Reflections – Page 12 – Another Adventure

What’s in the news today?

A fourteen year old girl goes on a diet–in a children’s book.

Bill Clinton’s a Vegan.

Celebrity this, celebrity that.

Social networking is harmful.

REALLY?

Maybe I was a sheltered kid and as an adolescent, really stayed in my own bubble, but as I get older and become an “adult” (whatever that is), I am growing sadder and sadder at the state of the world around me. And feeling more and more helpless because I can’t change that. Even with God in the equation, the state of things is the state of things. So how can one possibly have a chance at happiness when every habitual nature of human beings is becoming detrimental to each self, each other, and the planet? De-pressing. I don’t have an answer. I really don’t.

Instead, I have decided to take a break from social networking–if I can’t change the world, I can change myself, at least temporarily, and ignore the rest of the world while doing it! Hah. I will go one week without checking Facebook, without reading daily blogs and tweets and feeling like my brain is wiring in ten thousand different directions all at once.

In place of mind grumbling brain scrambling, I will read newspapers, every day, some on paper, some on-line (because we only get the Times once a week). And I’ve decided that for every article I read that makes me want to cry, pull my hair out, or do ten hail Marys, I will find a positive, uplifting article to read to remind me that the world is not ending because of mechanically processed chicken, for example.

I started this morning, and I want to share the articles I have found:

#1-Hail Mary Full of Grace, What Is This World I Live In? (take a look at the side articles as well)

#2- Uplifting (a truly touching story)

#3- Yay, Human Rights and Progress!!

I also got to spend this past week with a wonderful little man, nine months old and discovering life for this first time. This is Lydon, and for him, I want the world; a clean, genuine, unspoiled world. I pray this is the case.

Lies I told myself.

I was born at home, in a five room house, the youngest of the three children of a school teacher and a book store manager taking night classes. My parents’ room was in the hall near the back door. My brother slept in what was marketed to my parents as the dining room, and my sister and I shared the front bedroom. When I was seven years old, my sister, ripe in her pubescent distain for everything, decided she wanted her own room. She moved into our parents room, they moved into our room, and I “moved” into the living room. We had a sleeper sofa.

When I was fourteen, living in Memphis with my very own room (and blue and white painted ceiling), I decided I wanted to go to NYU to be a stage actress. I was, after all, starring in most of my middle school skits. How much harder could it be? The world was my oyster, and I wasn’t taking no for an answer.

When I was eighteen, I decided I wanted stay in Memphis and study so that I could get that extra “F” on my transcript. BFA. It just looks more romantic than a plain old B A. Also, I learned that NYU, like many other “reputable” schools, is designed for kids with trust funds. Not me.

I am now twenty years old, and I still believe that the world is my oyster, despite the fact that once again, I am living in my parents’ living room (different house though, slightly different family, and this time, I have a mattress). I guess family is handy like that. They only see the best in you, even when all you can see is the worst.

I am part of a generation of go-getters. We are CPAs and on the fast track for CEO.

We tour in bands and tour foreign countries, and eventually, after we’ve conquered the world and created our 401ks, maybe we’ll marry another rich CPA and have some kids. And we’ll do it all without disturbing our French manicures or missing our spin classes.

That’s all well and good, but what about breathing? I think somewhere along the line, there’s something we forgot…

The northern Mississippi River peeks out from behind some Minneapolis foliage to say hello to the sun.

Espresso Life Lessons

It is a gray and drizzly morning in the land of the North, and it is only fitting that this is the day I leave Minneapolis. The cool of temperature in the misty mornings became a sort of security blanket for me as I walked to work each morning; the sun filled me with warmth and excitement, but the soft breeze reminded me to not get overly agitated by life. At least, it tried.

I came here with a job to do. As specific as that job was, the title, I quickly learned, meant any number of duties. For me, that included: stage managing, assistant directing, light board “operating” (and I use that term loosely), movement coach, yoga teacher, kid wrangler, kid entertainer, improv leader (another term I use loosely), tap instructor, motivational speaker, acting coach, disciplinarian, usher, furniture mover, morning greeter, attendance monitor, team leader, and human enthusiast, in the broadest sense of the term.

I learned quite a lot, and more about myself than I expected or was prepared for. I learned invaluable information about the heart and lungs and nervous system of a large non-profit theatre company. I learned to always expect more from children, but to not be disappointed or thrown off if they cannot give it to you. I also gained light years of patience, and a hell of a lot more respect for my mother, who taught grade school art for longer than I have been on this planet.

I met people, artistically minded, creative, fully functional intellectuals, who didn’t follow the societal “norm” of (and please, don’t ask me how it got to be this way, because I still don’t know) high school –> college –> 9 to 5. And none of them are starving.
I think my favorite interaction in the Twin Cities has got to be my serendipitous encounter with someone we’ll call Mr. Coffee Shop Man, one of those non-starving happy creative souls. It went like this:

Mr. CSM: So what are you studying? (in reference to my transfer student information packet’s list of college majors)
Me (with a chortle): That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
Mr. CSM (with a shrug very similar to the irritated body language that had been mine of late, frustrated with the “system”): I went from a major in Astro-Physics to a major in [something else I can’t remember, but obviously not important] and finally landed on English major with elementary education and dance minors.
Me: WOW. And what did you do with that?
Mr. CSM: I’ve done lots of things. Massage therapist, preschool teacher, dance instructor, corporate worker. And then I went to grad school for Korean studies, just for shits and giggles.
Me: So what do you do NOW? (unable to fathom the type of a career a dancing Korean history nerd can hold down and afford six dollar coffees and a MacBook Pro)
Mr. CSM: I create Apps.

Oooooooohhh!

He continued, with another, less hostile shrug: You have to do what makes you happy, what interests you. Otherwise it’s really hard to get up in the morning.

DUH!!

On a random aside, I did take more than two pictures this month. I will post what I have soon, because pictures really do make blogs far more interesting. I am also looking forward to two more trips in the next month: a road trip south down Route 78 and a plane trip, this time to good ‘ole New England. I will continue to blog and see what happens!

So far, it has been…

So far, it has been life. I obviously cannot control the ebb and flow of nature, so I simply must build a boat and float along. It has also been a time for metaphors (Ex: I was having a phone conversation with my mother last week and came up with the phrase “I’m not looking for a golden ticket; I’m just looking for a bar of chocolate.”

Cynical? Not if you knew me.
I think growing up dedicated to the particularly exhausting art of musical theatre created a sense of idealism in me that I clung to for so much of my upbringing, particularly in times of struggle.

Also, apparently Dateline did a special about the harmful affects of styrofoam and microwavable plastic in causing premature puberty. I have twenty two middle school girls in my class things week, and there are two who are shorter than me. The tallest is 5’10. The age ranges are 11-14.

Also, artificial colors and food dyes are made from petroleum, which causes ADD.

I don’t know when my world shifted. I’ve always been a cynic, but I used to be a child. Now I complain about “kids today.”

I have a vivid memory of riding in the car to Murfreesboro, TN at the age of seventeen to a drama intensive and crying, inexplicably, for the state of the world. Strong feelings of guilt pulsed inside me for not being somewhere else, helping people.

Being so far away from everything I know is hard for someone like me, who finds comfort in familiarity. Once the romantic appeal of the old Northern style wooden paneled homes wore off, I was left with only little me in a city that could swallow me on foot. Minneapolis is not that big, but it is bigger than me.

Maybe the Twin Cities have won this round. There is nothing negative I have to say about them. They function like many cities do, in fact on some things they function better. Still, after three weeks of walking the same routes, I have begun to notice and cling to the imperfections.

This fills me with a strong desire to organize my life. I smell tasks ahead. But here, I only feel a half life.