11 posts from May 2008

I got chilly sitting in the park,
between the iced coffee and the breeze.
I tried to beat the rain home, and won.
Handily.

The raindrops on my notebook
were empty threats
from a rushing, busy, gray scale sky.

Indoors was uninspiring.
Dreams don't caper and play on the ceilings like they do in the heavens.

Unladylike and eager,
I crawled out on our third floor fire escape.
The buildings nearly kiss up there
and I could hear, clearer than the traffic on the road,
the upbeat life in a neighbor's apartment.

I am afraid of heights,
but giddily, hungrily so.
My stomach jumped like happy dolphins
while I sat writing out my dreams,
a few stories above the earth.

He spoke with the declarative inspiration of a born explorer,
"I'm going to go outside."
His mother's answer was distorted and far away.
"Yeah, I'm going outside," he repeated.
And he did.

He is somewhere between six and eight years old
with the big brown eyes of someone beloved.
He was closer to me than any other human being at that moment.
I smiled and said, "Hello."
He was concentrating on getting the rest of his body out of the window onto his fire escape
but he paused and answered in kind.
And righted himself like a well made ship
And clomped down the clangy metal stairs.

Upon reaching the yard, he checked out everything
with the easy-going habit of the young and the curious --
the mailbox, who's on the porch, what's behind the neighbors gate?
Once the perimeter was secure he had to check in with his personnel,
"Hello up there, " he called to me.
"Hello down there," I echoed back.

It took me until today to figure out who I am.
Thirty two years, one month,
twenty-one days, nine hours
and eighteen minutes.
Not the hare.
Not the tortoise either.

Who I am is not a person I guessed, expected or planned to be.
And that's okay.
She is going to change.
And that's okay.
At least we're together right now.

I don't have an iPod.

But I would not be existing these days if it were not for the Arctic Monkeys'  "A Certain Romance" and "Fluorescent Adolescent"

Thanks guys.

What are your travel plans for this spring/summer?

Washington, DC
Portland, OR

Wheeeeeeeee!

What role did you play in your school play?

Dancer/Cruise member - Anything Goes
Pit Band - Guys and Dolls, Pajama Game, Kiss Me Kate
Hermia - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Aunt Abby - Arsenic and Old Lace

Every other show I was a properties mistress (how I love that term) or stage crew. Ahhhh, those were the black on black with black Converse wearing days...

It's 9:16pm and I'm in bed. Not with someone and not because I'm young enough to have a bedtime.  Because I wasn't feeling so well and I wanted to snuggle down and be quiet and release my day. And dream out loud a bit.

In all my searching for what I do next with my life I have started to see the forest for the trees a little bit. I realized late this week that I spend most of my non-work time  pursuing some physical activity and trying to learn French.  The language being French is less important than how much I enjoy and prioritize that task.  And it started me thinking that I want more of what that feels like in my life. 

So I've been exploring loony ideas lately like diplomacy and peace work and mediation. 

I've discovered that I don't want my job to be my identity, I want my identity to be my job.  I want to do something that is germane to me and get paid to for it.  I enjoy problem solving, relationships and feeling a part of the world community and I love learning languages. I feel like I am old to want to pursue this professional track but...

...but nothing really. I don't know how to move from here to there. Yet. Once upon a time I didn't know how to ride a bike, drive a car, be true to myself. All this was learnable. This next path is as well.

Peace.

136.6 no PJs. I like that better.

Awoke feeling in the spring season today. Like I am new I guess. My students are writing about how they would like to make history and I think I should too.  The dream of my heart is to be someone that people come to for help. Universal help: directions to a good coffee shop, a loan to help their grandson, a good idea for a new business. And that they can always speak to me in their own language. I want to be known as a good person. I am no saint. I am no Mother Theresa but I feel like I have a certain ordinary greatness. I will give a few coins to the homeless man. Give a hungry man some of my food. Buy a kid a train ticket home. And not care if I'm getting scammed or had, because that person's need is greater than mine and I helped for a moment to soothe it.

I went to karate tonight. I'm glad. Daily I look at my life and expect that I will see bigger changes in all the aspects I think I am working on. When I don't I am not disappointed so much as surprised.  Some days I feel like I have expended a great deal of effort towards this personal improvement or that way of thinking but when I measure I find I have only moved an inch or a centimeter. Forward is forward no matter the distance. 

----

I ask myself a lot what life is about, for. I don't know of course. I am actually just trying to figure out what my life is about, for. I just don't want to miss anything, you know? Since I have not been able to define life I have instead been trying to define myself. Streamline me. Make me the best me I can be (ouch! that phrasing is so tacky I cut my hand on it). I think I am making headway.

----

I ramble on endlessly about my next job, but I want to get it right. I don't want there to be too many more jobs for me. I still don't know exactly what it is I want to do but I am getting clearer and clearer about what I want in a workplace. If only that was how job searches were written. 

I want to be down the hall. I want people who work with me to know who I am because we actually work together but I want to have a separate work space because I need some privacy to be at my best in a work situation. I want to have some task or aspect of whatever the work is that I am the point person for and so if someone needed help with that aspect they might stick their head in a colleague's office and that colleague would direct that person to me saying "She's down the hall."

I have always wanted to work in a relatively quiet place where people are thinking and working all day and then they come together and share their thoughts, both formally and informally.

I want my colleagues in my office to be international. I would like to have to use another language at work. Maybe even two or three other languages. I think I would like to work at a more or less flat company. 

I think that's enough.  Good night.

138.6 w/o PJs this morning. No comment.

Did a lot of thinking yesterday. I like what I felt. It is becoming clear what is important to me these days but I want some more time to let that solidify. What I am missing in my current job seems to be consistent. I am also finding different joys in the work. Today I am most preoccupied with going back to Karate. I took last week off. It feels like a month although it has only been 11 days. I thought I was going to give it up. I talked to Sa Bom Nim. I'm coming back for the moment and just trying not to argue with it.  I have no reason not to do it, but like some other physical milestones (marathons, triathalons) I have no reason to do it.

Bad timing. I have to scoot.

138.4 - Everyday I am surprised at how much my clothes weigh. I lose two pounds every time I get naked. I don't care much long as numbers in either condition are pretty consistent.

It's a beautiful day. Low 60s I'm guessing from my comfort level out here in the sun with a thin cotton sweater and corduroys on. Which might tell you immediately that I am almost surely part lizard. I would barely crest a sweat in the same outfit if it was 72. It takes a long time for the heat to set up in my body. But the point is I'm outside. Though I am pausing from work to write this post. I am working outside. As I enjoy working and adore worshiping whatever blessed presence brings us the sun and blue skies and leafing trees and singing birds, I am approximately in heaven.

I guess I have a lot in my head. Every email I have written today has been a bit long, wandering topically, determinedly optimistic, nostalgic (at least as it rings in my soul) and spontaneous. The words are not coming out as I would have ordered them but they are coming out and for that I am grateful.

I want to do an internship this summer but I am not sure exactly in what. I may want to buy a place to live this summer as well but again I do not have the details in mind. I am a big believer in the power of imagination, visualization, and positive thinking. I wanted to write this post (and maybe many others) to get clear on what I want for the summer so I can actualize it.

I think I may have finally been bitten by my passion. Some lucky few have known all their lives (or convinced themselves that they did) what they wanted to be when they grew up. They have pursued those dreams with a single minded passion. Others have lived more spontaneously letting life's ebb and flow guide them, or perhaps they have been driven by survival. I have been somewhat subject to the latter, hanging on until such a time as I felt more of my decisions were my own and until I found some topic or vision or idea that made my heart quicken.

Certainly there are a number of facts, desires and goals that drove me through life to this point. When i was very very young I was inspired by National Geographic. I wanted to be a biologist and a photographer. And I wanted to be great so I set my sights on  the greatest thing I knew about at the time, the Nobel Prize. I have been distracted many times as I have grown, usually by the vocations and avocations of favorite characters in an array of books. I have wanted to be a variety of animals, a witch, a marine biologist, an aerospace engineer, a movie director, a musician. Nothing really interfered with those dreams (except maybe the being another animal thing) I could have probably ended up as any of those choices but I didn't end up as either of them. 

It took me a long time to understand that the purpose of a job is to generate money for necessities and not to be the fulfillment and ultimate realization of self. And while I know that cognitively, job as ultimate expression of my unique, personal humanity is still something I crave. So I have been searching for a long time for the money generating activity that is in-line with my values, incorporates all of my favorite tasks, calls on skills I love to execute and somehow beams from me as light  emanates from the sun. i have been disillusioned often by jobs I thought might fit the bill, doctor, non-profit worker, medical researcher. The unpleasantness of the actual labors or outputs or day to day realities of these careers overwhelmed the fulfillment I imagined I would feel doing them. This has led me to focus on tasks and daily flow as two key points for selecting a job. But it has also led me to be skeptical any time I get excited. "Maybe this will work out as badly as that last thing," I think. I am wary often of my own decisions. So moving forward is as much about trusting myself as it is about meeting a particular goal.

I have to go. To be continued. .