An ole to Chachkis

You know why I am not ready to have kids just yet? Because I'm not ready to hang and "show-off" their ugly art projects around my house. I mean, I'm sure I can come up with quite a few other good reasons, but this one is quite prominent at the moment. I don't want your "sand art" on my counter or your play-doh sculpture on a shelf in the living room. I'm not ready to live next to these things in my living room.

This recent revelation strikes me as entertaining for a lot of reasons that you probably won't see coming.

I remember one specific Christmas morning, all tearing through our presants, or maybe it was a Christmas Eve, when my Mom opened a country-style, carved out of wood, faux-antique-looking angel. She would place it on a shelf somewhere, (maybe to fill a space previously occupied by a Pottery 1 masterpiece) and she would love it. She was genuinely grateful for the gift. I was genuinely confused, and a little concerned. I remember asking her in all sincerity, "Mom, will I ever like getting those kinds of gifts?" Those country-atyle house pariphinalia gifts? Those Christmas Tree Shoppe purchases? Is there a certain age where this becomes expected and then, appreciated? I feared for my fist chachki. My Mom laughed and said, "One day you'll like getting these for your own house, yes."

And so now, here I am in my life, deciding that I am not ready for my own children because I do not yet appreciate their works of "art". And I feel that this is a perfectly reasonable way to asses my own readiness, mostly because of that Christmas-conversation. Because I have reached the point where my "wish list" includes things like; garlic press, large serving spoon, end table, plant (perhaps), chachki big enough to fill the god-damn, intimidatingly large, glaringly white wall above my couch. I get it now. It happened so suddenly, this rite of passage to a very small part of adulthood (woman-hood?). This only leads me to believe that soon enough, without my own awareness, I will walk up to a poorly executed cut-and-paste rendition of Hannah Montana, say, or The Wiggles (god forbid) and think, Ohhh look at this! This is magnificant, I would frame it and hang it next to the shelf in the living room with the wood-carved pine tree on it!
Because suddenly, against what may have at one time been my will, I will want to live next to all of these things in my living room.

This is a strange and unexpected way to make a point that I feel has been bubbling under the surface for quite some time now. The same point that has been milling around in the Drafts section of this very blog, dead-ending in a sentence or two, maybe a paragraph. But my thoughts, and therefore point, was consistantly interrupted by something I didn't really understand until now, the point itself. My life has changed. And for once, it has changed in such a natural and simple way that I was forever interrupted by the fact that...I wasn't freaking out. I would think, I should write! I would sit down. I would want to share that my life has changed. I would start writing, and I then I would fumble over boring vocabulary and poor attempts at humor and think, why does this feel like I'm trying?

Then this whole connection happened for me, the strange one, that I started this whole essay with...that one. And I thought, my life has changed, sure, but that doesn't mean I've become boring and incapable of finding humor in it. My life is still quite funny and entertaining, as far as I'm concerned. Just because I don't mind a gift-wrapped chachki or kitchen utensil doesn't change the fact that I still cope with my ridiculous life-decisions and day-to-day misadventures with self-depricating humor.

Like my adventures of theme-dating...where I only met guys named Dave, then there was the short theme, the "Peter-Pan" theme and then the red-hair streak. Two in a row earned a "theme" title...some overlapped- I haven't dated that much. (And I think I'll take a haitus...until a husband-theme presents itself.)

There are my mis-adventures of, how old am I, really? Strange little middle-ground we tread at 25. Am I too old to pre-game in my car before entering a bar in pumps with my roommate?? Ehhh, verdict just came in this morning and I'd say it was a close call, but a no, nonetheless. Am I too young to stand on my "I don't want a boyfriend, I just want a husband" soap box? Mmmm, maybe. Maybe easier said than done, especially with the theme's being what they are, and the pre-game and pumps verdict being what it is. Am I too old to wear a green T-shirt and a Viking hat in the streets of Boston with 1200 other people in the middle of the day? Definitely not. Am I too old to do this until 3 a.m.? Yes. Research says yet. 25, it's a strange place to be. Some 25's have spouses and kids. Other 25's have roommate and hobbies.

Hobbies. Another comical piece of this new life I'm in. More like extracurricular activities. Extra to my 9 to 5er. Graduate classes (now feel more like extracurricular than curricular), softball, rock climbing, road races, kicball? I feel like my "why not" attitude that previously had me packing up and dragging life around this country has transformed in to a resume of extracurricular dedication that would make any high school guidance counselor proud.

I remember asking, is there a certain age where, all of a sudden, you want to be...still? I remember answering, not for me, never...I'll never be still.
My life has changed. As it always does and for everyone. It all feels very natural. There is no more resistance to where, why and how and when- the very feelings that had me at highs and lows so extreme that I, well, definitely created a chaos to negotiate with. Now I am negotiating with what feels like the opposite, a non-chaos, a calm. I am far better at it than I ever assumed I would be. Especially given that I have a gift for chaos and the art of creating it wherever I am. I've just learned to root it, and enjoy the moments of here-and-now-and-Ole that it leaves in it's wake...because I am still, and I can.

An Essay

I am about to have an anxiety attack over here. Why? Because I can't write.
So I'll write about how I cant write to calm my anxiety about not being able to write.

I need to write an essay to give to SCSU to be formerly accepted in to the Special Education Program. They tell me write an essay that answers "Why do you want to be a Special Education teacher?" Well for crissake, this should be easy.

Why, then, I have been sitting here for like...3 hours. One hamburger, two glasses of water, an IM conversation, two iTunes playlists, a coffee and two bathroom breaks later...I am staring at the same G.D. paragraph. I even relocated to my room, my bed, tried the sound of traffic, blaring music, no music, the T.V. I was honestly considering radio static.
Nothing.

I mean, sure, I know why I want to be a Special Education teacher. I freakin LOVE these kids! I love their energy, I love their challenges, I love their dances and noises, I love their complete unpredictability. I love how we interact, I love the non-verbal communication, and I love the breakthroughs. They make me laugh, they make me cry, they make me feel more frustrated and more defeated than I ever have. Then they make me feel more important and appreciated than I ever have.

I love the intensity of it all.

I love the detective work. Determining the root of a behavior, the function of it, and how to eliminate it. Relying on pure positivity as a solution in most cases.

I love the creativity. Determining appropriate goals for each kid and then creating the means in which to teach it. I love teaching it! I love seeing "proud" on their face. I love seeing recognition of accomplishment. I love the high fives and applause and glances of "I get it." I even love the defeat...the refused lesson, the yell of "I DON'T get it", the whack of "I'll do what I want!". Ha.

I love the mission behind it all. Providing the tools for these kids to lead a productive life, to participate in the community, to have meaningful relationships and to experience happiness. Because they can. I see it every day. They may always need support, but really, who doesn't?

I can write and write and ramble on about how my heart has never been more fully "in" anything, about how I promise I will be the best teacher I can be, about how it all makes so much sense. But an "essay"? Ugh. Passion does not translate easily into professional, for me.

Guess I should hurry up and get better at that.

A cynical look at cynicism

Woah, where have I been??

I thought I was caged up when I was in the cube, little did I know I could be harder on myself than those grey-sky colored walls ever were.

I've been stuck in an unfamiliar place lately. This place of distraction and apathy. And the amount of stress here is just tacky...tacky like blow-up lawn ornaments and bad landscaping.
I turned off the radio, I avoid my former beloved New York Times, I ignore the news, I pick up books only to put them back down bookmarked for no return. I bite off any bitter tasting idealistic conversation that stirs around me, (sorry Doog...)

Today, an old book came to mind, out of the clear blue sky, really. No one mentioned it, I didn't see it anywhere, I wasn't even sure if I still owned it. But the thought crossed my mind that...huh, I wonder if I need to read that one again. Turns out, I do.

In one of the first few paragraphs it reads; "There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold ... our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture." A sigh of relief.
When I look back at some of my old blogs, I see I knew this before. I knew that nothing mattered and I was good and comfortable with that.

For as cynical as that all sounds, I was quite the happy little do-gooder when I hung tightly to those beliefs. Ironic.

But then I look at the picture frame next to me on my desk, given to me by best-boulder-bud Kristina, and I realize that I read what she had written in it for the first time in months, just this morning. After a beautiful anynonymous quote, she then wrote, "to living life with no sense of time."

Hmm. Nothing matters and there is no sense of time.

Then I come back here and sift through some old blogs and I find that I wrote, just last summer; "I am here for those less fortunate than me, I am here to make their time worthwhile. Because if life is temporary, then so are our relationships, and so is our "purpose". So let's not stress ourselves with the pursuit of the "answer", let's dance the baby steps. Let's start conversations. Lets laugh with people who forgot how. Lets learn the names of the people we pass on the bench. Lets listen to those who have lost their voice."

Not so cynical then, right?

Then I look at this "place" I've found myself recently...and it's so very different. Its so very...cynical. And, more irony.
I am in a job where I am doing exactly what I said I am here to do...I am with children every day that have been born into a different world right here alongside ours...I am laughing with them, learning with them, exploring with them and sometimes damn near crying with them. I am at best, I hope, helping them.

Why then have I built my own cubicle around what feel like small moments of success at work?
I am more cycnical than "nothing matters" and "no sense of time". I am more dishonest than when I was a "corporate sell-out". I am more stuck then when I wandered the carpets of an office.

I need to take a step back, to the "heaviness". I need to let go of this timeline I've been tangling myself in lately. I need to let some robin-hood-rhythm back in to my life. I need to let some old, overused, senior quotes make sense again, ya know? Like, "don't take life too seriously, you'll never make it out alive".

Life is temporary, and I need to start living like I believe that again, and not like I am taking stock in every moment of my future with every moment I'm living in my life now.

Heerrrreee we go again folks, hands up!

Strange is our Situation

"Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know; that man is here for the sake of other man." ::Albert Einstein::

I write like I talk and I talk like I think. In fragments stumbling over each other to fall in line. But nothing ever falls in line. So I write much like I dance, without rhythm or form. I live like I dance. Einstein's quote is the music I hear and try my very best to step to. I became quickly exhausted by searching for that "answer". An answer heavy enough to squash the question of "why are we here?"


I work in Hartford. (Let's not talk about where.) So I went to the bar for lunch today, by myself, and I brought my book. Not too long after I got through one page, I heard the two old men sitting next to me muttering about it. I looked up and one of them started with "I don't mean to be nosey, but can you tell me about that book?" So I did.

His name was Keith, and his friend was Rolph. Keith was from England, and Rolph from Brooklyn, NY, not that any of that is at all pertinent to my point. Stumble, step, stumble...back in line...

The book I am reading is called Nickel and Dimed - On Not Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. A journalist who the lives the life of a minimum wage worker and documents just exactly why it is near impossible to survive.

Anyway, Keith and I hit it off. He says he has never felt so disappointed with this country, as he does now. He says no one talks anymore. He says the idea of a "neighbor" is gone. He says me talking to them is "brilliant!" because usually, this sort of thing never happens. He says our generation does not seem very socially conscience. He says he's worried about whats to come. We talk for about an hour. I tell him I know a lot of people my age who are very socially conscious, and to believe me, they're out there. He asks where I work. I regret to inform him, an insurance company. He says that doesn't seem right, why? I say, it's only temporary - He laughs. He says "life is only temporary my dear."

I could have walked away right then. He's right. He said "it may seem very permanent to you at your age, but truuuusttt me, its oonnlllyy temporary." He made me promise to get out, he made me promise not to become a "corporate Twinkie." I shook on it. He said, "please, don't be like me, don't get stuck in a corporation." He said our conversation was refreshing, we all left laughing.

An extremely similar situation happened in Bushnell Park with a guy who I pass every day, sitting on the bench. Two hours later, we were both laughing, smiling, and thanking each other for great conversation. He said "this is refreshing."

So wy are we here? Well now I am here to fulfill a pact with a man named Keith that I met at a bar at 1:30pm on a Wednesday afternoon. I am here to dance to Einsteins song. I am here for those less fortunate than me, I am here to make their time worthwhile. Because if life is temporary, then so are our relationships, and so is our "purpose". So let's not stress ourselves with the pursuit of the "answer", let's dance the baby steps. Let's start conversations. Lets laugh with people who forgot how. Lets learn the names of the people we pass on the bench. Lets listen to those who have lost their voice. Lets get lost when it all intertwines and overlaps and connects.
Lets not be "ants", as they say in Waking Life.

That's all.

A Temporary Rebellion

Today, my friend told me I ruined him.
I laughed.
I said "that's only because you take me seriously."

He visited, we spent hours juggling disgruntled thoughts about how to live our lives over coffee. (Way too much coffee I might add.) Then he went back to his farm of rice and soy beans, and I want back to my cell. I mean, cubicle.

But I have been defiant ever sense. My life may seem relatively unexciting and smooth from the exterior, but thats because you don't have a window to the small rebellions I stage.
Today...I didn't shower. I didn't wear a bra. I DID wear corduroys. And I remained barefoot for long stretches of time.
My other friend told me he doesn't like revolutions, only endeavors.
There you have it, friend. The endeavors of a corporate sell out.

It's ok though, because I face two options. I can find it depressing. Or I can find it amusing.
I've succumbed to both. Let me tell you, the latter is much more rewarding.

So now I like to picture my current life as something similar to a comic strip. I have slipped between the corporate cracks, and am a secret agent from "the other side", compiling research on how the machine runs, and therefore, how to destroy it. How to destroy it from the inside. I'm the roper.
I revel in defying their inhumane restrictions such as "dress code" and "1 hour breaks" and "using email for business purposes only."
I disrupt the "white noise" by laughing out loud or swearing at the person formerly on the phone.

Meanwhile, I collect my paychecks and stash them away (sort of) while planning an escape back to my real life.

I become more reckless with each day in passing. Maybe tomorrow, I'll be called to action. I'll get the go ahead to kick down the cubie walls and demand that we all be freed. I will call for an end to gopher-conversation with your neighbor! An end to windowless daydreaming of the possible changes in weather patterns! Shed your suits and ties folks, the revolution is here! Kick off your penny loafers and tousle that hair! And follow me!
Follow me past the 3 levels of security!
Follow me barefoot and untucked down to the park!
Follow me to the river, where we will throw a frisbee and feed ducks with the homeless!

Then I will bask in my mission accomplished, corporate cubies demolished.
After that you're all on your own. I'm only a temp, folks.

Jambo!

I have always respected my parents advice. I have always done my best to heed it. This summer has been exceptionally challenging in that respect. The advice they were pouring out to me, felt more like a dare than anything else.
Lauren, I dare you to just SIT STILL. Stop making plans. Go ahead, try it, you might like what happens.
My mom tells me, let life happen to you for once.
And that sort of thing, kinda, makes my skin crawl.

Let life happen?! Are you out of your MIND?! What about, following my dreams? What about planning my next move? What about all these massive, weighted, decisions I have to make? A job, a car, an apartment, school, where and when and better yet how??

I laughed so hard when I first heard this Mitch Hedberg joke. I was in my kitchen in Boulder, cooking something remniscient of stir-fry (a.k.a. throwing what I had, in a pan, and adding peppers) and I had to stop and double over for a minute. He says, "You know what, I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just gonna find out where they're going, and I'll catch up with them later." (Granted, if you know Mitch, his delivery is the most key part of his performance, something I can not express here.) I just remember thinking, god do I know exactly what he means.
Following my dreams often turns into diving head first and blind into a giant situation, bigger than me, and having to claw at the sides to get myself on top again. Something like cliff jumping. You're up real high, you're so excited and anxious, you make the jump, the fall is exhilerating and then your in some deep, dark, unknown waters where you immediately kick and flail feverishly so as not to touch the murky bottom, and to breathe in the safety of the oxygen that awaits you.

No? Is that just me?

Anyway, I decided this summer, I would listen to Mitch, and my mom and my dad. Which is, by the way, extremely hard to do when your circle of best friends could have crawled directly out of a Kerouac novel into your back yard. The Beats of Bristol....the Bristol Beats. They're constantly flooding the mind with big adventures, enormous ideas and hashing out possible solutions. Which, is the most amazing thing I could have ever been blessed with in my life. But...is not conducive to sitting still. Especially sitting still in Bristol, in a "corporate" job...at your parents house.
My heart hurt to make this transistion in, while all of my friends, were transitioning out.

But I sat. And I sat. And I fought anxiety attacks that begged me to move. To pack a bag, to get a map, to make a plan. I sat and sat. I sat over coffee, on porches, in my cubicle.
And my mom was right. Life did start just happening around me. New friends waltzed into my life, plans erupted filling up weekends months ahead of time, jobs started appearing, I found myself happy with my new roommates - mom and dad. And then this. Then the biggest. Then the adventure poked its head in on my comortable, still, life.

I am going to Africa next summer. I am more excited than I have been for anything in long time. My friend Lindsay was signed up to go with this non-profit organization called American Friends of Kenya (http://www.afkinc.org/index.asp). She had met the Director, Emely, and was asked to join their team as the photographer. Lindsay told Nick and I about this, told Emely about us, and then we applied. The team was already full, so we were waitlisted, but bumped to the top of the list. Months went by, my hopes for getting a call started to deflate. I started to feel that bug, that travel bug, nibbling at me, telling me if I am not going to Africa through them that I should be looking into something else.

But this organization just felt so right. It's based in Norwich, CT and is 100% volunteer-run. They build libraries, ship school and medical supplies, run micro-economic projects, and run training programs for youth with computers and technology. Then they travel to Kenya for two weeks every summer, to meet with their Kenya partners, give the volunteers a chance to see what they are working for, run medical check ups and build other projects that the locals have deemed necessary.

Then I get the totally unexpected call from Emely asking me if I am still interested in joining their 2008 team. I almost screamed in her ear like the people on the radio that win tickets to the 50 Cent show.

So I will be going, along with Lindsay and 60 other people, to Kenya for two weeks. The first week we will be working on a media project on how they will be installing solar powered toilets in the slums of Kenya. The second week is spent traveling with the group to National Parks and other villages. Then, there is a chance that Lindsay and I, with the assistance of Emely and AFK, will travel on our own to other parts of Kenya, and possibly other East African countries such as Tanzania.

Africa has been a dream for so long. One that has been tugging on my heart relentlessly ever since I got swept up in the Invisible Children work. Ever since I have been so passionately intrigued by te culture, the people, the clothes and music, the food, the lifestyle, the poverty, the war and the resiliant personalities there. The letters from Emely already have me at the edge of my seat, grinning ear to ear. She says to be prepared to be traveling in a Third World country, be prepared to roll with the punches, anything could happen, anything could change. Be prepared that, we are not traveling on vacation, we will not be guarded from the slums, from the extreme poverty, we will be right there in it.
It couldn't sound more perfect.

So, my mom and dad win again. I sat still, and allowed myself to be distracted with the smaller, enjoyable things in life, like porch nights, grilled food, barefeet in the parks of Hartford, CT, and one of my bigest dreams found me.

This will be a whole new saga of negotiating with chaos, starting now. The planning has already begun, the travel bug is alive and well and nipping me in the best way possible, I feel alive and young and that passion is bubbling up again. That passion that calls on me to go big, do more, live full of love. See it all, learn it all, do it all.

And I know I can't. But that push to try is one of the most refreshing, exhilerating feelings in the world.

Barefoot in CT

"We have our shit together, in not having our shit together. And we do it well."

My feet are permanently dirty. My legs are remniscent of those of a 8 year old boy, decorated with the purple and blues of bruises, the cuts and scrapes of twigs and trees and bug bites left over from June. My energy has been depleted to somewhere around when the gas light first goes on, but hovering above empty. I'm usually sunburnt and peeling, from some kind of all day battle with the sun, one of which I never win.

Music Festivals, adventures of traffic, subways and late nights in NYC, bike rides with a backpack of beer on our backs and a boombox in a handlebar basket. Walking in humidity with red cups and Slushies. Eating beetles, because it's funny. Thursday night Pony excursions of pool, jukebox dancing, limbo, hugging the tree and walks home of poetry-yelling, yell-laughing and pod-picking. Rope swings into a murky, orange colored, Farmington River riddled with face plants and butt-skimming attempts. PBR inspired wakeboarding on Highland. We laugh on porches over "grillables", Hookah and swatting mesquitos. We play tennis and soccer and frisbee in the park, in the backyard, on the courts. We write on walls all the quotes that make us feel like sanity is really only being comfortable in discomfort.


The green of Connecticut and the blanket of the humidity has made me feel like the summer is a living thing. It breathes brightly-colored flowers and dancing, swaying trees. Grass that begs for bare feet and shade that calls for a moment of spontaneous rest.

I love this summer.