Reflections on spending time

What would you do if you had an abundance of time?  I know; it’s a ridiculous question.  Since when will any of us have more time on our hands than we know what to do with?  Time has always been the most elusive and valuable asset for me.  No matter how much I tried to organize, I would always come up short on time.  I was famously known, or maybe infamously known, by my friends and family for double booking my schedule.  I somehow thought that if I tried hard enough, time would magically be created and I could “fit it all in.”  It never worked out that way.  As William Penn once said, “Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”

When we moved from Massachusetts to Alabama, we were pretty busy the first few months setting up the house, spending time with Emmett’s daughters, seeing/meeting Emmett’s old friends, visiting with family, finding furniture, best places to shop, exploring the area, working part time jobs, interviewing for full-time jobs and the usual household chores.  Our days were filled up quickly.  I was not as busy as I had once been, but I was still fairly active on a daily basis.

Now, the house is (for the most part) set up.  All our boxes are unpacked and pictures hung.  We have most of the furniture we need and the major repairs have been made.  We have Kiera (Emmett’s oldest daughter) living with us full time and Kylie (the younger daughter) visits on a regular basis.  We have established Sunday cookouts so that family and friends can catch up with us as they like.  Emmett has found a full-time job as a GM for Baumhower’s (an Alabama restaurant chain) and is currently in full-time training so that he can take over his own store.  My work schedule is only a handful of hours a week.

So, I find myself with the long-desired abundance of time.  Let me tell you there is only so much Face Booking one can do without feeling like a creeper.  I check my Yahoo inbox about 20 times a day.  I go on job sites – rereading the same postings time and time again.  My house is cleaner than I had ever thought possible (though honestly it will never be impeccable – that’s just not me).  I have planted a garden; learned to use a weed whacker (or is it a weed eater?  I suppose there’s a difference but I don’t really know what it is).   I have even organized my bills and created a system for saving our receipts; things I had always said I would do.  I’m eyeballing my photo albums now.  There truly will be too much time (if that is possible!) if ever I get to that looming project.

I’ve never had this much availability.  Not that I’m complaining (or bragging) mind you.  It is the circumstances of moving from one state to another and setting up a whole new life, which has created all of this free time. Think about it.  If you were to remove your full time job and 90% of your social/family obligations, wouldn’t you have an abundance of time?

If you had free time how would you spend it?  Would you be creative and do things like paint or write?  Would you be practical and reorganize your bills?  Would you be motivated and finally take that time to exercise and get fit? Would you dip into that pile of unread books beside your bed? The great thing is that you would have time to think of things to do with your time!

Over the last few years, due to the sluggish economy, many people have found themselves laid off from work, thus creating a time void that work once filled.  I am sure they are not all sitting around watching TV and eating bonbons.   I am hopeful that many of these people are using this new found abundance of time to become entrepreneurial and finally make their dreams a reality.  History shows that during times of economic hardship people become creative.  The Great Depression saw the inventions of the electric razor, the car radio, the supermarket, the cotton tampon, the chocolate chip cookie (invented at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts!), the Laundromat (or the washateria, as it was originally known), Monopoly and the first Xerox copier.  It is said that necessity is the mother of invention.  I would like to add that father time is the other parent of invention.  Personally, I can’t wait to see what inventions are born from this combo.

What I’ve learned about time is that you will always make time for the things that are truly important to you.  If you spend your time watching TV and eating bonbons then, then that is your choice.  If that is what gives you pleasure, who am I to judge?  If you get out there and light the world on fire with your innovations, then good for you. As for me and how I spend my time, I have a blog to write, a family to look after, a career to reinvent, friendships to maintain and adventures to begin.  That is what is important to me.

I leave you with the words of the great innovator Steve Jobs who once said this about time:  “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions draw out your own inner voice.  And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary.”

My Oldest Friend... the Ocean

A typical Cape Cod beach

“The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” --Jacques Cousteau

Lately, I have been dreaming of the ocean nearly every night.  My dreams are vivid. I see lighthouses and shining lights on the shore.  I even dream of the briny scent and can feel the wet sand squishing between my toes in my dreams.  It is physical.  It’s as though I am visiting an old and dear friend.  When I awake, I am simultaneously happy and sad; happy to have had such a glorious night of dreaming and sad that the night didn’t last longer.

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long.  If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night.  ~Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

 I grew up around the ocean.  It has always been a part of my life… the backdrop for everything else.   It has been the friend that is always there, providing endless entertainment, bountiful meals and steadfast comfort.  When I moved to Montgomery, I knew I would miss my friends and family but I didn’t count on how much I would miss the sun coming over the early morning horizon, the sound of the waves lapping at the shore, the scent of the brine and the moon casting a golden path across the water.  It is a stark reality for me that this part of my life is not so readily available to me.  A void has been created.

As a child, the beach was my playground.  In the winter, my sisters and I would sled down the snow covered bluffs, skidding to a stop on the sandy beach.  We would drag our sleds back up the 100+ rickety wooden steps and breathlessly pile back onto the sled (sometimes three of us at a time!) and fly back down.   We usually did this until eventually Mrs. MacGregor would come out of her house and yell at us that we were eroding the bluff.  We were kids; what did we know/care about erosion?  It was just pure, unadulterated fun for us.

In the summer, my mom would send us out of the house in the mornings and tell us to stay outside until dinner.  My sisters and I would grab a towel, something cold to drink, and a book and “trudge” 100 yards to the beach.  We would spend all day swimming, walking from one rocky point to another, looking for sea glass, shells, starfish, sand dollars, driftwood… all forms of beach treasure.  We loved to walk to Manomet Point looking for the seals that sun themselves on the rocks.  We would stop along the way to dig up the red clay from the bluffs, spackling ourselves from head to toe, all the while espousing the healing and beauty qualities of the minerals in the clay, not caring one bit how wild we looked.   At dinner time, we would come back up to the house, sandy from head to toe, sunburned, happy and hungry.   

Each summer, for probably seventy years, my family has traveled from all over the United States, Japan, and England, to meet up in Woods Hole.  Some come earlier in the season and some come later, but eventually, nearly everyone makes it to the tiny seaside town.   We are fortunate enough that some relatives (way back when) obtained ocean front property, including a small, stony but delightful private beach.   Our summer days are spent lounging on the wooden deck, we call the bandstand.  The bandstand overlooks the bay, which provides a marvelous vignette.  Some relatives lounge on their Adirondack chairs and chit chat about all nature of subjects.   Some of us catch up on reading; some swim from the dock to Toad Rock (this has become a traditional annual swim) or to the wooden float that beckons some 50 feet off the end of the dock; some lay towels at the end of the dock and sun quietly, soaking in the tranquility that the ocean provides. 

Every Sunday at 6:00 p.m., rain or shine, the clan gathers on my cousins’ large lawn (which overlooks the ocean) and we cookout.  Sometimes five people show up and sometimes forty people show up, but someone always shows up.   This family gathering requires no invitations; the ocean is our gracious host and we are always all welcome.

My friends and me on Duxbury Beach... a day of antics

As an adult, my beach days are different from those of when I was a kid.  Sunny Saturdays are the best.  All of my girlfriends start to plan for the coming weekend around Wednesday.  Any hint of a rainy weekend will send us into a group depression.  However, should it be a sunny weekend, it is game on.  We all rise early in the morning and pack our coolers full of ice, any manner of drinks and snacks.  Those of us without beach stickers (you would only not have a beach sticker if you don’t have a four wheel drive vehicle!)  coordinate with those who have beach stickers and we drive out to Plymouth Beach or Duxbury Beach for a fantastic, relaxing but social beach day.  A day on the beach beats any night in a bar hands down.

I have always harvested from the ocean, clamming with my friends and family, gathering succulent crabs, picking mussels and periwinkles off of the seaweed covered rocks.  The ocean was the best kind of garden; it is self-sustaining, bountiful and full of surprises.  We never knew what we would find along the shores.  Some days we would find a rock covered with mussels, fighting with the barnacles for space; other days, we would find crabs.  Even if we couldn’t find mussels or crabs, inevitably there were the tiny, but delicious, periwinkles we could pluck up and bring home.  Periwinkles were our version of escargot… boil them up and serve them with garlic and butter, pull them out of their shells with pins.  Tiny treats… what could be tastier?

Each year, for years now, my sister Kalliope and/or my friend Laura have bought shellfish permits.  What a wonderful  joy to walk over the clamming flats in bare feet, feeling for the tell-tale lumps beneath our toes and then digging like mad for the delicious treasures.  

One of my fondest memories is clamming all day with Kalliope and my niece Olivia, then going back to Kalliope’s house and cooking clams and linguine (with leeks, white wine and butter).  The smell was outrageously enticing.  The flavor was pure Heaven.  We laid a picnic blanket out on her sunny deck and ate until we couldn’t move.  It was glorious.

Laura and I have clammed many a time… spending hours digging away side by side, walking and talking.  How the time flies when you are having fun.  We would always bring the clams back to her house, shuck them, squeeze a little lemon on them, add a dollop of cocktail sauce and suck them back.  There is no match for the flavor of the sea… briny and crisp and fresh. 

 I have celebrated nearly every 4^th of July with a bonfire, friends and family on the beach.  The day of July 3^rd, most of the abled bodies in our neighborhood, gather up armfuls of kindling at the top of the 100+ steps leading down to the beach, walk carefully down the stairs and pile the wood onto the growing mound that will eventually become a magnificent bonfire.  Waiting for the sun to go down and the fire to be lit, is always excruciating.   It is like watching water boil… it seems to only happen if you look away.  Finally, though, around 9:00 p.m., someone throws gasoline on to the giant wood pile, lights a match and the bonfire flares up.  It is so large, that it looks as though the orange flames are licking at the stars.  All the neighbors gather around, watching the bonfire, dodging sparks, hot ashes and smoke.  The annual bonfire is the only time of the year, where everyone in the neighborhood reconnects.  Every year I have ended up speaking to someone who I had not talked to for years before.  We may not have much in common but we do have our love for the beach and fondness for the bonfire.   We watch the fireworks exploding over the ocean, illuminating the night sky.  From one rocky point to another, there are bonfires every several hundred feet that other neighborhoods have built.  It is a community tradition that brings everyone together.  There is no party room or setting that can compare to the beach.

The ocean has always been a haven for me as well.  There have been times in my life when I have been sad or needed some solace.  The ocean has always been a place where I could go to (my happy place if you will). It is a place where I could walk the shores or sit on a rock and stare out at the horizon and let my mind soak in the beauty and wonder.  Eventually, my thoughts calm and some perspective gained.  Whether the ocean is calm or turbulent, it has always been there, like a true friend, helping me to get through those less-than-perfect moments in life.  The ocean has been my nature's therapy.

“The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea.” --Isak Dinesen

In the meantime, I search in my new home state for a place where I can find my “ocean.”  I’ve taken to gardening in my backyard and hosting our own Sunday cookouts for our friends and family here.  I don’t think that these will ever take the place of the ocean for me (nothing could) but they are joys for me. 

There are mountain people and there are ocean people.  I have always known that no matter how beautiful and majestic the mountains are (and they are!), the ocean holds a special place in my heart.  Like an old friend, I may be geographically distant, but the ocean will always be there, waiting loyally for my return.  Until I can return, it is heartening to know that each night there is another opportunity to dream.

Breaking up: From Talking to Tweeting

The other day my friend "Jane"mentioned that a mutual friend "Don" (who she had been seeing) had broken off with her, via text, in favor of an old girlfriend.  My first thoughts contained words that are really not fit for print (in this venue anyway) but honestly, this is not the first time I’ve heard of this, nor I am sure, will it be the last.  As dismayed as I am by this heartless way of dismissing someone who has been at least important enough to swap bodily fluids with, it did bring to my attention the idea breaking ups and how the awkward (at best) situation has evolved in just my lifetime.

My personal history of dating, the Age I refer to as YES (young, experimental and single) lasted almost exactly twenty years.  I had my fair share of breakup scenarios.  Below are just a few examples that come to mind:

1.       In person is probably the oldest form of breaking up with someone (unless cave people used drawings to signify their intent).  In person, has always been the classiest (in my opinion) way to breakup with someone but has recently become a bit old fashioned what with all of the technology at our finger tips.  Why suffer the mortification, risking tears and a public scene when merely sitting at your computer and sending off a message might achieve the same goal?  How someone might breakup in person varies, of course.   There are several ways I can think of:

a)      The productive conversation.  The most grown up and decent way to dump someone.  The productive conversation involves being realistic, not unkind and not leaving the door open with “we should get together sometime.”  True closure.  This usually takes two mature people.  In my experience, this is a fairly uncommon practice

b)      The sprawling conversation.  You know the kind… a lot of rehashing history and back peddling are involved… as are tears.  A common phrase used in this particular method is “its not you; It’s me.”   It is painful but closure can be achieved.

c)       The screamfest which manifests when someone has done something so egregious (i.e. catching the person cheating red handed) that neither of the previously mentioned approaches are a consideration.  I once threw a beer in the face of someone (at a bar) who drunkenly admitted he cheated on me.  At the time, the bonus of this was that it was February in Boston and he didn’t have a coat with him.  Now, of course, I know he probably deserved it but wish I had just turned around and left, with him knowing I was the classier of the two of us.

2.       The “Dear John/Jane” Letter.   Before the advent of electricity and all of the technology that now allows us to breakup with someone via the click of a button, the Dear John/Jane letter was THE way to dump someone – especially if your guy was unlucky enough to be at war.  Nowadays I imagine that this mode of breakup has essentially gone out of style.  It may be primarily used by kids still in grade school.  My personal Dear Artemis letter was in the form of a note being passed hand to hand by classmates in my senior English class.  You know that every kid along the way read the note, adding humiliation to the mix. 

3.       The disappearing act.  This particular maneuver has been achieved in a number of ways. 

a)      The most common is when the guy never calls again.  You think he will call; you have no indication that he won’t and then he just doesn’t.  Back in the days before cell phones, it was particularly difficult, because if you liked the guy, you were sort of made a prisoner in your own home because God forbid you miss his call because you had to run to the store for an emergency toilet paper run or something.  These days, we have cell phones which make us seem a little less desperate (if only to ourselves).

b)      I’ve also been stood up a few times… okay, maybe more than a few times.  Most of us have experienced the humiliating stand up.  We agree to meet, spruce up nicely, go to the predetermined location and then wait… and wait… and wait.  They never show up and you are forced to make some completely lame excuse to the bartender or waiter about how you must have got the date or time wrong.  I’ve actually received a few pity drinks that way (and actually a date as well!).

c)       My favorite in the “disappearing act” category is leaving the country without telling me.  Yes, it’s happened… at least twice (not at the same time!).  Both men were foreign; so in fairness, they were returning to their mother countries, however, neither of them gave me any indication that they would be leaving anytime soon.  This particular breakup stung a bit because it seemed so premeditated.  There are a lot of logistics to moving, never mind moving out of the country, and yet neither "man" ever let on that they were relocating.   Both just carried on as usual and then suddenly there were no calls and some sorry roommate was answering their door telling me that Ian or Paddy had moved “back home.”

4.       The telephone call.  Using the telephone to breakup with someone, rather than face-to-face has, I’m guessing, been used since about ten minutes after Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone… maybe even by him.  Personally, I’ve been dumped via telephone more than any other way.

5.       The email.   I started using email regularly in 1994 while I worked at MIT.  I remember shortly after learning how to use it, I got my first breakup via email.  I was outraged!  How dare the guy email me instead of breakup with me in person or via telephone (the only two acceptable forms of communicating such personal news as far as I was then concerned).  Of course, two years later, it was me using email to send the bad news to a guy I was seeing.

Now that I am married, the likelihood of me being broken with via the disappearing act, the telephone call or the email, is highly unlikely, although I suppose not impossible.  Supposedly Britney Spears broke up with Kevin Federline via a text.   I’d like to give my husband Emmett more credit than that though should we ever be unlucky enough to face a breakup.  It’s more likely one of us would try the “it’s not you, it me,” line in a productive conversation.

Since getting married, I’ve heard dating nightmare stories from friends and family about people casually  breaking up in the most callous and removed ways possible.  Two such ways are:

6.       The text.   I imagine those who breakup via text normally conduct their relationship primarily over text (i.e. sexting).  I don’t know if that is true, it just seems to make sense.  Why else would someone just text you a breakup message when you can email, write a letter, disappear or call?  This seems like a very emotionally removed (and immature) way to breakup with someone…. Write a text and send the breakup message out into the universe.  Problem solved.  No conversation necessary.

7.       The Facebook/Twitter.  The meanest/most ruthless/most public way of dumping someone.  This way of breaking up has been written about ad-nauseam recently (Wired magazine has even published a “how to” article on it!).  People are posting  breakup notices on Facebook or alerting people to their intent by updating their profile to indicate that they are no longer in a relationship with so and so.  Facebook may be slightly less offensive than Twitter… but that would depend on how efficiently someone used their 140 character limit.

I have to wonder with Facebook and Twitter becoming a more common way to dump people, what will be next?  Will there be (or maybe there is already?) a smart phone application where you just hit a button and the dumpee is notified via a pop up that they are officially single once again?

Everyone knows that breaking up is hard to do; it is unbelievably awkward (but sometimes necessary) to have to tell someone that they are not welcome in your life any longer.  I do believe how you decide to breakup with someone is a testament to how mature and unselfish you are.  If you are able to put your own discomfort aside and productively discuss the situation, it speaks volumes to the kind of person you are.  If you decide to Twitter someone out of your life, well then that also speaks volumes (to everyone who follows you!) about what kind of an insensitive jackass you are.  The question is, when it comes to breakups are you a talker or a Twitterer?

Postscript:  Today that guy Don who broke up with my friend Jane told me that the relationship he had foresaken Jane for had fallen apart and he now felt bad about the way he had text-dumped her.  Ironic, no?