A Prescription for Inscription

To have a good conversation, it matters what questions you ask.

Christmas is one week away.

Hopefully, you’ll be gathering with great people around good food and special traditions over the next 7-10 days to celebrate. Also hopefully, you will find a cozy corner and sit down with…, head out on an early morning walk with…, cuddle with a kiddo home from school…, pour a drink and join a few, or sit around a table with many. Opportunities for Christmas conversations are everywhere.

A few comments about questions:* 

• Do not tell what you could ask. Emphasize a listening over talking and telling this season
• Avoid “teaching” moments in social discussion by not asking what you already know
•  The best conversation questions are oriented towards discovery, require thinking and a sharing of what’s inside, instead of information regurgitation skimmed simply off the top.
• Questions that allow the other people to share what only they can know, allows the one answering the question to share something that will grow a relationship, unveil what’s underneath. We should mostly ask questions of others we cannot know the answer to already.
• Prompts or invitations help. “Tell me more about…” is a versatile conversation extender and places the opportunity to share back on the one whom you’ve sought in conversation.

One area of my own life where good questions are key right now is in after school conversations with Eli and Andi. I want to draw out of them notes about their almost 8 hour day away, without burdening them.

Drew sent me a link to a Huffington Post article with a list of 25 Ways to Ask Your Kid How School Was Today, without Asking, “How was school today?”

I bookmarked the list in my browser and tried to glance at it just before I’d shut my computer down in the minutes before Eli and Andi were getting off the bus.

The list was helpful and the kids noticed right away that the question was different, a little more intriguing to answer.

Here is a list of some questions that have led us to fun and connectings after school conversations. Some are from the article, others I’ve developed as I’m attempting to change my  default.

•  Tell me about something that made you laugh today.
•  Tell me about something that surprised you today. 
  
•  What did you do with a friend today?
•  When did you feel successful today?
•  Who did you help today?
•  When did you feel sad today?
•  Tell me a friend you had fun with during the day?
•  What was the highlight of your day?
•  What was hard about today?
•  Who’s someone you wish you could send to the moon for a day?
•  What did you hear your teacher say a lot about today
•  If you were the teacher, what would you have taught today?

I knew it was really helping when Eli came home one day and said, “Mom, I bet you want to know what surprised me today!” The invitation for them to share a story, lay down a frustration, show themselves as the expert on their experience, and let me in on what it’s like out there, is a five minute highlight of my day. Asking better questions of my kids has deepened our relationship and given me great new information. I have experienced the same fruits with some adults lately as well.

I hope Christmas conversations will change me this year.

What do you want to ask about this week? 

*For conversation and discussion purposes only. These guides do not apply to didactic exercises.

There was evening and there was mourning at the end of last week.

The run that was the Royal’s playoff dream, the revitalization of a city, and the bringing together of family, friends, fun, and great food, ended with a pop up ball that Pablo Sandoval had the gall to catch. That Panda, he carries the full weight of Eli’s ire- “I am so mad at Pablo…I can’t believe he had to catch that ball!” Andi’s more bummed about Bumgarner.

With Eli and Andi out of school for conferences Thursday, it was an easy decision to attend the season-celebration rally at Kauffman stadium. Laura and June were up for attending and we donned blue for one more day. Hustling into the stadium, we were welcomed warmly by ushers saying, “Come on in. We’re glad you’re here! Come on in kiddos” and the balloon arches leftover from the previous night’s celebratory preparations. We stood on the lower level in packed stands with other blue-clad, and a bit blue-hearted, faithful Royal’s fans.

The theme of the rally was gratitude. The city thanked the team, the team thanked the fans, the fans thanked the players. The loyal Royal fan base was back at the K, on their feet, with signs, cheers, and a few tears. Ten or so players showed up in street clothes and took pictures of the crowd on their phones. They received their Sly James gift of a bow tie and spoke with resilient pride and obvious emotion.

Laura remarked later that the rally was like a funeral. She’s spot on. It was a bunch of people gathered to remember, talk about, and celebrate what was great and alive and true, but is now lost, gone, and over.

We left feeling glad we came but really, really sad. Playing with the kids outside at a park helped, but the afternoon was terrible- I was dragging with a moping gloom! It didn’t help that I was carrying a sinus infection and cough sickness in addition to my broken blue heart.

Eli asked if I wanted to play catch at 4pm. We threw it around in the backyard which was really, really fun. A rooting into how we have changed (for one thing,Eli cares about playing baseball now), and that there’s so much to be grateful for and move on towards. Really, its a bummer they lost, but it’s a gift they got there at all.

Drew and I are still trying to compose a bit of a family diary of the whole month. We loved so much of what we saw, heard, cheered, talked about, crafted with paper (#paperroayls), and shared with friends and family.

While we compose ourselves and our memoir, might I suggest you read this one that is already published and excellent by Rany on the Royals writer,  RANY JAZAYERL.

It’s a well-written story with highlights, memories and good points. If you don’t read all of it, here’s a tidbit I found especially helpful in my healing.

What hurts so much isn’t that something was taken away from us, but knowing that something amazing and life-altering was very nearly given to us. A title is rare enough; to win a title like this — with a generation of irrelevance melted away in an instant — wouldn’t have  been a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It would have been something most fans will never experience. We were 90 feet away from the kind of triumph you might see once or twice a decade in all of sports. We were so close to it that we were planning for it — by necessity. The city had the parade route mapped out for today. There was champagne on ice in the clubhouse. Everything was perfect.

Everything but the ending. And that will live with us for a long time.

But if the ending will live with us, so will everything that made it possible. The Royals didn’t just bring us joy for a month or give us memories to last a lifetime; they gave us a sense of mattering again. The Royals are relevant. They are the champions of the American League. Yost will manage the All-Star Game next season. We didn’t #TakeTheCrown, but we still own the pennant — a pennant the Yankees and Red Sox and Tigers can never take from us. More than one Cubs fan has already told me he’d trade a testicle for the chance to lose a World Series by one run.

The Royals have returned to the land of the living. Sports are pain, but pain is something only the living can feel. For far too long, the Royals weren’t good enough to trigger any nerve endings. You stand up after your foot’s been asleep for 29 years, and the pins and needles are going to drive you crazy for a while. But it’s better than being numb.

Here’s to a week of watching for other ways we can wake up, come together, and be relevant in making good in the world.

A smattering of reads

Around this Osborne house, everyone is reading something.

Drew is wrapped up in Royal’s tweets, blogs, articles, statistics, opinions and advice.

Oakley is into picking out his own books and likes Runaway Bunny, How do Dinosaurs…., Brown Bear, Brown Bear, the “Tractor Book”, Goodnight Moon, and the Curious George book from the library that was supposed to be for Andi.

Eli is reading about baseball from long ago (ie: Shoeless Joe Jackson) and Googling how to throw different pitches. You’ll find Eli in one of two places these days: in the chair next to the window with a book, or in the backyard with a baseball and a glove- by himself or with whoever will play.

Andi was awarded a certificate for surpassing her reading goal for the first quarter at school She has stacks of books scattered in her wake- beside the couch where she “watches” [mostly Andi reads through] Royals games, or next to her bed for “rest time”. She is on a reading romp.

I’m coming off a summer reading binge where I loved following suggestions and borrowing books that filled hours of my time…escape? Maybe. Enjoyment? Yes! I read many books now movies and am trying to see what I read. Since July, some of what I’ve read includes: Where’d Ya Go Bernadette, The Spellman Files, This is Where I Leave You, Half of The Shadow of the Wind, About a Boy, Cryptid Hunters and Zach’s Lie  by Roland Smith, in efforts to see if Eli was ready to read them, and lastly, The Book Thief. 

On Andi’s midterm report, her teacher said she has a better grasp of fiction than non-fiction and she should be encouraged to read more non-fiction at home.

Fiction or non-fiction? What shapes our minds more aptly? What does Andi need from a non-fiction book to enhance her comprehension beyond what a fiction book can provide?

I firmly believe, just because something didn’t actually happen, doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Stories can tell the truth.

Jesus was one of the best story tellers- using parables to teach instead of straight dictation of religious facts. A parable is a short story used to illustrate a moral truth. Jesus thought story could shape spirit and direct behavior. Painting pictures with words, using characters and conflict and offering a conclusion, can make a brain path to a new reality for a real life situation.

The Royals are consuming much of our mental, emotional, and pphysicallife (yes, this post season is affecting what we eat and drink, whether or not we are up early to work out, and if we get enough sleep!) and they are directing our reading! The Royals are also writing a story- a non-fiction one with narrative invitations towards drama, hope, believing, and rallying. The non-fiction part of this real life KC adventure has the spirit of a fiction story someone should write.

We will share with Andi the non-fiction facts of nature, history, science or sports when it’s happening around her and upon assignments from school.  I think the best non-fiction reading happens when we need it- like me now. I’m taking a fiction break and reading about spiritual and emotional health for me, and a book on parenting strong spirited kids.

Fiction will not fault us. Non-fiction works when we yearn for the facts and why’s behind the what’s we see and experience.

I have to think that Andi and the Royals will be okay and that both are shaped by stories of fantasy with some fact and history all woven together.