You're Hot Then You're Cold

Having lived in Arizona my entire life, minus that six-month stint in the UK, when someone asks me: "Do you hate the cold or the heat more?" I've always said the heat. It's blistery and sweaty, and everyone wants to talk about how what they grew up in was the most miserable of weather. I felt I added credit to my answer based on those few months I spent in one of the UK's warmest winters, the cold is also something you can bundle up in. In the heat, no matter how many clothes you take off without breaking laws, you can't really fool your body temperature. Every summer I tell myself I will somehow not hate summer as much as I did the year before. Honestly, because we cruise from our air conditioned vehicles to our air conditioned jobs or errands, we don't get to really experience it. Many are affected by Arizona's brand of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I am pretty sure that my lightly-sunburned chest that is present throughout the summer months still doesn't make up for the lack of sunshine I allow myself because of fear of scorching. Many citizens are only happy when there is "cool" nearby, usually in the form of a pool. In fact, there are friends that I keep around purely because they own a pool. Despite all of this, I think I will stop arguing with those from the midwest and northeast and admit that cold really sucks. I am currently peeling from a sunburn that I managed to get while laying on the beach in California in 70-degree weather.so I can't blame the heat for sunburns either. When I think to when I've actually been MISERABLE because of weather, it's always associated with things like rain, wind and not feeling parts of my appendages or face. You win, northerners. You win. So, for no reason at all, if you ask me in the future, you will know my answer.

This leads to the fact that I change my mind a lot. You know how your mother always thinks that you like the same foods you liked when you were ten? "When did you start eating mushrooms?" she bellows at you fifteen years later... Well, it's funny how, as a culture, we are not receptive to people around us just changing their minds. Our decisions are our reference points to how we view others/are viewed by others in our social circle. That's Jill-- she's a hippie liberal arts activist. Ok, I just described myself, but the point is, we love to throw titles around. At the same time, reinvention is what keeps us alive. I mentioned this in my first post-- that we have to tear parts down in order to build new ones. I started caring for plants recently, and I have been pruning leaves, so I am starting to get this nature metaphor. We have to continue to grow. Yet it's still a shock when someone that we define as X, Y and Z, decides to try something new or even more shocking when they completely reinvent themselves. We're almost resentful of that couch potato who joins yoga and becomes a vegetarian... WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE CHANGING THEIR LIFESTYLE? She's getting all this attention for making decisions she should have years ago and I've done yoga for seven years! Unfortunately, if you're consistently mediocre or just pretty good at something, you don't really get massive popularity one day. This does not mean that you aren't fantastic and doing your best! Don't lose heart just because your story isn't being highlighted by the news. Notice that the best stories are always from one extreme to another: Rags to Riches, Obese to Thin, Cancer Survivor Wins the Tour de France Six Times! ...That's enough, Lance Armstrong...

Yet 99.9% of us work on a smaller scale. So for those non-life-changing, but perhaps slightly view-shifting ideas that just aren't working for us anymore, let's just accept them in ourselves and those surrounding us. "You don't hate Mad Men anymore?" "You hike now?" "You started eating red meat?" "You dyed your hair?" "You're a hipster?" All of these may be followed by an "...well then I don't even know you." The fact is that many of us may be afraid to change these small things that helped define us because we're scared of being judged or for others to see our convictions weakened. Changing is my favorite part of being human. I love to find something that tests my previous notions, even though I might be stubborn or judgmental at first. For example, if someone asked me to go to a Nascar race. Actually, I just laughed to myself out loud. I don't know if I can get over my preconceived notions of being engulfed by a sea of mullets... I didn't think I liked Parks and Rec because I watched two episodes. I then decided to give it a real shot when I was bored last weekend and watched all three seasons. We can now not only call me a fan, but also an expert on Ron Swanson. I also love to surprise myself. For example, I am currently taking piano lessons and I got way too excited when I played Mary Had a Little Lamb with two hands. I start improv lessons in two weeks... Let's see if I'm funny unscripted. Why not? Get out, make some change and try something new. It's scary to prove yourself and those around you that you're capable of expanding and changing, but it's also an amazing quality that I never want to lose. So yeah, I hate the freezing cold.

Where's the Grief?

If you can't tell by the title, this is going to be a rant purely about grief. Dad passed away two months ago on April 9th. Heart attack. I woke up that Saturday morning he died to a car alarm going off. Later on, my coworker Kathleen asked me if the banshee had come to tell me, and I remembered the alarm and realized it had... He's gone. I can't really wrap my head around it. The moment I start to, I just feel angry and cheated and sad, frustrated, and terrified and drained, which comes before or/and after I'm numb and tired and happy and energetic and ambitious and ...it's like I'm experiencing a wealth of these extreme, down-to-my-bones emotions that I've never experienced before. I can only compare it to having those hormones I had when I was in high school, except I handle things completely differently now and my maturity helps. Yet occasionally I find myself having emotional moments in an inappropriate setting (i.e. work, or at a happy event), and I just try not to let it get too out-of-hand (Sidenote: When I am in that moment, typically started by nothing but my own mind, I really really want to punch someone in the face a la M'Lynn in Steel Magnolias). So, it becomes obvious that I don't have the tools to cope. Yet...I don't know anyone who does. I think that must be where the extreme frustration comes in. Grasping non-stop without actually taking hold of anything. What's appropriate in this situation? I want the answer to be "everything." I want to be able to act out and have someone explain that it's OK, my dad died. But that's not going to happen. I think many people see me as someone who makes jokes through everything, and as a person with lots of gusto, so I must be handling things okay. And no, I don't want to be treated with white gloves all the time, but yeah, sometimes I do. Sometimes I need some extra love and don't know how to ask. If I see you, I might give you ten hugs for no fucking reason. Hugs are better than slugs to the face, so I hope you appreciate them for at least that much. The process of grief is not only difficult for me, but also for those friends around me who don't know what to say. Some don't say much at all, others ask all the time. There might be a happy medium, but I'm not holding it against those who don't know what that means. I don't think I knew what it meant before this either... So to those friends who have sent or will send me "I'm sorry I haven't been there" messages-- The world can't stop because one big shiny light went out, even though I wanted it to, because no matter how much I dig in my heels, it just keeps on spinning...

There's a poem in a book of 100 Great American Poets that my Granny gave my dad one year for Christmas. It's the Ella Wheeler Wilcox poem, Solitude. I used to think, "Wow, this is beautiful, and horrifyingly cynical," and now I read it and see it in a new light. You cannot take anyone with you in grief. It is something you must go through by yourself, and not because there aren't empathetic or sympathetic friends there who want to help, but because it is so personal. That's the fact of the matter. This is also a comment on an overall human reaction to devastation. Apparently she wrote it after meeting a grieving widow, and she was devastated for her, and angry that she was so HELPLESS to take away that pain.

SOLITUDE by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

Fortunately, sadness doesn't have to be despair. And some people still help and brighten my day just by saying hello and being genuine. When my dad died, it created a hole in me that the wind will always blow through. It will never really close. But I am still here. I can talk about non-death-related things, and I can joke and be a shell of who you're used to me being, but also know that my mind is muggy and exhausted because that's what grief does. So, that's where I am and I am where my grief is. It's currently a large part of me and I'm embracing it. So, embrace me! Thank you all.

Finding the Day-to-Day

I write this after a long year and a half since my last post. I stopped blogging because I allowed that horrible seed of doubt called insecurity to grow inside of me and poison my blogging well with thoughts on how my day-to-day ramblings aren't as interesting as my ramblings about foreign lands. Yet I find that even that daily grind brings up these moments of irony and hilarity that allow me to remember that I don't need a foreign country to find a difference in culture and outlook. Those foreign lands also cost money--the kind that I am trying to get more of, but I missed writing, so here we are.

Since I returned, I realize that South America has become my life's biggest milestone. I feel I grew some new legs in that time that nourished my ability to continue to grow in the coming months after my return. It offered me the greatest gift of courage to seek out opportunities for things that were not easy or on a strict career path, but it's exactly what I was looking for. A fire under my ass. I was looking for a good burn to remind of me what it's like to voraciously leap out of a $1,000 ergonomically-correct-yet-ineffective office chair that otherwise sits beneath me... I'm currently collecting tinder perfect for fueling the next one.

As life would have it, I've experienced a lot of change since that milestone. Both fortunate and unfortunate, but let's start with the fortunate. I began volunteering with Free Arts of Arizona as the Volunteer and Outreach Intern for last spring semester, and now serve as an advocate and mentor. We provide therapeutic arts programs to disadvantaged youth in shelters, residential treatment centers and group home situations. In my experiences, I feel almost as if I am revisiting many of the children I grew up with, many who were never removed from their unfortunate home situations. I wish that child protective services could ensure these children that things will be better... Unfortunately, "better" does not come until it is reaction to the situation, instead of prevention. In this experience, I am taught courage through children who have faced abhorrent situations that no human should ever experience. This small action of providing an art project or positive distraction here and there is one that I believe in. In those moments, there's focus and there's creativity and thought. So, what is "better"? I don't know. I just hope we give these kids a taste of how it feels.

While rehabilitating my back after an injury, I decided I wanted to do physical labor for a conservation corps. I sought out some opportunities and applied. Why? Because I'm crazy. No back injury can phase me, SO SUCK IT! (damn foreshadowing)... I started work with the Coconino County Rural Environment Corps back in May and was chosen as a crewmember of a 10-person team in the Grand Canyon rebuilding part of the Kaibab Trail with the National Park Service. My first day of training in Flagstaff, I showed up with some light make-up on (so as to look my best on a first day, as I have done my entire life) and was immediately called out:

Instructor: "Is that...Is that glitter?"
Me: "Oh, uh, I think it's in my blush?"
Instructor: "Well...I think that's a first. Wow....*ahem* Well everyone, now I'm going to show you how to poop in a hole."

I threw them for a loop. What was I doing there? Well, I think that being able to see the fruits of your labor is important. One of the number one complaints from those in office positions is that there is no tangible evidence of all of those logged hours. The ability to work with your hands allows you such a luxury, and I was to work in the grandest canyon in the world as a job. Yes, it was for pittance, but it was an opportunity that I would have regretted seizing.
-I hiked down to the Colorado River.
-I watched the sun set and rise over cliffs and monuments.
-I woke up at 4:45 in the morning and in the largest composting toilet that you have ever seen. We nicknamed it the poopzilla. After using that, no one can ever say I'm not green.

In addition, I cried, took muscle relaxers every night, and did not take a proper shower for 8 days of the sweatiest work I have ever done, but never thought I could do. I surprised myself and realized how rewarding that feeling can be. Next week, I re-injured myself by simply picking up my niece and then laid in bed on and off for three weeks. I was heartbroken to not be able to finish my service. My disappointment was an amplified response to the one I had to the game of "Sorry" that I played as a child. I have a flare for self-pity that really is quite impressive when I turn it on...

Pity doesn't pay the bills. I sucked it up. I applied for jobs left and right and asked people to ask their friends and eventually received a call that the Tempe Center for the Arts needed a part-time office assistant to come in. I took it immediately. I started working 40 hours a week before long and helping out with events more directly, so I got some of my groove back in the work force. It felt like I had one of those career thingamabobs. Still, I had no medical insurance and had acquired a knee that clicked and stuck funny like a rusty door hinge and a back that threatened to go out on occasion. So, I needed it and the the poor little TCA just couldn't afford to offer it to me. I decided to take a chance once again, and I applied for a job with ASU. I WON the grand prize of the position of Receptionist, Sr/Office Asst.

Yes. That long dual-title just to say that I work at a front desk. Apparently someone was offended that both duties of assisting in the office AND receiving people were not identified in their title. I find that neither of those titles sounds any more interesting than the other, so it's like doubly-boring BUT I GET BENEFITS...at the cost of a pay cut :P I will say one thing, I have SIX student workers to help me answer those phones. YEP, I am a big deal here. Now my daily routine takes place here at the old ASS-U. I will have to post some of the fantastical stories from the calls and visits that take place. Some stories make me both happy and positively terrified for the future of the world...

I will also write about Dad. He passed away over two weeks ago and things feel so strangely still and yet in total upheaval. One of his favorite quotes was: "Oh how daily life is..." Indeed. Till then.


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