the first post

...from my new macbook pro.

yay!

I write about it here because I've never made a purchase this big, and I've been waiting for several years to buy one. but also because this purchase is another step toward continuing my life as a student. student of what, I'm not quite sure yet, but the list includes my favorites of social work, graphic design, communications, art, and all things visual and purposeful.

my rainy disposition

though the many other st louisans are currently complaining about the month-long downpour we've been experiencing, I am not. I like the rain, even if it is a bit out of the norm and even though it's forcing the trees to drop their leaves before I've visually witnessed the full glory of fall. I mention this simply because I wouldn't want you to think that this post has anything to do with the weather.

***

the way I see it, a person generally has one of two statements running through the back of their head at all times. both statements are usually said with some degree of disbelief and can be adjusted - through the inflection and intonation of one's internal monologue - to reflect exactly how they feel. these statments become the audible expression of one's mood, reflecting that person's true attitude toward a situation, and I think that they do a much better job of revealing one's general disposition than any half-empty or half-full glass ever will.

these statements are:
1. this is my life.
2. this is not my life.

it is my current opinion that a person uses the same statement - one or the other above - to describe every situation. they just happen to change their expression of it to match what's going on in their head. and it sounds simple, but generally, the inclusion or exclusion of that commonplace three-letter-word is the deciding factor between one having a pessimistic or an optimistic view on life.

I bring this up because last night I realized that, after years of pretending to be an optimist, trying to emulate that kind of disposition and the likable traits that go along with it, my general disposition is one of pessimism. that three-letter-word is always present, even in those moments when I've been truly happy about something. my tone just vacillates between one of elated disbelief instead of defeated disbelief (or just defeat).

it's just ironic that it has taken me this long to admit it. afterall, I write a blog "dedicated to finding the good in everything." and I write posts wherein I seek an uplifting ending. if that doesn't scream 'fighting a natural pessimistic streak,' I don't know what else does.

the social scientist in me wonders if pretending to be optimistic is a social coping mechanism akin to people emulating extroverts. hmm...

when a moment hits

I love this picture:

win mcnamee/getty images

it's from today's ny times article about the first lady's efforts to raise awareness about nutrition in school meals and fitness for kids. which, in my youth development- and healthy eating-oriented opinion, is such a refreshing topic for any first lady to take on considering the things her predecessors have put on their agendas (and droned on about)...

but social issues have nothing to do with why I love the shot.

sometimes I have a hard time connecting with art. I know, with my whole mind, that art - painting, illustration, sculpture, photography, all of it - is a very personal experience, and that others feel differently than I do about each and every piece out there. but I happen to take a very sterile, very analytical stance toward art.

maybe it's got something to do with spending four years of my life cataloging slides and their digital counterparts (really, I'm just looking for descriptive keywords); or maybe it's that I'm constantly sizing things up for the amount of time, skill, and effort (and wondering if I could do better).

I think, though, it's that I'm often just waiting for 'it' to hit, as 'it' did with the picture above.

the 'it' I'm talking about is the aforementioned personal experience, that I only know with my whole self on rare occasions, and that I only vaguely capture with words after the moment has hit. in this instance, it was a moment of recognition, a split second connection I made with this picture had something to do with the bright colors, the action, and the look on her face, that triggered the thought I've been there, I know what that feels like, that hit an undefined personal memory and caused a gut reaction. and thankfully, this gut reaction was a smile.

like I said, I don't have these moments often. so I thought I'd share, in the vain hopes that documenting such reactions might help me have more of them.

grown-up observations

most mornings, if I leave for the office on time, I am witness to a neighborhood full of kids walking to the pretty brick elementary school in the center of my neighborhood. each of these mornings I am struck with a bit of envy for their simpler lives.

my mind wanders back to my days spent walking the six blocks to my elementary school with my brother and a random assortment of friends. I get a laugh when the older ones are walking with parents, because I just don't get the over-protective behavior displayed by parents of late. I get a bigger laugh out of their backpacks, bigger than they are, and the differing levels of excitement/dread/fear on their faces.

I don't remember not wanting to go to school when I was that young. I enjoyed reading and writing and spelling and coloring and all of it so much that, coupled with the socialization with my small group of friends, each day seemed pretty excting. while I do remember not wanting to do the homework, I generally remember being happy to be there. I picture myself in each little dark-haired girl I see walking by, and wonder if adults driving past me as a kid could tell that I was quietly happy, in my own world, on my way to a favorite place.

fifth grade is when the look of dread settled on my face. I was a bit of a wreck, actually. I stopped doing my homework and stopped wanting to go to school in general.

at one point that year I learned to forge my mom's signature so that I could hand in late homework assignments and would skip recess to work on extra credit projects for my teacher to make up for it. I had a group of friends to play with on recess when I did go, and I enjoyed art class and sometimes gym. the only time I was happy sitting through regular class was when we were creating things with our hands or reading. but generally, I spent quite a bit of time staring out the large windows at the younger kids on recess or gym classes, wishing I was out there.

sometimes I think I was a pretty normal kid, that this sort of ick settles over all kids around the age of ten or eleven. sometimes I wonder if I wasn't just a little too weird for my own good, that I'd had a hard time adjusting to a new school and socializing. and sometimes I wonder if I was just experiencing my first dip in a lifetime of mild dysthymia, but one can never be sure.

throughout this rough year, I remember regularly thinking that I envied my mother for being an adult, for working in a tall building with high windows and mazes of cubicles, for wearing nice grown-up clothes, and for not having to be in school anymore. I revisited this feeling - this thought that being an adult was simple, because there was no homework, there were no teachers, and you got paid! - throughout the rest of my schooling, all the way up through grad school. I spent many a night holed up in my bedroom in tempe writing papers and resenting my roommates for having nothing better to do but watch tivo, get drunk, slam doors, and laugh.

if added up, I'm sure I've spent days of my life wishing I were an adult working in an office.

which is ironic, seeing that for the better part of two years - the time I've worked in a "typical" office setting, wearing business casual clothes and yearning for a window to gaze out of - I have spent numerous stolen moments wishing I were outside walking to school or laughing with my friends.

it makes me wonder what I missed by not being fully present all those years, and if I'm missing anything by not being fully present now.

the only conclusion I have so far is: I miss art class.

chicago: the destination, the destiny.

according to wikipedia, "chicago" is sufjan stevens' most well-known song. according to me, it didn't exist until my paternal grandfather died.

a few weeks later I was driving down manchester, en route to whole foods on a february weeknight and headed into a particularly pretty sunset. this sunset, however, at first went unnoticed because I was focused solely on weaving angrily through traffic. I was tired, I was hurried, I was frazzled; I had it in my mind that a mocha from the starbucks on brentwood was the only way I would make it through my closing shift and I had less than twenty minutes to get one and clock in. as I crossed over macklind, "chicago" came on the radio.

time stopped. autopilot set in.

I was in love with the place
in my mind, in my mind

I noticed the sunset. orange and pink and purple. reminiscent of sunsets in arizona, or stormy nights on a michigan shore.

I made a lot of mistakes
in my mind, in my mind

I started crying.

on top of being stressed out on the road, on the way to my second job, with so much to think about and not enough of me taken into consideration, my mind was flooded with memories associated with that song - from the obvious (that I 'found' it right before he died) to the lyrical (the ones above especially, though the connection is loose) to the obscure (my memaw grew up in chicago and has retained a bit of her accent, which makes me laugh) - that overwhelmed me as I drove... as I heard it.

as I do... every time I hear it.

***

sufjan's song was not the one running through my head last time I set foot in the titular city. wilco's "via chicago" was, though, since I was literally coming home via chicago. this was three weeks after he died; I navigated two plane-train connections through the city for my maternal grandma's funeral during the bitter end of february. the whole experience was a taxing journey that rounded out a taxing month, and more than once I wished that I'd gone with tickets for the entire mess or that I'd routed through detroit instead.

I have to admit that, aside from the insistence of certain family members that I ought to live there just to be closer to kalamazoo, I haven't given a thought to visiting the windy city since.

one could read this blog and imply that I would have neither reason nor time to return there. I am clearly a lover of coasts, though not necessarily a fan of that side of the big lake. the number of current chicagoans with whom I quasi-regularly correspond has dwindled to two. small amounts of free time scrounged up in st louis are spent here. all of these things might lead one to imply that my absence from the city is a result of coincidence, that my lack of fondness a result of lack of opportunity.

but, friends, you and I both have reason to doubt that.

I grew up enamored with that city, having gone there more often than detroit despite growing up smack between the two.

throughout college and when I moved back from arizona, and even in my first few months in the lou, I used to spontaneously show up there just for fun (and take pictures on rooftops on the near south side).

yes... we have to doubt that because I can honestly state that have been avoiding that town, and many of my old friends associated with it, with a particular grade of intensity for just over 18 months.

and we really have to doubt that it's coincidence because as I drove up there this weekend - for my first non-family, non-michigan vacation in two years - I thought about turning around well past the halfway-mark on I-55.

so together we doubt coincidence, but do we need another answer? I don't know about you, but I am currently not interested in all of the reasons for blocking this city from my existence and/or dreading it in a way only I know how. no, I am not interested in explaining away such things with loose psycho-social associations and weak realizations.

I'm actually more interested in the thought I had as I was driving away from a trip to chicago that made a lasting good impression.

see, once I got over my initial dread, once I'd past the point of turning around, my weekend wasn't anything out of the ordinary for such a trip: I stayed in a hotel with a view of the lake. I went to a baseball game (a tigers game at that!). I got around on foot or the L. I walked down the lakeshore and stared at the boats. I got lost in the art institute. I got lost in general. I had a few drinks. I laughed with the people around me, especially the friend there with me. I excitedly justified every dollar I overspent. and I experienced moments of joy, stress, and everything in between.

like I said: nothing terribly out of the ordinary.

aside from those ordinary markers of weekend vacations, though, there was this blissful normalcy to all of it - this welcome feeling of having done everything before and being perfectly comfortable with it - that was so noticeable that I actually made the comment aloud.

but let me be clear here: it wasn't normal because it was ordinary. though the two are synonymous, I would hope that you would re-read the sentence above and imagine a genuinely content smile on my face as I emphasize that the normalcy was blissful.

I say it this way because at a certain point I was just contently there. I wasn't thinking too hard. I wasn't trying too hard. I wasn't thinking about how I'd gotten there and things that had already past, nor was I thinking about getting home and things yet to take place. I was present. and while present, I realized that I was everything I miss being, everything I've written about trying to get back to. it felt normal because I was perfectly, calmly, confidently happy. and there really is bliss in being normal as such.

as I settle back into my life here I wonder, in summary of a succession of questions I've been trying to answer for ten years/months/minutes: why? the thousand questions therein will come, but specifically tonight I wonder: why did it take me two years to get out of st louis without some dire strait or serious coaxing, when I know that traveling keeps me balanced?

we'll see...

for now, I have at least one answer to a general life question: it's less about the place, more about the people. and it's definitely my attitude toward and my presence with them, wherever we are.

***

I was absorbed in the drive back down 55 when a familiar song started to play on one of the mixes I received this weekend. it was the strings of sufjan's 'chicago,' which triggered the nervous laugh that precedes the inevitable tears. this time, though, I remembered the blissfully normal gift that lives in the flood of memories: my paternal grandparents were also avid roadtrippers. my memaw, the one I so resemble in my stature and loquaciousness, loves to tell stories of their mis/adventures throughout the states to the point that I often imagine them on the road together when I travel.

don't get me wrong, I still cried despite remembering that gift. but at least this time I realized that I know where I come from, and that this part of my life that I have been neglecting for two years is something I can no longer ignore... that I must act on it to get on with my life.