Well, it's official.

Listen here, people. OUR JOURNEYS NEVER END, and I frankly have to imagine that that's the point. However, when they do diverge in new directions, which has recently and happily happened for me, I find it necessary to acknowledge that fact with open arms.

Therefore: NEW BLOG! Because a new chapter deserves a new start.

Here's to The Manifesto Effect, and everything after.

The Holstee Community Love Internship

Well, then. For those of you who haven't heard, because I haven't yet tackled you with my news or you haven't happened to pass by the particular mountaintop from which I've been shouting, in reference to my last two entries in this particular blog about change, I am now able to positively report: YOU ARE LOOKING AT HOLSTEE'S NEW COMMUNITY LOVE INTERN.

First things first: how did this happen?!

This past Christmas, in addition to many other thoughtful gifts, two of which brought a literal tear to my eye, cute Colin gave me a poster (now in a gold frame hanging at the very center of the wall I'm currently facing) that contained the profoundly perfect words of the Holstee Manifestio. Which are:

I'm an avid reader. I have been my entire life. In fact, somewhere buried in our family photo albums, you will find a picture of a three-year-old me attempting to read a book to my father, who is asleep on the couch beside me. Despite this early introduction to the written word, I can confidently say that no passage has ever moved me in the quite the same way as this Manifesto. It is honest. It is TRUE. It is, as they describe life to be, simple. And that's that.

Since December I had then been intrigued by Holstee as a whole, as a company, as a mission, as, in a way, a lifestyle. Seeing that poster every morning when I woke up was a constant reminder of what I wanted my life to look like and, more or less, how to do it.

I found out more about Holstee's beginning, their goals, their positive impacts (all of which you can, and should!, read more about here). I liked the things I was discovering about this newer company, I respected the ambition behind its foundation and the commitment to their original purpose. All in all, when I tried to imagine myself being a part of a place or a company I am proud to associate with, when I think about using my gifts and interests for a reason, when I hoped to find an avenue that excited me, Holstee fit the bill. No matter where else that revelation took me, it was encouraging to know: there is something out there for me, too.

And so, when I discovered (via Twitter, bless its little tweeting heart) that Holstee was on the hunt for an intern (an intern that, quite magically, did not have to be a current college student, bless them as well), I instantly decided that, with all the other stabs in the dark I was taking in terms of finding work, this was finally an opportunity I felt confident about trying for, one I felt incited to learn from, one that kept me checking my phone and email for a response.

After two weeks, two phone calls, and one successful visit to the Big Apple (do I have to start calling it that now?), Holstee has graciously brought me on board to their intimate team, all the members I have met so far being both welcoming and down to earth, their conversation and questions being all humbling, thought-provoking, and inspiring.

As most of you know, this has been one hell of a journey, this post-graduate life. It is nothing like I thought it would be, not in any way at all, and that realization has been both a relief and a head-on collision. I've been on this road, ever winding, since 2009 (ironically the year that Holstee got off the ground) and I can safely say that I have learned more about myself and the person I want to be in these three years of floundering than I have in all my years of education combined. And, if I were to make a solid guess, I would say that portion of this pilgrimage, the one where I continue to guide myself as I go, doesn't quite end here, if it in fact ends anywhere at all.

I'm at the end of something while I am simultaneously standing on the edge of another beginning, a new field of newness, an opportunity for change. For a moment, I have to wonder if all of this, this sudden commencement, brings me to the altogether abrupt end of this particular blog, of this sense of musing over what's to come. Is this next step a part of the whole or does the road, though only this leg of it, end here?

As I have said, through this experience, at the highest and lowest points of it, I have learned an astonishing amount about myself, about all of us. One of the the largest and most potent being that we are constantly being reborn, constantly challenged, given the option to stay or go, fight or flee, grow or stubbornly remain the same. We're never through with learning about ourselves and our world and how those two phenomena (exactly) are meant to intermix, what we've ended up here to do, what our motivations and responsibilities contain. It's a lifelong expedition, one that brings us equally to both joy and weariness, and that is nothing if not pure hope for us all.

After all, as Holstee would have us remember, "This is your LIFE." Something entirely your gift and entirely your burden, something to be cherished and welcomed with extreme gratitude. Taking these exact sentiments in going forward with this new opportunity, it is safe to say that change comes with persistence, with patience, with the ever holding on when the rope rapidly frays beneath your grip. And, now what? Keep holding, keep moving on. Because this is going to be good.

More to come.

The Morning Pages

I'm always writing something down. I'm typing up thoughts for a blog entry in my phone, I'm scribbling something in the back of my notebook, an idea I couldn't let get away, I'm adding depth and real life to my characters, I'm pulling over while driving to write one particularly moving thought on the back of an old receipt (if I'm meeting you somewhere, and I'm late, this is probably the reason why), I'm underlining the best parts of a story, I'm jotting down the outline of last night's dream which makes me nearly positive I'm losing my sanity. 

All in one day, however, probably my favorite method of collecting my thoughts is through the suggestion of author and teacher Julia Cameron, an exercise called "The Morning Pages." This practice came to me through one of her books titled The Artist's Way. In this book, Cameron basically walks you through the steps of regaining your creativity, of allowing yourself time to do the things you love, the things that make you who you are, to not guilt yourself out of enjoying the freedom to paint, to sketch, to write, to do the thing that move you, whatever it may be. Cameron gently insists that one of the reasons we distance ourselves from the artist's life is because our minds are too overloaded, are constantly not living in the moment, are thinking of other things that need to be done, are concocting to-do lists and rating free time and simple enjoyment as extras, as things we don't get to do until our chores are completed, until our lives are in order. Which, simply stated, will never be. We can be more organized, more focused and task-oriented, but nothing ever falls together all at once. If we're waiting for that particular moment, Cameron says, the artistic side of us never had a chance. 

In order to avoid this catastrophic case of routine, of deciding that some things are necessary and others aren't crucial enough (the irony being that they are the most important!), of putting everything else before the things we love the most, Cameron suggests that we spill our guts onto paper. Which, for me, as someone who likes to write, not only gives me yet another outlet to craft my words, but brings me to a sense of (perhaps temporary) calm about what is happening in my life. The morning pages are all your own; they are yours to admit what you'd like without over-thinking it. Cameron is clear that it is not a diary, not necessarily a journal of your day or mindless list-making for what's ahead. First thing in the morning, it is your chance to let it out, to make sense of it (sort of) and release it, allowing for other things, other projects, other thoughts, to take precedence. The first few times I tried it, I felt a little strange. Mostly because, as Cameron described, I didn't have to think very hard about what to write. One little sentence, one shortened notion, and suddenly my pen was flying, my sleepy-headedness was gone, I almost couldn't move my hand fast enough to keep up with my brain, to keep up with all the things the page urged out of me. 

I finished The Artist's Way about a year ago, and for some reason, and one I am grateful for, the morning pages stuck. I admit, I am not as diligent about it as I was while reading Cameron's book. But I sense a real difference in myself on the days when I make the time for it, fifteen minutes of clarity, and the days that I don't. Lately, more than I ever, I have been picking up that little orange notebook, bolting up out of bed to tell myself the truth. And even though Cameron might slap my wrist for this one, for sharing a piece of what she deems is specifically private, I wrote something the other day, at the silent hour of six in the morning, that has not since left my mind. Not for its profundity, not for its brilliance, not because they are the finest words ever written. But the morning pages coax out of you your most honest moments. Which for me, was this: 

Change is coming. I can actually tangibly feel it. It's sitting in the palm of my hand, and I have it now. This particular scenario, I hope. I hope. But if not, something soon. Change is coming. 

I don't know if it is the return of hope that brings me here, the newness in the air, the greenness all around, the positive energy that keeps me humming, or a combination of all of these things. But I think that was one of the only times my morning pages contained a clear affirmation, not just a hope, a wish for the future. Which to me, is a change all unto itself.

P.S. Going into New York City this Tuesday, at 11:30 AM, to meet with one of the co-founders of the company where I hope to intern. Feeling nervously good, and ready ready ready. More to come next week. 

the return of hope

Some days more than others, this blank page before me has more qualities of an enemy than a source of promise, of inspiration. It can stare me down with a disgusted, daring look in its eye, arms crossed to my advancement; it knocks me down a time or two when I have to reach for the delete button, when I've bothered to thread some words together only to realize the nonsense that prevails, the structure faulty, the story hollow.

Sometimes the written page is just as formidable. My own words, words as I was at one time pleased with, unprepared to share but proud to have crafted, being re-read weeks later, even years, and suddenly I am embarrassed to find them printed in a pile in my closet. I wonder if anyone has ever stumbled upon them and felt sorry for me, wanted to tell me the truth about my talent. Or worse, the written page that isn't mine, the caustically simple words of some great poet, a best-selling author, between the lines saying, you'll never write this way. You won't figure out the just how to say things like they can.

Billy Collins, one of my favorite poets, former national poet laureate (can you imagine the honor? the pressure I'd feel on my brain?), says in his newest collection, "When a man asked me to look back three hundred years/ Over the hilly landscape of America,/ I must have picked up the wrong pen,/ The one that had no poem lurking in its veins of ink." In my reality, if Billy Collins knows, we can all admit we have felt the same.

If we could only remember, however, that every time you have a reached a point that you believe to be the lowest, change is on its way. There is always a newness hurtling towards you, the air is heavy with it, an approaching revelation, an open door and just the push to get you through it, an idea or a knock or an answer striking you directly between the eyes, something never to be un-seen or un-thought, and the hill suddenly goes up again.

For the first time, in a long time, I have genuinely re-learned what it is like to feel hopeful. There is something to be said for the moment when you go from wanting better things to truly believing they are possible. I have had a lot of kind words over the years, occasionally of the tough love variety, that have encouraged me that life doesn't always stay the same, that we persevere always and forever, and that the changes that endurance can bring will just show up one day, plainly and for all to see, as if it was part of the plan all along. Because, as I know now, it is.

So no matter what happens between now and next Tuesday, the point is this: when you can't anymore, you can. And I think it might have to be the sort of thing you can't really know until you stand there, facing into it, seeing it, literally and figuratively, through your very own weary eyes. When you've reached what you believe a solid standstill, when you can't figure out what's next; when the options have supposedly met exhaustion, when the wells of creativity have drawn up empty; when the page, blankness and all, looms over you, demanding what you have to say but the words don't come: there is hope.

After nearly three years of job-searching, I finally have an inkling of possibility. And as it turns out, an inkling is more than enough. For today, it's all I need.

Details, when I have them, to come.

a blankness

Who will teach me to write? A reader wanted to know. The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time's scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch, but touching it nonetheless. Because acting is better than being here in mere opacity. The page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut, the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life's strength; that page will teach you to write.  

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life 

Today, this particular wisdom, that's the only thing getting me through.

after the (physical) storm

Well, the past few days have been more than enough to keep me on my feet, or more accurately, flat on my back. While I have been boasting (sort of) the fact that my body has kept it together since 2009, laying down not one sniffle or sneeze since, the last five immediate days have humbled my health and my record, as I came down with a thing or two that kept me from writing, among all my other regularities.

It feels strange to be out of rhythm, out of my own schedule and timing and agenda. I had many, many things I planned to do, naturally, work-wise and other, having the full weekend off, beautiful weather, ideas to foster. Not so, said my germ-infested system, so amazingly complex yet terrifyingly faulty. Though the thing I want most while sick is to feel the return of my strength, it is profoundly showing, in any moment of weakness, how delicate our humanity can become.

Okay, okay, that being said, I am now much closer to feeling like my normal self, and all the good and bad that comes with that normality. I am up, walking around, eating again (THANK GOD), I can breathe out of both nostrils (sort of), and my temperature is at a blessed and comfortable ninety-eight point six. Possibly with this sudden drop in the weather, even a little lower.

With no huge profundities to reveal, I find that the most I have learned from this five day stint is that the curves never stop, and the reasons to give in to what's wearing on us never run out. I'm not saying I should have been up at my desk, ransacking the sites and putting the finishing touches on my own version of the greatest story ever told. It has a nice romanticism to it, of course, that I could say things like, oh, I had a touch of influenza, but I had no choice but to persevere. Well, sure. Still, in the end, the body knows what it needs, even with the nagging misgivings my brain was apt to feel. But, whatever our plans are, there has to be an ability to bend, to flow, to adapt to the inevitable switches in the system, to go with the changes when they come. To stop, to hurry forward, or in my case, to wait. And rest. And drink a boatload of tea.

As someone who will search for the meaning in everything, from a pageful of poetry to a peanut butter sandwich, I will never cease to uncover the reasons for why things are the way they are, for why we have to learn this or become that. Even if I am only forcing a lesson upon myself, it is that exact sense that both tames and sparks my belief, that speaks to me in lonely quiet, that propels me onward, arms open wide.

one question.

Day by day, I find it easier (and more relentlessly truth-telling) to admit that perspective is everything. It is what keeps us or kills us, it is what changes situations from devastating to asking, what can we do about this? Perspective is, all in all, an opportunity. The choices ranging from one drastic end of the spectrum to another, we have the ability to seek the good in what is otherwise the very worst.

That being said, my perspective lately seems to falling short, which is more than putting it nicely. My original intent was to say that it blows, more or less colorfully.

I'm not blind to the goodness. I see it, often and always. In fact, most days, it is staring me dead in the face, finger pointed towards my chest as if to say, go ahead and deny that I'm here. See what happens.

I am not one to shirk the responsibility of counting my blessings. I do it whenever I have the chance, whenever I am reminded of them, in both small and huge ways. I am always, though often unseen to most, and only occasionally begrudgingly, in a grateful state of mind.

Despite this hopeful gratitude, common life invades. It is too obvious to say that problems will arise in even the most blissful avenues we occupy, and, even more obviously, the same goes for those areas for which we feign tolerance. But, with that opportunity to choose brightly intact, we must constantly guide and re-guide our minds to better things, to what we love, to what we cherish and honor and adore.

It isn't easy. In fact, I find it even more difficult than this fight I've being putting up against the current economy. In my elitist senses, I tend to believe my mind, and its negative influences, are prone to wander more than all others. I constantly find myself redirecting my mentality, over and over, each day I'm here. Like anything that tends to stray, some child following whatever it finds most interesting for the present moment, wonder-enhanced, I have to reach out, gently tugging for attention, and bring myself back.

My deviation is often not so innocent as the description I implied. It's more like running in place, always craning my neck behind me, making sure I keep ahead of myself and everyone else, being caught up in what others have achieved first, where I'm not headed, what I haven't done.

All of this, and I more than ever believe in the perfect timing of all things, that moments come together to surprise us, to equip us, to gently shove us along with even the slightest wince of inspiration, which is almost always more than enough. This particular sign of grace came to me via social media, an industry I have to believe that one day, if it doesn't already, rule the world. A video, retweeted by one of my favorites, Holstee, comes from the creative, honesty-seeking minds at Fifty People, One Question. The theme is, in each city, to seek fifty willing individuals to provide whatever answer first comes to them to the question asked. Simple brilliance; here is the take from Brooklyn, New York.

What I like best about watching this is that it nearly forces you to put whatever you're facing into, ahem, perspective. When we are able to choose the things we hope for, admit the things we've let go by, or realize (oh to realize) how lucky we already are, life feels simple. It doesn't feel perfect, but it makes more sense. And even if we have to fight to focus on such, it seems to me that it's a fight we can win, and a fight from which we can only grow stronger.

what i like to do.

I feel there's been an overflow of fluctuation lately: in the weather, in our moods (HELLO), in the way things are going, splitting off in an unknown direction at the last second, all tangled with that jerky feeling you get on the splintery tracks of some carnival ride, first up, then around, then suddenly you're upside down regretting the decision you made to get on board in the first place.

When things are going this way (and I suppose, in a way, they always-kinda will), deciding what would be most productive of me is an altogether difficult task. Unable to choose, the results are usually this: I scroll through half a dozen pages of job openings, understand less than 4% of them, apply for 1 that seems mildly attainable though not desirable, due to heavily encoded criteria description, the 2.5 hour commute from my high school home, the fact that I imagine the office to have fluorescent lighting, etc. After said train wreck, where I inevitably eat my weight in something like, I don't know, Cheez-its, I start wondering if my time would be better spent invested in something else. That something else always ends up being my own writing, which I assume would have to be more productive than obsessing, or despairing, over the lack of change on my horizon. Not always, of course, or forever. But one more week of silence, one more day when no one ever calls, not even to say, "Thanks, but no thanks," and I think there won't be enough pretzel wraps in the world to console me.

If you have ever spoken to me, even if only once, you would know that pretzel wraps are my comfort food of choice, an addiction that can only be properly explained face-to-face, with no apologies.

Anyway: it's safe to say that frustration can set in only if you let it. Only if you let it ruminate, only if you welcome it every time it comes by, demanding to be recognized and acknowledged and fretted over. All things I have become pro-ish at, these days. It's not constructive, of course, mentally or motivationally. It doesn't help. I suppose it doesn't always hurt, either, for the sake of argument. There have been instances where frustration is the exact push I need to continue the fight. When the frustration is from the fight itself, however. Well, then I'm stumped.

Still, even though I have yet to peruse the current openings today, due to other forms of hard and intentionally distracting work (I have spring-cleaned ALL THINGS), it's rarely an activity that has left me feeling hopeful, at least lately. I can't stop doing it, I know, and I won't, but what I want to believe is that other forms of dedication can remind us of what we're meant for, can inspire us to carry on through the wasteland.

That being said, when there are times I just can't bring myself to focus on what an assistant copywriter does (and no, it is never just "to copy-write" and it is never just plainly stated or explained), I have been doing my best to commit to my own writing. Which, yes, includes these particular blogs, which have saved me in more ways than one, but also my writing in other forms, in poetry, in feeble description of place, of heart, of real characters, of observation. As it turns out, writing this way is monumentally and often terrifyingly introspective. Even just jotting down a few thoughts in the morning, when your mind hasn't fully registered who and what you are today, will knock you back with their honesty, with the pure simplicity of the ways our brains can wander out and spill our guts, even before coffee.

I keep up this kind of writing for many reasons, and among them is so I can (continue) to find out what happens to the people I've made up. They're nowhere near from complete, of course, and it's a nice opposition to that feeling you have when you finish a really great novel, story, letter: you almost wish it didn't have to end, because you've fallen for the characters, for their charm and real voice and outright flaws. You want to know what else happens to them, and you scan the next (blank) page for any clues, you keep an ear out for rumors of a series. Despite knowing this sense several times over, I find the only connection of characters I ever appreciated were Salinger's subtle Glass family ties.

This is different, though, and hugely so. As far as I'm concerned, it can go on forever. I can write the eternal American novel. The only problem: the whole write-what-you-know card is a bit two-sided. Yes, it makes for believable prose and sincere story-telling. It also, however, forces you to tell your truth. And as it turns out, people, my truth doesn't allow me to constantly create sunny fictional characters or situations. It happens that the written life, when done honestly, is a difficult one.

Sometimes I find myself stopping for a break, or for a day, and wanting to walk away from these people, and these places, all of which are a combination of my imagination and my reality. Sometimes, they're really really awful. Sometimes, I see a lot of myself in them, which is really no different than the latter statement. It's hard to see yourself in printed black and white. It's a tough realization that what you know, when all put before you, is a less than perfect gospel. It's an irony, that you write to avoid your other commitments, and it turns out that those commitments and problems and roadblocks have surfaced in your story, have fueled the plot, have invaded your personalities, and here you are, trying to describe the exact feeling you daily fight, trying to find a synonym for yourself. What you put down, whether you like it or not, is a version of your own experience, suffered and joyed through the eyes of the person you've literally bequeathed it upon, this person you've both blessed and cursed all at once.

What. A. Circle. As one of my (current, and perhaps always) favorite songwriters, many of which happen to share the same namesake, Ben [Kweller], drawls: I don't know what to do, but I know what I like to do. So, there you have it. I like to write, and I don't know what to do with it. So I write to escape that predicament, and the stories I concoct end up echoing the way things are. So maybe I'm not writing a story about a girl who wears a visor and systematically hates the way the world works. Maybe I have.

The point is, it's all leaning in the same direction. Whether I write to avoid work, I work to find writing, I find hope and frustration in both. Maybe, in my own writing at least, a little more hope. Not because finding my exact sentiments on a screen in front of me is necessarily comforting. But it has forced me to change my perspective, ever so slightly, it has made me engage from an outside view, from the creator's eye, from the one pulling the puppet strings. So make it all perfect, I want to say. Fix their problems, solve the criminality of it all, tie up the loose ends, make everyone live happily and blissfully. But how then, I have to ask, will they ever learn?

several learned things

The only thing to do, when there is yet to be no sense of news or spark of change, is to keep going anyway. The moment the discouragement prompts you to give up is the exact time to brush it off, and push on. 


This entry is only to briefly outline the few things I have found myself learning this week; pretty tough lessons in all, but ones I will learn to cherish I am sure, some later rather than sooner. 


The first, and one I am oh-so-blessed to daily realize, is the little ways we can be shown support by the people we love. Whether that is the mention of our names, the reminder that they are thinking of us, or the ability they have to make us laugh, even at the cursed hour of 4 am, when we are on our ways to the work we dread: 


A picture message received to me from my cute Colin, of an excerpt from a coffee enthusiast's blog called My Daily Coffee. The blogger, Mike, photo-documents each time he enjoys (or despises) an espresso, from specialty shops to airport terminals. My favorite truth so far being this:

Oh, Mike is funny. And he is right. And though LAX is surely not among the reasons why, I have started to miss Los Angeles. 


Another small lesson comes from the change (or lack of change) we can feel with each passing day, how one minute everything comes rushing back as no different than it was ten years ago, that we are the same people, that we haven't learned a thing, that we haven't grown at all, that the world has turned on its tilt and we have stood still on it. Still, despite everything, despite what feels inflexibly invariable, I came across a funny picture while scanning through old albums. Me, on my sixteenth birthday (the sweetness of it debatable), coming from my very first job (of course, at a coffee shop, the enterprise that seems to have temporarily sealed my fate), wearing the same awful pants that I wore to my current job, up until they were recently deemed anti-dress-code.

Oh, little girl. If you only knew now how much you would now love and now ache. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't recognize this person anymore, any more than she might recognize me. But the irony of it killed me only slightly, and only in the best possible way. 


The last lesson worth mentioning, and probably the biggest, comes from the book I just started reading by Lauren F. Winner called Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. I know, I know. It sounds self-helpy, as it must, but the fact is any and all books are of self-help to me. I can learn almost anything, the most surprising of things, I can find a connection or a truth or meaning in those pages, in any pages: I can be reaffirmed, reminded, challenged, hung to dry, brought to tears. This book in particular, however, was brought to me in a much more mysterious way, in a moment I can't explain, as it practically fell from the shelf to my hands. 


Winner's caustic sense of faith begins to falter, more or less, when she realizes her marriage is failing. It's not a memoir, she states openly. Rather, it is an admittance, it is a struggle penned by honesty, and one she hopes will resonate with others feeling the same sense of loss: loss of self, loss of direction, loss of meaning of it all. Only several chapters in, I find myself constantly thinking, I get that, Lauren. I feel that all the time. I think, in a way, eventually, we all do. 


Still with much farther to go, in numbers of pages and otherwise, so far her words have found their way in and made my heart break, not only with a common sadness but with an understanding, with the relief that someone else has felt this way before. Hearing it (or reading it) has brought me a reassurance in which I had lost belief. 

"Some days I am not sure if my faith is riddled with doubt or whether, graciously, my doubt is riddled with faith. And yet I continue to live in a world the way a religious person lives in the world; I keep living in a world that I know to be enchanted, and not left alone. I doubt; I am uncertain; I am restless, prone to wander. And yet glimmers of holy keep interrupting my gaze." 

I don't know what it means, always, to nurture our faith, to remind ourselves that better things come, to choose perseverance, to stand strong, to think positively, to focus on our blessings rather than our burdens. All in all, I am not the best at any of these things. But I have been grateful for the written reminder to try, and the small joy of yet another book I can't bring myself to put down. 


That being said, all things are as they were a week ago. I am ungratefully employed and I am on the search, today and every day, until I find the door hanging open, just wide enough, to let me in. I have a feeling, a rather strong one, that moments such as these, will be the ones to carry me through. 

the middle

"Middles might be said to be under-theorized. There is an abundance of work on opening and closure, but very little discussion of what comes in between. This is obviously because the theory of the middle is taken simply to be the theory of the work as a whole. Beginnings and endings are marked points within the work, but the middle is just the work itself with those points lopped off. There is, however, perhaps more to be said."

These words were spoken by Don Fowler, an English classicist, said to be a pioneer in the area of modern literary theory, the thought of literary theory's beginnings an entry entirely unto itself. None the less, I find myself, upon reading these words, over and over again by now, stopped still in my tracks, back to the wind of the world, finding the truth seeking deep, flowing forth, being real.

It's true, we seem to have no time or tolerance for the process of things. We are either excited to begin a new project, a new chapter, a new book in life, a new idea, or we are itching for the end of it, we are counting down the minutes, we are thrusting ourselves into the next moment or movement before we have completed our current stage, we have ignored every and all good (and bad) signs in order to get ahead, we are cheating ourselves a little, racing for the finish line after cutting through the woods or tripping up others along the way.

It's no one's fault, really, that we have grown to think this way, that we have been trained to expect immediate results or that we feel so caught up in what's coming that we forget to consider the importance of right now. We fret, and freak out, over the next ten years of our lives, totally missing what's before us, completely unaware that today is the stepping stone of tomorrow, of those next ten years or twenty, that without going forward with now, without self-awareness in the present, we will find ourselves in the same place later on, or always, we fear.

I'm not denying that it sounds like a load, especially when I am the the queen of waiting for the future to hurry up and get here. In all our impatience, we are demanding marked posts of accomplishment, we are expecting omens or warnings or welcomings. It's too bad that in our frantic search for these things, we are flat out missing the actual direction for which we seek. Would it be so crazy to wonder if the sign is the middle itself? I know, I know. Tell that to a dying man, wandering in the same circle, in the same desert, sure by now he will never make it out alive. Tell him that to find your way forward is to stand still, to embrace what seems to be destroying us, to find peace within the darkest part of our journey. It's not what I want to hear, either. And it might not even be true, at least from every perspective. But just in case, in the scenario where the valley is perhaps not our permanent dwelling place, but the place where we might be formed for the next part of moving forward, rather than our usual ultimatums, perhaps we should only stop and ask: what then can we learn from the wilderness?

hats off to you

Alright. While I don't necessarily believe in retractions, in print or in LIFE unless you are truly and deeply remorseful, I would perhaps like to make an amendment to an earlier discouraging statement I made about bad shoes. (See this entry for details.)

Rock-bottom is more like a branded baseball cap. A brimmed accessory (and now mandatory uniform requirement) to further confirm that yes, this is my real life, yes, I do still have the job of a high school student and the resume to prove it, and yes, facing your nine-hour work day just got monumentally more difficult over the inclusion of a mere head adornment, a physical and embarrassing reminder of the fact that you aren't exactly going anywhere fast.

I know, I know. As I discussed with a dear co-worker the other day, perhaps it isn't the worst thing in the world, or the end of it. But don't let anyone guilt you out of the sore points in your life. No, I'm not saying it would be better if we all dwelt on our hardships and pouted in the face of all the things we disliked about living. But the second someone tells you it could be worse, even though they MIGHT BE RIGHT, my favorite comeback is sure, but things could also. be. better.

Even though the hat, may it be damned, symbolizes a whole lot freaking more than what it looks like, there is a point in all situations where we face a choice. In my particular instance, I was faced with three (yes, three) options, all of which were, pardon my dictation, total shit. No option promised me any reward, any compensation for what has been endured, and all I wanted was some confirmed sense of gratification, whether now or soon coming.

Well, tough, said the world, tucking the cap snug onto my head, not an easy task considering the mane of hair which I daily wrestle into submission. Tough and tougher.

Even though the heart of me, the piece of my being that keeps this whole thing going, beats RUN:RUN:RUN, over and over again, and even though of all options before me escaping seemed like the most doable one, the one I had the best chance of surviving, the one I could see the instant benefit to, my feet, somehow momentarily separate from the rest of me, were planted firm where they stood.

Why stay, I wanted to ask them. What for?

Well, certainly not for monetary compensation, the rest of me concluded. Sure, a paycheck is a paycheck is a paycheck, but it's not as if I'm making millions in order to counteract the flaws in this siren-clad system. Decency? Surely not that, I scoffed. I mean, look at me, I could say, pointing in any direction to my uniform resembling a Catholic school boy, this apron of awkward length, and of course, this newest addition to my humiliation, the hat. Not for the experience, not for the reward of learning, right? If this isn't going to assist me in getting where I want to go, if it isn't going to push me in the right direction, or perhaps any direction at all, WHY STAY, I demanded of myself. Why stay.

Okay, okay. While I do believe in a time and a place for all things, and that knowing there is always a point when it is acceptable to stand up and say ENOUGH, the truth is, running away from what we label as "suffering" or "difficulty" isn't the always the answer. At least, not the instant one. Though we all have tolerance of different levels, sometimes what gets us beyond suffering is the way we get through it, not the way we back away from it. For most people, you will know when you have reached your limits, and I was sure I was at the brink of mine, at the very ends of the earth, dangerously close to falling off the edge. Though I don't expect everyone to understand it, it was probably the first time in my life (in my life? really?) that I wasn't on my own side, that I had no faith in my ability to conquer something, to get past an obstacle, to brace myself to walk headfirst through the fire.

The fact is that part of what makes life worth experiencing (even the parts we wish we could skip over) is the fact that it challenges us. It expects us to cave, so we shouldn't. We can be more surprising than that. I would like to be more surprising than that. We should be faking life out, we should be coming back with vengeance, we should be as strong as we claim (and hope) that we are.

I don't know. I don't feel any sense of relief or reward, not yet anyway. In fact, I feel mostly the same. But I am hoping that facing it, this literal and metaphorical fear of mine, is the beginning of something better, if nothing more than a new way of viewing things, or of viewing myself. The second you do the thing you were convinced (and everyone will tell you so) you could not do, the world is wide open again. It can feel pretty good to know you are stronger than you give yourself credit for, even when the situation is staring down at you, snipping at the rope from which you swing. I just remind myself, when I can, when I'm capable: Don't let go yet, don't let go yet.

waiting out the weather

Question, world: When did having happiness and having everything become interchangeable?

I do, often terribly, try to practice patience with our headstrong, speed-driven planet. I find that our particular age is one of instant-everything. We are instructed, from the womb onward, to expect all things IMMEDIATELY. We gripe over waiting a few minutes in line, we snap viciously at those who (we say) have wasted our time, time we would have likely only spent anxiously tapping our feet elsewhere, eating while driving while making lists while moving while texting while breathing, everything requires being scheduled in or out, nothing unplanned is acceptable, nothing that takes over an hour is bearable. And I find that, most awful of all, we can be guilty of such behavior even when we don't want to be, even when we don't agree with or want to be a part of it whatsoever. It's why we scold ourselves for wishing for free time to do, well, whatever the hell we want, and why we constantly berate ourselves for not completing our to-do lists, always ever-long.

I know that it seems crazy, counterintuitive, non-sensical, and strange compared to that particular culture of calamity, but our happiness is choose-able, and not necessarily able to be tied up in that monstrosity of a mess, should you dare to believe it.

It should be known that I myself am a massive failure in this regard, and do often, if not daily, forget that I have the eternal option of both happiness and discouragement. It's tough, though, since the world we live in that thrives on tearing you down, that operates on the rule that everything is inadequate, you are never quite up to par, the standards will always hang out of your reach, etcetera forever and ever.

This ties in to the current hunt for employment BECAUSE going out into the world is like blindly walking into a massacre. It is brutally unfair. It has no choice but to let you down, and it is meant for a fighting spirit of only the strongest sort. That, coupled with everyone's impatience that you get on with already, that you hurry up and be something, and no wonder we're feeling beyond frazzled, out of our heads, and disappointed with ourselves. The fact is, we're being thrown to the proverbial den of lions, and everyone is here for the show, standing on the edge of the pit peering down as if to say, Hurry it up already, give in our get out.

It's more than easy to develop an attitude of defeat in conditions like these. Why not, really. Even if happiness is our choice and we know it, how could it even seem possible to flow in that direction when all of our circumstances dictate the opposite? Could it really be that we are not our surroundings, we are not made of what breaks us, but rather we are the stronger (yes, STRONGER) result of having been broken?

I get it, though. After enough is enough, we start to get a bit riled up, somewhat upset, our distress turns bitter and we're frankly feeling permanently pissed off. Right? By that point, it only seems appropriate that we form a fighting stance, push everyone out of our way and announce,

"Okay, so I've learned my lessons here. Now what?"

Well. Chances are we aren't as ready as we assume, or presume, to be. If we're demanding a way out as soon as things are no longer to our liking, we have probably yet to absorb the truth that is there for us, we have most likely not yet found the real reason for that particular burden. We probably, though I fear to say it, have much farther to go.

The fact is, learning isn't meant to be easy. And fighting the frame we've been trained to operate by, ie. now now now, is a difficult thing to suddenly give up and start denying. We have to renounce our need for instant gratification? We have to realize the world has indoctrinated us to bypass life and always want more? Well. That, my friends, is going to be tough.

I believe there is a real and significant difference between wanting what's best and being willing to work (and wait) for it. I mean, we've all cut corners in one way or another. Two-in-one shampoo + conditioner, we own car-ready cell phone chargers, we make meals of frozen food, we bargain shop, we speak in initials and abbreviate slang, for God's sake. But there are, truly and GLADLY, some things that only time can marinate, only a bona fide valley can prepare you for, and only humility can teach you.

If the only thing you can gather from it all is that it's okay to go a little easier on yourself, that doing your best is not always everyone else's version of "best" (alright, in fact, it never is), that being focused on something doesn't drop it on your doorstep, but the vision is the first step of any and all reality. Lose that, and you risk the hope to keep it going.

The antsy side of me, the side that has been trained to expect all places to be equipped with drive-thrus (oh, heaven help me, goddamn the drivethrus), for all things to be at one-click access, that being put on hold is outrageous, is ready to start moving. I'm not sure, that despite even these heavy realizations, that fact will ever change. I feel that we're allowed to be ready for revolution, that's part of it, the very first, perhaps the beginning of it all. But the preparation matters, too. And if there's a reason for it, then I suppose it would be best to sit still (can you imagine?) and start listening. When all other options seem hopeless, and hopelessness is one hard fight to master, despite all things before us we can sit up, hands cupped to our ears, waiting to hear the hum.

Update (9:03 AM): Today that hum came in the form of what I have to believe was mercy. One phone call, and things are looking up.

perspective knocking.

As it turns out, the whole when-a-door-closes-a-window-opens adage bears some significant truth.


The windows, however, might be small, perilously shattered, looking out onto an unidentified landscape, a horizon that seems more sinister than inviting.


Or, according to a recent dream of mine, the window could be placed directly above the door that seems forever locked, just out of reach, in an empty room with no object to assist you in reaching the dangerous height of said window.


Honestly, my dreams can terrify me, but sometimes they are so comically and contemptuously obvious that I can only wake up with a smirk at my brain's own lame attempt at symbolism. (Lame only on occasion, though. For the most part, my dreams certify my insanity.)


Still, if the fact is that the opportunities are there, and we are just standing around beating our heads or our hands against the same shut door, then we could benefit from taking a step backward, and seeing what else is around us. If anyone knows what it feels like to assume you have exhausted all options, the last thing on your list being to come up with another strategy or life assessment, trust me. I could write a book on the subject, and chances are that I someday will.


The recent window I've discovered in my own life is that place, though it may seem to have its hand in everything, is mostly irrelevant. It's helpful in certain scenarios, sure, it puts you nearer or further in terms of miles, but what you have where you are is up to you. I have lived in this particular area of New Jersey for most of my life, the beginning half as a kid growing up, and now, mostly not of my own choosing but of a need for a roof over my head, and two parents who are willing to give me one.


I think we can both oversimplify the idea of home as much as we can stress it to a point of becoming near meaningless, piling so much responsibility on it that it crumbles and cracks under the weight of our expectations.


As an aspiring writer you might think, well New Jersey can't be all that bad, right? It's New York City adjacent, it poses opportunities in Pennsylvania, there are even some major magazines based in this state (who knew?), etc. All true things. And even though I've been lately mulling over the idea of a giant move (I mean cross-country huge), and getting really excited about, well, who knows what exactly (but I mean, majorly and seriously excited to see new areas and get lost and re-find my favorite coffee shops and parks and start a new job and LIVE), there is still something to be said for the ground I meet with every day, with the way things are right now.


That being said, it seems that every time you breathe deep and do your best not to worry, to accept a little bit, to try without making yourself crazy, new ideas begin to grow. New discoveries are made and your eyes are opened to the same things in a way you never thought you'd see them, and suddenly, just as you thought everything was destined to stay the same for just a while longer, things are moving on again.


I would be more than prepared to move out into the world, were I given the real and right opportunity to do so. If I was told to be ready any minute now, packed up and be on the road tomorrow (or TONIGHT), I could do it, no questions asked. The fact that the world is big and we're given time to explore it is no coincidence. And neither is this unmistakable feeling of not yet being grounded, of thinking day and night on the ways to move about, to see things bathed in newness, to taking, you know, the less-traveled path. 


Still, in the meantime, there is nothing that stops us from imaginative ways of making our current lives equally exhilarating, wherever we may find ourselves. For all the things we might believe are only mundane, for all the things we assume have no chance to surprise us, we might find ourselves someday soon crawling through that wide-open window to a place we never really knew. 

continuity.

There's a funny thing about misdirection, or what we assume to be a diversion from the main road of our lives. It doesn't really reveal itself until you're fifty feet deep into it, until you're in the middle of the woods of it all by the same tree you saw an hour before, while the evening light (of LIFE) is starting to fade, while you wander around in the same circles, drive past the same landmarks, see nothing new and then realize,


Ta-da! I think we're lost.


Or, I think I'm lost. Though, if you were to take a moment to look about you, I'm sure that you'd see you're not alone in this unforgiving wilderness, as ironic as that turns out to be.


Not knowing where you are, or how you got there for that matter, poses two opportunities. Fear, which may lead to curling up, protesting reality, refusing to go on, indignation, etc. Or, more positively, exploration, or the need to find your own way out of this mess, preferably into something new rather than something tried, which you may do with determination, arrogance, anger, or aimlessness. (All options tend to become categorized if you think about them long enough, as I always seem to do.)


No matter which way you go, however, I believe a lot of what stops us from taking one option or the other is not knowing where we are going to end up. Either way, we assume, could end in disaster.


For wanting things to change as badly as we claim, we tend to not recognize the opportunity for it when it's staring us directly in the face. As far as I can tell, change is always no further than a few feet in front of us, but we either aren't looking, aren't listening, or aren't willing to take the steps towards the change itself. If we're not willing to meet life in the middle, we could find ourselves standing in the same state for a long time, stamping our feet and waving our fists at the sky, wondering why it all won't come together.


A long time has passed now where I have told myself, told everyone, world included, that I was ready for something different. More than ready. Had BEEN ready for days and axiomatic decades now, was ready to be hit by a tidal wave of newness, was prepared to go forward, into the empty space, into the unknown, into anything else so long as divergence was promised, sought out, and secured.


Well, clearly the universe is finding me funny, as it seems to believe I am telling a nonsensical, two-year-long joke. OR. Yes, or. Justtt maybe, my talk, my words, my something, isn't completely matching up with what I'm actually doing. Maybe the house of my wants are honest and real, while they sit on a hollow, useless foundation. Could that be? Could someone else, anyone else, really know things about me that I don't yet recognize?


Maybe. If anything's possible, then I guess that includes this particular phenomenon. All this time I've been sitting around blaming the world for not being ready for me, when perhaps part of this process is (who knew?) patience, one step I was more than willing to skip right over, bypass completely, pretend to have mastered, collect completion and continue on again.


We're being readied for something. And things are happening because of our choices, sure, but the ways we've been led to them are intentional. If I'm supposed to be learning something, and we all are, then I better listen up. And you had better believe I've so far been listening impatiently and imperfectly, because I'm ready to get this show on the road. Still, there is something to be received from silence, from true stillness, from waiting on the moral to the story, even if the story itself sucks from beginning to end.


I don't know. It seems I've been starting most of my days, knuckles bared, ready for a fight. When, really, I'm not sure the whole system has ever really dared oppose me. Rather, I think it might be backing me, setting me in place for Phase 2, or 10, for the next level or tier or ... valley. For what, I couldn't tell you at all. But, it's a odd mix of humble frustration to know you must not be ready for something yet, despite how strongly you feel that you are. Still, if we can meditate on the fact that all things happen for a reason, or there being a time and a place for all things, or that doors will open for us in time, or that forward is the only way to go, etc. Well. You get the point.


Call me certifiably insane (and most of my closest friends would), but I think to hope is better than to have complete certainty. If we have outlined our lives down to the minute we die and the way it happens, we leave no room for, sheesh, error, happy accidents, our brightest moments, small joys, being taken aback, real revelation. 


Of course I have ideas of what comes next. But it sure as hell isn't written in stone, to which we all can knowingly attest. EXIBIT A: THE APRON IS GREEN. I've been wrong before, and I've been surprised continuously. We're so antsy to get moving, and while most people would take one look at our circumstances and not blame us one bit for our urge to run, perhaps there's something more to be said for the now, instead of our constant focus on what tomorrow brings. Everything being so smocked in symbolism like it always is, so over-ridden with huge purpose and what does it all MEAN ten years from now and for ETERNITY, which, by the way, we have no fucking way of knowing or controlling. The best-laid plans get turned upside-down and over again in a moment, in the single blink of one eye, any eye, every second a new thing stands up and bares its teeth and refuses to cooperate with what we had in mind. 


So? Fine. And it's a totally different perspective than one normally encouraged to take in this scenario, in this particular country and society anyway, where everything is measured in visible success, by the thickness of your hair, how smooth your manipulative skills, how punctual you are, how educated. Everything is seen as a stepping stone toward your life, rather than your actual life itself, a moment only to ask, "When will you do better?" or "When will you make more?" No one will think you have arrived until you no longer sweat the price of things, of all things, because you HAVE all things. This is happiness? 


I'm not sure of it. Rather, I would imagine it all turns out to be a shame. And frankly, a huge fucking waste. Because your life will never manage to live up to everything you expect out of it. That fact doesn't deny us our right to dream, but I think it can ground us in the present, which I have to (HAVE TO) believe is more important than what might or might not happen to us someday, or never at all. Knowing that, really knowing it, can in many ways be so much more valuable to us, can be our real sense of freedom, can make us see that what we have before us is so much better than anything we may have previously thought up. 


Again, the crazy-calling is something I can take. I'm learning this even as I now write it, and even when I'm through I will have miles to go. It's something that will require a sense of diligence I have admittedly yet to master, but if I have made it out so far, there is no sense to refusing now to continue to grow, to be the flowering in the sandy sidewalk cracks, to make the most of the least of it all. 

the shoes

Let me tell you something; rock-bottom is a black, nine-dollar loafer. 

I can explain. 

When you think you know your lowest point, you don't. Because finding that place is something you will never recognize until you are right down in the midst of the lowness, of the ground that surrounds you, of realizing just how far you've fallen from your last bottom line to get where you are now.

Perhaps this seems a bit extreme. Which is understandable coming from an outsider's perspective, if you yourself are not the one feeling tripped up or let down or facing defeat, feeling no fight left, for only today. If it's not you for this moment, it has been, or it (tragically) will be for the next. It's safe to say that we will all, at some point, reach a new sense of feeling failed, or failing, and cannot seem to come to terms with what our next step ought to be. This haziness has such potential for destruction, all while still harnessing a chance to win out, to come through it better, inspired, or changed.

But how many times, though?

How often? 

How much? 

How much can we really take before we give in?

Noted, giving in is not the same as giving up. It feels similar, in many senses, and it brings us to corresponding conclusions at times. But giving up, despite the ease it implies, though it promotes a sense of shrugging off the world without a care, requires a lot more of us, a stronger lean toward the inability to go on at all. Giving in, however, means we merely can't go on with the way things are. So we admit that, take an honest look at what surrounds us, we find what we don't like about it (or the way we see ourselves in it), maybe we take a day or two to suppress it, analyze it, rethink it, review it, and believe it or not, despite the difficulty this decision brings, you come through it with a plan, usually just a small one, or some sort of reassurance, a next step in mind, the slightest or the grandest, and you move on. 

Giving in leaves you somewhere to turn. Giving in means we can confess we're not okay with the way things are going, that we can still picture the way things ought to be, the things we wish for, faintly. With that vision in mind, however far from us it feels, we can work towards something, whatever that amendment is, with a new sense of purpose and resolve.

It won't necessarily make us stronger people all at once. But it's laying out a challenge, a written and formed journey, it's realizing that despite the step-by-step plan we have envisioned all along, we are going to have to at some points a. go with the flow, b. bend with the curves or c. (my favorite) wait and wait and wait. 

I don't know what it takes for most people to stand up with a proverbial light bulb over their tired heads, gleaming with new thoughts and intervention. For me, times turn when you're standing in a Walmart shoe department, analyzing your life with your meanest microscope, while a woman next to you in a floor-length fur coat talks to herself.

I'm pretty sure that would make anyone publicly cry. If not, then I admit that it was me, and if Colin wasn't there to remind me, in sincere kindness, that I'm doing my best, that we can only persevere, then I might still be there today, trying to find a goddamn pair of shoes for a job I was born to hate. 

Still, just like that, the world has changed. While everything remains the same, we can remaster the way we face the challenge. It's almost like the universe is daring us all to go on, is throwing boulders in our paths, shorting our brakes, sticking it's clunky, ubiquitous foot in our way, watching us trip down the hall, laughing at our clumsiness. 

But here's the thing. The confrontation of it all is what keeps me going. For all the ways that life seems monumentally unfair, I am given the constant opportunity to love what's before me, or to let the difficult parts drown out the ways I'm blessed. Do I want to spend my afternoons off going to 10+ stores, all to seek an ugly pair of black sneakers so that I can cling to a position I never wanted?

No.

But, the fact is that I got to spend those afternoons with a person I love, and who undeniably loves me as he was patient with my impatience, caring with my complaining, and comforting when I reached the end of it all. What I think I mean to say is, whatever you're going through, you've been equipped, more or less, or paired with the things you need to make it through. Whether it's your strong sense of self, the mornings off you can spend outside, the art you create when you're alone, the places you've seen, or the people who have made your life worth it, who have made your days more than bearable but full of real and true happiness. 

While we will always retain the right to hope for certain things and aim for change where we can manage it, our hardest days come and go, and we will be reminded of where our support comes from, by who cares for us, by who knows our hearts and believes in what we can do. 

And really, how lucky we are to have just that. 

writing vs. agriculture?

Something I feel I should have known already is that if I ever want a damn good laugh, or the urge to throw my laptop out the window (sorry, Macbook, but it's true), all I need to do is take some idiotic website's version of a career aptitude test. 


Basically: oh HA.


Even though I have done this several times before, the only instance ringing clear in my memory was when my dear institution of higher learning, through a series of multiple choice and either/or questions, suggested that my ideal career would be that of a farmer. Oh, ifff they onlyyy knewww NOW. Despite this comical result, and the image of me sitting atop a hunky green tractor wearing overalls with a piece of straw hanging from my lower lip (don't all farmers look that way?), I decided that for the hell of it, or for my own twisted sense of humor, I would give it another try.


The main reason behind this somewhat crazy idea of mine came from a (ahem) frequent frustration of what feels like running out of options. Or being backed into a corner. Or not being able to imagine my life any differently, which is a phase that can be brought on from time to time when things aren't exactly panning out as planned, or in any real tangible in-my-face sense. I'm not saying this is a bad move, or necessarily a useful move, as you will soon see. But I thought that perhaps a neutral, data-driven results test could show me some avenues I hadn't yet considered for myself, some guidance towards certain professions that wouldn't otherwise come to mind. 


This, my friends, is called dreaming big.


While these aptitude tests are not entirely useless, and while I think the personality you have plays a tremendous part in what sort of work you're suited for (apparently I am an intuitive introvert with a stronger sense of perception than judgment. Well, I could have told you that.), the chances that these questionnaires are going to revolutionize your job search are slim as can be. Most of them, while answering them honestly, informed me that I am due for a creative career choice, that I am best suited for a job in the traditional visual arts, that I should be a writer or an editor or be involved in some sort of communications department of a business or enterprise.


I know, CareerPath. I know. 


While some may deliver more humorous and "HUH?" reactions (such as the one random site that suggested I was well-suited for a medical career ... um, pass), and while one pithy results page (that seriously could use a web designer's touch, because YIKES) steered me right back to my agricultural roots (seriously, it must be all those vegetables I love so much. Check it, folks, new blog on the rise. Here's one for integrated advertising!), and even though I can quite clearly envision myself sitting on a farmhouse porch, perhaps cowboy boots on my feet, at least much more than I can bear the thought of buying new non-slip shoes, I'm afraid the search continues with avengance, and with not much new information under my belt. Still, it doesn't hurt to know that even a computer-generated test can read who I am, just as real live people can, and know that there is something I'm deliberately here for, something my very being craves and demands.


It will set your mind reeling, to say the least. It will make you consider yourself, and with the best of intentions, it will make you tell the truth, which is something that bears surprising difficulty, even when nothing seems to really be at stake. 


Still, if this year, already half of the first month underway, doesn't start yielding some serious possibility, you may have to find me digging deep into the earth, dirt permanently caked under my nails, cultivating rich results, starting fresh. Apparently, somewhere in the world, it's what I'm meant for. 

new year, same rules.

I know, 2012.


The world is going to end, we're 10+ years past Y2K, we're globally at each other's throats, financially at our knees, and technologically plugged in from every angle. 


It seems that every new year starts with solid ambition, true determinations for change, and ways to improve ourselves, body and soul. The gyms are packed with new members, we have begun an early-morning meditation routine, we are kicking our bad habits, smoking, gossiping, procrastination, sugar, we are promising new accomplishments and worthwhile hobbies, big beginnings and out-with-a-bang endings.


Though the tone might seem sarcastically otherwise, I am actually a fan of resolutions, of resolving, of challenging ourselves and deciding to try harder, dig deeper, go further. The major problem, however, that everyone seems to find, is that when these commitments don't work out, when we don't lose twenty pounds or finish that scrapbook or master a new language, we blame ourselves, we point towards the pressure we faced, the inevitable factors that fought against us, the ways in which we were destined to fail. 


And by then, it's only February.


While there are no guaranteed ways to make sure your aspirations don't become complicated, tripped up, or ignored, the most reasonable idea I can concoct is that we should be comfortable choosing more achievable goals. While there's nothing wrong with wanting to run a marathon or read the top 100 classics of literature (umm, I'm sorry but ZZZ), sometimes it's okay to focus on tiny changes that will benefit us directly, will resonate with who we are specifically, things that will enhance our surroundings and therefore our attitudes. For example:


Two winters ago, due to a new year that brought change of several varieties, I decided that the best stab I could take at a life makeover was to repaint my high school room from its shabby pale pink (which teenage trepidation led me to cover with sorrowful lyrics in black permanent marker) to a sea-foam green hue aptly titled "Green Myth." ...when did green become such a big part of me?


Paint is paint, I know. The world is not a different place because of a mere color change. But green is newness and calm-spirited and wholly natural. And it is only an example of what tiny accomplishments can do for our being, and the wellness of it all. Even though I would really love if I could compose a to-do list, number one saying in bold print "NEW JOB" and the rest would all fall into my lap, or into place. Even though that is always at the top of all hypothetical and mental lists of mine, the big-picture-small-steps version is more likely to pan out successfully. 


I think.


So? For now, my aims are [still] as follows:

1. To seek out new positions daily, spending a reasonable though not overwhelming window of uninterrupted time doing so, and to submit interest to 2-4 positions a week 

2. If 2-4 options don't present themselves in a week's time (which is a likely possibility), to not write off this self-imposed requirement as a useless frustration (also a likely possibility, if you want to know the goddamn truth). 

3. And, going along with the second, to remain consistent, to remember what other things makes my life joyful in the midst of being tested, and, when all else fails, to remain hopeful in the face of difficulty.

As a whole, these determinations remain daunting, as they have since the beginning, and I'm already not feeling the motivational pull as strongly as I'd like to be. But the point is to remind ourselves of what we can do now, rather than worrying about what life looks like ten years down the road, more on bettering ourselves today than hoping to become this more dynamic, interesting individual later. That, of course, depends on what our actions look like in the present. And small movement is better than standing still and saying we can't. So one step at a time, let's move.