Story Spine practice 07 DEC 2020

 

Story Spine practice 06 DEC 2020

 

Story Spine practice 05 DEC 2020

 

Story Spine practice 04 DEC 2020

 

Story Spine practice 03 DEC 2020

 

Story Spine practice 02 DEC 2020

 Yesterday’s

Story Spine practice 01 DEC 2020

 For December, I will try to write a Story Spine every day. Let’s see how I do. I have a format. I have a method to get started.

Day two of the new normal

Woke up at 4am to drive to VT - not to quarantine from my guys, but because I was planning to anyway. I loaded the car and left with no one awake and no one much on the roads. It was a dark and rainy drive until just about halfway - the sunrise on my right and a full moon on my left - glorious!

Landed at the cabin in time to throw stuff in the fridge and do my work day: meetings, respond to email, meaningless crap mostly. I explained my lack of symptoms and the unfolding process to everyone, over and over, like a birth story or a death story or the story of his proposal, like getting COVID-19 is an exceptional life event. 

Discussed with my boss how this might be a huge victory for feminism. That the new normal requires operations to allow for everyone, including men, to experience the need to be out of the office for 2 weeks to 2 months, with no warning and no guarantees. Managing operations around parental leave will seem like a luxury after this - we may even become more humane about it.

I woke up very clear, recognizing that the day before I was more impaired than I had realized. By the time  I went to bed, I knew I was still missing some fairly important part of how I normally operate. I installed 6 pieces of wood, then went to bed and fell asleep like a dead person.

Day one of the new normal

This morning, I woke up really NOT wanting to do my day. But I was doing it anyway. Around the bad attitude, I had figured out how to manage the load - barely, but balanced precariously. Then I got the call - a positive test result.

I thought but I’ve been so careful! Why? How? I had a negative result yesterday!?

I’ve been saying for weeks that we need to contingency plan for this and we haven’t had time. Or made time. What to do when there are insufficient resources to be adequately prepared? This is where traditional leadership methods are woefully inadequate.

I haven’t got over feeling like a plague carrier. And overly responsible for both having caught it and possibly spread it.

It makes no sense to me that I can’t catch it if I am masked and stay six feet away in intervals of 15 minutes or less, but once I have it, I have to quarantine to make sure I don’t spread it. Wouldn’t I also not spread it masked and six feet away in intervals of 15 minutes or less? The illogic of it is bewildering to me. As is the ardent way in which the health care workers have explained it to me.

Anywho - to bed, I’ll most likely kill you the morning.

Why is it a bad idea?

One of my favorite parts of the research and learning process is the part between when I have formulated the problem/question but not started looking yet. I take some time to wonder: what are the possibilities? Could there be zombies? Spontaneous combustion? Infinite ooze? Will anyone be eaten? Will it be me?

I must admit, that usually I find nothing nearly so bizarre. Occasionally, though, I find something very random - like buttne.

Anywho. Tomorrow I will start to research why it is a bad idea to glue fabric to a floor. If I cannot find a compelling source that tells me otherwise, I will start experimenting.

Story Spine - with Oracle Cards (the map/journey set)

Story Spines - a tool developed by Kenn Adams in the 1990s (I believe) for improv. I am exploring their utility in:

• dislodging creative stuckness
• exploring the stories we tell ourselves
• transforming our stories
• fun exercises that cause surprised delight

February 2020

(rules for this one: start writing - when I get stuck, pick a CARD)

Once there was a woman who always knew the right things to do.

And every day, she did  the right things: over and over and more and more.

Until one day, she realized she didn't care about right or things to do and absolutely detested over and over and more and more - in fact she despised everything about all of her days. But she didn't know anything else. She was lost.

And because of that, she made a COMMITMENT, any commitment, and transformed herself from lost to trapped.

And because of that, she started destroying herself (since destroying others was definitely not the right thing to do) turning herself into motion without feeling - a MAGIC STREAM. (note 1)

And because of that, she flowed free of her trap, and in the way of water, flowed to the lowest place - settled, serene, and STRONG.

Until finally, she could LISTEN to the music of the world - tracking resonance and dissonance.

And so, she could start to find another way to HEAL THE OUCH.

Note 1: could be fun to pick up from here and see what happens if this turns into a pee story

Beginning...again

Here I am again, using writing to transform the haziest of fantasies into reality. I expect that this is where I will explore and coalesce my ideas about ... everything.

To start, I am exploring a model that weaves together

• context, 
• leadership, 
• curiosity, 
• the nature of reality, 
• the nature of power and relationships to power, 
• stories, 
• curiosity, 
• the nature of being human, 
• sustainability, 
• education, 
• curiosity, 
• learning, 
• research, 
• scholarship, 
• curiosity, 
• imagination, 
• ideas, 
• dreams, 
• and curiosity 

into a composition that resonates for me. Then I will transform it into a tool-belt to do the same for others.

So, a lot of curiosity. It is fundamental to my nature. It is the melody that everything else must resonate with to achieve harmony. I realize that curiosity is not this for everyone or even most people. But everyone has a melody, and I believe (with no evidence - that's why it is a belief) that harmonies can be found for all of them. The resulting composition may not be to everyone's taste. It may please only one person, only two, a small community, a state, a country (at least a majority of the voting population.)

If you don't like the answer you've got, find another one - even if you have to build it from scratch.