Joy in Unexpected Places

I'm in night owl efficiency mode and cannot seem to power down.

This makes me simultaneously long for my college schedule and dread what it will be like to wake up tomorrow at 5:30am.

Here's hoping this catharsis crap I've been teaching my kids about helps me too. (P.S. Tim O'Brien, thanks for writing The Things They Carried. You've helped my kids remember that they actually love reading.)

This past week was ... eventful.

On Monday in Wonderland, we were informed that an impending performance evaluation had been officially rescheduled ... for this coming Thursday.

Almost immediately I felt overwhelmed by a quick flood of energy that has to be what a chicken feels like in those few, creepy moments when it runs around after it's head has been cut off.

I've actually seen what that looks like, by the way. I have legit empirical basis for such claims. (#Tanzania2012, Making Dinner, Day 3. See below)


       

I should have slept more, paced out my grad work and grading more efficiently, thought more about my long game before I decided to speak, and used fewer words when I did open my mouth. That probably would have helped me last week.

But I didn't and I couldn't and I tried too hard to get too much done, per usual. I didn't check my vernacular or my ego or my is-this-battle-worth-it meter nearly as conscientiously as I should have.

And karma subsequently bit me in the butt.

Hard.

Then it eviscerated any sense of security and confidence I had been desperately trying to nurture after a few carefully planned stratagems were successfully implemented.

I was nearly vibrating in response to unexpected and unpleasant intensity when one of my senior students came into my office and told me that she had been accepted to Columbia University's Class of 2020.

Of course I promptly squealed and we hugged and immediately started talking about awesome professors and courses she should look into.

This student's visit could not have been more perfect timing, for as my mentor reminded me, these moments are why we stay dedicated to the work.

I want to get back to the way I ordered my mind in the beginning of my seemingly interminable stay in the Palace of Doom.


I think fondly back to those early summer days, when I used to go back to Africa in my head.

It was a joy to relive each Tanzanian sunrise, to feel the weight of Herman Hesse's Siddartha in my lap again, to listen to the insects and birds stir into consciousness just as the local mosque called its faithful to morning prayers.


When arrogance and competitiveness were rearing their ugly heads again, I would revisit the moment when I first learned that the Swahili language has no possessive pronouns.

There's no need for them, because the society I saw was genuinely collective and collaborative. Despite hundreds of years of colonizing efforts and attempts to quash what makes them unique, individual tribes like the Masai continue to move through life exactly the way they want to.

Those chickens from before, incidentally, were a gift from the village leader, because he knew my friends and I wouldn't necessarily get access to a protein source otherwise.

Two years ago, I could revisit every show I'd ever performed by conjuring up the Musical Theater West, Met Opera, or Norwegian Sun stages. There was something profoundly meditative in my attempts to walk through all the blocking, dancing, lyrics, lines, and costume changes in my head, starting over anytime I detected a gap in my memory.

Every time I walked through the wings of those memories, I could feel that I had found a way to get a genuine smile on my face. It emboldened me in my battle against inevitable atrophy of the brain and made me slightly more confident that the Palace of Doom wasn't actually driving me insane.

As I sit now in the quaint little Harlem studio that I get to call mine and only mine, I'm realizing it will take a lot of work to pull back what used to be vivid details of all those powerful memories, but for my continued well-being, it's time to start.

Weekly Round Up of Lovely Things:

Yesterday, I had dinner at ABC Cocina with the gorgeous creature who does my hair when I'm back home in LA, with her long term boyfriend, and with the new little life growing inside of her. It was pretty incredible to eat delicious food and listen to two kind, creative people make plans for the child that is five or six months away from it's first moments in this world. They're going to be great parents.



A brisk walk, a glass of Rose, and thirty minutes later, I was sitting down to snacks and drinks with two dear friends. Talking to them was like an luxurious spa package of emotional support, work advice, and insightful political commentary. Mmmm.

It was a long night, though, and things did not bode well when I woke up to 36 degrees, wind chill, and a nasty hangover (damn you, bubbly!).

Still went outside, though, because I am actively trying to be more social.

After all, I had confirmed plans for coffee with an old friend in the West Village, I hate cancelling, and no amount of poor life choices, dehydration headaches, schizoid weather or free streaming of Starz' Outlander was going to change my mind.

(Sidebar: I'm so bad with directions down there. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GRID?! Why can't we just have kept the grid!??! Seriously, urban planners, the grid around Central Park is quite easy to navigate and doesn't seem that hard to sustain, but whatever.)

Anyway, coffee turned into brunch, and brunch ran long.

Recently, this friend willingly volunteered his time to answer some of my students' questions about his work by video interview. My kids were enthralled, and I was grateful, but it was a pleasure to confirm in person that his core goodness - which I first noticed when we met in 2006 (eek! We were still using AIM then!) - had escaped the doldrums of millennial life relatively unscathed.

Corny as it sounds, our conversation gave me some real hope.

I do plan to devote my life to the pursuit of excellence in my work. But I also want to pursue excellence in my relationships with friends, family, an upright piano, a significant other, a dog, and maybe even with some tiny humans of my own.

As we were wrapping up several hours of stimulating conversation, which spanned traveling experiences to flying in fighter jets to great books and documentaries, I realized that the color of the wall of Cafe Minerva was almost the exact same pistachio we had scoured several home supply stores for in the fall of 2006.

(Our universities, though wonderful incubators for the human mind and spirit, were not particularly innovative when it came to dorm room decor.)

I'm not sure why I find the memory of that memory so comforting, but after seven hours of private tutoring, lesson planning, grading, and editing class footage, I have finally yawned.

The circadians suggest it's time to get some shut eye. Tomorrow's coming soon.