Today was a nine miler. I've written before about how I feel like 8 miles is kind of a corner stone, in which you're finally running enough distance so that adding one more mile each week begins to not be a such a big deal.
7 and 8 miles were really tough for me- wheezing and not being able to breathe and so on. Today, though, was the most comfortable run to date. I even ran up the killer hill that is Hidden Road. There's a few other things that I did that I think really help with long distance running, so here are 4 tips for having a good long run:
1. Drink a ridiculous amount of water the night before and again the morning of a long run.
2. Eat pasta last night for dinner- a good excuse to eat carbs :)
3. Each hour during a long run, consume some sort of nutrition (read: calories) I brought along and ate a few luna moons at mile 4. Most people seem to use power gel or clif shots. I, however, feel like I'm consuming slimy boogers if I use a gel, and would much rather use shot blocks or luna moons or something like that. Gummi Bears work nicely, too, and they're cheap. Up until this point I haven't had any sort of nutrition during the longer runs, which may have contributed to the zonking the past two weeks.
4. Wear a cap/visor. You have to take what you can get when it comes to shade and Texas summers.
I have to say, the further I run the Trinity Trails, the more impressed I am with them. The new mile I ran today was beautiful- trees, rolling hills, crepemyrtles lining the sides of the trail. They sure beat running loops over and over again, which is what I did back in L-town.
I wrote about how awesome our neighborhood meetings are. I even won salad claws and a t-shirt that has a picture of a mosquite that says "Bite Me" as a door prize this time. There are so many projects going on right now to make our neighborhood a better place- Fort Worth South came and talked to us about plans to paint bike lanes, planting more trees, making our parks better, making the whole area more pedestrian friendly, long term plans for a trolley system and light rail, getting venues for art and music...all very positive and exciting stuff.
The next speaker immediately brought up the fact that a kid brought found a crack pipe on his way to school the other day (sadly, my first thought was, was it empty?) and that apparently a homeless guy was bathing in the fountain in front of an elementary school last week. Later a police officer spoke and one woman was upset because she had called about a homeless person and the police didn't arrest him, and the police officer tried to explain to her, "Well, ma'am, it's not exactly illegal to be homeless"
I thought it was unfortunate that instead of saying, how can we help these people, the attitude was more like "We need to call the police more often and arrest more people and get these people out of our community immediately" Well, shoving the homeless guy a few streets over ain't gonna help the "PROBLEM" Maybe having a program of employing them to do things around the neighborhood (picking up things like crackpipes, for example) might help get him into a half way house, removing the need to bathe in the school fountain in the first place.
There are a few problems- one of the most glaring, to me, is the fact that we live in a racially diverse neighborhood, yet 95% of the people showing up to the meetings are white. I'm not sure why this is, exactly, but I definitely think we need to work on getting a better representation of the whole hood showing up.
A couple nights ago was the once monthly community meeting. In principle, I think this type of community organizing and meeting to discuss our little corner of the world is fantastic- especially when the talk is backed up with action, which our group does a good job of.
The big issue right now is gas drilling on 8th street- which understandably everyone in the neighborhood is concerned about. They're concerned about the noise, the ugliness factor, constant trucking, environmental issues, safety issues, imminent domain issues (so far the company won't say exactly where they will be laying the surface pipes), property values, and on and on. So they are protesting the whole thing at city council- they're making signs and planning on packing the next task force meeting at city council next week.
To hear the gas company's point of view, with their picturesque TV commercials with birds chirping in the background and a beautiful woman talking about how clean and glorious natural gas is, you'd think the pipelines were the best thing to happen to Fort Worth since the cow first came to town. And Tommy Lee Jones is on billboards all over town wearing a cowboy hat and smiling- see, even movie stars are happy about drilling.
I'm still formulating an opinion- I need to do more research. I definitely lean towards the PROTEST!!! viewpoint, but that's just my nature, and I'd like to form articulate arguments before I write about it in any depth. But, I'm glad our neighborhood meetings' discussions are backed up by action.
I got a flat tire today, so figuring it was just a nail or something I aired it up with my teeny air compressor powered by the cigarrette lighter and then drove a few blocks over to the nearest mechanic to get it fixed.
The place is a bit ramshackle, but the type of place that looks like it probably has a great mechanic working there. I park and go inside and am instantly overwhlemed by heavy smoke, no doubt from a recent nicotine fix from the receptionist, who was a white women with the alligator facial lines and blue eyeshadow frequently seen in older women who have smoked three packs a day for most of their lives.
She looks at me as if to say, "What?" but she doesn't actually say it, but I go ahead and say I have a flat tire. She then croaks "Flat Tire" which is apparently the cue for a big, stong man- the kind you can tell has done a lot of manual labor in his life, to come out and ask which wheel it was. I say back back passenger side, and he says, "key in it?" then headed off to fix it.
I sit down in a white plastic chair in front of a white plastic table, on top of which is a white paper sack drenched in grease- someone's take out dinner, no doubt. I look around a the 5 ft. tall stacks of magazines and the circa 1970 pepsi machine, and select a magazine about motors to browse while I'm waiting.
About 5 minutes later the mechanic comes back in with a 3 or 4 inch long nail and pronounced "That there's a roofin' nail" and then exits the waiting area. The receptionist looks at me and says "Seven" so I count out 7 one dollar bills and place them on the counter, and say thank you, which she acknowledges with a smile and a nod.
No receipt. No paperwork. "Seven."
I really like my neighborhood.
So as I've mentioned a few times, I'm training for the White Rock Marathon, which is in December. This will be my 2nd full marathon, but I walked a lot in my 1st marathon due to an IT band injury that severely hampered my training, so in a lot of ways i'm looking at White Rock really being my first marathon.
Training for a marathon, as you could imagine, involves a lot of running. And in Fort Worth right now, it is very hot. The coolest part of the day is obviously early in the morning, but I don't always feel like waking up at 5:45 and hopping out of bed.
So yesterday I walked around, read some news online, had a cup of coffee, and didn't get out running until 9, when it was already over 80 degrees. Of course, as hot as it was and as dehydrated as I was, it was a quite unpleasant run.
Today, I woke up, drank a ton of water, ate a half of a luna bar, and headed out while most people are still asleep. And, of course, I had a much better run.
This is not rocket science. Of course I had a better run. The question is, why do we sometimes let negative emotions dictate our actions when we know on another level that acting in a different way would ultimately be much better for us? And how do we push those negative emotions away?
Something wonderful happened this morning for which I'm very grateful. For the longest time, I haven't really believed in my manuscript about my experiences in Ethiopia a few months ago. I thought I wasn't there for a long enough period of time, that the writing wasn't good enough, that no one would want to read it, that it never had a chance of being published, and on and on and on with the internal editor. So during this whole moving process I haven't touched the manuscript or opened the file, and when I thought about working on it, I sort of internally shuddered and pushed the thought out of my head.
Recently, the motherboard of my computer died, but luckily the Geek Squad at Best Buy was able to get all of the files off of my hard drive. I hadn't checked to make sure all of the files were working correctly, though, since I have things backed up in multiple places as a result of a healthy paranoia induced by previous, and very negative, experience with losing important files.
Today, though, I needed to get my CV off of those Best Buy back up dvds to apply for a teaching position. So I popped the dvd in the now functioning computer, but there was only one file there! Called "Prep". WHAT?! The first thought that came to mind was- where is my manuscript. I was really scared- so I searched frantically for the various USB drives I thought the file might be on but of course the only files on them were files I had no need for and probably weren't even worth backing up in the first place. Finally I remembered I backed it up on a certain media drive, and when my manuscript finally came on the screen, a sense of calm came over me and I could breathe again- it was still there, it hadn't been lost. As I scrolled through the pages, I realized it wasn't total and utter crap. Unedited, rough for sure, and incomplete- but not total and utter worthless crap. And some of the photographs were actually really nice.
I suppose it's one of those cases where you don't realize what you have until it's very nearly lost. If I really thought it wasn't worth anything, the thought of losing it wouldn't have bothered me.
The biggest thing I need to remember is that it doesn't really matter if it gets published or if other people like it, because the only way I really fail is if I don't finish the damn thing. Sometimes I set goals so high for myself that working towards them seems impossible, where as if I just took things a day at a time and thought, today I am going to work a little bit, write a few pages, and left it at that, eventually I would finish, and then I could worry about what to do with it.
And also, I apparently need to back things up in even more places than I already do.
Fort Worth is a pretty darn bike-friendly city- at least in comparison to Lubbock, TX. In L-town, I was lucky to live next to a street with a bike lane that led up to campus- but straying too far away from Boston st. on a bicycle was for people who either didn’t mind a concussion every now and then or who just had a sort of death wish. On many of the designated “bike” routes, cyclists get honked at and driven into the curb, and are generally treated as if they somehow don’t deserve to use the roads as much as motorists- nevermind that cyclists are legally entitled to use most roads, are considered vehicles themselves, and are subject to traffic citations. In Lubbock, the attitude is, overall, decidedly anti-bicycle in most areas.
Even on campus, where you’d expect to see a lot of bikes, you have to be careful- as I found out when a blonde sorority girl driving a white SUV slammed into my bike, leaving me with a black eye, skeletal contusions, and bruised ribs- not to mention a pretty beat up bike. As I peered through the spokes of my bicycle wheels, now spinning over my face, the girl looked down at me through her Dolche and Gabbanna sunglasses and informed me that she was sorry that I had fallen, but, her father was a lawyer, and, well, she was pretty sure the whole thing was my fault.
Since that incident, bike lanes finally appeared on (most) of the Texas Tech Campus, through efforts of student organizations like Grassroots and many others, and bike protests (in which over a hundred students biked through campus to get the point across that, hey, this is a college campus where many people, er, bike as their primary form of transportation (a foreign concept I know). I’m glad to see the improvements, and feel that with gas prices being as they are, respect for bicycling as a means of transportation- and therefore the infrastructure that supports it- can only get better. Still, there’s a long way to go.
Fort Worth, while I’d love to see more bike lanes and racks around town, has a much more biker-friendly community. Even without painted bike lanes on the road, the established bike routes have large, white bicycles painted on the asphalt, and these streets tend to be wider than normal streets and are very sparsely travelled by cars. This makes it possible to bike to the downtown area, or in a completely opposite direction towards the TCU campus, on a fairly extensive network of established bike routes. So, you can pretty much get to wherever you want to go in a huge metropolitan city on a bicycle. Fantastic!
And for recreational biking, Fort Worth has the Trinity Trail System- which I find more and more amazing as I explore different parts of it. You can bike uninterrupted for 30+miles (one way!), and the word is that they’re working on plans to extend this even further.
But the most notable system is simply the attitude. When we’re biking around downtown, no one honks at us. No one crowds us into the gutter. As cyclists we seem to be just accepted as part of the normal make-up of city traffic, which is really, really cool.
Lately I've had quite a bit of family time (Showing my mom and sister our house and a good time in Fort Worth, and hanging out with two of my nieces for a few days).
Some of the highlights of lately have included:
Fiesta Latina (a concert in the garden in Fort Worth- my sister even got a free ticket from a stranger! The fireworks afterward were amazing, not to mention the beautiful music, wine, and company).
Chadra Mezza- Lebanese Food! My mom's family is Lebanese, and it was cool to have realllly awesome Lebanese Food- and, like so many cool places in Southside Ft. Worth, just a few blocks from our house (thanks to C. for the recommendation!).
Fossil Rim- Feeding giraffes would probably always be fun and exciting, but doing it with a 3 and 6 year old makes it a lot more fun. Kids can be so damn happy.
also in the mix was bathing a cat (he had a tiny little flea problem) and then taking him to the vet for his annual rabies shot, which he reacted badly to and ended up running a fever! He stayed in his chair all day, which isn't wildly unusual for him, but he normally occassionaly lifts his head and gets up to eat, which he wasn't doing. Thankfully, he's doing much better now, after Jared crushed up an aspirin (to bring the fever down) and gave him the correct dosage with an eye dropper. It's nice to have a Dr. in the family :)
Here are some pics of lately:
I thought this was an extremely interesting article. While the main point of the article is to point out shortcomings of ivy league educations, I think certain opinions apply to college students in general, especially the bit about kids 'sleepwalking off to college without knowing what they're there for' and also college being glorified vocational training, which I've written about here.
I was one of the people feeling like a fish out of water much of the time, which is pretty much the story of my life. Anyhow, lately with the switching of graduate schools and programs, I've had sort of a mini intrinsic crisis with my desire to become, not necessarily an "Intellectual" but at least a learned person, and wondering what my academic future holds as there seems to be quite a bit of uncertainty now, and so it was nice to be reminded that it isn't all about degrees and GPAs and publications, and in fact, those are just some of the more superficial aspects of a much more complex goal.
Things to keep in mind:
"Being an intellectual means, first of all, being passionate about ideas."
"Only a small minority have seen their education as part of a larger intellectual journey, have approached the work of the mind with a pilgrim soul."
Pilgrimage is fascinating to me. The searching for something, the seeking, the quest for spiritual answers. I like thinking about education in this way.
I've walked the Camino de Santiago, and pilgrimage is a reoccuring theme in many of my papers. I think it's ok to continue searching, even if you're searching for a lifetime, and especially if you have no clue where you're going to end up. You should look for a lifetime. There's an awful lot of work to be done.
We biked up Jennings street downtown and locked our bikes up to the gates in front of the Fort Worth Library. We went to the regristration area where we were greeted by a large African American woman wearing glasses, tightly braided hair, and leopard tipped fake fingernails. I'll say her name was Tammi.
As we were filling out the forms to get library cards, she asked us where we were from ("Lubbock" "Oh dear lord, you poor children) and what brought us to Fort Worth. Jared replied that he got a job at JPS, which elicited several "Mercy!" and "Good Lords!" and a slow but deliberate shaking of the head. She then told Jared, well, at least you have a job, but "uh-uh, you ain't takin' me to that place, unless sumthin really bad happened, but otherwise, don't take me there!"
Tammi asked, "So whatcha wanna be when you grow up, baby?" and Jared said "A Doctor"
"Ohhhh well, good for you baby," then she looked at me and said, "don't you let this one get away!" Then she expanded upon her position on JPS saying, "JPS really is the best place for trauma, it's a good place to learn because you'll see everything there. Like I said, if somethin really bad happened they can take me there, but otherwise....::shakes her head again."
It's somewhat disconcerting that this seems to be the general consensus about JPS- scary stuff happens there; it's the country hospital and the patient population is generally the population who can't afford good health care, so they don't go see a doctor until the situation is really bad, and then they get sent to JPS, because it's the only place they can go. It doesn't mean the doctors aren't excellent- in fact the residents are much more proficient and capable as a result of having seen a wider array of complicated cases, but JPS still gets a bad rap because it's where a lot of the really bad cases are.
Anyhow, Tammi went on to tell us her entire medical history Then, figuring since Jared was going to be a doctor it was completely normal to discuss her thyroid issues with the two of us. "Oh I was gettin FAT, and I mean FAT- and I was goin to the gym and everythin but I was still gettin FAT! Then they took 80% of my thyroid out so now I'm on pills the rest of my life, but my doctor still make me beg for pills, until I told him I wasn't goin to him anymore cuz he made me beg for pills. He tried to tell me there was some misunderstanding, but I told him the only misunderstandin was him thinkin I was gonna beg for pills the rest of my life! So I got me a new doctor and I like him better. So you don't make your patients beg, you hear, baby?"
The Fort Worth botanical gardens are beautiful. Expansive, wandering, thoughtful- and free! (at least most of them). The only two parts you have to pay for are the rainforest type area (a nominal $1) and the Japanese Water Gardens ($3.50). But the rose garden, the perrenial gardens, and a half a dozen other wonderfully landscaped areas are free and open to the public for exploration, or a great-book-and-a-blanket afternoon under a tree.
I've been very impressed with Fort Worth and its accessibility in terms of how much things cost. The botanic gardens in Atlanta, by contrast, charge a whopping $12 per person just to get inside the garden. The Kimball, an amazing art museum, is also completely free. Again, in comparison to Atlanta, their High museum charges $18 for admission.
Don't get me wrong- the gardens and museums in Atlanta are amazing- and I'm just using them as an example since I was recently there- and had a great time and amazing experiences in both places. But, it's nice to see a big city making beauty free for people to enjoy. It reminds me of the "All go Free" approach at the British Museum.
One of the highlights was the wildlife!
I absolutely loved the Japanese Water Gardens. I sort of have this fascination with water, probably the result of growing up in a place where there is none. Water is really magical to me- the way it flows, reflects, and soothes. In the Japanese gardens there are stepping stones that are just above the surface of the water, so that when you walk across them you feel as though you are walking on water, like a miracle.
The Japanese gardens are so balanced and interesting. Not to be to serious, though- we entertained ourselves for quite awhile by feeding the coi and turtles who have been conditioned to congregate near the shore lines, where they open and close their fishy mouths in anticipation of little kibbles of fish food.
More pictures:
In addition to going on walks in the gardens, we've been exploring and deciphering the best biking routes for ourselves. We made it a point when we were looking for a house to find one that would allow us to bike most places and not have to rely on a car. Last night we biked into downtown Fort Worth from our house. We took a little-traveled road that goes under an underpass but has covered sidewalks on both sides that let us glide underneath the cars. It's a little sketchy- some buildings have barbed wire and it's a little devoid of human beings in places,a smattering of other cyclists or some people just walking and drinking back to wherever home is . There are patches of broken glass, and the underpass part smells a little bit like pee. Even so, it's a nice bike ride, and it has a feeling of edginess that appeals to me. I'd say it's maybe a 15 min. bike ride, if that.
We rode to the public library and got our cards, and a conversation ensued with the receptionist that was so interesting it deserves its own post. We picked up a couple of books then rode to the Flying Saucer, where Jared has a goal to try as many different kinds of beer as possible in the frame of the next three years. A little less sober we biked back to our home, and when we got there, it actually felt like our house.
Fist Fight
Near our house, at the corner of Hemphill and Allen there's a little corner store called KA Mart. It's a little Indian run Fina station with bars on the window and a cluttered interior offering not only your typical chips and drinks but also a smattering of faux-gambling gaming units where the local clientele funnel their quarters through in pursuit of royal flushes and full houses.
The quick mart is also where our neighbors pick up their lotto tickets in hopes that their name, too, will be taped to the front counter on a print out with their picture and a heading reading "$500!!!"
It seems to be the type of store where everyone sort of knows each other. The first time we were there a tall, lean, African-American woman wearing a tight white shirt and short black skirt ambled up to the counter with a bag of chips and a drink and said "Heeeyyyy Chris" to which Chris, the Indian owner who seems to always be there but apparently has given up on using his full Indian name, replied with a heavily accented "Hello Tameka, how are you today."
In any case as Jared was filling up the truck with gas a few nights ago, he became a witness to two enormous Hispanic males engaging in an all out fist fight. The whole thing probably started with one of the fighters cursing the other's mother repeatedly and loudly in Spanish.
We were not the only observer- an African American male in an oversized shirt and sideways cap casually leaned against the front of the K&A Quick Mart, drinking a tall boy and enjoying the night's free entertainment.
Eventually Chris caught wind of what was going on outside of his store, and came out waving his arms and shouting "Hey, Amigo! Amigo! You no fight here! You fight elsewhere!"
Although the participant who was doing the cursing was obviously getting his ass beat into the concrete, for some reason he never did stop yelling profanities insulting the superior fighter's mother, resulting in the former's eventual fall to the ground one final, swift kick to the ribcage. He managed to peel himself off of the ground, and started trying to get Jared to drive him to the hospital, going so far as to try to open the car door with his bloody hands. Noting the hospital was only a few blocks away and that, shy of a few stitches to the face and likely one or two broken ribs, the injured person, who admittedly got himself into his current situation, was able to walk and talk, Jared took a look at his face, made sure he wasn't seriously injured, and told him to walk to the hospital.
House Whores:
Once a month, our neighborhood has community meetings at the neighborhood Presbyterian church to talk about local events, concerns, and so on an and so forth. It's a really good group of productive people- unfortunately right now it's only made up of white people as far as I can tell, which is notable because of the diversity of the neighborhood. It seems to me (just from walking around) the neighborhood is split into thirds- white, black, hispanic- just about equally, yet the community association is only represented by one third of the pie.
In any case a guy named Jerry gives out crazy door prizes at the meetings. These range from a free dinner at P.F. Changs to Monkey Butt powder for cyclists to a tacky, vinyl, dolphin printed shower curtain. One of our neighbors won a nave and sage green quilt.
The next day the same neighbor, who happens to be gay, stopped by our house with said blanket, saying he figured we could use it. We basically got blatantly regifted, but figuring we could use the blanket we were thankful nonetheless. After thanking him our neighbor just sort of stood their for a moment, then announced he was a "complete House Whore" and could he please see our house.
At this point there were still boxes everywhere, but we figured this was a really nice neighbor who had just given us a blanket, and what the heck. So we let him in and it turns out he's extremely knowledgeable about old houses- he pointed out which molding was original, what was added (and in what decade) and what used to be in the house but had since been taken out (like the colonnades that apparently used to separate the living area from the dining area).
He turned out to be a great source of info and was so energetic about the house- I was very impressed. He even went so far as to come by again the next day with copies from a book explaining window styles for the years in which our house was built.
:)
I am so excited. I had fun exploring the the 'hood while he was gone, but now that he's back, we can have fun together!!
Today we're going to go to the zoo :) I have mixed feelings about zoos- there's something about caging large, beautiful animals that seems wrong to me. On the other hand, I think it's important, especially for young people, to be able to see these types of animals, and not just on t.v., so they have a better understanding and appreciation for the complex world we live in. Fort Worth is supposed to have an excellent zoo, so hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Also, I applied and got accepted to a TCU graduate program. A really interesting, inter-disciplinary program with a long list of fascinating course work. And because it's cross-discipline, I'm planning to take whatever predominant socio/economic/historical angle each class offers and bend that to explore how music fits in. For example, one course i'm taking next fall is a seminar on Politics and the Middle East. Well, I can think of a large number of topics just off of the top of my head relating to that topic and ethnomusicology. One in particular is a topic I've examined a couple of times before, hip hop in Palestine used as a means of political protest. So I'm excited about that.
I like TCU despite the 'snotty rich kid' factor. People in Fort Worth have been very nice to us so far, and TCU is no exception. Everyone is all smiles and 'how can we help you.' I thought the Zumba instructor at the TCU rec center might have had her smile somehow permanently surgically implanted.
Anyhow, off for a jog...training for a marathon, and all....
In Writing Down The Bones, Natalie Goldburg writes about how she keeps simple spiral notebooks, the cheap ones that sometimes have screen prints of mickey mouse or other fictional characters on them. Part of the reason she does this is so she doesn't take what she writes down in them too seriously. Sometimes, when you're writing, you should just write, and not feel pressure to create a masterpiece every time you take a pen to paper (or keystrokes to monitor). And this is easier to do with a mouse with impossibly round ears greets you as you begin to scribble away.
This is also easier to keep in mind when you can close your notebook and put it on the shelf. It's a little harder when you're publishing something to the internet where other people might (gasp!) actually read what you wrote.
I still keep a paper journal- some things are either just too personal or crazy sounding for me to want to put it on the blog. And writing on paper is just different- the feeling is different, the style is different.
But I like blogging. I'm still pretty new to it, but I think it's a good way to practice writing, and also a good way to process things, and a good way for friends and family to keep up with one another. But for me, it's also a good way to take myself less seriously, and to become comfortable with people reading what I write. I'm kind of uptight about letting people read my work, and this is a good way to get over worrying about whether or not anyone likes it. Because, really, what's the point in wanting to be a better writer if you never want anyone to read what you wrote?
I am absolutely in love with Trinity Trails. I know I've metioned them before, but I just can't get over how cool they are. There's a lot of energy everywhere- you run by construction sites and under overpasses, along the river through green spaces- and you can just go and go and go. Bikers call "To your left" and whiz by, roller bladers smile and wave, moms stroll little ones, and runners usually pass me. But I don't care. I'm just glad to live in a place where there is such an incredible oppourtunity for outdoor recreation even though it's a huge city.
Speaking of huge city, the one thing I still am not happy about the traffic. Luckily, I live in a place where I don't really have to deal with any of the interestates or tollways or parkways or any other -ways on a daily basis, and for that I am infinitely grateful.
Yesterday, though, I drove out to Plano, which from Fort Worth might as well be part of Oklahoma. I-35 is a death trap just waiting to snap it's jaws around you. I despise I-35. For one thing, it's I-35W but you take it either north or south. So you take either the 35 west North or the West South. Call me crazy but that just does not make a whole lot of sense. It is SO crowded and SO dangerous- from now on I'm taking busses and trains. Which, it's definitely cheaper to do that, anyway.
I had a blast with my neices, one of whom in particular never runs out of cute things to say. She is so full of sunlight and has such a bright heart, and she thinks everything is beautiful and amazing. We should all be more like 6 year olds, sometimes.
I should be working more on my manuscript, but lately I've been playing the piano a lot. Maybe not quite as much as when I was a performance major, but a whole lot more than I have in awhile, and it feels so good in my fingers and in my chest.
And without any pressure of the super serious and intense performance studio atmosphere, I'm really enjoying it more than ever. It's going to be good. I just have to balance my time better because all to soon things will be busy again and I will have wished I'd have written more when I actually had the time....I'm just not so sure about the manuscript. I guess all writers go through something to that affect, but I just feel like I wasn't really in Ethiopia long enough to write something truly significant. So far I have about 100 pages...but that isn't really decent book length. Ugh. What should I do.......I suppose I should just write until there isn't anything left to write, then worry about what to do later. Kay Kaufman Shelemay didn't publish Song of Longing until several decades after her first trip (of course, she was there for a lot longer than I was....I guess i'll just have to go back). One thing is for sure; if I don't find a way to believe in it, it'll never happen. I just have to keep remember what Dr. Smith told me, which was to close my eyes and imagine the book on sale in a bookstore...but right now, I can make the picture but I don't really believe in it yet.
And, as an addendum, I wrote the following yesterday. I didn't post it because it was kind of negative and I didn't want my first post for the whole month to be something heavier. But then I figured, it's pretty much how I feel, and I'm not really sure what is supposed to go on a blog, but this blog at least seems to be turning into a personal, very "whatever comes to mind" type of blog. So here it is, for what it's worth:
I'm so tired of the negative attitude so many people these days have about marriage. I'm so sick of the 'ball and chain' attitude, the excessive negativity, the doomsday projections and statistics that say most marriages fail and the people who stick together aren't happy.
I've been married for over 4 years, and they've been the happiest 4 years of my entire life, and that's the truth. By a longshot. Granted I got married at 21 and high school was pretty much a horrific experience for me, but that doesn't make it any less true. I live with my best friend...I just don't see what people think is so bad about that- he's the best roommate I've ever had (sorry to my half a dozen previous roommates, but it's the truth :)
Now I think being single, or just being unmarried, is great. For a lot of people that's exactly the right path. Marriage can be exactly the right path, too, though. and marriage isn't right for everyone- but people shouldn't just assume marriage is automatically bad. It can be wonderful.
The best thing about it, to me, is the incredible level of intimacy, not just on a sexual or romantic level (not to say that's not important), but on dozens of other areas as well. I'm not going to say 'every' level, because no one can be everything to someone, and shouldn't be. I think that's a maybe a mistake people make- thinking someone should be everything, or thinking you have to be everything, or becoming to reliant on one another, or giving up a little too much independence.
But, if you have a relationship where both people involved respect each other's freedom and individuality, 'marriage' is just a word, just a piece of paper, because the vows and the commitment are already there- you'd be living the same way even without a certificate that makes it legal and gives you tax credits. The relationship is what matters to me, not the title. (but I do think that, aside from the 'fun' factor of weddings, ceremony in human experience is very important in terms of realizing life stage boundaries or marking change or adding significance to important events).
Just truly putting forth the effort and time to truly know another human being, to know their spirit and their heart, to have that be mutual and reciprocated, and to express love and take care of and challenge and nurture one another, share adventures and help to soften crushing blows- and do it with unquestioned devotion and commitment and energy, loyalty and passion. It's a beautiful thing. That type of deep relationship, I think, is very difficult to maintain with more than one person.
Since we've moved, I've gotten the vibe from a few different places that they think I shouldn't have gotten married. Actually I've gotten that here and there ever since I got married. People said I should have graduated from college first, that I was too young, that I was naive. More recently, around graduation, there were a lot of comments about people moving somewhere, or not moving somewhere, for the sake of their spouse/finance/boyfriend/girlfriend. Generally these comments were negative and suggested that it was bad/wrong for people give something up, or postpone, or generally make sacrifices, for their spouse/significant other. These comments were generally from single people (who apparantly don't believe in making personal sacrifices for the sake of another human being).
Well, you know what I say to that? Screw you and your pessimistic, marriage-hating life view. You don't know my heart, and sadly, obviously don't understand the awesome depth and power of strong love, or you wouldn't have even for a second questioned the decisions I've made.
Because from where I'm sitting, there's not a lecture hall at any university I'd rather be in, any city in the world I'd rather live in, any career I'd rather have, if it meant not being with J.
I just wish that more people still believed in true love, because it's a sad, sad world without it.