Author Archives: Karen Seashore

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About Karen Seashore

I am a sociologist, life coach, policy wonk, and tarot reader. Other than reading a book, I always prefer to work with other people. Creating small changes -- in myself and in the world around me -- is my calling. You can find my scholarly publications under Karen Seashore Louis (or Louis, K.S.).

Decluttering – But Be Sure Not to Cut Too Deeply

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From Richard Leider through Marie Kondo, it is all about getting rid of stuff.  Stuff is not just STUFF (physical things) but includes sorting through memories, photos on your computer, etc.  It is also getting rid of assumptions that draw us into exclusionary thinking, such as examining the invisible knapsack of White Privilege (or any other kind of privilege).  Many of the references to decluttering are aimed specifically at US, older people who have never done anything other than randomly box stuff up and put it in the (literal or metaphorical) attic or basement.  According to Margareta Magnusson, who popularized the Swedish practice of döstädning, every person over 50 should get started because we are getting older and will otherwise leave a mess for the next generation.

And oh, the side benefit:  All of the above assume that if you do this, you will be happier.  Not just content, but even joyful, as your decluttered work life (or busy volunteer life) takes on a new sense of meaning, and your sentimental life becomes serene, as you chuck (or donate) unused bits-and-pieces of physical or emotional stuff that belonged to your dead grandparents. 

It took Dan and me six months to sort out the miscellany in the basement and attic of our house before we moved to a condo.  The stuff was unbearable, ranging from old toys to photography equipment from a distant hobby.  After moving, we did feel joyful and free as we surveyed our minimalist and light-filled new space.  We have not decluttered in the sense that any of the popular authors suggest, however.  We are influenced by our depression-raised parents, for whom reusing every bit of string was a virtue – and today’s ecological focus, which says “don’t throw and reuse”.  Books may go to the Little Free Library, but we are also liberal in borrowing from the same….as is visible in the pile of last summer’s planned summer reads.

But decluttering is about more than that.  Leider says, when repacking our bags for life’s journey, we should decide “what’s essential for the road ahead—what to let go of and what to keep, how to lighten your load, both tangible and intangible, for the new way that is opening up.”

However, If you google unpacking and repacking, the first things that come up are illustrated instructions on what to do when you get a package filled with complicated “stuff” that you need to put together – and possibly repack because it wasn’t what you wanted.  The first instruction is “Be sure to not cut too deeply”.  I kept looking for a googly way to keep that post from coming up first, but it stayed there.  I kept reading it.

Marie Kondo emphasizes the importance of finding joy in those things that we decide not to get rid of.  And, on All Saints Day (aka Halloween) I was reminded again that there are small things that we keep in our lives because they have become totems that store the memories of people who have been important to us – or even people who we never knew but who were important to another person who is dear. Maybe they are in a closet or on a shelf, largely ignored removed and dusted off once a year.  Is it the homely and old-fashioned candy dish that graced a great aunt’s Thanksgiving table?  Or the deteriorating butter box that is the only item to survive my great-great grandmother’s frightening and exhilarating journey from a rocky farm in Småland to a new life in Minnesota in the 1860s?   Neither belong in a curated/decluttered loft-like condo, but getting rid of them would require a cut too deep, even though it is not possible to say that they give me joy.  Fortunately, they are small, and can be kept without feeling like much of a burden, still carrying the deep past.  And they carry simple stories about where “we” came from.

But back to the larger “stuff” that contains emotions and occupies physical and mental space.  I just sent out a last call to my cousins to see if anyone wants our great grandfather’s rather homely and cumbersome late 19th century desk.  It no longer fits in any space in my daughter’s soon-to-be-renovated house, but everyone in my generation is down sizing.  The next generation is already in their 40s and each of them has accumulated too much stuff to accommodate it.  They are the ones who really need Kondo/Leider/Magnussen! 

I am (after much agonizing) at peace with the fact that the desk will probably go to another family — and I will survive without knowing where it is.  But the stories that come with the desk (and the candy dish and butter box) will survive because whenever the desk was moved the dates, locations, and mover’s names were recorded in a non-visible place.  They form a bare bones record of the dispersal of my father’s family from its roots in a village in Minnesota to New York, Massachusetts, Michigan….A photographic record of “The History of Great Grandpa Rose’s Desk” can become another easily stored totem of family history – if we remember to tell the stories.  

“I’m 64, Should I Give Up Trying To Be Successful?”

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Believe it or not, this is a real question, posted to the Quora feed.  What followed in a response was a post by a young woman about her father.  The upshot of her comments was:

“He taught me that you can always succeed if you believe you’ll succeed.

So believe in yourself. I know that’s cheesy, but I’m currently in class with a 74-year-old woman who’s getting her psychology degree after being a housewife for 45 years. My dad was five years from retirement, and then worked an entry level job. People start over at all stages of life. If they can be a success after so long, then anyone can.“

This was apparently a hit with the readers, garnering 2,700 likes and 64 shares when it appeared in my inbox.  But, if you read through the heartwarming story, her father “started over” when he was 50.  Life looks different at 64.  Or 74.  

But back to the question:  What does it mean “to be successful” much less “giving up” on trying to be successful? 

“To be, or not to be?  There is consensus that Hamlet is talking about enduring the pain of his life versus the calm of death.  But (for me) “being” is more than merely “living” and one of our biggest jobs in moving from living to being is to consider success more deeply.  I like to use the Tarot to understand this work – and to remind myself of the stories that I want to tell myself and others.

Juggling with Joy in Early Adulthood — When I was in my 30s, what I wanted most from my life was to experience my young children’s development and maintain a modest professional profile (which meant a job doing something that I liked).  In other words, success was measured primarily by short-term joyfulness and maintaining a do-able balance between family and work.  It was all about balance….and dancing a little while doing it.

Fast-Forward to My Mid-Forties: Craftsmanship…The kids’ needs were less immediate and they were busy with friends and school.  I, on the other hand, was experiencing external “success” at work, with increased ego-stroking responsibilities and annual reviews that placed me among the “exceeds expectations” group in all of the areas associated with being an academic (the three-legged stool of teaching-research-service).  I focused on skill and artisanship at work.  At the same time, my life was not in balance.  I traveled a lot, focused on my own learning, and believed (incorrectly) that my family needed me (or even wanted me) less.  Without thinking too much about it, these external markers increased in importance over the next decade.  While the focus on skillful work resulted in lots of tokens to hand on the walls of my office, this card does not exude joyfulness….

image

A Slow Crush..My success contained the seeds of failure. While busily crafting at work, I gradually became accustomed to before-and-during dinner drinks, which allowed me to relax and avoid thinking about my marriage or the daily challenges of parenting teenagers.  Work was challenging but manageable, but not the emotions and preferences of other human beings.  I managed to hold on to the external trappings of success but lost personal direction and Shakespeare’s “not to be” became an increasingly attractive option.

One of the consequences of depression is a generalized sense of meaninglessness — what better a definition of being unsuccessful?  I looked OK on the outside, but the image captures the way life felt on the inside.

Comfort and a Different Success? Twenty years later, my life had changed radically again, with a new (and peaceful) marriage, a position within my work as an “elder stateswoman” whose job was to nurture the development of others, and grandchildren.  This Tarot card represents the abundant fruition of success and a life finally almost back in balance.  I think that in this image I am both the older person on the left and the woman on the right, in conversation (with a student? My husband?).  Bridget, my oldest grandchild, is tugging on my dress, while beloved dogs wait to be petted.  Who could ask for more in this life?

This redemptive card is part of the story of dancing while juggling, honing a craft, and ignoring relationships and self.  But, in my mid-60s, much life remained. 

Becoming New Again? So success (or failure) has meant very different things to me over the last 40 years.  Of course I cannot know what further success might look like – it is easy to tell a story after the fact, but predicting anything is a challenge.  And rather than hoping for “success” I have to keep reminding myself that I am likely to find a gift if I am willing to accept the mystery and not try to force the future. 

To return to the Quora post, what appealed to me about the story that the young woman told was not that her father founded a successful business in his 50s.  Rather, it was that he was willing to take a risk:

“He said ‘I don’t think I can make this work anymore. I might have a chance if we move….‘Within a month, we left New York and drove 16 hours down to Georgia.“

I am not sure where I will find my psychological or physical equivalent of Moving-to-Georgia.  But, I hope that I will wake up one day, and have a similar insight.  And be willing to act on it – with abandon and “wise innocence”, like my favorite Tarot card. 

The Fool has found something lasting – a “successful” understanding of joy that emerges from deep inside, seemingly for no reason at all. But he is also embracing adventure — more than willing to take a new risk.

Close a Door and Begin Again?

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………………………..

The (Wo)man who moves mountains starts by moving stones–

-Chinese proverb

This cartoon spoofs a saying that annoys me almost as much as “Everything happens for a reason”.  My past was more happy than disappointing and I do not expect a future full of failures and distress.  BUT it is often the very idea of CLOSED DOORS between the past, the present, and the future that bothers me.  And that has not changed with age….

Doors opening – great!  The thought of a door closing has always felt wrong.  I like to move forward with the belief that the paths that I have already walked are places that I can return to as long as I do so regularly.  When I think about the often-quoted Chinese proverb, I am reminded that if I am moving mountains by moving stones, I have to keep going back for the next stone.  That means revisiting an ever smaller mountain.  Sometimes for a long time.  Eventually the mountain is so changed, that even when I go back it is not the same….and I may choose not to go back.

But I also think about the doors that haven’t closed because I go back to something different but still alive and engaging.  I can reach out to friends I haven’t seen in years – and we mix conversations as if we had not changed even as we are talking about what has happened in the intervening years.  I can reread Anna Karenina for the 5th time (I believe in reading it once every decade) and, although it is the same book with the same characters, I experience it as new and different. 

In other words, I feel as if my backpack is full of things that I carry with me and I can therefore go back with reverence but without wallowing in dusty memories (as Karen Martha warns against in Nostalgia 101).  Going back and re-opening doors is a deliberate practice, rather like walking the public footpaths that traverse private property in England in order to keep them open.  As Sam Knight remarks, “Retrieving a lost path requires a certain cussedness” and (in my experience) -the willingness to climb over stiles and between someone else’s laundry.   I have cussedness to spare, and enough friends (as well as a patient husband) that I get to tell the same story, with different acquired embellishments about the path, more than once.

Of course, that is also nonsense.  One of the mixed blessings of the internet is that it allows me to visualize closed doors in a very literal sense. The antique house that I still love (probably more than any I will ever have) was sold in 1986.  Sometimes when I have nothing else to do I Google “31 Hancock Street”, and recognize all of the things that made me love it (including the back door into the kitchen).  But it is not mine:  someone else owns it.   Even if I knocked on their door and they welcomed me in for a look, I would not be revisiting my house but one that has permanently changed and where I would not feel at home (which is why I don’t look at the pictures of the inside, which also leads me to unnecessary judgments about the last owner’s taste in colors, furniture and kitchen design…..) 

The message of “door closes-door opens” is annoying because it is often true even though I don’t want it to be.  Although difficult, the move from Lexington, MA to Minneapolis, MN opened many doors professionally and personally, and I am not going back. My daughters are in their 40s, and no matter how often I look at pictures of them when they were young, I love seeing them as parents and emerging wise women rather than as my babies. And I want to leave an institution and work that has given a lot of meaning to my life.   

I moved a lot of stones before deciding to retire, but they are now piled in the hallway between work and what comes next.  That no new door has opened yet is a fact.  I have no plan, although most people tell me that it is a mistake to retire without one.  The image of moving stones rather than mountains comforts me, because, although I have only poorly formed ideas about the path I am walking, what parts of the mountain I am trying to disassemble, or whether moving those stones will lead me to a door that is now hidden I am still moving something.  New energy.  New hope.

I started messing around in my friend Jacqueline’s studio and I have pieces that I painted in my living room.  I would continue moving artful stones with Jaqueline as my guide, but she inconveniently lives in the Netherlands.  Should I keep putting stones in that pile right now or defer it?  I have taken several years of classes to become a life coach, although I still don’t know exactly what I want to do with the new skills and ideas that I embrace.  In both cases, a “set in stone” identity as an expert has shifted to a new identity of being an even more curious novice.  Buddhists call it beginners mind – and I have discovered that it makes me more playful and less worried about the future.  As a novice, I walk through an open “being” door and leave behind a “doing” door (that is, at least temporarily, still open).  Does that count? 

What Is A Death Café – And Who Would Want To Go Anyway?

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A few weeks ago, Dan and I went to a Death Café – it was on a whim, because I saw it in a Barnes and Noble e-mail that I was in the process of deleting.  Also because I have been trying to live into Julia Cameron’s advice to have an artist’s date every week.  Planning anything a week ahead when I am trying to spend as much time as possible with Opal (our 20 month-old granddaughter) seems almost impossible.  She-Who-Rules has not figured out that adults are happier when the children in their lives have a regular nap schedule…in any case, why not go on the spur of the moment?

photo credit: Death Cafe

We had no idea what to expect, but showed up along with eight other people at the “Solarium” (a space with lots of windows next to the Pets section) in the back of the Boulder, Colorado B&N. Our volunteer facilitator introduced herself as someone with experience with both hospice and midwifery.  Beginnings and endings, her specialty.  We started with a brief introduction to the Death Café – who knew that this was an international movement, and that all over the globe there were other people participating in discussions about death on a regular basis.  If you don’t believe me, Google it yourself (https://deathcafe.com)– the first thing that pops up is “Welcome to Death” followed by an invitation:  “At a Death Cafe people drink tea, eat cake and discuss death. Our aim is to increase awareness of death to help people make the most of their (finite) lives.”  Today, as I write this, I could attend one in St Luis Obispo or Quezon City in the Philippines.

How odd – my first thought – how can this be so popular?  Why does the idea of meeting with strangers to talk about death have meaning from Lake Forest, New York to Goteborg, Sweden (oddly, as we entered, I passed by the popular book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning, by Margareta Magnusson).  So I sat feeling intrigued but somewhat detached, observing the people sitting in the circle with Dan and me with interest.  Across from me were three older women (in other words people roughly my age!) all looking very Boulder.  That means middle class with tiny efforts to be a bit offbeat – a purple streak through gray hair or an embroidered vest.  There was a couple who appeared to be about 50, and next to me a very large man of about the same age, who made it clear that he had come only because he was asked by the facilitator.  A rather sad looking woman in her sixties arrived late, and positioned herself slightly outside the circle, although we made every effort to rearrange the chairs. 

So why had they come?  We began by offering up our reasons, some of which (like mine) were curiosity, others because they had recently experienced a death.  One was still trying to make sense of a loss many years ago of a beloved brother; another because the passing of her sister made her aware that there was no one left in the world who knew her as a child. No one there was ill or recovering from a serious illness.  In fact, we all looked rather vital….

I opened, saying that I was coming from curiosity – wanting to try new things – and because the last year had been full of deaths and skirmishes with death for multiple friends.  By the time we finished with our offerings – what drew us, what our experiences were with death –it felt as if we were part of an intimate circle.  The feeling of instant membership was odd—I can’t think of another time when I have entered a group of strangers and felt so quickly as if I belonged.  Also, the often-noisy Judge in my head – the one that edits what other people are saying while they are just beginning to formulate their thoughts — was surprisingly quiet.  What people talked about silenced The Judge – it was as if the topic of death encouraged a level of intimacy that you would never find in other settings. 

The 50-year old man talked (at great length) about the paradox of watching his brother suffer over several years and the joy of seeing him become increasingly spiritual and at one with his life.  We talked about acceptance – one of my mantras – we talked about the experiences of being present with someone who was dying.  We talked about whether we wanted a death surrounded by loving relatives or whether, in our deepest heart, we wanted to be alone on the journey.  One woman – the only one with any apparent attachment to an image of afterlife – was very positive that she would be reincarnated – and that she would retain a great deal of the knowledge and experience that she already possessed.  No one else seemed to be certain of anything except that the idea that dying filled him or her with awe.  Only Cat, the 50-ish wife of the man whose brother had dies some years ago, said little.

So we were there for well over an hour.  Dan and I left feeling that it had been a remarkable experience.  Why can’t we find this level of connection without having to confront death?  What is it about a Death Café that promotes connections when other conversational opportunities do not?

Photo credit: Death Cafe

Postscript:  I drafted this early last spring when I was in Boulder, Colorado – escaping harsh Minnesota winter for a milder version. Looking back after six months, community seemed to surface from a collective experience that was simultaneously anonymous and intimate.  We were there for remembrance as well as being open about both the wounds and healing that we experienced individually.  If you want to be part of this, you can:  The website says, “People who adopt the model set out in our guide are welcome to set up their own Death Cafes. So far we’ve held Death Cafes in 65 countries.”  I think that I will take them up on the invitation….