Wisdom from the desert

Deadlines. These terribly important, frustrating things: numbers in a box, highlighted, circled furiously so it looks like a tumbleweed or a vortex sucking away at the peace of mind, crossed out, moved, ignored, stressed over. They run our lives.

I tend to work better when someone else imposes a deadline on me. I struggle with setting them and sticking with them. I tell Scott a date, and then he keeps asking about this date and my progress towards it. I drag my feet; I make up excuses. I do everything but what I am supposed to do to have something by that deadline. I feel guilty and then a bit incompetent that I can't even stick to a simple date.  I am not an efficient worker; I realize this. Each time I try to fix that personality flaw, I find other, more interesting things to do.

Part of the difficulty is that the reward is often abstract. When others set a date for me, it means monetary compensation or penalty should I miss that date. My brain understands that. Finish this, submit time, get paid. Or don't submit, we'll take money or work from you. But when I set my own deadlines, it may only mean that I get to feel proud that I accomplished something. Yay. There is no guarantee that it means anything, really. I tend to see things much more in tangible reciprocity (as I am fully aware I am writing in abstractions). There is another flaw exposed.

That all being said, I've set a deadline of August for a project I have been working on for a while now (since that really slow spring 2013 quarter from hell). If I finish early, hurrah! I can move on to the next phase. There are so many phases of this it's exhausting, and I can only focus on one phase at a time. The next phases, though, I'm hoping to knock out by December. I want this in the bag by 2015.

Big picture stuff is scary. I imagine a scene that goes something like this: I finally make it up a mountain, believing I am close to my destination, only to peek over the ridge and see a vast, Sahara (or Dune) like desert spreading out from mountain to horizon, and I know that I have to cross that, too, and deal with all its threats and dangers. I can't just stick my head in the sand, and I have to fight off that urge or the urge to sit down and simply give up: "No, no, you guys; it's okay. You go on without me. I'll...catch up...eh, forget it."  Although, bonus, were this a Dune desert, I'll embrace the wrangle those sandworms, a la Fremen style, and come into my own. (...apologies for that momentary geek-out...)

It is one foot in front of the other, small steps one day, rest another day, running leaps that cover long stretches the next. Scott has to remind me that at least I keep moving, even if it, like the way I run, is inefficient and awkward, I am moving forward. Progress is progress, I suppose.

Sunshine fun and treasures

Spring has finally arrived in all its verdant, flush glory to the PacNW. Craving color and needing to get out, we waited until late Friday afternoon to go to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn, OR.

This is another image heavy post, but we couldn't resist the colors. We were there for that "magic hour" in the evening that bathes everything in that retina searing ethereal glow that dances through the synapses and makes the brain crave more. We couldn't open our eyes wide enough to take it all in, and the cameras hardly do it justice.

Mt. Hood, lit up and almost to alpenglow

 (allergies)