In one of the holiday traditions at this time of year, there is a story of a couple looking for lodging and they are repeatedly told that there is no room. No room at the inn for any extra guests because, after all, there was a lot going on in the city where they were,  a census before there was mail in long forms and everyone had to be present to be counted. The streets, it is said, were filled with people and there was a busyness everywhere and a couple looking for a room kept getting turned away. 

No matter what your traditions and culture in the holiday season I feel like we can all relate to that atmosphere of overcrowded streets, overfilled lodgings, and errands. Our day planners are fuller with holiday get-togethers, our rooms are often filled with guests and our to do lists have no vacancy.  The strange part about this season is that many a greeting card compels us to find some peace, to celebrate family, to enjoy the season,  or to relax into joy.  Let me add that to the to do list, oh wait, no room. 

This is a time of extra busy schedules, extra calories, in some cases extra sadness and in many cases extra joyful moments. It is up to each of us to decide about the room, decide about the space available for extra, decide what to let in, what to be available for, what to prioritize. Is there room for a few moments of peace and reflection on this past year? Are there spare linens and a couch for some extra times spent with a friend to catch up? Is there a rickety old shed out back for a bit of self-care and rest in and around the streets full of errands? We are the innkeepers who decide what gets room. Fill your rooms with what makes this season great for you, add an extra cot for some peace and rest, and celebrate and be counted in this holiday season.

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I am a list maker, I have a book of lists for work, a book of lists for home and, when things are of extreme importance, my lists can cross pollinate.  There are columns, sometimes highlighted sections, and stickers.  I have always kept lists and I would be lost without them.  When I am overwhelmed by a bunch of priorities my first step is to make a fresh list that helps me think through how to eat the elephant one bite at time and put things in a perspective of priority order; this strategy helps me make a start. 

Yesterday, I was crafting the day’s list and I realized that my credit card is about to expire and I have not received the replacement. So, the already overfilled day got a task added, to call the company and figure this out. And I will admit I had a little grump about it, why did this get lost, why do I have so much today, why is there this one more thing to add to a busy day? So contrary to all my efforts to begin a day in gratitude and positivity, I grumped. 

My home, like others, is decorated for the holidays and as such the place where the mail usually goes is a Christmas wonderland of lights and décor; thus, my family has been chucking the mail on my desk. As part of my morning routine, I went to my desk at home to grab things I would need at work, and I noticed the rather large pile of mail. The new credit card was in an envelope in the stack. All that wasted grumpiness, all that needless worry! A pause was needed to actually check in on the facts, a moment of investigation would have changed the morning back to gratitude, tomorrow I will put that on my list as a priority.  

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I went to my grandmother’s burial this week, a sort of sad occasion, however she was 93 years old, so had a full long life.  The minister present told a story about how he had been a placement student at her church and then came back some months later.  It was around Christmas, when she was still well enough to attend, and he called her by name when he saw her.  He relayed that she was genuinely surprised and delighted that this young student would remember her name.  I think we all know that we feel seen, cared about, noticed and appreciated when people remember our names and use them.  I hear these words a thousand times at conferences and provincial meetings – I am terrible with names.  Totally understandable with so many people in our lives, that is why the first critical piece of gear at many gatherings is a name tag.  There is something so special about hearing your own name.  While it is a lot to remember and take in, I think we need to try and work at people’s names, learning pronunciation,  memorizing names and faces.  A tall order let’s start where we are.  Do you know all the names of the people on your team at work?  Do you shorten or avoid some because they are difficult for you to pronounce?  Are you aware of people’s pronouns and using what they prefer?   There is a great hymn where the first line is “I have called you by your name” and it is about that feeling of belonging and being appreciated.  This is something we all have the power to do, every day.  Learn, remember, use people’s names and spread that delight all over the place.

My daughter recently went camping with her friends and they all heard a strange noise in the woods. One resourceful companion offered to try an app on his phone that identifies bird sounds to see whether the mystery could be solved. The app said – crow. All of the campers knew what a crow sounded like, so they quickly dismissed the app and decided that in addition to these strange clicks and buzzes it probably picked up a distant crow noise. 

Bothered by the unidentified noise and probably haunted by a few too many Finding Big Foot viewings, my daughter worked hard to figure out the noise.  She had the recording, she had YouTube and she had a need to know.  Finally, she solved the mystery, finding a You Tube video that had the exact same sounds that she and friends hear on that fateful day on Lake Simcoe. It was a crow. 

This answer, of course, makes me laugh and think about how often we do this. Something clearly tells us that the situation is one way, or that the solution is a clear path, or that you are not as valued in this friendship as you want to be. A million buzzes and clicks seem to confirm the answer as clear and accurate, but we dismiss it. For a million reasons we keep on working away on a solution we like better, we work away in a manner that is comfortable, with comfortable partners.  In well worn patterns and we just keep on unconsciously choosing to not see or not agree with the answer, telling ourselves that this is not a crow. 

I love this story because the group had even produced a plausible explanation, that the crow was somewhere, but not making the main noise that they wanted to identify.  As when we are faced with a clear learning about our work or relationships and we say to ourselves, yes that could work for someone else, but I have these special circumstances. It’s a difficult thing to just lean into an unwanted solution or answer and go with it, we are probably hard wired to question and keep to our patterns. But sometimes the answer is in fact the clear one in front of us, sometimes it is a crow. 

Crow on a Willow Branch by Los Angeles County Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Last week a hydro one crew arrived in our yard and asked permission to cut a tree from our yard as it was too difficult for them to cut from the banked road beside us. We agreed and soon the cherry picker was parked in the corner of our yard and the crew were working away. I assume that for safety the team divides into two, one person going up in the basket and trimming the tree while the other stays on the ground, watching and being ready for, well I guess any unintended actions? 

In that corner of our yard, we have a tree swing, just a simple board with rope strung through over a branch. The second worker was standing beside the tree at first, but soon made his way to the swing as he watched and waited. Then, you guessed it, he began to swing back and forth. 

This sums it all up I think, we must work, we are forced into worrisome situations, we have to face challenge and heartache, but if we look around, there just might be a swing –  a friend who can talk it over, a stranger who is kind, an unexpected funny situation, a swing to just take a few minutes to swing on. 

I have learned that we find what we look for, that what we focus on can consume us. But if we take a step back from the problem or crisis sometimes we can see something completely different, something that we had not seen before, a new solution – or at least a little distraction – to shore us up for the next leg of the journey that we face on that particular day.  In days of difficult hurdles, rest on a swing, relax into a rhythm and play. 

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I have said before that I have the privilege of a little cemetery where five generations of my family are buried. I plant flowers each year at two stones and then water regularly. There are about ten stones that have flower beds and when I am there I happily walk around with my quiet thoughts and water all the thirsty annuals. 

Last summer, I got caught up in busy days at work, some camping, some illness and did not get to the cemetery for three weeks. My two beds of flowers were dried out and dead. However, when I looked around the others were alive; they had been watered by people clearly not doing the same as me. I was so saddened that my habit and kind deed had not been returned, and I angrily vowed to only water my own flowers henceforth. 

Here’s the thing though, I know who I am. I know that going to cemetery and walking past those beds in an angry stomp does not serve me well. I know that I enjoy my quiet time walking around contemplating the true meaning of life, talking to my dad, just thinking. I know that all that would be tarnished if I was holding onto this grudge.  After all, what we do for others is not really something of which we keep track so that it can be reciprocated, the doing is the pay off, the peace and the satisfaction it offers to be resolved in the knowledge of who you are, is far more reliable and rewarding than anything others could offer. 

At the end of the day, we all determine our worth, our nature, our way of showing up. Others can make opinions about us that are correct or negative or neutral, it really is not our business and there is little we can do to control the opinions and actions of others. So that just leaves our own selves – we can water, we can fail to  water, we decide. Resist the urge to leave your watering can in the hands of others they can disappoint. Choose who you are and sprinkle that fantasticness all over the place. 

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I attended a session this week on leadership and resilience, and the facilitator offered that while people can experience success on their own, greatness will always be enhanced when we have a network. A place we can drop our tricky problems and have others look them over what we missed. A place we can just listen to the plans and schemes of the group and glean tidbits that make sense for us.  A group with which you feel so that you can just relax and openly talk about things that you fear you have no idea what to do about or if you are even the right person to do it.  Your network is made up of your people, people you know may challenge you but ultimately want you to succeed and do better.  Your networks can include co-workers, friends and family. 

In the same session, we were asked to talk about areas in which we needed to improve, and then create our answers in Play-Doh – an interesting activity crafted by the facilitator.  One participant created a yield sign.  She explained that she often wants to barrel ahead and fix, advise, guide and lead in every situation. So, for her, the yield sign means, slow down, look, listen, engage and merge into what is needed and desired in the interaction. 

I love that analogy. Merging can be about speeding up, waiting, slowing down. (In fact, my daughter will drive up to 10 km out of her way to avoid merging as she gets so nervous deciding what to do.)  Being in a group can mean yielding, listening and challenging, but in the end we are heading in the same direction.  

This past February was my son’s last reading week as he was set to graduate, I took a day off just to spend with him. He offered that I choose the adventure, but then realized my choice would be antique markets and cemeteries, so he thought again.

It’s true, I do like cemeteries. I like history and family trees, and cemeteries have a lot to offer. Every now and then Google pictures makes a collage for me with a wonderful title like July day or summer fun, and inevitably there will be some shots of flowers, family, pets, and a few tombstones.

I always laugh at the mash up of things that I photograph. Right in the middle of captured joyful moments are these stone markers of lives lived. Tombstones do reflect that a life ended, but also mark where a person who lived on this earth for a period of time now rests – a person who had dreams and joys and experienced storms of different kinds.

I guess while I do not plan to frame any of these masterpieces the collages do reflect how I spent some time. It’s a tricky thing balancing living with the end of life, balancing joy with sorrow, knowing that we each need to truly live a full life and to completely live with an understanding of all the colours of lives. There are a lot of tombstones in our lives, the ends of things, the paths not taken, the people lost, the job changes, the relationships changed or ended. At the end of all that there is this mix, flowers of joy, people that made the sunset brighter and clouds to help us know that while we live, we face it all.

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There is one absolutely direct path from my home to Peterborough, it forms almost a straight line, but I do not take it that often. It has high hills that you cannot see beyond, it spends most of the winter snow covered, there are often tractors and, most compelling, my mechanic told me to stop driving on it.  There are frequently potholes and rough patches, and my mechanic was tired of my broken springs and bent rims. 

Recently I that route again – after all, it is direct, scenic and leisurely compared to the highway.  I was delighted to find that 80% of the road is now paved and wonderfully smooth.  So yes, there are still blind hills and tractors, but the thick black pavement has smoothed all my mechanic’s wrinkle lines. 

Made me think of all the other things that we sometimes stop doing or dreaming or trying for lots of reasons. Lack of time, shortness of resources, low energy, obstacles that outnumber us, all could make us take detours or stop. Do we ever go back? To check in on change, perhaps we have more time because the kids are older, we have some resources because of a job change or we have developed skills and stamina since last time. 

How sad would it be if our response about our long-held dream was that we tried it and it was too hard and so we no longer travel there. What if that was something stupendously enjoyable or rewarding, and now we avoid it?  Of course, there was every chance that the road could have been exactly as before, but how wondrous that it was so different. I can get along with tractors and keep right on the hills so that from time to time I can enjoy my drive that much more. Have another look at a path you left behind, could be a far different road that you travel today, than when you sojourned there last.

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I like to have a cup of tea at the end of my dinner, and I found this habit when I got together with my first husband. This was what his whole family did, and it seemed a nice way to end my meal so soon became my habit. That husband has moved on and I don’t know what he does, but his family is still in my life, and I recently had supper with them. At the beginning of the meal, they asked if I still enjoyed tea at the end; when I said I did they brewed some for me. I was then offered the single serving of tea. 

It struck me as remarkable that for different reasons all of these relations no longer had a cup of tea at the end of their meal. They have all changed their habit and I am still performing it, learned from them even thought I spend very little time with them now.  

It is interesting to me that this type of thing happens in our lives more often than we probably know. We learn and improve ourselves, others learn from others, and those ripples just keep on going and changing for all of us. Now, sure, tea is not a revolutionary life changer, but lots of other things I have learned have made me the person I am now. Are those who mentored me now doing things differently after following yet more models?

 Writer Richard Bach challenges us to keep on growing and becoming truer to ourselves. He tells us that in the discovery of who we really are there is the ultimate freedom, and that we discover that freedom by reflecting, learning, leaning and growing with others all around us. 

I like tea at the end of my meal and now I seem to be the only one in that crowd that still does.  I will stick to what I like until I find something that works better, if that happens. Sometimes we could make a wrong move, but I think we can agree the living is in the moving, the flying, the trying and the ripples of change and growth that happens when we both grow with the crowd and leave other crowds behind. 

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