Brain rot

Night falls, kids tucked in bed.  My time.

And I'm wasting it.  Over and over and over again.

I turn on a radio program and play word games on my iPod.  I flip on a movie.  I read a book.

I have so little creative time, so little work time.  I should be much more efficient with those precious after-bed hours.

And just like when I rashly opt for junk food and fill my body with trash and deeply regret the decision an hour later, so too has my brain rot been catching up with me.

I go to bed exhausted and disappointed with myself.  I awake fresh and bright with promises to use my mind in better ways that night.

And come evening I once again find myself mentally and emotionally and physically spent.

It's been two weeks since I wrote here, which is the really telling sign that my mind is on auto-pilot.  I haven't had a creative thought in two weeks, nor a parenting moment I wished to celebrate, nor an idea to explore.

Brain rot.

It spills over into the day.  I'm hot tempered and have lost all patience.  The introvert in me is screaming all day and all I want to do is hike away up a mountain and camp out in the silence.

I have a good ration of alone time, a healthy dose of music making, enough spiritual food and time in adult company.  And yet I feel like I'm starving for more and more and more.

I hope it's just the extra long winter.  I've always been tied to the weather and we've had an unusually cold April.  It snowed today.  We've barely been into double digit temperatures.  Yes, perhaps what I really need is a good dose of sunshine.

Juliettable

(playing house with Juliette)

"Now I'll be the Mommy and you be the Sweetie."

The non-entrepreneur

If someone asked me, I would say without hesitation that I am not an entrepreneur.  No, I don't like risk.  No, I don't like being out on my own.  No, I don't like the thrill of the unknown.  Yes, I prefer worker bee jobs, where I can put my nose to the grindstone and be a part of something bigger.

And yet, as I'm looking at the next stage of my life, and as I'm examining myself a little deeper (ah, the benefits of growing older!) I'm coming to see myself quite differently.

I've always loved teaching.  But as an introvert, being with people all day is physically and emotionally draining.  I have loved my days supply teaching, but I'm exhausted when I walk in the door.  Teaching is probably not high on the list of ideal professions for an introvert.

Funny enough, as I look back on my "work history" - things I've chosen to do and have loved to do, every single one of them has been entrepreneurial.  I began as a private piano teacher.  Then I tutored students in French.  Then I freelanced in the film industry.  I had a job at an advertising agency while I was in university, but even in that I was on contract, and moved around to different departments, creating my own job description as I went.  During motherhood I freelanced as a writer and film assistant director.  Lately I've been looking into publishing and book editing.

But when I really started to realize my innate draw to entrepreneurship was this week as I came up with a pretty great new business idea.  I was out on a walk with Juliette, observed one thing and another, and the pieces came together with a life of their own, like magnets drawn to each other.  As I considered my surprising ability to put the details together so quickly, I realized that I probably have new business ideas at least on a weekly basis.  I also have new story ideas just as often.

I think what I've come to realize is that I am an ideas person.  What I lack is the desire to move to the next step, to take a financial risk on these ideas.  I suppose if I had a trust fund sitting around (I actually know a few too many people who had just such resources) it would be easier to take the bull by the horns.  But when stepping out with these ideas means gambling the money that would pay the mortgage or put food on the table, well, then I just shrink back to the security blanket of a worker bee job.

Colinism

I love to take small moments and see the beauty in the world around me.

The other day I was waiting for Colin to finish at cubs, and he was dragging his feet.  When James finally texted me through a friend to ask where I was, I insisted Colin get a move on.  As I dragged him out of the building, I was caught between rushing to pick up James and the kids and being stopped in my tracks at the breathtaking shade of blue in the evening sky, just before all the light disappeared.  The sky was actually glowing.

"Colin, let's go NOW.  Hurry and get in the car.  But first notice how amazing that shade of blue is in the sky!"

As we darted through the parking lot, we kept our eyes fixed on the liquid blue that blanketed the world beneath.  We leapt in the car and I continued my lecture.

"Colin, you are going to have to apologize to your Dad for keeping him waiting."
"Yes, but if I had come when you first asked," Colin replied, "We would have missed that amazing sky."

Touche.

Canada Reads

This week I've been listening in to the radio program "Canada Reads" on CBC radio.  (I love CBC.  I definitely consider our public broadcaster a national treasure.)  For five days, five panelists debate the merits of five Canadian books, and eliminate one each day until only one remains as "the book that Canadians should read this year."

Particularly interesting is this year's theme: one book to break barriers.  Books this year are all dealing with fringe themes, like immigration, religious extremism, a gay teen, aging, and racism towards First Nations people.  So thematically the debates are interesting on their own. I also like that they touch on the art and craft of writing itself, examining the merits of the book as a work of art.

But more than all this, however, I am enjoying the art of debate.  The debaters are understand the form of a debate, directly answering questions posed, and waiting patiently to rebut.  The moderator is respected and keeps the conversation on point.  Debaters are defending their own book choice, but also are able to graciously concede the strengths of books other than their own.  When negative points must be made, they are made with tact and from a well-thought out standpoint, without any feeling of attack.

I have a deep love of good conversation and a well-constructed debate.  So few people understand the different between debate and argument.  Too often I think I'm in a debate, then the other person seems to either a) feel personally attacked by a point against their position or b) continuously return back to points already made.  It's frustrating to listen, watch, or participate in a debate when the other person doesn't understand the art form.  Which is why I'm so enjoying the Canada Reads debates this year.  Plus, I've been introduced to a handful of new books and authors I'm excited to delve into (Canadian authors are among my favourite in the world.  Our library tags the spines of books with common genres like mystery, religious, and Canadian, and I will often simply choose books from the shelf because of that little red maple leaf.)

Colinism and Calebite

Today, my two oldest boys, had their very first fight.

I've been saying over the past year or so, as I observe their relationship, that they are more like best friends than brothers.  (Until today) I could not remember a single time when they fought or teased like most brothers.  They are the same size, and Caleb has always pushed himself to be at Colin's level in almost every area.  The result has been that they have found playmates rather than annoyances in each other.

Today, however, something was off.  It began with a wonderful hockey creation built by the two of them: a hockey rink complete with arena and players on the ice.  The detail was incredible and I noted that I would like to take a picture.  Colin asked if we could submit the photo to the Lego contest, to which I agreed.

Then the floodworks opened.  Caleb was excited to be a part of it.  Colin insisted his brother's participation was so limited it didn't count.  So Caleb decided to take apart any piece he had built.  Both boys were quickly in tears, sobbing about the injustice and so genuinely sad I was surprised by the emotion.

Caleb fled to his bedroom.  Colin fled outside.

After ten minutes, I went looking after the two of them.  I found Caleb flung across his bed, sobbing into his pillow.  I found Colin outside shovelling snow off the back deck with a determined face.  Another ten minutes passed and I checked in on Caleb to find him staring sadly out the bedroom window at his brother, who was still shovelling.

I was struck by the fight, and once again, how it was more like how best friends fight than brothers.  With siblings, the fight usually descends into name calling, teasing, destroying toys, or even shove or two.  But with friends, it's the self-imposed separation that feels tortuous.

Within the hour I found the two of them together again, united in a game of mini sticks.  "Did you make up?" I asked and their happy reply was "of course!"

And once again their best friend relationship is restored.  They shared novels back and forth, worked together to clear the back deck (for ball hockey), and shared in Colin's successes on his soccer team (when my mom called, Caleb's only news was a play by play of Colin's previous game and goals.)  How wonderful these two have each other.

Spiritual leadership

I find myself in numerous positions of spiritual leadership this year.  If you had asked me as a confident teenager I would have said that I relished leadership positions, but in the last ten years I have realized that I much prefer being a little worker bee.  Mostly this is because I like getting a task and then going back to my little corner to complete said task.

This year I have found a new hardship to leadership - the task of standing strong for others.  Each week requires me to reach into my own spiritual reserve and mentor others who are brand new in their faith, or perhaps even still seeking for something.  Even more than that, I have found myself as a mother mentor, a good 6 or 7 years ahead of most of the women in my study group, and just on par with the others.

I find myself craving sage words of advice and experience from one who has gone before me.  This year I have suddenly realized that I lack such a mentor for myself in my own journey.  I am not one to step out of a comfortable circle, which makes it hard for me to make new friends.  Usually I can only manage to get at ease with someone who has quite a bit in common with me.  Otherwise I can spend most of the time in utter silence, desperate to come up with something to say.  this girl doesn't do small talk.

I have one friend who is five years ahead, and who just happens to have a carbon copy of my family (children, ages, sex, birth order, and even personalities of each one, plus each of us as a couple are uncannily alike.)  But she in a busy stage of life herself and still without enough distance from those young years to garner enough perspective.

So now I'm on the lookout for a mentor for myself, someone to sit with me, share with me, and help me fill up so that I can pour out into those women I am leading.