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Head, Heart, and Sailboats

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I’ve been thinking about head, heart, and sailboats.

Head and heart. Some days I like one more than the other. Some days it’s smarter to think. Some days I find it’s better to follow where my feelings lead me.

On days I am my head, I make my life about the work. I can perfectly clear my desk. I can venture forth with the most elegant strategic plan. Be ready to think quickly, if you take me on. I’m not as one-dimensional as some folks might have you think. After all, not everyone gets complimented quite this way by a friend.

I’ll analyze a problem to reach a brilliant, logical solution . . . in seconds flat. When I do, no person will be within the range of my 20/40 vision. I’ll see the people, sure, but they’ll be human data in the thinking chain.

No wonder I get headaches.

On days I am my heart, I can make my life about the people and beauty of the world. I see the wonder of a smile that fills a voice when a person discovers a new thought. I see the sun rise in glorious colors that make a sky no artist could possibly paint. The options and ideas assault me joyously like water falling as I stand laughing at the the marvel of being alive and drenched.

I imagine away bad weather and fill a hall-full glass half-again over the top. I can hear a symphony in my head and when I want I can make it go away. I can stop time, stress, and bad things me too. Generosity is without thinking. Life is magical.

Of course, the without thinking part is a bit of problem now and then.

On the days I am both, I lean from head to heart and back. I let my life tell me when to list which way.

Sailboats that list in concert with the wind have grace and flexibility, even in a rough storm. Sailboats that lean too far take on water. That’s wrong there. The water is supposed to stay beneath the boat . . . in the sea.

Head and heart together is balance, part holding on and part letting go. Lean too far toward one and the connection won’t work. It’s like sailing — the wind has some control. When I lose my trying and self-consciousness to make room for life, a day becomes adjusting my sails with the wind.

This weekend I’m going to be a sailboat.

Head and heart has to be lived to be learned.

Liz

Our Misbehaviors

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I've been thinking . . .

noticing people’s faults.

Usually when I see something someone does, a misbehavior that causes hurt, I look for my own version of that kind of thing. Then I think Here’s what I do to try to avoid doing that stuff. I hope that person figures out a similar solution. It doesn’t cross my mind that I’m making an assumption or two when I do that.

One simple sentence, not my own, brings me back. Hopefully, writing down this quote will etch it in my neuropaths.

When I criticize a person I assume he has a choice. I Touch the Earth, the Earth Touches Me a journal by Hugh Prather.

People have reasons for their behavior. I’m not fair when I assume I know what their reasons are. It’s not good to try to read people’s minds. I get it wrong more often than not, when I try to. Trying to read people’s minds is a misbehavior of mine. Go figure.

I don’t think I’d make a good juror. OR Does that mean that I would?

I find the whole thought hard to unravel.

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Making Space for Other People

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I've been thinking . . .

about hospitality.

My Italian grandmother, Liza, was born in an Italian village near Modena. It is called Ospitale. The name means It accommodates them — hospitality. Perhaps her origins had something to do with how a saloon came to be her work and . . . later that of her two sons.

Hospitality . . . my grandmother knew what it meant. Though she never had but a few words of English when I visited her as a child, even in my youngest years, we always communicated with out frustration. Most of what she said was with her smile, her eyes, the tone of her voice, and her facial expressions. The memory of us spending time making surprised faces at each other still delights me and is the first that comes to mind when I think of sitting at her dining room table.

Her dining room table. We sat at her dining room table. Folks in the Illinois village of Italian immigrants, where she lived in my lifetime, enjoyed it at her tavern there. She welcomed everyone there as she welcomed folks into her home, by making room for them. I could see it in her smile, her eyes, the tone or her voice, and facial expressions. I bet she learned those in Ospitale.

Hospitality is a warm and cordial welcome to my friends and their friends and strangers who will soon be friends. It’s making room. It’s finding a place at the table, on the couch, and in the conversation for their presence and their ideas. It’s offering them what they need to feel at home and to let self-consciousness fall away from them.

Today and through the weekend I’ll have guests.

My goal is to extend the warmest hospitality.

I want to welcome, entertain, protect, and serve each person with generosity. Blog reading is so tied to conversation. Hospitality and blogging belong together.

And for my guests at home . . . I’ll offer generous hospitality there too.

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How to Be Alive and 10 Ways to Celebrate Living!

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Give It a Try

silhouette of girl splashing water at sunset

Oh yeah, science has defined and described life — no disputing that. It’s that time that occurs between birth and death that we fill up with breathing, eating, sometimes sleeping, preserving the species, and whatever thoughtful and mindless else we might devise.

To get beyond the state of being to having meaning is an art and a craft. The trick is finding the space between the literal and the figurative.

If you want to give it a try . . .

How to Be Alive

In some ways, being alive is a mystical balancing act. It takes thinking and feeling about ideas, things, and people. Actually being alive is deliberate and spontaneous. It’s getting all systems go while being totally still. It can be done. I’ve actually met people who are alive!

Here’s a way to give it a go.

  • Check your life signs. Even though working lungs and a beating heart are clear necessities of living, most of us hold our breath and lose our hearts when we’re overwhelmed. We crawl up into our heads and forget who we are.
  • Know that you can’t get a life — you’ve already got one. If you don’t have one, you’re not reading this.
  • Bring things to life. Be there and show up with all that you are. We get back what we invest.
  • Hold onto your wonderful memories, but let go of the rest. Keeping too much makes us less, holding onto less makes us more.
  • Work hard to reach for your potential, but be easy on yourself. We all need love — our own most of all.
  • Be true to life. Listen to what you knew when you were born. We start out wise, authentic, and letting the world know we’re here. That’s the part we call spirit. We know. We did then. We always will. It’s who we are.
  • Be who you want to become.

One reward of putting all you are into living is how other people find a living soul fascinating and attractive. We’re drawn to a person so vibrantly centered. Our life expands with each person who responds that attraction.

10 Ways to Celebrate Living

When we walk back into our own life again, it’s a wonder — we wonder at what took us so long, wonder at things we hadn’t been seeing, doing, being, sharing with folks we care about. The realization can be quite stunning and profound.

It’s breathtaking to be living.

Definitely worth celebrating. Here are 10 Ways to celebrate living.

  1. Whenever you stretch your mind, stretch your body too. The difference is exponential and incredibly cool.
  2. Do something that’s not electronic. Better yet make it something you’ve never done that you do with someone who sees you as you are.
  3. Go somewhere you can’t see anything made by people. Then before you look, close your eyes to listen for the longest while.
  4. Eat something delicious. Go for that “last cookie” feeling with every bite.
  5. Run your hand along a fence or a wall. Sit on a floor. Walk the curb like a tightrope walker would. You know how. I bet you’ve done them all before.
  6. Listen to music filled with images of your history. Seek out and savor the smells and tastes of comfort times in the past. Send a thought to the people who experienced them with you wherever they are. They’re not gone, if you remember.
  7. Test drive your body like a two year old who just got brand-new shoes.
  8. Run in the grass and fall down on purpose. I bet you did that once too.
  9. Touch wet paint to see how wet it is. Wipe your hand on your pants without a thought. Then send a wish to a guy who did that same thing once, while his mom was watching. Know that his mom didn’t get mad.
  10. Say “I love you” and mean it to someone who least expects it. Then do it again and again. Every time that you do, tell yourself the same thing.

I’m guessing you have the hang of it by now. Being alive really comes down to one sentence.

Live your experiences and experience your life.

We have a whole life of time to do nothing but that. It makes sense, simple and elegant. It’s not hard to be alive . . . once we remember how.

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Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

I Can’t Wait Until . . . Now!

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Can we talk about . . .

how we think about our lives?

I watch people. I watch myself. I hear what we say. We say, “I can’t wait until . . .

until I grow up.

until I move away.

until I get a job.

until we get married.

the baby is born.

until he walks.

until she talks.

until he can . . .

until she can . . .

until I can . . .

until we can . . .

until morning, until 5 o’clock, until my birthday, until you come home, until we leave, until, until, until . . .

In a few thousand thoughts, we can wish our lives away.

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Wishes, Dreams, and Vision

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I've been thinking . . .

about wishes.

I’ve never been good at wishes. They always seemed so big.

When I was a child, I heard of wishing on birthday candles, and wishing on stars, and three wishes that are in fairy tales. My cousins would on twisting the stem of an apple — a person had to twist it just the right way, just the right amount, and said just the right words.

A thought of a wish opened a universe that stunned me with wonder. . . . IMy mind wouldn’t interrupt. . . . I’d lose myself in infinite possibility and thoughts in color.

I never knew what to wish for. It wasn’t a lack of imagination. It was incomprehension.

When I went to college, no one wished anymore, they had dreams. Dreams seemed to come to me more easily.

Dreams were more grounded, but without strong wishing experience. I was a dreaming novice. I imagined a dream house — it ended up being three. I dreamed a life. When I was done, I had 23 unique and complicated scenarios, each complete with scenery and plot lines.

I’ve never been good at dreams. Well, I’m only good at them in the way that dreamers dream, which is having lots and lots of them — not one big one.

In my career I uncovered a vision. I had one without trying. It was a dream on the horizon of my life. Yeah, right there where I can see it.

I put a dream on the horizon. I see it in perfect vision. Each day I look out at it and think about the steps to how I’ll get there. Everything, everyday gets me closer.

Like a pilot flying from NYC to LA, I am off course most of the way, but I’m adjusting every minute. I get there eventually, and that vision shows me what the next vision is.

I wish I knew that from the beginning.

All of those wishes on stars could have been the start of a vision.

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