Step By Little Step

My son poured out the tiny pieces of a new Lego set--close to 200 of them, of assorted shapes and colors, most looking like nothing in particular. An hour later, having gone page by page through the instruction booklet, we (yes, he let me help!) had created a tiny little kitchen that included a checkered tile floor, a coffee maker, a sink with a faucet, and an oven containing a tray of cookies. Who knew that you could create what really looks like a coffee maker from a few tiny little pieces?
 
As we finished, and I examined our work, I thought about how, page by simple page, the instruction book had taken us from a pile of pieces to this new creation, almost unimaginable when just looking at the pieces. So often, we expect to have things all laid out for us. We expect to see the finished product before we start working toward it. I suppose that here we did too, as we had the picture on the set box. But in that hour of creation, we simply followed the steps and let our creation evolve. And the results were truly amazing. It reminded me that sometimes, it feels good just to go step by step, to trust that we will get to the end, even if we can't quite see what the end will be. We won't always have an instruction book, but we can still follow small steps to get to a big result. Sometimes, the result is a major event. And sometimes, it's simply a tiny coffee maker made out of little plastic bricks.

Self-Preservation, aka Watch Out For The Red Flags

We find ourselves in all sorts of situations that test our intelligence, our stamina, our patience, our self-worth. How, then, do we know when these situations are opportunities for growth, and when they are simply red flags to make a change? I don't have the answers, really--just a few thoughts...
 
1. Does the situation involve people who are worth knowing, because they can teach us something, or just because they are interesting people? If yes, maybe it's an opportunity.
 
2. Does the situation interfere with our doing what we need to do in the rest of our lives? If yes, maybe it's a red flag.
 
3. Is the situation still teaching us new skills? If yes, maybe it's an opportunity.
 
4. Is the situation battering our self-worth? If yes, maybe it's a red flag.
 
5. Is the situation providing us with challenges to which we rise? If yes, maybe it's an opportunity.
 
6. Is the situation providing us with challenges that are, too often, impossible to meet? If yes, maybe it's a red flag.
 
7. Is the situation a place we'd like our children or best friend to experience? If yes, maybe it's an opportunity.
 
8. Is the situation someplace we wouldn't wish on anyone? If yes, maybe it's a red flag.
 
9. Is the situation leaving us tired at the end of the day, but still oddly energetic for the next? If yes, maybe it's an opportunity.
 
10. Is the situation wiping us out daily, with no opportunity for mental or physical recovery? If yes, maybe it's a red flag.
 
Sometimes, it's hard to practice self-preservation. But if we can learn to see the red flags in among the opportunities, at least, perhaps, we have a fighting chance.

What's New Today?

Though I worked at the same place (ABC/One Life to Live) in the same job (Associate Director) for a very long time, I can honestly say that each day was different. It wasn't just that I rotated between days "in the booth" (coordinating cameras and taking edit notes while the show was being shot), "in the online" (doing show fixes and assorted show paperwork), and "in the edit" (editing full shows and screening them with the EP). I also worked on a production team that included directors and producers so different in their approaches that the same production day in two different directors' hands could turn out as different as, well, night and day (right down to the time of night or day when we wrapped).
 
When I went out into the big wide world, I referred often to "the lovely combination of production and editing" that I'd had there, a combination that I was fairly sure I would never find again. I haven't found it. But what I have found is that just as I did and learned something new there every day, you really can do and learn something new every day in just about any place you are. Some days, for me, it is a new editing shortcut. Other days it is a snippet of literature from my kids' homework. Still others, it is a revelation about how to work with a new person or a new team. And on all of these days, learning something new lets you finish the day feeling as though you accomplished something.
 
My ABC/One Life to Live days are long gone. But one of the best things about them--the days varied enough to keep it fresh--can still inform my life. As long as I keep my mind open, and I keep asking, "What's new today?"

Creating and Reporting

Recently, I have been spending a number of hours each week doing a new kind of work--transcribing. In this case, I am mostly adding timecode (corresponding to the video) to an already created transcript--it's a "deliverable," one of a series of written documents that distribution companies want to accompany the actual show videos. Each day, I watch the video, a few words or shots at a time, and insert timecodes matching every character speech or camera shot change, and adjust the script if the words don't quite match. As far as I'm concerned, it's a new skill in a freelance life, and for a freelancer, new skills can be even more important than new paychecks. (Well, maybe not more, but...)
 
While the transcribing goes hand in hand with the video watching of sorts that I do daily as an editor, I am realizing that the main difference is that transcribing requires reporting of information, rather than creating or interpreting of that information. When I am editing, each shot and shot length is a choice. Each sentence might be examined and its audio rearranged. Each effect is added to help tell the story. As I transcribe, the story is already told--I just have to report, with precision, how it is told. So, while I am finding that transcribing could definitely be a new marketable skill, I am also finding that it is a fantastic change from editing. After hours of making decisions every second (actually every few frames--fractions of seconds), I can spend time NOT making decisions, but simply reporting what I see. It is freeing.
 

As I gather my new skill sets--this has been a productive few months for that--I am becoming aware of the importance of varying those skill sets. Though you don't want to be a person who does so many things that no one knows where to place you, you do want to have enough variety in your skills that you always have somewhere to place yourself, whether you're in a "choices every second" mood or not.
 
When I went out on my own after the soaps, I quickly realized that I would likely never find again the lovely combination of jobs I'd had there. What I am learning these days is that you can often make your own combinations--ones that use all of your talents, just in different ways. The trick is giving them a try. And accepting that sometimes you create, and other times, it's okay just to report.

Put Your Mask On First

If you've ever been on an airplane, you've heard this phrase as part of the safety demonstration. No matter how often I fly, it always jumps out at me. As parents, we are, in general, conditioned to meet our children's needs first, not our own, so to grab oxygen for ourselves first, before assisting our kids or someone else's seems, well, just wrong. Yet, as I came home tonight, so consumed by thoughts of work and work drama that I was barely able to concentrate on my kids' questions about course selection and birthday details and Minecraft, I had a sudden understanding of the flight safety instructions. On the plane, if we don't ensure our own oxygen first, we may be unable to help those needing our assistance. Is it so surprising, then, that in life, when we don't resolve our own issues, we are not much help trying to resolve our kids' issues?

Perhaps when we sign on as parents, we agree to put our children's needs first. I would venture to say that most of us do, most of the time. But as my work--whether changes in it, intensity of it, or lack of it--seems to take center stage, far more than it did when I had a full-time, long-term job, I am, little by little, learning to "put my mask on first." These days, I allow what went on with me to matter, sometimes before listening to what happened to my kids. These days, I'm taking a few moments to decompress before jumping into my role as Chief Negotiator, or even delegating some of the negotiating responsibility. These days, I'm grabbing a nap on the weekends if I need to and grabbing a coffee in the morning if it feels good. Sometimes, these things mean my kids need to wait a moment for their "oxygen masks." Most of the time, these things make me better equipped to give them the "masks" and a whole lot more.

I imagine that the airplane safety instructions were developed based on years of studying human behavior and health needs. As for my own instructions, I've just looked around a little and realized what works. And sometimes, that means putting my mask on first. So that I am really able to offer assistance to others.

Love When You Can, Cry When You Have To

It's not that there's been any crying. I just kind of got this Dan Fogelberg song stuck in my head, and it occurred to me that it actually applies to a lot of things. You see, aside from loving and crying, many, many things happen in a day, in a week, in a month. Work and home situations, both expected and not, both desirable and not, seem to surround us, forcing us to process more than it sometimes seems is possible. How, then, do we do justice to everything? How do we survive the ups and downs of work? How do we manage the tasks, both significant and mundane, of parenthood? How do we keep a household running, despite things that break and schedules that change and challenges that, well, challenge us?

It seems to me that the most efficient (and successful) method must have a little of this lyric to it. In a freelance life, sometimes there is no work, other times, too much. So you work when you can. In a family life, there are schedules and emotions to be managed. So you stress when you have to. And, of course, in either life, you're best off when you let yourself do the things you can while you can and allow yourself to cry over the things you need to when you need to.

I find myself writing quite often about control and about the things we can do to feel just a little more in control of our out of control lives. Maybe Dan Fogelberg had it right--to gain some feeling of control, perhaps we simply start with "love when you can, cry when you have to."

Directed By Kids

My daughters wrote and directed a play--a musical. Not a "big musical" (for all of you Aladdin fans out there), but a musical nonetheless, complete with choreography, multiple young stars, and flowers for the directors at the end.
 
Obviously, I am proud of them--who isn't proud when her children do something worthy of note (it should, actually, be noted that their brother was one of their comic actors). But what makes them and the event blogworthy is not my pride in their accomplishment. It is, rather, what I learned from them in the process. You see, my only real participation in making the show happen was picking them up after rehearsals and, as the parent of a performer, making sure their brother arrived in his correct wardrobe. They interacted with twenty or so kids and those kids' parents. They wrote and rewrote. They negotiated conflicts and hurt feelings. They came up with movement that could happen in a small space. In essence, they provided a manual on management, which included...
 
1. Create something you're proud of and you believe in, and then invest in it.
 
2. Gather people who will believe with you.
 
3. Allow input, but not so much that you compromise your idea.
 
4. Give praise, not just criticism.
 
5. Listen. And communicate, even when you think you might be saying things people already know.
 
6. Understand that your team comes from all over--different team members will respond to different things.
 
7. Enjoy what your team makes of what you started--without them, it would still just be words on a page.
 
8.  Learn from the missteps, and, if necessary, step just a little differently next time.
 
9. Clap for your team and yourself at the end--who doesn't appreciate a little applause for a job well done?
 
This weekend, thanks to my daughters, I learned some things about good management that, I would venture to say, could be pretty useful in a lot of grown-up spheres. Turns out you can learn a lot when you're directed by kids.