Category: deep thoughts

I realized that some of the highlights of my recent travels are starting to slip from memory, so I want to post a few of them here. So I won’t forget….

–arriving in NYC late-ish on a Saturday evening and surfacing for the first time (luggage in hand) from the subway stop at the corner of Times Square. What an intro to the city! And…what a way to be completely overwhelmed when one hasn’t eaten since breakfast in SoCal more than 8 hours earlier…(oh that NY pizza never tasted so good!)

–our charming hosts, Maria & Jay, and the several other fascinating European travelers that I met while staying in their charming historic home. I can’t wait to return and enjoy their hospitality again.

–the HopStop app for iPhone–getting me out of all kinds of ‘lost’ while wandering the city (thanks for the recommendation, Crystal!).

–eating Sri Lankan food (again), and realizing that I really need to learn how to cook it myself! And also finally meeting my blogfriend Erin that same night.

–sunshine in New York

–rain in New York

–overcast days in New York

–sleeping on a park bench when the jetlag hit so hard that first afternoon

–visiting the Tenement Museum, and learning about the ways that families have ‘made-do’ over many decades. Wishing I could peel away the stories of the spaces that I’ve lived in as handily as one might peel away the many layers of wallpaper and linoleum that are left behind.

—B&H Camera. Total camera porn, that.

–The New School campus–wishing I had attended a university so urban and hip (I especially enjoyed my interactions with the students that I met at the sessions there).

–being inspired by scholars who are working hard to make a difference in our broken educational system. Affirming to myself that I have my own work to do in this vein.

–sitting on sidewalk tables at night in the city, watching the traffic go by and realizing that I really could live in this place someday.

–the Lincoln tunnel crossing, twice daily.  With the Manhattan skyline view as we emerged on the New Jersey side, so pretty at any time of day.

–Giggling with a new French friend at Victoria’s Cafe, realizing that even though the ‘lounge singer’ style musical accompaniment wasn’t really our cup of tea, that it was still fun to compare the stories of our lives and realize how much we had in common (and how very rare it is for me to find someone who has a cancer experience anything akin to mine and can understand how that’s indelibly impacted my life).

–trains and planes and subways and a few long car rides.

–Fall color. New England.

–Seeing Walden Pond again.  Telling it a few stories and knowing that when I return I will have so many more important stories to share.

–Remembering Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Louisa at Sleepy Hollow.  And Super-Sara, too.

–staying in the Forsythia Room at the Old Sea Pines on Cape Cod–my last stay there hardly seeming like two years ago, but also feeling a lifetime away.

–Eating fresh scallops in a coastal town that were so tasty, I’m almost teary-eyed just remembering them…

–sitting on the steps of a dock as the afternoon hours whiled away, watching the water levels rise and fall.  Realizing how much I’ve changed these past two years–huge, remarkable changes.  And also realizing that my past-self would not even recognize me now.

–driving up I-5 from one end of California to the other, my heart swelling with so much love for the land as the sun set over the golden hills around Fort Tejon.

–fraternizing with brilliant tech-minded scholars on the Google campus and realizing just how much I enjoy my vocation.  Knowing that I have so much to learn (i.e. coding), but that not feeling so daunted by that prospect anymore.

–celebrating a special anniversary with a fancy-pantsy steak dinner at a downtown restaurant.  Indulging.  Laughing.  Looking forward to the future.

–Singing in the car.  Yah, I do that on roadtrips and I’m awful.  And loud.

–Watching the sunrise from the window of a high-rise hotel and reflecting on everything that’s good in my life right now and knowing that life just can be that good sometimes.  It can and it is.

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look…. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
–Henry David Thoreau

And…here’s a video that I took from a quiet corner of Cape Cod a few weeks ago:

Although I was just in New York City, I didn’t visit the “Occupy Wall Street” camp.  While it was a popular topic of conversation with lots of the locals that I met,  I didn’t have much to say about it, not having read too deeply on the goals of the protesters.  I’m incredibly sympathetic to the problems of inequity in our current financial system (I have far too many friends who are feeling an economic pinch) and I wholeheartedly support people who are willing to protest and act on their political feelings.  However, it’s not my battle right now.  Instead, I’m concentrating on holding my family together in the midst of so much change, I’m trying to fulfill my obligations to work and school, and I’m doing my best to be a good friend and mother and partner (and writer and cook and photographer and cat-lover and outrigger paddler) despite all of my other busy-nesses.

So instead of sitting with the crowd holding a sign, I sat in conference sessions and on public transport and in cafes.  For awhile I even sat on the beach and contemplated the larger-scheme-of-things.

I don’t want to seem insensitive, but is it sometimes okay to just be doing my own thing instead of fighting the world’s battles?  To read some poetry and think some deep thoughts and do a bit of sightseeing instead?

There’s a part of me that’s disgusted with my complacency/ apathy, as well as with my current level of economic security.  Knowing all too well what it means if I’m not part of the solution in this equation…

Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (with gender pronouns altered from male to female):

Everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of herself and of her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond her control.

Not too long ago I was being teased a bit, by someone who knows how different my “in real life” persona can be from my blog persona:

“The blog police are going to come and arrest you one of these days,” he said.

I’ve thought a lot about that since then, and I don’t think I’m violating any fundamental laws by what I write here–I mean, it is a space where I play with language and storytelling and is, therefore, fundamentally different from how I relate an event if we were chatting over teacups in my living room.  But the accusation was less about that, and more about how romantic and starry-eyed I sound in blogland, versus my quite practical, straightforward, get-things-done, everyday self.

I’ve already written about how I tend to have a macro view of the world and how this has gotten me into a bit of trouble in the past (for literally not seeing a greater perspective on things).  I continue to worry about that, and feel an ongoing tension between focusing on what I want to see, and truly seeing what is right in front of me.

But perhaps what is more misleading is that my blog is all soft-focus and flowers and tea-with-doilies and my real life is administrative meetings and debugging software and caring for two teenagers.  There isn’t actually much space in my life for flowers these days.  Even the ocean is taking second (or, third) position to my research and my caregiving role.

It reminds me of a funny conversation I had with some friends in the hot tub a few months ago.  We were talking about dreams (big life-changing dreams) and I mentioned that I don’t believe in making huge life choices unless there’s a practical element to them (i.e. a plan for how to support the dream financially).  I want to see a spreadsheet along with that plan to quit your job and become a full-time artist.  So while I believe in the allure of the open road and wide open vistas that lie ahead, I also believe in tanks full of gas and a healthy retirement account.

So, if anything, this blog is a space where I can dream and imagine and discuss what’s happening in my head, but that’s mostly a counterpoint to my lived experience that’s all checklists and laundry and who’s picking up who after art class.

” If you built castles in the sky ; your work need not be lost ; that is where they should be. Now, put the foundations under them. ”

– Henry David Thoreau

Last night I worked a bit late and thought I would step out of my office to find a quiet office suite.  Instead, in the fishbowl conference room in the middle of our floor, a Professor led a class lecture about Quantum Mechanics (because of the space ‘crunch’ at our university, even the administrative conference rooms are used as classrooms after-hours).  I stood there, looking through the window at the prof’s powerpoint slides for a good 10 minutes until I peeled myself away to head home (if I hadn’t had the kids to care for, I probably would’ve lingered even longer).  His lecture about Schrodinger’s equation brought back fond memories from high school when I first learned about quantum mechanics via this book that I swiped from my father’s bookshelves (oh, and then there were those eager conversations with my Chemistry teacher afterwards, too, as I tried to make sense of what I was learning)…

It’s a thrill to know that the faculty that I rub shoulders with on a daily basis are doing such path-breaking work.  And that I get to eavesdrop on their lectures (and aid with their pedagogy and research through my administrative position) is similarly thrilling.  I’m not cut out to be a Physicist, but I know a thing or two about cats and boxes (and cats in boxes), and I remember when I first encountered Schrodinger’s cat and realized that my view of the world would never be quite the same again.

Image of my favorite Ellykitty in a box.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon in the shadow of the Mormon temple where I married nearly 20 years ago and where, after that, I returned almost-weekly to perform ritual ordinances. I had some time to think about that place and what it meant to me then, to think about the areas of that building where memorable events occurred, to think about my own naivete. And also my hope. I married just a few years after finishing my cancer treatments. It seemed that my life was so precious and so fragile. I wanted so much to love and be loved (as I still do).  I threw myself into my marriage with that intention.

Later in the evening I ate dinner in an intimate french cafe, where the charming proprietor picked up the mic and sang popular french songs as we all lingered over our meals. Of course Piaf is so quintessentially french to me now, she’s almost over-the-top cliche. But every time I hear “Non, je ne regrette rien,” I feel the power of the words once again…as I did last night.

There’s been some times since my divorce that I did have regrets: that I was angry and felt that I’d chosen wrong or had failed to see clearly what was happening right in front of my eyes. But at the same time…I loved fiercely. I was honest and I gave everything I could to that relationship. I’d like to think that that’s the kind of person that I continue to be now, too (though perhaps a bit more careful or guarded after having been hurt). I’m committed to living my life sans regrets, and to being generous with both my past and my present self.

Last night she was so beautiful as she sang, tilting her head back, closing her eyes and losing herself in the music.  Though I don’t sing, if I did I would like to think that I could sing that song as she did, or as Edith did.  Feeling it with every fibre of myself and knowing that it was true for me, too.

A friend reminded me of this quote yesterday.  It was nice to re-visit it and reflect about how its meaning has changed for me this past year…

“You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken.”

~Anais Nin