Tag: inspiration

Vegetation Equals Inspiration

Rachel Henry2 Comments

Here’s what I learned last week: trees are really, really cool. And important.

One of my favorite things about the local university is a series in which faculty members talk informally about books they’ve written. I attended the inaugural event for potential networking purposes and anticipated dull, dry, academic subject matter. Instead, I have been enthralled by Michigan farm houses, baseball in Taiwan, and urban trees of California, at least two of which are subjects I wouldn’t have touched with a twenty-foot pole, never mind a ten-foot one.

For a professor to find the time to write a book between teaching, grading, office hours, and multiple committee meetings, she must be passionate about the subject matter. I realized after the second talk that any time you put someone in a comfy chair, give her a cup of coffee, and invite her to have a conversation about what inspires her, you’re going to get something really good.

As with most things I learn, this is not news. Joseph Campbell’s “Follow your bliss” has been printed on everything from coffee cups to bumper stickers. Campbell has his own explanation of why to follow this advice. I think the reason is simple: because it’s one of the only ways to be infectious in a good way.

I like trees. I even consciously spend time with them, but if I wrote a book about the urban trees of California, or any trees for that matter, it would probably lack zest. The professor who gave the talk loves trees, delights in trees, knows the intimate details that make each one a unique source of wonder. His book inspires.

We don’t always get to spend as much time as we want doing the things we’re passionate about. Only a lucky few work for pay in their preferred area, and time gets consumed by life’s more mundane tasks. As a friend of mine says, “Adults do a lot of filing.” It’s also easy to get distracted, think our passion will not interest others, or simply forget the excitement of doing what we love because we don’t see that excitement modeled often enough.

If I, who fell asleep during the fourth inning at Wrigley Field, can be fascinated by baseball, your expression of your passion will capture someone, probably many someones. Practice it. We need more wonder in this world.

Note: In case you’re interested, the series is Cal Poly Authors.

A Little Perspective Goes a Long Way

Rachel Henry1 Comment

If I could regularly follow my own advice, I could give the Dalai Lama a run for his money. Holiness is, after all, a competition.

Unfortunately, regularly doing anything is not my strong point. Last week I finally stressed myself out to the point of getting sick (remember that report?). On the fifth day, I was well enough to despair over all the lost time and uncompleted tasks and spent some time railing against the injustices of the world. Then a moment of lucidity bubbled up from somewhere: perhaps I was overreacting considering people live with chronic illness and pain.

My friend, we’ll call her Deidre, has MS yet is sincerely and consistently positive. She manages to be grateful for impossible things like dirty diapers, which remind her the baby is more important than whatever she happens to be doing. She enjoys doing the dishes because it gives her meditative time with God. I often want to throttle people who espouse this type of attitude; not many who say it truly mean it.

I suspect Deidre’s genuine gratitude has its roots in her deep acceptance of her own humanity. She once told me wise choices come from making lots of mistakes. She manages to be happy with who she is even though she can no longer take a hot shower, occasionally has to use a walker, and sometimes literally cannot connect to the right word while speaking or reading because her nerves misfire.

You’d think someone in Deidre’s situation would need more than she has the capacity to give, but that’s never been my experience. I always leave our visits enriched, having gained some wisdom to tack on the refrigerator and reread until I’ve reached the maturity level necessary to practice it.

So next time I’m sick for five whole days and have to suffer through my mom bringing me soup and movies, perhaps I can feel a speck less sorry for myself. Take that, Dalai Lama.

Just Marvelous

Rachel Henry3 Comments

A very important event happened recently: my friend Mary Ann turned ninety. I hope I can be as full of life on my next birthday as she was on her nintieth.

Every time Mary Ann sees you she tells you, “Well I think you’re just marvelous,” and she is so clearly delighted with exactly who you are that you start to believe it a little. You also start to think maybe you could tell others the same thing.

Mary Ann collects people. She almost never walks past someone without greeting him or her, regardless of whether she knows the person or not. There must have been more than fifty people at her birthday party, young and old and most ages in between. To honor her sense of adventure, the candles on the cake were tiny sparklers.

She has survived the death of her husband and all her biological children with her good humor and ability to enjoy life intact. She appreciates beautiful things and supports the people who make them.

She is losing her sight and has had to move into an assisted living apartment, a dangerous environment for a free spirit. The first year or so, she struggled with the transition, but every time she started a conversation by complaining, she ended it by telling me why she was lucky to be there.

During a prayer at the party, a friend of hers, in trying to describe what about the birthday girl she was grateful for said, “I’m grateful for her being so Mary Ann.” And I’m grateful for such a fine example of how being deeply ourselves and enjoying the heck out of it may be the best way to spend our lives. Thank you, Mary Ann.

The Sum Thing

Rachel Henry10 Comments

I love stealing stories. This story is stolen.

old-young-holding-handsWhen he was young, my friend’s brother went to their grandfather and said, “I want the something.”

“What exactly do you want?” the grandfather asked.

“The something,” the boy replied.

“What does it look like?” the grandfather asked.

“You know, the something,” the boy said.

Then, much to his credit, the grandfather asked, “Do you know where it is?”

“In your office,” the boy said.

The old man and the young boy retired to the office where the grandfather held up thing after thing to no avail until he produced the calculator. At this, the boy nodded his head vigorously and held out his hands to receive the sum thing.

I often look for the sum thing in life, the experience or theory or explanation that will make everything add up, that will impart meaning to even the most drib drab days, the most miserable failures, the most painful losses. I don’t think it exists. In fact, I think it’s bad for us, like eating too many Twizzlers, because it keeps us living in future tense rather than present. It puts both hope and contentment (not to be confused with complacency) always just out of reach.

My spirits don’t exactly rise when I acknowledge that nothing waits around the next bend to transform my life into a complete and sensible and beautiful whole. A rather scary alternative presents itself: I create my life, which will likely come out messy and haphazard and undisciplined and wildly inconsistent and may, for all that, still be beautiful.

We don’t need to take on this life creation alone, though. If our lives belong to us, they are ours to share. We have friends, family, and communities to help us. We have grace. When all else fails, we have Ben and Jerry’s. And who knows, if we stop focusing on an unattainable totality, we may discover we like what we’ve made.

Workin’ for a Livin’

Rachel Henry7 Comments

“Create a life you actually want for yourself,” poet David Whyte says in his Footsteps: a Writing Life CD set. And I think, “Yes!” Who can disagree with that fabulous Yorkshire accent, much less the sentiment?

“Isn’t there something we can do besides working?” a friend and colleague says. “Yes!” I reply and then spend roughly half my waking hours doing just that.

Work offers definite benefits beyond the simply monetary. Some people practice professions they enjoy. Offices or factories provide forced community, teaching us how to live alongside those we might not invite to dinner. I’ve developed skills at work I may never have discovered otherwise. Couldn’t all that happen outside of work, though? Absolutely.

If you take a look at the vast scope of human history, the majority of the population has spent most of its time growing, killing, and cooking food. And cleaning. I’d much rather write novels than the accreditation reports my work demands, but I’d much rather write accreditation reports than beat dirty clothes against rocks in the river.

As a species, we’ve just begun this diversification of tasks, and perhaps we haven’t chosen as wisely as we could have thus far. Perhaps we’re going through a stage, like adolescence, but tell a teenager she’s miserable because she’s a teenager and see how much comfort you’ve conveyed.

So how does one persist in work that is tolerable but not that which one actually wants for oneself? If you have a fabulous answer, please leave it in the comments below.

I try the following, which sometimes help and sometimes don’t: vacation; gratitude for not having the myriad of jobs I don’t have, like bus driver or president; lots of potlucks; sunshine breaks; gratitude for the things work has given me, such as a car, a house, friends, perspective.

And as often as possible, I remember a time when I was sticking small labels on tabs, a task whose eventual obsolescence no one will mourn. One moment life consisted of a mindless routine, and the next I felt I was in exactly the right place doing exactly the right thing. I didn’t even mind that the right thing was affixing small pieces of gummy, flexible plastic.

I’ve never felt that way again, but I choose to think it’s always true. That doesn’t mean I don’t hope and pray my job description will read well-paid novelist before the next accreditation report rolls around, but it opens up the possibility that this work we sometimes resist and often don’t understand can place us, against all our expectations, where we need to be.