Nod [on saturday morning smack-dab.]

Posted on March 18, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

There is a lesson I receive again and again but – for obvious reasons – the penny refuses to drop. The learning hits me and slides off my Teflon brainpan. The lesson is this: Listen, don’t solve. Especially in the middle of the night. Particularly in the middle of the night. My job is to nod, nothing more.

The reason for my late night ineptitude? At the risk of reinforcing a stereotype, I am a male. I am hardwired to solve. When I’m tired I have no editor. Okay, when I’m rested, I have no editor so imagine my predicament in the dark hours.

It’s shocking. Since so much of my career was built on my great capacity to listen, I am sometimes astounded at how quickly I begin my lobby for a solution.

Dogga looks at me and shakes his head. I know what he’s thinking. “He’ll never learn.” It’s true. I can say with the utmost confidence that last night’s lesson is already forgotten and I am fully prepared to learn it again tonight.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LISTEN

smack-dab. © 2023 kerrianddavid.com

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Ode The Basement Floor [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on April 27, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

Ode to the basement floor.

Though little acknowledged and less appreciated, you carry without comment the brunt of the load. When water runs where it ought not run, you, master of the Tao, let it flow, knowing the drains in your design will surely win the day. Or not. No matter. What happens will happen and we will make stories with either result, never once mentioning your stalwart participation, unseen support in every storm.

The washer jumps, the dryer rolls, the boxes stack, the shelves stand guard, you accommodate and hold space for all.

Sometimes I stand on you, toes a-wriggling, lost in thought, or wrinkle-brow-perplexed, all the while missing the wise message of patience you proffer. “Stand long enough,” you suggest but do not say, “and everything will look different. Or the same.” Were I to ask – and you to answer – you might imply that my paint and carpet solutions are surface remedies merely. Perhaps I should consider lasting and deeper alternatives?

We rearrange. We are cleaning out. We see more of you than before! Yet increasingly exposed and in full reveal you do not attempt to hide your age as we might. As we do. Your pocks and chips and scratches galore the proud chronicle of your era.

“Tread on me” your flag must wave, as we step and stride and dance and tramp and plod and stomp, fulfilling your purpose with our every footfall. I wonder, as I carry a load to the stairs, do you mind or even note that I am lost in the cause of singing your praises?

[this post comes to you without the assistance of mind altering drugs of any kind. Just sayin’]

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Hold Hands And Listen [on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 17, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

These words, posed as polar opposites, come from the world of relationship advice. The recommendation is to establish clarity. Before you get into trouble, define whether your mate’s need is to be heard or to hear advice, to receive solace or solutions. Offering a solution when the need is solace is not recommended. Knowing my snap-dedication to solving-her-every-need, Kerri will often cut me off at the pass with, “I just need you to listen.” My lending-an-ear is often the only thing she really needs.

I’ve always been a good listener but it is only recently that I’ve discovered that I cannot solve anything for anyone. I cannot spare anyone the necessity of walking through their life lessons. The solving is not mine to do. The discoveries are not mine to make. This comes as a great awakening to my third-child-in-the-family-peacekeeper-identity. It also comes as a great relief. Peacekeeping, as a role assignment, is impossible. It’s akin to herding cats. It’s best to let each cat find peace in its own way. In sitting still, in surrendering the impossible task, my peace, like a magic castle, appeared.

A few years ago, a friend, sensitive to Kerri’s grief, offered her this truism-nugget: there’s only one way to go through it and that is to go through it. Trying to spare or minimize her grief would be to rob her of the depths of her love. Feel the depths. Meet the monster that lives there. Emerge transformed or at least informed. It is how we come to fully know ourselves.

We are learning to walk together with no need to solve. I am learning to hold hands and listen. The walking together, the holding of hands, is essential. The words I spin around our challenges are rarely meaningful and never as necessary as attending to the simple essential of quiet presence.

read Kerri’s blog post about COMFORT OR SOLUTIONS

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Look For It [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on February 4, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

it's not a problem correct aikens box copy

We live our lives diving for pen and paper or whipping out our phones to text notes to ourselves. We dive or whip because someone just said something interesting. We are trying capture something we just heard before it slips away. It is the reason we created Merely-A-Thought-Monday.

Watching an old episode of Life Below Zero, Sue Aikens, living on the frozen tundra, tossed off this yummy phrase and we both leapt. Kerri was faster on the uptake, “I got it!” she said, texting at lightning speed. I was still looking for a pen.

It is a statement of optimism made all the more meaningful because of the extreme challenges Sue Aikens faces everyday. Her bears are real. She can’t afford pessimism.

When you are a collector of phrases, a watcher of behaviors, a student of story, a few things become immediately clear. People generally focus on the negative. Take a trip to the office water cooler or go to the local coffeehouse and eavesdrop. You’ll listen to tales of dissatisfaction and conflict.  Stories of blame. There’s tons of interesting customer experience data about how readily and disproportionately we tell our tales of woe versus how rarely we tell our tales of wow.

Conflict makes for good storytelling. Tales of wow and tales of woe are both conflict driven, both rife with challenges. I dove for pen and paper because this simple phrase, Sue’s mantra, captures perfectly the distinction, the line that defines a tale as wow or woe.

It depends upon where you place the conflict. In most water cooler tales of woe, the conflict is an endpoint. “Can you believe that happened to me.” The main character, the storyteller, is the victim in the story. Tales woe are told and forgotten. They are replaced by the next yummy woe.

In tales of wow, the conflict is a driver, a propeller toward an end that is not yet visible. The main character is a seeker. The challenge is fuel. “I will find it. I will make it happen.” Tales of wow are unique in that they are usually told by others.

It is human isn’t it? A messy walk between woe and wow. Who hasn’t screamed to the sky, “Why is this happening to me?!” Who hasn’t stopped the presses, found a quiet spot, and thought, “I’m going to figure this out.” Not a problem.

 

read Kerri’s blog post about SUE’S QUOTE

 

not our best morning minturn website box copy

 

 

 

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