pay attention

Try Something New: Enforced Restfulness

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

My Try Something New today: contentment in enforced restfulness.

If you light a lamp quote

The story of my past few days has allowed for some enforced restfulness.  What I have learned is that as much as I say I want a peaceful and quiet and tranquil life in the midst of my self-made chaos . . . there is another part of me that craves the hub-bub, the drama, the go-go-go, the challenges at work, the randomness of just wandering with no projected outcomes, the movement that gives me inspiration to create and to laugh and to love.

This enforced restfulness has given me time to just be with me.  And it has been nice.  And it has also been not so nice.  The nice parts have given me an opportunity to observe and take note of what runs through my mind when I am not thinking of what I am going to do next.  I am just being in the Now.  Just chilling and petting the cat and figuring out inversions on the  piano and stir-frying onions and garlic with asparagus and having long conversations on the phone with my sisters . . . this sort of thing.  I have been focusing on the simple and important things that get nudged aside or that get squeezed into the day.

The thing that has been rather bittersweet has been realizing truly how little time I create for being with me.  I find that I often am so busy projecting my light outward, I don’t replenish the source of this light within.  Again, not necessarily a bad thing . . . but  the words of my mum come to mind: Moderation in everything.  I think I have been putting too much time into outward and not into inward.

In high school art class, I was given a calligraphy assignment.  I was to find a proverb or quote and write it using the calligraphy style of my choice.  Wanting it to be perfect and vintage-y, I procrastinated and I remember spending more time ultimately looking for a short quote that would satisfy the assignment than I did practicing my lettering.   The quote was short, but compelling.  I knew it had a lot to say, even though I wasn’t quite certain what it exactly meant at the time.  It reads: “Contentment is the absence of selfish ambition.”  Quite the dose of profundity in only seven words.  No wonder it befuddled my teen-aged mind.  It still sort of does.

What this enforced restfulness has done is it has slowed me to a place of seeking contentment.  By replenishing, I have refilled the lamp, trimmed the wick, and polished up the chimney.  How is my little light going to shine if I don’t take the time to fill the lamp?

I also know that this time to myself has created deep appreciation for all of those people who shine their light my way — for their “absence of selfish ambition” — for sharing who they are with me so selflessly.

Am I committed to take more time to just think and to be and to not be doing all of the time?  Yes. Am I ready to resume my days at the speed of light?  Yes.   But this has been good.  Good for realizing that I am paying attention and wanting a life with a balance of contentment that generates and receives light and that puts a smile back into my soul and that not just enforces restfulness but embraces it as well.

 

Parles-tu français? Non? Pas de problème. Vie d’amour!

/ Kennedy Farr / 6 Comments

My Try Something New for today: I responded to a mystery text in French.

I received a random text from a man named Francis who was looking for a woman named Yvette.  In that I received his message, it appears that Yvette possibly gave Francis a wrong number.  Or perhaps Francis had a case of Fat Fumble Finger Syndrome when he was entering Yvette’s phone number into his phone.  It’s a tough call.

Francis’ message read: Is this Yvette from ______.  (wanting to keep this private for Francis’ sake)

I responded: ??

Francis: Yes or No if this is Yvette.  

Me: Nope.  

And thinking this sounded harsh, in a follow-up message, I added: Sorry.

Francis: Sorry wrong number.

Me: Pas de problème. (Translation: Not a problem.)

Francis: Huh?

Me: No problem.

Francis: Ohhhh hahahahaha.

I don’t know why I responded to Francis in French or why this was funny, but apparently it eased Francis’ disappointment that Yvette dissed him with my number instead of her own.

Responding to strangers in French  is certainly nothing that I have felt compelled to do in the past . . . not with the person who keeps trying to ask Hot Jazmyn out.  Or the person who keeps trying to tell Ted to pick up his paycheck before Friday — this has happened twice now.  Poor Ted.  And there is the man who keeps trying to schedule dates around his doctor appointments.  I guess I must have a popular number.

I mentioned this Francis-Yvette exchange to a friend of mine — who also speaks French — and she recognized Yvette’s name and the name of the bar.  She said that her boyfriend used to be roommates with Yvette, that Yvette indeed works at the place that Francis mentioned, and . . . drum roll, please . . . Yvette is from France.  Amazing?  No.  Mildly coincidental?  Sorta.

In all cases of mis-received texts, I have tried to break the truth gently.  I am not Yvette; You deserve better than Hot Jazmyn; Ted is going to be broke if you don’t try harder;and I hope that you are feeling much better, but this isn’t Connie.  My words of empathy bridging the gaps in cyber space.  Hey people!  You are all awesome!  Thanks for saying hey!

But then . . . the plot thickens.  Being one of those people who likes to keep an arsenal of Cupid’s arrows in my backpack at all times, I forwarded Francis’ message to my French-speaking friend whose boyfriend used to be a housemate with Yvette.

I do not know what the outcome is at this point time, but perhaps Kismet is serving in Francis’ favor and my friend’s boyfriend will forward the message to Yvette and then Yvette can make a decision as to Francis.  Maybe she believe in Kismet, as I do, and she will give Francis a second chance and give him her real number.  (Enter: Hollywood crescendo music to indicate happy moment)

So, none of this loop would have been set into motion had it not been that I mentioned the French-reply reference to my friend.  Random?  I don’t know . . . at least not yet.  Reste calme, Francis.

I realize that this has generated quite the lively exchange of nothingness at this point in time.  But it does speak to those promptings to do something that makes absolutely zero sense at the time but could have an ooh-la-la impact in someone’s love life.

Hourra! Kismet! Et vie d’amour!  (Love lives!)

 

 

Are you waiting for the right moment?

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

 

Writing prompt: Are you waiting for the right moment to do that exact thing that you want to be doing?  Learning?  Exploring?

If you are waiting, stop.  And then start.  Start.  Do something.  Do anything.  Do one little thing that will point your compass in what you think might be the right direction.  Point it in any direction.  After all, the Universe has no map.  There is no GPS for navigating Infinity.  And it is all out there — all right here — just waiting for you to start.  At the very least, put on a blindfold, spin yourself around a few times, and start moving.  You never know which donkey is going to to get a start from you pinning a tail onto its hindquarters.

 

Simple for me to say.  I was talking to someone today who is wanting to lose weight.  She said, “Something can be simple but still so hard to do.”  I thought that this was a really profound statement.  It can be both.  But it need not be.  Or does it?

A small-scale example: I would love to have one of those garages in which I can park my truck.  The outlines of wrenches and saws and C-clamps all Sharpied on a piece of pegboard.  Bicycles hanging from racks.  Holiday paraphernalia stacked in clear, plastic tubs out of the way in the corner.  It all sounds so lovely.  And so simple.  And so hard, too.

Instead, it is all quite the jumble.  Not entirely unmanageable.  I can get to the fuse box and can find a hammer when I want to hang a picture on the wall.  I don’t know.  I am most likely being too hard on myself.  I tell the people who come to visit, “Don’t look in the garage!” but it does indeed seem like a paradox to be embarrassed by my own stuff.  There is something about this that doesn’t quite resonate with a sense of balance.  It is like wanting to distance myself from the choices I have made.

I clearly do not feel that having an amazingly organized garage is going to make me a better human being.  And it is not important enough to forfeit a sunny afternoon down by the bay.  And the time it would take to sift through the dust, memories, cobwebs, and paperwork isn’t worth not meeting friends for dinner or spending some time playing piano or taking my easel out to the back deck for some color therapy.

Is starting (and stopping) all about listening to our priorities?  Is what we truly want so evident and transparent to our Sense of Priority, that we don’t really have to think in any conscious way when we point the compass in a new direction.  Some call it procrastination, but I am wondering if procrastination is nothing more than your soul allowing your priorities to have control of the throttle.  My overall conclusion: procrastination is possibly being unfairly reviled by those who have all of the plans mapped out.  I am thinking that it is okay sometimes to turn off the Garmin and just do some meandering.

It is tricky to avoid mixing my metaphors when it comes to the universal sense of time and life lessons.  A compass, a map, GPS, a blindfold, a game about a donkey, an airplane’s cockpit.   No wonder I lose my path — my trajectory.   I’m all over the place!  Yet . . .all of these signs along the road.  All of these maps that point us in this direction and that direction. . . when all of what we truly and most dearly want stems from our inner world — our soul, our conscience, our spirit.

So, what is it that you are aiming for?  What is it that would be just so much fun to be experiencing right now?  Be fearless, put your compass in your pocket, don your blindfold, pick up your thumb tack and paper donkey tail, spin around, and start pinning that tail on whatever suits your fancy.  Pull back on the throttle and fly.  You never know.  Truly.  The Universe has a distinct way of rewarding our sometimes-fallible attempts to better enrich and experience life.

Thomas Edison said it so beautifully: “To invent you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”  Love this!  This man would not be judging my garage or my sense of priority!  His words put my garage into perspective and get me outdoors on a sunny day.  Time to quit beating myself up, allow my imagination to soar, and enjoy inventing with the “pile of junk” in the garage.

thomasaedison125362 (1)

 

 

 

It only takes one person to change your life: you, beautiful you

/ Kennedy Farr / 5 Comments

it only takes one personChange.  What does it mean?  When we change we transform something, someone, ourselves into something or someone different.

Whew.  This is quite the mouthful of limitless profundity.  Change, glorious change.  And it all starts with you.

Change is transformation.  It indicates movement and growth.  Spirals and pinwheels and vortices.  A maelstrom of tilt-a-swirl.  Sometimes, change means contributing beyond yourself.  Other times, change means discovering something really surprising about yourself.  We experience change when we laugh and when we cry. When we offer our seat to someone else on the bus.  When we say hello to the lone kite flyer in the park.  When we sell our house and try the nomadic life on for a time.  When we say yes to Adventure.  When we say no to Adventure.

No matter our perceptions of the moment, change takes us to where we are right now.

A question: Do you take change for granted?  I realize that it would be metacognitively implosive to cultivate enough mindfulness in order to keep track of all of the changes in your life, but what is your awareness of the many changes that take place in a week, a day, an hour, a snippet of a moment?  Am I paying attention to the changes in my universe?  Should I be writing them down?  Mapping them forward on life’s path?  Am I over-thinking all of this?     

One last question: Where do you want to go?  What small, sustainable change might you make today to take you where you want to go?

Wait, one last question: What is holding you back?  What is keeping you from making that change?  “It only takes one person to change your life ~ YOU.”  Have fun today appreciating the changes that you are creating and experiencing and fulfilling.

You are a beautiful person.

Do you want to turn your Bad into Badass?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: What is the Bad in your life?  Do you have a Bad relationship?  A Bad job?  A Bad boss?  A Bad diet?  A Bad car?  A Bad routine of predictable habit?  A Bad attitude?  A Bad whatever?  Bad, bad, bad. Why do we tend to focus on the Bad?  ayn-rand-quote

Bad can be defined in many ways: something that is inferior, unpleasant, unwelcome, deficient, miserable . . . however your soul defines it, that is what it is.  But how can you turn your Bad into Badass?

The Urban Dictionary defines badass as such:

“The badass carves his own path. He wears, drives, drinks, watches, and listens to what he chooses, when he chooses, where he chooses, uninfluenced by fads or advertising campaigns. Badass style is understated but instantly recognizable. Like a chopped Harley or a good pair of sunglasses: simple, direct, and functional.”

I love this.  It is a defining definition.  It inspires me to get off my patootie and turn things around and in new directions . . . pick up a cool pair of shades and carve  my own path.

When I googled images for Badass, all sorts of violent gestures and expressions appeared.  Vulgar gestures, mean glares, and weapons of minor and mass destruction.  This is not the idea I had in mind for turning Bad into Badass.

far from what I once wasBut I do appreciate the inspiration to Carve My Own Path.  Doing what I choose, when I choose, where I choose — all uninfluenced by trends andunsolicited opinions.  Badass speaks, but does not do so with a megaphone.  It doesn’t take any convincing or wheedling.  It simply is what it is: “. . . simple, direct, and functional.”  I’m getting there.  I’ve got this.

All of this sounds like a recipe for finding your way, discovering your feng shui –> governing your space and details and energy in ways that speak of  “understated but instantly recognizable.”  Sounds good . . . I mean . . . Badass to me.

How does this work in my real Universe?  How can I turn my daily Bad into Badass?  A few things come to mind:

  1. Speak from the promptings of your soul.  Just say Yes.
  2. Do not fear disapproval.  Rather, welcome it.  You just provided someone with the opportunity to do some critical thinking.
  3. Carve your own way.  The verb carve  has many dimensions.  Sculpt.  Create a 3-D version of your life’s Vision.
  4. Step outside your comfort zone.  You never know when you might discover the best (fill-in-the-blank) ever.
  5. Recreate with what is your creativity.  Start with your mind.  Your heart just might follow.
  6. Be willing to laugh at your efforts.  It is sometimes hard to be Badass when you are accustomed to being the Victim.
  7. Be one with your Badass.  “Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the floor each morning the devil says:“Oh, sh#@, she’s up!” 
  8. Frank Zappa had it right: Deviate from the norm.  Make some progress that feels Badass.

without deviation from the norm. frank zappa

If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

PROMPT: If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?  What would you do?  Take at least one. Chance.

I feel so convicted.  So very convicted.   To the core of my very innards.  Is it simply butterflies that I am feeling?  Is it a massive infiltration of pure fear being infused into my molecules?  Is it a state of confusion that I am experiencing because I cannot answer this question with a single, spontaneous response?

Should it be a single, spontaneous response?  Is this “chance” supposed to look like a pop of color on a canvas or is it part of a plan — all mapped out with color-coded push pins on my vision board?  Am I the only one who feels this way when asked this question? Please, someone. Anyone.

Wait.  There is only one question here.  Only one.  I catch myself wanting to answer in outline form in my Thinking Pad.   I want to get out my Green Trails map and examine the topography of the trail ahead of me.  I want to know how many miles it is to the overlook.  I want to know the point where the trail flattens out a bit.  How many switchbacks are on this trail?  And what is the elevation gain?  Have I brought enough water?  Did I bring enough sustenance?  Wait, is my boot starting to rub a blister?

I write this and know how terribly apprehensive I sound.  I love being alive and having fun and dancing and doing crazy things with friends and meeting new people and learning new music and traveling alone and learning new skills and . . .

A moment of clarity tells me that I am turning all of this into a gale-force force-field analysis.  It is true, in a desire to cultivate mindfulness, that I like to focus on what matters to me: Do I focus on the summit? The next switchback?  The trillium and skunk cabbage along the trail?  And how many switchbacks are on this trail?  What is the elevation gain?  If I knew that there were going to be 49 switchbacks with a 4000-foot elevation gain, would I be tempted to turn around and find an alternative route?  An alternative peak altogether?

Does life really need to be analyzed and dissected, answer by answer, or is it a journey that involves choices that are made one small, sustainable,sometimes risky step at at time?  I think of the time when I hiked up some crazy-steep trail in the French Alps.  It was an epic effort but so satisfying to reach the top. As for taking one chance today?  I’ve got this.  Easy.

Back to the question:

If you were to take at least one chance, what would it be?   

My answer: Yes.  Yes to the summit, the switchbacks, the skunk cabbage, the blisters.  I am going to look to the summit and hang the switchbacks.  I’ll pick huckleberries and identify flowers that are new to me.  I know what it is I want.  I have a vision.  I can see it and I can smell it and I can feel how good it feels to be on the path.  And I want it.  I want to take that chance now, please.

 

 

 

What is your favorite word?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: What is your favorite word?  Is there a word that spontaneously comes to mind?  What are some of the reasons that it is your favorite word?

I love looking up words, so I have a big, fat dictionary stashed under my couch.  It might seem a random place to store it, but it is a very handy location.  I can tug at a corner of its spine and drag it out, dust the cat and dog hair off its cover, and voila: the vast universe of English definitions and etymology is at my fingertips.

The spine of this dictionary is spent from such abuse.  I would place it in a more revered place — but it is so thick, there is no room on my crowded bookshelves for it.  And there is no rational explanation as to why I store it under the couch.  Maybe I was tidying up before dinner company arrived one time, and I wanted my desk to look more tidy.  I can’t remember.  It has remained hidden there long enough to create a habit of storage.  I rarely dig it out to look up a word . . . now preferring the convenience of the “define: whatever” function in Google.

This dictionary has been bumped around by the vacuum, has survived periodic floods of red wine and other beverages, and has had close encounters of the fuzzy kind from the myriad dust bunnies that reproduce at an astronomical rate.  I sometimes feel guilty when I bop it with the vacuum or shove it further from view when company comes over.  There is a wealth of information in this tome.  Just thinking about my cavalier attitude shames me into considering a new place for it to rest.

My favorite word?

 Experience 

I just love this word.  It is so full and enriching and alive.  It is ambrosia.  It encompasses our perceptions, our beliefs, our assumptions, our loves, our errors, our forgiveness, our learning, our teaching.  It projects into the future, embraces the present, and builds on the past.  There is so much time in this word.  So many dimensions of time.  It is simultaneously eternal and present in any given nano second.  It is both creative and stable.  It can be embroidered with lacy fibs to make a story better.  It can serve as a sage advisor.  It can prove to be an insane springboard into the unknown.  It blows our perceptions of time out of the Milky Way.

I used to date a scientist.  One of his hobbies was to sit in his chair in a dark room and ponder the universe and the various dimensions.  In these quiet hours, he came up with a breakthrough scientific theory that I thought was fairly plausible, at least to my neophyte’s understanding of dark matter and ordinary matter and  black holes and universal space and time.

He painstakingly laid out the particulars of how it all worked, and I was really impressed.  Truly, I didn’t mean to blow a hole in his hours and days and weeks of pondering when I asked him, “But what’s the point? What is the meaning of it all if there isn’t any reference of experiential and emotional and personal connection?”

I have to hand it to him.  He didn’t perceive me as one of those naysaying hole-pokers trying to assassinate his theory.  His response to my question was eloquent and beautiful: “Hmmph.”

I saw him a few nights later and, after many hours in his chair in a dark room, he said that he figured out how Experiential Connection figured into the swirly mix of our Milky Way.  He had some kind of answer for it all, about how our experiences plugged up certain holes in the Universe.  I am sure that his more technical language accounted for a more elegant way of explaining how it all comes together, but this is what I took away from his rather long explanation:

our future experiences of connection represent the dark matter

that balances with what is termed as “ordinary matter” throughout infinity

In retrospect, I am sure that my interpretation does not quite embody what he was saying.  But it all makes sense somehow.  I finally asked him, “How can there be ordinary matter?  Doesn’t all matter have remarkable significance?”  He didn’t have an answer as to why it is called ordinary, but I suspect that these questions made for some extra sitting time in his dark room.

It all counts.  The seen and the unseen.  The real and the invisible real. The ordinary and the dark.  I find it fascinating to think that it is possible that there is 10 times more dark matter than visible matter in space.  That is a lot of matter that I am not seeing.  Just thinking about it motivates me to Pay Attention.

I am not explaining it very well.  I am not an astrophysicist.  I am merely a student of life who has learned that cultivating mindfulness matters.  That my experiences matter.  I want to connect.  I want to experience Experience with a capital E.

It is said that there are roughly one million words in the English language.  I would suspect that the world wide web would have a difficult time corralling so many permutations of any single word.  Merriam-Webster chimes in with the following:

“There is no exact count of the number of words in English, and one reason is certainly because languages are ever expanding; in addition, their boundaries are always flexible.?”  (http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/total_words.htm)

In other words, language is expanding as rapidly as my ex-boyfriend’s explanation of what happens with dark matter in the Universe.  Language expands and it is infinite.  There are probably 10 times more thoughts and concepts and feelings and experiences than what the English language can account for.  This makes sense to me.

So today, my favorite word is e-x-p-e-r-i-e-n-c-e.  I embrace the Universal dimensions that this word represents.  Dark matter is like a placeholder in the Universe for us as we face the unknown in our world — the unseen frontiers.  So many experiences to build.  So much dark matter to Experience.