music. That's what I hope this will be: the story behind the music of growing up and setting off on your own. (Or at least a ready-made catalog of how you can avoid making my mistakes.) Feel free to chime in! What would you add?

*actual events in the life of my freshman...small hiccups that will just provide fodder for good liner notes of her own someday. Lauren is having a fantastic time so far and seems to be making the most of every minute. I love hearing about her great new friendships and adventures and almost constant hostessing. We miss her but love knowing she's happy in her new setting.

Do you have any great freshman disaster stories?

. . .

Facing West by The Staves

Yes, my heart faces west at least several times a day. 

Fruit of my brain

Hellooooooo!!! (she calls from the bottom of a deep, paper-lined well).

I've been hunkered down, trying to finish my two Qualifying Papers (40+ pages each) and my Qualifying Portfolio for my Review coming up. Well, sing Hallelujah, as of about 4:30 this afternoon, it's done. Isn't she pretty?

 

Let me tell you, mine is a brain that does not take kindly to hunkering down. Usually I give in to my dilly dallying with a shrug, in a kind of wild-horses-can't-be-broken kind of way, but turns out wild horses don't get a lot done.  They definitely don't get doctorates. Humph.

I did manage to find a few techniques to keep myself focused. I was chatting with my friend and fellow mom/PhD student, Melissa, and she offered to send me a procrastination questionnaire from her work with students. The aim of the questionnaire was to figure out what type of procrastinator you are so you can use specific tactics to overcome that particular brand. Well, hello! I was 5 of the 6 kinds and that was even when I fudged a little to save my self respect.  I am a perfectionist, dreamer, worrier, crisis-maker, overdoer procrastinator. Nice to meet you.

It did help to think about all of these patterns and avoidances that become part of my daily habit (thank you, Melissa).  I came up with a few aids of my own. They're probably obvious and what you already do. I think I'm also a late-blooming-idea procrastinator.

1. Garbage pail. When I cook, I always grab an empty bowl to put all of the little pieces of trash (egg shells, apple cores, peelings, etc.) while I prepare the food. So I decided to set up a garbage pail list next to me on the desk. In the past, every time I had a thought flit across my brain ("oh, I need to call ____," "is the laundry done yet?") I would use that as an excuse to get up and disrupt my work. Now I said, "Brain, this is not the time to deal with this. Put it on the garbage pail list and you'll deal with that later." Totally worked.

2. Timer. 50 minutes of work, 10 minutes of break. Repeat. Turns out what works for a 3-year-old works for me.  Not that I made our children work 50 minutes at a time when they were 3, mind you. Just using the timer to aid better behavior is a very 3-year-old thing.

3. Lay out the day in 2-hour increments. I think I got this from About A Boy*. I don't know why, this just helped me stay realistic about how much work I really could accomplish and kept me from getting overwhelmed. It takes me a while to settle down to writing so I really do need a nice chunk of time. Mine looked like this:

5:30-7:30  Take Maddy to seminary, to high school, go back home, say goodbye to G and Sam

7:30-9:30  Shower, get ready, tidy up the house, make calls

9:30-11:30 Write

11:30-1:30  Lunch, run errands, answer emails, etc.

1:30-3:30  Write

3:30-5:30  Chat with kids as they come home, help with homework & practicing, etc. Maybe write a little if everyone's all set.

5:30-7:30  Dinner prep, eating, clean up, family time

7:30-9:30  Relax, family devotional, maybe a little more writing

9:30-11:30 Get ready for bed, reading, watching, sleep

Scheduling to the minute makes me really rebellious. I've tried that before and I end up feeling too bossed around and I go to a matinee movie instead (That's probably the dreamer+crisis-maker procrastinators in me teaming up right there.) This gave me enough flexibility and structure to stick to it.

4. Parking lot. Sort of like the garbage pail, this is a document open on my computer screen while I write. Sometimes I'll get little jolts of ideas for another place in the paper so I found that if I had a parking lot for them (rather than suppressing them or running with them) it kept me productive and yet still able to use the inspiration that came (and trust me, I needed all the inspiration I could get).

Anyway, that's what kept me sane while I pushed through to the deadline (and, admittedly, the deadline got pushed back along the way. Just keeping it real here, folks.)  Do you use any tricks to get yourself on track? Or are you of the mysterious non-procrastinating variety?

. . .

p.s. I was really moved by my advisor/mentor Fred's obituary in the Boston Globe today. I think it captures him beautifully and I feel lucky that I knew him. I've still been sad about his loss and a bit bewildered about how to move forward.  Today I came across a lovely, generous letter of recommendation he wrote for me a few years ago. It gave me a pep talk and soothed my soul. Thanks, Fred.

. . .

*"I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It's amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I'd ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?" (Hugh Grant as Will, About a Boy).