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 Revisited– What About All Those Memories?

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Photo by Aga Adamek on Unsplash

We have memories throughout our lives.  My youngest granddaughter, about to turn 8, talks about them often – a particularly engaging dream in the past, a game that we used to play when she was “little” (last year) but don’t anymore, something that she used to be but is not now (meat eater to vegetarian).  Like me, she enjoys reading books and looking at TV shows that she liked earlier, with even a hint of nostalgia, as if enjoying a piece of childhood that is slipping away. 

Sound familiar?  Since childhood I have kept memory storage bins, each of which is like that huge box of family photos that you don’t want to throw away and can’t bear to sort.  Many are chronological, labeled high school, college, married with children, etc.  Others are topic-centered – friends, lovers, places, peak and low experiences. Significant memories are in multiple bins.  I know that these “keepers” are barely sorted…

Richard Rohr describes aging as an opportunity to return to a “second simplicity” in which we can discard useless complexity, mental, and sensory overload in favor of getting down to basics:  Who am I?  How have I been in the world?  What do I want from my relationships with others and with myself?

I confess: I am skeptical about whether a simple identity, with all the compulsions and desires of my earlier years stripped away, is within my reach.  Although I am retired, life still feels busy and complicated.  But I am willing to give it a try because I am drawn to the path…

But is it that simple?  Do I just need to Marie Kondo my memory files, finding those that give me joy or, alternatively, those that Rohr calls “bright sadness.”   And what happens to the increasing complexity that I become aware of when I unearth “old stuff” that has been buried for a while?

I could stop rummaging and just read more – friends talk about how reading is increasingly a simple pleasure.  But I like fiction, and great novels tickle my memory.  Any woman who has lived through a failing marriage will be moved by Anna Karenina, even if their own story is not an exact parallel.  I need Jane Austen to relive the way in which the constraints of our own culture shaped my earlier self – and how I prevailed (or did not…). And new books – I just finished Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood – propel me to reflect on my life, which adds rather than detracts from complexity!  I am not going to stop reading, even when it makes me dive into yet another storage bin…

But some files are dusty, and I have avoided them for years because they are
complicated.  One could be labeled “Random Regrets.”  I should just pitch them in the trash without looking…but, like the old box of unsorted family photos, the temptation is too great. 

discarded memories

Photo by Julia Oberhauser on Unsplash

At the top are moments of deep embarrassment, usually where ignorance or bad behavior stripped away a carefully constructed façade.  I still cringe at the time when I forcefully claimed that Austria was no longer a country…to a friend’s parent who was in active service in Europe in WWII.  I could put that one in the “No Longer Need” bin.

Less embarrassing but more poignant are regrets about people who were once in my life but are no longer. This hit me again as I was fumbling around in another file labeled “Living in London, 1967” and unearthed Jonathan, who has not come to mind for at least 40 years.   He was a typical, slightly damaged product of bad food, cold showers, and bullying in what the English call a “public school”.  Handsome enough, well-read in the Oxford kind of way, he could out-vocabulary me on almost any topic.  And I allowed him to kiss me when we went out and said yes when he called. 

But I didn’t really want more – I was willing to go out with him only until I solidified my relationship with a tall, rangy, and bright-eyed Cambridge graduate with floppy hair. He had recently returned from sailing across the Atlantic in a small boat and had an explorer’s spirit, only somewhat tamed. 

Jonathan was a spare. 

As I write that, I know it is true, but the discomfort is what Rohr calls a “bright sadness.”  I can see recurrent patterns of casually using people that escaped me at the time, perhaps because they were so frequent.  The memory of Jonathan (who was in my life for a short time) induces thick discomfort about how the thoughtlessness of the young adult me, whose need to be right, popular, and a bit of a smart ass, overcame my desire to be kind.

When I rummage around in the regrets file, I know that I cannot afford to toss everything if I hope to be on the path of second simplicity.  As I refile Jonathan into a new “Bright Sadness” bin, I am reminded of my increasing humility.  I still make mistakes, but I want to avoid old patterns that are inconsistent with the simpler me who gets up each morning asking how I can make that day’s actions more consistent with a loving universe.  Yet I also know that Marie Kondo-izing my memory bins is needed to reconcile with my less compassionate side, which I can now call “the Jonathan problem.”

Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash

The path to a second simplicity does not feel simple, nor do I think that Richard Rohr expects that.  To walk that path I need to confront, with humility (and often uncomfortable humor), who I have been.  No polished version; just me, warts and all.  That is closer to the curious wonder that I remember from my elementary school years than to the gravitas that I later labored to assume. 

Returning to a simpler but wiser self – a complicated job that requires regular housecleaning? 

Hope – Yet Again

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Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

The older I get, the more I rely on hope.  I last wrote about hope at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, when uncertainty and dread predominated around the world and in me.  I wrote to remind myself that hope is not a gift, but a practice and a ritual, like brushing teeth or lighting candles to signal an occasion. 

But here we are, only five years later, and the world again feels chaotic.  I nurture my shrinking store of hope with a new practice: limiting my morning news consumption to headlines and then moving into meditation.  I rewrite stories of a bleak future by thinking about the promise of a younger person in my life, where younger can mean 50 or 5. I consider, like other friends, leaving my social websites.  Think of the time I will have to read more books! …and call people on the phone.  Every conversation is an opportunity to connect with hope.

However, I can’t avoid everything. I logged in to LinkedIn and confronted a despairing post about the Target corporation’s decision to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion office.  Then I remind myself that change is non-linear. A famous quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” is often interpreted as a call to patience and perseverance, ignoring MLK’s deep experience with progress and predictable backlash.  If there is progress, it is like a spiral. 

Efforts to label DEI, initiated to redress historical exclusion, as discrimination are jaw-dropping: Should I rail in anguish? Now I can anticipate boycotts of Target as well, all in the name of resisting the threat of oligarchy and a retreat from what seemed like progress in confronting our individual and national shadow selves. 

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But does overt resistance bring us hope?  Or, should I be reminded of Arundhati Roy’s profound observation: “the rupture exists….And in the midst of this terrible despair …it is a gateway between one world and the next.”  I need to remain open to alternative stories.

I reconsider a small investigation that I conducted with a group of students years ago, which rewrote our story of failure.  I moved to the University of Minnesota because of a new president who sought to re-energize the role of a state-funded research university, paring away historical artifacts to embrace a more limber capacity to respond to emerging social needs.  The initiative was optimistically titled Commitment to Focus.   Unfortunately, a list of recommendations from a faculty committee included sharing the Veterinary and Dental Schools with an adjoining state.  Between outraged farmers driving their tractors onto an urban campus, and the implacable opposition of the state’s professional associations, Ken Keller was blamed for insensitivity to “real Minnesota” and his position became nonviable in a state where populist legislators wanted to continue every program along with the tradition of accepting most students who could breathe (even though the result was a high rate of failure). 

When my students and I interviewed administrators and faculty a year later to understand the harm done by Keller’s abrupt departure, it became clear that the interim president had adopted his agenda with minor tweaks and a different name.  The subsequent president changed the name again but went forward with the plan (minus visible changes in Dental and Veterinary programs).

Based on this experience, how might we respond when highly publicized diversity, equity and inclusion offices are officially disbanded?  I propose hope, not because corporations (or universities) do the right thing, but because the arc of justice is not embedded in a name, but in actions.

Photo by Austin Kirk at Unsplash

Diversity initiatives have a positive effect on corporate bottom lines — even the ultra-conservative Forbes agrees — and these pre-existed DEI offices. This, has, of course, been the argument in higher ed for decades:  diversity in the opinions, experiences and backgrounds that students and faculty bring with them are the “juice” that stimulates learning and improvement. In other words, universities and corporations have self-interest as well as social commitments to keeping the spiral moving in the direction of diversity.

So, is abandoning a label and office always corrupt or a cop out?  Or is it a story of how resistance can also be a portal, allowing us to see it afresh?  We know that when lofty ideas (like DEI offices) spread rapidly, easy initiatives are adopted more often than challenging efforts.  Low-quality diversity training, on which billions are spent, has limited effects on  the individuals and groups that it is supposed to benefit.  A few universities and corporations have already taken the longer route toward changing the organizational culture to be more welcoming and supportive of difference (which is associated with better decision making and positive organizational outcomes).

If circumstances force people or groups to give up one treasured item or habit, some will quit or sulk.  But many go on and search for replacements, which may involve novel approaches, new ways of thinking.  Will that be the case with Target?  With universities in states where mandates have decimated DEI offices?

It may happen.  It may not.  But it pleases me to think about resistance as subversive innovation…. turning the spiral toward justice.  And I think about my grandchildren, just bursting with ideas and ideals, with confidence – beyond optimism – that their generation will imagine new ways of organizing, working, and changing that will allow them to carry on the family tradition of working at hope. 

Photo by Miguel Bruna on Unsplash

I recently signed up for a woman’s retreat whose aim is “to free us from disillusionment, negativity, lack of imagination, anger, busyness, and more.”  Sounds like just what I need…and I will continue to find those whose opinions I value, to bring curiosity back in – along with hope.

Resolution…Or A Nudge?

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Photo by Devon Janse van Rensburg on Unsplash

For the past few years, the Washington Post has provided an alternative to New Year’s Resolutions.  Instead of articulating the characteristics of a “good” resolution, it suggests that we adopt a nudge. 

I had to think about that for a while: What is a nudge, and how is it different from an intention?  As a devotee of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I am first struck by how it has leaked into our vernacular as a short-hand for sexual  innuendo (the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink”  episode).  Moving on, one self-help coach, opines that “”If a stick is floating down a river and gets stuck… It just needs a little nudge and then it will get back into the flow of the river.”  Nudges are small but can have big effects. Chetan Bhagat adds that a nudge can be commonplace but “because it connects with you it holds meaning for you.”  So, if nudges are both commonplace and sometimes unpredictable, why try to adopt one? 

Well, having abandoned New Year’s Resolutions in my 20s (because they never lasted for more than a month), I discovered the nudge without anticipating it. 

A few decades ago, I slowly became aware that judgments infused almost every interaction.  Conversing with a colleague, my mind would remark, “he is a wonderful person, and his shoes are really great.”  Why is that a problem?  Because more often the automatic reaction was, “She is so smart, but I wonder why she can’t seem to get a flattering haircut.”  Routinely grasping for negative observations was accompanied by my ubiquitous irritation with people who didn’t act to make my world better: the person in line at the drug store who wanted to discuss their medications at length while I needed to get out of there ASAP, the jerk in the car that pulled in ahead of me to enter the freeway without a signal.  The list was endless. 

photo by Rashid on UnSplash

That year, in the middle of a yoga class where I was, as usual, assessing the quality of everyone else’s Warrior II pose, I came to an instant insight: my unkind thoughts harmed me, but not the other person.  The antidote came as a nudge: don’t resolve to stop thinking harshly – but instead embrace compassion.  I held the nudge of compassion through yoga and other moments of calm for most of that year and it changed me.  No, I am not perfect, but the judgment that colored my life gradually lifted with my nudge word. 

There we are: insights and subsequent nudges may be unpredictable, but they are not random.  We may not feel the nudge because we are not paying attention.  Nudges come and go every day, but when I carefully read a poem, I sometimes gasp because it says something that I have not been able to articulate – almost any Mary Oliver poem can do that.  Who is not nudged by her “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”   But I can also look for a nudge when I sense that need one – or, if New Year’s Day rolls around and I cannot resist the idea that every year brings something new.  If I am lucky, a word or image appears, and when I am paying attention, I can hold it and keep it as mine.

But as I contemplate how a spontaneous nudge can change me, I am also leery of how human beings invariably try to tame the ephemeral.  If you Google “nudge word”, you quickly come to social science, which tries to turn the expansive human experience into a solution for what ails us: “Nudge theory is a concept in behavioral economics, decision making, behavioral policy, social psychology, consumer behavior, and related behavioral sciences that proposes adaptive designs of the decision environment as ways to influence the behavior…of groups or individuals.” (Wikipedia)

Ouch — The social scientist’s nudge theory is designed to deliberately select small inputs to change people’s behavior in predictable ways.  This does not sound like Mary Oliver, who invariably directs our attention to surprise! 

In any case, my first experience of a nudge word, decades before it became “a thing”, suggests that when I am at a turning point, whether temporal, psychological, or spiritual, a word, phrase, or image can point a direction.  This year, the Washington Post’s article led me to the word Journey.  It feels like an appropriate invitation as I make deliberate choices to do less. 

Focus on what is now in my wild and precious life rather than plans, goals, or anything else that causes striving.  Chop wood, carry water.  Do the next best thing.  Take time to think about the journey and pay attention to what I can see right in front of me.  Take time to look back and ponder what I have learned.  Move, but not so fast that I don’t take time to observe…

Of course that is only a nudge….

Strange But True

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Guest blog by Carol Boyer Peterson

--Photo by David Matos on Unsplash

Have you ever heard a story that seemed so unlikely that you thought to yourself, “that couldn’t happen”? Yet, reluctantly, most of us learn that awkward and even bizarre experiences can yield unanticipated life changes.

My recent story is about how loneliness, isolation, and physical challenges led to an opportunity to reengage with life that I could not have anticipated. Who could imagine that spending two months in a memory care facility would become a journey into vulnerability and community? But it happened.

A little over two years ago, I tripped over an errant lawn-watering spigot and broke bones in both of my hands and fractured my wrist. Surgery was required on my left hand; a cast, on my right hand/arm. At the time, I was also part of a 15-month clinical research trial for chronic leukemia, and my orthopedic surgeon could not predict how long it would take for my bones to heal.

Keep in mind that, as a participant in a clinical research trial, I learned compliance—not easy for someone who prides herself on being in control! So, I should have readily accepted the hospital’s recommended placement in a traditional rehab facility, but my instinct told me otherwise.

While I was confident that my bones would heal, I knew that what I wanted was a quiet place where I could get the care that I needed and spend time in solitude, prayer, and reflection. I chose a nearby senior living community that had skilled nursing, a faith-based organization where I had volunteered and was familiar with some of the staff. However, there were no rooms available in the rehab section. Given the urgency of finding a room and my deep conviction that I needed to be at this particular location, I agreed to a room in their memory care facility, where I joined 12 elderly people—many close to my age—who were no longer able to live independently.

My health care professionals were horrified, but I prevailed.

My sparsely furnished room was on the second floor; my view, the monastery and an adjoining college campus. When I arrived, I spent much of each day alone…and looking out the window. But the shock of being physically unable to care for myself—even eating and brushing my teeth required assistance—and living in a locked ward with 12 other souls with advanced dementia became much more than a story of an awkward and inappropriate healing environment.

Rather than stay in my room, I chose to become an active member—albeit differently dis-abled—of this community. I participated in group activities, interacted daily with other residents, ate with them, volunteered to lead a chair exercise group (I am a certified exercise coach), and more. I learned to love being with my new friends, who quickly became comfortable with my active presence in their daily routines.

I often tell people that my perspective on everything was forever changed by the experience of being my late husband Jerry’s primary caregiver for nearly a decade. As his Lewy Body Dementia progressed, I learned to slow down, be more patient, and live with a good heart because I loved him so dearly. But, it was also a time of increasing detachment from the rest of the world.

And yet, two years after Jerry passed away in the same memory care facility that was now my temporary residence, something implausible happened: I felt part of a community. In a place that clearly was not intended for someone like me, I gained a different and deeper respect for the many challenges faced by those with advanced dementia. I also became reacquainted with critical life lessons, including how essential it is to protect individual dignity, call people by their first names, and listen closely to their life stories, which often appear in fragments rather than a well-designed narrative.

So, looking back, I can now see that my story—which others might have seen as ripe for a comic review titled “Life in the Alzheimer’s Unit while needing help with the Activities of Daily Living”—turned out to have been a gift.

Spending time in a memory care facility brought me face-to-face with my own vulnerabilities in a way that I had never even considered before. And, perhaps most important of all, it got me “unstuck” from loneliness and isolation, giving me instead a renewed sense of hope, healing, and connection. At a time when things could easily have gotten much worse, they started getting better—all because of a choice that I made against the advice of pretty much everyone…a choice based on instinct, not rational thought.

Fast forward to today. My cancer is in remission, my bones are healed, and I’m beginning to find a new way forward with greater humility, courage, and a heart that is more open to others. Caring, which has long been a defining characteristic in my life, will be guided by my faith and what I started to learn in those two months. Writing and sharing stories about my life-affirming or life-changing experiences will become part of my calling to bring peace and light into the lives of others. And, even though this is not what I planned for myself when I retired early and married Jerry, I will take the curious, compassionate, spiritual, and loving version of myself—which is slowly emerging—with me on this next phase of my life journey.  

“We do not think ourselves
into new ways of living;
we live ourselves
into new ways of thinking.”
                       —Richard Rohr

Carol Boyer Peterson

I am a widow, stepmom, grandmother of 9, social scientist and retired university administrator. I love many forms of exercise from Pilates to hiking. Despite the long winters, I also love living in Northern Minnesota with a view of Lake Superior. I am blessed to have dear friends and family who are with me on my life journey.