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As I’ve written about in the past, the new year always finds me searching to grow, to molt my old skin and start anew. Often it comes in the form of “self-help” books, philosophy, yoga … Anything that pushes me out of my comfort zone and forces me to expand my mind (& in turn, how I think about things).
Sometimes I could talk about this for hours, but this year feels different – like I’ve molted a layer deeper, and am learning to stop and contemplate before speaking. I’m currently reading “Quit Like a Woman” (among other titles, but this currently & primarily) and what I am loving and finding so fascinating is that it isn’t really about quitting at all. It’s about learning to heal, learning to find grounding and truth and love. (I’m only halfway through so I reserve the right to be wrong about this! But it’s my impression thus far).
It’s definitely educating, and I’ve learned a lot about alcohol, its place in our society, its marketing plus its place and eminence throughout history. But mostly, as the book turned its first corner, I began to learn to see in myself the strength and the curiosity I have needed and called upon to begin to heal myself.
**
Tonight, as we watched the first press conference with the NY Giants newly appointed head coach Brian Daboll, I heard in his words some of the things I’ve begun to learn about truth and humanity. Brian Daboll, as journalists ranging from professional and polite to downright snarky asked some truly leading questions, maintained his message. And his message was simple — it’s about relationships, a shared vision, communication and authenticity.
These are not revolutionary themes. They are timeless. I felt a kinship to Mr. Daboll and he earned a ton of my respect for his openness, his honestly and his commitment to his message.
I love these moments, when things in my life dovetail together – when for a moment I glimpse the bigger, connected, energetic picture.
Xox, g
25jan22
January 25th is Rabbie Burns Day. Well, I mean, sort of.
Who?, you ask.
Robert Burns was the poet laureate of Scotland – I believe the only one ever. And his birthday was January 25th. He’s been dead quite a long time but has left a lasting legacy through his poetry. Before my mother died she began a tradition of doing Burns Night Supper. This involved haggis, neeps and tatties, cranachan, poetry recitation and lots of whiskey. The Scottish kind, so I believe it’s spelled whisky but I’m not completely sure. Maybe I got that backwards? (I don’t have my phone to google and check so I apologize, this is staying as it is).
One of the great things about Burns Supper is the poetry. John and I hosted once, years ago now, when my mother was still alive, and every guest was requested to bring a piece of poetry. As we all ate our Scottish grub, one by one we read our pieces to the group. It was sort of magical because everyone’s selection reflected who they were – original works, Rumi, T.S. Eliot, etc.
John and I began our poetry collection because of Burns Supper. This year I bought him a collection by Amanda Gorman. Last year he bought me Rupi Kaur. There’s something other-worldly about poetry. It makes the mundane seem magic somehow. It is the perfect illustration of the power of language.
This wasn’t what I was going to blog about at all. I was going to talk about how Ally Love re-posted one of my Instagram stories, and how incredible it felt to be ‘seen’ by a woman i admire so greatly. But then I typed the date. And all the memories of Burns Supper came flooding back. And my mother felt closer. And that felt soothing.
Anyway. Happy Burns Night America.
Xox, g
Day 63
I have always loved Leonardo DiCaprio.
My age has a lot to do with it. I was seventeen when Titanic was released and I saw it six times in the theatre (I love movies). How any 17-year-old didn’t fall a little in love with him is beyond me … he was downright irresistible.
And my love and respect has spanned all these years as he’s fought his pretty boy image and taken role after role in search of his illusive Oscar.
Let me tell you that I don’t usually miss the live Oscars broadcast, but ironically, my old boss scheduled a “team-building” dinner the night Leo finally won, and I was devastated to miss it. (Just ask John, who had to hear me complain about it leading up to it and then deal with me missing Leo’s acceptance speech … not my best self).
I share this because I have recently been reading a book dedicated to the mountain men of the early 1800s American West and I read some tales of Hugh Glass. His bear attack survival, but also just …. his life, in general.
The Revenant doesn’t really do him justice. The man was a legend in his own time. (To be fair, many of the mountain men were … and also, effing insane, but that seems to be the trend of the time).
I sort of love that Leo won his Oscar portraying Glass. It seems fitting to me.
But, in case you were curious, the true story of Hugh Glass is better than the story that is told in The Revenant. And if you want to hear a good interview about it, you can find it on the Meateater podcast; Steven Rinella talks with the author of the book The Revenant. And gets very candid about his (many) beefs with liberties taken in the movie regarding Hugh Glass’ life. It’s really interesting.
So yeah. That’s what’s on my mind tonight.
And PS. Titanic holds up. In case you were wondering. John and I watched it at the height of Covid last year, and were actually impressed with how well it held up. (A movie that doesn’t =Zorro with Antonio Banderas & Catherine Zeta-Jones. I was shocked at how it DID NOT hold up. At all).
Xox, g
Day 59
One of my resolutions for this year was to read more, watch TV less. And other than the two days I was feeling really sick, I have maintained my goal of not watching TV during the day.
It has led to some truly great reading.
I have a terrible habit of starting a book, marking my place with a bookmark and then leaving it … sometimes for years. Case in point — beside my bed sit Empire of the Summer Moon, Failing Up, and Thanks a Thousand plus the US Constitution with selections from the Federalist Papers. I have begun all of them, and have made my way to varying points in them, but I have finished none of them.
On my shelves downstairs I have begun Beginners Guide to Insight Meditation, Tao Te Ching 101, Joan Didion 1960s & 1970s: A Collection, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, The Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali, First Man, Becoming, Turn Right at Machu Picchu, The Wright Brothers, Notes from a Small Island and my current read Give Your Heart to the Hawks.
On my Nook … (this is where it starts to get embarrassing) The Vanishing Half (I was invited to join a book club and this is the first book!!), A Secret History of Witches, My Life with the Eskimo, How to Be Anti-Racist, Between the World and Me, The Goldfinch, and The Incendiaries.
And let me be clear … these are just the books that I’ve started to read. This list does not include all the books I own and have not yet cracked open.
I love to read. I have found that, as an adult, I haven’t been doing that much of it consistently. It has been my 2021 resolution to get more reading done and despite the Herculean list above of unfinished tomes, I have managed to complete American Buffalo, Why Buddhism is True and A Ride to Eternity (written by one of my Dad’s fraternity brothers about the murder of his aunt in 1939- painfully sad, bizarrely compelling and absolutely fascinating).
It isn’t that I don’t want to finish the books — it’s about finding the time and concentration in a world that has us (myself included!) trained to consume our information in sound bytes and 140 character click bait.
Hubs and I decided that we need to devote more time to reading because we both love it. (He always says, “I never regret the time I spend reading.”) Today has been spent nose deep in books, piano music on in the background, with lunch breaks and a Lucy bath thrown in for fun (well, maybe not for her!).
I feel supremely blessed to have a partner in life who loves and values the things I love and value.
Xox, g
Day 49
The thing about reading philosophy is it begets reading philosophy.
As a result of daily emails I receive I decided it was time to invest in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. And let me tell you, beginning something like Meditations (which is largely Stoic in philosophical nature) is very … interesting … when you are simultaneously immersed in a book about Buddhist philosophy.
Today’s chapters began the extensive examination of essence and the Buddhist concept of emptiness. I have been inspired to follow this up with something that delves into Hindu philosophy. Mr. Wright briefly touched on their attitude toward emptiness and it seems to resonate more with me than Buddhism. I guess the quest for enlightenment on any level never actually ends … because there is no true ending.
Sometimes, I look in the mirror and I don’t fully recognize myself. Some of this I attribute to cutting all my hair off about five months ago. Some of it stems from my quest for self evolvement. Is this woman staring back at me the same human who believed, at the tender age of eighteen, that one day, she would be as famous as Brad Pitt, the toast of Hollywood? It feels unlikely, and yet … they are one in the same.
When I stopped working four years ago I had no idea what I was going to do. I felt lost and confused. Bereft for an identity I tied – too extensively – with what I did rather than who I was. It’s been a strange and funny journey since then — weird and wild and painfully sad among a myriad of other emotions.
Reading philosophy — studying it and working it around in my brain — has given me something back that I thought was lost. And I can’t articulate it, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s exactly what philosophy is teaching me. That just being is okay. That nothing really has to make sense … and what does that even mean anyway?
Xox, g
Day 48
”Try not to become a person of success, but rather become a person of value.”
~ Albert Einstein
Every winter/spring, I go through what I affectionately refer to as my self-help phase. Perhaps as a way to begin my year by very intentionally learning and growing. Pushing boundaries. Perhaps because as the old year comes to a close, I find myself wanting in certain areas. Perhaps because not only is a new calendar year beginning, but another year of my life begins each December. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is my desire each January to keep chipping away at myself, in hopes of revealing my inner David. (Pardon the Michelangelo reference, but it’s one of my favorites).
The above quote is another of my favorites because it reminds me that my actions and choices should not be guided by financial (or any other kind) of success, but rather by the pursuit of being the best, most well-rounded human that I can be. By creating, within my being, a vessel of value.
In that vein, I am working my way through Robert Wright’s Why Buddhism is True and it has – to this point – profoundly affected me and my worldview. To be fair, I began it a loooooong time ago and found my way back to it this January. Maybe I needed that time away to gain perspective. I’m not sure.
To help clarify, let me begin at my beginning.
Every night (nearly every night) and most mornings, I sit down on my bolster, next to my Buddha statue, and I meditate. At the beginning, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I’d wanted to begin meditating for a long time (every one said it was so great!) but didn’t really know how to start. It all felt uncomfortably disingenuous. Last January I began yoga teacher training, and meditation was a big component. And thus, my practice began.
Even during teacher training I wasn’t really sure what the heck was going on, and I was pretty resistant. Not purposefully, but it’s inherently within me to resist (I’m working on it). So it was really Covid and being stuck at home that brought me to the meditations on Peloton. Even then, I was skeptical.
Meditation is this thing that for me had a lot of baggage about what it should be and how it should feel. And I didn’t get it or feel it so I kind of dismissed it. Books and magazines and my yogi friends all espoused its transformative power but to me … it was just … overly burdened with expectations.
Even so, I dutifully kept at it, thinking that with repetition I might finally clue in to the big deal.
There was a moment late last summer when I said to John, as I padded back to our bedroom, that I could feel the difference between nights I meditated and nights I didn’t but I couldn’t articulate what it was … I could just feel it.
I think that’s the thing with meditation, and it’s why I’ve struggled for so long. I need to be able to define it, to give it words and form and shape … and meditation is essentially formless and shapeless.
That’s what Why Buddhism is True has given to me if nothing else (and it’s far from nothing else). It has validated my inability to adequately describe meditation, its ‘instructions’ or really anything about it. Other than to say I do it, it makes sense and I feel its benefits.
Which brings me back to Albert Einstein. I think meditation serves as a tool to help me be a better version of myself — to continue developing my character in order to become a person of value.
Xoxo, g
Day 42
I wish I had something really good to write about today.
Because, honestly, I’ve found myself blogging once again right before bed, and my brain is mush and all I really want to do is wash my face, meditate and sleep.
To be fair, today was a wild day. I talked to more people than I am used to talking to, I had a job offer (and it rocks!) and I discovered a new author. Among other things. Yes, I know. Insanity!
Let me just say, if you aren’t a habitual reader, discovering a new author is like finding unexpected gold. It feels magical and exciting and strangely secretive. In the best possible way. Like when I found out that my Dad started to read Daniel Silva novels and we could finally share the joy of having read the same books.
Delicious.
Anyway, I discovered Joan Didion and simultaneously discovered that it was absolutely horrifying that I’d never read her – let alone heard of her! – before.
She is a seminal writer in the lexicon of United States authors. Her body of work is wildly impressive. And, it turns out, she also has MS. Almost like a footnote to her life. I absolutely love that.
Anyway, when I inevitably forget to blog tomorrow, or the next day, please know it’s because I’m lost in a book that is so exquisite I haven’t surfaced for air.
xox, g
Day 30
As the month winds down, I find myself losing track of my resolutions. As though I’ve reached the finish line.
I have to keep reminding myself that the end of this month means nothing, really, in terms of the promises I’ve made to myself. Just days, preceded by days, followed by days. It’s anti-climactic.
***
Today was a weird day. We had plans … which we should have known would change and morph so many times that the day would end up looking completely different than we’d imagined.
But once again, we didn’t realize it and it was a frustrating exercise in lack of communication and two types of polar opposite people — those who plan and follow through, and those who live a little bit more … spontaneously? Yeah. We’ll say that.
Anyway. I ended up spending some unplanned time reading this morning as John made flies (Santa brought him all the fixings for Christmas, but he hasn’t been able to find time to pursue it until today). Nearly a year ago my yoga teacher recommended a book called Why Buddhism is True and while I purchased it at the time, I hadn’t sat down to read it with any degree of focus until now.
It blew my mind. It’s fascinating and terrifying and pushes the boundaries of the mind (I’m assuming for anyone who has not extensively studied Buddhism before endeavoring to read it). I’m loving the added perspectives it has contributed to my always-evolving life view.
I am also loving the conversations it has inspired between John and I, as I attempt to explain what I’ve just read (I learned that I understood more of it than I initially thought -which pleased me very much). It’s fun to have big conversations about ideas and theories every once in awhile — it breaks up the usual talk of work, Peloton rides and Marvel movies/shows. (Although, side note, WandaVision is everything I hoped it would be, and more!).
I like reading because even if it’s “just” fiction, it changes and expands my mind and I like the feeling of learning and growing. I read A Man Called Ove last summer and the themes and story of it still haunt my thoughts sometimes. It was incredible.
I’m such a book nerd. Haha! Happy Saturday, friends. I hope yours is a good one!
Xoxo, g
Day 28
Before I begin rambling about something else, I’d like to edit my post from yesterday. Far From Home is the best live-action Spiderman. But Into the Spiderverse is currently the best Spiderman movie that has been released. We watched it again tonight .. just effing brilliant.
Brilliant.
Anyway, moving right along– I got my laptop out for the first time in ages and let me say, typing on my laptop is vastly superior to typing on my iPad. I *do* keep touching the screen and getting frustrated when nothing happens (I’m special okay?) but otherwise, it’s really nice to type on a full-sized keyboard.
I finished reading American Buffalo today. I don’t know why it took me so long to read it because I loved every minute of it. It filled my brain full of curiosity and questions and awe for the history of an animal I knew very little about.
I have a million things I want to say and yet, I can’t find a good place to start.
It feels like Steven Rinella has always been a part of John + my life but in reality, John probably only discovered him and his TV show and podcast (of the same name — Meateater) about two plus years ago. It has profoundly influenced our lives (moreso John’s than mine but by extension). And when John ordered some of Steve’s books from the website (signed copies!!) I idly picked one up and then … never fully set it back down.
I haven’t watched a single TV episode and have only listened to a handful of podcasts. But the book captured my imagination almost instantly. It wove its way through a myriad of things I knew very little about, and because of that I was fascinated. I felt like I was truly learning something new for the first time in a very long time. When I closed it for the last time today, it stayed with me, a shadow of every thought in my brain.
It wasn’t just the history of bison bison across hundreds of thousands of years or the complicated relationship of humans and buffalos. It wasn’t just his quest to hunt and kill a buffalo in Alaska in 2005 after miraculously pulling one of only 24 licenses issued. It wasn’t the archaeology or the anthropology or sociology or economic history. It wasn’t Steve’s personal story, of his love of hunting, his brothers, his discovery of a buffalo skull that triggered the whole thing. It was *all* of it.
It helped me understand an entirely new dimension of my husband. It educated me on the complexities of the European expansion across the United States, the misconceptions of many different factions of people regarding Native American history, buffalo history, hunting history.
I really, really loved it. Read it.
xox, g
here we go again
I actually start multiple blog posts a day … in my head. It’s just finding the discipline to sit down and type. But … that seems to be the theme of life in a lot of ways. The mind is a very powerful thing, but transitioning thoughts into action takes discipline and dedication and … well, frankly, not being lazy.
Which I am. Well, I can be. Its a moveble target, y’know?
In support of my recent themed idea (because who will support me if I don’t support myself, right?):
What I’m Watching: I just finished the second season of Big Little Lies and have started the first season of Killing Eve. Some thoughts: Big Little Lies was much more enjoyable than I anticipated. I saw a lot of middle of the road reviews, people’s disappointment, but I thought it was a pretty interesting study of the human condition — why people do the things they do, that life exists in the gray area and black and white are pie-in-the-sky day dreams because very few things are all good or all evil. How people get caught in situations, or life progressions and then look back and wonder what led them there — and what family and friends will do for each other, for the people they love and their different perspectives on what is best for others. It was pretty fascinating, and the cherry on top are the actors: Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Zoe Kravitz (who I loved this season), Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern and the incomparable Meryl Streep. It made me want to go back and start from the beginning. (Also, who doesn’t love Adam Scott?).
Killing Eve is like a hairpin turn after Big Little Lies and while I adore Sandra Oh and think she’s fabulous, Jodie Comer is what I love so far. I’m only a couple episodes in, but I’m enjoying it.
What I’m Reading: I am currently reading my aunt’s manuscript about the life of Robert Horton. I know a lot of the broad strokes of the ‘story’ (because she has been sharing things over the years as her fascination with him has grown) but some of the subtle details are pretty fascinating. She’s definitely done an amazing amount of research and should be applauded! Next up I think I’m going to tackle The Wright Brothers. I have always been fascinated by them (and Amelia Earhart) so I am looking forward to getting into that.
What I am Listening to: Honestly? Nothing specific right now. It’s as though I can’t find the sound that is in my head, the music that will speak to me. We recently got an Amazon Echo Dot and it’s been fun to speak to it and ask it to play certain music. Hubs & I really love Gerry Mulligan jazz (which we played a few nights in a row ’round the fire pit). But that’s about as specific as I can get!
***
Every month I pick a quote and write it on a chalk board in our foyer. I’ve been doing it for about a year and a half, and some months the quotes are better than others. For this August, I picked a Teddy Roosevelt quote that I come back to a lot, because life is hard and we are all so hard on ourselves and social media does not make it any better.
“Comparison is the thief of Joy.”
When you’ve been ‘retired’ for two and half years, and doing yoga and laundry and Peloton classes (amongst other things) comparison to others can be deadly. Feeling envy of working women, successful women, women whose voices are heard and respected … it can eat you alive from the inside out. So I try to remind myself that it’s a bad, bad habit to compare my life with anyone elses.
I’m moderately to mildly successful on most days. So, that’s a plus.
But it’s hard. I see other people’s homes or cars or accomplishments and I wonder what I do with my time. (Seriously. I can’t even seem to find time to blog … what am I doing?!?). But when I take a deep breath I remind myself that my health is a top priority (because MS doesn’t let you enjoy short cuts … of any kind). And exercise and laundry are important. As is sleep and self-care and my relationship and walking the dog …. and then the rabbit hole begins again, because I don’t know what the point is or if I’m just on a hamster wheel.
Anyway. Some of my thoughts. Written down. Because I’m trying, I really am!
xox, g
D5 Creation