This is one of the best things that I have ever learned in regards to personal relationships! It would have been handy to know about in, say, my teens or early 20s…but we’re all on our own path, right?

When Introverts and Extroverts Mingle

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I honestly have zero desire to post on here every time that I drop a new episode, that’s twice a week and I’m not that motivated, and am- at my core- lazy. If you want to listen and be updated when new episodes drop, please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. If you want to contact me, see the contact page on here; if you want to follow me on social media–yeah, do that, I would love to meet you.

What I will do is post the audio of those episodes once a week, in a pair. I know that there are a lot of people who listen via websites (although I do have a Libsyn page that has them as soon as they drop and you can follow that HERE.) I know, social media managers are cringing…or thinking I would make a great client. Here’s the thing: I know what “best practices” are; I know better what “best Susan practices” are and if I add too many commitments to this project it will start to feel like work and that is the last thing I want.

Fighting For Exclusive Ownership of Pens and Mules

Thanks for listening!

It’s science, people! Smell and memories are connected on a biological level. That’s why, when you smell tomatoes warm from the sun, you think of your grandfather; when you smell Lysol, you ask who’s sick; and when you smell new electronics you get happily excited. Just me? Okay, memories are personal, so go sniff something–a cardboard box, any of the spices in your kitchen, maybe some Ivory soap…eventually, you will land on at least one scent that triggers a memory of an event or person.

Science will also tell you that smell connects us with the associated emotions of those memories. That’s why some love the smell of low tide while others find it disgusting; why a cologne you liked at first may, later, make you scared and want to throw up because it reminds you of an abusive boyfriend.

Again, maybe that’s just me, but you get the point.

Have you ever smelled bread baking? Of course you have, it’s the scent that hits you when you walk into a Subway sub shop. But the smell of bread baking doesn’t make me think of grinder shops, I think of my father.

Dad didn’t cook often, but when he did he tackled a recipe until he mastered it. Because of that, the man knew his way around pasta, eggnog…and bread. On winter weekend days he would haul out the big bowl from under the stove, the flour bag from the pantry, the yeast packets from the fridge, the sugar bowl from the counter, and set to bakin’. Hours later, when we had forgotten that he had even started making bread, the smell would hug us.

One day when I was young, maybe five or six, I had dug a fort into the snow that had drifted against our house during a storm. I loved being in my fort, it was cold but cozy; quiet but not lonely. The sun had already set and the view outside the Susan-sized fort entrance was mesmerizing: A porch light created glittery sparkles on the fallen snow and lit up the still falling flakes which all contrasted with the country-darkness beyond the light glow.

It was a gentle baking-bread scented wave sneaking outside (through the same cracks in our very old house that let mice inside) that made me eventually leave my fort. Everything about me was cold and damp from a full day of sledding, tromping, and forting, but I had refused to end the magic…until the bread smell invaded my snow fort. I’m grateful to Childhood Susan for snapping a smell-and-sniff memory photo of the moment. Kids are wise, we don’t always give them enough credit for that.

Many…many years later I live half a country away from my Connecticut childhood, my father passed away five years ago, and I’m not as tolerant of cold weather as I was as a kid–but the smell of baking bread still brings back that snow-day memory and emotions of being cozy, loved and cared for.

Despite the warm memories, Adult Susan never baked bread. I should amend that: back in the 90s we had a bread maker and I used it a few times but the shape of the bread was weird and while it smelled like 70s Connecticut, it didn’t taste like it.

This past spring a Facebook group that I’m in began a baking challenge based on a shared, weekly theme. (Full disclosure: it’s our podcast Facebook group and all the themes are former subjects.) Each week we bake something that the subject inspires, take a picture, and share it on Sundays with our path from subject to photo.

Like a lot of people this year, I’ve learned new-to-me skills, and thanks to that weekly bake challenge, one of mine is making bread.

Babka and pierogi from my childhood Easters? Made ’em for Polish-American creator of the Barbie doll, Ruth Handler.

Conchas like the ones Frida Kahlo made for Diego Rivera? Why not?

Milk bread for…honestly, I don’t remember who was the subject, but I had never had it so I made it.

French bread for Coco Chanel? I was scared of this one because the recipes all included a step where you put the shaped loaves in the oven and, at the same moment, you throw a handful of ice cubes in a heated pan on the rack below the bread. They all warned to take care as the move could crack the oven door glass.

Braved it!

When yeast was not available in our grocery store, I ordered the big bag online and keep it in the fridge…it’s more than half gone, I’ve made a lot of bread. Early on, I used the dough hook on my stand mixer, but the first time I used my hands like Dad would have, the tactile aspects thrilled me so I changed my ways. When I was able to visit my mom this fall, I made her bread several times; I did a FaceTime with a family friend on my phone and mom nearby in a chair while I made French bread for the manyth time.

After almost 10 months of bread baking, the smell still reminds me of that magical winter evening and of my dad. Kneading each batch makes me think of the generations of women-both on my family tree and off- who would have made their family’s bread the same way, and the physical activity of it keeps me grounded in my own present moment.

Each time I get my own big bowl out, flour, water, yeast, and a little sugar combine to give me things that I need: nourishment and confidence, sure, but also the ability to transport to my own past, entwine me with history, and prepare me for whatever is next.

Hey, how have you been? I mean, besides “managing.”

If I was the writer I thought I was in March I would have started a journal or, at least, written some short and quippy relatable observations as we slogged through the pandemic.

I should have talked about the baking I took up and the massive amount of yeast I’m still going through.

I could have documented a trip to the grocery store in March then compared it to one now with a sidebar on how I used to enjoy shopping and now abhor it.

I should have talked about how it first felt like a snow day until the numbers started rising, moods started flaring, and sides of Mask/No Mask were taken.

I could have done several hundred words, some in bold text, on how maddening it is to see some people conducting life as usual, during a very unusual time.

The nesting every person in my house did had to have been duplicated elsewhere.

I could have shared that our path of emotions and the tip-toeing around button pushing topics within our family was perfectly normal.

Oh! Procrastination! How it’s been amped up since March and how the ability to focus on one particular thing has become weakened. I could totally bullet point a post about that.

How about a piece on outside time and how precious it’s become?

I could have written reams about the treatment of our elders in this country and what isolation has done to them.

The story of how I broke my solid brand loyalty and traded my beloved Galaxy for an iPhone just so I could FaceTime people I missed very much.

But I didn’t. I think firing this site back up is a good sign that maybe my brain is reactivating itself; that I’m rediscovering the joy of writing (not so much re-writing, but that does bring a certain thrill, too, I suppose.) How seeing words on a page makes me feel visible in a time when I’m feeling quite the opposite.

Yes!

I learned something similar when I was in my 30s and a stay-at-home mom. Back then, successful days meant getting to the end with the house still standing and at least one kid still talking to me. Extra points if no one complained about dinner.

I was already boarded for a rare solo flight to visit my family when a tall, beautiful, finely-coiffed woman dressed in an expensive power suit came down the aisle. Silently I started willing her to another row, “don’t sit next to me, don’t sit next to me…” Not necessarily because I like having the row to myself– who doesn’t?– but she didn’t look like anyone I would have anything in common with and I was in the mood for in-flight chit chat.

Of course, she was seated next to me and a tasteful cloud of expensive perfume settled in around her. She was confident and impeccable, I felt small and frumpy. When she told me what she did for a living my brain translated it to “Upper Management, Financial something, Impressive Degree.”

If my emotions at that moment were described as my perfume, “small and frumpy” would be the base note, with “unaccomplished” as the top note, and a heart note of “intimidation.”

BUT!

Within fifteen minutes she was asking for life guidance. She may have been professionally successful and confident, but she was personally very insecure. That flight made me realize that most people are great at something, but most people also have parts of their lives that are a mess…just like the rest of us.

That fact became my mental equalizer.

I don’t know about you, but I often have to relearn lessons. I don’t forget them as much as I misplace them, it makes me feel better about myself if I think of it as relearning them for emphasis–like a life exclamation point.

Maaaany years, an actual career, and a new definition of personal success later, I was at a professional conference cocktail hour. Along with my co-workers, we were planning an exit strategy so that we could head out for our collective dinner plan when we spotted someone we knew of: a person who was at the top of the game in our industry. The person who had lived the dream of rapid and overwhelming success in the field–so successful that people outside of it would know his name. (Yes, even you; no, I’m not spilling the name.)

And this pinnacle of success was standing alone, nursing a clear plastic glass of a clear liquid, ice cubes, and a lime wedge.

As the designated extrovert in the group, it was quickly established that I would go over, break the ice then the rest of the group would join and invite him to go to dinner with us.

Crossing the hotel’s ballroom-turned-networking-club, I did feel nervous. Just because someone is extroverted that doesn’t mean they are confident…or at least it doesn’t in my case. I am not very good at networking events, I say really stupid things and always manage to find a couple people and stick with them the whole time which totally negates the purpose. That night I had seen this guy in several group conversations, although I hadn’t been in any of those. I thought to myself, “He looks so serious, he’s probably sick and tired of people ‘picking his brain.’ ” When I passed the point of no acceptable social-detour and he made cautious eye contact I thought, “Holy crap, I’m intimidated.”

I mumbled an introduction and invited him to come with my group to dinner and, as per the plan, my pointing brought all of them over. Chatter began, not business chatter but a talk about anything but our industry.

His face melted to a sincere smile and his quiet demeanor took over his previously intimidating stance. I realized that while he earned his professional confidence, personally he was as awkward as me (only less animated about it.)

He couldn’t join us for dinner, one of those earlier, better at networking groups had invited him, but when we parted his, “Nice to meet you” was very sincere.

As was mine.

I’ll probably have to relearn this, again–my life needs a lot of exclamation points–but I’ve not allowed myself to feel intimidated since.

Impressed, yes, but not intimidated.