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© Catherine Haslag

The 5 Questions

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These are my 5 questions from my bullet journal.

I am an introvert and not a fan of small talk. I understand its purpose is to start conversations between people, but it can also be hard to move beyond. It also wears on me to have the same conversation over and over again with people.

Where are you from?

What do you do for a living?

Are you married?

Do you have any kids?

How about this weather?

Welcome to my own personal hell.

 

A few years ago, I developed 5 questions to help start conversations. I developed these questions by considering what my friends and I most commonly talk about and what interests we have in common. I actually got this idea from a friend of mine who did something similar; however, the only question we have in common is regarding the books we are currently reading.

I can usually use 2-3 of these questions with anyone I meet. I have found they provide a way to have deeper conversations with people and are an easy way to find common ground with a person I have just met.

Question #1 – What are you reading?

This is one of my three go-to questions. SO many people read, so this is a great way to find common ground with someone AND get some good book recommendations. This is also a way to learn more about the interests of the other person and provide fuel for further deep discussion.

Question #2 – What podcasts are you listening to?

This is my second go-to question. There are so many podcasts available today. Most of the people I know listen to at least 1 podcast. This is a great way to get an idea of what interests another person and provide further topics for discussion.

Question #3 – What are you learning?

I am a growth-minded person. This is a deep, introspective question that I love to discuss with others, but I can’t use it with everyone. It needs to be used intentionally because not everyone is growth-minded and open to exploring this topic. Be sure to test your audience before deploying this question.

Question #4 – What are you grateful for?

This is my third go-to question. It is a way to uplift the conversation and connect with someone. Everyone can find something to be thankful for, it doesn’t have to be a big thing. Right now, I am thankful for the ice tea I am enjoying, the computer I am working on, and the rainy day that allows for contemplation and time to blog.

Question #5 – How is your word going?

This one has to be deployed with people who participate in The One Word. I only use it with friends who I know have a word. It’s a way to support each other and share our personal work. Again, this question will only work with a very specific audience, so be strategic with this one.

I keep these questions written down in my bullet journal so I can easily access them if I need them. They can also be saved in a phone or written on a small piece of paper for easy access. I have for the most part committed them to memory but like to keep them handy just in case my brain decides to go an on unannounced holiday.

If you are tired of small talk and want to jump-start conversations with more substance, I encourage you to write your own questions. They will help you have more meaningful and connecting conversations during your day.

 

A Special Thanks

A special thanks to Jennifer L. for giving me the idea of creating questions to start conversations with others.  I am so thankful for you and our friendship.  You encourage me to be a better person.

Katieville

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© Catherine Haslag

Dear Ms. L’Engle

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Dear Ms. L’Engle,

My copy of A Wrinkle in Time, which I read in 5th grade.

It started as a school assignment

in 5th grade. Eighteen copies of A Wrinkle in Time lined up on the shelf like identical little soldiers as Mrs. Hitz talked about the first novel we were reading for the year. We were going to read 4 such novels between August and May. Yours has been with me ever since.

I still have the copy we read. Since our parents provided the money to buy the copies for the classes to share, we got to take them home at the end of the year. It has had an honored spot on my bookcase ever since. My steady companion for 30 years. It was my introduction to the sci-fi/fantasy genre of books. I loved the whimsy of Ms. Who, Ms. What, and Ms. Which. The tesseract boggled my young mind.

I related strongly to the heroine Meg, an awkward girl who doesn’t yet know or trust her abilities. Who doesn’t yet know where she fits in the world. My 11-year-old self hadn’t yet begun to really test what she was capable of let alone trust her abilities. Meg gave me a role model to learn from.

I eventually discovered there were four books about the adventures of Meg and her brothers. I devoured A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I couldn’t get into the adventures of Sandy and Dennys in Many Waters. I am sorry to say they were my least favorite characters in the world you created. The only book of the Time Quartet I didn’t read.

In college, I discovered Meg had a daughter, Polly, when I read An Acceptable Time. I was at another turning point as I was stepping into the adult world. I could relate to Polly just as I had Meg when I was 11.

I recently listened to A Wrinkle in Time on audiobook through my library. It reads just as well at 40 as it did at 11. This time, I was reminded that I still have that unsure girl in me, my own internal Meg, but I also have experience that reminds me I have been tested and that I am strong. I know what I can do and I can trust my skills. I now know my place in this world. Your books helped me make this journey because I could relate to your characters and their challenges. Thank you for bridging that gap so I could grow into who I am today.

Sincerely,

Catherine

Turning Points

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Image purchased from iStock by Getty Images.
Designed by nazlisart.

I woke up to the conversation on the radio. In my bleary state, I heard the voices say two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City. I was instantly awake and across the apartment to turn on the TV. The scenes were horrific. Straight out a disaster flick starring Bruce Willis. Moments later, the South Tower collapsed. I quickly showered and dressed for my day. Before I left my apartment for the Southwest Missouri State University campus, the North Tower Collapsed.

I canceled everything for the day and was glued to the TVs on campus and in apartments with friends. Silence and disbelief filled every space.

I sat with friends at their apartment in the afternoon and watched as Dan Rather aired a video for the first time showing people jumping from the buildings prior to their collapse.

I witnessed the wreckage of Flight 93, which passengers forced down in a field in Pennsylvania. Later, It was determined the plane’s likely final target was in Washington DC.

I observed the crumbled side of the Pentagon, where Flight 77 crashed into the building.

I heard the phone calls made by loved ones on the four planes the crashed that day. All sending one last message of love.

For the following year, there were cars everywhere sporting the American flag, Toby Keith and Alan Jackson played on repeat on country stations, and the U.S. collectively mourned the 2,996 people who died on that day in the towers and crashed flights. We were united in our grief and patriotism.

In a matter of minutes, we all lived in a different world. One that grew to include Homeland Security, full-body scans, no-fly lists, and a whole new meaning to the numbers 9 and 11.

In March of 2020, another major event struck the world – the Coronavirus.

All of the college classes I taught went online. Employees and students were sent home to help stop the spread.

Social distancing. Lessons on handwashing. Teams of sewers making masks out of every scrap of fabric they could find.

Zoom became the place to meet for class, meetings, and happy hour. Some of the world made a shift to baking bread at home, wearing PJs or yoga pants for everything, and drive-thru grocery pick-up. Alcohol sales skyrocketed.

Again, the world changed quickly and will be forever different. Finding the “new normal” was a common topic of conversation. Some accepted this reality, others chose to deny it.

Rather than coming together as we did nearly 20 years earlier when the towers fell, we split into groups. Maskers and anti-maskers and eventually vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. People who listened to the experts and believed what science was learning and people who didn’t. Conspiracy theories and misinformation spread faster than the virus thanks to social media.

The turning point we are facing now is more than a virus. More than masking, vaccinations, and the changing way we move and work in the world. We no longer agree on reality. We live in different news bubbles, worlds driven by whatever we chose to take as fact even if it’s really a falsehood. Lives where we get to deny reality because it makes us feel better, even if that denial kills others.

The turning point we face now is the division in our society. It’s an internal threat that can’t be addressed by invading another country. It has to start within each of us. We are our own worst enemies now. We are the hijackers, the terrorists in our nation. We are also the healers, the uniters if we so choose to be.

The question then is “Which do you choose?”

© Catherine Haslag

The Waitress

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Willie and me horsing around.© Catherine Haslag

Lasts

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© Catherine Haslag

The Face of Lonely

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Northern Migration, Part 3

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I drove north to Austin, MN on the second day of 2011. By the time I drove through the middle of Iowa, the ground was totally white. I wouldn’t see green grass or experience temperatures above 20 degrees for nearly 2 months. I stopped twice to sob uncontrollably and otherwise cried tears of joy, sadness, and utter fear off and on during my 8-hour drive north. Most of my possessions were loaded on a U-Pack truck that would arrive about a week later. My little Mazda 3 Sport was loaded to the ceiling with what I would need until then: clothes, a few cooking items, my TV and laptop, sleeping bag, inflatable mattress, breakables, a stadium chair, and every one of my plants. I am still amazed that none of them tipped over on the trip north considering how precariously they were lodged in my car.

My new home in Austin, MN.

I unloaded my car, set up the few items I had, and then collapsed on the floor in tears in the living room. The events of the past few weeks had caught up with me. I called my close friend Susan and sobbed to her. She would get me through the next months of adjustment to my new life. We would spend 1-2 hours on the phone nearly every night. Our conversations helped keep me grounded and cut the loneliness of this new world. I met new people all day, every day, but I had no friends yet in my new town. It would be a few months before I started to make friends and a year before I felt anchored in this place. She got me through those first and hardest months.

The next morning, I headed to a local coffee shop to use their internet and then to a local clothing store to purchase a pair of snow boots – the first pair I had owned since I was about 11. These weren’t moon boots but rather a warm and sturdy pair of Keens that came halfway up my calf. They kept my feet much warmer and drier than the sneakers I brought with me.

Over the next week, I was consumed with getting oriented to my new position. I completed lots of paperwork, met a ton of new people, and prepared for the spring semester, which started one week after I arrived in Austin.

My campus office.

Learning to cross-country ski at the nature center.

I threw myself into the work and started to settle into life in Austin. I discovered the nearby nature center and tried cross country skiing for the first time. I bought a heavy, marshmallow winter coat from Eddie Bauer. I learned how to drive on snowy roads. I grieved the loss of the life I had built in Springfield and explored my new Minnesota home. I started seeing a counselor to help navigate all the changes life brought my way. My life opened up to me in a way I had never experienced as time went on. I realized I could be as big as I wanted in my new home and was able to reinvent myself in many ways. Sometimes we have to move to a new place to find ourselves. While it seemed like I was losing so much when I moved to Austin, I was gaining more than I could have ever imagined.

The Brickhouse

On Thursdays, I had a break between classes that allowed me to take lunch at a little café called The Brick House. This delightful establishment had delicious food and a relaxing atmosphere. It reminded me of my favorite restaurant in Springfield, MO – Tea Bar and Bites. The Brick House quickly became a respite for me. I would take a book, find a corner table, and read and enjoy a wonderful lunch. Often, a retired couple would have lunch there at the same time I did. Sometimes, I could hear their conversations with the owner of the café when the other customers cleared out. I realized we had similar politics and one day chimed in on their conversation. This happened several times before they invited me to have lunch with them. This eventually turned into a weekly meal and a wonderful friendship that survives to this day. Thanks to eavesdropping and politics, I made my first friends in my new home.

That first year in Minnesota was challenging and amazing. I went “Up North” and walked across the Mississippi River at Itasca State Park, attended the Great Minnesota Get Together (aka the Minnesota State Fair), walked across a frozen lake for the first time, bought a bike and started cycling, found my way in my new career as an educator, made some new friends and stayed connected with old friends, and did a lot of work on me. Above all, I made a new life for myself. At the end of 2011, I was amazed at how much life had changed in just one year because I said “yes” to a job offer in the parking lot of a Hobby Lobby.

It’s the best “yes” I uttered in my life.

 

This is part 3 of a 3-part blog.

If you missed part 1, click here.  If you missed part 2, click here.

© Catherine Haslag

Northern Migration, Part 2

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When I woke up the morning of December 22, 2010, the world came closing in on me. I was leaving Springfield, my home for the past 11 years, all my friends and family, and moving 500 miles north to a place where I didn’t know anyone or anything…alone. I thought I had to be insane to do this. How was I to find an apartment in 10 days? Most of my furniture I could handle on my own, but the bigger stuff…how was I going to move it from the truck into my new place? How was I going to move that far away? U-Haul? Hire a moving company? How was I going to afford this move? All the details of the move overwhelmed and suffocated me.

Waves of glorious excitement and crippling fear crashed over me for the next 12 days. I couldn’t envision what my life would look like past January 2, the day I would drive north and begin my new life in Austin as college faculty. While I was being given the opportunity I had hoped for, my future appeared as a black void in my head.

I celebrated Christmas with my family. I was barely able to talk about my new career move and upcoming relocation. Thinking about the move to Austin made me cry. While I knew the career move was the right thing to do, I was terrified by all the other changes that came with it. I was given the chance to wash my life clean in the Minnesota snow, reinvent myself, and pursue the career of my dreams, but I was frozen in fear.

I wasn’t really moving to Austin alone, even if it felt like I was. I was surrounded by people who loved and supported me the whole way. I had time over the holiday break to catch up with two old friends, Scott and Lara, back home who let me unload some of my concerns and get my head together. My family was excited about my new job and offered support in any way they could. My friends, Susan and Jessica, came to my house a couple of days after Christmas to help me pack boxes and decide what would go with me in the car and what would be loaded into the U-Pack truck to arrive in Austin about a week after I did. Co-workers celebrated my move and bid me farewell at my favorite bar, The Mudd Lounge. More friends came over and helped me load the truck on December 31. My friend, Heather, connected me with a church group in Austin that could help me unload my stuff from the truck when it arrived. Tammy listened to me as I cried and swept the empty living room of the 2-bedroom bungalow that had been my safe haven for the past year. I even managed to find an apartment in Austin and arranged to sign the lease when I rolled into town.

In The Alchemist, it says, “…when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”  All the pieces that fell together in those 12 days are evidence that this statement is true.

The journal I was using when I moved to Austin, MN.

On January 2, I woke to a young year and a fresh start. I wrote in my journal that morning:

“Goodbye, Missouri.

For 30 years I have called you home. Now I leave for a new home and a new life. Thank you for the walks, time on the river, and beautiful places I’ve lived.

Dear Minnesota,

Please be kind to me and let me get some good winter gear before you baptize me in snow.”

 

 

I headed north that morning with my car full of plants, clothes, and a few other items to get me by until the rest of my stuff arrived. I was a mix of sadness and excitement as I headed up Highway 13 and eventually I-35. I pulled over twice in Iowa to cry. Everything looked so new, so fresh. Life was new and unknown…and full of potential.

 

This is part 2 of a 3-part blog.

If you missed Part 1, click here to read it.  If you are ready to read part 3, click here.

© Catherine Haslag

Northern Migration, Part 1

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In the last month of 2009, I was newly divorced, highly dissatisfied in my job as an environmental scientist, and trying to figure out my next steps in life. Fortunately, I had landed in a wonderful little 2-bed, 1-bath bungalow on the north side of Springfield, Missouri. There, I worked to heal from the end of my marriage, determine my next career move, and generally reinvent my life. The next year would bring more change than I could ever have imagined.

I began applying for different employment in the spring of 2010; however, they were all environmental jobs and I didn’t want to work in that industry anymore. My passion didn’t lie there and I didn’t want to move and take a job that I didn’t enjoy. I was tired of having a job. I wanted a career. I wanted something I was excited to get up and do in the morning, not something that provided me a paycheck with a side of dread.

Working in a cubeville.

That fall, I tutored a couple of high school students in chemistry. One evening, as I tutored one of these students in the library in downtown Springfield, I had an epiphany. The student asked me to explain the octet rule to him. I launched headlong into an advanced explanation of bonding theory without realizing what I was doing. My student was totally confused. When I realized my error, I apologized and simplified my explanation to “atoms like to have 8 electrons to be happy.” At that moment, I felt a fire ignite in me that I hadn’t experienced in a long time. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach. I had to teach. I felt it was what I was put on this earth to do.

This wasn’t my first experience teaching. I tutored English in high school, worked for 2 years as a tutor in college, and taught chemistry classes as a graduate student both at Southwest Missouri State University (now Missouri State University) and Ozarks Technical and Community College. I really enjoyed working with the students, showing them how chemistry is interesting and fun (trust me, it is), and helping them grown and learn. After graduating with my master’s, I looked into teaching; however, there were no full-time teaching positions available at the local colleges and universities where I lived. I also didn’t want to teach at the high school level. At the time, I was newly married and my then-husband was still in college. I couldn’t support us on a high school teacher’s salary. I stumbled into the environmental field to make ends meet.

Now I needed more than a job that just made ends meet.

Collecting soil samples for analysis.

I began applying nationwide for teaching positions. It took about 2 months before I got my first interview at Ithaca College. A few days later, I drove north to Austin, Minnesota to interview for a position there. I arrived for the interview a few hours early and decided to explore the town to see what it had to offer. If I took the position, I wanted to know more about the town it was located in. Austin appeared to be a nice small town. Snow was piled everywhere on this sunny December day. I had never seen so much snow and it was hard to navigate the roads. The high drifts on both sides of the roads made if feel like I was driving in a tunnel.

After the interview, I got back in my car for the 8-hour drive to Springfield. As I pulled onto I-90 headed west, I remember thinking that Austin was a nice little town but I doubted that I would see it again. I arrived in Springfield a little after midnight and was at work by 6 am.

I was wrong about one thing: I would be returning to Austin. I had a second interview about a week later with the vice president of the college. A few days later, I was in Austin, Texas visiting friends when I received another call to schedule an interview with the president of the college. I flew high that night knowing that I was so close to having what I wanted: a career in teaching. I was interviewed by the president of the college on December 20th. He told me they would be making a decision the next day and I would receive a call to let me know if I would be offered the position.

The next day was one of the longest days of my life. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. My entire being was abuzz in anticipation. I felt so sure I was going to get the position but every minute ticked by more slowly than the one before, allowing for doubt to creep in. I started to feel sick from the stress and left work early in the day to get some fresh air and work off some energy. I was no good to anyone until I had an answer.

I got the call as I pulled into the parking lot of Hobby Lobby on Battlefield Road at about 10a. I answered and nearly cried when I was offered the position to teach chemistry at Riverland Community College. I accepted, thanked the caller profusely, and hung up the phone. It was December 21. I would start my new position on January 3.

I immediately drove to a close friend’s house to tell her the good news in person. We hugged, laughed, and cheered the good news. I then went home and wrote my letter of resignation for my current job. I planned to deliver it to my boss the next morning. My last day as an environmental scientist would be December 31.

That night, I celebrated with my friend alongside a bonfire with a glass of wine. In less than 2 weeks, I would be teaching chemistry full time at a community college in Austin, MN and there was a lot to do in that time. I was excited for the next step my life would take and thankful that I had taken the risk to go after my passion.

I was preparing for a northern migration. The next 12 days would be a very hectic and emotional ride, one that would drastically change my life in a way I could never have imagined.

 

This is part 1 of a 3-part blog.  To continuet to part 2, click here.