Going To Seed

Barbara: Hey everyone! I’m back! And because there’s so much I want to say to you, I’ve decided to not just focus on one single “topic of discussion” today, but to ramble a bit in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way. You guys can pick which of my ramblings you want to speak to in the comments section below.

First of all, I just LOVE you all for your wonderful, ingenious, and thoughtful musings last week on the blog. I mean, I always love the stuff you say, but there’s something truly special (as I discovered) about being sequestered in an airport for 3 hours with nothing to do but troll the ‘net and realizing (as I did) that there’s a week’s worth of loveliness on the blog that could entertain me, and then immersing myself in this—our—world and reading every post again and then every comment. Here’s what amazed me: how this community of relatively like-minded friends could also have such surprising and disparate views and ideals and dreams of the world. I mean, I know this is true in fact, but to read the details of individual experience as they play out, one commenter at a time, is really refreshing.

Okay, and here’s the other thing that really amazed me—and this thought might even be worthy of a whole post on its own—is the responses in the 5 Crazy Things posts. Did you notice that so many of you had alternate lives choices that ran the gamut from introvert to extrovert? It seemed to me as if we were all channeling that yin/yang thing within us that wants (and maybe needs) to represent both sides of reality: the quiet, cerebral thinker (or horse whisperer or writer or scientist) to the flamboyant noisemaker (or actor, or actor’s friend (that one made me laugh), or stand-up comic, or Nathan Fillion girlfriend). I think for all of us, one type or the other probably predominates, but still most of us could at least imagine—and maybe covet—an “opposite” kind of life.

And last and possibly not least, I come to the title of this post. “Going To Seed” is a play on a recent theme in many discussions I’ve been having lately about “Going Fallow”. Have we talked about this here before—I can’t remember??? A number of people in my life have brought up the notion that for each of us, a period of fallow (as in the farmer’s field “fallow” where they let their fields run wild—without purpose—for a few years to regenerate nutrients in the soil) is extremely important and invaluable. This time of not thinking, not creating, not planning, conceiving, or seeing-through, allows us to come back to our work later with much more power.

Well, as you know, I was gone for my holiday for the last week and this, if there ever was  perfect time, was the perfect time for going fallow. After all, I had spotty internet and Deb had offered to be here full time on the blog. I couldn’t really Facebook or email, certainly couldn’t phone. I had a real chance to fully wallow in the fallow. But I was also really keyed up to do some revisions on a novel I’m working on (it’s a psychological thriller that I need to get just right before I send it out in the hopes of landing an agent and/or publisher).

But if I’m revising a novel, I’m not really going fallow, am I? And hence, we come to my play on analogies: I decided in the end to “go to seed”. I would let everything else go and I would see if the peaceful environment and lack of responsibility would provide me a clean slate to (let the buds that have blossomed for me keep growing and) do those final tweaks. I mean, no meals to cook, no groceries to buy, no house to clean, no laundry to do, no phones to answer, no auditions to prepare, no computer to cater to. Phil was busy most mornings till early afternoon (pursuing his passion: diving):

... and I could do as I would with my time:

So here’s what happened. I did grow my flowers, but I did it in as gentle and free way as I could. I’d eat a very early breakfast with Phil and then go to a quiet pavilion in the beautiful gardens with a cup of tea and my paper manuscript. I would read and tweak until I got too hot and then I’d swim and think. As I bobbed in the water, soaking up the sun, amazing insights would come to me. I’d let them “go to seed” and waft around me. I would admire or dismiss them. Later, I would incorporate some of these discoveries into my story. It wasn’t work at all. Believe it or not.

So, yup, I think that’s it for my ramblings (and hopeless analogies). Hope you can make some sense of this—holiday brain is sure to be playing a part in what I have (or don’t have) to say!

Working Easy

Barbara: You know that Deb and I have often attributed the success of our relationships to the fact that we don’t take anything for granted and that, despite our loving bonds, we recognize that we have to work hard to keep those relationships growing and stimulated and close.

But what if you also have to remember to “work easy”??? I ask the question, but I know for a fact that we both do that too. Working easy is about letting a beloved’s intertwined life flow around yours and them letting your life flow around theirs. Working easy is about setting aside your expectations of a beloved’s actions and just letting them be. Working easy is not about solving problems, but about listening to them. It adds the “un” to “conditional”. It reminds you that life doesn’t always have to be tackled at a breakneck, list-checking pace (which you know from our recent posts we sometimes forget). It allows everyone involved a time-out to breathe and re-group.

We were so lazy, we forgot to take pics, so here's one I love from last year.

My younger daughter (who’s been away for university) came home for the weekend. It’s been bliss! And we didn’t race around and try to do a million things since this is her one precious weekend home, desperately hoping to make up for all the things she might have missed here (although there was a very little bit of that … because we had to). No, we talked for hours in our pajamas, sipping our favourite tea from favourite mugs. We slept in. We read. We watched movies at home. We had a couple of nice meals out to lessen the mundane load of grocery shopping and cleaning up after. We relaxed… We “worked easy” at reminding ourselves and each other that this is a sweet road to familial love and affection.

Two of my favourite topics that we wrote about are when we shared our marriage stories with you (Deb And Barbara Have A 4-Way) and parenting our now-grown children (What Kind Of Mother Am I?!). I think both of these life-stories succeed thanks as much to easy work as hard. We can get so wrapped up in all the things we HAVE to do for our families (chauffeuring, cooking, cleaning, organizing, orchestrating) and even for ourselves (appointments, schedules, deadlines, dream-weaving, chasing, challenging) that we forget that so much of the best contact and experience comes through easiness. Through letting down our strict agendas that will surely take us toward success and worthiness and personal glory, and sitting back instead and allowing things to come to us in their own lazy, loving ways, no expectations, no rules, no panic of failure.

I know this has been a theme in many of my posts lately. Blame it on a common theme in my life right now. And credit it to the fact that I am trying to listen to my life lessons. And blame it on the fact that, as our daily readers, you have to go on our journeys of self-discovery with us (whether you like to or not!). And credit it to the fact that both Deb and I love to share this stuff with you.

I know that I will still and always have to work hard at lots if not most things in my life. But I want to remember this mantra of “working easy”. I want to pull it out whenever I get overwhelmed or confused. I want to bring it to my creative work—where working easy will always give me my best and truest work. I want to see where working easy—being easy—will take me.

Deb: Working easy! Another phrase I am adding to the arsenal of living. It’s a wonderful concept and easy to adopt. In the world of symmetry (Quantum Physics, anyone?) we had almost a mirror weekend in our home a few weeks ago. The boy, like Barb’s girl, just felt the need for home, to reconnect, to just be in the bosom of family. Colin was away for part of it, but we structured the time so that the boy would have time with both of us. And that is all we structured. We worked it easy and I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT! We did as Barb said: relaxed, watched shows together, played on the floor with the dogs and laughed. We ate in however, but we ordered so that it would be relaxing. The yin yang of family worked its magic and it reminded us all why we are the easiest of friends, we three.