Keeping the pan clean

My partner, Gary, has graciously given me permission to share this poem, which he wrote early in our relationship. It's a poem we return to, checking in with each other when we can tell something feels a little off. Or stumbling to find a graceful way to open a difficult conversation.

In the beginning we created a common goal: open communication. If something's up, say so. If you're wondering if something's up, ask. Clear the air quickly and kindly so the residue of resentment doesn't lay down layer after layer.

This poem articulates our intention, and lends us language. "Love, is our pan clean?" or "I need to get something off my chest to keep the pan clean."  

May the nourishment continue.

dirty pan clean

fresh pan

cooking delicious food

healthy output

fresh surface

easy to clean afterward

no residue

all it takes is once

slight burn

overcook

animal fat and grease

a layer takes hold

elbow grease

lots of hot water and soap

scrubbing and scrubbing

got to break that layer free

right away

if it is let to sit

even for a night

it will set in deep

become a part of the pan

all subsequent cookings

slightly less sweet

the pan prone

to more layers

grabbing onto the first

before long

there is a thick wall

of old work undone

lining the pan

useless

ready to be replaced

for the work needed to restore it

is greater than the worth of the pan

diligent one must be

never put a pan away dirty

not even the slightest bit

ensure every nook

and corner

and cranny

is completely pristine

tell me everything

my love

leave no stone unturned

—Gary B. Genett

Client feedback on tonight's dinner

Mom:

Thanks for the meal tonight. Looks good! Just a few pieces of feedback before our next round.

1. While we appreciate your resourcefulness in the use of the crock pot, we’re feeling like the vegetable to meat ratio is a little high. Please dial down the use of carrots. Also, we did not mention the color green in the brief, so please remove all green elements. See last night’s dinner of Mac & Cheese with french fries as an example of the color scheme that resonates best with our users.

2. When we mentioned last week that we liked beef, we should have clarified that we liked hamburgers on that particular Wednesday, from 5-6 pm. That in no way indicates that we want to leverage beef again this week, particularly in the form of a pot roast. Going forward, please check in with us before spending allocated resources based on an assumption from past work. Shout with questions!

3. Were there any issues with assets we ought to be aware of? We kicked off our dinner request at the regular time, but were surprised that final deliverables were not presented until 6:38 p.m. Let us know if we need to revisit timelines. 

4. The napkin to the left of the bowl — is that intentionally part of the “meal” or is that placeholder? Like the thinking there, but not sure if we need that functionality, as we already have pants, shirts and a tablecloth. Please advise. 

Overall, I think we’re heading in the right direction. Looking forward to seeing another round tomorrow EOD.

Thanks!

Poem: The warmth & the water

Spring asks of me
what is it you'd like to create?
How will you reach for the
veins of life coursing in polka dots
through leaves and hair and
the lips of your lover?

What bounty will you bring forth, child,
what will spring forth
warmed by your spirit & watered
by your tears?

It is the warmth and the water,
the light and the covered moss
where all beauty grows.

Warmth and water, love & tears.
These things ask the heart to
open like the first daffodil
in a delicate display of fragile brilliance.

Those who notice it are blessed,
crowned by the wind and the scent
of cherry blossoms.

Open, they all say.

Moving over, moving on

(A-Z Challenge: O)

O is for Over. As in, the A-Z challenge ended a month ago and I got stuck after M. It wasn't lack of time, being too busy, nothing to write about, and all of the usual rationale for blog abandonment. It was actually perfectionism. (Had I made it to P, maybe that would be a good topic.)

I missed a day or two, and suddenly catching up felt daunting. In focusing on the post-every-day rule, I completely lost sight of the spirit of the challenge. Which is simply to get your ass to the computer on a regular basis and write. 

That I can do.

But first I have to let the challenge go. Being on letter O a month after the challenge ends feels like a failure, its sting piggybacking on the "I never finish my writing projects" shame that lurks in my mental corners. It's the ultimate writer's block, blocking not just the writing but the writer. 

The perfectionism also insists on well-organized content (which is what I do for a living, for pete's sake) and also having a consistent theme like a "proper" blogger would. I spend my days organizing and writing content around themes, and here I just need to explore and breathe. I've discovered that when I don't allow room for mental meandering, I don't write. It's hard to have an outlet inside a self-imposed creative straightjacket.

So enough of that. O is for Over. And for overcome. 

When do we want it? Now!

(A-Z Challenge: N)

I came across this little gem recently and it’s been the little angel on my right shoulder for the past few days. What do I want this morning? To watch another episode of Girls and eat chocolate chips right out of the bag. Oh wait, that’s what I want right now. What I actually want is a serene bedroom space, which means my “right now” is better directed at finishing the closet cleaning project I started a week ago. 

For being a little angel, though, the Angel of Big Picture Goals is quite a whip-cracker. What I want most is to have a novel written, a clean house, a strong, toned body, great nutrition, great sleep, success at work, joyful leisure time and peaceful relationships. That’s just my top few on the list. Every micro-choice I make could affect one of those things. 

Sounds like a recipe for decision paralysis. I want all of these things that require both ambition and rest. Peace and grit. If I’m checking every impulse against a larger goal, that little angel is pretty easy to outsmart. My house is a disaster and it’s overwhelming, and I want sit on the couch reading all day. Hey, that supports my goal of joyful leisure time! So there, Angel! 

That’s where the discipline comes in. The discipline to know when I’m trying to pull one over on that angel. When I’m disguising procrastination or flat-out avoidance as “joyful leisure” or “great sleep.” 

It comes back to the whole concept of equilibrium and figuring out my priorities. Perhaps it helps to narrow down the goals on the “want” list to be shorter term and more actionable. What do I want? To have the kitchen bathroom clean before my parents come into town for my son’s birthday in a few days. If I weigh my choices for how to spend my morning, a vague “I want a clean house” goal means that no effort I make on that front is going to feel like enough because a) I can never get every nook & cranny clean and organized at once and b) a clean house never stays that way. But simply having the kitchen and bathroom clean before a specific date is totally do-able. I can plan for that, which means that I can enjoy a sense of accomplishment that I couldn’t enjoy if the goal was all perfectionist like “a clean house.”  


Do you use goals to motivate you toward bigger picture "wants"? What's your method?

Mastering mornings

(A-Z Challenge: M) 

Yesterday I worked out, made breakfast for three, packed lunch for two, and got the crockpot set up with dinner for four. I shepherded the kids through basic hygiene, walked them several blocks to school, walked myself to the bus stop, and was downtown near my office by 9:15 a.m. with my superwoman cape flying. 

I stepped into a coffee shop downtown and calmly sipped a latte out of a porcelain cup on a little porcelain plate, riding the sense of accomplishment I had after handling all that like a champion. (And admittedly avoiding being humbled by my inbox.)

Today, though, I overslept and woke up to my daughter’s hysteria outside my bedroom door as she shriek-tattled on her brother for copying her. I grumped my way through making breakfast & packing lunches, and then glimpsed at my work email on my phone and went into a frenzy seeing that the presentation my team and I had worked on late into the night needed more work and it was due to the client in 2 hours. I practically threw the kids at my partner, Gary, and we all piled into the car. I did the duck & roll out of the passenger door at the corner near my bus stop while he drove the kids the rest of the way to school. I arrived at work out of breath and beelined for the project manager before sending another round of feedback to the designer just in time.

I know better than to leave lunch packing for the morning, and I also know that cereal is an acceptable breakfast even though it doesn’t involve pacing in front of the stove. 

Time to institute routine again, and set realistic expectations of the morning. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, approaching the day with simplicity in mind.

Kiss me, I'm liberated

(A-Z Challenge: K *and* L) 

A few years ago I found myself needing to start over in some pretty major ways. My husband and I had just separated and everything was in flux, from the big overarching life things like finding my own apartment  and working out a schedule for the kids, to small things like realizing mid-egg cooking that I need a spatula.

Also, I was broke. I spent a lot of time at Goodwill and on Craigslist gathering what I needed piece by piece. Hand-me-down dishes from a friend's divorce, an old vacuum cleaner that had been sitting in another friend's storage shed for 3 years. A knife set and a set of bunk beds for the kids from Craigslist and this coffee mug from Goodwill. 

I latched on to this mug because I was trying hard to keep the fleeting moments of elation I felt about having a place that was mine. I was desperately trying to frame it as liberation in order to escape the heavy despair I was feeling underneath it all. It wasn't that my life was all shaken up, nope. This was liberation, baby!

Now that I've got a few years buffer from that period in my life, I periodically feel tempted to release that mug back into the Goodwill sea. But it's taken on a new meaning for me now, with new reminders:

1. Liberation is a state of mind. We can liberate ourselves from a situation but that doesn't mean we've liberated ourselves from the pattens that got us there in the first place. 

2. We never know how resourceful we are until the moment we need to find out.

3. Sometimes we need to act on instinct before we fully understand why. And that hindsight can take years. Act anyway.

4. We can create what we want, regardless of who's doing what. I wanted a feeling of a peaceful household. I was demanding someone close to me to just be predictable and peaceful, dammit, so I could experience peace. Remove that "someone else" and I had to step up and create that peace I wanted to experience. I needed to be alone to figure out how to do that internally before I could bring that into a household with more people. I'm still working on it, but from a different starting point. 

5. As long as our sense of freedom and liberation depends on another person behaving in a particular way, good luck to us, because they won't cooperate. They can't. They're who they are, not puppets in our personal life theater. (I hate it when I have to remember this, because it usually comes after a period of serious frustration. Still learning!)

I don't know if true liberation is achievable unless you're an enlightened being, but we can keep liberating ourselves in small ways, preferably over a good cup of coffee.