see as i saw

One of my goals after Costa Rica was to find ways to bring myself back to the pura vida state of mind, to not squander all of the clarity and peace that came out of my adventure.

This morning began on an unexpected note.  I have a habit, probably a bad one, of looking at my phone, immediately after waking, while I'm lying in bed .  It seems to help me jump start my brain and convince it that pushing snooze a fifth time is a bad idea.  This morning one of the emails in my inbox was a shocking awakening, one that has stuck with me all day.

When I first moved to Chicago, I became acquainted with a group of girls and we generally hung out every couple of weeks.  We didn't all have much in common with one another, so many of us drifted apart within a year or so.  But I have always been appreciative of this crew, because they were my first feeling of foundation in the urban jungle.

This morning I learned that one of those girls has been battling cancer for nearly two years and she passed away yesterday.  Despite the fact that we haven't spoken in years, the news hit me with a surreal thud.  My mind reeled through so many disparate thoughts, having difficulty in finding understanding in how someone that young and energetic is simply gone.  My heart aches for her family, her husband, and her close friends.  I can't imagine, and I hope to never experience, that pain.

So as we head into a day whose meaning can be overshadowed by food and football, this certainly puts my mind on the gratitude track (no doubt, I'm also grateful for food and football).  Despite my travails of the past couple of weeks, I am grateful for this life I lead - even if it's only because I am present and able to live it.

For the past day and a half, I've been ruminating on a mantra that my Saturday morning yoga instructor introduced to us.  It's a Sanskrit word: swaha.  As soon as she began describing its meaning, I wondered how she had dug inside of my head.  After class, I did a little more digging on its origins.

I cut and pasted together an essential meaning that makes sense to me: uplifting oneself by surrendering the ego and releasing it into the fire.  'Swaha' is a mantra, which makes it akin to a mental action, a keyword to remind you to engage.

Too often, I take offense or get overwrought worrying about what other people say to me or think about me.  I get caught up in how inappropriately people act or treat myself and others.  But I can't control other people, I can only control how I react and think about them.

The first part of this equation is something I've thought about and focused on before.  In fact, it's likely contained in another one of these 322 posts.  To some measure, I've managed to rein in my reactionary tendencies, whether that means an external or internal reaction.

But just because I've averted the negative flow of emotion, it doesn't mean I've taken my ego out of it.  I'm still likely to let a single instance of someone else's action or opinions affect me - whether it's my view of them or myself.  So although I began teaching myself how to quell the reaction, the effects still linger.

I seem to be going through a period right now where it feels like I'm struggling to keep a lot of balls in the air.  So it's easy to get down on myself.  'Swaha' may be just a word, but it's a simpler way of reminding myself to remove my ego from an event and relinquish it, forget about it, let it cease to exist.  And with that, perhaps it won't be the end of my struggling, but at least I can hope that it'll help keep me mentally afloat.

It's still a little strange for me to be this open about the things swirling in my head.  I suppose there's a certain sense of invisibility about digital communication, allowing me to feel like I'm writing to no one.  And there's also a little bit of that removal of ego that I've learned to embrace this year.

Your efforts are not always rewarded.  Your expectations are not always met.  People don't always treat you as they'd want to be treated.  And it's difficult not to hang your head, scowl, yell or engage somehow within the reactionary spectrum.

So you throw yourself into yoga.  You read a book.  You stay home for a solo Friday night and try to recoup your sanity.  Maybe you eat a little chocolate.  Or even a lot.  You take a long walk, gulping in the fresh air.  You remind yourself to breathe in, breathe out, and keep on going.

I ran across a meme today that said, "I miss being the age when I thought I would have my act together by the time I was the age I am now".  Sounds about right.  I'm convinced that there's no such thing as grown up, only constant growing up.

There has been more than one occasion in 2012 when I pondered removing myself from this American lifestyle.  The contrasts that I observed in my surroundings, and myself, when removed from the rat race seemed worthwhile.  But I never gave into the urge, because there was always another force at the work, an emotional tug of war.

Certain things about this American life had too strong of a grip on me.  It wasn't a smartphone, a car, or even this much loved MacBook Air.  It certainly wasn't reality TV.  Instead, it was the carefully accumulated core of people that help imbue my life with meaning.  Sure, I could meet new people anywhere I go.  At the end of the day though, it turns out that my core contains the people that I want to share my days with.

My simpler days already feel like a different lifetime ago.  Things have changed so drastically in six weeks.  That's not to say the current situation is bad, just requiring adjustment.  But tonight I felt so reassured in the decisions that I've made.

So, I'm not living 'la pura vida' in Costa Rica.  But I am able to spend nights with people who don't think I'm crazy for considering it.  Moreover, they understand why it was an valid consideration.  At the end of the day, living in an environment that requires balance checks to keep my sanity in check is actually a worthwhile trade for having the right people in my life   Now, assuming everyone wanted to pick up and relocate to a sleepy, Central American beach town...I wouldn't have to be convinced.

Here's a short story for you.  Once upon a time, I returned to the world of full-time employment.  Even before re-establishing this financial stability, I was tentatively planning a trip to Croatia in the autumn of 2013.  But that's beginning to feel too distant.

It doesn't help that I know several people who are going to cool places and doing fun things right now.  And maybe I was spurred on by my exploratory stint in NYC.

Ultimately, I've started thinking about a little spring fling.  Maybe a way to ring in my final year as a twenty-something (whoa, I'm almost old).  Although I'd be more than happy to have some company on whatever international jaunt that occurs, I'm at ease with flying solo again too.

For a solo adventure, there's a 100% chance that I'll end up in a Spanish-speaking country - likely Ecuador.  If someone joins me, I'm open to discussion.  Let's just go somewhere, eat, drink, be merry, and appreciate a cultural experience that varies from our every day.

Until then, I suppose a few domestic journeys to Michigan (and 24 hours in San Antonio) will have to suffice, though I know that they won't quite satisfy my wanderlust in the same way.

First, I'd like to allow myself to nerd out for a second.  I don't look at the stats section of my blog very often, but I glanced at it tonight.  It turns out that three of my titles have been search terms that led to page views at one point.

The first one was "stage lights shining"; admittedly not my finest photo, but I was intrigued when I saw that my post was fifth in Google search results for that phrase.

Another title was "agua de pipa", from my Costa Rica days (le sigh, those were the days).  Apparently someone was hunting down real coconut water in Chicago Heights.

But the one that really put me over the top was "ode to andy roddick", where I show up fourth in Google search results.  I like to think that, in some small way, my dedication to Andy Roddick's career is relevant.

Anyway, I digress.  Before those discoveries, my intention was actually to digress on how I haven't even finished the introduction to "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" and I already find myself nodding emphatically while I read.  This isn't my first post on introversion and, while reading this book, it likely won't be my last.

Maybe this never happened to you in pre-college school days, but it was a recurring admonishment from my teachers.  During parent-teacher conferences they'd always tell my parents how bright I was, but would frown upon the fact that I never volunteered in class.  This happened from elementary school right through graduation.

The fact of the matter is that I almost always knew the answers.  And I'd answer the questions in my own head.  I just rarely felt the urge to speak aloud, generally only when everyone else was so far off base that I began to get frustrated.

I was performing well, sometimes nearly perfect, in classes.  I wasn't socially inept.  So why did it matter if I raised my hand and proved that I could speak answers as well as I wrote them?  This is a classic trait of introverts.  And schooling is one of the areas in life where the author states that the "extrovert ideal" has taken over.

Something that I found interesting in graduate school, where a large proportion of the class derived from Asia, was the cultural difference in introversion and extroversion.  I vividly remember a conversation with one of my Korean classmates about how raising your hand and volunteering in class was considered brown-nosing when they were growing up.  Quiet intelligence and leadership were more highly respected.

It's no secret to me that I'm an introvert, and most days I'm quite comfortable with that.  But it is eye-opening to read a book from the perspective of how powerful and impactful introverts are in society.  Instead of striving to meet the extrovert ideal, there are reasons to embrace being an introvert.

Since I'm spending the holiday weekend at home and my training schedule in New York starts on Tuesday, today was technically my last day of "freedom" in Chicago.  I use the term freedom loosely, because clearly I'll still have full days to use at my discretion.  They'll just be called weekends and holidays from now on.

Something that I continually promised myself I'd do during my non-employed phase was take advantage of free days at museums in the city.  Without hesitation, I pay for art museums when I travel.  For some reason, in my own city, I feel taken advantage of when I'm asked to cough up $22 to enter.

Well, apparently free days didn't boost my motivation much.  Maybe it's because the museum campus seems so far away and not particularly convenient for me to reach via CTA.

But on this day, which also happens to be Andy Roddick's 30th birthday (no relation to this post whatsoever), I resolved to hit up the Field Museum.  Similar to my recent movie outing, I made myself bike to my entertainment.  Efficiency.  Hopefully I can apply such ingenious solutions in my impending career move.

I wandered around, reading maybe every fiftieth placard.  You'd have to be there from open to close to read everything; it's an information-dense museum.  I geeked out when I got to the triceratops fossils.  It was always my favorite dinosaur (yeah, I have a favorite dinosaur), which I chalk up to The Land Before Time.  What can I say, I liked Cera - a triceratops with a bit of a stubborn and independent streak.

After a couple aimless hours, I headed to the point of the museum campus where I could sit on the Adler Planetarium's lawn and admire the skyline view.  I like this city, I really do, and I'm ready for my next phase here to begin!

A perk of being an artsy crafty type having the ability to create without having to go out and purchase.  That comes in handy when the spontaneous urge for creation kicks in.  That's what I encountered this afternoon.

Most of my daily wanderings (or runs) take place within a one mile radius of my apartment.  Multiplying that by seven days a week, you can imagine how many times I've seen everything in this neighborhood.  The new tactic is taking the alleys.  I reserve this activity for daylight hours, to be on the safe side.

It's interesting to see the backs of homes that I've only witnessed from the front or to be perplexed by the creative solutions for maximum parking in limited space.  And although I'm not a trash picker, I am intrigued by trash gawking.  As it is, my window is a vantage point for the trash bins belonging to the row house across the alley.  I can always tell when they're redecorating or one of their kids is a year older.  Maybe that's the urban equivalent to stopping at yard sales?

When I boil this new activity down to it's root cause, though, it's clear that I'm restless.  Taking alleys instead of streets isn't exactly going to satisfy my brain's need for stimulation - not for long, at least.

My brother graduated from high school in 1999, marking the first member of our generation to have a graduation party.  I appointed myself as lead sign maker.  Standard letter-size paper indicated trash receptacles, can recycling (because we do that in Michigan, $0.10 each), the assortment of beverages in each cooler, etc.  Poster board demarcated the major turns to arrive at our house and clearly announced that the party was there.  These were not quickly scrawled in black permanent marker; I had an arsenal of colors and put block letters and doodles to good use.

At the time, my five-year-old cousin was in awe of how I came up with these creations.  She begged me to make her a sign on a spare poster board.  That sign, bearing her name and assorted girly doodles, hung on her bedroom door for probably the next ten years.  This year it was her turn to graduate, and tomorrow it's her party.  Several months ago, I promised that my gift to her would be something creative and homemade.  This is my final product.

My original concept didn't pan out, because I couldn't find the necessary materials.  Then I realized that I have absolutely no clue what eighteen-year-old girls are into these days.  So, I turned to the new one-stop shop for crafting, clothing, food, and any other miscellany you can imagine - Pinterest.  A search for "dorm" pulled up hundreds of results, girls building boards with their dream dorm decor.  One running theme seemed to involve letters, monograms and words as art.  Based on that and the knowledge of a bright color scheme, I made the rest up as I went along.

Now that this project is over, I'll have to find another creative outlet.  Maybe some day I'll even take the time to make art for myself instead of someone else.

The way that some girls like to walk through a clothing store and run their hands over a silk dress or a leather handbag, or how some guys walk through a car lot tracing the curves of a luxury automobile, I like to walk through art supply stores. Paint brushes and canvases practically beg for a swish of my hand. My eyes are alert and hungry as I pass through every aisle; it doesn't matter that I have no idea how to etch or sculpt, I still want to look. Without self-restraint, I could spend a small fortune.

This has always been my relationship with art supplies. As much as I love perusing, creative daydreaming, and bringing those daydreams to fruition, I don't think it's a passion that I want to turn into a monetary enterprise. This kind of creativity is highly personal to me. It's a thoughtful process and usually a rather effortful one. I love to create for myself and for people I love, people that I know well enough to use their personalities as creative inspiration. When I was five or ten years old, my mom was hanging my artwork on the refrigerator or at her desk. Never would I have thought that at the age of 28, she would still be hanging my art on her walls and I would still be delivering handmade birthday, Christmas and Mother's Day cards every year.

So, I don't want to make a career out of my art passion in a direct way (i.e. selling art). Maybe what I should be taking from this little reverie is that I could excel at something that channels my creative urges in some other way. Even without formal education in graphic or web design, there have to be job choices infused with creative needs.

No matter where I go in this world, there are remnants of Michigan in my blood.  When summer hits, those remnants become more potent and I can feel the pull.  As much as I appreciate and enjoy patio dining and street festivals in Chicago, there is something about beach towns and fresh "country" air.  Hearing Tim Allen's voice narrating odes to Pure Michigan may drive the point home, too.  Although I generally find myself eschewing advertising's effects on my attitudes and preferences (only natural when you spend six years study how to break down and analyze it), michigan.org did it right.