Remembering Diane Summers Clarke

Recently, at a training for certified laughter leaders, I sat across from a sparkly-eyed woman from Phoenix, Arizona, and did an exercise called “relational laughter.” We simply sat facing each other with instructions to laugh. Some folks had trouble with this, but somehow this Arizona woman and I just clicked – laughing till it hurt, stopping for a minute, then with one quick look, starting all over again.

“I think it’s because you remind me of my childhood friend,” I said, and told her about my first best friend, Diane Summers, who had lived next door from age 5 and who without any formal training had become an instant relational laughter partner. Thanks to our well-honed skills at relational laughter, Diane and I managed to spend some time in the hall outside Mr. Coleman’s fifth-grade science class and numerous time-outs from the Brownie troop where my mother, unfortunately, was the leader. “I can’t wait to tell Diane there’s training for this now,” I said.

Sadly, I didn’t get the chance. Unbeknownst to me, my first laughter partner, who in time became a South Carolina school teacher, Diane Summers Clarke, had just lost an 11-year battle with ovarian cancer. The longevity of her fight was rare, as was her spirit. When we spoke during those years, she was always up. She maintained her easy laugh. She urged me to keep sending her my humor columns “because keeping a sense of humor is so important.” Diane’s long and productive life after her diagnosis is all the proof I need that laughter has healing powers.

By the time my new friend and I were doing our relational laughter exercise, Diane was already gone. But I’m pretty sure her spirit was there in the room that day and will be checking in every once in awhile, to remind me how important it is to laugh. I don’t plan to disappoint her.

Planning Backwards Floors Me

I’ve always recognized the power of planning backwards, even if I don’t always do it. If you have to be across town by noon, it makes sense to figure how early to leave – counting backwards from noon. If there’s a project due in three weeks, it makes sense to check out how much time each step will take and get the start date by counting backwards from the due date. I suspect that by now I am into “Well, duh…” territory for most people.

But yesterday, I ran into a mind-boggling planning-backwards concept from a friend who’s thinking about buying some flooring. In her 60s, she was trying to figure out how long a guarantee to go for, based on likely longevity (hers, not the flooring’s). Wow. I’m not sure I’m ready to plan backwards yet in every respect. Or maybe it’s not such a bad idea. If I buy a floor with a 50-year guarantee, would I be motivated to live another 50 years? Not gonna wear out till that floor does!

Social Media and Time Management

Putting together a program on social media and time management, I bumped into an amazingly helpful series of online articles on the subject by Amber Nasland, a social media marketing guru. If your online life is eating up your offline life, these article are worth checking out.

BTW, her advice is less flawed than the puzzling art I downloaded for an article on the subject in my monthly newsletter. The dog sure ate somebody’s planner. See the problem? Report it and you’ll be entered in a drawing for a free copy of The Dog.