"Always Make New Mistakes"

Today I see a fun magnet in a bookstore. It simply says, "Always make new mistakes."

I smile because it's exactly the kind of mindset that sets someone free to do extraordinary things.

My youngest considers the strange advice, and I can tell she's wondering about this. Normally, she hears advice to do her best, accomplish more, and earn good grades. But this? This tells her to commit herself to a particular kind of failure.

This kind of failure gives you permission. It sets you on a no-holding-back kind of adventure. Go, child! Get out there and make incredible mistakes as you live the fullest life possible. 

This, I can do.

I imagine us waking up tomorrow and breathing a great sigh of relief. We're implored to get out there and make some new mistakes.

I plan on making some marvelous ones.

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Rose-Moles All in Stipple

Today I see the trout that Gerard Manley Hopkins describes in his poem Pied Beauty. For many years, I've taught students about the "rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim," but I've never actually seen them myself. (I never knew what "stipple" meant. It's an artistic term for marking something with little dots.)

We're on a hike in the mountains, and right there in a little mountain stream, I see them. If you look closely, you can see them in the water.

Like Hopkins, I proclaim, "Glory be to God for dappled things!" Yes, a Clever Artist stippled these fish to blend right into the stream bed. Their strange beauty--dappled and counter--is perfect for how they were meant to live best. Enjoy the poem below and delight in your own dappled, strange, fickle self:

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;	5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:	10
Praise him.

Breaking a Voice

When my daughter was just a toddler learning to speak, her older sister would constantly interrupt her. The little one would say, "Stop breaking my voice!"

I've been thinking about my problem of interrupting these past few days. I have a terrible problem with interrupting people. Part of it is rooted in a good thing; I love what you're saying and want to comment on it all. I think quickly and love to verbally synthesize (great for teaching, terrible for friendship conversations).

But the other part of this problem is an excessive self-focus; what I want to say becomes more important that what you are saying.

I have places I want this conversation to go, so let's get on with it. I have things I want to say, so let me just insert myself right here. 

Last night, a wise friend reminds me to give people a long, long, long time to answer completely and get out everything they want to say.

Let them finish. Let them finish! 

Then wait. Then wait some more. 

Then wait more. 

Then comment. Then ask a question or offer your thoughts. 

I'm working on this. My friend lets me practice with her. It's so hard!

I don't want to break anyone's voice today.

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What advice do you have for interruptors?