...that's what they call learning

This week I've attended two flash seminars, on the purpose of the university. The Big Questions come up repeatedly: what am I here on this planet to do? How can I learn what I need in order to do it? Who can help me? What is knowledge; what is information? What are schools good at and what could they be better at? What happens in reality - when real people run large social organizations, like schools, institutions, and governments - and what happens when those people are disconnected from themselves and impose restrictions on others?

I'm exploring all this in a new book idea...so stay tuned. And in the meantime, this is the best 15min I've spent recently.

Way to go 10-milers!!

This morning I got up at 6:30am - yes, on a Saturday! - to cheer on the Charlottesville 10-milers. The race is special this year because it has three generations of runners:

3 generations of family take on Ten Miler | Daily Progress

Conveniently, the race began and ended within walking distance from my place...wasn't that considerate of the planners? Actually I think it might have something to do with my living near UVA grounds. Just a thought. Here is near the beginning:




I considered running the 10-miler this year, for about a week. Then the cold weather settled deep into my bones and my running shoes began to give me some impressive blisters after 3 miles. Excuses, to be sure - and I'd love to run next year, if I'm still in the area. I'm new to the running/racing world but if anything could motivate me it's the energy. The runners, the cheerers, the early morning shivers. The anticipation at the beginning of the race, everyone's high hopes for how it will go. The setting in of reality, the cramp that takes you by surprise, the way you started out too fast but it was just so tough to hold back with all the throngs of people around you, moving through the air, defying gravity.

And let's not forget the person in the large red hat and purple fishnets.



Last night I began reading a book by a local C'ville-ian (I don't think we're called C-villains). It's called Live Like You Mean It and begins by painting a lovely image of how we came to be here, now, on this planet, and the rare orchestrations of the universe that had to align in a seemingly infinite number of unfathomable ways to produce something uncanny, mysterious, beautiful.

You.

Me.

So far, the book has told me to drop as many of the preconceptions about how to live as I can. Not the ones that make practical, and legal sense, such as following the rules of traffic and not stealing. But the more insidious and pervasive. The internal rules, the tiny voice that says "you should..."; "why did you..."; and my personal favorite, "You're not good enough."

I used to not want to run races. I didn't understand the point of getting all tired, possibly hurting myself, looking funny.

And now?

I would call that life.

life=growth

I'll admit it! I'm writing other things, beyond this blog. So I'll be lazy and recommend the following two articles:

On the Road to Recovery, Past Adversity Provides a Map

The Happy Marriage is the Me Marriage

For the latter, I would also venture to submit that it might be true of friendships, as well...

serendipity

I had a recent discussion with a friend about words that are difficult to translate into other languages. She pointed out that it tells a lot about the society and people, these culturally-bound concepts. Her example was Gemütlichkeit - .

Mine is serendipity, which apparently is one of the ten most difficult English words to translate. I have always said that I have a "good star" - it's most notable for helping me find parking spots (parallel parking skills don't hurt). But it's something more. It's something that deposits just the right kind of friend when you need one, something that delivers you into a new work situation when the old one grates, something that finds you that perfect item to compliment your new outfit buried in the clearance rack.

We have many jobs on this planet - but one of them might be opening ourselves up to both coziness and insight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/science/07brain.html?ref=science

50K and counting

Where do bloggers go when they disappear? This one finished her first novel during NaNoWriMo. I almost want to say "novel" because it's difficult to know what will become of this one. I don't think it will end up winning any book awards, like Haruki Murakami, but I learned something I didn't know before and that seems darned good enough: apparently, I can write 50,000 words in 30 days, or if we want to be precise about it, 29 days, or even more precise, 23-ish days (too much precision is bad for you) - because I took some days off, yes I did, and if you think I wrote in my novel on Turkey Day, you have another think coming.

And just how did I accomplish this, you may ask? (Or, you may not, but because I'm in charge here - ha ha that's secret awesome thing number twelve about being a writer - let's pretend that you asked). Well, the answer is visualization. I pictured myself in a future where I'm still around, telling some interested person who also asks questions, "How did you come to write your first novel?" and I would say, "Well I found myself with an awful lot of time on my hands one November and my mother was seredipitously visiting and looking for something for us to do and found this writer's workshop and it was mid-October and they talked about this crazy thing called NaNoWriMo and I went for it."

No, no, no, you've got it all wrong, story-teller. Visualization didn't get anyone anywhere unless you count the time that some unnamed person that I know (not me) took LSD and climbed up in a tree and was happy to be sober later and not have fallen out. What got me to 50K plus words was something more like this new favorite quote about writing, by our dear terse friend Mr. Hemingway:

Work every day. No matter what has happened the day or night before, get up and bite on the nail.

I suppose I already gave it away, that I don't work every day, but only work-a-holics feel the need to do that, and that is not me, no sir Mr. Bob. I do better when I rest and eat and exercise and I ran three miles today before coming home and making a white sauce with onion juice to pour on my baked potatoes and leftover turkey and sesame oil-drizzled green beans. And then, I sat myself down, and pounded out my final 600 or so words, and went to the handy dandy word verifier at the NaNoWriMo site and got my webpage with certificates and shamelessly ordered myself a t-shirt that says "winner." Because the best contests are with yourself. I learned that this month, too (or in the past several months of Crash Course in Life and Living in the Moment). In the end (and in the beginning and middle, also), our greatest pain and freedom originate from our own mind and the silly things we do with it.

Two new favorite books that would make the world a better place if everyone read them:

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle



Isn't he just the most charming and wise man in a gold vest that you've ever seen?

weekend highlights

Thursday, smooth arrival. Stop at massive Whole Foods lunch bar for cornucopia of healthy yet highly salted dishes. Inquiry after slipcovers at Macy's (they do not carry, and good thing because no longer needed). Crate and Barrel reminiscing; mostly sour. Shoe search, several loops at indoor/outdoor mall. Met a friendly, slightly distracted salesman named Don. Got double discounts for brand-new senior status and birthday month. The pair is cute with chic bows and tiny studs. Songs by women with big hearts who trickled into the pink room, growing from seven to eleven. "A Dream is a Wish the Heart Makes," though some dreams require modification along with hearts (aka breaking). Happy Birthday, two times through, some tears. End with Halloween round with witch's hatted Joan. Meaningful, coherent dream.

Friday, found coffee and The Hook. Gym visit; monkey machine after weights. No sightings. Home and rest. Running out of shoes to find ones that fit - back and forth, walking and jogging, dodging parents and undergrads. Free parking; a nice surprise. Onward to Micheal's, begin with a return. Three projects, at the end complete with Band-Aid detour. Natural foods: walnuts and cocoa energy chunks. Kroger milk and chicken dinner. Home again, nacho night and comforting. More pie.

Saturday, writer's workshop: new place, new people, NaNoWriMo (can you believe it). Soft lighting, a few pistachios. Dreams' beginning. Lunch in the space beyond "Adults Only Area": Mexican burrito - can I eat sour cream now? Circa circuit, nada. No Possessions Unrecycled. Recycling center, now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. No goods at Goodwill. Home again: rest, chores, rest, walk. Up the hill - does it look different? Coming down, gaggles of booted adult-children. Home again; chicken potatoes kale salad. Pie-enhanced applesauce. Meaningful, coherent dream.

Sunday, sleep-in. Two loops - Old Farm Rd. Family on long walk. Home again - rearranging, like it better. Cozier, more coherent. Getting there. Leftovers lunch. Airport run, big hug. Phoned a friend; good advice. Smooth sailing a little at a time.

Jennifer Lee grows up

Jennifer Lee has always wanted to be famous. As a little girl, she craved the attention of her family, especially her daddy, and put on all sorts of shows – dancing, singing, and brief comedy acts – when she was small enough to be cute no matter what she did. As she grew older, she kept a dream in her heart that someday – any day now, really– she would be spotted by a scout and whisked off to Hollywood. She knew that once this happened, they (whoever “they” were, the people responsible for making other people famous) would straighten her slightly crooked teeth, and turn her hair from its mousy, stringy present state into a lush wavy gift to the world. She believed that famous people were just ordinary people that were discovered and then created, and she could think of no reason that this shouldn’t happen to her. (Wasn’t Tom Cruise awfully short with a big nose, anyway?).


For back-up, Jennifer Lee attended college and became a dental hygienist (no one, not even she, would ever connect her desire to help people have beautiful teeth with her own longing for a mouthful of straight and shiny). But, she didn’t worry about actually enjoying her chosen profession because she knew that one day, she’d be a movie actress. There were a few times in her early twenties when she felt the universe conspiring to help her dream come true. On these occasions, she tried as hard as she could to listen to the energy and be in the right place at the right time, so she could be “found”, like that Latina trophy wife from the TV show Modern Family. She worried about missing her chance at the fair that one day, wondering if the scout had passed on the other side of the Ferris Wheel from where she waited with her hair just styled and her make-up fancy. As she inched toward 30, a seed of doubt began to grow inside her, which she tried to ignore. However, it was hard not to notice that her Lucky and People and US Weekly magazines continued to be populated mainly with images of women 25 and under. Jennifer began to look at times supremely confident, and at other times simply uncertain.


For this young person, the Sweet Adelines competition has come at the time when she is beginning to consciously awaken to the reality of her life as an ordinary woman. This will turn out to be a wonderful thing, because she will eventually understand that there is no Prince Charming/Movie Star waiting for her in Hollywood, and she will let herself begin a relationship with a normal, kind, and utterly ordinary man who will love her, crooked teeth and all. But right now is not yet that time, and she is not quite ready to say goodbye to her dream. When she sings “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” Jennifer Lee feels muddled. She is close to (but not quite) understanding that she is saying goodbye to one dream while opening herself up to another, more fulfilling and genuine possibility. While singing this song, she feels confused, earnest, wistful, and sad. She has nurtured the dream of being famous for so long, that she feels guilty for betraying it when she thinks of Jerry, the man who fixes her sink, and settling down with him in a nice ranch house. When she sings “Powder Your Face,” this feels like a last ditch attempt at her dream – during this song, she convinces herself that she will be famous after all. She is nothing if not stubborn, and until she has irrefutable evidence to the contrary, or an awfully good alternative (again, Jerry comes to mind), she can persist in thinking of herself as the next Big Thing, the next face to grace People magazine. As the song ends though, Jennifer remembers that she is turning 30 soon, and might want to start a family. Movie stars always end up divorced, dead, or in rehab, anyway. Which is to say, Jennifer Lee is finally growing up.

The above is a character description of the young woman I will "play" at the Sweet Adelines competition in Winston-Salem for my chorus. This young woman is not me, but she is my age, and so - along the lines of "there but for the grace of God go I" - she seems like she could be. Alter-egos are interesting; they are both more and less than the real person. Spiderman and Batman and even Superman were "all that" but they also couldn't do certain things, like have normal families or sleep schedules, for example. They were vulnerable, too - which many of today's superheroes are not, according to this recent study. It suggests that boys today are limited to one of two choices: hypermasculine and aggressive, or a slacker. Not too encouraging given that today's world, and today's woman, calls for so much.

My cousin's alterego is called Jeffy Pumpkeen, invented mainly for Facebooking his brothers, I believe. I like the idea of developing a persona who can do things that we are unable to do, things that would make us too vulnerable if we did them ourselves. This persona can think the scary and real thoughts that we need to process but can't, quite. This persona can have dreams that sound silly if spoken aloud to real people. And this persona can converse over the internet so the real Us can keep a safe distance from the social hubbub that is Facebook.

This all sounds lovely, as long as some day we are able to confront our demons and assimilate our alter-ego into our own identities. Otherwise - unless you happen to be called Bruce Wayne - I think there is another name for it: multiple personality disorder. Or just plain lonely.