gratitude

In the vein of http://1000awesomethings.com/ and Mama Cass's Gushing with Gratitude, here are the 10 things I'm thankful for this week. I encourage everyone to participate in the practice of saying thank you (it doesn't really matter to whom you say it -- just projecting it is a good thing), because I've realized that even when you feel like you're living in a land of suck, there are always things, no matter how small (and some of mine are small), that make the world a better place.

Without further ado, my 10 good things of the week:

10. I just turned on the TV to my favorite part of Caddyshack. I changed the channel and landed on my favorite episode of Friends. Changed the channel again to find my favorite scene of Top Gun.

09. There is a beautiful tree outside the window of my cube at work. It's been steadily changing colors, from green to gold, to orange, and now it's a rich burgandy. Tomorrow I fully expect the leaves to begin to disappear -- but it's been absolutely gorgeous while it's lasted. Seeing it makes my day brighter, more colorful.

08. Because I haven't been to the grocery store in about two-three weeks, I've been forced to be really creative about what I cook in the past week. And the results have been generally tastey. I'm proud of my ingenuity and impressed by my cooking skills.

07. I'm finally, finally, going to send my friend a care package. I'm thankful for finally finding motivation to just send it!

06. I figured out an awesome Halloween costume that is the right blend of creative, funny, clever and scary (with a bit more modification).

05. I got one of those coupon inserts from the paper in my mailbox yesterday, upon looking through it, about 1/2 of the coupons were for things that I need to buy in the next few days/weeks. I've estimated that I'll probably save more than $15 simply because I got some junk mail that I took the time to look at before I tossed it in the recycle bin.

04. I made it safely to and from Elon this weekend. The car survived and so did I.

03. I had lunch with my 91-year-old Grandma.

02. My yoga instructor's topic of guided mediation made me recognize a need to refocus, realign and rebuild. Her message: Surrendering to what is, is not the same as giving up, rather it's a realization and acceptance of a situation with the intent to move forward toward the better; and finding the courage and strength to surrender is an incredible and powerful ability.

01. I'm convinced I have the best friends in the world.

practicing the art of an open palm

The image of the open palm is universal. It has different meanings across pretty much every culture: Buddhism has about six different mudras (hand positions) that use the gesture of the open hand, and each has a slightly different meaning. Catholics use the gesture when recieving the Euchrist to signify an openness to the glory of the body of Christ and a sense of wanting. The list could go on and on, but if we were to draw a common thread across the cultures, the open palm is a symbol of a sense of willingness to accept what is given.

My grandmother had a saying: "You can hold sand in the palm of your hand forever, but as soon as you close your fist and try to hold on tight, it will all fall through."

Lately, I've been attempting to practice the art of an open palm. In my yoga class, my instructor often asks us to focus on acceptance of the moment and things within our power to control. Does your leg hurt? Move it to the left. Are you cranky? Maybe you're hungry, eat something and drink some water. Are you tired? Take a nap.

If only all of life's questions were that easy, right? But I think, to some extent, maybe there is something to it. I think maybe when we get frustrated, we're not asking ourselves the right questions. We're frustrated because we're asking ourselves questions we cannot answer. What do I want to do with my life? Why am I here? What am I doing in this job that I hate? When is he going to marry me?

My friend Bridget says that the best way to talk to kids is by asking them questions they can answer. They'll never learn to behave if you start off by asking them why they did something wrong. They have no clue. You have to ask them things that they know: Are you hungry? Are you tired? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? Now, I am, by no means and expert on parenting, but I feel like most of the time, the source of the problem is probably somewhere within reach after a few rounds of those sorts of questions.

I feel like we (adults) are probably about the same way. I think it's about asking the right questions of ourselves at the right magnitude. We cannot arrange world peace, end world hunger or make someone love us. But we can do things to change and affect the way that we participate in the world.

To me, acceptance, or allowing the sand to lay in our palms, does not mean complacency. It does not mean blindly ignoring the world and allowing it to trample us. Practicing an open palm, to me, means knowing when action is needed and when it isn't.

connectivity.

I'm becoming more and more convinced as I get older that everything is connected, that there will be things in your life that never seem to leave or disappear all the way.

My mom and our family friend Karen and I went to the 50th Anniversary Barbie convention the weekend before last. Yeah, I know ... but my aunt makes reproduction historically accurate gowns for the dolls (her work is some of the best there, if you ask me) and the convention was in D.C., so we went. It was an experience, to say the least, but the best part was the memories it evoked. More than once Karen or my mom would burst with joy at the sight of a doll they'd forgotten they had, or would begin to tell a story about a pair of shoes, a wig set or cutting Barbie's hair.

I was astonished by how few of my Barbies they had. In fact, they didn't have any of the ones I had -- perhaps they're not old enough yet. My Aladdin and Jasmin dolls, my skater Midge and Barbie, my Kelly dolls -- they're just not "vintage" enough yet. As I walked through the tables, I wanted some sort of a jolt of recognition, something from my childhood that I'd forgotten, something that I'd loved and then given up along with the American Girl dolls, Polly Pockets and My Little Ponies. But it didn't come, at least not until the very end.

And then, on a table, there it was, my Barbie poodle. Yes. I had a poodle. He was white (I'm assuming it's a "he" even though there were no anatomical indicators) with legs that bent at the shoulder and hip joints. Matted white "fur" with floppy white ears and white, hard plastic feet and face. He was my dog! I had him! And I had completely forgotten about him. He's sitting in an enormous plastic container in my parents' basement. I'd loved him.

Moments like that one are so bizarre, and they remind us of how strange memory is. How we can be such good friends with someone and then five years later we can still remember the name of their cat, but their name escapes us. We can find our way to their house, or remember their phone number, but their birthday is gone. We can be so invested and yet something happens and the dustbuster in our brains turns on and starts to make space, eliminating somethings and keeping the others, forging hair-thin links between that stuff and other stuff so we can someday access that bit of information in our seemingly infinite rolodex.

I'm thinking about all of this because I've realized that these links don't actually matter unless we pay attention to them. Like anything else, if you ignore it, it might as well just not be there. As I was updating some contact information today for one of IPM's donors, I had a moment's flash of recognition with the organization she works for: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

It was one of those moments that's similar to trying to remember the movie a favorite quote comes from. Or the lyric to a song where you can only remember the tune -- why did I know this organization!? I've been working with organizations with names like that since I started at IPM. I've even seen that name before, so why was it sparking something now? I don't suppose I'll ever know. But then I realized it -- I know them because of the Corcoran. I worked with them last summer.

The Global Fund partnered with Magnum Photography last summer to produce an exhibition called "Access to Life" that would originate at the Corcoran. I wrote the press release for the show. I stuffed hundreds of press folders for the show. I met people from the Global Fund at the show. Light bulb!

So, I don't really know what it all means or if there really is any significance that it's all connected. But I find it really bizarre how one thing has taken me to the next. How everything seems to be related, whether or not it really is, I guess that remains to be seen. But still, it's these little flashes or recognition, these moments of connectivity, that really surprise and startle me into questioning how many of these moments we miss.

life in a nutshell

This week, I've ...

01. graduated from college.
02. moved back to Maryland, unpacked my life and squeezed it into too small of a space.
03. had many a meal with good friends who've gone unseen for far too long.
04. applied to a bunch of jobs.
05. seen "Kung Fu Panda," "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," the season finale of "Grey's Anatomy," and too many hours of TV.
06. mailed a few items that needed to be returned to their rightful owners after accidentally moving back to Maryland with me.
07. gone sailing.
08. had my first Dark and Stormy of the summer.
09. realized that my cat snores.
10. realized that my brother is now 14 and HUGE.
11. realized that I'm ready to start my life and be an adult.
12. realized that number 11 is impossible without a job.
13. realized that without my family and my friends I would be in a panicked state of hysteria constantly, rather than only occasionally.
14. started to understand that making decisions is only possible if there are choices to decide among.
15. come to really love lists.

rain.

It's raining. Again. Literally, for like the fifth or sixth time this week, and it's only Thursday.

Not only am I getting very, very tired of the rain, but I am also beginning to live in perpetual fear of it when it rains in the morning. I have an uncanny, Pavlovian response where my stomach clenches and my mind begins to race, It has eight days to learn how NOT to do this.

You see, Elon means "oak" in Hebrew, and so our lives here are tree themed. In fact, they pretty much revolve around trees. When you come to Elon, you get an acorn. When you graduate, you get an oak sapling to symbolize your maturity and growth. When you get old and start donating a lot of money, you join the Order of the Oak. Everything is acorn, squirrels (because they live in trees) and oaks. They're everywhere. And so, we hold our graduation ceremonies under those trees from which Elon derived its name and its essence.

Herein lies the source of my anxiety. It has not rained for graduation in 10 years. WHERE are those trees when I need to knock on them!! In fact, it hadn't rained on graduation for 25 years before that. Yeah, you read that right. We went 25 years, then one big, disastrous ceremony, which involved soaked grandmas, running makeup and then a fire alarm (yeah.) and now have gone 10 more. Needless to say, I'm absolutely TERRIFIED.

It sounds petty, but I want my Elon graduation. I'll still be an Elon graduate if I have to (knock on that oak again...) walk across the stage in Alumni Gym, but I won't have had the true Elon experience of sitting under those trees like I did four years ago.

So please. Find any wood, preferably oak, in your house and knock on it at least once or twice a day for me and all my fellow acorns who just want a sunny morning on May 23.

Thank you.

being launched

So here I am, a little less than a month from graduation and I'm beginning to feel the tug. Anyone who's waited for inevitable change (it sounds like an oxymoron, but it's not, trust me) knows what that feels like.

I'm sure it's similar to the feeling a pregnant woman has about 3 weeks before her due date -- there's still so much growing to do. But time is running out, and you're happy, because you're ready to go into the next stage of life, but you're also terrified. Will I be good at it? Can I do this?

And so, that slow tug back on the catapult begins. It's the pull on the bow strings before the release. The tension buzzes in the strings and the urge to let go is so strong, but the arrow will just fall from the ground without that extra tug at the end.

And so here I am. In that last little tug. My strings are tight and I'm buzzing pretty hard. I've got a lot to do between now and the end.

The string just gets tighter and tighter. The funny thing is, I know I'm going to make it a few more weeks before what I'm moving toward will actually become real. Like I said, there's other things to do first.

I've been reading a lot about Buddhism lately. One of the practices is present-mindedness, or being completely invested in the current. You can't focus on how far you want the arrow to fly, all you can do is focus on the tightening of the strings. If the strings are tight, then what happens happens.

And that's all I can do. Wait for the launch.

remember to breath

We're getting down to the wire. Roughly 40 days and counting until the end. Marathoners call it hitting the wall -- you just don't want to go anymore, but you have to. You have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and just keep running.

I've hit the wall. Hard. What's that saying: Senioritis, we're too lazy to find a cure.

Yeah. But see, I don't have the luxury of doing nothing. I have a To Do list the length of Route 40 just for things to finish for school alone, forget finding a job, and planning to move home.

I've been taking a yoga class, and one of the things our professor always tell us is to remember to breath. I've started having to tell myself to breath in and out during my daily activities.

I don't think I've ever been so happy and yet so terrified for something to come to an end.

learning to be alone

"Will you be OK?" she asked as I left their apartment to go to my own empty one.

"Oh yeah, I'll be fine," I responded, I know I can be alone and be OK.

I'm not sure why, but I used to hate being alone. I would always call someone, anyone, to avoid the silence of solitude. I'm an extrovert by nature, conversation and people keep me going. I'll always feel happier with others than without them, but since going to college, I've learned the value of spending time with myself and my thoughts.

I've encountered an odd situation this week -- every single person who I would consider a good friend or acquaintance at Elon, who I would feel willing to call to spend time with, is away on spring break. I came back early from our week at the beach because my best friend here had to be back to present at a conference in Georgia. Her roommates, my other great friends, are away at a concert in the southern part of the state. My friend Lesley is in Maryland. Mandy and Olivia, Florida. My roommate, on a cruise in the Caribbean. And the list goes on, leaving me to myself. Alone.

Someone asked me a few days ago, what's one thing outside of your coursework that you have learned while at school? My response: I've learned to love being alone. I think when you spend 24 hours a day in a dorm for two years, then 4 months in a tiny flat with 7 other women, then in a busy apartment building, in a newspaper office... when you're constantly surrounded by people, even the most extraordinary extrovert would find themselves seeking some silence.

And so I've learned to value those hours when my roommate is at meetings. Or when I have to take that 15 minute walk across campus to work. Or when no one is free to go grocery shopping.

I think it all really started when I was in London. I liked to take walks around the city by myself. Don't worry, it was only ever during the day. But I found that I would walk slower, thinking about the things I was seeing, the people I was passing, the smells I was smelling. I wasn't distracted by someone asking me about my internship, or complaining about a paper to be written for our class. I could take it all in. I could absorb.

I've learned that my mind can be stimulated by the world itself, without others, that thoughts themselves can be loud enough. And that it's OK to enjoy moments of calm or evenings filled not by the voices of others, but by the tapping of my fingers on my computer keys or the scribblings of a pen on paper.

Maybe it's all part of growing up, knowing that you can survive the quiet. But not only survive it, learn to revel in it.

bubbles everywhere.

I'm always surprised by life's little quirks, that most of the time, you get exactly what you need when you really need it.

Today, it came in the form of bubbles.

I was sitting in my room, working on a proposal for a project I'm going to be working on for a design class, when all of a sudden:

"Hey, Bethany?" When something is wrong, it's always a question.

"Hey, Bethany," she said again, "I think we have a problem."

"What kind of problem," my 'mom' voice and instincts starting to kick in.

"There's something wrong with our dishwasher."

"OK, like what sort of something?"

"It's leaking."

I get up and walk out of my room, past the breakfast bar and around the corner into our kitchen where I'm confronted with bubbles. Lots of bubbles. I launch into action. I quickly turn off the dishwasher, which as I stood there for 1/2 a second was churning out more and more suds. And then I open the door.

Bubbles. It was filled with bubbles.

And then, it happened. I laughed. Harder than I've laughed in about a week. You see, my grandfather died on Friday, and laughing has been exactly the opposite of what I've been doing since then. I looked at Colleen, standing, staring at the overflowing meringue that was our kitchen, I just couldn't help myself.

"Hey." When you're embarrassed, it's never a question.

"I'm sorry," I managed to blurt out between chuckles. "I promise you, I'm not laughing at you, just the way it looks, it's ridiculous. Everyone does this once. Did you use the dish detergent or dish soap?"

"Um..."

I reached into the cupboard and compared the bottles. "Did you use this one, or this one?" She pointed to the orange bottle, the dish soap, and it clicked for her.

We spent the next 15 minutes elbow deep in bubbles, laughing as we contorted our bodies so we could reach the back of the dishwasher. Cursing our neighbors who aren't awake at 11 a.m. on Sunday to lend us a mop, which of course, we've never needed in two years until the last three months we live together.

So we mopped and bailed with paper towels, sponges and dish rags, plastic bowls and "I'm 21 Today!" cups until the dishwasher was as empty as it could be. We started it again, putting all the dirty dishes back in, and not 10 minutes later did the problem begin again. We'll need another angle of attack -- Colleen's decided we should just let the bubbles subside and then wipe away the residue. We'll see, right?

My grandpa always said, if you can't laugh at yourself, then something's wrong. Something has been wrong the last few days, and laughter has really been limited. I think it was his way of reminding me that things are OK. That this is what he wanted. It's hard, but laughing helps. Bubbles help.

i hate winnepeg

I've recently rekindled a friendship with an ex-boyfriend. He was a very big part of my life for about four years, he was my everything. He was with me through many firsts, through most of college and was my best friend through ups and downs and everything in between.

When things dissolved between us, as things eventually do with high school to college romances, there was a void in my life that I couldn't fill. I had a new guy, a new life and a new perspective, but I missed him. When we were both finally to a point where our friendship could resume, I think both of us felt that troublesome void finally ebb, finally feel a little less empty. He's my friend again, and I'm so very glad he's in my life.

But this isn't really about him specifically, well it is, but isn't at the same time. You see, he was always really into music. Always providing me with new material for my auditory discoveries. He's since changed a little, as we all do, and the relationship is a little reversed now. He taught me to love music, to want to hear more, to find more that I loved -- never question, just enjoy.

But a few weeks ago, he gave me the name of a song, One Great City! by a band called the Weakerthans. I pulled up YouTube to listen, and I was surprised when I knew the song. I'd heard it before. Another guy, one not too long ago, had played it for me on his guitar. I'd lay there on his couch listening, quietly smiling at how cute he was, and how odd the lyrics were. The song was one I hadn't known, and I had asked who it was by, fully intending to look it up when I'd left and gone back to my other life, hundreds of miles away from him.

As I sat at my computer, all of a sudden my worlds collided, and I realized in that moment, listening to this beautifully written song about the monotony of life and the artful grace in its quirks, that everything is connected. That no matter how much I like to think I know myself, things like this moment throw me for a loop. I realized that everything builds on everything else, that as much control as I think I have -- there's another factor. These men were connected, not only through a love of this song, (I've always had a "type," and sometimes it's more obvious than others...) but through me and who I am.

I've always been one to believe that every person who comes into your life leaves a mark and changes you. It may not be a profound change, but it's there.

It amazes me how music, like smells, are incredible memory triggers. Even now as I write this, I'm listening to this song, singing along to its lyrics about a grungy city in Canada, I'm transported briefly to his couch in Massachusetts, then memories start to mingle, I'm in Iowa, in the car surrounded by snow. In the field under the tree...

first of the lasts

Since I can remember, the first day of school has always been accompanied with excitement and a little anxiety -- Will my teacher be nice? Will I know people in my class? What if I forget my schedule or get lost?

But this first day of school is particularly jarring: Tomorrow is the last first day of school I will ever have.

I love school, I always have. I'm a good student, call me a priss, a goody-goody, whatever. But I like to learn. I like the process of school, I like the adrenaline you get when you take a test, and then again when it's being handed back by the teacher. I like going home and talking about the things you learned, the things that blow your mind because you could have never imagined that they were true. I like buying school supplies, I love the smell of fresh notebook paper and I think I'm vaguely obsessive when it comes to buying day planners.

But never again. Not unless I go to grad school, which won't be happening any time soon. And not until my children, should I have them, pack up their backpacks and head to school will that first day of class be important again.

I've been trying not to think a lot about the number of lasts that are about to start cascading down on my life. It seems so incredible that I'm here, finally, staring at only four months left in a place I've called home for four years. A place where I've both found and lost any number of things, clothing, friends, love, my sense of self.

I often like to think about the road not taken, about the way things could have ended up but didn't. What if I had gone to Boston University like I so desperately wanted to? What if I had never met Olivia, Mandy, Ryan, Bryan, Colleen, Kiersten and all of the other people I see as so necessary to my life, that I love so deeply. What if I had chosen differently?

One thing is for sure, regardless of where I was, I'd probably still be feeling this same ache, knowing that goodbyes are coming. Lasts are inevitable. But so are beginnings. I've never been good with change -- McKenzie always says we're ducks in a row kind of girls -- we like everything in order. I like to know where I'm going, how I'm going to get there and what it'll look like when I finally arrive. But life's not like that. I don't know where I'm going, I don't know what I'm doing. And it's scary. But I sort of like it.

My professor over this past winter term (my last winter term) told us every so often to buckle our seatbelts, grab the oxygen if needed and prepare for a bumpy ride.

It's going to be a bumpy few months, but I think it's going to be ride of a lifetime.

...Anyone know where I can get an oxygen tank to have on hand?

life is beautiful, swanson

My senior year of high school I had an amazing teacher for an ancient Mediterranean civilizations class and Medieval history. His name was Mr. Baxter. A tall, heavy-set black man, his voice boomed when he called us by our last names. His podium was painted with camouflage and he had a riding crop that he'd use to emphasize points about cathedral building, Piltdown Man and Gregorian chants.

His classroom ceiling was covered with flags, his walls covered in maps and images of his travels. Some how he'd managed to get framed paintings to hang on the cinder blocks. You were always "Private," or "Comrade Swanson," or just "Swanson." No one had a first name. And everyone loved him.

Most classes in high school are fairly forgettable, you may remember the teacher, you may not. And most of the time, you definitely don't remember what you learned. I have about four teachers from high school whose lessons have stuck with me, whose voices I can still hear in my head and whose mentoring I pray I never forget. Baxter's voice is in my head in certain instances when I'm doing certain things, when I have to recall random European historical facts. But I hear it most of all when I wear a certain sweatshirt.

I'm wearing that sweatshirt today. It's light weight, so only for certain weather. Today seemed right, I guess.

It's funny how things just dawn on you. You forget about them until all of a sudden it makes its rounds in your brain and comes back.

My sweatshirt is silk-screened and it says "Life is beautiful," on the front.

In my head I can see myself. I am 18 years old, standing next to his desk about to ask about a paper. I can see him look at me, directly in the eyes, and say in his clear but weathered voice, "Life is beautiful, Swanson."

And then he smiled that smile that stretched from ear to ear, he always knew when he was being profound and knew that you knew it too.

I think few of us ever get to meet someone who is truly wise. He was wise. And he was right, for all the disaster and chaos that prevails most of the the time, through all that, life is beautiful.