Tag Archives: life

“Unna-med” and Other Laughable Anecdotes from My Life

October 11, 2011 Robin Leave a comment

Academically, I’m considered a pretty smart girl. I’m a Phi Beta Kappa, was active in many academic honor societies, and generally got high grades in all my coursework (both in public school and in college). But, despite all this education and all these book smarts, I’m also quite capable of saying (and doing) dumb things, as are we all. Sometimes, there ain’t a drop of sense in my head, as the following anecdotes will show, rather plainly:

Hanging Up a Towel to Dry

One day during the summer I was 10, I had gone up to my uncle and aunt’s house about a half-mile away to swim in their backyard pool with my cousins. We had a great day swimming, and by the time I walked back to my house, my beach towel was completely sodden. I hung the beach towel on the bathroom doorknob when I got in, and promptly forgot about it as I took care of rinsing out my bathing suit and getting a shower to get all the chlorinated water out of my hair.

A few hours later, Mom came downstairs and was incensed to find that I’d left the beach towel hanging up to drip slightly-sandy water all over the bathroom floor. “What were you thinking?” she asked, showing me the dirty towel and the yucky bathroom floor. “You should have put the towel straight into the washer if it was dirty!”

“But Mom,” I argued back, “I had to hang it up to let it dry before I could wash it!”

…It made sense in my head… V_V

The “Shortcut”

A few years ago, I was attending college on a campus full of one-way streets. I had heard a lot of my friends complaining about them, saying that the path to one of the more centrally-located dorms was a particularly large pain in the posterior.

“Well, I never have any problems getting to that dorm,” I replied one time. “I found a shortcut.”

There was indeed a street that wrapped back around the dorm in question, and was easy to get to from the side of campus that we always approached from. All you had to do was turn left when you got past the cafeteria building and looped up toward the infirmary, and you could get to the back of the dorm really easily.

I had been going that way for as long as I could remember. Thus, I was shocked when a campus police cart pulled up behind me one day, its lights and horn going, as I was leaving campus for the weekend (since it was not only a shortcut to the dorm, but to the main road out of campus). I pulled to one side of the road and rolled down my window, expecting him to say I had a burned-out taillight or something.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he approached the window.

“I’m heading out of campus,” I said, gesturing forward as I spoke.

“Didn’t you see the signs?” he asked, and he pointed across the street, to a “Wrong Way” sign facing in my direction. Apparently, I had disregarded that one…just like I’d disregarded the four other “Wrong Way” signs I had already passed. My shortcut, it appeared, was indeed handy–but it was illegal.

(And don’t worry about my “record”–the campus police officer let me go, after I explained myself, with a laugh and a warning not to do it again!) XD

And now for the piece de resistance…

Hey Guys, Come Check This Weird Name Out!

When I was in 9th grade, I was taking Physical Science, and the teacher had a map and chart up of history-making hurricanes displayed on the wall near his desk. Having always been fascinated by the study of weather, I came in early one day and busied myself studying all the hurricanes listed on the map–where they hit, what time of year, how strong they were, etc.

One hurricane in particular caught my eye–it had struck southern Texas in 1899, and was named “Unna-med” (I mentally pronounced it “Oo-nah-mehd”). “WOW!” I thought. “That must have been a really active hurricane season–they got all the way to the U’s in the alphabet!”

Then I wondered what the name “Oo-nah-mehd” meant. “Wonder if it’s based on an ancient Aztec or Mayan word?” I mused. “It’s a really unusual name for a hurricane, but being that it hit so close to northern Mexico, they might have gone with an international name rather than an Americanized name.”

My head buzzed with this all day. I came home and told Mom and Dad about my discovery, and they were curious as well. I told them that I was going to school tomorrow to show the other kids what I’d learned and maybe ask my teacher about it. (Remember, kids, this was in 1999 before the Internets was the phenomenon that it is today. My family didn’t even HAVE internet at home yet, so I couldn’t go home and look it up–if I could have, I could have saved myself a fail. XD)

Anyhow, I got to school the next day and excitedly told all my friends about the crazily-named hurricane I’d found. They wanted to see the map, and I told them to come with me to my science classroom so I could show them. We were all pumped.

I tore up the stairs to the second-floor science classroom, put my stuff down at the desk, and went over to the map, easily finding the aforementioned storm name. I looked…and there it was. “Unnamed.”

“Where’s the cool storm name?” one of my friends asked, as she ran into the room after me.

All I could do was stand there and laugh, nervously. “Um…yeah, you’re not going to believe this, but…I totally misread the name,” I said, sheepishly.

“Wait, huh?” my other friend asked. Then she looked at the map, and where my finger was pointing.

“Unnamed?” she asked, furrowing her brow. “But you said it was…”

“Oo-nah-mehd,” I finished, and we all burst into giggles. Yes, that’s right, I had just figured out an exotic new pronunciation for the word “unnamed.” Fail complete, facepalm in progress. XD

And Yes…All These Stories Are True

Embarrassingly true. I think God’s “common sense” jar was empty the day I came through. XD But I have to be honest about myself (both my awesome moments and my laughable fails). Sometimes, it pays to remember we’re all human, and laugh about it. ^_^

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Perfect Little Moments

September 20, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

As a break from the weightier Tuesday on the Soapbox posts of the last few weeks, I give you this poetic entry as food for thought…all the perfect little moments we live through every day, but rarely take time to really experience. Hope you enjoy the ones I’ve listed here from my own life, and I also hope it makes you think of some of your own perfect little moments in your life, too.

Driving down the highway, windows down and music turned up, with a bunch of best friends.
The faint, pleasant chill of early morning coming in through open windows, as you lie in bed, perfectly snuggled up in covers, perfectly aware that it’s your day off and you can sleep in.
Stepping out from a dreary building into a rain-washed world, where even the sky looks bluer and the sunlight seems cleaner.
Finding the cool spot on the pillow.
Bare feet on a gently sun-warmed wooden porch.
An honest, much-needed conversation over hot chocolate on a chilly day.
Being the only driver on the road as far as you can see, both ahead of you and in your rearview mirror. (Perfect time for serious, out-loud contemplation, or enthusiastic singing along to the radio)
Watching dawn or dusk creep across a quiet, rural landscape…soft light and shadow playing across the streets and into the fields and forests, colors of leaves and branches shifting in the changing light.
Coming into an air-conditioned building from the sweltering heat and humidity of high summer–like diving into a pool without getting wet.
Putting on still-warm-from-the-dryer underwear.
When the knot of traffic ahead finally eases and you can speed up at last.
Bowing your head to pray, and feeling all the worry and hurt ripple out of you as you honestly talk to God.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

A Day in My Body

September 13, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

Author’s Note: What you are about to read is a composite “day in my body,” involving all the pains and aches (and troubles) I’m likely to face on any given day. After all, no one knows exactly what anyone goes through in their daily lives, and that’s my point; I write this to talk about pain and fatigue in a personal, immediate way.

This post outlines a pretty typical day for me back in 2011–ankle pains, knee pains, headaches, and all. Even though I have had some relief from my headaches since then, it still shocks me that I do indeed go through most of these events every day. I guess even pain becomes customary and normal after a while. Yikes, what a thought. 🙁

This post might not be the most enjoyable (or interesting) I’ve ever written, but it is certainly eye-opening. If we all lived a day in another person’s body, what might we experience? What might we suffer?

Waking Up…In Pain

The insistent MAINK-MAINK-MAINK-MAINK of the alarm clock startles you out of bed. Actually, you weren’t really asleep–you’ve been going in and out of sleep for the last hour, lying there on your side. Too many things to think about, too much to do today…and since your flattened pillow was crammed against the loose headboard, your neck and head are burning with pain anyway. It’s almost more of a relief to sit up and shut the irritating alarm off.

Right foot hits the floor, and the old familiar lightning strike of pain zaps your heel, zipping up the back of your leg, threatening to crumple your knee even as you try to put weight on it. Familiar as this pain is, it’s still a shock to the system. Depending on your left leg (the obedient one, at least this week), you hobble to the bathroom; even after eight hours of rest, your right ankle is still swollen and hurts, just as it has hurt every morning for years.

Getting Ready for the Day, And Already Tired

Completing your morning ablutions is a sorry task this early in the morning. Having to depend on your left leg yet again in the shower makes the whole leg a little sore, but it’s better than dealing with the brain-jangling pain in your right ankle and foot arch (the one that never existed thanks to genetics). Murphy’s Law dictates that next week, your left ankle and left foot arch will be the ones acting up every morning–you just hope your right ankle is a little better by then.

As you descend the stairs to the basement to retrieve clothes, one step at a time, you’re not sure which ankle hurts less. Each time your heel strikes another stairstep, there’s a sharp clanging pain like horribly-out-of-tune church bells in your nerves. But it must be done, and you clump down the stairs heavily, stumbling by the time you reach the basement.

You struggle to fit your jiggling thighs and tummy into panties and then jeans, “dancing” into them to fit the fabric around your hips and waist. Elastic leg bands slide perfectly into the grooves between thighs and stomach, binding your flesh tightly, as underwear has done since you were eleven years old. Zipper and button tightens the waist of your jeans, though there was no chance of the taut fabric going anywhere even without being fastened–the 10-inch difference between waist and hips takes care of that.

Shirts are a little less difficult, but you still look lumpy and saggy in the mirror. Even the expensive plus-size bras don’t make you look your age–it looks like you’ve already had several children and never gave them a bottle of store-bought formula in their lives. Weight drags at your shape in every direction, most evident when you try to haul your 300-pound mass back up the stairs; knees crunch painfully with every upward step, and weakened ankles threaten to roll inward and crumple your legs as you pull yourself up.

The Walmart Trip of Fail

Getting dressed and getting back up the stairs was enough of a challenge, it seems–you’re already out of breath, and disgusted with yourself for it. You had planned to go to Walmart today to pick up groceries, but your ankle angrily disagrees. Even thinking about the walk in from the inordinately-large parking lot is unbearable at this point. Why bother going, when you’re only going to get to the door and want to just turn around and go home?

It takes a lot of motivation to finally get up the courage to go out. Strapping on the black ankle stabilizer brace provides a momentary flood of relief; if only the thing were waterproof so you could wear it in the shower. Maybe then the ankle would feel well enough to conquer Walmart. As it is, you will settle for just picking up what you absolutely need and getting out of there without standing in horrible lines that make the soles of your feet burn.

Walking the aisles at Walmart–or any large store, actually–is a grand adventure in Tantalus-like torture. So many things you want to see and do, and yet your ankles and knees have put you on a strict timer: “5 more minutes and we’re done,” they shout. Never mind that it will take 5 minutes just to pick up one of the items you need. You end up pushing past that horrible time limit, but the growing pain on the outside of your right ankle indicates swelling, again. You’ll be paying for that later, and not with a debit card.

Noon comes, and sees you coming home with groceries in tow; hitting the gas pedal with your right foot is only marginally less painful than standing in the lines. You really wish the woman in front of you had not mistaken the “20 Items Or Less” line for the “Customer Screams at Cashier for 10 Minutes” line. But you’re seated again and you’re back to your usual self, not emotionally strained and near to bursting out with anger, like you feel when you stand for long periods of time. Driving is a lot less painful, and you feel the blood pressure in your temples receding, even though your right temple is beginning to throb with the first teasing poke of a headache.

Headache Comes to Join the “Party”

Later in the afternoon, after you’ve come home and unloaded the groceries, you’re lying in bed, luxuriating in being off your swollen ankles. The right one is currently lying atop a towel-covered ice pack–cold has never felt so good. It’s good to be off your feet, and you try to get a little bit of computer work done (typing, designing, and writing), only to realize that the teasing headache of a few hours ago is now starting to bloom into your face and down your neck on the right side. Turning your head and trying to pop your neck results in a short respite, but the pain comes roaring right back, burning along nerve endings, turning your pulse into a painful drumbeat. This pain centers in the right temple, making vision flash and concentration almost impossible within minutes.

Hours Later and No Relief, As Usual

Lying in your darkened room, the classic treatment for a migraine, your ankle lies forgotten for the moment on its ice pack. It’s now been an hour since you took your prescription “migraine medicine,” and 30 minutes since you took an Advil Migraine, and yet the pain still surges through your temple, making the whole right side of your face feel funny. If you press your fingers to your temple, you can feel a blood vessel, corded and thick, pounding right under your fingertips. You’ve had all sorts of headaches all your life, ranging from the dull thump of a sinus headache to the sharp, eye-searing classic migraine, but this is a headache in its own class…and medicines do not touch it, just as medicines do not completely soothe your crunching knees and swelling ankles.

Nighttime–You’ve Made It One More Day

As evening falls, you manage to take in a little TV, along with a little bit to eat…the headache won’t allow much past your lips, but you’ve got to eat something. The ankle, as if sensing its complaints won’t be paid much attention, has quit aching quite so much, so the stumble to the kitchen is less painful than you feared a few hours ago. Now the goal is to ease the headache enough to sleep–except for the fact that every position your neck gets put in to go to sleep results in alarmingly-worse pain rocketing up into your head.

You end up resting propped against the headboard for a blessed hour or two, until at last the headache loosens its death-grip on your temple and eases off just enough for you to sleep. Sleep dulls the pain, but it will wake you again in the morning; the irritating MAINK-MAINK-MAINK-MAINK of the alarm will not be needed tomorrow morning, because it will already be jangling in your nerves.

Saturday with the Spark

C-Sharp (aka D-flat): A Key of Many Moods

September 10, 2011 Robin 6 Comments

As I’ve related in earlier posts, C-sharp/D-flat is my favorite key to hear music played in. Since I am a sound-color synesthete with perfect pitch, I experience C-sharp as sparkling crystals on deep violet backgrounds, and the feeling of velvet. It feels like HOME. Strange word to describe a musical key, I know, but it just feels stable, strong, resonant…beautiful. F-sharp is a nice place to visit, a vacation home, perhaps, but C-sharp is truly home.

C-Sharp: Expressive and Flexible

I also find C-sharp to be a wonderful key for exploring and expressing all different types of moods, more so than any other key. I’m a composer (have been since sixth grade), and I’ve loved using C-sharp major and minor for many of my songs, because it just seemed to fit them. For me, the keys of F and B-flat seem stuck in celebratory modes, while G and E are for country songs, and C is so ubiquitous as to be too simple. (Of course, there are exceptions to every rule and every perception, but I’m speaking rather generally.) C-sharp, by contrast, seems to be endlessly flexible in every emotional direction, which delights me.

(This preference of one key over another may seem to many like a preference of spaghetti over linguine–isn’t it all still music, just as spaghetti and linguine are both still pasta? Well, like the kids who insist that the two types of pasta just TASTE different, I insist that a song played in a different key lends the song a whole new “vibe,” an entirely different feeling. When radio stations play songs a half-step higher to speed up the song slightly, it changes the song, however subtly.)

Examples of Musical Moods in C-Sharp

When I was considering all my favorite aspects of C-sharp for this blog post, I listened through my iTunes playlist of “C-sharp Major and Minor” songs (yep, I’ve set aside an entire playlist for it). As I listened, it occurred to me–it seems I’m not alone in perceiving C-sharp as a flexible and beautiful key, at least among composers and musical artists! Take the following list, compiled of several of my favorite songs in C-sharp major of minor, that describe vastly differing moods and sounds:

Anger: “Harder to Breathe” – Maroon 5

Joy: “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” – Stevie Wonder

Drama: “Hindi Sad Diamonds” from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack

Love: “All I Ask of You” from Phantom of the Opera – Sarah Brightman & Steve Barton

Pleading: “Goin’ Crazy” – Natalie

Tranquility: “Rainsong (Fortune’s Lullaby)” – George Winston

Fear/Anxiety: “Somebody’s Watching Me” – Rockwell

Passion/Drive: “Fantaisie Impromptu” – Frederic Chopin

Desire: “Whine Up (feat. Elephant Man)” – Kat DeLuna

There’s a fairly wide range of genres and subject matters in that list, and that’s just taken from my personal song collection. Who knows how many other composers have found C-sharp to be as lovely a key as I do?

Tuesday on the Soapbox

A Cluttered Mind

September 6, 2011 Robin 2 Comments

Many of us suffer from physical clutter in our homes (myself included). It’s a modern housekeeping malady–we have tons of stuff, lying all over the place or squirreled away wherever it can fit. Most of us don’t even want to THINK about opening our storage closets or outbuildings anymore.

Clutter Isn’t Just Physical

But clutter doesn’t just manifest as piles of old receipts on the desk or stacks of old books on the floor. Clutter appears also in our heads. I find myself pushing aside various half-completed mental to-do lists and worries in order to try to complete a task; when I drive, I often start sorting through old guilt, things I forgot to do, and random ideas that pop to mind when, of course, I can’t stop to write them down.

Yep, my mind is a very cluttered place, just like many of the rooms in my house. Any horizontal space in my home is instantly a clutter magnet, and any free neurons in my brain are instantly taken up with endlessly processing and reprocessing worry and guilt. The worry is about tomorrow, and the guilt is about yesterday. Today is too full of failing to even process most of the time.

I would feel fairly safe in guessing that most of us suffer from cluttered minds. If you look at the increasing instances of car accidents, workplace problems, and relationship/family strife, it all seems to point to stress and overcrowded minds. Victims and perpetrators of car accidents alike say “I never saw him/her coming,” for instance. We were too mentally busy to properly look, perhaps, or to properly brake to avoid an accident. I’ve had more than a few near misses myself, so it’s easy for anybody to slip up. We also slip up in our emotional lives, hurting others and never even noticing because of the mental clutter we are tripping over.

Housekeeping for the Mind

Trying to de-junk our homes is one thing. It seems to be easier to separate out what is clearly too broken to save, too dirty to bother cleaning, and too old to matter when we are handling physical objects–well, at least for people who don’t hoard random stuff like Propel water bottles. (Not my finest moment, I assure you.)

But what about de-junking our brains? It’s much more difficult to discard old bad memories, especially when it seems like they hold a terrible truth about the kind of people we really are inside.

For example: Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about the time I chucked a rock behind me during recess, trying to get back at some of the mean boys who were throwing rocks at my legs as I ran by. I hit another little girl instead, and I really hurt her leg–bruised it up something awful. And I never truly apologized. It’s been almost twenty years and I still think about it, because in those moments I was vengeful and selfish, and it led to carelessness that hurt someone else. And not only did I hurt someone, I never apologized. Is that the kind of person other people remember me as? Is that the kind of person I still am?

That’s one small example of my guilty mental clutter, among the many dirty and shameful memories I have stacked in my mental closet. It’s like I hoard these memories as a reminder that I am capable of being an awful person, just in case I ever get a little bit too full of myself, just a little too proud of the person I’ve become.

I have a feeling that a lot of us do this to ourselves, maybe not always to de-puff our egos, but for reasons of our own. Maybe we feel we’re not good enough to warrant being happy, or maybe we keep these old memories around as a way of keeping ourselves from backsliding back to where we were. In any case, these cluttered memories, those old worries, guilt, and fears, keep us from living the kind of life we want to live, just as the stacks and stacks of junk in my room right now are keeping me from living the kind of life I want for myself. We can make ourselves literally sick doing this kind of stuff to our minds–anxiety, depression, insomnia, and chronic stress don’t just appear from nowhere.

Courage to Pick up the Mental Broom

If we want uncluttered minds, we have to be willing to work to clear it. My very wise and very forgiving boyfriend has talked with me often about letting go of old guilt, even saying one time, “You know, you’re probably the only one who even remembers that this happened. If the people you hurt or offended that long ago have forgotten it, then why are you still holding on to it?”

I explained my point above, about my old actions possibly revealing an ugly truth about me, and he said, “Well, if you didn’t have any flaws and never made any mistakes, you’d be Jesus, and as awesome as Jesus is, I don’t know if I could date Him.” We laughed, but he was right. I needed to let go of old junk in my head; even if the “ugly truth” was true at the time, I can work now to fix that flaw in myself now. People can change, houses can be clean again, and minds can be clear.

I can’t say I sleep like a baby at night now, because I don’t. I still have old guilt and new worries swirling about on my mental floor. But at least I am now armed with a broom, and can sweep those problems out. You can be armed with a mental broom, too.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Living Without Portable Computers

August 23, 2011 Robin 3 Comments

What would happen if we had no smartphones, tablets, or laptops–no portable Internet?

I know that seems like a silly question, given that we used to live this way less than 20 years ago. But Internet and technology have become so embedded in our lifestyle that we literally don’t know what to do with ourselves when we lose access to that link with the world.

I faced this in 2011 personally, with the damage to and ultimate loss of my laptop–suddenly, I didn’t have that portable entertainment, that mobile Internet, that convenient writing and publishing device at my side anymore. It was a mental challenge…and yet, more and more, people are going on “diets” from their smartphones and laptops (and even computers in general). Either that, or they’ve lost their access to said devices and have to figure out how to live life without them (temporarily or permanently). (See: articles from Business Insider, Fast Company, Huffington Post, 43 Folders, Mens’ XP, and even WikiHow!)

My point: sometimes you NEED a break from technology. Sometimes you NEED to stop staring at a computer screen. Here’s what I learned as a result of losing access to my laptop for several months:

I didn’t have as much neck and shoulder tension because I wasn’t hunched over the keyboard
I started practicing my handwriting again because I had to–I had gotten so out of practice that even signing my own name felt odd
I started spending more face-to-face time with my boyfriend, family, and friends
I learned to stop depending on Internet access quite so much for answers/entertainment
I found out that my personal work could wait a little while, or could be done in other, less digital ways

This Isn’t EASY, but It’s NECESSARY

The palpable loss of technology can set us on our ears, figuratively speaking, but every once in a while we need to be reminded that we can be functioning humans without having little screens to accompany us everywhere. It’s a struggle at first, but it can be done, as the above referenced articles and my own personal experience prove. “Staying connected” is one thing, but Internet addiction is real (and I’m still having to break myself free of it)!

Sunday in the Wild

Warning: Laptopless Week Ahead

August 14, 2011 Robin Leave a comment

Due to an unfortunate accident involving my laptop and a violent meeting with the floor, the blog posts this week will be a little less quality than usual. My faithful little buddy is currently in transit to the fix-up place, so I’m having to bum computer time off family and friends until it returns home. At least it was only the LCD screen that was damaged–I lost no data! (In fact, it kept its screen working for five minutes when we arrived at the computer “emergency room,” but could not keep up the charade for long. Its graphics card, RAM, and hard drive appear to have suffered no damage at all.)

Also, once my laptop is fixed, I would like to implement a couple of changes to the layout, but I’m leery of changing anything because it seems every time I change something, the whole site goes bonkers and I get a page full of errors. Maybe some more study on WP coding would do me well, even though all the changes I’ve tried to implement before were so-called “valid code.” *sigh* WordPress, why must you be so difficult to understand?

Saturday with the Spark

Play-Doh: An Exercise in Mooshy Creativity

August 13, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

For most of us, Play-Doh is a product probably best left in our childhoods, due to the messes we made (remember that mixture of blue and orange Play-Doh that would never get un-mixed, or the bright green blotch in the beige carpet?). Not to mention the unintentional hair extensions we might have made with purple Play-Doh (I was 3 1/2 and thought it was pretty…the adults around me weren’t quite so enthusiastic, as I recall). 😀

But I loved playing with the stuff, because it was just so delightfully MOOSHY in my hands (“mooshy” being a word our family came up with to describe the unique texture of Play-Doh and other similar products). I loved squeezing the slightly-cool mass through my fingers, the smell of it lingering long after the little yellow tubs were put away for the day. And most of all, I liked making strange little shapes, even if they were just really long, skinny snakes that particular day.

I’m sure you have your own childhood memories, positive or not, which involve Play-Doh or another type of soft molding clay. Trouble is, they’re just memories. As adults, we don’t often let ourselves have the time to just mess with something fun. Fun has to be educational or possibly work-related, fun has to be multi-tasking or going towards an eventual goal, because we’re adults and we’re too old to play.

…Or are we?

I would venture to say that if given the chance, we should all play a little more. Not just play with a computer or a video game controller, but really play with our hands, interacting directly with our environment. In fact, there’s a few things Play-Doh can teach us about living in and reacting to our world, lessons we might need to relearn.

Things Play-Doh Can Teach Us

#1: You Can Make ANYTHING With Your Imagination

We tell our children this all the time, but do we really believe it?

With Play-Doh or something else that is infinitely moldable (even Legos), we can form anything that we wish to. Even though my Lego-building expertise sort of stopped with building skinny skyscraper-looking “buildings,” I still had fun doing it, because that’s what I imagined. Even though I couldn’t sculpt a David or a Venus de Milo out of Play-Doh, I still had fun making fake hair and funny face shapes.

But as adults, we tend to lock ourselves into a traditional mode of doing things. We might do something the same way every time because it’s easier–it involves no thinking, perhaps, or it’s just comfortable. We might also do something the same way every time because we were taught that way, and we aren’t sure how to innovate.

Play-Doh teaches that you don’t have to do anything any particular way, because it begins as just a nearly-formless mass. Feeling and instinct, therefore, guides us, where intellect and reason would only keep us away from possible new ways of doing things. We can look at that little blue or red ball and just start squeezing and mooshing at it rather than planning every step.

#2: If It Ain’t Right, Moosh It Up and Try Again

Ever seen a kid playing with Play-Doh? They might spend a lot of time sculpting something, only to look at it, shake their heads, and merrily mash it all into a vaguely potato-shaped mass again. When the Play-Doh doesn’t match what they were thinking of, they think nothing of just mooshing it all back together, and more importantly, trying again.

Here again, as adults, we forget that lesson. We get so attached to our creations, knowing the effort and knowledge that it took to make it, that we can’t fathom just erasing it all and starting again, even when we’ve reached an impasse. But when what we have created doesn’t match our vision and is not successful, we must either tweak what we’ve got, or mentally moosh it all up and start again.

Play-Doh represents the flexibility of our brains to visualize, tweak, re-vision, and if necessary, totally reshape. If we can let go of our pride long enough to moosh up our failed ideas and mix them all up again, maybe with some fresh thinking added to the mix, we just might come up with the solution.

#3: There Are Endless Ways to Tweak

Once we have an idea we like, we tend to be obstinate about changing things. Somebody else thinks your work project ought to be done this way? “Not on my watch; I worked hard on this design and I don’t think it needs to be changed.” Young children often think in similar ways–“it’s MY Play-Doh and it’s MY shape, and you don’t touch it!” We are very protective of our ideas and don’t usually like to hear criticism or suggestions of change.

But Play-Doh teaches us that there are endless ways to pinch, curl, flatten, and roll your ideas without changing the basic essence of what you have created. That smiley face made of purple and green Play-Doh is great, but what if it had a blue nose instead of a pink one? And what if its nose wasn’t a long, skinny shape, but a squat flat one? No matter what the nose looks like, you’ve still got a smiley face, haven’t you? When we are open to tweaking (open to compromise), we allow others to be part of the creative process, and in so doing, experience a bonding that usually doesn’t escape the kindergarten classroom.

#4: Just Because It’s Dried Up Doesn’t Mean It’s Trash

We’ve all had it happen–one of the little yellow canisters gets left open overnight, and we’re greeted with the sight of crumbly, dry Play-Doh the next morning. Usually, such sad lumps get tossed in the trash, because there’s no way to revive it, right?

As adults, we can feel the same way about our old, tired ideas. We’ve run them around so much in our minds that we’re sick of them; we’ve tried to make them work so many times that we’ve lost count. The idea feels dry, crumbled, lifeless in our mental hands. Sometimes, we end up just throwing them away, tossing them aside as failed projects that will never, ever work.

But even Play-Doh can be brought back from the brink of crumbling death. I remember one morning, when I was about six or seven, trying to figure out how to get my beloved blue Play-Doh to be springy and full of life again–I’d left it open two nights before and it resembled blue scrambled eggs that morning, falling apart in my hands.

I tried working at it and working at it with no success, and finally I went to the sink and washed my hands because they were coated in little bitty blue crumbs. I didn’t dry my hands very well (I was too impatient for that), so I returned to work on the Play-Doh with slightly damp hands. Imagine my surprise when the dried pieces began to feel just a bit softer, and began to stick together again!

Inspired, I went to the sink and got a few more drops of water directly on the Play-Doh, and then a few more, until it felt just a bit slick in my hands. I ended up kneading it and kneading it, and I worked that dried-up old mess into a moldable ball of blue beauty in about 30 minutes. (I’m still not sure what exactly happened, but I think the combination of the water and the oils from my hands and the hand soap helped rehydrate it.)

Believe it or not, we can do the same with our ideas. We may not be able to “just add water” and get everything working again, but we can add new inspiration, new research, or even other people’s input to help us try to revive our old, dried-up concepts. Sometimes, it just takes someone else’s eyes on the page to help; sometimes, it just takes being away from the idea for several days (or weeks) for us to regain some perspective.

Summary

We might not be kids anymore, but sometimes we ought to allow our brains to play instead of chaining them to desks and computers. We might be surprised at what we can come up with when we aren’t hindered by tradition, pride, tiredness, and lack of compromise.

Saturday with the Spark

Soul Notes

August 6, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

Since I was a child, I’ve often “heard” musical pitches whenever I meet someone. It’s not a actual sound, but a tone resounding between my ears–a strange “mental hearing.”

This probably sounds pretty wacky to people who don’t experience this. I mean, how can somebody “hear” something that’s just in their heads? But for me, these pitches are not just random occurrences; they are clues to that person’s personality, and perhaps even their soul. I call them “soul notes.”

Detecting Soul Notes

My perfect pitch likely helps a lot in this, but it seems to be an automatic, possibly instinctive process to pick up on someone else’s soul note.

For instance, when I met my boyfriend for the first time, I heard, clearly and distinctly within my head, a high B, as if played controlled and soft on a stringed and bowed instrument. This matches his quiet mien, his way of carrying himself, but it also matches how he approaches life–with utmost self-control and logic. The key of B is gentle and subtle, but definitively “there.”

By contrast, when I hang out with one of our mutual friends, a very boisterous (and funny) person, the brassy trumpet-like sound of an F is in my ears, at a barely-conscious level, the whole time. F is a key of celebration to me, a key of joy–but also a key of solidity and strength. While our friend may be a little loud and wild at times, he is also a steadfast buddy and a family man at heart.

As for my own soul note? Well, it’s been quite a bit harder to hear than others’, but I believe my soul note to be C-sharp (aka D-flat). It is a very deep, “original”-sounding tone, almost foundational, and it can both fade into the background as well as sound itself loud.

Soul Notes as Predictors of How I Get Along With Others

It’s funny how the harmony or dissonance of these perceived notes seems to predict how another person and I will get along together. My boyfriend’s soul note and mine are a major-second interval apart (B and C-sharp)–they could strike against each other in disharmony, and yet when played together, they form a shimmering duet of each not overpowering the other.

Our boisterous mutual friend, on the other hand, reacts with my boyfriend differently than me. B and F pull against each other a bit more, creating the framework of a B-diminished chord; C-sharp and F are a major-third interval apart, more harmonic. It’s weird; I sometimes understand our mutual buddy better, understanding possibly why he gets mad or frustrated, while my boyfriend can be puzzled by his reactions to situations.

Usually, other people’s soul notes interact with mine on first meeting, and then get stronger as I continue to be around them. A person I met a few months ago had an indisputable A-flat (G-sharp) soul note, which sounded harmoniously but hollowly with my C-sharp. Being a fifth apart, it had the potential to either be a major chord or a minor chord, to either have a happy sound or a sad sound. This interaction mirrored how we got along–we were usually in accord, but there always was a little tension, as if we were both waiting for the other person to disagree.

How I Use These Notes

Initially, I use these notes as another clue to the person, doing my best to harmonize with them not only verbally, but subconsciously. As I get to know people, however, I’ve also been able to write and perform piano music that “represents” people in my life, writing how I “hear” their note (and eventually a melody) in my mind. (Most famously, I wrote a representative song for my boyfriend, about a month and a half before he became my boyfriend… 😉 )

I write and play these songs because they are great ways to honor friends and family. It’s not always a love song, but simply a “This is what you sound like to me” song.

Summary

Most people are either amused or weirded out when I tell them of this ability, because it is so unusual–I’ve never heard of anybody being able to do this, or of others even being aware of musical tones in their heads. It’s not like I’m hearing voices or anything, but it is a very cool phenomenon. I like to think of it as just one of the ways God is making my life unique and fun. 🙂

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Dusk…My Favorite Time of Day

July 12, 2011 Robin 3 Comments

Beautiful, evocative dusky road; picture found at Alan Yahnke’s Flickr.

I have always loved dusk more than dawn, ever since childhood. Dusk is a time of trees turning deeper green and casting lengthening shadows, of harsh sunlight fading into lovely colors, arcing deep into the west. It also is a time of winding down for the day, a time when it seems like you can be outside without being attacked by zillions of bugs, and you can rest without being swarmed by your to-do list. Not only that, it’s cooler (especially during the summer).

Look at this beautiful dusk light effect! Ahh… picture found at ScenicReflections.com

I love driving at dusk, walking at dusk, or even looking out the window at it. The transient time of late afternoon passing into early evening brings out some of the most beautiful and ephemeral colors in the landscape, and it seems to put away the endless noise of morning and midday, bringing with it a sudden stillness with light cricket accompaniment.

Deep blue-green forest; picture found at Flash-Screen.com

Dusk, in contrast to dawn, is the end of stress and rushing around, and the beginning of “me time.” I’m usually done with all my work for the day and can now devote a little time to writing, watching some TV or a movie, talking to my boyfriend, family, or friends, or even just thinking quietly. Lying in bed, feeling the heaviness of my own limbs pressing into the soft surface, breathing deeply for the first time all day…it’s a languor that dawn does not allow, and dusk revels in.

Dusk also seems to bring out the relaxed conversation I love most. When I’m out at dusk with lots of people (or even just a few people), our words seem to turn to the philosophical and the meditative, the peaceful and the glad. Talk to anybody in the morning (just after dawn, usually), and you’ll likely get a string of complaints, worries, pains, and problems–well, either that or they’re entirely too darned happy ’cause they’re morning birds, LOL! But talk to anybody in the evening, and you’ll likely get a little slower and gentler conversation, maybe dotted with a bit of griping about the day…which eases off as dusk transitions the world toward sleep, as if the time of day itself helps wipe away the day’s concerns.

I guess you could say I’m a night owl because I love evenings more than mornings, but I think it’s probably more relaxing for me to know that relaxation, togetherness, and sleep is ahead rather than a rushed meal, gridlock, and expectations. Dusk is an escape from all that, an escape without anything else necessary to enhance it.