An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

~ G. K. Chesterton, On Running after One's Hat, 1908



Monday, November 29, 2010

Baby, Decide My Future

When I was in my early twenties, my mother asked me when I planned to have children.  "When I'm 28."  A glib answer, but even so, it seemed so reasonable, so normal, so in the distant future. Twenty eight seemed like a very grown-up age.  Twenty eight came and went and here I am staring down the barrel of 37. 

And, I'm still not ready.

Some days I still don't feel like a grown up. I check my mileage at all the milestones. I do all of these very grown-up things, and yet the immaturity lingers.  I ever-so-briefly dated a man who told me on our second date about his checklist. He asked about mine. Besides the more prosaic home-ownership, which I attained about the time I should have been following the biological imperative, my checklist of things has long included writing a novel and flying in a hot air balloon.  After a master's degree, he planned the house, the wife, the kids, ... the political career.  Our date was part of a larger plan. I ran for the exit. Or, maybe he did.

Part of the problem on my side was that I would make a terrible politician's wife. The other part was the plan. His plan and mine.  I wanted to be married but to someone who wanted to be with me -- not with a guy who needed a wife.   I've struggled with two philosophies of life:  for life to happen naturally, which is not so much fatalism as a belief in serendipity, and the desire to own my decisions. I've bounced back and forth between these and it might explain why some friends would probably describe me as both flighty and methodical, depending on the occasion.

A friend of mine was appalled a few years ago when I told her I might not have children. She was taken aback that I'd even consider straying from the course that most people take.  That was decision-owning mode. On the flip side, there is the go-with-the-flow, accidents-happen mode. Sometimes the two philosophies converge in odd ways: tidal-wave riding with a life vest.  For years, I've stashed away PTO for a maternity leave I've never planned to take. Accidents happen.

I just recently went from being flighty and methodical for one person to doing so for two. Our checklist now includes building a garage -- albeit a parent-aggravating sustainable one ("It's going to be made of what?") and maybe, just maybe, the possibility of expanding to three.  I went from very ambivalent, but prepared just in case, to game to the possibility.  One baby is doable. One baby is portable. One could fit in our little house.  One baby is a good excuse for a middle-aged woman to make sock puppets.

I also could train physically for one. And, I will have to train. I have a shifty vertebra and need to keep a strong core just to walk. And, so again, the methodical me kicks in.  I'm stronger than I've ever been, but need to be stronger. Let the training begin.

My husband's training seems to be sharing information on the lifetime costs of child-rearing, studies that point to decreased happiness for people with children and articles about how having children changes your life for good and bad.  He's interested in the subject and nothing deters him.  He's an optimist. I ignore these suggestions for reading material and enjoy books such as Baby Fix My Car. I don't even have a car, but like the idea that a baby can be so useful. I'm an optimist, too.

We recently had reason to think serendipity had struck despite our most methodical of practices and plans for the not-so-near future. We walked to CVS where I bought a New York Times and a plastic stick that would decide the rest of our lives.  Planning ahead, I sprang for the economy twofer with an expiration date of December 2012.

It took less than a minute to get the answer.

I'm not going to lie. I was relieved. Mostly. But, I had the PTO just in case.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Bullet Point Storytelling

Angie's List,  Letterman's Top Ten, the TSA's Prohibited Items. A search in Google brings up over two billion results for the word list. The word death only brings five and a half million.

Only love is stronger than a list ....  8,930,000,000 results.

Like love for a bad man, lists can lead you astray and leave you feeling empty. An overuse of Powerpoint in the military and education has led some to say the Microsoft program, which focuses on charts and bulleted lists, is evil and makes us stupid.  I'd argue about causality on the second point, but nevermind. Is Powerpoint evil?  Please. Amoral, maybe. Are bullet points the end of civilization? No, that's ridiculous. That honor belongs to chocolate fountains.

All week long I create a list called "Saturday." It is list of all those things I can't or won't do during the week. The banal and the aspirational wait together -- not in order of importance, but rather in random order of thought.

A selection from last Saturday:
  • Put spare monitor on Freecycle
  • Put CDs on Craiglist
  • Take books to Opp House
  • Schedule Clothing Exchange
  • Sync phones
  • Buy toothpaste and toothbrushes
  • Make a mobile
  • Make persimmon pumpkin pie
  • Need motorcycle gloves and sweater tights
Lists are intriguing because they provide an insight into a person's life. If you're wondering, I accomplished just more than half. Well, Matt made the pie. And, drove me around. Sweater tights? Check. 

Found magazine is dedicated to these storytelling moments with the public sharing of lost and found private love letters, photos, and, yes, lists. Each piece provides a glimpse into someone's life and reminds how much we have in common,  how much we don't,  and how much we hope we don't.  (We also find evidence at Found that people have long delighted in funny pictures of cats.)   Like photos and notes, lists are relics of our time on earth and when found by a stranger and shared, they become poetry.

Sometimes lists are more explicitly poetry than not. The list or catalog poem is a common grade-school exercise. Anyone who can write can write a list, so the thinking probably goes that it's a good start for would-be budding poets. I'm not aware of too many celebrated poets that use this form. You've probably come across Maya Angelou's Woman Work, an effective piece about the weariness of a working mother. Each line adds another layer of labor until the reader feels bone-tired by the end.  This isn't the example given to eager gradeschoolers. They get Walt Whitman's I Hear America SingingI love Whitman, but blech. I can see why there's a dearth of good poets these days with this as the model. Want an antidote? Read Song of Myself, section 1.

A few years ago I was reading some book or other on positive psychology and came an exercise to combat depression: keeping a daily gratitude journal. The gratitude journal, you might well guess, entails making a list of things for which you are grateful. As an ingrate, even in the best of times, I tweaked the idea one long lonely winter when I dangerously close to feeling self-pity. I'd just recovered from temporary blindness and assorted personal angst.  Each night, until I didn't need it any more, I simply made a list of "good" things that happened during the day. Good is subjective, but these were moments of beauty or banality that gave me satisfaction, if not joy.

I've returned intermittently to add to the journal: A day here, a day there with only one extended return. What drove me to despair again in the spring of 2008 is what drives everyone to despair: the absurd behavior of the other (opposite sex, same sex, etc.).  What pleased me enough to note were what pleases everyone: good food, accomplishment, time with friends, and feeling especially well-turned-out.

To be more specific, this entry from Tuesday, 2007 April 24:
  • Postcard from [a friend]
  • Caught an advising mistake
  • Spanish subtitles on Coffee and Cigarettes
  • Good show of hosting neighborhood meeting, created nice spread
  • Ate a couple of pieces of chocolate -- very nice
  • Made crabcakes with leftover crab from Sunday's dim sum efforts
  • Lunch made for tomorrow and clothes picked out
  • The sound of rain in trees
What strikes me is that there are very few momentous, earth-shatteringly happy moments. Okay, there might not be any. I don't want to read the whole thing to make sure, because it goes on a bit and is best reviewed only momentarily. I took pleasure in small things: a pleasant walk to work, a good piece of chocolate, new rain boots (these were really kick-ass rain boots). I also noted the weather far more than is healthy for an American younger than 40. In particular, I really enjoyed kicking through puddles in my new rain boots. And, coming home to tea.

I recently found the to-do list of my wedding day. Not quite ready to part with it, I put it in the middle of a pile of papers to unearth another cleaning day: a gift to my future self. Though I have pictures and videos a plenty, the list is the closest thing I have to a written record of that blur of an occasion.  And, this might be the concern of Powerpoint critics. Instead of deep thinking and reflection, our history has been reduced to bullet points, a gloss over the complicated, sound bites instead of intelligent discourse.  But, it's a false dichotomy. You can have the occasional zinger as well as real conversation.  There is room for both the list and the fuller forms. A list can be literature.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Barry Lopez Is a Humble Man

Sometimes I just want to go home. Actually, quite often I just want to go home.

Then I remember that part of my job is to go to lectures and things, though days can be long with meetings, spreadsheets and lengthy explanations. Sometimes I skip because time is finite and hot tea waits. But, there'll be time enough to rest when I'm dead. Maybe I should be supportive of colleagues;  maybe I'll learn something. Maybe I'll miss something VERY IMPORTANT if I don't go.  Then I drag myself forth.

Last night before going home to my cozy house and beautiful husband, I dragged myself a very short way to hear writer Barry Lopez speak.  Noting the distinct lack of crowd, I panicked a little. Was that faculty member coming to ask me why there weren't more people?  Perhaps he was, but he was interrupted mid-greeting by someone more compelling. I got a grip. The true organizers of the event conferred across the room. A bit player, I had even less role to play this time and relaxed in my seat. People shuffled in even as the speaker approached the podium.

But, I couldn't see him. My seat, chosen to aid a quick exit, held a perfect view of a column blocking the podium.  I did a quick cost-benefit analysis of moving during the introduction and embraced inertia. Our man Barry Lopez is a great man with many awards. I looked at the time and thought about lamb and eggplant casserole.

Finally, Lopez spoke.  "I am only a writer. I am a single voice," Lopez said.  A single, sonorous voice.  Lopez spoke with great humility about writing.  And, I perked.

To Lopez, writing is about creating patterns and building beauty -- even when writing about darkness, the writing can be beautiful.  Lopez said a writer is a kind of servant, though the service can be any number of things: to memory, to words, to society.  Writing should make deep connections. The writer's job is to create something beautiful that touches people and writing that does not is otherwise is forgetable. The average magazine article, for example, is so forgetable that it can be recycled months later and readers don't even know the difference.  

A man once told Lopez that there is no difference between fiction and non-fiction. There is only the authentic and the inauthentic. An authentic story is about us. The inauthentic is about you. And, while Lopez disagrees with the point about fiction and non-fiction, the point resonates with him because it speaks to Lopez's view on writing as service. I think it is a beautiful idea and I hope that my writing touches others -- I thrill when it does -- but let me admit something: my writing is very much about me.

I am only a playwright, a very minor one and without a current work in progress. I am taking a break from playwriting, conserving my strength during a year of many changes-- a new relationship, a marriage, a new job.  All is well,  but something is wrong. I think if I don't write I am not myself.  I understand the world through writing. It is my filter, my oasis, my means of making meaning.  It is the means by which I learn to be a person -- to discover myself and struggle to do more than go through the motions.

It is writing that drives me to go beyond the motions, to do things I wouldn't otherwise do because all experience teaches.  Anything, everything can help me grow as a writer. And maybe as a person.  Every experience is an adventure not to be missed.

 "The world is too much with us, late and soon." This line sticks in my head and I wonder if I'm too materialistic. I don't mean materialism in the sense of consumption, though that might be true, but in the sense that life can be devoid of visions and ideas. This world is too much with me and it lays waste my powers. As a child I created complicated worlds. Where are these worlds now?

So we've established that writing is a service to myself. But, in writing this journal -- blog is such an ugly word -- I also hope to point out the adventure in the everyday, the sublime in the mundane, to discover mystery and romance with a capital R while turning over rocks, peering in the ditches, chasing after my hat.

Barry Lopez and I don't have a lot in common.  He's kind of old. I'm still kind of young. He doesn't have a blog. I do! He is in touch with nature and wants to walk paths in places hardly touched by civilization.  I think my new Iphone is super cool and might visit my sister-in-law in Indianapolis soonish.

While no household name, Lopez is a well-respected, award-winning writer who has touched hundreds of thousands of people.  Bill Moyers, the nearest thing the U.S. has to a bodhisattva, thought Lopez was the perfect guest for his last show. I was not in the running because the list of candidates was too narrow. 

Barry Lopez is a humble man who does great things. I'm ... not.

We have one thing in common.  We each seek to learn about the world.  I'm not very good at humility, but my arms are open to discovery even as my feet kick it away.

Is my writing beautiful? Probably not, but my hat in the wind is. The rocks are. And, what's underneath them might be sublime.