3 A.M.

Last night was our semester ending spring banquet, and in typical Mars Hill style, it drew out all sorts of emotion and introspection. Everything at my school is intense, including festive affairs. However, one thing we do very well is dance, and once I kicked off my shoes and started to flail in my usual free-spirited fashion, the world felt a great deal more fun.

At the end of the night, my dear friends Stacy and Jeremy and I retired to my living room to debrief the affair. We were verging on a sleepover, when our yawns made us retire around 3 am. However, as they left my apartment we were all greeted by a tow truck, its talons wrapped around their innocent Civic who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Denial is one of my favorite defense mechanisms. So when Mr. Tow Truck Driver announced the “245 release fee” it became $24.50 in my head. Fortunately he clarified. As the shock and outrage overcame me, I dashed back into the apartment, emerging with my debit card brandished high. (After all, I am the one who should have realized we had parked in my neighbor’s spot). As Stacy says, I was ready “to save the day,” before the brilliant insight occurred to me. Oh s*@!t, I don’t actually have $250 dollars in my account (my financial prosperity isn’t exactly peaking these days). So at that point, I began a pathetic entreaty to the surprisingly jolly Mr. Tow Trucker Driver, who neither retaliated towards my contempt nor gave in to my plaintive decrees. I tried many different tactics: testing out ranting and raving, humor, and outright desperation. Could you just sort of slip out of here, let the car go, and not charge us the $250? Plll-eea-sse, I begged.

I admit I am a rather proud woman with an aversion to begging, but when I decide to beg I do it wholeheartedly. Pieces of my self-respect splattered all over the sidewalk in the course of appeal.

Finally, we just made friends with Mr. Tow Truck Driver. We took pictures, we laughed, we enjoyed the view of Seattle’s skyline from the parking spot. Stacy and Jeremy came to the rescue so generously with their plastic; we decided to be thankful it wasn’t the $400 it would have been for the tow, and that we were not hunting down an impounded car in the middle of the night.

The moral of this story is that I really like my friends. To share life with people who will laugh with you at 3 a.m. when the ass of their car is in the air because you forgot to mention the details of parking legalities…well, those are precious people.

(And just a little warning to absent minded people like myself…Mr. Tow Truck Driver told us that soon the $400 current fee for towing will almost double in the city of Seattle…getting closer to $700! Outrageous.)

Celebrated Failures

I am realizing that my prayers don’t seem as charmed as they once did.

For instance, tonight I went to hear Anne Lamott speak and prayed audaciously for my Midas touch encounter. I was needing to convince this ridiculously busy and accomplished women why she should write a review for an upcoming anthology I am part of (more on that project another time). I just knew of the hundreds of people there that I would get the up close encounter.

Turns out I did in fact get the premier up close encounter. I walked in on her in the bathroom- I mean I walked right into her stall. It was a very brief meeting and not terribly opportune for pitching the anthology.

I think my prayers use to be a bit more successful.

Anyways, at the very end of the night I went up to her, apologized for the mishap, talked about the anthology, invited her interest, and got rejected- all in about 7 seconds. My second encounter left me even more sheepish than the first.

But on a redeeming note, tonight I have decided it might be good for me to chronicle all such rejections. Then, over time, I will realize I can indeed survive those moments of feeling really dumb. I am actually going to start a scrapbook to document the time and place and keep the mementos. Any perceived failure/rejection gets to be celebrated. That means rejection slips from editors, dissapointing papers, flopped encounters- all now worthy of documentation in my celebrated chronicles.

Cherry Trees and D.W. Winnicott

It is spring, which inspires me to do crazy things like start running again. I don’t know that I actually like running, but this season of the year I decide it’s time to remember trees and fresh air and flowers- that real, budding life exists outside textbooks.

There is this one glorious cherry tree I get to run under on Wallingford Avenue. She is dressed up like a bride. I had a lovely cherry tree in my backyard growing up; the sweet scents today make me remember being a little girl and jumping on our big trampoline near the blooming tree, so that blossoms would float down on my head as I somersaulted. Running down Wallingford Ave, life moments 20 years apart seem to intersect.

I keep being visited by that little girl- fresh moments of the past arriving rather unannounced. Such visitations, of course, are the symptom of a mind rather saturated with psychology classes, where I am consistently asked to consider my own "story" and wonder about who I am- and who I was. Where are the links between my present self and how I first experienced the world? This is the question that seems to beckon the visitations. I have seen her alot lately, sort of hovering in the moment. When she is not jumping on trampolines, she is writing children's stories or reading novels or worrying about her grades or waiting to be loved or wondering who she will become. She says hello in unexpected places. I sat in a coffee shop this afternoon, and the dry, technical pages of my textbook succeeded in evoking her. She arrived with salted drops. I am not really a public crier, but there was something so bittersweet. I know her too well. This deep integration of my studies and my introspection leaves me never quite knowing when my brain decides to surrender to my heart and I am emotional in a coffee shop over D.W. Winnicott’s waxing on about "object relations" and “transitional phenomena."

Goodness, perhaps, I should have elected a career in engineering? (But then I would most certainly be crying over my calculus problems.)

Anne of Green Gables

The past two weekends I have allowed an old childhood splurge: a marathon of watching a passionate, idealistic red-headed girl. I sipped framboise beer (the closest thing we could find to Anne’s raspberry cordial!) and remembered childhood ideals shaped by L.M. Montgomery’s heroine. Here were my realizations:

1. You cannot go through life breaking slates over boys’ heads. However, it seems a small tragedy to go through life without the spunk to ever do so.
2. Decorum in most of our lives gets too much privilege- and honesty not enough.
3. When you are in the depths of despair, feel it with passion, but remember that plum puffs will help.
4. Gilbert Blythe, tragically, is a fictional character.
5. However, this ought not to dash all dreams of rain-drenched gazebos.
6. Read and think and love with vital imagination.
7. When you want to pray, sometimes it is best to leave your words, look up to heaven, and feel the overflow of your own soul.
8. There are Katherine Brooks in your life to love, and Josie Pyes to not take too seriously.
9. You cannot seek your ideals outside of yourself, but you may have to leave Avonlea to discover this.
10. There is a “book of revelation” in everyone’s life- when the love that has abided is seen.

In the midst of studying all my stacks of psychology books, I am pretty sure “Anne” was my heart’s necessary therapy. I walked down 3rd Avenue yesterday a bit more alive to cherry blossoms and raindrops and strangers’ faces and my own brewing soul.

Napping Epiphanies

My friend Andy likes to remind me that I cannot live life in an epiphany. This is good advice for me, but still rather disappointing every time I hear it. So much of life feels infused with wonder and beauty and divine splashes, that I am not quite sure what to do with the ordinary. Don’t get me wrong... my life cannot boast of much measure of verifiable excitement (she is the girl most likely studying on a Friday night). It’s just the little wonders are usually quite thrilling. I actually get adrenaline rushes reading my textbooks, like my heart dances when my dendrites fire. I eat strawberries like they're ambrosia. My 963rd sighting of Mt. Rainer still feels like a new crush, that captured sort of gaze you feel in your stomach.

I have been told that I have an unusually high pleasure barometer for the simple things. I think I just have a disposition to make love to life.

However, this passion has concerned me as of late. For what happens when I cannot extract the divine out of a moment? When the wonder is much more rare? When the moments of life just roll along, with little to report of ecstatic inspiration?

This is how my heart feels tonight. Like I have much to thrill me, but my heart is curled up taking a nap this month. I wonder if this is just the pathos of mid-winter in a city of grey skies, or whether I am getting to learn…once again…that it is ok not to strive all of life for the epiphanic. Sometimes I need the rest.

A Little Bit of Nonsense

I’ve been serious since I was about 6, so learning to appreciate nonsense is my necessary path of regression. Does anyone else remember not knowing what to do with the sandbox? Kindergarten’s play stations befuddled me. But somewhere in college, I began to remember that life is not just to be studied, but actually can be played. Now as a graduate student, a little bit of nonsense feels like survival.

I have learned in my lessons on playing that it is its own way of being. Playing is to be present in a moment, letting your ego go on vacation. It is to surrender the addiction of productivity. Release the impulse of purpose. Honor the spontaneous. Meander, open to the gifts not found in your pocket planner.

So, to get you started I will present exercises in nonsense. Two disclaimers here: one, I am talking about the non-chemically induced nonsense. Two, I am very much a girl, and these exercises might not be gender neutral. But here’s my top ten list to inspire your own:

1. Twirling. Yes, just like you think. Arms outstretched, get on your tiptoes and spin. This works best in wide-open spaces, like a park. I taught a friend to twirl recently…he was rather resistant I am afraid. At first, just little nervous twirls. He was hesitant to have passerbyers musing on his dradle-like like behavior. (This business of nonsense is impinged with all sorts of social worries). Finally, I coaxed him into a few free revolutions. I think he liked it.

2. Don a fancy hat. Need a say more? I went to an antique store recently, looking for the perfect wide brimmed, Hepburnesque black hat. I found it, complete with a shimmery veil that makes me feel mysterious. I probably tried on 2 dozen hats before I found her, which was a lovely time warp back to the dress up box.

3. Eavesdrop. People spill their souls at coffee shops- catch them in your notebook, verbatim if you can. (The other day I heard some lively grandmothers at Pete’s Coffee talking about some movie star’s abs. They turned to me a little sheepishly, worried about misguiding the younger generation. Then, they told me to go rent the movie.)


4. Skinny-dipping. It’s a bit like returning to the womb. The first time I jumped into a lake naked was in 8th grade, with full moon light and a silly group of girls. I would encourage this activity in the summer months, though for risk-takers, it can be year round. I admit I am a conservative skinny dipper, which means I am not a co-ed skinny deeper. But to each their own.


5. Open up your lungs. Sing very loudly and dramatically. Celene Dion anyone? The Lion King soundtrack is also very good. I know you must make fun of Britney Spears in public, but secretly you want to dance and sing like a grown up musketeer. Improvise from the kitchen drawer for your microphone.

6. Finger painting. Yes, even if you are not an artist. Get out the craft box and create something. Enjoy bold primary colors. Make a mess. Pretend you are Jackson Pollock. Stay with it even if you think it’s terrible. If you need to get serious, than pretend it’s a rorshok.

7. Puddle jumping. Playing in the rain in general is very good for your soul. So don your rain boots (you have them, right?) and jump. Get very wet. Maybe even cartwheel. Remember what is like to enjoy mud. Then come in for hot chocolate.

8. Bake cinnamon rolls. Get out yeast and milk and sugar, and remember how to knead. Spend an afternoon watching bread rise. (I credit this suggestion to Henry David Thoreau, who has a passing line in Walden about watching dough rise. I remember being astounded at the time that anyone had the life allowance for such unproductivity.)

9. Hang out in the children’s section of a local bookstore. Re-read Go Dog Go. Observe little faces. Reclaim the joy of story. Have a party with Amelia Bedelia, Bernstein Bears, Madeline. Clifford and Arthur. Remember Choosing your Own Adventure? Or exploring Where the Wild Things Are. Enjoy nostalgia.

10. Make a top ten list. I love making lists. Make a list about all the things to explore in your city that you haven’t quite gotten to. Or your secret dreams. Or your favorite people and why you love them. Or why life is beautiful. Stay with the process of list-making, even if you start to struggle at #3. Wait for what comes.

A Whim of Desire

There I was, en route on the 26, people watching out of the corner of my eye. I am also meandering the pages of my book, as if to announce my psychological space from fellow commuters. My furtive glances let people know my ambivalent message: Yes, I am noticing you. No, I am not available for significant interaction. Please agree to this necessary truce as we step into the microcosm of public transit.

I am reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed, another book to stir all my passions of social justice. I am reading about revolutions, when I notice two green shoes amble down the aisle.

At this point, my book becomes very intriguing, my gaze even more intent on the page, my peripheral vision suddenly quite acute.

Mr. Green Shoes sits down and takes out his Seattle Times. My furtive glances travel from shoes to retro orange sweater to newsies cap a top his head. I catch a quick profile, before returning to the revolution.

He notices me noticing him. I pretend not to notice. I notice him noticing me. He pretends not to notice. This is a classic bus crush. We go through Wallingford and Fremont and Belltown that way, coyly saying hello. Mr. Green Shoes is immersed in the paper and I am enraptured in my learning, all the while catching quick, intermittent profiles. At one point, Mr. Green Shoes banters with the Grandmother next to him on the bus, endearing her with his boyish charm just loud enough for me to hear. I am a psychology student; I know who he is really flirting with.

We discover we have the same stop. I get up first and make a motion for Mr. Green Shoes that he can go before me. We linger a slight moment, not sure what to do with our departure. To speak or not to speak? Mr. Green Shoes breaks the silence. "After you Madame,” he says with a flair of chivalry. "Thank you," I answer, ready to run out the door now that we have risked verbal expression. This is getting far too serious for me. Dashing off the bus, feet on pavement, I quickly turn in the opposite direction and hear Mr. Green Shoes blurt out, "Have a good day," as one final attempt. I turn around for a brisk moment to express the same notion, before clearly being on my way in the opposite direction. Good by, Mr. Green Shoes, I say to myself. Our short affair is over. But, after a quick ten strides, my curiosity gets the best of me and I pivot to catch another glimpse. He has also dashed off, only to find his curiosity peaking at the precise moment. So we stand there, 40 feet apart, staring at one another. Pretending not to, though our game of pretend is rather hopeless at this point. My senses kick in and I turn around for good. But at the next light, I can’t help it. I turn around to catch one more glimpse at the orange speck in the distance, but lo and behold, Mr. Green Shoes is experiencing the same anxiety of separation. We had both walked our respective blocks still unresolved. So here we are, staring at each other, a hundred feet apart. What do to? Walk towards each other? Be on our merry way? The moment lingers, rather sweetly and awkwardly, as two strangers stare at each other down 3rd Avenue.

So, what did I do Reader? I soaked in the morning sunshine, smiled at life, and slipped around the corner. The charming Mr. Green Shoes was a lovely encounter, but sometimes I like the encounters best that have no denouement.