The social media conundrum

I think it is safe to say that every one of us (or at least those reading this) has been through the thought process of how to portray ourselves on social media. The common avenues of social media that I am thinking about are blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Google and to a certain extent, WhatsApp. I have two or three of these accounts (notably not Facebook) and here is where I stand on blogging:

I started writing again since I have always enjoyed writing, ever since my school days when I used to be a voracious reader. I spent my tween and teen years lost in a fantasy world as part of my introverted personality. I really enjoyed this world and the ability to let my imagination run free and wild. I used to write very hesitatingly for our school magazine after a lot of coaxing and prodding by my English teacher. I also took part in a few literary fests. I have often turned to writing notes to myself or using pen and paper (or a keyboard) to sort out my thoughts. I continued doing this over the years.  

The other side of my personality is the hesitation to expose my thoughts to the outside world for fear of “What would others think?” This is one of the feelings that did not let me enjoy Facebook. It also led me to hide my school magazine from friends and family out of fear that they would read that one article that I wrote that had my name on it! I often feel like I have to hide my real personality on social media (it can be argued that many don’t show their “real” selves on social media anyway), and only expose a slice of “regular” life activities on there. 

Another twist to the story is that I only face this conflict with personal writing. I often write for my job in the form of papers, presentations, articles, blog posts and more. I think that I am good at articulating my thoughts and expressing them both on paper as well as through talks and presentations. I am comfortable speaking in front of large audiences when the content is technical and familiar to me, and especially when it is something I am passionate about. So this tells me that it is not shyness that I face. It has something to do with a lack of confidence in myself, and putting my personality out there to be judged. There are also certain elements of not wanting to invite others into my personal world and to remain sheltered in privacy. Maybe I am just uncomfortable talking about myself. I would like to be more comfortable sharing my opinions, without crossing over into narcissism territory.

With blogging, I am faced with the following conundrum – to write for myself or to write for readers?

Like many bloggers, I have started out wanting to be “genuine” and true to myself, not writing for others or thinking about what would be popular or well received. It is a fine line, however. I don’t have a goal to promote my blog on social media, gather a following and make my brand. The current goal is just to be able to express myself, document a few of the thoughts and things going on in my world, and to make an entry into the world of blogging. With that said, I don’t know yet whether this blog is going to remain more of a “dear diary” journal or whether it will crystallize into something else. I also don’t know how anonymous I will remain. I have spent many years not writing, or writing and not publishing trying to figure this out. But for now, I have decided to just take the plunge and find my happy medium as I go.

There is no real relevance to the post above, but this is what is playing in a parallel track of my mind:

11:11 by Film School

I’m driving home with the sun in my eyes
I'm driving home with the sun in my eyes
That certain thing that you wanted hide
I figured out what you were trying to hide
You're out on your own
Don't you know you said you never should lie

Don’t you know you said you’d never survive

You wished for what you thought would make you strong
But now that wish has left you all alone
You're on your own
I'm driving home with the sun in my eyes
I'm driving home at the break of sunrise

[Followed by the best part – the noise! Ahhh]

Father's Day weekend

We celebrated Father’s Day this weekend. This year, most of our holidays and celebrations are “low key” given that we have a toddler and young baby at home, have been home-bound a lot over the past year and a half due to health reasons, and are also watching our finances. We are prioritizing our state of well being over trying to take on too much. Going in, it felt like it would be rather mundane to have celebrations this way. However, we seem to have arrived at a good balance of finding enjoyable ways to celebrate while keeping things simple, and doing so with minimal planning. I think that adjusting our expectations has been helpful in this.

For Father’s day, my husband mentioned that he would just like to have a beer and maybe go on a bike ride. On Friday, he received a hand print from our daughter that she had made at preschool with the caption "Hands down, you're the best dad!". The day before father’s day, we had friends over and shared a few beers with them while the children played. We got a small cake from Trader Joe’s and savored the delicious slices of cake with falafels, hummus and pita bread. 

On Sunday morning, my husband went on a solo bike ride for an hour and a half. He cycled up to a nearby reservoir and back. We called both of our fathers and wished them for the day. We all then walked to the farmers market and bought fresh produce, which is our Sunday morning tradition. While there, we bought him two plants as his Father’s day gift – rosemary and lantanas. We came back home and he made us brunch (I know, I should have been the one making it, but he is so much better at it!) of mushroom omelettes, sautéed potatoes and toast, using fresh ingredients from the market. In the evening, we went for a swim at the nearby pool and took the baby in for the first time. We shared a glass of wine together in the evening. In all, I think it was a relaxing and enjoyable Father’s Day celebration.

Morning view of the reservoir

Concert in the park

Yesterday, we skipped out of work a bit early and went to a park at around 4:00 pm. We were there to attend a Friday evening family concert series at a place called “Magical Bridge Playground”.

We had a very nice evening. My brother-in-law was playing with the band as drummer and had invited us for the event: https://www.facebook.com/SoulProviders/
The concert was right in the middle of a playground, which was great for us. Since we got there almost two hours early, we had initially considered doing something in the city before the event. But we realized that neither of us felt like venturing into crowded spaces, and the idea of just hanging out at the park was far more appealing. The playground itself had a lot of interesting and unusual equipment for kids to play in, and was attached to a library and community center with a nice café.

We spent almost two hours watching kids play, sitting and talking over cappuccinos and croissants, and winding down from the week. Before we knew it, our family and their friends arrived and the music started. The music was very good and it was not too loud for us, making it quite the ideal concert setup. It was a very pleasant evening and a good change for our family to get out and about. I think I am still getting used to the idea of being in the “real world” again and socializing after the long hiatus over the past year and a half. We got back home by around 8:00 pm after picking up pizza on the way for dinner.

The song we enjoyed the most: Take Me to the River 

We spent this morning listening to the Talking Heads version on full blast, following through with the very catchy A Clean Break (Let's Work).

Lilting lavender

Lavender. I thought I would dedicate a post to this plant which has been on my mind a lot lately. We just returned from a trip to France, where we came across lavender a lot. We had lavender bushes at our home there. We also visited a farm that ran a store with several homegrown natural beauty products, and lavender made its appearance there as well.

My emotional tie to lavender goes back a few years, when after my wedding, my mother-in-law gave me a sprig of lavender to gift to my grandfather...from her garden to his. It made the journey across continents and was a sign of a special bond between families. The plant did not do too well since it thrives in temperate climates and was being sent to a tropical one. However, its spirit of lives on in my memories.

An earlier brush with lavender had been on a trip to Saint-Paul de Vence, a quaint little fortified town in the Côte d'Azur area of France. There, we got several interesting products like Provence herbs (which we still use in our daily cooking), and lavender essential oil (which I recently started using in our baths).

This trip to France took us to La Ferme du Hitton, a beautiful farm in the south western region of France. Here, they had a herd of donkeys and used donkey milk to make a few of their beauty products such as soaps. We picked up a lavender and donkey milk exfoliating soap, a rose and donkey milk soap, lavender essential oil and a lavender infused balm. We were allowed to get up close to the donkeys, and see the cute little newborn that was born just the day before which was quite a treat. My daughter however decided that she was more interested in playing with the farm cat. The lavender used in the cosmetics was locally grown. The fragrance is relaxing, and (hopefully) its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory nature makes it a good addition to our skin care routine. 

I continued to cross paths with this interesting herb. On one of our walks in our neighborhood, my husband remarked that he really loved lavender plants when he saw some in a neighbor's front yard. Later during our trip to France, I came across lavender water in a spray  (Eau florale de lavande) which I started to use on my skin and hair and found that it made them glow and shine.  I also used a heating pack infused with lavender when I injured my neck, and it seemed to help.

When we returned home, my daughter suggested buying my husband a plant for his birthday, so of course, it had to be lavender! We went to the local nursery and my daughter and I had an enjoyable time picking out a plant just for him. The nursery had many varieties that broadly fell into three categories – English lavender, French lavender and Spanish lavender. They look slightly different and the English lavender plants were the ones currently in bloom so we chose one of the Hidcote variety. It has now been replanted in our garden, and we are hoping it grows well. I suppose I have been seeking out the plant, because on a trip to the farmers market on Sunday, I even picked up a hair oil which had lavender as one of the herbal mixes in it. 

I disappeared last night
While sleeping in my bed
A field of lavender beneath my head
Another planet, I'll try to map it
No user interface
It won't escape me again

And if I sleep tonight
The cosmic radiation
I won't complain
Maybe I can find the right frequency and station
I might just stay

- Lavender, by Two Door Cinema Club 

Sleep.... elusive sleep

Sleep, elusive sleep (sung to the tune of Food glorious food from Oliver Twist!)….

Is it worth waiting for?

It seems as if I spend all my days and nights working on sleep. Yes, I am severely sleep deprived, going on four years. Yes, I do know that getting more sleep is the key to a lot of the challenges I face everyday. But, why is it so elusive?

Adults need a total of 7-9 hours of sleep a night. This helps us recharge our bodies, minds, fight infections, stay positive, grounded, and productive, and to be ourselves. Children need much more sleep. There has been a lot of research done around sleep, and when it comes to babies and children, sleep training or teaching a baby to sleep.

We are currently of the mindset that we should do whatever works for the whole family to get a good night’s sleep. This is work in progress, and sometimes letting go of the idea that we “must sleep” or “need to get X hours every night” actually helps it happen organically.

So here’s to making little changes in our routines, letting go of the outcome, and hoping that the whole family is able to get a more restful and lasting nighttime sleep.

Going back to Oliver, with a find-and-replace of “food” with “sleep”:

What wouldn't we give for that extra bit more

Oh sleep, marvelous sleep, wonderful sleep, magical sleep, fabulous sleep, beautiful sleep... Glorious sleep!

The fear of mediocrity

“The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.”

― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

We recently started watching the show “Good Omens” on Amazon Prime, and are thoroughly enjoying it. The first thing I thought of when we were a few minutes in was that I need to read more Terry Pratchett books, since I had enjoyed the two I read so much. But there were some things in the show that really struck a chord with me. I think that through all my health anxiety and contemplations of life, I always believed that there would be some “great successes”, a few “this was worth the fight” moments and milestones that would come our way eventually. I used to shudder at the idea of mediocrity.

Being in a recent career slump has reinforced that thought quite a bit. I find myself thinking of colleagues with disdain as “so mediocre” and influencing me to be the same way. I suppose I am one of those people that has to be challenged to go outside of my comfort zone, then panic and fret about it, eventually shine at the task and then bask in the glory of a job well done. Dramatic, much?

However, recently I thought that even if our life ends up being unremarkable, that is probably not such a bad thing after all. Of course, it would hopefully still be filled with a lot of beautiful things along the way, and many reasons to be grateful and feel fulfilled. But thinking of Milton’s famous line “They also serve who only stand and wait”, reinforces the idea that even if there is no momentous grand success or breakthrough that we achieve in our lives (whether in our career or through other life’s purposes), we can still do a pretty good job of contributing towards humankind. I suppose that sets a good baseline to work with. I’ll leave you with another one from Terry Pratchett.

“IT WASN’T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It should have been, but that’s the weather for you. For every mad scientist who’s had a convenient thunderstorm just on the night his Great Work is finished and lying on the slab, there have been dozens who’ve sat around aimlessly under the peaceful stars while Igor clocks up the overtime.”

― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens