Snapshot: three weeks in August 2024

A personal rambling reflection

I had more productive and contributory things to write this morning. But this one is for me right now. I have a big backlog of reflection and the best I can do is just start…

These last three weeks my brain cells, fingers, and vocal chords have been:

• Orienting, shaping, facilitation, and contributing to three levels of an organization going through change.
• Advising on government financial policy and troubleshooting program sustainability.
• Moving a government procurement process as fast as I can.
• Fruit harvesting and processing spicy beans with some women I love.
• Cheering on people who are killing it as they demonstrate grit and competence.
• Helping a different organization hire critical talent.
• Building lego towers and having crazy dance parties.
• Tracking budget and troubleshooting confusing records.
• Managing approvals for things that matter to people in contexts I am unfamiliar with.
• Writing briefing notes.
• Deleting angry reply-all emails.
• Reorganizing my calendar again and again.
• Sourcing content for communications products that are honest, traceable, and compelling.
• Designing Miro boards and group process to bring multiple teams together on a yet-to-be-defined priority initiative.
• Checking in with team members who are passionate, learning, and struggling.
• Advising on initiative design.
• Checking myself for bias.
• Worrying about people I don’t have capacity to check in on.
• Missing friends I haven’t seen in a long time.
• Sketching buildings in my neighborhood to learn how to represent perspective better in my watercolor practice.
• Tending chickens.
• Scorning mid-night prowling cats.
• Organizing and delivering a backyard concert for friends and neighbours so I could enjoy my husbands newly forming trio and contribute to resilience where I live.
• Embarrassing myself by forgetting the words to a favourite jazz standard and then not giving a shit and rocking the next few numbers.
• Clearing gutters and reorganizing the yard to optimize rain capture.
• Picking weeds and tomatoes.
• Grocery shopping.
• Moving and reorganizing the pantry.
• Catching up with a friend I miss and sweating it on the trail.
• Planning a monthly art night with other busy moms so we just. do. it.
• Picking the scale bugs off my citrus plants so that my lemons make it into a much needed cocktail some day.
• Reading stories and watching bluey.
• Sizing up growing feet for a future rainboot purchase.
• Walking to day care.
• Cycling to work.
• Attending my physio appointment in between daycare drop off and work.
• Forgetting to drink water.
• Cycling to a local brew-pub for a double date night.
• Meeting up for an overdue post work drink.
• Making slow progress on learning about reconciliation and leadership in two online courses in the early and late hours.
• Wondering if I need some counselling to address trauma a loved one is processing that is bring up stuff for me.
• Finally decorating the wall that was calling for family pictures this last year.
• Kissing my husband briefly in the hallway as we pass each other on our ways to various tasks and making enough eye contact to simultaneously lament the breezy space between us that seems to be filled with nothing and everything at the same time.
• Navigating an opaque process for sourcing specialist care for my toddler but finally getting to talk to real humans who apologized for said process.
• Filling out multiple forms.
• Observing the herbs I’d like to process before the cold sets in.
• …

The passive voice feels appropriate here. I feel like I have been passing through life… or it is passing through me…

Now, on this drizzly Saturday morning, I don’t have the capacity to extract the active verbs that might help me further reflect on how things have been going. Or to feel a bit better about why I might be longing for stillness and sleep. But the generative robots do.

• Orient
• Shape
• Facilitate
• Contribute
• Advise
• Troubleshoot
• Move
• Harvest
• Process
• Cheer
• Help
• Build
• Track
• Manage
• Write
• Source
• Design
• Advise
• Check
• Worry
• Miss
• Deleting
• Sketch
• Tend
• Scorn
• Organize
• Deliver
• Enjoy
• Contribute
• Embarrass
• Forget
• Rock
• Clear
• Reorganize
• Shop
• Catch
• Sweat
• Plan
• Size
• Pick
• Read
• Watch
• Walk
• Cycle
• Attend
• Forget
• Make
• Wonder
• Decorate
• Kiss
• Pass
• Lament
• Navigate
• Talk
• Apologize
• Fill
• Observe

H

Photo by Fabian Centeno on Unsplash