My Tent on The Beach

Where to begin?  My little brother got married on Saturday.  Married.  The same kid we sent down the ice track we built in the ravine (which apparently only exist in Cleveland) to make sure no one else would get hurt and who said things like “Gabuter” (computer) when he was 3 is wearing a wedding band.  I’d say “surreal” except that I’ve got a Hungarian sleeping on my couch waiting for Fedex to come everyday to deliver his passport so he can drive back to Yellowknife Canada.  I’ve also got yoga class 4 days a week, I own a car and have absolutely no money to pay for it and I’m on a PhD track.  Oh, and my other brother’s going to have a baby in February.  What the heck is going on here.

Life can be full of interesting moments.  For the past 3 months I’ve been sweating blood, so consumed in my own struggles.  As it turns out, life continued on around me.  For some (my brothers), I re-surfaced just in time.  Weddings and babies, though moments that might not be part of my own journey, are  not moments to miss.  Andras appearing out of nowhere just when I was wondering when and if I’d ever see him again is a fortuitous happenstance…but not one that’s not been enjoyable.  The universe, I think, must’ve interceded…I feel like a different person for having witnessed all of it.

Tomorrow will bring a new day with different, better insights.  But what I know is this: for the past 3 weeks I have better thoughts about my life, my career, and myself than I have for a long time…and it’s because I was busy thinking about other people.

Giving always means receiving if only in the craziest of ways.  I’m glad I was awake enough to catch all of it.  Here’s to more of that!

I just noticed today that I haven’t written in awhile because life in Chicago (which is sweltering in a 90-degree heat blanket that won’t go away) has become both listless and busy.  It’s a paradox.  But as I walk down the street, I’ve been noticing weird things happening; also as I check Facebook and e-mail (occasionally, of course…okay 90x an hour) I find just weirdnesses.  Maybe it’s the heat…which would explain why New Orleans (okay, all of the Deep South) seems fully of crazies.  Here’s a list of the latest and least explicable:

1. A car burst into flames in front of my building on Monday night, filling my apartment with smoke and making me believe I was going to have to jump out my window (of course, I have back stairs but you know how panic can affect even the most rational mind.)

Here’s the aftermath.  The charred remains were particularly disturbing in person and, though it’s been towed, no one will park in that spot…it remains open…perhaps as a memory of the innocent and fallen.

2. On Facebook today I had no less than 20 “pages you might like” suggestions based on what my friends have recently “liked.”  Included and making sense were Starbucks and Free Things to Do in Chicago.  Included and making no sense were KFC, Sex and the City: The 2nd AWFUL movie, kittens, and the Twilight series (which incidentally had over 8 MILLION fans)…needless to say, none of them got my “like” of approval.

3. Several Fridays ago as Andras (my current couch-crashing, Marx-loving, Hungarian friend) and I were out and about running errands we personally saw three people hit the deck.  We also saw blood shed on those incidents.  One involved a motorized scooter and a woman carrying a VCR in a box.  On that same day we actually witnessed a guy get hit by a car, turn around and walk back to the corner, at which point he and the driver “worked it out.”  Seriously.  I’m still scarred by this particularly series of events.

4. Last night I (and Andras) ate dinner with virtual strangers (one of them was a former student of his that he “kinda” knew).  It was 4 hours long.  And I ended up going to their apartment which…it right across the street from mine…and met their dog Peanut and cat Tomato and saw their balcony garden and the guy’s (David’s) humongous oil paintings.  I felt like I was in a Willy Wonka movie.  The Johnny Depp one.

5. My brother Andy told me he bought a book for me. It’s by Glenn Beck.  It’s the one lying on his bathroom floor.  Exactly where EVERY piece of shit Glenn Beck produces should be located.  I left it there as a symbol of its appropriateness.

6. This morning I did yoga on the beach at 6:30am.  When we started the lake was placid and clear.  After a pose sequence we did with our eyes closed, it was so hot already that steam was rising off the surface of the lack.  I think I witnessed the birth of humidity.  I was appalled.

7.  Last week I bought 2 new pairs of flip-flops, one pair with a little bit of a wedge heel and one pair flat.  For the next two days I referred to the pair with the heels as “my dress shoes.”  No one questioned it. Riiiiiight.

8. I’ve been craving Thai and sushi for 3 weeks.  Thai, unfortunately, I always crave on Mondays and as any connoisseur of Thai food knows…they’re always closed on Mondays .  Yesterday we planned to go for sushi and in my head I was like, “Sweet…thank god it’s not Monday.”  When we got there it was closed.  For the summer, they decided to close on Tuesdays instead.  Argh.

I usually like to end on an odd number but I seem destined to be foiled by this weirdo universe these days.  Thus, despite wracking my brain, I can only think of 8 really good things right now.  But consider it just a taste of what’s been going on around here…which is heat-induced nuttiness.

Oooh…I thought of one more:

9.  Yesterday we were watching the World Cup game between Uruguay and the Netherlands (which, by the way, have you ever considered the actual name of that country?  The Netherlands….like the Hinterlands only a smidge closer? Further south?).  The Dutch (who hail, inexplicably from the Netherlands…why not call them the Nethers?) won.  Andras was convinced and argued seriously that it was because of the effects of colonialism.  To reiterate…he wasn’t joking.  I was actually speechless.

Give me a great #10 from your life and you’ll make my whole day…if only to prove that it’s not just my own little microcosm that’s gone all helter-skelter.

Did you know that the hips are one of the areas that can hold the most tension in the body?  Because I sure didn’t…and I can’t say I was surprised to hear this.  My hips are tighter than [insert image of something very tight...if you think of something good, write it in the comments].  My whole body is muscularly tight…I always attributed it to the 15 years of piecemeal weight lifting I used to do for various sports in high school.  You know…you do the stuff that’s the easiest (like calves, quads, hamstrings) and skip the other stuff (upper body).  What I’ve ended up with is a full set of seriously tight joints.  I never really thought tension itself was to blame.

Given this hip “issue,” I’ll tell you my life can really suck sometimes.  Sitting hunched at a computer for long stretches doesn’t help.  So, this is all a long way of saying, tight hips in yoga means pain (and not just stupid pain but gut-wrenching, fiery, scorching, lightning bolts of pain up the front, back, and sides of my legs)…in nearly every pose possible.  I can’t touch my toes, sit on my knees, or hang out in down-dog without trembling…why…you got it…hips.

So I’ve been really focusing on these things.  And you wanna know what I’ve come to conclude is working…thinking about them.  It’s Harold Hill’s “think method” from the music man.  I swear it’s working.  I’ve been thinking about my hips loosening up…and I think they are.  And here’s why I think it works.  Whenever I approached them as so tight, I think I would brace myself for the ensuing pain.  And it was real…because the bracing was a tension.  Today (and it helps that it’s about 90 degrees here), I felt like they were more open before I even bent anywhere and guess what…palms almost to ground.  Magical.

But so what?  Who cares about my hips?  Even I don’t care about my hips.  But I did think it’s an interesting lesson if applied elsewhere in life.  Imagine what would happen if every time we approached something we dread, instead of bracing for it and expecting scorching pain, we just thought about things as “looser”?  We might have a chance at being much happier and generally cooler than we have ever been in our entire lives.

I like the “think method.”  I think it could work.

So I think it would be fair to say that this spring was a tough one.  Use whatever metaphoric imagery you like, it was long and full of bumps in the road.  Doors were slamming and no windows were opening.  Mountains kept popping up left and right.  I ended up on a very stuffy mountain range of problems.  And of course in the cosmic scheme of things, my problems were relatively small.  Was I starving? No. Was I homeless? No. Did I have no shoes?  No.  Was I even walking to school uphill both ways?  No.  But while I appreciate the fact that my life could “function,” I was “less” in a lot of ways.  Vision-less, hopeless, sleepless, restless.  And some of these still persist today, but certainly not to the acute degree or the breadth that they did just several months ago.

I attribute the change to a couple things but most centrally…yoga.  It wasn’t so long ago (2 months, actually) that I regularly started taking yoga classes (not half-heartedly doing DVDs in my dining room…which I refer to as my ‘yoga studio’).  Somehow, the interaction with a teacher and other students began to work away at some of the anxieties that had built to the point of all of my ‘lesses.’  And in a way that doing yoga “at the gym” as a “workout” could never touch.  A return to the breath–the present moment–was and is the most holistically therapeutic thing I’ve ever done.  So much so, that I feel it has spurred “returns” in other places that, frankly, I thought were long gone.

“What the hell are you talking about Katie?” you must be thinking.  I understand that…the notion that enduring the burning, searing pain in my hamstrings created by a forward bend or working through the panic that arises right in my throat when I maneuver my way into a handstand or headstand could actually manifest itself in very real ways outside of the yoga studio (in this case, not my dining room) seems bizarre and crunchy-granola new agey (this is my own system of classification, just for the record).  But here’s how I’m seeing this work out:  old friends I haven’t spoken to in years have popped back up in moments that I really needed them.  (What freaks me out is that if I think real hard about it, it almost seems like I’ve “summoned” them to me…I know, I know…I’m in a panic about it myself.)  School which was an absolute albatross in February has returned as a true interest.  My financial situation–always tenuous at best–that was positively dire three months ago has positively worked itself out…and not just as a “hey I got a job at Best Buy” type of scenario but as a “hey I’m a fucking sociologist…now pay me to teach it” kind of way.  (Again, if I look hard, the Universe has clearly…CLEARLY…steered me back into the classroom in a very definitive way…and has arrange a payment system that is better than I’ve ever encountered before.)  I’ve been granted closure in the situations that were tearing me apart emotionally.  I’ve been granted insight into the most difficult challenges.  I’ve actually found in a new way what compassion means…especially in approaching myself and others with compassion.  And it’s because of those fiery forward bends and the heinous twists that make me feel like a real failure on the yoga mat.

It so interesting to really begin to understand what yoga teaches.  Everyone thinks about the “flexy-bendies”–you know, those people (usually women) who can lick their shins and turn themselves practically inside out and afterwards talk about how being a human pretzel gets them to a new level of enlightenment.  I have a new respect for them…yoga’s made them that.  But focusing on the physical stretching is just too one-dimensional; yoga has to also stretch your mind and your heart too.  Otherwise, we should call it calisthenics and be done with it.  No, yoga builds spiritual muscle-memory; it teaches you to endure, to dare, and to deal with emotions as they come and in a way that allows you to learn control and mastery of them.  Yogis talk about it in terms of detachment.  I just call it sanity.

But I’m glad I’m plugged into it.  It seems whenever I really focus on it, the Universe responds to me and returns me to exactly where I need to be.  And gives me things like this as a sign that I’m doing okay.

Well, well.  In completely typical fashion, Chicago’s gone and gotten all hot and humid, once again banishing any hopes for a nice sliiiiiiiide into summer.  I’m not sure why I still hope for that; I’ve lived around the Great Lakes my entire life and somehow I’ve never really experienced the change of seasons as something gradual.  Whether spring or fall, it usually begins and ends with a seasonal line drawn in the sand.  Yesterday could’ve been 65 and rainy; today you wake up and it’s 90 and renders all clothing hot, wooly, wet blankets.  So today, I’m caught in the “it’s so hot it I’m nauseous” feeling of late August and a little worried that it’s only June 23.

Thus, I’m going to blame a couple of my own lazinesses directly on the swoon.  This is why life in the deep South in general feels so leisurely–the heat actually causes (maybe forces) life to slow down.  Also, it drives you to drink and it’s well established that alcohol slows everything down too.  So why haven’t I written here in awhile?  Clearly…it’s the swoon.

But I’ll also say this (whether or not the swoon is to blame here I don’t know): This time of the year becomes intensely boring for me.  Summer scheules annoy the hell out of me; they’re too flabby.  To be clear, my schedule is always flabby, so I rely on the schedules of others to be my “schedule corset” if you will.  Now, we’re all a little flabby around the schedule and it’s bordering on what I may describe as just “stupid.”  No purpose, no momentum, no desire for either purpose or momentum.  Ew.  I’ve had very little to think about, write about, or describe in what seems like weeks.  I saw a lot of people last week, had a lot of conversations, was out and about.  Did any of them really make a mark on anything? No.  It was oddly non-descript “business as usual.”  I felt like I missed a lot of opportunities last week and yet I never stopped moving.  Maybe ultimately I was uncomfortable with all of that and decided not to reflect on it…I don’t know.

This also might be the calm after the storm.  The past couple months have been intensely taxing; I can’t believe I’m gonna say it but I’ve never been that stressed out in my whole life (and I’m always stressed out).  No, no.  This was stress at all new levels.  Now a lot of that has dissipated whether for good or for bad.  I’m wondering if I just don’t know how to deal with non-stress.  That would be sad…and also a real paradox.  Maybe I’ve overdosed on yoga.

All I’m saying is this: a little snap in the air, a cool fresh breeze…and I think life happens a little more freely.  Slogging through this wet blanket…makes me just want to give up on the day and watch tv.  Which is narcotizing, yes…but leaves very little to actually think about.

[Sigh.]

[Sweat.]

[Sigh again.]

I’ve never been a fan of the Manichaeins.  They were an ancient competitor of Christianity, professing the belief in a dualistic approach to everything.  We all hang in the balance between two opposing forces vying for our souls.  ”What forces?”  you may ask.  Everyone together now: “Good and Evil.”  It sure makes things simple doesn’t it?

And as much as I don’t like this particular kind of simplicity, I can’t help but embrace a much more holistic idea of balance and complementarity.  I think the principles could be the same: I think there are opposing forces at work very often in my life but they don’t work to rend me apart as much as the work to balance the social order of things.  When I’m having a particularly horrendous day, very often my close friends are experiencing the opposite.  When I’m frustrated, if I’m open to it, I notice people stepping in, usually subconsciously, to alleviate that.   A day after I seem to make amazing progress on whatever challenge I’ve been laboring, there always seems to be an inevitable fall from grace (usually and ungraceful one).  I’ve never considered these opposing forces pulling me outward, farther and farther apart.  I’ve only come to understand them more definitely as a process of falling in and out of balance.  There’s always a yin to a yang.  There’s always a sweet to a savory.  There’s always compassion to follow judgement.  There’s always light after darkness.

One of my more recent insights of which I’m particularly proud (but really not attached) is to realize that these rhythms, this balance, is not linear.  These balancing forces appear to us as a cycle; ultimately, I think we can trust in the rhythm.  When we approach it as linear, everything appears out of place and is scary and creates anxiety.  If we’re always moving forward without paying attention to the backward, then we’re certainly going to be lost.  While the present always brings us something new, it also always (ALWAYS) reminds us of something old, something familiar, comfortable, to be honored.  But how much is that balance.  We have to want the balance…otherwise, the rhythm disappears.

This is a really abstract reflection on really concrete events I’m watching happen today.  From one source I see hurt–disappointment, discouragement, and wounding.  In the meantime, another source experiences great joy, abundance, and love.  I’m sitting in between contemplating watching “Glee” again and finding some contentment for both right where I’m standing right now.

It’s a weird day.  In that rhythmic, balanced sort of way.

I’m going to warn you now this post may not be funny.  I won’t run away from it should it happen organically, but this is a “thinkin’ reflectin” kinda post.  And why?  Because I’ve been thinking big picture lately and it’s easier to see some revealed truths when one considers the breadth of one’s life.

“It’s been a rough couple months.” I realized I’ve been saying that, now, for years.  ”I just gotta get through this next interminably long period of waiting and things will be okay.” Then, like clockwork, another interminably long period of waiting starts on another new worry.  It’s seemed neverending…and is when approached in that fashion.

What I realized the other day, though, as I was sitting and lamenting to myself is that I’ve been coming at all of this from only one direction.  If I run around the other side of my worry, what appears is a huge opportunity: I have the time everyone wants to figure my shit out.  Yes, I have work to do.  Everyone has work to do.  But I do have the chance to really reach in and find myself in there– a lot of people don’t.  And I should really stop waiting and start reaching.

I think everybody has one major personal mountain to climb in their lives.  This isn’t hardships–I think we all have a lot of those.  But hardships are circumstantial; we struggle, usually, because we have to meet reality everyday and sometimes, when our expectations and our world doesn’t match up evenly, we run into trouble.  The personal mountain, though, is that one foundational “issue” that sets the tenor for all struggles.  It’s those little dark parts of ourselves we don’t want to think about that drive the way we respond to tough circumstances.  Mine personal mountain is definitely born directly from fear of reaching.  I’m growing convinced that this is why I’m so worried about getting swallowed up, lonely and alone, by the sands of time.  I’m not a reacher.  I’m a nester.

So, in all of my “time” that I have to think about things, I’ve realized that I’m not going to un-stick myself from this place unless I actually start reaching…somewhere.  Instead of being solely reactionary, I’ve got to reach beyond that and be a little proactive.  Instead of clinging to the idea of routine, I have to reach beyond that.  Being the Disney princess that I am, I think I’ve grown accustomed to the idea of fate–things happening.  And I’m actually coming around to see that fate is what happens when you realize that just letting things happen will lead you in random directions.

Life is reaching.  I’m not sure I’ve really found that yet but I’m willing to give it a try.

It has been awhile, hasn’t it…since the last “friends can be asses” installment?  I knew it was only a matter of time.

In my last post, I discussed the disrupted communication chain when a friend of mine chose not to answer an e-mail.  At that point I was annoyed. So, what does any self-respecting neurotic do?  Of course, I called.  And the phone call went unreturned. Panic ensued.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so anxious.  So what? So he didn’t call back? Big deal.  But, oh…it was a BIG deal to me.  An unreturned e-mail is one thing; maybe something got lost or it was forgotten.  Okay.  But an unreturned phone call?!? No, no.  This was not good from someone who meticulously returns every phone call ever received, even from people he actively dislikes.  I was sincerely worried this non-return was meaningful.

Such was the case that I was scheduled to run into said unresponsive friend later in the week but by the time that happened worry and annoyance turned into a roiling, white-hot fury.  (There were other things going on, of course.  This isn’t my usual reaction to this type of thing…but he stepped into it big time.)  The fury stemmed from my feeling completely ignored (cue the “Fatal Attraction soundbite, “I will NOT be IGNORED.”  This is why I worry about myself).  This was an active non-communication.  Thus, the following equations sums up how that scheduled meeting went:

Katie’s white hot fury + Friend’s pretending nothing was out of the usual = Katie’s Icy Cold, White Hot Fury Smile.

(I knew how it felt on the inside and I’m not lying when I tell you I scared myself.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be the one receiving it.)  If you know me personally, I’m generally pretty warm and friendly…generally.  When I’m angry, imagine that warm friendliness collapsing in on itself and turning inside out into Ice Queen meets Psycho Killer.  It’s not one of my prouder traits. Cue his panic.  I felt vindicated for 2.5 seconds and then I felt like I just kicked a dog or something.  I proceeded to be Ice Queen for roughly five minutes and then realized 1) it was stupid and 2) I couldn’t keep it up for a prolonged period of time and I was having a hard time breathing, so I decided to cave.  He knew right away what I was upset about. Of course he knew.  His reason for non-response…”I was busy.”

Oh man. White hot fury momentarily returned.

We discussed and I hated myself the whole time because I sounded like one big “woman” cliche…in the end, the point that was taken was it would’ve been better to respond quickly and say he was busy than do nothing.  He apologized…of his own volition.  Case closed.

I’ll tell ya.  I’m a sociologist by training and I’m taught that nothing is really “inherent” when it comes to behavior.  But this is such a GUY thing to do it makes me ill.  I don’t have women friends who don’t respond.  In fact, the opposite is usually true with them…when I’m pissed or they’re pissed we have to talk it out to the death.  But this whole, “I was busy so I couldn’t take 3 nanoseconds to just tell you that.”…I literally think its the presence of testicles that gives one courage to use that intensely ridiculous excuse.  This, I believe, probably forms the history of the phrase, “it takes balls to…”

The real coda to all of this is that said friend of course redeemed himself in a really shining fashion and I think in some ways that takes balls too…it’s a lesser ball achievement but a noteworthy one nonetheless.  And as I work back through the archive of all of the “friends are asses” posts, they usually end with redemption.  So, this is more a chronicle and less a complaint.

But friends really can be asses sometimes*. Whew.

*Of course, in the same breath I’d acknowledge that this particular friend could write a magnum opus called “When Katie’s are Asses.”  This may be the true firmament upon which our friendship is built.  We both have the potential to be incredible asses.

You know what makes me seethingly, nuttier-than-nuts, over the top annoyed?  When people break the communication chain leaving you hanging in a communication lurch, hands tied, and wondering.

I’ve noticed the communication chain to be very important to me, I think as a single person, moreso than 1) married people, 2) men, 3) introverts, 4)…okay, well, considering the number of people included in those groups, maybe I’m just crazy about the rules of communication.  But I find them fairly simple so I’m not sure why everyone just can’t get on board.  They are as follows:

1. When you initiate the communication, you (the initiator) cannot (cannot) for fear of being called a stalker contact the same person until they contact you back.

2. When you are the receiver of said communication*, you return it.

2b. When returning, it is proper to return via the mode the initial communique was delivered. (Thus, it is completely outside of the rules to return a phone call with an e-mail, etc.)

*This of course assumes the person contacting you is a friend or bound to you by a communication-based relationship (boss, brother, the dog groomer, etc.)

Those are the rules.  That’s all of them.  No overly-wrought communications lingo, addenda, or small print.  Of course, I realize that there are circumstantial situations that may preclude the rules and that’s fine; these are general and finite.

Unfortunately, I’m now left in the void of the disrupted chain of communication.  I blame myself.  I sent a vague, short e-mail to a friend fully expecting a response.  In all reality, it probably looked fairly innocuous and not meant for any kind of repechage (it’s a word…ask Susan, she knows)…but now my hands are tied…by my own damn rules of communication. Why?  No return.  Rule 2 was utterly tread all over.

Technically, I suppose since rule 2 was broken, all bets are off and I–as the victim, truly–could cite that in my trial for stalking a friend.  But we all know, per the labeling theory, what the title “stalker” can bring you in life…essentially, not good things.  No, I’ll just have to wait.  But that then brings up the weirdness that will come when I encounter said friend face-to-face; of course, I’ll want to ask why they never e-mailed me back…but I won’t…because in another set of communication rules, the non-returnal of calls, emails, disruptions of the chain of any species, cannot be inquired about directly for sure look of desperation.

The chain has been broken.  It wasn’t even a chain, really.  Just a simple two sentences with a question to finish it off.  Gone forever.  It’s the same dismay I feel when I know the opportunity to change potential energy into kinetic energy has passed. It’s a sad day for physics just like it’s a sad day for this lost communication.

Farewell, e-mail. Farewell.

I can’t say for sure but I think I was born without the gene that motivates me to get what I want.  I only say this because I’m consistently amazed with the ability of others to get what they want. Amazed.  Mystified even.

Take, for example, a woman I worked with about 10 years ago.  At that point she was 40ish (I think…oh man…), single, and, to be frank, really bossy bordering on obnoxious.  At that point in time she talked about getting married and having kids and people (including this people) rolled their eyes and couldn’t help but think, “Riiiiiight…okey doke.”  Well, who’s laughing now, friends?  It ain’t me.  This woman not only is married but adopted a child and now…she has the family she always talked about.  The one that everyone doubted.  She made it happen.  I’m amazed by that.

Probably one of the keys to this is identifying what you want but that’s part of my own mystification.  How do “people” know what they want?  On any given day I have no less than 3 ideas for career paths, life choices, and ways to keep things interesting.  All of them seem feasible.  All seem somewhat interesting at the very least.  And yet, I still cannot say with any resolve that I “want” particular things; I really feel like I don’t know what I want. And I’ve always felt this way.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose.  The other day I was eating lunch with a friend and he asked whether I wanted to sit on the patio or inside.  ”Inside,” I said without hesitation and he starting laughing hysterically.

“Why are you laughing at me…is it my hair,” I wondered out loud.
“I’m just surprised.”
“Why…’cuz I want to sit inside…because we can sit outside if you want.”
“No,” he said. “I’m surprised you made a decision.”

Huh…story of my life.  Making decisions seems to be the key to honing in on what you want but I’m completely unthrilled by that idea.  How am I supposed to know what I should do?  I don’t know.  I envy the people who so clearly say things like, “I’ve always wanted to be a mother” or “the only thing I’ve ever been interested in is becoming a doctor.”  I can only say my experience has been the opposite; there are literally 2039874 things I want to be before I cash it in.  How in god’s name does one choose which direction to go?!? (I’m also a little frustrated because I surely thought this would work itself out in time…I figured when I got “older” I’d get more focused…ummmm…no.  Once again…the opposite.)

I’m ending this particular post because I know I want a snack before bed.

I just don’t know what it will be.