Amateur

Changing

2012-01-11T06:36:00.000-08:00

I grounded terrestrial logical overachiever dependable a loner a planner sole master of my fate haven’t seen her in so long this girl her bare feet secret diaries her free-fall eternal possibly calamitous her reverse swandive/skydive (not to fall but to fly) outlookless

Her vigor carnal adolescent irrational social inventive un-analytical she is unafraid chaotic kinetic keeps me up with her incessant dreaming wants to move to a fragrant country has taken up praying

I hope she stays a while

(Photo: realsimple.com)

Longing

2011-12-26T08:38:00.000-08:00

For the feeling after yoga to last all day grounded and peaceful for one night of deep uninterrupted sleep for a dark corner in a hotel bar (or any sacred place) where your hand might touch my arm again for a pause button (I could have said rewind) a stop button for the way things used to be back when my parents had superpowers framed my paintings tucked me in tight for how fresh everything looks for travel for music my headphones for a place to hide or not need to for good food we never shared but most of all for Sundays with you

Imaginary friend

2011-12-19T22:50:00.000-08:00

I have always had imaginary friends. The first one’s name was Clementina. She had chin length orange hair, smooth and straight, and when she came to visit the first thing she would do was stretch out alongside me on our bedroom floor and help me design blueprints for future department buildings.

I picked my most recent imaginary friend out of a catalog, and now he lives within me. Instead of coming and going at will like that childhood friend who only visited every other week, he is ever-present and exists in what feels like a thick rope wrapped around my spinal cord.

He runs the flat palm of his hand over my upper arm even though I have never told anyone that is the only part of me that feels empty. He whispers answers into my ear before any of the thousands of questions I want to ask have been formulated, or when in my apartment I am kept awake by the sound of floorboards creaking under the weight of dreams I haven’t had yet.

The structure of his thoughts is very different from mine (his ancestral, labyrinth-like, horizontal, elaborate; mine recent, smooth, simple, vertical) and yet his heart and mine pulse so similarly it’s hard to tell them apart.

In the early morning, when I can’t sleep, he repeats in that rhythmical way of his, always out loud, everything I try to hide, like a mantra, like an affirmation, like a lone witness to this new person I am becoming.

And this is how I know for certain I need nothing beyond the strength his presence brings me - clear, saline and invisible.

I don't remember

2011-05-22T17:40:00.000-07:00

You'll be with someone else someday

She'll ask you about me you'll search inside your head and look back at her with those liquid eyes and say I honestly don't remember

I don't remember her why I loved her what we did on Saturday mornings why we fought why we left each other you'll look at our life together thousands of photographs and wonder why you saved them you'll keep the ones I took of you against so many ruins all that sand and delete the ones with our arms around each other

Make a note of this put it somewhere where you won't lose it

I will always remember

Photo - Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

The watch

2011-03-31T20:59:00.000-07:00

(Note: This here is a true story, but it's not recent. It happened many years ago. Thank you all for your concern - I should have been more specific. Mom: I'm fine.)

------

At first, the gun was dangling from his hand, incidental. Then, because of what I did, he pointed it at my head.

The man holding it requested my watch, and I hesitated.

My mom gave me this watch. She bought it for me on the first trip we ever took alone, right before I started college. We went to Paris, just the two of us. It was September. I introduced her to the Musee D’Orsay. To do it justice, we took to savoring it for a couple of hours every afternoon instead of checking it off the list after one visit.

In memory of our voyage she bought me a watch that was meant to last forever. We were at the duty free store in the airport and devoted over an hour to the search, carefully considering different models. In the end, she spent more money than she should have. Years later, I take it off only to sleep and to shower.

I look at the time and am reminded of that trip, of my mom bent over in concentration, giving the decision of what watch to get the weight of a lifetime commitment. My watch, portable proof of the inherent intensity with which my mother approaches everything.

And now I have to give it to you, and I would really rather not.

The man’s hand is wrapped tightly around the grip of the gun. His finger is on the trigger. The barrel is pushed up against my temple. I wonder if osmosis is the reason my mouth tastes like metal.

How did I come to find myself in this predicament? What is a nice girl like me doing with a gun to her head?

Let’s back up a few hours.

I’m in my cubicle at work, ready to call it a day. It’s around 6:30 p.m. A coworker comes by and asks if I’d like to grab a bite to eat before heading home. I know that if I do there will be a lot less traffic once I hit the road, and, I’m hungry. I say yes. We walk out of the building and a few blocks later pick a small restaurant. It has, maybe, 12 tables. We sit down. The server brings a menu. We order. The food arrives. We talk. What time is it now? Not much later than 7:30.

An odd silence, elemental, like a shudder, like cold air, comes over the room. Before I confirm the scene with my eyes, I know what this is. Everyone does.

I turn to see three men dressed in dark suits standing at the door. They are all heavily armed. One of them addresses the restaurant. He is calm, almost courteous. “If you all behave, this will go very fast. No one needs to get hurt. We want your wallet and we want all your jewelry. Please set everything on the table.”

One of them stays by the door, blocking it. The other two pat down all male patrons. Then they go comb through the tables, systematically, putting everything into cloth bags. Unbelievably, or perhaps predictably, someone tries to make a run for it. He is quickly pinned to the floor. I think I hear the word “kill” and expect to hear a gunshot. I am grateful that I don’t.

My heart is trying to thrash its way out of my chest. I am quickly putting things on my placemat. My wallet, which was gift from a friend. My ring, that I bought with my first paycheck. Small stud earrings my mother’s husband gave me for my birthday. I wonder – stupidly, I know – if I can take my watch off and hide it under the cushion I am sitting on. I determine that it’s not worth the risk. Farewell, watch. I feel its smooth, cool band; for the last time run my finger over the sapphire on its crown.

And you are thinking, how foolhardy. Does she not know that things are not important? Does she not understand she can get another watch, that the consequences of her wavering could be tragic, irreparable?

What am I thinking about while the barrel of the gun is resting on my temple, while the owner of the weapon is looking at me impatiently, too nonchalant to bother looking threatening?

I am thinking about you. You walk to work with a briefcase in your hand and your coffee in the other, and are not astonished by your good fortune. You go to the movies without wondering wearily if the place is going to get mugged the moment they turn off the lights. You have dinner at a restaurant and don’t think twice about sitting with your back to the door. I bet you have friends who have never been held up. I bet their children play in parks outside.

Tell me, could you regard not ever feeling safe as normal?

How many times would you have to get mugged before reacting with indignity instead of terror, before you too faltered a fraction of a second too long before giving up an object you have imprudently attached meaning to?

You’d be surprised to discover what you are capable of becoming used to.

I snap off the watch and add it to the pile in front of me. The hand holding the gun to my head, showing no resentment, goes back to its dangling position, a finger carelessly threaded through the loop of the trigger. His other hand sweeps everything into the bag.

The men meet back at the entrance of the restaurant and resume their positions by the door. “Please stay where you are. One of us might be among you, and you will get hurt if you leave the restaurant before 15 minutes are up.” They saunter off.

We all remain frozen, dried out like insects pinned behind a glass case. Long after our deadline has lapsed, we dare to stir, shake out our hands and legs. Some people start to cry. Strangers embrace. I, inexplicably euphoric, step out into this beautiful, lethal city of mine with open arms.

Sick

2011-03-12T07:58:00.000-08:00

About eight months ago, after exhibiting a rather odd assortment of symptoms, I went to see a doctor. My regular medical practitioner was not available but I got a last minute appointment with her partner to get checked out.

15 minutes later I was diagnosed with a progressive, painful, long term, incurable disease that affects, among other things, your internal organs (like the heart and lungs) and is one of the leading causes of complete disability in the United States. (“But, are you certain?” I asked. “Pretty much”, he replied. “I’m sorry”.)

The side effects of the medication prescribed to control the symptoms (such as liver damage) left me questioning if the cure was worse than the disorder. Not taking the medication early leads to irreversible damage and deformity.

Before leaving the doctor’s office I made another appointment with my regular MD to get a second opinion. Then, I took a deep dive into learning everything I could about the diagnosis.

I have always considered myself clear-headed. It didn’t take long for the information I was taking in to turn me into an ineffective mass of nerves.

Have you ever felt a full-blown panic attack? Heart beating out of your chest, a thirst impossible to quench, shaky hands, burning eyes, a stress-induced fever? I felt like that every second of the following four days. I couldn’t sleep more than two hours at a time. I lost half a pound a day.

I arrived a few days later for my second opinion. My regular doctor began by saying it had been inappropriate to arrive at the above conclusion without running the corresponding tests, yet conceded the symptoms I was still experiencing where consistent with the diagnosis. I went to the lab, drew three vials of blood, then had to wait 7 days to get what she said might be inconclusive results.

I left the office and did more research. When you investigate a medical condition on the Internet, there is a fine line between “information is power” (my regular modus operandi) and driving yourself crazy. I crossed it. I could not stop myself.

By Monday evening, I had not slept in four nights. Wednesday morning, I felt like death would be an optimistic outcome. This feeling was more pragmatic than depressive. The disease leaves you crippled. Which meant not only that I’d be in unbearable pain and unable to do anything for myself, but that I’d take down with me the people that I love, who’d have to take care of me. Full time. I’d had a wonderful life. Would it be worth living unable to clean myself after going to the bathroom? (Sorry. Too graphic?)

A few days later I went to another doctor, a specialist in homeopathy, because I wanted to explore all my options. The gradual process of finding other alternatives (and feeling better as a result of them) gave me a spark of hope, not just in that the diagnosis might be incorrect, but that if it was accurate, I’d find my way.

I got my blood test results ten days later. They were clean. No evidence of the disease. No evidence of many others my doctor had decided to test for to “rule out”. I cried.

To this day, I still have unexplained symptoms and am under homeopathic treatment, taking my health – what I eat, how I approach exercise – more seriously than ever. Most of the time, I don’t even think about the fact I still don’t feel 100% like myself.

I can’t summarize – not today, maybe not ever - all the things that went through my head when I believed my life was over. The fatal sadness and terrifying empathy I now feel for people who are correctly diagnosed with the most terrible illnesses.

How the cornerstones of our lives are so intolerably fragile that we are conditioned to not think about it in order to make life bearable.

For now I’ll say this much: if you have your health, everything else is solvable. Everything.

Photo: www.healinghomeopathicremedies.com

Stretch. (Or, why I love yoga.)

2011-03-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

If you've known me longer than a year, you probably know I was not always a fan of yoga. I had tried to get into it without success, mostly due to my preference for being outside.

Over the past six months I've been (happily) bitten by the yoga bug and am now completely, utterly in love (but, I digress). I would not be exaggerating if I told you yoga saves me every day.

I could list thousands of reasons why I love it, but I'll focus on one: I am riveted by what yoga teaches me beyond yoga. The things my (many different) teachers say, and how what I hear is exactly what I needed on that particular day.

To put it in other words, the teachings of yoga are not in my life because I strived to achieve them (my usual modus operandi). They came to me because I let them. (I am open to more, please.)

Here are some of my favorite examples:

Let go of what doesn't serve you. This is life-bending. I have so many ingrained habits that don't serve me. I worry. I go to the worst possible case scenario. I hold grudges. I feel guilt. I fume. I complain. I go in there gripping something useless (or downright damaging) as if my life depended on keeping it close to me, then hear "let go of what doesn't serve you".

Breathe. Every time I hear this word uttered I am holding my breath. You can see how heeding it would be really useful if I’d rather not pass out.

Whatever you push pushes you back. There I was, trying my hardest to touch my toes. Overachiever that I am, I was definitely pushing, and frustrated with myself for not "doing it right". "Don't push", said my teacher. "Whatever you push pushes you back." (Whoa.)

One of my teacher's favorite questions: What is true for you right now? I like to observe the first answer that pops into my head. (Lately, it's been quite consistent.)

Relax when you feel you need to struggle - this is how I learned I could stay in triangle pose for quite a while. Rather than struggling with it, I could relax into it. It's hard to understand if you haven't done it but when you do, it cracks your perception open. (Which would explain why sometimes I cry during poses.)

Very often, the teacher requests a pose I can't do. I see others do it. I know, I know. You're supposed to focus on your own practice, but I always look at people around me in awe. And think "I will never do that. It defies gravity. It's physically impossible". This happened recently with the headstand. I regarded it as unachievable, until one day I did it. It was so easy. I felt weightless. And I realized right then, while standing on my head in the center of the room, that anything at all that seems impossibly difficult - anything - would soon become easy, because that is what happens when you try something in earnest.

One of my teachers believes that she shouldn't force her students. That each of us should determine how much we want to do on that day. She describes a pose, then says "do it if it's available to you." "Do crow's pose" she'll say. "Or maybe not today."

Another of the teachers uses full volume 80's music and makes us go through a Vinyasa at full power and speed. When I can't do something, he kneels in front of my mat and punches the floor in front of me yelling, "Do it! Do it!" or even turns to the room and says, "let's all wait until she gets this pose right". Normally, this would terrify me, but his attitude is so filled with good will. I know I can do whatever he asks. I do, and he smiles and winks and says "I got you". I could kiss him.

It astonishes me that two completely different approaches would both work so well with me.

I often come into the class dragging work (or whatever it is I am dragging) in with me. The teacher says, "Whatever you have to do won't get done while you are in here. Just be here. You don't have to do anything other than breathe and move through the poses". It hits me that I can take time off from whatever weighs on me, any time I want.

And my favorite one for last. How one of my teachers says at every pose - can you go lower? Can your back be straighter? Can you breathe deeper? He comes over, adjusts my pose, and whispers "Stretch!" Then repeats it over and over. Stretch. Stretch. It's such an incredible concept. Think about it: Depression makes you want to curl up. Darkness makes you shrink. Fear makes you wither. Stubbornness makes you narrow. Hate makes you lessen. Guilt makes you contract. Regret makes you shrivel. Negative feelings constrict. They weaken you. They diminish you.

Stretching is the opposite. It opens up your heart. It opens your eyes. It fills you with strength. It makes you more supple, more flexible. And it doesn't take much. You don't have to become someone else or do anything drastic. You don't need time to learn how to get it right. You just take who you already are, beautiful, unduplicatable, perfect, and stretch.

Photo: active.com

Einstein's Dreams/The center of time

2011-02-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing. Dogs raise their muzzles in silent howls. Pedestrians are frozen on the dusty streets, their legs cocked as if held by strings. The aromas of dates, mangoes, coriander, cumin are suspended in space.

As a traveler approaches this place from any direction, he moves more and more slowly. His heartbeats grow farther apart, his breathing slackens, his temperature drops, his thoughts diminish, until he reaches dead center and stops. For this is the center of time. From this place, time travels outward in concentric circles–at rest at the center, slowly picking up speed at greater diameters.

Who would make pilgrimage to the center of time? Parents with children, and lovers.

And so, at the place where time stands still, one sees parents clutching their children, in a frozen embrace that will never let go. The beautiful young daughter with blue eyes and blond hair will never stop smiling the smile she smiles now, will never lose this soft pink glow on her cheeks, will never grow wrinkled or tired, will never get injured, will never unlearn what her parents have taught her, will never think thoughts that her parents don’t know, will never know evil, will never tell her parents that she does not love them, will never leave her room with the view of the ocean, will never stop touching her parents as she does now.

And at the place where time stands still, one sees lovers kissing in the shadows of buildings, in a frozen embrace that will never let go. The loved one will never take his arms from where they are now, will never give back the bracelet of memories, will never journey far from his lover, will never place himself in danger of self-sacrifice, will never fail to show his love, will never become jealous, will never fall in love with someone else, will never lose the passion of this instant in time.

One must consider that these statues are illuminated by only the most feeble red light, for light is diminished almost to nothing at the center of time, its vibrations slowed to echoes in vast canyons, its intensity reduced to the faint glow of fireflies.

Those not quite at dead center do indeed move, but at the pace of glaciers. A brush of the hair might take a year, a kiss might take a thousand. While a smile is returned, seasons pass in the outer world. While a child is hugged, bridges rise. While a goodbye is said, cities crumble and are forgotten.

And those who return to the outer world…Children grow rapidly, forget the centuries-long embrace from their parents, which to them lasted but seconds. Children become adults, live far from their parents, live in their own houses, learn ways of their own, suffer pain, grow old. Children curse their parents for trying to hold them forever, curse time for their own wrinkled skin and hoarse voices. These now old children also want to stop time, but at another time. They want to freeze their own children at the center of time.

Lover who return find their friends are long gone. After all, lifetimes have passed. They move in a world they do not recognize. Lovers who return still embrace in the shadow of buildings, but now their embraces seem empty and alone. Soon they forget centuries-long promises, which to them lasted only seconds. They become jealous even among strangers, say hateful things to each other, lose passion, drift apart, grow old and alone in a world they do not know.

Some say it is best not to go near the center of time. Life is a vessel of sadness, but it is noble to live life, and without time there is no life. Others disagree. They would rather have an eternity of contentment, even if that eternity were fixed and frozen, like a butterfly mounted in a case.

Alan Lightman
Einstein's Dreams (The center of time.)

Rituals

2011-02-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

When I was a little girl my mom told me that using body cream was very important. I don't remember how old I was; I must have been six or seven. I have a clear memory of watching her slather it on her legs, then hold the open jar in front of me so that I would do the same. Putting on cream is something I do every day right after I get out of the shower. All these years I've never questioned if I need to do it or if my skin is dry. It's automatic, like brushing my teeth or pulling the sheets up over my ears.

It was my father who taught me the importance of drying my feet thoroughly and running the corner of the bath towel back and forth between my toes after every shower. I remember him declaring, in that inarguable way of his, that water between my toes was bad for me. (He explained it could cause the skin to split, which to this day makes me wince). When I get out of the shower, I indeed take the corner of the towel and run it back and forth between each toe (somewhat obsessively - I wonder where that came from?), even when I'm in a mad hurry. I can guarantee it: no residue of humidity on my feet, ever.

It's odd, the bits of programming our parents leave in us.

It occurred to me recently that these two rituals ensure I start each day with the omnipresence of the two people who love me most in the world.

A gift of deep caring, all wrapped and handed to me every morning before I even make it out of my house, and I only just realized it.

And you wonder why I'm grateful.

http://www.vectorstock.com

Lies

2011-02-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

I will always take care of you I will never this is forever this is constant under control I am alone nobody would understand this is unequivocal absolute unsolvable unforgivable that is impossible this is a principle a cornerstone The Truth my Truth there are two sides to every story (two sides couldn’t quite cover any story)

I prefer now I prefer you a room with a view (not just any view) a walk in the rain (which was a cliché until you were holding the umbrella) help taking my boots off at the end of that long walk

http://www.thisnext.com

The luckiest person in the world

2011-02-16T18:19:00.000-08:00

I am not afraid to say that I believe I am one of the luckiest people in the world.

Well, OK. I am afraid.

In fact, the concept kind of freaks me out.

The thoughts that race through my head are: Why me? Whatever did I do to deserve such a huge amount of blissful blessings? And, perhaps more importantly, when is the other shoe going to drop, in the manifestation of some calamity? Will my luck run out? Will my fortune change course? (For a while there I believed it had. I don’t wish hopelessness on anyone.)

I've decided that I have a choice. I can torture myself with the thoughts in the paragraph above. Take in my luck and react to it with panic, with a sense that I might lose everything I have at any moment (which is always possible). And in doing so, successfully jeopardize the delight derived in what is bestowed on me.

But, wouldn’t this be the clear opposite of gratitude? In other words, wouldn’t this diminish me, make me an ungrateful person?

Or, (gasp) I can assume that there is a reason I have what I do, and that someone somewhere determined that I deserve it. (To whom it may concern: thank you.)

That I believe every being on the planet deserves abundance and good fortune, so why should I be the exception?

So today (and every day) I make the decision to not allow myself to be stressed by what life gives me. Instead, I will let this enormous feeling of gratitude that I carry with me wash over me, in a ritual at least as frequent as my twice-daily shower.

And relish every gift that comes my way, and honor the bestower by doing so with a thankful, awed, open heart.

Photo: http://www.only-roses.com

Renewal

2010-12-25T20:16:00.000-08:00

"Stem cells are the body's reservoir of renewal. The entirety of human blood, for instance, can arise from a single, highly potent blood forming stem cell (called a hematopoietic stem cell), which typically lives buried inside the bone marrow. Under normal conditions, only a fraction of these blood-forming stem cells are active; the rest are deeply quiescent - asleep. But if blood is suddenly depleted, by injury or chemotherapy, say, then the stem cells awaken and begin to divide with awe-inspiring fecundity, generating cells that generate thousands upon thousands of blood cells. In weeks, a single hematopoietic stem cell can replenish the entire human organism with new blood - and then, through yet unknown mechanisms, lull itself back to sleep."

Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Emperor of All Maladies

Easy to misinterpret

2010-11-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

What happened you want to know to the periods and the commas and the exclamation points and the question marks to which I say look around it’s all inconclusive easy to misinterpret so why not let a jumble of words be simple be humble represent nothing but themselves

Hungry

2010-10-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

I am hungry for words for learning more about myself for books a glass of cold water not for tricky territory or moving pieces across a flimsy chessboard not for inattention or cunning for order a floor polished clean for clarity and light for a tide pool for beauty and a new lined notebook

Photo - Galiano Island

Parallel world

2010-10-16T14:52:00.000-07:00

Routine is the antidote a schedule a sequence procedure a habit morning toast the drive to work that parallel world scratched air weatherless empty it can’t touch me over here for long stretches of time I forget that it’s there perhaps it was only a bad dream

Photo by Luca, Nayarit, Mexico

Fanatically musical

2010-10-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

I like order empty space rows of things patterns rhythmical there is poetry in symmetry dissonance in chaos it's not that I'm obsessively neat it's that I'm fanatically musical

Photo: Tidepools in Galiano Island

Dis-ease

2010-09-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

For reasons I’d rather not get into, illness – the serious kind – has been on my mind a lot over the past several months. I thought I’d share here a list of things I’ve found useful.

Honor your instinct. This means that if you don’t feel well, you need to launch on a search of why that is. Sometimes a doctor says what we desperately want to hear (“there is nothing wrong with you”) and the temptation to bury what our body is telling us is greater than the ocean. This results in the loss of valuable time (and in you continuing to feel like shit.) You’ll find answers. It might just take a while.

Doctors are not gods. Sometimes they don’t know what to do. They often make mistakes (Ask one. She’ll tell you.) Be skeptical. Believe in the value of multiple opinions.

While on the subject of multiple opinions, consider homeopathy. You have nothing to lose, as this kind of treatment has no side effects. (I will possibly tell you more about this in a future entry. Homeopathy is mind-boggling and fabulous if the doctor practicing it is very good.)

Make a list of symptoms and take notes of things you want to discuss with your doctor. You’ll forget otherwise.

Don’t worry about worrying the people who love you. No matter how much this concerns you, you can’t do much about it, and you (very badly) need to channel your energy towards more immediate things, like your health. Besides, people who love you want to be there for you. Give them some credit. Which takes me to my next point.

Never go to the doctor alone. More than one listener means perspective. Particularly valuable if you are in a panic or emotionally involved.

And, if I could leave you with just one thing, it would be this: don’t be afraid. I’ve learned (thank you Kate for helping me get there) that the opposite of fear is faith. I don’t know about you, but there has been a shortage of faith in my pragmatic, intellectual, non-religious family. Getting on your knees and praying to a force bigger than you (whatever you conceive this to be) beats having all the facts this wired world has to offer. Have faith. If you don’t have any, go find it.

Great ways to waste energy

2010-09-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Make a mountain out of a molehill.

Expect a reaction that is not in the other individual's nature. Then...

Be disappointed or hurt that the desired outcome did not happen.

Dislike someone. Intensely.

Develop a tendency to take things personally.

Worry.

Feel guilty.

Hold imaginary conversations where you predict what another person's reply will be. Go through every possible scenario.

Feed irrational fear.

Assume that things that appear to be larger than you are actually about you.

Decide that you can win by fighting things that seem larger than you. Thrash about.

Hold on tight, for as long as you can, to something that caused you pain.

When you're feeling paranoid, analyze every unrelated event until you find evidence, however small, that the world is indeed out to get you.

Complain. Make sure you make the complaints elliptical by finding people who have similar issues so that beyond discussing them action to resolve them is never taken.

Anticipate the worst-case scenario so you can feel stressed about things that are not likely to happen.

When you're ready

2010-08-15T08:54:00.000-07:00

My house it reminds me some day I will sit on the Adondirack chair in the backyard learn how to use a tagine read all the books on my bookshelf in alphabetical order lie in the wide red sofa or on the cool wood floor and watch the moon through the skylight wear my sequined t-shirt and all those shoes use the hot tub burn candles apply beauty treatments I’ll learn to knit take in every single photograph in the coffee table books sip Turkish coffee from the small white cups some day I’ll have time for this my house assures me you go do what you need to do and we’ll be here when you’re ready

Photo: www.realsimple.com

My galactic hair

2010-06-24T15:49:00.000-07:00

George Malcolm: half white, half black, with messy tousled hair, rumpled and tugged between kind of curly and extremely curly. Once, a year or so before, he'd been at our house and he'd pulled out a lock of his hair and used it to teach me about eddies and helixes. It's a circular current into a central station, he'd explained, giving me one to hold. I pulled on the spring. Nature is full of the same shapes, he said, taking me to the bathroom sink and spinning on the tap and pointing out the way the water swirled down the drain. Taking me to the bookshelf and flipping open a book on weather and showing me a cyclone, then a spiral galaxy. Pulling me back to the bathroom sink, to my glass jar of collected seashells, and pointing out the same curl in a minature conch. See? he said, holding the seashell up to his hair. Yes! I clapped. His eyes were warm with teaching pleasure. It's galactic hair, he said, smiling.

From The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
By Aimee Bender

Photo: Wikipedia

The fan and the snob

2010-06-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

My brother Pedro was the first to show interest in futbol. He is 8 years younger than me, so for a long while I was a part of what is likely the only family not at all interested in a sport that is a passion in Mexico.   

Then, I met my husband Luca. Very early on he explained he was from Milan, and that Milan had two teams: Inter, and AC Milan. He was a fan of Inter. He showed me the logo. He narrated a brief history of how both teams were constituted. I nodded.

Inspired, I told him it might be fun for me to be a fan of AC Milan, figuring it could make for a more interesting family dynamic. He looked at me silently for a while, with one of the most solemn expressions he has ever mustered. “If you did that” he finally replied “you’d be going against three generations of Penati tradition.”

“Forza Inter”, I said.  

Once that had been established, I dedicated considerable effort to finding this sport interesting. I have failed over and over again.

Imagine, I tell Luca, the degree of evolution required to take a piece of wood, transform it into a violin and have that somehow become a Bach concerto. Or contemplate the imagination implicit in going from a coffee bean on a tree, to harvesting, toasting, grinding, adding boiling water, straining, and arriving at the heady, sensual drink we all know and love. I mean, who conceives these things?

So all things considered, I explain, having 11 sweaty men follow a ball, kick it around, and sometimes head bump it is kind of.... well, Neanderthal –ish.

Far from seeing it my way, Luca hurls the only insult he’s ever directed at me. “Dushka. You are such a snob”.   

Since then, my only brief but promising flicker of interest in the game happened at the Milan airport, where running down a staircase I caught out of the corner of my eye the Dolce Gabbana ad where players were photographed in their underwear. Who knew soccer required such stringent physical conditioning.

On Saturday, May 22, 2010 Inter played against Bayern Munich in Madrid. The winner would win the Champions League, the most prestigious trophy for clubs. We all got together at Luca’s parents’ house in Milan. I stared at the screen, determined to show an ability to follow this obsession that consumes the man I love. I fixed my eyes on the ball. Players ran to the left. Players ran to the right. Players ran to the left. I fell asleep.

During my nap, I jumped up twice to screeching screams of GOOOOOOOL! My husband went to the Duomo to celebrate Inter’s victory (along with 100,000 other people), the first such event in 45 years.

The next day, he bought Inter t-shirts, flags, socks, sweatshirts and a scarf. I encouraged the shopping spree, looking on adoringly.

Alas. The bottom line is that soccer is the place where I will always in the sidelines. Or, will I?

Luca watches games from the sofa in our living room. I tell him I will go into the kitchen to prepare something for him to snack on while he inhabits this mysterious, far away place.

“No, bring a book and come sit by me” he says. “You bring me luck”.

Photo: Luca's grandmother. Photo taken on her 100th birthday, the day Inter won the Champion's League.

A long life

2010-06-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

I’ve always associated longevity with good fortune. It’s what I wish on those I love and the reason I do my best to live a healthy life (OK. Besides vanity.)

My husband’s grandmother turned 100 years old this week. And I can tell you, she’s had it. She has seen all her friends (and their children) and most of her family (parents, brothers, sisters, cousins) die. She is a widow who misses her husband terribly, and who lately curses him for leaving her here alone.

Her age has become a sentence. She lives in a world she no longer understands, one that has left her behind. Everyone she loves has built a life that (she feels) only includes her out of a sense of duty.

She is a woman of great dignity, slender and silent, who would rather eat alone than “invade” her son’s life (and she did indeed eat lunch alone at her dinner table, day after day, despite her son begging her to come upstairs, for almost 20 years.)

She was completely independent up until recently. She lived alone until she was 98, going to the store and cooking for herself until she showed signs of short term memory loss that led her son and daughter in law to fear she might wander off or leave the stove on.

She now lives in a home where she is the oldest. She is the only one who still takes the two flights of stairs that lead to her room and who refuses to go to the doctor. She shuns all forms of medication, even vitamins. She drinks no water, only a glass of red wine with meals. Of all her traits, my favorite is her lack of interest in being tactful. A few years back, her grandson told her she looked beautiful. His tone, although completely void of cruelty, was flip. The immediacy of her razor sharp response (along the lines of “go to hell”) left him reeling.

I love life. Sounding negative about having more of it feels counterintuitive and not very gracious. But I wonder how much of what I now consider crucial to my well being I would still have 60 years from now. I wonder if I wouldn’t be feeling more of an ever-present sense of loss than any feeling of gratitude or triumph.

The fun principle

2010-05-25T08:05:00.000-07:00

I can't tell you how many times I've heard "I'll quit the day it stops being fun". Or "it just wasn't fun anymore, you know?"

For a long time this made sense, but upon further examination I’ve decided I don’t buy the fun principle. While I do consider the pursuit of happiness should be central to everybody’s life, I believe true happiness is a thing with substance.

The false sense that you “deserve better” (“deserve” – such a dangerous word!), that life is supposed to be a great big party, leaves me wanting.

More importantly, I believe that if I expected it to be that way I would set myself up to be regularly disappointed.

What I want, a lot more than laughs, to be amused or to be playful, is to live in a place (within myself) where I’m always learning. Where the fear of failing at something is never what is guiding my decision to get involved in it or not. Where I have people to love. Even to be surrounded by things – simple, useful things – that I consider beautiful.

That seems worth sticking around for.

Photo:www.dropshiptoys.com

Possibilities

2010-05-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

I love this poem by Wislawa Szymborska. It invites me to make my own list of preferences.

Possibilities

I prefer movies.

I prefer cats.

I prefer the oaks along the river.

I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.

I prefer myself liking people

to myself loving mankind.

I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.

I prefer the color green.

I prefer not to maintain

that reason is to blame for everything.

I prefer exceptions.

I prefer to leave early.

I prefer talking to doctors about something else.

I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.

I prefer the absurdity of writing poems

to the absurdity of not writing poems.

I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries

that can be celebrated every day.

I prefer moralists

who promise me nothing.

I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.

I prefer the earth in civvies.

I prefer conquered to conquering countries.

I prefer having some reservations.

I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.

I prefer Grimm’s' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.

I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.

I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.

I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.

I prefer desk drawers.

I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here

to many things I've also left unsaid.

I prefer zeroes on the loose

to those lined up behind a cipher.

I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.

I prefer to knock on wood.

I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.

I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility

that existence has its own reason for being.

Wislawa Szymborska

(Nothing Twice, trans. by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh)

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Oh, mom.

2010-05-09T12:44:00.000-07:00

You probably don't remember.

You watched "The Changeling", that movie where Angelina Jolie loses her child. He's replaced by another she does not know and told it is her son. No one believes her when she says it isn't. She is thrown into an insane asylum.

You call to tell me you loved the movie, to which I reply I thought it was beautiful but too terrible for words. You say, perplexed "what in the world did you find so terrible about it?" I summarize the plot. "Oh." You respond. "I only remember the incredible photography."

My husband posted a video of me trying out working in the rice fields in Vietnam. It shows Vietnamese workers in their cone shaped hats teaching me how to soften the hard earth, quickly losing their patience at my incompetence and unceremoniously waving me off the field. It's aptly titled "Dushka gets fired in Vietnam".

Your comment to the video is "She will try anything. If you leave her there 10 minutes longer she'll be in charge and showing the Vietnamese women how to do it."

We all need a dose of this gift of yours to block what you don't want to see. Everyone should be lucky enough to be mistaken for someone far better than they really are. I don't know what I will do when I lose the only person in the world who think I am invincible.

Infidelity is not a tornado

2010-04-23T17:14:00.000-07:00

I fear this post is the unfortunate consequence of me reading one People Magazine article too many. But I am so fed up with how infidelity is referred to.

The most common declaration made after the spouse is caught is "I made a mistake". Infidelity isn't like tripping. It's extremely deliberate. It's not a result of "poor judgment" - a good example of poor judgment would be driving too fast. Being unfaithful involves a thousand small decisions: twelve subtle looks + a tentative, grazing touch + active pursuit + a rendezvous you connive to keep a secret + taking off all your clothes. If someone's penis ends up in someone's vagina it can't be talked about like you forgot to mention to your barista that you like sugar in your coffee.

Next is "I swear it didn't mean anything". Well, if it meant enough for you to put what you had at risk, that doesn't speak very highly of the value you placed on your relationship, does it?

Then there is the contrite spouse in question, red faced, wet eyed, saying "I hope my family finds it in their heart to forgive me". You didn't find it in your heart to honor your vows, so why are you putting all the weight of responsibility of what happens next in those you just hurt, who at the moment can't even see straight?

And let's not forget "I can't believe one single mistake puts our whole relationship at risk". That is a risk you take when you cheat, not a decision the spouse makes when she/he is too twisted up inside to know what the heck to do next. 

I'm also so very tired of celebrities responding by "getting treatment". I respect addictions and their healing process. But I can't help but feel the person is actively relinquishing accountability. To put it in other words: if you're man enough to not be able to keep your dick in your pants, be a man and stand up for what you did. Proud of your prowess, deception proficiency and extra-marital dexterity? Then don't act like you are the perplexed, helpless victim of "a disease". 

Despite what this sounds like, I want to point out how through this post I am refraining from judging the act itself. I am not saying infidelity is (or isn't) a terrible thing or that whoever commits it will inevitably arrive at a day of reckoning. What people do (or forgive) is their business. 

What I'm tired of is how cheaters handle themselves after the fact, how they look upon the mess they've made as if it was a tornado (a huge, inescapable, swirling, destructive force coming out of nowhere from far, far away) that caused it.

What I'm tired of is the lack of variety, the offensive absence of creativity, the same worn out scenario playing out an infinite number of times. How sad it is to see love, that most sacred of things, reduce itself to a cliché, wasted over and over and over again.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Chipotle

2010-04-14T10:59:00.000-07:00

As a Mexican living in the US I am forever complaining about mediocre (or in-authentic) Mexican food outside of Mexico, so I try to give credit to places that remind me of the food I ate growing up.

A few nights ago, desperately hungry and crunched for time, my husband and I noticed what seemed like a fast food restaurant serving tacos that looked really great. We looked at each other, stepped inside and ordered: he grilled chicken, me vegetarian tacos (with black beans, corn salsa, pico de gallo, guacamole and a fresh, crunchy pile of lettuce).

They were delicious.

Impressed with what their food, their (kind, friendly, helpful) service and how fast we went from walking into their restaurant to having the food in our eager little hands, I did a bit of research about them.

I'm probably one of the last people to discover that Chipotle is really "doing things better". In their words "better tasting, coming from better sources, better for the environment, better for the animals, and better for the farmers who raise the animals and grow the produce.

The hallmarks of Food With Integrity include things like unprocessed, seasonal, family-farmed, sustainable, nutritious, naturally raised, added hormone free, organic, and artisanal.

And, since embracing this philosophy, it's had tremendous impact on how we run our restaurants and our business. It's led us to serve more naturally raised meat than any other restaurant in the country, to push for more sustainable practices in produce farming, and to work with dairy suppliers to eliminate the use of added hormones from their operations."

After reading about their practices, eating their food, and having discovered that we walk right in front one of their locations on our way home, I can say I will be eating at Chipotle a lot more often.

Easter will always belong to you

2010-04-04T13:53:00.000-07:00

My family isn’t very big on special occasions. I know my mom could take or leave the entire month of December. She’s told me she doesn’t mind at all celebrating the Holidays in October or February when travel isn’t such a hassle.

We tell each other that our idea of an awesome New Year’s celebration is to crawl into bed and ask someone to wake us up when it’s over. We chuckle, but we know we’re not kidding.

I bet you that if you asked my father to list his offspring and their corresponding birthdays he wouldn’t be able to answer (he might get lucky and remember all our names, but definitely not the dates we came into the world.)

This is why I’m so grateful to the people in our lives who don't listen when we assure them important dates don't matter.

My husband looks the other way when I don’t remember our anniversary and has gotten into the habit of booking a special trip on that date, where we take stock of our lives from somewhere far away enough to provide perspective.

Easter will forever belong to Tomas, my mother’s husband. We used to wake up every Easter Sunday (we’re not Catholic) and run out to the garden to find dozens of eggs. They weren’t chocolate (my brother was severely allergic to it). They were plastic, and I would unwrap and open them to find treasures inside: multicolored candy, sure, but other things too. Jewelry and miniature furniture, secret notes and toys.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized he had to go look for things small enough to fit into the eggs, individually wrap them, get up early to hide them, and then put them away for the following year.

I am grateful to Tomas for putting up with our un-sentimental, overly pragmatic ways and for making my life a pastel colored place. You know, the kind where you expect to find nestled in the grass a baby blue egg with a unicorn inside.

Better safe than polite

2010-04-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin De Becker says that humans have been given marvelous, complex, highly evolved instincts designed to keep us out of harm's way. The problem is that we override internal alarms in the name of being "polite" or "reasonable".

He illustrates his point with the following example: Say that you are waiting for an elevator. The doors open and you see someone already inside that sends a chill down your spine (or turns your stomach into a knot.) But, it would be so rude, even offensive, to stare at the person and then refrain from getting on the elevator, right?

You decide to ignore your own message, telling yourself that being afraid of someone you've never met makes no sense and determine that it instead makes a lot of sense to get into a small, sound proof, inescapable metal box with someone you instinctively are afraid of.

This story blew me away. Because I make these types of decisions all the time: doing things against my better judgment in an attempt to "make sense". Making an elaborate intellectual effort to convince myself my instincts cannot possibly be right. And, I love my instincts! They are so often correct! They were put there to help me!

I've decided they deserve more respect than this. Not just mine - everyone's. So I invite you to listen to yours too.

Unpredictable

2010-03-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

Despite over 30 years of (reluctant) shopping experience, when I buy clothes I find it impossible to predict what I'll actually use.

I end up giving away items I was sure I'd wear all the time: the very comfortable sweater, for example, in a neutral color that would "go with everything". (There is no such thing, by the way.)  

On the other hand (and this is the part that perplexes me the most) ever so often I buy something despite suspecting I'll never use it, just because I really like it. And it turns out I use it all the time. Gold shoes (that nearly go with everything.) Denim shorts (I even wear them to the office.) A dress with an unusual pattern. An article in an unlikely color.

(If you're thinking "Aha! What she needs to do is only buy things she really likes without worrying about frequency of use!" I’ve also been known to buy something despite suspecting I’ll never use it just because I really like it and it turns out I don’t use it. But thanks anyway.)  

I have come up with a very rough list of rules that sometimes works:

- The less time it takes for me to put an outfit together, the more I turn to it. This is why I wear dresses at least 4 days of the week.

- The shoes have to be comfortable. It's not that I don't adore high heels. It's that I love my feet more.

- I won't use something if it makes me feel like a boy. Pants often do this. And, this is the reason I have given up on most blazers.

- No button down shirts. They always gape. I don't care how well they're cut. And no, I don’t want to try that special brand that doesn’t. I’ve given up on them.

- No turtlenecks or crewnecks. I love how they look on other people. They don't look good on me.

I have the deepest respect and admiration for people who love fashion and have fun with it and always look like getting dressed in the morning was a wonderful mini-adventure. For the rest of us, it's a crap shoot.

Photo: www.jcrew.com

What's the best that could happen?

2010-03-15T17:09:00.000-07:00

Let me share with you one of my most ingrained habits: I will immediately, unfailingly go to the worst possible case scenario.

It's not that I'm a pessimist. I'm an optimist who concluded long ago that to accurately assess a situation I needed to ask "what's the worst that could happen?" The assumption is that if I have evaluated the worst, I will be ready for anything.

I have discovered that this is flawed reasoning, because:

- It's impossible to prepare for anything, given that the combinations of unfortunate things that can happen are, I'm sorry to say, infinite. So, when something bad does happen, rather than being "ready" I sit there bleary eyed and wild-haired wondering how on Earth I did not see it coming.

- Operating in worst case scenario mode leads me to live in a perpetual state of heightened anxiety. (It's no wonder, since I inhabit a nightmarish kind of place). The lethally ironic blow? The exercise completely dulls my instincts, so that when something happens I cannot read my most trusty tool (my internal compass) because I've dulled it with a flood of possible scenarios that do not take place.

- Ultimately, what I end up without is faith. Because I'm so busy looking ahead at likely disasters that I fail to notice all of the times that what I was expecting did not occur.

So I'm now in the middle of the most difficult exercise: training every day to resist taking my well tread, completely cleared away path that leads to worst case scenarios; and instead choosing to open through dense jungle the trail that no one has ever set foot on of trying to conceive the best that could happen.

Saying this doesn't come naturally to me would be an understatement. It scares me, because it feels like I an setting myself up to be ambushed, hurt or disappointed. But instead of living through the heartbreak of all the catastrophes that have only happened in my (hyperactive) imagination, I hope to live through the joy of a thousand perfect (and equally plausible) outcomes.

This way, when crisis strikes, at least I won't be exhausted.

Photo: Painting by Ken Grant

I turned left in Vietnam

2010-03-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

Traffic in Vietnam can only be described as surreal. You have dust and noise (oh, the noise) and cars and rickshaws and bicycles and motorbikes that often carry more than four family members (or, say, a refrigerator, a water buffalo, or 10 wooden crates full of basil and mint leaves.)

If you’re not used to it, riding around in a car can be pretty harrowing. Getting in a cab will have you sitting on the edge of your seat and gripping something.

Which is why it was such an incredible experience to explore Vietnam by bicycle.

For context, let me start by saying that I’m not particularly adroit on a bike. I can balance myself on it and I can pedal, but I’m not one of those people who was ever good enough to yell “Look mom! No hands!” (Or even “look, Mom! One hand!") I never thought I’d be capable – or willing - to ride in the middle of such commotion. To my surprise, it allowed me to experience the rhythm and throb of a country in a way nothing else, not even walking, could have.

On roads, street signals don’t matter. I’m not referring only to stop lights, but even to the sense of highways. There is no such thing as “the wrong way” as people driving in any direction use both sides of the road. Drivers use their horns constantly (hence the intense cacophony), to say “I’m here” rather than to say “get out of my way”.

What you do is ride along, mindful of others, yet completely owning the space you rightfully occupy in the world. You tend to stay towards the right side of the street (leaving the middle part to trucks and cars) and avoid the shoulder if it’s too sandy or has too much gravel. You make sure that there is a pattern to your movement (no swerving, jerking or sudden stopping) so people around you can predict what you’re going to do next. The opposite of chaos, there is an easy flow to it, and once you get the hang of it, it feels like an incredible local secret has been revealed to you, like learning a language.

Now for the best part. What about turning left? This act can only be described as a leap of faith. You stretch your left arm down and wiggle your hand (if you push your arm out you’ll, at best, knock someone over.) Then you go – turning the handle bars against traffic coming from both sides of the street and knowing full well there is a 50/50 chance a big truck could plow right into you.

I rode a bicycle in Vietnam for a full week, took multiple left turns, and every time felt to the center of my being the precise meaning of “on a wing and a prayer”.

Riding a bike in Vietnam feels like you’re a witness to your own fortune-kissed life. If I can, against all odds, turn left in Vietnam and come out of it unscathed, it's safe to assume there is less to be afraid of.

Photo: New York Times Asia

Also known as love

2010-02-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

Lovetta Conto grew up in a refugee camp in Ghana. Today she designs Akawelle (which means “also known as love”) a line of jewelry made from the remnants of bullets that litter her native Liberia. Half of the profits go to a home for displaced children. This way, she says “the same bullet that has killed someone can help a new generation”.

I couldn't resist buying one. I like to wear it to remind myself I have no idea what a difficult day really means.

Photo: http://www.akawelle.com/

A perfectly good life strategy, wasted

2010-02-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

I know my life would be so much simpler if I worked to lower everyone's expectations.

Unfortunately, my ego keeps getting in the way.

Animals out of paper

2010-01-31T10:27:00.000-08:00

The SF Playhouse is a tiny, tiny theater in SF that seats around 100 people. As a season pass holder, I am invited to watch previews of plays, given questionnaires to provide feedback that is incorporated into future showings, and invited to special events.

I recently saw “Animals out of paper”, by Rajiv Joseph, which is (just to not give away too much of the plot) origami as a metaphor for life. I thought it was brilliant. The theme, the story, the writing, how perfect the actors were for the parts they played, and how talented.

I was thrilled to hear that at the end of the show the playwright, the director and the actors would drag fold-out chairs, open them up on the stage, and encourage conversation.

As I sat there listening to the author answer questions, I was startled by how different his intent was from my interpretation of the play. I wanted to raise my hand and shout, “that is not how Suresh felt at all!” except that I was keenly aware that it was a play he had written, and that I was just a spectator. I walked out of the theater almost wishing I had not stayed for the discussion, much preferring my own version of the meaning of the show and what would happen to the characters in the future.

If a director works closely with a playwright to bring his characters to life, does he then have to let go and put all the answers in the hands of his audience? (Yes, please.) How long do you get to keep what you write? Isn’t its very purpose to take on a life of its own, like parents with their children?

More importantly, how many times have I heard things –outside the confines of a theater – that I have taken to mean something completely different than the way they were intended? How many times have I attributed something to someone else when really the accidental author was my imagination?

Do we ever really get to know anyone at all? Or do things only happen in the confines of our mind, tracing with the people closest to us feather light parallel lines that, because of the flaws inherent in human nature, are destined to never touch?

Not Alone

2010-01-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

According to the Meyers Briggs type indicator, an “extrovert” and an “introvert” are defined based on where they get their energy. An extrovert is “energized by the outer world of people and things” and an introvert is “energized by the inner world of thoughts and ideas”.

When I first heard about this, I considered it a revelation. It took me the better part of ten years to come to the realization that I really did not enjoy parties or social gatherings larger than, say, four people (It turns out that making the distinction between “I like” and “I don’t like” is not as easy as it would appear. Another revelation.)

After a long day of work, an extrovert wants to go have dinner. I want to crawl into bed with a book. I don’t want to talk. I want to write. I don’t want to play a team sport. I want to swim. When faced with a dilemma at work, I don’t want to brainstorm. I want to sit behind my computer and close the door. This is, in fact, what I want to do even when not faced with a dilemma at work.

My job (which I love) is intensely social. I meet with people and talk on the phone and present a point of view and give presentations (often breathing through stage fright). When a co-worker comes into my office, my brain is happy to see her but my body spasms (it takes a second for my mouth to follow my brain and smile because its first reaction is to contract.)

What I find interesting is that I’m not alone (despite being attracted to that concept.)

I’ve recently concluded (through empirical observation) that more than half of the people who work in PR are closet introverts (don’t worry. I won’t call you out by name until you’re ready.)

I guess this shouldn’t come as such a surprise. The profession demands that you interact with a certain level of social dexterity, but it requires, at least in equal measure, that you write and think and research. We’re right where we should be.

Besides, everyone should have a job that takes them places they wouldn’t go on their own, that pushes the limits of what they think they can do, and that (as a bonus) saves them from their worst tendencies (I’d be a hermit.)

So if you’re a fellow introvert in a job that demands that you operate outside your comfort zone, I salute you.

The best fortune ever

2010-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I opened a fortune cookie and found this inside.

I have carried it in my wallet ever since.

More than anything else, this is what I want to be true.

Photo: scan of actual fortune.

In case of earthquake

2010-01-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

If you know me at all – or even if you just read my blog – you know that I am quite fond of order, planning and preparing. I make lists of things to do even on weekends, and organizing my closet is something I would do for fun. (OK. Something I do in fact do for fun.)

Given all of this, I’m not sure why I am so reluctant to putting together an earthquake preparedness kit. Isn’t being compulsively neat all about control? Shouldn’t I jump at the chance to better off in case of a disaster?

I never leave for tomorrow what I can do today. Ticking off things on my to do list brings me manic amounts of pleasure. If I buy all my holiday gifts the previous summer, why have I put off preparing for an earthquake for more than ten years?

Because the Bay Area has had three earthquakes this past week, this morning my way-more relaxed-than-me husband told me we are spending part of the day making sure we’re ready in case a big earthquake hits. If you haven’t done so, I suggest you do the same. We can figure out the answers to all the questions I pose above while we happily cluck as we check off this list.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

You can't go back

2010-01-03T17:22:00.000-08:00

When I was very young, grown ups used to tell me that those years that I was living would be the most wonderful of my life. And I would think No way. You can’t possibly be right. The future would always be better, whatever was in store for me, and I couldn’t wait for it to start.

I see their point now. I don’t think I realized at the time what they were really trying to say: that what I was experiencing then would one day very soon be irretrievable.

I will never again come home and hear my mother furiously typing downstairs. I will never walk into the dining room at my father’s house and find all my brothers and sisters sitting at the table in their pajamas, their energy, their kinetic force, dark hair disheveled, my sister still a baby. My father, so very young, the fire in his eyes, his brow furrowed, sitting behind his desk at the library, surrounded by books in piles that were taller than me.

Things have splintered since then, and we’ve all scattered in different directions and built very different lives.

If I had the choice to go back even for a day, an hour, I don’t think I’d want to. I like it so much better here. But I feel anyway that I’ve lost something enormous.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Goodbye, Joy

2009-12-20T09:42:00.000-08:00

Joy is the dog we used to have in joint custody.

A year or so ago we noticed that she was getting really skinny. A slender dog by nature, it didn’t take much for her hipbones to stick out. I talked with her owners about it, and they said they had noticed too and were trying to feed her more often.

Luca and I got in the habit of giving her an extra meal whenever we walked her. We worried that things had gotten too busy in her home and (wrongly) suspected that they were sometimes forgetting to fill her dish.

Despite her rib cage showing, Joy was always incredibly happy and bouncy. Even at four she acted like a 6-month-old puppy. Which is why we never thought she could be sick.

We then found out that she had a kidney problem that she had been born with, and that she didn’t have very long to live. While heartbroken, we took comfort in the fact that she had an amazing life.

Joy was finally put down this week. No more tearing across the mountains at the speed of light. No more jumping out of her skin with excitement at the sight of us.

I’m sure glad I got to meet her and be her friend.

Photo: www.kooldogkafe.com

The banana

2009-12-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

I’m reading a book by Dan Koeppel that is so fascinating, I cannot help but regularly interrupt my husband’s reading to share excerpts with him.

The book is about bananas, and you just have to read it.

A banana tree is not a tree, it’s an herb. The banana you eat today is not the banana your grandmother ate when she was little, because that banana was destroyed by blight and another type of banana was created to replace it.

Bananas are seedless. They are sexless. They cannot reproduce without humans. They all look the same because you are eating genetic twin (a clone) of a banana. Bananas are particularly susceptible to disease because what makes one banana sick wipes out all bananas, and the banana you know and love is at risk of ceasing to exist.

Americans eat more bananas than apples and oranges combined. And, bananas cost less, despite the fact they are grown in tropical countries and shipped across oceans and apples are grown within hours of most large cities in the United States. You have no idea the amount of things that have gone into making this possible. I have no idea why this question (how is this possible?) didn't occur to me before.

For bananas, jungles and rain forests have been cleared and governments have been toppled. They have transformed cultures. And, it’s very likely that the banana was the forbidden fruit Eve could not resist.

I will never again take for granted anything in my fruit bowl.

Resolution for 2010

2009-12-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

Kindle is a modern day Trojan Horse – disguised as a reading device for book lovers, it’s really a buying device for book addicts. The pull is impossible to resist.

I walk into a bookstore, say, at the airport, look at books that intrigue me and download samples as I walk around. I get on the plane and read them; deleting the ones I don’t want, keeping the ones I do to buy “later” (the more honest word is “soon”.)

Or, a friend recommends a book and instead of making a note of it I immediately download it, feeling giddy.

Or, I’m in my Sunday spot (my sofa) reading book reviews, downloading recommended books that interest me. I feel, in words of my friend Victor, like King Midas.

I can own any book in the world in seconds without ever leaving my house. I don’t even have to turn on my computer. And it doesn't feel like a purchase. It feels like....well, a download.

Just last Saturday I bought five books in less than two minutes. Maybe my eyes were wide and I was cackling maniacally.

In sum, it’s gotten completely out of hand.

I therefore present you with my New Year’s resolution for 2010: to read at least 50% of the books on my Kindle before I can buy any more.

If you want to give me a book, however, I can’t stop you.

Photo: painting by Giandomenico Tiepolo, wikipedia

The wisdom of Antonio Banderas

2009-11-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

I never, ever talk to people on planes. I’m the one who pretends to read or sleep - anything to avoid becoming someone’s captive audience.

I’m sitting on my seat and looking out the window and thinking, “we’ll never take off, because it’s snowing too much.” And I turn and see this guy. I feel like I already know him and that’s what I’m thinking when I realize he’s talking to me and I’m not listening.

“You’re sitting in my place” he says, possibly for the third time.

“Impossible” I think. “He doesn’t know I wouldn’t do that”.

I pull out my boarding pass and realize that when I sat down, I looked at the row (13) and completely disregarded the letter (F). My actual seat is clear on the opposite side, my suitcase is snug in the overhead bin and because of a full flight there is no remaining space. If I move, I’ll have to check my bag or leave it where it is and wait for everyone to disembark to retrieve it.

So J and I become allies in my predicament. He looks down the aisle, keeping an eye out for people getting too close to where we are sitting and when someone finally, inevitably comes to claim the place I’m in I say “I’m travelling with my friend and we wonder if you mind sitting in my assigned seat”. (He half-heartedly, yet graciously nods and saunters off. Phew.)

I end up being right about the snow. We stay on the runway for almost two hours while the (old) plane is de-iced and checked. I barely register the delay, because J and I are talking. About notebooks and what we write in them (he likes them blank, I prefer them lined.) The lists we make. What we consider noteworthy, and how we take notes. We offer one another quick glances at the secrets that we scribble, not to read but rather to appreciate the esthetics of the annotated page. We talk about books in general, then specific titles we recommend (we both write it all down, naturally.)

We talk about movies. Art and some of the artists we like. Languages. Words. We talk about love, and our demands on it. About the importance of having clear priorities. About being alone. We talk about silence. About god. We talk about politics. We talk about our parents, and our upbringing. Most of all, we talk about food.

A two and a half hour flight ends up taking more than four hours, and when we land, I’m kind of bummed. J walks around the airport with me helping me find Luca, and we wave goodbye.

I never thought I’d quote Antonio Banderas, but he makes a good point. If you never talk to strangers, you’ll never make any friends.

Photo: www.moleskineus.com

Be careful who you love

2009-11-15T15:21:00.000-08:00

Last year, as we watched American Idol, I told my husband that I loved him with nearly all my heart.

“Nearly?” he asked, barely ruffled.

“Well, a little piece of it belongs to David Cook. Did you not just hear his rendition of Billie Jean?”

Flash forward to a bit over a year later. I'm standing in line to board a flight to Denver. I turn to my left and see a familiar face. He's talking to what I'm going to assume is his band, and...I can't for the life of me remember his name.

I call Luca. “Hon” I say “Quick. What’s the name of that guy who won American Idol – or maybe came in second – that I used to love? You know, when I told you a piece of my heart belonged to him?”

Luca replies immediately. “Oh, yes. Adam Lambert.”

“No, no” I say. “That was this year. And yes, I did say that my heart belonged to – anyhow, last year. The guy last year.”

“Ummm. I don’t know. Where are you? Have you boarded?”

“Luca, please! I need to know! Help me!”

“Ok. I’m looking it up. Ah! David Cook?”

“Yes!” I say “David Cook! He’s standing right next to me! I gotta to go.”

I hang up the phone and turn to look at David Cook. He looks at me. Our eyes lock (really). I mouth the (profound) words “David. Cook.” He nods. I say “You rock.” “He bows and graciously says “thank you”. He walks away.

That’s when I realize that there is a little piece of my heart that is quite fickle. As I turn to board the plane I call my husband back. “I am going to miss you” I say. “And I love you so much”.

“Yes” he says, with what I’m sure is a little smile. “I know.”

Tips on being a parent (from someone who isn't)

2009-11-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

The toughest job in the world has got to be being a parent.

The first time this became clear to me I was around fourteen. A friend and I were talking about the completely dysfunctional, often clueless, downright weird things mothers and fathers do. In monotone and with her gaze fixed on the horizon, she confided what hers had inflicted upon her. “My parents love each other so much that I always come in second”.

That’s when it hit me – no matter what you do, you’re going to screw up your kids. (My hope is that you find this oddly liberating.)

In the past few weeks, for a variety of reasons related more to their circumstances than to my experience, friends have asked my opinion in matters of parenting, specifically as it relates to divorce. I thought I’d put together my list of top four amateur recommendations (I repeat, “amateur”. To be perfectly clear I’m not only not a professional; I’m not even a parent.)

1. Don’t make decisions based on what is good for your children. Make decisions based on what is good for you. (This doesn’t mean “completely disregard what is important to them". It means “put yourself first, them immediately second.”) I know this sounds unforgivably selfish. But kids learn by example. Teach them to be happy by being happy rather than exposing them to parents who are always torn, confused, angry or resentful. (Don’t know if you should be a stay at home mom or go back to work? Should you stay in your marriage for your kids? See above.)

2. Examine what is driving the choices you are making. Is it love or is it guilt? If the force is guilt, don’t do it. Guilt is corrosive and nothing good ever comes of it.

3. Change is good. It feels terrible and scary and confusing and nobody really likes it, but it’s quite possibly the only thing in life that you can be certain you’ll get a lot of. So many (wonderful, loving) parents strive to raise their children in a Stable Environment. I ask you – how can a kid become a person resilient to change is all they have ever known is stability? I’m not saying, “please mess up their lives”. I’m saying that if you mess up yours and feel you’re dragging them along for the ride, they will be OK.

4. Be honest. Maybe don’t be explicit, but do tell the truth. If your 8 year old walks in on the immediate aftermath of a screaming, raging fight and asks wide-eyed “what’s going on?” and your reply is “oh, absolutely nothing, honey, everything is peachy! ” you’re not protecting her. You’re teaching her that she can’t trust the most basic, most fundamental of all navigation tools: her own intuition.

Besides, kids know everything. Every. Thing. They might not fully understand it, or be able to articulate it, but they know. They know you have secrets, that you hide things from them, even that sometimes you’d love to get away from them. They don’t tell you that they know because they are trying to protect you too.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

November 2 (day of the dead)

2009-11-02T18:15:00.000-08:00

I imagine Luca’s grandfather, Carlo, in front of the television set, engrossed in a soccer game. From the sofa, his leg kicks an imaginary ball, like a reflex. He yells instructions at the players. I picture other bits of his life: he goes to work in a gray suit and black briefcase, comes home every night for dinner, sits at the table and slices a piece of cheese for his grandson. With a wink (he was a man of few words) they agree not to tell his parents that he’s snacking before a meal.

Carlo’s wife loved him. He died 15 years ago, leaving her to survive in a world without him. (She turns 100 next year. The last time I saw her, she was furious at him. “What did he leave me here to do?”)

His grandson loved him too. Carlo left an indelible mark on Luca, who today sits in front of the television set, engrossed in a soccer game. He yells instructions at the players. I often believe Carlo is sitting beside him, wholeheartedly agreeing that, yes; Balotelli is indeed behaving like an ass.

http://www.mexicolore.co.uk

Make me a word

2009-10-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

Have you ever heard of the word schadenfreude? It’s defined as “the pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.” I’ve often felt that I needed more complex words to more accurately express my feelings.

Jeffrey Eugenides, in his brilliant book Middlesex, says it best:

Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words. I don’t believe in “sadness”, “joy” or “regret”. Maybe the best proof that language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, “the happiness that attends disaster”. Or “the disappointment of sleeping with one’s fantasy”. I'd like to show how “intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members” connects with “the hatred of mirrors that begins in the middle age”. I’d like to have a word for “the sadness inspired by failing restaurants” as well as for “the excitement of getting a room with a minibar”. I’ve never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I’ve entered my story, I need them more than ever.

Berth

2009-10-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

I need space not a room or a house but a swath of the milky way not a backyard a national park not elbow room dream room not a puddle an ocean not a line in the sand the split of land from sky I need my eyes to see as far as they can I don’t know how someone so small can need something so big but I do

The key

2009-10-11T11:30:00.001-07:00

I have an odds and ends drawer with rubber bands and matchboxes and birthday candles multicolored thumbtacks and an eraser white perfectly rectangular a black permanent marker and coins from other countries paper clips I found a key in there I plan to keep who knows when I’ll come across something I need to figure out how to open

Photo: www.digitaldesktopwallpaper.com

It doesn't matter

2009-10-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

It doesn’t really matter all the things I remember how my father would carry me on his shoulders my mother’s box of rings the Eiffel tower the manta rays swimming in the light of the dock everything becomes a footnote something someone puts in parenthesis or leaves in the back of a closet (remember how I said I liked your tie?)

Photo: http://www.honusports.com

Magazines

2009-09-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

On my living room table: my laptop, my glasses, a phone, a notebook, folders in different colors, a stapler, a pencil, a black marker and a huge stack of magazines.

I am going through said big stack of magazines page by page, ripping out interesting tidbits and putting them in places where I can put them to use.

I like O Magazine’s recommendations on books - which go into my book wish list on Amazon - and movies, that I enter into my Netflix cue so we only get really good picks we really want to watch.

I make a note of good blog or website recommendations, check them out, and then put my favorites up on the list on the right - because what’s the fun in finding something good if you’re not going to share it?

I have a file for products I might try one day or pretty things I like to look at and at least four fat binders (subdivided by ingredient) of recipes that deserve a whirl. Another for things I don’t know what to do with now but that I know someday will save the day (such as Real Simple’s “new uses for old things”). Another folder is for things Luca might find useful or interesting: for example, he just downloaded an app with international etiquette tips so he doesn’t do something considered rude in another country (never slurp soup directly from the bowl in Korea.)

Sunset Magazine is a treasure trove. I have a file filled with beautiful backyards that have contributed to turning my former strip of concrete into a place we want to hang out in. Two files for vacations – one for day trips and another for long weekends, all with places to discover up and down the West Coast. A dream file, for the day we build a green, sustainable house or go live on a lake or grow our own vegetables or design a Japanese garden.

Once all relevant information has been extracted and put in its proper place, then I can take my big stack of magazines and throw them in the recycling bin and get a cup of tea and put my feet up on my now mostly clear living room table.

If only I had a magazine to flip through.

Photo: www.sunset.com

Another possibility

2009-09-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

Forgiveness might be too ambitious pure intentional you could instead trip over accidental restitution walk into a course balance of all these mutual infractions contrived spectral maybe indistinct wrongs committed over the years can somehow cancel each other out

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Inevitable

2009-09-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

It would be reductive perhaps offensive to pretend I could make out the shape your sadness it’s electric inalienable like blood camouflaged by your breath it mimics a vital organ it’s grown tendrils that coil around your spine my breed of gloom is small tight vertical defined locked it cannot spread yours is real an affliction it has dignity mine is feeble it crouches and waits until what happened to you happens to me and then there might be no containing it

Photo: www.asknature.org

Green glass tumblers

2009-09-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am a terrible shopper. In the time that it takes to arrive at the cashier, I have already decided I don’t really need what I’m holding. At home, I favor empty surfaces and have a tendency to give things away (which often distresses my husband. “No, please! Not the couch! We often use the couch!”)

A few years ago, a box arrived in the mail. It held four tumblers made of recycled glass. My friend Cat had sent them. She said the fact that they were “Earth friendly”, and inscribed in several languages with the message “protect the Earth” made it impossible for her not to get them for us.

If Cat and I had been walking in the store together and she had declared “I’m going to buy you these!” I would have begged her not to. I don’t need more stuff! I already have glasses! I won’t use them! I’ll give them away!

I was right that I didn’t need the glasses. But, I did need inspiration. It was their sea green color that helped me choose the hue on my upstairs wall. They are at least partially responsible for us deciding to install bamboo floors a few years later. I also needed something pretty to hold. My ultra practical nature means most of what I own is a neutral (such as white dinner plates). It turns out green goes with everything. Most of all, I needed Cat in my life. She lives far away and yet, thanks to this gift, she's with me every single morning.

Photo: www.uncommongoods.com

You have more power than you think

2009-08-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

My friend Lori gave me a book called “The better world shopping guide”. It is based on the premise that every time you make a purchase you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want to live in. The book goes on to rank companies in different categories so you can decide which ones you want to support (by buying their products.)

The main issues are human rights (for example, child labor or fair wages), the environment (such as toxic waste dumping, sustainable farming), animal protection (humane treatment, ecosystem impact), community involvement (volunteer efforts, local business support) and social justice (cover ups, harassment, class action lawsuits).

Here is a list of the 10 best companies on the planet based on their social and environmental records: Seventh Generation, Working Assets, Eden Foods, Organic Valley, Clif Bar, Honest Tea, Patagonia, Tom’s of Main, Ben &Jerry’s, Aveda.

There are many companies out there that need to clean up their acts whose names won’t shock anyone (Walmart, Tyson Foods, Kraft) but others that surprised me: United Airlines, Samsung, Nestle, Nabisco, Planters. Gerber, for example, won the “most irresponsible” corporation award and is involved in a child slavery lawsuit, as well as aggressive takeovers of family farms. Chapstick is on the list of “top 100 corporate criminals”. There is evidence that M&M’s suppliers use child slave labor.

In most cases, it’s a matter of being informed and switching from one brand to another. Take cereal: Raisin Bran, Shredded Wheat and Grape Nuts have an “F” raking, while Cascadian Farm has a B+, for example. Kashi could do much better and is currently a C. Or Chocolate: Toblerone ranks F, while Dagoba ranks A.

The reason I liked this book so much is because it reminds me that as a consumer we have more power than we think. With this information, we are in a better position to use it.

Photo: www.aveda.com

I confess

2009-08-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

I love talent shows. I know they are orchestrated to make for good television but they are also, despite the artifice, an honest manifestation of the good and the bad in human nature. Naked, undisguised ambition. Frequent and alarming examples of a complete lack of self-awareness. An expert judge anointing someone with what we all secretly dream of hearing: Yes. I confirm your suspicions. You have a gift. This is what you were meant to do. The process of watching someone come into full bloom. Most of all, the excessive, joyous, almost overwhelming amount of talent in the world. The fact that there is no shortage of that fills me with hope.

Photo: http://www.fox.com/dance/

Many times

2009-08-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

I dreamed that I went to Starbucks (which I haven't done for more than a year) and ordered a tall latte (not normally what I would order.)

I placed the white cup inside my tote, nestled between a stack of books and the outer corner of the bag. (You know what is about to happen, right?)

After carrying it all to my destination, I arrive to find the liquid has spilled, staining the canvas and ruining the contents. (Oh, my bag! Oh, my books!)

I woke up relieved that it was only a dream. And, not really needing anyone to analyze it. How many times do I do something despite knowing full well the outcome can’t possibly be good?

Razor wire

2009-08-04T21:00:00.000-07:00

I find razor wire riveting.

I suspect the reason for my fascination is that the messages it sends (me) are completely incongruous.

Cruel (I’d rather see you shredded beyond recognition than trespassing) aggressive (try jumping over this and it will cut you), yet highly ineffective.

If I really wanted to get through, I’d use wire cutters and snip myself a door at the bottom rather than try to climb over to the other side. Granted, I’ve never tried doing that so I don’t really know how difficult it would be or how long it would take.

I guess its intent is to dissuade (don’t even try to come in here. Look how dangerous I am!) but it has the opposite effect on me. I find it strangely enticing (I bet I could outsmart you, you unsightly, mean, curly sharp thing you.)

Airport

2009-07-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

I was standing in line to buy gum at the LA airport and the skinny woman in front of me raised her arms high up in the air and started applying deodorant. The bathroom was less than 10 feet away. I saw someone else flipping through magazines and absentmindedly sticking her chewed wad of gum under the shelf without even looking around to see if she was being watched. There was a family sprawled out on the bare floor, with their faces resting directly against the cold, filthy tile. And a couple making out. Her hair was long and shaggy and her head thrown back as he nibbled on her neck and shoved his hands into the stretched out back pockets of her jeans.

If I was from another planet and wanted to study humankind, I'd pick an airport.

Doorstop

2009-07-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

My house came outfitted with doorstops that have never worked. The metal cylinder with the soft plastic tip fell off constantly and the door slammed open against the screw that was supposed to hold it where it belonged.

When we first noticed, a few days after moving in, we dismissed it as not urgent enough. We kept pushing the doorstops into place, only to find them lying on the floor against the wall. Every time I walked in or out I made a mental note I immediately forgot. The situation alternated between being irritating and being ignored.

It took us nine years to finally go to the hardware store, buy new ones, remove the old ones, and install the ones we had just bought. It wasn't hard.

A stuck window. A faucet that jiggles. Insignificant things don’t matter. Except, they do. They rob me of snippets of energy every time I realize they are still there.

It's less about being a control freak and more about giving my consciousness the vital, fragile space it needs to notice, distraction free, all the things about my life that are perfect and beautiful.

Color

2009-07-15T20:16:00.000-07:00

Most of my clothes were gray. Sometimes brown. Ever so often I'd make a conscious effort to buy something with color, and it would end up at the back of my closet, incongruous and forgotten, a dot of pink standing out in a colorless ocean.

The walls of my house were all linen white. I liked very much to sit in a room and look through the frame of the door into the other at the crisp, clean lines of white on white.

One restless night I got out of bed knowing I had to paint the walls. I walked through my house taking notes, picked the surfaces that needed color and settled on four hues: red, green, blue and yellow. Headed back to bed, I passed by my closet and was startled by what has obviously been happening for years: splotches of green, red, pink, blue, yellow; and a bit of gray, incongruous and forgotten in an ocean of color.

Photo: www.besthousepainter.com

Why I haven't written

2009-07-12T10:01:00.001-07:00

Secret

2009-07-01T20:47:00.000-07:00

I keep a secret from you unwillingly it’s not elaborate or curious it’s not intentional it involves growing old my veins showing blue through my skin it’s about how I know I need to take responsibility how I suspect that in the end I will have to do this on my own

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Guardian Angel

2009-06-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

I take the next exit and don't believe what I see a red car coming towards me at full speed driving the wrong way on a main highway and nothing exists outside of this moment everything falls away work my inbox my voice mail the perpetual concern over my family’s safety my propensity towards insomnia any residue of anger the good book that sits on my bedside table the minor cruelties I witness every day the pain between my eyebrows your love that sits like an angel between my shoulder blades there is nothing but the steering wheel and veering left and slamming on the breaks and knowing there is no way out of this one and closing my eyes and bracing for the impact that never comes and wondering if your love actually is an angel sitting between my shoulder blades

Photo: www.honda.com

Weightless

2009-06-16T20:16:00.001-07:00

Weightless is what I want to be completely free so I forgive my mother for not giving me her beautiful full lips forgive my father for passing on to me the genes that make me anxious and apprehensive forgive my husband for every business trip he’s taken without me I forgive every twenty- something who doesn’t notice me anymore my best friend for the distance between us I forgive my teacher for that accumulated indifference my memory for taking specific events and wearing them thin and slippery and treacherous I forgive myself for not always being productive for wanting to watch TV sometimes for not possessing the esthetic sense to know what color to paint my dining room wall

Flotation devices

2009-06-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

The storm was so bad the plane couldn't land. It tried to - for more than an hour it tried to, while passengers whimpered, gasped, prayed, heaved into their air sickness bags. I was sitting next to a small boy. He looked over at me and put his hand in mine. It felt fragile and cold, like a bird. I noticed my skin, dry and taught over my knuckles.

Everyone tells me I look exactly like my father, but my hands are my mother's hands. Hers are bigger, stronger, but I can see how mine were made using hers as a model. I see her in other places too - in my back and shoulders. I know I'm the spitting image of my father, but I'm my mother's daughter too.

My parents love me. Today, years later, while I pick fruit at the supermarket or slide something into the oven or straighten out my desk at the office I am often struck by this knowledge that comes out of nowhere and envelops me completely.

The very first time I tasted coffee was at my grandfather's house. We went to visit him and the next day I got up very early and he was already up. He was standing alone in the kitchen. He pulled out a chair so I could sit down and set a big mug in front of me. He poured boiling, frothy milk into it, from a battered metal pot. He added one large spoonful of sugar. Then, a touch of coffee, the black liquid barely coloring the white. I still drink it the same way.

There was a boy I liked in school, right at the time when girls liked boys and boys thought girls were gross. He had black hair and green eyes and wore heavy metal t-shirts. In the search for something to talk to him about I introduced myself to what is now referred to as classic rock. My preference for rock outlived my interest in the boy.

When I lived in Beijing I had a dear friend who was a DJ. He used to play whatever song my friend Mimi and I wanted, and we stayed out as late as my father would let me (which was never very late) dancing with abandon in a nearly empty disco in China in 1988.

Right away I loved going to work. The structure of it, its demands on one's character. I love getting up in the morning and walking outside in my pajamas to get the newspaper, the smell of the clean ocean air. I love glancing over the business section over my breakfast of toast and blueberries. I love showering and getting dressed and showing up and getting paid for something I love doing, which mostly involves expressing my opinion. I look at my paycheck and think, "Ha! What a deal".

To my complete surprise, I’m really good at this thing called marriage. I often get asked if I thought my husband was handsome the first time I saw him. What I thought, with a giddy, somewhat sick feeling, was "I love him". I loved him fiercely straight away and I still do, for the same reasons and different reasons, reasons I couldn't have predicted in that meeting room in Austin, Texas. I was 28 years old.

On the plane, with the pilot trying to land in the middle of that storm, I looked down at the San Francisco Bay and worried that the water would be really cold. I wondered if I'd manage to get out of my seat belt. If the cushion could really be used as a flotation device. It's funny how it's always the little things that matter the most.

Abundance

2009-06-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

As long as you are here there will never be a drought no shortage of things to write about my new lipstick the smell of taxis in Canada the shape of the pasta Paola made for us the night we arrived back pain and how it’s changed the light in the photograph you took of all of us around the dinner table that looks like a Rembrandt the metal spirals of barbed wire lined with razors installed on top of fences in countries everywhere the virtues and pitfalls of orange paint and expensive furniture wanting new things parts of me that still surprise me do we ever really get to know ourselves

Water

2009-06-02T11:25:00.000-07:00

I can hear the rain drop against the ceiling gush down the gutters stream down the street it makes so much noise it fills my ears and yet my blood runs through my veins and doesn't make a sound

Photo: www.treehugger.com

Not us

2009-05-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Not us we are not like them I told you so this was your fault your idea you forgot again were careless again you never listen to me you don’t care anymore we don’t do this not ever I know only I can save you from me only you can save me from you

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Answer (to a FAQ)

2009-05-19T10:55:00.000-07:00

I have no curtains so it can't hide behind them doesn't like my car or airplanes or public places is never idle on the sofa or twisted between my sheets it does like it under the bed outside loves the beach but not on a sunny day it sometimes sneaks into my purse I often find some in the watering can the bottom drawer of the refrigerator near where I hang my bathing suit to dry under the kitchen counter the backyard inside my boots in the pockets of my jeans tangled in the laces of my hiking shoes these are the places where I find the time to write in my blog

It's not about being green

2009-05-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

I was watching a TV show earlier this week (In Treatment) where a psychologist asks his 12-year-old patient if she thinks about death. She stares at him like he has just exposed her secret. He leans a bit closer to her. "We all do, you know".

I don't know if everyone thinks about death, but I know I do. I always have. When I was little my burden was the certainty that I’d die young, because I could not conceive becoming a grown up. (Guess what, kid? You were wrong.) When I was a teenager I was defiant, challenging the possibility of my life ending, until a car crash proved I was just as mortal as the next guy (wrong again). I now mostly think of it in the context of vulnerability. My own, and that of the people I love. (Wrong again? Please?)

Through all of this I've assumed that one day I will be returned to the earth, my ashes scattered in a discreet location with a nice view. You know - ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

This is part of the reason I found the subject of the book "Grave Matters" so intriguing. I know funerals feature metal caskets, burial vaults and embalming fluid, but I had never really considered the consequences: embalmed and encased inside a metal casket, "dust to dust" is, well, unlikely.

The book, by Mark Harris, a former environmental columnist with the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, is "a journey through the modern funeral industry to a natural way of burial".

Whether you think about death or not, the funeral industry is one that most of us will contribute to. According to Harris, Americans bury more than 1.6 million tons of concrete and nearly 830,000 gallons of toxic embalming fluid a year, not counting enormous amounts of steel.

I want a green burial. A biodegradable casket. Maybe an ecopod that is handmade, comes in colors and is made of recycled paper.

In a green burial, my body would be placed in a simple coffin, if not like the one I describe above, then one made from cardboard or soft wood, like pine. I would be laid in a natural cemetery in rural land. No headstone, please. Plant a tree there instead.

If my body can return to the elements it came from, it can contribute to generating new life. And that is all the legacy I need.

In Silicon Valley, our rock stars are different.

2009-05-07T19:16:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Most people I talk to in the United States believe that May 5^th is Mexican Independence day. In fact, it's not even a national holiday. It’s regional, observed in Puebla, in honor of the battle against the French that took place in that city in 1865, when Mexicans defeated a powerful, much more numerous, better equipped French army who had not lost in nearly half a century.

From a military perspective, winning did not mean very much for us. We lost another battle with this same army the very next day, and the French were not stopped as a result. However, the news of this brief, short-lived victory filled a poor, demoralized Mexico with a sense of place, enthusiasm and hope. The French intervention resulted in other countries across the American continent to sympathize with our cause, and the Spanish, English and even (select) French media declared that retreating would be the right thing for the French to do.

This battle played a philosophical role in strengthening Mexican’s love for our country and solidifying our national identity. The experience of being invaded by the French contributed to determining many of the basic principles that to this day define a foreign policy I am proud of: respect for sovereignty and territory integrity, no-aggression, no interference in matters pertaining to other countries; conciliating differences through negotiation and not through force, and peaceful coexistence. Maybe this is why this day has become a celebration of Mexican heritage outside of Mexico. (Or, more likely, because it's a perfectly legitimate excuse to drink Coronas and hang out with friends.)

Our Independence Day is September 16, and it is of legendary proportions. I have never met a Mexican who does not observe it. We call it the day of the “grito”, our “cry for independence”. Every year, on the eve of September 16^th (the night of September 15^th) the President of Mexico rings the bells of the National Palace in the Zocalo, the historic center of Mexico City (one of the largest in the world, so it fits quite a crowd). He then repeats the “Grito de Dolores” from the balcony of the palace to the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people assembled below. It goes something like this:

"Mexicanos!”

(Imagine the simultaneous shuffling to attention of at least half a million people.)

“Viva Mexico!" (to which everyone roars back in unison “Viva Mexico!”)

Que vivan los heroes que nos Dieron patria! (Long live the heroes who gave us our fatherland!)

Que vivan los heroes que nos dieron libertad! (Long live the heroes who gave us liberty!)

Viva Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla! Viva Guadalupe Victoria! Viva Ignacio Allende! Viva José María Morelos y Pavón! Via Doña Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez!

Que viva México! Que viva México! Que viva México!

Attending one of these events should be on the list of things everyone must do before they die. You don’t have to go to the one in the Zocalo: on that day, similar celebrations occur in cities and towns and districts and homes across the country, and in Mexican embassies all over the world. The following day is a national holiday. Perplexingly, it goes by practically unnoticed north of the border. (Another perfectly legitimate excuse to drink Coronas and hang out with friends, wasted.)

Mexican Independence Day is, hands down, my favorite holiday of the year. You can keep Christmas and all the gift giving and New Year’s with its long gowns and champagne and all the chocolates and red roses typical of Valentine’s day. Take the bowl of guacamole and the tequila you drink on May 5^th and leave me, in the company of my family, under any available balcony, calling out “Que Vivan Los Heroes Que Nos Dieron Patria! Que vivan!” any day.

Photo: http://www.picturejockey.com/

Pandemonium

2009-04-29T16:01:00.000-07:00

Because I’m a Mexican living in the US, many concerned, thoughtful people have asked my opinion about the swine flu and the general situation in Mexico City. I thought I’d share with you some flu related data I’ve been collecting. I am no expert, but tend to favor facts, particularly those which contribute to a general sense of perspective (as opposed to drama and speculation, which contributes to a general sense of confusion and chaos.)

The flu virus (not swine flu, just flu) mutates to a worldwide epidemic two times every 100 years. In other words, we are not dealing with anything we have never seen before.

Based on existing data, this is not a superbug. This new strain of "swine" flu is not any more virulent, contagious, or deadly than other forms of the flu, and the forms of contagion are just like regular flu (wash your hands.)

In a normal flu season, children, elderly and ill people die from the flu. In fact, 36,000 people die from it in the US every year. 13,000 people have died of normal flu in this country since January, 2009. Not swine flu. Just flu.

In the US, symptoms of swine flu have been mostly mild. In Mexico, swine flu has not been mild, at least not in every case. My personal opinion -my personal inexpert opinion - is that poverty might be a factor. People living in close quarters, undernourished, who have no way to get to doctors or hospitals, who can't afford healthcare or even taking time off to recover.

Here is a good time to add, in the interest of sharing honest, unbiased data, that other pandemic flus strike young, healthy people the hardest. In light of this, wouldn’t it help tremendously to know how many mild cases of swine flu Mexico has had? Just so we’re not feeling that everyone who has gotten it South of the border has died from it (which would be inaccurate?)

I realize influenza is never to be taken lightly. I worry more, however, about the extreme measures the Mexican government has taken. All public places have been closed (I tweeted about soccer games with no audience allowed, a mark of a crisis in a futbol loving country.) Bars, schools (and universities – nation wide), movie theaters, galleries, sporting events have been shut down. A friend said that just walking down a half empty street fills you with an apocalyptical sense of doom.

I am lucky not be in a position where I have to make these types of decisions. From my cushy seat, I think these measures have been over the top.

More concerning of all is that the Mexican government has "given itself power" to search private homes for sick people, intercept them on streets, and force them to get treatment. How would you like it if a government with an iffy reputation could search your home at any time without any kind of warrant? Don’t you think this lends itself to all kinds of abuse?

Fears of abuse aside, I think measures this extreme cause a great deal of panic, and panic contributes to aggravating the situation. Just one example is it leads people to take medicine they don't need, which in turn makes the virus resistant to it. (Speaking of facts, there is no lack of medication - the vaccine industry is strong.)

To answer your (deeply, deeply appreciated) most common question, my family is, thankfully, safe. Up until today, I am not any more worried about swine flu than I am about normal flu. I don’t entirely agree with how the Mexican government has handled it. And I’ll be very happy when this is all over and people can travel to my country again, because Mexico is going through a terrible, scary, disconcerting, awful time (difficult economic conditions + virus + earthquake) and needs all the help it can get. I’ve booked a trip to Mexico for my next vacation, and I hope you do the same.

Photo: flu virus, www.nationalgeographic.com

Never

2009-04-28T06:32:00.000-07:00

I have never been to South Africa or Madagascar or Nebraska never owned red soled shoes or painted my toenails blue have never been seriously ill never felt the absence of my security net one that hangs unfailingly beneath me every time I make a difficult decision I’ve never been accused of a crime have never committed one have never wanted to look back even though sometimes I have to I have never until now drawn attention to all these things always there outlining me yet previously invisible

It could have been here

2009-04-18T20:45:00.000-07:00

Stefania and her husband, Marino, are ordinary people. He is an architect. She’s a clerk. They have a son, Giorgio, who recently turned 15.

They are not and have never been well off. For years they have put all their energy and money into a modest house in the medieval town of L’Aquila, in Abruzzo, Italy.

At 3:32 a.m. on April 6, as the ground shook in the worst, deadliest earthquake that country has seen since 1980, Stefania shouted at Giorgio to stand under the door. The frame above it fell into his hands. He set it down and ran downstairs. The stairway held until the family got out, and then the whole building turned to ruble.

Stefania, Marino and Giorgio are alive. But they lost their house and everything in it. Photo albums, memories, letters, furniture, clothes. It’s all gone. They are not the only ones. The earthquake left more than 20,000 people homeless.

What would you do if you lost everything but the clothes you happen to be wearing in the middle of the night?

Stefania and her family are currently waiting to be assigned a sort of container where they will be living for a few months (and we hope not years.)

This family is not an anonymous story that took place somewhere far away. Stefania is the sister of one of Luca’s best friends, someone he’s known for more than 20 years.

If you would consider sending money to Stefania and her family it will not be lost in a bureaucratic labyrinth. It will go directly to a family in L’Aquila who would like to start over with a bit of dignity, and who is not ashamed to admit that they need all the help they can get.

I know full well life can change in a second. I know too that second can be in the middle of the night. I do hope that if I lose everything, someone out there will find it in their heart to help.

Donations (even 5 dollars would be tremendous) can be made with Paypal to luca_penati@hotmail.com

Luca and I will be matching donations up to $1,000.

I will never tire of talent shows.

2009-04-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

The ability to embed this has been "disabled by request". Do me a favor and click on this link.

Bigger small steps

2009-04-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

As outlined in perhaps excessive detail in past entries, we have taken all kinds of steps towards being more environmentally responsible. We always have cloth shopping bags in the trunk of our hybrid (and hardly ever request paper or plastic or any kind of shopping bag anymore); have turned off our sprinkler system and water by hand only when absolutely necessary (we haven’t watered at all in over two months because of the rain), and buy mostly local and organic (which, all debating aside, I think tastes better.)

There are five things we are embarking into in 2009 that require a bit more involvement that I thought I'd share.

1. The first has to do with putting things I own and never use into the hands of people who need them. Here is a partial list:

If you have shoes in your closet that you never or seldom use (and don’t go telling me you don’t) check out souls for soles.

I found a place that takes eyeglass frames in case you have a few that are no longer the right prescription (or that make you look like you belong in the 80's.)

Every time I travel on business, I throw the beauty products I like the most into my suitcase, until it dawned on me that I had more lotion, shampoo and body wash than I'd ever need. So I dropped them off here.

If you have books you've read and won't read again, ship them off to someone who wants them. Bookmooch also lets you donate points if you don't want to bother with the swapping.

2. The second step we've taken in our effort to go green is composting, to reduce the amount of waste we put in landfills.

We finally found a composter we felt was right for us and have been experimenting with it for a few days. I’ll let you know how that goes. For now, I feel virtuous every time I go out and dump in my banana peels (and Luca has become a eco-sergeant.)

3. In honor of my brother Pedro who's a water conservation expert, we’re looking into installing a rain barrel in our backyard to collect rainwater to use later for our plants. This might be something we get around to doing before the next rainy season because we didn't move fast enough this time around.

4. We also think it would be really fun to plant our own vegetables (specially since, as a result of composting, we’ll have lovely, rich soil in our hands). We need more time to really get this one going, though.

5. Finally, we looked into how much solar panels would cost but based on their price and the money they would save us (in relation to our current energy consumption) we’ve decided to wait. Getting a personal assessment is free so I recommend you look into it (because price and the money you save is related to where you live, what direction your house faces in, how much energy you use, and a lot of other variables.)

I'll keep you posted on progress (and try not to bore you) and am really interested in hearing anything you’ve been doing.

Waste

2009-03-29T11:12:00.001-07:00

I might have been the only one who believed all of it you and me like blood our lives intertwined forever we were instead inane prone to rapid disintegration in the place of a broken memory carefully preserved painful precious there is nothing a nuisance a hairline fracture on a crystal pitcher dirty dishes piled in the kitchen sink what a waste loving you turned out to be

Photo: www.potterybarn.com

Patience

2009-03-21T12:03:00.000-07:00

Patience is an alien quality does not swim in my blood does not pool around me in the mornings I have to coax it breathe on it to keep alive the little bit that I have try it on play dress up practice walking with it so that it looks genuine I want to perfect it I wish I could take a daily dosage a patience vitamin it would get stuck in my throat

Truth

2009-03-14T17:25:00.000-07:00

Instead of staring at the universe straight on I will squint from now on stand upside down I want to be deliberate when I distort my view of it because I know that by purposefully jumbling what I perceive it will be no less accurate that when I claim to see things clearly

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Who's hair is it anyway?

2009-03-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

I’m going gray.

I’m not sure what to do about it.

I never thought these two sentences were worthy of a blog entry but once I started poking around on the subject I realized that To Color Or Not To Color was a big, politically charged issue with far-reaching, philosophical implications.

Consider that the first book that comes up on the subject on Amazon is “Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters”. And that there are a ton of whole blogs – not just entries – dedicated to this. I even found an article in Time Magazine titled “The War Over Going Gray”.

Yikes.

And I thought it was just about hair color.

I have never dyed my hair (except for a single unfortunate highlighting incident in the mid 80’s which did not seem particularly unfortunate at the time.)

While there are exceptions (and it’s quite possible I might be one of them), I think women who go gray look beautiful. My mother-in-law is a shining example – she has never colored her hair and is gorgeous and classy. And, what about Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada?

Besides liking the look, I feel quite reluctant about spending valuable energy on a battle I already know I will lose.

I was fairly certain the matter of my own hair color was up to me, until my usually only moderately pushy hairstylist was so insistent on “doing something about it”, even after I said several times that I wasn’t ready, that I got up and walked out.

Because, come on. Esthetics aside, shouldn’t it come down to a woman’s right to choose?

Photo: The Devil Wears Prada

Forget it

2009-03-01T14:30:00.000-08:00

Go ahead keep a journal write the date neatly on the top left hand side of the page take a thousand photographs and organize them into albums save them in chronological order catch it all with your new video camera despite your desperate efforts to freeze time to hold on to make sure things don't slip by the past is not retrievable

In tune

2009-02-23T15:16:00.000-08:00

I thought I wanted to be a nomad to fit all my possessions in a backpack a traveler a poem writer speaker of seven languages an existentialist patriotic a wanderer adaptive courageous instead I am a burrower a lover of quiet evenings bonded to my home rooted a wife a daughter an immigrant solid dependable unmusical yet completely in tune

Photo: www.mfischerviolins.com

Better

2009-02-17T11:00:00.000-08:00

My brain refers to me in the second person an ever present stream of rebukes like a high strung overachieving hyper conscience you need to be better do more read more try harder despite the fact she never gives it a rest I like the insides of my mind just the way they are persistent noisy and architectural

Photo: http://web.mit.edu/museum/collections/architecture.html

Pass the thing

2009-02-10T21:17:00.000-08:00

When Luca and I first met and taught each other our respective language, we delighted in words the other used. Italian and Spanish are both beautiful, and have many similarities, despite of which they are a lot more different than people assume.

Our favorite anecdotes are around “false pairs”, where the same word, spelled the same, means very different things in each language. (Try putting a word you know and use into a sentence where it means the opposite and examine your immediate reaction to it. If I told you “get in the car” actually meant “get out of the car” and let a day go by and yelled “get in the car!” what do you think you’d do?)

Learning each other’s language, and the fun inherent to it, continue to entertain us.

We have now been living in the United States for ten years, where we speak English in the office all day. Having three languages in common, we have adopted words from each one and peppered our sentences with a mix that we realize has become incomprehensible to anyone else (and often to each other.)

Most recently, we’ve discovered we are incapable of getting through a whole thought without some kind of abuse to all language. In place of the original creative flourish we displayed, we have reduced ourselves to sounding something like this: “Ah, we need to go to the watchamacalit to get the thingamajig” or “hon, did you, ummm, you know, whatever?”

The most alarming aspect is that about 90% of the time, even when the sentence is devoid of nouns (and sometimes verbs) we know what the other is talking about. The other 10% of the time, one of us stares while the other sits there locked in an internal struggle for recall. Or, we begin to holler, “Come on! Say it! Say it in ANY language!”

I fear we’ll soon be reduced to incoherent blabber.

We’ve hence resolved to lay down the law: a sentence begun in a language must be finished coherently in that language. No inserting words that don’t belong. No making up words (my favorite.) No long pauses where one secretly hopes the other will finish the sentence.

This is going to be…yeah. Phew. You know.

25 random things about me

2009-02-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

My friends Jill, Adriana, Nicole and Miguel requested that I share 25 random things about me.

I know I was supposed to post this text in the notes section of my facebook page and in turn pick 25 other people, but in an attempt to curb the madness, I am writing them here instead:

1. I love to read.

2. I love to write.

3. I love words. Finding the right one is like touching the sky.

4. I love food. To prepare it, to eat it, to talk about it. I will always want to know what you had for dinner.

5. I prefer lemony or spicy over sweet. Green papaya salad over chocolate mousse.

6. I tell the truth as often and as clearly as possible.

7. There are people who had an impact on me who I no longer see. In most cases, I think that’s a shame.

8. I am a lot less extroverted, aggressive, competitive and difficult than people initially assume. Don’t tell.

9. I don't know if there is a God.

10. I believe there is an indestructible kernel of divinity inside each of us.

11. Whenever I had something good going and somehow sabotaged it, I concluded I had a self-destructive streak. I now realize my subconscious knows before I do when I am wrong to assume I have something good going. I have a self-preserving streak, and I trust it.

12. "Reliable" is one of my favorite compliments. (Failing that, I’ll take “smoking hot”.)

13. I will always look over my niece.

14. I learned to swim before I learned to walk. Being under water fills me with a primal happiness.

15. I need space. If I can't get it, I become first distant, then insufferable. I wish I didn’t.

16. I don't like parties. I go through great lengths to avoid them.

17. I feel lucky every day.

18. I feel grateful every day.

19. 87% of the time, I look forward to going to work.

20. 85% of the time, I like what I see in the mirror. The other 15% I think I’m ugly but find solace in the fact that I have uncommonly pretty feet.

21. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day.

22. I have an aversion to clutter.

23. I have no patience. I wish I did.

24. I used to believe that worrying somehow protected the people that I love. I now think worrying is a colossal waste of energy.

25. The life I have today exceeds all my expectations.

Photo: http://www.swimgoods.net

New year resolution

2009-01-31T19:54:00.000-08:00

I’ve noticed over the years that I tend to remember what happens on vacations, but that much of my (precious) life between one and another is, alas, a blur.

I am a devoted fan of routine, but it does tend to cause one day to run into the next. There are so many valuable moments that I’m unable to recall in this get up exercise jump in shower jump in car get to office work work work drive back home have dinner watch TV and read a bit before going to bed smudge.

Hence my single New Year’s resolution: to pursue memorable experiences. They can be vaguely romantic (weekend away), athletic (kayaking or rock climbing), or extremely simple, such as making an effort to have friends over for dinner instead of stretching out on the sofa to watch a movie. Don’t get me wrong. Movie watching (and on-sofa stretching) are fabulous ways to end the week - but I can’t even remember what I’ve already seen.

My quest for experiences doesn’t have to be elaborate, doesn’t have to be expensive and must give me joy.

In other words, life needs to be celebrated.

I’m happy to report that so far I turned 40 in Yellowstone National Park, went to LA for the day just to hold my absolutely adorable baby niece, hiked to the top of Montara Mountain, bought tickets to see a play, set aside time to catch up with friends and scheduled a trip to spend time with my family (which is a lot of things, but unmemorable isn’t one of them.)

My hope is this will be a resolution I won’t have a great deal of trouble keeping and that might even stick around long after 2009 becomes just another year.

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Early adopter

2009-01-24T09:26:00.000-08:00

I got a Kindle for my 40^th birthday. Her name is Sophia.

I admit I was skeptical at first. Reluctant. Shy. (OK – I looked at Luca and wailed “Why? Why? Why did you buy me this? How could you do this to me?”)

Since that brief, myopic moment, I’ve discovered Kindle is not a gadget for gadget lovers – it’s a gadget for book lovers. It’s sleek and light, yet sweetly unassuming. The screen is sharp, high-resolution electronic paper (so, technically, not a screen but a surface.)

It’s very easy to use. You don’t need cables or a computer. There is no need to do any synching.

If you’re reading a book and come across a word you don’t know the meaning of, you can look it up. This has prompted me to look up words even when I do know what they mean, because it’s so quick and easy I can satisfy my curiosity about, say, their etymology.

My favorite part: If I’m holding Sophia and you recommend a good book, I can find it, download it and start reading it in less than a minute. Although it claims to use cell phone technology I think it’s a combination of pixie dust and telepathy. It’s not that I don’t understand how it works. It’s that it feels like nothing less than magic to see the book you want in your possession in less time than it would take you to find your car keys.

I can receive the New York Times (or any mayor international newspaper, magazine or blog) every morning before it even is available in print.

Kindle saves paper (there is nothing to print), and if yours breaks and you send it back to them they recycle it. It isn’t cheap, but hard cover books cost around $25, and the same book in the kindle version is $9.99. Books that aren’t the latest bestsellers can be yours (in under a minute) for less than that. For example, after running into a great quote (“it's a poor sort of memory that only works backward”), I decided I needed to re-read Alice in Wonderland and paid $2 for it. President Obama’s inaugural address is mine to read whenever I want, I don’t have to carry the newspaper clipping with me, and it was less than half a dollar.

On Kindle, you can not only read, download free samples (roughly the first chapter) of almost every book you’d like to check out, acquire books at the speed of light and carry 200 books in a device that’s less than half the size of a small laptop, you can also take notes, “clip” pages and archive them (in order), and listen to music. You can also use the “search” feature to find anything online. (What are the Seven Wonders of the Modern World? Give me a minute!)

To all you naysayers who insist you must hold a book, turn its smooth pages and smell that clean, new paper smell, I say to you: I understand. Why would such a convenient device and a book be mutually exclusive? Use Kindle for travel, and read books at home.

Photo: http://aaroncrocco.wordpress.com

Community service: are you in?

2009-01-21T21:29:00.000-08:00

The first national park

2009-01-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

Yellowstone is a magical, surreal place. It’s the World’s First National Park, an absolutely astounding, visionary move if you consider it took place in 1872.

It occupies 8,987 square kilometers – larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined - and only about 5% of it has paved roads and things like bathrooms or warming huts. The rest is wild. Let me tell you what I mean by wild: Luca and I were snowshoeing not that far from the lodge and saw, less than 50 feet away, a herd of bison galloping by.

Because we went in the winter, we saw a great variety of wildlife, from bald eagles to mule deer to coyotes to wolves. (While I was there, I read a book about the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone after their complete and utter extermination - I won’t break your heart with the details - so I know what a privilege seeing wolves was.)

Some aspects of the park are hard to believe even as they unfold before your eyes. Let me tell you about my most favorite: (at the risk of revealing I have the criteria of a 13 year old boy.)

A big area of Yellowstone (72 by 48 kilometers of it) is the caldera of an active supervolcano. The park has more than 10,000 thermal features and more than 300 geysers. This means that you can be walking around (we were) and all of a sudden see a sparkling pool of clear blue water shoot up into the sky (we did).

If you look into the horizon, the view is sweeping and vast and the skies are bigger than anywhere else – but interrupted by tall streams of steam as far as your eyes can see.

There are boiling pools of mud. You hear bubbling, gurgling, gushing sounds and see surfaces where the hot water has splashed and melted the snow and left behind blue and yellow and red marks on the surface of the Earth.

Consider Old Faithful, a geyser that erupts into a huge jet of hot water more or less every 94 minutes. 3,700 to 8,400 gallons of water are expelled each time, and just prior to the eruption, the water temperature at the vent is 204 degrees Fahrenheit (95.6 degrees centigrade.)

If you didn’t already know that all this was there, wouldn’t you think I was making it up? Isn’t it incredible that such a place actually exists?

Photo by Luca, taken in Yellowstone National Park

I'm late I'm late I'm late

2009-01-15T18:52:00.000-08:00

I know I know I know. My self-imposed blog-once- a-week rule of thumb is…limping. I have plenty of perfectly acceptable excuses, though: the holiday season, a one week trip to Yellowstone – everyone knows there is no coverage of any kind there - in the heart of a historically cold winter (numb fingers, even if there had been coverage), and a momentous birthday. (You try downplaying the fact you’re turning 40!)

On top of all this, since late November I’ve had way more work than usual. Given that many close friends have called me to tell me they have been laid off, I feel incredibly lucky and doubly duty bound.

And, did I mention my cold? I tried to work through it instead of pamper it (partly because I decided I was stronger than the virus, and partly because I was working under deadline), which resulted in my body demanding I sleep practically through a whole weekend (I complied.)

Which brings me to January 15.

I have a lot I want to tell you (and although they are all things I should have already told you, now it will have to be in the following weeks.) Our magical trip to the first national park in the United States. What I got for my birthday and how much I love her. The single New Year’s resolution I’ve decided upon. And, finally, what I’m going to commit to in my continued efforts to be environmentally responsible (it’s big, daring and geeky).

So, don’t give up on me.

Photo by Luca – outskirts of Yellowstone National Park

Hopeful

2009-01-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Maybe what I worry about fret over what I regret the nightmares the suspicions the doubts conclusions it might all be a lot simpler more linear I make too much of everything it’s all in my head

Photo: www.biology.arizona.edu

Parents

2008-12-23T23:45:00.000-08:00

You like an intruder left pieces of yourself in my heart a long time ago so many years later I still come across buried relics and dust them off whether they are pertinent or not to the world I live in even if I disagree with what they represent I still love them because it was you who left them there

Photo: www.snellvilleumc.org

Luca becomes an American

2008-12-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

Liar

2008-12-13T20:09:00.000-08:00

In silence I admonish my lack of courage you are so afraid of everything so small you don't know what you are doing this is the end of the line then you ask if I am happy if I know who I am I open my mouth to confess to let it out but find it impossible to say this aloud it would not ring true

There is a liar in me and I will beat her every morning

Photo: www.realsimple.com

Your night/my night

2008-12-08T21:44:00.001-08:00

I envy you your sleep smooth and innocent your breath heavy your legs jerking as you dream you play soccer my nights gutted hollowed out at best short spurts of me nodding off scattered jumps in the dark short ragged episodes of different nightmares that flap like a torn up flag eight hours marked by the rhythm of your sweet deep sighs your reassuring light satisfied snores I wake up worn down worn out to see you stretch to hear you say with swollen sleepy eyes you don’t think you rested all that well

Photo: sos.noaa.gov

A rest

2008-11-30T21:59:00.001-08:00

I sit alone on the sofa in my living room hear the clock tick tick tick the refrigerator humm mmm mmm the furnace switch on and off on and off children playing somewhere outside I am not reading or writing or looking at email or watching TV or talking on the phone or flipping through a magazine or eating a snack or drinking tea just sitting here alone in the sofa in my living room hearing the clock tick tick tick

Photo: potterybarn.com

Without me

2008-11-25T18:58:00.000-08:00

I have trouble conceiving people’s otherness that they have lives outside of what I see do the walls of my mother’s library her books exist even if I’m miles away my father’s garden his big dining room table is it really there right now even if I’m not this is an updated version of my teacher not possibly persisting outside of the class not related to my ego being so big that it cannot imagine things beyond my own existence but rather a crack in my ability to perceive

Photo: Potterybarn.com

Not poetry

2008-11-19T20:47:00.000-08:00

Loose sentences no punctuation solid thought dust does not constitute poetry a poet has a serious job reports on the blue cup she uses at breakfast the old copper coin she finds in the grass the flower that grows right through the pavement the silver spoon with the delicate white handle the bruised pear in the fruit bowl the key once essential that no longer opens anything how a stranger looks from behind and from a distance this is just debris

Photo: www.edibleportland.com