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Shoulding

Even though I know better, I’m doing it again. “Shoulding all over myself.” This phrase makes people laugh, but it is a very uncomfortable feeling. AI told me that “The phrase “shoulding all over yourself” was coined by Albert Ellis, a psychologist known for developing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), to describe the tendency to overwhelm oneself with “should” statements or expectations.”

I went away for a few days. I SHOULD have kept up with my writing, but I didn’t.

I’m trying to write this morning. I SHOULD have a story, an idea, a poem, or a good question, but my brain keeps rejecting every possibility.

I SHOULD have practiced the piano more in the last week. Actually, I didn’t practice.

I SHOULD organize all the things. I met someone in the Verizon store last week who said she had actually finished her Swedish Death Cleaning. Done. I was beyond impressed, but I SHOULDN’T compare.

The daily SHOULDs of cleaning, cooking, laundry, are ever present.

But what do I WANT when the SHOULDs stop shouting? I just want peace, time with my loved ones, maybe a walk outside, or a little needlework. That’s really enough.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

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Undone

I’ve become quite skilled and undoing my work. Stitches that were uneven, carefully picked out and restitched. Piano fingering I learned, unlearned and refingered for better execution. The garden I planted once, redesigned for less intense maintenance. The stories I’ve told myself for many years, now seen with different eyes, revised.

These undoings have taught me a lot. They are a mix of improvement, grace, and surrender.

I used to fear coming “undone.” Now it seems there’s no other way to move forward.

NOTE: This bit of writing came after an hour spent pulling out stitches in a sweater I thought I had just finished for my granddaughter. It’s ok. Most of it survived the undoing.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

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Expectations

I’ve been taking piano lessons for nearly two years after a long hiatus. It’s been a joy and a challenge that I may have written about before. Since I have a lesson on Monday, it’s on my mind again tonight.

I’ve always struggled to play fast passages. My teacher is so skilled in pedagogy and performance. She has taught me techniques and strategies that have helped me tremendously, but speed is still an obstacle for me. I wish I knew more of the brain science related to fast fingers. What does finger fluency look like? In reading, we called fluency work building to automaticity. How is that the same or different for playing the piano?

For now, I’m sticking with the old adage (attributed to the Navy Seals) that “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” Slow practice allows me to attend to accuracy, posture, relaxation, fingering, touch, dynamics, form, and structure. It also lets me try different solutions to problematic passages.

The other principle I’m trying to remember is that “it takes as long as it takes.” If it takes me until I’m 80 to play Chopin’s Prelude No. 3 at tempo or if I don’t ever achieve that goal, the joy is in the effort.

As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory”. 

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

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Respecting Sentences

Last night I pulled a book off my shelf just for the pleasure of reading about writing. You may know it, Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing. Right off the bat, I was pulled in by this counsel:

Know what each sentence says,
what it doesn’t say.
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence actually says.

Knowing what you’re trying to say is always important.
But knowing what you’ve actually said is crucial.

This got me to thinking about sentences. As teachers, we love to teach story. We often begin teaching writers about story hoping that through engagement with narrative they will grasp the idea that sentences tell their story. I don’t know about you, but often, I observed that the concept of sentence remained elusive to many young writers.

I’m not here to criticize or to fix anything, but to share my renewed respect for the sentence.

A book I read recently captivated me with its clarity and beauty of language at the sentence level. This is Happiness by Niall Williams was a book full of gorgeous sentences which I happily underlined. Here are a few examples of sentences that caught my attention:

Chapter 1 was one sentence: It had stopped raining.

p. 4 – Story was a kind of human binding. I can’t explain it any better than that. There was telling everywhere.

p. 19 – As a shield against despair she had decided early on to live with the expectation of doom, an inspired tactic, because, by expecting it, it never fully arrived.

p. 29 – I leaned back into the brown smells of his chest and there I left the world…Ganga [grandfather] understood that the ageless remedy for a boy whose mother was ill was to bring him to see the ocean.

p. 33 – It was where, when darkness fell, it fell absolutely, and when you went outside the wind sometimes drew apart the clouds and you stood in the revelation of so many stars you could not credit the wonder and felt smaller in body as your soul felt enormous.

To me, these are not fancy sentences. Instead, through careful use of everyday language we experience something fresh. Isn’t it such a miracle that our daily words can be arranged over and over in new ways? Someday, I hope to be able to craft a sentence that says just what I want it to say. A truth I know. A beauty I’ve witnessed. A door opening from me to you.

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

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Choose Something Like a Star

One of my all-time favorite poems is this one by Robert Frost. I love it because I learned it through music by Randall Thompson as a high school student many years ago. I remember how the conductor took us line-by-line through this poem and brought out meaning that has stayed with me.

In this time of uncertainty and great difficulty, this poem reminds me of the need to have something more “to stay our minds on” for when people are swayed too much by blame or by praise (false or otherwise). We need information (use language we can comprehend), but we also need to listen to what is being asked of us (it asks of us a certain height). There are so many voices of doom, as there have always been, but humans are also so capable of extraordinary courage, kindness, and strength. Perhaps this poem is calling us to look for what will help us rise above the gloom. Choosing something like a star helps me. I hope it helps you.

Frost
Robert Frost
1874-1963″Choose Something
Like a Star”
(1916) 
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud –
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says “I burn.”
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

https://www.blueridgejournal.com/poems/rf-star.htm

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.

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Decades

Earlier this month, I had what younger friends called “a milestone” birthday. As far as I knew, there were no plans for celebration other than the usual dinner and a movie (at home) with my husband. I was surprised when opening my front door to a “heart attack!” and humbled by the kind words left on my door.

That was followed by a Zoom call from my 5 children including a delivery of cake, flowers, and acai bowls for breakfast. My husband wrote a poem that rhymed for me, and my son and granddaughter also wrote poems for me. Who could ask for more? It turned out to be a very happy day for this septuagenarian.

Seven decades is a lot to process. As I was looking back and thinking about decades, I came up with this:

  • 1st decade childhood – Starting
  • 2nd decade teens – Surprising
  • 3rd decade twenties – Seeking
  • 4th decade thirties – Struggling
  • 5th decade forties – Striving
  • 6th decade fifties – Succeeding
  • 7th decade sixties – Synthesizing
  • 8th decade seventies – Savoring

I’m not committing to this list yet, but it does give a framework for some of my life experiences. For now, I think I like this season of savoring.

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Name that Tree

It never ceases to amaze me that learning the name of something suddenly brings awareness of the presence of that thing all around me. It begs the question, why have I never noticed it before I knew its name?

I was visiting my daughter in Harrisonburg, VA and we were at a park with her children. I noticed the lovely shape of a very tall tree and the interesting branching pattern it had. I loved how so many branches broke free from the trunk at close intervals, and how all the branches seemed to be reaching up, raising their arms together. I also noticed how beautifully symmetrical it was, but I didn’t know it’s name. After some research, I learned that it was called a Dawn Redwood. What a lovely name. Redwoods in Virginia! You can learn more about them here. I spent some time just enjoying the tree until grandchildren called, “Grandma, watch me!”

Later, while driving through my home neighborhood, I spotted the same beautiful shape and wondered how I had never noticed it before in the 50+ years I’ve lived here. Then, driving to my piano lesson, there was another, so tall and majestic! And again, driving to my sister’s, I spotted another. They’ve been all around me forever, but I hadn’t been aware. Now, when I see these dawn redwoods, I feel that they are my secret trees. Now they are mine because I know their name. There’s a metaphor here, I’m sure, but I’ll let you ponder that for yourself.

In winter, the silhouette of the dawn redwood is a gently rounded cone that looks soft next to the craggy sycamores, maples, and oaks. Somehow, I find its symmetry soothing on these cold January days.

Dawn Redwood at dusk, Vienna, VA 1/28/25
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Thoughts after Funerals

In the past two weeks, I have attended the funerals of two women. One was 92 when she passed, the other 94. In both cases family members said, “She was ready.” Both women had full lives from the stories that were shared. But the common thread in these funerals was that these women loved people. They valued friendship. They helped people stay in touch with one another. Your age didn’t matter. They showed interest in the lives of others and cared for others. As I reflected, I wonder how I might show others that same kind of friendship.

Roberta made friends wherever she went. I remember she always greeted me as if I were just the person she wanted to see. I always felt good, even lifted up, after interactions with Roberta. She loved to eat at Chick-fil-A and went there most Thursdays with her daughters or friends. The Thursday after her death our local Chick-fil-A baked 92 chocolate chip cookies and gave them out for free to honor Roberta. Her cheerful kindness had an impact wherever she was.

Sometimes, I wonder if we are losing the value of friendship. Are we lulled into using technology to give us the illusion of connection? We have become a very self-centered society, but today, I’m reminded that there are people, like Roberta, who carry on with living in friendly ways that bless others. In the ordinary daily-ness of their lives, they stop to greet you, look you in the eye with love, and ask, “How are you, dear?”

“There are three things that grow more precious with age; old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.” — Henry Ford

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.
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AI Assistant

So far, I’ve tried to just listen to the conversations about AI. It hasn’t yet affected me directly (as least not that I’m aware of) in my teaching or personal life. But as I write that, it doesn’t feel true. If I use social media, I guess I am affected by AI through every algorithm used to get me to buy whatever AI thinks I might be interested in.

At the beginning of this month’s SOL challenge, I noticed that the sidebar of my WordPress page had a new button. Where I choose tags and categories there is now a button called “AI Assistant.” Day 1 of the challenge, I wrote my piece and thought, “What the heck? Let’s see what it says.” When I read the generated feedback, I got some nice compliments and some suggestions to draw more readers.

Then I had a decision to make. Did I want to follow its advice? Should I go back and add those subheadings it suggested? Should I add more specific examples? AI was telling me things that I’ve taught my students in the past, so why was I feeling resistance. I guess that bit of human nature that says, “You can’t tell ME what to do” was alive and well.

That said, every time I’ve written this month, I haven’t been able to resist tapping that button to see if AI still likes me and my writing. Will it become another dopamine hit of potential addiction?

Thank you to all who make this writing space
a place of safety, support, and beauty.