Review: "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan

I read this book last weekend. It was quite good; good enough that I stayed up late twice and took it to my son's basketball game -- to read only during the breaks in the action, of course.

It is a memoir by a young mom (late thirties) with breast cancer. The Middle Place is "that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap." As much as anything, this is a memoir about growing up as Kelly Corrigan and her current relationships with her parents, especially her father.

I think this is actually the better developed theme, although I might be biased. I'm a different kind of daughter than Kelly Corrigan, and my father died long before I had cancer, but I have still viewed much of my life through the lens of being my father's daughter. So... I get it.

When I read a breast cancer story, I'm looking for those moments when I read something that's really unique and intriguing. I had one of those moments in Chapter 5 when Corrigan writes that a "sick part of me actually wants the bad diagnosis" just to prove that she is not a hypochondriac, to show that sometimes fears are justified, to "know how I would perform." These thoughts are of course just a "flashes of curiosity" that she then secretly takes back. It takes a lot of courage and self-examination to be that forthright. Add in the fact that there's an Edgar Allen Poe reference in the passage, and you've definitely pulled me in :)

Speaking of Poe, the other reason that I was eager to read the book was that I thought that Corrigan was from Baltimore (like me). I was wrong. Her dad is from Baltimore and my city really doesn't figure into the book. Oh well.

But I did live in Central California for a long time. Corrigan, a Bay Area resident, mentions that a woman at the hospital "looks like she's come into the big city from her farm in Central California -they don't sell shoes like hers in the city."

Hmmm. OK, to be sure the Central Valley isn't anything like San Francisco, and Bay Area residents often take little swipes at Central California...but for the record I really loved living in Fresno. It has charms all its own. One thing that I've been blessed with is a bloom-where-you're-planted mentality that sure came in quite handy during the years that we spent moving all around the country.


But I digress... I really enjoyed The Middle Place as a fast-paced read that is tailor-made for those of us who had to tell both our children and our parents that "I have breast cancer."


Edited to add content Jan 21, 2008.

My Poor Little Tree!

From this:

To this:

in five days

GTD and Me

Has cancer taught you to slow down, to savor the moment, to spend more time "being" and less time "doing"?

If so, then I'd like to be more like you. But I'm just not wired that way.

I do worry far less about the future than I used to, but I live with a heightened sense of urgency. I have big plans, and I'm afraid that I'm going to run out of time.

As a result, I love January and the promise of a new year. I can't relate to people who resist resolutions. So what if I make the same (or similar) resolutions year after year? I don't care. I like to have goals. I like to make lists. I like to dream big.

For several years, I have been loosely operating with David Allen's Getting Things Done method of productivity. While I have a shelf full of time-management books, this one really changed the way that I do things.

You can find GTD all over the web. There's the David Allen Company's official site, and a concise description at The Executive Assistant's Toolbox with lots of links to GTD-stuff in the blogosphere. But if GTD intrigues you, I highly recommend reading the book to capture a complete understanding of the methods and benefits.



I draw from some other organizing methods, but this is the one that I rely on the most. The reasons that I like it so much? Here you go:

• I keep a list of projects, but it is imperative that I break those projects into action steps. This way, I am forced to identify exactly what it is that I need to do next. Do I need to make a phone call? Send an email? Do an errand? If I've blocked out time to work on a project then I don't want to spend that time dawdling around. I want to jump right into the zone.
  
• Instead of a to-do list, I have groups of next actions. I have a list of calls that I need to make, emails that I need to send, errands that I need to run, etc.
• These are some of the structural aspects, but the other aspect that really makes an impact is that just getting ALL OF THE NOISE out of my head allows me to actually get things done. Do you ever think about how much less stress you'd have if you weren't trying to keep everything together in your head? When I can relax and know that I'm not letting things fall through the cracks -- that's when I feel the most productive.

However, while I am completely sold on the GTD method, sometimes I drift terribly far away from it. It's only when I get back on it that I feel like I've corralled my interior life. A fundamental concept of the GTD method is the weekly review. which I almost never do. This is bad. It's like dieting without exercise. It doesn't quite get you there.




So goal #1 for 2008: Use GTD faithfully. I have a lot to do!