Lost And Found

I drove to meet a new friend at the Ithaca Beer Company tap room yesterday.
  It’s actually a restaurant with a patio.  Since I was afraid I might be late, I wound up getting there early, before the restaurant opened at 12.  Luckily, I  spotted an employee on the patio and convinced him to let me in .It was so nice and sunny out that I decided to sit out there myself.

I’m so glad I did. As soon as I set foot on it, I felt as if the whole world had vanished except for the patio itself and the flowers and  bushes around it. Somehow the flowers-   bright reds, violet, purple and pink (don't ask me for names, I don't have a clue), were combined in such a way that although they attracted me, they were visually soothing. There was something about the shapes, and the rocks and how everything was combined.SuddenIy, I wasn’t thinking about anything else. Everything fell away.  I hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time, not since I’d gone rowing with my son a long while back.  It felt a  bit like being on vacation about two or three days on—at least when I’m having a good one.  The rest of the world goes away and everything is just the way it should be, except in this case, instead of my going away and leaving everything behind, everything inside my head went away and left me behind. And there I was, totally relaxed. For a moment I wanted to kick off my grown-up lady shoes and run through the grass.  But that’s where the fantasy ended.   Perhaps reminded by the servers setting up and one woman picking flowers and calling out to an unseen colleague, I couldn’t pretend I was in a park or my own private garden. So, I confined myself to walking around a bit and then sat happily  at a table.

Then my new friend arrived and we had a great conversation, a kind of voyage of discovery into each other’s lives and work. There were differences and convergences and shared passions. And we were amused that she, who had a GPS and lived nearby, was the one who got lost, while I, from a different town and without one, had been early.   We ate and drank and the food and the drink were good.  Then lunch was over and we went our separate ways.  I went out of the restaurant down the narrow road  to the big one, around the sign facing the other way saying the road I'd been on was closed (long story) and turned and turned again because there was a one way street.  Do I need to tell you what happened next? I got lost.

  A  word of advice -  if you see a sign advertising peaches on the right side of a road and you remember seeing a sign advertising peaches on the left side when you were coming the other way, that doesn’t mean it’s the same sign for the same peaches on the same road.  Also, Seneca Falls has some attractive spots on its main street.  I wish I’d seen them because I was visiting Seneca Falls, not because I was trying to get to Syracuse from Ithaca by what seemed like the Polar Route (Northern). And all that calm and relaxation?  I bet I don’t have to tell you that either. But at least I have the memory.

Hello, I love you won't you tell me your name

Recently I misplaced my cell phone for an afternoon and was reduced to communicating with people by email.  I wrote to two people inviting them to meet for coffee  One I’d actually met in a coffee shop, but I realized after I’d sent the email, he probably didn’t remember that.  The other person had some interests in common with me and when I suggested we Link (if that’s the correct verb) she not only linked but did so via a very voluble email referencing her work experience and some of mine.  So I emailed suggesting coffee.  In both cases no response.  No problem.  In a week or so I might call them (hope it doesn’t scare them to death) chat a bit to reassure them I’m not a maniac and try the coffee invitation again. Or maybe not. But the experience is a reminder not to confuse “contact” on Linked in or “following” on Twitter, “friending” on Facebook etc.) with real in person contact, following (oops that might be stalking and both creepy and illegal)or becoming friends.

But that’s not really what I want to talk about.  I want to talk about the people who read my blog.  I was surprised when I looked at the numbers, to see my“ dear readers” to use an old-fashioned and nicely personal phrase, were more numerous than I’d expected.  What surprised me more is they come from all over the world. Recently I discovered I habe quite a few readers in Russia, Romania, China, Venezuela, and France (Vous allez bien?) as well as the U.S. .  I wonder why.And I wonder who you are as individuals, whether in the U.S. or another country.  You know me but I don't know you. And I'd like to.

Community is important to me. Communication is important to me too.  And with the exception of novels and other forms of literature, for me communication, as well as community, involve dialogue.  So here’s what it is.  I don’t want to feel as if I’m shouting into a megaphone with my blog: I’d rather feel like I’m having coffee with you individually. So to each of you out there in a very real some place, would you please introduce yourself?  Let  know why you read my blog or at least some of the posts and why? I’d love to hear what captures your imagination, what your passion is, how you spend your days. A sentence or two would suffice.  A paragraph or ten would be fine too.  You can comment or email me. Hide your identity if you want. I don’t care.  But I would like you to "meet" you.  That way, next time I write a blog post I’ll have you in mind and maybe even know whether to offer you coffee, tea or some red wine if we ever do meet. That would be nice. And thanks Jim Morrison, wherever you are, I love your song.

9 Steps to Make a Dream Come True

9 Steps to Make Your Dream Come True.
Having worked for over a decade to help others achieve their dreams, I have realized that there are nine key steps that people need to take to make their dreams come true. This is true whether their dreams are personal, organizational or professional.  Some people struggle with one element, some with another.  But when all nine are in place, the path becomes easier and obstacles seem insignificant. Other people seem to support you and things tend to go your way.   But, if they’re not in place, achieving the dream becomes such a struggle that often people give it up. They blame themselves for lack of willpower, organizations for being bureaucratic, our society for being corrupt or some other force that was too much for them. They decide the dream can’t be attained, or the effort isn’t worth it.  And they just give up, when they didn't  have to.  

So, what are these 9 keys to successfully realizing your dream?

1. Knowing what your dream is.

Sounds simple, right? Well, sometimes it takes a little time and soul-searching to find it out what it is.  It’s not always a matter of not seeing the forest for the trees; sometimes what you really want is the ocean.

For example, a client of mine thought her main problem was that she was unhappy with the management style at work.  She felt stuck and resigned. When she dug a little deeper, she discovered that the reason all this bothered her so much was she was in the wrong field.  She wanted to move from one medical specialty to another.   Once she realized that, and understood that it was possible, there was no stopping her.  She took some classes, and is now on her way to her new profession.

Or, you may have limited your choices to what you thought was “reasonable” or “realistic” or what other people would find acceptable.  And for some reason, you just can’t seem to get started, or if you do, your efforts fall short.  I knew someone who was so concerned about appearing “respectable” that in redecorating her house she never thought about what she liked, but only what was “appropriate” and had a decorator pick everything.  The decorator stuck with cream throughout the house.  There’s nothing wrong with cream.  But the client didn’t pick it because she wanted it;she picked it because she was afraid to stand out.  The resulting decorating scheme, understandably, had no mark of her own taste and personality. In contrast to this, a friend of mine had an all white color scheme in her bedroom, but it was matched with beautiful dark wood and displayed her taste beautifully.  Because she knew what she wanted the effect was totally different even though she used the same color. Sometimes it’s not what you choose to do that matters, it’s why you choose to do it.

2. Dreaming clearly
When you dream, you need to dream as clearly and precisely as possible.
If you want to move to California, where exactly do you want to move?  What kind of house do you want to live in?  Who are your neighbors and friends, etc., etc. The clearer and more precisely you imagine your dream, the greater your chances of your realizing it.

It doesn’t matter if some of the details change later or the dream itself changes.  By giving yourself permission to develop your dream in detail, you are mobilizing powerful internal forces in support of your dream and learning a great deal about what exactly you really want.  You are also taking an important step in making the dream “real” for yourself and others.  Real things are specific: they have sounds, smells, colors, flavors, sizes and details. They’re not vague yearnings.

If you’re not sure what you really want, there are many different techniques and exercises you can use to clarify what your goal really is.  Not all of them will be right for you.  As in many other things in life, one size does not fit all.  But there are plenty of approaches you can use to clarify your dream and one of them will be right for you.

So, let’s say you’ve figured out exactly what you want. You’ve decided to become a professional speech therapist in a small hospital in Wyoming, move to a white two-story beach side house in San Diego, learn how to design websites for lawyers or spend a year in Palermo to research the mystery novel you’re finally writing.  So is that enough for you to realize your dream?  Not yet.

You need to feel that realizing this dream is something you have to accomplish starting right now. Conviction is another essential element to realizing your dream.

3. Conviction that Your Goal is Vital
It’s not enough to know this intellectually, to think this is important or a good idea.
You have to know in your heart and your guts that this is something essential for you to do now.

But that’s not enough either.  In addition to feeling this is something essential you need to take care of you also have to believe you can do it.

4. Belief in Your Ability
No matter how much you want something, no matter how important it is to you, if you don’t believe you can do it you won’t be able to. But isn't that the same as having conviction, you might ask.  No.  Believing something is essential is not the same as having the confidence or the faith that you'll be able to do it.

You need to have faith that somehow, whatever it takes, you’ll get there.  Sometimes that faith is there already, sometimes, by getting out there and talking to people and starting to move, the faith will grow. Experience and results are just as important in developing faith as faith is in leading to results.  Small steps, one after the other can lead to big changes, both in your attitude and in your results.  But what steps?  What do you need to do next?

5. Research.
You need to get out there and do research to find out what you have to do to make your dream come true, and what living that dream is really like.

To do this you need to get information, from the Internet, from magazines and books and from other people. You need to find out what kind of resources you need in terms of knowledge, skills, people and finances or anything else that is necessary.

For example, if you’re planning to get fit, you need to find out what kinds of healthy exercise and eating habits fit your personality and preferences and how much the equipment you need will cost.

If you’re planning to market your goods or services in another country you need to research not only markets there, tax and import laws, but also the culture.  Products, slogans or even colors, that work the U.S., may be ridiculous or even insulting there.

Once you have the information you need, you have to develop a strategy to put it what you’ve learned into operation to achieve your goal.

6. Strategy.
A strategy is just a plan, with a time frame for doing what you need to do to achieve a goal.  So, now that you have the information you need, you can develop your strategy and start moving. This will take time, thought and reality testing.  Sometimes a strategy that doesn’t seem to be working just needs a little fine-tuning.

For example, I once worked with a volunteer group, to recruit and mobilize volunteer leaders from constituent organizations. The trainings we developed were great.  And we had excellent participation in the initial sessions.  But the new leaders weren’t managing .to mobilize others within their home organizations consistently and they were getting discouraged. When I suggested that established leaders work one-on-one with newcomers to mentor them on how to develop and sustain momentum within their own organizations, things started turning around.  It just took a little more information and one additional element to make our strategy work.

7. Determination.
You need to be ready to do whatever it takes to realize your goal.
There will be fun parts and not so fun parts of getting there.  You need to develop whatever supports you need to keep your determination going, especially when you encounter temporary setbacks, things take longer than you expected, or you’re having a bad day and losing faith.

Put pictures of your dream house on the fridge, find a friend to call when you feel you can’t jog another mile, speak at a professional organization to remind yourself you have something valuable to offer, find a coach to help you, listen to motivational tapes, practice relaxation exercises, take a ten minute walk, write down what you’re feeling or pray.  Do whatever will get you back on track. And then just keep going.  Your moods may swing but they don’t have to rule your actions.

8. Other People.
You need other people all along the way to the achievement of your goal, for information, advice, support, as an audience or as clients.  They have their own needs and desires too.  Remember to thank them, help them and develop long-term relationships with them, even if they’re not immediately useful to your project.  People sense it when you don’t care about them and they don’t like being used.  Neither do you.  Share information with them let them know how you’re doing and find out how you can be useful to them.  Keep in touch from time to time after you’re project is done.  No one is an island.  Long-term relationships are essential, not just to realizing this one goal, but to realizing yet undreamed of ones and to building a life.

9.Balance
Whether you’re spending eighty hours a week on this goal or two, remember this isn’t all of your life.  You’ll be a lot more energized and successful if you stop – not just to smell the roses – but also to taste the sushi-or the rugelach, play with the kids and go to that concert. Having a life leaves you more joyful and relaxed, and that will make a difference in how effective you are in all aspects of your life, including achieving your goals.

So, there you have it: the nine steps to achieving a goal.  Now it’s up to you to take the first step. And happy dreaming!

Creativity: Alphabet Soup

I was watching a clip on TV recently about an ultra chic, ultra expensive four story penthouse apartment in NYC with a round, metal slide inside that looked a little like the inside out intestines of some giant animal or the frame of the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris.

What intrigued me the most was how much fun it would be to slide down, although I was a teeny bit uncomfortable imagining the closed in feeling I might get being inside a tube, even if it was a bright shiny silver and it was my slide.  But it still looked like a lot of fun.  Maybe the most fun part of the whole place.

And then I remembered something.  When I was a little girl in preschool and kindergarten, there were three or four of us who used to "hang" together ( of course we didn't call it that then).  One of us lived with her parents in a brownstone between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.  They rented out the basement and lived on the top two or three floors. 

 One of my favorite things from going to her house was eating the Campbell's alphabet soup.  Or should I  say reading the letters (well some of them anyway)and then eating it.We didn't eat Campbell's alphabet soup at my house so this was really cool and exotic to me.  But my other favorite thing at her house was the banisters.  They were a warm dark wood and went all the way up (or all the way down depending on your perspective) and they were curved and burnished and all that good stuff.  And most of all they were perfect for sliding down.  And so we did - with great delight.  And all the more so since we'd discovered how to do it all by ourselves and this was not what they were originally made for. 

 And remembering our delight made me think some more.  Maybe part of finding joy in something is discovering it for yourself and turning it to your own uses, diverting it from its more usual, mundane purposes and re-visioning it it for  a new purpose. And isn't that what creativity and discovery are all about?

 Wouldn't it be better in even the most, chic,modern and well-appointed house to leave something that could be discovered and transformed instead of providing everything anyone could want.

And perhaps that approach could be beneficial in other areas of life as well.

Imperfection

I recently drove a ways to get to a meeting of a group I was considering joining.  I got lost (twice) and barely had time to stop at the hotel before getting to the meeting.  I was the first one there, thought it might have been moved, gave what I was afraid might have been a too spontaneous presentation and was concerned I might have put the wrong foot forward at the after meeting get-together.  These concerns escalated when, after returning home, I I sent out emails to some of my new acquaintances and they didn't respond right away. Do I even need to add that after another day or two I did get positive responses to my emails?

Nowadays, we’re all obsessed with perfection. I don’t mean the kind of perfection found in a beautiful sunset or a favorite painting or even a long, leisurely walk in the woods with someone we care about.  I mean the kind of perfection involving a snappy presentation, perfect elocution and carefully crafted “authentic” message.  I guess what I’m talking about is a kind of branding.

Polish and presentation seem all important and encompass clothes,conversation, associations, trips to the supermarket and, of course, business events and our work at the office.   And that’s not counting the branding involved in the quest for the perfect SAT score, exemplary mate and perfect hair. This last used to be reserved for females, but  is so no longer.

With the internet and social media everything is visible and we have to take stock, measure up and modestly show off our accomplishments and personality.  And we feel we need to do it fast. When we see something on the internet, even if it took hours, days or even longer to put together, we can access it in a flash.  And we think we have to respond in kind. Sometimes it’s all a little overwhelming, like being on a carousel that never stops that we’re responsible for keeping in motion. It makes me want to take a deep breath and run away.I know it was ever thus, but now it seems more dizzying than ever.

Somehow, in trying to calm down and relax about all this, I was reminded of the Japanese idea of Wabi-Sabi, which is about finding the beauty in imperfect things; a beauty that comes from their imperfection. There’s something .refreshing in that idea – especially when we apply it to ourselves.. After all, we can't become perfect.

I don’t mean to use necessary imperfection as an excuse not to do the best we can in our undertakings.  But ,as long as we don’t take the Wabi-Sabi idea and turn it into a new ideal to “live up to” but rather use it to remind ourselves that perfection is an impossible and destructive ideal, it can help us accept ourselves for what we are, delightfully imperfect.

Let It Be Fat

 “If you eat pork, let it be fat,” my father, Laurence (Larry) Israel Housman translated from the Yiddish so I could understand.  Yiddish was my father's first language growing up in Flatbush Brooklyn, although his only accent was a Brooklyn one. Another expression of his was "Don't be a question mark, be an exclamation point."

He wanted me, a quiet, introspective girl with her nose buried in books to embrace whatever I did with a full heart, even when it was wrong. The advice was great. But even better was what he showed and taught me.

He showed me how to feed squirrels in Riverside Park by tapping on the stone and pebble fence with a peanut in its shell to get them to come to me; taught me  how to pick out a good, second-hand novel and to eat kippers at breakfast on Sunday. He taught me how to fold the New York Times properly (lengthwise in columns) how to stand in a subway car without falling down (bend your knees and sway), and the pleasures of very long, leisurely walks from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Greenwich Village.  Also how to bait a hook and fishing as meditation.

He introduced me to the Marx Brothers, W.C. Fields., Sherlock Holmes (I've been a Baker Street Irregular ever since) jumbo kosher beef hot dogs, and pistachio ice cream.

He adored my mother and believed she was the best thing that ever happened to him. He proposed to her by writing the names of their future children on a napkin in a Chinese restaurant. They were married three months after they met. They would dance around our living room to Cole Porter’s Songbook sung by Ella Fitzgerald. And by the way, he adored me too.

He believed in judging people by their acts, not their beliefs and did anonymous kindnesses quietly. He wasn't especially correct (at least at home). After a proper dinner served on china and a woven tablecloth at our dining table, he'd lie on the floor in the living room, loosen his belt and discourse and debate with guests, distinguished and not. He knew how to behave when dining out in his Brooks Brothers style attire with business associates or going out to dinner with friends. But at home? He just didn't want to. I was embarrassed as a teenager. Now I cherish those memories.

He relished chatting with people he encountered in the course of the day even if he didn't know them and arguing about politics with an old friend over lunch. These debates became a tradition almost a ritual part of their friendship, like his browsing in bookstores with me and his dances with my mother.

As I grew older, I introduced him to Japanese food, my first serious boyfriend and feminism. There were moments of tension  and conflict but always great love.

Then I moved to France and we only saw each other twice a year, once a year when I came home and once a year when my parents came to visit. Only at the end of his final visit did he tell me he saw what I found special in Paris. I'm glad he finally did since it helped us share something I cared about. 

I haven't mentioned it yet but he loved children, not just his one beloved daughter, all children. He could play with them endlessly.  Unfortunately, he died too young to meet his grandson, whom he would have adored, spoiled and played with like crazy.

When I have a big decision to make, especially an emotional one, I frequently think of him and that gives me strength. And I probably wouldn't be writing at all without his influence. He was one of a kind.

I miss you a lot dad.  Happy Father's Day.

Why I Love Chopsticks

I love chopsticks, not the tune a lot of us learned to play on the piano when we were very young but the eating instruments.  Not the plastic kind with ridges seen in budget Chinese restaurants that have red characters imprinted on them at one end, not the ornately carved ivory ones found in souvenir shops and at the backs of cavernous Chinese grocery stores and not even the high style modernist one chopsticks found in hip stores selling food accessories for the high-end minimalist consumer. No, I love the plain, wooden, rectangular chopsticks that come in a snug paper wrapper that I learned to use about the same time I learned to bang out "chopsticks" on the piano.

 Some wrappers have Chinese symbols or Japanese ones and colorful designs and some don't.  When you slide them out of the wrapper and pull them apart you're ready to go. I use them for stirring vegetables on the stove (but not scrambled eggs) to eat cottage cheese and stir fried meat and vegetables and bits of chicken both shredded and chunked, rice, frozen entrees and almost anything that does not need cutting or spooning to be consumed. They're not good for ice cream, or soup or steak unless it's in small, bite-sized pieces.

 I use them to poke food to see if it's ready to eat and to twirl pasta.  And I don't know why.  How do you explain love?  I do know it doesn't have much to do with learning to use them when I was little when Sunday lunch was spent with my grandmother at Chinese restaurants.  We went to old style "Cantonese" restaurants before people became sophisticated about Chinese food and discovered Szechuan and Hunan and all kinds of other stuff and learned to order what they saw people of Asian descent ordering. My grandmother always ordered "shrimp with lobster sauce" which is probably as close to what people eat in China as pizza is. My parents and I ordered all sorts of things. The chopsticks were one of the high points of the meal(visiting with my maternal grandmother was not) but I left them alone the rest of the week.

 I started to use them a lot in my 20's when I first started doing cooking regularly and some of it was Asian, but that's not why I love using them for everything I can.  It has something more to do with the taste of wooden chopsticks and their feel in my hand and against my teeth.  And  it has something to do with their rectangular shape and unpretentious nature.  No one ever chose wooden chopsticks for a wedding registry.No one cares about how heavy they are or if they're sterling silver.  I just use them and throw them out and get new ones and I know I should care more about wasting trees,by using them but I love them anyway.  And when I see them I want to smile.

What's In A Name?

People still call them coffee shops. The places with formica tables, plastic, colored, leatherette seats, sandwiches, soups (you're in luck if  they're homemade), chilis, bouffant desserts-and coffee-endless cups from a waiter or waitress who might just call you hon.

 Oh and the food's cheap, without being ethnic (unless it's Greek but that's another story) .  The menu doesn't focus on trendy or newly discovered to be healthy ingredients (pigs cheek, truffle oil, wheatgrass, amaranth or gluten-free anything). And there's a lot of food. Sometimes the food is very, very good and sometimes it's not. Busy, noisy and usually badly decorated, coffee shops are unlikely ever to be fashionable.

In New York City, they were around before Starbucks around before one-off coffee places with curated beans and maybe even before (but here I'm not sure) the Italian cafes called “coffee houses” in the Village (Greenwich ) and Brooklyn (pre-hipster, pre-boho). These "coffee houses" still serve great Italian espresso in small cups with lemon zest wrapped around the rim imparting its oily, acid flavor to the drink and provide sweet pastry, great or not- depending on the place. I'm partial to the cannoli.

Other old time places to get coffee and a light meal have fallen by the wayside. The wonderful Horn and Hardart Automats, which were like self-service toy shops in which food appeared seemingly by magic in little glass windows, are gone. Likewise, Schraft's, a chain of lunchrooms where my grandmother would meet other ladies, clad like her in Chanel inspired suits and white gloves . They'd eat nondescript, refined and not very memorable food followed by yummy ice cream, those visits displaying eating as an assertion of taste and class, as it so often is.  Unless you count Starbucks for its shine and chrome, and I wouldn't, the Automats alas have not been replaced. Nor has Schraft's.

Th newer coffee places, frequently with brown or dark green sofas and original  paintings for sale on the walls, have their charms, not least among them comfort and wifi. They're great places to go when you want to write a blog, meet a friend or chat with the curly haired guy with soulful eyes at the next table. I prefer the homey, simple ones to the sweet looking, overpriced frou frou type my grandmother might have preferred (maybe I was wrong about Schraft's not being replaced). But none of them are coffee shops. They lack the bustle, familiarity, large-enough-to-drown-in menus and quickly moving patrons and wait staff.

Coffee shops are unique snapshots of the city, although they're a little harder to find than they used to be.  And they welcome everyone. Inside you'll find breakfast regulars, tourists, lunch pals from the office and people in a rush going God knows where,who can't wait another minute to eat something - sometimes at 10 o'clock at night. And emerging from the maws of an unseen kitchen come homemade bean and chicken soups, mammoth portions of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and string beans, endless varieties of eggs and the biggest piece of apple pie you've ever seen, all at breakneck speed and sometimes if you're lucky, delicious. In a nod to modern tastes and appetites you might even get a veggie burger if you ask for one, maybe even a chopped salad. Always open,usually rushed but with someone always ready to pour you another cup free - and offer you a mint at the cash register. Don't forget to leave a good tip.

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