Absorbing Shock Waves

            Between a most productive Saturday and pleasant things on Monday, my in between Sunday found me soaking in the sleep. (To do me one better, God added rain and a purring cat. I live for these kinda sleeps.)

            Regarding me and sleep, well let’s just say we’ve not always been friends. As a kid I used to sleep walk. Some say that’s inherited. I don’t know. My great grandmother slept walked herself right off a second story balcony and broke her back I’m told. I’ve also been told I sleep talk. Can’t confirm or deny that one, but I do wake myself up laughing sometimes.

If you believe the studies, I, along with most of the country, don’t get enough sleep. Me? I average 3 – 4 hours a night, and for the times I do get more, it comes in shifts (meaning I sleep 3, wake  2, sleep 2 more--a thing I used to fight. Now I just roll with it. Thank God for laptops and journals.)

            When sleeping in shifts (with a wake period in between) the second round is less like sleep, more like a trance. Something other worldly about this 5 - 7 morning shift that’s worthy of a research, but I’m busy so I can’t. Instead I just marvel and thank God for whenever it hits as it’s really quite healing. Part lucid, part meditative all I can say is it’s very deep and it’s most restorative. Doesn’t happen every sleep cycle; wish it did. On days I have meetings or big things on the agenda you can forget it. Like knowing you’ve got a plane to catch, anticipation will keep a brain half awake since it knows something’s coming, lest you miss the clock. (We’ve all been there.)

            But on this particular Sunday, I’ve got no clocks…. My gift of the weekend is this 2-hour, thought-defying state of sleep to bask in, so I soak it up for all it’s worth.

            While floating mindlessly in this tranquil state (around 6:30 am) I hear a loud…CRACK! (Maybe it was SNAP! I don’t have the right onomatopoeia word here-- you know...a word that sounds like the actual sound it makes, like the CRACK of whip or the RING of a phone.) Insert your own loud sound word here. What I heard was somewhere between a tree snapping and a roof cracking, which is to say it was sudden; it was loud, and it was abrupt. The noise ripped me right out of my peaceful, floaty place, with no stops in between. And it was caused by…? I haven’t a clue…probably the roof settling or a tree falling. It wasn’t so much what made the sound as where the sound energy went, which is to say throughout my body.

            In that instant, and because of the contrasting relaxed state it ripped me out of, I was more aware than usual of what this did to my body, which is to say it rippled… literally rippled throughout my circuitry like those shock waves you see on earthquake reports. It went from the center out (center, being my heart I guess, maybe my brain?) and it rippled. Only this happened in a split second, and then it faded.

Now bolted wide awake, I see the cat’s still snoozing and the dogs aren’t barking, so my initial reaction is not so much fear, as it is curiosity. “What was that?” gave way to “Did I just absorb that energy?” My mind didn’t shoot to fear as its initial responder, though my adrenals had clearly flipped a switch.

What I was mindful of was my body absorbing the sound… I felt it come into my body, but I never felt it leave. Like those near misses we encounter from time to time, the body did a jerk, and then it moves on. Ever trip and almost fall but don’t? Ever swerved when a trucker shifts lanes? Those near misses carry a similar vibe where it could’ve (but thank God, didn’t) happened. Still, your body braced for it, as if. False alarms maybe false to the outer world, but inside your body, nothing false about it. For a split second your body doesn’t know if/when so it braces for both …after which we go back to our tic-tock lives, just absorbing the shock and forgetting it ever happened.

But this vibe went somewhere; I had absorbed it for sure. My adrenals triggered (something woke me), but it wasn’t enough to send feet to floor. But in the seconds that followed, I was keenly aware of the shock in my system that had come and then dissolved itself into ....?

If energy never dies, but only changes forms, then where do these non-essential frequencies go? And what about the shock waves that we intentionally sign on for? The scary movie that keeps us gripped…Those free fall rides at the fair…As if our bodies didn’t have enough to process just digesting our food, how much shock energy DO we knowingly and unknowingly absorb that stays stuck in our cells?

In this case, I felt my cells absorb it. Sure, it would subside, but does it ever truly leave? Normal patterns of behavior being what they are—most of us do one of two things: roll over and go back to sleep or wake up, get on with the day. Instead I’m lying here comparing my mini little shock wave to the macro of an earth quake…when it hits me: isn’t the reason they say bigger ones are coming because tectonic plates once shifted, only keep shifting? (If that’s true for the planet, what happens to a body?)

            I for one don’t want to go digging for triggers. Nor do I like thinking about the layers of unprocessed stress spewing out at the most inopportune time. Right now I'm talking an interrupted sleep state. I’m not factoring the myriad of stresses we carry around from unresolved emotions and unforgiven hurts…and endless other feelings we tuck away and pretend aren’t really there. 

No conclusion to this one folks. Just an observation…though it did leave me wondering how many other things our bodies absorb while we aren't paying attention. More than this, I’m wondering if there’s some pressure cooker valve for the waves already in there, that need processing out. (Thank God for long road trips to ponder things such as these. If only Einstein were still living and had a FB page to ask.)

I Farm, You Farm, Old Barns, New Barns

           Twas a good night’s sleep thanks to the physical efforts of yesterday. And that was a good thing as Saturday had a full day on tap with things touching most every project I’m working on these days, all bundled up in one (and that one involved a two-hour drive half a state away...I will say Jeep time is some of my best creative  time, especially when it involves country roads.)

            Was headed North of LaFayette…almost to Kentucky (home of Thurman’s favorite goat chow and half the tobacco grown in this country)...Twas a drive to pass all drives as you can’t get there by interstate, what’s more your phone won’t work once you pass the county line. It was if God was saying “Take it slowly, Evins...Yes, there’s work to be done, but what you are about to witness is placing you on holy ground...”

            For the sake of projects to come, my film crew was likewise en route. My own camera in the back seat, this was a day I’d anticipated for some while as today marked the day my barn would be birthed!

            For those new to me, this blog or the concept of anything renovation, I love making old things new again. In my 30s it was a church ( now my home). Today, a barn. For months I’ve been sketching on plans to afford my goats winter shelter (complete with milking stations), and my pups summer comforts of air ( as in a/c...OMG...Can you imagine my family Christmas? TJ has no clue. Big headed dog is about to think he’s died and gone to heaven with this gift....I'm wrapping a whole holiday picture shoot around it!)
           In addition, the plan is to create living quarters for my new farm manager (see Karlen plan big) --a dwelling place for the saint who is soon to keep watch over said goats and dogs—(literally, so Karlen can keep writing)

            As was the case with my church, these structures don’t by design, come with living quarters…One must get creative. Making bathtubs out of baptisteries can challenge even the best of minds. Adding showers above stables…? Well, you just gotta think it through.

            But before all that (for me at least) I wanted my new structure to carry old vibes…and for that one needs a falling down barn.

            With thanks to my carpenter visionary Jeff, we’ve worked and reworked my designs 20-ways to Sunday and have collected numerous bits of wood, tin and metal so as to keep the new structure looking old. But when he called to say he’d found a barn whose timbers would complete the outside entirely (with some left over so as to support future projects in the works), well I was game to see what my wood-enthusiast friend had up his sleeve. (Turns out he undersold the proposition…What I drove up to on this day had a life and a spirit all its own…the likes of which I had not lived since first  stepping foot inside a little country church in Nutbush, TN ...Now living in Lebanon.)

            Barn crews were pulling planks when I arrived. (When told this was  country, they were not kidding. Thinking owners had to go toward town to hunt.)

            To see its bones, feel its essence, breathe in a barn created on the cusp of the civil war was one thing. But to watch a 220 pound man jumping on its steps (its loft, its beams)  just to prove to me how well they made ‘em back then…well that’s another thing entirely...(Where to file this?)  In for an all new experience, I was mic'd and note-booked, rear in' to go...While waiting for my crew, I made an office of the loft.)

            It's a  gift to know which woods are what (outer planks -- oak; inside--chestnut and cedar and hickory)...But greater skills lie in recognizing the priceless value of trees grown naturally vs. those replaced and replanted by big business/big government feigning efforts to reforest. (As my man Jeff put it, "You'll never seen them like this again...Just not enough time..."Sadly, I knew what he meant.)
           Plan was to pull outer planks first, raise inside boards next, then stack everything useable (a good 80-85% -- another rarity). We'd pull support beams last (for which you really do want a camera)... I’d never seen this done before (the church, a slightly different process)…But for a barn, goal is to collapse it upon itself. 
            I'd signed off on the plan... I was keen on the idea. But the rest was up to crews, Mother Nature and God.

            I interviewed the players, shot footage of her guts (upstairs, outsides, close ups)...and was now waiting on the big drop, with an hour or so till lift off, so with 45 to an hour to spare,  I meandered  to the owners…strangers I had not met, (nor intended to). 
           Turns out, these people were even more remarkable than the barn itself, which is to say—I'd been given a jewel of a jewel tucked away inside a jewel of a day... (and little did I know, this was only about to get better)

            “Are you the lady who’s taking our barn?” she smiled as she asked me…

            “And are you the kind soul who's letting me?” (I smiled her right back, but really, hadn't planned to talk to her at all.)

            But I liked her. I really liked her...As we struck up a conversation, her family went to pull me up a (lawn) chair. (Not to be all Jerry McGuire about it, but she had me from hello.... )

            The barn would've required a full overhaul were it to remain on her land. Yes, the lumber was solid. But when she said, “We don’t need a barn so much as we need is a garden on that plot...” 
Well, you can only imagine where the conversation went from there…

            Turns out my new friend works with at-risk youth (boys, in particular... teens for which barns can be big huge temptations as she put it...that's why she was letting it go)... Taking total strangers (and teens at that) into her home, loving them as her own, instilling in them virtues, values ...if not a sense of hope…well these types you don’t meet everyday. I marveled at her story, but more than that, I marveled at the timing of it all...

            We could’ve talked the night away, but within the hour (maybe two) our moment of truth had arrived. “Karlen? You ready?” I got the head’s up call. With the foreman's clarion we moved our vehicles, redirected our chairs, and perked up to watch the show.

            I have to say I was struck by the confidence of the crew. I know they’ve done this sort of thing before…They had skills, talents and experience that more than qualified them. Still, every structure’s different. No matter how many times or how much you know, there’s a big chunk o' the “unknown” that just goes with it. I watched as they hooked massive chains, then belts, one support beam at a time to this beautiful (albeit falling down) structure...On the other end--(first) a 10 ton truck for stabilizing  (i.e. tension/support) ...Next, a ¾ ton truck with even larger belts, hooks and chains were poised and positioned to do the big drive-away pull.

            To say it was loud would be an understatement. But it was stimulating... For sure it wasn’t easy ( though they made it look so)...And I wasn’t at all confident after a couple of false tugs that the barn wanted to go home with me, but I assured her in silent prayer she was gonna love her new land if ever she chose to let go of the old...

            With each new pull, new support beams were nicked and axed. One by one she shifted, leaned, re-positioned herself, and in the end, readied herself for that one final yank into surrender.

            It took a couple more than the crews had bargained for. By this time we were taking bets as to which way, which attempt, what direction the thing might fall. But true to their God-given talents, the boys got it right and the barn did come down right where she was supposed to, and AS she was supposed to. It was a beautiful sight to behold.

            Promising my newfound friends that chairs would await them on the other end of this journey, we swapped info and mapped plans to talk further…about gardens, goats, projects for hands in need and dreams for hearts that care.

            We called it a day just as the rains began, making my twilight drive down a two-lane road something you don’t do very fast. Then again, I had a lot to reflect upon…A lot of God talking to do.... 
            Whatever is to come next, however it unfolds, it’s as mysterious to me as the moon. I only think I have a plan. (Beyond thinking, I'm praying...) But if today is any indication, my vision is probably nowhere to compare to what really lies in store…

            Here’s to new friends and old barns…

            And the richness of life lived in between.

(Additional pictures to follow...And demo footage if we can get it to upload!)

Analog Days

           

            It didn’t start the way I’d planned. Friday going into a holiday weekend…How hard could this be?  Well, seems it was pointed that way and what’s worse, I had only myself to blame.

I was less than an hour into the business part of my morning when I discovered a major screw up caused by one tiny little digit on a billing statement, that stood to knock a chunk of my receivables into nearly Christmas.

            Totally my bad and another reminder of what I already knew (i.e. that I need help...) Oh the joys of running your own business…

 Sometimes you want to curse. Sometimes you want to cry. Sometimes you do both at once, only mostly I was praying someone would have mercy, but at the time, I wasn’t so sure (especially with everyone else poised to enter their holiday weekend).

            Everything I tried hit a wall. In moments like these smart people quit trying, but clearly I had already established that one.

            I could feel my energy spiraling downward and it was only 10 am. If I wasn’t careful I could lose the day entirely. Thoughts of missed deadlines, delayed reprints, botched holiday sales, new projects that would have to be postponed sent my creative mind into orbit. Not sure why we think beating ourselves up in times like these will help, but that’s what I was doing (again).

When I hit this frame of mind (which isn’t often, but boy when I do…) I know the best thing to do is let go, lest I screw up something else. Something about the energy of gremlins keeps ‘em multiplying once you let ‘em in. Once they surface, they keep on surfacing, affecting any and everything you touch until you shake the vibe. Nope. Times like these I’m best to pull back from paperwork entirely. With that I decided to shift gears…unplug…stop the madness. I know. It's time for an analog day!

Can’t take credit for the term. That goes to my friend, Digital Dave, which he uses when referencing things back to nature. For those unfamiliar, analog is the way we used to record sound in the golden days of radio. Basically it means original sound (your voice, live guitar, authentic picking, genuine talent) ...going straight to tape. (Think reel-to-reel recording devices or old phonographs.) Digital is how we live today. Bits of data replicated, turned into numbers and compressed so you can watch a video on your cell phone or hear a song in your blue tooth. It’s faster, but not purer. In short, it's a knock off of the authentic. Most don’t notice. Fewer folks care, as it no doubt makes life easier. But some days your body just needs old school.

            Farms and gardens offer numerous analog opportunities. (Pretty much all of farming is an analog proposition if you’re doing it the way I am.) Tasks such as pulling weeds, toting buckets, sweeping stalls-- analog faming 101. But mentally (especially on days like today), these tasks become all the more meaningful because they’re therapy. Therapy for a frustrated mind.  And the good news…? I got a lot of therapy lying around.

            With this I give my friend a call…
            “How’d you like an analog day?” 
            Wrapping a new website on his end, he was game for the concept…up for the drive. Within no time we were poop-shoveling, spool-painting, shed-cleaning fools. (No greater friend than one who'd shovel poop with you, can we agree?)

Don’t know who is happier as of this writing: the goats who have clean stalls and brightly decorated spools …or me for salvaging a day, but suffice it to say it was a good way to enter a holiday weekend...
Other holiday/holy day rituals include cranking up the music...
Today's song de jure . . .

                       “I get by with a little help from my friends...
                               Gonna try with a little  help from my friends...."
                                  

Rules #5 & 6 Take Inventory/Ask for Help

Step #5 Take Inventory (The Comfort Zone is Not Our Home)

          Anyone who's ever run a business knows you’re only as good as your ability to manage your inventory. Personally, I suck at it. But that’s not a pass. If you don’t resonate to inventory management, find someone who does because you can’t properly run a business without it, nor can you properly run your life.

           As for business, so for life. By life inventory I mean the assessment of just where you spend your time, where you lose your time, what consumes your time and the quality of  time spent when you spend it. How much time do I throw away? How much time is lost in mindless activities that serve as junk food substitutes for the creative energies spend contemplating dreams or more meaningful things like relationships, your health, your dreams? How much time do I invest in the bigger picture of what I love, what makes me tick, who I am vs. time lost to mindless television, non-productive Facebook clips or other time consuming, mind numbing activities?

            A dear friend recently divorced. New to the job market, new to her first home alone, new to a lot of things, she finds herself overwhelmed, now at all new unfamiliar levels so we often share books and inspirational things. Recently I shared an exercise I'd run across in one of the greatest books to ever be written on finding the perfect job (titled "Do What You Love and the Money Will Follow" by Marsha Sinetar--a must read if you aren't doing work you love)...in which you write out of what a perfect day would look like, and better yet FEEL like. (Sounds easy, but done right, could consume an entire day or more. Challenge is to redirect your thinking when old habits start in with "Yeah... wishful thinking BUT..." The exercise is designed to override the "buts"and focus on the things that make you, YOU, after which, you align your energies toward work and livelihood with these gifts in mind...It will make you uncomfortable at first, which is good as that's a sign you're doing it right.)

At the end of the day, I reminded her: comfort zones are not our home. The discontent you're feeling now is a good thing. It means something's about to change, and if you're mindful about it...for the better. The soul abhors a comfort zone. Sure your body loves its couch, but your soul is wired to soar.  The stimulating things in life don’t happen in your comfort zone, and here’s why:

Comfort zones by definition consist of all that is familiar in your life, and when you’re surrounded by familiar, where things are nice and consistently comfy, you're not stretching or growing. Sure we all require rest. And it's good to come home at the end of the day and unwind, but if you never came out of this zone, you'd die of boredom before too long as comfort zones are hardly stimulating. Matter of fact, they're the opposite of stimulating. (It’s why marriages so often go dull after the initial honeymoon period.) It’s easy to groove yourself into a rut if you're not careful because life is about change and change means different…unfamiliar…all new territory. Changing anything takes some getting used to. Would I RATHER flip on the TV and zone out when I need to be hauling something out the door or reading something uplifting? Lots of times, yes. But until I pace myself to curtail just how long (and of what quality) I allow myself to subsist in this zone, I’m gonna be teetering on the rim of the comfort black hole, where it's dangerously easy to fall in. It’s just too dang easy to fall back into old patterns. 

But to assist you while you attempt this new endeavor...you are allowed, even encouraged to...

#6 ASK FOR HELP

             Help comes in a number of ways. Sure you can reach out to friends. Reach out to professionals. I’m big on reaching out for books when broaching something new just to brace for the newness of the learning curve. When I spot an area in need of help (be it de-cluttering a room or launching a new business) there are a bunch of “crawl before you walk” opportunities to get you going. Googling alone is a good starting point, but eventually, my passive intake of information needs to be replaced with active initiative. But before diving into new waters, sometimes it helps to wade. My favorite wading places include used book stores, libraries, telephone directories...heck, even my own book shelves. 

              I'm currently re-listening to Steve Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People (easily done while tossing a box or scrubbing goat bowls). Simple decision. Even simpler little gesture. Nothing earth shattering here. But this one small decision to input constructive vs the depressing news I had  allowed to set my day's mood is palpable. A simple decision to better my mental diet, was all that was required of me. As with nutrition, you feel it when you start to eat better, if for no other reason than you made a healthy decision. What's good for the body is even better for the mind. The things we listen to, read or allow in-- even in the smallest of doses-- can and will affect the outcome. Like the rudder that steers the ship, the smallest effort turns the largest craft.  “Small moves El” ( from the movie Contact) serves to remind that change doesn’t have to be dramatic. It can be as simple as tossing 3 things a day to ingesting 10 minutes of something helpful. It's like WD-40 for the mind. Want to clear out the sludge between the cogs that’ve been slowing down your engines? A little squirt will do. You needn't be dramatic. You need only to be MINDFUL.

                 Big oaks come from tiny acorns. Some days it pays to be a nut!

Rule #4 --Clear the Clutter

           Clearly I'm an angel on this one (for I continue to harp) ~But given this has been one of the tougher ones to rewire, please allow me to delineate. A tangent of the simplification step just referenced, but clutter comes in many varieties, both seen and unseen...

1)    There’s physical clutter.

Deeper than just clearing a closet or tossing a stack, I’ve been digging deep into my psyche to get my mind around how we've come to where we are. Since when did hoarding become a mental disorder and stuff management a new profession? Turns out (big surprise) it happened mindlessly...once again, when we weren't looking. No one sets out to become a clutter bug. Common sense says less is best...less to trip over, move around, store or stash. But still, we’ve become a nation of compulsive addicts, seduced by point of purchase displays and "own it now" marketing tricks, after which we wind up at the Container Store looking for cute plastic to store it all in.

How "more is best" slipped into our cultural consciousness is beyond me, but it happened when we weren’t looking. Now that we're here we’re either too attached, too familiar or just too overworked to have the energy to do anything about it, meanwhile "it" sits there silently sucking what little energy we have left into thin air. Real easy to miscalculate how much energy stuff takes to keep up with. Nothing slows the wheels of creativity and life energy like a big ol bunch of clutter (on our desks, on our desktops...now in our heads and our lives).

2)    As if physical, tangible stuff isn't enough, now there's e-clutter. They advised us in our smart phone class to clean our boxes out at least once a day to save battery life. Window after window on top of window and you'll be searching for your plug in half the time.  I seldom ditch old texts and you don’t even want to see my "in" basket. Seven pictures to get to one good one, but do I  delete the unused ones? (Not until I’m about to upload and back up, which then requires a blocked day to accomplish.) All that unnecessary stuff drains a battery you know, and it's doing the same thing to us. It wasn’t until I started thinking like Einstein (E=mc2) that this one really hit home: stuff is energy. Give me energy any day. If I’ll have more for clearing out a few things, then watch me clear. Energy is mandatory for life....a currency you want a steady supply of! Stuff? It's just stuff. (And there's plenty more where that came from.)

For me this means nieces get dish ware for their first apartments,  friends get stemware, old college notebooks get burned in the bin and Goodwill gets to know me on a first name basis. I’ve actually made a game of it. Everyday at least 5 things leave this house...Some get recycled. Some get re-purposed. Most get trashed. I've recently informed my closest friends that Xmas is coming early this year. It may be that candle they've long admired or my great grandmother’s favorite dish, but I’m daring to share…Each transaction leaves a bit more breathing space and while others might not spot it, I can feel the difference.  Like Dave Ramsey's debt snowball, the process gains momentum once you make the shift. There comes a tipping point at which it becomes sport and when you hit that point, Katie bar the door! It's a pretty neat rush!

3)    And speaking of Ramsey, there’s no worse clutter than financial clutter. (Again, guilty as charged.) It’s one thing to pay your bills on time. It’s another to throw everything onto autopay to the point you haven’t a clue what’s mounting and for how long.

I'm bad about this one. In order to make sure everyone got theirs, I hadn’t noticed when cable bills skyrocketed and insurance premiums changed. Time to redirect the focus here as well. End of the day, be it purchases, payments or products now stacking up and backing up, when I stop long enough to ask "Do I really need 2 of those just because it's a BOGO?" it makes a difference. Awareness of what’s coming in and (too often NOT) going out of your house, your checkbook, your life...it's an eye-opener! We’ve become a nation of sleepwalking, phone texting robots with mindlessness replacing mindfulness. Time to wake up and smell the coffee. Checking inventory, then reducing inventory ...it's not just for business anymore.

Rule #3 -Simplify Every Chance You Get

     Simplify every chance you get!

     For me...today...mine started with a smart phone. OK. So I'm so not recommending everyone go buy an expensive toy (check your plan). But I'd been resisting this one for a long time. Why? Because I hate new learning curves. Give me the old habitual phone format any day. But yesterday I faced the enemy (time) and I signed up for something new (which included a WAY too early wake up call to attend a class to learn said "smart phone" --) SIMPLIFY.  The competition's ad says "Simple is the new Smart" ...Well, I'm here to tell you, that's not just for phones anymore. Embrace it. Time's a-wastin' ~ Treat it with the respect it deserves.

     Adding to that are other simplification formulas I've come up with:

     1) "No" is a full sentence. (Learn to say it; that way you'll be way familiar when you need to use it for boundary-making purposes.) We take on way too much as a rule (especially here in the South...where "How can I help?" is right up there with "Bless Your Heart" i.e. it's second language for us girls in particular)...Not that I'm suggesting you don't avail yourself to helping others...Just pace yourselves ...You're of no use to anyone if you're spent.

     2) Helps to do in one step what otherwise takes two...Figure it out. I once watched a guy fill my goats' water buckets (all 10 of them) in one fell swoop. Pulled the hose right out and watered away. Twas not the way I did things. I'm more about the whole "Sorcerer's Apprentice"model. But his version saved time. Struck me like a lightening' bolt when he offered up this one. I stuck it away for days like today. Time is precious... dust it off and use it wisely.

     3) to be continued....