Herding Squirrels and Raising Hopes

I started writing, like the faded little prompt said, writing a sentence of inanity before I got right into it.

"Self-discipline," I wrote. "Self-discipline is the key to organizing your life at every level and in every way."

I heard a grumble from the other desk, "Way to lose ninety percent of your audience in the first paragraph, Johnny Boy." I heard the flicking scratch of a Zippo and smelled the cigarette smoke. The clanking of glass bottles and the plonk of a pulled cork followed.

"I think it was technically the second paragraph, Bobb," I replied. "Besides, I am pretty sure there are still a couple people in the room, reading this." I had put off writing for a contest I had found until the last day. I knew then and know now that what I write is not what will be desired. Especially in this case.

A wiser man than me once said, "Never write about anything you know anything about; it will limit you and you won't be believed." The problem is, I can only write about what I know something about. A writer who never aspired to be a writer is a strange animal.

"They are only still here because they weren't paying attention and missed their chance to leave," Bobb said with a laugh. "Except for that one guy who sleeps here, and he is using this for his sponge bath time." Bobb guffawed at that. That word... that word is as awkward as the word "awkward."

"Seriously though Bobb," I replied. "That is what getting things done takes, one way or another. I know it is not a popular idea." I was annoyed. I got up and looked out the stern glass of my cabin. The seas were rough today, or I was hungover. Maybe both. It was neither, I just couldn't breath very well. Bobb really shouldn't smoke indoors like that. But what could I do? Firing my mind's resident archivist was a non-starter; it had never worked.

"How about you first offer some credentials?" Bobb suggested. "Then maybe you can get into the bottom line truth." He set a cup of tea done on my desk. I sat back down. He went on, "You got the goods, but you got to ease into the sale, not plunge right in like it's been too long at sea. Romance 'em a little." He lit another cigarette and poured another cup of scotch for himself, some cheap brand. He must have bought it himself, for once.

"The kids saw a unicorn in the garden yesterday," I said, changing the subject. "It was a kurin type. The light was that rich blue glow that happens just before dawn around the time of the equinoxes, and a light snow was falling." I wanted to talk about anything else beside writing. Bobb wasn't having it.

"Yeah? That sounds like a special thing to see," Bobb said, speaking the way he does when he thinks he is going to win a debate. He is almost always right when he gets that tone. "How did they happen to be outside and in that area at that time?" Dang it, he had me! If I answered, I was committing to following up on that contest writing.

"They were doing their morning chores," I said, nearly resigned to my fate. "And the garden is how you get to the rabbit hutches and the white ducks. Anyway, the grain and livestock supplies are in the barn closest to the garden, so they might have noticed the unicorn then, too." I saw what he was getting at, and I wanted to write it about as much as I needed another old reprobate smoking in my head - and drinking during working hours. Did that sponge bath guy really sleep here?

I had one last chance, "Remember the hassle with the last entry? And they totally ignored the one before that and refused to answer inquiries about it not being submitted, when in fact it was? It is not like I expect to do well in those contests - things being what they are - but you do know that writing this is pointless in regards to that." I had him. Bobb hated wasted effort. I could go back to work on the story about the little girls or maybe finish that Hammerman saga poem. I was bored with processing photos, so writing had some small appeal, for now.

I didn't have him. "You write for you, Johnny Boy," Bobb firmly said. "And sponge bath guy. So don't give me anymore guff about stuff that is unimportant. Taking your own approach the last three times has benefitted you immensely, no?" He tapped the ash out of his pipe and pocketed it. I had one more salvo in my arsenal.

"After a walk of the homestead grounds with three of my daughters yesterday, I returned to the office at the Tavern to find a goat by the desk!" I was on the ropes. I felt like I was Ralphie telling his folks his buddy saw some grizzly bears at a candy store...

About then, the sponge bath guy knocked over the bucket he was using, flooding the carpet. The two audience members who missed their exit cue earlier took this opportunity with alacrity, and departed. Sponge guy's trousers were soaked.

"Why were you walking around yesterday?" Bob inquired, with a bit of a judgmental tone. "You know you are still struggling with the tachycardia and low oxygen saturation situation." Once again, he was scolding me like he was my babysitter. He lit another cigarette as he settled into his hammock. He yawned; he'd had the midwatch the night before. I took a sip of my tea and cringed; it was peach flavored oolong. Yuck. I spat it into the swill pail. He glared at me. Bobb reached over and threw sponge guy some spare pants. I hoped Sponge Guy in Bobb's Spare Pants wasn't going to be a permanent addition to this barbeque.

"It is good for your heart," he sternly stated. "The boss said that is what you get. And what was that sidelong nod to James Thurber back there? The audience probably won't get the reference." He sat back down at his desk and got several notebooks out and started studying them. They were yellow legal pads, instead of his usual little black books.

"It wasn't an allusion, Bobb." I was irritated. "They really saw one. As for Thurber, you know I wrote a play adaptation for a theatre company I was in years and years back. I wasn't cast in it, but I was a producer and a designer for it; it was really well received. We did it as part of a group of short plays. I was onstage for Chekov's 'The Boor' for that." It seemed that the distraction had worked, on delay but effective. Wrong!

"Must have taken a lot of planning and organization to do all of that at the same time," Bobb said too casually. He had hulled me, no warning shot, he just came across the stern and got me. I fell for it, like a chump.

"I was running fire-rescue calls, training and teaching in the pool, trying to climb enough to keep my sponsors, remodeling my cabin, and trying to paint, too." I had always had a lot going in my life at any given time. We had hit a smooth stretch of road, so I let the team set their pace. I fell into a meditation to the rhythmic sounds of their hooves and the creak of the wooden wheels; we would have to water both soon.

Bobb straightened his cardigan before pulling his chair over to my desk. "Must have been hard to keep it all together," he said with that innocent tone he used on his victims. Trying to spar with him always left me punching above my weight.

"It was," I agreed. "I made a lot of mistakes, but not professionally. I made the mistakes in my personal areas. I have improved a lot at making those parts work with the other parts since then." I had. I looked back at those younger days with both pride and revulsion. I was the most competent screw-up anyone had ever heard of. My road had always been a glory road: paved with boulders.

"Are you watching the Sopranos still?" Bobb asked incredulously. "We finished that, didn't we?" A wave caught the helm and I had to correct, as a couple of the jacks had to drop fast to miss the boom. Bobb should know better than to bother me in seas like this.

"It is like last year; I can't watch anything else right now," I explained. "It is some sort of mental compensation to the stress. Last year it was Brooklyn 99. I couldn't watch anything else that didn't cause anxiety. Futurama can slip in once in awhile without causing pain, but the Sopranos is all I got right now most of the time." I had scars from a lot of injuries all over my body; I had even more invisible scars on my mind and soul. Sometimes the simplest things were the most difficult, especially since the mule accident. The doctors said that one should have killed me. In some ways it had. My mind was adrift a lot after that, even after I learned to speak and write again. On the scans, you could literally see the burning holes.

"So, you are broken, John," Bobb said in a quiet and kinder tone. "But answer me this: are your bills paid? Room clean? Projects getting done?" I didn't know what he was getting at with this. I was thinking of secret isles and lost loves.

"Well, yeah Bobb," I answered. "You know that. I have you to take care of it all." With that, I reminded myself to buy him a nice bottle of scotch so he could lay off the turpentine. He really was important to me; I had misplaced him a few times, and made him mad a few many more. Every time, I was the one who became lost.

"John," he said sadly. "I am you. And I don't even care if you write for that contest. I just want you to write so we don't forget ourselves to the point where we no longer exist. This whole illusion is an allusion. We are writing stories out of the fragments of others. Between that and the memory processing you taught me, we are stabilizing again. Some anyway." The seas did seem calmer. He went on, "Lets write it, and if we submit it... fine. If not, whatever."

"Okay," I conceded. "It does help. But I mean it on this organization challenge thing; it all comes down to discipline, and the only real form of that is self-discipline. Sometimes that wavers, or fails. So what I have learned to do is to build a self-fulfilling structure." Bobb knew all of that. I began to write...

I belong to a household of 12, currently. Most of them tweens or teens. At times a few less, others a few more. Sometimes they call us The Harvey Army. I usually quote Morbo when people ask me about them, "They are numerous and belligerent." We range in age from four to <mumble> none of your business! All manner of needs must be met, efficiently and fully; it won't just happen. It takes effort, and the more focused that effort is, the better the outcome will be!

We are building a homestead from scratch and that takes a lot of all sorts of resources. We have equines, goats, hogs, dogs, cats, ducks, turkeys, chickens, rabbits, bees, and a turtle. We grow a lot of our own food, we butcher our own meat, harvest our own firewood and so on. There is always more work to do than there is time, and we need to do it. By cataloging that work, creating accountability for it all, we are able to understand it.

The adults and older children all have their own careers and jobs, social life, and everyone has classes or groups they belong to - in addition to educational obligations from pre-K to graduate school. They each have their struggles. They each have their hopes, dreams, and desires and these must be accommodated as much as possible. That cannot be done without knowing what they are and allocating action.

I was elected and have been re-elected as general manager of this menagerie these last few years. Everyone has a management department, except the four year old, but he will get one next year. In addition to the management responsibilities, each person has their chores, agreed to by consensus based on experience and need to gain experience.

When a special project comes up, a manager and crew are selected to complete it. Each week we have a full council as a big dinner, and throughout the week each department comes together to plan, and per my assigned duties, I meet with each person to ascertain what is working, what isn't, what they need, and what they want.

I write about the Tavern sometimes, and that is what it is. It is our own private place to meet and celebrate, to mourn and remember. The building is filled with diversions and history, and during meals and parties it is filled with beautiful aromas and substantial joy. It also houses a few bulletin boards, and a dozen white boards. You know, the dry-erase marker type. I voted for chalkboards, but the modernists won out.

The dry-erase boards each have a purpose. Calendars, reminder lists, announcements, chore reminders, shopping lists, and so on. The bulletin boards hold activity logs, proud moments of the week, and such. They each have a manager and a protocol.

Example: Shopping list board. It is supported by policy. When someone opens that last one of something, they write it on the board. When someone notices we have run low on something, write it on the board. Going to town? Take down a list on to your notepad from the board. When you return with the items, remove them from the board. Seems really basic, because it it. Now expand that concept to anything and everything.

Additionally, written and posted rules, consequences, chores, and tasks are kept updated and posted for each person. Transparency is key, and we go back to the Romans with the idea that the law should be written down for all to see. These laws and chores are arrived at by consensus, with all voting and giving input. Teaching both sides of the coin - authority and responsibility - has been hugely successful in both the short and long term. Providing the accountability that standardizing a custom approach makes sure everything that needs done, gets done. And everything a person does, is acknowledged.

When something doesn't work, we evolve it. When something does, we build on it.

Example: Watering livestock. For awhile we tried having one person do it, in rotation. Burnout, lowered efficiency and morale ensued. Noted. Then, we assigned each person a specific animal. Better, but special or sick days created gaps, and still required a Waterboss to coordinate. No efficiency at all. So, we combined them and expanded them. A rotating Waterboss, with a general rotating Water Pair. Our check on that is the Livestock Manager, an elected position, and the Livestock Manager Trainee - which is a rotating position - who check everything, so if there is a gap, it is covered. The manager checks it off on the board when it is done. Having it all in writing insures justice, fairness, and proper care. Issues are reported, noted, adapted. Including seasonal water receptacle and delivery systems improved and expanded; the people doing it are making the policy - and they understand the process. No mystery, it is all logged and posted.

Each person learns to lead, and learns to follow. And the jobs are nearly guaranteed to be done with minimum strife and effort.

Each person - except the four year old, for now - keeps notebooks. In these they log what they have accomplished, and make notes as to things that need addressed. Not only do I also do that for my own tasks and observations, I also keep more general note books.

These notebooks include the projects we hope to complete for the year, the wish list of improvements or recreations we want to make, reminders for the week, and so on. Per my assigned Area of Responsibility as elected general manager of this operation, I also produce reminder note cards to each person about things that fall under their AOR or things that they wanted to be reminded of that week.

Example: I keep notebooks for today, this week, this month, this year, and this life. I do that for both the whole and my part. Today included writing this. I will be able to check it off later. I was on diet this morning, so I can check that off and so on. I have to run a story game on Friday, so I have both daily reminders all week, but also on my weekly list. Checks. A package to mail? Write it down on my notepad, transfer it to the appropriate list. I didn't get to something... transfer it to the next day. Forget it too many times, add it to the reminder board and others will help me remember.

Suspension of ego and removal of inappropriate expectations are necessary, but they will also organically occur through using the system. Feelings of failure become second chances. The time investment for the notebooks and white boards, once the overhead is complete, is just a few minutes a day, a half hour a week, and maybe an hour a month - once you get it rolling. It is an investment, so you have to commit and grind it until it is a habit. That is all any of it is: building deliberate habits, instead of reaction or indulgent types.

Right now we have started Spring work, which both historically and practically is a very, very hectic time. This has been exacerbated both last year and this year due to the ongoing pandemic. We had the advantage against such chaos though, and with a few discussions, we adapted pretty smoothly... because we have the stable foundation to build upon. Economic fluctuations from any quarter are also easier to adapt to with a good structure.

Example: We had an addition planned to our cabin. We can't do it when we planned. Current lumber prices amount to robbery with assault. It needs to be done, but instead of gnawing on that bone, we check the yearly project book. What can we do instead to move forward instead, and wait for the market to adjust or resources to grow. Same thing during the pandemic; can't take that trip, what can we do to improve our lives? Check the wish book. In the current case, we will plant more trees, in the latter we ordered in more science kits and crafting supplies. In both cases, we left the majority of resources allocated to the original area, but we still gained and maintained. Our response can be focused but adaptable, because we already did the homework.

Come Spring, we have spring cleaning, planting, homestead construction resumes, school is busy, travel starts, businesses pick up, and tons of maintenance issues need attended - on top of all the regular homesteading needs. But it's not all work, more play begins, too.

Example: We love LEGOS! At last check, we own over 125lbs of the bricks. Lots of totes. Think of what a passel of mad hombres can build if they schedule a whole day to just build and play, daily chores aside! Add into their earliest years that play or work is not done until it is all put away, and such an indulgence becomes painless. We are planning a Star Wars day, too, to play with the toys (why, yes... we do actually open those.) Last year we dressed up for cosplay all day at the end of March and called it "Quaranteen," and we are going to do it again this year!

We have a lot of time to play, because of the work management efficiency. We have resources to play with because of that same management. The goal is always maximum yield from minimum effort. Taking the time on the front end pays off the rest of the way down the line. Deferred pleasure is not a norm, but it make a solid argument to be more commonly adopted.

Work smart, plan hard, play harder. It pays off for your mental health, your physical health, and your spiritual health.

I struggle with life, what with all the aftermath of a life lived full tilt. The schedules, the plans, the lists, the rules... they keep me up and going, saving me precious resources to feel something besides fear, failure, and fatigue. With the guidelines established, I can use the rest of my life in the ways I feel serve me best. By being unselfish on the front end, I can be as selfish as I am able to be on the back end, without panic or remorse. Do your chores early, play all day.

There are not enough hours in the day to do all the things I want, but through efficient use of the one coin we are born with - time - there are at least some hope. Frankly, having a full system allows for illness and injury coverage, and that is unfortunately something I need more and more as the years pass.

Take notes on your life, honest notes. Then convert those into malleable policy and stick with it until the data says it is time to evolve. This works when I am alone, it works when it comes time to herd the squirrels, because they herd themselves. Just about, anyway. And when you seen your own success, or the success of those around you...

Well! That just raises hopes in abundance!

I am not an organized person. My mind is chaotic, anxious, and rushed. I have always put more on my plate than I could ever handle, even with my penchant for losing sleep. I built the basic structure in order to accomplish everything I wanted to from life. By and large I have been successful, and so has my family. They have taken my foundation and enhanced it, evolved it, and improved it in ways I never could have conceived. Self-discipline becomes a much easier burden to lift, with the right tools.

Collaboration and cooperation are excellent drugs. Even if it is just with yourself.

I finished writing. I'd had a lot more to say, but that was enough. This was a subject I had written about nearly every day for more than a decade, in some incarnation or another. I looked over at Bobb. His eyes were closed and he was snoring gently. His cigarette had gone out. My heart swelled. He had always done an honest job, organizing memories, storing vocabulary, finding lost things... and sometime losing useless things. When I thought about it, all the journals, all the yellow pads, all the white boards and lists, all the collaboration and cooperation - even when it was contentious! - was just a reflection of a lonely person trying to make enough order of the chaos to survive.

Sailing, firefighting, mountaineering, engineering, construction, gardening... poetry and art! These are all efforts to translate the outrageous fortunes of the universe into something that made sense, something survivable. And I had done them all and more.

I was breathing easier. I could check something off my list and be one step closer to playing a new game someone had found at a thrift store. I knew where I was, my mind was clear. I was in the cabin we had built, on the homestead we had founded, on a mountain above the valley I was born in. This cabin started life as a note on a yellow pad... and the system we have manifested it into existence through reasonable and easy to achieve steps. It only needed me to have enough self-discipline to commit to the planning long enough for it to become a habit. It was the product of living deliberately. During that same time, we traveled the country, grandchildren were born, art was crafted, and life went on.

Bobb was snoring. His desk was tidy, there were no files scattered on the floor. I knew there would be more fires in the vaults, more panic, and more chaos. What would come, would come. And we would meet it when it did. One for all, and all for one!

We would meet adversity with pencils and note pads, we would beat it back with white boards and lists. That was good enough. Bobb would be there with me until the bitter end. We would survive this personal health crisis, the economics of the pandemic world, and those slings and arrows Old Bill wrote about.

I drank the last of my tea, and moved on to the next task.

-- J.R.H.