hear me roar

They say we're all products of our upbringings - good or bad, those moments in time combine to turn us into some final version of ourselves, and as we grow up and move forward, everything that happens seems to create another layer. It sounds a little cheesy, but I see it almost like a working collage - pulling some pieces away, adding others, and continuously shaping that Total Self. I'm a visual person. When I talk abstract concepts, I always have some vision to go along with it. If I created a collage that visually embodied me, it would probably consist of scraps of sheet music and chord charts, vintage art nouveau posters, Van Gogh paintings, a Notre Dame football game ticket stub, Jane Austen novels, black and white photographs, and Pottery Barn catalogues, draped in watery hues of coastal blues and sunwashed grays. These things pretty well define me on an aesthetic level, and if I dig deep enough, I could probably find some layers that mean a whole lot more on a values level... things like simplistic beauty, a healthy level of witty sarcasm, a melody that makes you smile and ache at the same time... compassion, humor, intelligence, and grace. It's all there, and I'll probably cover all of that here in this blog in some way. But today, I think it's time to talk about strength.

I just spent five days hanging out with my mom. It was the first time in two years that we've really gotten to just hang out for more than a day or two, and it was really great. I've written about her before - and the two or three of you reading this probably know me well enough to know that I think she's pretty spectacular. There are many awesome things about her, but at the core of her collage would be the notion of strength - it's something that was ingrained in her from an early age, and it's something that she's taught me my entire life. And like the greatest teachers, she not only explained it and encouraged it, she also modeled it through her own behavior. And even though I'm far from perfect at embodying that quality all the time, it's something I've come to value about myself - the knowledge that a combination of experiences and abilities (and having great people around me) makes it possible for me to tackle just about anything without too much fear.

The idea that a woman can do things on her own, without "need" of a man, can be a little intimidating - even foreign - to some people. A few weeks ago, I set out to do a little home improvement. I wanted a back yard that felt relaxing and inspirational, like watching the sunset over a New England harbor or walking down a British street lined with flower-adorned shops or listening to the gentle humming and clanking in a French cafe at night. When you rent, you can't do a lot structurally... and when you have a very meager budget, you have to get creative. But I've always said creativity is one of my strong points. So I trotted a little bit of it out. I bought some pretty hanging baskets and pots, and I filled them with colorful flowers. I did a lot of weeding and a bit of mulching. And I found Adirondack chairs on sale for about $30 apiece. If you've ever bought a real Adirondack chair, you know the really good ones will run you upwards of $150. The catch to the $30 version? The wood is unfinished, and it comes in a box that isn't shaped remotely like a chair, like this:

Now despite my upbringing to be a fearless independent female just like my mommy, I try pretty hard not to be one of those scary feminists that gets offended by every little comment that would in some way imply that women and men are different - I mean, after all, women and men ARE different. It's genetic. Men are inherently better at some things (though not nearly as many as they'd like us to believe). Some women do need to stay at home and raise their families. It's not like I think role reversal is completely in order here. But I do have a tendency to get a little peeved by the implication that someone is incapable of doing something because of gender or age. And I know the little man at the hardware store didn't mean to offend me when he said, "Make sure you give these instructions to the person who puts this together for you," but he did. He couldn't have known that almost every major piece of furniture in my house came in a flat box from IKEA and that I'm like the best instruction-follower and furniture-putter-together-er in the history of the world. But he shouldn't have made the assumption that because I'm a girl and I look like a college sophomore, I was probably clueless and had no idea what he was talking about. If there's anything that makes me perform, it's the notion that I can't do something. So, with a chip on my shoulder, I came home and knocked these bad boys out in just a couple of hours. ALL BY MYSELF. 

So there, Mr. Underestimating-Hardware-Store-Man! I guess I showed you! There is real value in being able to accomplish something on your own, and I've learned to take a certain amount of pride in my abilities to do that. There's something freeing about being comfortable enough with yourself that you don't "need" other people around all the time... knowing that you can make it on your own talents, abilities, and will. But I do realize that this notion of independence and strength isn't without its flaws. There are times when you do actually need someone else - that's where those great people come in. (Even with a project like putting together furniture, sometimes you just need another arm or two to hold stuff). And I think that's what true strength is all about. It's not just being fiercely independent - it's also recognizing that there are times when you could use an extra hand, knowing that a bottle of wine is more fun with a witty friend, or understanding that sometimes God puts people in your life not because you are incapable of doing something on your own but because the end result will be so much sweeter thanks to that collaboration. I don't know if I'll ever have that kind of strength... but until then, let me know if you need help putting some furniture together. :)

So it isn't Boston, London, or Paris, but it makes me happy...

slightly overwhelmed by technology

I have a routine when I first get to work each morning. It starts with entering the office quietly, turning on the harsh fluorescent lights (ouch), and looking for the red light on my office phone that indicates voice mails awaiting (this usually involves some silent prayers that the red light is either dim or that the voices on the other end are just calling to tell me to have a great day instead of asking for things I can't do at the moment). I check my work email, my personal email, my facebook (because some people don't use real email anymore - the horror), and sometimes twitter. Then I usually jot down a list of things I need to accomplish, or I add to the list that I started yesterday or a week ago and haven't yet finished. I emerge about 30 minutes later ready to say actual words to my co-workers and face the working world for the day. And if that fails, I fake it. :)

Today, I checked twitter. And I saw someone's tweet with a link to a tumblr account. I saw a tweet to a loopt (?) account. I saw a tweet that was the exact replica of a facebook status. And for a moment, I thought, "Maybe it would be fun to have a tumblr [despite my obvious issues with the intentional misspelling]." Or maybe it would be festive to link all of my life together so that at once touch of a button, you (all two-ish of you who read this) will know where I am, what I'm doing, and what I'm thinking all at the same time. But frankly, that's just scary as hell to me. I actually miss the days before I had a cell phone... Gasp! Yes, I remember that time. It was called high school. And somehow we made it out okay and turned into mostly decent people. It was nice to have the home phone ring and just choose not to answer it if you were busy. Now that everyone has caller ID, you can't reject a call or ignore it because everyone will assume that it's because you didn't want to talk to them specifically. And while I appreciate the ease of texting, there are times when, really, couldn't we have just had this conversation using our voices? My home computer, an Apple iBook G4, was like the coolest thing in the world 5 years ago. And now, despite no obvious flaws in general performance and no indication that it plans to die anytime soon, its technology is almost completely obsolete, to the point where certain technologies on ye olde interweb simply refuse to function with it. But if my computer won't do something for me, my phone almost always will. I can even read books, whole entire books, on it.

This all feels a little Fahrenheit 451 to me, and it seems like a little bit of insanity. We are so connected, and yet it feels like I don't really know what's going on in anyone's life. Sure, I see the tweets, the photos they've uploaded to facebook, and maybe even a random thought or two if they have a blog. But how real can it be when when it's all through a computer? I mean, if you take a real emotion, type it into a machine, let it compute and pixelate around before displaying out to your own digital world, how real is it - really - by the time it reaches your intended audience? Seems to me like it works the same way as making a copy of a copy - slowly distorting and watering down until it is only a faded version of itself in the end. Sometimes that's a good thing... I'm personally pretty glad I don't have to be there in person for a lot of the ridiculous rants I read on facebook. But sometimes I wish I could hear the excitement in someone's voice or see them shed a happy tear when they tell me they're finally graduating from college or expecting their first child, instead of just reading a lot of exclamation points at the end of a tweet and assuming they mean what I think they mean. I really hope we aren't just creating watered down digital versions of ourselves and evolving into beings incapable of functioning on a real human level, face to face.

I realize a lot of these thoughts are hypocritical, as I write this blog from my computer and share it with you on the internet, via a link from my twitter account. (I could write it from my phone if I really wanted.) I say all of this not to proclaim a personal stance against technology or as a call to return to archaic practices. We do have to live in the world as it exists, after all. There are times when it is easier to observe life from afar, but how much do you really feel and experience - and therefore, how much do you really learn - from those things if you don't literally touch the hurt and pain and joy and exhilaration of those moments? I'm not sure I know the meaning of life... but I am almost positive that point of it all isn't to have the latest and best technology and to "learn" without truly understanding. I say this simply to remind myself not to get so caught up in the digital display of the lives of those around me that I forget to participate in the real flesh and bone moments.

i'll take the nachos with extra commentary, please

For some reason, I always start craving chips and salsa as summer approaches. Maybe it's the sudden awakening of color all around me that inspires a desire for fresh spicy food and cold beverages. (My new favorite non-alcoholic drink is half sweet/half unsweet tea with lots of ice and fresh lemon and lime, by the way. Complicated, I know.) When the weather is nice, there is nothing better than sitting outside on the patio with the warm sun, a cool breeze, and good music. As an only child (and grandchild on my mom's side of the fam), I spent a lot of time by myself growing up. Therefore, I spent a lot of time thinking, analyzing, and creating fantastical stories in my head.  I especially enjoy the occasional lunch to myself just to have time to ponder, clear my head, or just have a good laugh. So I'd like to share a small chronicle of today's adventure in solitude.

Needing a break from my windowless office, I decided to go to Moe's - they have chips and salsa, patio, breeze, and cold beverages. They also have good music. All performed by dead people. It even says so on their website. I love this little fact - after all, it means my outdoor patio lunches are always accompanied by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Marley, The Beatles (I think bands only require one dead member to qualify), and Ella Fitzgerald, with an occasional smattering of Queen or Janis Joplin. (I also think there must be a loophole for music written by dead people but performed by people who are still alive. I swear I heard Diana Krall in there a few weeks ago. I digress.) But I always feel really weird when I hear the dulcet tones of newly deceased musicians ringing across the patio. About 2 weeks after Michael Jackson died, I was eating at Moe's with my boss when I heard the opening chords of Human Nature. And I had a really odd moment of "Aww, yay. Wait. Oh, noooo." And I couldn't help but think how some stuffy corporate tie-bearing suited executive must be sitting up in his Moe's tower keeping watch on music news and waiting for the good ones to kick off, opening a new catalogue of music for the Moe's clientele to appreciate during their dining experience. And that just makes me sad. But maybe, just maybe, the guy in charge of Moe's music selection is secretly an old hippie (complete with a Dead shirt hidden under that suit and a Volkswagen van in the parking lot). And that makes me smile.

Part of the pondering and analysis that happens in my head involves watching people. Not in a creepy way. Okay, maybe a little. But more in the sense of just enjoying seeing their processes. It's kind of like geometric proofs - I like understanding the beginning and end point of a set of actions. I realize I have just admitted to being a big dork, but I can't help it. It is especially interesting to me to see people prepare for and eat a meal. Does he put a napkin in his lap? Does she move her food around to opposite sides of the plate? Is she going to cut that burger in half first? (Someone once told me that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who cut their burgers and those who don't. I don't know what that really means, but I like it.) Will he organize his food into categories and systematically eat it one item at a time? Is that guy ever going to wipe his mouth and hands? I love it. Anyway. Today, I saw a man sit down and get back up to get stuff three times before finally settling in to eat. And I just had to wonder why he didn't think about all the stuff he wanted before he got up. Or why didn't he get all of it on his little Moe's tray before sitting down? But then I realized that I do that all the time. No throwing stones here.

Sitting on the patio, I overheard a mom and her little boy, about 4 years old, walking out to their car. They were having a cute little conversation, and the boy says, "You are cool. I love you, Mommy." And she replies, "I love YOU." And he says, "No, I love you more." And she says, "No, I love YOU more." And they sort of went on like that 3 or 4 times until they got in the vehicle. My mom and I used to have that very conversation all the time when I was that age, probably up until I reached the "my-mom-is-the-lamest-person-ever" eye-rolling teenage years. It was an unending battle to try to out-love her. And no matter how many times I said it, or how much I told her I loved her - "THIIIIIIIIIS much!" with arms stretched as far apart as they'd reach - she, with arm- and attention-span greater than mine, would always win. When I was a kid, I hated that I couldn't win the "I love you" game. As an adult, I realize I'll never win it.  No matter how much I love my mom, she will always love me more. Not because I don't try, but because of the ownership she must feel, having created at least one half of me physically (and helping to shape a whole lot more of me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually). And while it is a little scary, it is also extremely comforting. I think that's the way it should be. I can only hope that one day I'll be able to love anyone as much as that little kid's mom loves him and my mom loves me.

windows to the soul

They - those mythical people who beguile and confuse us with countless declarations of fact and advice - say that the eyes are the true windows to the soul. Perhaps this was true fifty years ago, when people wrote  letters with pens on paper (and real, full-length sentences), had actual physical conversations, and played outside in the dirt. But in a modern world of emails, texts, and tweets all done away from the elements, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps there aren't some other opportunities for external soul voyaging (or voyeuring)...

Legs. I work in an office with no windows. We spend at least 40 hours a week in that space, wearing conservative business-appropriate attire and having polite business-appropriate conversation. Last week, we had a picnic. Outside. In the sun. In 90-degree humid Georgia weather. My boss suggested we dress down. A couple people wore shorts. They were business-appropriate shorts, but they were still shorts. Leg-exposing, humanizing shorts. In that moment, I realized something: I spend at least 40 hours a week with these people, and I still only know a fraction of who they really are. Even though we talk a lot and get along surprisingly well, I only really know the business-appropriate side of them. The side that is covered in pants and dress shirts and probably doesn't always say what it really feels. These are real people. With white pasty legs that haven't seen the sun in a long time. These are real people. With vulnerabilities and struggles and emotions and sometimes business-inappropriate senses of humor. These are real people. And I love them.

Music. I think you can tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they profess to love. I think that's an important distinction - professing to love and truly loving mean two very different things. Professing is all about designing your own public perception, marketing your personal brand. Truly loving is more of an intimate internal experience. And while both will certainly tell you a lot about the listener (and you can make the argument that the truly loved bit could be the more 'real' version of them), I think the professed love shows you more about their insecurities, thereby giving you a more complete picture of the real version of them.

Exhibit A: Those who claim love only for the most important classical works. They could easily be struggling to fit what is a perceived mold of intellectual perfection. You must drink wine in the swirl and sniff way. You must love stinky cheeses and hard bread. You must discuss literary magazines and important current events as though you truly care. You must reference obscure poets and scientific research in daily conversation. I'm not saying any of those things are so bad. But come on. Live a little. Be in the now a little. Understand that at least a few good things have come out of the common folks of the past 200 years. I know intellectuals, and I know musical snobbery at its finest (I have a degree in it, after all), and I can guarantee you that those people rock out to Zeppelin and Hendrix just as hard as they would Saint-Saens or Stravinsky.

Exhibit B: Those hipster kids who profess appreciation only for bands/artists no one's ever heard of and get pissed when other people discover them, thereby allowing the band to make money and stop starving, and automatically label said band a "sell out." Well, obviously, those kiddos are struggling so hard to be different that they don't realize they're all ending up exactly the same. I feel sad for them. I understand that whole 'damn the man' thing. I fully appreciate the idea of independent thinking and bolstering those artists who are making great music without the support of a label. I just wish those guys would lighten up a little bit. I wish they'd throw on some Justin Timberlake (who, despite all evidence of being a complete corporate fabrication, is actually incredibly talented and creative) and dance around their living room like the white dorks that they are. They would feel better. They might even smile. God knows they'd at least stop taking themselves so damn seriously.

Exhibit C: Those trend-a-minute folks who can only share knowledge of the most current 'music sensations.' These are the folks who are struggling so hard to be 'with it' that they latch on to what is popular not because they really put thought into it, but simply to avoid being left behind. Miley Cyrus. High School Musical. Taylor Swift. Most hip-hop. Are these things completely without merit? Of course not. After all, Madonna couldn't have been more trendy in the 80s, and I'll be damned if she's not still just as cool almost 30 years later. Miley might surprise me one day. High School Musical is generally crap to me, but I can't help but love Zac Efron's dimples. Taylor Swift can't sing worth a damn, but her songs are embarrassingly catchy. (I can't get that Romeo and Juliet one out of my head.) I never loved Beyonce until I saw that one scene in Dreamgirls where, through an amazing string of vocal pyrotechnics, she tells Jamie Foxx to kiss her ass. But to feel that these are the only things you can claim to love... to feel that you are somehow above the music of artists like Dionne Warwick, Phil Collins, The Platters, or even Elton John... well, that's just sad. There's a whole world of musicians out there whose 'cool date' may have long since expired, but whose music is enduring and timeless and really freaking fun.

My point? Don't just claim to love what you think you 'should' for whatever reason. Claim to love what you DO love. And try to love outside the box. Variety is the spice of life. You just might be surprised.

Facebook pages. I may have been doing a little light facebook stalking when I stumbled upon someone who had become a member of a "page." Their profile said : "______ likes 'Not Giving a F*ck.'" First of all, doesn't liking that page automatically negate the idea behind it? I mean really... liking something means you're actively expending energy on it, thereby actually giving a f*ck after all. But I digress.

A 16-year-old boy, with his whole life in front of him, thinks it's cool not to give a f*ck about anything. How incredibly sad is that? Without offering a dissertation-length social commentary, I have to say that this seems to be a growing epidemic among today's youth. Where, oh God, WHERE, are the young people who still give a f*ck? I understand that being a teenager with a life full of decisions ahead can be absolutely overwhelming. And in a world where we coddle, shelter, and - dare I say - disadvantage our youth by creating an environment of endless possibilities and choices for them (everyone gets a trophy just for playing, you can be absolutely anything, and mommy will take care of all the bad stuff for you), I can see how it would be even more overwhelming for a teenager right now. I can see how just not caring could in many ways be easier. At the risk of sounding like a cynical old hag, isn't it our job as adults to help kids understand that not everyone wins, not everyone gets to do what they want, and not everyone can live a life free of unpleasantness? They're so used to having everything just work out for them that they don't understand the value of effort anymore. They don't understand that working hard, making difficult choices and sacrifices, and experiencing a little bit of difficulty makes the end result seem that much sweeter. There is no motivation - intrinsic or extrinsic - because there is no real reward to them. (Or is it the other way around?) Life just happens to them, for them, and they just take it for what it is... because the cool thing to do is not give a f*ck. While I'd love to shake every single 12 to 24 year old out there until they understand that it isn't, or shouldn't be, that simple, I think the responsibility lies more with the adults who have allowed this to happen. I'm sure it's innocent - stemming from the yuppie idea of wanting your kids to have it easier, better, than you had it. I agree with that. No one should have to do it completely alone. They can't learn how to do it right if no one ever shows them or helps them along the way. But maybe, just maybe, they should lose, get their knees scraped, and generally let life kick them in the ass just a couple of times so that they appreciate the amazing opportunity they have to live in a world where you can communicate literally at the touch of a button almost instantaneously and where you truly can be anything you want as long as you actually DO give a f*ck.

hiatus

I made a promise when I started this blog: I won't write unless I have something interesting to say. I'm not really sure what's been happening in my life since November to prevent new interesting content from emerging, but it's pretty safe to say that I've kept my promise. Or at least, that's what I'm going to hide behind instead of owning up to my own pure forgetfulness or laziness about keeping up with this blog. It isn't so much that I haven't wanted to say anything, it's more that what I may have had to say was probably better kept to myself. Not that so many multitudes of people are reading this thing... but still. I do have a filter, despite some evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, with that being said, I'm going to try to make this a more regular part of my life again. I may not have a crazy husband or words of financial/political wisdom or funny baby stories to share, but I do have observations about the world that are worth putting down in print, even if I'm the only person who ever reads them.

In the true spirit of procrastination, I'll start tomorrow. :)

balls to the wall

I wouldn't usually be so crass in a public space... okay, who am I kidding... I probably would, but I'd usually do it a little more eloquently, or at least not in print. Welcome to what it's like in the space inside my head right now.

I've been thinking a lot lately. And not really the regular day-to-day tendency toward over-analysis that seems to be genetically hard-coded in female DNA and strongly correlated to elevated estrogen levels. In fact, I'm probably more balanced than most women you might run across when it comes to that sort of thing. But I also can't escape my training as a counselor, which invariably links any decision or choice with a lengthy process of dissection and eventual self-realization. This sounds like a bunch of crap, but I promise I have a point. I've been thinking about my life and the things that need to happen in order to get to where I want to be - not just in terms of career, but just sort of life in general: how do I reach the place where I finally feel that I've arrived?

In a lot of ways, it seems my life has been a pretty carefully calculated set of moves - some perfectly orchestrated, and others a perfectly orchestrated reaction to a move that maybe wasn't so perfect. Everything has served a purpose, and most of the time, I feel like I've known that purpose going in. I think that's sort of how I have to live in order to keep my head on straight. It has been about finding this purpose and sort of going for it, but always remembering not to take myself too seriously in the process. It's a precarious sort of balance that I have to strike in order to feel really at ease, and quite honestly, I've had a hard time finding that balance over the past few months.

I tend to think in black and white terms when it comes to work and things that are required of me, but I find a lot of gray in those areas that are not as clearly defined. And for me, those fuzzy areas probably make up the most important part of life - family, friends, connections, memories, emotions, adventures. Those are the places that aren't as easy to fit into a tight little box, and as a result, those are the things that tend to suffer when I'm feeling that being focused on a specific task is the only viable option. I've felt this way for awhile now, being very much focused on college and graduate school and then beginning to build a career. And each of these little steps will ultimately (and very methodically) lead to the elusive Dream Job. This part makes perfect sense. And while I may not always be happy while experiencing a step or growing pain, I know that it all works in the context of the big picture. But I have to wonder if those areas where I can't be so precise have been left behind to gather dust somewhere.

Part of it has to do with getting older and finding oneself in a position of needing to adapt to changing circumstances. But I think most of it really comes down to achieving a willingness to forego the need for parameters. Sometimes you just have to let it go. You have to meet people where they are. You have to wrap yourself up in the gray areas like a warm, fuzzy sweater. Simply put: you have to go balls to the wall. Life is too short to miss it because you spent too much time worrying about your next move. And it is most certainly too short not to laugh your way through it.

The problem with thought is that it can bog you down. But the awesome thing about it is that when you finally find the idea you've been searching for, you can just totally let it go...

Goodnight.

vacation and perspective

I've been away from work for 8.5 days now. It has been a nice break - much needed for some new perspective and clearing of the mind. Usually when I'm not at work, I'm thinking about work... trying to memorize dates, writing lists in my head, and sometimes even emailing myself so that I don't forget something. This week, I have only thought about work peripherally. I did have to follow up on one project, but I know everything else can wait until I get back on Tuesday. I've been amazed at how much I've accomplished this week - stuff I've been putting off for months - and how easy it was to do all of that and still have some time for fun without having a pesky job getting in my way. Of course, I realize how fortunate I am to have a job that affords me such luxuries (and I use that term VERY loosely). This school year is probably going to be hard. We're coming in from a very successful effort with our entering class, but now we have the expectations to maintain and exceed that success in the coming years. I'm looking forward to the new challenges and opportunities that will undoubtedly arise, but I definitely needed some time away in order to realize that.

This break has given me some time to exercise some creativity. I finally framed and hung some pictures I took in New England last summer, and I did a major art project for my bedroom. I'm not real happy with the current placement, so I may be re-doing that this week, but the basic stuff is there. I've also been reading, writing, baking some fun new creations, singing, and hanging out with people. The fun, relaxing stuff has been a good compliment to all the laundry and cleaning and organizing I've been doing. In any case, the sense of having accomplished things is certainly nice. And it has also given me the chance to recognize that I can't put that kind of stuff off anymore until "when I have time." All that stuff really needs to happen all the time in order to prevent feelings of stagnancy and being completely stuck. I'm looking forward to implementing that this year too.

I've been thinking a lot about ways to incorporate creativity into my life again. I've missed it a lot over the past couple years - not being regularly involved with creative ventures outside of work, and feeling too drained to really explore them. But I'm finding some stuff that is a little outside my usual scope, and I'm feeling pretty inspired by the whole creative process again. Looking forward to seeing where that will go.

(Side note, it's like 1am... and there is definitely something very loud happening outside in the street. Sounds like fireworks. But I'm a little hesitant to check it out... I'd like to come back in alive.)

My gosh, I'm tired. It's time to go to bed. I love awkward endings.