To-Do

List.

Sometimes it is the mundane things in life that give us comfort. The simplicity of routine, the soothing nature of familiar and menial tasks. I think many forms of happiness are hidden in the everyday completetion of small goals and obligations. The shape of a week, in list form but no particular order:

Go to the grocery store. Try to remember to get actual food that I will actually eat.

Clean bathrooms. If, that is, I have remembered to buy new sponges and cleanser.

Complete a load of laundry from sorting to putting away in less than 72 hours.

Open the scary looking mail I have been avoiding.

Corner cat and force her to take her medicine so she stops throwing up everywhere.

Do the terrible awful paperwork that I have also been avoiding.

Make dance. Undo. Make again. Edit. Repeat.

Write things. Undo. Write again. Repeat.

Picture: www.makeitheaven.com

Rainbows and Puppies and Picnics

Easy.

Life isn't always. It can be hard to face another day or week or month of whatever it is that we are having to face. Today, I find strength in simple memories and melodies from my youth. Today, it is rainbows. Maybe they can help you too.

Watch:
IZ Kamakawiwo'ole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bFr2SWP1I

Kermie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM&feature=kp

The Shallow Pool

Meaning.

Apparently, there is a happiness craze in America.  This does not mean that Americans are reporting greater amounts of happiness or fulfillment, nor are they less depressed or healthier.  What they are is buying more products related to the topic of happiness than ever before.  In the last three months Amazon has released more than 1000 books on the subject of happiness, how to get it, keep it, and make it work for you.  The really great irony to this is that at the same time that we have turned our attention to the subject of happiness for our health and well being, a new line of research has emerged indicating that empty, selfish, things-based happiness is no better for our health than misery.  It turns out that only benevolent, meaningful happiness has any real impact on our blood pressure or gene expression and that the lottery-winning, Las Vegas partying, stick it to people you hate kind of happiness is really kind of bad for us.  That kind of happiness, it turns out, is like the fast food of the soul, it seems good on the front end, but does nothing to sustain or nourish you in the long run.

I find this research satisfying.  For a long time I have struggled with the nagging suspicion that perhaps all those people who seem happy but really make their living through unethical means, or are mean, or steal things or who accumulate way more things than they can afford and walk away from paying for it are really winning.  I have been worried that purchased happiness or happiness obtained in spite of other peoples suffering, or the happiness of mean people was just as good as any other kind of happiness.  If this is the case then where would our incentive to be good people or do good things be?   It calms me a bit to know that the easy way will not get us to longevity or inner peace, we all will have to work for it.

Out of the shallow end kids, time is wasting.

References/Photograph

http://bottle-service-vegas.com/las-vegas-pool-parties/

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/for-better-health-find-meaning/278250/

Debbie Downer

Whine.

The older I get the more I realize that happiness, success, and most other things related to being good and well in and with the world are mostly about attitude.  It fatigues me to watch friends sabotage their own happiness and undermine their successes because they are unable to willing to simply accept the life or circumstances that have and work with what they are given.  More and more I find myself putting distance between myself and the people in my life who cannot seem to accept responsibility for their own happiness. This is your life, I want to tell them, which means that you are the center of your universe and entirely responsible for your own happiness.  That things will go against plan, that tragedy will strike, these things are certain, but what is not certain is the effect these things will have on you, that part, is your own choice to make.  Maya Angelou put is well, "If you don't like something, change it.  If you cant change it, change your attitude towards it."

Photograph Courtesy of:

www.theminimalists.com

The Good Life

Roll.

I think that life gets so busy and filled up with responsibilities, challenges, unexpected events, and planning for  future happiness that we forget that any happiness we may receive in our lives will most certainly happen in the present moment.  There is no great future event or epiphany or other life that we could be living.  Hard work and good planning are no guarantee.  The only time that we can be sure of our own happiness is right now.  

An early summer roll call of happy things:

Freshly planted vegetable starts

Campfire

The longest days of the year

Blueberries

An evening glass of wine

Alpine hiking

The last of the Tiger Lilies  

Sunshine

Don't let things get you down.

Snoopy and Woodstock on life's frustrations, domestic bliss and best intentions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Diaw5ccq--Y

Photograph Courtesy of W Magazine.  To see the entire collection:

http://loveisspeed.blogspot.com/2011/11/brad-and-angelina-domestic-bliss.html

Hold Your Tongue

Throat.

Sometimes there is altogether too much talking.  Perhaps today is a good day to neglect our words and try to simply be, at peace, in the world.

The Tibetan Monk Throat Singers, listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA3cwX1wNHQ

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://www.voatibetanenglish.com/content/russias-tibet-opens-to-jet-age-tourism/1510409.html

Sit, Stay

Rest.

There is an impossibility in sitting still.  I know this is not true of many if not most people, but for me, it is an affliction.  Consider this chain of events, hyperactivity and high energy cause one to over-schedule ones time.   This over-scheduling results in an unfortunate and unpredictable overload; the flu arrives to one's domicile, though thankfully not oneself.  Having made it miraculously to the end game a few days of crucial rest, a celebration and cutting loose which results in an absolute shut down of ones body.  I find myself backed into a corner with only one thing to do, rest.  I marvel at my ability to repeat patterns similar to this throughout my life, and at how frequently those around me do as well.  And we talk about it, or rather, we talk about how everyone should take it easy, take some time, get some rest.  It seems that there are always important things to do.

Consider though, if one were to write a short list of the most valuable things in life, perhaps things like, love, happiness, and health would come up, and that many of those things could be enhanced with more rest.  Perhaps rest is not a luxury to be sacrificed for other, more important things, or a commodity to be traded for wages or gain, but an obligation to the self, and something that should rank highly among our priorities.

Do not wait for your body to demand it, just go get some rest.

Photograph Courtesy of:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-why-do-we-dream-0

Joyce Carol Vincent

Lost.

In 2006 Joyce Carol Vincent was found dead in her London flat.  The cause of death was not determined due to the advanced state of decomposition of her body.  Joyce was 38 years old when she died.  Her body had lain undisturbed in her flat for nearly three years.  The story of Joyce, what there is to know and tell has been documented in the film Dreams of a Life.  

Joyce was not a shut-in, had no history of mental illness of drug abuse, and had three living sisters.  She was widely described as beautiful , vibrant, and successful.  By all accounts from those that knew her, it is as though the Joyce they knew simply slipped away; they seemed unable to reconcile the woman in the flat with the person they had known.  Contrary to the image of a recluse she was found surrounded by freshly wrapped Christmas presents; there must have been people in her life.

While there is something morbidly compelling about the unresolved cause of her death and the grim tableau of how she was found, the more disturbing element of this story is the three year wait before her discovery.  Where were family, friends, and coworkers?  Where were the neighbors or the mailman? Where, even, were the bill collectors? In the end, it took even the landlords three years to come and clear her out for unpaid rent.  

I think that the we learn more about ourselves in Joyce's story than we learn about her.  When she died in 2003 we were pre-Facebook and post nuclear-family.  2003 was right in the transition point between the constant connections of the social media age and the isolation and lack of community of the end of the 20th Century.  Three years? How can this be? It is not hard for me to imagine friends of mine disappearing and not being noticed for three or four months.  The free spirits, wanderers, or troubled souls, but three years? There is no one I know or have ever known that was in any way functional that could disappear from all things for three years and not have someone ring the bell.  

What are we to think of this?   Is Joyce some kind of social canary warning us of the dangers of our modernity? Is it an isolated case; one sad woman's quiet decline?  Is it possible that we have reached a place where people can live out their lives with no real connections?  How acceptable is distance between family members?  How important is the building of community? How long do you want to wait before someone finds you? 

This terrifies me.  Joyce's story tapped into some deeply rooted fears about mortality and loneliness.  I think that we all have these fears.  It's why we bother to call up old friends, love and lose and love again, and hassle our way through the holidays to spend time with family; so that when things go awry, someone is there to help us.  Somewhere along the line either Joyce stopped bothering, or everyone else did.  Probably a little of both.  I think a consequence of contemporary culture may be the devaluing of substantive connections with other people.  I think that we are all not so far away from being Joyce as we might like to believe.

Like what you are reading?  Then support the Kickstarter for my book Girl Gone Wild- On Being a Woman in the Wilderness.  Thanks!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1731666363/girl-gone-wild-a-guide-to-being-a-woman-outside?ref=city

References/Works Cited:

Dreams of a Life:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/144079/dreams-of-a-life

Photo:

http://images.popmatters.com/misc_art/f/film-dreamslife-splsh.jpg

A Laying On of Hands

retreat.

One of my favorite things to advocate for in terms of the promotion of a healthy environment and good nutrition is the formation of community. Or, put differently, the loss of community in the modern way of life appears to be intimately linked to the destruction of the environment and the deterioration of public health.

We began to lose community in the process of trying to create it. In building suburbs we created lifestyles based on long, isolating, gas-guzzling commutes that eroded our personal time making social interaction and exercise harder to come by. Beyond that, we designed our suburbs without sidewalks, town centers, or public play spaces, effectively isolating our children from one another and putting them and their caretakers back in the car in order to grocery shop or go to the park. Of course, once you’re in the car, the likelihood of each person on a particular street going to a different park or grocery store increases, decreasing the casual everyday interactions between neighbors that do so much to foster community. The time and energy required to prepare meals of whole foods from local sources was also squeezed out by the distribution of our lives across a greater geography and our increasing desire for “down time” and instant gratification.

And isolation breeds isolation. Once disconnected from our neighbors and surrounding community, we are more likely to tell ourselves that video tennis is a reasonable substitute for actually going to play tennis, forgetting that going to play tennis may involve taking a walk, running into the neighbors, getting substantively more exercise and valuable vitamin D, and interacting with our children and the environment.

And infrastructure breeds infrastructure. Once we are tied to our cars for all of our activities we need an increasingly large number of roads, increasing in size, to handle our increasing numbers and increasingly large cars. Retreating to our houses necessitates larger and larger houses, filled with more and more things, to fill the void left by the absence of regular social interaction and the necessary chores of a conscious lifestyle. Consumption itself becomes a hobby. Instead of community centers, our houses become show pieces, museums to ourselves with all the accoutrements of a modern lifestyle, televisions, stereos, Jacuzzi tubs, and little evidence of actual interaction with the world at large.

I suggest that the formation and fostering of community in and of itself is an act of subversion, or at least a tangible protest of the current status quo. I believe that community is one antidote to deteriorating pubic health, eroded social services, environmental decline and climate change, and the propagation of an unhealthy and unsustainable popular monoculture. And it’s easy. And it’s free.

The Re-education of Little Miss

release.

In the art of trapeze, during a release, there is a moment in which the performer has to let go of the bar behind them and reach out to the thing in front of them. They float, suspended for a moment, before reaching out to grasp their new anchor. It’s the moment that the audience comes to see, to witness someone put themselves into that space of vulnerability and risk to emerge, whole and strong, on the other side. It’s an art based on the concept of looking forward, fearless, and letting go of what’s behind you. This is the moment in which I find myself. I think, I hope, that it’s a moment that will be embraced by increasingly more of us, as we struggle to redefine ourselves in this new climate, economy, and global community.

Real change, whether we seek it out or have it thrust upon us, requires us to embrace this moment of release, with all its fear, uncertainty, and aloneness, trust that we will be alright, and reach out for the things that make us whole.

Fly.

A Walk In The Woods

saunterer.

A long weekend and the beginning of summer do a lot to remind us to go outside, breath the fresh air, listen to the birds, stretch our legs, and experience wildness. I think it’s important, amid the beer, fireworks, weenie roasts, and recreational vehicles that mark the American camping experience, to make sure that we do just that, stretch our legs and experience wildness. It’s not often anymore that the majority of us find ourselves away from the crush of noise, information, and development that comes with “civilized society”, and I think our distance from the wild plays a key role in our health and well-being, and our decision making as a people. Distancing ourselves from the wild is part of why we are able to devalue the environment, and that devaluation reveals itself in our politics, policies, and way of life. It allows us to waste resources, diminish habitat, allow entire species to go extinct, and engineer our bodies and our food.

I feel at my most engaged in the environment when walking through it. A walk in the wilderness does more to ease my mind, body, and soul than almost anything else. And it reminds me, in a tangible and profound way, that I am connected to this place, this world, this land, that it sustains me. Thoreau, in his 1862 essay, Walking, had this to say about the value of a walk in the woods, “I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering; which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the middle ages, and asked charity, under pretence of going à la sainte terre" — to the holy land… They who never go to the holy land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering.”

We can make no progress in the improvement of our daily lives, in the fostering of health, community, sustainability, or peace, until we acknowledge and embrace our connection to the wilderness. Take a first step, take a walk.

To read the full text of Thoreau’s Walking:
http://thoreau.eserver.org/walking.html

To Read Emerson’s Nature:
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/emerson/nature-emerson-a.html#Chapter%20I

Photo courtesy of:
http://dinabloomphoto.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/edith.jpg

F*ck That Giant Rodent

sun.

I grew up in Oregon and I profess to love the rain, but my true feelings were revealed in the sunshine of the last two days. It was glorious. We forget, in the grey days and long nights of winter how great it feels to stand in the sunlight. We forget that we need it. The sun regulates our melatonin and gives us vitamin D. It makes the plants grow and the birds sing. An emergent winter sun is a tangible reminder of hope. So go, out, into the sun, soak it up, and hang on for six more weeks.