Tuning in, or maybe talking less?
The art of listening, traveling, and asking for what you want.
Howdy! A hearty welcome to Traipsing About, my newsletter about reclaiming creativity and ditching tired personal paradigms. No bot writing here—I get credit for all goofy drawings and obvioss typos.
We went from a bunch of snow to spring in the span of a week here, and I’m ready! Two drawings to sum it up:
From the Traipsing About printing press this week:
Travel, better.
Asking for what you want.
Traipsing About Sparks quotes
Traipsing Tidbits: mountain climbing, data privacy, music, tea, peacocking.
In case you missed it: last week’s Sparks about how I might be happier with less triggered so many great email responses! Thanks for those.
Afterward, I stumbled on this spot-on quote from Glennon Doyle from my past reading:
Our next life will always cost us this one. If we are truly alive, we are constantly losing who we just were, what we just built, what we just believed, what we just knew to be true....
Gulp. Letting go is hard—and exhilarating.
50 years of travel tips
Spring travel fever is upon me! I investigated what we really seek when we travel in a recent newsletter and continue to think about the concept.
Similarly, this list of 50 Years of Travel Tips from Kevin Kelly is chock full of ideas. I especially endorse these:
The rate you go is not determined by how fast you walk, bike or drive, but by how long your breaks are. Slow down. Take lots of breaks. The most memorable moments—conversations with amazing strangers, an invite inside, a hidden artwork—will usually happen when you are not moving. D’s note: So many cool experiences happened during pauses on our bike tours or hanging out with the door of the camper van open.
You want to see it all and you are likely to never return, so the temptation is to pile it on, maximize your visit. Paradoxically when you are traveling you should minimize the amount of time you spend in transit once you arrive. The hard-to-accept truth is that it is far better to spend more time in a few places than a little time in a bunch of places. D’s note: Unless you looove airplanes or buses, if we’re spending more time in transit than enjoying the destinations, what’s the point? (Bike touring is different because it is the experience.)
Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses, or naval history, or dinosaur digs will lead to far more adventures, and memorable times than a grand tour of famous places. It doesn’t even have to be your passions; it could be a friend’s, family member’s, or even one you’ve read about. The point is to get away from the expected into the unexpected.
Ask for what you want
Something I’ve learned: people cannot read minds, even when it’s obvious they should be able to, dammit!
*sigh* So if I want to change a situation, I have to ask for it.
From expressing communication preferences with friends to tough convos with employees to boundaries with family, it’s surprising how just clearly and lovingly stating a need works wonders. At the very least, it gets a conversation going.
Which brings me to the below comic from Sketchplanations, which just nails this concept. May we all raise our chances of getting what we want by asking!
Traipsing Spark
Usually I’m a good listener. (Cue friends responding to this and roasting me!)
ANYway… I at least try to be a good listener. However, I’m an excitable person and sometimes just grab the mic in conversations. So, for this week, my question is:
How can I be a better listener?
Rewinding the convo—From The School of Life:
"The good listener is always looking to take the speaker back to their last reasonable idea, saying, “Yes, yes, but you were saying just a moment ago …” or “So, ultimately, what do you think it was about?” The good listener is, paradoxically, a skilled interrupter. But they don’t, as most people do, interrupt to intrude their own ideas; they interrupt to help the other get back to their original, more sincere yet elusive concerns."
D’s note: Must. Interrupt. To clarify. Not to talk more.
Stay centered—From Robert Frost,
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
D’s note: Sometimes conversations can feel like I’m justifying or clarifying something when it’s not needed. Interesting to consider how much of this is a reaction or defense mechanism.
Don’t jump to conclusions—I love Malcolm Gladwell’s writing, including this wisdom from Talking to Strangers:
The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly.
D’s note: How many times have I spoken for a friend or Chelsea and been totally wrong about their take on a situation? Too many!
And just remember these words from The Poisonwood Bible: "When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations."
My Sparks takeaways this week: bring things back around, keep an even keel, let people tell you who they are, and just.stop.talking.
Traipsing About Tidbits
🏔️💪My friend Cass just wrote a book about badass women climbing the world’s biggest peaks.
🚗🔒 I got Ford outta my biz after reading on Consumer Reports about how to stop your car from collecting data about you.
🎶✨ I wrote this listening to a great 12-hour mellow playlist by Aphex Twin (via Austin Kleon)—stream on Spotify or YouTube
⚡ If you change your own oil, do yourself a huge favor and buy an oil drain valve (I use Fumoto).
That’s the end of this round of Traipsing About! Til next time…
Dakota
Thanks for reading! I appreciate your time and attention in a world where it’s a precious commodity.
Thanks for keeping up on this blog Dakota. I've been a bit absent these past months due to a knee replacement but doing well now and starting to catch up. I enjoy your witty writings and sage advice tremendously.
Thank you. Judy Petullo