February's Things
On Incremental (Sometimes Barely-Visible) Indicators of Progress
I thought January felt like a blur until I hit February. This month, particularly the past two weeks, have been an exercise in literally the thing in front of me. Not all 27 things in front of me, because that is overwhelming and too many. Literally the one. individual. thing.
I’ve been further away from a calendar and a schedule than I can ever remember being. I do somehow usually end up where I’m supposed to when I’m supposed to, but that fact is basically a miracle. There is just So Much All The Time.
Some of this I do to myself; I’m a chronic over-functioner (so I add more to deal with current overwhelm - not fantastic), and I tend to take on things that are not mine to do because I so desperately want to make people’s lives easier because 1.) I do but 2.) it gives me somewhere to put my energy in uncertain times. I wrote half a post in February about what is and isn’t my job (practically, cosmically), but never finished it, due to aforementioned Too Much. But some of this feels like just being alive in modern life, or at least being alive in this era with a job in public education.
What seems to be the way forward in times that feel like whiplash (personally, communally, globally) is focusing on anything, literally anything, that feels like progress. My husband and I were talking tonight about the fun but disorienting moment when you realize that you still are or feel like a beginner at a thing, but discover that you know a lot more than someone else and can therefore help them. Those moments may be a drop in the bucket in terms of your journey with the thing (for him right now, running, and for me always, yoga), but they are moments. They do count.
And when things are hard and uncertain, we have to make them count by recognizing them. This goes against my very nature - I want to focus on what to fix, what to change, how to move forward. One of my colleagues is similarly-minded, but really exceptional (and a bit further along on her journey) at finding bits of progress and remembering to call them out. And at calling me out when I don’t.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about little moments of change, however barely-perceptible they might be. That’s my takeaway from February. Here are a few:
I have absolutely not gotten up every day to squeeze in a 10-minute yoga practice, but I did do one this week.
I am also not calling my representatives daily, but I’m doing it 80% of days.
My students are able to write in ways they were not able to in September.
We have thrown away almost no overripe or rotting vegetables from the fridge because we are actually (and by we I mean my husband, as I hit my lifetime quote for cooking sometime in 2023) cooking and eating them.
I have two tutorial groups out of my twelve who are doing the thing and working independently and supporting each other.
(Tutorials are a whole specific thing in the program I teach in, but basically think kids with confusing math problems working collaboratively to solve them without much input from me - if it sounds like a nightmare, it is, but it is supposedly very, very good for them and also required, so I keep trying.)
Several people who I never expected to engage in mindful settle in practices at work DID. Several of those people also have expressed that they benefitted from them. (That’s actually a huge thing, but I don’t have a separate list of huge things, so here it sits…)
I upgraded my iOS operating system and my Gmail layout and haven’t thrown any of my devices across the room as a result.
I finished one baby blanket in February (the baby was born in early January, so there’s that, but, you know, baby steps and all of that. I also chose a pattern for another one, and am not feeling like gestational timelines are tyranny, so that also feels like a win.
My reading is still a steady diet of romance novels, with two specifically related to ballet (wildly different takes). Both were thoughtful about different parts of the arts industry that I’m now far enough away to be able to see my experience, though very different, reflected. I’m also still listening to this book at an absolute snail’s pace. The writing is so good, and in my frazzled state, I haven’t been able to take in much more than a little at a time without missing some of it. So…a glacial snail’s pace it is.
Heather Cox Richardson’s daily overview of national turmoil feels exactly like the amount of detail that I both need and can handle, and she has interspersed tiny bright spots within the necessary onslaught of awful. I also found Garrett Bucks’s 30 Actions thought-provoking and challenging, and his blend of midwestern pragmatism and deep love for people helpful for years.
I’d love to hear what’s feeling like a tiny victory (or a larger one) for you this month.
The first two weeks of March don’t look much less chaotic than the last two weeks of February, so I’m taking those two weeks off and am back for the last three Sundays. I’d love to see you there!
