My Year of Hopefulness - Journeys We Don't Plan

I recently saw the movie, Up!, an animated feature about Mr. Fredrickson, a grumpy old man remarkably similar in appearance and demeanor to Mr. Cunningham from Happy Days. All their lives, he and his wife dreamed of an adventure to South America, and she passed away before they had the chance to go. Wanting to fulfill the dream to honor her, he uses the asset of being a balloon salesman to sail south of the border, house in tow. That’s the adventure he planned.

He didn’t count on one of his neighbors being on the deck of his house when it took off. He didn’t think that he’d ever meet a rare bird named Kevin who would need his help so desperately or his greatest idol who would turn out to lack integrity. This was the part of the adventure he never imagined. Along the way, he lets goes of old heartaches and material possessions, makes new friends, and discovers how much courage his old soul can muster. These are the parts of the adventure that make his trip unforgettable.

My Christmas trip was a bit like Mr. Fredrickson’s. I had planned to stay home to study and write for the week between Christmas and the New Year; I hadn’t planned on going to Alabama at all. The opportunity presented itself, and I took it. On the banks of the Tennessee River in a small town named Tuscumbia, I learned how the term “Southern hospitality” came to be.

My brother-in-law’s family welcomed me with open arms, literally. His mom, Trish, had an extra chair at the table, an extra room where I could sleep and study, and extra gifts under the tree just for me. She taught me to make chicken and dressing, proved that any food can be whipped into a delicious casserole, and exhibited all of the love and graciousness that you’d expect from a woman whose greatest joy is her family. I learned about their complex family history, and was included in their family photos. In truth, an outsider looking in might never know that I was a guest who’d never spent a Christmas with that family. They took every opportunity to make me one of them.

Having grown up in small town, I appreciate the warm, cozy feeling of having memories in every nook and cranny. Kyle, my brother-in-law, showed me where he went to high school, where all his childhood friends lived and hung out as teenagers, and where his dad’s artwork (and therefore his spirit) still exists even though he’s no longer with us. I saw their old family photos and then understood the resemblance my niece, Lorelei, has to that side of the family. So much of their history and culture exists in their food and the memories of togetherness that their meals invoke, and I got to be a part of it. It was easy to see why Tuscumbia is a special kind of place.

On the long drive back to Florida, I thought of Kyle’s family a lot: how lucky I feel to have met them all and how much I appreciated being able to spend a holiday with them. I’ve always found that the experiences I love most in my life are the ones I don’t plan for – the job that came my way quite by accident, the friend I never planned to meet, the spur-of-the-moment trip that I never imagined I’d take. My trip to Alabama showed me how much joy we can find in the unexpected and unplanned, and I’d like to figure out how to make that kind of joy and the circumstances that create it a little more common in my life in 2010.

My Year of Hopefulness - Thankful for the Unknown

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

An opinion article was published in the New York Times on Thanksgiving that gave thanks for the unknown. It struck me so profoundly because of all the surprise that entered my life this year. Through it all, I never stopped believing that something good would come from it all, that I'd be able to raise my head up eventually, shake off the sadness, and rejoin the human race as a more empathic, compassionate person. What I didn't expect is that I would emerge so brazenly fearless, that I would myself feeling more secure once everything extraneous was stripped away.

The great joy of living through something that we imagine we cannot live through is that we become unable to tolerate the act of wasting time. Tragedy makes our vision crystal clear; it helps us to see things with a sharp focus that we never had before. I sometimes wish that we could obtain this kind of clarity without having to live through tragedy. One of my business school professors talked to us about the sad necessity of the "burning platform" that inspires change. I wish my platform, my home, didn't have to literally catch fire, bringing a whole new meaning to the term "burning platform". It certainly did inspire me to change my life in profound and daring ways. I've been putting off a PhD program for over a year; I've been settling in my career and my relationships; material possessions were beginning to wield too much importance in my life. I needed a shake-up, a change, and I got it in spades. Now I'm studying for the GRE, pumping up my efforts on the relationships in my life that are truly valuable to me, and embracing a lifestyle that places far less value on material valuables.

The unknown is a scary, precious thing. The holidays are a great marker for us, a time of reflection to consider exactly what we want our lives to be about. This is an opportunity for us to be with friends and family and truly consider Eleanor Roosevelt's great question: are we challenging ourselves or resting on our competencies? Are we stepping up to meet the world or taking a comfortable seat and just watching the world go by? As we take a bit of time to relax this holiday season, it's my great hope that we will seriously re-consider our priorities and how we spend our time and effort so that we do as much good in 2010 as we possibly can. There is no time like the present to take up a new adventure.

My Year of Hopefulness - Programming and the Mind

I seem to be receiving a “critical update” from Apple everyday on software that’s installed on my computer. I’m not really sure what any of the fixes are or why I need them, but I trust Apple. If they say I need them, then I assume that I do. So I click the little button that says “install now” or something to that effect. I go about my business while Apple magically repairs all of my software problems in the background. I’m an efficiency junkie so I’m a big fan of parallel-pathing.

Writing works a lot like those critical updates from Apple. Friends, family, and co-workers always ask me, “when do you find the time to do all of this writing?” Truthfully, I’m always writing. Sorry – this is my confession. My writing mind is always working in the background while I go about the rest of my life. When I’m having dinner with friends, at movies, at CVS buying shampoo, at work, I'm writing, tucking away little bits and pieces to use later. I’m one of those hopelessly nerdy people who always has a pen and piece of paper in my bag. Even when I’m heading to a big night out. You just never know when something interesting will happen. And I can’t be held responsible for keeping it all stuffed in my brain. I need that pen and paper.

I also purposely try to put myself in interesting situations. I seek out new people, go to lectures, book readings, and art exhibitions all the time. It’s one reason I am so in love with New York, and fall more in love with it everyday – there’s always something new to see, do, and try. New York and I have had a long and sordid history together. 11 years running. At times, we’ve been blissfully happy to be with one another and at other times, we’ve each gone running for the hills. But we always somehow end up back together, New York and I. This is my third time moving here, and I imagine you’ll find me here for a very long time to come. There’s just too much going on here for me to be away for that long. My writing lives and breathes here.

I’ve been wondering how Apple knows what to fix and how to fix it in these updates. My only idea is that it goes out into the world and takes stock of the latest software landscape to make needed improvements. I do the same thing in my writing. In the past year, I’ve been sending myself out on little writing adventures in New York. Odd-ball museums, sitting in a crowded area and eaves-dropping, going to parts of town I never frequent without a map and getting as lost as possible. On Saturday, I’ll be heading to the Demolition Depot on 125th Street. It contains 4 floors and a garden full of architecture pieces from every conceivable period. When buildings are dismantled all over New York City, most of the pieces end up at the Demolition Depot.

Can you imagine what crazy things that place stores? While I’m sure there’s a fair amount of mundane items like antique faucets, I’m equally sure that there are valuable items that will inspire my writing. A fireplace that I’ll imagine someone sitting before, a gargoyle who faithfully watched over a busy street for many years, a mirror where a young girl watched herself become a woman. You see – inspiration is everywhere; you just need to keep looking, especially in unlikely places.

My fingers are getting itchy. Just writing about writing is giving me some ideas. This writing mind of mine is working in the background and it’s almost time for me to reboot to see all of the changes that have occurred in the past few minutes. In the time it’s taken me to write this post, some more dots have connected, and I have to make sure to get this all down before it’s hopelessly lost in the abyss. I’d like to think I’m a recovering multi-tasker, though as with most addictions, I guess I’ll always be in a constant state of recovery, never quite cured of my desire to do multiple things at once. Thank goodness for background processing!

My Year of Hopefulness - A Real New Yorker

Yesterday I was running errands after work, collecting a few more odds and ends to organize my apartment. I had forgotten that when you go from a place with storage to a place with hardly any storage, you actually have to buy things to put your things in. 2 hours later at the Container Store...

It was hot and sticky and raining on and off. My bags were heavy and I was worn out from a long, tiring week. I was trudging along, past The Plaza, past Central Park South, toward the Time Warner Building, lost in my own personal fog. At the corner, I was waiting for the light to change so I could get down underground to the unbearably hot subway that would get me home with all my things to put my things in. I'm sure my face was a little crinkled. I'm positive I was sighing out loud.

Two guys, clearly visiting NYC, were in a Scooby-Doo style van, hanging out the windows and snapping pictures like mad. I must remember to start carrying my camera everywhere to capture moments like that. These guys were grinning from ear to ear, in awe of what they were seeing, what they were right in the middle of. They made me smile, too. One of them saw me, and asked "are you a real New Yorker?" and then snapped my picture, as if I was a rare species that they needed to capture on film to show their friends back home.

"I am a real New Yorker," I replied. "Cool," he said. And that made me smile even wider. Here I was sighing about how tired and worn out I was, and here are these guys, invigorated by the exact same environment.

I didn't cross the street just yet. I sat down in one of the cafe chairs that sit at the corner of Central Park South and Columbus Circle. I took a big, deep breathe and looked around me. How lucky am I to be a New Yorker, to live in this insane, magical, always evolving place every day? I put down my load o' bags to rest a while, to take in the glory and chaos and be grateful for the opportunity to be here in this moment.

I wish I had asked for the contact info of those Scooby-Doo van guys. I'd like to thank them for helping me fall in love with my city, again. When I picked up my bags to head home, somehow they felt lighter.

The photo above depicts Columbus Circle, New York City and can be found here.

Traveling like Paulo Coelho

I'm hoping that the breezy days of summer have finally arrived. Though I don't like the heat, the summer does bring with it a sense of dreaming and imaging our lives in new places. In many ways, it's more of a renewal than spring - graduations, weddings, vacations. I find that a lot of my happiest memories happened during this season, and many of them happened when I traveled on my own.

Paulo Coelho wrote one of my favorite books, The Alchemist, and I love its celebration of the journey. Coelho seems to prize travel as the most valuable way to spend our time. It's the best way to learn, about ourselves and the world around us. In addition to his many books on the subject, he now writes several blogs: Wordpress (http://paulocoelhoblog.com), Myspace (http://www.myspace.com/paulocoelho) & Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Paulo-Coelho/11777366210). He is equally present in media sharing sites such as Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=paulabraconnot) and Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulo_coelho/sets). He shares his thoughts with us, as well as his images.

On Amazon.com, he wrote recently wrote a post with some travel advice, giving us an idea of how he conducts the details of his travels. He avoids museums and hangs out in bars. He doesn't buy material things, and he invests in the people around him, knowing that he understands them and they understand him, just by virtue of being human. In his quintessential Coelho style, he remains open to the magic that happens when we travel, when we get outside any sense of a comfort zone, and just allow life to happen. More than good advice about how to travel, he provides us with good advice on how to live.

Is experience everything?

I have been thinking about experience on a regular basis lately. I notice that every time someone mentions wanting to do something new be it a hobby, a job function, or even related to travel or choosing a new city, one of the first questions people ask them is, "Do you have any experience with that?" or "Have you ever been there or done that before?" 

I got asked this question all the time about a year ago as I was interviewing for jobs post-MBA. It seemed that experience counted for far more than my education or my interests. I actually went to one interview in which an interviewer asked me what the hell I was doing there because I had never worked in the industry the the company was in. When I mentioned that the company, in desperate need of a turnaround, needed fresh eyes to look at old problems to find new solutions, the interviewer looked at me as if I had begun speaking in an unknown language. 

And in a manner of speaking, I guess it was a new language - the language of youth and energy and passion, three things the interviewer did not possess. And I don't mean youth in terms of age, but rather in terms of attitude and thinking. The interviewer refused to believe that any problem could be solved using new methods. It was very much an "I've been there, done that" kind of deal. And then I considered the incredible success of Silicon Valley - it is an industry that was largely built by people who had no experience in the areas they were trying to master. They couldn't have experience because they, and the world for that matter, were venturing into unknown territory. It was a great blessing that no one had the ability to say, "Well, when I was at X company, we did it this way." With that attitude, we may have never been able to witness the www as we know it. 

I mentioned this concern about "old thinking" to my friend, Dan, recently, and he said that this may very much be a function of just getting older and more experienced. And that got me thinking, and then it got me worried. Am I destined to become one of those people who believes she has seen it all before, someone who will eventually discard the energy and fascination with newness that so many young people have?

No. I've decided that I just won't be that way. I can't be that way, for the sake of my own success if nothing else. So I keep challenging myself to go places and do things that I've never done before. I do things that scare me. Things that I believe are beyond the scope of my ability. And this is critical to retaining youth - because even if I fail at these new ventures, at least it will remind me that I don't everything about anything. It will remind that there is always, always something new to learn. 

Currents

The best thing about working for a boss whose title is Consigliere is that he knows other equally brilliant Consiglieres. My boss recently introduced me to Mark Hurst and the GEL conference. (You can find more information about Mark, the conference, and Mark's company, by clicking http://www.goodexperience.com/. (Coincidentally Mark is a friendly, engaging guy who lives just a few blocks away from me. I love this town!) The GEL conference is a once-a-year event that bring together brilliant thinkers and innovators from many different fields to share their ideas, concerns, experiences, and hopes for the future. The brain power in these conferences at any given moment is nothing short of incredible.

Mark was kind enough to send me a few DVDs with some footage from last year's event. There were two speakers whose work really struck me as something that I could write about on this blog. One of them is Marie Lorenz. She's a boat builder, artist, and tidal expert who lives right here in New York. She started a project called the Tide and Current Taxi. She sent an email to everyone she knew in New York, asked them to give her two points that they visited often (around the costs of the islands that comprise New York City) and then invited them into one of her boats to navigate between those two points using only the current of New York City's rivers. They rarely got exactly where they were trying to go, though she always got a great story. And really, it's always about the story and we rarely ever end up exactly where we thought we were going. We're in it for the journey.

In her talk at GEL, Marie explained that on one trip, the current had become particularly rough in the East River, and more and more water lapped up into the boat, causing it to sink, no matter how much she and her friend paddled. They ended up letting go of the boat and everything inside of it and had to swim to the shore of Roosevelt Island. Marie was so upset, so discouraged. She and her friend nearly drowned, and she had lost the project. It was now floating out there in the East River, menacingly, upside down, right near one of the strongest currents in the world. Her heart was broken.

And a moment later, she climbed over the short fence between her and the East River, and she dove in. Like hell that current was getting her boat and her gear! She swam diligently out to the boat, scooped it up, and swam back to shore with all her might. She had worked too hard on this project to let it all go down the current.

It made me think about all the times I've worked so hard for something, paddled furiously in the wake of impending disaster, only to end up swimming for the shore. Like Marie, on occasion my heart was broken and so I dove back in, in an effort to salvage was was taken away. The salvaging has never worked quite as well for me as it did for Marie - each time I ended up discarding the very thing I dove back in for once I realized it would have been better to let it remain out at sea and for me to move on. Though I suppose that's better than having it drift away and never being sure of whether or not you needed or even wanted it.

I've been thinking a lot about those currents that surround this island I am making my home on. I don't think I'll ever look at them quite the same way as I did before Marie's talk. Sometimes they carry us to some place new that wasn't on our itinerary, and sometimes they take away everything we've got leaving us able to do nothing else but swim to shore. I guess the trick is to know the difference - when is the vessel that carries you worth paddling like hell for, when is it better to just let it fall away, and what makes some of these vessels so special that they are worth diving back in to rescue?

For more information about Marie, visit http://www.marielorenz.com/.


The above image can be found at http://www.destination360.com/caribbean/bahamas/images/s/bahamas-boat-rental.jpg.