Sweet spot

#blog52 #week39

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10

I noticed something surprising this week. I was enjoying my job. It’s not that I usually hate my job. I just — well, I don’t care about it that much. (Um, you don’t think my boss could find my blog, do you? I’m really counting on her not Googling me.) With 23 years of tenure, I’ve settled into a comfortable spot and become resigned that my work is not something I’m going to be passionate about. I tend to think of it as just a way to fund my life; it enables me to do the things I really do care about.

My Twitter bio lists “manager of corporate project” after “Christ follower, bleeding-heart liberal, blogger, and urban chicken farmer.” Priorities.

Most of the people I work with fall into one of two categories. There are clinicians; a unique subset of nurses and physicians who choose to work in a corporate setting. They’re smart, (mostly) compassionate, and speak in a medical shorthand language that it took me years to understand. Most of the rest of my colleagues are analysts. Math geeks. They talk about trends and ratios and pivot tables.

As you may have suspected, I am neither a clinician nor a mathematician. I am an English major. I have learned to work in an environment for which I am fundamentally unsuited. So what changed this week? Serendipitously, two of the projects I’m currently managing are in my sweet spot. They primarily involve words. Reading words and writing words. I’m even working in an “interactive intranet” that’s remarkably similar to a social media platform! By still my heart.

Here I am right now in my sweet spot writing about being in my sweet spot. #meta

Everybody has a sweet spot. That place were work doesn’t feel like work; where you’re good and what you do and you know it.

My stepson-in-law Shay is a talented software engineer or app development manager or some techie thing like that. I don’t really know. He spent last week in Texas with Team Rubicon, repairing homes damaged by Hurricane Harvey. The last time I asked him about his work he sounded bored. When he talks about volunteering with Team Rubicon, he lights up.

My husbands knows about plants. He works in the lawn-and-garden products business, and he’s really good at the business part of it, but that’s not his passion. Want to see him come alive? Ask him about that weird weed growing in your lawn. There is nothing he loves more than acting as a landscaping consultant for friends, neighbors, relatives, and random strangers with horticultural issues.

“I’ve made a decision,” he announced recently. Sounds serious, I thought.  “I’m going to dig up the climbing rosebush and the dead azalea and plant a cedar deodara.” (Turns out he was combining the tree’s scientific name, cedrus deodara, with its common name, deodar cedar, so I guess he’s not so smart after all, huh?)

I asked Allen to take a selfie while he was working in the yard.

And then there’s my friend Suzy. Suzy’s a gifted artist, musician, teacher and surfer. She works in oils and watercolors. She produces drawings, etchings, portraits. A couple of years ago, she started experimenting with murals. One mural led to another, and before you know it she was invited to paint something on the side of a tunnel on the brand new Westside Trail section of the Atlanta BeltLine. “It’s twice as large as anything I’ve ever done,” she marveled. She says riding in the bucket truck to paint the top portion of her work “felt like flying.”

Me & Suzy. I think she’s found her sweet spot.

No words

#blog52 #week38

“There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small.” ‭‭Psalm‬ ‭104:25‬ 

I think the internet has enough words this week without adding mine. I’m going to let the pictures do the talking, for the most part.

Friday, 10:11 a.m., Edgewood neighborhood, Atlanta

“The World’s Smiling”

11:54 a.m., Columbus, Georgia

2:59 p.m., Hosford, Florida

3:36 p.m., Eastpoint, Florida

4:17 p.m.

4:24 p.m.

4:38 p.m., Blue Parrot Oceanfront Cafe

6:54 p.m., Doc Myers’ Island Pub & Sports Bar

7:32 p.m.

8:05 p.m., Harry A’s

“We are how we treat each other and nothing more.”

When September ends

#blog52 #week37

This is how my street looked most of this week. (photo credit: my neighbor Marvin Junior)

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24 (KJV)

“Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends”
– Wake Me Up When September Ends by Green Day

I realized a few years ago that I dread and distrust September; it’s my least favorite month.

I believe the root of my beef with the ninth month of the year is the weather. I grew up long ago, in Missouri, and was conditioned to expect summer to be limited to June, July and August. By September 1st I am done with heat, humidity, mosquitoes, fruit flies, and regular flies for that matter. Done. I am ready for leggings and boots and jackets.

The problem is that I live in the South now. On September 8th of last year, the temperature in Atlanta was 93 degrees. September is not now — and will never again be —  fall. It is still summer. I am not okay with this.

Because it’s not carefree, fun-in-the-sun summer, like July. It’s the beginning of the dying; of green leaves scorched by relentless heat giving up, being drained of life and color, letting go of their branches and falling onto the hard pavement or the ground, returning to dust. There is no brightness or brilliance in the color of leaves falling in September. They are dry, brown, dead.

You may see fallen leaves; I see harbingers of death

Rosanne Cash wrote a song, September When It Comes, about impending death. Here’s the final stanza:

When the shadows lengthen
And burn away the past
They will fly me like an angel to
A place where I can rest
When this begins I’ll let you in
September when it comes

She recorded it as duet with her father and it was released in March of 2003. It was prophetic: Johnny Cash died six months later, in September of that year.

To be fair, not everyone sees September as a total downer. Earth, Wind & Fire’s hit song September is all about falling in love and dancing the night away. I’m indifferent about that one, but Neil Diamond’s smarmy September Morn makes me twitchy and stabby. (“September morn…. We danced until the night became a brand new day; two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play….”) Gag. That has not been my predominant experience of September, Neil.

My experience: even when September’s beautiful, it’s a little disturbing and off-kilter.

Of course, for those of us old enough to remember where we were on September 11, 2001, there will always be a dark cloud of mourning hanging over that date. I feel an uneasiness as the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in our country’s history approaches each year, almost subconsciously worried that the likelihood of another attack is increased around that date.

It don’t know if more terrible things actually happen in September, or if it just seems that way. Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. The worst weather disaster in U.S. history occurred on September 8, 1900, when a hurricane with winds of 120 mph struck Galveston, Texas, killing over 8000 people. This year, we were just beginning to assess the devastating damage Hurricane Harvey inflicted on Texas when the next one, Hurricane Irma, came barreling straight for Florida.

Just leaving the house in September feels like wondering if you’re going to get flattened by a MARTA bus.

Still. Despite all the evidence against September, I feel bad about having a “least favorite month.” After all, all of the days of September are days that the Lord has made, right? (See Psalm 118:24 above.) Ought I not look for some reasons to rejoice and be glad in them?

I made a list of good things about September:

• It starts with a 3-day weekend. That’s good. And Labor Day weekend features one of my favorite annual local events, the Decatur Book Festival.
• My sister was born in September! I am way glad that Jennifer Kay Mayes Gatson was born. She’s a gift.
• Actually, except when it was tropical storming earlier this week, the weather has been pretty great so far this month.

That’s all I have. College football season starts, I guess? I haven’t been able to work up to caring yet this year, but it makes Allen happy, anyway.

Yesterday. Kind of a beautiful evening, really.

I remain conflicted and wary. I still don’t trust September. But there’s beauty in every season. As tempting as it sounds to sleep through September, I wouldn’t want to miss a month of sunsets. And you know what comes next? October! And October is spectacular. Wait and see.

The Cone of Uncertainty

#blog52 #week36

It’s a beautiful September day here in the cone of uncertainty

“Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James 4:14

“Look here at the cone of uncertainty,” I heard the meteorologist on television say yesterday. And I heard a different one say it this morning, drawing our attention to the projected, possible, uncertain but unstoppable path of Hurricane Irma.

Wikipedia helpfully offers that the Cone of Uncertainty “is more formally known as the NHC Track Forecast Cone, and more colloquially known as the Error Cone, Cone of Probability, CONUS, or the Cone of Death.” Nice.

Apparently the phrase didn’t originate with hurricane prediction. It’s also used in software development project management. One more note from our friends at Wikipedia: “The usage in hurricane forecasting is essentially the opposite of the usage in software development. In software development, the uncertainty surrounds the current state of the project, and in the future the uncertainty decreases, whereas in hurricane forecasting the current location of the storm is certain, and the future path of the storm becomes increasingly uncertain.”

So either we know where we’re going but we don’t know how to get there (software development) or we know where we are but we don’t know where we’re going (hurricane forecasting). I think we’re all in the cone of uncertainty, all the time.

I told Lucille and Chloe and Sennua about Hurricane Irma and the Cone of Uncertainty. They were not interested.

Ironically, it is the most beautiful, perfect September Saturday here. We know the storm is coming, that it’s already wreaked havoc in the Caribbean and that our friends in Florida will take a direct, devastating hit tomorrow. We don’t know what we’re in for here on Monday and Tuesday… just a couple of days of rain, or tornadoes that level homes and sustained winds that take down big old trees and power lines? There’s no knowing.

Today I went to the farmer’s market where there were musicians playing and farmers selling fresh produce and the very first apples of the season. Then I met a new friend for coffee and we sat on a patio and talked and enjoyed the clear sunny day and the cool breeze. Next, Allen and I rode our bikes to a little festival in the next neighborhood over, Reynoldstown, chatted with friends, ate Korean/Mexican fusion tacos and sesame fries, drank beer. Now Allen’s watching college football. Really, a perfect late summer Saturday.

And now I’m on the back deck with my laptop and a glass of wine.

In the old days, before satellite radar and the internet and such, I suppose you didn’t know a hurricane was coming until it got there. It’s a good thing, certainly, that we’ve developed technology that enables us to see a hurricane forming in the distance, predict it’s path and timeline, and effectively share that information with those likely to be impacted. We can prepare, as well as we know how, for the worst-case possibilities. Imagine how many lives are saved by the wonders of meteorology and media!

Still, there’s so much we don’t know, and more that we absolutely can’t control. A list of tips for disaster preparedness was circulated at work this week. It was good, practical advice, but… it was so long and detailed (“Wrap the legs of heavy furniture on the first floor of your home in garbage bags and duct tape, and put them in solo plastic cups. Make copies of your insurance policy, credits cards, prescriptions and mail them to a friend or relative in another state….”) I could barely imagine someone in the direct path of a hurricane having time to read all the directions, much less follow them. I suspect that at some point taking actions to “be prepared” gives us a falsely comforting sense of being in control when our lives are spinning out of control.

It’s not just the weather that seems out of control these days (though the weather trends are certainly distressing). Nearly 800,000 young people were thrown directly into the cone of uncertainty this week with the announcement that those who qualify for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program may soon be subject to deportation. What’s going to happen with health care? Where are the escalating tensions and threats with North Korea heading? Are racial bigotry and homophobia and xenophobia really on the rise in our country, or are we witnessing their last ugly, violent gasps? Globally and nationally, I’ve never felt less certain about the future.

But what do we ever know, really? As James pointed out in the New Testament (see above), we don’t even know what will happen tomorrow. Illnesses, accidents, losses of jobs and relationships — we’re all vulnerable to unforeseen tragedy. And there are happy surprises, too. The right person, the right opportunity, the miracle we’ve been praying for… they could all show up any day now. We don’t know much of anything about what’s going to happen next.

What do we do here in the cone of perpetual uncertainty? We hang on to what we do know. For me, that starts with faith, hope, prayer. We hold onto each other and take care of each other. We don’t miss the present — the beauty of where we are right now, today, in the cool September evening breeze. And we do our best to be prepared for whatever comes.

One of my good friends had a baby yesterday. (A friend much, much younger than me.) She’s beautiful and perfect and full of completely unknown possibilities, born into a world of uncertainty. Brand new babies remind me of this Frederick Buechner quote: “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”

Welcome to the world, baby girl. Don’t be afraid.

Connectedness

#blog52 #week35

Last year’s 1st Annual Mayson Avenue Neighbors’ Labor Day Potluck Party

“Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:10

My employer is big on promoting health and wellness and incentivizing healthy lifestyles. (“Incentivize” is exactly the kind of business jargony word I hear and use a lot in my professional life.) It’s why I’m always wearing a Fitbit. Steps logged translate to points earned, which eventually turn into dollars deposited into my health savings account. There are several ways to earn points besides physical activity. I can earn a point for every night of “good sleep” I log (more than 7 hours), or for every meal eaten in which I attest that half the food on my plate was fruits or vegetables.

They’ve recently added a program called “Connect 4” to promote healthy social connection. I can earn a point for each day that I have positive social interactions with at least four people. I like rules, so I reviewed these carefully and made my own mental rules where the official guidance was ambiguous. Business meetings/conference calls don’t count. Transactional interactions (like small talk with a waiter or salesperson) don’t count. A telephone call, text, or even social media interaction can count if I initiate an actual friendly conversational exchange with someone I know in real life.

It’s made me more aware of how, and how often, I make personal connections with others. I’m a home-based teleworker, and now that the business travel has slacked off I actually can go whole days without talking to anyone except my husband — my one daily “freebie.” And why, exactly, is my employer paying me to talk to my friends and family members?

Because science. As the Harvard Health Watch reported in 2010, “Dozens of studies have shown that people who have satisfying relationships with family, friends, and their community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.” It’s not necessarily that my employer is just that nice; they have a vested interest in my health care costs and productivity.

I should hang out with friends more. For my health.

This is one of those areas where popular science is catching up to what’s pretty clearly been God’s design for people all along. We were made to live in community together, to look out for each other, to enjoy each other, to belong to each other. It’s how we survive and how we flourish.

For us introverts, though, it can be hard to find the right balance. I want and need relationships, and strong, healthy, close relationships require investment in the form of time spent together. I also know I need time alone — an investment in my own health and sanity. It can feel like the no-win working mom guilt I remember so clearly from another era of my life. When I’m with people, I sometimes wish I was alone; when I’m alone, I sometimes wish I was with people. Just thinking about how to ration time alone (to read! and write! and nap!), time with my husband (my favorite way to spend time!), time with various and sundry family members, time with friends, time serving others in need and cultivating new friendships with neighbors… it’s exhausting and impossible.

Sunday afternoon is introvert heaven

But also. Community is intuitively and literally life-giving. Reaching out to someone with a spirit of peace and encouragement is always worth it. Love is always the right call.

Amid all of the tragic news from Hurricane Harvey this week, there were many inspiring stories of human kindness and generosity. The one that got me the most was this image of Texans forming a human chain to rescue an elderly man trapped in his sinking SUV.

What could be more beautiful than an actual chain of people holding on to each other tightly, keeping each other safe in the middle of danger, taking a risk together to save a stranger in trouble? One person, or two or three, couldn’t have done it alone. But when we see the vulnerable humanity in each other, when we reach out and make connections and hold onto teach other — that’s when we most reflect the image of God, and that’s when miracles happen.

My neighbors, last Sunday, investing the time, making the connections. Because we need each other.