Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

A quote from Ezra Pound, whose poetry I studied in grad school but never truly understood, has been running throught my brain these past few weeks:

"Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down."

So many of the interpersonal issues I encounter in the publications office seem to be a result of personal vanity. We each stand at the center of our own universe. My own offenses are legion.

My nephews, aged 5 and 8, have been taking Tae Kwon Do. On a recent Friday afternoon, they underwent a test for their first belt. They came to visit the next day and I asked them if they had passed. They told me they wouldn't find out until next week. "We have to learn to be humble," they told me.

What a wonderful lesson! Pride and vanity are not our friends. We all need to learn humility. So often we thrust our pride to the fore and it stands in the way of communication and collaboration. We do need to learn to stand up for ourselves and to not let others take advantage of us. But too often we resort to base vanity instead of true assertiveness.

the hard work of creativity

Although in my position in the Publications Office at Bradley University I spend lots of time doing mundane proofreading and formatting tasks, I also get to be creative. I write stories for our research publication, develop concepts for marketing or advancement pieces, and design covers for the schedule of classes and catalogs. I have always been fascinated with the process of creativity. In my graduate work, I studied the creative process of poets, such as Theordore Roethke and Emily Dickinson, who seemed to use their art to explore their own psychological growth, and who seemed to weave individual poems into groups where images and themes built on each other in complex ways. For both, the creative process involved enormous amounts of time and the enormous risk of psychological vulnerability.

"No one is born highly creative," says R. Keith Sawyer, Ph.D., associate professor of education and of psychology at Washington University in St. Louis. "Psychologists studying creativity have discovered that it is based on cognitive processes we all share. Creativity is not the result of some magic brain region that some people have and others don't." Sawyer thinks that creative people have developed good work habits.

He believes that a common pattern for creative people is to alternate periods of hard work with time spent doing something unrelated, like a lunch break, gardening, or a walk. Such time allows them to think of their problems in new ways. He says the "aha" moment often comes while doing something else.

I can agree with this theory. When I get stuck on a project, I often take a walk outside to enjoy nature and to see other people. I go for a tea or coffee. I might leave early for lunch. Sitting and staring at the blank canvas usually isn't productive. When you just enter a different room, or go outside, your mind starts thinking about other things. Sometimes, this allows another part of your mind to work on the problem.

So many times I develop ideas in the shower. The relaxing steam and fragrances let my mind wander. Sometimes I think I have washed my hair several times because I was so deep in thought I wasn't paying much attention to the actual task at hand.

Professor Sawyer also advocates employees taking all of their vacation time. He says that "Many people don't take their vacation and they end up rolling over all of their off time. If I were a senior manager, I would make everyone take all of their vacation time. Time away from work is essential for recharging the batteries, so to speak, and to help people think more creatively on the job. People need freedom in their schedule for idle time."

I agree. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that hard work only goes so far in being successful at work. You do have to get away and develop other interests and other parts of your life. Doing so will allow you to bring new perspectives to the problems and creative tasks you deal with. Sometimes you have to let deadlines go unanswered. Sometimes you have to give up the worry. Sometimes the best thing you can do for your job is to just walk away from it.

You can find a good article about Dr. Sawyer's research at http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/6451.html.

The most beautiful time of year

I had spent most of one morning this week proofreading the Honor Roll of Donors - 56 pages of names set in 7 point type. I needed a break.

As I emerged from the basement, fresh air swirled around me. I walked across the quad, where some of the flower beds, after struggling in the summer heat, bloomed in a profusion of bright colors. The brush of cool weather has painted some of the trees with spots of red and gold. Today, a window would be most welcome, as the smell of the fresh air is just as beautiful as the colors it brings.

I reluctantly returned to my desk and the 56 pages and the 7 point type. My advice: take advantage of every opportunity to walk outside these next few weeks.

Struck by an Angel

I was late for work the other day because as I was running down the stairs after getting dressed, I noticed that the huge bruise on my left forearm was sticking out from under my three-quarter-length sleeves. I ran back up and found another shirt to iron. Today, I didn't notice I had made the same mistake until someone asked me "what did you do to your arm?" in a surprised voice. It's a little embarrassing to walk into the offices with bruises all over one's arms and legs. I bruise quite easily, so often sport bruises that I don't even know how I got.

This week's bruise, however, was most definitely from an encounter with an angel. My mother and I went to an estate auction over the weekend. We were looking at the collection of tables, chairs, and lamps with soiled shades, when I spotted her standing next to an old butter churn. She was weathered and broken, but she struck me as beautiful in the way worn, unwanted things can. I pushed to the front when the bidding started. The auctioneer started at just $10. She was old, molded in heavy, rocky concrete. She had a mossy patina. No one bid. $5. No bids. No one even looked interested. So I waited. $1 he called and I held up my hand. Without allowing time for anyone esle to even give her a second look, he shouted "Sold, $1."

She was going to be perfect for the little cottage garden I am trying to start in front of my house. I rolled her onto a dollie and pushed her down the street to the car. Once there, I realized lifting her up into the back of the station wagon would be a problem. I should have waited until the end of the sale when one of the hands could help.

I very gently rested the dollie back down onto the pavement and wrapped my arms around her. I bent my knees and took a deep breath. As I stood up I realized she must weigh 80 pounds, much more than I am used to lifting. I'm sure my face was blue by the time I nestled her into the back. As I released her, she rolled back heavily onto my arm.

By the time I unloaded her at home, one of the wings, which had already been chipped, had broken into many pieces. Despite the beating both of us took in our journey to get her from her old home to mine, I enjoy seeing her in the garden each morning. I tucked her behind a large plant, so her left side looks not wingless but merely hidden from view.

9 11 5 yrs

I remember coming into work on 9 11 01. When I walked into the office, late, my coworkers were not at their desks. A donut with one missing bite sat on a napkin on the secretary's desk. I knew immediately something was wrong. I walked down the hall to the main office and found everyone gathered around the 12-inch television. It appeared that the World Trade Center was collapsing. Something terrible had happened. I got a cup of coffee and went back down the hall to my desk. I called my mother, who was sitting by my father's bed in the St. John's Hospital Hospice. "You should probably turn on the television," I told her. I couldn't explain, I just thought she should know. I turned to my computer and started working.

I couldn't stay down the hall and watch the news, I couldn't turn on the radio, I couldn't log on to CNN. I just wanted to work on the catalog, which was already late to the printer.

I had recently missed a few days of work. My father had been very ill. A few days ago one direct and plain-spoken doctor who was filling in for the weekend said we should move him from the hospital, where we had been trying to get answers from doctors and their throngs of residents, for the past week, to hospice. "His body is shutting down."

We agreed to stop trying to feed him. A neurologist was called in to prescribe IV meds to minimize his seizures. He received a morphine drip. The day they transported him to hospice, an ambulance came. They were not told to bring an oxygen tank. So, they unhooked him from the hospital oxygen supply and proceeded to the nurses' station to check him out. Some paperwork confusion ensued. His breathing became erratic and labored. "He needs oxygen," I screamed and wrapped my body around his head and torso as if I could provide it. The nurses and EMTs continued to discuss something. Finally they pushed him onto the elevator and two doctors got on at the next floor. "He needs oxygen," I said tearfully. No one seemed concerned.

Once in the ambulance, he was hooked up to a tank and I relaxed and started to cry as I held his hand and stroked his head.

On September 10, I left work early and drove from Peoria to Springfield to visit him. I had difficulty leaving and ended up spending the night at my parents' house. I had to go to work the next morning, so I got up early and, very sleepy, sipping dark coffee, I got behind the wheel and flipped between music and NPR news to stay awake. I think I heard something about a plane hitting the towers, but the announcer had no information, and I thought it was like a two-seater or something. I flipped back to my music CD and tried to stay awake.

Later, people talked about watching the image of the towers collapsing over and over again. I didn't watch the news. I saw this image only once or twice. I hardly turned on the radio. I had difficulty switching from my private pain to public tragedy. I couldn't do it.

So now, five years later, when so many people are focused on reliving the emotions of 9 11, I realize that I don't have that many emotions or memories. I see the donut on the desk. I remember realizing that I couldn't handle this terrible event. I feel a need to better understand the impact this event had on people.

This evening I went to a website on which you can hear 911 calls in New York on that day. On another, I watched footage of the towers collapsing and people screaming in the streets.

I remember standing in my apartment on Chestnut Street in Bloomington and listening to a radio report of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding. I experienced that moment fully and it haunts me. What haunts me most about 9 11 01 is the invasion of Iraq. I did experience that fully and the news reports of those first days are part of my emotional memory. I feel a sadness and emptiness knowing that emotionally I did not fully experience one of the most tragic days in our nation's history.

layers of creativity

Last night, one of the final evenings of August, I slept with the window open to enjoy the cool air. With fresh air and the gentle sound of a fan to lull me, I slept quite soundly. At about 5:30 the paper delivery car pulled up underneath the window and abruptly cut me off from a deep, dreamful sleep. Often I awake slowly as the dogs become more and more restless. But this morning's alarm was like a sharp knife slicing a layer cake. I could peer directly into my dream state. Like an extravagant cake, my dreaming mind had layers.

In one story, I was dressed in a Victorian green velvet gown. I was planning to sail to England to meet a mysterious person. In a second layer, I was frantically running through the airport trying to meet all the requirements for flight to England. I didn't have a passport and the people who could help me get one were inept. When I made it to the gate I was still missing something - a doctor had to check me. The doctor had left for dinner so his assistant looked at me. "Anything wrong with you?" he asked? "Nothing, except a bad case of airport rage." By the time I got back to the gate, I was in tears. The attendant handed me a beverage in a heavy green glass bottle. After remembering those details, I realized that I had also been dreaming about playing in the dark green grass of my childhood back yard. By the time I recalled this, the story had faded.

If our unconscious mind can create three parallel stories that seem related by story and/or imagery, why do we struggle to come up with a simple creative idea in waking life?

Immediately after recalling this dream layer cake, I thought about my work this week. I have been trying to come up with an idea for the next Schedule of Classes cover. Another unit on campus markets the interim semesters, so we need a compelling image or saying that can be used in advertising. Sometimes I enjoy creating these covers, but this time I can't light any creative spark.

How is it that we can be lavishly creative in our dreams but struggle to come up with one idea while awake? I suspect it has something to do with the criticism we place on our waking ideas and the criticism we imagine - or actually hear - from others. While asleep, our creativity can play like a child in a lush back yard.

"Microcuber"

Today's Dilbert cartoon strip was, as is often the case, joking on truth.

Because of renovations, the pointy-headed boss has to move Alice to a larger cubicle. Squealing with glee, she announces that she will use the power of her "slightly larger cubicle to rule my coworkers with an iron fist." In the final frame she is pushing a coworker aside, saying "get out of my way, you worthless microcuber."

In my experience I have found that people in a workplace believe that amenities such as more square footage, special wood trim on cubicle cabinets, a door that closes (or locks!), a light switch, or a bigger desk can all be indicators of prestige or importance.

Ideally we would all have the space, furniture, and equipment needed to perform our jobs. Alas, that is not always the case. These things are meted out by importance or influence rather than by need.

Today I reluctantly add "microcuber" to my vocabulary.