Meditative Prose

Saturday, 2 May 2009

Today is Green Up Day in Burlington and all over Vermont — a day of environmental service where people get together to clean up public parks and roadside litter, plant trees, or do anything that helps make our green state a little greener and more liveable. Sarah and I got up early to go with friends to UVM’s Horticultural Farm to help plant saplings for Branch Out Burlington. B.O.B. is a local group of volunteers who grow, plant, and maintain all the beautiful trees that live in the city’s “greenbelt” (the grassy space between the sidewalk and the street). It was a great experience, and a beautiful day for it — sunny, but just cool enough that we didn’t break a sweat from shoveling mulch and pushing wheelbarrows for two hours. Everybody seemed to enjoy helping out, and there was even a roaming group of musicians/clowns who played accordions and danced! Awesome.

Happy Green Up Day, everyone, and belated Happy May Day / Spring Equinox. And Happy Spring!

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Monday, 16 February 2009

I am curious as to what life holds for me and Sarah after the wedding. We love Burlington, but we’ve been talking about moving to a smaller town for a long time now. I was writing about Lewisburg the other day, and I got caught up in a rapture thinking about that place — not specifically Bucknell’s campus, although some of it (Bucknell Hall and the grove) has a kind of magical significance in my memory. But the town itself, with all its churches and old Victorian painted ladies, and the three-globed street lamps, and the river, and the railroad bridge, and the dogwoods and cherry trees and magnolias blooming… All that has contributed to my idea of the ideal town.

We’re not done with Vermont just yet. This spring we are going to join a car-share program and take day-trips to different small towns. There are so many parts of this beautiful state that we’ve heard about but never seen! There’s actually a region called “the Northeast Kingdom,” which is supposed to be especially beautiful. We are also considering a small town called Bellows Falls along the Connecticut River (Vermont’s border with New Hampshire), which, despite its small size, is supposed to have an incredible arts community.

I get the sense that the wedding will mark the beginning of another period of growth for us. Burlington is fun, but limiting in some ways, and I think we’re almost ready to pull up our stakes and move on.

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Sunday, 1 February 2009

Back from Chicago. Flying in over Lake Michigan, the city looked like Burlington but a hundred times bigger. I got picked up from O’Hare in a white stretch limo, which took me, another woman who also works for the company, and the VP of Sales for a “waste management” company to our hotel. I made small-talk, but I was put off when the VP, who had a Virginia drawl, lamented that nobody in Florida wants to build landfills these days. It seems that with the current economic “downturn,” there is not as much new construction, and so less demolition & construction waste. Sales are down. How tragic!

This, apparently, is how America operates. Every company, my own definitely included, is trying to increase sales. It hardly matters what they’re selling, or whether or not anyone needs it, or if it is even good for people, let alone the land and the larger community of life. A handful of powerful people set sales budgets, and the rest of us scurry around trying to meet them, because we need to pay the rent. Meanwhile, schools don’t teach kids the virtues of frugality, living simply, or even how to determine what is truly necessary — because that would be bad for the economy! (A hundred and fifty years ago, a good friend of mine wrote a book that deals with this, among other things.)

The trip wasn’t as bad as I expected. My roommate and I had compatible senses of humor. He was sarcastic and definitely kept things interesting by getting on the trainers’ nerves. The other folks there ranged from holy rollers, to utterly boring retail zombies, to inoffensive people on a mandatory business trip, to a few I got along with well, including one 38-year-old guy who still skateboards. I got to see the nine acre warehouse, which is like Mecca for textbooks. I ate lots of free food. I learned some things that should make my job easier, and heard plenty of things I don’t agree with.

As long as I need this job, I think I’ll be able to do it better (i.e. with less stress for me and my co-workers) now. But mostly, this trip made me want to get out of the business of selling for the sake of selling. All I want is meaningful work. Give me clay and a pottery wheel, and I’ll happily sell bowls and vases for the rest of my life.

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Sunday, 25 January 2009

Tomorrow I am off to the belly of the Corporate beast for a five-day training, indoctrination, and brainwashing session. All kidding aside, I am sick with worry about this. They are making me room with a complete stranger, and for five days I have to wear khaki pants, a shirt with a collar, and dress shoes. I don't know anyone there, and I'll probably be the youngest person. Mostly, I don't want to leave Sarah for so long. She is my constant, and the only reason I am still sane.

It has been an extremely stressful month, and lately I just feel ill-equipped to deal with things as they are. I hope someday soon I'll work less and have more time to do good things. Until then, I guess I'll just try to survive this week.

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Friday, 19 December 2008

A month or so ago, Sarah and I were grocery shopping and decided on a whim to get a crate of clementines. If you’ve never had the pleasure, a clementine is a little citrus fruit, like a small orange but sweeter, and usually seedless. They are like little balls of sunshine in the Vermont winter, completely satisfying in every detail, from the way the peel separates so readily from the flesh, to the perfectly bite-sized segments, to the size — just right for a snack at any time of day, or you can make a meal of two of them.

Since that fateful day, we have happily gone through a crate per week, and my life has been about 10% better because of these magical little fruits. I dread the day, probably in the next couple of weeks, when we’ll go to the market and they won’t be there. But let’s not speak of it yet.

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Sunday, 14 December 2008

What an interesting weekend! I worked late Friday to prepare for the coming book buyback week, and left work exhausted but excited to be free for a couple days. I walked straight into town and met up with Sarah for dinner, and then we had some cafe time, which has been rare lately. I finished reading Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse, which was just as good and insightful as Demian, but longer and more complex. Will has been encouraging me to read Hermann Hesse for years, and I had read Siddhartha in college and tried once before to read something else without success, but now these books are hitting me just right, and I can see that I have a lot to learn from this German seeker.

We walked quickly back from Muddy Waters (our home cafe), talking and enjoying the sight of the first big snowfall, eight or ten inches piled on the ground. As we turned left onto Caroline St., I had the brief and peculiar sensation of feeling like my heart was glowing or emanating heat, and even in the 20° cold, I felt warm. I can only guess that this was the feeling of being perfectly comfortable, carefree, and in the moment — and I hope I get to experience it more often. A minute later we were home, and I knew it was going to be a good weekend.

Boy, was I wrong! It was fairly horrible. We both slept late on Saturday, which, nice as it is, never bodes well for the possibility of having a busy, productive weekend. Then, after lunch, we decided a nap was in order. When Sarah woke up, she said “I have to throw up” and hustled off to the bathroom. Apparently she picked up a stomach bug from one of the kids at the preschool she works at. (This kid’s mom should have kept him home from school after he threw up at home, but didn’t, and Sarah not only had to clean up after him at school, but then got sick from it.) So Sarah would get up from bed every hour or so to throw up, and I watched sci-fi movies and wished I could do more to help her.

Today, Sarah was still recovering, and not able to stomach solid foods, so we missed Indian brunch for the second week in a row. I spent the first half of the day in bed with a splitting headache and churning stomach, but never did throw up (knock on wood). Eventually my headache subsided, and I was able to get up and have a semi-normal evening.

And that was my weekend. I hope yours was better!

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Sunday, 30 November 2008

When Sarah and I first moved to Vermont, I had this uncanny sensation that I could feel myself growing up, the way a tree must feel in a particularly good year when it adds a thick ring to its circumference. It seems like a such a little thing now, after more than two years, but graduating from college and moving away to live with my love changed me. Something broke then, in a good, freeing way. It was the last stage of childhood: no longer walking hand-in-hand with my parents, or helped along by an institution like Bucknell, the training wheels off and the final push given. It was terrifying and exhilarating, and exactly what I needed to continue growing.

Now is another time like that. A few weeks ago, I stepped into a local jewelry store looking for an engagement ring, and half an hour later came out with one I knew was perfect. I carried it around with me for a few days, took it to work and showed my giddy (female) co-workers. Contained in its little box, hidden away in my backpack, it was like an ember burning in the back of my mind, especially when I was around Sarah. One night, sitting on the futon and listening to the unexpected rain outside our open windows, I almost gave myself away smiling.

That was the moment, but I didn’t know it until it had already passed. Instead, the ember burned brighter, until one night I couldn’t get to sleep, couldn’t stop tossing and turning. Sarah knew something was up and pressed me, until finally I hopped out of bed, fumbled around in my backpack for the little wine-colored box, and proposed in my underwear. That is how it happened — probably not how either of us had imagined it, but the important part (“Yes!”) was perfect.

We have been living together since our senior year of college, when Sarah basically moved into my dorm room. Our new apartment is not much larger than that (and actually, when you include the common spaces, it is much smaller) but the circumstances are completely different. We are financially self-sufficient, handling the stresses of working full time and paying bills, while our core of joy and love has grown. We have surrounded ourselves with simple, beautiful things, filled our shelves with our favorite books, and settled into our little nest. By any measure, we live very comfortably.

But the time for fast growth has come again. We have dreams that need attending to. The next stage of our life together is beginning — I can feel it. There is no reason to dally: we hope to get married on the summer solstice this June. We don’t have concrete plans beyond that, but we have a shared vision that is urging us onward. Some of the books on our shelf might provide a hint at where we are going: for starters, there’s this one and this one. Our shared vision also includes some little ones padding around barefoot, and all the joy and responsibility that comes with them.

To paraphrase Thoreau, we are growing like corn in the night. Wedding plans, as well as a website, are in the works. I’ll keep you all posted. Until then, be well and enjoy the coming of winter!

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Wednesday, 29 October 2008

In my last post I mentioned my “general self-improvement effort.” This isn’t something I talk about usually, but it is something I never stop thinking about. Since before I can remember, I have been striving to become a different person: my ideal self, a fictional representation of all the virtues I have come to value most in life. In general I think this effort has helped me in many ways, but it regularly causes me lots of anxiety as well. It is a kind of insane perfectionist tendency complicated by my complete lack of patience and self-discipline. The result is that I continually set myself up for failure, as nothing short of my ideal self is good enough.

It’s not my goal here for anyone to feel sorry for me. In fact, I’m not even particularly sad about it tonight — just hoping that a large dose of public honesty will do me some good.

The reason I am writing this now is that, a few nights ago, I dreamt I was flying. The first time I ever had this dream when I was a little kid, I was in my back yard under the big walnut tree, and I just knew that if I lifted my arms and looked up I’d start flying, the same way a bird knows to flap its wings. So I looked up at my raised arms and the black branches of the walnut tree above me, and soared up, and dove straight down again only to pull up at the last second. It was like playing, completely carefree and natural. The dreamscape was so realistic that when I woke up I really believed I could fly. I raised my arms there in bed, and started crying when I didn’t float away.

This time I was by Lake Champlain in the summertime, at a park that was kind of like Oakledge but not quite. Again, I flew around effortlessly, but my range was greater than when I was young. I explored the park, went over the grassy areas on the hill and high over a huge oak tree, and swooped down near the beach and soared out over the lake. (Could you guess that I love roller-coasters and plane trips?) I don’t know why I think this dream is significant, but I do. Maybe when I was young it was just a kid living out his video-game fantasies, but now I think it’s a response to the amount of pressure I put on myself during my waking life. In my dream, I am truly free. I don’t think about work, or what time it is, or how to make myself better. In fact, I don’t think about anything at all — I just fly around, fueled by joy, playing the way I did when I was a kid.

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Saturday, 18 October 2008

I never meant to abandon this site for two months. Granted, it was a busy two months, but that’s not the point: I should be able to contend with the busy parts of my life, and still have time and energy to devote to worthwhile creative pursuits like this journal (and all the other things I never do). But I let my life take me a for a ride again, and it all culminated this week when I got back from Chris and Jerilyn’s wedding and immediately got a horrible head cold. Now that I’ve recovered a little, I feel this acute sense of regret that I’m not able to live more gracefully. I am constantly playing catch-up, and the result is that friends go un-emailed, parents go un-called, websites go un-updated, and I am constantly apologizing. This, I think, is what Henry meant by a life of “quiet desperation.”

Every time I have ever had a website (and I have had many), this has happened. Every single time. I painstakingly design a site that suits me, build it to my exacting standards, then start off strong, posting regularly. Before long, and without fail, new entries become less and less frequent, until eventually I give up altogether. The funny thing is that I always try again — a new name, a new design, but the same story. But I keep trying because I know this creative outlet is something I crave — I just haven’t figured out how to do it right yet.

When I think about it, this website is one of the best things I do, and it could be so much better. Ideally, this space could be the epicenter of my creative life, a place to brainstorm and share ideas with friends and family, explore and fix my creative process, and post the photos, drawings, and essays that I’m particularly proud of. It could be a living portfolio and notebook. That is what I’ve always wanted in a website, but that’s not something you can do if you’re always trying to play catch-up. So let it be known that, as an extension of my general self-improvement effort, I will be trying to post here more often. Feel free to judge my success or failure by whether or not I have to apologize again.

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Saturday, 16 August 2008

Last night I dreamt that I was at my Nan’s house with my family. I looked out the window and there was a huge tornado headed our way. Everybody went down into the basement, but I decided to stay upstairs to watch it. The storm outside got more and more violent as the tornado approached, but I was never scared — just excited. The tornado finally passed over the house and it was like a wind tunnel inside. I was holding onto a pocket door (a kind of sliding door that can be hidden in a wall), and the force of the wind was driving the door back into the wall even as I tried to pull it out. Eventually the storm passed and I went down to the basement to let everyone know I was all right.

Later that night I had another dream that I was at my other grandma’s house, at the top of a hill overlooking the town of West Newton and the Youghiogheny River. I was playing softball in the street with some little kids who didn’t look familiar, but I recognized as cousins nonetheless. Instead of pitching down the street, I was pitching across the street. Unsurprisingly, my little cousin didn’t hit the ball and it went careening down the hill and into the woods. I started bushwhacking down the steep hill in search of the lost softball, and the little kids followed me.

Back in my waking life, Sarah and I are getting ready to move out of the apartment we’ve lived in for more than two years, and into a place of our own. Over these two years, we’ve lived with a total of eight different roommates (six very messy, one moderately messy, and one fairly clean) who have had five full-time dogs and four or five visiting dogs. Of the full-time dogs, two have been mostly well-behaved, two have been loud and destructive, and one has been big, smelly, and inclined to drool.

At work, we are moving into the busiest time of year, and I am transitioning into my new role as Textbook Manager. I didn’t really want this job, but I am trying to look on the bright side: this means a big raise and the opportunity to become a more organized person. Still, if it were up to me, I would have liked to make this transition during a slower time of year. This is what you might call “trial by fire.”

In a month I will have weathered this storm and I’ll be a stronger person for it. Sarah and I will have divested ourselves of lots of excess stuff (books, clothing, junk) and we’ll be thriving in our new apartment. I’ll be hitting my stride in my new job. A month after that, I’ll be back in Pennsylvania for my big brother’s wedding. The leaves will be turning and I’ll get that familiar feeling of peace, as I do each Fall.

I wish I could skip ahead two months. But right now I’m looking out the window, and the storm is coming. This time I desperately want to run down to the basement and wait for it to pass, but I know I have to face it bravely — if only so I can say, “I survived.”

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