A sad Passing yesterday - Mother Moffett

I hear more often of people dying the older I get, but hearing of Bette's death has really struck me deeply. She was such a unique person, and an incredible presence when she walked into the room.

I met Bette when her family bought our house in Brandon, Vermont. They had just moved back from Paris. Mom nicknamed her Mother Moffett. Her son Joe was my boyfriend during most of High School and into my first year of college. He died his senior year of high school, bunting a ball that hit his heart mid heart beat. His death was my first major loss.

After he died, Bette and I did a lot of things together to comfort each other. We saw movies and plays and kept each other company in our grief. When I left home permanently, she was always present when I came back to Brandon and we kept caught up during those times. She became a friend of mine in our shared grief.

Mostly I saw Bette and her husband Hugh, at the tennis courts on our property. Dad and Mom had wonderful parties down at the tennis courts and that group of friends watched over me from teen age years, into adulthood and motherhood. I saw Bette last at a funeral for another one of our family's friend.

I still have letters and cards she wrote to me. They are in the same box as all of the notes and letters that Joe wrote to me. As part of my grief process I am going to go read all of those letters. I tried to find a picture of her today, but could not find one. It is easier in the digital picture stage to store and have pictures. The memories I have of her are in my head and the sound of her voice is clearly stored in my mind.

Bette had one very peculiar behavior. When you talked to her, she never looked you in the eye, she looked at your shoulder and continue talking. It used to freak me out a bit, but later it was charming.

As I watch my parents generation pass away, I face my own mortality. It also allows me some time to revisit who I was in high school, who I was dating her son, and who I was in a small town in Vermont.

So, I imagine Dad and Bette and Hugh and Frank are having a mini-reunion tonight. They are catching each other up and laughing at old stories from the tennis court days. Hugh has his orange broom ball sneakers on, Dad is smoking a cigarette and listening to everyone, Frank is laughing as only Frank did, and Bette is staring at their shoulders and catching them up on Brandon news. If only I believed in Heaven it would be easier, but I do believe in Heaven for them to be able to have this reunion.

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Remember 12 years ago

Like many of us I will never forget where I was 12 years ago. It was a glorious sunny day and what happened at the World Trade Center was beyond understanding. It was prior to mass use of social media, so we logged into a desktop news channel to see what was happening.

I am trying not to judge, but I am struck as I watch the news this morning about what the news is as we approach the time when the first plane struck. I don't know whether to watch CNN or NBC because neither of them are talking about it yet, but promise a moment of silence. Grief is like that though, each year we get further away from our intense feelings of loss and we move on.

My first reaction was to connect with my family members. My Mom and Charlie were in Bermuda and George and Judy were in Europe and the rest were accounted for in the US. My immediate family were all accounted for. Bethany's school was not telling the children what had happened.

That evening we gathered at First Parish in Lexington and fortunately many others had come to this house of worship to try to process the days events.

I was in the middle of a quilt that I later named "Shattered Comfort" that is on the wall in George and Judy's bathroom. Quilting allowed me to listen to the news but not have to review those awful images again, and again and again.

Our company lost an employee and many friends living in Manhattan were incredibly impacted by this horror. Everyone we talked to knew someone in Manhattan or on a plane. It was too close for comfort, this attack on the World Trade Center.

Where are we 12 years later, Obama is faced with a horrible decision in Syria, home of more of our enemies. I am quilting the exact same quilt pattern that I was quilting 12 years ago. However, this title will not be the same, it will be "New Beginnings".

What I do every year on this date, at this time is review where I was 12 years ago and then allow the optimist in me to gradually pull myself out of that grief and focus on what is good in this world and in human nature and in humanity.

But first, that moment of silence..........

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Invisibility - none of us want this

My latest thinking of human behavior is oriented around being invisible. Some of us want to be invisible at times, but that is not what I am talking about in this post. That is a choice ones make. What I am talking about is when you are made to feel invisible.

I have often said that when someone acts up, they are afraid of something, My latest thinking is that often people act unusually when they are being ignored, dismissed or in another way made to feel invisible. This could be that they are not being listened to, or are talked over in a conversation.

Most frequently, it is in a meeting when they say something and someone else says the exact same thing 2 seconds later and get listened to or credited with the initial thought.

The behavior shows up as talking louder, physically inserting themselves further into the center of the conversation, or even saying, "What about me?" Extreme behaviors are passive aggressive behavior, or even lashing out at someone for no apparent reason.

How did I get to this thinking you ask? Because I have been observing myself and when I get irritated with others. It is usually because I am feeling invisible.

I recently ran an exercise for a board and asked them to think about a time when they were not listened to or felt invisible. It was very helpful, because for the rest of the 2 day board meeting we could refer to this ice breaking activity. I was struck by one response where someone said "I don't feel badly at all when I am not heard, listened to, or made to feel invisible." BS BTW. I think this person is just not as aware of themselves and their reactions.

These refined thoughts are in my tool box for now, ready to pull out for a coaching session, or interaction when I need to use them.

When do you feel invisible and not listened to, and how do you behave when you have that feeling? Just curious........


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But, I want it all

As Apple is releasing their new iphone and ipad today I am very confused. I was an early adopter so I have an iphone and ipad which are first generation. I am also a frugal yankee, so unless something is broken, I do not feel as if I should buy the newer model, and I could NEVER buy two things.

Recently, as I continue to adopt technology, I have been meeting with people on a video call. Neither of my old pieces of technology allow the video call. I can participate on my old and ipad with audio but not video.

Concurrent to this, I have been contemplating a new laptop and it WILL be an Apple product. I am eyeing the Mac Air. There are only a few things I still need a laptop for, but when I need it, I need it badly. Examples are emails older than my ipad will store, marking spam in my email inbox, typing long documents, some apps on the ipad have less functionality, tagging posts in my blog, etc.

So ideally, I want a new Iphone, Ipad and Mac Air. Santa? Can you hear me now? The frugal Sally steps forward and starts a pro and con list and a limitation of only buying one piece of hardware. I usually end up with the Mac Air as my choice.

Help me friends. What should I buy?


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Learning to free motion quilt through frustration

If I were like my husband I would not be as frustrated right now.  He once said that he does not golf because he wants to know how to play before he gets to the golf course.  I laughed quite a bit saying "How will you ever learn then if you won't go out until you know how to play?"  I am eating my words and fabric right now.

Over several years I have pursued learning how to free motion quilt.  I stipple quite adeptly, however, I want to refine my quilting skills and not just do the same easy stippling every time.

I took a class, I browse a website, observed others quilting, bought some tools to make it easier to quilt and I have a practice piece that I have been working on, that is not a real quilt, just a test piece.

So today, I took a REAL quilt, and started to do some of the new techniques that I have practiced, read about, and studied.  I thought I was ready to pursue a big quilt.  HA HA HA!  Wait, I need to go to this step in order to learn.

However in my endeavors, I have made every mistake possible.  I continued to quilt with a loose bobbin causing puckering, I quilted double layers of quilt for an entire star design and I am doing designs that are too complicated for the square I am putting them in.  This is how I learn, by making mistakes.  My most recent mistake is a rookie one but boy is it a big mistake and a big learning.  I have spent about an hour ripping it out.

Fortunately I did not start this project on a quilt that I really care about otherwise right now I would be in tears.  This quilt will be my sampler of learning free motion quilting.  That is what samplers are after all.  They are for practicing.  How will I ever learn how to better free motion quilt if I do not practice?  I could continue to send my quilts out to be quilted but I want to take my quilting skills to a new level and I know I will be happy with the results.  That does not mean I won't need my seam ripper or that this quilt will be given away.  No, it will be hung in my sewing room to remind me of my learning style.  Off I go to rip out some more......

Thinking of Writing a Book

I have thought a lot about writing a book lately. What would I write about though?

I can definitely write about my experiences coaching leaders in corporations. This would be the most obvious and logical idea. I have helped 100s of people be better leaders of their people and I have some skill/magic in that arena.

I could also write a book about the experience within First Parish of making quilted jackets. A warm and fuzzy community building book.

I could write a book about women in corporations, and taking their place among men. The foundation of this is a father who told me to get out and beat the boys at anything, because I could, and I did until they were a foot taller than me.

Th possibilities are endless, so I need to narrow down to one option. Maybe I will continue to write more frequently on my blog until an idea surfaces. In fact, content for the book is already in this blog somewhere.

This is such a different world in terms of technology. I am already writing, this blog as an example. I just need to keep writing here, tag them appropriately and then collect, edit and electronically publish the synthesized results.

Wait, if you got this far you are reading a chapter of my "book".

My thoughts have already changed just by putting them down here. Thanks for reading!


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It's not a terrible idea

We spent some time with Gary and Michelle on Tuesday, having been on Star Island with them at a Star Board retreat. We offered them a ride to the airport and we had a few hours to do some sightseeing before dropping them at Logan Airport.

While riding along in the car, and brainstorming, to one of Michelle's ideas, Gary said "That's not a terrible idea." I whipped my head around to see if my husband had replaced Gary in the back seat, because this same tenor of response is often his. All four of us repeated this at opportune times during the afternoon. Rod and I have repeated it 100 times in a week.

To Gary and Rod, every idea starts out terrible and after reflection might actually have some merit. Michelle and I love every idea until it proves to be terrible.

Rod claims that he would still say things like this but I have broken him of it with glares or looks of disgust.

So for translation and for the future conversation with Gary and Rod, a terrible idea is one with merit and is actually a good idea, or at least still in the hopper. As Michelle said, "Welcome to my world."

It is events like this that reinforce our differences, and help us to survive conversations by understanding ourself and others. We never stop learning about each other.




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