Velveteen Mind

Wimbledon 2013 and the Story of Our Summer

This post is sponsored by Disney Story. To find out more about this brand-new story-creation app – and how it puts the power of storytelling in your hands - click here.

Psst... This story is sponsored and it's still my story. Y'all know how I do. Keep reading. You'll like it. 

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We breathe in great heaping gulps of summer. As a mom, I count the days until summer vacation and then greedily horde each one, a warning hand perpetually held up against August and the return of school.

I don't over-plan every day of summer for our family, but I do build in touchstones. Sun-bleached mile-markers to run our fingers over as we wander the overgrown paths of our laziness.

Wimbledon is our favorite mile-marker.

At the beach house in 2012 - look at how little Iris was!

We take a brief family vacation every summer specifically to celebrate Breakfast at Wimbledon.

Waking up the Sunday after the 4th of July, we roll out of bed before the final two men of the iconic tennis championship take the court.

As thousands of fans savor strawberries and cream on the grass lawn of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, we pile strawberries on paper plates and bury them under mounds of whipped cream.

It's our family tradition. One created for Quinn for his first Wimbledon. One we love so much and means so much to us, as a family.

Maybe someday we'll make it all the way to England. Until then, we are content to travel a few short hours to the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay in Alabama, either Fairhope or Point Clear.

For the last two years, we have rented an unreal beach house in Point Clear (where Forrest Gump was written) called The Family Tree. With plenty of room for our family of five, the true delight of the property is a huge old live oak in the backyard, shading the private beach and hanging over the bay itself. 

A refuge. To be sure. 

And sometimes? A refuge from the anxiety of Wimbledon itself. Because, man, this year's championship was nerve-wracking! As you'll see in the video shared in my Disney Story below, Andy Murray drove us straight out to the boat house while we waited for him to get his act together on that court. 

click through if the Story isn't showing 

That's the fun of it. Throwing ourselves so completely into the experience, as a family. The experience of Wimbledon but, more, the experience of a summer so thoroughly embraced.

We are sand-covered. We are sun-weary. We are full of popsicles and ready for more. We are together.

When we finally returned home, I noticed Quinn following me around the house. Aimlessly. He is almost nine and keeps to himself whenever he can. If I could physically gather up the moments he sheds like water, I would. I already miss him, the baby in him.

After a week at the beach house, a week together, greeting the sun and checking the crab traps, talking about why I love reading on the porch so much and what kind of ice cream we want to try tonight, he wasn't ready to let me go once we got home.

I will this summer into brilliant existence. I ensure we have memories to pin in our mind. I capture each flash of childhood as a firefly in a jar.

I am our family storyteller. I was born to do this for us.

Tradition matters. It anchors us and guides us. Even just as weathered mile-stones on the overgrown path as we race by to tomorrow.

PS- Quinn isn't in more of the photos because he, too, decided to go "pants-less" and I'm not allowed to use those photos.

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Related reading:

The story behind our Wimbledon family tradion
My first Disney Story about the awesome place the kids learned how to swim 

 

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Focus is not a Fad

The number of times I've written about focus on this blog is telling. Every now and then I show up and say, "Eureka! I've solved my problem of focus! Watch out! Here I come!"

And then I get distracted.

What you see are the bursts of energy in the foreground. My excitement at a breakthrough, usually immediately followed by the realization that I overshot.

But in the background, I am consistently making permanent habit changes. Regardless of how "Productivity for the win!" I get, it is the simple, deep seated changes that propel me forward. Even if merely by inches at a time.

Habits like compartmentalizing my time online. As Amy Whitley referred to my approach, "firewalls of the mental sort."

Boundaries.

I recently chatted up the women at the new Power Down podcast on just this topic.

Heather King of The Extraordinary Ordinary and Amy Whitley of Never-True Tales invited me to join them as their first guest to discuss the value of unplugging and, as was my focus for our discussion, how to create and maintain boundaries between our professional and personal lives. 

In advance of my BlissDom writing workshop in Dallas this March (more on that next week), they were particularly interested in how I handle boundaries within my work. It's one thing to know to unplug and focus on your family (the ongoing subject of their podcast series), but it's a different challenge to compartmentalize your attention while you are working online.

Focus.

As I write this, it is a struggle not to open my Gmail in another tab. The Pinterest button in my bookmark bar keeps calling to me every time I move to look up a link.

That is precisely what we talked about: Tips to help you maintain focus during your writing process and while you are connected online, as well as how to protect your time offline.

I realize that taking a break from social media is a bit of a fad right now. When I first proposed the idea for my BlissDom session, I had seen very few people warm to the idea of a more regimented compartmentalization of our time spent online. Now? Apparently it's a thing.

My friend Ciaran Blumenfeld of Momfluential wrote about #FacebookBreak yesterday. I hadn't heard of it but the fact that there's a hashtag makes me want to take a nap.

People are realizing the need to take breaks from the constant intake of social media for a variety of reasons, but I strongly suggest that you take a longer term view.

That BlissDom session? The title is Uninterrupted Thought: How to Wield the Power of Focus. It won't be about how to take a break and brand it to your topical advantage. It won't be about being cool and on top of trends. 

It will be about flourishing.

I still want "furious furious beautiful enthralling art. With no commas."

Boundaries beget focus. 

Download the Power Down podcast (I am in episode 002) and then let me know what you think. For the moment, you can visit the SITS Girls Power Down page and listen to my episode right there on the site. (That will change with the next episode, though.)

Not sure how to download or subscribe to podcasts? Amy wrote an excellent post about What is a Podcast? How Do You Tune In? that walks you right through the easy process.

I had a ball talking with the hosts and am excited to follow along through their next episodes.

Episode 3 will feature Ann Imig! I fell a lot in love with Ann a few years ago at Creative Alliance in Ojai, California. It was my first time meeting her and I... can't even finish this sentence. I adore her. I wish fewer people adored her, though, because I need her attention to be less divided.

Ahem. Power down and look at me. I'm a kid trying to get his mom's attention.

It's a good podcast series. We need to talk about the effects of our attention being so divided all the time in a realistic way. I'm looking forward to Ann's episode and hope you find your thoughts provoked while listening to mine.

Thank you again, Amy and Heather and SITS Girls, for letting me thrash around a bit in your airwaves.

What are your tips for powering down? Thoughts after listening to the podcast?

 

Be sure to subscribe to my "Infrequent but lovely" newsletter while you are here, as newsletter subscribers received exclusive content in this post: 10 Practical Tips for Powering Down

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A Trumpet. A Signal.

For the last few nights, I've closed my social media day by posting a video from The Killers on Facebook and Pinterest. Often after pinning a handful of images of Brandon Flowers, their mesmerizing lead singer.

Every girl should have a dream boy she can can gaze after. Not the kind that does your dishes or changes your shared offspring's diapers. No. The kind you'll never meet and really don't even want to know that much about. The daydream kind. The distraction kind. 

He doesn't even have to be cute. Maybe he's dirty and intimidating. Rick from The Walking Dead would do nicely.

Maybe he's dangerous and impossible. Breaking Bad fans seem to get lost in that world. I've never seen Mad Men, but I know who Don Draper is. I do have the Internet and there are women on there that like to lose their minds over that man. (ps, good grief, AMC. all the links I needed were on the same site. good for you.)

I'm simultaneously decades and a single breath away from the girl who consumed Tiger Beat and Bop. 

• • •

I've been working harder the last few weeks, spending more time hunkered down in front of my computer, and these evening gestures with The Killers close my day nicely. Powerfully. Firmly.

A trumpet. A signal.

So far, no one has Liked or repinned any of those videos. Or not many. That's fine. I turn up the sound and get lost in the lyrics. For years, I have wandered into The Killers and given up so completely that I feel something shudder in my chest.

You don't have to Like it or repin it or remark on how you share my feelings let's be best friends. But now you know why I do it.

The sun sets, the music rises, and draws up with it a boundary that separates my work day from my family evening.

A trumpet. A signal.

• • •

You will notice a theme to my writing this year. 

This post is a signal.

I've created a trumpet for us.

After over six years of using FeedBlitz to deliver my posts via email, I finally created a newsletter. After publishing only a handful of posts last year, I decided that you deserve a more thoughtful delivery system. Make it worth it.

The newsletter tagline is "Infrequent but lovely." I'd love for you to sign up. No more checking for updates. Plus, with more control, I can finally offer exclusive content to my email subscribers. I've always wanted to do that, as I firmly believe email notices of my updates are the single best way to stay in touch.

I have plans for this year. I don't want you to miss them.

 

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