an invader

"Hey, you better look out, there's a caterpillar on fire and he's sitting on your lap." 

Olivia talking to Ellsworth Kelly, while hanging her art. 

Cheers to listening

[ 1 ] Today I had a conversation with a friend.

Things are constantly coming at us. More and more is being asked of us everyday. From schools, PTA, work, friends, book club, girl scouts; more money, more time, more work. And we have to ask things of other people too. Everyone is so busy and we get easily overwhelmed with simple things because we are so busy. So when we are asking something of people, let's make it so simple, let's not overwhelm. "Here is the question I have for you, here is what I would like you to do, here are two easy steps you can take to accomplish it." Make it so simple they can memorize it.  

[ 2 ] This evening I found this quote.

Don't judge a designer on what she adds, but on what she takes away. Johan Jessen

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I hear things when they are told to me, but do I listen? 

My answer to this question is yes, I really try. What I find helpful is that life repeats itself. Something I hear in the morning, that I needed to hear, is then stumbled upon again in the afternoon. Same message, different words, usually until I get it. 

I recently asked something of people that was too much, too wordy, too long, too overwhelming. I have been sitting with the realization of that. Hearing these things today confirmed it. They also gave me a completely new insight to how I am going to approach so much of my interaction with people. These two gems are really life changing.  

Heard, and noted.

[ 1 ] Yesterday, I heard this poem while driving.

The Committee Weighs In

I tell my mother
I’ve won the Nobel Prize.

Again? she says. Which
discipline this time?

It’s a little game
we play: I pretend

I’m somebody, she
pretends she isn’t dead.

Andrea Cohen

[ 2 ] An hour later, I heard this story from a friend.

She had three young kids, lived passionately. She did work she loved, her family was everything, she volunteered, gave to everyone, she had that life. Forty-eight, energetic, driven, healthy and happy. The diagnosis was only stage two. Even though they said it was in only in one breast, she had both removed. It was in the second. She was a bright light, the kind of woman you admired. Within a year it was in her liver. Maybe because she lived so brightly, her light burned out fast. 

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I hear things when they are told to me, but do I listen? Do you?

learning compassion through metrics

The girls are always playing, "I'm her." If we are reading a book, each girl picks out who they are. If they are watching a show, Sienna secures her girl, usually the IT girl, within the first few seconds. This means that Olivia is stuck with a lesser character, which Sienna tries to build up to be a good one before sweet O cries and tells me that Sienna is taking Doc McStuffins again.

Maybe my continuous pleads with Sienna for a bit of compassion during this game has paid off. The other day I overheard this gem:

S: "Olivia, do you know that song, the one with the calculator and the ruler? (Stars by Au Revoir Simone)

Liv: "No."

S: "Well, I am the the ruler and the calculator."

Liv: "Who can I be?"

S: "You can be the ladder. Even though they don't talk about you in the song, you're still important because we'll need one to climb up to the sky and measure all the stars."