Microseasons, Timeline & Agism (THIS IS HOW WE GROW now available on Amazon)

Hello Readers,

I love getting an email called “One Good Fact” from Britannica (here)

While putting together the book, This is How we Grow (2023) available on Amazon & Kindle, the topic of “microseasons” was featured from One Good fact. For about 1,000 years, Japanese folks had a calendar with 72 microseasons with names like “Crickets chirp around the door” and “Mist starts to linger.”

I smiled at how descriptive those titles were.  

C – Britannica

 

Microseasons & Timelines (Agism)

The topic of microseasons reminded me that sometimes life can be enriched when we break things down into smaller parts. Rather than two or four seasons, we can look at life with smaller phases. Maybe not 72 seasons throughout the year – but perhaps we can break things down a little more in order to savor the days and enhance engaged presence. 

I started thinking about timelines and how sometimes we really need to break them down. For example, I remember that when children are two years old – that is such a major “year of change”  so we often would say how many months rather than just the year.  There was a huge difference between two years and two months and two years and six months (or two years and 10 months). Maybe it is like that during all of the early years of growing up – and maybe we should look at this during adulthood.

Maybe all timelines need to be reconsidered and the way we look at age (and stage) needs to be approached with more care!

The microseasons topic had me thinking about agism.

I define agism as using age to limit, categorize, or put someone in a disadvantaged state or using age as a deciding factor rather than considering skill, ability, or talent.

I know the topic of “agism” can be very serious; however, for today’s post I am only talking about the informal agism I often encounter. For example, a local musician was thinking that he was too old to still do certain rock music! What? No way – keep on rockin’, dude. He had such limited thinking. I am so glad The Rolling Stones never thought their age could limit their ability to perform their music.  

I am also glad that TobyMac never thought he was getting too old to jam because one of my favorite albums of all time is The Elements, which never would have happened if this steadfast musician thought he had to make more “age-appropriate” music. How would we even define age-appropriate music for him? Sigh…

And if TobyMac tried to change (to become more age appropriate) would he not have partnered with Sheryl Crow to make this nice little version of the Promised Land song:

Satchel Paige noted that “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”

I like that quote from Paige, a man who never knew his real age and that outlook shaped his approach to age and how he coped with the serious social challenges of his time. 

That leads to mentioning the book, This is How we Grow, which I am the editor and a contributing author with.  When I was first asking for submissions, I was looking for “life-span” growth stories. I wanted to offer stories about change across decades and while that topic still came our way naturally within the chapters, I modified the focus to share  general “personal growth” stories and that helped me focus my chapter.  Rather than write about my father-n-law and the growth I saw he had during his last six years, I was able to write about a short season in our life. It was a bit of a microseason that came with unexpected stress and challenge; however, it also came with silver linings and really great outcomes!

At the height of the recent stress for us at Priorhouse, I thought about looking at my life through microseasons and some fun titles came my way:

• “The ball and chain of a misaligned realtor”
• “Enjoyment of hyberboom and house projects”
• “31 days of drinking liquid CoQ10 from the fridge door to combat stress”.
• Most authors know that going through tough times can often provide rich content, and so another silly microseason title I came up with was “Painting, and cleaning spilled paint, with a feeling of fecundity.” 

I never used any of those microseason titles, but I ended up closing my chapter with reflection about how easy it is to clean up spilled paint.  Here is a snippet:

“A recent paint spill was cleaned up in less than five minutes. I marveled at how fast it went. The reason I cleaned up the paint so easily, and with little stress, was that I had previous experience. After the gray paint spilled in the guest house, I was stopped in my tracks. The cleaning detour was inconvenient and at first, I was nervous the floor would be ruined. However, I quickly remembered that I cleaned up spilled paint in our last house and knew it was not as bad as it looked.This reminded me of problems in life. Sometimes when things come our way, it might seem more daunting and overwhelming than it really is. I also realized that the experience of moving through trials fortifies us and preps us for handling further trials” (p.232). Excerpt from Chapter 11, Seeing Through by Yvette Prior, in This is How Grow (2023)

 

Thanks for reading today’s post.

• Have you ever heard of Japan’s microseasons before?

• Do you have any fun little titles for a microseason you recently experienced? 

• Are you glad a new month has started? Welcome August 2023!

 

 

• This Is How We Grow is available here on Amazon & Kindle
• Goodreads here
• Priorhouse master Page is here: https://priorhouse.wordpress.com/this-is-how-we-grow-book-coming-summer-2023/
• Common back soon because we will host a book giveaway in late August 2023 

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