Work & Whiplash

I know two things: (1) I love this island. (2) I love this boy.

I fell into a bit of an impromptu travel season this month – three back-to-back trips with a weekend between. Just enough time to empty the suitcase into the laundry cycle, to re-roll and re-pack once it was refreshed.

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I am learning that one is not in direct competition with the other; that separation doesn’t always mean absence, that these two ideas are not mutually exclusive. That life, mostly, can be compartmentalized until it can’t.

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It’s an odd thing, to receive the very thing you wanted. To receive the quiet of an empty room you’d wished for only weeks ago. To receive the alone time you crave, the silence you love.

The whiplash of it all.

The release from responsibility in one area, straight into the throes of responsibility in another.

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It’s about presence, for me, I’ve come to know.

It’s about being gone when I’m gone. Being home when I’m home. Being all there, wherever I am, and resisting the temptation to bow out of social hour because I need to FaceTime.

(Resisting the temptation to bow out of family time because I need to hop on a call.)

R & R

You come for rest, for rejuvenation. You think it might be a nice bonus to meet someone with an answer to what’s weighing on your heart. Maybe you’ll bump into her at the pool, or eating a shaved ice, or on a surf board.

What happens is this: you depart realizing she’s you, and has been along.

(You promise to keep in touch.)

When in Hawaii...

1. Turn off your phone

2. Head straight for Honolulu and book a room at Hilton Beach Resort. Rainbow Tower is rad because it has a lagoon view and is closest to the food. Also, the beach. If you’re coming in around midday on a Friday, you might catch an indigenous meal and smile at the boy drinking POG by the palm tree. Ask your driver if Hawaii likes to party and witness an emphatic string of positives: Yes, yeah, yeaaah, aloha!

3. Curl up under beach towels with fireworks blazing in the sky. Your jet lag will kick in first thing the next morning, but it’s worth it. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Aloha forever.

4. Try your first shrimp taco (I knowwwww) and add shrimp and garlic to your grocery list pronto. Also, google food trucks on the island. (This one’s the winner for now!)

5. Stake out a spot on Sunset Beach, stay there forever. Do not leave. Sitting in the swaying hammock with warm toes, you’ll feel like you did when you were 19 in Cancun, which is never a bad thing to feel.

6. Learn many things; remember two: (1) everything is sand, (2) except for love.

To my sweet, loving, committed to work kids Preslee and Max – that couldn't come this time, there's always next time, next time.

Want to get more done?

You know that thing you’ve been wanting to do? Climb Mt. Olympus? Finish your basement? Sew that quilt? Get your license? Volunteer at the homeless shelter?

I think you should do it this summer.

(I know, I know. The boys are home. You’ve got that road trip planned. Work’s insane right now. The calendar’s full: reunions, vacations, getaways, dentist appointments. Check, check, check, check. I get it. )

So don’t do it alone, that’s all.

Regenerate

Sea Cucumbers

Do you know of them? Their ability to regenerate, or as 20-year-old Max explains to me, “to grow and to grow again?” Sea cucumbers, as a defense, can release their organs to a predator, slipping away to be quietly reborn in 1-5 weeks. Spending themselves entirely. Allowing themselves to be made new.

Waiting patiently, week after week, knowing restoration is already happening within them. Knowing change is on its way.

They do not sow their failures, reap their mistakes. They do not store away each hurt. They do not cater to their wounds and they do not cling to their scars.

Instead: they spill their guts, surrender their insides, become reborn.

They regenerate, and regenerate again.

It sounds a bit like mercy, I think. And patience. Quietly, expectantly awaiting your own small and many rebirths. Delivering them, then allowing them to deliver you.

The things we keep

& The Stories We Keep Close

Markus is passionate about hockey, record breaking and window-down, top-of-the-lung car singing. Welcome (back) to High School Hockey.

The Person My Family Needs

Morgen, Max and Markus are my biggest priority; my proudest prize.

Motherhood and marriage are hard work and I’m fairly unapologetic about learning to be better at both. It’s an ever-evolving process – one that I do not take lightly. When Morgen was first born, the balance seemed pretty steady. The plates didn't spin too fast; the expectations weren't piled too high. Still somewhere along the way, I realized that – for me – the only plates I truly wanted to spin were the ones that held my family. And then it became easier. Far, far easier. And far more enjoyable. When I stopped fighting for the person I thought I wanted to be and – instead – embraced the person my family needed, everything shifted. Because it turns out, the person I want to be is the person my family needs. I cannot serve those beyond my four walls and neglect the needs within my own home.

Today's Encouragement

On the night of a bad day, I wonder if people truly change. If we’re all just out here screwing each other up or if there is, as I’ve been taught, a capacity for a better way.

The angry encounter peace? Can the yeller stop yelling?

And then, this:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

I used to think this was an old verse about material goods, about how meaningless it was to buy objects void of permanence. You can’t take it with you, and all that. I used to think this was a simple reminder that we’re wasting precious hours adding another chunky knit sweater to our cart, or fretting over our 10-year plan.

And yet, when I re-read it, later mulling it over at the kitchen sink scrubbing steak from the pan, I think it might be about tomorrow, sure, but also yesterday.

why i blog

the things we keep

By day, I change dressings and write nursing notes and input orders and answer emails. I speak to patient's with cancer, say another prayer, brew another coffee. By day I travel the world, or at least the grocery store. I read another chapter and battle another bad habit. I fry bacon. I change my outfit. I refill my water glass and then start the laundry and sing lullabies and search for that ubiquitous missing sock yet again.

By night, I write it all down here.

Mamas

There are few things I consider myself an expert in, but truth be told: if recharging one’s energy with littles underfoot were an Olympic sport (missed opportunity, Greece), I like to think my sister Lara would take home a gold.

Whatever you call it: grandparenting, retiring, mama breaks, “GG” time — it can all feel so, so elusive when you’ve got young kids. More often than not, the moment you’ve found yourself sitting on the sofa with a good book is the moment your children have realized the kitchen faucet sprayer makes for an excellent fireman’s hose.

And so, if you’re in the trenches (or drenches, mothers of said firemen), here are a few photos of Lara with her newest grand-twins to infuse your day with a few exhales here and there.

Small Step No. 7

A Simple Trick

There’s a marketing rule that, to encourage impulse purchases in consumers, desirable products should be neatly organized at eye level, preferably of a toddler. Make it eye-catching, make it obvious. Make it impossible to ignore.

And this is why I’ve stopped placing my phone on the car console.

It was eye-catching. It was obvious. It was impossible to ignore, all too easy to impulse grab. My phone now happily sits in my purse, pinging and flashing to no one at all.

And so, a small reminder for myself, instead:

Place an open book on the kitchen counter.

I’ve been reading through books over and over and over again, and I’ve found that I’ll return to it more often throughout the day if it’s already open, already inviting — right there out in the open, right where my brain has trained itself to seek out my phone.

It’s the simplest shift that has proved to be a more useful, more productive resting place for my eyes – and my soul.

Small Steps: 6.5

There are no shortage of things to work on in this grand life, no limits to areas in need of refinement. Of late, for me? Communication. In specific? Tongue-holding.

And so, a small reminder for myself:

Say what you see.

And sometimes, only that.

I’m finding since that this micro-mantra, this ‘Say what you see’ is applicable in nearly any scenario – in offering (and receiving) feedback, in sharing compliments, in encouraging another. Just last month I scrawled a list of helpful things I witnessed Markus doing – for us, for others – and tucked it into a Valentine taped to the garage door. There it was in black and white: every little thing from toothbrushing to trash duty. He felt appreciated. He felt seen.

I’ve been practicing the art all around town – from noticing my hairdresser’s new cheek color (sidenote: it was pink and it looked incredible) to offering a hand to the grandfather in the grocery store.

Sure, we can say what we think. We can say what we know to be true, and why. We can spend our days lecturing, defending our convictions to others, attempting to talk everyone else into understanding things precisely the way we understand them.

But sometimes, often times, we need only say what we see.

And to listen – carefully, intently – to what we don’t.

Small Step No. 6

There’s a tried-and-true tip I’ve often heard from seasoned counselors, one of which is guaranteed to keep arguments fair, gentle and in-the-moment (rather than relying on cheap shots and past scripts), and it is simply this:

Avoid two words: (1) Always and (2) Never.

There are a few obvious reasons here, one of which being that neither of the above words are often true. Does your son really never do the dishes? Are you really always picking up dirty socks? Is your teen truly always on his phone? And so, as of late, I’ve made more of an effort to steer clear of these mounting exaggerations, certainly in an argument, but also in everyday language, and in my own self-chatter.

It has since, oddly enough, transformed my parenting.

It is no longer “You never finish your carrots!” or “You always forget your keys at your friend’s house!” and is instead, something a bit gentler, a bit kinder, a lot more true.

It is a small difference, the tiniest shift. But it makes for a giant space between frustration and exasperation, between correction and shame, between simple mistakes and complete failure.

It is surprisingly hard to do, leaving out the two words.

Last week, as I'm coming home from work, I’m buttoning my coat and adjusting my seat belt and re-buckling a shoe and starting the car when Markus announces he is up snowboarding with his friends.

Why do you always forget to tell me? flies through my mind, and before I can embarrass myself, the littlest voice in the back of my mind reminds me not to say “always.”

(Sometimes, parenting is little more than training a 40-something-year-old to sound precisely like your conscience.)

Small Step No. 5

Genius indeed.

Max's girlfriend Preslee is an expert in strategy, having studied psychology in high school and learning a thing or two from her own three(!) vibrant, boisterous siblings. I’d long admired how she manages to set high expectations for Max without constant nagging, bribes or ultimatums, and a few months ago, she spilled her secret…she was visiting my home for dinner and as she was helping to cut the turkey, she called out to her boyfriend: Thank you for washing your hands!

No nagging. No reminders. No request. Just a simple thank you for a task not yet completed. And sure enough, seemingly out of the woodwork, Max headed into the bathroom to wash his hands for dinner.

My eyes widened, and with a smile, she explained why it works:

Assume the best. They’re smart; they know what is expected of them and, if given a bit of freedom, will mostly live up to those expectations. By offering gratitude for a task not yet completed, I’m communicating (a) the expectation, (b) my trust that the expectation will be met, and (c) the person’s reward (i.e., a simple “thank you”) for meeting it.

She added: I don’t like to use the word “Please” unless I’m making a request, and hand-washing is non-negotiable.

Genius, yes?

And so, a small reminder for myself:

Lead with a thank you, not with a please.

A few weeks ago, a girlfriend called while Markus and I were listening to (loud) music.

I’m gonna take this, I said, turning down the volume on the speakers. Thank you for being quiet.

Markus offered a thumb’s up, then went outside to shoot a few pucks.

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Top O' The Mornin'

to you!

Peach Diaries is not a brand. There’s no sales strategy, no newsletter sign ups, no editorial calendar, certainly no virtual assistant. It’s simply a place where I can work out what it means to be human, in bits and pieces, all faults and fumbles. Occasionally, I travel worldwide. Every now and then, I post some photos. Sometimes, I write bestsellers. (Just kidding, mostly, I burn the pancakes.)

3 Things of Beauty

Natalye & Markus

1. During courtship, a male Adelie penguin presents his chosen female with a pebble as a gift. If the female accepts, they mate for life.

2. If you die in Amsterdam with no next of kin, and/or no one to mourn for you, a poet will write a poem for you and recite it at your funeral.

3. You, today.

Small Step No. 4

It’s inevitable. 

You run into your son’s step-moms’ aunt at a birthday party and you know each other, but you don’t know know each other, so you fumble into stilted small talk until someone politely excuses themselves to hit the ladies’ room, or refill a drink.

It’s enough to make you want to avoid the next dinner party altogether (if not for the cake).

And so, a small reminder for myself:

Ask “What did you do today?” instead of “How are you?”

I first learned this trick from a family friend and retired psychologist who says that when faced with a small talk scenario, “What did you do today?” sends the brain into a logical/info zone rather than theoretical/emotion zone. It’s far easier for people to conjure up a list of what they did rather than how they felt, so the conversation flows more comfortably (and is ever-enlightening).

Bonus points: Work will likely come up in a response, so you’re saved from asking the dreaded follow-up question: What is it you do for a living?

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Go forth and mingle, friends. I’ll be the one by the cake.

Small Step No. 3

We have a running joke in these parts that nurses, ever the health conscious ones, will ask one question and one question alone to everything that ails you:

How Much Water Have You Had Today?

Headache? How much water have you had today? Foul mood? How much water have you had today?Broken toe? How much water have you had today?

Water first.

The rule is simple – two tall glasses of water down the hatch before I’ve had my morning coffee. That’s it.

You needn’t invest in fancy water bottles or herb-infused recipes (although you certainly can, of course). It takes only a small habit to guarantee you’ve consumed a large percentage of your daily water intake before 8am, and isn’t it fun to be an over-achiever, if only for the morning?

Stick to the formula throughout the day – two glasses before afternoon tea, two glasses before evening beer – and you’ve landed on the simplest solution for whatever ails you.

(Broken toes excluded.) 

p.s. These are a series of small steps that will (hopefully) provide one giant leap to greater things. Not for mankind, but for me, and perhaps for you, which will always be good enough in my book. First one here.

Huntsman Family Donates $30 Million

 

Grace

Word of the year:

Grace

I have a deeply rooted faith in God, however, I will say this: I sometimes find myself disenchanted with modern churches and American Christianity. I say this not to spark a debate or discount the beauty of the world, but to extinguish the assumption that Christians have it figured out. I wonder if I’m doing it wrong – if we’re all doing it wrong – and have a very real desire to strip religion down to the bare basics that Jesus taught: servanthood and grace and reverence and love and love and love. The hard kind of love that’s grueling and messy, that heals marriages and surprises strangers and transforms generations. The kind that cannot possibly be done in our own power; the kind that makes God evident, tangible. Real.

Small Step No. 2

And so, a small reminder for myself...

Be the thermostat.

My friend Kelly taught me this once, and her dad taught her. While I’m prone to measuring the temperature, to reading the room, to quietly adjusting my own layers to better acclimate, a thermostat declares the room cold and makes it warm.

We all hold in ourselves the power to transform – in ways small and large – a room, a year, a Christmas Day. We can make it hot or cold. We can make our homes into caves or havens; we can make our days stretch or crumble.

It is ours to decide, and we can decide.

Yesterday, we all woke up in stormy moods. The clouds hung low outside the window, mocking our attitudes. I puttered around per usual – frying eggs, washing pans, wrapping presents – and as the day went on and the coffee wore off, the sun still hadn’t come out. My responses were shortened, strained. Morgen carried a furrowed brow. Markus grew grumpy.

I practiced deep breaths, spritzed some rosewater on my face, willed myself to snap out of it. The Christmas dance party playlist wasn’t cutting it; I found the extra noise to be annoying.

Be the thermostat, I reminded myself. Set the tone. Rise above. You’re the grown-up. Make it warm.

I dug out an old puzzle for Morg, did 20 sit-ups for myself. Read Christmas Stories. Made a few silly faces for Max, then a few more for Preslee. In very little time, with very little effort, the energy of the room offered teenage smiles and grown-up giggles yet again.

Eventually, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, but it didn’t matter: the house was warm enough without it.

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Tell me: how did you spend your Christmas day? I’d love to hear!

p.s. These are a series of small steps that will (hopefully) provide one giant leap to greater things. Not for mankind, but for me, and perhaps for you, which will always be good enough in my book. More to come.

P.S.

p.s. These are a series of small steps that will (hopefully) provide one giant leap to greater things. Not for mankind, but for me, and perhaps for you, which will always be good enough in my book. More here.

Small Step No. 1

How To Change Your Day With A Single Smile

I do not consider myself to be a leader by nature, more of a follower. I identify most with the term “observer,” far preferring to sit at the proverbial corner bistro table and watch the world unfold as it does with little interference from me.

If asked, I’d tell you I’m an empath. I can sense when you’re feeling heavy or light, whether you’re overwhelmed or tense, how your emotions might dictate our plans. I observe, observe, observe. I react accordingly, adjusting my own demeanor based on the given mood, or moment.

And sure, while important to offer flexibility, this does not often bode well for a parenting strategy. We can only do so much observing-and-reacting before we’re required to steer the ship from emotion and circumstance to truth and perspective.

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More to come.

For The Sophomores

my hope for you today

& every day in your continuation

is that you will witness this miracle

... each bruise and breath and leaf. That you will see your generation as I see your generation: one of strength and wisdom and great, great hope. One that mesmerizes me, like a fire we can’t turn away from, like a fire that enchants.

Like a fire that sparks, spreads, warms an entire nation.

Other hopes: that your parking meter be ever full. That you eat your vegetables. That you will meet your future spouse after a terrifically poor haircut, so that every day after he/she will marvel at your vast and inexplicable improvement, at his/her vast and inexplicable luck.

I hope the futon is on sale. I hope you wear sunscreen, call your grandmother. I hope you remember your pin number and forget your phone. I hope you floss. Hum in the hallway. I hope you take a Jeep ride under the moon, taste dandelion wine on a rickety front porch. Bathe in a creek, sleep on a floor. Break dance in Chipotle. Carry your friends. I hope for you more love than loss, more questions than answers, more books than nightstand. I hope you’re kind to the waitress. I hope you get leg room on the way to Ireland.

I hope you look to your future, yes, but also lock eyes with your past. I hope you see that it has mattered, every scrape and shout and smile.

But mostly: I hope you dare to be ordinary. I hope you allow yourself a handful of terrible jobs and long commutes and bad dates. That you get tongue-tied on conference calls, botch the interview. I hope you find the miracle even then, in the most uncomfortable, unfortunate of instances.

(I hope you forgive yourself when you can’t.)

Small Steps

A Small Step

To Kick Our Multi-Tasking Habit

Boone Pickens perhaps said it best: When you are hunting elephants, don’t get distracted chasing rabbits.

This week’s rabbit: Stranger Things.

I’m not a TV watcher by nature, but every now and then, a show will grip Markus or Max so tightly that it becomes a focal point for conversation after conversation, theories and recaps and findings passed around the dinner table with the mashed potatoes.

The show sounded fascinating enough, even without the 80’s factor and the Indiana plot and of course Winona’s hair. And this is precisely how I wound up staying up waywayway past my bedtime last Saturday night hitting Play on Season 2.

I have been searching for pockets of time to hit Play ever since.

Earlier this week, while I needed to make dinner, so I chopped cauliflower while watching Joyce Byers trash her own house again, and of course, it wasn’t twenty minutes before a pot of spaghetti was bubbling onto the stove and I still hadn’t figured out where the heck Hopper was.

I turned off the TV, realizing there were enough rabbits for me to chase without adding a virtual one to the mix.

And so, a small reminder for myself, courtesy of this simple trick my therapist friend shares with his patients:

Pay attention to your hands.

It’s the perfect cure for multi-tasking, he says. When you’re writing an email, watch your fingers on the keyboard. When you’re folding laundry, watch your hands sort through the whites. When you’re at the park with your children, pay attention to your hands pushing them in the swing, brushing a leaf from their hair, holding their bike helmet as they run wild in the grass.

When I do (or think of doing) a million things at once, I do them less well. When I multitask, I'm teaching my brain to distract itself and things just take infinitely longer, my fuse growing infinitely shorter.

But there’s something inherently lovely about single-tasking, about focusing on just one thing at a time for as long as we’re able. And it turns out, I only need to retrain my brain with what I already have available: our hands.

It’s a small trick that snaps my mind back to the present and – better yet? – preserves energy for my next task.

(Like hitting Play on Stranger Things the very second those little dishes are done.)