What Makes A Happy Holidays?

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Joey@IdeaJones
Merlin wishes you happy holidays. Really.

Merlin wishes you happy holidays. Really.

Every year from November through December (at least) we get pelted with messages telling us what will make our holidays all we dream of, full of warm closeness and laughter, golden bright, strewn about with ribbons and tinsel. The. Best. Christmas (or holiday of your choice). EVER!

Maybe it’s because Mark and I are home fighting off killer bronchitis, but I find I’m looking at this stuff more skeptically than usual. Not cynical, just not altogether on board the “Perfect Holiday” train.

Voltaire once said that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This can mean that you bypass what is good because good isn’t good enough, you’re waiting for perfect.

In holiday terms, it means a series of holiday seasons entered into with anticipation that turns to frustration and then to disappointment. “Why can’t (he/she/they) make an effort to (whatever it is they’re not doing you want them to do)? It’s the holidays!”

We stare at the situations and people around us willing them to be different because this time is special. The store where the clerks never seem to be very motivated to help, the people who are bossy, or cranky, or needy all the rest of the year… can’t they try to be better, just for the holidays?

But we are who we are, 24/7. The people we are on Monday morning waiting for the coffee to brew and on tax filing day and Friday evening in traffic are the people we are on special occasions. Sometimes more so… tired from shopping and shipping and cooking and worrying about meeting the expectations of people around us and barraged with messages telling us we could be closer, kinder, shinier, better somehow if we wanted to be, most of us aren’t at our best during the holidays. If Uncle Aldo is usually loud, judgmental and unwilling to listen, which is more likely, that he’ll be even more that way than usual, or that he’ll miraculously be completely different? If you’ve ever said, “Why can’t (insert name) just (insert thing this person doesn’t do)? It’s (insert holiday or event)?!?,” what you’re really saying is “Why can’t this person be some other person entirely?”

Another quote: “God, grant that twice two be not four.” — Ivan Turgenev

I used to drive myself (and Mark) insane, desperately trying to “salvage” some sort of wonderful Christmas from the usual wreckage we had to work with (dysfunctional family, work stress, etc.). I’d exhaust myself trying to clean and decorate, shop, ship, plan, cook… all while waiting for that warm glow to kick in. A relative would throw a holiday tantrum (every year, not always the same relative), then another. Rounds of stressful phone calls, rescheduling, last-minute work assignments, and all the while the commercials and specials and whatnot in the background, that constant chant that the holidays were supposed to be a certain way, some way that we could not make given what we had to work with. You can’t make a cathedral from a handful of Popsicle sticks and a dented soda can. We had a string of fatiguing holidays that left us disappointed and sad. After all, it’s worse to sit out on the step all day expecting a parade that never comes than it is to just spend the day sitting on the step.

So I’m on a quest for a truly happy Christmas, one not dependent on anything being a certain way, on the tree looking just right (we’re sick — the tree is up and bears one clot of lights, haphazardly strung), or a menu that could be featured in a magazine (chicken soup! gelatin!), or a room full of freshly-scrubbed, beaming faces (we love our loved ones too much to subject them to this cold). It’s not the Christmas I’d planned, and Lord knows it’s not the one I would have chosen, but it’s not bad. Instead of creating a yardstick and holding the day up to it, sad when it doesn’t measure up, I’m just letting it unfold and be what it is, open to whatever good is available today.

And next year? Hopefully, we won’t be sick. Would like to decorate the tree and a few things… but I’ll try to remind myself not to run right past the good while chasing the perfect. People, situations — I want to be open to what there is available to me, not staring at the package of my day thinking it’s nice but not what I had in mind.

Hoping you and yours have a safe, happy, healthy holiday season.

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Learning Tips From A Tutor — Don’t Get Married For The Wedding

Posted on November 6, 2015 by admin

Working with a friend who is seeking his GED, we talked about how he came so close when he took the GED test before, and what he can do differently this time. He was within a point of getting his GED when he took the test, a heartbreaker, and I respect him for trying again.

When we talked about how he prepared for the test last time, I realized that he had concentrated so hard on the test, as though that would be the end of the process. He’s also studying to become licensed as a truck driver. I helped him study and pointed out that he was so fixed on the test itself, he’d lost sight of the real goal, a career. The license is necessary but the exam, and the license, isn’t the goal. Those are steps to the goal, which would be the career that followed. “You’re studying for the test,” I told him, “but the test is just to show that you know the information you’ll need when you’re doing the job. Don’t study for the test, study for the career, so you’ll know this stuff and be able to use it.”

He blinked at me. “That’s what I do,” he said. “I study for the test. I did the same thing with the GED. I didn’t study to understand it and be able to use it — I studied to pass the test. This time I’m studying for understanding more than for the test, so I’m remembering more.” It’s true. His English has improved so much in the past year. He’s worked hard, and it shows. He hasn’t just memorized things; he’s understanding concepts. “It’s like when someone gets married for the wedding,” he told me. “A wedding isn’t about the wedding. It’s about the marriage and the years and the life that follow.”

And learning is about understanding. Yes, we need to pass the tests, but the tests are to show that we understand and can, hopefully, make use of the information. My friend has stopped studying for the test, or, as he puts it, getting married for the wedding, and he’s really learning.

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Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2015 by admin

Happy Halloween 2 IdeaJonesI have fond memories of Trick or Treat. I could only do it when I was very young as we moved after that to several places where we had no close neighbors, but when I was five, Halloween was a very big deal. The selection of a costume was crucial as Halloween only came once a year, which meant it would be an eternity plus an eon before I could choose another costume, in Kid Time.

When I was five, I wanted to go as Mr. Ed. If you’re younger, you may be interested to know that there were once shows on television that featured talking horses, talking cars… the 60s were an interesting time. Anyway, Mr. Ed was the talking horse and star of his own show, a beautiful Palomino with a somewhat goofy, sometimes dry sense of humor (at five, you don’t realize the horse’s voice comes from an actor reading lines).

I was madly in love with Mr. Ed and wanted to marry him, to my mother’s consternation. She tried explaining that it would work because he couldn’t eat at the dining table with us (we didn’t have room for a trough), and he couldn’t sleep in my bedroom. I shrugged that off and said we’d figure out something, and I could sleep in the barn. Mom said again that I couldn’t marry Mr. Ed. When I asked why, she said it was because he was already married. There was already a Mrs. Ed. Being a good girl, this meant he was off limits. Note that she didn’t try to say it wouldn’t work because Mr. Ed was a horse. In our family, we were used to believing six or more impossible things before breakfast, like Alice in Wonderland.

Anyway, to help assuage my broken heart, she told me I could go trick or treating as Mr. Ed… but we couldn’t find a costume. Nowhere in Santa Cruz, and not even in the neighboring towns, which we tried. I was down, but Mom, who usually made my costumes (it was a big deal that she tried so hard to buy me one in respect for my being disappointed in love and all), said she would make me a costume. Although she was talented, she said there wasn’t time to make a horse head. Was there anything else I might like?

I thought about it and told her I wanted to go as a tomato. All these years later, I don’t remember what it was about tomatoes that was so appealing, but I was determined. If not Mr. Ed, I wanted to be a tomato.

She tried. She really did. Mom was a talented seamstress with a lot of inventive flair, but her best efforts left me looking more like an unfortunate medical condition than a healthy, ripe tomato. And it was the night before Halloween. In a burst of desperation, she declared I would be Santa Claus. Santa Claus? On Halloween? That just made no sense (whereas marrying a horse or being a tomato seemed altogether rational). She finished my costume and I wore it to school the next day, where kids laughed and asked me why Santa Claus. I explained that I was supposed to be a tomato but it didn’t work, which just confused everyone more.

Came Halloween evening. Forcing a smile, I trudged out with the other kids and parents to go Trick or Treating, dreading having to explain at every single house that I was really a failed tomato. At the first house, the woman who opened the door exclaimed, “Santa Claus! That’s great!” She called everyone in the family to come see the little Santa. Versions of that happened at almost every house. People told me over and over how funny, how cute, how brilliant, even how scary (from someone who was already dreading holiday shopping) it was to go out on Halloween as Santa Claus. And I took in a real haul of candy. I was showered with Pixie Sticks, chocolate bars, even handfuls of coins. I made out like a whiskered, red-suited bandit.

That’s the thing about Halloween. It can surprise you. May your surprises all be happy ones.

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Learning Tips From A Tutor — Change It Up!

Posted on October 30, 2015 by admin

I’ve been a literacy tutor for years, both formally (paid professional) and informally (volunteer), and have picked up a few tricks for learning, which I shared with a friend who came here from another country and is studying for both the GED exam and a work exam that could mean a better-paying job. For both of these, he needs to master information so he can recall it and use it under stress (exam pressure and being timed).

The work test is a licensing exam to drive “big rigs,” tractor-trailer trucks. He needs to master a pre-trip checklist that he’d perform for the licensing test, and again before each driving assignment. When we saw each other last week, he was feeling some anxiety about the test and remembering all the items on the checklist. I suggested he try some methods for increasing retention, including this one, which he found helpful:

When trying to learn a list, whether it’s a list of words, a list of names and dates, or a list of operations you have to perform, change up how you learn the list. Just as the nose gets accustomed to a scent that doesn’t go away and stops noticing it, the brain can get bored with repeating the same thing over and over and largely check out of the process, so while you’re repeating it, most of the brain is ignoring it as something that isn’t changing and therefore doesn’t need attention.

Change the list. Try it from the last thing backwards to the first. Then from the first item to the last. Then find a point in the middle and go forward from there, or backward. In his case, instead of going through the checklist from the front of the truck back to the tail lights, he began starting at the tail lights and going back until he finished at the headlights, or starting in the middle at the front of the trailer, doing the list for the trailer, then going through the checklist for the cab. Changing it up forced his brain to continue to notice it. It was always slightly new, and therefore couldn’t be done on autopilot. His brain had to pay attention.

This is a lumpy, awkward process the first time you try it. Your brain wants to get through something and be done with it. It doesn’t want a thing to keep changing. So expect this to feel like trying to start off walking with a different foot than you usually start with, or use your left hand when you’re right-handed.

He reported back that his retention had improved a lot. He now feels readier for the test, and if the examiner gets a phone call in the middle of it, interrupting the flow, my friend is ready to continue on from that point after being interrupted — something that throws people who learn a list from beginning to end in only one way.

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Is Calvin Coolidge Still President?

Posted on October 15, 2015 by admin

It’s been waaaay too long since we updated our website. So much has been happening, some good, some not, but all very… happening.

Through the past year-and-a-few, we lost four members of our family, three we were very close to. If you’ve ever lost someone you really loved, you get how this takes over your life. If you haven’t, it’s hard to explain.

There’s a dance that goes with the end of a life, a ritual of phone calls, emergencies, doctors and nurses and staying up too long for too many days in a row. Prior to entering the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we were in a very creative phase, getting a book finished, having art work accepted into exhibits. It was heady and wonderful and it all came to a crashing halt for more than a year. We reeled from loss to loss, numb, exhausted, too drained to hold a conversation for long, let alone create.

The return to life was slow for both of us. Now we’re creating again. The first novel is done and out seeking an agent, we have some leads but my basic theory is “Prepare for bad news, then if it’s good, hooray, and if it’s not, you’re ready.” It’s gotten a good response from test readers and we’re hopeful, but meantime, on to finishing the other three in the works already.

I had several sculptures begun, the research phase through, the design finished. Now I’m in the building phase of creativity. The first to be finished in a year, They Call It Bliss, is coming together almost exactly as I envisioned it, which is scary. It’s a weird piece and not much like anything I’ve done before.

The other two, the companion piece to His Own Man and a piece about autism are not as far along, but developing.

Perhaps recent events have deepened my understanding, perhaps it’s just natural development as an artist, but with every new work, I come through it more fully developed as a person. As I create them, they change me. Growth continues.

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