entertaining is energizing

Having people over, or more formally entertaining, is energizing, nurturing, exhilarating, fun and thrilling.  As a host you put on a small production when you have people over. it all can be more or less elaborate, more or less involved, depending on your personality, experience and adventure spirit.  None of us are Martha Stewart,  but as the host you create an opportunity for people to meet, connect, talk and enjoy life while eating and drinking.  Nothing more simple and satisfying than that.

Entertaining is both an art and a science.  The science lies in the planning process, the art lies in the perfect people combination, food selection and setting.  While it can seem a bit intimidating to be responsible for a bunch of people’s good time, people are very forgiving, and always grateful for the initiative.  We all crave real face-to-face connection beyond screen connection!   My parents entertained often, both for pleasure and business (restaurant entertaining wasn’t a thing then).  When my sister and I were not invited, which was actually quite rare, we had a sixth sense for when the guests left, and got up in the middle of the night (for us) to find the dessert leftovers in the messy kitchen and have a delectable midnight snack.  Regardless of whether we were invited or not, we learned the art by watching and participating in the menu planning, meal preparation, table and atmosphere setting – music was always in the background.  

Nowadays much of home entertaining has become quite casual and easy to put together, especially since, at least where I live, it’s very common for guests to offer to contribute to the meal even if it‘s not outright called a potluck.  You only provide one or two dishes and the setting - easy.  Bonds are forged over food and drink.  Meals are a great way to cement business too, because you get to know people on a personal level. The format doesn’t matter, whatever the season and your enthusiasm inspire you to do is good.  People love being invited, people love to connect – the other night we spontaneously invited friends over for a glass of wine after an outdoor concert – and stuck around until 2am.

Just this morning we decided spontaneously, as we often do these days, to drum a few friends together for a picnic and campfire in our backyard. Check out a recent article in the Times Herald Record on how to throw a successful summer BBQ together with some easy and simple recipes.  And candles, lanterns, twinkle lights, votives with tealights, or a fire make it magical. It’s not complicated, it simply takes initiative and a bit of effort, but it’s soooooo worth it.

the fabulousness of our existence

Walking through my garden right now, I am in awe of the fabulously opulent, burgundy peonies that are just about at their prime.  Through the open window, I hear a beautifully clear and bright bird concert that changes by the minute and is such a pleasure to listen to.  Looking at the sky I squint my eyes because the sunshine is so bright it makes me smile.

What is so fabulous about all of that, you might ask?  What’s so fabulous about it is the self-awareness that permits me to reflect on it.  A gorilla isn’t awed by the sheer beauty of the misty rainforest it lives in.  A cat isn’t amazed by the myriad smells it encounters all day long.  A giraffe doesn’t smile at the bright sunshine with thankfulness. Without self-awareness I wouldn’t notice, admire, reflect, be awed, opine on the beauty, be amazed and happy and grateful for these delightful experiences. Instead, I would go through life matter-of-factly and accepting of what is, a definite notch down from awe.

Awing turns my attention away from myself, away from my small ego to the big world out there, as Christopher Bergland observes in Psychology Today.  

 What awes you?

live a little

When school is out they wish the kids a safe summer.  When we go away people wish us a safe trip.  “Be safe” is something people sometimes even say as a good-bye.  Kids are so overprotected nowadays, they don’t learn to recognize and navigate true danger.  All that wish for safety hides fears of the unexpected (the unexpected can be good, it can be better than what you imagined!) and the wish for predictability. Same old, same old because it is a known entity.

Have a safe trip!  I wish people so much more than safety on their trip – adventure, curiosity, discovery, connection, awesome weather, great food, new friends, new sights and vistas, relaxation, a shift in awareness, new realizations, and a sense of expansion.

Have a safe summer!  I wish people so much more than a safe summer – beach and sunshine (or mountains and lakes – whatever tickles your fancy), a slower pace of living, lots of vitamin D, feeling the sunshine on your skin and a smile spreading across your face, a bit of laziness, more sleep, lingering outside by the fire on a warm night, and getting through a good book in one swoop.

Have a safe life!  I wish people so much more than a safe life – joy, love, discovery, true friendship, community, serendipity, fulfillment, creativity, endless learning and consciousness expansion.  Here a link to a former related post, letting go of the breaks, and one on serendipity.

 Live a little, discover a little, enjoy a little, savor a little.  

reboot time

After a bit of soul searching (guilt?) I gave my daughter off from school yesterday.  She was dragging for various reasons, had a test ahead of her, and a big first event  at her accepted college coming up, and I just knew that she couldn’t give her best without some R&R.   That same morning I received my daily Note from the Universe, Mike Dooley’s awesome, witty, wise and humorous emails I find in my in-box (I always wonder how he has been able to come up with them for all these years…).  It read, “What if it was your downtime, your lounging-in-bed-too-long time, your walkabout time, and your blow-Friday-off time, that made possible your greatest achievements?  Would they still make you feel guilty?  Or would you allow yourself to enjoy them?”  It was a confirmation that I had made the right decision.   

 We need in between downtime, not the big vacation time, but instead boring time, nothing time, rest time, decompression time, staring-in-the-air time, sleep time, meditation time, a walk in the woods, a day off, or doing-something-creative time.  This time serves as a germination period, time to collect yourself, time to reboot. It settles down the mental dust, reshuffles our outlook on priorities, and gives us back our energy. 

 Nature has its wintertime to begin the growth cycle from scratch again each spring. We can’t wait that long, and we can’t take off that long (although it sure sounds enticing). And please enjoy that down time before you get worn down, that way you can truly savor it instead of nursing your cold in bed feeling lousy. Here an earlier post along those lines.

micro enjoyments

The thrill of a new car wears off quite quickly.  A new house becomes routine after a while.  The charm of material acquisitions, big and small, fades into the background after a bit. Remember that new screwdriver or box grater you bought a year ago?  Of course not!  It’s not only expensive to create oxytocin rushes by buying stuff, especially big stuff, we also don’t always need more stuff.

 So what else makes your life enjoyable? What sparks a spontaneous smile?  What makes you feel good?

 Experiences are what creates enjoyment and meaning, and I think here too there are two kinds.  Epic experiences, such as our vacations a few years ago to Italy or Alaska.  Remember when?  Those live in me forever.  However, those big ones are few and far in between, and involved and costly.  But then there are the little experiences, the ones that come and go many times a day and simply make your life a bit more pleasant.  Perhaps it’s the smile across your child’s face, the burst of intense taste from a ripe piece of fruit, the sun peeking out from behind a cloud, the beautiful white and pink spring blooms that are popping up everywhere right now, or the gentle word of encouragement from your partner.  The heart on a latte makes me happy every time, as do my cats’ wet nose snuggles, or feeling the soft and warm grass under my bare feet on a beautiful summer day.

 I try to train myself to notice these micro enjoyments and not take them for granted or rush past them.  We only exist in the moment, and if that moment is a pleasure to experience, it makes it all worthwhile.

what will you do?

Jeremy Rifkin, the socio-economic visionary, has been saying for years now that technology and automation will eventually get us to a place where we may only need to work about four hours a day to earn a living.  That is incidentally the amount of time indigenous people spend on average to collect food. Yuval Noah Harari writes in Homo Deus that we have been pretty successful at bringing famine, plague and warfare under control, issues that have kept us sleepless and busy for millenia.  

 Over here in the US we are overworked and often required to be available 24/7 via cellphone in a corporate world more driven by perceived busyness than true focused productivity.  But Sweden has experimented with a 6-hour workday (although it's apparently not conducive in an entrepreneurial environment), Germany is on a 35hr week/7hr day and is currently trying a 28hr week/5.5hr day.   So experimentation with the best work-life balance is underway in the more forward thinking cultures. 

 But what will we do with ourselves as we are evolving beyond being busy with fire fighting, at least in industrialized countries. As we look at the shift in our Western culture, we see the answer already emerging - the pursuit of happiness, as Harari points out!  Between a vastly improved standard of living and not worrying about an early death from famine or warfare, and the slow shift to a shorter work week, we will have more time to take care of our inner life.  Perhaps we will focus more on the quality of life, the quality of our free time.  Perhaps we will take more time to reflect on how we eat, how we grow our food, how we think, how we treat the environment, how we treat each other.  

 It's a process and it's not happening by tomorrow, but the seeds for a shift are germinating.  What will you do?

it's part of the culture

Flower shops, chains and independent ones, are a thing in Germany. Everyone buys cut flowers.  You bring them when visiting in the afternoon for coffee and cake, you give them when invited for dinner, you get them for yourself, or you offer them just because.  At home growing up we always had beautiful cut flowers on the birthday table, dad included, no gender bias.

 While I was waiting in line at the flower shop a few days ago in Germany, a young man picked two bunches of tulips and had them arranged with some pretty leaves.  He said he was three minutes from home and asked if he needed to cut the stems again once back, obviously interested in their care.  An older man bought two bunches of narcissus, for himself I gathered, because he had them wrapped in plain brown paper, no arranging.  A woman got forsythia branches for her home.  I waited in line to have the flowers for my mom prettied up with greenery.  

Flowers are not only a women's thing in Germany, as I could attest from the diverse line of shoppers.  The displays are abundant, arranged by type of flower and color. The cost is always reasonable. You can take the flowers home as is, or, as many people do, have them arranged professionally with skill and greens, wrapped in gift wrap or plain brown paper, all for just a small extra fee.

Cut flowers are part of the culture.  They add to the enjoyment of life, they beautify a corner of your home, or place a glint of pleasure in the eyes of the receiver.

we need hope

What would life be without hope?  The teaser weather out there, 60F/17C with a sunny sky, is delicious and totally un-February like and feels so good.  At lunchtime I let the sunshine soak my face to catch up on some wintry vitamin D deprivation, and revel in the illusion that spring might be right around the corner. The breeze felt so balmy and I opened the windows to let the air in.  After three months of cold and dark and gray this unexpected weather intermission is so welcome and bright.  

Sometimes it's hard to wait, whether for spring or for something else. But what would life be without hope?  Hope keeps us going, whether we yearn for spring or for something else.

a real market

Supermarket shopping is somewhat sterile and aseptic when compared to how people in other parts of the world shop.  We are used to our clean and brightly lit stores with their tiled floors, and aisles and aisles of packaged goods. Neat and organized, and most food out of the way of hands and noses.  Only on the perimeter can you find fresh fish and produce, but even the meat is prepackaged and sealed in plastic, and most bakery items are factory made and displayed in clamshells or plastic bags.  Items are bar coded and prices are set.

In a search for authenticity, freshness, local produce and a more direct connection to our food, farmer's markets have taken off in the past twenty or so years in this country, but many of them have an air of exclusivity and are expensive. Not so in other parts of the world.  

Markets, either open air or in permanent indoor halls, are the way the rest of the world shops.  In European markets we admire abundant displays of cheeses, produce piled high in attractive pyramid shapes or displayed in baskets, meats and charcuterie spreads, just caught fish and shellfish glistening with freshness on crushed ice, locally baked breads and pastries, but also clothing, cleaning products, flowers, and food stalls for a coffee or snack while you shop.  The French touch and smell their produce to make sure it meets their standard of ripeness and aroma.  The fruit merchant will ask you when you want to eat your melon and select it based on its level of ripeness.  When you buy fish you look at its eyes and gills to ascertain freshness, and to make sure it doesn't smell, well fishy. Cheese too needs to be bought for when you want to eat it.  Too hard it will need to sit for a few days, too soft it is past its prime.   Do you want to eat it today, tomorrow, or the day after?  The cheesemonger will help you select your cheese accordingly. The butcher may ask how you plan to prepare your chosen cut and perhaps offer a recipe.

The colorful markets of Africa, Asia or South America, are even more exotic to us.  The souks in North Africa are organized by type for better comparison.  In the slipper souk you find stall after stall of nothing but slippers, while the spice souk has stand after stand of spices heaped into neat cones on flat wicker trays, and the date souk specializes in the myriad types of dates of which Morocco has over one hundred.  Here, the vendor may give you a date or a few nuts to taste to persuade you that his are the best, here you need to bargain because it's part of the game and prices are not set.  You can buy everything in these markets, including live fish and live poultry, clothes, dishes, spices, or household items.  In more rural areas the wares are spread out on cloths or tarps on the ground, as we have seen in India. The smells by the fish or cheese stands may be pungent, the colors of spices piled high on trays are vibrant, the sights and sounds of live poultry kept in large wicker baskets in a Chinese market are noisy.

We lose aliveness, authenticity, rawness, real connection to our food, as well as the beauty of these enticing displays that make us want to taste and buy all of these wonderful foods,  when we remain in our gentrified bubble.  It's good to get out every once in a while to see other realities.  Here an earlier related post on the need to get out.

a gratefulness journal

This scintillating splendor wouldn't be possible without the icy rain we had the other day and the ensuing arctic cold. Yet, we have a habit of complaining about the cold, about staying indoors, about the road conditions and what not.

 Last year I began a gratefulness journal.  “Bad is five times more powerful than good,” explains Paul Dieppe of Exeter University and a voice for the advancement of energy and spiritual healing.  Our brain is wired that way, hence reprogramming takes time.  Every night I enter at least three experiences from the day I am grateful for, thus training my focus to the positive.

You can focus on the bad road conditions or enjoy the breathtaking and magical beauty of nature during this time of year.  Your choice.