Relating

There are phases in my life (and I hope in others') when my heart becomes possessed, overwhelmed with love for the people and things around me. I have an immediate urge to hug even the most mundane presence in my life; the trainer at the gym, the parking attendant, a longtime customer at work. During these times I am in a perpetual state of mentally giving thanks for all that I have, all that I have been spared of, and all that I see lying before me. After returning to a warm home that I share with someone I deeply love from an invigorating workout, I prepared a really satisfying meal, and realized that not only am I in the midst of a spontaneous love fest, I actually understand the impetus.

Admission: I am a news junkie. This is born mostly of my enjoyment of picking things apart, of studying culture, of observing communication dynamics, and of understanding how each of us falls in to a unit of purpose in the world. In the last week there have been two major headlines; A man using his God-given talent of voice to panhandle for survival was given a second chance at life, and a woman who dedicated her time and energy to serving and listening to the public was nearly robbed of fulfilling hers. How can one not be brought to the senses in wake of these events and evaluate what it means to be human? I don't think my brain ceases to measure my humanity against that of another's, that of society's, and that of any given subculture. Suffice it to say, I am obsessed.

We are responsible for one another.

When I first saw the story of Ted Williams, "The Man With the Golden Voice," I was stunned. My very first thought was that I was witnessing the talent of a truly humble soul. I am continually astounded by the degree to which success is linked to self promotion. It just doesn't seem fair that some mediocre jerk with a mountainous ego could enjoy a prosperous career while somebody with innate talent is left to beg on the side of highways. In the case of Ted Williams, he more than paid for the decisions he made that led to alcohol and drug addictions; losing his career and family, becoming estranged from his parent, being forced in to homelessness... Despite how long his rapsheet is, how hard others have worked to "legitimately" make it in broadcasting, or what the chances are that he has some secret hidden past, this is a human being with a genuine talent that has been given a chance at redemption. I find it indescribably uplifting that he has been afforded the opportunity, at the very least, to reunite and make amends with his loved ones. When I watch the news outlets question his ability to responsibly handle his newfound fame, while simultaneously dissecting and criticizing every element of his past, it just breaks my heart. Why can't we as a nation unite in joy for a fellow citizen rather than publicly scrutinize every possibility of their failure? I understand that this is the (unfortunate) role of media in our society, to exploit and engage a topic in it's most inflammatory and least likely facets, but WHY? Sadly, there really isn't a fair or satisfying answer to that question, but it seems that the goal in promoting stories like Ted's should be to expose and promote the notion that the extraordinary exists in the most banal and unconscious aspects of our lives. Every story has a right to play out naturally before the "I told ya so" instinct kicks in.

So needless to say, I was feeling pretty uplifted and inspired by the Ted Williams story. As far as I'm concerned, I am his steadfast cheerleader and I certainly hope that he is able to withstand the pressure of fame in order to sustain success. But just as I was really content on celebrating the resilience and redemptive qualities of the human spirit, an Arizona politician, along with her colleagues and constituents, were spontaneously gunned down. Listening to the breaking news over NPR, as I sat warm and safe on a slow day at the candy shop, I was crippled with regret for this strange culture, this feeble national morality under which we all mindlessly operate. Without knowing a single thing about the gunman or the victims one thing was glaringly clear; someone felt that there was no better alternative to handle their anger, and that person was empowered by both the law of the state and the larger cultural constructs, to obtain a weapon and use it against another living, breathing, cognizant human being. However, in this case the act of killing and maiming was perpetrated by a person with severe metal illness. I can't attempt to turn this in to a political debate, and honestly, politics has no room in this discussion. I also can't pretend to have the psychological answers to effectively interpret the shooter's motive. However, there are a few prominent and relevant aspects of popular culture that repeatedly smack me in the face and leave me feeling utterly helpless, frustrated, and disgusted.

I literally mourn for the child who is brought up distracted by shoot 'em up games while Mom gossips on her cell phone. I can feel my heart being wrung like a sponge when I hear friends describing the thrillingly gory and graphic images of a film or television show. I wince, close my eyes tight, and quietly wonder how calloused a soul must become to watch when I am exposed to such scenes in my own personal viewing of media and film. And yet, in the throws of this cultural bombardment of violence, negativity, cynicism, and entitled rage, we scratch our heads in wonderment while simultaneously wagging fingers of superfluous blame over how atrocities of the Arizona shooting caliber could ever take place. Especially now, as I am allowing excruciating levels of sympathy to enter my heart, I am fully aware of one simple strategy of minimizing the suffering and damaging cynicism in the world; find love.

It sounds cliche and oversimplified, but it is the truest sentiment. None of us can control our pasts, our upbringings, the wrongdoings we've endured and committed, our sensitivities and needs. What we CAN control is how those things motivate the people we strive to become. We control how we foster these strengths and flaws in others as well.

We are responsible for one another.

In the case of Ted Williams, it is denial and fear that prevent people from feeling compassion and joy from his story. None of us are willing to admit that we are all one degree of sanity away from losing everything we own and love to addiction, but that is the grave truth. One too many cocktails over time, an injury that demands prolonged pain medication, innocent experimentation that snowballs without warning; these are the routine realities of addiction. Similarly, when we invest so much time and money in to the Hollywood thrillers and explicit media content that constitute the bulk of popular culture, it is nearly impossible to recognize the subtle and cumulative psychological effects of such repeated exposure. In the end, even our political and religious climates are permeated by polarizing, defensive, self-righteous rhetoric. In either case, it is obvious that the average American's psyche is left damaged and confused, and incomprehensibly so in the case of one who struggles with addiction, poverty, homelessness, and mental illness.

It is easier said than done, easier recognized than practiced, but I'm positive that this sudden infusion of affection, devotion, and compassion in my own life is born of the severe lack of those qualities I perceive in the current practice of civility. Putting inflated news stories and gratuitous portrayals of misery aside, I let myself feel for others. I work to understand the perspective of those most deviant from my own, and try to understand why such chasms in the human experience exist. It's never certain which encounters may validate the darkest depths of a tumultuous mind, but it's far less likely to go wrong with the promotion of gratefulness and love.

I have all the fulfillment in the world that I could possibly need or deserve, and while there's room for growth, there's certainly the possibility of loss. I can only hope that the recognition of this dichotomy is the rule of humanity, rather than the exception. And so I try to tread lightly, live humbly, and find grace before placing blame. I'm not always successful, but it's my appreciation of life that pushes me to love beyond my limitations.

Shining Brightly

It is with big expectant eyes and a smile as wide as my heart is full that I ring in each new year. From some secret repository of excitement hidden in the depths of this tiny body, volumes of joyous noise and enthusiastic whooping come flooding through me at the turn of the year. I imagine my enthusiasm dazzling across sound waves, propelled by the kinetic energy of the party, with the collective vibrancy of new year's attire; every utterance shimmers like a sequined dress, every gesture and dance move have a metallic pizzaz, and that midnight kiss is as sharp and sexy as a good suit and tie. Everything that happens in the moments after counting down has the distinct feeling of being new.

Isn't that the best feeling? A year's worth of burdens and baggage totally melted away at the drop of a ball. I allow the butterflies, the flurry, the elation, the hysteria to completely overcome me. Abandoning all sense of time and duty, I allow the evening to sweep me up in bubbly drinks and dancing, in hugging and laughing, in the concentrated brightness of a New Year's Eve crowd.

It is only in the waking hours of the first day of a new year, once the champagne buzz has subsided and the sixteenth hour of sleep has passed, that the happy butterfly feeling sinks right to the pit of my stomach and the fluttering gets a little frantic. It isn't enough to simply celebrate a new year, you have to do something with it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not one of those people who finds resolutions to be frivolous or contrived. I like having benchmarks, ways of measuring the prosperity of a year. But I find that as I get older it gets harder and harder to draft a meaningful and attainable set of blueprints to guide me through the next 365 days. It takes days of careful pondering, of combing music, literature, even fashion, for threads of inspiration. I used to feel an ugency to amalgamate all those notions as quickly as possible in order to purposefully move forward in the year. Now, I think I like to ruminate over what it is that inspires me before I attempt to extract a significance of my own. And of course, when that moment of illumination strikes and it appears as though I know exactly what it is I need and want from the coming months, my writer's spirit goes in to a frenzy.

Penning my resolutions is a solemn ritual; it requires silence, space to think, a determined mind. So it goes now as I say, welcome, welcome, welcome to a new and promising 2011.

1. On New Year's Eve day I began reading Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes. From his favorite novel he cut words and sentences out of each page, essentially creating this beautiful three dimensioanl puzzle of words and a new story that is extremely stark, but wildly descriptive through truncated thoughts. It wasn't until now that I fully recognized the symbolism in my choosing to sit with this novel on NYE. Not only did Foer take something old and well loved and make it personal and new, he let it speak through simplicity. One particular passage, the one bearing the titular namesake, struck me as an exquisite articulation of what it means to embrace the passage of time: "Exhausted by passivity, the poses and postures, the shifting weight from foot to foot, we find ourselves part of the tree of codes. Reality is as thin as paper. Only the small section before us is able to endure, behind us sawdust in an enormous empty theatre."

I have always been one to grip so tightly to the past that the future sometimes feels like a powerful current or undertow, lapping at my belly, threatening to rip away my grasp from what is known and concrete. Always shifting my weight to accomodate for the small shreds of change that I allow to eek past that guarded wall of routine. As I watch things change and grow around me, I'm beginning to realize that reality isn't this steadfast, reliable account of past experiences. No matter how cummulative knowledge and emotion and maturity may be, life is as delicate and viscous as muslin cloth. I think I'm ready to allow some of that fragile webbing to dissolve, I'm not afraid to stand in an empty room of the past.

2. I'm willing to clean out the closets of my mind, I should probably undergo a tangible purge as well. I spin sentimentality like spider's silk, enrobing ridiculously meaningless artifacts in artificial significance. This year, I will make a concerted effort to distinguish trash from trinket. As much as I love being surrounded by the familiarity of my belongings, I have a growing disdain for this culture of stuff we've become inured to. There are too many people in the world, and we are producing heap after unsustainable heap of crap because we have nothing better to do with our wealth. Thankfully, I'm attracted to things with history, things that are well lived in and well used. Still, I think I'm ready to commit to an "out with the old in with the new" modus operandi. I'm excited to eliminate some clutter and welcome a new family of possessions in to my life.

3. I want to document my life more thoroughly. For anyone who has clicked through the masses of photographs on my Facebook page, you may be scratching your dumbfounded head at this statement, but it's true. I've allowed my little photographic obsession to supplement the lack of a written account. I've carried the same pocket-sized Moleskin notebook around in my purse for the last two years, and all I have to show for it is a smattering of ruffled pages containing grocery lists. I want to make it a point to cultivate mindfulness by taking more notes. I don't make time for copying down a poignant passage, let alone a page number, I forget my thought when I think of the perfect way to describe something, I find myself in a funny or unusual circumstance whose memory is clouded over time. The more I take note of these things, the more easily instigated to write I'll become, I'm sure of that.

4. The act of walking, of taking a walk, holds a lot of meaning with me. As a child, Mother and I took daily walks. It was our time to talk and reflect, to laugh and observe, to smile at neighbors and collect things in our pockets. I loved Fall walks when there were acorns on the ground, and taking a walk on my birthday, the day after Independence Day, when a colorful littering of used fireworks blew down the sidewalks. As a teenager I walked Bardstown Road with friends almost daily; those walks signified the evolution of my independence, the mischief and harmless immaturity of my youth. Even in my early(er) years of adulthood I chose walking to the bank or the drugstore from my apartment over driving. Somewhere in these recently busy years between balancing school and work, I lost the motivation to hoof it. Looking back, I think there's a lot to be said for the time walking allows to take pause, to observe, to work off bad energy, to organize one's thoughts. I foresee two busy little feet and a clear conscience in my future.

5. The previous point may very well facilitate the one I am about to make- In the spirit of cleaning out clutter, eliminating unnecesary weight, and taking strides for a clearer, more productive mind, I need to invent more beneficial ways of processing and releasing negativity. As I admited in last year's resolutions, the gift of sharp wit and sarcasm might as well be the very strands of my DNA. We, the Moores and the Reads, are appreciaters and propagators of quick, dark humor. The other day when Daddy said he's afraid that a swift gust of wind would cause Angelina Jolie's lips to smack her in the face I nearly fell off my chair laughing at that image. However, when he makes similar jokes about people in our immediate environment, I can see a tiresome pattern of negativity for negativity's sake emerging. Learning to decipher a good laugh from an unwarrented jab is a personal hurdle that I've improved on, but have yet to overcome.

Further, I have a hard time letting go of a bad day or a series of inconvenience. I allow myself to rant, to complain, and sometimes to wallow. It would make my soul much lighter to find a means of shedding ill-feelings without speaking and acting them in to existence. Harnessing patience is a good first step, pulling myself back to consider what is worth attending to and what is easily ignored. Breathing, clearing my mind, unbusying myself- these are the acts I need to more frequently engage in. Or better yet, using my intuition and focusing on the humor in a trying situation.. Dont be so serious.

6. Find the perfect pair of red boots, and wear the living daylights out of them.