EPIC

I would like to go here, please.

“A place to lay my heart”

I like reading NYTimes’ Modern Love section. It is a “must do” for me every weekend. The most recent story is about a woman whose wanderlust in her 20′s and early 30′s led her around the world. This wanderlust came from her not wanting to commit to just one thing. As a writer, she created the illusion of having a life with endless choice. But at the age of 34, she “felt the first tickles of envy for friends who were rooted. They had a gravitational pull that she lacked, “drawing people to them, to their homes and dining room tables.” And so she chose New York, an American city where she had friends, found a job, and signed a lease. On a work assignment, she met a man who eerily reminded her of herself. “Love can be narcissistic in that we often fall for a person in whom we see ourselves.” Another way of putting it, we are attracted to people like us, stories with familiar twists and turns. The guy visits her in New York for five days. At the end of the trip, they both agreed “to find a way to make this work.” A year later, he moves to New York with a Peugeot bicycle and top-notch kitchen knives. At this point, the reader can guess how the story ends.

“When I realized he was going to ask me to marry him, I wondered again if some part of me would seize up, if I would fall back into my old patterns. But since my decision to move to New York, through the four years during which I bought an apartment, was promoted at work and settled into routines, I had slowly become ready. And with this man, I saw, I wouldn’t be tied down so much as tied together.

When he asked, the choice was easy.”

I like to make paper hearts.

This woman’s story made me cringe with fear because I can relate to some of it.

In July 2011, I traveled to South Africa to work for what I thought would be just six months. I’m home right now for a month before going back with an indeterminate timeline. I’m young, healthy, and not tied down. It is the perfect time to see the world, to know myself a little better.

I can’t have this type of life for a long time though. It is being home this month, with family and friends, that made me realize how much I also crave regularity and rhythm. I’m going to figure out what I want and not live by what I don’t want. I know I will most definitely want a dining room table one day, to be tied together. Of course, preparation will also be necessary for me. Being tied together is scary. As a friend said yesterday, “You’re marrying someone knowing that they don’t know everything about themselves, and you definitely don’t either. But you are committed to figure out how to learn about self and other together.”

And hopefully, the rest will just fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle. Yes, jigsaw puzzle. Because life never goes the way you plan or when you make hard rules. For example, I recently realized that I make rules and then change my mind because of different reasons, mostly because the situation changed and I got a little older and wiser. Why did I make rules in the first place? It should be just what feels right and what is rational. Ah and now I’m reminded of this music video where Jason Mraz lands in Hawaii, leaves his apartment keys behind and walks out with just a backpack. I like the image of sitting in a taxi or the back of a pickup truck, weaving the air with your hands, and enjoying the ride. The song is “I’m Yours.”

“…Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment people dance and sing, we’re just one big family…

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart and you’ll find that the sky is yours
so please don’t, please don’t, please don’t.
There’s no need to complicate
’cause our time is short. I’m yours…”

Griff

“The world can make us invisible. Courage can make us incredible. Love can make us invincible.”

There is a little bit of Griff in all of us.

“Paper Heart” from the male perspective:




Revolutionary Road

Exactly a year ago, I was traveling in China with my family, visiting extended family. I had wanted to read Richard Yates’ “Revolutionary Road,” but didn’t have the chance. I found out just how tiring it can be to visit so many family members and in the dead heat of summer. I was drained of energy, every day, for a few weeks. Before the trip, it didn’t help that work wasn’t letting me sleep either.

I finally got to the book this past January. It was such great writing, but so very sad. And it has been on my mind often. Scenes from it would randomly pop up in my head, especially lately. Perhaps it is because I happen to be in my mid-20’s with a life of the “in-between” – New York City and Greenwich, CT. Perhaps it is because so much has happened this past year.

The book hit a chord with me on multiple levels. Perhaps it is because I recognize myself in the book. I see the ugly and weak sides of myself and am afraid to look deeper, afraid I will end up doomed like these book characters. And I realized – no “perhaps.” Yes, I have many faults. Faults I have indeed, but I do not have a pessimistic world view. We all enter relationships with historical ghosts and immature, imperfect tendencies. What is more important is that I want to progress, grow, and I want someone, in addition to myself, who can tell me when I’m right, wrong, and crazy.

It is important to keep in mind, though, that while growth is best done in relationships, it is also hardest in relationships. In the process, we may end up losing the person for whom we fell. I guess that is part of being vulnerable, that love is like the leap of faith scene in Indiana Jones’ “The Last Crusade.” This last year, I learned so much about myself through others. I find it all very rewarding. Despite the tears, angst, and pain, I am happy to find out that I still see so much happiness and hope in the world, all around me. I don’t think I know how to be pessimistic about situations. As a close friend of mine reminded me, “You are the only one I know who can use the words ‘incandescently happy’, and you are the only one I know who is so happy at the sight of peonies, the little things in life.” And I am happiest when I’m sitting under a tree with a book and snacks for company, running in the woods, cat-sitting, at the beach with friends, dancing like no one is watching at a New York club…or on an empty elevator at work, reading xkcd, etc.

Big sigh. I have hope and faith…but there are moments during the week when I feel lost.

My friend Elaine captures the essence of the book beautifully: “His ‘Revolutionary Road’ contains some of the most masterful writing I’ve ever read, capturing the minutest details of life’s greatest existential problems: the connections we create and lose, the grand ambitions we cultivate, and the mediocrity so many of us ultimately face.”

Yates’ daughter gets at the details:

“You can see yourself in the characters without taking on the pessimistic world view. In fact, the precision of the details gives the right reader a kind of joy: the shared experience of subtle perception. The outcome is nearly irrelevant, except as it gives the story weight and forward momentum. Yes, Dad doomed his people, but we recognize the details along the way—the husband saying exactly the wrong thing and the wife bitterly calling him on it; the moments with our friends when we catch ourselves posing; the times within the warmest family tableau where we feel alone and different; the low things we say when we argue, the weakness that might make confessing an infidelity seem like a good move, the feeling that life is a small thing and ought to be more. Perhaps these human frailties are more fleeting and not the total picture Dad makes them out to be for his characters. Nevertheless, we recognize them, and cringe over them, because he’s put it so exactly. That is what people are experiencing when they say they don’t like these characters. They are people who prefer not to examine the weaker sides of themselves or their friends; they just don’t see it, or think it’s worth seeing…

…How beautiful these suffering, misguided, deluded humans of 1955 really are. And as they would be today, or in 1855, or in London or Paris or Delhi.“

Consumer happiness

Last August, I came across an inspiring article about a couple who lives with just 100 personal items. The article came at a time when I was annoyed about the U.S. media’s propagation of “retail therapy,” a time when the average consumer saves just 6.4% of his after-tax income, as of June 2010. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years.* Of course, “retail therapy” is a mind-set in most of the world now. After having spent last June in China, I was shocked at the materialistic/status-seeking attitude of some of the newly minted middle and upper-class of my generation on the other side of the world.

I don’t know if I can personally live as minimally as with just 100  items**, but I have been trying to live to my comfort level and save as much as I can and really think about how I use money and for what purpose. After much consideration, I put myself under an experiment of sorts over the past eight months.

Scarf in royal blue

I started giving away good-conditioned clothes and other items to Goodwill this past year. Now that spring has finally hit New England, I changed out my closet last week, switching out cold for warm-weather clothing and shoes. I did the similar bi-annual closet switch last fall as well. A small pile of clothes and two pairs of shoes currently occupy a corner of my closet, soon to be in the Goodwill system. It felt really good to free up some space and perhaps contribute to another individual’s happiness.

I’ve also been trying to not buy any new personal item unless I have gotten rid of an item that was sold, broken, or given away. And if possible, get rid of more and buy less. Of course, I’m not perfect and broke the rule a few times, but thus far I’m doing okay. I’ve also been conscious about where I buy new personal items and the happiness of making something tangible (e.g. the pure joy from making and gifting a scarf).

My third goal has been to improve my diet and physical exercise habit. Having recently turned a quarter-century old, I’ve felt my metabolism slowing down. My food intake for the last eight months has been pretty healthy. I don’t track it with nearly the amount of detail I track my spending/saving habits, but I’m satisfied. Hm well, I need to continue to think more deeply about where I buy my food items. As for physical activities, there is muuuch room for improvement to be made there. I hope to start lifting weights again (10 lbs for each arm…Sigh this will be hard. Last time I kept up with regular weight lifting was a little less than ten years ago when I played tennis regularly), continue yoga, and keep up my running program, especially now that the weather is so nice. For the fall, if I can find a soccer league in my area, I would be a very happy girl. My mindset is that the habits I form in my 20s will most likely continue into future decades. Life only gets busier. I might as well figure out my priorities to myself now and learn how to keep them because in the future, I’ll eventually want to place people’s priorities above my own.

I’ll have to revisit these goals later this year and give a one-year report. In the mean time, I’ve decided to add one new rule: No purchase of cut flowers and only gift or purchase potted greens, flower plants, or dried flowers. This is the result of an accidental happenchance, my rescuing an indoor green plant’s cut branches from the garbage at work…I had no idea how resilient plants can be! Look at how this “garbage” is dancing under the morning sun in my apartment! As an added bonus, potted plants provide longevity to friends and family and they represent the blossoming of continued relationships.

Anne with an "e"

If you have any suggestions on other goals I should consider, to learn the importance of ownership over one’s possessions and an individual’s role in her immediate and larger communities, please share! You would be contributing to my happiness

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* It is certainly a balancing act between the right level of spending and saving for an individual household. I’m not skilled in economics to go into this discussion. For interesting discussions on economic theories, check out my friend Jonathan’s blog. http://oikonomeo.blogspot.com/

** What’s the definition of a personal item? Does one pair of underwear count as one? Does a car count as one if I live in an area that requires me to have a car because it’s cheaper than public transportation and because there are no bike paths or sidewalks for certain stretches?