Work or play?

But what is work and what is not work?

Is it work to dig,

to carpenter,

to plant trees, to fell trees,

to ride,

to fish, to hunt,

to feed chickens,

to play the piano,

to take photographs,

to build a house,

to cook, to sew, to trim hats,

to mend motor bicycles?

All of these things are work to somebody,

and all of them are play to somebody. 

There are in fact very few activities

which cannot be classed either as work or play

according as you choose to regard them.

-- George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier

...

My thanks to Gretchen Rubin for bringing this
and so many other cool quotes to my attention.

Remembering my dad

I'm remembering my dad today.

Twenty years it has been since he left this planet.

Much has happened in those 20 years. 

Things have changed - in my life and in that mile we called home.

When we decided to sell the tree farm a few years ago, one of the most difficult things for me was the fact that I was the third generation to own that property. We bought it from my dad who bought it from his dad. Even to this day and even though I am convinced it was the right decision, that fact still brings a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye.

So many memories of that place - both before we bought it from him and after - some of which I've shared before.

One event stands out in my memory. It was our first year of marriage and we were renting the old farmhouse from my grandpa. A group of teens came up "from the city" for a weekend retreat. They slept in the old barn and ate in the old house and my dad took them on a phenomenal hayride through "the west forty" - the very property which would later become Hidden Hollows Tree Farm. At that point, however, we had no clue that we would ever own it nor how many amazing memories of other phenomenal events would eventually happen on those acres.

I remember his old railroad conductor hat. I think he liked trains and he would wear that railroad hat when he was hosting one of his famous hayrides. 

Speaking of hats, I also remember another one - his "combining hat" that he always wore for harvesting grain. I thought it was a combine hat and only later realized it was a pith helmet like you see in safari pictures from Africa. Nevertheless to me it was his combine hat.

And THAT brings back other memories like the exciting purchase of the big John Deere self-propelled combine. 

Now that was a big machine. Big enough that an addition was required on the barn to provide a place (and a doorway!) high enough to store it. 

I also remember having my dad as my boss. I learned lots of things from working for him - like the importance of taking good care of your equipment and of putting things away where they belong. Those lessons stand me in good stead to this day.

My husband has his own memories - memories of also having my dad as a boss for one summer and memories from working on the west forty before it was ours - and even before we were married. Memories of driving the old John Deere "D" tractor to work up those fields swirling around the hidden hollows. I guess that was his initiation to the family and to the place. Quite likely that was when the seed was planted in his mind that we might even live there some day.

And so we did. We bought the land and he built a house and then a few years later we got the bright idea to plant Christmas trees. We had the audacity to ask my dad to help us plant them. I call it audacious because decades earlier he had helped his dad clear the trees from this land to make it tillable - so that Grandpa Frank could farm it and then Grandpa Lee after him. 

So here we were - planting trees in the cleared fields where he and his dad had worked so hard to get rid of the trees. And yes, he graciously helped us by bringing his gray Ferguson tractor to pull the tree planter - and some years the little Ford tractor.

And then years later when those seedlings had grown enough to be Christmas trees, he came again to help - this time driving an old John Deere tractor and giving hay rides to the customers. He was great for business - making people feel welcome and giving them a good time. He was a great host - wearing his old train conductor hat yet again.

Memories of my dad driving tractors and planting life into the good earth are quite significant to me because that combination was the very last thing he was doing on that day twenty years ago today.

The Mexican fisherman

A few days ago I wrote about the poverty and difficult circumstances that many Dominicans face.

Today I happened to remember this story.*
One of my favorite stories ever. 

Perspective
Attitude
Priorities
Contentment
...

A boat docked in a tiny Mexican village.  An American tourist complimented the Mexican fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.

"Not very long," answered the Mexican.

"But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the American.

The Mexican explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.

The American asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

"I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take a siesta with my wife.  In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs . . .I have a full life."

The American interrupted, "I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help you! You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat.

With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers.   Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even New York City!  From there you can direct your huge enterprise."

"How long would that take?" asked the Mexican.

"Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the American.

"And after that?"

"Afterwards? That's when it gets really interesting," answered the American, laughing.

"When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"

"Millions? Really?"  And after that?"

"After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take a siesta with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."

...

* I have no idea where this story originated. It guess it is public domain by now - and lots of people have written about it all across the internet.

Time to write

Here I am - living on a tropical island.

The perfect place to write.

Right?

Many writers would give an arm and a leg for this privilege. 

To spend the winter in a little village at the end of the road on a remote peninsula... Where the highway stops at the sea...
Sounds so idyllic.

And it is a wonderful place to write. A blessing for which I am terribly grateful.

However, I was smart enough to know ahead of time that living here would be no guarantee that I would get lots of things written. I know myself pretty well. I know that I tend to bite off more than I can chew. That I always seem to imagine that I will accomplish far more than I can actually pull off.

I also knew enough about living in this country to know that there is not as much time to do the things you might think you’ll be able to do. There are a couple obvious reasons for that.

First, the heat and humidity sap the strength right out of me. I move more slowly. Indeed, I often notice that I am dragging myself up the stairs to our little studio apartment. Sometimes it’s had to find the energy to do anything - let alone to discipline myself to work hard.

Secondly, the stuff of life just takes so much work here. We learned that many years ago. Yes, I know what Gershwin wrote about summertime and the livin’ is easy. But I also remember when we lived in this country 26 years ago that we quickly learned that just living is a whole lot of hard work. Everything takes longer. Shopping, cooking, cleaning up. Culture stress slows me down and wears me out. 

So there doesn’t turn out to be unlimited amounts of time to write - nor the energy to write when you do have time.

Oh, yes, there's another reason...  I also wanted to be somewhat free to make the most of every opportunity that comes with living in a place like this. I didn’t want to keep myself hidden away and miss out on everything outside our walls. In other words, I knew that I would want to spend time out there experiencing the sights and sounds and tastes and smells - even if it meant that I wouldn’t get to write as much as I might hope. 

I keep reminding myself that John Steinbeck didn’t write a single page of his book while on his actual trip across America. He just experienced it in the moment - and then wrote the book “Travels with Charlie” later. After the fact. I take comfort in that.

But still I hoped that I would be able to do a reasonable amount of writing. I planned to write regular blog posts while here in this great setting.  I had set some small goals for working on one of my NaNo books. 

At the same time I knew I would need to be patient with myself. To not beat myself up if I wasn’t prolific enough or diligent enough.  

…

So here we are. 

Half-way through our time here. 

How am I doing anyway?

...

Yes, I am writing. Cranking out lots of words and actually publishing some of them. As is rather “normal” for me (no matter where we live!) I am quite sporadic in the things that I actually produce.  I think I posted 13 times in January and only once so far in February. Like I said, that is fairly normal for me.

And yes, I have reached the first of my NaNo goals!

For once it would seem that I may have set some pretty reasonable expectations of myself for my writing output during this season.

And yes, there have times when I can’t seem to get in gear. But still I write. Still I crank out the words - and at least some of them end up being used.

…

Yes, living here takes much energy - and lots of time.

AND yes, there are those cultural opportunities that I choose to give high priority.

For example, I need to shut down my computer right now so I can get to my tutoring session.

Because you see, the seemingly shy girl who did my $11 pedi at the tiny little salon by the French bakery last week found the courage to ask me if I would teach her English a couple days a week. I was not about to turn down that opportunity. So here I go…

There will be time to write later.

My work? What do I do?

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with work. With my job. Only a few of my jobs have been well-defined or easy to explain. They were the ones with specific set hours, an easily understood title and/or job description. The ones with an actual paycheck every two weeks.

The rest of my jobs have been more vague. Less specific.  

“You do what?” 

“Do you get paid for that?”

"What exactly is it that you do?” 

Most moms in America have had some encounter with the “working mom vs. stay-at-home mom” debate. There has been more than enough confusion and criticism swirling around that topic. I’ve been in the middle of it - both as the subject of conversation and as internal battle within myself. I noticed that once I added foster mom to my list of responsibilities, I felt like I had a little more cred - because maybe that seemed more like work than just being a “regular” mom, but it still was easy to argue with myself as to whether being a mom was a real job or not. 

And then there was the whole world of volunteer ministry. Lots of people do volunteer work and lots of people do ministry without pay. And that’s what I did for many years. Once again I dealt with the internal conflict whether it was a real job or not.

When it came to organizing my own time schedule and evaluating my personal dreams and goals, I could confidently claim this “ministry” as my work. But when others asked what I “do” I struggled to articulate it.

In recent years, I’ve turned another corner and have found the courage to call myself a writer. To declare that writing is my work. It is what I “do” now. Once again, there is no clock to punch, no specific hours to be on-duty, no job description and no paycheck, but hey, I’m used to that.

...

Enter retirement. Retired people don’t work anymore. They don’t have a job. They just sit around with time on their hands. Right? They have to find hobbies to fill their time and evidently some of them still get bored. 

Nope. Not true for me. I can’t imagine feeling bored. I haven't had to get used to a new schedule because things haven’t changed much for me. Here I was just getting used to this thing of being a writer and carving out a writing schedule. I still don’t seem to be able to find enough hours in the day to keep up with my writing projects. And now that hubby is actually retired, I find myself wanting to join him in at least some of his adventures! But then I have even less time to write. I pretty much always feel behind with my work schedule, but then that is nothing new. I have always been a starter and a dabbler and not such a great finisher. 

But it works. It works pretty well, in fact. I’m grateful to have meaningful work that I love. To be passionate about one's job is a privilege. I’m also grateful to have a lifestyle that allows me to continue my work. The necessities for my job are fairly minimal. A small space, a table and chair, my computer, electrical power and internet access - and I’m all set. Or I can be portable - taking my computer along to restaurants for free WiFi. I can also write with just pen and paper. Duh. What a novel idea!

The only thing left to figure out is my work schedule. What hours do I work? Yes, it's true that some of those times when I’m sitting at my computer, I’m NOT writing. Imagine that! Sometimes I’m chatting with a friend. Sometimes I’m wasting time surfing the web. And sometimes I’m even playing Solitaire. *gasp* 

My work schedule is fluid. Not rigid in any way. Some weeks the daily schedule is predictable, but many weeks it is not. And that’s okay. I’m adjusting to that idea. 

In fact, I am downright loving it.

It’s not just okay; 

it is wonderful.

I can only do what I can do

Sometimes I notice that I am disappointed with myself.  This is one of those times - when I really wish that I had been able to keep up a better pace of blogging.  But I just haven't been able to do all that I wanted to.  I am pleased that I have kept a fairly consistent writing routine - even cranking out 60,000 words in November for the NaNoWriMo challenge!!!  However not many of those words are ready to publish.  I can and will choose to accept the reality and be patient with myself. 

I am really good at making excuses and it is sometimes hard to know whether that's what I'm doing or if this really is an unusually busy time.  Yep, it is.  It's not simply that I feel busy nor that I use that feeling to excuse my neglect of important stuff.  Nope, this time I am smack dab in the middle of an important life transition and am scrambling to keep up - so some things simply must take a back seat for another couple weeks. 

So what in the world is so all-fired important?  Only that we are wrapping up 40+ years of living here on this farm and stepping into a future of adventure and uncertainty.  We are taking another huge step of downsizing and my focus must be on sorting and pitching and storing and packing.  We had thought we had a month or two for this step, but things have fallen into place sooner than expected - so we suddenly have only a couple weeks to get everything done.  Yikes.

Gotta' find a balance.  On one hand, I simply must push myself to my limits in order to meet the deadlines in this race against time.  On the other hand, I choose to carve out special moments to slow down and cherish the joy of this wonderful season. 

...

When I can't make my fingers function in the near-zero temps of the storage sheds, I certainly wish I had done things differently - namely SOONER!!!  But it is what it is.  We will do what we have to do and what we can do.  That's the big thing I'm learning:  I can only do what I can do.  Oh, so profound.  Sometimes that means that I have to put a box BACK into storage that I had hoped to finish; that can make me feel defeated and discouraged.  But I can only do what I can do.

So instead of beating myself up for not posting here more often, I can be okay with my choices and know that I am doing what I can do.