Day 11 | 5x5 Challenge | Day Tripper

5 Minutes:
I woke up before dawn and struggled with what to wear. Settled on the standard black pants. We were driving–all of us, in a rented mini-van—so I didn't feel quite so rushed. If I was a few minutes late, they'd wait. But I wasn't. I was 20 minutes early and didn't need to deal with security. So I walked around the mostly empty halls noticing, with slight envy, the people who looked packed for vacation. I got myself a Skinny Pancake egg sandwich and a coffee and I parked it on a bench. We drove to Boston, talked shop and not-shop, got carsick looking at screens. We met with one client, and then the next, and I left both meetings head spinning with possibilities. We piled back into the champagne caravan, plus two—they'd flown in from New York and were hitching a ride back. More shop talk, not-shop talk and discussion about whether to dine sitting at a table or in the minivan. What about a state-line liquor-store stop? Negotiation ensued. An agreement was made: liquor store, sit-down dinner. We left one, then the other, enriched. We hit the road for home. Tomorrow will be more typical. I am exhausted—and totally invigorated.

Day 10 | 5x5 Challenge | The Secret to Super+

5 Minutes:
I have history of overproducing, making everything more complicated than it could—or should—be. What results are 75-minute recorded interviews with scientists who will contribute a quote or two to a 1,500 word story—and hours wasted transcribing notes that "will come in handy" someday. (Though sometimes they do.)  Or a meticulous organized closet shelf in a room that now appears as if a shit-tossing tornado blew through. A brilliant idea so "perfectly" planned it never gets executed.  But in the last couple of years—thanks to kids and colleagues—I've learned to see the beauty of a MVP. That is, minimal viable product.

Peonies are beautiful—but so are wild flowers. Making a new recipe is fun but chopping up whatever veggies came in the CSA share and boiling rice actually gets dinner on the table. It's OK to sneak a pre-packaged snack into a backpack, and special one-on-one time time doesn't have to be spent at the beach. When you do it well—owning whatever "it" is (a quick, pointed call; a simple chicken stir-fry; a one-on-one walk)—Regular truly can be Super +.


5 Snaps: 

Day 9: 5x5 Challenge | Breakout retrospective

5 minutes:

I'm not sure I'd call myself a creature of habit so much as a slightly over-scheduled parent always seeking efficiency. I do J's pick-ups and Jon does K's because they're on our respective paths. But today the convergence of Julian's first day of camp and K's early school closure left me picking up both boys early—at least by our family's standards.  I was excited to have a date with Kai but when I picked him up all he wanted to do was go get his brother. So that's what we did. I convinced him to hold my hand as we walked on the muddy cut-through past run-down buildings and signs with so many instructions—"no dumping," "please don't block the gate." Past purple clovers with bumblebees and rambles of yellow buttercups. I thought of growing up and the old abandoned elementary school whose brick walls I used for bouncing tennis balls. I felt happy. And nostalgic. Kai was just glad to get to see Jules at his climbing camp.

*** 

There were not parking spots in the street, or on the lower levels of the garage, so I drove the whole way up. Why stop at 4 when you can go just a little more and see the entire city? So that's what I did. Peering down at a town that doesn't feel like mine so much anymore, I noticed the jewelry shop where Olin bought the diamond he presented me in Maine and thought all of the time we spent on these city streets together, drinking coffee down the street and tea right next door. I noticed the Flynn Theater sign and remembered my dancing days. I spun East to see the tops of  UVM halls, that school half the reason I'd come here in the first place. I thought of long summer days spent in a hot Terrill Hall. I thought of lunches at Mirabelle's with my friend Beth. I thought about how this all seemed like a lifetime ago. 

And then I circled down the echo-y stairwell. The heavy metal door slammed shut with a bang. A sound I associate with this town. To this day. 

5 Snaps: 

Day 8 | 5x5 Challenge | Into the Woods

5 Minutes:
In honor of Father's Day, Jon, Jules, Kai, Demps and I hit the trail. Olin is a hard-core hiker (or was until family compromising cut into his time spent on mountains). Given the opportunity, I'd rather run for exercise and draw or dance or hang or flip around in the yard with the kids, but I try to get into the woods with Jon and the kids much as I can. I've learned I enjoy hiking best when allowed to stop and snap photos of centipedes and spiders, frogs, snakes and little boys pretending to be birds of prey. I guess I like hiking like a kid. Hearing leaves rustle and wondering if it's a bobcat, hopping over rocks in a muddy creek instead of taking the drier high road, looking for interesting plants, trying to spot the birds singing high overhead. But because I'm an adult, I do leave the trail not only in awe of all I've seen but grateful for having gotten out there and really paid attention. Thanks, Olin, for helping me—and our kids—to simply live better.

5 Snaps: 

Day 7 | 5x5 Challenge | Tag-team

Observation: the 5x5 Creative Challenge isn't the only numerically based, social-sharing centered game in town. There is, of course, #100happydays, a initiative in which you're supposed to post a picture (every day for 100) of something that makes you happy. Today, I read about #7daysofreality—proposed by British mum blogger (who, as it turns out, happens to be a friend of my friend). I love both concepts. Which perhaps is why my 5x5 post today combines perfect moments, pictured, and REALITY, the kind that bites. Until you write about it and it turns out to be pretty funny. 

5 Snaps: 

5 Minutes Writing:
The day began mellow, with both boys obsessively writing in the Star Wars workbooks we bought yesterday at The Flying Pig. These things were such a hit that they insisted that we bring them with us (along with a lunchbox full of crayons and markers) to the farmers' market. So we did. They sat and colored, then climbed the big pine, then each selected a treat—a Rookie root beer for Kai; a Stony Loam Farm egg sandwich for Jules—so nicely. Treats were consumed. Kai and Jon did somersaults in a semi-private part of the lawn. It was idyllic. It was not typical. So we went to the library. WITH OUR DOG.

That's when shit got real. And it wasn't the dog. The boys were running and jumping and loudly talking through the aisles; they were in and out of the little outside reading nook. Jon and I were handing them back and forth while the other of us tried to find a book. It all basically could be characterized as a big parenting fail. We left: me, feeling like we're overly permissible parents raising rude young men and lecturing about proper library decorum; Jon, just looking silently agitated. Our next stop: the school playground, to burn off steam, riding bikes.

Except that no one wanted to ride bikes. They wanted to throw a found softball at each others' heads. I dismissed Jon to go for a run with the dog. And tried to prevent the boys from injuring each other. Which mostly worked. Then Jules found a purple marker and I turned my back. I won't go into the details, as the photos above likely make it quite clear.

But I will say this: A lot of good came out of that little purple autograph. Jon and I, on a date tonight acknowledged the solid tag-team parenting/partnering that happened around it (I insisted on going home for cleaning supplies to fix the mistake; Jon insisted that he be the one to drive back with the boys so I also could get in a run). And, as a family, we'd reviewed an important life lesson:

We all do stupid shit and make mistakes. But almost everything is fixable. And, when you're fixing a mistake, it's good to ask for help.

#realhappy

Day 6: The 5x5 Challenge

I think I'm posting right now because if I don't I'm going to have to pay at least 4x as much to have dinner with three fabulous fellow 5x5ers as I would if I keep at it through June 30. Hilary, Amanda, Angela and I agreed that the first person to drop this challenge is treating.

5 Snaps: 

5 Minutes: 

It was the last day of kindergarten for Jules—a rainy one. So rainy that the heavy peonies, some now fully bloomed, couldn't hold up their heavy heads and so we cut one to bring inside. So rainy that end-of-school celebrations planned for the beach gave way to an indoor pizza party punctuated with a basement performance of a Frozen medley that melted into a laser-beam-lit rave featuring drums, a tricycle and pole-climbing. It all felt very Spielpalast to me. Beautiful.

Beautiful because these little players were creating purely out of passion and camaraderie. Their reward was the journey. They'd collaborated and coordinated and choreographed. And then invited us down to watch as sung/drummed/pedaled/climbed their new-1st-grader (and pre-Ker) hearts out. And then waited for the claps and cheers and beams. The affirmations that they'd done good. 

I think a lot about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation—at work and at home. What drives us to actually DO what we want to do and should do for ourselves. Do I run because it makes me feel good, or because my doctor told me to do it? (Feels good.) Do I give 100% to a work project because doing my best makes me feel good—or because I want kudos from my boss? Definitely the former. This struck me when I was finishing my (job) self-appraisal today. Yes, I care about the sort of review I get back. But I care more that I've created, and learned, a ton this year. I feel good about it. And I feel good about feeling good about it. 

So I'll run and I'll work and I'll write not for reward or lack of punishment but because these things make me whole. But if someone wants to reward me for unpacking the dozens of boxes still sitting in the guest room closets from last year's move or for planting the onions that have been hanging out in my kitchen so long they've sprouted antlers, I'll take it. Or leave these tasks for another day. Again.  

Day 5 of 5x5: Cool connections

I'm breaking my 5x5 Creative Challenge streak. Sorta.

Here's 1 snap:

And a 1-ish minute writing exercise:

I love interconnectedness. I love that pictured here with this Dirty Mayor cider is another 5x5ing friend and a friend who might 5x5 before the month's end. I love that the might-5x5 friend, a writer, randomly met another writer friend in a Brooklyn hallway years ago and, yesterday, made the connection that I knew her too because I liked a FB picture of her kid hanging with Tony Danza. I dig the awesome synchronicity of the fact that, just two weeks ago, I spoke on the phone with a dear friend of the writer-friend that still lives in Brooklyn—the mom of the "Tony Danza kid"—because she's soon moving to Burlington. From Virginia. And she's a writer too.

I think I just racked up five intergalactic connections. So I'm gonna count this post as a creative success. Over and out.