The Mindful Home Office: Family Camp

A note to the reader: Families in 2020 can mean many things: whether it is you, your partner, the family you choose and even a virtual tribe you create, I hope this essay helps you design the spacious landscape we all are needing. 

After five days of working from home and anticipating next week’s start of on-line learning for our two boys, I am realizing there is work to do to help create inner and outer peace, calm productivity and joy. With the long stretch of a weekend ahead of us, we have time to prepare what I am now calling a work sanctuary. Here is a simple guide to your contemplative future. 

Set the Stage 

With the world turned upside down we can consider anything is possible as we design how and where we work in the home. I am creating a new desk space at the back window where I can work and watch birds, sky and home. I am encouraging our boys to stake out their desk space, too: setting aside with intention: this is where my work will happen. 

Prepare to Sustain 

On one of your spatially distant trips to the store, stock up your pantry this weekend with healthy snacks: apples and almond butter, tangerines, my mother’s epic “ants on a log” (celery, peanut butter, raisins); popcorn, oranges, nuts (in small portions) and grapes. Write up a list of ideas in your family meeting (next up). Meal prep needs to be easy and something everyone can help with, too!

The Family Meeting

If you haven’t already held a formal Family Meeting in light of the world events, it is time. Your kids are listening and watching all of this unfold-and they are especially watching you. What may seem fine on the surface may not be so, and connection and togetherness will be the balm our hearts need. 

In your Family Meeting, set the time aside with the ringing of a bell, ask someone to lead, and design in a short (30 minute) agenda that might include mindfulness (3 minutes), prayer, sharing time (high/low of the day, mood) and topics like “building the shopping list”; “making a daily and weekly schedule”, “what I love about my life” and “what I don’t miss from our pre-COVID-19 life”. Offer skills of attention, awareness and deep listening. This is your family’s time and that means it is precious time.  

Be Happy Campers 

I worked at Brush Ranch Camps in the heart of the Sangre de Christo Mountains for several years and I learned that the best way to live, lead and survive is to live as a camp counselor. We all came together each summer for a purpose greater than ourselves: to create joy and growth in the mountains. In this sabbatical time of pause, we can do this too: each member of the family plays a part in our greater purpose: to run a happy, healthy, non-anxious home/ family office and school. You might: 

·      Name your tribe 

·      Call your Family Meetings Tribe Meetings or Tribe Council 

·      Assign chores: Cabin Clean Up (cleaning rooms daily), M&M (Minor Maintenance), Kitchen Duty, Hoppers (clearing the table), Snack Duty (from your thoughtfully prepared snack list!) and even Nature Teacher, Art Teacher, Hiking Leader. Get creative, we may be at Camp for a while. 

Design your Daily Life 

Create a Schedule You all Love: build in down time, fun time and outside time: every day. Ask your kids to write the schedule from the very detailed instructions we are receiving from the schools, balance serious with humanness: be perfectly imperfect. Here is a sample schedule

7:00-8:00 am Breakfast and Mindfulness 

8:00-9:00 Cabin Clean Up 

9:00-10:30 School work/ Session One 

10:30 Snack time and Outside time 

11:00-12:00 School work/ Session Two 

12:00-2:00 Lunch, Rest, Play 

2:00-3:30 School work/ Session Three 

3:30-4:00 Snack time/ Outside time 

4:00-5:30 Homework/ Quiet time / Open 

5:30 on -open for evening activities (we are taking Family walks at 5:30 to recap the day) 

This will take some practice: check in on what is working and not working and amend as needed: this is yours to perfect. Kids are used to and love structure: they will surprise you. 

Ring the Bell

Each Day assign a Bell Ringer to mark the time: when the bell rings at Plum Village in the South of France (Thich Nhat Hanh’s beautiful retreat center) the community stops whatever they are doing and breathes for a few silent moments. You can also set bells on phones at interval times in timer or in the Insight Meditation App. A relationship with time helps everyone focus and stay connected to the present moment. 

Create Space for Silence

Mindfulness will get you there: to a home office that is peaceful and intentional: begin with short sessions (2-3 minutes) in the family meeting and add in moments of mindfulness at meals, on walks and in your own work practice. Mindful writing (3-5 minutes keeping the hand moving) is also a helpful practice to get clear about where we are in the world and helps us source mood, emotion and the challenges we are facing. Set up a mindful corner in your home for Campers to visit anytime: it can be as simple as a cushion, a bell and a poetry book. Ask one of your Campers to create it!

Take Care of Yourself and Your Campers

You know the instruction well from airplane travel: place your own oxygen mask first before helping others with their masks. Self-care and compassion (Kristen Neff) are paramount to the health and success of your co-counselors and campers. Share the work, communicate needs, express courage, acknowledgement, appreciation and love often. Camp Leaders needs to maintain a deep well of love and compassion for others: take the time to fill yours up: exercise, alone time, reading, resting, meditation and yoga are all wonderful practices of compassion for self. Let the present moment be your teacher (Pema Chodron) and your Family Camp will be a haven of work-life pause and possibility. Graces to you Spaces!

A Week of Poetry: March 8

March 14, 2020 

Coronavirus fatique.
It's a thing.
Five weeks ago it was Chinese New Year.
Taking a beloved festival away,
A wretched, wracking decision. 
Followed by the hurt of criticism and social media hatred.
"Xenophobic" -me, one who has been a stand for the Chinese community for over two decades.
Crushed. And. It wasn't personal.
I became Teflon. Stopped reading the feeds. 

Fast forward to this week:
More calls to lead: to wrestle with the word
Postponement.
Cancellation.
Programs. Experiences. 

The Dance of language: just the right balance, they said
of concern and authority.
The waiting for news and permission.
And now a full closure for an indeterminate amount of time.
Just the right balance between what we know and what we don't know.
Confident and uncertain.
Reassuring and worried.
Prepared. Well being first.
Compassion now. 

And as I said in February, any risk above zero is risk.
What creates this? This ability to discern, decide, disappoint?
Love.
I become Teflon.
This is a business of humans being:
Being well, safe and loved.
Not one unwell if I can stop it. Not one.

March 13, 2020 

Mindfulness in One Poem

What are you worried about?
The World.
(Takes a deep breath)
What are you worried about now?
The Country.
(Takes another deep breath)
What are you worried about now?
The City.
(Takes another deep breath)
And now?
The Town.
(Breath)
And now?
This Neighborhood.
(Takes a slow breath)
And now?
This House.
(Breaths, natural, repeated)
And now?
Me. My family.
(Takes a few more natural breaths.)
And how about now?
What are you thinking about now?
This breath.

March 11, 2020 

New friend to me: “Amy are you in Real Estate?”
I said no...Asian Art 
But actually I wish I’d said 
“Yes, the Real Estate of our Hearts.”
That’s what I’m in.

March 10, 2020 

Today the sun caught me five ways.
Before 8.
It was a day of journeys
And remembrances.
Christened by a blaze of brightness 
Through my windshield. 

The visor is never enough
To shade the power of a sun at dawn.
A hot foretelling of July:
Earth tilting the sunrise back up the meridian.
Long shadows be gone. 

Her hotness held at bay for a few more weeks.
Her brilliance blocked as I turned this way and that.
She caught me at corners
Lurked while I sat.
Teased. Docile at dawn,
Untamed by 8. Relentless. 

She caught me, this sun.
This day.
And I am so glad for it.

Poetry Week of March 1

March 5, 2020

The bright rye grass in the median
And the cactus I always study
At the intersection.
But today it was he who I caught
In the corner of my eye.

I looked at him squarely and opened my coin box.
He walked over saying over and over again:
Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I hand him a few bills. And say,
“Don’t be sorry, be safe.”

As he walked backwards into traffic after the light turned green.
His pleases haunting me.
Desperation or theater?
I can’t question.

And I move into my day begging for my own:
Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.
We just stand on different corners of our own lives.
And pray.

March 4, 2020
A poem by me and Anne M. Stadler

All you have to do today
Breathe
Rest
Sustain
Love

March 3, 2020

It’s better if we don’t know our age really.
To just be in the skin of who we are.
And what we know.
What we know about what and who we love.

To ignore the “age” spots.
The graying of the clippings at the hair salon.
The shape of time and babies.
To see no time in others, either.
Young or old. Doesn’t matter.

What matters is the time we have. Not the time we’ve been.
Not the distance of our years,
But rather the connection of knowing.
Each other.

Fifty years. That was the time between us -and it was nothing.
Eclipsed by a greater love and seeing the hearts of each other.
And knowing that time,
Heart time
Is timeless.

Poetry Week of February 9-15

2/9/2020

In a class today we talked of silence. 
The precious space of sabbath.
We talked of chords and phones and tethering things.
That pull us from Peace. 

The Peace that is more the understanding.
Beyond, past Understanding.
Greater than.
Knowing.

We must be fierce.
With intention to notice, to see and to listen.
Fierce to protect ourselves and

The chapel that is our life.

2/10/2020

One breath.
A moment to see.
A different side.
To me.

One breath.
A moment to see.
A different side.
To you.

One breath.
A moment to be.

Us.

2/11/2020 
Mindfulness in three perspectives:
Time, be with me.
Body, I’m in you.Heart, I feel you.


2/12/2020 

I brought a few things to this mindful life;
The bell, the breath came later.
Compassion arrived as my teacher,
And I rolled in all of the people who loved me into being*.

Formed by grandmothers and godmothers, parents and teachers. Especially the art teachers.
They found me in the field of mindful presence.
And held onto me. 

I brought poetry and writing,
Walking and wondering.
Sitting still.
Be still, I am God, he said.
I was finally quiet enough to hear.
Quiet enough to speak to his listening. 

Quiet enough to know.
Silence is where we grow.
Silence holds a truth where we say what we see.
Silence is the teacher our teachers wanted us to be.

*ref: Fred Rogers

2/14/2020

Good morning, Love Birds.
Mamas and Daddies.
Brothers, sisters,
Best Friends.
Good Morning, Saint Valentine.
The one who said,
Love, Your Valentine.
One thousand,
Seven hundred and fifty years ago. 

Love your Valentine.
The driver in front of you.
The driver behind.
The post person,
The gent who makes your latte.
With the little heart drawn in foam at the top. 

Love, you, Valentine.
Take a moment.
Place your hand on your heart.
And breathe.
I’m here, you could say.
Loving you.
I’m here. 

I’m here, Valentine.
In each little letter of each little word.
For you.
For your happiness and your peace.
For the way you say,
I love you today.
Say it loudly so even the ones.
Who can’t hear you or see you.
Can.
Love,
Your Valentine.

2/15/2020 

“Why the sunrise?” They asked.
“It calls me.” I replied.
A daily invitation to exist.
To write the day.
In words and actions.

A blank slate to encounter
The tender,
The suffering,
The wonderful.

A do-over. A do-ing.
Open for the business
Of this day
Of my life.

A Week of Poetry

I offered a poem.
He politely declined.
With jade-like humility. 

And so I think I’ll just 
Leave these words here.
In case a poem is the thing
You don’t know you need. 

The glow of space
To hold a new thought.
A house for words, a house for play.
A poem is the little lark that bravely sings the day.

***

Pink blanket in the center lane.
Temperatures in the low thirties.
How cold were they to not feel it fall?
How far did they walk before they realized.
The one thing they owned was strewn in the middle of 5 lanes?

What can I do for the human I only see the remnant of?
The body this blanket sheltered has moved on.
And with luck to a real shelter.
No one needs a blanket in a shelter. 

Pink blanket in the center lane.
A call to take the stacks of blankets out of the cabinet.
And hand them out on frozen mornings.
For the one who can’t feel it’s warmth.

***

In a class today we talked of silence. 
The precious space of sabbath.
We talked of chords and phones and tethering things.
That pull us from Peace. 

The Peace that is more the understanding.
Beyond, past Understanding.
Greater than.
Knowing.

We must be fierce.
With intention to notice, to see and to listen.
Fierce to protect ourselves and
The chapel that is our life.

***

Was it three minutes?
Or was it ten?
Just a portal on social media.
It was ten.
Ten minutes I might have been meditating.
Making oatmeal.
Only 50% of the humans in the house eat oatmeal. 

Now it’s twelve minutes and I’m still here. Loving you.

***

To the person on any Southwest Flight who finds my Texas Driver’s License:
It was a short relationship. The renewed card arrived and was put to use and lost before the Old One Expired.
So easy to get lost in the Story of Lost Things: The Great Distractor. 

Do mindful people lose less? Or do they lose more, less concerned with keeping track. 
Do mindful people track less because they have less?
Minimalists Lose Less. 

I am not a Minimalist. Three weeks ago it was my Favorite Turquoise Ring by Leo Feeney. I try to break my cycle of fret: stepping back to that day: the trunk to the dresser and now: no where. 

There’s not enough Mindfulness to bring it back. Let it go: like the sands of a Tibetan Mandala. 

But to the person who finds my Texas Driver’s License: feel free to mail it on back to Texas. I’m counting on the kindness of You, Stranger. In this bountiful world of common humanity I hope you will.

***

I brought my mood to the office today.
Bundled neatly. I worked on it overnight and on the drive up. Layers of worry about last week and next week.
Nothing present but a lack of presence. 

I didn’t know how large the parcel got. 
I even tied it with a bow.
Walked in to my office and within a matter of minutes I unpacked it. Handed some to one and then another.
We sat in the hot tub of my mood.
Felt good for a minute and then it didn’t. 

The breakthrough is knowing I choose the content of my knapsack of emotions.
I choose how I show up to my devoted, loving colleagues.
I choose the moment of mindfulness to recognize.
And grow.
To carry less to care more.
That’s what being a friend is for.

This Holiday Season, Humans Are Counting on Us

It’s time to talk about our problem with alcohol.

In August of this year Obi Ndefo was putting groceries in his car outside Erewhon Natural Foods Market in Los Angeles after teaching a yoga class. As he stood at the back of his car, a car swerved at 40 miles an hour and hit Obi pinning him against his own car, reversed and drove away. Remarkably Obi lived through the next few moments and is “in a new body” now learning to live without his legs. His survival has been called a miracle. His resiliency is the evidence of that miracle. The driver was arrested the next day in Los Angeles and booked on a DUI charge. Obi holds no anger or hatred for the driver and has moved on. He says “I don’t have time for negativity in my life. People are counting on me.”

Two weeks later, in the twisting mountains outside of Taos, New Mexico, country singer Kylie Rae Harris crashed into 16 year old Taos high school student Maria Elena Cruz.  Maria’s father, Pedro Cruz, is Deputy Chief of the San Cristobal Volunteer Fire Department. He was among the first to arrive on the scene. Both young women were killed in the crash. Kylie Rae Harris toxicology reports showed .28% blood alcohol content. The data recorder on her truck noted she was traveling 102 miles an hour at the time of the crash. Kylie Rae, 30, from Wylie, Texas just outside of Dallas, had a prior DWI conviction in Collin County and had been ordered to install an interlock device on her car.

Last Tuesday on a crisp winter morning in Dallas, Nancy Dennington, a 72 year old woman, just returning home from her walk, was struck by a 30 year old in an Audi. The driver, Ryan Crews, stood blankly staring at her while two of my friends tried to save her life: comforting her with their words and blankets until the paramedics could arrive. She died somewhere inside of those moments.

Crews is believed to have been intoxicated from either drugs or alcohol. He failed a sobriety test and pills were taken from him at the scene. Five years ago, Ryan received a DWI for running a red light in the same neighborhood. Two years ago the interlock device on his car was removed. His booking photo was taken by police in his hospital bed. Police plan to charge Crews with Intoxication Manslaughter.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, accidents from drivers under the influence kill about 30 people in the U.S. each day. While fatalities from DWI accidents are down 13% in the last ten years, I sense our alcohol culture is on the rise. A recent marketing campaign in Dallas offers locals and travelers The Margarita Mile: an experience where you can 1) download the app; 2) explore the margaritas; 3) drink and check in and 4) explore the rewards.

In our parking garage at work, a billboard promoted the new wine bar where you can “Be Happy”. Alcohol is pervasive as necessary entertainment, a path to happiness and the place to be. Messages to drink responsibly feel lost in the small print. What is our responsibility in this space of popular culture? 

I asked myself this question the other night when I, with my two boys 12 and 13, and our small dog came upon three teens smoking pot at the park across the street near White Rock Lake in Dallas. “Is that what marijuana smells like?” my twelve year-old queried (too) loudly. As I watched them head to their car, the cold foggy air thick with the scent of weed, I weighed three options: 1) call 911; 2) call 311; 3) do nothing. I did nothing. But this question “what was my responsibility in this” weighs heavily as the air did that night. For Obi, for Maria Elena and for Nancy. What did we see and not say? Who do we watch and wonder, “are they safe to drive?” and how often do we dismiss the thought, turn the cheek and move on into our “complicated enough” lives?

I posted a brief story on a neighborhood page, briefly. Within minutes the comments section was filled with a frightening tone of tolerance and a resigned complacency: "get over yourself" one person wrote; another said "it's just pot". The comments worsened and I took the post down. But here's the thing. I can't get over myself. And is it...just pot? Is that what Maria Elena's father would say? 

This holiday, let’s stay in that uncomfortable space a little bit longer. It may be the gift we weren’t expecting to give.

Today is A Very Important Day

One, I am back on the Blog. Nice to be here with you, thank you. 

Two, today is the first of December and the first Sunday in Advent: a four-week period of "waiting and watching" for the birth of Christ. It is also the month of Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition and the close of the year. Hallmarks of beginnings and endings are all around us. 

And, three: I will be almost 50 in two years. Remember when Meg Ryan said through her sobs in "When Harry Met Sally", "I am going to be 40!" and goes on to say..."In 8 years!". While it's not possible Meg Ryan was so young, it is possible I will be 50 in two years. So I designed a two-year program of re-imagining, re-invention for this half-century on the planet. It is time. 

In November I celebrated two years of sober living --from alcohol. I have studied and learned how to change a behavior and feel like I am ready to expand this sobriety to the other "comforts" in my life: food, spending, social media. 

I am imagining this human, my human, in two years following this design of self-created seven agreements, I am calling these agreements the Secret Seven: 

1. Continued Sobriety from Alcohol and weekly meetings 

2. Daily exercise -30 min-1 hour any kind (walking/ yoga) 

3. Anti-inflammatory diet (no white items: sugar, gluten, dairy) 

4. Church weekly 

5. Meditation Daily 

6. Writing Daily 

7. Financial Partnership with Scott and the Boys (weekly meetings and savings plan)

This future human feels great on the inside and the outside. She is strong and powerful and embodies the commitments she's made to herself, others and the environment. This human tells the truth about herself and leads from her heart. Nothing is hidden. Nothing is feared: I will work on the mindfulness it will take to "be with" the challenges of these new practices. I feel like I've been training for this since 2011. I have everything I need to meet my future self. 

This is what it feels like to design a future: I am in this future, just a few hours into the first of December, watching and waiting. Attending. Listening. Sitting with the desire to comfort myself in all of the ways I know best, but this year, next year and the year after: consciously choosing something different: a new future. 

I am trying this future on beginning with this day in this moment. It is time.