Understandable and Manageable Steps

Tonight was Sara and my first introduction to the Jewish tradition of Shabatt. A friend invited us over to celebrate the day of rest as well as his birthday, leaving us with strained vocal chords and full stomachs.

As Jesse (our host and birthday man) said the prayer, he began by honoring his wife, the "neck" of the family, responsible for pointing the head. His soliloquy led into words of praise for her beauty and care for their family. Also speaking rhetorically, "You wonder why I'm so happy at school, it's 'cause of these guys [his family]".

Following Jesse's speech, my hosts put me on the spot, asking, "What do you love about your fiancée?" It took me a second, because I was not sure if the question was serious. When I realized that, indeed, it was serious, the first thing that I thought of was Sara's ability to solve problems leading to magnificent solutions. Take, for example, our current dilemma of planning a wedding. The task appears to me as a series of challenges, an endless gauntlet of trials leading to a day full of friends, copious amounts of food, and dancing. To her, the task of planning a wedding is an endless amount of opportunity, ripe for backwards-planning. Her active-organization genes start to kick in.

For those not familiar with Sara, her first question is, "What is our goal? What do we want our selves and our guests to feel after the wedding?" This becomes a point of reference from which all decisions will be made. After posing these questions, Sara then spends her days, with a journal in tote, writing down queries, ideas, and drawbacks; it is a virtual flow chart and project plan wrapped into a nice, unassuming, even feminine-looking, bird journal.

After her ideas have been drawn out to fruition and her doubts have been erased, this journal leads to the creation of an endless series of Excel charts and Word documents, which ultimately culminate in a dutifully prepared and thoughtfully orchestrated event.

Certainly, this is only one example of the many reasons that I love my dear Sara. Her ability to take the routine and taxing and turn it into a series of understandable and manageable steps, leading to wondrous outcomes is a skill that leaves me basking in her masterfully orchestrated events with a smile and a bounce in my step.

Share |