Under the Clutter

Title

   What a way to launch the holiday season--I've just dumped 54 Christmas cards in the recycle bin. But let me explain.

   These cards date from 2010 and back. Messages older than some of the children the senders have since borne. I enjoy the holiday process of looking through cards from the previous year before I start sending this year's greetings to out-of-town friends. It's the first step in a yearly ritual I still find enjoyable.

  But five-year-old cards? Even I can't think of a reason to keep them any longer. And right now, I'm experiencing the added impetus of the "30-Day Declutter Challenge" goading me past procrastination and indecision. 

   This fall I read a blog post on nextavenue.org that provoked this cleanup process. The blog outlined an interesting system for addressing those burdensome caches of old papers, photos, clothing, chipped dishes, etc--all that "stuff" that builds up in closets and corners.

   The "30-Day Declutter Challenge" begins with discarding on item on Day 1. Then two items on Day 2, nine items on Day 9, and so on, for 30 days. You can throw out, give away, donate, or sell the outcasts. It doesn't matter as long as you get them out of the house. 

   A systematic approach appealed to me. So did the promised outcome: By the time you finish 30 days of progressive discards, you will have chucked 465 items. Now that would definitely feel like an achievement!

   Like most everyone I talk to these days, I nag myself regularly about paring things down at home. But there's always an excuse. Not enough time. No energy. Where are we supposed to take those burned out batteries and light bulbs? Excuses, so far, have stalled any action on my part regarding those no-longer-useful items gathering dust at the back of drawers and shelves. 

   So imagine my delight when I realized that 54 Christmas cards, not counting envelopes or insert letters, fills the discard quotas for  Days 12,13,14, and 15. (Add it up!)  Of course, I questioned whether one Christmas card should have equal discard value with a flower vase or a sweatshirt, for example. But why not?

   Those questions just muddy the process and threaten to derail my momentum. Let's let a discard be a discard and keep moving! I'm on a roll here.

   When I set out on this challenge, I listed Days 1 through 30 on the pages of a yellow legal pad, leaving space as the numbers grew larger to itemize each discard. It motivated me to see clear evidence of my progress as the list of outcasts grew. At first, I moved systematically through each number, noting the discards day-by-day. 

   Quickly, I decided that it was the end result, not the order that mattered. On the day I culled 14 cookbooks from the kitchen collection I decided to jump ahead to Day 14 where I listed the books in triumph. They went into a box for donation to the library's annual sale. When I dug 19 old VCR tapes out of a living room drawer, I put the tally on Day 19. Single items I've been listing farther down on the list where numbers get larger and will require an accumulation of various discards. 

  Last week, I tackled a battered old briefcase full of yellowed newspaper articles from my early years in journalism. I paged through clippings from the 1969 Daily Northwestern in Oshkosh, WI where I earned my first newspaper by-line. I moved on through the 1970s with stories about politicians, holidays, women's rights and Midwest Native American cultures. All of them pieces I had written for the Wichita KS Eagle and Beacon.

   In the end, I had two stacks: one hefty pile of stories I was ready to part with and a smaller group to be saved a few more years. How should I measure these discards? I pulled out the kitchen scales and weighed them.  Five pounds of newsprint for the recycle bin. One pound back in the briefcase. With Day 5 done, they made a good start on Day 15! 

    I find I'm actually having fun at a process I avoided for years! In a burst of over-achievement, inspired by declutter momentum, I even discarded 1,732 old emails from the on-line server that stores these things. That didn't go on any of my lists. It's a freebie -- insurance to cover any short cuts or miscounts I may have made.  Still, it delivered a symbolic pat on the back that has me smiling still. 

       It's a good idea to take a short, brisk walk when the overwhelm of declutter decision-making threatens to derail focus and momentum. Ten minutes at a healthy pace boosts energy and mood for up to two hours--plenty to time for a few more cuts when you return. If you need encouragement, try this Mood-Mender walk. 




   

My Mind on Meditation

   In the past, I've found that my most successful meditation is achieved on foot. It's when walking that I seem best able to sustain a rhythm and a point of focus that quiets thoughts for a minute or two. 

   But when I heard about a meditation retreat called "inner yoga," it sounded perfect for me.  "Inner Yoga!"  What could be more natural? My agile mind seems ever eager to engage in bends and twists and warrior pose. Maybe inner yoga would teach it to rest a bit longer in shavasana--the flat-on-your-back position that often ends a yoga class. 

   Alas, even after a lovely fall weekend at a rustic retreat center, shavasana still challenges me. But the brilliant swirl of my mental gyrations enlivened the process of trying. 

   We'd just completed a sequence of gentle yoga moves that ended with a guided meditation. We imagined a sequence of radiant colors flooding the body with light. I rested a moment in the warm glow of an inner rainbow, then rose to join other participants for a silent break in a meadow flanked with autumn hues. 

   As I strolled a path at the edge of a stream, I wanted to hold on to the beauty and peace that had flowed so freely in the meditation. Such a nice process for quieting and centering my mind and body….

    Wouldn't it be cool to get colored glass beads or buttons in each of the colors used in the meditation? I could put them on my desk as a prompt to bring back this feeling of calm. 

   What about those colored crystal nuggets put in clear glass flower vases? That would work! Aren't they the same thing we used in that game we played with the kids last summer when we rented a vacation house at Black Butte?
  
   What was the name of that game? We found it in a cupboard under the stool side of the kitchen counter. A sort of long wooden playing board with two rows of scooped out bowls into which we moved the glass pieces.
  
   It might be fun to play that again when the kids come for Thanksgiving. They knew how to play it.  I wonder if they have that same game at home. We'd have to play in the family room. The dining room table will be set for dinner. Maybe the trillium plates this year. 

  What will the kids do while we are finishing the gravy? Maybe they should bring  a video. They could watch in the family room. Or take a walk with their dad. There's that little park two blocks away that would be nice if the weather is good. 

   It was about then, I think, that I stepped back into the present, laughing at myself and at the "inner yoga" flexions my mind had just performed--all of that in perhaps 60 seconds of rapid-fire free associations! 

   None of it helped me maintain the beauty or tranquility I had just experienced. But it reassured me that I could take myself lightly. Could stop the spin and restore balance anew. And so it is, in life as in meditation, so many chances to begin again. 

    If you're in the mood to try a walking meditation,  these guidelines offer a helpful starting place.  And, if you've noticed that my blog entries are slowing down, put the blame on the newspaper column I'm writing, Not the Retiring Type.  


  

Afloat in a Creative Flood

   One year ago, I languished in a drought of creative energy. This year, it seems I may drown in it. I definitely prefer the risk drowning to dehydration. 

   A blog post last October revealed my struggles with PDD--Project Deficit Disorder. I felt overwhelmed by the mundane chores of daily life--maintenance of home and body. Nothing at that time triggered the passion that turns a chore into a project. Nothing evoked the energy that gets me out of bed in the morning with anticipation. 

   But this morning, I awoke with words bouncing in my head. They pulled me upstairs with a cup of Irish Breakfast tea for an hour of creative play, fondling the thoughts that had emerged from the fertile interval between sleep and waking. The words came in the aftermath of an interview I'd done two days earlier with a most interesting person. Even in my sleep, they were prompting revisions and refinements for a first draft I'd written. I loved the energy they evoked in me, and the sense of purpose they confirmed. 

   The leap I took five months ago when I began producing a column on aging every three weeks for the local newspaper has catapulted me into a writing frenzy. Who would have thought that three weeks could pass so quickly? Another deadline on the heels of the last! Some days I wonder what I was thinking! I ask myself why on earth I agreed to this. Then I awake with words calling me, and I know the answer. Nothing quite energizes me as much as a writing project. 

   In the past month, two different writing opportunities have pulled me back into conversations started 30 years ago when I was working as a staff reporter for the daily newspaper.

   In 1982, the cloistered Carmelite nuns who live on a wooded hillside just west of Eugene allowed me and photographer Rosanne Olson to enter the private world of their monastery. We interviewed several of the nuns and wrote an article for The Register-Guard about the 25th anniversary of their establishment in Eugene. One year later, the article evolved into a feature piece in GEO, a national magazine.

   It forged a relationship of respect and trust that has linked us to these women of faith. This summer, we have been together again, exploring the changes and questions that advancing age and reduced numbers have brought to life in a rural cloister. In preparation for this return, I read the previous articles and felt anxiety tighten in my chest. Could I still match the writing I did as a fiery 40-year-old? I felt a challenge and a bit of fear. 

     
    Then came a phone call from a local artist who, plodding through the inevitable sorting  and discarding of saved papers and mementos that comes to all of us from time to time, had uncovered an article I wrote in 1984. She wanted to thank me, she said. It was the favorite of articles written about her during an era of artistic successes. We'd had no contact since that long-ago interview.

   "And what are you doing now?" I asked her, launching a conversation that carried me to her home two days later. I seem at this juncture to be retracing my steps, with a different pace and stride. Drawn back to people profiled in mid-life to chronicle the arc of aging. 

    I'm waking up too early these mornings, too full of words and questions.  I'm sitting too long at my computer each day. But I'm happy! No deficit this fall of projects or passion as I plunge into the swilling waters of this creative flood. Hoping to keep my head, my hands, and my computer, above the water level.

    Read my latest "Not the Retiring Type" column to discover what annoys me about the language of aging. Then take a nice walk! It's a proven resource for creativity in work and in aging! Sign up, above right, to get my occasional blog entries sent direct to your email inbox.

Under the Spell of Santiago

    Almost 30 years ago, I spent a month trekking in Nepal with a group of travelers from Eugene. It was my first long-distance hiking experience and it was hard. I don't remember exactly how many days we walked or how many miles we covered. I do remember the rain, the leeches, the yak butter tea.

Camino de Santiago 2014

    And I remember the dove gray mist rolling into the high Himalayan village of Namche Bazaar at 3 pm. It moved swiftly and silently over the ridge where our tents were pitched, blanketing the village in stillness. I returned from that trip with hazy ribbons of mist still muffling my responses to the questions of family and friends: How was it? Did you like it? Did you see Everest? 

    I didn't know how to answer in simple phrases. My thoughts seemed wrapped in gauze. With two weeks remaining on the leave of absence I had taken from my newspaper reporting position, I retreated to the bedroom. I took along a can of paint. The bedroom needed an update and I wanted time alone for reflection.
      For a week, I brushed a quiet Himalayan mist across the walls of the room. Until I stepped back to view the project as I finished, I didn't realize what I had done. The soft gray shade I'd selected seemed to confirm an unrecognized yearning to linger a little longer in the contemplative quiet of the trek. 

    A similar yearning accompanied my return last month from 25 days on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. I haven't picked up a paint brush, but the rhythm of walking still courses in my body. After a month of re-entry, I'm still reluctant to break the spell. 

    The decades between these two walks--Nepal in 1985 and Spain in 2014--delivered many memorable trips and several distance walks. But these two evoked a contemplative stillness that goes deeper. I'm wondering if this experience reveals the impact of place. 

    In Nepal, the presence of hope and faith is unmistakable as one treks past stones carved with prayers and over passes decked with prayer flags. In Spain, the rituals of Christian theology created the Camino de Santiago (St. James' Way.) Symbols of devotion preside over the path today in monuments and lore. 

    I like to think it's possible, in Nepal and on the Camino, that a heritage of faith, or hope, or ritual, seeps up from sole to soul, day after day, to fuel a spiritual journey for walkers.

    All long walks deliver challenges and renewal for mind and body, whether the path is the Pacific Crest Trail, the Coast to Coast path in England, or the Camino de Santiago. Spirit, too, emerges. But there's a difference when the inner journey holds as much importance as the physical--the difference between a quest and a conquest. 

    If you are interested in reading more about my June walk on the Camino de Santiago, it's the topic of my  current "Not the Retiring Type" column in The Register Guard newspaper. 




    

Graceful, Grounded, Moving On

Camino de Santigo Path Marker

    The dust of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela still coats my sandals as I sit here in an airport waiting room, launched into the succession of five flights that will deliver me back to Oregon. Already, leg-one of this journey has carried me farther in 1 hour and 20 minutes than I traveled in 19 days on foot, walking the pilgrims' path in northern Spain.

    It is precisely this speed--the bustle of airports and freeways and over-busy schedules of modern daily life--that propelled many of the pilgrims I met this month to step off the treadmill for a few days, or a few weeks. Once, it was absolution from sins, or healing from illness, that travelers sought as they traveled this legendary pilgrimage path.  Now, it seems that it is absolution from the obsessions of modern life that motivates this journey for most of us. Not absolution of sins, or pains inflicted, but absolution from the addiction to constant contact we all suffer. 

Pilgrim

    On the Camino, we traveled at the pace of history--the pace of walkers who have trod this route for 1,300 years!! On foot for five to six hours a day, including stops for rest or water or food, we covered perhaps 15 miles. Nothing to do in those hours but keep walking, focused, aware of the surface beneath my feet--sometimes rocky, sometimes asphalt, sometimes paved with stones that Romans set in place. 

    Yet, even then,  disconnection was challenging. Three hours out on the path with no distraction but my thoughts, I stop for "cafe con leche" at 11 am and immediately ask the server at a village cafe for the "weefee" access code.  I check my mobile phone for updates in email and Facebook.

    On the path, as well, I discover there is no easy "disconnect" from myself and from the restless crescendo of self-talk that echoes through my mind, unnoticed until a rock beneath my foot jousts me into the present. 

   "Graceful, grounded, strong and tall; graceful grounded, strong and tall" I remind myself. Over and over and over. In 19 days of walking, the phrase became a mantra invoked automatically each time my foot stubbed against a stone or teetered unsteadily on the edge of an uneven paver. "Graceful, grounded, strong and tall." It was my prayer, my affirmation, my rebuttal to self-recriminations about losing focus or risking a fall. My antidote to mindlessness and the slouch of inattention.
   

Compostela Certificate

    I sit here now, at the close of this physical journey, elated at achievement of a physical goal and at attainment of the treasured "Compostela," received at the end of a two-hour wait in line to reach the desk of Pilgrimage officials at the Santiago de Compostela cathedral who review credentials and confer the stamp of completion.

    In truth, the treasured "Compostela" is simply a piece of paper. It's a certificate, elaborately inscribed with my name in Latin, rather like a diploma. For this, I walked 273 miles--a personal distance record for my walking annals. I shared a path with pilgrims from around the world, all of us seeking individual goals, none of us escaping the reverberations of history, commitment, silence, and spirit that permeate the Camino de Compostela.

    Today, I'm pondering the concept of "Compostela" as diploma. It designates a goal completed. But will it, like other diplomas we seek as confirmations of study and effort and learning, confer access to new paths on this larger pilgrimage that is life?  The inner journey continues. I'll let you know where it leads me.  "Buen Camino" to us all.


Read more about the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in The Spirited Walker. Interview with James Carse in Ch 10 inspired my own interest in this legendary pilgrims' path. 

All Rise!

    If ever you need another reason to get out of that chair and take a walk, you'll find plenty of motivation in a recent flood of research delivering dire warnings about the risks of sitting down.

    Apparently, the more we sit, the greater our chances of becoming unable to eat, or dress, or take a shower by ourselves as we advance in years. That ought to scare all of us into taking steps to curb the slide. Literal steps! Just standing up and moving a bit--strolling to the water fountain or standing up to peer out the window for a moment--can counter the impact of prolonged periods of sitting.

    I encountered this unsettling research while sitting at my desk! I was writing about a retired judge who left the bench because all of the sitting involved with her position as a "sitting judge" was wreaking havoc with her body. Ten years as presiding judge had compounded the pain of a past back injury, adding stress to an already high-pressure job. She took an early retirement and walked away from the bench.

    Research suggests she m are a wise decision when she decided that "All Rise" applied to her as well as to courtroom guests. A convincing body of research warns that people who sit for long periods everyday are more likely to be troubled by physical disabilities after age 60 and more likely to die at an ear;lier age than those who sit less. 

    Given that the average American adult now spends eight hours a day sitting down, we're all pretty much in need of a steady dose of movement. Short, frequent breaks appear to provide the best intervention for thwarting the hazards of sedentary work and entertainment.

    For me, wearing a pedometer provides a reminder to move more. I like the feedback of knowing that just walking downstairs from my desk to get a glass of water, or a cup of tea adds about 50 steps to my tally. Returning to my desk, another 50. Walking around the block boost the total by XXX steps. It's not what we call "exercise" in the usual sense. It's an exercise in preserving the functions and balance I want in my body--today and into the future. 

    Check out the evidence about the hazards of sitting in the Northwestern University study, or in a poster from The Washington Post. For more about the retired judge, look at my Not the Retiring Type column in The Register-Guard. Suggestion: Stand up while you read it! 

Step Into Creativity

    Creativity often seems like an elusive commodity to me-- some days I feel full of ideas and some days my brain shuts down. You probably know the feeling. But maybe creative energy isn't as fickle or as hard to catch as we thought. It could be waiting at the end of a short walk. 

    Researchers at Stanford University reported recently that taking a walk, either indoors on a treadmill, or outdoors in nature, produced a significant boost in creative inspiration over people who remained sitting while others walked. In tests ranging from 5 minutes to 16 minutes, walkers consistently outperformed sitters in measures of creativity.

    "We're not saying that walking can turn you into Michelangelo, but it could help you at the beginning stages of creativity," says researcher Marily Oppezzo. 

    Biologically, it makes sense to me. Walking, even briefly, increases oxygen flow to the body and the brain. That wakes us up, making us more resourceful. Still, I wouldn't have guessed that a short walk could more than double my creative resourcefulness. 

    In the Stanford experiments, participants who walked on a treadmill or outside on a walkway both produced twice as many creative responses when tested compared to a person sitting down in a wheelchair. Where they walked made no difference; it was movement that mattered. Even when the wheelchair moved, pushed along the same routes as the walkers took, the sedentary rider showed no gains in creativity. 

    (I don't know how to explain the likes of British physicist Stephen Hawking, a wheelchair user since 1969 due to ALS and one of the most distinguished scientists of our time. Let's just concede a creative exception!) 

    "We already know that physical activity is important, and sitting too often is unhealthy" Oppezzo says. "This study is another justification for integrating bouts of physical activity into the day. We'd be healthier and maybe more innovative for it." 

    The Stanford findings hark back to studies done by Robert Thayer, a research psychologist at University of California, Santa Barbara. Thayer's research into energy levels, moods and movement revealed that walks as brief at 5-10 minutes could provide a measurable life in energy and mood. It's not so surprising that research now shows walks that elevate energy and mood also boost creative thinking. 

    I interviewed Thayer when I was writing Healing Walks for Hard Times. His findings prompted me to get up from my computer and take a brisk, 7-minute walk around a neighborhood loop every two hours while I was working. It was time enough to invigorate oxygen flow to my brain and to deliver a healthy stretch for muscles and mind. Maybe it even made me a more creative writer!


The creativity and walking research was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, April 2014. Read more about Robert Thayer's research in Healing Walks for Hard Times.  Check my latest "Not the Retiring Type" column for insights on aging and the seven dimensions of wellness.