Self-righteous thought of the day:

Why brag about doing something single-handedly?

What does that really mean?

I asked for no help, no feedback, no outside opinion. I sought no cooperation, collaboration, or partnership. I thought I was sufficient for and omniscient of the problem before me, though it affects more than just me.

I am all about solutions, but let's make them applicable to all of us, and let's hold all of us accountable for making them work.
Or else..they won't...work.

So I hope from now on, that I can go about life, not deflecting my accomplishments, but honestly including more and more of their contributors in them.

Say "No, guys" to Drogas

I work for an organization that goes about substance abuse prevention education for students with a comprehensive, social-norms based, research-driven approach. This makes me laugh and cry for my own childhood, when I remember: 1) A School-wide D.A.R.E. assembly with police officers when I was in 2nd grade. My take home from that assembly: - “Cool! There are cops at my school!” 2) An Essay contest about the danger of addictions that I took part in the 1st grade. My essay topic - a rabbit addicted to reading. Hard to find the risk factors inherent in that situation, other than being an overly astute rabbit who may not fit in with her peer group… 3) A Kindergarten assembly with a roller skating, drug-dealing ostrich. The take home here – I am afraid of roller-skating, human-sized ostriches, but I would like some of the candy the hide in their coats! Finally, in the 4th grade, the stars aligned, and I got third place in my county for another anti-drug essay submission on my reasons for preferring music over drugs. Thank goodness for music, huh?

Rejuvenation

I took a 5 minute wellness break from work this afternoon and started reading snippets from my boss' book, 365 Ways to Love your Child.

#96 blew my mind.

Remember that it is acceptance, not praise, that builds self-esteem. Praise just builds a dependency on the opinions of others for one’s sense of self-worth.

Maybe I'm slow, but I can't wait to try and treat myself and others with more honest acceptance and less fabricated praise. We're all somebody's kids after all. Learning every day.

Opinion.Belief.Fact.Knowledge.Truth.

What an amazing Saturday. The weather is really pristine, and the leaves..are..slowly..turning.

I was pleasantly surprised to wake up before 9am today, though I guess I should be expecting to get on some kind of routine now that I work a - gasp - normal schedule that gets me up around 7 five days a week and has me in bed before midnight - gulp - every weeknight. I know I'm lame. I'm a gramma. The knitting needles are (sincerely) to my right, and the antiques to my left.

After waking and eating, I plotted my course to the blue hills. This place is so pretty, I cannot believe that I came up here on a lark and found my home on a lark and now I am so close to such a cool place! Today I headed west and jogged up the skyline trail a bit before climbing all 270 feet of Little Blue Hill, ha ha. It was actually quite breathtaking, because I had climbed the whole hill before I knew it, and it was such a clear day that the top of the hill was sublimely peaceful. This is where I started getting all philosophical, thinking about truth and grace and all of these things that I should have no business thinking about on a weekend! What I ended up with, as I walked down the hill, saw a little black and yellow snake, got lost, and ran back up most of the hill, was that our problem, as people, is not that we are bad, but that we don't realize just how good we are, so we don't even try to dare to act to be great. What we are is beyond great, but we spend our lives, or parts of them, mostly between disappointment, guilt, and a false sense of being okay on the outside. I guess I mean that this is what society sucks us into when we actively just go with the flow and don't step back, however you would do that, and see that the cycle of junk we live in sometimes is not really what it's all about. I've been thinking and talking about stuff like this a lot lately with people, but today really brought that home - that it's not only that greatness is available to everyone, but that greatness is already in everyone, we just need to shut up and listen to it.

A guy from 80 years back might have felt the same way. Augustus Hemenway, a native to the blue hills area, put a stone bench on top of Little Blue Hill engraved:

Exempt From Public Haunt
Finds Tongues In Trees
Books In The Running Brooks
Sermons In Stones,
And Good In Everything.

He was quoting another gentleman quite older than himself - Bill Shakespeare.


I think there are books in our bones and sermons in the soles of our feet too.

Happy Wednesday

It's the middle of the week!

Such times can take a toll on human morale, with no looking back on what was probably a pleasant enough weekend, and no end in sight to what might be a harrowing week.

During such times, try to remind yourself that you're cool. Like, hip and wonderful, and pretty too.
Go on, try it. For the most part, it's true!

By the way, talk about ultimate morale pals - I get to work with these people. So you are clearly learning cool tips from the master.

Bills to pay

Today I have bills to pay. The gas bill, the first electric bill for this place, and if I am wise and snappy and ahead of things, next month's rent and my student loans due next week.

I guess that's life, no day but today, right? I think too that part of the craziness and fun of life is always anticipating something that will have to wait until tomorrow, and always being a bit reluctant, dare I say lazy?, to do what one's duty is for today. Such are bills.

Amazing

An amazing weekend with my amazing S. A testament to how far we've come and how far we will go. I am so excited for the pieces to all come together! And for fall!! I am so blessed.

Here's a bit of the fun we had this weekend, at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

You've got me in a tough spot lady.
Please, Zeus - I've brought you two flaming ice cream cones!
C'mon, would you mess with the eagle behind me? He's had his say. Now we've really got to wrap this up...

This week there's another institute, dinner with R & M, and my first teacher update! It will be a long week rounded out by our first ever support team meeting, for which I have such high hopes. Until then, it's relaxing on a beautiful, cool September evening. I hope you're doing the same!

Cultures not my own

So I was talking to S about how I didn't know if I had put this music video in my blog yet, but how much I needed to find a way to "work it in." Maybe it doesn't work for guys (or anybody else but me!), but this song could be that personal soundtrack we are all supposed to play silently in our heads when we walk down a big, intimidating city street in the crowd. I hear it, and it's time to take over the world. No need to even understand most of the lyrics, let's just do this thing!

So in the interest of being authentic/lazy, here is, sans much commentary, the first major song from the Bollywood hit Ghanjini, the Hindi remake of the Tamil remake of Momento. For those of you who like to watch Amir Khan go crazy and/or wear little suit vests, I highly recommend watching the whole movie.

I am so tired out after today! I spent the afternoon after the pond at the Canton Irish Festival, where I met a wallflower husband named Joe (his wife was off dancing with another dude) who taught me about folk dance and told me to drop in to the ICC and take lessons there on Mondays. I am thinking that in order to have a life here, I might need to do just that - be brave and make a fool out of myself and learn to stomp around a little bit more! Because everyone knows how graceful and coordinated I am...

"I was hoping that if I went out there and did something good..

..You would see that you could do something magnificent." HR

I am sitting on Houghton Pond, which has to be one of the prettiest places on the earth today, all of a sudden, out of the gray yuckiness that was yesterday.

I brought CS Lewis’ The Joyful Christian with me, and also The Portable Henry Rollins, which is of course what I am actually choosing to read. I am already pumped up by the day – it is finally nice and I am sitting amongst lily pads, a cool breeze, a hot sun, the shouts of small boys across a placid water body, and a sky that cannot wait to erupt into fall color. But Henry’s writing always gets me jumpy too. There’s something that never gets any less off-putting about him, something about how he’s lived in DC, and something about how I love writing like that too that gets me all excited about his work, especially on a weekend amongst jumping frogs and dragonflies courting one another.

M & K came back from their honeymoon this weekend, and I was lucky enough to hear some of the funnier stories from their time down in Florida. It seems as though they were around some pretty insane wildlife too, including crazy kids in Key West and a belligerent steel drummer. All’s well that ends well though, and I am glad they had such a memorable time and that they got treated to being the honeymoon couple that they deserved to be for those few weeks.

So all the teachers I am working with are everywhere in the world right now, or so it seems. There are people in the Middle East, Latin America, and one guy at least traveling from Africa this past week to Switzerland as we speak. I am so jealous of them, but also ironically really excited to get into the office tomorrow, set it up, figure out my training notes to see what I can start working on. I think we really do need a Where’s Waldo Map to send out, for my edification and for all the other teachers, so we can be noisy about each other and stay on our toes with communication. One of the most exciting things about tomorrow is that I just don’t know what on earth is going to happen. Should I be worried?

On the flip side of things, though I am sad not to travel internationally yet, I am also sad that I will be doing too much travel at the moment to get a puppy. Sure, maybe working 8-6 most days and living is also not a good plan for a new kid, but it would be amazing to start living, as J puts it, my old white woman life by walking my dog around the Blue Hills, teaching him to swim, jogging with him on the road like a total lame-o, finding a way to sail with him in the summer, and going for long drives. O is an indoor cat to put it lightly, is done with long rides in the car after driving up here for 9 hours straight, and is otherwise not inclined to cooperate in my fantasies. I am also above putting a leash on my cat, just to be clear. This is Sparta, not madness, people. A dog will wait, but I better be getting on a plane soon.

Which reminds me, what on earth am I going to get for A & R’s reception? I guess the good news is they’re registered at Target and there’s one a few miles from me, but ehk. I know she said that she has no idea what she really wants, and marriage gifts are always so generic, good for people you barely know, but not for my A. Of course, unskilled and harried as I am right now, what else am I going to do? Suggestions would be nice from people a little more thoughtful and experienced at this stuff than me.

So we come to the middle of September, half a month in this area, wow. It’s so beautiful, and so pleasant to be here. I can’t get over how quickly so much has changed still. I need to start doing more, procuring a little sister, for instance, even though S claims “some children might not like how structured” I am. Well, boo unstructured children, and bring on the type A tykes! Also, the church I went to has a motorcycle gang affiliated with it, the “Revelation Riders.” There are truly people to meet out there, hee hee.

Alright, I am going to read Henry a little more and head off down the way. It’s better to read him on a perfect day like this, when there is no chance of me getting angsty. I hope your day is pretty great too.

Boston

Yesterday (and today) are no-fun rainy days here, but luckily that didn't stop H from driving down and having an awesome time with me yesterday. First we found our way to my local T station, and headed down to the North End for cupcakes! We were adamant, neither of us had really had a meal that day, but it was still cupcakes first. She got a peanut butter and chocolate one, and I got plain vanilla with strawberry cream on top. Nice. For $2, I can see myself taking trip's to Lyndell's all on my own some days and substituting a cup cake for dinner. That is one of my favorite parts of being an adult so far, eating what I want (or not!) when I want it.

Next we were actually healthy people and grabbed lunch, Thai curry tofu and noodles for me, ad Quincy Market. We then got coffee and walked over to the arts festival by the North End wahrf and looked at pretty jewelry and then went back to the shops and I got some less expensive knock-off versions of the same kind of stuff there. Three silver rings, very delicate and good for mixing up.

Next we met up with H's sister and friend briefly, only to here the Gay Men's Chorus warming up at the festival and heading back there. They were wonderful! Not only did H and I have fun finding celebrity look alikes in the group of guys ("The one in the royal blue polo looks like Ryan from The Office"), but they also sang a bunch of adorable renditions of 80's music that I love. Next we went to see 500 days of Summer, which made me fairly moody, but also had amazingly funny moments and a beautiful wardrobe on Zooey Deschanel.

It was a great day, though I am upset for H who is going to an outside concert this afternoon and will be perhaps I little soaked in the process. For the rest of the weekend I anticipate catching up with S, freaking out about work, and finally hanging up stuff on my apartment walls. H's coming over gave me an excuse to clean, store, and get all the moving boxes out of the place, but I really haven't set roots somewhere until my family's art and my family photos are up.

Hope everyone else is having a great weekend too!

I climbed a mountain and I turned around

Today I am writing from the Blue Hill Mountains after two long weeks of training. I anticipate I won’t be able to be outside without a coat on that much longer these days, which is exciting as the fall colors start to peak through, but also terrifying, because cold gray days can be very..hmm…cold…and gray.

I feel a bit like Forrest Gump, who was running just because, today. I just kept hiking, and hiking, and after I finish up here, I am going to have to find my way back before dusk. It’s beautiful up here, and silent for the most part, which is really nice after such a long while with my workmates, who are loud and fun and right now, as tired as I am I think. I’ll miss them so much as they go off to their corners of the world, but I cannot wait to get started with the ‘real work,’ in the office and my first couple of assignments here in the area and down in Virginia apparently.

It can be hard to stay grounded so away from most everything and everyone I’ve known the past couple of decades, but I am working on it. I frustrate myself being too covetous of life – the opposite of contentment. Maybe it’s because I am young, so to speak, that I just keep wanting more. Maybe it is something pathological. I sometimes wonder how much variation there is within humanity, and how many of these thoughts and feelings are things we all go through, and how many are embedded in just a few of us, and who those people are, so that we can get together once and awhile and say, “What’s up with that?”

As much as I frustrate myself, I am also amazed that I, probably for the first time in my entire life, feel like I am basically making all of my own decisions. It is overwhelming and awesome! From what I listen to in the car to where I go to when I sleep and what I think, it is just me and God plenty of times, talking it through. Growing up I have always felt this huge responsibility to others – family, friends, school, partners, but now the majority of the obligation I feel is just to me, to do the right thing for me so that I can best love others as it is intended for me, and to grow into all my potential for this existence. How insane to have that be the new thing on my shoulders, but it feels incredible too. Sometimes it is very funny to me that I really have no idea where I am living or what, beyond a few hints to the future, will happen next. I guess that is why we are given the present and the rest is up to a poor memory and an uncontainable divine.

Enough babble though, even if it is merited. I am so excited to hang out with H tomorrow in the city! This weekend is going to be fairly relaxing I think – just a long day with a great friend then the rest of the time to clean up and move into the apartment before S visits next weekend. I also can’t wait to go to my first in-community meeting next week with a few of the local staff I met during training. I am so glad that opportunities exist out there to use my education in the real world, I cannot tell you!

Tonight, I am going to attempt to get some fast food somewhere. I saw a Wendy’s up the road, but otherwise, I am clueless as to where to look. Wish me and my tummy good luck!!

Update:: I made it down the mountain and stopped at D'Angelo Grilled Sandwiches for an amazing veggie classic sub that I can imagine myself getting for years to come (I walk in the restaurant and say, "Hi, Dorothy! The usual, please.). It's akin to the UniMini subs, except there is more cheese. I think it's the start to a good weekend.

Summer breeze makes me feel fine

Today is a good day, and it is not over yet. Despite having no friends in sight, I did manage to spend the afternoon in the lap of luxury, for $10 in parking fees, on the Nantucket Sound in Cape Cod, chatting with all my friends on the phone and getting the rest of my work done for tomorrow's training. It was pretty great, as illustrated by the diagram I sent S, of me hanging out on the sound and at the nearby pond for the day. The sharks did not get me, by the way!

Once I got back to my home base, I was able to stop in at a local gas station for some razors (hairy legs = having to wear the same pair of dress pants several times a week!) and an egg salad sandwich for dinner. Before getting back to the apartment though, I stopped off at the reservation area 5 minutes away, and it is beautiful! I can't wait to have my more nature-y loved ones visit the place. The Houghton Pond "hike" is really just walking around this gorgeous body of water in the woods, which will be incredible for sure by the time the leaves are changing.

Last thing for the night is a bath, since I cannot in good conscience actually remember the last time I bathed, and I don't think 2 trips to the pool and 1 trip to the ocean are enough to cleanse the grossness of me from me for a whole week!

So good day, yeah. This week might be a little hectic, but the light at the end of the tunnel is that 1) M & K will be back from their honeymoon with stories to tell, and 2) I get Friday off to go tour Boston with my wonderful friend H, who is making her way down from NH. We're both taking the T in and meeting there, and I will not lie, I am pretty scared to try it and maybe get lost.

Here's to another exciting, challenging week followed by a fantastic 3-day weekend!!

Miss Independent

It never hurts to do work at home on a Saturday...when you're relaxing by the pool as you do it!

I hardly believe it, maybe because I never left the grind, but I am very quickly forgetting what it feels like not to be doing this job - commuting, interacting, meeting, researching. I worry for my 34 year-old self with young kids if I can't ever put aside the work.

Then again, this is now. This is me here alone, but not lonely, and really in it, as Natalie Portman via Garden State would say. And in it from a lounge chair, waiting to go to the cape tomorrow for more water-side work, is pretty lovely.

Wow

So there went August. I am writing this post just to write. I mean, I moved, to Massachusetts, I started a new job I love and is overwhelmingly (take it however ever you want it) great for me, and life has just changed so quickly.

When I look to my path, passage, and beliefs, I really have solace and strengthen that things happen for a reason and God's focus never fades from us regardless of the circumstances. When my movers were 4 days late and charged me an extra $250 in cash because my apartment complex just happened to close off the entire parking lot of my building, causing them to have to hand carry all my crap hundreds of feet further than we'd all expected, I just said out loud "God is love, love these people." This is the case in all circumstances for me, whether I appropriately act in best accordance with it or not. God is love, love these people.

It has been amazing here. I am delighted by the weather - it is cool and crisp already, and the only time I have used my AC was to make it cool inside my apartment in a hurry for the movers as they did an insanely fast job getting all my stuff up and in the place. The apartment community so far is really great too - beautiful, quiet, with great amenities and nice people whenever I run into them. I can't wait to get my walls painted - I have never been able to do this at any other place I've lived! It's next on the agenda.

Work is so good, and so crazy. We are in training, where my role is just to 'take it all in' and offer feedback where there's the opportunity or need. Man, it is a lot of work to do just that, since the organization is changing so much (for the better!) right now. I don't want to even think about my formal role now - it seems too big, and though I am excited for it, I know once it is all down in front of me, in my notes or something, the marathon will really start.

I enjoy my alone time too. I am pretty much foremost a mommy to my cat, who I think likes the place but is still in some aftershock from the move. I love the feeling of being out in the trees, by myself. It can be more lonely and isolating to feel separate in a big city than right here, where there is more peace in the air it seems to me. For now. I think the zing of training mixed with the solitude here, and tons of talking to S too, keeps me very balanced in a chaotic time.

There's probably more to be said, but this is just a start to the September blog. I will weave it all in somehow. Until then, its good to have my cat asleep on my foot, cutting off the circulation, and to be ready to get started another day.