T-Shirt Life Review

Today's pearls of accidental wisdom come to you from the air conditioned comfort of my home. At 8:40 in the morning, it is already a very humid 73 degrees outside, and temperatures are expected to go up quickly into the mid- to high-80s. Of course, those of you in the Deep South are probably saying to yourselves, “What a wimp! She thinks that's hot!?” Yes, I do. It is on days like this one that I miss the cool, summer fog of San Francisco.

Since I will not be taking my daily walk until it cools down this evening, assisting me today ~ filling in for all of our animal friends around little Lake Hampton ~ is my shy cat, "Holly with the Big Green Eyes". She likes to sit near me as I type; and every once in awhile, she'll come over and poke me with her nose, or tap me with a paw, to remind me that it is time for me to adore her.




By design, I do not have any clients on Fridays. So, Friday is my day to do household chores. The first assignment ... the laundry ... which I usually start within a half-hour of having my morning coffee. Actually, I don't mind doing the laundry. It's a heck-of-a-lot better than grocery shopping ~ although Beth, my “I Love to Cook” friend, would beg to differ.

But being an organizational coach, laundry is a process that kind of fits right in with my natural approach to life. You gather clothes, and sort them into piles of like-things, and then clean those things by tossing them into the washer and dryer. Finally, you fold, organize them into “put away piles” and then put them away. And I can be doing other things while the washer and dryer are doing their thing.

Of course, there's only my husband and I creating our dirty laundry so I usually have only two loads of wash. So, granted, I probably wouldn't feel so good about this process if I had a week's worth of wash for several children. Whoa! I just got a flashback of my daughter's teen years . . the “wear it five minutes and throw it on the floor” era of her life.

Breathing ... breathing ... releasing ...
letting go of the scary memory ....

Okay, I'm back.

As I was saying, I don't really mind doing the laundry. Actually, when I get to the folding stage, sometimes I use it as an opportunity to do a gentle inner journey ... a sort of mini Life Review. And what do I use to guide me on that journey?

T-shirts.

No really. Think about it. You buy them as mementos of a trip you took, a concert you saw, or a special event you attended. Friends and family members buy one for you as a gift/memento from their vacation. You seldom have to wonder where they came from, because they most often have the city and/or state name right on them. And sometimes, they even have dates on them, so you don't have figure out when you got them.

Like this oldie but goody, from 1997, when I still worked in politics. I was the Communications Director for the County Legislators and Supervisors Association, a membership lobbyist group. It was one of my very favorite jobs.

Every year at our annual conference, our Executive Director gave each of the staff members a token thank you gift for all of the hours and hard work we put into making the event happen. This T-shirt has special meaning for me because of its connection to the staff's behind the scenes conference theme of The Wizard of Oz. I cast myself as the Wicked Witch of the West, and the E.D. had this T made especially for me. It was the last conference I did with them; I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area about a month later.

And speaking of moving to San Francisco, here's a San Fran T that I bought on our big recognizance trip to find an apartment. My husband was going to be moving about a month ahead of me. So, I wore this quite often during that month to feel connected with him until I could join him.

And then there's Maui. Strangely, Hawaii is a place I had never felt compelled to visit. It was my husband's idea to go there for the holidays in December of 1999. Wow! What a magical place. And every time I put this on, I'm wearing lots of magical memories.

[Holly Cat Adoration Break]

Now this next T-shirt brings me to a special time in life. By September of 2001, we were living back in Upstate New York. (The life of a computer geek can be quite transient.) With this relocation, I had the opportunity to continue my education, studying the holistic psychology of Psychosynthesis by training at The Synthesis Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. The artwork on this special T is the work of one of my Trainers, Clare Goodwin. She is an artist who has a special interest in creating Mandalas. She is also an astrologer, and it was great to have a teacher with whom I could share that interest.



This next T brings back memories of a fun afternoon during a chaotic time of life. 2003 was a particularly difficult year. Work layoffs, two unexpected deaths among family and friends, and the growing pains of reinventing my vision for my professional future. In the midst of all of that craziness, my husband and I attended the grand opening of the Guitar Center in Albany, NY. Both musicians (he plays bass and I play keyboards), music is how we met. As two of the first 100 people to enter the store, we each got a free T-shirt. We spent a lot of time playing instruments and checking out CDs and sheet music. All we could afford to buy that day was a set of guitar strings. But we had so much fun in that couple of hours. And, these T-shirts are our favorite things to wear to just lounge around the house.


And for the grand finale . . . here's my favorite T to wear for fun. Lots of dragonflies adorn both the front and back. Dragonflies are my very favorite beings in nature, and they tend to gather around me when I take walks in areas that they inhabit. This T also has a connection to California. I bought it in a little country store just off Highway 1. I was there with Connie B, who has been a dear friend since 1972. We had flown out to attend the Women's Dream Quest, held every year at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

So ends my guided Life Review via folding T-shirts.

I'll bet as you have been reading this,
you've started to do your own T-shirt Life Review.

Do you have a favorite T-shirt ~ or sweatshirt ~
with special memories attached to it?

Or maybe the memory is connected one of
your son's or daughter's Ts.

Why not share the story with us now.


And the next time you start folding that laundry,
take advantage of another opportunity to do a
T-Shirt Life Review.

Peace & Light.

Jae
(and Holly)