A Review: Reclaim Your Dreams

Jonathan Mead is the author of one of the best critiques of the modern love affair with productivity I've read recently. I say "best," because after he explains what he thinks is wrong with our productivity obsession, he includes his own specific and working solution. This is his great strength, and where and when he engages in this kind of approach in his eBook, Reclaim Your Dreams, he is refreshingly successful in breaking through the ordinary world of self-help literature.

In my view, this is mostly evident in Part 2 of the book. In Part 1, you have to confront Mead’s repeated assertion that "the point of life is to enjoy life." If you agree with that, you may be fine with the rest of his argument. However, you may think the point of life is to serve one another justly, or, perhaps, to serve God, or something else entirely. Too, if you did not have a relatively privileged, trouble-free childhood, you might have a hard time identifying with Mead’s too easy explanation of the development of adult self-doubts and judgments from run-of-the-mill childhood experiences.

Fortunately, you can benefit from the useful approaches introduced in Part 2 without assenting to the belief structures of Part 1. And here, as I mentioned, is where Jonathan Mead is really at his best. He is a man who has put his ideas into action in his own life, and he is willing to report both the process and the results, which is unusual and informative. For those of us interested in the topics of career transitions, dreaming of the future, or even retirement planning, I think the book gets very useful when Mead gives us the 3 Keys to Making Your Dreams Happen. Here, he essentially recaps his key ideas in  practical form, by spelling out what you have to do to try out a new idea. He starts by confronting fears and making suggestions about how to "overcome uncertainty." He also walks through what it might be like to talk about any transition with those closest to you.

Next, he presses on the idea of making time for the new idea and explores all that might mean. Finally, Mead takes on the topic of money. Our financial planner made many of these same arguments to Iris and me when she was trying to get us onto a smarter path of retirement savings. Mead takes it a little farther, because he also includes the post-transition steps, that is, how to start that new business by volunteering or "hang(ing) up your shingle." Interestingly, by reminding you to "focus on providing value to others," the 7th Chapter actually ties directly to the productivity essay I mentioned earlier.

Let me also take a minute to touch on the exercises that are available along with the book, for an additional fee. Most of these are fairly intuitive and follow along with the texts for each chapter. They would be useful for someone who really likes to have a structure within which to work. There is one extraordinary diagram included, and it pertains to discerning how to create an income from what you love. Mead credits Bud Caddell's whatconsumesme.com

One last thought: in his introduction, “Taking the Plunge,” Mead notes that “We have to make things up as we along, and we have to stop caring about not knowing where our thirst for freedom might lead us.” That struck me as a good rallying cry for any liberation movement, and I wondered if Mead’s readers notice they have common cause with every person who wants to be free to be fully him- or herself.

Again, the eBook is: Reclaim Your Dreams 

The Tale of Two Friendships

I saw my friend Denah this week. By itself, that sentence, "I saw my friend Denah this week," is not so remarkable. The thing is, my friendship with Denah exists entirely in the context of an annual gathering on the occasion of Groundhog Day, February 2nd.

I met Denah at a Groundhog Day party, one that my dear (best ever) neighbor Barbara holds every year on February 2, about 6 or 7 years ago. From the first, Denah and I hit it off. We dove into the deep end of conversation that first night, discussing spiritual matters of great importance to us both. I left the party with a sense that this woman had been a real gift to me. Since then, as she has reappeared on each February 2nd of my life, I have had the opportunity to report in on my adventures, as she has had with me. It continues to be a friendship of great sweetness and remarkable strength. It is quite extraordinary.

Seeing Denah this year reminded me of my good friend Lynne, who died in 2002. The two of them are unlike each other, but the friendships themselves have a similarity. Here's how I met Lynne: for many years, 10 to be exact, I took a particular BART train in the morning to my job in San Francisco. I am a creature of habit, and I had a particular place where I liked to stand to catch the train, because it positioned me well for the exit I wanted take once I reached my destination. It turned out there was another woman who was like me in this way, and one day one of us broke the unspoken 'no talking in line' rule. I can't remember if it was me or Lynne, but she or I asked the other what book she was reading. That did it! After that, we never stopped talking. And, as it turned out, having 30 to 35 minutes together, 5 days a week was actually quite a lot of time with which to build a friendship. From then on, we sat together from North Berkeley to Embarcadero (where I exited) and talked, or read, for several years, until Lynne got sick with her fatal illness.

Lynne was a highly skilled nurse practitioner, and she knew full well what her prospects were when she broke the news to me. By then, she and I had gotten together only once outside of the context of our BART-ride friendship, but I was moved to ask if I could be a part of her support system, and she agreed. I joined a circle of Lynne's closest friends, and it was surprising to me that they had all heard of "Joan from BART."

What I want to say about both of these friendships, aside from how deeply grateful I am for them, is that they are in large measure the product of a characteristic I've shared with these two women, that of constancy. This is a quality that doesn't get much play in our culture anymore, as fast-paced as it is.

Now, I am not saying I am a paragon of this virtue. I too can abandon myself in the face of stress or depression. I am saying that it is good to be reminded of what I can gain by remaining faithful, being constant to myself and those who matter to me. Thank you Denah and Lynne.

Remnants

Making something new from the leftovers of old projects has real appeal to me. I can see materials I've carefully chosen for one purpose combined in new ways, and, in the case of fabric, this yields interesting color, pattern, and even texture juxtapositions. Because I often sew gifts, the combinations also bring together thoughts about the people for whom the fabric was originally purchased. So, there is a many-layered weave going on.

In the case of my current project, a set of rag placemats, I actually needed to start by making the loom. And, for this too, I began with "remnants," in that I used lumber, screw and nails we had on hand.

The dimensions of this simple box loom are 19 X 15 3/4 inches, and it is made from ordinary interior grade 2 X 4. The nails are 2 1/2 inch finish nails, though you could use nails that are somewhat shorter or longer. I pre-drilled the holes so as to avoid splitting the wood, and I did not nail in a straight line for the same reason.

The next step is to string the warp, and here again, I used string I had on hand. It doesn't have to be fancy string, but you want to use something about as strong as a good kite string. You start from the upper left corner with a slip knot and wind the string up and down around the nails. The warp layout map shown below is from an old rug-making book I got from my mother, who was a rug braider.

Once you have the warp ready, all you need is your fabric and a yard stick or wide tooth comb for battening the rows. About the fabric: this is the perfect project for the remnants from pant making. The reason is that you need to work with strips that are about 1 1/2 inch wide.

The author of my little book, Kathryn Andrews Marinoff, assumes I'm working with wool, but I don't have wool remnants, because I really don't sew with wool. And this project is all about using what I have on hand. So, I'm thinking of this is as a kind of experiment in weaving with cotton "rags." I like how it looks and feels so far, but it may all come apart the first time I wash the place mats!

Before closing, I want to put in a plug for a couple of great resources for those of you who do not have a lot of "remnants" of various kinds laying around your house or garage waiting to be remade. The East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse and Urban Ore are both treasure troves. The Depot has more of the interior kinds of things (paper, fabric, paints, and on and on and on). Urban Ore has massive amounts of construction materials, furniture, hardware, and on and on and on.

I've left out some details here, so if you want more information, please do post a question. I'd also love to hear about your projects along these lines.

The Flesh Crayon Lives!

You may be aware of a strange thing that happened about a week and a half ago: all over Facebook, women were posting the color of their bras. Apparently, this had something to do with breast cancer awareness, but honestly, it looked like a virtual underwear party of some kind.

But what jumped out at me was one of my Facebook friends posting simply, "Nude." And, by that, she meant a color, the one that approximately matches her skin. Suddenly it hit me: Nude lingerie is the new Flesh Crayon!

All this time, we've white folks have been wearing nude pantyhose, nude bras, and nude panties, all the while eschewing the use of crayons labelled "flesh"!

Friends, the Flesh Crayon was renamed "Peach" nearly 50 years ago "partially as a result of the U.S. Civil Rights movement," according to the Crayola Crayon Color History, available from Crayola. How is it that we've managed so completely to ignore the same principle as applied to our undergarments?

I don't know, but I'm done with it. I'm not going to buy any more of it.

The Pinnacle of Seed Catalogs

Living where I do, I can walk over to a place I fondly call "the Hort" (Berkeley Horticultural Nursery) any time of the year and buy starts of all the vegetables that are seasonally ready for planting here in the San Francisco's East Bay.

But, my heart still skipped a beat when I saw the Seed Savers Exchange 2010 Catalog of Heirloom Seeds, Books and Gifts in my mailbox this week. First: it is stunning. The cover features a crate of many varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

And then, when you open it up, you get 97 pages of full color photographs and detailed, useful descriptions of hundreds of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Just look at a few of the wonderful names:

• Long Red Florence (onion)
• Bloody Butcher (corn)
• Amish Deer Tongue (lettuce)
• Bulgarian Carrot (pepper)
• Ten Commandments (gourd)
• Envy (soybean)
• Long Island Cheese (squash)
• Nebraska Wedding (tomato)
• Small Shining Light (watermelon)

The descriptions for each seed include where it came from (including if it was sourced by a member of the Exchange) and recommended best uses. Last year, I bought the Hutterite Soup Bean seeds, and, now that I have grown them and cooked with them, I can attest to the fact that they have performed as advertised here: "One of the best heirloom varieties for making soup. Beans soak up water well and cook very quickly. Makes a truly excellent creamy white soup."

In the middle of the catalog, you can read about Heritage Farm, in Decorah, Iowa, where the folks who started Seed Savers Exchange make their home, and the Exchange has its operations. By the time I get to this part of the catalog, I am half in love with these people, and I start imagining spending my summer vacation attending the Annual Meeting. This seed catalog is a powerful thing.

Of course, I've been feeling rather well disposed toward Iowa lately, what with the way things have been going down at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in our fair State of California... Maybe a whole lot of us ought to spend our tourist dollars in the Hawkeye State. What do you think?

If you want to get on this wacky bandwagon, buy some seeds, or just look at incredibly lovely pictures, you can download your very own copy of the catalog. You have now had fair warning of its potency.

Bermuda Grass, the Teacher

Yes, you read correctly. This is a reflection on persistence, the long view.

I started down this path of thinking when I read Novella Carpenter's New Year's Resolutions. She aims to deal with both Bermuda grass and perennial buckwheat, having found that her animals won't eat either. She writes, "This spring, I’ll be hosting a big weed pulling party. I might even hire some local workers, but that last stand of weeds has to go!" I wish her the best, I really do.

When I moved into my house in 1986, here's what the front yard looked like:

It's perhaps not as clear as it might be, but behind and under the sad little bushes is a lawn of well established Bermuda grass.

Now, there is at least one positive thing to say about Bermuda grass. It is drought tolerant. It is also poison tolerant. It is probably nuclear fallout tolerant. I guess that's three positive things...

Anyway, despite these advantages, one of the first things I undertook after moving into the house was the removal of that Bermuda grass. Or, let me say, I began my relationship with the Bermuda grass. Here I am, looking fairly pleased with myself, thinking I am establishing dominion over my little section of California real estate.

After this step, I put in a front garden, with raised beds where I am able to take advantage of the best sunlight I have to grow a few vegetables every year.

However, whereas most plants have one way of propagating themselves--and some of the vegetables I want to grow depend on me, the hapless farmer, for help--the many-talented Bermuda grass has not one, not two, but three ways of spreading itself! Seeds, runners, and rhizomes. That's impressive.

The root systems of Bermuda grass can be a couple of yards below ground. For all I know, the ancient "mother root" from my former yard persists under my pretty front garden. Either that or the interlopers I still occasionally find are the result of roots travelling from my neighbors' yards to mine, under driveways and side walks. It's an absolute breeze for this plant.

Vigilance and constancy: these are what are required against a foe of this caliber. When it comes down to it, Bermuda grass is like a really bad habit, a bad penny. You know what I mean, perhaps. In the 12-step programs, there is a saying that gets repeated at every meeting: Keep Coming Back. It speaks to the regularity and fortitude that is required to deal with pernicious issues. Some troubles stay with us, over and over, coming back time and time again. So we must stay with them also, watching for encroachments, of seeds, runners, rhizomes or whatever it may be. And, sometimes practicing things in the garden is not such a bad way to build good new habits, after all.

Our Bodies, (More than) Ourselves

Today to start the New Year and decade off right, my wife and I went up to Calestoga to Indian Springs Resort & Spa for a mud bath, mineral bath, and massage. It was all that you might imagine: relaxing, rejuvenating, cleansing, healing.

In the middle of my massage, I had one of those experiences you sometimes get with body work. The masseuse was cradling my right foot, rubbing in some oil and massaging it. All at once, I was brought back to the period just after my mother passed away five years ago. My sister and I had both traveled from other cities to my mother's home in Denver and had spent the previous weeks living with and taking care of her. We were closer than we'd been in years. At some point, Ann remarked that I have my mother's feet. And, any time she wanted to see my mother's feet again, she could just look at mine. When the masseuse touched my feet, I thought of this, and of the foot massages I'd given my mother. A wave of grief washed over me.

Since my early adulthood (about the same time as the publication of the groundbreaking book Our Bodies, Ourselves), I have found small reminders of my parents and grandparents built into my body. The skin on my hands crack in the winter, just like my farmer grandfather's, even though I don't have to brave the prairie winds. And, I've often said that I learned how to make my mother's pie crust by mentally superimposing her hands over mine as I worked.

But, in fact, this is small potatoes. The actual threads go back much farther and deeper, don't they? Another episode that occurred right after my mother's death was that my brother invited me to participate in the Genographic Project. He had submitted a DNA swab, and he needed one of his sisters to submit an equivalent sample in order to get information about which migration group our ancient ancestors were part of, once they left Africa. In our case, it turned out we had the most common Northern European haplogroup characteristics. That is to say, after leaving Africa, there was a migration to Asia (a right turn), and then a migration to Europe (a left turn). My brother's response was simply, "I'm Chinese!"

My thought is that, with the fate of the planet on the line, it's well to keep in mind that we're all related, as Rick James would say, from our heads down to our toenails.