My sewing machine has been calling out to me lately.  First ever so softly I could still walk past it without being drawn in, but still, I could hear it whispering to me.  Then, as my mind is want to do, I started thinking about the design I’m hoping create.  Suddenly, I didn’t want to be able to hear my machine calling my name. 

I like many kinds of quilting, but the ones that bring me most satisfaction are the ones I create on my own.  The trouble is, I still don’t have great confidence in the ‘creating’ part.  All my life, having been labeled practical, responsible, mature, and reliable, I’ve found myself living into these qualities.  I happen to like them, they’ve served me well, and no one I’ve worked with has ever complained about my lack of focus!  At the same time, they don’t exactly pave the way for noticing my creativity, whimsy, artistry, imagination, and invention. 

Needless to say, at this, the design stage of the quilting process, I have this internal struggle with allowing these other attributes of mine to rise to the surface.  The problem is, while I want to be creative, I also love to finish things.  I love being efficient.  I love to get things done.  This week, I finally put pencil to paper.  I have an old photograph I want to use as the anchor for this piece.  I’ll alter it a bit and then build the quilt around it.  Since it’s a surprise for someone, I’ll save the reveal for later.

Did I mention I have no background in art or design?  In my family, art was an excess.   It was thought to be sort of frivolous.  And yet, while it was never overtly praised or given great attention, thinking back we were exposed to many small snippets of beautiful art forms, and we were exposed to people, some close relatives, who made art a great part of their life.  So, it’s not really a surprise that while I have this push pull effect, the older I get, the braver I become at accepting the pull. 

One thing I notice as I design, is I might not know exactly why something doesn’t work, but my brain certainly recognizes when a thing is not right.  It turns out, our brains are wired for efficiency, not quality.  In other words, our brains want things to be easy.  When our eye sees something, if our brain has to scramble around trying to make sense of it, we easily turn away or lose interest.  This is why fashion models are chosen for their symmetry.  Our eyes, and our brains, relax and feel pleasure when viewing them.  If faces are complex, or asymmetrical, our brains are set in motion.  This is far less relaxing and so we perceive them to be less appealing.

My creative process has always been to do a lot of thinking as I prepare.  This is true whether I am creating a new workshop, or planning a special meal, or purchasing a gift, or designing a quilt.  I always follow a similar pattern.  I spend time researching.  I think for a while, often days.  Then I go back to the research and refine it.  Then more thinking.  Finally, I put pen to paper, followed by standing back to see my design, followed by editing until my mind feels relaxed. Once I have this feeling, I easily move forward toward the execution.  Alas, this does not always fit comfortably with my value of efficiency.

I imagine the reason I’m being drawn to quilting right now is because I’m in the middle of creating a new workshop.  When I step away from creating at my computer, I let the thoughts of the workshop pieces wiggle themselves into place as I put the energy of my mind into creating the design of the quilt.  It may not be that efficient, but I hope to produce quality projects on both fronts.

While it’s good to recognize that quilts need to ‘look right’ for admirers to stop and really enjoy them, we should not use this as a template for all the bits of our lives.  It is true that our brains prefer, and choose, efficiency over quality.  In no way does this mean we should allow them to always choose efficiency.  Efficiency often means familiar.  It means we can get where we are going quickly.  It means following a habitual path leading us absolutely, nowhere new. 

Efficiency is great when we are making a bed.  Or writing a weekly report.  Or driving to our local grocery store.  But it is dangerous when this is the tool we use for thinking.  Efficient thinking means we choose not to challenge our thoughts, and beliefs.  And being efficient is almost always the wrong tool to grab when we want to live an interesting life.  My brother and I laugh at ourselves regularly when we head out on an adventure.  We usually know our starting and finishing point, and we both feel wonderful about getting from A to B most efficiently.  Over the years, we’ve learned to put a circuit breaker in our planning.  We’ve even efficiently planned to be inefficient by choosing to stop ‘x’ times along the way for pictures.  Or for saying, with big grins on our faces as we recognize our tendency for efficiency, ‘Let’s get this thing done!’

I want to be efficient as I create this quilt.  I don’t want to waste fabric.  If I happen to have some leftover fabric from another project that could fit, I’d like to use it.  But what a shame it would be, if having sewn the last stitch, I looked down to see that in my efficiency, I had created the identical thing I have created before.

And what a shame it will be, if we let ten more days, or weeks, or months, or years, go by and we look back to see we have run the same circuit over and over again, seeing the same sights, and patting ourselves on our backs for our efficiency, for ‘Getting this thing done.’

May your upcoming week be filled with the joys of inefficiencies!

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What inefficiency could improve this?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to embrace inefficiency.

This is a special weekend.  It’s the 25th Annual Great Backyard Bird Count.  Yup.  You heard it here first.  It started on Friday and ends at midnight Monday.  The idea is to take a chunk of time each day, fifteen minutes or more is required, and record as many different species of birds as you see.  The whole event is designed to get people out into nature, noticing birds and appreciating their uniqueness and their contributions to our ecosystem. 

My challenge is, while I do love to see beautiful birds in the wild, I’m not the best bird identifier.  I appreciate birds, but I’m not passionate about them.   Jim on the other hand is as proud as a gold medal winner at the Olympics after spotting the rare, but lovely, Canvasback duck in our local park.

Nevertheless, my plan was to suggest we join in on the bird count event this weekend, partaking in something Jim would love, and trying to hold my weight in the recognizing department.  As I thought about this weekend and the planned event, I found myself hard pressed to figure out where we might go.  After all, if we are going to do this, we might as well try to be as successful as we can.  I know there is the gorgeous Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in the city, and of course I’ve seen several pretty birds on hikes I’ve done.  I realized as I strained my brain to think of a good place, the reason I was struggling is because often when I am out walking or hiking or camping, I don’t really spend a lot of time thinking about birds.  I hear them in the spring and rejoice in the fact that their songs herald the end of the coldest days.  I can recognize the song of the Black Capped Chickadee and notice the beauty of the Red Winged Blackbird, but I freely admit, aside from the most common of our aviary friends, under pressure I don’t think I could separate a Northern Flicker from a Gila Woodpecker.

Jim on the other hand, recognizes birds not only by their look, but by their song.  When we are walking along, he’ll often stop and ask,

‘Did you hear that?  It’s a ……’ 

‘Where?’, I respond. 

‘I can’t see it yet, but I hear it’s song.’

In the way I recognize the first few bars of a James Taylor ballad with great accuracy, Jim does the same with birdsong.
I’ve been trying to make the most of my recognizing skills lately.  Not so much to identify bird or James Taylor songs, but simply to recognize moments of possibility that arise in my days.  Jim’s brother, John, is celebrating a significant birthday this weekend, and Jim and I were talking about how quickly time passes us by.  We breeze through life assuming we have all the time in the world.  The windows of opportunity appear wide open.  Then we blink and open our eyes only to see those wide-open windows closing.  We wonder if we, in our complacency, forgot to recognize opportunities that might have enriched our lives.  We also recognize that sometimes we did recognize the opportunities but didn’t seize them.

Each day, we have the chance to recognize opportunities.  Some days, rare days, these are big opportunities, kind of like spotting a Greater Sage-Grouse, the rarest nesting bird in Alberta.  These opportunities, because they are so unique, are easy to spot but not always easy to act upon.  We can easily allow fear, or bad timing, or all sorts of internal dialogue to prevent us from seizing these moments.  But every single day, we have smaller, regular, Black-Capped Chickadee moments.  They are almost always sitting, just waiting for us to notice their understated beauty and their familiar song.  When we slow down and notice them, we give ourselves the chance to seize the moment they offer.  In the case of birdwatching, the moment is simply in the observation, in the recognizing and in the gratitude.  In life, the moments come in so many forms, we should set aside a weekend, perhaps the Annual Great Regular Life Opportunity Count, just to notice them all.

On Wednesday, Ben spent the day here.  Late in the afternoon, he decided to take a ride on his motorcycle.  It’s a plastic yellow, not particularly fancy, little vehicle.  Using his imagination, he explained to me that his motorcycle, a 1968 model he said, was getting old and he was going to get a new one at the motorcycle store.  He offered to sell me the 1968 model, which of course I was delighted to get, and he went off to buy a new one.  Once the purchase was made (in the dining room) he asked if I’d like to go for a ride.  Having spent some time thinking about recognizing opportunities, I didn’t need to be asked twice.  I got out two Tupperware bowls to use as helmets and off we went.  The whole event lasted only about fifteen minutes in real time.  I suspect it will have a much longer memory life.

We’ve been trying to spot a Snowy Owl for a couple of months.  We’ve been skunked on three driving trips on the prairie to see one.  It’s possible this could be our lucky weekend.  If not, I hope we’re smart enough to recognize and seize the other opportunities we stumble across on our adventure.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘What is the opportunity?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to notice and seize everyday opportunities.

I’ve been able to watch some of the Olympic Games this week.  This is always such a treat for me.  I absolutely love to see these athletes, at their peak of fitness, representing their countries, competing in a sport they love.  I love to hear their back stories, sometimes about obstacles they have had to overcome and to hear about their methods for doing so.  Secretly, I dream there is still hope for me.  Hope I’ll become my best.

As with everyone, I love some sports more than others.  I do, however, try to appreciate all of them.  I kind of long for the days when one or the other major television stations carried the exclusive coverage.  We knew we just had to turn on the television and we’d see everything there was to see.  These days there are many stations carrying the games and it’s a bit of an Olympian feat of its own to figure out where to go to watch.  So far, I’m not medalling in this! The downside of so many channels is that in choosing, it’s easy to skip past unfamiliar sports, never broadening our interest or knowledge.

The other evening, I watched the Women’s Halfpipe.  This isn’t a sport I am familiar with, it’s not a sport I dream of doing, nor is it a sport that when I watch it, I think, ‘Oh, I could do that!’.  This one must take veins of ice.  These young women stand at the top, on their snowboards, slightly to the side of the pipe and then up and over the edge they go.  This is the part I could never get past.  The part when they stand on that edge, unsatisfied, and somehow ready.

A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a document.  I thought it might be in my cedar chest so I dared to open it, knowing it always produces treasures I haven’t thought about for a long time and knowing this might not be a short ‘look’.  This time did not disappoint.  I didn’t find what I was looking for, instead I found something I didn’t even know existed. 

I found a hand-written yearbook from my Grade 8 year.  This was a graduation year for me since in Ontario, high school started in grade nine.  I didn’t attend this celebration since my family was making an early start on our drive to the East Coast to see our cousins. Luckily for me, someone noticed I was absent, got a copy of our yearbook and mailed it to me.  I don’t remember ever seeing it at that time and I have never given it a moments’ thought since then. 

This yearbook was published long before there were photocopiers in schools, and long before there was a way to economically include photos.  The entire book, all 30 plus pages were hand-written.  Hand-written!  They were run off on a gestetner machine (the ones with the barrel, the blue ink from the carbon paper and the crank handle) and stapled together by hand. Of course, it was packed full of memories, of names of classmates I’ve almost, but not quite, forgotten, and of pages that take me right back in time.  Back a half of a century.

The very first page of the book was a message to us, the graduating class, from our principal, Sister Conception.  Yes, you can read that again.  Our principal was a nun, and her name really was Sister Conception.  At that time, I assumed she was a well-aged teacher.  It turns out she would have been in her mid-thirties at the time I graduated.  Her message stunned me.

I don’t know quite what I was expecting.  Perhaps something religious.  Perhaps something reflective of the times.  Perhaps something that had outdated itself. It was none of these.

Sister Conception’s message was so stunning because it was so forward thinking.  It would be forward thinking today, in 2022.  She wished for us, she called it a strange wish, that we would always ‘stand on the edge, unsatisfied’.  She wrote, ‘I hope you will continue to educate yourselves, to search for meaning in human history, to go one step beyond fascination and creativity, to succeed where all the odds are against you.’  She said, ‘You are the most human when you are standing on the edge, unsatisfied.’

I tucked my handwritten yearbook back into its old brown envelope and returned it to the cedar chest, but not before making a copy of Sister Conceptions one page address.  I’ve put it in plain sight in my office. 

We take for granted that our Canadian athletes are prepared to do their best.  But becoming ones best is not easy.  It sounds so simple.  Just do your best, a parent might say to a child as they are trying out for a team or heading into an exam.  Just do your best, we Canadians might say to our athletes, assuming they have put in the hard work, and now they simply must write the final sentence of their Olympic journey.   But this idea of becoming our best, not just doing our best, intrigues me.  It forces me to recognize that there is never going to be a moment when I can say, ‘There, I am my best.’  It encourages me to grant grace to myself and to others, for if we challenge ourselves to ‘stand on the edge, unsatisfied’ it indicates we acknowledge we are putting ourselves on the path to ‘best’, all the while knowing it is not a destination where our life train will ever stop.

There are so many lessons we can take from Olympians.  This week, I wish they could hear the words of Sister Conception.  I wish they could know we see them, standing on the edge, unsatisfied, and know that we have deep admiration for their courage and daring to stand there.  Perhaps this is the very reason they resonate with us.  Perhaps Sister Conception was exactly right when she said we are most human when we stand on the edge, unsatisfied.  Perhaps this is what allows us to relate to these Olympians even though most of us will never become one.  Each of us though, can stand on an edge in our own life and dare to become.  To become more, to become something we are not quite, to become closer to what we secretly dream.  To understand that it is okay to not have arrived, and even when we think we have arrived, to celebrate with great joy, and then notice the next edge awaiting us.

Go Canada Go!

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘On what edge are you standing, unsatisfied?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to stand on the edge, unsatisfied.
 
 
 

I’m weary this week. Not tired, not needing sleep, not worn out, just weary.  This will not be a news flash to any living person.  From what I can tell, we are all weary.  When I feel this way, it helps me tremendously to find little things to celebrate or to think about.  Once I remember to look, I usually notice little things everywhere.

Last week, the weather warmed up for a couple of days and one of those warm days happened to be when Ben was here, so he and I decided to head out to see Shirley.  Our friend, Shirley is a retired teacher.  She and I taught together for my whole career. She lives on a beautiful farm not far from where our children grew up.  I’ve been taking Ben to visit Shirley since he was able to walk.  With his fascination of all things with wheels, her farm is a perfect place to explore.  Although Shirley doesn’t farm the land herself anymore, she has a wonderful team who rents it and keeps it operating.  There is always something exciting to see when we go. 

Each time we wander out to the workshop to ‘see the guys’, we walk up the lane, past the few cows and a couple of barns.  Shirley pointed out the little modification the guys made in the fence that lines the drive.  Where there once was a corner, there is now a diagonal piece of fencing.  It doesn’t sound like much of a change.  I might not have noticed it right away if it hadn’t been pointed out to me.  But this little change opened up the corner dramatically and has made it so much easier for big rig trucks and huge farm equipment to navigate as they enter the busy farmyard.  Shirley is thrilled with this change.  For years and years (and years), this corner was a tough one to manage. With some ingenuity on the part of the ‘guys’ it has taken the stress out of maneuvering around. 

While the actual physical fence is lovely and very well built, what has impressed me even more is Shirley’s appreciation of it.  This is one of those things that could so easily be looked at once, admired and then simply incorporated into the daily landscape.  Shirley has not allowed this to happen.  She understands its value, acknowledges, and admires it each time she passes by.  She has taken a little thing, stopped long enough to really see it, and has chosen to appreciate it every single day.

Oh, such a little thing.

Last month we celebrated Ben’s birthday via Zoom.  We had planned for a little outdoor skating party but a stomach bug the day before the big event caused a re-plan and we ended up on Zoom.  Incredibly, this was exactly what Ben wanted.  I have to remember that last year Ben had his party on Zoom, and he isn’t old enough to have experienced any other kind of party.  It makes sense this is a good memory for him, and he would want to repeat it.  The wonderful thing is we were able to have some people there who could never have been there for the in-person skating party: his Grammie and Grampy, his great Grandma and his great Aunt and Uncle.  Great Grandma, Jim’s mom, who is 92, shone a light on the importance of little things that day.  As we sat in front of our screens enjoying Ben’s joy as he opened Lego sets and other wheeled objects he’d been eyeing, Great Grandma said, ‘I just can’t believe I can do this.  I never would have believed we could all be together for this.  And able to see each other.  It’s miraculous.’ 

I’ll admit, it took me a moment to really process what she said.  After all, I, like so many others have been Zoomed and Zoomed and Zoomed.  We’re weary.  It’s not ideal.  And yet, through her eyes, it somehow revealed its magic.  The ‘party’, the forty-minute party, which once felt like second best, suddenly became a gift to all of us.  We were lucky to have paused long enough to have her remind us of this wonder we have come to take for granted.

Oh, such a little thing.

Our little Andy, now learning to really crawl, has, in the last couple of weeks spent hours mastering the stairs.  Up only.  He has worked hard at this and is thrilled with himself.  He’s also increasing the number of sounds he can make.  For now, his favourite one is saying, ‘Oooohhhh’, when we point out something to him.  He molds his mouth into a perfect oval and really creates a dramatic effect.  We of course, all turn our mouths into ovals and ‘Oooohhhh’ right back at him.  I was delighting in these little exchanges, and also at myself for taking time to really appreciate such small moments when Ben shared his interpretation of the ‘Oooohhh’ with me.  As Ben and I were getting ready to drive to his house after our day together this week, he told me Andy likes to say, ‘Oooohhh’.  I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I do know exactly what Ben said next.  He said, ‘When Andy is saying Oooohhh, I think he is really saying ‘I love you, Ben’.
​
Oooohhh, such a little thing.

As we slog through these last weeks of winter, which in Alberta could turn into months, and through the final weeks of this fifth wave of Covid, may we each take time to notice the little things.  The ones that can, if we only stop to witness them in their true beauty, make us purse our mouths in just the most precious way and exclaim, ‘Oooohhhh!’  They change everything.

My inquiry for you this week is, ‘Where is the Oooohhhh in this moment?’
​
Elizabeth is a certified professional Leadership Coach, and the owner of Critchley Coaching.  She is the founder and president of the Canadian charity, RDL Building Hope Society.   She works with corporations, non-profits and the public sector, providing leadership coaching.  She creates and facilitates custom workshops for all sizes of groups. She has expertise in facilitating Strategic Plans for organizations and for conducting leadership reviews. Contact Elizabeth to learn how to notice and appreciate the little things.