distracted is the new black

as i did my morning scan of what happened on the iPad while i was asleep, it was such a relief to read this piece on chucking mindfulness out the window. i thought it was going to be a humorous piss-take on all that mindfulness claptrap that's so pervasive out there these days. but instead it was a thoughtful and in-depth look at what's wrong with mindfulness (can you say narcissism?) and why it doesn't necessarily make you happy.

i've actually been suspicious of mindfulness for awhile. and while i relish my daily moment, camera in hand, where i wander the backyard, looking for my photo opportunity for the day, in reality that moment lasts only 5 minutes. the rest of my day is spent in a rather distracted state - juggling tasks, articles and emails on two computers (sometimes 3), tethered to my scribbled to-do list. in between, i make myself a cup of coffee, put on a load of laundry, occasionally vacuum and fight a never-ending battle against the spiderwebs and dust. i plan dinner, i pick strawberries, i run to the store for milk, i send some emails, i work on blog pieces and articles and my freelance tasks, sometimes i go to the office, but often i work on all of this from home. i feed the bunnies, throw the horses some hay, prepare for community board meetings, discover new podcasts, read voraciously, drive the child to a friend's house. and while i spend a lot of my day in front of screens, it sometimes feels like i never sit down. and to be honest, the more of these activities there are, the more content i feel. my moments of restlessness and discontent come when i'm not busy enough, when my mind doesn't have a million things to process.

i find my moments of downtime in the midst of all of that...when i'm working in the garden, i'm usually listening to a podcast. while i make dinner, i have a series going on netflix. when i'm waiting for the child at the train station, i'm checking facebook or instagram on my phone. while i eat a solitary lunch, i scan the new york times on my iPad or catch an episode of sex and the city and decouple for awhile. these moments send me back to my tasks ready to concentrate again. but are they mindful? i'm not sure. and i'm unconvinced that they have to be.

i think we naturally seek towards the things we need...when the writing isn't going anywhere, i get up and take a walk or just hang up some laundry and start a new load. sometimes i take a short 20 minute nap. then i come back and i'm able to work. and i instinctively do these things. sometimes, yes, i wait too long and try to force the words to come and that never works. but stepping away, doing something else, and then coming back always works. it seems that allowing myself to be distracted from the task at hand is a good thing for that task in the long run.

maybe mindfulness is just another word for listening to yourself and what you need in order to get things done. and maybe what you need is to juggle 20 tasks at once, shifting between them at lightning speed. maybe that makes you tick. and you know what? that's just fine. maybe distracted is the new black.

and seriously, do go read the piece on good. and while it's a little bit hard to take someone named taffy seriously, don't be put off by that. it's definitely worth reading.

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is this the perfect american roadtrip?

wordless wednesday: look up

practice run writing a small stone

i'm planning on participating in a january mindful writing project. i was alerted to it by a facebook friend. the way it's described sounds like an extension of the already daily mindful effort i make in taking a daily photograph. only instead of a photograph, it's a daily snippet of writing and the project initiators call these little bits of mindful writing small stones, and we know how i feel about stones. so anyway, i'm going to give it a whirl (despite being a little put off by the new ageyness of the site). but just because they're new agey doesn't mean i have to be, right? besides, i want to be more open in 2013 - open to other ways of thinking and looking at the world and open to new people, experiences and opportunities. (dang, that's sounding an awful lot like a new year's resolution.)

i thought i'd give it a little practice run here, based on a photo i took because i noticed the golden light and the shadows it cast.

small stone ~ golden light, the sweet scent of hyacinth, short winter days mean the light must be embraced when it comes. but the light also embraces - a bobbaloo, a special mushroom, a unicorn and a papier mache head - products of creativity from people i love, bathed in golden light.

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some spectacular photography.

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the r boards on pinterest: rainbows. raw. rest.

taking the back way

i meandered the back roads yesterday, deciding that although there was a very fine rain and it was a bit grey, i wouldn't let it stop me from getting some shots of the rapeseed fields, which are in their full glory around the danish countryside right now. sometimes, you just have to stop and enjoy the scenery.

in which she wonders if now is all it's cracked up to be

it's very now to live in the now. to be present in your life. to be mindful - of surroundings, feelings, thoughts. in some sense, there's nowhere else we can live but in the now. but at the same time the now is elusive. because now is so fleeting. it's here right NOW and then it's gone, almost before you can enjoy it or savor it.

as much as i do things like my 365 photo project (for the second year running), which help me be more aware of my surroundings on a daily basis, i have my doubts about this trendy living in the now. i get a lot of pleasure both out of imagining the future and remembering the past. and sometimes, what's best, is to let your mind drift to one or the other, when where you are is not that engaging (think a boring, long meeting with a 54-slide powerpoint). it's really a question of imagination, isn't it?

where would stories and novels be if everyone only lived in the now? what would happen to imagination? for that matter, what IS happening to literature and imagination with all of us constantly being told we have to live in the now?

just from a standpoint of personal happiness, when i think of some of my happiest moments, they're often when i'm imagining the future...visualizing how the house will be, planning the next project, sketching out next year's garden...looking ahead gives me loads of energy. being grounded in my surroundings brings me satisfaction, but it doesn't necessarily motivate me or energize me.

i suppose it's rather against the current to be questioning this whole mindfulness/now movement. but there you have it. maybe part of why the world is where it's at is because everyone's living for today and not looking towards tomorrow. or working on imagining a better one. perhaps living in the now isn't really all it's cracked up to be...

announcing a handmade holiday: an eCourse for beating the holiday rat race

every year, i declare that this will be the year when i don't succumb to last-minute gift buying panic and angst and the whole holiday rat race. this year we mean it and so, sabin and i are very excited to offer our very first eCourse, to share some ideas and a sense of community in our quest for a handmade holiday.

for $30, you'll get access to an exclusive blog, where ten step-by-step projects will be posted. projects you can make with things you already have around the house, your existing stash, those boxes of old baby clothes, ordinary craft supplies or things you find in second-hand stores. some of them are holiday decor, some are gift ideas and some are treats for yourself, so you don't lose yourself in the holiday rush.

at least three projects will be specifically aimed at kids and sabin will lead the way on those.

we'll also have weekly exercises in noticing our immediate surroundings, so we can all keep this whole holiday thing in perspective.

ten creative projects for you and your kids (tho' you don't need kids to do this) - all of the patterns and lots of photo how-tos (and maybe even a video or two), so you can have a handmade holiday this year.

that's only $3 per project - a great investment in making this holiday a mindful one.

when you place your order, you'll get an access code to the closed blog. the first project will be posted november 1, with the others and some other fun little extras to follow throughout november. you do the projects as they inspire, no deadlines (except the approach of the holidays!). we'll have a flickr group to share your creations with the other course participants and there will be at least one opportunity for some "live" chat via the comments on the blog.

we're going to have a limited number of participants, to keep it manageable and hyggeligt (as the danes say) this first time around. we hope you'll join us. please go to MPC: the shop on big cartel to secure your spot. sabin and i are really excited to get creating for the holidays with you!  the access code will be sent out on friday to all who sign up, tho' you can join in anytime and after friday, the code will be sent upon receipt of your order.

meditation on meditation

i tried to meditate today. i keep reading about that recent study that showed that your brain shows visible benefits (in the areas of memory, self-awareness, learning) when you meditate regularly.  so i read carefully how to go about it in the book i just finished - instructions to the cook by bernard glassman and rick fields. i arranged myself just as they suggested, took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind.

and i'll admit i gave up within about two minutes. i just couldn't do it. i couldn't calm my thoughts. i found it utterly impossible to think of nothing. all i could think about was what i wanted to do today. i tried to count as they suggested, but that reminded me too much of the obsessive counting i find myself doing when i'm stressed.  you know what i mean, suddenly finding yourself saying 78, 79, 80 in your head and wondering how you got all the way there without noticing? (i am not mental. i know you know what i mean.)

and then i proceeded to spend my morning making bread and vegetarian chili (to which i added some gorgeous chorizo at the last minute, thereby un-vegetarian-ing it) and spending the afternoon quilting two of the quilt tops i made during january.

the hum of the sewing machine, the concentration on even straight lines mesmerized me. i found that i thought of nothing else but the task at hand as i smoothed the cloth and fed it carefully through my trusty sewing machine. a meditative act if there ever was one.  mindfulness. being utterly in the moment there as i sewed.

and this evening i read this article and i felt a little better. i can always try again tomorrow. whether it's sitting quietly for a few minutes or sewing some more or chopping a few vegetables.

i can feel my brain growing already.

simplify

i've been going on and on about simplifying my life for nearly two years now. clearing out the junk, paring down, eating locally-produced food, spending less on gadgets [gasp!], making do with what we have. long ago (before i realized how much i hate flash), i even bought a bunch of books on the simple life. i was so not ready to actually do it, that i felt i had to acquire something in order to even ponder it. and strangely, i never really read those books at the time (except for barbara kingsolver's animal, vegetable, miracle). but over the past week or so, i've begun reading them. i think i was ready at last.

i found that i did a pretty good job of selecting a good range from the theoretical side to the WAY out there living in a hut in the woods side to the incredibly annoyingly, preachily written to the practical, down-to-earth view. and i've realized a few things:

~ we're quite a lot farther along than i thought. in thinking and in action.

~ thinking is at least half the battle.

~ things change quickly: judith levine's reason for her year of not buying (2004) was the mad rhetoric of the bush administration which suggested that the best way to defeat the terrorists was to get out there and buy something. i think my main reason for wanting to do this, other than living more personally mindfully, is a desire to be kinder to the environment.

~ simplifying doesn't have to mean suffering. it's more about mindfulness than self-denial. which may be why i feel i'm a lot closer now than i was when i bought the books last year.

~ i think i'd rather think of it as living more consciously, that seems more palatable and somehow less like a cult or  a religion to me. i have a feeling that the notion of voluntary simplicity or radical simplicity has been fetishized a bit too much for my taste.

~ i realize my own dad, who has never set foot in a wal-mart, has been "not buying it" for years (of course mom and us girls more than made up for it over the years). sometimes it takes years to learn the lessons your parents try to teach you, but i think i'm catching on at last.

~ the simplicity project is much easier outside of the insane consumer culture that is the united states.

~ while there is cultural pressure to keep up with the hansens next door here, it's on a much more even keel and keeping up doesn't mean a two hummer garage.  (granted, i'm not sure it means that in the US anymore after more than a year of economic crisis - but these books are all pre-crisis.)

~ our ancient toyota is a great example of how we resist the cultural pressure to have a nice shiny new car. and i've long found that rather charming about us. :-)

~ i think i'm ready to commit to my own year of not buying in 2010 and am already thinking of the ways in which we should execute that as a family.

i'd love to hear what you all think. have you simplified over the past year out of economic necessity or environmental concerns or because you saw one of those awful programs about how the chickens are treated? what do you think it would take for you to spend a year not buying anything more than essentials? what would those essentials include?