Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. ~Thomas Hardy
Some people hate the passing of time, but I kind of like it. I appreciate the finite nature of my life….easy to say, perhaps, since I’m only in the middle of it….and don’t feel excessive nostalgia for times past. The only exception relates to my kids’ childhoods. When I see photos, touch their little shoes I’ve kept, the smocked dresses I made, I feel their young presence with such immediacy my chest aches. I remember feeling exhausted and overwhelmed when I was actually in the midst of all that, and kind of wish I could do it again, with the grace I’ve acquired in the years since.
the cartwheel galaxy...cool, huh!
But otherwise, I enjoy seeing time happening. I enjoy feeling the shift in the air that means late summer is winding down, and one of these days that new feeling in the air, and the different way the light looks, will mean we’re in fall. One December I was standing at a crosswalk, heading home, and the Christmas tree stand was right there, crowded with people. A young mother and her little girl, maybe 4 years old, stood next to me while we waited to cross Broadway. I listened to the mother answering her little girl’s questions about Christmas, and I knew that my time to be that mother was long gone. Every year, every Christmas, there are new mothers with 4 year old girls standing at the corner. Every year a new wave. One of these years, my daughters will stand on some corner with their 4 year old children, and then one of these years, their time will be gone too.
Once I was crossing a quiet street near my apartment and had a strange experience where I felt like I’d seen time. It was like a special effect in a movie, the kind where the main actor is still and everything whizzes past in a blur, you know that kind of scene? It was like seeing people and the traces they left behind in each instant. Very neat, and it only lasted for a minute.
I don’t know what it is about impending fall that lends itself to this kind of thought, but it always happens to me. Life changes, that’s the main thing you can say about it. Life changes, I change, my interests change, my possibilities change, my circumstances change, people change, and now I’ve even changed from a coffee drinker to a tea drinker. That one is the most surprising of all. 
if only I could knit while doing the plank. hmm.
Well, I guess that’s what I am — a monogamous obsessive. I am now obsessed with remaking my physical life to the detriment of my other obsessions. My knitting has taken a backseat (strangely enough, it’s not like I don’t still watch movies at night, so I could knit….but I don’t). Reading? Backseat. Baking? Way way in the back seat. Like, in that car behind me, in its back seat.
It’s fun. I am shocked, because it’s not really fun doing a lot of the stuff (if you know what a burpee is, you’ll give me a yeah yeah), but the aftermath of doing it, of having done it, becomes a whole lot of fun. My body is changing. My state of mind is changing. Hell, even my sleep is changing.
Weird. But the word nerd in me still exists; I’m off to a poetry group meeting tonight, in which we will read and analyze poetry! We’ll see, I hope we really do that. It’s the first meeting. Other groups I’m in — a reading group, and a writing group — they’re only nominally focused on reading and writing. Mostly, they’re about chatting.
So, off to walk the 10 blocks to my poetry group meeting, in the wind and rain. Ah, New York City, such a charmer. Happy Tuesday, y’all!
ch-ch-ch-ch-cha-nges…
In psychology, it’s said that people do mesearch. He studies self-esteem? He doesn’t have any. She studies deception? Big liar. He studies social dilemmas with a focus on people who don’t play nice? He doesn’t play nice. Etc. Social psychology is all about us as social animals, the way the world outside us has far more to do with who we are than we like to believe. The way roles, and scripts, and other people shape our behavior — and then of course we swear that no, that’s not right, we wanted to do that.
Digression #1: Here’s the coolest research I know. So some psychologists go to a mall with a fake questionnaire. As a reward for taking the survey, participants get to choose one of a set of items. In one study, for example, the items were pantyhose. The secret is that every single pair was identical, in every way (and that wasn’t disguised; in other words, the researchers didn’t try to make them appear different). People would mull them over, look them up and down, and then pick one (very reliably, the one on the far right). That’s interesting, but here’s the point: They would be asked why they picked that one (the real point of the research) and people just made shit up. “Well, I picked it because it’s the highest quality.” “I picked it because it’s sheerer than the others.” “I chose that one because it’s the best match to my skin tone.” Etc. And they were all identical. The title of the published paper was “Telling More Than We Know,” and it’s a classic. People do all kinds of things and then make up stories — on the fly — about why they did the thing. And they’ll insist, very strongly. Hilarious.
Digression #2: I’m a social psychologist, but a very unsocial animal. I’m awkward, shy, uncomfortable, and hate parties with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I’m good one-on-one (love that), ok with 2 others, start to wobble with 3, and am lost with 4+. I don’t know how to do small talk, and go immediately into inappropriately deep stuff that makes people suddenly remember they need to go to the bathroom. At home.
So all of that is to say this:
Such a busy social butterfly I am! Last week, lunch with a friend one day, breakfast with another friend one day, and my writing group one evening. This week: breakfast with a friend one day, breakfast with Will this morning and dinner with 2 girlfriends tonight, and then breakfast with another friend tomorrow morning. I hardly recognize myself!
I hardly recognize myself right now, anyway. I daydream about doing plank (plank!) and love to think about getting my form right, on squats. [me?! the most exercise i ever did was moving the mouse around.] I care about how I’m eating and want to be sure I get enough protein and the other stuff I need. And I’m kind of dressed up every day….even just to sit around the house. I enjoy shopping! ME! Yesterday, before my Wednesday appointment, I had some time to spare and stopped in at Filene’s Basement to see what’s new. ME!
I woke up from an unremembered dream a couple nights ago, and I didn’t know who I was, where I was, what I was doing, when I was (by which I mean what decade it is), and couldn’t figure out what I might be doing the next day. Complete and utter identity confusion. Who is this exercising socializing careful-eating dressed-up adult-like person?!
amen, sisters and brothers.
To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.
~William James
We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a physical experience ~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
I’ve been so body-bound, but body-ignorant, all my life. I’ve tended to approach life in the way de Chardin denies: I’ve been a physical being having an occasional spiritual experience….not that I’ve chosen that in a mindful way, and not that this is the way I’d most like to be in the world. But at the same time, I have not taken care with my physical self, in any way (see the previous post, or see me in person!). Now and then I’d get focused on weight loss; I’ve lost 50 pounds so many times I could create a small army of people — or maybe an army of small people. That reminds me of the old joke about being great at stopping smoking, having done it dozens of times. So when I get it together, I know how to lose weight, but obviously that’s only a first step.
Marnie and I talked a lot about life and how to live it, as we always do. I love that about seeing and talking with her. I admire her so much, as I always have, and learn so much from her in ways she doesn’t even know. Part of one of our conversations was about our bodies, and her deep embracing of being a strong woman, and that the embodiment of that is so much more than physical strength and a groovy metaphor. She is certainly strong; she and Tom have a regular strength-training practice of weightlifting. Listening to her talk about it really inspired me, and it landed at just the right moment in my life. She’d tried in the past to encourage me to do strength training, because she was concerned about my aging bones and she knew how good it would be for me, in a whole-self way. The timing must not have been right then, because this time BAM I got it. Before she got here, I’d been thinking very hard about how much I wanted to approach my life and body differently.
One really cool thing she told me that clicked is the idea that strength training is always hard; it’s maintained at a hard level. So for one thing, it doesn’t get harder! But the other thing is that you can do more and more, it takes more to keep it hard. Right now, holding the plank pose for 6 seconds, 3 reps, is HARD, man. I quiver, and on the 3rd one I’m a little sweaty. And I’m right proud of being able to hold it for 6 seconds! But one of these days, to keep it at the same level of hard, I’ll be holding it for a minute. My dear friends, I wish this for you, I wish this for your health and well-being, and for your aging process.
I’ve only done the training workout two days, Sunday and Monday, and I’m very keenly aware of my stomach muscles, the muscles that wrap around my sides, my butt muscles and leg muscles, my arm muscles, my upper back muscles. Keenly aware. I woke up this morning thinking about this, and looking forward to the next time I do it — tomorrow, because today I’m doing yoga. I look forward to seeing if next time I can hold plank for 7. If next time I can replace one set of modified squats with regular squats. Maybe to plank, probably not yet to squats, but it’s just a matter of time. If you put in the time and don’t cheat yourself while you’re doing it, muscles get stronger. Period.
I’m not becoming a proselytizer, and I’m not going to keep writing about the joy of this change; I’ll do that on my fitness blog. Tonight Marnie’s going to send me the photos she took while she was here, so when I get them I’ll write a proper post about her wonderful visit. It was huge, and one of the best times I’ve ever spent with her. As Katie reminded me, 2011 has been magnificent where my children are concerned, because I’ve been so lucky to spend good face-to-face time with each of them. My next goal is to spend good face-to-face time with all of them at once.
Well I quit those days and my redneck ways / And oh the change is gonna do me good
STYLE: I’m 52 — that’s young, or at least, I’m young. I’ve never had money, ever, and frequently had an astonishing lack of money and resources. As a young mother, I had so little money and no health insurance, and babies need things, so of course the little money we had went to seeing that they had what they needed. My “style” was old jeans and old shirts — often my husband’s old shirts. In college and graduate school, it was the same story about money but somehow there was even less of it, and my “style” was still old jeans and older shirts.
Before Marnie arrived, I started thinking about wanting to develop some style, wanting not to look like a bag lady all the time; of course it’s kind of tricky, since I work at home and can stay in jammies (and do). Do I dress up to sit around the house all day? What does that even mean, “dress up?” Just before she arrived, I’d come across a wonderful blog, Une Femme d’un Certain Age (this post in particular), so I was ready. There are lots of blogs like this and I’ve started collecting them — I’ll write about them later.
So we spent Saturday out shopping — a normally-dreadful chore, done as quickly and thoughtlessly as possible — but with a mind to helping me get a bit of style going. I just want to be comfortable and put-together, and look appropriate and nice. She also showed me some freaking adorable ways to do my hair; the next outfit I show you later this week is my favorite, and includes the cutest hair you’ll ever see. For now, here’s what I’m wearing today:
skirt: old, I’ve had it at least 10 years and can’t remember where I got it
black camisole: H&M, $6
green cardigan: H&M, $30
black tights, Duane Reade
flat black shoes, Aerosole, $40 on sale
black meditation beads worn as bracelet
FITNESS: I’ve also never had a very healthy approach to life — a lot of one thing at a time, usually, imbalanced, emotional eating, I can’t see how I really look, recriminating inner voice, you know, all that jazz. So another reason Marnie’s arrival came at a great time is that she is also a dedicated weight trainer and she pays attention to her food, and lives a very conscious life. She spent a good bit of time coming up with a strength-training routine for me to do at home, involving squats and plank and push-ups and hip and leg lifts.
My goals are much more about strength and fitness, and getting some regular activity into my life in a mindful way, i.e., not just a little random walking in the park now and then. There’s a button in the menu bar up top to my fitness blog, where I plan to track and record progress in this whole new part of my life.
So much more to say about Marnie’s visit, which I’ll do separately.
goodbye lori.
The final farewell at work – and thank heavens, the party was moved into the office, instead of on the rooftop of a midtown fancy hotel at 5pm in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave. The office lacked a certain charm, to be sure, but it had the awesome benefit of air conditioning. It was sad to say goodbye, even though of course I’m still working with everyone in a consulting capacity.
I thought you might like to see what the office of an acquiring editor, on Madison Ave., at a major NY publishing house looks like. Here it is back when my stuff was in it:
a LOT of great books were signed here
that's Madison Ave down below my enormous window
and now, the end is here
My friend Craig, whose office is right next to mine, saved the day for me many a stressed-out day, and I think I did the same for him. He’s away at a conference, but I stopped in his office to take a picture of something that makes me smile.
he kept that 5th grade picture of me, right by his computer. aww.
One more day, tomorrow, of tying up loose ends and then I’m done.
For now, I’m watching A Single Man, that incredibly stylish Tom Ford movie, with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore. I just finished eating a pint of peach frozen yogurt for my dinner, and I’m going to knit for a while. That seems like a nice way to honor this transition, from something to something else. Stay cool, y’all.
perspective sure makes a difference.
I was sitting here thinking about this moment in my life – leaving a secure (though terribly stressful) job without anything specific lined up – and thinking that I feel happy, and full of hope and possibility. This wasn’t always true; in fact, for most of the 6 months I’ve been considering this move, I have instead been terrified, imagining that I am too old, at 51, to start something new. That nothing would happen for me, that I’d fall into poverty and death. (dramatic, I know, but you know how fear can do that to you!)
Then a line from a wonderful old song popped into my head: What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours… But instead I thought, What a difference a mood makes. “Mood” isn’t quite right – it’s much deeper and more pervasive than a simple mood, but it fit the lyric rhythm.
Perspective. What a difference perspective makes. Perhaps it matters whether you’re looking at your feet or at the horizon. Truth is a raspberry, not a piece of sand – bulbous, multifaceted, multicolored, round, bumpy. The truth is that I am 51, and have started over so often I have a patchwork resume. But the truth is also that I can do a lot of things, and am flexible. I cannot be a lady of leisure (though I’d be so great at it!). I need an income, but for the first time in my life, I am not the sole or primary support of 4 people. For the first time in my life, I have the freedom to at least take the leap and see what happens, and that’s a pretty lucky thing.
Here – pick a version of that great song and give a listen. I recommend that you start with Dinah.
this is my brain on distraction crack
Not the corpus callosum, the crack-like division between the two brain hemispheres. Not crack cocaine and what it does to your brain. No, the ‘brain crack’ of the post’s title is a phrase my daughter the artist uses to describe the way a creative person might get so involved in figuring out everything involved with a new project and never start, preferring instead to continue planning, tweaking, thinking. That process is kind of like brain crack, it’s fun, nothing is at risk, it’s a way of doing “work” without having to face the blank canvas, or the blank page, or the raw materials, and enduring that difficult process and the potential for risk and failure. “Don’t get stuck on brain crack, mom.” Because that’s what I do. (And here I’m not talking about the actual prep work, the swatching (though that could be done in a brain crack-like way), the material testing, the sample creation, etc.)
I’ll just answer these emails that are coming in, and after that I’ll get going. I’ll just organize my knitting bag and then I’ll get going. Oh wait, I should really read this book about design before I get going, it’ll probably save me a lot of trial and error. Oh wait, let me just clean the kitchen first. I’ll just run through my Google Reader real quick and then I’ll get started. I’m sure this is very common; I’ve read all sorts of pieces by writers who describe this kind of process they wade through when they’re having trouble writing. It doesn’t feel good to do this, there’s a kind of building desperation, you know you’re stalling and the thing is waiting, waiting, getting further away rather than closer.
During the week, I get up at 5am and spend about an hour (more or less, depending on the daily situation with my hair and how tragic it looks) sitting on the couch, drinking two cups of coffee, reading my Google Reader, and knitting. Some days I don’t knit, but usually I do. I leave the house absolutely no later than 6:30, and shoot for 6:15 as an average. I relish this quiet hour all to myself, and if I don’t get it I feel cattywampus all day. The street is usually very quiet, and I don’t listen to anything, no music, no podcast. It’s precious and necessary and I love it. I have aspirations of other things to do with that hour, and I continually plan to do them but the morning comes and I think well, this morning I’ll just do my usual. What I’d like to do instead:
yoga and meditation
writing
actual work on creative projects
walk in Riverside Park
explore my neighborhood and take photographs
I really want to do these things! I really do. Obviously, I couldn’t do them all each morning, and my silly tendency would be to regulate them in some kind of rigid fashion: yoga M and W; walk on Th and Sat; write on T; etc. What stops me, as silly as this sounds, is Google Reader. I subscribe to 435 blogs. I have them categorized in ways that let me skip to specific ones (knitters, NYC, food, art, photography, entertainment, fabric, design, creative multi, etc). If I’m in a real time bind, I always just read the knitters and the fabric (which means people who work in some way with fabric, sewing or quilting or dying or weaving), and try to fit in the creative multi – the people who knit AND sew AND do photography. I tell myself that one important purpose of looking at all the blogs is inspiration, and that does happen! There are some amazingly creative people out there who not only do good work, they write about it in inspirational ways and take amazing photographs. Of course, inspiration is a two-edged sword, because it can also make me feel like I’ll never be that good at anything.
I daydream of a balanced life, where I do yoga and walk, and have time to write, and have plenty of time to make things, whatever they are. Where I am careful about my food, and eat with the seasons, healthy and yummy all together. In this fantasy, I’m also calm and content because of the balance, and those two – the calm and the balance – feed each other. And me. Those weekends where I take a little adventure somewhere, Queens or Chinatown or somewhere, and where I take a little walk in the park, and I actually do some housework and also knit, I am much happier in a strange way than I am at the end of those weekends where I have just knitted on the couch for the whole weekend and watched good movies. It’s that balance thing, obviously. Of course, I don’t live in fantasy land, I live in a life that is mostly taken up by my job, family I enjoy talking with on the telephone, unpleasant tasks to do like laundry and cleaning up after dinner, etc., and then the obvious need for sleep. Not much time is left. Still, I do have that hour five days a week, from 5 to 6.
For a while, I’m taking a blog reading break. I hope you will still read mine even if I am on a temporary hiatus and [very painfully] not reading yours, though I understand if you unsubscribe. Blogging is a community thing – we get to know each other, we comment on each other’s posts, we follow the parts of our lives that we share. I find myself wondering how Jocelyn‘s class is going, what’s going on with Kty, over in Paris, etc. We are real to each other in a funny and kind of unreal way, so I feel bad turning away from reading all the posts I enjoy. But I’ve realized that I’m reading about others’ lives at the expense of living my own. You wouldn’t want to do that for yourself, either. I will continue to write on this blog for my own pleasure and documentation, and hope you stick with me. I’ve just got to get off this brain crack and get busy.
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